Failure is the Key to Success

If you’re not an IT person supporting printers using HP Web JetAdmin software, tune out now.

What, you’re still reading. I am surprised!

OK, here is some background. HP Web JetAdmin is software that monitors network attached printers and provides alerts when certain conditions are met. For example, if the toner is low or there is a paper jam, it can alert you, allowing you to be proactive with support. It means that you can purchase toners when alerted rather than holding a large stock or being caught on the hop when all the colour printers are out and no-one has mentioned it until 5 minutes before a critical print job.

Anyway, we had been using this software for some years at work without any problems. You would just get the alert email with a summary of the issue and a link allowing you to open the admin interface in a web browser. Recently, we had some major network changes which resulted in the IP addresses being changed for all our network devices (including computers and printers). After the changes, and rediscovering the new printers (some of their details changed as well), the Web JetAdmin software continued to work as before. Unfortunately, this also included the link to open the admin interface. It was still using the old IP address which was no longer valid.

After ‘googling’ for the solution without luck, I tried several approaches, some of which got me into a bit of a mess with the database. In the end I got the software re-installed, only to find it was still hooked into the old database and the old information.

Continue reading » Changing the IP address of a HP Web JetAdmin installation

Tags:changing ip address,web jetadmin

A while back, when I got my new work mobile, I checked out my blog using the WAP browser. The blog was visible, but as it was faithfully reproduced, it meant that I had to scroll all over the place to see it. This was obviously not the best approach for mobile users.

I’ve had a look around at WordPress plugins and tried out two, WordPress Mobile Edition by Alex King and WordPress Mobile by Andy Moore. I used the demo of Opera Mini to assist me in my testing.

Continue reading » Going Mobile

Tags:alex king,FireStats,twitter tools,wordpress mobile edition,wordpress plugins

WordPress 2.6 was released late last week, so I updated my test blog to check that everything worked before updating my live blogs.

The upgrade was straight forward and all my plugins activated without any apparent issue. However, when I checked my stats, the page wouldn’t load any details, just a blank page. I have used FireStats since migrating to WordPress and had got used to the results it gives, so I headed over to the FireStats site to see if there was an upgrade. I found version 1.5.12 and so downloaded and installed it. To be on the safe side, I installed to a new database so that I didn’t have to upgrade my existing stats database. This didn’t resolve my blank stats page issue and gave me some messages about features needing a higher version of MySQL than my host 1and1 provides, so I uninstalled it and reinstalled my previous version 1.4.4.

Continue reading » WordPress 2.6 and Firestats

Tags:FireStats,Wordpress 2.6

I have been using Firefox as my browser of choice for about 2.5 years now, starting with Firefox 1.5. I liked the tabbed feature of Firefox, which wasn’t available in Internet Explorer at the time. Then I discovered the add-ons for Firefox and it just kept getting better.

A couple of the add-ons I have been using are NoScript and IE Tab. NoScript is great as it prevent scripts running on a site unless you choose to allow them, this means that in cases of an advert laden webpage, most of them will not work unless you want them to. IE Tab is ideal for those sites that just will not work properly unless you are using Internet Explorer.

Continue reading » Firefox 3 Download Day

Tags:firefox 3,world record attempt

I use Trillian as my instant messaging client. It allows me to be signed in with both Yahoo and Microsoft messaging without having to have two clients running.

A problem I had been having with it was after waking my laptop from hibernation, the Microsoft connection would fail to reconnect. Yahoo would reconnect without problem, but Microsoft would keep trying for about 10 minutes before finally failing. If I did a Global Disconnect before hibernating and then a Global Reconnect after waking it up, then everything worked fine.

Well it worked fine providing I remembered to reconnect after waking up. This didn’t always happen, as my post a few days ago about my unexpected Plugoo message shows.

Continue reading » Trillian reconnection problem

Back in April I posted ‘How often do you update your software?‘ when I talked checking the versions of installed software other than just Windows and AntiVirus.

Anyway, yesterday, being totally certain that I was up to date, I ran the Secunia website Software Inspector on our desktop and was surprised to find a few software applications showing as out of date. Adobe Flash player was a version behind and the previous version of SunJava was still installed despite the current version being installed. I have had this before with SunJava, as it doesn’t uninstall the old version when upgrading, so I should have remembered. The software inspector explains this and details how to resolve it (remove old versions from Add or Remove Programs).

My AntiVirus software, Avast, checks for updates every 4 hours and is set to audibly announce the updates. After a while you get used to the ‘Virus database has been updated’ message and I personally won’t turn it off. If you do not have current antivirus software or your existing software subscription is expiring, I would thoroughly recommend Avast, it is free for home use and the virus signatures are regularly updated, often a couple of times a day.

Tags:anti virus,antivirus,software updates