Apple Mail Signature Font Issue

Numerous posts and pages can be found about the annoying Apple Mail signature font size issue, but here's the page that I have used to fix mine. Excellent and simple explanation...

Cannot publish to Blogspot from IE9

Yes, it’s been a while since I last posted here. My previous post – yes, the one about formatting large disks for FAT32 – was the first post in ages. At least, the first post in the IE9-age. I soon discovered that I was not even able to publish from IE9…

Pressing F12 to enable developer mode and then switching back to IE9 Compatibility View delivered the workaround for the short term. I can publish now. Anyone a clue about the real resolution for this problem? (And, no, I am not interested in tips like “use Chrome or Firefox”…)

As soon as I have the fix, I’ll post it here.

Regards, Rene

Update: been googling for this issue and there are so many people with this same problem, telling and blogging about this, even with recent post timestamps!; from what I read, it seems that this issue is the result of a fight two giants and it will not soon be fixed. So, please take my last line above exactly as I say it: "as soon as I have the fix, I'll post it"... And I think the fix will not soon be found.

Testing Blogsy for iPad

Earlier today, I was complaining about not being able to publish to Blogger from IE9. One minute later, I said to myself: who wants to publish from IE9 anyway? Much easier to use a (blog) writing tool, as there are many out there.

On my Windows 7 notebook, I am using Windows Live Writer, and I must say that it's a pretty fine tool to use. For the iPad, I've been googling a bit and finally came up with Blogsy. This is my first post on iPad at all and this one is made with Blogsy. First impression is real good, I must say. It's really optimized for iPad with lots of neat iPad-related features. But, now that iPad operates quite different from a Windows-machine, I now have to spend some time to learn how to do some "normal" things in Blogsy (like, linking to other pages, for instance... :-))

Till next time, regards, Rene

Format large disks for FAT32

The long-story-short: for formatting large disks for the FAT32 file system, use Fat32Format from this place.

The long-story-long:

This week, I bought an AirPort Extreme Basestation (which up till now is a bit of a disappointment, I must say) and one of the goals was: to connect a large USB disk to the AirPort and then share this disk for the Verhagen's Home Environment.

After connecting the disk to the AirPort, it gets recognized immediately by the AirPort and the option for sharing the disk is offered. However, in my Windows 7 notebook, the disk does not show up in the network environment. After consulting the log in the AirPort, it turns out that the disk does not show up because the file system on this large disk is NTFS (of course). However, NTFS is not supported on the AirPort, we need to change it to FAT32.

After googling a bit on how to format a (large) disk for FAT32, I ended up on the Softpedia-page that the upper link points to. Great tool, formatted 750GB in under one minute... Great!

Tools - Unlocker, by Cedrick Collomb

Ever had this annoying message given by Windows? "Cannot delete folder: it is being used by another person or program. Close any programs that might be using the file and try again".

Solution: use Unlocker, by Cedrick Collomb. Super tool for unlocking files, processes, determining who or what has files open etc. Of course, there are other tools which perform some of Unlocker's functions as well, but Unlocker does this in a very neat way.

Regards, Rene

Software - Cisco VPN Client update v5.0.03.0530 available

Hi there,

Just discovered that Cisco released an updated version of their VPN Client. As I am running Windows Vista Business Edition on my notebook, and the previous client had a lot of (performance) issues, I was really pleased to read about the new version.

Major "plus" about the new version: it is much faster in connecting to the remote VPN server (PIX / ASA / Concentrator). Where in the past making a connection took really about 20-30 seconds (and then sometimes would end in a "Failed to enable virtual adapter" error message), all of the connections work correct now and establishing a new VPN connection now only takes about 5 seconds or so.

Regards, Rene

Tools - Uptime.exe

From Microsoft's Knowledge Base, article number 232243:

SUMMARY

A new tool, Uptime.exe, is available for displaying system availability. Uptime.exe can be used to display the current uptime of the local or remote system. Optionally, it can also scan the Event log for key system events such as system restart or computers that are not responding (hanging). Where possible, it also calculates system availability. It is primarily intended for Windows NT Server 4.0 Service Pack 4 or later, though it operates in limited fashion on earlier versions.

MORE INFORMATION

Uptime.exe is a standalone program. To install the tool, simply copy the file into your Windows NT directory. You may then run the tool at a command prompt.

Despite the fact that this tool was originally written for WinNT4 SP4, it is still very handy! You can download it at the article page, mentioned at the top.

Regards, Rene