How2NotFail

We here at how2notfail.com sometimes like to plug the sites of friends and comrades. This is no exception. http://www.officeduck.com/ is running a grand opening sale on all their products (up to 80% off) to kick start things. Don’t be fooled by the name though. We took a look around, and they have everything from stethoscopes to toasters. Check them out!

Visit http://www.officeduck.com/

So, you’ve recently just installed Skype and now notice that every time you restart your computer (or local web server for that matter) you get an error. The ports are already in use? No problem. Why Skype decided to use those exact ports, I’ll never know.. Anyways, here’s the fix:

Solution 1: Disable Skype Port

1. Load up skype
2. Select Tools->Options
3. Click on the Advanced Tab
4. Click on the Connection Tab
5. Uncheck “Use port 80 and 443 as alternatives for incoming connections”

Solution 2: Load Your Webserver First

The alternative to changing the Skype settings (though I don’t know why you wouldn’t want to), is to load your web server before you load Skype (effectively accomplishing the same thing). If Skype is already loaded, close the program out, load  your web server, then re-open it.

Check out the 125k Challenge. Just something cool we stumbled upon. This guy is going to try and pay off all of his debt (student loans, car loans, etc) in one year, starting with absolutely $0. Sounds crazy, but he seems pretty confident. It’s definitely going to be interesting, so we figured we’d help him out a little and plug his site.

Check out the official 125k Challenge site at: http://www.125kchallenge.com/

Recently my Dreamweaver (CS 4) started throwing me JavaScript errors every time I opened and closed the application. After some research I discovered a solution that worked for me. Here’s are the steps to fix the problem:

1. Start->Run->App Data or Locate your App Data Folder (in Vista: C:\Users\Your Windows Username\AppData\)

2. Open: Roaming->Adobe->Dreamweaver CS4->en_US->Configuration
(Complete Path: C:\Users\Your Windows Username\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\Dreamweaver CS4\en_US\Configuration)

3. There should be a cache file. Mine was called “WinFileCache-D06F2AB8.dat”. Rename the file to “Backup_WinFileCache-D06F2AB8.dat”

4. Start Dreamweaver

If this doesn’t fix your problem, check out some additional resource material at: http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/191/tn_19105.html

I thought I would go ahead and do a quick article on this issue, because it was plaguing me at work today. Found this solution after some research and experimentation.

Symptoms

- Photoshop keeps crashing for no reason, randomly
- Photoshop can only open one image at a time

Solution

In order to prevent this problem from occurring you need to set a default printer that is always available. Microsoft’s XPS Document Writer or Adobe PDF are both reliable solutions. If you don’t have those, just set your printer to whichever you primarily use (preferably NOT a network printer).

Instructions

- Open your Control Panel and select Printers and Faxes (or just Printers, if you’re using Vista)

- Right Click one of the above mentioned options and Set as Default Printer

Restart your Photoshop and cross your fingers. If all has gone well, there ought to be no more crashing.

For some reason or another, OpenDNS decided that it would replace my default search functionality in FireFox (which, of course, is google).

Here’s an add-on that overrides this neusance.

Feeling Lucky Fixer

~Enjoy

If you’re like me, you may forget how much Ram, Harddrive Space, or Video Memeory you have, after having used your computer for a longer period of time. Hey- it happens. We forget. You ever forget? I forget..

How to Check with DirectX

- Start->Run
- Type in DxDiag

There you! You’ve got everything you need at your disposal. If you’d like to save the info out, just hit “Save All Information”, and dump it into a nice, clean, and easy to read text file.

How to Check with the Manufacturer

Most computers display the Model of your Motherboard when your computer boots up. It will usually consist of a few numbers and letters, depending on the brand. For example: DEF933 A, or something like that. Once you have that information, provided that your computer was distributed by one of the bigger companies like Dell or Gateway, just visit their website and look up your information under the product listings (sometimes also found under support). You should be able to get detailed information about any on-board or pre-installed hardware, that your model ships with (like RAM and Processor Speed/Make/etc).

I recently faced this problem with my outlook. Couldn’t right click, or highlight anything in any of my emails. Not even Ctrl+A would work. After some research I discovered that my machine had some corrupt or perhaps mismatched libraries on it. The easiest and fastest way to fix this problem is to do a clean install of IE8. That took care of the issue immediately. Hope this helps some pour soul out there that had the same problem as me.

Problem

You’re trying to build a cross-browser compatible web site or application. It works great in Firefox, Google Chrome, and Opera. There’s just one left to test, right? That’d be nice, wouldn’t it? Unfortunately Internet Explorer is so inconsistent from version to version, that it’s almost impossible to know how your website is performing in all of them.

Solution

Forget trying to “Emulate” or install multiple versions of IE. The solution is MUCH simpler. IETester is a handy little program I picked up earlier this year that easily allows you to pull up a tab for any version of IE, starting with 5.5! It’s a quick download, free, and works miracles. This is the end-all to your frustrations. Trust me.

( Link: IE Tester )

This problem was agonizing! My internet explorer would open, fail to display webpages, and then refuse to close. I had to shut it down using the Task Manager each time! Yuck. After a bit of research, and toying with different settings I came upon the following solution.

How to Fix Internet Explorer

1. Open up your Control Panel ( Start->Settings->Control Panel )

2. Switch to Classic View

3. Open Internet Options

4. Click on the Advanced Tab, at the top

5. Click on the Reset Button, near the bottom

Resetting the browser back to its Manufacturer Defaults will fix most any problem you might be experiencing with IE.