influenced dot net

I use the excellent Ta-da Lists to keep track of things I need to do, my only wish is that it would allow you to reorder your lists. It already lets you reorganise items in the lists, but not the actual order of each list on the main page..

I recently purchased a brand spanking new Western Digital 320GB External HDD (WDXF3200JBRNU) as I need to move a lot of data from place to place.

It’s worked fine on every machine I connected it to, apart from tonight when I connected it to my main machine at my girlfriends house..

For some reason, none of my USB devices were functioning as USB 2.0.. even though they all are!

After trying a few basic things I then wasted a lot of time reinstalling chipset drivers, etc, etc..

Ultimately it turns out that my previous BIOS update (1.A) broke some USB stuff.. nice one MSI! Funnily enough ver 1.A of the BIOS is no longer available on the site but previous versions are..

Updating to 1.B solved my problem, however I had to re-live discovering the hidden BIOS menus which automatically overclock GFX cards by default (very lame) and disable those options - before that, every Windows boot = garbled video display.

MySQL 5.0 is now out of beta and available for general release

Unfortunately for me the current mysql-noinstall-5.0.15-win32.zip doesn’t include libmysqld.dll for whatever reason (the embedded server). I don’t have MS Visual Studio installed either so I can’t compile it myself… I’ve posted on the MySQL forums though querying it, hopefully someone can direct me to a download which includes it already compiled

I’ve just been messing about with the site “engine” (not much at the moment admittedly) and was thinking - why not just publish all articles to RSS and make the front page a generic RSS reader?

I might give it a whirl some time in the future and see how it comes out, sounds like it should work…

I’ve read a couple of articles about the markup necessary to display Flash content in a XHTML page and validate fully.. e.g. The Satay Method

I was just thinking - instead of using a Flash container movie to load other movies (so IE can stream).. can’t you just create a HTML page with a DocType which allows the Flash mumbo-jumbo, then embed that via the object tag? Would the double object embed work?

I think I’ll try this later and report my findings

Ever since I’ve had an o2 account, I’ve never been able to successfully use the e-mail aspect of it..

Observe:

Trying to get it resolved

Firstly I mailed them via a webform as I couldn’t find any e-mail addresses on their site.. I don’t have the content of that original message but it was perfectly valid english clearly describing the problem.

o2 response #1:

Dear Mark,

Thank you for contacting O2 Customer Service.

I am sorry that you unable to access your online account.

To check whether you have 128 bit encryption, please perform the following:

a) Connect to the Internet, using your preferred Internet Service Provider (ISP).
b) Click on the ‘Help’ Menu and select ‘About Internet Explorer’. This will launch a small window that will contain the Version of the Internet Explorer you are using, the Cipher Strength and the Product ID.
c) The Cipher Strength should read 128 bit.

If your browser does not have 128 bit encryption, you can upgrade your browser by clicking on the following link:

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/download/128bit/default.asp

Please follow the instructions given.

To delete your Temporary Internet Files, please follow the steps mentioned below:

1) Open your browser page.
2) Go to the Tools option.
3) Select ‘Internet Options’.
4) Look under the ‘General Tab’ for a section called ‘Temporary Internet Files’.
5) Click on ‘Delete Files’ and then OK.

You may also need to check if the security settings on your PC are configured correctly. This can be done by following the instructions mentioned below:

a) Go to Tools option.
b) Select ‘Internet Options’.
c) Click on the ‘Advanced’ Tab.
d) Scroll down to Security. There should be a tick in the box (es) next to against ‘Use SSL 2.0′ or ‘Use SSL 3.0′, which allow access to a secure site. If this is not the case, try adding a tick(s). You will be required to close down your browser and re open to activate the changes. If this does not work, please go back to the same section. Click on the ‘Restore Defaults’ button and try once again.

If you are still having difficulties, you may need to contact your Internet Service Provider. They will help you in obtaining the settings for entering the secured sites or you may be having a problem with the Internet connection or your computer.

Once the problem has been resolved, please follow the instructions to log in to your account.

1) Click on the link below to go to the sign in page for your account:
http://shop.o2.co.uk/mybill

This will open up a new window. Please follow the instructions step by step.

2) Enter your username and password. If you have forgotten your password, click here:
http://registration.o2.co.uk/Registration/Reminder

If you have forgotten your username, please email us and we will send it to you.

My reply to o2 response #1

Hi,

You seem to have misunderstood my problem.

I can access my o2 account online perfectly fine, it’s the email
aspect of it which I can’t access, i.e. the “my email” link (
http://… )

It will load a page which redirects to another page which continues
forever and never actually displays any content..

Thanks,

Mark Hutton ( username: xxxxxx )

o2 response #2:

Dear Mark,

Thank you for contacting O2 Customer Service.

I am sorry that you are having problems in access ‘my email’ link.

To fix this for you, please reply to this email with the following information.

a) Your Name:
b) Mobile phone number:
c) Your full address including postcode
d) Date of birth
e) Registered email address

My reply to o2 response #2

I e-mailed them the details they requested…

They also broke my account completely at this step - my login no longer functioned - couldv’e been a security measure, who knows.. but they didn’t tell me this

o2 response #3

Dear Mark,

Thank you for contacting O2 Customer Service.

I am sorry that you are having problems in accessing your O2 email account online through our website.

I have reset your password and security code, and confirmed your username in the email below.

Please follow the instructions below to view your online bill.

Your username is: xxxxxx
Your security code is: xxxxxxxx

Your password will follow on a separate email for security reasons.

This should resolve the problem that you are having.

My reply to o2 response #3

… what can I say?

I’m quite frankly astounded by the sheer ineptitude of o2’s support - they make BT look good!

Resetting my login did nothing at all to remedy the problem, which seems to be with th o2 website itself.

I really can’t be bothered to take this further now

I’ve been having a lot of trouble trying to get my layout to look the way I want it. The following image shows what I was aiming for:

Description of image:

• content_container is just a default div with margins such that it’s centered
• There are multiple article div’s, each just a default div
• There is one article_icon div per article, it’s floated left
• #right1 is a right floated div inside #content_container
• #right2 is a right floated div inside #content_container, it has clear: right set so that it appears beneath #right1.. it’s about half the width of #right1

Unfortunately whenever I tried this, adding a clear:right to the second right float would cause the left float to move downwards on FF and Opera but IE still rendered alright.

In the end I’ve now stuck both the right floats into a single right float, i.e. so there’s no need for a clear: right, which works but doesn’t look as good…

Which File Extension are You?

In my second post regarding Google Reader I said that I had been experiencing duplicate articles… however since being queried about it by a member of the Google Reader Team I was thus far unable to reproduce it, until today that is.

This morning around 7am I read 80% of my feeds, specifically I emptied the 9rules group (imported from the 9rules.com OPML) so that it had 0 unread items.

I’ve come back to the 9rules label and everything I read this morning is now unread again! very strange!

At least I know it’s not me who is going insane now…

Recently I’ve been trying to produce a plugin using Delphi Win32 for Google Desktop 2 Beta - a Sidebar plugin.

Unfortunately my knowledge of COM isn’t great and my knowledge of COM in Delphi is even less. However I have learned what I think is enough and cannot seem to solve the problems I’m experiencing. No amount of posting to the Google Desktop Developer Group seems produce replies on the subject.

This is a plea for anybody who can program in Delphi to produce an example Sidebar plugin!