And I am going to include the links here, because a) they are useful and b) they compliment some of the posts I’ve written about WMI (Group Policy and WMI Filtering Slowness / The WMI Fix – which is better? / The WMI overflow error with getobject )
Category Archives: Other Blogs
Proof of purchase for plastic knives
There is this photo doing the rounds on the internet. Often with the comment “I can’t believe it’s true”.
Well it’s true in Victoria Australia at least, From the Guide to Retailers:
“Q: Can I sell any kind of knife to someone under 18? What about kitchen knives or a plastic knife?
A: It’s an offence for anyone under 18 to buy any kind of knife, or any other controlled weapon. This includes kitchen knives, bread and butter knives, box cutters and even plastic knives. If a child needs a knife for a legitimate reason, such as for work, they will need to get their parent or guardian to purchase the knives for them. There are no exceptions. If you or one of your staff knowingly sell a knife or other controlled weapon to a child, you or your staff member can face a fine of up to $2,389.”
Computer Associates eTrust ITM definitions not updating
I was researching (another) eTrust issue today, and found this (defunct) blog post by Brad Benner. Thought I’d save it from the memory hole.
The virus definitions for one of our internal servers running Computer Associates eTrust ITM v8.0 hadn’t been updated since the last time we rebooted the server (about 45 days ago). I tried updating the definitions manually by right-clicking the eTrust ITM tray icon and clicking Download Updates Now and also restarting the eTrust ITM services – both to no avail.
In looking at the eTrust Distribution Events log, I noticed that the following message had been logged several times a day since the last server reboot:
An instance of the distribution program is running!
I was reminded of a certain blogger.
Though I can’t see her riding a Honda Shadow 250
The most popular FREE WordPress Plugins according to ProBlogger users.
Over at ProBlogger, Darren Rowse asked his community, “What are your favourite FREE WordPress Plugins?”
With more time than sense on my hands, I compiled a list of the 183 unique WordPress Plugins which commenters mentioned:
The Top 10
| Plugin name | Number of mentions |
| Akismet | 39 |
| All in One SEO Pack | 31 |
| Google XML Sitemaps | 26 |
| CommentLuv | 16 |
| Yet Another Related Posts Plugin (YAFPP) | 16 |
| WPtouch iPhone Theme | 12 |
| Broken Link Checker | 11 |
| SexyBookmarks | 11 |
| WP Super Cache | 10 |
| Contact Form 7 | 9 |
How I totaled it up.
Pasted the comments into an Excel spreadsheet, and removed all the non-recommendations.
Then I matched the plugin name to the plugin home page (mostly the WordPress plugin sites).
Next I tidied up the various spellings people used.
Finally, I did a pivot table in Excel, and here we are.
The other 173
“The Diary of a Microsoft Marketing Man”
Must remember not to have a mouthful of coffee while reading one of Phil Factor’s blog posts:
The Diary of a Microsoft Marketing Man
I woke up, in a ‘one stop’ process requiring a subtle paradigm shift. I was in my bed at home, a complete integrated platform. The Sun™ was streaming through the Windows™. The world outside seemed people-ready. To drive decisions on getting out of bed, I enumerated multiple insightful, timely reasons for aligning with domestic goals in a familiar and powerful way.
On reaching the kitchen, I achieved unparalleled connectivity in the kettle by plugging it in, and leveraged the capabilities of the toaster by switching it on in real time. Today, I felt I had a flexible and connected infrastructure around me. I empowered the agile and adaptive cat at every level by opening the cat-flap
(continues here)
The top 10 books borrowed by Microsoft UK staff
Originally saw this over at the Microsoft UK Schools Blog.
The Top 5
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People  |
Have read this myself. Worked with a bloke who thought it was the best thing since sliced bread. Considering that Mark Macy was one of the sharpest operators I’ve ever worked with, I’d recommend a read. I thought the next book was a better read. |
Getting Things Done |
This is the book I loved when I read it. My biggest problems with GTD is that a) I fall off the wagon, and b) I’ve yet to find a rigorous method to manage my tasks. |
How Would You Move Mount Fuji? |
“Microsoft’s Cult of the Puzzle: How the World’s Smartest Companies Select the Most Creative Thinkers”
Or, as I’ve often said to people, the thought process on how to work though solving the problem is more important than just knowing the answer. |
The Tipping Point. |
Have not read this book, and judging by the Amazon reviews, I won’t be anytime soon. |
Linked. |
“How Everything is Connected to Everything Else and What it Means for Business, Science and Everyday Life” Apparently talks about how everything is inter-linked. That everything is interlinked, does not surprise me. |
The bottom 5
“MySpace Angles”
Saw a blog article over at www.officialdatingresource.com, probably via a LIfeHacker article, about “MySpace Angles”. Hadn’t heard the term before.
Here is a couple of photos which illustrate MySpace Angles perfectly.
Printer toner
Printer toner, depending on who you ask, is cancerogenic.
Or not.
The Material Safety Data Sheets I’ve seen, say not. But I still wouldn’t breath toner in.
Now some of the printers I’ve worked on over the years, have conspired to leak toner over me.
There was the StorageTek mainframe printer, with the toner hopper. You’d open the 5 litre toner container and pour the toner into the hopper. Great clouds of toner would float up and cover the FNG* tasked to refill the toner. And because of this, it was only ever the FNG who had to refill the toner on this printer.
The DataProducts LZR960. You know, you could ship most laser printers and not be to worried that they survive the journey. The LZR960? Like a nervous puppy, it would leak toner when the shipping box “This Way Up” sign was not rigorously followed. Resulting in me being covered in toner, and one expensive service bill later.
Things have gotten better over time, and since I had not had toner leaked on me for a few years, I thought
how much toner was left in the Lanier|Ricoh Photocopier toner cartridge when it said it was “out of toner”?*
An impressively small amount as it turns out. I’m very impressed that Lanier|Ricoh are not ripping me off on toner.
Other things.
- In theory, the cartridge is designed to be disassembled.
Theory is good, but I used a Dremel tool. - Cartridge seemed very well engineered.
- Benefit of hindsight, I would have cut the other end of the cartridge off. This would have allowed me to have a nice pile like The Angry Technician did.
- You should wash toner off with COLD soapy water.
Warm or hot water will cause the toner to bind to you.
* Friendly New Guy
* idea first seen over at The Angry Technician.
How to redirect Blogger Beta to WordPress.com (Laffers.net)
This was originally a post at Laffers.net, but I’m getting constant timeouts to that site, so I’m going to repost it here, just in case Laffers.net has gone down.
This copy was captured by the Google Cache as it appeared on 24 Dec 2009 04:44:07.
I refer to this article in the following two posts of mine:
So you want to move from Blogger to a WordPress blog & Things I learnt when migrating from Blogger
If you are like me and have decided to move your blog from blogspot.com to wordpress.com (the shared WordPress hosting site), you are asking yourself three questions:
- How to redirect visitors to the old blog automatically to the new pages.
- How to transfer the PageRank of your old blog to the new one.
- How to prevent being penalized by Google for duplicate content.
Is it possible ? Read on.
First of all, let me give credit where credit is due – there are some instructions already published
- Tom Sherman has a nice manual for moving from the old Blogger to self-hosted WordPress.
- [TechCounter] similar to the one above but contains erroneous information about preserving PageRank.
(TechCounter link broke 2013 – http://www.techcounter.com/wordpress/301-permanent-redirect-from-blogger-beta-to-wordpress/?cp=2#comments) - Webbleyou is a tutorial for migrating from Blogger Beta, but I find it unnecessarily complicated.
Bottomline: None of those tutorials work for moving to the shared hosting on WordPress.com!
how to do it
Here are the answers to the three questions:
- Redirect your visitors by combining JavaScript and meta tag redirects. Read below.
- Bad news, this is not possible. Tom Sherman correctly states
This would require a 301 Permanent Redirect and access to the server, not provided by Blogger.
- If you don’t want to be punished by Google for duplicating content you must remove the old blog from the Google cache and tell it to ignore the old site from now on. Read below below.
set up redirects
I’m assuming that at this point you have imported your posts to the new blog at WordPress.com (if not, go to “Manage/Import”, select the obvious choice and do what you’re said).
Log into your Blogger account and click your way through the awkward navigation menu until you are at the “Template/Edit HTML” page. To redirect visitors from the main page, insert the following between the <head> and </head> tags:
<meta content='6;url=http://yournewblog.wordpress.com/' http-equiv='refresh'/>
Number 6 means that the redirection will take effect after 6 seconds. Replace the url with your own.
The tricky part comes now. We want to redirect users from individual post pages to the corresponding post pages on the new blog. For that, we need a piece of JavaScript spiced with Blogger proprietary tags. Insert the following right after “<b:section class='main' id='main' showaddelement='no'>” in the template:
<b:widget id='Redirector' locked='true' title='Blog Posts' type='Blog'>
<b:includable id='main'>
<b:if cond='data:blog.pageType == "item"'>
<b:loop values='data:posts' var='post'>
<script type='text/javascript'>
var new_page='yournewblog.wordpress.com/';
var permalink = '<data:post.url/>';
var timestamp = '<data:post.timestamp/>';
timestamp = timestamp.split('/');
timestamp = timestamp[2]+'/'+timestamp[0]+'/'+timestamp[1];
new_page = permalink.replace(/youroldblog\.blogspot\.com\/2007\/[0-9]{2}/,new_page+timestamp);
new_page = new_page.replace(/\.html$/,'');
document.location.href = new_page;
</script>
</b:loop>
</b:if>
</b:includable>
</b:widget>
Don’t forget to enter your new blog’s URL at var new_page = .
Important note! For this script to work, all your posts should have been imported to WordPress.com using their Manage/Import function. The creation dates of all posts must match, because they are part of the permalinks.
remove duplicate content
Insert the following between the <head> and </head> tags:
<meta name="ROBOTS" content="NOINDEX, NOFOLLOW"/>
After seeing this, search engines should remove your old blog from their cache and the old content will stop existing for them. Therefore they are not going to penalize your new blog for duplicate content.
optionally, display a message
This is not required, but helpful for your readers. Tell them that you have moved and that they are going to be redirected. Right after the <body> tag, insert this:
<div style='position: absolute; top: 30px; left: 30px; border: solid 2px #333; color: #000; background-color: yellow; padding: 5px; width: 400px; z-index: 5; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;'>
<p><strong>My blog has moved!</strong></p>
<p>You should be automatically redirected in 6 seconds. If not, visit<br/> <a href='http://yournewblog.wordpress.com/'> <strong>http://yournewblog.wordpress.com</strong></a> <br/> and update your bookmarks.</p>
</div>
Well, now we are set. Found any errors in this tutorial or have more tips? Share them in the comments please. 🙂
Except where otherwise noted, this work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.
© 2005-2008 richard laffers