Ian's Web Log (Blog): various PC problems, solutions and observations

Ian's Web Log (Blog)

Contents

Plustek OpticBook 3600 &
am32plus start-up error
Zestyfind.com and look2me.com
MySearch: PC running slowly
Reducing spam, viruses...
$HTTP_HOST fails ...
Changing colour gradients

Personal Home Page
This page documents various problems, solutions and observations that I have from time to time. If you've found this page via a search engine, and it solves a similar problem or query that you've had, then this page has served its intent.
9 September 2009

Changing colour gradients
A reoccuring issue, is to change the a colour in an image to another, but retaining the color gradient. For example, chaning a greyscale image to green, but the light greys change to light green, the dark grays to dark green. The image is greyscale because the black drawing is anti-aliased with varying shades of grey.
Corel Paintshop Pro includes the Color Replacer, which is supposed to do just this. Either I do not understand how it works, or it does not quite do what I was expecting, and it ignores the lightest pixels, or changes all pixels to the same shade of colour.
The solution is to the use the Red/Green/Blue color affect. For black text on a white background, the trick is to invert the image first, to white on back. Then use the Red/Green/Blue color affect.
There must be an easiler way!

9 July 2008

$HTTP_HOST fails on PHP 4 and Windows XP
I run a small PHP script that uses $HTTP_HOST to return the current host URL name, usually "127.0.0.1". Today is stopped working. My suspicions are a new Microsoft Windows Update (KB951748), though I don't think it has fully installed yet.
The problem arises with PHP v4 on Apache 1.3 and Windows XP with Service Pack 3. The problem does not arise with PHP 5 with Apache 2.2.8.
The workaround is to change occurences of $HTTP_HOST to $_SERVER['HTTP_HOST']

3 June 2008

Plustek OpticBook 3600 & am32plus start-up error
Symptoms
After installing Windows XP Service Pack 3 (SP3), my Plustek OpticBook 3600 stopped working.
Detailed description
On restarting my PC, and while the system tray is being populated, an error windows pops up with the message:
"AM32 Plus was unable to find some components of the software"
...with a suggestion to resinstall the scanner software (which I tried without it resolving the software)
The Solution
Thanks to an email from Plustek technical support (slightly vague), the following fixed the issue:

Go to your Windows Start button (bottom left), click Run..., and enter: regedit (in order to start the Registry Editor)
Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE > SOFTWARE and locate and select: iMpacct Corp (ie. it is highlighted in blue)
Right-click on "iMpacct Corp", and select Permissions... and a window will appear "Permissions for iMpacct Corp" with a single tab "Security".
The "Group or user names" section at the top is empty, so click the Add... button below it, to display a new pop-up window, "Select Users or Groups".
In the empty section "Enter the object names to select (examples)", enter the arbitrary name: Everyone, click OK to confirm and return to the previous window, which will now show "Everyone" in the "Group or user names" window. If it is not already highlighted, click on "Everyone" to highligh it.
Below the lower section windows "Permissions for Everyone", click the Advanced button, which will show a new pop-up window "Advanced Security Settings for iMpacct Corp", with the Permissions tab selected.
One "Permissions entries" is showing: Allow Everyone Read Only...", ensure it is highlighted, and click on the Edit... button, which will popup a new window, "Permission Entry for iMpacct Corp"
In the "Permission" section, on the first row "Full Control" and in the Allow column, click the checkbox. The other checkboxes in the Allow column will automatically be checked too. Click OK to return to the previous window.
In the Advanced Security Settings for iMpacct Corp", click OK to return to the "Permissions for iMpacct Corp" window, and click OK to confirm and close the last pop-up window.
Go to the Registry Editor's File menu and select Exit. Restart your PC, and I found the AM32plus error message no longer appeared during startup, and my scanning software loaded as expected.

Other instructions were suggested, but I did not find them necessary. A similar solution for Windows Vista is described on the "The Student Tablet PC" forum by Curtis Philips on March 2nd, 2008 at 3:25 am.
3 July 2004

Zestyfind.com and look2me.com -- adware/spyware

Our son's computer became infected with these adware programs.
Symptoms
The PCs Internet Explorer browser would pop-up new browser windows containing Web sites we were not interested in, including directing us to www.Zestyfind.com and www.look2me.com
The Solution
A utility program called kill2me, specifically designed to remove look2me, removed the adware, Download here.
More information only Zestyfind can be found here (I just removed the files named msg117.dll and msg.118.dll from the /windows/system folder), scanned with Spybot (see below), and restarted. There are also some similarly names files msg....acm which must not be touched.

26 June 2004

MySearch: Why my PC started running slowly

You get use to the feel and responsiveness of your computer. So it was a surprise to find that my system started running slowly.
Symptoms

On selecting various items on my desktop, there would be a slight delay before anything would happen. For example, on selecting a menu from the menu bar, or clicking the red Close icon in the top-right corner of a window. The delay was 'only' about half a second, but enough time to be noticeable.
Drop-down windows would appear gradually. For example, if I selected the Edit menu, the menu would appear to fade-in gradually, making it look animated. If I moved from drop-down menu to menu, the delay would make it frustrating to browse through them.
Moving windows around my desktop was very slow. If I clicked on the blue title bar of my browser, and held down the mouse button, on moving the window fairly fast, I would see 'comet-like' tracks behind the window's movement, as the PC struggled to update the display. Every few seconds the display would freeze for an extra half second, making the movement of windows seem to jump across the screen.
On playing videos, the video would occasionally freeze for a fraction of a second.

The Solution
Although I did scans for adware and spyware, none of them seemed to have picked up the addition of a new search bar in MS Internet Explorer and file Explorer (File Manager) called "MySearch" (the word 'My' has a light blue circle around it). Apparently it's also called the 'MyWay Speed Bar'. [More information] It might have come in with another piece of software. The solution was simply to remove it. Here are the instructions for Windows XP:

Click on your Start button and choose Control Panel
Select Add/Remove programs
Locate the entry for "MySearch"
Click Remove.
If there's also an entry for 'Fun Web Products Easy Installer', remove it too.

25 June 2004

Reducing spam, viruses, adware and spyware

Definitions:

Spam is unsolicited email.
A virus is a computer program that usually arrives with your email as an attachment, AND, which you have inadvertently opened, and by so doing, causing it to infect your machine.
Adware is software that delivers adverts to your computer, but may be required by some software to run.
Spyware is software that sends information from your computer to another, for example, for advertising purposes.

Solutions:

I have the following software installed:

Grisoft's Anti-Virus Software, which is available as a free version (AVG Free Edition). It can be scheduled to check your entire system for viruses, and, can be integrated with your email software (I use Eudora) to automatically check for viruses. Unfortunately the integration with Eudora was causing the contents of the occasional message to be lost, so this aspect of the AVG was disabled (and Zone Alarm used instead). Note: It is vital to ensure that your Virus database file is updated regularly. This is file of virus "fingerprints" which are used to check for known viruses. If a new virus is discovered today, and it's not in the virus database, it might get through!

Spybot, which is free, and looks for unwanted adware and spyware, and optionally removes it. You just have to be careful not remove adware which is required by some software, such as that used to run the free version of Eudora.

Zone Alarm, which is available as free version, and prevents (a) unauthorised access to your PC from the Internet, and, (b) if you should get adware or spyware on your PC, will stop it accessing it's home server over the Internet. The paid version of Zone Alarm also includes anti-virus software which integrates well with Eudora.

I never open email attachments unless (a) I am expecting them (b) the email message references the attachment (c) I know that type of file I am receiving. For example, graphic files such as .jpg and .gif, and documents such as .wp, .doc, .txt and .rtf. Never open email with the following file name extensions: .pif, scr (screen savers), .exe, .com

I reduce the amount of spam I receive by not publicising my email address. I try not to place by email address on Web sites where it might be seen by spam robots, such as on message boards. Where my email address appears on my own Web site, it is either in the form of a graphic image (spam robots just see an image, and not the text), or, I hide the email address using HTML entities and comments. For example:

john@wherever.com becomes:
john@wherever.com
An HTML entity converter can be found here.