Monday, February 26, 2007

Server has black logon screen

We just had a power cut and when everything came back to life our exchange server (proliant) booted to a black screen, oddly enough it still seemed to work, if you know the order of the buttons you can still login....

weird,


after much hunting it seems that the system default colours in the registry have the odd bug that if the machines system drive runs out of space they may reset themselves to 0 0 0...

ALthough not the same cause,, definately the same problem, to fix this I did (and dont advise, so if you do and it doesn't work or the server becomes an expensive paper weight, there are no guaruntees, no liabilty etc);

1- using regedit on a pc on the same network, goto file -> connect to network registry
Type in the name of the server with the problem.

NOTE this is a live server do not adjust any settings you are not sure about (ie all of them) any false moves and your machine could be toast.

2- Got to the "HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Control Panel\Colors" entries, you will see they are all set to 0 0 0.
You can set these three numbers to any RGB (if you dont know what this is I would stop now) you like, the system defaults are below, change each color setting to the one listed

**********************
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Control Panel\Colors]
"ActiveBorder"="212 208 200"
"ActiveTitle"="10 36 106"
"AppWorkSpace"="128 128 128"
"Background"="102 111 116"
"ButtonAlternateFace"="181 181 181"
"ButtonDkShadow"="64 64 64"
"ButtonFace"="212 208 200"
"ButtonHilight"="255 255 255"
"ButtonLight"="212 208 200"
"ButtonShadow"="128 128 128"
"ButtonText"="0 0 0"
"GradientActiveTitle"="166 202 240"
"GradientInactiveTitle"="192 192 192"
"GrayText"="128 128 128"
"Hilight"="10 36 106"
"HilightText"="255 255 255"
"HotTrackingColor"="0 0 128"
"InactiveBorder"="212 208 200"
"InactiveTitle"="128 128 128"
"InactiveTitleText"="212 208 200"
"InfoText"="0 0 0"
"InfoWindow"="255 255 225"
"Menu"="212 208 200"
"MenuText"="0 0 0"
"Scrollbar"="212 208 200"
"TitleText"="255 255 255"
"Window"="255 255 255"
"WindowFrame"="0 0 0"
"WindowText"="0 0 0"
**********************


Now I can see my login screen!

see link for more info: http://www.flyhpr.com/blog/2005/02/windows-2003-black-login-screen.htm

Friday, February 23, 2007

resetting the default virtual directories for OWA 2003

Everynow and then you will need to reset the directories for exchange 2003 OWA (outlook web access). I have been setting OWA up to run in https mode and playing with OMA (outlook mobile access) for my PDA, in doing so I got it working nut along the way needed to reset the directories, and rather than unpicking all the changes I ghad made I found this much easier and quicker.

The tasks are simple but i can never remember the order the link below has the answers;
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=883380

good luck.

Tuesday, February 20, 2007

Remember company details on all e-Docs.

Company Details update
On January 01 2007 legislation from The Companies Act 2006 relating to electronic documents came into force. To avoid being in breach of the Act all companies in the UK must include certain regulatory information on their website and in certain e-mail correspondence:

"Every company must list its company registration number, place of registration and registered office address on its website as a result of an update to the legislation of 1985. The information, which must be in legible characters, should also appear on order forms and in emails. Such information is already required on 'business letters' but the duty is being extended to websites, order forms and electronic documents."

For further details on the Companies Act 2006 see http://www.dti.gov.uk/bbf/co-act-2006/index.html

Information that must be on your website
The name, geographic address and email address of the service provider. The name of the organisation with which the customer is contracting must be given. This might differ from the trading name. Any such difference should be explained – e.g. "ABC.co.uk is the trading name of ABC Limited."

It is not sufficient to include a 'contact us' form without also providing an email address and geographic address somewhere easily accessible on the site. A PO Box is unlikely to suffice as a geographic address; but a registered office address would. If the business is a company, the registered office address must be included.

If a company, the company's registration number should be given and, under the Companies Act, the place of registration should be stated (e.g. "ABC Limited is a company registered in England and Wales with company number 1234567") If the business is a member of a trade or professional association, membership details, including any registration number, should be provided.
If the business has a VAT number, it should be stated – even if the website is not being used for e-commerce transactions.
Prices on the website must be clear and unambiguous.
Also, state whether prices are inclusive of tax and delivery costs.

Thursday, February 08, 2007

best SEO descrition I have read in a while

Have a look at Matt Hockins breakdown of SEO here - http://www.interactivemarketinginc.com/seo-terms.html, the descriptions are very good and have a down to earth feel.
Any questions regarding SEO and your site drop me an email, or a the bottom of Matts page is a query request for an assessment from his company.

Tuesday, February 06, 2007

google back links

After many changes in the google index and page ranks around the net google have changed how /what they tel us webmasters about our sites.

You can check the sites that link into your site (called a backlink) via google search, just type link:thesiteyouwanttocheck.com (ie link:www.chillfire.co.uk). This has never been 100% accurate as google has held back this information to stop black book SEO techniques and sites fighting over links etc (not a bad thing in the big scheme of things).

Google has chanegd its tune sightly in that if you have a google webmaster account (anyone can have one, you just need a site that you own - if you need one of these mail us: blog@chillfire.co.uk ) .

The webmaster toolkit is an online set of pages giving you access to the information that google has about your site, from web spider activity to highest ranking page this month. Now it breaks down you backlinks for you, very handy as you can check the quality of sites linking to your individual pages etc.

If you have any requirements for some SEO or just general website advice please dont hesitate to email us blog@chillfire.co.uk, we try and reply (no auto responder) withinin 24hrs, but you wont get a free hamburger if we dont.

Thursday, February 01, 2007

live expo!

Just posted an ad http://uk.expo.live.com/ViewListing.aspx?lid=2054082 on the new live expo, free ads site, bit like craigslist i suppose but with the might of microsoft live behind it.