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Useful Windows Commands

Some less well known Windows 7, 8.1, 10 Terminal (Command prompt) commands

Command Description
powercfg /batteryreport Detailed battery diagnostics >  html
netsh wlan show wlanreport WLAN data last 3 days > html
Alt+Enter Full screen mode
F7 List previous commands
doskey /history >

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Create bootable usb using DD

This method depends on the iso file being designed as bootable, e.g Kaspersky Rescue Disk or Bitdefender Rescue CD, etc.

Plug in the USB flash drive and list its device name using fdisk

sudo fdisk -l
.
.
.
Disk /dev/sdc: 3.8 GiB, 4009754624 bytes, 7831552 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: dos
Disk identifier: 0x052e500d

Device     Boot Start     End Sectors  Size Id Type
/dev/sdc1  *     2048 7831551 7829504  3.8G  c W95 FAT32 (LBA)

Unmount the device partition,

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Gulp Sass suddenly rejecting double quotes

A slip-up of adding an extra ” to a string definition highlights an anomaly in Sass which causes it to flag every line of scss  code (including comments) with double quotes as an error including the real error lost in the jungle of errors. See example below with ” added to the end of $fontfamily (not easy to spot) and an excerpt of the Sass compiler error message pointing to valid line of code amongst many more misleading messages.

$fontfamily: "Comic Sans MS",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif!important";

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Free Public DNS servers

Free public DNS servers include Google, Quad9, OpenDNS, Cloudflare, CleanBrowsing, Verisign, Alternate DNS, AdGuard DNS, etc.

Here’s a short list of some of the most popular ones:

IPv4

OpenDNS (208.67.220.220,  208.67.222.222)
Google Public DNS (8.8.8.8, 8.8.4.4)
Cloudflare (1.1.1.1, 1.0.0.1)).

IPv6

OpenDNS 2620:0:ccc::2 and 2620:0:ccd::2
Google 2001:4860:4860::8888 and 2001:4860:4860::8844
Cloudflare 2606:4700:4700::1111 and 2606:4700:4700::1001.

Browsersync not Injecting or Refreshing page

If all else fails check for a commented <body> tag  before your <body> tag within the source code. Right-click the page and select View Page Source to eliminate this cause.

e.g.

<!-- <body><script id="__bs_script__">//<![CDATA[
    document.write("<script async src='/browser-sync/browser-sync-client.js?v=2.26.3'><\/script>".replace("HOST", location.hostname));
//]]></script> -->
<body>

Browsersync appends its Java script after the first <body> tag it finds regardless of whether it is embedded in a comment or not! Obviously, being wrapped in a comment  effectively disables it from injecting or refreshing the page.

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Ubuntu 18.04 Install WordPress in Home partition

­Install LAMP

For the purposes of this exercise the Apache document root will be moved to /home/mike/www/ and MySQL data directory moved to /home/mysql and a virtual host created called pcdocgo.co.uk

Use Tasksel to install LAMP services

$ sudo apt install tasksel

Install latest Apache, MySQL and PHP servers

$ sudo tasksel install lamp-server

Configure Apache

Add user to Apache www-data group

$ sudo useradd -G www-data mike

Prepare new document root

$ mkdir /home/mike/www
$ sudo rsync -av /var/www/html /home/mike/www

Note: rsync –

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Virtualbox after 5.2.22 GA Install and Restart Windows Guest can’t Sign In

After installing  Virtualbox 5.2.22 Guest Additions and restart you can’t sign in. The Keyboard input is not recognised. Don’t try to restart from power button on login page as you end up going round in circles. Instead elect to Shutdown and then Start.

After this everything seems to be OK although I did not notice it took several minutes to shutdown the first time after successfully logging in. After this it shut down in the normal time frame.

.

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Window 10 1803 Update Bug Automatic Repair Loop bootres.dll corrupt

Fix by Clean Install

  1. Boot Windows 10 iso usb and enter Troubleshoot – Advanced Option – Command
  2. Chkdsk d: /f  – where d: is the Windows drive
  3. Boot Macrium Reflect or Acronis True Image usb and make an image backup of the drive to a portable usb drive
  4. Boot Windows 10 1809 iso usb and do a clean install removing all partitions before hand
  5. Once Windows 10 1809 is up and running install 3rd party backup software
  6. Mount backup image and recover Home folder(s)
  7. Reinstall applications,

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Migrate Outlook 2010 onwards to another PC

Outlook migration steps

  • Source PC
    • Note account settings
      • Email addresses
      • Corresponding IMAP/POP3 and SMTP servers
      • Data folder locations
      • Default delivery pst file
    • Note data file locations, e.g.:
      • c:\users\[user]\Documents\Outlook Files\
      • c:\users\[user]\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Outlook
      • c:\users\[user]\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Outlook
    • Close Outlook
    • Copy all above data folders to a portable drive
  • New PC
    • Copy data from portable drive to same locations
    • Install Outlook 2010 but don’t start it
    • Run Control Panel
    • Change from Category view to  Medium Icons
    • Double-click Mail icon
    • Create new profile called Outlook
    • Set settings the same as the Source PC and save profile
    • Change Control Panel back to Category view
    • Disable Wireless/LAN connection
    • Start Outlook
    • Go to Account setting and enter email passwords
    • Re-enable Wireless/LAN connection
    • Click Send/Receive to update/synchronise data files

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