Technology – Page 11

In case you really can’t live without Wikipedia….

As many people know Wikipedia is protesting about the US government’s proposed SOPA legislation. Consequently they’ve blacked out their home page (English language version). Whether you approve of this protest or not, you may find it difficult to do your homework, look up pointless facts or stalk celebrities without the wonders of Wikipedia.

Here’s a little workaround that gives you access to Wikipedia content….

As you can see, navigating to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page takes you to this “blacked out” page.

Wikipedia “Blackout”

If you really need content from Wikipedia, here’s how to get it from the google cache.

First go to http://www.google.com or http://www.google.co.uk and search for the content that you want. Instead of searching “the whole Internet”, specify that you only want to look for Wikipedia content.

For example to search for King Henry, type
site:en.wikipedia.org King Henry

Once you have the search results, hover over the space to the right of the search results and you’ll see a double arrow appear. This shows you a preview of the search results. Hover over this (step 1) and click the word “cached” (step 2) as shown in the image below.

Example of Search results with link to google cached content — Search results and link to cached content

After clicking on the “cached” link you can see the content that you’re looking for served to you from the google cache rather than the Wikipedia pages.

Happy Googling!

Solution to problem when application stays minimised (Windows 7)

I had this problem today and it caused me some real grief until I sorted it out. I think that the problem is related to using difference screen resolutions at home and work. Yesterday I was working in the office where I typically use my laptop screen for monitoring e-mail, Twitter feeds etc. and my larger external monitor for “the task at hand”. Today I’m working at home where I have two large screens attached to my PC. To access information on my laptop, I typically RDP onto my laptop and display its output onto one of my two PC screens.

Some applications store information about the screen resolution and try to start up in the same positions as they were when you shut them down. This can cause problems. For example, this morning I tried to open an application, the application icon appeared in the windows taskbar but I couldn’t minimise or maximise the application. All I could do was close the application down by right clicking the icon in the taskbar.

To resolve this problem it is possible to maximise an application using the following steps. This ensures that the application becomes visible on a currently active screen.

Right click the taskbar to bring up task manager.

Right clickin the list of running applications and click Maximizeoday I’m working at home where I have two large screens attached to my PC. To access information on my laptop, I typically RDP onto my laptop and display its output onto one of my two PC screens.

Some applications store information about the screen resolution and try to start up in the same positions as they were when you shut them down. This can cause problems (as I discovered). For example, this morning I tried to open an application, the application icon appeared in the windows taskbar but I couldn’t minimise or maximise the application which meant that I couldn’t use it. All I could do was close the application down by right clicking the icon in the taskbar.

To resolve this problem it is possible to maximise an application using the following alternative method.
This ensures that the application becomes visible on a currently active screen.

Right click the taskbar to bring up task manager.
Right clickin the list of running applications and click Maximize.

Problems installing Cisco VPN client – resolved

I’ve had this problem for over a year now. At the last client where I worked I was given a Cisco VPN client to install on my laptop, but unfortunately I couldn’t install it. I ended up using an alternate VPN client (ShrewSoft) to get round the problem.

When installing the Cisco client, I kept getting the error “Error 27850. Unable to manage networking component. Operating system corruption may be preventing installation.”

I finally found an article on the Cisco support website explaining that the problem is related to the number of filters that Windows can apply to a network adapter. By installing lots of different virtual network adapters and other bits of obscure networking software, the inbuilt limit within Windows can easily be exceeded.

VPN installation error

I found this article which suggested that the reason might be due to the large number of VPN clients and virtual network adapters installed…
https://supportforums.cisco.com/message/3075095

I concluded that the ShrewSoft client “knows” to increase the relevant registry setting but the Cisco client isn’t as “intelligent”.

When I checked this registry key – HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetControlNetworkMaxNumFilter

I could see that my “MaxNumFilter” setting was set to 9. I changed this to 14 (decimal) and hey presto I could install the client with no problem.

My laptop now has Windows 7 x64 / Oracle Virtual Box / VMWare Player / Connectify / ShrewSoft VPN client and Cisco VPN client all co-existing happily.