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w.bloggar – How to Fix "Unable to parse the XML response" Error

I am probably one of the few, if only people around who use w.bloggar for my blogging needs. While it is an old and outdated program, it has three essential features for me: (1) customizable edit keys (that’s how I input these coloured sections without typing in HTML code), (2) it is easy to upload […]

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Which Browser is Fastest?

This is not an article about which browser if fastest, just an observation about some data that caught my eye. While looking at page load times in my Google Analytics account, I noticed a surprising browser ranking (based on data from 01-Jan-2012 to 08-Apr-2012): Internet Explorer, which has often been derided for being slow (as […]

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Epson SX130 – a Review

After my laser printer died, I was in a scramble to buy a replacement printer so my daughter could get some homework printed out. It was 7 years since my last printer purchase, so I wasn’t up to date on printers and didn’t have time to thoroughly research the market. I have owned ink jet […]

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Windows 7 – How to Give Administrator Privilege to a Program

This tutorial is for Windows 7 with Service Pack 1. It may be the same for other Windows versions, but no guarantee is made. As a security measure, Windows 7 (by default) limits the types of changes that can be made on your computer. In general, this is a good thing because you don’t want […]

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CloudFlare – A Review

This review reflects my experience with CloudFlare‘s free services applied to this website which was powered by WordPress 3.2.1 running on a shared webhost. It looks at the performance for the month of December 2011. The Problem I was Looking to Fix As this site has grown in popularity, it uses more bandwidth. In October […]

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Bing Maps' Stupid Interface Design

I needed to get some directions so I decided to try out Bing Maps instead of Google Maps this time around. I couldn’t find what I was looking for. Bing Maps couldn’t even locate the general area (country) I was looking for directions in. It turns out this is because of a seriously stupid UI […]

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Why aren't there Linux Upgrades?

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been playing with various Linux distros – focussing on Ubuntu based distros. After a while, you start to see how similar they all are. In fact, they are just custom tailored versions of Ubuntu (which itself is a custom version of Debian). They come with a customized GUI, have […]

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WordPress – Jetpack 1.2 Broken on IE 8 and IE 9

I just updated to Jetpack 1.2 on my site and find that the Site Stats module is broken for Internet Explorer 8 and Internet Explorer 9. It works fine with FireFox 7.0.1. Here’s Site Stats as seen in IE 8 (click for larger image): Problems are: it looks ugly, nice tables and formatting are all […]

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Wubi – First Impression – Fail

A visitor (who was kind enough to leave a comment) brought Wubi to my attention. Wubi allows you to dual-boot your system between Windows and Ubuntu without having to repartition your hard disk. It does this by creating a large file on your Windows system that it uses as if it was its own personal […]

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Ubuntu 11.10 – Replacing the Unity Interface

This article was updated for Ubuntu 12.04. It can be found here. A basic Unity tutorial can be found here. NOTE: Unity in Ubuntu 12.04 is more complete and useful than Unity in Ubuntu 11.10 – the main advantage being the HUD interface. This tutorial shows how to install an alternative desktop environment in place […]

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Does Your CMS Affect Your Traffic?

This site began on December 16, 2009 with an article on getting Windows Live Writer to recognize your Joomla! theme – as far as I know, it was the first article on the web describing how to do that because I’d searched and searched and couldn’t find any tutorial on how to do it. After […]

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Ubuntu 11.10 – First Impressions – Not Positive

Background I’ve played with Linux for almost 20 years. My first experience was trying to compile it, in the early 90s, from sources (gotten off a CUG CD?), but Turbo C wasn’t able to compile it. By the mid-90s, I was playing with compiled distributables. While they were interesting and often had some neat features, […]