Skype Home window / Skype main window pops up by itself once a day

From the Skowler Faq :

I have done some investigation and while I have found plenty of people experiencing this bug, there have been no clear answers as to why its happening.

I have concluded (rightly or wrongly) that the new Facebook / Social media integrations have decided that the user has not updated their status today and pops up to "remind" you to do so. I have found that if you install the .msi version of Skype, the problem goes away; "The MSI version has Facebook integration and Click to Call features disabled. "

This appears to have solved the issue on 3 systems with Skype installed. The 5.5 MSI installer for Skype is here and the Skype Garage post that describes the new "features" and has the MSI link is here.

Backup Game Saves and Migrate Steam Games to a new drive

A quick update to bring you this handy little tool :
GameSave Manager

"With GameSave Manager, you can easily backup, restore and transfer your gamesave(s).
No longer do you need to manually track through all of the those different directories to backup/restore/transfer your gamesaves, making it great for those who like to share gamesave progress with friends/family, format frequently, paranoid about data loss, etc..."

And one of the extra handy features is : " Use "Steam Spreader" to move entire Steam-purchased games onto other partitions and drives (on a per game basis) while creating Symbolic Links to their new locations, allowing you to get the max out of your SSD with your favourite game(s).
Running Windows XP? Then NTFS Junctions will be used instead."

So no more manually creating Sym links to move Steam games to different drives without re-installing Steam :)

How to modify Add-ons to work with newer versions of Firefox/Thunderbird.

Firstly let me say this, there may be a reason why your favourite add-on is only listed as working with an older version of FF or TB, so if modifying the max version number and running the Add-on eats your Hard Drive and re-arranges your keyboard letters, don't say I didn't warn you.

In saying that, in the case of the Firefox Growl/GNTP plug-in it is simply that the max version is set to 4.0.* and we are now at 5.0.0. Its an easy fix, here's how. First we we deal with an existing install of the Add-on, if you have not installed it yet see section 2 below.

Section 1 - Update to new FF version with Add-on already installed.

1. Shutdown Firefox (or Thunderbird )
   
   
2. Find the Add-on directory, on Windows 7 x64 for Firefox its C:\Users\YourUserName\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\RandomNumber.default\extensions or for Thunderbird C:\Users\YourUserName\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles\RandomNumber.default
   
   
3. Look for the folder of .xpi file you want, we get lucky for the Growl plugin as its called growlgntp@brian.dunnington.xpi , .xpi files are simply re-named .zip archives, so you should be able to right click and open as an archive (I suggest 7zip if you don't have an archive manager). If you cant see the name of the plugin you want you will have to check each file / folder and read the install.rdf file, look for the em:name=  tag for the Add-on name. (In 7zip you can right click the install.rdf and select edit to open the file in notepad)
   
   
4. Once you have found the right file or folder, in that same install.rdf file look for the em:maxVersion="4.0.*" tag, as you can see at present its set to 4.0.* in Growl/GNTP, change it to 5.0.*
   If in a folder, just save the file and close once the changes are made, if you have used 7zip / edit when you close the notepad window it will ask to update the archive, select yes.
   
   
5. Restart the app, if you haven't updated yet do so and you should not see the plugin in the To Be Disabled list. If you have already updated prior to making the changes go into the Add-ons menus and re-enable.

Section 2 - New Add-on to be installed.

1. Go to the Add-ons page and right click on the "Add to Firefox" button, select "Save Link As" and download the .xpi file, dont let Firefox try to install the Add-on yet.
2. Navigate to the downloaded .xpi file. .xpi files are simply re-named .zip archives, so you should be able to right click and open as an archive (I suggest 7zip if you don't have an archive manager).
3. Once you have the .xpi archive open look for the install.rdf file, this is a text file that you can edit (In 7zip you can right click the install.rdf and select edit to open the file in notepad), look for the em:maxVersion="4.0.*" tag, as you can see at present its set to 4.0.* in Growl/GNTP, change it to 5.0.*and save the changes back to the archive.
4. Right click on the fixed .xpi file and open with FireFox (or ThunderBird), you should now be installing the Add-on.

How to fix Firefox Growl/GNTP plug-in.
Fix Firefox Growl 

Serva32

Another quick update with a very handy application : Serva32

Serva32 / Serva64 (Serve All) is a full featured

* HTTP server
* FTP server
* TFTP server
* TFTP client
* DHCP server
* Proxy DHCP (PXE)
* DNS server
* SNTP server
* SYSLOG server


Serva32/64 main goal is the fast deployment of a stable platform running several server protocol engines under the hood of a single tiny executable. One of its main application field is the fast set-up of Net boot environments using PXE (Preboot Execution Environment).
Serva32/64 is completely portable; it does not require installation, it will not store keys on your Windows registry.

NABS has arrived

NABS or No Agenda Bat Signal is a notification tool that sends you a desktop alert when the No Agenda Show Podcast has begun.

NABS is fully compatible with Growl for Windows

NABS works on all windows versions XP,Vista,W7 32 and 64 bit.

* Alert on No Agenda show start
* Growl alert on show start (Configurable)
* Run at Windows start up
* Configurable to point to any Twitter alert
* Configurable to any time zone
* Open source

Extract audio from flash players

A quick link today for a free audio ripper service. Makes .mp3's from online players, youtube of course being the primary source but they purport to work with many other services. http://www.video2mp3.net/

Steam client download errors - The long wait

So several times in the last few months I have found myself having to move the Steam installation folder or re-install the steam client from scratch and restoring my games from backup while fault finding my L4D2 game crash issues (Finally fixed it but that's another, very long, post)

The most painful part of the whole process was the wait as the Steam client downloaded its files to finish its installation. The common problems were :

Sitting at 0% - 10% for hours.
Getting to %30 and never finishing (I left it running for 12 hours !)
"Cant connect to steam" or "Steam is temporarily unavailable, please try later"

These issues becoming absolutely intolerable as you cant play any of your legitimately purchased games waiting for the 30 - 40mb download, that may never finish ! RAGE !
I live in Australia and every time the newly downloaded Steam client would try and connect to the same default IP that obviously has issues (it will have even more once I Geolocate it.)


So here is the answer.I would ping the new server IP you intend to use to make sure its up.
I cant reproduce the article here as they don't allow it, but I have a back up copy if it ever goes off line or the tool used disappears.

http://www.raymond.cc/blog/archives/2010/07/19/fix-steam-is-temporarily-unavailable-please-try-later-by-changing-download-region/