Can an external USB drive connected to Windows XP be accessed from a Windows 7 computer on the network?

Yes. It is possible.
Using the following elements I was able to access a USB drive connected to Windows XP x32bit.

• Windows XP x32 bit Toshiba Satellite [Toshiba-Michiko]
• Windows 7 Ultimate x64 bit Toshiba Satellite P775 [HodentekWin7]
• Linksys Router

The Windows 7 is on Wi-Fi off the same router. Windows XP has the Lan Connection
These are the steps taken to access:
1. You need to share the hard drive and the connected drive (in my case it is a FreeAgent GoFlex drive) of the XP. Allow sharing files/folders on both C: and connected drive

2. You should allow incoming connections to XP (Firewall settings)

3. Verify connectivity by pinging each computer from the other.

4. Now you can access the files on the connected drive

 

Also review this link:

https://superuser.com/questions/510332/using-xp-cant-access-other-shared-folders-in-win-7/724686#724686

Mahalo

What is FileZilla and how do you use it to trasnfer files from a site to your computer?

 In the last post I described moving an ASP.NET website contents from one hosting provider to another. However the described process copied content on a site from one provider to a site on another provider.

What if you don't have a new provider? Let us say, you want all the content from an existing site to your hard drive.  In this case FileZilla comes in very handy.

FileZilla is a free FTP solution which provides both an FTP Client (allowing downloading your site content) and FTP server (you can upload files to a site) and is supported by a forum and its users.
You can download FileZilla from here:

https://filezilla-project.org/

You need to download the file from this site shown here:

Wait, do not click on the big green button. It will also allow you to download FileZilla, but it will bring in extra bundled stuff you may not need. When you scroll down you will see more options and there choose to download the one shown here:

If you want both client and server, you can get them by clicking both the buttons, one at a time. I got only the client program as I want to download from my website. Once you start the FileZilla_3.7.4.1_win32-setup program it is pretty much wizard driven. Follow the steps including this one here:

Once the installation is complete you will be seeing this:

Lots of stuff to do in the above screen using links. I just clicked OK after briefly looking over it.

Now you can start your transfer from site to hard disk. Double click the FileZilla short cut on your desktop to display the user interface as shown.

You need to fill in the details of the website you are downloading from and of course you need the authentication details. The Port can be blank or 21 be default. Click on the QucikConnect button.
The program establishes  connection to the website and brings in the root folder of the site to the right hand pane as shown. The left hand pane shows the computer drives and folders as shown.

As soon as the connection is established you can see all the files/folders on your site populating the right hand site as shown (only the root is shown and it can be expanded).

All that is needed is to create a folder on the computer (In C:\drive in this case) and right click the root folder and click Download from the list as shown.

The files from righthad side gets trasnferred to the left side and you will be seeing the activities in the pane above. The downloaded files are shown progrssively transferred as shown the bottom pane. It also shows the files that missed for some reason, you can go over later adn get those files as well if necessary. It will show all the files downloaded.

That's all there is to it.

Mahalo

How do you remove the BetterSurf malware from your computer?

 

ALOHA 

 

BetterSurf is a nasty program and when it gets into your computer, your browsing experience hits the bottom. Any slight movement of your cursor on the page may bring up unrelated information as it is based on advertisements. You will be seeing text highlighting, pop-up and pop-sideways windows coming every time you scroll down. The advertisements are from respectable institutions like the Cancer Society and such.

 

This is how a page looks like with this malware in the computer.

 



 

But this is how it should look.

 

 

How do you find it is in your computer?

 

One way is to look in the registry. If you search your computer (or Task Master) for BetterSurf you may not be able to find it, but in the Windows Registry you have a good chance as shown for two of the popular browsers. I had just  then had the IE 10 disabled when I looked at the registry.

 

 

How do you remove BetterSurf?

There are third party programs. But quite a lot of them bring in other problems, like some unwanted program or that you need to pay in order to take the malware out.

 

The one I used is totally free and it is from Microsoft. It's Microsoft Security Essentials' safe free antivirus software and is also called by other names: Microsoft Security Client User Interface; Microsoft Security Client, etc.

 

You can download it from here:

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=5201ps

 

In 4 or 5 wizard steps you can install the program.

 

 

 

The executable program is called msseces.exe

 

 

 

 

I removed the antivirus program from the Add/Remove program list. I think it was AVS toolbar (?).

 

When it is finished it brings up the user interface as shown

 

 

 

 

 

The malware is detected and you can choose to remove it. That's what I did. You may need to reboot the computer.

 

When this is completed you should see this,

 

 

Only after rebooting you will see that  that the computer is protected.  There are many other options and there is a lot more to Microsoft Security Essentials than posted here. This isj ust to remove that blasted BetterSurf.

 

Mahalo

 

 

 

 

What is PING?

Definition of PING:

The length of time in milliseconds that it takes to send a message to an URL (internet, intranet, or web address) and get a response. There is no message but if you get a reply it means you can successfully contact the URL.

Why do you need PING?

When you want to test connectivity over the internet, you ping(Packet Inter-Networking Groper).

How do you 'Ping'?

In Windows 7 type cmd in the search box that you open when you click Start.
Click the Program cmd that is found.
It opens up the window for cmd.exe (the DOS window)
Type in ping 127.0.0.1 and hit return
You will see the following:
----------
C:\Users\mysorian>Ping 127.0.0.1
Pinging 127.0.0.1 with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 127.0.0.1: bytes=32 time<1ms ttl="128<br">Reply from 127.0.0.1: bytes=32 time<1ms ttl="128<br">Reply from 127.0.0.1: bytes=32 time<1ms ttl="128<br">Reply from 127.0.0.1: bytes=32 time<1ms ttl="128</p">Ping statistics for 127.0.0.1:
    Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
    Minimum = 0ms, Maximum = 0ms, Average = 0ms
---------------------
This means your network card is working as it should
---------------------
Type PING http://www.microsoft.com
You get the reply after which you Ping hodentek.blogspot.com
You get these replies
-----------
C:\Users\mysorian>ping www.microsoft.com
Pinging lb1.www.ms.akadns.net [64.4.11.42] with 32 bytes of data:
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Ping statistics for 64.4.11.42:
    Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 0, Lost = 4 (100% loss),
C:\Users\mysorian>ping hodentek.blogspot.com
Pinging blogspot.l.googleusercontent.com [74.125.224.44] with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 74.125.224.44: bytes=32 time=63ms TTL=53
Reply from 74.125.224.44: bytes=32 time=61ms TTL=53
Reply from 74.125.224.44: bytes=32 time=60ms TTL=53
Reply from 74.125.224.44: bytes=32 time=62ms TTL=53
Ping statistics for 74.125.224.44:
    Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
    Minimum = 60ms, Maximum = 63ms, Average = 61ms
C:\Users\mysorian>
---
This shows you could get to Hodentek.blogspot.com but not www.microsoft.com
In any case, if you are trouble shooting connectivity issues try pinging your own network card at 127.0.0.1

How do you copy an ASP.NET website on one Hosting company to a site on another?

Sometimes you change your website hosting from one vendor to another. You want to transfer your site content from the old hosting provider to the new hosting provider. The general idea is the same but in this case we are considering moving from one ASP.NET hosting provider to another.

Domain Name:
First of all there is a consideration of domain name. You can buy a new domain name or you can use your existing domain name. In this case we are assuming that the existing domain name will be used and only the site content is moved.

Steps in moving to another:
1. Do not close the account with your old hosting provider as this may result in the loss of your content

2. Buy a new hosting account with the new hosting provider. If you are looking for a ASP.NET hosting you should choose one that hosts ASP.NET

http://www.findbestwebhosting.com/top10hostingcompanies.aspx/windows-web-hosting/1

Note: The above site was picked at random and the blogger has no interest in the above or any of the others that may get mentioned.

3. After you opened the account you will can get a temporary website (also an FTP site, email, etc. )Create your password for the various items (email, FTP, HTTP, etc.).

4. Download and install the free version of Visual Studio 2013 Express for Web (in this case Microsoft Visual Studio Express  2013 for Web). With this tool you can FTP your site content from the site on your old Hosting Provider to the temporary ftp site on the new hosting provider. The transfer itself may take considerble time depending on the amount of stored content.

• After launching VS 2013 Express, clicking on File | Open Web Site... opens the following display.

• Enter the ftp site of the previous hostings provider and enter your credentials.

The site contents will be displayed in the Solutions Explorer
Now the WEBSITE menu item gets displayed.

• Click on WEBSITE and click Copy Web Site... as shown.

The FTP screen opens as shown.

• In the above screen click on Connect, the connect to remote site is activated and the Open Web Site window is displayed again. Now enter the ftp site and credentials for the new hostings provider.

Both the source and target gets displayed as shown.

 

 

• All that remains is highlight the items from your old site on the left(Source) to the target site using the arrows (watch directions) in between source and target.

The time it takes to transfer will depend on many factors that includes the network connectivity and the amount of data.

You may be wondering whether the new site created from the previous hostings site will function as it did earlier. This will depend on a lot of factors as the technology might have progressed and the elements (databases,user accounts, transacted items etc) may not be compatible versions. However you may be able to recreate most if not all of the features. Patience.

Before you make the ftp transfer you should have username and password for the old hosting account and the new recently purchased hosting account.

Also make sure,

• You can ping both sites
• Run tracert from the command window for the new hosting provider to make sure their router can be reached.
• Make sure telnet is enabled in your computer.

 

What is a MySQL Workbench?

It is a graphic user interface with which you can connect to a MySQL Server running on your computer. This is very similar to SQL Server Management Studio for Microsoft SQL Servers. There are some common features but you can only use it with MySQL server. You can create database, tables; run queries; create stored procedures; etc. The present version is 6.0.9 and you can download an msi file from here:

http://dev.mysql.com/downloads/tools/workbench/

you may need to register.

Here is what it looks like:

I have connected to MySQL server installed using XAMPP using two Local\NamedPipes and Standard TCPIP. You can access all the shortcuts on the right to interact with various MySQL related resources.

On Installing Apache on Windows 7 64bit

The best way to install APACHE or the LAMP stack is to use the XAMPP cross-platform web server solution stack XAMPP. All you need to do is to downlaod, extract and start.

You can download XAMPP form here. You can install version 1.8.3 for Windows from the indicated link. XAMPP was howevver download from here:

http://download.cnet.com/XAMPP/3000-10248_4-10703782.html

The two latest versions are,

XAMPP is documented as a very easy program to install and run, but sometimes if your computer is running other programs like IIS, Skype, SQL Server Reporting Services, Oracle etc as it does on my computer you could get into a situation that makes it hard to install the XAMPP bundle.

The first mistake I made was to download XAMPP to a folder on my desktop. The recommended one is to use C:\XAMPP folder. As I installed on the desktop, the registration in my Windows Services,  the file for the service to run location here:
C:\Users\mysorian\Desktop\xampp\xampp\apache\bin\httpd.exe" -k runservice

Any number of install/uninstall operations did not change this path for the executable.

Later I installed XAMPP to C:\XAMPP but took 'apache/bin' contents to the path shown (above figure) in Apache2.4 Properties page.

The downloading and installing from CNET link was quite easy. Here are some screen shots. The next screen is dispalyed when you double click the XAMPP executable.

Click OK.

Click Next.

Click Next to indicate the location of the installation folder.

Click Next.

Click Next.

Click Finish

This completes the installation. Now you can double click xampp-control.exe in the installation directory that brings up the XAMPP Control Panel as shown. You can Start, stop and configure the packged programs Apache, MySql etc.

The problem that I encountered were the highlighted error messages reagrding Port 80 and Port 443. These ports are used by default by Internet Information Services and Skype. 

I managed to change the ports of Skype. Click here to see how it was done.

In spite of changing the SKYPE's Port 80 to something different and that of IIS binding to a different port, still the errors continued.

http://hodentekhelp.blogspot.com/2014/02/do-you-want-to-change-ports-that-skype.html

Since I could not succeed keeping 80 for APACHE, I decided to change APACHE to listen to a different port (8081) and reverted my IIS bound to its defult 80. I thought I could succeed and XAMPP control continued sending out error messages. 

I started apache service from Windows Services and the apache started without any problem after I made adjustment for bin/apache location as mentioned in the beginning.

------5:00:55 PM  [main] Initializing Control Panel
5:00:55 PM  [main] Windows Version: Windows 7 Ultimate SP1 64-bit
5:00:55 PM  [main] XAMPP Version: 1.8.3
5:00:55 PM  [main] Control Panel Version: 3.2.1  [ Compiled: May 7th 2013 ]
5:00:55 PM  [main] You are not running with administrator rights! This will work for
5:00:55 PM  [main] most application stuff but whenever you do something with services
5:00:55 PM  [main] there will be a security dialogue or things will break! So think
5:00:55 PM  [main] about running this application with administrator rights!
5:00:55 PM  [main] XAMPP Installation Directory: "c:\xampp\"
5:00:55 PM  [main] Checking for prerequisites
5:00:55 PM  [main] All prerequisites found
5:00:55 PM  [main] Initializing Modules
5:00:55 PM  [Apache] Apache Service detected with wrong path
5:00:55 PM  [Apache] Change XAMPP Apache and Control Panel settings or
5:00:55 PM  [Apache] Uninstall/disable the other service manually first
5:00:55 PM  [Apache] Found Path: "C:\Users\mysorian\Desktop\xampp\xampp\apache\bin\httpd.exe" -k runservice
5:00:55 PM  [Apache] Expected Path: "c:\xampp\apache\bin\httpd.exe" -k runservice
5:00:55 PM  [Apache] Problem detected!
5:00:55 PM  [Apache] Port 80 in use by "Unable to open process" with PID 4!
5:00:55 PM  [Apache] Apache WILL NOT start without the configured ports free!
5:00:55 PM  [Apache] You need to uninstall/disable/reconfigure the blocking application
5:00:55 PM  [Apache] or reconfigure Apache and the Control Panel to listen on a different port
5:00:55 PM  [Apache] Problem detected!
5:00:55 PM  [Apache] Port 443 in use by "C:\Program Files (x86)\Skype\Phone\Skype.exe" with PID 2624!
5:00:55 PM  [Apache] Apache WILL NOT start without the configured ports free!
5:00:55 PM  [Apache] You need to uninstall/disable/reconfigure the blocking application
5:00:55 PM  [Apache] or reconfigure Apache and the Control Panel to listen on a different port
5:00:55 PM  [Tomcat] Problem detected!
5:00:55 PM  [Tomcat] Port 8080 in use by "C:\oraclexe\app\oracle\product\11.2.0\server\BIN\tnslsnr.exe"!
5:00:55 PM  [Tomcat] Tomcat WILL NOT start without the configured ports free!
5:00:55 PM  [Tomcat] You need to uninstall/disable/reconfigure the blocking application
5:00:55 PM  [Tomcat] or reconfigure Tomcat and the Control Panel to listen on a different port

The XAMPP -Control contiues to show errors,

My guess is that this control has a problem. It is not related to the configuration of this controller.
But the XAMPP site working at http://127.0.0.1:8081
as shown.

Note: I also had MariaDB which was interfering with XAMPP's MySQL. I removed MariaDB which allowed me to run MySQL error free.

Summarize the important points:

1. Install XAMPP to C:\XAMPP folder
2. Do not try to change IIS bindings, but change the httpd.config file and choose Apache ports different from that of IIS and Skype.
3. Do the same for other contentions as well.