InterNetWorkingSolutions Support Site - The Source For All Technical Solutions

Troubleshooting OSX Kernel Panics - Part 1

Wed, 07 Mar 2007 13:32:11 -0700

If you see the following on your Macintosh you are having a serious problem caused by a problem with your hardware and/or software.

You should follow these steps to troubleshoot the problem:

Go to the Finder, then to Applications, then to Utilities.
Double click on Terminal.app
Type in the following without the quotes "open -a /Applications/TextEdit.app /Library/Logs/panic.log"

This is your starting point for seeing what has been happening. In many cases this will tell you what is causing the kernel panic.

The second part of this tutorial will address hardware and software troubleshooting.

Sending mail from Outlook using your Gmail account

Fri, 09 Feb 2007 16:18:09 -0700

This tutorial will show you how to use a gmail account as the outgoing email server from Outlook. This is most useful for situations when your ISP filters or blocks outgoing email. Verizon will not allow any emails that do not contain an @verizon.com email address to originate from their network. Another use for this is for people with laptops who need to send email from multiple locations and hence ISPs.

Here are the steps you should follow:

Your first step is to go to Gmail. After you are click on the sign up for gmail link.
2 Fill in all of the required information including your cell phone number. At the present time this is a gmail requirement. Now enter the code that you will receive on your mobile phone.
You will be presented with another form. Fill it out. Remember that you need to use your everyday email in the secondary email field. The other fields are up to you.
Great you have successfully setup your account. Click on the "I'm ready - show me my account" link.
You are presented with another page showing a summary of what you can do. Click on the "Sweet! Go to my inbox" link.
Phew! You have made it to the main gmail account page. Please click on the Settings link in the top right section of your page.
Click on the Accounts Tab. Now click on the "Add another email address" link.
Enter in your real email address here. Gmail will send a confirmation email to you. Please go to Outlook and check your email. Click on the link in that email which will take you to a gmail confirmation webpage. From there go back to gmail by clicking here.
Click on Settings once again then go to Accounts. Your last step is to click on the "make default" link to the right of your real email address. The reason that you do all of this is so that people see your real email address in the sender and reply to fields. If you did not do this when users replied to your email they would send it to this new gmail account.
In Outlook go to the tools menu then E-Mail Accounts. Select the account that you want to change and then click here.

Macintosh vs. Windows Comparison

Fri, 09 Feb 2007 08:48:56 -0700

This is the beginning of a series comparing the Macintosh and Windows operating systems.

See what Computer World has to say.

Reading RSS Feeds with Firefox

Wed, 07 Feb 2007 14:58:06 -0700

RSS which is Really Simple Syndication is a way to have information come to you automatically and easilly.
RSS is commonly used to subscribe to news sites, podcasts, video casts, and on search engines, and portals such as Yahoo which collect information from multiple sources in a single place. Following is an explanation showing you how to use the power of this with the popular and secure Firefox webbrowser. Firefox calls RSS Live Bookmarks and describes them as

Installing Asterisk on Fedora Core 5

Wed, 30 Aug 2006 18:03:13 -0600

This is a modification of the instructions found at http://www.voip-info.org/wiki/view/ATrpms

rpm --import http://ATrpms.net/RPM-GPG-KEY.atrpms
Add the following to /etc/yum.conf

[atrpms]
name=Fedora Core $releasever - $basearch - ATrpms
baseurl=http://dl.atrpms.net/fc5-i386/atrpms/stable
gpgkey=http://ATrpms.net/RPM-GPG-KEY.atrpms
gpgcheck=1

run these commands

yum install zaptel zaptel-kmdl-`uname -r`
yum install asterisk asterisk-devel asterisk-sounds asterisk-addons libpri spandsp

Run modified instructions found here

Run the following commands to backup your current/sample configurations:

mv /etc/asterisk/iax.conf /etc/asterisk/iax.backup
mv /etc/asterisk/extensions.conf /etc/asterisk/extensions.backup

Run the following commands to download VoicePulse sample configurations:

cd /etc/asterisk
wget http://connect.voicepulse.com/samples/iax.sample
wget http://connect.voicepulse.com/samples/extensions.sample
mv /etc/asterisk/iax.sample /etc/asterisk/iax.conf
mv /etc/asterisk/extensions.sample /etc/asterisk/extensions.conf

Edit the VoicePulse Asterisk configurations:

cd /etc/asterisk
pico iax.conf

Note device login and device password on credentials page

Replace MY_DEVICE_LOGIN with your device login
Replace MY_DEVICE_PASSWORD with your device password
uncomment auth=rsa

Apple Laptop Battery Recall

Mon, 28 Aug 2006 01:20:43 -0600

Just saw this over at Small Dog. Its pretty important to check your laptop.

Apple Battery Recall - EXPANDED INFORMATION
Posted 2006-08-25 17:44 in Apple-News by Ed Shepard

Apple has determined that certain lithium-ion batteries containing cells manufactured by Sony Corporation of Japan pose a safety risk that may result in overheating under rare circumstances.

The affected batteries were sold worldwide from October 2003 through August 2006 for use with the following notebook computers: 12-inch iBook G4, 12-inch PowerBook G4 and 15-inch PowerBook G4.

1.8 million lithium-ion notebook batteries will be recalled.

This is the second-biggest computer battery recall in U.S. history, after Dell’s recall of 4.1 million lithium-ion batteries. Both companies use batteries made by Sony Corp..

You can read all the information by clicking here.

You can also call 800-275-2273, 8:00 am to 8:00 pm, CDT everyday.

The recall is for batteries manufactured from October 2003 through May 2006.

Funny Videos From The Big Boys

Mon, 28 Aug 2006 00:53:10 -0600

IBM Mainframe Training Video

Microsoft Spoof

Drupal Tutorials

Thu, 17 Aug 2006 15:39:27 -0600

About Drupal

Backing up your Postgresql Database

Tue, 08 Aug 2006 10:16:17 -0600

Following are the steps to backup your Postgresql Database(s):

Login to http://YOURDOMAINNAME.COM:10000
Go to the "System" Link on the top then on the "Scheduled Cron Jobs"
Click on the "Create a new scheduled cron job" link.
Type the following in the following sections:

Command: /usr/bin/pg_dump -f ~/DATABASENAME.backup.sql DATABASENAME

If you want to have unique backups by day

Database Maintenance

Tue, 08 Aug 2006 10:10:38 -0600

Database Maintenance

Website Databases

Tue, 08 Aug 2006 10:07:38 -0600

Your website comes with both MySQL and Postgresql databases. Following are some links about how to maintain them.

Backing up Postgresql Databases

Users are not receiving emails

Tue, 18 Jul 2006 12:31:30 -0600

One of the most common complaints heard with email in general is that it is not received by the other user. When a user reports to you that they are not receiving email you should follow the following steps:

Ask the user to check to see if the email is in a spam folder on there end.

This is the single most likely cause.
The user's ISP and/or their email program may be setup to filter spam.

If the user insists that this is not the case you will need to verify this yourself.

Many times the end user will not accurately report what they see; i.e. they may simply not know how to check for a spam folder.
You should verifiy it by doing:

Setup an outside email account such as a @yahoo, @hotmail, etc account.
Send yourself a test message exactly like the one that someone reported did not come through.

Make certain to use the same email program, webmail, etc that you used to originally send the email.
Make certain to send the exact same content and subject that you previously used.

End of support for Windows 98, Windows Me, and Windows XP Service Pack 1

Wed, 12 Jul 2006 14:11:00 -0600

For those of you who missed it Windows 98, Me, and XP SP1 support is no longer available from Microsoft. From Microsoft's Site:

End of support for Windows 98 and Windows Me
July 11, 2006 will bring a close to Extended Support for Windows 98, Windows 98 Second Edition, and Windows Me as part of the Microsoft Lifecycle Policy. Microsoft will retire public and technical support, including security updates, by this date.
Existing support documents and content, however, will continue to be available through the Microsoft Support Product Solution Center Web site. This Web site will continue to host a wealth of previous How-to, Troubleshooting, and Configuration content for anyone who may need self-service.
Microsoft is retiring support for these products because they are outdated and can expose customers to security risks. We recommend that customers who are still running Windows 98 or Windows Me upgrade to a newer, more secure Microsoft operating system, such as Windows XP, as soon as possible.
Customers who upgrade to Windows XP report improved security, richer functionality, and increased productivity.

The Wall Street Journal Reports that Macintoshes are Taking Over the Business World!

Thu, 06 Apr 2006 13:18:24 -0600

Believe it or not the Wall Street Journal has reported that Macintoshes are replacing Windows at a major Japanese banks for multiple reasons including security. See the article here.

Tabbed Browsing in iChat is Here!!

Thu, 06 Apr 2006 11:13:03 -0600

You use tabs in Safari. You use tabs Firefox. Have you been itching to have them in iChat. Well wait no more. A donationware application called Chax has been released. If you want to see the full list of features head on over to their website. If you cannot wait download it here