Invalid File Handle - Movie Downloads Beware!

Invalid File Handle - Movie Downloads Beware!

By Strictly-Software

Recently I downloaded a film, Con Man (2018), however when I try to do anything with the file such as open, run, copy, move or delete it I get a Windows "Invalid File Handle" error message.

I did some research and found that on certain file systems such as NTFS, CDFS, exFAT, UDFS, FAT, and FAT32, there are some reserved file names that you should never use which causes this error. One of these is con. Others include: PRN, AUX, NUL, COM1, COM2, COM3, COM4, COM5, COM6, COM7, COM8, COM9, LPT1, LPT2, LPT3, LPT4, LPT5, LPT6, LPT7, LPT8, and LPT9.

I checked the filename of the movie and the person had only named it Con.Man.2018.1080p.mp4, meaning that Windows saw the filename as Con preventing me doing anything with this file.

At the moment it is permanently stuck on my file system as I cannot remove the files containing folder either.

I did have a copy of this file on a USB stick however which I could remove, obviously due to the different format of the USB disk drive. If I had used uTorrent to download the file directly to the USB drive instead of first to a folder on my Windows drive I wouldn't have had this issue.

I am basically looking for ways to remove this file as I cannot rename it to something else, either from Windows or the Command Prompt, to enable deletion.

I saw someone suggest renaming the file to \\.\Con.xxx but this does not work as I cannot get a file handle to rename it in the first place.

Therefore this is more of a warning write up than a "How To Guide", although you can be sure I will update this when I find a solution.

So if you are downloading files such as movies to your computer be careful and check the filename first and if you are using a tool such as a Torrent downloader ensure the downloaded file name is changed to something an NTFS or FAT type disk can handle, or download it straight to a USB drive with a different disk format which will allow file deletion.

For more information you can read this MSDN article, called "Naming Files, Paths, and Namespaces".

It states: Do not use the following reserved names for the name of a file: CON, PRN, AUX, NUL, COM1, COM2, COM3, COM4, COM5, COM6, COM7, COM8, COM9, LPT1, LPT2, LPT3, LPT4, LPT5, LPT6, LPT7, LPT8, and LPT9. Also avoid these names followed immediately by an extension; for example, NUL.txt is not recommended.

I will update this when I get a solution.

Changing your DNS Servers - Problems Accessing The Internet Due To DNS Issues Then Read This!

Changing your DNS Servers

Are You Having Problems Accessing The Internet Due To DNS Issues Then Read This!

By Strictly-Software

Sometimes I get problems at home when my laptop cannot connect to the Internet due to DNS issues.

This happens quite regularly and my ISP is Virgin Media.

If you really don't know what you ISP is then go to this site whatismyipaddress.com.

Also you may get issues when your ISP blocks certain sites that you want to visit e.g. The Pirate Bay or other torrent sites or information clearing houses or anti establishment websites.

Therefore if you are getting DNS issues then you should have a look at some of the various solutions below to see if any are suitable for your needs.

1. Default Set-Up

Your system will usually be set up by your ISP to use DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol) which from the article about DHCP says that your computer assigns a different IP address automatically every time you access the Internet.

However my settings have been on DHCP for years and I haven't noticed my IP address change except for a couple of times which can be very annoying. Especially if you have firewall exceptions and programs on other servers like Fail2Ban or DenyHosts to prevent you being banned (SSH, TCP/IP),

The reason your IP address might change is down to DHCP which is used to issue unique IP addresses to computers accessing the ISP as well as automatically configuring other network information on your computer.

As we haven't moved to IPv6 yet and we don't have enough IPv4 addresses for every single device accessing the internet an ISP will share IP addresses as well as using proxy servers or gateways to allow your device, whether it be a phone, tablet, TV, laptop, PC or car, to access the internet.

However be careful before changing your DHCP settings as they could cause problems especially if you are on a shared network.

In most homes and small businesses, the router acts as the DHCP server.

However on large networks, a single computer might act as the DHCP server and changing your DNS settings could cause problems especially if you use internal networks to access websites.

For example at my company I have test sites on internal IP addresses and changing the DNS addresses prevents me from accessing those sites.

You can read more about DHCP here.

However whilst the article says that in most cases a new IP address is assigned to your device every time you connect to the network I find my computers IP address stays the same for quite a while and only changes every four or so months.

If you don't know your IP address then you can easily check your IP address from your own PC without having to open a webpage. Or you can easily use the Internet and run a search for "What is my IP".

If you would like a little script that you can run from the command line or at the click of a button to get a popup with your external IP address then you can read this article on obtaining your IP address from your computer without using a browser.

2. Checking your DNS address from the Command Prompt

You can check your current DNS settings from the command prompt with ipconfig /all which will show you all your network connections and DNS details.

I have shown you my own home computer settings and you can see the DNS settings I am using at the bottom are Google's.

C:\Users\rreid>ipconfig /all

Windows IP Configuration

   Host Name . . . . . . . . . . . . : stard0026w7
   Primary Dns Suffix . . . . . . . : metal.strictly-software.com
   Node Type . . . . . . . . . . . . : Hybrid
   IP Routing Enabled. . . . . . . . : No
   WINS Proxy Enabled. . . . . . . . : No
   DNS Suffix Search List. . . . . . : metal.strictly-software.com

Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection:

   Connection-specific DNS Suffix . : metal.strictly-software.com
   Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Broadcom NetLink (TM) Gigabit Ethernet
   Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : D4-BE-D9-95-40-DB
   DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : Yes
   Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes
   Link-local IPv6 Address . . . . . : fe80::fc53:2287:bb47:b8a9%11(Preferred)
   IPv4 Address. . . . . . . . . . . : 10.0.7.79(Preferred)
   Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0
   Lease Obtained. . . . . . . . . . : 23 February 2015 17:06:21
   Lease Expires . . . . . . . . . . : 19 March 2015 15:49:01
   Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : fe80::20c:29ff:fe77:3876%11
                                                   10.0.7.249
   DHCP Server . . . . . . . . . . . : 10.0.7.244
   DHCPv6 IAID . . . . . . . . . . . : 248823513
   DHCPv6 Client DUID. . . . . . . . : 00-01-00-01-17-02-22-03-D4-BE-D9-95-40-DB

   DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : 8.8.8.8
                                                  8.8.4.4
   Primary WINS Server . . . . . . . : 10.0.7.1
   NetBIOS over Tcpip. . . . . . . . : Enabled

3. Obtaining Different DNS Settings

So one of the solutions to this problem is to change your DNS server IP addresses to public DNS Servers like Googles free addresses 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 or you can use many others including opendns.com.

This provides security at the DNS level that protects your computer from malware and other threats including probes and hacks which could save you without installing any further software.

If you are a business you have to pay but for personal use you don't and can just use these addresses 208.67.222.222 or 208.67.220.220.

Read more about opendns here.

You can find a big list of other DNS server IP's to use here.

Some of them include:

Provider	Primary DNS Server	Secondary DNS Server
Level3	209.244.0.3	209.244.0.4
DNS.WATCH	84.200.69.80	84.200.70.40
Comodo Secure DNS	8.26.56.26	8.20.247.20
OpenDNS Home	208.67.222.222	208.67.220.220
DNS Advantage	156.154.70.1	156.154.71.1
Norton ConnectSafe	199.85.126.10	199.85.127.10
GreenTeamDNS	81.218.119.11	209.88.198.133
SafeDNS	195.46.39.39	195.46.39.40
OpenNIC	107.150.40.234	50.116.23.211
SmartViper	208.76.50.50	208.76.51.51
Dyn	216.146.35.35	216.146.36.36
FreeDNS	37.235.1.174	37.235.1.177

4. Changing DNS Settings

Every computer will be slightly different and you and you can search Google to find out how to do it on your computer, tablet, phone or even your smart TV.

This example is for Windows 7 but it not so different for other Windows machines:

• Go to Control Panel and select Network and Sharing Center.
• Select Change Adaptor Settings.
• Select the network connection you want to change LAN or WIFI.
• The panel will open showing you your connection details.that shows the network connection you want to change e.g LAN or WIFI.
• Scroll down to Internet Protocol Version 4 (TCP/IPv4) (leave IPv6 for later!),
• Click on that row then Properties,
• In the bottom half are the DNS settings. Your ISP will most likely have ticked "Obtain DNS Server address automatically" so de-select that,
• Select "Use the following DNS server addresses" and then enter first your preferred IP address e.g 8.8.8.8 and then in the alternate DNS server put 8.8.4.4
• Hit OK and the settings should be saved. Test it by trying to get to a web page. If you can access a webpage by the
• If you are not sure the DNS settings are being used then go to point 2 and check from the command prompt that your DNS settings have been changed.

A good idea might be to set your DNS up so that it uses Googles primary IP 8.8.8.8 for the preferred server and then the OpenDNS IP 208.67.222.222 for the Alliterate DNS Server.

E.G Mix and Match in-case one of the servers goes down..

5. Other Quick Options To Try

Other options you can try to attempt to sort your WIFI out without getting "techie" include just turning off WIFI fr a 30 seconds then back on.

Or you could turn your machines Airplane mode on and waiting a minute before turning it back off.

Turning your router off by unplugging it or taking the power cable out of the back of it. Wait a good 5 minutes then turn it back on.

Using the computers online diagnostic tool to test why your system is down. If it says DNS problems then this article might be for you.



6. Conclusion

Remember all modern devices like phones, tablets and even Smart TV's can connect to the internet and they all have options to change their DNS settings if you are having problems.

Also you must be careful if you are on a work computer as changing your DNS might not be a good idea as you could have internal routing going on to locally hosted sites on the companies internal network.

Therefore changing them might prevent you from viewing some websites (especially dev/demo sites).

You can always test by checking an internal site to see if you get a workable screen or just a "cannot connect" message.


© 2015 Strictly-Software

Windows 8 and Windows 8 RT - Issues and Workarounds to get Windows 8.1 behaviour

Getting around Window 8's issues

By Strictly-Software

I use Windows 8.1 (proper version - thank god) but if you are stuck on Windows 8 or the Windows 8 RT version you should upgrade to Windows 8.1 ASAP as the design of Windows 8 was so that they could use the same display format for both phones, tablets, PC's and laptops.

The problem was that the techies didn't want numptified hidden away features behind a design obviously meant for touch screens and not for coders.

So they introduced Windows 8 RT which was a sort of half way house between Win 8.1 and Win 8 as they realised they were going to have another Vista issue where people hated the OS and many skipped over it or stayed with the previous version anyway Windows XP (I know I did!).

So when they realised they had another Vista/XP issue on their hands they rolled out Win 8 RT which tried to get rid of the main tablet screen and have am option to get back to a normal desktop screen.

Windows 8.1 was a total reverse of Windows 8 with the desktop as the main screen and the horrible tablets accessible by the home button.

As the article says:

If your PC is currently running Windows 8 or Windows RT, it's free to update to Windows 8.1 or Windows RT 8.1. And unlike previous updates to Windows, you'll get this update from the Windows Store.

by following this Windows Knowledge Base article: upgrade from Windows 8.0 or 8.1 RT to Windows 8.1.

Making some changes

The first thing I hated about the OS was that the mouse would change the size of the screen without me asking it to. In Chrome or elsewhere I was constantly manually putting the screen size back to normal ratio 100%.

In fact the mouse was moving so fast I couldn't hardly see it and I needed to make some changes. The list below are those I made.

Increasing the size and changing the colour of the mouse

I changed the colour of the mouse using the "Pointers" tab where you can pick the group of pointers you want to use to "Windows Black (extra large)" in the top selection and in the bottom I chose "Normal Select".

     

Now I could see the cursor much easier due to the colour change as most programs have a white background so a white cursor with a black border is not very helpful.

Changing the auto drag that the mouse does

One of the annoying things about Windows 8+ is the auto drag ability of the mouse which enables you to highlight or drag features without using the CTRL key.

You can turn this off in the "Buttons" > "Click Lock" panel by de-selecting the "Turn on Click Lock" feature.

This was one of the major pains I had when I first used Windows 8.1 especially when I was remote desktopped into my work PC. Then I found a way to turn it off.

Changing the mouse controlling the size of the screen

This is one thing that really pissed me off. When I was surfing the net or just writing a swipe of the mouse would change the whole screen size.

Other Mouse Changes

I also did the following changes in the "Pointer Options" tab I changed the pointer speed to a slower one.

With a bigger black pointer it helps a lot. I also did the following.

• I chose to "Automatically move pointer to default selection in a dialogue box". No point hunting for CTRL keys is there! 
• I chose to "Show location of the pointer when the CTRL key is hit" 
• A nice circle appears helping you find the cursor. 
• I disabled the "Hide pointer when typing" option so that I can always see the cursor.

Other Windows 8.1 Programs

With all the numptyfictation going on with the Windows tablet format there are some actual applications that can help you without going command line.

Even though the start bar is pretty crap you can either use the "Search" function to find an app or just go into the app page and start typing. The words will just start to appear in a search box in the top right of the page e.g "Paint" to get the Paint application.

The Windows App Store is one of the great features that Windows 8 has introduced and there are lots of great programs you can download for free including "Live TV" to get TV from freeview channels as well as US and European TV shoes.

With WiFi and network connectivity you want to check that your broadband speed is fast and everything is okay. One of these programs is "Network Speed Test" which you can get from the App Store.

This application tests your broadband or WiFi speed and tells you whether you would have the capabilities of downloading high or low quality video, your internet status, network details and other ISP related information.

So now you know how to get Windows 8.1 features, change some annoying ones in the OS related to mouse usage and use the Windows App Store to download apps to test your WiFi for you.

You should now be on your way.

Cloudlfare SmartErrors Causes 404 Errors On WordPress Plugin Updates

Cloudlfare's SmartErrors Causes 404 Errors On WordPress Plugin Updates

By Strictly-Software

The other week I wrote a message on the forum on WordPress about an error I was getting when I tried to do an automatic plugin update from one of my sites: Getting A 404 When I Try To Auto Update A Plugin.

The question was:

Hi
I am using the latest software and I haven't had to update a plugin for a while now but tonight I noticed Jetpack was out of date on one site and not on another (both on same server, same plugins and behind CloudFlare with WP Super Cache - which has been having issues lately??)
Anyway when I try to auto update a plugin on this one site the following happens.
1. The password field is full to the brim with *********** on my other site I just have the same number of **** as the word beneath it (inspect and change type="password" to "text" to prove it.
2. When I hit update it goes straight to a /404 page e.g mysite.com/404
3. It then shows a greenish page that says "sorry we couldn't find what you were looking for" here are some suggestions. A cloudflare page.
4. I have asked Cloudflare about this but I have had problems before with Omnisearch being enabled causing similar issues and also I cannot use any JetPack stats as the URL /wp-admin/admin.php?page=stats just takes me to WP-O-Matics dashboard.
I have checked WP-O-Matics source code and CANNOT see anything about going to that URL.
Is this to do with something WP has done or Cloudflare or both. The password box full to the brim with ****** on one site but not the other suggest something with WP is going on.
Thanks for your help
Rob

Now that I have just gone through Cloudflares settings to check what I had on I have realised that the site I didn't have the problem on (also behind Cloudflare) didn't have SmartErrors enabled.

The site that didn't let me auto update plugins from Wordpress DID have SmartErrors enabled.

I disabled the SmartErrors app and then tried an auto update on the broken site. It worked!

So that is the cause of any problems you may get if you try and update your plugins from within WordPress and get a /404 error and a greenish Clouflare page with some links to other pages.

I don't know if it's a Cloudflare issue or a WP issue but if SmartErrors are on it's an issue!

Static HTML file in WordPress cause of major issues!

Static HTML file in WordPress cause of major issues!

Right I've solved this major pain in the ass!

A static HTML file in the root of my WordPress site was the cause of major issues!

I have just managed to fix a problem in Wordpress on one of my sites I run that has been doing my swede in for over a week now. You can see the thread I wrote (that no-one replied to) here > wordpress.org

Basically I use WP Super Cache for my caching and Cloudflare and everything worked fine until I upgraded to the latest verson of WordPress.

However since the 20th December 7am, my homepage was "fixed" like stone. The comments in the footer said WP Super Cache had created it but I couldn't clear it.

I disabled all plugins. I swapped caching plugins. I tried all the usual tricks of adding querystrings ?r=1212 to make the page unique, using the secret "no cache" key, adding pragma no-cache headers to the header file, ticking "no cache" on every type of file. 

Turning caching OFF, clearing all my .htaccess rules and much more as you will see if you read the post on WordPress.

However today I fixed it. I searched the root of my site and found that there was a page in the root of my site called index.htm.

I presume like IIS you set extensions and filenames that run in order of precendence so that index.htm runs before index.php and so on. This meant the htm static file always ran and the index.php file which all WordPress code has to pass through was never being called!

I viewed the source of this HTML file and it was exactly the same source as that of the homepage if I viewed it with the WP Super Cache comments and all the rest of it. The build date was exactly the same as the comments in the site. Nightmare!

I deleted this page and now the site is working again!

Why this page was cached as static HTML and put in the root of my site I have no idea.

The index.php file is the one all the WP code throws everything through with their massive overkill of PHP instead of adding .htaccess rules into the file to handle /tags/, /category/, /post/date/blah etc. If you actually look at the code that has to run on every page load just to work out what kind of rewritten URL it is - then you will CRY! 

Why not just take the users settings for permalinks and make .htaccess rules for each major branch.

Anyway I digress it seems to work for now and if anyone else has the same problem check for an index.htm file in their root and delete it. Whether WP Super Cache put it there or not I don't know but it buggered me up for 10 days sp check first!

MySQL Server Has Gone Away Fix For Wordpress 3.6

MySQL Server Has Gone Away Fix For Wordpress 3.6

I have been constantly having issues with the bag of XXXX that is Wordpress and I really, really hate relying on someone else's code especially when there is so much I would do to improve it.

Adding new indexes and writing my own plugins for heavy task can only do so much to tweak the performance of a 3rd party CMS system.

However one of the problems I have been having lately is the dreaded "MySQL Server Has Gone Away" error littering my error log.

The symptoms I have been getting include:

• Trying to load a page but it just spinning away.
• Checking the console with a TOP command to see very low server loads (0.00 to 0.03)
• No Apache / MySQL processes running.

I first thought I had solved the problem some months back when I de-activated the Apache Caching plugins my server was using.

I did this because of the high number of Apache related errors in the error log files like this:

[Thu Feb 02 16:30:57 2012] [error] (103)Software caused connection abort: cache: error returned while trying to return mem cached data

These errors related to the times I was getting the slow page loads, high disk swapping and low server loads.

Apache was obviously causing me issues with it's own caching and a restart always fixed it.

As I was using WP Super Cache there was no need for duplicate caching and there are far too many levels on a LAMP set-up where caching can be enabled.

For me removing the Apache caching seemed to fix the issue, for a while at least.

However I keep getting intermittent issues where the same symptoms are present except instead of Apache errors in the error log I am getting lots of MySQL Server Has Gone Away errors like this:

[Wed Aug 14 23:37:29 2013] [error] [client 173.203.107.206] WordPress database error MySQL server has gone away for query UPDATE wp_posts SET robotsmeta = '' WHERE ID = 42693 made by WPOMatic->runCron, WPOMatic->processAll, WPOMatic->processCampaign, WPOMatic->processFeed, WPOMatic->processItem, WPOMatic->insertPost, wp_insert_post, do_action('wp_insert_post'), call_user_func_array, RobotsMeta_Admin->robotsmeta_insert_post

Therefore I looked into the MySQL Server Has Gone Away error and came across the Robs Note Book workaround for WordPress.

The fix he uses is pretty simple and involves using a custom wp-db.php file for your WordPress installation.

As this is a core file that handles all database queries it is a bit annoying in that it may need constant updates when new versions come out.

As the highest version of the workaround on his site is for WordPress 2.8.1 and I was on WordPress version 3.6 I had to create my own workaround for the file.

However the fix is pretty simple to implement and just involves using a new function with a number of retries for the failed query with a server re-connect between each loop iteration.

Basically all the fix does is something I do in my own projects many times when I encounter, lock timeouts or deadlocks e.g retry the query X number of times before quitting with an error.

You can see one such example I use to handle LOCK TIMEOUTS in MS SQL here.

Therefore if you need to apply the same fix in a future version of WordPress you can just follow these steps yourself. Download the existing copy of wp-db.php from the wp-includes folder, back it up and then make a copy before applying these changes.

1. In the db_connect() function that attempts to connect to your database ensure that the initialquery flags are set on and then off are placed around the first query run on the class initialise. This happens to currently be the $this->set_charset function which sets the connections correct character set.

The code should be wrapped around this function call and also before the $this->select function which selects the database to use.

$this->initialquery=1;

$this->set_charset( $this->dbh );

$this->ready = true;

$this->initialquery=0;

$this->select( $this->dbname, $this->dbh );

2. You need to create the following query and put in the file somewhere. This query attempts to run the query and then retries a number of times with a re-connect to the database in-between.

This is what handles the "MySQL Server Has Gone Away" error as it re-connects if the connection is no longer present.

You can change your retries to any number you want. I use 3 re-attempts as I don't see the point of any further retries as if you can't re-connect to your database after 3 goes you certainly have an issue.

function queryWithReconnect($query)
{
 // set this to the number of re-attempts you want to try
 $maxcount = 3;
 $cnt = 1;

 // loop until we reach our $maxcount value OR we get a good query result
 while($cnt < $maxcount)
 {
  // close our connection and then re-connect to our database - this is what fixes the MySQL Has Gone Away error
  // as if it has gone away we are re-attempting the connection.
  @mysql_close($this->dbh);

  // re-connect to our database
  $this->db_connect();

  // re-run our query and store the result in a global variable
  $this->result = @mysql_query($query, $this->dbh);
  
  // if we dont have an error from the server quit now, otherwise carry on!
  if (!mysql_error($this->dbh))
  {
   // return 0 so we know the query ran ok
   return 0;  
  }

  // if we are here we had an error so increment our $cnt loop counter
  $cnt+=1;
 }
 
 // we have looped up to our $maxcount number and all attempts at running the query failed so quit with a failure code!
 return 1;  
}

3. In the main query() function which runs ALL queries in WordPress you need to ensure that the call to our new function that re-attempts the query 3 times is placed just after the initial attempt at running the query.

Find the code that checks for a MySQL error and place our call to the new function inside it and above the code that clears any insert_id that may have been stored.

// If there is an error then take note of it..
if ( $this->last_error = mysql_error( $this->dbh ) ) {
 
 // If its the first initial query e.g in the db_connect() function OR we have a MySQL error then call our queryWithReconnect
 // function until it either passes OR fails after X attempts.

 if (($this->initialquery)||($this->queryWithReconnect($query)!=0)) {
  
  // Clear insert_id on a subsequent failed insert.
  if ( $this->insert_id && preg_match( '/^\s*(insert|replace)\s/i', $query ) )
   $this->insert_id = 0;

  $this->print_error();
  return false;
 }
}

Since putting this re-try code in my wp-db.php file I have had no MySQL Gone Away Errors but it is too early to tell if my main issue of low server loads, no processes running and no website activity is solved yet.

However even if it hasn't this is a good trick to use for your own WordPress code.

If you want to download the latest version of the wp-db.php workaround file which works with WordPress 3.6 then you can get it from the link below.

Just re-name it from wp-db.txt to wp-db.php and then copy it into the wp-includes folder of your site. Be sure to make a backup first in-case it all goes tits up!

Download WordPress 3.6 Fix For MySQL Server Has Gone Away Error - wp-db.php

http://www.strictly-software.com/scripts/downloads/wp-db.txt

Wordpress posts_per_page Query Option Not Working

Fixing the posts_per_page query parameter bug in Carrington Themes

This is just a quick but annoying bug fix for anyone using the Carrington Theme for Wordpress.

If you are creating your own custom templates or pages and want to create your own custom query for the loop then you will probably want to specify how many articles to show.

This is determined by the posts_per_page query filter which determines how many articles are displayed during the loop output e.g

query_posts('cat=234&posts_per_page=5); 

However when I was trying to create a custom template earlier this value was being ignored and I couldn't work out why.

I eventually stumbled across a thread on the Wordpress forums that gave me the solution and it relates to a "feature" in the Carrington theme. Apparently it creates it's own function which ignores any value you may give the posts_per_page query option.

The solution is to disable this "feature" by removing the filter that sets it in motion. Once this is done your loop queries will take into account any value you give the posts_per_page query option.

You can disable this feature on the page you are building by adding the following code before creating your query loop.

remove_filter('pre_get_posts', 'cfct_posts_per_archive_page');

A full example of a custom template page based on the Carrington theme that uses this feature can be seen below.

<?php
/*
Template Name: SomethingTemplate
*/

if (__FILE__ == $_SERVER['SCRIPT_FILENAME']) { die(); }
if (CFCT_DEBUG) { cfct_banner(__FILE__); }

get_header();

?>

<div id="content">

<?php


// get category id by name - if you know it then skip this and add it directly to the query
$id = get_cat_id('Some Category');

// remove the carrington blog filter that overwrites the posts_per_page query filter parameter
remove_filter('pre_get_posts', 'cfct_posts_per_archive_page');

// create a query to filter by the desired category and show the number of posts as specified in the global settings and handle paging
query_posts('cat='.$id.'&posts_per_page='.get_option('posts_per_page') . '&paged='.$paged);


if (have_posts()) {
 while (have_posts()) {
  the_post();?>
  <h1><a href="<?php the_permalink(); ?>" title="This is my blog article: <?php htmlspecialchars(the_title()) ?>"><?php the_title(); ?></a></h1>

 <?php the_content(); ?>

<?php
 }
}

?> 

 <div class="pagination">
 <span class="previous"><?php previous_posts_link('« Previous') ?></span>
 <span class="next"><?php next_posts_link('Next »') ?></span>
 </div> 

</div>

Useful Bookmarks to overcome IE 8 / Firebug

Two useful bookmarks to aid web development

Over the last month I have been moaning a lot about IE 8 and Firebug and have started working without these two developer tools that have had started causing me problems such as:

-Very slow load times on certain sites or pages (IE 8 dev toolbar / Firebug)
-Hanging of the browser and maxing out CPU (50% on a dual core) (IE 8 / Firebug)
-Errors related to other scripts or add-ons (Firebug)

I have just found another issue to add to the list which is that when Firebug is enabled my Google Adverts are not loading on the following site: www.hattrickheaven.com with the following errors being reported (copied from firebugs console)

cannot access optimized closure

gadgets is undefined

IG_EmbedCachedFlash is not a function

Which are coming from a file that is referenced by Googles Adsense http://ads.gmodules.com/gadgets/ifr.

I do know that there have been bugs in Googles Adsense code latley as I regularly get errors from ads.modules.com/gadgets/ifr. There were some errors the other day that prevented adverts from showing as well as any content loaded through Googles AJAX API in IE. If I view the same page in IE I do get a Invalid argument error (line 603, char 7) however the google adsense advert loads correctly.

However if I disable Firebug the adverts appear correctly in Firefox so I can only assume its a clash between Firebug and Googles code just like the error I reported the other month with the highlighter code I use on my blog.

The problems with both of these add-ons has meant that I have disabled both the IE developer toolbar and Firebug from appearing automatically on all pages. With Firebug I know that if I need it I can turn it on with ease and deal with the errors knowing that they are most likely caused by the tool itself rather than any other script. However with IE's developer toolbar its not so easy due to it causing my PC to hang the majority of the time its used.

I have found that going to Control Panel > Internet Options > Advanced > Reset does resolve the issue for a while until the problems slowly build up again over time and the browser with the developer toolbar becomes unusable.

Until IE resolve this issue I have resorted to using the following two bookmarklets to accomplish the two main tasks I use the developer toolbar and Firebug for.

The first is a bookmarklet that allows me to view the generated source code for a particular page:

javascript:(function()%7b%20function%20htmlEscape(s)%7bs=s.replace(/&/g,'&');s=s.replace(/%3e/g,'>');s=s.replace(/%3c/g,'<');return%20s;%7d%20x=window.open();%20x.document.write('%3cpre%3e'%20+%20htmlEscape('%3chtml%3e\n'%20+%20document.documentElement.innerHTML%20+%20'\n%3c/html%3e'));%20x.document.close();%20%7d)();

Which if you unpack it breaks down as the following code:

javascript: (function () {
function htmlEscape(s) {
s = s.replace(/&/g, '&');
s = s.replace(/>/g, '>');
s = s.replace(/</g, '&lt;');
return s;
}
x = window.open();
x.document.write('<pre>' + htmlEscape('<html>\n' + document.documentElement.innerHTML + '\n</html>'));
x.document.close();
})();

And the following code which will generate a DOM inspector allowing you to highlight elements on your page and view its properties and child elements.

javascript:prefFile='';void(z=document.body.appendChild(document.createElement('script')));void(z.language='javascript');void(z.type='text/javascript');void(z.src='http://slayeroffice.com/tools/modi/v2.0/modi_v2.0.js');void(z.id='modi');

You can get these and other bookmarklets from the following site which is tailored for adding missing functionality to Google Chrome: http://www.nogeekyname.com/blog/google-chrome/extensions-for-google-chrome-bookmarklet-for-chrome/