How to send a developer USEFUL information - Debugging Strictly AutoTags

How to send a developer USEFUL information - Debugging Strictly AutoTags

By Strictly-Software

I understand that a lot of people who use CMS systems like Joomla or WordPress don't know how to code otherwise they would be using proper code they had written themselves.

However most people don't know how to code and therefore they install plugins and themes that they download for free and then expect them to do everything they want and more. On top of that they expect instant free support.They don't seem to realise that:
a) A developers time is not spent just working for free on open source projects
b) A donation for time spent fixing a problem that is only apparent to the user in question would be nice at the very least.
c) A developer cannot fix a problem  on a server across the world without:
   -Access to their system or website e.g logins, FTP, SSH, Database etc.
   -Information about the problem and how the developer can go about replicating it to fix it.

If the developer cannot replicate the problem then how on earth are they supposed to be able to fix it for you?

Therefore the first thing you should do if you have a problem with 3rd party code is check to see if other people have had the same PROBLEM and whether the same SOLUTION works for you.

It may be you are asking a common rookie mistake that many previous people have done before and all you need to do is find out from those people what they did to fix it.

However if a search of Google, BING, Techie Forums like stackoverflow.com and others does not reveal an answer then you should go through a step by step guide to narrow down the problem before contacting the developer in question. Believe it or not they do have lives and don't live to fix other peoples bugs.

Below I have reproduced one the debug notes I give out to my WordPress plugin users for one of my own plugins Strictly AutoTags, It should be used as a guide when you are asking for help but please note some questions are plugin specific.

However in general the steps are useful for ALL plugins or problems and therefore they should be read by all WordPress users. 

This step by step routine should ALWAYS be followed by the user before even thinking of emailing me. Also if I do find a problem and fix it for you then some kind of appreciation would be nice e.g a donation would not go a miss.

Steps to narrowing down your problem with a WordPress plugin

1. If you add a post but no tags are added then it does not mean the plugin is not working just that no tags could be found to associate with the post.

2. Test the plugin is working by creating a new post with the following content and saving it as a draft (this is relevant to Strictly AutoTags and may not be needed with your own problem) :

Article Title:

The CIA now admits responsibility for torture at Guantanamo Bay

Content Body:

Today the CIA admitted it was responsible for the recent accusations of torture at Guantanamo Bay.

Billy Bob Johnson, the chief station manager at the Guantanamo Bay prison said that the USA had to hold its hands up and admit that it had allowed its CIA operatives to feed the prisoners nothing but McDonalds and Kentucky Fried Chicken meals whilst forcing them to listen to Christian Rock Music for up to 20 hour periods at a time without any break.

The CIA apologised for the allegations and promised to review its policy of using fast food and Christian Rock Music as a method of torture.

3. Save the draft post and check the number of tags that get added. The plugin should have found a number of words to use even if you have no existing saved tags in your site. It is always best to save the article as a draft, check which tags have been used, remove or add any yourself before publishing an article.

4. Some people have complained that they have added words to the stop/noise word list which still get tagged and think the plugin is broken. This is not the case and the problem is usually that the user hasn't removed any new noise words from the system first BEFORE re-scanning. The noise words are only used in the auto discovery stage of the auto tagging and if tags have already been saved in the system then the site will use them in it's relevancy check whether or not they have been marked as noise words. Version 2.0 has a new option to aid the easy removal of noise words from the saved post tag list and this option should be run whenever new noise words are added.

5. If you have articles with lots of capital words in the title e.g THIS IS A TEST ARTICLE or body then set the Ignore Capital Percentage to a level appropriate for your site. Otherwise words will be treated as acronyms when they shouldn't.

6. If you don't want the plugin to hunt out possible new tags for your site then turn Auto Discovery OFF. Then only existing saved post tags will be used to find relevant tags in new articles.

7. Auto Discovery will find new possible words to use as tags using the settings you give it so set them carefully. However if these new words are not found to be relevant to your article they won't get saved against the post OR in the system. Use the Rank Title and Rank HTML options to ensure words in the post title or already in special formatting HTML such as headers or strong tags are considered more relevant than other words.

8. If you have any problems make sure it not related to Wordpress, your server/hosting or other plugins before requesting support.

9. Please check existing support tickets before writing a new support ticket as the problem may have already been answered.

10. Always disable all other plugins and leave just Strictly AutoTags on before considering it the likely cause of a problem.

11. If you are going to write a new support question that hasn't already been answered can you please provided the following information all which can be got from your host, WP, plugins, DB or a combination of  all.

12. Download the wp-config.php file from your server, edit it and turn the constant WP_DEBUG to TRUE and re-upload e.g

define('WP_DEBUG', false);

define('WP_DEBUG', true);

It will mean your visitors see a lot text all over the screen but it will also help you find any critical errors.

Notices and Warnings do not matter as much. But if you see anything Critical or Erroring - take note to supply the developer with.

If nothing is notable return it to FALSE ASAP!

For example load a version of phpinfo.php onto your server but call it something else so hackers cannot guess it e.g my-3467phpINF.php this way you can see what your server has installed but they can't!

It is very important you tell the developer all of the following information so they know what they are working with.

1. Version of PHP (or other language) you are running (make sure it's compatible with the code)
2. Version of MySQL (or other database system) you are running (make sure it's compatible with the code)
3. Any error message you get when you run the routine that breaks.
4. The time it takes to run before breaking.
5. If you can hit F12 and view the console any Nework/JavaScript errors you may have - also if you have lots of 404's due to missing files fix those as that will cause overhead. If you don't have them just create blank file with the same name.
6. If you can code, turn on the debug constant in the plugin, change your IP in the MyIP function to your own IP address (just type "What is my IP" into Google to get a value, re-upload the file (after backing up) and send me the output of the debug.
7. If you have lots of browser add-ons try it in a fresh install of a new browser, e.g download Opera/Safari for windows and test it on that.
8. If possible install HTTP Fox on FireFox, open it, and then press play just before doing the action that causes the problem. This will give you all the HTTP requests and responses from the server. Look for any 500 status codes or errors. Send me anything unusual - and only related to my site/plugin as it will also record all the plugin guff from your FireFox extensions as well.
9. The more information the better, so screeen shots, video casts (free online, click play, do action, stop, send link etc).and step by step guides of what YOU did to reproduce the problem will help.
10. How many articles are on your site?
11. Is it a big or small site?
12. Do you get hacked a lot?
13. What were the last errors in your hosts error_log (available through VMIN and SSH e.g PUTTY using a less command on the error log)

So although there is more you can do this should be the first things you do when you notice an issue with your code.

Please remember developers are NOT mind readers. So sending in emails or messages like

"When I do X nothing happens"

of

"When I hit the send button it breaks"

Are more than useless.

Please help a developer have a break! And thank them with more than words if they do spend all day and night helping you!

Thanks

Buy Strictly AutoTags NOW!

Remember there ids a PRO version of Strictly AutoTags which you csn buy from etsy.com or my own site.

For only £40 you get all the normal features plus:

• The ability to match on tag but tag another.
• Set up your "TOP TAGS" whih wil be ranked above all overs.
• Turn text links like www.strictly-software.com into real clikable links like www.strictly-software.com.
• Remove old HTML like B and I and replace them with modern tsgs like E and I.
• Set limits on the 

Accessing your computers external IP address from your computer without using a browser

Access your computers external IP address from your desktop without using a browser

Following on from yesterdays blog post about what can happen if you get given a new IP address and don't realise it, you might want a quick way to check your external IP address from your computer without having to open an Internet browser.

There are many "What is my IP address" sites about that show you your IP address plus other request headers such as the user-agent but you might want a quick way of seeing your external IP without having to open a browser first.

If you are using a LINUX computer it's pretty easy to use CURL or WGET to write a small script to scrape an IP checker page and return the HTML contents.

For instance in a command prompt this will return you the IP address using CURL by scraping the contents of icanhazip.com.

This site is good because it outputs the computers IP address that's accessing the URL in plain text so it means you don't have to do any reformatting at all.

curl icanhazip.com

However if you are on a Windows computer there is no simple way of getting your external IP address (the IP address your computer is seen on the outside world) without either installing Windows versions of CURL or WGET first or writing a script to do it for you using Microsoft objects.

Of course it would be nice if you could just use ipconfig from the command prompt to show your external address as well as your internal network details but unfortunately you can't do that.

As you're connected to the Internet through your router your PC isn't directly connected to the Internet.

Therefore there is no easy way you can get the IP address your ISP has assigned to your computer without seeing it from another computer on the Internet.

Therefore you can either use one of the many IP checker tools like whatismyip.com or icanhazip.com to get the details. Or you can even just click this link to search for "what is my IP address" and get Google to show you your IP address above the results.

However if you do want to do it without a browser you can write a simple VBS script to do it for you and then you can access your external IP from your desktop with a simple double click of the mouse.

How to make a VBS Script to get your computers external IP address.

1. Open notepad.
2. Copy and paste the following VBS code into a new notepad window. 
3. Save the file as "whatismyip.vbs" on to your desktop.
4. To view your IP address just double click the file icon and a Windows message box will open and show you the IP address.

The script is very simple and all it does is scrape the plain text contents of the webpage at icanhazip.com and output it in a pop-up - simples!

Option Explicit
Dim objHTTP : Set objHTTP = WScript.CreateObject("MSXML2.ServerXmlHttp")
objHTTP.Open "GET", "http://icanhazip.com", False
objHTTP.Send
Wscript.Echo objHTTP.ResponseText
Set objHTTP  = Nothing

If you really want to use this from the command line you can do it by following these steps.

1. Open a command prompt.
2. Type "cscript " leaving a space afterwards (and without the quotes!).
3. Drag the whatismyip.vbs file to the command prompt so that you have a space between cscript and the path of the file e.g C:\Documents and Settings\myname>cscript "C:\Documents and Settings\myname\Desktop\whatismyip.vbs"
4. Hit Enter.
5. The IP address will appear after some guff about the Windows Script Host Version.

The output should look something like this:

C:\Documents and Settings\
myname >cscript "C:\Documents and Settings\myname\Desktop\whatismyip.vbs"
Microsoft (R) Windows Script Host Version 5.7
Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
89.42.212.239

So there you go, a LINUX and WINDOWS way of accessing your external IP address from your desktop without having to open Chrome or FireFox.

Problem with SFTP after new router installation

Problem with SFTP / SSH after new router installation

This may seem like an obvious one but it can catch you out if you are not aware of the implications of having a new IP address assigned to your house's broadband. You may have moved your laptop to a new house or using a new wifi system to connect to the Internet.

More commonly you may have been given a new or upgraded router by your ISP provider.

Even if you are told the IP address has not changed by BT, Virgin, Sky, Verizon or whoever is giving you the new router you should do a check on any of the many IP checking pages out there on the web.

E.G this script shows you your current IP and ISP details.


Why is this important?

Well if you have your own server being hosted by a company e.g a cloud server somewhere and you have installed DENY HOSTS to block hacking attacks then you might find that you cannot SFTP (Secure FTP) into your server anymore or that using Putty and SSH to access your remote server suddenly stops working for no apparent reason. Obviously you want to access your server so the problem needs fixing.

Symptoms of an IP change causing problems include:

• Your server reporting error messages such as "server unexpectedly closed the connection."
• When you change the file transfer settings to simple FTP from SFTP you can access the server but then experience timeout errors or when the list directory command is run nothing happens.
• Not being able to use Putty or another SSH tool to connect to your server.
• Not having changed any settings on your computer but not being able to connect to your server anymore.

Solution to IP change:

• Check and write down your new IP address.
• Log into your server through WebMin or a web based system or from another computer that hasn't had an IP change.
• Check your DENY HOSTS list to see if your IP address is listed and if so delete the record.
• Add your new IP address in the ALLOW HOSTS list.
• Re-start your server. 

If you don't know how to do this read the 3rd part of my Wordpress Survival Guide about security.

Troubleshooting Internet Wireless Connectivity Problems

Quickly diagnosing Network Issues on your Windows XP PC

If you are like me and have a WinXP laptop at home then you will miss some of the nice diagnostic features Windows 7 comes with (we will skip Vista for obvious reasons) - By the way I have finally got a Windows 7 machine at home and at work!

I like WinXP purely because it lets you do what you want without all those annoying pop ups asking you to confirm everything you want to run.

However the other day for some reason I opened my laptop only for my Internet connectivity to be disabled with the message that the relevant driver was no longer installed! Why I have no idea as I had been using the laptop only hours before without an issue.

No I hadn't accidentally turned off the Wireless switch at the top of the Sony Laptop or accidentally disabled the radio from the utility and a quick virus scan using my last update showed nothing untoward.

The Intel Wireless Troubleshooter had all the options greyed out and the Windows Wireless Network Manager wasn't even in the task bar for some reason so I couldn't check the repair function on that either.

However (and this might be obvious to people who know) but there is a little tool you can run from your Start Menu which will diagnose any network issues and fix them if it can. This is probably the same tool that Windows Messenger uses when you use their own diagnostic tool.

To run this tool do the following:

• Go to the Start Menu
• Choose the RUN option
• Enter the following into the input box: %windir%\network diagnostic\xpnetdiag.exe
• Hit OK

If it can fix the problem it will tell you and if it can't then you will need to look deeper e.g check your router, check your inbound Internet connection and make sure there isn't a local Internet problem in your area.

The diagnostic log that I got looked liked this:

Last diagnostic run time: 08/20/11 13:33:34 HTTP, HTTPS, FTP Diagnostic

HTTP, HTTPS, FTP connectivity



info HTTP: Successfully connected to www.microsoft.com.

info HTTPS: Successfully connected to www.microsoft.com.

info FTP (Passive): Successfully connected to ftp.microsoft.com.







DNS Client Diagnostic

DNS - Not a home user scenario



info Using Web Proxy: no

info Resolving name ok for (www.microsoft.com): yes

No DNS servers



DNS failure









Gateway Diagnostic

Gateway



info The following proxy configuration is being used by IE: Automatically Detect Settings:Disabled Automatic Configuration Script: Proxy Server: Proxy Bypass list:

info This computer has the following default gateway entry(ies): 192.168.1.1

info This computer has the following IP address(es): 192.168.1.5

info The default gateway is in the same subnet as this computer

info The default gateway entry is a valid unicast address

info The default gateway address was resolved via ARP in 1 try(ies)

info The default gateway was reached via ICMP Ping in 1 try(ies)

info TCP port 80 on host 207.46.19.254 was successfully reached

info The Internet host www.microsoft.com was successfully reached

info The default gateway is OK







IP Layer Diagnostic

Corrupted IP routing table



info The default route is valid

info The loopback route is valid

info The local host route is valid

info The local subnet route is valid

Invalid ARP cache entries



action The ARP cache has been flushed







IP Configuration Diagnostic

Invalid IP address



info Valid IP address detected: 192.168.1.5







Wireless Diagnostic

Wireless - Service disabled



Wireless - User SSID



action User input required: Specify network name or SSID

Wireless - First time setup



info The Wireless Network name (SSID) to which the user would like to connect = BLAH

Wireless - Radio off



info Valid IP address detected: 192.168.1.5

Wireless - Out of range



Wireless - Hardware issue



Wireless - Novice user



Wireless - Ad-hoc network



Wireless - Less preferred



Wireless - 802.1x enabled



Wireless - Configuration mismatch



Wireless - Low SNR









WinSock Diagnostic

WinSock status



info All base service provider entries are present in the Winsock catalog.

info The Winsock Service provider chains are valid.

info Provider entry MSAFD Tcpip [TCP/IP] passed the loopback communication test.

info Provider entry MSAFD Tcpip [UDP/IP] passed the loopback communication test.

info Provider entry RSVP UDP Service Provider passed the loopback communication test.

info Provider entry RSVP TCP Service Provider passed the loopback communication test.

info Connectivity is valid for all Winsock service providers.







Network Adapter Diagnostic

Network location detection



info Network location could not be detected

action User input required: Select network location

info Using home Internet connection

Network adapter identification



info Network connection: Name=Local Area Connection, Device=Marvell Yukon 88E8036 PCI-E Fast Ethernet Controller, MediaType=LAN, SubMediaType=LAN

info Network connection: Name=Wireless Network Connection, Device=Intel(R) PRO/Wireless 3945ABG Network Connection, MediaType=LAN, SubMediaType=WIRELESS

info Network connection: Name=1394 Connection, Device=1394 Net Adapter, MediaType=LAN, SubMediaType=1394

info Network connection: Name=Strategies VPN old, Device=WAN Miniport (PPTP), MediaType=TUNNEL, SubMediaType=NONE

info Network connection: Name=Strategies VPN, Device=WAN Miniport (PPTP), MediaType=TUNNEL, SubMediaType=NONE

info Both Ethernet and Wireless connections available, prompting user for selection

action User input required: Select network connection

info Wireless connection selected

Network adapter status



info Network connection status: Disconnected

info Network adapter hardware problem: This device is disabled.

warn Network adapter status not healthy

action Automated repair: Enable network connection

action Enabling the network adapter

info Network adapter successfully enabled

info Network connection status: Connected







HTTP, HTTPS, FTP Diagnostic

HTTP, HTTPS, FTP connectivity



warn HTTP: Error 12007 connecting to www.microsoft.com: The server name or address could not be resolved

warn HTTPS: Error 12007 connecting to www.microsoft.com: The server name or address could not be resolved

warn FTP (Passive): Error 12007 connecting to ftp.microsoft.com: The server name or address could not be resolved

warn HTTP: Error 12007 connecting to www.hotmail.com: The server name or address could not be resolved

warn HTTPS: Error 12007 connecting to www.passport.net: The server name or address could not be resolved

warn FTP (Active): Error 12007 connecting to ftp.microsoft.com: The server name or address could not be resolved

error Could not make an HTTP connection.

error Could not make an HTTPS connection.

error Could not make an FTP connection. 

If like many people you have now moved onto a newer operating system like Windows 7 then you can take advantage of their inbuilt network troubleshooter which can be accessed by following this guide:

1. Click the Start button.
2. Click the Control Panel‌.
3. In the search bar in the top right corner enter "Troubleshooter".
4. Run the search and click on "Troubleshooting" in the list of results.
5. Click Network and Internet
6. Pick the type of problem you are having and it will run a diagnostic test for you. If you are having internet connectivity issues then you should select the first option "Internet Connections"

For more information on troubleshooting internet and wireless connectivity problems on Windows 7 machines read this step by step guide on troubleshooting connectivity problems.

Problems connecting to Remote Desktop over a VPN

Troubleshooting issues with Remote Desktop connections

By Strictly-Software

I have just experienced and finally resolved a problem that started suddenly last week that prevented me from connecting to my work PC from my laptop at home using Terminal Services / Remote Desktop.

The problem started suddenly and it has made little sense for the last week. The symptoms were:

• A virgin media broadband Internet connection.
• A windows XP laptop connected to my broadband over a wireless connection.
• My laptop could access the VPN without any problem and it could also access the PC in question over a windows share e.g \\mycomputer\c$
• Trying to connect using a Remote Desktop connection returned a "this computer cannot connect to the remote computer" error message.

As far as I was aware nothing had changed on my computer and I first though that maybe a virus was blocking the port or a windows update had caused a problem. However when I brought the laptop into my office and tried connecting to my PC over the office wireless connection there was no problem.

I then tried this great little tool RD Enable XP that allows you to set up remote desktop access remotely as long as you have access to the computer and the necessary admin privileges. It requires that you have PSExec installed which comes with the PSTools admin suite and allows you to carry out tasks on computers remotely such as monitoring and managing processes.

The program checks that you can access the remote PC, that the Terminal Services options are enabled correctly in the registry and that you're not being blocked by a firewall.

I had already checked that the fDenyTSConnections registry option was set correctly so when the application hung whilst trying to set firewall exceptions I thought that there was a problem with my router and firewall.

I then tried changing the port number that Terminal Service connections are carried out with from 3389 to 3390. This is another registry setting that needs to be changed on the remote computer and then after a reboot you just append the port number after the computer name or IP address when connecting e.g strmycomputer:3390.

This didn't work so I was pretty annoyed as Virgin media hadn't been much help so I was about to give up until I came across a message thread related to the same problem.

One of the suggestions was to change the Advanced Network Error Search option which is something Virgin offers it's users and is described as follows:

Our advanced network error search helps you find the website you're looking for quickly.

We all make mistakes when we type in website addresses. Perhaps we miss a few letters, or the website doesn't exist any longer. If an address you enter doesn't locate a site, this handy feature will convert the incorrect address into a web search, so instead of an error message you will get a list of our closest matches, plus some additional related links.

This option is linked to your broadband connection which explains why the problem was related to the local connection and not the PC or remote network.

Low and behold when I disabled this option I could once again access my work PC over Remote Desktop again!

I have no idea why this option was suddenly enabled as I have never come across or even heard of it before tonight so I can only imagine Virgin decided to update their settings without asking their customers first.

It also seems to be pre-selected on newly bought laptops as I found out again tonight! Lucky I wrote this blog article otherwise I would have had to hunt down the original again!

I have no idea why this Virgin config option affects remote desktop connections but it obviously can cause a total block on this type of functionality.

If you too have similar problems related to Remote Desktop connections and are also a Virgin Media customer then save yourself a whole lot of time and go to this page first and check your settings: https://my.virginmedia.com/advancederrorsearch/settings

Performance Tuning your PC and Internet Connection

How to performance tune your Computer and Internet Connection

I recently had major issues with performance on my laptop and an intermittent slowdown which meant that I couldn't watch streamed movies (e.g YouTube) or remotely access my office computer due to the slow internet connection. Certain times of the day it was fine but at night it was generally bad. This article is based on the steps that I used to diagnose and overcome the problem. It can also be used by those of you who just wish to get the best performance out of your computers.

Is the problem related to your Internet speed or overall computer performance?

Are you only experiencing problems when you are on the Internet such as slow loading web pages, stuttering video streaming or videos just not playing. Or are you having problems running desktop applications such as programs that are slow to open or files that are slow to save. Is just navigating your PC a task in itself or are you experiencing popups all the time that you don't recognise asking you "To run performance checks", "Install this Spyware checker" or pages filled with adverts or links to advertisements that you don't know where they have come from?

Computer Related Problems

First thing is to ensure you don't have a virus, Trojan or Spyware on your PC.

• If you use Internet Explorer to surf the Internet then there is a good chance you might have a virus as this browser is well known for its many security holes. Consider changing your browser to either Chrome or Firefox. Chrome is a very fast browser and Firefox is a favourite of developers due to the huge number of add-ons available for it.
• If you use a PC Make sure you install any Windows updates as they reguarly contain patches for security vulnerabilities.
• If you don't have a virus / spyware checker installed then download one of the good free ones e.g Malwarebytes Anti-Malware, Spybot Search and destroy, Ad-Aware or even better download multiple applications as its not uncommon for one app to find items that another one will not. Remember to always update the virus definitions before running it.
• If your virus software doesn't find a virus it doesn't mean you don't have one it could just mean that its either a new virus that definitions haven't been created for or its already managed to take hold of your PC and block any virus checker from finding it. Try running a program such as Trend Micro's HijackThis which checks for suspicious looking processes and activity on your PC rather than looking for known virus definitions. If you are unsure about a flagged item you should send the outputted report to one of the recommend forums where specialists will analyse the report and give you detailed info on any action required such as running the Trojan removal tool SDFix.exe.

Once spyware and viruses have been ruled out you should run some basic maintenance on your computer which can be done manually or by downloading one of the many optimiser tools that are available on the net. I have investigated many of these tools and by far the best one I have found is TuneUp Utilities which offers all the tools you need to clean and speed up your PC and browser with a very easy to use interface.

It offers the ability to modify computer and browser settings to speed up your browsing, remove un-used programs, clean up and defrag your hard-drive and registry, speed up your PC by disabling a number of memory and CPU intensive operations that offer little benefit and much more. There is also a "One Click Optimiser" button which checks your system and offers the solutions. If you want to save a lot of time downloading numerous tool or doing it all by hand then this is the tool for you.

Tuning up your PC Manually

• Defrag your hard-drive. Over time your disk will get fragmented as new files are added and existing ones are edited or deleted. A heavily fragmented drive slows down file retrieval and saving. You can do this through the Accessories > System Tools > Disk Fragmenter option or you can download a tool like Defraggler to do this for you.
• Remove old programs and shortcuts to those programs if you never use them any-more. You can use the Add-Remove programs option from the Control Panel to do this or download a program like CCleaner which offers a number of options to help clean up your computer.
• Remove anything from your startup menu that you hardly use or don't require to be running when you start-up your computer.
• Clean up your Registry. Often when files are installed or deleted keys are left in the registry that are no longer required. Like any database the more useless information it contains the slower the retrieval of useful info becomes. A tool like TuneUp Utilities or CCleaner offers you the ability to do this easily without having to trawl through the registry looking for keys by hand.
• Disable memory and CPU intensive operations that run in the background when you require optimal performance. For example disk defragmentation or a full virus scan will slow down your PC when running. This is one of the good things about TuneUp Utilities Turbo Mode as it can be set on or off when required and will ensure that any CPU or Memory intensive operations can be disabled when you require optimal performance.
• Configure the advanced settings in Control Panel > System > Advanced > Performance.
1. Under the Visual Effects tab you should set the option to "Adjust for best performance".
2. On the Advanced tab you should ensure Processor Scheduling and Memory Usage is set to Programs
3. For Virtual Memory make sure both the initial and maximum size are set the same which according to Microsoft its recommended that this should be 1.5 times your system memory.
4. Under the Data Execution Prevention tab you should set to"turn on DEP for all programs and services except those I select"
• Clean up your temporary browser files. Make sure your cache and Internet history doesn't get too large so clean all temporary Internet files on a regular basis. The cache is great for helping sites you regularly visit load quickly but the larger it gets the slower page loads get for all sites.
• Remove any add-ons that you never use anymore. In Firefox the more add-ons you have the slower the browser can be when loading and they can even cause errors. You will often have duplicate add-ons e.g different versions of Java which can be removed.
• Install Advert and Flash blocker add-ons if your browser supports it (Firefox, Chrome). Without having to load Flash files and other adverts the page load times can be increased dramatically.
• Disable JavaScript by default. Not only do most web delivered viruses use JavaScript to infect new PC's it can slow down page load times and make pages seem unresponsive during certain events e.g window, DOM load. All browsers will let you disable JavaScript and in IE VBScript from their inbuilt Options. However to make it easier to set which sites have it on and off you can install add-ons such as NoScript or the Web Developer toolbar. A lot of sites use JavaScript to display adverts, load flash or other videos, validate form fields and deliver other forms of content. Therefore you may find that by having JavaScript disabled you have reduced functionality on many sites. However pages should load a lot quicker and if you do trust the site or require the missing functionality you can always re-enable it.
• Disable 3rd party cookies. These are cookies that are not set by the site you are visiting and are usually used by advertisers for tracking the sites you visit so that they can deliver more targeted advertisiments. Even Google uses these kinds of cookies now and many people consider them an invasion of their privacy which is why most Spyware tools identify them as items to be removed. This is how to disable 3rd party cookies in the top 3 browsers.
  1. Chrome you can do this by going to Tools > Options > Under The Hood > Privacy > Cookie Settings > Accept cookies only from sites I visit.
  2. Internet Explorer go to Tools > Internet Options > Privacy and then set your Privacy level to Medium high which will disable most 3rd party cookies and some 1st party ones. This will still allow you to login to sites but should prevent all the tracker and advert cookies that accumulate as you surf the net.
  3. Firefox removed the option to block 3rd party cookies in version 2 saying it was impossible to accomplish however you can still do this by either installing an add-on called CookieSafe or changing your user preferences by entering about:config in the address bar and then searching for network.cookie.cookieBehavior. The possible values are 0 which accepts all cookies, 1 only accept cookies from the same server and 2 disable all cookies. Set it to 1 to block 3rd party cookies.
• Enable Popup blockers and disable any un-used toolbars e.g Google, Yahoo etc.
• In FireFox disable Firebug and any other DOM manipulating add-ons and only enable them when required. Firebug has steadily got worse over the years in slowing down sites due to all the extra functionality that has been added to it. Therefore it should only be used when developing sites or when you need to use one of its features. The same goes for any other add-ons that you only use on certain sites or at certain times. Having less add-ons to load will increase page load times.
• In Firefox tweak your config settings to improve performance. Read this article on which settings to tweak to get the best performance possible.

Testing for Network Problems

If you are having issues with slow loading pages when browsing or video streaming then you need to find out whether the problem is local to your home or a general network problem that you need to contact your ISP about.

Before doing anything else you should get some basic details of your network if you don't know them already such as the IP address of your gateway to the internet. Open a command prompt window and type "ipconfig". You should note down the results e.g

C:\Documents and Settings\me>ipconfig

Windows IP Configuration

Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection:

Media State . . . . . . . . . . . : Media disconnected

Ethernet adapter Wireless Network Connection:

Connection-specific DNS Suffix  . :
IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.3
Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0
Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.1 

Note down the IP address and the Default Gateway address. The IP Address is your computer and the default Gateway is your connection to the outside world. In this case its a wireless router which is then connected to the Virgin Cable box.

We can now test whether the network problem is with my PC to the wireless or the main router or somewhere else by doing some PING tests.

A "Ping" measures the time that passes between the initial send of the Ping, and the receival of the "Reply" by the machine you pinged. The amount of time that passes during a ping is slightly influenced by the amount of hardware the ping is passed trough, as each would have to relay the ping further. However, there is no set formula for this, as the ping speed also depends upon the speed of the network, how busy it is, and so on.

• A ping to your default gateway should be very quick e.g 1-2 ms
• A ping to other computers on your LAN should be between 1-10 MS (good)
• Pings to external websites such as www.google.com take anything from 20 - 150 MS anything under 50ms is good to an external site.
• Pings to sites on the other side of the world that go through many hops e.g from the UK to www.china.com should report times of <500ms if the network is good.

So lets do some ping's, first to my gateway then to www.google.com and then to somewhere very far away e.g www.china.com.

C:\Documents and Settings\me>ping 192.168.1.3

PPinging 192.168.1.3 with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from 192.168.1.3: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=128
Reply from 192.168.1.3: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=128
Reply from 192.168.1.3: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=128
Reply from 192.168.1.3: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=128

Ping statistics for 192.168.1.3:
 Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
 Minimum = 0ms, Maximum = 0ms, Average = 0ms

C:\Documents and Settings\me>ping www.google.com

Pinging www-tmmdi.l.google.com [216.239.59.103] with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from 216.239.59.103: bytes=32 time=32ms TTL=52
Reply from 216.239.59.103: bytes=32 time=28ms TTL=52
Reply from 216.239.59.103: bytes=32 time=32ms TTL=52
Reply from 216.239.59.103: bytes=32 time=30ms TTL=52

Ping statistics for 216.239.59.103:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 28ms, Maximum = 32ms, Average = 30ms

C:\Documents and Settings\me>ping www.china.com

Pinging chcache.china.com [124.238.253.102] with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from 124.238.253.102: bytes=32 time=606ms TTL=48
Reply from 124.238.253.102: bytes=32 time=526ms TTL=48
Reply from 124.238.253.102: bytes=32 time=446ms TTL=48
Reply from 124.238.253.102: bytes=32 time=445ms TTL=48

Ping statistics for 124.238.253.102:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 445ms, Maximum = 606ms, Average = 505ms

If you are suffering packet loss or long delays then should investigate further.

Another good test from the command prompt is either the tracert / traceroute command or pathping which will do a series of pings from your PC to the destination showing you the addresses of each router it has to pass through and any delay it suffers on the way.

For example lets try a pathping to www.google.com.

C:\Documents and Settings\me>pathping www.google.com

Tracing route to www-tmmdi.l.google.com [216.239.59.99]
over a maximum of 30 hops:
0  strl03455wxp.domain.compname.co.uk [192.168.1.3]
1  192.168.1.1
2  10.129.132.1
3  glfd-cam-1b-v111.network.virginmedia.net [80.4.30.233]
4  glfd-core-1b-ge-115-0.network.virginmedia.net [195.182.181.237]
5  gfd-bb-b-ge-220-0.network.virginmedia.net [213.105.175.89]
6  man-bb-a-ae3-0.network.virginmedia.net [213.105.175.145]
7  man-bb-b-ae0-0.network.virginmedia.net [62.253.187.178]
8  tele-ic-3-ae0-0.network.virginmedia.net [212.43.163.70]
9  158-14-250-212.static.virginmedia.com [212.250.14.158]
10  209.85.255.175
11  209.85.251.190
12  66.249.95.169
13  216.239.49.126
14  gv-in-f99.1e100.net [216.239.59.99]

Computing statistics for 350 seconds...
Source to Here   This Node/Link
Hop  RTT    Lost/Sent = Pct  Lost/Sent = Pct  Address
0                                           strl03455wxp.domain.compname.co.uk
[192.168.1.3]
              0/ 100 =  0%   |
1    0ms     1/ 100 =  1%     1/ 100 =  1%  192.168.1.1
              0/ 100 =  0%   |
2  ---     100/ 100 =100%   100/ 100 =100%  10.129.132.1
              0/ 100 =  0%   |
3   14ms     4/ 100 =  4%     4/ 100 =  4%  glfd-cam-1b-v111.network.virginmed
ia.net [80.4.30.233]
              0/ 100 =  0%   |
4   16ms     2/ 100 =  2%     2/ 100 =  2%  glfd-core-1b-ge-115-0.network.virg
inmedia.net [195.182.181.237]
              0/ 100 =  0%   |
5   14ms     2/ 100 =  2%     2/ 100 =  2%  gfd-bb-b-ge-220-0.network.virginme
dia.net [213.105.175.89]
              0/ 100 =  0%   |
6   27ms     1/ 100 =  1%     1/ 100 =  1%  man-bb-a-ae3-0.network.virginmedia
.net [213.105.175.145]
              0/ 100 =  0%   |
7   24ms     1/ 100 =  1%     1/ 100 =  1%  man-bb-b-ae0-0.network.virginmedia
.net [62.253.187.178]
              0/ 100 =  0%   |
8   31ms     1/ 100 =  1%     1/ 100 =  1%  tele-ic-3-ae0-0.network.virginmedi
a.net [212.43.163.70]
              0/ 100 =  0%   |
9   33ms     0/ 100 =  0%     0/ 100 =  0%  158-14-250-212.static.virginmedia.
com [212.250.14.158]
              0/ 100 =  0%   |
10   25ms     1/ 100 =  1%     1/ 100 =  1%  209.85.255.175
              0/ 100 =  0%   |
11   37ms     1/ 100 =  1%     1/ 100 =  1%  209.85.251.190
              0/ 100 =  0%   |
12   39ms     1/ 100 =  1%     1/ 100 =  1%  66.249.95.169
              0/ 100 =  0%   |
13   41ms     0/ 100 =  0%     0/ 100 =  0%  216.239.49.126
              0/ 100 =  0%   |
14   35ms     0/ 100 =  0%     0/ 100 =  0%  gv-in-f99.1e100.net [216.239.59.99
]

Trace complete.

If you are suffering severe packet loss between routers then that could signify a problem or it may just be that the router is not set up to respond to pings and therefore any ping to that IP would report a time out.

Another test is to compare whether the speeds promised by your broadband provider are actually being delivered to you. There are many speed test sites out there but I tend to use www.broadbandspeedchecker.co.uk OR www.speedtest.net which will measure your download and upload speeds.

You should always do multiple tests and then take an average reading. When I was debugging the issue with my laptop and the wireless connection it had to my main PC and router I was alternating tests between both machines and recording the times to note any difference.

Broadband providers never seem to deliver exactly what they promise but if you are currently getting anything over 2Mbps you shouldn't be getting video streaming issues unless its High Definition movies. Upload speeds will always be a lot less than download speeds so don't expect equality on those two measurments however if like me you were getting periods of the day where your download speed was measured less than 100Kbps then there is definitely something wrong somewhere.

One thing you should remember when dealing with speeds on the net is that the measurements are different than those for disk space. 1Mb is one megabit and 1MB is one megabyte. You can always tell by the letter b as if its capitilised then its bytes and if its lower case its bits. Another thing to note is that a rate of one kilobyte per second (KBps) equals 1000 (not 1024) bytes per second.

If your network problems are intermittent then you should download a tool like networx which allows you to monitor your bandwidth usage, show hourly, daily, monthly reports, set limits on usage and run diagnosis tools such as tracert and ping but in a visual manner.

Run the bandwidth monitoring tool throughout the day and run hourly speed tests this should tell you whether your network problems happen at certain times of the day and provide you with evidence that you can then download as an XLS to provide to your ISP when you contact them to complain.

Wireless Network Issues

If like me you use a laptop that is connected to the main router by a wireless connection then you should rule out problems with the wireless set-up. Run some pings from your PC to the wireless router to check for any issues but ensure that your router is set-up to accept ping requests first.

• Make sure you have the latest firmware, software and drivers in your router, modem and network adaptor. Communications and hardware companies are always updating the software inside their devices so you should make sure you have the most up to date drivers and other software for your equipment. You should be able to download this from the manufacturers website.
• Tune your wireless access point. If you get substantially higher speeds when you connect directly to your broadband instead of using wireless networking, this can be due to interference from other Wi-Fi installations nearby, especially if you are in a city. Find out if there is a problem by plugging the network output from your broadband moden directly into the Ethernet port on your laptop or desktop and seeing if speeds improve. If so, try changing the channel of your wireless network: there'll be a setting in its configuration screen, which you can get to via your browser. Check your handbook for details of your router. You should also try moving your laptop around the house to see if you get a better or worse signal depending on where you are.
• Make sure you are not getting electrical or radio interference from other devices in your house. Lots of gadgets including radios, media streamers, mobile phones and tools to send TV signals around the house use Wi-Fi and they're all sharing the same airwaves. Try turning off all electrical equipment to see if that improves the signal and then one by one turn them on again until you find the culprit. Even mains wiring that runs alongside telephone or network cables can cause a problem.
• Whilst on the wireless network place your laptop right next to the main router and run some speed tests. If you are having issues with speed whilst directly next to the router then it maybe a problem with the wireless router itself or the wireless internet card your PC or laptop is using.

TCP / IP Tuning

Computers are shipped with default TCP / IP settings that are designed to work with all network speeds, dial ups, DSL and Cable. This means that you can tweak various settings so that they are optimal for your computer.

There are various tools that can help you do this easily such as TuneUp Utilities or there are those such as DrTCP or TCP Optimizer that allow you to view and edit various settings such as your MTU Maximum Transmission Unit or maximum packet size and RWIN (TCP Recieve Window). Out of both these tools TCP Optimizer offers the more configuration options, a registry editor and some tests to calculate your MTU correctly.

For those of you interested in what these values mean then the MTU is the maximum Ethernet packet size your PC will send. If a packet that is too large is sent then it will get split up into chunks (fragmented) and then re-assembled at the destination which obviously is not optimal. Therefore you want the MTU value to be the largest packet size that can be sent without becoming fragmented.

Unless otherwise set, Windows defaults MTU to 1500, or a lower value of 576 for external networks. 1500 is OK unless you are running PPPoE, want to use IPSec (Secure VPNs) or both, then it's too big. 576 is not efficient for the broadband/Internet as it's too small. For Windows VISTA users it's recommended to leave this value alone as apparently it does a pretty good job of automatically calculating these settings anyway.

You can calculate this yourself with the command prompt by doing the following tests.

Windows 2000/XP users:

ping -f -l 1472 www.google.com

(That is a dash lower case "L," not a dash "1." Also note the spaces in between the sections.)

Linux users:

ping -s 1472 www.google.com

OS X users:

ping -D -s 1472 www.dslreports.com

Linux and OS X commands are case sensitive.

Press Enter. Then reduce 1472 by 10 until you no longer get the "packet needs to be fragmented" error message. Then increase by 1 until you are 1 less away from getting the "packet need to be fragmented" message again.

Add 28 more to this (since you specified ping packet size, not including IP/ICMP header of 28 bytes), and this is your MaxMTU.

If you can ping through with the number at 1472, you are done! Stop right there. Add 28 and your MaxMTU is 1500.

For PPPoE, your MaxMTU should be no more than 1492 to allow space for the 8 byte PPPoE "wrapper," but again, experiment to find the optimal value. For PPPoE, the stakes are high as if you get your MTU wrong, you may not just be sub-optimal, things like uploading files or web pages may stall or not work at all.

This example shows you how to do it by hand. If you you downloaded the TCP Optimizer tool go to the largest MTU tab and run the test. You will see that it does a similar test to the one below but obviously its automated to save you time.

C:\Documents and Settings\me>ping -f -l 1472 www.google.com

Pinging www-tmmdi.l.google.com [216.239.59.147] with 1472 bytes of data:

Packet needs to be fragmented but DF set.
Packet needs to be fragmented but DF set.
Packet needs to be fragmented but DF set.
Packet needs to be fragmented but DF set.

Ping statistics for 216.239.59.147:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 0, Lost = 4 (100% loss),

C:\Documents and Settings\me>ping -f -l 1462 www.google.com

Pinging www-tmmdi.l.google.com [216.239.59.147] with 1462 bytes of data:

Reply from 216.239.59.147: bytes=64 (sent 1462) time=33ms TTL=52
Reply from 216.239.59.147: bytes=64 (sent 1462) time=31ms TTL=52
Reply from 216.239.59.147: bytes=64 (sent 1462) time=33ms TTL=52
Reply from 216.239.59.147: bytes=64 (sent 1462) time=42ms TTL=52

Ping statistics for 216.239.59.147:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 31ms, Maximum = 42ms, Average = 34ms

C:\Documents and Settings\me>ping -f -l 1463 www.google.com

Pinging www-tmmdi.l.google.com [216.239.59.147] with 1463 bytes of data:

Reply from 216.239.59.147: bytes=64 (sent 1463) time=32ms TTL=52
Reply from 216.239.59.147: bytes=64 (sent 1463) time=29ms TTL=52
Reply from 216.239.59.147: bytes=64 (sent 1463) time=30ms TTL=52
Reply from 216.239.59.147: bytes=64 (sent 1463) time=32ms TTL=52

Ping statistics for 216.239.59.147:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 29ms, Maximum = 32ms, Average = 30ms

C:\Documents and Settings\me>ping -f -l 1465 www.google.com

Pinging www-tmmdi.l.google.com [216.239.59.147] with 1465 bytes of data:

Packet needs to be fragmented but DF set.
Packet needs to be fragmented but DF set.
Packet needs to be fragmented but DF set.
Packet needs to be fragmented but DF set.

Ping statistics for 216.239.59.147:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 0, Lost = 4 (100% loss),

There you go the MTU is 1464 + 28 = 1492

The other settings available in the TCP Optimizer tool are:

Tcp1323Opts

This parameter controls the use of RFC 1323 Timestamp and Window Scale TCP options. Explicit settings for timestamps and window scaling are manipulated with flag bits. Bit 0 controls window scaling, and bit 1 controls timestamps.

GlobalMaxTcpWindowSize

Description: The TcpWindowSize parameter can be used to set the receive window on a per-interface basis. This parameter can be used to set a global limit for the TCP window size on a system-wide basis.

TCP Window size

This parameter determines the maximum TCP receive window size offered. The receive window specifies the number of bytes that a sender can transmit without receiving an acknowledgment. In general, larger receive windows improve performance over high-delay, high-bandwidth networks. For greatest efficiency, the receive window should be an even multiple of the TCP Maximum Segment Size (MSS). This parameter is both a per-interface parameter and a global parameter, depending upon where the registry key is located. If there is a value for a specific interface, that value overrides the system-wide value. See also GobalMaxTcpWindowSize.

Contact your ISP

If you have cleaned and tuned your computer and browser and optimised all your settings to rule everything else out and you're still having problems related to network speed then contact your ISP. Provide them with as much information that you have gathered as possible to show that the problem is not related to your computer set-up. If you have intermittent speed issues show them the charts from networx that you can print out (by hour, by day) to show the problem. Do not give your ISP a chance to blame the issue on your own PC or setup a with most companies they will try and get out of paying for something if they possibly can. You never know they may offer you a new modem and raise you from 2Mbps to 20Mbps like they did to me. Funnily enough as soon as the new modem was plugged in all my network issues were solved instantly!

Hopefully this article has been a good guide to performance tweaks and remember if you want to do it the easy way purchase TuneUp Utilities as it could save your a lot of time, effort and heartache. I don't often recommend software to buy but for only £29.99 you cannot really go wrong when compared with the amount of time you will save.