Recently I wanted to add a small, yet nice looking gallery of work to my site, specifically to my About page. Although I do use and advocate for Elementor as a product (especially for non coders) I didn’t much like the galleries on offer there, and I am generally not one to use “non Elementor created” add-ons.
I decided to go with FooGallery as I like the typical style it uses and had used it years previously, with good results.
Adding the gallery itself is a breeze, and I was organised enough to have all of my images sized to what I liked, so creating a carousel with a half dozen or so images of websites I had either created, or designed and created, didn’t take too long at all. Thinking it would be good to also have a link to the website, I carefully added custom URLs to each of the images in the gallery.
Check the Gallery Settings, Thumbnail Link
I am using the Carousel style gallery, so one thing to check here is that the Thumbnail Link setting (at the bottom of the General settings of the Gallery) is set to “Custom URL”.
I figured once done, I could save the gallery, view it on the live page, and people could click through to the real deal. WHAT A FOOL I WAS!!
Check the Lightbox Settings
With the above set, you also need to check the Lightbox settings on the Gallery itself (not the general Foobox settings) and set this to something other than the default; set it to FooBox.
This solution was found largely thanks to a WordPress support topic, found here, but part of me wanted to write this blog about it if for nothing other than to remind myself this issue existed!
Once then saved and page loaded, the custom URL was working as expected.
I hope you found this helpful! If so, please share with your socials, or let me know if you run into any issues in the comments section.
A shared folder in OneDrive now acts like a browser shortcut (for some users)
It came to my attention a few weeks ago (mid June 2024), from a customer of mine, that they were having an issue with a OneDrive shared folder. The customer is using Microsoft 365 Family. This is despite following the instructions to have the folder(s) that are “shared with me” added as a shortcut to the local OneDrive folder.
The problem is that with one member within the Microsoft 365 Family, the folder no longer acted like a regular local folder via File Explorer. Instead, the folder looked like a shortcut (little blue arrow bottom left corner) and when clicked on would open the online/Browser version of OneDrive. Other family members are not affected (yet) and the issue appears to affect both Windows and Mac users, and is not necessarily tied specifically to the version of OneDrive. Meaning, all computers are using the same version of OneDrive (Build 24.126.0623.0001, 64-bit), yet just one family member cannot see the folder shortcut as they normally would.
This remains a cause of frustration for the customer (now into July 2024), due largely to a loss of productivity and apparent apathy from Microsoft. I have seen it stated that a support response has been along the lines of, “well you can edit the document in the browser version of OneDrive”. This only works if the file has a browser based editor though, as otherwise the user must download the file, edit it locally, and re-upload, all while hoping someone else isn’t doing the same thing. Not good enough, Microsoft.
Anecdotally it may only affect Personal and Family users, and not Office 365 Business users. This merely flames the conspiracy fire as people look to explain as, “Micro$oft forcing people onto higher paying plans and prevent very small business from using 365 Family”.
Whilst it seems Microsoft do acknowledge the issue, at time of writing there has been little information by way of updates on progress or any indication as to when a fixed version will be available (or really, what users would need to do, if anything, once a fix is released).
More can be seen about it in several Microsoft supportforums, or Reddit posts. No doubt found elsewhere as well, as people start to turn to alternative solutions such as Dropbox and Google Drive.
My own testing
I think the issue somehow lies with the OneDrive account.
I have come to this conclusion after trying numerous things to fix the issue on one laptop, which included:
removing the shared folder from the problematic computer, and re-adding it
removing OneDrive completely and reinstalling it
Taking the access away from the laptop user, removing the folder from the laptop, and re-applying everything
Performing a fresh install of Windows on the problem laptop
None of the above worked.
Really I should have tried the following before doing the Windows reinstall (purely to save time):
I logged into the problem laptop as a different family member, one that was not having the issue. It worked! The OneDrive shared folder was behaving as it should.
Out of curiosity I then logged into my own laptop as the “problem” user, and I could now reproduce the issue locally.
I decided then to share the problem folder with my own Microsoft account, logged back into my laptop as “me”, and OneDrive was back to normal and the shared folder was behaving as expected.
My loose workaround
From this, I concluded that the issue actually lies with the account associated with OneDrive, and not strictly the operating system or version of OneDrive.
Theoretically therefore, if I could share the folder again with a new account, then maybe the issue would go away (if albeit temporarily).
This worked! A bit of a hassle as I wanted to make sure the new account had enough OneDrive space and therefore added into the Family (luckily had spare licenses) and there isn’t much else this user needs to do within OneDrive other than access this one shared folder, but it worked and now the problem laptop is logged into OneDrive (and OneDrive only) as the new account.
Now that I’m typing this out, the Microsoft 365 Family license might not need to be used, so I’ll see if this can be done away with.
The key to it all though (as I see it) was to have the new account created, and the OneDrive folder shared with them. Perhaps this method will help someone else? I’d love to hear if it did or if you have another workaround!
Please share in your social network if you found this helpful.
I was working on a project where I was transferring to a different CMS (WordPress), and the original blogs all had “blog” in the URL. I wanted the same format in the new site, figuring this was the best thing to do for existing SEO.
However, the new WordPress site is also using Custom Post Types (CPTs) and I didn’t want to affect the URLs of those posts. My instinct was to change the Permalink Settings to add “/blog” to the front, but this also affected the CPT URL.
Checking with my good friend Google seemed to take me longer to find the solution than expected, and admittedly I may be just stupid, but I thought I’d write this to see if it helps anyone else in the same, or similar, situation.
Why not use a Custom Post Type plugin to handle this?
It is highly likely that a decent Custom Post Type plugin would be able to handle this “out of the box”, however I had already created the post type somewhat manually, using what I think is a very nifty little plugin called WPCode which typically means for me less plugins installed overall (seriously, check it out, it’s great).
Ultimately it meant I had basically entered the CPT code manually, but obviously had something missing that might allow me to “strip” or ideally “ignore” this starting part of the URL structure.
Links high up the Google SERP had me looking at various Custom Post Type plugin solutions, or more like stripping it after the post was published or upon retrieval which seems like a slow way of doing things (or if not slow, less efficient), meaning doing something via the functions.php file.
Finding what I thought was going to be my answer, as it at least spoke about the Post Type registering process, only gave me half the answer and contained my bug bear (one of many) of typically developers (yes I am looking at mostly ALL of you developers out there!) that tend to post incomplete code snippets under the assumption that I am smart enough to figure out the rest. Well I am NOT, dammit!
My answer with a more or less complete code snippet
My Custom Post Type is Projects. I want the URL / slug to appear as “project”, so something in the line of https://mysite.com/project/project-post-title.
So in my arguments array, the start of which looks like below:
// Set other options for Custom Post Type
$args = array(
'label' => __( 'Projects', 'responsive-mobile-child' ),
I had the following right at the end or the array:
'rewrite' => array( 'slug' => 'project'), // my custom slug
ย ย ย );
Which worked perfectly fine until I changed the Permalink structure as per above, which meant I now had https://mysite.com/blog/project/project-post-title.
Not cool, and probably not ideal for SEO considering the original “projects” had the more desirable URL.
All I had to do though was slightly edit that rewrite line, so it now included ‘with_front’ => False and now it looks like this:
Saving the Permalink again at this point seems a good idea, so after doing that my “Projects” all had the appropriate URL (with just “projects” in the URL) and my regular posts have “blog” in the URL.
Huzzah!
Hope this has helped someone, and if any more explanation, or code snippets, are required then feel free to get in touch. And don’t forget to share!
Scammers online are rife these days, with Australian victims perceived to be rather soft targets.
Gone are the days where we might be duped by Nigerian Princes or very poorly written emails from, apparently, Margot Robbie (yes, I got one of these once). Instead, scammers often rely on your goodwill or perhaps a moment of vulnerability to trick you into thinking you need their help to avoid “unnecessary and unwanted charges”, and before you know it they are accessing your computer and perhaps your bank accounts.
So how do you spot these from the real deal?
Read on for some tips on how to avoid being scammed.
How is this service contacting me?
With the abundance of choice of streaming services or similar, comes a vast choice of ways for scammers to grab your attention.
Whether it’s a big bank, Netflix, Disney+, Amazon, the ATO, Telstra, or something else, scammers will throw any well known service out there, casting the net as wide as possible, and see what lands. This sort of scamming can be described as phishing, as the scammers are trying to land any fish. That’s you, you’re the fish. Don’t be the fish.
The way this works is you receive an email, text message or phone call out of the blue that appears to come from a bank, or a service you might use (eg. Netflix) that either tells you that your credit card details are out of date and need updating, or that you have just been successfully charged and if you no longer want to be charged, click THIS button!
These emails are often alarmist in nature (YOUR SERVICE IS ABOUT TO BE CANCELLED!), often require you to do something quickly (ACT NOW!), and/or trying to trick you into thinking you have been charged something when you haven’t (THANK YOU FOR THE PAYMENT OF $70 IF THIS IS IN ERROR CLICK HERE OR CALL THIS NUMBER!), for the purpose of you making a rash decision and calling the number, or clicking the bright shiny button.
Clicking the button within these emails might do one of several things:
Take you to a fake, sometimes well branded (sometimes not), website for you to enter card details
Convince you to make a phone call to the number provided to talk about your “refund”, and thereby hand over card or banking details
Perhaps ultimately convince you to download some sort of remote access software to “help” you with the refund
Something else that is just as dangerous
All of this spells major trouble, and the downloading of remote access software (eg. AnyDesk, AnyPlace Control, Ultra Viewer) fills me with the most dread.
Some personal experiences
In the last month I have had no less than 3 customers contact me due to activities based on the above. All of them had a similar story to tell, they were all a little embarrassed about what had happened, were a little vulnerable at the time due to a hectic life or less than ideal personal circumstances, and had unwittingly allowed access to their machine and in some cases, bank accounts.
One person hadn’t lost anything and realised what was going on, and quickly shut it down.
Another lost a few hundred dollars, but was apparently getting it back from the bank after discussing the situation with them. In this instance, it was bills that appeared to come from Google that the victim had paid, and having an online business was quite used to receiving such bills.
Another had someone in their accounts and setting up payments to a third party before they realised what was going on. Last I heard, they were trying to talk to the bank about getting over $9,000 back …
Another common scam is to say that you have been charged a relatively small amount of money. For the sake of an example, let’s say $50.00 and now you are looking for a refund because you never signed up for this service to begin with, so how dare they take your $50 to begin with, right? Helpful Company (the scammer) says they have refunded you, but OH NO they have made a mistake and refunded you $500.00. Now if you can just be kind enough to refund that money back to the account number they’ll provide (“you might not see the $500 in your account yet, because you know it clears overnight”), because if you don’t they’ll get fired and then who will feed their 5 children … you get the idea but in this way they are trying to prey on your goodwill and sense of doing the right thing. Now just download this Remote Access software and Helpful Company will walk you through it!
Things to look out for
Poorly spelled email subjects, or content. Dead giveaway, though less and less common. However, legit company emails are good at getting the spelling perfect. Also look for impersonal emails (Dear Customer, versus your real name).
Do you even use the service? I got an email recently that I admit looked great. Content was solid, good use of logos and other imagery. Only aย slight typo in the subject which I didn’t actually notice on the first read. If I actually had a Paramount+ account, I might have even believed that I was about to be cut off!
Buttons, links, click-throughs that go somewhere completely different to the expectation. A lot of email viewers these days will show you where the email has come from (return email address) or where the link is going to, when you hover on it. Try this, and see what it says. The email that I received recently telling me that my Disney+ account currently has “suspension your account” I doubt should really be using imagery or links from “lumiere-a.akamaihd.net”. That all of the footer information was in Spanish is quite the red flag also.
ANY text message or SMS that wants you to click a link. This is popular with bank and tax/ATO scams. If in doubt, don’t believe them, and contact your bank or service via another means (look up the phone number in a separate Google search). The real service providers don’t want to lose your business, and won’t simply cut you off. Just TRY and genuinely disconnect from Foxtel to see how difficult it is!
No service wants to be paid via Apple iTunes cards (a still popular ATO scam).
Nobody is going to buy your car sight unseen via a friend/agent that only wants to pay via PayPal and pick it up to deliver to Far North QLD or the NT.
If you have been told that an amount from a service you don’t use has been successfully charged, check your bank accounts to verify it is true. And don’t click the button.
The last word
It only takes a couple of bites, a small number of people to take the hook, for the scammers to make a good amount of money. This is a large part of why such scams continue to be seen.
By being ever vigilant and perhaps even a little suspicious of any email asking you to click a link or button to avoid cancellation of a service (or to commence a refund process) you can help keep yourself and your money safe.
Please don’t ever, EVER, allow someone you don’t know and trust to install any sort of remote access software on your computer.
As the father of a child under the age of 13, I am often tasked with giving permission for her to purchase / install apps on her iPad, including purchases of Robux for her rather popular Roblox app. Sometimes though the permissions don’t seem to work, and I either don’t get the notification at all, or trying to act on it doesn’t work as expected. Here’s how we fixed it.
Despite her best intentions, such as saving her pocket money and literally giving me the money to pay for her desired Robux purchases, something screwy seems to go wrong with the whole Parental Controls thing when it comes to the Apple app store.
She would request the Robux purchase. The app would tell her she needs to ask permission. She’d do that. I’d get the notification. I’d try to open the notification (which for some weird reason has started opening in Apple Messages). I’d click View in Store. I’d get a message on screen, “Cannot Connect to App Store”.
What we tried
Restarting both iPads; shutting them down and cold booting them up again (not just a restart).
Making sure both iPads had the most up to date versions of iOS.
Making sure she had the most up to date version of the app. To be fair, these first two or three things have normally fixed things for us in the past. Not this time.
Googling a lot.
In some desperation, even going to Bing.
Yelling a lot.
How we fixed it
Need to give the credit to my 11 year old here.
Her idea was to install Roblox on my iPad, and then log into it using her account. We then made the purchase of Robux and because it went via my natural Apple App Store, no permission was required (which is good because my parents would have said no).
Back onto her iPad, and restarted Roblox, logged in, and voila! Robux purchase was there!
I could then remove Roblox from my iPad. This kind of work around / fix might work for other apps too, so long as you have another Apple device that can be used to install the app on. If this has helped you, please let me know in the comments!
Found a rather annoying issue after upgrading to Windows 10 on my PC in my work office: Basically I found the mouse scroll wheel not working in File Explorer (the Windows 10 replacement to Windows Explorer) using a Microsoft Basic Optical Mouse. Worked fine in other applications, browsers, etc. Frustrating much!
The mouse is connected to a Lenevo desktop machine that is now a few years old. I’ve now finally gotten around to fixing the problem. Here’s how.
Another mystery solved since upgrading to Windows 10, and needing to add in a new VPN connection. Normally when you add in a VPN connection and connect to it, your system wants to use the default gateway of the VPN connection for IPv4 connections (eg. browsing the web).
Because I tend to have a number of VPN connections, and I’d rather be using my own bandwidth than whatever the VPN is providing, I turn the “Use default gateway on remote network” off. But for some reason under Windows 10, I’m unable to get to the properties of the IPv4 connection under the Networking tab. But now I have a work around!
Several of my machines have now been upgraded to Windows 10 and I think on each one of them I have had some sort of issue to resolve.
My “main” PC ended up having more serious hardware issues, in that my primary hard drive died and was replaced with a fresh install of Windows 8.1. As soon as I got the machine back home I immediately upgraded it to Windows 10.
After that, one of the first things I did was install the Adobe Master Suite CS6 that I had running previously on Windows 8.1. At first glance everything seemed to be running fine, until I tried to start Dreamweaver.
It would show the splash screen for a second or two, get to the point of loading Business Catalyst extension (which I don’t even have), and then disappear.
Grrr, my Dreamweaver CS6 not working in Windows 10
Reading through several forum sites I did try a few things. Several sites mentioned deleting the WinFileCache<>.dat file from the C:\Users\’current user’\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\Dreamweaver CS6\en_US\Configuration folder. Sounded like reasonable advice, except that file didn’t exist.
This location also showed a CrashLogs folder, and indeed crash files were being created … but were completely empty. No help there.
I tried renaming the Configuration folder and letting Dreamweaver recreate it. No dice.
I tried logging in to Windows under a different account, still no go.
I tried changing things around in Compatibility Mode, nup.
I checked in Extensions Manager and confirmed I had no DW extensions running or installed.
I tried removing everything I could using the Adobe Creative Cloud Cleaner Tool, and reinstalling while running the setup.exe as Administrator. No joy.
I was seriously considering rolling back to Windows 8 or even Windows 7, as I knew the suite was working fine under both of those environments.
Solution found
Eventually I found the answer, on this Adobe forum and it was basically the same solution as to when I was having trouble sending emails from Outlook, and that is to open up command prompt in Administrator mode (Windows Key + X, Command Prompt (Admin)) and run the following: sfc /scannow
After running this, I rebooted, tried Dreamweaver, joy!
Note (3rd Feb 2016): As one commenter pointed out, similar symptoms could be seen but with a considerable different resolution, and was basically to do with the Dreamweaver Workspace in use, and further information on it can be found here.
I hope this helps someone who is finding themselves in a similar situation.
Across 3 different PCs I upgraded to Windows 10 recently I had 3 different issues. The biggest issue on the laptop that was upgraded was having the new Settings screen close immediately after opening. It would flash up for a moment, then close.
It would affect other similar screens (that kind of look the same, with that new UI) and was particularly annoying me as I wanted to set up Default Apps, connect to VPN, and do some other things that I could only access via the Settings page. Rebooting made no difference. But finally I found a fix!
I took the somewhat gentle leap from Windows 8.1 to Windows 10 across two PCs and a laptop, and the one major issue I faced with one PC only was that I could no longer send any emails that had Outlook 2010 installed. It would give me an error code 0x800CCC13, followed by ‘Task ’email address alias@domain.com- Sending’ Cannot connect to the network. Verify your network connection or modem.’
Replying to an email was fine. Any new email however would just get stuck in the Outgoing folder. The laptop, also with Outlook 2010, was fine.
Whether it’s a big bank, Netflix, Disney+, Amazon, the ATO, Telstra, or something else, scammers will throw any well known service out there, casting the net as wide as possible, and see what lands. This sort of scamming can be described as phishing, as the scammers are trying to land any fish. That’s you, you’re the fish. Don’t be the fish.
In the last month I have had no less than 3 customers contact me due to activities based on the above. All of them had a similar story to tell, they were all a little embarrassed about what had happened, were a little vulnerable at the time due to a hectic life or less than ideal personal circumstances, and had unwittingly allowed access to their machine and in some cases, bank accounts.
