How to synchronize your WordPress comment count

A year ago today, I wrote about fighting trackback spam on a self-hosted WordPress site. It involved running a SQL query directly on the database to speed up the clean up process and make it more efficient. Since I was dealing with over 100 spam-linking comments on each post, I could use all the help in that regard I could get. Fortunately, the solution written up there worked out quite well.

Unfortunately, I glossed over a side-effect of the manual clean-up effort. Since I deleted the trackback comments directly from the database, the process did not kick off WordPress’s other functions like updating the comment count on an article. This slight annoyance meant the comment count in an article byline would be extremely inflated over the actual number of comments. I dealt with it for 365 days, through no planning of mine, today I cleaned up the mess with one easy to use query to synchronize the comment count with the actual number of comments received per article. While my problem stemmed from previous modifications taken in the database there are plenty of plugins or other ways for this value to become inaccurate.

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Extending a projector’s lamp life

Now that projectors have become more affordable than ever, a potential buyer may become easily overwhelmed when looking at the dozens of different options available. Each individual projector has its own features: picture quality, color depth, lamp life, etc. A great idea is to check out projector lamp at projectorshop24.co.uk, if possible. One of the most important concerns of new projector owners is lamp life. On average, the normal range of expected lamp life for these devices is from 700 to 6,000 hours. The great news is that projector lamps function differently than typical halogen lamps; they do not simply “burn out” and turn off abruptly. A projector lamp will slowly grow dimmer as it reaches the end of its functional life. For a great deal of its life in use, the lamp will deliver consistent clarity and picture quality as long as you properly take care of it. For more savings, you could also buy NEC projector online.

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How do you keep track of dozens of screws during a hardware replacement?

At a previous employer, I was an HP certified technician. It gave us faster access to hardware replacements and a good rate for reimbursement to compensate for me performing the labor. It was pretty much an all-positive experience but performing the hardware replacements could vary from an easy two second process to a more complicated motherboard replacement in a laptop. It’s still not that difficult but it was laborious to keep track of all the screws that have to come out to get down to the hardware. I think the record I encountered was 70+ screws in one laptop that had to be completely disassembled.

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A script to uninstall Panda Cloud Antivirus and, selectively, most other programs

Thanks to Avast’s free for education Endpoint Protection, I was able to centrally manage and deploy Avast around the organization for a client. The problem was that once I had Avast on there, I also needed to be able to uninstall the previous security software, Panda Cloud Antivirus. Since it didn’t have a nice central console, it would entail running around to each computer and uninstalling it manually. After a brief search online, it appeared I was on my own for uninstalling the software.

Completing the task manually was nothing terribly complicated. It was just a matter of opening the Control Panel, going to Add/Remove Programs, scrolling down to find Panda Cloud Antivirus, and hitting the button to uninstall. The process of getting there was a little time consuming but the uninstaller took even longer. Fortunately, I was recently tasked with a similar need and had an idea of how I might script Panda’s uninstall after all.

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Configuring Dell UEFI BIOS to Legacy mode to install Windows 7

The Dell Optiplex 7010 is a nice piece of hardware. They come loaded with Windows 8 Professional which my organization isn’t ready to support yet, so we are reloading them with Windows 7 Enterprise. While we could have ordered them with the previous version of Windows, we went with the Windows 8 line because during configuration it allowed for a better video card and we plan on upgrading to Windows 8 down the road anyways.

However, to get by until our applications are updated to be compatible and employees are trained on Windows 8, we need to install Windows 7. Since the computers came pre-loaded with Windows 8, they take full advantage of UEFI and its Secure Boot instead of a traditional BIOS. In order to install any older operating system than Windows 8, we will need to configure the UEFI to use Legacy Mode, which emulates a traditional BIOS. If you’re in a similar situation or wish to install Windows 7 because you do not like Windows 8, here are the three steps you need to change in order to enable Legacy Mode.

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Windows Server 2012: Installing Active Directory Users and Computers and Group Policy Management Console

Managing Active Directory and Group Policy can be a little obscure due to the prerequisite of installing the Remote Server Administration Tools on Windows 7 and 8. In Server 2012, there is no separate install of the RSAT tools, you just have to know where to look. Fortunately, it proves consistent by being part of the Add/Remove Roles and Features part of the Windows Server operating system. I like the role-based installations because it greatly simplifies the install process, provides you a list of Server’s native capabilities, and keeps the installation minimal by allowing you to manually choose what you want installed after the fact.

To get the Active Directory Users and Computers, you want to be sure to install just the tools you need, not the entire domain services on your server. That is, unless you wish to make your server a domain controller.

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How to merge multiple Word documents into one

If you have multiple Word Documents that you wish were in just a single file, you can open each document and copy it into one master document. However, that takes time and has opportunities for mistakes to happen. Instead, Word has a built-in function that allows you to insert text from multiple files. It makes merging a large number of documents into just a few clicks.

Demonstrating using Microsoft Word 2013, here is how you can merge several Word documents into just a single file. The function retains each document’s formatting. It works with both .docx and .doc files. It can also handle if the documents have images included in them.

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Internet Explorer: A program on your computer has corrupted your default search provider setting.

After some malware cleanup and a bigger battle to get the antivirus AVG uninstalled from a computer, the last remaining symptom was a message shortly after launching Internet Explorer. It stated:

Internet Explorer – Search Provider Default

A program on your computer has corrupted your default search provider setting for Internet Explorer.

Internet Explorer has reset this setting to your original search provider, Bin (www.bing.com).

Internet Explorer will now open Search Settings, where you can change this setting or install more search providers.

Unfortunately, the solution wasn’t as simple as IE’s reset or choosing a new search provider and making it the default. Even upgrading Internet Explorer 8 to version 9 still resulted in the same message.

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