Troy Witmer

All Things Photography & Tech

Category: Tech Stuff

Honda 90 in the Pines.

Grandstream Phone Weather App says Connection Failed!

I was having an issue with the weather app saying connection failed on my grandstream phones.  I reached out to grandstream to see what they say about this issue and this is the reply I got.

“The provider of the weather service -Yahoo-, used on the phones, has recently made a change to its API, causing the “connection failed” error or the service not to update. Our developers have been informed and will be working on an update for our phone series on a future firmware update”

 

When I get an update that they fixed this issue I will update this post!

If you have a fix please leave it in the comments below!

UPDATE: 8/1/2016

The fix for that issue is included in the BETA firmware version 1.0.7.65 available on firmware.grandstream.com. The firmware should be officially released anytime soon.

Fixed iPhone Safari Ransomware Popup

Customer brought in an iPhone that had a ransomware pop-up in the Safari browser. The pop-up did not allow him to exit but instead it just led him to a page that demanded he pay them money using Paypal.  He tried restarting his phone but to no avail.

The message looked something like this.

You are accused of viewing/storage and/or dissemination of banned pornography. You have violated World Declaration on non-proliferation of child pornography. you are accused of commiting the crime envisaged by Article 161 of the U.S of A criminal law. Article 161 of the USA criminal law provides for punishment of deprivation of liberty for terms from 5 to 11 years. Also you are suspected of violation of ‘Copyright and Related rights Law’ (downloading of pirated music, video, warez) and of use and/or dissemination of copyrighted content. Thus, you are suspected of violation of Article 148 of the USA criminal law. Article 148 of the USA criminal law provides for the punishment of deprivation of liberty for terms from 3 to 7 years or 150 to 550 basic amounts fine. It was from your mobile device, that unauthorized access had been stolen to information of State importance and to data closed for public internet access. Unauthorized access could have been arranged by yourself purposely on mercenary motives, or without your knowledge and consent, provided your mobile device could have been affected by malware. Consequently, you are suspected (?) until the investigation is held (?) of innocent infringement of Article 215 of the USA criminal law (‘Law on negligent and reckless disregard of computers, computer aids and mobile devices’) Article 215 of the USA criminal law provides for the punishment of deprivation of liberty from 5 to 8 years and/or up to 500.000$ fine. Are you sure you want to reload this page?”

Just follow the steps below to fix this issue.

Step 1:

Turn on Airplane Mode

Go to Settings > Airplane Mode and tap the slider.

You can also swipe up from the bottom of your Home Screen to open the Control Center, and tap the airplane icon.

When Airplane Mode is on, you’ll see in the status bar of your screen. In Airplane Mode, these wireless features are turned off:

Step 2:

Open up the Settings app and find Safari in the left-hand list, and then scroll down the right side until you find the “Clear History and Website Data” button.

You’ll be prompted to verify that you really want to do this

Step 3:

Turn off Airplane Mode

Go to Settings > Airplane Mode and tap the slider.

Now just open up your safari and you should be good to go.

Be sure to leave a comment below if this helped fix your problem. God Bless.

*Thanks for the help howtogeek.

Microsoft Outlook 2010 Runs but Main Window Won’t Open

I had the following problem. When I would open Outlook 2010 from the Start menu, the icon would appear in the Taskbar, but the Main Window would never open. Running in Safe mode would work. I wanted my “normal” Outlook back. So here is the following steps that i took to fix my issue.

1. Right Click on Microsoft Outlook 2010  from your start menu and click on properties.

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2. In Properties click on the SHORTCUT tab. Where it says Run: Change it to Maximized. Click Ok.

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3. Open Outlook again from your start menu. It should open up to a full screen.

4.Right click on the Task Bar below with Outlook open and click on Cascade WindowsScreenshot 2014-10-15 17.25.16_edited

5.Close out of Outlook. Repeat step 1 and 2 but change RUN: to Normal Window.

6. Reopen Outlook and it should work for you.

Please comment below if this work for you!

Post By Troy Witmer

 

 

Speakers do not show up in Audio Devices / Sound

I was working with a customer and when ever he plugged in his speakers they would never show up in Audio Devices!  However they did work fine if he would plug them it into any other computer. So i knew the speakers were good. The fix for this issue turned out to be very simple .

Follow these steps:
1. Right click on the volume icon in the taskbar.

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2. Click on playback devices.

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Notice the speakers are not showing up!

3. Right click on empty space within the window and click on show disabled devices.

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YAYY! Speakers have appeared!! 🙂

4. Right click on the speakers and then click enable.

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5.Just click OK and you should be all fixed.. 🙂

Let me know if this helped you out in the comments below!

Post by Troy Witmer

Block Annoying Ads on the Web

Ads Ads Ads… Yes we get tired of them too..  You go to accuweather.com to check the forecast and it is full of ads.. I’m like NO i don’t want to check out the latest motorcycles.. NO i don’t want a new truck. No i don’t want to see some revolutionary break through in medicine or a shocking new law or.. NO NO NO NO… I want to just see the forecast!!!!  Yes you know what i’m talking about and it gets tiring! Well check out this awesome extension/addon called AdBlockPlus that we found !! This cool little tool prevents ads from showing on a webpage. And once you use it, trust me you will never want to go with out it.  Seriously, Check it out here ..  Just click on the big green install button when you go to there website..  It recognizes which browser you are using and if you want it added to all of your browsers you just have to go to there website using the browser from which you wish to have it added to. Once it is installed you may have to close out of the browser and reopen it. Just click on the allow or enable button depending on what browser you are using. Its simple and easy to setup and gives you an awesome ad free browsing experiences…

Check out the before and after pictures below…

Before…

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 After..

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 I hope you enjoy this tip.. If you have any questions or other tips on ads just comment below..   Posted by Troy Witmer

 

Unable to Change Background Picture in Windows 7

I was working on a Customers Laptop and I could not change the background picture… It didn’t matter if I tried a different theme or even just trying to selecting a different picture. It would just revert back the the original wallpaper.. Well it appears the TranscodedWallpaper.jpg file has become corrupted.. And the steps i used to fix this problem are as follows.

  1. Click Start, paste the following text into the search box, and then press Enter   %USERPROFILE%\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Themes\
  2. Note: Make sure you have the option checked: Show hidden files, folders, and drives in your folder optionsSteps to check are as follows.
    1. Click the Organize menu entry and then click the Folder and Search Options
    2. This will bring up the Folder Options dialog box ; click on the View tab
    3. In the View tab make sure the Show Hidden Files, Folders and Drives checkbox is filled in.
    4. When you’re finished, click the OK button
  3. Right-click the TranscodedWallpaper.jpg file, and then click Rename.
  4. Change the file name to TranscodedWallpaper.old, and then click Yes when you are prompted.
  5. If slideshow.ini is listed, double-click this file. Slideshow.ini should open in Notepad. Select all the text in slideshow.ini if any exists, and then press Delete on the keyboard.
  6. On the File menu, click Save.
  7. Close Notepad.
  8. Close the Windows Explorer window, and then browse to the picture that will be set as the background image.
  9. Try to apply a background picture again.

Hope this helps.. Posted by Troy Witmer

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