Blue screen and LZ32.dll might be corrupted

The computer could not boot. It always went around with restart automatically.

To see what the error, I push F8 while it started. Then disable the automatic restart.

I found the error is related with a file “lz32.dll”.

My first attempt was “to replace with a new one from Windows CD”:

• Reboot from Windows XP CD
• At the command prompt, type : EXPAND D:\i386\lz32.dl_ C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\LZ32.DLL
• This attempt was failed with error : lz32.dll could not be created

My second attempt was “to replace with a file I took from other computer”

• I go to another computer with the same Windows, it is XP Professional, copy file lz32.dll in a floopy
• Back to the computer with problem: Reboot from Windows XP CD
• Insert the floopy, at the command prompt, type ‘COPY A:\LZ32.DLL  C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\
• It would ask for confirmation to replace the existing file. Type “y” (means, yes)
• Exit from the command prompt, start Windows in safe mode
• This attempt was failed. Windows stuck in the midst of booting. Black screen!

The third attempt was succesful, this is what I did :

• I backup the data,  for safety only. (I did it by taking out the HDD and connected it to other computer and copy all data files)
• Insert the Windows CD in the drive. Boot with CD.
• It would ask if we would “Setup” or “Repair with console” –> I chose “Setup” (by push “Enter”)
• After agree with F8, we would have to choose if we want to repair setup or fresh setup. Choose REPAIR.
• It automatically repair the system files and “reinstall”, but it would not affect your data files.
• I had to re-enter the Product ID and reset some variable such as language and time format.

Some small problems entailed were:

1. Windows Genuine Advantage installing wizard always prompt every start up.
   To solve this, I delete the folder and the contents of C:\Documents and Settings\All users\Aplication data\Windows Genuine Advantage\ (it is a hidden folder, to delete you have to make it visible);
   Then, to clean up, I use the “search” facility of Windows Explorer in the directory C: to find all “WGAsetup.exe” then delete all of them.
2. The computer always does “scan/check disk”  every start up. To solve this, I go to command prompt (in Start –> Accessories) and type chkdsk C: /
   A dialog came out : “chkdsk cannot run because the volume is used by another process. Would you like to schedule this volume to be checked the next time the system restart? y/n   –> type “y”
   I restart the computer, it ask to run scan/checkdisk, I skip it. After that, when I restart again, the scan/check disk would not come again.

Curious about the “cause”, I run antivirus Symantec End Point and also Super anti Spyware, nothing found but some tracking cookies.

Video playback chopping

This is a PC with 1 GB RAM. It didn’t play well all kind of video, even the short video clip. Whatever the format, avi, wmv, or mpg – the playback was chopping – not continuously/ smoothly played. With whatever media player – Windows Media Player, Cyberlink PowerDVD and even VLC, gave the same result.

It might be from the video card software or the codec or even the RAM. But first of all what I did is update the Windows to Service Pack 3 (it was SP2). My reason, some basic driver might be updated automatically if we update the Windows.

Voila!! After SP3 installed, the video plays well in VLC. In Windows Media Player, it played smoothly but without sound. So, I installed K-lite Codec. I downloaded it from this link. Then everything goes perfectly!!

Embed Youtube and other video in Joomla

The website using Joomla version 1.0.0; it is an old one.

Easy to do it:

1. Download the AllVideo plugin here.  Download the correct version, depend on your Joomla version.
2. Go to your Joomla Control Panel, to the Installer -> Mambots
3. Install New Mambot, browse where you have put the downloaded plugin file. It will go by itself.
4. Go to Mambot Manager
5. Find the AllVideo plugin and click “Publish”. The red cross sign will disappear.
6. Now go to your Content Manager to make a new Content, can be a new Article.
7. If you want to embed a Youtube video. Go to the youtube url and find the ID of the video. The ID is the characters between “=” and “&”. In the example below, the ID is koZeA5zDbFO
8. Type in your content area {youtube}theID{/youtube}
9. Save it then see the result in your webpage. You wouldn’t see the video in the “Preview”.
10. AllVideos plugin supports other video portals and also videos in your own server. You have to adjust the tags. See the tags list in this site.
11. You can also change the target folder of your video by changing the setting of AllVideos plugin. Find the setting in Mambots manager in your Joomla.

Enjoy your joomla!

Can’t upload image in WordPress

Suddenly, I couldn’t upload image in WordPress blogs, neither in the wordress.com nor in wordpress’ blog in our own domain/ web server.

Firefox would crash and closed when I click the icon “add an image”.

IE will give the upload image dialog box, but would not able to upload and give error as if there was a problem with “authority”. It said: ” Unable to create ………….. Is its parent directory writable by the server?

Actually the culprit is “Google Gear”. Go to Firefox Add-on and disable Google Gear, all will be fine.