Carob : Web DIY

25 October: I thought if anyone knew how to code HTML for every eventuality, it would be the people who do Microsoft's web site. In IE6, switch the security level to high and go to . See anything? I didn't.

Reporting search engine spammers to Google

Our business site comes up in the top ten results if you search for Übersetzer Englisch on Google (10/10/03).

This is without any spamming on our part, and despite significant spamming by one translation company that currently has half a dozen doorway sites among the top ten results.

Here's where to report search engine spammers:

I wish they'd explain terms like 'cloaked page' and 'doorway page'!

Hexing Notepad

I'm sure this isn't kosher and will accept no liability if it goes wrong.

If you use Windows Notepad to open a big text file, it asks if you want to open the file in Wordpad. To change this to Word for Windows, open Notepad.exe in a hex editor (for an outstanding freeware one, try XVI32). Search for this string:

77 00 6F 00 72 00 64 00 70 00 61 00 64

That's "Wordpad" interspersed with nul characters. Replace it with "Winword" in each of the three places it occurs.

That's better.

Note that Winword.exe must be in your path statement for this to work, and a new instance of Word for Windows launches for each file you open this way.

Not-a-blog archives: Web DIY entries 2002

Outlook Express 5 (OE5)

Made an unsurprising discovery today: shooting down Outlook Express 5 after receiving a 36 MB mail leaves the inbox file corrupted. See OE5 Inbox Corruption for how to restore it if this happens to you.

Antivirus software

11 June: Antivirus software is important. After Computer Associates discontinued their InoculateIT virus protection program, I went on the hunt for another free antivirus and turned up AVG AntiVirus Free Edition. It works a dream. See AVG AntiVirus for how to get it and set it up.

Finding English-language software in Germany

I was going to have a separate page on here linking to German software vendors who supply English-language versions of common software packages and operating systems. I had a list from last year that included Alternate, PC Ware DE, SMM Software, Softline and Software Gibson. Of these, it seems that only Software Gibson still does this. If you know any others, please let me know