Adding Twitter's Widget to Your DNN Site

Getting rid of the Tweets by @someone when adding the native Twitter widget to your DNN site. Fix does not require adding a module or purchasing any DNN skins

Fairly simple process but I've only tested it in one environment. The following assumes a basic knowledge of DNN and Twitter. Feel free to ask questions if you need more details.

1. Setup your Twitter account widget. Check the video below for a how-to



2. Once you get your embed code from the Twitter widget, navigate to the location in your DNN site you wish to place the code.

3. Open the DNN WYSIWIG

4. Select the Basic Text Box radio button
5. Scroll to the bottom and select the Raw radio button

6. Paste the Twitter widget code into the text box

7. Save the changes

Should look like this when done

Spam - You have 1 direct message from Twitter Administration

A new social engineering trick involves using Twitter-like emails to encourage users to click on links. The link in the one I received showed adamsgrovepasofino.com for the destination. A rule of thumb for checking links in Outlook, just over the mouse over the link, it will often show a pop-up with where the link goes.

I have no idea who adamsgrovepasofino is, but I doubt he has anything to do with Twitter

Similar to other fishing schemes, the Twitter Administration email contains the same characteristics as the IRS, UPS, and FedEx emails. Through leveraging inherent business needs or anxiety, the email grabs attention and encourages users to click links to infected sites.

Delete, mark as spam, or use a program like Cloudmark Desktop One (pro or free version) to shovel the spam off to junk mail.

Connecting or transferring to a new Verizon Phone

Simple but it took me a bit of frustration finding the method. Andrea was playing Superwoman, diving into the pool to check on a kid, with her phone still in her pocket.



I went to the Verizon Wireless site to work through changing Andrea's phone over to one of our spare ones. I didn't find an easy way to transfer on the site and got a little frustrated with the calling process. After an our or so, of messing around on the site and one of the menu prompts mentioned the answer. Dial *228, the prompts will walk you through the process of switching to a different phone.

Desktop Blog Editor Blogo

I am trying out a few desktop blog editors to help with some offline work that I do. I first worked with Blogo due to the favorable reviews from other blog writers. I used Blogo in combination with Google's Blogger product.

What's useful...

Blogo uses a clean interface, intuitive design and easy to setup.

I love the ability to save the posts to the draft folder on Blogger. If I am away from my Mac I can continue to edit my draft in Blogger.

I also used the tool bar add-on a number of times during my trial.

What's not useful...

The first time I included images in a post, Blogo tossed up a generic 500 error.

A Google search didn't help, and the mention on the Blogo site was less than useful...

Editing a draft on Blogger then syncing back to Blogo causes the images to rearrange. I found no easy way to place the images back into the original locations so I removed them to start over. While not overly time consuming, it's a bit annoying.

I found the same issue when saving the blog post offline (documents folder) to open later. After opening the post, the images re-arranged into other places. I also noticed some added spaces and carriage returns though it could be apart of the same issue with the images.



Summing up...

The later issue pretty much stopped me from using Blogo. I am willing to go back and dig into the features. I enjoyed the design enough to determine if I have some configuration issue causing me problems.

Proof that Google is Secretly more Evil than Microsoft

Cartoon by Dave Walker. Find more cartoons you can freely re-use on your blog at We Blog Cartoons.

Humor + Sys Admin work = sanity.

Dave Walker's light-heart approach to church and ministry helps keep a hectic schedule in perspective.

Checking for PPPoE connectivity on a Syswan Duolinks SW24 VPN

It's no Peplink or Cisco, but the Duolinks SW24 beats most other consumer brands. One annoyance includes reconnecting a PPPoE link.

Pretty much each time you make a change that requires a restart, the SW24 needs to manually reconnect the DSL connection. To check and see if your DSL connection is running, do the following.

Open a browser and navigate to the default IP Address or whatever you set the default IP address to. Note that the IP address by default is https://192.168.1.1. Log into the router using the user name and password you set. If you did not change the default, it's u: admin, p: blank.

Next, scroll down to the bottom of the menu on the left and select Network Info, then System Status

  Click connect next to the connections that allow it.

All done, go do a speed test to make sure everything works as you expect.

QuickBooks crashes Excel when running Payroll Report

I've had a few customers experience issues with exporting payroll reports in Quickbooks and causing Excel to crash. I outlined the fix that worked for them below.

The Fix...

Run the payroll export to Excel report like normal

Choose Options/Settings

 Check the selection that states, "Force alternate connection method provided for Excel 64-bit

Click OK

Deselect the option that reads, "Effective rates by item."
 

Select Get QuickBooks Data