Videobox - Lightbox for Videos

As I stated in my previous post, I am fairly new to this whole web blog / web designing thing. Out of necessity for our company’s business success, I have had to learn how to do some basic web designing and blog creation. While I have been learning, I have also been having a lot of fun trying new plugins and new code on our site and blog. I came across many sites that were using lightbox for pictures. This is not that new or exciting because it seems like almost every blog is using some kind of variant plugin which seems to have spun off the original lightbox. But (excuse me if I am wrong) it didn’t seem like many people were using lightbox to display their videos. In fact, I had a hard time locating the videobox plugin at all. It wasn’t in any of the common wordpress repositories, at least that I could find when I searched. When I finally did locate this great plugin, I found it on a site hosted somewhere in South America and I had to use Google to translate the page so that I could get some basic instructions on how to use the plugin. And I found that after all this, the instructions given were incorrect. Therefore, I had to look into the code of the plugin to figure out what the parameters for using this plugin should be. And since I am not a coder and I know many wordpress bloggers are also not coders, I thought my success and instructions for installing and using this great plugin might be helpful to those out there also attempting to do the same thing with their blog. But first, let me show you what the plugin does and explain the reasons as to why you might want to install the plugin on your blog or site.

Example:


Click here to demo.

As you can see, there are several reasons why this plugin might be useful for displaying videos on your blog or site; but allow me to enumerate just a few:

1. It is neat. It seems like embedded video often appears to look sloppy when displayed on most blogs. With “videobox”, the appearance is much neater for a few reasons:
   

   • Size can be adjusted. The size of the video thumbnail can be enlarged or shrunk to the size of your choosing. This is a very beneficial aspect, especially for those blogs that display a large amount of video content.
   • Text can be wrapped around the thumbnail. Unlike embedded video, with videobox your text can be wrapped around the thumbnail image but I did not demonstrate that capability in this example. This would help to save even more valuable space.
   • You can choose any image thumbnail to most accurately demonstrate what your video will be about. With most embedded video you are not allowed to specify what the thumbnail picture will be.

2. It’s just plain cool. Of course, this second point, is just a matter of opinion. But if you agree, let me now briefly explain how to install it.

Here’s how to install the Videobox plugin:

1. Download and unzip the plugin. Install the folder contents to your wordpress plugin directory.
2. Activate the plugin.
3. To use, simply add rel=”videobox” to the anchor tag of your video clip thumbnail. Within the rel=”videobox” tag you can add dimensions to your video’s size if you want. In my video example above, I made the video size to be 600×450. Notice the code example below. I simply edited the tag to be rel=”videobox 600 450″. So here is how my code looked for the above video example:

<a href=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IWfIhFhelm8″ rel=”vidbox 600 450″ title=”Ron Paul, a real life American patriot.”><img src=”http://img.youtube.com/vi/IWfIhFhelm8/2.jpg” />Click here to demo.</a>

That’s it. Yes it really is that easy! And trust me, I am very new to blogging (less than 10 post old) and so if I can do it, truly anybody can.

As always, if you found this blog article helpful or useful in any way, please digg or social bookmark it, or both.

-Kyle

Popularity: 31% [?]

Tags: Ajax, Lightbox, Lightbox for videos, Video, videobox, videobox wordpress, videobox wordpress plugin, Videos

Bad Behavior 2.0.11 Wordpress Plugin Blocking Digg Submission

2

OK. I am fairly new (less than a dozen posts old) at this whole Wordpress blogging thing. So when I run into problems, sometimes I am just not quite sure whether I am the problem or the software I am working with. Almost always it ends up being the latter for which I am glad since this helps to support the fact that maybe I am somewhat capable of helping to manage and run a nationwide computer repair company. Anyways, let’s get to the chase here. I know social submission is important to promoting your website or blog. So before I started this blog, I tried to include some important wordpress plugins prior to publicizing some of my articles. My mistake was really to add all of my plugins at the same time. Do not do this! Because of this mistake I was not easily able to narrow down what was causing the problem I was having when I attempted to submit my articles to Digg. I kept on getting, “This link does not appear to be a working link. Please check the URL and try again.” So yesterday, I wasted a few hours racking my feeble brain and trying to figure out which one of the twenty thousand plugins I had installed could be causing the problem. I knew it couldn’t be:

• My links: I had checked them all and they were fine.
• My WWW- Redirect plugin - I though maybe Digg didn’t like the submission of redirect links. They don’t. But this was not the problem. After deactivating this plugin the problem still existed.
• Couldn’t be my Digg account. I just recently signed up and barely have any activity on the account. I could log in and digg other stories.

It must be something else. And that is when I had the epiphany. Could it be one of my spam prevention plugins? Long story short, turns out that is exactly what it was. Bad Behaviour (I have v. 2.0.11) was preventing me from submitting my articles to Digg. Problem is that I am so new to Wordpress, blogging, PHP code, plugins, etc. that I did not think I would be able to fix it. And, as of the writing of this article, I really couldn’t find any information on how to fix the problem. So why not use my new blog to help others who might be having the exact same problem. And that is exactly why I have written this article.

How to fix Bad Behavior 2.0.11 from blocking your diggs:

Locate the “whitelist.inc.php” file: It should be in “(your blog’s root)/wp-content/plugins/bad-behavior/bad-behavior” Edit this file with notepad.

3. Find the following code, “$bb2_whitelist_ip_ranges = array(” and add 64.191.203.34 to next line of whitelisted ip’s. This is Digg’s ip and it will unblock Digg from Bad Behavior and allow you to now make Digg submissions without those annoying errors: Click on the picture for the clearer full size picture.

Now if you found this blog article helpful or useful in any way, please digg it. I am trying to figure out what kind of information is going to drive traffic to this blog.Thank you.-Kyle

Popularity: 33% [?]

Tags: bad behavior, can't digg, cannot digg, digg, error, errors, plugin, problem digging, problems digging, submission, submit, This link does not appear to be a working link, wordpress

Blue Screen of Death Mayhem

2Ahhh, the notorious blue screen of death. Conjures up memories of failed project deadlines doesn’t it? Blue screen errors always seem to happen at the most inopportune times. It’s kind of like the modern day, “the dog ate my homework” excuse. Only the dog, in this case, is Microsoft and their unstable operating systems. And this time, it’s the truth. Even good ‘ole Bill Gates himself was not immune to the random and occasional blue screen of death. Watch the following video for an example; you will see that, at one of his most important presentations, Billy boy is assaulted by his now famous, or shall we say “infamous”, blue screen of death. This is pretty funny.

Now if you do a google picture search for “blue screen”190 and here are a few of the results you might come up with:

Bill Gates flaunting his blue screen invention.

 

 

Here some idiot tattoos the BSOD error message on his arm. Probably Bill Gates …lol. Just joking Bill. I mean about the idiot part.

There is wallpaper of the blue screen of death. Click here192 to download a 1024×768 version with blinking cursor. This would make for a very funny prank with one of your “Dwight Shrute-like” office co-workers. All you have to do is hide the desktop icons and task bar and you’re in business. Or you can get a blue screen of death screensaver here193.

Heck, there are even t-shirts194 made with the blue screen of death error printed on them:

Like it or not the blue screen of death has become a part of our computing culture. Something, unfortunately, most of us have gotten used to. At Geek Teks196 the BSOD error has become one of the more common issues that people call us about.

So what causes the blue screen to occur and how can we avoid it?

What a popular question! I am glad you asked.

A blue screen of death error can occur on your computer because of several reasons but usually it has to do with hardware failures or driver issues.

• Hardware issues are the most common causes for blue screen errors. Many times the power supply is starting to fail. Sometimes it is the fault of memory beginning to go. Sometimes the culprit is the motherboard or hard drive. A full hardware diagnostics should really be run on the machine in order that the issue can be pinpointed. If you have a PCI diagnostics card, use it. Run memtest against your RAM. Use a manufacturer specific hard drive diagnostic utility against your hard drive to check for errors. Open up your machine to look for blown capacitators on the mobo. Test the power supply with a good power supply tester. These are all things that should be done on a regular basis anyways. So now that Mr. blue screen has forced you into action, you may as well do them yourself or call Geek Teks197. We’ll send a technician out to your site right away to do a diagnosis for you and pinpoint the issue.

• If a complete hardware diagnosis is completed with no known failures, the next probable issue might revolve around driver issues. To check, first try first to boot into ‘Safe Mode’ by tapping the F8 key at startup. If the boot process completes and you are able to see the desktop in safe mode, then you probably have some sort of driver issue. Try ’start’>’run’ and then type in ‘msconfig’. When the dialog is displayed, go to the ’startup’ tab. Eliminate everything from startup but your virus and spyware protection. Try restarting in normal mode again. Sometimes certain software, which starts up with your computer, run specific drivers needed for that software to operate. If your computer boots up in normal mode, you know that the culprit was a piece of installed software running at startup. It is best to eliminate every application not necessary at startup and then to go from there, adding applications back to startup on a one by one basis until the culprit is found, if it can be found this way. If it fails, look closely at your blue screen error again. It might tell you which driver is the cause of your problems. Sometimes there are drivers running on your system, started by a system service, that cannot simply be removed by un-checking startup applications in the msconfig dialog. On occasion, video drivers go bad. You would need to boot up into ‘Safe Mode’ with networking to resolve this one. Then you would download the updated driver needed for your specific video card.

 

This blue screen indicates a problem with the spcmdcon.sys file. If it’s the same file every time, then that suggests a software or driver issue. Google the file in question. Figuring out what that file does, may lead you to the driver in question. If not the software, then it may indicate a problem with the hardware that driver controls.

• Sometimes, the BSOD error occurs quite simply because you have yourself a buggy operating system. To solve the this, either try to stay on top of your windows updates (sometimes solves the problem) or switch to another more stable operating system.

Windows Vista Blue Screens

Well, if I am going to be honest and cover all bases for blue screen of death occurances on your Windows machine, then I have to throw this one in as well. It only applies to Windows Vista machines. If your Windows Vista machine blue screens, and you know it is not any of the above, then it just might be that your Vista operating system is blue screening because it suspects you are a digital thieve, have broken the DRM schema, and have pirated the content you are now attempting to play on your windows or windows connected machine. What a judgemental operating system huh? There is no innocent until proven guilty concept here. Yes, thanks to Hollywood, your PC is now your policeman as well. Watch this video for a more thorough introduction on this topic:

If all else fails, either buy a new system or call the Geek Teks198 at 877.433.5835. We’ll solve the problem for you quickly and for a reasonable price.

- Kyle

Popularity: 100% [?]

Tags: Blue Screen, blue screen error, blue screen errors, Blue Screen of Death, blue screen of death error, blue screen of death errors, BSOD, BSOD error, BSOD errors, error message, error messages, windows error message, windows error messages, windows vista blue screen, windows vista bsod, windows vista digital rights management, windows vista drm, windows xp error, windows xp error message, windows xp error messages, windows xp errors

Free Virus Removal and Free Spyware Removal Tools - Remove Viruses and Spyware for free

One of our most popular services requested is for virus and spyware removal. So why in the heck are we, a computer repair company that makes money from performing these services, showing you how you can remove viruses and spyware from your computer for free?

1. Well, number one, we’re continually bragging about our honest reputation and transparency as a company. So, here’s proof.
2. Number two, we’d rather perform some other service for you instead. Removing viruses and spyware from your computer is our least favorite service request. And, although we can perform any virus and spyware removal on any computer without any problems, if we can get you to remove viruses and spyware from your computer on your own and then learn how to protect your computer from getting viruses and spyware in the future, we’re hoping that you’ll spend your money on us for other services, much more enjoyable services for us to perform like configuring your wireless router, testing the security on your network, or performing a backup of your data.

Believe it or not, there are a number of free software tools available for use in protecting your system. My favorite is AVG for virus protection. I personally have been using AVG on my computer for over 8 years now. It is often what our company recommends for installation on your home computer. But JimmyR, one of my favorite ‘YouTubers’, also gives a good video commentary on how to protect your computer from viruses and spyware. Watch this:

-Kyle

Popularity: 34% [?]

Tags: free spyware protection, free virus protection, free_software_tools, protecting_your_system, spyware protection, spyware removal, virus removal, virus_protection

All Calls practically free with T-Mobile, Skype and a virtual PBX

Here’s a little trick I learned a couple years ago to make and receive free phone calls from your T-Mobile myFaves cell phone plan. When we first started our computer repair business the start up costs were killing us. We had to devise a way to keep cost down. Our phone bills were especially enormous. So we decided to advertise in our local phone books with Skype-In numbers. This way we could pick a local number to advertise and didn’t have to buy and pay for the maintenance of a separate phone line for each area code. Since we advertised in several different area codes with several different numbers, this really made a lot of sense and saved us literally hundreds of dollars. We just set up each local Skype-In number to forward to our main business line and we were in business.

But it gets better. Our main business line is essentially a virtual PBX. We have to ability to set up a find-me / follow-me feature from within the PBX. And that is precisely what we did. This enabled us to catch all of our calls, even when we were not in the office because the call would eventually forward to an open line to one of our technicians in the field. But we were then still forced to pay for all the cell phone bills. Now here’s the little secret, we found that all Skype forwarded calls carried the same CID. Our technicians were all equipped with T-mobile phones and plans. Eventually, T-mobile adopted the myFaves plan feature which of course we jumped on. We added the Skype CID to all of our Fav Five numbers and now our company was receiving all of our calls for practically free. Not only were we NOT paying for separate lines for all of the different phone numbers we picked up, but also our bill was much, much cheaper with Skype-In and now we were also receiving all of these phone calls on our technicians cell phones for FREE! We were only assessed what ever Skype-In charged per incoming call which was so small in comparison to our previous phone bills that it was just too insignificant to remember.

But what about our outgoing calls? We still had to pay for those right? Yes, but not as much as T-mobile wants to charge, which is 40 cents for each minute of overage. This cost can add up extremely quickly if you are running a business. But our virtual PBX also gave us the ability to make outgoing calls for only 2.9 cents per minute. That’s 37.1 cents per minute cheaper than T-mobile would have liked to charge us. All we had to do is set up our business line as one of our Fav Five numbers on all cell phones and once again we’ve managed to save a lot of money. All outgoing calls were now also extremely cheap. So in addition to saving quite literally $1000’s of dollar in incoming and outgoing line and call charges, we were now able to reduce our cell phone plans down to the minimum plan needed saving another $50 per month per plan for all of our technicians. And you know what they say, “A penny saved is a penny earned.”

Now, people have criticized us for utilizing this tactic. So let me defend this strategy of saving money from the get go.

First of all, this is not illegal. And, I wouldn’t even consider it to be “shady”. T-mobile regularly encourages, almost to the point of annoyance, their customers to upgrade to the T-mobile myFaves plan. You cannot dial 611 or their toll free number without having one of their overly-chatty CSRs recommend the myFaves plan if you do not already have it. If you do have it, they always encourage their customers to make full use of the plan. That is exactly what we were doing.

Secondly, we no longer utilize this plan. Because we have grown considerably since our early stages as a computer repair company, we now outsource all of our incoming calls to a call center. And we pay for it too; boy, do we pay!

And finally, this worked a couple of years ago. I know that many ISP’s (heh hemmm…[cough] Comcast) now implement packet scrambling technologies to interfere with anything they deem a threat to their lofty profit margin. Free VOIP is one of those services that seems to threaten Comcast a little because it is practically free. Their VOIP service is not. In fact one of the reasons we discontinued Skype call forwarding was because we noticed an increasing number of calls being dropped or not coming through at all. Obviously, this was not good for our business and we lost a lot of customers as a result. In researching the problem, I found out that Comcast was interfering with the Skype VOIP packet transmission. This is the same dirty tactic they use today to block torrent seeding. Folks, if you don’t believe Net Neutrality is quickly coming to an end, think again. Until then, I hope you find this tip useful, and I hope you save a lot of money using it!

-Kyle

Popularity: 26% [?]

Tags: free-air-time, free-calls, free-cell-phone-calls, make-free-calls, make-free-cell-calls

8 quick questions to ask your computer repair geek before doing business?

So, as a customer, how do you avoid computer repair fraud? Fortunately, there are a few simple steps that you can take to avoid a fraudulent mishap from a computer repair company.

1. Ask the company what their minimum charge up front would be. Most companies refer to this charge as their diagnostics fee. Some companies have an exorbitant minimum and they will charge this regardless of whether or not they get the diagnosis right.
2. So the second question logically follows, “If the diagnosis is incorrect, do you still charge?” The answer really should be “No”, or at the very least, the company should be willing to split the difference of the diagnosis should you prove that the technician concluded the wrong problem.
3. Ask the company what their “no fix” policy is? In other words, if a technician comes out to your business or home and attempts to fix your computer or network problem but is unsuccessful, will you be charged for his time and effort? Really you shouldn’t be charged. If the technician does not have the skills necessary to resolve your problem, you shouldn’t be charged for his attempts.
4. Ask to see the companies written policies beforehand. Maybe they have a link to these placed on their website.
5. Ask the company if they are bonded or have had thorough background checks run on their technicians? Character is everything in the computer repair industry.
6. Ask the company if their technicians are experienced? Some companies (I won’t mention any names), hire any pimple faced high school nerd as long as they will upsell services to the company’s clients. Skills and experience are not always taken into account for a lot of computer repair companies, or at least, are they not prioritized properly in the order of importance.
7. “Are your technicians certified?” Certifications, will indicate at least that the technician has gone through some training in attempts to bring his skill level up to speed technically. And a highly certified technician usually is fairly skilled at what he does. But certification should definitely not be the most important or most advertised quality of a computer repair company.
8. “Are you a member of the BBB or your local Chamber of Commerce?” Again this should remain one of the lesser priorities of importance. Because of the bureaucratic delays of some of these organizations, it is often too late before the members therein are disciplined for bad business behavior. So be careful not to place too much emphasis on this one either.

I hesitated putting in these last two suggestions because they are highly overrated. Nevertheless, they are somewhat important. Still most of the emphasis should be placed on the first six stipulations.

Popularity: 28% [?]

Tags: avoid-computer-repair-fraud, avoid-computer-repair-scams, avoiding-scams, honest-computer-repair-services, repair fraud, reputable-computer-repair

Watch out for computer repair fraud!

So why am I posting a video about computer repair fraud when we (Geek Teks) are attempting to sell our computer repair services? It doesn’t make sense! …Or does it? Well, I think it does make sense. Why? Because the companies mentioned in this video: Geek Squad, Firedog, etc., all fail to implement a quality fraud prevention strategy into their SOP’s (Standard Operating Prodedure) on behalf of their customers. But I believe with all my heart that we do. We do implement a procedure that helps our customers avoid fraud. And this is because we heavily rely on advise and suggestions from our customers and from people like you.

At Geek Teks, we offer a “You don’t pay unless we fix it” policy. In fact, you won’t even pay if we diagnose the problem incorrectly. Let’s say for example (Not that this would happen. Mis-diagnosis’s are rare within our company) , that Mike comes out to your house. He attempts to find out why you computer is not booting properly. He diagnoses the PC and determines the motherboard is fried. But you have your doubts. So you take your computer to computer repair company (B) for another opinion. Turns out a RAM stick is actually blown. If this ever happened, simply call us up and we will refund you your diagnosis cost per policy. This is one way in which we improve the rapport and trust amongst our customers.

Here is another way that we build consumer confidence in our service product. Unlike the Geek Sqaud, Firedog, and other well-known computer repair service centers, not only do you not pay UNLESS we fix it, but also, you do not pay UNTIL we fix it. We do not charge your account UNTIL after we have obtained your signature on our invoice indicating your complete %100 satisfaction with both our service and charges as they appear on the invoice. By implementing these policies into the framework of our SOP, we are able to build trust in our business and renew consumer confidence.

Also, all of our teks are highly experienced and therefore skilled. Our teks usually have at least three certifications: A+, Net+, and Sec+. Although we don’t feel the certifications are really the most important qualification of a good tek, we understand they are important in the eyes of most consumers. Finally, our teks undergo a complete and thorough background check.

Our company likes to be as transparent as possible to the consumer. Why? Because we have absolutely nothing to hide. See, when your an honest company, you can implement honest policies such as ours without fear of consumer fraud. We trust our customers and we know that our customers trust us. And that is just the way a good honest business in America should run.

Now, watch these video’s and tell me if you think these well know computer repair companies would fair better by implementing these same accountability strategies into their business models?

Your comments and thoughts on how to further prevent fraud and dishonesty are appreciated.

-Kyle

Popularity: 27% [?]

Tags: avoid-computer-repair-fraud, avoid-computer-repair-scams, avoiding-scams, honest-computer-repair-services, repair fraud, reputable-computer-repair

Welcome to the Geek Teks company blog!

Greetings. My name is Kyle Moore. I will be moderating this blog for our company. I am one of the founders of Geek Teks computer repair company. In case you haven’t heard of our company, allow me to briefly introduce ourselves.

Geek Teks was a company that was founded in 2003, shortly before the word “geek” started to become so popular in other computer repair company names. It is not our goal to prove our originality in name. However, it is our goal to prove our trustworthiness and unparalleled quality of service offered to our clients. As a company, Geek Teks has attempted to formulate a business model that will provide our clients with a level of trust which is hard to find elsewhere in the industry. For proof, check out our, “You don’t pay unless we fix it” policy. It is in policies such as this, that we prove our desire to become trusted and to provide quality service for all of our clients. So, though the name may not be the most original, the service truly is.

Come, see for yourself, what Geek Teks is all about.

Popularity: 13% [?]

Geek Teks Main Site

Search

Categories

• About Our Company
• Tips
• Web Design

Recent Posts

• Videobox - Lightbox for Videos
• Bad Behavior 2.0.11 Wordpress Plugin Blocking Digg Submission
• Blue Screen of Death Mayhem
• Free Virus Removal and Free Spyware Removal Tools - Remove Viruses and Spyware for free
• All Calls practically free with T-Mobile, Skype and a virtual PBX
• 8 quick questions to ask your computer repair geek before doing business?
• Watch out for computer repair fraud!
• Welcome to the Geek Teks company blog!

Blogroll

• Geek Teks Main Site
• Geek Teks on YouTube

Archives

Select Month January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007

© Geek Teks. Not the Geek Squad …better! -  Subscribe in a reader