Hello Everyone!

About a day or two ago my Windows Live Messenger (WLM) started acting a little funky. I would try to boot my WLM and instantly at the startup it would crash on me. I thought it was just having a bad day. But the next day, and after several reboots, I was still having this issue. I decided it would be more than just ‘a bad day’. So tonight I started looking, and I found this post on the Microsoft Answers Forums. I expanded the crash notice to show me the details, and compared it to those of the Original Poster (OP), sartha. I quickly saw that the ‘Appstamp’ and ‘Modstamp’ were the same as in the crash report delivered by Windows Live Messenger as shown in the screenshot below.

WLM Crash Info

So I followed the instructions that were given to sartha by bergen_jason and it worked like a charm! My intention with this blog post is to try to get more people aware of this problem, and hopefully help some people solve it. And to do that, I have laid out some easy to follow instructions including screenshots taken from my own computer in order to demonstrate how to solve this issue. Remember that the actual solution was given by bergen_jason and he should be getting the credit for that. If you have a Windows Live ID, Please log in to that thread and give him a thumbs up. He deserves it.

Step 1.

The very first thing you will need to do, is start the Registry Editor. We can do this by pressing the Windows Key + R at the same time. A window will pop up and you will need to enter the text; regedit
I have added a screenshot to demonstrate.

Regedit

Step 2.

Next, we will need to locate the registry key that is responsible for all this hassle.

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\MSNMessenger\PerPassportSettings

This is the key as per bergen_jason‘s instructions. So lets find it.
The way you do this, is by expanding each section, until you find the PerPassportSettings.

You do this by pressing the + buttons next to the folders. And each folder is separated by a slash.

Again, there are screenshots to make it easy.

Registry Offending UTL Value

Step 3.

Now we need to create a backup plan for ourselves. We don’t want to go around editing the registry without taking precautions. Editing the registry CAN render your machine unbootable if you remove certain values. The risk of this ‘procedure’ is very low. But just because it is the registry we want to be careful.

To do this, Right click on the folder with the numbers and click on the export button. You will be asked to save a .reg file somewhere. I recommend you save it in your My Documents folder under the name; WLM-Backup.reg

A Backup for the Registry

One you made a backup, we can proceed to the forth and final step.

Step 4.

The last and final step would be to remove the UTL value from the registry to fix the Windows Live Messenger crash.

This can be done by right clicking on the value and selecting the delete option. Again shown on a screenshot.

Removing the UTL Value

After this, you can close the registry and try to run Windows Live Messenger. You may have to restart your computer for the changes to have effect.

Good Luck! And Enjoy MSN!

If you would like to see more of these tutorials with pictures, or if you want a certain topic covered by a blog post, please don’t hesitate to comment or send me an e-mail. My e-mail address can be found on the Contacts Page.

Regards,
Olrik

Hello Everyone!

As some of you might know, I do quite a bit of programming as a hobby. And thanks to that hobby I’ve already launched a few tools that are fairly well used (SINO and ARCDC). Well, from today there will be another tool available on Artellos.com, WVCheck! Windows Validation Check (WVCheck) is a tool to find out if the user is using a legit version of windows.

You can find WVCheck in the menu, or at; http://artellos.com/wvcheck-page

I also want to announce a new tool in the making. A tool that will be a tiny bit like WVCheck, but it will be mainly developed for the Anti-Malware Community. I am developing this tool together with Rorschach112. It was his idea to start making this tool. And I hope, just as with my other tools, that it will make a Tech’s Life Easier! Keep a close eye on this blog. This will be the first place where the tool will be publicly announced.

Regards,
Olrik

Hello Everyone!

Today I won’t be writing a whole lot. While I am sleeping good, I am not actually resting properly. I’m so tired right now that I can’t even remember everything I did today. My dad and I decided that we’d sleep in our own beds today. So we went home today to sleep in our own bed. We’re going to head back to the boat tomorrow to take a look at the weather and if it’s good we’re going to stay there. I can’t transfer the pictures to this machine either. Because my own computer doesn’t have an SD Card Reader. I will get them uploaded tomorrow.

Today was an okay day though. At least we had some wind today, instead of just bobbing around on the water when it’s wind-still. There was some sailing competition going on as well, but due to the high amount of spectators I wasn’t able to take any pictures of it. It looked cool from a distance though! And the food today was simple, but very nice. The meat I ordered was very tender and tasty. Nothing too spectacular though.

For now, I will go to bed. And I will write more about tomorrow. Hopefully it will be a bit more exciting than the last few days.

Regards,
Olrik

Hello Everyone!

Today has been a terrific day! I woke up fresh and had a great night sleep! I didn’t hear anything and I slept in one go from 01:00 to 08:00. And I haven’t been tired today at all. I looked outside and noticed the sun was shining and the trees swaying a little. GREAT Weather to be sailing! I still had one coin for a shower left, so I started off the day with a nice warm shower, brushing my teeth and freshing up. I just wish those showers had a bit more power in the water system. I almost had to hug the wall to catch all of the beam.

When I got back to the boat, we grabbed the sandwiches we had and left between 10:30 and 11:00. I don’t recall the exact time this time because I didn’t look at the clock when we left. Probably because the weather was so great and everything went so smooth.

We really enjoyed this day. All we really did today was bob around on the lake, enjoying the sun and relaxing. I got my book “Making Money” by Terry Pratchett, which I recommend to anyone who likes humorous and fantasy kind of books, and sat on the side of the ship reading. I probably finished two chapters!

When we arrived on location, we hung around the boat for a while, still enjoying the day. And around 18:00 we decided to go find a restaurant close by, and see if we could go ahead of the big crowds. To make sure we had a spot. But when we arrived at the closest restaurant, it was booked full! The hostess offered to write down our number and call us if a spot came open. And otherwise we would be able to come back at 20:30. So we went back to the boat, hung around and waited for a phone call. And around 19:15 we got a call that we were able to come over at 19:45.

All I can say is. Great hospitality, Great food, Great ambiance. What else would you expect? It was an excellent evening on top of an excellent day. I couldn’t have wished for something better after yesterday’s rainy day! But I can’t be bothered to write a lot more today. I’m quite tired and I want to go to sleep. And also, listening to the loud snoring of my dad doesn’t make a nice look at what’s ahead of me. Yet another rough night? We’ll see. I’ll definitely write about another day.

Pictures: http://picasaweb.google.com/o.lenstra/SailingTripDay3

Regards,
Olrik

Hello Everyone!

The second day of my sailing trip has come to an end. And I must say, even though the weather wasn’t that great, I really enjoyed the day. Although I wish someone could invent some kind of bug spray that would kill all mosquitoes. Those bugs are darn annoying when you’re sleeping in a close environment. There must be some happy mosquito out there somewhere. He managed to sting me not once, not twice, but five times!

The night rest I had wasn’t really that enjoyable either. I’ve seen pretty much every hour on the clock. And this was due to a couple of factors. The first being the boat. Rocking around and making creaking sounds that I am not used to that would keep me from falling asleep. And if it wasn’t the boat, it would be that pesky mosquito that kept zooming around my head. And of course, when you turn on the light to find and kill the bugger, he’s long gone hiding in a corner for you to turn off the lights. And last, but certainly not least. My dad. Geezj I didn’t know he could snore that loud. If I had known I would’ve brought myself a pair of these. I think I had my best ‘night’ sleep around 7:00, when my dad was wide awake and I had the chance to fall asleep without the loud snoring to abruptly pull me from my sleep.

I woke up again around 9:30 and decided I’d get dressed. We still needed to do some grocery shopping before we could set sail. And we didn’t want to leave after 12:00. So we headed to town around 10:00. We got ourselves some nice treats, half a white bread and some stuff to put on our bread. Some milk and water dissolve-able tea. We went back to the boat, ate our lunch, and found out it started to drizzle. Just our luck.

My dad was fully convinced that the little rain we had would stop soon. So we decided to wait. Well, around 12:30 it was still there. I decided we’d better get going, otherwise we’d never reach the next stop. We started the engine at 13:00 and used our motor to get to our next stop. The ride there wasn’t really that interesting. Due to the weather we were unable to raise the sails, so we had to motor our way from point A to point B. On the way we did come across a surfer and man did he go fast! I only managed to get a few close shots in until he made a nosedive into the water!

Arriving at 15:10 at our next stop, we needed to dock at the marina. It was funny because we had to dock next to a German ship with an old lady on board. The first thing she did when she saw us coming was run outside to make sure our boat didn’t hit hers! After docking we both had to go to the bathroom, so before doing anything else we scouted the marina for the needed utilities.

When we got back to the boat, we had nothing to do. So I decided to get the laptop, and see what I could do about my unstable IRC connection. And it appears that this laptop had a Vodafone SIM card in it with the needed software to use the nearby GPRS antenna. It’s great! I can now use this laptop in combination with my phone and use 2 mobile networks to cover all my needs! Aren’t I geeky? My mobile phone connected via a USB cable running an HTTP proxy. And the Vodafone card using GPRS for Windows Live Messenger and mIRC. I love it!

So I did all that between 16:00 and 18:00 when we decided we wanted something to eat. Even though we hadn’t done much that day, we were both quite hungry. We headed into town around 18:36 where we found a lot of the restaurants already filled to the brim! It was unbelievable, the amount of people in the same place looking for a nice joint to get some food. Well, we finally found one near a museum we were planning on visiting. The “Jopie Huisman” museum.

The food there was great! I had a salmon fillet with a dill sauce. And my dad got a pan with mussels and various dips. Well. It was definitely good because in the end we finished it all. I had some extra carrots for with my salmon, and we both had some fries. Aside from one bowl which contained raw crust, we cleaned our plates. And to finish off a nice meal, we both had some ice cream with fresh fruit (strawberries and melon).

After we got back to the boat, we both wanted to take a quick shower before going to bed. (well, I still had this blog post to write, of course!) My dad bought 4 coins which each provide up to 6 minutes of shower time. We packed our stuff and headed for the showers. And were these showers annoying! They had a really weak stream of water, and for my dad the temperature wasn’t even constant (and warm). I still have one coin left so I will probably take another quick shower tomorrow morning before we set sail for our next destination.

So far the days have been good, aside from the bad weather. And according to some sources this weather will probably stick the whole week. I certainly hope not, because if it stays this weather, and we can’t actually raise the sails. I will definitely be disappointed.

Pictures: http://picasaweb.google.com/o.lenstra/SailingTripDay2

Regards,
Olrik

Hello Everyone!

I have been thinking about it for a while now, but today I really wanted to push through a new theme for Artellos.com. One of the reasons is the way that pages like SINO and ARCDC are done. I like the sub-menu system and I am sure that will be a keeper. I might take a look if I can place them where the ‘home’ button is now, but I might have to do that when I have a proper editor at home.

For now, I hope you all like the new lay-out. If you have any feedback, ideas or complaints. Please leave a comment and I will get back to you as fast as I can.

Regards,
Olrik

Hello Everyone!

As some of you might know, My vacation started today! And I thought it would be a good idea to keep a blog on what I have done, and share these moments and pictures with you.

Today we woke up, and we hadn’t done anything to prepare for our week of sailing. We hadn’t packed yet, and that didn’t seem to be an issue. Yet.. So we did our things and around 1 PM we packed our bags, and my dad loaded up the car while I did some preparations on this very laptop to be able to blog during my sailing trip. (I must say. I love my Android Phone!)

So after some hectic last minutes of packing, checking and stuffing the car we finally left at 17:22. I nabbed the car keys and we headed to the marina. It took us 42 minutes precisely and arrived at 18:05  (like Google Maps predicted). And since we had quite a bit of luggage we managed to score ourselves a little cart to ferry our stuff from the car to the boat.

After that we decided we wanted to have something nice to eat. We drove to the nearby town and sat down at a nice restaurant. I decided I wanted Spare Ribs, and my dad went for some sort of salad. It was some very nice food, although it was a bit too much. My dad thought he’d easily ‘devour’ his salad. But he didn’t even finish it. And when I saw the waitress serving my plate with 3 ribs on it, I was sure I wouldn’t be able to eat it all. As a dessert I had a bowl of cassis and lemon icecream with whipped cream and strawberries. My dad just had a cappachino.

After dinner, which was around 20:50, we figured out we left some essential stuff at home, so we took another drive home. This time my dad beat me to the car keys so I was forced to look around. Luckily I had the camera handy, as we saw a lot of hot-air balloons floating in the distance and I think I got a few nice shots in.

Around 21:20 we arrived back home and gathered our stuff. Took a while considering my dad had no idea where he put some of his stuff. So while he was rummaging about I decided to call my Girlfriend and tell her about my day. It was funny because she noticed that we were ‘still home’ thanks to number detection. I explained we forgot some stuff, which is pretty typical of me. Always forgetting things when going on vacation.

After we packed our stuff we headed back to the boat at 21:50 and arrived back at the boat at 22:28. Time to settle in and get the boat ready for sleepy time.

I got the electricals and made sure that we had power on-board (hah, what would a geek do without his laptop!) while my dad sorted out the sleeping spots. After that was all done I grabbed the laptop, hooked up my phone and started writing this blog post. And that is pretty much where I will end now.

I had a great day already, and hope that we’ll get the same weather the whole week as we did today. It couldn’t have been better! But this is it for today. I hope you enjoyed reading, and stay tuned for another blog post on my wonderful vacation!

Pictures: http://picasaweb.google.com/o.lenstra/SailingTripDay1

Regards,
Olrik

Recently, I have been taking a look at the “Windows 98, 95, ME” Forum and noticing something that I have quite a strong opinion of. Why do people keep old PCs running Windows 95, 98 or ME when they don’t really know what they are doing. Especially with all the threats these days. Even a hobby of keeping old Operating Systems is a dangerous one. An infection lies just around the corner.

Don’t get me wrong here, I don’t mind people keeping old PCs. I just don’t understand why they do it. I like to compare it to cars. There are a lot of “Old Timer Fanatics” that keep old cars because they like maintaining them. And like driving in them after a long day of working on them, while the rest of the community just wants a car that works, and keep up with the technology.

This rarely happens with computers. People keep their old computers because they don’t know / don’t get informed better. And it’s a shame really. Old computers that don’t get the proper maintenance slow down to a crawling stop just like old cars would if they don’t get their much needed work.

Yes, of course there are people that can’t afford the latest of the latest. Heck, I can’t even afford the latest of the latest, but I sure like an updated computer. I wouldn’t even dare to dream of a computer that hasn’t been updated for a good 6-8 years. I would probably throw it out the window before it would reach 6 years.

What do you think?

This is a re-post of the article that got lost when I dumped my personal blog. I thought it was of value so I am reposting it now.

———–

The past week or so, I have been playing around with the APIs of a site called RolePlayGateway through Python. This blog post will be all about those APIs and how to work with it using Python. In this blog post I am going to assume you have some coding knowledge, Python is not hard to understand so anyone with a decent coding background would be able to read the following example. Keep in mind I am not a genius and some of this code could probably have written in a better way. Feel free to show me how in the comments section!

The Experience

My experience with the API is great. I am working directly with the owner of the site, Eric Martindale, who is actively maintaining RolePlayGateway. Actually accessing and manipulating XML in python was easier then I thought it would be and bringing it into practice was a lot of fun. With a bit of creativity you can do a whole lot with the API of RolePlayGateway. In this blog post though, I will only be covering how to access the API through Python and working in the Python Interpreter.

The APIs

Of course, If you want to work with the APIs, you will have to know where to look. In my case (as stated above) I worked directly with Eric who told me about the APIs. The following APIs are available on the site:

Member Information:
/api/member/<name>
/api/member/<id>

Character Information:
/api/character/<id>

Through these APIs you can retrieve information and use that in your Python application.

Example Code

To retrieve the XML from the site I used a module called “urllib”. This module has to do with urls, but the only function we’ll be using is urllib.urlopen(url). Then we’ll need something to parse the XML, this is done using the module “xml.dom.minidom”. Below is a link to the code of the full example I will be using.

Full Example Code

If I would run this through the Python Interpreter I would get the following output.

As you can see in the example , Unicode / ASCII is a small issue you will have to keep in account. I found / edited a “translations” module that I use to edit names from Unicode to ASCII as the URL will require ASCII but the actual site will show Unicode.

Conclusion

I really like the APIs that Eric showed me, and he keeps adding more / refining it actively. I personally am still working on an application with these APIs that might be considered useful by the community. I hope this article was of use to some of you, others might have just enjoyed the read and some might have even thought “Oookay?”, But I tell you, these APIs are great!

Regards,
Olrik

This is simply just a test to see what Google Wave can do for my blog.

You might see it around a little more

EDIT: When it actually wants to work.

Regards,
Olrik