Titbits On Technology, Internet And The Web In Ghana

I created a DIY 12 volt battery charger but needed a device to disconnect the battery when it reaches the desired maximum voltage. To achieve this I scouted for a circuit breaker device that could read the current voltage of the device to be disconnected. I found the ideal gadget on Ebay here .  Battery Protection Module - Connectors View Battery Protection Module - Top View At the time I bought it I had no idea it had many more uses than I needed it for. The module was deliver and thanks to the diagram in the gallery images on Ebay, I had some idea how to wire the device. Input Power  One end (input) with only two pairs of connectors marked VIN and GND received power input to control the module (between 6 to 40 volts power source would work). In my case I used  a 9 volts lithium ion battery. 9 volt lithium battery Alternatively one can draw power from the device being charged like shown below Input power taken from dev...

If wordpress was created on localhost or on another domain and later migrated, chances are the website email in General Settings or Admin Email may need to be changed from admin@oldwebsitename.com to admin@newwebsitename.com. For this, an active wordpress installation would require the new address admin@newwebsitename.com to confirm the change before it is effected. The Problem: The challenge is that wordpress uses the old email address admin@newwebsitename.com in the "from" field of the email it sends to confirm the address change. To prevent spam, most hosting providers wont let you use a from address that does not match with your new domain name. The from address must be @newwebsitename.com . That means the hosting server will not allow a message to be sent. The Fix: You need to force wordpress to use a from address that matches your current domain name which is whatever@newwebsitename.com.  To achieve this, you can install this SMTP Plugin for wordpress ...

The dreaded wordpress error 500 or blank page Let me not waste your time. I had the error 500 and blank page problem when I migrated a wordpress installation to the live server (production server). They were the following errors ; Error 500 in some instances when the page was refreshed,  Blank Page with no error message and no google chrome console error No Error Logs - No errors were logged or displayed in debug.log, on screen or in the cpanel log even after configuring debugging in the wp-config.php file I checked for the following that did not work ; No file permission errors No database errors No htaccess errors This is what worked ; I looked online but could not find any solution that worked. But then while reading one article they hinted about a possible server misconfiguration. So I checked the PHP Version Settings in my cpanel and changed it from 5.4 to 5.6 and refreshed the website and that was it! Many cpanel provided by webhosts have a php ...

I had to install Adobe CS4 and practically spent the whole day dealing with "Error 1402.Could not open key". I found the error in the Program Files/Common Files/Adobe/Installers in a zipped log file using a text editor to view. At the bottom of the file was the error 1402. Some registry keys could not be accessed. I sought to use the registry editor (regedit) to locate the keys and elevate the permission  https://goo.gl/qhf1bm but it was unsuccessful. For some strange reason, my administrative user did not seem to have the right permission to modify the permission on the keys in question. There was always an "access denied" error. Finally I chanced on a post that talks about a System Internals Tool called PSExec which can edit the registry with system user privileges. I downloaded this tool collection known as PSTOOLS .  Since it is a collection of command line tools and to make things easier, I searched for a GUI (graphical user interface) for PSTools w...

TLDR: Set drive permission to include "everyone" and grant "full control" permission. ---- One morning I client brought me an external drive with the complaint they could not access the content. The drive shows up in windows explorer with no bar for used space and free space. drive with no size information When the drive is clicked it displays access denied error. Location is not available, access denied The drive showed a disk size of zero in properties 0 bytes The reserved partition was however okay and displaying contents. HOW I FIXED IT CHECK DISK I first checked if the drive was physically intact by opening a command prompt as administrator . I changed to the drive letter (drive: and enter) I then typed "dir" to list the drive contents, they listed successfully. This test established that something was preventing windows or explorer from accessing the drive and its content. You may run a disk check via the com...

Mobile money is a novel USSD based money transfer system built actively used in various kinds of cash transactions especially in Africa. The growth and success has been phenomenal. Many services including payments, transfers, banking, billing, point of sale etc have been built on the mobile money framework. However, with this success comes exploitation. There are reports of mobile money fraud and how people actively seek to game the mobile money system. Below is a compilation of some of the common techniques and how to effectively avoid becoming a victim of it. 1. You hand your phone to the agent (never do that), he enters more than you have requested to withdraw but only hands you what you requested and keeps the rest. 2. You receive a fake message about a deposit showing you a fake balance (message not from mtn but a normal phone number). A call follows that a wrong deposit has been made. You send the caller your money (not realizing the text message with your balance infor...

This article is just a quick suggestion to fix a problem with an android phone where the wi-fi hotspot goes off by itself a few seconds after turning it on. This technique is tested and verified though I cannot guarantee it will work for every situation. It appears an app babel fonts interferes with the ability of the mobile hotspot to stay on. What we did was: Go to settings , apps (applications manager) Locate Babel fonts and click on it Click on the option to uninstall updates (uninstall it) Restart your phone Optionally you may just disable it. Other things we tried that did not work included changing hotspot power settings under battery in the phone settings Resetting the phone only works temporarily as the babel font updates are reinstalled when you connect to wifi. The best bet I believe is to disable / uninstall babel font. Let me know in the comments if it worked. Here is a link to an opinion about babel fonts Cheers