Category Archives: Guides

Any guides that GEEK! create will slot into this category.

ISPConfig 3 Backup shell script (my version!) – version 1.0

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After using ISPConfig for around a month now, I’ve more or less got to grips with it – and I’m no longer a cPanel addict!

Nonetheless, finding a backup solution for ISPConfig has been difficult to say the least. ISPConfig’s built-in backup is pretty poor and hasn’t really been any use when several of my websites are dependent on a decent spare copy!

I managed to find this script - and this has worked well, however there were a couple of bugs and it also wasn’t particularly user friendly – so I’ve updated it and uploaded my own copy for you to use!

It should be more or less all set up and ready to go, but you will need to do the following before you use it:

  • Create a directory (/backup) on the root of your server and make sure the user you’ll be running the script from has full permissions of this directory.
  • Fill in your database user and password in the .sh file – I’d suggest using your root user and password so it can back up all the databases on your installation.
  • Then place the .sh file in the /backup directory and run the script from a terminal.
The script is actually designed to run as a cron job – but as yet I cannot get it to work as a cron job - so you’ll need to run it manually. If you can get it to run as a cron job within ISPConfig – please let me know as I’d love to know myself.  

Download here (ZIP)
Version 1.0

Configuring anti-spam (SpamAssassin) in ISPConfig 3

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As you may have noticed, I’ve recently moved GEEK! to a brand new VPS – which, hopefully, will massively improve the uptime and performance of the site in the long run. It’s a little too early to tell, but now most of the trial bugs are ironed out, improvements should start to be seen soon.

However, by moving my site (and all other sites I run) to a VPS, I have had to make some sacrifices. The key sacrifice on my end has been cPanel – which I’ve used ever since I started working with web servers. I love cPanel – it’s generally very reliable and controls most of the functions I would ever want. But now, as I’m slowly getting more experienced with the way web servers work, I thought it would be a good time to move on to something a little more advanced (and, as a result, cheaper). I was recommended to ISPConfig – a free and open source control panel for web servers running on Linux. And after a slow start, I seem to be getting the hang of it.

The one thing that really did get to me for a while was the poor performance of the spam filter built into ISPConfig. ISPConfig relies on SpamAssassin – which is, when configured correctly, a very powerful spam filter. But for some reason, it just wasn’t working on my installation of ISPConfig. Spam would get through and it can get seriously frustrating!

Thankfully I now have it cracked – and wanted to share the configuration I chose for ISPConfig and SpamAssassin. I think the correct settings vary from person to person – but if you want general spam filtering, this should show you how to get it.

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PEAK 100417AGPK USB Dual TV Tuner Windows XP/Vista/7 32/64Bit Driver (download in post)

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Right – I literally just upgraded the motherboard on my computer and then reinstalled Windows. Rather stupidly, I didn’t think to check I had all the driver disks for my USB devices – and nonetheless I since haven’t been able to get a driver for my USB TV Tuner.

It’s a PEAK USB Dual Tuner DVB-T, and I had it running perfectly on my original 32-bit Windows 7 Home Premium. However, I’ve now moved over to 64-bit Windows – which is great, but I can’t for the life of me find the stupid mini-CD that came with the device to install the driver.

Even more annoyingly – the company’s website (PEAK) is no longer working (www.peakhardware.com), and there aren’t any drivers on any public driver site – so I was absolutely stuck there.

Thankfully, I had a eureka moment and realised that I’d, in the past, also installed the tuner on my netbook. Whilst I couldn’t use the driver on that (because it is 32-bit), I was able to identify the name of the driver used and get a copy online (much more readily available).

Anyway – if you’re having the same problem as me – it uses a driver called the AF9015 BDA Device - and luckily enough, I have a driver for you!

UPDATE: I FOUND THE DRIVER DISK! While digging through my drawers, I found the driver disk. So, to make things simple – I’m going to simply upload the driver directory of the disk to GEEK!. All you need to do is unzip the file and run /DVB-T/Setup.exe. 32-bit and 64-bit drivers for XP, Vista and 7 are included.

DOWNLOAD – 3MB

Hopefully, that should solve the problem!

Five top tips for selling your phone to recycling companies

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You may well have got yourself a brand new phone this Christmas, which is always a nice present now-a-days. I, myself, got a brand new HTC Sensation XE for Christmas (technically it was an early Christmas present – or at least part of it was!) – which I adore.

But it does beg the question, what happens to the old phone? Mine always seem to end up sitting in boxes until they’re no use to anyone at all. This time I thought I’d sent it off to a recycling company. There’s method in the madness – people will pay you to recycle your old phone, but you have to be careful when you do so. So here are some top tips for recycling your old phone:

  • Shop around – find the best price. You’d normally see that phrase when buying a gadget, but it does also applying to selling gadgets too. Just because a phone recycling company advertises on TV, doesn’t necessarily mean they’ll give you the best price. In fact, there’s actually quite a lot of mobile phone recycling companies around – so you’re more than likely to find a better price if you do some hunting. Take a look at sellmymobile.com - just type in your make/model and it’ll do the rest for you.
  • Check the price you’re getting is consistent. Make sure you read the terms & conditions carefully when you’re selling the phone. Some buyers will only offer you a certain payment within a number of days – after which point they can lower that offer by a substantial amount. Also make sure that you’re not under any contractual obligation – it’s your phone,  you can change your mind if you want.
  • Make sure you’ve backed up anything you want to keep… If you want to keep anything (like camera shots, contacts or messages), make sure you’ve got a copy safely stored on your computer or on another phone. Once you’ve sent off your phone, you may not get it back (and if you do, it may well have been flashed to remove all content). Most recent phones include software to back up content on your phone – so make use of it!
  • …and deleted anything you don’t want to keep. Make sure to ‘restore factory settings’ on the phone before handing it over. You don’t want any of your personal details (or friends’ personal details) to end up in someone else’s hands. Restoring factory settings will put the phone back to how it was when you first got it, and should delete any content that was once there.
  • Remove any accessories that you aren’t required to hand over. As already mentioned, you may not get your phone back – even if you request it. So make sure you remove any accessories you don’t have to hand over (perhaps accessories that you bought yourself) like memory cards, cases and spare batteries. Memory cards may well come in handy on new phones, and if not they’re a handy portable storage medium.

There you have it. Five tips to make the most of phone recycling companies. It’s debatable as to whether you’re better off auctioning your phones on sites like eBay – but if you just can’t be bothered with the hassle, you’re quickest way to get some cash is to hand it over to one of these companies. Just make sure you’re not being ripped off!

Stop PresentationFontCache.exe hogging CPU power

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Recently, I’ve come across an annoying problem in Windows 7. There seems to be a service, named PresentationFontCache.exe, that hogs CPU power for an extended period of time – which can be extremely annoying when playing games or using CPU-intensive applications.

From research, the service seems to be part of the ‘Windows Presentation Foundation service’ and doesn’t appear to be anything harmful – just a nuisance. It would be a bad idea to kill the service permanently as it is quite important (although many have resorted to killing it without major issues), however there is a good fix which I’ve come across.

To fix the problem, we simply need to remove the cache that it creates.

Head to C:\Windows\ServiceProfiles\LocalService\AppData\Local (it won’t show up in Windows Explorer – you’ll need to manually navigate to it). Now in this directory you should see up to three files – named as follows:

  • FontCache3.0.0.0
  • FontCache-System
  • FontCache-S-xxxxxx….

If you delete the file FontCache3.0.0.0 whilst the PresentationFontCache.exe service is killed (kill it from Task Manager), it should resolve your problem. I actually removed all three files and it hasn’t done any damage, but I’m relatively sure you only need to remove FontCache3.0.0.0. Apparently, in some cases, the file may be called FontCache4.0.0.0 – in which case remove that file. 

Once that’s done, reboot your computer and all should be resolved!