Category Archives: Useful websites

This category contains all posts that refer to useful websites.

Charge your iPad from any PC USB port & fix “Not Charging” error

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Just a very quick Christmas post. If you’ve got an iPad and you’re wondering why it won’t charge over your desktop or laptop’s USB ports – it’s because by default desktop USB ports only provide 1A of current to connected devices. Any iPad actually needs more than this to charge, hence why Apple give you a special charging plug to charge it.

However, hope is not lost. You can actually get an app for your PC which manually increases the amount of current that your PC’s USB ports provide. It’s called AI Charger and it’s by Asus. Don’t be  fooled though – it will actually work with any computer and not just computers with Asus motherboards.

All you need to do is download the app from the page, install it and give your computer a reboot. When you turn it back on, you should notice that your computer will now charge your iPad (albeit slowly).

This should actually work on any desktop or laptop. Bear in mind, though, that use of this app while using your laptop’s battery may cause excessive wear to your battery. A useful app though, nonetheless.

Update: PEAK 100417AGPK USB Dual TV Tuner Windows XP/Vista/7 32/64Bit Driver

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I’ve just updated my GEEK! post that included the driver for the PEAK 100417AGPK dual TV tuner. This being because I’ve found the driver disk and have uploaded the official driver for consumer use!

If you need a copy of the driver yourself, please see this post. Leave a comment and let us know how you got on!

(Alternatively, if you know what you’re doing and would just like the download – click here)

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

Rewind: A look back at GEEK! so far

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Well, GEEK! is just over three years old now; and during that time I’ve written over 400 posts. So, while I don’t really want to add anything too new to GEEK! while I get my backup system finalised, I thought now would be a good time to run over some of the posts have brought the most traffic to GEEK!.

By far and away, the most popular post on GEEK! is the “Get the old Windows Live Essentials back“. So many of you were fed up with the poor functionality of Essentials 2011 (including me), so I linked you up with a download and instructions to get the old 2009 version back.

Next up, it’s the tool I found that allowed you to find the biggest files on your hard drive. The tiny tool quickly locates the files that are occupying the most space on your drive, allowing you to delete anything you see as unnecessary.

My review of the Samsung N145P netbook brought the next largest amount of attention to GEEK!. A fully comprehensive review that details everything you needed to know.

Not too far behind, my finding of TVCatchup back in mid 2009 provided Freeview TV access over the internet (in the UK). I still use the site regularly when I’m on the go, as it provides live TV without a bombardment of adverts.

Last in the top five, it’s my iPod touch 4G review. Simple and sweet – it explains all the new features that were (and still are) great additions to the iPod range.

And that’s it – a round-up of the top five biggest posts on GEEK!. Normal service on GEEK! will resume soon, but I’m just optimising the backup process on my new VPS!

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!