Cmder displays {lamb} and {git} instead of λ and current dir

I recently installed cmder for Windows and when I ran it it was displaying {lamb} and {git} instead of λ and current dir.

Cmder displays {lamb} and {git} instead of λ and current dir

It came with the 0.4.2 version of Clink , which apparently is incompatible or doesnt work best with Windows 10.

Solution is very simple:

1. Go to https://mridgers.github.io/clink/ and download ZIP version of  Clink (.exe is probably OK too but I downloaded ZIP). The new version I downloaded was 0.4.9.

2.  Go to the cmder_mini/vendor folder (where you installed cmder) and rename clink folder to something like clink_original (or you can delete it if you like but I prefer to backup first if something goes wrong) and recreate a folder named clink  and simply extract all files from the downloaded ZIP to this folder.

3. Close (if you had it open) and restart cmder and this is what you should see:

cmder clink

Prevent Windows from updating/reinstalling a driver

This is for Windows 10 but will probably work on other Windows versions too.

Windows 10 is still relatively new so some vendors (looking at you Lenovo) haven’t updated the drivers. For example in my case I had problems with Conexant driver for Windows 10 – microphone didn’t work in some programs. To make the long story short, I tried everything and the solution was to uninstall the driver and use older version. The problem was, Windows 10 kept reinstalling the latest driver!

The solution was this: Install Microsoft tool that “hides” specific driver form Windows so Windows doesn’t “see” it and doesn’t update/reinstall it.

So:

  1. Uninstall or rollback the problematic driver until you have the one that works.
  2. Download this tool:
    Note: I am linking to Microsoft site and not directly to file download so you can be sure that there isn’t some virus or some malware file on the link.
  3. Click Hide Updates, like on photo below.hide updates windows
  4. You will see a list of drivers. Select the driver you want to hide from Windows update and Windows will not update this driver anymore. Click next, wait and that’s it.

If you want Windows to update the driver again, the run this tool again and select “Show hidden updates” and then remove the hidden driver.

Global variable set in the template’s header.php is empty in footer.php

If you set up a global variable in the header you would expect that it would be available everywhere, right? That is the definition of the word ‘global;, right? Well, it doesn’t work like this and the reason is because in WordPress header and footer are called via functions so the variable is only accessible in scope of each function.

One of the solutions is simple – use global variable before the declaration AND before echoing.

For example, add this to header.php:

<?php global $var; $var= "something"; ?>

and then in the footer.php you do this :

<?php global $var; echo $var; ?>

and it will echo the content of your $var variable.

Be advised though that some people say using global variables is not the best practice.

Fix Missing Volume Icon in Tray in Windows 10

I’m liking Windows 10 but it has a lot of bugs that make it look like it is still a beta software. One of the most annoying bugs is that the volume icon simply disappears (this usually happens to me when windows 10 wakes up from sleep). Even restarting doesn’t always help. Here is a weird solution I found (which is still just temporary solution but it beats restarting). Going to Notifications & Settings then “Turn system icons on and off” doesnt help because Volume option is greyed out.

This is what helped. When the volume icon goes missing do this:

1. Click on search icon (near start menu) and type “display”.

2. Click “Display settings”

3. Change the size of text to 125% and click apply.

4. Do not log out!

5. Change the text size back to 100% and click apply.

6. Now sign out and then sign back in.

For some weird reason the volume icon is back! Hopefully it works for you too. This (setting text size) might mess up your desktop icon alignment a little but it is not really a problem.

Fix “Failed to send your message. Please try later or contact administrator by other way.”

I am using Contact Form 7 on one of WP sites and after update (not sure which one) I started getting this error after user submitted the form:

‘Failed to send your message. Please try later or contact administrator by other way.’

As always, lots of way to complicated solutions on the net when, in my case, the solution was simple.

This is what I had before (CF7 admin):
wrong mail contact form 7

And this is the one that works (I just replaced data in the FROM field):
correct mail form 7

of course you need to replace domain.com with your domain.

I do not know why did it worked before and why it stopped working but this is how I solved it. Of course you cant just hit reply now because your email is REPLY email. To solve this you can try this :

Contact Form 7 has a field called “Additional headers:”. Enter (literally) Reply-To: [your-email] and save.

Where are Desktop Viber Avatars located on PC?

If you want to see all the avatars / photos that your Viber contacts use for avatars (even old ones) then you can find big sized images here (this is only for Windows):

DRIVE:\Users\YOUR WINDOWS PROFILE\AppData\Roaming\ViberPC\YOUR PHONE NUMBER\Avatars

so for example if your drive is C, your windwos profiel is FooUser and your phon is 555-55555 then you can find it here:

C:\Users\FooUser\AppData\Roaming\ViberPC\55555555\Avatars

Note: The files might not have standard photo extensions (jpeg,png,.) so might not be able to open them with double clicking on them – but they are still photos. So just drop them into your favorite photo viewer or even better: browse that path with your photo viewer’s explorer.

Bootstrap xs, sm, md, lg breakpoints in pixels and devices

For some reason I keep forgetting these breakpoints and have to search them on the net.

Bootstrap breakpoints in pixels:

  • xs = 0-767 pixels
  • sm = 768-991 pixels
  • md = 992-1199 pixels
  • lg = 1200 pixels and up

In other words,

  • xs is for extra small devices (phones, less than 768px)
  • sm is for small devices (tablets, 768px and up)
  • md is for medium devices (desktops, 992px and up)
  • lg is for large devices (large desktops, 1200px and up)

WordPress not showing latest WP version available

I wanted to update one of my WordPress sites from 4.2.2 to the latest but WordPress did not show me there is a new version available even though WordPress is already on version 4.3.

If this happens to you the first thing you should check is to see if there is this line in your wp-config.php file :

define( 'AUTOMATIC_UPDATER_DISABLED', true);

In my case it was, so I set it to false however it sadly didn’t resolve the issue.

If the same thing happens to you then I suggest you to install this awesome plugin (just look at the ratings):

WordPress Fence

It immediately found out that WordPress code files were modified by cPanel (most probably if you installed WP via your hosts cPanel), which added few lines to core files that prevent WordPress to show updates (something with incompatibility). Word Fence then offered a bulk replace and replaced these modified files with the clean WordPress core files. Refresh and WP immediately offered and found update to latest WP.

Unity3D – MissingReferenceException: The object of type __ has been destroyed but you are still trying to access it

If you get this error:

"MissingReferenceException: The object of type __ has been destroyed but you are still trying to access it. Your script should either check if it is null or you should not destroy the object."

then the first thing you should do is to check if you have (additional) inspector window locked. Simply unlock it (you can see the small lock in top right corner of inspector window) and this error should go away.

unity3d inspector lock
I have no idea what is causing it (I am just starting out with Unity) but this solved it. Luckily I found the answer quite fast and did not need to debug and waste a lot of time checking the code when the code was completely fine.

Start Menu Search Remains Empty in Windows 10

I installed Windows 10 and after some time search in start menu stopped working. No matter what I typed in, the menu remained empty and the small dots going from left to right (search progress animation) just kept moving and nothing showed.

This is how to solve it: open Task manager (press CTRL + SHIFT + ESC), go to Details tab (If you don’t see it there then check Processes tab) and stop Cortana or SearchUI.exe. Just right click on the task then select End Task. After you end Cortana try searching again.