How to resolve Sony Xperia S PC connection problems – pvc tech

This post details how I resolved the frustrating ”Searching Phone” and “Unable to detect your phone” error messages when connecting a Sony Xperia S smartphone to a Windows 7 PC via USB.

1. Disconnect the Sony Xperia S from the PC.

2. Turn off USB debugging if it’s enabled:

Menu > Settings > Applications > Development > USB debugging

3. Clear data for the MTPapp in the phone.

Menu > Settings > Applications > Manage applications > All > Mtpapp

Try connecting my Sony Xperia S to the PC again now. If you’re lucky, PC Companion will now successfully detect your phone. If problems persist, these further steps can help resolve the problem:

4. Connect the phone via USB and go to the Device manager on the computer. Check if you can locate the phone or any Unknown/New device that could be the phone or if you perhaps see the phone as a device. Right click it and select to uninstall.

5. Still in Device manager open the list for USB controllers (Universal Serial Bus Controllers) and right click each one of these controllers and select to uninstall.

When all of this is done reboot your computer and before connecting your phone again repeat step 2.

You should of course not have to do this every time you connect your phone to your computer but hopefully this could remove any error causing your phone not to connect properly.

How to change iTunes device backups storage location in Windows – pvc tech

Recently I noticed the Windows partition on my Windows Home Server was running critically low on space. Given that I store most of my data on separate drives and partitions, I thought this was a curious problem to suddenly run into.

One use of my Windows Home Server is to use it as an always-on iTunes server that stores all my content, and serves it on-demand to my Apple TVs, iPhone, iPad and computers. All of my iOS devices sync to the iTunes server. It was when I connected my iPad to the Windows Home Server and it complained that it was unable to save my iPad backup to the computer that I suddenly realised where all my C: partition space had gone. iOS device backups.

iTunes automatically chooses to save data to your User directory in Applications Data (AppData on WHS)\Roaming\Apple Computer\MobileSync\Backups.

While you can change where your iTunes library and content are stored, you have no control over the device backups storage location. My solution was to move “MobileSync” to my i: Drive (iTunes data drive) and then setup a Directory Junction from my Users directory to I:\MobileSync. A Directory Junction is a hard link to a directory. It in essence fools iTunes into thinking it’s storing data on C:\ when in fact it’s saving out to I:\. If you want to symlink to a directory using a hard link, then you should use the “/J” option.

1. I closed iTunes.

2. I moved my MobileSync directory (containing Backups folder) to my I:\ drive.

3. I then made sure MobileSync was removed from the old location.

4. I opened Command Prompt and issued the following command (replacing <username> with my own Windows login):

    mklink /J “c:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\Apple Computer\MobileSync” i:\MobileSync

5. A message was returning confirming:

    Junction created for c:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\Apple Computer\MobileSync <<===>> i:\MobileSync

6. I opened Windows Explorer and then browsed to the old MobileSync location and verified it was now linking to i:\MobileSync.

7. Finally I restarted iTunes, connected an iOS device and ensured it backed up data successfully to the new storage location.

Job done, C: partition rescued.

How to disable all vBulletin plugins via PHP config file – pvc tech

Occasionally, when things go crazy in the vBulletin admincp backend, you may need to disable the plugin system using the config.php file. Just place the following code below <?php inside includes/config.php:

    define(‘DISABLE_HOOKS’, true);

All plugins will now cease to execute until after you disable the line in your config file.

How to use multiple domains and FTP accounts with cPanel – pvc tech

How do I setup an extra domain on a cPanel server with its own jailed FTP account, and do this in such a way that it doesn’t interfere with my main cPanel domain name and account?

This can only be done if your hosting provider has setup your account to have privileges to host multiple domain names in a single account. If your hosting account does have this capability, you need to use the “Addon Domains” feature in cPanel to configure your additional domain names and FTP accounts.

1. I log in to cPanel with the username: newpress.

2. I access the “Domains” section of the cPanel administrative page and click “Addon Domains”.

3. I enter the following credentials for my new Addon Domain:

New Domain Name: newdomain.com

Subdomain/FTP Username: newdomain

Document Root: public_html/newdomain.com

Password: 6!pA$-wPIxRG

Password (Again): 6!pA$-wPIxRG

Strength (why?): Very Strong 100/100

4. Using the data entered above produces the following results:

FTP Username: newdomain@newdomain.com

FTP Password:  6!pA$-wPIxRG

Full path: /home/newpress/public_html/newdomain.com

The new FTP account is setup jailed so the user “newdomain@newdomain.com” can only access files at newdomain.com. The directory newdomain.com appears as the “/” docroot in any FTP client software.

cPanel automatically configures Apache to serve requests to both http://newdomain.com and http://www.newdomain.com. For SEO reasons, a 301 redirect from newdomain.com to www.newdomain.com would be preferable to avoid duplicate content penalties.

How to use multiple domains and FTP accounts with cPanel – pvc tech

How do I setup an extra domain on a cPanel server with its own jailed FTP account, and do this in such a way that it doesn’t interfere with my main cPanel domain name and account?

This can only be done if your hosting provider has setup your account to have privileges to host multiple domain names in a single account. If your hosting account does have this capability, you need to use the “Addon Domains” feature in cPanel to configure your additional domain names and FTP accounts.

1. I log in to cPanel with the username: newpress.

2. I access the “Domains” section of the cPanel administrative page and click “Addon Domains”.

3. I enter the following credentials for my new Addon Domain:

New Domain Name: newdomain.com

Subdomain/FTP Username: newdomain

Document Root: public_html/newdomain.com

Password: 6!pA$-wPIxRG

Password (Again): 6!pA$-wPIxRG

Strength (why?): Very Strong 100/100

4. Using the data entered above produces the following results:

FTP Username: newdomain@newdomain.com

FTP Password:  6!pA$-wPIxRG

Full path: /home/newpress/public_html/newdomain.com

The new FTP account is setup jailed so the user “newdomain@newdomain.com” can only access files at newdomain.com. The directory newdomain.com appears as the “/” docroot in any FTP client software.

cPanel automatically configures Apache to serve requests to both http://newdomain.com and http://www.newdomain.com. For SEO reasons, a 301 redirect from newdomain.com to www.newdomain.com would be preferable to avoid duplicate content penalties.