Slow Internet SOLVED: Disable USB Enhanced Keyboard Startup!

Slow Internet SOLVED: Disable USB Enhanced Keyboard Startup!

My Lenovo ThinkCentre was loaded with all the bells and whistles. Brand new it was too slow to even read gmail via the Chrome browser.

Finally, after a year-and-a-half or longer I INSTANTLY fixed the slow internet problem.

Search and start "Task Manager" > Start Up tab > and right click on top of "USB enhanced performance Keyboard" and select DISABLE .

I went from waiting 2-3 minutes for a blank google search page to show up, to it just instantly popping up like a normal internet capable machine! 

Searching for anything on a google page would take a few minutes to give the results, now it's instant.

After I did this fix I also went in Google Chrome browser > help > About Google Chrome and updated Chrome itself.

****I had lots of trouble when I first bought my fully loaded Think Centre. They shipped the wrong computer to me (it belonged to another customer); they triple charged my credit card (so I had to cancel the card!); they took a while to refund me the overcharges; I had to spend weeks months arguing with various people to get MY computer shipped to me, etc.

I was so bummed out by that process that when I plugged my Think Centre in and couldn't even read an email I just gave up and didn't use it for over a year. 

Well, I had a couple days off in a row so I was cleaning out cabinets and closets and came upon this tiny computer (which was awesome except you LITERALLY couldn't even read emails with it). 

Well, disabling the USB Enhanced Performance Keyboard fixed it. 

I've never done a change to a computer and had it work so dramatically and so quickly! I didn't even reboot! Now I have an actual desktop I can use. Now I don't hate my Lenovo desktop (although I still had to cancel my credit card because they just kept charging, and charging, and charging me for computers they never shipped)!

I really hope this helps someone else so they don't have to upgrade their Comcast speed, reinstall Windows, etc. to no avail. Supposedly, some hot key / launch keys on some fancy keyboards won't work if you do this: like the "launch my email" key that some keyboards have, etc.

Not only can I read gmail, I can read my gmail in the normal display. Before it couldn't even bring up the "gmail for slow connections" versions in less than 3 minutes. Forget about actually opening  the emails and reading them. LOL!

Apparently, this .exe file harbored a vulnerability in the form of: SkDaemon.exe trojan / virus. SkDaemon stands for Silitek Multi-Function Key Driver Startup Daemon. The original file of that name was ok, but a virus was using that name as a back-door apparently? They "fixed" this piece of garbage software security-wise, but left it in the startup folder so it could still cause havoc. In response to the original threate, Lenovo gave the below information:

FROM LENOVO:

Lenovo Security Advisory: LEN-2015-015
Potential Impact: Escalation of Privilege
Severity: Low Summary:

Lenovo’s “USB Enhanced Performance Keyboard” software has a known issue where debug code was accidently left in the application. The debug code includes information about which keys on the keyboard are pressed. Lenovo has released a new version of the software that removes the debug code.

Description:
The debug code exists in all previous versions of the software, and has been preloaded on ThinkPad and ThinkCentre systems since early 2014. The debug code, in SKHOOKS.DLL, calls the Windows API OutputDebugString to indicate which key has been pressed. The debug code does not store this information or send it anywhere. There is no possibility to exploit this vulnerability remotely. Only users with access to the system, and the ability to run a special tool to capture debug output, are able to intercept these calls to OutputDebugString. To eliminate this vulnerability, Lenovo has removed the debug code from SKHOOKS.DLL.

Mitigation Strategy for Customers (what you should do to protect yourself):
There are several ways you can protect yourself. Lenovo recommends that you take one of the following steps:
Starting from March 4, 2015, run Lenovo System Update and install the recommended USB Enhanced Performance Keyboard software update
Make sure you have the latest version of the software installed on your computer. The minimum version that corrects the problem is version 2.0.2.2. You can find the latest version of the software Here.
Alternatively, if you are not using the optional Lenovo USB Enhanced Performance Keyboard (73p2620), you may uninstall this software using the following steps:
Open Control Panel
Click on “Programs”
Click on “Uninstall a Program”
In the list of installed programs, find “USB Enhanced Performance keyboard” and then click on the “Uninstall” button
Acknowledgements:
None

Other information and references:
CVE ID:  CVE-2015-3320

Can't Delete Photos from Gallery in Android?

Can't Delete Photos from Gallery in Android?

Here's a quick rundown of what FINALLY worked!

Do have photos/albums showing up on your android phone or tablet that you can't delete? You click on them but "delete" doesn't show as an option like your other photos? Does the album have a little Picasa emblem (rainbow color wheel) instead of a folder emblem and have a name like "Auto Backup", "Blogger Pictures", "Profile Photos"?

Get onto a DESKTOP computer (mobile app version sometimes doesn't work) > login to your google account (or login to gmail) > click picasaweb.google.com/lh/myphotos?noredirect=1 and edit away!

If you have your devices synched to your google account (which is what causes these photos to show up) then you may have photos in: this Picasa web storage; google Drive, google photos app; on your device's main storage card; your devices add-on memory card; google+; etc.

If you delete photos from here they will be wiped out EVERYWHERE: from your synced phones, tablets, computers, your BLOGGER posts, google photo app, android gallery/photo gallery app, etc. So be careful!

This is what worked when unsyncing > clear gallery cache > turn sync back on = the photos disappearing for 5 minutes and then showing back up.

Here's that trick in case you want to try it:

Settings > Application Manager > ALL > Gallery > Clear Cache.

Settings > Accounts > Google > Tap on your gmail > uncheck what you don't want synced to all your devices (Picasa Web Albums).

You can leave sync off, but then your photos won't show up on all your devices. BETTER YET: click on the link at the start of this post and edit there from a DESKTOP computer that's logged into your gmail.

Another thing that can grab and save photos/data is: Settings > Personal > Backup and reset. On all my devices this is set to save info to "Google Servers". It's actually a great feature, but all these places can be the actual location of a certain photo you want to delete, in this case a photo of a cat.

After a week of trying the cat photo is GONE from about 8 different locations/devices: including google+ which the user never signed up for but was included in the "google account". If you have gmail, then you may have all sorts of google app accounts that you never actually signed up for-they're just tacked onto your gmail now.

WARNING:

Hope this helps someone else, but remember that deleting a photo ANYWHERE in google deletes it EVERYWHERE!

SUMMARY

Eventually they might show back up. Here's another route to take: delete the photos from the FOLDER that feeds the un-deletable Picasa albums. Get on a desktop computer > sign into google account > click picasaweb.google.com/lh/myphotos?noredirect=1 and delete the actual photos. It will give a huge list of the places that the photo is being deleted from! THEN go to settings > Accounts > Google > click on your gmail address which shows up > make sure "Sync Picasa Web Album" is CHECKED > click SYNC! THEN settings > Application Manager > ALL > Gallery > clear cache. If you don't they'll just eventually reappear. This way you can also KEEP your sync and backups going, just delete the individual photos you find annoying. This worked for a TON of my photos, but there is still one that keeps coming back, but that's better than the 305 that kept showing up!

You ain't gonna get rid of me that easy!

When I long press that 1 photo it doesn't show the details>location like the others so I have no idea where it is coming from...and yes, it's another cat photo.

How to Fix Linux Printing Problem

How to Fix Linux Printing Problem

When printing in Linux do you get a zillion blank pages or tons of pages with lines of weird nonsense across the top? Does this happen especially with Word documents that have images inserted in them and PDF files?


The fix is totally easy:


1. Go to Menu > All Programs > Printers.

2. Right click on your Printer and select Properties.

3. In Printer Properties select Printer Options.

4. Change "Print Quality" to something other than what is already selected.

5. Click Apply.

6. Click OK.

That's it! You don't even have to reboot to printer or computer.

My printer was set to "Normal Greyscale" so I changed it to "Normal" and all of a sudden everything worked fine.

Most printers have a bunch of settings to choose from.

For what it's worth I have an 8 year old Dell Inspiron with an ancient black and white Dell 1700 printer that makes the lights in the room dim every thirty seconds whenever it's turned on.

My printer driver is just the "Generic PCL 6/PCL XL Printer Foomatic" generic driver.

I needed to get a bunch of stuff printed for a job interview: nothing but hieroglyphics were coming out of the printer. A text-filled Word document printed fine, but when I pasted in a photo of my degree and transcripts I got 20 pages of garbage printed out. The same when I tried to print a PDF of my last pay stub. I got sick of jumping from computer to computer and rebooting into Windows Vista (one of my desktops if dual boot).

Some people have to try a few different print quality settings before they find one that works. I lucked out on my first try.

Hope this helps, pass it along!

GET YOUR KEYBOARD TO LIGHT UP IN LINUX MINT

HOW TO GET YOUR KEYBOARD TO LIGHT UP IN LINUX MINT

Okay, so Linux Mint uses the “Scroll Lock Key” for a lot of stuff. However, most keyboards that can light up for easier typing in the dark use the Scroll Lock Key to also turn the LED illumination on and off. Sometimes it will say “EL on/off” under the words “Scroll Lk”.

Obviously that sucks. Especially if you have an awesome keyboard like my Logisys one that glows blue. So you have to do some typing in the Terminal window in Linux to get your scroll lock key back. Although Linux has thrown me some curveballs in the past two days (Cinnamon constantly crashing until I downloaded MATE desktop and setting it as my default workspace, etc.) At least I don't have to see things like this  every few days:

Okay, Terminal is that black square button with “>-“ on it. It opens up a black screen that is a lot like the old DOS programming window.


Whenever I write “Type:” you type whatever is written after that and then click your Enter key.

1. Click on the Terminal button to open Terminal

Here’s where it gets weird. I somehow didn’t have permissions for any of my home files. Yep, I did NOT own my own files somehow. You may or may not have this problem. This second step gives you permission to read and write to your own files. I didn’t realize this because I’ve only had Linux Mint on my computer for 2 days (yet, figuring this out I feel is quite impressive). If you do already have permissions throughout your home directory you can skip to step 5.

2. Type:   Sudo

3. Enter your password

4. Type:  Sudo chown –R mike : mike /home/mike

Make sure to change ‘mike’ to your user name and pay attention to where there are spaces!

This will run a bunch of files, giving you permission to read and write to them. It’ll only take a minute to go through. So, back to fixing the keyboard.

5. Type:  xmodmap –pm

This will list a few things with numbered mod lines. Usually 3 has nothing next to it, it’s just a blank space next to the 3. So, we’ll use 3 as our Scroll Lock light button place. If you have a different number blank then use that number. Somewhere I think I read you can go up to 32 or 35. I dunno. Just make sure 3 is blank and then go to the next step.

6. Type: cd ~

That’s cd followed by a space and then the ~ tilde symbol that’s at the upper left corner of your keyboard.

7. Type:      Echo >.Xmodmap “add mod3 = Scroll_Lock”

Yes, there is a space after echo, but not after the >, and yes it’s a capital X and there is an underscore between Scroll and Lock.
You may notice your keyboard is lit up now!

8. Type: exit

This will exit you from Sudo (an elevated super user admin thing)

9. Type: exit

Yes, you exit again to exit from the Terminal program itself.


Now, restart your computer and see if your keyboard illumination light turns on right after booting up.

On my keyboard, this doesn’t actually make the Scroll Lock button work as the on/off—but it does light up my keyboard and keeps it lighted.

Alternately you can go into terminal and type:   xset led 3     which will turn your keyboard light on. You can shut off your keyboard light by typing:   xset –led 3

The xset codes get erased on rebooting. But it’s a nice option.

Another option (which just wouldn't take at the root level for me at least) was Xmodmap -e 'add mod3 = Scroll_Lock' which possibly will let you toggle your keyboard lights off and on. You'd have to add it (using "echo") to the ROOT folder of Xmodmap (I think) so the code would look a bit different in front of the .Xmodmap part. At one point it worked for me, but then stopped working. I don't mind my keyboard lights on all the time, so I just went with the simpler version without the "-e" portion, as I described in the numbered steps above.

For my next trick I’ll cut the wires from the LED backlights and solder them to a toggle switch and a point somewhere on the keyboard’s circuit board with the proper voltage. Maybe at the USB cable? That would be too high voltage? I dunno. I’ll dig around in there at some point.  I don’t mind the LED light on all the time, so I’m not too amped up about it.

That was so boring. Computer "Science" is boring. Meow!

ANOTHER GREAT LINUX MINT TIP

Minimizing / hiding Chromium or even Word files with the upper right ‘_’ minimize button makes them disappear forever. Clicking on the show desktop button only brings them back if you hide them that way…sometimes.

Click on ALT + TAB key and you’ll get a choice of all the hidden / minimized internet browsers and other things you’ve hidden and lost or forgot about. Nice!

By the way, for all of the above I’m using the MATE desktop of Linux Mint 17.3 Cinnamon!

Big deal. I can hide / unhide myself anytime I want to in this mini Coleman camping tent! Meow! ...Actually I'm not too great at zipping and unzipping it up by myself.