Comodo Dragon review

There are many web browsers available: Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Opera, Google Chrome, ... I tested all of them and even though I have a personal preference for Opera, I have had a hard time with it recently. Compatibility problems with Google services (the blogger platform that hosts this post, the Google drive service which I recommend) and more recently I even started having problems with some other websites (my bank website, InfoBarrel, ...). Opera just came up with a new update today so maybe everything is working fine now.

Anyway, I was quite curious when recently, someone using the web browser Comodo Dragon accessed this blog. I had never heard about this browser before and I had to check it out. Right now, this is the web browser I am using to write this post and I did not think a web browser could convince me so fast! Everything I have tested to now is working fine. Google drive, Google blogger, InfoBarrel, my bank website, ... internet browsing is so fast, the beautiful design reminds me of Opera, so almost only advantages.

The only small things I did not like:
- the help function here and there return a help page about Google chrome! So imagine you try to find out how to configure Comodo Dragon for this or that, you may suddenly have a web page explaining the settings for Google Chrome. This is quite ugly.
- the browser came with the language of the country I currently live in (Norway, so Norwegian). Even though I speak Norwegian, I would rather have my browser in English. Easier, and also better when I take screenshots to show on my blogs. I may have missed the option during the install but I have the feeling that, like some Google products, Comodo Dragon tries to guess your language from your local position
- finally, some small messages can be irritating. For example, do you want to translate this page, or that page? I had to deactivate it (click on the eye of the dragon on the upper left corner of the browser, then go to settings and enter language in the search bar)

Even though, my conclusion is that this browser is good and it was a really nice discovery for me. If you are not happy with your current browser or are a bit curious I invite you to try it. Oh and in case you wonder, the name of the animal is Komodo dragon with a 'K' while the browser is called Comodo dragon with a 'C'. Probably some pun intended but I thought I would clear this out as Google may suggest you look for Komodo dragon instead of Comodo dragon.

"There are no calendars selected" error message

I recently had this error message appearing from time to time on my phone and I had no ideas why/what/how. I am not using calendars too much so I did not care too much about the problem but the error message was annoying. What was I supposed to do? Which application was involved if any? I looked on the Internet and began to panic a bit. Some people were advising to factory reset the phone and reinstall the apps one by one and see if the problem appeared again... Fortunately, I was not happy with this solution and found that in my case, the problem was easy to solve.

My problem was coming from the app "Business Calendar" and this is what I needed to do to fix it:
1) Launch the app (if you have the calendar on your desktop, just click on it)
2) A calendar should appear. Click on the option button (your android phone button)
3) You should have the following options: Agenda, Search, Today, Go to, Show Bars and More. Choose More
4) Select the first entry called "Calendars"
5) Check the check box corresponding to the calendar you want to use

6) Save
7) Enjoy

Notice: the problem may come from something else on your phone, so I cannot guarantee that this will fix your problem. At least it did for me.

Report your own bug/problem!

Problem with your PC or mobile? Describe it in the comment section and I may have a look at it.

What I am most likely to look at:

• general problems that impact many people (example: windows bug when creating an ad hoc connection)
• problems I can reproduce myself (example: blogger.com displays an annoying error message when used with opera)

What I am less likely to look at:

• problems that are badly described (example: my smartphone does not work... what do you mean by that? What is it that is not working? In which scenario? What version of software?)
• problems that I cannot reproduce (not that I don't trust you, but I need to reproduce the issue to document the solution)
• problems with a solution available with an easy Google search (first result)

How to change the language of Mypaint in Windows

Mypaint definitively needs some tuning about language settings. I downloaded the software, ran it and it was in... Norwegian! My OS is in English, every programs I use are in English. I have no idea where this software got the idea it should use Norwegian.

Looked in the settings: no way to change the language. Looked in forums: nothing worked. Many people said you only need to rename a folder. Believe me, I change the name of every possible folder with no, NO, norway, or whatever that looked like Norwegian.

Nothing helped. It can be that the language was cached somewhere and that the program would have worked in English after a restart of the PC but I found another solution:
1) Uninstall your program (be careful if you already have done some work with it, you may lose all the data)
2) Reinstall it and be careful. At what point, you will be asked what you want to install
3) Simply uncheck "Translations"
4) Enjoy :-)

How to get the product ID of something on Amazon?

So you are writing for Hubpages, Squidoo or whatever writer community website and you are wondering where to find the Amazon product id of an object you want to promote (and get some percentage of the sale through your Amazon affiliate link).

The answer is simple. Look for the product you want to promote on amazon and look at the URL. The URL should be something like:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0086DBE62?ie=UTF8&linkCode=xm2&camp=1789&creativeASIN=B0086DBE62

You may need to highlight the URL to see it complete but the most important, the product id is probably visible. It is the code that follows product. In our case B0086DBE62:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0086DBE62?ie=UTF8&linkCode=xm2&camp=1789&creativeASIN=B0086DBE62

Don't include the question mark.

If, for some reasons, the URL does not look like this at all, you will have to find the product ID in the "product detail" part of the page. Here it is called ASIN:

If you want to link to a book, you have to provide the ISBN-10, not the ISBN-13

So, in this example: 0345529057.

That's it. Don't hesitate to ask if you have more questions. Also, if you are only writing for Hubpages, you are welcome to join me on InfoBarrel (great community, nice forum, ...). Here are more details about InfoBarrel and why you should join. If you want to join Squidoo (quite fun to write there with achievements, level, ...), you can use this link. Also, don't hesitate to have a look at my article about how to get more readers.

Higgs Boson joke

Just a small joke inspired of agrovista, bzishi, Jason Weisberger and Brian Malow...

Opera and Blogger compatibility issue: get rid of the warning message

If you are using Opera and Blogger (Blogspot), you may have noticed recently the warning message: "Your browser is no longer supported by Blogger. Some parts of Blogger will not work and you may experience problems. If you are having problems, try Google Chrome. | Dismiss."

The warning message in itself is fine. It simply warns you that some parts of Blogger may not work as intended. But, how to get rid of this message? You can dismiss it but it will appear again and again until you give up and download google chrome... Unless... Here is a simple trick to make the message disappear. Warning: you will then have problems editing your posts (viewing them, checking the stats, etc... will still be fine).

Principle of the work-around:
Blogger knows you use Opera because your browser tells him so. What if your Opera browser were to tell blogger "hi, I am Internet Explorer" or "hi, I am Firefox"? Then you won't get the error message anymore. Well, some parts of blogger will still fail (posts editing), but at least, you won't get this annoying warning message anymore. In the IT world, we call the identity of your browser the "user agent". It is a known fact that you can change it to more or less whatever you want and the good thing with Opera is that you can do it for a specific website and don't need to change your register for that.

Work-around, step-by-step:
1) Go to blogger.com (or actually any websites you have problems with, it can be adsense in the future for example)

2) Right click on the page (around the middle of the page should be fine)

3) Select "Edit site preferences"

4) Verify that the site address is correct (for example, if you wanted to change the behaviour of Adsense, put "www.google.com/adsense" instead of just "www.google.com"). Here, "www.blogger.com" is the correct address.

5) Go to the tab Network

6) Change the Browser identification parameter. You can ask Opera to identifies itself as Internet Explorer for example or  Firefox. "Identify as Internet Explorer" is the one I use to get rid of the warning message. When I want to edit my posts, I get back to "Identify as Opera" (message editing is then working fine but the warning message comes back).

The good thing about this fix is that it only concerns the website you have problems with. It will not change anything to your normal surfing experience in general. The bad thing is that you will experience problems with Blogger, especially with posts editing... Oh well, at least, you were warned.

Thanks in advance for everyone giving a +1 to this article (google button above)