Getting a PayPal API Username and Signature: an exercise in futility.

Every now and again and I need a reminder of how much I hate myself. That's when I decided to do something that should be brain-dead simple on WordPress using the pre-installed, already-configured WP eCommerce plug-ins — connecting to our business PayPal account for online payments.

Super easy, right? All I have to do is enter a few simple, little PayPal things into the settings boxes. Like these:

Why, an API Username, Password, Signature, and Merchant ID. I should be able just to click right over to my PayPal account and find those right under "My Selling Tools" on my PayPal profile, which is EXACTLY where PayPal's helpful help files says it should be. RIGHT?

WRONG! They're not there. They're not ANYWHERE.

So… what's the solution? Is there some magical account setting or special status that lets me have access to an API? After an hour of Googling, I can't find an answer. The WP eCommerce site says I just have to have a PayPal Express Checkout account, or a a Verified PayPal Business Account, or maybe I need to upgrade your account to a Business account. It doesn't matter, because no matter what I click, I just get bounced back to this page, which only lets me log back into my own account with no modifications no matter what I choose.

Of course, PayPal is also ridiculously impossible to get hold of, and I have to fight with their phone tree for hours just to get hung up on.

The Answer

Eventually I discovered one of the five different PayPal modules, "PayPal Payments Standard 2.0," did NOT require any API settings in order to work, so I wound up using that instead.

Sorry, Dave. I can't open that.

So, I burned a PowerPoint presentation to a DVD-R disc. It's the master disc of a large system of presentation files, and everything fit neatly and runs perfectly on my hard drive. Once burned to the DVD-R, however, I only get this lovely message.

That's right. It simply "can't read" the file. It even apologized. However, by "can't read," it doesn't mean the file isn't readible. No, if I open PowerPoint itself and do a file/open, the file opens JUST FINE. It simply refuses to open it from the desktop.

Why? Simple. "Show help" reveals:

The presentation cannot be opened. Your antivirus program may prevent you from opening the presentation. To fix this problem, make sure your antivirus program is current and working correctly. If the problem persists and the presentation is from someone that you trust, turn off your antivirus program, and then try to open the presentation again. If you do this, make sure you turn on your antivirus program again after you open the presentation.

So there you have it. It's my anti-virus programs fault! Why? How do I disable it? Do I even HAVE an anti-virus program running? No, I DO NOT. One lovely fellow has this as a solution, however:

"Just to let you all know, I reinstalled Windows from CD and I am now able to open PowerPoint files without any problems. Thanks for all your help."

That's right. The solution to one file randomly not wanting to open is to REINSTALL YOUR ENTIRE OPERATING SYSTEM. Yes, seriously.

OK, I'm done yak-shaving for the day.

Skype stuck while signing in on Android

Yeah, the title pretty much says it all. I tried logging into Skype, which has been sitting dormant on my phone for pretty much a year or two, and somehow it just sits and spins on that stupid "signing in" screen. After watching the dots circle around for half an hour, I give up and try again. And again. Then I reboot the phone and try again. And then I reinstall Skype and try again. Nothing I do will make it sign it.

Then I reluctantly go to Google, where other people have had this exact problem with absolutely no solution from anyone. I won't link to any of these sites, but if you Google "Skype stuck on signing in Android," you'll find plenty of them, all with two-year old posts on how "This is happening to me, too! Has anyone found a solution?!" Nope. No solution.

Oh wait I got it to work now.

Want to know how? OK, I don't know exactly why, but my phone started working again after I did a couple things. Not sure if these will work for you, but give it a try.

1. I sign up for a new damn account. Don't panic, I was still able to log back into my old one, but out of sheer frustration, I created a new Skype account with my Skype app. Guess what? It logged in fine and started bugging me to verify my phone number and add contacts. That was all I needed to make sure the app could actually get past the sign in screen.
2. I signed out of this new account, and then signed in on the web to my account and found I had some "inactive credits" for some reason. I reactivated them.

After doing these two things, I logged back into my old account, and it seemed to work fine. Not sure if that was just a coincidence, but maybe it'll work for you.

There, Internet, was that so freaking hard?

And this, my friends, is why I use an ad blocker most of the time. If you can't see, the GREEN button on the right is the button I have to click to download this software. The BLUE button on the LEFT is an AD for completely unrelated software.

WordPress missed schedules

I have a couple blogs that use WordPress. I used to use Blogger, but WordPress offered certain features that Blogger simply didn't have (which I won't get into right now). It seemed to work great for a while, but at some point WordPress decided to start ignoring my scheduled posts. When it would come time for one post or another it go live, it would shrug, label it "missed schedule" and go back to sleep. This seemed like the kind of problem that should be easy to solve with a bug fix from some developer, except nobody in the WordPress community has been able to fix it. Instead, the only solution they have is to disable the WordPress cron and set up your own command via cron to get it to work.

Which is great if it would work. But it doesn't. Well, at least not all the time. It worked once on one of my sites, but not on another. Anyway, if this happens to you, just remember one thing: SCHEDULED POSTS WILL NEVER WORK RELIABLY. No, not ever. They won't. Please don't try to find another solution. There is none. Especially not a plug-in that claims to fix the problem. It actually required another plug-in that will very easily break WordPress and every other site on tour server. It just happened to me, and I had to figure out how to disable the plug-ins via FTP to get everything back online.

So for now the solution is to post stuff manually. With no scheduling. Sorry. There is no solution.

Syncing files: THE SOLUTION

So after much frustration in trying to sync files on two flash drives, I finally discovered the solution: I had been ripped off. Yes, I bought my second flash drive on eBay, where the seller claimed it was 64Gb in size, but in reality, it was a 4GB drive that had been HACKED to APPEAR to be 64GB in size. The file sync programs I was using weren't at fault at all — they simply had no way of knowing what size the flash drive actually was, copied what files they could, and then got terribly confused as they continued to write data to places that didn't exist.

So the solution turned out to be surprisingly simple: caveat emptor — buyer beware. If you see a 64GB flash drive on sale for $10, you didn't get a deal. It's like a $20 Rolex. It's fake, and you'll be sorry. Pay an extra $15 for that in-the-box flash drive from Kingston instead of the no-name drive from China. Trust me. It's not worth the hassle.

Syncing files: SO DAMN HARD

So I have a USB Flash Drive for getting stuff done, namely graphic design work. Yes, I'm aware of the existence of Dropbox, but I'm the only one using these files, and I've had no problem working on them via a separate, tiny flash drive. Like any sensible person, I want to back these files up so I don't lose them when my flash drive inevitably falls out of my pocket and through a sewer grate.

This, apparently, is a ridiculously difficult task that no one has ever done before.

No, really. I have a second flash drive the exactly same size as the first. I can copy files between the two with a drag and drop, right? In theory, yes, but then Windows Explorer freezes and crashes for no reason or otherwise gets interrupted. A better idea would be a file synchronization program. You know, one that looks at the files and folders on both drives and then copies only what's needed from one to the other. Then I could pick up right where I left off, right?

Ha! I only wish.

Sure, I googled around for a free file synchronization program. You know, like FreeFileSync. I gave that program a try or two. It took ALL NIGHT to mirror my 30 gigabytes of files. But no problem, the hard part is done, right?

Except that it didn't copy all the files. See, I checked the "properties" and it looked like it had filled up the drive nice and neatly. But then when I did some more work and needed to sync to keep everything up to date, it acted like I had left half the drive untouched. I checked and I found whole folders left COMPLETELY EMPTY on my destination drive. I backed up again, which took a couple HOURS, and then I deleted one or two tiny GIFs so I could test a third backup. Result: FIVE MORE GIGABYTES TO COPY. This was a fail.

So I went to Synkron, a nice little app (when it runs and doesn't fall asleep into that white-out "Not Responding" mode). At the moment, it's syncing the same folder (I've given up on trying for the whole damn drive) that FreeFileSync couldn't seem to figure out, and it's very slowly copying all the same damn files that FreeFileSync had supposedly copied YESTERDAY.

So while I'm waiting for that charade to wrap up, I find out that Microsoft has a tool called SyncToy, which does pretty much the same thing the others do. I give it a run and discover that my destination drive is now completely full. This means that SyncToy will just have errors as it tries copying files to a drive that's already full, but SHOULDN'T BE because it's the same size as the source drive which ISN'T full. My suspicion is that one of the sync programs decided to spew a bunch of invisible files everywhere and fill up space, but none of the sync programs has the ever-so-useful option (as rsync does, which is NOT available for Windows) of DELETING files that shouldn't be there before trying to copy anything. Wouldn't that be nice?

So what's the solution? REFORMAT the destination drive and start all the hell over again. For the THIRD TIME.