Griddle - A Grid/Table Component for React

We had a requirement at work to display some tabular data that is retrieved from a web service as a JSON object. As we have recently started using React, it made sense to find a decent component that suited what we needed and after a bit of browsing, we found Griddle.

Unfortunately, their documentation; while it wasn’t bad, it’s not the best I’ve seen so I thought I’d throw something together to show how to get it working quickly and using a publicly available API, so anyone should be able to follow.

Getting Started with React.js

I’ve recently reviewed some of my blog content and found that some of it is advising of a way to do things in a way that I would no longer suggest. This article in particular focused around using Browserify and also installing npm packages globally; neither of which I’ve used/done for a long time.

I did write a “revisited” post a few years after this one, which is much more relevant and you can view that here: React JS Revisited.

heavy cpu usage svchost windows10

Google brings up a complete bag of results when you search for “svchost high cpu” as it’s been a well documented issue with the Windows Update service across the last couple of Windows versions (way back to XP as it happens!) so it was little surprise to find that the instance of svchost.exe that was eating CPU cycles was the one that was hosting the Windows Update service.

Dipping into the Settings screens of Windows 10, I got to the Windows Update section, only for it to show that it was on “Downloading Updates 0%” and remained at this point for a couple of hours without moving. I couldn’t remember the process for fixing this issue in Windows 8 (as I have had it on another PC in the past), hence the need for Google.

"Something went wrong" - Creating users on Windows 10

On a fresh install of Windows 10, I found I was unable to add a second user to the system (via All Settings) and constantly got the “Something went wrong” screen. I tried a few reboots but to no avail. A quick google found that a lot of people with laptops were having this problem, and removing the battery and running on AC power only appeared to resolve their problem, but I’m on a desktop… i.e. no battery.

Sending email via SMTP on Outlook 2013

Recently I’ve noticed that I’ve not been able to send emails in Outlook 2013 on the desktop computer. It’s been working fine on my laptop, but the desktop no such luck.

The error I was getting was “Error 0x800CCC13 Cannot connect to the network”. I tried a few different things, but to no avail.

After researching online, I found that doing the following fixes it:

• Close Outlook before continuing.
• Run a command prompt as administrator
• Run sfc /scannow and allow to complete.

Reload Outlook now, and try sending an email.

McAfee Mobile Security

About a fortnight ago, I changed to an android handset after having iPhones for the last 4 years. I had decided on an LG G3 which turns out to come preinstalled with McAfee Mobile Security… Which is fine… Or would be if it worked properly.

I use an app for my online banking. When I load it up, it complains that there is no security product installed. If I open up McAfee manually, and go back into my banking app, it doesn’t complain. So maybe it does work?!

Access services on VirtualBox VM

In my current job I use a lot of virtual machines due to the variety of applications we support and the demand for them to work on many versions of Windows. As a result, we do have web services that I’d run on a VM, but it’s not possible to bridge the adapters (to allow external access to the VM) due to security guidelines at work, so I have to try something else.

Dell XPS 15 9530 sluggish performance

This morning, I noticed that my Dell XPS 15 9530 felt a little sluggish, so did some investigation and found the CPU clock had capped at a lower speed. I did a full reboot of Windows 10, and luckily this was sufficient to shake things back into life. But a quick read online suggested that some people aren’t quite as lucky in this situation.

So if a reboot doesn’t resolve the issue, what next?

Minecraft Pocket Edition - Invisible mobs/monsters

My son recently bought an Acer A3-A10 tablet with some money he had saved. It’s a great tablet for the £135 it cost at Argos and even sweeter with the £10 voucher with which he was able to get a Google Play voucher :) Anyway, to the point of this post. When I play Minecraft Pocket Edition against him, I found the mobs were invisible and I couldn’t even hear any creepers or spiders, I just got exploded or bit by them silently. I thought this was a little odd, and after searching for information at the time, I was unable to find anything about it. Until now.

Boot Booster (EFI) Partition on an Asus EeePC 1005P

We have an Asus EeePC 1005P netbook which comes with the Intel Atom N450 CPU. The BIOS provides a “Boot Booster” option which caches POST information in a special partition on the hard drive to speed up the boot process. Unfortunately, as part of removing all the partitions from the hard drive, this “special” partition has been lost and I needed to recreate it.

You will need:

• Windows installation media
• Linux live media (I’m using a Lubuntu CD)
• Plenty of time (it is an Atom CPU afterall!)

I’ve cleared the disk of all partitions using GParted (using the Lubuntu CD), and I’ve installed Windows 7. As part of installing Windows, I’ve selected a “Custom Installation” and specified a 60Gb (61440Mb) partition for it to be installed to. The Windows installation process adds an additional partition of 100Mb (containing boot information for Windows).