Randem Systems Support Board

03/19/2025 - Version 6.1.00

NEW: BotBanish has bee re-engineered! Better Contact Form Spam Processing.

FIX: Larger areas for Contact Denial Settings.

FIX: Re-introduced data recovery after uninstall.

ADD: New words added to "Contact Form Denial" in BotBanish to be used in the Forbidden words or phrases area.

ADD: Further enhancements of the "Contact Form Denial" rejection processes.

NEW: (WORDPRESS) After plugin activation, the BotBanish "Settings" page will be displayed.

NEW: Many more updates and improvements.

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________
01/21/2025 - Version 6.0.10

FIX: When re-installing the WordPress options were not saved correctly for Contact Form Protecting.

ADD: Enhanced contact form rejection processes.

FIX: (WordPress) Removed recovery of data after uninstall. Caused timeouts. Will re-introduce in later version.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________
01/09/2025 - Version 6.0.09

FIX: (WordPress) After uninstalling (without deleting data), upon re-install exported data will be recovered.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________
01/05/2025 - Version 6.0.08

CHG: Made the defaults to country blocking Russia, China and Singapore.

CHG: No email notifications will be sent for country blocking. Too many emails would be generated.

CHG: Improved Backup capabilities.

NEW: Added backup & import capability when installing and uninstalling so that no customer entries to black / white lists will be lost when applying new version or re-installing same version, unless Delete All Data is chosen on uninstall.

CHG: Moved log and backup locations not to be deleted on uninstall unless delete all data is selected on uninstall.

CHG: Improved Contact form email blocking.

CHG: Added more options to contact email blocking.

ADD: Added a menu to the top of the administration page.

CHG: Improved .htaccess file processing.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________
12/21/2024 - Version 6.0.00 (Not Compatible with Prior Versions)

CHG: Checked system for server type, (Apache, NGINX, Lighttd, Lightspeed) to determine .htaccess usage.

CHG: Modified procedure for getting client domain name. Sometimes no client domain name was found ending in license not found error.

CHG: Re-ordered alternate BotBanish Servers. Moved faster servers to the front of the search list for clients to connect to.

FIX: Client Table Maintenance was not correctly removing expired entries.

ADD: (WordPress) Ability to check if host has all the needed PHP & Apache modules to successfully run BotBanish.

ADD: Contact pages can be monitored for SPAM and junk messages. These IP's can be blocked from leaving SPAM messages. Determination if a message is SPAM is user controlled.

FIX: When installing with Pretty-URLs partially installed, an error would be thrown on installation. Now a double check is made to insure that all the Pretty-URLs files that are needed for the BotBanish installation are present.

ADD: Deletes debug.log and PHP error files if they get too large. Very large files will occur if WordPress WP_DEBUG is set to true. Some themes use Redux Framework which generates many depreciation messages in PHP 8.x will slow down and run out of space on your server causing it to crash. The generation of messages also make it very hard to debug other plugins due to the gross amount of messages.

CHG: (WordPress) Removed "WORDPRESS" from .htaccess and spider_bad table to allow WordPress sites to access pages.

CHG: Removed URL static processing. All URL processing is now completely dynamic.

CHG: Version 6 is no longer compatible with prior versions. Database and Communications have been changed.

CHG: BotBanish will no longer modify the root .htaccess file when BotBanish is installed in a sub-folder. This is mainly to accommodate staging sites that are installed in sub-folders.

CHG: Moved all BotBanish .htaccess entries to the top of the file. This was done to prevent hanging in WordPress sites and to allow protection to be administered first before any other application that could alter the protection. This is most important in WordPress sites but should be beneficial to other systems as well.

NEW: (WordPress) When installing BotBanish, if the "Contact Form SPAM Denial" plugin is installed and active, BotBanish will automatically deactivate it because BotBanish has the same functionality. When uninstalling BotBanish, the plugin will automatically be re-activated if it is installed.

As of May 17, 2024, all previous BotBanish versions have been discontinued due to database and operations changes. It is recommended that any prior BotBanish version prior to 5.2 be fully uninstalled. All data should be deleted from the database also (BotBanish -> Settings -> Remove Data) prior to uninstalling. Install BotBanish 5.2 or greater to protect your forums / Websites and WordPress sites.

Classroom Redesign

We also have ads on the KAIO radio group Q103 FM, 94.3 FM and 95.1 FM. The 30 second ads air 3 time daily on each station. This is the ad, of course audio only.

Installed curtain separators for the office. We will separate the classroom from the tech side when both are in use.

In Late October 2023 after a Windows Update We found that we could not see our Western Digital NAS WDPR4100 and WDEX4100 units. We did everything that we could to solve the issue but the solution turn out to be very simple. All we had to do was to log onto our PR4100/EX4100 units and turn on the IPv6 protocol and the units appeared in our Windows 11 network environment. We could always map a drive or access the units but they would not be shown in the Windows 11 neighborhood. This allowed the NAS units to be visible in Windows 11.

If you have an old Windows 10 PC on your network, you will need to turn on SMB 1.0 in order for it to be seen. You will need to turn SMB 1.0 on the Windows 10 PC, on the NAS unit (or server) that acts as the DNS Server for your network and on the PC that you want to see the Windows 10 PC on.

The strange thing is that I had to turn SMB 1.0 Client on to see every computer and NAS unit on the network. Otherwise I could randomly see computers on the network. We have a mix of Windows 11 Pro, Windows 11, Windows 10 Computers and NAS Units. Of course if I used a network scanner I could see every computer, Printer and NAS unit on the network. The Windows network is still a little shaky and sometimes does not make a lot of sense...

Ready for classes tomorrow (Sunday)!

The classroom is now setup and awaiting the mini computers. We are looking for instructors for the classes (of course students also )

Well, on October 10, 2023 we finally got our internet and phone service installed  . Now we are officially open for business . We have all our new computers and workstations and can do everything that we could do before the Lahaina Wildfires. Come down and see us!

Well, we are still waiting for internet. I have been trying since Sept 3, 2023. Spectrum messed up again, Well maybe it was just a lazy technician... He came to our building and then texted me that he could not complete the job. He never came to my office to discuss it, then the lazy boy marked the order complete after he did nothing! I called the office and they were very much clueless also. They told me some outrageous lie about me having service. Mind you that there is no equipment present and not even a coax cable, Maybe they installed wireless internet and phone service . Not only does the left hand not know what they right hand is doing, the left hand does not even care...

Here is my flyer that I am sending out to get new customers
<a href="https://randemsystems.cloud/data/BusinessOpener1.pdf" target="_blank">https://randemsystems.cloud/data/BusinessOpener1.pdf</a>