Evernote works well with WINE

Installed Evernote on WINE, and it seems so far to be pretty stable and works well enough to grab my information.

Serial Port access from OpenOffice.org

This is my post in the forum.

http://user.services.openoffice.org/en/forum/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=682#p168678

Set up Harmony Remote for Motorola VIP-1216

We just installed Prism from CenturyLink. I just wanted to post something how easy it was (should have been) to convert my Harmony H659 remote to control the Motorola VIP-1216.

If you remember nothing else, "No, I don't have the original remote". Don't try learning it. Don't try guessing from the remote brand. I did this and was extremely frustrated.

You really just have to load your Harmony software, connect your remote, add the device (Video Recorder -> PVR), choose Motorola as a brand, and VIP-1216 as the model. Next, "No, I don't have the remote"! Next/Done, but then go to the Activities tab (watch TV?) and add the Motorola VIP-1216 to the TV.

Now, what functions will you not have immediately that you may want to add to the display?

Certainly, you won't have all the direct input power/mode buttons at the top. But if you have a Harmony remote, you understand why those aren't necessary. If you have an errant device in the wrong on/off state, you'll use Help to get it back in sync, though if it you're having constant issues, you may want to verify the remote is controlling that device properly in the Harmony software.

Other buttons: "On Demand", "Recorded TV", "Learn" (Not needed), "Back" (Probably unnecessary as there are other buttons that can do it), "Go Interactive" (May never use), TV/Exit to "TV (again, may never use). Certainly you can add those to the display of the Harmony if you want them.

The Calorie Lie followup

Almost a year ago, I wrote about The Calorie Lie, how calories in themselves were useless as a measurement.

Now, Weight Watchers has concurred with my findings. OK, not really *my* findings, but they have changed their "Points" system to reflect that food isn't made of calories, it's made of "macronutrients."

The best part of learning how to eat right is to not be focused on how much you're eating, but how well you're eating.

You don't have to go vegan to lose weight. Just moderate. Put less on your plate and don't eat it all. Don't eat a midnight snack. As I say, "I can eat anything I want, just not all of it!"

May good choices be yours!

vmware server make isos from Microsoft Volume License exe

Some things I learned:

• the default logon and password of VMware infrastructure web access is the one you use to log on to your workstation/server
• An iso you want to map to a CD in vmware server must at least be in the Virtual Machines location.
• Microsoft .exe files from Open License should be extracted before made into an iso.
• nlite is the easiest way to make a bootable iso from disk 1.
• use your favorite iso maker to make an iso of disk 2 (ashampoo is a free option)
• Internet Exporer (or Firefox) is necessary at least initially for the Remote Console
• ctrl-alt-insert sends ctrl-alt-delete
• Windows 2003 Server forgets the AMD PCNET adapter after upgrading to SP2. Copy the windows.iso file from the VMware directory to the Virtual Machines directory and mount it via CD to install VMware tools

How to run an application on resume from standby

or sleep mode...

Should work for Vista or Windows 7:

click the Start menu

type in Task Scheduler and run it

On the right, Create Task

Give it a name

(Run only when user is logged in is good and important)

click Triggers

Begin the task On an event

Log: System

Source: Power-Troubleshooter

Event ID: 1

if it's network related, you may want to

[x] Delay Task for 30 seconds

click Actions

add the parameters that will run your application on resume

click Conditions

If you're on a laptop/notebook, you may wish to uncheck

[x] Start the task only if the computer is on AC power

If it's network related, you'll want to check

[x] Start only if the following network connection is available

click Settings

if it's network related, you may want to check the "if task fails", restart every 1 minute up to 3 times.

click ok.

Test it

What would you want to use this for?

I'd use it to reconnect my ssh link if my laptop went to sleep, especially if I'm using it for tunneling.

Changing the channel about TV Remote Control

Imagine if the remote control you're using to watch television isn't a control-only device. If you have Slingbox, you know you can control what you're watching on a remote device, but the idea is to watch that "on the go." What if the idea of Slingbox meshed with the idea of Google TV/Boxee?

Further, what if the device you already have -- an iPad, a netbook, a notebook -- is the new remote control for your HTPC? Sure, it can happen with apps like GoToMyPC or LogMeIn or VNC, but what if the device is more interactive and knows what's on the display?

If you can take away the interface from interfering with what you see on TV (the channel changing notifications, the programming guide, even the commercials) and then present that on the control device, you now have an almost perfect environment for both content consumers and advertisers.

While I understand ads aren't the favorite thing, imagine if the remote could log into a resource like Hulu or Netflix or Facebook to provide you with relevant ad content on the remote so that the large screen content doesn't get interrupted by ads?

The remote control interface, meanwhile, is contained on the remote device, completely. Fully interactive with the viewing device, and the remote *knows* what's on the viewing device. Yes, you can still use the remote device for small simultaneous viewing of what's on the big screen, but all the interactive content is on the remote. Press, click, swipe, touch to change channel, check the IMDB listing for what's on the TV, tweet about what you're watching, do all the other stuff the big screen is trying to do for Google TV.

If done right, this is a two-device media center that changes the way you change the channel. The question won't be "Where's the remote?" You're already using it.

Spiceworks vs OTRS

Because you're asking for it:
Spiceworks and OTRS are excellent programs. Both are web based applications.

A basic comparison:

Feature	SpiceWorks	OTRS
Free (cost) software	Yes	Yes
Open Source (you have the source code)	No	Yes
Installation is cross platform	Windows Only	Yes
Client access through a browser	Yes	Yes
Customizable with your company brand	Possible?	Yes
Collects inventory information on your LAN	Yes	No
Connects to your database	No	Yes
Modules available	Yes	Yes
Integrated forums and web support	Yes	Not integrated, but available
Monitors your network and Exchange Server for errors and usage	Yes	No
Helpdesk	Yes	Yes

This breakdown is by no means exhaustive. Spiceworks is a software you'll want to use for gathering information about your network. For free, Spiceworks can't be beat for all it does. In my experience, Spiceworks is slow-ish. It would also help to have Spiceworks on a machine that's dedicated for its use. A Windows Server (vs. Windows Desktop) is a likely candidate for where to run Spiceworks. Windows XP Pro is adequate, though some scanning of large networks will possibly cause errors regarding networking/connecting simultaneously to multiple computers. Spiceworks also has a helpdesk module, which is functional. Some of Spiceworks' helpdesk strengths include the agent shortcuts that allow agents to manipulate tickets via code words.

OTRS's strength is in the helpdesk part of the equation. Once the perl requirements are met, OTRS is a rather stable helpdesk solution. Anything that can send an email can make a ticket in OTRS, or you can use SOAP integration and other methods to communicate directly with the database. OTRS can run on practically anything that can run Perl. It also has localization and ability to create your own themes/branding. OTRS is designed to go beyond Helpdesk into Change Management.

Which to choose? For helpdesk, I recommend OTRS. For hardware auditing, Spiceworks. Spiceworks may be all you need for a single file to download and install get-it-done application. OTRS scales better for larger organizations, is cross platform, and works on your database.

Lucid to Maverick lost 3D upgrade

Since I had the best answer for this, I thought I'd post it again.
http://blog.crythias.com/2010/05/got-my-3d-back-on-my-gateway.html

(Remove installed nvidia entries in Synaptic).

Javascript update a total field

Let's say you have a field a and a field b...
and you're using some sort of index thing because you want to keep adding additional fields ...

function updateSubtotal(e) {
 var evn = e.name
 var evv = e.value
 var indx = evn.substr(evn.length -1);
 
 var st=document.getElementsByName("subtotal"+indx)[0];
 var qt=document.getElementsByName("fielda"+indx)[0].value;
 var ct=document.getElementsByName("fieldb"+indx)[0].value;
 st.value=qt*ct
}

so if you have a field1 and field2 you can multiply it together... and it will apply for the current index level that is applied to the named field.

so ... fielda100 will multiply to fieldb100 and update subtotal100
then you'd put onBlur=updateSubtotal(this) in fielda and fieldb

Problems installing Adobe Acrobat

Windows XP, installing Adobe 9

"This patch package could not be opened. Verify that the patch package
exists and that you can accesss it, or contact the application vendor to
verify that this is a valid windows installer patch package."

browse to:
c:\documents and settings\username\Local Settings\Application Data\Adobe\Reader 9.3\Setup Files\Reader9

Double-click AcroRead
Then 932, 933, 934

Do something with the calendar in the task bar Linux

So, you have this Date/Time thing in the taskbar of Gnome and you'd like to see it do ... something more than simply display a calendar. Have you double-clicked on a date yet? Evolution pops up. You probably don't need it to be your mail client, but by default, it's the interface to show calendar information (whether a Date is bold or not) in that applet.

Certainly, you can use the built-in calendar, but Evolution allows you to use web calendars (such as Google Calendar) as well.

How simple is it?

If you're in Evolution, make sure you're in "Calendars" mode.
Right-click on the white box above the calendar and choose "New Calendar". Sure, you can use the Google link to do it, and it'll be easy to choose your calendars. But if you have the direct URL to a .ics file, change the "Type" to "On The Web". Give it a name, color, and paste the link in the URL box, but change http to webcal.

The following is the public .ics for the USA holiday calendar. Copy/paste it into the URL box.
webcal://www.google.com/calendar/ical/usa__en%40holiday.calendar.google.com/public/basic.ics

This is the phases of the moon:
webcal://www.google.com/calendar/ical/ht3jlfaac5lfd6263ulfh4tql8%40group.calendar.google.com/public/basic.ics

779 error installing KB957324

Repeated problems failing update of KB957324. Downloaded the Microsoft stand-alone installed, failed because: can't change or read c:\windows\system32\mapisvc.inf. Edited the permissions to take ownership of this file by the current admin logged in user. Retried. Successfully completed. Verified that SYSTEM still had full rights to the file. Happy camper.

vboxvmservice is great. It's also case sensitive with Oracle

http://sourceforge.net/projects/vboxvmservice/

ERROR: Could not find a registered machine named 'Random Name'
Details: code VBOX_E_OBJECT_NOT_FOUND (0x80bb0001), component VirtualBox, interface IVirtualBox, callee IUnknown
Context: "FindMachine(Bstr(VMNameOrUuid), machine.asOutParam())" at line 2027 of file VBoxManageInfo.cpp
Using custom VRDP-Port: 3390
Oracle VM VirtualBox Command Line Management Interface Version 3.2.6
(C) 2005-2010 Oracle Corporation
All rights reserved.


This happened after I changed to Oracle from Sun.
I had to global search and replace Sun for Oracle in the VBoxVmService.ini as well as change my lazy lowercase only
VBOX_USER_HOME=c:\Documents and Settings\username\.VirtualBox to proper case.

Further testing proved it wasn't working as expected on reboot, even if it could work from command line. I'm not going to fight this, so I put the VBOX_USER_HOME info in the global environment variables and it worked quite nicely.

Find a delegate in Outlook from Active Directory

The problem occurs when one of the employees that was configured as a delegate (for example user A) has left the company. When user B sends a meeting request for the manager, user B will receive an NDR because user A no longer exists in Active Directory, but is still configured as a delegate for user B.

The answer is here.

Creating a Mission Statement

We had one of "those" meetings today, and I have to tell you, it was more productive than I thought it might be. We focused on a coherent vision and coherent, plausible, and not ostentatious mission statement. I based my viewpoint on the mission of the Starship Enterprise, and focused my input on this one question that I felt the mission statement must provide an answer to: "For any action X that we do, is it accomplishing the mission statement?" The Enterprise's original mission was to do *something*, but it doesn't define or limit the parameters of how the mission is to be accomplished. The mission statement is also not about a milestone or final goal, but rather how the journey of success will be measured.

In essence, clearly and concisely we created a statement that tells our group and others who we are, and what our ultimate goals for measuring the success of our accomplishments may be. That enabled us to make a reasonably generic statement of goal/mission (our mission is to do genericly good thing X in order to accomplish broad continuous goal Y). "Did what we accomplish today further our ability to accomplish broad continuous goal Y?" Your mileage may vary.

Also, try not to split your infinitives, if at all possible.

Got my 3D back on my Gateway

If you're in Ubuntu, and upgrade from Intrepid to Lucid, you might find this problem that I had: No 3D Effects with Intel 945 graphics. Apparently, that's because Lucid thoughtfully installs nvidia drivers, which, until removed, usurp 3D capabilities of other processors, such as Intel's. I removed a few things labelled nvidia and got 3d working again. Yay!

SSL Certs - It's about Identity, Not encryption

What I've recently learned that is TL:DR for me:
An SSL certificate is designed to provide identification, not [just] encryption. The point of the SSL Certificate is to inform the browser that the encryption being utilized is the one being offered at the server that you think you're visiting.

A CA/Certificate Authority is an entity that offers and digitally signs an SSL certificate. It is a third party that hopefully your browser trusts to confirms the certificate your web browser sees is the one that the CA issued.

Do you need to spend money to get an SSL certificate?
No: StartSSL.com can get you a real third-party verified SSL certificate.

If you can do that, why spend money?
Remember, an SSL certificate minimally provides identification that the SSL certificate that your browser sees is authorized by the CA for the domain name (and for the free certificate, an associated email address) that requested it. That type of information can be generally completed in an automated fashion. The next levels are generally "Verified" and "Extended Validation". Both of those require humans and time and vetting, so they might be more expensive. SSL is for identification, not [just] encryption. Higher levels of certification mean not only is the certificate pointing to the domain, but also that the domain really is the company that you want to connect to. See? Free SSL certificates are cheap. A phisher can create a look-a-like web site that has a real SSL certificate, connected to a almost-the-same domain name, and you could reasonably believe that you've entered your password -- securely -- on the correct domain.

What do you need for SSL?
If the minimum you need is a certificate for verifying that the encryption is valid for the site, maybe for your own email/Exchange Server, Cheap or even self-signed could possibly be adequate. If you're offering a secure service to the general public, you probably want to further ensure that they are connecting to the correct *COMPANY* as well as the correct domain, and therefore you'll want to go for higher levels of verification.

Current Favorite quote

"I, for one, will not look to the past and blame it. Rather, I will look to the future and claim it."

I'm pretty certain this is attributable to me as I made it up. I like it so much I want to make sure I never forget it.

Vista, Windows 7 doesn't have telnet - so get PuTTY

Get PuTTY
Here's how to use plink to test a port, like port 25:
plink -telnet your.domain.com -P 25
(Ctrl-C to quit)
or for interaction, PuTTY, in telnet mode.

gnome-do won't start

starting from command line, get:
waiting for write add-in database lock

My solution:
find and remove
~/.local/share/gnome-do/plugins/addin-db-001/fdb-lock

RoboForm for Chrome Not perfect, but...

OK, it's better than nothing. That's not saying much. But!!! it's ultra portable. That is to say, you only have to install the plugin and get your sync'd logins. And it's cross platform. Works equally on Linux.

Recover your Roboform Online Password

This does NOT recover your Master Password. This is only valuable for recovery of your Roboform Online connection password.

1. Assume your Roboform application has ever synced and still does (right-click on Roboform, tools, Sync Roboform Data ... should be successful).
   
2. www.snapfiles.com/get/asteriskkey.html
   
3. right-click on Roboform, options, User Data Change Sync Settings (open the window but DON'T CHANGE ANYTHING).
   
4. recover password from the asterisk recovery tool

Replace Dansguardian 2.8.0.6 binary for SmoothWall Express 3

To fix the iTunes 9.1/dansguardian bug (at your own risk, though I don't think it should break anything. If it does, you have the dansguardian backup file, right?):

Assuming you have already installed http://smoothwallmods.googlecode.com/files/DGAV-SW3-2.8.0.6-6.4.4.2-i686-b012.tgz in SmoothWall Express 3.0

1. Back up /usr/sbin/dansguardian
   
2. obtain http://www.gwy.org/dansguardian
   
3. replace /usr/sbin/dansguardian
   
4. chmod +x /usr/sbin/dansguardian
   
5. at the minimum, you could dansguardian -q; dansguardian
   

now the malformed URL issue won't show up and iTunes 9.1 will work with dansguardian 2.8.0.6.

If you want 2.10, you'll have to compile it yourself.

Change sound for Google Mail Checker Plus

find notify.mp3 and replace it in:
C:\Documents and Settings\username\Local Settings\Application Data\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default\Extensions\gffjhibehnempbkeheiccaincokdjbfe\1.1.7

AVG Update "General Error"

Recently, AVG caused a bit of a hassle with update. It wouldn't. The update indicated both Application updates and virus definition updates.

There's no real easy solution to this, but here's what worked for me:
Update from directory.

1. Get the application update from http://free.avg.com/us-en/download-update (the first Windows link that indicates "All Necessary Modules") and remember where it is!
   
2. Open AVG Anti-Virus console, Tools, Update from Directory
   
3. Point it to the download folder from the first step. I told you to remember it! :)
   

You should now be able to successfully update AVG without having to reinstall.

Move an inaccessible window

Do you have a window that the title bar has moved off the screen and you can't reach it with your mouse?

Do this:
Right-click the taskbar icon for that app and choose Move, then press the Down Arrow Key just once. Your mouse now has control of the window. Use it to move the window where you want.

(if Move isn't available, choose Restore. If Restore isn't available, you might have your icons "stacked", so choose one from the stack.)

Tunneling with plink (PuTTY)

This establishes a putty/ssh/plink connection from windows so a nonsecure application can be tunneled through it and then can be closed cleanly.

What is plink?
It's a command line version of PuTTY

What does tunneling mean?
In the case being presented here, any activity that will go to a port on the localhost will do what it should do on the remote site, but do it securely.

No, really, what does that mean?
Let's say you hear that telnet or mysql or ftp isn't that secure, because passwords are flying over the Internet in clear text. That is bad because that password or data isn't encrypted. Yes, I know about sftp, psftp, advanced mysql configuration, ssh, etc. Calm down a bit. If an application doesn't support secure communication, this is what ssh tunneling is about -- providing the secure "tunnel" to do those things.

How do I do it?
1) Make the link
open a command prompt
plink -ssh -L 21:localhost:21 remoteusername@remotedomain

2) use the link
open another command prompt
ftp localhost
and do what you want.

This only works if the remote site is running an ftp server on localhost. (huh?) It means, it only works if the site you want to connect to is listening for ftp connections on 127.0.0.1 (localhost). If it's listening for ftp connections on a local IP address, change localhost in the Plink connection to the local IP address of the REMOTE server. You will still on the local side connect to localhost.

plink -ssh -L 3306:localhost:3306 remoteusername@remotedomain (for use with mysql running on the remote domain. Again, if mysql is listening on a specific IP address, change localhost to the IP address that is configured for mysql.)

Don't forget... this is intended for the *client* applications connecting to the port on the local machine. It will be transparent to the application, but connect to the remote server. Oh, btw, this now establishes the connection securely.

Why would you do this in plink? Frankly, I don't know, except plink was designed for scripting. Most of the examples you'll find on the Internet say, "Usually Plink is not invoked directly by a user, but run automatically by another process. Therefore you typically do not want Plink to prompt you for a user name or a password." Plink is designed to run interactively with things like scp. You should check the furnished manual about that, especially how to put plink in the path, and I strongly suggest you create, save and use all the options (putty session) to minimize the interactivity.

Here's a fun script, though: WARNING! This creates and deletes a file called goawaynow on the remote server!

FIRST sample batch (scheduled?) to connect:
plink puttysessionname rm goawaynow
plink puttysessionname until (test -e goawaynow); do true; done; exit

SECOND run a command like this in another batch (scheduled) after you do the first:
mysqldump -h localhost dbname > dump.sql
plink puttysessionname touch goawaynow


(What does it do?)
First, understand that there is a lot of different customization that can be made to establish the plink connection. Don't be afraid to make changes. But you should necessarily run the two batches separately. The first connect batch removes the goawaynow file. The next line establishes the port forwarding and keeps the link open. The configuration is within the putty session, but you still need to append the until stuff. It basically says, "until goawaynow exists, do nothing, and after goawaynow exists, exit."

The second batch does whatever it needs with the connection, then the next line is supposed to create the goawaynow file, which closes the connection (because the infinite loop above is testing for it).

I'd also like to point to http://thinkhole.org/wp/2006/05/10/howto-secure-firefox-and-im-with-putty/ which has really good comments to make what I said above better. (-qTfNnL?)

Can't install Virtualbox Guest Additions

About ready to yell as I can't install 3.1.4 guest additions in VirtualBox XP guest. http://forums.techguy.org/windows-xp/235959-cannot-find-file-specified-during.html fixed it for me.
Problem: installation failed/file not found

Short short: RunOnce was removed in the registry as a key.

Nintendo DSi might be my last portable Nintendo device

I bought a Nintendo DSi thinking I'd play some cool games, and as I got into it, I was somewhat pleased with the games, but after a bit, I started really missing the functionality of my Nokia N800. Touch screen? Sure. But the biggest BIGGEST problem with the DSi is the absolutely crappy browser. I know, "It's not about the browser, it's about the GAMES!" Seriously? There is no reason to include a browser that can't do basic streaming of any media. There's no reason to include a browser that can't legitimately and functionally render web pages. There's no reason to include a media player that can't play MP3s.

As I played with the Nintendo DSi, I realized that what I really wanted was what I already had: an Internet Device that didn't tell me that it couldn't do things on the web that I wanted. In fact, what I probably really wanted was an iPod touch. Even then, not so much. I want the flexibility of my N800 with an app base. Probably what I'll end up with is a cross between a Garmin, an Archos, and my N800 (which, btw, did have flash, even on a touch screen!). We'll see if the Samsung Moment might be a reasonable alternative.

Gmail wildcard searches

iPhone users have remail, everyone else might want to try Zimbra desktop.

Why? Well, it's pretty easy to use, and connects nicely with much of what you'd use gmail for.

I'm trying to figure out some proxy situations (though changing ical urls to https seems to adjust some things). In the meantime, however, you have full text wildcard search for your gmail account.

For your hassle, you get:
Wildcard searches
Forward to multiple accounts
File into multiple labels/tags/folders
Searching by size.
Forward as attachment.
Search for attachments by type or name.

Methane Leak from melting ice

http://news.discovery.com/earth/methane-leak-permafrost-arctic.html
Even if we agree 1) that global warming exists and 2) that humans "caused" it, we still have the problem of how do we humans fix it fast enough that will counteract the release of so much methane at once? Is anyone going to be able with authority to tell us that the earth needs to cool by 4 degrees and the only way to do that is to basically kill all humans?

Is someone going to be able to say that the amount of methane emissions here is equivalent to the amount of methane released (and therefore we should cap it) by production of x human widgets? What if this amount of methane is significantly more than what humans produce?

I'm not taking this lightly. I'm not being a denier. I am simply asking: "How do we humans who aren't scientists deal with the information presented here in a proactive manner?"

This article doesn't tell us that this amount of methane is x ppm vs y ppm that humans (or cows?) produce. It does, however, say a specific *type* of carbon production leads to global warming. Good thing. We're hearing that Carbon is bad. We need to stop buying diamonds, procreating, breathing, producing flatulence, driving, and burning anything. We need to start planting more trees and stop building and making stuff. And until everyone basically stops breathing, they can buy carbon offset credits to make them feel better about their polution.

assp is good, but ...

I use the Anti Spam SMTP Proxy: http://assp.sourceforge.net/
and I was encountering spam coming in that mailed to postmaster and whomever else was also in "To:".

It turned out that in "Recipients", I had Skip Spam Checks for Postmaster Catchall (sendAllPostmasterNP) -- and abuse checked, which basically precluded the check for "but not if other people are also in 'To:'".

After unchecking this, (and sendAllAbuseNP), the spam dropped.

Use Canned Responses to get an HTML signature in GMAIL

This might or might not appease you, gentle reader, but Mother is the necessity of invention.

Goal: Get an HTML signature in GMail. This has the added benefit of being cross browser, cross platform, and follows you where you go.
Result: eh. It's a slight pain, but cross platform.

1) Turn off your signature in GMail. (Settings, General, Signature, (*) No Signature, Save Changes)
2) Turn on Canned Responses in Labs. (Settings, Labs, Canned Responses (about half way down), (*) Enable, Save Changes)
3) Compose a message, Press Enter a time or two, then paste or create your HTML signature within the body of the message. (You might copy/paste this from Outlook or a previous email).
4) Click Canned Responses now under Subject
5) Click New Canned Response ...
6) Give it a descriptive name, click OK.
7) Now you can click "Canned Responses"/Insert (your signature here) any time you want this signature.

Hope you like it!
--
Gerald

Windows 2000 appwiz.cpl didn't open

This is an old old problem, but appwiz.cpl (Add/Remove Programs Wizard) didn't run on Windows 2000 Professional.
This post resolved it:

I had all these problems listed above-- I did this and it worked first try

Start a command session by going to Start, Run and typing
cmd
Enter each of the following commands (click OK to each confirmation that appears):
regsvr32 mshtml.dll
regsvr32 shdocvw.dll -i
regsvr32 shell32.dll -i
Close the command session by typing
exit

Then start add/remove from control panel -mine worked right away

Linux ping is it up?

if test 1 -eq `ping -q -c 1 ip.add.ress | grep "loss" | cut -d " " -f 4`; then echo "online"; else echo "offline"; fi

Updating smb SAMBA on Linux Ubuntu can't print

At a client's, I had a fresh install of Ubuntu and it could print to a network printer. I updated Ubuntu which included a new smbd install. Then I couldn't print. CUPS (http://localhost:631) told me that I have NT_STATUS_UNSUCCESSFUL.

What?

OK, ping "computername" comes up an ip address on the Internet. Yuck.

It turns out that the name resolve order changed from LAN (lmhosts? netbios?) to Internet DNS (smb.conf entry was comment out, actually). Solutions: edit /etc/hosts to include the ip/name combination of the hosting computer. Or perhaps change the computername to computername.local

Outlook won't connect if no default gateway on NIC

Outlook won't connect to the Exchange server if you don't have a default gateway on your network card. Why would you have this problem? I didn't have a default gateway because I was temporarily using the PC as dual homed (two network cards). I wanted the default gateway to be set on one card and not the other. Then I repurposed the machine without checking and using the NIC that didn't have the gateway. Outlook balked, and I panicked a slight bit. How is it possible that I have every network (Internet, files, database, etc.) and no Exchange connectivity? Especially since my other box is chugging away perfectly on Exchange. Exchange error messages actually said this, and sure enough, it was correct.