How many mechanics......

Here's the latest on the problem below: Nothing. Yeah, that's right, nothing. They don't call; they don't write ......... I guess I was too quick to assume that my one contact from the company might help. Oh well, deep down I sort of knew this would happen. Anyhow, this note will always be here to remind them about their poor customer service. Anyone else reading this won't know who it's about, ........ but they'll know. At least one person at the company saw it. I can't wait until the corporate quality assurance people call and ask about our experience .... :o)

Problem: ..................... does it take to change a light bulb?

We recently took a vacation trip to be with our grandchildren and to get away from the day-to-day stress. Things were going fine for a while, until we ran into one of those situations where you need help; it occasionally happens to all of us. We needed help to complete the trip. When you're far from home sometimes it's hard to know where to turn, so you look for someone you can really trust. That's what we did, and went there.

As it turned out, our problem was not very serious, but the bill for the work was unnecessarily high. The disappointment quickly turned to anger when we tried to dispute the bill and were turned down with no recourse. My wife is faster to react so she began to immediately state her case. I was in a slow burn; I've learned that if I'm too quick to respond in situations like this, I say all the wrong things. Anyhow, as the arguing continued all eyes in the room turned to us, and as the situation further degraded I watched the reactions of other people. Most were quiet but focused on the action. One person behind the counter smirked and shook her head; she seemed almost amused. I got the impression that they knew they had us and just didn't care.
During the exchange we were never offered the option to talk to anyone else about the problem nor were there any apologies. So, we paid the bill and drove away unsatisfied.

Solution: Later I was able to get the attention of one person at the company who seemed to care about this. He was very friendly and apologetic. He was also willing to settle the matter fairly. I guess the solution in this case would have been to find this person sooner, settle things and move on. It's unfortunate that things had to get so nasty before they got any better. At this point recieving a possible rebate for the work is insignificant, (although our friendly contact agreed to this and I trust that he'll follow through). My consolation is that I finally got the attention of one person who would listen. And I think my voice was heard.

At any rate, I can always write this all off to entertainment. Hey, why not? I was on vacation ..... :o)

Not So DynamicHCP

Note to self: Try to be a better person. Don't only blog when you're pissed; people will stop listening to you (Yeah, like they do anyway!). I'll blog whenever I please, thank you.....

Problem: During your career your boss will occasionally give you something to do that you don't understand. Not usually a problem. Good soldiers follow the marching orders, whatever they might be. If she wants this or that done, what the hell, I'll do it. After all, she IS the boss. However, some of these things are very cumbersome, time consuming or border on the rediculous. That's when you begin to question them. The "problem" I'm going to discuss was not initiated by my boss this time; she's a victum of this one, too. It's out of our control. The PROBLEM is that we're stuck doing something that no one can explain! Here it is: We, like everyone else, have a limited number of IP addresses to go around. We still have a lot of static addresses defined and we realize that they are not all in use at the same time. So, the thing to do is start using DHCP so we can make the best use of a scarce resource. Fine. However, our Networking Group, the owners of all our IP addresses, has decided to issue only dedicated addresses through DHCP. That's right, back to static addresses by another name. So much for saving addresses. Then to top it off, we have this really nice process to assign one of these dedicated addresses. Like this: To get a machine on the network, we have to send a note to the Networking Group requesting an IP address to be issued for a specific MAC address, stating the location of the machine and the person responsible for the machine. We get an automated email thanking us for the request. Then we wait. Hours later we get a note back from a real person (I think), containing the address that we can use. Then we hard code the address in the machine long enough to logon to the network and "register" the address for the MAC address we requested. Then we un-code the address and release it. Now we wait again. After a minimum of 10 minutes we start the process of 'IPCONFIG /release', 'IPCONFIG /renew', 'IPCONFIG /release', 'IPCONFIG /renew', 'IPCONFIG /release', 'IPCONFIG /renew', ......... until finally the registration process issues this now-dedicated address back to the machine. Sound like fun?? Remember it's not nice to laugh at someone else's misery. I think I heard that somewhere.

Anyhow, I approached my boss today and said....
Me: "Look, I don't mind doing things that are really stupid as long as someone can give me a very good reason."
Boss: "I know what you mean; it's driving me nuts, too."
Me: "Do we really have to do this?"
Boss: "Yes."
Me: "Is there a reason?"
Boss: "Yes."
Me: "Well ....., what is it?"
Boss: "Well, the reason isn't very clear."
Me: "What do you mean?"
Boss: "Well, no one in Networking can explain it very well, but they say it's very important. And they're the ones who issue the addresses, ......so...."
Me: "Help me out here. This is driving me crazy. I'm ready to shoot myself. Please...."
Boss: "What do you want me to do?"
Me: "Give me something. Lie to me if you have to."
Boss: "Okay. They've found that managing the network this way is a cure for cancer of the spleen."
Me: "......................................................................."
Me: "Well, why didn't they say so?"

Solution: All you have to do is ask the right question, I guess. Seriously, I can't think of any reason for doing this. If anyone knows a better reason than the cancer thing, please let me know and I'll put your solution here. Until then I'll have to stay away from fire arms.

Passwords

Problem: I recently had a running gun battle with one of my colleagues. It was about passwords. This all started when I got a monthly email from a newsletter service (I guess to remind me that I was a member) which showed my password in clear text, yes right in the email!! I immediately canceled the newsletter and asked the service to remove my password from their database. They quickly obliged but wanted to know what was the problem, so one of the technical staff sent me an email about it. He listened to my reason but then quickly brushed it off by implying that newgroup passwords are not serious passwords and that I should never use any password that I really care about for this. He said to re-subscribe and use a "silly" password; after all, it's just for changing the newsletter options. He also said that I should attend some of their meetings and maybe I would know these things. (Seeing red yet? I was).

Well, I didn't resubscribe and don't intend to. In this day and age everybody should take every password seriously. Identity theft has grown to epidemic proprtions. The need to keep passwords secret and unguessable has become absolutely mandatory. If someone offers a service that requires you to supply a password, they have an OBLIGATION to protect that password as if it were their own. No one else can decide which of your passwords are the serious ones and which are the silly ones. THEY'RE ALL SERIOUS, DAMMIT!! I'm not going to bore you with all the reasons for protecting passwords; you've heard them all a million times. I'll just state the few simple rules that I go by......

Solution:

1. Never write a password down.
2. Never tell anyone what it is.
3. Avoid using dictionary words.
4. Use as many special characters as you can remember.
5. Never allow the password to be easily guessable.
6. Last but not least: Cancel any password-controlled subscription which shows that it doesn't take your passwords seriously .... :o)

Read-Only Access Databases

Problem: There doesn't seem to be a good way to allow some people to update Access Databases and others to only read the same databases. The locking file becomes a major obstacle. Microsoft suggests that we instruct the read-only people to just open the database in read-only mode. ....... :o) ...... Yeah, like that's going to happen. They have other solutions, though, like go into the file properties and make the database read-only; not a good solution either (then I can't update it either). And the topper: control access with that nice user-level security feature they have in Access. Even Microsoft says this "can be a daunting task". No thanks, I'd rather spend the weekend in traction. Anyhow, a colleague found a way to do this; it might seem a little cumbersome, but it's better than any of the above....

Solution: Make a replica of the database (Tools/Replication), and store the replicated file in a separate directory. The original copy of the database becomes the "Design Master". The Replica can be updated as well as the Design Master, under normal circumstances. But the point of this solution is to make the replica read-only to some people but also allow others to update the data. To do this, set NTFS permissions on the separate directory allowing the updaters full control and the rest of the users read-only. At the same time, set NTFS permissions on the design master giving the updaters full control and no one else any access. The updaters can continue using the design master for updating the database; after each update they can synchronize with the replica (again, Tools/Replication/Synchronize..... ). The non-updaters view the data using only the replica. Easy as cake.

Thanks, George!

Outlook - Note to Self

Problem: A user noticed that when she looked at her mail on Outlook (Exchange Client) she had a number of read and unread messages. When she looked at the same account using Webmail she saw only unread mail. I took an initial look at the problem but couldn't find any settings on Webmail that would cause this; I had to do some research.

Solution: She found the answer herself. The Webmail session was set to show only unread messages. She selected the pulldown arrow next to "Inbox" and changed it from "unread messages" to "messages".

Note to self: drink more coffee in the morning.

"Unable to find required library"

Problem: While attempting to use an HP Scanjet 5400c scanner for saving a document in editable form using XP Pro, we got the following error: "Unable to find required library". After reloading the newest driver from HP, we still had the problem.

Solution: It turned out to be a known problem; the fix is on the HP driver page for this device: See here. Guess it wasn't time to build a new driver with the fix included......

MS Word 2003 Error While Opening document

Problem: A user reported that she couldn't open a Word document that other users in her group could open without a problem. She was running Office 2003; some of the others were also running Office 2003, but at least one person was running Office 2000. When she attempted to open the document, she got the following error:

Word experienced an error trying to open the file. Try these suggestions.

* Check the file permissions for the document or drive.

* Make sure there is sufficient free memory and disk space.

* Open the file with the Text Recovery converter.

Of course none of the suggestions worked. In fact, when we tried the Text Recovery, it recovered the text all right, but none of the graphics that were previously in the document were "recovered". This effectively corrupted the file for the whole work group.

Solution: As it turns out, it was a known problem, fixed by Microsoft KB828041, which is a critical update included in Office 2003 Service Pack 1. (Office 2003 SP1 was obviously not on this machine). You can read the article at your leisure, but it had to do with editing the document (in this case, editing a graphic) with a previous version of Word and then using the document with Office 2003.

Moral: Before spending too much time on problems with Office, make sure all the Office updates are applied ..... :o)

A Lesson in Drive Mapping....

Problem: A user couldn't access the files on her network share, which was mapped to her E: drive. At first look, it appeared to be a very odd situation. I opened the network drive but didn't see any of the expected files or folders. What I did see was about a dozen shortcuts to locations on her C: drive. She said that these were created when she dragged and dropped folders onto the E: drive. A closer look showed that the E: drive window appeared to be a writeable CD window (????). I went to the Disk Management console and found that, sure enough, the CD drive was designated "E:".

Solution: I changed the CD drive letter to D: (as it should have been). Then I disconnected and remapped the network drive as E:. It took a reboot to finish up, but she was then able to get to her normal files and folders on her network share.

Lesson: The user must have booted one time with another drive attached (maybe a flash drive?), which must have used D:, and pushed the CD drive down to letter E:. Then when the logon script attempted to also use E:, the mapping got corrupted. Moral: When scripting network shares, use letters that are farther down the alphabet, leaving room for the occasional removable device.

Disappearing Act

Problem: Occasionally, when working on new laptops with both wireless and wired NICs, the wired LAN Connection disappears. It seems to only happen when I switch to the wireless connection. Unfortunately, when I want to switch back to the wire, I can't connect to the network. So far the wired LAN Connection always comes back after a reboot. I hope this isn't some nifty new "feature" I didn't know about. If so, I don't like it!!

Solution: ??

My Favorite Prayer .....

Problem: First the prayer, then I'll get to the problem:

"God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference."

(Okay, so that's out of the way)

Now, what the hell is it with dbx files!!!!!? I guess I'll never be able to figure out why people design things the way they do. Maybe they want to provide me with something to do for the rest of my life or maybe they just enjoy watching me squirm. Whatever the reason, I keep running into these idiotic situations that really ought to have a simple solution but seem to be made intentionally difficult.

We have a poor user that, for whatever reason, lost her local mail after a reinstallation of her Outlook Express profile. I didn't do this, so I don't know how it happened, but I was told that all the data is there, in the form of dbx files. Fine. All I need to do is import them into Outlook Express, ............. Right? .............. WRONG!! When I follow the Microsoft instructions I get a nastygram that tells me the files can't be imported because they are in use. I even get this message when I copy the files to another location and attempt the import. Is it just me, or does everyone have these problems? If anyone should be able to read the dbx files and import them into OE, it ought to be Microsoft, shouldn't it? So, I searched the internet for a solution and find nothing but a bunch of 3rd party products that claim they can do it. I tried a freebie; (I won't mention any names) you guessed right, it didn't work. Then I downloaded a couple "evaluation" products to see if they might do the job. But as evaluation products go, they give you just enough of a taste of success to keep you interested, but don't really do the job until you pay up; I can understand this. I'd probably do the same thing. What I can't understand is why I can't find a Microsoft solution!! (I know, I've GOT to stop this crazy talk). But seriously, if there is an MS solution, I will gladly apologize. Anyhow, ........

Solution: I'll pretend that there is a solution and hope that I find it. If I do, I'll post it here. If not, I'll keep repeating the prayer, .......

Okay, here it is: I was able to obtain a copy of Mail Navigator to solve the problem. The Mail Navigator browser allows you to open and format dbx files into readable messages. At this point you can decide if you want to put them back into Outlook Express. If so, you can select all messages and do a save as .... Eudora Mailbox. Once you have the Eudora Mailbox, you can open Outlook Express and do an import "messages"; navigate to the saved Eudora file, select the file and PRESTO! You're back in business. (Thanks, Mail Navigator ... :o)

Quickbooks POS

Problem: A customer is running Quickbooks Point of Sale software to manage a small retail business. She downloaded and installed an Update, bringing her Version 4 software up to release level 5. After the update, she found that she could no longer get a dialtone from her modem when processing a credit card sale. After swiping the card, she got a message that said "connecting to server", but the message eventually timed out and she got another message indicating no dailtone. A test of the modem proved that it was working fine for other things. We wern't able to find any documentation on the vendor's web site about this.

Solution: The Intuit Support Center seemed to know immediately what was causing the problem. They pointed out that the error was due to their program EFTSVR.exe not running. They had us manually launch the program, after which we were able to process the credit card sales. Something in the release 5 upgrade caused this; to-date the Support Center is still working on a fix. As a workaround we put the EFTSVR.exe program in the Windows Startup menu.

Unfortunately, there still isn't much documentation on this. Other users of the POS software must be going nuts trying to figure this out, unless they just happen to know all about the EFTSVR.exe program and how it works. If so, they're smarter than me (which actually wouldn't be too surprising to most people ...... :o)

Death Watch

Problem: I'm writing this on a machine which I though was completely dead. In fact it might die before I get done with the posting. It has had the most bizarre set of problems I've ever seen up until about 4 hours ago. I was up working on it until 3:00 am this morning, slept a few hours and then got right back to working on it. I was alternating between installing XP for about the 6th time, running diagnostics and removing components. I really thought it was ready for the trash; it might still be. The really frustrating thing is that the machine would seem to run fine from the initial OS install through SP2 and all the current virus definition updates. Then I would install the latest Windows updates and the machine would go haywire. The reboot after the updates wouldn't finish; it would get a BSOD which flashed by before I could read it and then the system would recursively reboot. I also got various messages like:

• Dell E771a hardware error
• Recursive WMI failures (while downloading Windows fixes)
• Total system hangs; no cursor movement
• Odd screen settings, like classic Windows display settings when I didn't even choose them. After a reboot the settings would change back to Standard XP

I was thinking, this has got to be hardware, right? Wrong! I ran extended diagnostics this morning on all system components. It took 7 hours and I didn't find a single error! Damn .........

Solution: I'm trying not to get my hopes up but this is the longest the machine has run in 2 months. What I've done so far on this rebuild is:

• Install XP
• Install McAfee and get the current definitions
• Install SP2
• Run sfc to check for corrupt files (sfc.exe /scannow). While this was running I got several WMI failure notices.
• Run CHKDSK /F (which says it fixed some files)

At this point there are some Windows updates ready to install. As soon as I complete this posting I'm going to run the updates. If the machine comes back up, I'll update the blog to let you know it worked. If it didn't work you'll know by the sound of me kicking the damn tower all the way to my trash can and cussing all the way back.....

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (^%#$^%$&%)

4 days later - You probably guessed that it didn't work!

Since I find it very difficult to throw away hardware no matter how flawed it might be, I haven't completely given up yet. Stay tuned .......

Many days later - After a few days of going blind while trying to read the BSOD, a split second at a time, I was finally able to see that the Stop Code was C000021a (fatal something or other....). I did some internet searches on the Stop Code and found some interesting hits. Thanks to the hard work of some diligent people on the CNet XP Forum, I finally got to the bottom of this. It turns out that the problem was caused by applying MS hotfix #890859, Article MS05-018. The CNet thread suggested turning off automatic updates, which I had already done. Then they suggested going to the Windows update site and choose Custom Install instead of Express Install. In the Custom Install dialog, uncheck fix #890859 and mark the fix as hidden. Then install the rest of the fixes. This did the trick! Thanks guys!!!

Note: To-date the MS article still doesn't warn us about this problem ......

Time Marches On ......

Problem: I have a friend who just turned 60. I'll call him Jonald so as not to reveal his name.. :o)
Jonald used to live right next door, so I saw him almost every day for 15 years, or so. Now I hardy ever see him; he's always on the go. But, I get these odd phone calls every now and then saying things like, "Hey Ron, I need to park in your driveway for a couple of hours". The car will magically appear and be there for awhile. Then I'll get another call, "Hey Ron, I picked up the car, just to let you know it was me who took it, so you won't report it stolen", (heh, heh, as if I was really watching it). Anyhow, he's like a phantom; I never see Jonald. It's tough and unsettling. I don't know if I miss him or if I'm just going through some weird withdrawal. But all this is beside the point. The PROBLEM is, this 60 thing. It's got to be driving him nuts! Everybody hates aging, but for someone like Jonald who is so incredibly busy, time must be flying. He's running as fast as he can but he never seems to catch up. He's gotta wonder where the time is going. I can't help him with the aging process. All I can hope to do is try and cheer him up.....

Solution: 10 things to help cheer up poor OLD Jonald:

1. Just because you're 60 now doesn't mean the chicks will lose interest. You see, they were never really interested in your looks. It was always the money.
2. You're one of the few people I know that can actually still blow your own horn and get applause.
3. Same goes for the singing. Most of us sound like wounded mammoths when we try to sing. Not you. You still sound almost good.
4. Your new neighbors get to enjoy the singing and playing at all hours of the day (and night), that we no longer get to hear. This one actually benefits them, but it must be very gratifying for you, too.
5. You have the most wonderful kids that I have ever known. What a blessing, but I've always wondered how they got so smart. Oh well, they say it takes 2 to tango.
6. I understand that the Chrysler Executive Lease Program has been extended to allow you 23 new cars per year, up from the 16 that you've been accustomed to.
7. Smyrna has been taken off the list of Delaware land designated as Flood Plain. So, if the creeks don't rise, it really might not be a bad place to retire.
8. You're a full 10 years older than you need to be to get Senior Rates at all the Comfort Inns - Worldwide!! Think of the travel opportunities! Be careful though, the same is not true for Motel 6. You'll have to wait 5 more years for that.
9. At your advanced age you have only slightly less hair than me! I hate to mention this, but I'm 6 months older. Sorry.
10. You still have us, your ex-neighbors right up the road, in case you need anything. As soon as you let us know exactly where you live we'll know where to send the Meals on Wheels people.

Now that's sure to cheer him up...........

Autoruns Made Easy

Problem: Recently I had the need to use an Autorun to launch an HTML file from a CD. As you probably know, this is rather messy; the autorun, of course, expects you to launch an executable, not an HTML file. There are some sites on the internet that have some code to help resolve this, but it's easy enough to make an executable to launch the HTML file, yourself.

Solution: I created an AutoIt script with the following one liner:

RunWait(@ComSpec & " /c " & 'myHTLM.htm', "", @SW_HIDE)

I named the script file autorun.au3. Compiling the script into an executable is a simple right-click-and-choose-Compile Script. This created an executable named autorun.exe

Then I named my HTML file myHTML.htm and put the following 2 lines in an autorun.inf file:
[AutoRun]
open=autorun.exe

Burn the whole mess on a CD and that's it. Easy as cake, eh? .........

Grey Screen of Death

Problem: What the HELL is going on????? I've had to rebuild my machine 4 times in the past 4 months. This time it was a solid grey screen right after Dell's spash screen, early in the boot sequence. And you thought only Macs got the dreaded Grey Screen of Death; Hah! I assume it had to do with some driver load problem; I was able to see some of the drivers load by trying a Safe Mode boot a few times.............. I know, I probably cause some of the problems myself with all the registry hacking, but this is getting to be a bad habit.

Solution: Anyhow, I couldn't get by it; had to do another rebuild. Rebuilds are becoming a routine thing for me. I have no idea what normal users do when they have these problems (some of them call me, oddly enough). I shudder to think what would happen if I didn't have another machine in the house to back up my data. There, I said it again. Getting the picture yet?

Slow Boot and Logon

Problem: The user reported that her machine was taking a very long time to initialize. She was running XP on a late model Dell system. It was taking up to 30 minutes to get the logon prompt and then another 15-30 minutes to paint the desktop after logon. Even booting into Safe Mode took a long time; the driver load sequence hung for about 10 minutes (would have been a hint for a less dense technician). Once up, I ran a virus scan and found nothing. I ran Ad-Aware and Spybot S&D which cleaned up a few things, but didn't solve the problem. THEN I noticed that a Cruzer 128MB flash drive was in a cradle, attached to a USB port.

Solution: I removed the cradle from the USB port and rebooted. The system came up immediately. Further investigation showed that the cradle was purchased with a different flash drive, from another manufacturer. The machine would boot fine with the other flash drive in the cradle; it only had a problem when booted with the Cruzer drive plugged in.

Someone with more time, or better sense, than me will have to figure out why this caused a problem. I assume it was some driver incompatiblity or loading problem during the boot sequence. The Cruzer drive worked fine when plugged in after the system was up.......

Incredimail Backup?

Problem: Back on December 19, 2004 I endorsed Incredimail for its ability to create a backup file for transporting to other machines or for disaster recovery. As you probably know, Outlook Express doesn't do this. Well, I had a chance to use my Incredimail backup to restore after a disaster the other day, and guess what. It didn't work! I got some bogus message that told me the restore failed and to check my disk space. I had plenty of space so that wasn't the problem. So, all my messages and contacts were gone; such is life. Then I remembered that I had saved my contacts in a separate file. The separate file was a simple csv file created by Incredimail. I imported the file and guess what. IT DIDN'T WORK EITHER! However, not all was lost..........

Solution: I browsed the csv file and saw that some of the contacts were stored differently. That is, some of the data was apparently in the wrong columns. I manually corrected this and tried the import again.................... You guessed it; no good. It was time to switch to my old friend Outlook Express. I imported the contacts from the csv file into OE with no problem. Once I verified that all the contacts were there, I imported them from OE into Incredimail.

No Connectivity

Problem: Background - A customer running XP Pro-SP2, with DSL installed at home could not access the internet; the LAN connection was reporting "Limited or No Connectivity". After much effort, and switching DSL modems, the DSL technician asked the customer to back out SP2; he was concerned that SP2 was not only reporting the "Limited or No Connectivity", but also causing it. This didn't solve the problem so the customer decided to cancel DSL service and try cable. Unfortunately, the cable technician couldn't gain access to the internet with the customer's machine, either. So, the machine was left running XP Pro with SP1 installed and no internet access.
Enter yours truly.....
The few times I had seen the "Limited or No Connectivity" situation before turned out to be network hardware-related (bad wires or ports), so I really didn't believe the machine or software really had a problem. But, since this was a brand new cable installation I gave the cable company the benefit of the doubt; the modem seemed to indicate no problem communicating with the cable service.
I tried:

1. Re-installing SP2 - No help
2. Running an XP Setup Repair - No help
3. Changing from the cable company-supplied USB connection to a known good Ethernet cable - No help
4. Installing another copy of TCP/IP - I thought this worked because the "Limited or No Connectivity" indicator went away and the connection seemed to be good, BUT we still couldn't get to the internet (throughout the process ipconfig showed the dreaded 169 address, meaning no address was being assigned by DHCP). Anyhow, no help
5. Moving the machine to another location with a known good cable connection - No help
6. Installing an SP2-related hotfix reported as a possible solution, and an associated registry fix (see:KB884020 and Reg Fix) - Sorry, but this didn't help either.

Solution: I had run out of time and patience and so had the customer, so we saved all her data and started from scratch. I wiped the hard drive, re-installed XP, then SP2 and all the current Windows updates. This allowed us to get on the network and back in business.

I hate to get to this point; we really didn't "solve" anything. But, sometimes you pass the point of deminishing returns and find that it's less expensive and less trouble to just rebuild the system. At least we didn't lose anything but our precious time..... :o)

Outlook - The Other Enigma

Problem: A user (Jill) wanted to share multiple Outlook calendars owned by another user (Jack). One calendar wasn't enough for Jack; he had to have a Vacation calendar and a Moose Lodge calendar in addition to his Default calendar. All the Microsoft documentation around calendar sharing fooled me into thinking that we can only share our default calendar. Well, the doc is wrong. One of my colleagues had to deal with this before, and gave me some hints so I didn't go completely crazy trying to make this work...

Solution: Using the names above, Jack had to give Jill permission to access his mailbox (Not just his calendar!!). He did this by right-clicking his mailbox name in his folder list and selecting "sharing" from the menu. Then he gave Jill the appropriate level of permissions to his entire mailbox. After that, Jack selected each of his calendars one at a time (making sure he also selected his DEFAULT calendar, not just the sub-calendars) and did the following: From the File menu he chose Folder and then Properties for "Calendar" ("Calendar", "Vacation", "Moose Lodge", whatever....). In the Calendar Properties dialog he chose the Permissions tab and gave Jill the appropriate level of permissions for each calendar. With me so far?

Now Jill logged onto Outlook and selected the Tools menu and chose Email Accounts. From this dialog she selected the View or Change Accounts radio button and then hit the Change button. Then she hit the More Settings button and chose the Advanced tab. Finally, she hit the Add button and selected Jack's mailbox. This process added Jack's mailbox to her folder list and listed all of Jack's calendars on Jill's Calendar navigator.

So much for your documentation Mr. Gates.... :o) No, really, if this is documented somewhere, I apologize and would like to know where it is. If I could find these things I wouldn't have to waste my time writing, and your time reading these stupid notes with the goofy examples and sexist color coding.

Everything I Learned in College.....

Problem: My son told me something amazing. All the scientific research that has been done on bumble bees shows that bumble bees cannot fly........ Apparently no one told the bumble bee. The same is true about some over-achieving humans. There are some people who we all know that despite their lack of formal education, perform above all expectations. They seem to just know what it takes to get what they want or need out of life (evidence: Bill Gates). I guess no one told them that they couldn't be as successful as they are without a degree. Or conversely, maybe someone DID tell them, only to be proven wrong.

Anyhow, success is not a problem. The problem is that some of these over-achievers are constantly badgered into getting a degree anyhow. "Gotta get that piece of paper! It'll look great on your resume." Pressure drags on for years, perhaps their whole life. My point is that a degree doesn't guarantee success and neither does success depend on a degree. It can mean different things to different people.

Solution: I think everyone should decide for themselves whether to go to the trouble of getting a degree; and it IS trouble. Those who don't have a degree but are meeting their own career expectations should feel good about their success. At any rate, it might be a help for me to list everything I learned in college. The list might not seem like much to you, but each of these items have been very meaningful to me. If you think they would be useful to you, maybe a degree could do the same thing for you (remember, no guarantees!!). Here's a list of everything I learned in college:

1. My diploma isn't printed on a sheep skin. It's just ordinary paper. Well, not ordinary; it's kind of wrinkled and old looking, like they couldn't find any new paper. Anyhow, it's not sheep skin; I think I would know that.
2. How to deal with tedium. Not everything was tedious, but college sure had more than its fair share.
3. How to follow rules. Rules, rules and more rules. I had to learn that if I wanted/needed something from somebody (like a degree), that THEY get to set up all the hoops. No matter how many hoops, or where they're placed, when they're placed, etc. I have to first find all the hoops and then jump through them.
4. How to deal with bureaucracy. I never mastered this but I learned enough about it to get by. That's all we need sometimes isn't it?
5. How to deal with egos, mine and others.
6. It doesn't matter how long it takes to get through college. I'm an odd case; it took me 20 years off and on to finally get the degree. I never saw the light at the end of the tunnel until the final year, but somehow I knew it would be there.
7. Perseverance. Enough said.
8. Your major doesn't matter as long as all the courses add up to a degree at the end. Of course employers seem to filter out resumes based on majors, but it really doesn't matter. You're better off not working for an employer who does that, anyhow..... ;o)
9. In general, other people value my degree more than I do. This goes especially for people that don't even know me. Strange but true. On the other hand, since I already had a job while I was going to school, the people I wanted it to mean the most to, my employer(s), couldn't have cared less.
10. Getting a degree is a lot of work. It's quite an ordeal, but don't let anyone fool you into thinking it's any more than that. It doesn't begin to approach what I would call true human suffering, no matter what you study or how long it takes.
11. I'm incapable of original thought. It's all been done before. As hard as I've tried I've never been able to find any subject that doesn't have a gazillion things already written about it. That's why you find these new PhD candidates studying the mating habits of Peruvian piss ants. (Geez, I gotta find something no one has ever done!) Sorry, that's been done, too.
12. It's literally impossible to know everything; corollary: it's okay to say "I don't know." I left this for last because it was my most useful lesson. It has saved me immeasurable time. Since I now don't have to know everything, I can equate that to mean I don't have to know anything........... (just kidding .. :o)

So anyhow, that's what college did for me and I wouldn't trade it for the world. However, since obtaining a degree has to be an individual effort, I think it also needs to be an individual choice.

Does it Ping???

Problem: (This one was handled by a colleague while I watched over his shoulder. I'll change his name to protect the innocent). Harry got a call about a slow computer. No need for details; we like to start from ground zero; they say it builds character. Anyhow, Harry found that the machine was relatively new, containing 1 GB of RAM and a 2+ Ghz processor. Initial testing showed that it was responding very slowly, especially while opening web pages. Harry checked for viruses, spyware, adware, space on the C: drive, all the usual suspects. The only thing that looked suspicious was some adware (79 objects discovered by Ad-Aware). He deleted the objects but saw no improvement in response time. Further investigation showed that the slow response was definitely isolated to network operations. Local tasks were screaming.

Harry opened a web page and watched it slowly paint the screen. While it struggled, he opened Task Manager and noted that CPU, memory and network activity were almost bottomed out. The page finally painted; Harry was just waking up when I got back with the coffee. Not sure how long it took. Harry even checked the TCP/IP settings in the registry but found nothing out of order for this machine (I won't go into detail on this because I'm not sure what he did). Anyhow, we suspected a network problem but couldn't prove it. This is the kind of problem we like to throw over the wall, but we knew our Networking friends would throw it right back. After all, it did Ping and it did eventually paint the web page.

Solution: Harry wanted to know if the network packets were being fragmented, causing the transmissions to take longer. He used 2 flags on the Ping command, -f meaning don't fragment this packet, and -l nnnn to specify a packet size. The max packet size he could use was 1500 (actually 1472, excluding the 28-byte header). The -f flag shows an error if the packet breaks up. Well, it didn't, but he did find something very interesting. By sending the larger packet size, he could see very erractic responses times to the Ping. Some of the responses would come back within a "normal" time, interspersed with responses that timed out. This is something we didn't see with the default 32-byte packet. The Ping responses were consistently inconsistent. Well, we know that this isn't true and complete network analysis but we felt that it helped our case. It did; our Networking guys investigated further and found a bad port on the router. Once plugged into a different port, the machine was fine.

Non Privileged Administrator ??

Problem: The user reported that she was no longer able to access any of her files on her (XP Pro) system. I asked if she was able to logon. She said no; she told me that she had been logging on without a password and that now her userid was requiring a password, which of course, she didn't know. I had her hit Ctl+Alt+Delete 2 times to show the logon prompt, and logon as Administrator (I assumed that the Admin account had no password either; it didn't .... :o)

Now here's where it gets weird: I asked her to check the user accounts to see if her regular account had administrative privileges. She went to the User Accounts dialog and reported that her regular account was not even listed. Furthermore, she reported that the only user listed was Administrator and that it was designated a "Guest Account"!!! We then went to the Computer Management dialog to check the Local Users and Groups. Believe it or not, the Administrators group was not in the Group list! Now THERE'S something you don't see every day. This was major corruption of some sort so I decided to have her get out the XP install CD and run Setup to do a Repair. I walked her through that whole process successfully, but when she logged onto the newly repaired system we found that nothing had changed; the repair option didn't fix the Administrator account.

Solution: I had her run Setup again, but this time install a fresh copy of XP onto the same partition, making sure not to overwrite anything. She was then able to logon to the new system and take control of her files.

Never fool yourself into thinking you've seen everything ......

The Enigma Called Outook Express

Problem: The user reported that she could not see all of her IMAP folders in Outlook Express. I asked how she knew that some were missing. She said that she had accessed her business email from home and had created some new folders on the server, so she knew they were there, but Outlook Express at work didn't show them. I was able to logon to the email server with another email client, and sure enough saw the new folders.

Solution: I selected the mail server in her folder view and displayed the synchronize page. Next to the Synchronize button there's an IMAP button which shows the IMAP folder configuration page, where All folders are listed under one tab and Visible folders are listed under another tab. As you might have guessed, the lists were the same, and neither list had the new folders. The buttons to the right of the lists are named Show (to show hidden folders), Hide (to hide visible folders) and Reset List. The Reset List button causes OE to go out to the server and refresh the list of All folders. After the "All" list was refreshed, the new folders were there and I was able "Show" them on the "Visible" list.

Cumbersome, but par for the course in this imperfect world ruled by email ....

Black Screen of Death

Problem: The user reported that her Win 2000 machine would not boot to Windows; it stops at some DOS window (?). Anyhow, the boot sequence was stopping shortly after reading the default boot device and then hanging with at Trap 00000006 message; the background of the screen was black. The message also had some flags and Hex code that didn't look familiar to me.

Solution: Rather than hurt my brain trying to figure these things out, I always search the internet to see if anyone else has seen the problem. I'm always amazed at how many times I find a good hit. This time I found a solution by the good people at the Betaone forum. They say "the problem is the result of a corrupt NTLDR file." Their recommendation (I'll give my abreviated list):

1. Load the Win 2000 CD and go into the Recovery Console
2. Run chkdsk /r
3. cd back to the root of the C: drive
4. Ren NTLDR to NTLDR.old
5. Copy D:\i386\NTLDR C:\NTLDR

It worked for me. Thanks, FOX!

Broken Record

Problem: Well it happened again. That's right, somebody didn't heed my repeated warnings to BACK UP YOUR DATA!! This time the person had all her valuable data stored on a flash drive and the thing just died. It's a good thing I'm almost bald. There's not much hair left to pull out.

Solution: Sorry, there is no solution. I can only hope that repeating these sad stories will finally sink in. Who am I kidding? I'm the only one reading this.....

Oh well, Ron, if you're listening, do backups!!
ref:(http://kelleyron.blogspot.com/2004/10/gambling-with-your-data.html)

DAMN it's Cold!

Problem: Just waiting for SP2 to install; sometimes it takes forever so I have time to complain about the weather. It's really cold here; I'm not kidding! I usually don't complain about these things, but I recently took a little trip to Florida and I think it spoiled me. In Florida the temperature was low 80's every day. People were walking around in shorts, riding with the top down, swimming, laying in the sun; in general they were acting like it was Summer time, not the middle of January! The real problem is, I didn't stay there! I had to get home and back to work (such as it is).

Solution: I guess there are lots of possibilities:

1. Stay in the house (not really an option)
2. Carry a hot water bottle (too heavy and the damn thing gets cold, too, after awhile)
3. Dress like an Eskimo (don't want to destroy my macho image)
4. Carry a hot potato in my pants (note to self: if you do this, make sure the potato is in the front)
5. Carry a couple dogs everywhere (not too practical around work)
6. Piped in cocoa (fattening)
7. yada, yada.....
8. yada....
9. Go back to Florida (THAT's the ticket.............)

Hung at the F8 Screen

Problem: The user reported that his machine wouldn't boot. I found that the boot process was stopping at the F8 screen. I was able to change selections with the arrow keys, to select Last known Good Configuration, for instance. But the boot process would not continue.

Solution: The first try was to run XP Setup and attempt a Repair (not the "Repair Console"; I still haven't found much use for that capability!). Sometimes the OS is not corrupted beyond hope and you get the option to Repair the current installation during XP Setup. Unfortunately, this time I didn't get the Repair option, so the OS had to be rebuilt from scratch. Ugh!