Absoblogginlutely!

Microsoft Update

By Andy on Wednesday, June 22, 2005

Not sure how long this has been out, but after reinstalling (for the 3rd attempt) visual studio 2005 it prompted me to use windows update. However, on this site was an advert for Microsoft update which includes office, windows and more. (looks like the more includes beta software but that needs to be enabled under the change settings option)
All this seemed to do is download a new activex component, add an icon to my start menu and then take me back to a page called Microsoft update page – exceedingly similar to windows update in look and feel.

I’ve not seen this posted anywhere (but could have missed it) but it looks like this is the client that would go with the WSUS server

Spam

donotvisit.org

By Andy on Wednesday, June 22, 2005

At lunch this afternoon we were talking about how the number of unsolicited calls seems to have dropped since the donotcall list had taken effect on our phone number. Previously we were getting about 4 or 5 calls before lunch and this week we might have had one call and even then we’re not sure if it was related to a previous company that we might have contacted.
Anyway, about 10 minutes after thinking everything was working, there were 2 people standing at the door and were trying to get us to sign up for membership at the local golf company. A joke was made that the donotcall list was working so they were visiting instead.

Evernote

Evernote 1.0 released

By Andy on Wednesday, June 22, 2005

EverNote has been released from beta.

AximElated Dell PocketPc

Axim reinstall (again)

By Andy on Tuesday, June 21, 2005

What a nightmare restoring a pocketpc is. After my previous hard reset and reinstalling the apps on the pocketpc I realised I didn’t have access to the notes, contacts or diary in the pocketpc. This didn’t use to be a problem as all the data was synched up to my outlook account, but now that I am on my home pc I don’t use outlook – and therefore no computer based backup of the data. It would have been possible to restore the data from the pocketpc backup that I had taken but this would roll me back to the state where MediaPlayer would not launch so that wasn’t really what I wanted. It took about an hour of searching in google but eventually I came across Sunnysoft’s backup manager that enables you to backup your pocketpc and more importantly do a selective restore. I restored the full backup from the pocketpc backup, then used Sunnysoft to backup the data to the SD card and make the backup an executable (a VERY smart feature). I then hard reset the axim, installed the applications that I had previously installed with this computer (which is very easy as I just had to reselect the programs within activesync) and then double clicked on sunnysofts backup file. I then said No to restoring everything, selected the tasks, contacts, calendar and all of my documents and a minute or so later I was prompted to reboot and the pocketpc is back to a fully functioning state.
Backup manager is a free trial download (and saved my bacon) and is usable for 14 days after which you need to register. This application also has the ability to automatically copy the backups over to the pc for further offline backup.

RSS Readers

Adding rss feeds to FeedOnFeeds

By Andy on Monday, June 20, 2005

Another way of adding an RSS feed to FeedOnFeeds is to use the LiveLines 0.4.3 extension. This allows you to click on the RSS icon in the status bar and add it to your web based reader. Also supports Bloglines and other desktop aggregators.

Funny Pages Geoblogging Google

Where’s stupid?

By Andy on Monday, June 20, 2005

1) Go to http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=38.862577,-77.001771&spn=0.16,0.16

2) Click on “local search”

3) Enter “stupidity” in the search field and click “Search!” [via Glimpse of a Grrl]

The funny thing is that if you switch the search to idiot you get a funny result too. I’d love to know how they are working this one out as the number 2 result for stupidity near us is Ohio State University!

Bugs Windows XP

Bug with latest xp patches applied.

By Andy on Saturday, June 18, 2005

After I rebooted the pc this afternoon I got an error with svchost.exe. On reporting it to microsoft with a click of the button I got a message “The error “Generic Host Process for Win32 Services Error” occurs after you start or restart your computer.
The error appears in computers with Windows XP Service Pack 2 and security update 873333 (MS05-012) installed. We do not expect this experience to harm your data or the performance of your computer.”
Oops! FIX: Generic Host Process for Win32 Services Error

Music

Orb testing

By Andy on Friday, June 17, 2005

My Orb testing is going well and it doesn’t seem too bad. I found out that if you use a server and client on the same network then the data stays within the lan (according to this forum post). After hard resetting the dell axim I was able to stream video (over the lan) with no perfomance issues. Whilst we were at easton on Wednesday I took the opportunity to use their free wifi and was able to access some of the pictures from home (although it was a bit slow but I think thats the wifi access rather than orb). (At this point mediaplayer was not working on the dell so I couldn’t try accessing a film). Overall I’m pretty impressed. I’ve not yet got round to trying VLC so I’m not sure how the speed compares but it certainly compares favourably with slimserver which is my preferred streamer for audio as it has better indexing/searching facilities.

Uncategorized

Quail

By Andy on Friday, June 17, 2005

We went out to a thai restaurant last night and I decided to have quail as I had never had it before. With hindsight it probably was not a good idea as Quail are very small birds. There is not much meat on them and Kristens mum said it was probably pigeon but from my experience pigeons tend to be fat. Apparently the phad thai was good but as it had nuts I only had a tiny taste.

Books

Hacker Cracker

By Andy on Friday, June 17, 2005

I finished reading Hacker Cracker last night. The first part of the book deals entirely with the authors plight of growing up in a very rough area of town and the struggles that he faces with on a day to day basis. Apart from the first 4 or 5 pages, which contained a fast moving account of what happens when a rogue Chief Technology Officer gets sacked, for the first 71 pages I was wondering whether the book that I was reading had been slipped inside the jacket of hacker cracker as there was no mention of computers at all. The story was still pretty interesting though. Eventually he gets round to his first experience with computers and his encounters with hacking and the addictiveness of it all. Eventually the story ends up with a moving account of being at the site of the twin towers on 9/11 and a very touching part about a strange whistling noise (which I won’t explain as it is a bit of a spoiler). An easy read and not really the usual hacker biography type book. I think this is partly due to the fact that the author is assuming his readers are not technical as some of the explanations (IRC for example) are very basic and some are almost “media stereotypical assumptions” of what really goes on.
As the theme of the book is the struggle to overcome and make life a lot better for his family, the target audience for this book is increased beyond the geek and I think even my mother would like this book!