Inspiration on Inspiration…. Sort of…

Inspiration and creativity are like cats. Very. Moody. Cats. Very seldom will both be with you at the same time, and if one does grace you with a visit, it is usually at odd hours and for a brief amount of time at which if you ignore it, it will leave very quickly and quite possibly be gone for a long time. But then again, give it your undivided attention and it still might be gone for a lone time. Either way, it will be gone. It’s all in what you do while it is still there.

Neither works well with deadlines, or keep regular hours. Most often, for me at least, inspiration strikes in the middle of the night. After an exhausting day. And I am tired. But I know the flash of genius, just like time, will wait for no man…uh, I mean woman. So, up and at ‘em. Write it down, draw a picture, whatever I have to do to retain the brilliance as long as possible I will do it. I even keep a note pad and pen on my nightstand, in case of these middle of the night scenarios. Though sometimes when I wake up to scribbles on my notepad, I can’t even read the writing…. I’ll have to come up with another way to capture the moment some other way. Oh well.

Now I am not really a ‘cat person’. I won’t go out of my way to own or offer to take care of a cat. But if a cat is there, and it’s not mean, I will pet it. I grew up around a lot of pets, some of them were cats. And I will say if given the choice, I would choose a cat over a bird any day.

I feel the grip of inspiration slowly slipping away, as I have ventured off topic. But one day it will be back… One day….

My Husband, the Conquering Hero

This past weekend, a great battle took place. It wasn’t covered by multiple news crews or watched by millions of people. It didn’t take place in another country, or on another continent. It didn’t involve countless people laying down their lives for a cause they thought was just. All that was involved was a solitary man, a bucket, a garden tool and a yard full of weeds. That’s right, weeds.

It’s the tale as old as time. Man finds patch of good land, man claims patch of good land as own, man waters and cares for good patch of land, then good patch of land is overrun by weeds, choking the life out the soft green grass and various flora in the garden. Eventually, said man will, in his own way, make a call to arms against the weeds, but it is a never ending war.

At the start of the weekend, my husband was an anxious recruit itching to get out in the yard and on to an easy victory. He spoke of how nice it will be to be weed free, how the neighbors will be jealous of his weed free yard. He made sure that he had the proper supplies (i.e. a bucket to put the weed casualties, and a weeder to help tackle the tougher, hardy veterans from last year’s battles) before setting off to the front yard to claim his dominance over his territory.

2 hours and 3 bucketfuls later, he drags himself back inside with a bruised ego, scraped fingertips and knuckles, soggy blue jeans, slightly dehydrated and completed only 1/8 of the front yard. No longer a recruit, he musters what little energy he has left, looks at me and whispers, ‘Water.’ The next 3 hours of my time is spent looking after him, feeding him, rehydrating him, soothing his ouchies, and listening to his war stories.

Once he gained back his strength, he approached the next onslaught with a more trained eye, a veteran eye. He drafted me into service to fight alongside him; partially for the company, but mainly to get it done faster. (He also said he didn’t want to still be doing this well after midnight.) He gathered supplies for both of us – buckets, weeders, and trowel – and we both took off to continue the good fight.

I would like to say that what happened during the next 3 hours was in line with the Geneva Convention, but having broken a nail on a rather large dandelion, all bets were off. And, of course, the phrase ‘cry havoc, and let slip the dogs of war’ was never so truly spoken, even by the great Bard himself. As they say, war is hell. And we took no prisoners.

As the weekend came to a close, strained backs and calves, tight shoulder muscles, tanned skin-slightly sunburned, dirt and grass stained blue jeans, not to mention the severe casualties taken on the weed side, all made it worthwhile. We now have a weed free(ish) front yard. Our grass is once again unconstrained from the horrible villains that were trying to take over the yard. We won this skirmish, and with a careful watch on the newly reclaimed land, we will keep winning.

Now, all we have to do is the backyard. But we decided to pick our battles. We’ll let it slide…. For now.

Installing .NET framework 1.1 on Windows 7 64-bit

Generally installing an application on a computer is something that is quite easy to accomplish, as all you really need to do is click a few buttons, right? Yes that is typically true, but recently I was proven wrong on this matter.

I work for a company that provides full IT services for multiple clients and one of our clients utilizes a very old application that requires .NET Framework 1.1, and the program needed to be installed on a new Windows 7 machine, no problem right?

Well as it turns out, the .NET Framework 1.1 being that it is so old is not actually compatible with the Windows 7 64-bit operating system and attempting to install it results in errors, and even worse I couldnt install this clients application unless we got this old .NET version installed. Simply installing .NET 4 would not suffice, it expressly needed 1.1.

Before starting I recommend creating a folder for the installers, lets say C:\dotnet, and we will download all of our files here.

First download the following two files:

Microsoft .NET Framework 1.1 Redistributable Package

Microsoft .NET Framework 1.1 Service Pack 1

The 2nd one go ahead and rename it to ”dotnetfxsp1.exe”

Also download these hotfixes, I will recommend you download these to their own folder at a location such as C:\dotnet\hotfix to differentiate the files.

ASP.NET Security Update for .NET 1.1 Service Pack 1

Privilege Not Held hotfix for .NET 1.1

This last hotfix does not seem to be available to download from Microsoft anymore so I have hosted it here for you to download.

Now with those downloaded first lets go to each of these .exe files and do the following:

Right click and choose “properties”
Click on the compatibility tab
Check the box “Run in compatibility mode”
Choose Windows 7
Also check the “Run as administrator” box.
Click OK

Do the above for each of the files we just downloaded. Now for the next part we are going to run these via the command prompt with a few switches. Click the start menu and in the search field type “CMD” when you see cmd.exe appear then right click it and choose “run as administrator.” In your newly opened command prompt window enter the following commands, if you saved your files in a different location then change the paths accordingly, also take note of spaces in the commands:

dotnetfx.exe /c:”msiexec.exe /a netfx.msi TARGETDIR=C:\DotNet”

dotnetfxsp1.exe /Xp:C:\DotNet\netfxsp.msp

msiexec.exe /a c:\DotNet\netfx.msi /p c:\DotNet\netfxsp.msp

After finishing both these command we just need to run the two hotfixes we downloaded:

NDP1.1sp1-KB891865-X86.exe

NDP1.1sp1-KB886903-X86.exe

Once these are done, you should be able to properly install your program that requires .NET 1.1. Note if .NET was not installed correctly the application will continue to say it needs it installed.

Good Luck!

Shrimp Pasta Salad

The beauty of this recipe is that you can decrease the ingredients that you don’t like, and increase the ones you do. Feel free to change it up and make it your own! And once mixed all together, the colors really pop and are very aesthetic. Not to mention that it tastes delicious (and is super easy to make)!!

You will need:

One really large bowl

16 oz. of medium sized pasta, like farfalle or penne

1 bunch of asparagus spears

1 container of cherry or grape tomatoes

10 oz. of marbled Colby jack cheese

1 bottle of zesty Italian salad dressing

Lemon juice, to taste

Cook the pasta according to the instructions on the box. Before the pasta is completely done, rinse and cut the asparagus spears into 2 inch sections. To save time (and clean up) cook the asparagus sections in the same pot as the pasta until the asparagus is bright green and tender. When the pasta and asparagus are cooked, drain and rinse with cold water. Place in large bowl and mix in half the bottle of salad dressing. Set aside. Slice the tomatoes in halves and mix them in the large bowl. Crumble the cheese into small pieces and stir in (be sure that the pasta is properly cooled. If not, it will melt the cheese). Pour in remaining half of zesty Italian salad dressing and lemon juice to taste. Cover and chill for about 2 hours, then serve.

Variations: lemon zest instead of lemon juice, sprinkle parmesan cheese over each serving

How to run a process as SYSTEM

I recently ran into an issue that required me to do this so for your benefit I am posting the information here.

Problem: Your running a server and whenever you log off it stops a vital process and causes service disruption.

Solution: Start the service as SYSTEM, rather than a user profile.

The problem I had was that an application server was running a particular service under one of our administrator accounts because this is the way this application was designed. As a result someone always comes along at some point and logs off all idle users, which in turn kills the service and renders the application unavailable to all users with the company.

There is a much easier way to run this, and I will show you how.

First off you need to download PsExec from Microsoft (dont worry, this software is straight from Microsoft and is safe for download)

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896649

Download the PsTools Suite and save the .zip file to a location of your choosing. Then extract the contents and take note of the file psexec.exe, we will need to know the location of this file.

Now we need to open a command prompt and navigate to the folder above. The command for this is “cd” which means “change directory”, so type cd followed by the path like this:

cd C:\Users\Blake\Desktop\PsTools (or wherever you saved it)

Now the prompt should change from the default of C:\Windows\System32 to what you typed.

Simply type: psexec -s cmd.exe

Now you need to use cd to change to the path of the service you need to start and execute it. So if I for example want to run Google Chrome I would do the following:

cd C:\Users\Username\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe

This would result in the application showing up in task manager as SYSTEM.

Now if you open the task manager and look under processes and find the process you just started, focus on the user name column and you will see that the process is running under SYSTEM. Now you can test this by logging of the current user and logging back on, check the task manager again and the process should still be running. This will continue to run until the server is rebooted.

If you want to set this up to auto run at every boot here is a more permanent fix:

Go into control panel and open up scheduled tasks, create a new scheduled task and follow the wizard. Simply browse to the file for the process you need to be run. When asked how often to run it choose at system startup.

Now heres the important part…when it asks what username you want to run this under enter in NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM with no password. With this in place you should no longer need to worry about mission critical services stopping when someone decides to log users off.

Clearing the Outlook attachment cache

Have you ever tried to open a file attachment sent to you in Outlook only to receive an error that it could not be opened? If so then you are in luck!

I have seen this happen only a handful of time but the fix is usually quite simple. This will require us to enter your computer’s registry but we will not be making any changes at all, but it is still wise to take extra care to not accidentally delete any values.

Whenever you open a file attachment, Outlook places these files in a designated cache folder within the temporary internet files directory. Sometimes this cache can grow too large and may need to be cleaned out. The only problem is the folder is given a random name by Outlook so we need some help locating it, this is where the registry comes in handy…

First you will need to click your start menu, choose run (or type “run” in search if running Windows 7) then type in the run window “regedit”. This will open up the registry editor. The reason for this is that there is a registry value that contains the path to Outlook’s super duper secret cache folder and we simply have to take a look at this value to determine where we need to go.

The value we are looking for is “OutlookSecureTempFolder”

Now depending on your version of Outlook you may need to navigate to a different path, all of which I will detail below:

Outlook 2010 (One of the following)

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\14.0\Outlook\Security
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Office\14.0\Outlook\ Security

Outlook 2007 (One of the following)

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0\Outlook\Security
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Office\12.0\Outlook\ Security

Outlook 2003 (One of the following)

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\11.0\Outlook\Security
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Office\11.0\Outlook\ Security

Now once you find the “OutlookSecureTempFolder” value doubleclick it to display the appropriate path. As you can see in the screenshot below my path is “C:\Documents and Settings\blake.sherwin\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files\OLKF2E\” (click to enlarge picture)

Now comes the easy part, simply copy the path you found and paste it into the run box then click ok. The content of the Outlook attachment cache folder should now be displayed and all you need to do is simply delete the files contained within.

With that done, simply close Outlook and re-open it again and you should now have no trouble opening attachments!

Unable to manage a distribution list in Outlook

This post is more aimed towards Server Administrators who run into similar problems as illustrated in the title. I personally run into this problem quite often and this trick was passed down to me from a server admin guru.

So here is our scenario…

You have a user who is the owner of a distribution list but when they try to edit it via Outlook they are unable to and receive messages indicating they do not have permission.

As with all troubleshooting we want to start with the most obvious thing first, so lets check to see if he actually is set to be able to manage the group

Judging from the above image we can safely assume he has the appropriate permissions in active directory to manage his distribution list. Now we move on to the next step and open up the Exchange Management Console.

Search for the distribution list in question and open it’s Exchange object, now click on the tab “membership approval”. Take a look at the menu, are all the options grayed out? If you answered yes then read on.

If these options are grayed out then it is very likely we have found your problem. I would wager that the group in question is a bit old, and may have been created when you were using an older version of Exchange. If this is the case then it seems that during migration to a new server alot of the object permissions become disabled.

To fix this all we need to do is make any change and apply. You can do this any way you like, but my personal preference is to go to the “E-mail addresses” tab and remove the checkmark from the box at the bottom labeled “Automatically update e-mail addresses based on e-mail address policy”.

When you try to apply your changes you will be presented with the following message:

From here simply click “Yes to All”, then place the checkmark back in the box at the bottom and save again.

Now if you look back at the “Membership Approvals” tab it should no longer be grayed out. Doublecheck that the user still has appropriate permissions then give the server up to 30 minutes to propagate then have the user test their access again.

Now for a brief recap of what we did here, because I think its not only important that we just fix problems but understand how it was fixed.

When the server was upgraded the object lost it’s permissions, that much is clear by now. By making any random change to the object and attempting to save it we basically force the server to look at the object at which point it gives us the object upgrade prompt. Following the upgrade we revert whatever changes we made to obtain said prompt.

As I mentioned above I learned this trick from a seasoned Server Admin and it fixes the problem probably 90% of the time for me. I have shown numerous other techs at work this trick and it doesnt seem to be widely know, so I hope to change that with this post.

How to connect computer speakers to your TV

Recently I was looking at getting a 5.1 surround sound system for my television but was turned off a bit by the prices and the fact that I would have to buy the wiring, mounts, and receiver separately.

So I started looking for a 2.1 system since they would not only be more economical, but easier to setup and manage. Sadly I was unable to find any 2.1 systems specifically for televisions, but I did find something else…computer speakers.

I needed a new pair for one of my computers anyway so I decided to buy one and test it on my tv. I plugged it into my tv’s headphone jack and it sounded alright but I realized the sound could be better, so thats when I decided to take a different approach.

Browsing all the different computer speakers on Newegg I noticed some of them can be connected via RCA. So I purchased a Logitech 2.1 set which included a 200 watt subwoofer and when it arrived I started setting it up to find that I had a few problems.

First of all, despite the myriad of different type of outlets on my TV I did not have an RCA audio out panel although I have about everything else imaginable. So about that time another idea began to formulate in my head, since I would only be using the speakers for Netflix and for video games, both of which I access through my Xbox 360 why not just bypass the TV altogether and reroute the audio?

My Xbox is connected to my TV via Component which in this case comprises of 6 cables of various colors. Now to simplify things think of this below image as two sets of cables:

So on the left we have RGB or red, green, blue for the video and on the right side we have yellow, white and red. The yellow also is for video but those other two red and white plugs are for the left and right stereo audio channels.

Normally you would plug all of these into the “component” panel on your TV but we are doing something different. Go ahead and keep the red, green, blue and yellow connected to the TV for the video but leave the red and white audio plugs disconnected because we are going to plug them into the subwoofer.

Its about this time you will probably notice there is no way those 2 plugs are going to reach your speakers, and you are correct. To remedy this you will need two things:

First you will need to get a female to female RCA coupler (See picture below)

Next you want to make sure you have an extra RCA cable which has a male plug at both ends. If needed you can likely find both of these items at Radio Shack.

Now you wont be using the yellow plug on these two items, but it will not hurt if all you can find is one with red white and yellow. If you havent figured it out already what we will be doing is taking those two loose red and white plugs that we did not connect to the TV and we will plug those into one side of the coupler. We then need to connect one end of that extra RCA patch cable to the OTHER end of the coupler. Now just finish running that RCA cable to the subwoofer and finish connecting the speakers like the products directions say.

I imagine these same steps can be followed for about any other media device, I have been very pleased with the results of my speaker setup. Playing Battlefield 3 with a subwoofer is an experience like none other.

A Letter to Congress regarding SOPA/PIPA

Many websites have blacked out today as a protest against SOPA and PIPA, and below is my letter to Congress about this topic, click here for more information.

I am writing to voice my opposition of SOPA and PIPA. I understand that piracy is in fact an ever increasing problem today, and being involved in the music industry I do strongly oppose piracy, however not only do I feel SOPA/PIPA is the wrong way to address this issue but I believe this will unearth bigger issues.

Firstly by monitoring and controlling the flow of information accessed on the internet there will be many legitimate sites blocked and ultimately effected, because in any attempt at filtering content there are always some false positives, and these false positives would naturally decrease traffic dramatically, and result in a loss of income and eventually the removal of said website due to insufficient income caused by blocking traffic.

Secondly by taking this responsibility of filtering information access and dumping it onto internet service providers (ISP) we will likely see some drastic changes in the quality and quantity of ISPs.

I would wager the added cost of hiring extra workers or implementing systems to actively monitor all data packets traveling through the network could result in smaller ISPs shutting down completely, and larger ones that remain would likely undergo changes that would result in even more internet usage limitation.

On the note of false positives I am a small broadcaster who operates an internet radio station, and as a result I have a server that automatically uploads music 24/7 as a stream for my listeners. I have a blanket license through my host and am doing this legally, and there are many other small broadcasters in America and in other countries who are obeying the law. Any of these sites could easily by flagged by an automated system and blacklisted by an ISP.

In Summary, some possible foreseeable effects:

Reduction in quantity of small/independent websites

Reduction in quantity of Internet Service Providers (ISP)

Reduction in quality of Internet Services

Incidental decrease in available information on the internet as a result of the above three.

The end result, whether intentional or not would be censorship, and damage to the trust relationship between America and her people.

*Update*

I was surprised to receive a rather speedy response from our representative. The letter is below:

Thank you for contacting me regarding H.R. 3261, the Stop Online Piracy Act. I appreciate you contacting me about your concerns and I welcome the opportunity to respond.

The Stop Online Piracy Act allows the Attorney General to seek injunctions against foreign websites that steal and sell American innovations and products. Additionally, the bill increases criminal penalties for individuals who traffic in counterfeit medicine and military goods and seeks to improve coordination between IP enforcement agencies in the U.S. Although well intentioned, I have significant concerns that this legislation would limit free speech on the Internet, lacks the critical detail and clarity necessary to guide the identification and prosecution of acts of piracy, as well as to set boundaries for individuals and entities that seek to maliciously take advantage of the law for their own personal or financial gain.

U.S. industries that rely on intellectual property rights contribute significantly to U.S. economic growth, employment, and trade with other countries. Counterfeiting and piracy in other countries may result in the loss of billions of dollars of revenue for U.S. firms as well as the loss of jobs. Like you, I believe Congress needs to work towards improving and reforming copyright laws to better protect the distribution of American goods, and foster an environment where innovation is encouraged. As we continue to debate these issues, Congress must be mindful that the laws we create, intended to protect honest American innovators, are not creating more avenues for doing harm. Currently, this bill has been referred to the Committee on the Judiciary which has held several hearings. Should this issue come before me in the House, I will keep your concerns in mind.

Again, thank you for contacting me to share your thoughts on this important issue. It is an honor to serve you in Washington and Oklahoma. If you would like more information on issues, or would like to share your thoughts with me via e-mail, you may visit my website at http://sullivan.house.gov/. Please do not hesitate to contact me again should you have further concerns on federal legislation or programs.

Sincerely,

John Sullivan

Member of Congress

JCVD Review

I have fond memories as a child watching Jean-Claude Van Damme movies such as Bloodsport or Kickboxer, and just recently with the announcement of his role in Expendables 2 I have slowly but surely been making my way through his filmography in my Netflix queue.

I hear alot of people talk about him being a terrible actor, or his movies being terrible in general. I think because of this he is severely under-rated as an action star.

I can agree that his acting was never the strong point in his movies, but honestly when I watch a martial arts movie I am not going into it expecting a gripping story or exceptional acting. As for me, when I put on a Jean-Claude movie or even a Chuck Norris movie I have one motive…to see some unadulterated butt-kicking.

Fast forward Jean-Claude’s career to present day and we see a new self-titled movie “JCVD” (short for Jean-Claude Van Damme).

Now before I saw this movie I actually thought this was an autobiography judging from some reviews I had read, and everything I read was very positive. So I finally got a chance to see this movie recently and while I was very impressed.

In JCVD, Jean-Claude plays himself as basically an aging actor. In this article I will only divulge plot information which can be found in the trailer for those who plan on watching. He is going through a divorce and is having a custody battle for his young daughter, who chooses to live with her mother. At some point Jean-Claude needs to pay his lawyer fees, so he heads to the Belgian bank (called the post office) to withdraw the funds, but in an unfortunate turn of events he is thought to be a bank robber by both the police and the general public of Belgium. The movie has some funny moments and some sad/touching moments as well.

There is one scene in particular that I found very amusing, one of the robbers at the bank is a long time Jean-Claude fan and asks him to kick a cigarette out the mouth of one of the hostages. Jean-Claude reluctantly grants this request, as the man has a gun, but following this the robber decides it looks easy enough to try himself. Despite Jean-Claude’s remarks, “I dont think that is a good idea…”, hilarity ensues.

At the core though this is a very serious and touching movie, and definitely proves that the man from Brussels is more than just muscles (sorry I had to say it). In my opinion he gives the best acting performance of his life, and the fact that he is playing himself makes his acting seem very natural and honest.

At some point in the movie Jean-Claude has a monologue where he talks to the camera for awhile talking about his life, and it is at this point that he goes from “acting” to “being”. It is obvious in this scene that he is not acting, he is speaking from his heart and it really hits home.

After watching JCVD I have alot of respect for this man, because it takes alot to put your own life on the screen in the way that he did. I strongly suggest you check this one out, but warning to slow readers it is in Belgian with subtitles.

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