Resolving Office 2010 Beta Activation Issues

My Office 2010 Beta installation has been working fine for the most part but apparently activation kept failing. Here is the step by step fix posted at MSDN Social. If you are getting 0x8007232B or similar errors when trying to activate Office 2010 Beta, give it a try.

Yes, I want to empy deleted items folder

It looks like I hit another annoying bug with Outlook 2010 Beta. Every time I exit outlook, I get the following prompt:

Do you want to permanently delete all the items and subfolders in the "deleted items" folder for all accounts.

Under Outlook Options > Advanced > Start and Exit, I have the following option checked off:
"Empty deleted items folders when exiting outlook"

Problem is that even if  there is nothing in the deleted items, I still get the prompt. It is possible to stop this by unchecking the option above but that would mean deleted items will need to be purged manually.

In 2007, there was an option that read "do not prompt when emptying deleted items". This option is no longer available...

I found a discussion about this on MS social but no solution as of yet.

Outlook 2010 Beta - Issue with smtp

I downloaded 2010 Beta bits from MSDN yesterday and installed over Office 2007. Upgrade was successful. The new Outlook interface is neat! I know there are several new features and by default it now sorts by Conversation & Date, which is how I prefer to read my e-mails, especially at work. It helps me to see the whole thread on a subject.

The only problem I have had was when receiving the e-mail. By default, Outlook 2007 used the following ports
POP3: 995 (SSL)
SMTP: 587 (TLS)
as per Gmail documentation

Outlook timed out sending e-mails with these settings. I tried a couple of times but I kept on getting  time-out messages with an error:

Task 'smtp server name - Sending and Receiving' reported error (0x8004210): 'The operation timed out waiting for a response from the sending (SMTP) server. If you continue to receive this message, contact your server administrator or Internet service provider (ISP).'

Message seems a bit generic as Microsoft listed this as an issue message for Outlook 2002. Anywho, problem is solved now but I am not clear what did the trick. Here is what I did:

Changed SMTP to : 465 SSL
After e-mail was successfully sent, I changed SMTP back to 587 (TLS). It is still working. Go figure!

How should I solve 'backup' issue?

My Western Digital MyBook Pro died a couple of months ago and when I took it apart (it was really painful) I realized that I did not have a TB drive in it. Instead, it was 2 x 500GB Western Digital HDs. Apparently, they were using JBOD technology to offer 1TB space.

So either I had to find a similar card or forget  about recovering backup data on the HDs and think about getting a new external backup system. I have an 4 year old HP XW6000 sitting idle with 2x750Gig drives in it. So, I thought I could try freeNAS. I installed it on a 64KB usb stick. It was able to detect my drives but sharing them proved to be quite challenging for whatever reason.

I started looking at other alternatives and one of my friends suggested I take a look at Drobo. So I did. It's simply impressive although there are  several horror stories about it. It's using a proprietary technology to mix and match different size hard drives and that was the biggest reason I was sold. I have several healthy HDs that I did not want throw away.

So, I ordered it ($350) from Amazon the other day with two 1.5 GB HDs (2 x $120). 1 from Seagate and 1 from Western Digital. A common mistake is that people just go and buy 2 (or 4 ) of the same make/model hard drive and they usually fail at times close to each other (yeah happened to me in an earlier life).

With 200MB/min HD video clips of my two year old and thousands of pics a month, soon the drives at my Fragbox2 will not be enough and I know I will have to move some stuff to Drobo. That defeats the purpose though. Using Drobo as storage would mean, I need to back up drobo somewhere else as one should NEVER have data in a single drive (or location or...)...

While doing the research though, I fell in love with real-deal NAS solutions. Especially QNAP & Synology have terrific feature-sets for such solutions. My friend gave me a great idea: Use one of these NAS solutions as your primary/secondary data storage area on network, then connect drobo to it and use the 1-button backup on these NAS solutions to back them up! I loved the idea.

Right now I am eyeing QNAP TS-410 Turbo (~$450). TS-439 Pro with its 1GB DDRII RAM and 1.6GHz Intel processor looks sexy but is double the price. 4x1.5TB HDs will cost around another $500. Such solutions are not cheap.

Cloud is another way to go for backup. Prices came down and $50 to $60 a year does not seem a bad price to pay for back-up. It has the advantage of reaching your data from anywhere as well.

By the way, while I was doing research, I re-discovered a neat feature of Google: www.google.com/Products. It's very useful to find all kinds of information, including price, about a product.

Also when using Google to search for recent reviews, you can simply put the product name and add +October +2009 then expand "Show Options" and choose reviews from left hand side menu.

Hippo File Update Checker

I had mentioned FileHippo.com when I was posting about links to download offline install version of Google Chrome. LifeHacker mentioned their Hippo File Update Checker as a way to keep up with the latest updates to the  software you have on your PC. I tried it and looks pretty decent!

Home (The Movie)

This is a must-see documentary about Earth and how we change it.

What's new in PowerShell 2.0

I find myself going back to to this great blog entry on Huddled Masses by Joel 'Jaykul' Bennett, so I am going to add an entry here for it.
Here is also a PowerShell blogs pipe that I shamelessly cloned from his original one and customized a bit.

Google Wave FAQ

Here is a FAQ that's currently being written live in Google Wave. I copied it from there. It looks like we are not actually inviting 8 people but nominating them for invite. Read more below...

General FAQ

I'm a developer learning the wave platform. Can I enable the debug toolbar on this preview version of Wave?

Not at the moment.

What changed with the switch from the Sandbox to the Preview?

Some bots (especially with the host "@wavesandbox.com", popular example: "Rosy") don't work anymore

Settie now works, a little.

Changing profile information now works through Settie, not a Gmail interface.

Spelly works.

Embedding waves seems not to work until the scripts are updated. (Embeddy gadget is out of date with sandbox details, however you can add blog-bot@appspot.com to your wave to view the wave ID and the code needed to embed a wave in your site)

Where is the documentation?

Do a wave search for tag:welcomewaves or see the Whitepapers �(Google Wave Federation Protocol)�

Where is the sample code?

http://code.google.com/apis/wave/samples/index.html

How do you make a Wave public?

Visit this wave for further detail: How To See and Make Public Waves (Add Your Friends To This)

"To allow all users access to your wave, add the special address public@a.gwave.com as a participant of the wave." It will not be added to the paticipants, but instead a banner will appear with "The wave is published at an unknown url." This means it is public, but with no URL, so it is only available through Wave.

How do we find/lookup this user?

Click the "+" in the contacts section. Then type in an address of "public@a.gwave.com". Don't care about message, that this user didn't have a wave account - just enter address, then hit Enter. Simples

To see all public waves : https://wave.google.com/wave/#restored:search:with%253Apublic

How do you then share that wave with other users? Ctrl+L and wave ID to create a link?

You can simply drag and drop your wave into other waves to create a hyperlink.

My contacts list is empty. How I do I add contacts?

At this point, there are three different contacts you can add.

Existing @googlewave.com accounts. Anyone you know that has a Google Wave account, can be added as a contact.

Robots. (See below in this FAQ)

Nominations. You have 8 nominations that you can use for anyone who does not have a Google Wave account. To invite outside users in, you have a wave titled "Invite others to Google Wave" that you enter their googlemail address into. During the Limited Preview testing period, that is the only way for users who did not get an official invitation to be added.

What are nominations? Are they different than invitations?

Yes, they are different than invitations. Invitations allow immediate access to Google Wave and nominations don't. While details on the specifics of nominations aren't known, at a date in the future, Google will choose from the nominated pool and send them invites. It is not known how quickly this will take place.

What browsers are supported?

Chrome 3.0

Chromium 4.0.212.0

Firefox 3.0 + Gears 0.5.21.0

IE + Google Chrome Frame + Gears 0.5.21.0

Safari + Gears 0.5.21.0

Sufficiently recent Webkit-based browsers

Anything using QtWebKit 4.5 or later (Rekonq, Arora, WebKit-KPart, etc.)

Mobile Browsers (Safari on iPhone, Browser on Android) work, but they're really slow and sometimes buggy.

Why do some public waves (or at least I think they are public like Keyboard Shortcut Cheat Sheet from below) that tell me that I am not a participant and so can not view?

Maybe it's not actually a public wave. The owner of that wave should make sure that public@a.gwave.com is a participant.

Also be careful because some contents in welcomewaves are imported (which is a fancy name for "copied/pasted") from the sandbox server, some links may be pointing to other server's waves and the federation protocol (which provides communication between different wave servers) is not yet fully implemented.

Editing in a wave

How do I add a link?

Click on the G+ tool and search for it

But how do I insert a link when I only know the URL?

You can select some text, then hit Ctrl+L and it will open a window where you can paste a save id or URL

If you want to create a wave Link, try editing the message and dragging a wave into it.

How do I tag a wave?

Click the small (+) button below the wave. Type the tag and then press return.

Current tags appear to the left of the button.

What are the keyboard shortcuts?

See Keyboard Shortcut Cheat Sheet (doesn't seem to be public)

See Keyboard Shortcut Cheat Sheet (a newer version with fewer discussions)

E.g. Control-e: edit the current wave (so you don't have to scroll up, click on edit, and scroll back to where you want to edit :)

Shift-Enter : same as clicking "Done"

Enter: same as clicking "Reply"

Cmd-Click : (on a mac) Opens multiple waves

Ctl-Click: (on a PC) Opens multiple waves

How to move the inline-responses (eg. wavelets) around in the wave.

Inline comments can be folded/unfolded by clicking on the little speech bubble with a plus inside. If folded you can easily drag the bubble around. Unfortunately dropping does not work right now.

You can delete them by folding them (see above) and hitting backspace when the cursor is right before the bubble icon; you can't recreate them as they were so make sure the content is preserved.

There is also a menu in the upper right corner of each message with a "delete" option.

What does "The wave is published at an unknown url" (I see that on top of this very wave) mean? And how do we get rid of this vertical space waster?

When a wave is made public, i.e. every wave user can view and participate in it, this message is shown. There is currently no way to hide it.

Is it possible to configure a wave so that by default when first viewed, all inline comments are folded, or to fold all comments in a wave?

Not yet but it is something that is planned.

Is there any way to create a private inline reply?

Not currently. But you can work around by creating a blank inline reply and privately reply to that blank blip.

What happens to the thread of inline reply when someone deletes the bubble?

The whole wavelet appears below the blip as normal replies.

How do I delete a Wave permanently?

Drag that Wave to the Trash to remove it from your client, click the mute button to make sure you don't get notified when there's new items. I don't actually see a way to remove it from the server. (other participants can still see it)

Is it currently possible to drag and drop photos into a wave? Does this work for anyone?

Yes, but in order to do so, you must first enable Google Gears, since HTML 5 does not support the drag and drop feature yet, and the only way that the developers made it possible was using Google Gears. Once enabled, all you have to do is drag the file from your computer into the wave.

What is the etiquette on Google Wave?

There is an etiquette Wave, found here Google Wave Etiquette.

What does the "Requests"-Tab do?

If you try to open a wave without having access to it (e.g. not a public wave), the wave shows up there. On the side of the owner of the wave. Nothing happens. Could be a not fully-implemented feature.

Could also be called "Waves you are requesting access to", or "Waves to which you have no access, yet".

Embedding waves in a Blog/Website

How do I embed a Wave to my blog?

Check out Wave Embed API Tutorial - Google Wave API - Google Code

There is a convenience bot that will tell you the current wave ID and also show an Embeddy clone with correct details for embedding a wave in your site. Add blog-bot@appspot.com to your wave (please remove this after Embeddy is updated)

How do I embed my Wave in Wordpress, Drupal, etc ?

Please see the Embed/JavaScript samples at the Goole Wave Samples API lab

There is also a JQuery plugin to make embedding even easier. NOTE you may have to apply the patch to get the plugin to work with the current version of Wave.

Is an embedded Wave viewable by non Wave users

Nope. You currently need a Wave account to view the embedded Waves. However, it's a requested feature.

Bugs

How do I report a bug?

This is noted as a current issue. Clicking on "Report a bug" in the upper right leads to this url which doesn't work (I get "Firefox can't find the server at b.", at least outside google I presume): http://b/createIssue?notes=[Enter+a+quick+description ....

http://code.google.com/p/google-wave-resources/issues/list is the official bug reporting place according to http://tinyurl.com/ofl5fs

Why do I get "Wave has no contents. Consult backend logs for wave id" and "Everything's shiny, Cap'n. Not to fret!" Unfortunately, you'll need to refresh." on some waves?

http://code.google.com/p/google-wave-resources/issues/detail?id=20 link to bug report. As of yet unresolved.

Is there some way to make the Debug menu smaller?

Not at present. It's likely it will go away soon.

What is a "been soup" test?

There's a section of the demo where Lars demonstrates the context sensitivity of the spell checker with "I want some been soup. It's bean a long time." Along with "icland is an icland" which corrects to "Iceland is an island".

Spell checking doesn't always work. Whats wrong?

Well, it seems like spelly is under heavy development and is sometimes not available/broken. Spelly participates automatically in all waves. So if it's not working, just be patient and check back later.

What does the mute function mean? Can I unmute something?

When a wave is muted, it will not appear in your inbox even when there is new content in the wave.

To unmute a wave, drag it to the inbox in the navigation panel.

Contacts, Avatars

Finding contacts

There is a link to search for contacts contacts page (it seems as if Wave is part of a Google Apps installation on wavesandbox.com) that goes straight to the familiar GMail contacts page, only that the contacts there are from @wavesandbox.com.

The search on that contacts page seems to be not fully functional. I can find 73 (Test) accounts when searching for "test" but 3 or 4 when searching for "e".

You can add contacts to groups and then they are visible on the Wave main page in the 'Contacts' box.

Are we able to delete contacts at this point?

At this point, the only way to delete contacts is by managing them with the regular contacts Google Apps. For that, go to http://www.google.com/contacts/a/wavesandbox.com

In an exisiting wave, there are three contacts (for example). Can I delete one out of the wave?

Not currently, but there is a 'todo' for that in the 'Known Issues' wave.

How do I change my avatar?

Click your avatar in the contacts pane and click "edit profile". This opens a special wave that allows you to change your display name and change your avatar.

Why can't I see someones name/image?

It's either because this person has not created/updated/published his/her profile or just because wave is lagging. A refresh may help. Please note that you currently don't have to add someone as contacts to see his/her name and avatar.

How do I delete someone from "Contacts"?

Click in the Contact-Panel on "Manage Contacts" and delete them from the interface there. (This is your Googlemail-Contact-Menu btw.)

Navigation

Where are the keyboard shortcuts of Google Wave explained?

Keyboard Shortcut Cheat Sheet

How do I see more than 1 wave at the same time?

Hold Control while clicking on a new wave will open it in a split view with the currently opened wave. Minimize all navigation, inbox, and contact panels, we can open about 4 waves concurrently at the same time. More than that will greatly reduce performance. You can also minimize a wave, open another, then restore the original minimized wave.

Does the Navigation dialog have a scroll bar? It seems like it's kinda cropped oddly or something?

It does have a scroll bar, but only when the Folders tab is extended, and you have multiple folders, other wise if the contents fit it does not have a scroll bar.

Why is there no "modeless" editing? I have to click the pen at the top of the wavelet and then the done button on the bottom. Isn't that unnecessary?

Use Ctrl+E to start editing. When done editing press Shift+Enter to Save.

The keyboard shortcuts are handy

Why Shift+Enter, when in all other apps this would force a hard return and Ctrl+Enter would submit?

Because it's not always the case :)

Will the Initech Wave client source be released at some point?

Steph says they don't know yet.

How do you add yourself to a wave (like this one) without editing it or adding a comment?

You can add yourself by clicking edit on this text box and then not editing anything, but that doesn't seem right... It is not possible to "drag" yourself from contacts to the top of the wave.

Click the "+Add" button that is in the top bar with all of the other participants' avatars. Type your own username in the search box that appears and hit enter.

What other useful web sites are there?

Google Wave: A Gomplete Guide

How do I embed a Wave to my blog?

Check out Wave Embed API Tutorial - Google Wave API - Google Code

There is a convenience bot that will tell you the current wave ID and also show an Embeddy clone with correct details for embedding a wave in your site. Add blog-bot@appspot.com to your wave (please remove this after Embeddy is updated)

Is it true that embedded wave can only be viewed in browsers with Google Gears >=0.5.21.0?

No, you can also view it with earlier versions (0.5.19.0 works for example), but drag-and-dropping images is not supported in earlier versions.

How can I find other public waves?

Enter the following in the search box in the middle panel: "with:public" and you will see a dynamic (constantly updating) list of public waves. The annoyance is that modified waves keep jumping to the top of the list so there is virtually no way you can make sure you have seen all waves.

How to use playback backwards?

In order to follow the last (say) 10 entries I need to jump from the beginning of the slider all the way to the end and move backwards (in large waves this usually doesn't work before I get the Refresh msg)

Seeing the newest waves at the top is sometimes more useful. Are there plans to allow sorting of the blips within a wave?

Currently there isn't. Because the way wave was originally designed, inline replies and tree-structure make sorting a non-sense.

How can I search for a text *in* a Wave?

This is only possible with the search of the browser (which is a bit sub-optimal), but there is a Wave with a feature-request to add an integrated search.

[Feature Request: Search within a Wave]

When I open an existing wave, it starts from the top, instead of from the new messages. Is it not so useful?

This is probably because the top blip is somehow modified. Another reason is that waves are loaded partially, so before the new messages is loaded and can be scrolled into view, you would be looking at the top blip. Without any bugs & delays, you should be seeing the first unread message.

When I want to scroll a wave up or down, I cannot use arrow keys. It will jump to the next (previous) reply instead. Is there any way to quickly scroll the wave (without using mouse)?

Currently no, and that's something weird. Sandbox users have long requested returning the up/down arrow keys to their original usages and replace the current feature with j/k or n/p. (is any Google employee reading this?)

Extensions and Robots

How can I add my own Robot or extension to a wave?

I mean, there seems to be no interface to add a new extension or add a

(custom) robot to a wave. It's probably there, but I can't see it in the interface.

Each robot has an address looking like an email. You just add it to a wave like any other contact.

To add an extension see the documentation at this link http://code.google.com/apis/wave/extensions/#installing I've tried this myself with an extension I wrote and it works fine.

Since Sept. 3rd you can add Gadgets via an insertion button in the editor toolbar (green puzzle icon). See: What's Recently Changed in Wave

Can you just use any appspot application and use it like polly-wave@appspot.com? Nice!

What is settie@gwave.com doing?

Little. Settie can currently show you a wave to allow you to install gadgets. Basically, everything that happens on Wave happens in a Wave, even setting preferences.

What are some robots to try?

View wave robot samples here: http://wave-samples-gallery.appspot.com/

You can add "polly-wave@appspot.com" or "tweety-wave@appspot.com". Both these robots were demoed during the Keynote.

Google Wave Invitation

Yay! I got my Google Wave invitation and have 8 invites to send out *grin*. If you are reading this, chances are you are eager to get one... Hmm, read on.

When I started bloggin in 2004, my second post was about how I was trying to get a gmail invite and how someone sent me one. It made me happy then and I want to make a fellow netizen happy.

I need your e-mail address to send an invite but I would not want you to be an easy target for spammers so be creative when you are leaving it...

(For example: if your e-mail address is johnny_boy@hotmail.com,  before@johnny_boy after@hotmail.com)

I will collect the requests tonight and send one to a random person.

Google Chrome Offline (Standalone) Installer

I had a post on how to download full Google Chrome earlier this year. Ghacks has a recent post on how to download the offline version:

All that these users need to do is to append the parameter standalone=1 to the website where Google Chrome can be downloaded. Here are the two download links for the latest official and latest beta version of the Google browser:

Latest official: http://www.google.com/chrome/eula.html?standalone=1
Latest beta: http://www.google.com/chrome/eula.html?extra=betachannel&standalone=1
Latest Test: http://www.google.com/chrome/eula.html?extra=devchannel&standalone=1

They warn that this version may not auto-update, but that may be exactly what you want in your environment if you would like to deliver versions in a controlled manner.

Unfortunately, when I tried this I kept on downloading the same version (172.28) as Prod only. According to Google Chrome Release Blog, QA is in v3 and Dev channel is in v4 right now.

I searched thru Google Chrome Forums and found a link to download full executable for every single release: http://www.filehippo.com/download_google_chrome/
and yet another one here:
http://www.softpedia.com/progDownload/Google-Chrome-Download-108166.html

Double-clicking Logitech

As if I do not have enough issues with my computers these days, apparently my Logitech G7 mouse died. Yes, I said "apparently" because it works just fine except a little annoyance: 7 out of 10 times when I simply left click, it treats it as a double click.

I noticed this a couple of days ago and it got worse. I played with every mouse setting to no avail. Then, googled it to see if this was a reported Windows 7 issue and it turned out that this is a "common" case with mouse brands today that "microdrive" fails. From what I read, some people claim that Logitech mouses are especially notorious & exhibit this problem after a year or so. Although my case would certainly fall into that category, I doubt that there is a systematic problem with Logitech mouses.

A couple of months ago, this would be a perfect excuse to buy a Razer, who by the way created a new mouse - called "Naga" - that seems to be specifically targeting World of Warcraft players [17 buttons & custom interface for WoW = drool]. I still can't get myself pay $130 for a mouse though. So no "mamba" for me.

CPU Fan Error Thriller - The Saga Continues

After my post about the error "CPU Fan Error!", I had two days without any issues but today error is back. I had left my computer on for a couple of hours and apparently it went into deep sleep mode (S3). I came back and moved the mouse - nothing happened! O_o
Then, I hit the keyboard, knowing it would not help... I had one option left, Power button to wake up the PC.

It did wake up but really like an annoyed person coming back from deep sleep. Fans roared full speed for 15 secs; then a brief silence as if power went off... Finally a blinking cursor on the screen and BIOS messages showing up. Unfortunately, BIOS messages stopped at some point as before and after 20 secs of silence I saw the familiar message printed on the screen:
"CPU Fan Error!
Press F1 to continue.

I hit F1 and loaded Win7 but I knew what was coming: 'computer freeze every other second'...

So, I rebooted and decided to disable Q-Fan again but I failed to hit "del" key to go into BIOS on time and noticed a new message:
Overclocking Failed! Please enter Setup to re-configure your system

In fact, these two messages seems to be related. My system has arrived overclocked from Falcon Northwest; I know that because they mentioned every single BIOS change they made in their documentation (kudos). When a system is overclocked, it may generate more heat; again referring to incapacity of the fan to do its job...

The reason I had bought the system was WoW but I quit WoW a couple of months ago. So I turned overclocking off as I do not need the every piece of cpu cycle these days.

Of course, it is still bothering me that this is happening; and I am not totally convinced that this is a hardware story. It could very well be that Win7 has something to do with this. I am, for example, noticing some other "System" errors in Event Log like
"The NVIDIA Display Driver Service service has reported an invalid current state 32"
There was a report in nVidia forum today that problem was resolved after installing latest Win7 beta drivers. I have not however seen the same issues reported there.

At this point, I thought I should switch to something more productive and do some investigation with PowerShell, like when did these messages appear and how many of them were in system log:

get-eventlog system -entry error  |where {$_.message -match "nvidia"} |ft -auto
Index Time         EntryType Source                  InstanceID Message
----- ----         --------- ------                  ---------- -------
74903 Sep 26 19:04 Error     Service Control Manager 3221232488 The NVIDIA Display Driver Service service has report...
74614 Sep 25 00:03 Error     Service Control Manager 3221232488 The NVIDIA Display Driver Service service has report...
74456 Sep 24 23:07 Error     Service Control Manager 3221232488 The NVIDIA Display Driver Service service has report...
74343 Sep 24 23:04 Error     Service Control Manager 3221232488 The NVIDIA Display Driver Service service has report...
74198 Sep 24 22:57 Error     Service Control Manager 3221232488 The NVIDIA Display Driver Service service has report...
74037 Sep 24 22:31 Error     Service Control Manager 3221232488 The NVIDIA Display Driver Service service has report...
73887 Sep 24 22:02 Error     Service Control Manager 3221232488 The NVIDIA Display Driver Service service has report...
73758 Sep 24 21:58 Error     Service Control Manager 3221232488 The NVIDIA Display Driver Service service has report...
73399 Sep 22 00:06 Error     Service Control Manager 3221232488 The NVIDIA Display Driver Service service has report...
73164 Sep 21 00:02 Error     Service Control Manager 3221232488 The NVIDIA Display Driver Service service has report...

So, apparently this nVidia problem is also a recent phenomenon. I checked Microsoft's documentation on event id and did not see anything to worry me. So, I went back to PowerShell and started playing with it a bit more...

How many errors did my system have in System Log?

(get-eventlog system -entry error).count
39

Some people actually doing that in a different way. First get the events from log & then count them:

$events=get-eventlog -logname system -entryType error # I used the long notation here
$events.count
39

I actually like that "(something).property" way of getting properties but assigning it to a variable first is much more useful if you will re-use the object. For example, if I wanted to find out what sources generated these errors (i.e. group them):

$events |group source |FT count,name -auto #It centered the output without -auto

Count Name
----- ----
   20 DCOM
   11 Service Control Manager
    3 HECI
    3 EventLog
    2 Serial

Or if I wanted to see only certain fields:

$events |ft TimeGenerated, Source, Message -Auto

TimeGenerated         Source                  Message
-------------         ------                  -------
9/26/2009 7:10:33 PM  DCOM                    The description for Event ID '-1073731808' in Source 'DCOM' cannot be ...
9/26/2009 7:04:13 PM  Service Control Manager The NVIDIA Display Driver Service service has reported an invalid curr...
9/26/2009 7:03:31 PM  HECI                    HECI driver has failed to perform handshake with the Firmware.
9/26/2009 7:03:40 PM  EventLog                The previous system shutdown at 5:09:01 PM on ?9/?26/?2009 was unexpec...
9/26/2009 2:39:20 PM  DCOM                    The description for Event ID '-1073731808' in Source 'DCOM' cannot be ...
9/25/2009 12:03:26 AM Service Control Manager The NVIDIA Display Driver Service service has reported an invalid curr...
...

Btw, did you also notice that in the first example I only typed "entry" instead of "entryType", that's because you can type the minimum number of chars sufficient enough for PowerShell to identify which parameter you meant.

I also tend to skip default parameter names. For example, default parameter for "get-eventlog" is of course EventLog name which is represented by "-logname string" parameter. You can skip -logname if nobody else will read your code:

get-eventlog system

As usual to get list of event logs simply type:

get-eventlog -list

  Max(K) Retain OverflowAction        Entries Log
  ------ ------ --------------        ------- ---
  20,480      0 OverwriteAsNeeded       1,142 Application
  15,168      0 OverwriteAsNeeded           0 DFS Replication
  20,480      0 OverwriteAsNeeded           0 HardwareEvents
     512      7 OverwriteOlder              0 Internet Explorer
  20,480      0 OverwriteAsNeeded           0 Key Management Service
   8,192      0 OverwriteAsNeeded         127 Media Center
  16,384      0 OverwriteAsNeeded           0 ODiag
  16,384      0 OverwriteAsNeeded         263 OSession
                                              Security
  20,480      0 OverwriteAsNeeded       4,321 System
     512      7 OverwriteOlder            415 Windows PowerShell

help get-eventlog -examples

has several examples for common scenarios.
Fin!

CPU Fan error thriller

If you read my "RIP: My Falcon Fragbox2" story, you know that I own one of these beasts.. Since I got it back from Falcon, it was working fine all these months and I love it.

Recently though, I upgraded my Vista to Windows 7 Home Premium Edition from MSDN. I know, I know it is early and many vendors do not have drivers etc etc but I love Windows 7 and could not wait!

All went well and I have been running it fine for the last month or so. Recently though, I started to see some weird behaviour from “sleep mode” again. I dont remember what setting it had originally but at some point it would not go to sleep. I mentioned that story below and I thought it was a software issue. Unfortunately it came back and the final solution I found was to change BIOS setting for sleep from S1 to S3. That had put and end to it. So, I went back and checked the setting to see if it somehow got reset. It was still in S3.

It would go to “sleep” fine; then sometime later it, fan wakes up with full ferocity and does not stop running. This kept on happening so I started to shutdown the machine instead of putting it into Sleep. I started to notice another weir behaviour though. Windows would come up fine but after I logged in, it would suddenly start to act up. Basically it was running for 2secs and freezing for 2secs. I could see this behaviour clearly by simply moving the mouse around. It was quite weird and I had no idea what was causing it as I had not installed any software (I did inplace upgrade) recently. I was annoyed but figured out that rebooting system would clear this issue.

The worst happened today though. I cold booted the system and noticed an error:
CPU fan error!
Press F1 to continue.

I was freaking out at this point and immediately opened the case only to find out that all fans were plugged properly and firmly, and they were all running just fine. So, I started to research this and found out that other people with Asus Motherboard had seen this issue. They suggested to “disable” Q-fan, which was set to “silence” mode. I tested this and it did clear the error. However, I thought this would be a risky thing to do; so kept on checking Asus site. Apparently they have a BIOS update 0902 (mine was 0802) but instructions were not too clear to me. I downloaded a utility from their site, which is supposed to allow saving bios and updating it from Windows.

When I ran it; it displayed a message which told me to remove Memory from A* banks. I checked the motherboard documentation and found out which one was A1 (I have 2 Gig at A1 and 2 gig at B1). I powered down the pc, removed all the cables and removed A1 memory. After reboot, I saw a message which said something like “Because of AMT requirement A1 bank should be filled or you may experience system malfunction”. I went ahead anyway and launched Asus update utility after logging in. This time, it did not complain and gave me the option to save and update bios. I did that and chose to reset CMOS.

All went fine. I rebooted and of course got CMOS checksum errors. I hit F1 and continued to logon to Windows. All seemed fine. Then, I rebooted and went into BIOS. Took out the awesome  documentation from Falcon and reset all the setting one by one to what was documented. Saved and rebooted again. I do not see the fan error and all seems to be OK right now.

Imported old blog here

When I started blogging in 2004, I had a different address. When blogger was moving to a new format, I started this one. It was not possible to merge the two for quite sometime. Today, while looking around, I found out from Blogger Buzz that this feature has been implemented already and it's very simple to import/export blogger blogs.

So, I went to my old blog and from Settings > Basic page, chose "Export Blog". Then simply logged on to this one and clicked "Import Blog" from the same location. I have it all here now, yay!

If only now, I could find a nice template to make the posting space larger...

Code Syntax Highlighting for Blogger

I was envious how nice my friend, Arnoud's PowerShell blog was showing up the code and decided to look for something similar in Blogger. After a bit of searching, I found a very nice open-source tool Called SyntaxHighlighter. There is a great instruction page here.

PowerTab for PowerShell

A friend of mine had mentioned to me this cool free PowerShell addon, which takes tabbing into a whole new level. You can download "PowerTab" from ThePowerShellGuy.com

A bit of registry with PowerShell

I was trying some PowerShell commands to see how it works with Registry. I liked of course how I can browse registry by simply typing:

Registry:

And the way I prefer it with Get-ChildItem (gci)

gci HKLM:\Software\microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run

But of course when I type that it shows me the registry keys under that path

SKC VC Name ;
--- -- ---- -------- 
3 1 OptionalComponents {(default)} 

If I actually wanted to see the content, the command to use is Get-ItemProperty (gp)

gp hklm:\software\microsoft\windows\currentversion\run\

Kernel and Hardware Abstraction Layer : KHALMNPR.EXE
Adobe Reader Speed Launcher : "C:\Program Files\Adobe\Reader 9.0\Reader\Reader_sl.exe"
atchk : "C:\Program Files\Intel\AMT\atchk.exe"

I removed the PSxxx properties from the results above.


So, what if I wanted remove the registry entry for Adobe Reader Speed Launcher?

Remove-ItemProperty does that:
remove-itemproperty hklm:\software\microsoft\windows\currentversion\run -name "Adobe Reader Speed Launcher"

Is there an alias for that? We can use Get-Alias (gal) to find out

gal | where {$_.Definition -eq "Remove-ItemProperty"} |select name 


Name
------
rp

Note that, we removed something directly under Run key. If we wanted to create a key or delete it, we would not use "*-ItemProperty" but "new-item (ni)" and "remove-item (ri)" respectively:

ni hklm:\software\blahblah
ri hklm:\software\blahblah

Interestingly, if you wanted to search for "blahblah" with gci using a filter like this:

gci hklm:\Software -include "blah*"

it would not work as registry key is a 'path'. So you would use something like

gci hklm:\software | where {$_.name -match "blah"}

or

gci hklm:\software | where {$_.PsPath -match "blah"}

Notice that -match (regexp search) works but -like (pattern search... more like -eq) does not:

gci hklm:\software | where {$_.name -like "blah*"}

returns nothing.

I was curious to find out why; so I typed

gci hklm:\software\ |where {$_.name -match "blah*"} |fl *

and reason is clear:
Name: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\software\blahblah

So, changing above search pattern to "*blah*" works:

gci hklm:\software | where {$_.name -like "*blah*"}

PowerShell bits and pieces - Search for a file

I am taking some notes while discovering how to do simple things in PowerShell. What better place to store these than this blog?

Searching for a file:

Assume, We are searching for Remote Desktop Client File. I know that it's called mstsc.exe (and in fact I have a pretty good idea where it is) but assuming we don't have a clue about it's location. We would want to go to root of the drive and start searching from there. In DOS, I would run the following from the root of the drive

dir /s mstsc.exe

In PowerShell:

gci -recurse -filter mstsc.exe -EA SilentlyContinue|ft directory,name -auto

If you are not at root, add c:\

gci c:\ -recurse -filter mstsc.exe -EA SilentlyContinue|ft directory,name -auto

gci is short for Get-ChildItem (or ls or dir)

-recurse is like /s in DOS; goes recursively into subdirectories

-filter is very efficient because provider filters the results before they are passed to powershell

-EA is short for ErrorAction, which tells PowerShell what to do when there is an error. You are likely to hit access denied errors when searching. Options include

• SilentlyContinue. Suppresses the error message and continues executing the command.
• Continue. Displays the error message and continues executing the command. "Continue" is the default value.
• Inquire. Displays the error message and prompts you for confirmation before continuing execution. This value is rarely used.
• Stop. Displays the error message and stops executing the command.

Then we are piping results to FormatTable using column names and telling it to Auto Size

A couple of notes on this...

1) If the file we are searching for may be hidden, then we would want to add -force parameter when searching.

2) ErrorAction is a common parameter to PowerShell commands; not specific to Get-ChildItem. If you would like to get the explanation for a parameter of Get-ChildItem; you could type

get-help gci -parameter force

If you wanted to find out which other commands have "force" parameter; you would omit the command name like this:

get-help * -parameter force

None of these would work for ErrorAction as it's a common parameter. So, you would simply type

get-help ErrorAction

and you will notice that one of the help files is about_CommonParameters

get-help about_CommonParameters -detailed

That prints the information about ErrorAction I copied above.

Time to give PowerShell another try

Today, I transferred our pictures and videos from the weekend to my PC and then diligently started tagging them... I accumulated more than 10K pictures @year since my daughter was born. It's clear that I need a lot of Tagging to do. Then it occurred to me that I could possible use the folder structure I've been using to do some of the tagging.

I use the following structure for media files

Root |

|Audio

|Video

|Pics

| {Year}

|{Month}

|{Event}

So, I could probably tag all my pics with at least year and month information and possibly add event too... and I thought PowerShell should be perfect for such file manipulations. There is a slight problem though. I am not sure how to code it... Well that brings us to our subject matter.

I was very excited when MS announced MSH (Microsoft Shell), which later was renamed to PowerShell. The moment I heard that it did not have any remote capabilities, I thought it would not go far. I still wanted to give it a shot but syntax was terse; I did not like it.

Windows 7 is out with PowerShell 2 and I have changed my mind about it; I think it's time to give it another try. There are a couple of reasons I think it's valuable to learn it:

• Resources are not scarce: There is now a large enough community coding in powershell; which means it's possible to find resources
• .Net!: I've been reading 'learning C#' books, and understanding whole that .net world makes understand PowerShell easier. It works the other way too.
• MS Emphasis on PowerShell: Microsoft seems to be going full speed in making Powershell the premium scripting language for all products as well as OS.
• It really is powerful: The more I read about it, the more I understand how powerful it is. Well, I still do not like the syntax but I am used to Perl; I am sure I can get used to it too :p

No, I have not yet figured out the language fully, although I am more comfortable with it now that I read some material. I encountered Keith Hill's blog, there are tons of useful material there and even better, he has compiled his "Effective Windows Powershell" posts into a single pdf file. I just finished reading it and found it quite useful.

I will probably post the solution I come up with about the original tagging issue, but right now I am just trying to take in as much as I can before going all out scripting. Who would think PowerShell could be fun too? :p

Windows - First Report

So far, I am loving it. It seems to be a rock solid build, at least as fast as Vista. New taskbar takes sometime to get used to but after that seems more intuitive. The only annoyance I noticed is when an application prompts user, it does not stick out and there is not an easy way for user to tell it is pending for action unless that user clicks that group.

For example, if I am downloading, say Citrix ICA client and switch to another application, I would not know download finished and it's waiting for me to click "run" button unless I pay extra attention to it.

On my laptop, I also noticed an interesting situation which was not there until the final build. When I simply close the screen, I expect it to go to sleep mode. It seems to do that but every time I put the screen back up; it displays a dos window as if it is booting and even asks me if I would like to boot from the CD if I have one in the tray. If I click the "Suspend" button though, this does not happen.

Lastly, I did upgrade to Windows 7 Home Premium from Vista Home edition, and noticed that a couple of application got broken. Newsleecher is one of them; I had to re-enter activation code. PowerDVD is another one; which simply launches and disappears immediately without any messages.

The new action center is a great way of finding out solutions to problems. I see some gusvc error as in the form

Log Name: Application

Source: gusvc

Date: 8/18/2009 4:22:10 PM

Event ID: 0

Task Category: None

Level: Information

Keywords: Classic

User: N/A

Computer: XXXX

Description:

The description for Event ID 0 from source gusvc cannot be found. Either the component that raises this event is not installed on your local computer or the installation is corrupted. You can install or repair the component on the local computer.

If the event originated on another computer, the display information had to be saved with the event.

The following information was included with the event:

Service stopped

Event Xml:

0

4

0

0x80000000000000

18655

Application

XXXX

Service stopped

but not sure what's wrong with Google Updater. It did not seem to be affecting any functionality in Picasa or Chrome (from which I am typing this).

The other error, which again does not seem to be breaking anything I use is from Adobe (suprise?) Air

Log Name: Application

Source: SideBySide

Date: 8/15/2009 4:03:48 PM

Event ID: 63

Task Category: None

Level: Error

Keywords: Classic

User: N/A

Computer: XXXX

Description:

Activation context generation failed for "C:\Program Files\Common Files\Adobe AIR\Versions\1.0\Adobe AIR.dll".Error in manifest or policy file "C:\Program Files\Common Files\Adobe AIR\Versions\1.0\Adobe AIR.dll" on line 3. The value "MAJOR_VERSION.MINOR_VERSION.BUILD_NUMBER_MAJOR.BUILD_NUMBER_MINOR" of attribute "version" in element "assemblyIdentity" is invalid.

Other than these little annoyances, it's working like a champ!

Is this cool or what?

Tony Darnell of www.deepastronomy.com has masterfully edited this and some more on his youtube page.

The 40 most popular SA tools

Sunbelt's NTSYSADMIN was one of my favorite lists for years. These folks gathered a list of 40 most popular SA tools. Take a look.

Passwords

Recently, I encountered a common issue in programming. My perl application needs to use a service account to pass some parameters to another application. One of these params is a password. So, question is how do I pass the password to the other application while securing it from people who can view the source code...

I will not go into details of the solution I came up with but discuss the "password issue" we face everyday. In today's world, almost every site requires username/pwd, give you the same simple password recovery options etc.

So, if someone is trying to hack into your account; the first thing they will try is the 'password recovery' option of the site. Some sites allow you to create your own question; but most don't. The answer to these common questions may not be that difficult to find out considering how much of our information is exposed.

What's worse? It's common knowledge that people use the same password most of the time on web sites. Assume you have a password and make it unique for each site. Much better safety but that approach is not fail-proof either if you think about the possibility that a couple of your passwords may be exposed and someone may figure out your system...

How about using a say MD5 (now broken and not safe) or SHA1 hash instead of password? Well, good thing about hash is that it's one way function. So, if you are not using the same password; then the hashes you will use will be unique for each site.

Sounds great; right? Guess what? Most sites; even the very respectable financial ones have restrictions on your password that will make them quite unsecure.

Take a look at Microsoft's often cited "Strong Password: How to create and use them"

Following is from American Express Password Change Page:

Your Password should:

• Contain 6 to 8 characters - at least one letter and one number (not case sensitive)
  
• Contain no spaces or special characters (e.g., &, >, *, $, @)
  
• Be different from your User ID and your last Password

Check any password you create with these rules against Microsoft's Password Checker

Not surprisingly; you cannot get a strong password with these restrictions.

Only 6-8 chars, and not even case sensitive?

You cannot use any special characters??

What were they thinking ???

How about storing passwords? Well, long story short; it seems that Passpack is leading the pack. Check that one out...

Bypassing Internet Censorship

It was interesting to see how much content leaked out of Iran although government censorship. Today I saw an article about psiphon, a software (guide here) that helps circumvent censorship. More information is available at their site: psiphon.ca

There is also an informative guide there titled "Everyone's guide to bypassing Internet Censorship for Citizens Worldwide".

Vista Sleep Problems

Vista on my Fragbox2 PC has a problem with sleep mode. When I click the Start > "Power button", it works for a couple of seconds; then I hear a "click" and HD and most of the PC shutsdown but fan keeps on running.

I could not remember if I had updated the firmware on it since I bought it last year but I suspected my Asus P5E-VM DO had something to do with this. Unfortunately, I failed to find anything on Asus forums.

Today, I was trying to locate what key was causing PowerDVD registration reminder to pop-up via Sysinternal Procmon and noticed that my Philips camcorder was constantly querying registry. I decided to disable it.

So, I ran Start > msconfig and while there started to clean up other unnecessary stuff like pesky Adobe Acrobat's acrobat_sl.exe.

That's when I looked closer at two Logitech start-up processes:

• SetPoint.exe
• KHALMNPR.exe

I knew that they belong to my Logitech G7 software; the only reason I had installed them was to dynamically increase/decrease sensitivity while playing World of Warcraft. As I quit playing it; there was no reason to keep the software. I checked the forums anyway and found out that someone else was complaining about Vista not going to sleep mode with these running.

I disabled them and rebooted. It worked. Vista sleeps happily now :)

Update:

Well, it was not happily ever after :(

I did solve the problem for good though:

Apparently there are two Sleep levels in BIOS; S1 and S3 ( dont know what happened to S2). So, I had to go into BIOS and change sleep level to let it go to 'deep sleep'.

How fast is Google Alerts?

I just got a google alert; which told me that I had blogged "XML++". I recalled that I had created a Google Alert when I heard about the service quite some time ago.

I checked the alert and I had set it to be "comprehensive" and send me alerts "as-it-happens". Hmm, 'as-it-happens'? Judging from the time passed between alert and my previous blog post; it took Google ~1hr to detect my blog entry. That does not sound like 'as-it-happens' to me.

Ps. Umm, and I wonder what's up with the timing? I posted this at 00:20am EDT but see the posted time as T23:06-5:00 ???

XML++

Well I could not find a better title for this post as it touches several different but connected subjects as you will find out below...

I've been an Outlook user for over 10 years and I've used it as my contacts manager until recently. Although, I am guessing very few people use it, one of the features I like is the ability to add a picture.

Times have changed. Facebook has pictures, e-mail and other contact information that I would normally keep in Outlook. Still, I would want to have Outlook as my 'authorative source' as I control what information goes in there.

Grand Central (now known as Google Voice) and gmail also has contacts and now that Google separated Google Contacts as a stand alone product; I decided to take my contacts online.

Problem is importing from Outlook to Google Contacts strips many fields, pictures being one of them. Plus there is no product out there that would import updated Facebook information to Google Contacts.

I am quite surprised that it does not exist actually but understand that Facebook is using some measures (like e-mail address is displayed as a graphics file instead of text; so any software that needs to read it need some sort of ocr capability + it may violate Facebook's terms).

All hope is not lost. There are some applications that partially helps:

• FoneBook is a Facebook application that lets you import some information:
  [Fonebook does not, and will never export phone numbers or email addresses - Facebook does not allow this!! Feel free to join this group to petition for it to change http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=47429104064]
  
  [For a Mac version you might want to try AddressBookSync - http://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=43678885451]
  
  Fonebook is used to transfer contacts photos and infomation from Facebook™ to Outlook®. If your phone then supports Outlook® synchronization you should be able to have your contacts photos on your phone when they call you!
  
  This application works with both Outlook® 2003 and 2007. It is also know to work with most modern Nokias and all Windows® Smartphones/PDAs.
  
  The application currently copies a contacts photo, profile web address, about me details, status details and if you are using Outlook® 2007 their birthday

• I also found out that apparently there was an application called Facebook Downloader which made it to LifeHacker but it has been taken down by Facebook for violating their terms.
• OutSync lets you select Facebook contacts and select their pics with Outlook
• Gupdate is another facebook application; that attempts to sync Facebook data to Google Contacts. It can also add new contacts if they do not exist. Well, I tried it but it did not seem to do anything for me.
• There is a .NET application by Koushik Dutta, a software developer, that only attempts to import pictures from Facebook to Google Contacts. Source Code is available too.

On that last note, Koushik was referring to Google Data API & Facebook Toolkit which brings me to the real reason I am blogging this. While digging thru the Google Data API, I saw a link to "The Annotated XML Specification", written by one of the XML co-authors, Tim Bray in 1998.

I was reading thru it, and found the annotations extremely helpful. So, I googled to find more on Tim Bray and found his blog "ongoing"; It's quite entertaining and enlightening.

One of his recent blog entries titled "Nastiness"; his observations and recommendation are simply awesome. He is thinking very clearly and communicating well. I am adding his blog to my Google Reader (so should you :p )!

That article actually dragged me into the incident blog and I have read some extremely well written, thoughtful articles and comments.

For example:

• Reaction from Sarah Allen, who was there.
• Liz Keogh looks at how talks like this lead to cognitive associations that lead to problems.
• I also loved this comment about "Respect" & it made me reconsider some of the things I do
• Lastly, enjoyed Giles Bowkett's rants

Vista Post-SP2 Black Screen. Is Vista slower?

There are tons of XP vs. Vista posts on web. To be honest, I have a pretty fast PC and never I could care less if Vista is a couple of seconds slower than XP; it's still fast. This post is not looking to make a comparison but it is more about a couple of useful things I discovered when I was looking around post-sp2 upgrade. Here is what happened...

Post-SP2 Black Screen

I've downloaded and installed Vista SP2 on one of my laptops and noticed that there was an extended period of "black" screen during boot time. I did not pay much attention to it but today I noticed the same thing on my desktop post SP2.

Vista Logs

It tickled my curiosity and I started looking around. Soon, I found out that Vista Logs are incredibly detailed and there is abundant information to diagnose such stuff. That is great news because I always hated XP's inability to tell me what was causing slowness during boot. I would sit there and watch for 4-5 mins painfully while my laptop crawls to a start. Of course I tried invaluable Sysinternal tools like Procmon to watch boot process and try to sift thru hundreds of thousands of records which was mostly useless...

So, first I headed to Control Panel to see what was Vista reporting recently:

Control Panel > Performance Information and Tools > Advanced Tools

I have not seen anything in the recent "Performance Issues" section that suggested that I was seeing a degradation of system boot but interestingly enough there was some clue to another issue I was seeing on my Pc recently; it just would not go to Sleep mode...

You will notice that at the bottom of the dialog box; there is a link to the Event Viewer; and that's the beauty of Vista. This basically means that Vista is in fact going thru performance logs and giving you a summary of recent events...

Diagnostics-Performance

To get to Diagnostics-Performance logs, you can click the link above or open up Event Viewer

Start > run > eventvwr.msc then browse to

Applications and Services Logs > Microsoft > Windows > Diagnostics-Performance > Operational

Under the Operational, you will see tons of events logged. There a couple of Task Categories.

• Click on "Task Category" and
• Select "Group Events by This Category"

From category names, it's clear that "Boot Performance Monitoring" is the one that should give us the information we are looking for.

In the screenshot above you will notice that; Vista is in fact telling us about the time it took to boot. There is more, if you click the details tab, there is actually a breakdown of boot time! I think this is a very neat feature b/c I still remember how painful it was for me to use a stopwatch to record each phase of XP boot visually and then try to match them to whatever was recorded by extended Group Policy logs and Event Logs... It's all there; in the event logs now.

When I looked at break-down of boot times, it was not easy to tell what some of them were; so I googled and in fact found an article titled "Microsoft's hidden diagnostic tool unlocks Vista startup secrets". Well, there is not much there other than what I had already found out but it mentioned two parts of boot time:

MainPathBootTime measures the time it takes for the system to load all drivers and services that are critical to user interaction and get to the Windows desktop where the user can begin doing things.

BootPostBootTime includes all the other drivers and processes that aren’t critical to user interaction and can be loaded with low-priority I/O that always gives preference to user-initiated actions that execute using Normal I/O priority.

I tried to find the follow up writing on ZD net but after spending 20mins to no avail; I gave up.

I filtered by Event ID 100-190:

• On the left pane, right click on "Operational"
• Click "Filter Current Log"
• Replace "" with 100-190

And started to look at boot times. Apparently my boot up time was around 80000milliseconds (ie. 80 seconds) but the latest boot time was a whopping 262sec (4.3mins). Unfortunately, there was no smoking gun; and Windows did not report anything unusual in this case.

This may be OK though; because I remembered that I had also installed Office 2007 SP2 and had not rebooted yet; so this might have been the cause of delay. To be sure, I will need to reboot a couple of times and measure them to see if I was still getting 80secs.

During the investigation, I noticed that at times, some apps (McAfee Antivirus, Rawr etc) were causing delays and Windows were reporting such events. By the way, the same log is also used to determine what is blocking a machine from sleeping or causing delays during shutdown.

Conclusion

So, is Vista slower than XP? Maybe but I don't care. With XP, I could never tell what was causing slowness. Now, at least I have better visibility. Overall, I like Vista more.

Google Chrome Standalone Installer

Google Chrome Standalone (aka offline) installer is available in a openly hidden :) link here:

http://www.google.com/support/installer/bin/answer.py?answer=126299

This version is probably more suitable for Enterprise environment as it does not attempt to auto-update itself. Auto-Updating / Home-Dialing software is usually a no-no as Enterprise IT would want to control the deployments and phase them in.

Amazing Wallpapers

I just wanted to drop two wallpaper links here that I enjoyed browsing:

• InterfaceLift.com
  
• Graffitiwallpaper.com
  

New URL for my tech blog

Hi,

I stopped updating this blog sometime ago however I kept on blogging on the new address http://AdilHindistan.blogspot.com. I was hoping that Google will come up a with a tool to move the content from one blog to another but as of today I am not aware of any. I would like to do it once such a tool becomes available. In the meantime, I want to make it clear that this blog will continue to exist as a way to access older content but new content will be posted on http://AdilHindistan.blogspot.com.

Thanks,
Adil

RIP: My Falcon Fragbox 2

I bought a Fragbox 2 gaming computer from Falcon Northwest last month. The first time I ran World of Warcraft on it, it felt awesome. Everything was incredibly smooth; I had all the settings in the game maxed up but I was never getting less than 60fps. I thought it was worth the ~$2000 and 2 weeks wait time!

Some specs:

MB: Asus P5E-VM Micro ATX Q35 Motherboard (AS-P5E-VM )

CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 - 3.16 GHz 1333 FSB ( INTC2E8500 )

RAM: Crucial 4GB (2x2GB) DDR2 PC2-6400 800MHz ( CR-4GBK2-6400 )

Video: NVidia 8800 GTS 512MB PCIE (NV8800GTS512 )

Storage: Seagate Sata 750GB HD 7200 RPM

ST50EFCS 500 watt power supply ( SS-ST50EFCS )

Two days ago, I was getting ready for Karazhan raid and suddenly my fragbox started to stutter. Everything became slow and at some point it became unresponsive, I was not able to restart it. So, I hard booted it by pressing the power button and all hell broke lose!

Windows failed to start. A recent hardware or software change might be the cause. To fix the problem:

1.Insert your installation disc and restart your computer

2. Choose your language settings, and then click "next"

3. Click "Repair your computer"

If you do not have this disc, contact your system administrator or computer manufacturer for assistance.

File:\Windows\System32\config\system

Status: 0xc00000e9

Info: Windows failed to load because the system registry file is missing, or corrupt.

I tried to reboot a couple of times hoping it would clear but it did not seem like the kind. So, after trying safe mode and every other option without moving an inch closer to booting into Windows, I gave up and attempted to reload Windows Vista...

Install seemed to go smoothly but after the reboot; same error showed up. As a last resort, I used the Recovery Disc that came with the Fragbox 2 package. Recovery stalled at 30% and I was prompted to either ignore the errors or abort recovery. I chose to ignore the errors but recovery did not go thru.

I attempted recovery again and to my surprise, it completed this time but no joy after reboot:

Windows has encountered a problem communicating with a device connected to your computer.

This error can be caused by unplugging a removable storage device such as an external usb drive while the drive is in use, or by faulty hardware such as a hard drive or CD-rom drive that is failing. Make sure any removable storage is properly connected and then restart your computer.

If you continue to receive this error message, contact the hardware manufacturer.

File: \Windows\System32\Winload.exe

Status: 0xc00000e9

Info: An unexpected I/O error has occured

At this point, I looked at the warranty document and was happy to see that this:

Falcon Overnight Service

Your Falcon Overnight Service Policy: How It Works

Summary: If your Falcon system should develop a serious hardware problem that we can't solve via telephone technical support, we will pick it up via overnight courier, correct any problem, and overnight it back to you, The Falcon Overnight Service covers any applicable instance within one year of the date of purchase.

So, I sent an e-mail to support@falcon-nw.com with all the details of the issue and steps I have taken and asked them to call me back...

That brings us to today. I called them to follow up and talked to a technician who suggested that I should open up the box and re-seat cables... OK, unscrewing a couple of screws and opening up a box is no big deal but I am sure many people may feel uneasy about doing this. They do not need to know how to do this...

Anyway, I went ahead and re-seat the cables which seemed firmly in place anyway and of course nothing is fixed. Falcon support also told me that I should run some hard drive diagnostics. So, I asked where I would get the diagnostic application and he said he will send me instructions.

It's been a couple of hours since the conversation but they have not yet replied to my e-mail with instructions. I called them up a couple of times already but keep on getting Voice mail. So, I left VMs...and waiting.... Arrrgh!

[ Update - 09/04/2008]

Apparently, Falcon Support team was calling me back...but they were not calling my work number instead of the number I left with them. Anyway, person I talked to was a soft spoken, very kind person. After sorting out the miscommunication, I agreed to follow the instructions to download a Seagate tool and use it to test the drive.

I reseated the cables on the motherboard side and re-ran recovery disc as they suggested; which resulted in the same error. Then I downloaded the Seagate Diagnostic tool from http://www.seagate.com/support/seatools/SeaToolsDOS207EURO.iso . 20mins after starting the diagnostic in "Long Test" mode, it stopped at 17% done. Waited for another hour but it was clearly not moving. So, I aborted the process and checked the logs which did not have anything useful about test.

I sent another e-mail to support detailing what I have done and the results. They called me back and and I said "I think at this point, I'd better ship it to you guys'. The sense I get from talking to these guys is that they sure would like to avoid shipping it if possible and work with you to fix it if you are willing to work with them, but they are not 'forcing' you to do that.

I was willing to work with them but I don't think anyone reading this should be worried if they are planning to buy a Fragbox from Falcon and would not be willing to do troubleshooting in case they hit a similar issue.

On the plus side, when I was purchasing the system, they refused to add a second hard drive as the configuration was fixed and they were not willing to modify it. Now that I encountered this issue, I asked the support person if it would be possible to buy a second 750GB Seagate drive from them and would they install it for me. He said yes and told me they could even install a drive that I would ship them if I had any extra. I am waiting for them to confirm the price. I hope it is not too much above market price.

[Update - 09/24/2008]

So, it took Falcon a week to fix issue(s) on my Fragbox 2...

• First they replaced the Seagate 750gig hard drive and added the second 750gig I bought from them.... During testing, they found out that issue did not disappear.
• Then, they replaced motherboard. During test, they realized that one of the RAM chips were defective although it had passed RAM test.
• After replacing RAM, all went well and they installed Windows, updates drivers etc. Falcon creates a Recovery disk. So, that disc did not get created successfully at first but second attempt was successful. Oh, they also print a funny custom DVD cover with my name on it :)

They kept me informed via e-mail updates all along and I told them that although I could not wait to get back on my Fragbox, I would rather a bit and have it tested thoroughly, which they do and at the end they send a list of all checks they performed.

Of course, it sucks that my Fragbox had all these issues only after 2 months but it's clear that they are using the best parts and testing it; so cannot blame them for that. Now that I have a second drive on it, I will be able to use it not just as a gaming (ie. World of Warcraft) computer but as my main workstation at home replacing HP workstation xw6000.

Vista Tweaks

I just encountered a forum entry that talks about tweaking Vista and has an extensive list. Some of them really useless crap in my opinion but there are lots of interesting and useful tweaks also... Eg. Activate hidden admin account by typing
net user administrator activate:yes
or
net user administrator "your pwd" activate:yes
Take a look!