Well, today just sucked.  I was sent to a client out in Montclair NJ at 9:15 AM.  His PBX went down and I am the second most skilled tech for his system.  It made sense to send me, so I didn’t complain.  I get on the train at 9:37 AM and wait for the train to leave.  The train gets delayed for 20 minutes.  Finally, the train moves again and I get off my stop.  I meet the client and he takes me to the PBX.

The PBX system is about 4 years old and was pretty cheap server for those days.  The chassis has 2 hot swappable SCSI drives, which is pretty cool.  Well, the reason why the server died is because the RAID controller failed.  We were slated to fix this on Friday, as we knew this was going to happen.  Unfortunately, it died Wednesday instead.  I go out and replace it when I notice that the new RAID controller is a full PCI slot as opposed to a 1/2 PCI slot. 

SHIT

Well, I then try to rip out a RAID controller from another server.  The RAID controller, however, does not have any drivers and is ancient.  The client did not want to use this so he started calling around local shops.  He found one place that has a SCSI controller that he can sell.  It needs an adapter to go from 50 PIN to 68 PIN but he was ok with this.  We install the card and setup the drive.  I go to install windows and half way through, the install bombs.  It starts saying that files were corrupted and rebooted randomly in the middle.  I scratch my head, try another drive, and the same thing happens.  It seems that the bay chassis must of died.  I tried replacing the cables, so it is the only thing left…

SHIT

The client then says he has a IDE harddrive laying around.  He gives it to me and we find out that it is 120 GB.  Perfect!  I install it on the same cable as the CD-ROM drive and the thing fails to detect.

SHIT

I didn’t want to get involved in jumpers, so I install it on its own ribbon.  It works and I install windows.  I then install the PBX software and recover from a backup I did a few months ago.  Apparently, the PBX files were not being backed up by his server.  Who knew?  He told me they were.  Its a good thing I backed up the configs when we first found out about this problem.  Well, I get the PBX running and then the client says that he has a great idea!  Hes going to buy another IDE drive and we are going to remove the SCSI cage from the chassis and mount the IDE drives in there.  By this time it is 3 PM and I really wanted to jet out of there.  I mean, I am already 40 minutes south of NYC.  I need to make up this time…I reluctantly agree.

SHIT

He runs out and gets the drive and I start taking apart the chassis.  I get the bays out and we mount the IDE drives.  I go into BIOS to detect the drives and it fails.

SHIT

I play around with the jumper configuration but cannot find the jumper setup for the CD ROM Drive.  Eventually, I said, lets get the harddrives setup and mirrored, and we will revisit the CD ROM issue.  Booted into windows without a problem and setup the mirror.  NOTE: I need to research how to make the boot.ini boot from both drives.  I have forgotten how to do this.  The client then looks at me and says, now about that cd rom drive….

SHIT

We take the CD ROM out and start playing with the jumpers.  I figured eventually, I would find the correct combination.  I needed to make the CD ROM the master and the primary harddrive the slave.  The HD was already set to slave, so how hard could it be?  After 3 jumper configurations, I finally got it to work!  The computer boots up and the mirror is building.  I think I’m done, but alas, its never that easy.  Its 4 PM and now he wants me to look at the backup jobs to make sure they are running. 

SHIT

I tried to add the altigen files to backup but the share fails to authenticate me.  I remember another time I had a mirror break and I was resyncing it that it turns off the shares.  I inform him of this and so we call it day.  He drives me to the train station and I barely miss the 4:45 train.  I looked up the schedule and say there was a 5:23 PM.  No big deal…

5:35 rolls around and I look at the schedule again.  Apparently, I cannot tell the difference from AM and PM as 5:23 was AM.  The next train will arrive at 6:17 PM.

SHIT SHIT SHIT!

I wait until 6:17 and board the train.  The train arrives in Penn station and I figured I would treat myself after an eventful day.  I took one of those bike taxis to grand central.  I get into grand central and just barely make the train.  That is where I stand today!  All in all, a very eventful day!

So it was really bizzare.  I come into work and noticed that my computer is was Military time.  I did the normal checked, going into Date/Time and there is nothing in there that shows how to change that location.  Then I remembered that it is in Regional and Language options.  If you have this happen to you, do the following:

Go to Control Panel, Regional and Language Options. Select the “Time” tab.

In the drop-down for the “Time format”, select a format that uses the lower-case “h” (Upper case is 24-hour format).

Its that simple!  Good luck and enjoy “normal” time again.  I know I am!

I tip my hat for Antivirus 2009. It is going to become the next wave in spyware. Every version becomes more and more crazy it is not even funny! I read these support sites about people paying for this garbage. Well, let me tell you how to get rid of this sucker! There are a lot of bogus sites out there looking to have you download their shit in order to remove it. Well, I have found a program that does this and you do not have to pay for it. It is a demo version, but that just means that you cannot schedule scans. It still works and it works well!

http://www.download.com/Malwarebytes-Anti-Malware/3000-8022_4-10804572.htm

Run this program and do a full scan. It will find Antivirus 2009 and remove it. For good measure, I also manually remved it. You need to kill the task (usually it has something with 2009 in it running.) and then go to Program Files and delete the directory Antivirus 2009.

The end, your done! Good luck!

About a month ago, I had written a little piece on DisplayLink external videocard adapters. Feel free to read it here.

Well since then, I have decided to take this product to the next level. Not only did I replace the first adapter, I decided to buy another one and see how two units work in one system. I must say I am pleasantly pleased.

First, installation is a breeze! No removing your computer case or need to pay for a computer guy to come along. All you need to do is insert the cd and hit next! Once the software is installed, plug in the USB cable into your computer and the other side into the external adapter.

*NOTE: for blackberry users, it happens to be the same plug to charge your BB.

At this point, windows see the device like any other videocard and off you go. I like to push the button a little bit and wanted to see if there was any performance degrade by having two units on my system. With both units running, the software only takes 40k worth of memory! In comparison, outlook is taking 73k and firefox is taking 83k. I had just updated firefox, so that number is pretty low. Aim also takes up more resources hanging at 57k. In a nutshell, you wouldn’t even notice a performance issue.

The next thing I tried was to use a wide screen monitor and a standard box monitor. Both screens are 17 inches (along with my traditional monitor that uses a built in videocard) Since I still like to see my text, I have the monitors set at 1280×1024. The widescreen monitor is set for 1440 by 900. I have a lot of experience with multiple displays, and I can honestly say I do not notice a functionality difference between having the videocards internal or external.

The next joy I discovered, is the portability of these units. When I leave at night, I unplug both cards and this also does not affect the functionality of the computer. It barely even takes a hit at all. When the card is unplugged, any windows shift to the internal display. Once the card is plugged back in, I can move the windows back. Windows takes it like a champ and doesn’t complain at all!

The downside? The colors are slightly washed out when I view them on the external card as opposed to the internal one. Your average user will never even notice a difference. I also would avoid playing games on these units because the refresh rate on them is not as good as a powerful graphics card. It does well on playing videos and other “normal” internet stuff so do not be discouraged.

Also, the units get really HOT! I unplug them when I leave the office to make sure that they do not break. I believe this is why the first unit failed. I always left the unit plugged in and I am only use my office computer 3 out of 4 days in a week! That is a lot of wasted time for units that get so hot!

Would I recommend this to clients? YES! I have already pitched this product to a few clients in the hedge fund industry and hopefully they will bite! They wanted to upgrade all of their computers to accommodate dual display and I countered with DisplayLink! These units would work great in the financial district! If you are a huge gamer, stick with your traditional videocards that beef up in internal memory and has huge heat sinks on it to make sure it doesn’t overheat. If you are just looking to increase productivity, and do not want to replace your existing videocard, DisplayLink is for you! For 99 dollars, I say it is a well worth investment!

Note: It seems that the videocard I had is defective. I am going to edit this post according and write up a new review after using the adapter for a couple of days.

I absolutely love the concept of a external videocard. Never the need to open your computer again and install that dual head video card. Expand to three monitors on a laptop! The possbilities are endless, except if you have the DisplayLink USB Display Adapter! First of all, the branding for this product stinks!

NOTE: I am told by the development company that this is because they don’t actually brand their product. They sell the ship and other companies brand it. Branding should be better, but that is neither here or there…

I got the unit second hand off of my co-worker and he had lost the drivers for it. It took me several hours to find the drivers because the only thing the unit says is USB Display Adapter. It never says displaylink! I found the drivers by comparing the picture from stores selling the product. Eventually I was like, OMG THAT IS MINE! I download the drivers and everything works well. I am thrilled! Then things start to go south….

Day 0: Excitement!

I just installed the product and it works great! I have had no issues so far!

Day 1: Blue banding

I now see blue streak while doing dos scripting. I don’t mind..its just dos! The blue kinda makes it more fun!

Day 2: Blue takeover

All pictures are now tainted with blue on it. Meh, who cares! I mostly read text from the second monitor anyways. I can live with that.

Day 3: Random pixels

Hmmm it seems I am getting random graphics errors on the display now. That’s weird.

Day 4: Denial

I can make this work! I mean, the pixel errors are getting worse but its ok! I can do it!

Day 5: Project failed

At this point, the second monitor is completely unusable. I have tried to do everything I can think of to get this to work. I tried updating the drivers, uninstall and reinstall, unplug the device from the base stand, unplug the device from the tower. I even read the FAQ for the device and it doesn’t even mention ANY of the problems I am having…

As it turns out, after writing this post, displaylink had contacted me directly and informed me that my adapter is defective and they sent me a new one for free. I am sending back the old one today. The tech support for this company rocks and so far the replacement unit has been working great. After a couple of days, I’ll post up a new review.

A client had called me up this morning and stated that his Antivirus is out of date. Of course, he has Symantec and always has issues in this regard. I proceeded to block out a couple of hours since I figured it was a virus that caused the issue. When I tried to run live update, the following error message occurred.

Error: “LU1814: LiveUpdate could not retrieve the update list”

After reading this, I figured, hey, maybe it is not a virus after all! WOOHOOOO! I proceeded to google the message which brought me to the following symantec kb article regarding this.

After skimming through that article, I determined that all those steps were retarded, so decided to go for the last one which is reinstall live update. If nothing else, web 2.0 has brought on a new meaning of reinstalling software. All you need to do is go to that website and everything got updated automatically. The first time I ran through the install, it said I had live update running in the background and needed to terminate. I killed the service and ran it again. This time it prompted me to modify, repair, or uninstall. I chose repair and ran through the install successfully.

One the install was finished, I tried to update symantec. The first time live update opened, it said it had updates for live update (I thought I just installed the most recent version…oh symantec, you slay me!) I went through those updates and finished. I went to update symantec again and this time it worked! Excellent! I kicked off a virus scan (hey, you never know) and told the client to let that run but he should be set. We will see in the upcoming days if there was a virus causing this or just some corrupt file that liveupdate did.

A client called me up and said that his iTouch is malfunctioning. About a year ago, I would run to the hills with a call like this, since well, I hate ipods. The iPhone has given me a new light on the subject now. I took this call with both eyes open and actually read the error message.

this ipod cannot be used because the Apple Mobile Device service is not started

This struck me as odd and noticed that the service was indeed not started. I threw this message into google and was floored with the resolutions.

REINSTALL iTunes?!?!?!?!

I see no reason why I should reinstall iTunes so for giggles, I decided to check out the services and see if the service was indeed not started. Indeed the service was disabled. In the back of my mind, I wonder why this is but changed that to automatic and started the service. Immediately, the iTouch started to work.

If the issue is virus related, it will occur again and I will have to do more research, but, at this moment, it seems that the issue is resolved! If it is virus related, I will update.

Below is an email provided to me about what occurs after installing SP3 for windows XP. In short, it blows up the ability to run future updates. Well, I would personally hold off on updating XP to SP3 but if you do, keep this little write up in mind….

Hi, Guys, just wanted to warn you all about a problem that I’ve now experienced on three new HP Windows XP computers:

After manually installing SP3 (or after it installs itself via automatic updates?), further updates fail to install, as well as the required automatic update list at windowsupdate.microsoft.com may not be accurate, listing updates you already have.

I’ve resolved this by some combination of these things:

1) Rename the softwaredistribution folder after issuing net stop wuauserv command, then issuing net start wuauserv command
2) Download windows update agent 3.0 and installing it with the /wuforce switch to forcefully overwrite the existing client
3) Re-registering the relevant windows update files, these can be found by googling “updates fail register dll”, i put them in a batch file and ran it:

Net Stop wuauserv
regsvr32 wuapi.dll /s
regsvr32 wups.dll /s
regsvr32 wuaueng.dll /s
regsvr32 wucltui.dll /s
regsvr32 wuweb.dll /s
regsvr32 msxml.dll /s
regsvr32 msxml2.dll /s
regsvr32 msxml3.dll /s
regsvr32 urlmon.dll /s
net start wuauserv
regsvr32 softpub.dll /s
regsvr32 initpki.dll /s
regsvr32 mssip32.dll /s
regsvr32 wintrust.dll /s
regsvr32 dssenh.dll /s
regsvr32 rsaenh.dll /s
regsvr32 gpkcsp.dll /s
regsvr32 sccbase.dll /s
regsvr32 slbcsp.dll /s
regsvr32 cryptdlg.dll /s
regsvr32 jscript.dll /s

Doing randomness over the internet I stubled along these Parody Commercials procuded by novell. A lot of my Linux friends (Like Azalyn and RJ who write for this blog) have made several jokes about including linux into the mix of these commercials. It looks like Novell beat them to the punch…

PS: Linux is HOT!

PS: Linux is hotter in the jacket…

The other day a coworker of mine was trying to test if he could access an RDP server on our network, we started by pinging it to see if it was live. My computer is a laptop that runs Linux, but we happened to have a Windows XP machine nearby which I was setting up for someone else. So we used that to test if RDP itself worked. It occurred to me that RDP is used pretty often by people on our network, and that it might be handy to be able to access RDP servers from my laptop in case I ever needed to. After a bit of googling I found rdesktop: http://www.rdesktop.org/

I recall finding this once before, but back then I didn’t feel I needed it. In any case, on most Linux distributions, installing a new application is as simple as one command:

apt-get install rdesktop
yum install rdesktop

…or in my case:

emerge rdesktop

Which compiled/installed the package for me. Emerge is a Gentoo Linux utility, not all distributions require compiling, the two other commands I listed before are on Debian/Ubuntu and RedHat/Fedora respectively, and install binary packages as opposed to compiling.

After that, I simply typed “rdesktop n.n.n.n” where “n.n.n.n” is the IP address of the server we were test-connecting to earlier, and it worked fine. Of course I didn’t have the password for that machine.

Today, Koopa gave me an address so I could try it out a bit more extensively, I connected to it, logged in, and began playing around. It seemed to work fairly reliably, I was able to open several applications and check various server logs, I even opened up IE and browsed around just for the sake of testing. The last thing I did, which I considered the ultimate test, was to see if I could copy text from the RDP session and paste it into my local Linux machine. The first time I tried it didn’t work, but I believe this was just because of Linux’s sometimes random clipboard behavior, I tried it later and it worked great.

All in all I have to say that this is a great solution for anyone who works at a primarily Windows company, but wants to run Linux on their desktop. I’m sure many of you already are aware about Samba which will let you use windows file and printer shares. And if you need to access Exchange/AD stuff, there is the Ximiam Evolution email client which is comparable to Outlook in it’s features and compatibility with microsoft protocols.

As a bonus, a bit of googling reveals that there is also an RDP server for Linux which I have to say surprised me, especially given that the protocol was designed specifically for Windows and integrates a bit more deeply with the Windows system than say… VNC. The server is named Xrdp, and it is available here. As the screenshots show, it seems to work pretty well, despite having an ugly login screen. I think that the login screen is likely a result of some strange details in the RDP protocol, my guess is that the screen that is normally presented to windows users via RDP isn’t exactly the same one they see when logging on locally, and even if it is, it’s likely deeply integrated with the RDP protocol, so they probably had no choice but to write one from scratch for Xrdp directly on top of X11, which isn’t a bad thing, it doesn’t affect functionality.

If I ever have some time I might try setting up a Linux server at home that uses Xrdp, and I’ll make a more detailed post about it. For now, I’m signing off. Later everyone, and happy remote-computing. :)