Netflix we want Star Trek on streaming. You have a lot of great shows on but why don’t you have Star Trek (any of them). Also you have no way for your customer to tell you what they want via your web site. You should have a feedback page to know what your customers want.
February 11, 2010
February 7, 2010
An I/O operation initiated by the Registry failed unrecoverably. The Registry could not read in, or write out, or flush, one of the files that contain the system’s image of the Registry.
As time went on I realized this did not fix the issue. I restored the machine to an earlier vision and then restored the databases and that did work. This is a virtual machine this made restoring very easy.
Started getting this error* the other day. I look on line and searched but could not come up with anything that fixed it.
*An I/O operation initiated by the Registry failed unrecoverably. The Registry could not read in, or write out, or flush, one of the files that contain the system’s image of the Registry.
Seeing it was an I/O error and I saw something on Microsoft saying something about disk operations I thought why not try a chkdsk /f and sure enough that fixed it. I took a re-boot because this was the system drive but it worked.
February 3, 2010
mapi32.dll is an invalid Extended MAPI Library and Mail is not installed
I had a customer that uses Word 2007. They were having a problem when they clicked Send and “Send as PDF” and was getting this error “mapi32.dll is an invalid Extended MAPI Library” and “Mail is not installed”. I could not figure it out.
Finally I got to another computer in the office and compared the mapi32.dll files. They both had Office 2007. They were quite different in size so I renamed the mapi32.dll on the machine throwing the error and copied over the mapi32.dll from the second computer and after that it worked fine.
Before I copied the mapi32.dll I also installed “2007 Microsoft Office Add-in: Microsoft Save as PDF or XPS” but I do not think I really needed to do that.
January 30, 2010
Invalid LBAI Ghost HP 6735B
I’ve been beating my head against the wall on this one for 2 days now. In case any of you have this same issue I will document what I did.
I was setting up to image about 30 HP6735B machines and after I would image one I kept getting an Invalid LBAI when I rebooted. Normally I would simply run gdisk32 /mbr and that would fix it. Now I did not set up the master machine as this was from a customer but as I investigated I finally figured out they had changed the BIOS setting for the Disk. The reason they did this is XP does not support the AMD SATA AHCI Controller unless you press F6 during install and add the AMD SATA AHCI Controller Driver. This is a pain to do because you need to have a floppy so it was easier for them to just change the BIOS.
Generally if you have this error you can just use gdisk or gdisk32 /mbr and that will fix it. Sometimes you will also have to use the switch /p that would be after the /mbr. Example: (gdisk32.exe 1 /mbr /p). The 1 stands for the disk number.
But in the HP 6735B it did not do it. So here is what I did to fix it.
First thing the configuration:
HP 6735B
Windows XP SP 3
Symantec GhostCast Server 11.5.0.2113
First thing you need to do is change the Bios.
See image below.
System Configuration / Device Configuration / SATA Device Mode.
Select IDE then Save, also click, File (on the left), Changes & Exit
Then you still need to run: gdisk32 1 /mbr /p
I also ran the ghostWalker to change the SID. This is really not needed if you are going to join these machines to a Domain but I do it anyway. What I did is create a BATCH file that I run after the ghosting is done. I called it walker.bat and here are the lines:
gdisk32.exe 1 /mbr /p
GhWalk32.exe /BV=1:1 /CN=”ELM-<RANDOM_HEX>” /SURE
BIOS Screen Shot
January 29, 2010
Is it possible to “power off” a suspended VM? Workstation
Is it possible to “power off” a suspended VM Workstation? Yes. I had this problem when I tried to resume a suspended VM on Workstation 6.5 and it kept getting an error. I knew there was nothing going on when I suspended it so I decided to just power it down. Well, there is no option for that.
What you have to do is go into the folder that contains the VM and delete or as I did rename the .vmss files. If you rename them make sure the name change is in or after the extension. Example: myvmfile.vmss.old. This essentially pulls the plug on the power. You should be able to boot up your VM now.
January 6, 2010
Google leaves ATT out in the rain with Nexus One.
Google just released their new phone the “Nexus One”. Seems like it is compatible or will be shortly with all major networks except AT&T. Verizon will be coming soon and it is unclear if it will work with Sprint or not. Actually if you just want to use the phone for voice calls and maybe use EDGE it will work fine but NO 3G data on AT&T. Who wants that?
Well then again who would want AT&T if you could get the phone on Verizon’s network anyway.
http://www.google.com/support/android/bin/answer.py?answer=166507
January 5, 2010
The end of the decade will be at the end of 2010
Everyone is talking about the end of the decade. Actually, this is the last year of the first decade of the new century/millennium. Why do I say that?
I learned as a child that there is no 0 (zero) year. Why would this make a difference? If there was a zero year, 2009 would have been the last year of the first decade. Without the zero year 2010 is the last year of the first decade. This means the new decade does not start until 2011.
Still not sure you understand?
Count from 0 – 9. How many numbers are there? Ten, right? Now count from 1 – 9. How many numbers are there? Nine. How many years in a decade? Ten.
If you still don’t believe this here are some links to check out:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_zero#Counting
http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/ask_astro/answers/980902d.html
December 7, 2009
Detected an invalid snapshot configuration ESX
If you have ever gotten this error it can cause a sinking feeling in your stomach. As good as virtual machines are and as much as I love them the one thing that can cause anxiety is if something should happens to the files that make up the virtual machine.
One Saturday morning I had to install updates on a critical mail server so like always I went to make a snapshot first. This way if something goes terribly wrong I just revert to the snapshot and I am back in business. So I right click on the virtual machine to take a snapshot. Instead of seeing in the task list the bivalent and always welcome “Completed” I saw “Detected an invalid snapshot configuration”. I thought oh no what has happened? I did some digging and someone recommended cloning the machine and that would take care of the issue. I thought that would be too easy but it worked perfectly.
How did I get into this predicament in the first place? This is a Windows 2003 Server and I needed to make some changes. I need to delete one hard drive and add another. The machine already had a snapshot on it before I made these changes. Thus the problem if you add and or delete drives while the machine has a snapshot the VM can get confused and thus you are stuck.
For me this worked. Hopefully it will help someone else.
December 4, 2009
If you thought the Wii was something wait until you see Project Natal.
Controller-less? Didn’t you mean Cordless? NO, If you thought the Wii was something wait until you see Project Natal. Project Natal is a technology Microsoft is developing that will replace the remote control on Xbox 360-powered TVs. Here is the title Introducing Project Natal on the xbox’s web site “No Strings (or Controllers) Attached”.
Should I say Hello “HAL” for those of you not old enough to remember? click here.
This is really amazing. They say they can do this now. I have seen a lot of vaporware before but I believe this is real. WOW! Just watch the videos.
Open DNS vs Google DNS
Google just announced their Public DNS product in their blog post today. Does Open DNS have anything to worry about? I would say maybe. Google only offers basic DNS at this time so they do not even come close to what Open DNS offers. The reason I say this is because Google has enough money to do anything they want but then again if that was the case why didn’t they just buy Open DNS? Who knows but this could be the first step toward offerings like Open DNS. If you are not familiar with Open DNS it is incredible what they offer for FREE. I protect my whole household from many bad web sites with Open DNS. It is my first line of defense in keeping the bad guys out. You can even setup a customized block page with an image of your choosing. Here is mine:
The other day I set up my Father’s network (one computer) with it and he calls me up and says: “I tried to go to this link someone sent me and your picture came up. How did these people get your picture? I explained the process to him and I think he understood.
The bottom line is although Google says do no harm, many people worry that they may become the Wal-Mart of the internet. Big enough to push their weight around and push the little guy out of business. Boy people love those low prices at Wal-Mart and I have to say I love most of Google’s products. Google has what some call a less than free model which worries many of their competitors. However if Google just puts out competition and not domination that will be good for all consumers.
