Tag Archives: Ramblings

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My new Tmobile WING

Lucky you, you got two posts in a night!

So, I got me a Tmobile Wing.   Holy Smokes, I love this phone.  I currently have a Treo 650 from work and the Wing smokes it entirely.  I have encountered a bit of a learning curve due to the fact I am going from Palm OS to WM6, but hey… something new to learn.   I’m putting it through its paces.  Since my Mio c310x is Windows CE and this is Windows Mobile 6, I’m not entirely lost and that’s partially why I like this phone so much.

I am going to continue to play and learn about it, and then I’ll create a more detailed post.  But I love it, and it’s a great phone in my opinion.

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Repair install XP without deinstalling IE7… wtf?

Okay, I am going to toot my own horn here, I think I figured out something NO ONE else has. I’ll explain that later, but suffice to say, I’m pretty jazzed right now.

Unbeknowst to me, and apparently MANY people who installed IE7 out there, aren’t aware that you MUST uninstall IE7 prior to doing a repair install on WinXP. This is truly a F*$&#d up thing. I didn’t know about it, did you? Now, don’t get me wrong. I consider myself to be a UNIX and OSX guy, but we do use WinXP at home since it is really fine for the family. I’ve never been one to jump on the “I hate Windows” bandwagon, since it works fine to me. In fact, when conducting interviews at work, one of the questions we ask is, “How do you feel about Windows and why?” I’ve made hiring decisions based on the applicants response. …  Okay, so I digress.

It’s true. If you need to do a repair installation of WinXP and you installed IE7, you must or should uninstall IE7 before you begin. I think it is a load of crap this isn’t made more public or in fact is an issue, but it is true:

Here’s my deal. Memorial Weekend, I bought a package deal from Fry’s for a CPU + Motherboard. What was attractive to me was that I can get a dual core Pentium and a Motherboard with and AGP slot for $80. Yes, I know everything is going to PCI-E, but last year I bought a killer AGP card that I’m not quite ready to give up. And I have a bunch of DDR memory (not DDR2). So, I went from an AMD XP2600+ (that was overclocked to a 3200+), to a Pentium D dual-core 2.8Ghz CPU. I get to use my old stuff and get the best of both worlds until I make the jump to a totally new system.

Surprisingly, after installing the new motherboard in my case, WinXP booted up and ran just fine. Usually, you have to do a repair install on a new motherboard, but for some reason, it didn’t which I found surprising since I went from a nforce chipset to a VIA chipset and to a AMD CPU to a Intel CPU.  However, we were getting random BSOD’s over some IRQ issue. I figured I should to my repair install of WinXP anyaway.

I got boned.

Check out Article 917964 from Microsoft:

Before you perform a repair installation of Microsoft Windows XP, you must uninstall Microsoft Internet Explorer 7 from the Windows XP-based computer. If you perform a repair installation of Windows XP when Internet Explorer 7 is still installed, Internet Explorer will not work after the repair is completed.

To resolve this issue, uninstall Internet Explorer 7 from the computer, and then install Internet Explorer 6. After Windows XP is repaired, you can reinstall Internet Explorer 7.

Thanks, Microsoft. I am usually okay with trying to figure this stuff out, but how the hell would I have known this? This is so utterly frustrating, I was losing sleep over this. I followed everything in this KB article to the letter and none of it worked.

Here’s what happened to me. I did my repair installation NOT KNOWING THIS and when it completed, I got the message that said something like;

This copy of windows is insecure. Click here to upgrade to Service Pack 2…

However, IE wasn’t working AT ALL. So when I tried to do Windows Update or Microsoft Update, nothing happened. If I clicked on the IE icon, I got some obscure error message about some dll not installed.

Thankfully, everything else seemed to work. I could use Firefox and Thunderbird. But Windows Update was borked. I wanted to upgrade to SP2, but couldn’t. I read via Google Groups/Dejanews that someone in my same boat tried to install SP2 manually and ended up with a super foo-barred WinXP that wouldn’t boot at all. Then my wife called to give me an earful that Office 2003 wasn’t working. Now, the stakes have been raised.

So, I thought I should go ahead and restore from backup. I use Acronis to back up my main drive to a 300GB drive. Thankfully, I did it a couple of days ago. However, in this state, my other drives couldn’t be reactivated. And I had other issues.

  • If I tried to install IE7 I got errors saying it was for the SP2 version of WinXP
  • If I tried to install IE6 it said a newer version was installed.
  • If I wend to “Add/Remove Programs” it was blank.
  • Office didn’t work

So I couldn’t restore from the back up if I wanted to. However, I knew I had the images so if the worst case scenario happened, I could restore.

So, the only solution I could find was to format and reinstall. I’d hate to do that since it will be a lot of work and my wife is already frustrated. I sure wish I could get to work.

The big issue was that IE7 was for systems already with SP2, (now bear in mind that I already tried to uninstall IE7 via the mentioned ways in the above referenced article). I was stuck between IE6 and IE7.

Then I found a article about slipstreaming the install with SP2.

  • Slipstreaming Windows XP Service Pack 2 and Create Bootable CD

Maybe this would work. I followed the instructions and guess what? It worked! I got back into WinXP and everything looked great. Now, I was encouraged!

So now I reinstalled/repaired installed WinXP WITH SP2! But it wasn’t perfect. Windows Update and Microsoft Update were still spewing errors so I couldn’t update. If I tried Windows Update, I was met with this error message:

You receive a 0x80245003 error when you attempt to install updates from the Windows Update Web site?

    It would say files weren’t registered and you can select either to try to register them or get more info. I tried many of the fixes that were found on Google and none of them worked. Here’s Microsoft’s Article 919749 that explains more info:

    SYMPTOMS

    loadTOCNode(1, \’symptoms\’);You cannot install updates by using the Microsoft Windows Update Web site, and you may receive an error message that resembles the following:

    Error number:0x80245003. Windows Update has encountered an error and cannot display the requested page.

    The fix in that article did not work. This, however worked wonderfully. Here’s the link to this forum post:

    • Fix The 0x80245003 Error!!!!!

    Suggestion #2 got me going. I’ve just completed the rest of the updates since SP2’s release, so I think I am good to . After the first reboot, I had to repeat the above steps, but now everything looks okay after two additional IE7 updates.

    So, here’s a quick list of lessons learned:

    • Uninstall IE7 if you are going to do a repair install of WinXP
    • If you forget to uninstall IE7, your best best is to restore from back up and uninstall IE7.
    • Or make yourself a slipstreamed WinXP + SP2 installation disk.
    • Don’t forget searching DejaNews/Google Groups for useful info from the microsoft.* USENET newsgroups.

    I hope this helps.  Let me know how and if it worked for you and if you have any ideas or updates, let me know and I’ll try to keep this post updated.

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    Altruism

    Today on Slashdot, there was a super-interesting article on Altruism. Here’s the snippet:

    Dekortage writes “The Washington Post is reporting on recent neuroscience research indicating that the brain is pre-wired to enjoy altruism — placing the interests of others ahead of one’s own. In studies, ‘[G]enerosity activated a primitive part of the brain that usually lights up in response to food or sex… Altruism, the experiment suggested, was not a superior moral faculty that suppresses basic selfish urges but rather was basic to the brain, hard-wired and pleasurable.’ Such research ‘has opened up a new window on what it means to be good,’ although many philosophers over recorded history have suggested similar things.”

    I have always found altruism interesting, especially since I have children. I read an article when our twins were first born that altruism was something innate. I saw the boy twin exhibit altruism time and time again right when he was two years old. It fascinated me that now they saw that this is something we are born with, (lo and behold, hope for humankind).

    Here’s the link to the article that started this all.

    If you read the article that’s quoted in the /. article, it suggests that we are hardwired to get pleasure from helping others.  Personally, I can relate.   In reflection, other people I am drawn too, also exhibit altruism (much to the chagrin to our wives).   This is an interesting article and since this is something I’d like to help foster in our children, I have a little better understanding.  But given other examples I’ve seen, is this something that can be unlearned so to speak?

    Just as much of our characteristics are learned behavior, can being anti-altruistic also be learned behavior?  Unfortunately, I think so.

    Kids are amazing.  I have learned much from them and look forward to continuing to do so.

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    innovation, what a show…

    The other night, I was watching TV in the bed with the kids and Mel Brooke’s History of the World Part I came on. This is a classic movie, if for no other reason it shows Mel’s genius. The part we watched was the Spanish Inquisition with Mel as Torquemada.

    But the Inquisition’s here and it’s here to-
    “Hey Torquemada, walk this way.”
    “I just got back from the Auto-de-fe.”
    “Auto-de-fe? What’s an Auto-de-fe?”
    “It’s what you oughtn’t to do but you do anyway.”

    The remainder of the movie isn’t for kids, so we changed the station. But I can’t help but watch something like that and think about how great that movie was and the care and the thought that went into that. The next day, I was listening to the radio and Lola from the Kinks came on. It is a cold day when you hear a modern song like Lola. What makes it so great? If we were going to talk for an hour or so with a couple of beers, I could probably make my point and convince you that it’s one of the greatest songs, but if I have to explain it here, then you probably wouldn’t get it. Anyways, that’s just an aside.

    So, at work, I’ve been thinking about Innovation. If you have seen my blog before, you might be aware that I like technology. There are so many things I think are cool to play with and have integrated them into mine and my family’s life. Sometimes, my wife gets frustrated when things don’t work 100% but I wonder what my kids will be like when they are my age. Will they be rushing out to get the latest tech toys or will they try to build their own? Who knows, but I do like to encourage their innovator spirit.

    At work, I was writing a document on innovation and some of the challenges our company faces. I referred to an article that Guy Kawasaki wrote for one of recent issues of Entrepreneur magazine. His article really gave me food for thought. One of the most important points that I’ve been wrestling with is that you should make products that make your customers happy.

    The best example I can come up with and it really drives it home for me is my wife. We have a Trixbox PBX at home. I love it. But, it doesn’t work 100% of the time; it works 99.9% of the time. And we have to dial “9” to call outside. Me, I’m willing to put up with it. Or rather, it just doesn’t seem like an issue at all for me, but for my wife… it’s a pain in the ass. “Why doesn’t our phone work like everyone else’s?” Heaven forbid if my Mother-in-law tries to use our phone. They ain’t happy!

    Until I read Guy’s article, I thought that they were missing the point of having the “wonderful technology” in their lives making things better for them. Nope, I missed it. If the technology makes them happy, then we have a winner. I have a Roku Soundbridge; hands down one of the best and coolest things I ever bought myself. However, my wife is just as happy plugging her iPod Shuffle into the stereo. Her Shuffle, makes her happy.

    I get it, now I understand. But there has to be some sort of middle ground, don’t you think? A product can’t be 100% fool-proof and work 100% of the time, can it? Does that mean it has to be simple or just work good? I don’t have the answers yet, but this has been what’s been inside my thoughts as of late. Somewhere in this conundrum, lies the secret sauce.

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    mother, did it need to be so high?

    Today was one of those surreal days where it takes some time to sink in. This week has been and is going to be busy since all of our children have last days of school and end of year parties. As it is, I’ve volunteered at my son’s luau on Thursday. I don’t know what to expect but I love working with children so I am looking forward to it.

    The surreal stuff, is sort of hard to explain. I rear-ended a Hispanic lady in the morning after she slammed on her brakes for a lame brained reason, (no real damage it was a love tap), I got some good feedback from someone I look up to, I heard good things about myself from another person, I had to leave work early since my wife was really sick, I talked for about two hours with a Polish neighbor and walked away with some Polish cookies and showed him my framed picture of Papiez Jan Paweł II, and then I spent a fair amount of time working on my blog.

    Just before this writing session, VH1 was showing “Pink Floyd, The Wall.” I had seen this almost 30 times when I was younger and Midnight Movies were the cool thing to do. Sometimes, I feel like Bob Geldof in the movie. If you’ve seen this movie, you can relate to what I am saying.

    I have been busy. I have finished my Real Estate Post license class the other night and am merely waiting to take my final exam. I also got a lot of work done on my blog over the last two days since I finished my online class.I’m pretty wiped out, so I am going to go eat some Melba toast and go to bed.

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    wordpress upgrade and other things

    So, with the release of WordPress 2.2, I took the leap and updated tonight. It went really smooth and I seem to think there might be a performance gain, but it could be the vodka. You might have noticed that I am using the K2 theme, which has a slight issue with WP 2.2. You can get the fix here. It worked as advertised. If you are using WP-Cache you probably need to delete your root out of the cache to see the change.

    Today, I was really glad I had my GPS unit, the Mio c310x. Twice today, I had to get somewhere fast and having the GPS let me bypass traffic and cut through other neighborhoods. It was cool saying, “hey, this is a load of crap… I’ll turn here…” and get me around the BS. Today in Atlanta, there was really heavy rain around the very beginning of rush hour and that set traffic home off to a terrible start. If only we had TMC like Europe has then is would trump Google! Maps on my Treo. I don’t think the c310x has the support for TMC, but that might be something to consider in my next GPS purchase.

    BTW- I’ve done a considerable amount of stuff to my Mio over the last few weeks. Unfortunately, I don’t feel comfortable talking about them here. Let’s just say I am ready for a trip to Europe…

    With regards to the Cheap-o HTPC, I’ve come to the conclusion and recommended to my brother-in-law, that an original XBOX is the way to go. For roughly under $100US you can find one on Craigslist, Ebay, or at a local pawn shop and easily hack it and put XBMC on it. He’s not a big game player, so he’s really only interested in the media capabilities. I’ve suggested a couple of places for him to find one and offered to hack it for him, so I’ll update as time goes on.

    I also noticed that Trixbox 2.2 is out now. My Trixbox server is 2.1. I honestly don’t know if I’ll upgrade since it’s one of those things; if it ain’t broke… don’t fix it! If you read the thread over in the Trixbox forums, there is a way to upgrade despite what the first post says. We’ll see.

    I’ve also been learning a lot about the business side of this. More on that, too.

    Finally, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about innovation and technology and how it affects my and my family’s life. I’ve started writing up a doc highlighting some of the key points, but I am not sure what I plan to do with it when I’m done. Maybe I’ll post it here… but I wouldn’t count on it.

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    wordpress, children, and an “old fashioned”

    This has been a good weekend for me. My wife had her best friend come into town this weekend so she took off and I had the kids for the whole weekend. I was planning on working from home on Friday, but I ended up taking the day off so I could just enjoy the kids and relax. It worked out pretty well and we ended up having a nice time when my son got back from school.

    I didn’t have any time to work on the HTPC side project. I did install Ubuntu and upgraded to the latest version. But now the on-board video seems to be having problems. The monitor has vertical lines throughout the display. I had another video card go bad years ago and it was the memory on the card that went bad. So, it’s sitting in the basement, waiting… calling… for me… maybe this week.

    I did spend a whole lot of time trying to increase performance on this blog. I have disabled several plugins and think I might have nailed it down. I’ll post my thought about the plugins this week. I’ll describe the ones I think causes worse performance and which ones helped. If you have any thoughts let me know.

    Today, we had a great visit with my mother and went over to my brother-in-law’s house for sausage and corn on the cob. We had a nice time and the food was great. The twins were excited about eating corn on the cob. My brother-in-law made “Old Fashioned’s”with Maker’s Mark. It was great. He said that nobody knows how to make Old Fashioned’s:

    The oldest recipe that I have found going by the name of Old Fashioned, comes from “Modern American Drinks” by George J. Kappeler, and published in 1895:

    THE OLD-FASHIONED WHISKEY COCKTAIL
    Dissolve a small lump of sugar with a little water in a whiskey-glass; add two dashes Angostura bitters, a small piece ice, a piece lemon-peel, one jigger whiskey. Mix with small bar-spoon and serve, leaving spoon in glass.

    I found this on the Drinkboy website. Reading this article, my brother-in-law made the “updated” version described after the above quote. And certainly the article isn’t complimentary to the way he made the Old Fashioned’s, but I liked it. I had two and it was perfect cocktail for a nice Sunday afternoon.

    Then I watched the Sopranos and the Simpson’s.

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    flexing the ol’ wordpress muscle

    I don’t know very much about wordpress, but I know enough to be dangerous.  I’ve been wrestling with making my blog perform a little better and I haven’t really nailed it down yet.  I got a message from a friend today that my site was coming up blank and indeed it was.  If I was logged in as admin, everything looked fine, but if I wasn’t the site did come up blank.  I had a conflicting setting between wp-cache and another plugin trying to get get some additional performance.

    If you search on the interwebs, you’ll find several people have their “Top 10 WP Plugins” and for the most part, everyone has their favorites.  But, there are a core group that everyone uses.  Once I nail down the performance issues and I am sure they are not related to the plugins, I’ll publish my list, too.

    Today was a good day.  I broke my fishing pole a couple of weeks ago, (I’ve been taking the kids fishing at the lake in our ‘hood), and I got a really nice on on clearance at the Sports Authority.   It was $4!  You can’t beat that with a stick.  We also went to a neighborhood block party and had a nice time with all the neighbors.  It was a nice way to spend the Saturday.

    If the weather holds up tomorrow, I’ll try to take the kids fishing again

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    housekeeping

    Tonight, my wife is out with her best friends and I am alone… after getting the kids to bed. I don’t know why, but when she is gone, I tend to catch up on some of the techie stuff I keep meaning to do.

    For example, I spent a fair amount of time trying to find ways to optimize the performance of my blog and research themes and plugins for wordpress. Tomorrow, I plan to yank out an extra sound card from our PC since it’s making like difficult for my wife since the USB headset we have just doesn’t… sorry, didn’t mean to rant here.

    Anyways, I usually take the kids to the closest Fry’s for a look-a-round but I am not sure if that’s in the cards for this weekend since we have a lot of other stuff to do. Starting with this post, I’m going to “tag” it so in addition to the categories, the tags will help you find related posts faster.

    Later, I might post about what I found to be the most popular WordPress plugins. I found some cool ones that seem to make life just a little easier and I found a few that everyone seems to be using.

    Have a good weekend!

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    a good spy story

    If you anything about me personally, you’ll know that I love a good spy story. When I was a kid watching 007 movies with my Dad, I loved imagining that I’d grow up to be a spy like James Bond. It wasn’t so much the license to kill, rather the gadgets and the cloak and dagger. I have really enjoyed the Bourne Identity movies as I picked up a copy of the original book and loved that, too. As far as I am concerned the movie and the book were different enough that it was almost like two different stories.

    I read with relish, Inside Delta Force: The Story of America’s Elite Counterterrorist Unit by Eric Haney. I was enthralled by the spy-craft aspects of the book and was often jealous that the need to sneak past security or evade militants didn’t come up more often in my current line of work.

    If you happened to read my blogs from the beginning, (unlikely based on the stats), then you might be aware that I posted about an amazing show from the BBC:

    If you check out the links in the post you can visit the BBC pages about the show.

    Tonight, I became aware of an excellent read over at Wired:

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