UBCD for Windows
Posted on May 31, 2009, under Web Dev/Tech.
We went out to see some family this weekend, and they were having some issues with their WinXP computer. I was thinking about taking a Linux Live CD, but ended up giving the Ultimate Boot CD for Windows a try. It is pretty slick. You have to have your own copy of the Windows XP install files to create the boot disk ISO, but after that you can configure all types of software to be included on the CD image. Worth checking out as a handy tool to have lying around.
Memorial Day 2009
Posted on May 25, 2009, under Current Events.
Delicious Toolbar hangs IE8
Posted on April 27, 2009, under Web Dev/Tech.
Update 9/5/2009: The newest version of the IE Toolbar released recently works now. WOOHOO!
I’m running into a problem with the Delicious Toolbar 1.12.273.0 causing IE8 to hang on Windows XP SP3. It is super annoying, as I would like to use the Favorite Tags functionality on this machine.
worksforme – On Vista
I have the Delicious Toolbar running with IE8 on Vista with no problems. However for some reason the other computer I use running WinXP is choking on the Delicious addon.
Issue
After I install the Delicious Toolbar, I can open IE8 for one session. After closing the browser, the IE window disappears like everything is normal. When I try to open IE again, the chrome starts to load, but the window hangs. My home page doesn’t open, and the IE functions are frozen.
Behind the scenes, there are two iexplorer.exe processes, and one DeliciousManager.exe process still running. IE8 becomes responsive again once I kill the DeliciousManager.exe process in the Task Manager. Once I kill the DeliciousManager.exe process, the iexplorer.exe processes are freed up and end normally. Then I can start a new web browser session, until I run into the issue again when I close IE.
Attempt 1 – Disable potential conflicts
I tried disabling all other IE addons, setting exclusions in antivirus for real-time scans on the Delicious Toolbar data directories, and disabling the firewall. The DeliciousManager.exe task would still hang IE8.
Any Ideas?
Does anyone out there have any other ideas? If I find a solution, I will post a follow-up here.
Team Site Search Broken on SharePoint 2003
Posted on April 13, 2009, under SharePoint.
I realize SharePoint 2003 is fairly old by now, but there are a few production installs out there I’m sure. I still see frequent hits on the account lockout post from awhile back. Here’s a tip from some troubleshooting last fall in case it helps someone else.
We ran into an issue on one of our SPS 2003 installations where the team site information was not searchable at the team site level. We could successfully search all content at the portal/area level, but no results would come back when we performed the same search inside of a team site.
After some troubleshooting with our DBA and Microsoft Support (mostly our DBA), we realized that a required column by SharePoint for indexing the team site content was missing. The column name was Extension.
The resolution for this problem ended up being fairly simple once we figured it out:
- Open SharePoint Central Administration on the front-end server
- In the left-hand navigation, click “Windows SharePoint Services”
- Under “Component Configuration”, click “Configure full-text search”
- Uncheck “Enable full-text search and index component”
- Click OK
- Under “Component Configuration”, click “Configure full-text search”
- Now re-check “Enable full-text search and index component”
- Click OK
- At this point the required column “Extension” should be recreated in the SQL database
- Force a re-index or wait for the next schedule
- Test
This fixed the issue for us, and we were able to bring back search results at both the portal and team site level again.
Harley Davidson has the right idea
Chinese Ghostnet
Posted on March 31, 2009, under Current Events, Web Dev/Tech.
Everyone in normal IT is focused on Conficker right now, but the news on a Chinese Ghostnet is pretty fascinating:
…is controlled by computers almost exclusively located in China and has infected 1295 computer in 103 countries in the last two years…
They report that, not only can the espionage software monitor email and documents on infected computers, it can also control a PC remotely, switching on any cameras or microphones attached to it, to carry out surveillance of its surroundings.
Creepy.
IE8 Performance Problems
Posted on March 25, 2009, under Web Dev/Tech.
I am still testing IE8 on my home machine, and ran across a page that shows some performance issues with the new browser.
When I open up this page in IE8, the browser is extremely slow after the page finishes loading. I have not taken the time to dig real deep, but AJAX is being used to bring in the body content, and I see jQuery in use quite a bit behind the scenes. For what it’s worth, I used the “Report a Webpage Problem Internet Explorer 8 Add-On” to let Microsoft know of the performance issue.
When I use Firefox 3.0.7, I have no performance issues on the test page. I have not tested IE7 yet to see if the performance problem is in that version as well.
Quote
Posted on March 25, 2009, under Current Events.
“… you cannot carry on squeezing the productive bit of the economy, in order to fund an unprecedented engorgement of the unproductive bit.”
The devalued Prime Minister of a devalued Government (worth watching) – Daniel Hannan MEP
IE8 out today
Posted on March 19, 2009, under Web Dev/Tech.
Microsoft has announced IE 8 is out later today.
I still primarily use Firefox for personal usage so far, but am fairly excited by what the IE team has done with version 8 in supporting web standards and adding extra security. I’ll have to give it a good spin.
What does one TRILLION dollars look like?
Posted on March 14, 2009, under Current Events.
Would you have guessed this much?