I recently needed to format my computer and I see so many people running vista these days that I really wanted to try something new. The first thing I tried was Ubuntu, and while it worked great, there were a few little nuances that I just couldnt live with. One of which was a problem with my sound. It would only play one stream of audio from one application at a time. And it would require me to restart an app, like firefox for example, when I played a video in mplayer, if i wanted youtube(for instance) to play audio again. I’m sure there was a way around that, but a few other things that I wont mention were just a bit too annoying for me to deal with. Maybe in time though.

The reason I didnt want to try vista was probably the simple fact that it won an award for being the greatest disappointment of 2007. I dont really know how well it runs now that SP1 is out, but I just havent really wanted to try it. However, I discovered that windows 2008 server can be run in almost the same exact fashion as Vista given a few changes. Most of the info I found and used to get my 2008 setup just the way I wanted was located here and here.

So the number one issue I have run into with 2008 is that you cant always install workstation apps on a server OS. And the primary reason for this, I’m assuming, is that companies really want to get paid more if you’re running their software on a server.. for example, Avira Antivir Anti-Virus software has a free personal version and it works great for my needs. However, I was unable to install it on 2008 due to its limitation of being installed on “personal use computers.” aka: XP, Vista, 2000 WrkStn, etc. That was until I discovered the following information from the aforementioned websites.

Hi, first of all: I’m not a native english speaker so I apologize in case my english might be incorrect sometimes.

Thanks to the process monitor which was mentioned in another thread I’ve found a way to install Antivir Personal Edition which I want to share with you.

It’s pretty simple and might work with other programms which check for a Server OS and deny the installation too.

1.) Start –> Run –> Regedit
2.) Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE –> SYSTEM –> CurrentControlset –> Control
3.) Now change the permissions of the folder “ProductOptions” –> add your user account (for example Computername\Username) and deny yourself the read rights for the whole folder. Be careful not to deny the whole rights for all administrators or something like that (I tried that first cause of a black out and it leads to windows not being able to boot).
4.) Now you should be able to install Antivir PE

In case you want to revert the permission settings just log to your administrator account. Here you can again grant your user account full rights for “ProductOptions”.

Up until now I didn’t notice any drawbacks but I won’t garantie that there might be some.

I really dislike Comcast. I wish the following speeds lasted more than 30 seconds before getting throttled. It’s a total tease!

I was installing .NET 3.0a on a server this afternoon and got the following error…

System.Runtime.InteropServices.COMException (0×80070094): The path specified cannot be used at this time.

This information was located in the ‘dd_wcf_ret*.txt’ files that are located in your %temp% folder.

I did a little searching and discovered that a few people running sharepoint had issues w/ this specific error and so I tried to stop the sharepoint services and try to reinstall, and sure enough it fixed the problem.

The end result was to install .NET 3.5 and I was able to do that once all this was cleared up. Yay for easy fixes

Well, i recently upgraded to the latest wordpress (2.5) and I seem to have broken my “pages” on the left over <—- there. About me, Computers, music, status… all that stuff is broke as a joke. I’ve posted on wordpress.org forums to try and see if anyone knows how to fix it, but in the mean time, if anyone here knows how to fix it, that would be really awesome.

Basically what I’ve done is set my permalinks to
/index.php/%postname%/%year%/%monthnum%/%day%/
And this has broken all those pages. However, if i use one of the pre-configured permalink schemes, it works fine. This was not an issue before I upgraded… so its gotta be the upgrade *shrugS*

Well I’m on my way to learning the world of networking. I must say, what I’ve seen so far looks VERY interesting. I wont say fun, simply because that will bite me in the arse one day when I’m doing this stuff as a career and I’ll want to kill someone. But just learning about what is going on in the background when I hit the “post” button on this blog is really neat to me. I learned today that TCP has a 3 way handshake before it ever starts to communicate. It sends a Syn packet and receives a Syn-ack back acknowledging it received the syn packet and then an “ack” packet is sent back to say.. yup, got it. So its say hey… then the server says hey back.. and the initiating server says ok, we’re good to go.

Anyway, I’ve been watching these videos, but often find myself wanting to do other things instead of watch. So being the gadget whore that I am, I have this little Nokia N800 that I’ve been using for a lot of different things such as checking email on the go, browsing the net to look up bus schedules, and reading PDF versions of my text books for school. So its a great little utility. Well, I converted some training videos that I have and found it to be a great way to kill time on the bus, on the crapper, and in church! Haha, kidding. But yeah, its been a great gadget to help me stay connected on the go.

I’m tired of text only posts, so I’m going to include this neat video about the n800.
Enjoy.

Well, its been a long while since I posted, and I finally have something that I would like to share. I discovered Remote Desktop MMC snap-in a few years back and have loved it! It installs with the 2003 adminpak which is geared toward network admins that need to connect to server services remotely. I’ve never used anything beyond the RDC snap-in. If someone wants to connect to a machine remotely using RDC or RDP whatever they call it now… you can either use the MMC snap-in or the Remote Desktop Connection client that comes with windows xp. They both provide the same functional service but they differ greatly in 1 key regard. When you connect to a remote computer using windows built in RDC client, you are connecting to 1 of 2 possible open slots on the server. The server starts up all the needed services that your desktop connection needs to function such as any tray icon agents that might run, etc. However, when you connect using the 2003 adminpak MMC snap-in, you are essentially connecting to the console of the machine. That means… if someone is logged in locally, they are locked out and the user needs to login again at which point the remote user will be kicked off. This feature is GREAT because it eliminates the need for VNC which basically allows you to access those pesky services that will only interact with the REAL desktop rather than an RDC (formally known as Terminal Services) connection. One example would be Mdaemon mail server.

So the past couple of days has been spent preparing my main desktop for reformat and in doing so I’ve been toying with the idea of installing SP3 even though its technically only in Release candidate phase right now. I think that RC2 is damn near the final product, but I could be wrong. Anyway, something REALLY annoying that I’ve been noticing is that the MMC snap-in version of RDC is acting a LOT like the XP build in version. When I disconnect, it shows a pretty blow “Reconnecting” window, not to mention that its NOT connecting to the console anymore! Which REALLY REALLY sucks. I’ve not tested it extensively, as there is also an adminpak SP1, so I’m about 2 minutes away from confirming whether or not it is SP3 or not. But only since SP3 has this been happening, so we’ll see.

Hey there guys, its only 1 invite, so I’m sure it will go fast, but here it is…. enjoy!

http://www.grandcentral.com/home/invite/IbESPsjnE72tJBMfld71UD5Vk

*edit* got another

http://www.grandcentral.com/home/invite/BTjvk4TVUP8UngUtlUk9YASJH

*UPDATE*
A user has brought it to my attention that an easier way around this is to simply hold the SHIFT key down while opening iTunes. I tried it for myself (Windows 2008 Server) and it does work when selecting from the start menu, but not from the quicklaunch menu for some reason. I didnt try it with an icon on the desktop, but I imagine that would work as well. Hope that helps.

———-

Well, I’m tired but I’m happy. I recently installed a new hard drive and copied all my data from my old drive to the new one and changed the drive letter so as to not cause any interruptions. Well, iTunes didnt like my plan so much and somehow windows didnt either. After I moved everything over to the new drive, I ran itunes thinking it would work great and I am so smart and I know how to make computers my bitch. WRONG! I get this wonderful error that says… “iTunes folder cannot be found or created” So I make sure the folder is there which I just recently moved onto this new drive, so it would not be impossible to have misplaced it somehow. Anyway, all of that checks out fine. I then uninstall and reinstall about nine hundred and ninety nine times. Google helps me a bit, but not overly. I find some registry edits that should fix my problem, but they dont. blah. Originally I found a post from someone saying that you need to edit HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders and place the correct path in the “My Music” key. This lead me to some crazy problems that I’m almost afraid to figure out the answer to. Basically, I’d put in d:\my music into the respective key and when I run iTunes, it would actually somehow delete the entry!!! Thats right, iTunes was clearing out my registry! grr. Ok, so maybe it was not iTunes, but I’m a dumb user and have no clue. Either way, the key was an empty field when I refreshed it AFTER running iTunes. Yes I tested this without running iTunes and the key was fine.

Anyways, so there is a second registry folder to edit and that is…

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders

That folder will have the same stuff in it, but I think windows uses it more or something. Anyway, I’m tired and dont care but am happy my tunes are flowing freely again.

Man I got some talkative friends. (yes, out of place and seemingly random, yet not.)

**edited**

Alright guys, basically what you need to do is the following…

Run regedit from the Start >> Run menu. Then navigate to the above registry key which is a tree like structure starting with HKEY_CURRENT_USER. So click the plus sign next to that and it will drop down with more subcategories. Then follow down to Software >> Microsoft >> Windows >> CurrentVersion >> Explorer >> User Shell Folders. Once you get into User Shell Folders, there will be a list of “Keys” which will include one called “My Music” It may be blank or it may have a path in it like c:\documents and settings\user\my documents\my music. Basically you want to put the correct path to where your itunes folder is located. NOT the iTunes folder itself, but the directory above that, so since my itunes folder is D:\Private\My Documents\My Music\iTunes, I put in D:\Private\My Documents\My Music\ as my path.

Hope that helps guys.

That is the question I seem to be asking myself lately. This post will be short, but just noting a question that I seem to be posed with. I am trying to figure out what will be the best way to handle my computing experience. Should I use online calendar, email, docs, rss reader, etc. Or should I install the apps on my computer? There are a lot of apps on the computer, but it seems like there are also an equal number online. I LOVE that I can share my calendar with my girlfriend, but I hate the fact that google calendar takes FOREVER to load. I like the fact that all my stuff is at one place as well. I.e.: Gmail, docs & spreadsheets, calendar, reader, etc etc. I dont want to go to 10 different companies to do what I want with my day. I want it to be in one nice little place. And when I reformat? I dont want to worry about reinstall 100 different applications etc. But at the same time am I willing to forgo speed in hopes that I’ll find a good solution… Dunno. I will continue to search for other calendars etc. And maybe i’ll find one worth switching myself and girlfriend to.

I was just browsing Digg.com and saw a story about the Romanian president exclaiming how piracy has helped his country so much. I couldn’t agree more with him that the the ability to use windows for free has expanded upon his countries IT industry as well as enabling its youth to discover computers.

Then I got to thinking about the Pirate Bay and how they are looking for some country to buy or whatever, and I thought “what a perfect match!”

So how about it TPB? Give that old president a call and see if he’d be cool with developing his country a little more.
Romainian Story