Monday 13 December 2010
IE9 fails to publish blog post
I mistakenly used IE9 to create the previous post but I could not get it to publish. Thankfully Firefox was up to the job.
HP Business Inkjet 2800 Windows 7 multiple copies
A well documented problem. We have a sort of solution.
A client with this printer / OS combination could not get multiple copies to print. Doesn't matter how many copies are selected only 1 copy was printed.
Came across this link which looked hopeful. It provided another link to download some drivers. Just a word of warning - you have to access this second site using IE, other broswers cannot access the page.
I downloaded and tried both the PCL5 and PS drivers but nothing made any difference.
In order to provide for the client I went into printer properties and changed the default page count setting to 2 instead on 1 just to see if that would give us a workaround.
Yipee!! 2 pages printed out. Ok lets see if changing the default 2 to 1 on the normal print window works and Yeeha only one page printed. On a roll now what if I change it to 3 copies. Wow! It worked. I repeated with 6 copies and all seems fine.
This is however bizarre behaviour and with any luck one of the HP printer team will see this post and attempt to correct their code.
Better than that. HP, how about producing the PCL6 drivers for this printer so that we don't need these workarounds.
A related problem which we are also having to sort out is why tray 2 is not recognised. For those interested in that problem click here.
Wednesday 27 October 2010
Wake up world! There are alternatives to Windows products.
We were planning to ship a client a new domain server based on ClearOS.
Good spec machine with 2 x 1 TB hard disk in mirror. We got the operating system installed, the disks mirrored and the configuration started easily within 2 hours.
Our client then bought some software (without our recommendation or involvement) and it only runs on Windows server platforms using Microsoft SQL Server. So our Linux based, easy to configure domain server has now to be installed with the very expensive, very slow, very cumbersome Windows 2008 server software. (I had hoped never to have to install one of these again!).
We placed another disk in for the system to reside on and at our third attempt managed to get the OS loaded. Ok now time to set up the mirror on the 1 TG disk. Remember apart from the extra hard disk this is exactly the same hardware as we used before - not a new machine with different hardware - exactly the same kit.
We created the mirror (using the whole disk) and after 2 hours the format was only 24% complete! Six hours later we return to the machine to find the mirror resynching but only 51% complete!! I thought overnight disk formats went out with Novell Netware V2!!! And what is it resynching, there is no data on the disk!!!! (No, I do not want an answer but I want the boys and girls at Microsoft to ask themselves that question).
Has anyone in Microsoft ever tried to do this operation? I cannot believe that any developer would think this level of performance was acceptable.
So wake up world. There is no need to design and write programs that only run on Windows platforms. There is no need to rely on the inefficient Windows software. Or pay the over inflated prices Microsoft charge. (Hey, did you know that to buy a 3 pack set of Win7 OEM costs more that buying 3 individual packs).
Let's not settle for mediocrity, let's push for systems that allow us to benefit from the high performance hardware we can now get.
Good spec machine with 2 x 1 TB hard disk in mirror. We got the operating system installed, the disks mirrored and the configuration started easily within 2 hours.
Our client then bought some software (without our recommendation or involvement) and it only runs on Windows server platforms using Microsoft SQL Server. So our Linux based, easy to configure domain server has now to be installed with the very expensive, very slow, very cumbersome Windows 2008 server software. (I had hoped never to have to install one of these again!).
We placed another disk in for the system to reside on and at our third attempt managed to get the OS loaded. Ok now time to set up the mirror on the 1 TG disk. Remember apart from the extra hard disk this is exactly the same hardware as we used before - not a new machine with different hardware - exactly the same kit.
We created the mirror (using the whole disk) and after 2 hours the format was only 24% complete! Six hours later we return to the machine to find the mirror resynching but only 51% complete!! I thought overnight disk formats went out with Novell Netware V2!!! And what is it resynching, there is no data on the disk!!!! (No, I do not want an answer but I want the boys and girls at Microsoft to ask themselves that question).
Has anyone in Microsoft ever tried to do this operation? I cannot believe that any developer would think this level of performance was acceptable.
So wake up world. There is no need to design and write programs that only run on Windows platforms. There is no need to rely on the inefficient Windows software. Or pay the over inflated prices Microsoft charge. (Hey, did you know that to buy a 3 pack set of Win7 OEM costs more that buying 3 individual packs).
Let's not settle for mediocrity, let's push for systems that allow us to benefit from the high performance hardware we can now get.
Wednesday 29 September 2010
Internet Explorer 9 is here!!
Or at least the beta is.
Should you install it? Well you can if you want but it will remove your previous version of Internet Explorer.
So if the beta fails you will have to roll back to your earlier version.
Why, when it is still a Beta product do Microsoft remove your old working version? This is appalling.
As for the interface - don't get me going. All the old standards that users are used to - GONE.
Menu bar - GONE
Title bar - GONE
I have looked at this for 5 minutes - that was enough.
I sent a feedback form - that wanted to update my computer with something which I didn't let it.
I am beginning to think that Microsoft are beginning to lose grip on reality.
We don't want more fancy stuff - we just want their stuff to work properly.
Should you install it? Well you can if you want but it will remove your previous version of Internet Explorer.
So if the beta fails you will have to roll back to your earlier version.
Why, when it is still a Beta product do Microsoft remove your old working version? This is appalling.
As for the interface - don't get me going. All the old standards that users are used to - GONE.
Menu bar - GONE
Title bar - GONE
I have looked at this for 5 minutes - that was enough.
I sent a feedback form - that wanted to update my computer with something which I didn't let it.
I am beginning to think that Microsoft are beginning to lose grip on reality.
We don't want more fancy stuff - we just want their stuff to work properly.
Wednesday 15 September 2010
ClearOS production server
An alternative to Windows 2003 / 2008 domain server software.
For sometime now we have been searching to find an alternative to the Windows server products. Windows server products developed nicely from Windows NT through to Windows 2003 but in our opinion Windows 2008 was a poor product. Based on the Vista kernel it suffered from all the maladies affecting Vista and achieved none of the benefits.
We have supplied one client with Server 2008 and I hope not to have to repeat this experience.
We know that Linux based domain servers have been around but to our mind most of these have suffered from the command line based disjointed administrator interface.
At a personal level I am aware that whatever I do I cannot put into a client a system that my staff cannot manage in my absence or after the Big Red Bus has pressed my mortal being into the surface of the tarmac. Therefore I have been reluctant to put in place a server that become useless once I am no longer in charge of it.
As a result we have not installed any Linux based servers - but all that is likely to change now.
We have been investigating the ClearOS server software (and the e-box and sme server systems). We have built a number of test installations and have now built a production server.
The server is based on an AMD Athlon 5000+ dual core processor on a Foxconn A74ML-K motherboard and 2GB RAM. This is combined with a 500GB hard disk (not new and removed from an older machine) and an optical drive and very little else.
We have installed the server on the same network as our web server which is remote to our office network.
Our next job is to configure the server into a working server, and enable remote logon to both Windows and Linux clients. We will blog progress as it occurs.
For more information about ClearOS click this link.
For sometime now we have been searching to find an alternative to the Windows server products. Windows server products developed nicely from Windows NT through to Windows 2003 but in our opinion Windows 2008 was a poor product. Based on the Vista kernel it suffered from all the maladies affecting Vista and achieved none of the benefits.
We have supplied one client with Server 2008 and I hope not to have to repeat this experience.
We know that Linux based domain servers have been around but to our mind most of these have suffered from the command line based disjointed administrator interface.
At a personal level I am aware that whatever I do I cannot put into a client a system that my staff cannot manage in my absence or after the Big Red Bus has pressed my mortal being into the surface of the tarmac. Therefore I have been reluctant to put in place a server that become useless once I am no longer in charge of it.
As a result we have not installed any Linux based servers - but all that is likely to change now.
We have been investigating the ClearOS server software (and the e-box and sme server systems). We have built a number of test installations and have now built a production server.
The server is based on an AMD Athlon 5000+ dual core processor on a Foxconn A74ML-K motherboard and 2GB RAM. This is combined with a 500GB hard disk (not new and removed from an older machine) and an optical drive and very little else.
We have installed the server on the same network as our web server which is remote to our office network.
Our next job is to configure the server into a working server, and enable remote logon to both Windows and Linux clients. We will blog progress as it occurs.
For more information about ClearOS click this link.
Thursday 12 August 2010
Are your backup systems robust enough?
My previous blog talks about the problems getting Windows 7 workstations to attach to a Windows 2003 domain server. In that blog we talked a problem we had with our domain server. This blog is to add more detail to those comments.
Our server failed unexpectedly. No warning signs, just a shutdown of access for workstations. Believeing this to be one of thos unusual things we reset the server. After 10 minutes we had no service and after attaching a monitor we found that the server had not completed POST and BIOS setup.
Several attempts met with similar failure.
We rebuilt the server but when we attached the disks from the old server to the new one to copy off the data we could not access any data.
The last time we had problems with this disk system we had set it up without the mirrored RAID so one level of protection was missing.
However we do have an external hard disk which was set up to do a complete backup of the data EVERY night. No problem then. Attach the external disk. We see a perfectly good looking .bkf file but when we tried to recover it with the Windows Backup & Recovery tool it told us there was no recoverable data on the disk.
Never mind, we still have our online, in the Cloud, backup system. We have not stored everything but the major items are still up there. We download the backup client software to do a restore. It tells us that we have used 2GB of our 3GB allowance but wait.... When we try to recover the files it says there are no files selected for recovery or that there is no data to collect. The help desk lived up to the antithesis of their name and I still have no satisfactory answer from them.
From this it appears that we have lost all our Client files from the last 6 years, all the accounts data, all the management files (policy documents, logos, letter templates, contract templates etc), all our supplier files, and all the downloaded data (device drivers and software used to build client machines).
We have called in the services of a Disk specialist who has been able to recover most of our data but before you say 'What is all the fuss for' then consider this.
We limped along on Friday. We paid overtime on Saturday to rebuild the server (luckily we did not have to pay the cost of new hardware as we could use some kit that was redundant). We have not been able to work on Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday.
This doesn't affect many of us as there are only 3 of us in the organisation but how would it affect you?
What is the cost to you for paying someone to replace and rebuild your computer system?
What is the cost to have your staff being idle for 3 days?
What is the cost to you not being able to fulfill client orders?
Add to that the cost of calling in a specialist to attempt to recover you data.
This is not cheap, It could easily run into 5 figures. Put into perspective what it would cost to have a completely robust backup and recovery system in place.
This has happened to us. We might have got through it because we had second and third line backup systems in place. Don't let it happen to you. Having gone through all this we are now better placed to help you avoid the pitfalls that we have fallen into.
Call us!
Our server failed unexpectedly. No warning signs, just a shutdown of access for workstations. Believeing this to be one of thos unusual things we reset the server. After 10 minutes we had no service and after attaching a monitor we found that the server had not completed POST and BIOS setup.
Several attempts met with similar failure.
We rebuilt the server but when we attached the disks from the old server to the new one to copy off the data we could not access any data.
The last time we had problems with this disk system we had set it up without the mirrored RAID so one level of protection was missing.
However we do have an external hard disk which was set up to do a complete backup of the data EVERY night. No problem then. Attach the external disk. We see a perfectly good looking .bkf file but when we tried to recover it with the Windows Backup & Recovery tool it told us there was no recoverable data on the disk.
Never mind, we still have our online, in the Cloud, backup system. We have not stored everything but the major items are still up there. We download the backup client software to do a restore. It tells us that we have used 2GB of our 3GB allowance but wait.... When we try to recover the files it says there are no files selected for recovery or that there is no data to collect. The help desk lived up to the antithesis of their name and I still have no satisfactory answer from them.
From this it appears that we have lost all our Client files from the last 6 years, all the accounts data, all the management files (policy documents, logos, letter templates, contract templates etc), all our supplier files, and all the downloaded data (device drivers and software used to build client machines).
We have called in the services of a Disk specialist who has been able to recover most of our data but before you say 'What is all the fuss for' then consider this.
We limped along on Friday. We paid overtime on Saturday to rebuild the server (luckily we did not have to pay the cost of new hardware as we could use some kit that was redundant). We have not been able to work on Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday.
This doesn't affect many of us as there are only 3 of us in the organisation but how would it affect you?
What is the cost to you for paying someone to replace and rebuild your computer system?
What is the cost to have your staff being idle for 3 days?
What is the cost to you not being able to fulfill client orders?
Add to that the cost of calling in a specialist to attempt to recover you data.
This is not cheap, It could easily run into 5 figures. Put into perspective what it would cost to have a completely robust backup and recovery system in place.
This has happened to us. We might have got through it because we had second and third line backup systems in place. Don't let it happen to you. Having gone through all this we are now better placed to help you avoid the pitfalls that we have fallen into.
Call us!
The security database on the server does not have a computer account for this workstation trust relationship.
We recently has this error message appear when trying to log on Windows 7 workstations to our Windows 2003 domain server.
"The security database on the server does not have a computer account for this workstation trust relationship."
We trawled through the Google searches for this message and there are pages of reports of this error.
Let me give you the circumstances.
Our domain server failed. We could not get it to get through POST and BIOS to try to find and operating system. That was the first big 'Ouch'.
So we rebuilt the server on to new hardware and configured it, as we thought, the same. We initially had some issues with DNS and NICs not doing as they should but the upshot was that our 2 Windows 7 workstations could not connect to the domain. Please note this did not affect our remaining XP workstation which logged just fine.
After looking at the Goggle responses we noticed that we had rebuilt the domain but missed off the '.local' on the domain name.
So we rebuilt being more careful next time. Even so we got a capital letter in the wrong place in the domain name. So we rebuilt a third time. This time we are sure we got everything right. It made not a jot of difference.
Other websites had suggested we disconnect from the domain and reconnect to the new domain. Not an iota of difference.
Finally we had to reinstall the operating system on both our Windows 7 machines.
One side effect of this, despite having installed onto completely new hard disks to preserve the data on the old disk, is that on one of the machines we have lost ALL out Outlook pst files. Some emails going back 6 years with important information.
Couple this with the total data loss of all information on the server did not make us very happy.
I will finish with this comment. Why, oh why, Microsoft is it so hard to get your systems to talk to each other. This is hardly a ringing endorsement for the improvements in Windows 7 when XP performs better in what was already a very fraught situation. Please try to do better next time.
"The security database on the server does not have a computer account for this workstation trust relationship."
We trawled through the Google searches for this message and there are pages of reports of this error.
Let me give you the circumstances.
Our domain server failed. We could not get it to get through POST and BIOS to try to find and operating system. That was the first big 'Ouch'.
So we rebuilt the server on to new hardware and configured it, as we thought, the same. We initially had some issues with DNS and NICs not doing as they should but the upshot was that our 2 Windows 7 workstations could not connect to the domain. Please note this did not affect our remaining XP workstation which logged just fine.
After looking at the Goggle responses we noticed that we had rebuilt the domain but missed off the '.local' on the domain name.
So we rebuilt being more careful next time. Even so we got a capital letter in the wrong place in the domain name. So we rebuilt a third time. This time we are sure we got everything right. It made not a jot of difference.
Other websites had suggested we disconnect from the domain and reconnect to the new domain. Not an iota of difference.
Finally we had to reinstall the operating system on both our Windows 7 machines.
One side effect of this, despite having installed onto completely new hard disks to preserve the data on the old disk, is that on one of the machines we have lost ALL out Outlook pst files. Some emails going back 6 years with important information.
Couple this with the total data loss of all information on the server did not make us very happy.
I will finish with this comment. Why, oh why, Microsoft is it so hard to get your systems to talk to each other. This is hardly a ringing endorsement for the improvements in Windows 7 when XP performs better in what was already a very fraught situation. Please try to do better next time.
Monday 21 June 2010
Backing up FreeNAS server with Backup Direct
We are trying to evaluate how to back up a FreeNAS server using Backup Direct. We have limited success so far.
What has shown up is an issue in FreeNAS when using anonymous user authenication for Windows users. Several threads appear in the FreeNAS forum associated with this problem.
We are putting a link to our thread on the FreeNAS forum if you need to look further.
Click http://sourceforge.net/apps/phpbb/freenas/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=7076 for further information.
I have also had input on another forum related to this subject. Click http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1384007 or http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=9535918&postcount=6 to look at Samba configuration issues on FreeNAS.
Postscript. We have now found iceBackup which seems less trouble than BackupDirect although it cannot cope with users on FreeNAS with UID 21.
What has shown up is an issue in FreeNAS when using anonymous user authenication for Windows users. Several threads appear in the FreeNAS forum associated with this problem.
We are putting a link to our thread on the FreeNAS forum if you need to look further.
Click http://sourceforge.net/apps/phpbb/freenas/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=7076 for further information.
I have also had input on another forum related to this subject. Click http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1384007 or http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=9535918&postcount=6 to look at Samba configuration issues on FreeNAS.
Postscript. We have now found iceBackup which seems less trouble than BackupDirect although it cannot cope with users on FreeNAS with UID 21.
Wednesday 26 May 2010
Online Backups - Tenders sought
We are interested in becoming agents for online backup systems and invite tenders from suppliers in the UK.
We resell online backup. The requirements are this.
Low cost - starting at around £5 per month for up to 5GB
Multiple hosts - many of our clients have more than one computer and don't want to pay a per computer charge
Logging - We monitor backups on behalf of our clients and need to have full logs of all activity sent to us and our client
Scheduled backups - We need to protect data on a daily basis with full or incremental backups
Synchronisation - We do not need active synchronisation - daily backups suffice
Console - We would like to have console access so that we can replace hosts on behalf of our clients as machines get replaced
Multi platform - We need a system that runs on Windows and *ix based systems
Re-branding - We are not concerned about rebadging and are quite content to use proprietory branding
Suppliers of such systems are invited to contact us by email to stephen@hillierconsultants.com using the subject line "Online backup tender bids".
We resell online backup. The requirements are this.
Low cost - starting at around £5 per month for up to 5GB
Multiple hosts - many of our clients have more than one computer and don't want to pay a per computer charge
Logging - We monitor backups on behalf of our clients and need to have full logs of all activity sent to us and our client
Scheduled backups - We need to protect data on a daily basis with full or incremental backups
Synchronisation - We do not need active synchronisation - daily backups suffice
Console - We would like to have console access so that we can replace hosts on behalf of our clients as machines get replaced
Multi platform - We need a system that runs on Windows and *ix based systems
Re-branding - We are not concerned about rebadging and are quite content to use proprietory branding
Suppliers of such systems are invited to contact us by email to stephen@hillierconsultants.com using the subject line "Online backup tender bids".
Wednesday 12 May 2010
McAfee offers appalling service support
Those of you who read these blogs might consider me to be a serial whinger but in my own defence I have to say that these days if I have a raw deal from a large organisation such as McAfee then if I do not make my views known how will anthing change.
I have a client machine come in running Vista. It will not boot. I managed to get a start in safe mode and saw that McAfee was installed.
I called McAfee to ask if what I was seeing was related to their recent debacle with a bug in an upgrade. The person on Tech Support obviously was not listening or failed to understand what I was telling them. The person concerned kept on about McAfee not working but was told on several occasions that it was Windows that was not working. I was advised to uninstall and reinstall McAfee but when I asked how I could re-input the client details I had no assistance.
I was transferred to Customer services who simply got hung up on finding out my email. Despite being told that my email address would have no bearing on the case the operative insisted that that was the only way they could help me. In the end I got fed up and hung up the phone.
I then thought I would raise it as a complaint. I spoke to the switchboard in England and asked how I could make a complaint and got transferred to Customer Services in the States. Back on the merry-go-round again.
How can big organisations operate in this fashion?
How do they ever believe this is a service?
I am trying to support one of their customers so why don't they try to support me?
In the end I give up and say "I will put this blog on our website and hope that anyone reading it will take the hint and never buy another product from this unattractive corporation". Let's hope they have so many claims from this latest fiasco that they are not around for very much longer.
I have a client machine come in running Vista. It will not boot. I managed to get a start in safe mode and saw that McAfee was installed.
I called McAfee to ask if what I was seeing was related to their recent debacle with a bug in an upgrade. The person on Tech Support obviously was not listening or failed to understand what I was telling them. The person concerned kept on about McAfee not working but was told on several occasions that it was Windows that was not working. I was advised to uninstall and reinstall McAfee but when I asked how I could re-input the client details I had no assistance.
I was transferred to Customer services who simply got hung up on finding out my email. Despite being told that my email address would have no bearing on the case the operative insisted that that was the only way they could help me. In the end I got fed up and hung up the phone.
I then thought I would raise it as a complaint. I spoke to the switchboard in England and asked how I could make a complaint and got transferred to Customer Services in the States. Back on the merry-go-round again.
How can big organisations operate in this fashion?
How do they ever believe this is a service?
I am trying to support one of their customers so why don't they try to support me?
In the end I give up and say "I will put this blog on our website and hope that anyone reading it will take the hint and never buy another product from this unattractive corporation". Let's hope they have so many claims from this latest fiasco that they are not around for very much longer.
Tuesday 27 April 2010
McAfee bug problem April 2010
If you are running McAfee antivirus you may have a problem resulting from a bug in a recent update from McAfee which cripples your XP machine.
We noticed this in a machine that lost all network function, could not copy or paste and had other quirky behaviour.
After scanning it with several antivirus programs we found that the 'svchost' was being deleted. We were able to copy this file onto the relevant folder by putting the disk in another computer.
We could then open the system successfully in safe mode and remove the bad McAfee.
After that we installed a copy of Panda Antivirus which has proved successful for us.
You can find more information by clicking on these two links
http://www.longislandpress.com/2010/04/21/w32wecorl-a-wecorl-a-dcom-server-process-launcher-terminated-what-it-means/
http://vista.blorge.com/2010/04/26/mcafee-to-compensate-home-users-over-xp-update-bug/
If you are having problems with this issue we can help out.
We noticed this in a machine that lost all network function, could not copy or paste and had other quirky behaviour.
After scanning it with several antivirus programs we found that the 'svchost' was being deleted. We were able to copy this file onto the relevant folder by putting the disk in another computer.
We could then open the system successfully in safe mode and remove the bad McAfee.
After that we installed a copy of Panda Antivirus which has proved successful for us.
You can find more information by clicking on these two links
http://www.longislandpress.com/2010/04/21/w32wecorl-a-wecorl-a-dcom-server-process-launcher-terminated-what-it-means/
http://vista.blorge.com/2010/04/26/mcafee-to-compensate-home-users-over-xp-update-bug/
If you are having problems with this issue we can help out.
Tuesday 13 April 2010
Advice to those tempted to try Office 2010 beta - DON'T
As you would expect it is right that people like ourselves should keep up with what is new and up and coming.
We therefore felt that we should try out the Office 2010 beta products.
First if you are running a 64 bit machine and have 32 bit versions of Office installed you cannot install the Office 2010 64 bit version.
We installed the 32 bit product. We then tried to read out emails.
Our copy of Outlook 2003 would not run because of a corrupted file.
The beta version of Outlook 2010 initially would not allow us to read any of our existing emails.
Eventually we could read the existing emails but we could not send and receive mail - getting a message that this was not implemented.
We googled for this and found a lot in blogs discussing this problem dating back to November 2009 so why is it that Microsoft have not patched this and released it. One site did have a work round - install the beta, uninstall the beta, re-install the beta and then it might work.
Then it wanted something called Outlook Social Connector to enable interconnection between Hotmail, Facebook, Twitter and a whole host of products that I do not use nor want to use.
What I want is a good solid email client program that collects and send my email - I don't need all the rest, and if I ever do want a Facebook client I will find one.
At this point I informed Microsoft through their feedback mechanism exactly what I thought of this product and that it would be removed from my system.
I then ran a system restore to a point further back than the install. Luckily I have been able to get all my historic emails but all my contacts have been obliterated
So if you are thinking you should try the new Office 2010 beta product our advice is simple. DON'T.
I do not feel we can say it any better than that.
It is time for Microsoft to get back to providing good solid products not a load of fancy cradle to grave software that doesn't do what it is meant to do.
We therefore felt that we should try out the Office 2010 beta products.
First if you are running a 64 bit machine and have 32 bit versions of Office installed you cannot install the Office 2010 64 bit version.
We installed the 32 bit product. We then tried to read out emails.
Our copy of Outlook 2003 would not run because of a corrupted file.
The beta version of Outlook 2010 initially would not allow us to read any of our existing emails.
Eventually we could read the existing emails but we could not send and receive mail - getting a message that this was not implemented.
We googled for this and found a lot in blogs discussing this problem dating back to November 2009 so why is it that Microsoft have not patched this and released it. One site did have a work round - install the beta, uninstall the beta, re-install the beta and then it might work.
Then it wanted something called Outlook Social Connector to enable interconnection between Hotmail, Facebook, Twitter and a whole host of products that I do not use nor want to use.
What I want is a good solid email client program that collects and send my email - I don't need all the rest, and if I ever do want a Facebook client I will find one.
At this point I informed Microsoft through their feedback mechanism exactly what I thought of this product and that it would be removed from my system.
I then ran a system restore to a point further back than the install. Luckily I have been able to get all my historic emails but all my contacts have been obliterated
So if you are thinking you should try the new Office 2010 beta product our advice is simple. DON'T.
I do not feel we can say it any better than that.
It is time for Microsoft to get back to providing good solid products not a load of fancy cradle to grave software that doesn't do what it is meant to do.
Friday 2 April 2010
Creating reports based on user input criteria in OpenOffice BASE
I was searching the Open Office Community forum to solve a problem but did not find a direct answer. However I think I have worked out a method so I thought I would share it.
My development rig is using standard OO DB drivers. My production rig is using MySQL on our domain server to allow shared access.
I am using 3.1.0 on the development rig Windows 7 based. I am hoping my production rig will work from Windows and Linux platforms.
It is only a small database taking over from a spreadsheet which is getting too unwieldy to work.
I have 3 tables:-
Clients: clientno, name, contact, addr1, addr2, postcode
Record types: recordno, typename
Details: recordno, recordid, clientid, username, password, url, extra
Details.clientid = Clients.clientno
Details.recordid = Records types.recordno
I want to be able to generate a report which extracts from the DB all records pertaining to a particular client and allow the user to enter the client name after selecting the report to run. [Ideally I would like to do this selection from a form but I will live with what I have got at the moment]
I have in the past written db programs using basic ISAM files. I have recently been writing web apps using MySQL DBs so I had a good idea of how I wanted my solution to look. I just wasn't getting how to do it in OO and I have never found the patience to work through MS Access.
My solution.
I created a view with all the fields from the Detail record with links to the relevant tables elsewhere and saved this View as 'Details View'.
Next I went to queries and set up a new query. When I got to the Search Conditions I selected View.clientname in the fields box put in " :Enter_Client_Name " in the values box as suggested elsewhere in this forum but without the double quotes [and this point is important].
I then completed the query. When I ran it it gave me an empty list. I went back in to 'edit by SQL' and noted that the SQL had placed my :Enter_Client_Name in single quotes and thus it was not being found. I took off the single quotes [please note the input field turned green at this point]. Running this query allowed me to input the client name successfully.
Then I set up a report using this new query as the basis of the report. Running the report now allows the user to enter the name of a client on which they want to generate a report.
I am not going to say that I may not need refinements on this but I do believe that this gives other newcomers to OO DB a chance to make progress. Given a number of the posts on the forum I feel this is at the base of a lot of the queries.
The original post can be found on the OpenOffice.org Community Forum at this web address http://user.services.openoffice.org/en/forum/
Many thanks to all contributers to that forum.
My development rig is using standard OO DB drivers. My production rig is using MySQL on our domain server to allow shared access.
I am using 3.1.0 on the development rig Windows 7 based. I am hoping my production rig will work from Windows and Linux platforms.
It is only a small database taking over from a spreadsheet which is getting too unwieldy to work.
I have 3 tables:-
Clients: clientno, name, contact, addr1, addr2, postcode
Record types: recordno, typename
Details: recordno, recordid, clientid, username, password, url, extra
Details.clientid = Clients.clientno
Details.recordid = Records types.recordno
I want to be able to generate a report which extracts from the DB all records pertaining to a particular client and allow the user to enter the client name after selecting the report to run. [Ideally I would like to do this selection from a form but I will live with what I have got at the moment]
I have in the past written db programs using basic ISAM files. I have recently been writing web apps using MySQL DBs so I had a good idea of how I wanted my solution to look. I just wasn't getting how to do it in OO and I have never found the patience to work through MS Access.
My solution.
I created a view with all the fields from the Detail record with links to the relevant tables elsewhere and saved this View as 'Details View'.
Next I went to queries and set up a new query. When I got to the Search Conditions I selected View.clientname in the fields box put in " :Enter_Client_Name " in the values box as suggested elsewhere in this forum but without the double quotes [and this point is important].
I then completed the query. When I ran it it gave me an empty list. I went back in to 'edit by SQL' and noted that the SQL had placed my :Enter_Client_Name in single quotes and thus it was not being found. I took off the single quotes [please note the input field turned green at this point]. Running this query allowed me to input the client name successfully.
Then I set up a report using this new query as the basis of the report. Running the report now allows the user to enter the name of a client on which they want to generate a report.
I am not going to say that I may not need refinements on this but I do believe that this gives other newcomers to OO DB a chance to make progress. Given a number of the posts on the forum I feel this is at the base of a lot of the queries.
The original post can be found on the OpenOffice.org Community Forum at this web address http://user.services.openoffice.org/en/forum/
Many thanks to all contributers to that forum.
Wednesday 17 February 2010
Another NAS server installed with FreeNAS
Following an earlier blog on this subject we have just installed another FreeNAS based server. On this occasion it is not used for archiving but as a large repository in the office which allows remote users to upload file to the office.
The configuration was simple enough once we sorted out the disk mirror issues.
For office solutions where large amounts of data storage are required this is an effective way of providing storage without interfering with other workstations.
Our thanks to the boys at FreeNAS.
The configuration was simple enough once we sorted out the disk mirror issues.
For office solutions where large amounts of data storage are required this is an effective way of providing storage without interfering with other workstations.
Our thanks to the boys at FreeNAS.
Monday 11 January 2010
AN ATTEMPT TO RESOLVE THE DNS NAME OF A DC IN THE DOMAIN BEING JOINED HAS FAILED!
We had a problem connecting a newly installed Windows 7 system to a Windows 2008 SBS domain.
We got the message "AN ATTEMPT TO RESOLVE THE DNS NAME OF A DC IN THE DOMAIN BEING JOINED HAS FAILED! PLEASE VERIFY THIS CLIENT IS CONFIGURED TO REACH A DNS SERVER THAT CAN RESOLVE DNS NAMES IN THE TARGET DOMAIN."
We checked all the setting and everything was correct.
We checked through Google and we found a lot of posts relating to this problem but not many where the problem was resolved.
We looked on the Microsoft Technet with the same result.
We tried taking a newly installed Windows 7 machine and adding it to our own domain (Windows 2003) and there were no problems. This points to the server being the issue.
We referred to our copy of Stanek Administrator's guide and on Page 218 we found a command line utility called dnscmd.exe. We ran this utility and found that the DNS server was listening on IP address 192.168.0.2. The only local adaptor was on IP address 192.168.0.210 so this was a problem.
We fixed the DNS set up on the server. The following link will tell you how to restrict the DNS listening devices click here so please amend to your needs
Once we had done this the new computer joined the domain without problem
Further information contact us through our website.
We got the message "AN ATTEMPT TO RESOLVE THE DNS NAME OF A DC IN THE DOMAIN BEING JOINED HAS FAILED! PLEASE VERIFY THIS CLIENT IS CONFIGURED TO REACH A DNS SERVER THAT CAN RESOLVE DNS NAMES IN THE TARGET DOMAIN."
We checked all the setting and everything was correct.
We checked through Google and we found a lot of posts relating to this problem but not many where the problem was resolved.
We looked on the Microsoft Technet with the same result.
We tried taking a newly installed Windows 7 machine and adding it to our own domain (Windows 2003) and there were no problems. This points to the server being the issue.
We referred to our copy of Stanek Administrator's guide and on Page 218 we found a command line utility called dnscmd.exe. We ran this utility and found that the DNS server was listening on IP address 192.168.0.2. The only local adaptor was on IP address 192.168.0.210 so this was a problem.
We fixed the DNS set up on the server. The following link will tell you how to restrict the DNS listening devices click here so please amend to your needs
Once we had done this the new computer joined the domain without problem
Further information contact us through our website.
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