Year: 2010

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REVIEW: “A Death in Belmont”

Writer Sebastian Junger – author of such popular books as Fire and The Perfect Storm – grew up in the suburban Boston town of Belmont, Massachusetts. From an early age, Junger knew that a woman was murdered in a house not too far from his own, but his parents always glossed over the details when he was a boy, and Junger eventually forgot all about it.

That is, until one day, years later, when he came back to his parent’s house for a visit. He was going through a box of family memorabilia and came across this picture:

de_salvo

The photograph shows a one year-old Junger sitting on his mother’s lap in the family’s living room. Behind his mother, Ellen, is an elderly handyman named Floyd Wiggins. Standing next to Wiggins, and directly behind the Jungers, is a man named Albert DeSalvo, although you probably know him better as the Boston Strangler.

Continue reading “REVIEW: “A Death in Belmont””

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Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-07-04

  • @markmaser And maybe it's because #Symantec and #McAfee products suck? in reply to markmaser #
  • Ah… nice to see that iTunes can crash Outlook 2010 as well as it crashed Outlook 2007. Well done, Steve Jobs! #
  • is at the Knights game… Nice night for baseball! #
  • Thanks to Marcia and Allen for the "suite" tickets last night! 🙂 #
  • Why, oh WHY, must I reboot after updating Adobe Reader? #
  • "Naomi Campbell subpoenaed in war crimes case" What the hell?? #
  • Of course I dozed off after dinner… I ate FOUR ITALIAN BEEF SANDWICHES! #
  • is being driven to the brink of madness by what should be a simple web browser request! #
  • is at Friday Night Live in B-town! #
  • Happy Birthday, America! Enjoy your civil rights and liberties… what's left of them! #

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Monday’s Random Stuff Post

– BP just can’t catch a break, can they? The oil giant was recently forced to recall sets of face paint from its stations in the UK after four boys became sick after wearing it. The paint, sold for England’s trip to the World Cup, seems to be as nauseating as the English team itself.

– Speaking of the Brits, NHS hospitals in Wales are banning sugar in tea machines because “sweetened tea and coffee offer no nutritional benefit and can have a detrimental effect on dental hygiene”. So next time you find yourself in a waiting room in a Welsh hospital, be sure to bring your own sugar if you think you might get tea out of a machine.

– The kids from Georgia Tech are at it again. This time they’ve invented a robot that can swim through sand like a lizard. It’s thought that the “lizard bot” could be used in disaster situations to locate survivors or hazards (leaking gas pipes, etc.).

– Like logic puzzles? Like drinking? Read this short piece and have a laugh.

– In 1871, a Norwegian seal hunter found a small hut on an island called Novaya Zemlya in the Arctic Ocean. Inside, he found “clothing, cooking pots, a tool chest, a clock, a flute, a cooking tripod, and several pictures”. The amazing thing? The hut was built by Willem Barentsz, an explorer who passed through the area in 1597 whilst looking for a northern route to China. Even more amazing? Later investigation found some candles in the hut that still worked, despite being trapped in the Arctic tundra for almost 280 years!

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WinXP: Deleting Cached Credentials

I came across an interesting problem the other day. A client had a user who was out of the office. The site administrator changed the user’s AD password, but the user was still logged in to her desktop computer under her old credentials.

The next day, the administrator went to the user’s computer to check an email, and she received the expected “invalid credentials” error message. Following the onscreen instructions, she locked the computer and unlocked it using the new password. This “worked”, in the sense that the password was accepted by Windows XP. But she was prompted for a password when opening Outlook and got a “access denied” error message when accessing network shares.

She called me, and I advised her to log off and log back on the computer. When this didn’t help, I had her reboot the computer. When this didn’t work, I accessed the computer remotely and tried logging in as that user.

I logged in using the new password, which Windows XP happily accepted. However, the login script hung on an “invalid password” error and I too got “access denied” messages when accessing network shares. But what was strange is that the login script accepted the username and new password when entered manually.

I figured something must have been screwed up with the user’s cached credentials, so I clicked Start > Run and typed the following:

rundll32.exe keymgr.dll, KRShowKeyMgr

This opened a window with the user’s cached credentials. I could have clicked “Remove”, but instead I clicked on “Properties” for the domain credentials and put the new password in.

And everything started working again.

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Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-06-27

  • "Then we'll be dead, yet still alive… like Leonard Cohen!" #
  • "Beep beep beep… oh no heavy, the coins keep coming out. Beep beep beep… even the telephone hates me. Beep beep beep… I wish there wer #
  • "This calls for a very special blend of psychology and extreme violence…" #
  • "That's a really negative way to kill yourself you know. Like, I've tried that hundreds of times… there's no way you can hammer in
    the las #
  • "There will be no chaise lounge where you're going, my friend!" #
  • "Voice of youth?! They're still wearing flared trousers!" #
  • Free La Roux download! Use code F21LAROUX4 when prompted. No sign-up required! http://tinyurl.com/3a5jxkr #
  • I am the only person who is SICK AND TIRED of that STUPID African chant in the WC coverage? #
  • Congrats to UGA grad John Isner for winning the longest match in Grand Slam history. Your university still sucks, though. #
  • Yaaaa! My new passport's here! I can flee the country now! #
  • Dear #ups delivering a much-needed computer part at 18:38 isn't really an option. Thanks! #
  • "This World Cup is like World War II. The French surrender early, the Italians are useless, the Americans arrive late and the English are le #
  • I love Outlook 2010 so much I wanna take it behind the middle school and get it pregnant! #
  • And now back your your regular sports… #
  • Finally saw "Avatar". It's a beautiful movie, but so childish and simplistic that I actually ended up pulling for the humans. #
  • IRONY ALERT: Tony Blair's smoking ban kills pub where Tony Blair's political career started: http://tinyurl.com/2b89z6m #

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Phil? Is that you?

Originally posted by Scott on Facebook via Craigslist:

Devil worshippers wanted for evil black metal band (Bessemer City)

Looking to form totally blasphemous and evil black metal band to sing the praises of the dark lord. Must have evil image and equipment. Guitar must be black. How in the hell are you going to be all evil and worship the devil with a yellow guitar?

Must be able to practice on weekends at my house….that’s when my mama goes out of town to see her boyfriend in Gastonia. We can be all evil and drink beer and smoke while she is gone but just don’t track mud into the den or use her bathroom or I might get grounded.

Serious inquiries only. Hail Satan!!!

Phil’s gotta be behind this! I mean… Bessemer City? Evil metal bands? Tracking mud in the house? Doesn’t it sound like a prank ad Phil might write?

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WTH MSFT?

I downloaded the Windows Live Essentials beta the other day, because I wanted to take a look at the Windows Live Photo Gallery software, which is, by all accounts, a great piece of software.

Like a lot of installers, the Windows Live Essentials software wants you to shut down other programs whilst it installs. Unlike other software, however, the list of “open programs” that the installer wanted to shut down was pretty ridiculous:

msft_wtf_web
(click to enlarge)

Man, I get that this is beta software and everything… but shutting down the DHCP client and Print Spooler? The Workstation service? Really?