Posts

Posted on

2 Minute History Lesson: The UK

I’ve been to several different countries in my lifetime, and I’ve formed the opinion that the “average American” is about as smart as the “average Briton” or the “average German”. But one thing Americans as a whole seem to have great difficulty with is the difference between “England”, “Great Britain” and the “United Kingdom”. Americans tend to use these names interchangeably, and this is not correct. So take a couple of minutes to learn the difference:

There is a large island off the northern coast of France. This island – that is, the physical island itself – is known as Great Britain. Great Britain was traditionally divided into two separate countries: England and Scotland. However, Queen Elizabeth I died in 1603 and left no heir. This led to King James VI of Scotland – a descendant of Henry VII through his great-grandmother Margaret Tudor, Henry VIII’s eldest sister – being offered the English crown. James accepted, and became known as King James I in England.

It’s important to understand that although James was king of both countries, the two were still independent nations at the time. England and Scotland each had their own form of parliament, currency, customs procedures, army, navy, legal and educational systems… and all those other things that make one country different from another. King James himself would lead the first movement to unify England and Scotland; although he was unsuccessful, the idea persisted. In 1707, the Act of Union was passed by both the English and Scottish parliaments. With this act, both “England” and “Scotland” ceased to exist, and one nation called the United Kingdom of Great Britain was formed.

Continue reading “2 Minute History Lesson: The UK”

Posted on

Just for fun!

Happy Friday, everyone!

I don’t normally post downloadable music on this site, mainly ‘cos I don’t want the Music Police breaking my door down. But I will make an exception for this Duran Duran bootleg I picked up on the ‘Net the other day. It’s from an radio show called “The Source” (no, I hadn’t heard of it either). Apparently “The Source” was part of NBC Radio’s “Young Adult Network”, for what that’s worth.

Anyway, the show was recorded live on November 16, 1982 at Hammersmith Odeon in London. Here’s the track list:

01. Introduction
02. (Waiting for the) Nightboat
03. New Religion
04. Save a Prayer
05. Planet Earth
06. Friends of Mine
07. Careless Memories
08. Rio
09. Hungry Like the Wolf
10. Make Me Smile (Come Up and See Me)
11. Girls on Film
12. Outro

The music files are in MP3 format, 192kbps CBR. Also included are scans of the album’s “artwork” (it’s a generic NBC Radio sleeve with program notes on it) as well as the actual disc label. A 500×500 version of the disc label pic has been embedded into the ID3 tag… ‘cos that’s how I roll.

Click here to download the zip file
(97.7 MB)

Sorry folks! The file has been deleted.
Not by court order or anything – I just didn’t want it on the server any more.

Posted on

Tweaking SETUPP.INI

One problem that tech support guys face – especially third-party types who go to different homes or companies – is that of reinstalling Windows XP on computers with different types of licenses. Some people buy retail copies of Windows XP at Best Buy or Office Depot. Some people get Windows XP preloaded on a computer from Dell or HP. Still others have computers provided for them by their employer, and that employer uses a Volume Licensing copy of XP.

The problem with all these different versions is that the CD keys for each version don’t work with any other version. So a Windows XP retail CD won’t accept an OEM license key. Likewise, an OEM CD won’t accept volume license or retail keys. And a volume license CD won’t accept retail or OEM keys.

So – does this mean that us tech support folks have to buy multiple copies of Windows XP just to reinstall them on their client’s computers? Not at all! You can easily tweak the SETUPP.INI file found on the XP installation CD to do two things: change what type of installation media setup thinks you have, and change what type of key your media will accept.

Continue reading “Tweaking SETUPP.INI”

Posted on

Today’s News

It’s been a long, long time since I’ve… DONE THE NEWS! (/cue “The Daily Show” theme)

Popular music trading site OiNK was shut down by British authorities today; rather than feel sadness at the loss of the site, or fear that other sites might be next, I’m actually feeling a bit of schadenfreude about it, since I could never get an invite to the site… hehehehe!

Joey Bishop died last Thursday at 89.  He was the last of the original Rat Pack, and was my least favorite member. How could poor Joey compete with Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis, Jr. and Peter Lawford? Bishop will be missed – just like an “artist” in Providence, Rhode Island that built a secret apartment in an unused storage space at Providence Place Mall. He lived there off and on for four years before mall security finally noticed the apartment… which included “a sectional sofa and love seat, coffee and breakfast tables, chairs, lamps, rugs, paintings, a hutch filled with china, a waffle iron, TV and Sony Playstation 2”. Check out the artist’s website and wonder how lame mall security was to miss this for four years!

Boring old landline phones don’t get much love these days, so check this out: Priestman Goode has created an ultra-thin telephone which can be made out of made out of cardboard or plastic… and even mailed using a standard first-class stamp! At 4mm thick and around the size of an A5 envelope, the phone looks more like a greeting card than… well, a phone!

Speaking of neat stuff, some bright person got the idea of selling “rust stickers” that make your car or bike look like a rusted piece of junk, in hopes of deterring thieves. The stickers actually look pretty real (click the link for pics), and one satisfied user says that he’s used them on his “shiny new bike” for 13 days in London and it hasn’t been stolen yet!

Hey, speaking of thieves… check out this post at The Consumerist… Apparently one Best Buy store is charging $9.99 for an “open box” 3ft. component video cable. The only problem with that? The regular price is $7.99! I hate that store!

To finish out the “thieves” train of thought… Mona Shaw is an elderly, law-abiding American. But she got so angry with cable company Comcast that she went to her local office and started smashing a CSR’s computer with a hammer. Shaw was quoted as saying that “I scared the tar out of some people, at least…It had never occurred to me to take a hammer to a phone company before, but I was just so upset. . . . After I hit the keyboard, I turned to this blonde who had been there the previous Friday, the one who told me to wait for the manager, and I said, ‘ Now do I have your attention?”“. The incident received so much attention that Comcast issued a press release asking customers not to rebel against their evil authority. Of course, Comcast is the same company that’s blocking Bittorrent, Gnutella… even Lotus Notes! Jackasses! All I know is that I’m glad that Time Warner is my cable company… and that Mona Shaw is my new hero!

Some dudes are using pumpkins as beer kegs!

And lastly… (you didn’t think I’d NOT post this, did you?) the deputy mayor of New Delhi, India was killed last Saturday, in an attack blamed on… MONKEYS! It seems that poor Mr. Bajwa was reading the newspaper on the first floor terrace of his home when he was attacked by a band of wild monkeys. Whilst fighting them off, Bajwa slipped and fell off the terrace, which apparently broke his neck. Oh – and the local exterminators’ solution to the problem??? More monkeys! Yep, city officials have hired people using langurs to fight off macaques, which are the species of monkey that apparently terrorize New Delhi.

Posted on

Why “Mad Men” is GREAT!

As I mentioned in this post from a few days ago, Mad Men is an original series on American Movie Classics (AMC). It’s set in an advertising agency in New York in 1960. Unlike other shows which have a “goal” – like getting a brother out of prison or getting off a mysterious island – Mad Men isn’t “about” anything. It is, however, like taking a time machine back to 1960 and watching people live their lives. And it’s one of the best shows on TV right now. Watch the clip below and you’ll agree!

But first, some setup is needed. Don Draper (the one who does most of the talking in the clip) is an advertising executive and the show’s protagonist. But he is not what he seems. Born to a prostitute who died in childbirth, “Don” grew up with his father and step-mother. His father died when “Don” was ten, and his step-mother remarried an abusive jerk. Plus, they live in a really small town. So when the Korean War broke out, “Don” eagerly signed up for the Army. When he arrives in Korea, he’s paired with a lieutenant to build field hospitals (due to some Army screw-up, the rest of the soldiers in Don’s company were delayed, so it’s just “Don” and his commanding officer). But then a deadly accident happens, and “Don” sees a way out: just before passing out in pain, “Don” sees a way to start his life over again… by switching dog tags with his (obviously dead) lieutenant.

So most of Don’s life is a lie. Although he has a beautiful wife and children, he constantly lives with fear, uncertainty and guilt. And the guilt only gets worse when he starts having affairs. It all comes crashing down on Don during this clip, where he’s pitching an ad campaign for the new “wheel” feature of slide machines to some executives from Kodak:

Folks, if that’s not Emmy worthy acting, I just don’t know what is! You should really, really, really watch the show… I’m serious… it’s beyond excellent!

Posted on

Remote Desktop Shortcut Revisited

In this post, I showed you how to create a shortcut that will allow you to log out of a Remote Desktop session and send the remote computer back to the desktop (XP’s normal behavior is to log you off, then leave the remote computer “locked”). Sadly, while this trick works with Server 2003 and XP, it doesn’t work with Windows Vista. Happily, I’ve just found out how to make it work with Vista… just right-click on the desktop and select New > Shortcut and type the following into the shortcut box:

tscon.exe RDP-Tcp#0 /dest:console

You then give the shortcut a name. From this point on, you can disconnect an RDP session by clicking on this shortcut, and the remote computer will exit RDP and return the remote machine to the console desktop. You must have admin rights on the Vista machine for this to work. And just for the sake of completeness, here’s the original command that’s compatible with XP/2003:

%windir%\System32\tscon.exe 0 /dest:console

Follow the same New > Shortcut procedure as above, and you can disconnect from an RDP session in XP/2003 and return the remote machine directly to the desktop.

Posted on

Jones Soda Gets Disgusting

From the “Better Late Than Never” Department:

Jones Soda – the Seattle-based company that offers an infamous “holiday pack” of sodas every year with flavors like “Turkey and Gravy” and “Brussels Sprouts” – entered into an agreement this year with the Seattle Seahawks to sell Jones Soda at Qwest Field. To celebrate their success, Jones is offering a “limited edition Seahawks Collector Pack” with the following five delicious flavors: “Natural Field Turf”, “Sports Cream”, “Perspiration”, “Dirt”, and “Sweet Victory”.

Most of the flavors apparently taste as vile as you would imagine, although the “Sweet Victory” flavor apparently “isn’t that bad”. If you have the stones to want to drink a Ben-Gay flavored soda, you can order the set here. If you’d just like to read more about it (to make sure that I’m not making this up), read more about it here.

Posted on

When Outlook’s RSS Reader Dies…

I use Outlook 2007 at home. It has a lot of nifty features, but the new feature that I use most often is its built-in support for RSS feeds. I subscribe to a couple dozen RSS feeds, and I really like having the feeds delivered to my Exchange mailbox (which means that I can access them from anywhere using OWA).

However, on Wednesday I noticed that one of the feeds wasn’t being updated. I just shrugged it off, thinking the site might be having problems. But then other feeds stopped updating. I didn’t really notice this until today because when you subscribe to a couple dozen feeds, and when most of those feeds have 100 (or more) posts in a single day, it’s easy to lose track of which feed isn’t working.

I tried several simple fixes but none of them worked. So then I tried searching the Microsoft newsgroups and several other online sources. And while I could find several people having the same issue, none of the fixes they offered seemed to fix the problem. At this time, there doesn’t appear to be any “quick fix” for this issue. I did find a solution for the problem, but you’re not gonna like it:

1) Open Outlook and go to File > Import and Export > Export RSS Feeds to an OPML file. Choose a destination for the OPML file (I suggest saving it to your desktop), then save the file.

2) Click on Tools > Account Settings > RSS Feeds and highlight all your RSS feeds and press the DELETE key (or click the “Remove” button in the toolbar).

IMPORTANT NOTE: If you have any feeds that are downloaded to a non-default location, you will need to manually copy the non-standard feed’s URL to a Notepad window BEFORE you delete the feed. Let’s say you have all your podcast RSS feeds delivered to a PST file, but the rest of your feeds are delivered to your Exchange mailbox. So BEFORE deleting the non-standard location feed(s), go to the properties of each one and manually copy the URL to a Notepad window.

3) Close Outlook.

4) Re-open Outlook and click File > Import and Export > Import RSS Feeds from an OPML file. Click the “Browse” button and select the OPML file you created in step 1, then finish the wizard.

5) Outlook will download any available feeds from your OPML list. Sadly, it will also create duplicate folders for your RSS feeds, like the “Feedname (1)” folders in the picture below:

Outlook 2007 RSS

6) Move the feeds in your “original” feed folders into the new “(1)” folders. Delete the empty folder from your old feed. Also, right-click the new “(1)” folder and rename it to the original name (if you’d like).

7) For any feeds that normally include attachments (like podcast feeds), you will have to manually add click the “Download attachments for this feed” in the settings for that feed under Tools > Account Settings > RSS Feeds.

8) If you have any feeds that were delivered to a non-default location (see the note in step 2), you will have to add these feeds back manually.

That doesn’t seem like a lot of work, but I can promise you that it is. It took well over an hour to get everything back the way I like it. I’ll see if I can report the “bug” to Microsoft on Monday. Given how many people this seems to be happening to, they’re probably aware of it and are (hopefully) working on a fix for it.