Ultramon Alternative?

I’ve been on the look out for something to use for multiple monitor OTHER THAN Ultramon.  Whilst I like it, I kind of wanted to do something that wasn’t the de facto standard, and something that was preferably free.

After a bit of googling, I found :-

http://www.softsia.com/DynaDeskXP-download-npc5.htm
http://www.snapfiles.com/get/displayfusion.html
http://www.mediachance.com/free/multimon.htm

I tried Display Fusion, but it didn’t seem to do the multiple task bar thing (one on each monitor) .. that’s something that I really wanted.  I then tried, and I am currently using the product from MediaChance, called Oscar’s Multi-Monitor TaskBar.

It’s good .. so far.

BatteryBar

I came across a little utility that I eventually installed on my Windows 7 laptop last night.  It’s called BatteryBar, and it’s from this site.  I saw it described on lifehacker.  I didn’t think it would work properly on Windows 7 — but it does, it works well.  I think I’ll keep it installed, as the standard icon you get in the system tray just isn’t that accurate, and doesn’t tell you that much information.

Previously when this laptop was running Windows XP it had a Lenovo / IBM utility that ran in the task bar area that showed battery life, but, since the laptop went to Vista, and now to Windows 7 I’ve been missing that visual clue of battery life.

Check out the utility – you just might like it too.

Odd Windows 7 Issue

Today I thought it would be a good idea to install some more apps on my Windows 7 machine.  I had previously installed things like Office.  The difference today is that it was straight after production activation (well an hour or so afterwards).  I repeatedly got the same error :-

Error    22/01/2009 10:47:51    Application Error    1000    (100)

Faulting application name: msiexec.exe, version: 5.0.7000.0, time stamp: 0×49431c33
Faulting module name: ntdll.dll, version: 6.1.7000.0, time stamp: 0×49433e67
Exception code: 0xc0000005
Fault offset: 0×0007f6d6
Faulting process id: 0xdf4
Faulting application start time: 0×01c97c7ede31df1e
Faulting application path: C:\Windows\System32\msiexec.exe
Faulting module path: C:\Windows\SYSTEM32\ntdll.dll
Report Id: 1d4f5f49-e872-11dd-9d8d-001641a9741a

I thought it was because I was installing over the network, so I tried the files locally.  I tried other MSI’s, and had the same problem.  I hunted around a little bit, and Windows then helped me after I sent the error report … it said :-

function expand( obj ) { if( obj.nextSibling.style.display==’none’ ) { obj.nextSibling.style.display = ‘block’; obj.firstChild.firstChild.src= ‘http://wer.microsoft.com/Responses/include/images/down.gif’ } else { obj.nextSibling.style.display = ‘none’; obj.firstChild.firstChild.src= ‘http://wer.microsoft.com/Responses/include/images/right.gif’ } }

Solve a problem with Windows 7 beta An issue with the Customer Experience Improvement Program (CEIP) client in Windows 7 beta is causing Explorer and some MSI-based installers to stop working properly. To solve this problem, follow these steps: Click the Start button , click All Programs, and then click Accessories. Right-click Command Prompt, and then click Run as administrator. In the User Account Control window, verify that Program name is Windows Command Processor, and then click Yes. In the Administrator: Command Prompt window, type or paste the following text at the prompt:reg delete HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\SQMClient\Windows\DisabledSessions /va /f Press Enter to install the solution. If The operation completed successfully displays, close the Administrator: Command Prompt window to complete this procedure. If “ERROR: Access is denied” displays, repeat this procedure from the top, making sure you clicked Run as administrator in step two.

Low and behold … after that the installations are now working again !

Manuals

Lots of times I refer back to the EV manuals to see whether something that I “discover” is actually documented.  I have a copy locally on my machine in the office of many of the manuals, from many of the different versions.  I had often wondered about an externalised version of them, and whether they were easy to find.

With the power of Google, I found :

http://seer.support.veritas.com/docs/277782.htm

That goes back as far as V6, which is the beginning of time (almost) as far as I am concerned.

Windows 7

So like many people I grabbed a copy of the Windows 7 Beta, build 7000.  I must say I am very impressed.  I created a new partition on my home machine, and installed it… in the blink of an eye, if not faster!  It also runs very well on the machine (whereas Vista runs BADDDLY).
Well done I say!

Changing Screen Resolution Quickly in Ubuntu

Yesterday I plugged in an external monitor to my laptop when it was running Ubuntu 8.10.  It didn’t pick up the external monitor

I did some digging this morning, and it might not solve the problem, but it seems like a super-cool application anyway :

If you have an external monitor or projector you occasionally attach to a notebook computer, you might be used to switching resolutions on a regular basis. Unlike with Windows, this isn’t just a right-click procedure—you must navigate the System —> Preferences menu.

A good solution is to use Synaptic to search for and install resapplet. For some reason, although it’s officially a GNOME applet, resapplet doesn’t appear on the standard applet list. Instead, it must be configured to start at login. To do this, click System —> Preferences —> Sessions, ensure the Startup Programs tab is selected, and click the Add button. In the Name and Command fields of the dialog box that appears, type resapplet. Leave the Comment field blank. Then close the dialog box, and log out and back in again.

You -can- just press Alt-F2 and run the applet from there, and it does indeed sit next to the network activity icon in the system tray type area.

Unbright Idea – Upgrading from 8.04 to 8.10 Ubuntu

I decided to upgrade one of my older desktop machines from a perfectly nice, working 8.04 version of Ubuntu to 8.10.  The upgrade went quite slowly, downloading all the bits and bobs seemed to take an age, but the upgrade did eventually start to run.

I checked on the PC a while later, and it seemed to have gone to sleep, which i thought was odd, so I rebooted it.

After the grub menu, I got :

[1.204117] Kernel panic – not syncing: VFS: unable to mount root fs on unknown-block (0,0)

I thought I was going to be in for the “big reinstall”, and hoped that there wasn’t any data that I was going to lose.

I found a solution though !  I was able to boot into one of the older kernels, and ran the following :-

sudo dpkg –configure -a

That churned away for about 30 minutes, doing TONS of stuff, and finished.  A reboot later, and all was working well.

I sort of got the idea of what to do from this post (http://ubuntu-utah.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=961695)

VMWare Time Synch

Found this to be very useful if you want a permanently time travelled VM

time.synchronize.continue = “FALSE”
time.synchronize.restore = “FALSE”
time.synchronize.resume.disk = “FALSE”
time.synchronize.shrink = “FALSE”
tools.syncTime = “FALSE”

Set all those in the .vmx file, and you should be good to stay, in the past.

Checking the Reminders table in Outlook

Everyone must have run Outlook /CleanReminders at some point, but sometimes it is interesting to know why it might be necessary to do that.

Well the usual reason is that either reminders are coming up all over the place, or that reminders are not working at all.

Here is a nifty bit of code that will enumerate the reminders table in Outlook.  You can run it using either Outlook Spy via the Script option, or natively in Outlook 2003 (and Outlook 2007) by pressing Alt-F11, and then adding this code to the ThisOutlookSession area :

Sub test()

Dim olApp
Dim objRem
Dim objRems
Dim strTitle

Set olApp = Application
Set objRems = olApp.Reminders
strTitle = “Current Reminders:”
‘If there are reminders, display message
If olApp.Reminders.Count <> 0 Then
For Each objRem In objRems
‘If string is empty, create new string
If strReport = “” Then
strReport = objRem.NextReminderDate & “: ” & objRem.Caption & vbCrLf
Else
‘Add info to string
strReport = strReport & objRem.NextReminderDate & “: ” & objRem.Caption & vbCrLf
End If
Next
‘Display report in dialog
MsgBox strTitle & vbCr & vbCr & strReport
Else
MsgBox “There are no reminders in the collection.”
End If

End Sub

You can then juse run it, and you’ll get a message box with a list of the reminders.

Strange issue with Outlook Web Access 2007

I have a mixed Exchange 2007 and Exchange 2003 environment.  In the environment I have :-

* An Exchange 2003 mailbox server

* An Exchange 2003 front-end server

* An Exchange 2007 CAS

* An Exchange 2007 mailbox server

The 2007 CAS runs Exchange 2007 SP 1.  From a client machine accessing the Exchange 2007 mailboxes using Outlook Web Access access to public folders is working.  When I click on a Public Folder which is hosted on the Exchange 2003 world, then I get some text in the right hand page saying :-

Click here to open this folder with Microsoft Exchange 2003 Outlook Web Access

When I click that link I was getting a page saying : 501 & 505…

HTTP 501 Not Implemented/HTTP 505 Version Not Supported

Further if I go to https://cas/public, I actually get redirected to https://cas/owa.

The issue is “resolved” by updating the mailbox server to Exchange 2007 SP 1.