Last night my GoogleTV keyboard for my Logitech Revue decided it wanted to blast my volume after I tried turning it up.  It basically acted like the button was stuck.  After fighting with it, I was able to get it to stop only to have it turn the volume completely down.  A third try and I managed to get it to perma-mute.  Then I noticed that even with the keyboard off, the indicator lights on my TV and the Revue were flashing like I was actually pressing the button.  So I turned off the TV and the Revue light stayed on, which helped me narrow it down to the box causing the issue.  A small bit of thinking came up with a really easy solution: disconnect the keyboard as a paired device, reboot the Revue and reconnect it.  BAM!  No more evil volume buttons.

Keyboard Shortcuts… You know those things that geeks rattle off, but you can’t remember it so you never use them? Do yourself a huge favor and remember at least one of them. Read full story »

Here’s another dandy from the Adobe crew. So far I’ve tested this with Acrobat 9 & X and Outlook 2007 & 2010. Acrobat has a plugin for Outlook that will convert a message to PDF and even gather the attachments and attach them to the PDF document. It’s actually a pretty nifty and handy utility. However, I’ve run into a problem with JPEG / JPG attachments. It doesn’t occur 100% of the time, but quite often it will fail to attach the JPEG’s.

I have discovered a work-around for the problem: just drag/save the message to your desktop and perform the conversion from there. It will only fail if the message is inside of Outlook. Read full story »

Windows 7 Service Pack 1… You would think that after all these years, Microsoft could make some of this upgrade business flawless.  As I’ve found out with perusing the web… numerous users saw this error:

Installation was not successful

A system error prevented the service pack from installing.  Please download and run the “Check for System Update Readiness” tool  http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=122602

If the “Check for System Update Readiness” tool doesn’t fix the problem, visit the Microsoft website for more information.

That above message was not only horribly cryptic, but so was every last ounce of help from Microsoft and other websites.  The typical solution was always format and reinstall or do an in place upgrade of Windows 7.

Da Da Da Dah!  I now have a working solution!

Checking the logs, I was finding the exact same problems with the Service Store as everyone else, Package_For_KB976933<insert_other_jumbo_here>.  So since Windows was obviously choking on the same packages over and over, I simply just replaced them from a known working Windows 7 PC.  NOTE:  This worked for me on 3 machines so far, but I can’t guarantee anything… As always, you’re on your own!

• Copy all the files that start with Package_For_KB976933 from a Windows 7 PC (preferably one that has SP1 installed already, because then you know that one worked).
• On the broken PC, run this command from an elevated command prompt to give yourself rights to the original files and to rename them to .OLD.
  

  for /f %a IN (‘dir /b C:\Windows\Servicing\Packages\Package_For_KB976933*’) DO takeown /f C:\Windows\Servicing\Packages\%a & cacls C:\Windows\Servicing\Packages\%a /e /g administrators:f & ren C:\Windows\Servicing\Packages\%a %a.OLD

• Now paste the copied files (you may need to give yourself rights to the Packages folder for this) and re-run the “Check for System Update Readiness” and finally run the SP1 Installer.

Hope this helps someone else!

Don’t you love how features that are configured previously and worked fine auto-magically disappear???  Thanks for the great email notification system webhost *grrrrr*.

After a lot of GoogleLinksButNoAnswers, I decided to dig a bit further and solved an unusual problem.

Windows Vista and 7 introduced a wonderful tool for capturing screenshots called the Snipping Tool. Today I had a user that when they launched their Snipping Tool, the menu loaded, but the transparent overlay would disappear immediately and I couldn’t capture anything.

After a quick reboot, I logged in as myself because the user stepped away and my Snipping Tool worked without a problem. So I had them log back in and popped open regedit to take a gander at the HKEY_CURRENT_USER for him. Sure enough, I found a key called:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\TabletPC\Snipping Tool
I hit export on that key for a backup, deleted it entirely, launched the Snipping Tool and VIOLA! Problem solved.

This was for a Windows 7 Professional PC… if you find it works elsewhere, please drop me a line!

I have always hated Facebook with a passion… they rank right up there with Adobe, Oracle and Apple in my books (at least MySpace fell off the map enough that I no longer care about them).  Now with Google+ in the ring, I finally have a social networking account.  At first play, although still fresh and needing more, Google+ is absolutely awesome.  Picture Facebook with actual privacy and better control features, rip out the pedophiles and you now have Google+.

I highly suggest checking it out and if you need an invite, just leave a comment (no need to include your email address, I’ll send it to the registered account).

iOS + iPod + iPad + iPhone + iCarly + iGeneration = iBullshit!

Apple is notorious for triggering responses from sheep and this is the one that is absolutely unforgivable. Apparently this little letter i is capable of drawing the eyes of idiots to attention and says “Look at me, I’m hip and trendy!” I could probably whiz in a jar and sell my iPee for $40 to any one of the fools taken under by this [lack of] sensation.

It’s not catchy, hip or trendy… it is simply a ploy to help you empty your wallets on their iCrap. The only word starting with i that pertains to this is iDiotic.

Lookout is an application for mobile security. A common misconception is people think Android, iOS and other mobile platforms don’t require malware protection or security on the Interwebs. Most commonly this misconception is due to the lack of attacks directly at these platforms.
Read full story »

Another lovely Adobe Flash error during install… to save yourself a headache, if you see an Error 2753, just follow these steps (Note: As always, be careful in the registry and I’m not responsible!):

1. Regedit
2. Expand HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Installer\Products
3. Search for Adobe Flash
4. Delete the entire key (it will be a random GUID).