Excel & File Permissions

Just a quick post about a very odd problem we had today...

If you need to be able to save a Microsoft Excel document which already exists (ie update a document) then you will need the Delete permission for the folder in which it resides.

There is a microsoft KB article relating to this here which only shows this problem as affecting Excel 97 & 95 but research online shows it also affects 2000 / XP & 2003.

Novell

If a Novell server abends / crashes and will not respond to any commands or open an emergency console you can hit left shift + right shift + alt + esc all at the same time.

This will bring up a prompt, type q then hit return.

This will get you back to a DOS window where the server can safely be power cycled.

Server 2003 RDP

If you ever RDP onto a 2003 server and are presented with a log on box that looks like:


This is caused by a problem with the Default User profile in the Registry.

You can log into the server normally, you just cannot see what is happening, and when you have logged in your normal profile will load and everything will be fine.

To fix the problem you need to import the following reg keys:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Control Panel\Colors]
"ActiveBorder"="212 208 200"
"ActiveTitle"="10 36 106"
"AppWorkSpace"="128 128 128"
"Background"="58 110 165"
"ButtonAlternateFace"="192 192 192"
"ButtonDkShadow"="64 64 64"
"ButtonFace"="212 208 200"
"ButtonHilight"="255 255 255"
"ButtonLight"="212 208 200"
"ButtonShadow"="128 128 128"
"ButtonText"="0 0 0"
"GradientActiveTitle"="166 202 240"
"GradientInactiveTitle"="192 192 192"
"GrayText"="128 128 128"
"Hilight"="10 36 106"
"HilightText"="255 255 255"
"HotTrackingColor"="0 0 128"
"InactiveBorder"="212 208 200"
"InactiveTitle"="128 128 128"
"InactiveTitleText"="212 208 200"
"InfoText"="0 0 0"
"InfoWindow"="255 255 225"
"Menu"="212 208 200"
"MenuText"="0 0 0"
"Scrollbar"="212 208 200"
"TitleText"="255 255 255"
"Window"="255 255 255"
"WindowFrame"="0 0 0"
"WindowText"="0 0 0"
"MenuHilight"="255 255 255"
"MenuBar"="212 208 200"

If your company uses alternate colours you can just go to HKEY_USERS\*USERNAME*\Control Panel\Colors (Replace *USERNAME* with any of the users on the server) and export all the keys, then edit the .reg file changing *USERNAME* to .DEFAULT - import this modified file and you will be back up and running again.

Simple Frings

Following on from my new phone last week I'd like to introduce you to Fring.

I've been mighty impressed with this little app which is available for free from http://m.fring.com on most handsets aside from Android which is a little disappointing. I'm sure it won't be long before Android support is available though.

So what is Fring? Frings a single portal for all IM and VOIP services available online. Firstly you can use it to update your facebook and twitter, keep an eye of your emails and text people via Skype. The interface has a nice touch which enables you to merge contacts on all the different services to show as just one.

Let's not forget this is free as long as you have a data inclusive package on your mobile. But the very best bit is the integration of VOIP into the handset, you can contact call other Fring users directly or call out to Skype/MSN messenger call all for free. If you compare this to the official Skype phone app that requires you to make a call out of you inclusive minutes its a real bonus.

Frings not perfect yet though. The options are hidden deep in the program which is a little confusing at first plus whenever it switches between wifi and 3g it makes the E71 vibrate for no good reason.

Over 3g there is a definate issue of lag on the calls but on a wifi connection thats really not a problem. I'd recommend you give it a go if you have even a couple of scummy student mates that make the most of skype.

How to make a USB flash drive bootable

When preparing a new XP build for my company I found that the easiest way to distribute it is through USB flash drives (our WAN is very slow!) The following steps show how to make a flash drive bootable. Please note than some older drives cannot be made bootable, and some PCs are a bit picky about which drives they will boot from.

I have had most success with a 16GB Sandisk Cruzer

Before you start you will need:

Windows Enabler - http://www.angelfire.com/falcon/speedload/Enabler.htm
HP USB Format Utility - http://h50178.www5.hp.com/local_drivers/17550/SP27608.exe

1. Make sure the flash drive you are going to make bootable is empty, or the contents is backed up as this will format it.

2. Extract “Windows Enabler” to a new directory and run Windows Enabler.exe

3. Check that it is set to “on” as shown in screen shot (turn on/off by left clicking icon in taskbar):



4. Install the HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool (SP27608.exe)

5. Run the above tool from the icon on desktop, it should automatically detect any USB flash drives connected to the system:



6. Check the correct device is selected in drop down box at the top, make sure the file system selected is FAT32.

7. Check the box labelled “Create a DOS startup disk”

8. Click on the currently greyed out “using internal MS-DOS system files” this will then become available, click again to select.

9. If required enter a Volume label.

10. Click start. The flash drive will now be formatted and the files necessary for booting into DOS created.

New handset - Nokia E71

After a couple of months of my Nokia 6500 slide crashing during calls and in general use I finally got around to picking up my new handset today.

I'd originally been looking at getting the new Samsung I7500 Android handset but its been delayed again and I couldn't put off my upgrade any longer.

Whenever I make a big purchase or commitment I really enjoy putting in the time to research what I want as it's part of the fun of spending money and getting excited. My housemate Tom has a G1 Android handset and has been very impressed but the unit as a whole was too big for me.

For a long time I was solely a Nokia man but the N series have put me off them somewhat as they are slow and try to do a little too much. After talking to some friends and colleagues everyone I knew with a Nokia E series was very impressed so I decided to go ahead and get an E71 after checking out some reviews and videos online.

Obviously I'm a little behind the times as the E72 is due out in the 3rd quarter of 2009 but I'm really impressed. The standard O/S is fast and has bags full of functionality built in. The qwerty keyboard is a good size and the default browsers pretty quick. I've already chucked a few additional apps on including Opera mini which seems to work ok.

One of my favourite add ons is the new Google latitude add on for Google maps. It allows you to share your GPS location with friends and vice versa where it suits you. Tom and I have been tracking each other over the weekend for kicks and its worked ok. Although Tom was apparently in the middle of the river Exe for some time on Saturday.

I'll put some more info up on the phone as I get to know it better,

soops

Mystery speed issues - Windows mobile

I've been to visit a an out of town client today. Typically my job doesn't include visiting clients or doing any kind of support but my manager asked me to come along and help troubleshoot an random network slow down issue that was affecting some of the clients big wigs.

So, the problem was reported as being "random slow downs on the top floor in the office." We'd already had some discussions and checked the patching, the users on the top floor were spread accross a variety of switches so it wasn't a bottleneck there.

I started off talking to the users about when they were experiencing the issues and how significant they were. Its often the case that the perception of a problem in the eyes of a user is very different to how a techy might see it. After talking the problems through and seeing one example we realised that not all the users on the top floor were having the same problems and the two users that were having problems all seemed to be provoked when trying to access the drive listings on the machine.

Over the years I've had to troubleshoot these sort of problems a few times and went through the usual troubleshooting steps:

• Check the network provider order (LAN at the top)
• Force NIC to run at 100MB full duplex and set switch to do the same
• Map network drived will full DNS path not netbios name
• Disable Windows Image Acquisition service.

Still no improvements after these steps, I was pretty confused. After a monster googling session and bouncing ideas between me and my boss the clue came when another user mentioned that he was experiencing slowness today but hadn't for the previous week... the only difference was that he'd had his Windows Mobile device plugged in today. Sure as a sure thing, unplugging the other two users Windows devices and the machines flew!!

So, why's this happening? I'm not 100% sure as we had to get back to the office and the Windows mobiles aren't supported by us but if someone else comes across this problem I hope this post might give them the head start they need. If you have any feedback do post it below.

In the grand scheme of things I think this highlights one of the issues with Microsoft being a bit too big. I'm a fan of MS in general as there products are generally robust and flexible. However, why they can't get there Windows dev team talking to there Windows mobile dev team is beyond me. I guess another couple of releases down the line they'll have decided on a standard and stuck to it. Until then though... just plug your Windows mobile in when you want to sync it or do it over the air.

soops