Original Post by Robert Hallock

Insert your Windows XP CD into your CD and assure that your CD-ROM drive is capable of booting the CD. Configuring your computer to boot from CD is outside of the scope of this document, but if you are having trouble, consult Google for assistance.

Once you have booted from CD, proceed until you see the following screen, at which point you will press the “R” key to enter the recovery console:

After you have selected the appropriate option from step two, you will be prompted to select a valid Windows installation (Typically number “1”). Select the installation number, (As mentioned, “1” in most cases), and hit enter. If there is an administrator password for the administrator account, enter it and hit enter. You will be greeted with this screen, which indicates a recovery console at the ready:

Bart PE is the best boot CD for windows to date. You can throw away the limited use WinPE system CD, which limit what you can do once booted.

Many of my friends understand the power and flexibility of using the Windows PE (Preboot Environment) for making a Windows LiveCD's, which allow you to have a CD that boots on most any PC system, and gets a running version of Windows XP going, allowing you to use diagnostic tools from that CD, on a Hard DIsk that is not locked by the Opertating system.

So for example, you could use the CD:

* To boot up and move files around, restore deleted files, or rename a file you just installed and put an older version back in its place. When all things goto hell and a handbasket, being able to access your computer is key.

Well another wave of good things from Trillian, after the silent release of a stable Jabber.DLL for Jabber communications (and the ability to login to Google Talk) I am now also happy to report that I'm able to login to our companies Microsoft Only Live Communications Server from Trillian.

Microsoft supports access to their network via TLS and SIP. So the SIP plugin for Trillian with a little coaxing was able to do the trick. I am able to see my buddy list and exchange messages with them. Nothing super fancy, but good for 99% of what I want to do at work. I know voice is up and coming but seriously until we all geek out and wear headphones, or get microphones that properly don't get feedback from my speakers that is a bit off... but I digress.

After playing with GroupCal a bit, I found that it became more of a problem with calendaring than it helped. It didn't help that since I use multiple computers if I accepted a meeting on one computer, the other computer still forced me to accept the meeting on my Macintosh. Yes, I use windows most of the time. So finally got it configured so it no longer polled my Exchange account for information, and deleted the 'work' calendar I created in iCal, but GroupCal kept running. There was no option to uninstall the Daemon. After a quick email to Snerdware I was able to get a reasonable fix. Do a find for all GroupCal files, and delete them, and reboot.

The following steps helped me fix my Outlook so I could create new meetings.

Called stating the following problems.

- Creating Activities causes the following error.

"The messaging interface has returned an unknown error. If the problem persists, restart Outlook."

- Selecting a time range in the calendar, typing in a activity title "Lunch with Nancy" then pressing causes this error.

"Could not save item."

- New meetings that I am invited to ARE put on the calendar in a tentative mode

- I am able to 'accept' new meetings

Found the following samples that help you create a web service in a .NET project that is Dynamic. I got tired of having to create versions of my project every time we changed the web service URL. Especially as we moved from Dev, Test, Prod. The binaries were getting confusing.

I've been pouring over ways to search AD for properties, and users. And had resulted into querying each tree looking for items. By moving to a model where you determine the GC, and query it. It searches in all trees in the forest.


DirectoryEntry entry = new DirectoryEntry("GC:");
IEnumerator ie = entry.Children.GetEnumerator();
ie.MoveNext();
entry = (DirectoryEntry)ie.Current;
searcher = new DirectorySearcher(entry);
searcher.Filter = " ((proxyAddresses=" + smtpProxy + "))";


With the value of smtpProxy being something like "smtp:username*" will return all objects in the forest that have email proxyAddresses that start with that username. Very usefull when trying to quickly determine if a user already is using an email alias before adding it (since AD will let you add duplicates of this property).

The following site explains how to you setup your CDMA based phone as a USB Modem to access the internet from your Laptop or Desktop from anywhere.

http://www.engadget.com/entry/1234000930027824/

Travel plans about to take you beyond the land of broadband? Venturing far afield from the great kingdom of WiFi? You may have been born with 802.11b in your mouth, but you’re going to want to get prepared for that next trip to the sticks. This How-To will show you how to get a decent Internet connection for no cost other than the phone minutes you use while connected. It should also come in handy for you folks not located on the left or right coasts, and for those of us non-urbanites when the coffee shops are closed (stay tuned next week for Phillip Torrone’s USB coffee maker How-To…). And remember, the Motel 6 does not offer WiFi. Get prepared, scout!

Microsoft offers free security program

CNN Article

Microsoft (r) Windows AntiSpyware (Beta)

Microsofts Spyware Site

Microsoft Anti-Spyware Software Info

I downloaded and installed the beta this morning, and it is interesting. I have attached a couple of screen shots. For those familiar with Ad-Aware and Spybot S&D there are a lot of similarities.