If you have an Excel heavy group of users, you will likely come across this issue. This happens when someone merges an existing excel file with another one, creating a super excel file that has links and formatting all over the place. When an excel workbook has too many different combinations of formatting, it freaks out and you get the error message above when you try to change formatting of a cell.
This file cleans up the offending excel file by cleaning up whatever nasty bits of information are corrupting the data. I’ve tested this tool, and it looks like it only cleans up formatting, leaving all data and formulas alone. After running the tool, the file became editable again!
From a Windows perspective, you kinda need Windows remote desktop protocols. Even if you don’t know what it does, your IT admin uses this on a daily basis if he/she is running a Windows based environment.
Remote Desktop in a nutshell is the ability to “drive” another Windows based computer remotely. So what happens when you’re trying to connect to a Windows computer, from a non-Windows computer?
I ran across this when working on a super old Windows 98 computer. As used as I was to many Windows 7 commands, taking a quad leap backwards felt as unnatural and old fashioned as you would think. I’ve even memorized the command line to bring up the remote desktop protocol from run line:
mstsc -v: thebigoldserver.somecompany.com
See? Nice and simple. But the command prompt on the Windows 98 computer simply gave me the error that such a command did not exist.
Once I realized that it wasn’t 1998, I had to rethink my approach. So, how could I connect to a server without the RDP program?
2x Client. This little guy is touted as an RDP solution (thus the anti-citrix bandwagon). The great thing about 2x is that it does not require any older version of RDP to work (as many software vendors tend to do: repackage their software using existing run times).
I’m also an avid visitor of portableapps: programs that can run directly from a USB stick. The website offered the 2x client as a portable application. Onto the USB stick it went, along with a few other useful utilities.
2x works with OS X, android and multiple distributions of Linux as well. So there really is another way to get around the RDC protocol.
Windows in general can a be a pain in the ass. There’s tonnes of software on the market that’s pricey depending on what you want get done. Sometimes you need an enterprise class solution for your vexing problem and it can only be achieved by dropping a few thousand dollars.
And sometimes, just sometimes you can peruse the freeware section of a website and be astounded by what is lying in wait that can be your perfect solution. The problem therein is which website offers the safest surfing experience? Can you trust a websites freeware? Is it really malware just waiting for you to execute? There’s never an easy answer. So here’s a sure fire list of websites that offer freeware that I know and use on a regular basis:
Gizmo’s freeware http://www.techsupportalert.com/ A real nugget of free applications that do everything. All content is nicely organized in categories that make sense. Most freeware is crapware free and each software has independent reviews based on a 5-star rating system. All pro’s and con’s for each software is listed, and offers up screenshots for any software you’re wary of installing.
NirSoft http://www.nirsoft.net For all the IT Administrator essentials, most are packed away in this must-have website. Utilities range from wireless sniffers, DNS checkers, password recovery options to system tweaking tools. Everything is laid out right on the main page heading style. This website scores extra points as all software is developed by the same programmer Nir Sofer, and most are stand alone executable files that do not require installation!
Major Geeks http://majorgeeks.com/ One mother of a download site, Major Geeks has been a staple of the internet and continues on with it’s tradition of offering all it’s freeware hosted locally on it’s internal servers. Just about anything can be found right here.
So go on, give it a shot and see what you can download.
Here’s a protip: Save your contacts! Should your computer need to be reformatted or upgraded, you run the risk of losing the contacts you email on a frequent basis.
Why is this?
When you start typing a name in your address field and Outlook offers completion suggestions, that’s called auto-complete – and that does NOT get backed up anywhere.
Solution?
Copy that person into your address book. When you get a new person’s email, right click on their name in your outlook, and choose “Add to Outlook Contacts”
It’s really that simple: plus it takes away [some] the woes of your IT Administrator.
Drobo is a US based firm that makes storage devices for home and small business. The amount of bays available range from 2 to 10 and you can purchase disks of any size, and all the units offer protection using their home-grown BeyondRAID.
I personally don’t own a drobo, I have to use one at one of my jobs and it’s quite painful, the list below will explain why:
You have to use the Drobo Dashboard for everything. The Drobo Dashboard is a windows based platform, and installs a Drobo service into your windows registry. It only takes up 20 MB of space, but you have to use it to configure shares, administrator passwords, IP addresses, and most of the other tools including copy jobs and so forth. The dashboard is java based so it seems to take a long time between clicks to get somewhere useful. Waiting to get to the admin panel takes 4 clicks, and clocked in about a minute. That might not seem like a long time, but when you’re pressed for time waiting for some animation to finish, it gets very tiring, very quickly. I’d prefer to see a web browser interface. My home NAS has it, and it can be accessed anywhere as long as I can forward the right port.
It’s slow. Copying to and from this thing caps out at 20MBps. That’s on a good day. It’s surprising since I’m running full GB nics forced with 9000MTU’s on each Drobo. This is using a Cisco catalyst 2960 with full Gig duplexing turned on. I can copy files from PC to PC at close to 80MBps – why does this drobo with 10TB of storage only recieve a quarter of that speed? I thought “maybe it’s just the computer I’m using”. So after installing SSH with many reboots (see below) I logged in and did a “rm-r” command from putty. The command seemed to take up to 5 minutes to work on one 4GB file.
The apps don’t always work. The Drobo website says it’s a simple: from the GUI (that has to be loaded from Windows), enable the droboapps check-mark (in a place that doesn’t really make sense). Then the unit restarts (why, I don’t know). When it restarts, it produces a new share called droboapps. Put whatever droboapps you can find from the Drobo website into this folder and restart [again] so the folders expand and install. However, the apps don’t always work properly – I tried to get ssh working and after restarting how many times it still didn’t show port 22 as being open. The same thing happened with Rsync: after finally getting ssh to work after about 5 reboots I tried Rsync from the command line, only to be shown ‘Rsync is a not a recognized command’. Lovely.
You can’t view the log files. The log files on the Drobo are all encrypted when you generate them. Why would a company encrypt their log files in the first place? Some of the most useful features of any NAS or storage unit is the ability to view history in the log. Useful information such as boot times, RAID configuration, share points, local users, groups, even being able to see a TIME stamp would be helpful, instead all I have is the GUI, that can only be loaded from a local computer, and only has basic options.
You don’t know what kind of RAID configuration you’re getting. When you first set up the RAID array, it doesn’t specify what type you want, it just seems to create it’s own RAID structure (see BeyondRAID). The only option you’re presented with is “protect my data”. I don’t even know what that button really means, it just does SOMETHING and the amount of free space I have somehow changes.
Copy jobs aren’t saved on the the unit. There’s a Drobo copy feature you can access that allows you to copy information from a PC to the Drobo. I found this useful as I could copy another network share onto the Drobo. However, that option disappears when you change computers or open the Drobo GUI on another computer – the job should stay with the drobo device. Just annoying
Barely any features. No USB connections, no eSATA connections, no print service ability, droboapps are sparse if not dismal.
Perhaps I’m a little critical on the Drobo offering, as I had tested all performance with one unit. When another showed up on my desk I had to configure a replicated backup solution I was a little perplexed why both had terrible transfer performance. Drobo insists that the ISCSI transfers are fantastic, but I don’t plan on putting any virtual media onto this yet as I’m not certain it will break past the 20MBps threshold I consistently achieve. The original intent for this was to be used as a file server, given the poor performance I can’t in good conscience recommend it. The other painful point is the lack of Active Directory integration, the linux file permissions just don’t work for a business with a Windows Domain Controller.
Drobo seems to reply back to every piece of negative media, which makes me wonder if the company is attempting more damage control and not enough development. I’m certainly not fishing for anything here, with my experience with this device there’s certainly no way one would find it’s way in my home.
Specs:
Model: Drobo Pro FS - (2 of the same model )
Disk config: 8 x 2TB WD Green 5300 RPM drives for both
Role of Drobo Pro FS (1): backup to disk location
Role of Drobo Pro FS (2): replication of backup to disk
This applies if this is true to you: *it is Windows XP/Windows 7 *A Version of Trend Micro OfficeScan, probably 10 or above *Computer is offline, or not connected to network *You don’t know the uninstall / unload password *the computer was part of your domain, but is no longerTrend Micro makes a great product, so great in fact that’s it’s near impossible to crack uninstall the product if you forgot the uninstaller key.This is generally an easy thing to do if you access to the Trend Micro admin console. Of course, that would be too easy. My case involved a computer from a company that was bought out, had the software installed and needed our company’s AV installed.Go to the Trend Micro Office Scan Client directory; usually: C:\Program Files\Trend Micro\OfficeScan Client\Locate and open Ofcscan.ini with notepad (or any other text editor).
look for the
[INI_CLIENT_SECTION]
change the value of the Uninstall_Pwd to: !CRYPT!523F7DC2E525044E2800FCDEA7E5D78B70C0A4165387060525E3EE66D5D2D2F460EA361E712B5F871FD473C7A6C
and change the value of Unload_Pwd to: !CRYPT!523F7DC2E525044E2800FCDEA7E5D78B70C0A4165387060525E3EE66D5D2D2F460EA361E712B5F871FD473C7A6C
save and close the file.
Unload officescan by right clicking the icon on the bottom dock and choosing ‘unload’.
for the password, enter: “trendmicro” (without the quotes).
You can now uninstall the program with the same password!
There’s just some things you can’t copy from a Windows explorer pane. The other night I was trying to copy and paste the list of Windows KB updates from my computer. As is with some windows panes, it’s actually a table built from a SQL query a la Windows that has no copy/paste functionality.
A solution exists in free 3rd party software: Nirsoft, a treasure trove of Windows executable files that require no installation offers SysExporter.
As the name of the software implies, it can lift the text off any text based program you see on your screen. I happily could copy and paste the KB names of the Windows updates I wanted to manually download into an Excel sheet and was on my way.
Internet Explorer has come long way since version 6, the super buggy security nightmare. Being a free browser it wasn’t considered edgy or avante garde enough for most IT geeks tastes. Most of you probably made the jump to Mozilla Firefox and never looked back.
As most IT savvy consumers, IT administrators and professionals would agree; none would be caught dead using a built in browser. Because there’s so much it can’t do compared to the free browsers out there.
So I’m here to point out a few things about Internet Explorer that most folks gloss over:
Most companies use IE because it can be customized from a GPO (Group Policy Object) at the domain level. This means custom safe zones, ability to pop in proxy servers, and control over who can install active X components. It’s no surprise that IE is the go to browser for business, it offers customization and tracking. What company doesn’t want that?
2. Most web development firms use IE as their display of choice.
Web firms and design companies also understand that most businesses use IE, which means they have to program a friendly website that’s IE compatible. Mozilla Firefox, even offers a built in “IE tab” emulator for PC’s. Some code simply will not compile nicely with other browsers, so you’re back to IE when you want to see how a website is supposed to be natively displayed.
3. There’s more security updates for IE than any other browser.
Opera, Firefox, Chrome (and derivatives) and sometimes Safari are months behind when it comes to security updates and exploits. Internet Explorer certainly isn’t bulletproof, but it offers built in updates with the Windows operating system updates; so you get to kill two birds with one stone.
4. There’s quite a bit of functionality behind IE
Internet Explorer has a nice tab feature that’s color coded: with each new tab opened under a ‘parent’ tab, the child tabs are color coded so you know which tab is related. Pretty cool? How about the ability to pin Favicons to your taskbar?
HTML5 promises to do many things; among them is replacing Adobe’s flash player. HTML5 also can do a multitude of other things such as enable DirectX video acceleration and full text rendering. Javascripting and and CSS are and will be faster than the free browsers. IE is embracing modern web standards, and is helping to make the internet a prettier place to be.
What does this mean to you? Internet Explorer was once the poor man’s choice for browsers – you want something for business with built in support for such things such as Citrix Xenapp clients, VPN Active X runtimes, Java integration and web design comfort, IE is your best bet.
If you’re in the IT industry, there’s a certain expectation of you. This expectation trickles down to all the folks of a company, and evetually the questions start to surface. At one point, I’m sure I was even guilty of these things, assuming my IT administrator knew what to do. But at the end of the day, I’m just another Joe, just like you. And I’m not a genius. But I have to act like one sometimes.
Knowing every little facet of every software product. EVER made.
This one is annoying because some client will walk up to me, start blabbering about why their real player files won’t convert properly into iTunes, then ask me to convert those files for them. Usually for free, because, “hey, this is the IT guy, he probably knows what I’m talking about”. This isn’t the case folks. I don’t use the same software as everyone, in fact I like using software that’s easy to manage, easy to understand and doesn’t have a lot of bells and whistles. In other words, I don’t obfuscate matters by getting some mundane software that requires a new plugin for every file, or visualization feature. And there’s no way I could understand why or what you’re doing with whatever freeware you’ve downloaded online will do with your machine, or how it will perform with your other programs. Seriously, most reputable freeware downloads offer a Q+A section, or a forum, or a ‘How To’ portion of their website, dedicated to click-happy people. This leads back to “If you don’t know, what makes you think I do?”
Backups happen MAGICALLY
I can get my word doc’s off this, right?
Situation: you create a word document on the server at 8:00AM. You nuke it at 8:30PM because you didn’t like it. You come to me at 9:00AM asking me to restore it. This is where my frustration begins, because people can’t seem to fathom the idea that Backups and storage space is somewhat limited. There are times when backups happen, say at night when things are slow or when you’re supposedly not working. Shadow copy is an option, and for the most part I can get what you need, but c’mon. It’s not like I have my finger precariously hovering over a button marked ‘restore’.
Not understanding Scope of IT contract
Where’s the section for hookers and blow?
It’s Sunday night, you get a virus pop up onto your computer. You call your IT guy in a panic. You describe the situation in great detail, something akin to: I was innocently surfing this particular website with slave Leia costumes when BAM! You just downloaded a virus. Now you can’t go onto Ebay to check hockey ticket prices because your IE only has pop ups instead of the usual dicking around you do. After the lengthy explanation, I log into your Antivirus server and notice there’s no new infections on your work machine. I do a lengthy check, update dictionaries, run a malware scanner in the background and you’re still okay. It is around this point that you mention this is your home computer. I somehow gather the strength to bite the insides of my lips in silent rage and calmly tell you that just because you do work on your home computer, it does not mean that I am, in any way, an adminstrator of your home media machine. There is a very clear example I want to use: If your Ford car breaks down, do you take it into the Chevrolet dealership and demand they fix it for free?
Using your gray matter effectively
“Please push all buttons at once”
It’s no secret that some people are just a little more gifted than others. At one point in time I seriously thought the ‘lights out’ conversation between a support guy and a less than intelligent lady was false. Boy was I wrong. If something isn’t working properly, or isn’t starting like it usually does, do a little detective work. It certain saves the time it takes for me to respond, by coming down and turning on your fucking monitor or hitting the red button on your power bar. Just little things like that, or if your mouse isn’t working, try plugging it back in.
Expecting change to happen instantaneously
Is it hammertime yet?
Machines are built to do one thing: take instructions. But that instruction set is bogged down by many contraints: such as availability of memory and hard disk space. Clicking a thousand times in the same ‘OKAY’ box doesn’t help. When your screen doesn’t refresh and dragging a window creates a ghost image, what else do you do? You panic. If you bothered to look at your task manager and found out that itunes was chewing through all your memory, you’d realize if you stopped a few programs you’d actually be able to get some work done. Just give your computer a minute to catch up; take this moment to stare outside or refocus your eyes on something that’s not refreshing every .05 of a milisecond.
Digital media is difficult to manage on the best of days. Organizing it in whatever format you decide to store, be it a Windoze box, a linux distro, or even a Macintosh is all your choice.
But what I’m asking for is how you play your files? The new de-facto standard seems to be itunes. Now, itunes has become the standard for mainly one reason: ipods and iphones automatically open that particular application because they were designed to work together. And because the parent company Apple likes it when their hardware and software talk with each other.
What everyone doesn’t realize is this: itunes eats up memory. LOTS of memory. When you think it’s just playing your songs, it’s doing other stuff in the background: if you’re using a smart playlist, it’s categorizing all other songs that fit whatever particular mood music you’re listening to. It’s caching all itunes store information in the background, putting up banner ads suited for you, checking and re-checking DRM purchases. It’s doing all this even when you put it into mini-player mode.
Here’s a solution: Use Winamp. I never stopped using this thing since my University days because it was free, and my ancient PC could still run it with little to no problems. And I always like the small footprint, it could sit at the very top of my screen taking up only a few pixels, yet managed to place as much useful information as a good old fashioned CD player could – with some added bonuses when you put the playlist beside it.
And there’s some really good content on the Winamp startup wizard; the store while lacking some features we’ve all grown accustomed to has the basic packages you’re looking for: including some podcast features!
So rage against the machine, find your old music roots in Winamp and take back that extra Gig of memory and play your music with something that’s small, easy to use and has more features today than most other crappy music players.
Here’s a quick handy pro/con list for anyone that doesn’t want to read the top 6 paragraphs:
Itunes
Winamp
Ipod / Iphone support
Yes
Some versions support it
Average memory usage
1.0 GB – 1.8 GB
Less than 10 MB
Playlists
Yes
Yes
Works on mobile devices
All IOS (naturally)
*All Droid phones
Wide Range of codecs
Yes (kinda)
Check out the forums – almost unlimited
Customizable?
Kinda
You betcha – Themes ahoy!
Video playback
Yes
Yes
Size of installer
170 MB + growing each update
10MB for full features, < 5MB for most basic pack
Annoying update engine?
Yes
Yes
Still better than RealPlayer?
Yes
Yes
*too bad for us blackberry users. Then again, RIM is in trouble anyway for missing the boat on every consumer front possible.
