Windows Vista Sidebar Gadgets are Pretty Pointless

…and yet I wrote one anyway, just to try it out: App Killer

Stopping VirusRemover2008

Once again some major fool has created more work for me…this time, a client intemperately clicking a link in Huffingtonpost.com’s comment section has installed an app called ViruRemover2008, supposedly an antiviral program, but in reality an annoying piece of malware.  Pop-ups continually distract you indicating that there are viruses on your computer.  To ‘fix’ this problem, you are advised to purchase the full version of VirusRemover2008.  VR2008 will never stop asking you, and will not allow itself to be uninstalled.  This is a business model?

So I spent some time trying to remove the program fragments in the manner suggested at Symantec.com, but I never did find them.  SAV might have found and deleted them by the time I arrived on the scene, or the VR2008 author may have read the same page and changed his code.  The virus was only active in a single user’s profile, so the actual fix was:

• let Symantec AV do its thing
• copy the user’s profile
• delete the user’s profile
• after making sure the problem is gone, restore the user’s desktop items and internet favorites.

So far, that has worked.  Try not to get too angry.

Another Day, Another Outlook 2007 Crash

Here’s the symptom (Windows Vista, Outlook 2007):

Corrupt Outlook.ost file error message

The Solution: Delete file c:\users\USERNAME\appdata\local\microsoft\outlook\outlook.ost.

When you restart Outlook, it will act as though you are opening the app for the first time.  You won’t lose any of your settings. I take that back – I lost the ‘auto-complete’ list for previously used addresses.

Installing Infotrieve Ariel under Windows Vista

I wrote a little instruction set for this task, since it was a bit of a pain.  You can download the MS Word Doc from the URL:

http://www.indiana.edu/~libcasd/ariel-vista.doc.

/updated 7/24/2008

Copying a MS SQL server database – w/o BS

Sheesh, all I wanted to do was copy a SQL database from one MS Windows machine to another (we are migrating our Infotrieve Ariel servers to new workstations).  Searching the web for a solution to this simple task was like asking someone how to plug in a lamp and getting the entire history of physics first.

Here’s how we do it, copying from an MSDE 2000 server to MS SQL 2005 Server Express:

1. On the machine with the database, stop the SQL server
2. find the database files (suffixes are mdf and ldf) and copy them to your new workstation
3. Run Application SQL Server Management Studio Express (free download) on your new workstation
4. Connect to your SQL server using the aforementioned Server studio
5. in the Object Explorer, right-click the Databases object and choose Attach
6. Use the Attach Databases dialog window to locate your database files and attach them.

That’s all.  Now, see how simple that was?

Windows Vista – A Review Roundup

I get Windows Vista free as a result of my being a slave to the system(s); should I or shouldn’t I upgrade from XP SP2? I searched out a list of reviews that consider to be from (relatively) reputable sources:

• PC Magazine
  
• Software Review Blog
• CNET Asia-Vista Home version
• CNET Asi-Vista Home Premium version

So far, may answer:  No, XP seems to work just fine, thanks.

Another Vista review

…at PC Magazine

Launchy streamlines programs

I usually don’t bother with ‘productivity applications’ because I think they’re just another way to waste time playing with freeware.  But Launchy has proved itself to me as a way to skip the annoying hunt for shortcuts and Start menu items.  Launchy provides a quick way to start applications by typing instead of mouse-clicking.  It’s free, so try it out.  For Windows only.

Joining PDF Files in Adobe Acrobat Professional

Reproduced from a continuing series of short ‘how-to’ articles I write for my colleagues.

Hi Gang! Today’s literary masterpiece concerns the manipulation of PDF files, which are becoming more and more prevalent in this era of the electronic liberry library.

How to join PDF files

This also will cover inserting pages into pdf files. There are several programs that will do this, but since we all have Adobe Acrobat Professional:

1. Start Adobe Acrobat Professional.

2. Open the document to which you wish to add pages. To reach the Open dialog, either use the File…Open menu option, or type ctrl-o.

3. When you have your ‘base document’ open (the document to which you will be adding pages), use the Document…Insert Pages… menu option to display the Select File To Insert dialog box. Use that dialog, which is just like the Open command to find the PDF file you want to add to the current open document. Select that file and press the Select button.

4. Now, you will see the Insert Pages dialog box (See fig. 1). It only has 2 options:

a. Location: This means, where do you want this page to appear in the combined document. Your choices are After and Before. After and before what? Move on to b.

b. Page: You have 3 options. Choose button First to add the new page(s) before or after the first page in the base document. Choose Last to add the new page(s) before or after the last page in the base document. Finally, using the Page radio button, you can specify the page number before or after where you want the new page(s) to be added. The before or after part, of course, you chose in step a.

5. Click the OK button. Be sure to save the new document under a new name using the File…Save As… menu option. Otherwise, by using the save command, you will over-write the original base document.

That’s all there is. Notice if you want to add a single page into the middle of a document, you would use the Page text box to enter the page number. Note: The page number is not the page number of the actual page, but the number of the page from the first page of the document. At the bottom of each page, Adobe Acrobat Professional helpfully tells you the total number of pages, and the number of the current page, of the current document.

figure 1. The Insert Pages dialog.

Cranky early morning opinion on Microsoft Office 2007

Slow, over-featured, non-intuitive, massively modified because of product developers constantly whining that management is ’stifling their creativity’ until management gives in and lets them rearrange everything.