Our Governor has declared May 5th as state employee recognition day, and as a small token of appreciation, has granted those employees 'free' use of all the Michigan State Parks for the week of May 2-8.
At first blush, that's a pretty nice gesture...there are some really great State Parks in Michigan (2 within 5 miles of my home). On second glance, however, it's not that great of a deal, and is really pretty laughable.
- Consider that the average temperatures for May run between 39 and 67 degrees Farenheit...a bit chilly for most 'park' activities.
- The state parks don't even open until May 1st. Now that they're open, the first few weeks are spent cleaning up a winter's worth of yuck.
- The employee 'appreciation' doesn't waive camping or other fees...just the $6 admission to the park...where I guess you could swim in 38 degree water (or, to be fair, launch your boat and go fishing - or waterskiing :) )
- For the past two years, most state employees have been forced to give up 4 hours of pay for every 80 they work, to help cure the state's whopping debt. Can you feel the love?
OK, OK...I know it's not PC, but it's REALLY funny...
Try a search on Gizoogle.com
Just pay very close attention to the descriptions of the results...thanks to Chris Farrell for the link!
Hopefully, this will save someone else a little time...
While visiting the Windows Update web site with a Windows 98 Second Edition (SE) machine, the error “Software Update Incomplete” kept popping up. I followed the instructions in Microsoft's KB 39585, but that didn't help.
I finally found this article, which describes a similar problem with MSN Messenger..you have to re-register a set of DLL's to reset Windows Update's information:
“regsvr32 softpub.dll Wintrust.dll Initpki.dll Rsaenh.dll Mssip32.dll Cryptdlg.dll”
Here's the body text of an email I received today...it just struck me as hilarious...
Dear Sir/Madam,
we have logged your IP-address on more than 40 illegal Websites.
Important: Please answer our questions!
The list of questions are attached.
Yours faithfully,
M. John Stellford
++-++ Federal Bureau of Investigation -FBI-
++-++ 935 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, Room 2130 Washington, DC 20535
++-++ (202) 324-3000
A virus was attached, as you might expect.
On an ASP.NET page with a couple DropDownLists, this problem surfaced.
When the page is called, it tries (unsuccessfully) to select the appropriate item in the DropDown, based on data retrieved from the database. The reported error is “A dropdown list cannot have multiple items selected“, even though I'm only making one selection.
Most of the offerings I found on the Internet said that one or the other of these selection methods must be used. [YourDropDownName].Items.FindByValue([YourDataFromDataBase]).Selected = true;
ListItem objItem = [YourDropDownName].Items.FindByValue([YourDataFromDataBase]);
[YourDropDownName].SelectedIndex = [YourDropDownName].Items.IndexOf(objItem);
I think both of them are OK to use.
The solution is to call the ClearSelection() method of the DropDownlist immeidately before selecting the value for it. I found it here, at the very bottom of the post. I never had to do that before, but it works!
While working on a custom module for a Rainbow installation, I recently ran into a new kind of issue. I created an 'edit' page for my module, deriving it from the Rainbow.UI.AddEditItemPage class.
When viewed in the browser, this new page lacks all of the css properties...no colors or fonts to match the rest of the portal.
The solution, it turns out, is that the <head> tag on that page must be told to run at the server...i.e....
This: <head runat="server"></head>
Not This: <head></head>
This allows the CSS link to be injected when the page is called.
For the first time, today I noticed that Google's Gmail was unavailable for a large part of the day. I wonder if someone launched a DOS attack or something to knock the service offline...?
Be very careful about what you're clicking on when surfing the Internet. Take, for example, the following image:
At first glance, this looks deceptively like a real Windows 'Window', but it really is trying to get you to buy something, infect you with something, or at the very least, go to a site you really don't need to visit. Look carefully at the title bar (blue bar at the top of the window) and the status bar text (at the bottom of the window). If you try to click the 'Next' or 'Cancel' buttons, they've got you. Closing it with the red 'X' in the upper right corner is your best bet.
Through a short series of unfortunate events, my Sandisk Cruzer Mini 256MB USB flash drive recently went through an entire wash and dry cycle.
Surprisingly (or maybe not, for some readers), it still functions just fine, and didn't even lose any data during the ordeal. Maybe SanDisk could work that in to their marketing approach or something...
Given the popularity of my first post in this area, here is a second list of Windows processes that recently needed killing to bring a client's PC back to life...First, here's the obligatory disclaimer: Your results may vary...killing processes may screw up your system...you've been warned.
- CxtPls.exe – In a folder (C:\program files\CxtPls) along with CxtPls.dll and CxtPls.htm files. Also found CXTPLS.EXE-254B7FF2.pf. This one had an ‘Uninstall’ file that removed everything but the dll and another file called ProxyStub.dll
- Xdo26uwL.exe – found only XFO26UWL.EXE-2EBD47A6.pf in C:\windows\prefetch
- KagQn.exe -
- Sain.exe – located in C:\windows\system32 – likely a ‘Search Assistant’ from 180solutions. Related Links: here and here.
- TBPS.exe and TBPSSvc.exe – In the C:\Program Files\Toolbar folder…also found TBPS.EXE-2EE5A9EB.pf in C:\windows\prefetch. Related Link: here
- Support.exe - support.exe is a process which is registered as the W32.Akosw@mm virus. This virus comes with it's own SMTP engine which means it has the ability to send e-mails regardless of user interaction, and does so. It is a registered security risk and should be removed immediately
- PIB.exe - PIB.exe is an advertising program. This process monitors your browsing habits and distributes the data back to the author's servers for analysis. This also prompts advertising popups. This program is a registered security risk and should be removed immediately.
- dxmprxy.exe – located in C:\windows\system32
- fauutils.exe – located in C:\windows\system32
- EbatesMoeMoneyMaker1.exe
- dhbrwsr – located in C:\windows – probably adware - Related Links: here and here
Definitions for Support.exe and PIB.exe are taken directly from www.processlibrary.com, an excellent online (and free!) resource.
Many of the above processes couldn't be killed directly in Task Manager (because they'd pop right back as soon as I killed them). I use SysInternals Process Explorer to delete the entire process tree, and it worked great! Another warning, don't muck around with Process Explorer if you don't know what you're doing, bad things can happen.
If I have a Strongly Typed DataSet that Visual Studio 2003 created for me, I (think I) should be able to do the following:
Given a Strongly Typed DataSet created with a Table named 'Names', which has two columns named 'FirstName' and 'LastName'...
dsContacts ds = new dsContacts();
DataRow dr = ds.Names.NewRow();
dr.FirstName = “John”;
dr.LastName = “Bowen”;
The problem I'm seeing is that Intellisense doesn't make the columns' names (FirstName, LastName) available. In fact, I can't figure out ANY way to list columns for the DataRow dr.
According to the Microsoft examples listed here and here, this sure seems like it should work...?
Whenever I minimize my Visual Studio.Net 2003 window (the IDE window itself), I lose the ability to restore it...when I try, I get this view:
I can close it by hitting the close button in the control box (the red X). I can then re-open it immediately, and it will work fine until it gets minimized the next time.
I know there are at least two people that read this blog :)...have either of you seen this before?
[edit 2005 Jan 17]After installing a new monitor (at a much higher resolution), this problem has gone away. Maybe the resolution settings on my old monitor were messing up Windows' ability to repaint the VS window?[/edit]
We had a lot of fun getting it, but here's the final product:
In cleaning out clients' PC's, I frequently use the excellent list of known Windows processes located at ProcessLibrary.com. Tonight, though, I ran across a whole slew of processes that ProcessLibrary's search tool apparently hadn't been exposed to yet. I certainly don't have time to submit them all as possible 'new' processes, but hopefully someone will read this and gain confidence from the fact that I removed all of these (killed them, actually, with the 'End Process' button) without problems.
In no particular order, they are WebRebates1.exe, WebRebates0.exe, WinTaskAd.exe, paint.exe, uptime.exe, msie.exe, updatemgr.exe, McVSEscn.exe, svcshost.exe (NOT svchost! Leave svchost alone! I tried to warn you!), WinSched.exe, libsysmgr.exe (this one was BRUTAL...kept coming back after being killed...only a 'Safe Mode' reboot, manual deletion, and Hijack This! cleaning could get it), orro.exe, chkdsk.exe, and svphost.exe. Please note, these were running processes...found by pressing Ctrl-Alt-Del and selecting the processes tab. No guarantees expressed or implied...stopping processes can be a dangerous thing. Good Luck, Spyware hunters.
My poor old Cassiopeia E100 used to have software in it that made the 'desktop' a little better...specifically, the tasks displayed there turned into hyperlinks that you could tap to drill into a particular task.
When the batteries went completely dead a couple weeks ago, I lost that feature, and man do I miss it. I think it was from an update called (something like) Microsoft's Power Toys for Windows CE, but I can't seem to find the version I need out there. Anybody know where I can still get it?
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