Author: Bill

RE: Stolen Laptop = No Liability. Just saw, via Bruce…

Just saw, via Bruce Schneier’s great security blog, a very interesting case discussing the Gramm-Leach-Bliley obligations of a financial institution to provide security regarding customer financial information. If you don’t know, GLB is in many ways the financial institution analog to HIPAA. In any event, an employee of a Student Loan company had a bunch of applicant financial information on his home laptop computer (the employee telecommuted). The house was burgled, the laptop stolen and never recovered. There was never any evidence that any of the information on the laptop was used for untoward purposes, and because of the way the employee worked at home, there was no way to know whose information was on the computer at the time it was stolen anyway. But the company notified all applicants that their information might’ve been compromised. Even though he had suffered no damages, one applicant sued. The court threw out the suit.

This obviously has implications for the Providence case.

[Via HIPAA Blog]

New Inspiron 9400 Laptop

My new laptop arrived yesterday. It is an Inspiron 9400 from Dell. The pricing was very attractive for this Centrino Duo. If you want a light, compact notebook this notebook is not for you. However, if you thirst for power and a big screen is greater than the inconvience of a heavier, larger notebook, this machine is right up your alley. I bought this as a box to demo server software and occasionally punch out DVDs for our farm. As a note to myself I deleted:

  1. Acrobat
  2. AOL
  3. Earthlink
  4. McAfee
  5. Java

I installed my virus checking software from TrendMicro and new versions of:

  1. Acrobat 7.07
  2. Java 1.5
  3. Flash and Shockwave

Then I installed my applications, Office 2003, Pinnacle Studio, QuickBooks, and Vmware. Someday soon I will upgrade to XP Pro but for the time being I will run with the Home version. There are trial versions of WordPerfect and QuickBooks Simple Start I will leave on for the time being.

You May Lose Data or Program Settings After Reinstalling, Repairing, or Upgrading Windows XP

You May Lose Data or Program Settings After Reinstalling, Repairing, or Upgrading Windows XP

You upgrade the Windows XP Home Edition installation that was preinstalled by your computer manufacturer to the retail version of Windows XP Professional.

RESOLUTION

To resolve this problem, restore the missing data and program shortcuts from a backup.

To prevent this problem from occurring, use any of the following methods before you perform any of the actions that are listed in the “Symptoms” section of this article:

Method 1

Install the latest service pack for Windows XP. For additional information, click the article number below to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

322389 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/322389/EN-US/) How to Obtain the Latest Windows XP Service Pack

Method 2

When you are prompted by Setup to get updated Setup files, click Yes, download the updated Setup files (Recommended), and then click Next. This option is not available if you are repairing Windows XP by starting your computer from the Windows XP CD-ROM, pressing ENTER to set up Windows XP, and then pressing R to repair the selected installation.

Method 3

Install the Windows XP Update Package, November 19, 2001, by using the Automatic Updates feature or the Windows Update Web site.

TechSpot’s Low-end PC Buying Guide @ TechSpot

TechSpot’s Low-end PC Buying Guide @ TechSpot

Basic Configuration – Under $600
Plus Windows XP Shipping and Taxes (if applicable):

  • AMD Sempron 3000 – $87
  • ASRock K8NF4GSATA2 Micro ATX – $65
  • Onboard video – $0
  • 512MB (256×2) PC3200 DDR – $50
  • Onboard sound – $0
  • Stereo speakers – $7
  • 80GB 7200RPM SATA – $55
  • BenQ 17” (FP71G ) – $215
  • DVD-ROM 16x – $20
  • Basic keyboard, mouse – $20
  • Inwin/Powmax budget case – $35

Recommended Configuration – About $1000
Plus Windows XP Shipping and Taxes (if applicable):

  • AMD Athlon 64 3200 Socket 939 – $170
  • MSI K8NGM2-FID Motherboard – $90
  • NVIDIA GeForce 6600GT – $120
  • 1GB PC3200 DDR – $85
  • Creative SB Audigy – $30
  • Logitech X-220 2.1 – $40
  • 200GB 7200RPM SATA – $90
  • Hyundai 19” (B90A) – $300
  • 16x Dual-Layer DVD±RW – $40
  • Basic keyboard, mouse – $20
  • CoolerMaster Centurion 5 (380w PSU) – $60

***************************************************

I have to admit that I have been looking at the MSI combination for as an inexpensive motherboard upgrade. My old AMD900 motherboard is toast. It had a problem about a month ago and the problem returned this month with a vengeance. I originally thought it was a disk drive or drive controller issue. Everything in it is old. Now I believe the problem is a motherboard or video card problem since it will no longer boot Ubuntu and it fails on the video card probe. I am not in a big rush since this is my dogfood server/workstation. Just the same I would like to get it back running and with the least cost. This happens to be the philosophy of a lot of non-profits IT planning, too. They run Win98 because of the computers that they bought or had donated to them. Our Habitat affiliate recently bought some 3-4 year old refurbished computers for about $45 a piece. They run W2K which is a nice step forward. The problem is that buying a new $400 Dell makes more business sense from a support standpoint. Those old components are going to fail and the interruption to the “business” is much more expensive than the components.

Live Meeting on Microsoft Small Business Accounting

This week I sat in on a Small Business Accounting webcast using Live Meeting. Participating in the using Live Meeting was pretty cool! The combination of sound, slides, and chat facilities to ask questions worked for me. I cannot say I paid 100% attention but I did get enough out of the presentation to get a much better idea of why some QuickBooks users will want to wait. I am a QuickBooks Payroll DIY’er. I am not sure Microsoft’s spreadsheet solution is where I want to go.

The MSDE solution used by SBA is probably a more elegant solution than QuickBooks 2006 solution. Sometime this quarter I will check SBA out but I am a little busy right now.

Trend Micro CSM 3

Today I changing out my old virus checking software with CSM 3. I had two retail versions of PC-cillin Internet Security 2005 and a copy of AVG for Exchange. They all worked and one license had expired and the other two were due to expire this month. The folks on the mailing lists have voiced serveral complaints about CSM 3 but I went ahead with it. Both PC-cillin Internet Security 2005 and CSM 2 are very solid products so I expect Trend Micro will quickly resolve the CSM 3 problems. I installed the server software and most of the clients quickly and without problems. I did have a problem when I tried to deploy the client software via Active Directory. The client turned red and had a problem updating. So I removed it and manually installed the client. I turned on the workstation firewall at the medium setting. So far so good!

I like the firewall dashboard. I have it running in an IE tab in FireFox.

Sageset Unlocks CleanMgr’s Power

LangaList Std Edition202002-04-04

I got to this page in following up on an investigation into low disk space thread on the SBS2K mailing list. Someone mentioned they like a SourceForge utility called WindDirStat for investigating disk space usage. I have always liked JDiskReport but I was game to try someone else’s favorite. It is interesting or at least the treemap is an interesting to display disk usage. Well, the thing that caught my eye was the .qbb files in the Temporary Internet Files for LocalService. Evidently when I restore a QuickBooks backup file from my sharepoint site it creates a temporary internet file. Interesting… but I do not need to keep those files around! I had about 300 MB of backups and some of the backups were from last year. So I set up about deleting these files in this almost completely hidden directory.

I found several recommendations but I opted to try the Fred Langa recommendation which I linked to above. Cleanmgr is a disk-cleanup manager included in all Windows from Win98 onward and was improved in W2K. Cleanmgr says it cleans up Temporary Internet files so I decided to let it have the first shot at cleaning up the files. So I followed his directions and ran Cleanmgr with the option, “/sageset:99”, to set some of the advanced options. I told it delete Temporary Internet files, temporary files, some setup files, but I did not empty the Recycle bin. I ran Cleanmgr again with the option set to “/sagerun:99” and the files disappeared. Now I can run Cleanmgr in a batch file to clean up these files on a routine basis.

RE: ISA 2004 sp2 (do not do this remotely and read the release notes)

ISA server 2004 sp2 just released on the download site and since we are READING the release notes before installing…they say…

If ISA Server services are installed, ISA Server will enter lockdown mode during installation. Following installation, the ISA Server computers or array members will have to be restarted

That means… you either have that SBSPodcast recommended setting where your IP address is a trusted network…. or better yet, you don’t do this SP remotely at all and you do any firewall service packs on site.

[Via E-Bitz – SBS MVP the Official Blog of the SBS “Diva”]

I updated my ISA server yesterday and yes… I was in front of my server. It was uneventful 🙂

Updating software on the server

Today I updated the NTP, Time Server Monitor, and Scorpion Software’s Firewall Dashboard. There wasn’t any particular problem with NTP or the Time Server Monitor except that the Time Server Monitor is still a beta so I decided to look for an update. I got both updates from Meinberg. The “0.9k” version of the Time Server monitor did not work for me so I went back to the “0.9j” version. The “k” version could not communicate with the NTP server so I updated it to 4.2.0b version. I did not think that was the source for the problem but it was worth a try. Running the NTP server on my W2K3 server has been an experiment. Microsoft includes adequate time server support with its software but I wanted a little more visibility of what was going on. Occasionally in the past I  found that the Microsoft version had stopped synching. The time server monitor provides a quick way to check on the time server status but you got to use the open source NTP server.
Finally I got the update key so I could download the latest Firewall Dashboard beta from Scorpion Software. For those of us running Microsoft’s ISA firewall this application gives us a nice summary of possible break-in attempts. The latest upgrade adds a summary of authorized activity. It’s pretty neat!

RE: Network install instructions for QB 2006

When using QuickBooks 2006 or QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions 6.0 in a multi-user environment, *the one best thing to know is that the new QuickBooks database requires new installation procedures with all machines running on Release 3 or above.

To help you support your clients with QuickBooks 2006 in a multi-user environment, Intuit offers:

* White Paper on QuickBooks 2006 in Networked Environments
PDF file (313KB)
* Master Tip: Installing QuickBooks 2006 in a Networked Environment
* KBID on Troubleshooting Error (-6177,-0)
* Special for Users of Enterprise Solutions 6.0
See article below.

*Caution.* Please do not attempt to Upgrade*QuickBooks, *Rebuild* a data file, or *Clean Up Company File** across a network. If you have clients in a networked environment, please work with them to make sure they avoid such actions.

The caution holds true * whenever the file is being accessed from a remote drive. QuickBooks never supported major file operations across a network in earlier versions and does not support them in QuickBooks 2006.

Our technical support center has recently seen a spike in calls generated by this problem. For background on the issue, and instructions on how to proceed, please read KBID 118556, “Rebuild, Update, or Condense Takes an Exceptionally Long Time or Does Not Complete

*Warnings to Be Added in Future Release of QuickBooks.* Intuit will be adding a warning message in a future release to help avoid the problem. Then, when the software senses that a major file operation is being attempted across a network, the user will be warned first. (The warning was in earlier versions of QuickBooks and was omitted from QuickBooks 2006 in error.)

** Condense vs. Clean Up Company File.* What was called “Condense” in QuickBooks 2005 and earlier is now “Clean Up Company File” in QuickBooks 2006. In 2006, QuickBooks is using a new database structure for improved operations; however, the overall size of the file does not reduce significantly during cleanup. While old data is removed, the overall structure retains much of the same footprint, and therefore the action was renamed.

Release 3 (R3) addresses several rare issues that could be troublesome should they occur. We recommend you confirm that your clients have upgraded their systems to R3.

Specific R3 modifications include:

* The “*Connection Has Been Lost [99937]*” error message related to
network installation has been updated. The occurrence of such
“Connection Lost” messages should be greatly reduced.
* *Error 1911 *(when desktop icons no longer work after an
unsuccessful attempt to install) *has been eliminated in the
current release*. This situation is triggered when an installation
of QuickBooks 2006 is attempted on top of a pre-existing
corruption in the user’s Windows system registry. While the
problem is not unique to QuickBooks, a fix in R3 removes the
potential that the error would arise in future installations.
*Note:* If you or a client should experience this issue with a
previous release, Intuit will help you resolve the issue.
* C=224 errors should no longer appear when making a backup.
* Icons listed in the Navigation portion of the Icon bar *can be
removed or edited*.

For a complete list of the changes to QuickBooks included in the R3 update, see the release notes

*Note:* Release 4 (R4) is not meant for general use. R4 includes all issues addressed in R3 but makes an additional adjustment to work with one third-party application (ReportWiz). The vendor is separately alerting its customers on how to obtain R4. Other QuickBooks users on R3 don’t need R4.

*Changes to Install Process: Read before You Install. *Because of the new database across QuickBooks 2006 and Enterprise Solutions 6.0, the install process in a multi-user environment will differ from previous installations. These issues are especially important when dealing with QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions 6.0.

Bottom line… need to mess with that data file? Drag it to a local drive for maintenance…fun huh?

[Via E-Bitz – SBS MVP the Official Blog of the SBS “Diva”]

Top QuickBooks Support Issues – Restricted Access to Windows User Account

Top QuickBooks Support Issues – Restricted Access to Windows User Account
Your user account for Windows was created with Restricted access to system resources. This will prevent QuickBooks from operating properly. Please contact your system administrator and ask him or her to grant you Standard user rights.

The easiest way to fix this problem is to go into computer management on the local computer at the workstation or by using computer management on another computer with administrative priveleges and using the connect to another computer feature under Action and add the person(domain\username) to Power User group. I decided to post this so I can find this info quickly.

RE: In case you wanted to get a command line thrill today….

Useful RUN CommandsTo Access…. – Run Command
Accessibility Controls – access.cpl
Add Hardware Wizard – hdwwiz.cpl
Add/Remove Programs – appwiz.cpl
Administrative Tools – control admintools
Automatic Updates – wuaucpl.cpl
Bluetooth Transfer Wizard – fsquirt
Calculator – calc
Certificate Manager – certmgr.msc
Character Map – charmap
Check Disk Utility – chkdsk
Clipboard Viewer – clipbrd
Command Prompt – cmd
Component Services – dcomcnfg
Computer Management – compmgmt.msc
Date and Time Properties – timedate.cpl
DDE Shares – ddeshare
Device Manager – devmgmt.msc
Direct X Control Panel (If Installed)* – directx.cpl
Direct X Troubleshooter – dxdiag
Disk Cleanup Utility – cleanmgr
Disk Defragment – dfrg.msc
Disk Management – diskmgmt.msc
Disk Partition Manager – diskpart
Display Properties – control desktop
Display Properties – desk.cpl
Display Properties (w/Appearance Tab Preselected) – control color
Dr. Watson System Troubleshooting Utility – drwtsn32
Driver Verifier Utility – verifier
Event Viewer – eventvwr.msc
File Signature Verification Tool – sigverif
Findfast – findfast.cpl
Folders Properties – control folders
Fonts – control fonts
Fonts Folder – fonts
Free Cell Card Game – freecell
Game Controllers – joy.cpl
Group Policy Editor (XP Prof) – gpedit.msc
Hearts Card Game – mshearts
Iexpress Wizard – iexpress
Indexing Service – ciadv.msc
Internet Properties – inetcpl.cpl
IP Configuration (Display Connection Configuration) – ipconfig /all
IP Configuration (Display DNS Cache Contents) – ipconfig /displaydns
IP Configuration (Delete DNS Cache Contents) – ipconfig /flushdns
IP Configuration (Release All Connections) – ipconfig /release
IP Configuration (Renew All Connections) – ipconfig /renew
IP Configuration (Refreshes DHCP & Re – Registers DNS) – ipconfig /registerdns
IP Configuration (Display DHCP Class ID) – ipconfig /showclassid
IP Configuration (Modifies DHCP Class ID) – ipconfig /setclassid
Java Control Panel (If Installed) – jpicpl32.cpl
Java Control Panel (If Installed) – javaws
Keyboard Properties – control keyboard
Local Security Settings – secpol.msc
Local Users and Groups – lusrmgr.msc
Logs You Out Of Windows – logoff
Microsoft Chat – winchat
Minesweeper Game – winmine
Mouse Properties – control mouse
Mouse Properties – main.cpl
Network Connections – control netconnections
Network Connections – ncpa.cpl
Network Setup Wizard – netsetup.cpl
Notepad – notepad
Nview Desktop Manager (If Installed) – nvtuicpl.cpl
Object Packager – packager
ODBC Data Source Administrator – odbccp32.cpl
On Screen Keyboard – osk
Opens AC3 Filter (If Installed) – ac3filter.cpl
Password Properties – password.cpl
Performance Monitor – perfmon.msc
Performance Monitor – perfmon
Phone and Modem Options – telephon.cpl
Power Configuration – powercfg.cpl
Printers and Faxes – control printers
Printers Folder – printers
Private Character Editor – eudcedit
Quicktime (If Installed) – QuickTime.cpl
Regional Settings – intl.cpl
Registry Editor – regedit
Registry Editor – regedt32
Remote Desktop – mstsc
Removable Storage – ntmsmgr.msc
Removable Storage Operator Requests – ntmsoprq.msc
Resultant Set of Policy (XP Prof) – rsop.msc
Scanners and Cameras – sticpl.cpl
Scheduled Tasks – control schedtasks
Security Center – wscui.cpl
Services – services.msc
Shared Folders – fsmgmt.msc
Shuts Down Windows – shutdown
Sounds and Audio – mmsys.cpl
Spider Solitare Card Game – spider
SQL Client Configuration – cliconfg
System Configuration Editor – sysedit
System Configuration Utility – msconfig
System File Checker Utility (Scan Immediately) – sfc /scannow
System File Checker Utility (Scan Once At Next Boot) – sfc /scanonce
System File Checker Utility (Scan On Every Boot) – sfc /scanboot
System File Checker Utility (Return to Default Setting) – sfc /revert
System File Checker Utility (Purge File Cache) – sfc /purgecache
System File Checker Utility (Set Cache Size to size x) – sfc /cachesize=x
System Properties – sysdm.cpl
Task Manager – taskmgr
Telnet Client – telnet
User Account Management – nusrmgr.cpl
Utility Manager – utilman
Windows Firewall – firewall.cpl
Windows Magnifier – magnify
Windows Management Infrastructure – wmimgmt.msc
Windows System Security Tool – syskey
Windows Update Launches – wupdmgr
Windows XP Tour Wizard – tourstart
Wordpad – write

[Via E-Bitz – SBS MVP the Official Blog of the SBS “Diva”]

microsoft sharepoint server tutorials: using [today] in a calculated formula (birthday lists)

microsoft sharepoint server tutorials: using [today] in a calculated formula (birthday lists)

TODAY – Returns the serial number of the current date. The serial number is the date-time code used for date and time calculations. Note You can only use the TODAY function as a default value; you cannot use it in a calculated column.

Here is a tip that makes sharepoint lists more useful. I have a site that sells horses and one of the key pieces of information we are alwasy asked is the horse’s age. This tip makes calculating a horse’s current age in a Sharepoint list possible and easy. I went to this effort since by convention all horses change age on January 1 rather than their actual birth date. That meant that I had a bunch of ages to update or I could come up with a formula that would always be up to date. I chose the formula method.

Fixing more PC problems

I use son’s old PC(AMD 900 circa 2000) as a test box. It is set up to dual boot W2K server and Fedora 4.  Over the Christmas holidays both systems crashed on me and I assumed I had a hardware failure. Since I had recently fixed my son’s new PC and my mind was in a PC troubleshooting mode, I decided to give the old PC some attention. The W2K side was showing a BSOD with a registry file failure. Switching to the last known good configuration did not help. The Fedora side would not run Firefox. Nothing happened. Now I could not logon to my mere mortal account. The message it showed said “gdm could not write authorization file”.

My first guess was that something was wrong with the disk drives. It was odd that both disk drives would show errors if that truly was the source of failure. So I decided to run Ubuntu Live and test the other components. This was easy. Just put the CD-ROM in the drive and boot. Everything came up fine and Firefox ran perfectly. So then I ran a search on the gdm message. The replies indicated most people thought this was a disk full indicator. Hmmm….I know I was playing around with downloading ISO’s using Fedora. So I booted into Fedora and deleted the ISO’s using the administrative account. Yea, I remembered to empty the trash. Fedora works fine.

Fixing the W2K registry problem was more complex. I went into the Recovery Console and restored the initial registry created during the installation. I rebooted and started the update process(e.g. applying the service pack and patches). Somewhere after applying the service pack and before switching over to Microsoft Update, the system took a trip to Neverland. Microsoft Update got caught in a loop trying to update components. Windows Update sent me to Microsoft Update. My “Add or Remove Programs” panel would not come up. It was time to go Plan B.

So I went back and repaired the system files using the Server CD-ROM. Then I let Windows Update lead me through the process of updating the system, IE 6 rollup and then Service Pack 4. Microsoft Update kicked in after the Service Pack update and tried to install Installer 3.1. For some reason Installer 3.1 would not install via Microsoft Update so I installed it manually. It appears to be running fine and my reason to buy a new PC has diminished again. Darn!

iPod not charging and other tales

Last Saturday I went into my son’s room for some reason and my son mentioned that his iPod’s battery was almost dead despite having been connected to his computer for a long time. He thought our cat, Chewie, might have broken it. Chewie thought the iPod was a cat toy until we corrected him. I wasn’t convinced that the iPod was broken since everything else worked. I tried a few things on his computer and then connected the iPod to my computer. I charge my Blackberry and my Muvo without problems on my computer. In a few minutes the iPod showed a significant increase in the battery charge. After a little internet searching the Apple site said that some USB connections do not provide power. Since my son’s desktop computer has a much newer motherboard I was a little surprised. So I decided to see if I could get his USB connections to provide power.

Boy was that a mistake! I checked the MSI website but I did not find any info. The Bios was not current and the website said that the latest release improved USB connectivity. So I decided to upgrade the Bios. I downloaded the Bios, started the upgrade, and the first thing it wants is a floppy drive. I did not install a floppy drive on his computer. They wanted the floppy drive to boot from. The Bios flash updater runs under DOS so I decided to provide a CD-ROM alternative. The first bootable CD-ROM ISO with FreeDOS did not boot. So I got a second one, FreeDOS Lite. It is bilingual with a preference for German but it booted and I got my DOS prompt. Then I realized that I needed a FAT or FAT32 partition. So I went back created the partition and copied the Bios files over to it. I rebooted the machine back into FreeDOS again and the flashed the Bios without a problem.

When I got back into W2K it found some unknown hardware. That’s typically not good. I decided to upgrade the Nvidia drivers with WHQL drivers from Nivida. That’s when things went really bad! When I rebooted I got the blue screen of death. Another boot later it said I did not have a boot drive. I searched for info on the internet but finally gave up. I booted from the W2K installation CD-ROM and went into recovery console and ran chkdsk to fix any problems. That took a long time to run. Then I ran FIXMBR. It said I had a non-standard signature so I let it fix it. I rebooted and everything is fine including the Nvidia drivers. Whew, that was messy! I have had real good luck with Bios upgrades in the past so I am a little surprised. I think I don’t care if his iPod gets charged anymore.

RE: So what tools do you use?

So a bit back I asked what tools that SBSers should have on hand and here are some answers…

www.sysinternals.com

www.dnsreport.com

Besides www.Eventid.net and www.Experts-Exchange.com and the others mentioned by Susan I find having a Bart’s PE Builder CD on hand with recent antivirus and antispyware a real life saver. See http://nu2.nu/pebuilder/ . I also have on the CD GetDataBack and other utilities from http://www.runtime.org/ . The RunTime.org people have even provided the plugins for Bart PE. If you have ever lost a volume on a drive due to disk failure, this utility will amaze you with the data it can recover if the drive still spins.

From Peter

1. nslookup 2. telnet
3. eseutil
4. filemon
5. regmon
6. netmon
7. pokemon (cmon, all work and no play…)
8. netstat -aon | find “:portnumber”
9. tasklist /svc
10. adsiedit.msc <<– always install the support tools
11. www.sysinternals.com
12. www.hotmail.com <<– testing external mailflow
13. recovery console
14. exmerge
15. treesize

Jim says…

Good start, but let’s not forget:
– pathping (built-in) – ldp (support tools & far better than adsiedit, IMHO)
– shutdown (resource kit)
– Duke Nukem (need you ask?)
– whois (resource kit)
– winsocktool (http://www.isatools.org/ )
– portqry http://support.microsoft.com/?id=832919
http://www.windowsecurity.com/articles/Mastering-PortQryexe-Part1.html

http://www.windowsecurity.com/articles/Mastering-PortQryexe-Part2.html
– netsh -diag (built-in)
– netstat -anob (built-in)
– netdiag /fix (support tools)

[Via E-Bitz – SBS MVP the Official Blog of the SBS “Diva”]

Fixing Smartsound

Yesterday I was trying to create a pdf using pdfcreator. Instead of giving me the standard pdfcreator  screen I got a popup screen saying it was trying to install Smartsound. It looked like a standard program installation screen but it kept getting stuck when it could not find the installation executable. This was perplexing. Smartsound is installed as part of my Pinnacle Studio program and I do not install it directly. I had not changed anything with Studio since I installed the patch last year. My first thought was that I had somehow screwed up my recent upgrade of pdfcreator. So I uninstalled and reinstalled it. I got the same error. So I went over to Pinnacle site and it recommended installing the latest version of the Smartsound plug-in. This new version of Smartsound added support for Quicktime 7. I had recently upgraded to Quicktime 7 so maybe this was the source of the problem. Anyway… upgrading Smartsound solved the problem.

Backup Revisited

I must confess that I have not been backing up my workstation on a regular basis. Initially my problem was the lack of attached disk space. After reviewing what I would recommend to clients I decided that I should follow my own recommendations and start backing up my workstation on a daily basis. Now this is not as bad as it sounds. Almost all of my data resides on the server and it is backed up on a daily basis. In addition I have Volume Shadow copy enabled so I have access to previous versions for this data. I do not keep much data on my workstation. I think I would use this backup to help me recover from a workstation disk failure and really bad software installation failures.

Recently I have been playing with Cobian Backup 7 as a replacement for NTBackup. It is free and it runs as a service. I found it pretty easy to setup but pretty difficult for me to get my data out of the zipped archive. The problem is that the zip archive is about 5 GB and it gave me corruption errors with 7-zip even though 7-zip supports zip64. Explorer had more serious problems with the archive since it did not support zip64. So my next step would be to create an uncompressed archive and this puts me back into the disk space issue.

So I have now gone back to Ntbackup. I like that Ntbackup uses shadow copies on XP. After I get a full backup, I will see how long it will take me to compress the file.

I finally figured out how to send the latest backup log file as the message body in an email. I guess I am too lazy to open attachments. To keep the message body from displaying some funky characters from the log file, I used the “TYPE” command to display the file contents and piped this output directly into blat. I use the task scheduler to run this early in the morning so it will be waiting in my inbox as a scheduled task.