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You’ve double clicked on your Outlook 2003 icon to be greeted with the following error message multiple times:

This problem struck one of our customer’s laptops!

The CLR part of that would suggest something to do with the .NET framework, but that doesn’t quite make sense as Microsoft Office doesn’t need the .NET framework to run. After some investigation and un-installing and reinstalling of applications and “Windows bits”, it turns out the problem is a corrupt Outlook (email) profile.

Solution is therefore real easy: Create a new profile.

Technorati Tags: .NET, .NET framework, CLR, email, Microsoft Office, Outlook, Windows

One of our customers called with a non-bootable system. We’ve still to look at the problem,but fear either the drive has failed or a virus has corrupted the drive. If it is the later, we may need to do an OS reinstall. We don’t recommend you follow the advice of this computer tech!

For all those people requiring computer support in Fife, we’re here to assist you. We promise not to follow the advice and standards presented in this video-clip. 

Technorati Tags: amusing, computer, Fife, hard drive, os reinstall, repair, support

No, nothing to do with Rice Krispies! That said, this well known Kelloggs’ breakfast cereal is a great start to the day with a splash of milk and a sprinkling of sugar, but does that make them a poor man’s Ricicles? But we digress from the point! The issue this time is with Windows Vista (Home Premium) sound on an ASUS A8N32-SLI Delux motherboard - a high performance gaming motherboard from ASUSTeK.

New system was duly built based around this motherboard, with all the up-to-date patches and drivers installed, but alas there was a terrible background noise on the sound output channels.  It seemed like a complex white noise with background hum, interspersed with cracks and pops. Let’s see if we can describe it better: a hoard of mosquitos all desperate to suck your blood, a swarm of blue bottles buzzing around a dog turd, a hive of bumble bees busying themselves making honey, the cracking of wood burning in a roaring fire, the ear popping experience during a particularly rapid decent on an air flight - all of which were competing with a roadwork crew using pneumatic tools at full pelt!

The initial cure was to reach over to the volume control on the speakers, turning it all the way down until the OFF click. Well that wasn’t going to be much of a long term fix for anyone with a set of working ears, but at least the buzzing had temporarily ceased!

These situations always make your spirit dip at the prospect of having to dismantle everything to replace a faulty motherboard. Thankfully this wasn’t required on this occasion and the “interim workaround” was simple in implementation! However, it is still puzzling as to why the Realtek sound driver and/or Windows Vista device management has such a configuration - more thoughts in a moment once you’ve had a chance to see the problem!

First big clue was you could hear yourself when using a headset. Mmmm! That’s not normal ,well it wasn’t under Windows XP. An observation that started to make the cogs turn.  Thankfully, all the years of university and electronic design and diagnosis experience would be useful in understanding what may be going on. Much of this noise may be generated by this “monitoring effect”, where the mixing of these signals could be causing the instability through positive feedback. In these circumstance positive feedback would be bad, very very bad - not in any way “positive” at all!

Best way to describe what is going on is to explain it in terms that everyone understands and has seen in the flesh. You know that horrible howling that comes from the speakers when a singer gets too close to them with the microphone - well that’s the same cause and effect. When we mention “howling” in relation to singers, we’re not talking about their dulcet tones, but that horrible screeching that makes you want to grasp your ears for protection! 

Eureka! Now to find a solution or at the very least a workaround to this design flaw. We don’t care too much who’s fault it may be, we’re more interested in finding some way to get around it. The finger pointing can happen later when we get Microsoft over here to have a look at this epic post.

The solution lay in the Sound system so it was off to:

Control Panel -> Sound

Next we want to navigate to the area of the sound system that takes to do with Sound output or in other words, “Speakers”. Steps are:

Playback tab -> Select output destination (in our case “Speakers”) -> Properties button 

Now we’re almost at the culprit:

Press on the “Levels” tab to see the problem!

Ensure the Audio Output is the only one selected, all the rest MUST be disabled (muted) and you may need to scroll down to get them all. The image below is what you are trying to achieve:

… and in case it isn’t clear, the buttons states are shown clearly in the legend below:

Enabled

Disabled

Job done, accept (Ok) all the dialog boxes until you’re back to the Control Panel.

Hopefully, you can now crack the volume back on and crank it up without fear of a deafening din emanating from the speakers.

Like us, you were most likely presented with all these possible sound sources being enabled. How does that makes sense, this is supposed to be the output, not the inputs? Our best guess would be that it allows you to select the proportions of the sounds going into the output channel just like a mixer desk. However, something is wrong with the set-up we put together. More interesting was that all these inputs still worked as advertised even when they were disabled. However, the key difference was the background noise was gone: perfect sound at last. Ahhh!

Why are we blogging about this one. Well, we wasted time, energy and resources fault finding this system. We hope to spare others the same pain and loss of time that no one can ever regain. Please leave us a comment if this post has been useful and tell us how you happened to find it. It would also be useful if you could supply details of your set-up and the nature of the sound issue you’ve been experiencing. Every little piece of information is another piece for the problem jigsaw. As we’ve already indicated, the problem will also be reported to Microsoft as a bug for them to fix. At the very least they will have a look and pass it along to Realtek for them to fix. We’ll simply say to Bill and his gang to have a read at this post and request an appropriate response which would be a fix if the problem is Windows Vista related.

Top tip time for all you self builders out there. Ensure you’ve got all the up to date drivers and utilities from the manufacturer of your hardware for the best chance of a working Vista system. You may also have to update the BIOS, but do take great care when performing a “flash” update as there is always the chance it will go badly wrong resulting in a bundle of useless electronic components. You may end up having to replace the BIOS chip if things go wrong! Luckily it has never happened to us when doing a flash update, but there is always the danger that power will be disrupted or something else will cause the update to fail! You have been warned and as always do it at your own risk.

A Last Word on Vista…

Shocker! It seems the rumours may be true! There are indeed some bugs in Microsoft’s new baby, which isn’t really a surprise for such a complex product. More of a worry looks to be the incomplete or flawed hardware / driver support that requires more work from all the manufacturers involved.

Windows Vista will only become a killer operating system if all interested parties gets their respective acts together to resolve these types of problems.

And finally…

Keep an eye out for upcoming posts about the cool new bits of Vista. There are many, honest!

Update:

After making this blog post, we thought it would be an idea to check the Technorati tag for the motherboard model and see what other problems lay ahead. We were surprised, but really shouldn’t have been, to find out that someone else had already found solutions to this issue. We recommend this other blog article as it is makes for interesting reading and provides additional information.

We note Peter Chng states the problem is down to the NVIDIA bits, which again shouldn’t come as much of a surprise, since it took them considerable effort and ultimately help from Microsoft to get working graphic drivers for Windows Vista. Looks like they may need Microsoft’s help again to sort out the sound drivers to alleviate the flawed hardware design! 

As part of our fault diagnosis process we had actually downloaded and installed the Realtek drivers that he mentions in his post, something that is implied in our earlier commentary. However, this is such an important part of this story that it is worth explicitly spelling it out: so people, go get the up-to-date Realktek driver for this model and then implement our solution of disabling sounds inputs.

If only we had spotted this blog post when we Googled the problem first time around! So much time and heartache could have been avoided with some additional Googling with other keywords! 

Technorati Tags: A8N32-SLI, ASUS, ASUSTeK, BIOS, drivers,  Kelloggs, NVIDIA, Peter Chng, Rice Krispies, Realtek, Ricicles, sounds system, Vista, Windows

We’ve sold quite a few Skype phones over the last year and a bit. Many people may now be attempting to use them on Windows Vista systems without success. They may even be frustrated that they aren’t working as they once did under Windows XP, even after Windows Vista reportedly installs the USB phone when connected.

Solution is easy, you’ll need to head on over to the manufacturer’s website and download the latest version of Skypemate, which is now compatible with Vista.

A few customer have successful used these products with the software update indicated.

Technorati Tags: drivers, Skype, Skypemate, Vista, Windows, Yealink

Here’s another little theme we thought would brighten the day, “Geek Sayings and Phrases”. We’ll post one every now and again when we think our readers need cheering up. Here goes with the first one…

Microsoft: “You’ve got questions. We’ve got dancing paperclips.”

Maybe this is why Mr Clippy got the “Mr Choppy” and has failed to appear in recent versions of Office. We all miss his mistimed advice and we’re wondering how we managed to get those letters written of late!

Updated:

This YouTube video made us laugh. Typical, Mac fanboy stuff, but still very funny.

Technorati Tags: Apple, funny, geek, humor, humour, Mac, Microsoft, Microsoft Office, YouTube

The whole office burst into tears for poor Saarah during the reading of her heartache of an email. What a sad story, but at least the money will make up for things and she is welcome to join our family!

Dearest,

Pls i really gave this issue a second thought before i decided to contact you and relate this matter before you as to seek for your kindhearted help and assistance as i have no other alternative considering my present condition as an orphan Pls i pray that God will grant you the heart to fully understand my problems and my uncomfortable situations

Really i want to use this means to contact you in respect of my late father’s consignment deposited with a private security company, Firstly I am Miss Saarah My father was the director of cocoa farmers assocation in my country and he was into cocoa business as well, My Father deposited some amount of money ($4million) inside a box and deposited it as a consignment with a private security company as there was no possible means he could safe keep this money, This was because of the war in my country and this was the only means and way which my father could possibly move out this money from our country because of the political war,

My father used his posiion to move out this consignment through a diplomatic means to the security company’s affiliated vault outside my country because of the war, My father had the intention to travel over to the security company’s vault outside our country to claim and retrive back this consignment and use the money for an overseas investment, Before he was killed, as a result of the political war in my country which i believe that you must have heared about it over the news media, Pls since i am left alone as an orphan having lost my father and other members of my family that is why i have decided to contact you to seek for your total hlp and assistance in retriving this consignment since due to my age as a girl and coupled with my present situation and my inablity to travel out of my country to the vault of the security company, i want you to help me to claim and retrive this conignment and have the money invested in your country and as well help me to relocate to your country to start my life again and as well to conclude my education My Greatest problem is that the only person who is surposed to care for me (My Uncle) has refused to care for me as he is only interested in my late father’s left properties which he has totally taking over without making any provision for me well being, My uncle decided out of his wicked heart and drove me away from his compound because of my unhappy actions against him over my late father’s left properties which he has totally taken over without any provision for me well being Presently i am staying alone and i find it hard to survive and to sustain myself, Of cause i decided not to let him know about this consignment because if he by any means know about it, He will look for a way to take it away from me if possible he might want to kill me considering the amount on money that my father left, Pls i seek for your assistance, I seek your advise, I seek your suggestion and unreserved help in this matter, My intention to have my life scured and conclude my education and have this inheritance invested in a proper business venture is my Hope, It is my life and my entire future depends on it, Pls Advice me and Help Me.

Pls i am willing to offer you 20% of the money inside the consignment as soon as it is claimed and retrived from the vault of the security company, Most Especially a lasting relationship is what i will so much cherish and appreciate from you as i am left alone as an orphan, I will like to become a part of your family i will cherish to be seriously closer to you and have you as my Guardian, My Companion My Partner and my representative over my inheritance, Pls i am willing to detail you more and more about this matter i want you to know that this is the only inheriance which my father left which is presently within my possesion as my wicked uncle has totally taken over all that my loving father left, It is the only hope that i have to start my life again therefore i will higly need your total consent in this matter.

I am waiting for your soonest reply and i will tell you more about this matter May God bless you as you consider to help and assist me an orphan.

Yours orphan in need

Miss Saarah

 

Remember to checkout 419 Eater if you like to see the scammers getting theirs!  Scammers that scam the scammers… now we like that.

Technorati Tags: 419, 419 Eater, email, scam, scammers, spam

Us Brits are suffering from a bug in Windows Live Writer (WLW) when entering currency amounts. WLW fails to handle the pound sign (£) correctly when entered in one of the WYSIWYG modes. Here’s what happens when you enter it and publish the post:

�

Mmmm! That doesn’t quite look correct does it? But fear not, it is fairly easy to work around this issue until the bug is fixed:

1. Switch to HTML edit mode
2. Everywhere you see a “£” sign replace it with the HTML code for the pound sign, which is “£”

This bug has been reported on the WLW discussion forum. Hopefully this minor issue will be fixed for the next release.

For those bloggers that have still to try it out, Windows Live Writer rocks!

UPDATE:

The Windows Live Writer team have got back with a workaround, details of which are below and taken from HERE.

Non-ASCII characters render incorrectly on UTF-8 encoded blogs

Description: On WordPress 2.1+ and PHP versions older than 5.0.2, publishing posts using Writer results in non-ASCII characters showing up as either squares or question marks.

Reason and Solution: Writer erroneously prepends the UTF-8 Byte Order Mark to XML-RPC requests that are UTF-8 encoded. This prevents WordPress from correctly detecting the UTF-8 encoding declaration, so ISO-8859-1 is assumed instead.

Run regedit.exe and find the following key: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Windows Live Writer\Weblogs\<your-blog-id>

Verify that the subkey ManifestOptions contains a characterSet=”UTF-8″ value. If so, under the subkey UserOptionOverrides, add a new String Value named characterSet and leave its value empty.

Remember to do this tweak for all your affected blogs and as always use extreme caution when making changes to your computer’s registry. The cautious amongst you may even wish to backup your registry before making a change.

Technorati Tags: blogging, bug, pound sign, Windows Live Writer, WLW

 Gary Short has just been mumbling about comment spam over on his blog. He probably doesn’t recall the days when the spambots would be using a vulnerability or new attack method to send hundreds of spam comments per hour! We’ve got one suggestion for him and it is shown in the Blaugh cartoon below - only kidding Gary as we’d still like to “comment” on your blog :-).

His post reminds us of the time when a spambot attacked our blog one Saturday evening, leaving a trail of thousands of spam comments to clear-up. Needless to say, security was hardened a great deal after that attack and comment spam has never been an issue since; although staying ahead of the spammers does take a little research and effort.

There have been occasions when the spammers would make blog comment system unusable, but those clever blogging engine and plug-in writers fought back with many measures to mitigate comment spam. For those lucky folk using Wordpress, a crack selection of security plug-ins will practically eliminate these parasites - well until they figure out another attack method.

Our current set-up for Wordpress blogs is as follows:

1. Spam Karma 2 (SK2) with the SK2 Akismet plug-in
   - You’ll need to register a blog at Wordpress.com to get an Akismet API key so you can fully use the Akismet anti-spam service.
   - You’ll need to go in and tweak some configuration settings to provide the desired effect for your set-up.
2. CJD Nuker
   - Although this has now been integrated into the Akismet plug-in, we’re still using it as a separate plug-in. The bundled Akismet plug-in has been disabled to allow the use of the Akismet service through the SK2 Akismet plug-in. Hope that makes some sense.
3. Bad Behaviour
   - This is really effective at blocking the spambots in the first place.
   - Cannot be used if you’re using a blog writing tool e.g. Live Writer.

More information on the Akismet service can be found HERE.

This set-up ensures that no comment spam ever gets to the public side of the blog, with the rest going into the proverbial trash bin of the Internet. Even those Wordpress bloggers only using the bundled Akismet plug-in should find comment spam a trivial issue.

It will be interesting to see how long it takes for the comment scum to find another way to spam us - hopefully never! Let’s try to stay ahead of them.

UPDATE:

There is a fix for Bad Behaviour’s blocking of Windows Live Writer:

Fortunately, it is not too difficult to fix this, though you do need to tweak the code base of Bad Behavior. Open the file msie.php in the bad-behavior subdirectory of your Bad Behavior plugin and find the lines which say:

if (!array_key_exists('Accept', $package['headers_mixed'])) {
    return "17566707";
}

Change this to read as follows:

if (strpos($package['headers_mixed']['User-Agent'], "Windows Live Writer")
    === FALSE && !array_key_exists('Accept', $package['headers_mixed'])) {
    return "17566707";
}

 More information on the nature of the problem and fix can be found on this James McKay blog post.

Technorati Tags: Bad Behaviour, CJD Nuker, comment spam, security, SK2,  spam, Spam Karma 2, Wordpress

VistaBootPro is a must have for all users of Vista who wish to manage their boot configuration. Best of all, it is FREEWARE.

Technorati Tags: boot configuration, freeware, Vista, VistaBootPro