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Sansa to IPOD conversion
I have been using an 8GB Sandisk Sansa for my mobile media needs…that is up until last night. I traded a new graphics tablet I bought at a CompUSA closeout for a 4GB IPOD nano with video. At first I was going to give it to Liz, but after tinkering with it for a while I decided to keep the IPOD and give her the Sansa. There are several reasons for this..
1. She won’t use the IPOD to its fullest extent (I will)
2. The Sansa has more storage space so she can put more photos on it and use it for client demos for her photography clients
3. I already have accessories she would need such as the carry case with clip so that she can take it with her more easily.
4. I would use the video playback more than she would.
So it worked out great for us both, she got a device she can use to store her favorite music, use in her photography business and its easily portable and easy to use. Plus the Sansa has a built in FM radio so she can listen out and about.
So now I have to convert all my WMA files to mp3, since some of them were DRM protected, I have to obtain the non-DRM protected versions so that I can import them into my itunes library. I use both Rhapsody and Itunes now, I think Rhapsody has a nicer interface, but itunes is definately easier to get podcasts and audiobooks, etc.
Mobile Music
I have never been willing to spend a large sum of money to purchase a mobile MP3 player such as the IPOD or similar. But this past week I found a great deal on TigerDirect for a Sandisk Sansa 8GB player. My gracious wife made no objections to me getting it, so I happily placed the order. It arrived on my doorstep on Saturday afternoon in the mail, and I began goign through the options and setup. I can play video, music, photo slideshows, FM radio and even use it as a voice recorder. It works with Rhapsody which has recently become my favorite online music source. I like ITunes too, but I find I use it more for podcast subscriptions than music, only because I don’t have an IPOD so its not as useful for me. I spent a few hours this weekend searching for and adding new music to my new player. I know I am years behind and people have been doing this for quite a while, but having a mobile music player and being able to sync playlists and media and take them with me anywhere, is really cool!
Phone number normalization in OCS 2007
I ran into this issue with OCS 2007 and thought it might come in handy for someone in the future. Lets say you deploy OCS 2007 in your environment, and in AD you use the phone number field for the office ext, and you want to keep that format. Lets also assume you are noticing that if you use this configuration you end up with warnings in communicator saying it cannot synchronize the addressbook. When you check the event log on your OCS server you see errors and warnings about the addressbook server. You won’t find a service for this component (at least I couldn’t find it), it appears to be built-in to the OCS server software. You also find a list of invalid AD phone numbers in your C:Program FilesMicrosoft Office Communications Server 2007Web ComponentsAddress Book FilesFiles directory.
So how can you keep your internal extensions in their current format and still communicator without having to see the annoying addressbook warning. Its not simple, but the fix is not too complex to impliment. Here is what to do. This assumes that you use a format such as “x 5555” for your extensions in AD for the users in the phone number field.
First, in the OCS 2007 console, right click on the forest, and go to properties, then select voice properties. Next, click the “Add” button to setup a new default location profile. Give it a name and a description. Next, under “Normalization Rules” click the “Add” button. Give this a name also and a description. Under translation, enter “^(x|X|x |X )“ without the quotes in the “Phone pattern regular expression” box. In the next box, enter “$`” Thats a dollar sign, immediately followed by the key to the left of the number one key on the top number row of your keyboard. To test this, enter an extension in the same format as you use in AD in the “sample dialed number:“ box. If it works you should see the resulting number in the format you want in the bottom text box.
Save you changes by clicking “ok” until you are back at the console screen. Then you just need to issue some commands on the server to update the address list, which are listed below: (NOTE: CD To the directory of your abserver.exe location)
Click Start, click Run, type cmd, and then click OK.
Type net start abserver, and then press ENTER.
Type abserver.exe –regenUR, and then press ENTER.
Type abserver.exe –syncNow, and then press ENTER.
Exit and re-start communciator on your PC/laptop and it should now load with no errors or warnings and you will now see your extensions listed.
Quirky thing with my TILT
I noticed recently that if you press the PDA power button on an at&t TILT during a sound event (such as the slider sound or new message sound alert), the sound will immediately stop where it is, but when you press the power button again, the PDA will resume right where it left off, sounds and all. I have a habbit of sliding my TILT closed quickly and immediately pressing the power button. When I do this, the PDA powers off mid-sound, and then when I press the button again, it powers on and plays the remaining part of the sound. This is not a problem by any means, it just interests me and gives me some insight into how this software was designed.
Home media management
I came across this software over the weekend: Media Center 12
Its a really nice media management package that has all the features I was looking for. It can catalog my media including pictures, audio and video. It can create various types of playlists, and even has a theatre mode for easy use on the PC or a TV. You can even run a media web server and use it as a remote control for the media center and play audio/video or slideshows by clicking links on the web interface, what you select starts playing on the display connected to the server. I really like this package, its got some good plugins and skins and is the best one I’ve tried yet.
Windows Vista
I am now also evaluating Windows Vista on my multimedia computer. I performed the ugprade yesterday and it actually worked unlike my first upgrade attempt a few weeks earlier on a different home PC. So far its not bad, but I think I need to reload a fresh install, as some weird issues are happening, such as the games not loading when you open the shortcuts for them. One weird thing too is that hibernate works on my multimedia PC, but not on the home PC. I guess there is some kind of hardware difference, perhaps something on the other motherboard that prevents hibernate from working. So far I like having Vista, it runs ok on my hardware and I haven’t had any incompatibility issues. It does take a little getting used to and most people don’t like change, but I don’t have much trouble picking up changes in software.
New power supply
For Christmas this year I got a new 600W Power supply for my main computer at home. It’s so much better than the other one and makes much less noise. There is also no more ripple sound effect that the previous one had. I did however take the old power supply and rig it into my multimedia computer as the power supply I had for it was malfunctioning. So now both computers have the juice they need and are working good.
Exchange diagnosis
Symptoms
Server: Event ID 9646 (user exceeded maximum of 32 objects of the type session). Event ID 1021 (unable to connect…error 0x4de)
Client/Outlook: Unable to open your default e-mail folders. The Microsoft Exchange server computer is not available. Either there are network problems or the Microsoft Exchange server computer is down for maintenance. OWA would work ok when logged on as either the user or an Exchange admin account.
Diagnosis:
Google searches of the events and error messages yield very little help. A second round of google searching and pressing further through the search results yielded a page from MS indicating to ensure that the user had “view information store status” rights granted at the server or mailbox store level. This lead me to a diagnosis of permission problems on the mailbox.
Proceeded with treatment by administering re-application of full mailbox permissions for the user and ensuring “view information store status” was selected in the allow column. Attempting to open outlook again immediately after still yielded errors as described in the symptoms. It wasn’t until a few minutes later when about to attempt a different method of treatment that the solution was revealed. Before trying to create a whole new information store and move the user for testing, I decided to open outlook again. This time, it opened no problem and did not give any errors or show any signs of a problem. Apparently the original solution was the correct solution and the treatment was correct, I just didn’t wait long enough for the change to take effect. Further attempts to work on the problem would have been useless as the issues was already fixed, I just didn’t know it yet.
Windows Vista Upgrade failed
Last night I was trying to upgrade to Windows Vista on my main XP computer. I was 3/4 of the way through the installer when the install screen vanished and dropped me back to the XP desktop. XP still seemed to work, and no matter what I tried, I could not get the installer to resume. I had no choice but to reboot, but what I didn’t know was that Vista had already copied over its boot files and screwed with the MBR on my hard drive. So upon reboot, I get a Vista boot loader, which goes to the setup screen, but promptly throws up an error saying (not exactly sure of wording) “Windows could not initialize the installer”. So XP was dead at this point, sure there are some ways I could have gotten it back, but I really wanted Vista to install.
I ended up using a Knoppix 4 bootable CD and using the file managers in linux to backup my data on my XP parition to a file share on a server in my network. After the backup was done, I wiped the partition and loaded the full install of Vista and installed fresh on the clean XP partition. I am not sure if I am going to go with Vista or not, so I’m installing from the media with no CD key, just to use it in eval mode. If Liz likes it and can get used to it, we might go ahead and buy the Ultimate edition upgrade. But for now we’ll give it a try and see how it goes. So far its running great on my hardware, but I’m a little disappointed with the performance rating of 3.7. I have a dual core P4 3GHz chip, 2 GB of performance DDR2 RAM, and 256MB ATI X600 PCIe video card running on a nice Abit motherboard. I was expecting to get a score near or at a 5.
My Miata is home sick today
Last night my Miata came down with a fever and a runny nose. I pulled into the garage to find my temperature gauge all the way to the H and white steam was starting to roll out from the engine compartment. I immediately checked it out and found a crack in the top of my Radiator. It was spraying out white steam from the top of the radiator.
Since my baby was sick, I had to take Sarah to school in the van and then drive the van to work right from her school. I was only a little late for work which wasn’t too bad.
I checked around online for some prices for a replacement radiator and found a website radiator.com which I used to contact them about a radiator for my Miata. They are a direct to consumer distributor, and have price matching and guaranteed lowest prices which was good. I ended up getting a new radiator, with a lifetime warranty for my Miata for $169 with free same day delivery to my home.
The miata.net forums have a good garage section with a guide showing step by step how to replace the radiator on your own. So I will save a little money by doing the replacement myself. On the way home I have to stop by an auto parts store and pickup some radiator fluid and hoses, but most likely I’ll have it all done tonight or at the latest sometime tomorrow. I really hope I can get it fixed tonight, because Liz and I are going on a date tomorrow night to celebrate our 9th anniversary.
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