FREE Codeweaver Crossover

Posted on October 28, 2008 by Nerd

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Tuesday, Oct 28, 2008 Codeweaver is giving away Crossover Mac Pro, Games Mac, Linux Pro and Games Linux for FREE!!!!  Their servers are getting hammered, so they have put up a signup page for today’s promo:

** NOTE:  you must enter your email address to receive the serial number for the below products.

http://down.codeweavers.com/ (Server is back online after swarm)

http://lameduck.codeweavers.com/

For Tuesday, October 28, 2008 only, they put up fully unlocked builds. Download them below:

If you are a Linux / Mac user, and want to run Windows applications or games, this is THE way to do it.  Go grab it while you can folks!!!

Hope you got yours!

Once you have your serial number, you must register it by November 30, 2008.

Posted in Free, Linux, Software | Leave a comment

Website of the Week: Says-It

Posted on October 25, 2008 by Nerd

This is a lot of fun!  Not really productive, but Says-It.com lets you make all sorts of badges, symbols, fake tapes, records, seals, and loads of other stuff!  Go on, make a funny sign, and have fun!!!

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Says-It.com

Posted in Website of the Week | 1 Comment

Mygazines – Closed

Posted on October 24, 2008 by Nerd

I told you in August about MyGazines – an online magazine viewer… well… they’re closed.

Dear valued members, visitors and publishers,
Due to monetary reasons and the state of the global economy, we unfortunately must close mygazines.com. We simply ran out of funds to support the daily operations.
We thank you for your patronage.
If you are a publisher interested in understanding more about our model and vision for the future of the publishing industry going forward, or to discuss our Business to Business model opportunities, please email us at mygazines@gmail.com.
Sincerely,
The Mygazines Team

Well, that stinks!

Posted in General | Leave a comment

Replace Vista’s Annoying UAC with Norton UAC (Beta)

Posted on October 24, 2008 by Nerd

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Vista’s UAC can be annoying, and although I’ve shared with you how to make it less annoying, Norton (Symantec) has come up with a replacement UAC that is makes it much better!

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With one BIG feature – “Don’t ask me again”  I think I’m in love!  There are several programs I run during the course of the day that the UAC prompts me.  I run them every day I don’t need to be prompted to open the command prompt, or and administrative mmc window!  Also, it’s fast!  Much faster than the default Windows UAC.

Thanks to Norton UAC Replacement, I’m running UAC-less on the daily apps that I use, but still have the protection from of UAC for everything else!  Although it is in Beta, Norton UAC Replacement is solid, and I have had no issues so far – I’ve been running it for about two weeks now.

Link: http://www.nortonlabs.com/inthelab/uac.php

Posted in Free, Microsoft, Security, Software, Vista | Leave a comment

Critical Microsoft Patch Released

Posted on October 23, 2008 by Nerd

Outside of it’s normal monthly patching cycle, Microsoft is releasing a critical patch to address a remote code execution exploit  This patch is critical for Windows 2000, XP, Vista, Server 2003, and Server 2008. 

Download the patch here:

 http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/ms08-067.mspx

Posted in Microsoft, Security, Windows | Leave a comment

SQL 2005 Install Fails Immediately

Posted on October 22, 2008 by Nerd

I’ve had my problems with installing DPM before, but this was a new one!  DPM setup started ok, but as soon as it got to the SQL install portion, the installer failed, with this error message:

Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Setup
SQL Server Setup unexpectedly failed. For more information, review the Setup summary log file in %ProgramFiles%\Microsoft SQL Server\90\Setup Bootstrap\LOG\Summary.txt.

The setup log wasn’t much help either:

Microsoft SQL Server 2005 9.00.1399.06
==============================
OS Version      : Microsoft Windows Server 2003 family, Enterprise Edition Service Pack 2 (Build 3790)
Time            : Wed Oct 22 15:29:15 2008

Yeah, lots of help there… thanks…

Well, there is a folder ( %ProgramFiles%\Microsoft SQL Server\90\Setup Bootstrap\LOG\Files ) that had a couple of log files too, and it led me towards actual errors:

Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Setup beginning at Mon Oct 20 17:07:59 2008
Process ID      : 3364
D:\Sources\DPM2007\64bit\DPM2007_64bit\SQLSVR2005\Servers\setup.exe Version: 2005.90.1399.0
Running: LoadResourcesAction at: 2008/9/20 17:7:59
Complete: LoadResourcesAction at: 2008/9/20 17:7:59, returned true
Running: ParseBootstrapOptionsAction at: 2008/9/20 17:7:59
Loaded DLL:D:\Sources\DPM2007\64bit\DPM2007_64bit\SQLSVR2005\Servers\xmlrw.dll Version:2.0.3604.0
Complete: ParseBootstrapOptionsAction at: 2008/9/20 17:7:59, returned false
Error: Action “ParseBootstrapOptionsAction” failed during execution.  Error information reported during run:
Could not parse command line due to datastore exception.
  Source File Name: utillib\persisthelpers.cpp
Compiler Timestamp: Fri Jul 29 01:13:55 2005
     Function Name: writeEncryptedString
Source Line Number: 124
———————————————————-
writeEncryptedString() failed
      Source File Name: utillib\persisthelpers.cpp
    Compiler Timestamp: Fri Jul 29 01:13:55 2005
         Function Name: writeEncryptedString
    Source Line Number: 123
    ———————————————————-
            Error Code: 0×80070002 (2)
Windows Error Text: The system cannot find the file specified.

  Source File Name: cryptohelper\cryptsameusersamemachine.cpp
Compiler Timestamp: Mon Jun 13 14:30:00 2005
     Function Name: sqls::CryptSameUserSameMachine::ProtectData
Source Line Number: 50

2
Could not skip Component update due to datastore exception.
  Source File Name: datastore\cachedpropertycollection.cpp
Compiler Timestamp: Fri Jul 29 01:13:49 2005
     Function Name: CachedPropertyCollection::findProperty
Source Line Number: 130
———————————————————-
Failed to find property “InstallMediaPath” {“SetupBootstrapOptionsScope”, “”, “3364″} in cache
      Source File Name: datastore\propertycollection.cpp
    Compiler Timestamp: Fri Jul 29 01:13:50 2005
         Function Name: SetupBootstrapOptionsScope.InstallMediaPath
    Source Line Number: 44
    ———————————————————-
    No collector registered for scope: “SetupBootstrapOptionsScope”
Running: ValidateWinNTAction at: 2008/9/20 17:7:59
Complete: ValidateWinNTAction at: 2008/9/20 17:7:59, returned true
Running: ValidateMinOSAction at: 2008/9/20 17:7:59
Complete: ValidateMinOSAction at: 2008/9/20 17:7:59, returned true
Running: PerformSCCAction at: 2008/9/20 17:7:59
Complete: PerformSCCAction at: 2008/9/20 17:7:59, returned true
Running: ActivateLoggingAction at: 2008/9/20 17:7:59
Error: Action “ActivateLoggingAction” threw an exception during execution.  Error information reported during run:
Datastore exception while trying to write logging properties.
  Source File Name: datastore\cachedpropertycollection.cpp
Compiler Timestamp: Fri Jul 29 01:13:49 2005
     Function Name: CachedPropertyCollection::findProperty
Source Line Number: 130
———————————————————-
Failed to find property “primaryLogFiles” {“SetupStateScope”, “”, “”} in cache
      Source File Name: datastore\propertycollection.cpp
    Compiler Timestamp: Fri Jul 29 01:13:50 2005
         Function Name: SetupStateScope.primaryLogFiles
    Source Line Number: 44
    ———————————————————-
    No collector registered for scope: “SetupStateScope”
0000000000F4AF90Unable to proceed with setup, there was a command line parsing error. : 2
        Error Code: 0×80070002 (2)
Windows Error Text: The system cannot find the file specified.

  Source File Name: datastore\propertycollection.cpp
Compiler Timestamp: Fri Jul 29 01:13:50 2005
     Function Name: SetupBootstrapOptionsScope.InstallMediaPath
Source Line Number: 44

Class not registered.
Failed to create CAB file due to datastore exception
  Source File Name: datastore\cachedpropertycollection.cpp
Compiler Timestamp: Fri Jul 29 01:13:49 2005
     Function Name: CachedPropertyCollection::findProperty
Source Line Number: 130
———————————————————-
Failed to find property “HostSetup” {“SetupBootstrapOptionsScope”, “”, “3364″} in cache
      Source File Name: datastore\propertycollection.cpp
    Compiler Timestamp: Fri Jul 29 01:13:50 2005
         Function Name: SetupBootstrapOptionsScope.HostSetup
    Source Line Number: 44
    ———————————————————-
    No collector registered for scope: “SetupBootstrapOptionsScope”
Message pump returning: 2

Looked like a dump to me.  Well, long story short, and a couple of days of frustration, I found out that the OS was a custom install by the server team, and it was a custom install.  Needless to say, I was just missing one registry key.

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User
Shell Folders\AppData

It seems the key had been messed up in the build of the OS. The key should be a REG_EXPAND_SZ and set to:

%USERPROFILE%\Application Data

Hope this helps somebody!

Posted in DPM, SQL | 3 Comments

SpiderOak – Secure, Easy, Online Backup/Share/Sync Software

Posted on October 20, 2008 by Nerd

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As a responsible nerd, I cannot stress enough how important backups are!  Hard drives do fail, CD’s/DVD’s do scratch, and tapes do go bad.  My choice of backup is some sort of off-site backup.  What about security you might ask?  All my data in a third party’s hands?  Can I trust them with it?  Well, what if the company you are using doesn’t even have access to the decryption key? 

I started using Spider Oak a while back, switching from Mozy.  One of my biggest reasons was security.  SpiderOak does not have the ability to decrypt your data that you have backed up.  I had a chance to speak to the Alan Fairless, co-founder and CTO of Spider Oak, and he explained it like this:  If any backup service provider has the ability to reset your username’s password, they have access to your data.  SpiderOak cannot reset your password, for this reason.

More than just a backup solution, SpiderOak also syncs your files, and allows you to share files with anyone!  SpiderOak also supports Windows, Mac, and Linux, and supports command line backups for each OS (very nice for scripting backups).  Unlike Mozy, SpiderOak allows an unlimited number of computers per account, and allows access to all your files from any computer.  Because of the smart synchronization, there are no duplicate files either!

SpiderOak isn’t just for home users, it is perfect for business use as well!  I am implemented it for a non-profit organization that I work with, and it is working perfectly!

My only complaint with SpiderOak, is that it runs in the system tray in Windows, but in my conversation with Alan Fairless, this is a feature that is coming soon, so hang tight!

Again, I cannot stress enough how important having a backup of your computer can be!  Your digital pictures, videos, email – you name it – if it’s important to you, back it up!!!  SpiderOak offers a free service of 2GB free, or a paid plan of $10.00/month for 100GB. 

SpiderOak has allowed a special offer to the readers of EverydayNerd.com!  15% off each purchased plan, but only through October 25th, so HURRY!  Folks, this is an AWESOME deal, and you don’t want to be caught without a backup!

Link: http://spideroak.com

The promo code is : everydaynerd (no capitals, no spaces)

Posted in Backup, Software | 1 Comment