Luke’s Blog

I bought a new surround sound system for my home theater setup at home. I already have the TV centered, the center speaker behind the TV, the Left and Right speakers at even height and distance from the center and the rear speakers at even heights and as close to even distance from viewers sitting area as possible. I had this all setup from my last system. I now only had one thing left to do, tweak my delay and speaker balance!

An old roommate of mine had the brilliant idea to use the movie Ghost Ship to tweak the sound. You know that scene at the beginning where the cable snaps? Yeah, that sound start at the rear left speaker and works it’s way around the room! Works wonders for setting the delay! After that is all setup, I throw in Jurassic Park! Watch the scene where it’s raining and make sure it sounds like it is raining outside! That’s when I know I have it! I also watches the series if lightning flashes and thunder to go with it, to double check my delay.

We just got the Blackberry curves at work yesterday. Today, I was helping a co-worker set up the Blackberry Desktop Manager to sync up their phone with their Outlook 2000 calendar. Well, the option for Outlook was not listed when I was attempting to set it up. I figured that it had to be the version of outlook. I use Outlook 2003 on my PC at work, but many co-workers are still using Outlook 2000. After a quick search online I found this on blackberryfaq.com. It’s not really a big deal, but that was really my only problem of the day. The rest of the day I was continuing to set up new computers.

This is not something that recently happened, but I do feel compelled to share this tale. Long before I was in charge of our Domain, we had an outside company set things up. We had a Windows 2000 Mixed Mode Domain with 2 domain controllers. It is a fairly simple setup. Well, some time last year we purchased the CALs for Windows 2003 and 2 new servers to replace our aging 2000 server domain controllers.

During the process, I intended to replace one server at a time, I had a plan all laid out. I first wrote my login script to replace the Static DNS entry for the first DC on all the computers in the domain with the new DC replacing it. I then transfered the FSMOs on the first DC to the second DC. I then ran ADPREP and then I hit a snag! Basically, the error kept telling me the following:

The schema master did not complete a replication cycle after the last reboot. The schema master must complete at least one replication cycle before the schema can be extended.
[User Action]
Verify that the schema master is connected to the network and can communicate with other domain controllers. Use the Sites and Services snap-in to replicate between the schema operations master and at least one replication partner. After replication has succeeded, run adprep again.
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When I got my laptop with Vista, I could not stand the fact that it was lacking the Run command when you click the Windows “Start” Button. At first I just settled on using the Windows Key on the keyboard + “R” to bring up the Run command. The shortcut key work fine, but I still was in the habit of click Start to get to Run. Finally, I had enough and added the Run Command to the Start Menu… It’s not hard, but I have been asked about it several times recently, so I thought I would share this little tip.

Right Click on your Windows “Start” Button located at the bottom left corner by default. In the menu, select properties, on the start menu tab select customize and scroll down to near the bottom and place a check next to Run Command.

This is an issue I’ve seen often, and today is no exception. I had a user with this issue on Excel. The problem is that Excel will not open at all. In the past I had attempted a repair install, which did not work then I followed up with a Full uninstall and reinstall, and again that did not work.
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