June 2006 Archives

• Slammin' - "We can't raise the minimum wage in this country, but the minimum serving size of Sprite just goes up and up and up."

• The World As Best As I Remember It - A good analysis of the Windows Vista slip. Relates to any software project with staff > 1.
• Gmail attachment reminder - sweet. need this for thunderbird and outlook, too.

To be done before you have a problem:

• Make a backup copy of your registry before making any changes. This is found in %SYSTEMROOT%/system32/config, and the important files are default, sam, security, software, and system. Depending on the version of windows, there may be a tool to set a restore point. This is helpful, but requires a little more work to get everything back to normal in the event of a catastrophic failure (BSOD, stupid reboot loop, etc.). I would suggest doing this any time you make a change (obviously before) so that you can easily roll back. Save these copies somewhere in the %SYSTEMROOT% directory--perhaps in a regbackup folder--you'll see why later.
• Install recovery console (XP, 2000(?), 2003, and so on), and verify that you can get into it--if it asks for the administrator password, it is the one the system was originally setup with, and not the current one, unless you have explicitly changed it for recovery console. To do this, use teh OS installation CD and in the i386 directory run winnt /cmdcons
• Did I mention to make a backup copy of your registry?

In the event of a failure:

• In the order of preference, use the following recovery "tools":
  • safe mode
  • recovery console
  • repair install
  • last known good configuration
• To access safe mode, press <F8> immediately after the BIOS POST is done. If you get the OS splash screen, it's too late.
• If you installed the recovery console before this happened, good for you. If you didn't you aren't necessarily out of luck. If you have an official install cd (and not an OEM recovery cd), you can boot off of it, and as long as there isn't an unattended script on the cd, you can get to the recovery console, you just have to wait for the entire setup program to copy and load (a long time). The recovery console allows you to manipulate registry files and other things that windows may not let you do when it is running and has those files open.
  
  Caveat: It only lets you operate in the %SYSTEMROOT% directory
  
  If you suspect a registry corruption issue, save the files (locations above) to a tmp dir so that you can recover them, just in case, and copy your backups over--you did make backups, right? If you didn't make backups, you can try this recovery procedure, but it may or may not be terribly helpful.
• If this fails to boot, you can try using the installation cd to do a repair installation. YMMV.
• If this doesn't work, your last option is to try the last known good configuration. You can get to this in the same F8 menu, but use the recovery console to copy your broken registry files back first. I've had several occasions where this made the problem worse, which is why I put it as a last resort instead of Microsoft's first resort.
• If this fails, you'll probably need to reinstall the system. You did make backups of your data, right? If you didn't, you can install into a different directory. You potentially have issues with permissions on your folders, etc (new install, users have new sids), but at least you have your data.

• 17632.swf (application/x-shockwave-flash Object) - When flash fights back...
• Recommendations for cooks - A list of cook books that talk more about the how instead of focusing on the what. I'll have to get one or two of these...

I just got back from a 5 mile run. If you asked me six months ago if I would be able to run for 5 miles without stopping, I would have thought you were nuts. I couldn't even run for a mile without stopping--I never have been able to. In high school, I was always "that" guy that would run for about 200m on the track and walk the rest of the mile. I could actually keep up with everyone for that 200m, and even sometimes be in the lead. I think I have started a conversion from fast twitch, sprinting muscles, to slow twitch, endurance muscles.

To me it's odd to feel good after a run.

Up next in my training, short 1000yd "recovery" swim today and a 45 mile bike ride tomorrow.

• Better off with Donuts and a Big Mac - mmm.... donut....

• Gummi bears defeat fingerprint sensors - "Matsumoto tried these attacks against eleven commercially available fingerprint biometric systems, and was able to reliably fool all of them."
• Air fresheners are evil - Report of migraine aura with aerosol air fresheners.
• How to Run up a Wall and Flip - awesome

I'm a little behind the times, but the other day I was watching the Today show (it's on in the mornings) and they were doing a story on fake drugs. Apparently there is big money in making fakies for Viagra, Cialas, and the like. By contacting one of the larger distributors in China, they were able to obtain some fake Viagra. They took these fakes to Pfizer, the makers of Viagra, to have them analyze the pill's contents.

It's a good thing I didn't have a mouth full of milk when they announced that the chemist that they were working with was named John Thomas, because the tv would have been white.

For those of you that don't get the irony, you've not seen Monty Python's The Meaning of Life, or don't recognize the British slang. I'll leave looking that up as an exercise to the reader.

• The Extreme Diet Coke & Mentos Experiments - "What happens when you combine 200 liters of Diet Coke and over 500 Mentos mints?"
• Pilot finds snake stowaway inside cockpit - "That snake resides in Ohio now."
• People over 30 should be dead - "Our actions were our own. Consequences were expected."

• (Not) Managing Software Developers - "If you have true empathy for your engineers, they can forgive almost anything. Which is good, because you will make mistakes. We all do."