I’ve finally got my HTPC up and running with Team Mediaportal‘s lovely Media Center replacement Media Portal. One of the issues I faced while getting it up and running, was getting it to work with my MCE Remote. The solution to this was a third-party app called IR Server Suite. Once installed, every function in my MCE Remote worked like a charm. Until I rebooted the computer that is.
For some reason, the service that IR Server Suite uses to override Windows Media Center, and reroute signals to Media Portal, does not start properly. Although I am trying to solve the problem, a more immediately interesting issue is creating a better workaround than having to go to Services and manually start it.
The solution came to me while at work, as I remembered that a few of our servers have services that at times need to be restarted. This is done through shortcuts on the desktop of the server to save time. The shortcut leads to a batch file, using the NET START command. Here’s how my batch file looks like:
@echo off
net start inputservice
exit
Blog
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Creating a shortcut to start a service.
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Lotus Notes 8 – ‘A Runtime Error has occurred. Do you wish to Debug?’
I’ve had a few cases of users running into this error message in Lotus Notes 8.0.1:
The problem is tied to the embedded version of IBM’s instant messaging system Sametime, and has been reliably reproduced in any of the following conditions:
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Reducing spam – the advantage to having a top level domain
I post comments in many blogs, and for a while, I had a serious problem that whenever I posted my comment with my emailadress, I’d soon see a marked increase in spammail. This all really cleared up when I actually got my own top level domain, razumny.no, and here’s how:
Once the domain was up and running, I started setting up my email accounts. What I did was create one adress, and then set that up as a catch-all adress, so that anything ending it (at) razumny . no would go to my main adress. Once that was done, I started setting up adresses wherever I’d leave a comment, so that when I commented at RennyBA’s Terella, the adress would reflect that.
The point to all of this is elegant in its simplicity; whenever I get an email sent to one of the catch-all adresses, I see which one it is. The practical upshot of this is that if I see an increase in spam to a specific adress, I’ll just block that one adress. This way, I don’t have to set up loads and loads of adresses, and I still keep spam at an absolute minimum.
Another advantage to this setup is, of course, that whenever I spell my email address out to someone, it doesn’t really matter what they put in front of the @-sign, it’ll get to me. -
Syncronising Lotus Notes Calendar with Google Calendar
At work, I use IBM’s Lotus Notes as my primary email and calendar client. It works well enough, but there are some issues. My main problem with it though, is that syncronising calendar data with Google Calendar is nigh on impossible, at least out of the box.
Finding this annoying, I talked to a colleague of mine, and asked him if he had any clues as to third party software that could solve my problem. The answer he came up with turned out to be the very thing I’d been looking for. The app is made by a company called CompanionLink Software, and is called Companionlink for Google.
The program is available as a 14 day free evaluation, after that it costs $29,95. Frankly, just under 30 bucks for this piece of software is pretty cheap. It is easy to use, and it just works.
CompanionLink supports the following PIMs:
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A glance at different outlooks
Following monday’s post a colleague of mine sent me the below picture. Although I’ll grant you it is oversimplifying things more than a bit, it still has a vein of truth in it, not to mention the fact that it is more than slightly amusing…
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Opera revisited
It’s been a while since I last wrote of my trying out Opera. Since then, my tech-savvy friend has taken it upon himself to bring me into the light. A calm evening of beer and pizza quickly turned into just that, with the addendum of him prodding me to use Opera in no uncertain terms. Indeed, so much so that he convinced me to download and install Opera to my EeePC so that I could see the marvels of Opera in all their splendour.
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Quick Heal PCTuner – reviewed
One of a few things I do on my spare time is review software. The last piece of software I reviewed is called PCTuner, marketed by a company called QuickHeal. Marketed as a simple solution to the classic problem of a computer getting slower with time, it is said to “…cleans and optimizes your PC safely and automatically. It also protects your privacy by cleaning various common application traces.”
Installing it is now hassle, a simple “next”, “next”, “accept” and “install” routine is implemented as with most other software installs. Similarly, it is simple to use, with at most three clicks to perform any task. Here is what the main window looks like:
Features
Here are the features, as presented by QuickHeal: (more…) -
Changing the system language in Google Chrome
Google Chrome ships with a plethora of different system languages to suit any user. When I downloaded it, it installed with norwegian as the default language. I prefer having my software in english, so here’s how to change the system language:
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Google Chrome – First impressions
Web search and advertising giant Google has gone against what seemed to be a foregone conclusion by not only not buying the norwegian web browser development firm Opera software, but also publishing their own web browser, called Chrome. They’ve built it on Web Kit, the same rendering engine used by Apple’s Safari, and added their own JVM (Java Virtual Machine).
The first thing I noticed when I’d installed Chrome was how shiny it was, how eyecandy-y it was. The second thing I noticed was its lack of a “stop” button. That was it though. I didn’t notice any obvious usability flaws. There were no illogical keyboard shortcuts.
Even so, it does seem somewhat underdeveloped. Chrome is a very early Beta considering other Beta projects of Google’s. To me, it immediately felt a bit like Windows XP’s default skin, that is to say, I think it looks a bit like they’ve teamed up with Fisher Price to create My First Browser.
Like my conclusions on Apple’s Safari and Opera, I like it, but I can’t really see it substituting my current default, Mozilla Firefox. -
Adding a label cloud to your BlogSpot blog
I like to apply all the relevant labels or tags to my blog posts, so that they are easily found through search. I was getting annoyed that my list of tags was getting longer than my actual blog, and decided to do something about it. There are many ways of doing it, from adding javascript code to editing the actual HTML of the blog setup.
The best explained way of doing it is the one I found at blogger Phydeaux3’s blog. If you’re unsure whether you want to risk it, you can either not do it, or back your design up before you go mucking about with changing it. Frankly, you’ll want to back up your design anyway, so go ahead and do that. That way, if you muck it up too badly, you’ll just need to upload the backup, and you’re back on your feet.
Find the instructions here.