Issue

When trying to install iTunes (for iPhone or iPod) on Windows 7 (possible XP and Vista as well) several of the components install but you eventually get a message similar to one below:

1. “Apple mobile device service failed to start.”
2. “Windows could not start the Apple Mobile Device service on local computer, error 1067: the process terminated unexpectedly”

Resolution

1. Temporarily disable your anti-virus software.  In my case I was using Windows Microsoft Security Essentials.  To disable Windows Essentials temporarily – see the screen shot below.
   
2. Temporarily disable your anti-spyware software.  In my case I was using Windows Defender that is pre-installed on Windows 7.  To disable Windows Defender temporarily – see the two screen shots below.
   
   
3. Try reinstalling iTunes.  This time the Apple mobile device support software should install.  If it does not you may have to “unpack” the installers in the setup using something like 7Zip and install AppleMobileDeviceSupport by itself.
4. If you’ve successfully installed iTunes make sure to re-enable your security software in steps 5 and 6.
5. Re-enable you anti-spyware software.  In my case Windows Defender following the steps above, this time checking the box to enable real-time protection.
6. Re-enable you anti-virus software.  In my case Microsoft Security Essentials following the steps above, this time checking the box to enable real-time protection.

Background

Recently I had to resintall Windows on my desktop.  While installing all my apps I had encountered a more stubborn that usual time getting an application to install.  Apparently I was not alone in having iTunes install, in this case for my iPhone.  Everywhere I searched seemed to turn up dead ends until I found a path that worked for me.  Hopefully this helps others too.  If it does please leave a comment.

It appears that the mobile device support is getting blocked by either your anti-virus or anti-spyware software.

To select a date format, wrap your field value in a format statement

= Format(Fields!DateFieldToFormat.Value,”M/d/yyyy”)

It is as simple as that!

Issue

Error message “Unable to find Adobe PDF resource file.” “Acrobat PDFMaker” “You must have administrator privileges to install these files. Please contact your local system administrator.”

Resolution

1. To fix this error, launch the Acrobat setup and select Modify
   
2. Uninstall Acrobat PDFMaker
   
3. Relaunch Acrobat Setup, modify, and select/reinstall Acrobat PDFMaker

Background

System was a clean install of Vista (system previously XP), Acrobat was setup and PageMaker was installed. Possible cause of this issue may have stemmed from PageMaker installing Acrobat Distiller 5.0 (Current Acrobat install was Acrobat Professional 7.1).

I recently created a SQL database that has to store files as blobs but before doing so a vb.net CLR function performs an MD5 has on the file to store with it.  Everything runs great typically except for on occassion a very large file (4MB) will come along and blow the following error, “.NET Framework execution was aborted by escalation policy because of out of memory“.

To date I’ve tried several settings on SQL Server (2005) unsuccessfully so for now the only way I’ve been able to get around this is to run this SQL command:

DBCC FREESYSTEMCACHE ('ALL')

Running the above SQL command allowed memory to be cleared so the file could be loaded.

Previous research has shown possible fixes based around MemToLeave setting of SQL Server which appears to be a major undertaking!

On occasion it is handy to have a SQL snippet to find SQL views in a database that are using a particular table, column, function, or other SQL.  Fortunately SQL Server offers several information schema views to help out.

Using the system view INFORMATION_SCHEMA.VIEWS you can query the views definition (think the SQL you used to create the view).  It is as simple as searching the system views VIEW_DEFINITION column.  See the example below:

SELECT     TABLE_NAME
FROM         INFORMATION_SCHEMA.VIEWS
WHERE VIEW_DEFINITION LIKE '%search criteria%'

Similarly you can search stored procedures using the example below:

SELECT     ROUTINE_NAME 
FROM         INFORMATION_SCHEMA.ROUTINES 
WHERE ROUTINE_DEFINITION LIKE '%search criteria%'

Applies to: MS SQL Server 2005

The highly anticipated iPhone update to OS4 encountered a lot of issues users of the 3G phone.  It appears that 3G users can’t follow the prompts as directed but instead have to take an alternate route.

1. Backup your iPhone first; this is always a given and you may even want to make a copy of the backup to a USB stick
2. Select the Restore button instead of the Update button; yes Restore is the way to actually get the update pushed to your phone
3. Typically after about 20-30 minutes your phone is updated

Many users reported waiting hours to get their phone to update.  Some users waited over a day and the update still would not install but instead remain stuck or stalled at the backup stage.

When using remote desktop connection to connect to a server I recently encountered the “Because of a protocol error detected at the client (code 0×1104), this session will be disconnected.  Please try connecting to the remote computer again.” error. 

The error was encountered after:

• I had just logged into the the server the night before with no issues. 
• Able to login to another server and tried to roundtrip to server in question from another server.  Still the same error persisted.
• Rebooting of my machine did not change the errors.

How to fix:

In your RDP connection window, expand options if they are already not expanded and then select the Experience tab.  Unselect the Themes checkbox (Prior to Windows 7) or Visual Styles checkbox in Windows 7. 

Try logging in again.  The issue should be cleared.

Note: After one login, I was able to click Visual styles and login normal again. 

If you frequently find yourself installing Windows applications for friends, family that has wrecked their computer or because you’re a frequent Windows Beta tester there is a great tool for you.

Ninite

Simply go to the Ninite site and select from dozens of apps and then click Get Installer and Ninite builds you a Windows installer of all the apps you’ve selected.  Much like the simple process of selecting your apps, your installation runs smoothly with little or no prompts.

There are a couple of limitations to the installer – the applications must be on their list and the machine installing must have web access.  However, lucky for us the current selection has a large number of applications unlike Google Pack and it’s extremely limited selection.

The current selection of apps includes:

Web Browsers

• Chrome
• Safari
• Opera
• Firefox

Messaging

• Skype
• Messenger
• Pidgin
• Digsby
• Google Talk
• Thunderbird

Media

• iTunes
• Songbird
• Hulu
• VLC
• KMPlayer
• AIMP
• Audacity
• Spotify

Imaging

• Paint.NET
• Picasa
• GIMP
• IrfanView
• XnView

Documents

• Office (Trial)
• OpenOffice
• Adobe Reader
• Foxit Reader
• CutePDF

Anti-Virus

• Essentials
• Avast
• AVG

Runtimes

• Flash
• Flash (IE)
• Java
• .Net
• Silverlight

File Sharing

• uTorrent
• eMule

Other

• Dropbox
• Evernote
• BumpTop
• Steam
• Google Earth

Utilities

• ImgBurn
• CCleaner
• Launchy
• Revo
• Defraggler
• RealVNC
• CDBurnerXP
• Recuva

Compression

• 7-Zip
• WinRAR

Developer Tools

• Python
• FileZilla
• Notepad ++
• JDK
• WinSCP
• PuTTY
• Eclipse

Scenario

On machines where Vista/W7 is installed there appears to be an issue when checking to see if a user is in a role.  User Account Control (UAC) must be on to reproduce the issue.  The result is that the value returned is always FALSE even when the user does belong to the group.

Sample Code (UAC must be on to produce error)

If My.User.IsInRole(“My Domain\My Group”) Then

     Return True

Else

     Return False

End If

Workaround

To get around this I created a function using other .Net functions.

Public Function IsInUserRole(ByVal RoleToFind As String) As Boolean

    Dim id As WindowsIdentity = WindowsIdentity.GetCurrent
    Dim irc As IdentityReferenceCollection

    ‘ Gets a SID list of groups the user belongs to

    irc = id.Groups

    For Each ir As IdentityReference In irc

        ‘ Need to convert the SID to plain english

        Dim act As NTAccount = CType(ir.Translate(Type.GetType("System.Security.Principal.NTAccount")), NTAccount)

        If act.Value = RoleToFind Then

            Return True

        End If

    Next

    Return False

End Function

Have a shiny new Web 2.0 site where you are using just the stock busy / loading graphic (spinner.gif or waiting.gif)?  Why not go with a custom look for free. 

ajaxload.info is a new site that builds customized animated gifs for you.

Simple as 1-2-3!

1. Pick an indicator type from the Web 2.0 style drop down
2. Select your colors
3. Click Generate

Simple!  1 Site – 1 Page!