http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nd5WGLWNllA

It turned out to be the same issue that stopped Mac OS 10.4 from talking to my Server 2008 shares at a different location:  the security policies on Server 2008 require SMB message signing.  Both Mac OS 10.4 and the version of True Image that we’re running don’t support SMB message signing.

Here’s how we disabled the message signing requirement (SMB messages will still be signed when a client supports it):

1. Open Group Policy Management and edit the Default Domain Controller Policy
2. Go To Computer Configuration, Policies, Windows Settings, Security Settings, Local Policies, Security Options
3. Scroll down and find the entry Microsoft network server: Digitally sign communications (always)
4. Set this option to Disabled
5. Execute gpupdate on the DC and the file server to apply the new GPO ruleset.

It turns out that DNN uses a config file to tell it what capabilities the various browser versions support.  For some reason, the user agent string from Firefox 3.0.10 isn’t recognized.

I empathize with the arguments on the DNN forums that it’s not a good practice to maintain a table like this, but I’m not going to try to rewrite DNN.  Since I’m not worried about really old versions of Firefox accessing our Intranet site, my fix was to edit the file \js\ClientAPICaps.config and add this to the first section:

browser contains="Firefox"

Two weeks ago, the mail merge documents began refusing to see the data source.  I read all of the tips about using Internet Explorer’s security settings to put the network path in the Intranet or Trusted Sites zones.  That actually helped on some machines, but not most.

My solution was to use the VBA (Visual Basic for Applications) function “TransferText” to export the table to a text file on the local hard drive.  I then reconfigured all of the merge documents to look to that local file.  The basic instructions can be found here.

I finally found the solution: in the VNC client (vncviewer) options, set the encoding to “Hextile” and the color level to “Full”.  Now it connects fine!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lCJ3Oz5JVKs

Suppose that every day, ten men go out for beer and the bill for all ten comes to $100. If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this:

The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.
The fifth would pay $1.
The sixth would pay $3.
The seventh would pay $7.
The eighth would pay $12.
The ninth would pay $18.
The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59.

So, that’s what they decided to do. The ten men drank in the bar every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement, until one day, the owner threw them a curve. “Since you are all such good customers,” he said, “I’m going to reduce the cost of your daily beer by $20.” Drinks for the ten now cost just $80.

The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes so the first four men were unaffected. They would still drink for free. But what about the other six men - the paying customers? How could they divide the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his “fair share?” They realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted that from everybody’s share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each end up being paid to drink his beer. So, the bar owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man’s bill by roughly the same amount, and he proceeded to work out the amounts each should pay.

And so:
The fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% savings).
The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33%savings).
The seventh now paid $5 instead of $7 (28%savings).
The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% savings).
The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 (22% savings).
The tenth now paid $49 instead of $59 (16% savings).

Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four continued to drink for free. But once outside the restaurant, the men began to compare their savings.

“I only got a dollar out of the $20″, declared the sixth man. He pointed to the tenth man, “but he got $10!”
“Yeah, that’s right”, exclaimed the fifth man. “I only saved a dollar, too. It’s unfair that he got ten times more than I!”  “That’s true!!” shouted the seventh man. “Why should he get $10 back when I got only two? The wealthy get all the breaks!”

“Wait a minute,” yelled the first four men in unison. “We didn’t get anything at all. The system exploits the poor!”

The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up.

The next night the tenth man didn’t show up for drinks, so the nine sat down and had beers without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important. They didn’t have enough money between all of them for even half of the bill!

And that, boys and girls, journalists and college professors, is how our tax system works. The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up anymore. In fact, they might start drinking overseas where the atmosphere is somewhat friendlier.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3k5oY9AHHM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XvX7ovvf-LI

What would happen if you built up a lot of static electricity before or while pumping gas? …

Watch it here.

The turtles at the end are a great touch…

If you’re watching video and trying to find the Control Room, click on “Enlarge video” and then the Control Room icon:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ch_CBgcX_20

Or see on ABC News site here: abcnews.go.com/video/playerIndex?id=4826897

What happened:  My machine had been a member of domain A, and I had redirected “My Documents” and all of its subfolders (noteably “My Music”) to D:\MyDocuments.  My iTunes music was in d:\MyDocuments\My Music\iTunes\iTunes Music and the corresponding .itl and .xml files were right above that in d:\MyDocuments\My Music\iTunes.

I moved my computer to domain B, knowing that I would get a new profile and a lot of cleanup work.  I should have remapped My Documents right away, but I didn’t.  I ran iTunes, and it had to do some reinstallation under the new user profile.  It finally opened, showing an empty music library.

After reading some articles online, I thought I could go into Preferences, Advanced tab, and just point iTunes to d:\MyDocuments\My Music\iTunes\iTunes Music.  All of the documentation seems to indicate this, but it doesn’t work.  It turns out that the pointer in the Advanced tab probably only tells iTunes to look there for the music, but not for the .itl and .xml files that describe the library.  iTunes was still looking in my new profile path at a blank set of those file.  Of course, it took me hours to figure that out.

There are probably two solutions:  move the correct .itl and .xml files to the new profile path, or repoint My Documents again so that iTunes finds the existing files in d:\MyDocuments\My Music\iTunes.  I chose the second, and it worked well.

By the way, I couldn’t remember how I’d originally remapped My Documents, so I downloaded TweakUI.  The only downside was that TweakUI has you individually map My Documents, My Music, My Pictures, etc.  The method that I’d used before mapped them all when you remapped My Documents.