Unincorporated Minds

This is a note to USB Developers: It appears that the autorun.inf file is useless in computers running Win XP SP3 or higher. Recent Microsoft updates have kept the autoplay feature, but disabled the autorun feature in XP SP3 and Vista. It is also set this way by default in Windows 7.

If the user is motivated to do so, there are work-arounds. However, promotional USB developers must keep this in mind as a statistically large portion of users will no longer be able to use their USB drives as effectively.

I am putting this here so that it may save you time trying to find a solution when this happens to you.

I will also update this blog if I find a valid solution other than ensuring the root directory of your USB only contains a file that say CLICKME.

Hope this helps.

This was originally posted on my tech blog Priceless Geek.

 

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I had the pleasure of working with ICVerify 4 again the other day.  This time I had a machine on which I was getting an error that went Something like “Cannot start program to due to an error.”

If you have dealt with this program, then you know it is easier to uninstall and reinstall than to try and troubleshoot it. That is the path on which I journeyed. It failed to take me home.

After some frustrating time spent on it, I discovered the uninstall features did not remove the hook into the SQL database. Once I deleted the reference on the SQL Server, I was able to run the program without incident.

Also, if you did not know this, you can export the ICVERIFY.SET file from a working installation and copy it over to your new installation. You just have to open the ICVerify setup program and export it from there. It takes two seconds and can save you some time if you are manually setting up your configuration.

What are some of your experiences and/or tips with this program?

This was originally publish on my tech blog Priceless Geek.

 

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I had intended to put this topic on my previous ICVerify post, but I felt it needed its own entry.

Getting ICVerify (I was using v4) to work on Windows 7 is pretty simple.

When I first installed it, the program would fatal error when the program called the receipt printer.

However, the solution is NOT reinstalling.

• Just go into the folder where ICverify.exe resides and Right click on ICVerify.exe.
• Go to properties
• Go to the Compatibility tab
• Check “Run this program compatibility mode for:” Windows XP SP3
• Also, check “Run this program as administrator.”

From there everything should cooperate.

 

Another user is already logged on Error 

If ICVerify crashes and you cannot log back in because you get an error message stating that the user name you are loggin in as is already loged in, don’t panic. This is also an easy, quick fix.

• Open the ICVerify User Manager. Log in.
• Go to the Log On Tab
• Select the option that is not User manager from the drop down box.
• You should see your user ID showing as logged in.
• Select that line, then click the log out button.

You should now be able to log back in.

Hope that helps. Do you have any tips or tricks for this program you would like to share? Please comment if so.

This was originally publish on my tech blog Priceless Geek.

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Just a couple quick questions for you.

Do you have any suggestions?

Do you blog? What is your blog address?

Also, if you want to help me get an A in my one of my WSU classes:

Please fill this short survey out.

If you aren’t reading this at Unincorporated Minds you should be.

 

 

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This post is to update my precious readers that I have not abandoned this blog. School and work have been hectic, but I will be updating this regularly moving forward.

Also, Check out my business blog and my weight loss blog.

What do you think of my new layout?

See you then,

Mike

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This is my letter to Amazon.com's Executive customer service email line (ecr@amazon.com). It has been a long day of dealing with uncaring folk on the phone. This letter outlines my plight.

Hello,


I am writing you as a last resort. I have had a horendous experience with Amazon and Sprint today.


I placed my original order 103-5789548-06xxxxx at around 11am 10-25-10. Shortly after, I received an email stating I needed to call Sprint. I called Sprint to get credit approval. I was approved for the phones and was Sprint would notify Amazon of my approval. Sprint made an error and informe Sprint I had a previous account.

I have not ever been a Sprint customer. At this rate, I never will be. In 2008, I did attempt to purchase a cell phone from them. I canceled the order after they wanted an insane amount as a deposit. I called Sprint to get this sorted out. They say that I am a new customer and the agent shouldn't have appened my new account to that old account from the canceled order. Sprint confirms that I am approved for the phones.

I have spoken to about 14 different Amazon employees about this. I have had it escalated. Amazon has canceled the order. I am informed there is no way to reverse this. I have tried to climb the authority ladder on the phone, but came to dead ends. One customer service agent even told me that there was no one higher than him. Even though he admitted he was not the CEO. He informed me that as far as I am to be concerned, he is the most important person at Amazon and what he says is final. His name was John B. out of a call center in Huntington, VA. He suggested I just re-order the phones.

I explained that I cannot just reorder the phones. To qualify for the price on Amazon.com, I must be a new customer to Sprint. Since Amazon opens an account in my name with Sprint to get approval for the service plan, I am now a customer with Sprint. Sprint shows that the order for the phones is complete. Sprint cannot cancel a 3rd Party order. There is an obvious disconnect between Sprint and Amazon.

I tested my luck anyway. I tried to reorder the phones. Sprint customer service informed me that they approved the phones, but that due to a system glitch I may be rejected anyway. That order number is 103-8844314-372xxxx. I was rejected as the Sprint warned. Amazon canceled that order too.

So here I am, ready and willing to give Amazon $xxx and Sprint over $xxx/month, but I still cannot complete the order due to computer glitches. I cannot get a customer service agent that understand customer service or solving a problem outside a script.


I have never had any problems with Amazon.com before. I am even a seller on Amazon.com. However, after this experience, I am about to swear off both Sprint and Amazon.

Please help me solve this problem.


Mike Brooks

I certainly hope that I can get this resolved. I will update this with the results (or lack thereof).

Sometimes repairs stop being about a quick fix and become a vendetta. This is one of those instances.

Recently, a Toshiba Satellite L305 was given to me for repair. The OS had been accidentally removed, but the person had the Vista 32-bit recovery disks. I figured no problem, I can do this in a hour.  Well, the recovery went find until disk 2 went into the recovery process and hit about 30%. I received a 10-FC12-0017 error.  A search of the net found nexperts (net experts) divided between bad recovery disks or bad hard drive.

The hard drive wasn’t acting or sounding bad. Plus ,my friend had said the only reason she ran the recovery disks originally was because the touchpad wasn’t working. It’s ok to laugh. I assumed the HDD was fine since she didn’t complain of operating issues.  So I figured it was the recovery DVD’s, as they had some serious scratches on them even after I cleaned them.

The L305 had a 64-bit processor so I figured, let me try my OEM 64-bit Vista disk.  It actually installed fine with no errors.  However, I had no valid product code and the product key on the bottom wasn’t validating.  So I knew I had to use the recovery disks.

Toshiba has quite a racket with these recovery disks. It’s $25 for a new set. I wasn’t about to go that route. 

I booted freedos off a CD and made sure all the partitions on the drive wiped before attempting a new recovery, With a raw drive, I attempted the recovery again, using the recovery disk to setup the partitions. It failed again.

At this point I was frustrated. I also think Vista sucks. I re-wiped the drive with freedos and attempted an install of windows 7 32-bit. It is what I had laying around. It failed with a “cannot install on this hardware error.”

At this point I knew something was up. I then ran CHKDSK on the drive and it took damn near 8 hours to complete.  I ran the recovery and it failed again.

So extremely frustrated, I put a spare SATA drive in it, and ran the Vista recovery disks. 

After about 14 hours of attempted recovery, the OS came to life.  So error 10-FC12-0017 on a Toshiba recovery, is a bad hard disk.  Save yourself the trouble and just replace the HDD.

What is most frustrating about this is the touchpad never did work, it was bad. The owner opted for an external mouse instead of paying to fix it.  It didn’t work during the recovery. That should have been my clue that more hardware (like the HDD) could be damaged.

And that is one of the lessons I learned.  The other lesson is, check the disk before running a recovery (something I normally do anyway for computers I don’t know the drive’s history).  The third lesson is never detour from your usual practices because you are doing a favor for someone.

I hope someone finds this helpful.

Also, if you aren’t reading this at http://beavmetal.blogspot.com, you should be.

 

This is a quick article on how to download videos from youtube (or any other supported site) and batch convert them into mp3 files.

First, how do you get the videos downloaded from youtube? I use the software from http://www.downloadhelper.net/   . It is a Firefox plug in.  Unfortunately, I have not found a Chrome equal.  SO I used Firefox for this task.

Using Download Helper, you just select download from its toolbar when you find your desired video.  You can select between flv and m4p file types.  I choose flv as personal preference.

Now the real reason for writing this, step 2: converting the video to a mp3.  I spent a portion of today trying out freeware that is supposed to do this easy task.  It all pretty much angered me.  Let me tell you what I tried so you don't go down the same path:

Freez FLV to MP3 - Not Free, can use once before getting a registration prompt. If you don't register, the program closes.  It also wouldn't batch encode more than 30 items.
FLV2MP3.org - It kept giving me 0 byte mp3 files.
A file from richapps.de: It wasn't a batch converter.

The program I ended up using, was VideoLan player.  It is an absolute favorite program of mine. There is no batch conversion feature of VideoLan.  However, a quick and dirty BAT file will do the trick.  I found the following code on the videolan help wiki and changed it for flv files.

Create your BAT file (How to create a bat file) in the top most directory where you downloaded your FLV files.  I plan to use this frequently so I called mine vlanFLV2mp3.BAT. It will convert all the files in that directory and in all the sub-directories below it. For instance, if you downloaded the flv files into C:\Documents and Settings\MYPC\Desktop\FLV and then have sub-directories of musical artists, you would want the BAT file in that top ..\Desktop\FLV directory.


Here is the code you need to past into the BAT file:

@ECHO OFF
REM ########################################################################
REM # A Windows XP cmd.com script to batch convert flv files to mp3. #
REM # #
REM # Copyright (C) 2008 Andrew Boden #
REM # (boden@graduate.uwa.edu.au) #
REM # #
REM # This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify #
REM # it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by #
REM # the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or #
REM # (at your option) any later version. #
REM # #
REM # This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, #
REM # but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of #
REM # MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the #
REM # GNU General Public License for more details. #
REM # #
REM # You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License #
REM # along with this program. If not, see .#
REM # #
REM # Version 1.0 (June 27th 2008) #
REM # Uses VideoLAN VLC 0.8.6h (www.videolan.org) #
REM # Gracefully handles commas and apostrophes in file names. #
REM # Not aware of any other characters needing graceful handling. #
REM # 512kbps encoding with 44100 sampling. #
REM ########################################################################

@ECHO OFF
FOR /R %%G IN (*.flv) DO (CALL :SUB_VLC "%%G")
FOR /R %%G IN (*.flv.mp*) DO (CALL :SUB_RENAME "%%G")
GOTO :eof

:SUB_VLC
SET _firstbit=%1
SET _qt="
CALL SET _newnm=%%_firstbit:%_qt%=%%
SET _commanm=%_newnm:,=_COMMA_%
REM echo %_commanm%
CALL "C:\Program Files\VideoLAN\VLC\vlc" -I dummy -vvv %1 --sout=#transcode{acodec="mp3",ab="512","channels=2"}:standard{access="file",mux="raw",dst="%_commanm%.mp3"} vlc://quit
GOTO :eof

:SUB_RENAME
SET _origfnm=%1
SET _endbit=%_origfnm:*.flv=%
CALL SET _newfilenm=%%_origfnm:.flv%_endbit%=.mp3%%
SET _newfilenm=%_newfilenm:_COMMA_=,%
COPY %1 %_newfilenm%
DEL %1
GOTO :eof

:eof


This is the original code, it might be easier to copy.  Remember to change m4a to flv if using the linked code.


If you already have all of the software, it isan easy 2 step process. 1: download all the videos you want. 2: run the bat file.