Meeting Maker

Was wondering whether the meeting maker software, which was a product of On Technology Corp. still exist...

Ended up, now it is a product of People Cube... still called Meeting Maker... http://www.peoplecube.com/products-meeting-maker.htm

Windows 7 and software competibility

I will be continuously updating this list as the time goes on... (started 10/30/2009 last updated 12/21/2009)


The following software programs run on windows 7

Data Analysis

1. SPSS 17
2. PASW 18 for PC (Formally known as SPSS)
   
3. SPSS SmartViewer 15.0
4. SAS 9.2
5. Mplus 4
6. Nvivo 8 sp4

Browsers

1. Firefox
2. Opera
3. SeaMonkey 2.0
   
4. K-Meleon
5. Safari
6. IE
7. Chrome

Office tools

1. Office 2007
2. Endnote X2
3. OpenOffice 3.1

File Transfer

1. WinSCP 3.7.4

Internet Security Software

1. McAfee 8.7
2. Malwarebytes's Anti-malware

Multimedia

1. Creative Suite 4 (e.g., Adobe Acrobat Pro, Photoshop, Dreamweaver)
2. Snagit 7.2.1
3. Captivate 4
4. iTunes 9.0.2.25
5. Windows Media Player 12.0.7600.16415
6. Sorenson Squeeze 6 (trial version)
7. Sorenson Squeeze 4
8. Quicktime Pro 7

Diagramming and concept mapping software

1. Inspiration 8
2. OrgChart (Trial version)
   

Other

1. Meeting Maker 6.0

CD/DVD burning software

1. iTunes 9.0.2.25
   
2. Windows Media Player 12.0.7600.16415
3. Roxio Creator DE
   

Software programs do not run on windows 7

1. nvivo 8
2. McAfee 8.5
   

How to take Windows XP Logon Screen screenshots

When trying to figure out how to take screenshots of the Windows 7 Logon page, I landed on suggestions people made about how to take screenshots of Windows XP Logon page.

Check the following link to see the tutorial.

Youtube on Dreamlinux

No testing could be completed without my playing a song or two on youtube...



Again, though the buffering was good... video doesn't play and song... jumping around...

This leads me to think....

I can't fight this feeling anymore...

Maybe it's only a dream that any video could be played on this laptop.... toshiba satellite... Pentium III inside...

Dream Linux

Dream Linux comes with the Xfce 4 desktop...

Taking screenshots is simple... accessaries> Screenshot

By assessing the speed it takes to make the postings on this blog, it seems puppy still is faster....

Cute logo though...

Taking screenshots of Windows 7 Logon Screen

One thing that was driving me nuts today was the inability for me to take a screenshot of the Windows 7 Logon screen... since the simple "Print Screen" function is not yet there before you logon to your profile.

Ended up, what I had to do was to connect to this computer remotely through "remote desktop connection" from a different machine. It worked both from a PC and a Mac.

At the beginning, we kept on having troubles connecting to the machine.... because...

Yours id10t did not turn the remote desktop on to allow other computers to connect to my machine... 8-O lol

Following is the screenshot I finally got to take after a long search.... and after bugging the hell out of other people in the office... 8-O lol

Well... the good thing about working in the IT department I guess... 8-O lol

Therapeutic

Playing with technologies is absolutely therapeutic for my mental health... as long as I can get things figured out before it drives me nuts... OR... everyone else nuts... 8-O 8-X lol

Change logon Text in Windows 7

My friend showed me how to change the logon screen info on Windows 7 back a few weeks ago and I forgot all about it when trying to do it again...

At some point, I realized that all that you have to do is to get into the Local Security Policies interface... with many clicks through many windows..

Yesterday, I finally figured out how to do it without clicking to death...

Go to the Windows 7 search box, type in "secpol.msc," and click on the "Local Security Policies" item.

To edit the part "Login to Ratology in Windows 7", you have to click on "Interactive logon: Message title for users attempting to log on."

To edit the part "To log in to Ratology domain: enter "Ratology\" prior to your user name.", you have to click on "Interactive logon: Message text for users attempting to log on."

Following is a little tutorial for the procedure:

http://www.columbia.edu/~yc371/play/Local_Security_Policy_Windows7/

Sorry again... no narration included since ain't like anybody needs to hear my Taiwanese English. 8-O lol

iPhone 3G S 32 GB

My friend got this new iPhone and I decide to make a posting using iPhone 3g s with 32 gb...

Wonder whether this is what they call mobil blogging...

Interestingly,you can only type using the html mode... Something I might have experienced when working with pclinux Phoenix...

SPSS SmartViewer 15.0

Since newer versions of SPSS seem to have problems reading old SPSS files, I had to install SPSS SmartViewer 15.0 to read old output files...

In general, it is ok... on Windows 7 except for I did see error messages coming up left and right at points.

vnc

I was feeling really crappy today until I was shown how to use vnc on a mac...

Essentially, with vnc (Virtual Network Computing), you could remotely control a different computer...

First of all, you need to have the IP address of the computer you want to control and the share function needs to be enabled.

Then, you launched the safari browser and typed in "vnc://123.45.67.89" with "123.45.67.89" indicating the IP address of da computer to be controlled.

So... what did I do with my first vnc trial?

I remotely shared the pictures of Casper.... but it didn't seem that anyone really got spooked... 8-O lol

Personally, I think this vnc thing would be really useful for Halloween even though others might prioritize other types of usage of it. 8-O lol

I felt much better and less crappy after trying to "boo" people vnc-ly for a while... 8-O lol sigh

Dream Linux System Requirement

http://www.dreamlinuxforums.org/wiki/index.php?title=Installation#System_Requirements

Puppy test

Boot back into Puppy to see whether it was some sensory illusion that this machine works much slower on PCLinux...

Seems to run much faster on puppy...

Apparently, if you use the "mtPaint Snapshot screen capture" program to take screenshots, you have to save the file first before you can go and perform simple tasks such as cropping an image.


The screenshot shows the current disk info.

Nightmare on Last Xmas

OMG....

Last Christmas is an absolute nightmare... stalling frames and audio... on this old laptop with PCLinux... through firefox... Again, my laptop at fault...



Since Konqueror wouldn't run without fine-tuning, I have to use firefox... the good thing... flashplayer already installed and there is no need to manually do the update....

PCLinux

Chopped the hard drive of the Satellite into four parts and got PCLinux installed on one of them... in addition to Puppy....

Unfortunately, this machine is not really capable in terms of running PCLinux...

Some problems I have encountered so far...

Kde desktop crashes at least twice upon starting up...

When trying to take a screenshot, same thing happened again... it just keeps on coming... new windows with snapshots keeps on popping up....

Also, when trying to make this post using Konqueror browser, I simply could not get into this textbox that allows me to make this post... Might have something to do with Javascript not enabled... Yet, takes too long to explore... given that the system is running slow...

Substantial delays as well in typing and you press the key down once, the letter comes up multiple times...

Think I might have to forgo this OS since this Satellite can't seem to be able to handle this OS...

Naked woman in technologies: Too sex for puppy?

The other day, as the laptop was trying to finish up installing Puppy, I decided to take a shower while the installation was in progress...

After the shower, I happily got onto the laptop with only a piece of the towel wrapping around me...

Yet, puppy simply wouldn't not start....

So I thought...

Naked woman in technologies...

I am too sex for da puppy for after a clean install? 8-O lol

(And, come on... guys... like you have never done it before....)

And... of course, the puppy's failure to launch has nothing to do with my having gotten dressed or not... as evident by the fact that even after I got dressed, the laptop still failed to boot up from the hard drive...

If the boot CD for puppy linux is still in, it could boot up from the CD and run the OS from the hard drive... Yet, it simply wouldn't boot from the hard drive...

Ended up, after hours (ok, exaggeration) of trying to figure out how to troubleshoot, it turned out to be... I wiped out the whole hard drive, had it reformatted and created a new partition... without making the drive bootable...

Didn't got it figure out until I popped Ubuntu CD in again and found that... the solution was as simple as a click... on the checkbox next to "bootable"... hours of killing my naked existence after... 8-O lol

Puppy must be thinking to itself... "Old lady... you are barking at the wrong tree..." 8-O lol

And, next time, shall it be you, getting all excited about having puppy etc installed on your antique computer after coming right out from the shower and finding puppy Linux etc wouldn't boot from the hard drive....

Question number one to ask... is the hard drive bootable? Did you just wipe it out without making the drive bootable?

If so, how do you make a hard drive bootable without having to do the scary command line kinda thing? Pop in an OS that could run from a CD etc such as Ubuntu and run the disk utility program to make the drive bootable.

Damn Small Linux

Finally got DSL (Damn Small Linux) to work...

Unfortunately, it stubbornly refused to load on the Satellite machine with the installation stall at the message

"scanning for hardisk partitions and creating /etc/fstab..."

I tried burning the ISO image from the same source to two different CDs.... Same result...

I tried downloading the ISO file from a difference source and burn it to a different CD... Same error message...

Eventually, I dicided to see whether it is simply due to the config of da Satellite machine by booting into this old Dell laptop instead...

Within seconds... the desktop loaded....

Not quite sure what the problem is but at least I got it to load and get to see the interface myself...

Apparently, you could use the mtPaint program to create screenshots....

Launch the application under "Apps"-->"Graphics"-->"mtPaint"

Once in the application, click File-->New

The new image window would pop up... select "Grab Screenshot" and click "create."

The only problem I am having now is that... I am not sure how to lose that mtPaint application in the screenshot... 8-O lol

Another way to take screenshot is by using the "X window snapshot" program ("System"-->"X window snapshot")... except for I yet have to figure out how to convert the x-window-specific xwd file into a jpg file...

Yet, at this poinst, I think I am going to go with Puppy since I like the baby blue desktop.... 8-O lol... this should be enough of the experiences for me.

First posting from DSL on a CD.

Cute little Penguins

The cute little penquin picture of Linux...

Interesting thought...

Ubuntu... Puppy... Slax... etc... all but nice little cute penguins... 8-O lol

Forgot how much I love them little Penguins then... Linux I forgot... Penguins... Yes... 8-O lol

Youtube on Slax

Of course, no testing is completed for me unless I test out youtube...


As I have expected... the experience remain disappointing... more having to do with the capacity of the laptop I guess... regardless of the OS...

One thing I have to say, though, is that flashplayer 10 comes with the bundle since I do not need to install the plug-in...

Slax

Was trying to see how Slax might work on this laptop.... Unfortunately, the process of installing the OS seems to take up more steps then simply clicking through some buttons and pressing down on the enter key...

So many fish in the sea... I might just have to leave my Slax experience to simply testing it out through booting up from a CD.....

As demonstrated in the pix here... Slax runs K Desktop... and taking screenshots with it is as simple as pressing down on the Print Screen key... The only irony is that... the first time I booted into Slax and after the desktop was loaded, I tried to take a screenshot of the desktop only to find that the program just keeps on taking more and more and more of the same screenshot and there ain't no way to stop it from coming... (since what I know as CTRL+ALT+DELETE does work here...)

So I complained earlier about how I couldn't take screenshots with Ubutu lite and now I am complaining about too many screenshots being taken? Woman (like me)... can't stop complaining.... 8-O lol

First post on Slax

Burn ISO image to CD on Windwos XP

Apparently, windwos XP doesn't have the built-in ability to burn ISO files.

The program I have been using to burn them Ubutun lite, Puppy and Slax CDs is a freeware called infraRecord...

Shrunken screen

In addition to the screenshot delimma I had with Ubuntu lite, one more reason why I decided to switch to a different OS is because of the "Shrunken screen" phenomena on the old Toshiba Satellite (as well as the fact that I couldn't figure out how to find system information after hours of exploration)...

After I did a whole lot of research, tried out the FN+F11 keys, Esc+space+... a million times... there remained to be this black things on the outter side of the laptop monitor and with the resolution set to be something like 640X480....

Tried to find ways to increase the resolution including typing in th xrandr command directly into the terminal except for it kept on telling me even resultion such as "800X680" is not available...

In any case, the problem is solved after I switched to Puppy...

With puppy, the video detection kinda utility seems to be much user friendly and no longer am I facing a huge black frame on the screen with 640X480 resolution...

Of course, might have nothing to do with Ubuntu or xrandr... simply me dumb... 8-O lol

FIrst Youtube on Puppy

My first youtube experience on puppy and on this old machine is absolutely less then perfect...

Scraty scratchy... da audio....

Frames stalled and stalled... da video...

Absolutely awful experience... Why making myself suffer? God knows... 8-O lol

Friday I am in love....

All for screenshots: Puppy Linux

There are not really too many things I do with computers... with taking screenshot as one of them...

Unfortunately, with Ubuntu lite, after downloading and installing the appropriate packages, I was still having big time problem taking screenshots...

Eventually, I decided to wipe out the whole hard drive and do a clean install of Puppy Linux since they say this is one of them lite and fast OS for old computers...

I have made the installation process more complicated then it has to be...

In any case, when I was finally able to boot into Puppy and when the desktop was loaded... I was going to happily take a screenshot.... except for pressing down the PrintScreen key didn't seem to be doing a thing...

After a quick google search, I found out that I am not along with the screenshot thing....

The solution is... apparently, simple...

Essentially, what you need to do is to click on menu-->graphic->mtPaint Snapshot Screen Capture...

First time in my life heard of people wiped out the whole machine simply because she could not figure out how to take screenshot... 8-O lol

First posting through SeaMonkey on Puppy....

First youtube experience on Ubuntu lite-- installing flash plug-in

Just had my first experience playing an youtube video on this Utuntu lite machine...

Love changes everything by Climie Fisher

The song did play except for QoS is not as good as I want it to be especially when I tried to load Blogger on a different tab in firefox...

In addition, for the video part, the video didn't really play and showed only certain frames...

Regardless, this is my first experience on da Utuntu lite machine.

Most importantly, in order for the video to be played, you will need to have flash player 10 plug-in installed...

By simply going to the flashplayer download page on Adobe website didn't really help me...

First thing you have to do is to close the browser..

Then, launch the LXTerminal by clicking on "Application"--> Accessories" and select LXTerminal from the dropdown menu.

Once the terminal is open, type in the following after the $ sign and press enter...

$ sudo apt-get install flashplugin-nonfree

Once you press enter and, of course, you need to be connected to the Internet, the plug in file will be downloaded and installed.

Launch the browser again and the plug-in should be installed.

Ubuntu Lite

Wiped out my LInux Machine again and got Ubuntu Light installed instead...

THe machine is running faster though still relatively slow to them more powerful ones...

Gotta figure out how to work with this liter version of the OS and KDE desktop... to do simple things such as changing the resolution and taking screen shots....

First post on Ubunbu light...

Number Lock Key on Toshiba Satellite

This old machine I have been messing around is a Toshiba Satellite...

At some point, I found out that the reason why I couldn't log in as an administrator was because the number lock key was on while there exist no physical Number Lock key on the key board...

Apparently, keep on pressing FN+F11.... You will eventually be able to unlock da number lock key....

In search for the thin

Thought I was going crazy trying to find a thin operating system for the old machine with a failing hard drive...

Did a google search...

I found some guy looking for a thin operating system for pentium I (100MHZ) with 32MB and a 2GB hardisk.... 8-O

There even exist forums for "Vintage computers"....

Thought I am weird enough to wanting to put a really old machine to work... not to realise what I thought as old and crappy is actually young and strong.... 8-O lol

My first working LInux machine

Years back, I took this distance learning class for my sister on Linux operation system...

It was red hat I was supposed to work with then... and somehow the entire class got stuck at the installation stage.... for the entire semester....

I finally was able to get red hat installed although I never had the chance to get the Internet working...

Tonight, I decided to wipe out this old laptop running Pentium III, with peanuts amount of RAM, and a failing hard drive with about 20 GB.... since this old laptop could hardly handle Windows XP...

Owing to the amazing advances in Modern Technologies, other than the installation process is painfully slow due to the old age of this laptop, all that it took was some fewer than 10 clicks to wipe out the whole hard drive and install Ubuntu 9.10 on this machine... In addition, I plug the Ethernet cable in and the computer is on the Internet...

Something that I failed to accomplish after killing dozens of machines 8, or 9 or 10 years back.... either I have become smarter or the technologies have become fool-proof... 8-O lol

Still gotta figure out how to fine tune the interface etc... and... perhaps, I need to find a even thinner version of Lunix OS...

In any case, first post from my personal Linux Machine....

PASW 18 on Mac

PASW (SPSS) 18 installation disk is for both PC and Mac.

I had no problem at all installing and running the program on Windows XP and Windows 7.

However, I had some problem running it using Mac... presumably... it could only run on Macs when it has intel inside....

It worked on a Mac with the following spec:

Model Name: iMac
Model Identifier: iMac8,1
Processor Name: Intel Core 2 Duo
Processor Speed: 2.8 GHz
Number Of Processors: 1
Total Number Of Cores: 2
L2 Cache: 6 MB
Memory: 2 GB
Bus Speed: 1.07 GHz

It failed to work on a Mac with the following spec although it did go through the whole installation process:

Model Name: iMac G5 Model Identifier: PowerMac8,2 Processor Name: PowerPC G5 (3.1) Processor Speed: 2 GHz Number Of CPUs: 1 L2 Cache (per CPU): 512 KB Memory: 1 GB Bus Speed: 667 MHz

Phantom DVD Drive: iTune 9 or not on Windows 7

Alas... the computer was not detecting the DVD/CD drive... or... my DVD/CD drive disappeared!

Or, more accurately, it did find the drive but there seemed to be some problem with the driver because it gave me an exclamation mark next to the device in the device manager...

I tried to uninstall the device through the device manager and restart the computer... It didn't work....

I tried to update the driver but the driver was apparently up to date.

I uninstalled Roxio DE... Didn't help...

Since I am getting errors associated with "PBDS DVD+-RW DH-16W1S ATA Device" and the device status I tried to download the driver directly from Dell website. Unfortunately, when trying to install the driver program, I got this error message saying that the device can not be detected.

At certain point, I wondered... could it be that there is some problem with the drive?

So... I tried to boot into Linux on a CD... and I successfully boot into the CD... which tells me that the drive is working and the problem is OS related.

Since I still have Windows XP on this machine, I booted into Windows XP instead and had no problem accessing the DVD/CD drive.

After hours of researching online and try to find a reason why and after 10-20 minutes of wait time trying to get to a tech support guy at Dell, I thought of the thing about how iTune 8 was causing problem for people to use their CD/DVD drive....

I decided to uninstall iTune 9 while waiting to speak with the 3rd tech support guy that I was transferred to...

Then, when I finally got the guy on the phone, I clicked on "My Computer"....

Voila! There appears my DVD/CD drive and it works! 8-O lol

So... as I was tempted to say it was iTune 9 that was causing the problem, I decided to reinstall iTune 9 again to see whether I could replicate the problem...

Unfortunately, after having iTune 9 reinstalled, have the machine restarted and checked for updates, the DVD drive remain functional.... Well, what the last test tells me is that... something happened after I uninstalled iTune 9; yet, I still have no real answer to the core of the problem....

The only thing I could say... if you encounter the problem of your DVD/CD drive disappearing from your Window 7 system and it remained invisible to your computer after you tried to update the driver or reinstall the device, uninstall iTune to see whether it might help to bring your phantom DVD/CD drive back to life.

What's next? Waiting for it to disappear again since... so I was told... this is what happens to the others before since Vista.... and apparently, the problem is still not fixed up to Windows 7 (and, yes... dear DVD/CD Drive... I am waiting for you to turn phantom again.... 8-O lol 8-X)

Install and configure McAfee antivirus software

I did a very plain tutorial on how to install and configure McAfee antivirus software... using captivate 4...

The coolest thing I tested out today is... I guess... that Flash paper thing... it is one page PDF file with flash movie embedded in it...

Did not record naration, though, because there ain't so much need for ya to hear my Taiwanese English... 8-O lol

Sonic Solutions DLA driver blocked on Windows 7

8/1/2003 update: Based on a comment I got, I realized that Roxio might have redid their website and the link I provided no longer works. I found a link to DLA patches for Vista and think it might be the one I used... Access driver blocked. 

Unfortunately, since my computer doesn't show the symptom, I can't tell you for sure whether this is the link to the patch that resolved my issue. I would highly suggest you to contact the customer representatives first. If it does help, it would be highly appreciated if you can come back to leave a note... so that I can rewrite these texts in red to let people having similar issue know whether this is the right solution!

After I installed Roxio Creator DE, I have been receiving this error message these past few days.... "This driver is blocked due to compatibility issues... Driver: Sonic Solutions DLA.

When clicking on the "Check for solutions online" botton, nothing happened.

I finally decided to look into it and realized that it is a known problem since Windows Vista and found a link to an official solution on the Roxio website.

Essentially, since I am working on a Dell, I downloaded and installed the DLA path. After the computer was restarted, the error message disappeared....

PASW 18 (AKA SPSS) on Windows 7

PASW 18 just arrived in the office and I had just had it installed and run on Windows 7.

Ran a simple regression analysis using a sample data... seems to be running ok.

One thing I have to say is that... it is a pretty dumb idea to change from SPSS to PASW since it is much more difficult to pronounce S-P-S-S when comparing to P-A-S-W.... try it out yourself to see whether you agree or not...

Where are the files saved when booting from CD?

Got this question in mind when staring at the image files I saved onto the GNOME Desktop on CentOS....

Where are the files saved when you save them on the "Desktop"?

Apparently, in the RAM.... unless you tell it to save the file in some other places...

Mafia War on CentOS 5

The first time I play Mafia War on Lunix... 8-O lol

The bookmarklets still work.

An interesting observation I have made in recent months is that Mafia War seems to be running slower and slower on Firefox.... after tested it using multiple PCs.

However, it seems to run much faster and smoother when Firefox on Linux... 8-O

Might just be... psychosomatic? 8-O lol

CentOS 5 and Windows 7 ISO CD

I was told that some people have problems burning ISO files onto CDs after iTune 8 was installed on Vista.

To see whether I could recreate the problem, I got the chance to burn CentOS iso file onto the CD using Windows 7 after iTune 9 is installed (since I could not find iTune 8 now on Apple website).

The end result... there is no problem burning ISO files to CDs using Windows 7 after iTune 9 is installed.

Following is the screenshot of the GNOME desktop with OpenOffice software and firefox running when booting into the CD to run the CentOS 5 Linux operating system.

And, yes, this posting is made using Firefox 3.0.12 on CentOS 5.

CD burning with iTunes 9.0.2.25 on Windows 7

I heard that some people have problems burning files to CD using iTune on Windows 7.

So I installed iTunes 9.0.2.25 on Windows 7....

The two files I tried to burn onto the CD seem to be working fine.

Login Locally to Windows 7 ".\"

I was complaining about how annoying it is having to type in the computer name when needing to login locally each time to Windows 7...

Apparently, there is a shortcut and my really smart friend just showed me how to do it today....

Instead of typing out the whole computer name "1150GDtablet40\username," all that you have to do is to type in at the login screen ".\username"...

Tried it and it worked!!!

Now I am one happy rat! 8-D lol

Log in screen: Another annoying thing about Windows 7

With Windows 7 or they say even Vista, it no longer shows you the drop-down box that allow you to select the domain to log in to. This is especially annoying when I want to login to the local computer because I have to type out the whole name of the computer before putting in my username... "COMPUTERNAME\username"

This annoys the hell out of me and I thought it is because I ain't no techie and that is why...

Decided to see whether there is a fix for this inconvenience and realized that I am not alone.... 8-O lol

Even them techie techies complain... Now I feel authorized to feel annoyed... 8-O lol

And, absolutely, "Selecting a drop-down is MUCH faster than typing a long computer name"

http://windows7forums.com/windows-7-support/16835-how-display-domain-local-logon-accounts-logon-screen.html

How would people in Microsoft themselves not getting annoyed? Unless nobody in Microsoft even tried to log on to the computer itself or the naming of their machines are things like... "pc1"... "pc2".... to "pcn"... with n representing the number of the computers in the organization at least.... 8-O lol

Don't understand what I am fussy about? Think of this scenario... for certain reason, you have to log in to the local admin account for 80 of the computers you maintain. What it would require you to do is to type in things like the following 80 times "1150GDtablet40\admin" instead of simply using the selection on the drop down box.

Well, some people might not care... lasy as I am... I would find it unnecessarily inconveniently annoying...

Nvivo SP4 on Windows 7

Some people have it easy...

Although the installation of Nvivo SP4 was like a breeze for the others, I encountered some big time problem having it installed... having something to do with the SQL express 2005 thing for the database...

I tried to download the SQL express 2005 directly from Microsoft website and have it installed through the standalone program... However, it did not solve the problem.... That was last Friday, I think... the same day when I was having problems with the SQL server 2005 security update...

Before I left for the week, I uninstalled Nvivo SP4 and left the machine the way it is for the whole weekend...

When I came back on Monday, I realised that the security patch was installed successfully...

When I later tried to install Nvivo SP4 again, it was successful as well...

At the same time, I was told that, somehow, Nvivo 8 started to run only in administrative mode... which is pretty stupid since you can't let all computer lab users to be the administrator of the computers. Yet, with Nvivo 8 SP4 on Windows 7, I was able to launch the program and sort of play with it using a basic user account.

There were not to many things I did and I have absolutely no idea what exactly happen for all the wrongs to, all of a sudden, went right... 8-O lol

So you think there ain't no nothing more logical then computing technologies? 8-O lol

CD-R like an USB drive?

Worked really hard to screw up a perfect CD-R yesterday afternoon...

I think it was since Vista when windows start to allow users to "use CDs and DVDs like an USB drive."

In other words, you could delete and rewrite files to the same medium again and again...

Yet, if I recall correctly, I have been rewriting files to CD-Rs for years as long as I don't finalize the session... 8-O

The only difference I see is the addition of the delete function...

So, since, in theory, based on my understanding of how CD-R works, once a file is written on a specific region on the CD, there ain't no nothing else you could do about that area any more. The reason why you can continue to write files to the same CD is because certain areas have not been touched yet.

So, how could the live file system format claim to allow you to delete and erase files on write-able (not rewrite-able) media?

I played around by first adding files to the CD and later delete a file or two from it.

Voila! It did work...

After a file is deleted from the CD, when you pop the CD into the drive again, the file did disappear as if it really got erased.

So I added more files and deleted more files.

And, of course, it still works...

The next step I took to resolve this mystery of mine was to check the amount of disk space on this CD that has been used numerous times so far.

You see, a CD-R could hold up to 700 mb. Since the two files I had on the CD-R totaled up to something about 24 mb, there should still be at least something over 600 mb available space on the disc. However, it was shown that there was only a bit shy of 500 mb available.

So, I tried to write a file that was about 490 mb onto the CD.

At a certain point, the process stalled and the the process-bar stopped moving.

I clicked on cancel to cancel the CD writing process. Yet, even the canceling process seemed to have stalled... I tried to close the window by clicking on the red x.... still nothing happening...

Somewhere around my attempts to stop the CD-writing process, I checked the size of the CD and found there to be only 207 bits of free space available.

Towards the end, I had to go to the control panel to manually kill the process... Afterwards, for a while, you don't see the ordinary windows interface anymore.... because... possibly... windows' explorer not responding...

And... I finally sort of crashed Windows 7... 8-O lol

Back to that CD, I guess, because I did not give the computer a chance to properly end the process, no longer could I view the CD using Windows 7 and I tried it using 2 machines with windows 7 on it... one PC and one Mac running parallel...

In addition, I tried to see whether Macs could read the CD... because, used to be, Macs were so much better in reading media and files even if they were really badly corrupted... When PCs fail to read a disk or a file, sometimes you simply have to take it to the Mac...

Unfortunately, all four Macs I tested on did not even recognize the media and whenever I put the CD in, the machine makes really scary noises.... for these three, one runs snow leopard and the other three running simply leopard...

The only thing that could read this CD so far are machines running windows XP as well as Windows XP mode on Windows 7.... Although it takes a long time for the CD to finally load, I have been able to see the last two good files seen on my Windows 7...

To sum up....

• I finally crashed Windows 7
• Windows XP could read a bad CD many other OS, PC or Mac, could not read.. will still have to try it on Linux
• In addition, when using CD-R as USB drive, I don't think it really rewrites the files. Rather, it mights have simply been marked in a way that the "deleted" files become hidden... so hidden that you still won't see them even you unhide all hidden info. Just a guess....

Evaluation version of Windwos 7

Found this link in Microsoft website for an evaluation version of Windows 7 enterprise edition... the same version I am using here... You will need to have either an hotmail.com or live.com account...

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=606ae07e-b7db-405b-974b-dd61fc41add4&displaylang=en&Hash=iy6E45xqIj8uBYqqhm7scBffBAqvpkKt5Y%2fJCBc6P9AYxR2FJMrf7JwZRjBN9APQ5Yiigq6VLpo%2bQBOcwmReOA%3d%3d#Requirements

Apparently, you need to have Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V running on your machine with Hyper-V needed to be run on a "64-bit system with hardware-assisted virtualization enabled and data execution prevention (DEP)" (although I have no idea what the heck I am speaking of here since never has it done.)

Not quite sure whether this is what you might need but a trial version of Windows Server 2008 could be downloaded through the following link: Windows Server 2008 R2 Evaluation Enterprise Edition and Server Core Virtual Hard Drive Images for Hyper-V.

I would need to be able to find another spare machine to really be playing with it... I guess... except for... where do I find one? 8-O lol

Would love to know whether anyone else has gotten it done...

Customize Start Up menu for Windows 7

I spoke of how Windows 7 put shortcuts to both Office 2003 and Office 2007 into the same folder... "Microsoft Office" two days ago.

Today, I decided to create a folder for Office 2003 and Office 2007 and place them shortcuts to the appropriate folders.

The task is simple and straightforward...

Essentially, the path to start up menu is C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs on Windows 7.... (assuming your OS is installed on C drive)

I creatied a new folder and named it "Microsoft Office 2003."



I cut shortcuts to Office 2003 from the Microsoft Office folder and past them into the newly created "Microsoft Office 2003" folder.

Miracle: SQL 2005 server security update on Winows 7

After failing to install for numerous days, miraculously, the Security Update for SQL Server 2005 SP 2 finally got installed successfully at closing time...

Got no idea how it happened...

Could it be I downloaded the patch direction from Microsoft?

Could it be I had Nvivo 8 SP 4 uninstalled? (Can't be though since the installation had failed for several days....)

In any case, the update is finally successful.

The most stupid thing so far on Windows 7

I have found some pretty stupid thing about the design of Windows 7 so far... the number 1 for today...

Tried to install office 2003 after office 2007 already installed on Windows 7....

Can't believe it... both 2003 and 2007 programs are put into the same folder under program menu! 8-O

XP Mode on Windows 7 in different profiles

Decided to log in to XP Mode on Windows 7 using a different account...

Maybe this is common sense... yet, I just realized that for each new account, you have to install Win XP Mode seperately and it only allows you to do login using the same password you selected upon Win XP Mode installation.

No wonder it did not allow me to log in using other accounts either on local machines or onto the domain and shows the error message of "The local policy of the system does not allow you to logon interactively."

At the same time, you will have to reinstall all the software programs for each individual XP Mode. In my rat's ass opinion... this is really really dumb.... 8-O

The following pix shows you that no programs have been installed on Windows XP Mode yet...

SQL server 2005 security updates failed and Nvivo 8 on Windows 7

All other talents I might not have, one thing I am sure as hell is that... I am an expert in crashing computers.... 8-O lol

Guess this is why this boss and I have been asked to be the tester for new images.... for we are the champions in crashing machines.... oops... 8-O lol

Anyways, I don't know what I did wrong....

The SQL server 2005 security updates have failed for a few days on a roll...

I didn't quite care about it all that much since... yes, what do I need SQL server on the desktop for other than the Nvivo software does require the installation of SQL server for database purposes?

Yet, after I tried to install Nvivo 8 w/ SP4 on Windows 7, the program kept on crashing upon startup with an error message saying something is wrong with the SQL installation....

I did take the suggestion of uninstalling the software before closer today and will try to reinstall the program again tomorrow to see whether it would resolve the issue.

Inspiration 8.0a on Windows 7

I was having some problems installing Inspiration 8.0a on Windows 7... after having it installed on Windows XP mode, I decided to call up the company to see whether they have an alternative solution.

Apparently, if you have Inspiration 8.0b, you won't have problem installing the program on Win 7.

However, version 8.0a came before the operating system and one would have to install the software using the competibility mode.

After following the tech support guy's direction, I was able to install Inspiration 8.0a on Windows 7.

I have put up a small tutorial online showing you how to go about installing software programs such as Inspiration 8.0a on Windows 7 using compatibility mode.

The direct URL to the tutorial is: http://www.columbia.edu/~yc371/play/INSPIRATION8win7/

One of my boss said that I should record narration for the tutorial... so I replied... "Who needs to hear my broken ESL English?" 8-O lol 8-X

First time in my life installing things using compatibility mode thing... 8-O lol

A dog's life

This is so funny...

My job is sitting here installing and test software programs till I find something that doesn't work on Windows 7.... 8-O lol

Sort of like a perfect game except for the game ain't perfect as of now...

Inspiration 8 and Nvivo 8 both do not run on Windows 7...

Show desktop on Windows 7

I like the "Show Desktop" function in quick launch on Windows XP because it minimize all windows that I have open without having to do it individually on each window...

After Windows 7 was installed, no longer could I find the quick launch option.

It was not until later did I realize that... all that I need is "Show Desktop"... but not "Quick Launch Toolbar."

Mafia War browser issue

I tested Mafia War using the following browsers:

1. Firefox
2. Opera
3. SeaMonkey
4. K-Meleon
5. Safari
6. IE

It appears that the game is failing to load when using Firefox 3.5.

CS4 on Windows 7

Finally got CS 4 to run on Windows 7...

XP Mode on Windows 7 in Domain

Just joined Win XP Mode on Windows 7 to the domain.

The first time in my life to join a virtual machine to the domain... :-)

The first time to login to the domain on a VM on Windows 7...

Three days after I sent a text message for the first time...

Mafia War

Can't believe it... I worked so hard on Windows 7 today that I had no time for Mafia War....

Interesting observations I had...


I use the following browsers to play Mafia War...

1. Firefox
2. Opera
3. SeaMonkey
4. K-Meleon
5. Safari

The browsers seem to be more glitchy (sp?) on Windows 7... unless I am too sensitive....

Windows XP on Windows 7

I successfully installed the Windows XP Mode for Windows 7 today after realizing software programs such as Nvivo 8 are not compatible with Windows 7.

After running the Hardware-Assisted Virtualization Detection Tool, I came to the realisation that the virtualization is not turned on on my computer.

Since it is a Dell Opitiplex 755 I am using, after the computer started up, I pressed F2 key to go into the BIOS setting to turn on Virtualization. Strange enough, it was not until I called up the Dell tech support did I find this word "Performance" listed right before the words "Security". 8-O lol

Of course, after I changed the setting, I turned of the machine and actually unplugged the power stuff before restart... 8-O lol

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/virtual-pc/support/configure-bios.aspx


Anyways, after the hardware virtualization is turned on, I downloaded and installed both the Windows XP mode and Windows Virtual PC.... the remaining was a piece of cake...

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/virtual-pc/download.aspx

Will leave more installation stuffs on Friday...



So far I have only installed the McAfee 8.5 antivirus softeware and Malwarebytes Anti-Malware software on Windows XP Mode... it is up and running....

Not quite sure whether it is necessary since I have patched up Windows 7 pretty well so far... Yet... the weakest link... might as well get them software installed till further notice...

To make change to the computer name, joining group and domain... it is the same... the OS has to restart before changes become in effect.

So I launched the Windows XP mode by clicking on the start menu-> All Program--> Windows Virtual PC-->Windows XP Mode.

At the same time, software programs installed on Windows XP mode could actually be launched through the Windows 7 program menu inside of the "Windows XP mode applications" folder (which resides inside of the "Windows Virtual PC folder"). It doesn't show you the shortcut to them games under Accessory in XP though... 8-O lol

My feeling so far... Windows XP mode seems to run much slower than Windows 7....

I have use VM ware kinda stuffs before but this is the first time I did it with Windows 7 and xp mode...

Something I did on a perfect day when there ain't no nothing happening the entire day. 8-O lol

Good thing I have not blown up this machine yet. 8-O lol

Iphone

Borrowed an Iphone to play with. I texted someone for the first time in my life but never heard anything back...

Posted a facebook status update..

Twitted a message or two...

Also tried to play Mafia War using i phone... I went from Moscow to New York to heal and back to Moscow to attack someone. Afterwards, I tried to post a status update from MW to facebook and it must have taken me something like 45 minutes or an hour to do so.... 8-O

In any case, I did many first time in my life kind of thing today through playing with iphone.

Windows 7 and domain

Joined the machine with Windows 7 to the domain and successfully activated the license today.

Being playing Mafia war on Windows 7 as well... 8-O lol

OK... This is called play therapy.... 8-O lol

Protection

Now I have antivirus, antispyware and antimalware programs for windows 7.

Windows updates for Win 7

Starting with the process of windows updates for windows 7 clean install at 2:24 PM....

After having to restart the computer multiple times, finally all updates are installed including those for office 2007...

Of course, was running around doing other things in between at times...

Windows 7

Just got windows 7 installed on the desktop.... wow... it took less than an hour to install.... less then the amount of time it takes to get the new partition for the new os....

Links to Ratology Reloaded

The following is a link to the http://ratologyreloaded.blogspot.com/ website...

http://ratologyreloaded.blogspot.com

With the posting of this link, I am trying to test out whether the services about who links to be my pages work...

Shrunken screen size

After my mom connect this old laptop of mine to the LCD monitor, the size of the screen shrank.. leaving a big black frame on the outside regardless whether the laptop is connected to the monitor or not. After I wiped out the hard drive and reinstalled the operating system, the size of the screen remain shrunken...

I tried the old fashion Fn+(monitor switch) but it didn't help.

Ended up, the solution was simple... all that I need to do was to change the screen resolution to 1024 by 768 pixel from 800 by 600 pixel.....

Resources on Twitter in Education

Following are some of the resources I have processed so far concerning the use of Twitter in education.

Following is an introduction slideshow about how and what to do with Twitter in Education. It also provides links to other relevant slides.

Twitter in Education

View more OpenOffice presentations from hopkinsdavid.

Ideas about what you can do with twitter

1. 50 Ideas on Using Twitter for Education
2. Twitter Tweets for Higher Education
3. Twitter Tips: for Teachers and Educators: everything you need to know to start up your twittering venture... shortening URL, #hashtags etc...
4. Twitter-cheat-sheet: another document providing all that you need to know about how to use twitter..

The lessons learned through the use of Twitter in Education

1. Classroom2.0: Twitter, del.icio.us and participatory learning: The interesting thing about this article is that the author shares with us the lessons learned through the use of twitter in her teaching, including both the experiences of the students and some tips about implementations.
2. Professors experiment with Twitter as teaching tool: In this article, two professors were mentioned who tried to use Twitter in class.
3. 10 Ways Journalism Schools Are Teaching Social Media: This article provides examples about the use of social media such as facebook, twitter etc in schools of journalism
4. Roosevelt High School
   
   
5. The Twitter Experiment - UT Dallas
   

Educause: Four articles I came across on the Educause website.

1. Apprehending the Future: Emerging Technologies, from Science Fiction to Campus Reality one of the nice sounding quote I found in this article.... "Crowdsourcing has gradually become popular as a strategy for groups to solve problems. This method involves packaging a problem in such a way as to invite non-expert contributions and then distributing that request for help to the world at large."
2. "Where Do You Learn?": Tweeting to Inform Learning Space Development Sort of like the use of online discussion forums, the authors consider tweeter as a new means of conducting research...
3. Collaboration Tools: This articles provides some fairly general information about collaboration tools such as Twitter and google doc
4. 7 Things You Should Know About Twitter: This is the debut of Twitter in Educause publications. Another one of the introductory article about twitter
   

Applications you could use with Twitter:

TwitPic: TwitPic provides the photo-sharing capacity for Twitter. You use the same login info used for Twitter to get into TwitPic. After you specify the file to upload, you could also decide whether you want an update to be posted to Twitter.

The author of this picture to the left, for instance, uploaded this picture when he was on the ferry--- which was on its way to rescue the passengers on the plane. This link leads you to the original picture posting http://twitpic.com/135xa; the next link shows you the update associated with the upload of the picture http://twitter.com/jkrums/status/1121915133.

TweetDesk: This is a standalone application that sort of look like a browser. It is still in its beta version. It allows you to perform tasks such as sending messages and pix to twitter and twitpic dirrectly. It also shows you other message updates such as where your name has been mentioned.

In addition, you could also add twitter related widgets to your blog or facebook...

Please check the Twiter Fan Wiki for more applications: http://twitter.pbworks.com/Apps#GroupsandOrganizations

What to do when you lost Canon Software CD

I uninstalled a part of Canon software by mistake and decided to take everything off...

When trying to locate the original CD, I found that I couldn't find it...

Then, I decided to look for the software in Canon's website...

Unfotunately, for both the zoombrowser and photostitch, the company provides you only with the updater software... In other words, you would need to have the original software installed on your computer in order for you to install the newer version...

After looking all over on the web, I found a source where one could download the zoombrowser version 2.2 (zoombrsr22). After having the older version installed, I was able to run the updater software and upgrade the zoombrowser to its current version.

However, I would not really recommend this method since there is no telling whether one might be downloading and installing anything more than the zoombrowser program.

At the same time, after I ran the zoombrowser program, I realised that the Photostitch program was still not available and I still need to find the CD to have the stitching component available..

It is then did I found this website, which provides an alternative method to run the updater software when one could not locate the original CD....

Essentially, what one has to do is to create add a key in the registry for the software program one intents to install... Once the appropriate registry key is created, one could run the updater program and have the program installed.

I tried it out for the PhotoStitch program and it worked like wonder!

At the same time, please beware that it is not really recommended as well for one to be playing with the registeries...

So I thought... why doesn't Canon simply make the software programs downloadable so that people who have spent tons of money buying their camera don't have to go through the whole 9-yards trying to figure out what to do to get the software programs back...

Creative Suite 4 Volume License Installation Problems

After my hard work on resolving the CS4 installation issue, I realised that the issue somehow was not resolved after I got to work today....

What I did was downloading all components, extracting all downloaded files, and burning them files on a DVD...

I tested the installation DVD out on the computer that the files were downloaded to using the adobe downloader and it worked.

Unfortunately, the installation DVD did not work on other computers...

After hearing that people were having problem installing the software using the DVD that I prepared, I decided to try it out using a different computer and I saw the same error message...

The valid license code somehow turned invalid on the other machine while the code still worked on the computer where I had the files first downloaded.

This observation led me to the hypothesis that some information specific to the downloading machine must have been included to the downloaded file.

Eventually, I called up Adobe for some support concerning installation problems...

After almost 30-50 minutes being put on hold, I finally spoke with someone, with the possibility that that part of operation might have been outsourced to India.... Then, this first representative transferred my call to someone else again and I was again for a long long time, put on hold, till I got someone else again... plausibly located in India...

In any case, based on the information I got from both representatives, I came to realise that, for volume licenses, one has to request an official media for the volume licenses. Unless, I suspect, every time one tries to install the software, one has to log in to the adobe account and repeat the multiple-hour process of downloading all files and extracting all files, before one can start imagine having the software installed.

One thing I could tell you after all these running around in circle like a doggie chasing its own tail is that...

One problem associated with technological advances is that people are making thing unnecessarily complicated for everyone involved... 8-O lol

Creative Suite 4

When trying to expand one of the installation files for CS4, I encounter an error message stating...

"A problem occurred while extracting the archive. Please try downloading the Adobe CS4 Design Premium again."

Ended up, the error message has something to do with one of the installer components: the ADBESTDSCS4_LS1.exe file that extracts the product installation files and the ADBESTDSCS4_LS1.7z file, an archive file containing the installation files.

When the above error message appears, there might be some problems with the 7z file. For instance, the file might not have been downloaded completely, it is in use or the file is corrupted.

Check the following page for solutions recommended by Adobe.com:

http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/407/kb407699.html

After I completed an initial test, checking the check-sum of the ADBESTDSCS4_LS1.7z file using the MD5 utility recommended by Adobe. It was found that the check-sum values do not match, which means I need to find a way to download the 7z file again.

By browsing through the Adobe website, I found that the company does not provide an option to people to download the entire CS 4 (although it is available for individual applilcations).

Luckily, I found this page that provides the actual path to the ADBESTDSCS4_LS1.7z file on Adobe website:

http://trials.adobe.com/dlm/Applications/DesignPre/CS4/Win/ADBESTDSCS4_LS1.7z

(If you have an Adobe account that allow you to download the 7z file, it would be much easier if simply log in to that account and you don't need the above link. Unfortunately, my boss is not here right now and this is the reason why I have to find an alternative way to download the file.)

It took about an hour and half to download the file ADBESTDSCS4_LS1.7z from a computer located inside of the network of an higher ed institution (high speed in other words).

After the file is downloaded, put it inside the same folder where the ADBESTDSCS4_LS1.exe.

Click on the file ADBESTDSCS4_LS1.exe and the process of file extraction shall begin.