Sync RoboForm Data using Live Mesh

I have a paid version of Roboform and I wanted to sync my data between my home and work PCs. I was able to accomplish this (fairly) easily using Live Mesh. I’d have to imagine this would work equally well for Keepass Password Safe (which is free for those of you who don’t want to purchase RoboForm).

Live Mesh is Microsoft’s, ummmm… well that’s tough. I would’ve called it a cloud computing platform but that may end up being something else. For now Mesh gives you a cloud desktop, remote access to devices and folder sync. Eventually I believe they will have applications that run on the cloud desktop and your various devices. Sign up for Mesh at http://mesh.com.

I already have a Live Mesh folder that syncs between my home PC and work PC. Creating a Mesh folder is easy. Sign up and install Live Mesh. Then create a folder or use an existing one, right click on the folder, and click Add Folder to Live Mesh. The sync options can be setup here as well.

Make sure the Live Mesh folder you want to use does not reside on your Desktop and the synced folder on the other PC is also not on the desktop. See the problems at the end of this post.

At home, I pointed my home Roboform to save all my data in the Live Mesh folder that is shared between my home and work PCs. This can be easily done in RoboForm’s options under User Data by clicking on Set Folder….

At this point Live Mesh will sync that data to my work computer. So now I needed to setup RoboForm at work.

At work I installed RoboForm, activated it, and then pointed RoboForm to the same location in that Live Mesh folder. So I opened RoboForm’s options, highlighted User Data, clicked on Set Folder…., and browsed to …\%LiveMeshFolder%\My RoboForm Data\Default Profile\.

TaDa, all my data, passcards and such appeared. If a change is made on either side you will have to wait for Live Mesh to sync the change before it will appear. Also if you’ve had the PC up for a while and thus RoboForm on for an extended period then you will need to Refresh RoboForm to see new data. That’s done in RoboForm under Profiles.

I did have some problems however. Live Mesh by default will sync to your Desktop. For some reason RoboForm balks at using a Live Mesh folder on your Desktop to save data to (see error below). So I had to make sure the folder on my home PC wasn’t in my desktop (it is in my Documents folder) and that the folder synced to a location other than my desktop on my work PC (I just synced it to the c:\).

Links:

• https://www.mesh.com/
• http://keepass.info/
• http://www.roboform.com/

Del.icio.us : keepass, live mesh, roboform, syncing

Technorati Tags: keepass, live mesh, roboform, syncing

Yellow Text in Outlook

One of my users had a problem where every time she responded to certain emails her response would be in yellow. I’ve seen this a couple of times in my career and it always has to do with a Outlook Theme. In most cases it’s when using an older version of Outlook like 2000.

Anyway it’s an easy fix. First tell the person sending the mail to stop using Themes. Themes are a vile disgusting part of email that I wish never happened. Ok so they aren’t that bad and in most cases you can’t just go spouting off email etiquette. A simple change in Outlook on the receiver’s side should fix the issue.

In Outlook:

Go to Tools | Options | Mail Format tab | Fonts | select “Use my font when replying to and forwarding messages”.

Alternatively one could pick “Always use my fonts”

That should do it. Instead of using the yellow stationary font Outlook will use whatever fonts the user has set, regardless of what stationary the sender is using.

Technorati Tags: outlook, yellow text

Problems opening files in Outlook 2000.

If you are having problems opening files in Outlook make sure to delete the Outlook Secure Temporary Files.  They can be a pain to find however.  The directory that holds them in Outlook 2000 & 2003 is:

C:\Documents and Settings\%username%\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files\OLK”followed by numbers”

The OLK will be followed by a series of numbers.  The only problem is you might not see the OLK directory and searching for it doesn’t work.  Revealing Hidden files won’t work either.  In that case the only way to get to it is to find out what the exact OLK directory name is and type it in manually.

For instance the one I worked on today was just …\OLK5.  I found it by opening the users email and finding a file they had previously been able to open.  In this case an Excel file.  Once opened I went to File | Save as and took a look at the folder it was being saved to.  Anyone know of an easier way to do that?  See update below.

Outlook 2007 keeps the same files here:

C:\Documents and Settings\%username%\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files\Content.Outlook\”some string of characters”

And Vista moves them to:

C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Temporary Internet Files\

Update: There is an easier way to find out where the Outlook Secure Temp Folder is stored (\OLK*).  Run regedit, click Edit | Find, and search for:  OutlookSecureTempFolder.  The entry in that key will be the path to the OLK* folder.  Just copy it and paste it in Explorer.

Technorati Tags: olk, opening files outlook, outlook, outlook secure temp folder, OutlookSecureTempFolder

Ordering Microsoft Replacement Disks

This is just a quick note for reference.  Often I have to have client call Microsoft to get replacement disks for a variety of Microsoft software.  From Microsoft’s site:

Also, to obtain a replacement disk, telephone the Microsoft Order Desk at (800) 360-7561, and request a replacement for your damaged disk. If you are outside the United States, contact the Microsoft subsidiary for your area.

Supposedly this costs between $10 - $25 depending on what you need.  Also ownership has to be proven so make sure you register that software.

Technorati Tags: microsoft order desk, replacement disks

This is how I dual. (aka. The Way I Dual Booted to XP on a Vista machine)

Ok so I took some short cuts.  I wouldn’t say this is the best way to do this but I was desperate so I didn’t care too much.  Besides it all worked out in the end.

I wanted to dual boot to XP so I could play games.  I get about 10-15 frames per second better on Team Fortress 2 in XP than I do in Vista.  For months I tired and the problem I had was I couldn’t use the Vista disk manager to shrink the Vista partition enough.  As you can see that’s only about 1GB of space which is not enough for XP and games.

I tried a variety of defragmenters to see if that would give me more space.  I also tried deleting all my temp files and the pagefile because supposedly those are what prevent the disk manager from shrinking the partition.  None of that worked so eventually I turned to Gparted.  I was pretty sure this would break my Vista installation and I was right.  I used Gparted to shrink the Vista partition by 15GBs and the next time I booted I went into Vista’s startup recovery.

Here’s the cool thing, Vista’s Startup Recovery searched and repaired errors for about 20 minutes, found all the problems with the installation and set it back straight.  I thought for sure I was up the creek because I didn’t have an install disk.  All I did have was Vista’s repair disk.  However on the next boot it did a disk check, found no errors, rebooted and loaded up Vista minus 15GB of space.

Now I got to work installing XP.  That went just as expected.  I booted to the XP install disk, installed XP in the 15GB of unpartitioned space and it booted right up when I was done.  At this point I realized it would’ve been a good idea to get the XP drivers for my laptop ahead of time.  My network card didn’t even come up.  Luckily I knew where the Vista drivers were stored and that worked for my network card (nothing else).  So I was able to get online at dell.com and download all the other drivers I needed.

So now I have a laptop that boots into XP.  I booted to Vista Repair Disk I had and choose Startup Repair.  That reset it to boot into Vista.  Once I was in Vista again I used EasyBCD to create another boot entry.  When I was in EasyBCD I went to Add/Remove Entries choose the drive letter of the XP install, choose Windows NT/2K/XP/2k3, gave it a name, clicked Add Entry, and then save.

I got luckily that Vista’s Startup Recovery was able to piece the drive back together after using Gparted, but if you don’t have a lot on your Vista machine see if it works for you.  Just make sure you have a recovery disk or a disk image.  It’s a heck of a lot less time consuming than trying to defragment and rearrange your drive so you can use Vista partition shrink tool.  It seems counter intuitive that Microsoft would finally give a built in system for shrinking a drive just to make it hard to shrink a Vista partition because of the placement of important files.  But that’s exactly what happened (I think?).

I know I didn’t got into a lot of detail here.  There are plenty of tutorials on how to do this.  Most recommend using the Vista Disk Manager to shrink the volume.  I’m not going to list the tutorial I followed because it was the worst website I’ve every seen.  Not that it wasn’t pretty but because it took forever to load and crashed Firefox a bunch of times.  If anyone needs help or wants the tutorial I referenced then leave a comment and I’ll hook you up.  With that said use this method at your own risk and I’m not liable for any data loss or damages.  Sincerely, The Nite Tech.

Links:
Gparted:  http://gparted.sourceforge.net/
EasyBCD:  http://neosmart.net/dl.php?id=1

Technorati Tags: dual boot vista, dual boot xp, dual boot xp on vista

Install problems because of pendingfilenameoperation.

Ok I don’t have the specifics because they were  lost, however I had a problem loading ADP’s Payroll application on my XP Pro machine.  It would fail.  I was talking to ADP’s tech help and they remoted in and removed an entry in my registry.

The entry was called pendingfilenameoperation and in the value of the key there were some questions marks.  Something like “\\??\foldername\filename.”  Once that key was deleted the install went just fine.  ADP tech support said he has seen that on multiple machines for multiple applications, most of the enterprise related.

Sorry I don’t have specifics because I can’t recreate the issue.  However just search for pendingfilenameoperation in the registry and delete it if there are ?? in there.  Make a backup of the registry first of course.  I’ve also heard the same issue may apply for a key called pendingfilerenameoperation.

Technorati Tags: adp payroll, installation problems, pendingfilenameoperation, registry

Problems with Windows Updates and XP SP3

I started having problems with Windows Updates after installing XP Service Pack 3.  The install of the updates would fail.  After it failed Windows would ask me to install them during shutdown but that didn’t work either.

I installed SP3 right after it came out.  Soon there after Microsoft pulled it and released it again later.  I think my problems stem from using that earlier release.  That’s what I get for being an early adopter.

Either way registering some dlls solved the problem.  The that solution here:

http://www.markwilson.co.uk/blog/2008/07/microsoft-update-failure.htm

Microsoft’s answer:

http://www.update.microsoft.com/microsoftupdate/v6/showarticle.aspx?articleid=38&ln=en&IsMu=True

Technorati Tags: sp3, updates, windows, xp

Keyboard Pattern Theory to Password Management.

I’m starting to think that passwords are more effective in patterns.  What I mean is it’s better to have a pattern to develop passwords than to use the same one for everything or some program to track passwords.  I have a lot of passwords on the web and I think I’ve finally figured out a system for managing them all.

Years ago I learned about keyboard pattern passwords because I had to change my work password every three months.  To make a keyboard pattern just pick a pattern on the keyboard and that becomes the password.  For instance, check out the pattern xsw2cde3.  The password itself is fairly complex but when typed out on a standard qwerty keyboard it becomes a simple pattern to remember.

With a keyboard pattern like xsw2cde3 it became easy for me to change my password every three months.  I would just move the pattern over one to the left or right.  So my next password would be cde3vfr4.  Of course this can be made more complicated if one so desired.  Try these out: 2w3ehnjm or zaq1XSW@ or 1q2wHNJM or even 1q2w#E$RHNJM.  There is one downside to the keyboard pattern password theory.  How does one use it on a Mobile phone?

So for years I had a password that changed easily but that did not help much for websites because I would just use one keyboard pattern for all my logins.  Supposedly this is not a good security practice (although lets face it for most websites we could care less if somebody got into them).  Then I read the “one rule set” theory on LifeHacker.com.  A very similar theory to keyboard pattern theory (ok almost exactly) except Gina Trapani added the idea of incorporating the URL.  So now I have my own rule set.  I use a keyboard pattern combined with the first 3 letters of a URL.

Example: if my keyboard pattern was xsw2cde3 and I’m creating one for my Google Account then my final password would be xsw2cde3gmi.  Lets tackle Chase.com:  my final password would be xsw2cde3cha. 

Now if I decided to change my passwords I could move one row over on the keyboard.  So chase.com would become cde3vfr4cha.

I’ve found that a keyboard pattern consisting of 8 characters including numbers works well.  The final password is 11 characters with numbers and works on most websites.  There are exceptions however, like mycheckfree.com.  Mycheckfree.com passwords can only be 8 characters long and have to have a number.  I seriously think they’re should be a web standard in place for passwords.  Something like 6-32 characters and it must contain at least 1 number.  That should be secure enough and long enough to come up with clever passwords.

Technorati Tags: passwords

Xstarter vs AutoHotKey

Lately I’ve been using AutoHotKey a lot.  Work wants a display that rotates through various reports from websites.  Some of the reports show sales figures and others appointments.  So basically I have to open websites, log in with a user name an password, and pull up the correct report.  Then each report stays on the screen for a while before flipping to a different one.  Also the sites need to be refreshed periodically.

Prior to AutoHotKey I was using Xstarter.  Xstarter is very simple to use and is a great program.  Basically I would call Xstarter a Windows Macro program.  Once I’ve set up a series of commands I can kick them off manually or on a timed schedule.  The big advantage to Xstarter is the GUI interface but that is also one of the disadvantages.

AutoHotKey is more like a scripting language with very simple commands.  I’ve basically just been using AutoHotKey to perform the same functions as Xstarter.  However AutoHotKey has some big advantages, besides the fact that it is much more powerful.  First AutoHotKey has a much smaller footprint.  The scripts are just writen in a simple text file.  Second, it can compile the script into an executable.  For Xstarter to work it need to be installed on each machine I want to perform the tast.  With AutoHotKey’s exe I can just compile it once and run it on any machine I want.

I guess I should mention that AutoHotKey is free.  That’s another advantage.  However if you are looking to create some Windows marcos without learning any commands, Xstarter is a good option.  Since I’m new to AutoHotKey I find myself using the Recorder that comes with it.  I record the things I want the script to do then I edit the script to make it more consise and functional. 

AutoHotKey also comes with a GUI creator.  With that anyone could build software just using AutoHotKey.  On the simpliest level I’m envisioning a GUI interface that has a bunch of buttons that kick off various scripts.  On a more complex level, people write commercially viable software using AutoHotKey and the GUI interface builder.

Links:
http://www.autohotkey.com/
http://www.xstarter.com/

Technorati Tags: autohotkey, marcos, Reviews, Software, xstarter

Microsoft’s Steady State.

Microsoft’s Steady State.

A lifetime ago, I owned and operated a coffee house.  The shop was also an internet cafe with wireless access and 6 terminals for people to use.  Back then I had a program, who’s name escapes me, to remotely control registry settings within the terminals to circumvent infections and spyware.  This was only mildly successful.  The number one law of public terminals is “if they can be infected they will be.”  Microsoft’s Steady State would have been a god send back then.

The basic idea is this:  Setup a PC exactly how you like it, Microsoft’s Steady State will take an image of the PC in that (um…) state, and every time the PC reboots it reverts back to that initial (um…) state.  So that’s the basics but it goes well beyond just the basics.  There are a lot of other security features that allow an administrator to lock down Users.

So let them eat cake because really no harm can come to the system.  If a user downloads a virus or malware of any kind just reboot the PC and BAM! it’s gone.  Do you see it’s potential for your kids (or even kid like coworkers)?

I currently use it for a public terminal at one of my dealerships.  Every time the system gets clogged up with malware I just tell one of the employees to reboot it.  I’ve also got it setup to erase any user changes upon log off and I coupled that with forcing log off every 60 mins (all features in Steady State).  This insures that someone doesn’t walk away leaving their bank’s website logged in or leave a file with personal information in it.

Check out Microsoft’s website for all the features and demo videos.  If you have kids that have their own PCs or public workstations that you manage, give it a try.  How can you go wrong, it’s free?

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/sharedaccess/default.mspx

Technorati Tags: microsoft, Reviews, steady state