As previously noted, my email client at work is Lotus Notes. For some reason, the Data folder is installed to each users’ home share on the network, and that home share is synchronised to the local drive using Offline Folders. Now, I cannot get over how bad a solution this is, for a few reasons: (more…)
Blog
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Fixing a jumpy Synaptics Mousepad
I’ve had a problem with the mousepad on my laptop getting “jumpy”. Whenever I’d use it, and subsequently take my finger off it, it’d jump an inch and a half or so upwards to the right. This was annoying to say the least, and I decided to try and find a solution to it.
I’ve only tested this solution with Synaptics mousepads, and so I can’t vouch for whether it’ll work with others.
What I did to solve the problem, was uninstall the mouse, and reinstall it using the same drivers. Here’s how I prefer doing it:
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Improvise, Adapt, Overcome – Evolve
Improvise, adapt, overcome has for a long time been a mantra within armed forces around the world who, when faced with gruelling challenges and little or no epuipment, have improvised to face the challenge, adapted to the challenge and lastly overcome the challenge.
The same attitude is necessary in IT support. Support departments around the world will tell you that they are constantly under-staffed, over-worked, and lacking both training and equipment, be it software or hardware.
In my experience, the most successful support technicians are the ones who do the best with what they have. A can-do attitude, and a willingness to face any problem head on, rolling with the punches, and asking for more on the other side.
Here’s what these terms mean to me:
Improvise:
In terms of IT Service and Support, improvisation means working around a problem, finding a temporary fix. Practical example: A user calls in, and is unable to print. You set the user up with a different printer as a temporary fix, solving the more immediate problem.
Adapt:
Adapting to the problem means finding a permanent workaround, using what tools are available, as well as online resources, to work around the problem permanently, though not resolving it. Practical example: A user calls in, and tells you their anti-virus solution is not working. You install a different anti-virus solution.
Overcome:
Overcoming the problem means finding a permanent fix, resolving the problem. Practical example: A user reports being unable to create PDF documents. You install PDF-creating software.
The last part of the title of this article is also drawn from the military. A training exercise is not called an exercise, but an evolution. In terms of IT Service and Support, evolve means not only improvising a temporary fix, adapting to a problem and providing a permanent work-around or overcoming a problem, permanently fixing it, but at the end of it having learnt from the experience, and even documenting the solution for future reference. -
Resolving “An error occurred while opening a window” errors in Lotus Notes
Many users of Lotus Notes, myself included, at times get the error message “An Error Occurred While Opening a Window“. To resolve this, all processes that belongs to Lotus Notes have to be terminated.
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Adding a favicon to a Blogger or BlogSpot blog
As you might notice, I’ve got a favicon, a small picture, on my blog. Here’s what it looks like in Firefox:
It’s actually pretty simple to implement in Blogger. To do it, you’ll need to have somewhere to store the favicon file. Favicons are imagefiles (dimensions 16 by 16 pixels) ending in .ico. Apparently, Tripod offer free hosting, and they support .ico files. Once you’ve got your favicon ready, and uploaded, you need to open the administration page for your blog, and then go to the “Layout” tab, opening the “Edit HTML” subtab. You’ll then see a page looking something like this:
Find the <head> tag, and insert the following snippet of code immediately below it: (more…) -
Free and powerful image editing
Continuing my series of posts about handy software that I use and love, I’ve now arrived at paint.net. Paint.net is a powerful piece of open-source image editing software which I’ve been using for a long time. It’s what I use to edit all of the images for my blog, and I’ve found it intuitive, practical and simple to use. Here’s what it looks like:
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Resolving “Database is outdated” messages in AVG when there is no available updates
I’ve been a happy user of AVG Free for a long time. Granted, it’s never been exactly easy to get, but a google-search does the trick. Having run version 7.whatever for some time, I got a message that they’d soon stop supporting it, and that I should upgrade to version 8. All fine and well, I did so, and after another google-search found the free version, which I downloaded and installed.
Now, I don’t mind paying for quality products, but frankly, there are so many good, free anti-virus solutions out there, that I really don’t see the need to pay for one (and the ones you pay for are in my experience usually inferior as well…).
So, back to my story. I had “upgraded” to AVG Free 8, and updated the databases when, in the corner of my eye, I saw the following message:
Naturally, I updated the signature files, but my system tray still looked like this:
I browsed around the web, and found that I wasn’t the only one experiencing this problem. Browsing around some more, I found a FAQ hosted with Grisoft, telling me that: (more…) -
Windows XP Service Pack 3 – a quick overview
Windows XP is Microsoft’s longest living operating system to date. Released in October 2001, it succeeded the total failure that was Windows Millennium Edition, and has, in turn, been succeeded by Windows Vista. Service Pack 3 is, as implied by the name, the third major upgrade package – Service Pack – released for Windows XP. Unlike SP2, SP3 contains no changes that are directly experienced by the end-user. SP3 was released for download on May 6th, 2008.