Thursday, December 24, 2009

How to reboot NETGEAR WNR3500 router remotely

I've hunted high and low in the menu options and can't find a "reboot now" button. So after much searching, I finally found an easy way to reboot my router... On the basic settings screen, hit the "Test" button. I make no changes, just hit test. The router reboots and takes you to a test web page.

I need to reboot my router because it periodically doesn't accept wireless connections (like from my iPhone or PowerBook) and that's a royal PITA. I COULD just pull power, but it's more convenient to pull up a web browser.

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

How to launch Microsoft AutoUpdate for Mac

With the release of Office 2008 for Mac SP2, I thought I should update my version. I just couldn't remember how to launch the Microsoft AutoUpdate program manually. Sure, it runs and checks when I launch the Office apps periodically, but I wanted to launch it manually right now and not launch Word/Excel/PowerPoint. So after doing a spotlight search, I still couldn't find it. I resorted to launching terminal and performing a 'ps -ax |grep -i autoupdate'. This revealed the path I was looking for:

/Library/Application Support/Microsoft/MAU2.0/Microsoft AutoUpdate.app/

Now, browse to that location and lunch the app. It searches for updates and happily proceeds to install SP2.

Wednesday, December 31, 2008

Apple mail.app broken after 10.5 upgrade

I recently updated from OS X 10.4 to 10.5 and applied the 10.5.6 software update.  After doing so, I couldn't get Mail.app to work.  It would launch, then pretty much just sit there.  I could bring up windows, go into preferences, etc, but couldn't get mail/see messages, etc.

I looked at the Console.app (Applications -> Utilities -> Console) and found an assertion error similar to this:


Mail[214]: *** Assertion failure in +[MessageRouter userJunkMailRule], /SourceCache/Message/Message-930.3/MessageStores.subproj/MessageRouter.m:1360
Mail[214]: rules must already be loaded\nStack Trace: (\n(\n 2503647499,\n 2488741435,\n 2503646955,\n 2485388964,\n 4153284,\n 3992030,\n 945573,\n 2422447588,\n 2422924776,\n 2422924665,\n 2422921978,\n 2421588387,\n 2421378377,\n 192813,\n 2420713119,\n 2420504740,\n 1029874\n))



I did a bit of searching on Google and found a similar problem from another user:

http://lolstartups.com/preview/10102048

I followed the information there and wanted to add the following specific information on what I did to resolve the issue...

The bottom line is that I'd say Apple *forgot* to update a plist field. The old setting (which you'll need to fix up) is called JunkMailBehaviorHasBeenConfigured and it's a boolean. The new parameter is JunkMailBehavior and it's a number

I opened up ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.mail.plist in /Developer/Applications/Utilities/Property List Editor.app and switched JunkMailBehaviorHasBeenConfigured from a value of 1 to 0 (That is, one goes to zero).

I was then able to launch Mail.app just fine. All my messages showed up, connected up to get my new mail, etc, etc... and I don't even have to force quit anymore.

I did go check the Junk mail rules/preferences again and made sure those were to my liking.

Friday, March 28, 2008

Disable bell/beep when using Exceed.

I've always been annoyed when I use Hummingbird's Exceed program that the beep (bell) sound is horribly loud. Well, I've been listening to music via headphones while doing testing and I almost crapped my pants when the bell went off in my ears... It was so frigging loud!

So, I did some research and found that in order to fix this, it's actually a change on the server (what I call the server) side.

So, I ssh to the Solaris system from my WinXP system. Then I run ' &' such that the GUI I need is displayed back to my WinXP system. It turns out that I need to run 'xset -b b 0' (Also could use xset -b b off).

Viola! No more opportunities to crap my pants by scaring myself.

Monday, March 17, 2008

Germany and Paris Family Vacation 2008

Hey there everyone, just wanted to share with you all the things we did on our trip a couple weeks ago.
We departed on Saturday February 23rd and started our long day/night of travel. We got off to a pretty good start and only forgot one item at home. Luckily, we caught it early enough that Gary was able to do a double trip back to the airport for us.

---draft---
Feb 23, Saturday: Depart MSP...
Feb 24, Sunday: arrive, Burg Nanstein Castle, Landstuhl
Feb 25, Monday: Kaiserslautern, Brats, Imbiss, Pastries, Church
Feb 26, Tuesday: Koblenz to Mainz, Rhein, Mosel, Bacharach, Hostel - great views, Pictures of castle across the river, lunch @ Königsbacher Brauerei, Mainz - dinner at Eisgrub Brau
Feb 27, Wednesday: Burg Trifels - Annweiler, Barbarossa
Feb 28, Thursday: Black Forest, Triberg, Waterfall, Hubert Herr, House of 1000 clocks.
Feb 29, Friday: Day off
Mar 1, Saturday: Heidelberg, Castle, shopping, old bridge, neckar river, cute skirt
Mar 2, Sunday: Tim and Susan to Burg Rheinstein, weiss rose - lunch, desert, capuccino, 3pm old ladies, Henry with mike/meg/jan
Mar 3, Monday: Off - Mike was heading out to Albania and forget his passport so we took it to the Frankfurt Airport for him.
Mar 4, Tuesday: Drove to Paris -> Notre Dame, Hippopotamus, Eiffel Tower at night, Henry fell asleep while walking around the green-space near the tower.
Mar 5, Wednesday: Louvre - Mona Lisa; Lunch in "Garden de Tuileries" at outdoor cafe - Wine, Quiche; Carousel Ride; Arch de Triomph - Walked to top for panoramic view; Back to Notre Dame to exchange book for correct language version; Dinner at Quasi-modo Cafe - Lentils with my "french" food of pork ribs.
Mar 6, Thursday: Eiffel Tower - Walked to 2nd observation deck, crepes by carousel, Bosnian Women, Drove back to Ramstein
Mar 7, Friday: Day off for packing/rest. Party at "O" Club.
Mar 8, Saturday: 19+ hour travel day home

Friday, February 15, 2008

Henry's "Mobile Phone Portfolio"

I received a new mobile phone for work, so thought it might be a good time to do something with all the photos I had on my old phone. There was a mix of pictured of Henry which I had taken and then there were some smaller ones that Susan has sent me over the last 19-20 months. Well, I've put them in order and you can see the "portfolio" over at our SmugMug page.

The "Mobile Phone Portfolio" gallery can be seen here.

Sunday, February 10, 2008

Henry's second MN Wild game...


We went to the MN Wild hosting the New York Islanders on Saturday.  We planned for it to be an adventure and it turned out to be lots of fun.  Fortunately, the people in the seats next to us did not show up, so we had an extra seat for Henry to enjoy all on his own.