Photoshop CS4 Extract Filter

 

I love Photoshop…..

Problem is that I also love the extract filter which for some unknown reason is no longer installed as part of the CS4 installation, you need to download the optional plug-ins etc.

Windows link is here

http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/detail.jsp?ftpID=4048

Cheers

New Website URL

 

Well after my hassles with Melbourne I.T I decided to simply register a new URL for the business and buy the other one when it comes back into the public arena.

They were going to process payment yesterday but yet again they were incapable of doing that?!?!?!?!?

Anyway new company URL is www.aimexconsulting.com, now I just need to figure out how to get Google to reference the .com instead of the .co.uk

Aimex Consulting Main Website Issues

 

Due to the absolute unbelievable useless pathetic people at Melbourne I.T. I my main company website is currently unavailable….

Despite ringing them 10 (yes that’s 10!) times and leaving my credit card number 3 times they have yet to renew my domain name and it has now dropped off the internet.

They are going to phone me back again in 15 minutes so I am going to hold my breath as they have said this so often it is untrue……

My thanks must go out to Microsoft Live services who I used initially to register the name and who dumped all the people who had signed up free unless they paid some silly fee.

So advice on domain hosting… DO NOT USE MELBOURNE IT they are useless!

DHCP Server Move

 

Having to move a DHCP server from one machine to another today and have done it in the following way…..

Follow these steps to configure a new DHCP server and move the current DHCP database from the old server to the new server.

1. Start by installing the DHCP Server service on the destination server and then restart the server.
2. When the server restarts, log on, and at the command prompt type net stop "dhcp server" to stop the DHCP Server service.
3. Remove the contents of the %SystemRoot%System32Dhcp folder on this server.
4. Now log on to the original (source) server, and at the command prompt type net stop "dhcp server" to stop the DHCP Server service.
5. In the Services node of Computer Management, disable the DHCP Server service so that it can no longer be started, then copy the entire contents of the %SystemRoot%System32Dhcp folder to the %SystemRoot% System32Dhcp folder on the destination server.
6. Once all the necessary files are on the destination server, type net start "dhcp server" to start the DHCP Server service on the destination server, which completes the migration.

All worked fine, connected clients did not drop and I can see no reason why this will not be fine.

NetGear ReadyNas RND2000 Server – Xbox360

 

I have finally took the plunge and purchased a ReadyNAS device. I have previously been running freeNAS which works nice but I was concerned about restoration if I lost a drive.

Also I did not want to leave the machine on 24×7.

I had some criteria for a NAS device in that it has to be able to stream to my Xbox 360,  has to mirror the data and has to be nice and quiet.

Truth be told I wanted to buy a Drobo as they have some nice reviews and also more capacity. Sad thing is that it also carries a hefty price and you need to buy a NAS plug in for the USB version.

So I did some looking around and bought the ReadyNAS RND2000 which is about £135 without any drives. I already have the disks anyway but currently Net Gear are offering a free 500GB disk with the purchase if you are struggling to buy disks as well, see http://www.netgear.co.uk/freedrive.php for the full details. I have sent my forms off so am waiting for the drive to arrive at the moment.

Anyway Its nice and small, runs almost silently and was such an easy config it is untrue. Anyone looking for streaming and data protection I recommend it to be honest. The Xbox 360 sees the video files straight away and newly added ones are updated on a schedule.

Also it will do NFS sharing for anyone running ESXi, so you can use it as a data store, although that’s for another day!

Corrupt .OST file

 

So I run a couple of exchange mailboxes, which have always bee fine until one of them decided to grow it’s .ost file to over 2gb in size for no apparent reason. So now I get an error saying it is over its size!

I believe this should not be happening now in newer versions of Outlook but I run office 2007 so its a bit strange!

So you need to find the file below and double click scanost.exe

Click OK to screen below

Select your mail profile

Click OK

Click Begin scan, you may get prompted to connect or work offline so choose connect if that happens.

All being well the file will be repaired and Outlook starts playing again!

Genie Timeline – Time Machine for Windows??

As someone who has toyed with the idea of a MAC for some time now but has never quite managed to spend the money I have looked enviously at the time machine software.

For those not familiar with it, basically it is a constant backup solution with a killer GUI which enables you to step back in time for files and (I think) system state.

Yes I know Windows has system restore but well frankly its boring, and not overly configurable in terms of backup location etc.

So with some excitement I installed Genie Timeline which is on paper the same thing as the MAC version. See their site and it looks nice – http://www.genie-soft.com/products/genie_timeline/default.html

But after using the product for the trial period I have decided against it after all. I configured the software to backup to an external USB drive and whenever I checked its status it would give me an error saying the drive was not accessible, even though it clear was/is. When I opened the GUI for timeline it would then after about 5 minutes say the drive was then available and that I was 95% protected, but why would it not simply work without me constantly checking it?

Its a real shame as I was really excited but the trust I had in the product was blown by the above and other little issues…

If anyone is using the software let me know as I really would like to see if working nicely.

CAG 4.6 Management NIC

 

Not sure if this has always been the case and I have gone mad but…..

I enabled the secondary NIC on a CAG 4.6 installation yesterday and did not tick the allow external administration tab, why would I? I had been administering the CAG fine on the one NIC and enabling the second one would not change that would it?

WRONG!

Once you enable the secondary NIC on the CAG 4.6 it becomes the internal one, which means it is the administrative NIC… I am sure I have never done that before, maybe someone could correct me but is this a new “feature”?

One crossover cable later it was fixed but a pain in the backside as the initial install was being done remotely via a firewalled environment so the physical cables had to be switched over!

IIS Admin Service

I have been doing some work for a customer who have an Exchange Server running on a Windows Server 2003. Now the server rebooted and ran Checkdisk which has caused no end of problems.

I believe you are supposed to disable check disk on an Exchange server but it is now too late

The IIS Admin service would not start which obviously means Exchange will not either….

Found this useful link though which would work other than the fact there is disk corruption preventing the movement of the metabase.xml file.

Link is here http://www.iisworkstation.com/2008/07/troubleshooting-could-not-start-iis.html

I will post once the issue is resolved.

SQL 2005 Express Error “failed to start Service”

Onsite installing SQL Express 2005 and consistently getting an error regarding the service failing to start. Found the solution is to during the installation to untick the Hide Advanced options tickbox and then when you get to the screen about service account change from Network Service to Local System and the installation works fine.

See screen below for the setting

How annoying, still it works!