September 2006 - Posts
When I bought my first house, the previous owner had put in an systemline audio distribution system that - for it's time - was excellent. However, over the life of the system I have found that for an "I.T Minded" person like myself it has a lot of limitations. Because of this, I started to research for a true IP audio distribution system that would link in to a myriad of other systems.
I initially contacted various AV / Home control companies around Ireland and the UK... I was amazed as to how little computer knowledge these people have! As soon as you mention "link to my computer" or "integrate to Media Centre" or "play my iPod" they tend to - for a lack of a better phrase - crap themselves.
After much research, I found that the only mid range product that would integrate to many systems is the Netstreams DigiLinX product. This company have got it right. They have mastered the method of providing true high quality IP audio and control to a home build at a reasonable cost. The quality and design of this product is perfect, and the link in to other systems is driving the product further.
So, as I said... Since I could not find an IT minded company here in Ireland to provide this product to home builders - only AV companies, I have started my own. NTES Netstreams.
I have been getting reports of various ZIP files with EXE content getting through people Symantec Mail Security and McAfee scanners. This is with the definitions dated the 24th September 2006.
In GFI Mailsecurity, the attachment is detected as "Generic.Stration.74C486D4"
Our own server, which rarely gets hit with viruses has reported over 100 blocked mails (GFI Mailsecurity) in the last two hours! Tell your users to be careful opening attachments!
As Arno mentioned before, we are working on the change of scenerydesign.org to fsdeveloper.com this weekend. Tough work!
We are getting there, and it really will be a great place for all FS Developers around the world. Finally we will have one place that you will be able to find answers to your questions from other like-minded people and possibly even the ACES Team themselves (either directly or indirectly).
Take note, anyone whom is interested in modding the missions, simconnect or aircraft design areas should drop myself or Arno an email. Whomever you are, you need to be devoted! :)
If you are running Office 2007 Beta, then be sure to download the beta 2 refresh that was released today. Jensen Harris has a good post with the link included.
OK Blog readers, hopefully there is some Outlook guru that will read this.
Every so often, my Outlook Favorite folders simply get lost / corrupted. It is
highly frustrating to recreate all the items in the favorite folders list again! Is there a way to backup this list / information?
GFI Mailarchiver is a great product, but it is frustrating that sometimes it catches spam in the archives. It is worse when the spam has a date set way off in the future as it gets listed right at the top of your main GFI Mailarchiver page.
GFI have articles on the knowledge base on how to combat this but to be honest they do not normally work as most administrators choose to allow the mail get to the user mailbox and then move it to a junk folder. You can review those articles here and here.
That all said, the point of this blog post is to show you administrators out there how you can remove these annoying spam messages from GFI Mailarchiver. This is the unsupported GFI Method, and it goes against the legal requirements for mailarchiving. This is the code that GFI will send you if you ask. BACKUP FIRST!
Remove the /* comment tags for the parts you wish to use. This code will also create a new table called tbl which will contain all the deleted information from the arc table only.
Download the scripts here and use at your own risk. Backup FIRST!
Arno calls it hijacking. I call it "investment in community" ;)
He says it all on his post, so I will not double up. Bottom line, we both think it is about time that the FS Add-on community, both payware and freeware, have ONE central place to work together to improve add-ons going forward. Of course the other advantage of this is we have ONE voice going back to the Microsoft ACES team and that will carry more weight as we can feed them information in a controlled manner.
We are doing this on the "If you build it, they will come" concept. Let's hope the clever people dotted around the web embrace this new idea!
That includes you Microsoft :)
Tip hat to Owen Hewitt for this.
It also seems that the flightsim.com article has linked my blog as one of the "blogoshphere" which is cool... but remember, I don't work for Microsoft, I work with the community and give "non-Microsoft" feedback to Microsoft. Get me?
The last I heard we should have some more MVP's for the Flight Simulator / Games product very soon, which I am very happy to hear as I and members of the ACES team have been pushing for this for ages.
I received a "Media Pack" today from the guys over at skylook. It contained a link to a demo of the new Skylook 2.0 beta, which I can assure you is VERY cool.
You can all take a look on the sneak peek site at some of the screenshots, but suffice to say, this is a must for any Skype and Outlook user... My favourite new feature is the redesigned recording / notepad popup which is very handy... good job!
The other piece of good news is that I just tested it in Outlook 2007 and could not find any immediate issues.
'cause it sure does when it comes to the new 24" IMac. Man, that is NICE. Pity I already have the 20" model, I cannot justify purchasing another one ;)
Maybe the 30" is on the way....
Spammers really do piss me off. I mean COME ON!
Who in their right mind sends money to someone on the other side of the world called Dikka Abagoo, third son of nine, who's brother - Juju Abonka - is a political prisioner. Remember, he has... wait for it.... ($10.500,000) Ten Million Five houndred thousand united states dollars only sitting in his bank account that he will share with you on his release.
I mean, are people THAT STUPID! If so, then I have an idea... send me ($100.00) One Hundred United States Dollars, and I will do pretty much anything for an hour and you will feel good in the knowledge that you were not ripped off. I give value for your 100 Bucks. I mean, you didn't really want to release poor JuJu anyway, did you.
Seriously though. Spammers are beginning to attack webforums as much as regular email nowadays - Msmvps.com included. Susan just recently updated the Community Server code to version 2.1 here and that has improved this dramatically. Today however, Mark Minasi's forums also got hit... A user signs up, then spams other users using the "email a forum member" feature. Aghghghghgh.
So, for any other Snitz Administrators out there... there is a mod that one of the snitz community guys put together quickly to combat this. Thanks "ruirib"
Sorry that the blog looks odd. The skin I was using for CS 2.0 is apparently not working with 2.1.
EDIT- Thanks for fixing the skins Susan!
In the mean time, two pieces of news:
1. Shock, horror... yes, I was on the FSX beta (as if you hadn't guessed). The product rocks, you will love it.
2. Vista on my Dell Precision sucks.