Windows OS

PDANet allows your laptop (or desktop) to go online wirelessly by connecting it to your Windows Mobile Phone through the sync cable, Bluetooth or even wifi. PdaNet goes through the unlimited data plan on your phone and does not require any extra service.

If you don't know what PDANet is, check it out here.

If you do, and have been looking for a 64-bit compatible version that works under Vista x64 and Windows 7 x64, go here.

This is a round-about workaround if you have a printer that doesn't have in-box support or an out-of-business/unsupported printer manufacturer.

If you have a printer that can 'talk' PCL and/or Postscript, try the HP Universal Print Driver Series for PCL 5, PCL 6 or PostScript.

If you have a LaserJet 4MV like I do with the default amount of RAM installed inside, you'll want to crank down the default amount of RAM available from 6MB to whatever the amount of RAM is available on your particular printer, if you want to be able to print complex PostScript documents.

Between OCS 2007 R2 release candidate and RTM, the custom presence rules changed. You can no longer use the file:// method to specify the XML file to use for setting your custom presence. A long time ago, I posted about custom presence in OCS 2007 R1.

If you're wondering what custom presence is, instead of simply setting your status to Available or Busy, you can give a more granular status, such as Working from home or At the airport. I like to use these more than setting 'notes' because it is visible at a glance and you can still color the little jellybean the proper color (green/red/etc).

Now, how do you go about securing a website with a publicly signed SSL certificate so you can post your XML file without spending any money on a certificate or paying for hosting? Simple - SkyDrive.

Once you post your XML file to SkyDrive, make sure to use the URL that goes directly to the XML file and not the SkyDrive web interface, or else it will not work properly.

The process is documented better at this blog post here, which tipped me off to using SkyDrive. Previously, I had been using a self-signed certificate from a local CA published to a self-hosted (per machine) IIS localhost site. I get creative when need be, and the SkyDrive method, which I didn't realize was possible, is much less resource intensive.

Although, I think it is debatable whether or not a HTTPS website is more or less secure than a local file on the hard drive. I miss the file:// method, but the HTTPS method makes it universal for any machine I use Office Communicator. If I'm using Office Communicator, I have to have internet connectivity, so it makes it a universal solution overall. I won't have different custom states across many computers anymore.

Overall, Hava v1.8.0.11 works great under Windows 7 x32 build 7000 and builds after 7000.

Unfortunately, when you first boot up and if you wait a few minutes before logging into the computer, havanet.sys will blue screen the system with a IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL.

I've performed a kernel debug crash dump on it, although unfortunately the symbols are not available for the build of Windows 7 I am running.

If I log into the computer in a hurry, the blue screen is avoided and the Hava works perfectly.

Also of note, it seems the Ulead SDK is a known 'problem app' with Windows 7 because it comes up as a 'potential blocker' when installing HAVA.

I never use the CD/DVD burning features of the Hava and uninstalling Ulead after the fact seems to work just fine. The bluescreens happen no matter if Ulead SDK is installed or not.

If you want to see the cut-and-paste of the crash dump and analysis, read my original post on the Hava forums here.

Next up, x64!

I wanted to do a few clean ups of the original PowerPoint and also convert it to the PowerPoint 2003 format for a greater audience. The primary focus of this slide deck is highlighting what is new and compelling inside Windows 7, especially combined with Windows 2008 R2.

It isn't overly technical, so it is a nice few page "greatest hits" feature list that you could show to most computer users, but also has some "meat" to it for the technical folks.

You can download the PowerPoint slide deck here.

If you perform an in-place upgrade of Vista x64 that has iTunes installed, or any program that takes advantage of the GEAR software driver, you will most likely run into this issue. Any CD-ROM or DVD-ROM will have a yellow exclamation point inside the Device Manager of Windows 7.

Thankfully, this is easily fixed without uninstalling or reinstalling iTunes. As of 02/04/09 (version 4.008.5), there is a Windows 7 compatible x86 and x64 GEAR ASPI driver available from Gear Software's download page.

I'm curious why vendors keep using this driver, because there are plenty of alternatives that provide the same functionality without all the headaches. Why not use the native APIs?

Both of these are completely unoriginal topics to blog about but I keep using them whenever I rebuild my W7 machine with VMWare.

First, taking a tip from Dugie's Pensieve, is the ability to hide the __vmware_user__ from the Welcome screen. It is rather innocent looking by default but some people get bent out of shape seeing a user listed that should not be there. It is just a matter of running: REG ADD "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\SpecialAccounts\UserList" /v __vmware_user__ /d 0 /t REG_DWORD /f or using this registry file.

Second, VMNet adapters show up as unidentified by the host OS. This causes your firewall profile to switch to the Public setting and locks down your computer even on a trusted network. You can use this Powershell script from here to fix the problem. I wouldn't have found this one without Matt's post on it.