November 2009 - Digital Tool Factory blog November 2009 - Digital Tool Factory blog

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QuickBooks Conversion tool will not work with 64 bit Windows, or Accounting software wants to kill me

First Microsoft discontinues Office Accounting 2009 a mere four months after I install it and spend 40 hours trying to get it working over the network with XP. Then I make the move to QuickBooks due to this press release, and discover that their oh so magnificent data conversion tool will not work with either Vista 64 bit or Windows 7 64 bit. I now have to wrangle one of the old computers from the closets, do a clean install of 32 bit vista on that, install both Quickbooks and Office Accounting on that computer, convert that over on there, and then move the Quickbooks file to one of the two 64 bit computers I have here in the house. Such joy. No wonder I hate accounting.

 

This post originally appeared on the Stronico blog – with the absorption of Stronico into Digital Tool Factory this post has been moved to the Digital Tool Factory blog

Accounting— 11 comments
19
Nov 09

Written By Steve French

 

How to migrate a user profile in Vista

In a previous post I detailed the simple procedure of leaving a domain and joining a workgroup in Vista. The catch is…

The Problem: When you leave the domain, the user profile is basically destroyed and a crippled version is put in it’s place. Very little documentation exists on how to prevent this, and the market has not supplied many programs to help either. Copying files and folders did not work for me. I tried both Windows Easy Transfer and the User State Migration Tool from Microsoft, to no avail. Curiously, none of my knowledgeable tech friends knew of an easy way to do this.

The Cause: As near as I can tell – there is little software market for downgrading your network, or providing documentation. Happily there is at least one company that will step up.

The Solution: Download the User Profile Wizard from Forensit. (It took me much time to find it). Make backups of everything, then run the Wizard. You will probably have to create a new login to use, but the profile will be pristine once it’s transfered over.

I imagine this would not be much of a problem for someone more knowledgeable, but for me it was quite vexing.

Okay, hopefully the next blog posts will be all about startsups and Silverlight.

 

This post originally appeared on the Stronico blog – with the absorption of Stronico into Digital Tool Factory this post has been moved to the Digital Tool Factory blog

How To Fix— No comments
15
Nov 09

Written By Steve French

 

How to leave a domain and join a workgroup in Vista

This is another one of those non-Silverlight problems, but since it created such a massive time sink I thought I would blog about it.

The Problem: You want to leave a domain for whatever reason (in my case, I wasn’t using the server for anything) and join a workgroup.

The Cause: The solution at first seems simple and easy – just right click on “My Computer”, go to Advanced, go to the “Computer Name” tab, and click on the “Change” button to join the workgroup. But that is too easy.

While the above method will work, your current user will lose all of the settings, even those which do not involved the server or domain in any way.

The Solution: The domain profile must be migrated to the workstation before the workstation leaves the domain – (I will write another post about that). This does not happen automatically or easily.

I’m not sure if this is a legitimately difficult problem, but it did take me some time to research, so I thought I would preserve it for internet posterity. I do not count computer networking as my strong suit.

 

This post originally appeared on the Stronico blog – with the absorption of Stronico into Digital Tool Factory this post has been moved to the Digital Tool Factory blog

How To Fix— No comments
15
Nov 09

Written By Steve French

 

How to fix Blogger page title problems

I was perusing my Google Analytics reports and did some checking on came across some sub optimal page structure.

The Problem: Blogger (my blogging platform of choice) sets page titles in reverse. More specifically Blogger will set the title of a post as “Stronico Contact Management – How to fix browser size problem in Silverlight” – which is not as SEO friendly as what I thought it did, which would be “How to fix browser size problem in Silverlight – Stronico”. The former has more words, and quite repetitive.

The Cause: Blogger is just set up that way

The Solution: I did some Google work and came across this post on SEO Book (Thanks!) Basically Blogger has a set of server tags it uses when publishing a blog to an outside server. For whatever reason Blogger sets the page title in an odd order. To fix the problem add in this code in the header section of the Blogger Template

<MainPage>
<title>Stronico Blog – Visual Contact Management</title>
</MainPage>
<Blogger>
<ArchivePage>
<title>Archive of the Stronico Blog</title>
</ArchivePage>
<ItemPage>
<BlogItemTitle><title><$BlogItemTitle$> : Stronico</title></BlogItemTitle></ItemPage>
</Blogger>

That will do it! Thank you SEO Book!

 

This post originally appeared on the Stronico blog – with the absorption of Stronico into Digital Tool Factory this post has been moved to the Digital Tool Factory blog

How To Fix / SEO— No comments
09
Nov 09

Written By Steve French

 

Thoughts on Create Your Own Economy by Tyler Cowen

I recently finished Create Your Own Economy by Tyler Cowen and loved it. I found it to be an insightful treatise on the Autistic Spectrum and it raised many thoughts which are still bouncing around my head.

As a self-diagnosed Aspie – I was particularly fascinated by the part about degrees of difference, mainly that some people can appreciate/perceive some things, music, food, books, etc, to a far higher degree than others. I thought I would create some lists for future reference.

High degree of perception list

  • Music written in pentatonic scales
  • Word choice
  • Barbecue
  • Written History
  • Driving pattens (I can predict what people in front of me will do)
  • Boxing
  • Speeches and internal messaging
  • Verbal tone
  • Dogs

Low degree of perception list

  • Classical music
  • Jazz
  • Sushi
  • Body language
  • Basketball
  • Poetry
  • Cats

What does all this have to do with Stronico? I’m not sure, but I was inspired to make several changes to the app after reading the book, though I find the reasons to do so unclear.

 

This post originally appeared on the Stronico blog – with the absorption of Stronico into Digital Tool Factory this post has been moved to the Digital Tool Factory blog

Aspie / Reviews— No comments
07
Nov 09

Written By Steve French

 

A tip for dealing with T-Mobile problems

As Lady Stronico (Staci) continues her struggle with T-Mobile a valuable lesson was learned. The T-mobile (so far, 100% unhelpful) staff will try to shuffle you off into a convenient side room to call headquarters, with the assurance that calling headquarters via their phone and a special number will expedite solving the problem. This is not the case. Sit down and make them fix it. We have tried both and all calling headquarters did was waste an hour.

It seemed like a good idea the first time, but all they are trying to do is shuffle you off. The T-Mobile staff does have the authority to make things right, don’t let them escape not fixing the problem.

 

This post originally appeared on the Stronico blog – with the absorption of Stronico into Digital Tool Factory this post has been moved to the Digital Tool Factory blog

CustomerService— No comments
07
Nov 09

Written By Steve French

 

How to fix customer service problems with T-Mobile

I’m not sure that this really qualifies as a technical problem, but it was a problem I had.

The Problem: Any one of the many you are likely to have with T-Mobile -in my case it was a non-working phone, and no good options of upgrading.

The Cause: T-Mobile customer service sucks.

The Solution: Insist on speaking to the “Customer Loyalty” department. This is where they send you after you threaten to leave them for someone else. I found it useful to state that I had an excel spreadsheet listing deals from various providers and that T-Mobile came out the worst. Curiously, no one asks for numbers if you tell them you have a spreadsheet. They will eventually cave, albeit not by that much in my case.

 

This post originally appeared on the Stronico blog – with the absorption of Stronico into Digital Tool Factory this post has been moved to the Digital Tool Factory blog

CustomerService / How To Fix— No comments
04
Nov 09

Written By Steve French

 




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