Matt Broadstock

March 2006 - Posts

• New Adobe Reader finally fixes annoying bug

  I've run into this error (and similar ones) often enough while browsing the web. "The instruction at '0x10005f6c' referenced memory at '0x10005f6c'. "The memory could not be read". Based on my experience, this is almost always a badly written BHO (Browser Helper Object). My current client has been fighting this error with a yellow pages application provided by SWBell. As long as you had another browser window open when you closed their web-based app, you didn't get the error. But if their app was the only browser window open you'd get that annoying message when IE closed. We figured out that we could eliminate the error by disabling that BHO (Tools-Manage Add-Ons) but I'm not sure about hte negative consquences of doing that. In the case of Adobe, their DLL (AcroIEHelper.dll) was dated 12/14/2004 with my "old" version of Adobe-7.0.3. It is pretty obvious that they hadn't updated that DLL in a while. Fortunately, 7.0.7 updated that DLL and the memory error is now gone. I run into this error all the time with Flash sites as well..I guess Macromedia needs to learn something from Adobe and get their DLLs updated as well. Also, it appears that the memory address given in the error is consistent depending on what BHO causes the problem. I don't have any of the others documented but I'll try to add them to this doc as I run into them. In addition, it doesn't seem to matter whether you use IE or Firefox--I've run into the exact same errors in both browsers.. Share this post:                                        Posted Mar 30 2006, 02:28 PM by Matt Broadstock with no comments

• March Madness futility

  Well, my Jayhawks managed to let me down again. I'm almost longing for the heartache of all of those Final Four losses (as brutal as they were). Getting booted out of the tourney in the first round 2 years in a row sucks. Especially since they just blew through the Big12 tourney and capped it off by spanking Texas. Oh well, we're a young team and should be one of the best teams in the country next year. Hopefully they will figure out a way to turn that regular season success into a decent run in March... Between my Jayhawks and my StL Cardinals I'm getting used to disappointment in the postseason. (at least I won't have those problems with the StL Blues this year...a good year for them will be staying out of last place in the league). Share this post:                                        Posted Mar 20 2006, 02:52 PM by Matt Broadstock with no comments Filed under: Misc

• Chef leaving South Park?!?!

  I'm a bit slow on this one but I just found out Isaac Hayes is leaving South Park. Apparently he got pissed off that they made fun of Scientology. I guess it was ok when they made fun of Muslims, Christians, Mormons, and every other belief on the planet. But Scientologists are supposed to be treated specially. One of the great things about South Park is that they are equal opportunity bashers. I think that's the secret to getting away with trashing on one particular group--you have to be able to make fun of yourself as well. Chris Rock is great at that. He'll make fun of 'whitey' a lot but he's not afraid to make fun of himself as well. Share this post:                                        Posted Mar 20 2006, 02:40 PM by Matt Broadstock with no comments Filed under: Misc

• Great free tool for reporting differences in Group Policies

  GPOVault. I'm not planning to use any of the fancy features that the tool has at this time but it sure works great for reporting differences in GPOs. I'll do some reading on some of the other features because they look really useful as well. (offline editing, change approval, rollback, etc) Check 'em out.... http://www.desktopstandard.com/GPOVaultFree.aspx Share this post:                                        Posted Mar 16 2006, 05:26 PM by Matt Broadstock with no comments Filed under: Active Directory

• Integrating hotfixes and drivers into a RIS image

  I'm doing some testing with this right now and all appears to be going well so far. I'm using a lot of the tips mentioned at this site. I'm changing the process a bit to give me more contol over everything but all of the people involved in getting a working process seem to have done a fantastic job! Share this post:                                        Posted Mar 10 2006, 12:29 AM by Matt Broadstock with no comments

• New posts making it to Google really fast!

  I've moved a number of my old blogposts and articles from my old blog on myITforum and I am already getting a ton of hits. I checked the referrals and most of them are coming from google searches (no real surprise there). I must say that I was surprised that the posts on this site are showing up higher in the google search list than my old ones though. Brian, you paying off google or something? Share this post:                                        Posted Mar 10 2006, 12:20 AM by Matt Broadstock with 1 comment(s) Filed under: Misc

• Possible bad MOM 2005 SP1 upgrade

  I don't have all the details yet but it appears that someone didn't read any of the instructions on doing a MOM 2005 SP1 upgrade at my current client. The management server got updated but the database server did not. We are still getting alerts but heartbeats are failing and we are getting some weird errors. Hopefully upgrading the DB (even though it won't be doing the upgrade in the preferred order) will fix the issues. I hunted down the following docs on the right way to do it: http://www.mcse.ms/archive236-2005-9-1792037.html http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/mom/mom2005/Library/e4114fa0-21cb-4e04-a636-a91499ec8b8f.mspx Share this post:                                        Posted Mar 10 2006, 12:03 AM by Matt Broadstock with no comments Filed under: MOM

• Brought a few old posts over from myITforum

  I posted them all with a date of Jan 1 of this year. You can click here if you want to check 'em out. All of my articles that I moved over can be found here. Share this post:                                        Posted Mar 09 2006, 11:17 PM by Matt Broadstock with no comments Filed under: Misc

• I still *&#^$#ing hate Lotus Notes

  I haven't gone on an anti-Lotus Notes rant in a while so I figure I am due for one. Here are the main problems I have with Lotus Notes: The client blows. The client blows. No support for roaming-IBM will tell you to shove it if you want real roaming support. The client blows. If the file server that you are running the client data files on becomes unavailable for 1/4 of a second, the client craps out. (see item #3 for how much support IBM will give you on this) We've recently run into issues with trying to get our 'roaming' Notes environment (non-supported by IBM even though everyone uses them until they run into enough issues that they give up) working with both our desktop and Citrix environment. I won't go into all of the issues but they are things that Lotus could EASILY fix. Things that people have been complaining about since Notes 5. So much for listening to your customer base.. I've got another somewhat crazy idea hatching in my head that I am currently working on. It involves copying the "important" Notes client files back-and-forth between the client system and a file server whenever a user launches Notes. I really don't want to have to do this but I am at my wits end on how to get Notes working like it should. I know Outlook has its own issues (MAPI profiles are retarded--the way they have worked as long as I can remember just doesn't make any sense) but I'd love to deal with MAPI instead of the Notes client. I mean, sheesh, the Notes.INI file doesn't even understand system environment variables...how incredibly backwards is that?? Ok, rant over. I feel a bit better. I will feel a TON better if I ever get the damn thing working like I want it to though.. Share this post:                                        Posted Mar 09 2006, 10:37 PM by Matt Broadstock with 3 comment(s) Filed under: Lotus Notes