Download – Office Mobile 6.1 Misadventures

Chris, scooped me on this today, but my post has became a tragedy involving crushed hopes and dreams for mo-bettah Office 2007 love on my WM5 PPC. I hope you fare better and have a smooth upgrade.  Me? Notsomuch.

Title: Microsoft Office Mobile 6.1
Subtitle: Upgrade for Microsoft Office 2007 file formats
File Name: OfficeMobile_Licensed_0409_US.msi
Version: 6.1
Date Published: 11/28/2007
Language: English
Download Size: 12.7 MB
Download URL: Click here or here

Description:
Office Mobile 6.1 is an upgrade to Office Mobile applications on Windows Mobile. The new upgrade supports the new Office 2007 file formats. It’s a free download, but see * note below.

Requirements:

  • WM Operating Systems: Windows Mobile 5.0, Windows Mobile 6
  • ActiveSync 4.5 (on Windows 2000/XP/2003); Windows Mobile Device Center (on Windows Vista)
  • At least 6 MB of Available Storage on your device or storage card
  • *Note: This free upgrade works only for WM5 and WM6 devices that have an earlier version of Office Mobile. If your PocketPC, Smartphone or Windows Mobile powered device does not have Office Mobile applications, this upgrade will not work for you.

    That said, you can purchase the full version of Office Mobile 6.1 online for $49.95 at Handango.

Installation Instructions:
(Your mileage may vary – if you’re thinking about upgrading a device that isn’t new, read on.)

  1. Download the file and save it to your computer.
     
  2. Connect your device to your computer and make sure ActiveSync 4.5 or Windows Mobile Device Center is running.
     
    image
  3. Double-click the OfficeMobile_Licensed_0409_US.msi, choose Run, then click Next.
     
    image
     
  4. Accept the license agreement, click Next.
     
  5. Then watch the installation puke out if your device is too old (like mine).
     
    image
     

Error message: Office Mobile 6.1 is not compatible with Windows Mobile 5.0 powered devices running builds earlier than 14847.

To check the build number of your Windows Mobile powered device, go to Settings, click System, and then click About.

MISSION STATUS

you_fail

hx2795_large DENIAL
OK, so I didn’t think this device was that old. I got it last year. It’s an iPAQ hx2795, it’s got a fingerprint reader, bluetooth, wifi, rubberized kung foo grip on the sides, 4GB SD card in the slot and 2 more in holster loaded w/ multimedia goodies. It’s plenty fast enough. And it’s been great for lots of stuff, like:

  • Watching ‘Tommy Boy’ on a plane while the 3 year old in 16F kicks the back of my seat from Detroit to Seattle. 
  • It kept me sane through a 2-hour queue (thank you United Airlines Customer Disservice counter) and a 12-hour flight delay (thank you O’Hare) which turned into a canceled ticket & a 3-hour bus ride.
    Benchwarmers, Monty Python’s Holy Grail & Chicken Little saw me through.
  • A 6-hour flight delay (thank you Cleveland). Oh, and will somebody please buy CLE a mop?! I’ve seen cleaner busses (see above).
    Fantastic 4, Hitchhiker’s Guide to Galaxy & Ice Age, I owe you.
  • Louisville (SDF), you have your very own SD card, so I won’t even go there.
  • In short, I LOVE my Pocket PC. For work, for movies, for MP3, for Tetris, for Daily Text & BubbleBreaker. 

BARGAINING
Please don’t be too old!  You’re not even 2 yet!  I’ll buy you an 8 GB SD card, OK??  I check System / Settings / About / and sure enough, Build 14366.1.0.1.  Gaaa! 

ANGER
Weezer sang it best: “Say It Ain’t So” (musical interlude while I chill)

 

ACCEPTANCE
Calmer now, I’m digging into this.  Found the update page for the hx2000 series on HP’s site. Downloaded the BIOS update, tried to flash the BIOS…

….and I bricked it.  Sour times.

MIXED PANIC & BLINDING ANGER
Vista WMDC tanked in the middle of the BIOS flash.  I jumped back over to Chris on IM (he’s been providing moral support throughout this ‘upgrade’).
HFB asked if I followed the Robot Horde’s Best Practice to Applying ROM Updates to Windows Mobile Devices. I didn’t do the 3rd party backup, but did everything else right. Per Chris:

USE WINDOWS XP/ACTIVESYNC TO LOAD ANY AND ALL ROM UPDATES, AS VISTS/WMDC SUCKS

Duly noted. My gift to you, gentle reader.

HOPE
An internet search brought up the following method to un-brick an iPAQ:
http://mobilitytoday.com/forum/showthread.php?t=7567

If a user is attempting to update the BIOS or FIRMWARE of their iPAQ and the power goes out, or they accidentally turn-off their iPAQ, when then attempt to restart the iPAQ, it will only get to a white-screen, where it then sits forever.
Both soft and hard-resets do not appear to clear the trouble in most cases.

Hopefully you will never need to use this step-by-step process.
I have confirmed with Nathan at HP Technical Support that this is their approved recovery process:

1.) Go to the Master Index of BIOS, FIRMWARE, & DRIVER Updates,
2.) Select the appropriate hyperlink for your model.
3.) Download the most recent BIOS version SoftPAQ (SP) for your Model of iPAQ.
4.) Press the POWER + iTASK + CONTACTS + RESET buttons at the same time so as to enter the FLASH Mode
5.) Make sure your USB connection to the Cradle is hooked-up.
6.) Place your iPAQ in the USB Cradle.
7.) Stop the MS ActiveSync session on your HOST PC: CTRL-ALT-DELETE > TASK MANAGER > PROCESSES.
8.) Hilight WESCOMM.EXE and select “End Process” button.
9.) Run the file you downloaded from HP in step 3.
10.) The iPAQ should now begin Flashing the iPAQ’s ROM BIOS.

This should work for most every iPAQ model, however, we cannot guarantee this will succeed at restoring your iPAQ to a usable state.

PROGRESS
After the near-impossible iPAQ 4-finger salute & some fiddling… cowbell!

image

…and there was much rejoicing!  🙂

To repeat a quote I heard at SMB Nation two years ago, “All I know about the bleeding edge is – that’s where people bleed.”  It might have been Erik Simpson, can’t remember really. But it hits home tonight.

STUPIDITY
And because I never learn my lesson, I’m going to try again this weekend (only from an XP machine this time).  Because I’m nothing if not persistent. Woo-hoo!!

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Video – Seam Carving and Liquid Rescale

Seam carving is one of those new technologies that you have to see to understand.  I’ve heard this called “content-aware image resizing”, “retargeting” “rescaling”, etc., and those names fall flat. 

You really need to see this – it’s just too cool to even try to describe:

Pretty nice, eh? Wanna try it yourself?

Here are 3 examples of what you can easily do with GIMP and the Liquid Rescale plug-in.

EXAMPLE 1 – Reduce Overall 25% – Mythbusters

Before (500×375 pixels)

image

During (showing the Liquid Rescale plug-in)

image

After (375×281) –  look at how much white space we lost on the top and sides of the picture. But the aspect ratio remained the same, even though Adam is a little thinner in the after picture:

image

That doesn’t look significant, but look how much picture we would have lost to conventional cropping using Microsoft Office Picture Manager (the hands would be gone completely):

image

EXAMPLE 2 – Reduce Width Only by 25% – Seagull in Seattle

Before (2272×1074)

image

After (1074×1074) -25% width

image

After v2 (2840×1278) +25% width, -25% height

image

Note: These pictures were not rescale or cropped – it’s a ‘retarget’.

EXAMPLE 3 – Reduce Height Only by 25% – Susanne & Vlad

Before (1024×768)

image

After (1024×576) -25% height

image

Once again, not a crop… yada yada… you get the idea.  It’s lots of fun. Enjoy!

Dr. Codec 🙂

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Download – Selling SBS and WSS Kit

wss_logo Title: How to Sell, Deploy, and Build Business with Microsoft Windows Sharepoint Services 3.0 and SBS 2003 R2
File Name: Selling_WSS_and_SBS_Kit.zip
Version: 1.0
Date Published: 11/15/2007
Language: English
Download Size: 3.2 MB
Download URL: Click here

Description: 
A new partner enablement tool that helps you create solutions using Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 and Windows Small Business Server 2003 R2. Access the toolkit’s resources—including a process cookbook, technical documentation and marketing materials—to learn how to build your business by selling and deploying customized solutions.

Contents Include:

  • Application Templates Overview for WSS v3
  • Asking the Client to Agree to a WSS Demo Final.doc
  • Helpful Technical Resources from Microsoft.doc
  • Identifying Potential WSS Clients.doc
  • Making WSS into a Secure Extranet.doc*
  • Preparing Your Business to Sell and Support WSS.doc
  • SBS Business Benefits Highlights.doc
  • SharePointBackups.exe
  • Site Administrator Homework Sample.doc
  • Visio Windows SharePoint Process Flows 061107.pdf
  • WSS 3.0 User Training Guide.doc
  • WSS 3.0 Admin Training Guide.doc
  • WSS 3.0 Site Demonstration Script.doc
  • WSS 3.0 Site Intake Template Starter Site.doc
  • WSS 3.0 Technical Setup.doc
  • WSS Admin Training Agenda Sample.doc
  • WSS Future Opportunities.doc
  • WSS Packaged Offering StarterSite Sample.doc
  • WSS Process Flow Steps Documents Objectives Toolkit Readiness.xls
  • WSS StarterSite Intake Template.doc
  • WSS User Training Agenda Sample.doc
  • Your Ideal Pilot Client.doc

*If you’re looking for the document on creating a secure extranet using WSS v3 on top of SBS, it’s in this download.  This is the same WSS / SBS content released at Worldwide Partner Conference 2007 that everyone has been asking for over the last several months.  Basically, this stuff is a gold mine!

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Sign-up for Vlad’s SMB Newsletter

I surfed over to Vladville tonight to sign up for the new Vladville Newsletter.  Yet, I couldn’t help noticing not 1, not 2, but precisely 5 pictures of Vlad on the same page: http://www.vladville.com/introducing-the-vladville-newsletter 

image

I actually had to zoom out in Internet Explorer (Control + and – ) to get them all in one screenshot.  I only bring it up because there is no way he would let me get away with something as narcissistic as that! 😉

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Microsoft is Coming to Cincinnati 11/27/2007

Microsoft is coming to Cincinnati tomorrow:

Tuesday November 27, 2007
Regal Deerfield Towne Center Stadium 16
5500 Deerfield Blvd
Mason Ohio 45040

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Download – Daily Dilbert Web Part for SharePoint

I love SharePoint.  I love Dilbert.  Put them both together and it’s like peanut butter and chocolate.  In fact, I love SharePoint and Dilbert almost as much as I hate monkeys (that’s a lot!)

THE FRUSTRATON
And as much as I’ve always adored SharePoint (even back in the STS 1.0 days), user adoption was always sluggish.  To this day I’m still floored by how many IT Pros / SBSers and even SBSCs don’t use their own http://companyweb site.  Unlike the ‘Field of Dreams‘, if you build it, they won’t necessarily come. 🙁

THE STING
Daily Dilbert web part shown on http://companyweb WSS v2 site So for several years I’ve been sneakily using the Daily Dilbert to lure reluctant end users into SharePoint sites.  Many users have absolutely no desire to hit http://companyweb or set it as their IE homepage. But add the Daily Dilbert to your intranet, add in a traffic cam web part, a weather radar, and you’ll be amazed at how quickly and consistently users hit the site.  And once users and small business owners are in the habit of using Companyweb, it opens their eyes and they start thinking about what else they can do with SharePoint.

Customer – “Hey, can we put links to our vendors on this site? What about HR documents? What about… “

You – “Sure, we can do that. Let me show you some of these ‘Fabulous 40’ templates Microsoft has released for SharePoint… “

They start recognizing that it can drive *tremendous* business value. And you can be there to provide those value-added services. Win-win. 🙂

Daily Dilbert web part shown on Windows SharePoint Services WSS v3 siteTHE DOWNLOAD
What you’ve been waiting for, the link to download the Daily Dilbert web part:

  • Daily_Dilbert.dwp (1.66 KB)
    (Right-click and Save As)

    Note: This one web part works with both Windows SharePoint Services WSS v2 and WSS v3 sites.

THE INSTRUCTIONS
The SharePoint pros have already snagged the web part and left the building along with Elvis. But if you’re new to SharePoint, you’ve probably already tried to open the web part and didn’t know what to do with it.  So here are the step-by-step instructions to install that Daily Dilbert web part on your own SharePoint site (Note – make sure your SharePoint permissions let you upload web parts):

  1. imageRight-click the Daily_Dilbert.dwp link above, and save it to your desktop
  2. Open http://companyweb
  3. In the top-right corner, click:
    – Modify Shared Page
    – Add Web Parts
    – Import
  4. imageClick the Browse button
  5. Locate the Daily_Dilbert.dwp web part you just downloaded, click OK
  6. Back on the Add Web Parts page, click Upload
  7. You should now see the uploaded web part directly under the ‘Upload’ button you just clicked, like this:

    image 

  8. Drag the uploaded web part to the left to the location you would like to see it on your web page, and then let go.
  9. Finally, click the “X” in the top right corner next to “Add Web Parts”. You’re all done!

THE PROPS
Major thanks and shout out to Brian Ritchie for developing his mega-cool Dilbert Web Service, and for letting me link to it. Check out Brian’s site at www.dotnetpowered.com

***Bonus Material ***

THE GUTS / HOW IT WORKS
Actually, the web part is the easy part. It’s like the peanut butter and chocolate mentioned earlier. This is just a combination of my ghetto image web part and Brian’s rockin Daily Dilbert Web Service that is doing the heavy lifting of calculating the daily URL.  So basically, this is just a) an image web part that b) points to a static URL, that c) contains a picture updated daily by Brian’s web service. 

Alternately (and VERY cool), you can use the code and instructions on Brian’s site to run your own Daily Dilbert web service (sa-weet!)

Here’s the code for the Daily Dilbert web part if you want to see what it looks like inside:

<?xml version=”1.0″ encoding=”utf-8″?>
<WebPart xmlns:xsd=”http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema” xmlns:xsi=”http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance” xmlns=”http://schemas.microsoft.com/WebPart/v2″>
  <Title>Daily Dilbert</Title>
  <FrameType>Default</FrameType>
  <Description>Thanks go to Brian Ritchie for kindly providing this web part! Be sure to visit his website at: http://www.dotnetpowered.com/dailydilbert.aspx by clicking on the help button.</Description>
  <IsIncluded>true</IsIncluded>
  <ZoneID>Left</ZoneID>
  <PartOrder>2</PartOrder>
  <FrameState>Normal</FrameState>
  <Height />
  <Width />
  <AllowRemove>true</AllowRemove>
  <AllowZoneChange>true</AllowZoneChange>
  <AllowMinimize>true</AllowMinimize>
  <IsVisible>true</IsVisible>
  <DetailLink>http://www.dilbert.com</DetailLink>
  <HelpLink>http://www.dotnetpowered.com/dailydilbert.aspx</HelpLink>
  <Dir>Default</Dir>
  <PartImageSmall />
  <MissingAssembly />
  <PartImageLarge>/_layouts/images/msimagel.gif</PartImageLarge>
  <IsIncludedFilter />
  <Assembly>Microsoft.SharePoint, Version=11.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c</Assembly>
  <TypeName>Microsoft.SharePoint.WebPartPages.ImageWebPart
</TypeName>
  <ImageLink xmlns=”http://schemas.microsoft.com/WebPart/v2/Image”> http://www.dotnetpowered.com/dailydilbertservice/dailydilbert.axd
</ImageLink>
  <VerticalAlignment xmlns=”http://schemas.microsoft.com/WebPart/v2/Image”>Middle </VerticalAlignment>
  <HorizontalAlignment xmlns=”http://schemas.microsoft.com/WebPart/v2/Image”>Center </HorizontalAlignment>
  <BackgroundColor xmlns=”http://schemas.microsoft.com/WebPart/v2/Image”>transparent </BackgroundColor>
</WebPart>

***Extra Old Skool Bonus Material***

Back in the day before Brian’s Daily Dilbert web service, I used a similar WSS v2 stock image web part and linked it to a Dot Net Nuke site that hosted the Daily Dilbert.  Straightforward, but effective. 

In case you haven’t figured it out yet, you can’t use a stock image web part in WSS to link directly to the Daily Dilbert website GIF, because the image name changes every day.  For example, today (11/21/2007) the image name is dilbert2002222371121.gif.

THE END
Again, much respect to Brian for the web service. Also, props to Scott Adams, the talented creator of Dilbert. If you liked the web part, be sure and leave a comment below. And if you like the Dilbert cartoon, be sure to click the words “Daily Dilbert” at the top of the web part each day – this will take you directly to the www.dilbert.com website where Scott can get the traffic he rightly deserves for creating such an awesome cartoon. Enjoy!

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Backup Exec Gone Wild

I just had to share this little gem 🙂

File under: Crazy Screen Shots
Program: Symantec Backup Exec  10d
Source: Job Log on backup

Original error (not the funny part):

image

And here’s the funny part, in the backup log:

image

No worries though… I’m gonna call Michael J. Fox and ask him to remove the overwrite protection on that B2D volume for me. 😉

How to troubleshoot BE overwrite protection issues...

(That one’s for you Chris.)

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Notes from November 2007 KYSBSUG Meeting

kysbsug Thanks to everyone who attended the November 2007 Kentucky Small Business Server User Group (KYSBSUG) meeting last night on "Best Practices".

SPECIAL THANKS:

  • Thanks to all who attended, especially those traveling from Lexington.
  • Also, MAJOR thanks to Matthew Snoddy from Network Therapists for presenting!  We’re really looking forward to the Lexington SBS group launch in January!
  • And thanks to those who stayed after to attend the WHS build

GRAND PRIZE WINNER:

  • Windows Home Server Lee Johnson from Sentry Computer Systems took home the copy of Windows Home Server

    Congratulations Lee on finally winning something 😉

URLS MENTIONED LAST NIGHT:

  • SBS 2003 Best Practices Analyzer v1.3 (1.1 MB)
  • Exchange 2003 Best Practices Analyzer v2.8 (6.8 MB)
  • ISA 2004 Best Practices Analyzer v5.5 (2.8 MB)
  • WSS v3 & MOSS 2007 Best Practices Analyzer (1.4 MB)
  • Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer v2.1 – Beta 2 (1.3 MB)
  • Visio 2007 Connector for MBSA 2.1 (1.1 MB)
  • lookinmypc LookInMyPC (1.2 MB) – LookInMyPC generates a complete, comprehensive system profile that includes information on all installed hardware and software. Additionally it provides system diagnostic information such as details on running processes, installed services, startup programs, Windows updates and hot fixes, active network and Internet connections, TCP/IP port usage, event log detail, and much more. All this is provided in an easy to read, formatted report that you can view and print using your web browser.
  • AccessEnum v1.32 (51 KB) – AccessEnum gives you a full view of your file system and Registry security settings in seconds, making it the ideal tool for helping you for security holes and lock down permissions where necessary.
  • JDiskReport JDiskReport v1.3 (0.6 MB) – JDiskReport enables you to understand how much space the files and directories consume on your disk drives, and it helps you find obsolete files and folders.

    The tool analyses your disk drives and collects several statistics which you can view as overview charts and details tables.

    This is ad-free uncrippled no-charge binary multi-platform software that never expires.  (Requires Java).

  • The Dude 2.2 The Dude v2.2 (1.8 MB)  – The Dude is a network monitor that will enable you to scan all the devices within a network subnet and then draw a map of the network devices and tell you where your workstations are connected and warn you of service problems.

    Better still, your network doesn’t need to be internal. If your company has a network between offices, The Dude will enable you to map the entire network.

  • PsEXec v1.9 (1 MB) – PsExec, from Microsoft / Sysinternals is a light-weight telnet-replacement that lets you execute processes on other systems, complete with full interactivity for console applications, without having to manually install client software. PsExec’s most powerful uses include launching interactive command-prompts on remote systems and remote-enabling tools like IpConfig that otherwise do not have the ability to show information about remote systems.

    Note: some anti-virus scanners report that one or more of the tools are infected with a "remote admin" virus. None of the PsTools contain viruses, but they have been used by viruses, which is why they trigger virus notifications.

  • SIW - System Information for Windows System Information for Windows (SIW) v1.71 (1.3 MB) – SIW is an advanced System Information for Windows tool that gathers detailed information about your system properties and settings and displays it in an extremely comprehensible manner.

    This standalone utility does not require installation (Portable Freeware) – one less installed program on your PC as well the fact that you can run the program directly from an USB flash drive, from a floppy, from a network drive or from a domain login script.

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Pricing for Windows Server 2008 Announced

Windows_Server_System_logo In case you missed the announcement on Monday, here’s the pricing information for Windows Server 2008:

  • Windows Server 2008 Standard: $999 (with five Client Access Licenses, or CALs)
  • Windows Server 2008 Enterprise: $3,999 (with 25 CALs)
  • Windows Server 2008 Datacenter: $2,999 (per processor)
  • Windows Server 2008 for Itanium-based Systems: $2,999 (per processor)
  • Windows Web Server 2008: $469
  • Windows Server 2008 Standard without Hyper-V: $971 (with five CALs)
  • Windows Server 2008 Enterprise without Hyper-V: $3,971 (with 25 CALs)
  • Windows Server 2008 Datacenter without Hyper-V: $2,971 (per processor)

(No pricing on Cougar / SBS 2008 yet – still too early)

server2008posterIf you’d like a handy visual reference of what’s new in Windows Server 2008, check out these FREE handy downloadable posters in PDF format (these were the ones in the July 2007 TechNet Magazine):

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Whitepaper – Migrating SBS 2003 to New Hardware

 Microsoft has released a new whitepaper and set of worksheets entitled:

 “Migrating Windows Small Business Server 2003 to New Hardware

Sections include:

The whitepaper outlines the following steps for migrating from an existing computer running Windows SBS 2003 to new hardware:

  1. Evaluate the current status of the source server.
  2. Install Windows SBS 2003 and join the domain.
  3. Transfer Exchange Server 2003 settings and folders.
  4. Migrate shared folders and data folders.
  5. Install and configure the Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP).
  6. Configure Windows SBS 2003 settings.
  7. Migrate Internet Information Services (IIS) Web sites.
  8. Install and migrate Windows Server Update Services (WSUS).
  9. Migrate Internet Security and Acceleration (ISA) Server settings.
  10. Migrate Microsoft SQL Server databases.
  11. Remove the source server from the network.

This whitepaper is currently only available in HTML format, but a .DOC version will be made available.

BEST PRACTICE:  For the ultimate information regarding SBS migration, including the following scenarios…

  • SBS 2003 Redeployment
  • SBS 2000 to 2003 Upgrade
  • NT4/SBS 4.5 to 2003 Upgrade
  • SBS 2000 Redeployment

…be sure to check out Jeff Middleton’s
Swing It!! Technician Kit available at www.sbsmigration.com
We simply can’t say enough good things about the Swing IT Kit!! 

Source – Eric Ligman’s Blog:
http://blogs.msdn.com/mssmallbiz/archive/2007/11/01/5822972.aspx

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