I came across a funky free tool called Shell Extension Manager for Windows. It allows you to see all the extensions (plugins) into the file explorer, and disable them while not having to actually uninstall things.

This is great, because it allows you to easily do a process of elimination... and what it turned out to be is Adobe Drive CS4. Which makes sense as the day before I re-installed CS4 Master Collection (because of course...I break technology, and everything in CS4 worked except for Dreamweaver, it said my license was expired, even though all the other CS4 products worked fine).

Anyhoo, the simple fix was to disable the Adobe Drive CS4 file explorer extension and all will be well.

...what issues are in store for tomorrow? :) ]]> Mon, 15 Jun 2009 15:52:00 PST http://www.dopejam.com/shownewsitem.cfm?NewsID=548 products http://www.dopejam.com/shownewsitem.cfm?NewsID=547 Anyhoo, so I open it up and see it's fully active, and a message saying that updates were automatically applied. Ok fine, but now all of a sudden Word is acting crazy. It crashes when exiting, doesn't recognize the mouse (I tried using all keyboard, but it was just too in-efficient), etc...

I uninstalled and re-installed Office, ran Vista SP2, etc... but to no avail. After doing some searching I found the issue - Word 2007 if left running on Windows Vista when the OS does an automatic update can cause Word to get messed up.

The solution is to nuke the HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0\Word\Data key, and it should work fine after that.

Being someone who runs both fulltime Mac and Windows I've been noting the usability differences, and neither nails it. Each has pros and cons, and there's been plenty occasions on both OS's where I say to myself... there's no way a non-techie would have figured that out. And this is one of those occasions where I say that. ]]> Sun, 14 Jun 2009 18:42:00 PST http://www.dopejam.com/shownewsitem.cfm?NewsID=547 products http://www.dopejam.com/shownewsitem.cfm?NewsID=546 Bing.com - their supposed Google search killer. What I found interesting is that their promo/video is based on Flash instead of Silverlight.

Hmmmm..... ]]> Thu, 28 May 2009 21:31:00 PST http://www.dopejam.com/shownewsitem.cfm?NewsID=546 dj http://www.dopejam.com/shownewsitem.cfm?NewsID=545 I assumed it was probably firewall related, but didn't really have a pressing need to really have to remote control it... until recently. Well it turns out that Microsoft decided not to provide terminal services in the home editions of Vista, which I found surprising. So I tried VNC as an alternative, but to be honest VNC is chunky and slow (even with running in low colors, low res, etc...).

In my searching to find a way to enable RDP in Vista Home I came across a 2yr old blog posting by Frans Mayra who packaged up a workaround that enables terminal services on the home editions of Vista.

I ran the simple 4 step process, and it worked like cake. Nice! So here's some kudos to Frans, thank you sir! ]]> Sun, 24 May 2009 20:25:00 PST http://www.dopejam.com/shownewsitem.cfm?NewsID=545 products http://www.dopejam.com/shownewsitem.cfm?NewsID=544 Mozy for remote backup for awhile, and have been getting frustrated with the service. Loading up the admin/config tool is excruciatingly slow as it connects to the Mozy servers doing it's voodoo, doing backups is extremely slow, and 80% of the time the client locks up and you have to kill the process, etc...

For $5/mo my expectations are low, but it's at least got to work!

So I'm thinking I'll switch over to Carbonite and give it a try. ]]> Sun, 10 May 2009 21:44:00 PST http://www.dopejam.com/shownewsitem.cfm?NewsID=544 products http://www.dopejam.com/shownewsitem.cfm?NewsID=543 Let's take the The Palm Pre for example. From a technology stand point it's really cool and is a strong contender to the iPhone.

You can never rest on laurels

But if Apple is smart business people (and clearly they are), they fear their competition - even though Apple has a big lead. A good business person is driven by the fear that a competitor at any moment could swoop in and steal market share. Hence why Apple?s ads have changed from iPhone capability to purely the App Store ("there?s an app for that").

Apple made a good move device wise by coming in with a unique compelling device that satisfied a need. But a business can never rest on their laurels, because everyone will copycat whatever is working and catch up. So now everyone's got the touch screen happening, the GPS, etc...

Their (Apple's) current move is to build up a massive repository of Developers and Applications. According O'Reilly's book market analysis of sales, the Objective-C language is growing at a mindblasting 965%!

Winning at the business perspective

So Palm is going need to do more than just match or slightly beat iPhone from a technology perspective. They have to beat Apple from a BUSINESS perspective, and historically the odds are against Palm due to their management style. They?re very conservative, and that causes them to always be in catch up mode.

I remember when everyone had to have a Palm Pilot back in 1999. But Palm rested on their laurels and allowed the competition to get caught up, and that type of device became a commodity. Always need to be one step ahead.

Having a vision beyond just catching up

And that?s not something historically Palm is good at. Hopefully Palm can change that, but it?d take a big cultural shift management wise (not I?m not talking about technology capabilities). management needs to have a good vision, and then execute it.

If the vision is the Palm Pre... Palm will fail, that?s too short sighted. The vision needs to be the Palm Pre, Pre II, Pre II, and Pre IV. They need to know 4 generations ahead where they want to be, and view the Pre as a milestone (not as a vision itself).

The advertising situation

The other thing that Palm has to compete against is Apple?s *ENORMOUS* advertising budget. I?ve seen endless piles of iPhone ads, a bunch of Android and Blackberry ads...

But I've never ever seen a TV ad for Palm. That needs to start now so that those in the market for an iPhone (aka the 4 people in North Dakota who don't have one) hold off on their purchase and wait for the Pre. For example, I have no idea when the Pre is even available, and the website just says "notify me when available".

Even after just doing a quick search it's not apparent as to when it becomes available without investing some time to find out. Eventually I found it on Wikipedia...so Wikipedia has more info on the Pre than the Pre?s official page has?

That's the kind of short sighted business thinking that Palm suffers from which could ultimately doom any efforts to retake market share. ]]> Thu, 30 Apr 2009 16:34:00 PST http://www.dopejam.com/shownewsitem.cfm?NewsID=543 management http://www.dopejam.com/shownewsitem.cfm?NewsID=539 My typical day involves being overloaded with information. Email Lists, Forums, various Instant Messengers, Blogs, FaceBook, etc... I typically put in a 12hr day at work, and with a very intense job information competes for the rare time slices of my (limited) brain availability.

So far my take is that it's an interesting novelty, but not quite sure of it's value. Then again... Darth Vader, Jack Bauer, and Darth Sidious might make it worth while.

Anyhoo... if you want to follow my useless observations, I tend to tweet investing, economy, stock, and technology industry thoughts (vs. the "I'm getting a hambuger" type stuff). ]]> Wed, 25 Feb 2009 21:06:00 PST http://www.dopejam.com/shownewsitem.cfm?NewsID=539 dj http://www.dopejam.com/shownewsitem.cfm?NewsID=538

More details can be found at CNN Fortune. ]]> Sat, 14 Feb 2009 10:28:00 PST http://www.dopejam.com/shownewsitem.cfm?NewsID=538 dj http://www.dopejam.com/shownewsitem.cfm?NewsID=535 Andspot.com that provides a similar experience to that of Apple's App Store.

Anyhoo, they're looking for those wishing to publish their wares as part of their launch preparations - so if you want your stuff highlighted now's the chance. Email them at team@andspot.com. ]]> Fri, 26 Dec 2008 16:04:00 PST http://www.dopejam.com/shownewsitem.cfm?NewsID=535 dj