Universal Extractor is a program do to exactly what it says: extract files from any type of archive, whether it's a simple zip file, an installation program, or even a Windows Installer (.msi) package.  This is still a work in progress (see details below), but so far it's proven quite useful and I feel others can also benefit from it.

I should stress that this application is not intended to be a general purpose archiving program.  It will never replace WinRAR, 7-Zip, etc.  What it will do is allow you to extract files from virtually any type of archive, regardless of source, compression method, etc.  The original motivation behind this project was that I wanted an easy, convenient way to extract files from installation packages, such as Inno Setup or Windows Installer packages, without pulling up a command line every time.  In the process I got a little carried away and ended up throwing in support for every kind of archive format I possibly could find.

Universal Extractor, like most of my Windows programs, is written in AutoIt, a powerful open source scripting language.  Universal Extractor itself, however, is just a front-end that uses many other programs to do the dirty work.  Please see the Credits section below for additional information.

http://www.legroom.net/software/uniextract

Question:

So you bought a new copy of Office 2007 Professional.  How many computers can you install it on?

The license agreement contains the following:

1. OVERVIEW. These license terms permit installation and use of one copy of the software on one device, along with other rights, all as described below.
2. INSTALLATION AND USE RIGHTS. Before you use the software under a license, you must assign that license to one device. That device is the "licensed device."  A hardware partition or blade is considered to be a separate device.
a. Licensed Device. You may install and use one copy of the software on the licensed device.
b. Portable Device. You may install another copy on a portable device for use by the single primary user of the licensed device.
c. Separation of Components. The components of the software are licensed as a single unit.  You may not separate the components and install them on different devices.

Answer:

You can install it on your desktop, and your laptop, as long as you use both machines.

The wise old men of mainstream tech journalism are once again repeating the conventional wisdom that Vista is slow to start up and slow to shut down. They’re wrong.

Five secrets to faster Vista starts
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?p=332

Is Vista really slow to start up?
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?p=239

More details about Vista startup times
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?p=240

The final word on Vista startup times
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?p=241

Praise the Source of Faith and Learning
Words by Rev. Thomas H. Troeger

From Borrowed Light: Hymn Texts, Prayers and Poems
Copyright 1994 Oxford University Press
(To the tune of Hyfrydol)

Praise the source of faith and learning who has sparked and stoked the mind
With a passion for discerning how the world has been designed.
Let the sense of wonder flowing from the wonders we survey
Keep our faith forever growing and renew our need to pray.

God of wisdom, we acknowledge that our science and our art
And the breadth of human knowledge only partial truth impart.
Far beyond our calculation lies a depth we cannot sound
Where Your purpose for creation and the pulse of life are found.

As two currents in a river fight each other's undertow
Till converging they deliver one coherent steady flow,
Blend O God our faith and learning till they carve a single course
Till they join as one, returning praise and thanks to You, their Source.

via http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/guestvoices/2007/02/whether_cathedral_or_laborator.html

Problem:

SVCHOST.exe sucking 100% CPU

Solution:

• Stop the automatic updates service
• Download http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=43264
• Run WindowsUpdateAgent20-x86.exe /wuforce
• Rename C:\windows\software distribution to C:\windows\software distribution.old
• Rename C:\windows\windowsupdate.log to c:\windows\windowsupdate.log.old
• Restart the automatic updates service.

See also:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/914810
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/916089

The error message:

Event Type:        Warning
Event Source:    MSExchangeTransport
Event Category:                TransportService
Event ID:              12017
Description:
A direct trust certificate will expire soon. Thumbprint:<thumbprint>, hours remaining: <some number>

Summary Solution:

1. Make a new Exchange certificate, and enable it for SMTP transport.
   1. If the error is logged on the hub transport server:
      1. Create the cert on the HT where the warning occurred - http://technet.microsoft.com/en-ca/library/aa998327.aspx
      2. Restart the EdgeSync service to update certificate information on the edge transport servers which are subscribed to the organization
      3. Run Start-EdgeSynchronization
   2. If the error is logged on the edge transport server:
      1. Create the certificate on the ET server - http://technet.microsoft.com/en-ca/library/aa998327.aspx
      2. Resubscribe the ET server to the Exchange organization - see http://blog.justinho.com/2008/01/20/SubscribingResubscribingMicrosoftExchange2007EdgeTransportServersToAnExchangeOrganization.aspx
   3. If you're not using the EdgeSync service, and you have things configured manually: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-ca/library/bb232082.aspx

More information: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb217963.aspx

More information:

To resolve this warning, you must use the New-ExchangeCertificate cmdlet to create a new internal transport certificate (also referred to as a direct trust certificate) on the computer that returned this Warning event. Running the New-ExchangeCertificate cmdlet with no arguments creates an SMTP-enabled internal transport certificate for direct trust. For more information, see New-ExchangeCertificate.

If this warning occurred on a Hub Transport server, you must create the internal transport certificate on the Hub Transport server where the warning occurred. After you have created the certificate, restart the Microsoft Exchange EdgeSync service to update the certificate information on the Edge Transport servers that are subscribed to the organization.  (I also ran Start-EdgeSynchronization on my hub server to be safe.)

If this warning occurred on an Edge Transport server, you must create the internal transport certificate on the Edge Transport server where the warning occurred. After you have created the certificate, resubscribe the Edge Transport server to the Exchange organization to update the certificate information in Active Directory.

From The SANS Institute: (November 20 2007)

Security bug researchers (and others with more malicious purpose) have

been focusing on Apple OS X, and they have been very successful. Quoting

from the first item in this week's issue: "...several [OS X]

vulnerabilities are exploitable by remote users. Several file format

vulnerabilities are also present. Several implementation errors also

exist in the Mac OS X application firewall."

If you are ever asked which operating system is safer, the following

'non-aligned' rule may be of some help.  Given a fixed level of

programming skill, the number of vulnerabilities in software is directly

proportional to the number of lines of code and inversely proportional

to the length of time the software has been in wide use.  Large numbers

of critical vulnerabilities are being, and were bound to be, discovered

in Apple's operating system because Steve Jobs may design better

hardware, but his programmers are no better at writing secure code than

programmers in other software organizations.

                                    Alan

Error Message:

System.BadImageFormatException: Could not load file or assembly 'BasicFrame.WebControls.BasicDatePicker' or one of its dependencies.

Likely cause:

dasBlog ships with the x86 assembly, and you're running x64 IIS with 64-bit worker processes.

Solution:

Replace the BasicDatePicker DLL in the /bin folder with the one from this archive.

http://www.basicdatepicker.com/download/BasicDatePicker_x64.zip via http://www.basicdatepicker.com/

Further reading:

Scott Hanselman has a nice, much more detailed writeup about this, which details a lot more information about IIS 7.0 and dasBlog.
http://www.hanselman.com/blog/32bitnessAnd64bitnessAndMigratingDasBlogOnIIS7AndASPNETUnderVista64.aspx

I'm still on IIS 6.0 - waiting for my Seagate ES.2 drives before putting the 2008 November CTP into production...

Event Log:

Event Type: Error
Event Source: DCOM
Event Category: None
Event ID: 10016
User:  NT AUTHORITY\NETWORK SERVICE
Description:
The application-specific permission settings do not grant Local Activation permission for the COM Server application with CLSID
{3D42CCB1-4665-4620-92A3-478F47389230}
 to the user NT AUTHORITY\NETWORK SERVICE SID (S-1-5-20).  This security permission can be modified using the Component Services administrative tool.

Event Type: Error
Event Source: Office SharePoint Server
Event Category: Office Server General
Event ID: 7888
User:  N/A
Description:
A runtime exception was detected. Details follow.
Message: Retrieving the COM class factory for component with CLSID {3D42CCB1-4665-4620-92A3-478F47389230} failed due to the following error: 80070005.

Techinal Details:
System.UnauthorizedAccessException: Retrieving the COM class factory for component with CLSID {3D42CCB1-4665-4620-92A3-478F47389230} failed due to the following error: 80070005.
   at Microsoft.Office.Server.Search.Administration.SearchApi.RunOnServer[T](CodeToRun`1 remoteCode, CodeToRun`1 localCode, Boolean useCurrentSecurityContext, Int32 versionIn)
   at Microsoft.Office.Server.Search.Administration.SearchApi..ctor(WellKnownSearchCatalogs catalog, SearchSharedApplication application)
   at Microsoft.Office.Server.Search.Administration.SearchSharedApplication.get_SearchApi()
   at Microsoft.Office.Server.UserProfiles.SRPSite.IsImportInProgress(String contentSourceName)

Generic solution:

1. Open regedit
2. Search for the GUID; should be in HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CSLID
3. Note the key name, and the AppID
4. Admin Tools, Component Services, Computers, My Computer, DCOM Config
5. Locate the AppID, set appropriate permissions, for the referenced account.

If you are getting this exact error message:

You should have Sharepoint installed, with the Search Engine on this machine.

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{3D42CCB1-4665-4620-92A3-478F47389230} in the registry is called "Osearch" with Application ID {58F1D482-A132-4297-9B8A-F8E4E600CDF6}.

1. Admin Tools, Component Services, Computers, My Computer, DCOM Config
2. Find OSearch in the list, right click, Properties, and on the Security tab, grant the Network Service account launch/activation permission.  "Microsoft Office SharePoint Server Search" should be able to launch now.

You will also likely get the message for GUID {61738644-F196-11D0-9953-00C04FD919C1}, which corresponds to the IIS WAMREG admin Service. Grant the referenced account the requested access as well here, obviously.

Use a Different Wallpaper on Each Desktop in Vista or XP

DisplayFusion - http://www.binaryfortress.com/displayfusion/

Place a fully functional Microsoft Outlook Calendar on your Desktop

OutlookDesktop - http://www.michaelscrivo.com/projects/outlookdesktop/

Create a taskBar for the extended monitors and add additional functionality to Windows with multimonitor support

Oscar's Multi-Monitor TaskBar - http://www.mediachance.com/free/multimon.htm

Media Control Plugin for Windows Vista Media Center

Switching embedded audio and subtitles streams while playing a video: works with AVI, OGM, MKV
Switching between external subtitle files (.SRT, .SUB)
Switching between FFDShow presets (audio & video)
Setting and loading bookmarks inside a video with visualization of the pictures of the saved bookmarks
Real fastforward (and rewind) exactly like in the TV module (with 3 different speeds)
Switching and setting post-processing filters in FFDShow (video filters only)
Separate application to assign keyboard/remote control shortcuts to the commands and the MCML pages of the pluginFull remote control support (6 buttons are mapped by default, but this can be changed)
Default mapping (works in full screen while watching a video, except the blue button that is always caught) : 
   Fast forward / rewind buttons 
   Blue button : loads the startup page of the plugin 
   Red button : switches audio stream 
   Green button : switches subtitle stream 
   Yellow button : switches subtitle file
Live post-processing for Live/Recorded TV, as well as DVDs
Multiple FFDShow instances support
Removes black borders of videos automatically
Direct commands : set some parameters without entering the Media Control interface

http://damienbt.free.fr/