Dave Hildebrand.com

More Registry Goodies

Dave — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 17:06:56 +0000

We are in the process of installing a policy and procedure management application at the hospital. It has been setup so that users are not required to enter their user name and password to access the site, it is done via LDAP. To get the single-sign-on benefits of the LDAP look ups we needed to add the domain name to the list of trusted sites in IE. This can be done via Group Policy, but, my experiences with this group policy setting has been mixed. Each time I configured this Group Policy Object setting it turned off the option for the user to add sites. Each new site needed to be added by me in to the GPO. While I limit what my users can change and access I do not like getting calls for simple stuff like this. What was I to do?

Desktop Authority and registry settings to the rescue.

I searched Google for the location of the registry key used to set the zones and came up with:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings\ZoneMap\Domains\thedomainname.com\thesubdomain

Type: RED_DWORD
Value: http
Data: 1

I added my required site as a DWORD value in to DA, which can been seen below:

I then applied this policy to my users and the next time they log in the setting will be applied for them.

Set the IE homepage via the registry

Dave — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 16:27:01 +0000

We just got in a batch of HP desktops and so far they look to be a good investment. There isn’t much crap/bloat ware installed on it, so we can get them out the door to our users quite quickly. We have had only 1 minor issue with them. For each new user who logs in, the system sets the IE homepage to an HP/AOL site, not our corporate intranet. Instead of emailing our users instructing them on how to set the homepage back to our intranet site I logged into our Desktop Authority server and added a new option under the registry settings.

They registry key to use is:

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main]
“Start Page”=”http://www.howtogeek.com/”

Here is a screen cap of the DA settings I used:

After replicating this to our domain controllers each user who logs in will have their homepage set to http://sharepoint/.

NOTE: The above procedure was used because my GPO for setting the default homepage was not working on these HP desktops.

IT Humour

Dave — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 18:15:42 +0000

After years in the IT field, I have seen incidents and users like this. I laughed my ass off when the IT guys goes into his boss’ email and deleted the DO NOT REBOOT THE WEB SERVER!!!!!!! email.

IT Guy Vs Dumb Employees - Watch more free videos

The guys/gals that produced this gem should win an award.

Firefox v3.0 First Impressions

Dave — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 02:53:27 +0000

Browse Safe with Firefox 3

Firefox 3 was released yesterday to much fanfare. The first tallies are showing over 8 million downloads in 1 day. Of that total 269,901 were by Canadians.

Update June 19: Download total is now over 11 million, 320,000+ by Canada.

I’ve been using it for about a day, here are my initial impressions.

I don’t have any stats to back it up, but Firefox 3 seems faster. Pages come up fast, there is very little lag when switching tabs and so far the memory used by Firefox 3 is not growing by the second. Now I never had the memory issues some users of Firefox 2 have had, but, I regularly have 8-10 tabs open a time, often even more, and Firefox 3 so far seems to hang around 120-140K. Much like my old install of Firefox 2. This may be because I keep the amount of add-ons I use to a minimum, so I was never affected by the memory issues.

After installing Firefox 3 the first thing I noticed was the update interface. Thankfully Mozilla didn’t mess with the standard browser placement like Microsoft did in IE7. I also noticed that a new folder showed up on my toolbar. Firefox 3 adds a “Most Visited” folder. I’m not sure if i will use it yet, but could see how it could be useful.

I’m still learning & playing with all the new features in Firefox 3, and getting used to the new url bar, but, so far I like the new version. This is a required upgrade to all Firefox 2 users. I also strongly recommend IE users to take the plunge and give FF3 a try. I really think you will be impressed.

US Style DMCA Proposed in Canada

Dave — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 04:13:37 +0000

On June 12th the first reading of Bill C-61 took place in the House of Commons. This is a terrible bill that takes the power of copyright law out of the hands of lawmakers and into the hands of corporations. I’ve gathered up a few links to get you up to speed on the issue. You can read them here, here & here.

You can get a simple form letter to e-mail your MP here. After e-mailing your MP make sure to drop a copy of the letter in the mail, no stamp needed, to;

Your MP’s Name
c/o House of Commons
Ottawa, ON
K1A0A6

Completing the process takes no time at all. Our MP’s need to know that Canadians will not stand for this loony law. Check out UserFriendly’s cartoon strip for a slightly humorous slant. June 16th & June 17th strips.

Who is a failure?

Dave — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 05:47:57 +0000

Everything that I had read said that Google had adjusted their algorithms to combat link bombs, also known as Google bombs. Turns out this may, or may not be the case.

Head on over to Google and search for the term “who is a failure?“. The #1 result should look like the photo below.

This story originally broke back in February. Perhaps this isnt a true Google Bomb, and is just an unfortunate coincidence for Mr. Bush.

Wayback Machine Fun…

Dave — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 02:00:24 +0000

I stumbled upon the Internet Wayback Machine today. It was great fun looking back a the early days of the web. Google, MSN, NBC, CBC have all come a long way since the static web pages that we were treated to in the late 90’s.

MSN then:

And Now

Print Head Cleaning…

Dave — Wed, 28 May 2008 03:52:52 +0000

Our Canon MP390 has been printing black text poorly for a weeks. Running the cleaning application did nothing to help the poor prints. Luckily the MP390 has a removable print head. Unlike most other printer manufacturers, Canon does not build print heads into the new ink cartridges. Instead of paying for a new print head I popped it out and took it to the sink. A few minutes running under warm/hot water flushed it out. I then used a paper towel to get most of the water off of it. Make sure to not rub the print head, dab it onto a paper towel only. A can of compressed air does a good job of getting the last few droplets off the print head. After reinserting the ink cartridges, a few print head cleanings, an alignment and the printer was back printing like when it came out of the box.

Do they want to know the truth?

Dave — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 17:11:51 +0000

Or is the better question, can they handle the truth? Either way residents of our little town need to let it be known that things are not o.k. I urge everyone to take this survey, and give the town the straight dope.

Here is a short clip for your viewing pleasure, and yes he is from town.

Beware the Mustache…

Dave — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 05:23:16 +0000

Update June 15th: The original video has been pulled. I’ve replaced it with a recent interview with former Blue Jay Rance Mulliniks.

WPvideo 1.10

Download!