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Updating your Blackberry OS
edited by on January 15th 2010, at 12:00
Once in a while, it may become necessary to update the Blackberry OS to a newer version. I've noticed with the service providers in Belgium that they are usually some versions behind. If whenever you need to run an application that requires a more sane (recent) version of the BB OS, you get stuck because you cannot install and/or run it.

Now you may wonder what the problem is?
Indeed, one can download the latest version from the Blackberry site, but doing so may actually break your setup, as there are quite a few things to consider:

Does your device support the new OS?

Does your service provider support the new OS?

If you are running BES, is it new enough to support the new OS?

Luckily,  ...
 
Blackberry Enterprise sync mysteriously stops working
edited by on January 14th 2010, at 16:07
Had a problem with a client of ours, running Blackberry Enterprise Manager. One of the devices, a Blackberry 8820, stopped receiving any sync messages. Internet on the device kept working, and the internet e-mail account worked as well, but all communication between the BES and the device failed.

The first thing I did was to completely wipe the device, as I assumed there was a problem with the pairing between the server and the thing. But when I tried to reactivate it, it indefinitely hung on the first phase:

Quote
user@domain activating

As I was troubleshooting using the support site of Blackberry (where they explain the steps that occur when activating), I noticed that the activation e-  ...
 
The truth about...
edited by on January 12th 2010, at 23:46
 
The tooth brush trick
edited by on January 9th 2010, at 19:13

Having a bit of a problem with our toilet at home lately: the flushing mechanism gave out. Apparently, the thing was a bit exotic, as we had to wait for about 6 weeks for a replacement part. Luckily, my father is not all uninventive...

So we actually have to pull the toothbrush in order to flush the toilet. It's actually funny every time we have guests over, and are explaining the quick-start usage guide on our toilet. Their faces are just priceless!

 
Delivery trouble
edited by on January 8th 2010, at 11:49

Still no luck with my new computer. With the holidays (or so I'd like to believe), I still haven't received the memory, videocard, and disks. Guess I'll have to be training my patience some more.
But it's not all hopeless: the BD/DVD-combo drive did arrive last week, so at least I'll be able to build in that. Joy!

 
SpamAssassin and 2010
edited by on January 6th 2010, at 10:18
Versions 3.2 of SpamAssassin have (until very recently) a bug in their rules which would mark mails dated 2010 (this year) as being spam.

The reason for this is that a rule exists which would add an additional score of 3.2 to mails with a date set to 2010, because when the rule was created, the date would be in the very far future. Of course, this is no longer the case.

The bug was already discovered in 2008, and resolved in the SpamAssassin repositories, but was not backported to 3.2 until 2010-01-01, when the issue was discovered by Mike Cardwell, a developer in the UK.

Users with this problem can easily resolve it by updating the rules:

sa-update

This changes the regexp so it exclude  ...
 
Happy 2010
edited by on January 3rd 2010, at 20:35
Happy New Year to all!

2010 promises to be a year full of promises. Although the financial crisis rages on, this year should be a year of opportunities, and plain neat things.
Like a lot of people, I have a few objectives set out for the next year, in various categories.

One of the more important aspects in my life at the moment is of course my hobby: soaring at soaring club Albatros (EBZH, Hasselt Belgium).
This year's objectives are:

Obtaining a radio license (required to officially operate a radio). I'm currently following a course at the soaring club; one of the instructors works at the traffic control for the Belgian Army on the Pampa Shooting Range (a shooting range   ...
 
New ways to copying bank cards
edited by on December 26th 2009, at 11:37

Beware when you go shopping with your credit card or bank card.
Apparently there are some new and very clever ways to copy your cards, and steal your PIN.

It shows how Eastern-European gangs use the latest technologies to copy cards, and steal PIN codes, without the victim's knowledge.
It's actually a bit scary to see how far they have developed.

 
Merry Christmas!
edited by on December 25th 2009, at 11:41

Merry Christmas to all!

Here in Belgium, it may not be the fairytale Christmas we were expecting (it's raining, and snow is melting fast), but that doesn't spoil the fun of unwrapping presents, having a nice meal, and gathering with family.

 
Building blocks
edited by on December 24th 2009, at 21:38

A quick update on the build of the computer. So far, not all components have arrived yet, but the ones that were present already allowed me to start building the system.

 

The case, motherboard, CPU, PSU have arrived and are built in. See the attached screens for a shot on these, and take a look at the attachment list to see descriptions with each pictures.

A few important things are still missing: RAM, video card and disks. Oh yeah, and the BD-drive.

 
Colibri, the Quicksilver alternative for Windows
edited by on December 21st 2009, at 16:37

Colibri, the Quicksilver alternative for Windows...

http://colibri.leetspeak.org/

 
DSRM password on an SBS 2008
edited by on December 20th 2009, at 20:54
When you have a working SBS 2008 server, and don't know the password to get into Directory Services Restore Mode, you might want to reset it to something you do know.
You will need this when for instance, the AD gets screwed up, or, in case of SBS, you get locked out (even though you're an Administrator).

Related posts

The Horror of SBS 2008: part 1

Resetting domain password on a SBS 2008

With the installation of the SBS, the DSRM password will be the same as the password you enter for the Administrator account. So, if the password hasn't changed, or you still remember it, try that one first.

You can change the DSRM password by using ntdsutil.

Open up a command prompt, and start ntdsut  ...
 
Resetting domain password on a SBS 2008
edited by on December 17th 2009, at 22:40
If you ever happen to get locked out of a SBS 2008 system, with no way to get back in as Administrator (it's easier than you might think), use the instructions in this blog should get you back up and running.
Note that you will have to have physical access to the server, or else it will be very challenging to solve the problem.
The content of this has been tested for real on an SBS 2008 which had this problem. Check out the bottom of the page for the sources I used to compile this post.

For a background story, read this post.

In order to get in the server, we need some way of an account and password. As the SBS is a domain controller, you can't simply use the local Administrator account...  ...
 
The Horror of SBS 2008: part 1
edited by on December 17th 2009, at 22:39
Microsoft has invented Windows Small Business Server for small to medium businesses. This, in itself, is not a bad idea. It allows small businesses to enjoy the capabilities and functions of a Windows Server with Exchange and more, for a fraction of the price it would be when buying standard editions of the components.

Unfortunately, Microsoft's idea is that small businesses probably don't have IT outsourcing, so they wizard everything up, and basically add a whole bunch of constraints and this-is-how-you-should-do-it's. Although Microsoft isn't all that wrong about this policy, they forgot about the number one rule: less is more.

With SBS 2003, there were already quite a few specially cra  ...
 
Sync databases with Outlook/Exchange
edited by on December 16th 2009, at 14:58

I came across this application when I was looking into software that does just that:

http://www.geniusconnect.com/geniusconnect.asp

It enables synchronization of Outlook/Exchange folders with a relational database; anything with an ODBC driver is supported (MS-SQL, MySQL, ...).

 
Next-gen gaming
edited by on December 15th 2009, at 21:08
Going forward with plans for a new gaming computer, I've ordered the components. I didn't really have a specific budget in mind, other than the fact that I'm going for quality and performance, rather than selecting components based on their price.

Case: the case is an Antec Twelve Hundred gaming case. I always wanted to select a gaming case for the next one, but a nine hundred would have been just fine. The only reason why it's a twelve hundred is because of a wrong delivery a few months back, where the Antec PSU being delivered was an EC one (thus only fits in a select few cases of Antec).
The PSU is an Antec EC-850W, which is enough for now.

Motherboard: will be an Asus Rampage II Extrem  ...
 
8800GTX broken
edited by on December 14th 2009, at 23:26

Crap! Looks like my 8800GTX video card is broken. That's a serious bummer.

The card does some very serious funny things: as soon as going in-game, the card doesn't really freeze up, but has some sort of memory corruption problem, which remains throughout reboots.

Very coincidentally, I just ordered new hardware for my new gaming computer. The only thing not being replaced was the video card, because I thought it would be better to just wait a while until the next generation of cards from nVidia were available.
Apparently, Fate has decided otherwise.

 
Welcome to Black Manticore v3
edited by on December 8th 2009, at 17:36
Welcome to the next (and hopefully final) edition of Black Manticore.

Black Manticore is basically my personal webspace. It contains my blogs, galleries and projects I wish to share with the world.
Additionally, as a ICT engineer, I often come across some things that which to have archived somewhere (problems and their solutions, nifty tips and tricks, etc.). So why not use a blog of sorts, so that this information is available for everyone.

This is the third installment of the website, and there are some very big differences between the previous editions and this one. Those that have seen it before, will notice it's a completely different style, and content. Moreover, this one is   ...
 
Albatros, recommended by SFA
edited by on December 8th 2009, at 16:19
Soaring club Albatros received the unique opportunity to present its beloved sport of soaring at the open house day of Sabena Flight Academy on December 5th.

Albatros was already recommended by SFA as one of two clubs where future candidates for ATPL/CPL training would be able to follow a pre-entry training course of soaring. This would allow candidates to learn the basics of flying before actually starting the complete training.

 

To recommend this training course to all interested candidates, we were present with a full professional booth. And we can honestly say soaring got quite some attention.

As thanks, we also manage to score some simulator time in a Airbus A320 sim.



Pic  ...
 
WET54G-EU (v3.1) with WPA or WPA2 locks up
edited by on December 6th 2009, at 20:30
For all those who recently acquired a WET54G (rev 3.1), or are planning on acquiring one, should read the problem I had with it.
The problem only affects EU versions of the product, as the US version has a more recent firmware available which fixes the problem.

Update: there's still no new firmware. I've updated the links so they are correct again.
And here's a direct link is here.

Anyway, the main symptom is the lock up of the device as soon as a connection with a wireless network has been made, and that network uses WPA-PSK or WPA2-PSK. I've tested this out extensively, and with different units, so I'm pretty sure it's a bug in the firmware.

Since the EU do  ...
 
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