David Vielmetter

Adventures in stupid technology

  • AppAssure 5 does not adhere to the default retention policy

    I’ve had an issue recently where a new installation of Dell AppAssure 5 did not keep the correct number of snapshots based on a chosen retention policy. The issue after working with a awfully slow tech support over the course of three weeks was to update to a specific newer release of Dell AppAssure Version…

  • Postini message center freezes IE8/IE9

    Got a lot of reports about the Google Message Center freezing in IE8/IE9 this week and determined that this is a problem with an older version of the Java JRE. To resolve this issue simply download and install the latest version of the Java JRE. You may also want to take this opportunity to remove…

  • Adobe Acrobat 9 blank error message

    I hate Acrobat 9. Among it’s many shortcomings is this idiotic incremental upgrade procedure, but I digress. Unfortunately many penny wise business owners don’t understand that up-to-date software is inexplicably tied to employee productivity and insist that they want to keep using that Acrobat 9 license they purchased in ’06. So as an IT guy…

  • Tivo Slide Bluetooth remote for SageTV

    Yes, I’m still using SageTV. I just can’t get away from it, plus the 6 or so terabytes of recorded content are going to take me years to go through. So to make a long story shot, the Firefly wireless remote I had been using to control SageTV got progressively worse and I finally replaced…

  • Salesforce for Outlook on Windows 2008 Server

    Say you’re building a new Terminal Server with Windows 2008 R2 x64 Remote Desktop Services for your mobile sales people to use. Maybe they want to use Outlook 2010 on this Terminal Server and be able to add emails from Outlook to Salesforce. Well they CAN’T! For some stupid reason the Salesforce for Outlook add-in…

  • Skydrive got a makeover

    Microsoft’s Skydrive has finally become a real competitor in the cloud storage arena. Yes, it’s been around for a while, but it hasn’t been very usable and it’s interface has been severely lacking. The most recent overhaul, however has made Skydrive as easy to use as Dropbox. Freely available and functional Apps for IOS, Mac,…

  • Pool vac stuck on drain

    My pool came with an older Hayward Pool Vac Ultra type cleaner. It works great at keeping my pool clean as long as it doesn’t get stuck on the main pool drain. I know there are tons of experts that say if your pool vac gets stuck on the main drain, you haven’t adjusted your…

  • Banish Skype to the notification area

    If you’ve got the latest version of Skype, you may have noticed that it doesn’t disappear from your task bar when you close the program. This is extremely annoying to me. I understand that the program is still running, but why can’t it do that in the notification area (which is the designated area for…