David Vielmetter

Adventures in stupid technology

  • A review of LastPass

    My memory isn’t what it used to be and there seems to be an ever increasing number of passwords to remember. Also due to an identity theft scare a few years ago I’ve made it a habit to change my passwords for sensitive accounts every 6 months to a year, but I always ended up…

  • Digital signage menu boards with Intel NUC

    I have a couple of customers in the restaurant business. In fast food, being able to change your pricing/menu offerings quickly is apparently key, so lots of fast food places have digital signage that can be updated quickly. This solution is slightly more clunky than a corporate managed signage solution, but it works, is relatively…

  • Office 2013 will not launch or repair

    If Microsoft Office 2013 or Office applications part of your Office 365 installations will no longer launch and both the Quick Repair and Online Repair have failed, a complete re-install may be necessary. Here’s how to do this: [requirements] Internet connection Product key for Office 2013 or Office 365 Microsoft Account username and password [the…

  • Your new Exchange server sends Winmail.dat attachments to recipients on a Mac

    This is an old issue, but it still affects modern version of Exchange (yes even Exchange 2013). Basically emails sent from a corporate email server running Microsoft Exchange will appear to have a Winmail.dat attachment when received on a Mac computer using the native OSX mail application. This can happen regardless of the email format…

  • Deploying the Java JRE to workstations using a GPO

    Java updates the JRE about once a month and it’s a good idea to keep java up-to-date. But what if you want to deploy Java to workstations in your active directory domain? And what if you want to disable java update/download notifications that cause users install the ask toolbar or McAfee Security scanner? Then you’ll…

  • Bulk-create external email contacts in Exchange/Office 365

    Say someone asked you to create an exchange distribution group with a thousand new external email addresses. Well, back in the day, you’d download some shady utility off the web and cross your fingers hoping not to spend the rest of your day cleaning up a failed bulk import with ADSIedit. Well, with Exchange 2007…

  • Gmail App reporting incorrect unread count

    I don’t know why, but this has been driving me nuts. Thanks OCD. When I check my Gmail on using the App on IOS or Android, it reports that I have 3 unread messages in my inbox. No matter how far i scroll down in the inbox using the app, however no unread messages are…

  • Outlook 2013 and Lync 2013 suddenly cannot run at the same time

    If you’ve made the switch to Office 365 you may have had a relatively smooth ride since the they’ve moved things to Exchange 2013 and Office 2013. That said, nothing’s ever all roses all the time, am I right? Today a customer experienced an issue where suddenly Lync 2013 is no longer able to launch…

  • Shoretel is keeping Outlook from launching

    If you’re running the Shoretel Communicator and Outlook 2010/2013, you may have seen a situation where Outlook doesn’t launch and hangs at the splash screen stating “loading profile…”. This is actually caused by a small program named agent.exe that is part of Shoretel Communicator. This agent.exe program is designed to download contacts from your email…