Stardate 59190.9 - How to Fix Outlook

I mentioned in my previous post that I had an issue with Outlook. I have no idea if these blogs are indexed by something like Google or not, but since I found a solution to a DVR issue on a blog via Google, I thought I'd post my solution so in case anyone else was having the same problem they could benifit from my lesson learned. Here is the message I sent to my co-workers:

I found this today when taking a look at possible culprits for my Outlook problems. The "NsOlExt" extension is for the smart card reader. So if you turn this off, Outlook is supposed to behave normally again but you won't be able to sign or encrypt anything using the card reader, I think. I “unchecked” NsOlExt and shutdown Outlook. It locked up and I had to kill the process. I then restarted Outlook, ran it for a while, then shut it down. It shutdown with no problems at all. FYI, NsOlExt stands for Netsign Smartcard Outlook Extension.


Here is the article I found on-line that pointed me in the correct direction:

Solution Title: Outlook 2003 hits 100% CPU Utilization at Shutdown
Date Asked: 02/21/2004 03:32PM PST
Date Answered: 02/22/2004 06:51AM PST

A new installation of Office 2003 and having problems with 100% CPU utilization at shutdown and it ends by killing the process in task manager. I have tried a variety of things to include:

1) Validated the .PST file is in good shape by attaching to it on my other Office 2003 (Outlook).
2) It sends/receives just fine and CPU % is 0-1% when idle
3) Created a new profile with no change in behavior
4) Made sure word was not the default editior - it was but changing it made no difference
5) Uninstalled Outlook component from Office 2003 then reinstalled it with no change

Other note, I spent a couple hours on the phone with Microsoft today working on an Office Update issue, that now works. The computer had Office XP on it and this was an upgrade in place shift to 2003. Part of the MS support approach was to remove the registry entries and anything relating to Office and then reinstalling.

I went into ADD-INS (TOOLS >>-> OPTIONS >>-> OTHER >>-> ADVANCED OPTIONS >>-> ADD-IN Manager) and there were two. I left the "Exchange Extensions" one checked and unchecked the "NsOlExt" one. After that all my problems appeared to have been resolved. Of course, I have no clue what "NsOlExt" is and wonder if anyone can tell me the implications of having disabled this.

Regards,
Brent Obenour

https://secure.experts-exchange.com/register.jsp?query=NsOlExt&clearTAFilter=true&srid=T%2BeITY8ilr%2F9ZkKH5Y%2FLyw%3D%3D&redirectURL=%2Fsearch.jsp%3Fquery%3DNsOlExt%26searchType%3Dall%26Submit.x%3D0%26Submit.y%3D0&registrationSource=10

Stardate 59165.46 - Random Thoughts

What has been getting on my nerves recently, you are wondering? Actually, not too much recently. Just trying to find time to work on my D&D campaign and keep work to a minimum...not an easy task these days.

I am having Outlook issues right now after I installed a smart card reader (litronic) and software, but my team's technical support is looking into it. I assume I just need some updated software, but it is painful as Outlook crashes a couple of times a day now.

Yep...boring times right now.

Stardate 59040.48 - Idiots on Planes

I just returned from a business trip to Germany, and I am constantly amazed at how stupid people are. Typically, the people I see on planes act as if they have never been on a plane before. Maybe they have not, but I don't think so. I know that I fly a lot, and I can still occasionally forget that I am wearing my one belt that always sets off the metal detectors, but most people flying these days seem to have absolutely no clue. Couple of reminders for you idiots on planes:

1. No electronic devices during take-offs and landings. So don't put your damn walkman on while we are parked at the gate and then fall asleep. Especially don't get pissed at the flight attendant when s/he wakes you up to tell you to turn it off.
2. Same goes for reclining your seat. Keep the damn thing up, or stay awake.
3. I know that the jury is still out on cell phones, but unless you are on the phone with the President, turn the freak'n thing off when they tell you. Don't try to hide it by turning your head and pressing your face against the window. End your call and turn it off.
4. CHECK YOUR DAMN BAGS. I fly a lot. I mean a lot. And I have had my bags misplaced maybe 4 times over the past 9 years. If your bag can fit a medium-sized dog, check it. Don't try to cram it into the overhead...especially not over my head.
5. Take your turn getting off the plane. For overseas flights, I am usually in business. So we already have a head start on those people in coach (and I am one of those people whenever I am traveling on my own dime). Don't push past me to get to the door sooner. It won't save you 60 seconds. And as fast as I walk, I'll probably pass your ass on the way to customs anyway.
6. And a last irrational, pet peeve of mine...keep your shoes on for take off. If the plane goes off the runway, you won't have time to put them back on before you are jumping down a slide for the cold, hard earth. I take my shoes off too, but only once we are so high up that it doesn't really matter.

Sometimes I think everyone else exists simply to piss me off.

Here is a temple to Selune I designed with the Dundjinni program. I am posting it here because I have run out of personal home page space from TimeWarner RoadRunner. They only provide 5M and I am already out of space.


Temple of the Cresent Moon (Selune): Ground Floor

Temple of the Cresent Moon (Selune): Upper Floors

Here is a temple to Selune I designed with the Dundjinni program. I am posting it here because I have run out of personal home page space from TimeWarner RoadRunner. They only provide 5M and I am already out of space.

Stardate 58990.31 - Perspective

I know that airline travel stinks. I am Platinum with American so I always, always try (and usually succeed) to get upgraded to First Class for all my domestic flights, and my company policy lets me fly business internationally. And I know that lost luggage sucks...just read my note about August, Georgia and my luggage woes there. And I know that the issue with Delta and USAirways is big news. Thousands of bags of luggage lost is a big deal. But the TV news reporters keep following up the terrible events in southeast Asia and the huge death toll with people crying in airports because they have no luggage. And I keep thinking...it could have been much worse. You could have been on a beach in western Thailand. I know that the people in the airports feel crappy, but there has to be some perspective. And the TV news isn't helping the people in the airports when they are shown immediately after survivors of the disaster in the Indian Ocean. Not sure who is to blame, or even if anyone is, but the justification for people's misery is in start contrast when they show 25,000 dead and follow that up with someone who was without luggage for the weekend.

The betahat blog

the betahat blog

Brother-in-Law's Blog.

Stardate 58983.18 - Happy Holidays!!!

No-one reads my blog, but happy holidays to any random reader who stumbles upon this note.

Stardate 58950.07 - Augusta Georgia

Just took a horrible, horrible trip to Augusta Georgia. Left Monday with lots of rain all over the East Coasts. Flights were delayed, and I ended up getting into Augusta late. My baggage didn't make it. I went to the hotel, but missed it in the rain (and the directions were awful). After a stop at a gas station, I found the hotel. Yes, men can ask for directions if it is late and they are pissed off enough. I checked into the hotel at about 2300, and the wonderful stink of cigarette smoke wafted out of my room as I opened the door. I called the front desk, and they told me they were full and that was the only room they had. Bastards...if my reservation is for a non-smoking room, that means you HOLD a non-smoking room for me. I will never stay at a Microtel ever again.

My luggage finally made it at 0845 the next morning. Of course, my meetings started at 0800 so I was a little late. Every time I was back in the hotel I kept my window open to air out the pit. Oh, and Microtel doesn't charge you that extra $1-2 for items like shampoo, they expect you to bring them along. Great.

Went to downtown Augusta for dinner Thursday night. What a pit. Nearly abandoned, with only a couple of restaurants open. I thought this was supposed to be the main drag, but it was empty. Like something from Dawn of the Dead. We found an excellent restaurant (one of 2 we saw open) with cheap, cheap food and beer (compared to NYC). But the place really was deserted.

And I left on Thursday, in the rain again, and tried to get on the Atlanta to LGA flights from 1430 until 1730, when I finally got out of there. And of course, my luggage once again did not make it onto the same plane as me.

All in all, a pretty crappy trip. I don't recommend Augusta as a tourist stop.

Stardate 58892.76 - Went to South Korea

Got to travel to South Korea for business. Really liked it. Great local food, I stayed at a great hotel, and I got to do a lot of sight-seeing in Seoul. Next time (if there is one), I'll venture further out from my base of operations.

And I know I was staying at a nice hotel when Colin Powell checked in the day before I left.

Stardate 58892.75 - Election and Sidewalks Gripes

Well, the election is over. It was closer than many of my Red friends thought it would be, but didn't go the direction I wanted it to. My wife is Blue, and I am an independent. An independent who cannot believe that Bush was re-elected. At least I live in a Blue state. But onto my latest gripe, sidewalk etiquette.

There need to be rules for people waking on sidewalks. Essentially, they need to be treated like a road, with the same rules for merging (from stores, for example), passing on the left, and slower traffic getting to the right. People need to pull over when they want to stop and look at a store. People need to not walk 4 people abreast, taking up the entire sidewalk. And for God's sake, if I am walking so fast as to have passed you, do not freak'n push in front of me if you catch up to me while I am waiting for a light change. I passed your slow ass once, and now I am going to have to pass it again. Argh! "The world is full of stupid people" as the song goes.

Stardate 58649.0 - Politics as Usual

From: CBS 2: Top Stories

http://cbsnewyork.com/topstories/topstories_story_238070610.html

"Vice President Dick Cheney, whose daughter Mary is a lesbian, drew criticism from both proponents and foes of gay marriage Tuesday after he distanced himself from President Bush's call for a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage."

Am I the only person who thinks this is politically motivated to either a) Paint Cheney as not Satan, or b) Soften up the ticket's (and/or the GOP's) anti-gay tradition? Why wasn't he saying this back when the amendment was being proposed? Or at any time over the past 4 years? Is it not suspicious that he brings this topic up so close to the election?

Stardate 58590.94 - Why the NRA is Stupid

First, I need to point out that I was raised in rural Virginia, on a small, 11-acre farm with about 10 sheep and 2-3 goats. My Mom owned (and still owns) a .22 rifle, used mainly to shoot groundhogs that constantly invaded the garden. I have personally fired everything from a Walther PPK to both 9mm and 10mm pistols (the 10 is my personal favorite) up through an AR-15. I am not against gun ownership, and after my apartment was broken into during college I even kept a .22 pistol around (unloaded and with a trigger lock on it) for about a year, loaned to me by a good friend who happens to be an NRA member. Hunter safety training was even mandatory in my High School for all 8th graders. I have a great yearbook photo of a row of 30 or so students, prone in the gym, on mats, all holding rifles. So don't call me a pinko-commie; I don't have a problem with people owning guns.

Now for my rant.

In the July 26, 2004 issue of Time magazine, there was a brief article on John Kerry and the NRA. John Kerry is no stranger to guns. At the Gunslick Trap Club he recently used a Beretta 12-gauge shotgun and "coolly dispatched 17 of 25 clay pigeons" (Time). The NRA is anti-Kerry, however, because he "...Hasn't fought for gun owners' rights once in 25 years." (Wayne LaPierre, NRA executive VP).

What extreme views does Kerry have with respect to guns? "He has supported banning assault weapons and armor-piercing bullets, requiring background checks at gun shows and regulating gun sales over the Internet." (Time)

How on earth can the NRA be against background checks? How can any sane person? How can the NRA be against regulating gun sales over the Internet? Again, how can any sane person? I also think civilians with armor-piercing bullets is a bad idea. How can any police officer think that is a good idea? I am personally on the fence when it comes to assault weapons in private hands (lots of definitions of what constitutes an "assault weapon", for example), but at a minimum they should be licensed, registered, and difficult to acquire or re-sell.

Someone once told me that the NRA has to be so extremist because there are people just as hard over on the other side, and with two extreme views we end up with policy somewhere in the middle. But in my mind, the NRA risks becoming an ineffective parody of itself when it is publicly against reasonable controls such as background checks and regulation of Internet sales.

Stardate 58588.5 - Back from Thailand

I've decided to change this blog somewhat. I started this effort as an experiment in seeing what the hell blogging was all about, and because my job as a technology consultant demands that I know a little bit about pretty much everything. But the blogs are terribly uninteresting so far, and I don't think even my friends are reading them.

But I tend to have a lot of opinions on pretty much everything, so I will start to write things that I feel strongly about.

My wife and I just returned from 2 weeks in Thailand (actually 3 for her, as she was attending the AIDS Conference there for a week prior to our vacation). A couple of observations:

1. Thailand is very inexpensive. My lunch on the last day was traditional Pad Thai, a bottle of beer (Beer Chang rocks! http://www.bottledbeer.co.uk/index.html?beerid=924), and a 0.5L bottle of water. With a small tip, it was 100 Thai Bhat, which is $2.50 US.
2. As I am clearly not Asian, people did attempt to overcharge us a couple of times, specifically taxi drivers. It was better to get a Taxi driver who spoke no English, because he would use the meter, than it was to get one who spoke English, because he wanted to negotiate a much higher fee than the meter would indicate.
3. No one walks anywhere in Thailand. We live in NYC and walk everywhere. Whenever we were walking in Bangkok or Chang Mai, we were constantly approached by Tuk-Tuk drivers, sometimes Taxis, and the taxi-trucks who wanted to drive us around. We had a hard time explaining that we just wanted to walk.
4. Cathy Pacific is a nice airline to fly, and as I was in business class I really enjoyed it. The JFK to Hong Kong flight is quite long, but my wife was on Singapore Air on the longest commercial flight in the world - Newark to Singapore clocks in at about 18.5 hours. And since she was traveling on the UN's dime, she was in coach. The coach section was quite nice on Singapore Air, but it was still coach. I was traveling on Air Miles (I am Platinum on American and consequently the One World Alliance) and decided to spend the extra miles and do business.
5. I had a celebrity sighting on my LAX to JFK leg as I was returning to NYC. I saw Graham Norton (sp?) of the Graham Norton Effect and a friend( http://www.comcentral.com/tv_shows/grahamnortoneffect/). They were in First Class.

Those are all the observations I have time for today. Now that I am back in NYC and am frequently annoyed by people, I'm sure I'll have some rants and raves to write later.

Stardate 58498.55

Lots of planning for the Dnaliaht trip going on right now. We are looking forward to the vacation. We have secured transport on UFP shuttles, the local shuttle flights are squared away, and the accommodations should be locked in today or tomorrow. I need to do some reading as to the sights and activities available so that I have some good schedule items picked out for the trip.

Really, really looking forward to getting away from the DS9 grind for a while.

Stardate 58479.66

Finally! Back on my ship after 10 days TDY. Had to get some immunizations for the trip to the Dnaliht system this morning, and my arm is still a little sore. Now I'm on a communications link back with DS9, listening to an acquisition brief. Not my area of expertise.

Busy, busy day today and probably tomorrow as well. I am already looking forward to the weekend and being off duty for a short time.

Stardate 58474.00

Still at DS9. Had a training class Wed-Fri of last week. Quite interesting. It was a lot of survey data that the Bajorans contributed to, rating me as a leader. My self-perception pretty much tracked with their assessment. Those qualities Starfleet instills, the decisiveness, ability to quickly make a decision, organization, etc. are not universally accepted as the most important. Lots more cerebral values with the Bajorans, like vision and inspiration. Good to know if my role here on DS9 continues.

My trip was extended by 1 day to complete assessments on staff here. I'll be glad to get back to the Excalibur tomorrow. I've now been away for more than a week.

Stardate 58452.59

Here I am, back at DS9 again. Not being here full-time means that when I am here I am innundated with meetings and people coming to see me. I really just want the day to be over soon. Was up at 0430 this morning, and got to DS9 around 1100. Pretty tired. Tried to see Shakespere in the Park last night but was thwarted by the Puetro Rico parade. Couldn't get into the Park from the standard beam-down coordinates, so Cheryl and I went and grabbed a bite and a drink. Romulan Ale packs quite a punch - I forgot that drinking it on an empty stomache is a bad idea. So I am ready for the day to end.

Stardate 58441.23

I am off via UFP transport to Bajor today. I arrive in the Bajoran capitol where I pick up a Starfleet shuttlecraft for my quick trip over to DS9. Probably will not make it to Starbase 375 on this short trip. The Excalibur needs to remain on patrol here in Sector 0001, so I will not take her over to DS9. These next couple of months will be busy with many trips to DS9 and the long trip to the Dnaliaht system.

Stardate 58438.64

Received a communication from one of my old XOs, CAPT John Coe, today. He is currently the commanding officer of the USS Appalachia. Had a good, humorous exchange of stories on some recent difficulties we have both had with a couple of crewmen.

My first XO, CAPT Cheryl Wimer, also send me word recently of a home she is having constructed on Earth. Great pictures. She is currently the CO of the USS Sutherland.

Sometime I need to get the old crew together to reminisce.