How to fix blank/default icons on Windows 7 Task Bar (oops!)

My office is in the process of converting from Windows XP to Windows 7 and I am one of the early testers.  One problem I ran into was that Acrobat PDF files would open-up but without the proper Acrobat icon on the Task Bar.  Normally you could simply right-click on the Task Bar icon, then right-click again on the program name ("Adobe Acrobat') and then click on 'Change Icon' to fix it.  But because of the way Acrobat installed the 'Change Icon' link was greyed-out.

When I tried googling this situation I found lots of varied suggestions, none of which seemed to apply.  What seems to have worked, fortunately, was the following procedure which I believe triggered an update/refresh of the cached icon-image for Acrobat.

PROCEDURE

1. located original 'acrobat.exe' in C:\Program Files\Adobe\Acrobat 9.0\Acrobat
   (I noted that it had the correct icon but it was missing from Task Bar once opened)
2. created a shortcut to the .EXE
   (the shortcut also had the correct icon)
3. opening the shortcut showed the correct icon!  
4. At this point I temporarily pinned the app to the Task Bar.
5. I tried opening some PDFs and found that they opened in the pinned app and with the correct icon
6. I unpinned the app from the Task Bar
7. I opened some PDFs again and now the icon is correct

________________

UPDATE: And just like that it's gone...  I thought I had fixed it this morning but now it's broken again.

Convert phone contacts to Gmail

I just helped a co-worker convert all her built-in phone contacts to Gmail contacts, in preparation for getting a new phone.  (This was on an older Android smartphone.) The trick is sort of counter-intuitive -- you need to disable the built-in contacts rather than the Gmail!

FYI - Here's where I found the solution (though it's not written as clearly as I'm about to do it):
http://www.samsunggalaxysforum.com/samsung-galaxy-s-how-to/copy-move-contacts-from-phone-to-gmail/msg2462/#msg2462

PROCEDURE

1. (this might not be necessary?) Open your Contacts app, click the menu button > More > Import/Export Contacts > Export to SD card.  This creates a .VCF file in the root-folder
2. again click the menu button > Display Options, and disable the view of all built-in Phone contacts.  Only leave your Gmail account selected.  Don't freak-out when the Contacts list goes blank :-)
3. again click the menu button > More > Import/Export Contacts > Import from SD card > Import from VCF

At this point all the contacts should re-appear and now they'll be marked (the tiny icon to the right of each entry) as both 'G' and 'P' for Gmail and Phone.  Login to your Gmail account, click on the drop-down next to the big MAIL link (in the top-left) and select Contacts.  Everything on the phone should now be there!
_______________________

Quick fix for secure erase of used SSD

I just bought a Corsair Force3 SSD on-sale at Fry's.  I saved money coming and going, in fact, as there was a mail-in rebate and the drive had been returned by someone else -- so it was discounted another $15.  These particular drives use the new 'SandForce' SSD controller which have lots of reliability problems so they probably need to offer the rebates to move them off the shelves...  Now, why did I bother buying one??

CHECKING THE FIRMWARE
The first thing I checked was the firmware on the drive.  'Fortunately' it was not running the current v1.3.2 which tells me any problems the original purchaser had might have been fixed by this firmware upgrade.  I proceeded to install the new firmware and had no problems.  Now all that remained was to do a secure-erase, to ensure I got the correct 'New Drive' performance.  (The write-speed on SSDs gradually drops as they get full and the 'free space' becomes fragmented. Since the physical memory 'sectors' are remapped 'logical sectors' you can't use a traditional OS or application defragger.)

TRYING TO PERFORM A SECURE ERASE
Most of the online instructions said to download the Parted Magic ISO, boot from it, then select the 'Erase this drive' option in the GUI.  You also need to select the 'Internal' mode (which tells the drive to do it's built-in erase command) rather than 'External' mode (which manually rewrites the entire drive and just adds wear to an SSD).  I knew that Parted Magic just relies on the same Gparted and 'hdparm' commands on my beloved Ubuntu, so I decided to just use an Ubuntu boot-drive I already had setup.

Here's where the problem came in, and the fix:

INPUT/OUTPUT ERROR
For whatever reason the Ubuntu flash-boot and/or the BIOS locked the drive.  I was able to run the basic-query hdparm command successfully,
 > sudo hdparm -i /dev/sda

But when I tried to run the advanced query,
 > sudo hdparm -I /dev/sda

or when I tried to trigger the internal secure-erase command,
 > sudo hdparm --security-erase NULL /dev/sda

I got an error message re "Input/Output Error"

THE FIX
After much googling I finally found one discussion (on the Intel SSD forums) which made passing reference to either hot-swapping the drive or sleeping/waking the machine.  From my Ubuntu 10.10 flash-drive boot, I was able to click the 'Suspend' command, then power-on again, and the hdparm command now worked.
_____________

Why my next computer will be Windows, not Linux

For those of you who have been following my blog (anyone?!) it may be surprising to hear that I'm abandoning Linux.  It is not a decision I am making lightly.  But after several years dealing with the limitation of Linux (specifically, Ubuntu) I have realized that the Windows 'ecosystem' really is better for me.  Let me explain...

Multimedia support
I use my computers as my primary source of video, both TV shows, movies, and my extensive collection of home videos.  On Linux the playback of high-definition video has always been problematic, requiring never-ending experimentation with replacement video-drivers (the proprietary vendor 'blobs' versus the open-source drivers).  The h.264 hardware-acceleration still doesn't work properly with ATI videocards, even with extensive manual revision of the installed drivers.

On Windows, this multimedia support is trivial, as Microsoft has created a well-organized system (DirectX) that all the manufacturers use.

Multi-user support
Linux is inherently a multi-user OS yet the graphical interface is poorly tested.  My wife and I share our Linux workstation, taking turns as the current login, and we can attest to these problems first-hand.  Whenever one of us connects a flash-drive, the other user gets non-sensical error messages.  This is a known problem with a longstanding Launchpad bug; never fixed.  When we switch from user-to-user (using the longstanding 'fast-user-switch' feature) the login screen always flashes the name of the current user, then corrects itself... 'always' except for the occasional crash!  Clearly this feature has not been properly tested.  The first issue is cosmetic, the second is clearly more, but neither has ever been fixed.

RAID support
One of the reasons I was initially thrilled with Linux was the ability to setup a software-based RAID mirror and get improved read-performance (as well as piece of mind).  I used this on my combined boot/data drive(s).  But now I am switching to using a single SSD for my boot/OS drive and a separate pair of mirrored data drives.  This combination has always been supported under Windows so Linux has no advantage.  Plus, on Linux, there was no built-in GUI for checking the state of the RAID array.  I managed to find an old unsupported utility to do it but I have no idea if it would actually warn me of a failure.  On Windows, I'm quite sure this GUI is available and supported.

Printer and Scanner support
I have had non-stop problems with both my printer and scanner under Linux.  From kernel rev to kernel rev the support for my peripherals has come and gone, unpredictably.  This has been true for my Canon inkjet, my Brother laserjet, and my Epson scanner.  In theory I appreciate the use of generic hardware drivers -- the use of shared drivers means that they are better tested than individual/per-device drivers.  But that advantage is moot if they don't correctly work on your hardware. 

To add insult to injury, everything prints slower, especially the Brother laser.  It's like there's an extra layer of translation taking place during the print-file generation?  Printing even a single page will require a 20 second delay, whereas the printing from Windows is instantaneous.

I also have a 'pro-sumer' Epson scanner with 'ICE' support for correcting scratches in photos.  But this feature is only usable through the Windows driver, there is no support for it through the generic scanner driver.

USB wake from sleep
By default, Windows lets you wake a machine from sleep-mode by moving your mouse and/or typing on the keyboard; Linux does not.  It is possible to configure Linux to do the same but it can't be set as the default?!  Instead, the best you can do is add a startup script to manually change the power settings at boot.  And the configuration of this script varies from distribution to distribution, and even from release to release (as the startup processor changes or is replaced).  On Ubuntu there is a Launchpad request for either a change in the default behavior, a GUI to easily edit it, or even just a way to make a permanent change in the configuration.  It has languished for years without action.

Windows-only apps
I have also tried resolutely to only use native Linux apps.  Some are actually better than their Windows equivalents, e.g. MP3 music managers.  But I continue to run into unsolvable situations where the only functional option is the Windows version.  My scanner, as I already mentioned, can only use it's ICE scratch-recovery with the native Windows driver.  My Oregon Scientific weather station is only recognized under Windows; some other models have Linux drivers but not mine.  The only Newsgroup Binary Reader with bandwidth control is on Windows.  Quicken is still the best checkbook app.  Outlook is still the best email/organizer app.  Yes, for many years now I've been using Evolution in place of Outlook...  And I have a handful of unresolved bugs (filed with Gnome.org) to prove that Outlook works better.

For the past couple of years I've resorted to running these Windows apps in a Virtualbox VM.  In general this has been a satisfactory workaround.  But I've long suspected that the majority of my system crashes were related to this VM sub-system.  Surely it's better to run a single OS?

Conclusion
All these experiences have made me appreciate the relative pro's and con's of open-source software like Linux versus for-pay software like Windows.  Obviously, no one in the Linux developer community is concerned enough about the various glitches to which I am subjected to try and do something about it.  I still love the freedom of Linux and plan to continue using it on my personal single-user workstation.  But, much as I hate Microsoft, I am forced to admit that the nominal cost of their Windows is a small price to pay for a 'sane' OS.
______________

My plan for US economic recovery

The Democrats and Republicans keep arguing about the economy and taxes but without really connecting the two.  Because of the seeming disconnect I think it's necessary to go back to 'first principles', to sort of start over.

The first and most important fact, which I don't think the politicians ever mention, is that work creates wealth.  If you pay me to do something -- anything! -- for you, the profit I earn on my labor is newly-created wealth.  If, in turn, I then use this new wealth to pay YOU to do something for ME then you have now created wealth!  Even though the physical cash is a 'zero sum' game, we both end-up wealthier for having traded services.  (The same is true for selling goods.)  This is the reason GDP is so important.  It is supposed to be the measurement of all economic activity in our society and, all other things considered, the more activity the better.  (This is also the reason that the Federal Reserve has been aggressively lowering interest rates, to try and promote economic activity of ANY KIND.)

The problem is what happens with this new wealth. 

Is it put back into the economy to pay for still-more goods and services, hence still more wealth?  Or is it put into savings accounts, effectively removing it from the 'active' side of the economy?  Obviously, we need to have some reasonable amount of savings so that there is money available for investment.  But, as Alan Greenspan correctly noted in his (post-Fed Chairmanship) autobiography, there has been a worldwide glut in savings for the past two decades.  The proof: a steady decline in the interest rates available to savers.

So, for Republicans to claim we need to continue reducing taxes on the rich is clearly false.  There is already far more than enough savings available for startups and capital investments.  Instead, the tax policies of the past decade (cough*Bush*cough) have simply allowed the ultra-rich to redirect a significant amount of wealth into their savings -- and away from more productive uses in the hands of workers. 

This isn't class warfare.  It's simple economics.

The solution, I feel, is a new corporate tax based on executive pay.  Ideally this would be implemented as part of a general tax SIMPLIFICATION plan.  History has shown that stockholders are unable to influence or control executive compensation, so I think the government needs to weigh in. 

Herewith, the new 'TOVAR POLICY' (though I don't think I'm really the 1st to say this):
Any corporation who's executives earn more than 20x the median income (of it's employees) must pay an additional corporate tax. 

If an executive committee really thinks their CEO is responsible for such a large share of their profits, they'll need to pay for it.  My hope, of course, is that they'll choose instead to lower executive compensation, or give raises to their employees!  The point being: a larger percentage of the wealth generated by the company should go to the employees and stockholders, where it will be returned to the economy, and less to the handful of ultra-rich executives who can't possibly spend it all.
____________________

Home Theater Acoustics 101

Excellent intro to room acoustics!

Home Theater.com - Acoustics 101 

Really, I should call it an excellent summary as it has all the most-urgent things to do.

Using CHNTPW to fix weird bug in Windows 7

I just spent a good many hours trying to fix a Windows 7 machine with a ‘broken’ login.  The user hadn’t changed their password (nor had it expired) but suddenly the computer insisted their password was wrong.  My first thought was just to reset (hack) the password.

I had previously used the ‘chntpw’ tool to manually tweak the built-in SAM password database on Windows XP – but did it work on Windows 7, too? I carry a flash-drive on my key-chain which boots Ubuntu 10.10 so I started there.  ‘Chntpw’ is in the 10.10 repository (the ‘Universe’ alternate) and I successfully installed it, then ran it against the Win7 machine’s hard-drive and SAM file. It said it had 'successfully' blanked the user’s password but Windows still reported ‘invalid password’. I also tried resetting to a new password; same result.

I then tried one of the official Windows 7 repair techniques. I booted the install disc, then selected Repair > Recovery Console. Once I had the command-line open I tried the following command which was supposed to activate the built-in Administrator account,

> net user administrator /active:yes

Unfortunately, even though this was using a ‘legit’ Microsoft process it still didn’t work; there was no Administrator login option.

At this point, I thought maybe there was a newer version of ‘chntpw’ so I booted a newer Ubuntu 11.04 LiveCD. But there was no version of ‘chntpw’ in its Universe repository. Instead I had to download the .deb from Launchpad (just google “ubuntu 11.04 chntpw”). Unfortunately, attempts to both blank and also reset the user password still failed.

Finally, I tried unlocking the Administrator account with chntpw and it finally worked! I still couldn’t login as the regular user-account but I was able to click on Switch User > Other User > manually enter ‘administrator’ (sans password) and it logged me in.
____________

Now, here's the weird bug part:

From the administator login I was able to successfully reset the user's password and login as them.  I immediately saw a weird error message, something about "user profile directory c:\windows\system32\config\Desktop not found."  The user's Desktop folder is not supposed to be under C:\Windows?!  Also, the system loaded a generic desktop.  I switched back to the Administrator login and searched the C:\Users folder.  The user's original Desktop folder was right where it was supposed to be, and I noticed something unusual:  There was a copy of the files off a Norton Antivirus install CD filling the Desktop.  I also saw the AUTORUN.INF and, on a suspicion, I deleted it.  Voila!  The user's account now worked properly.

So, apparently there is an unpatched Microsoft bug wherein Windows will try to 'obey' an AUTORUN file in the user-profile directory.