A good friend of mine recently lost a rather good blog post due to a server issue (it was on a Linux box, so I’m not sure how that could ever happen ;^) and there wasn’t a backup.

In a moment of brilliance (or just a misfiring synapse) I suggested he do a Google search for his lost post and see if they had a cached version of it. And low and behold, they did, crisis averted. If I could come up with great ideas like this more often, having a job would be unnecessary :)

(Disclaimer: Make sure you have up to date virus scan and check with the sender when receiving an unknown file. You have been warned.)

Many sites offer a list of file extensions describing the file type, but the one I like to use is Openwith.org because it also provides a link to the appropriate application for viewing or editing the file.

And in case you are curious, an XXE file is a Compressed ASCII Archive and can be opened with WinRAR.

I did numerous searches, examined permissions, removed/added the user from groups, nothing worked. Then it hit me, it was the context menu that was having an issue, perhaps I should take a look at all the items that are listed in the registry to see how they matched the right-click menu after it appeared.

Doing yet another search, Online Tech Tips had info on editing the right-click menu. Following the registry path mentioned: HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\*\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers\ I was able to see that there was an entry for a zip program that wasn’t appearing on the context menu. After backing up the registry, I removed that entry and viola, no more error. Simpler than I thought…

I guess Google doesn’t need the business since they are pretty much just printing money at this point.

In a nutshell the process to follow is to copy the full Windows 7 RC disk to the local system disk, edit the cversion.ini file in the Sources folder: the second line for the minimum client build number needs to be changed to the beta currently installed, in my case it was 7068. Go back to the disk’s root directory and launch Setup and follow the usual prompts to upgrade.

Now back to testing and exploring Windows 7; there’s a lot of good stuff so far…

Just install the small app on each of the computers you wish to keep synchronized and it does the rest. I really wish I would’ve found this earlier; years of copying and sorting on numerous computers left my bookmarks a mess.

After one long flight to Chicago I cleaned up most of the redundant and disorganised mess. Once I got back online, Xmarks replicated the changes to its online database and updated my two other computers within minutes of bringing them online.

And did I mention it’s free for Windows, Mac and Linux?

1. The Network Sucks – Unless bandwidth is good and no one is running BitTorrent or the like problems will ensure. (VoIP anyone?)

2. There’s No Protection from Government Spooks – The government can get access to all of your data anytime. Do they even need a search warrant anymore?

3. Industrial Espionage is Easy – Depending on the vendor it may or may not be “easy”, but how many public companies and public institutions have been hacked in the last few years?

4. It’s Too Expensive – It’ll start cheap or free, but goes up from there. Anyone that has witnessed an SAP implementation knows this well.

5. It’s Not Mechanisable – People like shrink-wrap, cool graphics and shiny boxes. I suppose the electronics store could have a card to take to the register similar to buying Sudafed.

6. Users Have No Sense of Ownership – People like having things, like books, boxes, disks, etc. It’s just not the same printing a receipt from a website.

7. When Online Software Companies Go Under, So Does Your Software – And you are left with a unusable backup of your data; maybe thousands can be spent getting it converted. Where did the data go the XDrive.com was storing. I had data there, albeit just to test the service, and received no notice when they closed down.

8. Users Are Subservient to Terms-of-Service Agreements – Imagine getting shutout because you violated line 2419 of the service agreement, will you still be in business by the time it gets sorted out. What if a new uglier agreement comes along?

9. Users Have No Control Over Versioning – You get upgrades whether you like them or not. If they break your application or the way you use it, where are you in the support queue? I’m sure they’ll treat a small company the same as a multi-million dollar customer…

10. Potential for Gouging – Sort along the lines of number 4, but if they have you over a barrel and you don’t have the resources to switch to a new provider (or worse they are the only one who offers the service) then start coughing up more money.

Again, I don’t think SaaS and Cloud Computing is inherently bad, but it is something that needs strong consideration before putting all the company eggs in someone elses basket.

Dell is now offering Outlet deals via Twitter. You can follow here: http://twitter.com/DellOutlet

Update: Check out who the Dell Outlet is following, there are more deals to be tweeted.

Mail account access through IMAP or POP is locked for a period of up to 24 hours and then you’re free to use ituntil the bots decide you’re abusing it. Actually, it’s something that more e-mail providers should be doing to reduce spam and account security.

Try it out here: Exchange Remote Connectivity Analyzer