I've been working with some older Ubuntu installs and needed to get some packages on the older systems before doing some changes and upgrades.

Well, even LTS servers have an end-of-life and you'll find your apt sources are no longer valid!

If you want to access the historical releases' apt archives, here's how...

I've posted another article about the Galaxy Tab 10.1 and having a problem with it locking up. I had that happen 3 times, but it always recovered.

Hopeful that the latest OTA (over the air) update would fix that issue, I set the Tab to automatically update. Within 24 hours, the tab was bricked and was stuck in a boot loop of displaying the samsung startup screen, the spinning space screen, then repeat.

I figured the best thing to do was start over. It being a tablet and me being cloud-based, there wasn't anything on the system that mattered, so I didn't do anything to try and save what was on the tab.

There are several ways to reset your tab and they are posted all over the place and easily googled.

However, I did run into a problem trying to get fastboot to communicate on my Windows 7 64-bit install. The tab would boot into download mode, but the device showed up as "fastboot", but no drivers. I tried installing the recommended Samsung USB drivers, but that didn't help. I tried several things until I found the ultimate solution...

A user at a client was having a problem when logging into Quickbooks Enterprise 10 on a Windows Terminal Server.

I'm pretty sure what I did fixed it, so here's what I did...

I had a situation where a Zimbra server was hosting several domains. Some of them were related in such a way that there could be no downtime where any of the domains couldn't send to each other, even during a migration to another server.

One of the domains was going to be hosted by another server. It happened that the domain I'm talking about only used Zimbra for account, pop3 and smtp mail services, so I didn't have to worry about moving mailboxes and mails, but I had to make sure that the emails kept flowing.

So, the new server was set up and ready. All accounts were loaded. Email would go in and out of that server.

We made the big switch of the DNS and outside mail started to flow in. However, I ran into a problem where the mails being sent using the old server would not route after having deactivated the domain on that server. All I'd get is a 550 error telling me that user was not on that server.

So, here's what I did...

"A spoon does not know the taste of soup, nor a learned fool the taste of wisdom."
--Welsh Proverb

"Soup is a lot like a family. Each ingredient enhances the others; each batch has its own characteristics; and it needs time to simmer to reach full flavor."
--Marge Kennedy

When you are working on a project, you'll want to know which role you are in. If you are a team member, you are the soup. When you are the leader or project manager, you are the spoon.

Each has its role...

"There is no 'I' in team. But there is an M and an E."
--Unknown Minion Manager

How YOU manage the people that report to you says a lot about your character. Of course, calling them minions, even if they are in on the joke, is a bad way to start.

It is a pretty big step when you go from a one-person department or consulting company to being responsible for the lives of others. When you take that on, be ready to build a team, not just hand off your undesireable work.

Here are some key elements of leading your people...

Do the best with what you have, when you have it, where you are.
--Theodore Roosevelt

If you really want to build something and make a difference, you need to dare to have a written plan. Why "dare"? Because talk is cheap and ideas are nothing unless something is done about them. Set aside brainstorming and talking about what you might do and commit to a written plan. It could be one of the boldest and most important things you do. If you write it down, you might actually be held accountable!

One of the best ways to document your plan is to create a 1/3/5-year strategy document for your area of control. If you're a consultant, that could be for your business. If you're an IT Director, it could be for your department. If you're in an entry level position, it could be for your career.

Just like when building a building, you need to know what you're starting with, know what you want to create, and know what you think it will take to get there. That is what you are trying to document in your written strategy.

Let's start with the purpose of why you are bothering to do this...

I had a user report that, all of a sudden, anytime they cut or pasted something in Excel 2003 running on Windows 7, Excel would crash.

We'd had a problem before with Skype and Bluetooth causing Excel to crash, but when I checked this setting in the registry, it WAS set to zero as needed:

HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\Excel\Addins \BtOfficeAddin.BtOfficeIntegration.1\LoadBehavior REG_DWORD 0x0

Change the LoadBehavior key from 3 to 0, if needed. In this case, it was already 0.

So, that left the user still having the problem...

Recently during the summer of 2011, I had a number of Excel users complain about how slow Excel had become opening spreadsheets, especially over the network.

It also seemed to affect files opened from Outlook and locally stored files, but was most pronounced on Network files.

It also seemed to mostly affect XP and Excel 2003 users, but that could be because they run on older computers which "feel the pain" of slow opening files.

There are a lot of articles on the interwebs talking about similar slow downs, but they didn't help...

What has been will be again,
what has been done will be done again;
there is nothing new under the sun.
--Ecclesiastes 1:9

The answer to the question, "when should you re-invent the wheel?", is simple.

When it makes sense to!

The phrase is often used, usually as a derision, when someone wants to dismiss some else's idea or solution, "we don't need a custom software solution, that would just be re-inventing the wheel." You'll also hear it when someone feels a problem has already been solved and can't be improved upon.

The more "horizontal" the problem (things that affect lots of people and industries), the more likely using existing "wheels" will solve your problem well enough. Clearly, it would be a total waste of time for an IT department to set up a project to write a word processor. There are plenty of old choices, like Microsoft Word, and plenty of new choices, like Google Apps, to solve that problem.

However, as you look at "vertical" problems (things that affect a limited number of people and industries) and you narrow things down to something more and more specific or start to document special processes or when searching for competitive advantage, the more likely you'll find that you DO need to reinvent the wheel.

That is why picking your tools is so important. You'll want to pick things that are open, documented, and can be customized.

And keep in mind that off the shelf is cheap and custom is expensive, so make sure you are allocating your expensive (time/people) resources on the things that will give you a competitive advantage.

Another situation when it makes sense to "re-invent the wheel" is when you are making a paradigm shift, like from horse carts to autos or autos to airplanes. The wheel really DID need to be re-invented in those cases.

Finally, keep in mind that limited resources usually means you'll only be able to re-invent one "wheel" at a time and you'll have to support that wheel for some time. Choose wisely.