Recently, my copy of SQL Server 2008 Management Studio began failing with this error message:

Unable to cast COM object of type 'System.__ComObject' to interface
type 'Microsoft.VisualStudio.OLE.Interop.IServiceProvider'.  This
operation failed because the QueryInterface call on the COM component
for the interface with IID '{6D5140C1-7436-11CE-8034-00AA006009FA}'
failed due to the following error: No such interface supported
(Exception from HRESULT: 0x80004002 (E_NOINTERFACE)).
(Microsoft.VisualStudio.OLE.Interop)

(told you it was geeky)

It took me hours and more than a few gray hairs to work this out.  Apparently, the issue is caused by installing SourceGear’s Vault Client (Vault is a version control tool used by programmers to manage source code).

SourceGear has a page that talks about it:  http://bit.ly/boIRRC

There are various pages online that refer to the error, but the vast majority suggest the solution is to re-register actxprxy.dll.  In my case, the trick was to re-register C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\ieproxy.dll.

The exact procedure:

1. Launch a command prompt as Administrator (best bet is to do Start, then search for “Command” to find the icon, then right click and choose “Run as Administrator” — you’ll have to click to approve it)
2. Enter the following command:
   regsvr32 “C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\ieproxy.dll”
   and press ENTER.

That’s it.  2 seconds.

Wish I had managed to find that one before I spent three hours installing every SQL Server program I could identify and then reinstalling Visual Studio 2010.  Uggh.

Cannot start Microsoft Office Outlook. Cannot open the Outlook window.

I ran Microsoft Office Diagnostics (which usually can fix these kinds of issues — it’s under Start > All Programs > Microsoft Office > Office Tools), and it found no problems and didn’t fix the issue.

A little Googling turned up this nugget, which did the trick:

Click on Start > Run, then enter “outlook.exe /resetnavpane” and click OK.

Life is good!

In true geekspeak:

HandBrake is an open-source, GPL-licensed, multiplatform, multithreaded video transcoder, available for MacOS X, Linux and Windows.

The important thing here is that it’s “open-source” and “GPL-licensed,” which is to say that it’s free.

Oh, and it works beautifully.  In no time flat I had converted all of the WMV files to MP4 files that should work flawlessly on his Android-based G1 phone.  HandBrake would do a nice job of converting Windows videos to download to your iPhone or iPod Touch, too.

The other task he gave me was to replicate a DVD that he had produced a couple of years ago (just so we’re clear, he owns the content, so this is not about making illegal copies of commercial DVDs!)

For that, I turned to my old friend ImgBurn.  This wonderful tool — also free — will read and write CD’s and DVD’s.  In this case, I was able to rip the entire DVD to an ISO file, then pop in a blank DVD and burn an exact duplicate.

There you go!  Two new toys to add to your toolbox.

Full Story

It’s still beta software, so you may want to hold off, but as is usually the case with Google stuff, beta seems to mean “as good as what anybody else would release.”

Think you might be interested?  Go get it.

Until, that is, you get more than about 5 servers in it.  The problem is that the list of servers can’t be sorted or grouped in any way, so you wind up with this hodgepodge list of servers that inevitably you have to scan down to find the server you want to connect to.  Admittedly, a minor annoyance, but c’mon!  Why can’t this tree view work like tree views do elsewhere in Windows?

Apparently, there’s no easy way to re-sort the list.  (Conceivably, there’s no way at all to re-sort the list, but I quit looking when I determined it couldn’t be done easily!)

Then I found the wonderful freeware visionapp Remote Desktop viewer.  Same kind of layout — servers in a panel on the left side, remote desktop display on the right — but, oh, how much better this one is!

You maintain Credentials separately from servers, so it’s easy to mass update a password if it changes across multiple servers.  Then create Connections and tie them to Credentials.  The cool thing is that you can also Group your connections (COLO Clients, Our Servers, Client Servers, Local Servers, etc) and specify that they should be sorted alphabetically if you wish.  Like Microsoft’s tool, you can specify whether to connect to the server console or not.

This is everything that Microsoft’s Remote Desktops should have been. 

I note that visionapp also has a commercial version called visionapp Remote Desktop 2008.  Probably worth a look-see if you manage hundreds of servers.  Runs about $70.

SyncBackSE from 2BrightSparks

You need to back up your data.  Trust me on this, you NEED to do it.  I’m on the tail end of a horrendous double-drive failure that’s costing me a ridiculous amount of money, time and effort.  What’s worse is that I DID have a backup (mirrored drives), but the jobs to push the data off to a third location weren’t working. 

One great way to do it is with SyncBackSE from 2BrightSparks.  This one is a bit like Microsoft’s wonderful SyncToy v2.0 Beta, but is more “industrial grade” and has lots of flexibility that SyncToy doesn’t.  It also handles huge, deep directories with aplomb, and can even back up TO or FROM an FTP connection or ZIP drive. 

PC Inspector File Recovery from Convar

A fantastic little piece of freeware from a German company, PC Inspector File Recovery (despite the “Get Smart” sounding name) is a general purpose data recovery program.  This is useful if you’ve deleted or formatted a disk, but I found it especially well suited to recovering pictures from a digital camera card that had spontaneously formatted itself.  Out of 193 potentially lost pictures, PCIFR recovered all but 2 of them (and I had tried to recover the lost files using other tools to no avail).  Best of all, it’s free!

ISO Recorder Power Toy: File this under “must-have free Windows XP extensions“. 

ISO Recorder Power Toy is a UI component that allows to use CD-Recording capabilities of Windows XPr to record ISO images and copy CD to CD – a piece of functionality missing in Windows XPr

The ISO Recorder itself does not record CDs but instead uses existing OS features. Some of the interfaces it uses are not fully documented by Microsoft and as such are subject to change in the future.

This software works on Windows XP only . It was tested with retail build of Windows XP (Home and Professional)

It doesn't get any easier than this: Download an ISO file, right click, and choose “Copy Image to CD” from the context menu.  I note that a version is already in beta that works with XP SP2, too.  Nicely done, Alex.  [by way of this page]

Boardtown is the maker of an
ISP billing package called Platypus that's generally regarded as one of
the better ones in the industry (along with Rodopi, Emerald and OptiGold). They also have software packages to handle help desk, mail lists, shopping carts, and spam filtering.

Clearly, Tucows has its eyes set on being a full service provider to the ISP industry, and I'm excited about that. Not that it's a surprise. Elliot has been pretty clear about his intentions
for several months now. In addition to domain registration, they're
offering DNS and managed Email services, and will soon roll out an
outstanding blog-hosting option ([shameless promotion] which you can
purchase today through my ISP, Atl-Connect, at very reasonable prices).

The challenge ahead of Tucows is rolling all of these together into a
consistent branded offering. Hint: Use blogware as the model to the
extent possible. It gets it more right than any of the others, largely
because it was built most recently and benefits from lessons learned on
domains, dns and email.
Boardtown's offerings are unusual in the Tucows quivver in that they're
not hosted solutions, so Tucows will have to make some adjustments to
deal with the software sales aspect (Or will they? Perhaps the idea is
to take the intellectual property and morph it into a hosted
solution.).
Neat stuff, in any event, and lots of fun for some folks at Tucows.

Wonder if they're hiring.