QuickBooks Pro 2009 - error 6123 - after SP1 SP2 install on Vista

Setup:

Vista 32bit Home Premium
QuickBooks Pro 2009
Upgraded to Vista SP1, then SP2

Problem:

When loading up company file in QuickBooks, post SP1/2 installation, we get error 6123.

I found a solution here: http://community.intuit.com/post/detail/a37tRAeBir3zw9abTJhmjm

I needed goto the folder options and un hide hidden folders. Then under c:\users\username\app data\intuit - I was able to find the dbstart.log file referenced buried in some folder. Renamed as suggested, restart the QB services/db and then everything works again.

Wonder how many other things got broken with Vista SP1/SP2 (not to mention, how many hours does it really need to take to install a service pack!!!)? Bring on Windows 7...

Desktop Restore - Restore icon position

Don't you just love it when ever you update your Nvidia video drivers, or change to a smaller resolution, all your desktop icon positions get reset? This is especially annoying when you have multi monitor setup, and you are really lazy to keep all the icons organized!

I found a great utility, that runs as an explorer right click (on desktop) extension that will save your icon positions, and can restore them in a click.

Works on Vista 32 and 64bit. It is called simply Desktop Restore.

Open-Mesh.com Review - create a wifi mesh for your business / neighbourhood

I started testing Open-Mesh around half way through 2008, as part of an investigation for a wifi network a client could install for a building development they were doing.

What I was looking for was something similar to Meraki, but with a lower price point. I stumbled across a new open source development that started out as disgruntled Meraki users (from what I could tell) that didn't like the price hikes.

No frills Open-Mesh Mini RouterI went ahead and ordered 2 Open-Mesh basic routers. These were under $50US, but landed in Canada, with tax and UPS "handling" fees, ended up around $150CAN. All you have to do is hook these puppies up, at least one wired into your network, and the other just needs to be with-in wifi signal distance. From there, you log into the open-mesh.com web based control panel and setup your wifi mesh.

Unfortunately for the first 6 months or so, the firmware was very flakey on the original router hardware. There has been a new hardware revision that has since been released that features temperature and power spike awareness and recovery, but on the current firmware everything seems very stable now, no long requiring a manual power cycle to get the mesh back up and running. Thankfully, firmware updates are silently pushed out to the routers.

At least one of the routers needs to be wired - the rest just need to be in mesh wifi rangeI have yet to play around with the captive portal options, but there are now many options if you wish to advertise, or collect payment for access to your wifi mesh. The ability to limit the maximum upload/download speeds is great so that your mesh users don't nail your internet link. The other feature is that it will isolate the network traffic from your internal network, so there isn't a way for the users to snoop around on your LAN subnet.

Overall, nice product at the right price point!

Update on Wednesday, July 15, 2009 at 4:12PM by Victor Hong

http://www.engadget.com/2009/07/14/fonera-2-0n-available-adds-media-sharing-shared-storage/

Things are getting interesting in this space...

Thinstation + Terminal Server + old hardware = recession IT solution

I have one client that has most users connecting to a Terminal Server. This means that desktop support is generally a non event. As time goes on, I have found a workstation here and there has died, power supply gone or dead hard disk.

This client had plenty of Pentium III and Pentium 4 machines lying around, and what better way to save them some bucks, than to rebirth them, as hard disk less thin clients that boot off a CD, and connect straight up to the Terminal Server! Welcome to a simple opensource solution - Thinstation!

Vintage Compaq Deskpro - Pentium III - blazing fast with ThinStation!We went with a simple setup, practically everyone in that client's office uses a resolution of 1024 x 768. So we created an image, with that resolution set, and added the details of the 2 terminal server they have running on the network - that would appear on the menu when you boot up.

All I do, is burn off a bunch of these CDs, rip out the hard disk from the old workstations, set the BIOS to boot from the CDRom, and away we go. The CD boots into Thinstation in under a minute, the user then selects the terminal server they wish to use, and BAMM, they are instantly presented with the Terminal Server login screen!

pfSense - Über 1337 opensource firewall / router

I have been using pfSense since 2005. One setup has been for myself running on a PC Engines WRAP (embedded) setup. The other setup has been salvaged Pentium II Dell PC hardware to replace a malfunctioning Linksys Router for one of my clients.

The WRAP hardware is now replaced by AMDs ALIX board, which should provide a little more horse power, however, for any average SOHO setup, the WRAP has and does provide plenty of omph (although I have seen my WRAP pfSense setup max out on CPU with large file transfers over 802.11g wifi). I purchased this hardware in Canada from Xagyl Communications .

The first point to make, is that this is rock solid. It is the one bit of hardware that never needs to be restarted what so ever. Secondly, this is a great (and much cheaper) alternative to Cisco, and Sonicwall firewalls. No VPN licenses to worry about, there is an active community driving the opensource project forward with new features and releases approximately once or twice a year. Lastly, there is even a commercial support option.

pfSense - use whitebox PC hardware, just add network cards for as many interfaces as you needAnother client recently has been having flaky performance from their Sonicwall - we suspect faulty hardware. So I took this as an opportunity to pitch an opensource solution, that will bring more features/option/flexibility and a lower cost. The other great feature, as you can see from the photo here, you can load pfSense up with as many interfaces as you need, including PCI wifi adapters.

With this 5 interface setup for this client, we have implemented Linksys WRT54GL routers, flashed with the Tomato firmware, as we didn't have any PCI wifi cards lying around (but we did have a bunch of 3Com ethernet cards!). We have DHCP enabled on the WIFI interface, setup a static IP on the Linksys that has a gateway address pointing to the WIFI interface IP address. DHCP is passed through to the clients connecting to the Linksys. Then we have a rule on the firewall (via an alias) for a NOT allow traffic from WIFI subnet to the alias subnets (the LAN for example) so that we can isolate WIFI traffic from the LAN.

Setting up firewall rules and port forwards (with port translation) is fricking basic to setup - compared to Sonicwall's Advanced OS for example. All done via web based gui. The next best thing is setting up PPTP VPN takes minutes - try setting it up on Windows Server, opening up the firewall and start accepting connections in less than 5 mins!