Jamie T Voss

Apr 06

[video]

Mar 26

Arrival time

therisinginhaiti:

Updated arrival time is 12:35 pm. Double check with American air before you come to the airport. We are in Ft. Myers getting fuel and then on to Louisville.

Mar 25

The Rising in Haiti: Coming Home -

therisinginhaiti:

The team will be heading home today. After a long day of travel, they will land in Louisville late tonight. They will again be split into two teams for the return flights. The Teams, Times, and Flights are listed below.

 

Team 1

MICHELE ABNEY, JOHN COLLINS, MEKENNA DEMENT, WHITNEY…

Jun 13

A vuvuzela is sometimes called a "lepatata" (its Setswana name). How does a simple "stadium horn" get two of the best names ever?

Dec 28

[video]

Dec 03

Can you install Windows 7 Professional on a Dell Vostro 1700 laptop?

Yes you can.  I’ve been wanting to reinstall my operating system for a while.  At the same time I wanted to add a new hard drive as my system drive and use my current system drive to be a data drive.  This would give me an 80GB system drive and a 160GB data drive.  I like this setup.  I don’t need as much space on my system drive and it just seems cleaner to me.

I didn’t purchase my 2nd drive from Dell so I had to order the mounting bracket after the fact.  The first thing I discovered is that the mounting bracket didn’t fit, but after some minor modification I was able to secure the mounting bracket and was ready to go.

I put the Windows 7 installation DVD in and booted up.  The new drives were recognized and the install process started.  I had no problems with the installation at all.  I provided the basic information, the install completed and I booted into Windows 7 for the first time.

My first reaction was that I didn’t like it, but after a little customization I began to feel more at home.  I joined the laptop to our domain and logged on.  All the network printer drivers installed just fine.  Windows Updates worked, some third party drivers were recognized and were installed automatically.

Problem #1 was that my external monitor didn’t work.  The solution was to download and install the Vista nVidia Display Drivers.  Monitor responded right away.

Problem #2 was figuring out the last two items in Device Manager labeled as Base System Device.  These turned out to be the Ricoh Memory Stick Controller and Ricoh SD/MMC Host Controller.

I went ahead and installed the SigmaTel Audio drivers, but I don’t think I really had to.

Problem #3 was that my old Windows XP NTFS system drive was not recognized.  At the command prompt I typed in “takeown /f d:” and waited for a success message.  Then I typed in “icacls d: /grant jvoss:F”

All of these issues are typical of any operating system install and not just Windows 7.  So in my opinion to get to this point was relatively simple.

I installed Microsoft Office software, setup Outlook to use our Exchange server, installed database drivers and tested ODBC queries to our company ERP software and finally installed the ERP software client and tested that.

At this point I brought the laptop home, connected to my home wireless by supplying the security key, and downloaded our company VPN software from the firewall so I can use my laptop from home.  At first execution the VPN software didn’t connect so I set it to run as Administrator and had no problems at all.

By the way I love the new Paint software that comes with Windows 7!  With it I can easily take a screen shot, crop it and save it in several different formats without having to have any additional image software installed.

Using the new Disk Management software I was able to clean up some of the unallocated and improperly partitioned space on my d: drive and extend the main partition to the full amount of drive space within seconds.  I’ll begin organizing the new data drive later.

Now I will begin to install Visual Studio 2008, SQL Server Management Studio 2008 and some legacy applications, but I don’t expect any problems at this point.

Dec 02

How do you open a .vsd file with Visio Viewer?

Most of the people I work with are used to handling AutoCad drawings, but not necessarily Microsoft Visio files. Today someone passed me a .vsd file that they needed to have printed, but were not sure which application to use.  I didn’t have Visio installed on my laptop so I thought the quickest and easiest thing to do was to install the Visio Viewer. First I tried Visio Viewer 2007 and then Visio Viewer 2003. Neither worked so I did a quick search. It seems that a Windows Update called Cumulative Security Update of ActiveX Kill Bits disables Visio Viewer. The solution is to go to Add Remove Programs, find the KB973525 update (be sure to check the box that says show updates), and remove it. After uninstalling the update Visio Viewer worked and I printed the drawing.

Nov 26

Doubled Consonants -

Does cancelled have one L or two?  I wasn’t sure so I double checked.  I always feel better when I look up a simple question and find more than a simple answer.

Thanksgiving Day games -

How long have the Lions and Cowboys played on Thanksgiving?  “The Detroit Lions have hosted a game every Thanksgiving Day since 1934 (with the exception of 1939–1944 due to World War II), and they have been nationally televised since 1962. In 1966, the NFL introduced an annual game hosted by the Dallas Cowboys, which they have played every year except in 1975 and 1977 when the St. Louis Cardinals hosted a game instead.”

Thanksgiving Classic -

What is the Thanksgiving Classic?  “The National Football League’s Thanksgiving Classic is a series of games played during the Thanksgiving holiday in the United States. It has been a regular occurrence since the league’s inception in 1920.”

Nov 25

[video]

Nov 23

How do you delete blank lines in Excel?  Here’s a Microsoft Excel feature that I used for the first time today.  I had a spreadsheet that was blank in every other row and I wanted to remove the blanks.  To do this you can select Edit…Go To… from the menu then Special…Blanks…OK from the popup windows.  Now all the blank lines should be selected.  Now select Edit…Delete… from the menu and Entire Row…OK from the popup windows and all the blank lines are gone.

How do you delete blank lines in Excel?  Here’s a Microsoft Excel feature that I used for the first time today.  I had a spreadsheet that was blank in every other row and I wanted to remove the blanks.  To do this you can select Edit…Go To… from the menu then Special…Blanks…OK from the popup windows.  Now all the blank lines should be selected.  Now select Edit…Delete… from the menu and Entire Row…OK from the popup windows and all the blank lines are gone.