"An unexpected error occurred." accessing Network Connection's properties

Cause: seems like it suddenly happens after a recent Windows Update. I cannot ping or "remote desktop" to the computer. Trying to access network connection give me this error: "An unexpected error occurred."

Solution:
This seems to fix the problem:
command line:
regsvr32 netshell.dll
regsvr32 ole32.dll
reboot

Then I can access the properties page, and I disable/re-enabled firewall. Everything coming back to normal.

P.S.
Keep my fingers crossed. Waiting for more surprised from next automatic Windows Update.

3D Visualization on iPhone - Got to see it to believe it

Ziosoft showcased this amazing 3D visualization on iPhone. It is fast and smooth with very high image resolution. With dual touch, seem like it is very easy to control zoom, move cutoff plane, rotate and move object, and select depth of rendering.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDVAosnh1j4&feature=channel_page

From their description and the look, it is obvious that there is web server doing the rendering behind. iPhone seem to provide the dual touch and navigation. Still the the speed is impressive. Either the iPhone has very high speed internet access, or there is some very efficient decompress and rendering algorithms running on it so that data transfer rate is not too high.

Server Explorer Missing

Symptom: Visual Studio 2005 Server Explorer is missing.
Reason: A while back, Visual Studio failed to load the server explorer at starup time, and showed a dialog to disable it. I guess I accidentally clicked "yes".

Solution: run this command in Visual Studio 2005 command line environment:

devenv /resetskippkgs

Refeactor! for C++ -- Review

Tried Refactor! for C++ (free version 9.1.5 published June 29, 2009). Visual Studio 2005

Summary of my experience:
Pros:

• Free;
  
• The idea is very attractive: refactor C++ code with right click and no modal dialogs;
• Rename class names seem to work fine;

Cons:

• Does not work most of the times. Usually global search and replace did a better job in renaming things;
• Affects VS grammar highlight. After installation, code grey out by "ifdef"s are totally messed up. Unistall the softwate, Visual Studio went back to correct grey out;
  

Recommended? No. I uninstalled the software after a few days.

Still looking for a decent C++ refactoring tool.

Modem Error: NO CARRIER

What to check when you get "NO CARRIER" (numeric code: 3) error from Modem:

• Verify Modem is connected to phone line properly;
• Verify the phone number you are dialing works properly by calling this number using your phone, and verify that you hear: first ring tone, then the negotiation tone (yes, you should be able to hear the chirping sound over a regular phone);

If you can hear the negotiation tone, but frequently get "NO CARRIER" error, here is a solution:

Set modem register S7 to a longer timeout value. 50 is the default, you can set it to 120 (ATS7=120). Sometimes, you can set this timeout value through MODEM configuration GUI, you can find something like: "Cancel the call if not connected within __ seconds".

Firefox keep crashing -- a solution

Every couple of days, I will see my Firefox using 99% of CPU and crash.

I am a web developer. My Firefox has all sorts of add-ons: Abduction, Firebug, Html Validator, ScapBook, Screen grab!, Web Developer, YSlow. So, I do not need YSlow to know why my Firefox is slow and tend to crash.

I have an idea: how about start two instances of Firefox, one with all the add-ons and the other one clean. I will use the clean one for normal web browsing, and the fully loaded one with development. And, guess what, there is already someone who has done this and posted a blog about it: Firefox: Run a Regular and Development Profile at the Same Time. I used the solution, and it works perfectly.

Blue Screen Trying to Install Windows XP SP3

During last few months, I have been through a couple of Windows XP SP3 installation. They are mostly eventless. One of the worst was a computer that hung after reboot, but after a forced power recycle that system seem to be fine.

Just when I am about to conclude that Windows XP SP3 update is pretty good, I got the famous Blue Screen of Death.

While trying to install Windows XP SP3 on my computer, I got an "Access is denied" error message. So that was not too scary, I typed the error message along with keyword "Windows XP SP3" in Google and found an MSKB 949377 which provided a solution to this exact problem.

Now, following KB 949377, I downloaded full Windows XP SP3 package and subinacl.exe, and created Reset.CMD. But, I tried it 3 times, everytime I ran Reset.CMD, it gave me Blue Screen of Death with error message about registry access. So, I did another Google search with keywords: "windows xp sp3 access denied subinacl registry blue screen". Now "I'm feeling lucky". The first hit provides a solution that works perfectly for me. Here is link to Jason's blog post that solved my problem: http://www.mrfloppysa.com/wordpress/?p=13

The trick is to remove the HKLM line in RESET.CMD. The new RESET.CMD file would be like this:

cd /d "%ProgramFiles%\Windows Resource Kits\Tools"
REM subinacl /subkeyreg HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE /grant=administrators=f /grant=system=f
subinacl /subkeyreg HKEY_CURRENT_USER /grant=administrators=f /grant=system=f
subinacl /subkeyreg HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT /grant=administrators=f /grant=system=f
subinacl /subdirectories %SystemDrive% /grant=administrators=f /grant=system=f
subinacl /subdirectories %windir%\*.* /grant=administrators=f /grant=system=f
secedit /configure /cfg %windir%\repair\secsetup.inf /db secsetup.sdb /verbose