Greetings from the Rainy Midwest. It's half way into June and we've had about three days without rain. Good thing I have sons to mow my grass for free. They do a much better job than the goats ever did...most of the time. At least they don't leave droppings in the yard...just baseballs, bats, bicycles, frisbees, shoes, socks...and half of my hand tools (but only the ones that tend to rust). Sigh.

My office has recovered nicely from the Big Flood in May and all is mostly right with the world, particularly since I've cleaned up the spam infestation on my mail server. If you had trouble subscribing or sending me questions last month, it wasn't you. I misconfigured my new firewall and mail server and foolishly allowed SMTP relay unchecked into my server from the Internet. It only took a few days for the scum-sucking, manure-eating, useless-sacks-of-flesh spammers to find me and inundate my server with spam. In the end I deleted over 120,000 messages from the incoming and outgoing queues. I'm ready to propose new punishment for spammers...it involves honey, ants, polka music, jalapenos, power tools, and latex. It won't be pretty, but it will be lots of fun.

Don't look for newsletters more than about once a month through the summer. Between two books and several around-the-house projects, I won't even have time to sleep. Feel free to peruse the tips on the Web site in the meantime!

Hasta luego,

Jim

Featured Windows Tip
Pull Media Player audio through your firewall

If your computer resides behind a firewall--or you are using a personal firewall on your computer--and you can’t get streaming audio to work in Media Player, you need to open up a few ports on the firewall.

Media Player can use several types of streams including UDP Multicast, UDP Unicast, TCP Unicast, HTTP Unicast, TCP MSDB 1, and HTTP distribution stream on TCP port 80. In cases where the stream uses HTTP on port 80, you’ll probably have no problems receiving the stream because port 80 will already be opened for HTTP traffic. TCP MSDB 1 is used for server-to-server communications, and when you’re accessing public streams such as Internet radio stations, the most likely protocol is TCP Unicast. To receive these streams you only need to open up port 1755 on your firewall.

You can also select the allowed protocols in the Network tab of Media Player’s Options property sheet. This enables you to restrict Media Player to a specific protocol, and also lets you specify the port range used with UDP Unicast. So, enabling UDP Unicast media through the firewall would require opening port 1755 as well as the range of ports you specify in the Network tab for UDP. The default is ports 7000-7001. If you open port 1755 on the firewall and still have problems receiving streaming audio, try opening ports 7000 and 7001. Or, specify a different range of ports in the UDP options and open that range of ports.

If you don’t have control of the firewall and can’t get your network administrator to open any other ports, open the Network tab on the Options property sheet and deselect all protocols except HTTP. This will force the connection through HTTP port 80. Depending on the bandwidth of your connection and your PC’s performance, however, the quality of the stream might be affected by Web browsing.

Featured Office Tip #1
Minimize Outlook 2002 to the system tray

One of the features in the Outlook 2002 beta was the capability to configure Outlook to minimize to the tray rather than to the taskbar. Minimizing Outlook to the tray conserves space for other applications in the taskbar. This can be an important issue for users who work with multiple applications and frequently have Outlook open at the same time. Although Microsoft removed this capability from the Outlook 2002 interface for the released version, you can still minimize Outlook 2002 to the tray.

If you only want the minimize feature, you don't need an add-in. Instead, you just need to make a simple change to the registry.

Open the Registry Editor and add a DWORD value named MinToTray to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\10.0\Outlook\Preferences. Set the value of MinToTray to 1 if you want Outlook to minimize to the tray, or set it to 0 to have Outlook minimize to the taskbar.

When you click the minimize button in Outlook, the program minimizes to the tray, displaying a small Outlook icon there. Simply double-click this icon to restore Outlook to the desktop.

Featured Windows Server Tip
Delay service startup by adding dependencies

Sooner or later you will run across a server that routinely fails to start a particular service automatically at startup, but you have no problem starting the service yourself after the server is up. A potential cause of this problem is that the service is dependent on another, but there is no explicit dependency configured for the other service.

Delaying the start of the service would often cure the problem, because the service on which it depends would then be started. Windows services provide an option to control their startup type (automatic, manual, or disabled), but Windows services in general do not offer an option to delay service startup by a specific time.

If you need to delay a service's startup, you can manually add a dependency to the service. The service need not actually be dependent on the specified second service—the dependency simply causes the service to wait until the other has started, effectively delaying startup.

To configure service dependency, open the Registry Editor and open the key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\ SYSTEM\ CurrentControlSet\ Services\ (Service name), where (Service name) is the service you want to delay. Add a REG_MULTI_SZ value named DependOnService to the key, then edit the value of DependOnService to add the service name of the service you want started before the selected service. If you're not sure what service to specify, specify the Spooler or Messenger services, which generally start late.

Take care when setting a service dependency that you don't create a circular dependency--two services waiting on each other—which can prevent the server from starting.

And you thought those PNG graphics file littering your PC were harmless. Story.

Interested in a Mac / Windows hybrid? Story

I'm thinking I have better things to do on a cruise. Carnival adds wi-fi at sea. Story

Your monthly Longhorn Server fix . Story

I can almost take the family out to dinner on what I make from Google ads in a year... Story

AOL synonymous with Borg Collective? Somehow I'm not surprised by this one. Story

Napster on your cell phone? I'll just stick with my Monty Python ringtone, thanks. Story

Webcam spies! Wish I could think of someone to spy on. http://www.pysoft.com

Google maps are just too cool for words. http://maps.google.com

Free Office tips. Check out the latest free edition of the Office Letter for some handy Office tips. www.officeletter.com

Super firewall! I just bought one for my home office. http://www.fortinet.com

Gamer's heaven. www.happypuppy.com

Laser cutting in my own backyard...almost . I drove over and had these guys cut some plywood parts for a model helicopter last weekend. www.lasersynergy.com

Interested in learning to use Computer Aided Design (CAD)? I haven't downloaded or tried it out, but this free CAD programs looks interesting. www.progecad.com

Recipe:
Arroz Mejicano (Mexican Rice)

This basic Mexican rice recipe is great as a side dish by itself or with added chicken, shrimp, or hamburger as a main dish. For a great vegetarian burrito, roll it up in a flour tortilla with some guacamole and refried beans. Or, spoon cooked rice into whole, cleaned bell pepper and bake for stuffed peppers.

Place oil in hot skillet and add rice, onion, peppers, and garlic. Stir constantly over medium heat until rice is lightly browned. Add cumin, salt and pepper to taste, broth, and tomato sauce. If using canned tomatoes, add now. If using fresh tomatoes, add about 10 minutes before rice is done (about the ten-minute mark). Bring to light boil, cover, and reduce heat to medium low. Simmer for about 20 minutes or until rice is tender. If rice is done but still contains too much liquid, remove lid and continue cooking on low to steam off liquid. Do not stir the rice at all while it is simmering. Stirring will make the rice sticky and gummy.