Vlad Hrybok's Tech Notes

Twice I tried to update iPhone 3G firmware using iTunes 7.7 running on 64-bit Windows Vista, and both times I was getting cryptic error with code (-1) somewhere in the middle of the process. Oddly, firmware would seemingly get upgraded before the crash, but I would still have to restore the iPhone from the backup - a process (was buggy on its own) that would not restore the applications I installed from Apple app store.

Thankfully, after I got iTunes 8, my latest upgrade to 2.1 version of iPhone software went without a problem. 2.1 was worthy upgrade: the most obvious change was improved battery life.

Updated Jan 1, 2009.

Here's what I didn't get from U-Verse despite sales woman's promise:

• Static IP address: Salesperson said they can do it, then tech support people said don't do it at all and the best they could do is to setup 28 day (instead of 24 hour) DHCP lease for my IP address. Despite the contradiction of statements, I still have the same IP address. I guess, talk to them, you may get one too.
  
  
• Free receivers/STBs with U-Verse TV U100 package: Was charged for each additional receiver and had to negotiate with AT&T. Got credit to the current bill and six month promotional discount to bring the price close to the initially stated. What happens after 6 months - don't want to think about it right now.
  
  
• Price lock-in: I was promised that price won't go up. Not the case - AT&T rep on the phone said there is no such commitment.

The bottom line: videotape or at least record what your sales person commits to, including your services and amount you are going to pay in recurring charges, plus make her state discounts and rebates you will receive.

Update:
Just to make it clear: you won't have to wire your house yourself before U-Verse is installed - AT&T tech will do it for you. The most important things to realize is that AT&T tech can use either coaxial cable (adding to existing TV cable in your house), or wire your house with cat5e Ethernet cable. I am just letting you know that it is apparently up to you to ask the tech to use Ethernet cable instead of coax. If you don't ask, the technician is likely to simply add coax cable because it's less work, but if you ask for Ethernet, you should be able to get it. And since (at least in my case) they wire up to 10 locations in your house for free (up to 4 TV sets and 6 computers - they will wire only existing TVs and computers/game consoles, not planned or desired one), you can upgrade your house by getting Ethernet cabling for free when you sign up for AT&T U-Verse.

Original post:
I asked U-Verse installation tech to use CAT5 Ethernet wiring instead of coax, and he didn't mind. He wired all rooms where I have TVs or computers with Ethernet CAT5e cable, and hooked them up using RG ports and a Netgear Gigabit switch AT&T provided. Needless to say, you can add any number of computers later if you deploy your own switches, preferably Gigabit ones to ensure there is plenty of bandwidth to carry multiple TV streams along with regular network traffic. Wiring up your house for Ethernet is a good freebie from AT&T. Be sure to tell your U-Verse sales person how many rooms you want to wire. Also make it clear to the installer tech which rooms with TVs and computers you want to wire BEFORE he starts. If you change your mind or remember you left out a room with a TV or PC, AT&T will charge you for added wiring.

By default iPhone 3G is configured to check emails only manually. To make it check email regularly the change in the settings needs to be made. Since I spent more time than I expected finding out how to make iPhone 3G check email periodically, I decided that it's worthy a post. I was looking all over Settings | Email, Calendar and Contacts, where I thought the setting would be, and could not find it. Instead it turned out to be Settings | Fetch New Data. That what drives frequency of email checks:

It's much easier to read large numbers when thousands are separated by commas. But I can never remember how the numeric format with thousands comma-separated is defined for .NET String.Format() method and for the databinding. So more as a note to self, here it is:

string output = string.Format("{0:#,#}", 123456789); // Will produce 123,456,789

The same goes for data binding data sources to data controls like DataGridView. Specify format as "{0:#,#}".

If your ASP.NET 1.1 or 2.0 application throws "This implementation is not part of the Windows Platform FIPS validated cryptographic algorithms" exception, the easiest way to fix is to add 
      <machineKey validationKey="AutoGenerate,IsolateApps" decryptionKey="AutoGenerate,IsolateApps" validation="3DES" decryption="3DES"/>
line to the <system.web> section of the web.config file of your application.

FIPS compliance is required for software installed on US government computers. The compliance requirement can be turned on and off.

Source: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/911722

Free Forrester Research report on Home Servers market (PDF).

UltiDev HttpVPN is in an incredible position to be the winner in this market.

I went through the exercise of setting up Microsoft Team Foundation Server 2008, and needed to do group-level-only rights assignment, so that IT folks could manage security by simply moving people in and out of the Active Directory groups to grant/revoke TFS access rights, instead of setting up individual user rights in TFS, Windows Sharepoint Services and Reporting Services. Initially I created some groups for TFS with the "Domain local" scope, which allowed me to nest other, "Global", groups in them. But I noticed that with WSS and RS, assigning rights to "Domain local" groups does nothing - WSS and RS act as users are not members of the group, while TFS services were working properly. I had to re-create AD groups and make them of "Global" scope to make WSS and RS working properly.