'Choose the program you want to open this file' prompt on startup

Problem
Receiving a Choose the program you want to use to open this file prompt every time the computer starts (Windows 7)

Symptoms
If you choose notepad to open the file with you get something similar to this:
===========================================================================
Interface List
15...00 24 2c b5 37 3a ......Bluetooth Device (Personal Area Network)
11...00 23 ae 2a 00 0e ......Intel(R) 82567LM Gigabit Network Connection
1...........................Software Loopback Interface 1
21...00 00 00 00 00 00 00 e0 Microsoft ISATAP Adapter
19...00 00 00 00 00 00 00 e0 Microsoft ISATAP Adapter #2
13...00 00 00 00 00 00 00 e0 Teredo Tunneling Pseudo-Interface
===========================================================================

IPv4 Route Table
===========================================================================
Active Routes:
None
Persistent Routes:
None

IPv6 Route Table
===========================================================================
Active Routes:
None
Persistent Routes:
None


Solution
Here are the steps I performed to resolve this issue:

1.) At startup, when prompted -- choose to open the file with notepad.
2.) To get the location of of the file choose File --> Save As -- this will show you the location where the file is currently located. (for me it was C:\Users\)
3.) Navigate to this location and delete the file

OTA Stock Android 2.2 on Telstra HTC Desire Without Rooting

Problem
I have the Telstra HTC Desire and want to upgrade to Android 2.2 without all the Telstra Apps.

Solution
Here are the steps I performed on the Telstra A8183 Desire (Note: I am using it on the Telecom New Zealand XT Network)

1.) If not already done, Install HTC Sync and restart your computer (Yes you actually do have to restart or it wont work)
2.) Format the microSD card to FAT32 format (quick format is OK).
3.) Put the microSD card in your device and boot it.
4.) Launch GoldCard Tool (Right Click and run as Admin if needed)
5.) Connect Android device to USB and enable USB Debugging (Settings --> Applications --> Developer --> Enable USB Debugging)
6.) Click 'Get CID' (If MMC1 fails try MMC0)
7.) Navigate to http://psas.revskills.de/?q=goldcard, enter the CID number from Goldcard Tool and create your Goldcard image, which will be e-mailed to you.
8.) Enable USB Mass Storage on the Desire if its not on already
9.) Click 'Refresh' and select your microSD card in the drop down menu.
10.) Click 'Load GoldCard.img' and open the .img file you got by email.
11.) Click 'Patch MMC'
12.) Download and run RUU_Bravo_HTC_WWE_1.21.405.2_Radio_32.36.00.28U_4. 06.00.02_2_release_126984_signed.exe
13.) Once the phone is flashed, download OTA_Bravo_Froyo_HTC_WWE_2.09.405.8-1.21.405.2_release4dua3bcrut4wrv30.zip and rename it to update.zip
14.) Copy it to your Goldcard and power off the phone
15.) Turn on the phone by pressing the Down arrow Key and the Power Button This will take you to a menu. Using the volume down button to select recovery mode and press the power button.
16.) When you see the image of the phone with an Exclamation mark press the volume up and the power button and select install the contents from update.zip

Transcend USB Drive Fix

I was given a 16GB USB flash drive today that wasn't working:

Symptoms
- When plugged in in XP it would show up in My Computer but when you click on it it would say 'Drive not initialized'
- Right click Format fails
- In XP Disk Management it does not show the drive size or allow you to initialize it
- When plugged into Windows 7 it appears in Disk Management but same as with XP you are unable to do anything but change drive letters and path
- when formatting from cmd you receive:

C:\Windows\system32>format j:

Insert new disk for drive J:
and press ENTER when ready...
Cannot open volume for direct access.

C:\Windows\system32>dir j:
The device is not ready.

Troubleshooting and Resolution
1.) I downloaded the HP USB Disk Key recovery application and found that when attempting to use this you get a:

C:\DriveKey>hpusbf j:

HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool, Version 1.00.012 (11/13/2003)
Copyright (c) 2003 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P.

The type of the current file system is RAW.

WARNING! ALL DATA ON THE DRIVE J: (Generic USB Flash Disk 7.76) WILL BE LOST!
Are you really sure that you want to proceed with Format (Y/N)? y

***ERROR*** IOCTL_DISK_GET_DRIVE_GEOMETRY: The device is not ready.

2.) Finally I went over to the Transcend website (the USB key was a 16GB V10 series Transcend drive) and downloaded their Online recovery tool (I don't know why they call it online -- it runs off-line)
- Using this tool I was able to run a "Repair drive & erase all
- This appears to have resolved the problem

Note: With flash drives there are a myriad of reasons that can break or stop working. The fix detailed above is only to fix the problem described by the symptoms above

Validation Failed for (Subnet Mask) Error on Thompson Modems

Problem
On some models of Thompson DSL routers there is a known but that prevents an admin from changing either the Default IP address or the DHCP Pool addresses using the Web User Interface.

Solution
One way to get around this is to manually edit the router's configuration file. To do this:

1.) Navigate to the Save/Restore configuration page (in my Thompson TG585v7 this is located under Front Page --> Configuration --> Save or Restore Configuration.

2.) Click the Backup Configuration Now... button and it will prompt you to choose a location to save the user.ini configuration file.


3.) Open up the configuration file and do a search for the router's IP address:

ipadd intf=LocalNetwork addr=192.168.1.254/24 addroute=enabled

Here you can edit the IP to the value you desire

4.) Following this, Search for the DHCP Pool Settings:

pool config name=LAN_private state=enabled intf=LocalNetwork

poolstart=192.168.1.64 poolend=192.168.1.253 netmask=24 gateway=192.168.1.254

leasetime=86400

Here you can change the Start Address, End Address, Subnet mask and the Default gateway settings.

5.) Once the edits are complete save the file as a new INI file (so you still have a backup of the original config) then, import it back into the router using the Restore Configuration Section on the same page in Step 2 .

Note: in some cases you may need to power cycle the modem for the changes to take effect.

Adding Search Providers in IE7

Problem
When you attempt to add a search provider in IE7 you receive the following error:
Error: The search provider could not be installed. This might have happened
because:
- A required file could not be downloaded;
- The website is unavailable;
- You are not connected to the Internet;
You might want to try again later.

Solution
This seems to occur if UAC is enabled. To work around it, right click the IE7 Icon on the quick launch bar and choose Run as administrator, then re-attempt to add the search provider.

Hybrid Sleep Issues with Vista

Problem
When Vista resumes from Hybrid Sleep the USB Keyboard, Mouse and other USB devices no longer work. Sometimes you get an Unrecognized USB device or a USB hub failure system notification.

Solution
This seems to occur as a result of installing the KB930178 hotfix from Microsoft (comes down via Windows update). As of yet I have not found a way to fix the problem other than to uninstall the hotfix.

IE7 Searchbar YouTube Downloader

While there are several add-ins for Internet Explorer and Firefox as well as sites like KeepVid that offer better alternatives, I'm offering up yet another method of downloading YouTube videos I recently discovered: A YouTube Search Provider.

To install the search provider follow this link

Once installed, simply copy the video ID of a YouTube Video and paste it into the search bar.

As an example the video ID of this YouTube video (http://youtube.com/watch?v=t4bMM73-qHo) is t4bMM73-qHo. Pasting that into the IE Searchbar and then choosing YouTube Video Downloader (if its not already selected) will start the download.

The videos will need to have the .flv file extension added to their file names so they can be played (VLC or FLV player should play them fine).

What's so special about this?
Well, this particular method will work around a proxy that is blocking DNS entries (such as youtube.com).

Why's that?
This is because it uses the direct IP address of rd.cache.l.google.com (most proxies wont block Google.com)

But why not use YouTube's IP address?
Well that works, however it redirects you to another YouTube server that's hosting the specific video (http://lax-v172.lax.youtube.com/ for example). This is a problem, because youtube is in the DNS name (the site will therefore be blocked). Sure you could then go and nslookup the address of that server, then substitute in the relevant IP and the video would download but, that's rather time consuming.

How is this a Vista Problem or Resolution?
Ok, you've got me -- It isin't. I just didn't have any other place to publish this to :(