Andy Baran's Blog

"mpoai9.dll is not a valid Office add-in" error when opening Excel

andy — Mon, 11 Sep 2006 15:41:00 GMT

I found the solution for this error here:
http://forums.techguy.org/business-applications/111009-resolved-mpoai9-dll-error.html

Copy and paste of the relevant post:

After talking at lenght with Microsoft, we did the following to correct the mpoai9.dll error:

Saved the current registry.
Opened the registry
Find: mpoai9.dll
Deleted (from the right side) all values with the error.
Worked!

I found the errors under the follwing:
Outlook
Visio
Word
Powerpoint
Excel
Internet Explorer
Publisher

Active Directory Group Scope on TechNet

andy — Wed, 23 Aug 2006 23:12:00 GMT

As the subject will inevitably come up time and time again I've decided to save a link to the best Microsoft authored article I've been able to find on the subject of group scopes:

Group Scope on TechNet

Exam 70-290 Notes

andy — Mon, 17 Jul 2006 18:03:00 GMT

My notes for Exam 70-290

Managing and Maintaining Physical and Logical Devices

Choices for unsigned driver installation

Silently Succeed
Warn but Allow Installation
Do Not Allow Installation

Maximum of 127 devices
No more than 7 layers of devices chained together
No more than 5 hubs in one physical chain
Windows 2003 provides 450mw of power to USB devices
Devices can be no more than 5 meters away from hub

Partitions

Basic Disks

Can have 3 primary and 1 extended partition or 4 primary partitions
Store config info in Partition Table (1st sector of each disk/MBR)

Dynamic Disks

the LDR (Logical Disk Manager) is used in place of the MBR and is stored at the end of each disk
Can be divided into 2000 volumes...but you shouldn't use more than 32
Can be extended w/o reboot
Managed as a collection
Support simple, spanned, mirrored and RAID-5

All information in this post has been heavily influenced by the test preparation software offered by Transcender and the Exam Cram 2 series of test preparation books.

Certification

andy — Mon, 17 Jul 2006 17:46:00 GMT

I've decided that I've given myself enough of a break and it's time to start studying again. My goal is to have MCSE, Security+ and CCNA certification by August of 2007.

(strikethroughs indicate completion and "*" indicates what I'm actively working on)

MCSE 2003

Core Exams

Networking

* Exam 70–290: Managing and Maintaining a Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Environment
Exam 70–291: Implementing, Managing, and Maintaining a Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Network Infrastructure
Exam 70-293: Planning and Maintaining a Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Network Infrastructure
Exam 70-294: Planning, Implementing, and Maintaining a Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Active Directory Infrastructure

~~Client Operating System~~

~~Exam 70-210: Installing, Configuring, and Administering Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional~~

Design

Exam 70-297: Designing a Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Active Directory and Network Infrastructure

Elective Exam

Exam 70-298: Designing Security for a Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Network

CompTIA Security+
CCNA

Sparklers

andy — Thu, 06 Jul 2006 16:31:00 GMT

In Illinois they won't let us buy real fireworks so we have to get creative for big booms:

http://gallery.geekdojo.net/albums/Sparklers/MVI_2843.mp4

...unfortunately we weren't able to get video of the previous bundle which contained approximately 1200 sparklers :'(

Neccesary Apps for my MacBook Pro

andy — Wed, 05 Jul 2006 23:17:00 GMT

I recently purchased a MacBook Pro. I won't give any first impressions because there are plently of those out there and they all make two points:

The hardware specs are great
The Core Duo makes this one toasty little machine

Now to the point of this article...with new hardware features (namely SMS, the x86 architecture and backlit keyboard) I've been downloading a lot of software and will list it here:

MacSaber - turns your MBP into a Jedi weapon via the SMS and keyboard backlights

Shaking a laptop around vigorously is always a bad idea...but if it makes light saber noises...

Fink - install all of your favorite *NIX apps on your mac using apt (make sure to use the Intel installer)
Azureus Java BitTorrent Client - Universal Binary version
iSpazz - virtualization plugin for iTunes that uses your keyboard and screen backlights

A fun way to show off those pretty backlights but probably not a good idea to use often

Mac Guides: Universal Binary Games - collection of games with Universal Binaries

It's dissapointing how many games don't run well but if you're a gamer you've probably already installed Boot Camp, haven't you?

Parallels Desktop for Mac - virtual machine software for Mac

I'm not running Visual Studio...but everything else seems to run great (Outlook, IE, Trillian, etc.)

AntiRSI - reminds you to take breaks in order to ward off RSI
iStatPro - if you're running apps like Parallels you'll want this to monitor system performance from your Dashboard
k-notes Widget - stickies for your Dashboard

That's all for now.

Flush the DNS cache on OS X

andy — Tue, 18 Apr 2006 23:11:00 GMT

I've never had to flush the DNS cache on my iBook and was shocked when I realized I had no idea how to do it.

Open up Terminal and type:

sudo lookupd -flushcache

More info on lookupd here

Expected downtime

andy — Mon, 27 Mar 2006 20:29:00 GMT

Expect some downtime between 10:00 PM CST tonight and 7:00 AM CST tomorrow morning.

Rose Sangria

andy — Mon, 27 Mar 2006 19:25:00 GMT

I am dead set on finding a way to do this in nalgene bottles...the only tricky part should be keeping it cold for that long which would mean being w/o at least one nalgene all day.

1 bottle rose wine
1/4 cup brandy
1/4 cup triple sec
1 cup fresh OJ
Orange, lemon, lime and apple slices and blackberries

Combine all ingredients in a large pitcher, cover and refrigerate for at least 8 hours or up to 24 hours. If you do not serve immediately, strain the fruit and add fresh when serving.

Unexpected downtime

andy — Fri, 24 Mar 2006 20:40:00 GMT

Sorry for the unexpected downtime. Speakeasy told me a few weeks ago that Covad had gobbled up whomever they were using for my DSL line out here and that we'd need to eventually setup a new DSL Modem/gateway/router (whatever you want to call it today) and IP's. Unfortunately Covad decided to cut over this morning without informing Speakeasy or myself. I've made all the changes on my end...everything should be back up by the time this gets posted.

God Bless Real Time DNS Propogation :-D

...now it's time to give someone hell.

WSUS Wiki

andy — Wed, 08 Mar 2006 14:34:00 GMT

I just came across a great Wiki at EditMe and thought I'd share:

Windows Server Update Services Wiki

More server downtime

andy — Tue, 07 Mar 2006 22:08:00 GMT

My apologies for the abundance of downtime lately. Hopefully this'll only take an hour or two but just in case I'm planning on having the server down from 7:00 PM CST to 12:00 AM CST tonight. If anyone is going to be doing some blogging that can't be done offline at that time send me an e-mail and I'll send you an e-mail 10 minutes prior to reboots so you have time to finish whatever you're doing.

JFFNMS and debian

andy — Sun, 26 Feb 2006 05:18:00 GMT

I started trying to test out JFFNMS on Debian months ago and eventually gave up when I couldn't get the poller to work. It turns out the poller takes advantage of PHP-CLI and that PHP-CLI (and PHP-CGI) has a seperate php.ini file where you need to configure extensions/modules/whatever you decide to call them. So if you're having the same problem open up /etc/php4/cli/php.ini in a text editor and un-comment "extension=mysql.so" (NOTE: If you're not using MySQL you're going to need to change mysql.so to whatever extension is appropriate for the database you are using).

Now, to test the change you just made, drop back to the command line and run "php /usr/share/jffnms/engine/poller.php <host id>" where <host id> is the host id corresponding to a valid host in JFFNMS DB and you should see a lot of relevant output. If not I would suggest starting your troubleshooting adventure here.

Maintenance

andy — Sat, 25 Feb 2006 15:53:00 GMT

I'll be doing some server maintenance from about 10:00 AM CST to 5:00 PM CST. My apologies for the late notice. I will make a follow up post when I'm done.

Birthday List 2006

andy — Wed, 22 Feb 2006 16:45:00 GMT

In order to make things simple for family friends I am going to keep an online birthday list year:

Moosejaw Gift Cards
A Utility/Performance TerraPass for my car

Unforturnately trips to Devil's Lake, Ouray Ice Park, Jackson Fall's, etc. make my emmisions equal to that of an SUV :'(

A Jetboil Group Cooking System

I only need the actual pot, not the entire system. If you are spending over $100 you are getting me too much.

The Consumer's Guide to Effective Environmental Choices: Practical Advice from the Union of Concerned Scientists (Paperback)