I saw this error code this past weekend when I was working on my parents’ new laptop, which runs Windows Vista Home (I think that’s the version). It took me a while to figure out, but all it meant was that there was an issue trying to get an update. The reason: the computer’s date had been set 4 years into the past. Once I went and corrected the date, Vista was able to update correctly. Take that, Code 80072F8F!
After testing this on my work computer, I found that this also that the McAfee AutoUpdate will fail to update as well if the computer’s date is in the past as well. So, if you see that error message in Vista, or have issues with antivirus and other programs failing to update, check the date.
Let me know if anything doesn’t work right.
I’m also trying a different comment/tb spam blocker; hopefully it works ok.
On Friday I finally received my two posters from xkcd.
Respectively, they are posters of these two comics. I’m debating if either of them will be placed in my office when we finally move out of Saddlemire and into Conklin. Since I already have a color copy of the Map of the Internet at work, the Online Communities may get the honor. Then again, that’s if I have room.
So at work I finally got around to upgrading my computer to Vista. Since this was a fresh install, I had to install my normal apps (Firefox, PSPad, Pidgin, OpenOffice, etc) and if need be, copy over any application data from the old XP hard drive. I also had to troubleshoot a number of issues, the biggest of which happened to be with IE7 and Kronos Workforce Central. When I was getting Firefox ready, I went and got the latest JRE (1.6) and installed that. When I logged into Kronos, I could do some searches, but I couldn’t look at any time cards. I tried declaring Kronos as an intranet site, but that didn’t appear to do anything. That link, of course, is from the Division of Information Technology Help Desk at the University of Wisconsin, and that helped point me in the right direction, as it mentioned needing to use JRE 1.5.11, or a version like that, and that eventually made me find a page where I could get JRE 1.5.11. After doing that, I was actually able to check time cards for my employees.
I’ve also encountered issues with the university’s installer for McAfee VirusScan coming with the Access Protection feature enabled by default. I see the wisdom behind this, as it’ll make sure quite a number of things do not happen to a student’s machine when they are clicking on phishing e-mails or Trojan-dropping sites, but at the same time, it makes trying to get the operating system and applications to remember a setting that is typically written to the registry from taking effect. If you have ever used Spybot’s TeaTimer setting, it was kind of like that, but that at least would ask you about the settings that were trying to be made; the issue jsut came from the typical number of settings that were being made. Again, I see the reason as to why, but it can be a pain. Speaking of Spybot, that’s an example of something that it was blocking: the immunization of IE from Spybot. That’s too bad, because for those that use IE still it offers another form of protection by adding a number of sites to an “always block” list in IE.
Aside from that, the installation and configuring of Vista hasn’t been bad at all, and I’ve been pleased with the UI so far. This is not the first time I’ve used Vista, but just the first time I’ve used it for an extended period that is probably going to become permanent.
Reading this chat conversation between two chat bots, which reads like a train of thought out of Mimsy Were the Borogoves by Lewis Padgett. Amusingly enough, that makes some sense, as part of Mimsy used references to Alice “In Wonderland” Liddell and the (nonsense) poem Jabberwocky as part of it’s plot, which was from the novel Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There. The chat also seemed to read like a conversation by two people with ADD, who were constantly getting side tracked by one thing or another, but that too, seems fitting.
This article, since it mentioned chatbots, reminded me of a post from BlogCadre titled How I failed the Turing test; always a great read.
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