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If you’ve experienced the DW024 error when attempting to install Adobe Photoshop or one of the Adobe Creative Suites, then the following may help. The bottom line: Uninstall Adobe Reader. First, here’s an example of the error message: WARNING: DW024: The payload: Adobe Photoshop CS5.1 Core {08EF22BC-43B2-4B4E-BA12-52B18F418F38} requires a UI parent with following specification: Family: Photoshop Product Name: Adobe Photoshop CS5.1 Core_x64 This parent relationship is not satisfied, because this payload is not present in this session. There’s also DW033 and DW036 variations. I had this error when […]

Here’s the presentations from our annual SBTUG smackdown event held tonight. Most of the presenters have sent me their presentations, only a few left to add. I wanted to say a big thank you to Nick Ellery (@nickellery) from Microsoft for looking after us on the night. Not only did Microsoft supply the venue (which they do every month) and free parking, but they also sponsored the night and supplied pizza and drinks for all the attendees (approx 60 people). Thanks! As an aside: Without launching into a fanboi speech too much, I have to say how impressed I’ve been with Microsoft and their support of the developer community. I’ve been […]

Good leaders make tough decisions. They may not always be the right decisions, and usually not everyone likes those decisions, but they have to be made. Ed Bott’s post – Good Microsoft versus Bad Microsoft – highlighted this interesting piece from the Wall Street Journal. It’s about how Microsoft decided to kill off some of the planned privacy bits (in particular what was enabled by default) in Internet Explorer 8 coming up to its release in 2009. It’s interesting for a number of reasons: It highlights how two divisions within the company had different ideas about where IE should go, and how the dollar eventually won out. […]

Here's an email our Sys Admin received in reply to a query to a vendor whose product wasn't working on our servers… It made our decision to select a new vendor pretty easy. Technorati Tags: Customer service

Scott Guthrie has noted the hot fix fixes… Note, it is a huge download – coming in at a whopping 2.6 MB See, it's not that hard to get fixes out. I said yesterday that I was impressed with how intent on producing high quality software Microsoft has been of late. This is yet another example. I need to be careful or I'll start getting labelled a fanboy. Technorati Tags: Visual Studio 2008, Hot fix for ASP.NET development

The always excellent, helpful and well researched Virtual Hosting Blog has another ripper with this post on Tips to Defeat Content Thieves. Technorati Tags: Content, Protection

Even though their ad share slipped ever so slightly in quarter 4 last year, they still pulled in over $25B. I can't believe people click on so many ads. I mean, who is actually clicking on these damn things? I noted before that I don't even see the ads, but it seems many do. I'm so stunned by this that you may have noticed I've started experimenting with AdSense on my various sites and blog feeds. (Apologies for the visual pollution – I intend to pull them off after a few weeks). Just what motivates people to read and click ads? I can't believe it. I understand ads in Search result pages […]

I've always thought Real Estate agents are more of a hindrance than a help, and wondered why on earth we need them? There's plenty of problems with the whole 'I'll sell your house for you, charge you, but maybe not work in your best interest if it suits me to just sell it to someone so I can get my commission' business model.After all, it is easy to find properties on the web, and the legal transactions required should be little more than a tick the box with your conveyancer. So, why the $,000s in fees?Redfin has the right approach. They are not new, but they are keen on taking out the unnecessary […]

Yep. There's a market for it for sure. Culinary Seductions. (via TechCrunch) Technorati Tags: Cooking for Geeks

Michele and I love Audible. We buys stacks of audio books from them. The interface is intuitive, they have good bargains, and if you are clever (like my wife is) you can time your purchases for maximum buying power (look into how they do their credit system – trust me, you can save a lot).So, I'm pleased on one hand to hear that they have been bought by Amazon (another of my favourite online retailers). On the other, I just hope they don't change anything. Audible is great how it is. I'm happy for it to be improved further, but please don't clutter up their interface (or even worse – change their credit system). […]

Chris Williams has 21 thoughts on running a user group. All good ideas, but 10 and 12 struck home with me. One thing we need to realise is that sometimes people can't make it and you'll have a very small group – don't take it personally (as I usually do and get all concerned). More importantly (point 12) respect the time of your members. Don't overdo it, and make sure you don't have them hanging around wasting time. I have now taken to starting on time as much as possible, but having pizza half way through – this also helps with catering since you can order the pizza based on how many have turned […]

I continue to be stunned by Google's reach. Whilst I'm not one of the 'be wary of Google having too much power' brigade I can see how incredible their power is becoming (trust is a different matter). Name me an area they aren't tapping into…
This latest news is exciting for its sheer geekiness factor. It is suggested they will be making 120 terabytes of data available initially, including Hubble Space Telescope imagery. 120TB isn't much in the scheme of things of course (after all most of us probably have a TB or two at home just for our personal storage), but having even only a few terabytes of just Hubble photos, all searchable is […]

Good to see some more investment by Google in targeting climate change and other environmental initiatives. (via TechCrunch) Technorati Tags: Google.org

Just in case you missed the announcement last week, you can now get FeedDemon for free. Thanks Newsgator. I've been using FeedDemon for over 3 years now and swear by it. Technorati Tags: FeedDemon, Free stuff

TechCrunch has the details on Sun buying MySQL. The official Sun announcement is here. Technorati Tags: Sun Microsystems, MySQL

uTest claims to be a community of software testing service providers. Need some QA done on your applications? Perhaps this is part of your answer. How do I know this is going to be big? Easy, they have their own uTest Debit Card. (via TechCrunch) Technorati Tags: uTest, Testing, QA