IE 11 breaks Outlook Web Access "full" mode (not "light" mode).

To fix this, in IE:

Go to Tools/Compatibility View Settings
Add your OWA domain (mail.widgetsrus.com) to the "compatibility view" list.
Click Close
Restart IE (just to be safe).
Full OWA mode should work.

I figured this out thanks to a post on TheRegister.co.uk

Another recent tech annoyance and fix that I've come across and that I thought was worth sharing. (Also, well done, Microsoft...breaking your own product within your own product!)

So my RAIDed Biostar TA790GXE 128M v5.x motherboard had a hard drive fail. No big deal. I've had dozens of drives fail over the years. Sadly, the RAID recovery process for this board is completely un-intuitive and, shall we say, stupid. So in an effort to save future users from the frustrations I experienced, here's what I learned...

Once you replace your failed hard drive, you do not, as one would expect, rebuild the array from the RAID BIOS. You actually have to boot in to Windows and run AMD's RaidXpert software which, after a fair amount of digging, I found here:

http://www2.ati.com/drivers/raidxpert_3.3.1540.19.exe

User manual available here.

Once you download and install the software, you use a browser-based manager to rebuild the array. IIRC, the address for the browser interface is

http://localhost:25902/amd/screen.jsp

Once in the manager, rebuilding the array isn't too convoluted. I'll let you take over from here. Any questions, feel free to email me and I'll try to help. Oh, and I originally untangled the ATI browser RAID manager mess thanks to a post on the anandtech forums. Original thread here.

And finally, yes, I realize this blog has sat idle for a year. Maybe two. I'm going to try and start posting more stuff there that might actually come in handy for future people Googling for solutions to problems I've faced. Welcome :)

Drink up!

It's like a birthday...only better!

Happy Repeal Day!!

Hell is...

Insomnia + Thomas the Tank Engine theme song stuck in your head on infinite loop since 4am. (At the tone, the time will be 5:07am...beep.)

Pulse check

*tap tap tap*. Is this thing still on?

Yeah, yeah, I know. This blog has been offline for months. Blame the summer doldrums, blame blogger laziness, blame the new baby, blame other recent time-wasting discoveries like Facebook and Twitter (of which interest in the latter is waning), blame lack of interesting content. Whatever.

Lucky for you, dear reader, there are some things that are just stupid enough to spur me to action (and rip me from my semi-retirement).

Courtesy of "The Fresh Market", a store proving that the road to hell is paved with good intentions^[1][2][3]. I present an attempt at raising funds to fight diabetes by selling you foods most likely to give you diabetes. Well planned.

(Click the image for a slightly larger, more readable version.)

[2] Did I ever mention how much I liked superscript? Well, I do.
[3] A lot.

High-wheel cycling...ur doing it rong.

One of my hardware vendors constantly sends me classic photo post cards. This one arrived today. I thought it was worth sharing.



The back of the post card reads "Perilous ride down Capitol Building steps, Washington DC c. 1910. Photographer unidentified". So I assume it's in the public domain.

(I originally posted this on Bikecentric, but I liked the image so much, I wanted to post it here as well.)