Microsoft OneNote Journal not syncing

Sync Issue with OneNote

For a week or 2 now my Work notebook has not been syncing to my SkyDrive.  I have been fixing any page sync errors between all of my devices one at a time.  This has yeilded no success yet.  Then I came across this article from Microsoft for the error being reported.

The error message is:
We're sorry, something went wrong during sync. We'll try again later. (Error code: 0xE000005E)

Clicking on Get Help sent me here:
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/support/resolve-the-0xe000005e-referencedrevisionnotfound-error-in-onenote-HA104010799.aspx

One thing to note is don't forget to permanently delete the notebook out of the OneNote Recycle Bin.  If you don't the sync will still fail.

After that is done if you want the notebook to have the same name as the original just rename it.

Team Unity

There was an issue at work one day were people were ratting on each other and snapping at one another.  I pulled out some things I learned over the years to share with that team.  I hope they felt empowered and accountable for building the team.

• Solve issues within the team.  Involve management as little as possible.
• Talk to someone if something is bothering you.  Don't internalize it and start snapping at your coworkers.  Once the damage is done it is hard to repair.  This takes courage but you will feel better for having done it.
• If you have made mistakes apologize for them.  It helps to heal the damage you have done.
• Rats are vermin that spread disease.  Don't be a rat or you will most likely find yourself avoided by your team.
• Reputations proceed people.  Make sure yours is a good one.
• Present as a unified team.  Come up with recommendations as a team and present them.  If everyone goes and give there opinions on how something should be done it makes it harder for the decision maker to make a good decision.  There are always many ways to do the same thing in the IT world and the fewer the choices the easier it is to decide and get working.
• United we stand divided we fall in the corporate world means everyone must act professional.  Teams that get along are more productive and makes the grind more enjoyable.  When there is a negative atmosphere people tend to leave the company and then the few are left with much responsibility. 

DNSCMD Examples

Any of these commands can be combined and put in batch file or run separately.  Take note that they need to be run in a certain order if setting up from scratch.  The order would be zones and then records in the zone.  Note the parameter flags are case sensitive (ZoneAdd not zoneadd).

Records can be deleted instead of added by replacing Add with Delete, example /ZoneDelete

Add a zone:

dnscmd /ZoneAdd rasky.com /DSPrimary /DP /forest

Add an A record:

dnscmd /RecordAdd rasky.com test A 10.200.122.139
dnscmd /RecordAdd rasky.com @ A 10.200.122.140 (parent record)

Add a CNAME (alias):

dnscmd /RecordAdd rasky.com aliasname CNAME realname.rasky.com

If You Want to be a Good Manager

In my life as a corporate worker I have noticed some bad habits from different managers.  For those who want to be good managers and lead their teams to success you should avoid doing things on this list.

Encourage not Discourage

We had a guy who rarely stepped out of his comfort zone.  If there were any decisions to be made he would ask someone else to make them for him.  One day he surprised us all and made a decision and moved forward with the work.  If decisions cannot be made work stops and you have idle unproductive people staring at their screens.  I told him good job for doing so and keep it up.  Sometime later the same day our manager dinged him for making that decision.  He was upset by this and told me so.  I told him not to worry about it but the damage was done.  What little confidence he had gained earlier in the day was gone (and so was any future productivity gains).  Was the decision right or wrong?  It doesn't matter. 

Trust Me

I was in a meeting with my manager and relayed some feedback to him the team had come to me with.  My manager asked me who said it.  I said I wasn't going to tell him because it wasn't relevant.  He again asked me.  I stood my ground.  Boy was that uncomfortable.  If you want trust and respect you just don't do those things to your employees.  I always scold my kids for snitching on each other.  It breeds distrust and a hostile work environment.

Lying

Ever sit in a meeting and listen to management out right lie to their management.  Whether it is dates on a project or the quality of their software I have heard it all.  I don't know what compels them to do so.  Wouldn't it be best for the company to be forthright and honest.  Even if your boss gets upset at least you can then work together to set things right.  If your going to be late on a project isn't it best to find that out early and work to mitigate things and make sure it still succeeds.  Why wait until the end and ask for more time.  It makes you look bad, brings the morale down of the team and just doesn't make any sense.

Yelling

I once heard a quote that cowards yell the loudest.  I have heard many a manager yell at other managers.  Even had a boss once tell me why she was crying that he was throwing chairs around a room why he yelled at the managers.  Another time another manager was yelling and my coworker said he heard it in the meeting room next door.  Regardless in a workplace we should all be acting like adults and speaking civilly.  Sure you might be upset and need to let some steam out.  Just do it in the gym or outside.  When your coworkers hear you it again lowers morale and you lose respect.  Who wants to work for a guy that might yell at you if you make a mistake.

Take responsibility for your actions and treat others with respect.  That is how you will build a strong team and be a successful manager.

Work Life Balance

When your resource has been up working until 5 AM on an deploy or issue tell him to take the next day off before he logs off.  Don't wait until he gets up the next morning to get to work on time.

Rasky's Quotes

Some quotes I have come up with over the years.

• I don't want to be a fireman anymore.  I want to be Smokey the Bear (regarding working in the IT industry.)
• By accepting the faults in others you learn to accept your own faults.
• Don't just people on yesterday.  Instead inspire them on what they could be tomorrow.
• Happiness isn't dictated by circumstance but by attitude.
• My calling in life is to help the Earth and its people.  Next?
• A technology company doesn't outsource it's technology.  It embraces every facet of it.  This opportunity is then given to it's employees.
• Every task every day matters.  You just have to keep the right mindset.  Everything you do everyday should tie back to your career goals
• Every mother is an artist. Her children the canvas.
• A leader does not turn around a failing company by going to meetings.  A leader is on the floor driving the change he or she wants to see.
• Less Meetings, more doing.  That is my home depot (repo).
• It is easy to offer criticism but more rewarding to understand (not sure if this has been said before by another person)

Configuring Network Connections in Windows 2008R2

A project I have been working on required us to add another NIC to all of our servers.  We didn't want production traffic accidentally being routed over that subnet.  Below are the steps we took on the servers to prevent it.

• Hit the Windows+R keys simultaneously
• Type control netconnections and then click OK
  
• Right Click on the connection you don't want traffic to go over and select Properties.
• Uncheck all item except for Internet Protocol Version 4 (TCP/IPv4).

• Right click on IPv4 and select Properties and set a static IP address for the new subnet.  In the picture below the IP is just an example (shouldn't use .1 as that is normally for your gateway)
• Click on Advanced and select the DNS tab.  Uncheck Register this connection's addresses in DNS.  Click on OK and OK to save the changes
  
• Right click on the connection we just changed and select Rename
• Pick a descriptive name for this connection
• While in the Network Connections Window hit the Alt key.  You should see a hidden menu pop up at the top.  Click on Advanced à Advanced Settings
  
• Change the connection you renamed to be below the other connections.
  
• Click on OK to save the changes.
• Next we want to make sure another default gateway wasn't created when the NIC was added.  Open up a command prompt and type in route print
• If there are more than one default gateways (0.0.0.0) and one of them is the new subnet you will need to remove it.
• route DELETE 0.0.0.0 255.255.255.0 10.10.10.1 servername

Finding URLs in Text Files with PowerShell

Allot of our connection string information is stored in our web.config files.  For a project I am working on I was asked to create a list of all of these.  This will help us determine what third parties we interface with so a new firewall can be setup accurately.  Below is the PowerShell script I came up with the help of others posts on the web.  I haven't gotten the syntax highlighter working yet on my blog but hopefully soon (I will come back and edit this post).

########################################################### 
# AUTHOR  : Mark Rainey  
# DATE    : 2013-03-13  
# COMMENT : Reads in a list of servers and searches
# the E:\Live folder for config files.  When it finds
# them it searches for anything starting with 3 or more
# letters (tcp or http) followed by a colon and \\
###########################################################

#ERROR REPORTING ALL
Set-StrictMode -Version latest

$scriptpath = Split-Path -parent $MyInvocation.MyCommand.Definition
# A friend at work helped me get this to output to Excel
$outputFile = $scriptpath + "\output.xls"
# This is a file with a FQDN of each server on a new line
$serverList = $scriptpath + "\serverlist.txt"
# Load server list
$servers = Get-Content $serverList
# Hash of all results from all files
$Results=@{}

# Find the string and save it to a file
Function getStringMatch
{
 Try { 
  # Loop through all servers
  Foreach ($server In $servers) {
      # Set UNC Path to files for this server
   #The path can be anywhere on your servers you want to search
   $path     = "\\$server\c$\temp\test\"
   #Get list of files
   $files    = Get-Childitem $path *.config -Recurse | Where-Object { !($_.psiscontainer) }
   # Loop through the server and search all config files under E:\Live
      $matches = New-Object System.Collections.ArrayList
   $matches.clear()
   Foreach ($file In $files)
      {
    $fullFileName = $file.FullName 
    # regular expression for a URL format
    $regex = '([a-zA-Z]{3,})://([\w-]+\.)+[\w-]+(/[\w- ./?%&=]*)*?'
                # Find all matches in current file and add the Value for each one to an array
    select-string -Path $fullFileName -Pattern $regex -AllMatches | % { $_.Matches } | % {
     $matches.add($_.Value)
    }
      } 
   # Remove duplicates
            $matches = $matches | select -Unique 
   # Add the array for this server to the Results hash
   $Results.Add($server,$matches)
  }
  
  #export to Excel workbook
  $excel = New-Object -comobject Excel.Application
  $excel.Visible = $True
  $workbook = $excel.Workbooks.Add()
  $ws = $workbook.Worksheets.Item(1)
  $column = 1

  foreach ($Result in $Results.GetEnumerator()){
   $row = 1
   $ws.Cells.Item($row,$column) = $Result.Key; 
   $row++
   if ($Result.Value -ne $null){
    if ($Result.Value.Count -gt 1){
     for ($i=0; $i -le $Result.Value.Count; $i++ ) {
      $ws.Cells.Item($row,$column) = $Result.Value[$i]
      $row++
     }
    }
    else {
     $ws.Cells.Item($row,$column) = $Result.Value
    }
   }
   $column++
  }
  $workbook.SaveAs($outputFile)
  
  Release-Ref $ws
  Release-Ref $workbook
  $excel.Quit()
  Release-Ref $excel
 }
    Catch [System.Management.Automation.ActionPreferenceStopException]{
  Write-host "$output is locked see error:`n $_"
 } 
 Catch {
  Write-host "Something failed $_"
 }
 Finally {
  "Finished"
 }
}

# Release Reference used in Office coms
Function Release-Ref ($ref) {
 [System.Runtime.InteropServices.Marshal]::ReleaseComObject($ref)
 [System.GC]::Collect() 
 [System.GC]::WaitForPendingFinalizers()
}
 
getStringMatch

BuildMaster, Tool or Person?

BuildMaster, Tool or Person?

What is it?

Well there is such a thing at companies and there is a book by a similar name.  However what I am referring to is a tool called BuildMaster that is developed by Inedo in Berea, Ohio.

Why use it?

Tools are made for a reason.  They make life simpler.  My computer is a tool.  My car is a tool.  BuildMaster was able to take a manual task that 2 guys had to do and reduce the time by 75% and reduce errors by almost 100%.  So unlike my car which only looses value this tool paid for itself in 1 year.

My Interview

I did an interview of my experiences with the tool and the company.  They have it posted as one of their case studies.  Here it is.  I had a good time chatting with them and hope that people considering it get something useful out of it.

Candy Sale

Understanding Subcultures

I have been selling candy bars at work for a few weeks now to help raise money for my kids religious education classes.  A bar or two a day was all I sold to my fellow IT co workers.  I consider my cubicle hi traffic compared to most as people stop by to ask various questions about our complex environment.  It would seem what I consider allot of traffic is nothing to the other cultures in my building.

A friend in customer care was willing to sell some candy for me this afternoon.  In a matter of 4 hours the person had sold 8 bars.  Is it gender of the group or social inclination?  There is allot more conversations going on in that area and in general people talk to each other more in person.  Down on my floor which is mostly IT, my fellow geeks have there heads down working.  If they need to talk they prefer emails and instant messaging.

Which is better?

I have always wondered which culture accomplishes more.  Those that talk allot with each other and discuss things or those who work with their heads down focused and leave the communication to their leaders.

****Update on 3/7****
I guess it is the person not the culture??  Yesterday the person was in training but the bars were at the desk.  0 bars sold.

Things you might not want to say in an interview

Don't say these things

• "co-worker of the female persuasion"
• When asked about motivating/persuading resources; "I would trick them"
• When interviewing for an IT job you tell the interviewer that you like the business side of things

As I get others I will post them.  

My Tips

• In general don't say negative things about previous co-workers or companies.  Talk about the challenges you faced and how you improved things.  
• Make sure you cut your fingernails if you are a man.  
• When asked to give a specific answer make sure you do.  
• Don't go on for 10 minutes about how one of your co-workers did something.  I want to know what you did.
• When asked a question don't start off your reply with a joke.  My goal is to find out if you are the right fit for the job and not how funny you are.

The Triangle of Power

One of my former managers (who was also a good mentor) taught me a little about resource management.  I eventually phrased what he taught me as the Triangle of Power.  A triangle has no weak point or side.  The same theory applies for having a set of 3 resources that know how to do a specific task.  In my realm of Configuration Management and Infrastructure that would apply to having 3 DBA's, 3 Configuration Engineers and 3 System Engineers/IT Administrators.  Titles don't have to always match the skill or task.

Why?  Well for starters if you have valuable IT employees then they will be courted by numerous headhunters and recruiters.  Turnover whether from recruitment or from those looking to leave a company are generally higher in IT than other fields.  If one person leaves the company then at least you have 2 other resources to pick up the load.  If you only had 2 and 1 left you are more likely to burn out the last man standing.

This could also be seen as having a business continuity plan for your resources.  As people leave the company or even go on vacation the company doesn't stop.  As a good leader part of your job is to ensure that the services you provide don't take a hit.  There was a gentleman who left a company I have worked for.  He specialized in a technology and was the only one trained to do the job  He had a back log of work with no end in site.  When he left the work stopped and there were a 'few' unhappy customers.  Management scrambled to fill the void that should not have been there in the first place.

I understand that sometimes smaller companies have budget constraints.  When that is a case you should look at hiring IT generalists that can do a little of everything.  They won't be as good as a specialist or get things done as fast but tasks will at least get done.  Better to always be moving forward than to be stopped dead in your (companies) tracks.

Which Tax Software

Being a former employee of Intuit I would always buy Turbo Tax each year.  My information would easily transfer from one year to the next and I never had any problems with the software.  This year I have been tracking the price of it and various sales and the price stayed relatively high.  I realize I can deduct the software but I don't like paying for something when I can achieve the same results for less.  All I want is software with free Federal e-file and the State (to mail in).  Plus I have investments so that usually lands in the  deluxe additions.  Shopped around and ended up going with H&R Block on Amazon.  It was almost half the cost.  For that I figured I would give it a shot.  I will post some updates on how it compares after I get my taxes done.

Redirecting your domain while using HTTPS

Problem

We have a client that wants to use their own domain for one of our products.  I was asked if this was possible given our setup of our site.  I have in our F5 LTM setup to do a permanent redirect (301) to HTTPS from HTTP.  For whatever reason the whole site is encrypted even though you haven't logged in yet to it.  This will probably put load on my LTM but that is for another day.  Most domain offering sites have 3 types you can pick from.  They also asked if they could just do a CNAME.

1. Permanent redirect - 301
2. Temporary redirect - 302
3. Masked forwarding

Permanent redirect - 301

I started off by refreshing what the difference is between #1 and #2.  Found a good article on www.stepforth.com.  A permanent redirect works but that is not what the client wants.  They want to drive traffic and business to their domain.

CName

First I created a new zone, customer.com and set a CNAME for www.customer.com to point to myapp.com.  Going to https://www.customer.com did not work.  Got the usually security message in Chrome since the domain name, www.customer.com, doesn't match the certificate, *.myapp.com, I have in the LTM where I am offloading SSL.

Temporary redirect - 302

Same as a permanent with the domain changing over to my companies.  Not what the client wanted either.

Masked Forwarding

Now reading up on this it looks about as promising as you can get.  I talked to a UI developer friend of mine and basically this is just an iFrame with no border.  You won't be able to book mark the page and the back and forward browser buttons won't work.  You have to right click in the iFrame and do Back/Forward that way.  So this is the option we ended up recommending to our client.

Teamwork or not?

When we asked for help with a project only one leader helped us.  Is it fair for the rest to be upset to the point of yelling when things didn't go as expected?  The old saying we hear at weddings probably applies to this scenario.  Speak now or for ever hold your peace!

Microsoft Visio 2010 keeps crashing

I was trying to create a drawing on my new work laptop today and Visio 2010 kept crashing.  A quick search led me to instructions on how to disable the dreaded Send to Bluetooth Add-In.  That worked!  Below are some screenshots I took.

Setting up a build machine

We are setting up a build machine to do CI (Continuous Integration) builds using BuildMaster.  Some of our code is 4.0 .NET and we kept getting MSBuild errors.  Installed various SDK's, etc. with no luck.  Turns out Microsoft still hasn't fixed this as I saw it many years ago with other frameworks.
The error is:
C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v4.0.30319\Microsoft.Common.targets(2836,5): error MSB3086: Task could not find "AL.exe" using the SdkToolsPath "" or the registry key "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v8.0A\WinSDK-NetFx40Tools-x86". Make sure the SdkToolsPath is set and the tool exists in the correct processor specific location under the SdkToolsPath and that the Microsoft Windows SDK is installed
A coworker of mine did some digging and found a cleaner way to get this setup instead of hacking the registry by hand.

Changing sdk version

1. Go to "Microsoft Windows SDK v7.1" from the Start menu
2. Select "Windows SDK 7.1 Command Prompt" and enter
3. > cd Setup
4. > WindowsSdkVer -version:v7.1

Career Tips from a friend

I love coffee!

Career guidance from a friend and mentor:

1. Always keep your resume up to date.
2. Treat everyday at work like your first and possibly last day (he didn't keep any personal items at work).  I do as my family keeps me going.
3. Even if you aren't really looking try to do a couple of interviews a year.  So that when you are looking for a job you aren't as nervous and have lots of practice.
4. You leave companies not jobs.
5. Do your best everyday even if those around you aren't.

I know there are a few more lurking in my memory.  If they come up I will do tips #2.  Additional tips always welcome.

When a server dies

There are many companies out there with old servers still chugging along.  If left long enough and with enough turnover of IT staff they sometime are forgotten.  Some things to keep in mind when one day your server decides to stop working.

• When your hosting provider is bought by another company make sure you contact the new regional representative and go over the NEW service agreement with them
• Make sure it clearly states who manages what and who is responsible for addressing hardware failures
• Refresh your hardware every 3 years or when the model is older then 3 generations back.  That is called budgeting
• Don't have single points of failure like 1 server
• Consider virtualizing servers
• Have a plan for when a server goes down.  Random calls to the entire team in the middle of the night usually doesn't go over very well
• Last but not least thank the guys who are up all night getting it fixed

Not sure why a pumpkin is in the picture  I found

Motivation

Step up to the plate, if not move aside because I want to play.  - Rasky

Prioritizing Life

I can't recall where I picked this up but I have tried to live by it for a few years now.  I believe it has helped me be a better person and yes even a more productive person.  I will explain more later.  Here it is:

1. God
2. Spouse
3. Family
4. Work
5. Friends

So the more I choose to do things for #1 the better my relationship with #2.  Mostly because love, honor, respect, caring, etc all lead to a better marriage.  Now if my wife is happy that means I am happy.  When we are both happy then spending time with your family becomes more enjoyable.  Once all that is in place it makes dealing with the stress of work easier to deal with.  I also find when I am not worrying about what is going on in my home life as much I get more work done (focus).  When your life is good then you have more energy  to share with your friends.

I am not saying any of this is easy or that I follow it everyday.  Everyone has bad days and sometimes I fail on #1-5.  But I just go to sleep at night and start the next day trying my best.