I discovered a problem on a Gateway laptop running Windows XP. As soon as I would log in, the laptop would automatically log me off. It did it in Safe Mode and normal mode.
I ended up discovering the Userinit.exe file was completely missing from the c:\windows\system32 directory. I eventually found out the machine had a virus which probably infected the userinit.exe file and antivirus removed it.
All I ended up doing was I popped in the Windows XP CD. Started recovery mode and copied the file back to the c:\windows\system32 directory by doing:
cd d:\i386 (cd rom drive)
expand userinit.ex_ c:\windows\system32\userinit.exe
If the userinit.exe file already exists
There could be a situation where the userinit.exe file is already in c:\windows\system32. If that is the case then there is probably a messed up registry key. The key can be found in:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon. The key is named Userinit and should contain this value:
c:\windows\system32\Userinit.exe,
Yes the comma at the end should be there. The easiest way to access the registry without being able to access the system is to use BartPE. Once you boot off a BartPE CD, you can load the SOFTWARE hive right into the registry and edit it.
I have been looking for a good project management tool for web designers/developers. I have tested Basecamp and actually have a full license for Active Collab. I still wasn’t happy with either of them. They give you a lot of customization and you can use them however you want but for some reason they just seem clunky and slow to me. So I have been on the search for a different project management tool and I think I have found one.
One thing I noticed with most online project management tools was that all of their user interface’s were very similar. Well 5pm took a different approach:
Everything is very neatly laid out. The left side is a list of your projects and tasks and the right side is the activity window. It is not cluttered with a lot of unnecessary stuff that you don’t use. For each task you can add a message, file or a progress note. Once thing that killed me about ActiveCollab is how slow it was. 5pm is very fast, it is all based on ajax and everything loads very quickly.
Even though it is a simple, slick interface there are still tons of features. You can email tasks or projects right from your email client to it. You can also integrate the project information into your desktop calendar.
It is a very simple project management tool and I suggest if you are in the market for one to give it a try. They have a free demo and if you decide to try it beyond the demo they give you a free 14 day account without the need of entering a credit card.
If you’ve ever had to write regular expressions you know how much of a pain they can be. Here’s a great guide that has tons of links, tutorials and examples of regular expressions:
A few days ago at Google I/O 2009, Google announced a new product named Google Wave. It is a new service that combines email, instant messaging and forums all into one. It provides real time collaboration on documents. Google claims that email is antiquated, which I agree with, and we need something new to replace it. The problem with email is you have so many copies of the email, everything you reply to an email there is at least 2 different copies. This is where Google Wave comes in, when you reply to a Google Wave it stays as one wave.
Another very cool thing about it is you can see what the other person is typing as they are replying in real time which turns into almost a chat like feature. Of course you can turn it off you don’t like people watching you as you type. This feature comes in really handy when you are collaborating on a document, you can have many people making changes to the same document at the same time.
It can actually do so many different things that it’s crazy. You can integrate it into anything, your blog, forums, etc. Another cool thing is you can set up your own Google Wave server and brand it with your companies name.
The website integration is insane, say you make a comment on some one’s website that has Google Wave integrated. You can go to your Google Wave account and view the comment and see other threaded comments. So you will be able to manage and view all of your comments/posts that you make on every website in one place.
If you have the time I would suggest watching this whole video. It is long, about 1h 20m but it is worth if it you care about upcoming technology.
Cymbolism is a cool website you can use to see what colors people associate with different words. It works based on user votes; on Cymbolism’s home page they will display a word and displays colors next to it. Users choose the color that they associate the word to.
What is cool about this website is when you view the colors that people associate to words, such as the word calming, you can see the colors from different recent time periods.
A cool use for this would be choosing paint colors. You can see what colors people associate with a calming room or a fun room.
