2013

Social Commentary, Sustainability in Eastern Kentucky

Appalachia 2050

I just had the pleasure of finishing a documentary by Prestonsburg native Ralph B. Davis entitled Appalachia 2050. Davis interviews several influential and educated people in Eastern KY, asking them what needs to be done so that the region will have overcome the issues still present after nearly fifty years of LBJ’s War on Poverty.

The consensus seems to be that the War on Poverty has indeed improved the well-being of most of Eastern KY’s poor, however, we are far from where the program hoped we would be compared to the current national averages in areas such as education, health, job opportunities, and economic growth. Nearly all participants believe that cooperation within the region is the number one key to helping the area thrive by 2050.

I encourage anyone who is interested in the future of Eastern KY to watch this documentary. I also encourage Mr. Davis to keep giving us these thought-provoking pieces because they create useful conduits for dialog. I cannot wait to see his next project, whatever that may be.

Microsoft Windows

A Fix for Windows Installer Error 3728

If you ever get a Windows Installer Error Code 3728, I found a really easy fix that might work for you. ( I say might because I’ve had many problems with MSI installers over the years and it has normally been a lot of trial-and-error to fix them.) As with any fix I post, follow these steps at your own risk. There’s no way I can know every single configuration out there and your mileage may vary.

  1. Click Start, type regedit.exe, and press enter (Give the ok for Administrator privileges if you have UAC enabled).
  2. Right-click on the HKEY_CURRENT_USER hive and choose Find…
  3. Type (or copy and paste) this key into the find box: {B54F3741-5B07-11cf-A4B0-00AA004A55E8}
  4. If this key is found anywhere in the HKEY_CURRENT_USER hive, right-click and Delete it. Very, very important: Do not delete this key from any hive other than HKEY_CURRENT_USER. Doing so may seriously mess up your system.
  5. Re-run whatever you were trying to install that was failing. If the install goes through, you’re good to go. If not, keep Googling because that’s all the medicine I’ve got for Error Code 3728 :)

As far as why this error occurs, it has something to do with the TrustedInstaller account permissions. The various sources I read to help me fix this issue had a lot of conflicting information and I managed to piece this fix together from bits and pieces of a few of them. I hope this helps!

 

Microsoft Windows, Tech Tips

Get Rid of Text Formatting (in Almost Any Program)

Have you ever copied some text from a webpage (or any formatted program, for that matter) and pasted it into another program only to find that all the fancy formatting simply doesn’t look right in its new location? If I had a nickel for every time that copy and paste between program hasn’t played nice, I’d be a wealthy man…Anyway, I’ve always relied on a trick that most people don’t think about when I want just text and nothing else:

  1. Copy your text from your source (no matter how heavily formatted it may be)
  2. Open Notepad
  3. Paste the text into Notepad
  4. Highlight and copy the text from Notepad
  5. Paste your (unformatted text) into the destination program.

This tip isn’t rocket science, but a lot of people have never thought if it.

Tech Tips

Google Search Tricks

Google is, in my opinion, the search engine that all other search engines aspire to be. You throw in almost any half-way coherent word or phrase and Google will try its best to show you everything it thinks relates to that phrase.

The cool thing is that there are many ways to help Google find exactly what you want. Usually, it’s just a matter of using a few symbols or prefix words to get more of what you want. Check out the examples below:

Search a Specific Site for Some Words or a Phrase

To search a specific site, use:

site:wired.com wearable computer

In this example, we are searching the website wired.com for the terms wearable computer. Just put the URL of a site you want to search after site: and you’re good to go.  (Make sure not to put a space between the colon and the URL or it won’t work.)

Search for Synonyms of a Word

Putting the ~ character (called a tilde or colloquially a squiggly) before a word causes Google to search for that word and its synonyms. For example, searching for

~colleges in canada

brings up sites that are about colleges, schools, universities, and education in Canada. All those words are synonyms (or have ties to the meaning) of college.

Use Double Quote to Search for Exact Phrases

If you know you’re looking for an exact phrase, you can include the phrase in double quotes, like:

“green turtle”

If you’re searching for a common phrase, most of the time, this won’t alter your results much because Google usually tries to go with exact phrases when it can, however, it can sometimes help you get more specific. (By the way, if you do a Google search for “green turtle” with and without quotes, the results are a little different.)

Exclude Sites that Contain Certain Words

It’s possible to exclude sites that have certain words in the results. Simply put a minus sign (-) in front of any word you want to make sure DOES NOT appear in the resulting pages. (This next example is liable to get me hurt but…) For example, if I wanted to search for wildcats but didn’t want any pages that mention Kentucky in them, I could type:

wildcats -Kentucky

(If you do search for wildcats without excluding Kentucky, Kentucky Wildcats is the fifth listing. If you do it with -Kentucky, you get much different listings.)

Search for Specific Filetypes

If you know the type of file you are looking for, you can use filetype: followed by the extention you are looking for. For example,

filetype:jpg woodrow wilson

would find only jpg files with the words woodrow wilson in the filename. (Note: This usually doesn’t work with the extensions: mp3, avi, mov, or mp4 because Google got in hot water back in the day for making it so easy to search for pirated media files.)

Look for Definitions of a Word or Phrase

To look for definitions, type define: and the word or phrase you are interested in. So, a search for

define:onychophagia

would give you that definition. (Note that the definitions returned are usually correct, however, I have seen cases where the definition may be wrong. You must use your own judgement on this. [but the definition given for my example is correct :) ])

Find Something by a Specific Author

Use author: to find something by a specific author. So

systems success author:mclean

would find articles on systems success authored by anyone with the name of McLean. (Note this isn’t 100% foolproof, but if you know an author you are looking for, it doesn’t hurt to try it.) An excellent source for searching for academic articles is Google Scholar. This has helped me with many papers over the years.

There are many more Google tricks (and I’m sure many that I don’t know about), but the ones listed above are the ones I use almost on a daily basis. Google google tricks and you’ll find many articles on the subject.

Apple, Tech Tips

What to do if the iOS Message App is Stuck Upside Down

Recently, I ran into an issue with the iOS Message app being stuck upside down on an iPad. By that,  I mean it would not rotate to the right orientation and was facing 180 from the power button. The first thing I checked was the rotational lock, but that wasn’t enabled (and, besides, all other apps were rotated correctly). My next thought was to close and reopen the app, in hopes that restarting it would fix it. Luckily, that worked. Here’s how to close and restart an app:

  1. Tap the Home button one time (to get back to the Home Screen)
  2. After you’re on the Home Screen, wait a couple seconds, the double-tap the Home button. (This will bring up the multi-tasking bar at the bottom of the screen)
  3. Tap and hold on the Message app icon (or any icon, for that matter) in the multi-tasking bar until the icons start to jiggle. The jiggling icons should also have a red circle with a white minus sign (-) in the corner.
  4. Tap the red circle with the white minus sign in the corner of the Message app.
  5. Tap the Home button to close the multi-tasking ba.
  6. Open the Message app back up.

Hopefully, the Message app will now be rotated right-side up, as it should be!

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