Solution: RCA Component Video Cable Produces Pink Picture

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I was hooking up a Samsung V-3500 Progressive Scan DVD player to my new Insignia 32″ LED television.  Since the DVD player had no HDMI out I had to use a RCA Component Video cable to connect the DVD player to the TV.  I bought a very cheap RCA Component Video cable from Amazon.com for about 9 bucks.

Imagine my surprise when I played a DVD and the picture was pink and a bit distorted. I checked the cable and connections over and over from DVD player to TV. They were all matching. The quality looked very good so I was not thinking I had a bad cable. When I did some Googling most posts seemed to blame the cable. Lucky I had ordered two of these so I tried the other cable. Still a pink picture from the DVD player.

The solution was to look in the settings on the DVD player. Under Display there was a setting to tell the DVD player I was using Component video out and not S-Video. Evidently even if you do not have the DVD player set to Component Video it still displays a picture but it is pink. Setting it to Component video fixed my pink picture problem. I did have to choose between Progressive Scan and Interlaced but both settings worked fine and the colors returned to normal.

So if you are hooking up a DVD player to a TV and have a pink output, check the settings under display on your DVD player to ensure it is set for Component Video Output.

WORKAROUND: Problem Opening Adobe PDF Documents On Websites

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If you are having problems opening Adobe PDF documents from a web browser, it is likely you have the full version of Adobe Acrobat Standard or Pro installed on your PC.  I’ve seen issues where people who have Adobe Acrobat installed cannot click links that should open a PDF.  What happens on systems that only have reader is that the PDF opens right in the browser.  For some reason some who have the full version have issues because Adobe Acrobat Pro is set to open the PDF vs the more typical Adobe Acrobat Reader.  What I did to resolve this was to set Adobe Acrobat to not open the PDF inside the browser, but just open it normally as a standalone PDF.  I’ve not come across one person who cared that the PDF did not open inside the browser and it resolved the issue for me.  Here are the steps.

Open Adobe Acrobat
Click EDIT from the top toolbar, then Preferences.
Go under the Internet Category
Uncheck the box “Display PDF in Browser”
Click OK to save.
Close Acrobat.
Now when you click a PDF it will open properly (though not in a browser.)

The File Is Not An Outlook Data File PST Outlook

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Error Received:  The File Is Not An Outlook Data File PST Outlook

There are several possible causes and solutions.  Check through the suggestions below and see if any of them help to resolve your Outlook error.

First, make sure the PST file is on media that is Read and Write capable.  So if you are working with a PST on a CD or DVD please copy it to the hard drive.

As mentioned before you need Read/Write access to the PST so right click the PST file and choose Properties.  Check the Attributes and ensure that the Read attribute is not checked.  You DO NOT want the PST file in read only mode or you’ll get an error.

Next try using SCANPST to scan and repair your PST file.  Look in c:\program files (x86)\Microsoft Office\Office14 and run SCANPST.EXE do a repair on the PST file in question.  Then try and import or attach the PST to your Outlook profile.

WORKAROUND: Aventail VPN For Mac Kills DNS

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If you are a Mac user you might have discovered a frustrating side effect of using the Aventail VPN client for Mac.  What happens is that you are doing fine using the internet and decide to logon to work.  You enable your Aventail VPN for Mac and it connects.  Then you realize that while the VPN is connected it doesn’t seem to be providing any sort of connectivity.  You have no web access to internal websites or even external websites like Google.  Your email isn’t working for example Outlook is not connecting.  If you dropped to the Terminal you might be surprised to see that you can indeed ping internal hosts by IP but DNS seems to have gone away.  This is because the Aventail VPN has wiped out your Resolv.conf file effectively killing your ability to use DNS.  Even if you disable the Aventail VPN you won’t be able to surf external websites because the Resolv.Conf file is a text file that contains the IP addresses of your DNS servers.  If Aventail VPN has wiped it out then you have not DNS.

This seems to affect even the latest version of Aventail VPN for Mac like 10.6.2.

The workaround is to simply leave your VPN enabled and turn off and back on your Wifi.  Of you can also release and renew your IP address.  This will cause the resolv.conf file to be re-populated with the correct DNS settings and you can then go about your business.

See more on this at https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2296222?start=0&tstart=0

Webex For Mac And Outlook 2011

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If you have a Mac and use Office 2011, specifically Outlook 2011 you might be wondering how to get the handy Webex plugin for Outlook 2011 that you use on your Windows PC using Outlook.  The bad news is that because Outlook 2011 has no support for add-in’s there is no way to have a Webex plugin just like you enjoy on your Windows PC.

That doesn’t mean you can’t use the Webex Productivity tools however.  You can indeed enjoy managing Webex meetings via the productivity tools, just not via an add-in in Outlook 2011.

All Webex software for end users can be found in your company Webex portal.  This is usually https://yourcompany.webex.com go there and click My Webex at the top of the web portal.  On the left side of the page click in the Support section so you see the Downloads link.  Click the Downloads link and you can see all the downloads offered by Webex.

To install the Productivity Tools.  Click Productivity Tools Setup.  Click on Start Meeting and then you’ll be prompted to install the Cisco Webex Add-On.  Go ahead and install that.

Resolved: Too Many Redirects Installing WordPress 3.51

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I was recently trying to setup a new blog on my Windows server running IIS.  I’ve setup WordPress hundreds of times but it had been while since I setup a new blog.  I followed my usual procedure which was to download the latest WordPress which was version 3.51.  Copy it to the folder i’ve setup as a website on my IIS server, then configure the wp-config-sample.php and rename it to wp-config.php.  Imaging my surprise when visiting my new website and I get an error Too Many Redirects.  I tried Firefox and Safari and got the same thing.  I checked my web site settings on IIS and my data base on MYSQL and everything looked just great.  After googling Too Many Redirects Installing WordPress I saw alot of soulutions revolving around the .htaccess file which I do not have.  So the solution I found to resolve my problem was as I was troubleshooting the web site.  I copied a basic file ending in .php and verified that when I went to www.website.com/page.php I could see the static html.  Then I re-copied a fresh WordPress 3.51 install but did not touch the wp-config-sample.php.  Upon visiting my website I got a nice web based page offering to configure my wp-config.php file.  I used the web interface instead of editing my wp-config.php manually and viola my blog is live.  In fact you are reading it now.  I’m not sure what has changed as i’ve alwayd edited my wp-config.php manually but it appears if you just leave it as given to us by WordPress you can just visit the website for the first time and use the web interface to configure your file.