Tag: Microsoft

  • Google Calendar Sync: The poor man’s Exchange Server

    They say that necessity is the mother of invention… and they’re right, but in my case, Google already invented it, and I’m just taking advantage of it… don’t judge me.  I was recently setting up a Sprint i1 android phone for one of my co-workers, and besides being disappointed with the molested version of Android it was running, realized that they also don’t offer a desktop app to sync the Outlook calendar, of which said co-worker uses… a lot.

    Enter Google Calendar Sync, and sweet little app that sits on your desktop and syncs your Outlook calendar to your Google Calendar.  Since the only option the i1 had for Outlook sync was through an Exchange server, which many smaller businesses don’t have, we just setup a dedicated Google account to sit there and be our pseudo Exchange server, letting Google Calendar Sync push events back and forth between Outlook and Google Calendar, then ultimately to the phone.

    No specific issues as of yet, as I just finished setting it up this afternoon, but in my initial tests, it seemed to work well.  So if you’ve got an Android phone and use Outlook calendar, give Google Calendar Sync a try.

  • RPC Server Unavailable

    Recently my Uncle tried to update his new(ish) computer from Windows XP SP2 to Windows XP SP3, but he kept receiving the following error:

    RPC Server Unavailable
    Service Pack 3 installation did not complete

    If you happen to run into this error, the most likely cause is that you don’t have the EnableRSS subkey in your registry. Naturally the first step is verifying this.

    Click Start, click Run, type regedit, press Enter.

    Locate and then click the following registry key:
    HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Parameters

    If the EnableRSS registry entry does not exist, create it.
    – Click the Edit menu, point to New, and then click DWORD Value.
    In the New Value #1 box, type EnableRSS, and then press ENTER.
    Right-click EnableRSS, and then click Modify.
    In the Value data box, type 0 (zero), and then click OK.

    Exit Registry Editor.

    Now retry the Service Pack 3 installtation.