Merlin's Musings

Back in April, I wrote about how to clean up Employee Access Groups in Kronos. Specifically, I looked at how to identify inactive labor levels that were still assigned to an access group.

Another bit of maintenance that I like to do is periodically removing unused access groups. I frequently create user-specific groups. When that employee is no longer with the organization, there is no need to keep their access group hanging around. It just clutters up the list of available groups and is one more item you may have to audit.

Fortunately, the query to identify unused groups is very straightforward. All we have to is join over to the 'prsnaccsassign' table, get a count of how many managers are assigned to an access group, and then limit the output to those access groups with a count of 0.

select
    laboracctsetid 'LAS ID',
    shortnm 'Mgr Acces Grp Name',
    count(personid) 'Count of Mgrs Using'
from
    laboracctset
left outer join
    prsnaccsassign
on
    laboracctset.laboracctsetid = prsnaccsassign.mgraccesslasid
where
    labacctsettypeid = 2
group by
    laboracctsetid,
    shortnm
having
    count(personid) = 0

Again, just like last time I'm filtering on labor account sets being used as Employee Access Groups (labacctsettypeid = 2). Also, I'm running this across all employees, not just active ones. If an access group is assigned to a terminated associate, it will still get a count and be excluded from this report.

The LORD bless you and keep you; the LORD make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; the LORD lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.
Numbers 6:24-26 (ESV)

In Kronos Workforce 6, one the key components of security is the Labor Level Set when used as an Employee Group. These sets restrict the employees that a manager can see.

One issue with these sets are that they are not self-healing or self-maintaining. If you deactivate a labor level entry, it will still be included in a labor level set. While this doesn't directly cause any harm (it won't grant someone access to employees they shouldn't, for example) it can negatively impact system performance. Why include a condition that is no longer valid?

Unfortunately, there are no system-delivered reports that will identify inactive labor level entries assigned to sets. Likewise, there is no magic "cleanup" button that will just go through and remove them for you.

This became a specific pain point for me just recently. We went through a major account change in our financials system that reworked a bunch of our labor levels. This rework included inactivating a lot of old ones that are no longer used. This was coupled with a quarterly audit report of manager accounts that showed exactly what labor levels each manager had access to. Seeing a lot of old inactive departments included on the audit report caused a bit of consternation and raised a few yellow flags.

The question then became, "What is the easiest way to clean up the labor level sets?" In our case, we completely changed our naming schema, so it was pretty easy to tell the old accounts by visual inspection. However, I didn't relish the thought of manually going through hundreds and hundreds of labor level sets looking for old labor level entries to remove. Instead, I poked around in the database schema and was able to come up with a query to identify inactive entries for me.

This query was written against the 6.0 schema on SQL Server 2005. If you are on Oracle, you may have to tweak the syntax slightly. I don't believe these tables have changed in the 6.x product line, so it should work all the way up to 6.3.

select
    laboracctset.shortnm,
    laboracctset.laboracctsetid,
    llelabacctstmm.laborlevelentryid,
    laborlevelentry.laborleveldefid,
    laborlevelentry.name,
    laborlevelentry.description,
    laborlevelentry.inactive
from
    laboracctset
inner join
    llelabacctstmm
on
    laboracctset.laboracctsetid = llelabacctstmm.laboracctsetid
inner join
    laborlevelentry
on
    llelabacctstmm.laborlevelentryid = laborlevelentry.laborlevelentryid
where
    laboracctset.labacctsettypeid = 2 and
    laborlevelentry.inactive = 1
order by
    laboracctset.shortnm,
    laborlevelentry.laborleveldefid,
    laborlevelentry.name
   
A few explanations are in order. The field 'LabAcctSetTypeID' in the LaborAcctSet table specifies what type of Labor Account Set it is. Since I was just worried about Employee Groups, I specified a value of '2'. The other possible values are 1 (All Sets) and 3 (Labor Level Transfer Sets).

I plan on adding this query to my routine maintenance checks, so that we can keep our Employee Groups cleaned up. Also, a partner query that I plan on writing is one that will identify unused Labor Level Sets. I prefer to keep these types of configuration items as lean as possible. There is no reason to hold on to old, unused sets if they're no longer used by anyone.

The LORD bless you and keep you; the LORD make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; the LORD lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.
Numbers 6:24-26 (ESV)

First, a little background.

I've been slogging through some drudgery work here at the office, reviewing user account audits and making changes as necessary. I have a dual-monitor setup on a laptop running Windows 7 Pro SP1. Well, it's a docking stations for my laptop with an external monitor, configured in dual display mode.

The external monitor is configure as my primary display, and the laptop as secondary. For processing these reports, I've had the application window open on the monitor, and the audit reports open on the laptop screen. The reports are Adobe Acrobat PDF files. My frustration is that whenever I double-click on one of the reports to open it, it has been opening on the primary monitor, even though the secondary monitor has "focus".

With most other business applications, they launch on whatever screen currently has the active window. So, basically, where ever I have Windows Explorer when I double-click the file to open, that's where the application launches. Either that, or the application remembers the last monitor it was on and opens there.

But not Acrobat Reader, for some reason. The only way I can get it to open a new PDF file on my secondary monitor is to close the document I was viewing but leave the application running. Then, when I open a new file, it opens in the active application window. But if Acrobat has to launch a new application window, it always does it on the primary monitor.

So, now that I've bored you with the technical details, on to the moral of the story.

I was pretty frustrated by this after the 15th or 20th time I had to move the Acrobat Reader application window, so I took to Twitter to vent. I fired off a quick screed and thought nothing else of it. I felt better, so my primary purpose was accomplished. I didn't even tag Adobe's primary Twitter account, mostly because I wasn't sure what it was and was too lazy to go look it up. I just used the hashtags #adobe and #acrobat in my tweet.

Imagine my surprise when I received a response to my tweet from Adobe today. They apologized for my troubles and said they would forward it on to the development team. Do I actually expect the dev team to do anything about it. Probably not. But the fact that they have a social media team actively looking for Adobe mentions, and not account mentions but just name and product mentions is impressive. And they actually responded, which is even more impressive.

I like Reader for the most part, and the PDF format is ubiquitous, especially in the business world. (Don't get me started on Flash; that's a post for another time). It's refreshing to see a major technology company not just resting on its laurels, but actively engaging the community and hopefully looking to improve the usability of their product.

Even if it's something as simple as opening on the "right" monitor.

The LORD bless you and keep you; the LORD make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; the LORD lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.
Numbers 6:24-26 (ESV)

According to this blog post, Google Reader is going the way of the dodo bird in their latest round of spring cleaning. I understand that development and maintenance resources are limited commodities, and they should be focused on those applications that are growing or heavily utilized. I find it highly ironic, however, that I read about the impending shut-down using the very tool that they are killing off.

The D-Day for Reader is July 1, 2013, or just under 4 months from now. The one good thing is that Google provides the Google Takeout tool (part of their data liberation initiative) to export all of your Reader subscription data. It also includes files with all your starred items, bloggers you follow, etc.

The only trick now is finding a suitable replacement RSS tool. One of the things I liked about Google Reader was that it was "in the cloud" and was browser agnostic. Most of the previous RSS tools I've used were plug-ins or add-ons for specific browsers. Either that, or they were thick-client installs. Reader allowed me to maintain one RSS subscription list that I could access from a multitude of devices. Granted, the Chrome browser is available on almost every device I use, and it has synchronization capabilities for its plug-ins, favorites, etc. I don't know how that plays with RSS readers, and I still don't like the idea of my RSS feed being tied to another piece of software. When it was in the cloud, I could use any browser to access it, so I was only halfway tied to the Google ecosystem.

So, does anyone have recommendations for an RSS reader that works across multiple devices and OSes, will synchronize item state across all of them, and is not a pain to manage?

I'll share anything I find and let you know what I settle on, if you care.

The LORD bless you and keep you; the LORD make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; the LORD lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.
Numbers 6:24-26 (ESV)

I must admit, this has to be one of the most confounding User Interface/functionality design gotchas I've ever seen. And in 15+ years of doing IT, I've seen (and perpetrated) and lot of bad UI designs.

I own two LG HDTVs. Neither of them are network capable, and they are not "Smart TVs". Both of these TVs allow you to set the time on them. It is generally displayed when the devices first turn on, but there are a few other times it will display the time. You can also use the time feature to let them turn on and off automatically and different times. The time feature has two modes: Automatic and Manual.

When I was on digital cable, the Automatic setting didn't work. I'm assuming there is a standard time signal that can be embedded in the broadcasts that the TV uses. In the IT world we have NTP servers to automatically set the date & time on our computers, so I imagine it's something similar. As I said, it never worked, presumably because my digital cable provider didn't embed that signal in their repackaged broadcasts.

As I mentioned previously, we finally cut the cable. I had noticed that the Info button just displayed "No Information Available" on the OTA broadcasts. I was mildly frustrated that I'd lost program guide info, but just assumed it wasn't part of the OTA signal. Well, last night I noticed that the Info button wasn't displaying the current time even though it was set on the TV so I went into the settings to poke around. On a whim, before manually resetting the time, I toggled the setting over to "Automatic" (hope springs eternal, right?). Imagine my surprise when it actually showed the correct date & time!!! Obviously, the OTA broadcast has some sort of NTP signal embedded in it.

Once I exited the configuration menu, I hit the "Info" button again. Imagine my further surprise when it displayed the current time, the current program name, the current program time slot (including a bar showing how far into the program it was) and the description of the current program.

So riddle me this. Why does changing the Time setting from Manual to Automatic control whether or not the OTA program guide information is displayed? The only thing I can come up with is that all of this information is embedded in the same side-channel of the broadcast. Disabling automatic time control tells the TV to not read that side-channel at all. When you're on digital cable, which provides its own program guide functionality, it's not a big deal at all. You never use the TV "Info" button anyway. A better design, to my mind, would be for the TV to always consume the program guide side-channel, and only set the time automatically if that option is turned on. There is no logical connection between program guide and the time setting for most casual consumers.

I'm just happy I accidentally stumbled across this, so I don't have to grab the TV Guide app to figure out what's currently playing.

The LORD bless you and keep you; the LORD make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; the LORD lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.
Numbers 6:24-26 (ESV)

For a variety of reasons, but primarily economic, my wife and I made the decision to cut the cable. We were spending well over $100 a month for internet, phone and video services from the local provider. With the changes in taxes and health care premiums, it was rapidly becoming a luxury we couldn't afford.

So, how did we do it?

First, we signed up for a 20MB internet service from the other local provider. I decided to move my business after Insight Communications wanted to raise my monthly cost for dropping a service from our bundle. I'm sorry, but spending $10 more a month for less service was not a winning proposition for me. Second, we went with MagicJack for our home phone services. We decided to port our number, and our ongoing costs will be in the $30 - $40 a year range. Third, we already had a Netflix streaming account and Bluray player and gaming console that provide access to that service. We will most likely supplement that with either a Hulu Plus account or an Amazon Prime account. Finally, I bought an antenna to provide access to the over-the-air broadcast channels. In the Greater Cincinnati area, I am able to pull in 21 channels. Granted, the majority of them are public television of some sort, but I get all the Big 4 networks.

I did have one bit of luck in that when we built, I had the house fairly well wired. There is an A/V and networking distribution panel in my basement that feeds the rest of the house. This is where my internet service primary router is located, so I was able to put my MagicJack Plus device down there and connect it to the supply feed for all my phone jacks. We didn't have to make any changes with regards to phone placement or anything like that. Also, my best antenna reception came from the 2nd story of my house (for very obvious reasons). The antenna that I purchased (an RCA ANT1650R digital flat antenna) included an amplifier. I was able to take the feed from the amp and run it into a splitter. One leg from the splitter went straight to my TV upstairs. The second leg I connected to the CATV port installed in the wall. The other end of this connection was down in the wiring closet in the basement, so I was able to run that feed back up to my living room connection. One antenna, located upstairs in my bedroom, is able to drive both of my televisions.

All told, I had upfront costs of around $175 for the MagicJack Plus, the antenna and a few other ancillary items. My monthly costs are going to be around 1/3 of what I was previously paying for service, and my ROI is less than 2 months.

The only thing I thin I'm going to miss is ESPN. If they ever offer WatchESPN access as part of an ESPN Insider subscription, or through some other subscription model, you can just about guarantee I'd pick that up.

The LORD bless you and keep you; the LORD make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; the LORD lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.
Numbers 6:24-26 (ESV)

If you're running Windows Vista or Windows 7, there's a fairly nasty exploit running around related to the sidebar. Microsoft isn't even releasing a patch for it. Their fix is to just disable the sidebar completely. That functionality is being discontinued in Windows 8, which most likely factors into Microsoft's approach to this.

Microsoft has released a "Fix It Tool" that will disable the sidebar for you. Simply click on the applicable link to download the "enable" or "disable" installer (MSI file), and then run it. If you are responsible for multiple PCs, you can download the MSI file, put it on a USB drive or CD, and install it from there. It does NOT require an active internet connection to install.

I've already applied this on my work PC, and will be applying it on my home PCs this evening.

I'm not real thrilled about having to disable the sidebar. I've really liked some of the sidebar gadgets, like weather and calendar and Google and the like.

Also, I have no idea if this exploit applies to the Google sidebar, if you have that installed. As best I know, it only applies to the Windows sidebar. I also don't know if disabling the Windows sidebar has any impact on the Google one or not. I'm sure I'll find that out this evening, as I believe I'm running the Google sidebar on  at least one machine.

It is amazing to me how technology magnifies generational differences. Growing up, my dad had a turn table. I distinctly remember once time when he bought a CD player for the home stereo rig. He was out of inputs on the receiver, so he just plugged it into the phono input. After CDs are functionally equivalent to LPs, right?  Well, the phono input wasn't wired to handle the input level of the CD player, and it fried the receiver.

Today, I walk around with over 9 days worth of music, and thousands of hours of pod casts on a device that is smaller than a pack of cigarettes (and my how that size comparison has fallen out of favor).

Another time, the big decision was whether or not to get a Betamax or VHS player. At one point, we had one of each. It was a big when we got a LaserDisc player.

Now, my blu-ray player is connected to my home network, and I can stream thousands of movies straight from online media services. The only time I have to leave my couch is to refill my glass or grab another bag of chips.

So what brought all this to mind? I just received a gift certificate to iTunes, courtesy of a vendor. When my children get a gift certificate, the start compiling a list of individual songs they want to purchase. My first thought was of the complete albums I could purchase.

Even when you stay up on the technology, it can still pass you by.

This one was annoying me to no end. Under Windows XP, if you used the "X" button to close your Live Messenger window, it minimized to they System Tray instead of the task bar. For some reason, Microsoft changed this behavior with Windows 7. Instead of minimizing to the System Tray, the button stayed on your task bar.

Personally, I much prefer instant messenger apps, and others that are basically running in the background, to sit in my system tray, saving taskbar space for applications that are actively doing something.

Well, a quick web search turned up this lovely article over at How-To Geek. Long story short, you can get the old behavior back by changing the application compatibility mode. If you set it to Windows Vista, it will minimize to the tray instead of the taskbar. This certainly indicates it's something specific to the Windows 7 interface. I haven't played around with turning of Aero to see if that makes a difference, as I rather like the Aero look and feel.

While this hack works for now, it makes me wonder what Microsoft will do with the upcoming Metro interface.

This is the type of thing where the user should be given the choice. Some apps alread minimize to the system tray under Windows 7/Aero. Specifically, the Google Talk app does. Further, applications used to ask how you wanted them to handle minimizing, either to the tray or to the taskbar.

It should be about control, and customizing, and the ability to have a system that performs how you want it to.

Oh well. For now, at least, application compatibility settings handle the need without seeming to break anything.

The other day I was getting frustrated that my company phone wasn't syncing my Exchange calendar reliably. I'd tried deleting my profile and re-adding it, doing a hard reboot of the phone (now that's a phrase I never would have dreamed of using even 10 years ago), and several other troubleshooting steps. All to no avail. Being an android-base device, it was naturally having no problems whatsoever keeping up with my Google calendar.

So I set off on a search to find something that might let me sync my Exchange calendar to my Google calendar.

Well, guess what? Google themselves created just such a tool: Google Calendar Sync

It installs on the same PC where Outlook is running. You enter your Google credentials, set the sync frequency, and get out of the way. It works wonderfully. You do need to decide the best refresh frequency for you. Also, I highly recommend going into your Exchange calendar, putting it into List mode, and deleting all of those OLD appointments from years past. It makes the sync go much faster. Personally, I had almost 3,000 calendar events it was trying to sync. Once I pared it down to recurring meetings and just those from this calendar year, that dropped to under 300. There was a HUGE improvement in sync speed at that point.

Now, on to the one primary complaint I have so far about the tool. It's obviously registering itself as an add-on or helper inside your Outlook client. First, I had to close Outlook before it would install. Second, it never asked me for my Outlook/Exchange profile information. It's bootstrapping that, apparently. Given that it's hooking into Outlook, I'm disappointed that it's not event-driven. If I add/modify/delete something from my calendar, why can't it automatically sync that item instead of re-syncing my WHOLE calendar on a schedule? To give Google the benefit of the doubt, it's most likely a limitation inside the Outlook object model, but it's frustrating nonetheless.

The one other minor complaint I have is that, because it's a client-side tool, obviously your computer has to be on and running for the sync to work. The only time this poses an issue is after hours when I've suspended my laptop. If I accept a meeting request on my phone or through our web client, it won't show up on my Google calendar until the next time I have my computer up and running so the sync can run.

Given those two limitations of the tool, it's been quite the nice little find. Now, I have access to my Exchange calendar anywhere I have access to my Google calendar, not just from my smart phone or from our OWA portal.

If you also happen to be using Exchange/Outlook and have a Google account, I can highly recommend it.

Deskside Technician  #1: (to DST #2) Hey, how do we order cable locks?
DST #2: First, open a ticket.
Everyone: *dies laughing*

Either you get it or you don't.

Han Solo iPhone/iPod cover

Yes, I am a geek.

The WSJ has an article about a new "stolen phones" database, that the major telecom vendors will use to keep from activating stolen phones. It's being created in cooperation with the Federal Government, apparently after the Major Cities Chiefs Association pressured the FCC to do something about stolen phones.

According to the article:

Thieves can sell pilfered devices to local merchants or street-corner middlemen—or hawk them on sites such as eBay.com, Amazon.com or Craigslist.org, where a used iPhone, for instance, can fetch several hundred dollars.

I don't see any way at all this could be abused or misused.

There's no way someone might sell a legitimate used phone, but have it reported as stolen just to be a jerk. Or there's no way that a spited significant other might report a phone as stolen to get back at their ex.

Registries don't work. They don't accomplish their initial purpose, and they merely serve as a vehicle to get further governmental intrusion into our lives. How big of a step is it from a stolen phone registry to a phone registry. Telecoms couldn't activate a phone, or provide service to it, unless it validated against the database.

After all, criminals and drug dealers use pay-as-you-go phones to conduct their business, so the tool must be intrinsically evil, right? And it has to be controlled by the government, right?

Any similarities to my thoughts on gun control and gun registries are not incidental AT ALL.

With the upcoming release of SQL Server 2012, Wrox is running a contest where you can win their entire SQL Server 2012 library (5 books total, it appears). I think they deliver them in e-book format, but all of their e-books are DRM-free and available in all 3 major formats.

You can enter the contest here.

The official contest rules are available here.

Full disclaimer: Wrox is one of my favorite tech resource publishers, and I own several of their titles.

Note to the FTC: Hey guess what? I entered the contest, and I thought friends would like to as well. Wrox hasn't given me anything whatsoever for this post, but if they wanted to send some items for T&E or review, I probably wouldn't turn them down. Likewise, if they felt absolutely compelled to send me some swag or gear, I'd probably wear it. Now please stop wasting my taxpayer dollars on silly stuff like this.

For one day, Chrome was the most-used browser, dethroning Internet Explorer.

The most interesting factoid to me, and one discussed briefly in the article, is that Chrome usage goes up on the weekends. One inference is that IE is becoming more and more a workplace browser, and individuals use so-called alternative browsers at home or where they have a choice.

Personally, I only use IE at work, because it just integrates better with some of our toolsets. On my work PC, I have all of the major browsers installed (IE, Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Opera) for cross-browser functionality testing. IE is my default browser due to corporate AD GPOs, but my personal go-to browser is currently Chrome.

I've vacillated between Chrome and Firefox over the years, but Chrome wins for now. I guess I've been captured by the GoogleBorg.

I got a Nook Color for Christmas several years ago. I LOVE the thing, and I haven't even rooted it yet. With the wifi support, I can jump online just about anywhere. It has Flash support, which gives me a bit more flexibility and control than Apple products do (even though I loathe Flash). It has support for apps, though I don't like that I'm locked into B&N's app store, and don't have access to either the Android Marketplace or the Amazon store (and yes, I know if I root it it solves those issues, but that's beside the point).

But there is one thing about the device I DO NOT like, at all, period, end of story.

There is a software issue around battery life.

How do I know it's a software issue? Because a hard reset to factory defaults resolves the problem.

So, what's the problem with the battery? Well, occasionally the device will stop going into sleep or hibernate modes, even though the screen blanks out. This means battery consumption is going on at full tilt in the background, even though you think you shut it down. 8 hours or so later, you have a dead Nook. Recharge, wash, rinse, repeat. The only way to "fix" the problem is to do a hard reset to factory defaults.

Once you do that, say goodbye to your background, your desktop settings, basically any customizations you've made to your setup. You get to do all that again, and it can be a pain.

I had hoped the last OS patch would fix the problem, but evidently not, since it just happened to me again. At least this time, I've figured out the common cause, and least for every time I've experienced the issue.

DO NOT LET YOUR BATTERY FULLY DISCHARGE!


Every time I've had the problem, it's after I've allowed the battery to run flat. Keep it charged up, and it keeps trucking. If a reset to factory defaults resolves the problem, then there must be a software fix that will resolve the problem.

B&N Engineering and Development and R&D, I'm looking at you guys. I've diagnosed it for you (but I'm going to guess you're already aware of it). Now reproduce the problem (won't take you more than 10 hours or so) and fix it.

I am waiting not-so-patiently.

Edited to add: The @NOOK_Care twitter feed provided me an email address to someone at B&N, and asked me to send them an email. I have done so, and will post any updates or replies that I receive.

A work project I'm one entails migrating old applications to new servers. Our base server install these days is Windows 2008 R2. For those not in the know, this is a 64-bit OS only. You can run 32-bit applications, but the OS itself installs as 64-bit mode, and 32-bit support (especially for older applications) can be spotty.

To help mitigate some of the 32-bit issues, you can specify that certain applications run in compatibility mode. The system includes a number of predefined compatibility levels, from Windows XP SP3 all the way back to Windows 95.

One application that we're migrating is getting rather long in the tooth, but it still does the job. As such, there is just no impetus to actually upgrade. Instead, we're trying to just make it work in the new server environment. In order to get the application installed, I had to run the installer itself in Windows XP SP3 compatibility mode.

Everything seemed to install without a problem, but when I tried to launch the app, it kept crashing out. I realized I forgot to set the compatibility mode, so I went into the properties and set it to Windows XP SP3.

No joy.

Windows XP SP2.

No joy.

Windows 2000.

No joy.

At this point, I'm really starting to get frustrated.

Windows NT 4.

No joy.

Guess what ladies and gentlemen?

I had to dial the application compatibility all the way back to Windows 95 in order to get this thing to work.

Remind me again what century I'm in?

Ever wanted to know what the color code was for that graphic on your monitor?

Trying to match the color of a logo you found a website?

Need to know the RGB value of that flower in a picture?

ColorPic is a cool little tool that I found today that lets you figure all that out. It has multiple "chips" (think of them as color slots) that you can use to grab colors and build a palette. It also includes a magnifier section so you see exactly what pixel you're grabbing. You can change the zoom level, and use the arrow keys to more accurately grab the exact pixel you want.

Once you've grabbed a color, it provides all the standard representations: Hex, Decimal, and RGB. You can then plug those in to just about any graphics program.

Also, because it lets you grab colors from your workspace, you don't have to download graphics from a website to load them into your graphics editor. It scrapes the values straight from your display, so if you can see it, you can grab the color from it.

It's not going to revolutionize the world, but when you really, really, really want to know what that color is, this will do the job for you.

There's just way too much truth in this:

http://evilrouters.net/achievement-unlocked/

A few of my favorites to whet your appetite:















Go check out the full list. As he says, if you've been in IT or a technical field for any amount of time, I'm sure you can relate.

I have known for years, as have most Windows OS users, that sometimes Internet Explorer caches data and refuses to let it go. This is especially frustrating when you're trying to test changes to a web site, and you keep getting the old version. Sometimes CTRL-F5 will force a reload, but sometimes you have to go into settings and manually clear your cache and cookies.

Well, I ran across something new this morning. We have an application that makes an SSL connection to a server. That connection was failing. We could ping the target server, run a trace route to it, all of that, so it wasn't a general network failure. However, whenever the application tried to connect, we were getting an error that said "SendSSLMessageBlocking error 12057".

A quick call to the vendor indicated that it was an SSL certificate issue of some sort. They had us uncheck “Check for server certificate revocation*” in the Advanced settings, yet that didn't fix the problem.

Well, Google to the rescue, as usual!!

I ran across this post on Google Groups about an issue with GMail Notifier throwing the same error.

Did you know that Internet Explorer/Windows also has an SSL certificate cache? And that it can get corrupted?

After a quick click of the "Clear SSL state" button on the Content tab and a restart of the service that was failing, everything is back up and running now.

It's a good day if you learn something new.