Thought I would share this old photo of fireworks, taken a few years ago. I was planning to take pictures of the fireworks this year, but used the time to be with my loved ones and pay respects to all the people that died in the worst catastrophe to hit our earth in recent time.

I hope you and yours are safe, and wish you all the best for 2005. This year I pledge to do more for those that are worse off than me, and to write more in my blog - the blog is turning 3 this february, and could really use coming to life again. I have a lot to share, but never enough time. The time aspect will probably not change any time soon, but I still believe I could be able to put some more time into this blog.

Anders Jacobsen has pledged to give money for every bloggers that links to the aid organizations or for anyone that gives money to any of these organizations. A good pledge if you ask me, so here is my small contribution with a list of organizations that you can donate money to and help the victims of the Tsunami.

International aid organizations:
UNICEF (United Nations Children's Fund)
United Nations' World Food Programme
Medecins Sans Frontieres / Doctors without Borders (donate!)
CARE International
The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies

UK/Europe:
Disasters Emergency Comittee (DEC) - comprises a raft of aid agencies, including the below and others
British Red Cross
Save the Children UK

North America:
American Red Cross
Canadian Red Cross
Save The Children

Anders Jacobsen: Webloggers: Give to tsunami victims and I'll give too!

Its a good question, that I will try to find the answer for. The problem isn't only limited to network printing, it also involves slower access to network shares, programs running slower when checking documents on network shares etc.

The solution to the slow network printing is however quite simple. I would love to know how he came up with it, but in any case - Pavel posted this solution in microsoft.public.windowsxp.print_fax some time ago:

Google Groups : microsoft.public.windowsxp.print_fax

I had the same problem and have found some workaround for limited number of network printers. At command prompt type NET USE LPT2 \\computername\printername password , and the port lpt2 will be assigned to the network printer. After that port assignment in the Printer Properties has to be also changed, or, if the Properites are too slow, the old printer deleted and the new one with LPT2 added. LPT3 (or maybe another port name) can be used for other printers.

After this assignment, I can access to the printer list and printer properties as fast as before SP2. However, this is not perfect solution and I hope that some patch from MS will appear.

PS: I have found that just adding the local ports with the comands

NET USE lpt[number] \\networkshare\printer