polywogsys

Strange "Stop Error" problems with Windows 2k3. Apparently it was associated with having Juniper's SSL/VPN's Secure Application Manager (Split VPN application) being installed on a Windows 2k3 sever. Since removing Secure Application Manager everything started working OK, and there was no more hangups, blue screens, or RDP acting strange.

Event Type: Warning
Event Source: NEOFLTR_600_12359
Event Category: None
Event ID: 54
Date: 1/8/2008
Time: 6:38:36 AM
User: N/A
Computer: MYCOMPUTER
Description:
The description for Event ID ( 54 ) in Source ( NEOFLTR_600_12359 ) cannot be found. The local computer may not have the necessary registry information or message DLL files to display messages from a remote computer. You may be able to use the /AUXSOURCE= flag to retrieve this description; see Help and Support for details. The following information is part of the event: \Device\TcpFilter_NEOFLTR_600_12.
Data:
0000: 00 00 00 00 01 00 6c 00 ......l.
0008: 00 00 00 00 36 00 04 80 ....6..€
0010: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ........
0018: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ........
0020: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ........

So, I was checking out different free (or open source) pdf creating software for windows. Several different ones are out there I eval'd:

CutePDF_Writer
PDF_Redirect_v225
PDF995
PDFCreator
PrimoPDF

First off, let me say that PrimoPDF was a flop. It wanted me to download .NET 2.0, which was over 20 Megs on top of the 20 megs for the software itself, and seemed more bloatware than anything else. I moved on.

PDF_Redirect v2.2.5 seemed to be the most complete and full featured of the free software. It didn't look very professional though, and seemed to have been shareware. All in all, though, pretty decent package.

PDF995 was a standard printer based package. No bells and whistles, but just got the job done. It had a nag screen though... which was kind of annoying.

CutePDF Writer again was OK. Nothing special just a normal PDF printer, etc etc. It did require (though) ghostscript install (8mb easily downloadable from their website). They needed to distribute it separately, presumably, because of the GPL license on ghostscript. It had a nag message on the "Save as..." dialog box.

PDFCreator is by far the best. It was easy to install, looked very professional interface. Has a sourceforge account (I didn't check the license, but it was some form of open source). It installs itself in the menu/toolbar of IE for one click printing. Pretty slick; definitely the winner in my book.

Windows genuine advantage, their pirating control system, shutdown thousands of users because it incorrectly identified them as having illegitimate copies of Windows. Could you imagine what would happen in an emergency situation? In Vista IE is all that works, and only for an hour. After three days, Vista shutsdown COMPLETELY... your computer is DOA.
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9032798

What if this happend in an emergency room? Submitted by Anonymous on August 25, 2007 - 21:29.
If a hospital was running Vista to access medical records, and it suddenly stopped working (dropped the internet connection after 60 minutes, which was due to the fact that Microsoft had declared it to be illegitimate, but the hospital had to keep trying to use it because there was no alternative), do they just tell the patient, "hey, can you just stop bleeding and keep breathing for a couple more minutes so we can try to jump-start our Windows Vista machine, reconnect to the internet, log on to the medical database, and make sure that the treatment we plan to administer won't kill you?"