I’ve been a user of Google’s Browser Sync utility for almost two years. It works seamlessly in the background making sure my cookies and bookmarks are all exactly the same on each of the three computers I frequently use. A few weeks ago I ran into an issue where one of the machines had duplicate bookmark items. I was worried about what would happen if I tried deleting these items from the one machine they were duplicated on. Finally a week ago I decided it was time to clean up these dupes. I exported the current bookmarks and spent an hour deleting duplicates and re-arranging items. The next morning when I switched computers I see that Google had removed all the folders that I was cleaning up from the first computer. This machine didn’t have the duplicate problem so it actually deleted valid bookmarks, then proceeded to replicate back to my other two computers. I lost about half of my bookmarks because of this. I tried to import the backup I had and clean things again yet it only made the problem worse. It was time for drastic measures.

I exported the bookmarks from each of my machines and even found a few old backups I had. This can be done from the Bookmarks Manager, File, Export. I had a total of 5 bookmark.html files. Now I proceeded to delete every bookmark on my laptop through Bookmarks Manager and forcing a Full Refresh from the Browser Sync settings.

I then did the same to the other two machines I had browser sync running on. It took a good few minutes for each of the browsers to fully sync. Now closing the browser on the other two machines I returned to the laptop and imported each of the 5 bookmark backup files and spent another hour cleaning them up. Once I had the bookmarks to my liking I immediately backed them up yet again before forcing another full sync. This sync took about 7-10 minutes to update. Once the update was done I forced full syncs on the other two computers and everything looked normal. It’s been a full day now and so far so good.

Why do we constantly hear presidential candidates selling their tax and health care plans as if this is something that will be implemented on day one when they take office? Never do you hear candidates saying how hard it will be for their administration’s plan to get through congress and the senate. Even if their plans do make it through both houses it will be so bastardized and filled with earmarks that it won’t resemble the idea we the voting public were sold. Where is the media coverage calling the candidates out on these topics? They are too afraid to ask the real questions because their network may lose access to the candidate. This means lower ratings which means lower revenues.

Anyway, back on topic. Too much focus is being placed on the medical and tax plans and not enough on what these candidates can do to truly improve our safety by improving our social standing in the world. To again become that county others aspire to be, not the arrogant, ignorant, spoiled, rich kids of the planet. To inspire our nation to step up and encourage each other to do everything possible while we are on this earth. I want someone who understands that government is a service to the public, not a giant corporation shrouded in secrecy. That education, science, and technology are conduits to improve not only the lives of Americans, but of everyone in the world. I want someone that will inspire not only myself but my friends, family, and children.

Try not to think Democrat or Republician this year. Don’t take the media’s coverage as the only word on candidates. Research each of them and choose the person who will be this country’s best leader. Think about the things that are important to you and find someone who best matches your convictions. Find something to be inspired about.

Today I had a user run into an odd error in Outlook while trying to open an .rtf attachment. “Can’t create file: repCarrierDispatchMaster.rtf. Right-click the folder you want to create the file in, and then click Properties on the shortcut menu to check your permissions for the folder”. This was a new for me and right away I incorrectly assumed this was due to Outlook 2003’s attachment security settings. This wasn’t the case nor was the user’s anti-virus software at fault.

What caused the problem is the way Outlook saves temporary files when opened. It saves a copy of the attachment into the hidden Outlook sub-folder of Temporary Internet Files and appends that file name with a number sequence. The problem comes up when you try to open an attachment with the same name more than 99 times as Outlook will not increment the filename any further. That’s what trips this error.

To fix the problem you first need to figure out the name of Outlook’s hidden temp folder. Outlook creates a temp folder named OLK*** where *** is a random number. Windows Explorer hides this folder even if you have “show hidden folders” turned on. To find the folder open the command line from the start menu or by typing CMD from the Run box. You will start at the local user profile path. From here type the following and press enter:

cd “Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files”

Now that you are in the temporary Internet Files it’s time to find the hidden folder.

dir *.

This will list all folders and files without attachments. In my example you can see my folder is named OLK18. You can now either open Windows Explorer and navigate to the Temp Internet Files folder and add \OLK18 (substitue with the name of your folder) and remove all the duplicate files here or stay in the command line and just change directory with the cd command to the outlook folder and run del *.* to delete all the files within the folder.

Ideally Outlook should be doing some housekeeping and keep these files cleaned up.

UPDATE 10/22/08: Using a batch file to automatically clear this folder on computer startup.