GoogleUpdate.exe - broken on our corporate network

This is an odd one. I don't have the answer, so any hints would be much appreciated.

In our corporate environment when we try to install any Google Products we now get what I'm guessing is the GoogleUpdate.exe XML manifest instead. It starts like this (example, Chrome, emphases mine):

... <asmv1:assembly xsi:schemaLocation="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v1 assembly.adaptive.xsd" manifestVersion="1.0">
<assemblyIdentity name="Google Installer.app" version="1.2.133.37" publicKeyToken="9a8dfcd080ccb114" language="neutral" processorArchitecture="x86"/>
<description asmv2:publisher="Google, Inc." asmv2:product="Google Installer"/>
<deployment trustURLParameters="true" install="false"/>
−
<dependency>
−
<dependentAssembly dependencyType="install" codebase="clickonce_bootstrap.exe.manifest" size="13531">
<assemblyIdentity name="clickonce_bootstrap.exe" version="1.2.133.37" publicKeyToken="9a8dfcd080ccb114" language="neutral" processorArchitecture="x86" type="win32"/> ...

Chrome itself can still install Google Apps, but nothing else can.

We assume "Google Installer.app" is broken for us. This does not appear to be a common problem, though it's now universal in one company.

It's hard to get information on "Google Installer.app". I presume it's related to "GoogleUpdate.exe", but there are currently no pages that mention both (except this one). This is the best page I've found on GoogleUpdate.exe:

GoogleUpdate.exe - Google Chrome Help

GoogleUpdate.exe is a software component that acts as a meta-installer and auto-updater in many downloadable Google applications, including Google Chrome. It keeps your programs updated with the latest features. More importantly, GoogleUpdate allows your Google applications to be rapidly updated if security flaws are discovered...

I don't think this problem is a result of our corporate "webwasher" filters, because I think we can install will work when we connect to other networks.

Any ideas? (I tried Google's Help Groups, but they're continuing their record of being 100% useless for me.)

Update: From the Google Pack site we can install Chrome and GoogleUpdater.exe (also Earth, Picasa, etc). Chrome doesn't do one click installs of Google's products, so if you use Chrome to install a browser plug-in like Google Video Chat Google provides an executable (such as GoogleVoiceAndVideoSetup.exe) that's stored in the Downloads folder. This can then be run.

Dreamhost - registrar and hosting - still like 'em

Last August, after years of moderate dissatisfaction with my domain registration and site hosting arrangements, I signed up with Dreamhost.

I've been quite satisfied with them as a hosting service and even happier with their registrar services; you can see this from posts over the past six months. I was disappointed with their weak implementation of webdav services, but that's been a minor problem. Of course you need some geek genes to work with them, but less so than most alternatives.

If you want to keep things simple, DreamHost is a better Google Apps partner than Google -- especially now that Google is trying to hide the free stuff.

Dreamhost offers members kickbacks to facilitate recruitment. So you need to take my recommendation with more saline than usual, but if you independently decide to sign up you can use my promo code of KATEVA (our dog) and get $50 off your 1st year fee (and I get a kickback if you pay up). Be sure to check out other promo code deals however, the one on their home page looks remarkably good.

Dreamhost now offers "unlimited bandwidth" and "disk space" to new customers with the caveat that you can't be running a site designed to suck bandwidth. Existing customers can also upgade, It turns out I was somehow using more storage than I thought and was paying some modest overage fee, so I just did the free upgrade to "unlimited".

Lastly, unrelated to hosting, Dreamhost is offering an "apps" service (install Wordpress, etc) that's supposed to be free "forever" to beta testers (more invitation codes).

How to use Firefox with Sharepoint - avoiding the credential problem

I found this one via a work colleague.

Firefox works pretty well with Sharepoint, but you need to enter your domain credentials every time you authenticate. It turns out there's a way get FF to store the credentials and enter them automatically.

I haven't tested this since I use IE 7 with SP, but I wonder if a similar approach would work with a standalone windows feed reader that would be more capable that the one built into IE 7; the key is "NTLM authentication support". (The Outlook 2007 and FF feed readers are miserable, IE 7 is decent by comparison).

Configure NTLM for Firefox, Using Firefox for Sharepoint Sites « My Home Automation project

...  Firefox does have NTLM just that you need to configure it ... NTLM stands for NT LAN Manager ... Microsoft’s authentication protocol...

... launch Firefox and enter in the URL field - about:config

From there it will provide a long list of settings, on the ’search’ bar type NTLM, you will see 3 entries ... Double click on network.automatic-ntlm-auth.trusted-uris

From there you will enter the DNS name of your Server...

If you use multiple SP servers, you can separate the name by commas. "DNS name" is just the familiar name, like "server_name.megacorp.com".

Restarting a remote machine: XP and Windows 2003

How do you restart a remote machine, like an XP controlled by remote desktop or a Windows 2003 server running terminal services? At least with Windows 2003 server you see a grayed out button when you try to shutdown or restart from a remote desktop session.

In Windows NT and 2000 you could install the “remote shutdown tool” on your remote machine but Microsoft pulled it, perhaps because they had a rather serious security problem related to remote shutdown in XP SP1.

I couldn’t find much Microsoft documentation on how this works for XP, but it’s still supported. Just fire up the command line and type “shutdown –i”. In theory you need admin privileges on the remote machine for this to work (the SP1 bug allowed non-admin users to do remote restarts with another tool).

I can confirm this works on Windows 2003 server, though there is a known bug that can affect some machines.

Restart or shut down remotely and document the reason explains how to do it. You have to know the machine name of the remote machine and you have to have admin privileges on the remote machine associated with your network name. Oddly enough the documentation there uses / for an option delimiter, but if you type “shutdown” the directions use hyphens.

From a command prompt “shutdown –i” gives you a handy GUI (you can tediously browse the network for the machine), or just type this command line (where N4591Fred is not my real machine name) …

shutdown -r -m \\N4591Fred –t 0 -c "bug fixes"

The command line example above will shutdown with no warning, but it still takes a few minutes to shutdown, restart, etc.

Update: I’ve been told that if you’re connected to a remote server you can run the “shutdown.exe” command from the remote machine command line. I haven’t tried that yet.

Legal BitTorrent sites. Who knew?

Sarcasm aside, it's useful to know that bitTorrent sites exist that are limited to legal content ...

Top Sites That Every BitTorrent User Should Know About | MakeUseOf.com

... If you want to stay out of trouble check out Legit Torrents and Legal Torrents which only list legal torrents. ...Public Domain Torrents - Lists torrents for downloading classic long forgotten movies in the Public Domain...

If you'd like to play with BitTorrent without impairing your ability to serve in the Obama administration, those links could be a worthwhile start.

Google Video Chat – at last, news from Google

We’ve been making extensive use of GVC for corporate collaboration.

It’s damned impressive, but there’s NO information from Google’s official channels on what’s going on with it.

There is, however, an authoritative source.

One of the lead developers has a personal blog …

juberjabber: Gmail voice and video v1.0.5

… Today we released the 1.0.5 update for the Gmail voice and video chat software. All current installations will begin an automatic update within the next 24 hours. If you do not want to wait, you can visit http://mail.google.com/videochat and re-run the installer…

They’ve done a lot of work on the Mac version. It was grossly unstable a month ago, but I’m going to be retesting.

Wanted a fix for iTunes Podcast 2 week shutoff

This is my biggest problem with iTunes: “iTunes has stopped updating this podcast because you haven’t listened to any episodes for two weeks”.

If I'm not extremely careful it can lead to my missing episodes of In Our Time!

I've been looking for a hack that would force iTunes to wait at least 8 weeks. This Apple discussion thread points to a blog post discussing a Doug's AppleScript that forces a regular bulk update.

Be nice if Apple fixed this, but meanwhile OS X iTunes users have a crude workaround ...