SPSS 28 Shows Empty Boxes Instead of Thai Font

While using IBM SPSS 28 (28.0.1) I had a user that had a file showing certain fonts as empty blocks like this:

 

We found this IBM SPSS knowledge base article that was similar:

We tried this for all of the fonts listed (Nirmala, Mangal, Aprajita, Utssah) and it did not fix the issue, as it was not the correct font.

We found that if we copied text from SPSS to Microsoft Word, we could see the font correctly and see what font it was. Here is the box in the first row copied to Word showing as Browalia New:

 

I found the font here:  https://www.wfonts.com/font/browallia-new

I downloaded, unzipped, and copied the fonts into C:\Program Files\IBM\SPSS Statistics\JRE\lib\fonts\fallback, as mentioned in the knowledge base article from IBM above:

After closing and restarting SPSS, it now shows the font correctly:

Add Heart Rate Data to Any Google Fit Activity

I use Strava (or Ghostracer which syncs to Strava) to track the majority of my running and cycling. I have Strava set to sync to Google Fit, which is use as my main hub for all of my exercise and daily activity (step tracking via phone/watch, weight via scale, calories burned). Strava syncs the activity information (time, distance, speed, map, elevation) to Google Fit. For whatever reason, even though the data exists in Strava...they choose not to sync heart rate data to Google Fit.

The workaround is to use "Heart Rate - Sport Gear + Wear" (SGT). This app can use the built-in heart rate monitor in many Android Wear watches or Bluetooth chest straps. The key is to make sure you have the "Fitness Activity" type set to "Unknown" and enable "Google Fit: Export session data".

This will work regardless of the app that creates the activity/entry in Fit (it will even work for Google Fit's auto-generated activities). I use this with Strava, but also when recording walks with the Google Fit app, to confirm I'm working as hard as I intended. I have also used this to add heart rate data to stationary rides recorded using Wahoo Fitness -> Strava -> Google Fit.

Once you finish recording an activity in SGT (as "Unknown" activity type), it will sync the heart rate data to Google Fit without creating an activity in Google Fit. Once the activity is created by Google Fit/Strava/etc, it will automatically pickup the heart rate data. I doesn't matter if you create the activity or sync the heart rate data first, it will get picked up either way.

Here is an example of data from a walk recorded using the Google Fit app before SGT has synced:

And here is the same screen after SGT has synced the heart rate data to Google Fit:

 

Google Apps Gmail - Delegated Account Not Included in Reply-To-All

I'm writing this post because I could not find any documentation on Google's support/help pages (this page will hopefully be updated at some point) and this took me way too long to figure out after originally thinking it was a bug (Google Support insists it is not a bug).

In our scenario, we have a shared account that we use for our accounting team. Each user has been added to the account using the Gmail Settings -> Accounts tab -> "Grant access to your account" option inside of the shared account. Users will log into their own account, click their name/avatar at the top right of Gmail, and then click the shared account to open the shared account in a new tab.

They also have the ability to send as the account using the Gmail Settings -> Accounts tab -> "Send mail as" option inside of the shared account.

We noticed that when users were replying to emails inside of the shared account, if one or more of the delegated accounts were in the TO or CC field they would not be included in the Reply-To-All. All other addresses would be added, but the delegated accounts were silently stripped out.

The fix is to do one of the following:

• Remove the user from Gmail Settings -> Accounts tab -> "Send mail as" inside of the shared account.
• Edit the Gmail Settings -> Accounts tab -> "Send mail as" option and uncheck "Treat as an Alias" inside of the shared account.

Quickbooks Enterprise via Remote Desktop - Internet Security Levels Are Set Too High

We still run an old school NT4 domain using Samba 3. We are replacing a domain member server running Windows Server 2003 with one running Windows Server 2012 R2. Our users connect to the server via Remote Desktop. The users run Quickbooks Enterprise 15 in the remote desktop session. The users are not local administrators and by default, users starting the QBES application receive the following error:

 

The users are not administrators and are not able to make changes to their security settings by clicking the "Make Changes" button. We need to make system-wide changes to get our server/users working properly.

First, we need to disable Internet Explorer Enhanced Security Configuration. To do this, login to the server as an administrator, start Server Manager, select Local Server. In the right-pane/right-column, click "On" next to "IE Enhanced Security Configuration".

 In the new window, select "Off' for both Administrators and Users.

Click "OK" to save.

I have seen some reports that this single changes fixed it for some users. This was not the case for me. My guess is that the users that only had to make this change had local administrator privileges.

Next,  make the following registry changes via an administrator account to make system-wide Internet security changes to the server.

This registry value will force all users to only user the security settings that have been set in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE, rather then unique settings for each user.

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings]

"Security_HKLM_only "=dword:00000001

For QBES, we need to make changes to the Internet security zone. The  "Internet" zone is zone 3. I set both MinLevel and CurrentLevel to 11000, which is "Medium" security.

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings\Zones\3]

"CurrentLevel"=dword:00011000

"MinLevel"=dword:00011000

If you prefer other security settings, see this page (https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/182569) for details.

This support page (https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/833633) from Microsoft is where I found a lot of helpful information.

Netgear GS728TP Web Interface Issues

I just purchased a Netgear GS728TP switch for our new office. We have a Netgear FS728TP switch that has been rock solid for years, so I went with them again. The hardware seems to be solid and the switch is very quiet (especially for one with 24 PoE ports).

One problem: poor browser support.

The web interface does not work in the latest version of Chrome (43), Firefox (38) or Internet Explorer (11). The web interface will load and prompts me for the password. Once I enter, it continues to a new page...but doesn't load the content. I can't see or change any settings.

I finally got it to load by using a computer with Internet Explorer 8 (I believe I had to enable Compatibility View). After logging in with the same process as above, the web interface loaded properly and I was able to make changes. I connected via  few different systems. On other with IE8, everything worked properly...but the VLAN Membership page would never load properly. I found a page on Netgear's website talking about browser compatibility issues with certain firmwares. They suggested installing an old browser (Opera 18, Netscape 9, Firefox 3.5.6). I tried all three browsers, but none of these would load the VLAN page properly.

Ninite Pro Chrome Update Error

We use Ninite Pro to keep applications updated on our workstations (Windows 7 x64). We have a script that runs weekly to update a select group of applications. One user was reporting that Chrome randomly disappeared from their system. This coincided with the day that the script was running. The first time we thought it was odd and reinstalled Chrome, but it happened a few more times. After digging around, we noticed that if we tried to reinstall Chrome by downloading the installer it would work...but if we tried via Ninite, it would fail with this error:

• Chrome : Install failed - Could not verify installation (1), 1603 - 3227

After lots of searching (without finding much) and having this happen a few more times, we finally found a solution in the Microsoft Fix it Program Install and Uninstall Troubleshooter (https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/mats/program_install_and_uninstall). This is what worked for us:

• First, uninstall Google Chrome from"Programs and Features" in Control Panel
• After downloading, run the tool.
• Click "Detect problems and let me select the fixes to apply"
• Click "Installing"
• Select  "Google Chrome" from the list
• Follow prompts to uninstall the program and/or fix issues.

Menus Missing After Installing SPSS 23 x64

There is a bug in SPSS 23 64-bit's originally released installer, if you install using a command like...

MSIEXEC.EXE /i "\SPSS64\IBM SPSS Statistics 23.msi" /qb COMPANYNAME="xxx" /norestart

...and don't include an "AUTHCODE" parameter.

You will be allowed to install SPSS and license using the License Authorization Wizard, but when you start SPSS you will only see the "File", "View" & "Custom" menus.

To fix:

• Edit C:\Program Files\IBM\SPSS\Statistics\23\spssprod.inf
• Edit the line with "DaemonHost=" to be "DaemonHost=no-net"
• Restart SPSS and things will work normally.

OpenVPN Silent Install/Update & Kaseya Procedure

Due to the Heartbleed and more recent MITM vulnerabilies, we have needed to upgrade all of our OpenVPN clients to the latest version as quickly as possible. We are running Kaseya Virtual System Administrator (VSA), although any of these commands could be run via the command line or another tool.

You can download the latest version of OpenVPN here. There are 32-bit & 64-bit versions available.

I found details about command line/silent installation here. I chose to use the following switches:

openvpn-install-2.3.4-I002-x86_64.exe /SELECT_SHORTCUTS=0 /SELECT_OPENVPN=1 /SELECT_SERVICE=1 /SELECT_TAP=1 /SELECT_OPENVPNGUI=0 /SELECT_ASSOCIATIONS=1 /SELECT_OPENSSL_UTILITIES=0 /SELECT_EASYRSA=0 /SELECT_PATH=1 /SELECT_OPENSSLDLLS=1 /SELECT_LZODLLS=1 /SELECT_PKCS11DLLS=1 /S" 

One issue that I had was that OpenVPN makes you "trust" "OpenVPN Technologies, Inc" when installing the OpenVPN TAP adapter. If I hadn't previously "trusted" OpenVPN when installing a previous version, the command line script would fail. To get around this, our script will install install the certificate via the command line before starting the OpenVPN installer.

 

Download a copy of openvpn.cer here.

You can install the certificate using this command:

certutil -addstore "TrustedPublisher" openvpn.cer

My organization is running OpenVPN as a service. If you are not, you can ignore all of the commands related to the OpenVPN service.

Here are procedures that you can import into Kaseya. Make sure to upload the installer you wish to use to the VSASharedFiles section before running the script (In Kaseya VSA 6.5: Agent Procedures -> Installer Wizards -> Application Deploy). If the installer you are using is not version 2.3.4-I002, you will need to edit the procedure.

• 32-bit Procedure OpenVPN 2.3.4 x86.xml
• 64-bit Procedure OpenVPN 2.3.4 x64.xml

In short, here is what the procedures will do:

• Copy openvpn.cer to the system's temp folder
  (Kaseya)
• Copy OpenVPN installer to the system's temp folder
  (Kaseya)
• Run certutil to install the openvpn.cer certificate
  (certutil -addstore "TrustedPublisher" openvpn.cer)
• Stop the OpenVPN Service
  (net stop "openvpn service")
• Kill openvpn.exe & openvpnserv.exe, just to be safe
  (taskkill /IM openvpn.exe, taskkill /IM openvpnserv.exe)
• Run the OpenVPN installer with appropriate switches
  (openvpn-install-2.3.4-I002-x86_64.exe /SELECT_SHORTCUTS=0 /SELECT_OPENVPN=1 /SELECT_SERVICE=1 /SELECT_TAP=1 /SELECT_OPENVPNGUI=0 /SELECT_ASSOCIATIONS=1 /SELECT_OPENSSL_UTILITIES=0 /SELECT_EASYRSA=0 /SELECT_PATH=1 /SELECT_OPENSSLDLLS=1 /SELECT_LZODLLS=1 /SELECT_PKCS11DLLS=1 /S")
• Change service settings to start automatically
  (sc config openvpnservice start= auto)
• Start the OpenVPN Service
  (net start "openvpn service"

Microsoft Excel, U.S. Dollar ($) Symbol & U.K. Computer

One of my UK users was trying to work with an Excel file that contained cell with values in US Dollars ($). Things appeared to be working normally until they tried to use formulas. Rather than calculating normally, it would only output "0".

After closer inspection, we figured out that because the computer's region was set to "English (United Kingdom)" it was not treating the "$" symbol as currency. It was treating is as text, resulting in broken formulas. I assumed I could simply select and format these cells as "Currency", "$ English (U.S.)", but that doesn't change anything.

Here is the workaround that we came up with (to replicate, you must set region to UK):

• Create an Excel file with dollar values and a formula that will sum the cells. You can see that they are being treated as text, since they are aligned to the left and the formula result is "0".
  
• Select the cells with the dollar values.
• Press Control-F to open the "Find & Replace" feature.
• Click the "Replace" tab
• In "Find what" enter "$" and in "Replace with" make sure it is blank. 
• Click "Replace All"
  
• The formula will now calculate properly, but we need this to display as currency.
• Select the cells.
  
• Right-click and select "Format Cells..."
• Click "Currency" on the left. In the right pane, select "Symbol", "$ English (U.S.)".
• Click OK
• Values will now display properly with US dollar symbol and the formula calculates properly!