SendKeys under Vista

If you are maintaining a VB6 application or something similar under Vista, and the application makes use of the SendKeys call, you will likely get an exception, particularly if you are running the application within an IDE. This appears to be due to the security model in Vista.

In my case, I was able to rewrite the code to avoid the use of SendKeys. For other possible workarounds, see:

• vbAccelerator - SendKeys using the API
• Visual Studio Magazine Online: VB Statement Against Vista

Ubuntu: invalid GPG signatures during apt-get update

If you get a message like the following while running apt-get update on Ubuntu:

W: GPG error: http://archive.ubuntu.com hardy-security Release: The following signatures were invalid: BADSIG 40976EAF437D05B5 Ubuntu Archive Automatic Signing Key 

Try deleting the files in /var/lib/apt/lists/ (but leave the 'partial' directory alone) and running apt-get update again.

Source: update gpg error? - Ubuntu Forums

ntpd "Invalid argument" messages in log

I noticed that ntpd was generating a bunch of these messages in my logs.

Jan 14 06:05:14 starbug ntpd[5574]: sendto(xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx) (fd=22): Invalid argument
Jan 14 06:05:36 starbug ntpd[5574]: sendto(yyy.yyy.yyy.yyy) (fd=22): Invalid argument
Jan 14 06:05:40 starbug ntpd[5574]: sendto(zzz.zzz.zzz.zzz) (fd=22): Invalid argument

A quick Google search will tell you that this happens when your interface changes. In my case, my dynamic IP address from my ISP had changed. Restarting the ntpd service will correct the problem.