Tuesday, January 31. 2006
Good news: It's progress. I haven't touched IE 6 unless a specific site required it.
Bad news: You can't run it side by side with IE 6.
http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2006/01/31/520812.aspx
Sabrina Jade Riessen is now officially Sabrina Jade Tiensivu. Her adoption is final, as the papers from Ottawa county states.
Monday, January 30. 2006
. . . if you're infected with the latest virus/worm going around. It even comes with a neat little web counter when it infects a machine.
If you need a nice free virus scanner to check for it, http://safety.live.com
More information:
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/advisory/904420.mspx
http://www.f-secure.com/weblog/archives/archive-012006.html#00000788
I needed a good way, outside of Streets and Trips, to convert an address to GPS and my friend Jorge found that http://www.maporama.com will tell you the information you need.
I'm a bit of a GPS geek so that's why my entries lately have been 'tagged'.
Streets and Trips 2006 will give you voice guided directions, step by step, from your current location. That feature alone is worth upgrading from 2005.
I'm home (very) sick from work today, so what did I do? My taxes. I swear I'm not a workaholic. Honest.
I just need a few last interest statements/etc and I'll be able to file it but 99% of the legwork is done.
It is weird but I'll be paying my property taxes with my federal tax return, if I file in time.
Nasty.
Go to a website with a malformed playlist and it'll execute code. Woowoo.
DEP will make the exploit not work thankfully.
If you still use Winamp (I admit I still do from time to time), grab 5.13 , it fixes the nasty bug.
More details here:
http://www.securityfocus.com/archive/1/423436
Friday, January 27. 2006
Why? You only need licenses per physical CPU. That is a big cost saving.
More info here: http://www.microsoft.com/sql/howtobuy/multicore.mspx
Specifically:
Microsoft has been driving thought leadership in this area by charging the same amount per processor, regardless of how many cores are in the processor. Microsoft was the first database vendor to make this announcement, in October of 2004, and continues to be the only vendor to date that has taken this position. This strategy is based on the belief that multicore processors are a natural extension of Moore's Law (that the number of transistors on a chip doubles about every one to two years), and that the benefits should be passed on directly to customers.
Thursday, January 26. 2006
Here is an article, I don't know where it is from since it is uncredited, about the Wheelies right after the release of Magnolia. Even this small article gives you a sense of 'down to earthness' that was the Wheelies.
[snip]
Screamin' Cheetah Wheelies rolls with the punches
(May 2, 1996)
This just isn't Mike Farris' day.
His band, the Nashville-based Screamin' Cheetah Wheelies, has arrived late in Seattle and their hotel has jumbled up their reservations. He is forced to use a streetside phone booth to talk about his favorite subject, the Wheelies' second Atlantic album, "Magnolia."
He nearly chokes up recalling a fan who came to a show and delivered him a poem.
"He had written it telling us how our first album helped him through some hard times, that he had lost his wife," Farris said. "I just wanted to sit him down and let him know me as a friend and not feel weird about talking to a singer in a rock 'n' roll band."
Farris' tender moment is interrupted by a woman who demands to use the phone. She calls him several derogatory names and even takes a swing at him. Her boyfriend considers stepping in, but by then, Farris has already left and says he will call back.
Minutes later, Farris sneaks into a Moose Lodge nearby to use the phone. With his long, stringy hair, he stands out like a sore thumb. Unfazed by all that has happened in the past 20 minutes, he reveals the inspiration behind the album's first single, "Hello From Venus."
"I went home and found out they were going to build a car plant on farmland I was raised on," Farris said. "All my friends kept saying, 'Things are changing around here.' But people were strung out on crank, nothing had changed. I'm thinking, 'It's only going to get worse.'
"I was upset they were doing this to my old neighborhood. A whole flood of emotions came out. When something like that happens, it's like some part of you is dying. It makes you wonder, 'What are we doing? We're destroying everything.' "
Farris felt isolated, uneasy that his friends were treating him differently ever since the Screamin' Cheetah Wheelies' 1993 self-titled debut album.
"I wrote ('Hello From Venus') partly through the eyes of a person praying to God like a friend, an intimate conversation," he said. "It just breaks my heart to see what's happened in my hometown."
The gutsy rock quintet has learned a lot since its first album, Farris said, mainly to be patient.
"We didn't know what was going on the first time around," he said. "We just wanted to do our songs, and the label said we'd be stars. I learned not to take it too seriously. That doesn't feed me; I don't thrive off being successful. We're just out doing what we do best."
[/snip]
One of my favorite albums from the 90s is playing right now on my laptop. It makes me incredibly sad how the music business can let a very talented band die on the vine, while Kelly Osborne is still putting out albums. I followed the Screamin' Cheetah Wheelies ever since I first heard 'Shakin' the Blues' on a local radio station. They had a sound of their own, and most importantly, were playing music for the right reason.
They played because they liked to play. A true plug and play band. Awesome live shows. They finally threw in the towel last year when Mike Farris decided to leave "the business". I can't blame him. Left behind are the albums and the live shows, if you can find them. He was going to be the new singer for Double Trouble at one point and also put out a great solo CD.
So, if you are looking for some 'new' music, pick up Magnolia. It will rock you. Listen to it a few times before giving up, and it will make sense. You can still get it from Amazon.
http://tinyurl.com/85833
Somewhere I still have my SCW 24-7-365 shirt from the Magnolia tour. Class act bunch of guys. Easy to talk to before and after a show. If anyone has any live shows, please get in contact with me, I'm seriously lacking. I'm particularly looking for their version of Black Sabbath's "Wizard" and a good live version of "Rubbermaid Fiance"
A few months ago I switched jobs, and with that, I had to switch around my MCP association so that I was no longer associated with my previous place of employment. The Microsoft Partner renewal is coming up on 1/31/06. Thankfully, my new place of employment has plenty of points "in the bank" so I do not think we have to worry about getting kicked out, but I'm not positive on that.
Anyway, this all started back on January 6th. My certifications are still not associated with the new company properly. I've had numerous phone calls and e-mails to various organizations within Microsoft, including the MCP help e-mail alias and the regional partner program alias.
I've sent screen shots of the process failing. I've called and talked with people and they have been as confused as I have been as to why I am not able to join.
So far, I have disassociated my MCP ID number from my old Microsoft Passport at my old place of work. For a time, my MCP ID number did not have any mapping to it. The MCP program help desk was able to send me another activation code and allow me to assign my number to my new Passport ID.
It seems like I am at least half way there but it is driving me batty because my certs directly affect what competancy selections we can be included in and my final goal is to get this place to be a Gold Partner. We're almost there. I'm listed as the Primary Technical contact but that certainly isn't helping my cause at all. The Microsoft Partner site is still convinced that my Passport has no certifications, even though I can log onto the MCP site with the same Passport and view all of my test scores and achievements.
The last time something like this happened with a Passport, it was the difference between filling out the form as "AARON TIENSIVU" instead of "Aaron Tiensivu", but all combinations do not work. I still think something like that should be case insensitive anyway.
I don't want to make "bad press" but it is directly affecting my day to day work.
If anyone knows how to get this resolved, please comment here. I have my case number, MCP and Partner ID numbers ready if anyone at Microsoft needs them. My e-mail address is microsoft at tiensivu dot com for all matters about this.
The original case was opened on January 6th. It's the 26th now. The 31st looms near. I'm getting antsy.
This one comes up a lot on the newsgroups and I always forget it, so if anything, this is a note to myself:
Setup a username and password at https://members.microsoft.com/communities/mcp/default.mspx
For your NNTP program, use this information:
News server: privatenews.microsoft.com
Username: [username you setup ]
Password: [password you setup]
If you are using Outlook Express, make sure to select SPA or it will NOT work.
Tuesday, January 24. 2006
This was still one of my favorite CPUs out there for design. As it is mentioned in this article, you can kinda-sorta look at the Althon 64 as the x86 version of the Alpha. A lot of the Hyperconnect technology you see out there was/is designed by the same people behind the Alpha CPU.
I still have a few Multia's in storage that are working. They are nice little boxes for their day. I remember hacking away at the framebuffer code in Linux for the onboard graphics. We made it come a long way from the beginning.
Either way, this is a good read:
http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20060123PR200.html
Tuesday, January 17. 2006
Anyone heard of them? Use them?
I'm tired of sales talk - I'd like real world experience. 
Only thing I can find is a reference here so far:
http://www.greghughes.net/rant/VoIPOptionsInSearchOfThePerfectPBXReplacement.aspx
If you set that to True in Firefox 1.5 (it may be in earlier builds, I know it is in 1.5.0.1 for sure), it will tag memory it uses as 'flushable' on minimize for Windows. It can/will make it a little more laggy when you unminimize the process but it is great for having a lot of browser windows open and then launching a memory hungry app like Quake 4.
For instance, unminimized, FF was using 50MB as an example, and minimized it was using about 2MB of RAM. I don't know how well that 'scales' yet but it is a nice feature if you tend to leave a bunch of browsers open in the background.
Note: It isn't there by default as a toggle option. Easy way to put it there is to open up a "about:config" window, right click within the window, and select "New Boolean" and then enter in "config.trim_on_minimize" and set it to 'True'.
You could also stick it in your profile preferences, but this way is the easiest to describe.
Edit: It seems to make a big difference. One Firefox session had around 600MB of memory use drop to 20MB when minimized. It also seems to work for Thunderbird, which is nice because my RSS threads have been bloating the memory footprint and I typically leave that minimized anyway.
http://www.squarefree.com/2006/01/13/memory-leak-detection-tool/
I've been living dangerous on my desktop machine at home. Daily Trunk builds of Firefox and Thunderbird.
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