Thursday, February 23. 2006
Swiped from Something Awful's Coupon section and too good to pass up:
HS820 $30: http://tinyurl.com/dmmyf
HS815 $30: http://tinyurl.com/7nku5
HS805 $25: http://tinyurl.com/c4p35
Use code RAZRREWARDS for 10% off.
Free Shipping.
As a sidenote, I have the Motorola HS850 and love it to death. I use it with my cellphone and I use it with my laptop to listen to music. You would think only having mono sound would not be very good but I like it because I can be talking on the desk phone at my desk and still listen to music in the other ear.
Plus, I can walk anywhere in the building, except the kitchen, and still have sound. The transmitters on these Compaq nc6000 laptops are pretty powerful.
Wow, what a day. Even though it is just past midnight, the past 12 hours have been pretty intense.
It was a case of 'I've prepared as much as I could, and yet there was a whole lot of unexpected thrown at me today'.
Whether it was missing parts for a server rack, fragile old pre-existing wiring in a building, unexpected emergencies when I'm 2 and 1/2 hour away from the location, or just plain old bad luck, it happened today.
On the upside, at the end of the long day, we had a complete VOIP system rolled out and online at 2 office locations and the old system deactivated. There are minor tweaks/changes that need to be done tomorrow but the bulk of the 'hard stuff' went as well as it could today. If it weren't for my coworker today, I think I'd still be there setting things up. Teamwork goes a long way. 
Also on the upside, it looks like I've been nominated for Microsoft MVP again and I'm really excited about it. I hope I 'make the cut' this time around. It was always something I discounted in my mind like 'Yeah, I'll never get something like that, those guys (and gals) are wizards' but it looks like a real possibility! Keep your fingers crossed for me.
Tuesday, February 21. 2006
One of the best ones out there, because it's written by the people who wrote it:
http://blogs.technet.com/filecab/
This entry about managing staging folders gave me a tidbit of information I didn't know/realize about DFS and how it differs from FRS. DFS (Win2k3 R2+) uses the staging folders for inbound and outbound.
http://blogs.technet.com/filecab/archive/2006/02/21/420008.aspx
As broadband becomes more available, you will see more and more reasons to use DFS for multi-site companies, even the 2 location Mom-and-Pop shops. It was hard to do, decently, with the older architecture but these new features make it easier to achieve. You could almost think of the data going over the wire as "compressed block-level differentials". That is a big win when going over a VPN or a cable modem.
Monday, February 20. 2006
It sounds like Public Folder support will be around for quite a while due to how often they are used for versions of Exchange before 12 and especially Outlook clients before Office 2007. You will be able to disable Public Folders in Exchange 12 but you'll lose a lot of features.
I think this is a step in the right direction, honestly. Public Folders have always been a bear to maintain when they get into the multiple gig range. You could think of the backend of Sharepoint 2001 as one big public folder, because, that is essentially what Sharepoint 2001. It was a custom version of Exchange 2000 backend with one information store. I still have nightmares of maintaining a few huge SPS 2001 sites. It loved to eat folders for breakfast and require a good ISINTEG every year or so to clean up the cruft.
WSS v3 will be the platform to build 'new' Public Folders off of, and I think that will be pretty cool.
More info here:
http://blogs.technet.com/exchange/archive/2006/02/20/419994.aspx
http://mobile.newsforge.com/mobility/06/02/09/1727256.shtml?tid=104&tid=132
I seem to live in the last known area to have analog cable with Charter Cable in Michigan. We are surrounded by digital cable, but our Crockery Lake substation has yet to be rebuilt. DSL is not available in the area either, and even if it were, it would be iDSL at best. I'd love to pull in a T1 into my house and setup a little wireless ISP but I know for a fact that the instant I do such a thing, for a big cost outlay, suddenly digital cable will be available out here.
I know for a fact that there is a lot of interest around here for something better than ISDN. Right now when I'm at home, I'm on my cell phone with a data plan. So now it is a race between whether digital cable with cable modems get here first, or EVDO gets rolled out in Grand Rapids. If I pay off enough bills and can get enough people to subscribe to a wireless subscription, I might have to get a T1 in here for any decent speeds.
Anyway, long rant, but I would love to get VOIP on my little WRT54GS but over a cell phone on 1xRTT (144kbit - basically just about IDSL speeds - I sometimes get 16k/sec) , VOIP just isn't viable. Too much latency variance and not enough 'fat pipe'.
Sunday, February 19. 2006
Panasonic NB-G100P-S 7.2-Quart Flash Express 1300 Watt Infrared Toaster Oven
The perfect gift for Infra-Red Riding Hood. I would love one of these but unfortunately our current toaster works really well. If it for some reason decides to conk out, I'm definitely looking into this bad boy.
Amazon link:
http://tinyurl.com/qq6rb
Panasonic link:
http://tinyurl.com/5yby9
Friday, February 17. 2006
Lord knows I get about 5 of these in the mail per day and to a certain extent they are a security risk unless you shread them because a lot of times someone can snatch the pre-approved offers and get a credit card in your name.
I have 2 credit cards and unfortunately I have balances on both currently due to lots of unexpected bills the past year, but I always make it a point to pay them off as quickly as possible. I hate carrying balances on anything if I don't have to, which is probably why I get so many offers.
http://www.optoutprescreen.com/
I wish things were the other way around. I wish you had to 'opt-in' for junk mail.
No power at the house. Ended up at a hotel in Grandville so I can actually go to work tomorrow and still sleep decently with heat. They have broadband internet that is, well, rather broken, but at least work is right around the corner.
For whatever reason, my portable wonder router, the WRT54GS, can not pull an IP address. Out of 2 laptops here, only my wired LAN port can pull an IP address. Only 1 cable out of 3 works with the ethernet port in the room. Since my wife has her laptop here too, I ended up setting up the wireless card on the laptop with internet connection sharing in XP while she connected into the wireless portion of the WRT54GS as a go between.
The wireless part of the router is a client to the wireless card on my laptop, which is 192.168.0.1 due to ICS. The WRT is setup as 192.168.0.2. The WLAN has DHCP on it between 192.168.0.128 thru 150 but only my wife's laptop is on it and anyone who hacks my WPA2 key and guesses/sniffs our SSID.
It took a good half hour to get that wacked out setup done but it works until we get power back at the house. It could be 2 to 3 days from now. The kids have been absolutely awful in the hotel room and are still awake, and I get to go to work in a few hours. I'm not a happy camper. It has been a horrible night.
Yes we're huge nerds. We brought a wireless router, 2 laptops, GPS, and 4 cell phones to a hotel.
I think that qualifies as a sickness/disease.
Thursday, February 16. 2006
Wednesday, February 15. 2006
A good chunk of the engine runs as a service now tool, which is good news for people forced to run it on Terminal Servers. Previous versions used to spawn 3 processes per user per login. That type of overhead adds up really quick. I'm also happy that Microsoft Spy, who works on the Windows Defender team, is back on Something Awful forums, giving updates and help as much as he can.
Download URL:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=435bfce7-da2b-4a6a-afa4-f7f14e605a0d&displaylang=en
aka
http://tinyurl.com/c9p2f
I admit I like 'sharing' with the world what I am listening to at the moment and it looks like the API is changing for 'Now Playing' support.
Thankfully, there is a plug-in for WinAmp that is built specifically for this build of WLM.
http://www.myplugins.info/msn-messenger-plugin.php
You can also spy on my musical tastes here:
http://www.last.fm/user/mojomofo
I love that site. I've actually found new music based on what other people have listened to that listen to the same type of music I listen to.
Tuesday, February 14. 2006
... for some that might be a fetish. For me, it was gross.
Sabrina fell asleep on my lap and every once in a great while, she will have an accident.
So, picture this, we're sitting there watching TV. She falls asleep. I think, 'Aww isn't this cute'. I browse the internet and check e-mail. Suddenly I feel the warmth of liquid running down my leg. At first I thought I had spilled my drink, and then I realized what was really going on, with me now yelling "Get up, get up, get up, you're peeing on me! Get up, get up, Sabrina!"
Congress made the baseball players testify under oath. They didn't make the oil company officials do anything like that earlier this year. Out of the two, which one would you want under oath, honestly?
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