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March 02 New Blog SitesIf you get the chance, check out the new blog sites for both SharePoint and Unified Communications, over at Mindsharp. This is where you'll find my postings on either of these technologies now. this site will be strictly for personal posts and other ramblings. I'm hoping to make it a more regular event to post what is going on with the family and what we are up to in an effort for friends and family to stay current with us. I hope to hear from you and drop in anytime. February 27 Been a while eh?Hey there everyone, how's life been treating you? Around here things have been moving along at a pretty steady clip. Last November I decided to take a full time position with the wonderful folks over at Mindsharp. Mindsharp is a training company that focuses on SharePoint Server and its related technologies that is based out of Minneapolis, Mn. Luckily, we didn't have to move up there so we are still here in St. Charles. They're a fun bunch of people to be connected with and some of the brightest folks I've had the pleasure to be around. I have started a SharePoint related blog over at SharePoint Happenings so this space will be primarily dedicated to personal posts and family updates. Hopefully this will mean that I'll also be posting more frequently. If you get the chance, drop on over to my other site and give it a look. January 25 Windows Live WriterSo, this entry was written using Microsoft's Live Writer blogging tool. I have been rather remiss in my efforts to post here I will admit. now, I'm saying that I shall be better in the future, I'm simply saying that I'm trying out some new software. April 16 Much StuffWell, there has certainly been a lot going on the past few months, I must say. It's been a fun ride, so far, this year and we've been keeping busy. Training has been keeping me busy and on the road for most of the year. It's good to see the market taking a bit of an up-turn. The last couple of weeks I've had a few classes here in town and it's been nice working around home for a change. I do enjoy the travel, but it's been really nice to go home at night and see the family and sleep in my own bed for a couple of weeks. Of course, next week I'm back on the road, traveling to Atlanta and then Chicago, but it has been a good battery recharger. Vista has been a big part of the demaind, from what I've seen, and I'll be blogging about some of my thoughts on the new Microsoft OS soon. For a quick note - I like it. Microsoft has made a number of very nice improvements in the OS and much of the bad press I've seen sems to be from mis-informed folks who don't understand the changes.
As for all that "stuff" that's been going on... we are expecting our first grandchild sometime in May and PJ will be heading out to California around due-date to spend some time and be there for the wonderous event. Shortly after that Mark will be graduating from High School, (where does the time go?) and we have some family flying in to bear witness. This will be my sisters first visit out to Missouri and I'm looking forward to showing her around the place a bit. My brother and crew won't be making the trip as they just had a new addition to their clan as well. Congratulations and I hope everyone is doing better. I did mention it's been busy, right?
February 01 I found Pizza!Well it has finally happened! After two and a half years I finally found a pizza place around here where I can get a decent pizza. St Louis seems to use their own "special" cheese on their pizza's and they also like to make them with a cracker thin crust. Not exactly what a California Round Table pizza eater is used to. Well, as luck would have it, I'm teaching an Exchange class here in St Charles, Mo and at the front counter counter of the training center I spy a pamphlet for a place called Pizza World. Hmmm, the picture looks good (bit they usually do). I mean, this actually looks like what I remember pizza looking like. So I make the call at lunch time and have them deliver one of their all meat specials to give it a shot. My oh my... real pizza. It was round, smelled good, had real strips of bacon on it... and tasted like PIZZA. So now I can say good by to Pizza Hut, no more Domino's hello Pizza World. July 29 A public thank-youI simply want to take this time and space to say thank-you to Marina and Paul Silva for opening up their home to a stranded traveler on a Friday night in New York. As I mentioned in my last post, my Friday night flight home from LaGuardia was cancelled and I had been rescheduled for a 6am flight on Saturday morning. The prospect of staying overnight in the terminal was not an appealing one, but it was one I had resigned myself to. Upon learning of my situation however, Marina immediately offered to come pick me up and let me sleep on their couch. This really turned out to be a very fortunate thing for me as apparently LaGuardia kicks everyone out during the night and I suppose I would have simply sat on the ground by the front doors.
Instead, Marina came to my rescue and drove me back to their home on Long Island. This also meant that someone was going to need to bring me back to the airport the next morning by 5am. Once again Marina was up for the task. This went above and beyond the call and my deepest thanks and appreciation go out for the consideration and kindness that was shown to me during this unfortunate event. Marina and Paul are good people and I hope that I get the chance to repay their kindness. Thanks for opening up your home, and especially to you Marina for coming to get me and seeing to it that I was back at the airport the next morning to finally go home. July 28 What a messWell I suppose it had to happen to me at some point. You often hear about people being stranded at airports for lengthly delays, rotten weather and irritating cancellations. It finally has happened to me. After wrapping up a week of teaching Exchange Server in New York I managed to get to Laguardia Airport at about 4:30 for my 6:50 flight back home. On my way to the American Airlines check-in section I am passing an incredibly long line of folks. Is this the security line? What a mess. To my surprise, however, it wasn't security at all, it was the check in line. To my releif, the quick check-in kiosks were not busy at all so I simply mosied up to one and began my check-in process. Surprise! I have been rescheduled for a 6am flight the next day. Excuse me? Is this some sort of mistake?
Now I understand why the huge line, it seems that everyone else has been rescheduled as well. Apparently the weather has not been so great here at the airport and flights are messed up in all directions. Great, so now I get to find someplace to settle in and spend the night here at the airport and try and stay awake so I don't miss my check-in tomorrow morning. What a way to end the week. Thank goodness for having a laptop with me and finding some power to plug into. Its going to be a long night. July 01 The PondThis past week we finally had something done in our yard that we have been wanting for some time now; we had a pond put in. I've always enjoyed the sound of running water and now we have that in our backyard. The pond sits just outside the kitchen eating area of the house where we can listen to it and enjoy it during meals. My office/den also has a window that opens onto the backside of the pond so I can enjoy it while working as well.
The project was supposed to be pretty much a one day job for the folks we hired to put the pond in, but it ended up taking two.
Day one was spent digging out the hole, putting in the lining and building the pond rock by rock. Everything was going pretty well actually, except they were waiting for the gravel to arrive. This ended up delaying work for a couple of hours, but the folks stayed late to get the job done.
The next day the owner came by to look over and inspect the project and started adjusting things, moving rocks here, changing something there and the next thing we knew... drain the pond and rebuild. They ended up spending a good part of the second day rebuilding the pond to provide a better waterfall and planting areas. All in all I was quite impressed with the level of dedication and effort that went into the work.
We now have what I feel is a wonder addition to our yard, complete with fish, and look forward to many days and evenings just sitting and enjoying the sound of running water. June 26 It was a blastNow that we're back from our vacation I thought i would post some of the pictures we took this time around. Check out the Disney Cruise 06 photo album to see some of the sights. We headed off to Disneyworld, Orlando for a couple of days and then headed out to sea on the Disney Cruise. the cruise itself was a wonderful seven day adventure where everyone got to have their own vacation. Mark spent his time off with the other teens, in the Stack. this is a place reserved for those 13 to 18 years of age, no parents allowed. Michaela went off to the Oceaneers Lab and OceanQuest to spend her time. This year we gave her check-in and check-out privilages so she could have a little freedom if she didn't like the event they had planned. most of her time was spent at OceanQuest however, which is a new area of the ship dedicated for those age 10-14 with computers for gaming and a very cool ship simulator station. At this console you get to play captain and steer the ship in and out of port and across the seas. It was a very cool addition to all the other fun activities and options Disney has to keep the kids busy.
With Mark and Michaela occupied, PJ and I were treated to our own vacation. We did see the kids for dinner a couple of times, but mostly we had time to walk around the ship, watch a movie, relax on deck or in the cabin and otherwise completely unwind and enjoy ourselves. If you have ever thought of taking a cruise, I highly reccomend you do so. If you have kids, I really reccomend that you look into a Disney cruise. no other cruise line knows how to handle kids like Disney does. June 23 A mobile postSo, I'm posting this using my mobile phone and let me say what a drag it is to type this way. I really need to look into getting one of the new 8125 phones with the keypad. June 14 April AlreadyGoodness me oh my. Here it is, heading into the end of April already. Another Spring is upon us, here in the mid-west, and I must say it is a wonderful time of year. Many folks seem to be bothered by thunderstorms, but I find them a fascination to watch. Sitting in a dark room with the drapes open, just watching the sky light up and listening to the crack of thunder amazes me every time. Some people thought we were crazy to leave sunny California for the mid-west. Why is everyone so enthralled with California. Yes, the weather is generally nice. well, I happen to like a change in weather from time to time, it helps you know the year is passing by.
What most people don't seem to get about California is the cost to live there. Housing is way out of whack, if you ask me, and there are far to many people crammed into the space. Traffic in the Bay Area when we left was the pits. In the mid-west you can still get where you want to go in a reasonable amount of time. Flights out of St Louis tend to be non-stops, for the most part, to where I need to go. Travel is easier, time is a little slower and the people are certainly more helpful and freindly. Yeah, Spring is a good time here and everything smells fresh and new. In California it all looks the same, Spring is just another few months of the years passing by.
Vacations are for RechargingWell, here we are, mid-week of our Disney Cruise and we find ourselves docked at St Thomas. For those of you who have never tried crusing, I highly recommend it. It has to be one of the best ways I can think of to travel, get away and simply relax. Still having two kids at home, we tend to find Disney a great cruise line to travel with. We have been on the ship four days now and have seen very little of our daughter and even less of our son. The events they have planned for the kids keep them busy all day, so that the wife and I can just wander the ship, sit on deck, or just lounge on our veranda.
As with any cruise, eating is never a problem as there is food all the time. However, there is also a very nice fitness center on board so you can work off some of that extra eating if you so desire. We simply like to walk around the ship on deck 4, which is just about one-quarter mile, and watch the waves go by. For myself, I find our days at sea the most relaxing. On board there is plenty to do, if you choose to. Yesterday they were showing the movie Cars in the main theatre. Yes, that's right, Cars, the new film that just opened up in theatres. Amazing what you can do when you own the film, eh? The entertainment on the ship is top notch as well with something for just about everyones taste.
For myself, I tend to like to just sit around and relax, this is a vacation after all. No phones, no worries, no mess no fuss. March 17 March MadnessWell here we are, it's the middle of March and I'm finally getting back to posting. It's been a fun few weeks, having had the chance to work around home and take care of a few projects that were neglected while I was on the road. It's quite amazing how things pile up when left to themselves. Over the past few weeks I've come to accept the fact that my 64-bit laptop is running a 32-bit operating system and I'm not going to change it for the forseable future. It works, and at the moment, that's what counts. This week I'm in San Francisco delivering some Windows XP training, yes, people still want XP training even with Vista just around the corner. Being back in California, and the Bay Area in particular, is always fun for me, having grown up out here. As a visitor I have a whole different appreciation for this city than I did when I lived here. San Francisco is certainly one of the most beautiful and interesting cities that I've been to in the United States. It has a character all its own, though I still maintain, I don't want to live here.
Coming back to California gives me the chance to visit with family and friends who are still out here, which simply adds to the enjoyment of the trip. I return home tomorrow, only to come right back here for a short personal visit with the rest of my family before heading back out to teach again. Funny how things work out sometimes. February 08 Sticky-KeysAlright, I've had the HP zv6000 in use for a couple of weeks now and I think its time to talk about it. To begin with, HP was pretty good about getting the machine to me in a timely fashion. I ordered the system to spec off of HPShopping.com and the system was actually shipped several days before their expected build date. The system arrived, well packed and in good condition and simply had to wait for me to get home from a road trip before unpacking it and getting started. The zv6000 performs well, I'll give you that. This model has the Athlon 64 2.4ghz processor with 2gb of RAM and the ATI Radeon xPress 200 video adapter. On the plus side, it plays Guild Wars well, and let's face it, recreational gaming is an important function on a traveling computer. The screen, being a 15.4, gives plenty of room for applications while maintaining a comfortable size to fit in just about any carrying case. The zv6000 is a little heavier than some comparable laptops, but after lugging around a 17 inch Toshiba for more than a year, for me it's still lighter. My biggest issue with this machine is the keyboard. I find the keypad to be stiff to the touch and after only two weeks, a couple of the keys are beginning to stick and are not as responsive. The touchpad works well, though one of the first things I do is to plug in a USB mouse as I just don't like touchpads. Configured as it is, the zv6000 handles my applications quite well, but so did my old Toshiba before the motherboard died on me. The next step is to see how well HP support will respond to my keyboard issue. Hopefully there will be a quick resolution with no hassles. February 02 Iceberg, Dead AheadOy, a week into messing with the new HP zv6000 and we seem to be taking on a little water. At first it was smooth sailing and the water was calm and clear, but suddenly, without warning, we hit a snag. Let's start with the real fun and go from there. To begin with, the HP zv6000 is an Athlon 64-bit processor, so naturaly one might assume that it would be running a 64-bit version of the operating system. Silly me, you know what they say about assuming? Well, they're right. While attempting to install the 64-bit version of Microsoft's Virtual Server R2, I was greeted with a, "this is not a valid win32 executable". Huh? Upon a little further exploration I came to discover that the OS that was running on my brand new 64-bit speed-o processor is an x86 version of Windows XP Pro with SP2, not 64 as one would think. What gives? HP must have made a boo-boo.
So I fire up my browser and head on over to HPShopping.com, where I purchased my laptop not a couple of weeks prior, and low and behold, nothing. It's not there anymore. Mind you, I ordered the laptop in early January, waited a couple of weeks for delivery, which came while I was on the road, and then grabbed it once I came home again and headed back out. I've not had that much time to be playing with the new system, so finding that it was no longer available on the HP website came as a bit of a shock to me.
Next I called HP support to inform them of the mistake they made in building my 'made-to-order' machine and ask them to send me the correct set of disks so that I might fix the issue. The first kind gentleman I get on the phone informs me that there is no 64-bit verion of the OS, and they expect to have one around September when Windows Vista becomes available. Funny, since I'm staring at my own MSDN copy of Windows XP Professional, 64-bit. I politely inform the support tech of his mistake and I am put on hold while he "looks into" it. Sure enough, when he comes back on the line I am informed that there is indeed a 64-bit OS, but that HP doesn't support the running of 64-bit versions of the OS on their hardware. Excuse me? Then why are we selling 64-bit hardware? Isn't that kind of like putting a hemi engine into a Yugo?
None the less, I'm stuck. Since I can't find my system on their website anymore I can't point to where they had showed Windows XP 64-bit as an option when configuring the system. In my search for a new laptop, I thought I was being careful and taking my time so as to pick what I needed and get what I wanted. I asked people I knew for reccomendations, looked at newsgroups and blogs for suggestions and comments. The point was to have a system that would run the newer software in 64 bit versions. Why would I want a 32-bit OS?
So here I am, with a machine that has the potential to run 64, but is throttled down to your standard 32-bit. I could try and return it, but then I'm out a laptop again and right now I need one. I could reformat the hard drive and install my own copy of Windows XP 64-bit and take my chances on everything working, though I will certainly void the extended support I purchased for this machine. Either way, the whole experience leaves a somewhat bitter taste in my mouth. This was my first time down the HP hardware road and the bumps are very uncomfortable.
Does the system do what I need it to do right now? Yes. It runs the software I have to have, though I've not done any performance testing as of yet, and so far everything seems to be fine. The keyboard is a bit stiff for my liking and I often find that letters are missing out of words that I've typed, so I need to be careful before hitting the ol' send button on a message or note. The video handles the games I have tried so far and does it well. Guild Wars and Roller Coaster Tycoon 3 both give me good frame rates and smooth performance. The zv6000 seems like a decent computer, for a 32-bit standard system. January 30 Let the tests beginWell, it arrived. As I anticipated, my new HP zv6000 arrived earlier in the week while I was on the road. When I finally got home on Friday night, there in the den was my package from HP with my new laptop waiting for discovery. You can imagine how I spent most of my Saturday... installing and configuring software. Now the real fun begins however, how will this new puppy play? Over the next couple weeks I'll try various applications as well as several games and we'll see just what results. So far, things have been going well. I can get e-mail, communicate through Messenger and make calls with Skype. The camera on my webcam works fine, although the mike wigs out and is unusable. I'm not sure what is going on there yet but it will have to be looked into. I am happy to say that Guild Wars seems to play just fine and does not crash this system whenever I open the inventory. This is a good thing, I actually managed to play through an entire misson without a crash.
Next on the test list is to install Virtual Server and see how well the system handles my virtual machines. All in all, so far things are going well, but it's still early. January 22 On the road, still waitingWell, as you may have guessed, I'm back on the road and my new laptop did not arrive over the weekend. Chances are it will get to my house sometime this week while I'm roaming the East Coast and will simply have to wait for me to get home next weekend. The anticipation continues to build as I keep thinking of things i want to try on this 64-bit baby when I finally do get my hands on it. In the meantime, there are plenty of other matters to keep me occupied. This week I find myself in Falls Church, VA. followed by Whippany, NJ and Pittsburgh, PA. The Messaging and Mobility Workshop is going well and seems to be well received by those who attend. Some of the biggest questions revolve around the new direct push capabliity of Exchange with SP2 when coupled with a Windows Mobile 5 device running the Messaging and Security Feature Pack. Now bear in mind folks, as of now there are no Mobile 5 devices that yet have the MSFP bits in them, though they are on their way. The MSFP itself is not a downloadable add-on, so don't go searching the Microsoft download site for it, you won't see it. It was released to OEM's back around November of last year (that being '05 or just a couple of months ago. It's just that 'last year' sounds so cool.) The actual bits should be making their way into devices by March or April, but don't hold me to that, it's just what I've heard. The Exchange team has written some very good info on this subject on their blog site, so you might want to check it out at:
January 19 Stretching the Comfort ZoneWell, I needed to buy a new computer. My trusty Toshiba bit the motherboard dust. I'm not exactly sure what happened, but it decided to blink out and never wake up again. So, a new laptop was needed and the hunt was on. I purused the stores, the on-line catalogs and the newsgroups for tips, hints and suggestions. One over-riding suggestion was clear, make it a 64-bit baby. So I started looking, a little more focused now. There were still lots of choices around and in the newsgroups it seemed that everybody had their favorites. Buy HP. Get the Acer. I like my....
Well I looked at the Acer Ferrari 4000, looked cool, sounded nice, good specs. Another friend insisted that HP was the only way to go. Really? I had always had a negative impression of HP hardware. Don't get me wrong, I love their printers and scanners and always buy HP when it comes to those products, but computers? Nah. so I looked at the HP zv6000 and it sounded pretty nice. Had the specs, better than the Ferrari actually, and was quite a chunk of change cheaper as well. But that Acer looked so cool. However, this was all outside of my comfort zone. You see, I always bought Intel chips and Toshiba laptops before. When someone would ask me for a reccomendation, I would say, bet a Toshiba. None the less, I decided to stretch out beyond my normal comfort zone and decided on the HP. The zv6000 is running an Athlon 64, which is stretching again, but with a number of the upcomming software releases only running on 64-bit platforms, such as the anticipated Exchange 12, I wanted the flexability that 64-bit would give me to run what I would need.
So, here I am, awaiting the arrival of the new system, a bit anxious and a bit excited. An odd mix to say the least. When it arrives I'll give it a good run and post my impressions. Till then, it's a waiting game as I'm currently on the road delivering a Messaging and Mobility workshop and the new laptop will most likely get to my home before I do. Till then... here's to anticipation. January 05 A New Year, new ideasWell, another year has dawned and with it comes hope for better days. Not that 2005 was aterrible year, don't get me wrong, a lot of good happened on '05. No, the issues was how last year decided to come to its close that makes me glad for new days ahead. Hard drive crashes on three different systems, a bad DVD drive, the loss of a motherboard, all add up to rebuilds, frustration and lost time. A couple of restores, a new laptop and many hours later, the kinks seem to be working out and life in computerland seems to be returning to a sense of normalcy. At least I hope so. Currently I find myself in Atlanta, delivering two days of RMS (Rights Management Services) training and then its off to San Francisco where I'll get to drop in on family and friends while starting a four week tour of Mobility training sessions. This should be a decent shake down for the new laptop to see if it will handle the stress of the road and discover what I've forgotten to put on the silly thing.
November 16 When good drives go badWe've all had it happen. That fateful event when you start up the old faithful byte-sized friend only to discover that it has grown tired and refuses to answer the call. It is at those moments that the odd sensation we have felt so many times before, in the dark hours of the night, suddenly crystalizes in our minds eye as we stare at the blank screen before us... did I make a back-up? Well, not always are matters this bleak, as with a total system failure. Sometimes we get a little lucky, or at least we think we do, and only part of the system decides to give up the ghost. Such is what happened to me recently when I took one of my systems in for what should should have been a routine memory upgrade.
Just as with any surgery, the doctor will explain all the pitfalls, possible side effects, worst case scenarios, of what we know is a routine operation, one that is performed hundreds of times with no ill effects. Still, they are obligated to explain to us all the possible ramifications of the procedure that is about to be performed. Still, we plunge ahead, full of confidence and faith in the professionals we have entrusted with our care. And so it was with my computer. A memory upgrade, a simple, routine procedure that would require little time or effort to perform. Or so I thought. It has now been several days and two hard drives later, and I have hopes of getting the system back in the near future. But I move ahead. Let me back up a bit and fill you in.
It was time to add a little memory to my computer so that I could adequately run some virtual machines for testing and lab work. (I also wanted it so that some of the new games might run a little better as well.) I can handle a simple memory transplant, so I proceded to buy the memory and take it home to perform the operation myself. All seemed to go quite well until the system was rebooted and ran for a while. The memory was recognized by the machine well enough, but the system started rebooting itself after startup. Sometimes it would wait until logon had begun, other times I would not even get that far. Alright, sounds like possibly some bad memory. Time to take the system back and let the experts play with it while I move on to some other projects.
Well it seems that one of the simms was not quite up to snuff so instead of using two 1gb sticks, we put in four 512s to get the 2gb I was after. All was now working well and I took the machine back home to put it back into use. This is where we lose drive number one. Upon booting the system I discover that where I used to have a 'D' drive I now have 60gb of unallocated space. Excuse me? Where did my apps go? New memory shouldn't cause this to happen. Okay, they also flashed the bios while the machine was there, but still, what happened to the hard drive? A bios upgrade shouldn't cause the system to stop seeing a dive as formated. It's not that the drive was gone, you see, it was simply seen as unallocated. Oh well. Back we go to fix the drive.
After some examination of the system, we are not sure what happened so a new drive is put in and the old one is left to have some tests run. I now return home with my system to begin the task of re-installing my applications. Luckily the drive that failed was neither the system drive nor my data drive. (Yes, I do have back-ups of those.) The drive that failed, or at least disappeared, was where I install all of my applications. (No, this one I didn't have a backup of.) After a brief period of running a few repair installs, things seemed to be working just fine once again and I began humming along getting back into the groove of some work. All is well once more. Or so I thought.
The next morning the system begins acting a little strangely. Acrobat can't find its serial number, Outlook thinks it's missing an ost file. I would truely love to catch those little gremlins that come out at night while decent people are asleep and muck with our stuff simply to annoy us. Sometime during the night, it would seem, my system drive decided to develop a complex. No, it didn't up and die on me, it just deceided that certain blocks were no longer any good. I checked the event viewer and discovered a series of disk errors, bad block. Oh what joy. What, did my old drive get jealous of the new one? No time to mess with it so once again I must pack up the machine and return it to the hospital where perhaps this time a cure can be found for what ails it. Where this story will end, I still don't know. All I do know is that at least I have a back-up this time. I just don't know if its any good.
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