Recently in Technology Category

I know this is a month old, but I've been thinking about it a lot over the last couple of weeks for some reason.

On 10 June, Sean Dennehy gave a briefing at the Enterprise 2.0 conference about Intelink and how the DNI is providing tools to the US Intelligence Community and the US government in general to break down the barriers to communication and collaboration.

As part of the brief, Mr. Denehy brought up a recently declassified doc from OSS titled, "Simple Sabotage Field Manual" to help WWII occupied Europeans grind their organizations to a halt to reduce their contribution to the Axis' bottom line. Some of the highlights are:

• Insist on doing everything through "channels". Never permit shortcuts that would expedite decisions.
• When possible, refer all matters to committees, for "further study and consideration.
• Haggle over precise wordings of communications.
• Advocate "caution." Be "reasonable" and urge your fellow-conferees to be "reasonable" and avoid haste which might result in embarrassments.
• Question whether a decision lies within the jurisdiction of the group or whether it might conflict with the policy of some higher echelon.

I bet we all work with people that are like this. How many of us work in organizations where the above is standard operating procedure for the whole organization? I bet there's more than a couple people even in the small number of people that read my lil blog.

There are a lot of good, smart people at great organizations that really get this Enterprise 2.0 stuff. There are also a lot of organizations full of good smart people that totally don't get it and I don't think they even realize it.

I don't have any real data to back this up or anything but when I talk with friends and family about work issues, it seems to me that in a lot of ways things are getting worse instead of better. Happy success stories of technology enabled collaboration seem to be few and far between.

I'm going to try to be more conscious of this and make more of an effort to go out of my way to help people break through barriers to openness and sharing where I can. Will you? Maybe we can make a difference...

Update: Corrected the timing of the E2,0 conference. It was on 10 June. I meant to post June but somehow it came out as January. Commenter John Lierdal pointed this out to me.

(yes, it's been a while. I've been Twitting. It takes a lot less work than blogging because writing is hard sometimes)

So Apple has finally released the inexpensive iPhone. Entry level is $200 which is more in line with a normal modern phone than the original iPhone was. With 3G to boot. Slick. Will be interesting to see how hard it is to get one. My phone's 3 years old and I've been month-to-month with T-Mobile for years so I'm probably going to get one once the rush is over.

So, what remains to be seen between now and July is what will T-Mobile to do try to keep me as a customer? Is my $45/month bill worth it to them to do something interesting? Will see...

We were at UMCP Friday to see my sister's Masters graduation and she took us into one of the Engineering buildings she worked with. Tucked away in a corner of the room, there's a sandbox with robot rovers in it.
I think I just found the set they used to fake the moon landing. I hope the Illuminati doesn't track me down now.

In January, Chris Whisonant did a blog post called "Do guitar players really play Guitar Hero?" Most of the guitar players answered "no" in the comments. I play Guitar Hero and I play guitar, but I suck at guitar, so I don't think my opinion counts on that yet. I did find video on Youtube of a genuine guitar player playing Guitar Hero...

These are becoming interesting times for music in general and for a Nine Inch Nails fan in particular.

Last month, Ghosts I-IV was released online with no warning. My copy of the CD version arrived last week.

Then the other day, the main NIN site updated again with another "2 weeks" post...like the one that went up two weeks before Ghosts dropped.

Yesterday, the single "Discipline" drops in all its disco industrial pop yumminess with a free download. The Comments field in the MP3 says, "Go to www.nin.com May 5." A new album or EP maybe? Rock! I like the new clean, sober and beefy Trent.

The multi-track remixable download is out for download too.

Would it be snarky for me to post a remix that just clips the vocal false start at the beginning of the song?

I little while back, i am jen posted a new idea on her website. She offered up custom hand made CDs for sale. You pick the tracks and the title, she creates unique artwork to go with it.

I have a thing for signed stuff, not so much as a collector, but more for the experience of connection and closeness to the artists whose music I love. So of course I had to jump on this. I agonized about the playlist and title for a long time but got there eventually, and here's the result:

I'm really jazzed. It's a one of a kind piece of artwork to go with a custom mix and a cool way to connect with an artist. I love it and I'm glad I did it. Jen posted a video on Youtube called "Each one is Unique." You can see mine here and there in the video, especially around 00:32.

In the Domino blogging community people have been putting up posts about how and when they got into working with Lotus Notes and Domino software. I wasn't going to post anything because my story's pretty mundane. I will follow up with a "How I got out of working with Notes" posting later..

In 1998, I started with a biotech services company in a mid-level systems administration role. Up to that point, my experience was mostly in call-center and desktop support with some server administration too. When I started with this new job, I was doing desktop support but also spent part of my time doing administration. The way our department handled coverage was that everyone had a primary and secondary area of responsibility and we all overlapped. I was strong in Netware and Exchange, so I was primary for those systems. They needed someone to back up the primary Notes administrator so they told me I was going to do Notes. We had 6 or so servers with a bunch of Notes client-based applications that supported a lot of the work that our company did.

The more I worked with Domino the more I was impressed with how the server platform seemed to be able to do whatever odd thing we wanted to do with it. I'll never forget one thing we did there. Since it's a biotech company, we dealt with a lot of sensitive medical and customer business information. We wanted to replicate selected information back to our customers but didn't want to do it over the internet for security concerns. We set up a dedicated Domino server for replicating to specific customers. We had selection formulas set up so that the replication server had the required information. Then we set up a Dial-up connection to the customer's server and made our replication server replicate through that. So the server would dial out direct and push the data to the customer.

When it was time for me to leave the biotech company in 2000, I decided I wanted to make a career out of working with Domino.

My next job was at a dot-com called Eyecast. Their business model was to digitally capture closed-circuit camera feeds, transmit them back to the servers in our data center for archival, and allow for real-time viewing and control of cameras over the web from a browser. Most of the work was being done by Domino servers on an s/390 mainframe. What we were doing there was so far out, I really started to love the Domino platform. It seemed like you could do almost anything...except make money appear out of thin air. Eyecast dissolved in 2001.

Without turning this post into a long-form resume, my next job was my last job as a Domino administrator. It would probably better fit into the post about how I'm not working with Lotus software anymore.

The video edition of Samantha Murphy's SMtv launched last night and I didn't even notice til this morning. Maybe I can save my reputation by pointing out that I heard about it from Samantha Twittering it.

I watched the first episode so far. The featured artists are Jonathan Coulton (I can't get that Portal song out of my head...huge success!) and Jesse Malin who were both previously featured on the SMtv audio podcast.

I was surprised by the format. Samantha has been talking about a video version of SMtv for quite a while now and I was expecting just a video feed of the podcast recordings. Parts of the show include video from previous podcasts, there's a lot more to it. There's an interview with Terry McBride, part of Jesse Malin's performance at IOTA, and Mike Schmid fawning over Johnathan Coulton (I would too, probably so it's OK) and a couple other surprises.

It's definitely worth a look. I enjoyed it quite a bit. It's not in the podcast feed yet so you'll have to go direct from the website for now. I'm going to try to get through episode 2 before I head out to work.

Link: The Samantha Murphy Show

I have ben thinking of what to write about Ideajam since it came out this week. When I started thinking, I figured it would be easy, but it turned out to not be as easy as I hoped.

The idea behind IdeaJam is simple enough...it gives members of the Domino community to post ideas for projects, changes, improvements, etc and allows other community members to comment upon and promote or demote the idea.

With a bunch of smart, active users, IdeaJam could be really fertile ground which could grow great projects at IBM, various business partners and would-be open-source developers. From where I sit, it's a great way for the community to give feedback on what they want in a more direct way than normal.

For me, personally, it's a way to keep connected to the Domino community now that I don't work with Lotus software in my new job. I've been thinking of ways to contribute to the community over the last couple of weeks. I haven't had any great ideas on my own yet, but participating in IdeaJam is at least a small contribution in the mean time.

I hope IBM and the Business Partner community see it as the opportunity that it is.

I'm also really curious to see how the IdeaJam framework works outside of the Domino community when Elguji puts it out as a product. While I think it's a great idea, I'm wondering how big a population it takes in a corporate setting to reach critical mass for it to drive itself.

Manager Tools' latest podcast, "Getting Laid Off - Finances Rule" is a great illustration of why I listen every week.

This week's episode cuts through the BS straight to the core of the issue in Mike and Mark's typical direct style: Whether you get laid off or terminated, the state of your finances are what determine how well you are able to handle the situation.

Most folks reaction is focusing on the job hunt and totally miss the fact that if their finances are in order, and have a an emergency fund that they can live on while they search, they can afford to take the time and make better choices in resolving the situation.

In early 2001, the tech bubble was collapsing and I went through a layoff situation. One company I was in was collapsing, so I got laid off, but I quickly landed another job and thought I was set. Then I got laid off from that job a couple weeks later and spent the next few weeks without a job. I didn't have my finances together then and we suffered through that time. By the time I was able to land my next job, I was desperate and glad to drive 40 miles each way to get a paycheck.

If I was in a better financial situation at the time, I wouldn't have taken the job. On the flip side though, I spent the next seven years working there. Tomorrow's my last day there, actually, so I guess it wasn't all bad. I learned a lot and grew a lot and got to work with some really great people.

We've been working really hard getting our finances together...taking care of things, building that emergency fund, etc. I got lucky pulling out of my last layoff, but I'm not taking that chance next time.

This episode of Manager Tools comes at a good time. While I'm already working hard on my finances, but it puts financial issues in an atypical context that really hit home for me. Thanks, guys.

Next week will be the last week for me to work at my current employer. I have been working at the same org in the same billet for over six years. I've grown a lot since the summer of 2001. So has the environment I worked in. I'm excited and am looking forward to taking my career to the next level in this new opportunity.

While I'm excited about the future, there is one thing about the new job that makes me a little sad. For the first time in almost 10 years, being a Lotus Domino administrator will not be part of my job.

I really love the community that has come up around Lotus as much as I love the products themselves. There's a lot of passion and enthusiasm for the Lotus suite of products that you don't often see for enterprise software. It's almost like the cult of Mac, but I think they party harder at Lotusphere.

I don't know if I'll get to work with Lotus software in my career. Only time will tell.

In the short term, I'm going to be throwing myself into my new job. Once I get settled, I'll spend time figuring out what I'm going to do about Lotus software in the future. Bruce Elgort, with his work on OpenNTF, Taking Notes and IdeaJAM is loving proof that you can be a part of the community and not work with Lotus software in your day job. While I don't expect that I can make the kind of impact that Bruce has, I may be able to find a way to contribute anyway.

Last year, I posted a blog entry called: The problem with "mobile is that it wants to be more than it is

In it, I complained that the mobile providers are concentrating too much on gadgety, feature-bloated handsets and not enough on basic units that are just a phone and nothing else. Not long after that, I bought a used t610 on ebay. It's small, has bluetooth and the Mac can see it in iSync and that's about it. Lately, it's been blasting noise at me if I'm on a call and the signal starts to fade so I'm looking at possibilities for replacement.

What am I looking at? Helio Ocean, HTC Touch and the TMobile Shadow. You may notice that each of these is quite a bit more than just a phone. One's a custom media/smartphone, the other two are Windows Mobile phones with new clever UI's. They have decent cameras in them, and decent high-speed wireless connectivity. They're also right around $200 which is the only reason I'm considering them at all. If money was no object I would have already gotten a Nokia N95 a long time ago.

Why the change? Price, mostly. I have a hard time with the idea of spending $300+ on what a lot of the 'smart phones' go for but $200 is a lot easier to swallow. Since each of the three that I'm looking at are on different networks, I have to include the provider information in the decision as well (I'm on TMo, so I'll have to fight to get the new subscriber price, Margo's on Sprint and it's coverage is flakey for her, and Helio's poor customer service is the stuff legends are made of)..

The t610 isn't dead yet so I still have time to make a decision. I'm sure I'll post something here when the choice is made. I just wanted to go on the record as saying that, yes, I am a hypocrite before someone notices me fiddling around with a new fancy phone.

It looks like Verizon turned on their DNS Assistance “service” in my area for FiOS customers in the last week or so. When I fat-finger a URL now, it redirects to a Verizon-branded Yahoo search for what I put in as a URL.

They built this into their DNS system. You can opt out, if you wish, but it requires changing your DNS settings on your computer or your router. Below is a link to how to do this. I'll be doing it tomorrow probably.

Verizon Support - Opting out of DNS assistance

Technorati Tags: Blogging, Technology

I love Freezepop and I love Guitar Hero. I love keytars too. Good thing they come together...even if it is a bit odd that a band with no guitar is in a guitar game.

Less Talk More Rokk is one of the bonus tracks on Guitar Hero 2. When I'm just playing around, it's one of my go-to songs behind Jordan. Freezepop just put out a video for it...It's watchable below. Fun stuff.

Freezepop "Less Talk More Rokk"

Also, the new album Future Future Future Perfect is up for pre-order at Newberry Comics

Technorati Tags: Games, GuitarHero, Music

or, How and Why I Switched to the serial cable.

Since we cut over to the Verizon FiOS video service this year, we have been having occasional issues with the Tivo. I have always used the IR sprayer for the Tivo to change channels on the cable boxes but for some reason, the box that we got for FiOS had trouble receiving the channel codes sometimes…especially on 3-digit channels. That caused the Tivo to record a different show that it meant to.

I decided to give the serial cable a try in spite of the fact that a lot of people out there in the world have been saying that Verison’s disabling the serial port on the Motorola QIP 2500-3 that I have.

I plugged in and in a couple minutes the config was changed. The serial port’s definitely working on my unit. Channel changing has been reliable so far. Will be watching it closely for a while. I’m pleased…I never really liked the idea of using the IR sprayer to change channels.

Interestingly, the Wii's Mii characters have a little bit of social netowkring built into them. You can allow them to mingle with other players' Miis on their Wii. I'm not sure how that affects setting up multi-player gaming sessions over the net yet, but it's an interesting idea.

In Wii Sports, apparently other players' Miis show up in the audience to watch. There's a Mii Parade feature that's supposed to show you what Miis are currently mingling on your Wii.

The only problem I have so far is that Nintendo added a request/authorize step that needs to be completed before your Mii can go anywhere and before anyone's Miis can visit you. The procedure seems a little complicated...I'm not going to repeat it here...it in Google.

For anyone reading this with a Wii, my Wii number is: 6517 4737 3499 4541

Technorati Tags: Wii

I have an odd fascination with the supply/demand surrounding the Wii vs the PS3. Sometime since Christmas it's become a habit of mine when I'm in a store that would carry them, I wander over to the electronics department and see how many PS3's are sitting on the shelf (usually several) vs how many Wii's are sitting on the shelf (usually none).

I was in a local Target yesterday afternoon when I made my way to electronics. As I approached, there were some people walking out of there with Wii boxes in-hand. When I got to the Wii aisle, there was a Treget staffer pulling a Wii box out of an otherwise empty box and almost automatically held it out to me. I didn't reach out to grab it right away. "Do you want the last one?" Initially, I said "No thanks" and he put it on the shelf.

I had second thoughts a couple minutes later, went back and bought it.

Setup was easy. I had a little trouble getting it on the wireless network, but it wasn't that big a deal.

It's an interesting little device. The nunchuk has a lot going on with it...a lot smarter than I thought it'd be. It's comfortable to use too. Bundling Wii Sports with it was smart...it's a fun set of games that very easily gets you up to speed on how to use the controllers.

Now I don't have to pay $500 to play Guitar Hero 3. In the mean time I need to find out what the good Wii games are.

Technorati Tags: Gadgets, Technology

We can put a robot on Mars. Why can't we put robots in a mine? We're in the future now and people still die in mine collapses. WTF?

Rescuers Dig for 2 Men After Mine-Wall Collapse - washingtonpost.com

Technorati Tags: Current Events

I'm not going to tag this as "Show and Tell Thursday" but it this post is somewhat inspired by the phrase.

Sometime in 1998 I got my first taste of working with Lotus Notes and Domino. I was the new guy in the IT department of a biotech services company. The development group was doing some final pre-testing before rolling out a new application, and they asked me to check it out as a set of fresh eyes.

It was an unfamiliar application and at the time I had no idea what the intended users were meant to accomplish with it but I was willing to take up the challenge to see if I could break it...and I broke it. I got a repeatable Red Box of Death error and was able to explain exactly what I did to get it. The developers were able to fix the error and were spared an embarrassing post-lanch showstopper. I was launched into a new career as a Domino administrator.

I think I got a spot award from the department which was nice and always appreciated. The developers gave me the Lotus Notes mug pictured below which I thought was a really cool expression of appreciation. They picked this much specifically because of the tagline under the Notes logo:

"...because information has no value until it's shared.

I still frequently use this cup for my morning coffee. I also try to keep the tagline in mind as I go about my days. I think I'm a lot more valuable to the people around me if I share my knowledge rather than horde it.

Technorati Tags: Blogging, Domino, Lotus, Technology

In February, I made a post here asking that someone make an external laptop GPU. It was one of those things that make sense to me...allow part-time gamers like me to add high-power graphics cards to a normal laptop on gaming nights. I wanted to be able to play when I want without having to buy one of the big Alienware and Dell XPS laptops.

ASUS beat me to it by a month. The ASUS XG Station is exactly what I was looking for. An enclosure that houses a GPU and connects to the laptop via the Express Card slot.

Sweet. It's an interesting solution, since it doesn't require a custom connector to be built into the laptop. I wouldn't be able to use it with any new Mac laptop that I might have in the future. I might be able to pull off pairing it with a relatively cheap laptop.

It's a lot easier than lugging around a desktop and a 20" CRT. Blah.

via Engadget - Asustek's XG Station ripped apart

Technorati Tags: Blogging, Technology

I have a free idea for Dell or Gateway or Alienware or Falcon or whoever wants to run with it. It would be nice to see my name engraved on the chipset if it gets to market but I understand if it doesn't. I'd still like to see it happen.

I want to see an external PCI-X (or similar) connector on a laptop. Then I want nVidia, ATI and Ageia to make versions of their products to connect to that connector.

While modern CPUs can be throttled down to conserve power, modern GPUs and Physics cards don't so you end up with a compromise on laptops for gaming power. Either you get something something light and portable with no gaming capability or you get a gaming beast that weighs a ton and has no battery life.

External GPU and physics hardware would allow people like me game on our terms. 90% of the time, I want a laptop that is small, lightweight and portable (currently, I'm running a 12" PowerBook). But for that other 10% of the time, it would be nice to plug in some extra power and be able to play the games I want. It would also be nice to be able to upgrade without having to replace the whole laptop.

This came up from attending my first LAN party in about 8 years or so. All of the laptops I had access to had decent CPUs but way underpowered video hardware. It made for a very frustrating experience.

Technorati Tags: Technology

I didn't make it this year, obviously. I did try to keep up with what was going on in Orlando this week but life and work haven't been very helpful in allowing me to keep track of what's going on 862 miles away. I actually haven't seen the OGS stream yet either. Below I'm posting some of the thoughts I'm having about Lotusphere 2007:

Quickr looks awesome and I can't wait to get my hands on it and start testing. It looks fantastic. It looks like it's going to be a great answer to what Sharepoint gives out of the boxes (because it's hard to have a Sharepoint with only one box, no?). It's providing all of the Quickplace functionality plus blogs, wiki's, RSS feeds and some other stuff, all with a shiny new Web2.0 skin. With its integration into Microsoft Office and Windows Explorer, I'm wondering where Domino Document Manager comes in. I don't think that Quickr will absorb DDM but I can hope that using DDM as Quickr's repository will be easier. I'm glad to see that they're trying to make up for the fact that Quickplace hasn't changed much since 3.0 in 2003.
onnections sounds fantastic in theory, but I wonder about it in practice. It's probably going to be one of those things where some companies would use the hell out of it right away while it won't take in others no matter how much it's marketed. I'd be interested in seeing this in use outside the internal corporate sphere. Something like integrating it into the Notes.net profiles or something similar to allow the Lotus community to come together around.

I didn't see or hear anything about Domino Administrator, the Domino server or Domino Document Manager. They showed Notes and Designer 8 but no Administrator and there wasn't anything that I could find out about changes to the Domino 8 server. That's where I live when I do Domino...the server and Administrator. Lotusphere 2006 had a lot about R7. I hope we get more info before it comes out.

I really appreciate the Taking Notes and IDoNotes podcasts cranking it out at Lotusphere. Bruce and Julian and Chris did a great job at giving us a a good idea of the feel of what's going on at Lotusphere 2007 through their podcasts. With the madness that is Lotusphere, it's hard for those of us that aren't there to get an idea of what's going on down there. I know that blogging is hard down there and I can imagine that getting that many podcasts out with everything else going on has to be exhausting.

Technorati Tags: Jamfest, Lotusphere2007, Technology

I spent yesterday morning at the local Microsoft Technology Center today. F5 was using some of the meeting space there to host a discussion about PKI enabling applications using the Common Access Card. Specifically, they were looking for information on what challenges we were having as customers so they can work on figuring out how to get a more complete solution than they're currently offering. I think the discussion was helpful all around.

On the way to the conference room, I passed an Xbox kiosk that was playing Red vs Blue videos, which was actually what prompted this post. I just thought it was fantastic that someone decided to put up something funny and cool into a kiosk instead of just the expected demo versions of a couple of games.

Too bad I didn't bring my camera.

Technorati Tags: Collaboration, F5, Games, Machinima, Microsoft, Technology

Last year was my first Lotusphere. I had a bad plane ride over. Then I had the shuttle ride from hell over to All Star Sports where I was booked. The next five days were one heck of a ride. I learned a lot, walked a lot, had a lot of highs and had some exceptional lows as well. I had no idea how physically, mentally and emotionally exhausting it was going to be.

In the past, I always thought it would be interesting to go to Lotusphere, but never enough to really push to go. Now that I've been, I want to keep going back...I want to have another go and not be so overwhelmed like I was for Lotusphere 2006. This year's a bit different than last year for reasons I might go into later. I'm going to try to get out for Lotusphere 2008 but a lot of things can happen between now and then so I'll have to wait and see.

I'm hoping that more comes out about Domino 8 on the server side this year. A lot has been said about the Notes 8 client but the server is where I get things done. I don't think anything has been said about what's changed in the Admin and Designer clients either so it would be nice to have more information there. I haven't worked for an organization that deployed Notes clients to the end users in many years so, while interesting, the Notes 8 client changes aren't going to affect me much in the short term. I'm also looking forward to seeing more of the updates Domino Document Manager and Quickplace which are at least in desperate need of UI updates.

I'll be spending time as I can in the Lotusphere Live site if the office firewall will let me out to it. Either way, I'll be keeping an eye on the usual sources for info of the new and interesting things that come out of Lotusphere 2007.

It's supposed to be an interesting year and I'm looking forward to it.

Technorati Tags: Lotus, Lotusphere, Lotusphere2007

Cox lost a customer today.

Last weekend a few Verizon guys stopped by to sign people up in my neighborhood I'd been thinking about it for a while anyway. It's easy when I already have the FiOS internet hookup. All I had on cable was the extended basic service. I was paying $70 a month. The same level on FiOS TV has a few more channels (BBC America! Yay!) and it's going to come in at around $45. Sweet.

Margo was home for the install. It went pretty smoothly. I wasn't expecting that that they were going to replace the DLink router that they provided when the internet hookup was done. In its place is a Actiontec MI424WR router....the ethernet line from the FiOS goes into one jack, then the video comes out a coax port that hooks up to the cable that's in the house. I had a chance to talk to the Verizon tech about the new router and he said that it increases available bandwidth to accommodate the internet connection and video when things like Video on Demand are coming down on the video side. Interesting.

The set-top box is a Motorola QIP2500-3. The TiVo controls it perfectly with the IR sprayer. I haven't tried the serial connection since I can't find the cable and I've read that Verizon has them disabled anyway. The video looks good. I'm already TiVo'ing stuff that I couldn't get on Cox. It's a good day.

Technorati Tags: FiOS, Technology, Television, Tivo

"Gizmodo iPhone Hands On Part Deux: Why Isn't it White and Other Questions" via TUAW

Gizmodo's reporting that, among other things, that the iPhone isn't really running OSX and that they're not going to allow third-party developer support. I guess that answers a couple of questions that I had about it.

That's kind of disappointing. I understand Apple's need to keep the platform pristine and seamless and that they tend to do that by strictly controlling what goes on it (like the way the iPod is controlled). I'm guessing that any applications that come out for the iPhone will be handled through the iTunes store like the iPod games are.

That's a little disappointing to me. Restricting third-party development support like this makes the iPhone a prettier but less flexible Windows mobile phone. The Cingular 8525 isn't as slick, but it's a lot more flexible and ultimately usable because I can go out and find (or potentially write) the software I need to do what I want with it.

Technorati Tags: Apple, Gadgets, iPod, iTunes, Marketing, Technology

I've said before that all I want is a phone that's a phone.

Maybe it makes me a hypocrite but I want an iPhone. I can't help it. It's small, slick and smart. I think that the voicemail inbox idea is almost worth the price by itself. It would give me an iPod that has a better interface than my iPod. A phone that's better than my phone. It'd sync with iCal enough for me to be able to actually use it effectively. I'm still not really into the camera or photo functionality but I could see how some people might.

I do have some concerns though:

• Sometimes Apple screws up 1.0 devices. The first Nano, the first Intel systems, the cube for example.
• How hardy is the touchscreen? Better than the face of the first Nano's I hope.
• Movies, TV shows, music videos and music, your contacts and calendar in 8GB?
• A phone that's 5 years ahead of the rest has EDGE but not 3G?
• A phone that's 5 years ahead of the rest has 802.11g but not 802.11n?
• It's running OSX but there's no indication of how much of OSX and what the hardware's capable of. What kind of games can I play? What other software can I run? NewsFire? Ecto? Lotus Notes?? Depending on the capabilities of the hardware and how much of OSX is on it, this could be huge to me
• I don't understand the pricing when you consider it with the fact that they're putting it out with Cingular and it's going to be sold at Apple stores and at Cingular. Does that mean the price is $499 or $599 with or without a contract with Cingular, or are they going to be signing you to a contract with Cingular in the Apple stores (which seems odd to me)?

I'm looking forward to the June release of this device. I want to see what happens when this thing gets out into the world. Barring any horrible problems, I would expect to try to pick one of these up as a Christmas present to myself. I just hope my Ebay'd t610 lasts.

Technorati Tags: Apple, Gadgets, iPod, iTunes, Marketing, Technology

Maybe I missed something but, did Apple just release a new Airport Extreme base station that does 802.11n but not release an Airport Extreme Card to match it at 802.11n?

I read somewhere that the newer Macbooks are shipping with an 802.11n capable network card, but those of us with older Macs are stuck, it seems.

I get a lot of interference with my 802.11g network from nearby cordless phones so I'd bump up to 802.11n just to fix that issue. On top of that, the new N access points seem to have some more features than what was more available with the G routers....like built-in print servers and USB file servers.

Technorati Tags: Technology, Gadgets, Apple

It's been a couple years now since I got my XM Roadie2. It had a lot of use over 2004 and 2005. I really enjoyed the service...no commercials on the music stations, lots of different music stations to enjoy, and I didn't have to worry about finding new radio stations to listen to on long road trips.

During 2006, it seems like something happened to XM. Commercial music stations came up. I didn't listen to those stations anyway, but Margo did. Then it seemed that the playlists at drive time for my mainstay channels (Squizz, Boneyard, Fred, Ethel, Lucy) started getting really short and repetitive. Then the DJs started coming out to jabber more. This is the kind of stuff that got me to stop listening to FM radio.

In response, I started listening to my iPod a lot more. There's a bunch of podcasts that I listen to now, and with some playing around with my playlists, my music rotation is a lot more interesting. Around summertime, I noticed that I hardly ever even turned my XM unit on anymore. That continued through Saturday when I called XM to cancel and I removed the Roady from my car. Margo hates what has happened to XM too but I don't think she wants to mess with hooking her iPod up to the car yet so XM still has one customer in this house yet.

The funny thing is that when I got the Roady, I was trying to decide between getting it and an iPod. I figured that XM had better access to more music than I do, so I went with the XM. Eventually, when I finally got an iPod it took over my music listening in the car and at work. I could have probably saved myself a lot of time and money ($10 a month?) if I would have just gone with the iPod in the beginning. Oh well.

Update: Just to be clear, in the car, I have the iPod plugged into my car's stereo system...I don't drive with the earbuds in like I see some people do around here. I'll describe my at-work setup in a future post.

Technorati Tags: Gadgets, iPod, iTunes, Technology, Travel

This one's as much for me for future reference as anything else. I was having a hard time finding anything on Google that worked and wasn't overly complicated. Maybe I'll save someone else some time while I'm at it.

Situation: A development/test Windows 2003 server that's in a virtual machine on a VMWare ESX 3 server (I'm also using Virtual Center, but this should all hold for situations without Virtual Center and with ESX 2.x servers at least). It's been offline for a while, and is not a member of a domain in my case. Nobody seems to be able to find what the local admin account password was. Wiping and rebuilding it is an option of course, but I didn't really want to do that.

By default for Windows 2003 virtual machines, VMWare has it using the LSI logic virtual SCSI adapter rather than the Buslogic adapter. Your typical Windows account password reset program like the one found in the Emergency Boot CD (EBCD) doesn't have a driver for LSI SCSI adapters, so it won't see your virtual machine's disk.

If you shut the virtual machine down, you can reconfigure the virtual SCSI adapter as a Buslogic adapter. I don't know about how standalone ESX servers handle this change, but Virtual Center will ask a couple of times to be sure before it actually makes the change. If your Windows install was done on LSI and you switch to Buslogic, Windows will not boot..it'll bluescreen not long after the OS logo screen pops. But we're not booting into Windows now...we're going to boot up onto the password resetting tool of your choice. I know that EBCD has a driver for Buslogic adapters already so it'll boot up and see your Windows partition and do the password reset with no problems.

Instead of rebooting after the password reset, shut the virtual machine off and reset your SCSI adapter back to LSI. You'll get the same warnings about OS's having problems when you change the adapter type but it'll still do it. Then power your virtual machine back on.

It'll come back up like before, but with a known password this time. Maybe next time you'll remember to write down admin passwords even for quickie one-off test boxes that you might need later. I know I'm going to try. :D

Technorati Tags: Microsoft, VMWare, Security, Technology

So, the guitar that I won from Otto's Daughter arrived on the Saturday before Christmas. The band wanted me to send them pictures, which panicked me a bit because my digital camera's been down for quite a long time because of a missing battery charger. I got a replacement and got it done over the long weekend.

Here's the stuff that's packed with the guitar:

An Otto's Daughter yo yo (a yo yo? I love yo yo's!)
G's sticks with an initialed note that they're from the show
The setlist from the 15 Dec show
A screw with a nut on it (!)
Mo's strap (I almost feel bad about this one, but it is a comfortable strap)
A promo poster for the show and guitar giveaway signed by the band ("This ain't the poster - JVB" on the back)
An OD promo card
Four Otto's Daughter picks from HorrorPicks
A dirty rag (ooo...sweat from the show)
OD stickers
(not pictured) Bubble wrap personally squeezed by Jacqueline Van Bierk
(not pictured) A plastic tag (couldn't find it)
(not pictured) A business card for a place in CA that does guitar lessons

Not a Gibson, in front of a tree

SG Hearts OD

Everyone needs a screw with a nut on it...and staples...

Baby's first chord. With me anyway (JVB has had her way with it already). Em if it's not obvious from the way the photo came out...the 1 and 4 fingers aren't touching.

Over the next few weeks, I'm going to be poking around the local pawn shops for a decent amp. I don't think I'm up for the commitment of having actual live lessons yet. Will see what I can do with what's available online (I'm working on chord transitions with pivot and guide fingers lately, plus I'm looking through some tabs) and will do a progress check in a couple of months. The goal at the moment is to be able to say that I can play it by the time Otto's Daughter get around to playing somewhere around here.

My longer term goal is to be able to hang in there at Lotusphere's JAMfest next time I go. I'm not going to be at Lotusphere 2007 so I have at least a year to learn how to play the instrument and figure out how to work my musical sensibilities into more of a blues influenced situation.

This could be interesting.

Technorati Tags: Gadgets, GuitarHero, Jamfest, Lotusphere, Music

Happy 2007 everyone!

I have a couple of things that are a bit late (for me) that I'm going to have posted in the next couple weeks I hope. I'm not doing a 2006 in review here. It looks like I started 2007 with the site offline. Something got goofed up with my account. Should be straightened out now. Sometimes inexpensive hosting is good.

In the mean time, Overman and Zarathustra Studios has a present for the New Year:

Father Frags Best has been re-released in video format, so we can watch it without having to dig out those Quake 2 CDs. Yay! This was one of the first real hits of machinima back in 1999. It looks a bit crude watching from my 2007 eyes but I remember the tools that were available back then to do that stuff and it was heck of an achievement in Quake-based animation at the time.

I mentioned this movie in a previous posting that I'm actually in this movie for a couple of short scenes. I could only really hook up with them during production for one night but it was still fun. Watch the whole thing, but around in the section that starts at 12:33 or so, I think I was the boyfriend til he gets to the stairs. Then again at 16:44 I think I was the little brother in that scene. There was an outtake from that scene that was added at the end of the credits too. For the movie itself, the dialog was dubbed in from the guys that were picked to do the voice acting. The audio from the outtake, however, was all of us that were there on the “set” that night. It's an interesting look into a little bit of what it took to do stuff like that then..between what it looked like at filming versus what it looked like in the final release.

Technorati Tags: Machinima, Technology

I've mentioned in the past how much I hate the idea that some people have about cell phones that they're just a conduit to push marketing material to a person wherever they are. I don't want content from a communications provider. I want connectivity to the network. That holds true for voice and data.

So Verizon decides that they're going to push banner ads in addition to the web content that their customers are downloading with their cell phones next year according to a NY Times article (Verizon to Allow Ads on Its Mobile Phones). Nice. I wonder if the bits that those ads take up count with the limited data plans.

Have I mentioned that that I'm in the market for a new phone and carrier? (number portability is a wonderful thing).

I was kinda considering Verizon even with their bad selection of phones because of their recent Consumer Reports ratings. Not anymore. The article mentions Sprint is already doing this...Margo's been on Sprint for many years and hates it, so I never really considered them.

Yesterday, Seth Godin posts a message on his blog for John Harrobin, VP of marketing and digital media for Verizon because apparently you can't just contact the guy directly. Seth asks a couple of questions that everyone in marketing should ask themselves before they decide to add more advertising to something out here in the digital world:

Here are the two questions I hope you'll ask yourself:
a. what does the money we make from this effort do to the long-term profitability of our relationship with customers and
b. is this something consumers want? How many calls a day does Verizon get asking for more spam/advertising on their cell phones?

Now, the only relationship I'm interested in with my cell carrier is that they give me connectivity and stay out of my way if I keep paying the bill. Dumping more advertising down that connection isn't a good way to maintain even those minimal requirements for a relationship.

Anyone over at Verizon listening?

Technorati Tags: Cellular, Marketing, Technology

So I started feeling sick Thursday afternoon. Went home from work, started taking meds for the symptoms. Felt a little better on Friday but got worse on Saturday and a lot worse on Sunday. Went to the local Urgent Care Sunday night and it turns out that I have pneumonia. So I'm on better drugs now and I'm off work at least for today and tomorrow.

In the middle of all that, I got an email Saturday night from Jaqueline van Bierk of the band Otto's Daughter.

This probably needs a little background info before I go into the email though...

Starting in October sometime and running through 30 November, they were running a pre-order special for their upcoming album "A New Kind of Heroine". Pre-orders get a poster, get their CD signed, an early download of one of the tracks (The Truth...good stuff. You can stream it from their MySpace page), a listing on a thank you list when the album comes out, and a chance to win a Daisy Rock Dark Star guitar. I like signed stuff. I pre-ordered Becoming 001 and got it signed too, so it seemed natural to go for it again.

Back to the email...

The email was to let me know that they had the drawing and that I won the guitar! I never expected to win it. I don't even know how to play. But I'll learn to play it when it arrives...it really is a beautiful guitar and it would be a shame to have it just sit around and not get used. Who knows. Maybe this will be the making of a new rock star.

They had the drawing at their show on 15 December at The Gig (video is here, watch the whole set, the drawing's after the last song at about the 30 minute mark).

Last night they posted a three part set of videos of them packaging the guitar up and adding some extra stuff into the box while they're at it. I think I do need some staples, but it looks like they got taken back out of the box. Oh well. I hope the screw with a nut makes it through OK. G put in his sticks from the show which was a really nice gesture. Mo's guitar strap made it in there, but it doesn't look like he knew about it. Picks are always good. Too bad the chair and the stand didn't fit.

The Guitar packing part one
The Guitar packing part two
The Guitar packing part three

Many, many thanks to Otto's Daughter collectively for having the contest and then taking the time to turn it into a unique package of stuff. It's become quite a bright spot in a rather crappy couple of weeks. I'll take good care of it and maybe play some good music on it some day. And when they make it out this way, I'll be taking them up on Jim's offer to get it signed.

They want me to send them a picture of me with the guitar when it comes, so at some point I'll have an update post here with the pictures I took while opening it all up.

Technorati Tags: Health, Music

By default, the Domino web server supports the HTTP TRACE method. Retina Network Security Scanner (and probably other security vulnerability scanners) treat this as a vulnerability because for some web servers, HTTP TRACE can be used as a point of attack for information disclosure.

IBM has a technote out there called "Are there any known vulnerabilites in the Domino server related to HTTP Trace method?" . The technote states that there are no known vulnerabilities with Domino R6's HTTP TRACE method, but they also include instructions on how to disable it if the system owner wants. This is a good thing since it helps knock another hit off on a network scan by the security folks...it's much faster and easier to make that hit go away if you don't need it than it is to explain why it's there and that it's not necessarily a big deal.

The easy way to disable the TRACE method is to uncheck the TRACE box in the Allowed Methods section in the Configuration tab of the site's Internet Site document if the site is using them. Not all Domino web sites use Internet Site documents and some can't (Quickplaces still can't, nor can Sametime) since there is no Allowed Methods section in a server doc.

For non Internet Site doc Domino sites, you need to add "HTTPDisableMethods=TRACE" to the notes.ini. This will disable the method for all sites on the server, by the way, so you can't pick and choose if you're not using Internet Site docs. You can add other http methods here if you want to as well but that's out of the scope of this SnTT posting.

Technorati Tags: Domino, Lotus, Security, show-n-tell thursday, Technology