Steve's Rant

EVE Online

2011-02-25T15:41:00.001-08:00

Most of you have heard that I had stopped playing EVE Online for a couple of reasons. I found myself not enjoying the game and getting incredibly frustrated with it. As I have stated to my girls, on a number of occasions, games are supposed to be fun. When they are not fun, you should stop playing them. The final action that just made me down right mad was.. I just bought a new fancy shield for my Battleship. It was the most expensive piece of equipment (as expensive as the battleship itself). It took me over of month of quests and mining to get that much isk. I am just coming out of the space station, in Jita, and some ass pops me… That was the last straw. The other issue I have is that mission areas are not instances, like in other MMOs. It is one big universe and you can go anywhere, even if someone is mission running. I don’t like this aspect, since I like doing my own thing, being in a mission and having some ass come in a pop me when I am already engaged with NPCs. Most of the time, I am not able to bug-out.. So.. I get blown out of the sky. There is no safe spot, where you can just hang out and recharge the shields for a bit. You are always under constant threat of attack by players. If there was a specific PvP area or an area (like low sec) that PvP was allowed, it would be totally different game. But, the fact that you can attack someone (PvP) in high sec, outside a space station, with the space police right there.. is.. just wrong!

There are some aspects of the game that I do like. Skill Training is real-time.. meaning, if it says it is 11 hours to complete, it is 11 hours, either when you are online or offline. There is no grinding for XP or a specific skill. I like that a lot.

And, we have to deal with the me Issue. I have a strange sense of needing to have value if I pay money for something. So, if I am forking out cold hard cash, I want to feel like I am getting my monies worth. So, when I am playing EVE, I have to play EVE. This is wrong, since I ignore everyone around me. I at least have to have fun with the game and be so incredibly pissed off at it all the time!

Also, there is no End-Game. There is no master purpose or Quest for the holy grail.

I guess I am tired of the constant unprovoked attacks.

New XBox in the house!

2011-01-17T07:31:00.000-08:00

Well.. My Gen1 White 8gb XBox360 finally gave up the ghost. It started not being able to read the DVDs, neither game nor movie. But, then it failed all together. I thought something was up, so I did transfer most of my game profiles, saves, and themes to a 4gb usb drive. So, I guess I am not out that much...

Went to BestBuy and bought a new Black XBox360 with a 250gb drive. Hooked it up and started downloading all of the content that I had before... waiting.. waiting.. waiting.. after several hours, I decided to go to sleep.. There were still about 25 items in the "pending download" state. I guess having it for so long, I acquired lots of stuff.

On a side note, I do have to rant about BestBuy for a second. I have been a big supporter of BestBuy for a long time. Have purchased many many many things there over the many years. So, on Sunday, my family and I went in and we were greeted by the door guard, but no one else. Even though, there were many employees there. I rushed back to the XBox section, grabbed an XBox from the shelf. There were 3 employees there, just standing and chatting. They did not say anything to me or even break their conversation. Did not really need their help, but, it would have been nice to be acknowledged. At the check out area, there was one guy, who was apparently buying the store. The guy was purchasing several large items, so it was going to take him a while. So, I stood, holding my XBox... and waited.. and waited.. I saw the girls wandering around looking at stuff, while I continued to wait. Another BestBuy employee wandered the area, cleaned up some papers from a register and then wandered off. And.. I waited.. Finally, the guy finished up his transaction and I was up. I was seriously thinking about putting it on her counter and walking out. I was pissed off by this.. it was just frustrating.. It is not like I could not get this somewhere else or they had such a good price on it. It was a standard Microsoft price, $299.. I mean, I could have easily have ordered it from Amazon, with free shipping. It just means that I would have not been able to play that day. Looking back on it, it would have been a small price to pay for the level of frustration that I felt inside that store.

My point is.. Customer Service.. If you are in a service industry, you need to own it - breath it - live it - Do it! I will think twice about shopping there again.

Bye Vesta... Hello Fiserv...

2010-10-07T09:46:00.000-07:00

I just realized that I did not do an entry for leaving Vesta. Generally, I go into a diatribe about what I learned, overall feelings, and things.. I am not going to. I am just going to leave it at that. Take it for what you will.

Well, about a month ago, I left Vesta and went to work for Fiserv. I am doing the same type of work, the same work that I have been doing for over a decade now.. But, not for IT.. I work for the various Product Development groups. This includes Engineering, Development, Integration and the QA groups. I am in charge of the Product Development Datacenter, from Architect / designing to implementation to maintaining. The overall environment is small than what I am used to, but there are a lot of good challenges to resolve. I do have to say that these people here are a lot of fun to work with and for. They really enjoy their work and it shows. Everyone is working on the same team mentality and willing to help out whenever possible. My Director is awesome and look forward in working with him for a long time.

Just... SO.. Wrong...

2010-09-02T10:43:00.000-07:00

This is what happens when our Troops have too much time on their hands.. :)

iPhone4 vs HTC Evo

2010-08-16T13:12:00.000-07:00

It is 3G and has the WIFIs... I need one with the bigger GBs..

Global Warming.. Fact or Fiction

2010-07-30T09:28:00.001-07:00

I saw this and was reminded of a debate that I had with a couple of friends of mine… Okay, it was an aggressive conversation.

Hottest Decade on Record

The past decade was the hottest ever recorded and global temperatures are now rising at a rate of about one-fifth of a degree Fahrenheit every decade, according to the annual "State of the Climate" report issued by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). More than 300 climate scientists in 48 countries used a wide variety of data to measure 10 indicators of warming, including air temperatures, sea temperatures, Arctic sea ice, glaciers, and spring snow cover. "These independently produced lines of evidence all point to the same conclusion: our planet is warming," said NOAA administrator Jane Lubchenco. The NOAA report said every decade since the 1980s has become progressively warmer. Deke Arndt, the co-author of the NOAA report, said that although 1 degree F of warming since 1950 may seem small, "it has already altered our planet" by melting glaciers and sea ice, causing more intense heat waves, and sparking heavier rainstorms. The data showing that the 2000s were the hottest on record did not include data from 2010, which is so far the warmest year ever recorded, with extreme heat waves in the U.S., Russia, Europe, China, and the Middle East. The NOAA report said more than 90 percent of the warmth generated by burning heat-trapping fossil fuels has been absorbed by the oceans, which will radiate that heat back into the atmosphere for centuries to come.

Source: http://e360.yale.edu/content/digest.msp?id=2527

It reminds me of a movie quote - It takes a geological event to heat a million gallons of water by six degrees in 12 hours.

Nothing Is Ever Easy!

2010-04-19T14:52:00.000-07:00

A Comcast door-to-door sales rep (Tony) came to the door last week and gave me a great deal on their services. The one deal breaker was about my (or more specifically my wife's) email has to be forwarded from Verizon to Comcast. He said that this was not a problem and they would be able to do it for one year. I asked him again and my wife even asked the same question. He reassured us that this was not a problem. So, I signed up… They came out and installed the equipment and verified everything was working. I asked about the email forwarding and the tech was not sure how to set that up. He suggested that I call tech support for help. So, I did just that. I called and the tech support guy said… sort of… Apparently, there is a website that you sign up for that acts as a forwarder. This was kind of a hassle, but I was willing to deal with it.

However, Today I canceled my Verizon account...AND THE TROUBLE BEGAN!!! Once the account was terminated, Verizon email stopped. Apparently, you have to have an active account. I called Comcast and they were little to no help. They told me to contact Verizon. So, I did. I talked to them, explained the situation and was willing to pay to keep the email alive. The Verizon tech was not even willing to hear of it. It was like.. How dare you leave and then want to keep your email. So, I am basically screwed and my wife is pissed, since we did not have anything in place to change the email address in the hundred of contacts, sites, and payment places out there.

I am not very happy with Tony and Comcast for what I feel is not being truthful.

April 2010 MSFT Patches - LOTS!

2010-04-13T16:46:00.000-07:00

Bulletin ID	Bulletin Title and Executive Summary	Maximum Severity Rating and Vulnerability Impact	Restart Requirement	Affected Software
MS10-019	Vulnerabilities in Windows Could Allow Remote Code Execution (981210) This security update resolves two privately reported vulnerabilities in Windows Authenticode Verification that could allow remote code execution. An attacker who successfully exploited either vulnerability could take complete control of an affected system. An attacker could then install programs; view, change, or delete data; or create new accounts with full user rights.	Critical Remote Code Execution	Requires restart	Microsoft Windows
MS10-020	Vulnerabilities in SMB Client Could Allow Remote Code Execution (980232) This security update resolves one publicly disclosed and several privately reported vulnerabilities in Microsoft Windows. The vulnerabilities could allow remote code execution if an attacker sent a specially crafted SMB response to a client-initiated SMB request. To exploit these vulnerabilities, an attacker must convince the user to initiate an SMB connection to a specially crafted SMB server.	Critical Remote Code Execution	Requires restart	Microsoft Windows
MS10-025	Vulnerability in Microsoft Windows Media Services Could Allow Remote Code Execution (980858) This security update resolves a privately reported vulnerability in Windows Media Services running on Microsoft Windows 2000 Server. The vulnerability could allow remote code execution if an attacker sent a specially crafted transport information packet to a Microsoft Windows 2000 Server system running Windows Media Services. Firewall best practices and standard default firewall configurations can help protect networks from attacks that originate from outside the enterprise perimeter. Best practices recommend that systems that are connected to the Internet have a minimal number of ports exposed. On Microsoft Windows 2000 Server, Windows Media Services is an optional component and is not installed by default.	Critical Remote Code Execution	Requires restart	Microsoft Windows
MS10-026	Vulnerability in Microsoft MPEG Layer-3 Codecs Could Allow Remote Code Execution (977816) This security update resolves a privately reported vulnerability in Microsoft MPEG Layer-3 audio codecs. The vulnerability could allow remote code execution if a user opened a specially crafted AVI file containing an MPEG Layer-3 audio stream. If a user is logged on with administrative user rights, an attacker who successfully exploited this vulnerability could take complete control of an affected system. An attacker could then install programs; view, change, or delete data; or create new accounts with full user rights. Users whose accounts are configured to have fewer user rights on the system could be less impacted than users who operate with administrative user rights.	Critical Remote Code Execution	May require restart	Microsoft Windows
MS10-027	Vulnerability in Windows Media Player Could Allow Remote Code Execution (979402) This security update resolves a privately reported vulnerability in Windows Media Player. The vulnerability could allow remote code execution if Windows Media Player opened specially crafted media content hosted on a malicious Web site. An attacker who successfully exploited this vulnerability could gain the same user rights as the local user. Users whose accounts are configured to have fewer user rights on the system could be less impacted than users who operate with administrative user rights.	Critical Remote Code Execution	May require restart	Microsoft Windows
MS10-021	Vulnerabilities in Windows Kernel Could Allow Elevation of Privilege (979683) This security update resolves several privately reported vulnerabilities in Microsoft Windows. The most severe of these vulnerabilities could allow elevation of privilege if an attacker logged on locally and ran a specially crafted application. An attacker must have valid logon credentials and be able to log on locally to exploit these vulnerabilities. The vulnerabilities could not be exploited remotely or by anonymous users.	Important Elevation of Privilege	Requires restart	Microsoft Windows
MS10-022	Vulnerability in VBScript Could Allow Remote Code Execution (981169) This security update resolves a publicly disclosed vulnerability in VBScript on Microsoft Windows that could allow remote code execution. This security update is rated Important for Microsoft Windows 2000, Windows XP, and Windows Server 2003. On Windows Server 2008, Windows Vista, Windows 7, and Windows Server 2008 R2, the vulnerable code is not exploitable, however, as the code is present, this update is provided as a defense-in-depth measure and has no severity rating. The vulnerability could allow remote code execution if a malicious Web site displayed a specially crafted dialog box on a Web page and a user pressed the F1 key, causing the Windows Help System to be started with a Windows Help File provided by the attacker. If a user is logged on with administrative user rights, an attacker who successfully exploited this vulnerability could take complete control of an affected system.	Important Remote Code Execution	May require restart	Microsoft Windows
MS10-023	Vulnerability in Microsoft Office Publisher Could Allow Remote Code Execution (981160) This security update resolves a privately reported vulnerability in Microsoft Office Publisher that could allow remote code execution if a user opens a specially crafted Publisher file. An attacker who successfully exploited this vulnerability could gain the same user rights as the local user. Users whose accounts are configured to have fewer user rights on the system could be less impacted than users who operate with administrative user rights.	Important Remote Code Execution	May require restart	Microsoft Office
MS10-024	Vulnerabilities in Microsoft Exchange and Windows SMTP Service Could Allow Denial of Service (981832) This security update resolves one publicly disclosed vulnerability and one privately reported vulnerability in Microsoft Exchange and Windows SMTP Service. The more severe of these vulnerabilities could allow denial of service if an attacker sent a specially crafted DNS response to a computer running the SMTP service. By default, the SMTP component is not installed on Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2003 x64 Edition, or Windows XP Professional x64 Edition.	Important Denial of Service	Requires restart	Microsoft Windows, Microsoft Exchange
MS10-028	Vulnerabilities in Microsoft Visio Could Allow Remote Code Execution (980094) This security update resolves two privately reported vulnerabilities in Microsoft Office Visio. The vulnerabilities could allow remote code execution if a user opens a specially crafted Visio file. An attacker who successfully exploited these vulnerabilities could gain the same user rights as the local user. Users whose accounts are configured to have fewer user rights on the system could be less impacted than users who operate with administrative user rights.	Important Remote Code Execution	May require restart	Microsoft Office
MS10-029	Vulnerabilities in Windows ISATAP Component Could Allow Spoofing (978338) This security update resolves one privately reported vulnerability in Microsoft Windows. This security update is rated Moderate for Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista, and Windows Server 2008. Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 are not vulnerable because these operating systems include the feature deployed by this security update. This vulnerability could allow an attacker to spoof an IPv4 address so that it may bypass filtering devices that rely on the source IPv4 address. The security update addresses the vulnerability by changing the manner in which the Windows TCP/IP stack checks the source IPv6 address in a tunneled ISATAP packet.	Moderate Spoofing	Requires Restart	Microsoft Windows

Microsoft Security Bulletin Summary for March 2010

2010-03-09T10:14:00.001-08:00

Bulletin ID	Bulletin Title and Executive Summary	Maximum Severity Rating and Vulnerability Impact	Restart Requirement	Affected Software
MS10-016	Vulnerability in Windows Movie Maker Could Allow Remote Code Execution (975561) This security update addresses a privately reported vulnerability in Windows Movie Maker and Microsoft Producer 2003. Windows Live Movie Maker, which is available for Windows Vista and Windows 7, is not affected by this vulnerability. The vulnerability could allow remote code execution if an attacker sent a specially crafted Movie Maker or Microsoft Producer project file and convinced the user to open the specially crafted file. Users whose accounts are configured to have fewer user rights on the system could be less impacted than users who operate with administrative user rights.	Important Remote Code Execution	May require restart	Microsoft Windows, Microsoft Office
MS10-017	Vulnerabilities in Microsoft Office Excel Could Allow Remote Code Execution (980150) This security update resolves seven privately reported vulnerabilities in Microsoft Office Excel. The vulnerabilities could allow remote code execution if a user opens a specially crafted Excel file. An attacker who successfully exploited any of these vulnerabilities could gain the same user rights as the local user. Users whose accounts are configured to have fewer user rights on the system could be less impacted than users who operate with administrative user rights.	Important Remote Code Execution	May require restart	Microsoft Office

Mass Effect 2 Review

2010-02-23T10:19:00.000-08:00

I have gone through Mass Effect 2 twice now. Once with a ME1 Male Vanguard (20th) and now with my ME1 Female Adapt (60th). Let me begin by saying that you do not start with any of your abilities, level, or stuff from the first game. The opening sequence will tell you why.. Bioware did a fantastic job on this game and it is huge. Much larger than the first game, at least it feels that way. The combat system, inventory, and even travel is completely different. You can command each member of your squad individually. There is no inventory system, like the previous game. You have to buy or research (or both) to get more abilities for your weapons, armor, and abilities. This means that you need to mine planets, not just scan them.. But, you have to probe areas to extract the needed materials. This is cool, but very time consuming. You can easily spend several hours running around to the different solar systems to mine ore. This brings us to travel. There are still Mass Relays.. However, you actually fly your ship. Say you jump from the local system (our solar system) to somewhere on the edge, there may be 2 or even 3 other systems you can visit outside the jump system’s ring. This means that you will have to make sure that you are carrying fuel (yes, you burn fuel to go from one system to another) and probes. Both of which you can upgrade, with enough ore…

Combat is still point and shoot, but if you are bionic, you will be able to use powers, similar to those in the first game. However, you can use your abilities to arch around corners or walls. This is very handy when you are ducking behind a box and launching powers against someone’s shields.

With all of this said, I only have a couple of criticisms.
1. Max level is 30, which I achieved about half way through the game.
2. The Citadel level is really small. I would have really loved to be able to walk around more the old haunts, even if there was construction going on.
3. Can’t believe that Ash or Liara will not join your team.. I mean.. come on...

Overall, LOVE IT!!! I have played it more than Dragon Age (another Bioware product)

Oh.. Yes, there is romance and some sexual themes, after all it is a Bioware Game! I will now have to try it without importing a character to see what the differences are.

Mass Effect 2 - Review

2010-02-01T09:59:00.000-08:00

I just realized that I have not posted a review of Mass Effect 2. I guess it is because I have not stopped playing Mass Effect 2. The graphics and game play is absolutely unbelievable, down to control panels on the ship. The cinematic cut-scenes are “almost” as good as the actual game play. This tells you how well done the actual game play is inside the game. The character development and dialog is great, at times, downright funny. There is a lot of depth to each of the characters in the game, each with a sub-mission to gain loyalty. Most aspects of the original game, Mass Effect, are different. There is no inventory, you now have to mine a planet for resources, and perform research for special abilities. With all of that said, I cannot speak highly enough and have a hard time putting the game down.

Don’t believe me.. Here is a link to a professional review.

It has my vote for GAME OF THE YEAR!

Out of Band Patch - Microsoft Security Bulletin MS10-002 - Critical

2010-01-21T16:08:00.001-08:00

Microsoft Security Bulletin MS10-002 - Critical

Cumulative Security Update for Internet Explorer (978207)

Published: January 21, 2010

Version: 1.0

General Information

Executive Summary

This security update resolves seven privately reported vulnerabilities and one publicly disclosed vulnerability in Internet Explorer. The more severe vulnerabilities could allow remote code execution if a user views a specially crafted Web page using Internet Explorer. Users whose accounts are configured to have fewer user rights on the system could be less impacted than users who operate with administrative user rights.

This security update is rated Critical for all supported releases of Internet Explorer: Internet Explorer 5.01, Internet Explorer 6, Internet Explorer 6 Service Pack 1, Internet Explorer 7, and Internet Explorer 8 (except Internet Explorer 6 for supported editions of Windows Server 2003). For Internet Explorer 6 for supported editions of Windows Server 2003 as listed, this update is rated Moderate. For more information, see the subsection, Affected and Non-Affected Software, in this section.

The security update addresses these vulnerabilities by modifying the way that Internet Explorer handles objects in memory, validates input parameters, and filters HTML attributes. For more information about the vulnerabilities, see the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) subsection under the next section, Vulnerability Information.

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/ms10-002.mspx

Mass Effect 2

2009-12-22T12:46:00.001-08:00

What do West Wing, Firefly, Star Trek Next Generation, Matrix, and Battlestar Galactica have in common?

Many of the main characters from these shows have a role in the new Mass Effect 2 game from Bioware. Check this link out..

Loss of the Man Cave

2009-11-30T09:07:00.001-08:00

This holiday season, we finished my oldest daughter's new room, formerly known as the PIT. This was my office, done in mantastic ode to dead computer crap and stuff that you may need..one day.. It had this brown wood paneling and cork board on "most" of the walls. I took all of that down, remove the glue remnants, and patch the holes. There were many many holes in the wall, wondering.. where they all came from.. I even missed a few.. hundred… but, she will not notice.. I put a coat of primer and then began to paint. It is a light pink (Disney - Fairest of them all) and a darker pink for the trim. My wife painted the bed frame, chest of drawers and headboard in the same colors. Some posers and some of her stuff.. and (poof).. it is now a little girls room. Now, both girls have their own room and I am relegated to the bedroom to play the Xbox and computer on the 36" flatpanel.. I do like having the computer on the big screen, 1920x1400 resolution, with a wireless mouse and keyboard. Guild Wars looks very nice, but Oblivion looks even better.

I did manage to play a lot of Dragon Age and Guild Wars this weekend. I think that I am almost done with my main human campaign in DA. I just have to go up against the ArchDemon, which is a badass dragon. But, with me as a warrior and my damage-dealer, Morrigan, we should do fine. But, time will tell.

Let’s Talk About VMware DPM

2009-11-25T07:45:00.001-08:00

I found this on another site, but had to post it.. Ironically, an Engineer and I were just talking about this yesterday.

http://www.thevirtualblackhole.com/virtual-tech/lets-talk-about-vmware-dpm

Today’s topic is going to be about VMware’s Distributed Power Management or otherwise known as VMware DPM. If you have not heard about VMware DPM before, I found an interesting video interview with Anne Holler who works at VMware as a Senior Staff Engineer. I found this interview at Vladan Seget’s ESX Virtualization site here and it is worth checking out. The video is pretty short, only about four minutes in length and gives a pretty good overview of how VMware positions DPM in conjunction with HA and DRS.

In a lot of the environments I have worked in over the years actually had most of the processing power happen at night during the backup process. Actually at one point I had a cluster that was oversubscribed to put it mildly. If you have ever driven a standard transmission then you know about the red line on the tachometer that you should not go over or the engine would blow up. Let’s just say my oversubscribed cluster was riding that line during the day and when the backup schedule kicked off I actually saw CPU% on the individual VMware ESX hosts themselves reach levels of 102%. Just like clockwork ever day when the backup’s kicked off the host would really max out. Pretty cool to watch but I digress. The point is I am not sure I would really think about using VMware DPM in my production environment. Now if I just built a brand new ten node cluster what was designed to cover the growth for x amount of time and I had just gotten started with putting virtual machines on the cluster then sure why not set that up? I would have plenty of resources available that I would feel pretty confident about that but in most places that I have worked or spent any time at there was not really that amount of spare resources and most customers were always trying to cram as much as they can on the clusters.

VMware DPM was actually introduced in Virtual Center 2.5 and VMware ESX 3.x as an “experimental” feature and only had one way of ‘waking’ a server and that was with a magic wake on lan packet. That worked great until you rebooted Virtual Center or restarted the Virtual Center server service for any reason. After the reboot Virtual Center would see the host as down and was not able to bring it back to life. That was one reason why the technology was experimental at the time. Now in vSPhere, VMware DPM actually has three different wake methods it can use to bring the host back up. Along with using wake on lan DPM will also use IPMI wake and ILO wake. One other really cool thing that was added to VMware DPM was the ability to schedule when an ESX host would wake back up. So if you know you were going to have a heavy load at 9am you could schedule the host to wake up at 8am to be pretty for the start of the business day.

So to recap, I am not sure that VMware DPM would be something I would setup and use on a regular basis. I have also worked in certain environments that the Change Control Board would literally lay an egg if they knew that hosts could and would shut down for any reason.

That is my take on this. So what’s your take on VMware DPM and are you using it currently in your environments? I would really like to what you all have to say and think on this? Inquiring minds want to know.

XBox 360 Update tomorrow.

2009-11-16T11:25:00.000-08:00

XBOX Update tomorrow! And it looks to be big with some great new "features".

“We’re delivering some truly exciting social entertainment experiences to our members,” said Whitten. “Xbox LIVE’s differentiator has always been our community, and we’ve already seen a tremendous response to these features in our public preview. It’s the community that drives us forward and allows us to pioneer new ways of connecting people through the entertainment they love.”

Facebook*– Update your status to share what movie, game or entertainment you’re enjoying, connect with friends and view their Facebook stream, status updates and photos on the big screen – all seamlessly integrated and custom-built for Xbox 360. You can even compare your Xbox LIVE and Facebook friends lists to see which of your friends are on LIVE.
Zune – Zune video on Xbox LIVE offers a full fidelity experience with instant on HD in 1080p and 5.1 channel surround sound. No waiting for downloads or buffering, it’s there at the press of a button. You can also share the experience with up to seven friends through voice chat and Avatar integration on the TV screen – it puts a whole new spin on “movie night.”
Twitter*– Stay in the know by discovering, posting and replying to Tweets right on your Xbox 360. You can even view friend profiles, trends and conversations, or search to see who’s tweeting about your favorite game.
Last.fm* – Discover more music and explore endless personalized radio stations with Last.fm on Xbox 360. Skip, “ban” or “love” tracks to create your perfect mix—we’ve even built in “Gamer Stations” with game-related types of music selected specifically for the gaming community(Available in the U.S. and UK)

In addition to these social features, Xbox LIVE will also be debuting “News and More,” a new section of the “Inside Xbox” channel, transforming Xbox LIVE into a full-fledged media portal. With a regularly-updated stream of content from MSNBC, The New Yorker and Dilbert, “News and More” brings the latest in current events, arts and entertainment right to your fingertips.

http://www.xbox.com/en-US/support/systemupdates/default.htm

VMware vCenter CapacityIQ

2009-10-22T14:25:00.000-07:00

The new capacity planner for VMWare infrastructure has been released.. Check it out!

VMware vCenter CapacityIQ is a value-add component of the VMware vCenter family of management solutions, providing capacity management capabilities for virtualized datacenter or desktop environments. CapacityIQ integrates seamlessly with VMware vCenter Server, ensuring that your virtualized infrastructure capacity is always predictable and efficiently used.

VMware vCenter CapacityIQ balances business demand with IT supply, without compromising performance, availability and security. With CapacityIQ, your IT infrastructure is guaranteed to have sufficient capacity to meet any business service level agreements.

IT organizations can leverage VMware vCenter CapacityIQ in a number of scenarios, including:

Cost avoidance and justification. Do more with the same or less! Optimize utilization of existing hardware resources or justify any new business purchases.
Availability and risk mitigation. Plan for potential business and service disruptions proactively by modeling the impact of an outage, failure or disaster.
Project planning and decision-making. Model the effect of one-time strategic business changes. Quantify the results of workload consolidations, company acquisitions, additional new headcounts or deployment of multi-tiered applications.

Learn more about VMware vCenter CapacityIQ or visit Partner Central to download partner assets, including a demo and customer presentations.

October Patch Issue

2009-10-16T12:50:00.001-07:00

There is a potential issue with a patch in the October Security Updates may break Office Communication Server. The front-end service will not start, and the access-edge service will not start.

Microsoft October Security Update 974571 Breaks Office Communications Server
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/974571

Currently, there is no resolution, besides uninstall the update.

How to enable SNMP on a VMWare ESX Server

2009-09-25T08:37:00.001-07:00

Since we all are looking to monitor our ESX servers, a lot of people are asking how to configure SNMP on their ESX servers so that they can be monitored via a third party product. Seems like a pretty logical question, so here's how you do it.

To enable SNMP on ESX Server version 3.5:

On your ESX Server, enable SNMP under the security profile.
Login as root
Edit the snmpd.conf file (vi /etc/snmp/snmpd.conf) or (nano /etc/snmp/snmpd.conf)
Use the arrow keys to go down to the section "rocommunity public". Replace "public" with your community string for your environment. Then use "Ctrl+X" to exit out of Nano. You'll be asked if you would like to save. Type in "y" for yes and hit enter. Press enter again when confirming the filename to save as.
Since SNMP is not started by default, you'll need to type in this command to ensure it will be started after a reboot of the ESX server. The command is:
chkconfig snmpd on
We'll need to allow SNMP traffic through the built-in ESX firewall. To do this, type in the following command:
esxcfg-firewall -e snmpd
Now we're ready to start the SNMP service. Type in:
service snmpd start

Of course, the exact commands, paths, and etc may vary based upon your particular implementation but you should be able to get there from here.

For more information, visit the VM Ware page on how to configure SNMP on the ESX Server.

Today’s Rant

2009-09-24T10:19:00.001-07:00

Today is my day that I am going to a bit of ranting about things that are bothering me…

Let's begin with last weekend, the wife, the kiddies, and I were all at the local farmer's market getting vegetables and stuff. They usually have some local "talent" (yes, I am putting that in quote fingers) there to entertain the people walking around. This week there was a young woman who was playing a guitar and singing (badly), who I really was not really paying enough attention to, up until… It registered what she was singing. It was an old Concrete Blonde song from the 80s. I asked my wife "How could she utterly butcher Concrete Blonde!!!???!!! Wasn't that a crime?"

This morning on the local radio station, 94.7 FM, they were playing a song from a local "artist" (notice the quotes) of a famous Depeche Mode song, Personal Jesus. I actually felt my ears starting to bleed from the drunken monkey karaoke, attempting to sing a perfectly good song. I actually had to change the channel before I started yelling at my radio (which would look bad) or getting into an accident on the freeway. Is that is what is passing for music these days? No, seriously? Please, for the love of good musical taste, burn that CD.

To top it off, people are trying to take out my little red truck. I am driving in a straight line on the freeway, minding my own business… and people are trying to move over on me.. Can't you see me.. Hello.. Driving here… Little Red Truck!!!

Seriously!

RDP (Terminal Services) on a Windows 2000 stopped working after P2V

2009-09-22T11:53:00.000-07:00

It seems like every time I P2V a Windows 2000 Server (SP4), Remote desktop (TS) services stops working. I found in the TS Manager states that the port is "down" and there is no way to click enable. I was able to use RDP from my XP box to admin the server before the convert. So, I know that it "did" work. Just to be clear. This is not a TS Server or some special remote box. It is a standard Windows 2000 Server with SP4 running some applications.

I have been bitten by network cards or hidden interfaces during previous migrations. I, now, remove the network card from the P2V process. I then re-add it manually to the image after everything is complete. I put in all of the IPs, etc... after the convert. Currently the image is set to Flexible and is connected / connect at power on. The VM is using "VMWare Accelerated AMD PCNet Adapter" I do not see an option to change from one adapter to another within ESX 3.5 Update 4.

So.. Here is what I have done at this point.
1. I have rebooted the box several times
2. I have uninstalled, rebooted, installed the TS service again
3. There are no events in the event log either on the client or the server
4. In the Terminal Service Manager, it states that the RDP-TCP (65537) is down
5. The Terminal Service Process is started and running in automatic
6. VMWare tools are installed and up-to-date
7. The client gets the "This computer can't connect to the remote computer" error message
8. Clents were able to RDP from their XP boxes to this Windows 2000 SP4 server prior to the P2V
9. I have removed it from the domain and re-added it to the domain
I think that about covers it.

Here is the solution to the issue.
Remote Desktop Protocol Clients Cannot Connect to Terminal Services Server
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/270588

Virtualization Whitpapers

2009-09-22T07:42:00.000-07:00

I came across two very interesting whitepapers regarding I/O, performance, and virtualization. I hope that you find the read as interesting as I did.

http://www.virtual-io.com/images/Whitepapers/direct-assignment-tr-0263.pdf

Here is a whitepaper that explains Virtualization Technology and what it all means... Something that your boss(es) always ask for..
http://www.virtual-io.com/images/Whitepapers/iov_scope.pdf

What's going on...

2009-09-01T11:07:00.000-07:00

I have been getting a lot of these.. "So, what have you been up to?" or "Have not heard from you in a while..." emails from many of my friends. So, I thought that I would put in a post about what has been going on in my world. Well... I am a year older, work has been keeping me really busy. I have been working at least one late night/early morning (sometimes late morning) once a week, since most of my production impacting work has to be done at night. Kids and wife are doing well, really looking forward for them to go back to school. My oldest is really really looking forward to see all of her friends on Wednesday.

The summer has been good. Lots of birthday parities and small get together. I recently had a former colleague's family over for a BBQ, play on the play structure, and general chat. It was really good and clean fun. The kids enjoyed themselves, until it stated raining. I need to do this more often with people. Just finding the time is hard. The girls either have something or there is something that we have to do. But, it needs to be done.

Playing a bit of Mass Effect on the x360. But, I am missing the whole Dark Age interaction.. Maybe I can convience a few people to play, so I am not alone in my adventures. We will see.

Oh.. did you see the I5s areout.. They look really hot, great performance, at a lower cost than the I7s. I may have to change my plan to one of these and move some more money to the larger hard-drive or more memory.

That is all for now.

Quitting EVE - But enjoyed my time

2009-08-20T18:34:00.000-07:00

Well, I have officially quit the online game - eve online. I enjoyed the game, but found that I was spending a hella lot of time online. So much, in fact, that I was starting to get in trouble with the wife for ignoring the kids and her. SO.. I am officially resigning my commission.

I am been spending more time with the XBox, which it loves. (It stopped sending me nasty grams to my email) Playing F.E.A.R. and watching Netflix movies.. FEAR is very dark and a bit creepy, but lots of fun.

Back to the ‘Lodge’

2009-08-05T09:04:00.001-07:00

The past weekend, to celebrate my oldest daughter's birthday, we headed back to the Great Wolf Lodge for a night. The girls really enjoy the place and everyone has fun playing in the water. We did not play too much with the inner-tubes this time; spend most of our time on the two slides under the Water Bucket. They have also added an outdoor area that has a small water bucket and various other water features. This is also "THE" place to get food. At around lunch time, they put on a small BBQ that is very reasonable. Standard BBQ affair, hot dogs, hamburgers, and kabobs – But, for $7 you can get a cheeseburger with chips and a drink. Hotdogs were around $5 and I don't recall what the kabobs were. The only criticism that I would have about the new area is seating. I am a white boy - I go from white to extra crispy in about 2 minutes. There were only two tables with umbrellas. I would suggest that umbrellas would be a much needed addition. Good food for the cost.

Scoops – the children's manicure/pedicure spa.

As part of the birthday experience, we treated my oldest to a manicure/pedicure treatment. She was really excited (high anxiety) about this for several weeks prior. So, I wanted to make sure that everything was perfect, being her first 'girly' experience. I called and made a mommy/daughter appointment in Scoops, so mommy would get one also and be setting the example. When we arrived, I confirmed the appointment that it was a mommy / daughter set, time, etc… Mommy took my oldest, while I played with the young one in the water. After about 30 minutes, we finally made it out of the water and made it up to Scoops, where we found mommy. I was curious why mommy was not getting her nails done with the birthday girl. I attempted to inquire why, but was shot down very quickly. After the birthday girl finished and we left Scoops, I was like.. okay.. what happened??!!!??? Mommy informed me that they had messed up the appointment. They had it for the birthday girl, but not her in Scoops. They had her appointment in the adult spa. There was only 2 'stylists' available and they were booked and they were not able to move another stylist over to service the adult. Mommy was going to go and talk with them, but the Birthday Girl was not letting go of the mommy.

She made me calm down, since she knows that I would go ballistic over something like this. The important thing is that the Birthday Girl was happy. She could not stop looking at her fingers and toes all the way home. It was well worth the money to see her this happy. I am just not pleased about after all of the effort that I went through to make sure that both my wife and my oldest daughter to have a great first experience and I get an epic failure.. Can't win for loosing…

Happy SysAdmin Day

2009-07-31T09:35:00.000-07:00

July 31, 2009 (Last Friday Of July)

A sysadmin unpacked the server for this website from its box, installed an operating system, patched it for security, made sure the power and air conditioning was working in the server room, monitored it for stability, set up the software, and kept backups in case anything went wrong. All to serve this webpage.

A sysadmin installed the routers, laid the cables, configured the networks, set up the firewalls, and watched and guided the traffic for each hop of the network that runs over copper, fiber optic glass, and even the air itself to bring the Internet to your computer. All to make sure the webpage found its way from the server to your computer.

A sysadmin makes sure your network connection is safe, secure, open, and working. A sysadmin makes sure your computer is working in a healthy way on a healthy network. A sysadmin takes backups to guard against disaster both human and otherwise, holds the gates against security threats and crackers, and keeps the printers going no matter how many copies of the tax code someone from Accounting prints out.

A sysadmin worries about spam, viruses, spyware, but also power outages, fires and floods.

When the email server goes down at 2 AM on a Sunday, your sysadmin is paged, wakes up, and goes to work.

A sysadmin is a professional, who plans, worries, hacks, fixes, pushes, advocates, protects and creates good computer networks, to get you your data, to help you do work -- to bring the potential of computing ever closer to reality.

So if you can read this, thank your sysadmin -- and know he or she is only one of dozens or possibly hundreds whose work brings you the email from your aunt on the West Coast, the instant message from your son at college, the free phone call from the friend in Australia, and this webpage.

Show your appreciation

Friday, July 31, 2009, is the 10th annual System Administrator Appreciation Day. On this special international day, give your System Administrator something that shows that you truly appreciate their hard work and dedication. (All day Friday, 24 hours, your local timezone).

Let's face it, System Administrators get no respect 364 days a year. This is the day that all fellow System Administrators across the globe, will be showered with expensive sports cars and large piles of cash in appreciation of their diligent work. But seriously, we are asking for a nice token gift and some public acknowledgement. It's the least you could do.

Consider all the daunting tasks and long hours (weekends too.) Let's be honest, sometimes we don't know our System Administrators as well as they know us. Remember this is one day to recognize your System Administrator for their workplace contributions and to promote professional excellence. Thank them for all the things they do for you and your business.

Help Spread the word

http://www.sysadminday.com/

EVE Online

2009-07-13T13:08:00.000-07:00

The year was 1993 and Wing Commander: Privateer was released by Origin Systems. Here is a game that you flew a ship (in first person) around in space, becoming a merchant, a merc, a pirate, or a military lackey. Throughout the entire game, you were trying to get money to get the better ship and better weapons to protect yourself and serve your greater purpose.

I have been playing a similar game called EVE Online. EVE is very similar in concept to Privateer, Sorry.. No Kilrathi, where you can become the miner, merchant, transport carrier, and/or a mercenary. Instead of you flying the ship, you are more of the commander, giving orders of where you need to go and do. However, it is more of a 3 dimensional 3rd person view. The graphics are stunning and the game play can keep you on the edge of your seat. Especially, when you are up against 4-6 pirates loaded to the teeth, your only hope is to keep them at range and the ability to out run them. Now, this is an online game, like World of Warcraft or Dark Age of Camelot, just in a space genre.

There is a massive user population, I have personally seen anywhere between 26,000 and 39,000, depending on the time and day. The game consists of 4 main races, Amarr, Caldari, Gallente, and Minmatar. Each has their own abilities and failures, such as, sole reliance on power systems or lack of range. In the game, you have to manage your power consumption, shields, hull strength, weapon systems, and the enemy. There are many aspects of the game that I like is, unlike DAOC where you have to train using both money, equipment, constant attention, EVE skill training is queue based. This means, that you set what you want to train and it does it even if you are logged out. The skills are all bases on real time, meaning, if you have a skill that will take an hour, it takes an hour. The trained skills unlock the ability to equip greater weapons, bonus to range and/or shields, or range.

I am currently playing an Amarr female, Qiulinnzu. She is playing both a miner and a mercenary, depending on what I want to do with her. For example, when I mine an asteroid, It takes me about 2 hours to fill my cargo ship. This gives me about 1 million ISK (money in the EVE world). If I do a mission, I can get anywhere from 20K to 700K. However, when I mine, I am not generally being shot at, with the potential of being destroyed. She comes from a race that mainly uses energy, this is both a gift and a curse. The nice thing is that you don’t have ammunition, but, you have to manage your total energy usage. This means that you don’t have to reload, but if your capacitor is dry, you are dead in space. And in a fight, 15 seconds will be deadly! She also has (what I think) incredible range. My other character is a Minmatar, Miriya Loranna, who is just a TANK! She has great firepower and hull strength, but her range sucks. Minmatars are the ones who have to be close to the target, but they inflict massive damage per volley.

There is also a P2P aspect that I have briefly touched on. In low-security space, there is a chance that you will find other races, characters, that are able and willing to turn you into dust. I have not gone up against any real people, just NPCs. The game is lots of fun, but there are times that it is not all shoot, kill, destroy. When mining, there is a lot of hurry up and wait. I find if the computer is on one screen and a movie on the other, it works out very well.

Please come and join in the excitement and if you email me, I may be willing to get you a buddy invite. (14 day free trial – no credit card required)

Virtualizing Server Pitfalls - Part 2

2009-06-29T13:43:00.000-07:00

After performing a V2V from a GSX server to an ESX server, the CD-Rom does not appear in ‘my computer’. This makes it difficult to install the VMWare tools required for network and performance tuning. What you have to do is to shutdown the VM, remove the CD from the menu. Power on the VM, log into the server and perform a shutdown. Then re-add the CD from the Edit menu. This way you are guaranteeing that this is a clean install of the CD-Rom drive.

Performance Tuning - Part 1

2009-06-25T15:23:00.000-07:00

Virtual Machine Alignment

I have been asked, recently, about “how do I make my VMs run better?” This is a loading question, if I have ever heard one. There are a lot of things that you can do to increase the performance of the Virtual Machines on an ESX host.

In a SAN environment, one things that you can do to increase the performance of your VMs, is to align the partition. 64KB Track Alignment for both the physical host and the VM partitions yield I/O performance improvements, such as, reduced latency and increased throughput.

An unaligned partition results in a track crossing and an additional I/O, incurring a penalty on latency and throughput. The additional I/O (especially if small) can impact system resources significantly on some host types. An aligned partitions ensures that the single I/O is serviced by a single device, eliminating the additional I/O and resulting in overall performance improvement.

You need to align, not only the SAN LUN, but the VMFS Partition and all guests on the ESX server. Here is a link to the VMWare document that explains the “How To”. Link

VMware I/O queues, “micro-bursting”, and multipathing

2009-06-24T09:36:00.000-07:00

I colleague of mine came across this article and I had to share. It is a very technical read, but very relevant to all SAN environments. Anyone that is using VMWare should read this and understand the performance impact to your SAN.

“There was an interesting discussion/whiteboard around the topic of storage network design around FC/FCoE (though this applies to iSCSI as well). The Cisco folks made some really interesting analogies with VoIP and TP “micro-bursting” that I thought were awesome and I wanted to share.

It’s also the reason why there is so much discussion around LUN queues and queue management in vSphere. It’s not just EMC with PowerPath/VE, but I’ve heard 3Par start to talk about “adaptive queuing”, and last week Dell/EqualLogic announced their own addition to the Pluggable Storage Architecture. It’s all about the vStorage APIs, baby :-)

It’s apropos based on the recent discussion over queuing and comparisons of NFS and block-based storage options here.

Lastly, it’s also a topic of discussion based a recent post here on the topic of whether MPPs like PowerPath/VE are there to help “legacy” arrays and whether “virtualized” arrays get any benefit from more host-side sophistication. I’ve also heard the implication that NMP + Round Robin + ALUA are good enough in all cases – if you choose the right array :-)

Vaughn and I tend to agree a LOT – and we do, much more than we disagree. We both are super into VMware, which means there’s a lot of things we share. But there are times when we disagree – and this is one of them.

But this isn’t about EMC or Netapp, and isn’t personal, it’s core technical fundamentals – and apply to all storage vendors. If you want to understand and learn more – read on!

I will say this – with all arrays – EMC’s, HP’s, HDS’s IBM’s, and NetApp’s – all of them, the back-end design DOES matter, and you should look at it closely – and they are all wildly different architecturally. Each has their advantages and disadvantages – and usually what makes them an advantage in one circumstance is a disadvantage with another. This is why I’m personally of the opinion that it’s more about knowing how to leverage what you happen to have.”

http://virtualgeek.typepad.com/virtual_geek/2009/06/vmware-io-queues-micro-bursting-and-multipathing.html

Funny.. I have had this conversation

2009-06-22T09:53:00.001-07:00

P2V using BartPE

2009-06-22T09:50:00.000-07:00

This seems to be very cool... I'll need to play with this and report back on how it works. I have a “couple hundred” physical servers that I need to virtualize.

“Ultimate-P2V (fix-vmscsi) is a free plug-in that allows you to clone a physical machine to virtual machine - and perform the neccessary “system reconfiguration” required to make it bootable. Without this tool or a commerical P2V tool the virtual machine would just give a “blue screen of death”

This document outlines how to configure a BartPE Boot-CD with the appropriate drivers and plug-ins to perform the P2V. We use Symantec Ghost 8 merely as an example of a disk cloning tool - but really any cloning software (with a supported plug-in) would work just as well.

The guide walks you through a completely manual creation of these plug-ins and drivers. The intention is allow you to configure a BartPE with the lastest drivers if you so wish. Alternatively, you can use the pre-configured plug-ins below.”
Article Source

Newest Addition

2009-06-18T14:29:00.000-07:00

We have a new addition to our household, a new dog. I would like to say for the record that it was all my doing, but I can’t take full responsibility for the new acquisition. My wife sent me an email with a link and a picture of the dog. I am only Human!

As most of you are aware, I lost my “Freya” dog last year, a 14 year old chow-husky-wolf mix. For Christmas, the girls got me a 2 year old yellow Lab, Thor. He is a great dog, but he is just not my kind of dog. Don’t get me wrong, he is a sweet dog, but not so bright. He is about 100 pounds of love, who always wants to be either on you or next to you. You put your hand down… and… look, there is a dog. He is like a bull in a china shop, knocking over anything in his way, very high energy that loves chewing on things. It really does not matter what it is, shoes, plastic, metal cans, wood…etc..

The newest edition is Skadi, in keeping with the Norse naming, a 2 year old half husky – half Malamute. Because of her bread, she is very much a pack oriented. To this end, I immediately established my dominance as Alpha, Norsa as Beta, the other two can fight out who is next in the chain of command. Even though, she is about 50-60 pounds, smaller than the other two by atleast 20 pounds, Skadi holds her own and is not afraid of taking you down. She is highly intelligent and it shows. She is loves destroying things.. must be the age… Thor does this too. Well, there was a stuffed toy in a plastic box, on top of another box, in the garage. In about an hour, she managed to pull the plastic box down, take it over to the other side of the garage, open the top and take out the toy. All this without making a lot of noise or destroying the plastic lid. If it was Thor, the box and everything in the box would be in pieces, not just the toy. She loves the kids and is getting along with the other two dogs. Unlike Freya, who we had to keep separated from the kids. Freya was very tail protective and went from play to “I am going to eat you NOW” in about.. that long… There were many times where her and I went rounds, not always did I come out unskathed. But, Freya was a great protector dog was missed when she died of cancer.

Skadi will fill that void that was left with the death of Freya. She has the temperament of being that protector dog. (Yes, I have seen her angry, not pretty.)

Penguin USB drive is infinitely cute, hilarious

2009-06-10T09:03:00.001-07:00

I saw this.. and nearly busted a gut!

"http://www.engadget.com/2009/06/10/penguin-usb-drive-is-infinitely-cute-hilarious/" It's not like we haven't seen slightly funny / interesting / unorthodox USB flash drives before, but there's just something about a headless penguin hanging from a USB port that gets us chuckling. Available in 2/4/8/16GB capacities, the simply titled Penguin drive even gives a portion of its proceeds to the World Wildlife Fund, providing you with even more reason to cave to the urge and pick one up. This little fellow's up on Amazon right now for $12.95 to $42.95.

Virtualizing Server Pitfalls - Part 1 - Updated 6/23/09

2009-06-03T10:05:00.000-07:00

Firstly, I want to begin with a big disclaimer – this my approach to the P2V’d Virtual Machine. I accept ABSOLUTELY no responsibility for any unforeseen and unwanted side-effects.

Most of you know or have read that I have taken a new position, no longer with Comcast. In the new job, I have become “Virtual Boy”, dealing with everything Virtual. So, I thought that I would pass along some of my insight for your P2V / V2V ventures. This will probably be a multiple part message.. So, bare with me.

Windows 2000 servers are probably what most people are trying to get rid of in their environment, but can’t seem too... because of software limitations. These are also the most problematic to virtualize. Here are some items that you need to be aware of during your migration process.

Pre-Migration Process

Software – All servers have some kind of raid/teaming/Compaq (HP) crap software for the system. This needs to be removed, to the best you can, before attempting a P2V convert.
Services – If you are not able to remove the software, disable the service.
Hidden devices – such as network cards. (you know the ones with the IPs that you need) This has bitten me a couple of times. But, there is process to have them show up and uninstall them - KB Article.
Multiple Network Interfaces – This comes back to the “teaming” situation. You really should break the team and set them up as a single interface.
Use a block copy method rather than the file method – With the block copy method, you are able to bypass the file locks that Window places on a file that is in use.
Oh.. That brings up a good point – Make sure that no one is saving data to the server! Simply, it probably will not be there after the convert.
HALs are a big deal – but – with most name brands, this is really not an issue. Buy name brand servers, not Bob’s Server.
Key FABs and External Cards – It can’t take them with it. There is a workaround for the USB Keys, but not for cards. (Link)
Local Administrator Account - Make sure that you have the local administrator account username and password. (or make an account for you to use, just in case)

Post-Migration Process

Turn off the physical server before you power the VM. If you don’t… (Well, can’t fix….) Many tools out there will power down the physical server for you. However, I have found that the power down process take longer than my new VM to boot. So, power the box down and verify that it is truly off before powering on the VM.
Install the VM tools and reboot.
Adjust your RAM requirements – Here is a perfect time to down the amount of RAM that you have allocated. Truly evaluate how much RAM you really need.
Check connectivity – Just because it says that you are “connected”… CHECK! Do various Ping sweeps from the server. Also, you may want to check and verify that you can RDP (TS) to the VM from your workstation. (Assuming you could before)
Remote issues – I have not found a solution to this issue, as of yet. Various Windows 2000 servers lose the ability to be able to remote into them from your workstation. Everything else works on the server… but, you are not able to RDP to the server.
Domain Account - I have had several issues where the new virtual server is unable to log you into the domain. Log in using your admin account, verify your IP settings (including DNS), take it out of the domain (do not put in your credentials and do not reboot), re-add it back to the domain. Now Reboot. This way, you did not remove the computer account in AD. Basically, you changed the SID on the computer object.
Application / Services Check – It should go without saying… Verify that your application and services are running.
Finally, Check your server! Check the Event Log for errors, log into the applications on the server, check, check, and do it all over again!

I will append to this entry as I remember or find things to post about.

Mass Effect 2 Extended: Interview Part 2

2009-05-24T14:02:00.000-07:00

Video Games | Mass Effect 2 | GTTV Extended Cuts: Interview Pt 2

XBox 360 | Playstation 3 | Nintendo Wii

Mass Effect 2 Extended: Interview Part 1

2009-05-23T13:59:00.000-07:00

Video Games | Mass Effect 2 | GTTV Extended Cuts: Interview Pt 1

XBox 360 | Playstation 3 | Nintendo Wii

Mass Effect 2 Teaser

2009-05-22T14:12:00.000-07:00

Video Games | Mass Effect 2 | Debut Teaser

XBox 360 | Playstation 3 | Nintendo Wii

Mass Effect 2

2009-05-22T13:53:00.000-07:00

I loved Mass Effect and I can't wait to see the new game. My character is a total Bitch, who you don't want to cross.

Here is the Pre-E3 Trailer.

Video Games | Mass Effect 2 | Prelude to E3 '09 Trailer

XBox 360 | Playstation 3 | Nintendo Wii

Release date: January 2010

THE SPOILED UNDER-30 CROWD!!!

2009-05-13T09:02:00.000-07:00

When I was a kid, adults used to bore me to tears with their tedious diatribes about how hard things were. When they were growing up; what with walking Twenty-five miles to school every morning Uphill... barefoot.. BOTH ways

Yadda, yadda, yadda

And I remember promising myself that when I grew up, there was no way in hell I was going to lay a bunch of crap like that o n kids about how hard I had it and how easy they've got it!

But now that... I'm over the ripe old age of thirty, I can't help but look around and notice the youth of today.

You've got it so easy! I mean, compared to my childhood, you live in a damn Utopia!

And I hate to say it but you kids today you don't know how good you've got it!

I mean, when I was a kid we didn't have The Internet. If we wanted to know something, We had to go to the damn library and look it up ourselves, in the card catalogue!!

There was no email!! We had to actually write somebody a letter, with a pen!

Then you had to walk all the way across the street and put it in the mailbox and it could take like a week to get there! Stamps were 10 cents! Child Protective Services didn't care if our parents beat us. As a matter of fact, the parents of all my friends also had permission to kick our ass! No where was safe!

There were no MP3' s or Napsters! You wanted to steal music, you had to hitchhike to the damn record store and shoplift it yourself!

Or you had to wait around all day to tape it off the radio and the DJ'd usually talk over the beginning and @#*% it all up! There were no CD players! We had tape decks in our car. We'd play our favorite tape and "eject" it when finished and the tape would come undone. Cause that's how we rolled dig?

We didn't have fancy crap like Call Waiting! If you were on the phone and somebody else called they got a busy signal, that's it!

And we didn't have fancy Caller ID either! When the phone rang, you had no idea who it was! It could be your school, your mom, your boss, your Bookie, your drug dealer, a collections agent, you just didn't know!!! You had to pick it up and take your chances, mister!

We didn't have any fancy Sony Playstation video games with high-resolution 3-D graphics! We had the Atari 2600! With games like 'Space Invaders' and 'asteroids'.. Your guy was a little square! You actually had to use your imagination!! And there were no multiple levels or screens, it was just one screen forever!

And you could never win. The game just kept getting harder and harder and faster and faster until you died! Just like LIFE!

You had to use a little book called a TV Guide to find out what was on! You were screwed when it came to channel surfing! You had to get off your ass and walk over to the TV to change the channel! There was no Cartoon Network either! You could only get cartoons on Saturday Morning. Do you hear what I'm saying!?! We had to wait ALL WEEK for cartoons, you spoiled brats!

And we didn't have microwaves, if we wanted to heat something up we had to use the stove ... Imagine that!

That's exactly what I'm talking about! You kids today have got it too easy.
You're spoiled. You guys wouldn't have lasted five minutes back in 1980 or before!

Regards,
The over 30 Crowd

VMware ESX Server 3.5 Update 4

2009-05-06T10:11:00.000-07:00

If you have not seen the announcement, VMWare has released a new update for ESX. Here is a quick overview:

Enablement of Intel Xeon Processor 5500 Series
Expanded Support for Enhanced vmxnet Adapter
QLogic Fibre Channel Adapter Driver Update
Emulex Fibre Channel Adapter Driver Update
LSI megaraid_sas and mptscsi Storage Controller Driver Update

Newly Supported Guest Operating Systems – Support for the following guest operating systems has been added specifically for this release:

■SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 (32-bit and 64-bit).
■SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 11 (32-bit and 64-bit).
■Ubuntu 8.10 Desktop Edition and Server Edition (32-bit and 64-bit).
■Windows Preinstallation Environment 2.0 (32-bit and 64-bit).
Furthermore, pre-built kernel modules (PBMs) were added in this release for the following guests:

■Ubuntu 8.10
■Ubuntu 8.04.2

Newly Supported Management Agents
Newly Supported I/O Devices – In-box support for the following on-board processors, IO devices, and storage subsystems:

SAS Controllers and SATA Controllers:

The following are newly supported SATA Controllers.

■PMC 8011 (for SAS and SATA drives)

■Intel ICH9
■Intel ICH10
■CERC 6/I SATA/SAS Integrated RAID Controller (for SAS and SATA drivers)
■HP Smart Array P700m Controller

I have installed it on several machines and have had no issues with it. It also seems to have fixed a couple of issues.

How to Reset your VMware ESX Server root password

2009-05-05T09:51:00.000-07:00

I found this and just had to share.. Since, I just had to recover a lost password..

Just like every other password, it is inevitable that, eventually, you will loose or forget the root password to one of your VMware ESX Server systems. So how do you reset your VMware ESX Server root password? Here is the procedure:

1. Shutdown and Reboot your VMware ESX Server

If you don't know the VMware ESX Server root password, you don't know any passwords for root-equivalent accounts, and your virtual center server also does not have it cached, the only way to change the root user password is to first shutdown / power off your VMware ESX Server.

2. Press "a" to modify the kernel arguments

As soon as you see the GRUB boot screen, press "a" to modify the kernel arguments, like this:

3. Enter single user mode

At the end of the kernel arguments command line, type "single" and press Enter, like this:

4. Change the root password

Now, change the root password using the passwd command, like this:

You will need to enter the new root password twice.

5. Reboot the ESX Server

Once you have reset the root password, reboot the server to go back into multi-user mode.

6. Verify the new password

Once the system reboots, verify that the new root password works, like this:

In Summary

Resetting the VMware ESX Server root password is not difficult but you will have to bring down the server, enter single user mode, use the passwd command, and reboot to get the task completed.

Using USB Devices in Virtual Machines on VMware ESX

2009-04-30T11:16:00.000-07:00

I’ve been getting this question a lot lately - “Can I use USB devices or dongles inside a Virtual Machine on ESX?”

The out-of-the-box answer is No. USB devices are not supported within the VM on ESX 3.5. That being said, there are a few companies that have gotten excellent reviews and are very popular on the VMware Community Forums that provide USB functionality.

The most popular way of presenting USB devices in Virtual Machines on ESX that I’ve heard/seen is from Digi International, which has a product called AnywhereUSB. Follow the link for additional info on the product.
They have also published a VMware Branded Technical Note (whitepaper) entitled VMware ESX Server: Using AnywhereUSB to Connect USB Devices

FabulaTech is another popular way. A good post regarding it can be found here:
http://www.ntpro.nl/blog/archives/897-Passing-USB-devices-to-the-Virtual-Machines.html

Update to the post:
I came across a recent post over at VMetc mentioning a couple more temporary plus permanent options for using USB over IP:
http://vmetc.com/2009/03/11/connecting-a-usb-device-to-an-esx-hosted-vm/

A few other links of companies that have gotten good reviews to allow USB access in VM’s:
http://www.kernelpro.com/usb-over-ethernet.html (Inexpensive, starts at $89!)
http://usbip.sourceforge.net (Open Source Project for USB over IP)

Microsoft Office/Outlook 2007 SP2 Released

2009-04-30T11:09:00.000-07:00

If you are running Office 2007 (including Outlook 2007) on your own computer or a PC you can install stuff on, Service Pack 2 for Office is out. It looks to have quite a bit of updates and performance fixes.

Download

For the nerds out there ;-) , a list of bug fixes can be found here:

I’m downloading as we speak and I’ll let you know if I notice anything positive or negative..
Enjoy!

Our Refiance

2009-04-16T13:22:00.000-07:00

Let me begin by saying that my family has been a Bank of America customer for longer than I have been alive. My father prided himself on loyalty and when he walked into the bank, they would know who he was. When we moved, my father went to the local BofA branch and talked with the VP of the branch. He found going to the top dog to be very useful when he had an issue. (These days, it seems like everyone is a VP and really don't care who you are or what you bring.) My first checking/savings account at BofA, my first house mortgage, etc. You get the point. Well, my wife and I decided to refinance the house since the rates are so low. So, we went online and filled out an application with Bank of America. (coming back to that loyalty thing) We promptly received a call from a broker to talk about our options. He and I agreed on the loan amount, points, and what the house is worth (based on the tax assessment). He called again one other time to make sure that we received the application and to tell us who would be our closing rep.

So, I called the closing representative to make sure that she has everything that she needs in order to go forward. But, I got voicemail, which is fine, I generally will send people to voicemail when I am busy. So, I left a message… the next day, I called again… I finally received a call back with a request for a mound of paperwork. It was very apparent that she did not even bother to determine what she had, since most of the paperwork that she asked for was sent with the original paperwork. But, that is okay.. I can fax it.. again. I called several times to verify that everything is on track and there was nothing further required on my part. (queue tumbleweeds) I finally received a call with closing information about our refinance and the points, which were increased from 2.125 to 2.625. Hold up a sec… That is not what the original agreement was, costing me about $400 in addition. So, let me get this right, I have to pay the application fee, closing costs, and now an additional $400 dollars. I think not! When I dared to inquire about why the change, I was told to go and contact my Rep. (who is out until May 2^nd) I guess it a screw-you service charge for being a loyal customer for 20 years.

I talked it over with the wife and decided to be pissed about it, but to continue with the process. They are going to get their money one way or another. Grin and bear it! However, This will be the LAST Bank of America mortgage that we do. EVER!

The "Virtual" World

2009-04-13T10:23:00.001-07:00

Most companies today are expanding their virtual environment, instead of purchasing additional hardware. Makes sense! Buy one beefier box, instead of several little boxes. The one thing that you have to be care of is your SAN. Watch that I/O and timeouts, or you'll bring your SAN to it's knees if you are not careful. Be mindful about how you deploy or spread the load across your storage. However, not the topic I want to talk about at this very moment. I ran across this and wanted to pass it along.

Eliminate planned downtime for server maintenance.

Eliminate planned downtime with VMware VMotion and VMware Storage VMotion VMware VMotion and Storage VMotion enable the live migration of virtual machines across physical servers and storage arrays with zero downtime, continuous service availability and complete transaction integrity. VMware customers use VMotion and Storage VMotion to:
• Eliminate planned downtime associated with server and storage maintenance
• Dynamically load balance workloads in order to optimize performance
Here is a quick overview of the steps you need to take to enable non-disruptive migration of virtual machines:

Step 1:
Set up your shared storage infrastructure

Shared storage, such as fiber channel or iSCSI SAN or NAS, is a prerequisite for enabling live migration of virtual machines. Chapter 8 of the VMware Infrastructure Comprehensive Evaluator’s Guide offers detailed instructions on how to create and/or configure shared storage for use in a virtual infrastructure. You should also make sure you set up virtual networking before you implement live migration with VMware VMotion. To learn the fundamentals about networking in a virtual environment, check out the new VMware white paper, “Conceptual Networking Overview".

Step 2:
Migrate a virtual machine from one physical server to another with VMware VMotion

Once you have implemented your shared storage infrastructure, you can begin migrating virtual machines from one physical server to another with VMware VMotion. You can find an overview of VMotion in Chapter 9 of the VMware Infrastructure Evaluator’s Guide.

Step 3 (optional):
Move live virtual machine disks files across storage arrays using VMware Storage VMotion

In addition to VMotion, VMware Infrastructure also includes a product called VMware Storage VMotion, which lets you move your virtual machine's disk files from one physical storage device to another with no disruption or downtime. Refer to Chapter 12 of the Comprehensive Evaluator’s Guide for more detail.

Girls LOVE The New Play Structure

2009-04-07T14:30:00.000-07:00

Well, the Rainbow guy for the install of the Play Structure showed up on Saturday at 10am and it was done by 3pm. I do have to say that, I am glad that I did not have to put this thing together. It was a whole lot 4x6 and a few 6x6 beams. I don't think..wait.. I know for a fact that I would not be able to lift a 6x6 without help or possibly a crane. (or both) But, this is one of those, this install guy makes it look easy… Yeah.. Not so much.

So, by 3:10pm the girls were out “testing” out the newest addition and played until 7:30 that night. Sunday morning, my oldest at 5:30am wanted to go out and play, but we held her back until 8. Then both girls went out and played, ate lunch, watched a movie on the portable DVD player. At times they would be watching the movie, then playing on the swings, then playing on the rock wall, then back to the movie. This is the most time that they have spend outside in… well… ever…

Well worth the money and happiness of the girls!

My Kids are spoiled

2009-04-06T07:36:00.000-07:00

Over the past couple of weekends, I have been working in the yard.. With help from some paid individuals. The backyard is all cleaned up and the play area pad is ready for the play structure. It all started back in late January, the family went to a local “Home Improvement Show” in Portland. We went there to get some ideas about how we can improve the house a bit. Well, right off the bat, I knew I was in trouble. As you walk in, the first booth is Rainbow Play. They are the makers of the ‘ginormus’ play structures that will hold about a dozen kids. Well, the girls were sold!

So, we grabbed a flyer, which conveniently had a coupon on it for 30% off any structure and a catalog. How could pass that up? We looked at the catalog, measured the backyard, looked at the catalog, measured the backyard again, decided that we could fit any of them and that our only issue was going to be price. But, we narrowed down to two, depending on what the rep said. The next step was to the local showroom, which was an old gas station. J The girls got to see, touch, play on, and experience the “Rainbow Play Structures”. They did not have a demo of the one the girls really liked from the catalog, but they had last year’s model, which was six inches taller and had a couple of nice add-ons that this year’s model did not have. He also gave me a better price on the unit, than the one we were looking at… Since it is last year’s model… (So.. What does the year model matter??)

They show up at 8am on Saturday to install...

Battlestar Galactica Hosted At the UN

2009-03-20T11:29:00.000-07:00

TheDopp writes "The United Nations hosted the cast and crew of Battlestar Galactica Tuesday evening in New York. Clips of the show were shown as discussion points during the event, touching on the morality of Suicide Bombers in war, Abortion and the use of torture on enemies of the state. At one point during the event an attendee mentions 'the "Old Man" launched into a passionate speech about casting off the idea of race as a cultural determinant, and said we were one race, the human race. His voice echoed throughout the chamber growing louder until — I kid you not — he was yelling, "So Say We All," and the crowd answered right back. Hell, even I yelled it, I was in the fraking United Nations with Adama, the gods themselves could not have stopped this moment.' The full video of the event is located on the UN website."

so say we ALL!

Friday 13th - Goodbye to Comcast

2009-03-03T15:19:00.000-08:00

Friday the 13^thwill be my last day as a Comcast employee. I joined the Comcast IT team in October of 2006, after a very unhappy stint with ACS/Nike. Looking back at my tenure here at Comcast, it all started on a day where I was introduced to my Supervisor, Brad, who reported to the Director, Dave. There was an IT Manager who was over the Telecom and Operations Teams, who we only had a dotted line to him. I was surprised that the IT department was as small as it was for being such a large territory, Oregon/SW Washington Market. Shortly after my start, Brad took a IT Manager position in Florida and I was left hanging in the wind for about a year. In that time, I gained some great experience regarding networking, budgeting, and being the go-to guy. Who are we kidding, I was the IT Infrastructure Department. I was able to shape things according to my own design and vision with very little input from anyone. I would bounce ideas off of Corporate, the IT Supervisor of Operations, and my Director. But, for the most part, I was able to make things happen according to the plan in my head. Some of them worked out. Other times, I was even like – “What were you thinking??” But, it all worked out in the end. There was no shortage of projects and I was able to start doing them once I received some help from my Number 2 guy, Ian. When he started he was a bit green and not sure of himself, but he came eager to learn and had the dedication/drive to do what needed to be done. I do have to say that he is totally awesome and would love to work with him again. Here is a guy that would be handed a project, not sure how to do it, would do the research, come back with questions, and Go Do! I love that. I still remained the person involved in the decision making, budgeting aspect of the two man team, even after we were placed under the IT Supervisor over the applications team. We really never had the tools, budget or personnel to accomplish the goals that were set down. But, we made due somehow. I have never worked for a company that expected its IT department to do so much with so little. And over the past year it just seemed to get worse and worse. The budget keeps getting cut down and the equipment keeps being put on the back burner for replacement. It really shows that the company does not value the IT department or the contributions that are being made in order for the company to continue to do business. It even shows in the attitude of upper management when they say, you should be proud to have a job. But, that is no longer my problem. I do have to say that this is the best team that I have ever worked with. They are dedicated, skilled, and fun loving group of individuals that I have every had the pleasure to work with.

The only other criticism I have is, for being a communications company, people need to learn how to better communicate. Groups come up with these great projects, never include IT until the project is due and then expect to be able to pull a series of switches or servers out of our asses. I guess my complaint is that IT is never involved in projects that clearly affect IT. There were a number of occasions of other groups that would have a project, due tomorrow, and expected IT just to be able to cover it. It would be like a group wanting to add the IT network to a site or some number of locations, without any funding for the project. They expected us to just be able to pull switches out of our ass and be able to installed them within a day. I think not! It is not like they woke up one day and decided to do this. There was planning and several conversations, why not involve IT from the beginning. Maybe I am asking too much! Apparently…

So, I am moving positions to a company called Vesta, who are the worldwide leader in electronic payment solutions. I will be joining them as a Sr. Production..blah..blah.. Server Monkey. Yesterday, my wife asked me how it is going to feel to be the FNG again. But, wait.. I am senior.. DOH! I will be the FNG! Damn.

How to Manage Geeks

2009-02-20T14:54:00.000-08:00

My Director sent this out to us for fun, but it is soooo true. So, here are the important points.

Value training.

If a boss thinks that training is a waste of money and expects you to teach yourself, you feel pretty demotivated in any job. Training matters, especially in IT, and managers must realize that and budget for it. Sometimes you get the argument that “if I give them training a competitor will hire them away.” That may be true, but the alternative is to only have employees who are too unskilled to work anywhere else. Also, if you pay them well and have good benefits, they won't go somewhere else.

Give recognition.

Since managers may not understand the work geeks do very well, it’s hard for them to recognize and reward a job well done, which hurts motivation. The solution is to work together to define a set of goals that both parties agree on. When these goals are met the geeks are doing a great job.
Keep overtime down. Avoid taking the approach of wringing as much as possible out of IT employees just because you figure they don't lead a normal life. Wrong! That’s a huge mistake and overworked geeks burn out or simply quit. It's a complete myth that long work hours are good for business.

Avoid using management-speak.

Geeks hate management-speak and see it as superficial and dishonest. Managers shouldn’t learn to speak tech, but they should drop the biz-buzzwords. A manager can say “We need to proactively impact our time-to-market” or simply use plain English and stick to “We gotta be on time with this project”. The latter makes total sense to everyone involved.

Don't try to appear smarter than the geeks.

When managers don’t know much about a technical question, they should simply admit it. Geeks respect them for that, but not for pretending to know. And they will catch it - geeks are smart.

Act consistently.

Geeks have an ingrained sense of fairness, probably related to the fact that in IT, structure and consistency is critical. The documentation can’t say one thing while the code does something else, and similarly, managers can’t say one thing and then do something else.

Don't make the mistake of ignoring the geeks.

Because managers and geeks are different types of people, managers may end up leaving the geeks alone. This makes leading them difficult, and geeks need good leadership - the same as all other personnel groups.

Include them in IT related decisions. - This never happens!

Never make decisions without consulting geeks. Geeks usually know the technical side of the business better than the manager, so making a technical decision without consulting can be one of the most costly mistakes mistakes a leader can make.

Give them the tools needed.

A fast computer may cost more money than an older one and it may not be corporate standard, but geeks use computers differently. A slow computer lowers productivity and is a daily annoyance. So is outdated software. Give them the tools they need. Understand that tools come in many forms. Caffeine is considered a standard tool among Geeks. It's good to keep a supply of the caffeinated beverages your team prefers handy.

Remember that geeks are creative workers.

Programming and system analysis are creative processes, not an industrial one. Geeks must constantly come up with solutions to new problems and rarely ever solve the same problem twice. Therefore they need leeway and flexibility. Strict dress codes and too much red tape kill all innovation. They also need creative workspace surroundings to avoid “death by cubicle”.

Recognize the outcomes of not treating geeks with respect as outlined above.

Happy geeks are productive geeks, and the most important factor is good management, tailored to their situation. Doing the opposite to what has been outlined in this article has serious consequences for your organization, including:

Low motivation
High employee turnover
Increased absenteeism
Lower productivity
Lower quality
Bad service

For the entire story http://www.wikihow.com/Manage-Geeks, it is a good read.

Happy Friday the 13th

2009-02-13T09:07:00.000-08:00

Totally did not realize until one of the Telecom guys said something about it. Well, I will not be touching anything today.

- Should have stayed in bed!

Happy 1234567890 day!!!

2009-02-13T08:58:00.000-08:00

February 13, 2009 4:10 AM PST
Time for Unix nerds to celebrate 1234567890 Day by Stephen Shankland

It's won't be the epochalypse of 2038, but 3:31 p.m. PST on Friday offers a moment notable enough for some Unix fans to raise a toast.

That's when Unix computer clocks will reach the time of 1234567890--1.2 billion seconds elapsed from January 1, 1970, the official beginning of the Unix epoch. The clock is used not just by Unix, but also by Linux, Java, JavaScript, Mac OS X, and various other technologies.

Various Web sites exist to help mark the occasion. Cool Epoch Countdown, which actually counts up, is the first I saw. 1234567890 Day helpfully includes links to a few parties to honor the occasion.

I'm amused by arbitrary milestones whose significance stems from the mathematical consequences of humans' 10 fingers. At least birthdays are anchored to physical reality--the actual revolution of Earth around the Sun--but when your car odometer passes 100,000 miles, it's only significant psychologically and perhaps in relation to your warranty. All the digits neatly in ascending order on a Unix clock is particularly silly given that the computers marking 1234567890 Day aren't even counting in base 10.

But hey, there's nothing wrong with a good excuse for a party, so you won't hear any complaints from me.

Just so long as those Unix sysadmins get back to work and patch things up so the computer world doesn't grind to a halt in 2038, when today's clocks would run out of positive 32-bit integers.

Update 7:54 a.m. PST: For those unfortunates out there who'll be stuck behind a computer when the moment comes, Chris Rowe teases in the comments below that his Cool Epoch Countdown site will feature some sort of a treat.

(stolen from http://news.cnet.com/8301-10797_3-10163129-235.html)

Dogs and Cats

2009-01-27T07:49:00.000-08:00

The following was found posted very low on a refrigerator door.

Dear Dogs and Cats: The dishes with the paw prints are yours and contain your food. The other dishes are mine and contain my food. Placing a paw print in the middle of my plate and food does not stake a claim for it becoming your food and dish, nor do I find that aesthetically pleasing in the slightest.

The stairway was not designed by NASCAR and is not a racetrack. Racing me to the bottom is not the object. Tripping me doesn't help because I fall faster than you can run.

I cannot buy anything bigger than a king sized bed. I am very sorry about this. Do not think I will continue sleeping on the couch to ensure your comfort, however. Dogs and cats can actually curl up in a ball when they sleep It is not necessary to sleep perpendicular to each other, stretched out to the fullest extent possible. I also know that sticking tails straight out and having tongues hanging out on the other end to maximize space is nothing but sarcasm.

For the last time, there is no secret exit from the bathroom! If, by some miracle, I beat you there and manage to get the door shut, it is not necessary to claw, whine, meow, try to turn the knob or get your paw under the edge in an attempt to open the door. I must exit through the same door I entered. Also, I have been using the bathroom for years - canine/feline attendance is not required.

The proper order for kissing is: Kiss me first, then go smell the other dog or cat's butt. I cannot stress this enough.

Finally, in fairness, dear pets, I have posted the following message on the front door: TO ALL NON-PET OWNERS WHO VISIT AND LIKE TO COMPLAIN ABOUT OUR PETS:

(1) They live here. You don't.
(2) If you don't want their hair on your clothes, stay off the furniture. That's why they call it 'fur'-niture.
(3) I like my pets a lot better than I like most people.
(4) To you, they are animals.

To me, they are adopted sons/daughters who are short, hairy, walk on all fours and don't speak clearly. Remember, dogs and cats are better than kids because they

(1) eat less,
(2) don't ask for money all the time,
(3) are easier to train,
(4) normally come when called,
(5) never ask to drive the car,
(6) don't hang out with drug-using people;
(7) don't smoke or drink,
(8) don't want to wear your clothes,
(9) don't have to buy the latest fashions, and
(10) they don't need a gazillion dollars for college.

Circuit City Closes

2009-01-19T08:15:00.000-08:00

As most of you have already seen in the news, Circuit City closes its doors. Much like Good Guys and CompUSA, Circuit City's legacy is ending. I did not attempt to brave the hordes, but I heard the sales were not as expected. 10% - 20% off their already extremely high prices, like TVs, equipment, and computers. So, why bother. I can get a better deal from Amazon or some other online retailer. There is always going to Best Buy if you need to touch and feel, before you go an purchase online. :)

I have a new dog.

2009-01-18T07:48:00.000-08:00

The girls got me a new dog for Christmas, a 16 month old male yellow lab. He is a really big puppy, about 80 pounds and getting larger by the second. Boy, is he smart. He has learned sit, stay, down, and his name in just a couple of days. But, you better have that cookie for the reward. His name was changed to Thor to keep in the same name family, Freya, Loki, Norsa, and now Thor.

The cats are not too happy about this newest edition to our family. But, like all great things, they will learn to adjust. I will post a picture once he stops running around with Norsa.

Hello 2009

2008-12-31T09:50:00.000-08:00

As we begin to say Hello to 2009, I begin to reflect on what has transpired over the past year. I have gotten another year older and worked another year at Comcast as a Network / Server Admin (and a Supervisor without an increase of pay or title). At least I am not Solo any more, that truly sucked. We went through a consolidation of the IS and IT departments, which in turn changed the reporting structure. Before, I reported to the IT Director with a dotted line to the IT Manager. Now, I report to the IT Application Supervisor, who is under the IS (IT) Director. I am not sure if my duties have expanded or decreased. We will have to see how that plays out.

We have seen fuel prices soar and the stock market crash to nearly half of what it was, trying to endure a 20k loss of my 401K portfolio. (Ouch) I have been selectively purchasing stocks of companies that will not go out of business, like Disney or Microsoft, at a record low. I have not made any money on them as of yet, but may in a few years. You now have to change your mind set from the short-term quick buck to very long-term. I still receive dividends on a few of my stocks, so my ROI is constantly going down. Like my ROI on the Microsoft stock is about $4 bucks over the 10+ years that I have held on to them.

I started and stopped playing Dark Age of Camelot. A coworker buddy of mine got me hooked on this game. I really enjoyed my Heritic and BoneDancer, who both kicked some serious ass. My friends called me Sparky when I was playing my Tic, who had a flame spell that was just simply deadly and a flail when I just wanted to beat the tar our of you. It is fun, but definitely a time suck, which started to piss the wife off. I was starting to neglect the family, which was going to be the death of me. So, we all gave it up and started to study for our next set of exams. CCNA, VCP, MSITP, and maybe a few others. This will make me more marketable in the event I get totally pissed off and screwed over (again).

The kids went to Great Wolf Lodge and had a fantastic time. We actually went twice this year and both times we had a great time. On this last trip, my youngest (4yr) made a posse, including two 17 year old girls, who were "tricked" into taking her on the big girls slides, which she loved. They all enjoyed playing together and she had a great time. My oldest (5yr), found a new Best Friend and went everywhere together. The family and I are looking to go there again in the up and coming year. I am thinking maybe for one of the girl's birthdays. Then we can invite a school friend or two to attend.

This year has not been all fun and games. In fact it has been rather traumatic, at times. In this year, over the last half of the year, I have lost my Father, my Aunt, and my Freya dog. It was... it just was.... nuff said.

My oldest went to the ER for the first time, ever! It all started on Saturday morning when she woke up with what looked like a bug bite on her finger. She is highly elurgic to any sort of bug bite. To this end, we keep a special purple pill for her when she gets one. So, I gave her the pill, put some ointment on it and wrapped it in a bandage. Well, it did not go away, in fact, it got worse. So, we went to the ER with 3 feet of snow on the ground. I am so glad that we live where we do, there is a Hospital, Take-Out, and a grocery store within a mile of the house. It was a good thing that we went to the ER, if we waited any longer, it could have been very bad. But, with a little medicine, direction from the ER doctor and care, she has fully recovered.

WOW!!! Looking back on this year, it really sucked! Full of disappointment, death, and traumatic events, with only a few high points. GOOD BYE 2008 and don't let the door hit you in the ass on your way out.

Snow, Snow, Everywhere...

2008-12-21T11:26:00.001-08:00

As for most of the country, we have snow and a lots of it. For the past week we have been having off and on snow. However, it was about Thursday, it was really melting off and looked like it was going to clear up. Not so much! For the past 3 days it has come down in lots of snow and freezing rain. Sucking to drive in it, but it was lots of fun to play in it with the girls. The ice on top of the snow was about a 1/2 inch thick. The snow is about a 1 1/2 feet. We enjoyed taking the ice and throwing it in the air and having it come down, hitting the ice, and shattering, skidding across the ice. There have only been a few people who have dared to venture out in this with limited success. I had to dig out the SUV, which had 2 feet of snow on the roof and snow up to the wheel wells. We needed supplies, milk, eggs, chips, soda, candy, salsa, more chips... You know, the necessities. I only saw about 3 people being really stupid in the ice and snow on my way. No counting for arrogance and stupidity.

Enjoy the snow, but BE SAFE!

This is High Speed!

2008-12-20T16:37:00.000-08:00

Sure makes my FIOS line looks like DSL!!!

The End...

2008-12-20T09:49:00.001-08:00

On Wednesday evening, my father died. It was a long fight that no one thought that he would last as long as he did. There is not much more to say, besides...

We all will miss you!

HELL EXPLAINED BY A CHEMISTRY STUDENT

2008-12-14T08:52:00.000-08:00

The following is an actual question given on a Washington State University
chemistry mid-term. The answer by one student was so "profound" that the
professor shared it with colleagues, via the Internet, which is, of course,
why we now have the pleasure of enjoying it as well:

Bonus Question: Is Hell exothermic (gives off heat) or endothermic (absorbs
heat)? Most of the students wrote proofs of their beliefs using Boyle's Law
(gas cools when it expands and heats when it is compressed) or some variant.

One student, however, wrote the following:
First, we need to know how the mass of Hell is changing in time. So we need
to know the rate at which souls are moving into Hell and the rate at which
they are leaving. I think that we can safely assume that once a soul gets to
Hell, it will not leave. Therefore, no souls are leaving.

As for how many souls are entering Hell, let's look at the different
religions that exist in the world today. Most of these religions state that
if you are not a member of their religion, you will go to Hell.

Since there is more than one of these religions and since people do not
belong to more than one religion, we can project that all souls go to Hell.

With birth and death rates as they are, we can expect the number of souls in
Hell to increase exponentially.

Now, we look at the rate of change of the volume in Hell because Boyle's Law
states that in order for the temperature and pressure in Hell to stay the
same, the volume of Hell has to expand proportionately as souls are added.

This gives two possibilities:
1. If Hell is expanding at a slower rate than the rate at which souls enter
Hell, then the temperature and pressure in Hell will increase until all Hell
breaks loose.
2. If Hell is expanding at a rate faster than the increase of souls in Hell,
then the temperature and pressure will drop until Hell freezes over.

So which is it?
If we accept the postulate given to me by Teresa during my Freshman year
that, "It will be a cold day in Hell before I sleep with you,"
and take into account the fact that I slept with her last night, then number
two must be true, and thus I am sure that Hell is exothermic and has already
frozen over. The corollary of this theory is that since Hell has frozen
over, it follows that it is not accepting any more souls and is therefore,
extinct......leaving only Heaven, thereby proving the existence of a divine
being which explains why, last night, Teresa kept shouting "Oh my God."

THIS STUDENT RECEIVED THE ONLY "A".

Hindsight is 20 / 20

2008-12-13T08:56:00.000-08:00

Really works for any situation!

Offshore Techsupport

2008-12-07T17:53:00.000-08:00

As you have not guessed by now, I am a bit more technical than your average bear. To this end, I really hate calling Microsoft or Dell's technical support. It is usually some individual in India that can understand what I am talking about. When I call and that there is a problem with my computer and here are the 5 - 10 troubleshooting steps that I did to make this determination, take my word for it. Please do not tell me to reboot or reload the drivers. It just makes me angry.

I had to call Dell on my wife's laptop, the monitor popped and needed to be replaced. It was not the video card, it was not the motherboard, it was not any drivers, it was the LCD monitor. So, I call... This guy tells me to reboot the laptop, update the drivers, press the function keys to disable the presentation mode. "Dude! If you don't get the Dell Boot-up Screen, updating Windows Drivers will not do JACK!" Serious EBKAC or id10t error Finally, I told him to quit reading from the script and that I work in IT and know how to troubleshoot PC issues, even though I am a Server Tech. (Hold the laughs)

So, what should have taken 10 minutes, took 45.

Fuel Prices

2008-12-06T16:24:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, we filled up the Yaris it I was shocked when the guy said $14 bucks. I know it had a small tank, but, geeezzzz. After looking at the receipt, I noticed that regular unleaded was $1.71 a gallon. I know that the prices have dropped, but I did not realize that they went that far. This is a very bad sign and I will tell you why. When the pendulum swings the other direction, we will see a higher price like nothing we have seen as of yet. I predict that we will see $6 per gallon during out next swing.

But, for now, I will enjoy driving the SUV again.

Thoughts and Stuff...

2008-11-22T07:23:00.000-08:00

I received my 401K statement in the mail yesterday. Boy, was that a mistake. Down 47% from last quarter. Looking at the ye old stock report was a different story, only down 38% from where I purchased. Oh, wait, that is even worse. :P

I realize that everyone is talking about the economy or what their stock portfolio is doing (or not doing), but I just wanted to weigh in my thoughts and observations. This may be the point in history that we lose our 1st world status. Here is why.. Lets begin with the financial bailout of 700 billion. As we have seen, and I said before, what a stupid move by our government. I site AIG as my example. Here is a financial institution that receives their handout, the executive staff goes on a retreat and then comes back to congress and wants more money. I am sorry, but they go on a retreat.. WTF!!! The banks and financial institutions that received the money are not leading it out, people are loosing their homes to the banks, and the stock market went from around 13K to just below 8K. This is after a 700 Billion dollar bailout. Now, the car makers are wanting their handout. I am sorry, but I thought that the original bailout was a stupid idea, this one is just idiotic. What are you thinking??!!?? They got themselves into this mess, let them get themselves out. Oh, wait... They are helping out their buddies from the stupid mistakes they made.

I have a house payment, a car payment, credit cards, student loans, and private school tuition for my kids. Both my wife and I work and have been financially responsible. Even though, we could get financing for the five hundred thousand dollar house and the BMW. We did not want to over-extend ourselves, so, I drive a 12yr old truck. My point is, there is no Bailout for me or any of us, why should their be one for a company. If they did not see this economic issue 6 months ago, they are either too stupid or too arrogant and should suffer the consequences. They should all be terminated. Let them look for a job or better yet, let them flip burgers. They need a lesson in humility and how the real world works.

The US sneezes and the world catches a cold.

Time Change

2008-11-02T08:01:00.000-08:00

Hey Everyone!
Did you change all of your clocks? Did all of your systems change? Are you really sure?
Here is a script that will run through a txt file and perform a net time on all of the systems listed.

Check Time.cmd
FOR /F %%i IN (c:\servers.txt) DO NET TIME \\%%i >> c:\temp\time.txt

Enjoy.

ePO Duplicate GUID script

2008-10-25T08:07:00.000-07:00

Here is a script that I have been asked about several times. You just have to put in your LDAP / OU structure, where you keep your computers and this will fix that problematic duplicate GUID problem.
'==========================================================================
'
' VBScript Source File -- Created with SAPIEN Technologies PrimalScript 4.0
'
'
' COMMENT: gets guids
'
'==========================================================================

'~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
'Define Constants
'~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Dim intRecCount
intRecCount = 0

LocalComputer = "."

''~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
''Create and load dictionary object
''~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
'Set objDictionary = CreateObject("Scripting.Dictionary")
'objDictionary.CompareMode = vbTextCompare
'Set objGUIDDict = CreateObject("Scripting.Dictionary")
'objGUIDDict.CompareMode = vbTextCompare
'
'
'
''~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
'' Determine DNS domain name.
''~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
'Set objRootDSE = GetObject("LDAP://RootDSE")
'strDNSDomain = objRootDSE.Get("DefaultNamingContext")
'
''~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
''Create connection and command objects
''~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
'Set objConnection = CreateObject("ADODB.Connection")
'objConnection.Open "Provider=ADsDSOObject;"
'Set objCommand = CreateObject("ADODB.Command")
'objCommand.ActiveConnection = objConnection
'objCommand.Properties("Page Size") = 100
'objCommand.Properties("Timeout") = 60
'objCommand.Properties("Cache Results") = False
'
'~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
'Define Search Query
'~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
'strBase = ""
'strFilter = "(&(objectCategory=person)(objectClass=user))"
'strFilter = "(objectCategory=computer)"
'strAttributes = "name,userAccountControl"
'strQuery = strBase & ";" & strFilter & ";" & strAttributes
'
''~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
''Execute command and build recordset
''~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
'objCommand.CommandText = strQuery
'Set objRecordSet = objCommand.Execute
'Wscript.echo "-----------------------------------------------------"
'Wscript.echo "Running AD Query ..."
'Do until objRecordSet.EOF
' intRecCount = intRecCount + 1
' 'Wscript.StdOut.Write(".")
' strCN = objRecordSet.Fields("name")
' intUAC=objRecordSet.Fields("userAccountControl")
' if intUAC AND ADS_UF_ACCOUNTDISABLE Then
' AcctStat="Disabled"
' Else
' AcctStat="Enabled"
' End If
' If AcctStat="Enabled" Then
' errValue = Ping(strCN)
' If errValue = "Online" Then
' 'WScript.Echo strCN
' strRegValue=RegListValueString(strCN)
' 'WScript.Echo strRegValue
' 'add items to dictionary
' 'objDictionary.add strCN, strRegValue
' If strRegValue="" Or IsNull(strRegValue) Then
' WScript.Echo strCN & " " & strRegValue & " - Null"
' ElseIf objGUIDDict.Exists(strRegValue) Then
' WScript.Echo strCN & " " & strRegValue & " - Duplicate"
' Call RegDeleteValue(strCN)
' Call StopService(strCN,"McAfeeFramework")
' Call StartService(strCN,"McAfeeFramework")
' On Error Resume Next
' Set osvcRemote = GetObject("winmgmts:\\" & strCN & "\root\cimv2")
' Set oprocess = osvcRemote.Get("win32_process")
' ret = oprocess.create("c:\\program files\\network associates\\common framework\\cmdagent.exe /P")
' if (ret <> 0) Then
' 'wscript.echo "Failed to start process on " & strCN & ": " & ret
' Else
' 'wscript.echo "Started process on " & strCN & ": " & ret
' End If
' Else
' objGUIDDict(strRegValue) = True
' WScript.Echo strCN & " " & strRegValue & " - Healthy"
' End If
' End If
' End If
' objRecordSet.movenext
'Loop
'WScript.Quit
'
''~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
''Build a dictionary of the unique GUIDS
''~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
'For Each GUID in objDictionary.Items
' 'WScript.Echo GUID
' objGUIDDict(GUID) = True
'Next
'
''~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
''Compare guids to computernames and return all computers for each guid
''~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
'For Each strMgrName In OBJGUIDDICT.Keys
' strMbxName = ""
' index = 0
' ReDim arrayGUIDS(0, index)
' For Each strMbxName In OBJDICTIONARY
' If OBJDICTIONARY.item(strMbxName) = strMgrName Then
' 'WScript.Echo "Matched guid " & strMgrName & " " & strMBXName
' ReDim Preserve arrayGUIDS(0, index)
' arrayGUIDS(0, index) = strMBXName
' index = index + 1
' End If
' Next
' If index > 1 Then
' WScript.Echo strMgrName & " has more then 1 member."
' For Each strcomputername In arrayguids
' WScript.Echo strcomputername
' call RegDeleteValue(strComputername)
' call StopService(strcomputername,"McAfeeFramework")
' Call StartService(strcomputername,"McAfeeFramework")
' On Error Resume Next
' Set osvcRemote = GetObject("winmgmts:\\" & strcomputername & "\root\cimv2")
' Set oprocess = osvcRemote.Get("win32_process")
' ret = oprocess.create("c:\\program files\\network associates\\common framework\\cmdagent.exe /P")
' if (ret <> 0) Then
' wscript.echo "Failed to start process on " & strcomputername & ": " & ret
' Else
' wscript.echo "Started process on " & strcomputername & ": " & ret
' End If
' Err.Clear
' Next
' End If
'Next
'
'wscript.echo "Completed query - total records: " & intRecCount
'
'Function RegListValueString(strComputer)
' On Error Resume Next
' Const HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE = &H80000002
' strKeyPath = "SOFTWARE\Network Associates\ePolicy Orchestrator\Agent"
' strValueName = "AgentGUID"
' Set oReg=GetObject("winmgmts:{impersonationLevel=impersonate}!\\" & _
' strComputer & "\root\default:StdRegProv")
'
' oReg.GetStringValue HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE,strKeyPath,strValueName,strValue
' RegListValueString = strValue
'End Function
'
'Function RegDeleteValue(strComputer)
' On Error Resume Next
' Const HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE = &H80000002
' strKeyPath = "SOFTWARE\Network Associates\ePolicy Orchestrator\Agent"
' strValueName = "AgentGUID"
' Set oReg=GetObject("winmgmts:{impersonationLevel=impersonate}!\\" & _
' strComputer & "\root\default:StdRegProv")
'
' oReg.DeleteValue HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE,strKeyPath,strValueName
'End Function
'
'Function Ping(remoteComputer)
' Set objWMIService = GetObject("winmgmts:{impersonationLevel=impersonate}!\\" & LocalComputer & "\root\cimv2")
' Set colPingedComputers = objWMIService.ExecQuery("Select * from Win32_PingStatus Where Address = '" & remoteComputer & "'")
'
' For Each objComputer in colPingedComputers
' If objComputer.StatusCode = 0 Then
' Ping = "Online"
' Else
' Ping = "Offline"
' End If
' Next
' End Function
'
'
'Function StopService(strComputer, Service)
' On Error Resume Next
' Set objWMIService = GetObject("winmgmts:{impersonationLevel=impersonate}!\\" & strComputer & "\root\cimv2")
' Set colServiceList = objWMIService.ExecQuery("Associators of " _
' & "{Win32_Service.Name='" & Service & "'} Where " _
& "AssocClass=Win32_DependentService " & "Role=Antecedent" )
' On Error Resume Next
' For Each objService in colServiceList
' If (objService.State = "Stopped") Then
' 'wscript.echo "Dependant service " & objService.name & " is " & objService.State
' Exit For
' End If
' 'wscript.echo "Stopping dependent service: " & objService.Name & " ..."
' objService.StopService()
' wscript.sleep 1000
' Next
' wscript.sleep 2000
'
' Set colServiceList = objWMIService.ExecQuery("Select * from Win32_Service where Name= '" & Service & "'")
' For Each objService in colServiceList
' If (objService.State = "Stopped") Then
' 'wscript.echo objService.name & " service is " & objService.State
' Exit For
' End If
' 'wscript.echo "Stopping " & Service & " service ..."
' errReturn = objService.StopService()
' Next
'End Function
'
'Function StartService(strComputer, Service)
' On Error Resume Next
' Set objWMIService = GetObject("winmgmts:{impersonationLevel=impersonate}!\\" & strComputer & "\root\cimv2")
' Set colServiceList = objWMIService.ExecQuery("Select * from Win32_Service where Name= '" & Service & "'")
'
' For Each objService in colServiceList
' If (objService.State = "Running") Then
' 'wscript.echo objService.name & " service is " & objService.State
' Exit For
' End If
' 'wscript.echo "Starting " & Service & " ..."
' errReturn = objService.StartService()
' Set colDepServiceList = objWMIService.ExecQuery("Associators of " _
' & "{Win32_Service.Name='" & Service & "'} Where " _
' & "AssocClass=Win32_DependentService " & "Role=Antecedent" )
' For Each objDepService in colDepServiceList
' If (objDepService.State = "Running") Then
' wscript.echo "Dependant service " & objDepService.name & " is " & objDepService.State
' Exit For
' End If
' 'wscript.echo "Starting dependent service: " & objDepService.Name & " service ..."
' objDepService.StartService()
' Next
' Next
' wscript.sleep 2000
'End Function

This will check the system, keep track of the GUID and replace it if there is a duplicate.

My Dog - My Dad

2008-10-14T16:29:00.000-07:00

It has been a real crappy end of the year. As you know, my father has cancer and has been really struggling these past several weeks. I feel that time is short. My sister came into town last week to spend time with all of us. We had a nice family dinner with all of us talking and having my kids run around. He sure likes to watch them, brings a smile to his heart. I have been trying to spend as much time as possible over there and talk to him about everything but his health or his physical health. What is there to say? Feel like crap… Tonight, I will be heading over there after work to spend time there and have dinner.

About two weeks ago, Freya had a growth on the side of her jaw. I took her to the vet, who did a biopsy to figure out what it was, but it came back inconclusive. Last Tuesday, the vet wanted to remove it and send the entire thing as a sample. It grew to double the size of the prior week, so he just took enough to get a better idea of what it may be. When we where there, he said that it could be one of eight things, seven of which are fatal. Freya has been sleeping a lot, more than normal and wanting to be under me or my wife. This means that she is not feeling well. I have been giving her wet food to make sure that she has been eating. With a big thing in her mouth, I can understand that she would not want to eat this dry crunchy dog food. Last night, we got the test results back, it is cancer. The vet said that the treatment would begin with removing her jaw and beginning chemotherapy. I just can’t do that to my dog. I see what this is doing to my dad, I just can’t do it to my dog. So, we are going to have to put Freya down. It is the most humane thing to do.

And the hits keep on coming!

Winging my way Los Angeles and back again

2008-08-25T15:23:00.000-07:00

Day 1 –
I am currently sitting on an overcrowded airplane on my way to Los Angeles for my Aunts funeral. This is the first time, in a very long time, that I am taking a trip without my family. Generally, if I am on a plane trip, I am accompanied by my wife and the young ones, going to some place sunny and fun… Like Disneyland. Unfortunately, that will not be the case this time. My trip so far has been uneventful and was able to get some work done while I waited at the airport. Stuff that I just simply did not have time to do while I was at work. So, I took the two hours that I am sitting on a plane to write some emails, update a spreadsheet or two, and a couple of updates that I forgot about. I guess that this is a better use of my time, than just sitting here, looking at the back of someone’s head. Speaking of planes, this is one small fracking plane. I hit my head on the roof when I walked in, on the cabin when I stood up to go to the lavatory, and when trying to exit. Talk about small.. Dude.. The bathroom was smaller than my closet. I think that Frodo would have had issues trying to use the facilities. I also came up with a realization…I need a larger battery…seriously….

Day 2 –
Today is the day of the funeral. My sister, her husband and I went to Brunch before the service, really good food. I forget the name of the restaurant, but it is at the bottom of the hill in Hollywood. Then we went to the Los Angeles athletic club for the memorial service. I was told that it this was going to be a celebration instead of a traditional funeral. Well, it was just that. A friend of the family did a sort of MC routine that at times was really funny, telling stories of my Aunt when she was on Broadway, dancing, performing in the theater, or performing ballet. However, it was not all fun and games. At certain points, it was just plain sad and even I felt a well of tears forming. There was a lot of studio and theater people present, obviously, who all told stories of my Aunt. Some funny and some not, which brought a tear to everyone’s eye. I was probably the youngest person in the room by at least 15 years. Which was sort of difficult, since a lot of things that they were talking about happened before I was even born. Everyone had something to share, which ended with a hug and smile… and then we broke for dinner.

Funny story… during the reception, I was talking to this group of people, who one of them was a producer, who’s cell phone rang. Okay.. I had mine vibrate, not to disturb anyone, but okay... So, he answers it and is like “Hey Ms. Portman, how are you feeling???” I was like –huh- So, when he gets off of the phone, in which I inquired about the call. “Portman.. As in.. Natalie Portman?” He nodded and proceeded to tell me all about how it is such a pleasure to work with her. He also said that Nicole Kidman, Alec Baldwin, and Uma Thurman were also fantastic to work with. However, I was like.. “Lets go back to Natalie for a minute” .. we talked for a bit more, before our drinks were empty and we parted. When I was leaving, I went over and shook his hand and let him know that it was a pleasure meeting him and that I was disappointed that Natalie never called.. "Wink-Wink"
It has been a very very long time since my sister and I just sat down and talked. We sat in the backyard, staring up a the Hollywood sign, drinks in hand, and talking about everything that is going on in our lives… Dad, Mom, work, my kids, husband/wife, and each other. At times, we were brutally honest with each other. We both found out that there was a lot of miscommunication and ill feelings between each other. It sure was nice to get a lot of things off our chests. At the end, we felt like we were a family again.

Day 3 –
Today is the day that I head back home. My wife and girls are anxious for me walk through that door. I was told that my youngest had a hard night last night with me gone. She was constantly looking for me or expecting me to come home from “work”.. I called several times while away, but she did not get it. I did pick them both up a little something as a present from daddy, while on his travels. A monkey that you can wear around your neck that makes wildlife noises. This should totally annoy my wife. However, before that, Sis and I did get to stop by Bill’s.. Bill’s place is a fantastic deli that has THE BEST sandwiches you have ever eaten in your entire life. My sister made a special point to stop there for lunch before my flight out. I was trying to come up with a way to take several sandwiches on the plane, perhaps to sell for a nice little profit.. but, could not figure out how to make this happen. Sure beat the dry crackers and two droplets of soda that they give you during the flight. Well, I will have to settle for what I was able to pack in the belly to hold me over. And… Yes.. The plane is still overcrowded and small… Same plane, I think…

My So Called Life...

2008-08-15T09:07:00.000-07:00

Some of my friends are wondering if I am still alive... So, I thought that I would eliminate the mystery. Yes, I am alive, just really busy. I have worked the last 3 weekends, besides putting in a full week of work. I am also in Budget season for 2009. So, I have had to work a couple of hours at night to answer question that my Director may have regarding the budget plan that I put together. (Love Excel) There is no shortage of projects or upgrades to keep me and my team busy. The good news is that we have very few actual problems. I like not always fighting fires, unlike Cori. At Cori, it always seemed like the walls were crumbling down around us. I guess that was the price to pay for being on the bleeding edge. (Yes, they installed beta and RC products into a production network). I tried not to, but, I can see how people always blame the network for any issues. I was guilty of doing it myself and I could see how the network guys always were so short with people about it. I now understand. Here, I have applications the monitor the ping times of systems, bandwidth on the switches, CPU on the switches, ports, every little network/server/device, everything that I can think of. And I always seem to get... "The network is slow!" It is like saying "The Internet is Down!" It just slays me... No, the internet is not down and the network is not slow, it is your crappy application that you are trying to run.. Wow.. Okay, I got a bit off topic here.

Family is good. The girls still have a full line up of activities, Hula, Swimming, and Ballet. I am also looking to get my youngest into a martial arts. Just not sure of the time or place. Plus, we visit my parents almost every weekend. As you are aware, dad is not doing so well. He says that everything is fine, but you can tell that it is not. As he says, "It is all downhill from here." Mom is saying that his back is hurting more and more. I told him that he has some really kick ass pain meds, take them.. It is not like you are going to become an addict. Plus, he is really not eating much. Dad was a big guy and now he is down around my weight. Not good... But, he has a really great attitude, even if it is for show.

Well, the girls have a Hula performance this weekend, which will be a lot of fun. The girls really are excited about the performance. The nice thing is that I get to see the entire show, ranging from the little people all the way to the experts. And.. DUDE!!!... They are good.. pretty.. AND GOOD!

Also, we are getting new carpet for the house, once every decade you really need to put some money into the house. :) Lowes was having a sale on installation, $250 bucks for the whole house. So, we are doing all 4 rooms. So, we are in the mix of packing our house in order to have them come and install the carpet. I cannot believe the amount of pure crap that we have accumulated over the past 12 years of living in this house. We have put in a rule.. If you have not touched it in a year, it goes bye-bye. Got to tell you.. I have thrown away more programs (stuff that wouldn’t run on Windows98, not to mention XP), computers (P200), and parts of stuff I did not know that I even had.

Oh.. And playing DAOC, which is fun getting together with my teammates and creating havoc.

So, all in all, doing well - Just Busy...

My Experiences with the Game Dark Age of Camelot

2008-08-08T15:51:00.000-07:00

It has been suggested that perhaps I need to expand on an entry… So, here it is…

I only play a couple of hours a few times a week, so I am not one of those people is always on playing… Like a few of my friends on EverCrack…(you know who you are). To begin you select your Realm. I choose the Albion, the realm of the Knights of King Arthur. In the relative short time of me playing with my buds from work, we managed to achieve 40th level, 50 being max. I am having a good time with my character. I am playing a male Briton Heretic, named Leifland. I am currently working on some crafting of leather, studded or cloth armor. Others in our group are spell crafting or doing alchemy that can be applied to the armor, which I am making, to increase our abilities and resistances. There is not much to it.. Just time and money… Lots of Money!!! But, we hunt in order to acquire items that we can sell, gold, and aurulite (a sought after money source). There is not much grind that I have seen with other games of this type. We are able to hunt, farm, and acquire XP very rapidly in a player vs environment (PVE). In DAOC there are three types – PVE, Relm vs Relm (RVR), and Player vs Player (PVP). The PVP aspect of this game is difficult and at times very frustrating. Here is why… In the Battlegrounds, each Realm starts out with a keep. There is one keep in the middle that you can either attempt to capture or defend, based on who holds the keep. That is a lot of fun, except when you are engaged in battle with the keep defenders and the other Realm thumps on you without teaming up for the common good. However, you can do the same and have from time to time.
The game is totally open, so you are able to go anywhere and do almost anything. If you see a hill and want to climb it, go for it… Nothing is stopping you.

As I have said previously, well worth the free trial. And if you choose to play, look me up…