2004-03-28 · 21:45

Disney day 5: EPCOT and Cirque du Soleil

It’s true; EPCOT really does stand for “every person comes out tired”. This has always been my favorite park, mostly because there are so many gadgets and so much techno-stuff– but also because of the pervasive spirit of optimism that pervades both halves of the park. When we arrived, we headed straight for Test Track and got FASTPASS tickets for it. While Matthew and I strolled around people-watching (and eating popsicles, of course), everyone else went to Ellen’s Energy Adventure, which broke down mid-ride on our last visit. It got good reviews this time; Mom and I traded groups, so they went to bird-watch while the rest of us rode Test Track. David loved it as much as he did last time, and Arlene and Thomas both were impressed (although it didn’t make GM look so good when our car got stuck three times, once in the “cold climate” test room). We puttered around for a while afterwards until it was time for our Mission: SPACE fastpasses. How was it? It’s so good that I am prepared to forgive HP for their long history of writing crappy Mac software for their products. Thomas and I rode (David chickened out at the last minute), and you should have seen the look on his face! He got to be the mission pilot and was enormously proud of his accomplishment. The ride itself was really slick: very immersive, with a terrific blast-off sequence that gives realistic G-loadings and buffetings. IMHO, Walt himself would have approved (although this story about Disney freaks points out how many of them talk about what Walt would, and would not, have liked– eek! am I crossing the line and becoming a Disneytrekkie? Let’s hope not.)
While Tom and I were riding, everyone else headed over to the World Showcase. I’d never been there before, and it was quite enjoyable, even though I didn’t do anything more than stroll through the pavilions. We had lunch at a surprisingly good Japanese yakitori restaurant, then walked around a bit more until it was time to go. Arlene and I had set a hard departure time of 1530 because we had tickets to the 1800 performance of Cirque du Soleil‘s La Nouba. What a show! I’d never seen Cirque before, but I’d heard a lot about the athletic skill and design of their performances, and I wasn’t disappointed. It’s hard to summarize it, so I won’t try– but if you go to Orlando, see the show if you have time. It’s well worth the (rather expensive) ticket price, and there’s not a bad seat in the house. While we were doing that, Mom and the boys ate at Downtown Disney, and then to bed. Pictures:

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Filed under Travel

2004-03-28 · 21:03

Cue the fight song

I’m almost ready to forgive WTOL; their broadcast of the Georgia Tech-Kansas game today was flawless (especially the 5.1 surround!), and so was the outcome. What a great second half. I vividly remember the last time Tech went to the Final Four, since I was just finishing my degree. Now they’re back in. Sweetness. (Personal to all Duke fansr: I was rooting for Xavier to beat Duke, and now I’m rooting for Duke to lose. I’m just sayin’.)

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Filed under HDTV and Home Theater

2004-03-28 · 20:49

From Microsoft to stand-up

Scott Oseychik, formerly of Microsoft’s customer problem response team, has moved on to new things: he’s now a stand-up comedian. No, really. I have no idea if he’s funny or not, but he was very helpful in explaining the intricacies of the Exchange 2000 and 2003 transport engines when I was writing about them. I wish him luck (and I’ll go see him if he’s in Detroit, Toledo, or the surrounding area!)

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Filed under General Stuff, Musings

2004-03-27 · 05:55

Thanks for nothing, WTOL

Last night, I was all set to watch the Georgia Tech-Nevada game. I had the bedroom TV connected, the TiVo in place, and a freshly plumped pillow. Unfortunately, our local CBS station cut away at the tipoff of the Duke game, so I didn’t get to see the other three quarters of the Duke game. It’s almost enough to get me to sign up for DirecTV’s “Mega March Madness” package, which has (or, I should say, had) all of the games. Stupid local affiliates. I emailed them to complain, but I’m sure they did it for sound marketing reasons… after all, Illinois is only a few states away from here. Feh.

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Filed under Musings

2004-03-26 · 16:11

Work for the Exchange team

Want a job working for the Exchange team in Redmond? They’re having a hiring spree fair in late April in Seattle. See the jobsblog or send your resume here.

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Filed under General Stuff, Musings

2004-03-26 · 11:27

Banning social software in the workplace

I wrote about a security problem with Plaxo a couple of weeks ago. It’s since been fixed, but now I’m starting to hear that companies are barring their employees from using Plaxo, LinkedIn, and other social software. Why? Several reasons. The biggest seems to be that these services enable wholesale exporting of your contact database, which makes it easy for you to find out which of your existing contacts already use the service. This has two problems, though. First, it runs afoul of European Union data privacy laws; many multinational companies in the US have already been working hard to make their internal operations conform to EU regulations because they have EU operations and employees who live and work in the EU. Microsoft, AT&T, General Motors, and American Express come to mind. The other reason, of course, is that companies don’t like the idea of a third party getting unrestricted access to a significant portion of their internal contact data. Imagine the bonanza for a clever Sun salesman who managed to steal all of the contact data for an IBM sales rep, for example. This is precisely why very few companies expose even shadow copies of their master directories to the outside world: there’s too much risk in doing so, and the reward is fairly limited.
Will these bans work? Beats me. Services like LinkedIn and Plaxo have to reach a certain degree of critical mass before they become useful, but it’s difficult to see how such bans can be efficiently enforced. Interestingly, the one ban I’ve actually seen in written form doesn’t say anything about “personal” social software like Orkut and Friendster.

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Filed under General Stuff, Musings

2004-03-25 · 11:03

Light-transmitting concrete

This is very cool: concrete with embedded optical fibers that transmit light. It’s not transparent (see this picture), but it’s still pretty neat.

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Filed under FAIL

2004-03-25 · 10:56

Get $100 free from Citibank

There must be a catch somewhere. Amazon sent me a flyer for a Citibank promotion. If you open a new regular checking account with a $1500 deposit, then use their online bill payment service to pay two bills online within 60 days of opening the account, they give you $100 cash. Sign up with offer code “CCY2”. I assume that it’s one per customer, but I may try opening one account for each member of our household (not that Matthew really needs a checking account, but hey, $100 is $100.)

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Filed under Musings

2004-03-24 · 15:08

It’s shipping!

Secure Messaging with Exchange Server 2003 is now in stock at Amazon. It doesn’t look like anyone’s actually bought it yet, but hey, you can’t have everything. Update: the book has now attained the stratospheric Amazon sales rank of 92,218, despite its being paired as a bundle with Jerry Cochran’s excellent Mission-Critical Microsoft Exchange 2003 for only $70. Sigh.

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Filed under General Stuff, Musings

2004-03-24 · 14:53

It’s finally shipping

Secure Messaging with Exchange Server 2003 is now in stock at Amazon. It doesn’t look like anyone’s actually bought it yet, but hey, you can’t have everything.

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Filed under Musings

2004-03-24 · 14:03

A big shout out to my main homie

That would be Tim, who now has a real blog.

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Filed under Friends & Family

2004-03-23 · 09:14

Formatting USB keys as NTFS

If you’re using removable USB sticks, keys, or pen drives, you can format them as NTFS. This is handy if you want to apply permissions to the files contained thereon, as you might want to if you’re, say, an administrator. However, the default setting for removable devices is “optimize for quick removal”, meaning that write caching and NTFS formatting are turned off. If you use Device Manager to inspect the properties of the USB stick while it’s mounted, you can change that setting to “optimize for performance”, and NTFS will become available. You may be able to format sticks as NTFS from the command line, but this doesn’t work consistently across all models and drivers.
Update: of course, the biggest benefit from formatting a thumb drive with NTFS is that you can use EFS on it. I should have mentioned that in the original post.

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Filed under Security

2004-03-23 · 09:10

Disney day 4: MGM Studios

On our previous visit to MGM, we had a great time but didn’t hit most of the big-ticket attractions because we went around dinnertime. This time, we hit the park first thing in the morning. We started off with the Indiana Jones stunt show, which recreates a couple of scenes from various Indy movies. It’s actually quite cool. Thomas was particularly enthralled, since now he knows how to throw a character punch (plus there were lots of explosions, always a plus for the 5-year-old set.)
Mom, Thomas, and I rode Star Tours, which was mildly amusing; it’s a simulator ride through a Star Wars space battle. I rode the Tower of Terror— it was great. You go up in a Twilight Zone elevator, then you free-fall a random distance, then you repeat that cycle a few times. Matt has since taken great delight in pointing to the Tower every time he sees it and intoning “Tower of Terrrrrr!”
David, Mom, and Thomas went to the Drew Carey “Sounds Dangerous” show, which the non-Disney guidebooks all describe as lame. They all liked it, though. For lunch, we had reservations at the Prime Time Cafe, where the schtick is that you’re eating at home with “Mom”. Our waiter, Mickey (yes, that’s really his name), was very zealous at reminding the boys to keep their elbows off the table, and he wouldn’t let Arlene or David order dessert because they didn’t clean their plates. He also did something that I found incredible: after Thomas popped Matthew’s balloon sword, Mickey went next door to the Indiana Jones shop and bought Matt a plastic sword to replace it. Try that at Burger King.
I didn’t keep any notes on them, but there were two other noteworthy activities. David and I played Millionaire, which was loads of fun. It was wicked cold in the the studio, though. I squeezed in a ride on the Rock-n-Roller Coaster. I’m not a huge Aerosmith fan (as in, I wouldn’t have them over to dinner), but this ride was particularly good at providing an immersive environment– you see a projection of them in the studio, then descend into a very realistic parking garage for a “limo ride” to the concert. A very fast, smooth launch and several corkscrews.
Then we went back to the hotel and ate dinner at the Rainforest Cafe, one of our favorites. The food was excellent and served in large portions (I recommend the Parmsesan-crusted snapper). We got a coupon from the hotel concierge that gave us head-of-the-line seating and a free appetizer. The animatronic animals are pretty neat, and they play some really invigorating background music. The fish tanks are impressive, too. Note that there are two of these restaurants here: one in Downtown Disney and one in Animal Kingdom. Then, to bed.
Pictures:

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Filed under Friends & Family

2004-03-23 · 08:50

Disney guides capsule review, just for Bryna

We used three guidebooks for our Disney visit: Fodor’s, the Birnbaum guide (which is actually published by Disney), and The Luxury Guide to Disney. The Birnbaum guide is relentlessly upbeat, never mentioning a flaw or blemish, but it’s quite detailed and includes lots of information on nearby hotels and resorts. The Fodor’s guide has a good sense of humor and points out which rides and attractions aren’t really worth going to (hint: Spaceship Earth) but doesn’t include as much detail since it also covers Universal, Sea World, and other area attractions. The “Luxury Guide” was pretty worthless, since we didn’t do lots of shopping. If I could only pick one, I think I’d go with the Birnbaum.

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Filed under Reviews

2004-03-23 · 08:25

Get your cellphone calls on airplanes

Verizon has a cool service: sign up and when you’re on an airplane, your Verizon cellphone calls automatically arrive at your seat for either $0.10 or $0.69/min, depending on which plan you sign up for.

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Filed under Travel