Sometimes you find inspiration in odd places.
One thing that distinguishes the LDS church from most others is that we don’t have much in the way of full-time clergy. Sure, there are general authorities, but the vast majority of church leadership at the local levels is made up of volunteers. For example, the members of my ward’s bishopric– the bishop and his two counselors– are volunteers. One’s an accountant, one is retired, and I don’t know what the other one does. None, however, receive any monetary support from the church.
This principle extends beyond leadership to mundane things like who cleans the buildings. At least in North America, church buildings are maintained by the church facilities maintenance group, but “maintained” means that the FMG does stuff like fixing the roof if it leaks or replacing the toilet that little Johnny broke. They don’t clean the buildings, the members do. That means that, a few times a year, our family gets assigned to work as part of a cleaning crew. This sounds boring, but as with so many other things, if you look a bit deeper you may find it to be less so.
The first interesting thing: this is a collateral duty over and above whatever callings you may have. Everyone gets a turn, without fear or favor. Single adults, families with little kids, senior couples.. all must bow to the mighty cleaning schedule. I think that’s great because it gives (or requires, depending on your perspective) an equal opportunity for service to all. Just as God’s blessings are equally available to all of us, so are the responsibilities that come along with them.
The second interesting thing: at least in this ward, each cleaning task is on an index card. The card specifies what needs to be done (e.g. “sweep east and west entrance areas; make sure rugs are clean; make sure that rugs do not prevent doors from opening”). On the back there’s a signature list so that whoever performs the task can sign off on it. This promotes pride of workmanship, of course, but it also provides a useful way to track jobs that might not have gotten done the last time the building was cleaned. Our church makes a big deal out of doing things in wisdom and order, and this is just one small manifestation of that.
Pushing a broom (or a mop) isn’t an especially inspiring task, but I appreciated the opportunity to do it, in part because I felt like I was doing something valuable for our congregation, but in part because I knew I was working as part of a team to meet a larger objective. The spiritual applications of this principle are pretty obvious…
Cleaning the church
Comments Off on Cleaning the church
Filed under Spiritual Nourishment
Thursday Trivia #15
- Rather than celebrate individual folks’ birthdays, we have group celebrations at my office. Today’s one such day, so I’m looking forward to some ice cream, with all the fixins.
- In preparing my Sunday school lesson, I found my iPad to be super useful. At one point, I had my paper scriptures, two paper lesson summaries (here and here), and the Google Books version of the Jewish Study Bible on the iPad all together, and it was a natural addition to my workflow. The Bible HD app is pretty neat too because it includes a number of different translations.
- Speaking of my lesson: the executive summary is that Ruth’s story is one of loyalty and self-sacrifice, where her loyalty to Naomi is repaid many times over by her acceptance in Israel and her marriage to Boaz. Love doesn’t enter into it, at least not as the scriptural account goes. On the other hand, love is the key focus of the story of Hannah and her son, Samuel.
- Good thing Google is careful about privacy.
- Speaking of privacy: I’m interested in dissecting the Supreme Court’s opinion in Ontario vs Quon, but it may take me a while.
- Fascinating behind-the-scenes account of Windows Phone 7 here. C’mon, guys, ship it! Every time I read something like this my credit card itches.
- Top ten comments you don’t want to hear your pilot say.
Comments Off on Thursday Trivia #15
Filed under Friends & Family
Thursday trivia #14
Ha! Fooled you! Thursday Trivia can strike at any time!
- Weekends are for relaxing, or so I’m told. So far this weekend, I’m running a race, going skeet shooting with a group of co-workers, teaching a Sunday school lesson on the Book of Ruth, and going to see the US Air Force Golden Band of the West. Monday will probably seem like a day off after all that.
- I now have lost enough weight for people I only see occasionally to comment that I look thinner… twice. That’s pretty motivating. It must be because I walked around New Orleans so much that my legs are still sore; it certainly wasn’t because I ate moderately.
- This week’s random PowerShell script: turn on the Windows 7 preview pane for PowerShell scripts.
- Here’s what I feel like about Exchange 2010 SP1 being in beta– I can’t decide whether to install it or not. The features in it are very compelling, but the lack of support makes me a bit nervous.
Comments Off on Thursday trivia #14
Filed under Friends & Family
TechEd 2010 wrapup
Executive summary: man, it felt good to be back home. Not literally, of course; I grew up in Houma, which is very unlike New Orleans in most ways, and I haven’t lived in Louisiana for more than 20 years. Though I’ve never lived in New Orleans, I’ve visited it many times and in many different circumstances: going to my dad’s office in the CBD, honeymooning there with my wife, working frantically to finish sessions at MGB when I was first starting 3Sharp, and playing the tourist when going to visit family. The goodness came from being surrounded by the familiar sense of community and place that I think everyone has to some degree, and having that familiarity complemented by the company of some of my very best friends.
| I arrived on Monday afternoon. At around 4pm, it was 95° and solid overcast, with probably 80% humidity. In other words, it was a typical June afternoon. After a quick cab ride from the airport, I dropped off my stuff at the Courtyard by Marriott on St Charles Avenue. By happy coincidence, this was right across the street from the Pearl, a restaurant where I ate lunch with my dad pretty much every time I went to visit his office. I picked this hotel because it was inexpensive and because Marriott is running a great promotion, but I was delighted to see such a memorable (to me, anyway) landmark right off the bat. (The hotel was excellent, by the way: clean, comfortable, safe, and convenient.)
I took a few minutes to drop off my stuff, then walked over to the convention center to register and get my TechEd badge. It was a pleasant walk despite the heat and humidity, and once I got registered I spent a few minutes walking around the show floor, where I met up with a gaggle of Windows IT Pro Magazine folks. After a brisk walk back to the hotel, I cleaned up a bit before walking over to Brennan’s Palace Café for dinner. As you might expect from a restaurant run by a member of the Brennan family, the food was superb. I had an excellent piece of pecan-crusted redfish, a bit of crabmeat cheesecake, and some excellent BBQ shrimp. The crowning touch: bananas Foster, something I hadn’t had in years. The only drawback was that service was, shall we say, leisurely– we sat down about 8pm and didn’t finish dessert until about 11:30! I was sorry that dinner took so long, as there was a separate Exchange Roundtable event that I also wanted to attend. |
 |
Tuesday morning I’d set up a group breakfast at Café Beignet on Royal, just a couple of blocks from my hotel. Several Exchange MVPs and assorted other folks showed up; I finally got to meet Jeff Guillet and Tino Donderwinkel in person. Then it was time to walk over to the MVP NDA sessions organized by our most excellent MVP team. While I can’t talk about the specifics of the sessions, I can say that there are some pretty nifty things coming later this year from the Exchange and Communications Server teams– and I’m not just talking about the things they’ve already announced. (Fascinating thing I learned during lunch: dell.com is powered by SharePoint!)
For dinner, I joined fellow MVPs Jason Sherry and Pat Richard at Coop’s Place, right near Central Grocery (another favorite spot of mine). I’d never been there before, but I’ll be there again. The gumbo was OK, but the red beans, rice, and sausage I had was outstanding! I ate until I couldn’t eat any more. Fortunately, that coincided with my plate being empty.
We then walked over to the Aquarium of the Americas for the “community influencer” party. Don’t get me wrong. I love aquariums, and I really love this particular aquarium. However, it was odd being there without the huge crowds I associate with places like this and this. The community-influencer parties are always a bit of a crap shoot because you never know exactly who will show up; I spotted a few other folks I knew but didn’t stay long. Instead I went back to the hotel, wrote my UPDATE column, and watch the hated Lakers beat the Celtics in game 3.
Wednesday, my final day, dawned early; I met Jim McBee for breakfast and we… wait for it… went to an actual TechEd session. I won’t say which one, except that I was very disappointed with it. The speaker wasn’t a very good presenter, his demos didn’t work, he finished more than 30 minutes early, and the part of the presentation that I stayed for was pretty much recycled from the Exchange documentation. Rather than subject ourselves to any further risk of stupidification, we took off for the National World War II Museum.
Wow. I could have spent all day there. We started with Beyond All Boundaries, a movie summarizing World War II in 48 minutes. It moved me to tears several times, not just because of the bravery and sacrifice of those who fought for the Allies but for the needless waste, death, and destruction suffered by civilians on both sides. I never knew that nearly 20 million Chinese died during World War II, nor that the UK suffered more deaths than the US did (and proportionately their losses compared to ours were even greater). We didn’t have time to go through the entire museum because Jim and I both had other engagements, but I will make it a point to go back next time I’m in New Orleans.
In the afternoon, I shot two video interviews with Paul Thurrott: one on Windows Phone 7 and one on Exchange 2010 and Communications Server “14”. This was especially cool because– despite having worked together at Windows IT Pro for years— we’d never met in the flesh. The interviews were fun to do, and I’ll post a link to them once the video folks are done with them.
After that, the trip home was pretty much anti-climactic (except that my cab got buzzed by an F-15 on full burner when we drove past the end of the active runway). Just the way I like it! Tomorrow it’s back to work.
Comments Off on TechEd 2010 wrapup
Filed under Friends & Family, UC&C
Thursday trivia #13
- I’ve been using bankrate.com to research checking and savings rates, but it looks like depositaccounts.com has a better list… and without that list I never would have found my new bank. (You really have to click the link. Seriously. Or you can read this news article.)
- On the other hand, BankDirect will give you American Airlines miles for deposit accounts. If I parked a chunk of money there I could potentially earn enough miles to take the kids on our international trips– worth looking at.
- I recently read Richard Poll’s seminal talk, "What the Church Means to People Like Me". If you’re LDS, and you haven’t read it, you should; it’s very thought-provoking.
- Next week I’m going to TechEd! I’m looking forward to reconnecting with all my MVP pals that I missed at this year’s Summit.
- Speaking of MVPs, fellow MVP Vijay Raj has an excellent post up about how you get to be an MVP.
- And one more MVP-related item: many thanks to Pat Richard for this script, which automatically sets up SSL redirection for Exchange 2010. It saved me a ton of time.
- Still love my iPad.
Comments Off on Thursday trivia #13
Filed under Friends & Family
Memorial Day 2010
Every year, Julie posts this. Every year, I read it and cry. This year, I’ll toss in a link to Lex’s thoughts on Memorial Day.
I am thankful for those who have served our country, and I pray the Lord’s blessings on their loved ones– most of all for those who have made the ultimate sacrifice for our nation and the freedoms we enjoy therein.
Cory Booker said it thus:
We drink deeply from wells of freedom we did not dig, we eat from a table of abundance prepared for us by courageous hands and hearts, may we ever be mindful of their sacrifice and may we show our gratitude not simply in word or ceremony but in our continued work and dedication to make ours a more perfect union.
Comments Off on Memorial Day 2010
Filed under Friends & Family, Spiritual Nourishment
Race day!
I just finished my first-ever 5K race! Woooo!
I’ve been running on the gym treadmill pretty steadily over the last couple of months. I normally run about 20 min at a 9:50/mi pace. Today I ran 3.1mi in 27:31, a blistering (for me) 8:51 pace. I haven’t run that fast since I was still in the Marines. In fact, I didn’t know I still could run that fast, and at that I took a few walking breaks along the way.
Most of the credit goes to my race playlist. When the first song the iPhone served up was Monster (by the Automatic Automatic) I knew it would be a good music day, and indeed it was. That was followed by Big Beat (Touch and Go), Zebra’s As I Said Before, the Punk Division version of Seven Nation Army, P!nk’s So What, Megadeth’s Symphony of Destruction, and– as I was coming up to the finish line, DJ Moule’s Black Sabotage, which is only one of my favorite songs EVAR.
Now, on to paintball… and getting ready for the next race!
Comments Off on Race day!
Filed under Friends & Family, General Stuff
Thursday trivia #12
- I wrote my first real PowerShell script in a while yesterday. It was a good feeling. Now I just need to polish it a bit and post it.
- “Top Kill” would be an awesome name for a punk band. Just sayin’.
- The spring weather here in the Bay Area has been cooler than I would have expected. Hopefully we’ll have some warm, sunny weather for the Memorial Day weekend.
- I’m delighted to report that, after being plateaued for a while, I’ve lost 10.5 lbs in the last two months. My target weight actually seems achievable (with the resulting lowered health risk a nice bonus).
- This weekend I’m doing something I’ve never done before: running a 5K race, the Mushroom Mardi Gras Fun Run. I’m actually looking forward to it. How odd is that? Afterwards, paintball with David and Tom… should be a busy day.
- I’m beginning to think I like the Drive-By Truckers, but I’m not really sure yet. Love the music itself, but some of the lyrics (and some of the vocalists) are grating.
- I have not bought any gas, no, not even a tankful, from Exxon since the Exxon Valdez spill. I guess that means I have to add BP to my banned list too. If this keeps up soon I won’t be able to buy gas for my car at all and I’ll have to get a LEAF, even though I think I’d rather have a Volt.
Filed under Friends & Family
Steal Across the Sky (Kress)
 |
“Steal Across the Sky” (Nancy Kress) I tend to think of Kress’ books as character novels. The plot is secondary; it’s there as a device to help us understand the characters, their motivations, and their inner lives. From that point of view, this is quite a successful book. It focuses on a small group of people who are chosen to be “witnesses” after an alien race (calling themselves “the Atoners”) recruits humans to go to other planets and, well, witness what they see. The “other planets” turn out to be populated by humans, although there are some key differences between Earthlings and these other humans. The others, you see, can communicate with the dead– the Atoners are atoning for having genetically modified Earthlings to remove that ability. This sets the stage for a complex set of interactions between several of the witnesses. The richness of these interactions, and the characters, is what made this book a success for me. I don’t want to spoil it by telling you too much about them; it would cheat you out of discovering the characters if I explained them in too much detail. Recommended, provided you’re not looking for a hard SF space opera or a plot-driven joyride. This book is neither but it rewards the thoughtful reader. |
Comments Off on Steal Across the Sky (Kress)
Filed under Reviews
The Trade of Queens (Stross)
The Trade of Queens: Book Six of the Merchant Princes
So here’s the thing. If you liked the earlier books in this series, you will find this, the last installment, to be simultaneously enjoyable and frustrating. Enjoyable, because it closes the story arc in a convincing way, one that leaves open the possibility of future books in the same universe. Frustrating, because it very much seems to be a short appendix to the previous book, plumped into book length by unnecessary repetition.
There’s also the political angle: Dick Cheney (never named, merely code-named WARBUCKS) was helping the Gruinmarkt Clan smuggle drugs into the US; he becomes President after he manipulates the Clan into attacking the US with nukes, after which he conveniently has a heart attack so that Don Rumsfeld can become President. I mean, come on. This probably pleases a certain segment of the population, but it didn’t do much for me.
Not a bad read, though it was helped for me a bit because I’d read this exegesis by the author before I actually read the book. Recommended if you’ve already finished the preceding books in the series; eminently skippable otherwise.
Comments Off on The Trade of Queens (Stross)
Filed under Reviews
Getting started with Search Server Express 2010
I’ve been trying to make time to deploy Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 and Search Server Express 2008. This week I finally got around to it, but then I decided "hey, why not go with the shiny new 2010 versions instead?"
Thus it came to pass that I installed SharePoint Foundation 2010 and Search Server Express 2010 on our application server.
I’ll preface the rest of this post by saying that I don’t know jack about SharePoint. I have actively avoided it, in fact, which made me kind of an outcast at 3Sharp. However, we can really make use of its feature set, even though we won’t (at first) be customizing it or building new applications on top of it.
SPF Installation was absolutely painless. The new installer is superb; it automatically figures out which prerequisites you need, downloads them, and installs them. Hey Microsoft UC team! We want this same level of seamless behavior in the Exchange and OCS/CS installers!
Search Server Express installation was likewise easy. I found it a little odd that you have to manually specify access controls for visitors; I would have expected this to be done by default. However, the steps required are easy to follow.
(side note: man, some of the default SPF themes are F-U-G-L-Y. I hope my eyes stop bleeding soon.)
The next step was to add the Search Center URL to the top navigation bar of the main site. Again, this is something that I was halfway expecting the installer to do for me, or at least to offer, and it was easy to do it manually.
There are a ton of other integration points between SPF 2010 and other parts of our infrastructure:
- you can display Exchange calendar public folders as part of the site calendar
- you can search Exchange public folders (something that will be very handy for our source code control system)
you can connect Windows 7 desktop search to it, so that searches automatically include Search Server Express-indexed content
I don’t know how to do any of these things yet, but it’s just a matter of time!
Update: turns out you can’t use the Windows 7 desktop search connector with SPF; for that you need SharePoint Standard. Oh well.
Filed under General Tech Stuff
Thursday trivia #11
- The $36 I spent for Pandora One was incredibly well-spent. I’ve discovered a ton of new music I like (for example, Superchic[k]), and it’s great to be able to listen to music from all of my desktops and my iPhone. Who says nothing good ever comes out of Oakland?
- Is it college football season yet?
- Normally I don’t enjoy or want “joke” e-mails. Most of them aren’t funny. However, this one cracked me up– thanks to my uncle Dan for sending it. If I don’t answer your e-mail, you’ll know why.
- Someone in my office voluntarily ate a KFC Double Down. I’m not sure why. Neither is she, actually.
- Would you trust Google to run your TV?
- I’m really impressed by what I’ve seen from Windows Phone 7. Can’t wait to get my hands on one to play with.
Comments Off on Thursday trivia #11
Filed under Friends & Family
Four classes
I love this quote; it’s attributed to Clausewitz, but I don’t know where it really came from. It doesn’t matter, though, because it’s still true:
I divide officers into four classes — the clever, the lazy, the stupid and the industrious. Each officer possesses at least two of these qualities. Those who are clever and industrious are fitted for the high staff appointments. Use can be made of those who are stupid and lazy. The man who is clever and lazy is fit for the very highest commands. He has the temperament and the requisite nerves to deal with all situations. But whoever is stupid and industrious must be removed immediately.
Joel Spolsky’s covers this same principle in his discussion of how to hire people: look for those who are smart and get things done. I think it has applications to lots of other things, too, though.
For example, we’ve all worked with people at church or other volunteer organizations who are stupid and industrious– they make more work for themselves, and others, but that additional work doesn’t translate into more achievement or benefit to those they serve. They’re the ones who are quick to cite, and insist on obedience to, every small, Pharisaical rule. They’re the ones who get bogged down in the minutiae of whatever they’re responsible for and lose sight of the bigger picture of what they’re supposed to be trying to achieve.
I’m trying to be less stupid in my own callings and life. Perhaps someday I’ll not only make it, but become more industrious too.
Comments Off on Four classes
Filed under Spiritual Nourishment
Exchange ActiveSync implementation differences
So, a brief rant about Exchange ActiveSync (EAS).
Nearly ten years ago, Microsoft developed the what we now call the EAS protocol. For a while, they licensed it only under a strict NDA. Now they have documented it. As far as I can tell, they still license it, so not just any random knucklehead can use it. The server implementation of EAS in Exchange 2010 (and earlier versions) behaves in a predictable and mature manner. The clients? Not so much.
Each device or software vendor implements their own EAS client. There’s no standard library or toolkit that you get as part of the license. There also don’t seem to be any restrictions or requirements. Two manufacturers can choose to implement wildly different levels of EAS support, yet they’re both able to claim that they support EAS.
In general I’m OK with that in principle. After all, different vendors compete on price, functionality, quality, and a host of other factors. If a vendor wants to skimp on their EAS implementation
(oh, yoo-hoo, Mr. Jobs… please pick up the white courtesy iPhone) they are free to do so. That’s just one aspect of the mobile device marketplace.
In practice, though, this is one of the most frustrating parts of supporting mobile devices with Exchange. First, tere is no central source listing the degree of EAS support provided by individual vendors. Second, and much worse, Microsoft doesn’t require a minimum degree of EAS support or require any particular features. Contrast this with the various Windows logo programs that Microsoft offers.
In Microsoft’s defense, I’m sure they work with their EAS licensees to try to get them to do the best job possible on their clients. However, the results would indicate that this has not been very successful. Consider the flap around encryption policy support on the iPhone 3GS, or the Palm Pre’s lack of support for password policies, or the morass that is the Sony-Ericsson EAS implementation. Clearly there’s more work to be done here.
Until then, Exchange now provides EAS device access rules, more about which in a future post.
Comments Off on Exchange ActiveSync implementation differences
Filed under UC&C
Exchange 2010 DAG encryption and compression
Exchange 2010 DAGs support encryption and compression of the mail data they pass around as part of the seeding and replication process. How do these capabilities work?
The short answer is “it’s a Windows thing.” Exchange uses the encryption and signing methods provided by the underlying Windows OS whenever possible. In the case of SSL/TLS, Exchange can do much of its own certificate management (including generating its own self-signed certificates), but all of the actual crypto is done by Windows.
In the case of DAG encryption, Exchange uses the Kerberos implementation included in the Windows Kerberos security support provider (SSP). The SSP provides routines that allow clients to encrypt, sign, verify, and decrypt messages containing arbitrary application-specific data. Once the two endpoints have concluded a handshake and key exchange, they can both make calls to process the data blocks.
Exchange always tries to pick the strongest possible algorithm from the list of those supported by the host OS. For Windows Server 2008 and 2008 R2, that means AES 256-bit, ideally with SHA-1 used as an HMAC.
On the compression front, DAGs use the familiar LZ77 algorithm. Microsoft internally calls their implementation (described on page 45 here) “XPRESS”, for some reason that I haven’t been able to figure out.
Outlook uses many of these same mechanisms; for example, MAPI RPC compression between Exchange and Outlook uses XPRESS too, and MAPI RPC encryption can use the Kerberos SSP (or the NTLM SSP, but that’s not available for DAGs.) That’s no big surprise, given that these capabilities are built into Windows. Why reinvent the wheel?
In terms of how you control these options in a live DAG, Set-DatabaseAvailabilityGroup is your friend. By default, newly created DAGs will use encryption only when replicating across different subnets, with no encryption used during seeding operations. You can change this with the NetworkEncryption switch; just set it to Enabled instead of InterSubnetOnly. In like manner, compression is normally enabled only for cross-subnet replication, but the NetworkCompression switch will let you fix that right up.
Note that these properties are associated with the DAG itself, not the underlying DAG network. For that reason, you can only set these properties when the DAG (and its underlying WFC nodes) are up– the settings are node-level properties.
What about using IPsec with DAGs? That’s a topic for another post!
Comments Off on Exchange 2010 DAG encryption and compression
Filed under UC&C
Paul's Down-Home Page 