2007-04-16 · 09:12

Lots of firsts

This weekend, we had several firsts:

  • Tom had his first baseball practice. The league he’s in now allows stealing, bunts, and some other subtleties that they don’t use in the 8-and-under league. He and his teammates have a fair amount to learn (as do I). The only mar on an otherwise perfect practice was the fact that it was 40° and blustery. Hopefully the weather will improve soon!
  • David had his first young men’s campout. The Scouts went to the church granary, had an overnight campout, and did some service work around the granary and grounds. He came home happy but tired, because he stayed up all night (“most of the night”, in his words) talking to his pals.
  • David gave his first talk in church, on honesty. He’d prepared a talk, but (true to his genetics) he started extemporizing about halfway through. He did a great job, and I know he was relieved to have it out of the way.
  • Arlene made her first trip out of the house since her foot surgery– first to Meijer with Mom, then to church. She was getting a little stir crazy, so both excursions were welcome.

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2007-04-10 · 16:51

Expanded BitLocker FAQ

Microsoft updated their BitLocker FAQ, which now answers every question you’ve ever had about BitLocker (plus some you probably haven’t.)

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2007-03-26 · 13:34

Office Communications Server 2007 beta 3 goes public

As promised at the MVP Summit, Microsoft’s unified communications group today released the public beta of Office Communications Server 2007. Grab it here, or swing by the beta forums and see what’s happening. I’ll have lots more to say about OCS 2007, but right now I’m busy setting it up for the roadshow.

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2007-03-22 · 16:51

Getting ready for the roadshow

So Jim McBee and I are together again, this time in the Big Apple, for the upcoming Exchange 2007 roadshow. I just got some mail from one of the roadshow managers at Windows IT Pro:

I am looking forward to meeting/seeing you both in New York for the Exchange event next Tuesday! I have been asked to tell you that while we are doing all we can to make sure you have all you need for your presentations, please make a backup plan in case something goes wrong with the phone line or Internet connection during your presentations. If you have a canned demo that would be great, but if you don’t, please consider a backup plan, preferably one that does not involve strings of four-letter words

My backup plan is that we all go out and take in a Broadway show. Jim said his backup plan involves a puppet show. I guess that means we’re all covered.

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2007-03-22 · 11:14

MAPI gets a facelift

Well, maybe not a facelift, but it did get a new name: the Outlook-Exchange Transport Protocol. I only found out about this because of a press release I got from Cemaphore touting the fact that they’re the first to license it. So, MAPI is dead as a name, but I suspect it’ll be a loooong time before those four letters are expurgated from all of the existing MS documentation and support materials.

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2007-03-21 · 11:07

Better LCS integration with Asterisk

Another cool UC&C tidbit: a company called m-networks apparently has a commercial (e.g. supported) product that acts as a call control gateway for linking Asterisk and Live Communications Server. I’m not sure how big the market for such solutions is but it’s good to see some of the ad-hoc hackery surrounding this particular integration supplemented by supported commercial products.

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2007-03-21 · 11:03

Mitel ships direct Exchange 2007 interconnect

This is very cool:
Mitel Delivers Direct SIP Connection to Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 Unified Messaging.

Mitel’s embedded SIP integration eliminates the need for a separate SIP gateway as a go-between from a 3300 ICP SIP connection to an Exchange Server 2007 resulting in support for multiple forms of Unified Communications including voice, email and fax. Mitel can deliver this capability to existing 3300 ICP customers through a software upgrade that simply delivers the SIP server’s (gateway) functionality resulting in reduced complexity, time and cost for our customers. Native support of SIP on the 3300 ICP enables customers to take full advantage of the deployment of open standards and maximize their investment either in a Mitel or a multi-vendor environment that supports an open standards approach.

This is great news because it saves the expense and hassle of buying a separate gateway product just to integrate with the PBX. Back in August of last year, I met with the Mitel folks and strongly encouraged them to pursue direct interop; I believe that vendors who can directly talk to Exchange 2007 servers are going to sell more PBXes than those that don’t. I like the Mitel 3300 quite a bit (so much so that we bought one for our new office) and I’m pleased to see Mitel getting some first-mover advantage in this market.

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2007-03-15 · 21:42

The Phony Marine: A Novel (Lehrer)

by Jim Lehrer

Short book, thus a short review. This is a finely crafted story told by an extremely competent talespinner. Hugo Marder, a men’s clothing salesman, has always wanted to be a Marine. When he buys a Silver Star on eBay and wears it, suddenly people start treating him like someone who matters. He plunges himself into Marine Corps lore in an attempt to match the background of a real Marine, and he faces some circumstances that help define who he really is. Lehrer takes a fresh look at what it means to be a hero and how our culture treats its heroes. It’s a quick, but fun, read that leaves you with some substance once you’re done. Semper fi.

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2007-03-15 · 16:41

The Making of a Chef: Mastering Heat at the Culinary Institute

by Michael Ruhlman

Four years ago, I reviewed Ruhlman’s Walk on Water. That year, Julie gave me this book. Until recently, it sat unread on my shelf. What a mistake! Ruhlman has written a superbly readable narrative of what it’s like to study at the Culinary Institute of America, someplace I never imagined giving a hoot about. I am very much a meat-and-potatoes (or, more accurately, boudin-and-rice) kind of person. I’m not a foodie, and you never could have convinced me that I’d devour a book about cooking school– but I did. Ruhlman writes with a keen eye for detail, a snappy sense of pacing, and a willingness to philosophize about himself and the culinary field that I found simultaneously refreshing and reflective. Highly recommended, even if you prefer Burger King to Bourdain.

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2007-03-15 · 16:40

What I actually said about Outlook performance

So, Eric Lai quoted me in another Computerworld article, this one on slow Outlook performance. However, he left out a couple of important parts of what I actually said. I told him that I’ve had problems with one particular Exchange account (I use three) on one of the several machines that I use Outlook 2007 on. The machine in question happens to be a Windows Vista (x86) machine that I bought in January, flattened, and did clean installs of Vista and Office on. Other Exchange profiles on the same machine work fine. The same Exchange account on Outlook 2007 on my XP machines work fine. Removing and recreating the profile on the Vista machine doesn’t solve the problem, hence my comment about there being something I don’t understand about the problem in this case. The Exchange server in question doesn’t belong to me, so I can’t run any of my usual troubleshooting tools on it.

I was also careful to point out to Eric that I’m not an Outlook MVP, and that he should speak to some Outlook MVPs for his story. That’s too bad, as I’m sure they would have been able to give a better perspective on that actual performance issues involved.

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Filed under General Tech Stuff

2007-03-13 · 17:30

Underwhelming EvDO performance with USB720

I just stopped at the Verizon store adjacent to my hotel in Seattle and grabbed a USB720 EVDO modem modem to use with my MacBook Pro for our presentation events. So far, I’m underwhelmed. I used the DSL Reports speed tester and got 331 down/169 up on the MacBook Pro, followed by a second test of 235 down/33 up. By way of comparison, my Vista machine got 1019 down/249 up on the hotel Internet connection. I’ll test the speed of the built-in EvDO modem on the Thinkpad later.

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2007-03-13 · 10:04

Computerworld article on MVP Summit

I’m at the MVP Summit this week, and Computerworld’s Eric Lai has written a background piece on the MVP program that’s pretty interesting (and no, I’m not saying that just because he quoted me!) For example, I didn’t know that the original set of MVPs were mostly FoxPro developers. Check it out here.

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2007-03-06 · 05:35

Cobalt Flux DDR pad for the Xbox 360

As I learn more about Dance Dance Revolution Universe, I keep reading how important it is to have a really good dance pad. Apparently the Cobalt Flux is the way to go, but it doesn’t work with the Xbox 360. For $300, it had darn well better be (and no, I’m not going to buy one!) However, in the spirit of Google love, here’s a link to instructions on how to make a mashup of the Cobalt and the soft pad that comes with the DDR Universe bundle that will work on the 360. Some soldering is involved (and let’s not forget that $300, either.)

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2007-03-05 · 10:02

A busy Saturday

What a busy day! Here’s a partial list of the things we did:

  • Cleaned most of the house. This is a big deal since we stopped using a housekeeper, but the boys did a good job of their assigned task with (miracle of miracles!) zero complaining.
  • Went to karate class. This is a big production, because it requires getting all 3 of them into their uniforms, but it’s fun to go with them. Last time David was my partner; this time, it was Thomas.
  • Went to Radio Shack (iPod cables for the gym TV) and the bank.
  • Installed Arlene’s Valentine’s Day present. Yes, that’s right. I bought my wife a toilet for Valentine’s Day. Not every husband can pull that off, let me tell you right now.
  • Helped Dad remotely troubleshoot his balky printer. We didn’t figure out exactly what was wrong with it, but at some point it decided to start working on its own (probably from sheer terror at the thought of more troubleshooting!)
  • Unpacked and tested the copy of Dance Dance Revolution Universe for the Xbox 360 that I bought Thursday. This game might as well be titled “Hey, Paul, Your Dancing Sucks,” but we had a good time playing it with the kids.
  • Watched Facing the Giants. Wow. Amazing movie; I’ll write a more detailed review soon. We had a great family discussion afterwords; the movie touched on a lot of important spiritual principles.

I was pretty tired after all that fun; let’s just say I welcomed a quiet Sunday as an antidote!

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2007-02-27 · 16:31

Breakpoint (Clarke)

by Richard A. Clarke

Say you wanted to read an exciting techno-thriller, filled with interesting characters, cool gadgets, realistic scenarios, and a writer who knows how to join them all together. Sound good? Excellent. In that case, don’t read this book.
I’m not sure how Richard A. Clarke got a rep as being a deep technical thinker. Maybe he is, but if so, this book certainly doesn’t show it. Breakpoint centers on a shadowy conspiracy to screw the civilized world by destroying much of its information infrastructure. The book starts well enough, with an attack on the terminating points for transoceanic cables that link US internet traffic to the rest of the world. However, the continual pseudo-technical blathering (“server-motor-driven”? err, maybe you meant “servo”?) about “Sytho Routers” and “Living Software” (a spanking-new self-replicating software package that will simultaneously give us a cross between Kurzweil’s Singularity and Skynet) quickly becomes intolerable.
The characters have little verve or dimensionality, the dialogue is bogus (particularly when 1337 h4xx0rs are speaking), and the whole thing left me shaking my head.
I haven’t finished it yet. I keep hoping that it will get better, while simultaneously knowing that it won’t. Don’t bother.

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