2006-03-14 · 14:28

The Ghost Brigades (Scalzi)

by John Scalzi

I really liked Old Man’s War, so I was naturally predisposed to like the sequel… except that The Ghost Brigades (or just TGB) isn’t really a sequel. It’s set in the same universe as OMW, but it focuses instead on the Colonial Union’s special forces, a race of human-derived troops who are essentially created to serve as a warrior caste. After Charles Boutin, a prominent scientist, turns traitor and disappears, the Union creates a clone of Boutin and attempts to imprint the traitor’s consciousness on it– but the result isn’t what they expect, and neither are the consequences. The clone, Jared Dirac, has his own consciousness and ends up doing some things which neither Boutin nor Jared’s bosses in Special Forces expect (including a terrific twist of an ending that, in retrospect, might have been predictable but wasn’t.)

Scalzi’s writing is still crisp and tight, which makes this a faster read than I expected. I started regularly reading his blog after reading OMW, and I definitely noticed some of the same stylings in both– not a bad thing at all. If I were going to complain about this book, I’d have to say it was too short (not a criticism I often levy). I’m already looking forward to the third, and probably final, installment in this series. Highly recommended.

Update: If I’d known that Scalzi was going to see my review I would’ve, y’know, fawned a bit more over the book. Really.

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2006-03-14 · 10:13

Northwest now selling exit row seats

Well, isn’t this sucky: Northwest is now charging $15 to book exit row seats on some flights. Want extra legroom? Pay up! I sure hope other airlines don’t copy this “enhancement”, although I admit that paying $15 extra for seat 6D is a decent deal for a long flight.

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2006-03-10 · 10:37

Tim McGraw and Faith Hill

I like country music. Let me amend that: I like some country music. I attribute this to my upbringing, where I spent hundreds of hours listening to Sons of the Pioneers, Marty Robbins, Shelly West, David Frizzell, and so on– you know, the old-school western-style music that used to form the core of country. Then came a persistent liking for Randy Travis, and year before last I ventured to Columbus to see Shania Twain (note: I said “see”, not “listen to”). Now I’m at it again; we just bought tickets to see Tim McGraw and Faith Hill at the Palace in May. Should be a fun show, as we’re going with several friends in a caravan. I could rant about how much I hate Ticketmaster, but why bother… they’re a monopoly and there’s nothing I can do about it. Now I just need Big & Rich to come play somewhere near here!

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2006-03-09 · 14:08

“It is the Fidel Castro of office furniture.”

From the Department of Obvious Statements: everyone hates cubicles.

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2006-03-08 · 19:24

Don’t worry about the page file

Sage advice from Jesper: don’t worry about clearing the page file (I love his list of things to be worried about). The setting to clear the page file at shutdown has always seemed like security theater to me, so I’m glad to see him point it out.

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2006-03-08 · 15:15

Full Auto (Sega)

by Sega of America, Inc.

Sega might just as well have called this game “Torque and Recoil”, because that’s what it’s about. You drive a car as fast as you can, shooting up your opponents and all sorts of environmental objects (gas tankers, telephone poles, cafe tables, other cars). We’re not exactly talking great strategy here, but it’s fun enough in small doses. The computer opponents are fairly stupid, at least at lower levels. I’ve only played a couple of matches on Xbox Live; I can’t say it was really compelling. I’m glad I rented this before buying; I’d pay $20 for it, but not $60, so back to Gamefly it goes.

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2006-03-08 · 13:27

Devin’s first look at MSFP

Devin got a Qtek 9100 earlier this year, and he’s been eagerly waiting for the Messaging and Security Feature Pack (MSFP). Now he’s got it, and I think he likes it. (Disclaimer: I lent John my Jasjar after he broke his HP 6315, so until I get it back I’ll be MSFP-less.)

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2006-03-08 · 11:13

One Bullet Away: The Making of a Marine Officer (Fick)


by Nathaniel C. Fick

If you’ve read Evan Wright’s Generation Kill, you’ll already have a big part of the backstory of this book, which is mostly about the author‘s career as a Marine officer. Fick begins with a short chronicle of his time at Officer Candidate School and the Basic School, followed by the Marine infantry officers’ course. This to me was the most interesting part of the book, since I served in an air wing unit and don’t know much about the professional education required for infantry officers. Fick served as a platoon leader in Afghanistan after 9/11, followed by a tour as Recon platoon leader in Iraq. This is really where the book hits its stride. Fick writes with power and clarity, and he never descends into obfuscation. When he sees something wrong, he calls it– a traitc common to, and welcome in, Marine officers. It’s refreshing to see in a work that will be in print for a long time to come; in many ways, Fick reminds me of James Webb’s body of work. I hope to see more from him in the future.

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2006-03-08 · 10:36

You may already be a winner

So, Kent Newsome took on the unenviable task of trying to review all of Robert Scoble‘s links. Here’s what he said about my blog: “would be the winner if there were more recent posts”. I guess I’d better post more frequently now that I know people are actually reading what I write 🙂 Kent, feel free to come back, because I’m trying to get back in the regular posting groove.

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2006-03-03 · 16:55

My last visit to Nice

I figured I’d put in a plug for my chronicle of my last visit to Nice in 2000. I’ll probably be going again in April, hopefully with better note-taking than last time.

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2006-03-03 · 16:36

Cruise day 2: St Thomas

When the United States bought the US Virgin Islands in 1917 for the then-astonishing sum of $25 million, I wonder if they knew what a bargain they were getting for their descendants.

We arrived in port at St Thomas about 6am, announced by the rumble of the bow thrusters. All four of us were excited to get off the ship and start investigating, so we had a quick buffet breakfast and hit the gangway. St Thomas gets about 2 million visitors a year (although this Wall Street Journal article says their total passenger traffic is down 19% since 2000), and that’s easy to believe given how crowded the gangway area was. Anyway, we left the ship and caught a taxi to Charlotte Amalie, the capital city proper. More specifically, we went to the downtown shopping area, so named because, well, it’s full of shops. On the taxi ride, we saw a cool sign painted along the fence: “No hurricanes for VI”. I hope that turns out to be true!

Almost all of the shops in the downtown area are jewelry shops, but we saw a few other neat things (Arlene bought a great-smelling lemongrass candle with Bob Marley’s picture on it, and you’ve already seen the pictures of Oprah.) Arlene admired the medallion on one of the taxi drivers who accosted us, and he said that “all the island people buy their jewelry at Gold Corner”. Of course, that was like a challenge: find Gold Corner. Eventually, we did, right on the waterfront. Matt and I amused ourselves by taking pictures on the waterfront (see below for some samples). Arlene and Anita each found some Nice Things™, then it was back to the ship for a quick lunch.

We’d previously decided to tour with a local guide instead of booking through the ship. (This turned out to be a great policy for all our stops!) When we first arrived downtown, we hooked up with Timothy, who bears a resemblance to Andre Braugher (only shorter). Even on an island filled with friendly people, Timmy stood out; he took us on a wonderful tour of the island, with a hilarious running commentary (example: he was amazed that we thought iguanas were interesting, since they’re as common as squirrels; when someone asked him if they were common on Aruba, he said “Hell no, because people there eat ’em!”). We stopped overlooking Magens Bay, but we didn’t go there, since we’d heard that Sapphire Bay was both prettier and had a reggae band playing on Sunday. The beach was spectacular; there’s no other word for it. Words don’t do justice to the shades of blue in the water. Coki Point was pretty good too, although I preferred the beach at Sapphire. (Interestingly, we also saw some ducks at Sapphire– not what I would have expected!)

Overall, it was a fantastic introduction to the Caribbean. We went back to the ship and had dinner, but I can’t remember what I ate. One takeaway from this trip: I wish I’d kept a journal like Matt and Anita did so I had a better at-the-time record. As much fun as this blog is, it’s not really a substitute.

Updated: Now, for some pictures that I’d previously posted separately:


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The water at Sapphire Bay is unbelievable, and the reggae band was pretty good too.

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My lovely wife in the tour jeepney (she’s wearing the sunglasses that our son says make her look “rad”)

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Matt, Anita, and I with Timmy, our tour guide; overlooking the bay. Not shown: nearby iguanas or the chain-smoking Russian lady from our tour group.

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2006-03-03 · 14:07

I do not think it means what you think it means

Amusing post from Roberto Boccadoro in which he attempts to explain IBM’s Workplace branding. He dismisses the existence of multiple products with the same name (“Does this create confusion? I do not think so”) and heaps fun on Microsoft from the explosion of products that live under the Office brand.

Why is this amusing? Because customers don’t understand what the difference is between Workplace-the-product and Workplace-the-brand. I see this time and again when I speak with people. Just as it was a bad idea for Microsoft to have two different products both named SharePoint, IBM’s differentiation between Workplace and its subordinate products isn’t, well, working. And don’t get me started on the many subordinate products– when you install Workplace Collaboration Services (hmm, they didn’t steal that name from Oracle, did they?) you also get WebSphere and a passel of other, un-Workplace-branded products. By contrast, Notes/Sametime has a much more consistent branding message… at least, it did until I got hoovered up into Workplace.

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2006-03-03 · 11:13

3sharp is hiring

We’re hiring! First, I need a good Exchange administrator with strong writing skills. The position’s in Seattle. Contact me directly if you’re interested.

Second, we need some Office solution developers. Dave Gerhardt’s got the full scoop at his blog. (Note that in your cover letter, we want details of a product demo you’ve actually worked on or built!)

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2006-03-02 · 10:44

Exchange 12 webcast week: 14-17 March

Coming very soon: a week’s worth of webcasts on Exchange 12. Harold Wong’s blog has the details.

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2006-03-01 · 14:33

Microsoft releases Exchange 12 beta 1 as CTP

On March 1, Microsoft announced that it was making Exchange 12 beta 1 available to TechNet and MSDN subscribers as a community technology preview (CTP). When beta 1 first began, late last year, it was a private beta restricted to about 1400 Microsoft customers, all of whom had to be nominated by Microsoft employees. MVPs and a few third-party developers were also nominated, but—even including participants in the Technology Adoption Program (TAP)—only a relative handful of the tens of thousands of Exchange-using sites were in on the beta. That’s about to change dramatically, since there are more than 200,000 TechNet and MSDN subscribers, all of whom will have access to beta 1.

This isn’t the first time Microsoft’s offered a CTP; you may remember that Exchange 2003 SP2 was released as a CTP in August 2005. As with the SP2 CTP, the Exchange 12 CTP is being released so customers can get familiar with it in their own environments. It’s not supported for production use (obviously), and Microsoft has already told beta 1 customers that they won’t be able to upgrade from beta 1 directly to the released version.

As part of the CTP announcement, the product team also announced that beta 2, coming later this year, will be a public beta, so we’ll all be able to discuss it to our hearts’ content. Until then, both reviewers (which technically means me) and CTP participants are bound by the relevant NDAs and EULAs.

One thing that’s no longer under NDA: Microsoft’s finally starting to talk publicly about the new continuous replication features in Exchange 12. There are two flavors of continuous replication: local continuous replication (LCR) copies transaction log data to a second local volume, essentially giving you a protected local copy of your data. Clustered continuous replication (CCR) is cooler; with CCR, cluster nodes don’t have to share disk resources, meaning that geographically dispersed clusters get much, much easier to design and deploy. Look for more on LCR and CCR in future columns.

Interestingly, the CTP builds will be made available in both 32- and 64-bit versions. This is a smart move on Microsoft’s part, because customers that haven’t decided on their forward path from Exchange 2000 (or even Exchange 5.5) will be able to evaluate Exchange 12 features (if only in an early state) on the hardware they already have. I don’t expect any changes in their previous commitment to release the production version of Exchange 12 as a 64-bit-only product, though.

MSDN subscribers can download the Exchange 12 CTP starting today, while TechNet subscribers will get the bits as part of their March delivery. If you’re not already a subscriber to one of these two programs, you can subscribe through Microsoft’s web site.

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