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.)
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.
Comments Off on One Bullet Away: The Making of a Marine Officer (Fick)
Filed under Reviews
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.
Comments Off on You may already be a winner
Filed under Musings
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.
Comments Off on My last visit to Nice
Filed under Travel
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:
The water at Sapphire Bay is unbelievable, and the reggae band was pretty good too.
My lovely wife in the tour jeepney (she’s wearing the sunglasses that our son says make her look “rad”)
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.
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.
Comments Off on I do not think it means what you think it means
Filed under UC&C
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!)
Comments Off on 3sharp is hiring
Filed under General Stuff, Musings
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.
Comments Off on Exchange 12 webcast week: 14-17 March
Filed under General Stuff, Musings
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.
Filed under General Stuff, Musings
Microsoft releases updated Domino application analyzer
Microsoft today released the new version of their Application Analyzer tool for Lotus Domino applications. It features a new UI, better reporting, and a customizable XML-based system for customizing the analysis it does and the ensuing recommendations. This version of the tool uses the four-phase process that MS has defined and refined since the last App Analyzer release. There’s also an accompanying best practices guide. I’m looking forward to seeing customer feedback on these tools; the previous versions of the app analyzer had some shortcomings that I hope the new version fully addresses. In particular, I’m interested in seeing Paul Mooney‘s take on it.
Filed under General Stuff, Musings
Two big MS announcements today
Microsoft is making two pretty interesting announcements today. Stay tuned for more details.
Update: now you know what the first one is.
Comments Off on Two big MS announcements today
Filed under General Stuff, Musings
Bring Back Bill
Disney is selling Bill Nye the Science Guy DVDs. That’s good. Unfortunately, a complete set costs $3,249. That’s bad. Hence this petition, asking Disney to offer a more reasonably priced option tailored to families.
Comments Off on Bring Back Bill
Filed under Musings
Toledo Blade labor negotiations
The Pittsburgh City Paper has an interesting article on the ongoing labor negotiations between Block Communications and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Of course, the Block family also owns Buckeye Cable and the Toledo Blade; given the fact that the Blade and the Blocks are negotiating a new labor contract, the similar negotiations going on in Pittsburgh– and the candidness of Allan Block’s remarks in the article– are awfully interesting.
Comments Off on Toledo Blade labor negotiations
Filed under Musings
One Love, Oprah, and two fans
Right near the taxi dropoff point in Charlotte Amalie, there’s a man who calls himself One Love. His business is in showing off Oprah, his donkey, who wears lipstick and has painted hooves (too bad they’re not in the picture). When One Love says “Gimme some sugar”, Oprah obediently kisses his cheek. This was too good to pass up, thus the picture.
Comments Off on One Love, Oprah, and two fans
Filed under Travel
In port in San Juan
Arlene and I, at sunset on departure day from San Juan.
Comments Off on In port in San Juan
Filed under Travel
