joeware - never stop exploring...

Well the HP laptop I ordered was not supposed to be built and shipped until next week but I just read a notification that it was shipped this morning (EST). Not sure where it is coming from but it has 5-7 days to get here which means I will probably have it in my hands [...]

I have been thinking a lot about what my next house should look like as well as where it should be, etc…
My main requirements are lots of space, I can’t actually see (nor hear) a neighbor, high speed / broadband (preferably 4Mbs+), natural gas (but also have wood burning capability), “on the grid” (but [...]

I have broken down and bought a new laptop.
I like to do a lot of my dev work on a laptop as I like to be able to sit anywhere I want when I type code. Sometimes I sit at the kitchen table, sometimes I sit against a tree, sometimes I sit a tree, sometimes [...]

Very interesting read at
http://www.zimbra.com/pdf/Zimbra%20Fixing%20Email%20Whitepaper.pdf
Open source email/calendaring. Time to see if I can make this work on BSD… It works on OSX, perhaps there is hope. I would LOVE to see a Windows port too… Oh and the great part, it isn’t GNU….
http://www.zimbra.com/community/documentation.html
Also, a very cool demo at
http://www.zimbra.com/products/hosted_demo.php
You don’t have to register, you [...]

Wal-Mart employee fired for Christmas email
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/11/18/happy_holidays/

In a sphincters-held-tight culture such as this, little things mean a lot, so when the giant US big box retailer Wal-Mart recently changed a greeting from “Merry Christmas!” to “Happy Holidays!” it drew complaints.
And here the troubles began.
The emails duly arrived, and a customer-facing rep took it on herself to [...]

I often find “oddities” in various programs and systems and tend to work with the vendors to get them corrected.
Something I tend to run into a lot is the whole “bug” vs “by design” issue. Vendors like to say things are by design so that you get to follow a different method to get [...]

Avoid Household Mortgage (HSBC).
I think the company is composed entirely of idiots. I have had issue after issue with them and they are really stupid issues. The loan will be payed off in the next three months so I thought I would make sure I write up a rant about them before I forgot.
I [...]

On a listserv I am a member of recently someone asked about the app that could be used to convert applications into services. I realized that this is probably good for all sorts of people to read because many don’t understand it. Here is an adjusted form of the note.
Question: I need an app to [...]

If you have old computers and users laying about your AD and you haven’t found it yet, there is a tool on my website that I built with the input from many bright folks from the activedir.org list.
The tool will look for old users or computers and allow you to do several actions to [...]

Attention Microsoft.
Your left hand has announced that you will ONLY be releasing Exchange 12 (vaporware date of late 2006) and SBS Longhorn in 64 bit editions (vaporware date of mid 2007?).
Your right hand has indicated you won’t have Virtual 64 bit guest capability until the Longhorn Server Wave (vaporware date of mid 2007?)
Do you see [...]

It is performance review time. I hate this time. I mean I like the idea of getting a possible amazing raise, but hate the documentation of things to prove I deserve one.
What do I put? I am not the type to track every accomplishment through the year, I just bust my butt doing whatever [...]

And here is the view of the house after its facelift from the backyard. Yeah, not much you can see from there. I love my backyard. The pile of concrete blocks is rearranged when I need a fire pit. Upright they are easier to mow around.

Oh yeah, note I added a new category for [...]

After some of the previous blog entries and comments I have also gotten some offline comments basically saying “Are you rebuilding your house?”. Well kind of, yeah, I have been. I will try to post some pics occasionally of some of the work. One of the larger transformations occurred when I had the peak of [...]

Find it here

Dana Epp has a blog that I like to follow, today she had a post on PSS frustration.
PSS is Premier Support Services also sometimes known as Premium Support Services. This isn’t free support. You pay dearly for it. Her issue is that she had a problem and worked with PSS for 4 days [...]

http://www.detnews.com/2005/schools/0511/11/A04-379018.htm

“So the residents of Dover on Tuesday ousted all eight school board members running for re-election who had put their town in a global spotlight — and their school district on trial — for being the first in the nation to introduce intelligent design as an alternative to evolution in science class. In swept the [...]

I forgot to mention in my previous post on Visual Studio 2005 versus Borland Builder the .NET stuff in case for some reason I wanted to use .NET.
Borland Builder 2006 will do .NET. It will compile C++, Delphi, and C#. Unfortunately it initially will only handle framework 1.1. Obviously they couldn’t build a product [...]

Well I have been playing with Visual Studio 2005 since about 6PM and it is now about 2AM. That doesn’t include installation, I built a fresh 2003 SP1 Server yesterday and also loaded all of the VS stuff. That took several hours as well, I built VS from DVD.
Overall the feel reminded me of the [...]

http://od-msn.msn.com/3/MBR/triumph_02_012704.wmv?MSWMExt=.asf

I have updated ClientTest, it is one of the lesser known tools but has still had several thousand downloads.
The update was for a single request I have gotten for it, to allow someone to cut and paste from the data window. That was like a 15 minute update and testing cycle so I did it. [...]

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,11069-1865386,00.html

Voters eject school board that ordered creationist lessons
From David Charter in Washington
VOTERS have ejected almost the entire school board that put a form of creationism on the curriculum and caused a court battle that divided America. But the electorate’s verdict in Pennsylvania was returned just as a school board in Kansas voted to introduce [...]

Criminals thrive on the indulgence of society’s understanding.
– Batman Begins

There was a comment directly on the blog entry about my wallpapering my ceiling as well as about 11 or 12 “are you nuts?” emails.
Anyway, the response is that yes I am nuts, but that is completely beside the point. This is a special vinyl wallpaper and it is sealed with paint after [...]

Another much awaited update….
CPAU gets some fixes that I put in some time ago but never publicly published plus some new options.
You can get the updated tool at http://www.joeware.net/win/free/tools/cpau.htm
Updates include:
o Fixed bug in -title
o Fixed bug in -c / -k
o Added a warning when using network authentication
o Changed some backend string and param handling
o Added [...]

Phew!
I mean there is a little cleanup left but all of the heavy work is done and the tools are put away.
It was actually mostly done Saturday but I just put the tools and excess tiles away today.
Now to work on some patch work and some paint and wallpapering parts of the [...]

I realized that I had a recipe category and I haven’t put up any recipes. I have this category because I was visiting a friend’s blog and she had a recipe category and I thought, hey I know a cool recipe, I should blog it.
Well here is that recipe. Note, even if you don’t [...]

MS has announced that the Visual Studio Express Editions will be free for the first year.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/express/

I am actually in the process of downloading Visual Studio 2005 from MSDN. I figure I should look at it. Borland seems to be really dorking up in the C++ world and haven’t done anything good in that arena (IMO) since Builder 6 several years ago which is now horribly out of date with no [...]

I have finally released the new version of ADFIND, it is V01.27.00. You can download at http://www.joeware.net/win/free/tools/adfind.htm.
Lots of changes. Probably the one that people will really like right off is the CSV capability since it has been so heavily requested. However I think the -e and -ef are pretty cool. The -pr switch [...]

Yes I watch Apprentice. Not the Martha Stewart one, I saw enough of her in the news when that jail stuff was going on. Seeing her for 30 seconds a year is more than enough.
Donald Trump on the other hand cracks me up. In fact, I wouldn’t mind seeing Donald bringing Martha on his [...]