Oregon Senator Gordon Smith, whose son Garrett committed suicide last year, presented a youth suicide prevention bill in the US Senate today. It passed this evening. The senator made a tearful speech on the floor that brought back some awfully painful memories for me. I have supported this bill since it was first written a few months ago.

I have a personal connection and interest in this bill. My son Brian took his own life four years ago. He was 15. While the months and years since then have been very hard for those of us left behind, our pain cannot be measured against what he must have been feeling. Depression is not an illness that people need die from. Suicide is a terrible and permanent solution to a temporary problem.

Suicide is the third leading cause of death among young people. It is often detectable and preventable. This bill, should it become law - and it should become law - will fund prevention and risk detection programs that will save lives. Young lives. It's important.

Please give this your support. Please tell Senator Smith "thank you" for championing an important bill during a time in his life that I know is wrought with emotional pain.

To Senator Smith - Thank you very much for what you're doing. I'm right there with you.

• Youth Suicide Prevention Education Program - http://www.yspep.org/youth.html

I posted an entry a month ago about Sprint PCS' new advertisements for wireless service. Since then, I've been inundated with searches for "macaroni minutes" every time I see that ad on TV. These days I can pretty much predict when the commercial has just aired based on when the search referrals start to stack up all of a sudden. It's one of several funny, well-done commercials that poke fun at wireless carriers that charge overage fees and have complicated service plans:

• Red ball: School children are told that they may play with new red balls, provided they estimate how many minutes they will use the balls during the next two years.
• Soccer: A student is called off the field and informed that he can’t play anymore this month because he’s used up his minutes.
• Dinosaur: A class is allowed to watch a video only if one of the students can figure out the complexities of a VCR.
• The New Kid: A new arrivee in an art class is given much better supplies than the other students have.
• Macaroni: A student is told that he “is over” on his macaroni minutes and must pay the school $49 immediately.

Some trivia about the ads: They were filmed at Brentwood Christian School in Austin, Texas, and the kids in the ads are actual students there. They were compensated a whole $1500 for their talent, plus they'll get a residual payment for each and every time the commercials air.

Good article by an IT pro named Shannon Kalvar over at TechRepublic about how slightly different approaches to solving the same problem can make a real and significant difference. Worth reading all the way through:

"How tales about server unreliability help save face and influence people"

And he's written a number of other articles that are also worth investing some time in. They cover topics like project management, IT management topics, customer support and measuring success.

On Channel 9 today, there's an interview with Jason Flaks, a Microsoft program manager on the Media Connects team. He demos some of the new Windows Media Connect technology that's set to come out in the future. This is very cool stuff - and it looks like it will be a big market - I know I will be on the wagon!

• UPDATE: Jason explains more about how WinMedia Connect works in a followup video

There's going to be a real market not only for users of these devices and technologies, but for businesses that truly understand them and can help the "common-folk" adopt and use them. Building a complex home media system like we're about to see hit the market is not a trivial task. Sure, it will get easier over time, but for a while a least, there will be a real need for professionals who can take the technology investments made by consumers and make them work really well.

I'm excited about the next wave of media devices and systems. It's been under-reported and under-estimated. All your media (pictures, audio, video) usable across multiple systems and devices. Stream the program recorded on your PC across the network and view it on the screen attached to your XBOX. Project your digital images on the 10-foot projection screen. Listen to your MP3s in any room, and automatically sync your music and video with your portable media device to take with you. Browse your media libraries on the MCE PC from your DVD player. The possibilities are nearly limitless.

Evan Feldman has posted a second installment of his description of Tablet PC Field Trials (see entry Tablet Test, Trials and Tribulations from June 28).

• EDIT 7/8/04: And a third installment as well!
• ADDED 7/11/04: Part 3.1(?) published (Evans answers questions raised by the previos posts)

The great thing about Microsoft blogs is that you sometimes get to read insights into what goes on there, stuff that you'd never see otherwise. I enjoy the nitty gritty about how the technologies I use each day came to be:

"There are some things that I can’t really talk too much about but instead, I’ll give some of those secret anecdotes that have been floating around Microsoft that many have never heard before."

Some of the anecdotes are funny, but Evan also includes a few of the more serious ones (things he describes as more difficult to share) that changed the course of the tablet in the early days."

I'm looking forward to the future installments, especially what he eludes to as a future topic : The Tablet as Primary PC.

Hey. it's a Microsoft link day here at the ol' blog, so... Another useful one:

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/community/itlinks.mspx

Microsoft's IT Pro communities are a good resource for a variety of MSFT servers and technologies. Newsgroups and a huge amount and variety of information - coming from both inside and outside Microsoft:

Would you like to get your computer advice directly from the world’s leading technology experts? Interested in tips from power users or developers? Do you have tips you’d like to share with others? Then you’ve come to the right place. There is a lively community of computer experts and computer users who are taking advantage of the Internet to exchange ideas, information, knowledge, and expertise about Microsoft products and services. The Microsoft Communities Web site provides access to wealth of newsgroups, chats, user groups, tips, and discussions where experts and users who are passionate about Microsoft technologies share their thoughts, help, support, and ideas.

Anyone who deals with computer and network security in their jobs owes it to themselves to check these two security resources now and then. Microsoft's security-related webcasts have been broken down into slightly smaller (it's all relative - 45 minutes is shorter than 2 hours :-)) chunks. You can check out archived presentations as well as sign up for live session to be held in the near future.

• Upcoming Live Security Webcasts
• On-Demand (Archived) Security Webcasts

In my experience. these are quality webcasts with actual useful information - A great resource for learning as well as staying on top of things. Webcasts provide a forum for addressing things in a fashion that's a lot like the real-world, so the practical use of the information is often better than that from other means of communication. If you happen to catch any of the live webcasts, there is typically a chance to ask questions during the session - so take advantage where needed.

A few people have built different little apps to allow you to syndicate SharePoint content via RSS. Bluedog Limited's SyndicationGenerator is a web-part-based RSS generator that makes it really easy to create RSS feeds from specific SharePoint lists. It allows you to place the web part on your server and then allow site admins to use it to set up their own feeds - great if you run a portal and WSS setup with many site admins that don't have access to add or modify web parts on the server. They can just drag-and-drop the web part, specify the list they want to create a feed for, and there you have it: Instant RSS feeds.

After some quick testing done here by a trusted partner, it appears that the web part has a hard time displaying its “Modify Web Part” pane correctly unless you place it on its own web part page. Then it's easy to work with. Cool stuff!

(by way of Travis and others)

I woke up this morning, bright and early, and was getting ready to head out the door. I decided to check my email real quick, and BAM! ... Tons of referral tracking notifications, all from the same porn URL - So, it looks like someone referral-spammed by blog last night. I just removed all the bad listings, and have been trying to think of a way to prevent this from happening again. I'm coming up short in the ideas department, with the exception of the obvious: turning off referral tracking. I really don't want to do that, though.

It's the first time in quite a number of months that the site has been online, so I'll leave them on and see what happens in the future. Anyone have any bright ideas about preventing referral-listing spamming? Hey - I guess I should just be glad it's not comment spam!

Heading out to pick up a big truck with all the equipment for the fireworks show I'm responsible for firing tomorrow. A few people know that I'm a state-licensed pyrotechnician, and I occasionally shoot public displays around the region. Tomorrow we're in Clatskenie, Oregon (on Hwy 30 between Portland and Astoria) shooting several hundred 4- and 5-inch shells for their city 4th-of-July display. Should be fun! I might take come pictures or quick video and post later. If you happen to be in the area, stop by and enjoy the party the town is throwing. It sounds like a good time.

EDIT: A couple of pictures taken by Travis, showing the trench before and after the mortar tubes were installed:

• Fireworks1_large.jpg (186.45 KB)
• Fireworks5_large.jpg (437.66 KB)

IzyNews lets you read your RSS feeds in any email client that does IMAP. No need to add extra software, and you're not restricted to any one client program. Windows, OSX, Linux, Outlook, Outlook Express, Thunderbird - you choose one or more, no problem.

So, you can just upload your OPML file, set up a couple of things on the server, and instantly access IzyNews from any machine or almost any device (anything that'll do IMAP), from anywhere you like. No need to configure each machine or device with OPML files and separate RSS software - just connect via IMAP with whatever client happens to be available on that platform, and you're there.

Cool idea.

(from Jason Lefkowitz's blog via http://www.kunal.org/scoble/)

A friend recently turned me on to a very cool program - It's a plug-in for Outlook 2000 or later that adds a whole bunch of new features and checks-and-balances that get executed every time you send or receive an email.

Have you ever sent an email where you told the recipient to "See attached," but forgot to actually attach the file? Ever sent a reply-to-all without realizing you were BCC'ed - only to embarrass yourself or the sender of the original file? Ever forget to reply to all when you should have? Sent huge attachments without realizing how big they were? Sent an email containing angry or inappropriate words, only to regret it later? Chris Sells' image at right explains the potential problem clearly.

LookOut! for Outlook solves these problems. It pretty much does what the humorous picture above depicts. It also allows you to establish a company central database to store contact information, so you can keep track of client communications. And a lot more.

I have been using LookOut! for about a week, and I love it. Just this evening it asked me if I meant to attach a file to an email on which I had just clicked the "Send" button, but where I had forgotten to do so:

Rule: Attachment Word Warning
You mentioned the word 'attach' somewhere in your email, but there are no attachments.

I was then able to choose from options to send the email anyway, or to fix my mistake before sending. Nice.

Now that I've been using it for a little while, I don't think I can put it away - it's just too darn useful and makes too much sense to just stop using it. And that, my friends, is the first sign of really good software.

Serge van den Oever suggests using an inexpensive commercial product called WebDrive to connect to SharePoint document libraries and sites via WebDav (note that you can also use WebDrive to connect to other types of servers with a drive letter, as well - WebDrive can connect to WebDAV, FTP, SFTP, and HTTP Servers supporting Microsoft FrontPage Server Extensions). See Serge's site for more details about using it with SharePoint:

WebDrive: Accessing SharePoint document libraries through drive letters

I downloaded the trial version and was immediately able to map W: to a document library on MySite on the portal server at work, over a VPN connection, using WebDav. I then transferred files, made sure they work on both ends, ran through the site to make sure everything's operating properly -- It works great!

This will be useful for people who need to map SharePoint "drives" from Windows 2000 or other OS versions, and provides a solid way to repeatedly reconnect drives at login, manage drive-letter connections, etc. On top of using WebDav, you can also connect via FP extensions, FTP, SFTP (SSH), and GroupDrive protocols.

Add WebDrive to the list of useful tools for the SharePoint power user - especially if you're running a version of Windows prior to WinXP and need drive/folder-level access to SharePoint 2003 sites.

Greg Hurlsman at squaretwo.net points out a valuable resource that I have been using for some time (since well before I started "blogging," [insider comment: yes, I put that word in there just for Erik :-)] to be sure).

KBAlertz.com allows you to browse, search, and receive notifications of new KB articles related to Microsoft products of your choosing - It's really a must-have resource for system administrators and anyone responsible for understanding and maintaining Microsoft products. It does the hard work for you, and let's you get exactly the information you need. You can subscribe for email notifications, and the emails are formatted nicely and can be delivered on the schedule you choose.

The article at Squaretwo describes how to get the same information via RSS - which is very cool. I use this capability and have found it a great way to catalog articles about the products I am most often dealing with in my job. Anyone who's into RSS and has to deal with maintaining systems or programs, check out the article.

In response to Download.Ject, Microsoft has just released a patch, which actually makes a change to Windows that disables the ADODB.Stream object in MS Data Access Components. This appears to be more of an intermediate fix than a true patch, to be used until a comprehensive fix that allows ADODB.Stream use without the vulnerability can be prepared.

People can get the update from Windows Update, or at this web page on Microsoft's Downloads web site. If you are a business network user, check with your IT department before you download or apply this fix - They might be applying it for you automatically from a central server, or they may have reasons it should not be applied if there are browser-based applications used that rely on the functionality disabled by this update.

Some will still whine and complain that this is "just a stop-gap fix," and that it doesn't actually repair the flaw. Give it a rest people: This is Microsoft responding to complaints about not getting fixes out soon enough, and they're doing it by making a valuable intermediate fix available to protect users. I applaud that. If you want to have a productive and constrcutive conversation, that's great -- comment here if you like, or go over to the Channel 9 web site, where Microsoft shows it's listening.