Tonight I had the privilege of watching two very smart people speak about a technology I barely grasp at the PADNUG meeting, with a few good laughs thrown in. The requisite pizza never showed up, but dinner afterwards was a fun time and I had a chance to talk to some people I otherwise would never get to meet.

The speakers were Rory Blyth and Scott Hanselman. Scott is a friend and co-worker of mine, an accomplished technical presenter and regional MSDN director. He played code-monkey while Rory, a rather infamous blogger and all around good guy who recently started work at Microsoft as a MSDN Presenter^**, demonstrated the beta of Visual Studio .NET 2005 (aka "Whidbey"), showing off many new capabilities in developing ASP.net application web sites with membership capabilities (almost all without writing any code).

Thee guys are both crazy freakin' smart. Much smarter than I. I'm one of those guys who deals with lots of hardware and software, manages a group of fine employees, deals with a wide variety of people and their needs, and generally does his best to make sure things work. These two guys are in a higher league. They're amazing when it comes to coding and building things out of thin air. I wish I was half as smart.

Rory and Scott presented things in a way that I - a simple IT jock - was able to follow and pretty much completely understand. That's the mark of a good presenter and teacher: When you can impart and transfer some portion of your knowledge and to someone truly outside your profession.

By the time they were done, I had a good picture of what kinds of things Visual Studio 2005 will be able to do for the developer crowd. Understand that I am a guy who tends to get lost in developer presentations, so the fact that I actually followed along the whole time and was able to use words like "cool" and "ahhhh" with actual meaning and understanding proves these guys can teach as well as present.

Rory will also be presenting in Portland (Hillsboro actually) at the local MSDN event scheduled to be held on Thursday November 18th at the "Movies on TV" theaters. The target audience for those presentation sessions is developers interested or working with Visual Studio and .NET technologies. If you're in a different city and want to attend an MSDN event, check the schedule of all upcoming events and locations here.

^** Note that Rory's title is really something like "Pacific Northwest Microsoft Developer Community Champion," but "MSDN Presenter" is much easier to use in a sentence.

According to Microsoft, 23 percent of Windows computers in the United States are running bogus versions of Windows. The new program installs an Active-X control (users can opt out, at least at this point) that examines a system accessing certain files on Microsoft's Download Center to see if the copy of Windows that is installed on the machine is legitimate. At this time a number of Windows Media files are flagged for the check, along with several others. Files that will prompt the user to validate his or her copy of Windows are marked in the file listings with a small gold arrow on a blue circle background (see above).

No doubt Microsoft is legitimately interested in making sure its updates are getting into the hands of those who have purchased the products the company produces, while at the same time providing software thieves with a reason and incentive to pay for the operating system they use. It should not come as a surprise that Microsoft is doing this now, nor that they will likely expand this capability in the future. Ultimately, it takes people spending money on software to allow a company, regardless of how big that company may be, to continue to build new and better software products. No matter what your philisophical position with regard to Microsoft, the one core rule of business always applies: If you're not making money, you shouldn't be in business.

I know he didn't mean to (so I won't act all flattered or smug or anything), but Robert Scoble just sort of summed up the better part of my topic/category list for this-here-blog of mine, over on his blog...

I thought it would be interesting to compare his list of cool upcoming topics for the future to what's categorized or searchable right now on my site. So, I did just that and have added the links, below. Not a bad start, and it points out to me where I am falling shorter than I had realized in my content. Hey Robert, thanks for the copy.

“For the next 18 months, where are the business opportunities going to lie? Tablet PC. Bigtime. Windows Media Center. Gonna be a big deal. SmartPhones. Wanna watch how fast the Motorola MPX220 sells when it's released in the next few months? Xbox Live. You only need to say one number and everyone knows exactly the Xbox thing I'm talking about: "2." Visual Studio 2005. Tons of stuff coming there. MSN has a whole raft of things up their sleeves. And we haven't even started talking about BizTalk, SharePoint, Exchange, SQL Server, 64-bit Windows, SBS, CRM, LiveMeeting, and OneNote, among other things.”

It also gives me a gut-check on my existing blog categories. Here they are, with the ones that apply to this posting checked:

AudioBlogging	Blogging	Humor	IT Security
Mobile	Movies	Office 2003	OneNote
Personal Stories	Random Stuff	RSS Stuff	SharePoint
Tablet PC	Tech	Things that Suck	Windows Media Technology

I have been using Furl for the past few months to create an online quick-hit catalog of items that I want to keep track of on the 'net for a number of reasons, such as items to keep track of for work purposes, stuff I may want to show someone else, or things I might want to write about at a later time here in my weblog. Today Furl sent an email to its users telling them that LookSmart has acquired the company, and describing the plans. It looks pretty good, and I hope it will be, since I have come to appreciate the Furl application.

From the email (my emphasis is added in bold):

"We are joining LookSmart, a provider of Web search and research-quality articles search, in addition to other high-quality search products.

  ...

"To show how serious that commitment is, we are officially allocating 5 gigabytes (GB) of storage for each individual member's public archive, enough space to store tens of thousands of archived items.

"We are also now working on many new features, some of which you may have requested. These include a groups feature, and the ability to search across all public archives.

"You might be wondering whether Furl will continue to be a free service, and the answer is: "Yes!" Furl will create revenue through the display of relevant, contextual advertising on search and content pages. This revenue source enables us to continue offering Furl free of charge. It also allows us to keep investing in the service. As Furl gets better and better, it attracts more members. They in turn attract new advertisers, creating a cycle of growth that benefits our members as well as our business."

Sean Gallagher writes at eWeek online. In his column, Root Access, he asks, "How connected is *too* connected?"

Do I have OCD? (Obsessive Connectivity Disorder) Do you?? My results are noted below, in-line... Damn Blackberries...

Gallagher: "I think that I've allowed myself to actually accumulate too much connectivity. As a remote employee of a highly-distributed organization, it's important for me to be as wired in as possible. But sometimes that may go a bit too far. As I sat in my car at a stop light responding to an instant message on my cell phone, I pondered exactly where I crossed the line into connectivity stupidity.

"Here's a simple test to determine if you have what I've come to call "obsessive connectivity disorder." The symptoms are listed in order from least to most severe; if you get more than halfway down the list, then you probably have OCD."

E-mail connectivity :

• You have more than one e-mail account that you check from work. YES
• You have more than one e-mail client running on your PC. YES
• You have more than one e-mail account that you check from a mobile device. YES
• You move information from one device to another by e-mailing it to yourself. YES
• You have read e-mail while at a sporting event. YES
• You have read e-mail while coaching a sporting event. NO
• You have read e-mail while participating in a sporting event. NO
• You have read an email while driving. YES
• You have responded to an e-mail while driving. YES
• You have responded to an email while home, in bed. YES :-(
• You have sent an e-mail from your phone to your Blackberry just to find it in your drawer. YES :-(

Instant messaging:

• You have more than one instant-messaging client running on your desktop PC. YES
• You have an instant messaging client running on your mobile phone. YES (in the past)
• You frequently see the AOL Instant Messenger alert, "Your screen name is now signed into AOL(R) Instant Messenger (TM) in 3 locations." And all of those locations are you. NO (AIM Sux0rz)
• You have more than two instant messaging clients running on your mobile device. And they're both active. NO
• You have instant-messaged yourself a reminder at your desktop from a mobile device. YES
• You IM your children to tell them to take out the trash. While you're at home. Uh - NO
• You have responded to an instant message while driving. On your cell phone. And it was more than just, "OK." YES

Security Pipeline has an interesting article that explains how you can do some simple and cost-free things with your network setup to significantly improve your security situation, in the event you have not already applied the measures they describe.

Note: I am not so sure I agree with the article as a whole (in my book, a good firewall is an absolute must, and vulnerability scanners do add real value, especially when used in combination with common sense and a good, well-trained set of brains and eyes), but the points made in the article are interesting and, at least on a case-by-case basis, valid. But I do not agree that implementing just those measures would provide anything even approaching acceptable network security. To state that many IT managers become mired in the volume of patches and configurations is a valid point on its face, and is worth considering when looking at how to manage security and prioritize, but to suggest or imply that one therefore avoid any of the patches and tools is not - in my opinion - a good option.

From the article (which gives specific items to address):

"According to Peter Tippett, CTO of the newly-formed security company Cybertrust (formed from TruSecure, BeTrusted and Ubizen), you're better off looking for good solutions instead of perfect answers. "A few solutions that are only 80 percent effective give an overall 99.9 percent solution," Tippett says. In fact, he says that the most effective security solutions require little time and less expense, and can reduce your exposure 40-fold."

From Microsoft Research, ConferenceXP v3.0 beta is available for people who are interested in seeing the latest developments in the areas of wireless classrooms, collaboration and distance learning:

ConferenceXP integrates recent advances in high performance audio, video and network technologies to seamlessly connect multiple distant participants in a rich immersive environment for distance conferencing, instruction and collaboration. ConferenceXP provides an extensible foundation for interactive collaborative environments, and serves as a research platform for designing and implementing distance conferencing and learning applications. Please visit the ConferenceXP 3.0 Beta web site for more information.

I don't usually link to this kind of stuff here (simply don't click if you're offended way too easily), but this is great:

• Robert De Niro as the Homeland Security Director

There's something about this that just doesn't smell quite right...

Starting in October and running into mid-December, MSDN will have a whole slew of Infopath webcasts going on. One of Office 2003's best kept secrets (and that is not necessarily a good thing), this program provides a powerful front end to designing, creating and using XML forms.

Title	Presenter	Date	Time
Best Practices for Designing InfoPath Forms	Scott Roberts	Tuesday, October 05, 2004	9:00 AM-10:30 AM
http://msevents.microsoft.com/cui/eventdetail.aspx?EventID=1032259531&Culture=en-US
User Roles in InfoPath 2003	Josh Bertsch	Tuesday, October 12, 2004	9:00 AM-10:30 AM
http://msevents.microsoft.com/cui/eventdetail.aspx?EventID=1032259537&Culture=en-US
Building Advanced Dynamic Solutions in InfoPath 2003	Jun Jin	Tuesday, October 19, 2004	9:00 AM-10:30 AM
http://msevents.microsoft.com/cui/eventdetail.aspx?EventID=1032259110&Culture=en-US
Business Logic in InfoPath 2003	Yuet (Emily) Ching and Prachi Bora	Tuesday, October 26, 2004	11:00 AM-12:30 PM
http://msevents.microsoft.com/cui/eventdetail.aspx?EventID=1032259112&Culture=en-US
Using Managed Code and Visual Studio to Build Solutions	Willson Raj David	Tuesday, November 02, 2004	1:00 PM-2:00 PM
http://msevents.microsoft.com/cui/eventdetail.aspx?EventID=1032259539&Culture=en-US
InfoPath in End-to-End Enterprise Solutions: Integrating InfoPath with Siebel and SAP	Hagen Green	Monday, November 08, 2004	11:00 AM-12:30 PM
http://msevents.microsoft.com/cui/eventdetail.aspx?EventID=1032259542&Culture=en-US
Digital Signatures in InfoPath 2003	Mihaela Cristina Cris	Monday, November 15, 2004	11:00 AM-12:30 PM
http://msevents.microsoft.com/cui/eventdetail.aspx?EventID=1032259544&Culture=en-US
Creating Custom Controls for InfoPath SP-1	Andrew Ma	Monday, November 29, 2004	11:00 AM-12:30 PM
http://msevents.microsoft.com/cui/eventdetail.aspx?EventID=1032259546&Culture=en-US
Programming Workflow into InfoPath Solutions: Using InfoPath with BizTalk Server 2004 and Human Workflow Services	Rick Severson	Monday, December 06, 2004	11:00 AM-12:30 PM
http://msevents.microsoft.com/cui/eventdetail.aspx?EventID=1032259548&Culture=en-US
Database Connectivity in InfoPath Through ADO.NET DataSet Support	Mikhail Vassiliev	Tuesday, December 14, 2004	11:00 AM-12:30 PM
http://msevents.microsoft.com/cui/eventdetail.aspx?EventID=1032259550&Culture=en-US

All times are Pacific Daylight Time (UTC–07:00) until Oct 31, and Pacific Standard Time (UTC–08:00) on and after Oct 31st.

Last week while I was out, Microsoft released a new tool on their downloads site called SSL Diagnostics Version 1.0, which aids in quickly identifying configuration problems in the IIS metabase, certificates, or certificate stores.

x86 and ia64 versions are available. The download contains a document called the SSL FAQ that is a great resource for people wanting to learn about SSL from the beginning, as well.

Recommended for anyone who might need to deal with web servers, certification authorities or SSL certificates for any reason.

Microsoft's TechNet has released a useful set of step-by-step guides to help people learn, understand, plan, deploy, configure and maintain Active Directory infrastructures on Windows 2003 domains.

From the AD Step-by-Step Guides page, the following individual titles are available (see the main page for more information about each):

• Installing Windows Server 2003 as a Domain Controller
• Installing a Windows XP Professional Workstation and Connecting It to a Domain
• Setting Up Additional Domain Controllers
• Managing Active Directory
• Understanding the Group Policy Feature Set
• Using the Group Policy Management Console
• Enforcing Strong Password Policies
• Using the Delegation of Control Wizard
• User Data Management and User Settings Management through Group Policy
• Configuring a Dial-Up Remote Access Server
• Building a Site-to-Site Virtual Private Network Connection
• Using the Encrypting File System
• Digitally Signed and Encrypted E-Mail
• Active Directory Sites and Services
• Active Directory Bulk Import and Export

My first real job, and the profession for which I went to college, was photojournalism. One of my heros of the trade, Eddie Adams, died Sunday from Lou Gehrig's Disease (ALS).

I've since moved on to other work, a decision I sometimes ponder when I am feeling especially creative without an outlet. But the extreme importance of the trade, which Eddie Adams personified, has stuck with me over the years.

Adams was probably most famous for his picture of a Viet Cong officer being shot in the head in the streets of Saigon, Vietnam in 1968. But his contributions to photojournalism and bringing the world closer to all of us went much further than that. He covered 13 wars, worked many years for the Associated Press and Time-Life, and photographed presidents and other heads of state during his extensive and colorful career.

In his own unique way he took the trade as seriously as anyone, realizing the power and responsibility of the lens and film. Writing about the famous picture from Saigon in '68 in Time Magazine, Adams said:

"The general killed the Viet Cong; I killed the general with my camera. Still photographs are the most powerful weapon in the world. People believe them, but photographs do lie, even without manipulation. They are only half-truths. What the photograph didn't say was, 'What would you do if you were the general at that time and place on that hot day, and you caught the so-called bad guy after he blew away one, two or three American soldiers?'"

If a picture was worth a thousand words, Eddie Adams' images are worth a million. He taught new photographers the trade, and passed his talents and values on to many.

I never met Eddie Adams personally, so I can't say I knew him, but I can say that he helped me to better know myself when I was learning the trade and craft of photojpournalism. Thank you, Eddie Adams, for always making me think, and for making life a little more real while you were here with us.

You may have seen the Robosapien toy robot for sale at your local Frys or other electronics store. It's fun to play with and remarkably more advanced than anything that was made when I was a kid. Our local store sells it for about $68.

Well, some guys over in Germany that are studying robotics decided it would be fun to make the Robosapien robot autonomous - in other words, program it so it could do something on its own, using its own "senses," if you will. They successfully hacked their little robot with a Pocket PC, Microsoft Embedded C++, an IR remote control program for the Pocket PC, and a CF-card camera. Now it will "watch" for an orange pole, and if it "sees" it in its field of view, it will run toward the pole. Pretty darn cool.

But even better than just showing they can do it, they have released their Robosapien API so that you, too can play with robotic hacks. You're not limited to making mad dashes at orange poles - that is just the default program that ships with the API. You can write your own instruction sets for your autonomous robot, and make it interact with whatever it can "see."

I am starting to think I need to pick up one of these, find that old Pocket PC that's lying around here somewhere, and see what can be done. It looks like they had to chop off the lower arms and part of the original robot's feet - probably for weight reasons - which is too bad. Their notes also state that the weight and center of gravity/balance are important to allowing the robot to move correctly under its own power. So, a really light-weight PocketPC would certainly be a good place to start. 

(via Engadget)

"You are unknown to me.
Your camera's memory card was in a taxi; I have it now.
I am going to post one of your pictures each day.
I will also narrate as if I were you.
Maybe you will come here and reclaim this piece of your life."

This is (Ooops... better make that “was”) one of the more interesting/strange blogs I have seen in some time. The author found a digital camera card in a taxi, thought of an idea, and the rest is (ongoing and made-up) history. The blog, "I Found Some of Your Life," merges the real-world with a made-up one. If a picture is worth a thousand words, this site compensates for the pictures with it's fictional guess-at-a-story commentary. You should start with the introduction entry and then work your way though the chronology, to get the full effect.

I can't wait til the owner discovers there's a web site with his pictures on it. That should be very interesting. (EDIT: Not sure exactly what happened, but apparently someone got wind and was not too happy)

From the introduction entry describing the blog and how it got started:

In my possession is one (1) memory card from a digital camera. This memory card was found in a taxi in New York City. I have no idea who the owner of the camera is.

The pictures on the memory card were taken over the course of exactly one (1) year in this person's life, starting July Twenty-Fifth, Two Thousand and Three (07-25-03) and ending July Twenty-Fourth, Two Thousand and Four (07-24-04).

I am going to post one (1) picture here each day. As there are two hundred and twenty-seven (227) pictures, there will be two hundred and twenty-seven (227) posts. The pictures will appear in chronological order according to the timestamp accompanying each image.

As the images add up, I will attempt to assemble an identity for this unknown person. Each day's new picture will be a fresh addition to this photographic life-documentation. Only with the unveiling of the final picture (the two hundred and twenty-seventh (227th)) will we finally have a full understanding of this person's life over the past year - at least as far as these pictures will allow us to infer.

Further, in an attempt to present this pictorial information in a more personal manner, and also to better allow for some artistic license, I am going to pretend that I am the owner of the camera. I'll call me Jordan, because that's the name on my birthday cake (you'll see).

Enjoy.

In the random blog post department:

Over on Channel 9 there's a picture of a Windows 2006 box. Well, okay it's not the real Windows box, but it's cool.

So are some of the typical Channel 9 comments (cool that is)...

Dave Bowman : Hello, HAL do you read me, HAL?
HAL : Affirmative, Dave, I read you.
Dave Bowman : Open the pod bay doors, HAL.
HAL : I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that.
Dave Bowman : What's the problem?
HAL : I think you know what the problem is just as well as I do.
Dave Bowman : What are you talking about, HAL?
HAL : You forgot to recompile the kernel with the new pod bay door drivers.
Dave Bowman : Doesn't Linux support plug and play?
HAL : Not yet, in the next release.