I picked up a copy of a documentary film on DVD today from Best Buy called FarenHYPE 9/11, which is a response film that was made to take a critical, factual look at the Michael Moore film, Farenheit 9/11.

If you watched the original Michael Moore movie and cared at all about it (whether you liked it or hated it, doesn't matter), you owe it to yourself and everyone else to watch this documentary. You'll see people from the Moore movie talking about how they were misrepresented in the original film. Much of what Moore presented in Farenheit 9/11 is examined, critically reviewed and corrected in this film.

Seriously - there are two sides to every story, and Moore's story was such an exaggeration and misrepresentation of many facts, the FarenHYPE 9/11 DVD should be mandatory viewing. It is inexpensive - only about $11 at Best Buy, and you can order it from Overstock.com as well.

You don't necessarily have to be a Bush supporter to accept that Michael Moore flat out lied and twisted events to meet the requirements of his agenda. This is in no way an attept on my part to change your mind with regard to a voting decision - that's all yours.

It's the best $11 I've spent in quite some time.

One more time: regardless of your opinion of the Moore film and it's content, be sure to see FarenHYPE 9/11 - Once you see it, I think you'll understand why I'm so adamant.

Anyone who wants to borrow my copy, let me know.

And now, back to your regularly scheduled programming...

The volcano's seismic activity built back up again after dropping off a few days ago, and finally released more steam at about 7am today.

The advisory is still at Level 2 and earthquakes are not as frequent as they were before. A second dome, or “blister” has been pushing up next to the one formed in the crater in the 1980's. The old dome was formed between 1980 and 1986. The new dome has been formed over the past couple of weeks, and is already bigger than the one formed in the 80's.

Jared Hudgins a scary-smart dude I met at GnomeDex, as is Brandon Watts (another person I had the good fortune of meeting there). They could always be found together, which makes sense since they both traveled across the country from Georgia or some place around Atlanta. Both of these guys write for Lockergnome (and do a great job of it). Both are way younger and way smarter than me, and my purpose in writing this entry (yes, I do have a reason) is to call out two things:

• First, that Jared just posted his first audioblog - so go listen to it. Oh, the world is changing so fast...
• Second, I'm going to go out on a limb and predict that both Brandon (who has already authored his own programming language) and Jared are going to be people you'll hear about in a big way sometime in the future (and no, I don't mean in an 11-0'clock news kind of way). Dream big, make it happen. If you happen to be reading this in 15 or 20 years, please remind me and we'll see if I was right.

I missed this when it was originally released, but Microsoft recently kicked a new PowerToy for Windows XP that lets you fine-tunes the ClearType settings in Windows. It puts an applet in your control panel, so you don't have to find the obscure setting in the display properties dialog mess. It also lets you set the Cleartype settings across all machine accounts and provides much finer control over the ClearType settings.

If you've never turned on ClearType, you really don't know what you're missing. It's unfortunate that most Windows XP users don't have it turned on and have not experienced the benefits.

Whether you have a CRT, flat-panel, or notebook monitor, ClearType can greatly improve the way Windows displays text on the screen, and can make using a computer easier on your eyes.

Why use ClearType?

Just look at the screen clips below (made with another PowerToy for the Tablet PC - the Snipping Tool).

Which would you rather read on your screen? With or without ClearType?

Without ClearType:		With ClearType:

You can click here to go to the XP PowerToys page, and look for the link to download the "ClearType Tuner PowerToy."

The new SANS 2004 Top 20 list of critical Internet security vulnerabilities is out. It's actually two top-10 lists, one for Windows and one for UNIX:

Top Vulnerabilities to Windows Systems

W1 Web Servers & Services

W2 Workstation Service

W3 Windows Remote Access Services

W4 Microsoft SQL Server (MSSQL)

W5 Windows Authentication

W6 Web Browsers

W7 File-Sharing Applications

W8 LSAS Exposures

W9 Mail Client

W10 Instant Messaging

Top Vulnerabilities to UNIX Systems

U1 BIND Domain Name System

U2 Web Server

U3 Authentication

U4 Version Control Systems

U5 Mail Transport Service

U6 Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP)

U7 Open Secure Sockets Layer (SSL)

U8 Misconfiguration of Enterprise Services NIS/NFS

U9 Databases

U10 Kernel

Click the play button to listen:

Prologue: After speaking with several respected people in the field about the term PodCasting in preparation for writing this article, I have changed my stance slightly from where I started and from what I wrote below. I decided to place this change-of-heart statement up top, with a quick explanation, but not to alter what my original post looked like, since my change of heart is primarily one of acceptance. So, while I accept current naming conventions and what-not, I still believe what I say below is relevant.

In the words of one respected collegue from the industry:

"... It's certainly a sexy term, and although technically inaccurate (see, --casting implies sending from-- we aren't broadcasting from an iPod), the media seems to love it, people associate '-pod' with the success of the iPod, and that's a good thing. It's good because now bigger radio folks are doing it. We the people are doing it. This whole thing has stickiness, and got that stickiness in record time. I say, let's just revel in it. It can't hurt."

- Eric Rice

Ok, I can do that. Fair enough, and good advice.

 - greg

[How exactly do you describe the process of hanging up a call with someone when you're not actually talking on a traditional telephone anymore? Hmm...] I just got off the Internet with Chris Pirillo. He and I were engaged in an instant messaging session, which branched off to email, and which we then took over to Skype. Chris then used the Skype audio and some kind of hacked-together recording device to create an interview MP3 that he will, undoubtedly, edit (I sure hope he edits it, heh...) and post to his web site at some point in the near future. Personal internet broadcasting hard at work.

We talked about something we both think is great and interesting, but about which we share a similar gripe:

The term "PodCasting" - I know it is catchy and sticky and has already taken off, so I wouldn't expect any kind of change to happen, but regardless, it's just the wrong name to use. Why? Because this new wave of technology use is not actually about iPods (it works with pretty much any MP3 player), yet it sounds like it is all about iPods. It's not about the playback device (again, any MP3 player), it's about the communication medium and the content being distributed. It's about the convergence of several smaller pieces of cool technology, and the interest of a relatively small but rapidly growing group of people whose influence has the potential to create something very, very big. But to say the iPod is the platform is to limit the market and the potential of what's happening -- in my opinion.

Now, please understand -- I don't have any kind of problem or dislike toward Apple's iPods, or the technology, or the idea that people are enabled to communicate to an Internet audience their own opinions, ideas, news, music or what-have-you. In fact I think all those things are great. It's the name that kills me. If you like iPods, that's fine (I think they're great, too), but to call the iPod the platform in this context is just plain-old-flat-out confusing and wrong.

When Chris and I started our conversation this morning, I sent him an email with an admittedly hot-under-the-collar tone complaining about this supposed "revolution" (I don't see it quite that way) and the "podcast" name that's been attached to this "phenomenon" (another over-stated term I think - let's see what happens before we actually attach names like that).

Then we decided, well heck - let's talk about it by creating a personal internet broadcast (yes, you're right, I am intentionally not using that term) of our own.

You see, we love the technology. We love the medium. We love the gadgetry of it all and the idea of enabling people to communicate and express themselves in new ways - and to make it easier for people to do on both ends.

Both of us even plan to create content and use the technology ourselves.

It's just that damn name.

If you have users who need to learn how to do things in SharePoint Portal Server 2003, you'll want to check out the new SPS 2003 Training Kit. The users can either see how to perform tasks, or they can do the steps themselves, while being guided through the processes.

"This training kit has been specifically designed to ensure that SharePoint Portal Server users can effectively use the capabilities of the product to better share information, collaborate with others and find relevant information and resources within their organization. The training has been developed keeping in mind the unique need of the beginners and advanced users with easy to understand content that can be accessed either as a self paced study guide or as a quick reference guide. Learn how to perform everyday tasks like collaborating on documents, setting up efficient meetings and searching for relevant information and resources."

Download Link:
http://www.microsoft.com/sharepoint/downloads/components/detail.asp?a=631

Chris apparently really needs something to do - but it's good for us when he's having a slow day - this is freakin' hilarious...

• The channel 9 guy's apartment tour

JibJab has reached prime-time with “It's Good to Be in DC.” 

I heard excerpts from this on the radio earlier today, and then it was shown on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno later this evening.

Between JibJab and Jon Stewart, it's been an amusing political process. JibJab's This Land cartoon raised eyebrows and even a lawsuit (in which JibJab came out the victor). When I think what it would be like without at least some form of levity, it's a rather depressing thought.

But all joking aside - regardless of your political position or persuasion, VOTE THIS YEAR!!! VOTE!

Add this up: One shopping cart, one jet engine, and one crazy, crazy man.

What do you get? A Darwin Award just begging to be won.

But it's cool.

I meant to post about this while I was at Gnomedex last week, since it was announced there, but never got around to it (my bad).

A new web site - hackaday.com - is a web magazine devoted to cataloging all the best hacks, mods and DIY (do-it-yourself) projects from around the web.

This is a geek-fest site if there ever was one. every day a new items is posted to the site. Among the recent hacks and mods are:

• how to make your own lava lamp
• ipod remote hacking
• add rss feeds to series 1 and series 2 tivos
• mod a digital camera to automatically take pictures
• make an ipod in to a pirate radio station
• make 3d photos with any digital camera
• building a megapixel digital camera from a flatbed scanner
• turn a pocket pc in to a wifi phone
• make an ipod a universal remote control
• make a ramjet engine

... and much, much more. Highly recommended for hard-core geeks and anyone with too much time on their hands.

Scoble to Gates: "It's time for another memo Bill. Just don't take so long this time."

Also: "Tell him to get me a Tablet PC that rocks so that I can keep my job cause I really don't want to work for Donald Trump."

There's more, and it's worth reading. Important stuff for the radar. Right on, Robert.

I've been beta testing MS Virtual Server 2005 for some time, and I love it. It's been released to manufacturing (RTM) and will soon ship for sale.

The web administrative interface is very well done, and with sufficient hardware (required any time you're going to run multiple machines you know), you can effectively share resources between multiple virtual machines on your server. And yes, you can use your already-existing Virtual PC images on the virtual server.

VMWare gets another run for its money. And for what it's worth, I use both the MS and VMWare ESX products, so no need to flame. :-)

More info: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserversystem/virtualserver/default.mspx

Virtual machine systems are in place and being used for full-blown production purposes at many large companies all over the world. My experience is that is allows for more effective use of available hardware resources, and it simplifies and speeds up server administration. It can also make full server backups a breeze.

To migrate servers from hardware to virtual machines, Microsoft provides the Virtual Server Migration Toolkit. The VSMT automates the migration of an operating system and installed applications from a physical server to a server running within a virtual machine that is provided and managed by Virtual Server 2005.

SnapStream has released Beyond TV v3.5 and Beyond TV Link - Programs that run on Windows and provide PVR capabilities (Beyond TV) and networked media access (the Link apps).

Beyond TV 3.5 includes new features, such as multiple tuner support and a smarter recording scheduler, maximizes the number of shows users can record. Other offerings such as Beyond TV Link and Microsoft Portable Media Center support further delivers the “anytime, anywhere” aspect of Beyond TV 3. Read the press release.

Beyond TV Link gives you control of your Beyond TV 3 from other networked computers in your home. It gives you full and complete access to your library of recorded shows. It’s like having Beyond TV 3 on all your PCs and laptops on your home network and using it as if it was really installed on the device in front of you. You can even watch live television broadcasts through Beyond TV Link without having to purchase additional TV tuner cards. Read the press release.

The SnapStream apps are another way to create a multimedia PC with functionality similar to TiVo's, and the company provides a number of software/hardware packages that work well together.

From a gamepc.com review of Windows XP Media Center 2005 (code-named Symphony while in development) written by Chris Connolly, which is set to release next week - and it sounds like you'll be able to buy it all by itself, without having to buy a PC at the same time (which is exactly the option I intend to take advantage of):

"... Fortunately, Microsoft finally listened, and are opening up Windows XP Media Center Edition for everyone. Their latest version, Media Center Edition 2005, is now selling on the open markets, and is available to all. While the OS itself is not officially launching for another week, we were able to get our hands on this final product to give everyone a first hand glimpse of how Media Center Edition 2005 (Codenamed Symphony) works in an uncontrolled environment ..."

I jumped ahead, looking for the HDTV verdict, as there have been conflicting reports as to whether it is supported or works:

"... Now, setup for our analog TV stream was a piece of cake with the Hauppauge WinTV card. HDTV was a bit more troublesome, even when using ATI's brand new HDTV Wonder card. Many expected that Media Center 2005 and the HDTV Wonder product would be announced together and become the "duo" for hardware/software HDTV for the PC. Unfortunately, this really isn't the case. Media Center Edition 2005 does have integrated support for the ATI HDTV Wonder product out of the box. Even when the card's drivers are installed correctly, MCE2005 will not detect the card as a valid TV Tuner. ATI's Multimedia Center DTV application won't even work in the operating system, outside of the Media Center application. Our suggestion is stay away from this combo until ATI puts out a set of "Media Center Certified" drivers. All in all, outputting content to an High-Definition TV / monitor is no problem. Getting an HDTV stream to play on Media Center, well, that's up in the air at this point. We couldn't get it to work, but we haven't tried all of the available HDTV options out there ..."

This is an extensive review of the new version of Windows XP MCE. Note that another review by Thomas Hawk is a little more critical, but does a good job of pointing out the improvements as well as what Thomas wishes was different.