Microsoft has released a new prescriptive paper describing in step-by-step fashion how to deploy a secure wireless LAN using Protected Extensible Authentication Protocol (PEAP) and passwords:

The Securing Wireless LANs with PEAP and Passwords solution guide is designed to help small- and medium-sized organizations protect their wireless local access network (LANs). This prescriptive guidance will assist you in planning, deploying, testing, and managing a wireless LAN security infrastructure using Microsoft Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, and Pocket PC 2003. The guide is a companion to the earlier solution guide Securing Wireless LANs – a Certificate Services Solution. However, this updated guide uses passwords to authenticate users and computers to the LAN instead of digital certificates.

The solution uses industry standards such as 802.1X to ensure broad interoperability. Windows XP Wireless Auto Configuration and the Microsoft Active Directory directory service help to minimize the complexity of installing and managing the solution—many of the more complex operations are automated in scripts that are provided with the guide. You can also install the solution entirely on existing servers in your environment to keep costs low.

Also useful in the context of these articles:

• Planning a Secure Wireless LAN using Windows Server 2003 Certificate Services: Designing Your PKI
• Securing Wireless LANs - A Windows Server 2003 Certificate Services Solution
• Windows Server 2003 W-Fi resources from microsoft.com
• Windows XP Resource Kit - Wireless networking for IT professionals
• Enterprise Deployment of Secure 802.11 Networks Using Microsoft Windows
• Newsgroup: microsoft.public.windows.networking.wireless

CG has sure come a long way since 1977. The new movie trailer for Star Wars - Revenge of the Sith just played for the fist time at the end of The OC on television. Looks interesting.

I can't say it got my blood pumping or made me jump up and down and cheer, but the saga concludes with this one, so it better be good!

Next on the agenda, CSI is coming on right now, and although I don't normally watch it, Wil Wheaton's got a role on the show. Just saw his name on the screen in the opening credits. Coolio - Gotta go watch.

Update: Hey Wil - you play crazy and homeless pretty darn well!! Well-done, congrats!

Google released their desktop search tool out of beta this week - so it's the full mean deal now. They've added support to search even more content (including Thunderbird email yay!) and for people who want even more, there are plugins available that will let the application index even more kinds of content so you can search almost anything you like. And if there's not a plugin available, well then write one!

Google Desktop Search: Get it here.

If you're a person who gets confused when looking at search results because the results from your desktop (local computer) search are listed on the page with your Google web search results (or if you just want to separate them), here you go:

The default behavior for Google's Desktop Search is: "Show Desktop Search results on Google Web Search result pages." But you can disable that if its confusing. Just right click on Google Desktop Search icon in the system notification area, then choose "More" then choose "Preferences." It's on that page, just scroll down and find the option and uncheck the box.

Microsoft has posted "What to do if you've responded to a phishing scam," a set of four steps (with some details about each) you should take if you think you may have mistakenly provided personal financial or identification information in response to a fraudulent email. They've also updated and posted a set of related articles dealing with phishing and email fraud (listed and linked below).

The steps they list in the article are:

• Step 1: Report the incident
• Step 2: Change the passwords on all your accounts
• Step 3: Routinely review your credit card and bank statements
• Step 4: Use up-to-date antivirus and anti-spyware software

And they have posted more articles with information about phishing and email fraud:

• What is a phishing scam? (updated)
• How can I tell if an e-mail message is fraudulent? (new)
• The do's and don'ts of dealing with suspicious e-mail (new)

But remember: Being prepared and on the watch before the fraud ever happens is the best way to not become a victim. The links above and other resources on the 'net can help you educate yourself and people you know about the things people should do to keep from becoming victims.

The Game Developer's Conference is always an interesting even with lots of cool news for game geeks to get all anticipatory over.

Microsoft's released some screen caps showing off the user interface for the next-generation XBOX Guide - an entertainment gateway for users. The also describe the future XBOX experience: "games, friends, music, and more."

The sample images and more info are available here.

You can also listen to the keynote address by Microsoft's J Allard, in which he speaks about the next-gen XBOX:

• J Allard Keynote video in WMV Format
• Keynote demonstration video in WMV Format
• J Allard Keynote In MP3 Format
• J Allard Keynote In WMA Format

(found via Engadget)

Note: I am posting this entry because readers of this weblog might be interested in the job openings mentioned here. This post is my own, and is not a communication by or for my employer. I am just trying to make people aware of some opportunities that I happen to know about.

Any talented software developers out there?

The company I work for, Corillian, is hiring right now. Among the jobs being recruited at the time of this posting are two for which I have some sort of responsibility: A software development engineer with ASP.NET experience in the Security department; and a developer with experience working with and programming on SharePoint 2003 to work in the corporate IT department.

Corillian's a cool company to work at, and both positions are good opportunities (I think) for people interested in either of these work areas.

So, if you know anyone who might fit the bill (talented SharePoint programmers or experienced development engineers wanting to work on building some really cool Internet security products), drop me a line right quick and I will make sure resumes and letters get routed appropriately. See the "Contact" section in the sidebar to reach me, or apply through the web site. Details about each position are available on the Corillian web site, as well.

By the way - There are even more cool jobs open at the company right now for QA people, sales execs, project managers, system administrators and technical account managers - So if you're in the Portland area and any of those catch your eye, you might want to check them out.

Looks like BitTorrent v4 has been released. New clients for Windows, Mac and Linux.

From the release notes:

2005-03-07: 4.0.0 is now available.
Changes since the last stable release:

• All new queue-based user interface
• Many options are now modifiable from the interface, including upload rate
• Lots of other interface improvements
• Extra stats are visible, for those who like it
• Remembers what it was doing across restarts
• New .torrent maker "btmaketorrentgui" replaces "btcompletedir"
• Better performance, as always
• License has changed to the BitTorrent Open Source License
• Torrent fields are correctly created and interpreted as utf8
• Too many little things to list

A few technical notes, for those interested:

• Single port: launchmany can seed and client can download many files from a single port and thread
• Interface now uses GTK instead of wxWidgets
• BitTorrent packets are marked as bulk data to make traffic shaping easier

I was driving home from work today, crossed over Cornelius Pass Road and onto Highway 30. As I drove down the road I caught a glimpse of Mt. St. Helens, with what looked to be a standard-fare steam plume, typical of what one sees popping over the crater these days, coming out of it. The mountain dropped out of view behind some trees as I drove, and when I rounded a corner and saw it again a few minutes later, I noticed the plume was growing. Within a couple of minutes the plume was thousands of feet in the air. Huge. Pretty amazing really.

Anyhow, for what it's worth, here is my not-so-scientific observation...

First of all, the white cloud looked to be mostly a whole lot of steam. Some darker material appeared to be dropping over to the east of the mountain from the cloud, but honestly it's hard to tell shadows from falling material. The National Weather Service issued an ash-fall warning for that area.

(Photos from KGW and USGS)

It looked like a bomb hit for a while, a big bulb of a cloud rising straight up from the crater. Then the wind started to push it to the east, and eventually it dropped and started to dissipate.

In my super-geek analysis, I can tell you that this was probably the new dome area involved, rather than the old dome. No surprise there. Why do I say that? Easy. It's a complete guesstimate...

Here is the new dome's seismograph, going offline first (click for large image):

...and here is the old dome's seismograph, knocked offline later than the new dome equipment:

Pretty amazing sight this evening. Unfortunately, I didn't have my good camera with me, but others have done plenty to photograph it.

UPDATE: USGS web site details and images on March 8 eruption.

Via HineSight: On Nightline this evening, the subject matter will be blogs and bloggers and blogging.

Is it just a fad? Is it simply a medium? Is it a revolution? Is it nothing, really? It all depends who you ask. It will be interesting to see what Nightline's take is...

Tonight's piece is a fascinating one. Turns out that as John and producer Elissa Rubin were conducting interviews with bloggers, they were being blogged. The bloggers had some interesting opinions, to say the least. And as this program airs (and this e-mail is read by viewers), there's no doubt that bloggers will blog about it...

Umm, yeah. Heh.

So what are blogs? Turns out that although 8 million have created blogs, 62 percent of Americans who use the Internet don't know what a blog is. That's according to the Pew Internet & American Life Project. And in an age where blogs are fundamentally changing the nature of news, we thought we'd tell you the story about the beast of blogging...

Check your local ABC affiliate's listings, but it's probably right after your late news.

http://hinessight.blogs.com/hinessight/2005/03/blogging_focus_.html

I'm always up for a good laugh, and today a coworker showed me a fun web site called Atom Smasher's Error Message Generator, where you can generate visual renditions of your own twisted Windows error messages.

Get a little creative with this stuff and you'll quickly find yourself participating in email threads with friends, trying to best each other in the geek-humor department.

If you've ever used Microsoft's online support knowledge base, you know how much information is available there, and how hard it can be to find information you're looking for. On top of that, how are you to know when new articles are added about the technologies that you care about?

For a few years now, I have used a free online service called KBAlertz to keep track of KB articles that are released about the Microsoft servers and apps I deal with every day. I get email notifications whenever new KB information is published in areas like Office, Exchange, SharePoint, SQL, LCS, Windows Server, Windows XP - you name it. Whatever topics you choose, you can stay informed.

There are three primary ways to get the info you want and need from KBAlertz: Browsing/searching, email and RSS feeds.

Personally, I subscribe to the site's email alerts and get them on a regular basis whenever new items that match my criteria are discovered. The digest-formatted HTML emails contain all the new articles since the last check, and are nicely formatted and easy to use.

For a few key technologies I also subscribe to feeds in my RSS reader, FeedDemon, where I can easily catalog and search through them.

For example, let's say I am interested (as I am) in keeping on top of all the latest knowledge base info about IIS 6. This web page lists the latest articles, and this  button, which you find at the top of each technology's page, let's me subscribe to the IIS 6 RSS feed for new updates.

Signing up for the email alertz is easy and it's free - just quickly create an account and start checking the boxes next to the topics you are interested in. You can choose from the whole gamut of Microsoft technologies.

The Microsoft Knowledge base is cool, and it's a great source of info. KBAlertz just makes it better.

Update on my back surgery stuff for the four or five of you who are following and care...

Well, since my back surgery procedure things in December, I have had some relief from the pain I was experiencing. I even had a couple of days where I felt better than I can ever remember feeling.

But overall, while things are certainly better in many ways, overall it's not been better enough, if you will, to call it resolved. I have been doing physical therapy for two full months and the pain has increased and decreased somewhat a number of times. But overall, it's still a problem - weakness in both legs, pain reaching from my back into my legs and feet, and enough pain to keep me up at night and severely limit my ability to do the regular day-to-day things I need (and want) to do in life.

The procedure that was done in December was a minimally-invasive procedure, in which the doc went inside the L5/S1 disc and removed some of the material there, which was to allow some of the bulging material that is impinging on my spine to be reduced, relieving pressure on the spinal nerves, and therefore relieving pain. Unfortunately, while it's better at times than it was, it's still a pretty serious problem.

So, the doc ordered a new MRI a couple weeks ago. We saw the films the other day. And it looks like its time to see another surgeon. At least this surgeon says so.

Unfortunately, the images are not all that good. The disc appears to have extruded more material at some point, so the problem and pain are in the same general location (same joint), and it feels and acts very much like what I was experiencing before the procedure, except that the pain moves from one leg to another somewhat regularly. I guess after 12 or so years of wear and tear, this is just not going to be a simple process.

So, off to a few more docs I go. The minimally invasive route was, I think, worth it for a first step, but now it's time to see what - if anything - can be done to better solve the problem. My current doc has his recommendations (microsurgical discectomy to cut out and remove the herniation), and we'll see what other docs think is the best thing to do.

I just finished a 6-day pack or methylprednisolone, which is a super-anti-inflammatory thing. For a couple of days, when the daily dose was high, I felt fairly okay. Now that it's all gone and all I am taking is the regular anti-inflammatory stuff, it's back to being pretty darned uncomfortable and at times pretty painful.

I don't expect to be made completely better - not at all. But it would be nice to be able to lean over the sink when I wash my hands and brush my teeth, or to be able to bend over to put on my socks and whatnot. Not to mention the fact that things like pulling weeds in the garden can't last for more than 5 or 10 minutes on a good day, and if I actually decide to pull the weeds, I'll pay for it for days.

Again, I am glad I went with the minimally invasive route first. It has helped me overall, and generally speaking I am in somewhat less pain, which is a good thing. I'll just have to move on from here and see what's the next best thing to do.

People reading this weblog in HTML format can see the banner ad above for a Mac Mini, which is linked to my affiliate registration page on Gratis Network's web site. There they present an offer to sign up for a referral account, the end result of which is to get a free Mac Mini. In other words, spread the word and get some people to sign up and you get a free machine. Each participant has to complete a marketing offer of their choice.

I know this is such a shameful, terrible thing for me to do, placing an ad on my web site and hoping people will actually click on it, that some of those will sign up for the program and choose one marketing offer from the several presented, and that ten people will actually complete one of the offers (and then do the same thing if they choose, so they can get a free Mac mini, too).

But hey, it's as much an experiment as it is a desire to get the computer. And besides, a few of the offers interested me even without the carrot of a free computer.

And I am doing this passively - I blogged about it when I first set it up, and since then it's just been an ad up there on the web page. Anyhow, being a bit of a sceptic, I thought it would be interesting to watch, and I figured I'd catalog some of my experience thus far here.

First of all, my weblog is definitely not geared toward Macs or Apple. I just don't write much about them. Not that I have anything against the Apple products - quite the contrary, in fact. I have been considering a Powerbook or Mac purchase for some time now. I won't ever switch from the PC, but adding it to my lineup of computers would not be a bad thing. At any rate, the people who visit this site are not coming here looking for Mac info or computers, for the most part.

That said, a number of people have signed up for the offer, many have not completed the whole marketing thing, and six of you out there are logged as having signed up, completed an offer, and it's showing credit for doing so. I know of at least one person who has done all that and does not show up as receiving credit for his activity, which is too bad. It's been a few weeks, too. It should work better than that, but glitches do happen - and there is a way to let the service kbow if you don't get your credit.

So, with six people having completed the process in the past month or so, that means four more will need to complete one of the marketing offers before I will receive the computer.

I have some thoughts about the whole process, and the offers presented. Here they are in no particular order:

• People tend to be leery of "free" offers and marketing madness (myself included), but since I actually know a couple people who received free iPods and flat-screen computer monitors by participating in Gratis' programs, I have some confidence. Plus, TechTV lends some credibility (wow that's oxymoronic, but you get the point) in this video segment.
• The survey thing when you first sign up is a little annoying because they don't make it clear it's not part of the core offer (they ask you a bunch of questions marked "optional" and you can skip them if you want, or just wait for the email to show up that gives you a confirmation link that bypasses the survey stuff - it only takes a minute or so). I get the reasons for it (this is, after all 100% marketing), and it looks like they have made some improvements, but still... You can skip it and click your email link to continue.
• There are some cool offers on there, but the ones that enticed me the most were available earlier on in the campaign. I signed up for Blockbuster Online, and I am really enjoying that, but I don't see it available there anymore. I think eFax is a great service for people who need to send and receive FAXes and don't have or don't want to deal with the paper machine - it's all electronic and portable. There's a 30-day free trial of Stamps.com on there now, and I am tempted to sign up for that one myself, it's a cool service that I could actually use.
• I have not actually heard of anyone receiving a free Mac Mini yet - anyone gotten that far along yet?

So, if you're interested in doing the same thing, or if you're in the market for an eFax or Stamps.com account and want to use their trial offers, or if you're just curious, click the banner and help a guy out.

I'll post more if/when I actually get the computer.

Ok, let's face it - the native discussion list capabilities in SharePoint 2003 are - well - they're just "okay." They do work, but are just a little too frustrating in their implementation to use in the real world.

But Serge van den Oever has posted an announcement and a link to the SourceForge site where they have put together a release of the "Macaw Discussion Board," a list template that builds on top of the SharePoint native discussion lists and improves on the native functionality big-time.

It is great that SharePoint supports discussion lists, its a pity that their implementation is "suboptimal".

The two biggest problems that I have with the discussion lists are:

• When you reply on a discussion item, you don’t see the text you are replying on
• Discussion items are displayed in the wrong order: oldest items first!

Changing this behavior is not as easy as providing a new view. Some more work is required.

We worked around these limitations more than a year ago, but I never found the time to make these modifications available to the community. Until now…

They have also provided a discussion thread view in their list template.

So, before you run off to find a third party forum/discussion program to adapt to SharePoint because the default capabilities are too frustrating, you might want to see what you can do with Macaw's Discussion Board. You can check our Serge's announcement and documentation post and download the list template.

Yesterday I mentioned the HHGTTG trailer. But there's another trailer out (it may have been out for a while, not sure?) for a film that just a few people are anticipating, as well.

Update - Rick fills us in on a new trailer about to come out: "That's a pretty old trailer. A new one comes out online 03-14, but you can see it in the theater before Robots starting 03-11, or during the OC on 03-10."

Star Wars Episode III - Revenge of the Sith opens in theaters on May 19th. A trailer is available online. Looks like it might be cool, but history has proven it's a little hard to tell with Star Wars movies. I hope it is. And I hope they don't spend too much time showing Darth Vader slowly "rising," rotating mechanically to an upright position on some metal contraption. Freakin' pull that awesome Vader-virtual-choke-hold thing on someone or cut someone's arm off or something! Armies of Wookies... Better than Jar Jar for sure... Hmmmm, this one might be cool.

When the first Star Wars movie came out back in 1977, I had just turned 10 years old. It showed for more than a year off and on (more on than off) as a matinee film in my home town. I saw it dozens of times with my friends. We were young upcoming geeks and nerds, living in the ultimate little incubator of geeks and nerds. So, it doesn't actually matter to me whether the movie is good or not, it represents coming full circle on a long journey of sorts. Well, metaphorically anyhow.

Did you know??? The original script name for the original Star Wars film (Episode IV) was "Adventures of the Starkiller: Episode 1 - The Star Wars." Sure am glad they changed that.

Anyhow, check out the Episode III online trailer, and enjoy. But if you're into this stuff and don't mind getting sucked in for a few hours, there's also a bunch of cool videos about the making of Episode III available here, and some concept art used in the making of the film can be seen here.