greg hughes - dot net
Note that the contents of this site represent my own thoughts and opinions, not those of anyone else - like my employer - or even my dog for that matter. Besides, the dog would post things that make sense. I don't.
 Monday, May 02, 2005
Lots and lots of SharePoint Portal Server related live webcasts coming up - here's a list of all the sessions (many are repeated):
| Fri, 06 May 2005 |
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| Thu, 12 May 2005 |
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| Mon, 16 May 2005 |
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| Mon, 16 May 2005 |
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| Tue, 17 May 2005 |
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| Tue, 17 May 2005 |
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Live Webcast |
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| Tue, 17 May 2005 |
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Live Webcast |
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| Wed, 18 May 2005 |
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Live Webcast |
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| Wed, 18 May 2005 |
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Live Webcast |
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| Wed, 18 May 2005 |
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Live Webcast |
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| Thu, 19 May 2005 |
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Live Webcast |
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| Thu, 19 May 2005 |
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Live Webcast |
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| Thu, 19 May 2005 |
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Live Webcast |
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| Thu, 19 May 2005 |
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Live Webcast |
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| Fri, 20 May 2005 |
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Live Webcast |
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| Mon, 23 May 2005 |
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Live Webcast |
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| Mon, 23 May 2005 |
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Live Webcast |
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| Tue, 24 May 2005 |
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Live Webcast |
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| Tue, 24 May 2005 |
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Live Webcast |
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| Tue, 24 May 2005 |
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Live Webcast |
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| Tue, 24 May 2005 |
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Live Webcast |
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| Tue, 24 May 2005 |
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Live Webcast |
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| Wed, 25 May 2005 |
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Live Webcast |
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| Wed, 25 May 2005 |
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Live Webcast |
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| Wed, 25 May 2005 |
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Live Webcast |
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| Thu, 26 May 2005 |
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Live Webcast |
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| Thu, 26 May 2005 |
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Live Webcast |
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| Thu, 26 May 2005 |
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Live Webcast |
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| Thu, 26 May 2005 |
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Live Webcast |
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| Thu, 26 May 2005 |
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Live Webcast |
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| Fri, 27 May 2005 |
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Live Webcast |
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| Tue, 31 May 2005 |
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Live Webcast |
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| Wed, 01 Jun 2005 |
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Live Webcast |
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| Tue, 21 Jun 2005 |
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Live Webcast |
Microsoft has a couple of online webcast workshops on secure coding coming up:
Sounds interesting. Secure coding is critical - much more so now than ever. Every developer of any web app should be required to become and stay proficient in secure coding.
Not exactly a predictable couple of cities for me to be traveling to, but I am off on a whirl-wind trip to Toledo, Ohio and Omaha, Nebraska. Lots of IT and security kinds of things to think about, check out and make decisions around on this trip, which makes it fun in a way. I'll be back home on Wednesday night.
I'm not sure the fun actually compensates for a bad back and hours upon hours of airplane time (getting to Toledo is going to be rough), but at least I will have the good fortune to fly on a CRJ aircraft all the way back to Portland. They are smaller than your average airliner (it's a regional jet), yet they tend to be more comfortable, quieter and faster.
And thanks to Mike for feeding my dogs and cat while I am away. 
A little something for my developer friends...
Not that I'd recommend doing this in a production development environment or anything (there, that's my IT guy disclaimer), but this is great for goofing around on a play box:
Of course, you won't get any of those cool generics or partial classes that go along with the v2.0 framework, but you can at least target v1.1 and still use the new VS IDE.
Saturday, April 30, 2005
NEC's IT Guy Games: 2005 is underway - so go check it out and play.
 You can play as often as you like, and keep working to earn better scores (some of them are freaky amazing high scores). And the end of each competition period, one winner takes home a 61-inch NEC plasma display. The games run April 1 through September 30, 2005 and will be played on the following schedule:
- Hardware Hurl April 1 – May 13
- Projector Protector May 16 – July 1
- Office Obstacles July 5 – August 12
- Cube Luge August 15 – September 30
The IT guy games test the following skills:
- keypad dexterity
- keypad speed
- mouse dexterity
- mouse speed
- visual speed/patterns
- hand/eye coordination
Go play now - play often and play hard - Geeks go wild...
People think it rains all the time in western Oregon, but in reality that's not true. Just don't tell anyone, it's our little secret - We just tell people it always rains so they'll leave us alone. While it can rain quite a bit in the winter months at times, we tend to get long, sunny and relatively dry summers here.
Add to that the fact that a lot of the soil in the area is clay (mine is a reddish clay), and plants have a hard time getting water in the summertime. It's a soil that's got lots of nutrients, but the plants tend to have difficulty absorbing the nutrients and the clay tends to keep the water from effectively reaching the plants. A plant that is set directly in clay is likely to have a hard time without some help at planting time. I've found from my own experience that a little extra work when the hole is dug makes for a much healthier plant.
So, proper soil prep is important, and when it's done well, you can't hardly keep plants from growing in the Pacific Northwest.
Amending clay soil:
- Dig your hole, make it generous in size
- Put a liberal amount of Doctor Earth organic starter fertilizer in the hole first (organic fertilizer is great because it can go next to the roots and it's almost impossible to burn a plant with a good organic starter fertilizer)
- Mix the native clay soil 50-50 with a quality amendment bagged soil before putting it into the hole
- Place the plant and back-fill with your local/amended soil
Just a few plants that can work very well in dry and clay soil (and there are hundreds of others):
- Phormium
- California Lilac (shiny, evergreen, nice and tight, blooms, 4-5')
- Rugosa (wild) or Juniper Roses (low-lying)
- Pampas Grass (grows big)
 Hackaday points to a web site where the authors show step-by step how to build a super-fast lock picker from a used hard drive, a mouse, part of a network card, a power supply and a small screwdriver.
Just assemble a few parts scattered around the average geek's room, and locks are popping open for ya. Says the author: "The challenge was to build a lockpick device by using computer parts, and of course we did it, and it works pretty well and really fast." Sure does!
Pictures and a demo video showing it work are all on the page.
 Add/Read:
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I frequently get asked, "Do I have to install Visio just to view a Visio diagram someone sent me?" or "I don't want to install Office on this computer - where can I get the viewer program for PowerPoint files?"
And sometimes people are looking for file version/type converters because someone sends them a file created with a different version of an Office application.
- Converters allow you to open files created by people using different versions of your Office programs.
- Viewers provide a means for people who don't have Office programs to see your work. You can provide them with the appropriate viewer along with your Office files.
Both are useful and requests from all sort of people seem to come up every now and then.
So, here's a one-stop place at office.microsoft.com to download the latest versions of Microsoft's free Office viewer and converters. Or, just click below:
Access viewers
Excel converters and viewers
Outlook converters and viewers
PowerPoint converters and viewers
Microsoft Project converters
Visio converters and viewers
Word converters and viewers
Converters and viewers for Macintosh users
Friday, April 29, 2005
In December I had a minimally-invasive surgical procedure done on my lower back to try to help correct a herniated disc down there in my spine at the L5/S1 joint (that's just below hip level). The end result was a limited success, and I am pretty much back where I was before the procedure nowadays, as far as the back/leg pain, numbness and reduced motor skills in my legs go.
The original procedure was no guarantee, but we had high hopes. I decided a minimally-invasive procedure - one that would not require any permanent changes, cutting or physical limitations - was a good first shot to take. It just didn't work out as well as I would have liked.
 So, I have seen three highly-recommended doctors recently to talk with them about what can be done to help. I am in some level of pain 24/7, I wake up several times every night from the pain, and I am basically restricting my own activity so much that I am becoming fairly miserable and generally unhappy in life. I can't stand for any period of time, I can't stay seated for very long, walking any real distance is painful, lying down requires me to shift around constantly (hence waking up from pain), and really the only position that I can get into that gives me some relief is whatever position I am not in at the time.
The doctor who did the procedure in December told me he thought there were a few remaining possibilities for me: Live with it (always an option), maybe do a microsdiscectomy (an iffy proposition), bone fusion of the joint, or artificial disc replacement.
And, as it turns out, each of these three doctors I consulted with came to pretty much the same conclusion: The only thing that will work for me at this point is removal of the bad disc, followed by either fusing the joint or replacing the disc with an artificial one. Both methods have been around for a while. Artificial discs received FDA approval in the U.S. last year.
It's been very interesting (and enlightening) to visit three neurological surgeons with no information other than my MRI films and a verbal history of my pain and medical care, to see what they would tell me. I did not tell any of them what the other docs said or thought or diagnosed, but all three came up with the same result. That's encouraging, at least in terms of knowing where I really stand. Of course, the idea that I need a fairly major surgery to be better is a little intimidating. But, one further point of encouragement is the fact that all three doctors were quite confident that surgery would make a huge difference in my quality of life. All three said that I am practically the perfect candidate to benefit in a huge way from the procedure.
Then I started thinking about whether it's the "right" thing to do - Is it right to cut into your body and remove parts or put in fake parts? These thoughts keep going through my mind and I'm actually a bit surprised. I guess I just never had the chance to think them before now.
So now comes the decision. Oh boy, this is definitely not the easiest part. Deciding which doctors (it takes two - a vascular surgeon as well as the neurological surgeon), when to have it done (if at all), and which procedure is the best option for me. Not to mention the health insurance company part - who knows what they'll have to say.
A fusion means six to nine months of take-it-easy time, and a longer period of relative inactivity (that includes work). An artificial disc does not have the healing time (there is no fusion process to worry about) and so return to work/normal life is much faster. Fusion has been around for a long, long time. Artificial discs are newer - especially in the U.S. - but have been around for about 15 or so years.
The actual surgical procedure followed to do either the disc replacement or the fusion is pretty much identical. The only real difference is what goes between the vertebrae once they get to where they're headed - some metal cages, some bone, or the artificial disc. Getting in there and closing up is virtually the same.
Anyhow, if anyone who reads this also happens to have received an artificial disc (or knows someone who has), please let me know - I'd like to communicate with you. Also, anyone who's had a fusion, same deal - please contact me by commenting on this post, or click the mail icon over in the navigation sidebar.
Thursday, April 28, 2005 Wednesday, April 27, 2005
 SveaSoft has published the new Talisman/Basic release of their replacement firmware for the Linksys WRT54G and WRT54GS wireless routers. It's available for v1.1 and newer revs of the router hardware (see the label on the bottom, if it's v1.1 or newer you'll see the numbers there).
Subscribers to Sveasoft's firmware service can download it now. It's only $20 a year, and if you're a hardware/software geek with a WRT54G, it's worth the $20 a year just for the fun of messing with it, not to mention the great functionality.
This firmware is excellent, and includes a large number of technical enhancements and improvements over both the default Linksys firmware and the previous SveaSoft firmware versions.
Just some of the extra features the SveaSoft firmware provides above and beyond what the default firmware gives you:
- Increased output radio power (from 0 to 500mw - the router's default is 28mw)
- Improved QOS capabilities
- Advanced Routing Protocols - BGP, RIP2, OSPF, able to run simultaneously
- Read-Write file system with standard SysV startup and shutdown scripts
- in /usr/local/etc/init.d
- Unlimited port forwarding, port range forwarding, and port redirection
- Unlimited port triggering
- Advanced QoS bandwidth management
- PPTP server
- Improved PPPoE handling
- Enhanced Web Interface based on CSS
- Repeater mode (WDS)
- Bridge mode (client) - either routed or direct bridged
- IPv6 support
- Advanced IPv4 filtering
- Ebtables L2 filtering
- Safe parameter backup and restore with support for RW parition backup/restore
- Enhanced DHCP server
- Enhanced DNS server
- Unlimited DHCP static leases with MAC ignore capability
- Enhanced onboard time services
- WPA security on WDS/repeater mode links
- WPA security on bridge/client mode links
- Enhanced status reporting
Classic funny moment - I've been victim of the Slashdot effect (lots of referral traffic) a couple of times in the past. A friend pointed this out to me just a minute or two ago. Looks like Slashdot's got a little hair of the dog that bit 'em problem? What comes around... Heh...
Thanks, Dave.
Tuesday, April 26, 2005
Audible.com - an great audio book/publication service that I have been using for about a year - has published a whole set of RSS feeds so you can subscribe to find out easily what new content is published, including both free and pay-for selections:
And perhaps the coolest thing on the page? I scrolled down and noticed the question "Where can I find more information about RSS?" and the first resource listed is the RSS Quickstart Guide from Lockergnome.com - nice.
Several Tablet PC hardware announcements/leaks/what-have-you in the past couple of days:
I'm still using an Acer C300-series. Still works, but I am holing out for the IBM to see what it looks like, since I am awfully impressed with their T-Series laptops.
© Copyright 2010 Greg Hughes 
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.
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