We recently conducted an interview with Michael Manos, Senior Director of Data Center Services at Microsoft, on RunAs Radio. Microsoft's been working on a substantial set of data center build-outs, and so Richard and I figured there's a lot we can all learn from someone like Michael. Not many people have to think as carefully or in such a large scale about how to best tackle the data center design and build issues.

Microsoft has been doubling their data center capacity each year, and they have to think about maximizing efficiencies, "greening" the data center, locations, power - you name it.

If you're in any way associated with data center design, architecture or operations this show's for you.

Stories at CNN, Ars Technica and CNET are covering the fact that Apple is working on a plan that would allow unlimited "free" access to the iTunes music library - if users paid more up-front for their iPod devices.

This sounds interesting, but it seems like an up-front charge (when you buy the device, as a one-time fee) might have some legal (not to mention business viability) challenges associated with it. Now, if they were to go with a Zune-like monthly subscription model, that would be a whole different story. It would actually make a lot of sense.

Group-think/conventional wisdom seems to be that since the average iPod/Phone user spends about $20 total on music through the iTunes store, it would make sense to charge everyone that much up front. Others say something more like $80 is more reasonable. I think they're all wrong: Charge me $20 up front, and I will do everything I can to maximize - in a big way - that mandatory investment. People only spend an average of $20 because they have to keep paying. Charge that up front and grant them unlimited access, and they'll download more music than you can possibly imagine.

That's where the Zune Pass idea is a better one. Recurring monthly revenue of a predictable, fixed amount (which is great from a business standpoint) and a happy customer base. I just don't see a one-time fixed fee model holding water for very long. But then again, if your intent (hypothetically) is to launch a firestorm campaign to (further) monopolize the market and then dump it as unviable... Well, you might actually succeed at one goal by failing at another. Just an thought. :)

Guy Kawasaki and a couple of his friends recently fired up a site/service called Alltop, which displays a variety of popular topical areas in which various popular blog/news feeds are aggregated. Think of each of the topical sites as a one-stop-information-shop. High-level topics include the categories of Work, Living, People, Interests, Culture, Geekery, Good and News. On his blog Guy describes it as:

Alltop... a news aggregation site that provides “all the top” stories for forty of the most popular topics on the Web. The headlines and first paragraph of the five most recent stories from forty to eighty sources for each topic are displayed. Alltop stories are refreshed approximately every ten minutes.

The interface is clean and easy to read - lots of information on the page. Mouse over a headline and see the first few sentences of the article. Click the headline to go to the original site and read the full article or post.

I'm privileged to be among the bloggers whose sites are listed on the Windows Alltop news site (at http://windows.alltop.com/), along with a list of information sites and authors which - truth be told - I am amazed to be paired with. I mean, glancing at the site right now, I'm on the page between Ed Bott and the IEBlog. If I work hard enough at it, I can only hope to provide the types and quality of information you get from the other sites in the list.

Check out Alltop. Lots of good stuff there.

Vista SP1 is available (details in the document available at this link and Ed Bott did a great what-to-expect write-up and FAQ), so it's time to head on over to Windows Update (it's in your start menu) and grab it. Assuming it shows up in the available-updates list, of course. Apparently there are certain drivers and configurations which, if present on your system, will prevent the service pack from being offered. A Microsoft Knowledge Base article - KB948343 - details the possible causes and solutions.

I upgraded on my 64-bit Vista Ultimate machine a little less than a month ago and have been happy with the performance improvements. If nothing else, just the speed of file copies over the network made it completely worthwhile. Add in other improvements and fixes and it's an important one in my book.

Yesterday I mentioned some new C# screencasts by my friend Stuart that are being published over at Channel 9. Another screencast-format resource for learning about .NET programming and the .NET framework is a new site that Dmitry Lyalin put together recently, called "Better Know a Framework." Dmitry recently joined Microsoft on the East Coast and is passionate about helping people understand the technology. So, if you're a .NET programmer (or want to be), you should check it out, as well. The screencasts so far are well-produced and quite usable.

A short introduction...

The Concept. The concept behind Better Know a Framework is directly inspired by a segment on the .NET Rocks podcast. In this segment the host (Carl) regularly discusses a class or a part of the .NET Framework as a way to expand peoples knowledge. My inspiration is to take this to the next level and bring screencast content to the development community in a similar fashion, a small segment at a time.

One of my colleagues and past co-worker when I was at Corillian/CheckFree, Stuart Celarier, has teamed up with Microsoft's Bruce Kyle and made a whole slew of what they're calling "Whirlwinds" that are being published at the Channel 9 community site at MSDN. By the time they've all been published, Stuart tells me he will have visually covered every new feature in C# v2. Wow, cool information! Stuart, correct me here if I am somehow exaggerating. :)

You can start anywhere you like as these screencasts are published, but for reference, here's a link to the first one, and some information about the project:

Bruce Kyle of Microsoft and Stuart Celarier of CheckFree explore the new languages features in C#. It's a whirlwind tour of the important language features since C# 1. Stuart describes the feature and why it is useful. But doesn't get into best practices nor suggested usages. Just the facts about the feature.

Whirlwinds are bite-sized webcasts, each is shorter than 15 minutes. You can start anywhere in the series to learn about the parts you're most interested in.

In Part 1 about generics, Stuart describes:

• What generics are.
• How generics compare with collections.
• How the compiler treats generics.
• He also describes how generics increase performance and save memory.

This feature is part of C# 2 in .NET 2.0.

Also available is "Whirlwind 2: What's new in C# 2 - Iterators," with lots more to come. Cool idea, well-executed - Congrats, Stuart! If you're a C# person (or would like to be), be sure to check it out.

When I record my audio for the RunAs Radio show, I'm typically sitting in my home office at my desk and using Audacity along with my Samson 01U USB microphone plugged into my Vista laptop. Audacity is an open-source program for all sorts of fancy audio recording, processing and editing. It's really pretty amazing.

Until fairly recently, Audacity was also pretty reliable. But about a month ago I started experiencing occasional crashes when trying to save and export the audio from my recording sessions. Now, if you think about for more than a couple seconds you'll quickly understand that crashes that occur after the interview is over, but before the file is saved, are extremely frustrating - and not just for me. A recording session do-over with three or more people involved in a 30- to 45-minute interview is really not a nice thing to have to ask for.

This morning Richard and I completed an interview with a guest. When I went to save the file, Audacity crashed. My heart sank, and my brain went into oh-crap-overdrive mode. I really did not want to be in the position of having to ask a busy guest to schedule more time to record an interview that had been quite good in the original session. I needed some magic.

I started thinking about temp files. The hard drive is always flashing away as I record the interviews, so something must be saved somewhere, right?

Sure enough, a quick search for *.au files on the hard drive uncovered nearly 400 files in a "_data" folder off the Audacity project's location. The date and time stamps on them made me feel a lot better - Phew! Each file appeared to contain 10 seconds of audio. The first one was stamped with the exact time we started recording the interview, and the last one with the time we stopped.

I imported all the .au files into Audacity, thinking I could just do that and I'd be good to go. But it turns out Audacity doesn't import files one-after-the-other on the timeline. Instead, it imports them as if they were almost 400 individual tracks in a single 10-second audio project. I started the click-cut-end-paste process, and quickly realized it was going to take literally hours to fix this problem manually.

(Also, just for fun I decided to see if the program would actually play a 10-second project session with 400 tracks in it. No dice.)

I quickly gave up on the cut-paste option in search of something better. What I found was the aptly-named Audacity Recovery Utility. Apparently I'm not the only one who's needed to recover recorded audio seemingly lost during application crashes. It's a Python app and can be used on Windows, Mac and Linux.

The program is simple in its execution. You point it at a folder and it looks for audio files, tries to determine if they are all one block/set, or if they're more than one, and then attempts to put them together into a single .WAV file that you can then import back into Audacity (or anywhere else for that matter) for editing and processing.

The app will confirm what it finds and give you a chance to stop it from proceeding.

Tell it "Yes" and the program starts processing the temp files.

Out the other end, you'll eventually get a .WAV file that you can use.

Sure saved my backside today. Thanks to the author! By the way, supposedly Audacity 1.3.2 and newer (which is a beta release right now, not the stable version) have crash recovery built in. I'll probably have to check that out, as well.

The Firefox team has released Firefox 3 Beta 4, which you probably have already read about and downloaded if you're a hard-core geek. But you can say you heard it here again. :)

It's definitely a test version, so expect bugs and other weirdness, as they say:

Thank you for helping test Firefox 3 Beta 4! This release is being made available for testing purposes only. You should read the release notes before getting started.

We want to hear all of your thoughts about this beta, especially if you encounter broken sites or other web weirdness. Drag this feedback button onto your bookmarks toolbar and click on it when you have something to tell us. We'll be waiting to hear from you! (Or, if you'd prefer, you can file a bug.)

I downloaded it as a Portable App from this link.

When the Windows Home Server data corruption bug surfaced a couple months ago (updated information is available here), the Home Server team at Microsoft focused their efforts on squashing it. As a result, the Home Server Power Pack 1 release was delayed as a lower priority (and understandably so at the time).

Microsoft has recently announced that they plan to get the data corruption issue fix out to the market in June this year, but Home Server Product Manager Todd Headrick posted a query on the Microsoft Home Server forums asking people if they'd like to get Power Pack 1 sooner, or if we'd prefer to wait for the corruption fix and take it all at once.

I've voted for the "Power Pack now" option, and will be glad to take a data corruption fix later. As long as there's no dependencies on the bug fix (and it sounds like there's not), and as long as additional risk is not being generated, releasing the power pack earlier is certainly the best option, as long as it's ready. Here are a few reasons why:

• 64-bit client support, so users of Vista 64-bit can use the home server as it is meant to be used (this appears to be a broader-reaching and more-common issue than many thought it would)
• Ability to back up the home server folders to external drives
• Usability and UI improvements
• Other fixes
• Opportunity some good news into the channel (it's a great product with a lot of goodwill in the community that would benefit from some positive karma right now)

As a general rule, big companies (or "enterprise" customers, as we call them) want multiple changes carefully packaged together, with as many problems solved in one patch or update as possible, with low risk. But Home Server is notably not an enterprise product. Instead it is laser focused on a crowd where more frequent feature and fix releases are preferred, encouraged and asked for. So, in the case of Home Server it's probably best to adopt something closer to an iterative release cycle.

What do you think? Microsoft wants to know!

Several months ago I described a number of things I wanted to do during my work sabbatical, which will be coming to an end sometime soon. I've spent that time in a variety of activities, including doing some contract consulting work. But a significant portion of the time has been spent just remembering to enjoy life a little, and getting some much-needed rest. For anyone who knows they need some R&R and happens to have an opportunity to take advantage of, I recommend it highly.

So, what's my report card look like for the past several months?

I made a list back in September of things I wanted or needed to do, and here's a little detail about how each of those has worked out:

Stuff I need (or want) to get done

• Get some real rest (succeeded)
• Finish the bonus room floor and trim at home (thanks to a great friend, the trim and floor are done)
• Finish the shed at home (umm, no progress here yet - still on the list)
• Add a deck to the side of the house (did some designs, but have not pulled the trigger)
• Travel somewhere in a 18-wheeler with my friend Broc (I did that, and it was fun - to California and back)
• Dust off the cameras and get back into the photography swing (have done some of this but not quite as much as I thought)
• Sell my street motorcycle (2004 CBR600RR - still for sale as of this post - email me  if interested!)
• Finish reading this darned Koontz novel that I started 9 months ago, heh (done - it was "Intensity" and it was a fun read)
• Read another book or two - one for enjoyment, one for furthering myself (done - read quite a few, actually)

Things I need (or want) to learn

• Learn a programming language, at least at a starter level - I an thinking C# - any ideas? (Ummm, no real progress here)
• I need to study up for a couple certification exams that the whole we-got-bought-busyness process pushed off my schedule, and then reschedule the exams (I've done the studying part...)

Things/places I need (or want) to do/go

• Visit family in Colorado (done!)
• Visit family in California (done!)
• Visit New Mexico (where I used to live) (still pending)
• Visit a few friends and colleagues in Seattle (done!)

I've also done a whole slew of other things since September. I've traveled to Spain and London, went to see the Patriots beat the Chargers during a weekend trip to Boston, went skiing a bunch of times, recorded a bunch of podcast shows, and a lot more. All in all, it's been a good experience.

Now it's almost time to get back at it, work-wise. I'm in the process of weighing options and deciding what's next. I'm actively involved in a couple ventures that are challenging me and those might be what I decide to do full-time, but have not made decisions yet. Time will tell.

At any rate, I can say with hindsight that I am glad I allocated some meaningful time for myself. I was quite fortunate to be able to do that. Here's to shifting gears!

Ahhh, a big thank-you to Google. I can now sync both directions between Outlook 2007 and my Google Calendar account thanks to Google Calendar Sync. Simply install one little program that occupies (another) space in the taskbar, and set it to sync as often as you wish. Simple as that. I like simple.

I just installed the app, specified my Google Apps account (yep, it work with the Apps calendars, too) and everything was perfect. Can't ask for more than that.

You can set the direction of information flow (from Google Calendar to Outlook, from Outlook to Google Calendar, or both directions), as well.

Quick, useful, easy and it "just works." This whole mobility concept is starting to become more and more usable and seamless. Nice.

UPDATE: In the comments and in email, a couple smart people have asked some important questions regarding whether the app syncs everything it needs to. My thoughts: "So, there's certainly room for improvement, and it looks like some relatively simple enhancements with corresponding configuration options would make this an even better app for a broader range of users."

Microsoft and Apple have announced that they are working together to  make Exchange Server and the iPhone mobile phone work well together. Apple will license Exchange ActiveSync for use on the iPhone, which will in Turn help assure the Exchange Server dominance in the marketplace stays they way it is. It's really as simple as that.

The fact is that Exchange is a pretty terrific server product for email, calendaring and a lot more. The iPhone is a pretty terrific mobile device. They don't integrate too terribly well today: You can sync your calendar and contacts via the USB connection to your computer, and you can get IMAP email from a properly-configured Exchange server (which works, but is not exactly optimal). But it's far from simple, far from seamless, and far from supportable in the enterprise.

One has to wonder what this means, either directly or indirectly, for the Windows Mobile world. I know the arguments: Different markets, different platforms, different purposes, etc. etc. etc... but with the iPhone SDK availability, that gap will be much narrower. And the fact of the matter is, Apple has the usability nailed with the iPhone. Sure, there's a few enhancements needed. But those are ones that can (and I'm certain will) be done.

ActiveSync will provide the ability (assuming Apple leverages all the features) to do push email, calendar and contact sync over the air, and task list sync.

Perhaps one of the more important potential benefits from ActiveSync integration with the iPhone is the ability to get enterprise-class security on the device, which to date is lacking and doesn't meet the needs or standards of most commercial IT departments. Exchange 2007 clients can be set up for enforced enterprise IT "policies" or controls, which would go a long way toward satisfying the security needs. In my mind, that's the biggest potential win. Without that, pushing email and syncing calendars and contacts is to risky an activity.

From Apple's press release come details of what they intend to provide - and it looks liek Cisco VPNs are in the package, as well:

Apple has licensed Exchange ActiveSync from Microsoft and is building it right into the iPhone, so that iPhone will connect out-of-the-box to Microsoft Exchange Servers 2003 and 2007 for secure over-the-air push email, contacts, calendars and global address lists. Built-in Exchange ActiveSync support also enables security features such as remote wipe, password policies and auto-discovery. The iPhone 2.0 software supports Cisco IPsec VPN to ensure the highest level of IP-based encryption available for transmission of sensitive corporate data, as well as the ability to authenticate using digital certificates or password-based, multi-factor authentication. The addition of WPA2 Enterprise with 802.1x authentication enables enterprise customers to deploy iPhone and iPod touch with the latest standards for protection of Wi-Fi networks.

The iPhone 2.0 software provides a configuration utility that allows IT administrators to easily and quickly set up many iPhones, including password policies, VPN setting, installing certificates, email server settings and more. Once the configuration is defined it can be easily and securely delivered via web link or email to the user. To install, all the user has to do is authenticate with a user ID or password, download the configuration and tap install. Once installed, the user will have access to all their corporate IT services.

Good move Apple. Good move Microsoft. Looking forward to this one!

After seven years with Dish Network, I made the change Monday to DirecTV and their HD programming. Granted, Dish Network's HD package has improved lately, and their new HD-only package was interesting, but a few things swayed me away and over to the other satellite programming vendor.

DirecTV has great HD capacity today and is quickly adding more. Another satellite will be launched in the next couple weeks, in fact. Their HD quality is pretty darned good. I like their equipment. And, although it's not here yet, I am thinking ahead to the forthcoming HDPC-20 - a DirecTV tuner device that will integrate with Vista Media Center. I'll be an early adopter of that technology, you can be sure.

The installer was great (despite the pouring rain he had to deal with), and before I knew it I was enjoying 90+ channels of HD programming. I can see some compression in some of the HD content, but you have to expect some of that. All I know is it looks much better than cable TV HD service I've seen before. I suppose I could complain about the fact that I now have a bigger antenna on my roof, but that seriously doesn't matter. I'm getting a lot of choice in return.

Bonus features include the ability to add my own external 750GB eSATA drive to the HD DVR (nice!), web-based DVR remote scheduling, Internet connectivity for on-demand content and information (which is new and in beta), and nice menus and software on the receivers in general. Seriously, it just feels better when you use it.

I'll be participating in the "cutting edge" program, loading software releases for the HD receiver and HD DVR devices at odd hours now and then to test new features and fixes before they're released nationwide. So, this move helps me fulfill the needs of my inner geek, too.

It's really a world of difference with the new service. Quality- and content-wise, it's a big step up.

... and one of the best scenes. Silly, really. But every time I watch this film I laugh out loud, even still today.

"First shalt thou take out the Holy Pin. Then, shalt thou count to three, no more, no less. Three shalt be the number thou shalt count, and the number of the counting shall be three. Four shalt thou not count, nor either count thou two, excepting that thou then proceed to three. Five is right out. Once the number three, being the third number, be reached, then lobbest thou thy Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch towards thy foe, who, being naughty in my sight, shall snuff it."

1. Your life is incomplete
2. You're missing out
3. Shame on you

So go rent or buy a copy now, then watch it and relax, knowing your life is much more whole than it had been before you read this post.

Mine iPhone's jail-broken to let me use a couple truly-useful apps written by third parties, so I'll just wait a few hours before I apply this update from Apple, but early reports are that this new version of the iPhone/Touch firmware can be jail-broken using ZIPHONE (for the adventurous only of course), but note that the author (Zibri) says not to upgrade yet, and to wait for him to create a quick update. No problem. I like having my NetFlix queue available, so jail-breaking is in the cards for me.

The Unofficial Apple Weblog has all the goods and is updating with more info as they discover the details of this firmware release. So far bug fixes seems to be the official word.

Nice that Apple's supplying regular fixes. I'm not exactly counting on being pleasantly surprised and finding things like 802.1x and a whole slew of other needed enhancements, though. Hopefully some day.