There are a few different options out there for running virtual machines on your desktop. One of those available options is Parallels, and an electronic-delivery special offer lets you get two copies of Parallels v4.0 for the price of one. That's $40 per copy, quite a deal. So, if you have a need to run Windows apps on your Mac, or you want to run any other PC-based operating system, you might consider grabbing a copy. You could give the other one away as a good, geeky Christmas gift.

Link: Parallels two-for-one offer

15 years ago Rwanda was the scene of massive genocide. Today the country is working to transform itself become an Internet hub of the African continent.

This is a good video by Internet Evolution, and shows that the Internet's not just about big companies and catch-phrase ideas like Web 2.0. You can't really see or know the extent of the Internet and it's impact without going places to see the impact for yourself. Since most of us can't do that on our own, Internet Evolution's Web Wide World videos take us there.

Just a quick note to mention that I've been posting a lot to my flight blog at http://coordinatedflight.blogspot.com/, which I started in order to document my lessons and experiences as I work to become a private pilot.

My latest flight, which I made to Salem, Oregon on Saturday, is documented both in text and as a podcast MP3 file. Let me know what you think. The entry can be found at this link.

I'm truly enjoying learning to fly. I'd say "I should have done this years ago," but in truth I'm enjoying having something new and challenging at this point in my life.

Not that you'd actually want to do it (or at least I don't think I would), but you have to admit it's pretty cool that you can now run Linux on the iPhone. It's really basic so far, but no doubt it will get better and have more and more hardware/feature support. Maybe a dual-boot option would be cool though, after all...

Details are here and Engadget has info, too. Video showing it off below. What would you use it for?

It seems like just yesterday in many ways, but it's actually been nine years - An eternity and the blink of an eye, all rolled into one. So much has changed in that time, yet so much seems the same.

My son died suddenly on November 24th so many years ago, and while much has happened and changed in the intervening time, there's a slice of me that was sort of put on hold back then - almost as if one dimension of time simply stopped still while another kept on moving along. I miss Brian, but I am also thankful for the time we had together.

So, the Thanksgiving holiday is always a bit of a rough time for me, one with mixed feelings. Each year, however, I purposefully try my best to remember what the holiday is all about and to reflect on the things in life for which I am truly grateful, and there are many. One of the ways I do that is by writing and re-writing this, partly for me and in no small part for others who might be feeling much the same way. Over the past couple years I've published versions of the words things I'm repeating here, but that's what it's all about really - looking back, reflecting on progress, changing and growing as we move forward.

Not too long ago some friends of mine impressed upon me the importance of adopting an "attitude of gratitude" in life. What they meant - at least in part - was that the place where you focus your thoughts is pretty much where you'll end up, and that being grateful for what you have - rather than obsessed with what you don't have - is a good thing to do. For the most part I think they're right. This time of year I tend to think about a lot of things, some difficult and some pleasant. But every year I try to take some Thanksgiving time to remember that even though life is crazy and our time is often too short, there are so many things in life for which I am grateful and give thanks.

Life's not perfect, and from the depths of the desperate situations and experiences that substantially change us - often things that we would never wish to have happen again, to anyone - we are destined to learn and grow, and hopefully to become better people in the end. I know I have experienced that over the years, and my life is quite different as a result.

But, this is supposed to be about what I am thankful for. About gratitude.

I am thankful for my friends, my family, my work, my home, my goofy dog. I am grateful for doctors who fixed my damaged body and for people who cared enough to put their lives on hold when I needed it. I sometimes wish I was better to those who have been so good to me, and I strive to find ways to give back and pay forward. I truly appreciate them, and am thankful they are a part of my life.

There are many people in this world much better than me, and a few of those good people I've had the privilege to know personally. I am thankful for them, even if I don't or can't always show it when it counts. I only hope in the future I can be more much more worthy of their qualities.

Thanksgiving doesn't have to be just one day a year. We can - and should - remember these things every day. But in a busy world of getting from here to there, a strong reminder never hurt anyone.

I'm grateful for my life, the people in it, the goods and the bads, and for the possibilities of the future - whatever those may be. I've been very fortunate in many, many ways, and am truly thankful for that. As they say, "With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world."

Yes, it is.

Portland's Shizzow, a thankfully-simple service that you can use to "shout" to your people and let them know where you are, has announced they're expanding into the California market. The service got its start here in Portland, Oregon and the team has methodically built it out and run it in the home market up until now.

The basic idea of Shizzow is this: A quick and easy social networking service that lets you quickly and easily communicate to your friends about where you are so you can spend more time face-to-face. It's really as simple as that. You don't need to know addresses, you can just provide a name. Shizzow figures out the rest. You can also add custom locations (like Greg's place, for example). There's a simple interfaces for web, mobile and SMS.

Now Shizzow has sprouted wings and is offering the service to people in California, with a focus on the San Francisco Bay Area - That's quite an expansion! The service is available for people living in either area via an invitation, which you can request here. I also have ten invitations available for anyone who asks, until they're gone. Just email me or leave a comment (be sure to provide your email address in the comment form so I can send it to you).

Great job by the Shizzow crew, which (it should be noted) is a small group of people that have built and run this operation outside of the their day jobs. That's how they plan to expand - Bootstrap it along and continue along the lines of their current success. I hope we'll see an API sometime soon, since that would provide the ability to deliver mobile apps and what have you, and could open up the use (and in the end enhance usability) of the system substantially. Cool stuff!

I wrote all about it on my flying blog, but Sunday was an exciting and cool day, because I flew an airplane solo, all by myself with no one else in the plane, for the first time. This whole flying thing might work out, after all!

The full story is documented on my "Coordinated Flight" blog, should you care to read all about it.

While at the TechEd EMEA conference is Spain this week, I had the opportunity to visit with Thomas Dawkins from Microsoft's Trustworthy Computing Group. He's the guy responsible for the Microsoft Security Assessment Tool (or MSAT for short). The MSAT is a tool that's been around for a couple of years, but it was recently updated by Thomas with some great new enhancements, including a new user interface and a stronger, more complete set of back end information.

MSAT is a free tool that you can download from Microsoft. It's targeted to companies of 1,500 employees or smaller (as a general rule) and follows a questionnaire format to assess weaknesses in the IT security environment. Bt it's not a parching tool or a scanning tool. Instead, it leverages standards like ISO 27001 and NIST-800.x to baseline the security readiness of your organization.

It enables people to do what we security professionals hope for: analysis across each of the people, process and technology elements of a business' computing environment in order to ascertain how and where we need to spend our time and energy. The tool not only describes the state of readiness of the assessed environment, it also provides best-practice recommendations rooted in industry-accepted standards that can be used to improve the organization's security stance.

One of the most likely users of a tool like this is the IT manager, but one can also picture security consultants, business managers, and anyone else with responsibility for an organization's security operations leveraging the tool and the reports it generates.

You'll also likely be interested to know that Microsoft has released the fifth version of its Security Intelligence Report, which looks at the state of computer and information security over the past six months. You can find links to the full report and the key findings summary documents on Microsoft's web site.

Well, we're getting going full swing for a week of TechEd conference in Barcelona, Spain. video, audio and stage presentations will be keeping us busy all week. If you're here, please let me know, or drop by and say hi at the "fishbowl" or TechEd stage.

The weather when I flew in yesterday was bumpy and wet, but today it's beautiful and sunny outside - more like the Barcelona I remember. Not that well be out in the air much, this week - but it's nice to look outside and see sun. The hotel and conference center are right on the sea, and as long as I can stay heathy this week, it will be great.

I had the opportunity today to spend some time chatting with Ben Jackson, who's the owner and technical director of Brainjuice, LLC. His company created Blogo, the app I use on my Mac to write posts like this one.

But today we weren't talking about Blogo, we were discussing a new iPhone game Brainjuice is in the final phases of completing called Arcade Hockey. It's just about done and will appear in the iTunes App Store in early to mid November. It's a table hockey game and it's a lot of fun, well-executed and designed.

Here are a few screenshots of the game screens, so you can see what's coming. You can click on each image to see the full-sized version.

The splash screen, which you see when the game first starts:

You have the option of playing a one- or two-plater game. In the one-player version you play against the computer's artificial intelligence opponent. More on that later in the article.

You can choose a few options, like the size of the paddles and pucks, as well as the version of the game (standard arcade deck, or "boomerang" style.

Game play consists of a classic table hockey game, and you use the tip of your finger on the touch screen to move the paddle and hit the puck. The physics of the game are pretty good, and the puck reacts pretty how you'd expect and want it to.

The classic and boomerang tables:

When you've played your "best-of" set, the game makes sure each player knows who won and who lost.

I ordered some new business contact cards since I ran out of the old ones some time ago. They arrived today. Rather than going the standard route or reordering the ones with my mug on the front, I decided to shop over in the UK via the Internet.

I ordered one of Hugh MacLeod's designs from over at gapingvoid. He's made a bunch of his designs available for online ordering at Street Cards. The quality of the cards is great (I ordered the coated cards), and I received them just in time for my trip next week to TechEd EMEA in Barcelona and the Dev Connections conference the following week in Las Vegas.

If there's one thing I've learned working in IT and security management over the past several years, it's what these cards convey. It's been a bot of a motto of mine over the years, so it's appropriate for my business cards, I think (click the link to see the full-sized image).

Thanks to Hugh for making it possible to use his artwork. He makes them available for download and use from his site, and they're great stuff.

It's been an interesting and exciting few days in iPhone land.

In the just past couple days, Google Earth and a voice recording application from Griffin have both been released for the iPhone. Add to that the news that iPhone owners now have access to AT&T WiFi hotspots for free - nice! Google Earth is - of course - free, and Griffin iTalk is free for a limited time, along with it's Mac client (for syncing).

Google earth on the iPhone (iTunes app store link) is pretty cool. It takes advantage of the GPS and accelerometer, and other than that it's, well... Google Earth, just on a smaller screen. You can use touch/twist to rotate gestures on the screen, as you'd expect. I should mention that it's crashed a lot on me, and that when I first installed it I had to hard-reset my phone to get anything to work. But for the most part its been as stable as any other complex app on the device (meaning mediocre to so-so). It's worth the install for sure, if for no other reason then just because of most of the cool things you can do with Google Earth on your Mac or PC.

The other great app that everyone with an iPhone or second-gen iPod Touch should run and get right now (while it's free) is Griffin's iTalk and the complementary iTalk Sync client, which allows you to sync your audio recordings made with the iPhone app to your Mac (PC version coming soon) over the air via WiFi. It works like a charm, is well-documented, looks great and the audio quality is user configurable. The best quality setting sounds pretty great. It could realistically be used for man-on-the-street style interviews.

Provide a file name, select the recording quality, and start recording by clicking the Big Red Button:

The green button means you're actively recording. The VU meter shows your audio levels live. Click the green button to stop recording.

You'll end up with a file (or more than one if you record multiple times) showing in the recording list.

When you load up the Mac sync client app (a small and quick install) and start the iPhone app on the same wireless network, you'll be prompted to allows the sync client to access your iPhone's recordings.

While copying the file via the sync program, the iPhone shows you the status and progress:

And finally you have the files on your Mac (or soon on a PC), in .AIFF format, ready to use. Nice and easy!

I plan to play with the app in Barcelona next week and test the audio quality to see if it's really good enough for on-the-spot interviews for the podcast. It's worth a shot, although it won't touch the quality of my Zoom H4 recorder, of course.

I got a call this morning, a variation of the same call I get around two or three times a month. Someone saw my phone number over in the sidebar and called me to find out about posting items for sale or rent on "Greg's List."

Each time the call comes in, I explain that the site they're looking for is actually Craig's List, which is on the web at http://www.craigslist.org. So, if you happen to be looking for Greg's List, it's actually called Craig's List, and there's the web address for ya. And don't worry, you're not the only one.

Of course, you can still feel free to call me up and say hi anyhow, if you like. :)

Update: Microsoft's Mac business unit just set the land-speed record for turning around a fix. The story is available over at TUAW.

I've been wrestling with a problem for a few days after applying the latest Office 2008 for Mac update (v12.1.3). Everything works well except for sending and responding to meeting notices.

After the update, when Entourage tries to send a meeting notice or response, it throws the following: "[Error] Unexpected data was encountered. [Explanation] Mail could not be sent. Account name: 'Exchange - Greg' Error: -17997."

Needless to say, this is a frustrating problem. I managed to send some original meeting notices by opening them up after they failed to send (you can find them in the Outbox) and clicking the 'Send' button a second time. That worked for some reason. However, the same workaround doesn't seem to work for meeting responses, so I am having to send emails created by hand in order to confirm meeting requests with people who send them to me. Thankfully, when I accept a meeting request it does make it onto my calendar properly - it's just the outbound email that gets hung up.

I've had problems in the past with Entourage not parsing updates created by Outlook, but this is a much bigger and more painful problem. This is another case of "if it just worked the way it's supposed to, it would be the best option by far." A lot like my iPhone in that regard. Glitches kill the experience and create big frustration.

UPDATE: I just found a Microsoft newsgroup thread discussing the problem, and apparently it's a known issue bug in the latest release. Hopefully they'll be able to release a fix quickly. Workarounds include:

• Uninstall Office and reinstall, then update to the version prior to the latest release
  
• Move invitations you create from the Outbox to the Drafts folder and resend (won't work for acceptance notifications, though)
  
• Grin and bear it. :)

I may try removing my Entourage account profile from this computer completely and then setting it back up with the Exchange server fresh just to see what happens. I'd lose a few things that are store local-only in the process, but that won't really hurt me should I decide to go that route.

Anyone else having this issue? Any other great workaround ideas?

The fall conference season is upon us, and I'll be off to Barcelona on the first of November for a week at the Microsoft TechEd Europe/Middle East/Asia conference. I'll be joining my friend and colleague, Richard Campbell, there for the week. If by chance you'll also be there, be sure to let me know ahead of time!

Then, the following week Richard and I will both be traveling to Las Vegas for the Connections conference, where we'll be doing a live RunAs Radio recording session. Should be fun, and we have a great guest slated. More on that later.

If you'll be at either conference, please let me know via a comment or an email!