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A really Good Friday.

Logan1On Good Friday, April 6th 2007 Logan Rider Singleton arrived. Amy did great. After just four hours of labor he was born weighing 9 lbs. 5 ozs. It started out rough because Amy went into labor fast and hard while walking around Shelly Lake with her mom.  We weren’t sure if she was going to have the baby before having time to get an epidural.  Once she got it everything was smooth sailing just like Connor’s delivery.

amy2.JPG I don’t know if there was another baby at Rex Healthcare with a bigger fan base in the lobby.  Hannah and Skylar got to see their new cousin get his first bath at about 9:30 pm.  Connor was already asleep so he got to meet his little brother today.  The rest of the day he kept telling me how much he loves baby Logan.  We’re bringing him home on Easter Sunday.

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Looks like I’m going to work tomorrow.

Unless Amy goes into labor tonight.  So far it looks like she’s on track for Tuesday April 3rd which is the second due date we were given.  Then again it could happen any time now.  She’s been having some minor cramping.  Little false alarms but nothing worth getting packed for.

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Any time now.

Today Logan hit his first due date given to Amy.  Later another doctor said April 3rd.  She’ll probably land right in the middle.  We’re just waiting patiently.  Amy’s being good but she’s eager.  I still have a boogie board to paint for the nursery.

I finally got my bonus today.  Now I get to give it all to the hospital.

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How’s this for a day?

I pulled a muscle in my back getting off the sofa this morning (where I sleep every night since Connor kicked me out of the bed) and then proceeded to check my bank account for my bonus I was told should be in the bank.  Huh?  No bonus?  In furry I almost quit my job.  Then I found out I received bad information from the rumor mill that is my workpalce and that my bonus was approved, plus a raise, just not in time for this payroll deposit.

So the rest of the day was busier than any on record and in the middle of it I proceeded with the final interview for the newest Junior Sys. Admin position I’m hiring for.  At least I didn’t have to pay for lunch.

So on the way home, down the country back roads, my back still in pain, plus I was hungy, and out of no where a loud explosion occurred on the right side of my truck.  Did someone shoot it?  That was my first thought but no.  I ran over some piece of plastic that fell off the top of the work van full of illegal aliens in front of me.  My back right tire was flat.  But I was about a mile from home so I hobbled to the driveway.

A few minutes later I got out the jack and surprise, the portion of the jack handle that’s suppose to fit in the jack itself to crank it doesn’t fit.  Not even close.  I even read the instructions.  Not something I’m known for.  Ford obviously put their best Engineers on jack handles.  Therefore I was off to Advanced Auto.

The clerk roaming the isles asked what I was going to lift.  I said “my F-150”.  To which he replied “this is the kit you need”.  It was a 2-ton Hydraulic floor lift and two jack stands for $27.  I’ll take it.

Well I shouldn’t have.  I got under the rear end of the truck, positioned the jack to the axel and pumped it to it’s maximum height of thirteen inches.  Which is about two inches too low for an F-150.  So now I’ve got a jack to return, blown rear tire, my back still hurts and it hasn’t rained in two months but it’s going to pour tomorrow.  Okay, the gods have spoken.

All this on a day I was excited about.  I was expecting lots of money in the bank and steaks for dinner.  Instead I got microwave soup and a flat.

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I’m laughing at Windows Vista right now.

What a letdown. I ran it during beta testing and found nothing special about it. I though Microsoft would certainly add something to it that would entice me to have it on a system once the retail release came around. We got a few copies of Vista Business at work this week. Here are the differences I found between XP and Vista with an explanation as to why none of these features are new, exciting, or even worth a d@#!.

  • Windows Defender = Yet more annoying Windows security prompts. Thanks.
  • Instant Search = Google Desktop Search
  • Windows Aero Desktop = Yippee. Now I can flip through 3-D windows on my desktop. How this makes me more productive, I don’t know.
  • Meeting Space = Little, tiny Netmeeting. A subscription is required for full functionality of Livemeeting. Citrix Gotomeeting is cheaper, easier, and established.
  • New backup features = Very slightly enhanced MS Backup. It’s not anywhere near as innovative as System Restore Points were in XP.
  • New Interface = The primary reason PC users tired of XP quickly declare “ooh, I like it”. Just what Microsoft was counting on. It’s finally a different desktop environment for them but hardly new to anyone who’s used alternative NFS operating systems all along.

Once again Microsoft has proven they are not innovative. Just like when the announced Active Directory with a thousand trumpets and anyone who ever used Novell NDS, or directory services on NFS said “oh look, it’s LDAP 10 years late”.

Needless to say I haven’t found one technical reason to go out and put Vista on any machine I own permanently. Now if you’re a gamer who just “must have” DirectX 10 by all means, do your worst. But for those of us who check email, write documents, script, or use remote administration utilities there is little this operating system offers past transparent task bars. Just like the ones I had when I was running the Blackbox windows manager on BSD eight years ago.

How come Microsoft didn’t sit down and try to come up with something that would actually entice a few Apple or Linux fans to give Vista a day in court? It’s almost as if they are so arrogant about their market share that they’ve decided not to try anymore. They’ll just roll with the existing user base and try not to lose anyone by throwing a bone in the form of a lousy graphical interface change every once and a while. A copied, un-innovative, bloated interface at that.

I really was hoping for more and stood ready to give Vista my endorsement in the shadow of ridicule from the Apple and Linux promoters. But I cannot. All I can think is, the hype lasted 5 years for what?

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Something interesting…

I learned today…

 

“In a recent Institute for Traffic Safety study, listening to right-wing talk radio was found to be nearly twice as distracting while driving as listening to NPR.”

 

Hmmm….  Nothing bad can come from this.  Attention Neocons: Please enjoy more right-wing ranting.  You can thank Rush for the higher insurance rates.

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Updating Exchange 2003 and BlackBerry Server the Daylight Savings Time Change

There are two updates that must be completed to update Exchange 2003.  Three if you haven’t already upgraded to Service Pack 2.

The first is the cumulative time zone update for Windows 2003 Server which can be found at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/931836/.

The second is the Update for daylight saving time changes in 2007 for Exchange 2003 Service Pack 2 which is at http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=926666.

If you have a Blackberry Server there are no specific patches that are required by RIM on the server itself.  There is a patch that needs to be run on the handhelds which can be pushed to the devices from the server.  More information is available directly from Blackberry at:

 http://www.blackberry.com/select/dst2007/resolutions/enterpriseserver/exchange.

Here’s the PDF that explains how to cofigure the software push to the BlackBerry handhelds from the BlackBerry Server:

http://www.blackberry.com/select/dst2007/Deploying_DST_2007_Update.pdf

It works.  I just pushed to my unit as a test.

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Internet Explorer 7 – No more duplicate “home” tabs

I’ve started using IE7 instead of Firefox. Why commit such blasphemy? Because the tabbed browsing is functionally better. For a long time I’ve been setting multiple tabs as my “home” page. Long before IE7 I disliked the way Firefox opened all of the tabs set as the home pages as duplicates (except for the currently selected tab) when the “home” button is pressed.

IE7 did away with this nonsense while I can’t find much reference of it as an acknowledged problem or future enhancement by Mozilla. Now when you press the home button in IE, while the first tab to the left is selected, it will only refresh, not re-open, all of the pages you have set as the home page tabs. To me this is a critical function that I think has been long overlooked by Mozilla. Strange that I can find no reference to it bothering anyone else.  I don’t think I’m being too picky.  It bothered someone at Microsoft.

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How do you feel about Global Warming?

Personally I’ve felt guilty about the amount of energy I waste long before it became a media spectacle and a consensus of international scientist confirming we’re responsible for killing our own atmosphere. Amazingly there are still Neocons who swear the the problem doesn’t exist much less that humans cause it. My own father falls directly into this category. But like the majority of Americans I hear about it and think it’s terrible but do absolutely nothing to change my personal behavior.

I’m not paying extra for recycled paper towels, my company isn’t going to give me $3000 for buying a hybrid vehicle (the Timberland shoe company does) and I’m not going around the house unplugging all of my power supplies and battery chargers. In fact, if I had to turn off my desktop PC when I’m not using it you wouldn’t be reading this and I’d be paying a monthly fee for web hosting. In short, there’s no incentive.

I admit there’s a problem but I’m too selfish to sacrifice my personal desires and routines for universal positive gain. Welcome to America. This is precisely why our government is lax on the environment. There’s no monetary or political benefit to requiring corporations to implement expensive environmental controls. One suggestion I heard an environmental consultant recommend on a news program was “stop flying so much, use video and web conferences”. I’m sure the airline industry loves that idea. Again, where’s the national economic incentive? We don’t see where saving the atmosphere is going to provide anyone with a commission check. The only thing that governs America is money.

Until there are financial or personal incentives for individual Americans and corporations to cut back on greenhouse emissions it’s simply not going to happen. There’s not even social or cultural incentive. You’re stereotyped a “tree hugger” if you drive a hybrid or anything less than a 4-door SUV. The only reason Americans buy fuel efficient vehicles is to save money at the pump, not to stop emitting carbon atoms. It would be completely deceptive for us to tell the rest of the world we’re going to do our part to help when we have no intention of doing any such thing. It’s perceived to be too inconvenient, time consuming, expensive and socially embarrassing to be environmentally concerned in America. Yet we will give awards to the movie “An Inconvenient Truth”, which is now required viewing in several European countries. Please enjoy American hypocrisy at it’s finest.

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Fine Art. Finally.

Where would we be without the Internet? Still strolling through antiquated “modern” art museums looking at “interpretive” crap that could be mistaken for the homework of a 4-year-old, that’s where. Thanks to the web we can be introduced to art that would be worth traveling to see. Like the sidewalk chalk drawings of Julian Beever. “Striking” is my new word for the week and this art is the definition. Julian’s images can be over 30 feet long on the sidewalk but appear to be only three or four feet high in perspective. Crazy.
http://users.skynet.be/J.Beever/pave.htm

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