Ricknology

Dell Optiplex 990 Ethernet Connectivity Issue To Dell Switch

2011-11-08T18:44:00.001-05:00

Scenario:

Brand new Dell Optiplex 990 PCs, new cat5e wiring, and a new Dell PowerConnect 5548P switch. Connected any Optiplex 990 PC to the Dell switch and the ethernet port does not light up.

Solution:

Connect to the Dell PowerConnect 5548P switch through the console and run the following commands to turn OFF Energy Efficient Ethernet:

>enable
#config
#no eee enable

Now on the Dell Optiplex 990, uncheck the Energy Efficient Ethernet.

Done!

Event ID: 529 Windows Logon/Logoff : Windows 7 : Time

2011-11-04T10:36:00.001-04:00

I am working on setting up a new PC on our Small Business Server 2003 network ( SBS 2003.) When I go to logon with an account that will add the computer to the domain, I would get an Event ID: 529 in the security log on the SBS server. I began to investigate and tried different logins, changed DHCP to static, changed work groups, changed computer names, changed keyboards, re-imaged the PC, all with the same results. I checked Microsoft’s website and they stated a possible hotfix for the issue. It didn’t seem to be the exact problem so I didn’t install the hotfix. Finally I figured possibly I have a nic card issue. So I first go into the BIOS of the PC and what do I notice? The time was off by one year. I’m thinking… hmm this could be something here. I correct the time, start the PC, re-adjust the time again there and check the time zone, try to login to my domain and bingo! I got right in.

So I am writing this blog post to help those that get the Event ID: 529 to look FIRST at the PC clock to ensure it is within five minutes of the server. Now I’ve always known this was mandatory for servers to be within five minutes of each other but I’ve never heard of time issues with PCs.

Rick

My dictionary adventure. a - aargh

2011-04-18T13:27:00.001-04:00

So what the heck is a dictionary adventure you may ask? I'm not going to elaborate too much except to say that I have the 'New Oxford American Dictionary' loaded within the Kindle app on my iPhone and have began reading it as if it were a book. What I do think though is that just after reading the first twenty definitions, I found it fascinating what I've learned.

a - aargh

Aalto is a designer from Finland quite famous and known for his Aalto Vase and furniture made out of bent plywood.

Aalto

Aardwolf - Follows aardvark. I've heard of the later and have seen pictures but this is the first that I've heard of the Aardwolf. This is an animal in Africa that is part of the Hyena family yet it's main diet is termites. Interestingly very similar diet to the Aardvark.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

SharePoint Foundation 2010 SQLExpress Backup

2011-02-06T17:50:00.001-05:00

I have a client utilizing SharePoint Foundation 2010 with the out-of-the-box SQLExpress 2008R2. A SharePoint Farm backup is scheduled to run daily but having a SQL backup of the WSS_Content database is also critical. Typically in most production environments there is a full blown SQL Server running and a backup job can easily be created. With SQLExpress this isn’t an option unless either a Transact SQL script or Powershell script is created and then scheduled. For me, I don’t work everyday in the scripting world and instead found this fantastic application that can backup and compress any SQLExpress database. This program is called ‘SQLBackupandFTP.’ It is FREE to use for up to two databases but otherwise is only $59. What I love about this app is it only took a few minutes to install, setup, and schedule the WSS_Content database to be backed up daily to a network shared location. It actually will build the backup in a temp location first then transfer it over to the location of choice. There is also an option to keep a set number months of backups, which it will automatically remove older backups. Should you want to perform any SQL tasks, it has the option to run SQL commands before or after the backup.

As much as we might like to think that most SharePoint Foundation installations are going into SQL Server, we all know that many installations are starting off out-of-the-box with SQLExpress in development environments, departments, and small businesses, and this tool will at least give them no excuse to not backup the critical WSS_Content database on a schedule. Between this and a scheduled SharePoint Farm backup, the basics are covered.

Filter multiple ID records by Max Date in Excel using MS Query

2010-04-17T12:33:00.001-04:00

Let’s say you have a list of clients, an HVAC contractor has a customer list of service dates of furnace repair, or dates that you have serviced your car, or a Dentist’s clients list of teeth cleanings, or the example we’ll use, orders purchased by customers. We’ll focus on the orders by customer where we need to determine their last order date. But basically, any records that may have multiple entries for the same key field where you need to filter the maximum date for that key. In the case of the HVAC contractor who serviced many customers - many times over the years, they need to be able to determine the last date the customer was serviced. Of course this information could be sorted in decending order and quickly filtered by client, but what if you need to look-up all of your clients that have not had service within the past year? In order to do this the records need to be first filtered down to the maximum date for each key field, in this case, the customer, THEN those records filtered greater than one year. This then would be an accurate list of customers who have not had service within the past year. The same for determining the last order date of a customer’s many orders. When was the last time customers purchased something, and show me those that haven’t purchased anything in the past year!

Well jeez, that should be easy enough if your data is in Excel right? Wrong! Give it a go, try that pivot table (which there is a way to do it in a pivot, but still, it isn’t the best way), or try to filter or to group. Go ahead. Good luck. Let me know if you find an easier way than what I have below.

Many Excel users have no idea of an import feature called MS Query. If you utlize ODBC at all then you probably have seen this utility. And even if you have used it, did you know that you can point MS Query right back to the exact same workbook you are working on to filter data?

That is what I will show you here. We are going to assume that you already have the data in Excel. And if you don’t, you can still use MS Query to connect to many different sources. Here though, I’ll focus and demonstrate accessing the Excel data within the same workbook.

If you want to recreate this, I am using the Northwind database Orders table.

Reminder, when using your own data, this needs to be a table with column headings that should be in the first row. So first let me show you how there are multiple records for the same customer within this Orders table.

I’ll filter by customer ID 4 by clicking the filtered drop down of Customer ID in this example. This is just to show you the multiple records for this customer.

Notice I have five records for this customer ID. Now imagine trying to determine their last order dates of hundreds of customers with hundreds of transactions, and then trying to filter those greater than one year. Normally it would be a nightmare in Excel. But I’ll show you an easy way to do this.

To get started, first SAVE YOUR SPREADSHEET. Then create a new worksheet, in this case I have one called MSQueryResults, and click on Import, Data, From Microsoft Query.

Select Excel Files, Un-Check the box as shown. Click ok.

Locate your spreadsheet, the one you are in right now that you just saved, and select it. Click OK.

Select the sheet name of your data. IF you do not see any sheet names, click on Options and be sure the System Tables box is checked. Click Add.

Notice how it adds the table to the query screen. Click Close.

Here I’ve added the Customer ID (unique ID), and the Order Date. I did this by double clicking on them.

Now, where Order Date is listed in the result pane, double click on Order Date and select Total of Max. This is assuming the Order Date is truly a date value. If not then the Order Date fields needs to be wrapped with DATEVALUE(Order Date). However, here the date is a true date so that is not necessary.

Now click ! to refresh the screen and your customers are now filtered by Max date!

At this point there are a lot of options. A query filter could be created, the date could be formatted, a parameter query could be created to prompt for date, the same table could be added and linked if more fields are required, etc. To keep this simple, we’ll return this to Excel and then use Excel to format and filter.

Click the Return to Excel button.

Click OK and return the data to Excel.

At this point the Date field can be formatted and a filter created. As you can see, because this is a date field, there are many options now to filter further the returned result set from MS Query.

So there you have it. I took a large volume of data with multiple records with the same customer ID, used MS Query to generate a new filtered result-set by Max Date, returned it to the same Excel spreadsheet, and filtered those results. The great thing is the result set can be refreshed any time it is needed.

The next time you have a filter challenge within Excel, remember the MS Query option of looking at your same spreadsheet to return a filtered result set.

iPad : First thoughts and experience

2010-04-10T10:18:00.001-04:00

The very first thing I did after opening the iPad box and activating it was to connect to my work Exchange server. That was incredibly easy to do and within a minute I had all of my contacts, calendar, and emails.

E-Mail

Reading emails is an absolute pleasure. I would say a big win in that department. However, replying to an email with any lengthy typing is combersome. When I type with the full virtual keyboard I go in streaks of really fast to what the hell! I’m sure I’ll get a little better as time goes on but without that physical positioning of a normal keyboard, it will always be difficult to write long emails. Quick responses are just fine though. Going back to reading emails for a moment, this device is almost worth the price just for the reading experience. Attachments and photos are seemless and natural.

Reading email 5 STARS. The best device ever built.
Writing emails 3 STARS. Virtual keyboard works but is hard to keep hand position without a physical contact.
Could be a great device for remote work email and calendar, but an external keyboard would be necessary for extensive emails.

Web

Next up I went right to the web, and in response to an email I received, I tried to connect to a vendor’s B2B site. Unfortunately, this B2B uses some lame Java dropdown menu that does not work at all on the iPad. FAIL. I can’t work on my number one website at work. That kills our salesmen using it. I will email the vendor to make them aware.

Reading most websites that I visited, again, is worth the price. It is like you are touching the internet. Basically the iPhone but at a size that you can actually read comfortably. Ironically, I think the screen could have been cut down in size. It seems almost too big oddly enough. Of course a few sites I went to had flash and didn’t work at all. I tried out my work SharePoint site and it renders beautifully. Two issues I had was entering information in an online form didn’t allow me to scroll within a memo field, and drop down selection boxes do not allow you to enter text to find a selection; You are forced to scroll and select. One of our forms loads 2,000 customers in a drop down list which makes the use of the iPad useless on this form. Within IE8 you can type the start of a customer name and displays it immediately. Another big work FAIL.

Reading the web. Fantastic. 5 STARS. The best device ever.
No flash and limitations with Java and SharePoint fields, take away a big chunk of work possibilities. 2 STARS Will SharePoint 2010 render better on the iPad?

eBooks

Actually the main reason I’ve been waiting for the iPad is to store ebooks. I debated on the Kindle and Nook, and decided that the iPad would offer the best of all worlds. Apple’s iBook application I find useless at this point. For me at least. There isn’t a single technical title available. I’m sure that will change in the near future but as of today, I can’t see using iBook. Fortunately, Amazon has the Kindle app for the iPad which I downloaded right off. I loaded up my Windows 7 book I had purchased on the iPhone Kindle app and it is fantastic. I can actually read this thing and feel like I can move forward with my studies of Windows 7 using this device. Big win for Amazon making this app!

I have no idea about trying to get ePub books on here and reading .pdf files. I know .pdfs should be a snap through iDisk or the Good Reader app. So I am sure that will work just fine. I’ll find out soon enough.

eBook reader. The best I’ve seen for reading. 5 STARS
iBooks. Useless for me at the moment but has potential when more books are available. 2 STARS
Ability to buy books from multiple sources such as Kindle and Barnes and Noble. 5 STARS. Looking good here.
Accessing Library ePub. I’m not sure at this point

Apps

For me, having access to applications are a bonus. I’ve already used LogMeIn to connect to a friends computer and it worked great. IMDB is awesome along with ABC streaming shows. Will I actually watch a show on this thing, I doubt it. But it is cool! The weather channel is nice. Tweetdeck has some bugs and Twitterific is very nice.

I think the apps on this thing will be incredible. What will I actually use, at this point, I just don’t know. I REALLY want to use this device as a productivity tool for work with tasks, note taking, and all of that good stuff. If Microsoft would only create Office for the iPad and iPhone…

After this first day of the iPad I find myself a bit confused by the experience. I don’t know yet how this will fit into my life. I know it will be my eBook reader. So mission accomplished there. I feel like I’ll read emails on this a lot more than any other device, and I believe it will be nice to have around the house. For work I am quite dissappointed right now. I’m seeing very little practical use for it in my work environment, and that makes me sad. If HP can get Apple’s mastered interface down, and give us Windows 7, I have a feeling my future iPad will be an HP slate.

In the mean time I’ll keep playing with this very cool machine and keep you posted on how this is encorporated into my life. I know one thing, this would be the perfect device for my inlaws. Simple, clear, easy to read, fine for short emails, and the best experience yet for reading and surfing the web.

Restoring iTunes and syncing to iPhone

2010-03-07T08:57:00.002-05:00

One of the things I do a couple of times a year is rebuild my PC. In this case I went from Windows 7 beta to Windows 7. The problem is when I re-install iTunes it creates a new library and wants to re-import all of the content. Unfortunately that doesn't play nice with syncing the iPhone! The solution that Apple doesn't make obvious is to tell iTunes on startup to use a different library. In this case, the library I had before re-installing Windows 7.

All I did to do this was to restore the iTunes library files and then when clicking on the iTunes icon, I hold down the SHIFT key. This will then prompt to create a new library or load an existing library. I point iTunes to my pre-existing library, and wha-la, I'm back up and running!

Here is a link to Apple's iTunes libary. http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1589

Why the iPad will change everything

2010-01-31T20:37:00.001-05:00

On January 27th I took a day off from work; I not only needed a day off from a 60 hour work week but I also wanted a chance to follow Steve Jobs introduce his new Jesus device! For me there were two key items that I wanted from the new tablet: First, I’ve been dying to buy an e-book reader but everything currently out there simply didn’t fulfill my needs; Second, I really wanted the ability to take notes on an electronic device. I got one out of two – and a lot more. Here is the list of items that the iPad will purportedly perform much better than any other device.

e-Mail
Web
Video
YouTube
Music
Notes (I’m not seeing writing here just yet)
Photos
e-Books
Wi-Fi
3G (optional with no contract)
Runs all iPhone apps!

My first impression was that it basically is a big iPhone! Big deal right? Well, after a few hours I began to think about how much this device solves my e-Book reader issue. Since it will not only have access to the new Apple iBook store I can also run the Kindle app and Barnes & Noble app to buy books for nearly any place I want! Now, the only e-Book question I have is if there will be a way to read the public library ePub books. Time will tell there.

Now after a few days I’ve began to see how much this device may impact businesses and fill the void for some families for a computer. Take my in-laws for example and how they currently do not have a computer but would love to have eMail, Web, maybe a few apps, and the ability to share photos. How great would the iPad fill that gap! They would hate to use a mouse and configure and setup a PC. With the iPad it is instant on, and it will be as easy as you can get to access email, web, and photos. Perfect solution!

At work we were talking about how difficult it is to use a laptop for presentations with clients. To whip out a laptop, open it up, set it somewhere, turn it on, get it connected to the web, then try to spin it around to share information with a client? Yeah like that is smooth! So now let’s take a look at the same scenario using an iPad; The iPad is turned on and instantly the web can be brought up and easily displayed to the client with whatever is needed to be presented. With a little preplanning it would be so easy to use a finger to swipe and display documents or pictures to a client!

How about students access to books and taking notes in class, using in business for viewing reports, and for techs to carry around their eBooks and electronic documents for service. If you brushed off the iPad as a big iPhone, start to think again just how much a device like this may change your life or someone you know. I think it changes everything.

Windows XP file association won’t change!

2009-12-14T12:54:00.001-05:00

I was working on a co-worker’s PC and wanted them to utilize Notepad++ for opening and viewing .txt files. This user does not have administrator rights so I logged in as an administrator and installed the program. I then assigned the .txt file association to Notepad++.exe. Worked great. Then I had the user login and it didn’t remember the administration setup I just did. No problem, I figured this may happen being a different user profile. So I attempted to assign the .txt to the Notepad++ for this user. No luck. I gave the user administrator rights, still, no luck! No matter what rights this user had it would not allow the user to change the .txt assignment to a program other than the default ones loaded.

The solution to this problem is a little program I found online called “openwithadd” utility designed just for this problem. Here is a link to the program.

http://windowsxp.mvps.org/openwithadd.htm

Simply run the program, select the .exe that you want to assign a file association to, and click apply. Now the .exe program will show up as a selectable program to assign the .txt file to. Of course, apply this process to whichever program you may be assigning a file association to. Life saver.

How to connect to free wi-fi when it doesn’t identify the network

2009-12-12T20:21:00.001-05:00

Lately I have been getting really frustrated with my local coffee shops and their so-called free wi-fi. I’ll have my expensive specialty coffee purchased, laptop out, wireless mouse warmed up, and a flippin explanation icon displayed on my wireless adapter. I’ll look around the room and ask another person if they are on wi-fi, and their sarcastic looking response, is like, well yeah of-course! What the hell! My laptop says it connects yet I cannot get internet access. When I look at the DHCP address it has the good old APIPA address listed (169.254.0.1). Ok so I’m thinking, I am connected to the wireless router yet I cannot get an ip address assigned from its DHCP server, that could mean it has simply ran out of available IP addresses to hand out. This makes perfect sense if they simply plugged the router in, set the SSID, and called it a day. Why? Well the default DHCP configuration on wireless routers default to a maximum of 50 DHCP leases with a 24 hour lease time. So if a coffee shop is getting up to 50 connections a day, it is most likely running out of leases to hand out and bam, no DHCP for you!

Of course the solution to this problem is for coffee shop to set the DHCP lease time to 2 hours. Problem solved. However, that ain’t happening. So here I am thinking I have to find a way to get on this damn thing. I just spent four bucks for a damn eggnog latte and I’ll be if I’m sitting here for two hours with no wi-fi!

The Solution

What are 98% of all wireless routers gateway address? 192.168.1.1. Knowing this, here is how to manually connect to the wireless router in the situation where you are connected yet cannot get assigned an IP address.

Go to the properties of your wireless adapter on your laptop. There are several ways to get there depending on your laptop. If all else fails do this:
1. Click Start or the Windows Icon
2. Click Run or, hold down Windows-R, and type in the command bar: ncpa.cpl
3. Up comes your network configuration. Right click on your wireless adapter and choose properties
Click on the TCP/IP (IPV4 if that is an option) and choose properties
Click on Alternate Configuration
Fill in the settings. This may be a bit of trial and error since an ip address has to be picked that isn’t used. Typically .110 or higher will be free.
1. IP Address: 192.168.1.110
  Default gateway: 192.168.1.1
  Subnet Mask: 255.255.255.0
Now the good part. A DNS entry is needed. Since we have no idea what that might be for the WAN of the wireless modem, we must assign our own. The good news is OpenDNS has a public DNS that we can use.
1. Primary DNS: 208.67.222.222
2. Secondary DNS: 208.67.220.220
  
  addendum: As an alternate to above, Google now has a public DNS:
  
  Primary DNS: 8.8.8.8
  Secondary DNS: 8.8.4.4

Save that and try to access the internet. With any luck you will be in. If not then there are a couple of possibilities.

Try a different IP address. Change the 4th octet to a higher number. Try that a few times.
If a no go then try another default IP address scheme:
1. IP Address: 192.168.2.110
  Default gateway: 192.168.2.1
  or
2. IP Address: 172.22.6.110
  Default gateway: 172.22.6.1

I would be willing to bet that 99% of the time the default gateway will be 192.168.1.1.

So the next time you are somewhere with free wifi, you can get connected but can’t get an ip address assigned, try an alternate configuration and get in anyway!

Don’t forget about your alternate configuration setting. Should you have issues connecting elsewhere you may need to clear that out!

Windows 7 64 Bit install on Dell XPS M1210

2009-12-04T21:02:00.001-05:00

I’ve had two hardware issues with the 64 bit install of Windows 7 on my Dell XPS M1210. The first was the video drivers.

I had to go to NVIDIA to download their drivers for the NVIDIA GeForce Go 7400.
Finding the drivers for the Web Cam were right under my nose the whole time! They are the listed on Dell as Logitech Webcam drivers for the M1210. Even though the web cam driver is listed for Windows XP, when looking at the details it shows Vista 64 bit compatible. After downloading the drivers and installing, I pointed the “unknown” other device driver to the directory of the Vista 64 bit Dell driver and it installed just fine!

http://support.dell.com/support/downloads/download.aspx?c=us&cs=2684&l=en&s=pub&releaseid=R151795&SystemID=XPS_M1210&servicetag=12J89C1&os=WW1&osl=en&deviceid=11933&devlib=0&typecnt=0&vercnt=1&catid=-1&impid=-1&formatcnt=1&libid=17&typeid=-1&dateid=-1&formatid=-1&fileid=202014

SharePoint Saturday Cleveland November 14, 2009

2009-11-16T22:45:00.001-05:00

“You’re doing what with SharePoint?” was displayed on the screen under the title “Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 -- Out-of-the-Box: A Case Study.” It was the first SharePoint Saturday event I attended as a speaker. I have presented at events before over the years, but I admit that it had been about eight months since my last presentation. At the previous three events I participated as an attendee, and it was always a marvelous experience. I always made sure to socialize with both trainers and attendees because that is what these events are really about -- gaining and sharing knowledge with folks who are there because of the common interest in SharePoint.

Sean McDonough popped in as I was setting up and chuckled at my quote on the screen. I was glad to see my attempt at humor worked.

Here are a couple examples:

And another:

I couldn’t take the chance of going live to my work site knowing wi-fi is sketchy at these events, so PowerPoint it was along with my use of pptPlex which people always enjoy.

I also brought a bag of mini candy bars with me to offer as reward for anyone who spoke up and actually contributed to the session. This alone offered a very nice interaction as I chucked candy bars across the room at people -- always good for entertainment. To those of you whom attended, thank you. I appreciate very much the time that you took to attend my session, and I hope you left with something more than you came in with -- even if it was just a piece of candy.

On Friday night I drove to Tremont to attend the speaker dinner at a place called Fahrenheit. What a nice little town. As I drove around the block I noticed a gallery and figured since I couldn’t find a parking spot anyhow, I would park and pop in to see what it was about. What a great move that was! I was able to buy my wife a very unique set of earrings and chat with one of the local artists. Below are a couple pictures of the storefront:

geode gallery

The definition of Geode: “A hollow, usually spheroidal rock with crystals lining the inside wall.”

The earrings I bought my wife were from Kim O’Neill.

After leaving geode right next door was Lilly Handmade Chocolates:

Check out the handmade chocolates paired with a particular brand of beer. I bought a bag of Lilly Barq chocolate and a Chomp Monster for my wife. Good stuff. Check out their website. I shared some of the barq chocolate at the speaker dinner. It had a bit of a spicy kick to it!

Mellissa picked a wonderful venue for the speaker dinner and Fahrenheit was fantastic. I was blown away by the whole experience and truly had no idea walking in that the meal and drinks were paid by a sponsor. This speaker dinner was sponsored by Rob from Blue Thread. Thank you Rob. The dinner and company were wonderful.

One of the fears I had after seeing the SharePoint horsepower signed up to present was whether I was worthy to be among them. These professionals make a living with this product and have amazing credentials. But you know what? I also make a living with SharePoint because it has become a part of the company that I work for and I am very proud of what we have accomplished so far. I quickly changed my fear of unworthiness to feeling proud to present and share some of what I do with SharePoint in my environment. The fellow speakers treated me with the utmost respect. Wonderful conversations ensued with everyone delighted to offer their knowledge. It is a unique thing to experience. I learned a lot.

I could go on and on about this eventful 24 hour period: obtaining my treasured SPS speaker shirt, GPS taking me back to my hotel via back roads making me a bit nervous, speaking with hotel staff to get free wi-fi for the speakers at the event, watching some great presentations, hanging out in the speaker area, watching Mellissa orchestrate the event, seeing Brian show off the Droid phone, finding out four people work for Sogeti, John Ferringer talking up BPOS, Callahan talking about VMs on her laptop, Rob talking about how he started StoragePoint, seeing Sean McDonough and John converse about creating their SharePoint DR Book, the Microsoft guy Brian showing up at the SharePint talking about bizspark, (but shhh.. he really wasn’t there), Sandy U showing me her SharePoint site projects, Eric Harlan belting out “I’m on a Boat” at the Blind Pig, me getting lost trying to find his hotel, and having breakfast at the Original Pancake House and a nice conversation with the owner about strong coffee. Believe me, that isn’t half of it! I apologize for not mentioning all of the other great conversations, stories, speakers, and people from the event.

Here are more pictures of the event:

Speaker Dinner at Fahrenheit.

StoragePoint and Microsoft. (Guys, I apologize not having your names here. Let me know!)

Rob and Eric

Brian showing off the Droid to Mellissa

Mellissa, Brian, and John

Ron talking up StoragePoint

Speaker SharePoint horsepower: Sean, John, Eric and Brian

Microsoft guy… name? and Jesse.

Keynote with Mellissa and Paul Stork

Mellissa handing out the many great sponsor prizes

SharePint at the Blind Pig. Brian Jackett, Mellissa, Eric Harlan, Sandy U, and ?

Not sure (I’m sorry!), Brian from Microsoft and Brian Jackett

Thank you speakers, sponsors, Mellissa, the attendees and all of the wonderful people that I’ve met - many of whom I can say are friends. See you on twitter and hopefully very soon at another SharePoint event.

#spscle Twitterfeed

SharePoint Saturday Cleveland

PS: Please leave some comments and names I missed!

Why you should be using the SUBTOTAL() function in Excel

2009-11-09T16:12:00.001-05:00

I utilized the SUBTOTAL() function today and was thinking that this has to be one of the most important, and hopefully the most used, formula in the Excel formula arsenal. Why? Because any time a table of information is filtered and you are utilizing SUM(), MIN(), MAX(), AVERAGE(), or others, these standard total formulas do not change with the filtered data. They retain the range originally given to it in the formula.

Here is an example.

Using Northwind sample data, I created a SUM() of Sales total.

Notice how the SUM() of sales does not change when the rows are filtered.

One thing to note, Excel 2007 is smart enough that IF you use the

AutoSum function, it will utilize the SUBTOTAL() formula. If you or your users are filtering data, be sure that the SUBTOTAL() function is being used.

Here in this example I am using the SUBTOTAL() function instead of the SUM() function. Notice how the total for sales now represents the filtered amount.

How does the SUBTOTAL() function work?
SUBTOTAL(function_num,range)

The function_num represents the type of function you want to perform as a SUBTOTAL() function. Here is a list from Microsoft’s help screen:

In my above example I used: SUBTOTAL(109,[Sales])

109 represents SUM ignoring hidden values (9 would have worked fine here since I didn’t have any hidden values, I had filtered values).

[Sales] happens to represent table column linked to an Access Database. This could be any range however.

So the next time you are working on an Excel spreadsheet and you need to have some dynamic totals based on filtered data within the spreadsheet, look to the SUBTOTAL() function.

SharePoint Saturday Toronto July 11, 2009

2009-07-13T23:22:00.001-04:00

An opportunity to attend a SharePoint Saturday event within three hours was a treat. With my passport in hand I left my house about 5:00am, easily travelled across the border into Canada, no lines, and made my way up the QEW to the 407 ETR toll road. What I found interesting there was the sign stating ‘a bill will be sent to you for your toll.’ I’m like, how the hell are they going read my license with me driving 70mph! After a mile or so on the 407 ETR I passed under a bank of, what appeared to be, lights and cameras. It kind of looked like a stage light setup except mounted above a highway. So I’m assuming I will be receiving a bill in the mail with them obtaining my address from scanning my license plate. We’ll see! http://www.407etr.com/

I arrived at the Microsoft Campus in Mississauga a little early.

So I went up the street looking for a wifi spot to connect with my iPhone to check email and twitter. As luck would have it I was able to get a great wifi connection sitting in my vehicle near a Timothy’s. I proceeded to tweet and catch-up from my two hour disconnection from any 3G activity. The reason for this disconnection is due to the insane cost of using my AT&T iPhone in Canada on the Rogers network: $.79 per minute talk and $15 per mb data! If I sent one picture over the Rogers 3G network it would cost me over $30! How ridiculous is that? I could have signed up for AT&T global for $6 but I still would have had a high per min and per mb charge on top of that. Crazy.

Upon entering the Microsoft campus I was greeted by Cathy and Kanwal, AKA @catpaint1 and @kkipple on Twitter, both busy at their tasks at hand.

It was great to have had an opportunity to speak with both of them at the event. I made it a point to wear a name tag with @ricknology on it should anyone recognize my twitter name and it worked. Kanwal was very busy working the floor of the event making sure the give-aways were secure, session rooms were setup, and over all worrying about all aspects of the event!

Cathy and other presenters were hard at work stuffing the give-away bags and handing them out along with answering any questions that came up. I really wish now I would have done a “Dux” and started recording some interviews. I had my 3GS iPhone with me and could have started some interviews and just had a blast with it. Unfortunately having no cell connection and a very spotty wifi I was preoccupied and didn’t jump at the chance. Sorry guys. I’ll practice up on my filming and interview skills for next time!

Here is a brief synopsis of the event from the pictures I took:

The keynote consisted of upcoming Microsoft announcements and details about the days events.

There was a full house at the event. Great turnout!

Here is a quick moment with myself, Cathy and Kanwal.

The first presentation I attended was SharePoint Branding with Cathy Dew. I’ve communicated with Cathy for awhile on twitter and it was exciting to sit in her session to listen to her expertise on the subject of SharePoint designer and branding. I took from the session how important the first step of site construction and planning should include, at the top of the list, branding and layout. Another important tidbit from Cathy offered was to not change the fonts! Cathy explained how trying to change a font within a site is very difficult and time consuming. Is it possible to change the fonts in a site? Yes. But it isn’t a couple hour task. Great session Cathy. By the way during the session the lights flickered a few times and we could hear thunder. A severe storm went through during the session. All was well though!

Next up I went to Anderson Nogueira’s session on SharePoint and social computing. This was an interesting session and a great topic for discussion. I believe the main point of his presentation is that the social aspect of SharePoint is a critical part of the architecture and adoption of the technology. Don’t underestimate the psychology of social networking when struggling with adoption of SharePoint.

Hasan Shahid and his colleague presented on building content query web parts. Very informative session.

Next I went to Ruven Gotz session on using Mind Mapping for The Information Architect. This was a great session both on showing the organizational expertise required to architect a large SharePoint site and utilizing Mind Mapper techniques effectively. I’ve already purchased a MindJet Mind Mapper license since this session. Bettween Mark Miller and Ruven I was convinced it was time to step up from FreeMind and go to the real deal.

Here Cathy is taking a picture of me and Ruven during the give aways.

Speaking of give aways. I was telling Ruven that I’ve never won anything at the few SharePoint events I’ve attended and right after that they pulled my name for the grand prize of a $3,000 training voucher with LearningTree! I am so excited to have a chance to spend 3 or 4 days in a class room on a specific topic regarding SharePoint. I’m leaning toward one of these two courses: Developing SharePoint Solutions with SharePoint Designer or their certification training on MOSS. We’ll see! They have already contacted me via Twitter and eMail and I’m expecting a voucher any day now.

The presenters. A little blurry. I took about five pictures with five different cameras for everyone and I was last.

SharePint! I wasn’t able to stay long but there were some fun conversations going on. @rharbridge brought up the Mythical Man Month book that I have written down as a book to read. Good times.

When I got back into the states I stopped by a McDonalds, which is a rare event for me, and saw this! Nice way to end a fun and informative day.

Thank you http://SharePointSaturday.org/toronto for a great day.

VMWare ESXi install problems on Dell Optiplex 210L

2009-05-18T11:14:00.001-04:00

During the bootup of the VMWARE ISO, and after the loading phase, I received an error

“Unsupported BIOS setting CPUID is limited. Disable ‘limit CPUID value’ or ‘SUPPORT LEGACY NT4/OS’ in BIOS.”

Upon investigation, I found that this error is fairly common on various PCs. The DELL Optiplex 210L does not have an option in the BIOS to set the CPUID. I upgraded the BIOS to A02, however, this didn’t add that functionality. Further investigation via GOOGLE revealed that the bootup options could be changed to have ESXi install not check for the CPUID. How does this impact the use of ESXi? I have no idea. Here is how to disable this feature during in stall:

At the bootloader screen (when booting from the ISO), press TAB to edit the boot options. You may not see a cursor. Hit the space bar to see where you might be.
Hold down the left-arrow key to move the cursor back to the beginning of the boot options, and add ‘nocheckCPUIDLimit’ right after ‘vmkernel.gz’, so that the first part of the boot options BEFORE the first “---“ reads: “mboot.c32 vmkernel.gz nocheckCPUIDLimit ---“
Press ENTER.

I found this information in the community forums here. http://communities.vmware.com/message/1011419#1011419

Unfortunately I still received the same error after the install. So far no joy.

The Extra Benefit of SharePoint Saturday Edification

2009-05-02T01:10:00.001-04:00

This all started back in January with a local Rochester SharePoint event being held by Entre computer services. Long story short, due to my obvious enthusiasm I conveyed with the person running the local user group, I was asked to hold three sessions at the event. I did Outlook integration, a case study on how my business is using Windows SharePoint Services, and a session on creating a basic CRM package out-of-the-box. People genuinely enjoyed my sessions and after that I’ve been hooked attending events ever since. Though the last few as an attendee and not a trainer.

This is my second SharePoint Saturday event - SharePoint Saturday DC. The first, where I drove about six hours to Waltham, MA near Boston a few weeks ago, was a fantastic event in more ways than one. The same is shaping up for the DC event as well.

First, it is a SharePoint event! I am not an expert in SharePoint nor claim to be. However, I am on a quest to become as knowledgeable as possible to eventually be able to help others with this fantastic product - plus, of course, to better my SharePoint initiative at work. Thus my motivation for travelling to these events. The key I believe to any success is to surround yourself with peers who are successful. SharePoint Saturday is just the event for that. Having the chance to hang with (I’ll user their twitter handles) @joeloleson, @eusp, @usher, @mosslover, @sharepointreviews, @erickraus, @tlanni, @meetdux, and others has been fantastic. Interestingly enough, it wasn’t so much that we talked only about SharePoint, but it’s just a group of great people out having some fun after the events.

Second, the events are held at places that I would never have gone to. I wouldn’t have stayed in the great towns of Waltham or Reston if it weren’t for these events. My wife and I have found these places to be inexpensive and very enjoyable. Waltham’s Moody Street has lots of restaurants and live music. Not far from there is an awesome Mexican restaurant called the Taqueria Mexico. A few miles away by car is the red train to downtown Boston for easy access to the city. We just arrived in Reston at the Hampton Inn and are blown away. For $65 this place is awesome: clean, free wi-fi, great reception area, pool, workout room and 40 miles of trails right outside. Within a mile is the Reston Town Center full of restaurants and shopping. Who would have known?

Third, the sessions at the events are outstanding. Experts in the field fly in from all over, and for no fee at all, and share their knowledge. It doesn’t get much better than that.

So yeah. Here I am again, having driven over six hours to get to another SharePoint Saturday; the event hasn’t even started yet, and we’re having a great time already!

The Dreaded iPhone ‘Cannot Get Mail’

2009-04-30T17:24:00.001-04:00

I’ve been struggling with this problem ever since going to 2.1 on the iPhone. Everything will be fine then for whatever reason when checking my inbox for my Exchange email, I’ll get the ‘Cannot Get Mail’ message. Once this message appears I’m basically screwed. Or so I thought. My solution has been to delete the Exchange setup on the iPhone and recreate it. A bit nerve racking since all contacts, calendar, and email are wiped. Now granted every time I’ve re-added the Exchange server everything has come back. But man when this happens and I’m out of town; it isn’t pretty! So after this recently happened AGAIN, I found a solution.

Go into the Exchange settings within the iPhone and add a / to the server address.

so if it your server address is:

jackfrostexchange.com

Make it now say:

jackfrostexchange.com/

Accept that, give it a few minutes, and when you go to check your Exchange email, the inbox will be empty but will begin to sync.

If this should happen again the solution would be to take out the / from the address and it should fix it all over. Basically add or take away the / and you’ll be good to go.

Needless to say what a great and easy solution to a really stupid problem!

Here is the link to Carlos Rivero, the source of this solution and a few others if needed.

XP SP3 and Remote Web Workplace ActiveX Error

2009-04-28T16:16:00.001-04:00

When XP SP3 came out, Microsoft in their infinite wisdom, disabled the mstscax.dll from running within Internet Explorer 7. This little tidbit is the .dll that ActiveX calls for the terminal services client when connecting to a remote PC from the Small Business Server Remote Web Workplace. Basically a big middle finger to all those customers out there running their Small Business Server and using Remote Web Workplace. Still today THEY HAVE NOT FIXED THIS. They leave it to the end user, consultant, and/or admin to figure it out.

Here is the wonderful message that pops up when trying to connect to a remote desktop within Remote Web Workplace:

The first step is to first see if the add-on within IE7 is there and is simply disabled. I have yet to see this happen. 99% of the time the add-on is simply no longer there at all.

Either click on Tools – Add-ons or click the gear at the bottom of the web browser. This will load the add-on window. Look for the Microsoft Terminal Services client.

IF you see it there and it IS disabled. Simply enable it and you’re good to go.

Most likely that won’t be the case.

So first try to register the mstscax.dll file.

Then restart IE7 or IE8 and give it a shot. If it still doesn’t work then the next step is to remove the registry key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Ext\Settings\{7584C670-2274-4EFB-B00B-D6AABA6D3850}

Of course backup your registry prior. If that all fails look at the below article describing all of this from Microsoft.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/951607

And to think. You may have to walk a client or end user through this? Give me a break Microsoft.

Take the Hyper-V vs VMWARE ESXi Survey!

2009-04-27T21:54:00.001-04:00

Active X Control and Internet Facing SharePoint Sites

2009-04-20T21:54:00.001-04:00

Does it get annoying having to ignore or accept the ActiveX request when going to your public facing SharePoint site? Here is a synopsis from Microsoft and a link to their solution.

“Message in the Information bar in Internet Explorer 7 when you browse to a Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 site or to a SharePoint Server 2007 site: "The Web site wants to run the following add-on: 'Name ActiveX Control'"”

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/931509

Formula in Excel to Separate Full Name to First and Last Name

2009-04-15T15:07:00.002-04:00

The question came up today; How can I separate a list of full names into first and last name within Excel? There is a formula function called SEARCH() that will look within a cell for a specific character and return the position of that character. In this case we are going to look for the character of a space, return the position, and use that value within a MID() function and RIGHT() function to grab the first and last name.

Here are the results we are after:

First, let’s show what the Search function can do:

=SEARCH(CHARACTER,CELL,START POSITION) returns the position of the character in the cell.

In this case we started the search from position one in the cell, searching for space “ “ and it returned that a space was found in position 5 of cell A3.

Now we can take that value and use it within the MID() function to grab the first name. The MID() function works as follows:

=MID(CELL,START POSITION,NO OF CHARACTERS)

Our formula in this example will look like this:

=MID(A3,1,SEARCH(“ “,A3,1)-1)

Now to capture the last name we need to find the space in the full name, take the length of the full name and subtract the position of the space from that, leaving the number of characters that we want to grab from the right.

Now if middle initials are involved then we would need to go further to get a count of the number of spaces and their positions, then utilize an IF() function to populate the appropriate column.

The Data On The Clipboard is Damaged

2009-04-10T12:00:00.001-04:00

Using Office 2007, I’ve had a routine for years of taking data from a particular manufacturer’s spreadsheet and paste-appending to an Access table. Simple and easy. Well today I attempted that simple process and received this error message:

“The data on the Clipboard is damaged, so Microsoft Office Access can’t paste it.”

So I go about the usual process of closing down the applications, re-copying, re-attempting, only to fail again. Then I tried to reboot the PC and still – no go. So then I started playing around with the clipboard within Access and found that by simply opening up the clipboard window and selecting the item I wanted to paste, the paste append worked fine.

Here is how you do what within Access 2007. Click on the HOME tab on the ribbon within Access and you will find the Clipboard. Click on the small arrow in the bottom right corner and it will display what is currently held in the clipboard.

Now select the data. Then choose on the Clipboard selection your desired paste option of Paste or Paste append. Your data should now paste as it use to.

Now why did this happen? According to Microsoft this is due to patch KB958437. You can do the workaround as shown above or request the hotfix here.

A simple Excel 2007 feature I’ve never noticed : Customizable Status Bar

2009-04-07T10:19:00.001-04:00

Maybe I’ve been living in an Excel closet for the past ten years but here I am working on an Excel spreadsheet and I noticed some values down on the status bar:

So of course my first thought was to wonder; where are these numbers coming from? To my surprise as I highlighted a few different cells containing numeric values, the status bar updated with both the Average, Count, and Sum automatically.

To dig further I wanted to find out if this was a setting that could be changed and after some right clicking, sure enough, by simply right clicking on the Status Bar, a menu will roll up allowing other items to be displayed.

Don’t limit yourself to simply highlighting cells with numeric values, try highlighting any cells and the status bar will sum the count. Play around with this feature. It is a great shortcut to some quick calculated values!

Changing a url link within SharePoint to Open In a New Window

2009-04-02T08:40:00.001-04:00

One of the odd things missing from SharePoint is the ability to have a url link within an announcement, or anywhere for that matter, open to a new window. Here I will demonstrate how to easily add the simple code necessary have a url link open in a new window.

Here I have an announcement with two links that I created using the link tool.

To only way to modify the link properties is to enter into the HTML source for this announcement. To edit the HTML source, click on the Edit HTML Source button.

Once the HTML source window is displayed, simply add following code to any href url link that you want to open in a new window.

Notice the target=”_blank” is added directly after the href link but before the last angle bracket in the statement.

Using the concatenate, today, and text functions together in Excel

2009-04-01T16:43:00.001-04:00

I had two related scenarios in Excel where I wanted some wording to be adjacent to a date. The date is being pulled from a field in one instance and within a formula in another instance. At first I placed my text in one cell and my date in the next and though this did physically work, it didn’t look asthetically pleasing due to the different cell widths. I could just adjust the cell widths to make them look good since I have data within the same column below the cell.

To remedy this I used the concatenate() function. However when I added the cell address or today() function within the formula, the date format displays in the microsoft date format. This is visually unusable. I tried to format the cell as a date but of course this didn’t work with the concatenate() results.

To resolve this I utilized the following formula and functions:

=concatenate(“Today is “,text(today(),”mm/dd/yyyy”))

The text() function is a great tool to convert the microsoft date to a conventional display date.

Windows Home Server and OpenDNS

2009-01-04T14:22:00.012-05:00

When I purchased the HP MediaSmart Windows Home Server, I expected my Windows XP clients to communicate upon installing the client connect software. Unfortunately I was wrong. Right out of the box, though I could connect using the UNC path (e.g., \\HPSERVER), if I tried to ping HPSERVER it would result in the IP address from OpenDNS instead of my local server. At first I went into the %system%\system32\drivers\etc\hosts file and added an entry for HPSERVER to my local IP address. That solved my issue but didn't really fix the problem. To use the Hosts file as a solution I would have to modify each PC in the house plus should I lose power there is no guarantee the IP addresses would remain the same. Not a good solution.

Upon research at OpenDNS and other sites, many of which never simply gave a solution, I finally found where people would login to OpenDNS, go to Advanced Settings, and turn off Typo Correction and turn off *.cm correction.

After about 5 minutes I ran a test and sure enough it solved the problem.

So now I got to thinking why is this? If we follow "Can We Buy Large Hard Drives" then this should have never happened since NetBIOS would have been queried prior to DNS. But Microsoft clients do not follow the CWBLHD order for IP resolution when NetBIOS is involved. They follow a couple of different paths depending on the network card configuration. The most common configuration for a Windows client is as follows:

Host name resolution generally uses the following sequence:

The client checks to see if the name queried is its own.
The client then searches a local Hosts file, a list of IP address and names stored on the local computer.
Domain Name System (DNS) servers are queried.
If the name is still not resolved, NetBIOS name resolution sequence is used as a backup. This order can be changed by configuring the NetBIOS node type of the client.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/172218

This makes more sense for what I'm seeing with my Windows XP clients. Since NetBIOS name resolution actually is occuring after DNS, this makes sense why OpenDNS was causing the problem.

So in conclusion, be careful using CWBLHD as your basis for troubleshooting should NetBIOS be involved.

iPhone GPS while on the train

2008-12-29T08:49:00.000-05:00

How cool is that for figuring out where we are while on the train!

Tasty snack!

2008-12-26T19:03:00.003-05:00

I love this combo especially with a good dark beer.

-Stone Ground Wheat Crackers

-Roasted Red Peppers

-Renaissanci Columbus Salame Company - Peppered Salame

-Cranberry Chipotle Cheddar Cheese

Slice the red peppers to fit the cracker. Slice the peppered salame thin with a little thicker piece of the cheddar cheese.

Stack and chomp. You can cut in half to make it a bit easier to eat.

Good stuff!

Sump Pump setup and installed

2008-12-24T09:58:00.001-05:00

My ridgid sp-500 switch failed last night. This morning I bought the
new model and got it installed. Next goal will be to fix the switch on
the old one and have ready for standby then I want to buy a small pump
and set it in the crock for backup or go with a water flow pump.

Rochester's First Sharepoint Symposium

2008-12-16T21:02:00.004-05:00

https://www.clicktoattend.com/invitation.aspx?code=133999

I'll be presenting using Outlook 2007 with Windows Sharepoint Services and the case study of my implementation of WSS 3 in our company environment.

GTD - My Successes and Struggles

2008-11-22T10:20:00.004-05:00

I was asked to write a guest blog post for http://freshfocus.info/blog/ on my Getting Things Done experiences. Below is the write-up. It should be posted on the freshfocus.info blog soon.

GTD - My Successes and Struggles

About a year and a half ago I started looking for someone or something to help me get better organized. I didn't feel like I was totally out of control and couldn't get anything done, but I had the desire to come up with a method where no matter what someone threw at me I could just plop it into my "system" and know and trust that I would get it done. The goal being a more stress less life, a more successful work environment, and since I would be getting much more done, over all a more successful career.

As the search progressed I read articles and skimmed through books on "getting organized" and most of them revolved around filing properly and controlling procrastination. Both extremely important topics. Which I concluded procrastination as the most common source and cause of "piling." Though I made some improvements in my organizing processes and procrastinated less, I still never got a firm "system" in place until I started seeing GTD all over on the web. My first thought was.. what the hell is GTD? Like, I'm sure all of us into or getting into GTD, I bought David Allen's book that day. After reading his book, and have since also listened to his audio book twice on my iPhone, I felt ready to begin this quest of lists, labels, and ticklers..officially on-the-wagon.

Now about a year and a half has gone by and I can say that I'm still not where I want to be in the GTD philosophy. It is funny when I talk about GTD to others. It is almost like talking about a drug addiction or drug recovery. "Yeah I've been on GTD for a year but then something happened and I just lost it. I went back to my old ways and couldn't get back on the wagon." "My name is Rick and I've been on GTD now for 1.5 years. Last week I had a relapse of not performing my weekly review and I didn't get a couple things done because I didn't see them on my list because I didn't review it! Help me please!" All kidding aside I take implementing GTD into my life very seriously.

First, here is what I have been able to successfully implement from GTD.

Buying a brother labeller both at home at work. This has been, by far, the best one thing that I have gotten out of the Getting Things Done book. David stated to go buy a labeller and get it on your desk. He said never should it take longer than one minute to label a folder. This along with dumping hanging file folders for plain old manila folders has created the environment for me, both at home and at work, to quickly grab a folder and slap a professional looking label on it and get it filed. Now feeling comfortable that I'll later know where to look to find what is inside that folder.. well that is one of my biggest struggles. Back to that topic shortly.

Utilizing a shared grocery list with my wife. When my wife and I each purchased the iPhone earlier this year and I saw a program called Zenbe which would allow us to share and sync a list, we immediately used it for errands and groceries. I searched and wanted this because of GTD. This has had a huge impact for both my wife and I on simply getting groceries on the way home or while we're out. We both know we can rely on the fact that this list is updated and if either of us are at the store we know where to look. Heck even if we are both at he store as we check off items and sync them we can double team on the list and get out of there quicker! Huge impact on our lives. We also use it when going on trips as a list of things to bring or a list of things to buy. I'm actually looking for another app better than Zenbe that has more features for our iPhone but must be able to sync.That alone also made the investment in two iPhones well worth the price.

MindMaps. When I read that term in the GTD book I immediately seeked out what it was. Ever since I've been hooked on mind maps and use them constantly both for personal and professional use. I introduced the concept at work and installed the free open source app called FreeMind on our executive team PCs. It has had a large impact on meetings for brainstorming as well. Mind mapping is awesome. I bought an app called iBlueSky for my iPhone that I can use to create a mindmap on the fly and even email it in a .mm format to open up with FreeMind.

Managing my inbox. Though I am still struggling here this has also had a huge impact for me. I'm not 100% on board but my inbox management has improved tremendously. Especially with email. I use gmail for personal email and an Exchange Server for work email. I learned from Google a feature called All Mail and besides the many emails that I need to archive and place into specific folders, I also created a folder called All Mail for those emails that I want to keep but really don't have a need to file in a specific area. I rely on the search feature within Outlook and Gmail anyhow to do my email lookups for most things if not obvious in a specific folder.
Longterm Lists. I have some long term lists that I have for myself that I find helpful for keeping focus on where I'm going. It is one of the lists that I feel really good about up in the 30,000 foot elevation.

Here are some areas that I continue to struggle with each and every day that I want to improve on.

Filing. Though I am now a master at the quick-draw grab-a-folder-and-slap-a-label-on-it, damn if I am any good at knowing what to put on the label and how to file the folder! The whole purpose of filing is to be able to rely on the fact that at a later time I will be able to easily find that file. What I may think is obvious to file something under Topology today, tomorrow I might start looking for Network Infrastructure, and just not think of the term Topology that I filed it under. So what do I do? I don't know! I get stuck here all the time! What I have started to do is create folders that have say the letter N on it. Within that folder I put a sheet in there called Network Infrastructure. So if my crazy head is thinking of Network Infrastructure instead of Topology, I'll have a note on there saying "Go look under Topology idiot." That method has helped with a few items. Basically if I have a hard time knowing what to file something under, anything I'm thinking I might file it under I throw a note in that lettered folder referring to where I actually filed it. Fortunately with email it is searchable. One thing I do with email though, before filing, is add to the Subject pertinant searchable information. That way the subject makes sense. For example I get quotes from Dell which has some lame quote number in the subject. I add to the subject the actuall items they quoted so I know what that email is actually about.
Piling. Sorry but this is still something I struggle with. The kicker is when I have a prestine folder with a beautiful label on it then piled with other folders on my desk! But again I get stuck afraid I won't find the file in my filing cabinet! Gaining confidence in labelling and filing properly knowing I'll find it later will overcome this hurdle. I will get it! I need to utilize my tickler file more for those items date specific.
Lists. This is the big one. Of course this is also what GTD is really all about. My biggest struggle is finding an electronic method I can utilize for both home, work, and phone. I just got an app on my phone called KeyTasks that syncs up with my Outlook at work so I can get my tasks both on my phone and through Outlook. It is an "ok" app. Still not what I'm looking for. I'm open for ideas here people. Here is what I want. An application that will work on my iPhone and with Outlook or a web-based version that I can get on my phone and can drag emails to from Outlook. I have so many tasks email related that I need to be able to either drag an email to the task list or somehow connect it to a list. I've looked at web based lists but I'm still fragmented with my email tasks. I'm open for concepts and ideas. I'm thinking I'm going to need to keep my work lists separate from my home/personal list ultimately. Which I do now. For home I'm using Gmail for my lists. It isn't working as well as I would like so I'm still searching for THE app. Any suggestions?
Weekly Review. Whatever method I am using or will be using, getting myself disciplined to do the weekly review I am still struggling with. I think it does fall back to the fact that I still don't have a list management system I feel good about. But regardless, I need to get THE system in place ASAP and get into this routine. This is my key to taking my GTD quest to the next level.

I hope sharing some of my successes and challenges may help you with your own GTD quest. I welcome your comments and any feedback that you may have on helping me with my own GTD challenges.

Rick

Installing a door easy - Painting it sucks!

2008-11-08T19:47:00.002-05:00

The door to our deck was rotting from the bottom and had to be replaced. It is a bastard sized door so I had to order it. I got the measurements and placed an order at Home Depot for about $350. A full-glass fiberglass door with no cross bars. The door came in, brought it home, tore out the old door and door casing, installed the new door and locks. So far so good. Looks great. All caulked up. Sweet!

Now I need to paint or stain it. Hmm.. which do a I do? Well first I know I have to paint the door jam. So I pickup some Satin white paint and go to town. Get it all taped up and paint the jam. Pain in the adoubless but not too bad. So now to the door.

The Milliken Millwork instructions recommends to stain it. I go to Home Depot and they tell me it is fine to paint it as long as you put down a good primer. So I buy a dark primer, figuring I'm going to paint it gray, and head on home. I get the door all taped up, of course I can't get the tape to stick to the rubber at the bottom very well so that starts to tick me off. Ok so both sides are taped-looks good-let's get rockin! I start putting on the primer with brush strokes. G comes over and says "Isn't the inside going to be white?" I'm like...SHIT! Here I am going to town putting dark primer on the INSIDE where it is going to be white. Me, going to town thinking the whole door is going to be the dark gray color.

All said and done it doesn't look too bad. But damn that was a lot of work! Plus keeping the door open all day in 45 degree weather wasn't much fun either.

In the future I'm going to check into having the door pre-painted, if that is possible.

Long story short after about 3 coats of white the door is almost done. I have to do some touchups yet on the inside and it should be done.

Books I'm reading and have read recently

2008-10-26T18:48:00.002-04:00

I have been reading books and listening to them like a mad man lately. The iPhone has helped tremendously to allow me to listen at the gym and going to work. I have about 4 more books lined up and I'll be on this Einstein book, probably, for the next month. I'm plugging away at the C# book trying to cram some programming knowledge in my skull to be able to do some work with Sharepoint and design some web/windows applications. My only problem is finding and managing time. I just feel I waste too much time not learning. I want to learn but I also want to accomplish. Obtaining my MCSA was so gratifying. Now I'm trying to decide - do I go for my MCSE (3 more tests), do I go for my degree, or do I go for some other certification in web development or Microsoft Office? There is only so much time in life and it took me 1.5 years to get my MCSA. I can't let it take so long to accomplish these goals. Which means I must work smarter and work focused to accomplish these goals. Well.. enjoy my brief comments on my book readings below. I would recommend all of them except for Six Sigma. I would select another book if that topic interests you.

Head First C# - Andrew Stellman & Jennifer Greene - I'm working through this book to learn C# programming. I'm on chapter 4 right now. It is getting deep real fast. Up to this chapter I remember most of it. Now to get this book under my belt in the next few weeks. I want to write a couple of programs and get them web based soon.
Einstein - His Life and Universe - Walter Isaacson - This is 21 hours of listening and I'm a good 5 hours into it. I'm totally engrossed into this book and his life.
The Audacity of Hope - Barack Obama. I'm almost finished with this book and I wish every american would read it about this man. He is articulate, intelligent, and a person who trully has the big picture of our society, the world, and where he feels we need to go to better our nation. You don't have to agree with everything he says but he is great and finding the commonality on both sides and working toward agreement to benefit both. I only have a about 30 pages left and I should be done in a couple days.
The Briefer History Of Time - Stephan Hawking. What a fun book to listen to. Of course it wasn't his actual mechanical voice speaking though interestingly enough they did, it appears, add some filter to the narrator's voice to give it a slight effect so you felt it was him talking. What a great book to get an insight on the universe and space - time. This is one I'll listen to again in the near future.
Six Sigma - The reviews that I read prior stated the book was dry and never got deep enough into actually implementing Six Sigman. I have to agree with that assessment. Though I did pickup some interesting facts I really didn't come away with anything very memorable.
It's Not About The Coffee - Howard Behar -I enjoyed this book. Howard talks about the time he was at Starbucks in his various roles and discussed some of the philosophy behind their success. I played a part of the audio book in my work's Monday morning meeting. I thought it would have been inspiring, but turned out to be the owners felt offended. As if I was saying they aren't doing these things. Which is true and I suppose maybe they should take it that way. The part in the book talks about his idea that when a person is promoted and then not guided and they fail, who's fault is it? It is the person whom promoted them. It is their responsibility as a leader to work with a person whom is promoted to guide them in the direction that they need this person to become. Not simply promote and expect but promote and nurture. Anyhow I thought this was a decent book on leadership qualities.

"How Starbucks Saved My Life"

2008-09-07T20:25:00.006-04:00

Picked up this book as an easy read over vacation. I couldn't put it down! Makes me want to learn more about Starbucks and their management style. As a matter of fact I'm going to buy a book on Starbucks management next! This book goes to show that money isn't everything and what you think should make you happy and what actually does may be two different things. It really is about personal discovery. Live life today not for tomorrow.

This will also be coming to theaters starring Tom Hanks! Keep here for details.

Our first dinnerware!

2008-09-07T17:49:00.001-04:00

We've been looking for Corelle dinnerware for years and never found
the one we wanted. Well that has finally been solved! We loved the
look of this set the minute we saw it. We've seen other dinnerware
that we've liked in the past but they were usually stoneware which
chips like easily. We need something more durable.

Top of Sawyer Mountain

2008-09-06T12:27:00.000-04:00

"Food around the corner" Favorite Cartoon

2008-07-20T10:09:00.000-04:00

Check out this video on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bsFuf4cPmug

*Sent from my iPhone

No Pain No Gain, Windows Mobile to iPhone3G

2008-07-13T20:25:00.007-04:00

This post is about a few things, why I went to the iPhone, why this is the greatest device ever built, and some of the pain I'll be going through to get everything in order from my Windows Mobile days.

First off the question has to be asked; Why go to the iPhone when things were working pretty well enough on my Treo 700w? For the past two years I have been searching for an upgrade to my Treo 700w. Palm, for whatever reason, decided to quit producing new Windows Mobile phones. They came out with the Treo 800 on all networks except Verizon and it only offered slightly better hardware and very little on software improvements.

Next I started looking at other Windows Mobile 6 devices. BlackJack, Motorola Q, Samsung i780, HTC Touch, and others. They all had their "thing" but none grabbed my attention enough to want to fork over money and possibly switch carriers. So believe me, I tried to stay with the Treo line and Windows Mobile because it has been a good workhorse for the past five years, but with zero improvements I had to move on.

While this is going on the iPhone was launched in 2007. Looked awesome. I would go to the Apple store and dabble with it but without Exchange support I just couldn't justify it.

To make a long story short so I can get into the real issues here...when March hit and Exchange Active Sync was announced along with the SDK, I was hooked. This device got me excited and I was on the iPhone bandwagon.

Now I sit here with this awesome geektriffic machine. I can't even call it a phone it really is a portable web browing - media playing - application touting - gps enabled - game playing - machine. My first impressions now that I own it, honestly, are life changing. Sounds crazy but it truly disconnects having to use a PC or laptop for everyday web and email. It actually, in many cases, surfs the web better than ANY device I've ever used including the good ole PC.

So let's talk about web browsing while I'm on the subject.

First is the wifi on this thing is spectacular. It just prompts you and connects. It isn't the Vista nightmare on a laptop. It then just switches all data access through wifi automatically. If wifi goes away it switches to edge or to 3G. It is freaking awesome. We were driving down the road and it can detect wifi as we're moving. Pretty slick. So the connection to the web is seemless.

Second, using your finger to flick your way around is genius. Tap to zoom in, tap to zoom out. The logic is uncanny that it can figure out a finger press for a small link on the screen. It has some nifty programming in there to understand touch and intention.

Third, and this is the big one, Apple web apps are truly incredible. The Google.com web app for the iPhone is better than their standard web version. I would rather read my email, calendar and rss reader on this device than I would on a PC. It is that good. The thing is there are hundreds, if not thousands, of web apps that are better to navigate than the conventional web counterpart. I would rather check weather at iweather.com on the iPhone than I would via any other weather app on the web. It is just SIMPLE.

Fourth - Applications. Applications also work seemlessly with the web. BoxOffice is the best movie anything I have found yet to simply get movie times. I've searched forever on the web and I get what I want but this application just makes it simple to get movie times and information in a snap.

So that simply covers the WEB. The applications available are incredible and growing by the minute. Monkey Ball is an incredible 3D game that uses the accelorometer. Amazying for a phone.

I could go on and on but let me get to the Pain portion of this posting. Currently here are my pain issues on this conversion:

No copy and paste on the iPhone
Can't sync personal folders and exchange. This is a problem for me that I'm working on. Trying out MobileMe but first impressions are that it isn't worth the money. This is causing me the most pain right now. I want to be sure I can keep my Exchange stuff backed up for personal use since I combine both work and personel contacts and calender.
eWallet to keep track of my passwords isn't out yet. It is coming though and will solve my problem soon!
No turn-by-turn on the GPS. Google maps is great but I'm used to having available the Co-Pilot GPS on my Treo. I'm going to hang onto the Treo awhile longer just to have a turn-by-turn GPS. Rumors are that solutions from Tom-Tom and TeleNav are coming. So this problem should be resolved soon.
Battery life. Using it so much for the web over wifi, edge, and 3G, depletes the battery. It still does a good job but think about a laptop. You can't run that all day and the same with the iPhone. You can't play games, surf, take calls, check email, run GPS and expect the battery to survive. So I'm turning off 3G when I don't need it and playing with settings.
No Excel. I used it quite a bit at one point on Windows Mobile. The iPHone can view a spreadsheet fine but it isn't editable yet. I'm confident a solution will be available soon.
No Tasks! Granted I haven't ever truly used tasks on the Treo. They were there but the interface sucked so bad that I couldn't use them anyhow. So now I have this awesome interface but no way to sync my work tasks to the iPhone. Or have tasks at all for that matter. I'm researching solutions on the web.

So....is this pain worth it? HELL YEAH! I remember the struggles I had when I started on Windows Mobile and the problems I've always had with syncing and getting duplicates. So I will work with these issues I'm having and I feel confident there will be solutions. for most. available soon either from Apple or the app store.

My recommendation is to check out the iPhone. There will be some pain but the gain could be life changing.

iPhone3G!

2008-07-11T22:32:00.006-04:00

This all began last night surfing like crazy, G and I, browsing over the iPhone3G news and where we should go to get one. I've been speaking with this guy at the AT&T store and he said he would email me when they arrived. Well as expected the looser fell through and didn't do squat. Wouldn't you think if a sale was eminent you wouldn't work hard to KEEP the sale?

Well after much waffling by G and I we began to lean toward the Apple store. Why? Because of the experience! We figured there would be more people there and the staff would be much more understanding of geeks like us. (Yeah I'm labelling G a geek too).

Well after a midnight go-to-bed-time G and I woke up at 4:00AM. First thing I did was check twitter and found that Cali Lewis (http://geekbrief.tv/ , http://icali.tv/) was live on Ustream all night with her hubby. They were also watching Leo Laporte on http://www.twitlive.com/. Well the cool thing is you can actually chat with Cali live. So I asked if she thought we should go to the Apple store or the AT&T store. She was like "Oh... you HAVE to go to the Apple store. It's worth it." So that pretty much made up our mind.

Here shows Cali live on Ustream this morning.

Below is a picture of the line infront of us.

Below is a picture of the awesome Apple people handing out cool water. Yeah even the bottled water is cool.

Here is the new member of the family! Actually it is a twin of G's!

We've spent the last six hours basically getting this thing setup, blogging from it, taking photos, surfing the web, getting email, twittering, and more! This thing goes WAY beyond a phone and in many was some of the web experience is better than at a keyboard.

That is all for now but more posts will forthright!

RealD

2008-07-11T19:31:00.001-04:00

Saw our first RealD movie at Regal. We saw Journey to the Center of
the Earth and it was awesome. The glasses fit much better than some of
the 3d glasses from the past. I can see that this is the future of
movies. What is cool is I just posted this from my iPhone!

Blog post

2008-07-11T19:10:00.000-04:00

Sent from my iPhone

Training vs. Learning

2008-06-24T13:37:00.002-04:00

This is a document I posted on my companies internal website and wanted to share it here. I took out some references to people of course.

I made an observation today when a question was asked about sending an email to a group of individuals. I explained to this person how to find an existing distribution group and use it to send an email. How was this training and learning process started? It was initiated by asking a question.
So that got me to thinking about what the difference is with training vs. learning. We all want training; training to sell something, training on new products, training on the computer. But do we all actually want to learn? Does it mean that if training is not provided it is impossible to learn something?

Answers.com states: Training is “The act, process, or art of imparting knowledge and skill.”

Answers.com states: Learning is “The act, process, or experience of gaining knowledge or skill.”

So I want you to ask yourself a question.

Are you waiting to be trained or are you motivated to learn?

However you answered the question and regardless of whether you were to receive training or not, to learn something means to do it. The only way to do something is for you to act on the basis that you want to learn.

So I want to challenge everyone who wants to learn to quit waiting for training but instead seek to learn.

Do you want to learn more about Outlook and email? There are books at the library and sources online. Ask IT questions.

Do you want to learn more about boilers? All of the manufactures have information on boilers. Ask internal personnel with more experience questions.

Do you want to learn more about how to handle customers? There are tons of books and resources on customer service. Ask the owners. They are masters and would love to coach you.

Do you want to learn more about selling a Sanyo system?

You have access to their website, access to the sales rep, access to in-house personnel and customers who need quotes. Read, ask questions, make fake quotes, get them approved internally. Before you know it you will have learned the product and how to quote it. And guess what, with no “training.”

In conclusion I don’t want you to think I’m lessoning the importance of training. I’m not. But even if you are trained, training in itself is not learning. You must make the effort to want to learn.

What I’m saying is if you have the desire to learn, don’t wait for the training. Seek it.

What IP address is seen by DNS resolver when DNS was forwarded from recursion?

2008-06-23T16:10:00.001-04:00

The topic came up about what IP address will be seen by the DNS server resolving the request when the request was recursive and forwarded.

Let’s say the DNS server is in New York and Boston and Philadelphia point to New York for DNS resolution. New York has forwarders setup for recursion should they not be able to resolve the query. The forwarded servers, let’s say OpenDns, receives the request and responds. OpenDns has the ability to control what dns addresses are allowed to be returned and this can be controlled by the incoming ip address.

So the question is, what incoming IP address is OpenDns seeing? Since this is NOT a proxy setup, all three locations access the internet directly from their corresponding locations.

In running an nslookup command from say Boston, I found that OpenDns is actually seeing the WAN address from New York for the DNS request.

I’m not sure if it always works this but in my environment similar to my description above, it is working this way.

I thought this was interesting and worth sharing.

Kerberos : The Three Headed Guard Dog : Polices

2008-06-05T16:30:00.002-04:00

So Jeff and I were talking about how long it would take for a kerberos ticket to expire. I was thinking 24 hours. I'm sure Kevin "The dictionary" Rawnsley will rattle these values right off, but for the rest of us I had to dig. Surprisingly it wasn't a real easy find.

Here is a link to the policy info:

http://technet2.microsoft.com/windowsserver/en/library/353f7ad9-b53d-41d0-9867-199f6595a01b1033.mspx?mfr=true

Default maximum lifetime for a kerberos user ticket is 10 hours.
Default maximum lifetime for a service ticket is 600 minutes (10 hours).
Default maximum lifetime for renewal is 7 days.
Default maximum tollerance for clock syncronization is 5 minutes.

These values can be changed in group policy and it would be interesting to know how often they are changed. I wouldn't think very often. I'm sure in large environments a user ticket may be increased to more hours and in very secure environments the user ticket reduced.

I thought I would share my findings.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

2008-06-01T21:23:00.004-04:00

I wasn't terribly excited to go see this movie oddly enough. Though once I sat down next to G with a Cherry Coke (free I might add) and a $6 bag of popcorn, I got excited. After the 1/2 hour, it seemed, of movie trailers-finally the movie started. I thought the first 15 minutes were actually quite cheezy but then it got into the flow of a typical Indiana Jones flick and was quite exciting. Surprisingly Shia LaBeouh, aka, who the hell is going to remember that name?, was actually quite good. I was surprised he could be believably sort-of tough after playing a more appropriate weakling in the Transformers. Kate Blanchett, even though looked like a goof ball, still looked beautiful some how. I hope I can look as good as Harrison Ford when I get to his age. Of course the hair part is already out the door. Yeah Fran, you suck!

Go see it. You won't be dissappointed if you liked the others.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0367882/

Healthier Oatmeal Cookies

2008-04-13T10:44:00.001-04:00

3/4 Oat flour (grind up oats in processor if not on hand)
1 1/2 cup Oats
1/2 cup applesauce (If you like your cookies moist & soft then add, but for a crunchier cookie leave out)
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
2 egg whites
1 cup Splenda
1/2 cup sugar free maple syrup
1/4 cup FF butter (optional)
Add raisins & walnuts
Stir all ingredients together, spray non-stick onto baking sheet, bake at 325-350 for 15-20 min.
In my house these last for 2 days...if I'm lucky.

Maple Tree Inn

2008-02-16T19:43:00.000-05:00

Movies I've seen update!

2008-02-12T21:17:00.000-05:00

The Bucket List - Excellent
There Will Be Blood - Sucked
CloverField - Fun to watch
The Hitman - Fun to watch
Resident Evil Extinction - Excellent

3:10 to Yuma

2007-09-17T22:17:00.000-04:00

Pretty good movie. I'll give 8 out of 10.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0381849/

Shoot-em Up

2007-09-15T19:41:00.000-04:00

Pretty funny movie. More shooting and dead people that I can ever remember in a movie! Created in a funny manner though!

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0465602/

Saranac 12 Beers of Summer

2007-08-19T18:03:00.000-04:00

Saranac 12 Beers of Summer™

Saranac Pomegranate Wheat

Saranac Belgian White

Saranac Hefeweizen

Saranac Golden Pilsener

Saranac Summer Ale

Saranac Kolsch

I Pronounce You Chuck and Larry

2007-07-21T23:37:00.000-04:00

This movie was a nice surprise. I went originally, I have to say, to see Jessica Biel. She is officially my favorite female actress. And yes, G know this..lol. The movie was really funny to me. A couple moments I laughed very hard, which I don't do often. I'll give this an 8 out of 10.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0762107/

1408

2007-07-07T23:52:00.000-04:00

We saw this right after Transformers. Quite a switch. I did enjoy the movie though the story never did tell why the room was evil (it probably did and I missed that important fact, oh well).

I'll give it a 6 out of 10.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0450385/

Transformers

2007-07-07T23:48:00.000-04:00

Awesome movie! We saw it at a drive-in and it was just fun to watch.

9 out of 10.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0418279/

Set the "sourcepath" in the registry to point Windows XP source to c:/i386

2007-06-05T20:06:00.000-04:00

Search for sourcepath in the regedit and it should be under:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Setup

Change the source path so Windows will no longer ask for the cd during changes to the OS. This is only assuming the XP CD was copied to I386 folder.

First Day of Kayaking

2007-05-20T22:45:00.000-04:00

G and I did our first kayak trip of the year. If you can call it that. We headed down to Black Creek and went a couple of miles round trip. It started raining pretty good on the way back in. G almost fell in getting into her boat. Basically she was falling in but fortunately fell into the boat first!

Marilyn's Cafe Churchville, NY

2007-05-06T18:33:00.000-04:00

G and I rode our bikes down to this cafe in Churchville. It was pretty chilly out though sunny. The restaurant we've been driving by now for awhile. The atmosphere was like we both felt we were visiting someone's, house which was cool. I assume the guy waiting on us was Lou who I think must be part owner or the owner.

I had a bacon and cheese omelet and G had "Potato bread - egg in the hole." Both were very good, and bottomless coffee wasn't bad either. I'll rate this an 8 out of 10.

Herb Crusted Roasted Pork Loin

2007-04-29T21:09:00.000-04:00

Saw this on Paula's Home Cooking show. Here is a link to the recipe.

Very simple recipe and it tasted great. G made a mushroom rice mix also on her site.

Herb Crusted Pork Tenderloin
Recipe courtesy Paula Deen, 2007

See this recipe on air Monday May. 07 at 1:00 PM ET/PT.

1 (4-pound) boneless pork loin, with fat left on
1 tablespoon salt
2 tablespoons olive oil
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 teaspoon dried thyme or 2 teaspoons minced fresh thyme leaves
1 teaspoon dried basil or 2 teaspoons fresh basil leaves
1 teaspoon dried rosemary or 2 teaspoons minced fresh rosemary

Preheat oven to 475 degrees F.

Place the pork loin on a rack in a roasting pan. Combine the remaining ingredients in a small bowl. With your fingers, massage the mixture onto the pork loin, covering all of the meat and fat.
Roast the pork for 30 minutes, then reduce the heat to 425 degrees F and roast for an additional hour. Test for doneness using an instant-read thermometer. When the internal temperature reaches 155 degrees F, remove the roast from the oven. Allow it to sit for about 20 minutes before carving. It will continue to cook while it rests.
Recipe SummaryDifficulty: Easy Prep Time: 10 minutes Inactive Prep Time: 20 minutes Cook Time: 1 hour 45 minutes Yield: 6 to 8 servings
User Rating:
No Rating
Episode#: PA1006Copyright © 2006 Television Food Network, G.P., All Rights Reserved

Kite flying for $32!

2007-04-29T20:54:00.000-04:00

G and I took the kite out today. It was perfect conditions and we finally took a real shot a flying a two wire kite. It took a bit but we got the hang of it pretty fast. Learning to go left, right, and control the speed. G got pretty good at doing spirals. I got decent at hugging the ground and landing and taking off.

Anyhow this is great fun for a really cheap price. We picked this up at Dan's Crafts and Things.

First day of mowing!

2007-04-29T11:30:00.000-04:00

The back yard is a swamp but I was able to get the John Deere Sabre up and running and got the front lawn mowed. Surprisingly I don't have to buy a battery this year. I bought a trickle charger last year but never got around to hooking it up to the mower battery. Luckily it started anyhow.

Garibaldi's Mexican Grill

2007-04-28T20:27:00.000-04:00

G was starving, I was pretty much satisfied with a bowl of soup or something cheap at Taco-Bell, but we endedup at Garibaldi's on West Ridge Road. We've been there before and it is pretty good.

I found on the menu stuff Bell Peppers with sauce and thought that would be good. Well what came out was some sort of mexican disaster. There were no bell peppers but instead there were pablano peppers-deep fried with chicken, and smothered with this sour cream-cheese-whateverelseyoucanimagine sauce. This meal looked like scowers from a calf at a veal farm.

And I'm not kidding! It looked that bad. I ate some beans and some chicken, that was it. G had a good meal at least.

The place was busy and our waiter never stopped back over even after we had our coats. I finally got up to get the bill. He gave it to me and acted as if he was going to walk away. I said I wasn't satisified with my meal and G spoke up and said they were not bell peppers. Any how the guy checking me out took my meal off so I felt much better. I didn't want to pay $8 for scowers, sorry.

The meal I'll give a 2, the service a 2, but they came through so I'll give them a 7.

http://rocwiki.org/Garibaldi

Vacancy

2007-04-27T21:42:00.000-04:00

Kate Beckinsale and Luke Wilson star in this one. I thought they did a great job showing real fear and it was a very suspenseful movie. I'll give it 7 out of 10.

New water tank!

2007-04-15T22:53:00.000-04:00

This is the new water heater. Bought a Kenmore 9 year at Sears. Looked at home depot but their selection sucked.

I also bought a floor pan which I can direct to the basement drain so this won't happen again!

Busted water tank!

2007-04-15T22:34:00.000-04:00

The good ol' water take finally went. We were lazy today and didn't go to shower until around 2:30PM and I noticed that we had no hot water at all. My first thought was the water should have been at least luke warm not freezing cold, so I knew immediately a leak was possible. We ran downstairs and this is what we saw.

Our basement is a disaster anyhow due to remodelling but this just added to the mess.

We got it sucked up though and it is drying nicelly, nothing permanently damaged.

The leak came from the top of the water tank. I believe the person that installed this didn't use dielectric fittings so the copper to steel finally broke down and started leaking.

Skunk Happened!

2007-04-13T23:02:00.000-04:00

Woodstock finally got the skunk caught. He got a trap and with some help from animal control to capture the skunk and then they took it away. So far they are now skunk free!

Description of the Windows Installer CleanUp Utility

2007-04-07T23:39:00.000-04:00

Description of the Windows Installer CleanUp Utility

Great tool when you can't get a program installed.

msicuu2.exe

Skunk Happens!

2007-04-07T22:28:00.002-04:00

The inlaws house has a skunk living underneith and apparently it is agitated! Wasn't too bad of a smell until around 9:00pm and then all hell broke loose. Very intense skunk smell! G, S, and I ended back over to my mom's house to get away from the smell.

Inlaws didn't want the skunk to win and stayed at their house with a trap outside with peanutbutter in it with hopes of getting it.

Snowing day before Easter!

2007-04-07T22:28:00.001-04:00

What kind of crap is this. We're down home and have over a foot of snow with hard snow falling and bad roads. Unreal.

Grindhouse

2007-04-06T22:22:00.000-04:00

Awesome movie! Guy's flick for sure though G loved it too. We were in the theatre a record 3.75 hours! Hot women, blood and gore, funny seventies type of filmagraphy, and Quentin Tarentino!

I'll give this a 9 out of 10.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0462322/

http://www.grindhousemovie.net/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grind_House_(film)

Daryl Wins 1 up and Wins Series 4 to 2!

2007-04-02T21:25:00.000-04:00

We played The Golf Club of Oklahoma and Daryl poored it on the last five holes and one 1 up! Great round! Daryl wins the series, dinner is on me.

The Last Mimzy

2007-04-01T21:57:00.000-04:00

We saw this with my sister and her oldest daughter. I was looking forward to this movie. It was kinda a sci-fi movie and I really enjoyed it. It wasn't a bratty kiddiebopper movie at all. I'll give it a 6 out of 10. Worth seeing if you like sci-fi.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0768212/

The Peaceful Warrior

2007-03-30T21:52:00.000-04:00

We received free tickets from G's gymnastics class. What a great surprise of a movie. Nick Nolte was surprisingly believable and the message of the movie was awesome, especially for any athlete. Tiger Woods, I'm sure, lives by this guidance which is summed up as, "Live In The Now." Don't think about what might be, what could be, or what was, only live and experience what is right in front of you.

The movie I felt was a 8 out of 10 but for getting something out of a movie I'll give it a 10.

Cooks.com - Recipe - Hamburger Rice Casserole

2007-03-28T17:55:00.000-04:00

Cooks.com - Recipe - Hamburger Rice Casserole

Southern Hills Country Club : Rick Wins 5 up

2007-03-26T22:32:00.000-04:00

We had a tough run but I ended up with little better outcome.

Daryl 3 wins Rick 2 wins

300

2007-03-17T07:59:00.000-04:00

Larger than life and awesome is all that I can say. We saw this in the IMAX theater and it is just a feast for the eyes in every way. I'll give this a 10 out of 10. I don't know how it could have been done any better.

http://imdb.com/title/tt0416449/

Wild Hogs

2007-03-09T21:32:00.000-05:00

This movie was a lot of fun to watch. Everyone was funny and Marisa Tomei was smokin. I'll rate it a 7 out of 10.

http://imdb.com/title/tt0486946/

Edgbaston Golf Course : Daryl Wins 3 Up

2007-03-05T21:04:00.000-05:00

Daryl cranked both nines and came out 3 up! Good job D!

Our match is now Daryl 3 Rick 1

Syncing to Google

2007-03-05T17:25:00.000-05:00

Here are links about syncing to google:

http://www.jakeludington.com/ask_jake/20060818_how_to_sync_google_calendar_with_outlook_and_smartphones_automatically.html

http://www.grinn.net/blog/dev/2006/04/incorporate-google-calendar-into.html

http://www.scheduleworld.com/tg/cal/day.jsp

Zodiac

2007-03-05T17:18:00.000-05:00

I thought this was a good movie. Nothing unbelievable about a serial killer but the story seemed well written and Jake did a good job. I'll give this a 7 out of 10.

http://imdb.com/title/tt0443706/

The Astronaut Farmer

2007-02-25T19:05:00.000-05:00

What a great movie! I loved it. Granted I think with the movie ending happy is great and all, the reality is, many dreams come at a price. I like the conviction of the movie though and it does show that if a person has a real passion, ya gotta go for it.

http://imdb.com/title/tt0469263/

The Number 23

2007-02-23T19:02:00.000-05:00

Freaky movie! What a twist at the end! It does make you wonder, that is for sure. Though I do believe a lot of it is twisting the numbers around to make 23. I'll give it a 7 out of 10.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0481369/

Bridge To Terabithia

2007-02-19T20:57:00.000-05:00

Just an awesome and very emotional movie. I loved it. 9 out of 10 for me.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0398808/

Ghost Rider

2007-02-16T19:00:00.000-05:00

Saw the movie on my day off. I enjoyed it. I don't know anything about the history of the comic-book but I thought it was entertaining. I'll give it a 6 out of 10.

http://imdb.com/title/tt0259324/

Daryl Wins at Augusta Par 3 in play-off!

2007-02-12T21:46:00.000-05:00

I was two up with two to go and Daryl poured it on with two birdies to tie it up and then a chip-in for birdie to win! Good job Daryl.

Daryl 2 wins Rick 1 win in series.

K-Club : Daryl Wins in Playoff

2007-02-05T20:49:00.000-05:00

Daryl wins by 1 in a playoff. I was two up with two to go and Daryl had a rally. I missed a 4' putt at the end to win both and the same on the playoff hole.

We are now 1 to 1 in series.

Smokin Aces

2007-02-02T20:51:00.000-05:00

This movie sucked. I liked Alicia Keys and the fifteen minute blood bath; that is about it! I'll give this movie a 3 out of 10.

K-Club : Rick wins 1 up

2007-01-29T21:48:00.000-05:00

Awesome match. Daryl was 2 up with 2 to go and I had a birdie and eagle to tie. First sudden death playoff Daryl just misses the chip-in and I make a 4 footer to win.

Rick 1 up in series.

Pan's Labyrinth

2007-01-20T20:38:00.000-05:00

I really enjoyed this movie. A fair tale played out within a time of war and death. Very graphic movie with some pretty dark undertones. I'll still give this a 9 out of 10.

http://www.panslabyrinth.com/

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0457430/

How to freakin fold shirts!

2007-01-20T16:20:00.001-05:00

This is an awesome way to quickly fold shirts or t-shirts! Here is the same thing but more indepth.

The iPhone Rocks!

2007-01-17T21:29:00.000-05:00

Barack one step closer!

2007-01-17T21:24:00.000-05:00

Sunflower Cafe Restaurant in Hamlin, NY

2007-01-14T19:52:00.000-05:00

G and I went wandering around on Sunday morning and started looking for this restaurant that her parents and I would always go to for breakfast while she was running the yearly Ontario Shore Marathon. I couldn't quite remember what road it was on but after about forty five minutes of driving we finally found it. It was worth the search. It is a cute little restaurant where you can tell you are eating amoung farmers, which is pretty cool. I had peach stuffed frenchtoast and G had pancakes. I'll give this one an 8 ouf of 10.

Map to restaurant

Betty's Restaurant near Allentown, NY

2007-01-14T19:50:00.000-05:00

Gary took me to this restaurant near downtown Buffalo on Saturday for breakfast. Very colorful restaurant and one that I would like to go back to again. Expensive though. I'll give it an 8 out of 10.

Map to restaurant

Johnny's Lunch, Since 1936 and AJ's Texas Hots

2007-01-13T19:44:00.000-05:00

G and I were discussing Johnny's and AJ's Texas Hots located around Jamestown, NY. We grew up going to these places and G found their website for Johnny's Lunch. It is weird that if you go to Johnny's Lunch and go to AJ's the food is almost identical. Both businesses are run by the same family but different off spring. They apparently must not want to run the businesses together. Here is a link to Johnny's Lunch and AJ's Texas Hots.

Johnny's Lunch, Since 1936
AJ Texas Hots

Rick wins 1 up at Buffalo Springs : Rick wins match 4 to 2

2007-01-08T22:43:00.000-05:00

We had a great battle on the front side and I managed to hang in there to the end. We're heading to the Distillary next week.

Basement remodelling continues

2007-01-07T17:42:00.000-05:00

The studs are going up! I have one complete wall in the laundry room up and one complete wall along the back. Now the challege is going around the ductwork and building the walls around the stairwell.

The Night at the Museum

2007-01-06T22:53:00.000-05:00

Ben Stiller movie. I enjoyed it and thought it was fun to watch. I'll give it a 7 out of 10.

Best PC Golf Game Ever : Links 2003

2007-01-01T21:36:00.000-05:00

This is still by far the best golf game for the PC ever. I've tried them all, Tiger Woods and the new Pro Golf and they both suck when it comes to physics.

I'm going to continue to add to this post links, pics, and other items as a tribute to this great game. Hopefully one day the next version will be released. I've owned every version since day one back in the late 1980s with the Commodore 64 version called LeaderBoard.

Links to Active Websites

Links to Download Patches

FileFront.com

Links Country Club (not all links work any more)

Empire Interactive

Westfields Golf Club : Rick wins by 1 : Match Play

2007-01-01T21:12:00.000-05:00

Daryl rallied near the end but missed a putt to tie. Rick 3 wins Daryl 2 wins. Still playing best out of 7.

Basement remodelling finaly begins!

2007-01-01T18:49:00.000-05:00

I've finally started on the basement. I saw a friends basement who professionals were working and they simply put plastic on the block down into the floating slab channel and proceeded to put studs up. So I'm doing the same. I'll then fill in the studs with fiberglass insulation leaving about a foot from the bottom empty and this insulation will be faced but with no vapor barrier.

This photo shows where I'll put an access box for the cleanout.
This is one thing I've learned from experience about putting studs up. The studs are never perfect so I always squar the face of the studs so the drywall lays nice and flat when I put it up.