August 2002 Archives

So, now we're in Ohio, temporarily staying with the folks while we wait to close on the house. It's been thoroughly cleaned, and the trailers should arrive sometime tomorrow. In the meantime, we've been dealing with the 1,001 minor-but-important details: transferring utilities, buying David's school supplies, double-checking the roofer's references, looking for a new microwave, and so on. This to me is the most aggravating part of moving, since it never seems to stop. On the other hand, all the parts of moving have been aggravating so far. We'll all be happy when we're in the new house, even though it will take a while to get settled in.

I was going to write a (hopefully) funny post about how Arlene & I celebrated the day yesterday, but I'm too tired. We spent all day Friday packing and loading trailer #1, with much help from friends from church. We got about 2/3 of the trailer loaded that first day, including the refrigerator, the piano, Arlene's heavy credenza and china cabinet, the sofa, and my Monster Steel Desk (tm). We ended up rejiggering a bunch of the load on Saturday, with yet more help from church friends (including some of the same folks who came and sweated with us on Friday).

Now, the trucks are both loaded, and we close tomorrow on this house. This afternoon I met Chris and Lisa, the buyers, at our house to do a quick walkthrough and to let them get their cats out of their cat crates. Since it's going to be their house in 18 hours or so, I didn't see the harm in letting them do so. They seem like a great family, and their kids are obviously excited about the new house, new neighborhood, etc. We had a nice visit, then Tom & I left to go visit the Crosbys and the Chandlers. By the time we came back here, we were both dead tired. Tom, in fact, was so sleepy he didn't want anything to eat; he just zonked out in the van on the way back. Now he's asleep, and I will be shortly.

Tomorrow at 0930 we close, then I have to go to the bank, get a dog leash, get the dog from the kennel, and get up to Ohio. Somewhere in there, I have to meet the ABF drivers at our house so they can ship our stuff, then it's off to the great white north.

Dave Farber today said:

As of the time of this posting , the ms home page certainly does not have
any eye catching pointer to the fix. Shame on them.

To which I replied as follows:

To be fair, Dave, there are several ways to learn about security patches as soon as they're released besides the MS home page (which I rarely visit). One channel, of course, is the ubiquitous (and frequently sensationalistic or incorrect, but hey, that's another story) press reports, as represented by the Reuters report. It was filed at 8:11pm on 8/22. 99.9% of the time, press reports lag the other channels of notification, though.

Finally, there is a clear link to the Office XP SR2 release from the home page; it's #1 under the "support" group on the lower-right corner. It is unfair to complain that there's no big red "DANGER WILL ROBINSON" label applied to it. If Microsoft doesn't release timely patches, people complain. If they do release timely patches, some segments of the community complain that it's a vehicle to sneak in new license terms or get up to other mischief.

Sometime today (hopefully around noon), we expect to see 2 28' trailers magically appear, and the Great Move of 2002 will officially begin. Several friends from church are coming over to help us load this afternoon, then we'll have a second shift of after-work folks this evening, and more tomorrow. I'll try to post some pictures of the moving process (nothing like seeing a bunch of sweaty Mormons carrying boxes!) but I doubt I'll be near the computers for the next couple of days.

Busy last couple of days. I finished another book chapter; the modem in our TiVo died, and our moving preparations are picking up speed. The big truck will be here tomorrow about noon, and we have several shifts of friends from church coming to help us load and pack.

Arlene and I both have talks to give at church on Sunday, plus I have my regular Sunday-school class to teach. Right after church, she'll leave to drive up to Perrysburg with David and Matt. Thomas and I will stay here for the closing on Monday, then drive up. Our stuff will leave on Monday and arrive sometime later in the week. Of course, the idiot sellers still haven't told us which of the inspection defects they're going to fix, and their realtor isn't even returning our agent's phone calls-- not a good sign. It would really stink if we had to put our stuff in storage to await our closing date, but we may yet have to.

I Drive the Truck

I just talked to ABF. Our two trailers will be here around noon on Friday. Let the games begin!

Found a more-worthwhile-than-usual political self-tester at www.politicalcompass.org. It's a short multiple-choice test that asks you a bunch of questions to determine where you fall on two axes: authoritarian vs. libertarian and economic left vs. right. Here's the site's self-description:

On the standard left-right scale, how do you distinguish leftists like Stalin and Gandhi? It's not sufficient to say that Stalin was simply more left than Gandhi. There are fundamental political differences between them that the old categories on their own can't explain. Similarly, we generally describe social reactionaries as 'right-wingers', yet that leaves left-wing reactionaries like Robert Mugabe and Pol Pot off the hook.

Office XP Service Pack 2 has been released. It contains a whole pile of bug fixes for Outlook. It's available from Microsoft's Office update page.

Did the stork bring it? Sorry, but no.

The National Security Act of 1947 created the Air Force. As part of the politicking that followed its passage, the so-called "Key West Agreement" was struck: the Army could have helicopters, and fixed-wing aircraft of less than (IIRC) 12,000lbs, and that was it. The Army wasn't supposed to arm any of their fixed-wing aircraft, either, although eventually that restriction was de facto relaxed. That's how the Army ended up with cool planes like the OA-37 Dragonfly and the OV-10 Bronco.

As time passed, the Air Force began to lose interest in the boring close-air support mission, instead spending more of its time and budget on strategic deterrence and air superiority. Over time, this focus has changed somewhat, with air mobility becoming (rightfully) more important than in the past. However, the fact remains that the Army and the Air Force would probably both be happier if the Army got the fixed-wing CAS assets and formed an organic air support capability, just like the Marines have. Of course, one reason the Navy-Marine Corps relationship is so successful is that the Navy knows their place: moving the USMC from point A to point B.

MEC 2002 is approaching fast: it's October 8-11 in Anaheim. I just got word that I'll be presenting two sessions there: "Big Security for Small Exchange Sites" and "Exploring Exchange Storage Manageability and Design". I am also tentatively down for a session on the best way to migrate to Office XP, which should be interesting.

So, a big shout out to all Exchange 2000 folks: come on to Anaheim and get some good learnin'

I've been using Groove for several projects recently. I bought their client software. Now I find out that the only way to get support for it is to buy a $2500 "support pack" that allows me to ask 10 support questions via e-mail. Shyeah, right.

People complain about Microsoft for a variety of reasons, but even their low-end products have competent free tech support. I once spent two hours on the phone with a PictureIt! support rep identifying a bug with the HP PhotoSmart printer driver. For the $40 they got from me for the program, Microsoft probably spent four times that for one support call. Their pay-for-support program is excellent as well.

When I have time, I'm building up a longer rant about Groove's frustrating potential: it does some things really well, but it's missing some basics.

We close on the sale of our Capstone Lane house in seven days: next Monday, 8/26. Our house now looks like the Box Fairy came to visit; there are full, partially full, and disassembled boxes everywhere. Our friend Andy the painter is coming to repaint two rooms today; I have about a dozen items on my to-do list (including cancelling dentist appointments for next month, calling the satellite TV people, and arranging the final details for our moving trucks.)

Most of the equipment in my workroom is taken apart and packed. In the process, I've been doing a Thomspon Deep Clean®, during which I found some Valuable Stuff. I also accidentally shipped a perfectly good replacement disk drive back to Maxtor, instead of sending them the broken one they were supposed to get. Time to add "Call FedEx" to my to-do list.

In the meantime, I am pushing to finish chapters 8 & 9 of my book before we move. Since the truck will arrive on Friday sometime, that gives me a pretty tight deadline. Off to work.

I just signed a contract to write the weekly Exchange UPDATE column for my pals at Exchange & Outlook Administrator. I'm really excited by the opportunity, although Jerry Cochran (the previous editor) is leaving me some mighty big shoes to fill. If you have suggestions for topics, I'd love to hear them.

We now have telephone numbers for our Ohio house, and a promise of DSL no later than 9/11. Things are starting to move along!

For some reason, our home phone stopped working. I called BellSouth. Did they play their usual crappy music-on-hold? They did not. Instead, I was treated to Van Halen's Dance the Night Away.

An Internet ministry dedicated to peacekeeping forces all over the world. Is that cool or what?

I needed the ISBN number for a book that I knew I had on my printer desk, about 18" behind my chair. Almost without thinking about it, I opened a new IE window and headed to Amazon before I realized that I had the actual dead-trees book right here. Would this be evidence that the 'net has thoroughly pervaded my work life?

I have no idea what this article is about. I mean, I understand the individual words, but the concept remains elusive. I guess it's good to be reminded of my personal limitations from time to time.

The incessant parade of minor real estate annoyances is beginning to get to me. I am torn between being thankful that we're able to buy a home and move on one hand and, on the other, the urge to start living in a cardboard box. We've completed the home inspection on both houses; our repairs are (mostly) done here, but we're waiting for the Ohio seller (oops; I almost wrote "remote end"-- guess what I've been writing about?) to tell us what they're going to fix. We're also waiting to get a final closing date on our Alabama house. We're also waiting for our mortgage lender to decide if they need blood samples, fingerprints, brain scans, or anything else. On top of that, we're waiting for the results of the Ohio radon test, and we're waiting for the buyer to tell us what color they want the boys' bedroom painted, and.... I'll stop there before I begin to hyperventilate.

Consider the following screenplay, coming soon to your local multiplex. It's all true, at least mostly so.

SCENE: the IRS regional office, a rather tatty-looking office next to a hamburger stand near the public library.

ENTER: PAUL, a fairly young, casually dressed white male. He looks around and spots a window in one wall.

I've been meaning to supplement the book review engine on this site with better links to Amazon, using Adam Kalsey's MTAmazon plugin. Brad Choate has an interesting application of the plugin on his site. I haven't figured out yet exactly how I'm going to make this work, but it should be an interesting project for any free time I accidentally happen to get between now and the time the book's finished.

On Saturday, I had the boys at the barbershop to renew their summer tennis-ball haircuts. Arlene called and said "Gosh, I wish you could come up and look at houses". So I did: the three boys, the boat, and I all headed north on I-65, leaving about 1630 Saturday afternoon. My plan was to stop for the night somewhere around Louisville. Unfortunately, I didn't plan on the annual Street Rod Nationals, held each year in Louisville during the first week of August. Every hotel we checked, from fleabags up to the Louisville Hilton, was full. We sure did see a lot of cool cars, though.
Actually, David and I (the others were asleep) ended up in the middle of a parade/drag race in front of the Executive West hotel.

Wireless networks are great. It follows, then, that a wireless networks between two cars on the Interstate must be greater still.

I threw together a quick page listing some things that a newcomer to our area might want to know. It is in no wise comprehensive, but it's a good start, and I'll be adding to it until we move. If you're not from around here (see? I didn't use the word "ain't"-- I am ready to move to Ohio after all!), you might not find it very interesting.

The Financial Times has a special report out: "Barons of Bankruptcy." It reveals that the top management of the 25 biggest recent US corporate collapses walked away with (or, more properly, stole) more than US$3.3 BILLION in compensation! Holy spit! That's hard to imagine.

Lots of people find it fashionable to crack on CEOs like Bill Gates, Larry Ellison, and Steve Jobs (particularly Gates, who is unfairly dammed even in the midst of huge charitable giving--"oh, $25m is just a drop in the bucket!", they say)-- but they never engaged in this kind of flagrant dishonesty (well, OK, Oracle did). Disgusting.

In a shocking revelation, Simson Garfinkel points out that Starbucks is charging for wireless Internet access in its stores! Oh, the horror! He says:

Starbucks, the king of the $4 coffee, wanted me to pay for a service that should be too cheap to meter.

Well, duh. Consider the fact that Starbucks is a demonic corporate monster bent on world domination, and this probably won't be too surprising. Simson does make a few good points about the fact that for most of us, it's cheaper just to set up a WiFi access point and let people share it than it would be to set up an elaborate billing infrastructure.

As long as I'm in the mood for making up new words, I hereby coin the term blogholing for stereotyping blog content based on one of the widely established categories of blogs: warblogs, techblogs, and so on. If you go to Google and plug in the search term of your choice, plus "+blog", you're probably going to find a blog on that topic. In trying to prove my point by finding and linking to some ham radio blogs, I found a fascinating essay by Tony Collen, "What is ham journalism?" In it, he says:

There's something we bloggers have in common, regardless of whether we belong to the upper or lower castes (and cases) of Journalism. Or to both. We are all, each and every one of us, many things; but we are all writers. That's what we do here. We write.

He goes on to liken blogging to ham radio: both are hobbies involving communication, and both represent opportunities to jump in, start conversations, and share information without having pre-established relationships. Sure, there are journalist bloggers like Dan Gillmor and 'real' author bloggers like Cory Doctorow, but most of us are just ordinary people (ranging from librarians to USAF mechanics to schoolteachers to, probably, garbagemen) writing about what interests us. Blogging is a pleasant cross between talking to a stranger at the airport or doctor's office (since you can get trapped into receiving Too Much Information) and the ease of access and information content of Big Media.

I guess I'm halfway in between; I earn a living by writing, but it's technical. On the other hand, my brother earns his living doing technical stuff, but he writes too. We can all do it. If you're not blogging yourself, why not?
Update: Doc Searls has an explanation of what bloghole means.

It is done. The house is officially under contract. Our time on the market: a respectable 62 days. The only bad thing is that the buyer wants to close no later than 3 September, which doesn't give us much time to find a house, move our stuff, etc. We have to get David enrolled in school, get bandwidth for me, find doctors and veterinarians, and so forth. Fortunately, we have family and friends in the area, not to mention what appears to be a good ward of the Church. I'm very thankful to Heavenly Father for making this such a smooth process so far-- our family prayers have definitely been answered!

Well, I have to write it first, so hold your horses :)

Seriously, I am soliciting volunteer reviewers for Secure Messaging With Exchange, which I am busily writing for Microsoft Press. Exchange security is on a lot of peoples’ minds, so I’d like to get a mix of experience levels. You don’t have to be a writer, and you don’t have to have years of Exchange experience. What you do have to do is simple:

• Install and use the Groove Transceiver client to gain access to the Groove shared space where I'm working.
  
• Agree to download new chapters as they're released and actually (gasp!) read them.
  
• Agree to turn in comments on chapters. You don't have to comment on every chapter, but if it becomes clear that you're sandbagging I'll have to drop you from the review group.
  
• Agree to make suggestions for improvements to the book.
  

In return for this, I'm offering acknowledgements in the text, my great gratitude, and a free copy of the book when it's printed. If you're interested, email me and tell me why you want to be a reviewer and what expertise you have with security and/or Exchange.

I can already tell that today is going to be great, this despite going to bed at almost midnight and getting up at my usual time of 0430. Why? Well, first, I was able to get out of bed; that's always something to be thankful for, although it's easy to forget sometimes. Next, I finally got the book review template to work the way it should-- if you look on the right-hand column of this page, under the "What I'm reading: dead trees" section, you'll see some links that now connect to a MySQL database of book reviews. I still have some kinks to work out, plus a huge backlog of reviews to type in, but the basic feature works OK and the template doesn't look too bad. Try it out.

The big news is that late last night we spoke to our REALTOR and got the full scoop on the offer. The money's a little low, but they want to close very soon, which suits us just fine. We issued a counteroffer, which we, our REALTOR, and the buyer's agent all expect to be accepted. Hopefully by the end of the day we'll have a contract, which is the other reason today has such great potential. I also get to play hooky this morning and take the boys to the Space & Rocket Center. What else could I possibly ask for?

Update: a friend of mine who lost his job as an Exchange admin a couple of months ago just got a new job. Good karma all around!