March 2005 Archives

I just set up a new radio: an Icom IC-706 Mk II-G. This is a huge improvement over my previous station, which consisted of a single Alinco handie-talkie. The new radio covers VHF, UHF, and HF, so I can use it for ARES traffic and for long-distance communications (once I get an antenna set up, anyway). I still have to mount the control unit to my desk and set up a better speaker; eventually I want to hook the rig to my computer and start running MacLogger with it.

I've been reading a lot lately. Herewith a few quick reviews of my latest.

• Lashner, Fatal Flaw. His other books were much better. Turgid, needlessly convoluted plot and unsympathetic characters. Don't bother.


• Turtledove, Days of Infamy. What if the Japanese strike at Pearl Harbor had been followed up by an amphibious landing? That's the central premise of this book, which is well enough written that I slogged through the exceptionally slow first 2/3rds of it. I hope the next book in this series (because there will be one, no doubt) is a little snappier.


• Silva, Prince of Fire. Five stars and then some. Silva is, for my money, the best thriller writer in the business (with Barry Eisler a close second). Rich characters with complex motivations, rapid plotting, and a thorough mastery of both storytelling and the political and social forces that underlie the characters' actions. Highly recommended.


• Lefcourt, The Deal. I only read this because our library didn't have The Manhattan Beach Project yet. This was supposed to be a satire of 1990s Hollywood, but it felt contrived and lacked the edge that's so important to pulling off a satire. Maybe it would have been better in 1992 or so. Not especially recommended.


• Gaiman, American Gods. Why, oh why, did I wait so long to read this? Superb.

So, yesterday I was in Manhattan, again. This time it was to attend IBM's "Microsoft Exchange Alternatives" seminar, held at IBM's building on Madison Avenue. I had to get up at 0400 to drive to Detroit and catch the first flight in to LGA; despite that, the flight was delayed. (That gave me time to finish a paper I've been working on, which I emailed from the back of the taxi on the way to IBM. Good news: I can send email from taxicabs. Bad news: sometimes I have to.) As Ed said, the seminar was well-attended, with about 20 folks in the room from a variety of customers.

There were four presenters: Ed did his overview of IBM's collab strategy; Jennifer Meade from ThroughBox IT did a somewhat lackluster review of three customer case studies, Henry Bestritsky from Binary Tree talked about their Common Migration Tool (CMT) and how it can be used to move from Exchange to Notes, and Brendan Crotty wrapped the morning up with a solid demo of the Domino Access for Microsoft Outlook (DAMO) tool.

Overall, I thought it was a good first effort. As I pointed out to Ed when I met him afterwards, there wasn't any convincing discussion about quantified business value. Interestingly, IBM had several Linux sales folks in the audience, and a common theme underlying Ed and Brendan's presentations was that IBM is promoting server OS choice. I'll save my analysis of that meme for another day :) I don't think the seminar content accurately reflected Microsoft's current collab strategy and why IBM thinks theirs is better. In fairness, that's not what this event was intended to cover. IBM did a good job of positively conveying their message, though, and I think mixing in the partners was a good touch.

How does this compare to our "Optimizing Collaboration and Communications" event? We have more demos, including an extended "day in the life" demo that lets me show how I actually use Microsoft's tools to get my daily work done. We also have a lot more quantitative information about the business benefits of extending Notes/Domino infrastructures with MS' tools. We'll see what Ed thinks when he attends our Chicago event.

Unlike Ed, I made it out of LGA before the weather turned bad :)

Getting on the bus well after it's left the station, Symbian announced today that they're licensing the Exchange ActiveSync protocol. With more than 25 million Symbian OS devices worldwide, this is a big announcement for both sides, although no firm timeline was disclosed. Symbian's already got a good mobile connectivity story; this makes it better while simultaneously highlighting Exchange 2003's advantages as a wireless messaging platform.

Great story in the Tennessean this morning: gas stations are running out of "2"s to put on their pricing signs. At $150 for each sign letter or number, stores haven't had any incentive to build up a 2 stockpile-- but as prices edge higher, suddenly 2s are in demand.

So far, I have to give my new BuckeyeTel service mixed reviews. The good: the phone service works well, with clear audio. I like having voice mail, and I love not paying for long distance or giving SBC any money. The bad: there are several minor annoyances that they're still working on. For example, if I forward my desk phone to my cell, the caller ID on the cell phone shows the number of my desk phone instead of the real number. Every forwarded call thus appears to be from me, which isn't too helpful.

More seriously, my download speeds have fallen to almost zero-- really. My most recent speed test shows 21 kbps down, 43 kbps up. In other words, I'm getting roughly 1/3 the speed of a dial-up modem connection. The last time that happened, two Buckeye techs came out, fiddled with the cable pedestal and my internal wiring, and replaced the modem, which ended up fixing the problem. I called last night and was put on the tier-2 support queue, but so far they haven't called me back. That's not exactly the kind of support I expect for a commercial account. At least my phone's working.

Update: after switching NICs in my ISA Server box, and doing several different variation of voodoo tricks suggested by Buckeye, things are somewhat better.

OK, so I'm a tourist. Here's what I did yesterday:

• Arrived at Penn Station and walked to my hotel, which is on 6th Avenue. Streets and Trips says the most direct route is 1.6 mi, but I took the scenic route-- past B&H Photo (totally by accident), then back up 34th St to 6th and up 6th. Great walk.


• Checked in to the hotel and whipped through my inboxes. That took an hour or so.


• Caught a cab to the SoHo Apple Store, where I was sorely tempted by a wide variety of goodies. The place was packed! However, a dual-G4 (or even an iMac G5) is too big to carry back on the plane, so none for me.


• Had a slice of pepperoni pizza from a little hole-in-the-wall pizzeria on Prince St and ate it while walking through SoHo. Theboys are each getting a cheap NY tourist T-shirt (some of which were not exactly age appropriate).


• Took a cab to the World Trade Center site. Very moving, powerful yet sad. I spent a while there just looking, then moved around to take some pictures that I'll post after I get home.


• Took the subway back to the station at 57th and 7th, then walked to the hotel, where I found a mention of Harley-Davidson of New York. Off I went! They don't seem to actually sell or fix motorcycles; instead, they sell overpriced crap ($60 for a long-sleeved T-shirt) to tourists. I escaped with a $20 T-shirt; it was on sale.


• On the way to the Harley dealer, I found Kate's Paperie, where I got Arlene a little something. Then it was back to the hotel.

After all that touring, I was too tired to do anything else, so I had a room service burger, ate for a while, and hit the bed early. This morning, I got up at 6, went down to the hotel gym, and am now headed for a delicious hotel breakfast. Happy St. Patrick's Day!

After seeing Ed Brill mention IBM's "Microsoft Alternatives" session in Manhattan next week, I decided to sign up for it.. or at least to attempt to. There's no online registration, so I sent mail to the listed address asking to register. No response. So, I tried again just now, and added a voicemail for good measure. Hopefully that will do the trick; it sounds like an interesting seminar.

Update: got the call yesterday; I'm confirmed, and looking forward to it. I don't know much about BinaryTree and their migration tools, so this should be a good learning opportunity.

Today I'm in Boston; I'm about to leave my hotel and head down to Boston's South Station so I can take Amtrak's Acela service down to New York's Penn Station. I haven't ridden on a passenger train in a long while, so I'm looking forward to the experience.

Update: I'm now almost to New Haven, Connecticut. This beats flying by a wide margin-- a comfortable seat, with two 120V outlets, breakfast and lunch, and great scenery (intermingled, of course, with ugly train-track-side industrial buildings and graffiti). So far, the stretch between Boston and New London has been my favorite; New London-to-New Haven isn't quite as pretty.

Update: I love me some Acela. Overall the train trip was a delightful break from my regular air travel routine, and I recommend it heartily. For long trips, the speed of air travel can't be beat, but this trip has made me strongly consider using Amtrak for shorter trips like Toledo-Chicago.

This week I'm on the road in Boston and New York City, presenting the second and third iterations of the Microsoft "Optimizing Collaborations and Communications" roadshow that I wrote about last week. Yesterday's event was well attended, and the attendees asked some tough questions about Microsoft's C&C strategy. However, the session evaluation results indicate that they liked the answers they were hearing. MS' message-- that you can augment Notes/Domino installations by adding technologies that drive better business value-- seems to be resonating with these folks. Today, I go to Manhattan via the Acela (which I'll blog about later, or maybe during), then tomorrow it's St Paddy's Day in the Big Apple. I didn't bring anything green, so I need to do some shopping lest I face the wrath of the Irish.

The AP is reporting that Microsoft is buying Groove, which I think is great news. Groove adds some critical capacity to Office System and SharePoint. Lots of other folks will be analyzing this in more detail. The most interesting detail to me is that the AP's report says that Ray Ozzie is going to be the new Microsoft chief technology officer. That certainly raises some very interesting possibilities.

I'm supposed to be working on something else, but I couldn't resist the urge to answer Ed's post on the Microsoft Office Communicator launch, which in turn is in response to this Microsoft Monitor piece (which, by the way, contains a couple of errors).

First, let's consider public IM connectivity. Right now, if you want to interoperate with (say) AOL, you have to install AIM or an AIM-compatible client on your desktops... at which point you lose the security and compliance capabilities that Live Communications Server and Sametime/Workplace both offer. On the other hand, if you have a genuine business need for public IM connectivity, you can use the PIC feature of Live Communications Server to interoperate (selectively) with MSN Messenger, AIM, and Yahoo! Messenger users and still maintain both security and compliance. It's true that PIC is currently priced as a subscription. Ask yourself this: why did AOL suddenly decide to allow a competitor to interoperate? Normally their MO is to break interoperating clients as soon as they can get away with it. Are they getting a cut of the revenue? I don't know, but it certainly wouldn't surprise me.

Next, let's take Ed's point that the Microsoft collaboration platform has more than one piece (he actually uses the phrase "jigsaw puzzle"). Back in the day, Microsoft's claim was simple: Exchange does it all. They have since repented of that, instead delivering a broad suite of collaboration and communication tools that you can mix and match. You can deploy them together or separately. If you don't need, e.g., SharePoint Portal Server, fine-- don't buy it. There's significant stand-alone value in each of the components. In fact, I'm seeing a groundswell of interest in Live Meeting and Live Communication Server deployment among customers that aren't currently using Exchange. Why? Neither of those products require Exchange, and both add measurable business value.

Now, it's also true that the more pieces of the MS platform you deploy, the more capability you get. This is no different from Workplace, except that many of Microsoft's platform components are more mature than their Workplace equivalents. It's a little disingenuous of Microsoft Monitor to claim that you have to buy all of the features; that's like saying that I have to buy the Hemi when I buy a Dodge Magnum (well, OK, I would have to buy the Hemi, but that's another blog post).

About those Microsoft Monitor article mistakes: I count two simple typos ("Instanbul" and the confusion between SharePoint Portal and Windows SharePoint Services) and a misunderstanding of the Outlook/LCS connection. You can deploy Outlook 2003 without Exchange 2003 (in fact, you can even use Outlook 2003 against Notes/Domino servers, using either MS' or IBM's connectors). Every Exchange 2003 CAL includes an Outlook license, but Outlook is also licensable separately.

My installer arrived about 5:30pm. He left about 8pm. In the interim, he got my office phone line working (but not the jack upstairs in Arlene's office). In fairness, I have unusual, and poorly installed, phone wiring, and he was both diligent and patient. The phone service itself seems to work as advertised. However, something (maybe the new Arris Touchstone cable modem/NID?) has sent my download speeds right into the toilet. The best speed I've seen since the installer left is 1046 down/224 up. This is on a line that's rated at 5000 down/512 up. Something's amiss, but I don't know what yet and I'm too busy writing a paper to spend any more time on it-- there's always tomorrow (which, coincidentally, is when my installer is due back to get the other jack on the air).

Big news: The film version of Gerald Lund's The Work and the Glory, a nine-volume series of (ahem) romance novels that chronicle the early history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Why is this news? Well, for one, this kind of film usually doesn't make it outside the intermountain West-- it's been playing in Utah, Arizona, Idaho, and Nevada for a month, but the distributors cleverly arranged weekend screenings in lots of other markets. Here in Toledo, the film's showing at the Cinemathèque, otherwise known as half of the Super Cinemas Toledo complex over by Sam's off Airport Road. (It didn't help that the film web site had it written as "Cinema Tech", nor that the theater doesn't post Friday/Saturday showtimes until Thursday, but Arlene was able to ferret out the correct location.) Cinemathèque shows lots of art or small-distribution films that might not otherwise make it town, like Napoleon Dynamite and (hopefully) Gunner Palace.

Should you bother going to see this if you're not Mormon? Heck yes (but then you'd expect me to say that, wouldn't you?) Why? First of all, there are very few indie or non-mainstream movies shown in this area. National Amusements pretty much has the market sewn up, so we get lots of crap. Supporting indie films is good for the community, especially when the film in question is solidly family-friendly. If you're not Mormon, you'll probably learn some things you didn't know about Joseph Smith and the early history of the church. The persecutions and mob violence directed at the early Saints is pretty incredible by our standards today, but it happened.

Showtimes are this Friday and Saturday (11 and 12 March) at 2:10p, 4:40p, 7:10p, and 9:40p. If you go, post your thoughts on the movie here. (I'll post a review once I've seen it).

So, you might have seen Gary or Ed mention this, but now that it's underway I have time to talk about it too. 3sharp is presenting a 10-city roadshow called "Optimizing Communication and Collaboration with Microsoft Technologies". The thrust behind the roadshow is simple: you can get a lot of mileage from Microsoft's investment in communications and collaboration technologies by deploying them in parallel with-- not necessarily as a replacement for-- whatever you're currently using. The structure of the events is simple: if you're a developer, you go to John's excellent class on how to extend Notes apps by having them produce, or consume, data from .NET web services; if you're a technical decision maker, you come hear the Burton Group's forecast on market dynamics in the C&C space, then I get to explain the pieces of MS' collaboration strategy, with copious use of demos.

Our first event in Dallas this week went really well. My content was well-received; it was obvious to the attendees that we're not suggesting they rip-and-replace their existing infrastructures (well, maybe if you're using OCS). Instead, we're making a solid case for extending their business systems with Microsoft's collaboration and communications platform. Next stop: Waltham! (Personal to Ed Brill: the Chicago show got moved to 4/21, so please adjust your calendar!)

In my continuing quest to try every single communication service I can find (well, not really, but it sure seems that way), today the BuckeyeTel installer should be here to port my existing office line over to their service. I now pay SBC about $100/month for two lines, plus some features on the first line; Buckeye offers a $40 all-you-can-eat plan that includes long distance (bye bye, Qwest), voice mail, and a bunch of other features that I'm now paying extra for. Actually, it's $44 since I no longer have cable, but who's counting.

They're not officially offering service in Perrysburg yet, but they have a "friends and family" program, and Jason was kind enough to hook me up. I've generally been pretty pleased with their other services, and although I have no beef with the quality of SBC's phone service, their customer service has been spotty, and their prices... well, let's not go there. Now, if I could just get Vonage to port over my home phone number I'd be in business.

Last week was hectic; I headed out to Dallas for the first event in our "Optimizing Collaboration and Communications" event, then came back just in time to walk into a huge deadline for a paper I'm writing on an unreleased MS product. Over the weekend, though, the weather fairies were merciful and we had two gorgeous days of blue skies and warm sun. I got the boys' bikes down from their rack; Thomas broke out his Christmas rollerblades, and we got some quality outdoor playtime in. It was wonderful, although this week we're likely to have snow again. I'm ready for summer.

In this month's Windows IT Pro, I wrote a buyer's guide article on Exchange recovery tools. This just in from an admin who works for the city government of a large city in Virginia:

Thanks for putting this article together. I just wanted to let you know we are just about to implement a NetApp solution for Exchange 2003 and without NetApp's Single Mailbox Recovery product, not mentioned as needed in this article, it is impossible to Backup and Recover Individual Mailboxes, Recover Individual Items or Search and Query for Items to be Recovered. I wanted to let you know because their software is expensive and this product is an extra cost.

Yikes! My apologies for that. When I do a buyers' guide, I write the article itself that accompanies the guide, and I work with the magazine's editors to come up with a list of criteria, plus a list of products that meet those criteria. In this case, the selection criteria included the ability to do brick-level backups, the ability to search and query, and the ability to recover individual items. We don't usually ask vendors to list out all the products, submodules, agents, or other components that have to be installed to meet the criteria. For example, for backup solutions we don't ask whether there's a separate Exchange agent or not. Mail like this makes me think that maybe we should, though, because it's frustrating to buy what you think is a complete solution, only to find out that you have to lay out even more money to get the whole package.