Get your lecture on... Online

There's a new search engine for much of the Educational Podcast/Video contact.

Check it out here.

You learn something new every day...

Every day you learn something new. Whether it's something small or big. Sometimes if you're very lucky you learn something that although it's small, brings the bigger things into focus just a little better.

Today was one of those days for me. I finally after years of griping understand why Windows uses a \ instead of a / like it "should".

To sum up Larry Osterman's blog entry:

So that's why the path character is "\". It's because "/" was taken.

Read all about it at Larry's Blog

A Humorous look at Employment Ads

MyITForum.com has a humorous look at IT Employment ads. Learn to figure out what the employer REALLY means by that ad!

Open Source .Net Image Utility

http://www.getpaint.net/


Paint.Net started as a replacement for the standard windows Paint utility but became oh so much more. And it's Open Source to boot. Definitely worth a download!

2006 Wings Over Houston

This past weekend I had the pleasure of working Communications for the Wings Over Houston Airshow. The featured performers were the USAF Thunderbirds. They certainly put on an excellent show.

After thumping the snooze button a few times Saturday morning, I rolled out of the house at around 05:45 and screamed down the highway to Ellington Field on the southeast side of town. Luckily the light morning traffic allowed me to make it there by 07:30 when I was expected. After collecting my tickets and parking passes for both days and getting parked in the volunteer parking field, I finally walked onto the taxiway where all of the aircraft for the show were parked. Right away I noticed that there were more aircraft on the field than last year. Among the notables were a KC-135 Tanker, a C-5 Galaxy, a pair of A-10 Warthogs, a C-17 Globemaster Hurricane Hunter, the 747 NASA uses to carry the Shuttle around and of course the F-117 Stealth Fighter.

I spent Saturday and the vast majority of Sunday working with the Motor Pool. The Motor Pool has to be the craziest and most fun group in the entire airshow. They're closer to a wonderfully dysfunctional family that gets together for a reunion one weekend a year than a group of volunteers giving up a weekend for a good cause. We were in charge of all of the Golf-Carts assigned out and running several larger (6 seat) Golf Carts around to ferry Pilots, Volunteers, Distinguished Heros and Legends and so forth around the field.

The shear size of the airshow is impressive and exhausting at the same time. Saturday morning was a bit worrisome as there was a good bit of rain and there was a good chance it was sticking around. Luckily the rain cleared out and the clouds lifted enough by late morning for the airshow to carry on as usual. The Tora, Tora, Tora display was excellent as always. The pyrotechnics really make the show. Feeling and Hearing the blasts so distinctly really makes it far better than a bunch of planes flying around each other trailing smoke.

The barnstorming was pretty good as well. Those guys are patently insane and make airplanes do things they really shouldn't do. It's amazing the control they have over their aircraft. The only problem here was that they would occasionally break into the lower clouds and were hard to see.

The clouds and rain didn't deter the crowds from showing up at all. The public was out in force. Personally I think the great attendance was largely due to the media attention that the show got this year. The news stations have really been pumping the show up more than they have in past years.

Finally at 15:00 the Thunderbirds took possession of the airspace. The performed their "Low Show" Saturday and their "High Show" on Sunday.
Neither is a better show, they are both excellent. The High Show focuses on the maneuvers that send the aircraft higher in the sky where the Low Show is maneuvers that are closer to the ground. They both have their benefits. The High Show is probably prettier and can be more awe inspiring in that way, whereas the Low Show with it's focus on keeping the aircraft below the cloud ceiling shows you extremely difficult and impressive much closer where you can really see things better.

Overall it was a great weekend. I'll definitely be back next year. Rumor is that the Canadian Snowbirds may come down for it. Sound like fun eh?

Unix Style Background Jobs in Powershell

Ripping from the original source...

PS> new-job { get-date; start-sleep 5; get-date }
Job 0 Started

#
PS>
Job 0 Completed
PS> jobs 0

JobId Status Command Results
----- ------ ------- -------
5 Completed get-date; start-sleep 5; ... 8/30/2006 4:47:32 PM

PS> (jobs 0).results

Wednesday, August 30, 2006 4:47:32 PM
Wednesday, August 30, 2006 4:47:37 PM

Looks very cool to me. Now to find some uses for this! :)

Wake on Lan in System Center Configuration Manager 2007

Great info on the upcomming Wake On Lan (WOL) features in SMS v4 System Center Configuration Manager 2007 (SCCM 2k7) from the SMS Team.

I really like the feature where it will not turn it off and will let the power policy handle that.

The Configuration Manager 2007 WOL solution will not turn off machines after they have been woken up. This allows other processes that may have been triggered after the machine started up to complete whatever it is they need to do without the system shutting down on them. The Configuration Manager 2007 WOL process will register as a busy service when it wakes up a system and then unregister itself once the process is completed allowing existing power management processes and templates to shut the machine down. Group policy can be leveraged to configure power management options for your systems in accordance with your own WOL needs.

I think this will give administrators the features they need without over complicating things. Set a power policy in Group Policy and forget about it. Less power consumed and an increased mean time between failure on workstations. Not to mention the benefits of rebooting XP machines on a regular basis. Sounds like a "Good Thing™" all around to me!

Bravo Zulu!

The men and women that volunteer to put on the uniforms and serve our county, to serve us, deserve our respect, admiration and thanks.

This is a short video about 2 Navy fighter pilots.

Tropical Storm Chris heads for the Gulf

Tropical Storm Chris is poised to enter the Gulf of Mexico in the next 5 days and is expected to reach Hurricane strength by 08:00 EST on the 3rd.

Anyone in the Gulf Coast region should start paying close attention to this storm as once it enters the Gulf it will be a crap shoot as far as where it strikes. Now is the time to finalize your preparations for a storm.

Hams in the Houston area should be advised that if there is an event, information about the Ham response and various other relevant information will be given out via information net on 147.000 (+offset 103.5Hz PL) at a minimum of 4 times per day (09:00, 12:00, 15:00, 18:00).

Image courtesy of http://www.wunderground.com/

SSH Tunnels made easy

SSH tunnels are great happy things and MyEntunnel makes them even easier by starting them up and maintaining them via PLink. Putty made even easier.. it doesn't get much better than that!

*EDIT: Corrected the software name

Clerks 2

Kevin Smith has done it again. He's given us a a true sequel to the original Clerks.

Most people say that sticking to what worked the first time is the only way to have a sucessfull sequel. That has certainly played out in this case. The basic formula is the same, a look into the lives of Dante and Randal. This time it's 10 years later. Clerks was 2 twenty something men examining their lives. In clerks 2 they're now 30 something and still haven't gotten it figured out yet. Through it all much hillarity ensues. I'll avoid any spoilers for those who haven't seen it.

In short, if you liked any of the Kevin Smith movies, break out your Clerks DVD and give it a watch then head down to the theater for a good time. Then look out for the Commentary track to be released Monday so yu can head back for a repeat viewing WITH the aditional hillarity that comes with a Kevin Smith Commentary track.

Googleing for Microsoft Related Information

When you're trying to search for Microsoft related information using Google, use http://www.google.com/microsoft. It will filter the result set to Microsoft related hits (Not just stuff on Microsoft.com but actually Microsoft related). It's actually a pretty cool tool.

First post!!

First post!!

Oh wait.. I'm the only one that CAN post. Well then consider this a test post!