The Outspoken Wookie

Hilton has been operating as a Humanist Chaplain for some time and really likes being able to help people using evidence-based processes. HiltonT has been in the IT industry for quite a while now and was selected by Microsoft as their SBSC PAL in 2008-9, representing Australian SMB IT providers to Microsoft. This Blog is his outlet for his thoughts and feelings about life in general (including the IT industry). Some is good, some is bad, but all in all, its his viewpoint. Enjoy!

Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Eggs, baskets and learning lessons

https://login.live.com/ is down. Don't you think Microsoft would have learned the many lessons they have been taught over the years about not putting all of your eggs in the one basket? Wouldn't you have thought they'd have learned from all the lessons other people have been taught?

Apparently not.

So, with this site down, no-one can authenticate to anything Microsoft runs - not MSDN, not Technet, not Connect, not eOpen. That's right - not only can you not get to the Microsoft technical support and developer resource sites, but you also cannot obtain access to the eOpen site where your Licensing information is stored (if you use Microsoft Volume Licensing) and where links to media for download is located.

Talk about one easy way to cause your legitimate users to wonder why they didn't use pirated software in the first place as it wouldn't be affected by such issues as this and the Windows Genuine Advantage bugs that occasionally turn a fully licensed, properly installed and previously functioning operating system into a time bomb.

Not that I'm recommending piracy in any way, I'm just wondering why Microsoft has so much disdain and dislike for their legitimate customers.

Regards,

The Outspoken Wookie

Wednesday, January 30, 2008

.NET (dotNET) Redistributables

Regards,

The Outspoken Wookie

Monday, January 28, 2008

Startup can produce <$1/Gallon Ethanol from biowaste

A friend sent me this link last night.

Interesting. It is the little guys like Coskata who will come up with the most interesting possibilities, more often than not. Sure, they may be sponsored by GM – they have to fund this research somehow – but they are far from a honking big company doing the research themselves with all of the resources that entails. I *am* kind of surprised how little we hear from/about companies that are sponsored by big oil – you hear more like this, sponsored by a car manufacturer, not an oil company.

The car companies don’t care what they use for fuel – a slight engine redesign, and they can go. They don’t care if this fuel can be easily made at home (in whole or in part) nor if it is made at a large site and distributed to outlets and sold to consumers. All they care about is that they are being seen to be proactive in the search for renewable fuels and that they can use these new fuel sources in their new cars. It is the big oil that needs to ensure that your average home owner cannot make their own renewable fuel – to any serious degree whatsoever – or they will lose the massive monopoly they have over personal travel. They will possibly also lose the mass transport markets as well as someone like Brisbane Airport Corporation may be able to dedicate a number of acres to making a fuel source that can refill the planes that land their daily – and that would really hurt the oil companies.

I’d really like to be a fly on the wall in a few board meetings where big oil is talking about the threat that renewable fuel is posing to their place in society. What interest will America show in the Middle East when they can produce at least 100% of their fuel requirements locally? What power over economies can big oil exert when they are almost irrelevant to most of the world? It is interesting.

Regards,

The Outspoken Wookie

Friday, January 25, 2008

The Aussie Federal Election

Well, it finally looks like the rest of the people in this country agreed with, well, I suppose the rest of the people in this country that Little Johnny Whoward? - the world's most irrelevant political leader - needed a career change. Not only did we tell him that his Party wasn't wanted to run the country, we also told him (well, his electorate told him) that he wasn't wanted to even manage that electorate.

A rather unceremonius dumping of a leader and his party that together had stayed around a little too long past their Use By date and had made some insanely stupid political decisions. I wouldn't like to say good bye, nor farewell, nor see you later, more like take that - and see how you like being treated how you treated the majority of us!

Anyway, we've now ridden ourselves of the ineptitude and plain stupidity of the Mr Sheen Man Party and taken a bow before the LegoMan Party. Let's hope that LegoMan - able to leap tall building blocks in a single step, able to enter a strip club and live to recount the tale, able to eat his own earwax and - YUCK!!! - anyway, let's hope that the LegoMan Party can turn around some of the damage that the Mr Sheen Man Party has done to the country in the past 3-6 years and that the Party Previously Known As The Mr Sheen Man Party can recover from their recent decimation in time to be able to stop the LegoMan Party from making some insane and detrimental decisions which they are bound to start doing in a few elections' time.

The best thing about all this is that were I actually in Brisbane on Sat 24 Nov, 2007, I'd have been working with ABC TV at the BCEC where Mr LegoMan was crowned Lord and Master. However, as I was out of the country at the time (if you count New Zealand as being out of Australia), sitting in a spa in a 5-Star motel in Whitianga, watching the election on NZ television, drinking a beer with the beach out the motel window. I think I had as big a win here as Mr LegoMan - hhmmm, ok, maybe not quite as big a win. :)

Anyway, I had a drink to the change that we needed. I just wonder how long it will be before we need another one?

Regards,

The Outspoken Wookie

Wow, last post was 24th November?

It seems I've been slacker/busier (take your pick) than I thought. That's 2 months since my last post and I didn't think time flew!

Anyway...

So, what's happened since then? An election, a holiday,the christmas/new year break, a new year, work, life. Hhmmm, so, to recap...

I managed to fly out of Sydney on November 24th, 2007 to an unprepared Auckland International Airport in New Zealand. When I arrived, I had a nice chap ask me if I'd mind placing my carry-on luggage (a Lowepro CompuTrekker AW) on the ground for his Beagle to sniff. No probs... Then he asked me if I had any fruit in there and I told him I didn't, all the while being more interested in collecting my remaining luggage. Then he asked again, because the dog was rather interested in my bag. Then I remembered that when I'd gotten back home from my trip to NSW for a school reunion, I had a pair of bananas in the front pouch that I'd left in there for a couple of days before removing (and turning into banana bread).

Oops. :)

So I explained this to him, told him that he was more than welcome to open the bag, look, smell, feel - whatever he wanted. He did, and was suitably satisfied. He signed my Customs Declaration and I was on my way through to the Customs counter where they then asked me 20 questions about why I was carrying fruit (I'm not) and why I didn't declare it (because I wasn't carrying any) and what else I might be carrying (nothing - are you deaf or stupid) and that not declaring things was a crime (yeah, I'm not dumb, but you're slow to comprehend, mate). Finally they scanned my kit, realised that I was telling the truth (without the aid of an internal body cavity search) and let me go.

So, I picked up the hire car, proceeded to drive 4455 km around the North Island (in 11 days) and boarded the retuen flight home on December 5th, 2007. Customs in Australia seem not to own dogs, nor any will to even ask stupid questions - cayying anything? No. OK, off you go. :)

I got back to one "normal" work day and then a 7AM - 11:30pm day - something I'm more used to - I finished the day off at QPAC working for ABC TV on the "Spirit of Christmas" recording that was aired on christmas night. Tamsyn Carroll (gorgeous) and Jonathon Welch (see his amazing work with the Choir of Hard Knocks) were the stars of the show this year, with Tamsyn back for her second invite.

Then work. Like normal, daily, work work.

Then we had a holiday break. Kind of. This consisted of rebuilding our main server hosting our SBS 2003 R2 virtualized environment and the host it lives on. We looked more closely at MS CRM 4.0 as that is what we'll be making a move to in 2008 so that we can better manage the growth and various projects in our business. I also upgraded the phone system (currently running Asterisk) twice. It is now significantly more stable than it was when running on a Trixbox 2.2.3-1 base with all of the FreePBX and yum updates.

And now it is Australia Day eve - with a few servers and half dozen of so workstation builds almost completely behind us, along with a number of decent automation projects, this has been a good start to the year. It doesn't look like it is going to get any quieter, either, with what we're seeing coming up - and that's a good thing!

We're also currently rebuilding the Real Productions network including a new Studio PC. The old one I built about 4 years ago is still going strong - a Celeron 1.7, 512 MB RAM, PATA HDDs and it handles 40+ tracks plus effects in Cubase SX 2 like a hot knife through butter. It helps when you know how to trim the fat off XP Pro and make it into a lean, mean DAW machine. (Oh, that was appalling!) The Office PC is an old Pentium-II 233 with 384MB and 2 * <4 GB HDDs in it - and this is getting a little too long in the tooth to be usable, which is what's kicked off the rebuild.

The new Studio PC is a Core 2 Quad with 4 GB RAM, supplied with Windows Vista Ultimate x64 OEM and immediately upgraded to Windows XP Pro to make it useful. Running a DAW on Vista is like trying to get to the moon in a canoe with a teaspoon for a propellor. The old Studio PC will be stripped, re-cased and put into the Office. We're also upgrading the ADSL connection and installing an IP PBX (currently running Asterisk) and some IP phones in the studio and office - this will help offset the upgrade cost by reducing the phone bill significantly. All up, it won't be a "cheap" upgrade, but it will most definitely be a significant and cost effective one!

That's enough crapping on for now. More to follow

Regards,

The Outspoken Wookie

Saturday, November 24, 2007

Wayne's Small World

Well, both Susan Bradley and I managed to survive Wayne's Small World yesterday. We actually managed to survive dinner on Thursday night (at the same table), all day yesterday, dinner last night (again, at the same table) and even drinks before hitting the sack!

I don't know why people think that we a) have nothing in common or b) can't agree on anything as there's ALWAYS been a great deal that we agree on as well as a number of things we don't agree on, and we're both as, aahhh, stubborn as each other and stick to our guns. Anyway, no blood was shed, which was exactly as any sane person (and quite a few nutters) would have expected.

So, was it worthwhile? Yeah. I may not have agreed with a number of the things said (Amy and Eric telling a participant that if you want to restrict a "junior admin" with admin rights from seeing client data that NFTS permissions will do it - I call "bullshit" on that, as they are an administrator and can reconfigure those rights just in the same manner they were initially configured), but the vast majority of it was quite good. Nothing eye-opening, but well worth the time and financial investment (I mean the airfares and motel, not the "free" status of this event, for all you cynics out there).

Would I go again? Yup. Will Wayne's World (SMB Focus) next year be bigger and better? Well, only time can tell, but it should be worth the effort, after the SMB Security Summit (Wayne's Small World) this year.

Regards,

The Outspoken Wookie

Airport Stupidity

So, I have a 7AM flight (Sydney time) to Auckland ths morning. Due to The Bush Age, we're now all required to check in at least 2 hours prior to the flight time whereas it used to be one hour. Yay! So I got a 4AM wake up call in the motel and booked a 4:30 cab who was sitting waiting for me at 4:20 when I arrived in the lobby - a great start.

I get to the airport, check in in 2 minutes and then have to wait 15 minutes before Starbucks opens. I mean, what kind of world is it when you have to be at the airport BEFORE there's caffeine support available?!?!?!

Of course, Customs doesn't open until 6AM - they are a government department. So I have to wait around for an hour until Customs opens until I can even get to the boarding lounge.

Airport Security^H^H^H^H^H^H^Htupidity in the Bush Age!

Oh, well, that's why we have our "pick a pollie" day today so that we can, with any luck, dump the shortsighted idiot that got Australia into the position of "right up Dubya's rear" that we're in and instead install... legoMan as our illustrious puppet leader. (Puppet leader? He has no substance whatsoever, but at least he'll be a slight change. Maybe in 3 years we'll have to change him for someone with a clue, but we really need a change right now!)

Regards,

The Outspoken Wookie

Thursday, November 22, 2007

The nutters are out in force

It appears that a few religious zealot nutters have vowed to take over Microsoft because it promotes equal opportunity. Equal opportunity to gays, that is. Now, I'm not gay myself, but I also don't discriminate against gay folks. The sexual orientation of a colleague, friend, employee, whatever - it makes no difference to me at all.

What I *do* find offensive is a religious movement who is determined to push their small-minded view of the world down my throat and everyone else's throats whilst they are at it. I don't believe that discriminating against homosexuals, blacks, whites, greens, yellows, old folks, women, muslims, christians or whatever minority or other group you have in mind is going to do one iota of good for anyone. It may make the lunatics that are trying to enforce their view or ideals upon that minority think they feel better, but all in all, it just makes the worl a less nice place to be.

If you read the comments this lunatic, Reverend Ken Hutcherson, has to say, you'll see how delusional he is. As far as he's concerned, the discrimination "the blacks" received in the past (and, for that matter, presently) was wrong, but continuing this tirade of insanity against homosexuals is righteous. You're a tool, Hutcherson.

With all of the collective hatred that the religions of the world generate, I wish we could harness that and use it as an alternative energy source as it sure looks like it won't run out any time soon!

Regards,

The Outspoken Wookie

Wednesday, November 21, 2007

In need of a good (non kid safe) laugh?

I'm quite a fan of Tim Minchin. I only found out that he was coming to the Powerhouse in Brisbane after all the shows were sold out (typical eh, just like with Joan Armatrading and Bryan Ferry in Wellington, NZ) so I won't be catching his show this time 'round.

But, in the meantime, I feel the need to introduce you to the funniest fucking thing I've seen in years: Angry (Feet) http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=-lktd1OBHVI. Sure, the A/V sync is slipping (typical with a great many YouTube uploads), but it is still hillarious. For those who can't see, either just listen to it on that link, or download the MP3 available at http://www.timminchin.com/media.

Don't blame me if your kids start telling you what they think of you - I warned you!

Regards,

The Outspoken Wookie

More Vodafoniness

I'm heading to Sydney on Thursday for Wayne's Small World (which replaces Wayne's World that was cancelled, pending a triumphant return in 2008, hopefully) which will, if nothing else, be a good chance to finally catch up with Dana and Susan (and whoever else is heading down under) for a chat, beer, coffee, whatever.

Then, after that I'm heading off to New Zealand for a bit of R&R (aka not work), as well as visiting a couple of colleagues and clients. I have a family reunion on my mother's side on Dec 1st and 2nd in between Taupo and Rotorua and aside from that, I'm pretty much following my nose around the North Island. I'm meeting with a mate/colleague near Wellington and another near Rotorua, but the rest is basically whatever, wherever, whenever. And no, I'm not looking forward to it!

Anyway, if I roam my Vodafone handset to NZ, I have to pay (all prices per minute) AU$1.49 to ring local numbers, AU$3.02 to ring back to Australia, AU$1.17 to receive calls and finally AU$0.75 to send an SMS. So I decided to hire a Vodafone SIM whilst I'm in NZ, and the rates are then NZ$1.00125 for national calls (AU$0.86219), NZ$2.5875 for calls to Australia (AU$2.2271), nothing at all to receive calls and NZ$0.87961 for an SMS (AU$0.75714). All prices inc of GST. So, you can see the benefit of the NZ$1.6875 (AU$1.4525) per day SIM card hire! [Note: NZ SIM Card calls to Australia rate updated.]

Now, to make matters weirder, I checked into the GPRS rates in NZ. If I roam my Vodafone SIM, it costs me AU$0.01/KB. In New Zealand, local GPRS costs NZ$0.016875 (AU$0.014525) per KB. Now, that's insane - how can phone calls be so much cheaper, but data be so much more expensive?

So, that means I'll take my SmartPhone and use the NZ SIM in it and take the PDA and use GPRS on that to check emails occasionally. Utterly ridiculous.

And consider this also - Vodafone is the sole NZ mobile carrier. And yes, I have a Vodafone account here. And NZ is just across the ditch from Australia - we're practically in each other's back yards. And Vodafone STILL thinks it is worth overcharging both roaming Australians in New Zealands, as well as native New Zealanders in their own homeland.

Maybe I'll stop complaining that we're getting shafted on telecommunications costs in Australia, when I compare us to our nearest neighbors. Maybe we'll just realise that we're both getting shafted, and by the same company, but not as hard as we are by the Australian Government and Telstra. Now, I *do* apologise for my use of foul tasting language there!

Anyway, to hell with the cost of calls, I'm heading across the ditch and spending some of my hard earned cash in good old Kiwiland. I've paid for the airfares and the hire car, have booked the SIM and at this point, still intend to book a motel when I arrive somewhere I feel like spending the night - I have few plans (aside from what I mentioned above) and will be making my relaxed way around the island in a, well, relaxed manner. If only Frankie was there with me... (no, not in a gay way, not that there's anything wrong with that, I'm just not into it personally.)

If I get the chance to blog whilst over there, I may do it. No promises. Not that anyone here really cares anyway - its just more stuff to read!

Regards,

The Outspoken Wookie

Sunday, November 18, 2007

Vodafone Mobile Connect

In case anyone is looking for the latest Vodafone Mobile Connect software, please have a look at the links below as these are the lastest releases I could locate:

Vodafone Mobile Connect - Full Software
Vodafone Mobile Connect for Windows (Latest Version)
Vodafone Mobile Connect for Windows (Previous Versions)
Vodafone Australia Downloads

Vodafone Mobile Connect - Lite Software
Vodafone Mobile Connect Lite for Huawei E220 - Windows XP
Vodafone Mobile Connect Lite for Huawei E220 - Vista x86

Hardware Devices
The full list of devices (Vodafone New Zealand)
The full list of devices (Vodafone South Africa)
Huawei E618 Data Card
Huaewi E220 USB (HSDPA) Firmware 11.110.05.00.00

Linksys WRT54G3G Setup Wizard 4.13.0.009
Linksys WRT54G3G Firmware 2.11.0.5

If anyone knows of later versions, warnings or has any other information, please feel free to add a comment and I'll endeavor to keep this list as up to date as possible.

Regards,

The Outspoken Wookie

Tuesday, November 13, 2007

I Hate To Say ""I Told You So""!

OK. No I don't. :)

Back on April 11, 2007 I seem to remember making this post that stuck the knife into Microsoft for their inability to release patches that work. Now, as we all know, there have been quite a few more patches released and re-released by Microsoft since as they seem incapable of actually implementing reasonable quality control on their patches.

Anyway, cut to this morning (Aussie time) when Microsoft released a broken ISA metabase update for WSUS that has caused a lot of grief around the world. Basically, they forgot to remove the double quotes from the title field when they released this update. Quality Control 101 - check things **BEFORE** you release them. (Now the overabundance of quotes in the title of this post makes sense, I trust.)

So, what happened is, basically, anyone who enabled download for ISA updates and all SBS 2003 R2 users who have not modified the settings from the default "download everything, even if you don't use it, just to keep the telcos rich" to more sane settings (and thereby breaking the "Green Check" and turning it into a "Blue Check" and invalidating the usefulness of the SBS 2003 R2 reports based on WSUS) would have received this update and would have had their WSUS and SBS reports die.

Luckily, a few people have realised that Microsoft's dumbing down of WSUS in SBS 2003 R2 has gone too far and chose to make sensible changes to the defaults and ignore the Blue Check and reported "issues" that this generates and those people (ourselves and our clients included) have not been adversely affected by this further example of Microsoft's inability to release functional patches.

The broken patch has now been expired in WSUS so it won't be downloaded onto any further machines, but there are still a large number of affected WSUS boxen out there that probably have not been fixed as yet. For those suffering from this issue, have a read of the Incidents.org report and implement the SQL workaround they offer. [Edit: This TechNet blog post also offers some information on the issue and workarounds for it.]

It was claimed that this proves that WSUS has failed this test and that other patching solutions are therefore better. Insofar as those other options are provided by people who understand what Quality Control is, this may be true. But again, this goes to show that moreso, the dumbing down of the Administrator's control over WSUS in SBS 2003 R2 is at fault. If you can disable the download of crap you don't need and still have a green check, then that would be - sensible. But this is Microsoft we're talking about, and unfortunately common sense is often coded out of their products before the public (even the early beta tester folks) get to add their input.

Of course, the bright side of this is that Microsoft will learn from this lesson and make improvements to their patch release process. (The unfortunate reality is that they have a long history of continually releasing broken patches and this is just another example of them following in their own footsteps without wondering if they are leading off a cliff.)

Regards,

The Outspoken Wookie

Sunday, November 11, 2007

Brain Death 101

And whilst I'm at it, how could anyone possibly be this dumb?

Toys R Us outdumbs themselves.

Regards,

The Outspoken Wookie

Streamed Direct? My Arse

OK. I give up.

I was trying to hold back and not post on this topic which has no doubt been covered by fuck knows how many other non-brainwashed members of the Australian viewing public, but with Channel 10's insistence that we're phenomenally stupid, I just couldn't.

Apparently they get "Californication" streamed direct from the U.S. And Supernatural. And House M.D. And who knows what else? Well, I say this is utter bullshit - it is only Ted Stevens' Internets that will ever be this slow - I watched the final Season 1 episode of Californication over a week ago at a mate's place who had apparently downloaded this from the Internet - now, that's still not streaming direct, but it is 14 days or so faster than Channel 10 can manage. "Streamed direct" would, if you took it at face value, mean that they are downloading it off the satellite and rebroadcasting it live. Well, they're not.

At least they aren't 2 years behind like they have been in the past. But "streamed direct" this most definitely is not.

I had a funny feeling that blatantly misleading (and even subtly misleading) advertising was a crime in Australia. So I wonder why Channel 10 is continuing to falsely advertise that they are "streaming direct" TV shows that they are showing at a delayed time?

I know that downloading TV shows off bit torrent sites is also illegal, as it deprives the local television stations of their advertising revenue, but with things such as Tivo and Media Center, who watches things live these days? And therefore, if you're not watching them live, who actually watches the advertisements? (OK, I watch some things live(ish), but I generally watch until the first ad break, pause the playback for 5 or 10 minutes or so, then skip the advertisements and continue doing that until I catch up and then do it all over again.)

How many people would pay a reasonable price for non-advertising filled downloads of television programs? Quite a lot. Anyone listening?

I also wonder if Channel 10 is EVER going to come to grips with the term "scheduled programming" instead of leaving that Australian Idol mindnumb go continually past its time slot and interfere with other programming. I wonder if they're ever going to lose the Formula 1 rights to a channel that understands the term "streamed direct"?

Regards,

The Outspoken Wookie

Queensland Daylight Saving

Here in Queensland, our cows get to vote. People have approximately one vote per person, but the cows count as 2.5 votes, because of their mass and methane production (I suppose). So, because we've not yet been able to convince our cows of the value of DST - they don't care about trading issues with NSW and Victoria as they are generally not businessbovines, just cudeaters - it doesn't matter how many people vote for DST, it won't be coming in until we can either a) convince the cows that DST is a good thing for them (maybe by someone inventing a shankwatch) or b) somehow find a loophole in our Laws that will allow us to remove cows from the voting register.

The cows do have some good points, however. The extra hour of sunlight will result in faster fading of curtains which does place an extra burden on the farmers whereby they need to either re-dye the curtains (too labor intensive), or re-buy the curtains, meaning more cotton farms are needed (which themselves, are not a good use of our limited water) which means less available room for the cows. So, though it may be a good point, it is also quite a selfish point. They also say that our sunflower crops will get confused by this additional hour of sunlight, which may also not be good for farmers.

Their best point, however, is that this extra hour of sunlight during the harsh Queensland summer will result in more skin cancer and will mean that more of our elderly people die (or at least succumb) to heatstroke. Obviously, as cows are generally outside working all hours of the day and night, this will give them one hour less in which they can rest and one more hour more to work in, meaning we will expect higher production from them - and this during our hottest months. I do think that this is a little unfair, and if we expect them to endure an extra hour of sunlight each day, we should be providing some sort of shade cloth area for them, somewhat like a beer garden. And maybe a few extra kegs. Its only fair.

So, one big bonus that our cows have brought by voting against DST is that we've not been affected by any of the Microsoft DST patch issues - and there have been quite a few that we've all heard about. Maybe the cows *do* have it right and the energy savings just aren't worth the hassles?

Anyway, it will be interesting to see how they go in the Federal Election that's being held later this month. The Bovine Party, with its theme song "Moooove over, we're cowming" (to the old Sam and Dave tune), seems to be a valid option to the Little Johnny Whoward? Party and the Lego Man Party, which are both just playing "me too" politics with each other, trying to see who has the most policies that they've been able to base on their opponent's ideologies. I also have a funny feeling that we may end up with Alf for PM this time.

Regards,

The Outspoken Wookie