[ per Bob ]
I was just notified by Microsoft that I have received my SharePoint Portal Server MVP Award. This pleases me to no end and I would like to thank those that nominated me. It has been a great ride so far and I am looking forward to more!
Congratulations Bob! Well-deserved and I also look forward to your contributions this year – Lord knows I've gleaned a ton from your conversations in 2005.
Guy Kawasaki ( former Apple Fellow ) gave a free webinar today on Raindance covering 10 points from his book, Art of the Start. The seminar is being recorded and will probably be available for viewing later.
I recommend this presentation to anyone thinking of starting their own company and I'll also need to take a closer look at his book to see what other useful nuggets it contains.
I ran into an issue a couple of months ago where the CPA of one of my customers was having trouble using the NetScreen VPN client ( to talk to my customer's network ) and a Cisco VPN client ( to talk to another customer ) using the same workstation.
I finally traced the issue down to the fact that both VPN clients use different services to perform encryption and other security functions. Furthermore, the different services can't be running at the same time because they provide a singular function on the computer and the first one to host that particular function wins – and prevents another service from running and providing that function.
Once I figured out it was a services issue, it was just a matter of time until I traced down what company used what service.
Next, I created two batch files to start and stop the relevant services and launch the required VPN client.
start_cisco.bat:
NET STOP IREIKE
NET STOP IPSECMON
NET START POLICYAGENT
NET START CVPND
[ insert vpn client executable here ]
start_netscreen.bat
NET STOP POLICYAGENT
NET STOP CVPND
NET START IREIKE
NET START IPSECMON
[insert vpn client executable here]
Finally, I created two shortcuts on the desktop to launch the above batch files.
Writely is a service that allows you to edit documents online with whomever you choose, and then publish and blog them online.
Currently in Beta, Writely allows you to create a document that can be shared and edited by others. I'm using it to test collaboration on several projects where my partners and other resources are located in other parts of the country.
While I don't think it is a replacement for Microsoft Word, it does provide a basic web-based HTML editor that is easy to use, fast, and contains most of the features you need to create an on-line document. It sure beats emailing a document back and forth.
For additional commentary, check out Michael Arrington's review on TechCrunch.
First off, let me make it clear that these aren't really adventures, they are more like observations. I'm writing the story, not Jimmy, mostly because squirrels don't word process at a high-level these days. Secondly, who in the heck is going to pick up a story called, "The Observations of a Squirrel Named Jimmy?" So, get over the fact that I've already lied to you and let me get back to work. Ok?
Jimmy is your typical suburban squirrel: fat, lazy, smokes too much and has a slight fermented-acorn addiction. As with most juveniles, all of these factors combine to make Jimmy a less than stellar social citizen. By now you're probably thinking that I don't like squirrels. That couldn't be further from the truth. Lightly battered and deep fried, them's good eatins. But I digress.
So one day I'm out in my garage building something or the other out of wood. The sun was shining, there was a gentle breeze blowing, and it was it was otherwise just a beautiful day outside, so I had my garage door open.
I'm sawing away on a chunk of wood when I catch a flicker of movement out of the corner of my eye. Since my fingers were rather close to a sharp, spinning, piece of metal, I elected to finish my operation before I looked up to see what it was that had caught my eye. It was Jimmy.
Since it was such a nice day, and given I had made 10 trips to the home center, I had the windows rolled down and the keys still in the ignition. I caught Jimmy with only three feet on the ground, the fourth was reaching for my truck. That little bastard was going to steal my truck! Just then, he looked up and saw me staring at him. Beady little eye to beady little eye we stood. Finally, he decided to play dumb (not hard for a squirrel) and jumped on a pile of logs that I have beside my driveway and started barking and flicking his tail at me as if to say, "It's just me, Jimmy, the harmless little neighborhood squirrel." Yeah right.
While this was happening, and as nonchalantly as I could (pretty hard when you're about as big as a house), I grabbed my Porter Cable model BN200V12 cordless 18-gauge brad nailer and taped the safety mechanism off and slapped in a fresh magazine of nails. While Jimmy was still playing "squirrel," I took off after him, brandishing my brad nailer, screaming something about "supper" and firing that thing about as close to full-automatic as the manufacturer could manage. Over the logs, around the truck, and up the tree went Jimmy – with me close on his tail. He reached the top of the tree just about the time my magazine ran out of nails so I had to call a halt to my operation. The neighborhood, while showing signs of concern, merely shook their heads and mumbled something about "proper ventilation" and "glue pots."
Anyway, it was the last time Jimmy made a run to jack my truck, but I don't leave the keys in it any more either.
Copyright (c) 2005 by Mitch Milam
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