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Invitation – Louisville Geek Dinner – 1/24/2008

Louisville Geek Dinner - Thu Jan 24, 2008 6PM EasternIn case you haven’t heard, you’re invited to the 4th ever
Louisville Geek Dinner:

  • WHAT: A social networking event for those who love technology
  • WHEN: Thursday, January 24th 2008 @ 6:00pm EST
  • VENUE: Fox and Hound Pub and Grille – Google Map
  • ADDRESS: 302 Bullitt Ln, Louisville, KY 40222
  • COST: FREE + whatever you choose to spend on food.
  • HOST: Ben Thomas
  • ATTENDEES: Mac, PC, Linux, Unix, SBS and all other manner of geeks
  • REGISTER: http://www.louisvillegeekdinner.com 

Of course, it’ll be dark by then (6:00 PM Eastern), but here’s a daylight picture of the venue. Be sure to zoom out so you can be all, “Oh, I know where that is, yeah…”:

Fox & Hound Pub,

Feel free to copy the badge above to your blog to spread the word.
Here’s another badge (not dated) that Ben prepared:

Louisville Geek Dinner

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Microsoft is Coming to Lexington 01/17/2008

Microsoft is coming to Lexington, Kentucky next week!

Thursday January 17, 2008
Theater-Regal Hamburg Pavilion Stadium 16 
1949 Starshoot Road
Lexington Kentucky 40509

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APC UPS Serial Number Trick

apc Lately we’ve seen quite a few battery backups that have been either losing communication with the server, or PowerChute Business Edition is saying that the battery is old and needs to be replaced.

This APC tip today comes courtesy of Cory Rammer, MCSA:

“An APC tech let me in on a little trick on how to tell if a UPS is within the 2-year warranty period by looking at the serial number.  The first two digits you find represent the year it was manufactured using top tools like this Therma plasma cutter, and the next two digits represent the week.

e.g. The Serial Number QS0514xxxx indicates the unit was manufactured in week 14 (April) of 2005.

This does not necessarily indicate that the warranty expires in week 14 of 2007, because they allow wiggle room for units that may have been sitting on a reseller’s shelf for a few weeks.  Also, proof of purchase from a customer obviously provides a more concrete date if that is available.”

Thanks Cory!

Also, to help decipher the Model # prefix, APC has a SKU-to-Product Family reference chart.  That may not be a big deal if you’re on-site, but if you’re talking to a new client on the phone or looking through documentation, it’s handy stuff to know.  Here’s a link to the chart:
http://www.apc.com/support/model_number.cfm

barcode_example

 

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My Favorite New Blog of 2007 Award

imageI read a LOT of blogs. And by a lot, I confess that it sometimes creeps up to triple digits (in feeds, not just posts). So, since this is the first Saturday of the year, I’m doing the annual pruning the dead wood from the RSS reader.

Who gets the axe? The stale, the blog parrots, the rant-fests, (Scobble got nixed a long time ago). 

And this year, instead of just blowing away the stuff that isn’t applicable and moving on, I’d like to take a minute to share appreciation for a new blog I started reading last year that I’ve particularly enjoyed.

This blogger is a Microsoft Small Business Specialist (SBSC).
He’s located in St. Albert, Alberta Canada.
He blogs about Macs, PCs, and SBS.
And he’s the owner of MPECS, Inc.

PhilipElder (BTW - I have that same shirt :-) If you read his blog, you already know who I’m talking about:

Philip Elder
http://blog.mpecsinc.ca/

If memory serves, I found Philip’s blog via an incoming link on FeedBurner. What a great find! (Both Philip and FeedBurner).

For those who haven’t read Philip yet, his blog is very ‘nuts & bolts’ oriented, with a nice amount of business & Mac mixed in. And the honesty and openness of the posts are refreshing.

So thanks to all the folks still on the blog roll who fight the good fight. And a special thanks to Philip Elder for writing My Favorite New Blog of 2007!

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Will 32-bit Exchange Work on 64-bit WS2003

From the mailbag today:

Question: It is my understanding that you can’t run 32-bit Exchange on 64-bit Windows Server 2003. Is that correct?

Answer:

On 64-bit hardware w/32-bit OS, yes.
On 64-bit hardware with Windows Server 64-bit OS, no.

"The x64-based versions of Windows Server 2003 seamlessly support the running of 32-bit programs. However, on the x64-based versions of Windows, all the kernel mode components must be native 64-bit components. Therefore, all drivers must be 64-bit components.

User mode 32-bit programs are run under Windows on WOW64. WOW64 is the 32-bit emulator. However, Exchange Server 2003 will not even be installed correctly under WOW64. The primary reason is that Exchange Setup installs the 32-bit driver for the Installable File System (IFS) that is incompatible with the 64-bit kernel.

Note The information described here does not apply when you run Exchange Server 2003 on 32-bit versions of Windows Server 2003 that are installed on 64-bit hardware. You can do this on 64-bit hardware that also natively supports the running of 32-bit operating systems and programs."

Source: Microsoft KB 924046
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/924046

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The Energizer SBS 4.5 Server

Spotted in the wild today – an SBS 4.5 server that hasn’t been rebooted in 1.6 YEARS!  Craziness I tell ya!

image

System Idle Process = 14,310 hours / 24 hours per day = 596.25 days = 1.6 years.

And before you ask, yes this is a single processor box without hyper-threading.  It’s hard to believe some of these boxes are still in the wild and running.
This one was at a non-profit.  Time for a TechSoup chat :-) 

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You Must Be At Least MSFP Tall to Ride Exchange 2007

The HP iPAQ hx2795 / Office Mobile 6.1 saga continues…

No Vlad, that is not me. I'm not that cool. Episode IV – A New Lack of Hope

When we last left you, a humble iPAQ hx2795 dreamed of seeing the world of tomorrow, namely; opening Office 2007 .docx and .xlsx files, and generally kicking digital butt across the galaxy.  Alas, an evil overlord named Windows Mobile Device Center (WMDC) controlled by it’s master Windows Vista bricked our poor hero.

Yet, the Force was strong with this one, and with some fancy Googling, the iPAQ was reborn – hopefully to become more powerful than Windows Vista could ever imagine.  The future of this plucky device hangs in the balance. 

Needless to say, after the unanticipated beating WMDC handed out, I was reluctant to pick the scab and re-open the wound.  But an email from NGLB reader Leonard Lee spurred me onward and upward to try again. 

FLASH! Ah-Aaaaaaah…

Backed up the iPAQ.  Booted into XP (since WMDC in Vista is da debil), downloaded iPAQ hx2795 BIOS update 1.00.01 H (2 April 2007) and released the hounds.

Side note: While I had the hood up on the iPAQ and the HP site, I also snagged the DST fix (26 Feb 2007) and the Driver Update (25 Jan 2007). 

One soft boot later:

  • Calibrate the screen
  • Skip the crappy tutorial
  • Reset the system clock & time zone, and it’s alive. 
  • Manually entered the wifi key for the Linksys router
  • Cradled the device and copied the SSL certificate to the device
  • Removed from the cradle, clicked on the cert to install it
  • Entered the server credentials into ActiveSync
  • Started wireless Over The Air sync to the Exchange 2007 server and…

Your shipment of fail has arrived

Attention Required

Result: The security certificate on the server is invalid. Contact your Exchange Server administrator or ISP to install a valid certificate on the server.

Support code: 0x80072F0D

Certificate error, eh?  Mmmm, don’t think so pumpkin. That’s the same cert I use for RPC over HTTP on the laptop.  Anyway, no problemo. I jump over to the OWA site, grab the cert, export it, cradle, copy & paste, install cert, OTA ActiveSync and… air ball.

Microsoft TS2 stress ball to the rescue.

A little more digging. I even play MacGyver and make my own CAB out of the cert. Bring the cooked cert into the device, install, he shoots, he… no dice.

Phone-A-Friend

I ping my favorite Exchange MVP. We chat on IM about the certs. And he mentions that Exchange 2007 won’t support Windows Mobile 5 devices without the Messaging & Security Feature Pack (MSFP). What the deuce?

I re-check the HP site for anything with Build 14847 or higher, no joy.  I decide to try one last thing and use the HP 24x7x365 online chat. (Stop laughing).  I take my “5 minutes or less” HP Instant Support Professional Edition wait-time to copy several movies (Simpsons & Mr. Bean) over to an SD card.  I check Twitter.com to catch up.

My support technician finally comes online.

[Wednesday, December 26, 2007 11:23 PM] — Issa K says:
Hello Tim, thank you for contacting HP and for your interest in our Active Chat online support. My name is Issa and I see you have a question regarding your iPaq Handheld. I’m going to take a few moments to review your information and will message you back very soon.

[Wednesday, December 26, 2007 11:24 PM] — Issa K says:
It looks like you have the latest ROM updates for your unit. Any further updates I would recommend checking at www.hp.com and under software and driver downloads for your unit of IPaq.

[Wednesday, December 26, 2007 11:25 PM] — Tim Barrett says:
So, there is no MSFP support for the iPAQ hx2795?

[Wednesday, December 26, 2007 11:26 PM] — Issa K says:
Doesn’t look like according the page, that is one available for the hx2000 series.

[Wednesday, December 26, 2007 11:26 PM] — Tim Barrett says:
Thank you

Result

lolcats_dave

Game, set, match.

So, there’s nothing left to do but reset the iPAQ to sync the Exchange data off the laptop. At least I can sync via Bluetooth if I want.

Unfortunately, the dream of Office 2007 documents and Exchange 2007 syncing on an iPAQ hx2795 is officially dead.  Wish I had better news for you Leonard. 🙁

Take us home Weezer.  (I picked the ‘Hispanic Wedding’ version of “Island in the Sun” because the Spike Jonze version has a monkey in it.  Nuff said…)

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Turn The Page

The last 7 days have been very, in a word, surreal.  In more words… Emotional. Educational. Annoying. Bittersweet. Introspective. Exhausting. Enlightening. Contrasting. Even cathartic.  The details are unimportant, a nuisance really.  Because it’s simply impossible to encapsulate and articulate in this format. I doubt Jack Bauer could do it. And without the proper context, it’s like telling a joke that ends in ‘I guess you had to be there’ and as my grandmother used to say, the effort to convey the experience just ‘robs your joy’.  So you just smile, knowingly.  It looks like gas, and no one’s the wiser. 😉

This week I’ve experienced great personal achievement, and unwarranted personal attacks. Helped people for free that couldn’t thank me enough, and done someone else’s job while rightfully charged them for it. It’s all been a non-stop cirque de soleil ride, never knowing what to expect, but constantly being impressed by what life has to offer. And finally, without warning, a moment of quiet and clarity. A chance to sit back and reflect on it all.

There’s an entire new world of ones and zeros just sitting on a magnetic platter in the next room, waiting to explode like a firehose in your face. Cougar Beta 2, Microsoft Shared View, Skydrive, Vista SP1, Server 2008, Office 2007 SP1. Eternal sleeping betas like FolderShare and Deepfish. Publishing deadlines. Certifications. Presentations. Expense reports. Health Insurance. IRAs. And legal crap.

But for this shining moment, I can get off the bike, stand beside it, and watch the sunset.  Laugh at the pettiness and inconsequence. Dream about what comes next and the possibilities. 

I’m thankful for moments leaning over a handrail with a friend, watching salmon swim in place. For friends who let me IM them during business hours about rootkits. For friends who enjoy taunting me about video blogs. For friends who give me funny nicknames on MSN Music Man. For friends with Irish, German, Dutch, Belgian, Canadian, Austrian, British, Kiwi and Australian accents that make the SMB world round and incredibly diverse and enjoyable. For local SBSers who fight the good fight day-in and day-out for their customers. For bloggers sharing their thoughts, asking my opinion, listening to my stupid questions. For Microsofties past and present that go above and beyond. For people who contribute more than they take. For my family. Thank you for an unexpected and perfect moment! 🙂

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Office 2007 SP1 Hits the Web Next Tuesday

microsoft-office-logo Less than a year after the official launch of the 2007 Office System, Microsoft announced on a TechNet blog that Service Pack 1 for Office 2007 will hit the web on 12/11/2007 (Patch Tuesday for December 2007).

“Will it come down the pipe automatically”, you ask?

“The 2007 Office System SP1 will be critical service pack for a variety of reasons.  It will eliminate many deployment barriers to deployment you may have in your environment, it will provide support for Windows Server 2008, and will provide critical fixes to products such as Project and Project Server.

The use of Automatic Update (AU) Deployment has been a concern we have heard from many customers in recent months.  Because of this, the 2007 Office System SP1 will not be released to AU immediately.   Instead, the Microsoft Office System team will provide guidance as to a date at which we will begin throttling up so that you have time to educate yourself on what is in SP1 and determine the best method for you to deploy it in your environment. ”

That is all.

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