September 2005 - Posts

• SMS 2003 Admin Position in St. Louis

  The client I have been working with is looking for a SMS administrator for a full time position. The position is part of the Active Directory Design Team and will be the primary SMS administrator. Other duties involve Windows 2003 Active Directory, MOM, SQL and anything else that may come into the scope of the team. This is a great position for someone who is looking to gain experience in SMS and Active Directory in a large, multi site environment. I'm not exactly sure what the pay is, but I would figure in the low to mid 80's. If you are interested, send me an email at Brian_Tucker@ssmhc.com and I will forward your resume to the team manager. Posted Sep 29 2005, 09:27 AM by Anonymous with 1 comment(s) Filed under: Systems Management, Active Directory, Miscellaneous

• Kentucky IS a great State

  Ron liked my comments on the good nature of the Kentucky people. I really was surprised that everything was in my wife's purse after the incident. I mean, these people were kind of homely if ya know what I mean.... I really did not think she would ever see it again. I have to tell the full story now in regard to the KFC issue. We had been driving for over 12 hours and wanted some dinner and this was going to be the last stop before getting home. We stop at this KFC and go inside. This place was a real dump. Nothing on the walls, water stains on the ceiling, and nobody inside except the people who worked there. Whatever, we were hungry and not a problem. We went to the counter to order and the woman cound not get the order straight for the life of her. I mean, she screwed up all 4 orders. I'm standing there rubbing my temples because this was really hurting my head at this point. My wife was feeling my pain as well during this, just as I was. Now, I'm ready to really give it to this woman after 10 minutes of standing there. However, I kept my opinions to myself. This lady gave us all a extra piece of chicken, free of charge. Without me asking or making one comment! She appologized for the delay and we ate our dinner. That's when Julie forgot the purse on the way out. Imagine if I let this woman have it for being slow.....do you think Julie would have gotten the purse back??? It makes me think.. It's funny (not really), you have an opinion of someone and rather than speaking your mind you are given rewards based on a good hearted person. Hmmm, I'll have to try that again sometime. That lady really went out of her way for Julie by sending the purse. You won't find that in most places. Kentucky does have some serious rednecks (just like Illinois), but Ron's right, it's one hell of a state! I'm just proud that I'm from New Jersey.... Posted Sep 28 2005, 10:23 PM by Anonymous with no comments Filed under: Miscellaneous

• My Computer is Killing Me!!!

  I have made several attempts to make a blogcast on IE 7 Beta 1. I mean.. I have spent several hours attempting to put this together with no luck. My computer was doing so well and I'm not sure what the problem is. I must have spent over 4 hours doing a 10 minute video! If you think it's easy, it really not when things don't go right. I have great respect for those who have done it. I know the sacrifice and time that goes into them, trust me. I'm going to do what it takes to get this blogcast done! Stay tuned if you want to see it. There are some really cool features in IE 7! Posted Sep 28 2005, 10:03 PM by Anonymous with no comments Filed under: Blogcasts

• Hey Tim.... Where are the umbrellas?

  Tim left us high and dry for a career at Microsoft. Today it was raining hard and Matt and I were looking for the unbrellas Tim used to have (which he got with a five finger discount) and they were GONE. What does one guy need with 2 umbrellas???? Come on Tim, you know Microsoft will give you a huge golf umbrella. Matt and I want you to hook us up with 2 of the good ones. We got soaked going outside today. No umbrellas and we go back to Novell!  :) If you give us the umbrellas, we will release the MOM website from hostage! Posted Sep 28 2005, 08:00 PM by Anonymous with no comments Filed under: Miscellaneous

• Thank You Gentlemen!

  I added a bit of code earlier today where you can link to my website from your blog. Thanks to the following, I have received a number of new visitors. Thanks! Reed Porter - John Gormly & The Trentmeister  Posted Sep 28 2005, 07:02 PM by Anonymous with no comments Filed under: Systems Management, Miscellaneous, Blogcasts

• Vacation Follow up...

  I had stated on Monday that my wife forgot her purse in a KFC in Kentucky. She got a hold of the manager and they shipped the purse overnight and she got it yesterday. I was really surprised that nothing was missing! A good ending to the event. I don't take too many vacations, but I really had a lot of fun on the beach. Getting back and going through hundreds of email is a drag, but I feel that I'm back in the saddle again. There are a few storms in St. Louis, so it might be a nice night to relax on the porch and watch the sky. I guess Matt will have a wet night at the baseball game tonight... GO CARDS! Posted Sep 28 2005, 03:27 PM by Anonymous with 2 comment(s) Filed under: Miscellaneous

• Support Blogcasting

  If you have made a blogcast, you can use the first set of code on your blog or website. If you wish to support Blogcasting, feel free to add the second set of code to your site.   <a href="http://www.blogcastrepository.com/" title="The Central Vault for Free Technical Videos"><img src="http://www.blogcastrepository.com/images/blogcaster.gif" height="24" width="152" alt="The Central Vault for Free Technical Videos" border="0"></a> If you simply want to link your site or blog to The Blogcast Repository, use the code below! <a href="http://www.blogcastrepository.com/" title="The Central Vault for Free Technical Videos"><img src="http://www.blogcastrepository.com/images/blogcasts.gif" height="21" width="152" alt="The Central Vault for Free Technical Videos" border="0"></a> Posted Sep 28 2005, 11:35 AM by Anonymous with 2 comment(s) Filed under: Blogcasts, The Blogcast Repository Newsletter

• Home at last.....

  Just got back from vacation late last night. What a trip.... more things went wrong on the than I have ever experienced. Just to give you an example, I was driving in South Carolina yesterday morning. There were 2 lanes in the direction I was driving and 2 lanes going the other way. There was a center median about 40 - 50 feet wide made of grass. I'm in the left fast lane doing about 80 mph and I notice in the fast lane in the opposite direction 2 cars slamming on the brakes and one car hits a deer. The car is demolished and cars behind it are starting to pile up since they were so close behind. The deer flies in the air spinning (it looked like a football player spinning into the endzone) over the 40 foot median and slides in front of my car, just about 30 feet in front of me. There were several cars beside me and some behind me. I tapped the brakes and we ran over the deer. It was like something out of the dukes of hazzard! Both front wheels lift off the ground and the dear pulls off a large plastic shroud from under the bumper and caused damage to the exhaust system. Scared the living crap out of all of us! Everyone is fine (in my car) and I have no idea how the people and cars in the opposite direction are doing. There was so much confusion in both directions, it would have taken forever for me to get back to the accident. I hope everyone is ok. We were in Kentucky last night and had dinner at a KFC. Just as we were 15 miles from home in Illinois, she realizes she left her purse in the KFC which was 2.5 hours behind us. I had driven 14 hours and there was no way to go back and get it. I'm sure there will be more on that today.. Lots of pictures to go through today before I go back to work tomorrow. I will make a point to share some of them. Look for my son Josh wrapped in kite string while he was sleeping! LOL!! Great to be home..... Posted Sep 26 2005, 09:36 AM by Anonymous with 5 comment(s) Filed under: Miscellaneous

• More on ITMU from Microsoft

  I wanted to pass along the final email I received from Microsoft in regard to the issues I experienced while doing a site reset during the install of KB901034. “The developers have confirmed that the hotfix uses preinst /stopsite. This tells site component manager to shut down everything and flag everything for reinstallation when the site reset is run. Then we restart sitecomp, and it reinstalls everything. The reinstallation of the Reporting Point component is what resets the DCOM permissions to their defaults. The reinstallation of all components is also why we see the bootstrap service running for so long - this can vary depending on how busy a component is when Sitecomp tries to stop it. I have modified the KB article http://support.microsoft.com/?id=901034 to include this information. It is currently visible on the web. As to why adding the Reporting Point Users group back to the DCPM permissions might not work, I was unable to duplicate that, so it appears that there may be other factors in play. I believe it will work in most cases, as we have only received one other other call on this, and reinstalling the RP again has resolved both. I didn't document that particular scenario since we were unable to duplicate it, however I created an internal article so that our engineers are aware of the problem and solution should we get more calls. If enough calls are linked to my internal article it will be considered for a public KB article even if we can't repro in-house. The developers have been aware of the inconvenience the across-the-board reinstallation process can cause and have implemented a fix for this in SMS 2003 SP2 which will allow hotfix developers (and end-users) to selectively reinstall a particular component rather than all of them. As to any permissions issues that result from a component reinstallation, those will have to be documented in each hotfix KB article as I have done in KB 901034.“ If you have been following the issues we experienced, then it's good that Microsoft is aware of some of the issues with the ITMU. If you have been holding off until SP2, now there will be some fixes.   Posted Sep 15 2005, 12:45 PM by Anonymous with no comments Filed under: Systems Management, Patch Configurations

• Reminder....

  Dont forget about the webcast today on SMS 2003 SP2. Make sure you register! Posted Sep 15 2005, 10:26 AM by Anonymous with no comments Filed under: Systems Management

• Learn to play Guitar Online

  I have been palying guitar for two years and I still suck. No questions asked. However, in the past 3 months I have subscribed to http://riff-o-matic.com and I have been playing much better. I mean really better (but I still suck)! The cost is $9.00 a month (every month), but I swear it's worth every cent if you really want to play. Not only do you get chords and tabs, but videos (hmmm.... I like videos... imagine that!) of where to place your fingers. Also, every song has a riff you may want to learn and you can play that riff so that you play at the proper speed. Very cool site and they just upgraded it. It's worth every dime. They have songs from beginner to the seriously advanced, no matter what kind of music you like (ok, no rap thank god). So, if you play.... and need a little help, you should check it out. I shipped my amp to Edisto Island for my vacation starting this Saturday. Man, can't wait to play with my toes in the sand and a cold beer... I'll be thinking of you folks while I play some Rolling Stones in the sunset.... Posted Sep 15 2005, 12:34 AM by Anonymous with no comments Filed under: Miscellaneous

• Blogcast: How to create your first CLR UDF

  by Tony Rogerson-  9/13/2005  - Elapsed Time: 3:06 “The introduction of CLR into SQL Server has opened many doors. It may well prove to be one of the biggest nightmares if used incorrectly. This BlogCast takes you through creating and executing a simple VB.NET CLR UDF.“ Tony has been putting together some GREAT blogcasts on SQL 2005! If you work with SQL, you need to be watching these..... http://www.blogcastrepository.com/DB/Contrib/Trogerson/TR20050913_1STCLR.htm Heh... I forgot to add the link.... LOL Posted Sep 13 2005, 02:44 PM by Anonymous with no comments Filed under: Blogcasts

• How to Install the SMS 2003 ITMU

  The documentation on the ITMU is fairly straight forward, but there is a lot to read and test. I decided to take some notes during the deployment and share the steps I took from start to finish. The document lists the following: Pre-Installation instructions Upgrading the SMS Client Group Policy / Registry changes needed for Automatic Updates SQL Queries used for all collections created Logs to review Services that need restarts / Site Reset issues / DCOM Q & A from the Microsoft Webcast Related Links If you have questions on anything in the ITMU, let me know. If I missed a step that you took during your deployment, let me know that too! DOWNLOAD IT Posted Sep 13 2005, 10:47 AM by Anonymous with no comments Filed under: SMS SQL Queries, Systems Management, Patch Configurations, Downloads

• SMS 2003 SP2 Webcast on Thursday... Don't miss it!

  See all the new features in SP2 by joining the webcast this Thursday! If you use SMS, you need to see the presentation. What's New in SMS 2003 Service Pack 2 (Level 200) Date:   Thursday, September 15, 2005 11:30 AM Pacific Time (US & Canada) Language: English-United States Recommended For:   IT professionals Product:   Systems Management Server Register Here! Posted Sep 13 2005, 10:37 AM by Anonymous with no comments Filed under: Systems Management

• ITMU Notes from the Field

  It's taken longer than I expected due to other testers being involved, but the document will be finished today. I will be adding it as an article on myITforum, so keep an eye out for it. Because there is some extra fluff in the document, I will also make the full version available here. Keep an eye out! There were several people who tested the procedures and thank you to everyone who helped! Posted Sep 13 2005, 09:15 AM by Anonymous with no comments Filed under: Systems Management