May 2005 - Posts

ThermometerTourdeCure

MyITforum community member Lane Kochert is participating in the South Carolina Tour de Cure June 4th and 5th. She also promises to do the extra 25 miles to do a full century the first day if she meets her fundraising goals! This would be a great time to gather as a community to support a good cause and a great list member. C'mon, let's blow that little thermometer up! Donate here.

From Scobleizer: Microsoft Geek Blogger —

OK, Mike Hall got Bill Gates to mention podcasting in a little promo video he did. Ahh, another question to ask Bill when we finally do an interview with him.

A discussion came up about what RSS feeds we are all monitoring.  I decided to post mine here:

I do have some audio saved that I made the first day of MMS...I just need time to edit it down from incoherent rambling to tight relevant commentary.  Look for it soon!
Mandalay BayGot up yesterday, Sunday, and loaded the car for the drive to the airport. Stopped at Starbucks for some coffee, then hit the road. Flight left on time, it was sunny and turbulance free the whole way, and arrived on time. Made it to THEHotel at Mandalay Bay around noon, which was too early to check-in, so I checked my bags with the bellman and wandered around. The room is awesome! I met up with some of the gang at the Lazy River for a swim. We then went to dinner at the Rum Jungle where I had a delicious Habenero Skirt Steak. Went to bed at 10pm SVT (Standard Vegas Time). Today, registration was a snap! Go to speaker training with Richard Klees at 10am. I'll try to post some audio around noon.
Rod Trent wants to know who is Blogging MMS? I know Ron Crumbaker will and so will Jonathan Hardwick. Did I miss anybody? I'll be blogging all I can! Plus I am wandering into the world of Podacasting and soundseeing tours as well. So if you see me seemingly talking to myself, don't hesitate to come over, say hi, and let me record your impressions of the conference for the kiddies back home! Comment on this post if you'd like to set up a specific interview or would like to learn about aggregators the collect audio/video files from blogs.
I recorded upgrading from a base Windows Server 2003 Gold installation to Service Pack 1. I also showcased some GarageBand.com bands from Las Vegas. BlogCast Blogcast Notes: Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1 Download Wondows Server 2003 SP1 Technical Information The Side Band sings
    Cocktail
Still installing Blaze sings
    A Woman Will Cry
Install finishes, time for a reboot. After reboot. Acme Music Inc. sings
    Wasted
errata for ending credits: (c)2005 and it's http:\\www.blogcastrepository.com Post comments here or mail me at reedracer@hotmail.com
My first attempts at blogcasting are available at Brian Tucker's smsblogcasts.com. The first one shows how to change the SA password on a SQL Database. Ths is nice to know if you inherit the SMS site and do not know it of have forgotten your password. If you change your password, you'll need to do a Site Reset to let your SMS software know what you have done. First exit all your SMS Administrator consoles and watch the blogcast SMS Site Reset Part 1. In SMS Site Reset Part 2 I show how to do a site reset on a secondary site. You should do a site reset as an attempt to clear up weird behaviour or anytime you reboot the computer. Please let me know what you think of these blogcasts. Update: I believe the software I use to run this blog, WordPress 1.5, supports enclosures natively, so I am adding direct links to the Windows Media file here for you Podcast junkies: How to Change the SQL SA Password in SMS 2.0 Yes, Rod Trent, you need to figure out how to get them to your new Portable Media Center made by Creative Zen
This category will be used to document my hit and misses while rolling out SMS 2003 and moving toward a single Systems Management System
Now that I think back on it, Microsoft really does seem to listen to their customers and strives to meet not only needs, but expectations and dreams, as well. Most recently this has been demonstrated by their Communities push, the sheer number of Blogs their employees are hosting, and their responsiveness to company. UberBlogger Robert Scoble recently posted this post from Shaded's Blog recognizing this fact and noted ideas he'd sent to Microsoft that were later implemented. Way to go Microsoft!
I had forgotten from my Altiris training that their licenses are not cumulative. So, when I bought 300 more licenses and installed them, imagine my chagrin when my license count went from 3200 to 300! I wrote and was reminded that I have to surrender licenses in order to get new ones and was sent a form. The form is a PDF file with really close cropped lines with all kinds of legalese telling you they will turn your network in to a Novellesque mess should you violate your license agrreement. So, fine, no online/electronic way to do this, so I print the document out and proceed to fill in the arcane-obtuse blanks by hand. At least there is a fax number I can send the blinking thing to! So, there I am writing! I get to the Licensee Info section and there it is. Did you see it? Yes, it's the last straw! Right there, all in lowercase Arabic bold lettering, parenthesized, are the words (please type). I don't know about your shop, but there hasn't been a typewriter around here for years! You could hear the blood vessels popping in my brain! Help me understand, please, why someone that has software that can backup every hard drive in the organization has to have a hand printed, typed, document so I can buy and install more of their crap!
On the SMS email list the other day, Joe Eager asked a couple of questions:
But why even have blogs, no offense to anyone but I do not care one bit about anything going on in their personal lives, I have more than enough madness in my own life to deal with.
and:
Why do people feel they need their own blog?
I responded with:
I'll venture my theory. I think blogs have returned the Internet to the people. Remember when the WWW first arrived? Here was a way to publish anything you wanted and distribute it to the world for very little cost. Before that, you had to get a publisher to buy your idea and shoulder the massive costs to distribute your views. Whether it was a letter to the editor of a five volume tome on the Art and Science of Programming, someone had to shoulder a huge investment to get the word out. The web reversed that elitism allowing everyone to publish anything for just a few bucks. Look what effect that had with people sending out info after Tieneman Square. Then came all the whiz bang, "you gotta have a flash intro" stuff which moved web sites in an elite direction again. Now, blogs come to the top because of their low tech ease. Plus, with news readers, you can let the data come to you so you can read it when you are ready. Pretty simple and Earth shaking all at once.
Ron Crumbaker posted my comments, too!

Tyme White has tossed her hat into the Blog definition foray, and I agree.  For a blog to be a blog, there needs to be a mechanism for feedback or it is just a Website with a really simple content management system.  This is a truth for me, so I will attempt to keep comments open despit the spam.  If it gets bad enough, I may go with a 3rd party comment engine. Stay tuned!

Yep, I'm setting up house at MyItForum as a blogger. 

My name is Reed Porter and I have been in Systems Management since the days of “sneaker net.” The posts I place here will normally have something to do with Systems Management, Blogging, Podcasting, or a host of other geeky topics tha appeal to me.

My first order of business will be to clone a lot of the content from one of my other blogs, Reed's Blogged Arteries .

Please, feel free to comment or email me about anything.