Ξ January 26th, 2007 | → 0 Comments | ∇ Life |
So as the title suggests, I’m heading to the Big Apple again for round 2! I’m going to the same client, and helping them move into a different office area. I’m excited! I will be blogging…and there is a very slight possibility that I may meet up with Steven Bink, of bink.nu. That would be really exciting!
Yes…I am a nerd.
Also, just to give a quick update here, I have plenty of stuff to follow up on regarding past posts. I have actually written some posts already but due to some time sensitive issues and security stuff, I can’t post them yet. But as one of my good friends tag line in his signature says…
The Best is yet to Come…
I do enjoy my work at Sunset. It’s the things like the relaxed email rules and the meaningful communication I enjoy the most. For instance, take a recent email thread regarding upgrading my boss’s phone to mobile email:
How’s it going? Say…do you know how to put in the data info, like the GPRS information, etc so I can get back online? Does it automatically sync all of that info when it connects to the network after being wiped? If not, can you call Cingular and get that info so I can hit the ground running when MT is out at 11am?
Thanks!
Grace and peace,
Matt Singley
Minister of Operations
Sunset Presbyterian Church
My Reply:
It’s in the process of upgrading now. I will let you know if I need to do that as I will probably need some account info…hopefully not. Your phone almost didn’t make it through the firmware upgrade but I pulled a “Power of Bauer” on it and it…complied.
Michael Sainz, MCP MCSA
IT Coordinator
Sunset Presbyterian Church
His Reply:
Excellent. Focus on the objective.
Grace and peace,
Matt Singley
Minister of Operations
Yes we were down…
No it wasn’t your fault…
But then again, it couldn’t of been my fault so who’s was it?
Sorry for the delay…there are some exciting new developments going on with us and we will be sharing them with everyone online here soon!
Michael
Ξ January 19th, 2007 | → 2 Comments | ∇ Kids |
Zaeda has grown up so much in the last week or two! It is amazing the things she is learning.
- This morning she had gotten up pretty early and played for a little while then she said “bottle” and as I made one ( yea she still drinks a bottle sometimes… eek!) she ran for her room and went to her crib and said “Up Up” and promptly went to sleep. Guess she wanted to go back to bed! Thank goodness, cause I was pretty tired too.
- We have been working on “please” and “thank you.” She has “please” perfected. However, “thank you” is still Na-Na. The other evening I was trying really hard to get her to pronounce her words for thank you. I asked her to say thank you for a piece of food that I handed her and she said “na na” So I said very carefully, so she could see how my mouth moved and how the word sounded, “thhhhhaaaannnnkkkk yooooouuuu” and she looked at me like I was an idiot and said, very slowly and carefully ”naaaaaaa naaaaaa.” It was pretty cute.
- For the first time without *any* prompting on Wednesday she told me “potty- poo poo” and ran to the potty and went poo poo! I was amazed!
- She found out that she loves to eat fresh snow, and learned that garbage can lids make great sleds.
- Zaeda learned to sing and dance to Ring around the Rosey. She is delighted to “all fall down” over and over and over and over.
- If you are in the need of some pretend tea or cookies Zaeda is your girl. Grandma and Grandpa Grove got her a pretend kitchen for Christmas and she is WAY into the “pretend” scene now, she is delighted whenever someone will “eat” something that she gives them!
- I took a huge step and bought her a set of playdough yesterday. I am pretty concerned about taking the step in the world of playdough- our carpets are already stained enough, but I have to let her in on the fun. I remember playdough as being amazingly awesome.
- Michael and I counted up all the words that she can say that are recognizable as the English language, and it is a LONG list! I was amazed. She can say around 30 words really well, and she is constantly working on new words. We have to be so careful about what we say now, even though we have been training ourselves for this time for a whole year and a half now.
- Oh yeah. I am sure Mike would be astonished if I didn’t include that Zaeda learned to say “Jack Bauer” “Chloe” and “Palmer” this last week. Yeah for season premiere of 24- and NO Zade isn’t usually allowed to watch 24.
This was written last week…
So as I’m sitting here in the coffee shop on a saturday night reading about the latest advancements in the IT world, it dawns on me that I do this often. Not many people understand what IT folks have to put up with regarding the advancement of technology. Not to say that we’re higher on the priority list of importance then some other careers, but I think the technology sector has some “unique” requirements.
We read. I read alot. This is by neccessity, because things are changing so much. Now if you’re just starting in the IT world, well…you’ve got alot more reading and learning to do. We have to apply the technology we have learned into a practical solution for a given network. This often requires more planning and research for issues that we encounter. Sometimes I feel bogged down, and yet I enjoy working it.
Now the other side of this is “What if you don’t keep up?”. If you don’t, you get left behind. And if you get left behind, what is your worth? Not a whole lot. As technology changes, you need to adapt. A perfect example of this can be made of Kodak. I have a relative who made a very interesting comment awhile back. He said that we are hurting Kodak by using digital camera’s and printing our own photos. Now I didn’t mention anything at the time, but I believe he has a flawed way of looking at it. He blames the consumer for the fall of the company when in fact it’s the other way around. Kodak just failed to innovate, keep up with technology.
I recently encountered someone who knew some pretty specific technology (Exchange SMTP Virtual Server configuration) and explained to me how he figured out a specific problem I was dealing with. I like to think I’m pretty good at understanding the basics of Exchange and virtual servers, but this person helped me deal with a problem in a way that just escaped me. And I don’t mean that step that I forgot to take into consideration, this was something I just never even thought of.
This kid was 17.
I find myself repeating this to myself over and over, but The Lord has a great sense of humor.
I GOT IT WORKING BABY!
When it comes to mobile communication, I think Microsoft’s got the right product for the job. Sure, it may be different than say Blackberry but it is SO nice querying the GAL (Global Address List) from my mobile device. The trick was getting certificates to be accepted on the devices themselves for authentication and encryption because you don’t want Exchange traffic floating around cyberspace without it being protected. Why was it so difficult you ask? Of all things…the wireless carrier! Verizon, Sprint, Cingular and the rest all have issues when you put a certificate from an unknown root who they don’t recognize. Fortunately, Verizon and Sprint provide signed installers for certificates that I finally found. The others…well…I hope they work *cackle*.
I’m excited.
Well I took a look at the Google stats today and what do you know, many people are being referred to my blog from his! Cody (the owner of the blog, cypherxero.net) is an open source guru who has a passion for technology. I can’t blame him, I have the exact same passion…I just live and breathe technology. I didn’t know he had this much viewership on this blog, but I’m always more than happy to welcome people from his site! How did this all start you may ask? Well…
As I mentioned earlier, he is well into FOSS (Free Open Source Software) but is unfortunately one of the people who just can’t accept the fact that Microsoft has a place in the market. I started to engage him with some comments regarding some inconsistencies and just over all helping people understand the benefit of software, no matter who made it or if it costs money. I’ve had to wrestle with the idea of FOSS or for-profit software and have come to the conclusion that you use what works, I’m a capitalist at heart so let the best product win. If Windows works, use it. If a Samba (Linux) server works, use it! So much hate against for-profit company’s start to get rather old though. But getting to the comments at hand, I would love to point out 1 inconsistency that just irks me.
Cody, like many other people was curious about Microsoft’s Windows Vista operating system. But what some people make the mistake of is comparing an old OS with a new OS and not have a good understanding of what to expect. For instance, take performance. Cody compared Windows XP vs Windows Vista. That’s all fine and dandy, but when you compare it, you have to understand that these are two very different OS’s. You are comparing an OS that was built in 2002 with an OS that might as well have been released in 2007. Not only that, the mechanics of the different versions of Windows is stunningly different. So when you compare performance, you have to understand what the OS was designed to run at. Cody makes comparisons with a computer with 512MB of RAM. For Windows XP thats great but with Windows Vista…well…lets just say that is not “optimum”. The OS was just not designed with performance in mind at that low level of memory resources. So what does Cody do? Slams the product and falls into the category of the “M$ Sucks!” zealots.
With very little understanding of the product, he has already made an important determination and opinion for himself. That’s fine. But what ticks me off the most is when people like these, when asked to further explain or engage in discussion to further the understanding of an opinion just simply ignore you (or delete your comments). It’s like someone asking you a hard question and instead of stopping to think about it, you just give them the cold shoulder.
I believe this happens when you don’t have a good answer.
Ξ January 17th, 2007 | → 2 Comments | ∇ Life |
Zaeda and I stayed inside for all but 10 minutes of the day. What has that resulted in? Me staying up past my regular bedtime because I feel so anxious. I have to be able to get out of the house for longer than ten minutes a day if I am going to stay de-stressed. Mike and I bundled Zaeda up for approximately ten minutes and “played” in the snow. Zaeda jumped in a few 2 foot snow drifts and thought that was pretty funny. She also learned and was excited to be able to say “snow” “cold” and “brrrr” today.
Mike is looking forward to the deep freeze that is supposed to set in tonight. I think I will have to brave the ice/snow tomorrow and take a walk or something. I cannot be in this apartment that long!
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So people have been talking about the “Hefty Ho” all last night and into today so I thought I would weigh in on the fun…
IT’S SO AMAZINGLY AWESOME WORDS DON’T BEGIN TO DESCRIBE WHAT I FELT WHEN I TOOK MY FIRST BITE!
Ok. So I wish I had a camera last night so I could show you what it looks like, I know Matt and Jenni took some pictures, but it just doesn’t do it justice until you actually take a bite and smell the amount of cholesterol soaked into the bread crust. Seriously…they should also offer Lipitor as a side dish to this pizza, there is THAT much meat. Matt also mentioned that they should have a defibrillator at the end of the table as a “courtesy” to their patrons. An excellent idea!
On a side note, people I guess liked Zaeda’s outfit. She was a bit cranky that night, but she smiled a little. So proud of her!
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