Abandoned Stuff by Saskboy

I’m at the UofR at the Microsoft “Heroes Happen Here” conference/presentation. I’ll include updates throughout the evening from my XO Sugar-Linux laptop.

6:30 - Right now my former graphics professor is giving an introduction.
6:40 - Will Craddock is giving a 41 slide presentation from 80 originally.
- IIS 7 is a completely new product over ver. 6.
- Server 2003 install was “arduous”, and 2008 doesn’t need an admin password set until you start it up.
- Single Management Console is improved.
- PowerShell is a new addition (was in Exchange 2007).
6:45 - Group Policy runs as a service for a user, giving new ways to make changes without reboots.

Vista not well installed in Regina in corporate workplaces… heheh.

6:50 - Demonstration of the MMC
6:57 - Talk about Windows Server 2008 Core and adding a GUI for it from www.petri.co.il

7:04 - Firewall more intelligent than Vista pre SP1.
- Protection Features - Network Access Protection. NAP, I want that right now (didn’t get enough sleep last night).
- AD Rights Management - File permissions could be network based, so files can’t be taken home to be opened. Note that this is essentially DRM for the corporate world!

7:17 - Virtualization still not as “robust” as VMWare, but moving in the right direction apparently.
-Hyper-v virtualization
-Virtualize applications to run legacy software.

7:23 - Ruby and PHP have worked better on Apache.
7:27 - MS Silverlight is their “Flash killer”. MLB is using Silverlight to stream games online.
First session wrapped up.

SQL Server is the next presentation. I just showed off the OLPC XO-1 to Will and one of the surprisingly few women in attendance at the event.

7:57 - Security discussion.
7:59 - The projector quit! What does a room full of computer geeks do when a computer in a presentation stops working? Panic, of course ;-)
Actually, a restart of the equipment fixed the problem 4 minutes later.

8:13 - Speaking of crashing (no this isn’t a set up to a Microsoft joke) my XO locked up after trying to browse for a photo I took of the SQL presentation! I pressed CTRL + ALT + Erase and X shut down and restarted in under a minute.

8:34 I’ve been trying to figure out where to find the photo files, and flickr crashed the Mozilla browser (or maybe Flash) again, and Photobucket.com might have worked, but I didn’t figure out the non-Journal file system fast enough.

8:44 The presentation is wrapping up a bit late. The other session(s) has wrapped up. I spent time trying to upload the photo to my blog, but WordPress had trouble with the “browse” just about like Flickr did. I had to restart the browser after it was stuck doing nothing.

There are prize draws…
8:49 Some more people in the crowd including professor Yang were looking at my XO laptop.

8:53 Another appeal from CS Dept. for industry to work with the UofR.

8:55 Enrollment in CS around North America is down 75% from the 1990s, but industry is picking up in demand. There’s no way to meet the demand - we’re being asked to influence kids to have them study Comp. Sci.

8:58 It’s too bad Yang had to give his full speech twice. It’s not bad, it’s just too long for how late it is getting. I heard some people complain about not having good parking options when they arrived. The room was also advertised wrong as “Education Classroom” which was confusing because there is an Ed. Building, and Classroom building.

9:03 Will’s repeating a speech for CIPS and guest speakers coming up including a MS employee from Estevan, SK.

9:06 Prize draws starting finally? ;-)…

I won nothing.

10:10 Moved the photos easily off the XO onto my USB drive by:
1- Plugged in USB drive.
2- Went to Journal
3- Selected Photo
4- Pointed to the copy option, and clicked on the picture of the USB drive
- The photo copied to the USB drive then.
5 - Back to the previous screen and repeat as required.

I spent most of Friday at a training course, and got out a little early. It was perfect weather, I had lunch outside, using my XO laptop to pick up a WiFi signal from a Husky station about a block away. The XO screen performs nearly flawlessly in direct sunlight, I was very impressed. I then went to a friend’s birthday party all evening, and managed to lose in last place every game (possibly coming in second or winning just one, come to think of it.

It was a busy day in the news with lots of important information including the expected banning of a dangerous chemical that’s been used in our plastic drinking containers! This bugs me to no end because I spent years using plastic bottles. Heck, my Brita is plastic, I’ll have to see if it’s on a recall list soon. If it is, I guess I can choose between the carcinogens that chlorine cause, or the container contains. Wonderful.

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Hawk Down in Saskatchewan - pilots survive crash. I’ve previously posted the chilling video of an earlier crash of the same style of airplane.

-2004

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Not everyone survived a massive explosion in Nipawin though.

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The Vagina Monologues is under attack again, this time from Albertans. High School students see/hear more graphic depictions of female sexuality in the checkout stand in the grocery store. I’ve written previously about the Vagina Monologues being censored. I saw the play earlier this year for the first time.

One of the more notable bloggers in Canada is Canadian Cynic. He rightfully nearly blew a gasket when I suggested a few months ago that he might have a few things in common with Kate from Small Dead Animals. Frankly I think he’d deny breathing oxygen if he heard that Kate admits to doing that. But anyway, the point of me bringing up CC is that he has a cool challenge to take on. If you’re reading this, you’re challenged to remain polite for the entire day of Monday (at least while conversing on your blog). The winning “side” gets the respect and admiration of, well, probably the same people who declare victory.

Good luck comrades. And yes, I used the word comrade to ham this up a little.
And if you’re a “progressive” and don’t play nice on Monday, I’ll paddle your bottom.

Hat tip to Wingnutterer

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On Sunday I went on a road trip to Wood Mountain with my pal Jesse, and I picked up my new XO laptop from the OLPC program. It’s so tiny, when I saw the box I honestly thought it was a part, like the box for the AC adapter maybe. Photos and videos will come later this week.

I also bought a huge amount of discount cheese. The wheel of cheese was almost bigger than the XO laptop, but cost about 5% as much. I’ll also eat the cheese, whereas the laptop I will not so much as lick, unless asked nicely.

My blog is acting like it’s sick. Sometimes my comment pages load, and sometimes they don’t. I apologize if you’ve tried recently to leave a comment saying how stupid I am, and my software wouldn’t let you vent properly. Likewise if it was a compliment.

I also sent a 4GB “jumbo drive” back with my Dad for warranty replacement. It was a Christmas gift that never quite worked, I think the microdrive inside it was crashed. And I patiently await the arrival of an XO laptop. Hopefully the kid in Afghanistan (Haiti, or wherever the other one went), has it and is enjoying it by now.

Looking for something to do in Regina for an hour or two? Try talking with some bloggers, face to face.

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What makes a good political blog? Comments are closed there, but it’s a cool read.

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International Women’s Day wasn’t a raging success in Alberta last year, or so I wrote then. I hope things are better under Steady Eddie.

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- Liberal attack ad by blogger. Vote for an empty seat?

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I can’t help but wonder why it is that an entire music industry is completely ignored in most provinces, yet many Canadians could pick out the state that Collective Soul is from. Are Canadians (or maybe people) such musical and language bigots that we can’t enjoy songs in other languages?

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I watched “Die Hard With a Vengeance” [6/10], then “Live Free or Die Hard” [8/10] and was thoroughly entertained by the second of those. After a short break watching The Simpsons where the town caters to homosexual marriages, I saw “American Gangster” [6/10] which was about an hour too long, yet still interesting. There was some theme with the war going on in the background, but I didn’t pick up the meaning.

I read a few weeks ago that an anti-smoking group gave Die Hard IV a high rating for not having smoking in it, and The Simpson’s Movie a poor grade for glorifying smoking. Bruce Willis apparently doesn’t care for cigarettes much, any more.

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The Saskatchewan Liberals have a new leader, Frank Proto.

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Looking to examine the culture of “white people” in a not so sensitive, and slightly humourous way? Stuff White People Like, is that attempt.

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And flipping over to another racial topic is the always mind boggling genocide of Rwanda, and the hero who the world ignored: