Aaron Fleming :: Relevantly Irrelevant

A few updated baby pictures

noreply@blogger.com (AF) — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 15:28:20 PDT

I've skimmed through the gigabytes of pictures we have now, and updated our Picassa photo album with a few of them.

Windows 7 RC1 - Coming soon ... to a computer near you?

noreply@blogger.com (AF) — Mon, 04 May 2009 08:23:28 PDT

One more day to wait until everyone can get their hands on a copy of the latest operating system from Microsoft, Windows 7. Microsoft has posted on the Windows 7 website that the download will be publicly available until July. That should allow all an ample amount of time to get their hands on RC1 and run it through their loops.

Advertised heavily as being "faster [and], more reliable", there is a significant amount of interest in this major upgrade to the Windows platform. As many blogs and news sites continue to publish very impressive stats, the anxious early adopters leverage the Torrent sites that are already thrashing with various releases.

This has to be a big WIN for Microsoft, especially in the desktop OS arena since Vista was/is so unpopular in the enterprise IT market as well as the home user groups. Vista has left a bitter taste in the mouths of IT Managers, and professionals alike. While this is looking like a very promising platform, I doubt you will see it showing up on your corporate PC any time soon, once released.

As a recent Mac convert, I do not see myself changing stripes again but I will certainly be downloading a copy of Windows 7 tomorrow, firing up VMWare Fusion, and taking it for a spin. Let's hope Microsoft learned from the Beta release of Windows 7 that brought the farm to a stand still and scaled up/out their infrastructure in anticipation of another massive surge in traffic.

Sync your LDAP with Google Enterprise Apps

noreply@blogger.com (AF) — Fri, 01 May 2009 07:07:37 PDT

Yes, it has been a *long* time since my last post. What can I say? I have been busy.

Anyhow, as I was plowing through slews of blog posts through Google Reader, I came across an exciting (for some) post on the Official Google Enterprise Blog. Today, Google announced that wrapped into their Google Apps Premier, Education and Partner Edition solutions lives Google Apps Directory Sync.

What does this mean? You will be able to automatically provision users and groups based on the user data in your LDAP server, such as Microsoft Active Directory or Lotus Domino. Google Apps Directory Sync connects to your Google Apps account and adds/deletes user accounts to match your existing organizational schema.

I'm pretty excited to try that out! Check out the full blog post here.

Holy sh!t. I didn't mean to send that! Undo!

noreply@blogger.com (AF) — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 16:53:43 PDT

I'm sure just about everyone out in Ether has done this at one time or another... typed up an email and slammed the send button... then realizing a mistake or typo or had some additional time to reflect on their misjudgment. How in the world can I get that back? Some corporate messaging infrastructures allow you to recall you message, and if you want replace it with something else. Now, it looks like GMail is stepping up to the plate and doing something similar by holding the message for 5 seconds giving you the final opportunity to slam the car in park. And the reverse. More on the Official Gmail blog here.

BabyFleming.com goes live!

noreply@blogger.com (AF) — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 07:04:48 PDT

We I thought it would be a great idea to use a blog to share pictures & musings of our baby, thus the launch of babyfleming.com. Clearly, I took some flack from the Mommy-to-be, as well as many friends. Meh! Who cares! :)

Bye bye Facebook... how to permenantly delete your Facebook account

noreply@blogger.com (AF) — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 15:24:31 PST

How to permenantly delete your Facebook account....

After this last episode with Facebook's TOS entitling them to essentially do whatever they want with pictures of you, your family, etc, etc, I have nuked my account from completely. From theconsumerist.com:

"You hereby grant Facebook an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense) to (a) use, copy, publish, stream, store, retain, publicly perform or display, transmit, scan, reformat, modify, edit, frame, translate, excerpt, adapt, create derivative works and distribute (through multiple tiers), any User Content you (i) Post on or in connection with the Facebook Service or the promotion thereof subject only to your privacy settings or (ii) enable a user to Post, including by offering a Share Link on your website and (b) to use your name, likeness and image for any purpose, including commercial or advertising, each of (a) and (b) on or in connection with the Facebook Service or the promotion thereof. "

Even though they back-peddled two days after the uproar, I've had enough. Obviously a lot of other people did too as there are many posts out there just like this one.

Hidden somewhere in the application is a method to delete your account, not just deactivate it. Please note that this will remove everything for good.

Hulu in Canada and more!

noreply@blogger.com (AF) — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 09:06:46 PST

I came across a slick little GNU licensed tool that runs on your Mac called Understudy. It allows access to streaming video through the Front Row interface of Mac OS X and currently supports Hulu and NetFlix.

The trick is to get it to work in Canada; enter Hotspot Shield. I posted about this little tool in the past and am doing so again. After a quick download and install, I was popped behind a US IP address quickly. Fired up Front Row and was watching The Office on Hulu in no time.

Ouch, where's /windows/ ?

noreply@blogger.com (AF) — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 08:51:52 PST

That's a stinger... it looks like the demand for Windows 7 has potentially overwhelmed Microsoft's web servers? As of 11:38AM EST I have not been able to get anything but an HTTP 503 - Service Unavailable error on the Windows website.

Windows 7 beta 1comes to TechNet and MSDN

noreply@blogger.com (AF) — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 09:53:30 PST

In a post over a CNet news, Ballmer talks about Windows 7 at CES in Vegas. It looks like it will be headed out to TechNet and MSDN users TOMORROW.

"As for the beta of Windows 7, Microsoft said it will be immediately available for technical beta testers and those in Microsoft's TechNet and MSDN developer programs and will be made publicly available on Friday. The company still isn't officially committing to a final release in time for this year's holiday season, although the company is clearly still aiming for that."

** Update **
I just logged into my MSDN account, Windows 7 is listed already!

Motorola Q & Microsoft Exchange

noreply@blogger.com (AF) — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 07:43:13 PST

I have recently started a new career path, of sorts, and am enjoying it thoroughly. However, this is the first time in nearly 7 years that I have not had a company provided mobile device. I have had just about every type of Blackberry since their incarnation from the little pager style 850 to the Curve.

While the devices are excellent business tools, I had a hard time coughing up $400+ for a new unit or slightly less with a 3 year plan. So, I decided I will use a cell phone only... and made it almost 2 months! I really missed the email, but it was not really a necessity. The calendar was though!

An old friend recently upgraded to a Blackberry from a Motorola Q. He is happier than a pig in shit. When I was "complaining" about my cell only status he graciously offered me the Q. "Sure!" I said, "Why not?". I thought it couldn't be that bad.

The unit functions well, for the most part. The tricky part was getting the Exchange's push email (and cal) setup. The server admin at my current employer sent me their certs, and I installed them. Went through the config with out any issue. But no go.. And this seems to be a very common problem with the Q after searching through Google for help.

I was ready to pitch it out the window as I could not get it to work no matter what I tried. Until I came across this fantastic little tool from the Windows Mobile Team, SSLChainSaver.

It could not be easier to use. "From a command prompt, run the tool.

> sslchainsaver mail.company.com

This will create a directory called mail.company.com which contains all the certificates from the SSL chain. It will also create files called mail.company.com.wm5.xml and mail.company.com.wm6.xml which can be installed over USB using rapiconfig or put in a CAB file for installation on device"

After renaming the wm5.xml file to _setup.xml, I used makecab to convert the XML file into a CAB file then copied the file over to the Q. Launched it, and setup the Exchange connection (again!)... and crossed my fingers. SUCCESS!

Rack-a-node howto

noreply@blogger.com (AF) — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 06:55:23 PST

I have to say I am a little addicted to Purdue U's Rack-A-Node, but I can not seem to get too far past level 10. A quick Google search did not help when looking for a few tips. So, if you stumble across this post and have accumulated 200,000+ pts please leave a comment. Share your thoughts.

Rack-A-Node

noreply@blogger.com (AF) — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 12:38:37 PST

Try your hand out at Rack-A-Node. It is a Flash based game that requires you to process computing jobs on time by buying, selling or upgrading nodes in 3 racks.

VirtualBox, another virtualization app

noreply@blogger.com (AF) — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 13:46:20 PST

I am a big fan of VMware, and have used it a fair bit however I was recently looking for a virtualization app with a small footprint that would run on my laptop. VMware Server would work just fine but I was very curious to see what else is out here. I came accross a free tool called VirtualBox and have been very pleased (so far).

"VirtualBox is a family of powerful x86 virtualization products for enterprise as well as home use. Not only is VirtualBox an extremely feature rich, high performance product for enterprise customers, it is also the only professional solution that is freely available as Open Source Software under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL).

Presently, VirtualBox runs on Windows, Linux, Macintosh and OpenSolaris hosts and supports a large number of guest operating systems including but not limited to Windows (NT 4.0, 2000, XP, Server 2003, Vista), DOS/Windows 3.x, Linux (2.4 and 2.6), Solaris and OpenSolaris, and OpenBSD."

It is a relatively small download (33MB) and a very clean install. I downloaded an ISO image of Ubuntu 8.10 (desktop) and was up and running in no time.

Microsoft's could is black at the moment

noreply@blogger.com (AF) — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 11:22:26 PDT

I think just about everyone knew that Microsoft was going to have some type of major launch into the cloud computing (CC) space and that officially happened today... but you can't sign up yet even though all the buttons are there.

I'm sure this will upset some other eager beta testers looking to take Azure out for a spin.

Just send it! EOM

noreply@blogger.com (AF) — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 03:13:03 PDT

Here's a handy little tip for Google Mail users. I frequently fire off emails to people with notes in the subject only. Google Mail always prompts, "Are you sure..." and of course I always hit yes. However, if you enter EOM at the end of the note in the subject Google Mail will send on the email immediately.

Official post on the Google Mail blog here .

The National Do Not Call List is getting slammed

noreply@blogger.com (AF) — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 10:52:49 PDT

Canada's Do No Call List is getting slammed with angry Canadian's urgently trying to register their numbers to prevent the much hated telemarketers from pestering them.

I have tried several times throughout the afternoon today and constantly get "The service is not available. Please try again later". So I did, and now it looks like they've got up a place holder page until GC.ca can scale up to accommodate.

Dr. Michael Geist, has a detailed post on how the list is supposed to work vs how it will really work.

Having your number on there can't hurt, however check out Geist's list too, iOptOut.com.

Amazon to launch CDN

noreply@blogger.com (AF) — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 06:32:33 PDT

It looks like Amazon is expanding their hosted services offering by entering into the content delivery network arena. I am actually a little surprised they have not done something like this sooner considering their existing (massive) infrastructure.

This new service will provide you a high performance method of distributing content to end users, giving your customers low latency and high data transfer rates when they access your objects. The initial release will help developers and businesses who need to deliver popular, publicly readable content over HTTP connections. Our goal is to create a content delivery service that:

Lets developers and businesses get started easily - there are no minimum fees and no commitments. You will only pay for what you actually use.
Is simple and easy to use - a single, simple API call is all that is needed to get started delivering your content.
Works seamlessly with Amazon S3 - this gives you durable storage for the original, definitive versions of your files while making the content delivery service easier to use.
Has a global presence - we use a global network of edge locations on three continents to deliver your content from the most appropriate location.

If the end users can leverage this system and keeps costs down that will be great for everyone involved from the average web surfer hitting a site with content delivered from a close location geographically to the firm serving the content quickly and cost effectively. Watch out Akamai.

Forgotten attachment detector

noreply@blogger.com (AF) — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 03:14:01 PDT

I came across a very slick new feature out of Google Labs, the Forgotten attachment detector. Created by summer GMail engineering intern Jon Kotker, this handy little beauty will toss an alert if you have mentioned an attachment in your email but attached nothing. Nicely done.

Quantum of Solace - Trailer

noreply@blogger.com (AF) — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 08:45:29 PDT

Great spin on file sharing by drop.io

noreply@blogger.com (AF) — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 12:08:49 PDT

I came across drop.io this afternoon which is a very simple tool for sharing files online. In 3-4 steps you can share up to a 100MB file - or if you pay a little more you can share up to 25GB! You can also set the files to expire after certain dates, or events which is pretty slick too.

The back-end of this system is housed with Amazon's S3, EC2, and FPS. Nice.

Google Chrome (beta) - Big fan!

noreply@blogger.com (AF) — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 17:48:01 PDT

I was on vacation for a few weeks in God's Country - Thunder Bay - and was offline most of the time. After our return, and to my surprise; this morning I 102.1 the edge on my commute that there is a new web browser. I was thinking it was something odd, and a little boring...AT&T web browser? But, I didn't get to hear the news to find out who.

Then, after wading through 1000s of emails I come across the Google Blog - Fresh take on browser and read about Chrome. Too slick. I've only had it installed for a while but am VERY impressed with performance, UI, options and overall usage. Grab it here, if you're a WinXP/Vista user. Or, check out the feature set Google Chrome INTL EN features.

Convert DVD video to MP4 format

noreply@blogger.com (AF) — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 14:29:56 PDT

I picked up an iPod Touch a few days ago and have been looking for something to convert DVD video to a format used on the iPod (.MP4). There are lots of good tools out there, but I really didn't want to drop any funds. And if I couldn't find a free one, I'd give up... but then I came accross HandBrake. I have seen it before but was not aware there was a Windows version.

HandBrake is: "HandBrake is an open-source, GPL-licensed, multiplatform, multithreaded DVD to MPEG-4 converter, available for MacOS X, Linux and Windows."

SUPER easy to use, check it out here: http://handbrake.fr/

Google Calendar flips the switch on CalDAV

noreply@blogger.com (AF) — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 15:06:44 PDT

I was pretty sure this was coming but had no idea when... and really didn't care THAT much. Nevertheless it is a pretty slick addition to Google's already powerful calendaring system.

At a high level, CalDAV is just an extension to WebDAV which is "is a set of extensions to the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) which allows users to collaboratively edit and manage files on remote World Wide Web servers."

CalDAV allows clients to access scheduling information on remote servers by extending WebDAV and using the iCalendar format for data.

Bluetooth headsets - there's a time and a place...

noreply@blogger.com (AF) — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 15:41:29 PDT

I admit it - I've had a Bluetooth headset for sometime now. But I *only* wear it while talking on the phone in the car.

There are some people - you have seen them - who insist on not only wearing the ear bud every where but talking too. And most seem to think that the person on the other end can't hear them so it's best to speak abnormally loud.

Here is my short list of where it is and is not acceptable to wear your Bluetooth headset and talk on the phone.

While you are in any airport - anywhere - not acceptable.
While you are in the grocery store - not acceptable.
While you are driving in the car - acceptable.
Watching a movie in the theatre - not acceptable.
Waiting room at the dentist - not acceptable.
Fixing teeth as the dentist - not acceptable.

I'm sure there are way more - I'll update later.

Firefox 3.0 is out but impossible to download

noreply@blogger.com (AF) — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 11:44:37 PDT

I've been impressed with the RC releases of Firefox, and was looking forward (a little) to grabbing the final release. However, as soon as Moz posted the links their download locations were immediately overwhelmed. Now, how could they not have predicted this? Surely there are CDNs (Akamai, Limelight, Level3) out there that could have helped circumvent this. Amazon S3? Marketing did a great job of promoting the release but the dead download links must have nuked their credibility a little.