I recently was invited to set up a profile on LinkedIn. I wasn’t going to bother with it, but with all the hype around social networking, I decided to give it a shot. So I signed on and slowly started the process of building my network.
Because I am a staunch hater of spam in all forms, I refused to simply upload my entire address book to LinkedIn and let them either peruse it or use it to send unsolicited emails to everyone in my contacts. Instead, I decided to just see what happens.
My original invite came from a colleague of mine. I added him to my network, then used LinkedIn’s utility to see “Other people (I) might know.” Out of the other people I did know, one is another colleague (my graphic designer), a consultant (with whom I’ve never worked, and only know from occasionally bumping into her at networking events), a security professional whose podcast I listen to, and a former employee of mine. Within a week, I received an invitation to join the network of one of my sales reps.
I have not yet written any recommendations for anyone, and my profile is, as of today, 15% complete (although it was at 40% last week – not sure how I backslid). I intend on writing recommendations for my two colleagues, my sales rep, and the security podcaster. I will not write a recommendation for the other consultant because I don’t know enough about her.
Now, for the meat of this post.
I am also not writing a recommendation for the former employee. Why? Because I don’t have enough good things to say about the individual. While I was there, I did look over said individual’s profiles, and found it quite entertaining, and somewhat disturbing, that said individual had a positively glowing recommendation from yet another former employee of mine. While this may not sound surprising at first, the fact that the referral was gushing over said individual, after the referrer had repeatedly complained to me about said individual on multiple occasions. It got me thinking that this referral system on LinkedIn is nothing more sophisticated, or reliable, than eBay’s feedback system.
I have had very low regard for eBay’s feedback system for several years. Ever since I left a neutral feedback on a vendor who sent an item (10 network interface cards) described as “like new” which arrived absolutely encased in dirt and dust. They had obviously been removed from old, dirty computers, and did not meet my criteria of “like new.” Although they did work, I did need to spend some time cleaning the cards before I could put them into production. I noted this in my feedback, and the seller retaliated by leaving me neutral feedback. Now, how is this at all fair? I did everything right, paid my bill promptly, and waited for my product. Was I supposed to lie and say everything was perfect, and give positive feedback? I think not.
Similarly, the recommendation system with LinkedIn is likely to have just a bunch of positive referrals. After all, who is going to a) invite anyone to leave a referral unless it will be positive, or b) leave anything but a positive referral if there is the chance for retaliation by the subject being recommended?
Transformers – I Loved It!
After hearing only snippets of a couple of reviews on Transformers, and seeing its average rating on Yahoo! as 2.5 stars, I was guarded in my approach to the theater yesterday.
Boy, was that uncalled for. Let me sum up: Transformers is the best movie I’ve seen all year. Now, I admit, I haven’t seen a lot of movies this year, but I’m putting it ahead of Pirates of the Caribbean 3, Spider-Man 3, Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, and Oceans 13 (all of which I liked a lot, except Spider-Man 3, which was… meh).
Note to parents: This movie is rated PG-13 for a reason. This is not your father’s Transformers movie. Do not bring small children! I am writing this specifically to the couple who brought no fewer than three kids under the age of 6 to the theater yesterday. Your parenting license should be revoked, idiots.
The acting was good, the direction was good, the special effects were amazing, if a bit heavy-handed. The one complaint I have about the fight scenes was that, like in the Transporter and Daredevil, there were too many shots where the camera was about 4″ away from the action, and all you could see was a blur of motion. That’s not fun to watch, but the transformations were awesome.
Also, hearing Peter Cullen reprise his role as Optimus Prime was simply delightful, as delightful as seeing Optimus NOT be a fire truck, as he was rumored to be last year.
I’m not sure why Bumblebee had to be a Camaro (okay, I am sure, given that the apparent top sponsors of the movie were eBay, General Motors, Apple Computer, and Nokia), and think he would have been just fine if they’d kept him as a VW bug, but I got over that.
Another minor gripe was that Devastator seemed under-powered, and did not appear to be a composite of multiple Constructacons. Again, I got over it, but I was disappointed that he only lasted a single fight scene.
Overall, I’m giving Transformers two thumbs way up, and can’t wait to see it again this weekend!
Google Returning Porn Links?
Today I decided to use Google to find out what movies were playing in nearby Hanover, NH. I searched for the following: “movies: Hanover, NH”
This is what I got back (EXPLICIT):
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Results for ‘Violent’
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Results for ‘Alcohol Abuse’
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Selling My House
I’ve decided to sell my house in Bethel. Given that my wife has a house in Gaysville and we own a multi-use building downtown, I really don’t need to be paying the upkeep and taxes on a house that I can’t live in right now.
I’ve engaged the services of a local realtor, Paul Rea from Rural Vermont Real Estate, and so far, he has been a joy to work with. We are thinking along the same lines, and he is being very proactive and clearly communicating with us.
If you’re interested in a very nice house in a sweet, quiet location with 5.7 acres of land, let me know!
Whitcomb High School is Dead. Long Live the Albert Whitcomb School
The Bethel School Board recently decided to change the name of both the Whitcomb High School and Bethel Elementary School to the Albert Whitcomb School. Let me start by saying I have no problem with the name change and I agree with the brief announcement which was made by the chair of the school board at the annual Bethel Business Association meeting.
What I do not like is that fact that the school board chose to do so with almost no input from the rest of the community. There was a warning in the newspaper. Well, I have news for town officials – not everyone reads the newspaper.
Over a year ago, I set up a blog where I encouraged all of the board members to post their issues and agenda items. All too often I had heard the “word on the street” which did not reflect reality. Why? Because Average Joe on the street does not have all of the information. Why? Because Average Joe does not attend every school board meeting. And why should he? Average Joe has a lot of other things to deal with.
But it sure would be nice if Average Joe had the ability to see what was going on at upcoming and past school board meetings without having to attend a meeting. Any why shouldn’t he? The meetings are matters of public record, and they certainly already take minutes. So why not post said minutes on the BethelVermont.com web site? Despite my repeated request and instruction on how to do this, the board has yet to publish a single meeting’s minutes.
Another thing they could do is post notices of their upcoming meetings, perhaps even to go so far as to include an agenda. However, despite my repeated urgings that they do this by filling out a simple form on the site, they have not done this even once.
On April 26, the school board posted this entry on their blog:
“Post your comments on the name change.”
That’s it. After over a year, they still don’t seem to grasp that the point of a blog is for THEM to put up some content and then give readers the opportunity to reply. So I reminded them of this by commenting on the site. I said that I would be more interested in the School Board’s motives for the name change, and how they came about with the new name. Their response is classic: they took my comment down without any explanation or response.
Two weeks ago, the school board held a special meeting to discuss the school name change. (Of course, there was no mention of this special meeting on the town web site.) I was unable to attend, but I was told of two items that are of interest to me. First, the chair of the board attempted to blame me for the lack of postings on the school board blog. This is, without a doubt, the most ludicrous, lame excuse I have heard to date. I’d rather hear something like “I don’t know how to fill out the form,” but this takes the cake. Yes, a week or so before the special meeting, the chair emailed me asking me how to set up a new category on the site. Because of work requirements, I did not have time to recover my lost administrator password and sign on to the site to investigate the problems that were reported. But that’s totally beside the point, as this had absolutely no effect on his ability to post a new entry on the site! Furthermore, why has the site laid dormant for an entire year since I put it up? Was that because of my lack of response two weeks ago? I think not.
Second, a school board member was quoted at the meeting as saying, twice, that the board has the power to make the change on their own. I am not questioning their authority or motives for the name change. What I am questioning is why they insist on operating in a closed-door, closed-mind mentality. Apparently we have another town committee who has decided to take the insular, private, closed door approach to their regular operations instead of chosing to operate in an open manner. Perhaps they think that they can operate below radar and that will attract less attention, making their day-to-day tasks easier.
Given the recent uproar over the name change, it would seem that this tactic is not working.
Three Sides To Every Story
Someone (I believe it was the rock band “Extreme“) once said there are three sides to every story: yours, mine, and the truth.
This past Monday night’s Selectboard meeting seems to be an example of this. According to the meeting minutes,
“Chairman Fox said he wished to set in place a format by which Selectboard meetings would henceforth be conducted in the interests of minimizing disruptions, providing a better opportunity for members of the public to present thoughts to the Board without interruptions, and enabling Board members to more clearly focus on matters of business. To eliminate the need for use of the photocopier periodically through the meeting, he offered Chris Costanzo, as ?Herald of Randolph? reporter, a packet of information relating to business on the evening?s agenda. Mr. Costanzo considered that the rules of procedure being set forth were an affront to his own participation at Selectboard meetings, expressed that he would no longer serve as reporter, and left at this time.”
Mister Costanzo’s account of the event is a bit different:
“At the beginning of the Monday night selectboard meeting, chairman Neal Fox announced he had a “headline” for The Herald. He said that he and the board thought I was too disruptive at selectboard meetings. He cited an instance several weeks back when another member of the public, on his own, started to make notes on the blackboard regarding some facts and figures that the selectboard was reading off, and I went up to help him. He also cited my frequent photocopying (during the selectboard meetings) of documents passed to the selectmen. And, he complained that I asked too many questions.”
Whose account is the truth? Not having been there, I can’t say. It’s probably a combination of both. I do think Chris can be a bit “intrusive” at times, in meetings, and I can see how this could slow down meetings, something that I’ve heard Mr. Fox complain about in the past about other people who attended meetings and asked questions. Does that mean he should be publicly humiliated at the opening of the meeting? Hardly. The solution is to pull him aside and discuss the matter privately.
Also, Chris is not the first person to say he was treated in a condescending manner by the chairman of the board. Complaints of this nature came out last year during election season and again in the weeks leading up to this year’s Town Meeting when Chairman Fox was re-elected.
Given that I was told by the chairman that the concerns I brought to the board are “bullsh–” I am inclined to side with Chris on this one, and to believe that the minutes may have been written to present Chairman Fox’s actions and comments in a favorable light.
What does this mean for Bethel? Well, for starters, coverage of the events in this town is going to suffer. Of this I have little doubt. Chris has done an excellent job doing so over the past several years.
Given our sudden lack of news coverage, if you have news you want to contribute, I highly encourage you to post it on the BethelVermont.com web site by clicking the “suggest news article” link at the top of every page.
A Neat Way to Remember Secure Passwords
While looking for a quick and dirty password generator which would create easy to remember but hard to guess passwords, I stumbled across this post on McAfee’s AvertLabs blog. Very cool, and simple enough that anyone can use this technique to make really secure, yet memorable passwords.
DST 2007 – Because Y2K Just Wasn't Enough Fun
As of this morning, we all “sprang forward” an hour, three weeks earlier than we used to, at the direction of Congress. To save energy, Daylight Saving Time was moved up, so we can all save more daylight! Hooray! Saving is good, we should save more.
Seriously though, I’ve had to make adjustments to many of my clients’ computer systems so that they would correctly adjust their own clocks for the new DST changes.
On some old (Fedora Core 2) Linux servers, the change was a manual process, since there are no more patches available for this distribution (i.e. it has reached its “end of life”). More up to date releases, like Fedora Core 4, and Ubuntu 6.06 and later, either had the necessary changes built in, or were just an update command away. Very handy.
On the Windows side of things, it’s a similar story. If you have a current, supported version of Windows, say, 2003 or XP, and you have been running your Automatic Updates, you’re all set. But if you’re running Windows 2000 or Windows NT… hmm… it’s a different story.
Microsoft has provided several methods for adjusting the time zone settings on Windows 2000, which has been in “Extended Support” for nearly two years, there are no automatic updates to make these changes. As Microsoft says on their Extended Support page for Win2k,
“Microsoft is not ending support for Windows 2000. During the Extended Support phase, Microsoft continues to provide security hot fixes and paid support but no longer provides complimentary support options, design change requests, and non-security hotfixes.”
This means you must apply said patches or edit the registry, by hand. Obviously, this is just one more way to gently prod the consumer into purchasing the latest version of Windows, but I won’t go into that right now.
Microsoft provides instructions on how to update your Windows 2000 server in this knowledgebase article, which lists several methods to adjust the time zones. For a single computer, the simplest method seemed to use their new TZEdit tool, so that’s what I did on the handful of Windows 2000 servers I maintain.
Just for kicks, I also ran this tool on the last remaining Windows NT 4.0 server that we still have in production at a client’s location. Note that NT 4.0 is no longer in Extended Support – it’s reached its End of Life. We joke about what this means, and often wonder if we call Microsoft and want to discuss NT 4, if they’ll admit it ever even existed, but I digress. My point is that there is no mention of NT 4 now anywhere with respect to DST. There are no tools from MS on how to adjust its settings, there are no instructions on how to do it. “It’s dead, Jim,” so if you’re running NT 4, you’re on your own.
I decided to try the TZEdit program on this NT 4 box. To my surprise, it ran and seemed to make the changes correctly! Great! I also ran it on all of the Win2k servers.
This morning, I logged on to all of the servers that we maintain to make sure everything looked right. All of the Windows 2003 servers came through without a hitch, and properly adjusted their clocks. The Linux servers did likewise. The NT 4 machine (which, you’ll recall, is completely unsupported) did as well! Great!
Then I looked at the Windows 2000 servers.
The first one still said it was 9:34 AM. My clock said it was 10:34AM. Uh oh. I looked at the second server. Same thing. I logged on to another client location. Same thing. Another client location. Same thing. Not… good.
Basically, the tool appears to not work on any of these machines. Granted, I used the same tool on all of the machines, so if I managed to somehow screw it up, I’d have theoretically replicated the mistake across all of the machines, but this utility is pretty straightforward to use, so what’s the issue? And why on earth did it work on Windows NT 4.0, and NOT on Windows 2000? That is what I want to know.
Furthermore, the Microsoft documentation on this has been terrible. At first, I thought it was just me, but thank goodness that the guys over at Casting From the Server Room had very similar results. Curiously, some of the scripts that worked for us did not work for them, and vice versa, but the sentiments expressed on the MS documenation are mine exactly.
On my own test Exchange server, which has a 200MB message store and a whopping 3 (count ’em, 1,2,3) mailboxes on it, has been running the script to adjust calendar appointments for over two and a half hours now. Unfortunately, I’m apparently not alone, and will be in good company when I manually adjust all of our calendar appointments for each Exchange mailbox individually. Glorious.
Oh, and by the way, that patch for Exchange servers, which came down in Automatic Updates weeks ago? You’re not supposed to install it until AFTER you’ve run the calendar migration utility… “If you install the update that is mentioned in Knowledge Base article 926666 on the Exchange server before you update the mailboxes, recurring meetings that are created in Outlook Web Access are not updated by the Exchange tool. To resolve this problem, remove update 926666, run the Exchange tool, and then reinstall update 926666 on the Exchange server.” Thank you, Microsoft. That’s helpful. Almost as helpful as telling me this BEFORE I installed it, but not quite.
Feisty Migrates My Settings, Cleans Up Installer, Adds Compiz
So, I downloaded and installed Ubuntu Feisty Fawn Herd 5 this morning. I downloaded Herd 4, but never had a chance to actually install it. Given that I was having pretty good luck with Herd 3, other than the installer being a bit odd at times, I wasn’t in a hurry to drop it anyway.
The first thing I noticed is that the Herd 5 installer seems to work, even the partitioner. Note that under Herd 3 I was using the Alternate Install (text mode) disc, and with Herd 5 I’m using the main image (GNOME installer).
I had heard from Bryan and Chris at the Linux Action Show that Canonical had decided to include Compiz, but not enable it by default. Even though the installation of Beryl was pretty easy, it was still a manual process which involved changing my repositories, downloading packages, and editing configuration files. Given that I had successfully installed Beryl on Herd 3, I was curious to give Compiz a try, especially if it was installed by default (because, I admit, I am lazy).
It worked like a charm. Clicking System, Preferences, Desktop Effects, and clicking the button to “Enable Desktop Effects” was all I had to do. Very nice. I’m not sure I like the default Compiz settings, because the window snapping feature acted a bit funny when I tried to move windows. Once I realized what it was doing, it wasn’t a big deal, but by default, when I tried to drag Firefox to the top of the screen, it snapped back down about half an inch on my screen. I had to resize the window a bit to get it to stay where I wanted to.
Evolution now works! I fired it up, and connected to my Exchange server in under a minute. Amazing what happens when you can specify the server that you want to use…
As for migrating my stuff, I see that my documents made it over, so what was in the? “My Documents” folder under Windows is now in my “Documents” folder on Ubuntu. I see that Gaim recognizes my username on AIM, but I couldn’t figure out how to sign on to that account without deleting it and manually entering my username and password. It turns out, that this was actually a problem with Compiz. Gaim was working fine, but with the Desktop Effects enabled, all of the Gaim windows showed up empty, with no text wherever there should have been text. When this happened in another application, I decided to try disabling Compiz, which fixed the issue. I’m thinking I know why it’s not enabled by default.
Unfortunately I had not installed an email client on the Windows partition, so I couldn’t test its migration of my mail settings from Outlook or Thunderbird.
All in all, I’m seeing definite progress, and can’t wait until the real release next month.
What Went Wrong With NBC's Heroes?
I’ve been watching NBC’s new hit show, Heroes, since its debut last year. The show is awesome, and I can honestly say they’ve done just about everything right. The storyline is awesome. The plot threads and how they interlace together are terrific! It reminds me of the X-Files, only I believe there the plot really is going somewhere. The special effects are sprinkled in a bit at a time, but the show does not rely on them at all, focusing more on the people behind them and how their powers and abilities are affecting their lives, rather than on the powers themselves. The acting and delivery is also very good, something which is painfully absent in most TV shows today.
Heroes has been a great show. That is, up until last week’s episode, Unexpected. All I can say is “What happened?” The episode really felt like it was thrown together quite hastily. The first scene, opening in the desert with Ted and Hannah, was awful. Her acting and delivery was nothing short of pathetic. It felt like I was watching Jennifer Garner in Daredevil. I’d say it felt like Alias, but I’ve never made it through an entire episode because I can’t stomach the bad acting.
Mr. Bennet giving Isaac the gun, telling him to “Save the world,” was ridiculous. Mr. Bennet (aka “HRG” for “Horn Rimmed Glasses”) is a smart guy. He would know better than to just hand a gun over to Isaac and imply that he should blow Peter Petrelli away when/if he shows up. Come on, HRG! You just give the guy a gun and don’t even tell him where the safety is on the thing?
Later in the episode, we see HRG and his Haitian sidekick using tasers. I can’t help but wonder if it wouldn’t have made more sense to give Isaac a taser isntead of a gun, don’t you think?
The acting by the Nevada Gaming Commission Officer gone bad was pathetic. Every scene in which he or Hope appeared was weak and felt poorly staged. The way he busts in and shoves his gun in Hiro’s face just felt like a move from a soap opera or a cheesy sitcom, and did not jive with the quality of the acting and delivery we’ve come to expect from Heroes to date.
Mohinder Suresh – You’re an idiot. You may have all of your father’s book-smarts, but you’re as dumb as a box of hammers when it comes to common sense. Sylar is so obviously a nut-job, brain-eating, power-stealing psycho. My wife calls a person’s “gut instinct” her “coockoo bell.” Mohinder, you need to listen to your coockoo bell and wake up! There’s something wrong with the guy you’re travelling around with!
The show was not without its high points. The scenes with Claire and her mother were delivered with excellence, and the “training” sessions with Claude and Peter, culminating with Peter finally breaking down his emotional barriers and being able to tap powers on demand were excellent. I did not expect him to make anywhere near as fast a progression as he did, and it was terrific. Adrian Pasdar continues to deliver his lines with excellence, and Nathan Petrelli is probably the most realistic character in the whole show.
However, I’m very concerned at the way the episode felt thrown together, and I really hope tonight’s episode returns to its roots and has the quality acting, direction, and writing that we’ve come to expect from the series so far. Despite the high points, I have to give this episode an overall thumbs down.