Rob Eberhardt

cleverness ensues

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 Wednesday, July 20, 2005

Be sure to visit all the options under "Configuration" in the Admin Menu Bar above. There are 16 themes to choose from, and you can also create your own.

 

7/20/2005 3:00 AM Eastern Daylight Time  #    Disclaimer  |  Comments [0]  | 

 Tuesday, July 19, 2005

via the Scobleizer...
Rough week for Firefox team.

That's a lotta badness for what is hardly a "new" browser anymore.

7/19/2005 2:54 PM Eastern Daylight Time  #    Disclaimer  |  Comments [0]  | 

 Sunday, July 17, 2005

I have a new client who recently guessed their way through a SBS 2003 setup.  THEN they called us to fix it.  This has been quite the cleanup.  I gotta get me a Haz-mat suit.  Imagine and enjoy at my expense, some highlights:

  • Exchange mailboxes not configured for the POP3 Connector (so email was removed from the ISP's mailbox, and dropped into Oblivion).
  • No backups, no (or patchy) virus/spyware protection (and plenty of spyware).
  • Moving from a XP Pro "server", which fell apart when we tried to join it to the domain (due to loads of spyware).
  • XP Home machines trying to use the new server.
  • No extra CALs for the 12 user accounts.  Yes, that's 12 users competing for the 5 licenses that come with SBS.  "Denied!"

And now (drumroll please)...

  • Amid extensive VPN, OWA, and OMA use, a vendor who supplied us with Device CALs instead of User CALs (and didn't mention it until we'd already activated them!)
  • Crap.

    7/17/2005 2:51 AM Eastern Daylight Time  #    Disclaimer  |  Comments [7]  | 

     Tuesday, July 12, 2005

    So I just saw this on Ajaxian Blog: "Ajax is rocket science". "Ajax isn't simple". Enough already!

    It makes good points, but what puzzles me is: who is saying this?  I never found Ajax difficult (even when I first discovered it 5 years ago).  Are the complainers just web designers, who just build pretty-but-static HTML pages and don't know coding (-vs- web developers, who build web apps)? 

    Well, as Scott would say:
    And then I got back to work.

    7/12/2005 12:18 PM Eastern Daylight Time  #    Disclaimer  |  Comments [0]  | 

    but no, I haven't been deep in the NetHack dungeons (I wish!).  Rather, every client (current or not) called me simultaneously needing something... ....AND every computer I possess simultaneously broke.

    Sure, it's an ego-boost to be in-demand, but that novelty wears off very quickly when I'm making bricks without straw.

    7/12/2005 12:15 PM Eastern Daylight Time  #    Disclaimer  |  Comments [0]  | 

     Sunday, July 03, 2005

    I ran into the following the hard way recently.  Since I don't trust anybody's tech support to actually test new service packs or publish known issues, I figured I'd mention it here: SP1 for SBS 2003 breaks Aladdin NetHASP, and programs which use it.

    NetHASP is 3rd-party software which programs use to tie software licenses to a physical dongle (known as a "hasp" or "sim").  In my case, our client was using SigmaTek's SigmaNest and Develop programs (line-of-business stuff), we had the Network sim plugged into the SBS box and the NetHASP License Manager program running on it.  After the upgrade to SP1, SigmaNest on all workstations could no longer find the Network Sim, and would not run.

    Anyway, judging by known issues I'd read about, I pursued a firewall angle.  I found out what port the NetHASP connection uses (475), and made sure workstations could see that on the server (they could).  I reinstalled the NetHASP License Manager.  I reinstalled SigmaNest.  Nothing worked. 

    Finally, dreading a bad support like I've had all too often, I caved and called SigmaTek support.  After an hour on the phone with a well-intentioned, but lower-level support employee, he finally contacted Aladdin support (at my suggestion).  Eventually he got hold of them and the three of us worked together on it for a good while.  Eventually we tried a new (command-line) version of the NetHASP License Manager driver, and voila! it worked again.

    For the record, we had purposely waited a month after SP1's release to let any kinks get worked out (or at least known).  I'd also immediately mentioned the SP1 install to both SigmaTek and Aladdin's support reps, since it was a likely culprit.  Seemingly neither had run into the issue. 

    Now, I'm not sure, but this suggests to me that neither company is proactively testing new Windows patches and service packs.  If true, this is a very bad thing (if not, I'd love hear otherwise!).  It's also possible that they did know, but simply hadn't communicated that info with their support reps (and certainly had not via their support websites).

    I asked them to document what we'd found, but I don't have high hopes.  So... hopefully this anecdote will help out some other poor NetHASP clod like me: get the new/other NetHASP driver, and push the vendors to publish the problem and solution.

    7/3/2005 1:26 PM Eastern Daylight Time  #    Disclaimer  |  Comments [0]  | 

     Thursday, June 30, 2005

    Next in my random song roll:

    Transatlantic - In Held (Twas) In I
    Audio Adrenaline - Glory
    King's X - Over My Head
    Ben Folds - Still Fighting It
    Lit - Over My Head
    Ray Charles - One Mint Julep
    Galactic Cowboys - Not of this World
    Crimson Glory - Cydonia
    Metallica - Wherever I May Roam
    Jars of Clay - Faith Like a Child

    Wow, lotta prog rock this time...

    6/30/2005 5:58 PM Eastern Daylight Time  #    Disclaimer  |  Comments [0]  |