Well it apears that Microsoft have updated the MSN Spaces areas to Windows Live Area's!  Unfortunately the theme I was using looks a little to harsh on the eyes for continued use so I have changed my theme to this green one until I find one that I really like!

Just browsing through Slashdot and saw this article on building a monster PVR, 11 TV tuners!

The past couple of weeks I have run off my feet at work.  The project that I am working on is currently in Go Live mode.  All the code the developers have made and all the infrastructure that has been setup have to come together (and work correctly) so that 'users' can work on the system with the correct information (and hopefully as little bugs as possible)  Being the systems architect on the project I have been managing the implimentation of all these codes and packages as per my design for this first release. 

 

While it has gone really well, it has still had it's bugs.  And of course it's never the big things that it is easy to identify.  On the plus side our team has really come together this week and everyone has done their part and put in that little bit extra effort to ensure we hit out 'Go Live' target.

 

I still have a little bit of work to do to get the training environments that support the release 1 environments finished but I am looking forward to beginning work to the release 2 environment that will include a lot of new features and abilities that I have not yet worked with. Should be fun!

Thanks to Roger for this very cool web site.  When you see the site you'll see that someone spent 'way' too much time on this.  Oh, and make sure you have your speakers on low, there is music that really compliments the site but it's loud!

Unfortunatly our i'll fated web site is down again.  While I had the new server up and running things were great.  A hard drive has been my downfall this time.  In building the server I thought that I would use one of my spare hard drives for the OS, as the drive was only about 2 years old I thought no problems, I was wrong.  So I am offline for a couple of weeks until my next pay comes in and I can afford a new hard drive

 

:( :( :( :(

I've worked within the IT industry for a number of years and sometimes we take the cut and paste a little for granted.  Stefans' article here shows a security hole in Internet Explorer that can allow a web site to grab the information from your clipboard.  The good thing is that there is a very easy way to stop this information being transmitted.  See below:

 

"Data stored in clipboard can be accessed by a malicious website through a combination of Javascripts and server side code (like ASP, ASP.NET, PHP, CGI, ...).

Just try this:

1. Copy any text by ctrl+c
2. Click the Link: http://www.friendlycanadian.com/applications/clipboard.htm
3. You will see the text you copied on the Screen which was accessed by this web page.

A malicious websites can easily steal sensitive data (like passwords, creditcard numbers, PIN etc.) stored in your clipboard while surfing the web. To prevent this you should change the security setting Allow paste operations via script for at least the Internet Zone in Internet Explorer to Prompt. Per default this setting is set to Enabled."

I have been invoved with the Interent for many years now (even way back to the days of the BBS) and in that time I have been through an evolution of my online nick, but when I am online that nick defines who I am, what I look like and as well as the people that interact with me.  Having a read through Slashdot this morning and I came accross an interesting article from CmdrTaco about him being banned from using his name on his World of Warcraft server because it vilolate's their naming rules,  I think that this is a little unfair however in the online community where people are generally only recognized by their name this can be just as bad a death.  I am a big World of Warcraft player and I guess this article really struck a nerve witin me.

 

Another thought on this topic is that we may see more of this in the future not only in games but in the rest of the 'internet', will be interesting to see if this pan's out..........

Everyone has heard of Google Earth and a lot of people have also heard of MSN Virtual Earth (Microsoft's Virtual Maps) but here on Tim Heuer's Blog I have found Flash Earth, a Flash rendered version of both systems.  Now this is cool becuase I can get the best of both worlds.  There are only two things I can see wrong with this system (and this is just a personal perspective).

 

1. The MSN Virtual Earth has no detailed coverage of Brisbane where I live

2. Neither system can clearly see where my house is!

 

Then again I supose that is the price I pay for a house in a quite suburb!

Here's another one from Mitch Denny's Blog.  A Colour Palate generating for those of us that are not so good at colouring between the lines!!!!

Well it's Friday night and just like a good little geek I am sitting in front of my computer and checking my e-mail,etc (that is after dropping in at a friends, doing the dishes at home and feeding our dog Zeus)......

 

Anyhowz, Morrow morning we are going to the Birsbane Home Show at the convention centre to get some idea's for the house that we will be building next year (hopefully) and I for one am very interested to see the smarthouse / home automation technology on display.  Currently in my head I have a lot of ideas on how different aspects of this new 'tech enabled' house can be built.  While I am aware that some of the core technology will have to come from companies such as Cilpisal or HPM I am wanting to know how much I can do myself as a true geek. 

 

I guess that Liv and I will find out of the next few days!

Being that I am working on a very large project as the systems architect at the moment I am having a great opportunity to work with several products that I have only previously looked at in passing.  On of these products is Microsoft BizTalk 2004.  While I am still wrapping my head around how BizTalk is going to work in intergration with K2.NET and SharePoint I have been gaining some valuable insight from Robert Bannerman (Microsoft) and his team of BizTalk guru's in the US. 

 

One of the area's that has been frustrating me is the BizTalk Master Secret Service that runs to provide authentication on clustered boxes, I was fortunate enough to get a few good tips from the team including the following couple of links:

 

Over at Tom's hardware they have just posted an article on Michael Pusateri the IT manager at Disney.  Through the course of this article they go over a little about Disney the fact they they are looking at a Petabyte of storage (1,000 Terabytes), and how Michael builds his home PC's himself.  Now what really made be think this guys is cool is the fact that he plays World of Warcraft. 

 

In my books this guy is a model geek!

Just got this interesting little e-mail from Don Adam's.  Today only from the Google home page they prove the Moon is made of cheese!  Just follow Don's instructions:

 

Ever wanted to configure the keys on your keyboard in a different configuration?  What about in a FPS game showing the button to press to change to your rocket launcher?  Well if you have ever wanted to modify your keyboard in any way then perhaps the Optimus Keyboard from Art. Lebedev Studio is for you!

 

This has to be the best Keyboard that I have EVER seen.  I could open World of Warcraft and show the keys for the game and then open Battlefield 2 and show a different set of keys.  You see the keys have miniture screens build into the tops of them so they can display different images that can change depending on the application that the user is running.

 

Found this artlice over at Slashdot!

For about a month now my personal PC at home has been really struggling to achieve what I need it to do at home.  I also have been having full system frezzes and application crashes.  This is mainly due to the configuration testing and application testing I do on the PC.  I was loathed to rebuild my box due to some of the configurations I had for different applications, but following my LAN on the weekend I have deciced that I really need to rebuild my PC...........

 

Having only installed the base OS, Office and World of Warcraft (very important) I now remember the other reason I do like doing this, it takes so loooooooooooong!

Well there has been quite a bit of talk around Google Earth over the past few weeks, and I have at last got arround to downloading the application and installing it.  It is really an interesting little application.  You start with a view of the globe where you can then zoom any to anywhere around the world to a fairly detailed level. 

 

Unfortunately the resolution around my place is not too good (I live out of town a little). but overall a great little application.  Thanks to Kristian for showing me this.....

Want to know anything about something! (yeah I know) then make sure that you check out the Wikipedia.  This is one of the best interenet projects that I have seen for some time.  Wiki has been around for a few years and is nothing new but the Wikipedia is an online encylopedia that covers topics on everything from Eastern Culture to Pop Stars to Information and knowladge management methodologies.

 

If there is any site out there that your going to bookmark (other than Yahoo or Google) make sure that you book mark this site!

Just catching up on a couple of RSS feeds while I have a few days off projects and came accross this interesting article on Exchange Gemoetry.  While I've only read 1/2 the article so far I like what I have read!

I went to a seminar the other day on the new Microsoft Visual Studio Team System that is coming with the .NET 2005 suite of products.  As always congratulations to Charles Sterling on a fantastic presentation and once again inspiring me to poke fun at Microsoft presenters as they present.  Following on from Chuck's demo on Friday here is a little information on getting build's on VSTS workings.

I am not a happy little camper at the moment.  Tech Ed 2005 is going on down on the Gold Coast next month and i'm not going.  I have been requesting to attend a couple of the sessions for a few months now and now they won't let me. They only have TWO tickets for a staff in the office of over 30 people (oh yeah that really makes sense!)

 

I can fully understand if I could not attend the entire confrance, but there are some great sessions this year that really suit me.  NOT HAPPY!!!!

 

This has to be one of the most disapointing expereinces so far working here!