Sense and Sensibility-ness-ing-ly

You have been warned...

At my recent 36th birthday, I got one of the coolest presents of my life. My LovelyWife & excellent kids surprised me with the Lego Death Star that I raved about at the start of the year. OH. MY. GOODNESS!!! Thoroughly impressed with the fact that Mr4 & Miss2 kept it a secret – I didn’t know about it until I unwrapped it – since they were with LovelyWife when she purchased it nearly 6 months ago (I seriously gotta find these hiding places being used for presents in our house).

The box is huge. Over my 36 years (yes, I am a large child) I’ve made many a Lego set. The biggest one I’ve ever got was a Lego Castle set I got after our local Big W had a “post-fire-goods-water-damaged” sale, but I digress. It was cool,  & where previously all the instructions were folded paper, the Lego Castle came with a small stapled book. The Lego Death Star comes with a ring-bound, A2 sized monster book. Step by step instructions on how to build your very own Death Star. Must have been what the Emperor used. Twice.

Over 3800 bits. I touched all of them at least once, many twice, a fair few three times, a bunch four times, and so on. The stupidest thing I did was at the start: Opening all the bags of parts into one big pile. The smartest thing I did happened at the same time: I ensured all the very small parts were put into a small plastic container that I could use to keep the bits away from the big bits & at least allow me to only search through 200-odd little bits when I needed that clear plastic size one bit to use as the accent on a light. After the first hour of frustration when looking for a specific bit I relented & sorted at least the colours into separate piles. That made it easier. With two shades of grey & lots of black accent, it still made it tough to read the manual & discern what colour block to use sometimes.

While Miss2 was keen to be involved in helping Daddy build his “Def Stah”, her two year-old attention span paid dividends for once. She helped in spurts. Mr4, however, wanted to be involved in every little bit. Now while his cognitive growth is far more advanced than mine at his age, the identification of specific bits & then using the patented Lego “add to your construction what’s missing compared to this picture” instruction process is a little above him. He did help a lot, & that was fun, but Daddy was taking too long completing all that messy & unnecessary detail. So while he was waiting he built his first (of many) and very own Star Wars ship.

The process how the Lego Death Star came together was pretty impressive. It was pretty modular – build this floor, add some bits, do the next floor, add some bits, once all the floor bits are together add more detail & build the supporting walls/pillars/structure, etc. You never focused on one section for too long. This made the entire build process engaging, with the continuing accent of “I wonder what section I’ll build next?” or “What is this going to develop into?” or “I wonder when I get to build the Emperor’s throne room?”. Tres cool.

So, when it’s built, there’s almost too much to look at. A benefit of it being a globe – some things are hidden, others are obscured in part by other bits, it’s multi-layer approach means you don’t really take it all in with one glance. That's a big part of it's fascinaction - so much to see, so much to do...

Each of the segments of the Lego Death Star represents a separate scene from either Star Wars or Return of the Jedi (conveniently, in the latter, almost all the Death Star work happens in the Emperor’s throne room, so no big deal in having to find more spaces). All the key locations from Star Wars are there – the Cell Block, the Landing Bay, the Tractor Beam Control Tower, the bridge space where Luke & Leia swing across the gap to escape the Stormtroopers, the Control Room from where they fire the Death Star at Alderran, the Trash Compactor (complete with trash compactor monster!) - & then a favourite ‘extra’ – the Stormtrooper’s lunch room. There had to be one.

If you click here you can got to the gallery of the build & associated birthday fun-ness.

It was a really fun build. A couple of really long days/late nights got it completed, & that was mainly because I didn’t have a space to spread out & take my time (I took over the end of our dining table). Additionally pressure from Mr4 who was constantly studying the box & suggesting “when we play with it, I’m gonna be Luke Skywalker” or asking “who’s this guy” pointing at the minifig line up on the box. Love it. 4 years old, missed the original by 30 years, & he’s as addicted as I am .  ;)

Now for that minifig scale Lego Millennium Falcon (hint, hint)...

Oh boy, am I getting my geek on with this post!  :)

I resoundly blame ToyTragic for even sensing this by using The Force and then applying his Jedi Mind Tricks to ensure I was ensnared...

Ask my wife - whenever we go shopping, I always go looking at the Star Wars Lego. Of which there is lots of it, and it's all very cool. Lego has always been cool. I have resisted to this point in purchasing any because with all those little bits it'd be bad for little kids, and No1 Son would just want to play with it ALL the time (which in itself isn't a problem, but at the moment he's not exactly 100% in the careful stakes when he's excited).

Then, my Mighty Muggs collecting friend Dale (aka, among other nom-de-plumes, ToyTragic), goes and ruins it all.

Lego have released a Star Wars Death Star playset, and it has everything. Scenes from the originial trilogy, lots of minifigs, and an imperial TIE fighter to boot. Just over 3800 pieces in all, and tipping the register at a shade under 270 British pounds (GULP!). Brett and TJ, take note - buying this and sending it over to me will absolve you of any and all past wrongs against the universe!  ;)

My addiction has been revealed, starting with possibly the biggest and coolest bit of evidence yet. Is there a 12-step program for collecting Star Wars Lego? Better sign me up now before things can get out of hand...

I gots to get me one of these...

This simply tickled my fancy (click on image for link to just the image).

And it really works - just like the real Periodic Table (The compound "Batman Ninja" is indeed a compound, and a real one at that!).

Being the benevolent type, we here at Sense and Sensibility-ness-ing-ly like to make sure that we share the gold we unearth on the internet with you, our valued readers.

Today's finds are to assist you in those awkward moments when you really need to sort a friend or co-worker out, but haven't the intestinal fortitude or straight out spine to tell them face to face. I introduce to you:

http://www.annoyingcoworker.com/

Both a place to bitch and a place to solve problems - a problem shared is a problem halved, so why not log on and spread the love about your least favourite co-worker.

http://nicecritic.com/

Really need to tell someone they smell? What about asking them to shut the hell up? Then simply browse through the categories of this website, pick the message you want and enter the target's name and e-mail address and you're good to go. They may even get the hint, although they're more likely to spend the rest of the day on some sort of maniacal hunt to track down who sent them the message in the first place... c'est la vie...

Think you could use these tools? Have you used these tools? Drop us a comment to let us know how it all went (especially if it worked!). Interact, people!

VMware Virtualisation Forum 2008 - 15 October, Sydney.

Well... what a day! Learnt heaps, made some good contacts, and got some good gear from the vendor booths.

Rather than just blog about it (alone), I thought I'd take some pics on my phone and add some colour to the process...

Maybe I'm too cynical for my own good, but as one of the biggest advantages of virtualisation is the immediate reduction of physical servers in an environment thus reducing power usage and improving your carbon footprint, VMware like to shout about the 'green' benefits. Boy did they shout about it today - recycled this, green that, carbon footprint small something else. Valid, but it just felt a little over the top. Eh, it's their show.

Paul Maritz, VMware President and CEO (yes, that's his title), delivered a good short and long term future view of how VMware are developing their footprint and products. It was during his presentation that my whole understanding of what VMware could do for my new company changed. No longer just server virtualisation, but now true virtualisation to the desktop (using the power of the local machine or able to be cached on a laptop for travellers or use a thin client) - VMware View. They've even managed to remove the requirement for an OS on the hardware and just use their desktop hypervisor to connect to their virtualised desktop. I'm sold... good BYE Citrix.

The Solutions Centre is always an interesting place to walk around. Lots to see, do, take and 'acquire'. Usually simple, boring geek toys like USB keys, USB hubs, badged stress toys, etc. The food offered was pretty good (although I only had morning tea, and was very good) - I arrived to breakfast partially upset with myself I'd already had toast at the hotel, and when I appeared there was ham and cheese croisants everywhere. I didn't have one... but I really wanted to.

There were lots of good things to look at, lots of things to learn. There were some 'interesting' things to look at too...

Some geek events have LOTS of these kinds of things (although this is the first time I've seen a male booth bitch at a geek event - the few women there really liked it). The woman wasn't that surprising but that there was only one was surprising. It's very un-PC, but it happens. Personally, she's pretty but not that attractive. I really don't get why people sign up for this... I guess it's the ca$h.

I planned to catch up with our local VMware rep, and after some discussions with our DiData account manager he put me onto someone from the Brisbane office that was also there (thanks for your time, Adele!) and we enjoyed lunch with Mark and Eli at Jordon's Seafood Restaurant. The conversation was good, the food was delicious (although Mark's soft shell crab was pretty bland and over cooked), and the opportunities that presented will prove interesting. Don't know what the others had for lunch, but mine was pretty awesome...

Two of the presentations I was at were interesting enough to note - the new VMware Stage Manager will help in managing virtual machine bloat, and getting the inside line on virtualising Exchange and SQL was always going to be helpful.

My score was OK - not the biggest I've had, and certainly not the best, but interesting enough. The stuff shown here is the useable stuff I've kept. Lots of promo paperwork 'recycled' not shown here. It was a bigger pile that I expected to have to pack into my bag, but managed to. As you can see there are some multiples because of the kids - both at home and at work. I try to spread the love...

It's finally announced that it's coming... and it's still not quite there (however uber geek and cool pics here)...

When I geeked about the lauch of the first model of the iPhone here, there were a few things the device was missing. Apple (to their credit) have fixed a couple of these, added a couple of other good things and still not caught up on the whole package. There's then also a few more things that they haven't altered or updated that I would have thought are a "must do" in a version 2.0 release.

Let's face it - the release of the iPhone was a breath of fresh air in an increasingly stale mobile phone market. No one had really done anything special with the technology, and handsets weren't in themselves any cheaper. The iPhone v1.0 on release was a tad expensive however Apple shortly rectified that (much to the chagrin of the early adopters). The v2.0 release has been announced at a global price point - $US199 ($209.32) for the 8GB model to $US299 ($314.50) for 16GB (info courtesy news.com.au). The two Aussie telcos who have announced they'll sell the iPhone (Optus and Vodaphone) now have just over a month (device releases July 11) to annouce their plans and THE plans they'll bundle the phone with - and be prepared to hang onto your wallets.

One of the coolest things about the v2.0 device is the introduction of 3G speeds (one of the downsides I reported in my original article about v1.0 device). The integration of the phone with its applications, and GPS and the data requirements for mapping, etc, will make this a data hungry beast. The data speed will make it practical to purchase and download songs from iTunes while you're out and about... cool for purchasing the latest song you just heard somewhere, but bad when you get your bill at the end of the month and your data bill is more than your phone cost in the first place! Additional to this, currently only Telstra have national 3G coverage and they are yet to show their hand if they'll be selling the iPhone v2.0. Vodafone and Optus may flog it but it will only work really nicely in the capital cities of Oz, and then somewhat selectively.

The most interesting aspect of the new features of the iPhone v2.0 is the Microsoft Exchange push mail integration (ActiveSync) and full support for the Microsoft Office Word/Excel/etc formats, taking a MASSIVE swing at the market dominance BlackBerry has had in this arena for some time (although Microsoft's own offering in Windows Mobile 5.0 and 6.0 has been chipping away at it). This will allow you to get your iPhone to sync your work e-mail wirelessly, and read/reply as well as getting your calendar and contacts synced on-the-go. A great integration, but I am yet to be convinced I'll want to tap away with the iPhone's on-screen keyboard to reply to e-mails, write new ones, etc. It just seems a little clumsy, but with the iPhone's excellent user interface (UI) it's all you have business world. To be fair the device is Bluetooth 2.0 enabled, so an external keyboard could be purchased and paired if you were that concerned. I'm guessing it will be more business chic than business practical that drives this baby into the corporate environment. In an age where more and more companys are looking at ways to recruit and keep Generation Y happy, the iPhone will become the tool du jour. There is also some cool integration with Cisco IPSEC VPN support, and the ability for company administrator's to "lockdown" settings within the iPhone.

One thing really surprised me - the released specs of the phone have a 2.0 megapixel camera in it. Still. I would have thought we should have been dragged into 2008 with at least a 5.0 MP camera... but then, I guess we must save something for the release of the iPhone v2.5 or v3.0!

The long and the short of the iPhone v2.0:
+ 3G connectivity is finally here
+ Apple's App Store, allowing you to buy and download everything you weren't sure you needed but have to have on your cool new toy
+ Let's face it, it just looks cool, has has a spectacular UI (and you can now get it in white!)
+ Quad-band unit (GPRS/EDGE), Tri-band unit (3G/HSDPA), should allow the phone to globally roam without issue
+ Exchange integration - nice work!
+ The incredibly long list of cool and eminently useable features in the damn thing

? Why would you buy a 8GB iPhone, when the 16GB isn't that much more expensive
? Still no user replaceable battery
? Still no additional memory expansion slot
? Exchange integration - tappy, tappy, tappy with your fingers

I want one... OH, I WANT ONE... but I'll wait until I get offered one by my next job... they can pay the data bill.  ;)

What do you think? Will the iPhone being released in Australia make you want to change your phone?

 iPhone v2.0 - http://www.apple.com/au/iphone/

12/06/08 UPDATE:: Both Vodafone and Optus have announced they will be selling the iPhone under a 'prepaid' plan as well, allowing people to purchase the unit and not be locked to their network... methinks because Apple wouldn't let them...  ;)

14/06/08 UPDATE:: Telstra has a swing at Optus over its '3G' coverage of Oz, stating that Optus's network will be a mix of two frequencies, only one of which the iPhone supports for 3G connectivity. Buyer beware!

Ahh ThinkGeek... is there nothing you haven't thought of to cater for the inner and outer geek in all of us?

http://www.thinkgeek.com/apparel/hats-ties/9352/?cpg=59T

http://www.thinkgeek.com/geektoys/plush/9405/

I've already started to build my brithday and Christmas list (did I mention both are coming... soon?!).

It's nearly the end of day #2, and my brain has officially got to full and I've been reminded I don't know anywhere near as much as I may have thought. Not in a bad way - now I just employ someone to know!  ;)

The focus of Networkers this year is ALL about Unified Communications (that will be the focus of my long entry, coming... soon...). I'll leave you with this tidbit - imagine being able to integrate your PC, your desk phone, your mobile phone and your instant messaging client to be able to (from any or all of those devices) host a video conference, share a video, create a multipoint conference call, share files, update a meeting, etc, etc, etc. This is possible NOW, provided you do it the Cisco way (and trust me, there's nothing wrong with that).

One thing I have seen that I think is Cisco pushing it up a hill at the moment is their new Telepresence product. Expensive, high load on your network (minimum requirements gigabit to the LAN, 15Mb allocated for WAN!), specific requirements for the rooms hosting it - but it does look sexy and provide lifesize high res shots of the people at the other side of the video conference. But why do this with all these overheads? Possibly they've released it before its time... it *could* be good, but few companies have the wherewithall to WANT to use it, let alone actually be able to support it.

The big highlight of the conference is always the party on Wednesday night - and this year it will feature massively awesome Aussie band The Living End. Oh. My. Goodness. Cannot wait - self-confessed massive fan of Chris Cheney and his boys, so it should be spectacular. As a precaution, I will wear ear plugs because I KNOW it will be loud. Loud and good. Loud and good and guitar driven punkabilly rock n roll. Did I say I can't wait already? Well I can't.

I *think* I've done OK with my eating the past two days at the conference, but will find out for sure at the weigh in tomorrow. Any loss counts this week... and I don't expect it to be much. No reason why it can't kick on from this week though, even with 2 weeks away on the very near horizon. To help Michelle, her Mum is coming up which will be a massive assistance to her (as long as Grandma doesn't cut herself on our sharp knives again - be careful, Grandma!), and a great re-assurance to me that some help is around to cope with a demanding 2 year old and a soon to be crawling 6 month old.

THE LIVING END AWAITS... I MUST AWAY...  :)

Rather than bore you silly with entries on each of these, it's time to drop a whole bunch of stuff all at once that I think is cool, and let you make up your own mind...

Portable Apps
This is what all that Linux stuff was meant for. It's the full portable versions of OpenOffice, plus FireFox (web), ThunderBird (e-mail), plus a whole suite of other tools if you want 'em, and all designed to run off a memory key. Why you may ask? well, once you get past the "because you can" geek answer it becomes a practicality - want to edit a Word doc but the PC you are on doesn't have word? No problem. Having troubles diagnosing that web-surfing issue? No problem. Want to play Sudoku or Texas Hold-Em because you are bored and can't/don't want to install them to keep your work machine clean? No problem. For mine, it's gold, and it's free.

ISAAD (International System Administrator Appreciation Day)
Every sysadmin needs a hug every now and then. Even me. Even if they think they don't, or they are afraid that your hug will change their shade of pale. Take the time this coming July 27 to appreciate your sysadmin. We're the ones who make it all happen for you on your PC at work, and invariably sometimes at home (for the right price). Love us, touch us, tug at our fur...

LogMeIn for Windows AND Mac
Haven't had a chance to try this yet, but on BadDad's recommendation it sounds like a complete winner. A remote control tool that you can use to "make things go" on your friends/parents/whoever you support's PC. There's a Pro version you can pay for, but from what I can tell unless you want to get hardcore, you don't need it. I only hope it will work for me across a dialup connection so that I can support my outlaws (sorry, parents-in-law) who live too far away for me to just "pop around and fix it". We'll see, and I'll let you know how we go.

iPhone - I want one, but it has to get better
Oh, I want one. Yes indeed, I want one. There are, however, a few things that I believe Apple needs to correct in it's version 1.0 release before it releases it here in Australia and I get one:

1. Mobile Broadband connectivity - Recently the three major telcos in Australia made a lot of song and dance about upgrading their networks to HSDPA (High Speed Downlink Packet Access - also called 3.5G). What the hell does that mean? Faster access to data from your mobile handset... watch YouTube, check your e-mail, IM on the go, etc, all without the lag of the older GPRS (and not as old but a bit slower 3G) technology. This is pushing it's way around the world... so WHY did Apple release the iPhone to run EDGE (or 2.5G) speeds? what the hell is that? It's not like it was released in 2003 - it was released 3 weeks ago! Methinks AT&T Cingular have a lot to answer for, as they haven't yet adopted and released HSDPA technology to their network, so probably dictated to Apple that this is what to build in. Why do I want to watch a video I am downloading from the internet at 220Kbps EDGE speeds when on HSDPA I can watch it at 8-10Mbps speeds (note: this is currently throttled back by providers in Australia, but look what it could get to!)!? Go figure.

2. User replacable battery - Get an iPhone and it is a sealed unit. OK, not bad. In a couple of years when the battery life has REALLY gone in the toilet from use and constant recharging, etc, you can't just go to your nearest Apple store or Battery World and pick up a new battery - you have to send the whole unit back to somewhere to get the battery replaced. Oh. My. God. Given that should take at least 2-3 days - who can do without their mobile for that long?

3. Larger HDD - There are two versions of the iPhone - 4GB and 8GB internal memory. While I appreciate what iTunes does in compressing music and video to reduce space, Apple's key selling point of "watching movies on your iPhone" can't hold up for too long if you can only fit one or two movies on the thing before it is full. More memory, more memory... WE NEED MORE MEMORY!

4. Memory expansion slot - In addition to (3), there is no memory expansion slot. That's just crazy talk with memory cards being cheaper than EVER! For example, you can purchase a 4GB SD Micro memory card for $99. In the case of the smaller memory iPhone, you've just doubled your memory for less than the price of the larger memory model phone (oh, wait...). Bottom line - mobile devices almost as a standard now have a memory slot to allow you to add more storage space. Why not the iPhone?

5. Australian telco partner - This is not yet public, however if they follow the US model you'll only be able to get your iPhone working with one telco. Given all the requirements that isn't too surprising (instant/choosable voicemail, integrated GPS on the go, etc). The killer will be Apple choosing the RIGHT telco to partner with - they'll only get one shot, and if they screw it up a lot of people will buy iPhones (sure), but a lot of people will then sour on the experience REALLY quickly. What will probably happen is they release with only one telco, and then a period of time later the others will come online. so, if that happens and you don't like the telco they launch with, you can still get it and use it - just not as a phone, GPS, e-mail or web client (well, using the mobile network, anyway). Still, that does leave a lot of options with the phone, and if you can find a WiFi hotspot, you can do most of those other things anyway. Make that choice and you got a really expensive iPod and WiFi web/mail client.

It's a neat package, no doubt. Some great technology and thinking put into it. Apple doing their thing, I reckon, but they do have to address these 5 issues for mine. They no fix-ee, me no buy-ee. It's that simple. But GOD, do I want one...  ;)  There is so much to like - the web browser and how it interfaces with the phone, the whole touch screen environment, the picture management stuff, the GPS integrated services... and there's no buttons on the front - just a sleek, very scratchable screen waiting for your dirty fingers to dance all over it (BTW, if you want to see what I think is the scariest thing to happen to an iPhone yet, check out WillItBlend.com - what a way to plug your blenders!).

Your thoughts? Like the tools I've mentioned here? Tried 'em yet? Want an iPhone too (or live in the US and already got one)? Hugged your sysadmin today (or are they too troll-like for you)? Tell us, tell us!!!

Well, maybe not yet, but I am sure this has the capacity to make me one...

After seeing the Twitter feeds updating as blog posts on BadDadRadio's site, I thought I'd investigate that the hell this Twitter thing is. From what I can tell, it's a way for you to post your thoughts or whatever you're doing at that moment into your Twitter feed and keep all your friends in the loop. This would be just what teenagers need - another way to keep in touch.

It's pretty groovy, and allows for others to 'subscribe' to your Tweets (that's what the posts are called) and be updated every time you update. Information overload. Alternatively and additionally, you can have your Tweets show up in a badge on your blog/site (like I have on the right hand side here), and as you instant message or SMS what you are happening to your Twitter account it will update instantly into your Twitter feed.

I forsee a couple of downs for me already...

1. I can't get my Tweets to be auto-blogged like BadDad can, because I don't have a WordPress blog. I have searched high and low, and unless someone creates it, I'm screwed.
2. I need to be thinking more laterally and not just updating with boring old "this is what I am doing" Tweets... this could be a challenge for me. Perhaps I could be offering my moods and feelings while I continue with this weight loss thing?
3. It's just another distraction that I probably don't need in my work day, but can too easily fit in right now...

So, such as it is, I've joined the Twitter community. We'll see how this thing progresses. Feel free to join up yourself and get involved - that way I could have some friends to sign up to and find out what they are doing/thinking as they feel the need to Tweet about it...

Ever since I started playing guitar and enjoying music, Tommy Emmanuel has been my guitar hero. What he can't do with a guitar (electric or acoustic) isn't worth doing. He's not everyone's style, but for mine he is just brilliant. I've always wanted the chance to jam (well, I'm sure it would turn into a watching session) with him... doubt I'll get the chance, but DAMN... how good would that be. He now lives in Nashville, touring the world doing what he loves (I wish I was that good to be able to do that!).

This is a live performance of his Day Tripper/Lady Madonna medley he performs on acoustic (from his "Up From Down Under" album). I just can't get enough of this guys - and after spending the best part of the last two days watching clips of him on YouTube, I remember why I got so into guitar in the first place...

A fun one start the week - I really shouldn't spend a lot of time looking around adultswim... too many distractions.

In case you hadn't seen it, it's BibleFight - fight as Mary, Jesus, Joseph, Noah, Moses, Satan and others in your quest to defeat... each other... a great time waster...

I hadn't heard of Robot Chicken before Jej linked it on his site... now I am hooked. Created by Seth Green (Family Guy, American Dad), and it is the funniest Star Wars Parody I have seen in ages.

For ease, I'll embed all three parts here - watch them and laugh out loud. There are too many funny parts for me to offer highlights, but I'd love to know what you think of it...

EDIT AND UPDATE - 25/06/07: Due to a ComedyChannel copyright claim on whoever posted these on YouTube - you'll have to go to the AdultSwim-RobotChicken website to view it - well worth it!

To whet your appetite, here are a couple of the funniest bits I could embed...

Umm... wow...

Yes, I know I am obviously spending too much time on YouTube... but I have to get some ideas before I start posting my WeightLossVlog there, don't I?!

Found this one on YouTube by accident... simple concept, many have had a go at it... this guy nails it... Just make sure your speakers are on/headphones are in to enjoy the wonderful 80's soundtrack that makes this work...

Some things can't be explained easily... Some things you just have to see and hear.

"It's got a nice tune and a beat you can dance to..."

News today that Halo3 will be launched in Australia on September 25 - a spectacularly valid reason to dust off my XBOX360 and get into... CANNOT WAIT!

Note to all my Halo gaming friends... there WILL be a Halo LAN at my place Saturday September 29... lock it in...

...and for those naysayers, yes, when it comes to Halo, I'm a complete geek.

Like all things, the internet can be full of rubbish. But sometimes you stumble across that hidden diamond, cast off or missed by many. I give you "Amateur" by Lasse Gjertsen - revealed to me by my mate Craig.

Enjoy - I think it is wonderful...

Occasionally at work, I get the chance to surf the web a little.

One of my favourite stops is ThinkGeek. These guys have everything the discerning nerd/geek/grown-up-child could ever want, including a bunch of stuff you never knew you needed (like the caffine-infused soap, brought to life by Scotty and Markk).

Today I was browsing, and decided I needed to start my own gift register. The place where anyone can swing by, see that there is something my little heart would desire, and out of the kindness of their own heart purchase said gift to be delivered to me. The kind of people who REALLY like me.

Why? It is better to give than recieve.

What for? Because I am worth it, you know I am.

So, for those selfless people out there that love unconditionally and would love to surprise me with that special something, here begins the list of little things that would tickle my fancy if they were to arrive at my doorstep for me...

Geek Work Shirt - Because every geek must have one.

Driving LED Emoticon - Let that driver behind you know EXACTLY how you feel about them tailgating you.

Palm-size remote controlled Helicopter - To begin the cube wars (coming soon to a theatre near you).

Remote controlled shooting Battle Tank - To end the cube wars. Period.

eStarling Wireless Photo Frame - To enjoy the many pics of my growing family whilst at work, and adhering to the "one personal photo frame per desk" rule... and let's face it, what can you not like about a digital photo frame that you can update by e-mailing photos to an e-mail address?!

Come on... spread the love... you know you want to...

I overheard this from a cube 2 away from me this morning...

"How do I delete something from my inbox? I've got this message here and I don't want to keep it anymore... It's just cluttering up my inbox"

Now I KNOW this person has been with the company I work for at least a couple of years... and they still don't know how to delete an e-mail?!?!?! [COMPANY] is a fricken IT company!!!

Oh... my... God...

WARNING: Geek goggles on.

Been dropped into a project at work to find a web-based active directory management tool that would allow one of the teams here to be able to modify the attributes of people's accuonts (change passwords, group memberships, etc) without needing domain administrator access to do so.

I am a FIRM believer of people operating on a work network with the least privileges they need to do their job. This includes not dishing out local administrator access to anyone/everyone... on the whole, few people need local admin to perform their day to day jobs (and then they mostly only need it because of poorly written software). So this is right up my alley. It's a difficult thing to introduce to an existing network, as often a lot of people have more access than they need, or hang-over local admin access, or even domain admin access where it isn't really required. Subsequently, you get (bare minumum) a lot of complaints when this is implemented to the other extreme of a lot of resistance because (for some untangible reason) "I need that access".

I've struggled through these situations before. No matter how much education, no matter how much reasoning, no matter how much telling it straight, people take it as a personal affront and interpret it as a lack of trust when you want to pare down their access to least privilege. From my perspective in doing this am I suggesting that the person(s) in question cannot do their job. Far from it. The basic underlying principle for employing this methodology is SECURITY (particularly in relation to people having local and domain admin access).

At a local machine level, having local admin privileges allows you to install software. This can be good in terms of "I want to install my home printer on my laptop so I can print out there" or "I want to install my digital camera software to get photos off", but you have to be careful. What is the policy of the company with regard to such software? What is the impact to the local machine if such software is installed? Many might think there is little effect to your machine if such software is installed, but it can cause chaos for that machine (the number of times I have had to reimage machines because of incorrectly installed/'failed at install' software... I tell you what...), rendering it unusable and unsupportable in its current state. Additionally, if that person's account is compromised and/or a virus is released on their laptop, if they have local admin access to their machine then the damage can be significant - not only to their machine, but to the network (as the payload can often use/implement services on the machine which can allow it access to the wider network).

Having domain administrator access is the same, but at a much bigger scale. In layman's terms, anyone who knows the domain administrator password or has domain administrator access is effectively 'god' on that network. They can DO anything, SEE anything, CHANGE anything, DELETE anything... and, as you'd expect, this can lead to complete disaster. I have heard of situations where "someone changed something thinking it wouldn't hurt" that lead to a nasty almost complete restore/rebuild of the network/server. People who play on servers should only have the privilege to change what they need to change, do what they need to do. Anything more than that is open to disaster - again it is not a trust issue, rather a competency one. As a wise man once told me - "If you employ people, you inherently trust them. It's up to them to prove their competency. If you don't trust them then you have a whole other issue to deal with."

Guide junior technical people into a position of competency through supervised tasks to ensure you are confident they can do what they need to do if they are getting greater access. NEVER work in a day to day basis with domain administrator privileges on your "normal" account. Conveniently there ARE ways to set up every person who needs access with the specific access they require, rather than just giving them carte blanche at your precious servers and network. On a day to day basis, no matter what size your enterprise (5 people or 5,000 people), there is no reason more than 6 people should have domain administrator access or know the domain administrator password. It just opens a security hole into your organisation that is difficult to plug after the fact. And, let's face it, you don't want to be explaining this concept to your employer AFTER somebody has screwed up your network and caused significant downtime or compromised sensitive data - that might be the last conversation you have with that employer...

So - next time your 'network nazi' suggests that maybe you don't need that higher level access and that their are ways around it so that you can still get to the data/access the functions you need... trust them. They are just trying to keep the company secure and, ultimately, you in a job.

OK... there, I've ranted... Geek goggles off again now...

If you pay any attention, you may have noticed that when you hold your mouse over a link ('hover' in geek speak) a window now pops up and shows you a thumbnail of that page that this is linking to. I saw it on another blog I now visit regularly, and is a feature you can implement if you use a WordPress blog (among others - or, like me, even your own!).

Would love to know what you think... should it stay or should it go? Drop your comment in below... (wish I had a voting applet to drop into this right now!).

Way back in 2004(!), I was involved in a group called PowerChange - a youth movement within the Uniting Church. We were asked to come and lead worship at one of the sittings of Synod, the state-wide meeting of the all the Qld Uniting Church ministers and officials and stuff. The theme spoke of the "super-abundance" of God, and how He provides everything we need at all times.

This video was a part of that worship. It was one of those weird and fun things, two takes for each scene at best, and edited in a hurry (can you tell?!). Sorry about the quality - the copy I have is a bit flaky, but you get the idea.

Featured in this are my good mate Craig Burnett (lead singer of Scat, and now also Creative Arts Director for Logan Uniting Church) and another good mate Dave Ireland. Craig is the one with the Krank t-shirt and the funky attitude, and Dave is Super Abundant Man. Hope you enjoy it...

...we sure enjoyed ourselves making it - can you tell?!!!  ;)  The moral of this story is don't let idiots like us near some camera and video editing equipment.

Found this on YouTube - it's most interesting at the 1:50 mark - but I'll save commenting on it to allow you to tell me what you think about it first...

Well, if you tried to e-mail us in the last 24 hours, you may have had trouble. It seems that our web host (who we got the domain name through) didn't get my 3 attempts to update my credit card details with them and didn't notify me and so my domain name was not renewed - killing my mx (mail exchanger) record stopping e-mail.

AAAARRRRRRGGGHHH!!!!

After an online chat with the domain registrar and finding out that even though the domain name is registered to my under my account I can't change anything, I then had to cal the US to speak to the support of my web host to give them my updated credit card details. Then, 20 minutes later, we were back in business.

To try to combat this, I am now trying to register the domain name for 10 years - making it my problem again in February 2017, but at least by then it should be... well... easier.

Finally - some cheap calls...

After seeing a lot about it and getting some info through their website, we decided we could save money on our local/national calls and calls to mobiles by signing up with Engin. It uses our ADSL connection to make Voice over Internet Protocol calls (VoIP), and the bottom line means local/national calls are now $0.10 untimed anywhere anytime, and calls to mobiles are $0.27/min, and pretty good rates for overseas calls (like $0.035/min to UK/USA/etc). No flag fall, only $9.95 per month for the service. So, we've reduced our Telstra plan to HomeLine Budget ($19.95 per month) and make all our calls via Engin. If you are an Engin user, we can call you for free!

It does mean our router now has to be on for calls to be made. It does impact our ADSL usage for the month (about 5MB per minute down - and up, so if your usage is counted up and down, then calls are 10MB per minute down/up). As we have 18GB to use per month, and we barely touch the sides on that, it should be fine.

So, if you get a call from a number you don't recognise - it might be us. As a part of the service you get a new 'landline' phone number, and that is the number identified when you make calls using the service. We'll keep you posted how it goes. For what it is worth, Michelle has been on the phone to her Mum in Uralla for nearly 2 hours and for some reason the phone call dropped. Not sure why... but she's back and talking again. During that time I've had my computer up and down a few times, and downloaded stuff, all seemingly with no impact on the call.

It's a brave new internet-based world out there...

I first saw this about 9 years ago... and I still love it. A great example of what Star Wars/Cops fans can do with too much time on their hands!

OK, this will seem massively geeky... but as I've only just got it and I'm hooked, please bear with me.

I'd heard for a while about this "virtualisation" of servers - the ability for you to create and run many instances of a computer (server or desktop) and therefore the applications that run on them on only one or two computers. Using software like VirtualPC or VMware, it's entirely possible. But up until yesterday when I got the chance to build our own virtual machine server I had no idea just how good this concept was, or of the possibilities.

We're using VMware, and from all accounts it's pretty good. I'd heard/read things about this whole process, but never really understood it - until I got my hands on it yesterday. I think it is the best thing to hit the IT industry since the IT industry hit itself! The way I understand it (and I'll admit I am still learning, but I love it!) is that you can spec out a pretty gutsy machine - a couple of processors, a ton of RAM, huge HDD - and then install the VM software and build your virtual machines on it just like you would install a normal instance of a server. You ration out the RAM and HDD space to each instance of your server, and off you go.

So, at its essence, you can create and run as many different servers on one physical machine as your spec-ed machine will allow.

The thing that has really got me going is the ability to create a snapshot at ANY point in the life/process of your virtual machine. This allows you to effectively provide a rollback point or backup to any stage of the life of your server. Not happy with something you just spent 4 hours configuring? No worries - rollback to your last snapshot! Want to backup your whole server for disaster recovery purposes (providing it's a VM)? No worries - create a new snapshot!

The ADDITIONAL thing I like is the fact that as you can have many servers running and all with "public" IP addresses on your network, you can physically cluster your virtual servers, providing redundancy and high availability. If you really want to go nuts - spec up two machines to the same high level, and cluster your servers between the two physical machines. If one dies, you're still functioning! Take a snapshot - you're backed up!

Now, I know this has been around for a little while, and I am only a late bloomer on the vM stage, but I am so into it. It's the solution I have been looking for in building a test machine for home - all I need to do is build a decently spec-ed VM machine, and I can do all the testing/learning/breaking I want with no interruption to anything else... and all the machines can be isolated from each other, or live on my home network (or publicly, if I wanted to go that far).

What a great idea. I am sure there are people all over the place pushing the boundaries with this virtual machine stuff - I am hoping to read all about it in the coming months. I am also hoping to sit down and have a go at pushing some boundaries myself. At last, a technology that actually helps someone!  ;)

P.S. I can't believe that it has taken me this long to create a "geek" category and start blogging to it...