Computer History
December 3rd, 1968 - CDC (Control Data Corporation) Announces the 7600 Supercomputer
December 4th, 1985 - Cray X-MP Supercomputer begins Operation
December 5th, 1941 - Zuse Completes Z3 Machine
December 8th, 1947 - The Eckert-Mauchly Computer Corp is Incorporated
December 9th, 1906 - Computer Pioneer Grace Hopper is Born.

News
Massive Botnet is back from the Dead - ComputerWorld

Scott Sigler is coming to Denver on January 13th! 8PM at the Tattered Cover Bookstore. More info here at Scott Sigler.com/tour

Great news for Sigler Fans - the 12 Days of Sigmas! 12 days of new content. Including the Sequel to Earthcore, Ancestor, and the Rookie. More here.

Black Friday was pretty good! Looks like they sold $10.6 Billion according to early estimates. The Wii did really well. (CNet)

Computer History
November 20th, 1955 - Ray Ozzie is Born
November 21st, 1969 - First Arpanet Link put into Service
November 22nd, 1985 - Apple Shares Mac Interface with Microsoft
November 23rd, 1992 - Business Week Predicts Computer Industry "On the Skids"
November 25th, 1997 - Pixar's "A Bug's Life" and "Geri's Game" is released.

News
Spam plummets by 40% (ComputerWorld) (Techdirt)
Intel Launches the Core i7 (ZDNet)
Left 4 dead - Comes out Dec 18th.

Interesting
Earl Commercial

This week's Topic / Our segments

Mike - Server 2008 Migration Woes?
Mike Loves RoboCopy
Know your FSMO roles - Understanding FSMO Roles
Some good links at the bottom, let's you know how to tell who has the roles, and how to seize them.

This week in Computer History
November 12, 1937 - Alan Turing Defines the Universal Machine.
November 13, 1983 - MIT's TX-O Computer Turned On for Last Time
November 17, 1929 - Herman Hollerith Dies
November 18, 1970 - Bill Gates Starts Programming

News
- Get a free trial of Microsoft Home Server
- Obama plans for a CTO for the federal government. - ComputerWorld. Hmmm... Best in class technology, share best practices. Novel idea. The current rumor says Eric Schmidt, or Steve Balmer, or maybe Bill Joy.
Obama wants to take the masses of government data, and move much of it to universally accessible formats.
- Hotmail users don't like the new interface - ComputerWorld At least Google's not the only one who has a bad redesign.
- Windows 7 expected Mid-2009 - Daily Tech
- Amazon Introduces Frustration Free Packaging on Select items - (Tekh) - Here's hoping that this catches on!
- Yahoo! says "Buy Me", Microsoft says "Sorry, you had your chance. No." - Several links from Slashdot. Epic fail.

Interesting Links
- Dork's Guide for fun in an Economic Downturn - (All Things Dork) - Some good common sense stuff to help you save money, and still have fun.
- Have Windows TechNet? There's some new courses out there. (TechNet Blog) -
Course 6698: Fundamentals of Implementing Network Load balancing and Virtualization
Course 6694: Fundamentals of Administering Windows Server 2008
Course 6690: Exploring the Fundamentals of Network Infrastructure in Windows Server 2008

Topic
Gift giving ideas for Geeks
Give a list to your loved one, make it easy on them. Fill it up with stuff, and you'll still be surprised.
- Video Games - All sorts of stuff at Amazon.com, and Game Stop. Both sites have Wish Lists you can set up.
- One of our favorite sites is Think Geek.
Awesome external USB SATA Drive Dock
Stand Alone Car Cassette MP3 Player - Accepts SD Cards, let's your stereo play them, or you can listen with headphones.
Zombie Protest Shirt - Hey, Zombies were people too.
- GeekLabel has great stuff too - I just wish they still had a podcast.
- 7th Son T-Shirts
My favorites:
Griffin Hale Campaign Shirt
Who is John Alpha
- Mur Lafferty Shirts
Clever Jack, Doodad, or Keepsie Insignia

If you still like paper, some other favorite sites are:
Levenger - Circa notebooks are awesome. But save some money, buy a paper punch too.
Laptop Lapdesk
Also, love Franklin Covey's planners.

Computer History
October 30 1907 - John Mauchly, co-builder of ENIAC, is born in Cincinnatti, Ohio. He also participated in the EDVAC, BINAC, and UNIVAC I programs.
November 2 1815 - Logician George Boole is born in England.
November 4 1952 - CBS used the new UNIVAC computer to predict the 1952 presidential election. It correctly picked Eisenhower.

News
- Google buys a fighter jet.
- Twittering terrorists.
- Happy Halloween Eveyone! Next Year, we should all do the Zombie Walk together. Here's some video for Detroit's Zombie Walk.
- Found some neat pumpkin patterns for Obama supporters. Here's a McCain one if you want it.
- Demand that Scott Sigler comes to your city - Go to Eventful, or go to his web site and click the banner on the right side.
- Left 4 Dead comes out on November 18th, and Fallout 3 comes out on October 28th. They are both available through Steam.

This weeks topic:
Server and desktop best and worst practices.

- Swap File - It's a good idea to put your swap file on a separate drive. No advantage if it's a different logical drive on the same physical hard drive. You can argue about fragmentation, butfor goodness sake, don't compress it.
- Speaking of compression, don't compress your entire data and system drives.
- Have the floppy or CD as the first item in your bios' boot menu.
- Leave the default passwords intact.
- Don't back your server up.
- Don't test your backups
- Don't ever check out the logs for your backups
- Don't make sure that you have a backup agent for exchange / sql server / big application

Computer History

October 22, 1941 - Microprocessor co-inventor Stanley Mazor is born in Chicago, Illinois.
October 24, 1922 - Werner Buchholz, co-designer of the IBM Model 701 and Stretch computers, and who originally coined the term "byte", is born.
October 27, 1980 - The first major network crash, a four-hour collapse of ARPANET, occurred.
October 28, 1937 - Microprocessor co-inventor Dr. Ted Hoff is born in Rochester, New York.
October 28, 1955 - Bill Gates, co-founder and former CEO of Microsoft corporation, is born in Seattle, Washington.

News
- Happy Birthday to Sci-Fi Surplus! They celebrated their 1 year anniversary last week on the 14th.
- Starcraft is going to be released as a trio of games - Daily Tech

Web host pulls a record label's web site because they were hosting their own music there.
People hate the new iGoogle layout. - This script makes it collapsible.

This weeks topic:
Art's and Mike's favorite web sites.

Mike's favorite sites:
- Search for domain names with Internic.net
- Test your domain's MX record at MXToolbox.
- TechNet - Lots of great information there! Including the Script Center, the Script Center Repository
- Lots of great Images, free to use. Free Range Stock.
- The Jeep Forum - with a 24 year old Jeep, this site can be a real life saver.
- I search the Internet Movie Database for all sorts of Movie and TV Show info.
- PodioBooks.com - Keeps my ears full of good stories.

Computer History
October 15th, 1956 - First Fortran Reference Manual is Released.
October 17th, 1994 - IBM Cuts back personal Computer line. Was 9 models, they cut it back to 4.
October 21st, 1949 -An Wang files patent for ferrite core memory.

News
- Portal Prelude is out - a free, unofficial prelude to portal.
- Big Patch Tuesday coming up on the 14th. Computerworld
- Google enters into Game advertising DailyTech CNET
- Get Rewards for using Microsoft Live Search?
I received a email from MS.
Registration Deadline is December 31, 2008 Up to 25 Tickets a day.

Promo
PowerScripting Podcast

This weeks topic:
Windows 7 and Windows Cloud

Windows 7 Features
- More evolved Kernel
- Virtualization?
- Sensors - What to me sound like WMI or SNMP counters. They provide information that other programs can poll. The example that's going around is a sensor that tells "where" the computer is. Programs can poll it, and if for example your in Siberia, offer to find the closest coat factory. Of course, opt in due to privacy concerns.
- Better adjustments for User Account Control
- Changes to Explorer
- Built in "Accelerators", kind of like a universal, right click menu option. Like "Define" or "Find on a Map". Works across every application.
- No more sidebar. Gadgets will still work, but they float.
- Built in powershell
Lots and lots more. Check out Win SuperSite's FAQ, or the Windows 7 Center.
- This is not Windows Cloud. Not much is known about Windows Cloud,
- The new Cloud Windows? Code Name, Red Dog. (Heard it first on CSTechCast ) CNet

Computer History
8th - 14
October 8, 1996 - Special U.S. Stamp Commemorates ENIAC
October 10, 1995 - "A Day in the Life of Cyberspace" Published
October 12, 1988 - Steve Jobs Introduces NeXTComputer

News
- China spying on Skype users?
- Microsoft Releases Bare Metal Version of Hyper-V Not only is it a standalone solution, meaning no Windows Server 2008 required, but it's free.
- Windows Cloud?
- Man Recruits Decoys for robbery on Craig's list.
- Patch Tuesday was yesterday. (Not really)

Promo
Selling Geek

This weeks topic:
All things Google.

Computer History
October 1, 1954 - IBM Announces Model 705 Computer
October 2, 1955 - ENIAC Computer Retired
October 3, 1950 - Transistor Inventors Receive Patent
October 5, 1996 - Supercomputer Pioneer Cray Dies in Auto Accident
October 6, 1983 - Lotus Development Goes Public
October 7, 1988 - The Computer Bowl Begins

News
- Apple's Patching is a Mess - ComputerWorld
- Apple Finally Patches that pesky DNS Exploit - NY Times
Yes, we're a little late to report this, but I just heard about it. Yes, everyone else patched their systems like 4 months ago. To be fair, Apple did release a patch at the end of July, only 3 months after everyone else, of course it didn't work.
Wal-Mart Ends DRM Support

This weeks topic: Fourteen Geek Movies you must see (In no particular order)

• Matrix
• Hick Trek
• Hackers
• Star Wars (Of Course)
• Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy
  
• Serenity
• Anything Monty Python
• Gattica
• Transformers
• Back to the Future
• Office Space
• Independence Day
• Alien Movies
• Tron
  

What's Up?
Watched a Star Wars Clone Wars Series pre-release Thanks to House Party.
Art repairs one computer, but not another one.

Computer History
24th 30th

- September 24th, 1986 - Computer Maker Honeywell seeks a partner.
- September 25th, 1989 - IBM Announces "Micro Channel Architecture".
- September 27th, 1996 - Hacker Kevin Mitnick indicted on Charges.
- September 28th, 1925 - Supercomputer Pioneer Seymour Cray is Born.
- September 29th, 1994 - HotJava Demonstrated at Sun Microsystems

News
New Microsoft Commercials - Seinfeld part 2 and "I'm a PC".
Lego Batman is coming on September 23rd!
Star Wars Clone Wars series starts on Oct 3
Wrath of the Lich King release data announced. November 13th, 2008. Next installment of World of Warcraft.
EA addresses players concerns about the game.

MS drops Seinfeld ads.

Promo
The Nut Gallery - Movie Reviews
http://thenutgallery.com/

This Weeks Topic: Backup strategies for the home and office.

For the home:

• Windows Backup
• DeltaCopy
• SyncBack
• Cobian Backup
• DriveImage XML
• Jungle Disk - Online from Amazon

For the office:

• BackupPC

• Backup Servers vs Agents
• Disk to tape
• disk to disk
• disk to disk to tape.