Microsoft
What's going on?
- Whew. 2009 didn't trigger the apocalypse either. Zombie, nuclear or anything else.
- Mike is still playing too much Fallout 3
- Two Guys Tech hopes that The Evil Queen feels better
- Art and Mike may be on the CSTechCast on the 12th. We're at least going to visit. CSTechCast is another Podcast here in Colorado Springs. Here's the promo.
- Art is listening to more Scott Sigler.
This day in Computer History
January 8, 1889 - Herman Hollerith Receives a Patent for the Hollerith Tabulating Machine
January 8, 1940 - Bell Labs' Complex Computer makes the first run
January 10, 1938 - Donald Knuth is Born
January 12, 1997 - The Fictional HAL 9000 Computer Becomes Operational
January 13, 1874 - The U.S. Patent Office issues a patent for the Spalding Adding Machine.
News / Topics
- Mike's kids got Lego Batman for Christmas - It's pretty cool, you can play in two different stories, either as Batman and Robin, or as the villains.
- Contagious' sales figures - It's down to #11 in horror. It was #3 when I looked on release day.
- Speaking of Scott Sigler, we're going to the book signing on the 13th.
- Modem Init Strings - UAC isn't always so intuitive.
- Don't scare your hard drives
- Debunked PC Power Saving Myths
- MD5 SSL Certificate Authority Exploit
Used 200 Sony Playstations? - ComputerWorld
- The Windows Defender Post has been helping out some people.
What's up?
- Mike's been playing Fallout 3
- Art's listening to Scott Sigler's Nocturnal.
This day in Computer History
January 1, 1945 - Eckert and Mauchly sign a contract to build the EDVAC
January 2, 1975 - Gates and Allen name ""Micro-Soft."
January 3, 1983 - TIME names computer ""Man of the Year"
January 3, 1977 - Apple Computer Corporation is Incorporated
News / Topics
- Contagious came out yesterday, I hope you bought a copy.
- XP Gets a new lease on life: What's going to happen to XP support after Windows 7 Comes out. Mike Thinks that Microsoft will let it die and force eveyone to jump on the Windows 7 Bandwagon.
- 12 Days of Geekmas - Not enough time. Mike will get a head start on it next year.
- Firefox 2 is no more.
- No more abit motherboards after this year.
- VHS has left the building.
- Looks like Microsoft is buying Advertising from Sun
A little help with your New Years Resolutions
eHow - How to make a New Years Resolution
Popular New Years Resolutions on USA.gov
Traineo - Log your physical activities, and weight. Get support from others, and ask questions.
Men's Health - Lots of good stuff, nutrition, exercise, how to help prevent cancer, and all sorts of other good info for guys.
Women's Health - Same as above, but for women. Made by the same company.
Looks like Microsoft decided to extend the lifetime of everyone’s favorite operating system, Windows XP, to May 30, 2009. The death of XP was originally slated for the end of January, but due to the popularity of Microsoft’s hard-to-kill operating system and the slow adoption rate of Vista, they decided to extend it a few months longer.
Is anyone really surprised by this? How many of you out there are still using XP? If you are, do you plan to go to Vista any time soon?
This is not an April Fools post.
The other day I was installing a Java Update, and I found it a little strange to see this ad for the MSN Toolbar, with the option to install it.
Aren't Microsoft and Sun mortal enemies? Much like He-Man and Skelator, Gi-Joe and Cobra, Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny? What sort of alternate dimension am I in when these two team up?
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I ran into an issue where Windows Defender couldn't download updates, when I would try, I would receive the error:
"The Program can't download definition updates. Error Found 0x80240022"
News
- No more Pownce after the 15th of December
- PepsiStuff promotion ends December 31st. Enter and redeem your points by then or they're gone forever.
- China's .cn domain takes the number two spot according to VeriSign.
- Firefox 2.0 to lose phishing detection.
- Need Some holiday music? Pandora has Classical Christmas, Rockin Holidays, Swinging Christmas, Jazz Holidays, or a Country Christmas.
Interesting
Zombie Movie fans are in for a treat with a set of campaigns based on "Dawn of the Dead" for Left 4 Dead. From l4dMods.com. Here's a video on Giant Bomb.com.
Need some free sounds? Check out FreeSound.Org.
Mike's Note
I'm sure that by now you've heard that Exchange server 2007 is only 64 bit. Of course you know that there's a 32bit version for evaluation, but it's not supported in production, but comes in pretty handy if you're extending the schema. What I wasn't aware of is that Exchange Server 2007 won't install on Windows Server 2008 unless you have the installation media with SP1 integrated.
You'll get an error that "Exchange 2007 cannot be used with the version of Windows operating system running on this computer".
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.
Good documentation is really nice to have. I did a Server Migration, or transition this last Friday (the 14th). We went from Server 2003 to Server 2008, and now I'm realizing that my documentation was a little out of date.
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.



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