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.

What's been going on?
From the site:
- Wallpaper Post about StarCraft brings up that Starcraft 2 is going to be released in 2009, in 3 installments. You won't need all 3 to play all 3 races.
- Get your Windows Defender Updates manually, it helps fix errors like "The Program can't download definition updates. Error Found 0x80240022"
- Free Holiday Music from Amazon
- Mention the noise.
Steve Martin Christmas - 5 Christmas Wishes
Art likes Walking around in women's underwear. Carol of the Bartendender's

Computer History
- December 17th, 1920 - APL Co-Inventor Iverson is Born
- December 20th, 1943 - Norman Bel Geddes to Design ASSC Machine Cover
- Decemerb 21st, 1968 - Integrated Circuits Used in Moonshot
- December 23rd, 1947 - Bardeen and Brattain Demontrate the transistor to the Bell Labs Brass

News
- Spam Volume is back to 63% of it's volume - ComputerWorld
- Yes, Mike forgot again. Patch Tuesday was the 9th. Microsoft issues biggest patch cycle in 5 years. ComputerWorld.
- Pownce is unplugged on the 15th.
- The site "I Want Sandy" gets turned off on the 19th, along with stikkit. Both sites / services were part of Values of n, which is closing their doors. The intellectual property behind both services was purchased by Twitter.
- Dell tripling it's charges for "downgrading" from Vista to XP Pro. - PCWorld

Darik's Booot and nuke - DBAN
Change your twitter SMS settings here. Update your twitter page from your phone, or receive updates.
Mike's been playing with Play On. Art thinks Mike should look at XBMC.

Christmas Special Links
Track Santa on Christmas Eve with Norad and Google Maps - Here's some more links on Mike's Blog, and how it all started.
Free holiday music from Two Guys Tech.

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.

Stalker Video?

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
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)

We wish you and your family a very happy Thanksgiving!

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.

This week in Computer History
November 6th 1980 - Microsoft Signs Contract with IBM to Create Operating System
November 8th, 1923 - Integrated Circuit Co-Inventor Jack Kilby is Born in Jefferson City, MO.
November 10th 1983 - Microsoft Introduces Windows

News
- Trojan steals 500k bank info records
- Fallout 3 is out, and it sounds like it's really good!
- Mac users can watch instantly on Netflix now.
- Google may walk away from Yahoo! deal.

Promo
Sigler Book tour
Oh yea! Sigler is coming to Denver! Let me know if you're going, I know I am.

Topic
Azure and Windows 7

Azure - Windows Cloud
- Microsoft Unleashes the cloud - "Azure Cloud Brings Uncertaintity for the Admin"
Cloud computing isn't all azure skies
Ray Ozzie Has His Head in The Clouds

Windows 7
Windows 7 Preview - Part 2 - Part 3 -
Some enhancements
- New Taskbar
- JumpLists
- New notification rules
- Re-vamped explorer

Windows 7's best secret feature