Mumbling to myself: Blog

Home Made Tea

Thu, 17 Jul 2008 05:30:46 GMT

Yesterday when I got home Elizabeth was over at our neighbors house having tea with the girl who lives there. By the time I got out of the shower she was standing with a cup of tea that she was drinking - and waiting for me to try my cup.

Werona and Elizabeth made the tea using mint and rose hip from out own garden. The tea itself was wonderful - one of the best herbal teas I have had.

However, the best part for me was when I asked Elizabeth what her favorite thing from the day was and she responded "Drinking tea!.. No, Making tea with Mum!"

Cheers,
Ben

Family Insomnia

Mon, 14 Jul 2008 15:03:33 GMT

5:20 am - I find myself wide awake. Two hours earlier than my alarm clock was scheduled to go off.

5:35 am - Werona wakes up, and I take the opportunity to get out of bed and stretch my legs without disturbing my wife.

Soon after this a debate begins between Werona and I as to whether I should just get up for the day (my point of view) or if I should go back to sleep (Werona's point of view).

6:00 am - We realize that Isaac is awake and half way through getting dressed. When we try and get him to return to bed he refuses. So I get up with Isaac to have breakfast, Werona returns to bed.

Isaac later tells me that he could not sleep because his eyes were too itchy - ah, the joys of allergy season.

6:20 am - As Isaac is sitting in the kitchen eating porridge and I am boiling some eggs for myself, Elizabeth stumbles into the kitchen. I look up at her and say "Elizabeth, it is far too early - go back to bed". Elizabeth, who is obviously too groggy to realize that what I have just said is completely contradictory to what I am doing (cooking breakfast) mutters "Oh, I forgot" and staggers back to bed.

It is now 8:00 am. I have had breakfast and done a large chunk of the work that I would have needed to do today, and am looking forward to a relatively laid back day at work. Isaac has been happily playing gameboy for the last hour - but I do not think he will be so happy when he finds out that he has used up his daily allowance of gameboy time by 9:00 am. Werona and Elizabeth are both soundly asleep.

Cheers,
Ben

Hand braces

Fri, 11 Jul 2008 04:47:30 GMT

After my latest visit to the physical therapist, I now have a matching set of black plastic braces that are custom molded to my forearms. I have had one for my left arm for a couple of days, and now I have one for my right arm too. They are intended to stop me from using my wrists, thumbs, and most of the tendons in my forearms.

For the most part I feel better for wearing them – and at times I even forget that they are there. Amusingly, while they do make some things quite hard to do I actually find it easier to type with them on. They are practically built in palm rests, and it takes less effort to hold my fingers over the keys with them on. Playing the XBOX can be problematic – but with a modified grip I have found that I can do well enough to play Lego Indiana Jones with the kids.

Here’s to hoping that they really do help with the pain in the long run.

Cheers,
Ben

The Mesopotamians

Tue, 08 Jul 2008 06:14:10 GMT

Been listening to a lot of They Might Be Giants lately...

Cheers,
Ben

Grip Strength (and lack thereof)

Mon, 07 Jul 2008 00:13:30 GMT

For a while now things have been more-or-less "under control" and I have been able to do most of my day-to-day activities with only minor pain. I have, however, had a nagging sense of weakness in my hands.

I mentioned this in a recent visit at a physical therapist, so they measured my grip strength. Sure enough, while an average male my age has a grip strength of 100 - 140 pounds (and a female has a grip strength of 55 - 85 pounds) I had an anemic grip strength of 45 pounds.

Well, that certainly explains a lot.

The good side of this is that I know to not try to open a jar that Werona can not open / etc... The bad side is that the therapists think that my hands are too messed up to think about strength training at the moment. So for now I will just have to live with it.

Cheers,
Ben

Ultrasound massage

Sat, 05 Jul 2008 21:22:58 GMT

Recently I started seeing a physical therapist to see if they could help with the pain in my arms / hands. One of the first things they did was to do an "ultrasound massage". At first this just sounded like mumbo-jumbo to me - and certainly it just seemed like they were running a metal rod over my arms with no apparent affect. But a little bit of research turned up this:

Therapeutic ultrasound in physical therapy is a relatively low intensity technique that uses high-frequency sound waves (ultrasound) to speed healing in injured joint or muscle tissue. The frequency used is typically 1 to 3 MHz. At this frequency, the waves tend to travel through tissue with high water or low protein content, and to bounce off cartilage and bone. They are absorbed primarily by connective tissue: ligaments, tendons, and fascia (and also by scar tissue).^[2]
Therapeutic ultrasound may have two types of benefit: Thermal effects involve energy absorbed from the sound waves heating the tissue. If the tissue is heated to 40 to 45 °C (104 to 113 °F), it can enter a state of hyperaemia (increased blood flow), which speeds healing and reduces chronic inflammation; Cavitational effects result from the vibration of the tissue causing microscopic air bubbles to form, which transmit the vibrations in a way that directly stimulates cell membranes. This physical stimulation appears to enhance the cell-repair effects of the inflammatory response.^[3]
Therapeutic ultrasound is sometimes recommended for muscle as well as joint pain, although some evidence suggests it may not be effective for this purpose.
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Therapeutic_ultrasound

So there you go. Of course I have seen no real benefit from this to date - but I will keep my fingers crossed that it will help out eventually.

Cheers,
Ben

Sounds of Summer

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 01:41:54 GMT

Now that it is finally getting warm in Seattle, and Werona and I have been surprised by the "sounds of summer". More specifically we have been surprised that now that we have our windows open - we can hear a lot more sound from our neighbors houses than we are used to :-)

Cheers,
Ben

Song stuck in my head...

Tue, 24 Jun 2008 09:23:15 GMT

Cheers,
Ben

Fathers Day

Thu, 19 Jun 2008 20:17:04 GMT

I know that this post is a couple of days late (or several months early for Australians) but we had a great fathers day this year. In fact I think it was one of the most "fatherly" I've ever had. The rough run down of the day was:

Wake up to home-made fathers day cards from both my children, and have breakfast cooked by my wife.
Go to church in the morning with the family, let the children have two donuts each afterward (my church had done a "donut breakfast" thing - but as I cannot eat donuts I did not really want to get up early for that).
Head down to Home Depot to look for odds and ends for working on our bathroom wall.
Come home and then head to the local park where we played with both kids on the swings and slides - but, most importantly, also spent some time teaching Isaac how to ride a bike without training wheels (he did really well!).
Return home and spend some time with Isaac build the Lego X-Wing fighter that was given to me as a fathers day present (Lizzy played with the Han Solo / Chewbacca / Leia Organa / Luke Skywalker / R2D2 / Wedge Antilles figures that came with the set).
Finally, after having dinner and putting the kids to bed, I spent some time working on the bathroom wall and playing some computer games.

A good day all around.

Cheers,
Ben

An Open Plan Bathroom

Wed, 11 Jun 2008 06:51:44 GMT

Why is there no wall between my bathroom and my lounge room?

It all started so innocently. We did not like the fake wood siding & mirror tiles the previous owner had put in our house - so we pulled that down with the intention of just painting the walls. But then we found that the drywall underneath was poorly installed, had "interesting" holes and water damage.

Never mind - we can replace drywall.

Until we hit our first internal wall and discover that even the framing was shoddy. So down it comes. Hopefully I will be able to post a picture of our nice new wall soon ;-)

Cheers,
Ben

Climbing the mountain...

Fri, 06 Jun 2008 05:06:21 GMT

Between health and huge amounts of work I have gotten completely behind on email over the last year. In the past couple of weeks I have finally started to make head-way on the mountain of backlogged correspondence.

Here are some "fun" numbers to consider:

Total Unread Email:

12,591

Total Unread Work Email:

8,096

Total Unread Personal Email:

4,495

Total Read, but not yet replied to, Email:

178

But, I am starting to make headway on the pile. Just last week the "read, but not replied" was around 400, and the unread was over 13 thousand. By a rough estimate I would say that I am getting ~650 emails a day, and handling ~700. Given that it is Thursday night I have received ~3400 this week, I currently have ~750 of this week's email in the unread pile and ~40 in the read but not yet replied to pile.

Cheers,
Ben

Broken Xbox

Tue, 03 Jun 2008 07:43:19 GMT

I came home this afternoon - ready to continue playing Blue Dragon on my Xbox 360 - only to discover that my Xbox would no longer read the game CD, or any other game CD.

Grrr...

Of course this happens after I have invested days leveling my characters and am about half way through the game.

A brief phone call later and I am now waiting for the (cardboard) box to arrive so I can ship my Xbox off to get fixed. (I am more than aware of the irony that as a Microsoft employee living in Redmond - I have to send my Xbox to Texas for servicing, but I can just walk down the road to get my Wii serviced).

My biggest problems now are:

What am I going to connect to the Xbox screen in its absence?
Now that I am bereft of an Xbox 360 where should I focus my gaming time? As I write I have a PSP, GameBoy DS, XBOX original, Nintendo 64, SNES and Genesis all within casual reach (not to mention the Wii out in the lounge room or the PC that I am typing on right now).

Cheers,
Ben

Sorry for the duplicated book post...

Sat, 31 May 2008 22:56:33 GMT

I accidentally deleted the old entry - and just had to pull it back out of a web cache.

Sigh...

Cheers,

Ben

Professional Microsoft Virtual Server 2005

Sat, 31 May 2008 22:55:15 GMT

Buy Professional Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 from Amazon

I have kept very quite about this, but recently I finished writing a book about all about Microsoft Virtual Server 2005. Note - this is not a Microsoft book, but one that I wrote in my spare time (what little of it that I have :-)) and is published by Wrox.

I had a great time writing this book, and I hope that you all find it to be useful and informative.

My aim in writing this book was to provide an in-depth resource on Virtual Server, so the book covers the basics of Virtual Server as well as the configuration; management and programming aspects of using Virtual Server.

Two of the things that I particularly enjoy about this book are that:

It gave me an excuse to finally sit down and get 'hands on' with a number of more complex virtual machine configurations, like setting up patch deployment servers inside of virtual machines.
There are a number of chapters in this book that provide information which, much to my surprise, is simply not available elsewhere.

To give you an idea of where this book goes - here is a summary of the chapters and their contents:

Why Virtualize?
This chapter provides information on the various reasons why you might want to look at server virtualization, as well as making recommendations about configurations that might not be suitable for server virtualization.
Getting Started with Microsoft Virtual Server 2005
Here the details of how to install Virtual Server and get everything up and running are provided, as well as using the advanced installation options.
Virtual Server Basic Concepts
The basic concepts of virtual machines, virtual hard disks, virtual networking and emulated hardware are covered in this chapter.
Installing Guest Operating Systems
This chapter provides detailed instructions for installing Windows Server 2003 and Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 inside of virtual machines, including installing Virtual Machine Additions.
Creating a Virtual Machine Library
Having a good virtual machine library strategy is critical to efficiently using Virtual Server. Here I outline different strategies and discuss how to create template virtual machines for Windows NT 4.0, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista and Linux.
Understanding Virtual Machine Performance
I love this chapter, it provides details of processor, memory, networking and storage performance; as well as how to optimize each for best performance.
Monitoring and Managing Virtual Machines
This chapter outlines the basic tools and methods for management of virtual machines.
Keeping Virtual Machines Up to Date
This chapter discusses different strategies for keeping virtual machines up to date with the latest patches. It also details how to configure a Windows Server Update Server and a YUM server inside of virtual machines.
Keeping Virtual Machines Secure
Here I talk about all of the necessary steps to take to ensure that virtual machines are secure, and remain secure.
Securing Virtual Server
Next I move on to talking about what is required to secure the physical installation of Virtual Server itself.
Backing Up Virtual Machines
This chapter discusses a number of different approaches that can be used in order to back up virtual machines, as well as highlighting the pros and cons of each approach.
Physical to Virtual Migration of Servers
This chapter is all about how to use Microsoft's Virtual Server Migration Toolkit (VSMT).
Manual Physical to Virtual Migrations
This is another of my favorite chapters, as it provides all the information necessary for you to perform a manual physical to virtual migration - including information on driver and configuration changes that need to be made.
Clustering Virtual Machines
This chapter discusses how to cluster virtual machines using emulated SCSI or iSCSI, and the reasons why you would want to use either configuration.
Clustering Virtual Server
Here I provide detailed information about clustering Virtual Server using the HAVM.VBS script and Windows Server clustering.
Using the Virtual Server COM Interface
This is the first chapter on developing against the Virtual Server COM interface, and it discusses the basics needed to connect to the COM interface under various development environments.
Scripting Virtual Server
Another favorite chapter of mine, Scripting Virtual Server provides sample VBScripts that demonstrate how to use pretty much every method and property of the Virtual Server COM interface. As well as providing some interesting general use sample scripts.
Using PowerShell to Control Virtual Server
Next I drill into scripting Virtual Server with PowerShell. On top of covering the basics, I demonstrate how to use PowerShell pipelining and function capabilities effectively with Virtual Server.
Developing Managed Applications for Virtual Server
This chapter steps you through the process of creating a simple managed application that allows you to control the state of virtual machines, view statistical information about virtual machines, and interact with them through an embedded VMRC control. Code samples are provided in both VB.NET and C#.
Developing ASP.NET Applications with Virtual Server
Here I show you how to build your own 'self service' website, where users can create and destroy virtual machines using preconfigured virtual machine templates, all without needing to have administrative access to the actual Virtual Server installation (or any virtual machine knowledge at all).
Application Debugging with Virtual Server
Finally I discuss how to use Virtual Server to help with the development and debugging of other applications.

So there you have it. All in all this book is just shy of 600 pages long. And for the curious, just under one quarter of this book was written using speech recognition software due to rheumatoid arthritis on my behalf. Finally - if you are impatient - you can download the sample scripts / source examples that are used in this book directly from the publishers website (and no - you do not need to buy the book in order to do this - however the samples make a lot more sense if you have the book).

Cheers,
Ben

Strobolights!

Fri, 30 May 2008 08:49:29 GMT

Cheers,
Ben

Running PowerShell on Windows Server Core installations

Mon, 26 May 2008 23:53:04 GMT

If you have not seen this already – here are some instructions on how to get PowerShell running on Windows Server Core http://dmitrysotnikov.wordpress.com/2008/05/15/powershell-on-server-core/ (in a completely unsupported manner). Pretty cool.

Cheers,
Ben

Dr. Seuss

Wed, 21 May 2008 19:33:29 GMT

Recently Isaac’s class has been reading Dr. Seuss books – that means that we, in turn, have been reading a lot of these books too. It has been ages since I read a Dr. Seuss book but I have instantly fallen back in love with them – and find much joy in reading them to both my children.

Best of all – Isaac read “One fish, Two fish, Red fish, Blue fish” to me last night – all by himself :-)

Cheers,
Ben

Passing on family traditions

Tue, 20 May 2008 18:23:20 GMT

“The Princess Bride” has been a perennial favorite movie with my family for as long as I can remember. So the other night when I was looking for some “background noise” to help me while I worked – I decided to drop in a copy of The Princess Bride. Much to my surprise I almost immediately had a 6 year old boy sitting behind my computer chair – fixatedly watching the movie.

I am glad to report that Isaac loved the movie – with appropriately timed hoots of laughter – and really got into it. As for me – for the first time ever I have appreciated the interruptions by grandson (Fred Savage) and granddad, as they really seemed to help Isaac to follow the story. There was one particular moment – when Buttercup was swimming with the eels – where Isaac was just about to run out of the room (because it was too scary) when all of a sudden the granddad interjects “She doesn’t get eaten”. This caught Isaac so off guard that he laughed out loud – and then sat down to watch what happened next.

Cheers,
Ben

Windows Speech Recognition Macros Technical Preview

Wed, 07 May 2008 20:03:36 GMT

Yay! Here is an neat program that was developed internally at Microsoft - which I have (at times) come to rely upon - and now it is finally available to the public, so I can actually talk about it.

Windows Speech Recognition Macros (available here: https://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=fad62198-220c-4717-b044-829ae4f7c125&displaylang=en) is a nice little tool that allows you to create a variety of "macros" for Vista's built in speech recognition. What this specifically means is that you can set it up to simulate a series of key strokes, or run a program, in response to a specific phrase.

I have used this at times for nice little time-savers like "Insert my hotmail address" and "Insert my street address" - which is much faster than trying to dictate those items manually.

But my bigger use has been combining it with my SmartNav (http://www.naturalpoint.com/smartnav/). SmartNav comes with a built-in "keyboard to click the mouse" function - and by augmenting this with voice macros for commands like "click mouse", "double click mouse", "right click mouse", etc... I have been able to use all aspects of a computer without needing to use my hands at all.

Cheers,
Ben

A bad word...

Wed, 07 May 2008 05:43:22 GMT

Lately I have been reading "Ramona" books to Isaac and Elizabeth at night. Personally, I do not particularly like these books - but the children seem to enjoy them. More interestingly - as the follow the life of Ramona, who reminds of Elizabeth a lot at times, from age 4 to age 10 - they do provide for some interesting conversations with my children.

Last night I read a section where a 5 year old Ramona was upset at her family and declared that she was going to say a "bad word" and then had her family burst out laughing when the word was "guts". After reading this - I started to say good night to the children, but had Isaac pipe up and say "I know a worse word than 'guts'!"

I immediately had a moments hesitation as I thought to myself: I never swear around the kids, so he shouldn't know any *really* bad words - I wonder what he has heard at school?

Eventually I responded "Really? And what word would that be?".

Much to my relief his response, after a moment of hesitation on his behalf, was "Poop!"

To which I was able to smile and say "Yes, that is not a nice word - I hope you do not say that at school."

Cheers,
Ben

Playing with Puzzles

Tue, 08 Apr 2008 18:30:51 GMT

Normally when I get home and ask Isaac what he has done that day - I am met by complete confusion from him. He knows that he went to kindergarten - but much beyond that he cannot tell me what he did or what he liked. As such I was very surprised when I got home last night, asked Isaac how his day had been, and he responded that he had played with puzzles at kindergarten - and that he had particularly liked doing the United States puzzle.

It appears that my son is finally starting to develop the ability to be able to talk about his day - hopefully this will make it much easier to find out what is going on inside his head!

Cheers,
Ben

Darned allergies...

Mon, 07 Apr 2008 18:14:32 GMT

I appear to have a new allergy - but I do not know what it is. Over the last couple of weekends I have been having incredible stomach aches and gastro problems. Each time we have been able to trace it down to a new food that I had tried - but in each case there was nothing that I know I am allergic to in any of the foods.

So - it is time for me to head off to the allergist to get tested again - and it looks like I will need to avoid any new foods in the meantime.

Cheers,
Ben

No Music for Me

Tue, 01 Apr 2008 18:22:04 GMT

A couple of days ago my iPod Nano stopped powering on for me, a bit of poking around showed that I had most likely crunched it under something and broken some internal components, and nothing I could do would bring it back.

Funnily enough I was quite happy about this - as I finally have a reason to go out and buy a Zune. I have a number of friends with Zunes, and I think they are quite nice (plus I work for Microsoft), but I could not bring myself to buy one while I had a working iPod.

Before rushing out to buy a Zune I thought I would use my Creative Zen as my interim music player - but after syncing up my music I found that the Zen wouldn't play them. After a couple of minutes of resetting and replacing batteries the Zen started coming up with a nice "send me back to the manufacturer" display.

Grrr....

So until I get a Zune my music player at the moment is my PSP - which is far from an ideal music solution - but it is better than nothing.

Cheers,
Ben

Easter Hang-over

Tue, 25 Mar 2008 00:51:32 GMT

Easter was lots of fun this year. We had egg-hunts, we had ham for lunch, we did the good Friday and Easter Sunday services. But most of all - this year the Easter bunny visited Mum and Dad as well as Isaac and Elizabeth.

Unfortunately Dad (me) decided that in order to avoid having chocolate around for weeks to come - I would eat all of my Easter chocolate on Sunday. I did, indeed, complete this task - but this morning I could barely stand the sight of food.

It is now almost 6:00pm and I am only just getting to the point where I could imagine eating something sweet again.

Cheers,
Ben

The First Day of Spring

Fri, 21 Mar 2008 18:50:00 GMT

I will always remember when I was a child, on the first day of Spring, my eldest sister - Sarah - would go swimming in our swimming pool. It did not matter how cold it was, and we would all watch in horror.

This year Werona and I both got it into our heads that the first day of spring meant that it was time to barbeque. So last night I found myself standing by the barbeque in pitch black night, with it so cold that I could see my breath condensating in front of me. Not exactly my idea of spring weather - but the steak sure was nice :-)

Cheers,
Ben

Computers and Communications

Thu, 20 Mar 2008 21:29:51 GMT

That is the name of one of Isaac's latest books. It is a big book which talks about all different types of technology - and Isaac loves it when I read it to him. There are just two problems with me reading him this book:

It was published in 1998 and there are large sections that are already laughably out of date. I read the sections on tapes and cassette players thinking to myself "Isaac will never use a cassette player in his life".
I have a tendency to get halfway through a page and then to go running off looking for bits and pieces to show Isaac what things look like in the real world.

The upside of the second point here is that Isaac can now successfully differentiate between transistors, resistors, capacitators and ICs on a computer card :-)

Cheers,
Ben

5 Years at Microsoft

Thu, 13 Mar 2008 06:55:07 GMT

Today was my 5 year anniversary as a Microsoft employee. As such my manager took the group out to lunch, and I was presented with the "5 year obelisk":

(Personally I have always questioned the idea of giving a large, heavy object that could easily used for bludgeoning to a potentially embittered employee). This also came with a number of nice cards and letters from Bill and Steve - but the thing that cracked me up was that there was also a "thank-you" card to my wife, for tolerating the fact that as someone who has worked at Microsoft for 5 years has undoubtedly had the time when they spent too much time at work and not enough time with family :-)

I do not have much to say about hitting this milestone - other than to say that I am still loving my job and having a great time.

Cheers,
Ben

So Tired

Tue, 11 Mar 2008 18:19:10 GMT

Man I hate daylight saving. Sunday was "daylight savings" day, and as someone who grew up with no daylight savings I still can't understand this - really. Because of daylight savings I have only got about 5 hours sleep a night for the last two nights.

Daylight savings and Viva Pinata that is.

On the plus side I am now over 80% of the way through Viva Pinata (only bought it last Wednesday) so within a couple of days I should have adjusted to daylight savings and completed Viva Pinata and can get back to regular sleep again.

Cheers,
Ben

Automatically Starting Elevated Programs under Vista

Tue, 04 Mar 2008 21:06:03 GMT

One of the biggest changes with Windows Vista is the need to manually 'elevate' an application if it needs to run with administrative privilege (this is called 'UAC'). Personally I love this feature - but there are times when this is annoying.

One particular problem area is if you need a program to run 'elevated' automatically when you login to the computer. This is problematic for two reasons:

It means you will be prompted every time you login.
Vista actually detects and blocks this from working.

Thankfully there is a sneaky / evil work around for this. Now - before I continue - I want to be clear that what I am about to outline does technically lower the security of your system - so only do it if you know what you are doing / have no other option (mind you - it is much more secure than just disabling UAC).

The work around is to create a task that runs elevated whenever you login. This means no prompting and no blocking. What you need to do is login as yourself and:

Open the Start menu go to All Programs, Accessories, System Tools and open Task Scheduler.
Select to Create Task.
On the General tab give the task a Name and Description. Leave it as running with your account and to Run only when user is logged on then check the option to Run with highest privileges.
Go to the Triggers tab and click on New...
Select At log on for the Begin the task: option and select that it only run for a Specific user or group: (yourself). Then hit OK.
Go to the Actions tab and click on New...
Leave the Action: as Start a program and enter your program details, then hit OK.
If you are running on a laptop - go the the Conditions tab and uncheck the Power options so the task will run even if you are on battery power.
Go to the Settings tab and check Run task as soon as possible after a scheduled start is missed and uncheck Stop the task if it runs longer than:
Hit OK.

Now you are all set to go.

Cheers,
Ben

Daddy has the "Pink" version of Pokemon

Thu, 28 Feb 2008 09:31:41 GMT

It has been a source of frustration for male gamers that the latest round of Pokemon games have been dubbed "Diamond" and "Pearl". I mean - come on - not exactly masculine terms here. Most male gamers when confronted with this choice have gone with "Diamond".

As you need to have both Diamond and Pearl to get all the Pokemon in the game - I decided to get Pearl for myself and let Isaac get Diamond - so he wouldn't have to face ridicule should he ever play Pokemon with his friends at some later point in his life.

For the most part I rationalized this with myself by stating the obvious fact that there is practically no difference between the two games - apart from 10% of the Pokemon that you encounter in the wild.

Note that I said "practically". It turns out that the icon used to identify the game when you first start it has a blue background if you are playing Diamond and a pink background if you are playing Pearl. I discovered this the other day when I went to start Pokemon and had my son blithely inform me that my Pokemon game was pink, while his was blue.

Cheers,
Ben

DOOM mods

Wed, 27 Feb 2008 22:48:44 GMT

I lost some time the other day laughing my head off over a couple of sillier DOOM modifications. It all started when I was sent this clip of the "killer boom-box":

Which started me browsing for other mods - then I came across:

Super-Mario DOOM:

And DOOM Super-Mario:

Fun!

Cheers,
Ben

Fixing Annoying Prompts with Intel Drivers on Vista

Mon, 25 Feb 2008 17:35:48 GMT

For a while now I have been getting multiple prompts each time I login to Windows Vista. The culprit is the latest Intel video drivers. For some reason they manage to install three executables that are 1) stored in System32 2) configured to run automatically 3) not marked as trusted. The result is that every time I login I get three prompts with a title of "Open File - Security Warning" asking if I am sure that I want to run these programs. Unfortunately the handy "Don't Ask Me Again" check box on these prompts seem to do nothing.

The programs that I get asked about are:

igfxtray.exe
hkcmd.exe
igfxpers.exe

After a bit of poking around I found the solution to my problem. These executables have somehow got themselves tagged as "untrusted" - but because they are stored in \Windows\System32 trying to mark them as trusted will just silently fail. What you need to do is to go to \Windows\System32 and select each file and:

Open the properties for the file.
Go to the "Security" tab and "Edit" the permissions.
Explicitly add your user account with full control (having a group you belong to have full control is not sufficient).
Go to the "General" tab and click on "Unblock".
Click OK.

Once you have done this for the 3 executables mentioned you will never see prompts again.

Cheers,
Ben

Microwaving Minties

Fri, 22 Feb 2008 06:33:12 GMT

The other day my darling wife ducked down to the Australian Pie Shop and while she was there - grabbed me a bag of minties. This was very thoughtful of her as she does not particularly like them. When I got home and was presented with the gift - I opened it and started eating with much gusto. Werona was surprised to hear the crunching sound coming from my mouth - as all of her memories of minties were that they were soft, chewy lollies. I had to pause to explain that given how cold it was around here you had to chew on them for a bit before they softened up.

Tonight when I went to grab a handful I thought "I bet I could microwave these to soften them up". 10 seconds later I had 4 nicely softened minties (probably should have only done 8 seconds - but live and learn). As I was finishing the 4th mintie I could not help but acknowledge the nagging thought in the back of my head... "What would happen if you put a mintie in the microwave for too long?"

Now - for any children / fools reading this - it is time to take note:

Once you have decided to do something that could potentially involve a catastrophic outcome - think a little about it (though not too much - otherwise you will just chicken out). Clearly throwing a mintie in a wrapper inside the microwave by itself would be a bad idea - and would be terribly hard to clean up should things go wrong. It is equally obvious that using the good china - or indeed any plate that you intend to use ever again - is probably not a good idea. Personally, I have found microwave safe wax paper to be a good option.

So that is what I used.

If I was super-cautious I would have put a sheet of wax paper on top of the mintie as well as underneath - to protect against splatter from potential mintie explosion. But I wanted to see what was happening - so I just went with one sheet.

With the mintie unwrapped and placed in the middle of a rather large sheet of wax paper I set the microwave for one minute and stood and watched. At 10 seconds there was no visible change, but I knew it would be getting rather soft. At 20 seconds one end of the mintie started bubbling furiously. By 30 seconds the entire mintie was about ten times its original size and was a froth of bubbles. At 40 seconds the bubbles started turning brown. At 50 seconds puffs of smoke could be seen issuing from the mintie and at one minute I had nothing but a large, brown, burnt, caramelized circle on wax paper - with a slightly minty whiff.

So there you go.

Cheers,
Ben

Dammit, Emacs.

Thu, 21 Feb 2008 06:44:31 GMT

I saw this the other day and it made me chuckle:

For the record - VI is my preferred *nix editor. Why? Because that is what my dad taught me - which strikes me as a profoundly odd statement.

This one is for you Joe!

Cheers,
Ben

Wii Absentia

Tue, 19 Feb 2008 09:16:49 GMT

Well - what can I say. I like the Wii - I really do. The problem is that I just don't play on the Wii. More to the point I do not play on the Wii anywhere as much as I do on my other gaming devices (compared to my darling wife I play on the Wii a lot :-).

So why is this the case? Well - the first big issue is location. Most of the time you can find me happily hiding behind my fortress of electronic devices. Here I can access 7 computers, 8 gaming consoles / devices, watch TV, listen to music and use the phone. The nice thing about this setup is that enables me to easily shift in and out of activities. I can work for a while, watch a carton show, play some Halo and then shift back to work. But this is not where my Wii is. The Wii is out in the lounge room. The reason for this is that:

As a "family oriented" device it does not belong in my fortress - where others are only allowed to enter on permission.
There is not enough space in my fortress to stand and swing around a Wiimote.

The next issue is availability. While the children are awake it would be folly for me to attempt to play a private game on the Wii. So all games must be 1) kid friendly 2) played with one of the kids. Once the children are asleep there is a good chance that my wife will want to watch TV on the TV (I have my own private media center PC for such activities).

This means that my Wii experience has been focused on Wii Play, Wii Sports and Cooking Mama - while Zelda has had less than an hour of my attention.

The final issue is the Wiimote itself. In my opinion it is both a blessing and a curse for the Wii. It enables modes of game play that were not imaginable before - unfortunately it is awkward for most of the modes of gameplay that were available before. Indeed many of the Wii games would be better off without the Wiimote (as artfully highlighted in this - not PG - review of Super Mario Galaxy).

Don't get me wrong - I still like the Wii. And I have high hopes of one day spending more time with it. But not now.

Cheers,
Ben

Respect the books!

Wed, 13 Feb 2008 01:44:48 GMT

We have been having a lot of fun in our household lately - as both Isaac and Elizabeth have been learning to read and are quite enthusiastic about it. We now have a night time routine where they each get to read a book to either Werona or I, and then they get to choose a book for us to read to them.

The other night when I finished reading Isaac's book and went to grab the bible to read - I heard a small sob come from my boy. I turned to ask him what was wrong, to which he responded "That book was almost new!".

...

I had casually thrown Isaac's book on the pile of books on the floor - and apparently that was not the correct way to treat such a revered object.

I immediately picked it up, showed him that it was okay, apologized profusely and carefully placed it on top of the book shelf - which seemed to appease him.

I guess I am going to need to be more careful in the future :-)

Cheers,
Ben

Shilling for my place of work

Fri, 01 Feb 2008 06:22:40 GMT

Okay - I acknowledge that this is evil Microsoft marketing - but who cares, it is too much fun:

Go play it now!

Cheers,
Ben

Long Showers

Mon, 21 Jan 2008 20:02:20 GMT

I have always been one to have long showers. Werona remains amazed by this (she has very short showers). The problem is that I (like many others) find the shower to be the best place to think. The bigger problem is that I often get so focused on my chain of thought that I forget about actually showering. A couple of days ago I had a classic case of this.

I got in the shower, started washing my hair, and started thinking about a technical problem at work. I hit upon a potential solution and was soon getting out of the shower thinking about who to email about this. As I turned off the shower I realized that I had forgotten to use any soap, so I stopped and got back into the shower. However as I grabbed the soap I immediately started thinking about the technical problem. By the time I got out of the shower the second time I paused and realized that I had no recollection as to whether I had actually used the soap or not.

By the third time I got in the shower I was mentally saying to myself "Focus! Focus! Think only about showering".

Cheers,
Ben

Multiscreen GameBoys

Mon, 14 Jan 2008 19:28:42 GMT

When rumors first started about the Nintendo GameBoy DS having two screens a lot of people (myself included) wondered whether this would be a good idea or not. Indeed - even when I saw the final pictures of the GameBoy DS I struggled to believe that it would actually be playable. Thankfully when I finally bought a GameBoy DS I was pleasantly surprised to find out how usable and enjoyable the dual screens were.

My children have a different view on this.

They have played on my GameBoy SP and my GameBoy DS and have concluded that "GameBoy with one screen == good, GameBoy with two screens == better" so recently I have heard Isaac making comments like:

"Maybe there will be a new GameBoy with three screens!"

Because obviously the more screens you have the better things are. Lizzy usually responds to this with a statement like:

"Maybe there will be a new GameBoy with 100 screens!"

You can't get too much of a good thing - right?

Cheers,
Ben

Midnite's Birthday

Tue, 08 Jan 2008 16:55:44 GMT

Recently I have been reading Midnite (by Randolph Stow) to my children at night. I have been trying to get them to think about the book - so before I read each night I ask "Can you remember what happened last night? Where is Midnite now?" and at the end of each reading I ask "What do you think is going to happen next?"

Isaac has really enjoyed this book - and in particular Midnite's repeated escapes from the great gray goal by the sea. As such Isaac has often made appropriate comments like "I think Midnite will go to jail again and need to escape", or has offered his own creative ideas as to how Midnite was going to escape his current predicament.

Elizabeth's comments have been rather wide ranging - and reflecting whatever her thought of the moment was.

So on the second last night of reading Midnite, when it was apparent that Midnite was gong to marry Miss Laura, I asked my children what they thought was going to happen next night. Isaac proffered "I do not think Midnite is going to go to jail". Elizabeth exclaimed "It will be Midnite's birthday!"... To which I responded "Do you really think it will be his birthday? I think he will be getting married instead."

Well. I had to take back my comment.

The next night I sat down to read the final chapter:

"On his twenty-first birthday, Midnite was married to Miss Laura..."

I nearly bust out laughing on the spot.

Cheers,
Ben

Knowing the schedule

Mon, 07 Jan 2008 19:12:57 GMT

I have never been very punctual. I have certainly never been someone who remembers what is going to happen when (I rely heavily on Outlook to manage my schedule). Last night, after reading to both of my children it came time to tuck them in and say the final goodnight.

I tucked Isaac in, gave him a hug and a kiss, said goodnight and commented "You need to get a good nights sleep - remember that you have school tomorrow."

I then tucked Elizabeth in, gave her a hug and a kiss, and said goodnight. She then piped up and asked "What do I have on tomorrow?". Uh? "You will be staying home with Mommy..." I responded. "No! I have swimming tomorrow!" Lizzy exclaimed.

Sigh...

Yes, she does have swimming - but if I can't remember my own schedule how can I be expected to remember both my kids schedules?

Cheers,
Ben

Death Note (Anime)

Fri, 04 Jan 2008 19:28:09 GMT

Death Note (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_Note) is an Anime / Manga series that I watched (in its entirety) a little while ago. The premise of Death Note is that there exists spiritual beings (called Death Gods) that are responsible for reaping human lives – which they do by writing down a human’s name in their notebook of death (or ‘Death Note’). In this world one Death God (Ryuk) is bored and decides to drop his Death Note in the human world to see what happens. It is picked up by a senior high school student – Yagami Light – who concludes that it is his responsibility to use the Death Note to rid the world of ‘bad’ people.

Death Note has a number of characteristics that I appreciate in Anime:

The subject matter is quite hard hitting and causes you to question your personal opinion on issues like capital punishment (indeed many characters in the show struggle with this themselves).
At only 38 episodes long, Death Note has a specific story to tell and once the story is told the series is over. This is quite refreshing when compared with American animation where shows linger on indeterminably until their ratings start to fade.

But what I really loved about this show was that in almost every episode there was at least one moment where I had no idea how a given character was going to get out of their current predicament, and at least one moment when I was genuinely surprised by the actions of one of the characters (usually Yagami Light in both cases J). Indeed even up to the final episode it is hard to predict who is going to win and what the final outcome will be.

All in all a fantastic series that I recommend that you watch.

Cheers,
Ben

Gamera!

Thu, 03 Jan 2008 20:55:30 GMT

Gamera! The Children's Friend!

'nuff said.

Cheers,
Ben

Why I will never buy DOOM III...

Wed, 02 Jan 2008 17:36:54 GMT

Or BioShock for that matter.

Before I get to the point, I would like to give some background here:

The first first person shooting game I played was Wolfenstein 3D. I spent days (and weeks) playing that game. I eagerly awaited the initial release of DOOM (played Blake Stone while I was waiting) and was blown away by DOOM when it first came out. Loved DOOM II. Never really got into Quake (don't get me wrong - the game engine was great - but the story changed half a dozen times during development and it showed that the game did not have a coherent story) but I loved Quake II (in fact, Quake II was a lot of the reason why I bought my first 3D accelerator - a Voodoo II).

I got out of gaming for a while just after Quake III (and Unreal Tournament II) were released. I loved Unreal Tournament II (and preferred it over Quake III).

So after being out of the gaming scene for a couple of years I was excited when I heard that DOOM III was being released. Thankfully, I did not rush out and buy it. But I did grab the demo version to try it out. I loved the graphics of the game - and is soon became the tool I would use to benchmark new systems - but I did not enjoy playing it at all.

After thinking about it for a while I realized that the reason why I did not like DOOM III was because it was essentially an interactive horror movie - and I have never liked horror movies. DOOM III was all about building tension and trying to scare the player - which is not what I view as a fun time.

(a second more technical issue is that DOOM III is heavily trigger based - which means that if you just stop moving for a while - no one will attack you. This is something I hate in games).

I recently tried out the demo of BioShock and it bought back the same sentiments as I had for DOOM III. Don't get me wrong - I love BioShock from a technical point of view. The graphics are beautiful, the story looks intriguing and I just love the complexity of the battle engine (especially how you can utilize elements of the environment to aid with wiping out the foe). But - you spend the entire game in a state of fear (until you are eventually numb and desensitized).

When I first decided that I did not want to buy DOOM III I was worried that I was 'out of touch' with the gaming scene. I have - however - since come to the conclusion that it was DOOM (and not I) that was at fault. Recently I have had great fun playing Halo 2 and Republic Commando - and I have been having fun playing Halo 3.

The difference? While these games are intense first person shooters - they are not in the 'horror' genre. Most of your time is spent focusing on how to survive a clear and present danger - usually with comrades by your side, as opposed to skulking around dimly lit corridors wondering when the next apparition is going to jump out in front of you (or sneak up behind you).

In my opinion - DOOM III marked the advent of a new gaming genre - the "First Person Horror Shooter". And this is just not to my taste.

Cheers,
Ben

What to do in case of a fire...

Wed, 02 Jan 2008 07:26:17 GMT

Today while we were driving back from the shops we got involved in a 'danger safety' discussion with our children (talking about what to do in the case of fire / earthquake / alien invasion / etc...)

After a bit of discussion Werona asked the children "What would you do if you could smell smoke?" To which Isaac responded:

"I would check to see if the door was hot, and if it was hot I would get out my gameboy - as 'special' gameboy - and I would use it to get a Pokemon out to help me escape..."

Before Werona could respond with the appropriate clarification that Isaac was playing "make-believe" I had to pipe up and say "Yes! I would get an Abra out and get him to teleport me to safety!"

Cheers,
Ben

I Love Windows Home Server!

Tue, 01 Jan 2008 00:37:53 GMT

A while ago Microsoft released a new product called Windows Home Server

(http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/windowshomeserver/default.mspx). I was interested in this product primarily because I provided me a way to put a bunch of disks together and have them appear as a single large network disk (like a NAS) and it also provided data redundancy (like RAID). But the key thing for me was that it would allow me to add random sized disks at random - and take advantage of the new space (if you want to know how this magic works - go here).

Traditionally I have been someone who just bought a new $100 disk when I was running out of space - and the only redundancy that I had was when I thought to manually copy data to multiple locations. Needless to say - disks would fail and I would lose large amounts of data (which would cause much grief for me).

With my most recent computer purchase I decided that enough was enough - and I would get a nice RAID setup so I could sustain disk failure. But I quickly hit upon the problem that I filled up my RAID - and now adding more disk space would either involve going back to non-redundant storage - or spending over $400 to add a new RAID. Neither of which were attractive.

I did not want to spend a lot of money on the home server - so I did the worst thing possible - and got the cheapest motherboard / CPU / memory combo I could find on newegg.com (~$150) scavenged my hardware collection for the rest of the bits and put together a home server. I then proceeded to move all of my disks into the home server one at a time. I now have just over 3TB of disk in my home server and all the computers in my house only have one disk in them (for the system disk). I have all of my data on the home server and could not be happier.

Now - Home Server did successfully fill my data storage needs - but it has also provided me with a number of other features that I have come to love:

Integrated backup support.

All my desktop machines are getting backed up nightly now - including my wife's laptop. This is something that I have never had before and certainly wouldn't have gone to the hassle of setting up. With Home Server there was practically no setup involved to get this working.
Remote Desktop portal.

I am now completely hooked on being able to remote desktop into anyone of my multiple computers from work (or any other location).
Secure HTTP access to my shares.

Being able to grab some files from home when I am at work in an easy and secure fashion just rocks. I no longer worry about whether I put the latest copy of a document on my laptop - because I can get it if it is at home anyway.
Network health indication.

With the Windows Home Server connector software I know immediately if something goes wrong on any of my computers. If there is a serious network error - or antivirus stops working on any computer - I (on my desktop) immediately get an alert. In the last couple of weeks there have been at least three times when I have been alerted of serious problems on remote computers that I simply would not have noticed if I did not have the connector software installed.

Now as I have mentioned, I put this server together out of spare parts, so about a week ago one of the hard disks in it did actually fail - and Home Server handled this like a champion. I received a network alert, shutdown home server, removed the disk and booted it back up. No data was lost and the only downtime was the time it took for me to remove the virtual hard disk.

The closing comment I would like to make is this: I love having all of my data on a central redundant server. Only last night did I blow away my desktop computer (another separate hard disk failure - I will not go into the details here) and while this normally would have been a catastrophic moment for me - it was only a minor irritation. I had lost no data and it just meant that I would have to spend a couple of hours rebuilding the system. Woo Hoo!

Cheers,
Ben

Happy Christmas and all that...

Thu, 27 Dec 2007 01:19:00 GMT

Gah! I have been slack about posting over my short Christmas break. Well - I am back a work now so my little outlook task list is telling me to do a blog post...

Christmas was lots of fun this year round. The kids were super excited and it seems that everyone in my family was very happy with the presents they got.

Highlights from my presents would be:

Seasons one and two of Danger Mouse
A refurbished XBOX (to replace the old XBOX that Werona gave me three Christmases ago - and I blew up about a year ago - seriously - smoke and sparks were involved)
A 7 DVD Hayao Miyazaki box set (woo hoo!)

Anyway - have to run, hope to ramble more later.

Cheers,
Ben