Beyond Messaging

iPad vs. a Rock « The Jason Calacanis Weblog

iPad vs. a Rock

via calacanis.com

I thought this was pretty funny. :-)

Wi-Fi 'allergies' leave man homeless - Tin Foil Hat Alert

Santa Fe, New Mexico resident Arthur Firstenberg claims that his neighbor Raphaela Monribot's use of electronic devices such as cell phones, computers, compact fluorescent lights and dimmer rheostats is aggravating his "electromagnetic sensitivity" and causing him to get sick.

via scitech.blogs.cnn.com

This is an interesting concept. The guy says he has a sensitivity to all electromagnetic devices. After his new neigbor moved in he became sick and is suing her to stop her from using "cell phones, computers, compact fluorescent lights and dimmer rheostats."

I don't doublt that the guy could possibly have a sensitivity - who knows. What I don't agree with is the idea that he could ask a neighbor to stop living her perfectly normal 21st century life.

According to the CNN aricle this guys electric meter is on the neighbor's house. That brings up a picture that he is living in very close quarters. If I had this type of sensitivity I would be living in the middle of nowhere where I could be a hermit in peace.

I don't understand why you would sue your neighbors for something that is YOUR problem.

Wingnuts. They're everywhere.

+++++

Edited to add - ok I did a google search on this guy and he is a real wingnut.  He has a history of frivoulos lawsuites and scare tactic books about the evil conspiracy of cell phone signals eating your brain.

Visio 2007 Resources

I am having to brush up on my Visio and be able to put together a nice looking network diagram.  I will document the resources I am using as I find them in the hopes it will help me later or help someone else going through the same.

Microsoft Training Courses

Visio Cafe - Source for Sharable Visio Stencils. (collections of shapes for various manfacturers products)

Network Diagram Templates from Microsoft

VisGuy - Visio Guy has a whole website all about Visio and the cool stuff you can do with it.

Microsoft Visio Team Blog - get the latest insights into what features are being added to Visio 2010

Troubleshooting Outlook Crash

I just spent an interesting couple of hours troubleshooting an Outlook 2007 problem.  Whenever this customer opened any calendar entry, or tried to create a new calendar entry, Outlook crashed.

I tried a lot of normal things -

Reinstall Outlook

Run Install with Repair option

Turn off Outlook cached mode and rename outlook.ost files

Run all Microsoft updates at update.microsoft.com

Run Outlook with /cleanviews and /cleanreminders (Start, run, type in outlook /cleanviews is a good one to try)

Disabled addins

Uninstalled SnagIt, which I had read on a forum had helped a similar problem

Deleted the Outlook forms cache - frmcache.dat in case it was corrupted.

After all this I was getting annoyed at the problem.  It was starting to get personal.  I did some general web searching on "outlook crash calendar" and finally just "outlook crash" as my keywords.  I came across a page asking if someone tried running Outlook in safe mode.  I googled "Outlook safe mode" and you run it with Outlook /safe.  I saw a page that said if you can run Outlook in safe mode try deleting the file outcmd.dat and then restart Outlook. 

That did the trick.  Now I have a happy customer who does not have to re-image their laptop, and I am happy that I won the battle. 

Here's the helpful page I found and a little excerpt:

If Outlook starts normal in Safe mode, Check one of the following:

The outcmd.dat file in the application data\microsoft\outlook folder might be corrupt.

1.  Rename or delete this file while Outlook is closed.
2.  When you restart Outlook, the folder will be recreated.
 

South Park Visits Lotusphere - No Really

via www.edbrill.com

This is about the funniest thing I have seen, Stan and the boys are geeking it out to get yellow Lotus swag. This totally reminds me of the yellow shirt my buddy Jorge used to wear and I would pretend I needed sunglasses to look at him.

Why I Believe Printers Were Sent From Hell - The Oatmeal

via theoatmeal.com

Ha ha ha.... love this cartoon from The Oatmeal on Why Printers Were Sent from Hell to Make Our Lives Miserable.

Call Me! But Not on Skype

Skype requires me to look at you while you're talking, which is totally ridiculous. The only sci-fi show that understood this was Star Trek. Bones and Jim would use their flip phones to talk quickly about beaming or health issues. The only time they'd fire up the videophone was when a Klingon was sitting in a spaceship 20 yards away with guns pointed at them. Call Me! But Not on Skype

This is a great little rant about video phones and why we aren't as exited about them as one might think.

Things I am not allowed to do any more « DadHacker

I will not paste labels onto the after-hours HVAC buttons, especially if they read “Eject,” “Arm,” or “Detonate.”

via www.dadhacker.com

This is probably not safe for work, but funny nonetheless.

Stupid Windows 7 trick: unlock the secret God Mode folder

Create a new folder anywhere (I set mine up in d:\)

Rename the folder and paste in the following text: GodMode.{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C}

via www.downloadsquad.com

This Windows 7 trick makes a folder full of shortcuts to tons of Admin tools. Handy.

Top 10 Security Challenges For 2010

"Smartphones such as the iPhone and Android-based handsets, which are used increasingly for business purposes, are essentially miniature personal computers, and in 2010 will face the same types of attacks that target traditional computing,"

via www.informationweek.com

Information Week has a decent list of what security experts are predicting will be this year's top security challenges.

I think the bot nets and organized crime aspects are the most worrisome. Network spreading malware infects unprotected computers, which can then be controlled remotely to instigate DDOS against common targets. Of course this isn't new but I worry when the people behind the bot nets become organized and politicized.

As the quote above indicates, another hot topic in security is going to relate to Smart Phone apps. How much security is built into your Smart Phone and its application marketplace?