blogger legal guide

I'm still catching up on my mail from June...came across this new legal guide for bloggers posted by the EFF.


http://www.eff.org/bloggers/lg/

Its good to be back...

Today was my first real day back on the job. It actually felt good to be back in the office and see the people I missed all month. Having good peers and a good supervisor go a long way in keeping me happy at Pilkington. Creative work assignments, flexible scheduling, and good pay don't hurt either. Now if we could just get the locker room and grassy field for lunchtime games of ultimate frisbee like OC has...

Tonight I went to the local .NET user group meeting downtown. Joseph Poirier gave a presentation on a dispatch application he wrote for a local company. Its really great to come together with other techies in the greater Toledo area.

Final day at Teched 2005

I didn't want to miss the 8:30 session, and somehow I woke up in time to catch the bus over there without the use of my alarm. I didn't even walk fast, actually I couldn't walk fast because my feet were so sore from walking through the freaking everglades the night before. Oh yeah, did I mention that? Andrew found an excellent short cut. And when I say short cut, I mean tall wet grass and it took us twice as long to walk back to the hotel. I was sure a croc would crawl out at us any moment.

PRT355 Enterprise Project Server integration with Sharepoint by Jean Francois LeSaux. Jean gave a terrific session showing the architecture and integration points between sharepoint and MS Project (PWA ans Professional). Allows for task integration with Outlook/Exchange. Allows for personalized web portal including task list and gant charts, and health of projects.

DAT310 Programming SQL Server Management Objects with Michiel Wories
MicrosoftSQLTools.com - Shared source initiative he started
You can perform any SQL management task programmatically through SMO.NET. Communications settings (partial object instantiation or full) can be configured to meet your own scalability needs.

Lunch

DBA417 Maximizing Query Performance in SQL Server with Burt ??? (MS SQL Support escalation engineer). This guy was FREAKIN AWESOME. This was hands down the best session I attended at tech ed, and if you have access to the webcast sessions online, go watch this one.

Tech Ed '05 was great, and I really look forward to going to Boston next year if possible.

Teched Day 4

Hands on labs all morning, the cool thing about HOL at teched are the dozens of lab assistants who are actually knowledgeable about the products and demos and are literally sprinting around to help people.

Two lectures after lunch...

PRT376 Sharepoint Portal Server Search Technologies
A good overview of searchable scopes of webs and subwebs, metadata, and list content. Gave overview of Sharepoint table structures within SQL. I forget his name, but the guy liked his whiskey. He gave out shots at the end.

DBA421 Inside SQL Server User Mode Scheduler with Ken Henderson.
In depth look at how SQL uses cooperative multithreading under the covers using worker fibers hosted within the main SQL thread. SQLPERF(umsstats) is good way to measure the health of your UMS. Ken gave me a copy of his newest book for asking a question...how cool is that!?!

Andrew and I went to Universal Studios together...the spread was amazing. You really couldn't ask for more, and the theme park wasn't bad either. We hung out at the Bob Marley club after the park closed. Unfortunately the busses were all gone by the time we were finished. It was nice evening and we were both wired (and mildly inebriated) so we decided to walk back to the hotel...how far could it possibly be? OH MAN was that a mistake, I'm pleasantly surprised we survived. About a mile away from our motel a taxy slowed down for us, but at that point we couldn't give up. We literally walked for 2.5 hours, arriving back at the hotel at 2:30am. Fortunately we never seem to run out of things to talk about so all ended well.

Teched Day 3

Went to two lectures today and filled the rest of the time with hands on labs.

PRD393 SAP and Sharepoint with Justin Chandoo offered a nice survey of integration techniques. Go to www.microsoft-sap.com for more info on the api and new developments, especially regarding Mendocino. Also there are some SAP Web part samples on gotdotnet.


DBA311 SQL Recovery Best Practices with Kim Tripp was an awesome demo highlighting partitioning, split file groups, schemas, piecemeal restoration, and snapshots.

I have no recollection of what happened after this... :-)

Teched Day 2

I went to a hands on lab for the new SQL management console, the improvements have really made me dread going into Enterprise Manager and Query Analyser.

After lunch I attended Jespen Johansson's "Anatomy of a Network Hack". He is a great presenter, hilarious, but also very very useful. I did a great job of scaring the pants off every admin in the room (I estimate a thousand of them packed in).

My last session of the day was on Sharepoint with Mike Fitzmaurice(Microsoft) and Ted Pattison(Pluralsight). They covered generation of your own Sharepoint Templates.

Teched Day 1

Had a great Sunday evening with Andrew, we ate at Charlies Steak house which is rated #2 in the nation. After that we went up and down the strip just to see what was going on. There is SO much to do here! I'll post pics soon.

I attended some great sessions on Monday, most noteworthy was a SQL index tuning session with Kim Tripp. She is AMAZING! There are a couple of .NET Rocks episodes and free online webcasts from her that you could check out if you don't believe me.

The sharepoint sessions were cool so far, and I've been making my best attempt to talk to people in the audience to get their opinions on the product. Bill Sharp from Mindshare gave a great talk on the strengths or best practices for Sharepoint Portal Server 2003. I spoke with a 'retired' programmer who is building a patient records application for a medical practice for fun. He considers the Sharepoint services (WSS) framework to be the best application platform to build web applications on these days. Alex Paytuvi from Quilogy introduced a bunch of free business line templates for wss that looked terrific. They are basically application starter blocks that are about 80% finished. The example sites he walked through were project management, IT admin, and HR recruiting. Each template was thoughtfully configured using the taxonomy (terminology) and predicted uses for each task.

Jullien Sellgren from Metalogix lead a great hands on lab for scripting the content loading and even altering the structure of WSS sites. WSS out of the box is very similar to DotNetNuke as configurable site all via the browser interface. But in major conversions of content into WSS, it is awesome to be able to programmatically build the web parts prepopulated with content. Metalogix provides a free wrapper class that makes use of FrontPage RPC and web services to make all the magic happen within a simple consolidated API. Think about how cool this would be for change management in major web portals! I really would have liked an approach like this when we migrated our old IBuySpy portal to DNN. Maybe there is a decent way to do it but I never found it. Probably when the next version of DNN supports web parts a solution like this would support either type of portal.

Monday evening was the grand opening of the exhibit hall which means great grub, free drinks, and lots of creative marketing. Andrew and I made our way through the menagerie and talked with some of the vendors. My favorites included: Mimosa (transparent Exchange archival), Red-Gate(terrific SQL tools), MS Live Meeting(virtual team facilitation), Patch Link(server patch mgmt), and Macrovision(ton of including Installshield).

After the exhibitors closed up for the evening we headed down to the jam session. Those geeks can really play! The night club they rented out was top notch.

Pre-TechEd

I've been lax in posting recently, its been a whirlwind with my daughter's birthday party, sister's graduation, and getting ready for my three trips in June. In the event you care about our experiment with South Beach, it really seems to work. Whatever flab I did have around my gut was gone at the end of the two weeks. Unfortunately some splurges at the birthday party, graduation party, and homecoming party of my brother Cain have negated any benefits. In all the diet seems to really have helped stabilize Megan's sugar levels, which was one of the main goals.

My first trip of June is TechEd '05 in Orlando. I flew into Orlando Sanford this morning, a small airport slightly north of the bigger Orlando International. Getting shuttle service to my hotel was a bit hectic. Why did I fly in there? When booking the direct flight from Toledo, I guess thats where TMA goes!

When checking into the Wyndham I was asked if I had transportation...answering no she pointed me towards the bell hop and said to talk to them. As it turns out, the Wyndham here has its own convention center, 3 pools, various nature areas and restaurants. So I joined one of the hotel golf carts and headed off to the back 40 for my room. The room was small and had a very small table, so I politely complained and they moved me to a suite, with desk, king sized bed, fridge, etc (for the same price). Someone needs to give that lady a raise!!!

I checked in to TechEd and picked up the yearly swag. The laptop bag this year is not quite as impressive as last year's backpack, but decent quality. The thing weighed about 20lbs from the massive amount of marketing literature and software included. Before I left Megan said she expected me to pick up some sun screen, and the bottle had better be half empty by the time I return. Problem solved--I have Microsoft sunscreen from my pack. There will be far fewer geeks walking around sun burned this year...if their testosterone permits them to use the thoughtful gift!

There is an Alien Ware area set up with Far Cry gaming tournaments. I walked in and played a round thinking I would get trashed since I don't play that game. Turns out I only missed qualifying for the next higher round by 1 'point'. There are about 30 people playing together, and the top 2 from each round are deemed worthy.

Tonight I plan on hanging out with my old friend Andrew.

South Beach Day 5

Not being one to break tradition, it was eggs again this morning with a nice side of turkey bacon. Megan brought a lunch consisting of turkey, cheese, light mayo, and lettuce wraps. She found this great hydroponic lettuce at Trader Joes that stays good for a long time due to the root system being left in tact in a specially made plastic container. For dinner she made a great Indian style dinner, sans bread.

I attended two community events today. I had high expectations for one and low expectations for the second. As it turned out, my expectations were opposite of the results. The TMACOG walking tour of Lagrange Street, starting with the Ohio Theater was a disappointment to me (no, not because of the rain). The only thing nice I saw about the street was exactly that, the street, curb cuts, sidewalks, and trees. The walk was led by two city councilmen (Kaps. and Ashford). I think they did a good job, but I really didn't see how they could consider this the most pedestrian friendly commercial district in the city. Especially considering the constant heavy truck traffic, probably in part due to the metal scrap yard a few blocks further up Lagrange. The businesses looked very run down and shabby, and I didn't see anything appealing about that neighborhood or business district. I really feel that the Walk Westgate project would have more chance of success at commercial investment and a high degree of civic participation.

The second event was the Open Source Software Panel Discussion, held at UT's Engineering auditorium. The caliber of discussion leaders, combined with the terrific turnout (~250?), really surprised and encouraged me. It made me proud to be UT Engineering Alumni, and also proud to work for Pilkington. Our CTO Bill McCreary was the originator of the project, though many others contributed to its success. Beforehand, I really thought the issue was passe, and that the prospects of getting good discussion would be difficult. But really I have to say I was impressed and got some great perspectives from the talk. Bill Hilf from Microsoft joked that he would be the pinata at the party, but his explanations were some of the most pragmatic and useful. Jerry Mayfield from Novell was also on the ball with new perspectives.

South Beach day 4

Breakfast was an egg, cheese, and asparagus omelet. Lunch was a large salad including various sliced lunch meats and cheeses. Dinner was this great grilled chicken breast with ricotta cheese, salad with cucumbers and peppers, and jello for desert. Both of us have remarked that we have plenty of energy and are not craving sweets like we used to...though I'll be happy when we start eating some whole grains again.

South Beach Day 3

Today we had eggs with lean turkey bacon for breakfast. I couldn't stomach the veggie juice, so some crystal light had to do. For lunch I had a roman chicken salad from Quiznos. Dinner was steak (free range) with a bell pepper salad and broccoli. Snack was ricotta cheese flavored with cocoa, it tasted so much like ice cream!

I went to my first PTO meeting tonight for my son's school next year, Grove Patterson Academy. I met some nice people and am looking forward to joining them in making the school better. They announced that the school will be rebuilt on existing grounds, just further back in the vacant land. I actually like the layout and exterior design of this school. It reminds me of something Frank Lloyd Write would have designed. It is very symmetrical with art deco elements to it. The interior space is run down though, and I can see that it would be expensive to update the mechanicals and style to something more modern. Also the space must be too small considering the temporary trailer class rooms off the rear of the facility.

South Beach Day 2

Megan is very good at planning things out, especially when it comes to recipe's and grocery lists. We are on portion control, but luckily she is a good cook. For breakfast she made these quiche like cupcakes, with eggs, cheese, and veggies. Lunch was a salad from Subway. Dinner was salmon, salad, and asparagus. Snack was jello, plus she had portioned out sugar free snacks for discretionary use throughout the day. Surprisingly, I didn't go to bed hungry!

weekend log

Friday was spent working from home, overseeing the new gas line installation. I have to say Ron from Alternative Plumbing did a great job on it. Mom picked up the kids around 5 so Megan and I had the evening to ourselves. Saturday was the big garage sale. One man's trash is another's treasure...we sold a lot of treasure! The rain held out until 2pm, by which time we had so little left we just moved it all into the garage. Sunday we went to Ann Arbor for church, and the bi-weekly run to Trader Joes. Now that the spring semester @ UT is over, Megan has more time to cook. She would like to try out the South Beach Diet. I foolheartedly agreed to join her for moral support. I guess I should have researched more about what I was getting into. The first two weeks are brutal, we'll see how this goes...

weekend log

Checked out the new Westfield addition Friday night. We were going to catch the 10:30 show of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, but realized we missed that boat when the speaker came on at Borders saying it was now 10:45! Spent Saturday visiting the various mothers/grand mothers. Had a picnic and a walk at Wildwood with Megan and our kids on Sunday.

weekend log

Saturday we spent de-cluttering the house in preparation for the mega-yard sale coming up in two weeks. Sunday we headed north...church in Ann Arbor. They had a May pole set up. We couldn't stick around because we were off to the Timberframe Expo at the Pontiac Silverdome. Those Lindal Cedar homes are just plain rad! Also, I've seen some real nice homes in magazines lately from Riverbend Timberframes, and here to find out there in our own back yard (Blissfield, Michigan).

the way diesel was meant to be

Stories about UT's apparent success with Biodiesel and solar research really fill me with pride. Originally, 'diesel' fuel was 100% renewable...yes, the inventor by the name of Diesel had an engine that ran on peanut oil. Later, it was actually found cheaper to use byproducts from the petroleum industry.

Marcy Kaptur has brought some great research money to Northwest Ohio in these areas (Lourdes Research Grant, Grant to Enhance Math, Science Teaching, Alternative Energy Partnership).

These are steps that truly work toward energy independence as a nation, but also the world over. What I mean by that, is by using finite/non-renewable resources, the whole world becomes dependent upon a finite resource. Conflict is bound to arise from this situation when resources become scarce. They are scarce now, which is why ANWR is being breached by the GOP energy plan, and prices are escalating. I think it is actually a good thing that prices are raising too, because economic impacts are the only thing that get good research, and innovation moving.

weekend log

Spent Saturday puttering about town with the kids. Sunday we took a road trip to COSI Columbus. That place is amazing!!

got books?

I took the kids over to the new South Branch Library today. It is absolutely gorgeous and uplifting. The photo on the site does not do it justice.



As you can see, the outside is modern, relatively, considering the rest of Toledo. It comes close to being deconstructionist because of the odd angles, overhangs, and crevices. Inside, you are greeted by a wide screen TV and some great seating. The central area has very high ceilings and lots of natural light. The children's section is nice, though not huge. The saltwater aquarium is beautiful, measuring 6 ft wide by 4 ft tall, it is alive with so many different creatures. A librarian stopped by to point out 'Bob the builder', a fish who scoops up rocks with his mouth and built himself a little cave. Then he peers outside in a constant state of paranoia. I've noticed a few people on my street with that same behavior...

Toledo Steam Plant

There has a been much 'spirited debate' all of a sudden on the old steam plant by the river. I've followed this story on and off over the years because I work downtown and like walking the downtown riverfront. Here is a partial timeline of some articles I queried from the blade. As you can see, many ideas have come and gone for this property, and the debate always seems to heat up in the summer time for some reason.

Personally, I still like the idea of an Aquarium...it would fit really nicely with Cosi and could coordinate with the Zoo. By stacking up these downtown venues (stadium, cosi, valentine, farmers market, night clubs, etc) you really create synergy and a destination.

Toledo Steam Plant Articles

June 13, 2003
June 28, 2003
July 17, 2003
August 20, 2004
August 21, 2004
April 13, 2005

A good day for artificial intelligence?

A randomly generated research paper was accepted for a scientific conference. Why is this story not surprising? I think I've read books composed with this program! Strangely enough, you probably would learn a thing or two by reading the paper; plenty of new definitions of words that you must look up in a technical dictionary.