Brian's Blog

 Nothing fancy, just the things that I think. 

DO  YOU WANT TO  SEND ME MAIL? THEN YOU MUST READ THIS! (UPDATED!)

All of the opinions expressed on these pages are mine. *I* think they should be shared by everyone on the planet, but chances are they're not. I wrote them and I believe them. They may not be the opinions of my boss, my friends, my wife, my kids, my cats, my fish, my car or anyone else in the universe.

If you don't like what I have to say...well, leave. I'm just one little page on a really big Internet.

Do you recognize yourself in one of my essay's? Are you bothered by the fact? Then please read this.

October 30th, 2008

Still here, believe it or not. Been writing in this blog before the word 'blog' was even coined. I think my first post was from 1996.

Drop me a line. Say hi.

June 11th, 2008

The latest round of claptrap that I've received in my inbox is a story about a father that had teenagers who wanted to see a movie. It's a long story, but the short version: The movie only had a little bit of swearing and mild violence, so they ask him to reconsider the ban on PG-13 and R rated movies jus this once. So he bakes them brownies and informs them that there's a small amount of dog poop in them, and if they can handle eating the brownies they can go to the movie. Of course the children lose and anytime they want to do something the father doesn't approve of he asks them "want me to whip up a batch of my brownies?"

Obviously this was written by someone who doesn't have children. Most teens would gobble down the brownies and laugh like crazy while doing so, if it got them what they wanted.

I'd hate to have been raised by someone with the attitude of the father in the story (a full rendition can be found at http://www.snopes.com/glurge/brownies.asp ). Because life would have kicked my ass as soon as I walked out the door.

March 25th, 2008

Deleting pesky "legacy" entries in the registry:

download the free pstools from http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb897553.aspx

Run the program to extract all the files

Create a folder in your Program Files folder and name it PsExec.

Copy psexec.exe into the folder.

Create a batch containing this line:

Start "" "c:\Program Files\PsExec\psexec" -i -d -s c:\windows\regedit.exe

When you click on the .bat file you've created it will open regedit & you can delete the legacy keys.

Feb 26, 2008

More tech stuff.

How to Disable the Shutdown Event Tracker in Windows Server 2003

Open the Group Policy Object Editor Console. Go to Start > Run…, type gpedit.msc and press OK.

Navigate to Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > System and in the right hand pane, select the “Display Shutdown Event Tracker” setting.

Double Click this setting to open the Properties page. Choose disabled. Click Apply.

That annoying shutdown tracker is now gone.

December 18, 2007

Dear Santa,

    This time of year I'm certain you get a lot of letters from people letting you know what they want for Christmas. You would think they wouldn't put it off to the last week, but that seems to be human nature.

    Well, this year has been a pretty good one for me. I'm in excellent health, the job goes well and I'm making a decent living. I have good friends and a warm house. While my two oldest kids aren't here I do have access to technology that keeps me in touch with them & I should be seeing them next Spring.

    So you know what Santa? I've got everything I need & I'm pretty happy. Save a bit of time this year and pass by the house....unless you want to stop in for some homemade cookies & to take a few minutes break. Save my place for last and I'll break out the good, grown-up stuff and we can chat.

    It's been a  good year Santa. Not a day goes by when I don't think about how fortunate I am.

December 4th, 2007

I wanted to add this not only because I think it's pretty cool, but for archival purposes. So I know where to look when I need this information again.

My task was a seemingly simple one: Add a reminder onto everyone's calendar (We use Exchange 2003) for timesheets & expense reports. But I didn't want to have any user interaction. It's far to easy to ignore the meeting requests, or form, or whatever other solution was offered.

I found this page, which seemed to have my answer:

http://www.msexchange.org/tutorials/Adding-Events-Multiple-Mailboxes-Exmerge.html

But using their method didn't work. I made a few changes and got everything flowing.

I ended up using the Exmerge utility (google is your friend). I used Administrator since it was a blank calendar, added all my recurring appointments/reminders/etc to that calendar, then used Exmerge to export the JUST calendar. Keep in mind you'll need to change the options in Exmerge.

(NOTE: Using the import/export function of Outlook 2007 resulted in a failure in the next step. you must use Exmerge to export the calendar)

This folder was called administrator.pst and was located in c:\pst

Opening notepad I put in the following text & saved it as 1.vbs:

Dim rootDSE, domainObject
Set rootDSE=GetObject("LDAP://RootDSE")
DomainContainer = rootDSE.Get("defaultNamingContext")
Set fs = CreateObject ("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
Set conn = CreateObject("ADODB.Connection")
conn.Provider = "ADSDSOObject"
conn.Open "ADs Provider"
ldapStr = "<LDAP://" & DomainContainer & ">;(& (mailnickname=*) (| (&(objectCategory=person)(objectClass=user)(!(homeMDB=*))(!(msExchHomeServerName=*)))(&(objectCategory=person)(objectClass=user)(|(homeMDB=*)(msExchHomeServerName=*))) ));adspath;subtree"
Set rs = conn.Execute(ldapStr)
While Not rs.EOF
Set oUser = GetObject (rs.Fields(0).Value)
if Left (OUser.MailNickname,13) <> "SystemMailbox" Then
fs.CopyFile "c:\PST\administrator.pst","C:\PST\" & OUser.mailNickname & ".pst"
End If
rs.MoveNext
Wend

I ran that file which copied my administrator.pst to all the other .pst file names I would need. Ran exmerge, chose the correct user names and *poof*, everyone had a recurring reminder for their time sheets and expense reports.

June 20th, 2007

I'm baaaccckkk.....

I was never really gone, of course. As I've stated before I write elsewhere and this page is kept up more out of habit than anything else.

Since we moved offices my page moved as well and I had to update all the DNS and the like. So if you were coming here and getting a "page not found" error...now you know why.

The email was down for a bit but is up and running again. Drop me a line sometime.

September 27th, 2006

He lives!

Yes, I'm actually updating the web site. Hard to believe, I know. I think I maintain this site more out of habit than anything; I write elsewhere and keep in touch with people I know through other means. But the email is still valid; if you have anything you want to say drop my a line.

I've been through an awful lot in the past 9 months since I posted, but you know what? All of it is life stuff. How exciting is it to an outsider that we merged with another company? How many of you really care that my youngest has started playing the violin?

Most of my hits these days seem to concern Ohio State Waterproofing. Email me if you want the full story. Overall, if I had to do it over again I don't think I would. Or at least would have it done very, very differently.

Eventually I may turn this into a technology blog. As the lone sysadmin at my office I occasionally run across something very cool. Or I figure out something that is incredibly clever. But if I try and tell anyone about it I get that blank stare that we techies are so familiar with.

So yes, I'm still around and still kicking. Drop me a line and let me know that you are as well.

January 13th, 2006

Check out the partial transcript where Sylvia Browne screws up big time.

People are outraged at the media for reporting that the miners in Virginia were alive, then later discovering all but one had died. And people should be livid.

Yet people like this Sylvia Browne are ignored, given a free pass to make such ridiculous proclamations and never being held accountable.

Let me quote a bit from the article, then you can tell me if Sylvia is worth the $700 she carges for a 30 minute phone reading:

Not a whole lotta gray area there, kids.

July 27th, 2005

As I looked at the flag draping the coffin I was reminded of the Memorial Day flags my father-in-law had set out, back when he was the Commander of the Legion.

Every Memorial Day he would carry the flags out and put them on display, one flag for every member who had died. The first year it was 109 flags; the last year he was commander there were 114 flags on display.

It took six of us to carry the casket to the gravesite. I thought to myself that it would have made him happy to know it actually took some work for us to move him. He had told me about a friend of his that had died from cancer, and the disease had withered his body to almost nothing. "You could pick him up and put him anywhere you wanted" he had said.

The six of us carried the coffin a short way, no more than 30 feet. His grave was next to his son's, the victim of a motorcycle accident some 10 years earlier. The color guard saluted, the shots were fired. And the bugler played taps.

I'm not a sentimental person, mostly. But taps, when played at an actual funeral....it touches something deep inside. Through watery eyes I watched as they folded the flag and handed it to my mother-in-law.

114 flags on display.

Now, 115.

March 30th, 2005

I'm not going to get into a debate about the Terri Schiavo case, at least not about the particulars. I doubt anyone knows the full story of what's going on except the people involved & anything we hear is going to be naturally biased.

But I do have one question. Let's assume for the moment that Terri is brain dead, that she is in the "persistent vegetative state" we've heard so much about. With her feeding tubes disconnected she is essentially starving to death and dehydrating.

Even if we allow for the argument that she feels nothing because of her condition isn't this a rather unethical way to allow a person to pass?

She is alert enough that she has been given a morphine drip. I can only assume that's a pain alleviator.

Terri is going to die. A human cannot live without food and water. Why, then, are the doctors prolonging it?

Why is it not legal to open that morphine drip to the point where she dies peacefully?

We do that much for our pets, for pities sake.

March 2, 2005

Had a conversation with a family member the other day; I mentioned that there are a lot of people that want to move out of the United States because George Bush won the election.

"I can understand that" he said.

This is a very intelligent man, and he can understand why people would want to leave their country because their guy lost an election?

I can't, I honestly. can't. Even if you don't like the guy Bush in in office another 4 years & then he's out. And you're going to turn your back on your country because you don't like him?

Clinton was an *embarassment* as a President. Carter is a good human being but was a lousy Commander in Chief; Ford was, well, Ford. And we survived them all.

"He seems to be hated more than any other President" he said. But he doesn't seem to see that all that hate & bile is being spewed by the Democrats. His party of choice.

My family member went on on to attack several of Bush's ideas such as Social Security reform and the drug plan. Which seems to be the only thing Democrat's are doing these days, attacking the plans of the people that want to do something.

Show me a Democratic alternative.

Please.

(BTW, my hit tracker shows several searches have come to my site looking for "Ohio State Waterproofing". If you want the full saga I'll be happy to let you know if you drop me a line. If you want the quick & dirty version: It took a year and a half and three trips out (and concrete dust covered everything the last two times) for them to get our basement so that it doesn't leak. Apparently. We'll have to wait for the spring thaw for the big test.)

January 18th, 2005

Like most parents I often wonder if I'm doing things correctly. My kids are well behaved & are good students yet I often wonder if I'm having an affect, if they actually hear the things that I tell them.

Yesterday was Martin Luther King Jr. day. I asked my kids if they knew why he had a holiday and the youngest said "he changed the laws so that brown boys and white boys and brown girls and white girls could play together".

Not bad for a six year old. The oldest said "there were laws?"

"Yes, sweetheart" I told her. "At one time there were laws that people couldn't go into certain places because of the colour of their skin."

She looked at me like I was from outer space. "Well, that's just silly" she stated.

Ah, from the mouths of babes. A nine year old was able to figure it out. Guess I'm doing at least one thing right.

January 12, 2005

You may notice the site is slightly different; too much junk was starting to clutter up the place. If you're pulling your hair out trying to find something I've written (and we all know how often *that* happens) check out the archives. Or drop me line.

The ongoing saga of the basement waterproofing seems to have entered its last phase. Ohio State Waterproofing was out a few days before Christmas & reworked a large portion of the job. It has rained almost constantly since then & I see only a few damp spots, which may be attributable to the concrete drying. Hard to say.

But the large puddles are no longer there and things seem to be working. We'll see how it holds up.

Why the large lull in my journal? I've been busy. And I write elsewhere. And..well, no other and's. I've noticed that truly happy people don't write much, and I'm a truly happy person.

We'll see how that holds up with the van purchase this week.

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All original work on this site is uselessly Copyright © 1998-2005 by me and really shouldn't be reproduced anywhere unless attributed to me. Linking to my site wouldn't hurt, either. Or sending me gobs of money, that would be good too. Although, chances are, if you like something I've written you'll just steal it & call it your own anyway.