Are you a Queen or Scissor Sisters fan

Then you really ought to listen to this…

http://www.myspace.com/mikamyspace

PS that power cut

They cancelled it, but neglected to tell anyone, so for the second time the freezer was moved overnight to -24C, the fish tanks covered in blankets; and all for no purpose.

Take three on 8^th February

just what you need after a long day!

http://iccoventry.icnetwork.co.uk/0100news/0100localnews/tm_headline=motorists-in-bridge-collapse-drama&method=full&objectid=18530369&siteid=50003-name_page.html

I was in Coventry today for a series of technical seminars. Part of the Access User Group benefits; it came with a good lunch, good refreshments, interesting talks on SQL upsizing and programming; a demo of Office Live for Access Developers (the consensus seemed to be that without relational integrity it’s not something we’d really want to develop against!) and a rather ponderous session on Microsoft Expression that seemed to get stuck on CSS which is NOT my bag (go here http://www.csszengarden.com/ for a more enlightening presentation).

So then, just as we’re leaving – reception asked “are you going on the A46?”, “I was” my considered reply. Turns out the report of a bridge collapse was a tad exaggerated (a tad being slightly smaller than a gnat’s whisker, but larger than the number “somewhere between nought and zero”) and it was a lump of concrete falling instead. Made for an exciting journey home I thought, so I just drove off in the opposite direction for a couple of miles, set the SatNav to shortest route – and lo and behold got home in normal time, and taking the route we always used to before the A14 was built. Husband’s Bosworth my favourite village name on the way – it’s long been our term for the chair in a ladies clothing establishment where the husband can ease his weary legs and read a magazine whilst his better half peruses the latest “bargains”…

*&^$%^$^)(*

Shame – I found a damaged floor board this afternoon.  Walking across the office, where I’ve walked so often, and CRUNCH.  The floorboard gave way by about ½ an inch.  Only moved in a week ago – time for repairs already.

At least the decision to put the (really heavy) desk feet on a wider piece of wood to spread the weight looks like a more sensible decision!

It's below zero

It's blowing cold and hard.

There are still people in East Anglia without power since last Thursday's storm.

So guess what - we've a SCHEDULED power cut of 8 hours...

Windy eh?

Been working in my new offices which are located in the top half of a barn immediately under the roof timbers.  As it’s been a bit breezy (up to 80mph winds if the weather people are to be believed) and I’ve close to needing ear defenders it’s so noisy!! Yet at least there’s been no wind leaks or rain leaks in the roof – phew!

It's good to talk

Someone once said in an advert!

Tonight I got a call from a school friend (school now being over 25 years ago!).  He’s been in the States continuously for nearly 7 years and it’s probably a little longer since we last met.  However for some reason we don’t get to speak at some length, eyety when we do we end up talking (as we did tonight) for ages.  It’s really weird in way – how is it that with some friends you can just pick up where you left off months ago, and talk for hours (literally) but yet not speak again for a few montsh again.

The time zone difference does not justify it, nor the remove (in time) from your days at school.  I don’t get it, but I do enjoy it; and I do find it strange (if not vaguely amusing) that at times we do earnestly promise to email or call for a few sentences; but however hard we try – we end up not managing it.  I wish we could.

But it was great to talk to him again, and I look forward to the next time!

Web sign on forms

Damn web designers.  If I had a £1 for every web site that does NOT have the login button the next active item on the web page after the password I'd be a very rich man.

It's infuriating that you go to a web page, enter userid (or maybe have it remembered), tab, enter your password, tab, enter.  It seems these days 9 times out of 10 I am now sitting on a "forgotten password" link.

Makes me mad….

Just how much...

Does it cost UK PLC (or UK trading as…) to do it's government paperwork????

I'm a sole trader.  I am registered for VAT.  Yet the paperwork I have to go through to do tax returns, VAT returns and Intrastat returns is daft.  I don't trade in Europe - yet every quarter HMC&R send me a form to fill in on how much I have traded in Europe; the form says if you don't you do not need to send the form back, yet every quarter they send it, every quarter I have to open it, check the rules have not changed and then bin/file it.

When it comes to the tax return there are about 10 different boxes into which I have to put expenditure I have incurred as part of the business.  In the end they all get added up and are deductible. Why can I not have just 1 box?  Having to trawl through a year's accounts and identify telephony against car against something else takes far too long and is not productive.  It does not change the tax I pay so WHY????

And while I'm on the subject.  Why can I not set all my expenditure against tax?  As a sole trader if I spend £1000 on something to further my business why should I only be able to set aside £250 against this year's income for tax, and next year £187.  I've still not got that £1000.  The fact is has an asset value is of no intrinsic value to me as I cannot sell my business as it is me.

Inspiration

Well,  I guess for me it's the quieter time, just mulling over that causes things to snap into focus at 1am,

The problem I'd been working on was a new area for me - WebDAV to inject appointments into calendars in Exchange 2003 server.  The problem was that the virtual server in the IIS (internet information server on the Windows/Exchange server) has to be configured in a particular way to allow Outlook Web Access to work (over HTTPS and not HTTP).

But OWA (and therefore the WebDAV programming to the exchange folder structure) will not work if you do not address the server with the URL that the certificate has been used for. This means you need to program to the URL of OWA.DOMAIN.CO.UK or whatever.  However internal network resolution will point that to your ISA box so that users can access OWA inside and outside the network with the same URL.

Inspiration - create a duplicate virtual directory with a different name and use different authentication methods (HTTP only) and therefore you can use the IP direct and not the URL, and bypass all this crud.  A quick note to myself at 1am (that's why I keep a pen with a torch in it by the bed), and within 30 minutes the next morning job done.  Hurrah.

NEXT!

Why does

Inspiration always strike at 1 am? !

Hurrah

A good weekend for technology!

In preparation for some office relocation work I needed a wireless bridge, ISA Server 2006 working, a new wireless Access Point (different hardware) to work on the existing wireless setup; and OWA/OMA/ActiveSync working from the outside world to the office.

For once a set of projects (whist they had their ups and downs) all completed within the timescale I set myself.  And what's more a client problem cropped up during the work and I've been able to cal them today to fix that too.

Good result, even if it did finish at 2am this morning!!!

and whilst i'm recommending things...

Garmin SatNav. Bought a Street Pilot i3 last year. The maps have got old now (I constantly drive through a few fields it seems!).

Well register it, check for updates, and I'm getting a version 7 to 9 upgrade DVD in the post, free of charge. Now that's what I call good!

Hats off to Magilite Torches

I keep a small Maglite torch on my key ring and a couple of weeks ago it came mostly unscrewed, and finally fell apart as I was getting out of the car one evening, in the dark. So I lost the spring that holds the battery in, along with the spare bulb. %$^$£ I thought.

On the off chance I emailed via Maglite's web site, who forwarded my email to the UK distributor, who sent me a spring, gratis, in the post within a few days.

Now that's the kind of service I like!

Freeview HD recorders

Some time ago I blogged about a daft store's web policy, and then the rubbish Sony Centre sales and Sony support.

Well a few days later I bought a (brand currently unknown to me) Humax twin timer HD Freeview box. I love it. It records 2 channels concurrently, and if it can will let me watch a third. It's quiet, and does not intrude; it's even quieter in standby. And fast forwarding is a dream.

It has a few minor issues - a EPG of more than 7 days would be nice; delete at end of playback option would be good; and coming soon they say - a record series option.

However all in it's a great little unit, and I can say no better than we got one for my parents (at least that makes remote technical support easier if I am looking at the same screens!)

Lucky or unlucky?

This week's had a few, ahem, interesting moments.  As I've said I'm currently working on an Exchange 5.5. to 2003 migration, and that these are always interesting.

 

Well, to date, my experience of Microsoft's Active Directory Connector wizard (ADC) has been really good - it sets up the right connections, ensures continuity for users, and a peaceful time for IT.  Well not on this project.  Firstly it decided to synchronise to it's own server instead of the other server in the 5.5 world (the server names the client had chosen were very similar and a visual inspection failed to spot the wrong name!); and then it decided that we only need to do a 1-way update between a few of the sites. 

 

The latter problem did not show up until users from those sites were migrated (some 2 weeks after the ADC was set up - so 'apparently' after running OK over the Christmas period).  When these did show up, they were insidious faults, without obvious errors in the server logs, and complicated by a great bunch of errors on one of the old servers that appeared to be mis-deliveries but were in fact 'mailbox full' symptoms.

 

So to the question - was I lucky in the past in that the ADC did the right things and just worked (so that I had not had to learn a load of investigative skills), or unlucky in that I never had to learn those skills before?

 

Thanks Microsoft!

Oh, did you see Torchwood finish?

Right at the end, the hand in the jar that activated just before the Tardis sound when Caption Jack disappeared.

What say it’s Doctor Who’s right hand that was cut off in the sword fight at the end of the Christmas 2005 special (when David Tennant who was still regenerating, and was thus able to regenerate the missing hand)?

Gets my vote, off to the net to see if anyone else thinks so…  Ah, I see from Wiki that it was in last October’s Radio Times (or rad-ee-ot-im-eees as it’s known in my family – it’s the Latin pronunciation!)

And now...

Having sent in some test emails to the client’s new server I think I understand what’s going on!

So to today’s paper and then bed!

And so back to work!

Although I’d been researching over the last couple of days, today was the first day back at the coalface after new year; and a long educational day it was!

Exchange 5.5 to Exchange 2003 is always entertaining – the environments are so old, those responsible long gone, and the documentation modest or non-existent – and this is no exception.

So whilst the early work went well (despite a third party’s installation of Exchange 2003 onto the network 2 years ago without telling the client!), but later on mailbox moves did not play so well.  The test mailboxes moved fine, but the first real world one could no longer receive public email.    Doing the usual “check through the logs” thing brought up a host of errors on the old server.  But an hour or so’s work determined that these were actually nothing to do with it, but other errors latent on the old server anyway!

Well, at least the VB code I wrote to inject appointments into people’s calendars works a treat and the client can start to consider moving their application over!

I must do better :-)

In order to keep some control over things I keep a voice recorder in the car to record mileage and fuel purchases and so on.  Well I’ve left it a long time, this afternoon I spent an inordinate amount of time transcribing and getting data in that was meaningful 2 months ago before I went on a training course…  Hey ho.

And then there’s the pile of paperwork from the training course that I must sort out too – invoices, receipts and so on in £ and € so there’s even more hassle doing the exchange rate conversion as well.

Happy New Humbug!

And in Barcelona

My friend took this photo of the Casa Battlo - a great example of Gaudi's work!

Well, happy new year

It's new year's day and I have done some client work.  An interesting need to insert appointments across many calendars from a SQL server system.  Interestingly the first few searches I did came up with pretty much nothing.  Then I got on the track of WebDAV.

Now we have a neat toy that actually can track appointments made, and then modify them when needed!  Customer will be happy tomorrow, and I get to go and fix my spectacles, instead of work at home!

Why do such things (specs frame fracturing) happen at new year?  Well it was Maguire who said Murphy was an optimist - and I believe him.  I've not had sellotaped spectacle frames since the 70's!!  But it was the best job I could do.