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!