I Hate Linux

Laptop power states can lead to paranoia

2018-03-12T22:24:00.001-07:00

A few weeks ago I had a spooky event, from which there were important learnings and since nothing bad happened, is the sort of thing I can happily share, rather than hang my head in shame.

Background

For ages I've made my main home desktop machine (whichever that happens to be) accessible via Remote Desktop. Even when sitting on the couch on a laptop, I am most likely controlling the desktop as it has all of my tools, apps, etc... as well as plenty of storage and RAM.

This also comes in handy when at work so I can maintain separate browser environments in the case I want to search/view something I don't want showing up in official logs (ie, I don't want to worry the security/hr people if I happen to look up the specs of a particular firearm at work, nor do I want to be accused of being a shill for this or that on a web forum based on an ownership lookup of the IP range I am on at the office).

WTF?

A few weeks ago I was working on some things physically at my desktop when I got logged out, being told that *someone else* was connecting remotely.

Was my Microsoft Account password compromised? How? It's rather complex and very carefully used. It's never even be written down on paper or to a instance of notepad.

I was able to log in locally quickly, yanked the network cable and started the fun process of changing all critical passwords, taking a backup image of the hard drive, then going to bed... it was late.

Some cursory examinations of my router and Windows logs told me a disturbing story... that I was seeing connection attempts to the default Remote Desktop port every 3-5 seconds, for as far back as the log had memory... and from places all over the world.

The day after

Upon getting to work, I mentioned the event to my lead and the head of the networking team, as the day before they had wondered if I had uploaded an unusual amount of data from my work machine (which I didn't believe I did). Fearing the incidents might be related, I figured I should ask them to look into their network logs on their end.

It turns out their firewall views inbound & outbound traffic oddly, so someone in our subnet downloading a fair number of large MacOS updates tripped some data-ex-filtration warnings.

Breathing a bit of a sign of relief, back at home I installed a new hard drive with a fresh install of Windows in case something on the old had been compromised.

Feeling confident that I had contained whatever damage could have been done, I enabled Remote Desktop again, but on a non-obvious port and got back to my life...

Until...

A week and a half later while sitting at my desktop... it happened again!

You could argue that without 2FA on my Microsoft Account, it was bound to happen eventually (previously not enabled due to issues with Xbox)... but to have it happen again, so soon with a completely new password, 2FA enabled (not that it matters for desktop RDP) and on a random port? Who the hell did I piss off to get popped like this so quick?

Again, I yanked the network cable, turned off the PC and went to bed... not having the energy to deal with the issue at the time.

What if...?

The next morning, I had a theory... what if some other device of mine was legitimately logging in? I went looking first at my personal laptop and found it was in fact awake at the same time as the previous nights event... exactly 3 hours after my last use.

Hmmmm.

That night I tested the theory, I opened up my laptop, connected to the desktop via RDP, closed the lid, and made my way down to my desktop a couple of hours later, making sure I was sitting there when sure enough, I got logged out.

As it turns out, after 3 hours of being asleep, my laptop will boot to a full power state for a moment to go into a full hibernation mode. During this time, the RDP app re-asserts itself and will kick an local user out from whatever it is logged into... even though waking the laptop during this window will see the RDP application asking for a password to connect to the remote session.

Benefits & learnings

On the plus side... the event gave me an excuse to upgrade the size of the SSD in my desktop, buy a few fresh sets of underwear, and some major takeaways:

1. I never should have had the default port exposed,
2. Two-factor authentication should be supported out of the box on the client (though Duo can be used for free to do so), alas Microsoft has abandoned the home desktop user,
3. I need to be more diligent about watching failed logons, no matter how confident I am that a good password isn't going to get compromised.

Revealing the prediction, and an ominous warning

2017-05-01T23:50:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow Microsoft is expected to announce a Chromebook competitor running a stripped down version of Windows to target the education market. Even though I will probably buy one of them, the effort will ultimately fail. Before we look too far into the future and it's possible success, let's look a bit to the past.

Two years ago I sent a set of predictions to a well-placed former co-worker within the larger Windows group in an email titled "A (hashed) prediction of the future (expires end of 2016)" which included the hashes mentioned in this post.

The prediction in question said:

Windows 10 Mobile bombs. Windows 10 for PCs continues to languish much like 8.x but at more affordable device price points. Terry is forced out by end of 2016.

Windows 10 Mobile/Phone has in fact bombed, so much so that Microsoft has more or less given up on first party devices for the time being, and will soon even be selling Android based devices at the Microsoft Store. Heck, even I, a long time Windows Phone die-hard was eventually forced to switch not six weeks ago (though I'd been trying to since December unsuccessfully).

Windows 10 has languished. While vastly better than Windows 8 in most ways, even with the free (and at time) forced upgrades, it is ultimately competing with previous versions of itself (like Windows 7 which works just fine for most still using it), none of which drives revenue for the company, nor inspires passion from most users who use or buy PCs/tablets/phones.

With regards to Terry (Myerson) being forced out... I wake up every day flabbergasted that this has not happened yet.

Admittedly, he has a difficult job. Aside from trying to make Windows Phone great again, he was ultimately responsible for de-Sinofsky-izing Windows... the first he utterly failed at, the second... remains an ongoing process.

At the end of the day, there is the issue of "why is Windows important?" and the answer really is "it's not anymore", but more on that for another time.

I am occasionally accused of having an ego, true or not, I am now going to say perhaps the most egotistical things I've ever said:

I tried to stop this. I could have made it better. I could have saved so many of the jobs already lost and the ones to come. I wasn't allowed to.

I talk a lot, I listen a lot, but I also play some cards very close to my chest. While it doesn't always work out for me, it doesn't detract from how painfully often I am right about too many things which most didn't see or believe coming.

Just call me Cassandra.

One less Windows Phone user

2017-03-25T23:39:00.001-07:00

I've had a long & tortured history with phones. Long being on Verizon my options were limited, one day I marched into an AT&T store, ready to buy an iPhone provided I could port my South Dakota number. At the time they couldn't. I tried a few different Windows Mobile devices during this time, which did the job for what I needed it for at Microsoft, but it wasn't great. I even bought an Android device, which I returned less than 24 hours after I'd purchased it due to some major issues.

By the time the iPhone came to Verizon, I was eagerly awaiting a Windows Phone to finally show up, which it did on May 26th, 2011, where I was 13th in line at the Verizon store in the Microsoft Commons, many hours before the store was to open. Since then I've gone through many Windows Phones as a local and enthusiastic user (1x HTC Trophy, 2x HTC 8X, 2x Lumia Icon, 4x Lumia 735, 1x Lumia 950 XL.

Yesterday, 9 years to the day after I started at Microsoft (though I am there no longer), I did something I didn't think I'd do. I switched to an Android device, the Google Pixel XL.

As much as I loved Windows Phone, it simply doesn't get the love it needs, both from Microsoft and from 3rd parties.

There was always an 'app gap' with regards to trying to convince companies to bring their apps/services to Windows Phone given its low market share something many attributed to the lack of apps.

The issue was not just app related, but technical. Windows Phone has long had issues with getting sufficient love within Microsoft. Over the years I was a passionate user & developer, both of which often lead to discoveries of issues, many of which were fixed, some not. I even found/yelled about a couple of recall class bugs in the product (thankfully just prior to going to the escrow period).

For me, most of what I needed to do I could do from my phone. Phone/SMS, email/calendar, web, podcasts… and with a couple of apps like Facebook & Twitter rounded out most the rest. For those things I couldn't do, I'd either write my own app or two, or simply go without.

As an aside, one of these weeks/months I'll reveal the answer to my previous prediction about this and other subjects, but that for another time

Given my rather, unique perspective, I thought it would be good to write a few words about my experience thus far in making such a switch.

Out of box experience

I'd often heard it reported that one of the reasons many gave up on Windows Phone was that they simply couldn't figure out how it worked. Having come from devices with very regular design metaphors I'd come to expect, it was rather difficult switching to something else.

Example: While Windows Phone & Android both have back buttons on the bottom left side of the screen, on Windows Phone one holds the back button to show the currently open apps. On Android, you press the right most button, which is a square.

Similarly, I've long been used to using the bottom part of the screen (which provides easier touching in my experience) for accessing settings of a particular app, this is just the opposite in Android, where even the address bar in the web browser is at the top.

Winner: Draw

Multiple email/calendar sources

Like many, I've got a Microsoft Account which is mostly used for signing into Microsoft properties. My email is hosted by Office 365. My YouTubing & Blogging is done with a Gmail address, and my wife (now) has an iPhone so she stores all of her calendar info to iCloud.

On my Lumia 950 XL, I could access all and have a semi coherent picture of all of my email accounts & shared calendars.

On my Pixel XL, the default mail client struggled to make sense of my Office 365, though after multiple tires it eventually worked. Unfortunately, it seems without purchasing an app (or writing my own), I won't be able to access my wife's calendar.

Winner: Microsoft

Support

During my struggle to figure out how to setup my O365 email, I noticed in settings there was an option to receive 24/7 phone based support.

Wow!

While they weren't able to solve my issue as the 18th time was the charm, the fact they not only have support reps on hand was surprising. The fact that they had the ability reach out and request screen sharing was shocking.

Winner: Google

Charging

I hate cables. Just because I've got oddles attached to my TV/DVR/game consoles/network switch/router/desktop PC/etc, or cables on both sides of the couch for Surface Pro 3's, a Macbook, or an iPhone doesn't mean I like them.

Ever since the release of the HTC 8X in November 2012, I've been rocking the wireless charging train. On my desk at work, next to my bed, next to my couch, and next to my home office are wireless chargers that allow me to plop down my compatible device and charge it while not in use. Heck, I even have one of these speakers in my home office.

The only time I would rely on a physical cable, was when I was in the car (given I had to plug my phone in for audio out, another cable wasn't so bad) or when I was doing on device debugging.

I am a sad panda that only the Samsung devices support it, though given their fire issues and very less than stock Android builds, I'm not willing to carry such a device.

Winner: Microsoft

App selection

Recently I pointed out to a friend who pays me on a monthly basis that there is a way to pay via PayPal which doesn't incur fees. He asked why I don't use Venmo or Google Wallet. The answer was simple, the first doesn't exist on my platform of choice, and the second wasn't quite relevant as YouTube is the only area I really sign into Google services for.

Looking around in the app store, seeing all of the major companies (take just fast food I noticed today) who felt compelled to build... something is remarkable.

Given the number of payment & messaging apps out there today, it is quite clear how PayPal & Skype somehow missed the boat.

Winner: Google

App security

Depending on the circles you are in, you may hear Android referred to Windows 3.1, 95, 98 or even 2000. Operating systems which were pretty good for their time, but horribly insecure in certain circumstances.

Ultimately, the user is in control and is responsible for the security of their device. Not just what apps run on it, but what permissions they are granted. The ease at which apps are able to ask for permission for access to this or that resource (Does my podcast app really need access to my photos & contacts?) is frankly, frightening.

Assuming no user action allows a seemingly innocent app to do malicious things, the degree of protection offered by the underlying platform is important. iOS has been excellent at this, as has Windows Phone. Android, alright. The whole reason I opted for the Pixel was that as a first party phone from Google, it was the most likely to receive regular security updates. There still needs to be sufficient safeguards against such malicious apps running rogue to prevent badness, something Android historically has lacked.

Winner: Microsoft

Bio-metric sign in

I do not like/trust bio-metric sign in options. They are easy to fool, and they are even easier to be used against you. Nothing stops law enforcement or a small child from forcing a device owner to touch their finger to a bio-metric sensor against their will and allowing their adversary into their device. I've personally seen one of these happen, and the hacker squealed in glee upon achieving their goal.

During the brief time I was using the Iris scanner on my 950 XL, I found it not only to be slow (not unlike a Kinect attached to a Windows 10 PC), but it actually hurt my eyes. Anytime I'd use it, day or night, bright or dark in the area, I would feel a… haze over my eyes for several minutes afterwards.

Winner: Google

Over the last day my wife has often asked me if I was happy with my new phone, I was less than enthusiastic, much to her disappointment. While we all like something like a phone to be interchangeable with any other, the reality is there is a high degree of buy in associated with each particular ecosystem which makes moving rather difficult. Windows Phone is dead, RIP, and as much as I wish I could stay on it, the reasons to stay are decreasing day by day. In time I expect I'll grow to understand & appreciate my new phone, until then, at times I feel like a mule with a spinning wheel, "No one knows how he got it, and danged if he knows how to use it!"

Only time will tell how I get on with my new phone, if I stick with this ecosystem or jump ship to another, but for now, it is an interesting learning experience being one of the last to make this particular jump.

A (hashed) prediction of the future (expires end of 2016)

2016-07-21T15:12:00.001-07:00

The following is an email I sent to a co-worker back on 4/6/2015 who was at the time a rather senior person in the Windows org.

As we approach the end of the window I gave myself for this prediction, I wanted to re-post it in a more public place so if/when it comes true I can more publicly say "I told you so" and "you should have listened" (though not just to him).

I wish to make a prediction of the future (well I made it a couple of weeks ago, but wanted to send it now that you were back so it was less likely be less likely to get swept up in a post vacation mailbox purge of unread mail)... though because of the nature of the prediction (which most would dismiss outright) it’s clear text cannot be revealed at present. Instead I present the following hashes for later verification (by end of 2016 I figure):

length 159

MD5

D7BEA2AB0317D11D134738B402D86A6D

SHA1

B376DAB38017A4FA5D86F9B329B02903C99FC380

SHA256

776778DE7F37658204F9C7B874588F69720629B06BB9E7ECB11120D4F1E0AAF3

SHA384

A0AB8EA0FB78449A3B024DE0ABD0CE338F8A72E46B436D70C04B9D1223176B8A

B28325861E379ED8FC10310045F7024C

SHA512

DF8C51B44B233293650DFC6D3C9F55DDC7780863C6F2FFFFF646011011D4D225

5C596C8AE0F2184B62E93D03FF5B2DC0A5CA174E096575853529C3D17CCDC641

A little long of text perhaps, but it’s a (it’s long because it’s actually a three-parter (I opted to leave out the far more drastic 4^th prediction).

For note the following hashes come from the code specified at http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/archive/2006/05/23/604743.aspx

If this prediction does come true, I’ll share the clear text behind the following hashes for the related explanation/castigation:

length 607

MD5

B78B5BF35C09409EC72B80C006B85974

SHA1

46D34F29221BD28AB28B09E2A741F21FEE2989EE

SHA256

396121627F06DBD2593CF5014519419A37C6A572466732375E24525A472EBFCF

SHA384

4DC75B9BD3F74A39238864DCBB4DC750119202F76265D6BF1E88474422CC13F1

B29E9D29692D81FEB02205B6B7F89634

SHA512

1983C57036531176D36EB3578334DB918001EEA6B6E3EDA1E73564ACB3737CD4

E04D1773D718EE63E7954BDF9832069FD08C122D5157E2B7D60FCC6E86AB7F10

Only time will tell.

I knew I heard it before...

2009-09-23T23:04:00.001-07:00

For the second time this evening I saw the following commercial:

Both times the tone was very similar to something I'd read several times before... then I remembered the quote:

"The John Galt Plan," Wesley Mouch was saying, "will reconcile all conflicts. It will protect the property of the rich and give a greater share to the poor. It will cut down the burden of your taxes and provide you with more government benefits. It will lower prices and raise wages. It will give more freedom to the individual and strengthen the bonds of collective obligations. It will combine the efficiency of free enterprise with the generosity of a planned economy." - Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged, p1124

This is by no means the first time I've heard words from this Administration or it's supporters that could have just as easily have been spoken by the looters or moochers in Atlas Shrugged... and somehow I doubt it will be the last.

"Wild" Bill Janklow Sues Dell?!?!?

2009-09-03T21:19:00.001-07:00

I've got another political post in the queue... but I had to post this first after hearing about it while chatting with tdaxp on the phone this afternoon while waiting for the ferry.

Former South Dakota Governor, Congressmen (at large) and convicted manslaughter(-er?) Bill Janklow has recently decided to sue Dell over some tech support issues.

While I voted against him every chance I could (granted only once)... watching the following video I am reminded of part of why I voted against him when I lived there and why I was so anti-him the rest of the time.

While I agree with him in principal with regards to his case... his presentation and... rather whiney/nasal attitude... doesn't instill much sympathy in me, watch for yourself:

Don't get me wrong... he did some good things for the state... reintroduction of the death penalty, massive wiring of the schools (K-12 and higher ed), helping to bring various banks into the state (most notably Citibank), reduce the damages required to make a crime a felony ($500 IIRC), not to mention serving as a joke for citizens and former residents well beyond his time in office.

Granted... I am semi-biased in all of this because I had a couple of email arguments with him when I was a student in the state (yes.. that is the sort of State that South Dakota is and that was the sort of Governor Bill Janklow was (I really wish I still had those emails))... hell, I even got to shake his hand once and ask him a question regarding state law (~3-4 weeks into my freshmen year of college no less).

Of course he did top it all off with a big ole middle finger to the state of South Dakota (after his conviction and subsequent joke of a sentence (100 days for a man's life)) when he agreed to represent the Mayo Clinic (in Minnesota) against the DM&E railroad expansion in the area (of the Clinic specifically)... a campaign that was eventually joined by Tom Daschle (a man who also had a reason to be angry with South Dakota (we did after all run him out of office the same way that Harry Reid will be in 2010).

</RANT>

On an unrelated note... oh how I hate you Kelo... I always refused to watch you simply because of your labeling of the area as "Keloland" rather than something more generally acceptable as "Sioux Empire"... and that despite the fact that my aunt used to work for you as an on air personality!

</RANT4Real>

... what can I say? South Dakota is a rocking place and I miss it greatly... and a place I expect to see this fall and taunt (and hopefully take home) some deer within.

Brendan’s Brilliant Idea #247225 – Do it yourself DLNA

2009-08-02T09:11:00.001-07:00

While I was apparently one of three people in the world who liked Vista... I absolutely love Windows 7 and one of it’s killer features from where I sit is the Play To feature in Windows Media Player 12... which allows you (as an extreme) to request that one device in your home (PC, Xbox 360, other DLNA supporting media renderer) to play content that exists on a second device (say a Windows Home Server running TwonkeyMedia Server)... all while being controlled from a third (another PC, laptop or even cell phone).

So lets say you want to have a dedicated device in your living room, bedroom, office or other place where you want to stream audio to via this mechanism... your options are not cheap.

Building a standalone, barebones networked PC is one option. Spending $1200 on a premium receiver is another.

What about lower priced consumer level devices?

Sonos will sell you a device for ~$350. For ~$250, Linksys would love to talk to you.

Both though are still too expensive… in fact my maximum price for such a device would be <$100... which shouldn’t be too difficult considering Apple has been selling their AirPort Express product for the last 5 years for just $99 and can often be had on eBay for under $50.

But it doesn’t support DLNA does it?

There’s the brilliant idea... why not make it?!?!

Rather than try to hack the firmware... why not write a wrapper service that speaks the (sadly) proprietary (but reverse engineered) Remote Audio Access Protocol (RAOP) to the device and pretends to be a DLNA Digital Media Player to the rest of the home and other devices.

No doubt the AirPort Express isn’t the only device that could be used by such a system.

Take older Roku devices which were controllable from either a front panel or from custom software running on the PC... a similar wrapper could be built for it utilizing the Roku Control Protocol (PDF warning).

Remember Linksys? They have a far less expensive network audio player (the WMB54G retails for ~$90 and requires custom software to control)... though as far as I can tell the way it is controlled is as yet unknown.

The AudioTron is another possible target.

So in the end... a need exists for a bit of software that pretends to be a DLNA media renderer to the controller/user... and passes along control requests via device specific add-ins to the various kinds of proprietary devices in the home. Simply run and configure this bridging service on a device like a Windows Home Server (where most of the media should already be) and you have an always available setup for streaming your music throughout the home and from any DLNA compatible device to far less expensive ones.

Brilliant, eh?

When beta software attacks

2009-05-29T20:50:00.001-07:00

One of the (many) interesting parts about working at Microsoft is the opportunity to see, use, test and give feedback on early versions of a wide variety of products... it all depends on what your interests are and the openness of other teams.

This evening while working with a beta service something rather… strange happened, so strange that it was flat out wrong and shouldn’t have happened, ever.

What’d I do? I emailed the Program Manager who is my contact for the product explaining the issue, expressing amazement at what happened and even ended it with a big ole “WTH!”... his reply:

Agreed, agreed. Apologies. Two people on the team have been sacked, and we apologize for the bad form. We may have to sack those who sacked the first two, too soon to say…

Good thing this is pre-beta-beta. ;)

Ahh well, at least we are working out bugs... and that he’s a Monty Python fan.

Proof of Concept: Silverlight based VNC client

2009-05-16T11:03:00.001-07:00

Forward: I would advise not looking for potential meanings of the below post or infer potential new features of Windows Home Server as it all involves things I was doing on my own time and for my own nefarious purposes.

The other weekend I had a little free time on my hands and thought: “Wouldn't it be cool (and useful) if there was a Remote Desktop client that ran completely within the context of Silverlight?”

After a quick read of the core spec behind RDP... I decided that a simpler protocol would probably be good to do as a proof of concept first of the general idea.

Which protocol did I pick? RFB (PDF warning), the basis for VNC.

So last weekend I sat down and began writing a proof of concept VNC client, first as a WinForms app but with frequent compilations for Silverlight (to ensure that I only used classes/methods that exist under both), and late Thursday night after writing a quick and dirty 125 line long proxy server (to work around the built in port and host address limitations), it all just worked at last.

Behold, a ugly shot of it in action:

(Click for larger version)

Why so ugly? To save time I only implemented a couple of the most simple video encoding methods that VNC supports which cuts me off from some of the more pretty color possibilities. Adding others won’t be very difficult, however improving some of the core services I wrote would be a better use of my time.

Why XP? When I quit using VNC back in about 2005 it was due to my upgrading to Vista and the two of them not getting along well (due to the Vista security feature known as session 0 isolation)... and I had it handy in a VM.

When will it be released? Certainly not in it’s present form as it is rather insecure at present as it doesn’t support any authentication (mostly because I opted not to write a DES encryption provider which Silverlight lacks). Also likely not in future because of the prototype nature of this code and my almost certainly not having enough time to take on and manage another side project (my day job keeps me plenty busy).

I also need to say that the new improvements to the MediaStreamSource class in Silverlight 3 are pretty cool as they enable you to manually generate a video and specify the raw RGB bits of each frame.

This while does kind of serve as a reminder to me… rather than spend time implementing things that already exist (this, DHCP4WHS, a C# based DNS server I wrote a few years back, plenty of other half completed network clients or file format parsers)... I should focus (when writing code on my own time) on building new things that do not yet exist... shame I’m not the most creative in that way.

What’s wrong with this picture?

2009-05-12T11:38:00.001-07:00

... and the answer is not that I was using Google:

(click for larger)

Do note the address:

Weight Loss – 3 years (and 5 days) in

2009-05-08T10:20:00.001-07:00

With all that is going on both professionally and personally, I forgot to celebrate an important day on Sunday... the 3 year anniversary of me starting Nutrisystem!

History thus far:

Start (5/3/2006): 415.2 lbs

End of Year 1 (5/3/2007): 291.2 (down 124)

End of Year 2 (5/3/2008): 224.2 (down 191)

8/10/2008: 215 lbs (down 200.2)

End of Year 3 (5/3/2009): 252.8

Your eyes do not deceive you, despite having lost ~205 over 30 month period... I've since gained ~40 of that back... to explain some of how that happened, it's important to tell the story of how the weight first got started so many years ago.

History of the weight

Due to food allergies from a very young age (pre-kindergarten), I was put on a diet that avoided not only certain foods I was known to react poorly to (behaviorally, not so much physically), as well as so many of those pesky pesticides and herbicides that some worry about.

Each day I went to school with a lunchbox of foods that didn't quite look the same as what everyone else was having (rather than Cheerios I had Oat-e-oos, rather than chocolate cookies I had carob ones (the list goes on)) and all was well in the world... except for that I'd already had issues making friends and having such a difference made things even harder.

Eventually one day in 4th grade I had enough, I said I was done with the whole diet thing and began to eat normal cafeteria food.

On the surface this wouldn't seem like a bad thing... only because of always eating out of a box at school... I'd never fully learned proper portion control. That... coupled with the fact that all of the cafeteria food was just so delicious (compared to what I had been having for lunch) that I'd when I'd get done with the food on my tray and I'd go back for seconds, sometimes even thirds, all the while almost never going out to recess afterwards.

At this point two things happened... 1) my behavior changed radically and eventually lead to my parents deciding that this the school wasn't the right place for me (something I'd been advocating since the first day of kindergarten in fact), 2) I began to gain weight.

Prior to quitting the diet, I was a fairly scrawny kid, not super short, but not at all on the taller side of things, pretty average in fact (except for when you'd turn me on my side I'd virtually disappear), but after quitting the weight just began to grow and I never really took steps to prevent it.

What about the recent 40?

All was going well last fall where I'd largely plateaued ~210 lbs, was going to the gym 2-3x a week and doing both strength and cardio training to try to eliminate some of the remaining fat pockets (which were leading to awful muffin top issues and requiring me to wear slightly baggy shirts) and generally boost my metabolism, something I'd really not tried through much working out previously... then things got busy.

In November I was sent to PDC & WinHEC in LA, and due to what I knew was going to be a tight schedule that would also likely involve me having a difficult time doing the additional grocery shopping I would need to do, I opted not to bring my food with.

I figured that a week or two of mostly eating out wasn't going to kill me or set me to far back.

Then came a 2+ week long vacation spread between South Dakota, North Dakota and Minnesota and involved plenty of good home-style cooking, a pair of Thanksgiving dinners (in the same day no less) and more eating out, most of which to precluded my being able to bring my own food with.

Come December I was trying to get things back on track... only to have some family visit and again... more eating out and even a big ole Christmas dinner.

Somewhere along the way... I had a glimpse into something I'd long forgotten... a semblance of being 'normal' and not having to obsess over what I eat.

This bout with normalcy was only a half-assed one really as while I still mostly stuck with my Nutrisystem foods... but would also sometimes forget to bring lunch and have something (almost certainly bad for me) from Café 43 on campus (the cafeteria a short walk down a few flights of stairs and out a door from my office), however this level of cheating was enough to negate much of the goodness from the parts of the diet I was following.

Then... the fire came, completely throwing my personal life into a bit of chaos which created a bit of a sense of 'awe *(&$-it', at which point I did a little more fast food and other bad things I shouldn't have.

On the plus side though, all the while I stayed at least semi-regular with the gym, even to the point that I decided at one point that walking to work on most days I wasn't going to the gym was probably wearing my legs out a bit so I should pick one (the gym won out).

A couple of times since the 'awe *(&$-it' I've tried to restart the diet, usually going a couple of weeks before straying to various levels of badness... though I am hopeful that the last restart sticks.

Unfortunately though, hitting 210 again is likely going to be more difficult the second time than it was the first... partially because this time around my body knows what I'm trying to do (and likely doesn't like it)... but also because in the ~9 months I've regularly been going to the gym (except for most of November) I've built of a fair bit of strength in certain areas:

(Entertaining sidebar: Unfortunately a few months ago I had to buy a new arm band for my Zune as the old one seemed to be getting smaller and smaller as time went on and kept falling off when at the gym, go fig?)

And we all know that muscle mass is still mass, so even if I am replacing 1 lb of fat with 1 lb of muscle, while I may trim/firm up a bit, the scale will still report me as the same weight.

So... that's my report on the last year, major successes during the first half... and major setbacks during the second, with any luck by the time year 4 rolls around I'll be in a far better place physically than I am today.

Although the recent 'awe *(&$-it' stage also reminds me that at one point I am going to need to figure out what I'm going to do when I eventually reach and can maintain a weight/build I am happy with and move away from the Nutrisystem foods... as my cooking skills are largely non-existent (which is another reason for the initial weight gain).

Photos

So now without further ado... the requisite photo montage:

Before start:

Year 1:

Year 2:

Year 3 (on Wednesday):

While it may not look like there is much of a difference between year 2 and 3... take my word for it, it's there. While the shirt(s) in year 2 and 3 look the same, while both are labeled XLT, the one worn in year 3 fits far better than the one in year 2 I'm sad to say.

One upshot

Before closing, I do need to point out one strange benefit of what has happened in the last 6 months... arguments have been easier to win.

A few months back while disagreeing with a co-worker over the correct implementation for something during a meeting and rather than finish things there, someone suggested (rightly) that we meet later to discuss the issue or just arm wrestle over it... to which I agreed and without thinking said "lets just do a quick arm wrestle now to save time"... to which the co-worker said "I don't know... let me see your arms" at which point I pulled up the sleeve of my shirt and the co-worker jumped back and decided not to proceed with the match.

Drop baby drop! ... or 2TB becoming price competitive?

2009-04-24T10:09:00.001-07:00

Even before joining the Windows Home Server team I could just never have enough hard drive space and was always thrilled as new and bigger drives came out and prices across the board eventually came down due to competition.

This morning I got an email from Fry’s with their weekly specials and the one that caught my eye... an internal 2.0 TB HD for $229, something that completely blew my mind as largely the same drive is sold on NewEgg (and elsewhere) in an OEM configuration for $300 and the lowest price on Live Cashback is being reported as ~$280.

(It’s also worth noting that Fry’s is also selling the 1.5 TB Seagate (retail boxed) for just $117)

While I don’t know if the Fry’s price will be matched by any other companies, it does suddenly put 2TB drives into the mix in a more competitive way as it lowers the cost per gigabyte from 14-15 cents to 11.5 cents which is rapidly approaching affordability and competitiveness.

How does that compare to other drives on the market?

The 1.5TB drive from Seagate generally goes for around 8 cents per gig, while 1.0 TB drives generally come in around 9.5-10 cents/gig.

While my Home Server at present *only* has 5.91 TB of storage, I certainly look forward to these prices coming down even further as time goes on and my storage requirements increase.

M&M Time!

2009-03-24T11:46:00.001-07:00

As is the custom… this morning I put 1 pound of M&M’s outside of my door to celebrate my 1 year anniversary with Microsoft:

It’s been one heck of a year and here’s to many more, and more versions and updates to Windows Home Server.

Btw… have you downloaded Power Pack 2 yet?

As nifty as this tradition is (sadly not all honor it, tisk tisk!)... it can be a bit dangerous at times, take for example the bucket one co-worker left out his door for his 15 year anniversary back in January:

I’m not going to admit just how many scoops I had out of that bowel, or how long it took the team to get through it.

Fire Bad! Fire Bad!

2009-02-21T10:20:00.001-08:00

For most waking up on a Friday, they wake up happy that the week is nearly over and start planning for the weekend… yesterday I didn’t have that joy when around 4:30 am I awoke to the sound of the UPS in my second bedroom beeping and the loud talking and walking of individuals outside, wondering what time it was I looked over to my alarm clock to find that I had no power in my bedroom as well. A quick look through my blinds revealed some emergency vehicles outside of my building. Now being awake and not likely able to fall back asleep I opted to put on some clothes so I could go outside and see what all of the fuss was about when I heard a knock at the door... it was a Redmond Police Officer telling me that they were evacuating the building due to a fire, I told him I'd be out in just another moment as I needed to finish dressing.

Upon returning to my bedroom I noticed that one of the wall outlets had an eerie orange glow within/behind it, I grabbed the officer and told him that I think I’d found the fire.

Fast forward a little while as the fire department went apt to apt in the building, hunting for the fire and it's signs while wielding axes and devices capable of detecting hot spots, all the while only getting to kick down 2 doors as their occupants instinctively locked them when they'd left at the request of the police earlier.

Not long later I heard a couple of the emergency personal mention an apartment number, 131, as it turned out they thought it had come from mine and a quick look through my bedroom window seemed to confirm that:

Our first look at one of the holes:

Apparently a short time after 4 am someone on the 3rd floor of the building placed a 911 call because his bedroom was filling with smoke that seemed to be coming through the floor, smoke caused by an electrical outlet in my bedroom wall 2 floors below.

Luckily for all involved the damage was minor with the fire only burning inside of my wall, through the firewall and into the wall of the neighboring apartment and with only smoke which made it to the higher floors, though to verify this the fire department tore out large chunk of the wall in 6 different apartments and poked holes in the ceilings of two of them.

While similar removal of sheetrock was seen in all 6 affected units, mine and the neighbor (who you can see through my (now) half missing firewall):

Yes that is the other apartment you see over there.

After the fire was out and the smoke cleared the Deputy Fire Marshal and a few inspectors went in to survey the damage. The consensus seemed to be that the fire was caused by an apparent fault in a 10-15 year old wall socket and actually occurred inside of the wall, likely unrelated to what I had plugged into it at the time (a cell phone and cordless phone base station, only one the plugs of which showed ANY sign of heat damage, and even then minimal)).

All is well though, no one was injured, no one (except for the building owners) suffered any property damage other than some limited smoke damage, personally my renters insurance will be paying for the time I spend outside of my apartment as well as cleaning of those items that now stink.

A big thank you needs to go out to the Redmond Police and Fire Departments for their prompt actions yesterday morning which helped make the whole thing happen pretty smoothly... or as smoothly as a fire can be.

I am fortunate to live in a good neighborhood as the Fire Department is a straight shot down a single road, less than a mile away and the Police Station is even closer which is why both were able to arrive while the original caller was still on the phone with 911... and because of their closeness (and the hour) they did not turn on their sirens, just their lights which was why the police had to wake most people up by banging on their doors... which to some was a mixed blessing.

The local FD also deserves major props for their amazing parking job. The apartment I live at is on a rather large hill and the local FD drove 4 large trucks down the hill and successfully parked:

Even more impressive (if we ignore their professionalism, stamina, willingness to serve, ability to wake up and perform at any hour of the day and more)… was seeing these trucks back up this hill successfully!

This event has raised some interesting questions in my mind in different areas: technically, personally and socially, all things I will discuss at a later time, but they are for another time, as right now I am enjoying the free breakfast at a local hotel… though Care Bears is on the TV down here, so maybe it’s not all good… mmm, seasoned potatoes.

Accosted by airport security... over a T-shirt

2009-02-15T19:26:00.001-08:00

By now we’ve all seen the new Microsoft marketing campaign known as “I’m a PC” (aka Life Without Walls)... and as part of that shirts and other wares can be found quite easily, I am not only an owner of one, but an wearer of it as well:

Back in October I had the pleasure of attending PDC 2008 in LA and had a great time talking to existing users of Windows Home Server, educating and evangelizing Windows Home Server to users who know little/anything about it as well attending sessions... and being harassed a little by airport security.

On the Sunday beforehand when walking through airport security at the Seattle airport I had the TSA official at the metal detector read my shirt and say “You’re a PC eh?” and take a step towards me and pretend to kick me in the shins a few times and ask “You probably get that a lot don’t you?”

Me: “Nope, first time”

Him: “You know, I actually like my PC, I’ve had it since... 2002 and it still works great”

Me: “That’s great to hear...”

Him: “... only it is getting a little old and I’m thinking of replacing it with a Mac”

Me: “That’s OK, Mac’s run Windows pretty good”

We had a nice chat, but he had work he needed to do so it didn’t go much further.

Fast forward a few months... week before last my mother was traveling through Minneapolis airport, wearing a slightly different “I’m a PC” shirt I gave her for Christmas (sure I’m cheap, but at least it’s not cheap crap).

After making it through airport security she immediately called me to tell of the following exchange:

TSA Officer: “Um... what’s a PC? Are you a personal companion?”

My Mom: “You know... a personal computer?”

TSA Officer: “A what?”

My Mom: “Not a Mac”

TSA Officer: “Oh!”

So not only do have TSA officers pretending to commit acts of violence against passengers (and yet we can’t tell a bad joke involving knives, bombs, or pastries of mass destruction)... we have some who are apparently oblivious to major marketing campaigns from both Microsoft and Apple... this is not good.

Brendan’s Brilliant Idea #242525

2009-01-12T21:57:00.001-08:00

Screen protectors are nothing new. They exist for PDAs, mp3 players and even computers. Most exist to protect the screen from scratches, others from prying eyes, I want one that protects it from the fingers of other people.

Call me crazy, but little bothers me more than to see the finger printed smudge of someone who has touched my monitor, and it’s even more bothersome when I’m sitting there as they touch my monitor to point at something.

What I wouldn’t give for a small, electrified field that would zap the finger of unsuspecting persons who dared to put their finger too close to my monitor.

I’m not asking for a lethal shock… just something that’d make them say “yea… I’m never doing that again”… because my verbal reminders don’t seem to be enough.

I tell ya, it’s a million dollar idea.

Idea: Reducing the “Apple Tax” for developers

2008-12-30T19:10:00.001-08:00

There are two primary reasons I do not own an iPhone today, both relate to my not being a typical user:

AT&T Wireless is unwilling/unable to port my current South Dakota number over to their network (and I’m not about to give up my existing number).
The ‘Apple Tax’ involved in getting to develop for it.

... well that and my not being hip and trendy.

Even if my number were portable... or I was willing to get a 425 area code number I’d still run into a bit of an issue as with any kind of smartphone, I’d wanna write a custom app or two for the thing and to do so I’d need a Mac to run the free SDK... the cheapest new one that can be had today runs ~$599 (Mac Mini), while the cheapest new PC I could find (without much looking) comes in closer to ~$299 (Dell Inspiron 530S).

Given the costs involved, it sure looks like one is a lot easier to pick up and start developing on/for than the other.

I’m forced to wonder... what would happen if Apple were to make their SDK (and related emulator) available for Windows PCs in some form. Given the current size of the Macintosh market share (~14%), it would seem to make a lot of sense to expand their developer market share to the predominant (development) platform.

Would such a move increase their their third-party developer ecosystem? Or would it reduce the number of Macs being sold?

Porting the system too much to to consider? Why not use another layer of emulation?

This could be done through a downloadable virtual machine which contained a stripped down version of Mac OS X, the entire SDK, iPhone emulator and whatever other tooling is needed to build an iPhone app.

Ready to deploy? If they were to use VMWare Player for their virtual machine software, VMWare’s USB support would make that a breeze.

Interesting idea I think... but still moot for me as I’m largely stuck with Verizon (or Sprint or Altel (for now)) and horribly disappointed with the Samsung Omnia I waited 2 weeks for arrive and that I returned less than 3 hours after getting out of the box (it would have been sooner but I had a couple of errands to run first).

Redmond on the first day of spring

2008-12-23T11:34:00.001-08:00

That’s right. You heard me... yesterday, December 22nd was the first day of the spring!

Says who? Says Joe Soucheray, Grand Poobah of The Royal Order of the 21sters.

Who are they? We are a group of people who have willing surrendered normalcy so as to engage in psychological delusion to stave off the the darkness and chill of winter that affects you normal people.

To quote Joe on Sunday:

We are not astronomers, climatologists or meteorologists. None of the scientific disciplines for us. We are conjurers. We make winter disappear.

Yes, yes, very well, we assign the two dark months, November and December, to winter, but they are the two months filled with feasts and twinkling lights.

Spring can last as long as a 21ster wishes it to last. Personally, because the NFL has pushed the Super Bowl into February, I usually start my summer on Super Bowl Sunday, by which time we will have gained at least an hour of light over today.

Summer will feature some tough days, last April attesting, but we endure. Our dobbers are a bit down June 21, but then we buck up with the cheery realization that autumn will be long, lingering and often warm and humid.

Why, by the time tomorrow rolls around, we are over the hump. We have had our two months of winter just as the Normal People are starting to feel the oppressive weight of the washed-out landscape, the arthritic creak of their own bones.

Not us. Our arms linked, our mugs sloshing, we dance and dance our cares away. To want to be a member is to be a member. You are in if you choose to admit it: You are not normal.

In celebration of the start of spring (and the less than favorable plow-to-person ratio ( (c) 2008 Brendan Grant) of the area), I opted to walk the 3 miles to work yesterday (granted I try to do that 2x a week), and along the way took some photos for those who have yet to venture out (of which I know there are plenty):

(Click for larger images on Flickr)

Starting off, hardly plowed and not at all shoveled:

Almost every manhole cover appeared this way:

The ‘farmhouse’ next to RedWest:

Overlooking 520 while on the 40th street bridge:

Continuing along the 40th street bridge:

Unused shuttle after shuttle:

Between buildings 44 & 43, there had to be a solid foot of snow on the bench:

From the third floor of building 43, looking out towards building 42:

What happens when you don’t shovel the sidewalk before it gets trampled... ice:

Seattle area weather haiku

2008-12-22T19:52:00.001-08:00

The Seattle area has had some issues with snow over the last few days and due to a less than favorable plow-to-person ratio (c) 2008 Brendan Grant (yes I hereby copyright in text that phrase I’ve used for quite some time (including during my Microsoft job interview at least twice)) the area has more or less shutdown. Roads are near empty with mostly just 4-wheel drive vehicles out and about (I’ve yet to see a single Prius on the road), the Microsoft Redmond campus is nearly deserted between some folks on vacation and other not able to get out of their houses due to snowed & iced over roads.

This morning things got a little more creative than just “_____ is an ice rink, wth” (wfh = working from home) on the team email alias as people emailed in as unable to make it to the office, below are some memorable quotes from members of the Windows Home Server team today (in order):

A white blanket lies
On the roads, threatening death
I’m working from home

The blanket lies not.
No benefit tempting fate
when VPN works.

Said _____ while looking at snow,
To the office I really should go.
But I would get wet;
Instead I’ll just get
Another cuppa this joe.

(I’ll see your haiku and raise you a limerick.)

Said ____ I just don’t understands
Why people whose names end in ____
Think there’s too much snow
To give work a go
Who knows where this limerick lands?

Should ____________ pass away
Then I would go outside and play
But it really is broke
And I want it to smoke
So I’m stuck to my screen night and day.

A boy living on a slick hill
To work drive his hummer he will
His commute won't last
He'll drive pretty fast
Since most other folks will sit still

(names have been removed so as to protect the fearful of the snow, ice, cold and skidding)

Microsoft blogger extraordinaire Raymond Chen also has some commentary on the weather from those at the Fargo, North Dakota campus.

Best part IMO:

Roads: In light of the continuing snowfall and icy road conditions, most local roads are snow-covered and slippery and will remain that way until March. For information on current road conditions, please look out the window.

Photos of my own of this so called ‘snow’ event should follow tomorrow.

What's wrong with calling home?

2008-12-18T18:48:00.001-08:00

We've all heard how evil it is for an application to call home. Sure there are evil things out there like adware, spyware, and other such bits... but what about basic usage reporting?

For years web analytics tools such as AWStats, Google Analytics, SiteMeter and many others have been created and used to allow web developers and site owners insight into who is using their web sites and how. It occurred to me a while ago that there is no good way for the average desktop application developer to have similar insights into their own apps.

Why is this important?

Call me crazy, but there is a fairly important thing that I like many developers out there tend to forget about the software we write...

We are not typical users of the software we build!

This means that when we prioritize features and fixes, our priorities for features and fixes are probably pretty different than our users.

Wouldn't it be nice if we had a way to... see inside of the heads of our users and see how they use our applications as well as how our apps respond to them.

How many plugs ins are installed? What are the most commonly used functions used? How much time does the user spend using the application? How many files do they have open at a time? How often do they save their work?

All are vital questions to know... but how?

Sure looking over the shoulder of a user, or using a one-way mirror or even a poll or mailing can provide useful information into what they want... it just doesn't give you a very good sample size, and can also be fairly expensive and difficult.

And this all assumes the users are telling you the truth and not just the truth as they think it to be at the time.

This need and use of such information isn't anything new... Microsoft does it through the Customer Experience Improvement Program, Valve does it through their monthly Steam Hardware Survey, Winamp does it, Skype does it... and they are just the ones I can think of off the top of my head.

From the sounds of it, each of these is a home grown solution that is used just by them... even in the case of CEIP which is used through countless Microsoft products (for more technical details, see this Channel 9 interview)... and they are great for those with the time and resources to build such a thing.

Having a mechanism for application vendors, be they hobbyists in their parents basement or full scale enterprises to honestly collect basic anonymous usage data would be invaluable... only it doesn't appear that there are very many options to do this short of rolling ones own.

Take a look around... see what you can find, sadly you wont find much.

To date I've found only two options in fact.

The first is a new system from PreEmptive Solutions called Runtime Intelligence Services that they say will also be built into the free version of Dotfuscator when it ships as part of Visual Studio 2010.

Another interesting possibility comes from a gentleman named Benji Smith who is building an entire Desktop Analytics Platform on his own and thus far has released a beautiful looking mockup and tells me he's been hard at work on the system since June or so and and hopes to have something to release come Q109 according to his latest update.

Two solutions... compared to how many for the web? Sure web analytics tends to be easier as there is already a huge amount of data being collected through normal server logs... but why aren't there more on the desktop? Why does this seem to be such a new area?

Am I missing any other easy to use systems for creating opt-in anonymous usage reporting for desktop applications?

This does raise an interesting question... is this something the underlying platform could/should provide?

Sound crazy?

Today Windows developers can use Windows Quality Online Services (Winqual) to learn about their own driver and application crashes and hangs (Channel 9 Video)... but nothing for general usage metrics.

Is there a place for Microsoft (or any other platform provider be the platform an OS or application) to provide hooks for such reporting?

Anyone can write basic call home logic today with varying degrees of anonymity and security, at least when you have a common underpinning of some kind you can have a common on/off switch as well as common reporting criteria.

Speaking of such reporting... all I've really talked about so far is applications that ask for permission to send home anonymous usage data. What about those that call home in some way and are less than obvious? Other than spyware or other evil software... no one does that right? Wrong... maybe.

Ever see an application that asks for your permission to "Automatically check for updates"? What do you think the chances are it is only... checking the contents of say a version.txt file on a remote web server and comparing it against it's internal version, and if there is a difference prompting the user to go to a website to download a new version?

Sure such a mechanism is simple... I'd bet good money it's also pretty unlikely to be used very often.

Even if the application is just reporting the current version number, OS and language (so as to be able to determine which is the proper upgrade )... storing such information, even for a short period of time is invaluable to the developer to know who just how many people are using their app, roughly where they are, and on what sort of PC they are using.

Am I accusing anyone of shenanigans who might be doing this? Absolutely not! I'm just pointing it out that other mechanisms exist and are likely used today, but that doesn't negate the usefulness/need for something else.

In conclusion, and in summary...

Download numbers and forum posts, phone calls, emails and customer service calls do not tell application developers enough about their applications in the field, how they are used, on what they are used, how stable they are or for that matter... IF they are being used are all are important to know. Provided we have the users permission to do so, shouldn't we collect and use such information so long as we do not collect or use personally identifiable information?

Building ones own solution for this is an option, however it is a very significant investment and I can only hope we see more products brought to market, whether they be from companies like PreEmptive Solutions, platform makers like Microsoft and Apple, individual professionals like Benji Smith, or an open source project or three on SourceForge or CodePlex.

*Note the above is written without any insight or authority regarding/over any new Microsoft projects/products that might contain such functionality in future, nor do I plan on building such a thing and bringing it to market... it's simply one guy wishing such a system existed... somewhere, and that he and others could leverage in his own code.

Laptop woes and wahoos

2008-11-30T10:56:00.001-08:00

What’s worse than having your 5 year old POS of a laptop die on you midway through a 2+ week long out of state vacation?

To have the much needed bag of screws that I collected when I was disassembling the laptop in my uncles living room in North Dakota while trying to troubleshoot the problem (turned out to be a short due to a frayed monitor cable) go MIA after I finish putting back together the LCD assembly after the needed replacement parts arrived!

I remember seeing the bag of screws yesterday when I got back from my trip… I’ll just be damned if I know where it went.

All is not lost though.. the MSI Wind I picked up at Best Buy for $350 a couple of days later is one hell of a machine. The keyboard took a bit of getting used, the battery is smaller than I’d like and the case has a tenancy to make audible snap or crack sounds when being held (but not during use)… but I still love this little thing. It would have been nice though if they would have left the ram user accessible.

Future of my Add-ins

2008-09-26T08:14:00.001-07:00

Traditionally most companies are fine with their employees making a buck on the side or donating their time or services just so long as doing so doesn't conflict of interest with the their day job either through causing ones work quality to go down or otherwise compete with the company.

Microsoft is little different. Should I decide today to write a useful add-in or two for... Windows Live Messenger or Internet Explorer... so long as I don't use any inside information, am doing it on my own time and not competing with Microsoft I can (within reason) do what I want which is relatively easy as when it comes to many products like Live Messenger and Internet Explorer... I have no inside knowledge.... with Windows Home Server it's a slightly different story.

Because of the nature Tab Scroller, Tab Reorder, Tab Manager and Media Connect Controller and their reliance on fully unsupported and undocumented capabilities of the Windows Home Server Console... it would be inappropriate for me to continue work on them given my role on the Windows Home Server team and as a result have decided that I must largely abandon them going forward as it would be virtually impossible for me to continue them without somehow using knowledgeable I have gained about the inner workings of the console since joining the team.

While users of them are more than free to continue to use them, they must be aware that there will be no future releases of them from me (nor will I be releasing the source code to them) and what little support I will be able to offer will mostly have to do with informing you when you should stop using them due to a change in the console that could cause them to stop working and/or cause other problems as I did with Tab Manager back in June.

DHCP4WHS and Web Folders however are a different story... neither of them rely on any undocumented/unsupported bits of the Home Server Console (except for their use of HomeServerControls which isn’t quite kosher) and provide valuable services that are accessible outside of the console and would be usable (with a few UI tweaks) on a platform other than Windows Home Server... I intend to keep pursuing their development on my own time until such a time when/if similar functionality is built into the product*, completely run out of time to keep maintaining them (which is well over due) or am otherwise distracted by something shiny.

Why did this take so long to say this? It has been 6 months and 2 days since I started the new job.

Unfortunately the new bosses like to keep me busy (something anyone who has written me about Windows Home Server has likely heard) and as a result I haven’t had large amounts of side time for maintenance (or even this post) as well as the fact that it took a little time to get a few things approved internally (which I got several months ago). Why was approval necessary? As I said above, because I now work from Microsoft and on the Windows Home Server Team, any bit of code I write and release automatically could be seen by some as a ‘Microsoft’ release even when it is clearly not. This issue/view is made even more difficult when I release code related to Windows Home Server so it is important to make clear any separations of responsibility.

So to recap... DHCP4WHS and Web Folders are not dead. They continue to be my add-ins and will be maintained so long as I do not use any inside knowledge of this or any other products I have learned of while on the job and have the time to continue to work on them. Responsibility for them both in terms of maintenance and support are mine and only mine. Neither are in anyway supported nor endorsed by Microsoft or the Windows Home Server team. Stay tuned for more details.

*This statement is not intended to convey a sense that Windows Home Server will include such functionality in future, I am simply saying when I'd likely stop work on them (short of both reaching the mythical 'done' point).

Must resist urge to spend money...

2008-08-28T22:51:00.001-07:00

My favorite Microsoft product (Windows Home Server) is made successful not only through great software, but also through the availability of inexpensive massive hard drives (and plenty of them) and last month when Seagate announced their upcoming 1.5 terabyte disk... there were quite a few smiles to be seen as it was another sign of the importance of disk storage and how important a product like Windows Home Server is with effectively using it.

<side note>... I really need to stop listening to the marketing folks don't I?</side note>

Like many I'd been wondering when these bad boys would be coming to market and for how much... and today I heard it through the grape vine today that Seagate has gone on sale with their massive ST31500341AS's for an MSRP of ~$300... but it seems Amazon is now selling them for $215.99... oh so tempting despite my typical price point for buying HD's is ~$100-$120.

As things sit today, my Home Server today has a nice 2.5 terabytes of disk space within (1x500gb & 3x750gb) and currently *only* have ~500 gigs free... I just may need to think about swapping out one of those 750's one of these weeks... oh so tempting.

200

2008-08-10T08:26:00.001-07:00

...or "Two century club"

...or "longest 8 lbs ever!"

My long running weight loss campaign has hit another milestone today with the scale telling me I'd reached 215 lbs, 200.2 lbs down from where I'd started back in May of 2006.

Believe it or not... I don't mind it taking ~2 years to reach this milestone. I mind the fact that 3 months to lose the last 8 lbs to bring me to this point from the 2 year in blog post back in May.

Why'd it take so long? Two reasons I see... first and foremost is that my body has now caught on to what I'm trying to do to it and where it is actively fighting back against me. Coupled with the fact that I keep having people putting good food in my face at work and me not always saying no... things have slowed pretty good.

It's all good though... 200 down... 20 to go and yet another reminder I REALLY need to get into the gym and use the free membership I've got more than I have (twice in 4 months).

Power Pack 1 and Tab Manager

2008-06-09T15:13:00.001-07:00

With the recent public release the Release Candidate of Windows Home Server Power Pack 1 it is imperative that any users of Tab Manager take special care when upgrading to avoid being incessantly nagged.

Problem

Due to changes in the way the Console in Power Pack 1 loads tabs and the way I hid tabs from the pre-PP1 tab loader, some add-ins may cause Tab Manager to crash on startup as well as see duplicate tabs within the console.

This situation is especially likely if any Microsoft tabs were put under the control of Tab Manager.

Solution

It is highly suggested that all users of Tab Manager use it to restore all tabs to their normal state and only then uninstall Tab Manager prior to upgrading to Power Pack 1 (RC or final), to do so:

Launch the Home Server Console
Launch Settings
Select the Tab Manager tab
Make sure the "Hide Microsoft Assemblies" check box is unchecked
Double click on each item listed in the "Managed Assemblies" list until the list is empty
Click the OK button
Click Yes to on Restart Required prompt
Re-launch the Home Server Console
Launch Settings
Select the Add-ins Tab
Locate Tab Manager from list of currently installed add-ins and click it's Uninstall button
Restart the Home Server Console

Note that if you have already installed the Power Pack 1 beta and you are seeing messages on startup of the console that certain Microsoft tabs (displayed as HomeServerConsoleTab.TabManager.Health.dll, HomeServerConsoleTab.TabManager.People.dll, HomeServerConsoleTab.TabManager.Sharing.dll, or HomeServerConsoleTab.TabManager.Storage.dll) you will need to manually remove them yourself after logging into your Home Server with Remote Desktop in order to remove the error as after Power Pack 1 is installed, Tab Manager is unable to over write the existing files (by design in Tab Manager for safety)).

Failure to restore the tabs to their original state prior to installation or deleting these files (if necessary) will not break your Home Server, it will instead lead to less than desirable operation through excessive warning messages on startup and some duplicated tabs.

If there are any questions on this issue feel free to post questions here or email me directly.

Update 7/25/2008:

For those who have encountered this issue with Power Pack 1 and were unable to use the above steps before installing Power Pack 1 you will instead have to do the following:

Log into your Windows Home Server with Remote Desktop (or log in locally with a keyboard, mouse and monitor if applicable).
Navigate to the server's C:\Program Files\Windows Home Server\ directory.
Identify all files that match the following pattern: HomeServerConsoleTab.TabManager.*.dll (where * is a wild-card for any name)
Rename all files noted in step 3 so as to remove the 'TabManager.' section (ie renaming HomeServerConsoleTab.TabManager.SomeAddin.dll to HomeServerConsoleTab.SomeAddin.dll)
Relaunch the Home Server Console to view tabs in their original, Tab Managerless state.
Uninstall Tab Manager through the Admin Console if not already done.

If while renaming a file Windows reports that a file with the new name already exists, this is likely due to an updated copy file of the file having been installed, meaning that the file with 'TabManager' in the filename is the older version which can be delete (or preferably moved to another directory temporarily in case it is needed).