Vista Beta 2 Installed June 30, 2006
Posted by techgrrl in Windows Vista.add a comment
I installed Vista on Virtual Server 2005 without incident. I allocated 528 MB of RAM. The install took about 6GB of disk space and five hours. If you’re going to install Vista on Virtual Server, be sure to download the Virtual Machine Additions for Vista Beta 2 as described at Virtually Vista.
Medical Excess Data Loss: A Local Break-In? June 30, 2006
Posted by techgrrl in Uncategorized.1 comment so far
Medical Excess, an insurer and member company of AIG, had a file server stolen in March. The file server contained the names and social security numbers of almost one million people. In late May, the company started notifying its insurance brokers of the data loss. In mid-June, a handful of the folks whose information was comprised started receiving letters in the mail from Medical Excess.
Rest assured, Medical Express tells us the data is password protected and the thieves were only interested in the hardware. Several articles mention that the server was stolen from ME’s Midwest office. I’m guessing they mean the office in Indianapolis, since that’s the only Midwest location listed on their Web site.
According to AIG’s Identify Theft and Fraud Division, “Personal information such as a social security number or credit card number can be compromised in seconds”. The site goes on to say “Regardless of how cautious or prudent you may be, the threat to your assts has never been greater. ” I concur.
Office 2007 Slips and Vista Beta Goes Bye-bye June 30, 2006
Posted by techgrrl in Office 12.add a comment
Microsoft announced that the Office 2007 release to enterprise agreement customers is slipping from October to January. The product will be on store shelves in early 2007.
Today may be the last day you can download the Vista beta. Microsoft hinted that you may not be able to activate the beta after today, either. You can download the bits from MSDN.
Getting Started with Project Glidepath June 29, 2006
Posted by techgrrl in Development.add a comment
Project Glidepath is a new way to deliver electronic content within Visual Studio 2005. Instead of just providing more documentation, Project Glidepath places existing documentation from sources like MSDN into the context of what it takes to build software from a certain viewpoint.
A viewpoint is a perspective on building software. For example, when building an application you must consider issues such as architecture, data access, and user interface. That is, you have to make decisions about each of these issues. Do I use strongly typed datasets or custom business objects? Do I use a Web or Windows interface? A great deal of guidance has been published on answering these questions. Unfortunately, the guidance isn’t always there when you need it.
Project Glidepath packages this guidance for the various technical and nontechnical viewpoints of a software application project. Best of all, the content is delivered to you right inside Visual Studio 2005 in the solution you’re developing.
The objective behind Glidepath is to help you get the most of the overwhelming number of new features in Vista and version 3.0 of the .NET Framework (formerly WinFX). Most of the content available for Glidepath relates to Vista, but it needn’t stay that way for long. Glidepath uses RSS feeds to add new content, and anyone can publish content for Glidepath.
To get started using Glidepath, download the beta at http://projectglidepath.net. All you need is Visual Studio 2005 Standard Edition or better and SQL Server 2005 Express. You don’t need to install anything related to Vista or version 3.0 of .NET. You can view a few screenshots that I uploaded to Flickr.
Getting Nervous June 28, 2006
Posted by techgrrl in Uncategorized.add a comment
I ordered a barebones system from Monarch Computer on June 14. I expected it to ship in about five days based on information on their Web site. On 6/26, I received an e-mail from them informing me they’re running a few days late on my order. I’m OK with that, but here’s the rub: They’ve got my money.
That’s right. They charged my credit card on 6/14. I thought that was a little fishy at the time, but I wasn’t too worried because I figured I’d have my computer in about a week or so.
Wait, it gets better. On their Web site, they encourage you to go to ResellerRatings.com to read about how wonderful they are. I took them up on their offer, and this is where the getting nervous part takes over. I read review after review about how they charge your credit card first, ship later (sometimes much later), and give you the runaround in between. Sigh. I’m still hoping for the best.
Update: 20 minutes after I sent Monarch an e-mail to inquire about my computer, my order’s status was updated from Barebone Test (where it has been for the past seven days or so) to Barebone Build. Presumably that means I’ll see a shipped status sometime soon.
Upgrade Update June 27, 2006
Posted by techgrrl in Infrastructure.add a comment
I ordered a new machine while I was on vacation. It should’ve been here by now, but the vendor e-mailed me to say it’s late. Thanks, I knew that.
When I got back from vacation, the system drive on my primary test server conked out. I made an emergency trip to Fry’s where I picked up a Seagate 7200 RPM 250GB drive. I ended up being out of commission for about 24 hours. Getting the data off the old drive was a pain.
Fry’s had a good deal on an ECS motherboard over the weekend. I don’t know that much about ECS, but apparently they’re one of the top three mobo manufacturers in the world. If you’ve never seen a mobo manufactured, check out these two articles about two different tours of ECS facilities(1, 2). If you aren’t that familiar with mobo terminology, you might check out this printed circuit board (PCB) entry from Wikipedia first.
Bad Service Gets Noticed, Finally June 27, 2006
Posted by techgrrl in My opinion.add a comment
It seems I’m not the only to notice that customer service is in a crisis in this country. Check out this video from CNN which covers two recent incidents with Comcast and AOL. Of course, both Comcast and AOL very predictably fired the employees involved. Too late, the stockholders already noticed.
I find both these incidents relevant. I, too, went through hell trying to get Brighthouse to come out and replace my cable modem. The AOL story reminds of what we just went through trying to cancel our Vonage account. After weeks of dealing with Vonage, they finally agreed to cancel us. A few days after I got my new phone service, a Vonage telemarketer called me and tried to get me to order Vonage. She offered to put right me through to tech support to iron out whatever complaints we had with our service. No thanks.
