blogs.catapultsystems.com

For those who haven’t already picked this up from my earlier post about using technology to go back to basics I am into being frugal and especially into how to use technology to actually live a more frugal life. I’m a huge advocate of the Dave Ramsey approach to finances for my household and as part of that we have made some changes over the years to really save money where we can. We’ve made a lot of changes around how we handle our finances including going on a written budget, paying stuff off, doing things ourselves (oil changes, mowing, etc), ditching the dish (previous article), using the grocery game, getting better deals for things like internet access, turning off the home phone, shopping utilities/insurance, and other areas. It really hit me today how being frugal is now be...

An updated version for the ReSearch This management pack has been created for the R2 version of the management pack and has been updated to work for MOM 2005 as well. There had been issues with this management pack and how it integrated with the new systemcentercentral.com website which should be addressed with the updated version. This management pack provides an easy way to investigate alerts in Operations Manager (and System Center Essentials, and MOM) and search for resolutions which the community has found when the alert occurs. The updated version of this management pack is available at: http://www.systemcentercentral.com/PackCatalog/PackCatalogDetails/tabid/145/IndexID/21716/Default.aspx. I am working on a version which will work on OpsMgr 2007 RTM – hopefully later in the we...

Consider the following situation:  you work in a secure organization, such as a bank, and need to limit the types of USB storage devices that can be used in the company.  Furthermore, if the storage device is approved, then it must be encrypted.  And if it is not an approved USB storage device, then you need to prevent access to it.  Makes sense, right?  This is a common situation that many IT folks face in secure environments.  As manufacturers of USB storage continue to fit more memory into smaller form factors, the risk of someone walking out of your organization with a hefty amount of sensitive data becomes more of a vital concern that IT needs to prevent.  This concern is a tough one to address.  From IT’s point of view, data theft is simply not acceptable, period.  But from the ...

One of the things that I’ve learned in the last few years is that there isn’t anyone I have met who does not know more than I do about at least one thing. The topic itself may vary (technology, life, marriage, spirituality, politics or even identifying what ran into my car most recently) but in all cases there is someone out there who knows more than I do on on at least one topic. This also applies when focusing on an area of specialization. I am a Microsoft Operations Manager geek. I am at the point in my life where from a technical perspective I am living and breathing this particular technology on a daily basis. However, I am well aware that even within a specific technology there are people who truly alpha-geeks in an area within that technology. Within Operations Manager there ar...

I’ve seen this question show up a couple of times in the forums for Microsoft Project 2010….whatever happened to the Copy Picture to Office Wizard tool? – or as I like to call it, the CPOW (pronounced KAPOW). Here’s the tool in 2007.  If you squint your eyes, it looks kind of like a camera with a blue lens: …or it can be found in the Reports menu. And here’s what it looks like in 2010.  The two overlapping documents. Logically enough, In the Copy Menu, you’ll find it as the second option… The long and the short of it is that the camera icon has gone the way of the mullethead icons in 2002. (or was it 2000?)  That’s when the Hall & Oates icon got a haircut to become the Resource Assignment button we all know and love now.  One can just imagine the discussions around t...

Office Communications Server 2007 R2 automatically encrypts all peer to peer VoIP traffic within an organization using Transport Layer Security (TLS). This is default behavior and does not need to be enabled by an administrator. The one exception to this rule is when the VoIP call leaves OCS and travels through a 3rd party gateway. These gateways do not have TLS enabled by default and allow for the Mediation server to communicate over unencrypted RTP over TCP port 5060. Many gateways support TLS and an administrator could perform the extra step of adding an SSL certificate so that traffic can be encrypted between the Mediation server and the Gateway. So in an environment where the organization needs to record all inbound and outbound phone calls, a packet capturing software could be place...

I haven’t blogged in a while because I have been crushed with both project work and dog training. The project work has exposed me to some JQuery techniques that I have wanted to learn. I have also been reviewing the new features of SharePoint 2010 search and FAST Search Server for SharePoint 2010. There are some great new features coming out with both products, features that many of my clients have been asking for. One feature that is supported by FAST and not oob with SharePoint 2010 is the Visual Best Bet, essentially a best bet that uses HTML rather than just text like the Best Bets in SharePoint 2007 (and unchanged in SharePoint 2010). I have to say, I really like JQuery. I can’t say “love” yet… I would not have gotten this far if it wasn’t for some great examples on Jan Tielens sit...

I have to start this with saying that maybe I’m just old and not keeping up with technology/that’s certainly possible but this struck me as pretty cool. As a reader I’m familiar with most of the different ebook readers out there (including the Kindle, Barnes & Noble eReader, iPad, etc). Personally, I’m too cheap to buy one yet so my experiences are limited to seeing other people who have ebook readers and thinking how much less I would need to carry around if I wasn’t lugging books so large that if they are dropped they can kill small animals. But where was I? Oh yeah, ebooks. So as an author I see the logic to them – easy to carry around, easy to search – got it. I also see them as a huge risk to the book publishing industry because they are so easy to copy and distribute to everyo...

I love Windows 7. There are very few things I would change. One of those very few things is the network icon in the taskbar. It needs to be changed to something that doesn’t resemble the power plug icon. In the picture below you can see how similar the plug on the left looks to the network cable on the right. Even though I have been using Windows 7 since it was in beta 13 months ago, I still feel like a total nube when I click on the power icon instead of the network icon because they look so similar. Hopefully some of you will get a laugh out of this and say “me too!” ...

Stackoverflow.com is a fantastic online resource for answers to technical questions. There are several reasons that Stackoverflow.com is better than other sites. Jeff Atwood, who is the founder of stack overflow described the site succinctly as "expertsexchange.com without the evil. :)" The Webster's type definition would be: Stack Overflow is a programming Q & A site collaboratively built and maintained by your fellow programmers. It is unique in that it uses aspects of wikis, blogs, digg, and forums to allow the best answers float to the top rather than stay buried somewhere among other less useful answers. I loved experts exchange. It was the site that helped me get started in programming back when I was learning Perl. I was amazed at how quickly people would give o...