Although Instructables has many great articles on carving pumpkins, it's sometimes hard to determine from the snapshot who is the best or, for that matter, even knows what they're talking about.  Well, if you're willing to shell out $18, you can get 3 shows from Terri Hardin (Ghostbusters, Disney, Universal Studios) at Fugu.com on how to get some amazing results from your giant gourd. 

ExtremePumpkins.com also has lots of ideas, tips and tricks.  I first found that site about a year ago when I came across the "Kerosene Soaked Toilet Paper" video.

On a related note, MyScienceProject.org performed a fun little experiment on how to keep your jack-o'-lantern looking scary as long as possible.  I won't spoil the surprise ending, but I will tell you that smearing white glue all over your pumpkin isn't a good idea for a preservative.

At my shop, we've employed Active Directory (AD) to negotiate access to all of the services available on the network.  Although it can be a headache to set up, it really does make security nice and tidy in the long run.  For example, if you want, you can use your AD to replicate security out to your wireless network adapters via RADIUS.

This weekend, I moved everyone from a POP-based mail server to an Exchange 2007 hosted service.  The move was based on pain we were having with timely delivery of mail, as well as not having a SPAM block on the front-end of the server.  I.e. when I would get email via my phone, it would download 200 pieces of SPAM along with my 15 important emails.  Not a good solution.

Since I made the decision to migrate the company, I chose to be the guinea pig for the migration.  I already had Outlook 2007 running, so I closed Outlook, changed my email account (via the control panel) and walked through the Exchange Autodiscover process without issue.  Once complete, I merged my old PST files and within 30 minutes was up and running.  It was all impossibly simple.

That is, until I started the process in earnest with the other employees.  On the first install, I deleted the existing account, told Outlook I wanted to use Exchange and proceeded through the Autodiscover process.  This time, however, there were various challenge-response boxes (that I didn't recall happening to me) and upon completion, Outlook complained with the following error:

Unable to open your default email folders.  You must connect to your Microsoft Exchange server computer with the current profile before you can synchronize your folders with your offline folder file.

After going through the process a few more times, I realized that the clue I missed was the above-mentioned challenge-response boxes.  When I paid attention, I found that both the local AD and the remote server were looking for authentication tickets.  While I don't know what exactly was happening under the covers, my best guess is that the local network was attempting to pass along networking rights and was failing miserably, as would be expected.

So, if you're having this issue, the resolution is very simple.  When you create a new Exchange email account, do not allow Autodiscover to run by checking the box at the bottom of the first screen that says, "Manually configure server settings or additional server types."

At this point, you'll need the FQDN for the Exchange server and the principal name.  The FQDN you'll use in the first screen you get to after supplying your username, email address and password (as seen at the right).  To set the principal name, click on the "More Settings" button on that next screen, then click on the "Connection" tab, then the "Exchange Proxy Settings..." button.  You will find yourself at a window that will look like the following:

It might be easiest to get one machine to Autodiscover correctly then just copy these settings rather than attempt to wade through your provider's help, but if you have the information handy, it just takes a few seconds and you'll be up and running.

You may also want to experiment with the "On fast networks..." setting.  In my network, it does feel much snappier, and was a suggestion by my host to improve Outlook startup and polling times.

I just got an update from Citibank notifying me of several upgrades being made to their online features.  Among the other items noted, they specified that they will allow you to "request PDFs of your statements as far back as 15 years."  Note to other banks, utilities, and major service providers: please look at what Citibank is doing, and take notes. 

Will I want to see what regrettable purchases I made back in 1992?  Not likely.  However, being able to go back 2, 3 or possibly even 5 years is absolutely understandable.  Although I'm ultimately holding off judgement on their implementation of it (what exactly does "request PDF" mean, exactly?), I applaud Citibank for offering up services that make using their products just that much friendlier.

I mention this because there are many downright horrible online services out there.  As a counterpoint, I offer up my city water online "service."

To log in, I must present my account number and my address.  That's it.  No secret phrase, no user ID.  Anyone who's interested in my payment history need only stake out my mailbox and look for my water bill.   Once in to the super-high-tech system, I'm offered the following information:

Now, here's the magic question: given the above information, how much do I owe at this moment?  $0.00 or $157.12?  Only because I've been using this horrific UI for months do I know the real answer.  (Hint: it's not $0.00.)

The takeaway (as a developer) is this: make sure to have your application reviewed by an unbiased outsider every once in a while, and look to see what the best-of-breed is up to.  Although you may not have the time to implement 15 years of statements, it's obvious that in the above example the developer/developers that created this application never had anyone review the code and/or final product, and may have never even looked to see how other bill presentment applications work. 

Situation: You've been asked by Mr. BigShotCEO to create a proof-of-concept of that new whiz-bang website idea you told him about 8 weeks ago.  Oh, and he wants it ready for an 8am presentation in the board room.

Problem: If you use PowerPoint, or better yet, iWork's Keynote, you can whip together a presentation that won't embarrass you or get you fired.  [That's assuming you don't use any sound effects, but that's another matter.]  With websites however, it becomes a bit trickier, as many application developers a(including me) are frustrated artists, not getting much beyond still lifes in high school.  Unless you have a designer available at your beck and call, your hard work might lose it's punch if the audience is concentrating on why you chose to use puce and electric orange for colors.

Solution: there are a few good sites out there that will do the job in a pinch.  Since they're free (as of this writing), and have snappy interfaces, you can get a fairly unique and (generally) visually acceptable site with nominal lifting.  Getting the design out of the way will allow you to concentrate on the task(s) at hand.

Free logo design

• LogoMaker.  Good: the site allows you to position the graphic and any accompanying text however you want, using "layers" a la Photoshop.  Bad: they want your personal info.  Use: create your logo and take a screenshot.  Sure, you'll have hash marks, but this is just a demo.
• VistaPrint.  Good: no hash or watermarks.  Bad: no positioning of text elements.

Free web templates (available templates in brackets as of Oct 18, 2007)

• Open Designs [761] You can search by #of columns, license type, main color and validation type
• Open Source Web Design [2080] May be hard to find since they only show 12 a page, but all open source
• Open Web Design [2527] Tells you up front if the design uses CSS, which can be of great help
• Open Source Web Templates [~300?] Hard to search, as proven by the inaccurate number of designs
• Smashing Magazine They have more links, so I couldn't exclude them; good if the others fail

So there you have it.  I hope you get a big promotion and commensurate raise by Mr. BigShotCEO.

I came across a couple of great articles on upgrading Ubuntu to the latest build.  Given that version 7.10 "Gutsy Gibbon" is being released out of beta tomorrow, it seemed to be a very timely find.  Kevin van Zonneveld shows two ways to upgrade:

• 1-step upgrade if you're like me and have Feisty Fawn or some other version running with few to zero tweaks
• 3-step upgrade if you've really muddled with the Ubuntu system.

I came across this blog created by the new owner of a Cirrus SR22, a beautiful modern general aviation aircraft.  He's going through his thought process of why he purchased this make/model versus others out there, including Cessna, Columbia, and Diamond. 

I hope to one day join the ranks of Cirrus pilots, if not outright owners.  Cirrus makes a beautiful aircraft, and given the current dismal state of our national airlines, it might just be the way to get around the southwest with the family.

In a recent post, I was complaining about an odd issue with Windows Defender hammering my hard drive.  Well, today I found myself diving into Process Monitor again, looking for the reason my HDD once again was being taxed to the limit.

In the logs, I found two oddities:

1. iPoint and iType, two applications used for added functionality for Microsoft's Wireless Desktop devices, were constantly creating a file, querying a directory, then closing a file over and over again.  I haven't been able to find any information about this online yet, but I'm going to keep looking.  I may have to open a ticket with Microsoft about this one.
   
   
2. The real cause of my HDD spooling issues was something called SearchIndexer.exe.  This, in the UI and Vista marketing material, is also known as Windows Search.  It's basically supposed to index highly user impacted directories allowing for quick search results.  It's also supposed to go to sleep when processing demand is high.
   
   Well, apparently the last bit of that hasn't worked out so well, as there are quite a few people looking for answers to permanently shut down SearchIndexer.exe.  In my case, it wasn't consuming so much CPU drain, as my task manager barely showed it at more than 2% of total CPU use, but my HDD was just getting beaten, causing all I/O tasks to get queued up.  That brought my computer to a near stand-still.  E.g. shutting down the 7 apps I had open (Office, FireFox, VisualStudio, iTunes, SQL Management Studio, and LiveWriter) and shutting down Vista took nearly 10 minutes.  I'd like that 10 minutes back.

In searching for a resolution, I came across a good post at Office Watch which describes what they claim is a potential/the issue with Windows Search.  What's especially nasty is that if Windows Search goes bad on you, it's very difficult to shut it down, as it has hooks in Windows and Office products.  This means that you can shut it down, but when you sneeze in the direction of Outlook, it'll go off to the races once again.

I for one never use the search functionality in Windows.  Visual Studio?  Sure, you betcha.  But I just haven't found a need for it yet.  I'm not sure if that's an indictment of my use of the OS, or maybe a simpler point like I always keep the documents I use where I expect them.  Regardless, if you don't think you'll be using Search anytime soon, you can go into Start -> Control Panel -> Administrative Tools -> Services, and find Windows Search (you can sort via Name).  Right click on it, and select Properties.  Change Startup type to "Disabled" and stop the service by pressing "Stop."

Sweet relief.

Continue reading at Office Watch for other suggestions on how to get Search working normally again.

I've been running Vista as my main dev box for about 12 weeks now, and I couldn't be happier that SP1 is going to be rolling out soon.  In my opinion, it can't get here soon enough.  Vista, in my opinion, is just not mother-in-law-proof.  For the record, my laptop is rated as an overall 4.5 "experience index" (on a 1 to 5.9 scale)**, which is not too shabby.  A 4.5 (with 5.9 video scores) allows me to see all of the glassy UI Vista effects.  For argument's sake, I'm going to ignore my personal beef(s) with developing on Vista, and will discuss general interaction I've had with the OS.

Last week I had all sorts of slowdown issues that required me to download Process Monitor to chase down a rogue process that was eating my HDD I/O.  What was that process?  Windows Defender.  Defender decided to run a full HDD scan in the middle of the afternoon, despite the schedule being set to run in the middle of the night.  The result?  My laptop came to a screeching halt, barely allowing me to get at Task Manager to perform emergency shutdowns of my freshly edited VS code.  Awesome.

Then there was this kicker: I played IT-guy for my niece.  She was having issues with her relatively new, relatively fast Compaq/HP notebook, and when I took a peek at it I noticed how much crapware was installed.  Seemed like the perfect example for an FDISK with a fresh XP install.  So, as that computer was being wiped, I was using my Vista box to download all the latest drivers.  I thought this would be a time-saver, as the plan was to download it all, then burn it to a CD.  Boy was I wrong.  Downloads worked like a champ, but when I went to burn the CD (using the internal Vista DVD/CD burner), this is what Vista calculated:

No, I am not kidding.  No, I did not Photoshop this image.  17 items.  578 MB.  This wasn't the first "best guess", but rather 3 or 4 excruciating minutes into the 578 MB copy.  Let's do some math, shall we?  32,996 days = 2,850,854,400 seconds. 578MB/2.85B seconds = 0.20 bytes/second = 1.62 bits/second.

My circa-1980 Commodore 64 had a 14.4kbps modem that was 8,878 times faster than that.  You know what?  It felt like it.  I could nearly see the electrons moving. 

[**Note to Microsoft: fire the idiot that determined a 1.0 to 5.9 scale.  1 to 5.9??  What the heck?  Was this built by the same joker that decided 0 to 158 1/3 is a good passer rating?]

[Programming note: I'm going to try to keep my music posts to Monday mornings.  That is all.]

For months, there's been a low buzz in the internet about when The Beatles and Radiohead are going to break down and sign a deal with Apple to provide their music on iTunes.  Radiohead last night told Apple (and the rest of the industry that treats musicians as slaves) where they can stick their 1s and 0s.

Last night, Radiohead announced they will not only be selling their next album, In Rainbows, on their own site, but they'll allow the purchaser to name the price, from $0.00 to $1,000,000 (or whatever your credit card max is).  From their site,

Radiohead have made a record.  So far, it is only available from this website.

The release will come in two flavors: digital download, and in a "diskbox" which will contain

the new album, In Rainbows, on CD and on 2 x 12 inch heavyweight vinyl records.  A second, enhanced CD contains more new songs, along with digital photographs and artwork.

The latter diskbox will cost 40EUR, or roughly $57USD.

You can get more information about the purchase by wandering through Radiohead's website, or by going directly to the order page for In Rainbows. 

I think there are a couple of very interesting things to note here.  The first is that witness to a significant paradigm shift in the world of music distribution.  This isn't the first band to distribute directly, nor will they be the last.  But they are arguably the biggest band to do it.  Beck has been toying with direct-to-consumer material for over a year, and Barenaked Ladies released Barenaked Ladies Are Me tracks before their album was complete.  With BNL, Avril Lavigne, Dido, Jars of Clay, and Sarah McLachlan have moved their management to the non-traditional Nettwerk Music Group, who is foregoing the traditional methods of band conscription by (among other things) offering alternative methods of distribution.

The second, more geeky, and real deal maker/breaker, is whether Radiohead's site will be able to manage the traffic gracefully.  Their site is very cool, but at the sake of being lightweight.  The main store page for example is nothing but imagery which makes the page about 100x bigger than it would otherwise be if it were the textual analog.  The rub is this: if they can't manage the traffic that will be hitting them on 10/10/2007, the band's goodwill might be shot.  What's the over/under on Radiohead.com and the download site denying connections by the time NYC wakes up?