Ed Buford - Just Another Geek

Hidden Closet

We've lived in our house for about 8 years now; and my wife and I are ready to start some renovations. A couple of weeks ago we moved into our spare bedroom and cleaned out all of our stuff. Now the fun begins! The first order of business is to open a closet that was walled over during someone else's renovation. The last owner clued us into the dead space behind the closet in the spare room. So I set out to cut a hole in the wall, and made sure there were no bodies hidden in there.  Then I snapped this Pic:

Photos of the Crumpled Car

My wife took some photos of the car after the accident and posted them this morning.
Click here to see them.

No, the other eye

So I took my boys out to learn how to shoot the new paintball gun and much to my surprise both of my boys are cross dominant. For those of you not in the know cross dominance is where your dominant eye is opposite of your dominant hand; so if you're dominant hand is your right, your dominant eye would be your left. An easy way to tell which eye is your dominant eye is to hold up an ink pen in your hand with your arm fully extended, then close one eye and then the other, when you close your dominant eye you'll see the pen appear to shift.

There's nothing wrong with being cross dominant, but it can mess you up in some things, like aiming a gun or shooting pool, two things I plan to pass on to my boys. Alex was able to do pretty good after I got him keeping both eyes open even though is still shooting right handed, but Zach didn't start hitting anything until I got him to switch over to shooting left handed. Hear are a couple of photos from our outing.

 

Alex with both eyes open:

 

 

Zach before switching hands:

Bad things happen - even when God's in charge

When bad things happen it always takes me some time to get my mind around it and put it in perspective. Tonight I was the victim of a hit and run while driving my wife's new car. Because the other driver (most likely drunk) ran (and got away) we'll have to pay the deductible out of our pocket, and be without a car while ours gets fixed.

It took a little while but I'm finally getting my mind around it all. I was in the car alone and uninjured; I could have had my family in the car. The Insurance will fix the car and make it right. The money means nothing in the long run even though the timing is bad, God will provide.

If I can't get trust God when something so meaningless happens, then how can I trust God with everything else? It's things like this that make me realize just how easy my life really is. We have a roof over our heads, we have food on the table, we have healthy wonderful children, my wife has a good job, and I have a job I love. The Lord gives and the Lord takes away... blessed is the name of the Lord.

 

Bad way to start the day

6:30 - stumble out of the shower, wake my wife, get dressed and head out to make coffee.

6:36 - Discover Outlook isn't connecting to Exchange. Troubleshoot stuff at home

6:40 - Realize everything is good at home and vpn in.

6:43 - Try to remote the Exchange server - Cant

6:45 - remote the exchange server host

6:47 - realize the exchange server is not running on the host - check out the host server

6:54 - Power on the Exchange server wait an eternity

7:21 Exchange server comes up to the login prompt. I start logging in

7:22 Restart my Outlook and get a connection to the exchange

7:29 Email the one user who has noticed the OWA service down and let her know it was back online

7:32 - Start searching event logs... find this:

7:46 trying to get my head around why the timestamp in the event log is for a 8:03 Check system time on Exchange server and VM host - remains a mystery

7:50 start the car for my Sons so they can ride to school in warmth

7:52 Find interesting Error in the log from yesterday.

8:00 - pulled out with boys and headed for school

8:11 - watched the boys go in the school

8:15 - pulled in the parking lot at GCC

8:23 - logged onto desktop

8:25 - log into host server for the Exchange box and start sorting through logs again.

8:30 - can't take my eyes off the perfomance monitor for that host... it's running between 75 and 85 %
- I see Explorer is running the highest in the list.

Then I snap this one:

8:47 - Send the above screen caps to Dustin who I IM'd during my panic attack while waiting for the Exchange server to come up... let him I'm nervous.

8:50 - Log off of the remote to the VM host that Exchange lives on... watch the needle on the processor drop

8:52 - try to start another remote desktop to it and watch it start to spike again.

8:53 - log back off the remote connection and watch it level off near the bottom... follow the blue line

I plan to restart the host after working hours tonight if all goes alright... for now it's running...

ScreenHunting OneNote

I love Microsoft’s OneNote; it takes notes the way I like to take notes. I use it frequently to create documentation. I love the screen capture feature and the fact that I can email a document right out of OneNote. It is a wonderful way to create a quick step by step user guide.

With that being said I do have one complaint… I can’t capture mouse pointer or active window drop down menus or fly-outs. This is where ScreenHunter comes in; they make a free version that will let me do these things and a bit more. For me the free version is all I need, but the Pro version is inexpensive and if it works as well as the free version it’s got to be worth the price.

iPhone – I apologize

I know that I received Apple inc’s announcement about the iPhone with a lot of skepticism at first. This is because there are certain things I expect to see in any PDA device, the main one being able to connect to Exchange for email, calendaring and tasks.
But after seeing this video I’m certain the iPhone will do everything I want it to and more… see for yourself.

Giving Up The Ghost

Ok, so I love hate love hate use Symantec Ghost 8. It’s been very good to me over the years. The past two days I've spent an inordinate amount of time trying to capture an Image for a SATA II laptop drive. Yesterday, it was my main focus. After throwing my hands in the air I got in touch with my wife who went to training for Ghost here. She went over everything I did and tossed her hands into the air too. So I called Symantec only to find that our maintenance has lapsed and I need to purchase an upgrade to “maybe” fix this issue This took me more than two hours on the phone to find out; 98% of which was on Hold.

So now for lots of reason’s I want to look for another Imaging solution…. So I thought I’d get some input…
So what are you using?
How well do you like it?
Is it expensive?
Is it Open Source?
Are there limits on the amount of machines you can deploy images to?
Does it run on Windows?

Help me… I’m about to give up the Ghost!

The Boy Next Door 8

After Harlan died I began drifting farther and farther from God. I could not reconcile in my mind how God could love these “club members” who could not like my friend. The next years of my life left a wake of wounded around me. I was unfit to have a relationship most everyone. There is no doubt that hurt people, hurt people.

As I turned my back on God, Harlan’s Dad embraced him, when Randal died in 1981 after years of complications from his wound, his Dad rejoiced. The tears were different than the tears he shed for Harlan; these were tears of Hope. And again there were tears of hope his wife died in 1984. I remember wondering how someone who had lost two sons and a wife could be growing if faith as my faith was all but gone.

In 1987 when my Dad past away Harlan’s Dad was there, he told me of how my Dad lead him to God and how without God his life would have no meaning at all. But I was mad at God. I wept tears of hopelessness. Days later my daughter was born, she was all the hope I had left; she was the hope that I had. Without her I could not have lived the next few years.

In 1996 Harlan’s Dad died, I rejoiced with tears of hope.

It was a bitter divorce that brought me to rock bottom, it was my foxhole where I found God, for a second time. I was broken and unable to move forward when I cried out to God…. And then the healing came, not all at once, in fact, it’s not yet complete; but it came; it came with tears of hope.

This summer Harlan’s brother Mason died from a blood clot. I found this profoundly sad. It was this, that made write this story. However this story really isn’t about the boy next store, it’s about people who rejected a little boy because he didn’t fit in. The life of Harlan could have been dramatically changed if people who called themselves Christians would have reached out to one little boy.

This could be the end… it’s up to you.

Trunk Monkeys

Ok these videos are just hilarious. This is my favorite but check them all out here.