Long time no see…

Just been inspired to try and keep this thing up to date again.  Funny how that works, i forget all about this blog for four months and suddenly, like a recovering alcoholic, the thought pops into my head.

So, whats new?  Since april i’ve been through what feels like the most convoluted flat move ever.  Moved out of the house share in June into a wonderful two bedroom flat with my girlfriend Debs.  It’s quite pricey but its very large and very modern.  We had to get the landlord in to explain all the various switches in the kitchen as it has so many integrated appliances.  We actually genuinely have a switch that no one knows what it does, even him!  Moving out of the house was a pain in the ass though, and for a while it looked like we weren’t going to get our deposits back (Debs has finally just got her money back..).

On the DVD front, it seems our collection has exploded recently, what was circa the start of july a shelf and a half is now closer to three.  Once again i’m glad the blu-ray move has reduced the price of DVDs to nonsensical levels, as i’m just picking up films for the hell of it.  We’ve been watching the Avatar anime recently, it’s not too bad actually.  Makes a change watching something that was actually written in English, with no dubs or subtitles.  Sooner or later i’ll have to catch up with all of the Naruto i’ve missed, which will be an undertaking unto itself.  At least Avatar keeps the flashbacks to a minimum!

I’ve also started playing City of Heroes/Villians again recently.  It seems to be a lot quieter in game than it was in December when i last logged in, and i’m slightly concerned that the game is in the downward decline of population that signals the end of the game.  Having said that, the issue updates have added so much to the game it’s a really good customizable experiance now, not only in terms of power choice but even power visual effects!  But the Architect update has sapped away players into user created instances, and that makes the city feel empty.  Villians seems to be more alive, which i suspect is a result of it being newer and having a slightly smaller  number of city zones.  Still enjoying it though, which is the main thing.  I need to find myself a decent group to play with though, as i’m itching to get some Task Forces done and have no one to do them with.  If you play on Union and feel like extending an invite, by all means go ahead!

Work is going well at the moment, still waiting for a good project to sink my teeth into, but we are implementing Systems Center Configuration Manager soon so hopefully that’ll give me something to focus on.  My boss gave me some more time to further develop the network diagnosis tool I developed (in C#) which gave me a chance to round it out and fix quite a few unexpected bugs.  Sadly i’m still stuck working on .Net v2 as pushing out the .Net 3.5 updates via WSUS would kill all the store pc connections on the MPLS. I do have a new respect for anyone trying to make things work on a variety of platforms now, especially when interfacing with the WMI framework as frankly you certainly can’t call it unified in implementation!  So next time you are wondering why your app doesn’t work on XP / Vista /Windows 7 as it does on the others, remember this!

Went to my first Isles of Darkness national event this summer, which was great fun.  I also completed my first year as Reading Awakening VC, and the good people / fools of reading decided to elect me back in again, along with Requiem as well.  I was a little disapointed that i was running unopposed though, as it’s always nice to know you got the job for being a good choice, rather than being the only choice.

Finally, I’ve made some (light) progress in the WH painting front, though only in the 40k arena sadly.  Finally cracked open my Eldar Guardians and started painting them, which is thankfully pretty easy as i’m doing a Biel Tan army.  I definatly prefer painting Aspect warriors but doing something in white makes a nice change (Don’t have any screaming banshees, as at this stage in army size you need either Scorpions or Banshees, not both).  There hasn’t been any progress with my Dark Elves, but i’m kinda holding off until i see what GW are doing with certain minitures (Cold one Chariots, further Hero models, Dark Riders, executioners).

Monsters vs. Aliens, Danger Mouse, and DVDs

A few days ago me and my house-mates went to the cinema for a day of viewing, and amongst other things (We caught the Dragonball film for a laugh, let’s just say it took itself a lot more seriously than we did..) we saw Monsters Vs Aliens.  I was a little weary as Dreamworks’ animated films have been a little hit and miss in the past (Kung fu Panda and Shrek, along with Bee movie and Madagascar) but they hit the nail right on the head with this one.  The characters were memorable, the plot kept things moving but never really got in the way of the experience, and the voice acting was very well done (Hugh Laurie does a very good cockroach it seems, and Seth Rogan knows how to do characters who aren’t the sharpest knife in the drawer).  They played to the 50’s B movie stereotypes with good results, and everything felt familiar but never stale.  I’d recommend it.

During one of the gaps between films, we paid a visit to HMV to scout out any worthwhile DVDs on offer.  When i say on offer, frankly they might as well be free these days.  I don’t know if it’s the global recession, the effect of Blue Ray on the market or just people’s expectations of DVDs slowly wearing the market down, but when the average price on DVDs seems to be £3 these days, this to me is a good thing.  I’m quite happy leaving blue ray discs alone for the moment (It’s only a matter of time before another format comes along and takes the HD crown away..) as my LCD up-scales DVDs quite nicely and i’d rather buy 5 DVDs for the same price as watching someone’s face in High definition.  Am I the only one who thinks that they are going to keep publishing DVDs for quite a while considering the profit margin probably isn’t that great anymore, but the volume of sales clearly makes up for it?

Which leads me onto the final point of this post.  While at HMV I came across the box set of DangerMouse.  It was £30, but I’ve always been a fan, and when i flipped it over and realised it contained all 161 episodes (plus extras??!!?) i was sold.

I’m determined to watch them all eventually, but considering that if i watch 4 every day, it’ll still take over a month, that might be a slow burner.  Especially considering they also had the Band of Brother’s box set for £20.  One of my house-mates confessed that he’d never seen it, which i think he now regrets since I’ve told him he will be watching it!

Still trying to get my passport sorted.  We’re on round 2 of pictures and form 5 by now!  It appears the universe is quite determined to prevent me leaving the country (legally, at least!).

MS Active Directory Powershell Module seems a bit hit and miss…

I’m at a Microsoft Active Directory Services workshop this week, and one of the things i’ve come accross (a little late, it seems..) is the Active Directory Powershell module that ships with Server 2008 R2.

It’s… interesting.  Obviously you’ve got a lot of 3rd party AD cmdlets and scripts already out there, so obviously comparisons are going to be drawn.  While some of the decisions and implementations seem sensible, I find two things a little odd.

The first one is – why on earth does the default psdrive setup by the AD provider use X500 format?  This means that because the paths now contain ‘,’ and ‘=’ you’ve got to encase paths in speech marks and tab completion will not function for paths!  This seems bizzare in the face of the fact that you can create a drive using Canonical format instead (which is firstly a damn site easier to read and type, and secondly support tab completion) but you have to use a switch that isn’t normally recognised by new-psdrive…

Second thing – the objects returned by cmdlets.  One of the things that i believe is important about powershell is that once you’ve learned how to retrieve and filter objects in one sphere, you’ve pretty much got it down for anything else we can hook into.  Sending an object off to get-member to explore it becomes pretty standard behaviour.  However, the AD cmdlets only return an extremely limited set of values for most objects.  Users objects in particular are crippled by this.  While all the AD cmdlets have a -filter attribute that allows us to search on properties that aren’t normally retrieved (read – most of them!) it would have been nice to be able to type:

Get-ADUser | Where {$_.Description -like “*”} | Ft DisplayName,Description

and get a listing back.  Now, I understand that by using the -filter param i’m not grabbing all AD users and then searching through them on the local machine, but the fact that even with -filter param the searched for attribute values are not appended to the returned object means that although i can go and grab all users out there that have a VBScript set as their logonscript, i can’t display the script in the results!

…Has no one on the AD Powershell team seen the Exchange *-User cmdlets?  They may not be able to return custom attributes (or even most hidden ones) but at least they return the ones that you’re probably going to want to use most of the time.  Or, use the same method as the ADSI provider, and provide a subset of attributes when returning results, and append the attribute searched on to the return object.

Still a good start overall though, especially the way they’ve handled connection state (as long as you don’t mind changing path during heavy operations).  Let’s just hope that they make some changes to behaviour before the final release..

That’s a very nice laptop, maybe just not so well built…

For various different reasons, about a month ago I recently purchased a Dell Studio XPS 1340.  It’s a very sexy laptop, both in terms of hardware spec, features and looks.  I mean, it’s no Macbook, but it comes pretty close.  Backlit keyboard, Hybrid SLI, HDMI Out, more ram than you can shake a stick at.. all in a 13 inch laptop.  The keyboard is incredibly nice to type on, though I will admit it’s not a full size keyboard.

About the only thing it’s missing really is a blueray drive.. and the only reason it doesn’t have that is because it’s 16inch big brother has that (along with the aforementioned keyboard).

Sadly, straight out of the box it had a hardware fault – the DVD-RW drive wouldn’t accept any discs, as any that were placed into the slot were immediately ejected.  Considering this was happening at the post screen, even after a Bios / Firmware update (Seriously Dell, why don’t you update your machines in factory with the current stable release?  Especially for a premium top-spec product..) I knew there was a hardware fault and called support.

They told me it must be a faulty DVD drive (seemed reasonable) and said it would take 2 weeks to get an engineer with a replacement to me, as they had no parts.  Not really acceptable, but I was willing to let it slide because the DVD drive wasn’t a must have, and I had a USB DVD drive knocking around (which thankfully the bootloader recognised and allowed me to install Ubuntu – more on that later..).

So, after two weeks, the engineer arrives, replaces the drive… and it still doesn’t work.  After a bit of fiddling he notes that if you unplug the wire for the eject button on the keyboard, the drive accepts discs.  So now i need a new keyboard.  Except, while he is putting it all back together, he notes that the screen power cables weren’t seated properly when the whole thing was built, and once it is put together again, the display won’t function.  Brilliant.

Two days later, another engineer from Dell arrives.  He hasn’t been told to bring anything other than a keyboard.  Which he can’t get working.  And then, it won’t even power on anymore.  Now, Dell is told that if they don’t have it working in the next 24 hours, I want a refund.  Next engineer turns up, bringing enough parts to rebuild the whole thing, and finally gets it functioing.

So it finally works, and i couldn’t be happier with it.  I’ve installed x64 Ubuntu (Intrepid Ibex) onto it, and hilariously the nVidia Ubuntu drivers are actually better than the current Vista ones for my card!  The only real issue thats left with it now is heat – this is one hot little laptop if you do what i’ve done and give it the maximum availible spec, and frankly the exhaust vent gets almost painfully hot if it needs to fire up the card’s full feature set.  So next time i’m running 2 Virtual Machines (courtesy of Virtual Box) and playing UT2004 on it at the same time, i’ll put it on a desk.

Oh, and despite the fact that it has 3 different kind of visual ports for outputting to screens, LCDs etc, it only has 1 USB port.  Which is a bit daft.

Extras on ‘The IT Crowd’ DVDs

I’ve recently gotten hold of “The Big Bang Theory” and “The IT Crowd” DVDs.  Both are excellent series (I think my girlfriend lost a little respect / hope for me when i laughed at the “Spherical chickens in a vacuum” joke..) but one thing that absolutely slays me is the subtitles options on “The IT Crowd“.

Much like Jimmy Carr’s DVDs, the subtitle options are On, Off and 1337.  And the latter very much does what it says.  The subtitles aren’t just their lines transposed into horrible “leet” spelling, they also feature terms and jokes from the likes of Protocol definitions, C syntax, machine code, Bash commands and general internet memes.

I’ll give you an example below, with the subtitles in Italics..

“I’m extremely good with computers”, “iz h4xx0rs”

“Go on.”, “O RLY?”

“Well, sending emails, receiving emails, deleting emails..” , “smtp…pop3…M$ Exchange…”

But then, I am quite a geek, so it might just be me that enjoys it.

Thoughts after the “Managing Windows Servers using Powershell V2″ Technet event

It’s been just over a week since myself and a colleague attended a Technet event in London centred around managing Windows servers (and, to a greater extent, everything) using Powershell V2. I thought it was about time I A) post my thoughts about what was discussed there and B) actually kept up with this blog.

The event itself was very informal, hosted as it was by James o’Neil [MS Evangelist] and Richard Siddaway [MVP] so it was blessedly low on marketing and high on content.  I think overall it somewhat actually deviated away from “Using Powershell V2″ to “Using Powershell with Windows 2008 R2″ which is an important but sutble difference.  There was an offer of free pizza afterwards (the Powershell user group were meeting directly afterwards) but myself and my associate didn’t have the time.

The two things I really took away from it were that :

1. Contrary to my previous blogpost were I spoke about Powershell remoting limitations, Server 2003 and Windows XP will be capable of hosting / receiving remoting commands at V2 release.
2. Every Module / Provider / Snapin you add to your system dramatically streamlines the way you work with interlinking or tiered systems.

I’ll give you an example for No. 2 that was mentioned at the Event – You lose one of your webfarm boxes that happens to be running Server 2008 and is serving content using IIS7 (ok, so it’s not actually a realistic example for most webfarms, but stay with me..).  Using Powershell you can provision some resources on your ESX/HyperV host, load a VM template and have a box running Server within minutes, add the IIS feature and move content & config onto it from one of your machines in the farm, configure and add it into the Network Load Balancing setup for the Farm and start it serving content.  From one interface.  On your desktop.  From one script, if you like.

I think Richard Siddaway said it best “Powershell itself isn’t important.  It’s the Providers and Modules, and how you use them, that’s important”.

Off the back of this, I went and got hold of the VMWare, Exchange and SQL2008 providers & snapins and I have to say i’m finding my poor rdp shortcut underused and seeming lacklustre…

I may post the adventures involved in installing the SQL Powershell features on a non SQL server box, as it wasn’t as easy as it should be…

Ceasing work for christmas can have unexpected benefits…

Obviously much like many others tools were downed over the christmas period to a certain degree.  While I was still required to be in the office in order to support any users (most of whom had the common sense to not come in..) I didn’t manage to get any further progress done on a network diagnosis tool I’m developing for desktop machines.

So obviously, I cracked open Visual Studio this morning and begun coding once more, and found that two things had happened:

1. Significant portions of my code suddenly appeared alien, and I had to spend some time familiarsing myself with them again.
2. I noticed quite a few bugs that had previously gone unnoticed…

None of the bugs were anything major (aside from assuming that every mail transfer agent encountered would happily act as an open relay because your application never checked to see if recipients were on different domains and performed extra MX lookups accordingly…) but it made me quite glad that I intentionally took a break from it.  While I may have lost an hour while I retraced my steps with project, i’ve saved countless hours and headaches with the operational bugs I wouldn’t have noticed without a fresh look.

Of course, you could also achieve this effect by having a code editor and rigerous testing during development (not just after) but that would require more manpower than what has been assigned to the project (i.e, me!).

The hunt for a new Widescreen TV

One of the nice things we have in our house (potential burglers need not apply, I live with a student amongst others, so there is always someone in..) is a nice HD widescreen TV.

Unfortunately, the (extremely) proud owner is Edwin, who is shortly due to move in with his Fiance.  This will immediately leave the rest of us with two options :

1. Use my old CRT 19″ television i’ve had for a few years now.
2. Have no television.

Considering that option 1 and option 2 are realistically the same when you consider we spend most of the time in the house playing on the various consoles, I’m now looking at buying a new HD widescreen to replace it.  And despite my technological “geek” background, when it comes to TV’s I realisically couldn’t know less.  I’m a better cook than I am judge of contrast quality.

And thats really saying something.

So, if anyone has any recommendations, good examples or horror stories, I’d like to hear them.  I’ve currently got a shortlist of 3, two Panasonics and a heavily discounted Sony, but I wouldn’t mind having some more input on the matter.  I’m looking at £650 at an absolute push, but obviously i’d rather spend less.  I don’t want anything above 40″ immediately, because thats just too big for the current living room, and i’d rather have a good looking smaller tv than a large one with worse picture quality.

The purpose is primarily for use with an Xbox 360 and a Nintendo Wii, but obviously DVDs get watched and there is a smattering of TV shows watched so it should be capable in that market as well ideally.

Answers on the back of a postcard, please.  Deadline is realistically by the end of next week.

Closing thoughts on Gears of War 2..

I’ve recently finished Gears of War 2, and I have to say, the whole experience has been so much more than I was expecting.  I said before the game came out that as long as it stuck to the same formula as the original, i’d be happy, but with hindsight i’m extremely glad they didn’t.

When you hear remarks from the developers like “we’ve hired a professional writer this time around“, you kind of think it’ll be slightly less cliched than otherwise, but for a First-person shooter with the usual Sci-fi setting, it really made you connect with the characters and relate to what’s going on.  There are sadly many things i’d like to talk about but can’t due to spoilers, but i will say that in several places it gets accross the grim realities of war without feeling preachy, and has some genuinely heart-moving and dark scenes.

The new additions to the game are well thought out, and add genuine value rather than feeling tacked on.  The new enemies are also very good, and in a couple of cases force you to think differently about both your tactics and weapons loadout.  They’ve also kept the use of Wretches down to a minimum (because they were annoying rather than a real threat) and the Beserker is pleasantly absent (as it really should have been a one off set piece in the first game).

Epic have also made a solid attempt to re-work the multiplayer this time around, and while it’s still not quite as good as Call of Duty 4 / 5 is, i can see why you’d want to at least give it a go.

Having said that, I can’t wait to get into Horde mode with people who I actually know (instead of random internet goers) because I loved invasion mode from Unreal Tournament 2004 and I can see some real room for amazing stories and player cameraderie.

In conclusion then, to quote Gametrailers review, “Unless you are a confirmed hater of Gears, you have no reason not to pick Gears of War 2 up”. I wholeheartedly agree.

A limitation or an upgrade incentive..

I’ve been reading about the CTP3 features of Microsoft’s Windows Powershell V2, and one of the features that MS have been touting for a while now is remote execution and result shipping of Powershell commands.  Now, frankly this is something that i’ve wanted to see since V1 after typing in “get-excommand” into a Exchange 2007 box and knowing that those 50+ cmdlets were beyond my reach unless I logged onto the Exchange or installed the x86 trial of the management tools.

Anyway, it wasn’t quite there in V2, and now they seem to be making serious headway with the idea… except that you can only execute remote commands on Windows Vista SP1 and Windows Server 2008 boxes.  Although the intention seems to be to provide functionality for XP and Server 2003 with the full release, I have the sinking feeling that it’ll be put into perpetual delay as a nice way to sell new liscences.  Which is daft, because the benfits of Server 2008 don’t need this, and as for Vista, well no amount of Powershell is going to convince most ‘orgs to switch their desktop OS.

Hopefully i’ll be proven wrong.  I’ll post my thoughts on CTP3 further once i’ve had a chance to play with it directly, as i plan to create some virtual images running both Vista and W2k8 and and give it all a whirl.