Tony Dye

Great Deal on an LTO-3 Drive (still)

The half-height drive is still available.  Help a guy out...  Update from the original December posting.

Without going into a lot of detail, somebody did something really dumb and ended up with two, (one is gone, now!) BRAND NEW, LTO-3 drives, without original packing, that can't be returned.  So...if you've been thinking of LTO-3, maybe we can make a deal.

Still available, a half height drive.  HP StorageWorks LTO-3 Ultrium 920 SCSI Internal Tape Drive  We originally paid $2112.73 for this.  YOU can do better!

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Come on, you know you want it, right?  Here's your chance to make me a great offer.  Just send me an email.  tonyd {at} perimeter {dot} org

How Do You Buy a Good Used Car?

This post really is about how to buy a used car.  No history, no joke!  OK, maybe some of my car history is a joke, but that's secondary.  My 1998 Ford Windstar has taken it's last significant trip.  That vehicle was my last try to give an American branded vehicle "one more try."  I actually bought it used, via Car Max, with about 40K miles on it, and it made it about 130K more.  But, alas, it's now trying to suck coolant into a cylinder or two, and that just doesn't work very well.  The cost to fix it is way beyond it's value, and there are enough other problems right around the corner, so it's time to move on.

So, back to my question.  I'm not a car expert.  When engines had real distributors, I could do a little work, but that's so long ago and I don't think I'm going to even try to catch back up.  So...how can a non-mechanic select a good used car?  And let me go ahead and complicate this.  I want to be a little picky in the process!  What I want:

• Reliable
• Affordable.  Let me stress that -- VERY affordable!
• Not just anything (I told you I was picky)
• Some method that doesn't consume a lot of my time -- that's my most limited resource

I even sort of know what I want, or have a few choices.  I'm only interested in Honda or Toyota.  A Tacoma Extended cab is my dream vehicle, but a Corolla, Camry, Civic, or Accord, are probably more practical.  A conservative color is the one appearance detail that matters to me.  (well, I don't want a wreck, but if you know me, you know that 'style' doesn't matter much)  Working A/C is a big deal.

So, anybody have the "three easy steps to the reliable used car you want?"

BTW, I'm not necessarily concerned about a recent model.  The Dye family's current 'fleet' of vehicles consists of:

• 1990 Acura Integra
• 1991 Honda Accord
• 1993 Saturn SL
• 2001 Camry

Installation Legaleze

Who "made the rule" that the legal stuff for a software install is always in a small box and you have to scroll it around a lot.  Of course, I know, you can highlight it an put it somewhere else.  But why?  This isn't a rant against Apple...that's just what I happened to be working on at this moment.

Weight Loss in the Shower?!

Naturally, as a participant in the Church IT's Biggest Loser contest, I'm looking for every opportunity to shave off an extra fraction of a pound.  I may have discovered one that doesn't make any sense!

I weigh-in each Monday just before stepping into the shower.  A couple weeks ago, I got my weight, then stepped into the shower.  Then I started thinking.  Actually, I do a lot of my best thinking in the shower.  Unfortunately, with nothing to take notes on, no recording device, and my well-known flaky memory, much of that best thinking goes down the drain.  I may have solved the problems of world hunger, global cooling, global warming, free energy, and so many other things, but I just don't remember those solutions.  But I digress...

This particular day, I was thinking about my weight, and what I was thinking was "that can't be right!"  I *must* have misread the scale -- I know I've lost more that that this week.  So, after my shower, and after drying off as best I could, I weighed again.  My weight was down a few tenths of a pound.  OK, write that off, just a bad first weighing, or bad eye-sight, or something else, but it's not possible to lose weight in the shower.  Besides, after getting out of the shower, no matter how well I dry off, I must still have a bit of extra water on me, so I should way more, not less, right?

Well....a couple of days ago, I got to thinking about this again.  So, I tried it again.  Same results.  After my shower, I weigh a few tenths of a pound less.  I tried it again on another day. Same results.  How can this be?

I can't come up with any logical reason why showering would reduce my weight.  I mean, sure, I'm washing off dirt and sweat, but how much can that weigh?

Of course there is that "thinking" thing.  Does thinking burn calories?  Do spent thoughts reduce weight?  Hmmm....

ToDo Lists

Where do you keep your ToDo list?  Do you have just one?  I did a very informal survey of a few people at Perimeter.  These were all people who have been through GTD or TBYL, or otherwise have been heavily influenced by such material.  So, clearly, they’d all be highly organized task managers, right?  Here are some of the responses from the survey:

The Expected (and desired):

• Outlook Tasks
• A shared Outlook (Exchange) task list

Not too surprising:

• "on my Calendar"
• In a spreadsheet
• Notepads (paper, spiral, etc.)
• "my inbox"

Other stuff:

• Flagged items in OneNote
• Flags (electronic, sometimes paper!) on other documents
• Papers on desk
• Papers in pocket
• Sticky notes
• "on my 'goals' document"
• Many places, all pulled together on my Outlook ToDo bar (wow!)
• Note cards

Then two special award winners:

• Item (s) thumb-tacked over my work space
• {Other Person} tells me what I should be doing

As I said, this particular group have all been trained in GTD or TBYL.  What would the answers have looked like without training?

Another Tool for my Wish List

I'm on the lookout for something that I hardly even know how to describe.  I want to dramatically improve the results of file searches.  Consider searching files (not necessarily web pages) on local or network storage, using a Google Mini, SharePoint search, Google Desktop Search, or any other such tool.  The find results are only as good as the data, or meta-data, in the file.

In the case of MS-Office documents, you can add keywords into the "properties" dialog for each file.  That's fine and well, but it isn't very natural for most people.  What I'm wishing for is a tool that works with Windows Explorer, so for instance, I could be viewing a folder full of filenames, right-click on one, see it's properties, and update them right then.  Even better, let me do this from the search results pages, so I can make documents more (or less?) findable on the fly!

OK, the fact is, Office documents have a few ways to do this already.  Of course, from any Office product, from the office "button" you can find the properties page:

That's good, but how many people do it?  Even when asked over and over?  Do YOU do it?  Yep...I thought so.

There actually is another way to do this that might be easier.  *Might* is a big word here.  From Windows Explorer, right click on a file name, choose properties, and then look at the summary page:

That's actually pretty close to the desired result.  Is there a universal tool for this?  What about pictures, audio, etc.  Anybody got a favorite, and especially, a great way to integrate it in to the natural way we work?  I'd love to see something that integrates with search results.  Am I asking too much? 

As long as I'm in "make a wish" mode, there's one more thing I really, really, want.  How often, when you search for something, do you find a worthless document.  Something that obviously needs to be archived.  And I'm sure you immediately go out to your file system, find that same document using file system tools, and move it off to archive storage, or delete it.  Every time, right?  Uh huh...

This sounds like a opportunity for somebody who's recently learned a lot about SharePoint!

What Would Make A Difference?

I've been asking my team to think about things we could do that "would make a difference."  Four of us met last Friday, five of us will meet this Friday, and then I may do some mixed overlap sessions.  Everybody has had the homework assignment to come up with 1, 2, or at most 3, things that would make a big difference, and almost no other qualifications*.  Interestingly, in our first session, we had a lot of different ideas, but there was one unifying theme (which I'll disclose after the second group meets this week).

What few things would you put on such a list?

* OK, we did limit it to things the IT department can do, and for the staff, or church.  For instance, "solve world hunger" is outside the scope.

Flat Tire

I had a flat tire Saturday morning.  No big deal (especially since I was with my discipleship team and the rest of the guys didn't want the "old man" [me] to have to deal with it -- thanks guys).  It just made me think about how reliable tires are now.  When I was in high school [go ahead and insert your own joke about the dark ages], changing a flat tire was pretty common.  I can't remember the last time I had to think about it.

Let's see.  Have hardware and software reliability improved along with tires?  Hmmm....

Anybody Remember Lisa?

January 19, 1983.  The Apple Lisa was announced.  Supposedly, the first computer, or at least the first "personal" computer, with a GUI.  $9,995 was the starting price!  Motorola 68000 CPU at a blazing 5MHz clock speed.  I remember getting a close up look at one, while it was still fairly new, but never really did anything with it.  There were about 100,000 produced.  Wonder where they are now?

Spring 2008 CITRT Notes/Plans

This is definitely a work in progress with many details yet to be filled in.  Date and Location are set; everything else could change.  I'm looking back at our Fall Wrap-Up notes for more ideas.

Date:  Saturday, April 5, 2008

Time:  9-5, with check-in before, and maybe coffee/social time starting as early as 7:30.  Perhaps an informal dinner afterward, off-site, pay-your-own-way.

Location:
Crossings Community Church
14600 North Portland
Oklahoma City, OK 73134

Attendance: we're guessing that we'll have about 100.  If we get a lot of early registrations, we'll figure out how to raise the limit.

Registration: In the works, probably opening near February 1.  Expected cost will be $35 or less, which will include lunch and snacks.  Registration is now open.  Cost is only $15!  Lunch and snacks included. 

Host:  Michael Foster

Moderator: Jason Powell

Room setting:  Retrying some variation of the "at the table" vs. "in the room" concept we used last year in Houston, but we'll attempt to step it up a bit to give more opportunities to get to the table.  How?  We don't know yet!  Expect power, WiFi, and audio in the room, somehow or another.

What about vendors?  *IT* people from vendors are welcomed, just like any other IT person.  Vendor marketing teams will have their chance during MinistryTECH.

There's a good chance some of some goodies or door prizes from the non-ChMS vendors.