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Really, the Last Blogger Post - FeedBurner Subscribers, Don't Touch That Dial!!

I found out from Jim Walton at Church Tech Matters that I can just redirect my FeedBurner RSS feed to the new WordPress blog so that you, my dear readers don't have to do anything. In fact, if you're not subscribed to the FeedBurner feed for this blog, go ahead and set your aggregator (Bloglines, SharpReader, NewsGator, etc.) to http://feeds.feedburner.com/castingmynet.

Last Post on Blogger - I've Moved to WordPress

My new home is http://castingmynet.wordpress.com. Please update your bookmarks and RSS Feed.

As I wrote earlier, I've been toying with the idea of moving the blog to WordPress because it's become a far richer tool than Blogger. I was going to ease over, but WordPress has made it so easy to switch. Besides, Brian Glass at Crossroads Community Church just did it and inspired me to hasten the move. I'll keep this blog up for a while I decide what else I need to move over, but basically, the new WordPress site is complete.

So long Blogger - you've been real good to me...

Google Page Creator

Nearly a month after I put my name on the waiting list for a Google Page Creator account, I received an email stating that I had been granted said account. I can't get overly excited about it because in the past month, I've read a lot of reports questioning "why in the world Google is doing this" and "how can this be useful", but I'll give it spin. So far, I've applied a stock template to it from Google's very blogger-esque selection of styles and changed the layout to 3 columns. The real challenge is to make it something other than a blogging tool.

Experimenting with WordPress.com

I have a hosted domain and web package through VizaWeb and one of the many tools that comes with it is WordPress blogging tool. This is the open source package that is freely downloadable from WordPress.org. I've used it on a small blog I post to every now and then and I like it a lot. Last year, WordPress decided to take their blog tool and create a free blogging service on WordPress.com. Yesterday, I created castingmynet.wordpress.com and used the import tool from Blogger to pull all of my posts and comments into WordPress. WOW! It's pretty awesome and it looks really nice. I may be inclined to switch soon.

We're Baaaack!

From Kansas to our door in Texas, we drove through non-stop rain and finally pulled into our driveway at 11:00pm last night. Needless to say we just dropped into bed. An awesome and exhausting vacation is now over and we are returned once again to our regularly scheduled life.

Snow, Snow, Snow

Here's a picture of what the weather in the Twin Cities did just before we arrived and outside right now, it's doing it again. Monday, 7" of snow was dumped blizzard-style and we're looking at another 4-6" tonight.

Judging by these pictures, Ian, Trevor and Myles will be able to handle a little more packed powder.

Trevor

Myles

Ian

We're Here

We rolled into our hotel about 9:30p last night and pretty much fell right to sleep. Hit the ground running this morning and we're finishing moving boxes from Lisa's grandfather's old house into storage. Maybe we can play tomorrow.

Quick note about Hotels.com - they stink! Our first time to use them and on our confirmation they put us in a smoking room and their directions to the hotel reflected an old address and street name that had changed 2 years ago. Props to Country Inn & Suites for sorting out the whole mess for us.

Getting Colder..

We're less that 100 miles from Bloomington, MN and the thermometer reads 22 degrees.
We stopped to play in Des Moines, Iowa
Stopped to eat in Mason City, Iowa.
Crossed the Minnesota state border about 30 minutes ago.
All-in-all, the kids have done GREAT!

Trip Update

Stopped off at Kansas City, Missouri to walk around the Historic Market & Steamboat Museum.
Lunch at a McDonald's voted the most beautiful in Heartland - somewhere in Missouri.
Crossed the Iowa state border about 5 minutes ago.
Currently on the phone booking tonight's hotel in Bloomington, Minnesota.
(Note to Jim: I don't think there's any fun until the Twin Cities - more farmland)

REPENT!! ...or else

Every now and then along the interstate, we're reminded by handmade signs to "turn or burn", "get right or get left", "REPENT or regret it forever". Religious freedom is one of the things that makes this land truly great. Or is that the problem?

Fields Of Antennas

Back on the road again and we've just passed through Emporia Kansas on our way to Kansas City. Can I tell you that I'm looking around in all directions and apart from a couple of farm houses and two antennas, there is absolutely nothing here. Before, when we've made this journey, it's been in the evening and we've often wondered what it would be like to travel it in the daytime. I guess that answers that. Those antennas are really doing there job, though, because I've got a kicking signal to the internet!

Google Maps is Very Specific

I just looked up some directions to a previously-named coffee establishment and on one turn it told me to go East for 191 feet. Now, where is that unit of measurement on my odometer?

'W' is for Wichita, apparently not 'Wi-Fi'

We checked in to our hotel last night and I received my username (room number) and password for the free wireless internet, but I can't find the signal anywhere. I guess I'm getting what I pay for - oh well. The ever-faithful (not free) Cingular network, however, is going great guns. I'm currently sampling the continental breakfast and it's pretty good, but I'm heading out into the early Kansas dawn to find a... Starbucks (gasp). More on that later...

Kansas Turnpike

We're roughly here now (see map) and we just got on the Kansas Turnpike. 20 miles to go before we stop for the night. Either Google overshot their estimated time to Wichita or crows fly faster up North :)

Carry On My Wayward Son!

Welcome to Kansas! I would have posted a picture of the sign at the state border, but taking pictures at dusk going 75 is difficult. Here's something amusing, the kids are watching a DVD and Lisa's driving with the iPod. As we cross the Kansas state border, she's singing the word to 'Africa' by... Toto. You gotta love the geographical timeliness of '80's music.

Tonight's Hotel Reserved in Wichita, KS

Google Maps told us it would be 2 hours, 19 minutes from Stillwater, Oklahoma to Wichita, Kansas. A search for "Wichita, KS" + "indoor pool" pointed us to Orbitz that said there were three such hotels in the area. Based on their descriptions and photos,we chose the Comfort Inn East which has easy access from I-35. Comfort Inn's website had the prices online plus a special rate for "Internet Users" which gave us an additional $10 off the room. A room for 5 at $68 - not bad at all. A little over 2 hours to go on the road to go.

A Bite and a Stretch in OKC

Chick-fil-a was "GOOD" in Edmond, just on the outskirts of Oklahoma City and the kids got most of their wiggles out in the play area. We would have eaten at one of two Chick-fil-a restaurants on the University of Oklahoma's campus, but it's Spring Break and so they're closed. That last sentence was purely for Brian's benefit. It's starting to get colder as we inch North. They say it's in the 30's in Minnesota. Onward and upward!

Oklahoma Billboard Education

Oklahoma has a multi-campus Horseshoeing School.
James Garner was born in Norman, OK.
Nice to know...

IM-ing France at Mile Marker, 75, 76, 77...

How cool is technology these days? I was finishing my last blog post when my sister Jacqueline who's in France (check out her blog http://tangledshadow.blogspot.com- it's very cool) sends me an instant message and we chat for a good 10 minutes. So far in Oklahoma, we've passed lots of cows, horses and casinos. The Cingular Mobile Data service is getting maximum signal strength. ARE WE THERE YET??

Road Trip - Blogging across 2,000 Miles

It's Spring Break and the family is currently on the road heading to Minnesota on family business. Straight up I-35 - 1,00 miles there, 1,000 back. Thanks to a power inverter and the Cingular Mobile Wireless Data service, we can stay connected to the Internet while traveling 75 MPH. So far, we've used it to find a Chick-fil-a in the Oklahoma City area and I've been able to add a user account for one of my customers. Also thanks to a $180 dual screen DVD player from Wal-Mart, the boys are quite occupied. Much more fun and updates ahead. By the way, the Green Dot is roughly where we are right now.

The Good, the Bad and the Great about Microsoft Professional Support

This week, I went more than 24 hours without sleep trying to resolve an Exchange 2000 issue for a church in Garland, First it was a queuing problem, then it turned into an entire network infrastructure fiasco and ended up with a problem application that was crashing the SMTP virtual server. So in the spirit of 'Git er Dun', I ponied up the $245 for some professional help from Microsoft.

THE GOOD - Right out of the gate, my support guy took the problem and was able to gain full control of the server using LiveMeeting over a remote connection from my house (Garland is an hour drive with no traffic). He was checking the settings, making changes and I was getting a distilled shot of Exchange training as I watched. Then my guru showed me how the network was configured kinda screwy (technical term) and that I had to make a trip to the church to manually plug and unplug cables. No problem, happy to do it :)

THE BAD - When I arrived on-site, I couldn't reach my support guy, because he was with another customer and after repeated failed promises of callbacks from his superior, I finally got a hold of somebody to help. The only problem was, this new person didn't really want to help. And so, through the night, I took carefully reconfigured the network the way I thought it should be all the while trying to find someone in Bill Gates' Compound to give me some the guidance I paid hansdomely for. The kicker about this part of the story is that I assigned the case a severity of CRITICAL and was told by Microsoft to be available "24 hours a day, round-the-clock until the issue is resolved". Well, I did my part and was frustrated why they weren't keeping up their end of the deal.

THE GREAT - Morning again and I finally got my Brainiac Buddy back. Within 3 hours we had the whole email server in ship-shape condition and he even helped me properly accomplish the initial task that caused this mess in the first place. Here's the best part. After he asked me if there was anything else to be done, he mentioned that the notes in my case were littered with failed attempts to reach anyone competent the previous night. He apologized and then said he was going to refund my money. Now that's going the extra mile.

Thomas' Take the U.K. by Storm

First there were two, then three, then four and now six! Our Pastor and wife (Brandon and Susan) are on holiday across the pond in Cheltenham visiting his brother Heath and family (Jill, Harrison and Isabelle) for a week. Two things to do while you're there: enjoy chips and curry from the local chippy and bring back some Cheltenham rock (Heath will explain).

Does Rob (Shared4U) have any other ideas (besides visiting da`Pool)? Love ya, Rob!

SB Rehab Days 6 & 7: Last Post

Tuesday: Senseo 1, Starbucks 0, water 1
Wednesday: Senseo 0, Starbucks 0, water 0, ginger ale 2, coke 1

What has this little experiment proven? That I still love coffee and don't drink near as much H2O as I should. Well, that was fun :)

Help Desk Finale (for now)

I've been going back and forth between Liberum Help Desk and Ilient Sys Aid Help Desk to manage my incoming IT work for a week. Although Ilient has much more to offer, Liberum is quicker to figure out and get going. Plus, I like the simple interface and the user can easily navigate around. I'll still be looking into the many features of Ilient over the coming weeks and may eventually switch, but for the sake of speed, I'm sticking with Liberum.

Stickin' it to the Man... Maybe

A year ago, we ditched our traditional phone company in favor of going 100% mobile and we haven't looked back since. Recently, I've been offered at work to pilot an "IT in a Box" strategy where I would work from home or remotely full-time which is a long-awaited answer to prayer. It's not official yet, but until then I've been practicing a couple days per week seeing if I can make it work. Not being tied to a set schedule and forsaking the daily commute is AWESOME, however, the conference calls on a mobile phone are killing my wallet. Last night at the recommendation of a colleague, I purchased a $50.00 Vonage Linksys VoIP Phone Adapter and signed up for the $24.99/month unlimited plan. Vonage makes it so easy to sign up online and within 5 minutes I had broadband phone service. Since the calls are purely digital, I've noticed the improved clarity the sound. Today, I spent almost 3 hours on the phone without any hiccups.

Previously on LOST...

Just caught up via iTunes on the latest episode (Maternity Leave) and WOW! The writers delved deep into the first season to resurrect the abduction of Claire and filled a HUGE gap in the story. Holy smokes that was good TV! And although they had small roles in this episode, you gotta love Eko and Sawyer.

IM Migration Complete

As posted earlier, I am now a single platform Instant Message user - MSN Messenger. If you want to add me to your contacts list, I'm stucoian@hotmail.com

SB Rehab Days 3. 4 & 5

Day 3 - Saturday: Relapsed, but I wasn't paying and it would have been rude to decline :)
Day 4 - Sunday: Senseo 3, Starbucks nil
Day 5 - Monday: Senseo 4, Starbucks nil
Back on the Wagon!

Trying Ilient SysAid Help Desk

Thanks Derek for suggesting I check out the free version of Ilient's Help Desk. I recall seeing a discussion about it last year and when I linked to your blog, I think it was there I remembered seeing it. And so I downloaded it, ran through the InstallShield wizard and browsed through the options - looks good. I especially like the fact that it comes with it's own web server and database engine. Immediately after I hit the Finish button on the install, I received an email from the Help Desk verifying that it works - impressive. Whatever help desk I end up using, it'll be accessed by multiple organizations so if you have any tips or best practices to pass along, send the my way.

SB Rehab Day 2: Feelin' Fine

Doing good so far. I had two cups of the Senseo Dark Roast in the morning and that was all for the day. I think the foam that's generated as the water is forced through the coffee pods gives it that almost-latte sensation. I can hang with that.

Web-based HelpDesk Software

I've been looking at using a helpdesk and ticketing system to help manage my ever growing task list. Email worked for a good while, but the the added step of putting it on the task list has caused some support issues to lose priority or fall through the cracks completely. With a helpdesk program, customers can log in to a web site and open a support ticket that gets added automatically to my list and keep them updated via email as to the progress.

Since the name of the game is "FREE", I've looked at osTicket, Support Logic, PHP Support Tickets, Crafty Syntax Live Help and Liberum. Liberum is my choice since it's very easy to setup, easy for a non-techie to open a ticket and has a very simple yet clean interface.

AOL White List

For a couple of my customers, AOL has been rejecting emails sent from their domains to AOL's customers. I'm in the process of adding PTR records to the DNS and submitting formal requests to the AOL Postmaster to have them added to a White List. So far, AOL has been fairly speedy in rejecting the first round of requests due to erroneous nuances in the paperwork. This link is AOL's conditions for a domain being approved to send mail to their customers and the entry point to start the White Listing process. Read and Heed People!

Adios, Tres Amigos

After more than a year of "on again, off again" relationships, I'm finally saying goodbye forever to three Internet tools:

Bloglines - The online RSS aggregator is a great tool, but for me, it slowly turned into a creeping dread. The problem: Too many blogs, too little time. I would subscribe to a ton of feeds and it slowly turned into a blog-clog nightmare. Many blogs that I loved to read would be at best skimmed as the mission was to quickly clear out the (very high) number of unread posts. The Solution: Bookmark blog sites in Firefox that I really want to read and use Technorati/Google Blog Search to find articles of interest.

Yahoo Widgets (Konfabulator) - Honestly, I don't have a need for big clocks, partial to-do lists or annoying animations glued to my desktop. They look great, but useless to me.

Trillian - This instant messenger client combines AOL, MSN and Yahoo into one program. The problem: Even though I have IDs and screen names with all three IM services, over time all of my contacts except one (sorry Darryl) have migrated t0 MSN and lately, Trillian hasn't been able to keep a persistent connection with it. The solution: MSN Messenger.

Update: Laptop Rebuild

The ThinkPad X31 is rebuilt and back in action. The two times this laptop has been scrubbed, I've been very pleased with the Lenovo's ThinkVantage System Update tool and wish that other computer makers would follow their example. I acquired the X31 last year through a trade for computer services and, like many computers two years or older, the recovery disks are long gone. However, with a bare Windows XP install and generic ethernet driver, I am able to go to Lenovo's website, start the Java-based ThinkVantage System Update and in one (huge) download and a couple of reboots, every latest and greatest driver and utility is installed.

SB Rehab Day 1: The Replacement

I'm officially in a self-prescribed rehabilitation program to rid myself of a Starbucks addiction. I'm spending close to $10 a day on 2 drinks with a total of 8 espresso shots and am able to sleep fine at night. I'm not quitting caffeine or even coffee, just breaking the chains that keep drawing me to any one of six Starbucks locations within a 5-mile radius from my house (hmm, maybe they have the problem). The alternative? A Senseo coffee machine that I received for my birthday last year. The dark roast coffee pods taste great and I can get 9 cups of coffee for $3.50 - cha-ching!