Tony's Microsoft Access Blog : Soap box

I've always been skeptical about Cloud computing ...

Tony — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 01:49:00 GMT

I've never quite understood the allure of cloud computing for individuals or businesses. Although I backup my files, including emails, every few days. Most consumers don't do that. I can understand why folks would want to use Hotmail, Gmail, Yahoo, etc.

Oh have I mentioned my mechanic friend who may have lost three years worth of emails and other files in his Hotmail account. It would appear that a malicious ex girl friend sent a bunch of ugly porn spam from his account and Hotmail shut his account down for TOS violations. Things are still pending on that one last I heard.

But cloud computing for businesses? If you're big enough to need a SQL Server then what's the problem with having your own semi-competent IT staff which run it? If there's a problem the CEO can look the IT person in the eye and ask what is going on.

Turns out McKinsey & Co, who are some kind of consulting outfit that are supposedly trusted by CEO types, agrees with me. McKinsey: adopt the cloud, lose money - Virtualize your datacenter instead. The summary done by the Reg of the Mkinsey report sounds about right to me.

My friend Jim, who run the IT department at his employer, loves the whole concept of Virtualization and such. As far as I know he is running all his servers as virtual systems under a high powered server against a SAN (or some such) with raided, hot swappable hard drives and daily tape backups. And if he likes them then that's good enough for me.

Scum spammers using veretekk.com

Tony — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 03:00:17 GMT

I have no idea if veretekk.com are responsible for the three spams I have received today from subwebs which have their domain there. By subwebs I mean felixalexanderthomas.veretekk.com. Maybe veretekk.com will see my posting and likely others and put in procedures to ensure that spammers have a more difficult time using their systems. However that domain has now been blacklisted in my spam filters so I won't see any more spam or emails from them. Bye bye.

From: Alexander Thomas <felixalexanderthomas.vm@veretekk.com>
Subject: It is all about Leadership & Training
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Must read - The Unthinkable: Who Survives When Disaster Strikes - and Why

Tony — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 23:06:36 GMT

The Unthinkable: Who Survives When Disaster Strikes - and Why

by Amanda Ripley

This book should be at the top of your *MUST* read list. Right after the Bible, Koran or other books important to your faith.

How did all the 309 passengers on Air France flight 358 which crashed in Toronto get off the aircraft in under 90 seconds? With fire blocking some exits? The flight attendants were trained to yell at the passengers to break their mental paralysis and hysteria.

One particularly sad story was of the couple, on a flight a few decades ago, who were among the few who successfully evacuated an aircraft because the husband read the safety placard. However their long time family friend was frozen in place and didn't get out.

Read the safety placard. Every time. Count how many rows back and forward in your aircraft to the nearest exits. Do your absolute best to ensure your family sits together in an airplane. Much time is "wasted" when family members understandably insist on evacuating the aircraft together.

How did Morgan Stanley successfully evacuate 2,687 people from the World Trade Center on 9/11 with only 13 lives lost? Five of which included the security directory and four security personnel. Their security director insisted that annually everyone do the evacuation drill from the building. And management backed him up.

Note that the World Trade Center had quirks in it's stair wells due to the height of the building. Also many stairwells have confusing exits at ground level. If you work in a high rise have you evacuated recently? Have you evacuated through all the possible stair wells?

Wear shoes that you can walk a mile. Discarded high heel shoes cluttered the WTC stair wells causing problems. Many evacuees had foot injuries due to not wearing shoes by the time they got to ground level and walking out on the debris.

How do you get from your hotel room to the fire exit? From your conference floor to a fire exit? A movie theatre? A bar? Has the bar blocked the fire exits?

The more thinking you do of how to get out of aircraft or building the less likely you are to freeze in place or waste seconds or minutes trying to figure out what to do. And it doesn't take much thinking. A quick glance around as you move around the building look for those fire exit signs.

I could go on and on about the lessons in this book. However this would be unethical and take a number of pages. And I wouldn't get all the tips either. I'd only get the tips that were relevant to my situation.

In my opinion one suggestion that was missing is a strong LED pocket flashlight. One which uses a AAA battery. Although not cheap at about $50 each they could be a life saver. And darned handy at other times too. I don't trust the backup power systems which handle stairwell lighting. I have no idea when the last time those batteries were changed.

Read this book. Reread it a year from now. And hope you never, ever have to use the suggestions. If you're paranoid like me you'll visit her website at http://www.amandaripley.com and subscribe to her blog.

(I know I'd have severe survivors guilt if there was a disaster, lives were lost or severe injuries and I made it out. In which case I'd be looking for a counselor and talking about the situation as much as possible. But that's another problem out of the scope of this review. Search on critical incident stress debriefing.)

Available from your bookstore, library or by inter library loan.

Google search is becoming more and more useless

Tony — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 22:01:28 GMT

So I'm trying to research a bizarre problem within Windows Vista under Virtual PC 2007. Now given that Google is indexing many, many online forums which are mirrors of Usenet and the Microsoft newsgroups I don't even bother searching for complex technical questions at the main Google screen.

Instead I switch to the Google groups web page and key in the group, or groups with a *, name. In this case microsoft.public.virtualpc. And then I key in my search terms.

And now Google is totally ignoring my selection of newsgroup microsoft.public.virtualpc. I do *NOT* want the many similar hits that occur in Windows Vista. I want just those that occur when running Windows Vista under Virtual PC.

Do you see microsoft.public.virtualpc anywhere there? I sure don't.

According to my fellow MVPs this has been broken for a month or more.

Google has become downright useless for complex technical searches.

I don't trust the "cloud"

Tony — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 23:59:02 GMT

"Can you trust your data to the cloud? For users of an online storage service called The Linkup, formerly known as MediaMax, the answer turned out to be a resounding "no.""

Loss of customer data spurs closure of online storage service 'The Linkup'

Now apparently this is mostly for backup purposes but still. What if you needed those files?

Do I trust Google, Yahoo, etc with my email, calendar, files? Not only no, but hell no.

Some sys admin somewhere had two screens open, one to a test system and one to a live system. He got confused and delete 15,000 users emails. I can't find that story but found a few others. Security firm trashes customer e-mails. Lycos cleaner bins thousands of emails

Mind you I have a backup plan for my laptop. Every few days I make a password zip file containing all my files. I then burn a DVD and either place in my fire proof (actually one hour fire rated) filing cabinet or my safety deposit box.

<rant>But I'm also a highly adept computer user and know where all my files are stored. Sure folks know about their C:\Documents and Settings\<user name>\My Documents which also frequently has other files which don't need to be backed up on a regular basis such as photos. And I'd say about 5% of users back that up regularly.

And what about photos? Of special family events?

Now how many folks know where their email is stored? Somewhere in the Documents and Settings\<user name>\Application Data folder along with many megabytes of data in other child folders which doesn't need to be backed up.

One retired extended family member asked me to at least retrieve his outgoing emails from a old laptop whose hard drive had died. He explained that his email to his children was basically his diary of the last five years. The hard drive was completely dead. There was nothing I could do. </rant>

Up yours Adobe Shockwave

Tony — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 05:08:56 GMT

Grrrr!!! I went to install Adobe Shockwave and also got asked to install Norton Security Scan. Dirty rotten tricks.

Yeah, I know this happens lots but it still is exceedingly irritating. I'll be posting these as I come across these.

Time To Abolish Software Patents? Hell yes!

Tony — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 03:38:37 GMT

SlashDot has an interesting article Time To Abolish Software Patents?. I completely agree with this. Many of the patents, well those you read about, are exceedingly simplistic, stupid and rather obvious. And they've been done before. The system is being totally abused by lawyers and thugs.

I've been following some of the idiocy at the Patent Troll Trackers blog.

There is very little that is truly innovative in software. Incremental sure. Interesting sure. Truly innovative? I think not.

"ESP Estimates Software Patent Litigation Costs U.S. Companies Spend $30.4 Billion* Annually" Foul-smelling bovine byproduct. The only people who make money are the frigging lawyers. And that's enough of a reason to me.