When I was at Podcamp Ohio I did a one hour session to a packed house on the above topic. A number of people have asked me for the link to the recorded session.
Here is the link to the Write up and Audio
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I am beyond irritated with Google at this moment. I have all of my domains email utilizing Google Apps Service which includes Gmail functionality for any persons .com address.
I have always used a desktop client like outlook or thunderbird. I run the service in IMAP and have a home machine and a travel machine that I primarily connect to Google to get the email.
The problem I am having is that many times when I am traveling Google starts flagging my mail as spam and people are not getting it. This is even happening in inter domain email aka from @rawvoice.com to @rawvoice.com
The only thing we can think of is that when I am in a Hotel or on my Sprint EVDO account that Google has some of those IP’s blacklisted. Thus when I send the email via thunderbird from one of those services the IP I am sending on gets embeded in the header. This is causing me a lot of concern because email is critical in our day to day operation and now it seems Google is blocking legitimate email and they are becoming a liability.
If I log into the web interface which i hate this problem does not seem to happen. Google you better get your act together on Google Apps or I will cancel the service and move to someone that can move email properly.
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A Significant DNS threat that is now on the loose on the Internet is set to really cause mayhem in a really bad way. So tonight I did a quick check of Road Runner Hawaii and the Time Warner system here and found that the system administrators here have not patched their DNS servers yet.
BetaNews Try your site via the DNS Checker on this site
Explanation on how bad this can be!
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Last week SCO faced the day they had tried to avoid when a ruling was finally handed down in the SCO vs Novell case. While they did not lose as much money as they feared the ruling means that they do not own the rights they are claiming too in their case against IBM. I am sure that there will be a round or two of appeals before this all dies a death and there is still the possibility of new life in this sorry tale.
This would not be my preffered way for the SCO saga to end as it does not categorically state that Linux is clear, it rules that SCO does not own the rights to make the claim itself. The possible moves SCO could make from here include trying to swing some of the claims towards Unixware which it owns more completely however this is remote. SCO convinced the court that UnixWare should be considered the latest version of Unix, which protected them from a much larger judgement and having to pay continual royalties to Novell. The evidence would suggest that this argument may not hold up to more detailed scrutiny.
The more probably outcome will come from SCO's bankruptcy case. The real chance is that SCO will end up being broken up and sold. If this happens the risk is that the rights that SCO do own and the litigation against IBM which is currently on hold will be brought back to life. If that happens we will need to rely on IBM to finalise the litigation rather than settling. Settling would create a negative precedent for Linux rather than close the issue forever.
SCO seems about to become a footnote in IT history, leaving with a whimper rather than a bang. I can't say it hasn't been entertaining.
First use of Tricaster Studio tonight had a lot of fun. Lot of moving parts so will be making some changes. Lots of great tech news tonight as always.
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I am doing some initial test on the Tricaster tonight. This is a trial run as I wait for lights and some other gear to arrive.
Live at MyLifeOnline.TV as well
Normally when I get a new computer I wipe it and install a clean version of the OS. No manufacturer specifics - just an Operating System I understand and can fix easily. It's a common IT practice and I am really content in doing it.
My current laptop is a Lenovo R61. I decided to not wipe and install because I wanted to give the benefit of the doubt to the software. I kept on only a few Lenovo controlled items, the WiFi controller, the "Hard Drive Shock Protection" and a few other things.
Yes, it became problematic.
The first problem I had was with the sound. I made one small change and it stopped working. The "ThinkVantage" buttons wouldn't work, there was no sound from the computer and nothing I did in the sound properties could fix that. I ended up reinstalling the ThinkVantage software and got it to work again.
The WiFi controller became more problematic than not. I really liked the visual finder - it told me what I could connect to and how strong the signal was. However the biggest problem I had with that is it would slow down the computer big time at startup. I would wait at least 5 minutes to get a WiFi connection which was unacceptable. Whenever I turned the Lenovo finder off and use Windows software to find the connections, it would turn their software back on even if I just closed the lid. I ended up un-installing that program.
Another problem I have is that this software changes settings without prompt. I turned off Lenovos ugly battery meter for the Windows version. This week it just switched back with no warning. I since turned it off again, but I know it's going to do the same thing.
I did a small test - I worked on the laptop for about an hour after a full charge and got the battery to about 40-50% left. I went into Task Manager and turned off all the Lenovo items. My battery usage jumped up to 50-60%.
It does make sense that if you have more stuff running the battery will run out quicker. I just wanted that self affirmation. I disabled all the items I don't need on a daily basis and continued. I have a feeling that they will turn themselves on again down the road.
There are times where you want to have certain programs running, then there are times you want to have Windows take care of the processes. I will continue to use the laptop without reloading it. I have turned off a lot of unnecessary items to give the computer a longer battery life. I wouldn't be surprised if they turned back on, though.
One feature you would lose on a reload is the recovery partition that most manufacturers put onto the machine. This is so it can reload back to the initial setup. It's nice to have on a persons computer if they want to start over and are only using the bare necessities.
Still, from here on end I am going to stick with my plans and reload a new machine with my specs. I need to trust my machines and not have problems because of 3rd party software. Of course when I do that, I always make sure I ghost my machine first.
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If you are a fan of Joss Whedon's work (Buffy, Angel, Firefly, etc), and I'm presuming there might be a few in the audience, then make sure you check out Dr Horrible's sing-a-long blog this weekend. The third episode is up now and the series is only going to be available for free until the end of Sunday. After this it will disapear from online and only be available on DVD.
Apart from being an entertaining production it is also an interesting experiment in new media production. The idea came to life because of the recent writers strike with the plan being to discover whether an alternative method of high production quality media distribution can actually make money. While it is not the most expensive production ever put together it has a number of sets and locations and some fairly big television names writing and starring in it.
The plan looks to take advantage of the propesity of their intended audience to like to view programs multiple times. Many people will see it and a large number will presumably want to not only watch it again, but to also see the extra content that will undoubtedely be included with the DVD version. That is if it works. It will be interesting to watch the result.
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I sure wish I knew what was going on at Dell. I've been working at the same J.O.B. for about eight years, and we are a Dell campus. Everything we buy is Dell, except for the small amount of Gateways I convinced a few divisions to buy several years back (most notably the Gateway Convertible M275 Notebook). So I deal with Dell sales reps quite a bit. We normally have a sales rep assigned to us that we call on for quotes and questions.
In eight years, we've had no less than 15 Dell reps. Some last a month or two, a few have lasted a year. But it seems like every time I turn around, our current Dell rep has left for "other opportunities" and we have a new rep.
It hasn't caused any real difficulties, except for maybe the fact that my Outlook contacts list is full of Dell reps and I don't know which one is the current one. The new reps seem to get acclimated well to our system of purchasing and quoting and it is a seamless transition.
What concerns me is this relatively high turnover. I've worked in places that had high turnover, and there was usually a management or corporate reason for it, and it was never a positive thing. I have to wonder what is going on over there at Dell, when a sales rep only lasts a few months and then leaves Dell altogether. Makes me wonder if we shouldn't have a backup contract in the works with another hardware provider.
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While I was on the west coast my wife called me and said here email quit working. I had noticed that an email I had sent her had bounced which was not a good sign.
When I got home I tried to login to my master road runner account and I was blocked as well. Calling Road Runner they informed my master account had been reset to a completely different username when we moved in October.
Well here it is July and they finally decided to cancel the previous master account that was in their system, and when they did that the killed all of our email accounts with it.
Luckily no one snagged the old email addresses in the 2 days we have been booted out of their system. What is shocking here is that no one informed me of the change or that I had a new master account. I have had the old account for 10 years and it has survived moves before.
Typical miscommunication by Time Warner. All turned out well though but it came at a pretty critical time when a parent is in the hospital and email is the way they are sending out quick updates.
It also seems that Road Runner Hawaii is finally rolling out a third level of service “Road Runner Turbo Plus” 18 megs down and 1 meg up. This was news to me, and will cost an additional $24.95 a month. It will also be subject their new broadband caps in the future. Sadly though it is not available in my area. Apparently Time Warner Hawaii is rolling it out in neighborhood that are more influential first.
Nothing like living with a monopoly here.
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Listener feedback Galore. I get us all caught up on whats happening including details on my latest trip to the west coast.
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