Happy IPv6 day

Are you ready for IPv6 Day?

Google has a handy little test to see if you are going to have any issues with the cut over.

For those of you that don't know about it, IPv6 day is the 24 hour test run for Google, Facebook, Yahoo!, Akamai and Limelight Networks and some of the major organizations that will offer their content over IPv6 for a 24-hour test period. The goal of the Test Day is to motivate organizations across the industry – ISPs, hardware makers, operating system vendors and web companies – to prepare their services for IPv6 to ensure a successful transition as IPv4 addresses run out.


You can read more about it on World IPv6 Day.

Microsoft Groove Does stuff ---Update------

I never actually got around to saying what it was that Groove did in the last post so I thought I would finish the thought (3 years later) with what I have figured out since then.  It turns out that Groove (now Sharepoint Workspace 2010) is both a client for Groove Servers (now Sharepoint Server) and an Ad Hoc Sharepoint like software. The principle of what Groove does centers around document stores (just like Sharepoint is all about lists of documents).  The key difference with Groove what that you didn't require the infrastucture to be put into place for you it could be implemented in a peer-to-peer system with documents stored and synced on individual computers local drives. Source

Hope that helps for people that wonder what the hell Groove does, I really think that Microsoft has failed to articulate what the hell is going on with their byzantine product matrix, and doesn't do a great job of selling the features to the non-technical world.

Sysadmin Tool list

My organization previously used Sunbelt Software for Anti-Virus so I still get emails from them from time to time about their various offerings.  This list did strike me as interesting though.  It is a list of 40 "System Admin tools". I say it in quotes because several of them are ok in most situations, but it is interesting the value/non-value of free tools.  For instance 7zip, I love it.  Great program and I use it on almost every system I run.  I found out the hard way that it is not infallible, I was trying to untar and .img file to burn to usb using dd, and the file repeatedly failed, I re-downloaded it and same story.  Turns out 7zip doesn't handle files larger than 4gigs very well, Winrar or tar on a linux system and it worked fine.  Moral of the story sometimes you get what you pay for.

Anyway give them a look, the marketing department only placed one Sunbelt Software tool on the list so it actually (barely) passes the bullshit marketing test.


Via Sunbelt Software

Flash games to kill your time

First up a moving puzzle game.  I  have never seen a similar type of game so it was an all new mind bender for me.

http://www.eyezmaze.com/eyezblog_en/blog/2005/10/movie_puzzle_ver0.html#monster


Next if that wasn't a time suck enough for you, Too Many Ninjas.  I enjoy the retro 8-bit style, and simple controls.

http://www.foddy.net/Ninjas.html

I apologize for your now wasted day.

Livescribe

I saw this product a while ago called livescribe, it bills itself as a "Smart Pen", but I see it as a way to digitize notes.  It links with several programs now, and my handwriting is quite legible so I doubt it would be a problem for me to use this product.  I'm just not sure if I would use it.  I type pretty quickly, and the mouse+keyboard interface is pretty simple to utilize so when I am at a computer I struggle to see a use for it.  As a long time tablet and Microsoft OneNote enthusiast I like having my notes in my handwriting, but appreciate the ability to search them like they are typed.  I just don't know if I would pull the trigger on this though.

[?]

wages for tech

This is a couple of years old, but I still wonder about this.  How can some shops classify you as exempt and then give you a script to follow.  If you have freedom to pursue creative solutions then you are probably closer to the exempt status, but if your troubleshooting is largely scripted then you may have grounds to sue for back wages if you work overtime.

http://www.cio.com/article/print/443113

DVD Streaming for media center extenders

This started out as post that I thought would be useful for someone (me), but the way that Microsoft and market forces have basically killed the Media Center Extenders off, it may not matter. This registry key is one part of this step. Most of the rest of the information that I found on ripping the DVD to a folder for chapters to remain intact was on The Green button community. This tidbit took me quite a long time to find (so long ago I don't even have a link to attribute it to), but here it is. Hope this helps someone.

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Media Center\Settings\DvdSettings]
“ShowGallery”=”Gallery”
“SkipButtons”=”Chapter”
“ChannelButtons”=”Angle”
“ShowDiscsInDrivesAtTop”=dword:00000001
“SearchNetworkFolders”=dword:00000001
“FolderSearchDepth”=dword:00000003
“ShowCacheLocation”=dword:00000000
“SuppressExtensibilityEjectPrompt”=dword:00000000
“ShowChapterLengthInOverlay”=dword:00000000
“DefaultLibraryPivot”=”Name”
“DefaultOnTVPivot”=”OnNow”
“DefaultGenrePivot”=”Title”
“TopRatedSort”=”SortByStarRating”
“GalleryView”=”Small”
“Version”=”65537″

A quick Google search on the subject gave me an Engadget Article with a link to this Forum.