It started out on Saturday with my youngest daughter winning her playoff basketball game. That was followed by my older daughter and a trip to Reading PA for a cheerleading tournament where they came in 1st for their division. They then came in 1st out of 27 teams for their level as the grand champion for their level with the highest score.

Then comes Sunday and Super Bowl XLII. It was our NY Giants against the undefeated and heavily favored New England Patriots. In what turned out to be a low scoring first 3 quarters, the 4th quarter made up for it with the Giants scoring a TD to go ahead, followed by the Patriots scoring a TD to go ahead with 2:42 left. What happened next was a drive every Giant fan (and probably every Patriot fan) will forever remember. Great catches and plays by Manning and 5 different receivers with the most amazing play of all being Manning escaping from being sacked to throw a jump ball to David Tyree who caught it against his helmet and somehow was able to hold onto it. Another pass and an easy pass to Plaxico Burress in the end zone to complete the most amazing drive in Giants history.

A PERFECT win to wreck the Patriots PERFECT season to end a PERFECT weekend.

Since getting my license the beginning of August I joined BARA - Bergen Amateur Radio Association - which is a local amateur radio group that meets in Ridgewood, NJ. I also participated in my first contest which was the ARRL 2007 September VHF QSO Party.

A special treat was late Saturday night, N3CRT (Charlie) made contact with a satellite as it passed overhead and made contacts across the country by bouncing his signal off the satellite.

Today I also attended my first Hamfest. It's really interesting to see the vast mix of people that attend, but all are extremely friendly. The hamfest isn't a very large one and I look forward to attending other ones. I even ran into a very large vendor that lives by my sister-in-law in South Salem, NY. He doesn't have a storefront but sells via the web or at hamfests. It's all top notch stuff and I would have qualms about buying equipment from either George at Radio Oasis or as mentioned in my first ham post, Gene at KJI Electronics. They are both outstanding.

So for now, 73's and all the best.
K2DSL

Within a couple days of passing, I was automatically assigned callsign KC2SAU. They allow folks to pick their own vanity callsign so I applied for K2DSL and just received approval. So, on the airwaves, I'm K2DSL.

One fun thing you can do is hook up a GPS (I have a Garmin 76CS) to my radio and it will broadcast my position and receive other ham radio positions using a packet radio technology called APRS. You can even track folks using this technology on the Internet and send the equivalent of SMS messages to other mobile operators in your area. I have also played around with other Internet technologies such as Echolink which allows PC to PC/Radio or Radio to PC/Radio connections using the Internet.

I have already started to study for the next license level called General Class. It gets a lot more technical with specifics of frequencies, radio electronics, band plans, etc. When passed it opens up additional frequencies you are allowed to communicate on. These additional frequencies allow for near worldwide communications from your home or mobile radio.

See you on the air!
73s
David - K2DSL

Both the commands below expect a file called filelist.txt to contain a list of file names to process.

Command 1:
for /f "tokens=*" %%a in (filelist.txt) do @xcopy /y "%%a" ".\%%~pa" >nul

processes each row in filelist.txt in the format of:
Y:\directory\file1.htm
and copies file1.htm from a network share to .\directory on the current drive.

Command 2:
@echo off
for /f "tokens=*" %%a in (filelist.txt) do IF NOT EXIST %%a ECHO %%a
pause

processes each row in filelist.txt and checks to see if it physically exists in the current directory. If not, it outputs the name of the missing file to the command window.

I don't know if these will help anyone else, but I know I'll be able to find these examples quicker in the future!

They just showed it on TV with 3 cars off the tracks and 2 leaning up against a pole. 150 people reported on the train and no injuries. Here's a link to the first report by ABC on their web site - NJ Transit train derails.

For a change, I was in the right place at the right time.

A week ago, my wife was putting out the trash and I was on the train home from work. She turned around and the neighbors cat was dead on our lawn. I don't think anyone knows what happened and why Rusty died, but my wife and the kids were heartbroken. She was balling when she called me to tell me. My one daughter was home but my other daughter wasn't and I had to tell her when she came home. I can't even imagine what will happen when our cat goes. Hopefully it will be a long, long, long time.

So what has happened in the past 6 months? Launched a few new platforms at work with a great team of developers. The commute still isn't bad which I'm sure shocks everyone that knows me more then it shocks me.

Went on an awesome Alaska cruise/vacation that was worth every penny, though I don't want to know how many pennys it was. Over 3,000 pictures were taken in the 2.5 weeks we were on vacation.

Found geocache #600 though I didn't do as much caching over this summer then I have in the past.

My little brother Barry has been on a couple more TV shows, the last being a good part on Windfall with Luke Perry.

The girls are ready to head back to school as 6th and 7th graders. Boy I'm getting old.

That's it until next time and hopefully not the next time I upgrade the blog software.

I'm pretty disappointed in the support they have previously provided for the Windows platform which is what my hosting is (by choice). Things never go smoothly with their upgrades which is why I typically wait weeks or months before upgrading in order to have enough people work through the problems that I can find solutions or workarounds on their support forums.

It looked like things were going smooth enough with the recent update to give it a shot. I downloaded and unzipped the install. Read the readme which referenced a web page. Their documentation is definitely lacking and I feel relies too much on the knowledge people have if they are intimately familiar with the software. I think that's fine if I lived for blogging, but it's just a tool I use to post. I backed everything up and then uploaded the new version after tweaking the config file. It didn't work which based on my past experiences with this software wasn't much of a surprise.

So I search the forums and find some hits on my problem. Some were involved and some were a bit more straightforward. I chose the option to edit the CGI files vs contact my webhost to make a change. I added a code snippet to the top of each CGI file (maybe 12-15 of them) and got past that problem. It wasn't over yet...

I gave it a shot and the upgrade ran and the site was back up and running. Now I'm using MovableType for free so I feel I have limited ground to complain on, but it sure doesn't make you want to move to a paid version. I'm just not sure why it's so hard for them to get the Windows stuff right. I could see a beta release needing work, but why are there these core issues after multiple betas and a release that has been out for weeks already. Thankfully, the community provides answers which the user (me in this case) needs to edit into the code. Not nice in my eyes.

I'll try and write something else soon. The update is why, for anyone that is using a RSS reader, it might show all posts as new. They aren't... just another part of what the upgrade process did.

As I'm listening, I start noticing inaccuracies that are being made. This show is hosted and co-hosted by people that are (or are professing to be) computer experts. Now everyone can't know everything about the Internet, but if you're going to say something, one would hope you're relatively certain about it, and with multiple "experts" participating, you think they'd correct any misstatements one of the others on the show made. Well, they didn't, and it bothered me.

So imagine 10's of thousands of people that listen to this, and yes their audience is this large, walking away with incorrect information on multiple topics. And then these people tell others and before you know it, the misinformation starts to spider out.

Now this info was relatively harmless though it was all about one web site - Google. Some of the misinformation was you couldn't search Google and select only relevant content in a site, but you could on Yahoo. Well as long as I can remember, you could add site:somedomain.com to your search query and it will return just pages within that domain (or subdomain if you further qualify the site feature). You can also type it in on the advanced search form on Google where there's an existing spot for limiting searches to a specific domain.

The last incorrect comment made (or at least once I started really listening and not daydreaming as much) had to do with Google mail (Gmail). The statement was Google mail provides 1GB of storage. Well, since about March/April of this year, Gmail provided 2GB+ of storage. The "+" part is because it's constantly increasing. I'm currently showing my Google mail capacity to be about 2.4GB.

Now the above items aren't going to cost anyone lost revenue, but it's just complete misinformation. And it's not uncommon enough information that "experts" in the world of computers or the Internet wouldn't at least be able to state correctly or correct someone else's misstatements on the topics.

So, if you hear it on the Internet, assume it's incorrect. Who knows... maybe this post is the exact opposite of what you should believe.

I'm involved in the preliminary investigation of a large new project and I'm getting a great education across many areas of the company. The folks have all been terrific and helpful and I'm looking forward to week 2.

I'm in a great area of NYC. Lots of activity and lots to do if you want to get away for a bit. If you're a shopaholic, you'd be in trouble.

Now to plan a nice long hike for the weekend.

In the morning I was treated to bagels by my buddy Vinnie. I hung out downstairs as I went through my emails and cleaned things up. Shortly after going up to my desk, I was getting calls/IMs asking when I was going over to the other building so I went over there to say goodbye to folks. I thought it would be quick, but 1.5 hours later and I wasn't done. Stayed over in the other building and had my last employee lunch with some friends and then had a meeting with the person replacing me that was in from California.

I returned to my office to start packing up the remainder of items and then get things in order for walking out the door. Around 4:30 I think I was done and the only thing left to do was set my Out of Office message and leave a voicemail message indicating who to contact now. Didn't see anyone left on my floor. I walked down to see if anyone was waiting on the 1st floor, but they were in a meeting so I headed out and met up with someone heading over to the Marriot. Off I went - so long Sony.

As each person left, they wished me the best, commented on some moment (the first time we met or some funny incident after that) they felt they would remember for ever, and I wished them good luck too. In the end there were a handful of folks left and Patty and I said our goodbyes and headed home.

The folks I knew and became close friends with is what made the years at Sony fly by. The camaraderie, the mutual respect, watching each others backs and always doing everything we could to make the other successful is what made IT successful. If the new folks don't mesh well with those that remain, success will be difficult and stressful.

A new chapter starts tomorrow as I head off as a commuter for the first time in my life. I've been looking forward to something new for a long time now and I'm excited about the opportunity that awaits. I'll let you know how it goes!

When folks contacted me after I sent out the email, the first thing they said falls into 1 of 3 categories:

Group 1) They wanted to offer their sincere thanks and best wishes.

Group 2) They said they were getting choked up reading the email (especially the end).

Group 3) They were disappointed I didn't mention *them* in the email. They weren't really serious but enough people mentioned it that they fall into their own category. Almost everyone I sent the notification to could easily have a paragraph or more written about our adventures together over the years.

2 more days!

I've come into contact with a tremendous number of people over the years that include employees, ex-employees, consultants and vendors. In some way, each and every one of these individuals affected me in some way. Here are the highlights (and sorry if I spell anyone's name wrong as it's been many years for some)...

I left my last company after 4 years and was hired by Bill Wolf to work along with Dan Bardzell on our EDI implementation. It was a good introduction to Sony where I met a lot of folks that, up until the move to SD, were still active employees on the business side. EDI is now managed by George Perini, and George's expert knowledge and care & feeding of EDI will be missed when he leaves.

After a couple of years, I was lucky to be involved in our IEF Case Tool implementation. With Phil Kunz, Greg Lordi and Joe Pinto, we made sure the platform was not a cause for concern. When Stock Locator (John Larsen, Helen Simon, Jim Sarcinella, etc) went live, it was the first production IEF application that TI wasn't personally involved in. After Stock Locator, SMART & Prompt were subsequently deployed and both had a very long life. And though I had no desire to move to Plano, TX, the TI folks never stopped asking if I wanted to work for them.

When the IEF focused on OS/2 as a deployment platform, I felt Windows would be better so I moved into Gary Fisher's group. We brought Powerbuilder in (v1.x or 2.0 back then) and along with BJ Safdie created some tremendous Client Server applications (many against Sybase & DB2 using the MicroDecisionware gateway) to showcase the technology.

A new VP was brought in for "Planning" and I worked for Steve Charatz for a couple years. Under Steve, the most fun I had was when we had a couple years where we brought kids in right from college and trained them. Ari Schneiderman was in the first class and is still here. Others moved on after a few years, but I still think it is an excellent idea.

Eventually, I worked for Jim Furey and was involved with the implementation of the Ft Myers Call Center. Along with Rafael Orsini, Vinnie Farinaro and others from NJ, we spent a lot of time and effort implementing the platforms as well as involved in the building of the temporary & permanent facilities. I spent way too many holidays, birthdays, anniversaries and Valentines Days with Rafael, Jim and others in Ft Myers. The days were often long but the final result was beyond remarkable.

After many years working for Jim and Service Company implementing many web based systems for practically no cost but with tremendous payback, I had the opportunity to move to my current group. E-Strategy was managed by Steve Morrissey and the group had an extensive list of platforms to be deployed. While Steve was here, we deployed eWorkplace portal and LDAP, Digital Asset Management, a Content Management System, consolidated web hosting and webMethods for B2B and A2A integration. All platforms were extremely successful and still all active today.

In E-Strategy & E-Services, I had the opportunity to work with a tremendous group of folks. Most are gone now with a few still remaining (at least through this week). On top of the list is Steve Oliver. Steve is the brightest, hardest working individual I have met in the 21.5 years I've been in IT. Steve has been involved in almost every platform we've deployed and his ability to make things work is unmatched. When Steve leaves Sony, Sony will lose a talented individual they will never be able to find again.

Within the E-Services group, a few have already come and gone, like Roseann Good, John Selle and Sudhir, a terrific consultant we had for a few years. Still here through the end of this week is Kamal Panchal and Jerry Kaplan. Along with Srini, our consultant for the past couple of years who relo'ed to SD, they made sure the Intranet and Internet platforms were always up and running and spent countless hours (usually after work - why is that?) getting things going again if there was an issue.

There are many, many more folks I've had the pleasure of working with over the years. For those that remain at Sony (temporarily or permanently), I wish you the best. The next year or two will be tough but I hope things turn around. The relationships I've built with the users and other IT folks is not something you can transition. The relationships are what allowed me to do things quickly and effortlessly. For those that have already left, I hope you've found something you enjoy to do.

People have asked me why I'm still working so hard and still smiling. After 17.5 years of giving 100%+, I certainly wasn't going to stop now. When I leave at the end of the week, I want everything working so no one can place any blame on those of us leaving that worked so hard in implementing and supporting all the platforms we worked on. I've got a job secured when I leave, which obviously helps, but when I think about it, maybe it's that when I started at Sony I was a 24 year old kid and now when I'm leaving, I'm married to a beautiful wife and tremendous mother, have 2 gorgeous and intelligent daughters and a bright future ahead of me. How could I not be smiling!!

Best of luck to all and please stay in touch,
David

As I started reading the article, what popped into my head was "Well, create a solution that meets the needs of the customer". Instead, Managers at Microsoft (the company referenced in the article) are concerned with not providing a solution, but instead, hiding the fact that they don't have one. This isn't a Microsoft specific issue as it seems to be the norm today in Corporate America.

At the end of the article, one Manager states:
"I don't really care if it pisses them off," he said. "I'll argue why they're doing it wrong. If you want me to stop using it, give me a product that works and is as easy to use."

That's one person I would hire in a heartbeat!

The email message just has a lot of text and link to a url with a very non-descript domain name. The page that is displayed professes the service as stopping spam in its tracks. There are testimonials of people from all over the world on how this service (or is it a program, I can't really tell) will save you from spam.

The claimed advantage of their service is it's a one time fee vs an annual solution and if you act now, it's even discounted another $20. There's a link to Click here for Instant Delivery and lo and behold, you're brought to a page to provide them with your Name, Address and Email but most importantly your credit card information. Of course, the page is not SSL!

Who in their right mind (besides me) would:
1) Open the email?
2) Click on the link in the email (which contains words broken up to try and fool existing spam filtering)?
3) Click on the link to proceed to order the service (or product)?
4) Enter in all their personal and credit card info on a non-secure page?

I wonder how many people ordered it today? :-(