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Vibram FiveFingers

Just got a pair of these today!

These Vibram Five Fingers “shoes” give you that feeling of walking barefoot while protecting your feet from cuts, scrapes, and burns (when walking on very hot surfaces).

I first found out about these shoes when I went hiking a few weeks ago.  There was someone in our group wearing these and he was telling us how comfortable they are and how walking barefoot is good for your feet and legs so I did some research after the hike to learn more about it.  I found a lot of articles and forum discussions that are saying good things about them so I finally gave in and bought a pair.

According to Vibram’s website:

The typical human foot is an anatomical marvel of evolution with 26 bones, 33 joints, 20 muscles, and hundreds of sensory receptors, tendons and ligaments. Like the rest of the body, to keep our feet healthy, they need to be stimulated and exercised.

Many experts believe the shoes we wear not only cast the foot in a protective form, but also weaken our foot and leg muscles, leaving them underdeveloped and more prone to injury. And while there are many occasions where traditional footwear is essential for protection, safety, and security, it is equally important to stimulate and exercise the foot in a more natural state on a regular basis.

That’s why we recommend wearing FiveFingers for exercise, for play, and for fun. Stimulating muscles in your feet and lower legs will not only make you stronger and healthier, it improves your balance, agility and proprioception.

I bought the Vibram Five Fingers KSO (“Keep Stuff Out”) model ($79.99) and so far I’m very happy with them.  I wore it earlier while mowing the lawn for about an hour or so and I found them very comfortable and fun to walk with, you can feel the texture of the terrain.  I washed them (they’re machine washable also, by the way) after that, though, so I’m still waiting for them to dry out before I put them back on.

If you want to try them out use this link to find your nearest store that carries them: http://www.vibramfivefingers.com/productsupport/store_locator.cfm

Can’t wait to use these for other activities!  I’ll post an update in a few weeks!

Maxtor SATA/150 PCI Card Driver

I just spent the last hour looking for this driver!  I have an old computer that I need to reformat and reinstall Windows XP on but the Windows XP CD doesn’t have the drivers for this adapter so it couldn’t detect my hard drive.

My drive is now formatting, but I could’ve been done with the installation already if only I had the drivers handy so I’m gonna host it here on my website for future reference and hopefully it saves other people some time too from looking.  I’ve found websites posting fake drivers and some require you to sign up and pay a membership fee.

Here’s a direct download link to the driver (Note: the entire content may not fit on a regular floppy, so when you extract the files to your floppy disk, just select the OS that you need the drivers for):

• Maxtor SATA/150 PCI Driver Download

If you don’t have a floppy disk, good luck finding them in stores!

How to check the progress of the ‘Shrink Database’ task in SQL Server 2005

My first blog post in a long time!

So I archived some data from our database yesterday and I needed to shrink the database file so I ran the “Shrink Database” task in Management Studio.  The database is over 500GB in size and I checked 7 hours later and the database shrink operation is still going.  I got a little worried because someone needs to use this database today and I’m not sure if the task would be done by then because the GUI is not showing the progress.  I needed to know where the DBCC Shrink operation is currently at or if it’s even doing anything so I can cancel if it doesn’t look like it will finish in time.

The next step I took of course is open up Firefox and used my favorite search engine to look for a way to check the progress.  I found this website that explained it and all I needed to do is open Query Analyzer and query sys.dm_exec_requests and look for DbccFilesCompact in the command column.

Here’s an example:

SELECT percent_complete, start_time, status, command, estimated_completion_time,
cpu_time, total_elapsed_time
FROM sys.dm_exec_requests

In my case, the percent_complete was already at 94.xxxx and slowly moving so that made me happy.  Going from 94 to the end took about 5 hours, by the way.  The entire operation took around 12 hours.

Opportunistic TLS

We had to upgrade our mail gateway/anti-spam software on Sunday because one of our vendors requires us to use encryption when exchanging emails with them.  The easiest solution is to use opportunistic TLS, where the server will always try to connect to the other server using the TLS protocol.  If the other server supports TLS, then traffic is encrypted.  If not, then the email is sent using just regular SMTP without encryption.

This is actually the first time I’ve even heard of opportunistic TLS, I’m used to seeing S/MIME and PGP when reading about email encryption.  What I like about this is encryption/decryption is done on the server side so the users don’t have to do anything different when sending emails and we don’t have to issue a certificate to each user and manage the keys.

If you’re using Exchange Server 2007, opportunistic TLS is already enabled by default.  You can check this by entering Get-SendConnector “Send Connector Name” | Format-List in the Exchange Management Shell.  Look for the IgnoreStartTLS parameter, if it’s set to false then opportunistic TLS is enabled.

To check whether a server supports TLS, telnet to the server on port 25 and check if the server supports the STARTTLS command, for example:

telnet mail.global.frontbridge.com 25

This server supports TLS

Here’s an example of the header of an email that was delivered with TLS enabled (I modified the IP addresses and names for privacy reasons):

Received: from mailgateway01 (1.2.3.4) by mailserver01.domain.com (1.2.3.5)
with Microsoft SMTP Server (TLS) id 8.1.263.0; Mon, 16 Mar 2009 18:05:18
-0400
Received: from mail.global.frontbridge.com ([65.55.88.22]) by mail.somedomain.com
([1.2.3.4]) with ESMTP (TREND IMSS SMTP Service 7.0; TLS:
TLSv1/SSLv3,128bits,AES128-SHA) id 06456c96000057da for <jdoe@microsoft.com>;
Mon, 16 Mar 2009 18:05:16 -0500

RSA SecurID 3.0.2 for BlackBerry

My colleague informed me earlier that RSA just released this new version of their SecurID software for BlackBerry sometime last month.  I installed it right away on my BlackBerry 8330 with OS v4.5.0.131 and it finally worked!!!  I’ve been trying to get their software to work on my BlackBerry since last year but my OS wasn’t supported.

This new version also now supports RIM OS version 4.7, so if you have a BlackBerry Storm this should work.

You can download the software from here: http://www.rsa.com/node.aspx?id=1165

How to automate Microsoft Office 2007 installation

I was just updating some documentation on our wiki and found some old notes on automating Office 2007 installation.  We upgraded our Microsoft Office software early last year from Office 2003 (and a few Office XP) to Office 2007 and this simple installation script saved us a lot of time. Here are the steps:

Step 1.  Copy the contents of the Office 2007 installation CD (or package) to a network share (eg. \\server\Office12).

Step 2.  Run the Office Customization Tool and create a setup customization file (I got these instructions from a BDD 2007 document on Microsoft’s website).

Read the rest of this entry »

Desktop, Network, and Windows skills in demand?

Desktop support ranked as the most wanted skill sets for 76% of CIOs, with network and Windows administration taking the second and third slots with 65% and 64%, respectively. Database management is considered hot for 55% of respondents, and telecommunications support and wireless network management was selected by 47% and 46% of CIOs polled, respectively. Rounding out those skills seen as in demand are Web development/Web site design (39%), virtualization (35%) and business intelligence (31%).

Full Article

The study is based on data gathered from about 300 clients with $200 million or more in revenue, according to Network World.

I’m actually a bit surprised with the findings.  I didn’t expect desktop support to be the most wanted skill, I was expecting virtualization to be at the top because of all the cost/time savings virtualization can provide.

100,000 Miles!

100,000 Miles!

I was driving to work this morning and noticed my car just reached 100,000 miles!  I pulled out my BlackBerry and took a quick picture at the next stop light.  The picture is really blurry though.

Hoping to get another 100,000 miles from this car!