Do you life Plan?

I was catching up on what my boss Arlin had blogged while I was gone and one of his posts was about a Life Plan. Which made me to get to thinking about my own and on the thinking I had realized that I had set one for myself a long time ago already. My dad came down with Emphysima when i was 18 which put him at age 39 and he lived with this until he passed on at the age of 58. Which for people with that desease is a long time but as the Dr explained at that time he had longer lungs than a normal person does which allowed him to live longer with the deases. But I remember thinking at that time that I would try and do the things that him and mom did not do in their lifes when together. They had been all about work and more work and no time to do anything other than work. Which I am sure that is where a lot of my work ethic came from was this way of growing up.

I know they did have some time to do somethings before Dad got to sick to travel but they didn’t do as much as they wanted to because of this. I know I had said I was going to do things but my life was about making sure my parents could survive and I supported them and my family both, I grew up in a family of truck drivers that started with my grandfather in the 30s and continued up to the time I hung it up in March of 1997. I know I had tried to do things with my children like traveling and this but my time was limited because of work and trying to support both families. When my wife asked for a divorce in 1996 I knew then it was time to make a major change in my life and to refocus my energies. I knew it would not be with driving a truck because of the being gone all the time broke what I had. So I renewed my plan on what I was going to do with myself and what I wanted to do and one of the things I did was sell all of our equipment and whatever money was left over I took none and let my mom have it to support herself. Myself I went back to school to do something my Uncle had told me in 1975 that I should get into and that was computers and I did and I have never looked back since. I sit down and made myself a plan on what I was going to do and how to achieve it and also what I was going to do outside of work to be sure I did not fall back into that same deal as before. Which I feel I have been accomplishing and one of them was to make sure I unplugged once in a while and enjoy the family. So if you have not thought of these things slide over to my Bosses Blog and look at what he has to say and think about yourself and what you are doing.

Til later just Roger

Vista SP2

Well I finally got around to download the Vista SP2 and install it on my home PC with no problems. It was even quick with the install process which I was suprised but hey after going through the Windows XP SP2 Beta it was a welcomed way to update. I have so many things I have to get done but that is the price to pay when you go on vacation. But one of the features I was looking for was the ability to burn Blue  data  natively with Vista which SP2 included. But the install was straight up easy and didn’t take a lot of time either and I had no problems with anything I had installed on the machine. Well off to my 2008 Test servers and my SBS 2008 Server will report on that more later.

Til later just Roger

Vacation Part 2

Well I hate to say it but my vacation is winding down and it will be time to gear up for more fun and adventures working for HTS. We had a great time on vacation and are already planning on where to go next year. My wife is thinking we need to go on a drive about which if you knew her she always wanted to fly places well I don’t fly and am thinking I am getting her converted into the driving mode of life. I know we was going over Mount Eagle Tn and they said man this is pretty and cool. My comment was wouldn’t have seen this flying. So we will see what next year brings even though I do still have time left this year to be able to do something more this year yet.

I am glad we put the time into exploring the different options for the Disney World trip. Like I have mentioned you can find very affordable places to stay 2 stop lights away from the different Disney Parks. We stayed at a place called  and used a service called Disney Neighbor and stayed in the Windsor Hills Resorts in a 3 bedroom townhouse for about 125 a night which when there is 6 of you the townhouse was pretty good idea. Plus we had a little 10 by 10 pool right out our back door all to ourselves. When you are looking at 250 and on up a night to stay on the Disney property that was a good deal. Plus we cooked some of our own meals and saved money on that also. So if you are planning to go to Disney World I would sure do your homework and save yourself some money.

Til later just Roger

Vacation Part 1

It has been a great week of just doing mindless wandering about and wandering aimlessly around the world they call Disney World. I think back to one of my favorite movies The Matrix and when the one Dude tells Neo maybe you need to unplug man. Well that has been me. I have unplugged and joined the masses in doing nothing but walking, riding roller coasters and whatever else Disney World has to offer. I have learned Fast Passes are a good thing and are like gold for the must ride rides and that these need to be gotten early. We skipped staying onsite at Disney World and picked a townhouse in a gated community 2 stop lights away from the main Road to all the Disney Resorts and this has been a great choice. Saved money for one and we have had no troubles getting to or from and we can come and go as we please. We also can cook or whatever we waned to here and have made the trip easy to swallow because of the different places we saved money. The biggest expense was the Disney Tickets for 9 days but oh well we are seeing everything and sometimes twice.

We are off to the waterparks today and it will be a good day for it as it is suppose to hit 98 degrees today. Oh life is so tough……

Til later just Roger

I know I have been Bad

It has been a while since I have posted and I know I am bad. I was gone for a week to the HP Train Event and that was all about learning about the HP MSAs and EVAs. The last 2 weeks since getting home from that was getting whatever work done I had hanging because guess what? I am off on a 2 week vacation to Disney World in Orlando. We all are excited and it has been a non stop list of things to do and sadly the blog has lost out. There are some things I can’t talk about that also has been taking up my time but when I can I will when I can.

Til Later just Roger

Windows 7 and Virtual PC and XP Mode Beta Part 2

Well I didn’t find a program that don’t run on Vista or Win7 but I did install Connectwise within the XP Mode Beta and then launched the shortcut off my Start Menu and had the application run on my Win7 laptop seamlessly with no problems. I like the idea of how this works and the possibilities it opens up for customers and IT alike. This all ties in with the Windows 2008 R2 and how they are integrating or getting TS and HyperV to play nicely together and complement each other with the Published Desktop Pool and other options.

Til later just Roger

Windows 7 and Virtual PC and XP Mode Beta

Have you downloaded the Virtual PC and XP Mode Beta yet? Well now that the big weekend is winding down and my family got done with everything they thought I needed to do because I had been gone all week. I have time to play with this and I like what I see so far. Basically the premises is that if you have a program that will not run on Vista or Windows 7 but XP you can install the program onto the XP Virtual and the application will be published to the start menu of the the Windows 7 machine and run as part of the desktop on the Windows 7 machine. So far so good as I got this setup and will be finding a application that has issues running on a Vista machine and will see how it works. More to come

Til later just Roger

Using Microsoft Office Communicator 2007 R2 for Remote Management Part 2

Well we got this installed and working Internally and then we did the test of the remote desktop sharing. This is what the client is wanting to do so we will be making this available to the outside world and the customer will have his remote management. Plus if they want to integrate it with the Exchange 2007 Server they will be able to but the main focus is the ability to see what a user is seeing on their desktop and to be able to provide remote support. I am not sure this was a option that MS was thinking but this works for this customer. So if you have a customer thinking of the Microsoft Office Communicator and is spread out across a few locations this could be a selling point also.

Til later just Roger

HP Train Part 2

Well it has been a crazy last week and a half. I went to the HP Train Event in Houston but before I got started on the Wednesday evening before I left my wife’s second oldest son was in a car wreck. He made it through the wreck banged up and a couple of cuts but ok. His car not so much much but he is ok that is the main thing. So that took up much of Wednesday and Thursday. I left for Houston on Sunday morning and it was a nice pleasant drive down. I know why drive well I don’t fly and do my flying in a car. I actually enjoy driving so it was good.

The Course I was in at the HP Train event was on MSA 2000 series devices and EVA’s. I have some MSA 2012′s out already but this was a good what am I missing class and also to look at the Fiber MSA’s. The ones I have out are the iSCSI version. I also got my first look at EVA’s and what you can do with them and how they are setup. They are not so bad now that they have a Smart Start Utility for this and it is pretty straight forward. I guess the next step will be is the couple of tests that relate to this course. Oh Boy I love tests so much. But that finished up Friday and it was a nice pleasent trip home which i was ready for. I have some projects coming down the pike but more on that wehn I can talk about them.

Til later just Roger

HP Train

Well next week I get to go to Houston and have a week long training event at the HP Train Event. I will be going on the Storage Track and this will cover MSA and EVA type of solutions. I already ahve some customers using the MSA devices but I am sure there is tips and tricks to do on some of these devices that me learning on the fly has not covered yet. So this should be a nice fun relaxing time of learning. I know kind of sick isn’t it me thinking something like this would be relaxing.

Til Later just Roger