-
-
Today I was handed a book, by a dear lady friend who has done nothing but help grow my mind for the last year .. and since I started it this morning I just cannot put the thing down!
Well, I had to put it down so I could work. But, gee how many books have you read that have you wishing you could take the day off to finish it? That's as rare as rocking horse **** ![Stick out tongue [:P]](/emoticons/emotion-4.gif)
It's called One Child by Torey Hayden. Amazons synopsis does it far more justice than I could so heres a rip from their site:
Synopsis
This beautiful and deeply moving tale recounts educational psychologist Torey Hayden's battle to unlock the emotions of a troubled and sexually abused child who, with the help of Hayden, was finally able to overcome her dark past and realise her full potential. Six-year-old Sheila was abandoned by her mother on a highway when she was four. A survivor of horrific abuse, she never spoke, never cried, and was placed in a class for severely retarded children after committing an atrocious act of violence against another child. Everyone thought Sheila was beyond salvation -- except her teacher, Torey Hayden. With patience, skill, and abiding love, she fought long and hard to release a haunted little girl from her secret nightmare -- and nurture the spark of genius she recognised trapped within Sheila's silence. This is the remarkable story of their journey together -- an odyssey of hope, courage, and inspiring devotion that opened the heart and mind of one lost child to a new world of discovery and joy.
Torey, you have a beautiful mind. If it was medically possible I would have your babies! ![Big Smile [:D]](/emoticons/emotion-2.gif)
-
-
Few links that made me laugh, courtesy of one of my fav sites BoingBoing!
Microwave a CD then put it on top of a Tesla coil, awesome effect! Wonder if Currys or Woolworths sell Tesla Coils?!
Excellent article on how to lower your food intact and live a LOT longer!
Just think, every time you shovel food in to your mouth your trimming your life expectancy!
And extreme pimpage of a Honda Civic!
Just to wrap up, some uneccesary but fun exclamation marks !!!!
-
-
This has to be linked ... I can't wait to play with it.
Microsoft SoftGrid SMS Connector which is a part of the Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack for Software Assurance
To be honest (attract flamage will I as Yoda would say), most of what MS releases nowdays doesn't get me that excited. Sure what their doing with SMS V4 (SCCM2007) and SCOM is good, and Vista has a lot of features (I like NAP and want to see it in down-level OS's) but there isn't anything revolutionary about all of this. I guess it's a personal thing, perhaps i'm jaded by the constant tirade of releases of "same as before" software ... However, now that MS has acquired SoftGrid and are linking it to SMS i'm bloody excited and can't wait to tinker. I like virtualisation, it in my eyes is clearly the future and right way to go. Detatchment from the Hardware is key, now we're detaching from the OS (applications). Interesting times at last!
-
-
Eileen Brown (Technet fame) is punting an idea put forward by an MVP at a recent gathering. It's a killer use of their new acquirement, SoftTricity.
Now that MS have acquired SoftTricity, applications deployments over the next few years are going to become very interesting. This got me as excited as when I first started playing with OS virtualisation (thanks VMWare for killer software!).
I've always wanted to see this mess of integrating an application in to an OS's file system made obsolete (we could of done with this during the DLL hell days). Now we have the capability to compartmentalise each application so that it is running above a virtualisation layer that takes care of its needs and keeps it completely isolated from the OS.
Now think application in a bubble, and think MS releasing Beta products that don't need to be installed, just fired up via the virtualisation layer of SoftTricity. And smile
It's an awesome concept, check out Elieens comments on the subject.
I was at the MMS 2006 highlights in Reading recently and told a Microsoft employee that this product will allow companies to detach legacy applications from the OS so that they can upgrade from Win98\WinNT to keep up with Microsoft’s culling of support. Some companies just cannot upgrade their OS's right now due to the software they run requiring that OS version. For example the company I’m currently contracted to, pretty much 95% of their desktop estate is WinNT and they will eventually jump on to Vista when it's bedded in. But all their apps stop them doing so right now. It's a no go. The MS employee didn't seem to understand that this is why a lot of companies are locked in to their old tech and that they need help to get out of this mess. God knows how they will virtualise existing applications running on legacy OS's, perhaps implement something similar to P2V (Physical to Virtual) in the OS virtualisation space ... P2V for Applications yummy ![Cool [H]](/emoticons/emotion-11.gif)
-
-
Definately worth a mention ... Sherry Kissengers blog at MyITForum. Lots of helpful code snippets and ways to do things. Worthy of entering anyones browser favourites or consumed via RSS via you're RSS reader.
http://myitforum.com/cs2/blogs/skissinger/default.aspx
-
-
Was just trawling through Don Hites blog (to take a ganders at the new SMS Console tools 1.3 release, awesome work Don and MyITForum peeps!) and I came across this total gem
Having a bad day at work? Check this out ...
-
-
Looks like a couple of SMS2003 related books have been released. If i've missed any ping me an email so i can update this entry.
Here's some info on them, ISBN and Amazon link for perusal
Start to Finish Guide to Distributing Software with Systems Management Server 2003
by Dana Daugherty
ISBN: 1932577238
SMS 2003 Administrator's Reference: Systems Management Server 2003
by Ron Crumbaker
ISBN: 0471749508
And of course for completeness, Steven Kaczmareks admin companion
Microsoft Systems Management Server 2003 Administrator's Companion
by Steven D. Kaczmarek
ISBN: 0735618887
Found another book ...
SMS 2003 Recipes: A Problem-Solution Approach
by Greg Ramsey
ISBN: 1590597125
-
-
I lost my Creative Zen 40GB Touch while on holiday ... and been using my PSP to play music but it's not exactly that portable. So, been keeping an eye out for a decent MP3 and to be honest I don't rate the IPoD generation AT ALL and want something a bit different that doesn't lock you in to a DRM'd service provider such as iTunez.
And then I saw the Samsung K5 ... looks like MP3 heaven ![Angel [A]](/emoticons/emotion-13.gif)
You can check it out on the Samsung website here >.<
Comes in 1,2 or 4GB flavours with a battery life of 30hrs or 6hrs using the built-in speakers.
Gotta love that speaker slide action, looks sexeh! Wonder how fragile it is?
Built in FM Radio, touchscreen controls ... coo!
-
-
When I want to stream some tunes off the net I use Shoutcast and SomaFM as they have a wide selection of music genres to choose from. Check it out. I'm sure there are a zillion other sites out there but I find this one so easy to use and the you can choose from different bit rates for the stream.
Cool
Oh, you'll need Winamp to support the streams but that's just as easy to get\install\use. When installing make sure you keep an eye on the wizard and deselect all the clutter it wants to install (Thanks AOL)
-
-
I find that that when installing the SMS Adv Client I sometimes bang my head against WMI related issues, usually on the WinXP platform. The MSDN WMI blog have a good posting from this year regarding the WMI Diagnosis Tool which may be of interest:
Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) Team Blog
They don't seem to blog much at all really, but the tool could be handy ...
-
-
Good KB article from MS full of usefull SMS2003 goodies:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;828368