Team Fortress 2 (TF2)

My gaming fix has been coming from TF2.  If you're wondering what that is, here's your chance.  Free weekend to try it out this weekend, June 20-22, 2008.

And the new pyro unlocks come on Thursday.  Be sure to check out the new sniper video.

Bicycling

Last week I went to a class with the wife and built bike buckets.  I've used em twice already to make trips to the grocery store.  They're cheap and work great.

I even have a nice set of instructions on how to build them, what parts you need to buy, etc.  If you're lazy you can buy em for $25 each here in Portland.

So I haven't driven in over a month.  I just checked and now my truck battery is dead.  Need to renew plates, get oil change, and get gas which is pushing $5 for diesel now.  26 gallon tank.  I'm really contemplating on selling it.

UPDATE - 2008.07.03

I scanned the handouts into PDFs if you want to try building your own.  Get them here.

Watching the Tour Divide

I've been watching(?) by the tour divide race (web|blog) by following along in Google maps.  It's a race down the continental divide.  Reading the race reports is partly cool.  The real cool is that they're using a GPS device called SPOT to track their progress.

So you can follow along as well from the leaderboard, or here's a link to a full blown Google map so you can pan, scan, view satellite, terrain, etc.

Fathers Day

Called my Dad.  Doin' alright.  But his heart is having problems again.  New meds.  I need to stay on the bike.

Heidi's Dad drove up.  We did the Gondola ride.

First we go up the hill.

Great view at the top - Heidi and her mom on the right.

Then we ride back down.

That was enough effort for the day.  We headed over to the new Deschutes Brewery in Portland.  Awesome woodwork inside.  New favorite fish and chips is here.  Beat out Henry's.  And the beer is damn good.

Here's a red that drinks like a Guinness and you can only get it at the pub.

I'm in heaven.

Later

It took me about an hour and a half to install and configure Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 on Vista.  A little frustrating.

So I'm throwing this out there in case someone else finds it useful.

This is specifically in regards to the latest version at this moment, Virtual Server 2005 R2 SP1, and Vista with Service Pack 1.

You should have already installed IIS on Vista because you use this to manage the virtual machines.  However whenever I tried to use the url http://localhost/VirtualServer/VSWebApp.exe, Internet Explorer and Firefox both kept trying to download the VSWebApp.exe.

Apparently you also need to make sure the CGI portion of IIS is installed on your Vista IIS install:

After that, or before it doesn't really matter, make sure you apply the patch from KB948515 so that is works Vista SP1.

You have to run the patch, a .msp file, from the command line using the msiexec utility like so:

msiexec /p path of .msp file

After that, I was able to connect to the administration website, but still was getting an error that stated, "Could not connect to Virtual Server. Access Denied."

I am logging into Vista with UAC on and trying to suffer through all the 'Allow this...' pop-ups that occur now and again.  So the quick fix is to run IE as an administrator:

This will launch IE in administrative mode so that Virtual Server is now happy. 

There's a couple of other ways this might be solvable but I did not attempt them.  One is to run dcomcnfg per this article.  It states WinXP but I do see the options in Vista.  I cannot use my domain account at home so I'm having trouble attempting this.  Second is to add your account in Virtual Server security per this article, but I seem to be already in there and it's not working soo... go figure.

For now it'll have to be a right-click, run as admin launch method.  That works for now.

Later

It's a morbid thought but have you considered that when you die and move on to your next journey, how would you like people to remember you?

Growing up in the Midwest in the 70s and 80s meant attending a funeral, where a pastor or someone read from the bible and usually involved an open casket.  Where lets face it, you got to see a dead body.  You got all dressed up in your best clothes.  Usually something dark, preferably black.  It was a somber occasion.  People were sad.  Talked quietly.

It was uncomfortable and generally, not something to look forward to.

More recently, when my wife's grandfather passed it was along those same lines, but he was cremated, it was a little more relaxed, and his friends and family talked about the good memories.  When my aunt passed last fall, we hopped in the car, drove around the place she grew up and talked with my Dad about the good times and good memories.  She was cremated as well.

With the price of caskets, land, etc.  I think the trend is moving away from that.  Or am I just experiencing a 'left coast' trend?

Edith, who used to run the company I worked at, sent me a nice email congratulating me on the new job and in it mentioned attending a 'party' to remember someone who passed away recently.  The box/ashes/whatever was on a table at the party.  And I'm sure they did more laughing, remembering, and discussing about that individuals life.

I thought it was a great way to reflect on how someone may have touched your life.

Now is the time to discuss this with your husband/wife/girlfriend/boyfriend/family.  Don't be afraid to take the path less traveled.  Life is what you make of it.

Later.

I was building a new windows 2003 server using Microsoft Virtual PC and was getting that annoying beep through the pc speaker and remembered that I have a registry fix for this buried on my scripts folder I've carried along through the years.  I thought perhaps this would also help someone else.

This is a registry change on your virtual machine.  Copy this file onto your virtual machines desktop, right-click and select Merge.

Here's the contents:

   1:  Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

   2:   

   3:  [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Beep]

   4:  "Start"=dword:00000004

Reboot the Virtual Machine for the change to take effect.

Later

Second day working from home.  With my laptop sitting on the same desk my existing pc, it has become a exercise in coordination.  I've hooked up an external mouse because who can use the silly laptop pad or stubby knob in the IBM laptops.  It's for portable use only, like in airports, it's not meant for serious desktop use.

So on my home PC I'm listening to tunes through Pandora, running a web browser displayed on my home monitor.  And down on the desktop of got the laptop open.  Sitting there are two mice, one for the home pc, another for the laptop, the home pc keyboard and ahhh...

There's got to be a better way.

First I thought a KVM switch.  I could use 1 monitor, keyboard and mouse and switch between the two pc's.  But that seems really old school.  It uses hardware.  Can't I emulate this stuff?

Ah hah.  How about terminal services/remote desktop?  Why not just connect to my laptop with my home pc and run the laptop like a black box that could sit anywhere in the house connected to the network?  Ok so that's what I did.

First we have to enable Remote Desktop in Vista (that's right - I'm trying to use Vista for work).

Apparently you cannot use the Network Level Authentication from a Windows XP machine.  It's Vista only.  So it means you must select the less secure method.  If you're doing Vista to Vista then choose the more secure option.

Now we can connect from the Windows XP machine.  Easiest way is Start --> Run --> mstsc

Then enter the remote computer name you want to connect to and log in.  There you have it.

Another thought I had was the programmers bill of rights and multiple monitors.  At least two, preferable three.  Can this even be done with terminal services?

Apparently it can.

mstsc /span

This MS KB article states it can be done but that you're limited to 4096 x 2048.  Essentially two monitors.

I have yet to test it out since I'm only a 1 monitor guy at home.  That's going to be remedied here shortly.

Later.