Outside the box

Windows Defender: out of beta, doesn’t work on Windows XP

Jonathan Roberts — Sun, 31 Dec 2006 23:42:41 +0000

Today is December 31, 2006. Besides being New Year’s Eve, it is also the day that Windows Defender leaves beta (apparently). I uninstalled the beta and attempted to install the latest version. I quickly found out that MS does not allow it to be installed on a Windows version below XP. I understand that they can support and de-support any product they like. However, I find it just a bit hypocritical to allow you to beta test a product, providing feedback to them, but you cannot run the non-beta on the SAME version. Oh well, I’ll get it over.

Voice Over IP for the Common Man (or Woman!)

Jonathan Roberts — Sat, 30 Dec 2006 23:21:38 +0000

For the past year or so, I have been experimenting with Voice Over IP (often abbreviated as VOIP or VoIP). I have tested a number of providers, services and hardware solutions. Over time, I plan to cover many of these in more detailed posts. For this post, I would like to cover what, I think, is useful to the average home user.

To handle USA & Canada calling, I would suggest Skype. Skype is running an unlimited calling deal for one year for 29.95 USD (http://www.skype.com/products/skypeout/). Until January 31, 2007, the deal is HALF PRICE, $14.95. I signed up the other day. I will post progress reports from time to time. For the uninitiated, Skype is a peer to peer voip application that looks a lot like an instant messenger client. You can initiate PC to phone calls via their application. Alternately, you can buy one of the Skype phones, headsets or even wifi phones. Again, I plan to test these out and hope to find a good one which I will post about.

If you need to make international calls, I would suggest Jajah (http://www.jajah.com). I like Jajah because they are a bit different than Skype and its copycats. If you’re like many people, you already have an IM program and likely don’t want another one. This is what I love about Jajah. You don’t need anything but a phone and a web browser to use it! You setup up your calls from their web site. You pick how Jajah should call you (your home, work phone, cell phone, etc) and what number to call. You can setup an address book with your usual destinations. On top of all of this, you can SCHEDULE calls to make things even easier. For example, you can configure a call to your grandmother in Italy every Saturday at 10 AM.

I have been very happy with Jajah. They seem to be a smart company with their act and technology together. On Christmas Day, they even gave away free calling to much of the world. I thought this was a great idea. On the one hand, they likely made it possible for many people to call their family who couldn’t have before. On the other hand, they inexpensively acquired new customers. If you believe the reports on Vonage, it costs them 200-300 USD per customer in acquisition costs. At an average of 2 cents per minute with a 30-minute cap on the call, it cost Jajah a measly 60 cents to introduce a new customer to their service. I know it worked for me and two of my relatives!

To re-cap, I would suggest at least TRYING these services. Both can be tested out with little to no money out of pocket. If you’re happy with the service, you can still add funds in a small increments.

http://www.skype.com

http://www.jajah.com

Feedback on Microsoft Exam 70-431 (Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist: SQL Server 2005)

Jonathan Roberts — Sat, 30 Dec 2006 22:31:32 +0000

(This was first posted on Usenet under microsoft.public.cert.mcdba and microsoft.public.cert.itpro.mcts on 12/24/2006).

I am happy to report that I took and passed the 70-431 exam Friday. It was not easy by any stretch but I did better than I thought I would. I know when I was preparing I was desperately hunting for exam reports. So, here goes:

I have 4-6 years of experience with SQL Server 2000 (and Access 97/2000 before that). I have a few months of SQL Server 2005 experience and about 6 months of Oracle training (classes, not a whole lot of experience).

I would suggest you invest in the Exam Cram 2 book for 70-431. I also bought the MS Press book but didn’t use it much. I found that the cram book was better at condensing the material down into what I needed to know. I liked the MS Press book but it is HUGE. I was crunched on time (I bought one of the voucher from VS 2005 launch), so I didn’t take any exam prep tests. However, I wouldn’t suggest anyone follow my lead there!!

I would stress that you need to know the product hands-on (I was weak in this area) and you need to know about the new features. I think everyone can figure out what those new features are, so I won’t list them. You, of course, need to be strong on database concepts ie. the various objects supported by SQL Server in general.

Feel free to ask any questions about my experience. I will answer what I can.

Jonathan

** For the official MS page on the exam (objectives, etc), go here: http://www.microsoft.com/learning/exams/70-431.mspx

Windows Desktop Search uninstall

Jonathan Roberts — Sun, 26 Nov 2006 15:19:37 +0000

A few months back, I begin beta testing Office 2007. Overall, I like it very much. There is an option in Outlook 2007 to add “instant search”. It seemed like a good idea, so I chose to install it. I didn’t know that this actually installs Windows Desktop Search. I had previously decided that I did not like this program and removed it. (As an aside, Google’s product is similar and better in my experience). After a few days, I decided to remove the Windows search program. Apparently, Microsoft likes to scare users into keeping their products installed (I know, who would have guessed?!?!) When I proceeded to uninstall the software, I was prompted with a LAUNDRY LIST of software that “may not function” once Windows Desktop Search was removed. It was comical because much of this software was created before Windows Desktop Search even existed! I thought this was so ludicrous that I captured it for posterity. Enjoy!

Microsoft does it again

Jonathan Roberts — Tue, 21 Nov 2006 01:05:14 +0000

For those of you (us, I suppose) who care, it’s been a busy few days at Microsoft. They have put out a number of MAJOR releases in the past 7-10 days. Both Vista and Office 2007 were released to manufacturing.

For the admins of the world, they also released PowerShell. I don’t know much about PowerShell yet but a spokesperson from Microsoft indicated it would bring Unix-like scripting to the Windows command shell. Funny reference for an MS person but it speaks volumes nonetheless. If PowerShell really delivers on this promise, it will revolutionize Windows administration. I am also encouraged by the fact that Windows Server “Longhorn” will ship with a version/option to remove the GUI and be commandline driven. Without all of the useless bells and whistles, Microsoft might actually deliver on their security promises.

If all of that wasn’t enough, MS has created virtual hard drives for its Virtual Server product. This is similar to what is available to the community (and from the community) on VMWare’s product line. These are basically pre-made images ready to run of popular servers from MS. At this point, it includes: Windows 2003 R2, Exchange Server 2007, SQL Server 2005, and 2006 ISA Server. Read more about it on a neat MS blog I stumbled upon:

http://blogs.technet.com/windowsserver/archive/2006/11/06/Faster-Setup-of-Eval-Software.aspx

Bye for now!

Why…?

Jonathan Roberts — Mon, 13 Nov 2006 05:52:10 +0000

I have resisted the urge to have a blog for a few months now… I thought at first that it was silly. After all, who cares what I think? And would I really have anything to say? However, I have read a lot of blogs over the past year and find them to be interesting overall. Although, some people really do not have anything to say but who am I to judge? Anyway, I do have a lot of opinions and occasionally might have something useful to pass along. So, here goes!

What should you expect from this blog? That’s a good question. At the moment, I cannot say for sure.. I’m sure I’ll write about technology (I’m a computer guy) and New Orleans (my hometown) and who knows what else!

Any of you who know me in real life or have run into me on message boards and newsgroups may be wondering why I registered jonathanroberts.eu and not something in the US realm. Well, I couldn’t register jonathanroberts.com (though I have been trying for years!) since a clothing store (in Baton Rouge of all places) has it. Go check them out — oh wait, they still don’t have a site up… When the EU registry came online a few months ago, I decided to snap up jonathanroberts.eu before someone else did (I hear this is a common name in parts of the UK). So there you have it. It isn’t a great story of my European travels or anything cool like that. Sorry.

Stay tuned… I may have something good to share tomorrow!