Andrew Morger

Well, this has certainly been the day/week of Microsoft announcements.  As of today, the Windows Live Wave 2 is now closed.  For those of you who haven't been in the loop, Microsoft has been overhauling some of their most popular software's functionality and look 'n feel, and they have been releasing these updates as betas as part of the Windows Live Suite Wave 2.  The Windows Live Suite now includes a slew of products that incorporate "Windows Live" into their names:  Messenger, Mail, Writer, Toolbar, Photo Gallery, Sign-in Assistant, and "Family Safety".  As of today, these are now officially released to the public as stable applications, but for the most part they are the same as the last release that they made ... I have yet to find any differences other than a few little cosmetic things.  Personally I like what they have done with the applications and look forward to seeing what they continue to do in the future. 

Also announced today, is the public opening of the "@live.com" Windows Live ID accounts.  Up until now these highly-sought-after accounts have been only available internally at Microsoft and during one or two little flubs in Microsoft's push-out process (or hacks ... as we have seen from time to time).  However, now they are officially live and we can all rush out and make sure we get our handles (...Dude, I need a handle, I don't have an identity until I have a handle ... You know, you are right about that.) (yeah for Hackers :) ).  I know that I rushed out to make sure I got both my "claimed" handles, and I am working on transferring the controls of my accounts over to them.  I have a feeling that I will be putting Microsoft's account handling to the test with trying to move over control of things like my Space and my Skydrive ... but we will have to see ... maybe I will be pleasantly surprised.  Granted, I just moved all my stuff over to this Hotmail account a few months ago, but hey, I can always re-add contacts in Messenger. 

Yet another thing that was officially launched today is Windows Live Calendar, the latest addition to the Windows Live Suite.  This rather late-comer to the online calendar arena still has a long way to go before it will give Google Calendar a run for it's money, but I have confidence in Microsoft's dev team.  They already are doing some interesting things with it (such as the 'Export to XML' option ... I am looking forward to seeing that one), but it is still obviously in early testing/release with it. 

The item that I think I am most excited about, however, is the announcement of the first of the Windows PowerShell 2.0 CTP (Community Technology Previews) releases.  I love PowerShell.  I think that it is a great step forward for Microsoft and a very worthy successor to CMD, who served it's purpose for the day, but now needs to abdicate the throne to the heir-apparent.  I literally just installed this about an hour ago and haven't been able to play with it yet, but I look forward to testing some of the new features like integrated Remote Management (yeah for controlling my lappy remotely!).  More on this will definitely be coming.

Yet another announcement by Microsoft this week, this one was mostly a surprise to the populace, is called the Microsoft Sync Framework.  This seems to be a direct competitor to Google Gears which allows you to interact with "Internet" applications even if you are not connected to the Internet (kinda like an Outbox in your email client).  This stores your changes locally while you are offline, and as soon as you connect up, it pushes them out for you.  This has ramifications for not only the Internet, but also things like file systems (USB thumb drives come quickly to mind, or network storage) as well.  Somewhat unfortunately it seems to be only ADO.Net driven, which to most of you won't mean anything, but a common comparison is that of Microsoft Access and Microsoft SQL Sever ... one is "serious" while the other ... isn't (actually ADO is what you use to access an Access database, to connect to a SQL database you use a ... SQL ... connection ...).  Anyway, it will be interesting to see how Microsoft plans to integrate this into their products and services in the future, especially in the light of WinFS and a completely database driven file system. 

Well, I think that is at least the majority of the major announcements from Microsoft these days ... more on other things of the world to come tomorrow.

First off, I must say that I have had the best weekend this last weekend that I have had for a LONG time.  Not only did I have great company (the Count mostly, but the Count's family and friends were great too), eat great food (home cooked dead deer), but I also got to see the best concert of my life, and while waiting in line got to say "Good Evening" and be about 2 feet away from Marco (he is shorter than he looks on stage!).  As good as Nightwish is on CD, they are at least twice as good live.  They started out the concert by doing Bye Bye Beautiful and Amaranth for goodness sake!  We managed to get ourselves right behind the sound board at First Ave, so, although we didn't get into the heavy mash pit, we probably had some of the best musical quality in the house.  I must say that I was very impressed with the way Anette handled their older songs (aka, the more operatic ones).  No, they did not sound like the originals, but it wasn't bad, let's put it that way.  The stage at First Ave is not exactly big, so Marco and Emppu didn't exactly have a whole lot of room to move about, and it showed during the concert.  Emmpu couldn't keep still for more than 2 min. at the most.  They ended up doing a 3 song encore to the great appreciation of the crowd ... including ending with "I Wish I Had An Angel" (amazing to head-bang with live).  Now all I need is hair about 2 feet longer so that I can keep up with the Count :( .  All in all it was a most wonderful experience.  I cannot wait already for them to come back, even though I know it will be years.  As soon as I can track Aurora down online somewhere I will get her pictures from her and repost them here. 

In other news, not a whole lot has been going on in my life.  I will get back to doing tech stuff soon, I promise, but just as an update on "other stuff" there really is no update.  I have discovered something, however:  it is amazing how much a person can change in your eyes in a very short amount of time.  I now have no respect for someone any more that I used to once hold in high esteem, simply because of one thing that they said.  It is really something how fragile one's reputation is in life.  So, I have lost yet another friend in this world, yet my list is neither too short nor devoid of the few good people I know.  In all things I will bless the Name of the Lord.

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
the courage to change the things I can,
and the wisdom to know the difference.
Thy will, not mine be done.

Ancient prayer (re-quoted by Boston)

Today I went to Best Buy and made good of their "deal of the week".  This week you can buy the HD-DVD player addon for the Xbox 360 and immediately get Season 1 of Heroes in HD-DVD for free.  That is a $100 value, and that alone would be a good deal.  In addition to this Microsoft has a deal where if you buy one of these HD-addon's during the next month or so, you get 5 more free HD-DVDs from them.  Now, there are only like 18 to choose from, but there is still some good movies in there like the Italian Job and Troy.  So, for purchasing a $170 component, you effectively get get player (currently the cheapest HD-DVD player on the market) and the equivalent of approx. $250 worth of movies.  In addition to all of this I picked up the special edition HD version of Transformers.  Granted, at the moment I don't have an HDTV, but it looks pretty dang good on my 20" CRT :).

Now, Transformers is a pretty dang good movie.  It might be the best of the year (although 300 just might take that one ... it is a tossup).  Not only does Transformers have an amazing soundtrack, but it does something better than any movie has ever done:  given amazing personality to characters that are completely mechanical.  This has been done well in the past (Short Circuit comes to mind quickly), but the varieties of personalities that are produced so well in Transformers  is great.  There is everything from the evil genius (Megaton, Mr. Anderson), Bumblebee (I was convinced of that character when they started playing "Baby Come Back" at the beginning), of course Optimus Prime (always a favorite character, even if we only see his sword once), all the way down to little "hacker" Decipticon (if you watch he even cracks his ... well .. fingers ... when he sits down at the computer). 

However, Transformers also demonstrates something else very well in the movie, the cruelty of mankind.  Unfortunately mankind has developed the ability of lashing out at what we don't understand or comprehend.  We see this very well in Section 7's treatment of Bumblebee.  Even though Bumblebee is only a machine and probably even completely computer generated at that point, when he is captured and tortured it evokes an emotional response out of the audience.  Some people (I am sure) laugh, but I find it strangely disturbing as I see the ignorance of mankind portrayed so well.  Why do we fear the unknown?  I comprehend that we are afraid that what we discover might not be to our liking, but why do we flee from what we don't like?  Does fleeing make things easier?  It has been my experience that the longer a problem is put off or avoided the harder it is when the time comes to actually deal with it.  Knowledge is no different.  Yes, we may not like what we find, and depending upon the type of information it may change who we are and what we believe, but are we as a society so comfortable in our ignorance that we do not even desire to have the truth revealed to us?  Am I the only one that is disturbed by this?  All of us have had information withheld from us or we have discovered that some thing that we believed in was false (Santa anyone?), but weren't we better for it once we learned the truth?  Man is a strange creature that I do not think I will ever comprehend.

Well, that dark time of my past is now behind me.  I know know why they call it the Dark Ages ... how they got along without the Internet is beyond my comprehension.  OK, so maybe it wasn't quite that bad, it didn't eve seem like a month and a half, but it is still nice to be hooked up and have connections again.  I can now get back to my research and development on my attempt on the "next big thing" that I am working on and will hopefully be able to bring to fruition.  Even if it doesn't end up working (which means that I might have hit a wall) at least I might hit it here in the near future with my desired mental development scheme, anyway. 

Other than all of that pretty much all is well in the world.  Well, kind of.  I still don't "grok" this whole public transportation thing.  Yeah, I understand that mass transit is a necessary part of life in a big city, but it just isn't for me.  Unfortunately it is the only way to fly, so to speak.  I am starting to get adjusted to my workplace.  I don't want to say too much here of work simply because the whole concept of corporate blogging is such a nebulous topic in the world today that I don't want to start something that will end badly.  I have my good days and my bad at work and I will just leave it at that.  Right now my primary concern is with a topic that I thought, hoped that I had put behind me.  The current/future actions of someone from my past could have great influences in my life to come, and I don't even thing that she is aware of the risks she is putting me in with her proposed plan of action.  My past is what it is: I am not proud of a lot of it, but it is there and I won't shrink from it.  However, if she does this, then many of the things that I regret about my past will come to light in a very public manor and again, the possibility of what it could do to my life is rather large.  I don't know how to go about this, but as a very good friend reminded me tonight, I have friends, family, and God on my side. 

Well, dwelling on my problems won't help much (and I am calling the Count later anyway to try to talk thing through) so, on to what I have been doing with my life lately.  So without further ado:

Robin Hood

Ok, this has got to be one of the best TV shows made by the BBC in the last few years (right up there with The IT Crowd).  Robin Hood is (surprise, surprise) about Robin Hood, Marian, and Robin's merry men.  While this series does a really good job with the setting and the character portrayal, like all the other Robin Hood series/movies I am still frustrated that they can't keep some basic things about the characters right from the story.  My mother owns a set of children's books that she keeps no differently from the rest (few) other books that she and my father own.  What is special about this set is that they are leather-bound and from like the 1910's.  I loved them growing up.  Alice in Wonderland, Through the Looking Glass, 1001 Arabian Nights (ok, I know children's version of that does not equal the real thing, but I still enjoyed them), but my favorite was Robin Hood.  To give the series credit, they at least include a character that most other stories leave out: Much.  Now, I have not heard of him referred to as the son of the Miller, but at least he is there along with many of the others: Will Scarlet, John Little, and Alan a Dale to name a few.  The show is primarily a comedy with the standard Robin/Marian love story and Robin/Gisborn rivalry from legend.  For the BBC the show is amazingly "clean" ie, no sex, very little swearing, little gore, and surprisingly very little sexual innuendo (for those of you that frequent the modern BBC, you know that is a shock).  Suffice to say that this show is actually what I would consider "family friendly" and is currently high on my "desirable" list for sure.  Now that the second season is getting aired every Sat. night, I now have yet another reason to look forward to the weekend.

Stargate SG-1

Stargate.  Where to begin with Stargate?  I have not yet finished the series, I am still in the middle of season 7, but I must say that I have enjoyed it very much.  I will be posting a quotes sheet from this show on my Skydrive public folders soon, but for now all I can say is that it is a great show, but I still don't know if it will take Star Trek TNG from my top pick or not ... I will probably get around of doing some comparisons between the characters/setting at some point, so stick around for that.

Nightwish: Dark Passion Play

Nightwish is dead, long live Nightwish!  Ok, let's face it.  Nightwish will never again be the same without Tarja as the main vocalist and I would like to stress from the get-go that that Anette will never EVER replace her as a main vocalist.  When I first saw pictures of the new singer, I thought "Oh, they look a lot alike.  Good, they are going for the same look and feel."  The look is the same to be sure, but the feel is much different in my opinion.  As the Count very accurately put it, "It is much less operatic".  Compared to Tarja, Anette seems to be a decent armature.  Yes, I enjoy this album and several of the tracks are even getting added to my "Favorites of All Time" for Nightwish (it is a long list), but there is just something about it that doesn't click with me the way the old band did.  I will be very interesting to see how well she handles some of their older songs when I see them in concert next weekend.  I am going to reserve final judgment on this album and her until I see her live, but I have a feeling that this album will fall in the middle of my 'hierarchy of Nightwish' as it were. 

Blue Dragon

And last but not least in my current time-consuming activities is Blue Dragon.  Honestly I have not had a chance to play this much so my current review of this is going to be rather short.  So far, I am really enjoying myself.  For those who don't know, Mistwalker studios is primarily made up of people from Square, so this game feels and handles like a Final Fantasy.  I have heard some not-that-great reviews from people on this game, but personally I am enjoying it very much.  The concept of being able to have your shadow fight and do more damage than you is still kinda weird, but I am getting the hang of it.  It has been a long time since I have played a console RPG and I am really looking forward to finishing it.

Other than that here is the other things I have been keeping myself occupied with:

I don't know if I would call life great, but for now it really isn't that bad.

Oh yeah, by the way, if any of you have been here before, you might notice that I have changed the theme.  This is because as one of the "official" beta testers of Windows Live products, I have received 3 Halo promotions from Microsoft.  Now, these aren't much: a Spaces theme, a Live messenger theme, and a signature to use for my email, but it is still a nice gesture from Microsoft.  Thank you, Bill!  I will probably be going back to my boring white theme within a few weeks since I have no intention of getting Halo 3 right away when it comes out, but hey, you never know ...

I know that this has been out for a few days already, but it is news to me and it is significant enough for me to note it here.  OCRemix seems to have done it again.  For those of you who are not aware of OCRemix, it is a website dedicated to composing and releasing remixed music from video games.  Now, I have found that the quality of music that is produced on this website fluctuates depending upon the remixer, but overall the site does good.  I have especially enjoyed their Chrono Trigger Symphonic suite that they released last year, and I have found that of all the music that I own, I listen to it the most.  I have not yet had a chance to listen to Final Fantasy VII ~ Voices of the Lifestream, but I plan on getting to that here quickly and I will let you know what I think of it!

Ok, so let me start off by apologizing to any of you that are annoyed with all the personal musing and soul searching's that I have been doing in the last few posts and getting away from the Tech. emphasis, but with me not having Internet in my apartment it is hard for me to keep current with the latest and greatest of the Internet news.  I even missed the iPod announcement announcement last week.  Go figure.  Anyway, bear with me with a few more of the 'mushy' topics and then I should have Internet and be able to get back to the nitty gritty of the technology we all love.  So here we go.

Well, my life is now pretty much completely out of 'school mode' and into the mode of "getting up and out into the real world".  My life begins at 5:30 and I am in bed by 11:00 at the latest.  I have noticed that I am actually falling into the category of a responsible adult.  I am keeping my apartment cleaner than I have ever kept my living abode in the past.  I am cooking (yes, I can both cook and bake) my own meals and still keeping the kitchen spic-and-span.  I actually feel like a responsible adult.  I am making a decent salary and I am more than adequately able to support myself and make a decent living at things.  However, in looking at all that I have achieved, it has thrown into stark contrast the one major thing that I haven't: a steady, healthy relationship.   I received an email today from one of my ex-girlfriends, one in which she is trying to guilt me into talking to her again by describing some of her problems to me.  I am almost to the point of loneliness where I might reply to it just to have some contact with someone else who cares ... well, cares in her own unique way, anyway.  I still don't know what to do about my latest ex-girlfriend, though (the one I still miss).  I haven't talked to her in several months because I had come to the conclusion that the only way I was going to get over her, given the situation, was to cut off my contact with her and try to physically force her out of my mind.  As the old Disney cartoon Robin Hood put it: "Absence makes the heart grow fonder ... or forgetful".  I am now reconsidering the wisdom (or lack thereof) of this decision.  I still don't know how to express what it is in my heart.  I have told her and I have tried to convince myself that this was necessary for me because given the circumstances I can't trust anything she tells me, and once she is willing to tell me the truth, then, if we both want, we can begin to build up the trust between us again.  However, I have come to realize that this is not the complete truth.  I have realized that this is necessary for me because I would trust her again too easily without it.  With this decision/mandate standing between us, it provides a buffer for me to not be hurt again, either by her or by myself.  I guess the issue that I am struggling with is wether this is a fair buffer or not.  Is it alright for me to put up this boundary to protect me when it infringes upon someone else and their desires(or at least what were their desires last time I heard them)?  At one point she told me that she wasn't saying no to the possibility to "us" in the future, a year or two down the road, just not then.  I look at my life now, the way that I have matured and grown in the past 10 months, and I am pretty sure she would like who I am now.  I just don't know if there is a way to, or even if I should, contact her again.    We will have to see where God leads both of us in this.  It could be that I call her and she blows me off.  I guess I wouldn't blame her, but I am looking at this from my point of view, not hers.  All will end up as God wills it ...

Ok, so I really don't like the title of this post ... it doesn't fit with what is weighing on my mind, but you know, it continues the song lyrics from the previous post, so I thought they were fitting (if you don't recognize it, watch an episode of Star Trek Enterprise sometime).  So I was at my second day at work today and things went somewhat better.  The ride there and back again was not nearly as hectic as they were before, and from here on out it should be better since I don't have to "pay" for it.  Well, I pay a flat $69 a month for a 31 day pass through the company, so that will take care of that.  I have been informed that the type of work that I am observing here this week and what work will be like in the next few weeks is not going to be typical of what things will be like in the long term.  I hope that things do change somewhat in the future, but I don't know if I would mind the workload.  Yes things do seem to be hectic, but it also seems like I would be kept busy all the time.  Yes, this does make for a more stressful environment, but it also makes the days go by quickly.  However, from what I have observed, the kind of work that I will be doing is not necessarily what I want to be doing for long period of time.  It looks like most of the kind of work that I will be doing is going to be SQL / Database troubleshooting instead of .Net development.  While this is not entirely a bad thing from my point of view, I do not think that it is where I want to be long term.  That being said, for now, I think that this is an excellent opportunity for me.  Even though this is not the type of work that I desire to be doing for the rest of my life, I do think that it is good for me to learn and understand thoroughly the ways of the database and supporting an application that is virtually 100% database driven.   From what I have seen so far, the kinds of databases that I will be working on are on a scale up from what I have experienced at NWC.  This is a good thing and I am excited for the opportunity to continue learning and furthering my knowledge of how these systems work.  however it is going to be a long process for me to get comfortable with this application and how it all fits together. 

Well, I don't know when this will actually be posted, but I feel the urge to write so here I am.  Maybe reflecting on my life over the last few days/weeks will help me clarify some things within my mind.  I know it is a long shot, but I am willing to give it a go.  So I am finally done working at NWC and am on to bigger and better things in life.  I have finally stopped mooching off of my friends and not only have "the first big job" but also the "first apartment".  I was able to get all of my stuff that was still here in the 'Cities over here on Sat. and I was also able to organize a lot of it to where I think their permanent homes will be, well, at least for now.  So that took up a lot of Saturday and I deferred setting up my computers until Sunday, so getting all of that organized took several hours Sunday afternoon as well.  I am currently in a bit of a money crisis again (thank you school for screwing up my paychecks again) so I have not yet called Comcast to get Internet into my apartment.  I tried to get some form of dial-up working, but the phone company has actually disconnected the phones, so that is not an option for me as I don't want to pay for a land-line and a cell phone.  So I find myself over at the school in WVOE or down in NWC7 "leeching" Internet from the school fairly frequently, at least until I can get some money to call Comcast.

I had my first experience with the Minneapolis public metro system today.  Other than the fact that the directions that I received off the Metro Transit website were completely wrong (it turns out easier/better for me, so that is a good thing), things didn't go too bad.  However, I do remember thinking on my way in this morning that (and I know that this has been thought of by many people at many times, but ..) man really wasn't meant to live this way.  Yes, it is nice that I drop $2:00 into a slot and can then get anywhere in the 'Cities, but it doesn't come close to being able to look out your window in your house and only being able to see land that you (or your family) own and care for (me growing up).   Maybe there is more "country boy" in me than I really want to admit, but it seems unnatural for people to be so ... clustered ... busy ... cramped ... I know that in my chosen profession that it is almost a given that I will have to live in a larger city and be surrounded by all this ruckus, but it still seems alien and foreign to me.  I feel a bit like Mike in "Stranger on a Strange Planet" by Heinlein.  I don't fully "grok" it ( ... um ... "grok" is the Martian word for understanding/comprehension/lots of other stuff in the book).  When I was with my ex, I had resigned myself of my hope/plan to live in the "country" later in life and then commute into work because she wasn't willing to leave the "big city".  When we were together I was fine with this concept; I realized that the important thing in life was who I was with, not where I was.  Now that we are apart, I am finding it difficult to go back to that living mentality.  My hope of not forever living in the City seems to me now more like a wisp of a dream, something that is out there, yet elusive, something that I can grasp for and yet never quite touch and bring the concept back to reality.  Maybe it will still happen.  I know that I definitely don't want to live in an apartment for the rest of my life, I do want a house sometime in the not too distant future of my life, but hopefully by that point some other areas of my life will be better defined and I will have a better idea where to pursue this plan.  Who knows, maybe I will end up living in a City for the rest of my life ... I guess that anything is possible ...

Tuesday 04 Monday 2007 21:13 hours