Whoops, almost forgot to post... It was (apparently) a dismal game for us anyway. Of course, i didn't see it. Heaven forbid....

Match Details

Match Comments

• The Hawks fell short of their best score of 146 meetings against the Pies – it remains as 25.22-172 in 1976-R3 at Princes Park
• Q4 and 10.1-61 produced the biggest score of any quarter against the Pies, greater than 9.5-59 in 2001-R16 at the MCG
• It was the first 10-goal term for Hawthorn since 10.0 in Q3 versus St Kilda in 1999-R12 at Waverley – it was the 21st time the Hawks have kicked double-digit goals in the last quarter and overall 41 times in a League match
• The last occasion the Magpies had 10 goals kicked against them in a quarter was Carlton's Q3 of 11.3 in 2000-R18 at Princes Park
• 250th SCOTT BURNS (Collingwood 1995-2008)
• no other new match records were noted

Hello, we exist.. come on. This is a global village these days.

The shot on the right shows the  current US Games for Windows website showing all of the new games and all that, including the new LEGO Indiana Jones game demo for download.

The shot on the left shows the Australian site for Games for Windows. Hardy inspiring since it is trumpeting games due for release in "early 2007". That is sooo last year, baby.

Right up there with the whole "who needs a Zune outside of North America anyway, let alone a gussied up one from Zune originals

The lack of globalisation in MS products annoys the crap out of me. is it just too hard to make any more than a token gesture of globalisation features. I can set my system settings to English (Australia) and get rid of the tonnes of red squiggles from my correctly spelled documents which is great. However, these are the things off the top of my head that i cannot do if i fly my Aussie Pride

• I can't install Zune software (let alone buy one)
• Media Player will not display Recently Added music
• Can't use Live Mesh (even if I could get an invite). 
• Couldn't access SkyDrive when it was in beta

These are the ones i could think of while i was still on the boil. i bet there is a ton f others as well... Besides, my Lego Indiana Jones Demo has finished downloading...

Yikes, My Work Vista VM has just been completely done over... I had to reboot it for something elso and soon as i started up, it prompted me to activate it.. no probs, so i run through the wizard.. Error 0xc004e003 and it fails to activate.. dang.. Everytime it does this, it then logs me off. So i log in and so it again.. nup, failed ( and logs me off). So i try again manually.. damn, it does the whole manual thing and now i have the screen to call up and do an activation over the phone...BUT... there are no codes in the section required to be entered in the phone ( or to the operator..)

So, off to 132058 option1, option3 to get a call logged. I was on the phone for an hour with this guy trying to assist.  no og.. we tried a System restore, no such luck.. I even did a repair install.. that seemed to fix it. Of course my previous installation and all the data was now in a folder called Windows.old but at least it was still there.

I start doing my updates and Service Packs as well as adding some essential applications that i need on my work machine. I had just gotten my profile back to normal and then i had all these errors trying to insall Office 2007. What the...? I tried a couple of different option and uninstalling and all that with no success. Then I rebooted and started up when i found myself in one of the dreaded Windows Update loops.. you know, where it says it is updating and then shutsdown over and over and over again...

In the end, i created a new HDD for my Virtual Machine and started again.. That was yesterday and today i ma finally back to where I was Wednesday lunchtime.. All I can say is thank god it was a Virtual Machine and I still had my Laptop Host to work off while i was rebuilding...

I love Cat wash day. Nothing gets rid of a cats superiority complex like looking like a oversized bedraggled half-drowned rat..

That'll teach you to treat me like staff instead of an owner..

Now that my little Library nook is finished and all painted, I Already need to extend it. Sure I could clean out the books and maybe get rid of some of the older ones but books are our friends and I find it hard to part with them. Granted, I do have a few duplicates that i really need to get rid of but I have many more downstairs that are waiting to go somewhere...

There isn't much more room in there but I may be able to extend around the walls a little bit. However, the space I lose in putting in corners may cancel out any extension that I put in. I'm sure that I will be able to come up with something. Perhaps go the whole hog and replace those massive windows with something smaller and putting in some windows seats that have bookshelves under them...

There is another section of wall that is outside of this shot that i can stack up with shelves but first I will need to do something with the excessive sunlight that comes in before I put in a bookshelf that directly faces the windows. Some blockout curtains will probably do the trick. That will probably solve the issues with all of the windows reflecting far too much light onto my TV as well...

Woohoo. Anzac Day footy is here and what a day for the Pies... People whinge about how other clubs don't get to play on this special day and that the games are all one-sided... well, as the most-supported club ( from attendance figures of Clubs) Collingwood deserve such a day and it is always good to not only smash Essendon but to rack up a big score in doing so...  Fantastic to see Medhurst and Cloke kicking a bag each (6 & 5 respectively) and Pendlebury and Co racking up possessions in the midfield like there is no tomorrow..

C'Mon boys, let's get some back-to-back wins...

Match Details

Match Comments

• In the 14th Anzac Day clash of the pair the Magpies won by 73 points, bigger than Essendon's 66pt victory in 2003 – the score of 23.16-154 was a new high of April 25th matches – it's now Collingwood 7 wins, Essendon 6, one draw in 1995 ...
• Collingwood had its biggest win against Essendon in 37 years, since they won by 147 points in 1971-Round 14 at Victoria Park, 200-53.
• Collingwood's 23.16-154 is the equal of Hawthorn's score versus Melbourne in the opening round but trails the Bulldogs' 161 points against the Demons in Round 2 – refer Stats Update ...
• 94,825 for the 1995 Anzac Day draw remains the highest crowd at the MCG for a Collingwood-Essendon non-finals match – the 88,999 on Friday is the 9th biggest to see a home-and-away game at headquarters ...
• The Magpies opened with 5.3 – their best Q1 for the season, thus far ...
• A first half of 11.7 by Collingwood was the equal of its R3 performance against Richmond also at the MCG ...
• Captain MATTHEW LLOYD kicked three Essendon goals, and there were another nine single goalscorers ...
• In the 217th premiership meeting of the pair, the Pies had their third successive win over the Dons but no new match records were noted ...

Another one that we should have been able to pencil in for a win. Geez, our continued inaccuracy costs us dearly. Not only that, after raising our hopes cruelly in Rnd 1, Rocca continues with his meagre return of possessions, let alone goals. I guess the only good thing to come out of it was that there is no possible way for me to watch this game on free-to-air TV. Certainly not live, not eve a delayed telecast or even a replay telecast at 1am which was the norm last year...

Match Details

Match Comments

• North's 47th victory over Collingwood matches the single digits that have peppered recent Kanga wins over eight seasons – 2pts 2001-R7-Dok, 5pts 2005-R4-MCG, 6pts 2006-R3-Dok ...
• The Kangas kicked themselves to a victory by winning a last quarter for the first time this season –

7.4-46	R5-MCG	v Col 5.4-34
5.4-34	R4-MCG	v Mel 6.3-39
2.4-16	R1-Dok	v Ess 4.3-27
2.2-14	R2-MCG	v Rch 3.1-19
1.0-6	R3-Dok	v Haw 6.3-39

• 50th game NATHAN THOMPSON with North Melb (2005-08); also 119 Haw 1998-2004) ...
• no new match records were observed ...

Damn, Damn, Damn... we had a chance to put Carlton in the record books as the longest losing streak in AFL history as well as increase their streak of having 100 points kicked against them. of course, in true Collingwood style, we choked...

Every few weeks, we have one of these games, umpiring decisions appear to go against us, the players forget that man-on-man defence will stop tempo footy and that kicking to a one-on-three contest in the forward fifty is not a direct avenue to goal...

One thing i noticed, it still doesn't look like Judd is playing too much team footy. He still tends to deliver the ball to where players "should be", not where they are going to be... there were a lot of kicks that were just out of reach or over the head of the leading players.  Maybe I'm just dirty because he didn't come to Collingwood...

Match Details

Match Comments

• The Blues ended the horror stretch of 14 successive losses to register their first success in a premiership match since the win versus Port last June in R11 ...
• Carlton's BRENDAN FEVOLA passed 400 career goals in game 146 ...
• The Blues with six goals kicked their best opening of the season ...
• JORDAN BANNISTER had his 50th for Carlton 2004-08; also 14 Ess 2001-03 ...
• in the 236th contest no new match records were noted ...

So I worked out this issue that was preventing the Exchange 2007 Installation from continuing. After all that, it was nothing more than a simple firewall issue. the two domains are firewalled from each other, hence why it couldn't connect. How embarrassing.

the way i worked it out was via using DCDiag to connect to particular DC's and checking that DNS test could be carried out. When i couldn't get to the same DC's that Exchange installation couldn't see, I finally twigged.. Duh.

Of course, since then, i have since broken it again, couldn't uninstall, tried a manual uninstall ( NOT Recommended  ). to recover i ran the command - Setup /m:RecoverServer - and it was failing halfway through in relation to the Microsoft Search (Exchange) Service. I browsed to the MSI file ( C:\program files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\Mailbox) and then ran the msfte.msi /uninstall and restarted the setup. Bingo, it went through and reinstalled and Exchange was Working again. Woohooo..

I guess I have tested the Disaster recovery process enough now...

We are trying to install Exchange 2007 test intallation os we can check out the UC components to see if it will suitable replace our existing CTI installation. That doesn't sound too hard does it... noooo...

We try to run the setup, everyhting checks out, well sort of... So far we have the following issues:

• Single label domain

But the biggest issue that we have which to me, shouldn't be an issue at all. First off, a bit of background. We have a child domain that is does not contain Exchange in any way. It has 1 Windows 2003Sp2 DC and 2 Windows 2000 SP4 DC's. When we run the Exchange 2007 setup we get the following errors:

Extending Active Directory schema

Progress   .................. FAILED

Domain abc.xyz.com cannot be reached. Please verify the connection to this domain and run PrepareDomain for this domain again.

Why is it trying to contact the Child domain at all? I don't any part of Exchange in the child Domain. Everything else can see the child domain, what the hell? I added the preReq xml file that changes the requirements for the Ex2007 SP1 install and everything. the Parent domain xyz.com has had all the domain prep stuff run and i figured it would work just find.

Any tips would be appreciated..

So now the Server is all set up and hopefully ready to go. I am now testing the Boot PE image that i burnt to CD to test the setup. that way i can see if the image will connect to the deploy point.

Should that be successful, I shall then move the Boot PE image to the WDS Server and then test from there. Once that works OK, i will work on finalising the Image that i will deply. I am mkaing an existing XP one and will follow that up with a Vista one. All going well, i will look at a Windows Server 2003 and a Windows Server 2008 image that i can then deploy.

UPDATE: Automated boot was unsuccessful ( i think due to NIC Drivers) but Lite Touch Installation  is currently under way...

Here is a fantastic article from Aaron Parker on how to do Terminal Server Start menu re-direction. We currently have some archaic application called Startbuild that does it at the moment, for the most part. i will be rebuilding our TS servers soon and i can tell you that this will be the first thing i implement.

This is another great post in a long line of posts that i have found of great use for setting up my environment. Great work, keep it up.

How's this for a dodgy install. I am looking at installing the Microsoft Deployment toolkit and the Windows Server 2008 (and Vista SP1) AIK on a test server to see if it is useful here at work. So far i found the following odd things:

• MS Assessment & Planning  requires Word & Excel 2007, Word and Excel viewers are no good as substitutes
• It also requires SQL 2005 express, even though i already have SQL 2005 on there.

That is as far as i hae gotten so far... Why you wouldn't provide an option to use and existing SQL installation is beyond me. I can either download or use a previous download.

Perhaps i should just stick with Ghost...

What a brilliant Game! and i got to watch it on TV live!! Collingwood kicked 11 of the first 13 goals to jump out of the blocks. Richmond finally got started an provided a contest but the game was gone... Go Pies!

Match Details

Match Comments

• JOHN ANTHONY on debut for Collingwood kicked two goals with his first two kicks ...
• 100th KANE JOHNSON (Richmond 2003-08) adding to the 104 games with Adelaide 1996-2002 ...

We have being having all sorts of trouble adding our third Domain controller into our child domain. It just would not be able to replicate correctly and establish the SYSVOL share or anything. It was resolvable through its A record but just wouldn't join the gang. So this morning, we sat down and decided to fix this once and for all. We went through and checked that we had done all the correct steps and permissions first. Yep, we had done everything the right way but just not the right result.

We were getting a lot of Event ID 1925 errors - DNS Lookup failure caused replication to fail - so I check it out on TechNet and got this article which gives various specific dnsdiag commands to run. we started with dnsdiag /test:dns /s:DC3 /dnsbasic from our and found that there were errors from DC3 as it wasn't updating it's DSA_GUID._msdsc.dns_domain entry. I then ran dcdiag /test:dns /dnsrecordregistration command to double-check and it failed also.

I then went and checked the DSA_GUID._msdsc.dns_domain entry that was there versus the one it was looking for and ,lo and behold, they were different. I deleted the wrong one with extreme prejudice and manually entered the correct value and Bingo, it started doing all the things that a DC does...

Somehow, there was an incorrect entry in the _msdsc.dns_domain_Name zone that was causing the issue. I'd say it was an old entry from before my time. Once gone, i was back in business... and i did the dance of joy..

Next Stop.. why won't our Exchange 2007 Test box get to the next stage of installation..

We decided to make the most of a fine day and went down to New Farm Park Playground so Em could climb trees and have lots of fun. She climbed up into the first level OK but needed some assistance to get to the higher branches. Then she had a go at the new rope towers that they have in place.

We had a great time mucking about and having fun in the great Brisbane weather... The place looks green again and was most enjoyable getting my bare feet out on some smooth blue couch grass again. One day i shall have that on my lawn, oh yes, some day....

Well, How about that.. Live Rugby League out-rated Delayed AFL telecast... what a surprise. Nobody wants to wait for their sport especially when i hear the last quarter on the radio onth eway home and then get home to midway through the second quarter on TV. Thanks for nothing Channel 7

Damn.. That one got away.. 2 points on a wet muddy day! damn those soft free kicks in front of goal

Match Details

Match Comments

• At the 13th Gabba meeting, the Lions beat the Magpies for the 10th time ...
• no new match  records were noted ...

What the hell... looks like all the glamour of the 150th year of Australian Rules Football will fail to push TV broadcasters here in Queensland to actually give two hoots about the game. For Round 1, I was hoping against hope to be able to see the Collingwood game on TV. Now that the rights are shared between Seven and Ten, i figured I  could watch the opening match of Friday night game on Seven, the Saturday game on Ten and then see how I was going from there. Seems like a fair enough situation...

Obviously i was in some kind of fantasy land for thinking that... What I got was some crappy repeat movie on Seven, an arvo full of crappy repeat movies on Tem with no Saturday football at all... Again, Queensland TV doesn't give a toss... Oh they show the Lions games on Saturday nights... except that there are 15 other teams in the comp. I personally hate the Lions team (for reasons that would be patently obvious) and i want to see other games of the round. So much for the great return of footy to Channel 7. Unless i am up for watching footy until 2 or 3 am in the morning, i don't get to see a bloody thing. Why can't you grow a pair, channel 7 and show it prime time on a Friday night??!! I don't want your crappy Movies, Give me football on Channel 7 or 70, 71, 72, or 73. You got enough channels and you still can't show football? Forget any of the preview and review shows, we get nothing!

As for Websites, the AFL has sold it's soul to telstra, just like the V8's did. unless you are one of the poor chumps that is actually a Bigpond or TelstraMobile subscriber, you get nothing but a jumble of rooted frames and the most horrible mess I've seen in years. None of last years RSS Feeds work and as for Mobile Web Browsing, forget it??

How hard can it be? I want to be able to see games that are on, read news on my phone when i can't get to a TV, check an RSS feed of news for my club and for overall news synchronised between Desktop, Laptop & phone. Telstra, Bigpond and Fox & the half-arsed thinking from TV bosses who are still mired in the 1980's mindframe have ruined the any possibility of enjoying sport when you can't get to the game for me in so many ways...

How could i forget... AFL has finally kicked off. of course, i was up on the Sunshine coast which showed a couple of 1960 -era movies instead of delighting us all with the Rocca's bag of goals.. bloody typical!!

Match Details

Match Comments