Phrase: "New _(part name)_, _(part name)_ and _(part name)_. Perfect except for _(part name)_, which is only _$(dollar amount)_ from _(name of store)_ but I just don't have time to do it."
Meaning: "This thing is a piece of shit. Every time I fix something three other things break. I'm tired of messing with it; it will be someone else's problem now."
It was 6:20 a.m. March 7 when he and his wife were awakened by the sound of someone breaking down their rear door. He threw a robe on and walked to the top of the stairs, looking down to see seven armed people with jackets bearing the initials I-C-E, which he didn't immediately know stood for Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
"They are screaming at him, 'Get down! Get down on the ground!' He's saying, 'Who are you? Who are you?'"
"One of the agents runs up and basically throws him down the stairs, and he's got the cuts and bruises to show for it."
...
After a search of his devices proved the homeowner's innocence, investigators went back [and discovered that a neighbor had downloaded the material via unsecured wifi]
...
The homeowner later got an apology from U.S. Attorney William Hochul and Immigration and Customs Enforcement Special Agent in Charge Lev Kubiak.
Since when is it okay for our government to perform a paramilitary assault vs the home of a person accused of performing a non-violent crime. It does not even matter that the accused was innocent in this case. What matters is the complete disregard of individual rights by government authorities.
This wasn't a suspected meth lab. It wasn't the home of a long-time felon. It was the home that an ISP identified as having an IP address that was known by federal agents to be housing child pornography.
Someone decided that a SWAT team assault was the necessary and proper force required for detaining someone thought to be in possession of child pornography?!?! A detective and a couple of officers knocking on the front door wouldn't have been enough?
I just installed the WHS App on my Android phone. If you have a Windows Home Server you should definitely check this out. It provides you some admin functionality, but the killer feature for me is remote access to my music and photo libraries from anywhere. With this I can I can virtually carry my 25 GBs of mp3s and 10 GBs of family photos wherever I go. Future planned features include video streaming as well. Fantastic!
If you have a Windows Phone 7 - this is the WHS app that should have shipped with the phone. One complaint I and many people have about Microsoft's consumer products is the lack of integration across their product lines, something that Apple does very well. Windows Phone 7 should have native support for WHS, Xbox, Windows Media Center, etc. And don't even get me started about the lack of support for Windows Media Center on WHS. But back to the task at hand, this app definitely fills part of that void.
AFAIK there is no iPhone version of this yet. There is a WHS app for iPhone from another developer, I think it is called WHS Mobile, but it doesn't look like it has been updated in a while and it doesn't look as nice as this one.
Why I plan on using the new Windows Home Server 2011
...
Let’s start with the “Just Awesome” stuff… most of this bucket falls into the Remote Web Access site, so from the outside in we go!...
Remote Access is just Awesome!
Remote Silverlight Video Streaming
… But maybe it’s time to take a hard look at what data you’re hording on your server. Do you really need to be a digital hoarder and save everything? I mean even Mozy can’t deal with you, as they announced they are killing their unlimited data plan. People save a lot, and it costs money, but do you really need it all?...
Wow. I literally laughed my ass off for the last 30 minutes. I almost feel bad for the author of the blog post - eh, not really. He wrote some of the reasons why he thought Windows Home Server 2011 is better than WHSv1. Basically it was: Sorry we took away drive extender but look at these trinkets we did add like better Remote Access and cool Silverlight Video Streaming. And then he insinuated that anyone using more than a one or two TBs of storage space on their Home Server is "hoarding" and should consider trimming down.
The best part... 35 scathing comments from angry customers about how the WHS development team screwed the pooch, removed the single best feature of WHSv1 and didn't deliver any additional significant features in 2011 over v1. Not one comment of support. Not one comment of "hey I think you're right". 35 comments of "You're not listening to your customers!", "Please give us Drive Extender and back and add Windows Media Center on top of WHS", "We will give you our hard earned dollars if you just build what we want!!!!".
My guess is that if asked users would say that the #1 existing feature from v1 was Drive Extender and the #1 requested feature would be support for Windows Media Center to run on Windows Home Server. Neither of those are in Windows Home Server 2011. What did they include instead? A completely customizable Remote Web Access web site. Really?!? Really!?!
Wow
"In the end, the interviewer always makes a personal and deeply subjective decision, I'm merely suggesting [that we do the interview in] a way that delivers more relevant information for that purpose."
"I'm not saying that a good programmer should not have a life. But I do believe that a certain amount of enthusiasm for programming is called for... I would, however, consider the lack of any hobby projects a warning sign for _some_ development jobs."
via: Hiring Developers: You're Doing It Wrong
There is a place for purely "let's see how geeky you can get" interviews, of which Dave Donaldson (http://arcware.net/) is a master. But I don't ask the potential employee to whiteboard algorithms or tell me details of garbage collection. I'd rather not focus on what they know, but rather their potential. I try to figure out what they like, if they would be a good fit for the team, it they're a budding rock star dev, but most importantly I look for the passion - do they get excited about this stuff? Would they do it for free?
Windows Home Server 'Vail' Release Candidate (minus Drive Extender) goes to testers
I've been a huge fanboy of Windows Home Server since the first time I heard a brief description of it. I've written blog posts about it, written software to run on it, and recommended it to everyone I know. My WHS box has made my life so much easier and I feel so much more secure knowing it backs up my other PCs nightly automatically with little or no fuss. My kids love it because it streams out movies to the XBOX downstairs. My wife loves it because it holds all our pictures and home movies and even has duplicates in case there is a drive failure. Everything is stored there. No longer are there some files on my PC and some files on my wife's and some others on my laptop.
Most of all my favorite feature, THE Killer Feature, of WHS is Drive Extender. This nifty piece of functionality allows you to add whatever kind of hard drive you want to the PC, whether internal or external USB or whatever. And it treats them all as ONE big drive. You don't need to know anything about RAID or RAID controllers or ... well.. anything. It's drop dead simple - you start getting low on drive space you go find a 1TB external drive on sale somewhere and plug it into an open USB port. Done. If you have specific folders set to make duplicates of (like your photos or home movies or important documents) then the internals of Drive Extender will magically ensure that those copies are on separate physical drives to protect your assets from a single hard drive failure. It may be the most simple piece of computer hardware/sofware that I have ever used.
Guess what? Microsoft ripped Drive Extender out of Windows Home Server 2011. I heard that rumoured months ago but I figured they would come to their senses. Apparently not.I am so disappointed. How can you release version two of a product that doesn't include the best feature of version one?!?!
According to Mary Jo Foley, the author of the article linked above, Microsoft's recommendation is to "use products from various storage providers instead". Really? If I have to start piecing together a solution then I'm not going to bother with Windows Home Server! What's the point. WHS made it stupid easy. If you take that away then it's really no use - at least to me. If I have to learn about storage hardware I'll instead just buy a LAN-based storage server (probably built on Linux!) that will handle all my file server needs easily, maybe even stupid easily. More than likely I'll just keep on keeping on with my version of Windows Home Server v1.
I know my one little voice doesn't amount to much if anything, but please reconsider. I will not upgrade and I know I am not alone.
McCarthy has been a fierce advocate for stricter gun control. Her husband was killed and her son was wounded in a 1993 shooting on the Long Island Rail Road. She said today she would introduce legislation, as early as this week, that would restrict the high-capacity ammunition that was used by the suspected Arizona shooter.
"There is no reason for a citizen to have to have these large capacity clips. The police officers, the military, absolutely," she told ABC News. "These are just in my opinion a mass destruction on being able to kill as many people in short period of time."
An amendment to extend the assault weapons ban of the Clinton era, which would have made it more difficult to manufacture and purchase the Glock 19 used in the Tucson shooting, passed the Senate in 2004, but the House let it sit without a vote.
You should always question the "facts" that you read in the news, but especially now and in the coming weeks. There will be plenty of rhetoric in regards to politics, gun control, etc. Check the facts yourself, you may surprised by the mistakes/untruths you're asked to accept as fact.
The article linked to above states that Representative McCarthy (D-NY) would like to introduce legislation that would restrict "high-capacity ammunition"? Really? I've been around guns and ammo since I was very young and I have never heard of "high-capacity ammunition". Hopefully, for the sake of the Congresswoman she said "high capacity magazines" and the author of the story misquoted her. I'd hate to believe that Representative McCarthy didn't really know much about what she is so vehemently opposed.
I've read the quote several times that if the Clinton assault weapons ban had been extended in 2004 that the shooter would not have been allowed to buy the Glock 19 used in the shooting. That is complete and utterly FALSE. Perhaps it's a mistake due to not checking facts that has since been perpetuated across mainstream US media. Or perhaps it is simply a misrepresentation and a lie.
One of the things the Clinton assault weapons ban did was restrict the manufacture and import of magazines/clips that would hold more than 10 rounds. They did not make it illegal to buy or sell such a magazine. And believe me, there were plenty around - it was not "difficult" to buy one. There was nothing in the Clinton ban that would have made it "difficult to manufacture and purchase a Glock 19". The limitation would only mean that it could only be shipped by Glock with a 10-round magazine.
Good for you if you're an advocate of gun control. I applaud Representative McCarthy for fighting for her beliefs. But please do some fact checking before spreading untruths. And journalists: please do your journalistic duty and check facts before you print. Unless of course your mission is to spread lies, myths, and untruths that the unsuspecting American populace will blindly accept as fact.
Another Pacific Brew News post, check it out: http://pacificbrewnews.com/?p=1049
My favorite point: Beer isn't supposed to be ice cold. Good beer doesn't need its flavor hidden by being served at near-freezing temperatures. Think about that the next time your American-style mass-produced lager gets a little warm and you think it tastes like shit. Ask yourself if drinking it ice-cold just hides the shit flavor.
It’s the end of another year. It’s the end of another decade. In all there is no denying the decade has been fantastic for those who like ‘craft’ beer. We’ve got more now than we used to, not as many as we’d all like. Cheers!
A nice list that includes some of my favorites like Dogfish Head, Sierra Nevada, Bell's and Brooklyn Brewery. Sadly there are some big ones on this list that I haven't had the chance to enjoy yet, but I hope to correct that in the new year: Firestone Walker, Port Brewing (Lost Abbey, Pizza Port), Russian River, Jolly Pumpkin and Allagash.
BTW, Pacific Brew News publishes some good stuff. Add them to your RSS feed if you're into Craft Beer: http://pacificbrewnews.com
Nice article on some of the founders of the American Craft Beer movement: http://www.observer.com/2010/food-amp-drink/slideshow/hophead-five-most-impor...
