You down with D&D? Yeah you know me...

Since everyone else is doing it too, I took the little quiz to figure out what Dungeons and Dragons character I'd be.  Here are the results:

I Am A: True Neutral Dwarf Ranger Mage

Alignment:
True Neutral characters are very rare. They believe that balance is the most important thing, and will not side with any other force. They will do whatever is necessary to preserve that balance, even if it means switching allegiances suddenly.

Race:
Dwarves are short and stout, and easily recognizable by their well-cared-for beards. They are hard workers, and adept at stonework and engineering. They tend to live apart from other races; generally in deep, underground excavated systems, and as such tend to be distant from other races.

Primary Class:
Rangers are the defenders of nature and the elements. They are in tune with the Earth, and work to keep it safe and healthy.

Secondary Class:
Mages harness the magical energies for their own use. Spells, spell books, and long hours in the library are their loves. While often not physically strong, their mental talents can make up for this.

Sysprep or Systrash?

I spent much of yesterday and today readying a new disk image with Windows XP Pro on it for our faculty that have Dell Optiplex GX 150 machines.  I got it all done, and ran sysprep (Microsoft's tool that resets the PNP data, machine name, and SID) in preparation of making the disk image.  Tom, my co-worker, then asked me if I'd remembered to install the new OpenManage stuff we're going to deploy.  I hadn't, so I fired the machine back up, only to discover that Sysprep has wiped out about two days of work.  Well, back to square one.  This time, I'll make a preliminary disk image BEFORE I sysprep that thing...

Selling your soul to Bill Gates

We took the plunge a couple of weeks ago, and sold our soul to Bill Gates.  At least that's what you'd hear if you talked to the Anti-Microsoft camp around here. What we really did was sign a Campus Agreement to cover the college that I support here.  It's costing us about $10,000/year, but we have unlimited licenses and upgrades for all of the Microsoft software we use.

Sure, that's a serious chunk of change, but I did the math, and found out that we were spending nearly that amount already, with a lot more administrative work involved, and without any of the flexibility our new license offers us.  Compared to the money we spend to license SPSS, AutoCAD, and some of our GIS apps, the Microsoft agreement was pretty reasonable.

As for the Anti-Microsoft folks, I can understand the Linux crowd, and even sort of agree with them on certain things.  The people I can't stand are the people who bash Microsoft because they think it's the "cool thing to do".  This group includes both technical people and laymen.  I have faculty who refuse to use Internet Explorer, because it's a Microsoft product.  Of course, these same people use Microsoft Word and Windows all day long, and wouldn't dream of switching to Linux or even a Mac.

It's the hypocrisy that pisses me off, not the opinion itself.  I agree that Microsoft does some shady and downright evil things, but it all boils down to two options.  Either you pay the devil his due, and embrace Microsoft's software, or you purge it from your organization and use Free software completely.  The middle ground is rapidly disappearing.

Thanks for the linkage Hal!  I thought you all would have forgotten about me during my hiatus, but I glanced at my referrer log, and realized that someone must still be reading my random thoughts.

Dan gave me some useful tips to correct the ghosting on my KVM switch too, I'll have to give it a try if the $16 adapter they're sending me doesn't work...

Switch-a-roo

My Avocent Switchview MP KVM Switch came in yesterday.  I've hooked it up, and can now control my Windows XP box, my iBook, and my Linux mail server all from one workstation, plus whatever random faculty machine I'm re-building at the time.  It works pretty well, but I'm getting some ghosting on my display, and it's annoying me.  Apparently, there's a VAD-12 adapter that they make to deal with resolutions above XGA, and I've got a rep working on finding that now...

Blog-o-rhythm

I'm going to try to get back in the rhythm of updating this thing more regularly.  Things have slowed down at work, I'm starting to have time and the desire to write in my weblog some more, and I even got a few e-mails over the last couple of months (from complete strangers) asking me to start up again....

Probably the biggest news in my life is that I'm now engaged, for those of you that haven't heard.  Be sure to stop by my wedding web site and check it out!  It's in a perpetual state of update, as we assemble our plans.  September 7th has been set as the wedding date.