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Herding Buffalo

Microsoft takes security seriously. I take security seriously. I don't have simple one-lever locks on my doors that you can open with a hairgrip, and I wouldn't use the name of my cat as my system...

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Hyper-Ventilation, Act I

I guess there are at least two people out there who may be interested in hearing about my latest upgrade experiences. One of them I know is just about to experience hyper-ventilation. Perhaps if I...

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Hyper-Ventilation, Act II

Outside, the snow lies deep, crisp, and even. Inside, the continuing quest to achieve calm and serenity through the application of virtuality. Noticeably, without much sign of virtuosity. I know that a...

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Hyper-Ventilation, Act III

After approximately two weeks of intermittent network upgrades, I seem to still have a working network. I guess at least that's something to be thankful for. But it's still not fulfilled the original...

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Leicester Talk About...

I reckon it's a Government conspiracy. Obviously continental drift has speeded up while we weren't looking, and England has drifted north into the Arctic during the last couple of weeks. I did check on...

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In the Jungles of the Amazon

I'm a great believer in the future of "cloud" computing. It seems to be the way forward for both large and small organizations to maximize return on investment and reduce the complexity of managing...

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In Search Of The Missing Link

Every now and then I get to write actual code rather than just documentation. Usually there's either a crowd watching in amazement that I can actually find Visual Studio, never mind knowing some of the...

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A Categorical Approach To Compatibility Theory

I read in the newspaper this week that scientists have discovered why men are better at reading maps, while women are more able to find things like car keys. It seems that it all goes back to...

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Unit Protesting

Before we start, I want to make it clear that - although I often use US spelling in stuff I write - I refuse to accept that "tire" is a way of spelling the round black things that you put on a car. I'm...

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Cursory Distractions

First off, I need to apologize to all those people who have been reduced to reading my previous "Hyper-Ventilating" posts hoping to find some crumb of comfort to alleviate their crippling medical...

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Going to the Dogs

I'm starting to worry that I can’t cope with the frantic releases of operating system versions. I just got settled with a couple of Vista machines and, more recently, two Server 2008 boxes, and now I'm...

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Miss Spellings and Bad Grandma

I suspect that there is a crisis at our local council offices at the moment. They've obviously run out of things to waste taxpayer's money on, so they decided to publish a ten page full-color pamphlet...

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Are You Offset Early Yet?

I watched a program on TV the other night about how your body clock works. It seems that when you are young, your body clock is "offset late" so you are useless in the mornings and tend to be a bit of...

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Snake Oil Salesmen

I reckon that, last week, I broke a World record. I managed to cycle through 38 TV channels in turn that were all showing commercials. OK, so I was in a hotel in the U.S. and maybe that's to be...

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Boeing, Boeing, Gone to Seattle

Travel, they say, broadens your mind and narrows your arteries. Now back home in wonderfully green and Springing England after a couple of weeks in downtown Redmond, it looks like I survived the...

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Five Go To The Library

Our little documentation department here at p&p occasionally gets some odd requests. I've done the "write some fictitious stories about corporations that don't exist" bit in the past (as content...

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How Much Configuration Do You Need?

I endured a severe culture shock this week. And that was without meeting new people from countries afar, or travelling to distant lands. And it didn't involve a trip to some foreign eatery (such as our...

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Currently Overloaded...

You don't normally expect zonking amounts of current to be flying around inside a computer (unless you've packed it solid with extra disk drives), so tagging a couple of skinny wires to one end of the...

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Windows 2008 Hyper-V and Service Pack 2

A quick note to Hyper-V users. When I installed Windows Server 2008 Service Pack 2, it installed fine with no errors, but after a while I was getting NetBT errors in Event Log saying there was a...

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I Need a Wii...

According to Nintendo, the name of their family games console expresses their direction to break down the wall that separates video game players from everybody else, puts people more in touch with...

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Woefully Inadequate Kollaboration Implementation

It's a good thing that Tim Berners-Lee is still alive or he'd probably be turning in his grave. I was hoping to find that my latest exploration of Web-based Interfaces for Kommunicating Ideas would...

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Having A Bad Where? Day

Isn't it funny how - after a while - you tend not to notice, or you ignore the annoying habits of your closest colleagues. As I work from home, some 5,000 miles away from my next closest colleagues,...

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Am I Done Yet...?

I've been trying something new and exciting this week. OK, so it's perhaps not as exciting as bungee jumping or white-water rafting, but it's certainly something I've not tried before. I'm...

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Measuring Job Satisfaction

Listening to the radio one day this week, I heard somebody describe golf as being "a series of tragedies obscured by the occasional miracle". It struck me that maybe what I do every day is very...

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It Ain't Half Hot Mum

OK, OK, so one month I'm complaining that our little green paradise island seems to have drifted north into the Arctic, and now I'm grumbling about the heat. Obviously global warming is more than just...

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The Shadow in the Machine

There's some ethereal guy called "system" wandering around inside my servers stealing stuff. It's a bit like when you were a kid and your parents hid things from you. When my hamster died, my Dad told...

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Too Clever By Four And Three Eighths

I'm fast coming to the conclusion that you actually need to be quite stupid to use a computer these days. Within a few years those with even a minor modicum of capability, or just a hint of innate...

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Tap, Tap, Tap, Bloop, Gone.

So here's an interesting approach to merchandising and pricing your products. Imagine, if you will, that you have set up a company to build sports cars, and you reckon your can sell 50 in the first...

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Agile Development in the Bricks and Mortar World

It's a strange experience when you open the curtains in the morning to be faced by men in high visibility jackets and hard hats only a few yards away, and 30 feet above the ground. Mind you, the noise...

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Where Did Media Center Go?

Anyone unfortunate enough to have followed my frantic ramblings over the years (though this blog and my diary from a previous life) will know that, in our house, we are fully paid up members of the...

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A Drip Under Pressure

I read somewhere a while ago that the word "expert" comes from a combination of the two Latin words "ex" meaning "a has-been", and "spurt" meaning "a drip under pressure". I'm not sure I actually...

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Syntactic Strain

In between the usual spates of frantic two-fingered typing of exciting new guidance this week, I've been attempting to expand my brain to the size of a small asteroid (with appropriate apologies to...

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Lagging Behind the Joneses

I don't know how I manage it, but I seem to continually find myself trailing behind in this ever-changing world of digital technology. After the problems of a few weeks ago with a failed Media Center...

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Cable Internet in 10 Easy Steps

After what seems like a nightmare week of aggravation, it looks like I'm finally connectivity-wealthy. Downloads take seconds, uploads are relatively quick, and I'm probably even redundant...

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Dislocation, Dislocation, Dislocation

With appropriate acknowledgment to Phil and Kirstie, this week's random blather seems to have evolved with a dislocated theme; and rather more so than is usual in my weekly ramblings. It started with a...

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Generically Modified

Despite being a writer by profession, and regularly castigating my colleagues for being recalcitrant in reviewing stuff I write, I actually dislike doing reviews myself. When I was an independent...

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Another Bowl of Peeled Grapes Please, Waiter

If all goes according to plan, I should be spread-eagled in a sun lounger on a foreign beach as you read this, with a copy of some second-rate espionage novel in one hand and a large and very cold beer...

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I Do Like To Be Beside The Seaside

Oh well, back to work, holidays over for another year. At least I managed to morph from a sickly shade of pale to a faint shade of tan, and without catching airplane 'flu or any other weird tropical...

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Some Consolation...

Suddenly, here at chez Derbyshire, it's 1996 again all over again. Instead of spending my days creating electronic guidance and online documentation in its wealth of different formats and styles, I'm...

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Come On In, The Water's Lovely...

A great many years ago, when I was fresh out of school and learning to be a salesman, we had a sales manager who proudly advertised that his office door was "always open". What he meant, obviously, was...

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Unbound Generics: an Open and Closed Case

There's a well known saying that goes something like "Please engage brain before shifting mouth into gear". And another that says "If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen". Yet, after...

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Suffering Suffixes, Batman

One of the features of working from home is that, if you aren't careful, you can suddenly find that you haven't been outside for several days. In fact, if you disregard a trip to the end of the drive...

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Can Writers Dance The Agile?

It's probably safe to say that only a limited number of the few people who stroll past my blog each week were fans of the Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band. Or even, while they might recall their 1968 hit single...

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Ready for Hibernation

Usually the only time I feel like digging a big hole and climbing in is when I make some inappropriate remark at an important social event, or tell a rather too risque joke during a posh dinner party....

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Public Nopinion

I'm not quite sure how she did it, but this year my wife managed to convince me to follow the latest weekly pandering to public opinion that is "The X Factor" - our annual TV search for the next...

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To R2 Or Not To R2?

...that is the question. Whether 'tis nobler in the server cabinet to suffer the outrageous lack of valuable new functionality, or to take arms against the powerful improvements to the core Windows...

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Move Over Harry Potter

I can't honestly say that I've ever been much of a patron of the dark arts. Mind you, a few years ago I was fascinated to see a chapter for a book on ADO.NET that I'd written come back from review with...

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A Big Box of Windows

I watched some property development program on TV the other week about a "contemporary" new house with a "streamlined yet powerful" design. The comment from the presenter was that it looked like "a big...

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Icon Do It (but only as an Administrator)

I'm convinced that there are millions of Windows users out there who spend a large proportion of their time just sitting staring at their computer, without actually running any programs. Maybe they...

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Elf and Safety...

One of the joys of living in England is the plentiful opportunities for amusement (and sometimes even amazement) due to the proliferation of daft laws and rules emanating from our near-expired...

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