Loads to catch up on.

A lot has happened during July.

I spent a week in New Orleans, visiting my Dad and helping my Mom with stereo and computer issues.

Once I returned to NJ, my friend Jed flew up here and visited for a week.

During that week we took Nate & Maren to the annual West Orange family fun night at the town pool, we took the whole family to the beach at Point Pleasant, and the two of us spent a day in NYC.

Additionally Jed & I got to spend some time playing Magic:The Gathering, videogames, talking sci-fi, TV, and politics, and Jed taught Nate how to play Magic as well.

We baked an apple pie and chocolate chip cookies, and I sent Jed home with about 30Gb worth of music.

I took Jed & the kids to the monthly NAVA meet, and we just about identified every dinner establishment in the tri-state area that closes on Mondays.
All in all, a fun, exhausting week. Photos at Flickr.

Tomorrow, back to work.

Learn something new dept., July 2011

Began building an Exchange 2010 server several months ago. Was sidetracked and never finished up.

When I returned to the project on Friday I found that the Information Store service refused to start. The Event Viewer showed:

Event ID: 301

Failed to mount database 'Mailbox Database 0696636359' on Exch2010.jacobshome.local (Duration=00:00:00.3719227, ErrorMessage=An Active Manager operation failed with a transient error. Please retry the operation. Error: A transient error occurred during discovery of the database availability group topology. Error: Database action failed with transient error. Error: A transient error occurred during a database operation. Error: MapiExceptionNetworkError: Unable to make admin interface connection to server. (hr=0x80040115, ec=-2147221227)

During the original work on the machine, I'd installed an eval of Forefront Server Protection. That eval is long-since expired.

I uninstalled the Forefront Protection (no reboot was necessary), and the IS service started right up, no muss, no fuss.

Hope this helps somebody.

The Joy of nice machinery, the Agony of defective nice machinery

A bit bummed. Saturday afternoon a really nice Asus laptop was put up for sale, for a very low price, over at Woot. It was priced about half of the normal price, but was a refurb, with only a 90-day warranty. Jess' laptop was near-death, so we ordered the Asus. Surprisingly and impressively, it arrived today. Unfortunately, the wireless card on the machine doesn't work at all. The hardware and software behave as though the card isn't even physically present.
I've just submitted the necessary docs to Asus Customer Care, and assuming the docs pass muster Asus will let me ship the laptop to them for warranty repair. The machine is gorgeous though, and assuming it's repaired I'll still be thrilled with it; just disappointed I need to wait a few more weeks before we can enjoy it.

Getting Better

Once upon a time, our den looked like this:

A couple of months ago our trusty old TV decided it was time to shuffle off into the light. Soon after, our den evolved, to look like this:

Even before purchasing the new TV the plan was to route the wires behind the wall. So, as soon as scheduling permitted, my father-in-law and I cut holes in the wall, installed junction boxes and wall plates for the various AV jacks, and the den looked like this:

Still, something was wrong with the picture. Obviously some improvement was still necessary, but what ever could it be ? Hmmmm….

How about….
Some new furniture, more suited to the situation? Maybe.
Cleaning the room, and discarding a lot of junk? That's a promising thought too.

How about BOTH? Eureka!!!!
I present, the den, take 2:

Still not perfect, but much improved.