A Microsoft guy writes a good article on why they are encouraging users to Instant Messaging at Work instead of email. I guess they have to use it at MS as they wrote a corporate version to go with exchange (and to reduce the load on their servers) but it still makes good reading. We use it internally too as its great for contacting the home workers when you want to find out the answer to a quick question or even if they are at their computer.

I went to meet my sister and brother-in-law at Castleton today to meet up after the birthday. The weather was pretty grotty so we didn’t go to the Heights Of Abraham as we originally had planned to do. I didn’t think there was much point in spending loads of money to look at the view – of a cloud. Instead we went to Castleton and we went into Speedwell Cavern which was an interesting boat trip inside an old lead mine. The boat trip was about 15 minutes there, with a 5 min stop half way as we waited for the previous boat to pass us – then it was to the bottomless pit (which turns out to be 35ft deep!). Then back in the boat back to the start. It was a very interesting trip and the first time that I can remember for a long time inside a cave (I went to Cheddar Gorge when I was little but don’t remember much about it).
We then had lunch in the Bull’s head (not recommended) although they did give us free parking. That was a relief as parking in the town seemed very expensive with a 3 hours stay costing £3 or more and whats more, the on-road parking is only charged on weekends and bank holidays – so not only do they rip the visitors off, they are blatantly obvious about it!
After lunch we nipped into a couple of outdoor shops and I ended up buying two walking poles (thanks Mum and Dad, Ruth and Tim!) for my birthday and we immediately put them to good use when we walked up a VERY steep hill – past Peveril Castle (although we only saw the Norman Lavatory) along the Limestone way, braving the snow and hail on the top of the hill to find we’d walked along a one way system and we had to go back down again. We all enjoyed the walk (I think) and hopefully Tim will have some good pictures to post here soon. pictures by Tim are online at Castleton Gallery

W32.Mydoom.F@mm has got at least one of our (remote) users who decided to open the email with an attachment with a zip file which then has an attachment called “joke.txt insert50spaceshere .exe”
The reason they opened the file was “because it might have been a registration email for a conference” despite these normally containing no .zip attachments
Their av was not uptodate for some reason – the definitions dated 22/2 didn’t pick the worm up (and the 23rd’s dats have not been downloaded for some reason). Now I have to go through and check every machine to make sure someone else hasn’t run it.
Aarghhhhhhhhh!

The PC that I’m using tonight has a much nicer keyboard. They are running ie6, not service packed, not got the anti-spoof patch (I tested my exploit to see). Norton Internet Security is loaded (but disabled). run and command.com are loaded. Kazaa, MX,p2pnetwork are running. Someone saved their windows messenger password (but they’ve had the sense to since change it). AOL mssenger is loaded and logged in, Perfectnav so that you can’t get to www.spywareinfo.com – instead it redirects you to their search engine. (google cache link used so that I can actually get to the page otherwise perfectnav blocks it!) Mozilla is not installed (sob)

I’m staying in the same hotel that I was at in London a couple of weeks ago and decided that I’d not pay the extortionate rate for the internet access. Instead I’ve popped into a local internet cafe and am enjoying a really naff keyboard that makes it impossible to touch type, especially as the o key does not respond at all well. Still they do nice smoothies though. I did manage to log two of my geocaches that I did when I got to London, although sadly one is a DNF as it looks like its been found by the locals.

This knowledgebase article describing a problem where Windows XP may take upward of three minutes to complete a wireless network connection looks like the problem I sometimes get at home where the pc takes forever to boot up at home. i guess the workaround is to disable client for MS networks or the wireless as I boot up…. I think i’ll try that and see how I get on.
Update I’ve tried booting the laptop up with the wireless nic disabled (fortunately there is a nice slider switch to turn it on and off) and it logs in as instantaneous as it can get. Marvellous!

I needed to turn off ipforwarding on a w2k professional and spent a few minutes going crazy trying to find the dialog box to turn it off. Turns out they’ve actually removed this box and you have to do a registry hack instead.

Thanks to Kelly, use the tips in this google post for amusement whilst Lord of the Rings plays

Just finished reading Holes by Louis Sachar. Its a good book and quick to read. I found it hard going to start with as all the sentences are so short that the story seems to stutter, but after a few pages/chapters you get the hang of it. Its a very addictive read and only takes a couple of hours. I’d never heard of the story even though it’s just been released as a film and was one of the books featured in the Big Read. We’ll probably go and see the film in the next couple of weeks.

I’ve been a bit quiet on the blogging front as I’ve been very busy at work, including sorting out three companies who had not had a successful backup for at least a month. The register has an article that reckons 25% of companies do not backup. I am wondering if there is a market there for providing backup services and ensuring they actually work.