place of nathan.

If you’ve ever heard me complain about Microsoft,
well, let me rephrase that…if you’ve never heard me complain about Microsoft, we should spend more time together.

historically, i have not been a big fan of Microsoft. I think they produce a sub-par product at a very high premium. i have often used their tutorials and help files, and rarely ever find anything helpful.

This week, i was working on a network reconfiguration, and some clients would not connect to the Internet. Every client would easily connect to the network, and could ping, and could even access the gateway. but it just would not connect to the Internet. I spent a total of about seven hours on the phone, and was finally told there was nothing more they could do.
So as i was sitting at one of the clients, I had open Internet Explorer 7. When i would type in a domain name, it would just continually process. No time out, just constant loading. I had earlier noticed there was a page up that said something about ‘click here to run connection diagnostics,’ and i immediately thought, ‘yeah, it will ask me, ‘did you restart your computer’ and ‘did you verify it was plugged in’ — just typical, stupid windows questions.
But when i clicked the diagnostics button, it processed for about 60 seconds, and then said something like:

Internet Explorer has detected some corruption in the winsock proxy installation. Do you want to reset this value for the next restart?

and i was thinking, ‘what? it fixed it that quick?’

and sure enough, that is what cost me about 13 hours of work over a period of a week. Just some stupid winsock proxy settings on some of my clients. it was a very easy fix (due to a KB article at support.microsoft.com)

So, i learned that Microsoft actually is getting better…that is a very good thing. hopefully it is a trend that will continue for some time!

have you ever had a similar experience?

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some people are just fun to be around, and are a joy to be around.
other people wear you out, drain you, full you down.

Do you know both kinds of people? i do.
it’s not really much of a question which kind of person i would rather be with–the kind of person who is a joy to be with.

So the question is, what kind of a person are you?
(that is indeed a rhetorical question.)

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Last Monday, i blogged about a long day. Today, i finally fixed the problem i was having.

Long story short, I reconfigured our network, and some of the client computers could not connect to the Internet. They could connect to the network, but not the Internet. It was really odd.
I talked to tech support for a total of seven hours, and pretty much got nowhere.

Finally, i figured it out…finally! it took me about 15 hours of work altogether to get it going, which sucks, because if everything went right it should have been about a 90 minute job…

If you are technically minded, here’s the specs of the reconfiguration: (you can stop reading any time if you don’t get this!)
the old network configuration ran everything through a proxy server, which connected to the ISP. this proxy server was also home to our database.

I have now removed the proxy configuration completely, and also, we are no longer routing traffic through the client which houses the database.
I installed a SonicWALL TZ170, with the comprehensive security bundle. Behind sits a NetGear FS116 switch, to which all clients are switching through. The 16-port switch is completely full, so it is nice to have a couple extra ports at the SonicWALL.
We also have a wireless access point, which is currently disabled, as it needs to be reconfigured to work with the SonicWALL.
The SonicWALL is our DHCP server, which makes things easier for me to manage the IPs now.

it’s nice to have a gateway appliance now. the proxy server solution was kinda rough.

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In a recent blog, James Governor asks the question: Is Wordpress the most Innovative Open Source platform?

i was taken by one comment:

I would argue innovation is often a matter of packaging

What do you think about that statement?

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it used to be about half the time i wanted to put a file attachment on an email message, i would forget to actually attach it. you probably never forget, but thought i’d share one simple way to never forget to attach a file.
After implementing this simple tip (which i did come up with on my own!), I now forget maybe one percent of the time. The change happened overnight, and was due to just one small habit i formed:

When i type, ‘I’m attaching the file you requested.’ what actually happens is this…

‘I’m attaching’
at this point, i stop, and actually attach the file. then i continue,
‘ the file you requested.’

This has helped me a lot, and i hope you’ll find it beneficial, too.
Do you have any handy tips like this you could share?

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About 12 years ago (i know, i’m old!) i worked at a Day Camp for the Auburn Parks & Recreation Department.
I was a counselor, and we did day camp for kids of different ages.

About this time, the movie Lion King was really popular, and the kids all loved Simba and the other characters. One afternoon, we had Lion King costumed characters come in and do a show. After the show, all the kids gave Simba a big hug. Then, all the counselors gave Simba a hug. i felt a little odd, as a macho athlete to be giving a hug to a guy dressed up like a giant lion, but didn’t want to make a scene, so i did.

This is what i learned: objects aren’t always what they appear. As i gave Simba a quick hug, i heard a female say, ‘thanks for coming, you’re really cute, you know that?’ as ‘Simba’ gave me more of a slow hug.
That was disturbing to me. First, i was expecting a man, not a woman. second, why was a giant lion flirting with me? third, that was really awkward.
After that incident, i almost felt dirty. i felt kinda ‘used.’

it was weird, because i wasn’t used or abused, but i felt that way. I couldn’t imagine how someone would feel who was actually used and/or abused.

have you ever been in such an ‘uncomfortable’ situation and care to share how it made you feel?

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When i was growing up, i always worked, at least, in the summers. as i got older, i worked through the school year, too.

my first “real” summer job was de-tastling corn. it was about a three-week job. not really very fun.
i worked at a summer day camp one summer. it was kinda fun watching kids, but it was tiring to be around kids, too! (a story from this job will be posted soon)
when i graduated high school, i spent the first two summers working at a glass fabrication plant, 12-hour shifts. tiring!
when i was in college, i worked at Harmony Outdoor Equipment doing odd jobs, cleaning and driving. i learned a LOAD about tractors and lawn mowers.

when i started six years ago at New Hope Christian Center, it was the first job i had ever had which wasn’t mostly physical labor. When i walked out of the door after my first day, i thought to myself, ‘i didn’t do anything today. i will work harder tomorrow.’ and i was feeling guilty for not ‘working.’
the next day i worked, i left and thought the same thing–i couldn’t believe i still hadn’t done any work.

I didn’t think about it again until a few months later, when i realized that mental labor was actually much harder than physical labor! o how i would love to have the same feeling walking out of work today as i did on that very first day–no stress, not a care in the world about anything work-related…now i daydream about work on my day off, dream at night about work…

have you ever been uber-stressed? what about not stressed at all? which would you prefer? (sometimes i wish i was a kid for that reason!)
have you ever made a switch from physical to mental work? did you notice such a difference?

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I just wanted to give out a shout-out to my father-in-law, Kerry Hubartt, on his recent promotion to editor of Fort Wayne’s The News-Sentinel newspaper.
Hubartt has been on staff with the newspaper since 1971. Congrats Kerry Hubartt!

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Several weeks ago, a friend asked me a question which i didn’t know anything about–and i should have known about it. after asking some clarifying questions, it seemed my friend had heard a rumor.
You see, this person had heard the rumor from a ‘reliable source,’ so why would they have questioned it? If the rumor was true, i should have known about it, so it was an awkward moment. (i think my friend thought i was ‘playing dumb’ at first!) And to clarify, the rumor made completely incorrect assumptions based on one or two minor, supporting facts. (See this post on faulty logic for an example) the rumor was, as my mum would say, ‘a lie straight from the pit of hell.’

I have thought of this moment several times over the past several weeks, and one thing is clear: Rumors suck. when left unchecked, rumors cause division.

My friend did the honorable thing in checking about the rumor with someone who would actually know. Sure, it caused a moment of awkwardness, but after that, i feel much closer to my friend than i did previously. i trust that my friend will ask me if the ‘reliable source’ tells him any more tall tales. My friend also never mentioned who the ‘reliable source’ was, and frankly, i don’t care who it was.

There is a stark difference between the two people i’ve talked about in this post.
The one who spread the rumor caused division.
The one who asked about it caused growth, trust and unity.

who are you going to be?

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This Easter Weekend is going to be like no other weekend we’ve ever done before.
It will be like Easter Weekend we’ve ever held before, i promise!

Remember a couple weeks ago when i told you we had a surprise in store and you wouldn’t want to miss it? i didn’t let you down, did i? well…this is even bigger. I mean…awesome stuff coming down the pipes. I am really pumped!

This Easter Weekend will be the climax to our 4-week series Risen to Reign, as we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus! There will be multiple ‘firsts’ for New Hope…we’ve never done this stuff before, so you do not want to miss this weekend!
We are expecting a HUGE crowd at the 10:30 a.m. service, so if you want to be really nice, you might consider attending the Saturday 6 p.m. or Sunday 8 a.m. services to leave more ‘good’ seats for our not-so-regular attending guests.

Also, we’re going to be dropping the curtain on what will be happening the following week–you just have to see who we got to be part of our video shoots for this next series! UNBELIEVABLE! See the trailer this weekend at the Easter Weekend services!

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Yesterday, i set a personal record for most hours worked straight through.

At my first job, i detasseled corn and worked 7 a.m. - 2 p.m. for like three weeks, and i thought that was really long hours.

When i graduated high school, i worked two summers at a glass fabrication plant, working 12-hour shifts.

But yesterday, i worked 7:15 a.m. - 8:15 p.m.. i never took a break. i ate lunch at my desk, taking a bite here and there between clicks and answering the phone. it made for a long day, and by the time i got home, i was very much ready to spend some time with Emily. And i’m salary, so i don’t get paid overtime or anything, either! (but i’m hoping to be caught up enough to take an hour off this afternoon!)

What is the longest you’ve ever worked straight through without taking a break? what about with a break?

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