I was playing with a logo for a business idea I’m throwing around and thought it would look good as a wallpaper:
iPhone wallpaper
Just messing around with some stuff at work and thought I’d try and be creative with creating a Red Vines® inspired iPhone background. Continue Reading…
but a few days…
I was reading in Genesis 29 yesterday; the chapter focuses on Jacob and his marriage to Rachel. It’s a story we’ve heard a thousand times, how he served Laban for seven years and was cheated by Laban. Verse 20 jumped out at me though, “So Jacob served seven years for Rachel, and they seemed to him but a few days because of the love he had for her. (ESV)”
I instantly thought, “wow, years seeming like days sure sounds familiar.” Peter tells us in 2 Peter 3:8, ” But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. (ESV)”
Is it possible that just as Jacob’s love for Rachel made the seven years seem like days that God’s love for us is so great that the time in which he is waiting for His bride seems like days to Him?
Is pain necessary for producing fruit?
Sometimes thoughts come to me at the oddest times, like making espresso for example. Pulling proper shots of espresso is an art, and one that makes the hole-in-the-wall coffee shops so popular with those who enjoy the taste of a fine cup. While some larger corporations spend millions perfecting a machine to tamp and pull at the perfect poundage and pressure, there is nothing like a hand tamped shot. My interest was sparked by an episode of Alton Brown’s “Good Eats” who used a bathroom type scale to learn just how hard you really need to press (anywhere between 30 and 40 pounds from what I understand). In addition, the tamper must be twisted to give a smooth finish to the grounds ensuring the grounds are level with no places for the water to “sneak through”. After all this work, what is produced is some great tasting, energy giving, and beautiful looking espresso and the iconic crema. Without the proper preparation, the coffee becomes watered down and weak. One that will be poured down the drain.
More chances to screw up
Reading Seth Godin’s daily posts have been a staple of mine for the last year or two. Since a pretty serious change in my career path occurred in May, many of them have become even more relevant. In late June, he wrote about the radical changes in today’s workplace and how assembly line thinking is no longer valid. One paragraph in particular sums it up well:
You don’t work on an assembly line any more. You work in project world, and more projects mean more chances to screw up, to learn, to make a reputation and to have more impact. – Seth Godin
My mind tends to get stuck on the “screw up” part, a fear of mine that what I deliver will be a screwup and detrimental to my job and ultimately leading to unemployment. But that comma is not a period, screwing up is inevitable and it is one of the only means by which you can finish the sentence. It’s the screw up that gives the opportunity to learn, which leads to building a reputation, and ultimately making a greater impact. It’s what you (I) do with the screw up that determines whether the reputation and impact are positive or negative.
Adding HP NC365T drivers to VMware ESXi
I recently received two new HP DL385 servers for a VMware install. The servers came with an additional NIC we use for redundant virtual switch ports. With the previous VMware install at another site, the NIC’s we ordered worked out of the box, but something was different enough about these HP NC365T cards that VMware did not recognize them.
After some research I found that I had to find and install the right drivers. According to the VMware Compatibility Guide the “igb version 2.1.10.2″ driver would work with these card. It would be cool if VMware provided a link directly to the download, but instead I had to go to the driver download page and find the right driver. I searched the page for 2.1.10.2 and found the drivers for Intel 82576 and 82580 NOTE: It appears there is an even new driver 2.4.10.
$1200 dollars for a crib?
When you wait 5 years between kids, it’s inevitable that you will get rid of most, if not all your baby stuff. Thus was the case with Danielle and I. We had no crib, no clothes, no dressers, toys, swings, etc. We were essentially starting ALL OVER AGAIN, which in this day and age is expensive. During one of the baby shopping trips to one my my wife’s favorite stores in the Pearl District, we both found a crib we loved, but it was $1200.00. Me (being a guy and looking for excuses to build something) looked at this crib, its four sides, simple legs, and some slats, and thought to myself “this probably won’t cost me more than $200 dollars to build”. Luck for me, Danielle was all about the idea and gave the go-ahead to see what I could come up with.
I actually won something
So back in September I saw a random tweet come across the wire from Moldy Chum about a contest that Mountain Khakis was holding. The grand prize was 5 days / 4 nights at the Resort at Squaw Creek, plus a TON of swag including two a bunch of awesome clothes from Mountain Khakis, Bugslinger, Keen, Osprey, Sage, Redington, and Scientific Anglers, and of course a half day guided trip with Matt Heron. I generally enter contests like this when I see them, without even thinking I am actually going to win any of them. Well, needless to say about a week later I got an email saying:
Hi Cory,
Are you sitting down? We have exciting news for you – YOU WON the Mountain Khakis & Resort at Squaw Creek Fly Fishing Vacation Sweepstakes today!!!
I was able to take a guest, so I asked my wife to go with me on this adventure to Squaw Valley. We booked the trip for an early weekend in October which Matt claimed was his favorite time to fish the river’s around there, and he wasn’t lying.
Provisioning Windows Mobile phones
Similar to the previous post regarding provisioning iPhones for Exchange servers, the same can be done with Windows Mobile (though I don’t yet know how this will changes with Windows 7 Mobile). I haven’t found a nice utility to do this, so your relegated to hand coding a .xml file, but it’s no biggie.
If your situation is similar to mine, you have many remote users with mobile phones. There are times when they need to replace the phone while traveling or something else happens that requires resetting up the phone to connect to your mail server. We require our self-signed certificate to be installed on the phone, coupled with needing to know all the settings it can be frustrating to help setup a phone, over a phone.
Creating an iOS .mobileprofile for Corporate Exchange
If your company is anything like the one I work with, iPhone and iPad usage is picking up steam. Users are purchasing them and wanting them to sync with their Exchange mailboxes. Rather than trying to walk all the sales folks who are 1500 miles away through the setup, building a .mobileprofile can save a great deal of time, while creating a standardized setup. It is especially useful you use self-signed certificates as they can be included in the .mobileprofile file that is created.
First things first, you need to download Apple’s “iPhone Configuration Utility”. The latest version for Mac or Windows can be found at http://www.apple.com/support/iphone/enterprise/. I guess if you’re a real man you can just create the file by hand, but their application makes it pretty easy.
Instagrawesome
