Things have been a little busier than normal lately. I just wrapped up a 3200 user e-mail migration for a local client (Sendmail to Exchange). I’ve also been working on a new room addition for our house. Add to that the normal grass mowing, car maintenance, time with my wife and daughter… and needless to say blogging has been at the bottom of the list. So, consider this the first in a series of ‘catch-up’ posts.
US Legislation Regarding the Internet
In my opinion, government involvement in technology and the Internet (short of its creation) isn’t a good thing. Think back to the Telecom Act of 1996 if you need a history lesson. That didn’t exactly turn out in favor of us consumers, did it?
Fast-forward to 2006 and check out the info on H. R. 5252 – also known as the Communications Opportunity, Promotion, and Enhancement Act of 2006. Smells dirty already, huh?!?! Anyway, this is all about controlling access to the Internet – specifically prioritization of traffic. The big boys like AT&T and Verizon (remember – the companies created by the Telecom Act of ‘96) aren’t too keen about people like Vonage using the Internet to bypass their bread and butter circuit-switched business. This is only one area addressed by the bill, so take a look and make sure to contact your representative (House, Senate) if you disagree with this legislation like I do.
Vista Performance Rating
If you’ve played with any of the Vista betas you may have seen a Performance Rating. My laptop scores somewhere between 2 and 4 depending on the component. I found a good article on MSDN that describes how the ratings are generated. Should be interesting to see how this shakes out over time.
Windows PowerShell (a.k.a. Monad)
I’ve been forcing myself to learn PowerShell lately. The reason I’m enduring this pain is because Microsoft is basing many of their upcoming server applications on PowerShell. Exchange 2007 will be the first, followed by SMSv4 and MOMv3. If you haven’t taken a look at PowerShell yet, now is the time. I think the idea of parity between the command-line and the GUI is a good thing… but for some reason I’m having a hard time digesting the PowerShell language/syntax. Someone sent me a cool Matrix-looking PowerShell script – and it took me 10 minutes to figure out how to run it. How sad is that :P I’ll post more about my newbie PowerShell adventures in a future blog post.