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It was the end of the 2007 regular season, and LSU's baseball team finished nearly last in the conference at a horrible 29-26-1 (12-17-1 SEC). For the first time in 22 years, there would be no post-season for the Tigers.

It didn't look like it was going to get much better in 2008. Since the Tigers are getting a new stadium next year, this year's team set a simple goal of sending the old one (Alex Box) out on a good note - hosting a regional. It seemed possible, as “the Box“ has hosted 17 regionals since 1985. When mid-season rolled around, though, for the 2008 Tigers, they were at the same horrible place they were in 2007. They were at the bottom of the conference with a losing record (6-11). Forget about that pie-in-the-sky goal of hosting a regional; it would take a miracle just to make it into post-season play (being accepted into the conference tournament.)

If an object is heading a certain direction and wants to travel 180 degrees opposite, there is a moment in time when it has to completely come to a stop - the instant between going the initial direction and before heading the other way. This instant occurred on April 20th for the ship that the 2008 Tigers were sailing. The Tigers saved themselves from being swept at home by #13 Georgia - resulting in a tie. Since they neither won nor lost, you couldn't tell if it was the beginning of a turnaround or just a complete stop before continuing on in the wrong direction.

Then came wins against in-state rivals Tulane and McNeese. That weekend LSU swept #12 South Carolina. People were starting to notice that the ship may have actually changed direction. Chalk another mid-week W against an in-state rival. Then the Tigers travelled to Lexington and swept #18 Kentucky. Next weekend was a sweep of (pre-season #2) Ole Miss. It was obvious that the ship was now sailing in the right direction. Post season play was starting to look like a possibility - even a probability. And with a 12 game win streak going, it was going in the right direction fast - maybe as fast it was previously heading the wrong way.

A couple of days later was the 15 inning barn-burner against UNO. Off to Auburn for the final weekend of regular season play - and another sweep. The Tigers climbed from the bottom of the division midseason (6-11 SEC) to clinching the Western Division title (and giving them an automatic bid to the conference tournament, which they were seeded #2.) All it took was a 16 game winning streak (the longest in the country.)

If they made a good showing in the tourney then their pre-season goal of hosting a regional became a real possibility. They swept their way through the thing, extending the win streak to 20. Picked not to even make the tournament only weeks ago, here they were, the SEC Champion. On the next day, the NCAA announced the tournament brackets and the hosting sites. The goal was realized: Baton Rouge was hosting a regional. (As a bonus, the Tigers were given a #7 national seeding; if they win their regional, they'll automatically host the super-regional the following weekend.)

From cold as ice to hot as hell. Quite a turnaround.

Let the NCAA tourney begin!

UPDATE (2008-06-04): The Tigers swept the regionals, increasing their win streak to 23 - an SEC record. This means they are hosting the super-regional this weekend versus UC-Irvine. Hopefully the next update will be reporting they're on their way to the College World Series!

UPDATE (2008-06-10): Tigers lost Super-Regional Game 1. In Game 2, they were 7 runs behind entering the 8th inning and came from behind to win it in the 9th. In Game 3 the Tigers pretty much just put on a clinic: 6 runs in the first inning, finally ending up with a 21-9 win. The Tigers are headed to Omaha!

Holy crap. I'm in downtown Louisville, Kentucky, and I just went through my first earthquake.
(Technically, I went through a minor one a couple of years ago, here, but I happened to be driving across a bridge over the Ohio River and never knew it even happened until I got back to the office.)

This one is apparently quite a bit bigger and I was lucky enough to be awake and in my apartment when it hit a few minutes ago (around 5:36 AM EDT April 18, 2008).

I was watching the local live news on the local NBC affiliate, Wave3. (Admittedly, I was primarily tuned in for hottie news babe Carrie Weil.)

Shit started rocking around and falling off of my shelves. I immediately knew what was going on and was hoping this wasn't “The Big One.“ The news studio was experiencing it simultaneously and was reporting it live, in real-time.

Since I am an earthquake virgin (I'm a NOLA native, i.e. a hurricane veteran, so at least we have some warning.) This is tornado kinda advanced warning, yet even less notice. It scared the hell out of me for those two long minutes. I don't know how severe it was, comparatively speaking, with other earthquakes. What I can tell you is that I'm never going to be able to get any sleep before work (in 4 hrs) now!

More to come, stay tuned!

...and here it comes:

UPDATES:

• 2008-04-18 05:50
  • Local Louisville news station (NBC affiliate Wave3) reports:
    • A local newsman was talking with somebody in New York and they, too, had claimed to feel it.
    • Indianapolis has called in reports (AP).
• 2008-04-18 05:56
  • Wave3:
    • USGS confirms earthquake occurred in the Mid-West, starting at 5:37 EDT
      • Magnitude 5.4 on the Richter Scale
      • Epicenter was located near West Salem, Illinois (40 miles from Evansville, KY; 127 miles from St. Louis, MO)
    • 911 and local authorities getting flooded with phone calls
• 2008-04-18 06:01
  • I can hear police cars racing around downtown Louisville
  • Wave 3:
    • Largest earthquake recorded in Illinois history
    • Downtown Louisville (2nd and 3rd St. at Kentucky Street) building facade/roof collapsed (damage reports starting rolling in)
• 2008-04-18 06:27
  • Wave 3:
    • Largest reported quake magnitude (Richter Scale), by state (this one was a 5.4):
      • Indiana: 5.1
      • Kentucky: 5.2
      • Illinois: 5.3
    • Old ladies calling into the TV station giving their similar accounts of the rumblin'
• 2008-04-18 07:00
  • Wave 3:
    • Lots more people calling in, lots more staff veteran war stories, etc.
    • The Today Show is pre-empted with all of the crazy local coverage (although it hasn't expanded much since the last update.)
    • Beloved station weatherman, John Belski, is called at home and gives more information than the TV channel has given since it happened
      • Trailers off of foundations
      • Coal mines shut down
      • Evansville, KY TV stations have great footage of the trembling from tower cams
      • More cities/counties reporting of damage
      • It was a “shallow“ quake (3 miles deep). Shallow quakes are are felt at a much farther distance than “deep“ quakes, such as the ones that frequently occur on the San Andreas Fault.
      • Evansville (and other KY bridges, e.g. Louisville) are designed to withstand a 5.9 without any damage
      • Already blogged on his website (the first I've seen; not even on the TV channel's home page yet.)
    • More lame local call-in testimonials of, “Everything AOK.“
• 2008-04-18 07:50
  • Wave 3:
    • More lame local call-in testimonials of, “Everything AOK.“ Multiple call-ins of “no reports of damage.“
    • Magnitude has been lowered to a 5.2 (from initial reports of 5.4.) Turns out it was a “deeper“ quake than intially thought.
      Sorry, Illinois, you didn't break the record.
    • There's amateur video coming in of stuff “rocking.” (Who has these cams handy and ready at the early morn for a simple 2 minute event?)
• 2008-04-18 08:02
  • Wave 3:
    • More old lady call-in testimonials continue. (E.g., “I was shaken out of bed, but no damage.“)
    • Thank you folks, I've had enough for the day (even if Carrie Weil is still on the air).
      Night, night! The aftershocks can kiss my ass (as nobody knows when they're coming, anyway)
• 2008-04-18 08:21
  • Wave 3:
    • Beloved station weatherman, John Belski, is called at home and gives more information than the TV channel has given since it happened
      • Chunks of concrete have fallen down from the viaducts
      • Reports from Chicago that there are damages to some roadways
      • Reports have come in from 11 different states (e.g. all the way to Detroit, MI and Milwaulkee, WI)
      • Reports of lots of trailers knocked off of their foundations
      • Chandelier in the dining area of an Evansville home came crashing down
    • Some roads in KY that are near trailer parks are asked not to be used because those that have been knocked off of their foundation are leaking natural gas
    • New Harmony, Indiana is reporting damage of bricks falling off of buildings
    • No injuries have been reported anywhere, as of this time.
      Whoops, correction. At 8:31 some woman in Princeton fell off her roof (what the hell was she doing up there at that time, anyway!??!)
    • Testimonial call-ins are rolling in now where they are proclaiming to actually predicted it.
       (E.g., “I told my wife, 'I think somethin's gonna happen!' Twenty seconds later we started feeling the shakin'.“ Thank you, Nostradamus.)
    • Pictures coming in of structural damage (foundation cracks, broken windows, etc.)
• 2008-04-18 08:48
  • Wave 3:
    • The earthquake was 7.2 miles deep, affecting a 300 mile radius from the epicenter
    • The most extensive damage reports (not that much) seem to be coming from Louisville
    • Mt. Carmel (30 miles from epicenter) woman was trapped by a collapsed porch but is fine
    • Skyscrapers in Chicago and Indianapolis were swaying and shaking
    • A Morgantown, Georgia (600 miles away from the epicenter) residence's grandfather clock's chimes clang together
    • Mayor of Louisville having a press conference at 9am to confirm everything you've read already above
  • I'm seriously going to bed now (but not without checking out national news!)

Sorry about this site (my blog) being down for a month or so. I decided to upgrade (i.e. rebuild from scratch) my home domain for the first time in over five years.

My previous home domain was based on Windows Server 2003 (started with Windows Server Standard 2003, moved to Windows Small Business Server 2003, then finally to Windows Server 2003 R2). Over that time it has hosted various versions of MS server products [Exchange (2003), IIS (5,6,7), SharePoint (WSS2, WSS3, MOSS 2007), SQL Server (Express/DevEd 2000,2005), etc.], and all exposed to the internet. I had crashed and burned my workstations countless times (admittedly thanks to my own tinkering/experimenting/ßeta testing), but the main home domain had been rock solid throughout - which was a surprise. When Windows XP was released (2001), I was skeptical. Windows XP looked like an evolutionary release of the revolutionary Windows 2000 release only a year earlier - the RTM looking like nothing more than window (no pun intended) dressing. It took another couple of years to release a new version of their server OS (i.e. Windows Server 2003) which is based off the XP code-base. It turns out that the XP/2003 releases of the MS OS are the best (i.e. most stable, efficient, secure) releases to this day.

Anyway, I had finally screwed up my “typical“ network services (e.g. DHCP, DNS, IIS/ASP, Exchange) beyond repair and it was time to get things cleaned up. In February of 2008, I purchased a Windows Home Server to help secure my data and to basically protect me from myself (i.e. the daily professional hacking of my environment that was clashing with my consumer use.) Don't get me started on WHS: there's such a fundamental bug with it that I feel like I've wasted $700+ on somethintg that was supposed to save me.

I forgot about all the hours of toil it took me to get everything running well on my hardware. I brought up my new PDC (Windows Server 2008) and the typical services rather quickly on a newer piece of hardware. I wanted to make my previous PDC, running on older hardware and Windows Server 2003 all these years so well, into a new member server. Turns out that I've had nothing but trouble trying to get Windows Server 2003 running again correctly on that legacy hardware. (I still can't format an extended partition on one of my ancient Highpoint RAID controllers without instant bluescreen/reboots (there's 200+ GB of unallocated space on one of my drives; I managed to do it somehow before, but can't figure out what driver version magic combination gets me there).

Since I've opined on the “weird 2007 season“ in a previous post, the LSU Tigers managed to crawfish their way into “Going to the 'chip.“ (i.e., BCS national championship game.)

When the Tigers made it into the national championship game - thanks to somebody else (Oklahoma) losing their last game of the season - I was in shock. I didn't think I would ever see a Tiger appearance in a national championship game in my lifetime. (For all six Fall semesters that I paid tuition we had a losing record.) It was being held in New Orleans that year, so I had to go and the Tigers prevailed.

They also crawfished their way back into the BCS national championship game this year (thanks to two teams losing in the final week. If you don't think the Tigers deserved to be there, I welcome your posts with good arguments on who should have been there in their place.) And again, New Orleans happened to be where the rotation placed the game. A healthy 2007 Tiger team was pretty hard to beat (predicted overall #1 draft pick, Glenn Dorsey, was out a couple of games and injured for the following three; stud #1 receiver, Early Doucet, was out for 5 games; starting quarterback Matt Flynn was out for a couple of games; etc.)  But with their ability to regain their health in the post-season break and the obvious “home-field advantage” of the SuperDome, it was everything everybody (except Lee Corso) said it would be. They dominated again and became the first team to win it twice in BCS history.

Ohio State is now 0-9 in bowl games vs. the SEC. Wah, cry me a river. I will tell you this, though: quite a fan base they have. Blew the Sooners (national championship game Jan 2004) out of the water.

The pics of my visit are here.

I haven't been this excited by an OS release since Windows 2000. (Sorry Apple folks, I really like and appreciate your OS... ever since I had my first Apple ][+, then IIe, then //c. But when I entered the working world and had to create a career by developing software, WinTel had all of the market-share. When I graduated college, net wealth was very low and WinTel development was the only way to survive.)

So what's changed?

Computers aren't just my career, they're one of my hobbies, too (it's nice when your career is a hobby!)
I've been managing my own full-blown Windows AD domain at home for years now. This includes a WinS PDC that also hosts my forward-facing Exchange Server, IIS6, and a VMWare WinS2K3 member server that hosts a full-blown MOSS 2007 Enterprise environment complete with search, etc. I do most of my interactive computing at home on a couple of workstations (each machine can quad-boot into 32 bit/64 bit versions of XP or Vista). I've been using my home network as an R&D test-bed for various projects - primarily to improve my skills and advance my career (and hobby being lagniappe). My career includes the 11+ year stint which I've been doing the 40hr/wk corporate developer/dev-architect for a Fortune500 (Health Care: Medical Facilities #6) company, my moonlighting consulting gig, and whatever personal development explorations I fancy. Setting up my own “enterprise-like“ internet-facing environment over my home ISP (e.g., hosting this blog) has been a great learning experience and extremely valuable and relevant to my career (i.e. a Microsoft Certified Solutions Developer.) On the other hand, more and more of my home computing activities have been falling in line with “Joe Home-User's.” I.e., I use my computer more and more like “normal people“ (a typical non-IT end-user/consumer.) I waste countless hours taking and organizing digital pictures and my music library, answering non-work-related emails, shopping and banking online, and countless hours web-surfing various non-tech sites.

Here's the issue. The very same mockup/reference platform that I primarily used for career purposes now also is taxed with the double-duty of serving these non-career and consumer purposes. This single environment has moved from the role of being master of one (a career-oriented skill-building test-bed) to being a jack of all trades and master of none. It no longer serves as a best-of-breed for either scenario - the experimental, early-adopting, technology-testing R&D role it was designed and built for, nor the personal/consumer scenarios it has been increasingly taxed with. I need to break up my environment into the two separate roles it services, getting back to where each is best-of-breed for what it is intended to service. That’s the geek/engineering way.

That's why the OS release that has intrigued me since its announcement is fascinating. It’s actually geared to Joe Home-User (responding perfectly to the consumer-oriented role), while allowing my existing environment to serve the purpose it was designed for in the first place - hacking around and experimental, crash-and-burn career-oriented R&D. The OS that I am speaking of, that will help bring me back to serving a best-of-breed solution – for both roles, is Windows Home Server.

Being a manager of our developer (MSDN enterprise) Volume License Agreement, I essentially am granted license to just about every piece of software that Microsoft makes (other than games). This includes every M$ OS, and looked forward to getting WHS for “free.” It turns out this is the first (MS OS) exception. “Well, OK,” I say. “I’ll buy one if I have to (as an end-customer) and might as well get it along with the supported hardware.”

The first turn-key solutions (HP MediaSmart Server EX47x) have been delivered - and the consumer reviews have been outstanding. Could this thing really be all that I had hoped for? It sure looks like it. I was minutes away of laying down my cash and then I found some interesting info buried around the 'net.

First, there was the “supported operating systems” table buried deep in HP’s website. Various versions of Windows Vista and XP are supported (but not all editions of them!) But that’s it. What about the others, e.g. any version of Windows Server? What about Windows 2000? What about non-Windows nodes that follow industry standard protocols (SMB, TCP/IP, etc. E.g. Linux).

The answer is: I still don’t know the answer yet. Is this “supported operated systems” list only in regards to the agent? I’m guessing probably so. You can still access the “raw OS” console of the WHS via remote desktop when you need to get into the guts - it looks like any other Windows Server 2003 shell (Explorer) that you’ve seen before. So “how” required is this agent to include nodes in your WHS solution?

One thing that I haven’t been able to confirm is that the agent is required in order to take advantage of some of the WHS features. Certainly it shouldn’t be required for standard NTLM/SMB file-sharing. Specifically, I’m asking the question, “If I can’t install the agent on a machine because it’s “unsupported” (i.e. certain versions of XP or Vista or anything else), can you manually configure a machine to be included within a WHS feature’s workflow – providing it uses standard protocols?” I’d love to have my forward-facing web root of my Windows Server 2003 PDC to be included as part of the backup scheduling. Since installing the agent isn’t supported on that OS, is it possible to manually configure/slipstream it into the WHS backup schedule? I don’t know and I can’t find any information on it. I’m betting that you can, but if not I can still deal with working around the limitation by moving the critical services elsewhere. Therefore I am still very ready to buy… until I read the very last line:

NOTE: The HP MediaSmart Server does not support client computers running 64-bit operating systems.

OK, that’s a deal breaker for me. My $800 was in-hand and enthusiastically ready to turn over to HP/M$. Now none of my servers or primary workstation boots (which make up my entire home network) is supported. That’s pitiful, as my entire network is made up of the very latest releases - of the deluxe versions - of M$ OS’s (Vista Ultimate x64 and Windows Server 2003 R2) – yet neither is supported by WHS. If you see differently, please let me know. I know that there’s going to be an announcement on 64-bit support at the Jan CES, but the burning question remains: what if your node isn’t “supported.” Is it dead in the water as far as WHS is concerned, or can you manually configure it into the WHS services?

I was so close to dropping my $ considering the functionality that it offered and the rave reviews. Are all of these people running XP/Vista32 exclusively as the OS on their network? Probably so. But…

What about the rest of us? What about the early-adopters (me) that is running the latest and greatest deluxe editions of your official releases that are unsupported? What about the developers (developers, Developers, DEVELOPERS!) who hold licensing to the bits of every other M$ software – who would evangelize, extend the platform, and most importantly partner/sell it?

Where’s the love?

UPDATE: (2008-01)
As was rumored, Microsoft has announced an upgrade (“WHS Power Pack 1“) to the initial release of WHS with lots of features - most importantly, to me, those that will support my use! Now all I have to do is dig up some cash.

UPDATE (2008-02-19):
OK, I broke down and bought the EX475 (2x512GB=1GB) model, even though the “WHS Power Pack 1“ (referenced above) isn't due until mid-2008. I downloaded the trial of WHS and decided I can live with the features that are available for machines that don't have agents [i.e., “auto-setup“ of new good fault-tolerant hardware and NAS (via standard SMB)] until my 64 bit Vista client is released. I was bummed that you can't configure/setup the WHS via machines that don't have agents (which really seems a bit much as it's basically RPC/RDP configurations - you don't need to hook-up any non-agent machines to get the WHS configured). I cranked up a 32 bit XP VM and ran the setup CD. Since I'm already having my router forward port 80 & 443 to a different machine (my PDC) to do my web hosting, I did a backup of my router config, enabled uPnP, and let it go about doing its thing. After it was done, I registered the free (yet another) dynamic DNS and verified it was setup correctly. I then “unconfigured“ the router, set my 80 & 443 forwarding back to my Exchange/MOSS machine and disabled the forwarding to WHS in my router. It looks like everything is working good (i.e., as expected for agentless machines.)
I moved all of my pictures/music/personal/software fileshares from the various places on my network into the shares on WHS. It's taking forever to balance the storage (running duplication on all shares which contain around 130GB so far).

UPDATE (2008-02-29):
The product shows so much promise and I was really excited about using it - even with the wait until it supports my 64 bit clients. That pretty much leaves me with using the file sharing until the Power Pack is released, which is just fine with me. I bought the dual disk (2x500GB=1TB) version of my HP WHS and set all my shares for duplication (the shared storage is duplicated on the other disk in the background). This is the most fault tolerant setup possible. I started moving my media and personal documents over as stated in the previous update and renamed the original shares spread around my network - that way I wouldn't accidentally use the older shares and I had a backup still sitting there for awhile “just in case.“ And thank god I did.
There is a massive standing bug in WHS file system: When editing files directly from WHS shares, it will silently corrupt just about any file type using just about any application. And the ironic kicker - it only affects the “more fault tolerant versions of WHS“ (those with multiple drives)... like mine.
So that leaves me with basically no use of the functionality of the thing until the bug is fixed and my client machines are supported.
I feel sorry for the folks behind WHS because they are getting absolutely clobbered right now (as well as they should - file corruption for something sold as mainly a protector and sharer of data, i.e. file server - is inexcusable, especially considering all the applications that are affected (Microsoft's own Office and Vista components, for example!) How could such a thing be missed in testing? And if it was caught, how could it ever have been RTM'd?
I believe the WHS team has created a nice, focused product for a good target audience. There's obviously something wrong in the quality assurance area, however.
I can wait for the Power Pack for as long as I have to.
I can't trust (or use) the product until the corruption bug is fixed. What's ashame is that it was originally KB'd on Dec 21, 2007... and reports were coming in a month or two before that... and they still haven't fixed it yet. It must be quite an issue - one with major code changes and rewriting. I just hope they QA it a lot better than the RTM of 1.0.

UPDATE (2008-03-10):
Egads. Things get worse. Looks like the earliest the data corruption bug fix will be released is June 2008. Obviously a major amount of effort to fix things. I sure hope MS spends more time on the QA for this hotfix. As of right now I have a $700 paperweight that I don't trust.On the other hand, there's a cool (and very reasonably priced) new service offered by HP called UpLine for disaster recovery and other services. Interested on how it's going to tie into their WHS offerings.

UPDATE (2008-06-04):
Yup, still waiting on a fix for the big bad bug (no updates for over a few anxious months now). And I still don't trust it. Yet as I wait for a fix, guess what happened? A Linux version consisting of damn near the same product/feature set as WHS was released! Check out a review of HP's new Media Vault 2100 Home Server.

UPDATE (2008-06-07):
I was just accepted into the ßeta progam for WHS. Power Pack 1 (ßeta 1 build 1771)  has just been released and installed. As a bonus, it includes the fix to the big bad bug. Time will tell.