You Better Recognize!

I collect a few interesting things, including the following:

• Star Trek collectibles
• Badges (Police badges & Name badges)
• Lapel Pins
• Pocketwatchs

Below are pictures (along with captions) for each of the collections I have in NY with me (All minus the Star Trek collectibles). You can view the entire library, in Picasa Web, here

Pocketwatches

I have 2 pocketwatches in my collection right now (Yes… 2 – what a great sized collection!). Click on either one to find out more about it.

From Collectibles

From Collectibles

Lapel Pins

I have quite a few Lapel Pins, displayed below. Some are purely sentimental value, others I wear. My general rule is that I only wear ones that I have a legitimate tie to or reason.

From Collectibles

From Collectibles

From Collectibles

From Collectibles

From Collectibles

Badges

Name Badges

Not really sure why I like collecting these, and I don’t have many. Always looking for donations though!

From Collectibles

From Collectibles

From Collectibles

Star Trek Commbadges

From Collectibles

From Collectibles

Police Badges

Right now I just have pics of the Safety Patrol badges up. Others will be coming soon.

From Collectibles

From Collectibles

From Collectibles

From Collectibles

From Collectibles

“Are you concerned if Windows Mobile devices of your company are actually being used by the workers for business purposes only and not for personal use? An open Windows Mobile device provides opportunity for users to use the device for entertainment and gaming purposes which results in decreased productivity. Users can also corrupt the device settings intentionally or unintentionally.”

While solutions exist to lock down Windows Mobile such as Systems Center Mobile Device Manager, an easier solution for specific applications may be found in SureLock. SureLock also costs less than other solutions, making it a viable option for deployment on a budget. Trial download available if you’re looking to test out it’s lock-down abilities.

This was originally posted at Windows Phone Thoughts, check out the the source for discussion.

Automation still isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Case and point? The last post never made it to Twitter or anywhere else beyond this website. Perhaps this one will, but I’m not holding by breath.

Update: Automation sounds simple in theory, but can be a pain in practice. Going to bed now, will fight more tomorrow!

Automation is pretty crazy. As I type this, I’m unsure what is actually going to happen when I hit Publish. You see, up until a week ago, I had a pretty jury rigged system where I posted something to a Joomla based CMS that was rather clunky, and then I twittered about it, and that twitter post went to my facebook status. Along the way a component for Joomla would download entries from my other blogs and Pocket PC Thoughts and dump them into the database. This seemed to work out pretty well, but I thought perhaps a more up-to-date system would be nice. Especially with all the changes coming up in the next few months, why not have a better site?
So I’m typing this in the backend of WordPress (Being on a Linux laptop I’m unable to use Windows Live Writer or Word right now), and I have a bunch of gizmos turned on to do various things. First of all, I’m tagging this with a Twitter tag, which I THINK is supposed to trigger some plugin I have to push this out to Twitter and a bunch of other websites (e.g. statuses on Facebook, Myspace, etc..). I’m not sure if it will work. At the same time, the same plugin should push this out as a note on Facebook, but who knows if it will (If you’re reading this there, then I guess it worked).

Now Twitter poses a bit of a problem for me because when this publishes out, I don’t want it sucked back in. Why would it do that? Well, my status updates need to be archived for glory on JonWestfall.Com, and if my status update advertises my blog item and then the status update actually upstages the blog item, it just creates a self-referential storm of junk on the homepage. So I hopefully found a solution using Yahoo! Pipes that should block from my twitter feed any items with [JonWestfall.Com] in them from EVER appearing back on the homepage. Ugh.

If this sounds confusing, that’s because it really is. All I want is everything I write to A) appear on JonWestfall.Com in some form and B) my friends to know I’ve posted something (in whatever medium they’re using or accessing). I guess those two are mutually exclusive to some extent. So what will happen when I press “Publish”? Who knows, but hopefully something good.

I sleep with a wife to the left of me, a laptop to the right of me. And I have a bad habit – when Outlook “Dings” saying I have new mail at 1 AM, I like to look at my pocket PC (also to the right of me) and see what it is. It’s sick, I know, but it’s indicative of my overall connectedness.
Anyway, my solution to this for many years has been to simply mute the laptop, however I don’t always remember to do that (Come to think of it, I don’t always remember to do a lot of mundane things like that…). Today I set up a solution I used to have on my Compaq before I re-imaged it a few months back, a wonderful freeware command-line app named NirCmd (www.nirsoft.net/utils/nircmd.html). With a simple scheduled task I now have my computer auto-mute itself around midnight. Automation is a wonderful thing.
NirCmd has a plethora of switches to it, so if you’re looking for a multipurpose freeware do-it-all command, check it out – it just might have what you need.

“Trend Micro Incorporated has announced the latest version of its mobile device security solution. The release of Trend Micro Mobile Security (TMMS) 5.0, with data encryption and authentication, mitigates mobile security challenges such as security breaches and data leakage while allowing enterprise administrators to manage security for handheld devices from a single console. The company says mobile devices have become small, powerful computers with large data storage capacities and growing network bandwidth. A remote and mobile workforce utilizing mobile applications on their handhelds are at risk for losing confidential and sensitive information critical to their companies. Mobile applications such as push e-mail, customer relationship management, and field service automation boost convenience and productivity, but make data vulnerable. Enterprises need to ensure that both data and mobile devices are secure and protected. TMMS 5.0 features new data encryption and authentication capabilities that will protect the mobile device’s content in case it is lost or stolen. Data on devices that do not comply with policies can be wiped out by administrators. The anti-malware features block viruses, worms, Trojans and SMS text message spam. Built-in firewall and Intrusion Detection System (IDS) protects against hackers, intrusions and denial-of-service attacks.”

Microsoft has tools built into Windows Mobile 5/6 that allow greater administrative authority (especially remotely) than ever before. However many do not know of these features and in the eyes of some, they still have a long way to go. Now Trend Micro is stepping up and providing their own solution. Not being an IT administrator for a large number of devices, I’m not sure how attractive Trend Micro’s approach may be compared to Microsoft’s. Anyone see something they need to have now from Trend Micro’s offering?

title="Read the full story on the Jon from PPCT site."

href="http://feeds.pocketpcthoughts.com/~r/pocketpcthoughts/~3/180747887/index.php" >Read More at Original Site
(continue reading…)

Server is a very subjective term for me.  To me, a server is anything that runs services to be used by other computers.  Granted, this definition turns every computer I own into a server (since they run P2P apps (And I mean old-skool peer-to-peer windows smb networking kind – not that new fangled stuff)).  So I guess my definition should be something like:
A computer that primarily runs services to be accessed by other computers.
There, now under that definition, only my Genesis box qualifies for ‘server’ status.  It runs Win2k Server with MS Exchange on it.  Great test bed for a windows applications.  It used to be a suse box, but eventually (about 2 months ago) I realized I needed a MS box back for some house-running tasks (i.e. home automation, Linksys media server, etc..).  So I’ve been missing my linux box.  But today, a new day is at hand:
THE DAY OF 2 SERVERS.  Yes, I now have 2 “servers” in the house (sitting right next to each other actually).  The new server’s name is Bleedin
gHeart, taken from a picture of some pretty flowers on this month’s Avon catelog (Yes, Karey is your Avon Source.). BH will be running Red Hat 9, and I’m unsure what services it may offer to the outside world.  Its deffinetly not a file server (It only has a 3 gig hard drive), but as a small web server / test server, it should be fine.  I’m setting it up to do nifty geeky things (ask details if you really want to) from a network level.  I’m pretty psyched. Its rare I can still get excited over technology…
So if you’re interested, here is the current Jon Computer Tally:
1. Genesis Server (Pentium 2, 256 MB Memory, Around 54 Gig of storage, Win2K Server)
2. BleedingHeart Server (Pentium, very small memory, former IBM Aptiva owned by Ashley – Thanks for the donation!, Red Hat 9)
3. MRKrabs (Laptop) (Pentium 4, 1 GB Memory, 40 GB HD, Win XP Pro)
4. JWestfall (Tablet) (Pentium 4 / Centrino, 512 MB Memory, 60 GB HD, Win XP Pro / Tablet)
5. Acer Extensa Laptop (Pentium 2, 64 MB Ram, Windows 98, Spare laptop for visitors)
6. CTX Laptop (My original laptop, then my moms, now back in my possession.  Pentium, 16 MB Ram, not used much anymore)
7. Compaq LTE Elite (486, 4 MB Ram, Gift from Karey’s dad.  Very Small – So Small I used it when MRKrabs was in the Hospital last october for email che
cks / surfing!)
8. HP IPaq 6315 (Named, unorginally right now, Pocket_PC).
9. An old Packard Bell I got this weekend that may not work since I slid down 4 steps with it under my arm and smacked it down.  Its in my trunk.  It was donated to me by the same great people who donated BH to me.
10. A pentium 2 with a 4 GB HD and 64 MB of RAM that lives in Parma running Win XP Pro.  My dad uses it for his daily email deletion and map generation.
So what’s next? Well, I got my eyes on a motorola smartphone coming out that’s techincally a pocket PC, but I have to save up for that one.  Karey’s been squaking about her computer, so maybe in the next year she’ll acquire a new one and I’ll have another one to add to my collection.
Eternally a geek I suppose.