Pulled the plug on Vista  

Posted by Stephen Lowe

I finally did it. Late last week I decided it was time to dump Vista and go back to XP. Don't get me wrong, I didn't want to. I use a Toshiba M400 Tablet PC and Vista Ultimate was really sweet on that box. The tablet functionality was great and Office 2007 really works well with Vista. The problem was that I need a machine that could connect over my VPN to my corporate office. All of the blame here lies with Watchguard. We use their firewall products throughout our organization and have been very happy with them until December of last year. That was when I decided to go to Vista on my tablet. Keep in mind I have been running Vista since February of last year after the the February CTP release came out (thanks Technet) on my main office desktop with no major issues. I thought that with the betas and release candidates having been out for well over a year that most corporate catering type of software companies would have had plenty of time to get their act together. Watchguard has failed miserably at this and is pointing the finger at a third party, SafeNet, who supplies the VPN security solution for their systems. Either way, it is Watchguard's responsibility to get their software working for their customers. They have dropped the ball big time in my opinion and others have voiced the same concerns. Their support forum is full of disgruntled customers who are voicing the same issues in a not so nice way. It really sucks because Watchguard has us by the short hairs on this one, I can purchase all new gear and move to a new vendor (yeah right) or deal with it until, get this, the end of the year! Thats when they expect to have a working VPN client for Vista.

Fortunately, I'm the only one within the company with a desire to run Vista but that will change. As we add people, particularly district managers and such that are completely mobile and order new laptops for them, it will be harder and harder to get XP on them. Luckily, Dell has changed their tune in the last few months to start offering XP again on their systems due to the outcry from their existing customers.

Overall, I've had a great experience with Vista and a poor experience with the one piece of software I couldn't live without. Anyway, it's always nice to have a clean install on a machine, out with the new and in with the old!

Stitches!  

Posted by Stephen Lowe

I new it was going to happen I just didn't think it would be this quickly. I was almost to work this morning when Stephanie called asking me to come back home because Ethan had split his head open. Apparently he tried to climb up the side of his high chair like a ladder and it tipped over on top of him and popped him hard enough to split the skin to the bone. He took it fairly well all things considering and after a hour or two at the emergency room he was sporting a shiny new stitch right in the middle of his forehead just inside his hairline. I almost feel proud, I had many stitches as a kid (and a few as an adult) and kinda consider them a badge of honor. I'm not saying its cool to cause bodily harm to yourself but if your not getting hurt exploring the limits then you'll never know what it's like to recover and move on.

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Mechanic in Training  

Posted by Stephen Lowe

Check out Ethan, he came out and helped me put brakes on the Yukon. He did a surprisingly good job of helping me out without getting into to much trouble. He liked playing with the air hammer chisels, he thought they were cool drum sticks. He was in charge of the lug nuts and liked to try to make the same noises as the air tools. It was a lot of fun, I look forward to more times like this when he can really "get it" when I show him stuff.

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Lake Blackshear  

Posted by Stephen Lowe

One of my business partners has a house on Lake Blackshear that he let us use this past weekend. My cousin and his family went with us as and we had a great time. It was a welcome getaway with the family as I had been traveling a lot for business over the past few weeks. We had a great time just relaxing and spending time together. Ethan had a great time, it took him a little while to warm up to the Jet Ski's but once he did he really enjoyed it. There was a bridge a little way down the lake from the house we went to that had at least a hundred mud pipers with nests up under it. I drive the Jet Ski under them and it was like Alfred Hitchcocks "The Birds". Ethan thought it was the coolest thing ever. He didn't like going very fast but he liked idling around checking out the scenery. The trip took all of 5 minutes when me and my cousin were by ourselves to get there but the round trip with Ethan took about 45 minutes. It was worth the wait though.
We talked about going fishing before we went down and he was all hyped up about fishing so as soon as we got down there and unpacked he was ready to go. He really enjoyed reeling in the lure and I had to keep him from going to fast. Unfortunately we didn't catch anything but we had a great time trying. Hopefully we'll get a chance to go back later this year after the heat of summer is gone, the weather was great while we were there but the water was still a bit too cold for the girls to get in. I didn't have a problem with it and even took Ethan swimming for a few minutes. Check out the pictures linked below for some good shots of Ethan checking out the worms and helping out with the fishing gear.
What a nice little family picture. Check out the full photo galleries here and our stop by Veterans State Park on the way home here.

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About Me

My name is Stephen Lowe. I'm a Christ follower, Husband, Father, Technologophile and Metalhead. This is where I dump my observations and opinions on whatever strikes me as noteworthy. Enjoy, discuss, disagree, I'm cool with whatever.

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