The Browes and i went to the omni max to see titanic movie and exibit. Here ir the large film re el.

Jaycees Murder Myster Night

Recently, Jaycee Mike Liang had us over to his house for one of those murder mystery parties.

The entire event was a lot of fun. Joanne did really well, winning best actress and almost walking away with best costume, as well.

For anybody who is looking for pictures, stop by my Multiply account.

IT Solutions to Deploy this Year

This is my technology article for the month of October.

With the end of 2006 rapidly approaching, many readers will be looking to invest some of their profits back into their company. If you haven’t taken full advantage of the IRS’ Section 179 deduction limit of $108,000 in capital expenditures, IT investments are a great way to help make your business more competitive while cutting down on your tax liability. By deploying your solution now your staff will be well adjusted to the changes made to operations, giving you a running start for 2007. Here are some project ideas that Delmarva businesses have successfully deployed this year:

Small Business Server – Microsoft’s Small Business Server is a very powerful solution for small businesses. Built with Windows Server 2003 and Exchange, SBS gives offices with 5 or more computers many advantages that used to be reserved for larger organizations with larger budgets including in-house email services. By deploying a network server for the first time, businesses will benefit from increased security, simplified data retention policies, and lower support costs over time. A network server sets the stage for future IT solutions, and is appropriate for almost any industry on the shore.

Paperless Office – Is your office over stocked with filing cabinets or banker’s boxes full of paper documents? Perhaps you’re paying high fees for a document storage service. If you operate in a document intensive industry, a paperless office solution could be right up your alley. To implement a paperless office solution, you need four basic elements: an efficient scanner, imaging software, a centralized data store (usually a server), and new workflows to take advantage of the technology. A basic solution for a small office can be had for under $500 – just the cost of a quality scanner with a document feeder. Larger organizations will look for higher speed scanners, Adobe Acrobat, and perhaps a storage server to store document images. These types of solutions can often pay big dividends by improving efficiency and reducing document storage costs.

Desktop Faxing – It's amazing how much more efficient you can become by saving a few steps here and there. While this technology has been around for quite some time, there are still many businesses that rely on the traditional fax machine. Because Windows Server comes with faxing software included and fax modems are built into almost every server, most companies have the ability to deploy this solution already. Outbound faxes can be sent from your desktop computer simply by changing the default printer. Inbound faxes are best delivered to a single person (such as a receptionist) via email for distribution throughout the office. If you work in a heavily regulated industry, you’ll want to automatically save your inbound and outgoing faxes should they be needed later.

Virtual Private Network – VPNs allow your business to connect multiple offices (and even people working from home) to your computer network using a high speed Internet connection. The old alternative was to use costly point-to-point leased lines to accomplish this task. Because VPNs pass encrypted traffic, your privacy is ensured. Using a VPN will allow you to share network resources as if the network were in the same building, so you can print from one office to another, and even share a single network server.

Optimized Edge Routing – The Internet continues to become increasingly important to area businesses, and competition is slowly bringing more connectivity options to Delmarva. The T-1 connection offers the highest levels of reliability, but it’s not uncommon to pay $500 - $800 per month for the service. If you are located in an area that offers both cable and DSL service, you can get more bandwidth and similar reliability for well under $200 per month. All that is required to take advantage of this technology is a Cisco router, which can also give you VPN capabilities.

Business Telephone System – Today’s new telephone systems offer many features to help your office communicate more intelligently. If your phone system is more than seven years old, it might be worth looking at what telephone vendors are offering. One of the best features that I have seen is Unified Communications, which allow your telephone system to email you voice messages to your inbox. You can easily save voice mails for future reference, and the single inbox for all of your messages is very handy. The new IP Telephony systems make your telephone system even more intelligent because they can make your phone system and data network one.

These are just a few ideas for projects that are usually deployed in a month or less, and feature a relatively high Return on Investment. If you have a business need, chances are there is a technology out there that can solve your problems. Don’t hesitate to investigate options to find what’s right for you.

Picked up two new publishers of my articles

I'm now writing in the Chamber publication for Sussex County, DE and the Salisbury Chamber (on rotation). My monthly circulation is up to about 12k readers!

Welcome new friends!

It's funny to see what information you can gain from the visitors log of your blog. People come from all over the world looking for bits of information related to bbq, delmarva events, how to cable your networks and how to promote your web site.

I'd like to offer a hardy welcome to some of my new readers. Certainly you've been "hanging on" for more great reading material.

See you soon!

Now on Blogger Beta

I haven't been active in the blogosphere lately. It was a nice suprise to see that I was finally given the chance to migrate to the new blogger beta!

In the past I had relied on Firefox and some DHTML scripting to tag posts using my del.icio.us account. Now Blogger has tags built right in!

An article to test the effectiveness of RSS Feeds and Search Engine Optimization

I've been writing technology articles as a way of promoting Inacom for about a year now. Called The Competitive Advantage, I pick a technology concept and explain how it can be used to make your business more They appear in the Chesapeake Business Ledger, which is distributed in Talbot, Ken, and Queen Anne counties to Chamber of Commerce members, and thousands of copies are distributed through area businesses. It's an opportunity to keep our name out in the business world to help build brand awareness. Next month, I'm to be picked up by the Chamber of Commerce publication for Kent and Sussex Counties in Delaware.

One of the projects that I've been working on is improving our Search Engine Visibility through Search Engine Optimization (SEO) techniques. One problem that I've noticed is that our site doesn't have a lot of links to it. This, in turn, shows a search engine that a given web site is of high quality which improves rankings.

I've been playing around with RSS feeds through this blog, and it's been neat to see how these posts draw readers and how the content gets around the Internet. I stumbled across Ezine Articles the other day, and noticed that they have a high traffic web site with lots of RSS feed distributions. To see what would happen, I submitted my article on Structured Cabling Standards for Commercial Buildings. A link to Inacom's web site will ensure that whever the site gets published will provide a link (and a search engine vote of approval) for my company web site. Today, my article was accepted on the web site for publication.

I'll check in to see how this gets distributed through the Internet, and let you know if anything interesting happens.

Joanne and I are back from Vacation

I put a bunch of photos on my Multiply account. I'll post a narrative of the trip later.

Babble-On

There are 187 words in the puzzle above. How many can you find?

Babble is an awesome game for all of you Scrabble addicts/Boggle Heads/Linguists out there. I am a big fan of their AJAX interface - it makes the game play very quick and user intuitive.

The people who made this game made another of my favorites - Iron Sudoku.

Check it out. I'm sure that you'll like it. You can play the day's puzzle for free. If you want to play archived games , you can pay them $15 for a one year subscription.

RIP Patrick Lynch

This evening, I went to the "Life Celebration" of my friend Pat. This was one of a handful of funerals that I have attended in my life. Most of them happened when I was very young and did not understand what death really was. Others involved people that I didn't know very well.

Pat was a very caring and friendly person. He liked music and spending time with his friends. For a few years, we saw each other regularly. As time would have it, our journeys led us down different paths, and we fell out of contact. I'd venture to guess that I might have seen Pat just a few times in the past year or two. Last Wednesday, Hunter told me that Pat had taken his own life. He had taken the time to plan the event before hand - the time, the place, the method. He said goodbye to his friends at work and gave them hugs. Pat had written four letters - to his parents, his sister, his wife, and one of his friends.

Pat was the second "local" that I met while attending SU, and he quickly became a great friend. When I arrived at the funeral home, I looked around and saw so many people who have been close friends at one point or another in my life. It was a shame that it would take an event like this to bring this group of people together. We gathered to remember Pat, we cried, and we grieved together.

I can't imagine being in a place so desparate that life had so little meaning. He had his problems, but who doesn't? As I write this, I have really begun to contemplate life and what may lie beyond. Pat did not want his death to be a burden on his family and friends, so in the spirit of his last wishes, I'll give an update as to what my long lost friends are up to.

Graham, an extraordinary guitarist, has continued to pursue his dreams of playing music. He's played several local shows lately - I can't wait to go see one soon. He is engaged to a lovely girl who lived down the street from us while I was in college.

Bart has gotten his act together, and he works for the Worcester County Health Department. He recently purchased a house in Ocean Pines with his Girlfriend.

Ted was recently living with Pat. He received one of the letters. I introduced the two of them a few years ago, and lost touch with both of them.

Sara, whom I have known for years, is a year away from graduating with a Philosophy degree. She's still working at Papa Johns. She will be getting married in September to Rob. I worked with Rob about 6 years ago at Pizza Hut. He was a shift manager, having just graduated from high school.

I didn't get to speak much with Amy, Pat's wife. She was understandably receiving much attention from everybody in attendance. I passed along my condolences and gave her a big hug. I also wrote her a note about Pat, and the day that I met the two of them.

When the service was over, I visited the box of Pat's ashes to say my last goodbye. I placed my hand on the box, and said a prayer for him, his family, and his friends.

Patrick's life affected so many people. There were so many people in attendance, they had to open up the room across the hall. I don't know if Pat realized how many people cared so much for him, but I do know that everybody there considered themselves blessed to have Pat in their lives, if only for a brief moment.

Rest in peace, my friend. I'll carry memories of you forever.

George Bush singing "Sunday Bloody Sunday"

Bet you never thought that Bush was a fan of U2!

George W. Bush Coloring Book

George W. Bush Coloring Book

We all know that Bush isn't the most articulate person on earth. I thought this was a very creative way of showing it!

Tags:

• Hahaha

Make Fun Of Me: Dumb Laws

Make Fun Of Me: Dumb Laws:

Here's a funny list of dumb laws from all over the country. Just so you know, it's illegal for men to walk around without a shirt on the boardwalk of Ocean City.

Tags:

• Hahaha

Travis in action

We have a huge cabling job going on for a pharmaceutical company. It's had us hemmed up for a while now, and that week of severe thunderstorms have given us plenty of infrastructure and telephone work to do.

Everybody with a spare hand has been chipping in to get this job done. Here I am wearing a buffaunt and lab coat. We're in the production area, which necessitates special clothing and extra care to keep dust to a minimum.

Tags:

• Inacom

Feedburner is active for my Multiply site

I set up a feedburner feed of my Multiply site. This will allow you to get any flavor of syndication that you want. I'm hoping to eventually use it to auto update my blogger site when there are upcoming events, pictures, etc.

Tags:

• blogging

Chesapeake Mustard Sauce

Joanne is out of town, taking many of her youth to Lake Charles, LA for a mission trip. This means that I've had an entire weekend to myself. All of the extra time means that it's time to make some 'que!

I'm about half an hour way from finishing a rack of ribs. My last try was very dissappointing, so I thought I should give another go at it.

Yesterday I bought a rack of spareribs from Giant. Today I cut a slit in that tough membrane on the back and pulled it off using a paper towel. Many people choose to cut the extra flap of meat away and clean up the bottom of the rib - I didn't bother, because I'm just trying to impress myself. I covered the ribs with Texas Rib Rangers Spicey BBQ Seasoning this morning, and let them marinate in the fridge for about 2 hours. I used this rub to make pulled pork once, and it was really good.

I set the ribs on top of my ghetto rack, which is a wire rack from a toaster oven that fits perfectly on top of a heavy duty aluminum food pan. Inside the pan, I added about 1.5 inches of liquid - 3 parts water 1 part cider vinegar. The Big Green Egg has been holding steady at about 250 for 4.5 hours now. The ribs are very juicy looking, and starting to get very tender. I just added two ears of corn to the rack - I peeled back the husk, removed the stringy stuff, put the husk back, and dunked 'em in water. The plan is to have them in the BGE for about an hour or so.

I also made some mustard bbq sauce for dipping. It's based upon the recipe at bbq.about.com, but I was out of brown sugar and a few other things. You can search Derrick's site for the exact link, or find it posted earlier on my blog. Here's the recipe that I made up:

Chesapeake Mustard BBQ Sauce
1 cup French's Yellow Mustard
1/2 cup Cider Vinegar
1/3 cup Honey
1 T Melinda's Habenero Hot sauce
1 T Lea & Perrins Worchestershire Sauce
1 t Old Bay Seasoning
2 T Butter
Pepper to Taste

Combine all the ingredients, and let them simmer for about 15 minutes, stirring ocasionally. Let it sit, covered, for at least half an hour. The heavy mustard taste will diminish and the time to sit will ensure that all of the flavors get to mingle together.

Overall, I think it's a worthy recipe. I might add a bit more hot sauce to the mix for my personal love of all things spicy. The Melinda's is probably the most mild Habenero sauce that I've ever tasted. Feel free to substitute your own favorite hot sauce or change the quantity that you plan to use. Cayenne pepper or chipotle chile powder would also make for a great substitute.

If you use any of these ideas for your own barbequeing, let me know how it turns out!

Tags:

• BBQ
• Recipes

Salisbury Jaycees Fireworks

Joanne and I are working the salisbury jaycees fireworks. Right now there is a severe storm raining down on us. It should be ending soon.

UPDATE: The show went on, only a few minutes late. Not a lot of damage was done, although it appears our VIP tent took a little beating. The fireworks were awesome!

Tags:

• Jaycees

I've been busy lately

Posts have been slow to come in as I've been busy and Internet challenged.

Here are some interesting things going on:

Friday July 4 will bring the awesomest fireworks show ever to Salisbury. I'm working the event with the Jaycees.

Joanne has been busy this week with her Fiesta VBS. She ended up with over 50 kids, a significant increase over last year's attendance. She was even told that her program is better than one of the other churches in Easton!

Joanne has also been watching two dogs, Ginger and Sampson. Ginger is a corgie, and Sampson is a Jack Russel. She's been living in a pool house near St Michaels, and the property has three points of water. It's nice to vist this excellent property!

I was on yesterday's WMDT news cast for an expert opinion on the stolen VA laptop. It's always nice when we can help and get free publicity. I think I'm up to 6 appearences on the news for various events and stuff.

Today I submitted another article to the Chesapeake Business Ledger. This one is about RSS and how it can help your business and personal life.

At Inacom we're pushing to make Cisco Premier Certified Partner status. Shawn just passed the CCNA exam. I've started studying for the Cisco Secure Foundations Sales Specialist tests. There are two that I've got to pass to earn this certification.

Geocaching has been a lot of fun, but I haven't been good about taking pictures. :-( Tomorrow Joanne, Mike Liang, and I are going to hit up the "Gone Fishing" geocache in DE, and maybe some others in the area.

How 'bout them O's hon?

Tonight i am at Camden Yards for an O's game. It's the bottom of the seventh. We are winning 2 to 1.

UPDATE: We won!

Joanne and I took my friend Jeff, aka Mr Foxx and his new girl Erin out for some fun. I got the tix from a friend of mine, who works as a K9 kinda prison guard. It was nice to make it back to B'more for a game. Camden Yards is so beautiful!

Tags:

• Fun

Check out new photos

I have a lot of new photos posted to my multiply account.

Tags:

• Geocaching
• photos