Foster’s Blog

York 5K Road Race

I’ve finally lost my mind (as if it were ever up for contention) and entered a 5K road race, sponsored by York Hospital and the York Parks and Recreation Department. The race is on Saturday, June 2nd.

http://www.yorkhospital.com/pressreleases/pr-99.pdf

In the event that I die, Nate gets my stereo… everything else goes to Trish, sorry guys and gals.

I am sort of looking forward to it though. I’m hoping this will provide the motivation I need to get back into shape and finally make use of that gym membership I’m paying for. I think I was the first person to officially sign up for the race too, so I might get the #1 tag.

So here’s to St. Patty’s Day *raises glass* and to my new commitment to waking up early to be at the gym by 6am… everyday… starting next week… I hope…

Posted in Personal | 1 Comment »

A Thought for Reflection…

“There is no path to Happiness. Happiness is the path.” - Buddhist Quote

Posted in Personal | 1 Comment »

Daylight Savings Time: 2007 Update

I would imagine at this point, those of us who would be affected by the Bush Administration’s Daylight Savings Time change have been swamped by the obligatory onslot of users, confused by 1-hour off system clocks and M$ Office Calendar appointment chaos.

My situation was rather grim, as previous system rollouts were created without the implementation of the Sysprep utility, thus SID regeneration never took place… that is until I started back in June. That being said, there was no accurate way to find out how many systems were connected to our network, much less which systems were running Windows 2000/XP, or those that did not have the necessary DST patches.

Our process has been a manual one. I created a procedure for updating the system timezone database, according to the Operating System that was installed. The final step was running a SID regeneration tool, so events like this in the future could be avoided.

For those of you still trying to play catch-up, or for those who haven’t already found the tools, I have uploaded a couple little guys to aide in the DST patch deployment.

NewSID.exe - Regenerate Windows 2000/XP/2003 SIDs with this utility (requires reboot).
TZMove.exe - Update Outlook 2000/2003 Calendar appointments to the correct Time Zone.
DSTWin98.exe - Patch Windows 98/ME systems with the new Time Zone data (requires reboot).
DSTWinXP.exe - Patch Windows 2000/XP/2003 systems with the new Time Zone data (requires reboot).

One of the snags we ran into, was noticing (after the fact) that the check box under the system Time Zone settings for “Automatically adjust for Daylight Savings Time” was unchecked. This needs to be checked if your TZ recognizes it. This seems like a big duh but it’s not one of those things you normally look for until you’re burned by it.

Ciao for now and Happy Patching!

Posted in Linux, Microsoft, Networking, Windows 2000 Professional, Windows Server 2000, Windows Server 2003, Windows XP | No Comments »

A Close Call with Identity Theft

The New York State Department of Health made a HUGE mistake last month.

I had submitted a request for a certified copy of my birth certificate for the second time in 6-months. The first time I got rejected because they wanted my actual license — apparently a photo copy isn’t worth squat these days. After about a month I got concerned when I hadn’t received my birth certificate. I had mailed it out with a check for priority processing; a two-week turn around guarantee for my cost.

I called the DoH mid-December and inquired about where my certificate was. The guy who answered said, “Give it another week. If you dont get it by then, give us a call and we can track it.” Apparently, they cannot track it.

I received my certificate in the mail yesterday… from a woman in North Carolina. Let me say that again… a “woman” in “North” “Carolina.” Yeah, she got it by mistake. Albany decided to mail her MY birth certificate ALONG with my friggen driver’s license.

Needless to say, I’m not very happy about the situation. So I called NYS and asked to make a complaint. The woman who I spoke with apologized for the situation but said, “There’s really nothing we can do. Just be glad you got it.” What kind of a response is that?! Seriously. I could have been utterly screwed as far as an identity issue is concerned. I’m considering calling back after the Holidays, hoping I get someone else that understands the severity of what happened.

As for my girl in North Carolina, Kenda…. she’ll be getting a Thank You card next week and a Christmas Card next year.

Posted in Personal | No Comments »

The World is Smaller Now

…thanks to the Internet.

Over the past eight or so years, I have had numerous amazing experiences that are a direct result from the Internet; connections to people I would have never met otherwise, and regaining long-lost friends. My most recent examples are of my friends Kate and Jason. We’ll start with Kate. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Personal | No Comments »