Burn Notice

I just watched the premiere of Burn Notice on USA last night, and I'll have to say, I like it. Now, the show isn't as action packed as 24, not that I watch it, but it was quite entertaining. As a disclaimer, I am a fan of Jeffrey Donovan, who plays Michael Westen, the main character, ever since he starred in the ill fated "Touching Evil" series.

Although I watched the premiere last night, it actually premiered on Thursday June 28th, so you if you are interested in it, then you may want to check your TV listings to see when they are playing the episode.

To summarize the storyline, Michael Westen is a spy who works for some government agency, possibly the CIA, but through a contractor, or some other arrangement like that. One day, his employer decides that they no longer need his services, and they issue a "burn notice". Kind of like a pink slip, except not only does he no longer get paid, but they also suspend all of his bank accounts, drop him off in Miami (his hometown), place him under surveillance, and put his name on all of the FBI's watch lists. He is told, although not directly, that if he leaves Miami, there will be state-wide manhunts for him.

Not to spoil too much, but there were just some really neat things it in, like the timing of his burn notice (first 10 minutes of the show). He is making a deal with a wannabe warlord, where his agency pays the warlord $750,000 to provide security and "protection" for a refinery. The warlord agrees, and Michael gets on the phone to arrange the transfer, while the warlord gets on his computer to verify that the funds get transferred.

In the middle of the conversation, halfway through the account number, the person on the other end says something to the effect of:

I'm sorry, but there has been a burn notice issued for you.

After which, the line goes dead. Needless to say the warlord isn't particularly happy.

After escaping the warlord, and being dumped off in Miami, Michael is basically forced to take some private investigator work, just to earn money. In the process he gets to use some of his spy expertise, as well as take up the fight for the little guy. Almost an A-Team type of plot.

Although there is fighting and shooting, there isn't a whole lot of it, at least not for a spy show, but there is some pretty funny parts, as well as just some neat ways of doing things, like the whole bullet proof door work around.

I'm glad to see Jeffrey Donovan in another series, and hopefully this one will last. Like many of USA's other original series, this one is going to air in the summer, which should make sure that there is at least some audience willing to watch it. I really get tired of some really good shows just dropping off the face of the earth because they weren't popular enough to go up against American Idol.

Burn Notice Official Web Site

Mike has finally bought an IPod!?!?

I just purchased an iPod, which is really amazing for me, because I don't get to buy gadgets, mostly because I'm cheap, but I finally broke down and bought a refurbished Nano.

It is really nice to add some really enjoyable content to the parts of my life where it fits. Ever since I ran across the TWIT Netcast network, I started really getting into some of the excellent Podcasts or Netcasts that are out there.

I had tried to listen to podcasts at work, but to be perfectly honest, I can't sacrifice that much of my brain's CPU cycles to actually paying attention to the podcast. After all, I want to really listen to the podcast, not just have it as background noise, and since I am at work, I am really trying to cram as much "work" into my time as I can, so I am already doing several things at the same time.

So Podcasts just don't fit well into my time at work, but I will tell you where they do fit, they fit very nicely in the 40 minutes to an hour each day that I spend driving back and forth to work, or the time I spend cleaning the house and yard. I mean come on, how much brain power do you need to pick up dog turds (in the yard, not the house).

So far the battery life is pretty darn good, it lasts me several days but of course I am not listening to it non stop. I was also surprised that the Nano supports a calendar, contacts, and can be used as a USB drive when it is plugged into your computer. It even has a couple of games on it.

The only thing that I don't like about the IPod is the tremendously huge ear buds that come with it. They pop out at the slightest head movement. I think I am going to have to find a replacement for them, although I think I may be getting used to them.

Working with Sharepoint Offline - Review of Revelation and Colligo for Sharepoint

Well, my company has been using SharePoint for a little while now, and of course the question has come up, “How can I get access to files while I am offline?” Like a good network guy, I tried to use the standard stuff, trying to make the folders available offline, but it didn’t support that.

Also, like any good Network guy would do, I googled it, and ran across Colligo for SharePoint, and it looked pretty sharp. So I followed this link, and downloaded their demo, which according to their sales people, was really stable. After a nice little 3MB or so download, I was ready to roll.

The install was quick, and pretty painless. Unfortunately, the beta doesn’t support Events, or threaded discussions, although they do plan on implementing it in the future. There are a few other items it doesn’t support, such as Surveys and Picture libraries, but I was not too concerned about that.

When you set the program up, you map “Workspaces” to your various SharePoint sites. It is a little bit of a pain, because you have to enter the URL in manually, thank goodness for cut and paste, and the program doesn’t support searching for sub sites to synchronize. Colligo plans on implementing additional web part support, as well as site searches, into the product in the future.

Besides those two limitations, I don’t really have any complaints about the product. I had no issues with crashes, and the interface is easy to use. I talked with sales, and when it retails in mid February, it will sell for $149. Although if you contact sales, they may sell it to you now for half price, if you are willing to say a couple of lines about the product that they can use in marketing materials later on.

Because of the lack of threaded discussion support, I figured I would search on.

While reading an article by Chris Johnson, I noticed he had a trick using Microsoft’s Sync Toy, which seemed like it would work for a Techie like me, but I didn’t think the employees who needed offline access would be able to use it effectively. Although the price (free) was right for me, Chris also mentioned Digi-link Revelation, so I figured I should check it out.

The web page for Revelation had a flash-type demo, but it looked a little cumbersome to me. The list price was only $30, so I emailed the company asking for a real demo, and they quickly sent me a temp registration key. After a heftier 40MB or so download, I had a copy of it in my hot little hands.

First off, I noticed the install kicked off the install for the Microsoft Desktop SQL Server (MSDE), which didn’t make me to happy, everyone remembers Slammer, right? After install, I entered the SharePoint server, and was happy to note that it found all of my sub sites, and gave me an option to add them in my sync list.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t get the application to work on a Virtual PC. It installed correctly, but once you start the sync, it doesn’t do anything but use up memory and CPU time.

After installing it on my desktop, it worked fine. That is when I realized that the only thing you can sync is document libraries, which explains the reason for the cheaper price tag. The interface for it looks like SharePoint, and has a nifty view option, so that you can see what is on the server vs. what is on your machine. The method used to sync it was a little confusing. There is a sync server option, which really sets the options that the program will use when you sync that server. Then there is a big honking “sync now” button in the top corner which actually starts the synchronization.

I had pretty much decided at that I was going to get the Colligo for SharePoint, and had uninstalled Digi-link Revelation. That is when the fun began. The install complained that another application had the database open, which strangely enough was the database server that Revelation had installed (imagine that). I went in a stopped the service, and was able to continue with uninstalling Revelation. Once that was done, I noticed that the SQL icon was still in the systray, and when I looked in the add/remove programs, realized that it was a separate item which had to be uninstalled.

While typing this mini-review up, I realized that Revelation may be enough for some of my users, and I think I will play with it a little bit more before I decide against it. After all, every dollar I save by purchasing Revelation

**** Update 8/30/2006
- I haven't had the time to do another full review of Colligo for Sharepoint, but I have in fact installed the new release of Colligo for sharepoint, and they have fixed everything that I had an issue with it. What is even better, is that if you only want to read Sharepoint content, you can get Colligo Reader for Sharepoint for free! It is a great product.

Also, I think that I may have to say that Barry Jinks, the President and CEO (or someone masquerading as him), is the first confirmed reader of my blog! Congratulations Barry!

Problems with MP3 Players

I used to be a big fan of Winamp, and it is still ok, but I really liked the artist match and genre category stations on Musicmatch. Winamp has shoutcast, but it just doesn't seem to be all that good.

The only problem with MusicMatch is that it is a huge processor hog. My computer would start running really slow, and sure enough, MusicMatch was using up all of the CPU time.

Recently I have started to use Windows Media Player, and it seems pretty good. The advanced tag editor is a little slow, but the player doesn't use much in the way of CPU time. I haven't tried ripping CDs yet, and that is one think that MusicMatch does well.