August 25, 2010 by DanielHeth
I’ve been without a live cable connection for more than 3 years. When my then girlfriend moved in I had her convinced to do the same thing. She’s now my wife and years later we are enjoying a television free lifestyle.
Don’t get me wrong now… we watch plenty of videos and our 60” rear projection is on about 10-20% of the time with one more or television show on it. But the delivery method has changed dramatically.
Back in 2003 I owned a Tivo and I absolutely loved it. I saw it as the future of television. How little did I know that it was the future but for a mere 3 years.
These days we watch television on either Netflix via our xBox 360 or iTunes and our video library via AppleTV. For our on-time needs we turn to Hulu.com. We’ve never been happier!
All of the shows and movies we watch are completely commercial free… It is amazing how much those commercials can such life out of you!!!
My initial decision to cut the “cable” was a simple financial one. I looked at my various media and the ever growing cost of “cable” bill. Then it hit me… I could spend up to $100/month on movies and TV collections and outright own them. Then I could watch them anytime I wanted! I mean, the cable company bill had grown to $100 if you included the mid level package.
I’d highly suggest everyone make the same decision and cut the “cable” before it’s too late!
Posted in Home & Family, Random Stuff, Technology, Venting | Tagged AppleTV, xBox 360, Hulu, TiVo, Cable Bill | Leave a Comment »
June 23, 2010 by DanielHeth
The documentation for the CoolStorage product is severely lacking!!! Thus I have decided to document within my blog the stuff they did not or cool things I’ve come across regarding this wonderful database product.
The latest undocumented features of this product are surrounding the parameters feature. Examine the following code:
CSList<QuestionResults> objs = QuestionResults.List("SiteID=@s", "@s", "554478");
This is an example of the documented way they describe how to use parameters.
However there is an undocumented way to use parameters:
CSList<QuestionResults> objs = QuestionResults.List("ResultsText like @r", "@r", "Win7%");
As you can see the “like” can be used to query strings for their content. You can even use the “%” as the expected “like” wild card.
Posted in CoolStorage | 2 Comments »
June 22, 2010 by DanielHeth
Do you have a SQL server you want to gain access to from PowerShell? Well you’re in luck, so did I…
My recent connection to BigFix has prompted me to gain access to the BFEnterprise database… Thus I have come up with the following PowerShell function to gain access to my BigFix Server DB installation:
function SQLExecute {
param (
[string]$SQLSERVER = “<MySQLServerName>”,
[string]$Database = “BFEnterprise”,
[parameter(Mandatory = $true)]
[string]$cmd
)
$con = “server=$SQLSERVER;database=$Database;Integrated Security=sspi”
$da = new-object System.Data.SqlClient.SqlDataAdapter ($cmd, $con)
$dt = new-object System.Data.DataTable
$da.fill($dt) | out-null
return $dt
}
This function will return an object(s) of what you requested.
For Example: SQLExecute –cmd “select * from computers”
will select all of the registered computers within your BigFix installation.
Or if you have run the Property Mapper utility the following SQL will return object(s) of your computer ID / Computer Name:
SQLExecute -cmd “select ComputerID, ResultsText as ‘Computer Name’ from QUESTIONRESULTS QR where (QR.SiteID = (select SiteID from PROPERTYIDMAP where propertyname like ‘Computer Name’)) AND (QR.AnalysisID = (select AnalysisID from PROPERTYIDMAP where propertyname like ‘Computer Name’)) AND (QR.PropertyID = (select PropertyID from PROPERTYIDMAP where propertyname like ‘Computer Name’))”
More to come… have fun!
Posted in BigFix, PowerShell | Leave a Comment »
June 11, 2010 by DanielHeth
The in-flight Internet service from American Airlines is extremely nice. It is very fast for Internet and email as well as for posting to my blog. This allows for keeping in contact with anyone anytime!
The service cost me just under $15 and is keeping up with nearly everything I’m throwing at it. Some of the apps on my iPad vie been using is the word press app of course, the FlightTrack Pro as well as other Internet related applications.
If you are planing a trip in the near future, I’d recommended getting the FlightTrack Pro at it not only maps out your flight paths, but also will give you real time flight tracking. Currently the app is reporting that I am half way thru my flight just over Arizona.
If you have an iPhone, another flight app I would recommend is Flight Update Pro. I’ve been using this app to keep tabs of my flights, the gates, and their current status. I even installed this app on my wifes iPhone and regularly update it with trips I am taking. This let’s her keep track of my flights.
Whenever you want to test your internet connection speed I utilize the SpeedTest app to get the stats of my connection. This app downloads a 1 mb file from the specified source to your device. By doing this you gain information on the speed and quality of your connection. During my Dallas to San Francisco flight, I tested the connection with the following results:
Download Speed: 3.16mbps
Elapsed Time: 25.319 sec
Needless to say if your planning a flight(s) some time soon, be sure you pick up a few apps to make things go easier.
Posted in Random Stuff, Technology, Vacations | Tagged Internet, Technology, wifi | Leave a Comment »
May 15, 2010 by DanielHeth
Today was an interesting one… Not. Not much happened today that was all that note worthy. Today was the one of four more days at my current “day” job. Overall not bad. It was a 7am to 7pm shift where I was so engaged with what I was doing I didn’t even remember to take my lunch.
Anyways, this does lead into my overall thoughts for the past few days which are indeed technical.
My question I want to pose to the world in general… Is it time for a replacement to Facebook?
I ask because of the last several news worthy articles about Facebook have all been about their wild changes to their privacy policies. Is it just to much to ask that my private thoughts I posted for friends and family… Oh I don’t know… Remain only for their eyes?
I bring this up because of the other stories about employers researching new employees or applicants on the internet for what their online profiles look like. Now it is, as far as I know, against the law for them to hold your online persona against you when considering job applicants… But you just know it happens… Right? Am I alone in thinking that?
Anyways I was wanting to ask that for a few reasons. I have been developing a remote support software, like many others Kaseya and BigFix being just two, that can remotely manage computers. Well… Here is the thing… I just got a shiny new job at BigFix and I feel it would be not very appropriate to continue with that project as long as I worked there. I have also been slowly getting away from helping the general public with IT support problems as well.
(come on Daniel, wrap it up… LOL)
I need a new project that doesn’t clearly introduce a conflict of interest to my new job.
Thus I’m proposing that maybe I could start putting together the new replacement for Facebook… With all the security, privacy and features that everyone wants in their social networking website of choice.
I have a wonderful idea for a “privacy slider” that would be attached to every post that users make… Wether it is short Twitter-like posts, pictures, long blog articles, or even simple conversations between friends, family, coworkers and public. Everything has a privacy value that you can change at the time of posting. This way you are the master of what is public, private and who in-between can see it…
Leave your comments below… I will read each and every idea as I’m excited to maybe work on the new and improved rootSync.com
Posted in Kaseya, Programming, Random Stuff, RootSync.live, Security, Social Media, Venting | Tagged RootSync, Kaseya, Facebook, new job, BigFix | 1 Comment »
May 1, 2010 by DanielHeth
I’m really loving my new iPad. I only wish my distributed web server project was going so well.
Basically my distributed web server project is this: I want to have several web and dns servers spread out around North West Arkansas. These servers are all setup through load balancing and round robin techniques to serve up my web pages and supply me with fully redundant dns servers. The main advantage is the redundant nature. I can spend less on servers and Internet connections, oh even power and generators if the website is spread around town at different locations.
I now have two webservers setup around town but having lots of trouble with the websites I want to setup. I started off badly though… I’m trying to setup some one elses websites which are not designed for is kind of environment.
I should start with one of my own projects like the BitRac Client Utility admin website at msp.clientutility.com. This is a website I’ve constructed in asp.net and c# to give me access to all the computers I manage around Northwest Arkansas.
Now at I write this, guess that’s what I’ll do…
I’ll let you know my progress…
Posted in Gadgets, Technology, iPhone | Tagged Technology, apple, iPad | 2 Comments »
December 28, 2009 by DanielHeth
It’s been a while since I’ve last posted. I’ve been hard at work over the last six months on my business: Moran IT. Designing an MSP business is a lot of work. What is an MSP you may ask, it’s an acronym for Managed Services Provider. What that means is I can use a very small piece of software to manage your computer remotely and in an automated fashion. On a special console I can see all of the computers that my company is responsible for, from there I can schedule scripts and other processes to keep customer computers working flawlessly. The software I’m using to do this is from Kaseya (http://www.kasaya.com)
One of the things I plan to post here are different ideas for scripts, supporting programs, and such that I use to manage my customers computers.
Well… the first one I didn’t write, but I’ll provide a link to their blog with the details… but basically to manage the Low Disk Space alerts from customers computers can be a labor intensive thing. Tullibo has come up with an automated way of fixing that… Click Here: http://www.tullibo.com/2009/10/29/low-disk-space-alerts-kaseya/
If you’re interested in my company or how we can help customers manage their computers visit us at http://www.ManageMyComputer.com
Posted in Kaseya | Tagged computer management, disk space, Kaseya | Leave a Comment »
October 2, 2009 by DanielHeth
Go to helpusmove.org to chip in with our moving expenses… Everything extra will go to our local animal shelter.
Posted in Home & Family | Leave a Comment »
I’ve been without a live cable connection for more than 3 years. When my then girlfriend moved in I had her convinced to do the same thing. She’s now my wife and years later we are enjoying a television free lifestyle. 
My initial decision to cut the “cable” was a simple financial one. I looked at my various media and the ever growing cost of “cable” bill. Then it hit me… I could spend up to $100/month on movies and TV collections and outright own them. Then I could watch them anytime I wanted! I mean, the cable company bill had grown to $100 if you included the mid level package. 
Checkout this very nice explanation of what twitter is…
