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My wife and I did move back to Northern Colorado in May, and we are currently preparing to move into a new apartment.

As far as working and traveling- what has enabled us to move back is the fact that the nature of my consulting has either been working from home, or travel in the way of flying out Saturday and flying back Thursday.

I am working on a few articles that I’m hoping to have out in the coming months:

1) Managing Multiple Remote Desktop Connections – for Free
2) The Coming Storm: Little Players, Big Toys
3) Isolating users from downtime with good test design (no working title)
4) Stop Running from EdgeSight- it doesn’t bite!
5) Can high memory on PVS ease disk IO?
6) XenServer vs. ESX: Real World Answers

I am also working on an travel advice section, which I’m looking forward to!

All of this, of course, is based on the assumption of spare time and motivation to complete these stories, so bear with me!

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When I first anticipating writing this review I was anticipating a glowing review of how I went to Bed, Bath and Beyond with my 20% coupon in hand, picked up this $220 e-reader for $180 with a $20 rebate, making it overall about the same price as a Nook or Kindle, but being able to do both, and more than a Nook Color.

But then I started using it, and after a few days I noticed that I… wasn’t using it.  But we’ll get to that.

Pandigital has a few ‘Novel’ e-readers out there, the most popular of which are their 7” ‘white’ models, which have a screen more like the format of a tablet (or iPad, if your thinking is that limited), but smaller.  The problem is that it is running Android as it’s OS, which was created for phones displaying 480×800, so a community of ‘hackers’ has cropped up, as well as, in a surprising move, Pandigital releasing an ‘unlocked’ firmware for the device (firmware on a device is the operating system, much like Windows or MacOS is on your PC).

The Pandigital 9”, however, has two advantages right out of the gate- it’s at the native 480×800 resolution, and is essentially unlocked.  For someone like me, that’s great- but for most people this isn’t going to make any difference because trying to figure out how to ‘side-load’ an application isn’t practical.  Again, this is mostly fine because this is sold as an e-Reader.  The front-of-the-box feature is that this unit has a ‘bookshelf’ application that logs into the Barnes and Noble store, allowing you to read your ‘Nook’ collection on this device.  I was very excited to find that unlike the Nook for Android application (at the time of this writing), this storefront also allowed the sync, reading and organization of periodicals- which for me is probably the primary reason I want an e-reader.  [NOTE- Barnes and Noble needs to do a much better job with their periodicals, because a good majority of them are only compatible with the Nook Color but the site will allow you to subscribe without a confirmation.  You’ll only get a cryptic error and that vein bulging on your head.  But that brings me to a second issue (one likely to be solved with software updates down the road) with the Adobe Reader software that is actually used to view these periodicals (and books).  For reasons that escape me, images show up looking more like an airport scanner image than the actual picture.  It’s disorienting to say the least, and when the article references a picture- you’re going to be lost.  As I found later, this is a software problem- as the same articles showed up fine in the aftermarket Alikdo Reader.]

My elation quickly turned southward, however as on my very first usage of the unit (on the train to downtown Chicago, about an hour ride), I found I was having trouble holding the unit comfortably.  Though there are forward and back buttons on the bottom of the device for advancing pages, I found myself more often using my thumbs to touch the screen to advance.  This caused my second observation, that indeed I got what I pad for with the screen; it’s absolutely not smudge proof and light from above shines like a prism thru your fingerprints.  Sigh.  I suppose with the right screen protector this could be avoided, and because it’s passive touch you have much more choices than the typical capacitive touch screen.  And there’s always the built-in stylus.  But I digress- the bigger problem was the comfort.  After about 20 minutes I ended up propping up a leg so I could hold it up- much as iPad users have complained.  Another likely complaint about a passive-touch screen is that you will not have the multi-touch ability such as two-finger zooming, etc.

The unit sat in my backpack the rest of the trip for the most part, and I finally took it back out about a week ago- only to find that I could no longer synchronize my library to get periodical updates.  A cryptic error was frustrating, but the fact that at this time I have still not heard from support is even more frustrating.  Granted this could have been an issue with Barnes and Noble but not hearing anything back is unacceptable.  Pandigital is, according to their website, training an additional 150 call center staff to handle this overload but it’s still a ding.  The unit sat untouched for several more days.

Yesterday I decided it was time to really put this thing thru it’s paces.  Since it’s running Android and I know just enough to be dangerous, I ‘rooted’ the phone (which I found I didn’t need to do) and used a nice little trick to load applications:  If you have an Android phone already, good backup programs or utilities like Astro File Manager will allow you to backup your programs to an SD card.  So, I backed up 10 or so apps to the card, put it in the Novel and voila!  About 8 of the 10 worked perfectly- including the most important three- Nook for Android, Kindle for Android and the Aldiko Reader.  Other apps I would use on the couch such as the NFL Mobile, TV Guide, Facebook and Mint worked fine.  I loaded the Citrix Receiver but did not actually get a chance to test it- my guess is it’d have worked just fine; making this a solid possibility for working from the couch.  I’ve also seen it’s possible with even more hackery to get the Android Marketplace to run, though I can’t say I recommend that.  Pandigital will support loading .apk files (setup files for the Android OS) but not a market.

Happy, synced and ready to do some reading, I laid in bed to compare the three readers before bed.  As an aside the Aldiko reader was the best, IMHO, though I did find the Kindle to perform best on this unit.  The Nook reader was flashy but the lower-end processor in the Novel didn’t look as natural as it does on my Droid.

I soon became quite unhappy, unfortunately, as my hands began to cramp and my eyes began to strain against the harsh light of the screen (brightness adjusts automatically, but even at the lowest setting with black background, white text it was too much for reading in the dark).  I very quickly found myself concentrating more on how to get a comfortable position then on the story I was reading.  As a point of comparison I even turned back to my Droid and continued reading there (oh- by the way, Kindle whispersync did NOT work, even though the Nook picked up on the very sentence I’d left), to find again that holding a device that is too small is equally uncomfortable.
So, after I finish this review, I’ll be returning to Bed Bath and Beyond to inquire about a refund- my needs were of a reader more than a tablet- and this unit, though flexible and very affordable- is just too heavy.

Ovearall there was a lot about it I liked- the familiar Android interface, screen orientation changes, etc- but no bluetooth, camera and of course only Wi-Fi as a connection option.  Until later this year when Google releases the new Android Tablet OS, Android has several references to phone features that can be a tad confusing to the non-technical.

Bottom line at the middle:
If you’re looking for a cheap tablet to keep by the couch or in a backpack for occasional use- this is a great option, provided you’re willing to learn a bit about how to load applications and such.  If you’re looking for a strict reader, it seems to me the Nook is still your best option, though Nook Color is also based on Android- though considerably more locked down than the Novel.  As a lightweight and capable tablet alternative to the iPad… forget it.  Wait a few weeks; with CES happening in a few days and the tablet market set to explode this year, I’m confident we’ll see full-featured tablets being much more competitive than what is currently available.
Mostly this unit was purchased as a gift, not surprising given it’s primary markets of BB&B, QVC, Kohl’s and Radio Shack.  That is why their support is overwhelmed- as this device is not ready for the non-technical public.  It’s manual and website are not very well put together (in fact the first instruction is to load new firmware from their website, but even I almost loaded firmware that would have made this a 20.5 oz paperweight.  I can virtually guarantee it’s the bulk of their issue right now).  For the price, however- it’s very capable and probably appropriate for the hobbyist looking for a tablet okay to break.

When these issues are resolved, however- this will be a good affordable option for getting books from the library- a trend that is increasing and, I might add, not possible with the Kindle (everything else is fine, just not the Kindle).  In fact the OverDrive application most commonly used has a link to the .apk file, making it very easy to install the application to this device without having to use the ‘market’ for the app.

Pros:
Cheap (mostly I mean affordable, but also cheap), Android Eclair OS is very ‘hackable’, passive touch is a plus for women with long nails or people wearing gloves.  Built-in Barnes and Noble storefront.  Much more flexible options that readers at this pricepoint.

Cons:
Cheap-feeling plastic construction, slow, screen easily marks with fingerprints and very poor on reflections.  Heavy at 20.5 ounces- bedtime reading limited to about 10 min comfortably.  Support is virtually non-existent.  No Android Marketplace.  Touchscreen is less accurate than others, no multi-touch, lighting is inconsistent.  No built-in Amazon storefront, Acrobat e-reader performs horribly.  Non-replaceable battery is sure to plague anyone using this unit daily.

Vital Stats:  (http://www.pandigital.net/search.asp?Mode=Product&TypeID=43&ProductID=440)
General
Screen Size                        9”
Panel                                   Digital TFT LCD
Resolution                         480 x 800 pixels
Operating System             Android
Dimensions                       5.75 x 9.5 x .05 inches
Weight                                 20.5 oz

Supported Formats
eBooks                                EPUB, PDF
Audio                                    MP3, AAC, WAV
Images                                JPEG, BMP, PNG, GIF
Video                                    MPEG4

Storage
Internal Memory                 2GB
Card Reader                       2-in-1
Expandable Memory         SD/SDHC, MMC/MMC+ up to 32GB

User Interface
Virtual                                   Full touchscreen / Virtual Keyboard
Tactile                                  Volume Up/Down, Power On/Off, Back/Home/Menu/Forward

Connections
WiFi                                      802.11 b/g/n
USB Port                             1x mini-USB 2.0
Headphone Jack               stereo mini headphone connector

Power
Battery                                  Built-in rechargeable Li-ion (AC adapter included)

Compatibility
Menu Languages               English, French, Spanish
Operating System              Windows 2000/XP/Vista/7, Mac OS X

Compliance and Warranty
Certifications                       FCC, CE, UL
Compliance                         RoHS, WEEE, CARB
Warranty                               1-year

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I’ve been following Dan for awhile now and really appreciate what he’s doing at Citrix.

This is a collection of resources he’s complied that are helpful at several different levels and sizes of implementations.   Of particular note to some may be his reference material for SMB-sized implementations.

Enjoy!

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I’ll say in addition to this from a perspective of someone caught up in this and having had conversations with Microsoft about this…  While they are in fact drawing a line in the sand and saying Internet Explorer is an OS component (interesting, because I seem to remember a lawsuit about this years ago that they lost…), many in Microsoft know that the refusal to virtualize IE 6 is costing them.  Big time.

I’m currently working with this issue directly in a corporation with 25,000+ users.  The major holdup in adopting Windows 7?  IE 6

Apparently (contain your shock, please), IE 6 happened to be the browser out when hundreds of web applications were created, web application that the company doesn’t really want to have to re-do, or doesn’t have the bandwidth to get them all done.

While we are moving forward with IE 8, the possibility that close to half of the staff could be cut off from working in certain programs is understandably unacceptable.

We are in the process of adding Citrix XenApp servers for the single purpose of running IE 6, because there is no other method Microsoft will approve.  This presents several huge issues, not the least of which is Java.  Obviously I’m a big fan of Citrix and XenApp, but there comes a point where you’re not improving your user experience- you’re just throwing paint on the wall and hoping for a Monet.

IMHO, Microsoft is making a huge mistake here and should have been the first to offer a standalone IE 6 package, using technology they already have (they bought SoftGrid several years ago).

It’s not as easy as just saying ‘we only support two revisions’ when IE 7 was so horrible, along with the rest of Vista.  Microsoft needs to wake up and realize that the corporate world is not playing along, and their sales of Windows 7 and 2008 R2 are suffering because of it.

Had Vista and IE 7 been adopted by, well, anyone; this conversation wouldn’t even be required.  I understand having certain standards, but there comes a point where you recognize you’ve made a mistake and own up to it and do whatever it takes to fix it in order to retain customer loyalty (one of the things I admire about Japanese companies, by the way).  Many within Microsoft know their days on the top are dwindling fast- as ‘cloud based’ applications become more widespread, a thinner OS will be desirable, as it already is in phones and tablets.  The desktop (and yes, the enterprise desktop) will be next.

The last line of the article is how I’ll end as well:

“Our stance is that there is customer demand for it, and we are urging Microsoft to listen to what customers want,” said Raj Mallempati, a VMware desktop products manager. “Customers want a way to move to Windows 7, and [application virtualization] gives them a way to do that.”

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This is just too awesome not to say anything about.

First off- Google Maps 5.0 looks very cool for a few reasons.  First, many people don’t know that an Android phone will have at least some navigation offline, but this adds the ability to do an offline cache.  So, for people like me that are stuck carrying two smartphones (until we can virtualize the phones – today’s other article of note); I could essentially kill the dataplan on the personal phone (my Droid), connect wi-fi to sync the Google Maps, and still be able to use navigation effectively, which currently is the only reason I even keep my data plan going since the company is paying for the dataplan on the Blackberry (which has the world’s worst navigation system; you’re safer texting while driving than using their navigation system while driving)

Second – we have to talk about Android 3.0 “Honeycomb” – I’m sure there’s a lot more to it, but adding a ‘slice’ to the API instead of making a whole other OS like certain fruity computer companies are doing…  means that you’ll have a lot of ability to have backwards-compatibility while having applications be able to be smart about choosing their interface.

Third- I used to be a Motorola hater.  But after being burned by Apple, it seems their internal anger has been put to good use by creating iPhone killers in the Droid, DroidX, Droid2 and Droid Pro…  now they’re going after iPad with what looks to be an amazingly powerful device.  I’ll be curious to see what kind of battery life, weight and everything like that will be involved, but choosing nVidia for the 3D aspects is a good call.  It won’t be long before rival Intel is knocking on the door given their new chipsets, but working with the industry leader in graphics is a good sign.  Look for an unrivaled interface experience and hopefully Motorola’s reputation for durable products.

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For the 99% of you who don’t know what I’m talking about, XServe was Apple’s supposedly enterprise-level server platform.

My first response to this is identical to my response when I first saw the XServe.  Who cares?

I never understood what Apple was thinking, though I did know what they were thinking.

It’s exactly why I’ve never liked Apple, actually.  Despite their “1984″ image of being the rebellious alternative, from the very beginning they have been closed off, elitist and unwilling to work with anyone for any reason.

XServe didn’t fit into standard racks, didn’t have hot-pluggable drives, had no management hardware or software, and apparently even worse service.  They had no expandability and didn’t work with, well, anything that wasn’t made by Apple- which wasn’t much.

I’m always amazed they sold any of them, frankly.

So in case anyone at Apple is listening I have two words of advice:

1) Stop trying.  You suck at anything but being elitist snobs catering to closed-minded elitist snobs.  I don’t care if XServe is more ‘pretty’ than other servers.  If people can see your datacenter, you have an immediate security problem.  So who cares if it’s pretty?  Brushed aluminum finish?  Give me a break.  It only shows you’re not serious about being at the enterprise level.  It takes more than snappy looks and clever advertising.

2)  If you really want to learn how to do things in the Enterprise, I’d suggest arranging a tour or two of your average datacenter.  You’ll find a mix of brands all working together.  You’ll see Dell Blade servers attached to EMC SANs with Cisco switches and HP servers, all connecting to IBM Mainframes.  Interoperability is key, as is having a game plan.

It is, however, clear why Apple pushed the XServe at all- they felt it was the best way to get people to buy more Macs in the enterprise.  I can tell you first hand that Macs are being replaced left and right in the Enterprise, and no amount of whining about it is stopping it from happening.  Design departments are getting new hardware- Xeon workstations running Windows 7.  Why?  Because it’ll work with what they have for the entire infrastructure.  They’ll whine and complain, some will quit- but ultimately Apple is loosing the Enterprise market- whatever hold they had.

In other words, Apple has become a toy vendor.

iPhone and iPad are actually quite popular with executives, even though they still carry a Blackberry for real work (I’m the first to admit that Blackberry has hands down the best security enforcement of any device, even if they do suck for everything else they do).  Ironically the best boost iPad has gotten is that it was an early adopter of the Citrix Receiver.  So basically you’re running a remote control to Windows.  So, for many  iPad that are sold, a Windows license is silently taken up.  No wonder Microsoft isn’t trying to make a tablet (yet).

Apple should stick to what they’re good at.  Making toys.

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Now normally this isn’t a huge deal because the client is still able to query DNS and everything works.  DHCP is working properly.  The problem mostly shows up in XenDesktop because your DDC will send a login to a machine and it’ll hang.

Skills Required:
Working knowledge of DNS, TCP/IP and optionally DHCP in your environment.  This exercise does not require server access.  If that’s too much to ask, you’re on your own

Software Required:
Windows machine with standard IP tools installed (nslookup, specifically)
Microsoft Excel (this was tested in Excel 2003)

Here’s what I did:

1. Enter Command Line (Start -> Run->cmd)
2. Navigate to the directory of your choosing- this is where the output file will be saved – for example, c:\test
3. type nslookup
4. You’ll see the > mark to indicate nslookup is ready for a command
5. (optional) if you are wanting to drill down detail from a specific DNS server, enter server x.x.x.x or server.domain.net
6. type ls –d your.domain.here > file.csv

Now there’s the problem of how to analyze this data.

1. First, open the .txt or .csv file in Excel -  you’ll be prompted for the usual import stuff if you are importing a text file.
2. Find the bottom of the sheet to know how many rows we have.  In this example, we will use 2000 as our number.
3. Select the first column
4. Click Format ->Conditional Formatting
5. Choose ‘Format Is’ from the dropdown
6. Enter =COUNTIF($A$1:$A$2000,A1)>1
7. Click Format to choose how to announce duplicates.  In this example, I’m using Bold font and a Red pattern

From there, you can see highlighted the duplicate addresses.  Of course, in my example, there are 2000 IPs.

It’s easy enough to delete multiple entries in Excel.  But how do we remove the addresses that are NOT duplicates to generate a usable report? Thus far it’s just been a matter of pulling the rows into another sheet or deleting the rows with non-duplicate data.  With 2000 rows, it’s not fun.

With that in mind, I’m still working on that- tune back in soon to find out what I came up with!

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But all of this begs a more important question. How long are the meetings at Google where they decide what anniversary to celebrate with their logos that week?

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For those that are keeping up with me outside of this blog, you’ll know that I have accepted a contract with, well, a major Insurance company… to help facilitate both a move to Windows 7 and XenDesktop for about 18,000 users.

I’ve transitioned my work with TechSmart to be a consultant only, so I’ll continue working on projects for them but only in the evenings or as I have time elsewhere, like weekends.  As you’ll see soon, I’ll have plenty of that time available…

I’ll be working from the Downers Grove area, which I must say is much more palatable than Chicago itself- their main building is a massive skyscraper overlooking the Lake- I just wasn’t ready for that.  The office in Downers Grove is a much more approachable 6 floor building.

Though it does in fact pain me to be back into the cubicle world after my 10 year absence, I am working with a team of about 7, two of which with direct XenDesktop experience.  In other words, gone will be the days of me being the only person knowledgeable about how things run.  Now, there will be defined standards we all agree upon.  It’ll be great to be working with this team, we seem to be getting along quite well and the project only has me slightly terrified, which is good

Als0 fortunate is that they have an existing environment supporting just under 1000 VDI employees, almost all of which are working from home.  That means as far as the XenDesktop part of this is concerned, we’re mostly just supporting an increasing scale.

The big challenge for us will be that the environment currently uses Novell for it’s primary authentication and overall environment, which poses a very large challenge for Windows 7, which currently does not have a good workaround.  The overall goal is to transition away from Novell to the more up-t0-date Active Directory world, but based on what I’ve seen thus far the task is more than a little daunting.

So that is the quick summary of what my life is going to be like at work, at least for the next few months.

This contract is only secured until the end of the year currently, which is why, as the subject line suggested, I am living out of hotel rooms!

My wife and I decided it would be best to leave her in Fort Collins while I make sure the contract here is extended for at least one year.  So, using my advanced Dave Ramsey negotiating skills, I managed to talk a manager of the Extended Stay in Downers Grove to a rate very similar to a 1 room apartment lease in town.  This way I can write off my stay as a travel expense rather than a living expense, which is handy as well.  The room isn’t the greatest, of course, but at least I’ll have a fridge that doesn’t freeze everything in it, even when it’s off…

Now to tell a story, just because I can’t resist.

One of the hard decisions with this contract and the duration of the stay was deciding whether or not to bring my home PC, affectionately (and appropriately) called the “Green Monster”.  The machine lives up to it’s name with running an overclocked i7, 12GB RAM, 2 SAS 15k drives, 2 SATA drives, etc, etc, etc…  It’s not a lightweight.  For the first week here in the area, I had booked a hotel with Priceline for a week.  The room was horrible, but at $30/night I didn’t feel like complaining even though the heat didn’t work and the small fridge froze everything inside, even at the lowest setting of ‘off’.  Knowing I was trying to (and did) find a better deal, it didn’t seem to matter.

One benefit of the hotel was that it’s broadband speed was excellent.  I was able to update my Mozy Backup at 10 Mbit/s which is fantastic.  I left the PC running in my room for 4 days straight.  But now the rookie mistake.

I was transporting the PC using suitcases.  Backbreaking, but not as clumsy as carrying it manually.

What I didn’t think of was letting the PC sit and cool before putting it in the bag.  Stupid, rookie mistake.  Laptops may be built to handle this kind of abuse but needless to say, SAS drives (meant for enterprise servers) are not.

So upon setting up my computer last night, I realized my mistake when Windows failed to load.  One of the SAS drives holding my boot partition had tanked, and of course recovery is going to be more hassle than it’s worth.

For the over-interested techie, I’m very strongly considering a move to PCI-e SSD drives for my boot part, namely the REVODRIVE series.  With sustained writes over 400 MB/sec it goes beyond what SAS is even capable of, even in RAID 0.  I’ll continue to use my SAS array as a temporary write cache for video editing and perhaps as an install directory for games and such, obviously it can no longer be trusted

Now the huge bummer about all of this is twofold.  One, I had run out of space on my backup drive so I have backed up data only- not a system restore.  So, even though Windows 7 has a very easy restore process, I’m looking at a reinstall no matter what.  But two is that my disk is… at home.  So, I have to decide if it’s time to buy another copy and upgrade my Wife’s PC when I return home, or have her send me the disks…  hard to say.

Anyway, that’s what’s going on in my life.  Thanks for reading!

-DJ

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