Tim Rettig's Blog

I have made it to Anchorage, and we don’t have to sleep at the airport!  I am at a hotel near the airport to catch some sleep before we catch our next plane to Fairbanks, and then on to Barrow.  So far the trip has been uneventful.  The only thing of note was the great Salmon burger I had at Allan’s Seafood in the Seattle airport.  Much better than I expected!

I was reviewing my travel itinerary for next week .  On Monday I fly out of Cincinnati in the evening, layover in Seattle, and then arrive in Anchorage just before midnight Alaska time.  I then fly out of Anchorage on Tuesday afternoon, layover in Fairbanks, then onto Barrow.  I arrive in Barrow Tuesday evening.

So I am missing a hotel Monday night in Anchorage.  I have almost 16 hours between flights.  I sent an e-mail to find out what the plan is.  Hopefully it isn’t to sleep in the airport.  I have done that before in a snow storm, and it is no fun!  I don’t remember sleeping in an airport being listed on the release I signed?  http://blog.timrettig.com/2009/06/07/scariest-release-form-yet/

The weather stations in Alaska are going to be uploading their data with a static filename based on the station identification number.  Since the filename is always the same, if the satelite link back to UC is down, the files will start to get overwritten, and data will be lost.  So we needed a way to rename the files to a unique name.  We found this great little article and batch file on the PC Magazines website:  http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,1386947,00.asp

It was actually for renaming picture files from cameras, but will work for our purposes.  Nice and simple one line batch file.

We shipped the two servers from Cincinnati, Ohio to Barrow, Alaska on Friday.  They were sent ground, and it cost about $750 for the shipment, in case you were wondering.  The shipment consisted of two 75 pound boxes.  They are scheduled to arrive this Wednesday, which is faster than some shipments that I have sent to California.  Even though they were sent “ground”, I bet they actually wind up being transported by plane for most of the trip.

This week I setup some users with dual Samsung SyncMaster 2243swx monitors connected to Wyse V90L thin clients.  The issue I ran into was that the best resolution for the monitors was 1920×1080.  To use dual monitors on the V90L, I had to install a splitter that has a VGA port and DVI port on it.  That means one monitor was using DVI, the other VGA.  Running 1920×1080 on that monitor over VGA leaves black lines down both sides of the display.  This happened on the Wyse device, and a PC and a laptop that I tested with. Read the rest of this entry »

You aren’t alone.  Had this exact issue at a client today.  Pointed them toward this adapter:

http://www.addonics.com/products/host_controller/adexc34cb.asp

Kind of bulky to have that thing sticking out of the side of the laptop, but at least they can use their old PCMCIA card with their new laptop.

I’m just glad my Lenovo T500 has both slots

Today I connected my laptop up to a network, but couldn’t get on the Internet, or anywhere, for that matter.  I was just about to start looking into the issue, when I noticed an exclamation point on the network connection on my screen.  I hovered over it, and it offered to diagnose my problem.  I thought “sure, let’s give that a try”.  I clicked on “Diagnose my problem.” and within a few seconds, Read the rest of this entry »

I was having some issues with a Wyse terminal deployment today and I used some information from this website to resolve my issue:

http://www.technicalhelp.de/

Most of the info is available in both English and German.  Very helpful if you are using WDM to manage your Wyse Terminals.  I also found this site helpful:

http://www.freewysemonkeys.com

I’ve been running Windows 7 for a couple of months now.  Today I ran across my first application that wouldn’t install on Windows 7.  So I needed a Windows XP virtual machine.  Luckily, as part of Windows 7, Microsoft has planned to include the ability to run a virtual Windows XP OS.  So to get around my predicament, I downloaded a beta of Virtual PC and a Windows XP machine from Microsoft at this website: Read the rest of this entry »

I received the release form for my upcoming Barrow, Alaska trip.  This is the most interesting form I’ve yet to sign for work.  I’ve signed some more involved release forms for racing cars, driving offroad, and doing some adventure tours.  But for work, this takes the cake.  Here are some samples:

“I understand that this event involves the following activities:  Air travel to and from research sites in Alaska, includes, but is not limited to, transport by large and small aircraft including helicopters, boats, all-terrain vehicles, motor vehicles, snow machines, and on foot….Living arrangements will range from Read the rest of this entry »