The remote computer disconnected the session because of an error in licensing protocol

Spent a while figuring out exactly what I had to turn ON to get it working when in fact it was something I had to turn OFF.

The problem was I had installed the “Remote Desktop Services” role thinking it would enable RDC connections, when in fact this is a much more complicated beast that I think wants to enable the server to serve up tons of desktop sessions to many users vs. the single connection administration activity I needed. This new functionality comes with yet another licensing scheme from Microsoft and googling for a solution sent me down this path many times.

The solution: Remove the “Remote Desktop Services” role, and go to Start ->Control Panel->System and Security->Allow remote access . Doing this you find the familiar Remote Desktop settings and things work like I expected.

ECBARF is an acronym for the six basic design principals:

• Emphasis
• Contrast
• Balance
• Alignment
• Repetition
• Flow

I also recently got turned onto Nerdist Podcast via an article in Wired magazine.  Lots of bad language in this one, so can’t listen when kids are in the car.

I’d love to hear from anyone regarding what podcasts you listen to and recommend.

So I guess the way it works is you spend 15min in a single room and see how much stuff you can get rid of. Started in the office.

1: Verizon bag with empty cell phone boxes
2: Torn up Mickey Mouse Santa Hat
3: Empty priority mail envelope
4: Empty Camera Flash box (Bonus! Found missing digicam)
5: A plastic cover thing we don’t remember what it goes to
6: Empty CD cases
7: Old Red Sox Schedules

As a software professional I’m approached by people all the time asking what to do about general computer problems.  Most of the time it’s malware or that windows has become corrupt in some way.

I’ll leave this space blank for all the Microsoft-haters to insert their own, “Get a MAC” type of comment here.  <BLANK SPACE> All done?  Great.  Most people want this problem solved for close to free and buying a new computer isn’t always an option.

What I often suggest is to “Back it up and Repave it” – meaning copy all the files you want to keep, format the hard drive and install windows from scratch.

The reason I suggest this is because I know it will work 100% of the time.  There are many anti-spyware products that might work.  I might be able to google the specific problem and find a solution.  I might be able to reconfigure windows to not use the thing that’s causing the problem.  However – each of these techniques has at best a 50% chance of working – and I have no idea how much time each one will take.

Backing  up your data is usually the roadblock here for most people – and I’m here to tell you that you should have been doing this anyway.  There are many ways to do this, but here’s my suggestion: Use Carbonite. It’s $60/yr.  It’s what I use, it’s really easy, and it’s pretty cheap compared to lots of other options.  Also in Carbonite’s favor is that its now a very established company.  I don’t work for them – but if you decide to use it ask me for an invite and I’ll get a free month or something, or use the link above.

There are MANY backup options out there, you want something you don’t have to think about.  You cannot be trusted to run a backup every night. 

After ensuring you’re backed up, boot from your window’s CD and choose the option that warns about “this will format your hard drive.”  You are not doing an upgrade and you might be asked about partitioning etc – but the good news here is it’s difficult to anything wrong because you’re all backed up and can always do it again.

You’re going to have to re-install any software you use – but now you’ll probably be getting the latest versions of the free stuff – and you won’t be wasting space and resources on all the stuff you installed years ago and no longer use.  You’d be surprised how many applications install something that runs all the time “for your convenience.”  Getting rid of all of these utilities is probably the #1 thing that will make your machine run faster. 

For the most part – the bad guys write really good code, and the stuff they sneak into your system has almost no noticeable effect.  If it did more people would be getting rid of it faster.  Their main goal is to not be noticed on your machine.

After you’ve reinstalled everything you really need, make sure your backup is still working. 

Again: Please comment with your experience etc.  I plan on pointing people to this article in the future.  Feel free to critique spelling and grammar as well.

The company that produced the kit has a forum where one user details this kit as a 50 hr job.  I’d estimate my time at well over 100 hrs.   I’d put in a couple 4-5hr sessions a week, then a few hours most Saturday mornings.

My advice to future doll house builders is to look at this as a hobby, not a goal.  I very much wanted the project to be done so I could spend the time on the thousands of other hobbies I have and didn’t allow myself the time to really enjoy the craft of creating a miniature house.  The end result will hopefully be an heirloom my kids pass on to their kids, and my daughter is already spending a lot of time playing with and decorating the interior.

There are a few more pictures of the building process in this facebook album.

So that got me thinking about what alternative we have to our existing representative government. I came across americanselect.org which I like, and am participating in, but I was thinking something more dramatic.  Here’s what I came up with:

• Run for office on the platform that you will make all decisions based on your constituents wishes
• Provide a channel of constant input of  constituent opinion via the internet (There are security problems here – but they can be solved)
• Broadcast all political interactions (similar to justin.tv) and provide commentary for viewers into what’s going on an what decisions are being made (sort of like CSPAN but more)

Based on my measurements/sampling so far:

• Average length of  EULA/ToS: 7,385 words
• Typical reading Speed: 200 words/min
• Average Time to read Typical EULA/ToS: 37 min
• Average Software Developer rate: $40/hr
• Cost to read the EULA/ToS: $25

Last week I got tapped to fix the PA system for the tournament season.  The home team is responsible for announcing the teams, players and coaches and playing the national anthem.

I decided I wasn’t going to just buy another CD player (seems that was the plan the last few years).  Instead I donated an old iPod with just the Anthem on it (I recommend the US Coast Guard Band rendition.)  I also replaced the “strip & twist” wiring with soldered and shrink wrapped connections.

Then I got an idea – I emailed Carl Beane, the PA Announcer for Fenway Park and asked him about announcing.  I dropped my uncle’s name because he had mentioned they were friends.

Mr. Beane responded almost immediately and was very excited to help out of tribute to his friendship with my uncle.  Turns out the drive to our field was a bit too far (2hrs each way) so we decided he could record the rosters.  I think he’s done this a few times before – because I emailed him the rosters and he emailed me back a collection of MP3s for each team with each player’s name announced separately.

Now the hard part – how to use these in the booth during the game?  I thought it’d be a simple matter of setting up a few play lists and just hitting PLAY for each name.  The big roadblock was that none of the popular music playing apps on the iPod/iPad/Android Phones had this feature to “PLAY then STOP.”  So in practice I couldn’t get it to consistently play just one file – I would almost always stop too early or play a piece of the next MP3.

Enter the “Sound Board” technology.  I’ve seen a ton of these – they are basically a collection of buttons on a screen that play a single sound when you play them.  I found a good one for Android called Custom Soundboard and was able to create a sound board for each team.  I t could not have worked any better.  I never played the wrong sound, and it always sounded perfect.  Creating the soundboards was intuitive and not too many steps.

My only regret was not having better music lined up for between the innings.  I had a play list setup on the iPod but I didn’t want to plug/unplud devices during the game.  I tried moving the files from the iPod to the droid – but the format wasn’t friendly.

Bottom line – I was open to using either an iPad, and iPod or the android and the android solution won hands down.  I was also very happy I remembered to go into Airplane mode before the game… wouldn’t want to take a call over the PA system.

You can check out the sounds Mr. Beane recorded for me on the league website here: Voice of Fenway Park recordings.

Mr. Beane provides this and similar services for a pretty small fee if you’d like his voice somewhere in your life.  Weddings, corporate events etc.  Go to Carl Beane’s official website to find his email etc.  If you’d like to hear him live – go to Fenway Park.

I think the kids liked it – I know a few of the coaches got a kick out of it – and nobody had to hear my stupid voice.  Win-win.  OH yeah, our team won the game… last inning… tie run on 3rd.  I did NOT play dirty water at the end.  I played Tweezer Reprise instead.

The longer version of the story details how little sleep happens, how much amazing work can get done in a single weekend and learning where the tires really hit the pavement. That story also has to showcase the people who put this thing together and worked so hard before the event to make it happen.  The things the sponsors provided were exactly what was needed.  The venue (Microsoft’s 1 Memorial Drive office) was also a big piece of the story.  100+ very true uber-geeks with laptops and the WiFi was 100% on and super fast the entire weekend.

I didn’t know the event existed until my friend Chris from VT asked if he could spend the night.  Serendipitously my wife and kids were out of town for the weekend and my plans involved mostly lawn work.  So I contacted some other friends I found out were going and got myself signed up.

My team created a companion pet memorial site for the Maine Society for the Protection of Animals.  We also did some training on how they could use their drupal based website to publish new articles without burdening their already over-worked web-master, freeing him up to do more creative/compelling things with their site. I’m a little bummed we didn’t “launch” the additions to the site over the weekend, but we did get it running on their development server, and I’m confident they’ll be pushing live at which point I’ll update this post.

The end of the weekend involves each team presenting what they’ve done and it became very clear how much work really happened.  The whole thing was an eye opener on many levels.

I’ll do it again if the family commitments allow.