Blagged

Can it really be?  Game 5 of the World Series 2008 is currently in a rain delay!  As it stands, if the game is cancelled due to the rain, the Phillies win it and as a result would be the World Series champs.  I’d imagine this one will be delayed for quite some time before they call the game, looks like I’m in for a late night…

Update: Epic!  Looks like Gregg Zaun has somewhat misinformed me.  He was saying that since the Rays tied the game in the top of the 6th and then the rain delay was called without Philly getting a chance to answer, they would be the winners if the game officially got cancelled.  This may be true, but since Tampa tied the game the league has decided to postpone the game until tomorrow night!  The game will pick up where it left off and I can imagine it will be one hell of a game with only three and a half innings to be played.

Rogers has recently lowered their Blackberry Enterprise Server rate plans significantly.  It used to cost $60 for 25MB, and since the release of the Blackberry Bold, they’ve now got a much more reasonable plan, at $45 for 300MB.  Where’s Bell in all this?  Still screwing me with my $60 for 30MB plan.  After I read about Rogers’ new BES plans, I decided to check out Bell’s site, to make sure they still sucked before I went off on a rant.  Aside from Bell’s BES plans still being as bad as always, I also found this quote referring to their System Access Fee being higher than the other Canadian providers underneath the list of plans:

System Access Fees are charged by all wireless companies to help pay for the network and the ongoing software, technology and other upgrades to that network. Generally, the higher the fee, the greater the opportunity to invest in network quality to enhance your experience. Just one more reason to choose Bell.

Really?  You’re telling me that I have to pay a higher SAF to access a network that’s only used by a limited number of carriers in North America, when the rest of the world uses GSM?  And that’s supposed to be better?  Bell, you’re not Ferrari, you can’t charge higher prices and just claim you have better products to justify it.  I mean, where’s the Blackberry Bold on Bell?  Oh wait, they’re still using the crap-tastic CDMA network which only certain phones (which were released on GSM first) get ported over to, and it’s usually months later!  I guess that because I can’t take my phone over to Rogers, and because it’ll cost me $400 to terminate my contract, they can charge whatever they want.  Maybe they should put that on their web site so that people can really understand why they’re being screwed.

Looking for version 7.2.6001.784 of the Windows Update agent?  Sure you are!  If the Windows Update site isn’t giving it to you (they haven’t rolled it out to everyone yet), you can still update by grabbing the standalone installer from one of the URL’s below.  After you install it, you can check that your version is up to date on the Version tab of the Properties page for the wuauclt.exe file located in C:\Windows\System32.  The update is supposed to reduce the amount of time it takes the agent to check for updates, which should help out if your clients are checking with a WSUS server at least once a day.

Download Links:
Windows Update Agent 7.2.6001.784 (x86)
Windows Update Agent 7.2.6001.784 (x64)

Imagine my surprise when I was driving down Fanshawe Park Road and saw a sign stating that a TigerDirect warehouse is coming soon!  I better start saving now so I can spend it all when it opens.  No more paying for shipping and waiting for stuff to be delivered!

Ever wonder why there’s no option anywhere in the Windows Vista Control Panel to disable hibernation?  Me too.  If you want to disable hibernation support permanently so that Windows isn’t storing hiberfile.sys the size of your physical memory on your system drive, go to a command prompt and run the following command:

powercfg –h off

This will turn off hibernation support and free up a few GB’s of space on your system drive.  The actual amount of space savings should be equal to the amount of physical memory in your system.

Anyone who knows me will know that I’m always on the hunt for awesome admin tools.  Today I read a post on 4sysops.com about FlexTK Express.  This tool allows you to perform many different file management operations like disk analysis, batch copying, searching based on multiple criteria, duplicate searching, and a whole lot more.  I don’t spend a lot of my time managing files but I do occasionally go on a file organization/cleanup rampage and this tool will definitely come in handy.  I tested it out briefly and my initial impressions of it are fantastic.  The interface is lightning fast, and the searching and the disk usage analyzer were quick.  If you perform a lot of manual file operations I suggest you try out FlexTK Express.

I’ve installed service pack 6 on the BES and everything seems to be running like a champ.  The upgrade went smoothly without problems, and was pretty speedy to install. The HTML mail on the Blackberry is surprisingly fantastic. Downloading images is quick and renders quite well on the Blackberry. It’s nice to have rich text and images instead of plain old stinky text and overly long web addresses that fill the entire screen.

In my previous post I complained about RIM pulling HTML mail support from the recently released BES 4.1 Service Pack 5.  Well, it appears that they’re all over that HTML stuff as they’ve just released BES 4.1 Service Pack 6!  Complete with HTML mail goodness.  I’ll be installing that bad boy ASAP, I’ll keep you posted on how it turns out.

Although the iPhone is pretty awesome, for all of these reasons, I’m still quite happy with my Blackberry 8830.  However, there are a few improvements I’d like to see in the Blackberry OS:

• HTML Mail:  I know this has been beaten to death but for cripes sakes when am I going to be able to view properly formatted HTML mail on the Blackberry?  Apparently new BIS accounts are now supporting it which is a step in the right direction.  You know what’s a step in the wrong direction?  RIM pulling HTML mail support from BES 4.1 SP5.
• Better Data Plans from the Carriers:  This one isn’t RIM’s fault, but it’s still a downside of owning a Blackberry.  My corporate plan is $60 a month just for data, and that only includes 30MB.  That may have been fine 5 years ago when all I could get on the Blackberry was text.  Now there’s a better browser in the 4.5 OS, plus I have the GMail app, the Google Maps app, and the Weather Network app.  Most of these third party apps are using data in the background to keep everything up to date, which is putting me close, if not over my 30MB limit every month.
• Ringer/Notification Profiles:  Blackberry’s have awesome profiles for ringers and notifications that are highly customizable.  There’s just one improvement I would like to see;  I’d like to be able to have the Blackberry choose a profile based on the time of day.  For example, the quiet profile during work hours, and the normal, loud profile for when I’m at home.  It’s not hard to switch profiles manually but it involves me having to remember to do so, which is certainly not my strong point.
• 3rd Party Apps:  I’d like to see more/better 3rd party apps for the Blackberry, as well as some way to easily try/buy apps right from the device.

Other than that, I’m pretty satisfied with the Blackberry, especially when it comes to how it handles e-mail with it’s filters and highly customizable notifications.

A giant fly is getting ready to infiltrate the building across the street.