Frank Farm

Patrick cooked beignets, and we had a few people over: Mom Ryan, Kerry, Ted, Emery, Jonathan, Adrian, Tony Q, Danny, Drew. Napped with Patrick. Dinner at Phil, Danny, Drew's with Phil; Drew; Danny; Patrick; Tuan, Jr.; Agus; and Tony.

Shower. Morning run: 20 minutes. Usual oatmeal breakfast. Posted new news for Susie. Filed for reimbursement. Followup on a hard drive order that hasn't arrived yet. Handled miscellaneous requests in e-mail. Submitted items for surplus. Computer maintenance for Joel. Doctor appointment. Ran in to Ena -- we were both on our way home. Dinner at home with Patrick: chicken and penne in marinara sauce with broccoli, bread and Smart Balance spread. Watched Shinobi (2005) on DVD with Patrick.

Morning run: 15 minutes. Shower. Usual oatmeal breakfast. Followup with Hubert about a "lost" hard drive order. Followup with Nancy T about Carol's new phone order. Chatted with Joyce A. Followup with Deborah P about who is handling Bill's request. Linkchecking. Asked Julie who owns access.ucsf.edu. More access.ucsf.edu followup. Reposted the spring electives schedule for Lucia. Redirected an IT support request to Deborah P. Helped Carol troubleshoot a problem with the staff portal. Alerted staff to possible problem with faxing RFOs to Hubert. Chatted with Susie, made edits to the homepage, review, live. More of Carol's phone order followup with Nancy T. Helped student SC with installing Lexi-Comp on an iPaq. Followup with Joyce A about P4s transitioning to the residency program and what happens to their e-mail? (Answer: they get to keep it just as it is through the end of their residency but Rodney needs to be informed so that he can put their AD objects into the correct OU.) Unpacked the new key cabinet which arrived today. It's nice and it holds a lot of keys. Pre-lunch: leftover fruit salad. Lunch with Geordie: taco #10 from Carmelina's. We sat in the library courtyard in the sun. The new clinical pharmacy website went live today; no one notified me or our office. They've chosen a domain with which I'm not happy, so we'll see if that lasts. SeaTools hard drive testing for Steaven and Joel. Installed Windows updates to patch the animated cursor vulnerability. Defrag on the server. Worked with Lucia on a scanning project. Home. Installed Windows updates. Dinner at home with Patrick: grilled pork chops, steamed asparagus, bread and Smart Balance. Shoed a dining chair. (Shoeing is what I call putting the self-adhesive protective pads on the bottom of a chair or other piece of furniture because it's like shoeing a horse only it's protective pads not a horseshoe and it's a chair not a horse -- same thing, only different.) Fruit smoothie made from leftover fruit salad. Made Corinna's brand new website live.

Usual oatmeal breakfast. Fruit smoothie made from leftover fruit salad. Telecommute day. Archived documents. Scanning-Photoshop-PDF project for Lucia. Catch up on e-mail. Computer maintenance for my computer in the office: disk cleanup, defrag, scandisk. Web updates: entering students calendar, prospective students calendar, white coat ceremony. Had lunch at a nearby cafe: turkey sandwich, small salad, small mocha. The coffee was good, the sandwich was decent, the salad had old lettuce that was rotting at some edges. I'd go back for the coffee, though. Google Analytics data review. This is the first time that I've had a chance to really peruse the data gathered from Google Analytics. I am very impressed with it. The reports are well organized and very detailed. I wish I could set start date and end date ranges for whatever data set I'm currently viewing -- I think that's possible in some reports but not others or I haven't found how to do that yet. I'm sure Susie hasn't seen all of this yet but she'll be very excited when she does. Got in about 20 minutes of running while taking breaks throughout the day. Student computing committee work: Office 2007, Vista, wiki review. More web calendar updates. Linkchecking. Acrobat 8 Pro troubleshooting for Scott. Computer security guide updates. Dinner at home with Patrick: campagnelle with shrimp in marinara sauce, bread and Smart Balance. Chatted with Nate on the phone -- he just turned in the final version of his dissertation -- hooray! Linkchecking for home websites. We received a gift package from Tina with a bunch of nice things: ginger bon bons; Origins soap, hand lotion, and body wash; a small Chinese box with polished decorative stones; scented tea lights from Illuminations; a jar of plum cherry spread; and two very nice greeting cards. Thanks, Tina!

Morning run: 15 minutes. Usual oatmeal breakfast. At work, Scott's computer was in a restart loop. I ran powermax on it -- c: drive checked out okay. Security software reinstall for student DU. Helped Susie with questions about web statistics. PharmAdMIT folder security reset for Steaven's computer. Back to Scott's computer: ran seatools -- hard drive again checked out okay. Restart in Safe Mode with Command Prompt was successful. Ran fixboot (yes), fixmbr (yes), then chkdsk /r. Chatted in the office with Susie. Chatted on the phone with student GR. Opened a card and present GR had left me before I arrived -- it's a beautiful, embossed, leather journal. It uses removeable, replaceable, hardcover journal books; I'm delighted! More security updates for DU's computer. IE7 install, Firefox 2.0.0.3 install, and full hard drive anti-virus scan for DU. Listserv update for students MM and CH. Lunch: pizza to go from Segafredo. Went to a Vista technical presentation set up by OAAIS. I left after 15 minutes or so because the speaker was showing stuff I didn't want to see (demo of Start Menu "instant search" and other features) and was also taking a really long time doing it. I had a user down in the office, so my time was better spent there babysitting the tedious troubleshooting procedures that sometimes take a long time. Began installing Office 2007 Professional for student GR. It took me about half an hour to open the Office 2007 Professional product box. As an information technology professional, I open hardware and software products all the time, and no computer product packaging I have encountered has made me feel more frustrated. I am a non-fan of blister packaging, but this new product box from Microsoft is worse, I tell you. The box is made of plastic. I found a sticker seal on the right edge of the box and removed it -- it peels away easily once you get a fingernail under one of the tabs. This seal was sort of like the seal you sometimes see along the top edge of a new music CD. I spent a few minutes pinching tabs which looked like they did something, gently pulling pieces apart, holding the box from different sides, pulling again, looking for opening instructions (found none), pulling on a red tab which resembled a Post It flag. I tried sliding parts apart, and I turned the box over and over in my hands like a Rubik's cube -- it was certainly a puzzle of logic. After many minutes I could not open it at all, and I became extremely frustrated. I called the computer store on campus and asked how to open the box, and (Jason?) said it was hard to explain over the phone. He put my call on hold to get a copy in his hands, and when he returned he walked me through a few suggestions. But I finally got it open all on my own after realizing there's a clear sticker seal along the top edges which I hadn't noticed -- duh, it's a clear sticker. I get some scissors and slice twice and then finally a tug on the red tab Post It flag lets me open the package. This is a horrible package design, and I am certain that Microsoft will regret this decision for at least the next several months. How could they not if every user has to call for support before even installing the software? Hopefully they will change the box back to a normal paper box. Could someone please call Microsoft to remind them that their hundreds of thousands of plastic product boxes are doing nothing to decrease the world's reliance on petroleum, which is required to make plastics? And I expect most of these plastic boxes to end up in our landfills, too. This experience reminded me of watching my mom's first attempt at opening a CD jewel case. She struggled for several minutes before giving up, unsuccessful in her goal simply because she couldn't figure out the correct positioning of her hands and fingers. This experience also reminded me of Jakob Nielsen who promotes Jakob's law: "users spend most of their time on other sites" which you could restate for this situation as "users spend most of their time opening other product boxes." I believe that Windows Vista is being sold in the same hard-to-open product box as well. After figuring out how to open the Office 2007 Professional box, I documented it with the office camera but I haven't had time to post it to Flickr yet. It would be better as a YouTube video, but I just don't have time to make a movie. If there were a service that let me accept micropayments (e.g., 5 cents per viewing) for such a video I bet I could make a ton of money, though. Chatted with student GR on the phone again. Finished work on DU's computer. Back to Scott's computer: Nothing worked, and once I even got a BSOD similar to that on Alyssa's computer. I did an in-place reinstallation of Windows XP followed by scandisk -- no restart loop this time. Began installing XP SP2. More setup for GR's computer. Worked on an employee requisition form (ERF). Sent office staff an introduction to Office 2007 in e-mail. Responded to an inquiry from student VT about Lexi-Comp, about which I don't know much -- I don't handle this for our students. More setup for the spare computer. Snack during the day: a cookie. Reinstalled Pivot for Alyssa. Dinner at home with Patrick: boneless chicken boobs grilled with apricot-mustard sauce, corn on the cob, rice pilaf. I filed my taxes using TaxAct online. I won some, I lost some. Travis assisted over IM; I must find a way to pay him back.

Usual oatmeal breakfast. Unlocked Alyssa's computer. Met with Rob S to set computer hardware and software requirements for this fall. Lunch with Melissa, Kristina, and Ena at Park Chow. Kristina has another baby due in September. Met with student FP: Dreamweaver tutorial. Dinner at Florio (415-775-4300, 1915 Fillmore Street) with Patrick and Bryan Cochran. We shared an asparagus salad. I had Fulton Valley roast chicken with spring vegetables and fingerling potatoes. Patrick had Sonoma shoulder of lamb fricassee with fava beans, potato, lemon, and fregola sardo. Bryan had a halibut special. We shared a warm chocolate cake for dessert. I hadn't seen Bryan since fall 2000; it was great to catch up with him. He was in town to speak on a panel at the VA. We talked about our lives: cats, dogs, current and past friends and boyfriends, Missoula, music, museums, food, psychology, trailer homes, woodworking and found objects, martial arts, travel, Disneyland. Food and service at Florio were both excellent. Our server was Ian R. I was very satisfied.

Morning run: 30 minutes. Usual oatmeal breakfast. Today I had my oatmeal with a little bit of almond extract, some brown sugar, and raisins -- I like it a lot. Submitted Corinna's website to dmoz. Watched Alanis Morrissette's My Humps on YouTube -- very funny! Read news. Shopped online. Napped. Dinner at home with Patrick: grilled chicken boob, mac and cheese with mushrooms and green pepper. Watched Children of Men (2006) on DVD at home with Patrick. I notice for the first time today that imdb has a new feature in which spoilers are hidden from view until you hover the mouse cursor over them.

Slept in. Patrick cooked a hawaiian brunch for us: almond amaretto pancakes, coconut-pineapple-banana smoothies, Greenwell's coffee from Nate and Chris. Processed photos. Caught up on my journal. Still behind on uploading photos to Flickr, though. Watered house plants. Archived documents. Cut my hair. Showered. Vacuumed the apartment, tidied. Patrick went to Aaron's birthday party. I went to dinner at Phil, Drew, and Danny's: bun cha gio, no dessert. I met Danny's sister Kristy (visiting from Philly) and her grade school childhood friend Dana (visiting from Dallas). I heard but did not meet Kristy's 2-year-old daughter. Home late.

Morning run: 5 minutes. Usual oatmeal breakfast. Student GR left me 5 bottles of wine -- what a surprise! Steaven made orange frosting cupcakes for Joel to celebrate the Lady Vols basketball win last Monday. Crystal Reports followup with Carol. Web edits: computing requirements. Lunch with Geordie at Minh Tri: pho. Lots of computer maintenance. Snack: peanut butter and crackers. Dinner at home with Patrick: turkey burgers, ginger carrot soup. Online appointment scheduling software research for Danny. To bed early.

It's Patrick's birthday! Usual oatmeal breakfast. In to work early. Chatted with Susie briefly. Sent Cindy the ERF to review. Sent reminder for websteering lunch. Staff meeting. Helped Cindy with logo requests. Rodney told me today he recently rebuilt one of his servers. The hard drive died after 8 years (!) of service. Can you believe it? Web edits: computing requirements. Lunch: I got a sandwich and Sun Chips and a raspberry iced tea from Subway and went to N-225. The student enrichment program brought comedian Marga Gomez to make us laugh. She was outstandingly funny. At the very start of her show some woman in the front row was being unruly, and someone tried to get her to leave, but Marga insisted she stay -- she's such a peacemaker. The woman stayed and I thought it was going to be a repeat of the man who sat next to me at Charo but no, she laughed many times -- how can you be in Marga Gomez's presence and not laugh? Helped Carol and Cindy with problems with Outlook stalling. Met briefly with student AH. Left work early. Errands. Home. Patrick, Mom Ryan, and Sam were there waiting for the evening party to begin. Peter arrived shortly afterwards, followed by Phil, Danny, and Drew. I had ordered Chinese food delivery. We had foil wrapped chicken, crispy ginger chicken, sweet and sour pork, sesame crispy beef, honey walnut prawns, fish fillet with bok choy, spinach with garlic, and combination fried rice. Fortune cookies. My fortune: You have a potential urge and the ability for accomplishment. The birthday cake was a princess cake from Ambrosia Bakery. We also had cookies from Ambrosia to snack on before and after dinner. Patrick's gifts from me were the library editions of Clue and Risk and a bouquet of 3 red ginger root stems. The library editions are special wooden boxed versions of the same games except the board folds up and it fits on a bookshelf. I think it's a Target store exclusive, which explains why I couldn't find it anywhere else. (Actually, I bought from Amazon which partners with Target.)

Usual oatmeal breakfast. Online management training. Computer maintenance all day long. Lunch with Joel at L'Avenida. Afterwards Joel bought some G-Star jeans from Crossroads, and I bought some teNeues Susan Eslick lottidotti note cards from Wishbone. Dinner at home with Patrick: leftovers, bad pesto naan. Patrick wrote thank you cards. I installed Microsoft and Java updates. I uninstalled Webroot Spy Sweeper Enterprise (UCSF version) and installed Microsoft Windows Defender.

Usual oatmeal breakfast. Student computing committee work: other software requirements. Followup work for websteering and CSC meeting 1-question survey. Learned that OS X Leopard (10.5) is delayed until October 31, 2007, made changes accordingly to our proposed computing requirements for fall. Dinner at home with Patrick: apricot-mustard-glazed drumsticks, baked potato, broccoli. Patrick and I prepared frozen yogurt cups for tomorrow.

Usual oatmeal breakfast. Patrick and I prepared angel food cake. At work today we held Joel's birthday party. I found healthy dessert recipes on kraftfoods.com and brought Angel Lush cake and NILLA Yogurt Freeze frozen yogurt cups. Steaven brought a quiche, half sausage, half mushroom. Lucia brought a giant platter of strawberries. Others brought orange juice, another fruit platter, and more. Computer help for student GR. We talked about Susan, Oscar, and Jamie. Among other things, GR told me that Betty's Diner on 4th in Berkeley was the best place for pancakes ever. Student JC picked up the laptop on which I had finished work. Lunch: takeout from the cafeteria: beef stroganoff over noodles with mixed grilled vegetables. Chatted briefly with Betty-ann about posters and Laura Myers. Joel sent me a photo of the Tennessee Lady Volunteers home court and in it you can see their championship banners hanging from the rafters. He asked me to fake a new banner which said 2007 because he couldn't wait to see it that way, so I did. Handed off a new e-mail account and password to student NS for the students to use for the Spring Auction. I migrated Chris from his old Dell laptop to his new Apple laptop. Wrote up a referral for Melissa H who is starting an intern position this summer related to her legal studies. I had forgotten what dates she had worked at the OSACA, but using my journal I was able to piece it together -- whew! Dinner at home with Patrick: herbes de provence pork chops, mashed potatoes, steamed carrots for me, southwestern mixed vegetables for Patrick. Dessert for me: one Girl Scouts thin mint cookie, one strawberry sliced and fanned, a dollop of cool whip free. Dessert for Patrick: two thin mint cookies.

I woke up and showered. Patrick got home from practice, showered, then took a nap. Usual oatmeal breakfast. Archived documents. E-mail. Chatted with Jesse online. Patrick woke up. Lunch with Patrick at home: turkey burgers, homemade french fries. At work and at home I've stopped using Webroot Spy Sweeper Enterprise to protect computers from spyware because I suspect it had been causing performance problems. Our computers at work are 5 years old. At home they're about 3 years old or younger. On newer computers Spy Sweeper might perform acceptably. The suspicious behaviors: frozen blue screen, frozen black screen with Windows logo, slow response time, Outlook e-mail connection errors. Instead, I have installed Microsoft Windows Defender. We'll see how it goes. If you need to uninstall Spy Sweeper, remember that you must search your hard drive for the file called ssecleanup.exe, double-click it, wait 60 seconds, then restart your computer. I am so glad I never joined Dodgeball. Flickr isn't loading pages properly right now (2:31 PM). Worked on Patrick's MySpace clouds redesign. Finished everything except the footer, and he said, "Oh, so it was easy then?" Drove to dinner, saw Steaven and ? and (I think) Benny on Noe but couldn't stop to say hello because of traffic. Dinner at Indian Oven (415-626-1628, 233 Fillmore Street at Haight) with Patrick -- our first dinner out alone in months. The dinner is terrific -- food and service are both excellent. After we leave and are driving home, we realized we forgot to take our leftovers -- so embarrassing that nobody was paying any attention as we left. Watched Spider-Man 2 (2004) on DVD with Patrick. More work on Patrick's MySpace page, finished late.

Patrick got home from practice. I woke up and showered. Patrick showered, then took a nap. Usual oatmeal breakfast. Processed photos. Uploaded photos to Flickr. Brunch with Patrick and Mom Ryan at Chez Maman. It was quite possibly our first time to Potrero Hill. When we drove up to 18th and Missouri, Patrick said, "Wow, what a cute little neighborhood!" We got a parking space right in front of Chez Maman, a 14-seat full service diner serving French fare. This tiny place is a huge charmer, right down to our waiter's sexy French accent. All the tables indoors were taken when we arrived, so we were seated at the counter where we had somewhat of a perched viewing of the kitchen -- the seats are higher than I expected, but it's really just a few inches more than normal -- not dizzying. Patrick saw someone else's croque madame pass by and said, "I must have that!" Not literally, of course -- he was content to wait for his own. Mom Ryan ordered the same, and I ordered the vegetarian crepe. We drank coffee, orange juice, and water and chatted while waiting for our food. It arrived quickly, and while waiting and talking we enjoyed watching the chefs at work preparing other orders. The place appears to be very popular; come early to get seated quickly. Food and service were both excellent. We like this place a lot, and a lot of people we know would like it, too. Afterwards, we walked up and down 18th, peering into restaurants closed for the moment and exploring some shops that were open. We drove to 5th and Mission garage, then shopped in Union Square and San Francisco Centre for the next several hours. We focused primarily on clothing, but we did stop for a housewares gift for Phil, Drew, and Danny. At Crate and Barrel I ran into Steven and (Juanita) and chatted with them briefly. Today was mostly hot and sunny, and we became exhausted carrying shopping bags for hours. After shopping, we dropped Mom Ryan off at home then got groceries. Home. Dinner at home with Patrick: noodle soup with fishcake, mushrooms, bean sprouts, shrimp. Watched DVD extras and easter eggs for Spider-Man 2 (2004). Processed photos and uploaded more to Flickr. Photos to come -- there are some really good ones.

Usual oatmeal breakfast. To work. Repositioned Chris's mouse cord. More help with student GR. ERF work. Reset the password on the key cabinet. Learned about RJ-45 naming confusion and 8P8C on Wikipedia -- I never knew! According to Wikipedia, when people work with ethernet cables, it's more correct to call the connectors 8P8C rather than RJ-45. Everyone says RJ-45, but technically this is not correct. After reading this, I realized I encountered a problem similar to this but didn't understand it at the time -- when we moved into our current offices I remember there was confusion over telephone cables not fitting as expected. I figured, how hard could it be? but now knowing how many different connector standards there are it is not surprising at all. Archived data and documents. Attempted to purchase computer hardware from Cyberguys, but temporarily abandoned my shopping cart -- something wasn't working right (and I can't recall what that was now one day later). The Cyberguys website almost always works properly for me. However lately whenever I do a search on the home page it comes up with the home page again instead of my search. When I do a search again, it works. Weird. Campus errands. Lunch: takeout from the cafeteria with Joel. Chicken marsala with brown rice, grilled vegetables, dinner roll with Promise. Helped Chris set up his Treo 650 to synch with Outlook on his new MacBook Pro. Brother network scanning troubleshooting. Watched DVD extras for Spider-Man 2 (2004). The behind-the-scenes documentary was really well done. The only part I didn't like was when people started talking about how great it was to work with Sam Raimi. I admire Sam Raimi, but I don't need to hear people who worked with him say it over and over again. That should have been burned to DVD as a gift to Sam Raimi at the film opening or launch party or something, not released on the film's DVD. In other words, only one person needed to see that, not the millions who bought or rented the DVD. Lots of DVDs have this style of filler ("Oh, it was such a joy to be working with [insert name here] because [insert reason here]..." and "[insert name here] is so amazing because [insert reason here]"), and I don't find it enjoyable to watch at all. But otherwise I thought the documentary was really great. Filmmakers: leave out the self-praise, please! It's unbecoming!

Usual oatmeal breakfast. To work. Student computing committee meeting. Chatted with Susie about the ERF. ERF work. Posted new homepage news for Susie. Minor web edits. Built an online survey to gather data about wireless at UCSF. Chatted with student HW. Lunch: Panda Express. My fortune: An investment opportunity will be profitable for you. Emergency paper-to-PDF scans for Robin C. Computer maintenance: Installed KeePass 1.0.7 for all office computers. Set up an admin account for Chris to use when he's away from the office. Upgraded Alyssa's computer from Acrobat 6.0.5 to Acrobat 8. Archived e-mail. Yesterday I clicked the link for the "online ethics briefing" that the university wants us to review, saw that it was over 50 pages long, and thought, "Ugh! I don't have time for this right now," and closed the window. Key cabinet followup. Helped student MM connect a Motorola Q to our UCSF Microsoft Exchange server using these steps:

On the Motorola Q:

1. Select Home > Start > ActiveSync.
2. Follow instructions that appear on the screen to connect using the following settings:
   server = exchange.ucsf.edu
   username = [username only, example: alincoln]
   domain = campus

The screen says (I think) "Synchronizing..." for a long time with a spinning icon. It takes a while and then you should see everything like your e-mail and calendar okay. This setup process was not as easy as synching a Windows Mobile device to a Windows XP computer, but at least it worked which is more than I can say for Palm users.

Here's a list of problems that I believe are unresolved in Outlook 2003 and/or Outlook Web Access (OWA) on Exchange Server 2003, which is what UCSF is using right now. I believe at least some of these are previously undocumented or poorly documented on the web.

1. OWA does not have junk email filtering parity with the Outlook desktop client. (UCSF uses Barracuda server-side anti-spam filtering which significantly mitigates the problem, however.)
2. OWA is unable to set calendar items private. People who use only OWA cannot add private items to their calendar. People who use Outlook in the office and OWA from home cannot add private items to their calendar from home.
3. Various problems with expanding distribution lists ("Cannot perform the requested operation. The command selected is not valid for this recipient. The operation failed." and "The operation failed." and "Cannot perform the requested operation. The command selected is not valid for this recipient. The list was not fully expanded." and "There was an error while expanding the list. The list was not fully expanded.") see September 9, 2005 for details.
4. In Outlook 2003, the list of bccd names in a sent e-mail message appears on screen but not on printout. This problem is very frustrating because you have information you want to share -- you can see it on the screen -- but Outlook will not let you share it or record it on paper. Unintuitive and time-consuming workaround: take multiple screen snapshots and composite them in Photoshop.
5. OWA has no easy, intuitive way to view shared calendars. People can actually view them, but they have to know the URL and manually type it in -- this is inconvenient and time-consuming. They could also click a predefined link, but then someone else has to create the page or shortcut with the link -- an undue administrative burden.
6. Work day hours do not appear correctly to other users: January 5, 2006. This means that people cannot accurately share information about their work schedules to enable others to accurately schedule meetings. A workaround exists, but it is clumsy and clutters one's schedule unnecessarily.
7. OWA has no easy, intuitive way to let users see how much space they are using on the server. Ironically, the people who use only OWA are the ones who most need this information since they cannot archive their messages offline.
8. Outlook 2003 can only show multiple calendars side by side rather than combined into one. Outlook 2007 resolves this problem, but that's not a solution for OWA users. I do not know how Entourage behaves.
9. OWA prefers IE/Win. Other web service providers have shown that it's possible to create browser-agnostic and platform-agnostic web apps, so this is not an engineering problem. I believe that Microsoft is clearly strong-arming Exchange customers into using IE and Windows -- controlling our behavior and way of working -- by providing a significantly reduced feature set for all other browsers and platforms. I think that this behavior should not be rewarded and am open to suggestions on what actions we might take to that end. For me, this is the sorest point, the clearest statement from Microsoft that says, "You bought Exchange. Now we own you."
10. In Outlook 2003, when attempting to move many items from one folder to another, a dialog box appears: "Creating a new item from the selected items could take some time. Are you sure you want to create a new item from these [number] items?" (Yes) (No). The problem occurs only when you have certain different object types in the selection of items you want to move. Instead of simply moving the items as you'd expect, Outlook thinks you want to combine the items into a new message. A workaround exists, but it is unintuitive and time-consuming. See May 17, 2005 for details. This problem still occurs in Outlook 2007.
    
11. HTML e-mail messages forwarded from OWA/non-IE6Win fail to retain the HTML layout and formatting.

I realize that Microsoft released Exchange Server 2007 in December 2006, and this new product addresses at least one of my concerns (overlay mode for calendars in Outlook 2007 is very useful), but I don't believe our e-mail server administration unit has money right now for an upgrade (i.e., for the past 4 years no one planned a budget to fund an upgrade when it became available) and so it will likely be 2010 or 2011 before we migrate from Exchange Server 2003 to Exchange Server 2007. (You think I'm kidding, I know.) Tried on clothes I bought recently. Found a stain on one item and will have Patrick exchange it. Lately I've been having a problem with logging in as admin to our OS X laptops which have been joined to the campus domain. When I try, I get this error: You are unable to log in to the user account "[name of account]" at this time (OK). I know I've been able to log in as domain admin to these laptops before. I do not know what has changed to cause this problem. I still do not know how to resolve this. Erik W asked me if I could boot from the OS X cd and change the admin password but I haven't had a chance to try this yet. Recently I received the error "Can't access volume Drive D (D:), error -1102 (drive missing/unavailable)" from Retrospect 6.5 for Windows. I think I got this message because the account that Retrospect was running under really could not see the D: drive. I logged out, logged back in as domain admin, changed permissions on the drive so that that user could read the drive, logged out, logged back in as that user, and restarted Retrospect -- all was well. Recently I resolved the problem presented by the error message, "You do not have sufficient privileges to run the Sophos Anti-Virus main application...". I found the answer on antivirus.bridgew.edu, but it was hard to find, so I'm duplicating it here. The solution is to run services.msc and set the Sophos Anti-Virus service to log on as Local System account:

1. Open the Control Panel (classic), then open Administrative Tools, then open Services.
2. In the list of services, find and open the entry for the Sophos Anti-Virus service.
3. Select the Log On tab.
4. Select the Local System account.
5. Select Apply, then select OK.
6. Restart the computer.

Dinner at home with Patrick: butterflied pork chops, steamed carrots, bread and Smart Balance. I am watching you on Twitter. You know who you are. Reminds me of a shell script called ou which I wrote around 1988 or 1989 while at UC Santa Cruz -- it gave geeks a way to tell other geeks where they are or were or were going to be. Someone else later wrote something much better (Jon Luini perhaps?) which suited me just fine. I no longer have the code for it, so I presume if anyone besides me remembers it at all that's all that's left of it.

Usual oatmeal breakfast. Telecommute day. Emergency notice of stolen server for Sue and Susie. Sent Outlook tip #9 to Scott, Alyssa, Carol. Mozypro followup with Rex R. Followup with Laura M. Purchase review for CREDANT. Reviewed computer configuration for James. Student computing committee work: computer requirements, Vista compatibility, 64-bit operating systems compatibility, wireless survey. Dinner at home with Patrick, Phil, and Drew: hamburgers, criss-cross fries, onion rings. Afterwards, we played Clue. It's my first time playing it, and I find it fun. Phil won -- how'd he figure that out so quickly?

Usual oatmeal breakfast. CREDANT and Pointsec followup. Processed and uploaded and annotated photos of the awful Office 2007 product box. Chatted with Rodney about the Class of 2007 class gift. Purchased the Class of 2007 class gift. Computer requirements final review of web pages. Lunch: Carmelina's burrito #4 with chicken mole. Chatted with Nancy J from CREDANT. Student database update. Met with student TH about Apple Mail. (Our mail admins don't provide support for it.) Also talked about Office 2004 and computer troubleshooting. Computer requirements finalization. Installed KeePass 1.0.7 for my computer. Met with student GR. Skipped dinner. In the evening, Patrick and I attended a City of San Francisco Town Hall for Registered Domestic Partners at the Milton Marks Conference Center in the Hiram Johnson State Office Building at 455 Golden Gate Avenue. The event was organized and co-sponsored by Betty T. Yee (chairwoman of the State Board of Equalization), Debra Bowen (Secretary of State), Equality California, National Center for Lesbian Rights, and Our Family Coalition. The event discussed changes to California tax law which will complicate taxes for registered domestic partners in the state of California. Domestic partners registered in California will be required to file their state taxes jointly beginning with their 2007 taxes which are filed in April 2008. Since the federal government does not permit such couples to file jointly, it's creating headaches and questions. This forum was organized to distribute information. I tried to get an extra info packet for Chris and Nate, but they thought they would run out, so I didn't get one. Patrick and I left early partly because he developed some back pain today (possibly from shao lin) and wasn't feeling well, and partly because we had gotten to the part where they talked about property taxes and I no longer have any hope or expectation that I will own property anytime soon enough for the information presented today to still be relevant.

Usual oatmeal breakfast. Laptop setup for student PK (from GR). Lunch: pasta primavera from the cafeteria with carrots and garlic bread. Chatted with student FP, set up an appointment. Worked on a new template for our PowerPoint presentations using PowerPoint 2007. Vacuumed the insides of Scott's and Joel's computers. The computers are 5 years old, and I realized that there's mucky dust gathered around the case vents and around the processor. Every now and then I encounter a problem in Firefox in which I am unable to type characters into any form field. Firefox behaves as though my cursor is not in the field. I have Find as you type on. This problem still occurs in Firefox 2.0.0.3 on Windows XP SP2. I mentioned this to Patrick and he told me that a long time ago I told him how to work around it -- press F11 twice. I had forgotten about this workaround, so I was surprised to find my knowledge coming back to help me. Another way to describe this problem is that one cannot type text into forms. Dinner at home with Patrick: lemon chicken, steamed asparagus, cous cous. Worked on Danny's website.

Lately I have been working on Danny's website, Refresh SF. He's opening a salon on Nob Hill which will offer nail treatments and wax hair removal. They had signed up the domain with Microsoft Office Live which was not the way I would have done things, but what's done is done. It provides a web-based GUI html editor which makes it surprisingly easy to edit web pages. For example, there are some junky shapes in the header that we are unable to remove. Like all gooey HTML editors it has problems when you cut and paste too much or perform certain actions, and it never gives you as much control as you would like. The agreement they signed traps the domain for 60 days -- after 60 days you can move it to somewhere else if you want. Danny's salon is opening this coming Thursday on April 26, so there's no time to make other arrangements anyhow. A graphic designer named Edwin S did the logo design, business cards, meatspace teaser banners to hang in the window, and announcement cards. Usual oatmeal breakfast. Patrick napped after martial arts practice. I cut my hair and did home computer administration: installed Flock 0.7.something for Patrick, Installed Java 6 Update 1 for all, other computer admin work. Patrick is starting a blog. I'll provide the link soon. He complained that he doesn't have any readers, and I asked him who he told he has a blog, and he said only me. He's been having me proofread his entries, and I have to educate him about blogging culture, not making (extensive) edits after posting, using strikeout and providing updates, etc. House chores: mail and other chores that our neighbors should have done but didn't. Dropped some clothes off at the tailor, stopped at the drug store. Checked in on Patrick -- still sleeping. Went to a beach barbecue to which Tony A invited us, a GAPA and API Wellness Center event. There were about 40 men there. The weather was gloomy (cloudy, grey skies, about 55 degrees F) and minutes after I arrived (very late) and started biting into a cold hot dog (no complaints -- it was free) it started raining lightly. It felt miserable simply to watch people attempt to barbecue in the rain. People chatted in groups, but it was definitely not an energetic or good vibe scene. Tony and I left about an hour after I arrived. He hadn't been there long before I arrived. Afterwards I drove him home to Nob Hill, then stopped in on Danny and Drew at Danny's salon. They were continuing prep work for the opening. Danny painted wooden planks for shelving, Drew cleaned out utility cart bins. We talked mostly about what remained to do for the salon. Two handymen arrived and fixed or attempted to fix assorted things: install a new sink faucet, repair a bathroom door that would not lock. I got the feeling that the salon will really be a great place once everything is done. I took some photos for Danny's website. I walked a few doors down and got a slice of pizza and a peach Snapple. Hung out with Drew and Danny a little longer. Home. House chores: cut back some vine that is attacking the house, cleaned in the bathroom. Dinner at home with Patrick: burgers and fries. Worked on Danny's website. Chris C recently taught me how to do a screen capture in Windows XP on Boot Camp. Normally one presses PrintScreen or Alt+PrintScreen, but a MacBook or MacBook Pro doesn't have these keys. One solution is to open the Windows On-Screen Keyboard: Start > All Programs > Accessories > Accessibility > On-Screen Keyboard. Select the psc key to capture the whole screen or select alt then psc to capture the current window only. Neat!

Usual oatmeal breakfast. Patrick got home from martial arts practice and took a nap shortly after I woke up. Patrick and I picked up Mom Ryan and visited the Asian Art Museum. Lunch at Cafe Asia with Mom Ryan and Patrick. Mom Ryan and Patrick each had a chicken salad, I had a Korean pork sandwich with cole slaw. Food was excellent. At the museum, we saw an amazing exhibit of Japanese baskets as well as some Indian art that neither Patrick nor I liked very much. Afterwards, we visited the public library and got Mom Ryan her first ever public library card at 73 years old! She's thrilled and soon found some DVDs that she'll watch later: Charlie Chaplin, All in the Family. Patrick and I borrowed an old DVD of a Julia Child cooking show. Dinner at home with Patrick: bowties with shrimp in marinara. Worked on Danny's website: redid Edwin's logo with proper kerning.

Skipped breakfast. Home page update. Student computing committee wireless survey prep and current students news prep. Helped Cindy with an Excel problem. Helped student KT with Flickr. Annotated and finished my Flickr photoset of how to open the Office 2007 product box. Laptop setup for student PK. Student computing committee wireless survey followup. Helped student KT with a PowerPoint to PDF conversion. We tried printing to Adobe PDF from PowerPoint 2007. This failed because his poster was 36 x 48 inches and the resulting PDF was 8.5 x 11 inches even though I selected 36 x 48 inch output during printing. The solution was to save as PDF using the Microsoft Save as PDF plug-in -- this worked perfectly. Unpacked new computer supplies. Organized a cabinet in the work room. More laptop setup for student PK. Continued editing the student awards presentation using PowerPoint 2007. Of all the Office 2007 applications, PowerPoint 2007 is the one that I find easiest to use. It's also the one I have used the least in the past. Error when installing Winamp 5.3.4: Winamp: winamp.exe - Unable To Locate Component. This application has failed to start because MSVCP71.dll was not found. Re-installing the application may fix this problem. (OK) (this dialog appears twice) I tried installing .NET 2.0 and all updates for it -- this did not resolve the problem. Solution: Copy MSVCP71.DLL and MSVCR71.DLL from a computer which obtained it from a legitimate source and paste it into c:\windows\system32. Removed and reinstalled Windows Defender. Java 6 Update 1 installs. Started coding a new update from the dean. Home. Drove to Phil, Drew, and Danny's place for dinner. Shrimp with noodles, cow and carrot soup. Helped them fix and evaluate computers. Late meal by myself at Orphan Andy's: oatmeal, french toast, hot water. Overheard while eating: Man 1 says, "How many pairs of shoes do you own?" Man 2 says, "You mean here in the city? . . . 34."

Usual oatmeal breakfast. Chris/psychobauble told me about Coda, a new web development application for OS X by Panic, the makers of Transmit. It looks very interesting, and I'll be checking it out soon. Organized e-mail and paper documents. Computer setup for student PK. Helped student NS with an HTML problem. Troubleshot problems with the UCSF Human Resources BrassRing website's Send to Friend feature which sends a form button in an HTML e-mail which Outlook 2007 for Windows in Win XP SP2, Firefox 2.0.0.3 in Win XP SP2, and IE7 in Win XP SP2 all do not understand. The View jobs button either does not appear or it does appear but when you click it you get a new window with the message you were just looking at -- not the job description you were expecting. I reported the problem (with copious details on steps to reproduce, of course) and the response I got back was essentially "me and my supervisor tried it and it worked for us -- please try again" so I realize I need to be a little more persistent with this one. The problem does not occur in Outlook 2003 in Win XP SP2 or in OpenWebMail in Firefox 2.0.0.3 in Win XP SP2 or in Yahoo! Mail in Firefox 2.0.0.3 in Win XP SP2. Posted the wireless survey live and announced. Lunch: sandwich and chicken salad from Palio. Met with Cindy. Brian W announced a new podcast storage and management system at UCSF -- this is a very nice thing to have and my first peek at it looks promising. Okayed renewal of MCCA for Valerie. Created new proposed survey for next month's CSC meeting. Chatted with Danny on the phone. Dinner at home with Patrick: leftovers from last night. Dessert: 3 thin mint Girl Scout cookies for me. Worked on Danny's website.

Usual oatmeal breakfast. More paper document organizing. Photo editing for Chris. Left messages for the landlord and the neighbors. Reviewed initial results for our wireless survey -- we're getting some excellent data and feedback. Met with student FP -- Dreamweaver tutorial. Checked in with Julie about being backup for me while I'm on vacation. (Thanks, Julie!) Continued coding new update for the dean, sent it to Susie for review. Computer administration for Chris's old laptop: KeePass update, Java 6 Update 1, disk check. Checked in with staff via e-mail about the frozen screen problem. I've been trying to track down the source of this problem for months. I'll know more certainly if my hypothesis is correct in a few weeks of no problem reports. Dinner at home with Patrick: leftovers from last night and earlier. Watched Heroes #19 from the web (as we have been watching all the Heroes episodes) with Patrick. Chatted with Nate. Installed Flock 0.7.12 for OS X primarily to assist with getting pictures into my journal entries.

Usual oatmeal breakfast. Image correction and editing for Chris. Followup on various issues. Chatted briefly with Melissa H. Reopened preview sessions for Joel. Lunch: salmon burger and fries. A fire alarm went off while I was eating. No drill was scheduled, so we all exited the building as though it was real. There was no fire, so within minutes we were returning to work. OS X meeting. I learned about virtualbox -- yet another virtual machine choice for OS X, but this one is free and open source. Helped student PA with a question about listservs. Followup with various issues. Took the University's online ethics review -- it took a lot less time than I thought. Danny asked me to stop in at Refresh for an emergency -- he had to give someone a mani-pedi today. On the way there, while waiting for the N-Judah, three 2-car N-Judah trains came in a row. I thought this kind of craziness never happened for real except at the ballpark, but it does! Crazy Muni! I got a tall, skinny, almond latte at Starbucks. The mani-pedi that Danny gave me was my first one ever, and I was (technically) his first customer. I realized later I forgot to tip him -- oops! The mani-pedi treatment was very relaxing and peaceful, and I liked it very much. The salon is now expected to open more officially in May. Late dinner at Baghdad Cafe with Danny, Phil, and Drew. I had southern fried chicken with veggies and biscuit. Danny had herb roasted chicken with corn and biscuit. Phil had a pita sandwich with (salad?). Drew had a meatloaf sandwich with cole slaw. Tonight was Dining Out for Life. Service tonight was awful. Phil noticed they had a help wanted sign in the window, but even still our server was inattentive, disappeared for long periods of time, and did not perform to our satisfaction. Our food took a long time to arrive even though the restaurant was less than half full. It's usually not this bad at Baghdad.

Usual oatmeal breakfast. Helped faculty member PB with listservs. Helped Carol with info for graduates. Made live a new update from the dean for Susie. Preferred names gathering with Scott and Steaven for Doug C. Chatted with Scott about PharmCAS notices. Asked Susie for approval for the new PowerPoint template I designed for the School. Laptop setup for Joel's preview session. I encountered some problems. We have a MacBook and when starting into Boot Camp with Win XP SP2 we cannot get the external video to display. Fn+F7 does nothing. F7 does nothing. If I start into OS X, the external video works. If I start Parallels, the external video works. So we stuck with Parallels, but then our USB remote presentation pointer was not recognized by Parallels. I also found that I was unable to log in as admin to OS X. I'll have to investigate these later. For now, Joel was fine with using Parallels and the arrow keys instead of the pointer. Reposted P1 and P2 schedules for Lucia. Required software cdrom work. Cleared out calendar for forthcoming vacation. Reminded staff to review intro to Office 2007 I sent out a few weeks ago. Chatted online with Tony Q. Computer maintenance. Dinner at home: korean beef, japanese rice, steamed broccoli.

Patrick came home, showered, got in bed. I got up. Usual oatmeal breakfast. Chatted with Danny on the phone. Picked up alterations, returned a DVD to the library. Patrick and I drove to Los Gatos. It was Patrick's first time driving on the freeway with me in the car, and his first time in 5th gear ever. He's been learning to drive my car, and it's taken him a while, but he's doing very well. Samantha's 1st birthday party at Oak Meadow Park in Los Gatos. Samantha is the daughter of my cousin Johnson. It was my first time seeing Henry and Rachel in a long time. Met Lauren (9) and Ethan (6, soon to be 7). Corinna and Allison were there. Dexter arrived and had some trouble with a gift tag, so I let him borrow my pen. Patrick and I dropped off late/early birthday presents for Matthew. I dropped off a roll of cork for my sister, picked up the Apple MacBook that Johnson got for me for Tina. Afterwards while on our way to Travis's place we drove for a few blocks through suburbia/bizparkland and were shocked that we hadn't passed a Starbucks in over a minute. Patrick was dying of thirst, but in the next block we found a Safeway with a Starbucks inside -- saved! Patrick crawled up to the counter and ordered a tall mocha frappuccino, no whip. Chatted with Travis at his place, then we three took a walk through the business district of Campbell. It's quiet and charming, reminded us a little of Palo Alto but without the crowds or superfancy restaurants. Very down-to-earth. Took photos of the historic Ainsley House which had an unusual and beautiful roof of wood tiles. A reroofing project was in progress. Home. Stopped at BevMo!. It was Patrick's first time, and I laughed when I pulled out a shopping cart upon entering and he asked me, "What are you getting a cart for?" and I said, "Just wait and see." He had never been before and didn't realize how much stuff he might want. We ended up getting a pretty full shopping cart of beverages for us and as gifts for others. It was fun. Home. I tried on clothes that were altered -- everything looks good. Showers. Dinner at home with Patrick: herb ravioli with spinach and cheese in garlic arrostito tomato sauce with mushrooms. Patrick also had a bagel, which I thought was weird, but he's a breadlover. (I mean that only in the eating sense.) Watched The Queen (2006) on DVD with Patrick. Sam had let us borrow the DVD. I didn't know anything about the film before seeing it except I looked it up on IMDB -- a 7.6 rating, which is above my threshold of 7.2. When I first saw the photographers on motorcycles, I realized what was going to happen next, and I felt a chill of fear and dread come over me. My favorite part of the film was the scene at the river. This scene says so much with so little so poignantly. I was surprised to see that so many flowers were placed at the gates of Buckingham Palace. I couldn't recall seeing this television footage before. (I have never owned my own television, and this comes as somewhat of a pleasant shock to me even as I type this.) Of course I remember the events surrounding her death, but I cannot recall them having a significant effect on me at the time. I have never liked the idea of monarchies, and I have never particularly liked the British people as a whole. I did like their music, though. And Diana always did seem to me to be a figure of grace and beauty and compassion. Stayed up late to work on paper deliverables (restroom sign, gift certificate) and webwork for Danny. Late meal: leftover japanese rice and a chicken leg.

Slept in. Brunch at Namu (439 Balboa) with Mom Ryan and Tony Q. I realized that Namu sounds like the name of a place to which people in Star Wars might travel. Tony decided to walk home. Patrick, Mom Ryan, and I drove to Golden Gate Park to visit the de Young Museum exhibit of Vivienne Westwood, a notable fashion designer. Steaven had mentioned that the audio tour was excellent, so we all go the audio tour and it was indeed very helpful and well done. I was most amazed by the sheer volume of different kinds of designs that were presented -- and each one an artistic masterpiece. I could only imagine how much fabric ended up on the cutting room floor in order for these pieces to have emerged. Genius was the word that repeatedly came to mind as I walked through the exhibit, and frequently a smile came to my face upon engagement with her designs -- they brought joy to me even just viewing them. Patrick and I dropped off Mom Ryan at home, then walked to the Castro. We shared a skinny grande almond latte from Starbucks and did some clothes shopping. I thought it was going to be hot like yesterday, but instead it was sunny with freezing breezes. Crazy San Francisco weather! Patrick bought a Nike bathing suit from Body. I didn't find anything I liked. We shared a slice of pizza at Nizario's. Visited Mom Ryan and watched some teevee. Drove to Phil, Drew, and Danny's. Danny made pho. Allan (Alan?) and David were there, and so were Quyen and Dave. We met Patrick (PT) for the first time. Cake for dessert.

Usual oatmeal breakfast. I had been having a problem in which our MacBook purchased in 2006 would fail to disply external video through a DVI-to-VGA adapter to a VGA projector in Boot Camp running Windows XP SP2. The F7 function key (Fn+F7) failed to cycle through video output options as expected. If I restarted in OS X, F7 worked as expected. If I then started Parallels with a Win XP SP2 virtual machine, I would automatically get external video even as full screen -- no F7 key required. The solution in Boot Camp 1.2 is in the Intel Graphics Media Accelerator Driver for Mobile control panel (take a deep breath first: Start > Control Panel > Display > Settings > Advanced > Intel(R) Graphics Media Accelerator Driver for Mobile > Graphics Properties). In the Display Devices tab, set the Multiple Display option to Intel(R) Dual Display Clone, set Primary to Notebook, set Secondary to Monitor. Select Apply. Select the Display Settings tab. Set the screen resolution for Notebook to 1024 x 768, then set color quality to 32-bit. I could not find a way for this panel to let me run the display clone setting so that the notebook is the native 1280 x 800 and the external monitor is 1024 x 768 -- that would be nice. Error "You are unable to log in to account [accountname] at this time" was solved by starting OS X, deleting the user account, restarting OS X, then readding it. Installed Parallels update. Reconfigured Parallels to use the Boot Camp partition for Windows XP. Visited James at his new office in Dentistry. Gave him an Abita root beer. Lunch with James at Chow: James had a rock cod sandwich (the sandwich special), I had seafood wonton soup -- very filling. Student awards ceremony at Millberry Union. This was the first time this event had a buffet with table seating, thanks to a generous sponsor. Salad, bread and butter, (basmati?), asparagus, eggplant, chicken boobs, platter of assorted finger desserts: petit fours, cookies, chocolates, etc. I ran the slideshow. The event went very well due to careful planning. I do not envy Cindy the burden of this event -- she did a great job this year, perhaps the best year ever. Printed reports for the SCC wireless survey; we have a meeting tomorrow. Home late.