November, 2010

This weeks starts the on and off taper of training, and I only have 6 more weeks.  The weeks of training now will be filled with shorter mileage followed by longer miles, pretty much right up until the marathon.  I have to tell you I getting:

EXCITED!

I am looking forward to the run, and good times.  More importantly I am looking forward to my 2 year olds first visit to Disney World.  She visits my office daily to talk about going to see the castle and take pictures with all of the characters.  I am very thankful for that, which brings to wish everybody:

Have a great Thanksgiving!

Hopefully you are getting to travel to see your loved ones or family.   :-)  Here is my week of training or how I am thinking about it this week, I will be able to eat lots of turkey!

Almost completely full, still a few minutes.  Although I would recommend if you sign up now, you are in training and ready to roll:

Marathon registration at 94%!
Half Marathon registration at 98%!
Goofy Challenge at 98%!

Good afternoon everyone, and thank you for your patience.  Here are the questions I got from events over the last few weeks, let me know what you think and if you need more information let me know.

Q: Where can I learn more about the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT)?
A: You can learn more about the MDT here: Microsoft Deployment Toolkit Also remember the MDT has some great built in documentation when you download the tool.

Q: What about OEM versions and using the MDT?

• Here is a great podcast: How Do I: Create a Standard Windows 7 Image for OEM Suppliers with the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit?
• You will also want to look at this site for even more tools: http://www.microsoft.com/oem/en/training/windowsopk/pages/default.aspx

Q:What are the requirements for the MDT?
A: Here are the requirements from here: Microsoft Deployment Toolkit 

• Supported Operating Systems:Windows 7;Windows Server 2003 R2 Enterprise Edition (32-Bit x86);Windows Server 2003 R2 Standard Edition (32-bit x86);Windows Server 2008;Windows Server 2008 R2;Windows Vista Service Pack 1;Windows Vista Service Pack 2

• Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Vista Service Pack 2, Windows Server 2008 Service Pack 2, Windows Server 2003 R2, Windows XP Service Pack 3.

• MMC 3.0 is required to run the Workbench and view the documentation on Windows XP.

Note MMC 3.0 is included in Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2003 R2, Windows 7, and Windows Vista.

• Microsoft Deployment Toolkit 2010 Update 1 relies on several Windows deployment tools. After installation of the .msi package and startup of the Deployment Workbench, the user can choose to automatically download and install the following major tools from the Components:

• Windows Automated Installation Kit

• Application Compatibility Toolkit

• MSXML 6.0
• Microsoft Office Word or Word Viewer (available as a free download) can be used to view Word documents
• Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint File Formats (available as a free download) can be used to open, edit, and save documents, workbooks, and presentations in the file formats new to Microsoft Office.

Q: Where can I find the slides?
A: Slides are located here: http://blogs.technet.com/b/matthewms/archive/2010/10/27/technet-events-windows-7-deployment-firestarter-slides.aspx

Quiz number 4 just opened up a little but ago!  Get in an get registered!

Quiz 4:  November 18, 2010
November 17, 8:01 p.m. EST  (7:01 p.m. CST, 6:01 p.m MST, 5:01 p.m. PST)

Click here to register: http://imaginecup.com/register

If you are not familiar with the challenge, the Imagine Cup IT Challenge is designed to highlight the art and science of developing, deploying, and maintaining IT systems that are efficient, functional, robust, and secure.

Simply put, we want to see who really knows their stuff when it comes to IT systems. We’re talking genuine IT geniuses. Information technology experts. 

Are you a student, do you know a student or are you going back to school and can you answer this question, if you do, you may be ready for the challenge:

Which DNS Zone resolves IP address to a fully qualified host names?

A. Forward Lookup Zone
B. Reverse Lookup Zone
C. Stub Zone
D. DNS Zone

To learn more about the contest, check out my blog from last month: Students Are You Up for a Challenge? Enter the Imagine Cup 2011 IT Challenge NOW!

So last week I talked about getting back to it and I happy to announce this week was fun and I found the training fun and great!  However, it got me thinking about a time when I did not get back into it and I wanted to share the story.  So this is a bit different,.  I do not meant to scare anyone out of running, but I hope this post you learn to have a safer run.  That is the way it should be.

The reason I stressed about not slipping, is I did this going into the 2005 Marine Corps marathon.  During my training, I had missed a few runs, and I got 16 miles in one weekend.  The next week I was sick, and just told myself 16 is enough, and I really blew off the rest of my training.  I did not get back to it, and I learned the very hard lesson of:

pay during training or pay during the marathon.

So I went into the run, and I cratered right around mile 20.  Mile 20 is when the lack of training, proper nutrition, proper hydration all came to a head in a perfect storm.  I finished but I was hurting pretty bad.  As I was going through going through the food line, bagels, Gatorade, water, bananas….etc.  I found a place and I tried to eat..  That is right I tried to eat.   I could not eat and barely sip the water I had.  I thought I was just tired, and decided to sit and rest for a minute.  I sat down, and started to cool down and felt a little bit better. 

I still could not eat, so I decided to stand up and walk around a bit to try to keep loose.  When I stood up my vision started to tunnel and I got real foggy and hazy.  Lucky for me a Marine volunteer was nearby and I told him I did not feel right.  They had me sit down while they took my blood pressure.  I remember them telling me it was really low and they had my lie down.  My blood pressure seemed to get better, and they had me sit-up but the tunnel vision came back, and they had me lie back down.

This is when they  informed me I was going to get a free ambulance ride,  I was dehydrated. and remembered thinking wow, did I really mess up.  I was a little nervous, as they wheeled me into the back of the ambulance and I met Ann who would by emt on the 10 minute ride to the hospital.    Ann was fantastic, and as I was laying there she was going through the litany of questions, height, age, weight…etc.   Then she got to my favorite question here is my transcript

• Ann: Do you hurt anywhere?
• Me: Lady, I just got done running a marathon, and I hurt everywhere!
• Ann: Okay, smart aleck, aside from marathon pain do you hurt anywhere?
• Me: No, I am fine.

As you could imagine, I was extremely thankful to have the wonderful volunteers and staff to make sure I made it back home safely.  As I was reflecting back, I realized I had not trained hard enough, and that more than any other reason was why I cratered.  It also got me more in tune with my body and listen to the signals, it also told me I have to train for my next one, and my wife sent me an interesting article about some of the risks:

Marathon runners suffer temporary heart damage 

So train hard and train smart, here is this weeks schedule:

Still have 2% left to be Goofy!

• Marathon registration at 92%!
• Half Marathon registration at 96%!
• Goofy Challenge at 98%!

One of the great things I get to do is do live events.  Well my buddy John Baker has taken the sessions we are doing right now and recorded them. You can watch the sessions here: Deployment Essentials with John Baker

I cannot say it enough to the veterans:

Thank you!

Thank you for all of your support and sacrifice!  Thank you to my Dad, Barry, Carla and Bill (still active Duty) for being a proud group of Navy Veterans for our country!  Please take time today to thank a Veteran in your life!

  I also wanted share with you how Microsoft is saying thank you to the veterans:

Microsoft Honoring our troops and veterans

I am very happy to see my company step to say thank you as well.  I also did some digging around the website and saw they are having a contest for veterans to win a free Kinect.   Take a look at the contest here the contest will run from November 8^th through November 12^th 2010 and the winners will be announced the first week in December:

Veterans: Win an Xbox 360 with the brand new Kinect sensor

As most of you know my favorite team is the Cleveland Browns.  As you most of you I also love technology.  Well in this Bytes by  TechNet I get the best of both worlds.  I got a chance to interview a friend of mine, Brandon Covert, Director of IT for the Cleveland Browns.  Brandon and I talk about how an NFL team like the Browns and the football industry leverage Microsoft technologies. We discuss, how Windows Server R2, Windows 7, SQL Server 2008, SharePoint 2010 and Exchange 2010 are used to help with scouting, player evaluation, statistical reporting, the player selection process and ticket sales analysis. Tune in and get a technical glimpse "behind the scenes" of how the NFL Cleveland Browns run!

Go Browns!

I know you have all watched a reality show at one time or another and thought to yourself, I can do that!  Well here is your chance more importantly it is about Technology!  Right now we are looking for folks like you to share your IT journey with the world.  Right now casting is going on, and they are looking for candidates:

• Are you Planning your next career move?
• Are you looking for a new technology-focused career?
• Does your career trajectory need a boost?
• Have you been looking for a job in the IT industry without much success?
• Are you a graduating technology student who is looking for a job?
• Have you considered entering the Microsoft Certified Masters program?
• Are you looking to develop applications for Azure and Windows Phone 7?

If one of these situations sounds familiar, then we want you to apply for Career Factor, an online reality show beginning in January 2011.  Microsoft will select 9 dynamic individuals and provide them with training, certification and other learning resources as they attempt to meet a career-related goal.  Their efforts will be captured in blog posts, videos, and interactions with the Microsoft community through social media and digital media. The show will run until May 2011, culminating in a free trip to TechEd North America. 

If you are selected to be profiled in this online reality show, you will have access to Microsoft’s resources as we help you achieve your goals and be in the spotlight in a highly visible Microsoft campaign. 

For more information about the campaign and application process, please visit Casting Call: Microsoft Career Factor

While last week could be summed in two words, this week is summed up in on 3 letter acronym:

DNF

For runners you know what that means, did not finish.  However, you may be wondering why that is the summary for my week of training.  Simple I got a cold and Laryngitis.  Now I could have muscled through and try to get the runs in, but that would have most likely lead to being sicker longer. So I chose not to run, and get healthy to allow my body to heal so I could get Back to it this week!. 

Before I met Jimmy, I would have probably spent all of this week trying to figure how to make up the mileage.  I think often times as runners we unnecessarily beat ourselves up over missing training weeks.  Yeah I have done the same thing, but sometimes you have to let it go, and Get Back To It.

• You missed the week training, so what move on. 
• You did not get the exact mileage you needed to, maybe because you ran out of time, let it go.
• You bonked on a run, evaluate why and Get Back To It!.,

Also at the same time enjoy your time running, and pat yourself on the back when you achieve a PR, run that extra mile.  Take time to always enjoy your runs and success.  Take time as your running to look around, enjoy the day, the sunrise, the sunset.  My personal favorite after going up a big hill, stop at the top and look back to remind yourself what you did!

My only word of caution is do not let 1 week ruin your training.  Getting Back To IT is vitality important!  When you miss a week you have to be careful that it does not become two weeks, then 3 weeks, then heck I will pay later.  That is the type of mentality when you training for a long run like a marathon that really cause you to get hurt!   Maybe next week I will tell you how this happened to me first hand at the Marine Corps Marathon, because I failed to get back to it!

But simple message for this week is Get Back To It!

Still have 2% left to be Goofy!

• Marathon registration at 92%!
• Half Marathon registration at 96%!
• Goofy Challenge at 98%!

Hey everyone, just wanted to let you know of a great upcoming meeting on Nov. 9th from 6-8 p.m. for the NEW SharePoint group in Dayton.:

DAYSPUG 

They have their kickoff meeting, and it promises to be a good one!   Their main speaker will be Shane Young, Microsoft SharePoint MVP.

Shane Young - Owner / Principal SharePoint Consultant
Shane has over 13 years experience architecting and administering large-scale server farms using Microsoft enterprise technologies. For the past five years, he has been working exclusively with SharePoint Products and Technologies as a consultant and trainer. Shane has been recognized by Microsoft as an authority on SharePoint and is among an elite group of Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 MVP’s.

He has architected SharePoint solutions for clients ranging from 20 to 50,000 users. Shane is a renowned speaker at national and international SharePoint conferences. He is also the author of several of the leading SharePoint 2007 and 2010 SharePoint Training courses. Shane also maintains a popular SharePoint Admin blog.

Checkout and register for the meeting here: DAYSPUG

These folks did, mine should be on the doorstep later today, and my boss wonders why I am having a sick day.  :-) 

Happy Xbox 360 Kinect Day!

Check out Kinect, they showed it this morning on Good Morning America, if you did not watch TV this morning here is the clip

This is the halfway point week, at midweek I reach half way through the training.  So on Wednesday it becomes 8 weeks down and by weeks end 8 weeks to go!

This last week was an interesting week of training, and I surprised myself a bit.  My 17 miler on Saturday was interesting, I decided to switch my run days because of my schedule and it worked out.  However, I have 1 word, that frighten the most stout of distance runners,  that will describe my 17 mile 2:49:31 Saturday run:

Treadmill.

That is right, I did all 17 on the treadmill.  First I did not think I could do and I dreaded the start over, because if you gym is like my gym most treadmill’s have a 60 minute time limit, so I had to reset 3 times.  Which actually worked out, the resetting allowed me to eat, and get focused and I played the game.  I treated it like 3 separate runs, and it really worked out.  So you might be wondering how did I make it through, well I have two words for that:

College Football

Got to love those TV’s and being able to watch 3 hours of college football on Saturday, and getting to eat and drink (Gatorade) at the same time.  Ahh  a little slice of heaven.  Seriously, so why did I run when I could have gone outside.  I think in part it is because I got spoiled from living in TX, and my neighborhood there, I had runs where I could go out 10 miles turn around and come back, no looping, no multiple laps, just go straight and turn around.  Unfortunately my new neighborhood is not like that, and the trails around me are about 1/2 hour drive away.  Not a lot, but I when I do to run, I want throw on my shorts, shirt shoes, socks, and tunes and go.  My gym is about 1 mile from the house, and this week I will most likely do the same.  Fits better with my schedule, and after all it will only be 12 miles on the treadmill.  Have a great week! 

Here is what is in store for me this week:

Only a FEW more slots are open for the runs:

• Marathon registration at 91%!
• Half Marathon registration at 94%!
• Goofy Challenge at 97%!

 Quiz number just opened up a couple hours ago!  Get in an get registered!

Quiz 3:  November 2, 2010
November 1, 8:01 p.m. EST  (7:01 p.m. CST, 6:01 p.m MST, 5:01 p.m. PST)

Click here to register: http://imaginecup.com/register

If you are not familiar with the challenge, the Imagine Cup IT Challenge is designed to highlight the art and science of developing, deploying, and maintaining IT systems that are efficient, functional, robust, and secure.

Simply put, we want to see who really knows their stuff when it comes to IT systems. We’re talking genuine IT geniuses. Information technology experts. 

Are you a student, do you know a student or are you going back to school and can you answer this question, if you do, you may be ready for the challenge:

Which DNS Zone resolves IP address to a fully qualified host names?

A. Forward Lookup Zone
B. Reverse Lookup Zone
C. Stub Zone
D. DNS Zone

To learn more about the contest, check out my blog from last month: Students Are You Up for a Challenge? Enter the Imagine Cup 2011 IT Challenge NOW!

Thanks to my brother, who just got introduced to Christmas Ale, Keith for the post: