Filed Under (Misc.) by Kirby Witmer on 08-27-2008
Its been several months since Beta 1 was released, now Microsoft has announced that Beta 2 of Internet Explorer 8 is available. I’ve downloaded and installed the beta and here is a quick overview of the installation process and new features.
Installing…

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Filed Under (Misc.) by Kirby Witmer on 08-26-2008

Its been over two years ago that I cautiously started my own business endeavor called Kirbtech. At the time, I opted to put up a one page website with just an overview of the various services that Kirbtech offered. Unfortunately that one page has been up for 2+ years!! Well, I’m pleased to announce we’ve finally launched a new version of www.kirbtech.com. Its still a work in progress, and I have more ideas to implement yet. The good folks at insightdesignworks.com were responsible for the initial design, although I’ve been heavily tweaking it since. So check it out, and let me know your critiques, comments, and ideas!
Filed Under (Misc.) by Kirby Witmer on 08-21-2008
I’ve moderated comments here for quite some time already, but I thought I would make an official comment policy so that everyone knows what it is.
- All spam is deleted.
- Comments using keywords, spam or splog-like URLs, or suspicious information in the comment form will be edited or deleted. I have no time for comments that contain keywords pointing to a URL. I will remove the URL before approving the comment.
- Personal attacks are not tolerated.
- Stay on topic. Off topic comments may be deleted.
I will update this policy from time to time as needed. Last update: 8/21/2008
Filed Under (Misc.) by Kirby Witmer on 08-14-2008

I’ve been looking for a good gas pricing widget for the Windows Vista Sidebar for awhile, and I just now found one that I like. It is a very slick gadget that allows you to display results for three different grades of gas and even Diesel!

This Gadget / Widget will also work with a whole host of other services like Yahoo Widgets, Google Desktop, Blogger, Wordpress, etc. You can configure & download the widget at automotive.com.
Ohh.. and here is another totally unrelated but cool gadget. Panda Watching at the San Diego Zoo.
Filed Under (Misc.) by Kirby Witmer on 07-23-2008
Its a good thing I didn’t have to wait this long!

(sorry for the low quality image, I wanted to grab it real quick before it disappeared.)
Filed Under (Misc.) by Kirby Witmer on 07-18-2008
Microsoft has started a new advertising campaign the way it looks. I was wondering how long Microsoft would sit idly back and let the press & Apple beat them up.
Windows Vista: Look how far we’ve come
…….But we know a few of you were disappointed by your early encounter. Printers didn’t work. Games felt sluggish. You told us—loudly at times—that the latest Windows wasn’t always living up to your high expectations for a Microsoft product.
Well, we’ve been taking notes and addressing issues.
So as we prepare to stop selling Windows XP on June 30, it felt like the right time to update you on our progress, highlighted by the recent release of Windows Vista Service Pack 1 (SP1).
While we’re at it, we’d like to clear up some confusion and lingering misunderstandings about Windows Vista—and our plans for its predecessor, Windows XP.
Bonus Fact:
Did you know that more than 140 million copies of Windows Vista have already sold, making it the fastest selling operating system in Microsoft history.
Filed Under (Misc.) by Kirby Witmer on 07-11-2008
Microsoft has announced that effective November 1, 2008, OEM’s will no longer be able to license Windows for Workgroups 3.11 in the embedded channel. :gasp: I guess I should stock up on some copies, before its gone forever!
Update: Paul made a graphic.

Filed Under (Misc.) by Kirby Witmer on 07-11-2008
……..iTunes locking up in the Chicago AT&T flagship earlier this morning. We’re hearing that the servers are now definitely down after being intermittently active for the past few hours, and that customers are either being turned away or sent home from both Apple and AT&T stores to activate at home using iTunes. Via Engadget
That is like really funny. Perhaps Apple needs to upgrade to Windows Server 2008?
Update: I just love this classic comment: “hello I am a pc….wait where is mac? This was supposed to be a teleconference?”
Filed Under (Misc.) by Kirby Witmer on 07-08-2008

I’ve been a fan of Windows Vista for a long time, but it takes some people a few years to see the light. Welcome Mike, to Windows Vista. Mike mentions the fact that in light of all the nay-saying he hears, he was scared to even attempt it. In actuality though, the upgrade was smooth, and he likes Vista. What is interesting to me is that I don’t hear complaints about Windows Vista from my customers that are actually running Vista. In fact I just got this email from a customer of mine, after I mentioned to him about a XP laptop I had on sale.
Looks good, the only problem is Vic wants Vista.
Ohh. I thought everyone was saying XP is the way to go.
Most of the negativism about Windows Vista is coming from the press, mac zealots, digg & slashdot. Personally, I’m tired of all the untrue anti-vista bashing. (and so is Paul) Stop it already.
Filed Under (Misc.) by Kirby Witmer on 07-08-2008
I just realized today that my MySQL slave box was like way out of sync. Yikes. The error message was ‘Duplicate Entry’. Which is like weird, because this is simply a replicated slave box, why would there be a duplicate entry anyway? After much searching I discovered this fix that worked like a charm. Just add the following line to the [mysqld] section of the slave’s my.cnf file.
slave-skip-errors = 1062
It worked, BUT is this a good idea? anyone have a better idea?