About a year ago, I announced to the the world that I was leaving Toolhouse after 5 years to begin a new chapter here at AudienceCentral / PIER Systems. Looking back through my email archives, I think I actually accepted the position on May 10th, but I didn’t actually start until June 12th, so it hasn’t been quite a year.
What a difference a year makes.
As I look back over the reasons I originally had (and gave others) for leaving Toolhouse, I’m struck by the degree to which I got exactly what I had asked for. When I made the jump, I said I was doing it because the new job would provide me new opportunities to learn and grow. It has certainly done that, and to a greater degree than I had anticipated — just not quite in the ways I had imagined ;).
It has definitely been an adventure so far.
Back in 2005, I ran the Portland Marathon. When I first set out to run a marathon that year, running and I didn’t really get along so well. Since then, we’ve become better friends, but we still don’t see enough of each other, if you catch my meaning.
About a month or so ago I heard that there was going to be a marathon here in Bellingham. I thought to myself, “Self, it’s about time you ran another one.” Excellent, right? Well, it turns out I had the same idea last January. In fact, back then, I even managed to start getting in shape (best shape I’d been for at least 10 years).
Well, a various things came up. A trip to Guatemala (fantastic) in February and a a new job (not fantastic) in June and a busy summer social calendar sidetracked my plans. Well, if I’m going to do it this year, I’ve got no time to waste. As such, I hereby my intention to run the Bellingham Bay Marathon in October.
Last time, I trained and did everything by myself. I had to, because I wasn’t even sure if I was physically capable of making it. Now that I know I am, I hoping to find a running and/or marathon buddy or two to join me.
Today I called Microsoft to order some Windows 2000 Terminal Services CALs.
Once I get over just how foreign it is to have to call a company to acquire a license in order to let someone access the server in a slightly different fashion (e.g. via Terminal Services), it seems like it should be simple enough. In fact, they even appear to make it easy for you. Launch the Terminal Services Licensing application and select the menu item that says “Add Client Access Licenses” or something like that. It gives you a phone number and some crazy long License Server ID to give the nice Hyderabadian on the other end of the line. This is where it gets interesting…
Dial the number. “Welcome to the Windows XP Activation Service.” Huh? Keep listening. “…and I can also help you with Windows Terminal Services Licensing.” Finally. What, Microsoft can’t afford to dedicate an 800 number to this thing? O.K., step through 2 levels of voice tree only to be placed on hold. Wait time was short enough, so not too bad.
“Hello, my name is [unintelligible]. How can I help you today?”
“Yes, I’d like to obtain some Windows Terminal Services CALs.”
“Please read me the license key.”
“You mean the License Server ID?”
“You’re wanting to install Terminal Server CALs, correct?”
“Yes, but I don’t have the license key yet. That’s why I’m calling. I need to obtain them first. It says to call this number to do that.”
“Oh, o.k. read me the License Server ID.”
“[reading really long alphanumeric string over the phone]”
“What is your volume licensing program id?”
“Huh? What’s that? We don’t use volume licensing.”
“O.K., you need to contact the Microsoft Reseller.”
“Which Microsoft Reseller? The product says to obtain the licenses from this phone number.”
“Oh, please tell me your product ID.”
“You mean the Product ID for Windows 2000? I don’t have it with me. Shouldn’t the License Server ID cover that? I mean, isn’t that why you require Terminal Server activation and all that?”
“It should be on the product packaging.”
“Right. I don’t usually keep the product packaging handy for a product I originally purchased 4 years ago. I’m really going to have to dig that out of wherever to do this?”
“Yes.”
“Great. Thanks a million.”
“Thank you for calling Microsoft. Have a great day.”
So, now to go dig up the product key and then repeat the process. I’m still confused as to how this model of software constitutes a greater value to small businesses than Free Software. Knowing Microsoft, I’ll call back only to be told that Windows 2000 is an EOL product, so I can only buy additional CALs if I spend hundreds of dollars to upgrade to Windows 2003 Server or Windows Vista Server. All so that I can let one additional computer interact with the server.
I changed the theme of the site. As far as I can tell, it works great in Firefox 2 and the latest Safari. It mostly works in IE 7 (still needs some fine tuning) and probably looks like total crap in IE 6. That’s o.k., though, I’m not really much inclined to spend a lot of time tweaking it to work with IE 6’s broken CSS implementation.
It does need some refining (for instance, a link to the comments from the front page).
Mark Pilgrim on Silverlight and Apollo:
No. Not this time. At some point, you just have to give up on virgins. Y’all have fun. Play with your vendor-specific runtimes. Don’t call me when you wake up one morning with a pink line in the round window and your BFF vendor won’t return your calls. If you need me (but of course you won’t), I’ll be holed up in my drab unpainted toolshed around the corner, quietly building applications on the web that works.
