But, considering that I'm one of the authors on this book, it only makes sense that I should also post a link on my blog.  So, if you want the free chapter click:

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Today, I got a good question from a friend of mine.  Let's call my friend Steve, after all his name is Steve.  Anyhow, my friend wanted to return all users within a domain that did not have a ByteArray value of FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF for the logonHours attribute.  Naturally, I said to myself that is easy enough, here is your filter statement:

!(logonHours=FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF)

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For some time now, I've wanted to document how to setup a custom 404 page that can handle link redirection for an ASP.NET web application.  In my case, I just needed to customize the 404 behavior to handle custom redirects for a DotNetNuke site that I was setting up.  But, others might find these steps useful to handle broken links or other creative error handling behavior they want to build into their sites/applications.

Anyhow, to set this up the first step is to create your custom 404.aspx page.  In my case that page looked something like this:

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Noticed an interesting bit of news today: Link

Basically, Seagate announced some new FDE drives, Dell is now OEM partner for the drives, and the new drives will include software from McAfee for the enterprise wide management of laptops.  Hold on... so basically McAfee's takeover of Safeboot was not to gain a leg up on the software based FDE market.  Instead, they only wanted Safeboot so that they could use/extend their management software to manage an HFDE solution.  :>)

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Yesterday, while clicking around on the BBC Web site for a live election coverage feed (remember, I'm in Japan), I had a WTF moment.  Basically, I had stumbled across an article titled "The end of an era - Windows 3.x".  In summary, the article explained that on November 1^st 2008 Microsoft stopped allowing licenses for Windows for Workgroups 3.11 to be purchased for an embedded system.

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This weekend (despite being really sick) Maiko and I went back to her home town in Shiga prefecture.  The goal was to just visit her parents, but because I always complain that we never do any touristy stuff, her mom decided to take us to a "Temple Night View".

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I seem to be in a very PowerShell mood these past couple of days... hence yet another PSH post.  I'd expect at least yet another post once I figure out a CTP2 eventing issue I'm trying to work around.  Then... I will most likely move to some Identity Management stuff I have been wanting to talk about.  Or... maybe I will talk about some Vista security stuff.  We shall see

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Sorry... no Japanese blog this week.  My weekend was pretty boring.  On Saturday, the rest of our stuff arrived by sea.  So, we spent most of the weekend un-packing. But I've been in the process of updating a PowerShell script of mine.

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Time for some shameful self promotion!  In case everyone didn't know, "we" were working on the 2^nd edition of the PowerShell Unleashed book.  I use the term we, because this time around both Pete Handley (contributing author from the first edition) and Marco Shaw (PowerShell MVP) joined me on what turned into an almost complete re-write.  Yup... we not only made some changes... but we also updated and add a lot of new content.

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I've been meaning to blog about an annoying SPS 2007 behavior/issue for some time now.  But, hey I've been so busy exploring Japan that my technical postings have kinda been MIA.

Anyhow... maybe you have encountered this problem, maybe not.  SPS 2007 is installed, configured, and running fine.  Then for some strange reason, your users start getting Access Denied messages.  Sadly, you check and check, and double check your permissions, configuration, etc. and still cannot find the root cause.

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Ok, get out your robot decoder rings.  I got to go to a Robot show this weekend!

A good friend of mine (Takuya-san) was not able to go to a robot show called ROBO_JAPAN.  So, he asked me if I wanted to go.  Naturally, I said yes.  After all, going to a robot show is like going to candy store when you are kid.  You just don't turn down those types of offers.

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Here is a little tidbit that I've been meaning to post for some time now (sorry the move kinda had me side tracked).  Anyhow, I was working with MS support on a Windows Server 2003 certificate template issue.  To show the escalation engineer that the issue was reproducible, I replicated (or at least thought I replicated the issue just before leaving for Japan) using a 2008 based CA within my home lab.

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This weekend I went with Maiko and two of our friends to a Tokyo neighborhood called Kichijōji (吉祥寺).  I hadn't been there yet, so I wasn't sure what we would find.  Needles to say, it was a pretty interesting place which was dominated by a large and dynamic shopping area. This was not just another boring department store or Ginza-like area.  Kichijoji is crazy busy, and full of life.

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If you may have remembered, I once made the following comment in a previous post of mine: "Interestingly, enough this was also what GreenBorder did before they were purchased by Google."  In that post I happened to be talking about a favorite program of mine called Sandboxie.

Well, with the release of Chrome... the truth has recently surfaced to as why Google snatched GreenBorder up.  Naturally, I had my suspicions after Chrome first releases given the "sandboxing" that Chrome was doing.  As I said in the past... I just haven't gotten around to doing a deep dive, thus I haven't really dug into the technical aspects of this new browser.  But, then again... I'm also a little concerned with Google becoming the gatekeeper for everything.  So, I'm going to wait a bit to see where this goes.

Anyhow, it wasn't until reading through a portion of this article on ars technica and seeing something that seemed very familiar that the little light went on.  For you see, as the author points out (using fancy language), one of Chrome's security features is to intercept and rewrite API calls.  **Ding** That is pretty much what GreenBorder hence why Google purchased them.  :>)

Disclaimer

Well, the truth is... I actually know some of the members of the development team.  I used to work with them at a little company called New Moon Systems.  That being said... these guys are a really good at understanding the internals of Windows development.  So, when it comes to the question in the article about whether or not Google reverse engineered Windows, I just need to smile.

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Ok, I about busted a gut when a co-worker of mine brought this can of interesting food in for me from Akihabara.  The can of food is called Oden （おでん）.  As you can see from the following picture, there is an interesting little guy on the front whose name is Gates-chan.  Yes, that is supposed to be good old Bill Gates!

Not to be confused with a traditional Japanese food, these Oden food cans are apparently very popular within the Japanese Otaku culture.  In fact, there is one vending machine in Akihabara that is very famous for dispensing Oden food cans, from which this can most likely came from.  :>)  On my next trip, I will try to take a picture.  Also, on an interesting side note… there are many different foods that you can get in an Oden can.  These foods range from Oden-currey, Oden-bread, Oden-ramen, etc…

The whole concept is just buy, pop, and eat!

Wow, this has been one crazy weekend.  My Friday night started out by riding the train from Tamachi station to Shibuya station.  I thought the train was crowded when I first got on, but by the train arrived at Shibuya station it had become a sardine can.  So, there I was, cowered in the corner, not needing to hold on to anything because "other bodies" were holding me up.  In other words, crazy packed...

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As promised, this is the first in a series of postings about my daily experiences while living in Japan and the many technological marvels that I'm sure to discover while here.

Please note that these posts are in addition to my normal "Microsoft and Technology" based posts.  In other words, I'm doing this because I thought that is might be interesting to talk about how a run of the mill IT Geek adjusts to living outside in a very foreign land.  Ok... disclaimer, Japan is not that foreign.  I've been to Japan numerous occasions for either business, vacation, or to see family.  :>)  In either case, my experiences should make from some interesting reading.

Anyhow, moving on...  Actually living and having to function in Japan has been a very eye-opening experience.  Granted it's only been a week, but I've started to notice things at a completely different level then from my past "short stays" here.  For starters, I've been very dependent on my wife for a number of different things.  For example, just getting an Internet connection installed at your house can be daunting task if you don't have a native speaker in tow.  And, this isn't because you can't do it, Japanese customer service is amazing and most people here will do almost anything to help you.  Instead, trying to do certain things yourself is very time intensive, not to mention the numerous chances for miscommunication about what you are actually buying.

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We crossed the International Date Line about an hour ago and I ran out of movies to watch.  Considering that I have a couple hours to kill, I figured it might be a great time to write up my next post.

I typed this on Tuesday during our flight.  But, I only just now got around to posting this entry.  This is a long story and I will explain in my next post.

Let's see, last time, I was talking about my move, a little about Chrome (no I haven't installed it yet), and my need to better protected personal information (in other words eat my own dog food).   I also believe that in my last post, I needed to explain the solution I was devising to achieve my data protection goal.

That being said, let's summarize my requirements.

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Well, we moved out of our house and this week I have been focusing on getting everything ready for our move to Japan next Monday (September 8^th).  That being said, the vacation is over, and it's time to start blogging again.  :>)

To start things off, I figured I talk about Google Chrome.   After all, it seems like just mentioning it will guarantee someone will read this post (HA, seriously enough people!).  Anyhow, I haven't had the chance to really look at it.  But, I wasn't really surprise about the announcement.  Instead, it was just a matter of time before Google did this, and in doing this they have:

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In case you have noticed, I haven't been blogging that much lately.  No, I'm dropping off... instead there is a really good reason.  Changes are in the works, and I've been a bit busy putting those changes into place...

As of September 8^th, I'll be moving to the land of the rising sun (Tokyo - Japan).  That being said, I have been taking care of a number of personal items over the past few weeks, hence the low number of postings on my blog.  Anyhow, after completing the move, I've decided to change the format of blog around to spice things up.  The following is a summary of these changes:

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