Photo Recap of Summer 2009

As always happens with me, I get tied up doing one thing after another and don’t get to post as much as I’d like. I’ve decided to spend the last two nights working on getting photos online from the last 5 major events of the summer thus far. Rather than do my “12-page thing” where I talk on and on and on about every little detail, I’m just going to recap the highlights of each of the events here and let you see the photos for yourself if you’d like.

 

CompTIA Breakaway 2009

Vegas baby! What else needs to be said, right? CompTIA invited me this year to attend Breakaway in Las Vegas. Amy decided to take off work and fly out there with me, and together we got to experience a lot of “first times” together. First time I’d been to vegas, been to a casino, been on a vacation, gambled, etc. (Seriously, I’ve never taken a vacation really… this was really cool.)

They put us up in the Mirage Hotel and Casino from August 3rd –August 6th. I won’t even go into the horrible US Airways trouble we had… that would set a wrong tone for this post. I’ll just say that the event itself was great. I spent my days going to classes, meeting vendors, making new network connections. Amy spent her days getting nails done, toes done, hair done, trying on $800.00 worth of underwear,  just about everything “done” a girl can get done.  I got to meet Jenn Pyle in person, my Comptia rep. She’s a really cool person. It was great to see Nancy in person, meet Chris Rue, see Amy Luby from MSPSN again, and just an overall awesome experience. Jeff Bartow will always have a special place in Amy’s heart for making the trip fun for her. She was a little lost amidst the 1100 geeks and he gave her someone to laugh with who wasn’t in geek-network mode all the time… although I do think Jenn almost killed him when he kept making jokes during the governor’s speech!

The photos from the event are online at: CompTIA Breakaway 2009

 

Geekend 2009

Wow. Geek Week this year was amazing. This was the third (I think) but the first I’ve ever been able to attend. I really have to thank all the folks that made it possible. You’re all amazing. In short, since I was already going to be in Vegas in August and since Vegas is only 3 hours from Tim, James, Amy L, and Shak, they decided to host Geek Week around my trip, which made it much more possible for me to attend. (Thanks again CompTia for paying for the flights!)

Amy and I hung out at Tim and James’ house from Thurdsday August 6th until Monday August 10th. I had a lot more firsts while I was here. Let me see if I can think of them all:

First time I:

• Went to California
• Got to swim in the Pacific (that’s three oceans I’ve visited now)
• Drove a Mini Cooper (Thanks again Amy!)
• Drove the Sunset Strip WAY faster than legally recommended.
• Went to an off-broadway production. (I saw Hair with the gang. Thanks again whoever came up with that idea.)
• Got to meet all the gang I’ve been gamin with for the last 4 and a half years.
• Had… whatever that stuff Tim made for breakfast was.
• Hung out with 14 people and MY sexual preference was in the minority! (God, the stories I’ll never tell.)
• Went on Vacation with Amy.
• Went to the San Diego Zoo

It was an amazing experience I’ll never forget. Thanks so much to all of you who came. It was really nice to meet everyone, especially Guy’s daughter, Serafina. I’ve heard her in the background talking for years now but I’ve never met her until now. She’s an amazingly cute little girl and awfully sweet. (She definitely gets none of that from Guy.)

The pictures are online at: Geekend 2009

 

Warning: There were 4 cameras going non-stop for 4 days, so there are a LOT of pictures from the weekend. I’ve tried to remove as many duplicates and blurry ones as possible, but I might have missed some. If anyone has any they want removed, just let me know as usual… I’ll take them down.

Note to Flickr Friends: I haven’t tagged everyone in them on Flickr, so if anyone wants to help with that, by all means feel free. There’s about 2000 tags that need to be done but it’s taken me two days just to get them all uploaded and sorted out as it is.

 

Family Reunion:

There’s not a lot to say about a family reunion in the South… it’s basically like Christmas, but hotter. The whole family gets together and we eat lunch, catch up on each other’s lives, take some pictures, then we all head on home. It was great to see everyone, but I wish more had made it. There’s a few I haven’t seen in many years that I’d love to see again, but there’s always next year I guess…

The photos are online at: Family Reunion 2009

 

Hannah’s First MHS Ball Game

My daughter is in eighth grade this year, but along with two of her classmates she was invited to play with the high school band during marching season. It was so very strange to sit in the bleachers with Michelle, EXACTLY three rows higher than we used to sit all those years ago, and watch my child playing with the high school marching redskins. Talk about nostalgia… wow. She did great and so did the team. Manteo opened the season with a victory over the Currituck Knights, and I got to see Hannah’s first marching performance. Very very cool.

The photos are online at:  MHS Marching Band 2009

 

Other Photos:

There are a few more, but it’s not special event or anything. Well, at least it’s no more special than any other day I spend with Amy, which is to say it’s always special. Anyway, here’s some pics of what we’ve been up to at the house this summer:

Photos are online at: Summer 2009

Th-Th-That’s all folks!

Till next time!

First South Bank Facebook

Ok, yeah I tagged this article just for the Google search relevance. Do you know why this Google search brought you here? It brought you here because you’re one of the FSB Admins trying to see what your employees are saying about the bank on Facebook. Yeah yeah, we all know you have a “you can’t talk about the bank on facebook or you’re fired” philosophy. How lame guys! You have an awesome bank and great customer service within your branch locations, but a really really horrible Nazi-esque executive management team.  And yes, you know who you are. Go find something better to do than clog up my server logs with traffic. lol. Don’t you have something more… executive to be doing?

Technorati Tags: First South Bank,Facebook

Windows Vista: Can’t Create New User Account (Fixed)

I ran across this problem the first time ever tonight, so I thought I’d post the fix here in case it can help anyone else.

Problem:

I just got a new laptop and don’t want that “Owner” account. I’d rather create an account for myself, wife, children, whomever. When I click Create New Account, nothing happens.

Why:

There seems to be a glitch with your administrator permissions on your new account. You ARE an administrator but the system isn’t granting you the priveleges you need to perform certain tasks, such as adding new users.

Fix:

Add the new user account manually. RELAX. It’s EASY! It will take you less than 30 seconds.

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 How:

Step 1:

Click the Start button. You see that little blank box you can type in? Type this command:

netplwiz

Press Enter

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Step 2:

On the following screen, press “Add” to start creating a new user.

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Step 3:

Enter the basic user information you want for this user. The only important field is the Username. If you want your user’s folder to be called John’s Documents, then just type John.
Hint: to make it easier if you ever do any advanced network sharing, stick to a one-word username. Something like “The really cool computer dude” is just going to annoy you later down the road.

When you’re done, press Next.

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Step 4:

Enter the password you want for your new user.

You can choose not to enter a password by just leaving it blank. This means you won’t be prompted to enter your password every time you come back to the computer.

Press Next when done.

 

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Step 5:

Choose your level of access.

If you’re creating this account because you can’t access the Create New Account feature in the first place, then be SURE to choose “Administrator.” This basically means the new account your making has the permission to do whatever it wants to do. Standard User accounts can’t do certain things because of permissions. If you’re creating this account for your younger child or a guest, then you might want to keep it as Standard User. This means advanced computing features will still need your permission.

Press Finish when done.

 

Now you can log off your computer and log back on as the new user, with all your proper administrative rights restored.

HINT: If, as this article is intended for, you had to do this because you couldn’t perform these actions with your regular admin account, I suggest logging back into the control panel using your new account and DELETE the old owner account you had. You’re never going to use it and it’s broken anyway, so save your computer some headache and get rid of it now.

 

Hope this guide helps someone. Leave a comment if you found this information useful!

 

Technorati Tags: Microsoft,Windows Vista,UAC,User Account Control,Create New User,Create Account,Add User,Can't,Cannot