Eli Robillard's World of Blog.

Just received the message below and doing anything with it (aside from warning the world) would violate several rules including:

NEVER open a link when you don't know the sender. As I recall, every e-card I've ever received at least said who the card was from before asking me to click through.

NEVER click on an e-mail link that only has an IP address. A legit link would be to something like "cards.egreetings.com," not 88.xxx.xxx.xxx. This particular address is somewhere in the Netherlands.

NEVER run a program or allow a plug-in when you can't absolutely trust where it came from. This one asks you to either run an .exe or download an "Outlook plug-in." As far as I'm concerned anyone who allows either of these probably deserves what they get. Man, the stuff they should be teaching kids in school these days.

Good day.

 

Your family member has sent you an ecard from 123greetings.com.

 

Send free ecards from 123greetings.com with your choice of colors, words and music.

 

Your ecard will be available with us for the next 30 days. If you wish to keep the ecard longer, you may save it on your computer or take a print.

 

To view your ecard, choose from any of the following options:

 

--------

OPTION 1

--------

 

Click on the following Internet address or copy & paste it into your browser's address box.

 

http://82.156.24.59/?<my_supposed_key>

 

--------

OPTION 2

--------

 

Copy & paste the ecard number in the "View Your Card" box at http://82.156.24.59/

 

Your ecard number is

<edited out>

 

Best wishes,

Postmaster,

123greetings.com

Using any WHOIS server to find out who owns that IP address, you can learn that this rabbit hole leads to the RIPE Network Coordination Centre in the Netherlands, it might as well lead straight to hell. In turn that registry points here, what looks to be a cable internet operator called Wanadoo Netherlands.

% This is the RIPE Whois query server #1.
% The objects are in RPSL format.
%
% Rights restricted by copyright.
% See http://www.ripe.net/db/copyright.html

% Note: This output has been filtered.
%       To receive output for a database update, use the "-B" flag.

% Information related to '82.156.0.0 - 82.156.255.255'

inetnum:         82.156.0.0 - 82.156.255.255
netname:         WANADOO-CABLE
descr:           Wanadoo Nederland
descr:           Muiderstraat 1
descr:           1011 PZ Amsterdam
country:         NL
admin-c:         EIAR1-RIPE
tech-c:          EIAR1-RIPE
status:          ASSIGNED PA 
mnt-by:          EURONET-MNT
source:          RIPE # Filtered

role:            EuroNet Internet Administrative Role Account
address:         Orange Breedband Nederland B.V.
address:         Network Department
address:         Muiderstraat 1
address:         1011 PZ Amsterdam
address:         The Netherlands
phone:           +31 20 535 5555
fax-no:          +31 20 535 5400
e-mail:          eiar1@euro.net
admin-c:         RK31337-RIPE
tech-c:          BL78
tech-c:          GD31337-RIPE
tech-c:          HT772-RIPE
nic-hdl:         EIAR1-RIPE
remarks:         In case of abuse issues, please contact abuse@wanadoo.nl
mnt-by:          EURONET-MNT
source:          RIPE # Filtered

% Information related to '82.156.0.0/15AS5390'

route:           82.156.0.0/15
descr:           Wanadoo Nederland
origin:          AS5390
mnt-by:          EURONET-MNT
source:          RIPE # Filtered

After a little searching I found addresses for both a helpdesk and a place to report abuse. With a little luck, someone will read that mail and shut this down before you or I wind up spending another moment repaving a friend's machine.

Robert Bogue just asked the question and I wish I'd seen a list like this long ago, so here it is. 

Shoulder Bag - a 2006 MOSS conference bag

• Cell phone: HTC P4350. WiFi, Bluetooth, a pop-out keyboard, a 2 Mp camera, mic, WM5 with Skype and PocketStreets.
  
• Zune music player and synch cord. Brown, of course. 
  
• Camera - Canon SD600 Elph with a spare 2 GB memory card and spare batteries (<$10 on eBay). For taking pictures of whiteboards. Then I can drop the SD card into the laptop and e-mail 'em straight to whomever wants a copy (no cables!).
  
• Laptop - HP Compaq nw8440 supplied by the office. Despite a fast CPU and 3 GB RAM, I do not like this laptop. It's bulky and the video adapter sucks. Essential travel software: Virtual PC, MapPoint / Streets and Trips, Skype.
  
• The GPS that came with Streets and Trips and a Pharos Bluetooth dock.
  
• Kensington Noise-canceling headphones. <$40 from Amazon or Fry's Outpost. Maybe not the best but they make a big difference. In a bag with an airplane adapter and Y-splitter.
• 450 GB HDD in a powered enclosure with eSATA and USB 2.0 ports. An eSATA cable. It stays in the suitcase in-flight. For VPC images and install files.
• 60 GB 3.5" USB drive, small enclosure. Holds backup VPC images for the day the big drive craps out.
• 2 GB USB key and a couple smaller ones. To pass docs and decks around.
• Microsoft Presenter Mouse 8000. Comes with a Bluetooth dongle and a hard-shell case. Thanks Lawrence!
• USB AC wall charger (for charging the Zune/phone/devices). $15 to $20 from almost anywhere.
• USB car charger. $15 from Best Buy. It's made for an iPod but you can dump the cables and just keep the part that does the work.
• USB battery charger (takes AA or AAA) to charge batteries for the mouse or headphones.
• 2 USB cables with the small end, one with the large end (a backup cable for the external drive).
• Laptop lock. Better safe than stupid.
• Pen. Business cards. Gum. Pop Rocks.
• Ziploc with spare AA, AAA and camera batteries.
• Ziploc where I swap my US/Canadian change back and forth.
• A Sucrets box stuffed with ibuprofen, loratadine and pseudo-ephedrine.
• Pre-filled border border crossing forms. Everything but the flights, dates and signature.

Suitcase - G. Loomis roller carry-on bag

• Microsoft LifeCam VX-3000. I buy the same for people I want to Skype from the road. Maybe an NX-6000 next.
• Powered speakers (2xAAA) - iSymphony W-SPKR, $20 or $30 from Fry's Outpost. Not large enough for great sound, but a great small design. 
• 3' 3.5mm M-M cable connector to plug the Zune into rental cars with an MP3 input. Make sure it's stereo.
• Camera battery wall charger.
• Sometimes my old Toshiba M205-S810 tablet. Tablets are the best for taking notes. I wish I had an M7 and I'd never need to carry two.
• Packable rain jacket.
• Clothes - pants, shorts, 4-5 shirts, runners, essentials, plus what I'm wearing
• Traveller Speedster Guitar, a Smokey Amp and spare strings (the gig bag fits in a rod holder pouch on the roller bag). For trips of more than a couple days.
• Shaving kit:
• Get a TOOB or something like it.
• Shaving oil packs smaller than foam or soap, conditioner works too. Band-aids, razor, sample-size deodorant, extra painkillers.
• Get some tiny bottles for shampoo and aftershave, and smaller ones for pills and emergency supplies of chili, cayenne and tobasco. Any camping store (or MEC). 

Pockets

• Moleskine notebook. I'll type notes into the PDA but sometimes paper's simpler or there are drawings. These have a little flap in the back cover to tuck receipts into.
  
• Passport, money, matches.
  

Goals

• Airlines lose things. Check no bags. Make it all fit in a roller suitcase and a shoulder bag. All this stuff? It's small. There's usually plenty of space left over in the roller case.
• In case forced to check luggage, carry everything with you that you really need.
• Get everything that needs power down to USB - phone, Zune, battery charger. And then to be able to charge these from either laptop, an outlet or a car.
  
• Pack associated things together with small sacks, Ziplocs, Sucrets boxes, etc.
  
• Leave room in the roller case to bring back duty free or surprises. Whatever you forget, you can get it there.

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It's here! Late last week a box of books arrived at my door with the first pressing of "the book." Yes, we have a baseball team worth of developers on the cover (I'm the fourth one over), and they're the right ones for the team. I'd really like to thank Tom Rizzo for getting the ball rolling and John Holliday for picking up the lead author role, as well as Jim Minatel and Ami Sullivan at Wrox for pulling the team together and guiding the process. When you're a member of a team like this, you wonder how it's all going to play out and I'm glad to say that not only am I pleased to have my name on it, but that I'll be refering to it constantly in my development and willl happily use the examples in my courses.

I wrote two chapters -- the first two. Chapter One is an introduction to SharePoint and describes how it fits in with the rest of the Microsoft stack. It's as much for network administrators and architects as developers, and puts SharePoint in the context of all Enterprise services. By doing so, it shows what capabilities SharePoint is intended to have, and what capabilities are provided elsewhere. I hope it makes clear the logical services SharePoint provides to an organization, it is not intended to be a developer-specific chapter.

Chapter Two then transitions from SharePoint architecture into the developer side by moving from the abstract architecture of Chapter One into the physical architecture of the MOSS farm. From there it drops into the setup and configuration of both the server and the development machine, leaving it up to you to decide whether these roles will happen on one machine or two. I prefer to see development take place off the server. Yes, remote debugging is a hassle to set up, but in SharePoint the experience is not entirely different from local development, and it keeps a lot of junk off your servers. The book content is a good start and as new tools, utilities and techniques appear I expect to write more in future posts. I'll continue to keep my post on building a development machine up-to-date, but the book is where you'll find the step-by-step to actually do it.

Of the other chapters, I do have my favourites. I had the pleasure of meeting John Holliday at the MVP Summit earlier this year and have to say that in addition to being a fine person, he's written some of the best pieces on Document Management, Records Management, Web Content Management (WCM) and Forms Server you will find anywhere (chapters 11 to 14). Want to build Content Types either programmatically or with XML-defined features? Want to learn how to add validation to a Content Type feature? Want to extend STSADM.EXE so you can administer that same policy from the command line rather than a recompile? Read John's chapter on Document Management. And all of his chapters are that thorough. Consider me thoroughly impressed. To check it out for yourself, you can read the opening of chapter 11 online.

Jeff Julian's chapter 6 provides a sample collaborative solution for an HR department. It's brief, but unlike most technical writing it tells the story in practical terms. That's cool. The truth is that most SharePoint solutions involve more configuration than code, and to see a real-life demonstration of this is a nice change. Brendon's chapter on Profiles and Personalization is the best explication and code I've seen on the topic. And then there's the chapter on Workflow by John and Tom. This is a trove of great workflow diagrams, explanation and code. I recently taught MOSS workflow and I wish I had all this then. They use WebForms rather than InfoPath forms so it’s not a pure MOSS solution, but being the more difficult of the two scenarios, it was the right decision to make.

Is there anything wrong with the book? In the past few days of reading, I see no significant omissions or issues. I’ll post fixes for my own errata online as items crop up, and one day perhaps a second edition will serve to clean up the edges. There is also a public P2P Forum to discuss the content and I know a few of us watch it to see that questions get answered. So far, the occasional typo and one duplicated table (pp 57 and 109) are about as you would expect for 694 pages of content. Any place I might change something, it’s just an editorial difference of opinion. Of what's there, it's pretty solid.

You're wondering, "What do you really mean by no significant omissions or issues?" I'll be transparent and you'll see what I mean. Chapter 7 on Blog and Wiki sites is more configuration than development, but it was an odd choice to include a feature rather than an extensibility point in the first place. So it’s a bonus, and for anyone interested in the topic then there’s a great CodePlex site where these features are being extended. In the appendix on Visual Studio Extensions for WSS (VSeWSS), it could be pointed out that there are alternative project templates out there (particularly for web parts, which should not be installed to the GAC if you can help it). However, it’s a complete, well-written section that greatly expands on my brief description on p 35.

What else? It’s actually funny (well, to me) that 21 full pages are filled with a BDC definition file, this being Microsoft’s way to connect to external data sources with “no-code”. It drives the point home that while there’s no code, these are not trivial files.

Final biased verdict? This is an excellent MOSS developer book. For intermediate coverage of WSS and MOSS for developers, this is it. There are others which cover WSS in more detail, but ignore MOSS. There are others which dig deeper on specific MOSS features (e.g. WCM) but skip WSS. There are others intended for administrators or end-users but not developers. But for developers who want the full spectrum of topics, a desktop reference and a load of sample code, go ahead and compare the lot. I think you’ll find Professional SharePoint 2007 Development a great choice. Disagree? Tell me. Agree? Tell everyone!

Resources 

[Browse the Table of Contents]

[Read Chapter One - Application Platforms and a Chapter Eleven - Content Management excerpt]

[Get the Sample Code]

[Discuss Professional SharePoint 2007 Development on the WROX P2P Forum]

[Buy Professional SharePoint 2007 Development on Amazon]