SNL's opener from this past Saturday is laugh-out-loud funny. Perhaps the best thing about Sarah Palin being selected as the VP candidate is that Tina Fey looks just like her.

Lately I've been enjoying working with an Apple Xserve for one of our clients in the publishing industry. In particular I like how the OS X/Leopard Server edition is based on so many open standards and best-of-breed Open Source applications... as long as the pretty little GUIs work for configuring them.

Connecting an Xserve's Open Directory (OD) to Microsoft's Active Directory (AD) is now a breeze with the Server Manager applet. However, if you want AD to hold all the options that the Mac can use, it's a bit harder. I've spent much more time than I should have looking for how to extend AD with Apple's schema. Some files that Apple has published reference a magic script called "load_apple.bat"; but that file is simply not available with your OS X Server! I even called AppleCare support, and we figured out the problem: you can only get that file if you pay Apple Professional Services consultants to come and do your multi-OS integration. Ugh.

Then I stumbled upon an answer that works, at the bottom of this forum thread. Yes, it is possible to extend your AD schema yourself; here's how I did it:

1. Get the 'apple.schema' and 'samba.schema' files from your Xserve's '/etc/openldap/schema' directory.


2. Install Microsoft ADAM on a Windows server or workstation (see http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003/adam/default.mspx).


3. Run 'C:\Windows\ADAM\ADSchemaAnalyzer.exe' (see http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc780706.aspx).


4. Choose "File | Load Target Schema...", then click the "Load LDIF..." button and browse to your 'apple.schema' file (which is not actually an LDIF, so you'll need to change the filter to "All files *.*").


5. Choose "File | Load Base Schema..." and fill in the blanks to connect to your AD domain controller.


6. Choose "Schema | Mark all non-present elements as included" (if you don't check this off, nothing will be exported).


7. Choose "File | Create LDIF file..." and save it as something like 'apple.schema.ldif'.


8. Repeat the above steps with ADSchemaAnalyzer for the 'samba.schema' file, and save the LDIF as something like 'samba.schema.ldif'.


9. Ensure that that the domain controller you're connecting to has schema updates enabled (see MSKB article #285172).


10. Read the 'apple.schema.ldif' file and you will see the command line to install will be something like this (fill in the italicized sections as appropriate):
    C:\Windows\ADAM\ldifde.exe -i -u -f apple_schema.ldif -s MYDOMAINCONTROLLER:389 -b MYADMINISTRATOR MYDOMAIN MYPASSWORD -j . -c "cn=Configuration,dc=mydomain,dc=local" #configurationNamingContext

Note that this process should work if Apple updates their schema with future versions of OX X Server as they have in the past—just run ADSchemaAnalyzer against your existing AD, and it should only apply the changes.

Electronic Arts is giving away free downloads of their classic PC game, Command & Conquer: Red Alert. Apparently it's a promotion to remind all gamers that Red Alert 3 is coming out soon. But hey, free game!

Yesterday I was in downtown Portland and, since I was dressed up perhaps a bit more than usual, apparently several people mistook me for The Man (y'know, The Man who's keeping them down). One disheveled fellow muttered the following as he walked by me:

John McCain is a pain in the ass.

While I was not inclined to disagree with him, I'd never though that Senator McCain was ever a particular pain in my specific butt, but hey, maybe in time...

But even more interesting a thought-provoking was the comment from another rundown-looking fellow who, as we were passing, clearly aimed these words at me:

The HIV-negative hold all the power and money.

Huh. Never thought of that; maybe I should.

Recently I read over most of The Jargon File, an ancient (in web years) document of hacker lore. (Recommended: check out the Hacker Folklore for some great stories.) One of the appendices is a "portrait" of typical hacker characteristics, and I was quite surprised to see how well the page on Personality Characteristics fits me. Woah.. deja-vu all over again.

I spent last week totally offline—no Internet and hardly any cell phone coverage—camping out on Richardson Lake in Western Maine. It was, in a word, delightful.

Once again, it has been a disturbingly long time since I posted on my site. No wonder I went from a lot of traffic to a little, heh.

But you see, there are a few things I need to get over:

• For one, I'm annoyed with my site's CMS, and I intend to replace it. Already I have installed Drupal and imported all the ancient posts circa 2000-2002 (you might call them "pre-PostNuke"). I really expect to roll out the new site soon, and I will be much happier with it.
• I always have ideas for things I want to post, but sometimes I don't post them for the feeling that I need to do it all well. I'm going to get over that, and just start posting. Both on the technical, linkage, and personal side there's always new and interesting things I could write about. Really.

So here are things to look forward to in the near future:

• Watch out for more categories (and tags) on the new system. I'd like to be much more specific on the categories I can talk about, from Windoze to Cisco networking to specific apps.
• I have some more big how-to documents that I've create for peer training (particularly in Windows administration), and think these would be useful content to share.
• For you webdev geeks, the new site should be standards-compliant. Finally.

As they say on TV: don't change that channel!

I'm not dead yet. To prove it, I'll quote from somebody else who hasn't been writing much lately:

Think of how much better the world would be if everybody—young and old, black and white, American and Russian, Time and Newsweek—spent part of each day playing with an Etch-a-Sketch. Think how great it would be if they had public Etch-a-Sketches for you to use while you were waiting in line at the Department of Motor Vehicles. And imagine what would happen if, instead of guns, our young soldiers carried Etch-a-Sketches into battle! They would be cut down like field mice under a rotary mower! So we can't carry this idea too far.

-Dave Barry, from "Making the World Safe for Salad," as published in Dave Barry's Greatest Hits ©1988

...and skip one or two of the "summer blockbuster" movies, and go see Once, if you can find a theatre playing it. It's so worth it! A beautiful little film about people trying to be understood—particularly through music—yeah, it's all about the music. With Glen Hansard (of band The Frames) and Markéta Irglová as the leads and songwriters, music just flows in and through the whole movie.

Er, it's also about the relationships. Yeah, it's got the whole guy-and-girl-meet,-have-troubles,-and-work-it-out kinda-thing goin' on.

But I'm not gonna spoiler it for you. I'll just say this: if you communicate through music, than you will understand this film. Just listen, and I'm sure you'll appreciate it.

Sometimes the new euphemisms and metaphors (nudge-nudge, wink-wink, knowhatimean?) of rock-n'-rock escape me these days. I mean, it wasn't hard to miss "Puff the Magic Dragon" (although my darling wife has yet to be disillusioned).

But a recent song from a Paste Magazine sampler leaves me open-mouthed—nevermind that the guy's voice sounds like Bob Dylan, Victoria Williams, and nails-on-a-chalkboard in trio. Take a look at these words, which are the entire lyrics to the song! Are they flattering to the presumably-female "you" subject of the song? Do they make any sense whatsoever to you?!?

I wanna go out but not really
Keep droppin' the bucket until it's dry, until it's dry

I wanna go out but not really
I keep stuffin' the musket until you cry, until you cry

You could be my diamond ring
I say you you could be my diamond ring

—Joseph Arthur "Diamond Ring" from Let's Just Be