Today was Susan’s first Mother’s Day. 

My friend Brian told me before Aidan was born that I would finally understand why Mother’s and Father’s Day is so important.  I have to say Bri, you were absolutely right!  Of course, I am sure I will find out even more in about a month. 

We went to Susan’s mom’s for brunch and my mom’s for dinner.  It was a fun, but busy day.

Happy Mother’s Day to all the mom’s out their!

-Allen

Several weeks ago, I received an e-mail from an online travel guide Schmap regarding one of my photos on Flickr.  They wanted to use a picture that I took from our honeymoon of Bondi Beach in Sydney, Australia.  I was notified that I was a finalist for their guide and that I would here back in a few weeks.  Well about a week ago, I heard back and my photo has been published!!

You can see the picture here:
http://www.schmap.com/sydney/introduction_history/#p=73426&i=73426_64.jpg

I don’t get any compensation for this (which is fine by me), but they put my name on their site.

Full details are below.

———————————-

From: Emma J. Williams Emma Williams

Subject:  Schmap Sydney Seventh Edition: Photo Inclusion

Hi Allen,

I am delighted to let you know that your submitted photo has been selected for inclusion in the newly released seventh edition of our Schmap Sydney Guide:

Bondi Beach
www.schmap.com/sydney/introduction_history/p=73426/i=73426_64.jpg

If you use an iPhone or iPod touch, then this same link will take you directly to your photo in the iPhone version of our guide. On a desktop computer, you can still see exactly how your photo is displayed and credited in the iPhone version of our guide at:

Bondi Beach
www.schmap.com/?m=iphone#uid=sydney&sid=introduction_history&p=73426&i=73426_64

Finally, if you have a blog, you might also like to check out the customizable widgetized version of our Schmap Sydney Guide, complete with your published photo:
www.schmap.com/guidewidgets/p=10356358N02/c=SK50012035

Thanks so much for letting us include your photo - please enjoy the guide!

Best regards,
Emma Williams,
Managing Editor, Schmap Guides
www.schmap.me/emma.williams

———————————-

-Allen

Aidan went to the doc today and is in good health.

New Stats
Height/Length – 22.5 inches
Weight – 10lbs. 5oz.

-Allen

With the weather being incredible, we decided to take a short road trip to the New Jersey Botanical Gardens.  Susan and I hadn’t been there in 3 years.  We packed up Aidan (and all of his gear) and along with Michael, we headed to Ringwood.

If you haven’t had the chance to visit the botanical gardens, I would highly recommend it.  Weekend visits are free before Memorial Day.  Weekdays are free year round.

All of the photos can be seen here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/susanandallen/sets/72157617281062215/

If you wonder why you can’t get to the pictures, check out:
http://blog.susanandallen.com/blog/2009/04/01/how-to-use-flickr-to-view-our-photos/

-Allen

At Ignite training, I was fortunate enough to have several friends in the training as well.  We got to hang and catch up.

Butch (my roommate during Ranger training)

Tuan and I
 

Tuan, Hank, and I

Jaclynn dropped me off at the airport

On the way back to NJ, I met Ja Rule in the Airport

Also Patrick Ewing was there, but he was with his daughter and for obvious reasons didn’t want to be disturbed.  I swear this pic is him.  We were both moving and my old point and shoot is too sloooow!

-Allen

This past week, I was in Orlando for Exchange 14 Ignite training.  This consisted of hands-on labs and presentations from Microsoft employees about the next version of Exchange.  While we were at the training, Microsoft unveiled the official title for Exchange 14, Exchange 2010.  There are some great new features.

• Database Availability Group (DAG) - allows database replication without a lot of the complexity that existed in Exchange 2007.  The nice thing about this is you can have a server with multiple roles and have a DAG.
• Self-healing databases – if there are multiple copies of a database (in a DAG array) Exchange now has the capability to recover from page errors in the database (-1018, –1019, and –1022).  A copy of the bad page can be copied from another database copy.
• Exchange Federation Gateway – This allows organizations to use a broker service provided by Microsoft in the cloud to authenticate cross-organization.  From this people can view Free/Busy information and even details.
• Decreased IO footprint – Exchange 2010 has the potential to reduce IO by 70% over Exchange 2007 and a total of 91% over Exchange 2003.  This is great news which can lead to larger mailboxes.
• Online mailbox moves – that’s right!  Now user’s do not have to be kicked out of their mailbox while it is being moved.

There are plenty of other features, but this is just a quick taste.  Overall, I feel that there are several features which warrant this upgrade from Exchange 2003 and even Exchange 2007.

Check out more details at: http://www.microsoft.com/exchange/2010/

-Allen