This should be a quiet day, a quiet week, in fact. I plan to spend the day taking care of various tasks, some several weeks old, that I'd been ignoring while we worked on the release. Tomorrow through Thursday, I'll be in training. One of the rules-of-thumb that we use regarding training is that knowledge should be applied within about three weeks or it's pretty much lost. I don't have any requests for Microsoft Exchange Server administrative services in my queue, so there's a risk that my new knowledge might leak onto the floor.

We had a great time at Mike and Lynn's yesterday afternoon. Good food, good fellowship, plenty of chances to visit with Miss Cassandra. Before Easter dinner, we visited with my father, who was having an off day. I spent most of the visit working with him to remove the Spanish subtitles that were showing up on channel 5. He has three remote controls, each of which only works partially, so you need at least two to get anything done.

"People were not tuning into other people because they're tuned into themselves," observes a principal in Australia as she explains why she's banned iPods from her school. Of course, workers face perils from too much outside stimulation, too.

You can use recycled toothbrushes to keep your green teeth healthy.

If you see Goliath, tell him to stay from this Vermont town.

A friend wrote to ask why Ad-Aware was finding problems on his system that Spybot wasn't. Unfortunately, adware, spyware, and the broad category of stuff called malware requires more than one program to keep your system clean and functioning safely. Here's a summary of the (free) programs that are good to have and use. The bad guys seem intent on making computing a miserable experience. Add in viruses, worms, and spam, and you start to wonder, "Is it worth it?" Well, in my opinion, yes, it's worth it, but there is work involved. This is a place where the big service provides, such as AOL, Earthlink, and the cable Internet providers can make a big difference by providing comprehensive protection services. I'll also put in a plug for my favorite web browser, Firefox. Although not immune to the bad stuff, it offers protections that you don't get with Internet Explorer.

We have a cold rain this morning. It started as freezing rain, but has warmed since sunrise. Tonight we should get some fog, hastening the snow melt.