kevinpaquet.com

It’s here! It’s here! A new Fallout game has arrived, but does it disappoint? Join me, Jinny, Qais and Ross for an in-depth discussion about Fallout: New Vegas. We try to keep the spoilers at a minimum, but you’re going to definitely want to listen if you’re a fan of Fallout at all. We talk about our first experiences in the Mojave Wasteland, and whether or not Obsidian entertainment was able to fulfill the promise of a new experience on par with Fallout 3. We also discuss a wee bit of game news (Rock Band 3! Professor Layton vs. Phoenix Wright! Costume Quest! Super Meat Boy!) and touch on Apple’s new App Store for the Mac. It’s worth about an hour of your time, for sure.

The Weekly Geek

I recently dealt with an issue involving MOSS 2007 Search that I could find very little information on when searching the web. The ones of us that have been working with SharePoint for a while and have fought our battles getting Search to work in complex environments would probably know the things to check, but the folks that haven’t had to deal with Search issues (yet) might not know how to troubleshoot. So I decided to do a little overview and explain how I solved this client’s problem.

This happened on a site with numerous subsites. It was in its own web application and site collection. When using the “All Sites” option from the search dropdown, results were being returned. When using “This Site” option from the dropdown, Search was not returning any results even though documents with the desired text were contained within the site. This indicated that this particular site collection was not being crawled and indexed.

For this example, we will assume Search is working as expected on everything except this site collection and its sites/subsites using “This Site” option from the dropdown. If Search isn’t working at all, that’s a whole different topic that there are many good books about! If you don’t have one, I recommend getting one so that you will have a resource that explains everything about search. The problem encountered by this client was a simple one compared to some I’ve seen. Maybe that’s why I didn’t find anything about it when I searched the web…….hmmm…..

The things I checked were:

1. Had a content source been set up in Central Admin? To check, open Central Admin, click on your SSP, then under Search select Search Administration > Content Sources. Check to see if a content source for the site collection has been set up and that it is scheduled to crawl. If not, click on New Content Source and fill in the required information. In the case I was working on, there was a content source and a crawl had been attempted but the crawl log showed errors saying the default access account did not have permission on the site. 
2. Is there a crawl rule for the site?  If so, was it showing the proper authentication account? In my example there was a crawl rule and it was showing the correct account for access, so why did the logs say the account didn’t have access? 
3. Back to the Site….go to Site Actions > Site Settings > Modify All Site Settings. Check all the settings related to Search. Search settings had “use custom scope” selected and named the scope in Central Admin. Search Scopes showed the scope name, but had zero items as being indexed. The problem was under Search Visibility. The first question on this setting is “Allow this web to appear in search results”. “No” was selected. That’s why the search account didn’t have access to crawl it! I changed the option to “Yes” and clicked ok.

After changing this option, I returned to Central Admin to the search scope and started a full crawl of the site collection. After a few minutes, the log was showing items being indexed. 20k items later (less than an hour) the crawl was complete. I verified search using “This Site” was working by going back to the site and selecting this option from the dropdown. A spot check of the subsites showed that results were being returned from within the designated site as desired.

Next time I think I’ll check to make sure the “No” isn’t selected under Search Visibility…might save myself some time.

First the alien chestburster cake (then the other one), and now this winner of a pumpkin-carving contest.

I like where this trend is going.

Via Nerdcore, who’s picturing an alien chestburster crafted solely from bacon and olives.

Find Alien chestburster toys on Ebay

Great White Snark

I spent a few days in Toronto visiting my brother and hiding The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest from anyone who might see me reading it.  I think I can reclaim my life again now that I’ve finished it.  These books are stupidly absorbing.  They also make Sweden seem stupidly enticing.  I don’t even like winter, but now I want to get a cabin & several thick sweaters & fritter away my remaining days on some fjord.  Since that actually sounds terrible, I am just going to take some tips from Maureen Corrigan’s list for future reading.

Pre-Salander finishing, I trudged through Friday Night Lights (H.G. Bissinger).  I read this for a book club, and it made me much sadder than I thought it might.  I am afraid to admit this, but I don’t actually know very much about football (I know, a Pittsburgh girl who doesn’t understand football), and I was surprised to actually learn things about football from this book.  I had incorrectly thought that this was some fluff book about Texas and weirdos who like high school a little too much, but damn, this is actually a book about LIFE and the EIGHTIES and the OIL CRISIS and so much more.  I very much like the show (marry me, Tim Riggins?), but mostly for how out-there the plotline gets.  I don’t know what I expected from the book, but I was quite pleasantly surprised.  It even appears that Bissinger actually researched it quite thoroughly, and this always pleases the reference librarian inside me.

I am on the cusp of finishing Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon, which is untouchably gorgeous.  I promised myself I would go back and read things that I read in high school that I pass off as having read but really I don’t remember a word of them.  I am not, however, going to read a Separate Peace EVER. AGAIN.

Other things:

I listened to the Shawshank Redemption last week & this week.  Mistakenly, I spent 25 years thinking this was about Vietnam.  Wow, wrong.  This is another one that I wouldn’t want to read, but it was fun to listen to.  I found out yesterday that I am actually incapable of both reading and listening to Talking to Girls About Duran Duran (Rob Sheffield).  This book perpetuated about 600 gender stereotypes within the first 15 minutes and infuriated me instantly.  I get a little sad when I think that something like this?  THIS?! is selling well.  I think I am just going to listen to Last of the Mohicans next, because there is no way that won’t please me.  My only wish is that I could somehow incorporate the soundtrack of the movie into the audiobook, because that would be insanely perfect.

I want to finish this off with approximately 200 quotes from Song of Solomon, but that would be robbing you of the pleasure of reading it yourself.

book a week geek

In a rather unexpected turn of events, Square-Enix have today released “Voice Fantasy”, a completely new type of game in which you and your friends’ recorded voices are used to…



For the full article, please visit our website at www.GodisaGeek.com

God is a Geek

Capcom have announced the European release date for the little brother of Okami – Okamiden. The Nintendo DS action adventure game will hit shelves March 18th 2011 across Europe and Australia….



For the full article, please visit our website at www.GodisaGeek.com

God is a Geek

Tis the season and it is coming quicker . Can you imagine in 3 more weeks , We will be sitting down and eating turkey?

The day after Thanksgiving, we try to  get our tree up. Each year we buy a real tree, but this year I want an artificial one. The ornaments dont hang as well on a real tree or I do not have sense enough to hang them right anyway.

The next day after I try to sit down and start writing out my Christmas cards. I already have my cards. I do not have any address labels yet.

I am a Pearista blogger and I love looking over there website! They have some matching envelopes and labels and everything else you name it!

Share and Enjoy:

Geek Mom Who Reviews Gadgets, Books, and Everything Else

Sadly, not a sequel but an XBLA and PSN reprise of the original game at least, is being released in 2011, Ubisoft announced. The exact date and price haven’t been revealed either, but frankly I’m just feeling happy right now thinking about playing the game all over again, but with shiny new graphics and improved audio.

The press release follows:

UBISOFT^® BRINGS BEYOND GOOD & EVIL® HD TO MICROSOFT XBOX® LIVE ARCADE AND SONY PLAYSTATION® NETWORK

The legendary game returns with full HD 1080p graphics, enhanced character models, upgraded textures, and remastered musical score

London, UK – September 30, 2010 – Today, Ubisoft announces that Beyond Good & Evil™, the legendary, award-winning action-adventure video game, will be recreated in high definition, launching in 2011 for the Xbox LIVE^® Arcade for the Xbox 360^® video game system and Sony PlayStation® Network. In addition to giving fans the opportunity to play the critically acclaimed game, Beyond Good & Evil HD online will allow players to unlock achievements and trophies by discovering new secrets in this masterpiece adventure game.

Featuring epic boss fights, puzzle-solving and stealth-based games, Beyond Good & Evil broke the barriers of traditional action-adventure gameplay when it was released in 2003. The story follows Jade, an investigative reporter and martial artist, who works with a resistance agency to uncover a government conspiracy and reveal their horrific secrets. As Jade, players are tasked to solve puzzles, fight enemies, and obtain photographic evidence.

For more information about Beyond Good & Evil HD, please visit: http://beyondgoodevil.com

Split-Screen :: The Game-Geek’s Daily Read

Your usual eclectic mix of topics awaits you in this week’s episode of The Weekly Geek. Jinny, Ross, Qais and I talk about some new releases, most notably Rock Band 3 and Fable 3. Of course we talk more about Fallout: New Vegas, as well as some new Square Enix iPhone offerings (Secret of Mana, anyone?) We laugh at Glen Beck for being a big baby about some webcartoonists ousting his #1 spot on Amazon, and we talk about how hilarious it is to dress small children up as video game characters for Halloween. These topics and more are on offer this week, no refunds. Enjoy.

The Weekly Geek

My next two reviews over at SciFiDimensions.com are up – they are for Dreamdark: Blackbringer and Dreamdark: Silksinger. I loved them both – and you can find out why over there. Coincidentally, my wife just finished reading Blackbringer and she loved it too. I think my oldest daughter will be tackling it next. Silksinger, I think, is even better. That is saying something as Blackbringer is pretty great.

Geek Book