The Infancy of SBS and Dr. Seuss – Hear a Who? – Codename Historical Factoid

Did you know? …

SBS was once known as SAM or more correctly “Sam”.  This is much the same as “Cougar” was to SBS 2008 or also recently how “Longhorn” was to Vista

SBS was also once known as “Horton”. Do you hear a ‘who’? I do, I do.

in honor and memory of recently deceased radio legend Paul Harvey:
“Here’s the rest of the story.”

After being offered the opportunity via a MVP Summit 2009 proxy to submit requests to the SBS Team in Redmond I took the chance to expand the scope of some of my questions to learn a little about the history of the software product.  Yesterday I had just read something that I wanted to clarify.  Was this story truth or a myth or urban legend?

A recent SBS article I web-stumbled upon was claiming this historical name was once due to intensions to distribute it through SAM’s Club and for it to be so simple as to not require any technical skill to install.  So I wanted some answers and I got everything I wanted “in spades” and from a DIRECT source.  …let me explain

First, I’d like to thank MVP Kevin Royalty for acting as a researcher and go between.

****key in some 2001 Space Odyssey music and dim and then ever so slowly raise the lights to dramatic effect****

(Narrator deep dramatic voice)
So originally SBS is an idea and then it became a reality.

In the beginning …a guy named Keith Logan came up with the SBS idea.  Also Paul Fitzgerald coworker with Keith Logan , SBS Dev Team founding and current member, was directly involved with the genesis of the SBS product at that moment of inception.  Here’s his very helpful emailed response (sparingly shortened and chronologically re-ordered) today that was given to me:

From: Dale Unroe
Sent: Monday, March 02, 2009
To: Kevin Royalty

Yesterday, I stumbled onto a story that stated that historically the very first version of SBS was in fact something called SAM because it was to be solely distributed through Sam’s Club and wasn’t to require any technical knowledge to install.  Can you verify if these are the facts?  What can you uncover while there in the bowels of the SBS secret archives?

From: Paul Fitzgerald
Sent: Monday, March 02, 2009
To: Kevin Royalty
Subject: RE: sbs was “SAM”?

4.0 was called Sam.  (as in Sam I Am the Dr Seuss book. The original creator of the SBS idea was a guy named Keith Logan and he was a Dr. Seuss fan

4.5 was called Horton (again in the same Dr. Seuss theme)

There is some truth to the sam’s club thinking but the code name was really from Dr. Seuss.

From: Kevin Royalty
To: Paul Fitzgerald

May I pass this on to Dale?

From: Paul Fitzgerald

Sure.

 

********Wow!! – so there we have it and right from an SBS inception & development member Paul Fitzgerald – SBS was named “Sam” and not “SAM”.

having just found this today I laughed out a loud – woohooo
…and so perhaps Google, like Horton, gives a ‘who’ too!

<roll credits and raise the house lights>

***and that smashes the weakly researched story and busts this short-lived myth***

BTW – I didn’t mention SBS 2003 codename ‘Bobcat’, also SBS 2000’s codename  is nothing as there never was one given which was common to the Windows 2000 product family

Technology and the Lord of the Flies

Ever felt like you as the admin become feared and resisted rather than appreciated? You’re no longer the helpful heroic huckster but rather the dark shadowy guy behind the curtain who magically does stuff and changes stuff and generally is a menace to the peace of the norm?  …who has imposed over the threshold of tolerance of mild mannered meandering innocent users such that courteous, collaborative, and professional relationships turn dark, cynically saturated, and ugly?

It’s the island of the Lord of the Flies and the savages are yelling out ‘Piggy’.  They want you at the stake and the bonfire is alight.

… well you have my sympathies

 now buck up and get back to work

Our job is fantastic.

SBS 2008 Migration Primer – courtesy of LOST

Did you make a backup …yet?  All is not LOST …but it’s TIME.
Don’t depend on dangerous and complex recovery methods.

Specialist: There is something in there.
The only way to get to it is to lay charges here and here.
Project Lead: Under no circumstances! …don’t be absurd.
There are rules, rules that can’t be broken.
Specialist: So what do you want me to do?
Project Lead: …If you drill even one centimeter closer, you risk releasing the energy.
If that were to happen *dramatic pause* God help us all!
Specialist: Did you hear that?
*sarcasm* Time travel? How stupid does that guy think we are?

…DU-IT smart, back up your server, and DU-IT today so nothing will be LOST!

**disclamer**
do not attempt time travel – DU-IT makes no claims of any such success using this method of data recovery. As Sheriff Bufford T. Justice once said ‘you can think about it, but don’t do it.’

Wirelessness – what tha? dual band? 2.4 or 5GHz “n”?

Having been doing some shopping for a wireless network of late I thought I’d try and discover what the whole “dual band” ‘n’ router thing was and why I would benefit from buying one especially since the costs are much higher than a single band ‘n’ model. In the process I’ve learned a lot more about bandwidths and the pro’s and con’s of 2.4GHz versus a 5GHz band. I didn’t know the draft ‘n’ specification includes both radio frequency bands; furthermore, it doesn’t necessarily require operation on both. Yes, that means it could be either one and this is of course pretty important to connecting a transmitter with a receiver (networking). I’ve also learned that there aren’t many 5GHz ‘n’ products on the market if there are any at all.  Let me Google that for you.  I’ve also learned that the promise of a 5GHz HOV styled expressway for wirelessness is in reality less than fantastic in that the higher bandwidth 5GHz doesn’t penetrate through walls as well nor go quite as far as 2.4GHz.

Here’s some more 5GHz food for thought – http://blogs.zdnet.com/Ou/?p=411

The next ongoing discovery was that Linksys (and others aka NetGear do the same) sells and promotes their simultaneous “dual band” expensive high-margin router (WRT610n) promising the ability to get better HD video streaming and online gaming performance on the relatively empty 5GHz band versus the crowded 2.4GHz band. …that sounds great The hollow and empty promise truth is that Linksys doesn’t sell a single 5GHz N network adapter (WMP300N is 2.4GHz) except for notebooks; you aren’t going to be throwing a simple adapter into that gaming rig box at your or your boy’s desk. That’s right and you are probably now connecting the dots. …all hype and no delivery Worse yet, you cannot easily find what band their “N” adapter offerings operates at (whether 2.4GHz or 5GHz); at least not from any of the product literature, spec sheets, and packaging that I’ve looked over (some mfg’s do provide this). Lacking a desired decent desktop adapter card, your only option then is to purchase another 5 GHz router and use it as a bridge with its wired ports.  In fact this is kinda what NetGear is selling as a “kit”.

bah humbug!  …this is one frustrated & frequency fatigued shopper

Straight Talk Express Passes Bye

A few minutes ago the Straight Talk Express Passed Bye the DU-IT Command Central en route to a rally in Lebanon, Ohio’s historic town plaza.