mancide's blog

Category: Tech

  • Microsoft 365 Dynamic Mail Groups

    Yesterday was an interesting one for work. Our custom Dynamic Mail groups that had worked for well over a year stopped working, and we had to figure out how to redo them quickly. The best I could figure, Microsoft has made a change in how those custom rules worked, and nothing was being populated for our rule where we were attempting to determine the group membership based on the domain of the Primary SMTP address.

    We ended up pivoting to some of Microsoft’s pre-canned rules determining membership based on the company name field in AD and AzureAD. This was not a huge issue for half of our users as some already had this field populated with correct information. For the rest, I had to whip up a quick script to populate this field based off of their Primary SMPT domain. I’m sharing this Power Shell script below in case anyone comes across this post with a similar issue.

    #Import the AzureAD module

    Import-Module AzureAD

    #Connect to Azure AD

    Connect-AzureAD

    #Define the domain and the new company name

    $domain = “domain.com”
    $newCompanyName = “Company”

    #Get the user accounts with the specified domain

    $users = Get-AzureADUser -All $true | Where-Object { $_.UserPrincipalName -like “*@$domain” }

    #Update the company name for each user

    foreach ($user in $users) {
    Set-AzureADUser -ObjectId $user.ObjectId -CompanyName $newCompanyName
    Write-Output “Updated company name for user: $($user.UserPrincipalName)”
    }

    Write-Output “Company name update completed.”

  • Hava Platinum

    So I have some game videos I have created with a Hava Platinum HD over on the Help Me With My Game Problems blog. The process was relatively easy, however I still need to tweak the final FLV quality settings, but that should get better over the next few movies. Matt helped me set it up, as it is the same setup he uses for MattPlays.

  • Blu-Ray “wins”, but who decided the war?

    Due to the announcements yesterday that Netflix and Best Buy are dedicating their HD operations to Blu-Ray, this appears to be the final nail in the coffin for HD-DVD.

    However, I pose the question, who really decided this “war” was over? Was it the same company that brought Blu-Ray to the market when it wasn’t ready to compete with HD-DVD. The same company that bet it’s game console could sway the market? I bet it’s purely coincidence that they are the company that owns two movie studios, developed Blu-Ray, and manufacture the only “player they would recommend, due to upcoming changes to the platform. But Pioneer, Samsung, Panasonic and Sony have all been selling standalone Blu-ray players to customers, a representative at the Blu-ray booth at CES said.”

    I may be bitter because I bought an HD-DVD player. I’m still holding out for the firesales on HD-DVD discs to pick a few more up. I also think Blu-Ray early adopters are bitter, and we might see more suits as the whole Profile 2.0 event happens later this year; which will effectively render all stand-alone Blu-Ray players incompatible with the completed feature set of Blu-Ray 2.0. Might I add that Profile 2.0 adds no features over what HD-DVD offers today, and in fact merely gets Blu-Ray to the same feature set HD-DVD has offered since it hit market.

    High-definition video discs accounted for $300 million of 2007’s $23.7 billion home video market, but high definition represents the future. In its first two years, high-def players are outselling the DVD player in its first two years.

    Blu-Ray also accounted for 62% of the disc sales, versus 38% for HD-DVD. One has to wonder if the weak software library of the Playstation 3 (which accounted for an additional 3.25 million Blu-Ray players on the market) had anything to do with skewing disc sales. I know if I had spent money on a Playstation 3, I would have felt compelled to buy some software to justify the $600 price premium on a gaming system that lacks many features of the leading next-gen console; but that is an argument for another article.

    While HD discs may be the future of the home video market, they still face an uphill battle, even with a clear “winner”. DVD players and discs are 79 times greater than the total HD disc market. Statistics such as only 21% of homes have HDTVs and of that only 14% are connected to an HD source do not bode well for consumers clamoring for HD discs. Couple that with the fact that most HD players, Blu-Ray and HD-DVD, upscale existing DVDs. In most instances these look good enough that typical consumers cannot see the benefit of the HD version over an upscaled DVD.

    So consider this my last take on the “format war”. I’m going to go play some XBOX 360 and wait for Amazon to put the bargain bin HD-DVD sale in the works so I can stock up. I’ll also be waiting for a Profile 2.0 compatible combo player, or possibly pick up this nifty combo HTPC that is currently the bee’s knees.

    Seacrest out.

    UPDATE: It appears my assumption of the PS3 having a weak game library driving Blu-Ray sales may have been the wrong assumption to make. It appears that I should have came to the opposite conclusion. That the increased number of PS3/BD players should have correlated to an increased number of disc sales. When you figure the attach rate including the PS3, the disc to player sales ratio is around 1:1; HD-DVD was around 4:1. So the studios should have been looking at the format that was selling more software per player, not what format was selling the most units in the admittedly niche market that is HD disc sales.

  • Blu-Ray winning not on technical merits, but by Piracy controls

    Expecting the canned answer like, “well we thought it was the superior format and I’m happy to say that we were right”, you could imagine my surprise when the very first reason he gave was Blu-ray’s piracy controls.

    So, not only are you choosing a format that costs significantly more for your company as well as consumers, you are picking it on a reason your company admits cannot be controlled. Lets also not forget that Blu-Ray is not a final specification yet, and most of the players out there will not be compatible with BDLive features that will roll out soon.

  • Top Ten Reasons Why User Controlled Content Aggregation Sucks

    Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love digg.com.

    A little over two years ago I wrote an article detailing some problems I could forsee with the up-and-coming content aggregation site digg.com, and while most of these have been fixed, one glaring problem still remains: the users.

    Let me disclose that I am a shacker and I do digg the stories that shacknews submits to digg. Just like every other news site, shacknews submits some of their own articles. In addition to those articles submitted by the shacknews staff, users of shacknews also submit stories to digg.

    I am not the first person to suggest there is a conspiracy of digg users to promote or bury articles they like or dislike. And it is fairly obvious they are targeting stories submitted by shacknews as most shackers only digg stories to help promote articles on shacknews itself. This is not a bad thing, it is exactly what digg was designed to do. However, the users are taking control of the site to push their own personal agendas; whether they are right or wrong.

    So, in recent digg parody style, I submit a “Top Ten” list, as apparently digg users like “Top Ten” lists more than actual original content.

    10. Unknown metrics to bury a story.
    9. Abuse of bury reporting tool.
    8. Promotion of poor content.
    7. Promotion of un-original or “click through” content.
    6. Promotion of anything krose posts.
    5. Mob buries on stories that do not fit the mold.
    4. Mob promotions of submissions, duplicate or not, from those within the “mafia”.
    3. Unprofessional headlines and story summaries.
    2. “Banning” sites for pointing out possible flaws with digg.
    and lastly…
    1. Burying stories from sites with an existing user-base who appear to be “gaming” digg when simply using it as it was intended. A way to promote quality content to a widespread audience.

    This story to be burried in…

  • Hate Over HD-DVD Announcement

    Yesterday Paramount and Dreamworks announced they were going to exclusively support HD-DVD. There is also speculation that this move comes with some very big promotional consideration backed by Toshiba and Microsoft (the two primary backers of the HD-DVD format). Some people even think this is a ploy by Microsoft to get more content on XBOX Live Marketplace for download.

    Before I continue, let me disclose I own an HD-DVD player and I own an XBOX 360. I am also not an industry insider, but an avid reader on this subject. These are my personal opinions and nothing more. I do, however, agree that a continued format war only hurts the consumer.

    Right now, this “format war” is really nothing. When you talk about the number of units either format is shipping, we are talking about hundreds of thousands, not hundreds of millions like DVD. Currently both players are out of the reach of the impulse buy. HD-DVD players are getting close, and there are rumors that Wal-Mart is pushing for sub $200 players for this holiday season. That would get HD-DVD into the range of the impulse buy before Blu-Ray. If this rumor does become reality and HD-DVD does not make significant gains with Wal-Mart pushing low-price players, I think that is a significant blow to the fate of HD-DVD.

    However, lets remember who pulled out of the HD consortium and formed camp Blu-Ray. It was Sony. Sony had an unfair advantage in forming camp Blu-Ray. They own controlling interest in two major movie studios. So from the instant there was a split in the HD disc development, Sony had two studios HD-DVD would never have a chance at getting. Sony also has very deep pockets for “promotional considerations”. This is extremely evident by the fact they are losing money hand over fist in pushing the Playstation 3, which features a Blu-Ray drive. It is also worth noting that the Playstation 3 is also the most affordable Blu-Ray player on the market. It just so happens the gaming community has been alive with criticism about the soft game line-up for the Playstation 3. This also leads to increased Blu-Ray sales, as someone who dropped $600 on a “gaming console” isn’t going to let it sit there and collect dust. If they can’t play games, they will probably use it to play Blu-Ray. It is also worth noting that a recent report indicated most people were not aware of the Blu-Ray capabilities of the console, but I’m not so sure how accurate that report is.

    That brings up another interesting point about this whole “format war”. I am not convinced the general public is ready to give up on DVD. My fiancee says she cannot tell a difference between an HD-DVD and a regular DVD. Most people who have HDTVs have them hooked to standard definition cable sources. Most people don’t know that you need HD content to notice a difference. I don’t think most people care about this so-called “format war”. Microsoft might be hedging their bets and hoping an extended format war allows digital distribution to develop a user-base. I prefer, as I think most consumers do, a physical media tied to my movies. I have used the movie rental service on XBOX Live, but I prefer to use my Blockbuster total access account.

    Blockbuster also recently announced that company owned stores would only rent Blu-Ray movies. Franchise stores can still rent either format of their choosing, or like my local franchise neither at all. Blockbuster on-line is still renting both formats. This is indeed interesting, because if Blockbuster was picking Blu-Ray based on performance, they would have dropped HD-DVD from the on-line and franchise stores as well. This makes you believe that they had to receive some “promotional consideration” money from Sony to make this decision. Just as Target received to sell the BDP400 Blu-Ray player as the exclusive HD player for this coming holiday season.

    Calling the format war over and giving it to Blu-Ray is a bad decision in my mind. Blu-Ray isn’t a finished specification. Current Blu-Ray players will not be compatible with the final specifications additional features. Right now this is where HD-DVD is king, the features. HD-DVDs specification is complete and all players currently produced will be able to play all these features. Sony again ships a product that is behind its competitor with promises to fix it after it hits market. Just like the Playstation Online experience is behind XBOX Live, Blu-Ray’s feature-set is behind HD-DVD.

    Who will win this “war”? Only time will tell. I’m pulling for HD-DVD, however, I think both products are still searching for their market. I don’t think consumers are ready to give up DVD. Also we are seeing a lot of posturing by both sides because the numbers are so close. Yes Blu-Ray has “outsold” HD-DVD by 2:1 at points during this year. However, we are not talking about 20 million units vs. 10 million units, we are talking about 500,000 units vs. 250,000 units. We are talking about peanuts in a market worth much more than that. Also throw download services like those offered by Netflix, Amazon, and even XBOX Live and you have even more competition for HD content hungry consumers. HD movie discs need one format. The excuse that three different gaming disc formats exist with each other doesn’t fly here. Most consumers do not own each gaming console. Most blockbuster gaming titles come to each format. Continuing this artificial split of the movie studios is short-sighted and will cause both formats to fail if a prolonged war continues.

  • Free MacBook Pro

    I’ve had my free MacBook Pro for about a week now and wanted to post here about it. If it wasn’t for the guys on shacknews pointing to the Josh Clark blog and his great resource I wouldn’t have attempted it. However, it has come to the attention of everyone that the deal is now dead as NuiTech caught on to everyone scamming their scam and getting a “prize”.

    My MacBook Pro

  • Playstation 3: Is it still worth it to eBay one?

    This article/blog is being written for my friends over at Shacknews. A frequent poster today announced he walked into Target and aquired a PS3. He’s not sure if he should keep it or take it back. People are suggesting he eBay it for mad moneyhats. I’m suggesting otherwise, as I think the eBay market has crashed. Systems that were once going for $2,500 on average are now barely breaking $900. And that’s not even a guaranteed auction price. I’m going to take a quick sampling of the listing closings right now, December 5th, 2006 at 11:00 AM CST and just see what the average profit* is.

    *Profit assumes seller simply walked into the store and bought a PS3. If the seller spent any significant time hunting down a PS3 for sale, this profit would actually be smaller as I’m sure most people are like me and don’t consider their free time worth $0 an hour.

    Auction 1: Bids 8, Price $927
    Auction 2: Bids 45, Price $1,059
    Auction 3: Bids 29, Price $890
    Auction 4: Bids 0, Price $900 (But didn’t sell, so $0 profit)
    Auction 5: Bids 21, Price $850

    All of these prices were current as of the time I visited the auction, but all were under 5 minutes remaining so the ones that were not closed I do not think changed significantly. However, if they did let me know and I can recalculate. I included the one auction that did not sell because there is the probability of the auction not selling.

    Auction 1 sold at a $327 profit. Auction 2 sold at a $459 profit. Auction 3 sold at a $290 profit. Auction 4 did not sell, $0 profit. Auction 5 sold at a $250 profit. The average profit was $265. The profits listed here are PRIOR to eBay fees. I am going to assume each listing started at $600 dollars to make the calculations easier, even though we know this assumption is false as Auction 4 started at $900. I am also going to calculate the closing fees based on the average profit, so each system sold for $865 in calculating fees. I’m just looking for an average cost to insert a PS3 so this will work.

    Fees are calculated based on the published rates.

    $4.80 in insertion fees.
    Final value fees are calculated at 5.25% of the first $25 = $1.31
    Then the value up to $1,000 is calculated at 3%.
    $865 – $25 = $840 x 3% = $25.20
    Total closing fee = $26.51
    Total fees = $31.31

    This gives us a total of $833.69 after fees, so an average profit of $233.69. This is far below what the original auctions were going for, and this average is probably skewed due to the low sample size. So if you were able to walk into a store, purchase a PS3 without waiting, and eBay it this is the profit you are looking at.

    However, lets say for arguments sake you had to spend 12 hours hunting down a PS3. Twelve hours of your free time, this is far less than what some people sat in line for. If you spent just 12 hours looking for a PS3 you only made $19.47 per hour. I don’t know about you, but I value my free time at a lot more than $20 an hour.

    Edit: Auction 3 closed much higher, so I will include the new price of $1,100 in the calculations below:

    Average profit per auction: $307

    Fee recalculation @ average sell price of $907: $32.57

    $907-$32.57 =  $874.43 Total Sale price, or $274.43 profit.

    $22.87/hr @ 12 hours time spent to find one.

    Even with this adjustment it does not make a for a great increase in profit.

  • Dreamhost Coupon

    Since I changed the layout around I no longer have my link to Dreamhost with my referal information in it, so instead I’m going to post a coupon code anyone can use when they sign up for a new hosting plan with Dreamhost. This will work on any service level plan they have and it’s good for $50 off anything. The code is simply 50offnething. Simple huh?

  • Defeat any DRM’d CD

    You can defeat any fancy DRM protected cd by simply placing a peice of tape or obscuring the data track with a black marker. So, exactly what is the purpose of all this DRM “protection” if it can be foiled by a simple Sharpie?