The other day, a coworker and I got to talking about the various technologies that Just. Keep. COMING. that we don't know, and have exactly 0.000 minutes in the day in which to learn them.  This list includes:

• Silverlight
• WPF in general, really
• Workflow Foundation
• ASP.Net MVC
• HTML 5
• Powershell
• Damn near anything that doesn't run on a Microsoft platform

Missing from this list are things that we work with every day but sould stand to know more about, like Javascript, CSS, and several of the SharePoint features that, through no effort of my part, I've not yet had a serious paying project for, such as the BDC, extensive search modification, and so on.

What kills me more often than not is when I stumble across some guy's (or girl's) blog that is just ALL ABOUT one of said listed technologies, and I get this feeling that I REALLY need to step up my game in tech XYZ because MAN that's the FUTURE.  Then, I get over it - it's enough work to keep up with what I need to know to keep the paychecks rolling in.

There is nary an error message that send shooting pain through a VPN user's spine than "Reason 422: Failed to enable Virtual Adapter".  There are too many reasons, too many ways it can be fixed.  The error might as well say "Bad thing - dunno." Well, after I installed VirtualBox onto yet another Windows 7 release candidate machine, my VPN client no longer worked, Reason 422 just laughing at me.

I tried rebooting.  No dice.

I tried unchecking the VirtualBox networking driver on the VPN adapter.  Nothing.

I tried removing VirtualBox.  No good.

So, I though I'd try to treat the Cisco VPN client like the fragile little primadonna that it is, and I have everything working again.

1. Uninstall VirtualBox
2. Uninstall the Cisco VPN client
3. Install VirtualBox
4. Install the Cisco VPN client

Reboot when the software installs and uninstalls tell you to.

From SlackerManager.com:

You know what I'd like to see? A "blog showdown" between Fred Gratzon, of The Lazy Way to Success, and Steve Pavlina, of, well, Steve Pavlina's blog. Heck, I'd even host the showdown right here on Slacker Manager. Maybe readers could contribute questions, to be answered over the course of three or four days (leave those questions in the comments, just in case these guys agree to it).

Well... IT'S ON.  If you think that there's no such thing as a workaholic, or if you think the worst thing in the world is someone that can't get enough workahol - go comment and get your questions answered!

- G

An excellent article on life as work, found via that which shall not be linked.

Don't let the anti-Bush jabs distract you, it's a great read.

- G