Tim's Whiteboard

Marriott Rewards or Hilton HHonors? A Comparison.

poseidon2600 — Sat, 24 Sep 2011 15:43:40 +0000

I am currently a “Hilton Guy” but I have been debating switching over to Marriott. I did some research about the rewards for each in the table below. I didn’t see a way to easily compare rewards redemption so I left that out. This page is an accumulation of the information I found during my research. I didn’t include my own opinion so you can come to your own conclusion. I also included references to the websites I used for your own reference and more details. There are also some comparisons that cannot be easily made. The most significant for me is the overall quality of a Fairfield vs. a Hampton. I have stayed at many Hampton’s and they are functional and clean. I have never had a “bad” Hampton. I don’t have this same level of experience to be able to say this about Fairfield. However I have “heard” people say they generally prefer Hampton over Fairfield or have found “bad” Fairfield’s. This is a terrible comparison but one that is necessary if you travel to less common destinations in the US. The second comparison is the location and numbers of properties available. Hilton claims to have 3700 properties and Marriott 3200. It seems that there are Hilton properties in more rural locations and but again this is very subjective. It also seems that there are Marriott’s in more convenient locations for the business traveler, also very subjective. I hope that you find the information helpful. The information was collected in September 2011.

	Marriott Platinum	Marriott Gold	Marriott Silver	Hilton Diamond	Hilton Gold	Hilton Silver
Nights Required	75	50	10	60 Nights 28 Stays	36 Nights 16 Stays	10 Nights
Guaranteed Availability	48 hrs.			48 hrs..
Arrival Gift (Water, Food or Points)	x			x	x
Dedicated Reservation Line	x
Guaranteed Room Type	x	x
Room Upgrade	x	x		x	x
Lounge Access	x	x		x	x
Free Breakfast	x	x		x	x
Free Internet	x	x		x	x
Free Local Phone / Fax	x	x
Free Fitness Center				x	x	x
Points Bonus	50%	25%	20%	50%	25%	15%
Priority Late Check Out	x	x	x	x	x	x
Weekend Discount	x	x	x
Gift Shop Discount	x	x	x

Marriott References:

http://www.marriott.com/rewards/member-benefits/guarantee.mi

Hilton References:

Benefits: http://hhonors1.hilton.com/en_US/hh/about/benefits.do

Silver: http://hhonors1.hilton.com/en_US/hh/about/silver.do

Gold: http://hhonors1.hilton.com/en_US/hh/about/gold.do

Diamond:http://hhonors1.hilton.com/en_US/hh/about/diamond.do

MMS 2011 Bible Study

poseidon2600 — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 18:06:56 +0000

Thanks Jarvis and Rod for setting up a great Bible study on Romans this year. For those of you that are interested we are meeting in Reef D at 7:15 for the rest of the week. Watch Jarvis’s blog for details about next year.

System Center Service Manager Installation Notes

poseidon2600 — Sun, 23 Jan 2011 18:36:01 +0000

I recently set off to install SCSM 2010 SP1 into a production environment for the first time. I thought I would share a few things I found out that I wished I had known before my install. This is not to say that if I would have read through the planning and preparation guides on TechNet which are relatively short that I wouldn’t have know this stuff, but who reads that before they install? So here we go:

If you are installing on 2008 R2 install .NET from features, you do not need WCF activation. I wish the install would trigger the feature install on 2008 R2 but it instead directs you to download and install, it should at least direct you to install the feature on 2008 R2 rather than download and install.
You need the report viewer installed prior to setup completing but you can click through the install via the Setup screens, I am sure there is a good reason but I would love to see this automated
You will need hotfix KB 975332 if you are pre-sp1 (assumption as I haven’t tested with SP1 but it appears to be in SP1). The request process is easy and quick and can be done entirely on-line
There are two accounts that are needed during setup, the services or operations account and the workflow account. There is a good document on all the requirements for these accounts and the ones you will need to integrate SCOM and SCCM.
All the server components appear to need to be on x64 servers, this does not include the console.
You will likely get an error during install that your SQL Server Collation if your SQL Server is using the default collation (SQL_Latin1_General_CP1_CI_AS).

It appears you can safely ignore this message if you are not supporting multiple languages based on the information on the bottom of this page on TechNet. The fully supported collations are listed here, but keep in mind unless you are very experienced DBA that changing the collation will require a reinstall of SQL.Also be aware that SCOM only supports SQL_Latin1_General_CP1_CI_AS so if you wish to share the SQL server instance you must use SQL_Latin1_General_CP1_CI_AS.

SCSM is based on SCOM which means among other things that it will create a management group. If you want to integrate the two in the future each management group name must be unique.
If the warehouse management server is not on the same server as SSRS you have to add Microsoft.EnterpriseManagement.Reporting.Code to the global assembly cache.

That is all I have for now, if I discover more I will let you know!

Free Microsoft e-Learning

poseidon2600 — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 18:36:12 +0000

I stumbled upon some e-learning today that you might find useful. It is called Snack Box and it provides small learning snacks and allows the community to also post “snacks”. It is available here. What do you think of it?

Pigs fly! Microsoft leads in security according to InfoWorld

poseidon2600 — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 19:24:52 +0000

According to Roger Grimes at InfoWorld many leading security experts are giving Microsoft security accolades. Have a look at the article and decide for yourself but it does seem to me that the tide has been shifting for many years.

http://www.infoworld.com/d/security-central/pigs-fly-microsoft-leads-in-security-200

Some Notable Quotes from article:

“Many of the world’s most knowledgeable security experts are urging their favorite software vendors to follow in the footsteps of Microsoft.”
"Microsoft becomes high priest of secure software development." – CNET
“As an industry we should recognize the sea change in Microsoft’s approach to security… and encourage other vendors to follow Microsoft’s lead." — SANS NewsBites
“In 2004 Microsoft was a couple years into its Trustworthy Computing Initiative but it remained the software company IT security practitioners hated with glee…. That’s not so much the case today." — Computerworld

Dell site with drivers and walkthroughs for OSD for SCCM

poseidon2600 — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 14:01:11 +0000

Found this site from a post from Rod Trent a few days ago and I wanted to highlight it further. This site appears to have all of the drivers that you will need to deploy Dell Business Desktops through SCCM. This includes drivers and walkthroughs. Way to go Dell! Does anyone know if a site like this exists for other manufacturers?

Dell Business Client Operating System Deployment

Microsoft Announces Oct. 22 GA of Windows 7 and Server 2008 R2

poseidon2600 — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 11:34:56 +0000

Microsoft announced at Computex 2009 in Taipei that Windows 7 will be available for the holiday shopping season. I had been hoping that it would also be available for “back to school” but I was also pleasantly surprised to see Microsoft offering a “Windows 7 Upgrade Option Program” which I am assuming will get consumers who purchase a new PC before October 22 a free upgrade to 7. The Windows Team Blog post indicates that they will release more details on this program at a later time. I am ecstatic to see this great operating system released. Press release from Microsoft here.

Tim Pawlenty (MN Republican Governor) not running for reelection

poseidon2600 — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 16:45:47 +0000

OH MY… Let the campaign for 2012 begin. Most of you know that Mr. Pawlenty was a presumed running mate for Senator McCain. StarTribune Article

SharePoint SP2 Bug Warning from Microsoft

poseidon2600 — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 16:43:34 +0000

For those of you that have applied SP2 to your SharePoint farms please be aware that Microsoft has released an alert about a bug in the service pack. It appears that after application of the service pack the farm will go into trial mode that expires in 180 days. For those of you that have applied the service pack you can go get your product key from your MVLS site and apply it to the farm once and get around this. Otherwise there will be a hotfix issued soon. If you applied to search server the only way to fix this is to apply the hotfix. Detailed information on the SharePoint blog here:

Excellent usage article on SCCM

poseidon2600 — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 21:12:57 +0000

My friend Jarvis wrote an excellent article about how to manage the default collections to make them easier to use. This is one of those great usage articles that all SCCM administrators should read regardless of their experience.