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I recently reenabled S/MIME signing in my Outlook client. (S/MIME is a way to place a digital signature on an email message so the receipients can verify the sender.) When I tested sending mails back and forth to myself through my various clients, I had no problem. However, when I started sending email to other receipients, they all had issues opening the mail - most with the error message "Your digital ID name could not be found by the underlying security system."

This error is normally associated with difficulty opening encrypted mail. Since I wasn't using encryption, I couldn't fathom why this was happening. Many Google searches and Microsoft Knowledge Base articles later, I still hadn't found a solution. I finally had an "Ah-hah!" moment and found the problem. So, in the hope that someone will be spared some of my pain, here's my problem and solution.

I configured Outlook 2007 to use SHA512 for the signature algorithm. Unfortunately, this is not as widely supported as one might hope. Even on another Outlook 2007 installation at work, SHA512 couldn't be opened. Changing the signature algorithm back to SHA1 let everyone start seeing my emails again.

The "Your digital ID name could not be found by the underlying security system" error message is grossly misleading in this case! The system should really be reporting something like "The security system does not support the algorithm used to sign this message." I don't normally bash Microsoft, but in this case... you dropped the ball guys! Since SHA1 has started to show some signs of weakness, I'm hopefully that SHA512 will be more widely supported in the future. But until then, keep your S/MIME certificates set to SHA1 and AES256!

Delayed, originally uploaded by Daniel Hagan.

Want to know what it's like to be delayed at Charlotte (NC) airport? It's just like this...

For this last trip to Boston, I tried out National Car Rental. National's Emerald Club let's you pick your own car from anything on the lot when you reserve a midsize. So when I arrived, I got to check out the lot and decided to take the new Pontiac G8 GT they had waiting.

The G8 is Pontiac's full size sedan, and the GT comes with a 6.0L V8 generating 360 hp through a 6-speed automatic transmission to the rear wheels. As you might expect, this car gets full marks for power! The interior is nicely appointed, and very comfortable.

However, there were a few things that bugged me in this car.

1. The handling really isn't that great. Unfortunately, this is par for the course in my experience with domestic cars. While it was light-years above the Mustang, it still feels a little skittish in the corners under speed.
2. The window and mirror controls are all in the center console. While this gives the car a certain cleanness of lines around the door, it also makes it very inconvenient to try to roll down your window while holding something - like toll money or an id badge.
3. The large LCD display is set low in the center dash. While this isn't automatically a bad thing, there is a large low-res LCD that display battery voltage and oil pressure in the top of the center dash. I'd much prefer my radio and clock displays be higher up so I don't have to lose sight of the road to check the time.
4. The car I drove only had 3000 miles on it, but the tire pressure sensor in the right front wheel was faulty. It would read fluctuating values between 90 psi and 1 psi, and contantly beep to alert me... very annoying! Unfortunately, this is another incident of "Pontiacs break down a lot" stereotype appearing true.

So, overall, I thought the G8 was an excellent rental car, and I won't hesitate to take one again if given the chance... But it still falls short of a car I'd be willing to buy. Which is really too bad, because Pontiac has all the elements of a great sedan in this car, if they could just follow through on the little things.

Wheat Field & Rainbow by Kathleen Connally

Normally, I use Flickr photos for the photo of the day, but this was just too gorgeous to pass up. I highly recommend checking out the larger version linked above as well.

Cindy has an enviable track record of spotting birds that I miss. (She says it's because she has to look up at the sky to look at me.) Today we pulled up to a red light and she spotted a hawk perched on a telephone pole eating it's latest quarry. So we pulled into a nearby McDonald's for some sweet tea and watched the hawk.

It turned out to be a red tail hawk, although we never established exactly what it was eating. But it was amazing to watch other birds pester the hawk while he tried to eat his meal. At first there was a crow, which at least comes across as a fair match-up in size. But then two grackles started mercilessly hounding the hawk - swooping back and forth around him, and even pecking or grabbing his back during fly-bys! They managed to drive the hawk off, meal in talon, in about 10 minutes.

It was really entertaining to see all this drama unfold, but it was all the more amazing because no one else seemed to notice. This was taking place on one of the main streets in Quincy (outside Boston) and despite the rush hour traffic and heavy pedestrian traffic from the train station, I didn't see a single other person stop and look up. I always feel lucky when Cindy and I get to enjoy a spectacle like this that for all intents and purposes must be invisible to everyone around us.