Diary of a Network Geek

WOW! Talk about a blast from the past!

So, I'm just sittin' there, minding my own business, trying to look casual while reading e-mail and the boss walks in and starts firing questions about Netware licensing at me. Naturally, I'm suspicious from the start, but I listen and answer questions as best I can.
Not too long ago, we bought a company on the East Coast that had, well, an "interesting" mix of technology in their IT department. It seems a couple of these sites are have problems with the number of licensed connections available. The office has about 30 people, but they only have a 10 user license. Talk about 10lbs. of crap and a 5lbs. bag. But, wait, it gets better!! They're running, yep, you guessed it, Netware 3.2. Oh, God, what did I do in a past life to deserve this?
Well, wailing and gnashing of teeth aside, I'm gonna' have to deal with this. Somehow. Without spending any money. Yeah, right.
So, I dig into Uncle Jim's Magical Bag O' Tricks™ and pull out not one, but two copies of unserialized server.exe that I had from way, way back by way of a guy who was a developer at a Novell channel partner or some such. (Don't worry, he's since turned rogue and been seduced by the Evil Micro$oft Empire, so I'm not getting him in trouble.) But, you know what? The boss says to me, "That just doesn't sound 'right'."
What's this? A boss who actually cares about doing things the Right Way™ ? Whoda' thunk it!
So, the work may not always be challenging and the pay can always be better, but at least I have a pretty damn good boss these days. That's something. Hell, somedays, it's the only thing.

Well, now, this sounds interesting...

The other day there was an article on Slashdot about a college student trying to set up cheap wireless access at a local coffee shop. This caught my eye for three reasons.
First, it was a nice little display of ambition to see a college kid setting this up for a local business. (I'm assuming the little capitalist was going to get paid.)
Second, I thought it was pretty good marketing for a little, local "mom and pop" coffee shop to be offering wireless Internet access.
Third, the suggestions and reactions of the Slashdot crowd were both helpful and typical of the "get something for nothing" crowd I expect to find only on Slashdot. I mean, these people were all offering real world experience on how to set it up. And, some folks even provided suggested hardware and places to buy it. But, most of the folks were suggesting that it should be free. Why? Well, because only hardcore geeks would want it anyway. Hunh? Try again!

First off, wireless access at coffee shops has been a big news story for months in the regular print media. Second, why should it be free just because the target market is small? In some cases, that should mean that the prices are actually higher. Elitism has its price, children.
So, while I think it's great that the article generated a lot of information, I don't think the "you pay, but I should get it free" model will work well. Especially for a small business who usually run tight on expenses already.
Still, it would be a neat idea if he can get it implemented.

A quest to improve my spirituality.

I'm not sure how many entries I'll make about this, but I hope to make more than this one. One of my New Year's Resolutions is to improve my spiritual life. Right now, I pray almost every morning and read from a daily devotional every morning. When I do pray in the morning, I use Judeo-Christian prayer with a Buddhist mala, which is a set of prayer beads. I don't attend church, nor do I plan to in the near future. I just don't have much use for organized religion on that scale these days. Of course, that may change. That's all well and good, but I still feel like my personal spirituality is lacking.

So, a friend of mine suggested that I keep a prayer journal, or spirituality journal. He suggested that I write just things of a spiritual nature in that journal. Nothing about work, or family, or any other concern other than my spirituality. I mulled that over for a couple of weeks this year and somewhere in there remembered a book I'd read by Israel Regardie called The One Year Manual. Unfortunately, according to Amazon.com, it's now out of print. (Though, RedWheel/Weiser, the publisher, says that it's still available. ISBN: 0-87728-489-X) It's a book of twelve exercises that are meant to improve one's spiritual health. A book for starting to "walk the Path" as Regardie puts it. Obviously, each exercise is meant to be practiced about a month before moving on to the next exercise and each exercise builds on the last one. Also, Regardie suggests that praying four times a day, at the start of the student's day, noon, the end of the student's day and before retiring, is essential to the overall program. He lists four prayers, but I don't particularly like them, so I'm finding my own. I have some I'm working with now, but I may change them further down the line. Regardie also suggests that the student keep a journal tracking their progress through the exercises. So, I'm going to do that.

The first exercise is about "body awareness". The student is to sit or lay in a comfortable position and simply get in touch with what their body and surroundings are doing. The student should be as perfectly still as possible during this time, not responding to any thing, not even to scratch an itch. Simply to be aware of and acknowlege their body and surroundings. At first, these sessions should only last about 10 mintues, but they will eventually be up to thirty minutes. This should be done at least twice a day, no matter how long it's being done. The purpose of this exercise is to develop both awareness and concentration. The goal is to be able be totaly aware of one's surroundings and internal processes. Regardie says that it's the first step toward "mindful living", which sounds very comfortably Buddhist to me.

So, we'll see how it goes. I'll try to be brave enough to keep the Diary of a Network Geek updated with my progress.

Everything old is new again!

Okay, so after two days of depressing news, it's time for something fun. We've been trying to replace human workers with robots for just about as long as we've had robots, but progress is slow. "Slow?" you ask. Yes, slow. Robots have been around since the late 1800's and we're only now getting close to something that can do everything a human can do.
No, really, robots have been around since about 1865. Don't believe me? It's true! I read it on Slashdot!

Hey, let's start the New Year off right!

With fear over our jobs in the current market! WooHOO!
Here are two stories about the trend in out sourcing geek jobs. Neither paint a pretty picture. They're both on Business Week Online.
First, we have a fun little article about how India is corporate IT's "silent partner". Hmm, not sure how "silent" they are, and they're no partner of mine, frankly. I detest this trend in outsourcing, especially over-seas. Why do we let other countries profit from what we invented? Especially at the sacrifice of our own jobs?
Well, this second article, on the rise of India might explain part of it. So, India send their best and brightest over to the States to get PhD.'s, then welcome them home and court US business. Hmm... So, why aren't we focusing more on science and technology in education in our schools? Why aren't we encouraging our own kids to do what these foregin kids are doing? Any professional "educators" out there want to take a stab at that? Oh, wait, that's not their job is it.....

Okay, boyz and grrls, it's time to take charge of your profession. We need to do more with less and be more aggressive and creative than our foregin competitors or we're all going to be out on the street. Look at your resumes right now. No, really, go ahead. I'll wait...
Now, are those the skills that are going to keep you competitive for the next three years? No? Then you better bust open a book and start working on the Next Big Thing. (Hey, when you figure that out, let me know, will 'ya?)

Okay, so this is a very scary bedtime story.

"Once upon a time, there was a hard-working network security admin. His company ordered a security audit, and he thought it was a great idea. Then, the evil network security auditor/outsourcer told his company that the security admin was the weakest link in their network security. So they fired him."
The only reason that's scary is because it's also apparently true.

So, is it just me, or does stuff like this keep you up at night? Now, if you'll excuse me, I think I need to check on that resume in the oven...

Is this really a danger?

Well, according to this story on Wired News, the Office of Homeland Defence seems to think so. In fact, they're so sure it's going to be an issue that they're going to spend $33 million on protecting our livestock.
No, really, they are.

Okay, now, I'll grant you that messing up the US food supply could be a really big problem, but is this really an angle that terrorists would take? Somehow, I doubt it. It would be a really effective way to cripple our economy, and our military, but it just doesn't play well. I don't think it would really strike fear in the hearts of innocents, which is what terrorism is all about. I mean, a random poisoning will have everyone looking over their shoulder and double-checking safety seals, but the USDA would stop 99.9% of any potentially bad meat or produce before it got anywhere. It's what they do.
So, I don't know. It's important, I guess, but I don't really think it's very likely to be a problem.

I'm not quite sure how I feel about this...

Okay, so I knew that when I opened up my blog for syndication anyone could link to it, but I guess I didn't really expect anyone to actually do it! Now, I've got a site called Christian Geeks using me as thier main "news" feed on their homepage. Technically, I am, in fact, a Christian and I've almost always said that I was a geek, so, I guess it fits. But, well, I never really thought of my geekness and my Christianity as being related. And, I'm not sure how comfortable I am being held up as somekind of example of Christian geekdom. I mean, I'm not exactlly the "ideal" example of a Christian!
For one thing, I curse. I say "damn" and "crap" all the time. Just ask my poor step-daughter! (No, I don't yell at her with curse words, but everytime I screw something up on my PC, or with the plumbing, "damn" and "crap" are every other word!) For another thing, I don't even really go to church any more. I sort of got fed up with the whole organized religion "scene". It seemed like it was more about making money than anything else.
On the other hand, I do generally believe in the basic tenants of Christianity. Of course, I try to be as open and accepting in that belief as possible. For instance, I don't think that the Dalai Lama is going to Hell because he hasn't accepted Christ as his personal savior. I just can't believe in a God that would do something like that. And, I do try to pray on a regular basis. And improve my contact and awareness of God in my life.

Oh, I don't know. I guess what I'm saying is, remember, if you read it on the Internet, take it with a grain of salt. And, consider the source.

Okay, this is actually kind of sad.

I mean, do we really need a webpage that tells us what to do when our Internet connection goes down? Well, apparently we do, because a couple of crazy Canadians have put one up. So, the next time your local phone or cable company decides to help you discover a life beyond the Internet, you'll have a resource. Of course, you'll want to print this out and keep it handy, or at least save it to your hard drive, so that when the Internet goes out you'll have it. (Think about it! If you can't get to the Internet, you can't see a webpage on someone else's server!)

The "orange" box....

Now, I have to admit that I really dig little computers. I mean, when I was a kid, all the science-fiction writer's were just starting to explore tiny, but powerful, computers. Now, we've got all kinds of personal sized machines that are better than the servers I started out working with in my first IT job!
The latest of those is called T-Cube. It's a little, orange box that runs its own OS. It's not big, but they pack a lot into it. You can read more about it at I4U.

One of the things I think is cool about this is that it's being developed in Asia for Asian markets. They're building in support for Chinese, which is a major challenge for non-Chinese speakers to localize. It's a small, affordable PC which made its debut at a Japanese computer show just this year. Who knows what that will mean to US manufacterers, but it's an interesting trend in Asia.