Diary of a Network Geek

Hey, I’ve known that for years!

Well, according to this article on MSN Health, scientists tend to agree with me. Not only can coffee help with headaches and lift your mood, but it could lower your risk of cavities, diabetes, Parkinson’s disease, and colon cancer. WOW! That’s a lot of medicine in a little “bad” habit! A lot of this, of course, is related to the high levels of caffiene in coffee, which is why I drink it in the first place. Double bonus!
Of course the article goes on to say that more scientific study needs to be done to determine the full impact of all these findings, but it all sounds pretty good to me.
So, hey, it’s Friday, do something for your health: have another cup of coffee!

Guess what I’ve been doing today?

Well, at least for the past couple of hours. Yep, I’ve been trying to beat MyDoom into submission at my second, “part-time” consulting gig. I don’t know where they got it, how many machines have it, yet, or even how long they’ve had it, but they got it. I even did the updates via the Micro$loth Update service, but that just wasn’t good enough. So, while I type this entry, the MyDoom removal tool is downloading, as is Spybot Search and Destroy. Why both? Well, at least one of the people at this site has KaZa loaded on their machine. And, while I’m sure it’s a great program for trading perfectly legal files, it’s about the most pernicious virus infection vector I’ve ever seen. If I were making the policy here, I’d just uninstall it and tell them not to ever even consider asking about the possibility of installing it again. But, no, I’m a “consultant” so I have to be more diplomatic than that. Which, I think, I was. (My wife was there, so I think she’ll back me up on that.) Is it wrong to pray for something so small and trival like someone forbidding another to run a piece of software? Well, if it is, it’s too late for me, because I’ve already done it.
Oh, well, at least I got paid for the four hours of work by the hour, at my “on-the-side” rates…

On a happier foreign note…

Open Source projects in Germany. Accoding to this article on Wired News, Munich is going forward with thier migration to Open Source software. They’re not the first, but they’re the first I know of in Europe. And, they’re the first I’ve heard about in a long time. That combined with the whole Novell purchase of SUSE makes me really glad to be of German descent! Seriously, it really looks like Germany is getting cranked up on the latest technology and that’s cool. Hopefully, they’ll pull some of the rest of Europe along! Go, Tux, go!

Webmonkey is dead.

Or, at least it’s dying. According to this article on Wired News, almost eight years as the place to go to teach yourself HTML and related web coding, Webmonkey is shutting down. I learned some of my first PERL here, not to mention a lot of what I know about style sheets. Their tutorials made my sad, little web skills what they are today. I still use their reference materials when I’m looking up things like web color codes and special characters, not to mention their very handy Unix cheat sheet.
Well, all good things must come to and end, I suppose. I sure hope my wife puts some of the same kind of usefull information on her section of this website.

Not the usual Diary of a Network Geek book.

But, well worth looking into. I first got interested in Rastafarianism by way of William Gibson, who had several characters who were Dreadlocks. My ignorance of what that was all about was, well, somewhat shocking for me at the time. So, I started poking around. Quite a few years ago, I found Rastafari: Roots and Ideology by Barry Chevannes. It followed me around, unread, in a box for several years. Well, I finally read it this past week. What a shame I waited so long!
This was a very good book about the history and origins of a relatively new religion. Among other things, it was fascinating to track the birth of a new faith from its very start through the modern day. As a sociological look at a small, but growing, religious or spiritual movement, this is a great book. It is, however, a rather schollarly look at this movement and, as such, is somewhat dry at times. Still, it presents not only a well-rounded look at the religion, but also the socio-economic forces that shaped it. One of the main “pillars of faith”, for instance, is the concept of “repatriation” to Ethiopia. This would never have come about if not for the practice of black slavery in the New World.
I’ll not attempt to describe the intricacies of Rastafarianism in a short message, but, if you’re interested in knowing more, this book is a great place to start.

(Note: This review also appeared on my other blog.)

Okay, this is a week too late, but…

It’s still fun! According to this article on Wired News, Portland, Oregan hosted BrickFest PDX over the President’s Day weekend. From the description, it was LEGOs as far as the eye could see in all their creative glory. This is the first time I’ve heard of such a festival, but it makes sense. Those of us who are LEGO fanatics would totally go for this kind of thing. (Yes, I’m a LEGO nut. It’s just in remission right now.)
Anyway, several clubs got together to put this on. They had a big “shared” village that every group helped to set up, but they also had individual displays. Some of these looked spectacular. The LEGO roller-coaster has to be seen to be believed. The article on Wired News has pictures.
Hey, it’s Friday. Let your imagination run wild!

Bad news for telemarketers.

According to this article on MSNBC, the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld the Federal No-Call List! Yea! That means that everyone who signed up for the list oh, so many months ago, should be free from tele-harassment. At least, for a bit. I’m sure the telemarketers will try to find a way around it. But, at least we’ll have some peace for a little bit.
Oh, and if you haven’t signed up yet, go to the National Do Not Call Registry and do it. It’s free!

Here’s one I’ve never heard of before.

According to this article on Wired News, there’s a government program designed to “retrain” people to be competitive with H1B visa holders. The idea being to give US Citizens skills that make them competitive with imported skilled workers. Great idea, right? Yeah, only I’ve never heard of it before and now they’re trying to get rid of it!
The article is a little confusing, frankly, about who benefits from the program, H1B holders or people training to compete with them, but the end result seemed to be more US Citizens with viable skills and careers. Frankly, I’m in favor of any program that helps retrain American workers and keep them viable in the workforce. And, based on this quote:

“It would kill a program that mitigates the need for foreign workers by training U.S. citizens,” said Mike Wilson, chief executive of the Bay Area Technology Education Collaborative, which runs training programs in the greater San Francisco area. “That’s a hard one to swallow.”

It sounds like that’s just what this program is designed to do. Might be something to talk to your Congressman about, eh?

Or, is that the “Isn’t it ironic” department?

Well, it’s a little of both, actually. In two related stories from Australian IT, we get a closer look at the off-shore industry. It seems things are heating up for those poor “oppressed” people who are “reallocating” resources offshore. First, they’re not getting absolutly every job they can, so they’re protesting and claiming that a true free-market economy will decide where the jobs should be. No, really, I’m not kidding, here’s the article. They’re protesting the fact that the Australian government is restricting how many government, and government contract, IT jobs can be sent offshore. Hey, that sounds like the will of the people to me. And, isn’t that what a free-market economy is all about?
Maybe the problem is that China is going after India’s customers. After all, a shrinking market with higher levels of competition is a scary thing. So, when someone undercuts your price and starts to gain a significant portion of your market share, it’s scary. And, according to this article, that’s what’s happening. But, hey, the free-market ought to take care of that, right? Oh, right, at the expense of someone’s job. Well, as long as it’s not one of their jobs. Yeah, that seemed ironic to me, too.

Change is good, right?

Well, if you’ve noticed that my site hasn’t been updated much this week and were wondering why, it’s because one of my domains got booted from my old webhost. But, I found the folks over at Amzia.net and all is well. Actually, it’s better than “well”, at least on-line. Amzia.net is not only a better service, in my opinion, and a local company, but they’re cheaper, too! If you’re looking for hosting, check them out.

In other news, today is VD day. Oh, okay, “St. Valentine’s Day”. So, for fun, I bring you the news that Ken and Barbie are getting divorced. No, really. They make up some story about her being a “career worman” and all that kind of junk, but really, I think she’s just run off with G.I. Joe. Or, maybe this guy. I mean, c’mon, admit it, every girl likes a guy in uniform. Honestly, I think the only reason my wife was interested in me was that I told her her I was an Eagle Scout! (Then again, considering the pictures of my Eagle Ceremony, maybe not…) Personally, I think Ken should go for one of Joe’s girlfriends. Turnabout is fair play, after all. And, afterward, they could all get on one of the afternoon talk shows! Now, that’s what I call a good St. Valentine’s Day!!