Diary of a Network Geek

Are we headed toward a military state?

The stories about passports, technology and privacy just keep on coming. And, they seem to be picking up speed! Well, maybe we’re just headed toward a world government. At least, to hear how people are talking about sharing international data on travelers and passorts, electronically, of course, to try and combat terrorism. Thankfully, according to this article on Wired News, there are already people who are concerned about the implications. It really feels like we’re headed toward the death of privacy on a global scale. There is more and more talk every day about government agencies and international governments sharing data on criminals and suspected criminals. And, frankly, that’s the part that bothers me.
Is it right or just to tag someone as a potential risk and then pass that information to every law enforcement agency in the world? What constitutes a risk? Is the criteria the same in the United States as it is in, say, the United Emirates? Is having information about crime and criminal activity carried out by a third party a “warning sign” that someone may be dangerous? (If so, I better get rid of all those old 2600 Magazines and those text files from my hard drive!)
Now, I don’t plan on travelling internationally any time soon, but how long will it be before they start doing the same thing with driver’s licenses? I mean, wouldn’t it be nice to track people who’ve had DUI convictions with an RFID tag on their license? How long before I have to show my internal passport to buy gas because it might be used as a bomb? And, if you’re thinking, “But that could never happen here!”, remember, that’s what they said in Nazi Germany, too.

So, even though I’m a fairly conservative guy, politically, I like the fact that the ACLU is out there looking out for my freedoms. I may not agree with everything they fight for, but I still think they’re a good check and balance.
Know your rights. Know what they’re trying to take away from you, and fight for what you believe.

Man, there are times I could have used this!

I can’t count how many times I’ve had a problem with a Windows PC that required all kinds of esoteric futzing with drives and configurations. Oh, how much simpler it would have been if I’d only had the right bootable CD. Well, there’s a guy over in the Netherlands named Bart who’s got a page all about bootable Windows CDs. There’s nothing here that a really competent Admin couldn’t do by hand, but, oh, the time savings you get by having all the information and tools in one place!
I can’t remember all the times that I’ve had to do this, or find a way around doing it, over the years. Now, we all have a better resource. I hope it helps someone in need.

Oh, man, this guy just doesn’t get it….

Okay, so I was checking my links and updating my link to A Day in the Life of an Information Security Investigator and saw another blog on the same site called Viewpoint from India: An IT Outsourcing Blog. Out of morbid curiosity, I went to look. The poor buy was complaining that he didn’t get enough response from his blog. My first thought was, “Man, this guy doesn’t get it! He’s the freakin’ enemy! Of course no one wants to comment on his blog!!” But, then, I actually read some of his earlier posts. Turns out, he’s afraid of all the same things we are: bad economy, a weak job market, and, yes, even outsourcing. Of course, he’s worried about the Chinese, but he’s also worried about the US pulling work back. I can’t say I’m sorry about that last bit, but I do understand his fear.
But, still, in the very same post that he whines about not enough readership, he also tells his readers to, essentially, suck it up and accept that this is the new way of doing global business. He says, essentially, that he and others like him will undercut us as much as they can for as long as they can to improve their way of life and too bad if we don’t like it. Not a friendly, warm, welcoming blog author, is he? And, not real big on who his potential readers are, either.
Now, I know that outsourcers read my blog, based on semi-anonymous comments that they have left, apparently out of cowardice. But, I write how I feel anyway, because my target audience is other guys like me who are constantly on the verge of losing our jobs to guys like them!

Here’s the thing, we determine the global economy. If we make it too expensive in terms of good will for companies to outsource overseas, then we change the global economy in a way that we like. That, gentle readers, is the way economics works. We, the consumers, are, in fact, a market force. How we feel and how we prefer that companies do business is an important factor in global markets. So, if we’re tired of losing jobs to offshoring, are we wrong to change that? Even to legislate a change? NO! We are acting as a market force! Welcome to the real global economy, buddy. I do have a say in how well, or even if, outsourcing works. And so do the rest of you. Either way you feel, make your voice heard. It’s your right as a participant in that oft cited global economy, so don’t forget to exercise it.

No, really, I’m serious!

The famous Bikini Atoll, where the US Government did their atomic bomb testing, has their own website. Apparently, there are people actually living there! Who knew?
In any case, they have quite an active tourist trade, inlcuding sport fishing and diving. Hmm, I wonder if they have contests for fish with the most eyes? And, I bet the night diving is spectacular, what with the glow and all! But, really, the best thing is the shop on the site. You, too, can own a Bikini Atoll Dive Program shirt.
Oh, c’mon, it’s Friday! Go check out the site!

people listen.

And, that, gentle readers, is no joke. Whatever you may think about Micro$oft and Chairman Bill, he drives the industry. So, what he thinks really does matter. So, what does Bill Gates think? Well, according to this article on eWeek.com, this year, he’s thinking about XML and webservices, wireless protocols, shockingly enough, security, XBox, and surprise, market domination. So, this is what’s going to matter for the next year, or so, in IT. You’d better learn about it and know it well enough to be relavent.
Thankfullly, I know a little about webservices of various kinds and I’ve got a couple of XML and PHP books lined up. And, I’m working on my Security+, still. And, I also have a book or two in my queue on security. Hmm, maybe I won’t be too bad off if I get outsourced….

How about you?

Well, maybe not entirely…

But, according to this article on Australian IT, it sure hasn’t had much effect. The law was supposed to stop unwanted “junk” e-mail completely, but it hasn’t quite done that. In fact, according to the article, it’s barely had any effect at all.
Frankly, I’m not surprised. That law didn’t really have much in the way of teeth. I know I could see that back when it was first proposed. Honestly, I couldn’t believe that lawmakers thought it would do any good at all! But, still, it got passed and it was at least something that headed in the right direction. Now, at least, there’s precedent for the law. Maybe they can draft new laws that will add a bit of oomph to the enforcement end of things. God knows, I’d love to stop the 50+ junk e-mails I get every day.
Oh, well, just remember, when you see people running for office that are in favor of stricter laws regarding this kind of thing, vote for them!

Well, some people want them.

According to this article on Australian IT, there are several goups lobbying for new top level domain names to be added by ICANN. Among them were “.asia”, “.cat”, “.jobs”, “.mail”, “.post”, “.tel”, “.travel”, and “.xxx”. The “.xxx” domain was sponsored by the International Foundation for Online Responsibility, who are hoping it will encourage the adoption of the suffix among the “responsible online adult-entertainment community”. That’s a noble idea, but somehow, I doubt that it will come about.
After all, these are the same scum-sucking bottom feeders that send so much pornographic junk e-mail to us, so I really doubt that they’ll volunteer for controls and segregation. But, one can hope.

Where? How? How do I get one?

Well, as rumors at work fly about the potential of the entire network staff being outsourced, this seems like a timely meme. I’ve seen, and heard, several stories about how outsourcing somehow is making jobs and how it will help the economy. The most recent of these was this article on MSN.com. Well, that’s great, for the long run, but what about the guy who’s out of work right now? How is he going to take care of his family? What’s more, this is all potential economic growth. There’s nothing that says the people being put out of work are going to be able to find jobs in time to keep from going bankrupt! And, how many of the alleged jobs are the same kind of jobs that are being eliminated? If you replace all your network people and they go into sales, who’s going to buy anything from them?
Now, here’s the part that they don’t want to talk about: outsourcing may not even be working! According to University of Southern Mississippi professor David Butler, “”What CEOs don’t tell reporters is that outsourcing is still experimental and the experiment may not be working. Overseas call centers can cost more in customer goodwill than they save in staff salaries.”
They save that for the end of the article. It’s important, though, because it belies the idea that outsourcing is such a great idea.
God, for a change, I hope my boss is reading my blog….

Yeah, I know Win2k.

And, today, I know it better than I’d like. This weekend I spent 21 hours moving a Windows 2000 file server/domain controller/IIS server/proxy to a new hard drive. At least I’ll get paid by the hour.
Okay, so you regular readers (you know who you are) know that I’m mainly a Netware/Linux guy. So, what am I doing working on Win2K? Well, times are tough, so Uncle Jim has to work at two jobs. The second job is a realtively small company that I consult for on a strictly after-hours, part-time basis. Most of the time, I don’t put in more than five or six hours a month, which makes it a nice supplement to my primary income. And, frankly, I took the job because I needed the extra experience on Windows 2000 Server and consulting. So, for months they’ve had a 16 Gig drive that has been on the edge of full and last month they finally got a new 70+ Gig drive in. Great, right? Not so much. See, I tried to use Ghost to get it moved over, but Ghost kept failing. It took me a month and about 20 hours to finally figure out that the drive was just way, way, way too fragmented for Ghost to deal with. That meant one thing: the old backup-and-restore method. Ugh.
Okay, so I’m figuring it’s going to be a four or five hour thing, right? Nope. The tape drive isn’t working for some reason and it takes me at least four hours to get that worked out. Then another hour or two for a full backup. Then, an hour or more to get Windows 2000 installed on the new drive and the backup software installed. Another hour to get the tape merged and a restore launched. So, then I reboot and ….. Blam! Error!!
Can you say “Security Account Manager initialization failed”? Does that seem like a problem? You bet it is! The error told me to restart in “Directory Services Restore Mode” to try and fix the problem. Sounds good. But, when I restart, it asks me for the Admin password before repairing and proceeds to tell me that I’m putting in the wrong password. Okay, so I start all over again. Guess what? Same problem.
So, since I still have the old hard drive in original condition, I hook it back up and go searching for an answer. I finally find that I have to do a special backup of the System State with a Microsoft tool, not my backup software (which claimed it was doing a System State backup), boot the new drive into “Directory Services Restore Mode” and do an Authoritative Restore to get the old Active Directory information onto the new Domain Controller. About this time it’s 10:00pm or so and I have hours of work to do. But, since I am, of course, Mr. Indestructable, who’s motto is “I only have so many hours on this planet and a lot to do. I’ll have plenty of time to sleep when I’m dead”, I push on. Better, I figure, to push and get it done than have to come back and waste a second day in this office.
Hours, and several redundant restore jobs, later, I get almost everything back up and running. At this point it’s around 3:00AM and I’ve already changed my watch. What else did I have to do while I was waiting for the restore jobs to finish? Now, as you might imagine, I’m a little fuzzy, so it takes me about another two hours to get all the Internet settings right again and confirm that all the required services are started and will restart at reboot. Finally, I decide I can head for home.
The ride home was, er, interesting. I don’t remember large sections of it and it’s about a 30-40 mintue ride with no traffic. There was only one drunk on the road at 6:00AM, but there was fog and mysterious “things” in the corner of my vision. In other words, I’m too old for this stuff. I was freaking seeing things from the fatigue!
Still, when I got home, I tested the remote connectivity and sent an e-mail off to the developer or their custom database application so that he can verify that everything is running okay. Then, it was off to bed for a couple of hours until the Sun just wouldn’t let me sleep anymore. And, I’ll be back to bed soon.

So, what did I learn from all this? First, always backup your Active Directory with the stupid Windows 2000, built-in backup tool and keep a copy around. Shoot, throw it on tape, too, while you’re at it! Second, if you must have a Domain Controller, have two. They like company. Third, do NOT believe the backup software vendors when they tell you that their product will backup the System State or Active Directory! They’re LYING to you!!
Fourth, I am way too old to play Mr. Indestructable anymore. If these people weren’t so dependant on me to keep them going, I never would have done a 21 hour stint at an office. The kicker is, now, I’m getting resistance to my charges! Yeah, isn’t that something? I bust my ass to save their’s and now they’re not real excited about paying me. Damn this is a thankless business. Of course, I have, as they say in the “family”, made my bones on Windows 2000 and Active Directory. Hell, I have a friend who used to be on the a Lead on the Microsoft Corporate Support team that didn’t think I could pull it off! He was shocked that I managed it at all, much less in 21 hours.

So, once again, we the unwilling, lead by the unknowing, have done the impossible, for the ungrateful.
Crap. I’m going to bed.

Now, this is my kind of gourmet!

Cooking with beer on MSN House and Home sounds like my kind of cooking! Not only do they give you a rundown of the glorious history of beer, but Emeril gives you three beer-centric recipies. There’s even one for Guiness Ice Cream! Oh, man, there goes my diet!!
Allright, I admit that I don’t drink beer as much as I used to, and my diet isn’t as harsh as I make out, but, well, if I didn’t exaggerate some, I wouldn’t have anything to say about the article!

Anyway, it’s Friday, so go read up on how to cook with beer. And, lift one for me, okay?