Diary of a Network Geek

Challenge yourself, one week at a time!

This Christmas, I got an LED ring flash can also be used as a continuous ring-light. It’s something I’ve been wanting, but reluctant to buy for myself, because I haven’t been making time for photography the past couple of years. I love macro photography, as well as portraiture, and when I saw this little light, it seemed like just the thing to encourage and motivate me to get behind the camera again.
The year after I got my first DSLR, I did a “photo-a-day” project, called 365 Days on Flickr. I figured that doing a project like that would help me get comfortable with the camera, and in front of it. Neither thing was true when I started the project, but, I think, I got better about both as a result. I’ve upgraded my camera since then, and gotten a lot of better lenses, including a fantastic 100mm macro lens I paid for with the proceeds of selling the wedding rings from my first marriage. But, that was almost ten years ago now, and I’m remarried and busy with life and photography has slipped from my daily routine.

But, thanks to PetaPixel, I may have a new project to work on. Namely, their 52 Week Challenge to Improve Your Photography Skills in 2018. (You can also see the whole challenge laid out at the author’s website. It sounds a little easier than a daily photo, but it still has a weekly project to work on that will help a relatively new photographer improve in four major areas; personal vision, composition, technical aptitude, and creativity. They throw in a fifth, “wild card”, category to encourage you to try out ideas that come up while working on the other areas.
It’s not the first time I’ve seen one of these, or thought that I might try one, but I thought I’d share it with you in the hopes that you might get inspired, too. And, yes, we are a week into the new year, but it’s still not too late to start it up! You can always bleed over into another new year!

So, I hope you find more motivation and drive to pursue your hobbies this coming year, just like I hope to do.

This post originally appeared on Use Your Words, which is kind of ironic, since I’m talking about photography and not writing at all.

It’s never too late, or too early, to get more secure on-line.

Those of you who know me, know that I spend most of my days toiling in the corporate data mines and as a result, I’ve spent an inordinate amount of time thinking about computer security. I also tend to be tech support for my friends and family, which covers a surprising amount of ground and technical situations. It seems like, lately, the biggest concern has been security. Either people are worried about having credit card information stolen or getting a virus or having some other password violated. Unfortunately, not enough of them are worried about backing up their systems, and, if I’m being totally honest with you, dear readers, I should worry about that more myself.
But, at the end of the day, I’m often left feeling like I can’t possibly give everyone the good advice that they need to stay safe with their technology and the internet. I tend to approach things from a corporate point of view, and even run my own network at home a little bit like a smaller version of the networks I’m responsible for at my “day job”. But, that approach doesn’t work for most people and I don’t have time to do a lot of customizing for their individual concerns.

Now, though, I’ve found a site that can help; Security Planner. It’s a free, interactive guide to let regular people get expert-reviewed advice to help them address their concerns about staying safe on their phones, tablets and computers. You just answer some simple questions about what worries you regarding technology and what can go horribly wrong, and they give you a simple action plan to help you get and feel safer. And, if you’re a more advanced user, or more intensely paranoid, they can help point you toward expert advice that, with a little more research and work on your part, can help you, too.
Best of all, it’s free.
Right now, the site is only in English, but they hope to expand to Spanish and French eventually, too.

So, do me, and whoever else you might go to for tech support, a favor; make a security plan for the coming year now.

This post originally appeared on Use Your Words.

Our nation’s finest tracking holiday spirit.

As I usually do at this time of year, I’m reminding you of where to find Santa and, more specifically, how to track his progress.
During the Cold War, the North American Aerospace Defense Command, more popularly known as “NORAD”, stood between us and what we were sure was complete destruction at the hands of the Soviets. What with the recent tensions vis-a-vis Russia, China, and North Korea, NORAD may find itself busier than ever in the coming year, but, until then, thankfully, they can fall back on my favorite tradition; tracking Santa. It started with a wrong number and an accidental connection, but a gentle soul in a high-pressure job spread a little Christmas cheer once a long, long time ago. The story got around and before you can say “Who’s violating my air space?”, everyone was misappropriating government resources to make kids happy. Before long, it was fully sanctioned and, if I say so myself, an entirely proper use of my tax dollars. In any case, now, whether you’re young or old, or whether you have children or not, you can have fun tracking Santa with the Official NORAD Santa Tracker!  Besides, it’s about time for the Federal Government to bring us a little holiday cheer, don’t you think?
I’ll post again on Friday, but, until then, have a very merry Christmas!

This post originally appeared on Use Your Words.

As someone who’s been the beneficiary of charitable giving, I heartily endorse it!

And, actually, you may have enjoyed the benefits of charity, directly or indirectly, too. For instance, if you have had cancer or know someone who has had cancer, you’ve benefited from money donated to cancer research from any of a number of charities. If you’ve used Wikipedia, you have only been able to do so due to donations made to that organization. Also, I know that it’s at least partially my upbringing in the Methodist Church that has helped me form the belief that I should give back some of what I’ve been given. I don’t give it all to a church these days, but I do still like to give to worth causes. That seems like an especially important thing to both believe and do these days with the social and political climate being what they are. If you feel the same, but aren’t sure where to give, I have a couple suggestions.
First of all, there’s the Boing Boing 2017 Guide to Charitable Giving. I don’t necessarily endorse all the charities they list, but there are some good ones there, though several are out of the UK and may not be to my American audience’s taste.
Secondly, I’d like to recommend that you consider giving to established charities in your local area. Find a homeless shelter or women’s shelter to give to this year, maybe, or, my personal favorite, a local stray animal rescue. I lean toward donating toward the most helpless in need in my local area. I like the animal rescues because it’s such a huge problem where I live and it’s mostly domestic animals that have been mistreated one way or another. Domesticated animals are our responsibility and we should step up to that.

So, this Friday before Christmas, I hope you’ll forgive me for getting up on a soap box, but I truly believe that if we want the world to be a better place, we have to make it that way. One way I choose to do that is to donate to worthy causes. Besides, if you donate now, you can take it off your taxes, so it’s a “win-win” situation!

Anyway, I hope you’ll think about it and, either way, have a Merry Christmas.

This post originally appeared on Use Your Words.

While you read this, I’ll be seeing The Last Jedi, in 3D on IMAX.

But, since it’s Friday, I still want to share something great for you. Something fun. Still, I also want to keep with the theme of rubbing your noses in the fact that I’m seeing the newest Star Wars movie while you’re stuck reading my dumb blog. Luckily, Star Wars and George Lucas have been in the news a lot the past couple weeks, so I have plenty to steal, er, “share”.
Let’s start with an article at IO9 about the fans who made an alternate Star Wars trailer featuring the original concept art by Ralph McQuarrie. It’s some live-action as well as animation, but it’s five minutes and twenty-three seconds of awesome. It’s definitely worth a look!
Then, there’s the student film by George Lucas that launched so much of what became science-fiction cinema for the past 40 years. His film, Electronic Labyrinth THX 1138 4EB, would eventually become the feature film, renamed more simply THX 1138, which happens to be an awesome movie. The earlier, student film is only about 14 minutes long, so an easy film to sneak in at lunch. It’s a little retro at this point, but it still has a lot of the aesthetic that makes his later works great. Again, definitely worth a look!

Enjoy and if y’all are good, I may come back and share a review of The Last Jedi!

This post originally appeared on Use Your Words.

So, today marks yet another lap around the Sun for me.

Honestly, I don’t hang a lot on birthdays, especially my own. I mean, for the most part, they’re just another day. Another marker of many in my life and, frankly, a rather arbitrary one at that. I’m more impressed with the fact that I’m still married, healthy, and just $5,000 away from being entirely out of consumer debt than that I’m turning 49 today. Seriously, though, the fact that I’ve made it this far is actually sort of an accomplishment, I think. There are many who haven’t, and, God knows, I’ve had my share of brushes with death, but, even that’s not altogether unusual, really. In fact, according to the actuarial tables, I should expect about another 30 years, or more if I’m particularly lucky. Which is a good thing because, in spite of being statistically middle-aged, I come from an unusually long-lived family and I have many, many things yet to accomplish.

It’s been a mostly good year, really. My wife and I refinanced the house, letting us fix it up and clear the majority of our credit card debt. I also moved from being an over-paid contractor always in danger of being out of work to being the best bargain in IT Infrastructure Management for a company five minutes from my house. Even in Houston, that’s a hard commute to beat. And, of course, for a brief while, my other blog, Diary of a Network Geek was on the first page of Google search results for the search term “network geek”. It’s always fun when that happens. I’ve read a lot of good books, though I’ve been mostly too busy to review them like I used to do. I’ve had as low-stress a year as I think I’m capable of having, frankly. Of course, the Zen meditation helps with that. I’ve done that for over four years now.
And, then there’s the fact that I’m still married to Sharon. My blushing bride does tend to make every year a little sweeter for me. I’d like to think that we’re finally easing into that place where we know each other well enough to truly start enjoying the other’s company. There’s also the possibility that I’ve finally started to mellow with age. At least, that’s her theory.

And, of course, my birthday wouldn’t be complete if I didn’t mention all the other famous people who had the good luck to be born on this particular day. Famous people like Frank “Chairman of the Board” Sinatra, Jennifer Connelly, Bob Barker, Gustave Flaubert, who is the author of Madame Bovary, the painter Edvard Munch, and Wells Fargo founder, Henry Wells. Not to mention, Mike Pinder of the Moody Blues, Tim Hauser of Manhattan Transfer, Dickey Betts of the Allman Bros, jazz musician Grover Washington Jr, and former mayor of New York City, Ed Koch.
All heady company to be sure, but for whatever reason, it tickles me the most that I share a birthday with Frank Sinatra. I guess it’s because he was such a unique and original character who really fought against and beat some long odds to become an amazingly famous, generally well thought of character. I can only hope to do the same, one day.
Also, I think it’s interesting to note that on this day in 1896 Marconi first demoed radio and, again on this day, in 1901 made his first Trans-Atlantic transmission. (Though, of course, all right-thinking people know that Tesla was really responsible for those first advances in radio.)

So, I really have no idea what the coming year will bring, but I’m looking forward to it. We’ve talked about maybe selling our house and moving into something smaller, that we can retire into and maintain easier. Then again, we know this house doesn’t flood, so we may just stay. Either way, I’ll just keep on going, because, at this point I don’t know what else I’d do, frankly. And, it doesn’t matter, so long as Sharon and I do it together, or at least near each other. (Yes, that was a parallel play joke. Deal with it.)

All in all, life is going along okay and I’m sure it’ll be good coming year.

This post originally appeared at Use Your Words.

In the Christmas spirit of giving, give the scammers a headache.

I don’t know about you, but this time of year, I seem to get twice the number of scam and spam email that I normally get. It’s pretty terrible. I mean, most of the year, it’s bad enough, but we are all extra busy this time of year and have even less time than normal to deal with these bottom-feeders of cyberspace. I’m NOT an advocate of the infamous “hack back” strategy, even for well-heeled corporate IT departments that can staff skilled anti-hackers, but the idea of an artificially intelligent email bot that annoys and harasses email scammers is a little different. For one thing, it’s just annoying email. For another, it’s automated.
All you have to do is forward the scam email to me@rescam.org and let the games begin. The Re:scam email bot will reply to the scammer and tie them up with an almost endless stream of questions and “personal” anecdotes so the scammers are kept busy and, yes, tortured just a little bit. And, they’ll forward you the email conversations afterward, for your amusement.
No, it’s not nice, but, let’s face it, these email spammers aren’t exactly on Santa’s “Nice List”, if you know what I mean.

So, head over to Boiing Boing and read about the Re:scam email bot and enjoy your Christmas shopping!

This post originally appeared at Use Your Words!

Martial arts aren’t just Asian!

Most of the time, when someone mentions “martial arts” you think of kung fu or karate or something similar. But, relatively recently, and by that I mean in the past twenty or thirty years, there’s been quite a Renaissance, if you’ll pardon the pun, in Western or European combat arts. Over the years, I’ve read about several of the groups that have driven some of this interest, but recently, I came across one that was new to me, HEMA or Historical European Martial Arts. And, more or less in keeping with the theme from the past month, I have a link to a free, 90-minute documentary on Historical European Martial Arts titled “Back To The Source”.
It’s quite good, actually, even if it’s free. And, it’s a lovely look at an alternate way to enjoy violence in a relatively safe way.

Enjoy!

This post originally appeared on Use Your Words.

That’s it! National Novel Writing Month is over! Hopefully, you reached your goal for the month and wrote a 50k word novel. Now, set it aside, get some rest and forget about it for at least a month, before you start to revise.

So, it’s the day after Thanksgiving and you should be at least three-quarters done with your NaNoWriMo novel.

But, instead of writing you’re here. That means one of two things; either you’re so far ahead that you can take a break, or you’re so far behind that you’ve decided to cut yourself some slack. Either way, just as I promised last week, I have more short films to entertain you. And, hey, no judgment if you’ve given up on NaNoWriMo this year. I didn’t even start and I’ve tried before and given up, too, so, I’ve been there. And regardless of why you’re here, I’m glad you stopped by my humble little site.

This time, I’ve got four films for you. I figured it’s a holiday for most of us, so you’d have the extra time.

The first short film comes to us by way of Gizmodo. It’s a mildly scary short about some nasty things that happen on a night shift in a hospital by Alexander Babaev titled Hospice. It’s ghoulish and definitely reminds me of the uncomfortable feelings I’ve had working at night. But, it’s well done and free, so enjoy!
The second one is the longest of the four and a bleak look at the apocalypse. It’s titled Lunatique and it’s by Brazilian filmmaker Gabriel Kalim Mucci. Yes, it’s a bit grim, but it’s also a very well-done film featuring a female protagonist in remnants of the world, which makes it notable for me. And, it’s quite enjoyable, even if it’s about the aftermath of the end of civilization.
The third film is another post-apocalyptic short. It’s a beautiful animated film that was part of the Sploid Short Film Festival in 2015. It’s called Strange Alloy by filmmaker Loïc Bramoullé. It’s beautiful, but also a warning that we, too, may pass into history.
The fourth is a bit more uplifting. Though it does take a turn at the end.
Again, this one comes to us via Gizmodo, but this time it’s I Am Here by Eoin Duffy. It’s a slightly surreal piece about the nature of being. It’s kind of cool, though, and I liked it, which is why I’m sharing it with you.

So, now you’ve had your break. If you’re still writing toward the NaNoWriMo deadline, get back to it! If not, enjoy the rest of your weekend and I hope to see you next week!

This post originally appeared on Use Your Words.