Diary of a Network Geek

Naming kids is easy, but naming systems is hard!

And, no, I don’t mean giving your phone a pet name.

I have gone on at length in the past about the importance of naming systems.  It’s a big, big deal, especially if you ever have to go back and change any of those names!  Granted, it’s not as bad now as it was in the old days when you had to manually update dozens, or sometimes hundreds, of host files or configuration files, but, still, it’s a pretty big deal.  So, naming systems are often a topic of discussion, especially among hardcore network geeks.  I’ve been in more than one meeting about choosing a naming scheme that devolved into name calling.
So, there are many schools of thought on this.  One group of people think that the name should be meaningful, giving location and function information.  That’s a good idea, but it often results in names like HOUNOVFILESERV001.  (And, yes, that’s actually a name I used on a server once, for a company that no longer exists.  It stands for HOUston NOVell FILESERVer number 001.)  Sure, it tells you what you need to know, but they quickly become unwieldy to type and maintain.
Another group would say to name your servers, or routers, or what have you, after any group of things that will be easy to remember, like the names of the Seven Dwarves, or characters from the Dilbert cartoon, or, even, at one place I worked, the names of the old Space Shuttle fleet.  And, while I’m not a huge fan of that for many things at a business, it can be fun to ping a Cisco router named Elvis just to get the response “Elvis is alive”.  Certainly at home, I tend to favor a more fun approach using something light-hearted, like the names of cartoon characters or mythological beings or something similar.  But, my problem is always, which set of “things” to choose?

Well, the Naming Schemes Wiki solves that particular problem.  Yes, someone has started a wiki that gathers all the different naming schemes you all can think of in one place for your viewing pleasure.  And, in spite of any protests from your significant other, you can select, at your leisure, a naming scheme to use on your network that makes you smile.  (And, stop looking at me that way!  I know I’m not the only person in the world with a home network big enough or complicated enough to warrant having to choose a naming system for it!)  The maintainer also encourages you to add your own scheme, if, somehow, it’s been missed on this site.  Or, to add to any of the existing pages if you have something to contribute.

So there you have it!  All the endless naming possibilities for your home networking project this weekend!
Y’all have fun!

Two great tastes that taste great together.

It’s that magic time of year again, when I think about career paths and long-term goals and what I need to do to meet them. For IT geeks like me, that often means training and certification. They’re not the same thing, incidentally. Sometimes, I think IT staff forget that. I’ve taken far more training courses than I’m certified in! But, since getting the right certifications can help get you past the gatekeepers in HR, they are important. And, even more important is getting the right one. So, here are the Top Ten Hottest Certifications for 2008, according to TechRepublic:

1. MCP (Microsoft Certified Professional)
2. CCNA (Cisco Certified Network Associate)
3. MCPD (Microsoft Certified Professional Developer)
4. SCJP (SUN Certified Java Programmer)
5. CISSP (Certified Information Systems Security Professional)
6. Comptia A+
7. Comptia Network +
8. MCTS SQL Server 2005 (The Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist)
9. RHCE (Red Hat Certified Engineer)
10. Comptia Security+

I have to admit, I was pleasantly surprised to see so many CompTIA certifications in that list. Why? Well, in part because I have one already, the CompTIA Linux+, but also because I’d been planning on doing another one which is on the list, CompTIA Security+. The other reason I really like the CompTIA certs is because once you certify, you never have to take the test again to maintain your cert. Trust me, that’s a big, big deal to someone with a bunch of certifications!

The other thing that I was looking at the other day was the Dice.com Third Quarter IT Local Market Reports. These look at the hiring and general employment trends that DICE has seen over the financial quarter. You can probably find your major metropolitan area in there, or one close. I’m not sure how the whole country is doing, but, I’m pretty pleased with how things look in Houston. Always nice to know that there are jobs out there, just in case.

Anyway, I hope this helps some of my fellow geeks plan out their personal and professional goals for the next year. And, folks, if you haven’t been planning, why not?

Have you ever had to learn on the fly?
Well, most of us geeks have, at one time or another. In my case, it was basic Cisco router administration while under fire. No, not literally under fire, just in a tight spot with tons of pressure to get things done quickly and right the first time. Back then, it was pretty easy to get an entry-level Cisco certification, but they made that harder right about the time I tried to get it. Which, honestly, is besides the point. I didn’t really need a Cisco cert to get stuff done. All I really needed was some basic commands. Well, now, we’re all in luck. Thanks to TechRepublic, you can get through some basic Cisco admin tasks with little or no help. Just hit Cisco Administration 101, and they’ll walk you through the basics of setting up a router. And, by basics, I mean setting the Admin password, too, not just configuring the interfaces. Basic configuration includes basic security!
Anyway, it’s a start and enough to get you through a tight spot.

Oh, lots of junk.
Yes, I queued this up at lunchtime to hit this evening. There were just a bunch of things I didn’t think my faithful readers could make it through the weekend without knowing.

First, there’s the Cisco bug. This bug should actually be fixed, but you’ll want to make sure you’ve got the latest IOS update on your router or you could have a problem here. And, as the security researcher mentioned in the linked article, the thing you have to wonder is, what other bugs have they missed?

Second, if you’re looking at a lonely weekend, again, take heart, soon you’ll have a freakishly realistic Japanese android to keep you company. I doubt she’s anatomically correct, so you can’t carry on a digital “affair” with her, but I’m sure some enterprising geek who’s trying to avoid his wife, his girlfriend, or both, will find a way to make that mod happen. Personally, I think she looks too much like Yoko Ono, but that’s me.

Thirdly, Brooke Burke has split with her husband. Now’s your chance, boys. Get in there while she’s looking to rebound. It’ll be a short, intense relationship, but if you’re lucky it’ll be purely sexual and over before you have to talk to her much. (Personally, I’d prefer Diane Lane, but I doubt she’d leave a young stud like Josh Brolin any time soon! Oh, and her movie, Must Love Dogs, starts today… *sigh*)

A bit of Daily Wisdom from the Dalai Lama:

Many of our troubles are man-made, created by our own ignorance and greed and irresponsible actions.

And, finally, I’m not sure what the sudden interest is, but the last two days my stats suddenly doubled the daily average for the past two months. Hmm, I wonder what I wrote that set off which obsessed stalker…. Well, no matter. The more the merrier!

Well, that’s enough to get you through the rough parts of your weekend. Or to make them.
Have a great one!

Quick! Get it while it’s hot!

I saw an post on Slashdot about an article on ZDNet about a guy who’s giving away a Cisco manual. Now, I haven’t actually seen the book, but it’s been getting good reviews. Apparently, it’s a free alternative to spending huge money on a Cisco Education book that’s not even as good. Or, so the article says. I did download it yesterday from LuLu.com, and it was free, but I haven’t had the time to read any of it yet. I’m sure I will eventually, though, because I’ve always wanted a Cisco certification. Anyway, it’s free, so what do you have to loose?

I can’t remember what the first thing is!

For the past week or so, I’ve come up with several ideas for blog entries and forgotten them before I could get to a web interface and make the actual entry! Just now I sat down to write an entry that I’d thought of yesterday and drew a complete blank. How terrible! I’m sure that it would have been enlightening and horribly important, too. No doubt it would have made comment on current events and Linux and Microsoft vs. Novell. Or, maybe it would have mentioned certification and Cisco. Or, possibly even debated the merits of the CNE vs. the MCSE vs. the CCNA.
Or, it could have been total dribble about how pretty my ponds are.
Who knows? Damn early senility. See what working in the IT industry does to you?!?

Well, I actually managed to do something technical and new this week. A friend of mine is a total Mac guy, who has worked on Windows machines, but doesn’t know anything about networking them together. He’s out of work and has been trying to beef up his skills on Dreamweaver for the PC, but has most of his graphics stuff on his Mac. He asked me for help and I couldn’t refuse. Besides, I had a spare hub and network cards, not to mention the spare time.
So, we’ve actually been trying to get this to work for some time now, but finally figured out that we needed more “stuff” than the standard networking junk that comes with Windows XP and Mac OS 8. After hunting around, we settled on PC MacLan, by Mirramar Systems. Quite frankly, we were told that it wasn’t the best solution, but it was what we could afford, so we made it work. Basically, what it does is install AppleTalk on Windows XP and then translates the data back and forth between Mac and Windows. We got the little eight port hub set up and the CAT5 cables snaked behind the furniture with no problems. Then, after a bit of a false start, we got it going in short order. We shared out several directories on his Mac and made shortcuts for them in My Network Places on his WindowsXP machine. But, that wasn’t good enough for us. No way! We weren’t satisfied until we could get the HP DeskJet 960C hooked up to the PC and were able to print from the Mac as well as Windows. So, we horsed the printer around to a place where the USB cable would reach the Windows PC and I ran the PC MacLAN print server wizard. It was really pretty easy, but there were some odd quirks. Mainly, it gives new warnings every time a new “session” is started and there’s no way to set it permanently. And, the printing is pretty slow from the Mac, but it does work. Besides, there are some extra steps going on. After all, technically, it is network printing.
It might not be Netware, but at least the stuff I learned while working on my CNE came in handy! Now, I need to really buckle down and work on my CCNA Certification. There have been several jobs that I’m pretty sure I would have had, if only I’d been Cisco Certified already. *sigh* Well, back to the old grindstone.
Oh, by the way, that friend of mine is still out of work. He’s a User Interface designer, but he’s worked in print, too. His name is Patrick McGee and you can find him at Pmcgee.net.

Well, if you’ve looked at my resume, you know that I’m out of work. In fact, you know that I’ve been out of work since the end of October this past year. So, why, you’re wondering, has it taken so long for me to update the Diary of a Network Geek? Well, mainly, because I’ve been trying to find a job and overcome depression. I’d like to go into details about it, but I’m not quite ready to tear into the crappy company for whom I used to work. At least, not until I find another job. ^_^ I have a funny feeling that the nice folks who might hire me wouldn’t like my attitude toward my last employer, so….
In the mean time, I’ve been playing around with PERL and working on my CCNA certificate. (That’s a Cisco Certified Network Associate, for those of you who were wondering.) And, I probably should update my CNE (Certified Novell Engineer), but I’m not quite willing to do that yet. It’s not cheap and not too many people seem to be looking for CNE’s right now. I guess I should start working on my MCSE (Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer), but I’d rather not if I don’t have to just yet. When I’m done with my CCNA, I’ll probably work on getting the Linux+ certification that came out this past year. At least it would get my foot in the Unix door! Not like I was promised at Kirby…. Whoops. Almost started in on it!
Well, I’ll update more later, but if you’d like to check out what I’ve done in PERL lately, jump to the Amazing IT Title Generator. Or, head over to my other big website, Fantasist.Net That’s what I’ve really been working on lately. Though I have to admit that I don’t have much there yet. The PERL script is under Resources, BTW. It’s a creativity jump-start tool for authors. Enjoy!

Hey guess where I’m writing this from? Yep, I’m back in Baton Rouge! Yahoo! Only this time, I flew. No more of that driving across the swamp at night. Blech!
Things were going fairly well Monday. I got to start correcting the NDS (that’s Novell Directory Services, for you neophytes) synchronization issues that we’re still having thanks to Mother, our primary NDS Replica server, going South on me. Of course, just about every change I want to make takes about two hours to replicate out. Now, I *know* that I’ve explained that to the Supreme Commander, but he still doesn’t seem to “get” it. He’s a really Big Picture sort of guy and doesn’t understand *any* of the details of what I do. The joys of working for a former programmer. That’s all they truly understand or think matters. The rest is just magic that should happen instantly. *sigh* Of course, the fact that our building lost power didn’t help much. Thankfully, I’ve got my Palm IIIc! I just whipped that out and started playing Space Trader. Ah, what fun.
Then, on Tuesday, I started on that again. Until the Baton Rouge server dropped off the network. It still was up, but it stopped communicating with the rest of the network. The Cisco router was fine, so I knew it wasn’t the WAN connection, but it just wouldn’t see the network. So we rebooted it. Oh, boy, was that a mistake. It never came up right. Eventually, we got to a point where all we could get was an “Invalid Partition Table” error. So, it’s off to the airport for me. Leaving my poor sick wife to deal with getting our daughter from school and taking care of our leaking pond. Oh, joy.
Well, I got there and started fumbling around with stuff, but didn’t get very far. Then, I noticed that we had been trying to use Windows 95 utilities on a DOS 6.22 formatted partition! Damn, no wonder we weren’t getting anywhere! So, that started us root around for a DOS bootable disk. We finally found one and I was able to FDISK and FORMAT the old Primary drive and copy everything from the DOS partition of the mirror. Then, while eating my oyster po’boy, we rebooted and *shazam*! The server starts to come up. The next thing we know, it’s already started running the backup. So, since all looked well, we called it a night. Now I’m waiting for everyone to get caught up so I can clean up the hardware and get the server back up, hopefully for good. Or at least until they move, when I hope they’ll upgrade to real hardware. You know, something brand-name, like Compaq or Dell or even HP. I hate having to figure out clones. Then, I’ll try to get an earlier flight back to Houston and just enjoy a night at home. Maybe even snuggle with the wife on the couch while we watch Star Trek. Voyager’s still in reruns! ; }

Well, not much of an update today, but I thought I’d add in some personal stuff. Just for variety.
Last weekend, the girls went out to a Celtic Fest and left me at home. I thought it would be nice for them to get some “girl time” together. Anne has been working really hard and hasn’t been able to see Allie as much as she’d like, so I thought it would be a good opportunity for them to “bond”. This weekend Anne isn’t feeling too well, so I might just end up taking Allie out shopping for a little while. We need to get a book on telling time for her. I’ve instituted a work-for-allowance program that requires some knowledge of telling time. (Okay, so what I’ve done is tell her that I’ll pay her $2.50 per hour of cleaning up and other chores that she does. She might as well get used to the idea young. It is how the world works, after all.) Besides, I also need to get a book on the current version of Red Hat Linux. After looking around the Internet at stuff, it seems like everything for Linux of any real value assumes that you have a version of Red Hat installed. So, in spite of the fact that I’ve been enjoying Storm Linux, I’ll be learning Red Hat.
Speaking of learning… One of the reasons that I’m focusing more on Linux is that my studying for my CCNA (Cisco Certified Network Associate, for the uninitiated) has been slow going indeed. I’m still working on it, but with the lack of sleep that house guests create, it’s been hard to slog through the issues relating to sub-networking. It’s especially bad since I’m already familiar with most of the material! I just have to get the Cisco methods down for the test. Shoot! I’ve been doing TCP/IP since Novell used IP tunneling!! (That’s over 8 years, incidentally.)
Anyway, this is going to be a light weekend. At least, it is if I have anything to say about it. I’m in a good mood since I got two calls from headhunters on Friday. They’re looking to fill Network Manager positions, which is what I think I need to have next. I changed my resume on Monster.Com to reflect the fact that I managed people for the past two years. It seems to have made a difference! So, like I said, I’m in a pretty good mood this morning, so, if Anne is feeling up to it, I may just take my two girls out to our favorite little Greek place for lunch, Niko Niko’s.

See you next week!