Diary of a Network Geek

Yep, a wearable Linux PC.

I love this. Not only because I love Linux, but because I love science-fiction. I mean, a computer you can wear on your wrist? What could be better? I honestly don’t know what all the ZYPAD can do, but when it’s made by a company called “Eurotech”, the sky’s the limit! Chase the link and look at this little sucker. Does that not look like something out of Space:1999? Surely, the first batch of Mars astronauts will be wearing something like this, complete with wireless interfaces to all their ship’s systems.

*sigh* Yeah, I know… I’m a geek, but, hey, at least I know it and embrace my geekness. Besides, even non-geeks have to admit that this is pretty cool. (And, yes, this is old news, but I’m doing some cleaning out of old posts, so bear with me.)

One way to support Linux.

Okay, now, considering my personal debt structure and how deeply I’m into the credit card companies, I normally stay away from anything that smacks of a reccomendation of a credit card. But, this one is a little different. It’s a rewards card, but not the normal kind. This card pays money to the Linux Fund, which supports several Linux and Linux-related projects. So, basically, when you spend money on this card, it helps some of your favorite geek projects. If you dig Linux, it’s at least worth taking a closer look.

But, do yourself a favor, try to pay it off every month and stay out of debt.

Advice from your Uncle Jim:
"They don't hold meetings about rainbows."

Or, why wear someone else’s logo?

So, I’ve been thinking a lot about logos and branding lately.
I often wonder what makes people choose to wear particular logos or promotional “gear”. Now, as a die-hard Novell fan, I often wear Novell-branded polo shirts. Most of them I got from sales staff over the years as I renewed our company’s license agreement and support contract. But, I actually bought some Novell logo gear myself once. I needed shirts and Novell’s gear wasn’t any more expensive than plain golf shirts, so, I bought some. I also wear golf shirts with the Linux mascot on them. (For those of you who aren’t familiar, the Linux mascot is a cute, little cartoon penguin named Tux. The chicks dig him.)

But, now that I’m thinking about rebranding both this website and a future, creative website, I’ve been thinking about getting branded merchandise for my own, personal use that ties into those brands. I mean, if I’m going to wear a logo and advertise a product, I might as well advertise my own product, right?
So, I started looking around at various on-line retailers that did custom embroidery on shirts. Naturally, there’s CafePress, but they really cater to a more sales-oriented market and are a little more low-end than I was looking to wear. Back in the day, Branders was another option that was more upscale. But, that was back in the heyday of the Internet bubble, so they were a little more high-end than I’d been looking for. Also, they have significant minimums to buy and, honestly, I don’t need 17 of the same color shirt with a custom logo on it. Well, I did some more searching and found University Fashions. They seem to be the right blend of upscale product, reasonable pricing and no minimums to buy. But, there’s also Corporate Casuals and The Logo Centre, so I’ll have to compare them all, and most likely need to get actual quotes from all three places before I decide to go forward with a purchase or not. Oh, and one other factor is that the Logo Centre seems to be in the UK. That might effect the price a bit.

In any case, my thought was, “Why wear someone else’s logo when I can promote my own brand?” So, maybe, that’s just what I’ll do. If I follow through on getting my own logo merchandise, rest assured that I’ll get pictures of it up here somehow.

Two things for two different kinds of geeks.

Back when I was a one-man IT shop the first time, I read a book called “Time Management for Dummies“. I know, I know, one of those damn Dummies books, but it really wasn’t bad. The best thing it taught me was about ToDo lists and how to manage one and prioritize it and all that. Well, over the years, I’ve used a lot of different software to try and manage my various ToDo lists. Mostly, I used Lotus Organizer and synched it to my cranky, old PalmIII. (That was back before I had the New, Improved, cranky, old PalmIIIc!) But, it was always a hassle to deal with formating and I never could quite get all the little bells and whistles just the way I wanted. Then, I found ToDoTxt.org
It’s a shell script to manage a simple, text-based to do list.
You can run it via Cygwin, or even as part of your user profile on, oh, say, a Linux server. And, you can add in code to automate the insertion of future events that you don’t want to worry about for several days, weeks or months. In fact, there’s a bunch of extra code and even a little user community that’s sprung up around this super cool shell script.

Anyway, I thought it might appeal to the truly “hardcore” geeks who still read this blog the way it appealed to me.

Now, for that other thing…
It’s a book for bloggers. I figure if you’re reading this blog and you aren’t one of the aforementioned hardcore geeks, then you’re still a blog-geek. Now, sooner or later, all of us who write blogs have an embarassing, little “problem” called Writer’s Block. And we prattle on about whatever silly thing comes into our head, like, say a todo list organizer. Well, I haven’t gotten the book myself, but it sure sounds like it might just help us with those sad, lonely times when we can’t think of anything more interesting to write about than the sandwich we had for lunch. It’s No One Cares What You Had for Lunch: 100 Ideas for Your Blog. And, based on the table of contents, I might just pick it up!

Okay, this is probably old news to everyone by now, but since everyone is talking about the VMWare IPO, I figured it was a good time to bring it up.
In case you geek readers out there haven’t see this, you can still download the VMWare server for Linux for free. TechRepublic has an entire article about downloading and installing VMWare. (Yeah, yeah, okay, it’s a beta version, but from everything I hear, it’s good to go.) Now, I’ve used the full, very expensive, version of this and it pretty much rocks. If you absolutely must run Windows server in an otherwise Linux envrionment, this would be the way I would choose to do it.

If you’re absolutely married to Windows and want to try VMWare, you can either download the server version or the “player“.   Now, the thing to keep in mind is that the player will run virtual machines that were created with the full product, but, as far as I can tell, won’t create its own virtual machine.  So, if you don’t already have virtual machine files somewhere, you’ll have to Google for them.

Oh, and if you’re looking for something to play with on this, but don’t feel like Googling for a good virtual machine? Why not try the free Mono VMWare image from Novell?

Perhaps “reasonably priced” is more accurate.

Naturally, if you read Slashdot, you know this already, but many people don’t, so I thought I’d talk it up a bit. Fans of this blog will know that I am a big fan of Linux and, in fact, took an old laptop and loaded OpenSuSE Linux on it myself. Well, the folks at Medison have simplified this process by offering a decent enough laptop with Fedora RedHat Linux installed on it for $150. Yeah, that’s right, $150, plus shipping. When you think about it, that’s pretty incredible. For an independant writer, for instance, who doesn’t have a lot of cash to spare, or even a starving college student, that $150 laptop could make the difference between surviving and not.

Besides, it beats the “One Laptop Per Child” machine, which the manufacturers apparently plan to sell on the open market for $200. Of course, you can still use either one to browse pornography, so nothing’s perfect.

Not quite as exciting as gun-wielding maniacs…

But, this is still a big deal to Novell and Linux worshipers.   First, over the weekend, there was a story run by Reuter’s saying, in essence, that the Free Software Foundation might somehow ban Novell from selling or packaging Linux in the future.  Naturally, this sent a lot of people into quite a tizzy.  That would be a terrible blow to Novell, who’s really staked their future on the success of Linux and their products on Linux.  I would imagine their stock took quite a hit today.

Thankfully, the folks over at Linux Magazine have a clearer picture of what’s going on.  First,  the FSF doesn’t control Linux or Linux distribution rights.  Secondly, what they’re actually talking about is moving certain key utilities and chucks of code from the current license, the GPLv2, to a new license, GPLv3, which might, somehow, restrict who could redistribute the code.  Linus himself has said that he will NOT move the Linux kernel, which is the heart of Linux, to the newer, more restrictive GPLv3.  So, in short, what we have is a Linux community that’s panicked over the deal Novell made with Microsoft and is spreading a little, old-fashioned FUD.  Interestingly enough, that’s a technique that Microsoft used to fight Linux.  Oh, how the worm turns.

So, in short, while this all made for great pseudo news, it’s not much more than smoke and mirrors.  Of course, it’s smoke and mirrors that will no doubt effect Novell’s stock price, but, still…

I haven’t written much about technology lately…

I know this blog started out as a very technical, very geeky blog, but since a lot of what I do these days has gotten so tied to things like company policy and some other proprietary information, I haven’t been talking a lot of tech. Well, today, I’ve got something I think all Novell and Linux guys, like me, have been watching. Sometime back Novell bought SuSE, a German Linux distribution and support company. They then proceeded to move their entire line of products away from a DOS-based, proprietary kernel and onto the SuSE Linux kernel. Really, I think, a pretty smart move.
Then, last year, Novell entered into an unholy alliance with the evil empire, Microsoft. Basically, Microsoft gave Novell a bunch of money so that they’d work on software “stuff” that made SuSE Linux interface more easily and seamlessly with Microsoft’s line of server software. Oh, the hue and cry about that! Well, now, I think I see why they did it.

According to this story on News.com, Walmart has contracted with Microsoft to expand their on-line business using Windows Server and SuSE.  Apparently, Walmart, who had been a Redhat customer, was hesitant about expanding because of concerns regarding the intellectual property rights of Linux, thanks to that old SCO lawsuit that should have been thrown out of court a long time ago.  But, part of the deal with Microsoft and Novell is that Walmart can get support from both companies for whatever might go wrong and get indemnification against any copyright infringement suits regarding Linux.
Suddenly, that Microsoft/Novell deal doesn’t seem so crazy to me.

I still wonder, though, what the hell I should study up on next.  Security maybe?  I mean, no matter what operating system people run, they’ll still be worried about security.  Besides, I already know Linux, Novell and Microsoft products fairly well.  In fact, I have certifications in two of the three, not to mention way too much experience in all three areas.  I just don’t know.  The IT landscape of the future is getting pretty crowded and bumpy, not to mention shrouded in heavy fog.  Any suggestions from the techies?

And, I thought things would slow down this week.

Ha! Well, my work schedule is almost as grueling this week as it has been for the past month. So many things to do at work and so little time. In any case, that means that there’s no real theme to these links, but I found them all at least interesting.

First, since I can’t seem to get enough done or get enough sleep, the idea that someone may have invented a pill that removes my need for sleep strikes me as, well, “interesting”. Okay, to be honest, it’s not quite that good yet, but, still they’re getting there.
Second, since I love gimmicks in the workplace, the idea of monitoring a server via music hits me in the funny bone. Granted, this will only appeal to the geeks among my readers, but I like the idea of having a Linux-based monitor server running that lets me know what’s going on without having to actually watch it. Too much to do to keep eyes glued to monitor for server performance!
Next, in honor of the quickly approaching gift-giving holidays, namely Christmas and Chanukah, I’ve got a link to an article about how LEGOs are made. Who knew so much went into those little bricks I loved to play with as a kid?
And, finally, for the lonely, big kid in all of us who got picked last for kickball, now you can buy fake friends for your MySpace page. It’s actually a service called FakeYourSpace and, apparently, meant to make it seem like “sexy” members of the opposite sex find you irresistable on MySpace. It is an adult service, as evidenced by the pictures of the “friends” on the website, and… And, wow, I’m glad I’m not actually active on MySpace because this just seems, er, ah, well, pathetic. But, you know, I can think of a couple guys I’ve worked with who would do this sort of thing.

Well, anyway, that gives you some small idea where my head has been wandering while I wait for things to happen after hours at work. Crazy stuff, isn’t it?
Have a happy Friday!

Surely this qualifies as Friday Fun…

I subscribe to TechRepublic to try and keep up with the latest tools and trends in IT. They track everything from how well the SCO lawsuit is doing to the latest Linux management tools. But, this week, the sent an e-mail that included a link to a rather special graphics gallery.
The really cool images there were generated by a program called Apophysis, which can be downloaded for free at Apophysis.org. I did that and, in longer than it took to type this e-mail, generated the fractals you see in this post. Now, before you all get too impressed, with my work, keep in mind these were done with the default fractal calculations built into the program.

I’m still looking for more and better fractal functions to use with this, but I thought the standard stuff was worth sharing.

Certainly, it was worth a Friday Fun Link, right?