Diary of a Network Geek

Well, I’ve done it now!

Okay, so I’ve been messing around with PERL for Netware and I came up with at least one thing that I thought was useful. I call it “dfmail.pl”, which is short of DiskFreeE-Mail. It’s a simple little script that will check the available space on all the volumes of a server and e-mail the results to the user of your choice. You will have to edit the script to set the e-mail address, but otherwise, it should run okay. Oh, I tested it on Netware 5.1 servers, with the latest service pack, so I have no idea how well it will work on Netware 6. If anyone tries it, let me know!

Download DFMail.ZIP

I know why the PERL developer cries…

Sometime ago, I wrote an entry about PERL on Netware. At the time, I wondered why no one used PERL for Novell System administration. Now, I know. Novell has virtually no documentation on how PERL interacts with Netware. There are a few, simple example scripts and a couple of suggestions for things to do with it, but that’s about it. How frustrating! Here I am, having actually gotten a little bit of PERL savy and to what end? My favorite server OS supports it, technically, but they offer virtually no information about how to actually make use of it! Argh!

Ah, well, now that they’re getting into the Linux arena maybe we’ll start to see more support for Open Source and “hackerish” tools, like PERL. I sure hope so…

More creative blogging.

So, do you ever wonder what a guy who manages servers does for “fun”? PERL programming, among other things. And, obviously, blogging. So, like peanut butter and chocolate, I decided to combine two “great tastes”.
The blog system I use here, and on my other site, is called MovableType and is programmed in PERL. Well, for some time now I’ve been hankering for custom dates and calendars, but no one has worked on it. So, I decided to try and do it myself. I’ve been messing around with PERL for a little bit now and I know it well enough to steal code, so I figured I had a shot at it. I started with an Islamic date module because it was the easiest to use and, a couple of days later, I had a working test blog. But, that just wasn’t good enough for me, so I started working on using Tolkien’s Shire Reckoning. (Which was made easier by the fact that Tom Braun had done up a CPAN module to do most of the actual work!)

I’m not quite done with it, but when I am, I’ll have a download link and instructions here for you.
Keep checking back!

I have my doubts.

But, according to this article on AustralianIT, that’s just what the W3C is argueing. Apparently, there’s a one-man company called Eolas who won a $521 million law-suit against Microsoft for allegedly infringing a patent covering technology that “allows interactive applications – plug-ins and applets – to be embedded in web pages”. Now, that’s not the entire web, but it’s a big slice of what Microsoft pushed over the years. Even this blog doesn’t fall under that category, I don’t think, because the programs that run it aren’t actually embedded in the web page itself. Frankly, that’s one of the reasons that I’ve been working on PERL lately. It’s not tied to one particular company or browser. Hey, it’s not tied to a browser at all!
What astounds me about this case, though, is that Tim Berners-Lee, the “inventor” of the web is going to bat for Micro$oft! He says the patent is invalid due to “prior art”. He goes on to say that any redesign of IE “will render millions of web pages and many products of independent software developers incompatible with Microsoft’s product”. My thought is, “so what”? People Micro$oft is NOT the Internet! They’re not even the Web! And most of these “plug-ins” that would be effected are just junk that slows me down anyway. I don’t want streaming sound or video to my PC, thanks. Just the words. Just the ideas. For that, I don’t need Micro$oft’s restrictive product.
In any case, Micro$oft is obviously going to appeal. It’ll be interesting to see how this one turns out.

I’m trying…

Okay, so I have some really bad Internet habits. It seems like I’m always on the ‘Net, one way or another. Well, I thought that rather than waste time pursuing the empty consumerism that popular media crams down our throats everywhere we turn, I’d try to find a couple of spiritual resources on the ‘Net. Stuff that could help me stay focused on living right and being closer to God and my family.
Well, I found a lot of hoakum. And, a lot of rabid conservitives that had really stifling views. But, I also found BeliefNet. Now, sure, there are some pretty conservative views here, but they’re not the only ones. And, even the conservative philosophies are presented in a gentle, welcoming way. There are numerous opportunities for interaction and they have plenty of chat and discussion features. Sign-up is free. And, you don’t even have to sign up to read the articles. I reccomend taking the Belief-O-Matic Quiz, which is quite interesting, despite its name. (For instance, it told me that I was much more in line with Jewish belief than Christian belief, which I find to be true.)
In any case, it was nice to see that the Internet has more than just advertisements for pornography, cheap medicine and “get rich quick” scams. I’ve been thinking about adding to the positive stuff myself with a PERL script that mails inspirations and meditations to folks. Anyone interested?

Hey, did you know you can run PERL on Netware?

Yeah, it’s been there since Netware 4, actually, though no one really mentioned it at all until Netware 5. I started paying attention to that fact about two years ago when I started getting into PERL for my websites. But, now, it’s a default component in the standard install! So, why don’t I hear about anyone leveraging this? Well, I’m not sure about anyone else, but I intend to get some use out of PERL on my Netware servers.
Two weeks ago, I bought PERL for System Administration with the idea that I would use it, and code from the PERL Cookbook, to make my life easier. Why not, I thought, make a set of scripts that I can use or adapt for Linux, Netware and Windows? Sounds like a great idea, right? Well, we’ll see. I hope it’s a great idea, anyway. At the very least, I should be able learn a bunch more about PERL!
And, while I’m working on it, here’s a German site(in English) that has all kinds of scripts for PERL on Netware. Enjoy!

You know, I’m not sure…

Look through my resume and you’ll see that I’ve had quite a few titles: MIS Analyst, MIS Systems Analyst, Network Administrator, Senior Network Engineer, Supervisor of LAN/Desktop Support, and, now, I think, Systems Engineer. All those titles and I’ve always done the same basic thing. Go figure.
That’s why I coded up this little beauty: The Amazing Information Technology Title Generator. Give it a whirl and fill in the “blanks” on your resume. I doubt anyone would know the difference.

Really, I just get nostolgic about this little script. It was the first PERL I coded all by myself. Just between you and me? It’s a mess. But, it still runs well enough. Enjoy!

Are you working for “The Man”?

Should you be? This very interesting article on Tim BRay’s web raised some interesting questions for me about what I want to spend my time learning. (And, it doesn’t hurt that what little development I do is in PERL and usually for web-based CGI.)
Actually, I’ve felt for a long time that we’re really all just serfs serving feudal lords. All this fancy talk about “freedom” and “democracy” really is just that. We’re all still in thrall to the economic equivalent of a duke or king. We rely almost wholly on the generosity of our economic superiors. Should they turn against us, we are very much like the Medieval “out law”. We become excommunicated from our economic patron and, like a plant without water, we wither and die.
So, I find the sharecropping analogy quite apt.
In any case, it’s interesting stuff. Read, think, discuss.

If you’re a regular reader of the Diary of a Network Geek, you know that I’ve started seeking out a deeper connection with God.

So, when I saw this article on Wired News it really made me think about where we’re taking religion as a society. A digital prayer a day? Hmm, well, why not? I mean, we can get other kinds of reminders to our phones or pagers, so why not a reminder to pray? I’ve seen plenty of free Islamic programs for the Palm, so why not a generalized one? A simple PERL script or two is all it should take to send a random reminder to pray to any Internet-enabled wireless device. Or, a more generalized “spiritual” message could be sent. Or, really, anything that would be regular and in text format.
Personally, I like the idea of getting random reminders to make contact with God. It might be nice to have my cellphone, which I’ve come to think of as a tool of the Devil, remind me that God is watching me and that He does care about me. Why shouldn’t technology remind us of our spiritual selves? Just because the old Catholic church had issues with early scientists doesn’t mean that we should not make use of this kind of tool for spiritual awareness. I’d like to think that the modern Vatican, which is online now, would agree with me.

Of course, I don’t think I’d pay $20 for it (that’s what they charge), so I may just have to figure out my own method. Hey, if I do, I can let other people use it for less money than that other guy is! Dang, I better get off to work on it!

It took a year, but I did it!

Did what, you might be wondering? I finally figured out a CGI script for Fantasist.net that I’ve been working on for almost a year.
See, I love words and languages, especially foreign words and languages. In fact, I love them so much that I’ve tried to create them on several occasions, just like J.R.R. Tolkien did. But, since I’m not a trained linguist like Tolkien, I’ve always cast about for help creating the words. I want them to sound authentic, but not be actual words from an actual language. I’d hate to put together words that I thought were quite alien and unique only to find out that I’d insulted a publisher in Istanbul or Delhi! So, I searched for help with that on the web. Boy, did I find help! One of the best places, though, was Chris Pound’s Name Generation page. Chris is a linguist and has made several PERL scripts that generate new words based on input from an existing language. Finally, I could get words that were phonetically similar to an existing language that were new and unique!
But, of course, I wasn’t satisfied with that. I had to go further. What about people who couldn’t figure out PERL? I mean, it’s taken me forever to tweak things and get a good handle on the basics. What about all those potential conlangers who just aren’t up to PERL? My 11-year-old daughter, for instance, has recently gotten into conlanging. How could I make this available for her, without trying to teach her PERL? The answer, of course, is the web. So, I modified Chris’ scripts and played with data until I understood it fairly well. Then, I tried to get it up on the web. I was a miserable failure.
Until last night, that is. I started with a very basic CGI tutorial and started building upward from there until I had a simple form that would give me simple, html-friendly output. From there, it was a simple matter of tweaking the original PERL script, and an html form, until I had a good combination. And, though, I have to work out formatting and style-sheets, here it is at Fantasist.net: WordGenerator.
Enjoy!