Diary of a Network Geek

There’s a new version of Wireshark out.

If that means nothing to you, then you’re not one of my geek readers.  And, that’s cool.  Hold on and something more interesting will be coming for you soon.

For those of you who are geeks, check this out, okay?  There are tons of improvements, including a Windows 64-bit installer, improved reports and assorted output, the inclusion of GeoIP lookups, and many, many more.  I’ve used Wireshark, on and off, for several years now and these are really good additions.  I especially dig the ability to lookup where IPs may be coming from more easily.  I often have to deal with international TCP/IP traffic and knowing which is from where can be really helpful.
And, yes, there is still a version for Mac and Linux, besides the new Windows versions.

So, go check this out.  If you didn’t want to fillow the link above to Lifehacker, you can just jump right to the Wireshark site to see their marketing pitch on the latest version.  And, of course, it’s still all free.

Hmm, is there a market here?

It seems, according to an article on ZDnet, that Aisa is running out of TCP/IP addresses. Interesting and, frankly, not that suprising. After all, there are a limited number of IP addresses but an ever growing population. And, I can’t imagine a country with more issues in this regard than China.
Of course, the article pushed moving from IPv4 to IPv6, but I’m thinking along different lines. (Heh, heh, heh. Remember, I have a degree in Marketing!) Why not “broker” some of the dormant IP addresses here in the States? I mean, I know I pay for 5 static IPs, but I’m only using 3. That means I have have 2 I can “loan” to someone out there in “I-need-an-IP-address” land. So, why not make a profit off it, eh? How much is an IP addres worth per month? $5, $10? Hmm, now, why hasn’t someone like SBC picked up on this?

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!