Diary of a Network Geek

I have a power problem.

Well, to be more precise, my office has a power problem.
Though, maybe it’s more accurate to call it a “power inconvenience” than anything else.  We make great, big, huge cranes.  These cranes take a lot of power, so when we’re testing them, our building suffers from huge power fluctuations.

So, what to do?  Well, possibly, setup a script on my Linux monitoring server to Twitter the power status of the big UPS in my office.  How?  Well with this tutorial on YourWarrantyIsVoid.com, that’s how.
(Okay, confession time…  This has been sitting in my queue so long that not only have I scrapped the Linux monitoring server, to be rebuilt at a future date, and the actual power problem has been resolved, too.  But, it was a good idea, so I’m going to share it anyway.  Enjoy!)

TwoAddictionsForThePriceOfOne

Originally uploaded by Network Geek

I bought an iPhone on Saturday.

Well, as I’m sure is no surprise to my regular readers, especially those who follow me on Twitter, I finally gave in Saturday and got myself an “upgrade” to the iPhone GS. My data plan won’t kick in until September 17th, when I’ll also have unlimited text messaging and slightly fewer actual voice minutes. The overall effect is to raise my monthly bill just $5, while ultimately giving me more services and, yes, more fun.

I actually debated for quite some time about getting the iPhone, a Blackberry or the new Palm Pre. I have to admit, I was really excited about the Pre, because I’ve been a Palm fan since way back. In fact, at one point I was such a fan of Palm, as a company and a platform, that I registered HavePalmWillTravel.com. Well, that and there was a little joke about an e-mail address and a technological “gun-for-hire”. In any case, I decided against the Pre for a number of reasons, not the least of which is they weren’t on AT&T, where virtually all my contacts are. Also, they’re still unproven in the current market and there still aren’t as many applications for the Pre as both of the other two smartphone choices.
One of the things I really needed my smartphone to be able to do is remotely manage my server or servers. Now, I know that there are remote communication and control apps for the Blackberry, but, frankly, the touchscreen Blackberry just isn’t all that great and the other Blackberry devices have rather, well, puny screens. If I’m going to manage a Windows server, I’m going to need a big screen to see everything and make it all work. So far, no Blackberry device has a screen that I think is big enough to make that happen. So, that left me with the iPhone.

So, within just a day or so of getting my new toy, I had found the free Mocha VNC Lite. Now, I suppose I should have taken a screen shot of that, but, frankly, I didn’t want the hassle of finding a clean, safe shot of my Windows server at the office, so I decided to go with a different shot. Again, since my data plan hasn’t kicked in yet, I haven’t tried the VNC client via the 3G network, but it works disturbingly well over my wifi network at home. When I do get that chance, though, I may do a full review of all the remote clients that I’m willing to actually load on my iPhone to try out.
But, there are other apps that I think I may just get addicted to and this shot shows one of them. Yes, that’s a WordPress client on the iPhone from the same people who bought you the WordPress software itself. If you look closely, you can see that I’ve already set it up for this blog and another one that’s in the works. So, yes, when the data plan is active, you can expect to see both posts and, possibly, even posts with pictures shot on the iPhone. Who knows, maybe even video!

So, as the marketing gurus say, watch this space for further developments!