Diary of a Network Geek

You may have noticed a change or two…

Namely, I’ve added small Google ads to my blog. Why? Well, for one thing, this site doesn’t pay for itself. That means that I spend, roughly, $35 per month to maintain this site, as well as my others. (I have several sites, including HavePalmWillTravel and Fantasist.net, and I support the backend for my wife at Babydoll’s Closet. Heh, I like the idea of supporting her “backend”!) But, still, that all costs money. So, I’m running ads now. So far, I’ve made less than $10 in the past month. But, I’m hoping that will improve. Now, all I ask is that if you found anything on any of our websites helpfull, funny, or cool, just click on an ad or two. I figure if I can make even $15/month, I’m ahead of the game.

Anyway, that’s why I’m doing it. We now return to our regular blogging.

“Liberals Want Their Own Network”, the headline read.

Uh, I don’t get it. The Liberals seem to think they don’t have a “network”? Uh, I’ll take, “What is ABC, NBC and CBS News? for $100, Alex”. I mean, c’mon, I’m Conservative, sure, but not really *that* conservative and even I can see the massive Liberal bias in the media. So, what in the name of all that is holy and unholy do they really want? Oh, I’d say they want to cram their nutty, fringey wacked-out ideas down our throats. But, that’s just a guess.

Sort of….

Okay, not really. I know I’m their “only candidate” and I know they’re talking to my head hunters, but that’s it. I’m fairly certain that the guy I’d be reporting to wants to hire me. We hit it off fairly well and he seems like a good guy. (He also has red hair like my current good boss. Coincidence?) So…
So, that must mean that it’s coming down to the “doh, re, mi”. The “cabbage”. The “green”. In short, MONEY. And, isn’t that always the way? I’ve actually tried three times now to get hired on at this company, because they’re a growing, dynamic, stable company that believes in technology and it all comes down to a few thousand dollars. The hell of it is, I’d work for less, if I could. I really would. The job is that good, at least on paper. But, honestly, I’ve given them my rock-bottom, “I’m starvin’ here!” price. God, I hope it’s low enough.

The real ugly part of it all is that now I find myself thinking,”What else could I possibly bring to the table to make me worth it?”. Like 10+ years of hard-core, hands-on experience with Novell isn’t enough, right? Like teaching myself PERL and Linux isn’t evidence of my ability to get in to it and figure it out? Like my years of supervisory experience doesn’t count for something? (Okay, maybe that actually doesn’t. I hated being a supervisor…)
Well, I do tend to play it low-key in interviews. I tend to not tout myself too much, lest I get in too far over my head. Besides, it’s the Scotty Factor. If I can surprise them the first week or two, I usually find that I quickly develop the reputation for being a miracle worker. You get more interesting projects when people think of you as the miracle worker.
So, here I am, to keyed up to do anything useful, questioning my own value as an IT worker, blogging to take the edge off.

God I want this job so bad I could vomit.

No, this is not a joke or a dream.

For those of you, like me, who enjoy a good single-malt Scotch, the Scotch Malt Whisky Society is for you! Now, this is an organization that sounds like it’s my style. An organization dedicated to the enjoyment of Scotch. Ah, where have you been all my life?
Seriously, this does look like fun. These folks have very, very special, and private, Scotch geared to the very high-end customer. The initial membership fee is $149, but that includes “the purchase price of one 750ml bottle of an extremely rare and unique malt whisky never to be available again.” In addition to that, the new member also receives a membership kit, which includes a membership certificate, membership card, The Short Guide, the most recent bottling list and newsletter, along with our gift catalog. Annual renewal is $35.
But, for the Scotch connesuer, this is a really special thing. Hmm, now, what do I have to do to convince my wife….

Anyway, they have some interesting articles, too, so, what the heck, it’s Friday! Go check it out!

Either “best” or a “buy”.

I hate BestBuy. Why? Because their sloppy web design cost me several hours of my life. In fact, I’m so irritated with their malfunctioning website that I will not ever buy anything from them again, if I can help it. I would have given up after the first try last night, but my favorite nephew and godson (yes, that means I am a Godfather), said that all he wanted for his birthday, which was yesterday, was a gift card from BestBuy. Though, “WorstSale” is probably a better name for them.
It all started quite simply, as these things usually do, with me going to their cursed website to purchase a simple $25 gift card for my nephew. Sounds simple enough, right? Fifteen minutes worth of transaction and off to bed, I figured. WRONG! After getting through the transaction the first time, I noticed in the side-bar, in small print, something about needed to have pop-up windows enabled to complete the transaction. What? WHY? What sort of crazy e-commerce website would require me to open a potential security hole in my browser just to spend money on their website? And what kind of moron would let that roll out to the public?
So, I check my Account and see that there are no orders. Just to make sure, I do a search on the order number. Nothing. So, I call and verify with the very polite customer service person that my credit card has not, in fact, been charged. She then tells me to go ahead and try it again now that I have pop-ups enabled for their site and it should all be good. Fine. Only, it wasn’t. I tried this three times only to have NONE of the attempts show up. Not even the one I did through the hated Internet Explorer, which I generally don’t use for security reasons.
So, I call Customer Service again, cursing the idiot who thought up this moronic system. The second very polite Customer Service rep confirms again that no charges have gone through to my card and offers to take care of the transaction for me. Okay, great. All done. And, he tells me that I will be e-mailed a confirmation. Wonderful.
This morning when I check my e-mail, guess what I found? FOUR confirmations, each for a $25 gift card. All of which were processed at around 1:00AM, which was more than TWO HOURS after I was done on the phone with BestBuy’s Customer Service. So, I get to waste even MORE time trying to ge this straightened out today.

I have never, ever in more than ten years of on-line purchasing had a worse experience than I did with the BestBuy website. I have bought from little “mom-and-pop” stores and even game companies from the United Kingdom and never had problems like I’ve had with BestBuy. Gee, aren’t they supposed to be a technology company? Don’t they sell high-tech gear? You sure wouldn’t know it from their non-functional website!
So, what has all this taught me? Don’t ever use BestBuy again. In fact, I’m going to tell everyone I know about this experience and encourage them not to use BestBuy, either. If you live in Houston, I recommend that you try MicroCenter or Fry’s. If you want to get something from the internet try CDW. Personally, I will go to extreme lengths now to avoid spending even one more cent inside a BestBuy. All because one stupid web development team couldn’t get their shit together. (Crap, I almost made it through that entire rant without making any excretory remarks. Oh, well, shit happens.)

Somehow I missed this story two weeks ago…

But, according to this story on Australian IT, someone was trying to sell three Vietnamese girls for a starting bid of $7,400. In response, eBay spokesman Hani Durzy said Friday,”There couldn’t be a clearer case of what’s not allowed on eBay.” San Jose-based eBay strictly forbids the sale or purchase of humans, alive or dead, you’ll be pleased to know. So, no, you cannot “buy” a “wife” on eBay.
You know, when I first read this I was appalled that such a thing could happen, but then, when I thought about it, it surprised me that it hadn’t happened sooner! Considering the sick, depraved things that go on just out of sight of our nice, safe street lights in this country, I’m surprised that it was a foreign issue, not a domestic one. Remember when the Internet was a relatively safe place to socialize? Before the sick whack-jobs figured out that you could masquerade as anything on the ‘net? Ah, well, things change. I just wish the changed for the better more often. Oh, what a sad place the Internet has become….

Oh, it just never ends!

Back in September of last year, I commented on internal “smart-card” passports. Well, there are still issues with internal documentation.
The first is an interesting case about the right to refuse to give identification. This WiredNews story talks about a man in rural Nevada who refused to give a police officer his identification, based on the fact that he had not committed a crime and was jailed for “impeding an officer”. He was released and all charges were dropped, except for the $250 fine for impeding an officer. The case is going all the way to the Supreme Court. Fascinating.
The second story, also on WiredNews, is about an ordinance being voted on in San Franciso that, basically, protects citizens from the prying eyes of the Patriot Act. I doubt it will pass, much less stand up in court, but it’s interesting that people are trying to do something about what they percieve as an injustice.

The link between these two is the right to privacy. Some folks would argue that we’re not garanteed that right in the Constituition, but the majority of us think we are. I feel that my privacy is protected by the right to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”. What about you? What will you do when the fight comes to your door?

New “issue” in the job market.

Never heard of insourcing? Me, either, until this past week. And, apparently, it’s made enough of a stir that two different on-line news sites have articles on it. My standard news source, Wired News, has one article and MSN has another. So, what is it? Well, apparently prison inmates work even cheaper than outsourcers in other countries. Yep, that’s right, prison. Those crafty entreprenuers have put inmates to work in call centers and the like at prices that are, well, almost criminal. These guys make about $130 per month, or about $1500 per year, which beats those high-priced Indian outsourcers that make a whopping $6,000 to $8,000 per year.
Now, I have to admit, I’m a little conflicted over this. First, I think it’s great that the jobs are staying here in the US. And, the prisoners seem happy because it beats mopping floors or working in the laundry. But, can private industry possibly compete with that? And, is it really moral to make that much profit off the prisoners? Hmm, maybe. I mean, isn’t it fair that the criminals help pay for their own rent, food and upkeep? On the other hand, it is almost like slave labor. Of course, a group of small business owners feel that they’re being put out of business due to this cheap, American labor force and are trying to say that it’s illegal. Or, that it should be. That’s still up in the air, but it is an interesting and, possibly, disturbing trend.

In theory, I’m in favor of inmates pulling their own weight, so to speak, in the US economy. And, of course, I’m in favor of almost anything that keeps jobs in the US instead of sending them overseas. But, what effect is this having on local economies? Is it helping or hurting? Or is it not effecting it at all?
More importantly, is it legal? Is it moral? Or, is it just good business? I mean, that was the argument for sending the work offshore in the first place. Honestly, it seems like a good idea, but there’s just something about it that kind of bothers me. I guess it’s too much like a freaky, sience-fiction scenario where the cheap labor force is increased by enacting harsher laws and jailing more “criminals”. How long would it take for a two-class system to develop? I don’t know, but I’m not sure I like where this might go.

Of course, it’s not the United States economy…

Rather, it’s India’s. Yep, that’s right, our outsourcing habit is really growing India’s economy. According to this article on AustalianIT, “Indian software company Wipro third-quarter net profit jumped 19 per cent from a year earlier to a record 2.74 billion rupees ($78 million)” and “Infosys, India’s second-largest software services exporter, reported last week third-quarter net profit jumped a better-than-expected 28 percent to 3.3 billion rupees ($91.3 million)”. But, you say, that could be due to any of thousands of market forces, right? Well, not according to the article. The article claims that Wipro is “…one of many software companies benefiting from a trend by US and European companies seeking to cut costs by outsourcing jobs to India to take advantage of a large, cheap pool of English-speaking graduates. ”

I think anyone who reads my blog on a regular basis is smart enough to draw their own conclusions about this. Instead of making further comment, I’ll just ask a question. If you’re an IT professional, how’s your personal economy these days? Could you have used some of that revenue?
Think about it.

Who are they kidding?

The article on AustralianIT is titled “US tech firms defend ‘offshoring’ “, but it’s just a defense of greed. Overpaid tech executives want to ship more jobs overseas based on cost and nothing more. That’s all well and good, but what about their overpriced salaries? Are they willing to cut costs there? Nope. They’re willing to batter the American Worker, but not trim the biggest fat of all, their own damn salary.

Think I’m making a big deal? Think that those execs “earn” that kind of multi-million dollar scratch? Check out this article on Dollars and Sense about the gross disparity between what US executives are paid and their foregin counterparts. Here’s an article about the differences in Finland in particular that’s a little more current. And, another article on Forbes that’s more current still. So, while folks like you and me make the corporation actually run, the top executives that do little more than make decisions about what broad moves the company will make, or who are mainly whipping boys for the press and shareholders, make orders of magnitude more than we do. Why? Because they can. But, maybe, if we hold them accountable, they won’t be able to do that any more. Maybe, just maybe, they’ll have to make cuts that hurt themselves for a change and look out for their workers.

Well, a guy can dream…