Diary of a Network Geek

So, I’m still thinking about ways to market my blogs.

Well, not just my blogs, but my entire suite of websites, blogs and digital identities. I have ideas, naturally, and I’ve already shared some of the ideas that I’ve tried. I’ll keep working on those and on ways to measure the effectiveness of those methods. But, I also need to think of different ways to market my digital self, or selves.

Toward that end, I’ve done a little cheap, on-line research.
For starters, there was a Wired article on all this. Quite possibly, that article is how this all got wedged in my consciousness. I mean, I read Wired obsessively and always try to check out any on-line article from Wired online.
In any case, the main gist of the article is to think outside the box. Especially, when it comes to different ways to get your message, or in this case, website, in front of an audience that might not otherwise see it.
Then, following a link from there, I found an article at Forbes that goes into more details on those other ideas. It’s really a compliment to the Wired article, but, still, it has value.

So, my thought, in general, is this: Get the word out about your blog in places that aren’t obvious. “Not obvious” may be different for different blogs, or websites, but I suggest going beyond the digital world and exploring other possibilities. In a digital sense, though, try to get the site listed in places that are related to your topic, but in a peripheral way. If you write about mostly technical things, like I do, then also get your blog listed in places that talk about all the things you write about besides technical subjects.
But, in essence, when looking for places to advertise your blog, think beyond the usual and way, way outside the box.

Advice from your Uncle Jim:
"A critic is a man who knows the way but can't drive the car."
   --Kenneth Tynan

I’m hoping someone will know this.

I vaguely recall a quote by someone, possibly famous, about the relationship of the number of keys on your keyring to the amount of attachment to the world. I can’t remember the quote, or the person who made it, but I recall that the point was to have fewer keys, and not the giant wad of them that I have. Oh, it was related to Buddhism in some way. Either the speaker was Buddhist or was paraphrasing one, I think.
So, tell me, esteemed readers, does anyone else remember the quote?

Advice from your Uncle Jim:
"The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy."
   --Martin Luther King

Just for myself.

So, one of my new life goals is to get debt free and stay that way. But, really, that’s just a very concrete way for me to describe getting my finances in order. I’ve started doing a number of things to get that particular set of ducks in a row, among them being to sign up for our 401k. When I first became eligible for that, I was in the middle of a divorce, so I didn’t take advantage of it. Then, frankly, I couldn’t afford it, so I more or less forgot about it. But, with the raise that will start after the first of the year, now seemed like a perfect time to start socking money away. I think the company matches me some, but it doesn’t really matter. What matters is that I’m going to start taking money out of every paycheck, before taxes, and move it into an investment device.

Also, along with that, I plan to start using the automated transfer system at my bank to transfer some of that raise directly into my savings account every two weeks. The idea here, as so many personal investment gurus have said, is to pay myself first. And, from here on out, I’m going to transfer any automated payments from Google directly into my savings account, too. I think of that as “extra” money anyway, so I might as well set it aside.
What I’m trying to do with this pattern, is to set aside a contingency fund. If I really want to get out of debt and stay out of debt, I have to stop making any more debt! The only way to do that is to have some money set aside to deal with anything that might come up. (Incidentally, I’ll be following the basic plan from How to Get Out of Debt, Stay Out of Debt and Live Prosperously, which is where I got the common sense idea to start building a contingency fund.) I know it will be slow going, but, I think it will be well worth it in the end.

Also, in the Spring, I’m going to find a personal finance magazine of some kind to subscribe to so I can educate myself better on financial matters. I’m not sure which I’ll go with, Money, Kiplinger’s, or SmartMoney, but I’ll most likely stick with one of those three.

And, finally, here are a couple of articles from Men’s Health about financial matters, which is what got me thinking about this today.
First, there’s “Your Biggest Money Worries – Solved“. I have to admit, that one hit a couple of mine, like “Affording Her” and “Paying Off Your Debts”, not to mention “Saving Enough For Retirement”. Surprisingly, this article about easy resolutions for the coming year sort of got me motivated, too. It all reminded me of how my parents taught me that the little things, when added up, can make big changes. Mom’s saying was “Inch by inch, life’s a sinch, but mile by mile, life’s a trial”. She used to say that to remind me that I had to be patient and do the little steps that made the bigger goals possible. It’s a good reminder.
But, what really got me thinking about this the most was Six Painless Ways to Build Wealth.
So, here’s hoping that a more serious, enlightened, “grown-up” approach to my finances will help me achieve yet another life goal. I’ll try to keep y’all updated.

Advice from your Uncle Jim:
"The best thing about the future is that it comes only one day at a time."
   --Abraham Lincoln

Or, fired even.

Okay, so no one wants to get fired. (Well, that’s not quite true. I actually had someone ask me to lay him off once, but that’s another story.) Still, sometimes, market forces back employers into a corner and they have no choice but to “help employees find other opportunities to excel”. So, what do you do when that happens? Well, an article over at TechRepublic has several suggestions:

#1: Get everything the company owes you

#2: Get your resume updated and out the door

#3: Search company Web sites

#4: List your sources of income

#5: Prioritize expenses

#6: Don’t forget insurance

#7: Don’t burn bridges

#8: Avoid raiding your investments

#9: Get out

#10: Keep up with your debt

#11: Pay attention to your feelings

Thankfully, it looks like not only am I not getting fired, but I’ll be getting a reasonable “cost-of-living” raise this year.  But, with some of the stuff going on at Motorola, I thought my brother might make use of the tips.  (Yes, he reads the blog, too.)

Advice from your Uncle Jim:
"It is better to be approximately right than precisely wrong."
   --Warren Buffet

I assess the power of a will by how much resistance, pain, torture it endures and knows how to turn to its advantage.
Friedrich Nietzsche

I love quoting Nietzsche.

He was such a brilliant philosopher and not nearly as brutal in life as you would expect from his quotable bon mots. Did you know that he was such a rigid creature of habit that when he forgot his lunch one day, his housekeeper was able to run ahead and catch him with it on his route from home to the university where he worked? She knew just where he’d be and when and what it would take to catch him. I find it fascinating to know that about someone that advocated the abolition of rules and convention for the “superior man”, Das Ubermensch.

When people tell me how strong I must be to have survived cancer so well and easily, I try not to laugh out loud. Death is easy, but life is hard.
They look at me and ask how it was I could have just gone on and on the way I did. They wonder how it is I can shrug about the treatment now as I try to explain to them that it never entered my mind to do anything but take it and go on. I mean, what other choice was there, really? To be honest, I’m a little ashamed that I made as much fuss about the whole thing as I did. I must have debated about calling the nurse, the first time I was sick to my stomach, for a full five minutes before pulling the emergency call lever in the bathroom. I only did it then because I was afraid I’d fall and crack my head on the sink. But, in a way, that was all fairly easy.

You see, as long as I had something to focus on, something to resist, to fight, I was okay. I had an enemy, lymphoma. It’s easy to fight against something like that, but now… Now that I’m having to sort out medical bills and clinic visits and hair growing back, well, now, it’s hard. I’m supposed to have learned something from this experience. People expect that I have gained some wisdom, some insight into the human condition, as a result of my near brush with death. But, I don’t have any. Not a one. I haven’t learned a thing about life and death and everything in between that I didn’t know already. I promise you.
Well, perhaps I have learned one thing: if I die before my creditors can collect, they’re just screwed and I don’t care.

That which does not kill us makes us stronger.
Friedrich Nietzsche

Advice from your Uncle Jim:
"To avoid criticism, do nothing, say nothing, be nothing."
   --Elbert Hubbard

No, not friends…

I’m lucky. I have had a full-time job with benefits since graduating from college, less a year’s worth of market fluctuation that left me unemployed for a bit. But, I knew a lot of people who couldn’t find a full-time job and actually had to work several part-time gigs to make ends meet. At the time, I wondered how they dealt with health insurance, but, it turns out, most of them just did without.

Well, I’ve often wondered how someone on a reduced income or who did something artistic for most of their money managed to swing benefits. It turns out that there are actually a number of places that offer benefits to people working part-time. So, if you’re a struggling consultant who has to work at a gig part-time to get by, why not try one of the places listed in the link above? (The same goes for you starving artists and hopeful authors.)

Advice from your Uncle Jim:
"When written in Chinese, the word 'crisis' is composed of two characters - one represents danger and the other represents opportunity."

When marrying, ask yourself this question: Do you believe that you will be able to converse well with this person into your old age? Everything else in marriage is transitory.
Friedrich Nietzsche

I know someone who thinks she’s getting married. It may sound pessimistic, but I think differently.

So, there’s this former receptionist from my office, C. She and this other guy from work have been alternately going out or breaking up or fighting like Arabs and Israelis for most of a year now. Somehow, because I showed more than a little interest in her when she first started, I got sucked into this. Now, mainly, I try to maintain my status as a somewhat interested observer, but I don’t always manage it. She tells me one thing and then I hear something different at work. Now, it seems, after calling it quits a couple of weeks ago, this guy has asked her to marry him. At least, that’s what C. has told me. I think she earnestly believes that’s what’s going to happen, but I don’t. Or, at least, I hope not for both their sakes.

Oh, sure, there’s lots of passion in this relationship and I can tell you from first-hand experience, that passion can be powerful stuff. But, it also lies. It shouts in your ear, telling you that this is the ONE, regardless of all their faults. It bellows about the intensity of two hearts beating as one in a raging forest fire of shared desire. But, to do that, it yells and screams over those little voices that tell you something’s wrong. That she smokes too much or that he pays too much attention to other women. Passion drowns out all those very logical and reasonable voices that tell you you’re making a mistake. And, I’m afraid that C. doesn’t hear those tiny voices over the roar of her amniotic ocean.

On the other hand, take my friends J and L.
Now, these two have something that runs deeper than simple passion. I’ll grant you, I haven’t been privy to all their trials and tribulations of blending two lives together, but I know enough. And, of course, there was the whole “cold-feet” incident around Christmas. It was a close thing, their marriage. But it was different, in part because of the doubts.

You see, doubt really is healthy. When I got married, I was very, very sure that it was the right thing and that everything could be overcome and would work out for the best. And, all the other platitudes one hears about that passionate, erotic love. But, there is no amount of passion that can overcome a huge gap in values or in the value found in another person. You see, The Queen of the Damned and I had different ideas about what to value and how to show it. In the end, we both felt the other was taking us for granted and getting more than they gave. I’m honestly not sure who was right there, if anyone was, but the perception is what matters.
And, that’s why I think J and L will make it, ultimately, but C and her dream won’t. J and L see each other for who they are and value that. Not in spite of their short-comings or flaws, but because of them. Because they can see that most glorious thing in each other, a friend. Someone they look forward to spending time with, but are not consumed by. Now, I would imagine that, being newlyweds, they have to work a bit at the not being consumed. It’s tricky to find that balance between being a couple and being individuals and I admire the work that they put into doing that.

I’m thankful that I know them and can see the relationship they’re still developing. I’m honored that they invite me into a part of that world they’ve created together. They’re far from perfect, but, without realizing it, I think they’ve become the model after which I hope to build my own future relationship, or relationships. (Hey, I’m a realist! For me, there’ll probably be more than one before I find a good fit. I’m an acquired taste!) They give me hope that things can work out differently in my future than they did in my past.

That quote at the beginning, by the way, was something I was going to say at J and L’s wedding, in the toast that I didn’t get to make because I was in the hospital.

Advice from your Uncle Jim:
"If someone keeps having things go wrong, try out the assumption that it's because that someone wants them to go wrong."
   --George Scithers

Oh, I’ll never learn.

So, I read a lot of blogs. Not a big surprise, really, all things considered. One of the blogs I track is the Houston Chronicle’s TechBlog. Recently, they ran a post titled “Spy on your spouse’s online habits, go to jail“. Now, as a currently unmarried person, you may think I don’t have a dog in that fight, but, well, I kind of do. Allow me to explain.

See, about three years ago, my now ex-wife was cheating on me with her latest husband. (in fact, tomorrow, it will be three years to the day that I told her I “knew” what was going on and she bolted rather than face up to any problems we were having.) I was tempted to install spyware, or do other kinds of traces, on her communications. And, I think I would have been within my legal rights, since the computer was in my house and, technically, shared property. Now, I’m not a lawyer, obviously, but as part of my job, I do have to be fairly up to date on legal issues regarding computer security.
It’s unclear from the article whether or not the man in Austin who got four years for installing spyware on his wife’s computer had physical possession of the PC in question, but I’d imagine not. Now, I got confirmation of my suspicions by reading a raw mail file on a server I rented space on. The account was one I paid for, but my ex-wife foolishly used to tell nasty lies about me. (And, yes, also some uncomfortable truths, but they were mostly obscured by the rather outrageous lies.) At the time, my lawyer’s office agreed with me that it seemed like I was legally in the clear when I read the e-mail file. Though we didn’t actually have to test the law, in general, I would have been considered the rightful owner of the file in question, ergo, I had the right to read it.  And, ownership, to me, is the issue.  If I own the computer in question, don’t I have the right to install software on it that captures information?  In that situation, in a private residence, who has the right to expect privacy when using that machine?
In any case, I made comment and then, later, read some other comments on the post.
One person made some rather sweeping generalizations with which, naturally, I disagreed. A small, tepid debate ensued. The other commenter made comments about legality in an absolute sense, as in “…it is illegal to crack a password of another adult, for any reason, no matter where the software comes from – the guy is going to do 4 years in jail?” And, therein lies the rub. It’s NOT illegal to crack a password of another adult “for any reason”. There are, in fact, many legal reasons I’ve cracked passwords at work. For one, someone illegally locked files with a password to hold a company hostage. The company in question clearly had ownership of the password-locked files, but there was no way to recover the file without cracking the password. There are other examples, but any time someone starts talking in absolutes about the law, I know they’ve had no real experience with actual legal matters. A good lawyer can argue for a lot of exceptions to any law and, if they’re good enough, win. The fact that this guy is going to jail means that his lawyer couldn’t do that, if he even had anything more than a public defender. That’s all.
And, to me, the real question here is one of ownership. If I own the computer, I can install software on it to make sure it is being used the way I see fit. On the other hand, there is the question of a user’s expectation to privacy. If the user on the computer I own expects a certain level of privacy, for whatever reason, and hasn’t been informed otherwise… Well, let’s just say the law gets a little hazy at this point. Really, in most things legal, there just aren’t any absolutes. Ask a lawyer, they’ll pretty well tell you the same thing.
The other points that the commenter made about raising children and marital affairs leads me to believe that he is simply inexperienced or naive. When he wrote, “I guess how you raise your kids is your choice, unfortunately. None of mine have ever been in any trouble whatsoever so I will keep my ways going…”, it never occurred to him that his kids might be in trouble, but he hasn’t found out yet. Same thing about the state of his marriage.
Again, I’m not saying I’ve got the only answer, just that there isn’t any absolute answer to this whole issue. What’s more, he falls into the fallacy of ascribing meaning and intent to my disagreement that was not there. When he said that the better way to check up on your possibly cheating spouse was to have them followed by an “ex-cop”, I disagreed. Strongly. Being an ex-cop does not guarantee any level of success in trailing and catching a cheating spouse. And, while “pictures speak louder than words”, often, words from incriminating e-mail speak loudly enough.

Naturally, I don’t advocate breaking the law, but there’s a lot of question about where that threshold is in the digital world. And, simply trusting everyone you have a relationship with is, well, naive at best.

But, all that aside, I wrote this here because I had something left to say, but didn’t see the point of continuing the “discussion” over there.

Advice from your Uncle Jim:
"The only difference between saints and sinners is that every saint has a past and every sinner has a future."
   --Oscar Wilde

Wish I’d found this sooner.

No, really, I wish I’d found and read Time Management for System Administrators a long, long time ago. This book was great! Some of the techniques in the book I already do, but I had to learn them the hard way. But, there were many more things that I either had never thought of, or hadn’t thought of in the context of time management or improving my personal efficiency.

For instance, I’ve used ToDo lists in the past, in fact, I’d started using one again recently. But, I’ve never looked at using them the way the author, Thomas Limoncelli, suggests using them in Chapter Five: The Cycle. The idea, in short, is to manage everything on your ToDo list today by either doing it, delegating it, or moving it to tomorrow’s ToDo list. No matter what you do with it, it gets managed and everything on today’s ToDo list gets dealt with, one way or another.
Another theme that Limoncelli harped on was, whichever way you choose to keep track of tasks and ToDo lists, it has to be a way that you keep with you. Either you learn to carry your organizer with you everywhere, or you have to adapt something that you do carry with you to hold the information you need. In my case, I decided to use the organizer functions on my cell phone. So far, that’s been working well for me.
After reading this book, I was also inspired to document my workstation imaging system in much more detail. Now, I have the start of documentation that can, essentially, replace me. This particular document is now detailed enough that just about anyone with a little experience on computers can setup our standard workstation with all the programs installed already. This way, if I ever end up in the hospital again, someone else can keep making workstations. I’ll do some more documentation of this kind and write some policies, too. In a couple of weeks, or months, I’ll have a fairly complete set of IT documentation for this company and I can customize it for any place I might work again. (And, yes, I might post some of it here for you all to steal.)
As part of that documentation, I started a network diagram. I had started this before using an old copy of Visio, but that wasn’t working too well. I got all obsessed with making the autodiscovery function work just right, and it wasn’t, but until I read what Limoncelli had to say about the value of a quick, simple network diagram that isn’t obsessively correct. After that, I grabbed a copy of Network Notepad, a freeware network diagram tool, and all the extra libraries. Then I spent a quick couple of hours getting used to the way Network Notepad works and creating the simple diagram. After using it a bit, I decided I really like it. It has some nice features, so it’s worth checking out. And, I’m going to use it to diagram my home network, too.
I’m still working on formalizing my life goals and implementing the stuff from the stress fighting chapter, but I am getting there. It was very much the right book at the right time for me. But, I do have to admit, if I’d found it sooner in my career, I might be doing better today than I am. Well, maybe not, but I’m glad I read it now.

If you’re a system administrator, no matter if it’s on a Windows network or Unix, or whatever, or, if you work on an IT helpdesk of any kind, get this book, read it and put it to use. NOW.

Advice from your Uncle Jim:
"Our devotion to truth may bring us into conflict with those around us. What we need to remember is that we are not responsible for convincing anyone else of what we believe to be true."

I know a lot of bloggers now.

I may not “power Blogger”, but I know a lot of people who do. One of them is very sweet, owns an adorable chocolate (aka brown) lab, and is a cracker jack photographer. She wrote a post you all need to read: Second Hands.
Also, read the comments. Sometimes, the comments say as much as the posts do on a blog.

Besides, I don’t want to write it again.

Advice from your Uncle Jim:
"Contrary to popular belief, UNIX is user friendly. It just happens to be selective about who it makes friends with."
   --Dave Parnas