Diary of a Network Geek

No, not my house.

Though, that is a fair way to describe my house right now, I meant me. I’m the dating/relationship equivalent of a “fixer-upper”. Sometimes, I think that’s a good thing, but others… Well, let’s just say that, two years after my divorce, I’m about as open to change as a man can be. Personal change that is. I’m willing to accept that there are some fundamental things wrong with the way I approach relationships and dating and, yes, even sex, and I’m willing to consider alternatives. Oh, I’m sure I could spin that as an asset, but is it? Do you really want to date a “project”?

Think of the possibilities here, ladies. A man who’s willing to be molded, to a certain extent, into a “better” person. Who’s ready for a little “behavior modification”. Willing to listen, really listen, to you tell him what’s wrong with him and suggest solutions. Of course, just listing what’s wrong with me, or us, and not suggesting possible solutions is how I ended up divorced, so that’s something to bear in mind. I don’t do well with people crtisizeing me without adding suggestions. And, change takes time, so patience is a virtue.

Advice from your Uncle Jim:
"Pay no attention to the faults of others, things done or left undone by others. Consider only what by oneself is done or left undone."

Well, as you can see by the picture to the left, the phisher was at it again.

So, me being who I am, I checked on this nasty phisher again and, naturally, he’d cleared the content and put his own back up. Well, this time, I went a little more subtle on him.  Instead of renaming his old file and uploading my own, I just uploaded my own over his.  If you look, you can see that I left most of his work in place, but added my own warning to anyone who might click on the link this stupid phisher put in his spam message.  I might keep this up for a bit, since it’s so easy and will hopefully drive at least one scumbag out of business.

Now, you might ask yourself why I don’t just assault the phisher or his site directly.  Well, there’s two reasons.  First, I imagine that this is a compromised site and not the phisher’s own.  So, if I attacked the site itself, I’d be damaging his victim twice.  Secondly, this way, if anyone does click on the link, I might educate someone so that they don’t just click on any link they get via e-mail.  The best way to hit these scammers is by way of educating people enough so that they don’t fall prey to these tactics.

Oh, also, notice that I left the compromised site’s address visible in the graphic.  Since this has become an educational tool, I figure everyone who reads my blog might as well get educated!

Advice from your Uncle Jim:
"It's nothing against you to fall down flat, but to lie there--that's disgrace."
   --Edmund Vance Cooke

I probably shouldn’t have done this, but…

You know, sometimes, I just get so irritated with the scams I get via e-mail that I just can’t help myself. This morning I read one too many eBay phishing scams in my inbox and, well, I had to do something about it.

So, this is the e-mail I got that sent me over the edge.
Notice how this looks like a legitimate e-mail from eBay. It has all the same things that the official notices from eBay would have, including links to what look like official notices and actual sign-in screens.
The only real problem with this is that it was sent to an account that’s not associated with my eBay account and I haven’t bought or sold anything on eBay in over a year. What bothered me, though, was that I know people who would click on this and get scammed.
For fun, I hovered over the links to see where they led. If you look at the bottom of the linked screen capture here, you’ll see what I saw, but with the IP address obscured for safety’s sake.

This is the page that the phisher wanted me to go to.
Again, notice how it looks like a legitimate page on eBay’s website. It looks so good because the phisher’s page actually links to the graphics on eBay’s site. But, if you look in the address bar in the browser in the linked screen capture, you’ll see what led me to mess with the scammer.
The link is to an FTP site and includes logon information, complete with password.
Naturally, this was just too good for me to resist.
So, I popped open a DOS prompt and loaded the default FTP client on my Windows machine. When I connected to the FTP address listed in the link, I was prompted for a userID and password. When I used the credentials in the link, the FTP server let me in!

Naturally, this was far too good an opportunity for me to pass up.
So, while keeping the connection open, I renamed the phisher’s scam page from “ne.html” to “nono.html”. Then, I created my own “ne.html” and uploaded it.
In the linked image to the left, you can see that it gives anyone who loads it a warning not to click on just any old link they get in e-mail. Hopefully, this will serve to not only frustrate the phisher, but also educate anyone who might click the link.

Naturally, I don’t expect this to be up for very long on the phisher’s site, but, I figure if I help anyone with this little stunt, it will have been worth it. Though, you will notice that I obscured the IP address in my graphics to protect anyone the phisher may have hacked to run his scam. Also, it’s entirely possible that I was technically breaking the law by doing this, but I don’t expect the phisher is going to actually try to prosecute. After all, just how would one explain this to a judge?

Oh, and when I checked on it just before posting this, the phisher had changed the files back.  So, I did it again.

Advice from your Uncle Jim:
"If you can't be thankful for what you receive, be thankful for what you escape."
   --Unknown

I ordered a subscription to Men’s Health.

So, yeah, in an effort to improve my general health and well-being, I thought I’d get a subscription to a magazine my friend K. referred to as “Cosmo for men”. Well, I’ve read Cosmopolitan magazine and Men’s Health is not quite as bad, though I won’t be taking their advice on women any time soon. Maybe when I look like the cover models, and have girls that look like the eye candy in the articles showing up for breakfast, I’ll start taking that advice, but not any time soon. Until then, I’ll just keep relating to women like actual people and stick to the health and cooking articles.
I used to have a subscription, back in the day, before I got married to the Queen of the Damned. But, when she took offense at the dating advice articles, and the aforementioned eye candy that accompanied them, I let the subscription lapse. Now, though, I want to live, so, I think I’ll start reading it more carefully than I did then.
Also, toward the goal of being healthier, when I go to the grocery store later this week, I will buy their recommended, “keep on hand” grocery list, as shown below…
The Men’s Health Grocery List
Frozen Shrimp 1 lb uncooked, medium size
Rotisserie Chicken 1 cooked
Pork Tenderloin 1 herb-flavored or lemon-garlic marinated (about 3/4 lb)
Bell Peppers 1 tray tricolor (or pick out 1 red, 1 yellow, and 1 orange)
Yellow Onions 2 lb
Baby Mixed Greens 4 oz bag, washed
Portobello Mushrooms 2 large caps
Asparagus 1 bunch
Garlic 1 head
Sun-Dried-Tomato Pesto 8 oz jar
Avocado 1 ripe
Mozzarella 8 oz bag, shredded
Instant Brown Rice 1 lb box (except that I have a rice cooker and don’t need instant)
Black Beans 12 oz can
100% Whole-Wheat Fettuccine 16 oz box
10″ 100% Whole-Wheat Tortillas 1 package
The Pantry List (or, staples to supplement the main list)
“Buy these crucial building blocks every couple of months and you’ll always have them on hand to construct meals around the clock.”
Reduced-Fat Mayonnaise
Dijon Mustard
Low-Sodium Soy Sauce
Peanut Butter
Extra-Virgin Olive Oil
Balsamic Vinegar
Parmesan Cheese
Salsa
Tabasco Or Other Hot Sauce

So, after I stock up, we’ll see how many things I can make from those. Oh, of course, I’ll add good, lean beef and assorted freshwater and deep sea fish to that list. As well as skim milk, coffee, red and white wine, better than average beer, eggs, turkey bacon, orange juice, whole-wheat bagels, and, naturally, breakfast cereal. I might get the Men’s Health cookbook, A Man, A Can, A Plan, too, since it’s one of my favorite columns.

And, to answer your questions before you ask them, I read Cosmo when I was in college working as a security guard at a women’s dorm. And, no, I don’t mind that Men’s Health is popular with gay men because of the cover models. I should be so lucky to look like that and have their attraction problems!

Advice from your Uncle Jim:
"A man is known by the company his mind keeps."
   --Thomas Bailey Aldrich

It’s not that much of a Secret.

So, lately, there’s been a big hullaballo about this book, The Secret. (Or, for the lazy, or illiterate, the DVD.) Apparently, many of its devotees swear by it, claiming that it’s changed their life. Well, according to what I’ve read in this review on MSN, I’ll skip it. Why? Simple, I already know the principles espoused in the book and would rather save my money.

The basic principle is this: Like attracts like. Now, all you pagan readers will recognize that as the Law of Attraction. In short, it says that if you think happy thoughts, you’ll attract happy “stuff” in life. Some of you may also recognize that same idea in a different phrase I’ve become acquainted with over the past few years: “Fake it, ’til you make it”. Either way, it amounts to the same thing.
Not that it’s a bad thing, per se, but I don’t need another book to teach me about it. This principle of positive thought has been around for quite some time. And, quite a few authors have written books on it. For instance, there’s the Norman Vincent Peale classic, The Power of Positive Thinking. Now, that is a book I can recommend.

I think the real message is, as one of my heroes, Abe Lincoln, put it, “People are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.” And, while it may not be true in all cases, since a certain amount of unhappy things are just a part of life, how upset I get and for how long are entirely in my control. Frankly, I think that’s how I got through my cancer treatment so well. I just made up my mind that I was going to do it, deal with it, survive and move on. So, I did. No real magical thinking required at all.

Advice from your Uncle Jim:
"Every experience that involves one of us, involves others who also need what the experience may teach. We are not alone, ever."

Well, I can see that my ex-wife has been here…

As you can tell from the poll to the right, someone thinks I shouldn’t write at all. Without checking my logs, I’d put my money on the Queen of the Damned.
I’m glad you still think about me and are concerned for my welfare. No worries, though, if I can survive cancer, I can handle the stress of writing for NaNoWriMo.  Heck, you’ve made up some interesting fiction about me over the years, you darling little nut, maybe you should try NaNoWriMo this year, too!

Advice from your Uncle Jim:
"People are just as happy as they make up their minds to be."
   --Abraham Lincoln

Sometimes, oil and water just don’t mix.

So, after a busy couple of weeks and not hearing from S., the girl from Match.com who contacted after more than six months, I finally got a reply e-mail from her.  At first, I’d thought it was an e-mail problem of some kind that was blocking incoming e-mail from her domain, but I verified that it was working with someone else.  Before I did that, however, I sent her an e-mail that indicated I was having some e-mail issues and I included my phone number.

Naturally, I got a response back telling me that her junk mail controls had grabbed that and she’s only just now seen it.  So, can anyone guess what her response was to my suggesting we get together this week?  Yeah, she’d started seeing someone else a couple of weeks ago and wanted to pursue that.  But, she wanted to stay friends, etcetera.  Of course.  Sure.  What else, right?  Well, rather than reply right away, I waited over night to think about it.  Good thing, too.

So, this morning, I send her a quick note saying, in essence, that it was probably best.  After all, things hadn’t really worked out the first time, so there wasn’t any real reason to expect them to work out now, right?  Right.  Well.  All that means, really, is that I’ll be back on my original plan of looking seriously at dating sometime after Christmas.  I figure finding some one off Match.com is like looking for work.  No one really changes jobs, or partners, until after the holidays anyway.

Advice from your Uncle Jim:
"Sometimes someone says something really small and it just fits into this empty place in your heart."
   --Angela, "My So-Called Life"

I’m of two minds on these.

When I was in Boy Scouts I earned Wildernes Survival Merit Badge. One of my Merit Badge Councellors at the time mocked survival kits saying that it seemed to him when he most needed such a thing, it would be no where to be found. So, mostly, I learned to make do with what I carried in my pockets. I think that was about when I developed the habit of always carrying a pocket knife and a lighter, come to think of it.

In any case, with hurricane season growing ever longer, and all sorts of terrible disasters looming on the horizon, according to the television press, I suppose it’s not a bad idea to have something a little more substantial around. Cetainly, I’m not the first blogger to talk about survival kits, nor will I be the last. And, I have to admit, I have other reasons for thinking about this. Not only am I a bit of a survival nut from way back, but I’ve been reading a book called The World Without Us that’s set me to thinking about this sort of thing.
Earlier this year, Wired Magazine reviewed several emergency survival kits, and after a lot of searching, I managed to find a link to it. (Scroll down, past the speaker reviews to the survival kits.) More recently, however, Wired ran an article on making your own kit from scratch and building the “smarter emergency kit“. That article makes a great supplement to the suggestions made at the Department of Homeland Security sponsored site, Ready.gov. They’ve got a whole list of emergency preparedness documents, in PDF format, including a list of suggested emergency supplies. Incidentally, that was what Wired Magazine rated as the best emergency survival kit, the one you made yourself following the Ready.gov guidelines. Keep in mind, though, the advice my Merit Badge Councellor gave in his smarmy way… Make the kit portable and keep it near you in case of emergency. (If you want to include food in your kit, you could do worse than using stuff from Mountain House. But, make sure to rotate it out every couple of years!)
Also, for you fellow dog owners, you might make a kit for your best friend, too. Again, from the Wired blogs, there are pre-made dog emergency kits. But, mainly, I just keep extra dog food on hand and allow additional drinking water.
Another idea for readers who are, like me, very digital in nature, having a spare laptop in an emergency “bug out” laptop kit isn’t a bad idea at all. In fact, now that I’ve got a spare laptop, and a bit of time, I may just make that myself!

(Don’t forget to check out the pictures in the last post and vote!)

Advice from your Uncle Jim:
"Love is that condition where someone else’s happiness is necessary to your own."
   --Robert Heinlein

What do you say to your best friend’s wife when she tells you that you’re a handsome man?

So, I got two interesting compliments this week.
Last night, at church, L., J.’s wife, looks at me and suddenly declares, “New Glasses!” Apparently, she’d been trying to figure out what was different about my face since seeing me, but, considering it was Mercy Street‘s 10-year birthday celebration, she was a little too distracted to see it right off. Her explanation of that declaritive statement went something like this…

Well, you’re a handsome man, but tonight there was something special about your eyes. You looked kinder or… Well, your new glasses just made your eyes “pop”.

So, my goal of finding glasses that were unobtrusive and didn’t get in the way of my face seems to have been successful.The other thing came in the form of an e-mail.
Back before I was diagnosed with cancer, I’d seen a woman from Match.com twice, but she didn’t feel any “chemistry”, so, she pretty well cut things off. Not a big deal, really. She was nice enough and made pleasant conversation, but I had to admit there wasn’t much there beyond that. Still, I would have given it a couple more dates before making a decision. I don’t much trust that chemistry business, as I find it a poor indicator of how well a relationship will go for me. I felt a fair amount of unexplainable chemistry with my ex-wife, but that was a disaster on wheels.
In any case, I’ve been updating my Match.com profile a bit. I figured that since my eyebrows were growing back nicely, I should start making preparations to date again. Well, out of the blue, this woman sends me an e-mail. She wrote that Match.com hadn’t worked out too well for her and that I was “one of the few great guys” she’d met and did I want to give her another chance to get to know me. Well, I figure, nothing ventured, nothing gained, so I wrote her back with a yes. So, after my sister and nephew come and go next week, I’ll drop her a note and we’ll work out getting together.
I have to admit, even though I feel a little shallow for the ego pump her e-mail gave me, it is gratifying to know I was a cut above the rest of her Match.com dates. We’ll see how it goes.

Oh, and the answer to that question at the top of the post?
“Thank you.”

Advice from your Uncle Jim:
"Not a shred of evidence exists in favor of the idea that life is serious."

Not that I’d know, personally…

I know I’ve touched on it before, but here’s another article about dating at work. Of course, what I need are tips for dating someone from church, but no one’s written about that yet. I wonder why?
Well, while we ponder that mystery, here’s an article on what women want men to wear. Is it accurate, ladies? Should I be wearing rugged Levi’s with a white t-shirt? Or something that matches my eyes?
And, finally, for those readers who are married, how to argue with your wife, though, I would say avoid that if possible. Incidentally, these tips work pretty well for women arguing with their husbands, too.

Advice from your Uncle Jim:
"Brigands demand your money or your life; women require both."
   --Samuel Butler