Diary of a Network Geek

No, this is not one of my infamous religious posts.
Actually, this is a technical post. Thursday this past week started like any other. “Jim, do this, ” and “Jim, I need that” and “Hey, Jim, should this computer be smoking this way?” A standard day in the life of a stand-alone IT department. Then, things turned ugly. Every call became “Hey, Jim, is there something wrong with this network share?” And, I finally put two and two together to get five and, sadly, discovered that the Linksys EFG-120 Network Attached Storage device had curled up its toes and died.
Luckily, the important stuff is all backed up, but not everything on that drive is “important” enough to hit the limited backup we have. So, it was time for the Network Geek to go into action. I started, as always, with a reboot. Nada. Well, I thought the NAS was Windoze based, since it was a mapped drive on the crusty, old Windows NT server I’ve been limping along here, so I reboot it again. Still nothing. So, thinking at a moderate pace, I decided to try and reseat the drive in the device. One small problem: the NAS is locked and no one has a key. Luckily, a little thing like a locked door has never been more than a temporary impediment to me, so I start banging away at the lock with my LEATHERMAN Pocket Survival Tool. After a few minutes, I managed to bust the drivetray out of its slot without damaging the case and reseat the drive. Crank it up and… Still nada. Damn, I thought to myself. Gonna’ be one of those days.
So, I tell the Boss about it. Boss says, do what you can and let me know. Great. I try getting the drive into an external drive case and hooking it up to his firewire hub on his Mac. Can you guess what we got? Yeah, nada. Right, well, I’m not ready to give up because, well, I’m a tad obsessive about this kind of thing. Sure, that makes me a little hard to deal with in the World, but in my job, obsession is definately a trait to be desired.
Next, I try hooking it up to my machine and seeing if Windows 2000 can see the partition and fix what’s wrong. What’d I get? Nunca nada. Not done, yet, though. I dig out a copy of PartitionMagic. I make the disks and boot into that freaky, specialized operating environment to see if I could fix the broken disk partition. See, I’m figuring that it’s just the File Allocation Table that’s decided to take a vacation. PartitionMagic is totally scoop at restoring those kinds of things, which is why I gave it a whirl. Sadly, nada. Well, not quite nada, since I was at least able to see that the damaged partition seemed to be a Linux partition of some kind. AhHa!
So, now, I install the drive into a Linux machine I keep under my desk, just in case of emergencies. I duck in and tell the Boss what I have in mind. He gives me a funny look and says,”Well, that’s a bit of a Hail Mary, isn’t it?” Well, yeah, it was, but isn’t that what I get paid for? To come up with and implement “Hail Marys”? And, if it works, who cares what crazy thing I have to do? Anyway, after the update to the Boss, it was off to the Linux machine to attempt a partition recovery, the hard way. Whoops! I had forgotten I canablized the drive in that machine to fix another problem weeks ago! Damn. So, I install Ubuntu on it, mainly because I have the ISO downloaded and can quickly burn an install CD. Well, Ubuntu goes to the Internet to find an archive server to download the install files, so that takes all night. Still, I figured, I’d come in early and bang this out in no time. Well, my head-shrink says I live in fantasy too much, so, it shouldn’t surprise my readers to know that it was far from easy. For an hour Friday morning, I ran every disk repair or recovery program I could find that came with a standard install of Linux. Guess what I got? Yeah, bubkes. (That’s Yiddish for nada.)
So, after all that, I still ended up formatting the drive and letting the restore run. Oh, did I mention that it was a Maxtor? For you non-geeks reading this, Maxtor 80 Gig drives have the highest fail-rate I’ve ever seen in the field. Everyone has problems with them. Well, this was a Maxtor 120 Gig drive, but I’m afraid that the same luck holds true to them, too.
Hmm, sounds like it’s time to order that new server I’ve been asking for, doesn’t it?

Advice from your Uncle Jim:
"Give others a piece of your heart, not a piece of your mind."

A primer from Patrick Norton.
Yes, that’s right, Patrick Norton of TechTV and The Screen Savers fame. Pat’s written a little article in his blog over at Extreme Tech about switching to Linux for “free”. I put “free” in quotes like that because, frankly, nothing is free. There are some things that just don’t work or don’t work as well in Linux as they do in Windows. And, there are programs that simply don’t run under Linux. Oh, sure, you can try to use an emulator or whatever to make it happen, but I’ve never, ever really trusted those suckers. Especially not with my financial data. To me, that’s what will “kill” Windows, a Linux-version of Quicken.
Anyway, Pat has a good overview of the pros and cons of switching to Linux and it’s worth taking a look.

No, not here.
But, here is a link to XYZ Computing’s Mini-ITX tutorial. Why is this cool? Well, because this is about as small as you can get and still have a computer with “standard” parts. And, that’s cool because it allows you to do more and cooler casemods.
The folks in the article use Linux, which is what I’d do, but you could go other ways. The most important thing, to me, is that they list where they bought everything with links. Sometimes, it’s hard to get all the right pieces, especially when you’re looking to get the smallest, coolest one’s possible. Anway, I thought this was cool…

Hey, it’s been a rough week, and now it’s Friday, so work with me here!

Yes, Play-Doh as a security penetration tool.

Don’t you just love it when I write things like “security penetration tool”? It sounds so, big and scary, doesn’t it?
Anyway, this researcher at Clarkson University has figured out a way to defeat biometric readers with simple Play-Doh.  I love this for two reasons.  First, it’s a very low-tech way of defeating a very high-tech security system.  People rely way, way too much on technology that might fail, instead of good, old, human-based common-sense.  Though, I have to admit, there are days that I’d rather rely on technology, too.  Second, it’s Play-Doh.  What’s not to love about Play-Doh?

And, yes, this is one of those old posts I was talking about.  It’s not quite cool enough for a Friday Fun Link, but it doesn’t quite fit anywhere else these days.  So, you may be seeing a fair number of these “red-herrings” drop out of no where.  Just crazy stuff that intrigues me and has no other home.
Enjoy!

Well, why not!
Now, I don’t mean a “de facto” standard, but a real, organized, unified standard. In this case, according to News.com, it’s a Linux standardization push. In fact, to get really specific, it the Linux Standard Base Project. These folks are advocating a standard “base” on which all Linux distros build themselves. Not a bad idea, really, to help get things standardized and more interoperative. I mean, when I was working on that Novell Linux-based stuff, a little standardization would have gone a long way.

No, this won’t organize your papers.
But, it is a cheap alternative to having an easily outdated PDA. As much as I love my old PalmIIIc, I have to admit, sometimes, a low-tech approach to this stuff is best. So, if you’re as cheap as I am, the free, disposable personal-organizer, PocketMod, might be just right for you. You can use this little baby to make yourself a little, paper organizer that you won’t even mind losing all that much. It’s simple to use and, if you’re afraid the website will mysteriously disappear, you can download the offline standalone version. That way, you can keep it forever and ever and make as many throw-away organizers as you need. Pretty cool, isn’t it?

Well, cool enough for a Friday Fun link, anyway. And, considering the technological horror last Friday, it seemed appropriate!

Tired of Latin?
At least, are you tired of using that classic “lorem ipsum” Latin text in your demos? Well, why not try Geek Machine next time! You can generate test text in styles including; Hillbilly, Marketing, Matrix, Metropolitan, Pseudo German, and Techno Babble. Some of them are really pretty good, too. Hey, at least it’s a change from the tired, old Latin.
Now, if they’d only add in Lovecraftian or Tekumelani or, even, Nostrodamusian….

Okay, I dare you to use this on your next corporate development project. Just fill in some Techno Babble or Marketing speech and see who notices. Just make sure to do it on a Freaky Fun Friday!

Now, I’m not hacker.
Nor am I a cracker, at least in the computer security sense. And, really, I never claimed to be one, either. I just didn’t correct anyone who hung that tag on me. Sometimes, the best thing for a reputation is just knowing when to quietly smile and say nothing. Well, if that’s not good enough for you, there’s a solution.
No, I don’t mean years of study or a computer security certification or tool. Now, you can cut to the chase and get your hack “experience” in an easy-to-swallow daily dose from Hack-a-Day. They may not all be computer hacks, but, then, I’m told that hackers don’t live by computers alone anymore.

Anyway, it’s a fun, and very geeky, site for a Freaky Friday! So, do yourself a favor and click the link.

Apparently, you can add telecom specialist to the list.
I’ve been avoiding talking about Hurricane Katrina because: a) everyone else is talking about it, b) there’s neither anything I can add or do, and c) I didn’t have any real news anyway. Well, after yesterday, I do. We have offices over there. Notice, I wrote “have” not “had”. The facility is still standing, as far as we can tell. So, when the rest of the city settles down, we’ll be able to resume business there. In the meantime, we’re more concerned with people. Not everyone from that facility has checked in yet. I’m not sure how many are missing, but, some are. Of those who have checked in, their families all seem to be okay, but many of them have lost everything they didn’t take with them. It’s like the recent tsunami in Asia, but with a lower, thankfully much lower, death toll. But, the damage to property and business is very similar.
So, how does that make me a telecom specialist all of a sudden? Simple, actually. Our regular phone guy in house is out on vacation, so when one of the boards on our phone switch died over the weekend, they came to the computer guy to get it straightened out. Phones, computers, same thing, right? Not hardly! Thankfully, I already have some experience with telecom and high-stress troubleshooting. About the time I settle down from that fracas Monday, I start getting questions about cell phones. How to get them fast, but still on our account. So, all day Tuesday, I ran around getting that straight and getting a local cell phone for the “senior partner”. But, wait, there’s more! Yesterday, I had to get more cell phones lined up and get two Iridium satellite phones ASAP. Oh, yes, they had to be Iridium phones, not just any sat phone. Why, you ask? Because the “senior partner” is getting a new plane and wants to be able to use one of these on the plane which, you guessed it, can take only certain models. If everything goes right, which I highly doubt, we should be getting the two Iridium phones Friday morning. So, any guesses who gets to figure them out and teach everyone how to use them?
Yeah, time to update the resume with all this high-end telecom stuff I’m doing. A little more chaos thrown my direction and I’ll be all ready to be the Director of IT somewhere bigger. Anyone looking for a guy like me to head your IT department? I’m willing to consider anywhere that’s not California, New York City, or prone to hurricanes. Blizzards and tornados I can handle just fine, but I’m really not liking this hurricane business.

This is cooler than it sounds.
No, really. Please, let it be cooler than it sounds so I feel better about the way I spent my day. Please?
Honest, using the PDF::API2 CPAN module is much more challenging than it sounds. I spent most of the afternoon trying to figure out how to force a second page into my PERL-generated PDF. Why? Because, I want a nice title page for my documentation. Also, I see applications for this frightening technology beyond the scope of my project. See, one of the things we do is prepare, and sell, documentation for our great, big, huge, expensive cranes. That documentation is in, you guessed it, PDF format. A fair portion of this documentation is based on AutoCAD drawings that have been convertd to PDF. So, now, all I have to do it automate most, if not all, of that process and I’ll save a ton of time, which, according to the “time=money” formula will “impact the bottom line”, as they say in boardrooms. Cool. In other words, I found a way to justify my personal project (the server inventory script) by applying the things I’m “testing” there toward the automation of a dirty, low-end, repetetive task that no one likes doing (compiling the documentation PDF). Very cool. And, thanks to all this work on PERL this week, I’ve added a new category: PERL.
Oh, yeah, here is the PERL PDF Example code. Enjoy!