Diary of a Network Geek

Be kind to your IT staff.

Don’t do this to them. Do not walk into their office and ask questions like “Are we having a problem with the server?” or “Is the Internet down?” Asking us questions like that result in responses like “No, the server is fine. But why don’t you tell me about your problem now?” and “No, I’m on the web right now and it’s fine. Do you have an error message?” or even “Why don’t you tell me if you’re having a problem?”

I swear by all I hold sacred, there is nothing more frustrating than having someone who really has no idea whatsoever how anything on a computer or network works wander into my office with that special stunned cattle look on their face only to ask me very specific questions about a problem they’re having. Even when I answer their question with another question in the voice I normally reserve for precocious toddlers, for the fifth time, they come and waste our collective time doing this, instead of simply describing their problem to me.

Don’t do this to your IT staff. Just tell them what the problem is. Don’t make them guess what you really want. Please.

Advice from your Uncle Jim:
"It is a mistake to look too far ahead. Only one link of the chain of destiny can be handled at a time."
   --Winston Churchill

Two things for two different kinds of geeks.

Back when I was a one-man IT shop the first time, I read a book called “Time Management for Dummies“. I know, I know, one of those damn Dummies books, but it really wasn’t bad. The best thing it taught me was about ToDo lists and how to manage one and prioritize it and all that. Well, over the years, I’ve used a lot of different software to try and manage my various ToDo lists. Mostly, I used Lotus Organizer and synched it to my cranky, old PalmIII. (That was back before I had the New, Improved, cranky, old PalmIIIc!) But, it was always a hassle to deal with formating and I never could quite get all the little bells and whistles just the way I wanted. Then, I found ToDoTxt.org
It’s a shell script to manage a simple, text-based to do list.
You can run it via Cygwin, or even as part of your user profile on, oh, say, a Linux server. And, you can add in code to automate the insertion of future events that you don’t want to worry about for several days, weeks or months. In fact, there’s a bunch of extra code and even a little user community that’s sprung up around this super cool shell script.

Anyway, I thought it might appeal to the truly “hardcore” geeks who still read this blog the way it appealed to me.

Now, for that other thing…
It’s a book for bloggers. I figure if you’re reading this blog and you aren’t one of the aforementioned hardcore geeks, then you’re still a blog-geek. Now, sooner or later, all of us who write blogs have an embarassing, little “problem” called Writer’s Block. And we prattle on about whatever silly thing comes into our head, like, say a todo list organizer. Well, I haven’t gotten the book myself, but it sure sounds like it might just help us with those sad, lonely times when we can’t think of anything more interesting to write about than the sandwich we had for lunch. It’s No One Cares What You Had for Lunch: 100 Ideas for Your Blog. And, based on the table of contents, I might just pick it up!

Okay, this is probably old news to everyone by now, but since everyone is talking about the VMWare IPO, I figured it was a good time to bring it up.
In case you geek readers out there haven’t see this, you can still download the VMWare server for Linux for free. TechRepublic has an entire article about downloading and installing VMWare. (Yeah, yeah, okay, it’s a beta version, but from everything I hear, it’s good to go.) Now, I’ve used the full, very expensive, version of this and it pretty much rocks. If you absolutely must run Windows server in an otherwise Linux envrionment, this would be the way I would choose to do it.

If you’re absolutely married to Windows and want to try VMWare, you can either download the server version or the “player“.   Now, the thing to keep in mind is that the player will run virtual machines that were created with the full product, but, as far as I can tell, won’t create its own virtual machine.  So, if you don’t already have virtual machine files somewhere, you’ll have to Google for them.

Oh, and if you’re looking for something to play with on this, but don’t feel like Googling for a good virtual machine? Why not try the free Mono VMWare image from Novell?

Or, the lack thereof.

Okay, so, those of you who know me and my professional career know that security is near and dear to my heart.  Now, I’m no hacker or even a full time security professional, but I’m very, very aware of security and how important it is.  In my last post, I mentioned how much I love having so much wifi connectivity and how nice it was when I was in the hospital to have that easy access.  Well, that’s still true, but I also know how open and insecure that wireless connection is.
This year at DefCon, there was a very popular demo that showed just how easy it was to get information off a wireless connection and exploit it.  In fact, some poor attendee, who should have known better, got his Gmail account hacked, in public, because he didn’t secure his connection properly.  And, earlier this year, some German security experts went on at length about how insecure the WEP protocol is and why that shouldn’t be your only line of defense on wireless networks.

Now, as much as I enjoy my wifi, I’ve also been very vocal about how insecure wifi networks are, by their very nature, for years.  In fact, I got into a rather heated “discussion” with a co-worker and our mutual manager about that at a former job.  Somehow, neither of these gentlemen quite understood how throwing packets out all over, where anyone could snoop them, was an inherently insecure system, even if you used advanced encryption.  Encryption, as the hackers say, is meant to be broken, and sooner or later, it always is.  Again, this is all just logic and reason, but, in a world where anyone who manages a website and a handfull of PCs can call himself a Director of IT, the practical application of logic and reason is a rare thing indeed.
So, enjoy those free wifi connections at your favorite coffee house, but, keep in mind how easy it is for a hacker, or even a script kiddie, to pull vital information off that wide open connection.

(And, if you’re going to DefCon, check out their “Be Prepared” guide, or the DefCon survival guide at the Register.)

Advice from your Uncle Jim:
"Swing hard, in case they throw the ball where you're swinging."
   --Duke Snider

Microsoft has a new advertising campaign.

“People drive business” is their theme and they’re trying to get bloggers to include specific text in their blogs that include that “people ready business” message, along with links to the Microsoft marketing website, of course. Here’s the text they seem to have wanted people to include:

People drive business success. Human imagination creates the ideas that move business forward. Human conversations and human effort shape those ideas into products and services for the market. The unique ability of people to listen, respond, persuade, and think for themselves enables companies to sell effectively, serve their customers, and work together with their business partners in rich, satisfying ways that create lasting, high-value relationships.In an era where some see technology as a force that promises to make people subservient to highly structured or automated processes, Microsoft sees a better way to unlock the potential of every person. Systems can only create efficiency: It is people who create value. And the more people can do in their roles, the more value they can create. When Microsoft looks ahead, we see a world where organizations succeed by empowering people to harness information, expertise and the possibilities of complex networks with tools that give them insight, reach and opportunities.

Naturally, I’ve included all that just to screw with the search engines that will be spidering my website this week. Why? Well, I figure it’s got to make things worse for Microsoft and might actually boost my own rankings with all those highly-priced keywords that the marketing drones are no doubt shelling out for over in Redmond. I could be wrong, but, even if I am, it’s probably not going to do any damage to my Googlerank or my blog.

Not quite as exciting as gun-wielding maniacs…

But, this is still a big deal to Novell and Linux worshipers.   First, over the weekend, there was a story run by Reuter’s saying, in essence, that the Free Software Foundation might somehow ban Novell from selling or packaging Linux in the future.  Naturally, this sent a lot of people into quite a tizzy.  That would be a terrible blow to Novell, who’s really staked their future on the success of Linux and their products on Linux.  I would imagine their stock took quite a hit today.

Thankfully, the folks over at Linux Magazine have a clearer picture of what’s going on.  First,  the FSF doesn’t control Linux or Linux distribution rights.  Secondly, what they’re actually talking about is moving certain key utilities and chucks of code from the current license, the GPLv2, to a new license, GPLv3, which might, somehow, restrict who could redistribute the code.  Linus himself has said that he will NOT move the Linux kernel, which is the heart of Linux, to the newer, more restrictive GPLv3.  So, in short, what we have is a Linux community that’s panicked over the deal Novell made with Microsoft and is spreading a little, old-fashioned FUD.  Interestingly enough, that’s a technique that Microsoft used to fight Linux.  Oh, how the worm turns.

So, in short, while this all made for great pseudo news, it’s not much more than smoke and mirrors.  Of course, it’s smoke and mirrors that will no doubt effect Novell’s stock price, but, still…

I haven’t written much about technology lately…

I know this blog started out as a very technical, very geeky blog, but since a lot of what I do these days has gotten so tied to things like company policy and some other proprietary information, I haven’t been talking a lot of tech. Well, today, I’ve got something I think all Novell and Linux guys, like me, have been watching. Sometime back Novell bought SuSE, a German Linux distribution and support company. They then proceeded to move their entire line of products away from a DOS-based, proprietary kernel and onto the SuSE Linux kernel. Really, I think, a pretty smart move.
Then, last year, Novell entered into an unholy alliance with the evil empire, Microsoft. Basically, Microsoft gave Novell a bunch of money so that they’d work on software “stuff” that made SuSE Linux interface more easily and seamlessly with Microsoft’s line of server software. Oh, the hue and cry about that! Well, now, I think I see why they did it.

According to this story on News.com, Walmart has contracted with Microsoft to expand their on-line business using Windows Server and SuSE.  Apparently, Walmart, who had been a Redhat customer, was hesitant about expanding because of concerns regarding the intellectual property rights of Linux, thanks to that old SCO lawsuit that should have been thrown out of court a long time ago.  But, part of the deal with Microsoft and Novell is that Walmart can get support from both companies for whatever might go wrong and get indemnification against any copyright infringement suits regarding Linux.
Suddenly, that Microsoft/Novell deal doesn’t seem so crazy to me.

I still wonder, though, what the hell I should study up on next.  Security maybe?  I mean, no matter what operating system people run, they’ll still be worried about security.  Besides, I already know Linux, Novell and Microsoft products fairly well.  In fact, I have certifications in two of the three, not to mention way too much experience in all three areas.  I just don’t know.  The IT landscape of the future is getting pretty crowded and bumpy, not to mention shrouded in heavy fog.  Any suggestions from the techies?

It’s not quite the “birthday” of the mouse, but…

Today is the 38th anniversary of the first time a mouse made its commercial debut. That’s right, the mouse, that marvel of modern technology that most of us use daily is just a little older than I am. Invented by Douglas C. Engelbart and the group of 17 researchers working with him in the Augmentation Research Center at Stanford Research Institute in Menlo Park, CA, the original mouse was little more than a square, wooden box, but the little device would change the world.  Engelbart showed how the mouse could let a user jump from text on one part of the screen randomly to another section without having to scroll through the text inbetween.  Doesn’t sound too revolutionary to us today, does it?  But, think about how you navigated to this page to read this little blurb, then try to imagine doing it without a mouse.

So, happy demo day, little guy.  Thanks for giving me a job and us a way to waste time at work.

Have I got a tool for you! (Oh, that sounded wrong in all the “not-safe-for-work” ways…)

So, I had this “little problem” at work with a machine from a remote site. We don’t have high-speed connections between offices, so each office is their own Domain, right? Well, no one could remember any username/password combonations on this machine so I could sign in and fix the other problem.
Luckily, I found the “Offline NT Password and Registry Editor“.

I used the bootable cd ISO and in less time than it took to download and burn the CD, I had reset the admin password and was working. Did I mention this is a free tool?

Oy!  This I’m familiar with!

So, I just got an e-mail from my lawyer.  You know, the one who did my divorce just over a year ago?   Well, some time back I did some work on their website, Affordable Houston Divorce Attorney, and fired off a bill to them.  They just got it and got things organized and a check is “in the mail”.  Naturally, things are tight all over, so I’m very familiar with this phrase, but, mainly because I say it so often!

Anyway, I was sure this was going to a black hole that I’d thrown a bunch of time into for no reward, but, suprise!  The check is in the mail!  I guess I can buy groceries and gas this month after all…