Diary of a Network Geek

The trials and tribulations of a Certified Novell Engineer who's been stranded in Houston, Texas.

11/27/2015

Don’t Give Up!

Filed under: Fun,NaNoWriMo,News and Current Events,Red Herrings — Posted by the Network Geek during the Hour of the Hare which is terribly early in the morning or 6:00 am for you boring, normal people.
The moon is a Full Moon

If you’ve been grinding away at your NaNoWriMo novel, don’t give up!

Seriously, no matter how close you are, or are not, to getting 50,000 words of your novel out before the end of the month, keep writing. It’s the only way your dream of writing a novel will come true.  I know it’s hard, because I’ve tried at least twice, but if you’ve been writing regularly this month, you’ve already done more than most people.  And, possibly, you’ve done more…
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7/31/2015

Work Related Changes

Filed under: Advice from your Uncle Jim,Geek Work,News and Current Events,Red Herrings — Posted by the Network Geek during the Hour of the Hare which is terribly early in the morning or 6:00 am for you boring, normal people.
The moon is a Full Moon

So, last week, we finally had layoffs at my company.

No, I wasn’t one of them, and, in fact, we lost fewer people than some of our other offices.  Or, for that matter, many of the other people I know who are in the oil and gas industry.  And, while I don’t expect to lose my job any time soon, since I’m one of the few IT people here, there’s no telling what the future holds.
So, in short, I’m not quite…
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Advice from your Uncle Jim:
"You must forgive in order to live."
   --Stephen Orchard

7/17/2015

Tin Foil Hat News

Filed under: Criticism, Marginalia, and Notes,Fiction,Fun,News and Current Events,Red Herrings — Posted by the Network Geek during the Hour of the Hare which is terribly early in the morning or 6:00 am for you boring, normal people.
The moon is a Full Moon

I don’t believe much in the way of conspiracy theory.

That’s true whether it’s office gossip and rumors or things of a larger, more sinister nature.
I work in the oil industry and, with the price of oil being so low right now, you can imagine the paranoid rumors floating around the office about layoffs and who’s going to get fired.  So far, there’s been nothing.  At least, nothing that I’m aware of, but the paranoia is running high.

How does that relate…
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6/5/2015

Hurricane Preparedness

Filed under: Calamity, Cataclysm, and Catastrophe,Dog and Pony Shows,News and Current Events,Red Herrings,The Network Geek at Home — Posted by the Network Geek during the Hour of the Hare which is terribly early in the morning or 6:00 am for you boring, normal people.
The moon is a Full Moon

Hurricane season started on Monday, June First. Are you ready?

Here in Texas, hurricane season is kind of a big deal.  Or, at least, it is to this kid from the Heartland.  Of course, most of the time, we have plenty of time to prepare because you see these things coming from a long, long way off.  Still, it’s better to be prepared early rather than competing with everyone for bottled water, bread and canned food.

So far, since I’ve been in…
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4/17/2015

Scientology Petition

Filed under: Criticism, Marginalia, and Notes,Deep Thoughts,Life, the Universe, and Everything,News and Current Events,Red Herrings,The Dark Side — Posted by the Network Geek during the Hour of the Hare which is in the early morning or 7:04 am for you boring, normal people.
The moon is a Full Moon

I don’t normally post inflammatory things, but I think this is really important.

Long-time readers and friends will know that I have strong, and negative, feelings about Scientology.  Whatever Scientology started out as when L. Ron Hubbard first envisioned his “plan for living”, it has become, in my opinion, a dangerous cult-like organization that hides behind it’s religious status while actually being focused almost entirely on making money.  Based on documentaries and books and news stories of various kinds, I believe…
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1/9/2015

To Tell The Truth

Filed under: Life, the Universe, and Everything,News and Current Events,Red Herrings — Posted by the Network Geek during the Hour of the Hare which is terribly early in the morning or 6:00 am for you boring, normal people.
The moon is a Full Moon

So, we’re a week into the New Year.  Have you done anything you want to keep secret?

Hey, no judgement here!  Believe me, there are plenty of things that I would just as soon forget as ever talk about again!  Nothing, of course, illegal, or anything that would keep me from getting a security clearance, as far as I know, but things I’d rather not discuss in a public forum.  Thankfully, I’ve never had to apply for anything that required a test…
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1/2/2015

Hope for the New Year

Filed under: Deep Thoughts,Life, the Universe, and Everything,News and Current Events,Red Herrings — Posted by the Network Geek during the Hour of the Hare which is in the early morning or 7:00 am for you boring, normal people.
The moon is a Full Moon

As I’ve mentioned before, I don’t really make New Year’s Resolutions any more.

In fact, I haven’t made them in quite a few years.  That’s not to say that I don’t make goals, but I don’t base them on the passing of the year.  Frankly, it’s a pretty arbitrary construct and I just don’t find it particularly useful.  But, looking back, 2014 was a pretty good year.  For instance, it was the year that I started meditating regularly and that has…
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8/29/2014

Cryptolocker Rescue

Filed under: Geek Work,News and Current Events,The Dark Side — Posted by the Network Geek during the Hour of the Monkey which is mid-afternoon or 4:10 pm for you boring, normal people.
The moon is a Full Moon

This ought to make me look like a hero at my new gig.  Again.

On a whim, I searched for a CryptoLocker decrypter this afternoon, because the old place I worked at and the new place I currently work at were both hit by a CryptoLocker virus.  Now, at the old place, we mostly had everything backed up.  At the new place, not quite so much.  I mean, everything is backed up now, but it wasn’t before I got here and they got hit with the virus.
In any case, I had a couple of files I wanted to get into that were hit with the virus.  So, naturally, I went to search for something to help.  Because, you know, it’s been a while and maybe someone had come up with a solution, right?
Well, as it turns out, they have.  FireEye, who I’m familiar with and Fox IT have setup a free service at Decryptolocker that will let you download a decryption program and upload an encrypted file, which they will use to generate a decrypt key that they send you via email.  When you get that, you follow their super simple instructions to decrypt your file.  It’s a command-line utility, but, hey, it works.

And, yes, I’ve tried it.  It took all of ten minutes to get the email with the key and then I was able to decrypt any of the effected files that I tried it on.
This restores my faith in humanity just a little!

7/4/2014

Shooting Fireworks

Filed under: Art,Fun,News and Current Events,Red Herrings — Posted by the Network Geek during the Hour of the Hare which is terribly early in the morning or 6:56 am for you boring, normal people.
The moon is a Full Moon

Happy Independence Day!

For those of you outside the U.S., today is the day we celebrate our independence as a nation by barbecuing and carousing and having parades and, most of all, by firing fireworks.  All across the country, there will be fireworks displays, both large and small, and there will be photographers at everyone one of them with tons of gear trying to capture that feeling in an image.  My personal suggestion is to just go and enjoy the show,…
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5/27/2014

Keeping Windows XP Alive

Filed under: Advice from your Uncle Jim,Geek Work,MicroSoft,Never trust a Network Admin with a screwdriver,News and Current Events,The Dark Side — Posted by the Network Geek during the Hour of the Snake which is just before lunchtime or 11:49 am for you boring, normal people.
The moon is a Full Moon

First, let me say that I don’t endorse this as a way to avoid upgrading.

Second, let me fully affirm that this is completely awesome!  And, as someone who maintains a Windows XP virtual machine to run some older software for my camera, I am thrilled to have this option, for as long as it lasts.
The hack is pretty simple, basically just adding a small entry to the Registry.  First published by Wayne Williams at BetaNews a day ago, it’s been all over the internet today.  I did it earlier on an old machine at work and it worked great.  Your results may vary.  The steps are simple and in that linked article, but I’ve included the 32-bit version of the registry file that you can just download and import to your machine or virtual machine.

Use at your own risk!
And upgrade as soon as possible!
(Here’s the link to the REG file.)


Advice from your Uncle Jim:
"Everyone deserves to be happy, but not if that happiness is dependent on imprisoning or enslaving another human being."
   --Unintentionally ironic comment left on a blog

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