Diary of a Network Geek

Well, it’s that time of year again.

Yep, it’s time to start figuring out what resolution you’re going to fail miserably at for the coming year. What? C’mon, you know you never really manage to follow through on your New Year’s Resolutions. But, if you’d like to at least have some fun coming up with one, why not try my very own, home-made New Year’s Resolution Generator? You can choose whether or not to start something or stop something and leave the rest up to drunken, sexy chance! (Well, that sounds better than leaving it up to my feeble programming skills and a pseudo-random number generator, doesn’t it?)
It’s loads of fun and was picked by a Comedy Central blog as a fun toy of the season several years back. So, hey, if the comedy establishment loves it, you know it can’t be bad.

Give it a whirl and start warming up for your New Year’s Eve Party now!

Over the past couple years, I’ve written a number of posts about wifi.

I mean, I remember when wifi was a real novelty. In fact, we’ve rather gone through a cycle with wireless, from free to pay to free again. Well, mostly free. Free for some. Mostly. In any case, there’s so much wifi around these days that I think we sort of take for granted that, sooner or later, we’ll find a wifi connection and be able to use it.

In any case, in spite of all the times I’ve mentioned something about wifi, it’s been a hit-or-miss topic with me. Not so for the folks over at PC Magazine who’ve written what they claim is the Definitive Guide to WiFi. Well, you know what? I think they just may be right!

Seriously, go check it out. It’s well worth the click.

I’m so behind, I think I’m catching up to myself!

Thanksgiving fast approaches and my house is mostly clean. Now, by “mostly clean” I think it’s important to understand what I mean. I mean that I’ve vacuumed for the first time in two years. I mean, my bathroom is so clean that a woman might actually feel safe using it! Hey, what do you want from me? It’s been two years since I’ve been in a relationship and half that time I was in the hospital slow dancing with death, so, there really hasn’t been any point in having the place clean. Now, there is, so, well, it is. Well, mostly. My office still needs work and the bedroom can always use more cleaning and the upstairs… Well, the less said about the upstairs, the better right now.

The important thing, though, is that my kitchen is clean. And, just barely in time to start baking pies tonight. Yes, pies, as in plural. With so many people coming over after their main Thanksgiving plans, I figured a few extra pies can’t hurt. I might try to get to bed early, too. If the pies don’t take too long. See, I’ve been up until the wee hours for the past several nights in a row getting ready. So, I’m getting a little short on sleep. And, I still need to whip up a playlist for background music. After all, all the running around I did Sunday to get it and rip it won’t do me any good if I can’t get it playing!
Of course, I’ll probably end up staying up late again tonight then trying to catch a nap after I start the turkey in the morning. It just seems like I’ve totally under-estimated my time on just about everything this year. It’s just taken so much longer than I expected to get everything done. Witness the fact that this post is popping up here so late! I normally have Wednesday’s post queued up Tuesday evening before I go to bed, so this is amazingly late for me. It’s also why this post probably seems a little disjointed. Of course, that may be the lack of time and sleep, too.

Oh, and for those of you who love “food porn”, know that I’ll be taking pictures of people and food tomorrow. Naturally, I’ll post the pictures to my Flickr account, so keep an eye out if you’re interested. But, if you are going to be making your own “food porn” this holiday, here is a link to some Food Photography Tips and Techniques. Enjoy and have a happy and safe Thanksgiving!

My house almost blew up tonight.

No, really.
As I write this, I’m waiting for a serviceman from Centerpoint Energy to come out and turn my gas back on. Apparently, shortly after I left for church this evening a neighbor smelled gas by my house. They called emergency services in Jersey Village, where I live. When the emergency services got out, they could smell gas, so they turned off my power and got Centerpoint out. Centerpoint repaired the leak, or so it seems. Actually, the first thing the serviceman is going to check is to make sure the leak isn’t a leak any more. Then, assuming all is well, he’ll turn the gas on and I can light all my pilots and so on. That’s why the gas was turned off when I got home. Naturally, they couldn’t find me, since I’d gone to church, so they couldn’t turn anything on until they knew I could light all the pilots again. Otherwise, my house would have filled with gas, hit something electric and, well, let’s just say I was irritated with the whole thing until I got the lights back on and figured out what almost happened. Thank God!

I guess my little efforts and building up a little good karma in the short term paid off today.
See, I helped two people with computer things today. This morning, I started reformating and reinstalling my friend J.’s wife, L’s, laptop. She’d been having problems with it and I looked at it several times, but I couldn’t find anything obviously wrong. So, rather than spend any more time on it, I backed up her files and started reinstalling it. Of course, that got interrupted by my power being out, but, still, I’m sure I’ll get it done pretty quick now while I wait for Centerpoint to turn my gas back on.

The other person I did a little mitzvah for was Alison over at Inspired Work of Self-Indulgence.
She was having a little trouble with Comcast and their network. More specifically, it seemed to me she was having a problem with the assigned DNS servers. As any good network geek knows, an Internet connection with out DNS isn’t very useful. She had a connection, sure, but she couldn’t get anywhere. Comcast had been out multiple times trying to fix things. They’d even changed out her cable modem, which seemed to be connected fine when I looked at it. But, her wireless gateway was picking up the normal, default DNS servers from Comcast’s autoconfiguration. I reset the wireless router to the factory default and tweaked the settings a bit. The part that I think mattered the most was adding additional DNS servers from outside Comcast’s network. So now, if the main DNS server goes down or stops working, the backup servers should still find what she’s looking for.
Though, if the problem comes back, it occurred to me on the way home from church that it might be her laptop turning off her wireless connection in a power-save mode, so I might have to check that. (If she’s reading this, that’s a hint!) In any case, it was nice to at long last finally get to meet her. We’ve exchanged e-mail and comments and read each other’s blog posts for quite literally years now. She even sent me cookies when I was in the hospital getting chemotherapy that first time! But today was the first time actually meeting. Hopefully, now that she’s seen I’m completely harmless, it won’t be the last time.
Oh, and I got to meet Piedmont and his new pet human, er, owner. Both were sweet, too. And, of course, I got to meet Cheyenne, Alison’s chocolate lab. She’s as cute in person as in the pictures Alison takes of her and as spoiled, too! She has almost as much tummy as my own Hilda!

So, in spite of almost coming home to a smoking hole in the ground where my house used to be, it turned out to be quite a good day indeed! Stay warm, y’all, and make sure to check your gas!

Update: Apparently, my sins still out-weigh my good deeds, since the guy from Centerpoint Energy never showed up. I stayed up waiting for him until 4:00am, then went to bed, mumbling about liars in the night. I wish it were the first time.
I’m half tempted to turn it on myself and to hell with them. But, better safe than sorry, so I’ll just mumble quiet, Lovecraftian curses on them and try to be on about my day until the next lying serviceman arrives.

Advice from your Uncle Jim:
"Live truth instead of professing it."
   --Elbert Hubbard

Now is the time, gentle readers, to help your Uncle Jim out.

So, Thanksgiving is at my house this year. Maybe this will be the start of a new tradition, who knows? In any case, this year, I’m bringing the joy of the season to my house. Only, now, I have a small problem. Outside of making the turkey, which is frightening enough, I don’t have any simple, traditional, passed-down-from-grandma recipes that are easy enough for me to do. So, give me yours.

No, seriously. Look, I’ve invited a lot of people and, while I’ve gotten some polite refusals from some of them, many more have either said yes, or are waiting until the last minute to confirm. What’s more is that I’ve told several of them not to worry about bringing anything, lest that hold them back from coming. All of which means, I have an unknown number of people coming, some of whom aren’t bringing anything and may show up at the last minute. And, now, I sort of feel obliged to, you know, feed them and stuff. Except, I’m a fairly inept cook. Truly. So, I need your help. Kat has already sent me a brilliant and easy corn pudding recipe, which I’ll share in just a minute, but I need more. I especially need a good, simple, but interesting stuffing recipe. Most of you have my e-mail, so if you want to share privately, you can, otherwise, just leave them in the comments. At some point, I’ll collect them all and share them, and let you know which ones I actually try.

So, while you ponder that, here’s Kat’s Best-Friend’s Cousin’s Corn Pudding:
Fold in this order: 1 can drained corn, 1 can creamed corn, 1 stick melted butter, 8 oz. sour cream, 1 box jiffy corn mix. Bake at 325 for an hour to an hour and a half (should be the consistency of pudding in the middle). You can also add shredded cheese and jalapeno if you like.

Now, Kat knows me well, so she’s got a handle on the “keep is simple for the kitchen dunce” vibe that I need. Let that be your model and your guide.
Help me cook to fill stomachs, hearts and souls with warmth and joy.
But, keep it simple.

Hurricane Ike may not be over for a lot of people, but I’m thinking about how I should change my life in response to what happened.

I don’t mean that I’m scarred for life or that I have post-traumatic stress syndrome as a result or anything so melodramatic as that, but this slap on the butt from Mother Nature has made me think.  It’s made me think about what I need, what I want and how I spend my time.  As I’m sure many have found this week, we need far, far less than we think we do.  In many ways, I got along just fine without power.  Oh, maybe I cooked a bit more meat and ate a bit more in general than usual, but I got to read more and sleep more than I usually do.  And, at this point, I’ve gone without cable long enough that I’m starting to wonder why I still keep it.  I mean, I say that I have it for the History Channel and Discovery and IFC and the Sci-Fi Channel, but I’m not sure that’s really true anymore.  For one thing, I haven’t watched a whole program on either the History Channel or Discovery without some kind of interruption in so long I can’t remember.  And, honestly, most of the movies I watch on IFC are available through Netflix anyway.  And, really, I’ve gotten so tired of what the Science-Fiction Channel has become – the Ghost Buster Channel or the Cryptozoology Channel or something worse.  So, why do I hold onto this video pacifier?  Have I gotten so afraid of peace and quiet and, possibly, even my own thoughts that I have to keep background noise going all the time?

For the longest time, I’ve worried that I suckle at the glass teat so long that I would starve without it.  And, yet, it’s a love/hate relationship we have.  I feel somewhat compelled to watch it, but, at the same time, I feel like it sucks so much of my productive time away from me that I’d be better off without it.  If I spent half the time I wasted watching television cleaning my house, or re-working my home network, or writing, well, I’d probably be famous by now.  You know what I did most of last weekend?  I read.  Yeah, I ended up reading two entire books last weekend and almost half that time was spent reading by flashlight!  So, without any of the “conveniences” of modern, high-tech life, I was more productive and more rested than I am when I’m totally plugged-in and choking on information over-load.  But, of course, that’s not a new theme, is it?  I mean, people have been telling us that for a long time now, right?  How we should un-plug and tap into our full attention and focus.  I have to admit, though, that, while I heard that and thought I understood the principle, I’ve never tried to put it into practice or had an opportunity like this forced on me.  Now, I have.

So, here’s what I’m thinking.  I’m thinking that what I need to do is cancel cable.  I need to take that roughly $100 a month and save it.  When I have enough, I’m going to buy all the bits and pieces for a Linux-based multimedia computer.  Something that can rip and burn DVDs, that has a Dolby-capable sound card worthy of a home theater system, that has a high-quality video card with HDMI output I can hook up to my HDTV, that has a remote and a wireless keyboard and mouse, and, maybe, that has a television decoder on it.  Obviously, it’ll need a truckload of hard drive storage and the maximum amount of RAM.  Oh, and a nice, high-speed connection to the network so I can grab stuff from YouTube and other video sites, not to mention weather data in hurricane season and, possibly, to get to Netflix for “instant” movies, too.  It actually won’t be all that expensive, and probably not as time-consuming to create as has seemed to me in the past.  Besides, I know people have done similar things before so there’s got to be a HowTo on it out there somewhere.  And, I’m equally sure that someone has given this enough thought that I won’t have to figure out which distro is best, either!  Ha!  Sometimes not being on the cutting edge can, in fact, work to one’s advantage!

But, beyond all that, I hope that having fewer distractions, or at least taking a tighter rein on my regular distractions, will help me focus more on writing, too.  Ironically, saving money by canceling cable may also enable me to earn more money by writing fiction, like I’ve always said I wanted to do!  How funny would that be!
That shift is something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately.  I guess more so since doing Habitat for Humanity a couple weekends ago, or maybe even as far back as when I was told my lymphoma was in remission.  I want to be less of a consumer and more of a producer.  I want to make more than I use, to contribute more than I take.  Right now, today, I don’t think that’s true, but I think I can change that.  More importantly, I know, deep in my bones, down in that place that even Death himself can’t touch, that I want to make that change.  I need to make that change, to give more than I get.
I’ve dodged so many theoretical bullets and gotten so many second chances that, were I superstitious, I’d say it was some force, some being, some power in the Universe, trying to tell me something.  As if God Himself were nudging me in a direction, toward the light, toward the positive.  Some of you reading this may not believe in that, and that’s okay with me, but I know something has been working for my personal good, even amidst the danger, sorrow and tragedy, to keep me safe and to keep me coming out okay.  And, no matter what you believe, I know that whatever that force or power is, call it God if you wish, that energy wants me to work toward the good of others with whatever meager skill and talent I may feel I possess.

So, what does it all mean?
Hell if I know.  All I know is that right now, the way I live my life, while not damaging to anyone else, it’s not worth much to me, either.  I’m just coasting.  Gliding through life on the energy of others or just circumstances.  I want to live a life worth living, a life worth the efforts M. D. Anderson spent trying to keep going.  To do that, I need to change.  Not much, really, just a little.  The difference between giving more than I take is just a hair’s breadth.
But, that small margin makes all the difference in the world.

Well, as of about 1:00pm today, I still had no power.

Of course, a lot of people still don’t have power, but most people out by me have for several days now. Hopefully, I’ll have power soon.
I have a lot of fence debris and tree debris in my backyard that I have to get cut up by next week Thursday. Not sure that I’ll be able to do that since the City of Jersey Village wants all the nails pulled from the fencing. I don’t think they truly understand how difficult that’s going to be to get done in a week. I have a friend coming to help this weekend. I’ll work on it some tonight and tomorrow, at least. So, so glad I did laundry and dishes before this hit. We’re still officially under orders to boil our water, but I’ve been taking quick, warm showers. Thank God I have natural gas in my house!

I’m getting a little tired of eating so much meat, frankly, but it’s what was thawing first and would go bad fastest. Thankfully, yesterday, a guy at work brought in a bunch of ice and Seatrax, my company, lent me a cooler to keep it all in, so I’ve managed to save a lot of my groceries. I used to be able to eat so much more! Ah, well, at least my dog, Hilda, has been enjoying eggs and sausage and more sausage for breakfast the past couple of days. Not to mention the teriyaki salmon “burgers” we had last night. She’s certainly been living well!

Okay, I see my cell phone and my laptop are charged now, so I can go home, but I did want to call your attention to the Twitter “thing” over in the right corner of my blog. Yes, being without blog access for several days got me to breakdown and setup a Twitter account. Now, as long as I have cell access, I can update my blog and let all my non-Texas friends and relatives know how I’m doing, even when hurricanes hit Houston.

StormAlert

Originally uploaded by Network Geek

Okay, so if somehow you haven’t been watching the news, or just don’t care about Texas, there’s a storm in the Gulf headed our way.

There are a bunch of computer models, but they’re all pointing toward Galveston and Houston. It really looks like this is going to hit us dead on this time. Oh, sure, they said the same thing about Rita a couple of years ago, but, well, let’s face it I’m just not lucky enough to miss this one, too. I mean, sure, I got out of an ugly marriage clean and I beat cancer, but I don’t think even I’m lucky enough to dodge two hurricanes pointed directly at Houston.

So, I spent the morning cleaning out my yard and cleaning off my porch. I filled the fountain, so I’d have flushing water. (I’ll show a picture of my fountain later, probably.) Then, I filled two collapsable water containers, that total five gallons together. And, I filled a five gallon SunShower, as well as my percolating coffee pot and my regular coffee maker and a tea kettle and an 18 quart pot. I’ll fill a few more containers later this evening, just in case. Last year, I kind of freaked out about having enough drinking water, so this year, I’m making sure I’m okay. Oh, and I have a hand-pump Katadyn water filter, too! So, if worse comes to worse, I can drink water from my ponds.
I’ve checked my batteries in my lantern and made sure I know were my candles all are, not to mention lighters and matches. I’ve cranked my Freeplay radio/flashlight, to make sure it has a charge. And, I have a spare battery fully charged for my camera. So, as long as I have an Internet connection, I’ll keep posting. After that, I’ll keep taking pictures to upload later.
I’ve got a load of laundry in right now and I’ll run the dishwasher after dinner, so I’ll have clean clothes and the maximum amount of clean dishes, too. I’m debating about going out and getting my tank totally topped off, as I didn’t have a chance to do that yesterday. See, I was a loyal employee and did everything I could to make sure our systems were good for the storm. You’d think I’d learn better by now, right?

Okay, the thing that drives me nuts about this Hurricane Ike coverage on the Weather Channel is that these guys are really, really hyping this all the way up to justify their own existence. I get that, but I wonder if they feel bad at all about making people panic? Do they really think they’re doing such a public service with that?

Well, since it’s before noon and the high winds aren’t supposed to start in my area until something like 7:00pm, I think I’m going to run over to my friend’s apartment and get their new DSL working for them. They don’t have cable and I’d hate for them to be cut off from communications about any storm danger or anything. Also, it’ll give me something to do. And, while I’m out if I see a gas station with gas, I might swing in and top off.

Stay tuned, readers! More pictures and posts later!

No, this is not a new dance craze.

I have this little problem. I use programs that are, well, somewhat experimental and which occasionally crash. But, I’m also a little anal retentive and like to have my workspace setup the same way on my computer all the time. Usually, that means have to shut down certain programs and restart others in a particular order to get the icons lined up right on my taskbar. Well, now, I don’t have to worry. Why is that, you ask? Simple, because I found Taskbar Shuffle on ZDNet Downloads.

This free program lets you do what I’ve been lusting after for a while now: reorder the icons on your taskbar in Windows 2000/XP/Vista. That’s it. That’s all it does.
And I think it’s wonderful.

OpenOffice lacks one thing that I’ve always liked: barcodes.

Specifically, back when I was a WordPerfect user, I used to love the ability to address envelopes with the United States Postal Service ZIP Code barcodes. I know that it made letters less likely to get lost and more likely to get to their destination quickly. Also, I’ve known a few people who work for the US Postal Service and, from what I understand, letters with the barcodes are less likely to actually be touched by people. Their machines just suck the letters along and just about sort them into carrier’s bags.
Unfortunately, OpenOffice has not been able to indulge me in this minor joy. Until now.

Now, there are macros available, for free, to let you insert USPS-approved barcodes into your OpenOffice documents. The company who makes this available to you is IDAutomation.com and they have a webpage that describes the process for using the macros and has a link to the macros themselves.
Yea!