Diary of a Network Geek

Yes, finally! Sashimi storage for the masses!
Okay, for those of you who are part of the Network Geek Inner Circle (that's like the Committee of 300, but smaller and more focused), you know how I love sushi. It's damn expensive so I can't afford to eat it very often, but I do enjoy it. So, for those of you in the know, I present the ultimate Network Geek storage device: Sushi USB Drives. Yes, they're not "real" fish, but they look frighteningly realistic and, well, yummy.

Oh, I think I need sushi this weekend.... While I hunt that down, y'all go click on that link and have a great Friday!

God, I remember this...
I used to do this all the time, before I "settled down". Oddly enough, I almost miss it. Sure, I miss being home in my comfortable bed, eating lower-fat food and doing my "regular" routine, but it's a change. I'm out here like some kind of hired gun, out to scare off the rustlers and make the unruly ranch hands shape up. Well, maybe that's going a bit too far, but I'm sort of out in the corporate wilderness carving out a settlement of IT civilization. I've missed that bit.
You know what else I miss? Those damn, "side-car" trackballs for laptops. These stupid touchpad things are just not positioned right for my big hands. (Yes, ladies, I said BIG HANDS. You know what they say about the size a Network Geek's hands...)
I do have to keep reminding myself that flirting with the cute, young waitresses is not appropriate behavior, though. I'd forgotten about that aspect of being single and travelling, even if I'm not legally single. Yet. And, that copier saleslady had the deepest, darkest pools of night for eyes that I could have just stared into for hours. ("Sure, 20k copies per month. Whatever you say....") But, I'm sure that was just business, too, even if she did write her cell phone on her card for me. I'm sure she does that for all the IT guys that she's selling copier leases to. Yeah, that's the ticket. And, I'm sure it was a sign that my fortune from lunch at the Chinese buffet was "Guard yourself against evil temptations"!
Big meals on the company dime, coffee that someone else made with a smile, and a line of appreciative end users who are oh, so happy to see someone, anyone, from corporate who will fix their computer for them. Yeah, I miss home, but not that much.

Oh, yeah, I have a digital camera from the company so, after I get home and figure out the software, I'll have pictures to post of our new facility. The manufacturing floor is incredible! We're doing stuff with deep-sea umbilicals that virtually no one else in the US, possibly the world, can manage. It's cool working for a kick-ass company again.

"The question isn't 'Am I paranoid?', but 'Am I paranoid enough?'"
Ever heard that before? If you've dealt with computer security, it should be your damn mantra. But, too, if you just use the internet to send e-mail or blog, you should think about it. Why? Well, are you sure that all your e-mail is safe? And, do you know who reads your blog? If you wouldn't want to say something in front of your mother or child, you might not want to put it up for the entire world to see. Also, did you know you can get fired for blogging? Yep, not only is there the famous Heather at dooce.com, but also the Delta Airlines incident and there's this story on Register.com about two, unrelated incidents of people being fired for blogging. It's even gone so far that Blogger has guidelines on "how not to get fired because of your blog".
But, back to e-mail. I can remember on many occasions rebuilding e-mail files so that we could find out who sent what to whom and when they sent it. At least one time, I had to rebuild an entire e-mail server and system to replicate data that was taken by a U.S. Government agent. (No, not the IRS, thankfully, just the FBI and EPA. The IRS agents are really tough, from what I hear, when it comes to data collection.) Oh, but don't think that simply deleting the mail is enough. No, siree, there are plenty of ways to get that back. For one thing, many internet enabled systems have a cache that can be poked and prodded back into a mail database. Or, perhaps someone forgot to delete their sent mail. Sometimes that's even better because it will capture not only the outgoing mail, but part of the e-mail to which the "target" is replying. That's two birds with one stone, there! Oh, and don't think that a wireless device will protect you either. According to this story on Slashdot, even the messages sent Blackberry-to-Blackberry can be retrieved by your employer.

Of course, this works in reverse, as well. I often send copies of my work e-mail to my home account so that I have "backup" in case something goes tragically wrong with the work e-mail, I still have a copy to print out and present to a nice judge. Never know when that's going to come in handy. Believe me, I've seen strange stuff when it comes to lawyers and e-mail. Don't forget, I've worked through at least two sales and one bankruptcy. Trust me on this one, it's nice to know you have proof of what you promised people!
And, if you want something to "vanish" you'd best get to know all about any purge functions you have available to you or look into getting a PGP-based "eraser". Better yet, if you plan on defrauding the Federal Government, don't talk about it in an e-mail to anyone. Hell, just don't talk about it at all. Better yet, just be honest and pay your taxes like the rest of us.

Remember, in the end, the best thing is to just not do anything that you'd get fined for or do time for later. Barring that, don't make a damn record of it where some vengeful prick might get their hands on it. And, above all, be careful who you cross. (Yeah, this is the sort of thing I think about on airplanes and sitting in hotels after working on new servers all day long. It is my entire life these days.)

Well, I'm off to Panama City, Florida today.
It'll be a week in sunny Florida, but I'll be in the server room banging away at a keyboard and a mouse. I'll be upgrading a Novell server there, along with "The Messiah". (You know, I really need to get a picture of Mike so you all can see what I mean. He's an athiest that looks like the classic portrait of Jesus. It's trippy!)
So, since this is the first time I'll be travelling with Oceaneering, I'm not sure how often I'llb e able to post, if at all. There's a Fun Friday link all queued up, but other than that, I'll have to post when I get back, I suspect.
See you next week!
(And, yes, I have someone watching the house, so don't get any ideas!)

Okay, so it occurred to me that there had to be a better way.
Yeah, sure, I could talk about the evils of free porn until I'm blue in the face. I could even rant about how terrible it is to manipulate searchengines. Instead, I'm going to try and do it. Again.
Yes, again. I did it once back in 2000/2001 to get my site ranked so highly on Google for the search terms "CNE resume" that it was the number one hit. I did all sorts of crazy things, not the least of which was start this blog, incidentally. One thing I did was look at both the Google Zeitgeist and the Yahoo Buzz Index and try to use those terms in my site. So, for instance, according to Google's Zeitgeist, I should talk about: how I felt about the Golden Globes and who won; the fact that Monday was Martin Luther King Jr. Day; what Teri Hatcher was wearing at the Golden Globes; who Teri Polo is and what she wore at the Golden Globes; what NASA has thrown into space lately; what "naughtiness" Prince Harry has been up to over in the UK; detailed specs on the iPod Shuffle; the super-model antics of Naomi Campbell; the fact that Mariska Hargitay also won a Golden Globe; and how the movie "Elektra" was doing in the box office. As you can see, that first hit, the Golden Globe Awards, was a really popular one, since it was repeated in, or was effected by, several later searches.
Last week, I should have been talking about: Amber Frey, the adulterous whore who was banging Scott Peterson; the terrible damage done by the tsunami in India; how terrible it is that Ashlee Simpson was caught lip-synching; Delta Airlines for some reason; the Weather Channel coverage of that tsunami in India; Heidi Klum, because it's always a good time to talk about Ms. Klum (and she got married to Seal); NFL player Randy Moss, presumably because he sprained his ankle; the Orange Bowl, because it's still football season; the fact that Brad Pitt is single again; and all the cool concept cars at the Detroit Auto Show. Crazy stuff, right?

Well, according to Yahoo Buzz Index, I should have talked about some very different things this week. If I wanted to get Yahoo hits, I should have talked about: OJ Simpson's daughter, Sydney Simpson, getting arrested; Playboy Playmate Alicia Rickter, for obvious, pornographic reasons; those nuts over at Jibjab, who made another hit animation; Enter Location, because, uh, people were travelling a lot?; actress Elisabeth Harnois, possibly for the Golden Globes again?; O.J. Simpson, because his daughter got arrested, of course; the fact that Julian Ozanne got married to Gillian Anderson and no one knows who he is, but everyone knows her from the X-files; anything and everything about actress Lucy Liu, just because, she's Lucy Liu; the Tennesse-based music and arts festival, Bonnaroo; "How We Do" almost anything, from the sound of it; eating "Breakfast and Brunch"? Or is that more travelling stuff?; how cheap Costco Wholesale pricing is; soap-opera star Annie Parisse, most likely because she moved on to something better; the fact that Japan had another big earthquake; and Jimjab.com, which is most likely a mistake for "jibjab.com".

Wow, those are totally different things, aren't they? Are people who use those two different searchengines that different? Have I been losing out by optimizing for Google?
Oh, I don't know, but I think I'm going to go have a bit of a lay-down. This whole experience has been exhausting.
(And, yes, I've posted this same thing on my other blog, the Fantasist's Scroll, for the same reason as the last post.)

WHAT?!?
What the devil am I doing talking about free porn on this very non-adult blog? Simple, talking about free porn is the fastest way to get hits. Sad, but true. In fact, John Dvorak has written an article about this called Free Porn Magic For You.
I used to think that the Internet had improved with age, that we'd finally gotten past all the free porn, or "pron" if you're one of the hip, out-of-work webdesigners from the 90's, and had moved on to something more meaningful. I guess I was wrong. If you read the article, you'll see that what holds true from the earlier days of the Internet still, sadly, holds true today. People are looking for free porn on the Internet. Now, the hits I generally get via searches on Google, and company, aren't filled with porn terms, movies, or "performers", so I'm not really expecting a lot of traffic boost, but, well, it can't hurt. Can it? You know, I'm already starting to feel a bit slimy with all that. And, yes, I admit that I have actually searched for that sort of thing in the past. The distant past. But, I don't do that anymore. Why? Because, the pornography industry is a generally degrading, dehumanizing industry that devalues human interaction and relationships. Not, it's not illegal, but, it is, in my opinion, immoral. I'm doing my best not to be immoral anymore. (Hey, for a guy with a degree in Marketing, that can be a challenge!) So, is it immoral to use porn in the title of a post to simply boost ratings? Maybe so. Well, I never said I was perfect! This whole "better person" thing is new to me. (See previous reference to Marketing degree.) Internet advertising is hell.
So, how else can I boost ratings on this site? For pity's sake, I know hundreds of people hit this site on a daily and weekly basis, but I have only six sad, lonely Bloglines subscribers. Just six. Did I mention that Bloglines is a free service? And they have nice, FREE tools that let you keep up with your favorite blogs? (Aw, c'mon, subscribe to the Diary of a Network Geek with Bloglines!) Oh, I suppose I could always just produce more content here. Yeah, that might work, too. But, well, I'd rather go with the sure thing. So, for those of you who are websurfers that got here looking for free porn, I apologize. I was just using you to drive my stats up. I hope you don't hate me too much. And, I promise to respect you in the morning. Honest.
(Okay, yeah, I have this whole post, in condensed format, on my other blog, the Fantasist's Scroll, too. Hey, it's hard to generate this content stuff. So, I "recycled" the post, sue me!)

Okay, I admit that I've been blogging as an escape.
Cut me some slack, allright? I've got a lot of crap to escape right now. So, anyway, I've been doing a lot of blog reading and I saw that a new XML site syndication standard has been developed, and adopted, that's supposed to be really sweet. Really, the fact that two aggregators have allready adopted it speaks quite highly of the new standard, I think. But, what really got me was the fact that I know the guys who did it! Yeah, I know these two XML developers who have just released the hot new standard for site syndication.
Sean B. Palmer and Christopher Schmidt, the developers, are guys that play on an interactive world-creation game that I'm a part of called the Ghyll Encyclopedia. How cool is that. I feel like I'm somebody now. Er, well, at least, I know somebody. Anyway, it's cool.

Oh, but I'm going to anyway!
I have seen the coolest computer desk with a computer built into it. These are the most incredible, fantastic, and beautiful creations I have seen. In a way, they are the ultimate case-mod. "They", in this case, are Truvia Luxury Computers, as seen at Gizmodo. I mean, the desks themselves are just gorgeous, but to have built in computers... Now, if I just had a spare $55,000. Right, anyone want to donate one to a good cause (ie. ME)?

Click on the link! It's Friday and the boss isn't looking, so go for it!
(And, here are the rest of the Commandments, just in case...)

I know I've been sort of quiet this week, so here's a tidbit.
I've been doing a LOT of bash scripting lately for the ZENWorks imaging project that I've been working on. Well, the first part of that goes live, or partially live, next week. Yikes! So, I've been refining and getting things ready for that. Busy, busy, busy! But, I did have time to notice someone asking for help adding color to the menus and such on a ZENWorks Discussion Forum at Novell. I posted a reply there, but I thought I'd do up something for the oh, so quiet blog, too.
First off, all this comes from the FAQs.org, Advanced BASH-scripting Guide, in the Colorizing Scripts section.

Now, remember, these are basically just escape sequences, just like from the old DOS days and batch files. (Thought you'd never have to do that again, right?) Keep in mind that once you apply one of these codes, it will be in effect until you cancel it out, one way or another.
Let's start easy with a simple bold:
echo -e "33[1mThis line is bolded33[0m";
Okay, notice that you need to append the " -e" to your standard "echo" command for display. The actual "bold" code is "33[1m". That's it. Just add that to the begining of the quoted line and you've got bolded text. To "turn it off", simply echo "33[0m", either at the end of the quoted line as above, or on another line. Personally, I find it easier to turn off my codes ASAP. It cuts down on problems later on.
Now, we'll make green, bold text:
echo -en "33[1mThis is bold and green"
tput sgr0

Okay, now notice that we "turned off" the codes with a different command. That command, tput sgr0, clears all the color and formatting.
Now, to do one color for the text and one for the background, do this:
echo -e '\E[34;47m'"This makes blue text on a white background";

And, that's really all there is to it. So, go experiment with your bash colors!

Here's a table of some other colors for your reference:
ColorForegroundBackground
black3040
red3141
green3242
yellow3343
blue3444
magenta3545
cyan3646
white3747

Hmm, that's a good quesiton....
A friend asked me why I blog the other day and it really got me thinking. Why do I blog?

Well, the reasons have changed over the years. Originally, I started "blogging" to chronicle my search for a job here in Houston. Well, it was also a way to try and drive traffic to my website so that the search engines would find my resume. That was almost five years ago, back before there was such a thing as blogging software. In the early days, I hand-coded every page and uploaded it. As one might imagine, I tried to make every "post" count back then. It was a real hassle! But, I kept posting things about my work. Often, I found myself out on the road doing strange things or going odd places for my work and I wrote about it. I tried to focus on the technical side of things, but every so often, I would throw in something strange about my personal life, like getting married.
Then, back in September of 2002, I heard about Moveable Type, which was the first really good blogging application. It ran on PERL and MySQL, which were things I wanted to learn, so it seemed like a good choice. And, it was. I was able to post more often and more easily than ever before. And, I was out of work, again, so I moved from work war stories back to the seemingly endless search for work. It was the Summer after Enron and IT work was hard to come by, so I started posting more and more about my own personal thoughts, hopes and dreams. The blog started to become much more personal. It was a place to vent my frustrations, though I did so carefully as I was ever mindful that a future employer might read my postings.
Somewhere in there, I also started my other blog on Fantasist.net. There I posted things that were purely fun for me. Nothing but cool science and fantasy stuff, some of my fiction and poetry, and just plain cool or weird things. It was there that I originally started posting my "Fun Friday" links. That carried over here and I've done my best to maintain that to this day.
Now, I've upgraded to WordPress and blogging couldn't be easier or more fun. I'm still carefull about what I post. I have a fairly varied audience, some of which include family that might be under the age of 18, so I do my best to be intelligent without being insulting to too many people. I do my best to keep the profanity and "adult material" to a minimum, too, for the same reasons.

So, why do I keep posting? Well, I can always use the traffic, even if I am the #1 hit for "CNE Resume" on Google. But, mainly, it gives me a place to think out loud when no one is around for me to talk to about things. Blogging let's me share my thoughts and dreams and, sometimes, fears with a larger world. A larger world that often responds with surprising kindness and sympathy, I might add. It's my way of reaching out to fellow geeks who are stuggling with their own careers or lives and offer a bit of hope that they're not alone.
Also, it's a way for me to create a bit of immortality. To feel like a part of me will go on beyond my own limited life. To get my words and thoughts out into a larger world so that I might be remembered and understood.
So, why do you all read my blog? And, if you keep one, why do you blog?