Diary of a Network Geek

I had some minor setbacks at work this week.

I say minor because, as far as I'm concerned, anything short of termination or death is minor. So, first the ZENWorks imaging thing that I thought I'd worked out last week didn't work this week. Or, rather, it didn't work all the time or even consistently. So, I'm working on that. Again. Oh, joy.

Then, I've been doing a lot of Linux server work lately and that had some small snags. Mainly, it was me being tired, a little depressed, and somewhat distracted. I forgot a couple of little, "detail" items, like chaning IP addresses and cleaning out temp files before running a backup. Stuff like that. The only "show-stopper" was something entirely out of my hands. (Hey, that seems like a theme in my life these days!) The server that I'd been working on, and getting prepared to install on a remote SAN, can't be shipped until we get the additional processor and power supply from Dell. They've been on order for almost a month now. *sigh* Oh, well, my end is almost done. Just a little bit of testing left to do and then.... I wait. (Unfortunately, that seems like a theme in my life right now, too. Always waiting...)

All in all, though, it's not been a bad week. Nice and quiet. So far...

I cannot believe this!

Some time ago, I gained, and subsequently lost, a lot of weight. Something like 45+ pounds, actually. I then gained about 10-12 pounds back and have been fighting to get it back down again ever since. So, now, flash to yesterday when I have this horrible pain in my stomache and a fever and all sorts of nastiness going on inside me.
I did make myself eat, though, because I knew I had to keep my strength up. And, I forced liquids and megadosed on aspirin. I sweated out the fever last night and woke up feeling achey all over and a little shakey, too, but better. Not quite so much pain in my gut. So, then I step on the scale after my shower and I'm back to my lowest weight. It's a little hard to tell on the analog scale, but it looked like I was under 175.
Pretty damn good. Now, I just have to keep it there and stay healthy. Which reminds me, I should go take my multi-vitiman now. L8er~!

After some long struggles, VICTORY!

In recent weeks I have posted less and less about my job. Why, you ask? Well, aside from a serious bout of depression, things have not been going well on my projects. Oh, the Linux stuff was okay, mostly, except for a nasty little problem with that mkCDrec program and our SAN. Something about the way it makes the boot partition on the ISO just didn't like the drivers for the QLogic cards we use. It would never recognize more than one partition at a time. Even after we recompiled it with multiple LUN support. But, I digress....

So, I've been banging away at this ZENWorks desktop imaging system deal for weeks. Well, it hasn't been smooth, but we have a way that *seems* to work well. And, get this, we use snapshot! Yeah, I know, it sounds crazy, but it works. So, here's the thing, we want to have one base image for XP and then just have addon images for everything else. But, we have at least one SCSI-based workstation. So, what does that mean? Trouble, that's what. Ultimately, here's what I did...

I started with a base XP image then added just enough to get it to boot on the SCSI machine (a Dell Precision 670). Next, on a second partition, I loaded all the snapshot files and started that process. Then, I loaded all the Dell drivers and such as appropriate and capped off the snapshot. Finally, I make the app and use filedef.txt to create a BAT file that copies the converted files to their original names and directories. From that, I make the ZENWorks image. And, viola! It works like a charm. Okay, so it's a bit 'round-about, but it *does* work and a whole lot better than using sysprep, too. At least, for me.

So, all in all, it was a pretty good week! Now, all I need is to get a working car....

Just when you thought I'd never post another fun link...

O'Reilly comes out with Make magazine, the magazine dedicated to geeks who want to make it themselves. Yep, my favorite tech/geek publisher is coming out with a new magazine in early 2005 that is dedicated to the hardware hacker in all of us. They describe their fledgling magazine as "Martha Stewart for geeks".

Sounds like fun to me!

Just a quick note...

I want to thank everyone who's expressed concern for me and my situation. It's not as bad as it was when she first left. I don't come home and cry for hours. And, except for a brief moment when I thought about eating a gun, or, as Warren Zevon put it, "playing solitare with a pearl-handled deck", I've really been okay. I didn't even need to ask anyone to hold onto my guns. I'm getting the whole situation under control, as much as I can, but it'll take some time still to work everything out. Of course, I'm still sad about the loss of my family and my hopes and dreams for the future, but I will have a future, even if it'll be different than I imagined.

Please, keep us all in your prayers. I know I need it and I'm sure everyone else involved will, too. Thanks.

Oh, boy, where to start.

Well, first, let me say that I probably just won't be posting for a bit. My wife left me last week Sunday, right before Thanksgiving, and we'll be getting a divorce. So, that's going to be taking a lot of my time and energy, which will leave little left over for the blog.
Second, I'm afraid that I might say some things that are legally innapropriate considering my current marital situation, so, again, not a good idea to post anything for a bit.

Not sure how long it will take to get this resolved, but, when I do, I'll start posting again.

Thank you for your support. If you're the praying kind, keep me in your prayers.

Well, maybe....

According to this article on Groklaw, the recent spate of cases that Novell has brought against Micro$oft may, in fact, have far-reaching implications in the legal realm of intellectual property and anti-competition. Specifically, how these cases are handled may have some direct impact on the rest of the pending Linux infringement cases that have been SCO's bread-and-butter. So, in short, the author ("marbux"), encourages us to pay attention to the outcome of these cases. They matter and can effect the lives of Linux geeks everywhere.

The Patron Saint of Geeks?

Well, according to this article on Wired, maybe so! Of course, that depends on whether or not he's really a saint at all, but, it sounds good.
Apparently, there are quite a few urban legends surrounding this Saint, but he's still revered by hackers and other computer consultants. At least, he is in New Orleans. And, according to the testimony in the article, praying to him works! At least one person claims to have gotten a tech job fast after praying to good, old Saint Expedite.

Well, it can't hurt, can it?

Or, you might just loose it!

No, really, I'm not kidding. According to this article on Netcraft, it's about to get easier for someone to hijack your domain. Apparently, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has changed the rules regarding domain transfer requests. As of Friday, they will be automatically approved in five days unless they are explicitly denied by the account owner. So, if you have a cool domain name, you may want to make sure your contact info is up to date and always be less than five days away from access to e-mail. Or, just give up and become a Luddite. Hmmm, that doesn't sound so bad some days.

Anyway, news brought to you a little late, as always. Too busy to be timely!

Been a while in between Novell stories...

So, I thought I'd remind all my regular readers about NUI, Netware Users International.
First of all, if you use Netware, you're probably already familiar with NUI. Novell did a pretty big marketing campaign a couple of years ago when NUI was just starting to get big. Well, now they're big.
Secondly, it doesn't cost anything to join. Yep, that's right, it's free.
Thirdly, you actually get benefits! Yeah, no charge to sign up, but you still get membership benefits. Cool!

So, anyway, if you haven't signed up, or even thought about NUI, lately, you might want to check it out. Hey, it's free, what have you got to loose?