Diary of a Network Geek

No, not the old "Net Hack" game you remember.

No, this game is from Hack-A-Day's site and a very custom job.  Seems like this hardware hacker guy got an old, toy electronic combination vault and made it a little more interesting.  He added a USB interface to it and a multi-level security "game".  You have to attach a terminal to the USB interface and get root access to each level of the simulated computer environment to unlock the vault and get the goods.  Pretty cool, if you ask me!  Hollywood should go get this guy to make their interfaces more realistic!

Seriously, go check out "Playing hacker with a toy vault" on Hack-A-Day.  You'll like it!

Been spending big on the holidays?

Today, the day after Thanksgiving, traditionally known as "Black Friday" because it's when retailers get out of the "red" and start really turning profits for the year, is when a lot of people do their Christmas shopping.  But, today, I'm going to share something else with you, instead of the traditional Black Friday sales.
Gentle readers, I, too, have worshiped at the altar of plastic and run up huge debt.  Granted, my ex-wife helped me with that and so did my medical debt, but, still, the bulk of the responsibility is with me.  Today, I plan on not buying anything, but, rather, enjoying the things I have.  My Christmas shopping can wait another couple days, what I haven't done already, that is.  And, yes, I'm trying to spend less and, more importantly, debt less, though, I admit I find it difficult to stop entirely.  It's a bad habit, to be sure.   Of course, I do pretty well, so I'm impacted only a little by my huge debt.  And, it's just me that's effected these days.  I don't have a family I'm weighing down with my remaining debt.

But, it's not that way for everyone.  Some people have really big problems with debt.  Bigger than my problems.  For them, though, there is hop.  There are solutions.  And, today, as most of America wallows in the excess, that's what I'm bringing to you.  It's only one alternative, but, I hope it becomes a growing trend.
It's a website called Creditable and it's a site designed to help you get out of that crushing debt, anonymously and free.

And, either way, whether you need this or not, enjoy today and be thankful for what you have.

So, I promised you more technical stuff here, right?

Well, stop yer grinin' and grab yer linen, 'cause here come a fist full of links with some great advice for network administrators, all from TechRepublic:
First, if you're a real network admin, you've dealt with traffic issues on file servers.  Issues that have hidden sources.  Unknown processes that jam up your network connections until your users scream for your head.  So, how do you deal with that when you're on a budget and don't have a lot of tools?  Well, one way is to use "netstat" to look at what process is running on what port and sending what volume of data.  If you're on Unix, you probably already know about this tool, but if you're on Windows, check out "Netstat tips and tricks for Windows admins".  It may save your bacon one day.

Second, you probably have wireless in your network now, too, right?  But, it may not always work quite the way you want.  Once again, users will scream bloody murder if they can't read their blogs on their iPhone, so, how do you find out what's jamming up your WIFI network so that no one can connect?  Read through "Troubleshooting for wireless connectivity issues" to get you started on running down the problem.

Thirdly, if you're a REAL network administrator, you probably have at least one Linux box in your network.  Something that runs an open source network inventory or monitoring tool or, maybe even, an actual Linux file server.  In any case, sooner or later, even that sad, little, neglected Linux box will have disk space issues, so here are "10 things you can do when the drive on your Linux box is full".

And, finally, my personal favorite.  You hear a lot of buzzwords floating around these days in IT shops, but "the cloud" is the most common magic cure for all ills.  Personally, I'm not so sure.  I worry about things like, oh, you know, security and auditing and connectivity issues and little details like that which seem like they might be an issue for the magic cloud computing panacea.  Turns out, I'm not the only one.  So, go see why Patrick Gray says "The cloud doesn't matter".

I love LEGOs.

There, I said it and I'm not the least bit sorry, either.
If I had more time, and money, I'd waste as much of both as I could on LEGOs.  Seriously.  Why?  Because I'm a big kid at heart and to make really cool LEGO stuff takes a lot of bricks.  Don't believe me?  Just look at this gallery on TechRepublic from a recent BrickCon, a big convention for LEGO enthusiasts.  No, seriously, go look.  You wouldn't believe the things that people create with those modular bricks we played with as kids!  For real!
And, if that wasn't enough, check out this IO9 story about a guy who made an entire space habitat from LEGOs!  No, not life-size, of course, but to scale.  Now, this was just the kind of thing I would have done as a kid, if I'd had more gray bricks.

Well, anyway, it's Friday, so you might as well scour those links and dream of a misspent youth!
Enjoy!

No, not a cad program by the flat-pack king.

Rather cad files of 21 of IKEA's designs.  Yep, now you can suck those ubiquitous IKEA designs right into your high-end architect's cad program and use them to design your house.  'Cause, you know, after paying for an architect in this economy, how much money are you going to have left over for fancy furniture?

No, seriously, I just thought it was fun that someone had made cad drawings of IKEA stuff in 3D so you can use it to lay out your house or apartment.  The files are actually in Google Sketchup format, for guys like me who are always trying to do more with less, especially less expensive software!

Speaking of free software...

Many of you know that I've long been a proponent of the spectacular free office suite, Open Office.  Well, there've been some shake-ups in the free software world and Oracle and the developers of Open Office have had a bit of a falling-out.  Nothing too serious, really, but enough of a difference of opinion about the future of Open Office that they forked the project.  Now, what that means to you and me is that they've taken the open source code to date and started their open development of it under a new name.  The new project is called "LibreOffice" and is being supported by the Document Foundation, who's sole purpose seems to be continuing development of this fantastic office suite.
Follow that link and you can download the latest version to try for yourself.  I suggest you do because you may never buy another revision of Microsoft Office again.
Seriously.

I was going to share this right before Halloween, but something better came up, so consider this a "Halloween Chaser" to clear your palate.

If you're like me, you have a lot of computer systems floating around and the one thing they all have in common is that they could use some more drive space.  So, again, if you're like me, that means you end up buying all kinds of storage space, in one form or another, to meet that need.  Now, you can do it as economically as possible thanks to Gigs4Less.  No matter what kind of storage you need, from compact flash to hard drives, they list everything they can find on the web and sort it by price, price per megabyte, and any other way you can think of sorting it.
So stop wasting money and hit this site to find the biggest drive you can afford, for less!

And be safe out there trick or treating, okay, kids?

Though this is funny, to me, it's not quite a joke.

Once upon a time, back in the Old Days, before there was an internet and people kept their blogs in analog format on paper, by hand, there was a nasty, old occultist by the name of Aleister Crowly.  His own mother nick-named him the Beast because he was so contrary and irreverent and hard to control as a child.  In fact, in certain circles he's quite infamous for being, among other things, quite an outspoken hedonist.
Apparently, in addition to the many other things he was and was famous for doing, he was also a bit of a chef and was famous for a spicy, Indian rice recipe.

No, seriously!  And, now, thanks to the relentless digging of somewhat unusual researcher, you, too, can make the near-legendary Rice of the Beast! (Page 2 is here...)
And for those of you who have all started praying for my immortal soul, which is surely now in danger, don't worry.  I never cared much for Crowley and I don't plan to make his rice, but, since it is about to be Halloween, I thought I'd share this, even though I don't really celebrate Halloween since I don't have kids any more.
I mean, I really only had one and she was on the "lease to own" program, but it turns out the lender wasn't willing to let me pay the balloon payment at the end, so I had to turn her in, so to speak.
Also, I really hate how people bus their kids into my neighborhood because they think they're going to get better candy.  Seriously, I've seen this.  People who I have never, ever seen anywhere near my street before, ever, following along in trucks with their kids on the sidewalk.  And, you know, I would have been okay with that except for the year I saw the guy, apparently drunk out of his mind, driving along with a smug look on his face like he was sticking it to all of us.  That pretty much tore it for me.

In any case, all that aside, enjoy the rice if that's your bent.  Mostly, I just shared it because, well, it was too good to pass up.
Happy Halloween everybody!

So, with all the posts in the past couple weeks about the end of the world, I thought I should share some things about shelters.

No, seriously.
So, here's a link to an article Wired ran on the latest and greatest disaster shelters.  And, yes, they're called "disaster survival shelters" now, because we worry about more than fallout.  They're not cheap, incidentally, but buying one will help pay taxes here in Texas, so I think you should buy one.  Also, they have the advantage of being private.  You get to stock it with whatever, and whoever, you think you need to survive the coming apocalypse.
On the other hand, if you'd prefer a more upscale solution, you can buy space in the Terra Vivos underground community.  Again, not kidding about this.  Discussed quite extensively on Boing Boing, this guy is selling what amount to doomsday timeshares.  Could be snake oil, or the smartest deal since the end of the Cold War.  You've got about a 50/50 shot of guessing right.

Of course, you could do what they did in the '60's and build your own!

Speaking of survivalism and the coming zombie apocalypse...

Okay, so last week I was sharing links about survival rations to keep you going through some "worst case" scenarios.  Well, this week, I think I have found the ultimate in fear marketing for the survival market.  Seriously.  The Mossberg "Just-In-Case" line.
You get, in an air-tight tube complete with carry strap, a Mossberg 500 12-gauge shotgun with pistol grip in a resealable water-proof bag, and either a "survival kit in a tin" or, for the marine models, a multitool with serrated, lock-back knife.  I assume you have to buy your own ammo, but, still, that's pretty much the last thing every long-term survival kit needs, right?  Stock up on those rations, then fend off the zombies with the shotgun.  That should pretty much cover it.

No, this is not a joke.
Yes, a friend told me about this, so their word-of-mouth campaign is working.