Diary of a Network Geek

Does anyone even wear neckties any more?

Seriously, I can’t remember the last time I wore one.  Probably for a funeral, or possibly a wedding.  I used to enjoy it, really.  I would very carefully match the tie and shirt and jacket so that it all complimented each other.  And, yes, I would choose the knot for the tie depending on the occasion.  For formal events, I would tie that trusty Full Windsor.  For events that were somewhat less than the very most important, I might use the Half-Windsor.  And, for everyday, like going to work, I’d usually just do a quick Four-In-Hand and be on my way.  So, yes, I enjoyed knowing things like how to tie more than one kind of knot for my tie.

Here’s a new one from Lifehacker, which also has “geek cred”.  It was the knot used by the Merovingian in the second Matrix movie.  How cool is that?  So, if you’re into that kind of thing, check it out.  The link will take you to a video teaching you how to tie the knot.
And, Gents, with VD Day just around the corner, I hope you all are planning on taking your woman out to a restaurant where wearing a tie would be appropriate, if not expected.  And, if you’re going to dress up, why not try a new knot?

Advice from your Uncle Jim:
"Some cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go."

EdgeOfDarkness

Originally uploaded by Network Geek

I saw Edge of Darkness Friday night.

You know, as many movies as I see in a year, I still wish I had time to see more. Especially right now when there are so many great films out.  And, this is one of them.
I don’t read thrillers much or mysteries, but I do love a good mystery/thriller movie.  That’s what this is, a thriller.

Edge of Night stars Mel Gibson as, Thomas Craven, a Boston Police detective who is a widower who lives for the job, and his adult daughter.  The movie opens with Gibson’s character picking her up from the train as she’s coming home for a visit.  Before they can enjoy each other, though, she starts to get violently ill, vomiting blood and hemorrhaging blood from her nose.  As they leave out the front door to rush to the hospital, a masked man guns down the young woman.  It’s assumed that he was actually after Craven for some old case, but not everything is what it may seem on the surface.

His daughter worked for a contractor with a government security contract, but she won’t talk about it because of her contract, not even to her father.  So, after she’s killed and things start to point toward something not on the up-and-up, one of the places he goes to try and figure things out is his daughter’s work.  Turns out they make radioactive ordinance, and other things, for the U.S. government.  They also seem to be run by a psychotic megalomaniac who’s so narcissistic and lacking in empathy that Craven is suspicious of him almost on sight.
Before Craven gets too far into his investigation, he’s approached by an unidentified agent who steers him toward key people and gives him insightful advice about how to proceed.  It’s unclear who’s side this man is on, pretty much throughout the movie, even through the very end.  It is clear, however, that he’s dangerous, but still surprisingly moral, considering the other people involved in mystery.

It turns out Craven’s daughter was suspicious that something wasn’t right at her company and, after exhausting all legal avenues open to her, hooks up with a crazy environmental group who try to expose dangerous and illegal goings there.  She helps them sneak into the labs where she works so they can gather the evidence they need to bring her employer to justice.  The only problem is, they don’t survive the attempt.
Naturally, this all comes out during Craven’s investigation and, as a father trying to avenge his deceased daughter, he pulls out all the stops and crosses all barriers to get the answers he needs.  That’s where the action comes in.

Now, to tell you more might ruin the plot, but it’s a living, breathing conspiracy that goes all the way up.  Craven is just a Boston cop with nothing left to lose who goes out looking for answers, and Mel Gibson plays him well.  There is an interesting cast of characters, each with their own agendas, and each played by interesting actors.  The end result is a fast-paced, intriguing and action-packed film.  It does keep you guessing, though not on all the points, and yes, even I was surprised by the ending.  I won’t go into details, so that the film still works for you, but, rest assured, the people who need to be punished are, and justice is served, after a fashion.

The acting is good, solid, no-nonsense stuff and everyone is on their game in this one.  It’s gritty and violent, but it’s about a man seeking justice above all things.  A man driven to solve the murder of his only daughter and the center of his life.  It grips you and doesn’t let you go until the credits roll.
Probably not in the top ten films of the decade, but a good, solid film well worth getting out to see.  Gibson is really good as the hardened cop, even if he seemed to have a bit of a problem maintaining that Boston accent.  I suppose we can forgive an Australian for not being all that great at a very specific American regional accent.  And, really, that’s the weakest part of the film.  Everything else, well, just works.

So, if you’ve got the time, Edge of Night is definitely worth seeing.

So, who would have thought that Slate would write a piece on the History of Klingon?  Yeah, me neither.

But, um, they did.  So, you know, it’s Friday, why not go read it and see how the rest of the geeks live, eh?
What?  All kinds of geeks are supposed to be cool now!

(And, sorry for a short one today, but this is a long month, right?)

No, I’m not going to write an article about the guy who saved his own life in Haiti with an iPhone app.

Because, frankly, everyone’s been talking about that already.
No, in this case, what I’m about to ramble about is the news that Amazon is opening the Kindle for developers.  Now, this might not sound like a big deal, but I think it is.  Here’s why…

First, this is a low-power, always-connected computer.  Oh, don’t kid yourself into thinking this is just a “reader”.  What’s under the hood is basically a small computer.   Now, I’m not sure what the operating system is, but I know, for instance, that the Nook is rumored to be based on Android.  Regardless, it’s a basic tablet that can connect to the web.  That, frankly, opens up some real possibilities.
I can see, as an example, a tech like me carrying around a virtual “stack” of manuals in ebook form, while still being able to use the device to troubleshoot problems, like pinging IP interfaces or hitting the web to Google for answers to problems.
But, compare it to, say, the iPhone which has a Kindle app.  And, a Barnes and Noble Reader app.  And, frankly, as my friends are probably tired of hearing me say, an app for everything.  It’s like carrying magic around in your pocket!  (Which does, in fact, sound a little dirty when you say it out loud.)  So, they sort of have to do this, just to keep up.

Secondly, this will definitely up the ante for everyone else’s device.  There were a lot of new ebook readers out at CES this year and I’ve heard a lot of buzz over the past year about how “everyone” is coming out with a new reader.  Again, I reference the Nook, but also the Sony entry and others.  So, now, people will be thinking about all the ways that a tablet will be more useful.
Now, don’t get me wrong, ereaders are great and all, but, honestly, I think there’s more of a market for an easy-to-use device that can do a whole lot more than just display books.  Again, I reference my own experience with the iPhone.  Sure, having a phone that can get your e-mail and handle your schedule is great, but a real smart phone is an animal of an entirely different stripe.  My iPhone enables me to do a whole range of things from check for movie times to checking the weather to checking my checking account to handling my schedule and calendar to, yes, remote access to my servers.  And, it has the ability to read ebooks.  Now, why would I want a single-purpose reader?

And, finally, the biggest, best reason this is important is because Apple has announced their new tablet device, the iPad.  Of course, the iPad is a whole lot more than a simple ebook reader, and not just because it has an after-market for accessories already, either.  So, now, with two app stores for two devices, we will hopefully have competition which will drive improvement in all these devices and give us, the consumer, the best device possible.  At least, in theory.

Personally, after my experience with the iPhone, I’m hoping that the iPad adds some more service and drops in price significantly over the next couple years.  Then, I’ll probably skip the Kindle all together and get an iPad, generation 3.  (Yeah, I’ll probably skip generation 2, as well, due to pricing and budgets.)
Personally, I look forward to our new Apple overlords!  (Not really, but they do design some great products!)

What?  Doesn’t every one run servers at home?

Okay, so maybe not everyone does, but some of us hard-core geeks do.  And, some of those hard-core geeks are Lifehackers, too.  Thanks to that group of obsessed efficiency geeks, I can bring you a link to the Lifehacker Best Home Server software packages.  I can’t say that I’ve really worked with any of these, so I can’t chime in on which is best, but certainly the Lifehackers have done their research and left their comments.  If you’ve been thinking about setting up server for the family, this would be a good place to start.

And, if you want to add a DIY firewall, try hitting this article on TechRepublic about setting up a free pfSense firewall.  It’s Linux based, but I can’t vouch for it.  The author seemed to think a lot of it, though, so I’d be interested in what anyone thinks of it.  If you try it, give me a shout and we can talk about doing a guest post/review.

Legion

Originally uploaded by Network Geek

I saw Legion on Friday.

Wow.
This movie sucked out loud, on ice.
For real, this was one of the worst movies I have seen in a long time.  And, yes, that was a huge disappointment to me because I was really looking forward to a movie about the end times and angels and the powerful, smiting retribution of God.  Well, there were angels in it, anyway.

So, right, here’s the the basic plot; it’s the end times, but not really like we’re used to seeing or hearing about, and only one baby can save us, but his mother isn’t all that into having him and God has sent an army of angels to kill the baby and pretty much anyone along the way who tries to stop them.  Sounds like a winner, right?  Yeah, you’d think.  But, somehow they managed to take that premise, a fairly decent cast and screw it up at every turn.
First of all, Michael, chief of God’s angels, essentially rebels to come to Earth, make himself human, and try to save the mother of the implied second coming of Christ.  Not a bad start, really, except that no one ever cops to the fact that the baby is the reborn Prince of Peace.  Oh, and also?  That whole rebel angel thing.  That’s been done and, uh, Lucifer, the angel of the morning star, already did that and was cast out of heaven.  So, really, that was kind of a hard-sell to me, Michael rebelling.  And, uh, pretty well that’s the entire plot.  Angels coming to kill unborn kid, rebel angel out to stop them and the rag-tag group of human misfits who sort of tag along for the ride and cliched object lessons.  And, since I cannot in all good conscience recommend that anyone waste one, thin dime on this movie, I am totally going to ruin it for you now.  The rebel angel succeeds and the kid is born, humankind is saved, his parents are redeemed and become what seem to be red-neck, Christian Identity, gun-toting survivalists who apparently discover Utah.  And, now, thankfully, you don’t need to see this film.

So, if you’re still with me, here’s a theological issue I had with the movie.
Michael, the newest rebel angel, repeats several times that he’s giving God what He needs, not what He’s asking for.
Uh, hello?  What?  Are you implying that God doesn’t know what He wants?  That some angel with an English lisp and Enochian tattoos actually know better than God what God’s mind is and His needs are?  Seriously?  Because, then, God pretty well couldn’t be God, since that’s sort of defined by being all-powerful and all-seeing and all-knowing and if one of His creations knows better than He does then He can’t be those things.  Right?  And, really, that was just the most obvious and egregious theological failing, but it wasn’t the only one.  It’s just that one distracted me so, so much from the rest of the film that the rest of them aren’t worth mentioning.

And, really, the potential good parts of the film were bad, too.  Like the action and the manifestation of angels and all the ways that subtle morality lessons that never actually manifested.  Oh, and the crappy dialog.  And, the the bad acting by pretty much everyone except the baby, who I’m fairly certain was special effects.
And, did I mention that the movie was filled with badly failed cliches?  Because it was.  I mean it was clogged with them like an overflowing cinematic toilet.  It was bad, bad, bad.

Honestly, this movie was so bad I cannot believe it actually got made.
If you were thinking about going to see this film, slap yourself, have a stiff drink and go see The Book of Eli instead.  You’ll be happy you avoided this one.  And, I would say, don’t even bother to rent this stinker.  Truly.  It was bad in more ways than even I can list.
Do NOT waste two hours of your life going to see this movie.

No, I haven’t made one.

But, someone has, in fact, made their own coilgun pistol.  It’s probably not quite deadly, but it also only cost about $135 to make and looks pretty damn cool.  Now, what’s taking the U.S. Military so long to come up with their own?  Or, why haven’t they taken this one and improved it to something deadly?

Either way, here is evidence that geeks are cool.  I mean, it took a pretty smart, geeky guy to come up with this and actually follow through on it to produce a working gun.  At least, I’m impressed.  And, you have to admit it is pretty cool and definitely geeky.  So, geeks are cool.
Stop laughing!

(Yes, okay, I knos this is old, but I’ve had it sitting in my queue for six months and I’m just getting to it!)

Okay, maybe it’s more than a little random…

Here’s the thing, see, I spend a lot of time doing all kinds of weird stuff at the office.  I mean, I almost never have the same kind of day twice.  Really, the most consistent thing I do is go to lunch at more or less the same time every day.  Seriously.
But, along the way, I end up with some strange things in my browser.  All work related, of course, but, still an odd collection.  Here are a few things I found hanging around this week:

First, an article from TechRepublic about monitoring your network with a utility built into most, if not all, Linux distros called “ntop”.  Basically, it runs in the command shell and shows you were the network traffic your Linux machine can see is going.  Obviously, this is most useful if you use Linux for a firewall or gateway machine, since that would let you monitor pretty much all internet traffic.  Also?  Once you start it on that machine, you can get to it remotely via a browser to check the stats.  All for free.  Pretty cool.

Next, there’s another article on TechRepublic about resolving all those mysterious IP addresses into a physical location.  So, when you see that “special someone” trying to crack your home router, you can trace back to pretty close to where ever they are.  And, yes, for those of you who were readers back when I went through my divorce, that’s how I found out my ex-wife and her latest victim were following my blog.

But, if that wasn’t enough, here’s a third article from TechRepublic about a peer network monitoring tool that looks good.  One thing I liked about this was that it didn’t seem to need much special to run it, but it still had what looked like good notification tools.  If anyone has any opinions on it, or any of the other tools I’ve listed, please, feel free to add them into the comments.

And, last, but certainly not least, is a page of free web development tools from Microsoft.  Honestly, I have no idea how good these things are, but, hey, they’re free and they come from Microsoft, so, I figure they’re worth downloading.  I’ll probably never use them myself, but there’s no reason I shouldn’t share them with my readers.

So, yeah, these are all things that have been flying around in my browser at work for the past week or so.  Sometimes it’s great to be a generalist, because I never know what challenge I’ll be asked to meet next, but sometimes, it’s just exhausting!

Anyway, happy Wednesday and enjoy the links!