Diary of a Network Geek

Readers from my other blog will know that I love both ramen noodles and infographics.

It’s almost a kind of sickness, I’ll admit, but I really love ramen.  I don’t care that they aren’t necessarily the healthiest thing for me to eat, because I know there are worse things, and I love them.  The past two weeks I’ve linked to things that will help you eat healthier and help you eat less.  This week, I figure you’ve about given up on…
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So, we’re eleven days into the New Year.  How are  your resolutions holding up?

If you’re like most people, you’ve made a personal commitment to eat better and lose weight in the coming year.  But, like most people, that little resolution won’t last through the end of the first quarter.  Well, the good news is that this is easier than committing to adding exercise to your daily routine!  No, the answer isn’t to go out and buy Tim Ferriss’ books, the 4-Hour…
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So, those of you familiar with my blog will recognize my annual New Year’s Resolutions post.

Yes, I’m pretty shameless about it, but, well, it was one of the earlier things I programmed and I still find it amusing and the New Year will fast be upon us.   Besides, this is fun and so many people take their New Year’s Resolutions too seriously.  Not to mention how serious it seems like  this year has been for people with the elections and the worries about the economy and all.  So, rather than be serious, why not try something more fun this year and generate your resolution randomly with the Diary of a Network Geek’s New Year’s Resolution Generator!
It’s fun! It’s FREE! And, I have to admit, it tends to lean toward resolutions that involve hard liquor and inappropriate behavior, especially with strangers.
Trust me, you’ll love it. Be sure to share it with all your drunk friends this weekend at your parties!
See you next year!

Advice from your Uncle Jim:
"Hating people is like burning down your house to get rid of a rat."
   --Harry Emerson Fosdick

Have New Year’s Resolutions ever worked?  Really?

Yeah, I’m pretty sure no one has ever stuck to a New Year’s Resolution, ever in the history of New Year’s Resolutions.  Seriously.  I’m sure there are a thousand reasons for that, but, well, doe they matter?  Not really.
So, rather than be serious, why not try something more fun this year and generate your resolution randomly with the Diary of a Network Geek’s New Year’s Resolution Generator!
It’s fun! It’s FREE! And, I have to admit, it tends to lean toward resolutions that involve hard liquor and inappropriate behavior, especially with strangers.
Trust me, you’ll love it. Be sure to share it with all your drunk friends this weekend at your parties!
See you next year!

Advice from your Uncle Jim:
"People are just as happy as they make up their minds to be."
   --Abraham Lincoln

What are you doing today?

If you’re at work, you probably aren’t getting anything done because it’s Friday and, frankly, if you’re reading this blog, you probably aren’t going to get much done no matter where you are, so you might as well check out some of the best damn science-fiction I’ve ever read. And, no, I don’t think that’s exaggerating. At all.
So, go read Ted Chiang’s The Life Cycle of Software Objects at Subterranean Press.
Seriously. Go read it while it’s still up and free!

Yeah, yeah, happy New Year to you you, too, now, go change your passwords.

No, seriously, change your passwords.  Think about how long it’s been since  you either setup that account or changed the password on it.  Now, consider that there have been some significant security breaches in the past year, including the issues at Gawker and their family of popular websites, and think about how many places you’ve used that same password.  It’s your favorite one, right?  The one you use for all your accounts, because it’s so, so easy to remember?  Guess what, it’s also probably easy to crack and is probably in a database on some hacker/cracker website right now matched up with the e-mail address you used, too.  How long will it be, do you suppose, before someone gets into all your accounts?

Right.
So, go change your passwords.
Not sure how to pick a good one?  Well, if you trust the U.S. Government for security, you can go to their Computer Emergency Readiness Team (aka US-CERT) for advice on choosing a secure password.  If you’re like me, though, you categorically do NOT trust a government agency for your personal security, in which case I recommend that you check out premier security expert Bruce Schneier’s advice for picking a secure password.

I’ll offer two bits of advice on the topic.
First, if any system lets you, choose a password that includes numbers and special characters, not just letters.  The example I always use is “@2brutus”  And, yes, that means I will NEVER again use that as a password. *sigh*  I like to substitute numbers for letters which resemble them, like the number one instead of the letter L or the letter I.  In the example, I’ve taken a  whole word out “et” and substituted the “at” symbol, or “@”.
Secondly, try to use something that is not a single word, but a phrase.  Again, in the example, I took my bastardization of “et tu brute”, which I remembered as “et tu brutus” and mashed it up a bit.  I have known people who use short sentences, however.  One guy I worked with occasionally used lines from Lewis Carroll’s Jaberwocky, which adds the extra security of words that will most likely never be found in any standard dictionary of any language.

So, trust me on this, if you haven’t done it, start the new year right and change your passwords.

Advice from your Uncle Jim:
"Pay no attention to the faults of others, things done or left undone by others. Consider only what by oneself is done or left undone."

Well, it’s that time again…

It’s that magic time of year when we all make resolutions that most of us will never keep.  I mean, seriously, how many of you have ever kept a resolution?  Ugh, don’t answer that.  My readers are probably just the kind of contrary people who actually do keep their resolutions!
For my part, I keep saying that I’m going to read Getting Things Done so that I can streamline my life and, well, get more done.  One day, I swear, I will become more efficient!  At least I actually own this book.  It’s sitting under a huge pile of other books, just waiting for me to finally get around to it.
On the upside, one year, I resolved to teach myself Perl and that I actually did!  Of course, I mostly used that to make little webapps that weren’t very useful, even if they were entertaining.

And, that, gentle readers, brings me to my Friday Fun Link; Diary of a Network Geek’s New Year’s Resolution Generator!
It’s fun!  It’s FREE!  And, I have to admit, it tends to lean toward resolutions that involve hard liquor and inappropriate behavior, especially with strangers.
Trust me, you’ll love it.  Be sure to share it with all your drunk friends tonight at your parties!
See you next year!

I’m not much for making impossible to keep, blue-sky new year’s resolutions.

I do set goals, though.
Okay, so, sometimes I set pretty unreasonable goals, too, but still, in my mind, goals are something that’s achievable and that I can work toward.  New Year’s Resolutions, on the other hand, are something that drunk people vow with all their alcohol soaked might that they will absolutely do in the new year.  Of course, those never last beyond January if the drunken reveler even remembers them the next morning.  One of my goals is to lose weight and get “fitter”.  I have a specific weight and definition of fit, so it’s a specific, measurable goal.  And, aside from a bit of backsliding during the holidays, I’m well on my way to that.

Part of achieving my goals has led me to read Men’s Health Magazine and sign up for their online updates, too.  In one of those, they linked to an article about setting Fourteen Things To Make To Be A Better Man in the New Year.  Don’t let that title give you the idea you’re off the hook, either, ladies.  Those suggested goals all pretty well work for you, too!  But, seriously, take a look at them and then come back.  No, really.  Go ahead, I’ll wait for you.

Back?
Great.  Now, here’s the thing.  I’ve missed out on the first one because Warren Zevon is already dead.  I’m reading his biobraphy, I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead; The Dirty Life and Times of Warren Zevon, by his ex-wife, Crystal Zevon.  It’s the closest I’ll come to seeing him live.  But, some of the rest of those, I can do.  So can you.
Number three on that list is something I’ve been meaning to do for a long time now.  See the thing is, I hardly ever take a real vacation.  I never go anywhere.  Not this year.  This year, hook or crook, I’m going to go to another city and have some kind of adventure.  And, I’m going to take my camera to record it.  All of it.
Number five hits me where I live.  That’d be on-line for those of you just catching up.  But, you know, once upon  a time, I wanted to be a writer and express myself, and the broad spectrum of emotions a human being can experience with words.  So, this year, I’m going to do my best to cut out using emoticons and those damn chatroom abbreviations, like “LOL”.  It makes me feel cheap every time I resort to it, so, I’m going stop trying to be cool and just not do it.  And that goes double for the use, and over use of the word “dude” in my spoken communications. Hmph!
And, since I’m cleaning up my communications, I should finally get around to cleaning up my house.  I mean, really cleaning it.  Getting all the piles of books up onto shelves and getting the junk gone.  Maybe even getting rid of those lingering pieces of furnature from my former life, finally.  And, yes, I have an alterior motive with that.  My house has gotten way too “man-cave”, so I feel the need to make it more friendly to the opposite sex.  Catch more flies with honey, right?  Well, you get the idea.
Along those lines, since the public perception here is that I’m too negative, I’m going to go out of my way to pay people compliments.  Not just people I like, or women I want to meet, either.  Everybody.  I expect that will be a real challenge some days, but at least one a day seems like a good goal.
Another one I like from that list is to leave ten minutes earlier for everything.  It feels like I’ve been barely on time for months now and I want to change that.  I used to be early for everything and it made me feel more confident.  So, starting in the morning, I plan to leave earlier for everything.

One goal I want to add which isn’t on that list is to write more.  I have been writing more at my other site.  You remember me writing about that?  The Super Secret Creative Project of Doom?  Yeah, well, it’s not what I want it to be yet, but I finally figured a bad start was better than no start at all.  I’m not alone in this goal, incidentally.  A wonderful gal and even better writer I know, via our blogs only, from New York, Amanda Berlin, has in mind to set herself a similar goal.
I’m not sure how to set this one, myself.  My father taught me to set measurable goals because it’s easier to track your progress.  Last year, my creative goal was to complete the Flickr 365 Days project, which I did.  This year, my goal is writing, but I’m not sure what the best way to set that goal is.  Suggestions?  (Check out Amanda’s post on the subject to get some ideas.)

And, finally, quite possibly my most important goal this year is to get more sleep!  So, with that I’ll sign off.
What are your goals for the year?  Discuss in the comments, but in the morning.

Advice from your Uncle Jim:
"Men are born with two eyes but with one tongue, in order that they should see twice as much as they say."
   --Charles Caleb Colton

Hey, look, it’s a new year!

First of all, let me apologize to my faithful readers for not posting more this week.  I had intended to get a couple of movie reviews up here, since I’ve got a bit of a backlog, but that didn’t quite happen.  There are a couple of reasons for that.  First, I’ve been busy helping people with their internet connections and doing some extra stuff for people at church.  Secondly, I was getting ready for last night’s little party at my house.  Thirdly, I’ve been sick.  In fact, I probably should have called off the party last night to get some rest, but, well, that’s just not how I roll.  Yo.

In any case, my laziness not withstanding, the new year is upon us!
Which means, it’s time to start figuring out what resolution you’re going to fail miserably at for the coming year.  Oh, c’mon, you don’t really think anyone believes that those resolutions are anything but an extended exercise in wishful thinking, do you?  Well, I suppose some people make resolutions they intend to keep, and a few people even manage to actually do it, but, mostly, I think they’re just good intentions.  So, given that, why not at least have some fun coming up with one?

That was my thought a couple years ago when I coded up 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?)  Now, I will admit, this thing might be a little weighted toward kissing strangers and other mildly inappropriate behavior, but, again, that was mostly wishful thinking on my part.

Anyway, it’s free, and fun, and a number of years ago, Comedy Central picked it as a funny link of the month, or week, or day, or something, so you know it has to be sort of fun.  I know I enjoyed making it, at least!

So, no matter how you choose to start it, with or without the crazy suggestions from the New Year’s Resolution Generator, try to start the year with a little fun, a smile, and my best wishes.
Happy New Year, everyone!

“The only sea without a shore…”

I feel stuck. And, honestly, even as I write that, it feels ungrateful.
It’s not as if I’m in a bad place or anything, but I feel a little stuck. Unable to move forward and equally unable to move back. I suppose part of it is just the time of year. The new year has just rolled by and I feel like I’m in the same place I was last year. That’s not true, of course, but it feels that way. I mean, I’ve got the same job and I’m still not in a long-term, intimate relationship and I’m still not being more productive, really. But, it’s not a bad place to be stuck, either. I have lots of close friends and I got a raise when a lot of people are losing their jobs. And, when I was married, it really wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.

Still, I feel like life is a little, well, empty. I just haven’t added much to my life this past year. Sure, I’ve been exercising more and feel better than I have in a long time, physically. And, I have been trying to be more creative via photography, but, well, I guess it really bothers me that I’ve been a whole year and don’t see much, if any, progress in my life. I’m just sort of treading water. Stuck.

Maybe I just need a couple of projects to work on. Something to work toward that will stretch me and my technical skills at work. Something that will push my creative skills in my private life. And, I keep trying to not think about relationships, since, well, everyone keeps telling me that when I stop looking that’s when I’ll find one. Not that that has ever made any sense to me, frankly, but, well, the way I’ve been doing it hasn’t worked too well, so, certainly I’ve got nothing to lose by not trying at all! Surely, it couldn’t go any worse!

Well, anyway, the past couple weeks, I’ve just been unmotivated to do anything much or write a lot for the blog and, hopefully, this post explains a little about why.

Advice from your Uncle Jim:
"Plenty of people miss their share of happiness, not because they never found it, but because they didn't stop to enjoy it."
   --W. Feather