Diary of a Network Geek

Well, looks like more American jobs will be lost over-seas.

According to this article on Wired News, Microsoft (AKA The Evil Empire) is going to cut jobs in the US and send more programming work to India. I wonder if that will raise or lower the percentage of bugs in the code? Probably lower it, but only because they can work non-Americans harder for less pay. Though, I wonder how long that will be true?

You know, I'm all for the global economy and all, but I have to say that I still hate to see the loss of American jobs. I don't have trouble buying products from other countries, but I hate to see American companies screwing the American worker. Does that make me a "bigot" or a "racist", as an anonymous coward suggested? No, but it does make me a nationalist. I still do believe in promoting our own country's interestes first. Why do I feel like the only one these days?

Well, I guess I'm not the only geek who writes poetry!

Okay, I already knew that, but still, I thought my down-sizing haiku was an innovation. But, apparently not. I saw a site, by way of The Screen Savers, called Hacker Haiku. Some of them aren't bad, and they do meet the technical requirements for haiku, but I think they still miss the essence of haiku. Check them out for yourself, though.

Man, I should have done this first!

But, when do I have the time? No, seriously. Stop laughing. Okay, okay, it's just not that exciting a topic to me. Doing it is fun, but writing about it... Well, lucky for me Tom's Hardware has done the dirty work for me, again. Yep, they've written a nice article about building a home network from scratch. Of course, you'll remember that I did, in fact, do my own home network when we moved in. And, honestly, I intended to write up all about how to do it. But, then job stuff got in the way and well... Like I said, it's a good thing that Tom's Hardware is around to write this stuff up for me. Enjoy the article.

I always knew there was a connection!

According to this article on ZDNet, those scum of the Earth spammers are using viruses to take over innocent machines as spamming zombies. Probably the innocent victim has no idea that it's even possible for their machine to send out thousands of unsolicited e-mail advertisements, much less that they're actually doing it. This is a really, really disturbing new trend in virus/worm writing. Anyone caught writing a virus to do this should be taken out and horse-whipped before being trampled to death.

Translated, "Who watches the watchers?", attributed to Juvenal, the Roman satirist.

Never has this been a more important question. With the Patriot Act giving more and more power to Federal law enforcement and more questions about what the government tells us, this issue is as important as it gets. Who does watch the watchers? Who keeps track of government agencies who might be running amok? Well, now you can, thanks to the Government Information Awareness website. Thanks to this article on Wired News, the world can know about this great service. Now, as our fore-fathers envisioned, we can all become government watchdogs.

No, actually, I guess it's methanol.

Well, according to this news story on Yahoo, NEC has developed a methanol-powered laptop. No more recharging for me! Yahoo indeed!
Well, okay, you'll have to keep refueling, but still... And, it's supposed to last ten times longer than a normal battery, so, that's cool, too.
Of course, I can see getting past the screeners at the airport now... "No, it's not a bomb. It's just a methanol-powered notebook. Trust me." Well, I guess we'll just have to see how that kind of thing works out... Technology sure is interesting!

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Okay, here it comes!

For some time now, Novell has been talking about releasing their Nterprise tools on a Linux kernel instead of their standard Netware kernel. Well, according to this press release, they've done it! You can get more information about Novell's Linux offerings here.

I really can't say enough about how exciting this is. I mean, to have such a huge company with such a great networking reputation backing Linux is just too cool. And, the news media is really talking it up. Slashdot.org had all kinds of stuff about Novell's move to include Linux in their stable of products. Also, I'm pretty stoked because I just recently got my Linux+ certification and, of course, I love Novell products. Maybe, just maybe, I can avoid certifying on Microsoft products and instead ease into a Linux/Unix SysAdmin gig, with Novell on the side. Oh, man, that would be so cool! Ah, well, I guy can dream!

He was a great man, no matter your politics.

Strom Thurman was the oldest serving Senator, a war hero, and a truly amazing man. He was also, like me, a Freemason.
You can read more about his political careeer at MSNBC, here.

Give you a hint: It's not selling books!

Nope, it's selling software and services. Hey, I guess we are a serivce economy after all! According to this story at Wired News, Amazon.com has made their real money selling the software that runs their website and selling customized portal services for big customers. (Sort of like the work my wife did for IndigoPool.com.) And, they seem to be doing it for smaller customers, too, though the article didn't seem to focus on that as much. In any case, it's interesting to me because Amazon is one of the few survivors of the DotBomb.

Well, dang it, it was interesting to ME!