Diary of a Network Geek

For just one box top....

Actually, I don't know how many proof-of-purchase things are required, but Post cereals are having a night vision give away. I couldn't believe it, really. I was just watching cartoons this morning and there was an ad showing kids using a simple night vision scope that fit in the palm of their hand. The ad ran something about "Now, available, details on these POST cereals...." It was amazing, when it sunk in.
I remember when night vision was terribly expensive and absolutely enormous! Monoculars were the size of video cameras and had no battery life. But, now, you can get night vision as a cereal give away!! How insane is that? Of course, it's probably a starlight scope of some kind that magnifies ambient light, but still, the damn thing is small enough to fit in a pocket. In fact, it looked like it was hardly bigger than a Zippo lighter!

Excuse me, I have to go buy some Alpha-bits, now.

Why are nerds unpopular?

There was an interesting article posted to Slashdot today titled Why Are Nerds Unpopular by Paul Graham, creator of LISP. He poses some interesting opinions about why nerds, or geeks, are unpopular in high-school. I don't agree with all of them, but he does make some very salient points. For one thing, I think that the geeks, like me, were playing a different game than the rest of the kids. At the very least, we were playing by a different set of rules. I know that I certainly was, though I understand that only in retrospect.
What I found interesting was what my concern was when reading the article. I wasn't particularly concerned with my own trials and tribulations as a teen-ager, but how my daughter might suffer. She is, for good or ill, being taught to play by a different set of rules than most kids her age. Basically, the same rules that I was taught, and my wife learned on her own somehow. Being polite, while not being a doormat, for instance. Learning when not to speak as well as when to say something. Always being curious and not settling for the bare-minimum or status quo. All good preparation for being a succesfull adult, but poor preparation for being a teen-ager.
On the other hand, maybe we should be working toward making her an even better geek or nerd than we were. In theory, shouldn't that make her more successful later on in life? Maybe so, but I'm not sure I can quite bring myself to put her through some of the same torment that I went through at that age. Maybe she'll find a way to do both.

It's duck season!

It started Friday night, right before my parents were going to take us all out to dinner. I get a call about a server crash in Birmingham. When they reboot, the message comes up "No Operating System Found", which, to me, sounds like a hard drive that's gone South. So, we'll send stuff back and work on it Tuesday. Okay, sounds good. I don't hear any more and figure all's well. So, based on that, I agree to go help out another company with some small things on Monday(today), after I take my parents back to the airport.
Oh, somewhere in here, we decided that no one really wanted to go tramp through the mud in Old Town Spring, so we just stayed home and ate pot roast. Yummy! I think that wife of mine is fattening me up so I can't chase her as well!!
Anyway, I get a call this morning with people all in a panic about the server not being up and not being able to get payroll done. AAIIEEEE! So, now, I'm trying to scramble around to find out what's going on, what happened on Friday, and who knows what. To make long story short, the old server was actually not dead, but the new server is now named the same as the old server, so they can't exist on the same network. Which means, it's into the office to try and restore from tape to the new server. And, in fact, that's what's happening as I write this entry. Unfortunately, ArcServe takes at least an hour to merge a tape back into the database, so I had to call my other site and tell them it didn't look like I would make it out after all. Damn!
Well, at least I'm making money. Of course, I expect the second gig to get tired of this fast and not really be interested in maintaining a relationship with me, but I'll work, and bill, as long as they'll put up with it.

All in all, I feel rather like Daffy Duck when he's up against Bugs Bunny. It's network engineer season!! *sigh*

My parents arrive for a short stay tomorrow.

I'm looking forward to seeing them, since it's been over a year now, but I dread finding things to do. The truth is, I'm really a homebody and have little to no idea what to do around Houston! Sad, but true.
We're all going out to dinner Friday night, for St. Valentine's Day, so that's taken care of, but the rest of their stay is up for grabs. I suggested checking out Shanghai Knights, but that may, or may not, be a good idea. And my wife suggested going to Old Town Spring, which sounds like something my Mom might like. As for the rest, I guess I'll just have to play it by ear!

Never enough!

Well, I wasn't satisfied with the way the CGI script was running on Fantasist.net, so I kept working on it. Now, I have it so that it reads the stylesheet for the entire site and formats the output accordingly. Took me a bit, but I did finally get it.
Now, of course, I'm trying to adapt the script that makes proper names to CGI as well. Unfortunately, I'm not being quite as successful! Of course, I've just started working on this and it took me a year to get this far, so I'll get it eventually. Just a matter of time and motivation. Not that I'll ever really be a programmer, of course, but I do like to keep edging into new areas. Always comes in handy for surprising people.

It took a year, but I did it!

Did what, you might be wondering? I finally figured out a CGI script for Fantasist.net that I've been working on for almost a year.
See, I love words and languages, especially foreign words and languages. In fact, I love them so much that I've tried to create them on several occasions, just like J.R.R. Tolkien did. But, since I'm not a trained linguist like Tolkien, I've always cast about for help creating the words. I want them to sound authentic, but not be actual words from an actual language. I'd hate to put together words that I thought were quite alien and unique only to find out that I'd insulted a publisher in Istanbul or Delhi! So, I searched for help with that on the web. Boy, did I find help! One of the best places, though, was Chris Pound's Name Generation page. Chris is a linguist and has made several PERL scripts that generate new words based on input from an existing language. Finally, I could get words that were phonetically similar to an existing language that were new and unique!
But, of course, I wasn't satisfied with that. I had to go further. What about people who couldn't figure out PERL? I mean, it's taken me forever to tweak things and get a good handle on the basics. What about all those potential conlangers who just aren't up to PERL? My 11-year-old daughter, for instance, has recently gotten into conlanging. How could I make this available for her, without trying to teach her PERL? The answer, of course, is the web. So, I modified Chris' scripts and played with data until I understood it fairly well. Then, I tried to get it up on the web. I was a miserable failure.
Until last night, that is. I started with a very basic CGI tutorial and started building upward from there until I had a simple form that would give me simple, html-friendly output. From there, it was a simple matter of tweaking the original PERL script, and an html form, until I had a good combination. And, though, I have to work out formatting and style-sheets, here it is at Fantasist.net: WordGenerator.
Enjoy!

Let the games begin!

Well, things have been going so well at work that I thought I'd start working on some certifications. I need to update my CNE to version 6, but there are some other certifications I want, too.
For instance, I've been lusting after my Linux+ for some time. In fact, I bought the
Linux+ Exam Cram book some time ago and just haven't gotten around to reading it. But, I also ordered the
Novell Netware 5.x to 6 Upgrade Exam Cram book, the
Security+ Exam Cram 2 book, and the
CCNA Routing and Switching Exam Cram book. I've also bought the Self Test Software practice tests for these certifications.
I've actually been working on the CCNA on and off, but I decided that it's time to really step up the whole professional qualification side of my resume. I've worked with most of these technologies for some time now, but to get past human resources, I need some kind of cert to prove it. IT is kind of weird that way. Not that I think I'm going to be looking for another job any time soon, mind, but the last time I thought that, I found myself out looking. Better to be prepared. (You'd think I'd have learned that back in the Boy Scouts!) Besides, as good as it looks over at Loomis, Fargo & Co., they still haven't made me an offer yet, so anything can happen. If the worst happens, I'd like to be better prepared this time. And, of course, it's fun to have an alphabet soup of certifications trailing after my name. Maybe it's time to become a certified locksmith, too.....

What a way to spend the weekend!

My wife and I shopped all weekend long. Saturday, we were at Target, which we pronounce Tahr-jay, like the French. We both had gift certificates from our respective birthdays and the whole family needed clothes. I was quite pleasantly suprised at their selection. Not only did I get the socks I needed, but I found two pair of really nice, affordable dress pants. I was shocked!
My wife got a bunch of clothes there and at Academy Sports, too. But, we never were able to find any school uniforms for our daughter. Too late in the season, I guess. We'll just have to tell her to stop growing!

Sunday, we dropped off our daughter at her biological father's and slipped off to Niko Niko's, our favorite Greek sandwich shop, for lunch. After that, it was an expensive little stop at Half-Price Books. We hit the mother lode there. We got two huge tattoo books, several art books, a couple of books on type and typography, and even some fiction by William S. Burroughs. And all at half-price, or better!
Then, it was off to Texas Art Supply. We did even better there. Not only did I find more books on type, but my wife found a great acrylics set that was at half-price! Though, we didn't know that until we'd checked out. What a great suprise!
Finally, we were off to British Isles to get my frou-frou aftershave. Well, they were out, but, not only did they promise to call me when it came in, but they gave me the tester for FREE! Of course, we then felt guilty and had to buy some stuff, but I think that might have factored into their decision a little. In any case, I can't say enough about the wonderful folks who own and run this store.

Whew! I'm so tired I need to get to work and rest!

Seven heros, lost.

I turned on the TV to watch cartoons this morning and was presented with tragedy. Just like the Challenger 17 years ago, they played the footage over and over again until the horror of it was so burned into my head that I'll never forget it. The last generation had the JFK shooting, mine has Challenger and now Discovery. I grieve, along with the rest of the country, for the seven heroic lives lost.
But, I grieve for the space program and the setbacks they will now encounter due to this horrible accident. How many missions will be scrubbed? How many new technologies will not see the light of day? How many delays will there be in the already lean experiemental NASA portfolio? Seven lives are gone, but much more will be lost as a result. I mourn for it all.
But, life must go on. I hope that they find out what went wrong quickly and minimize the delays for the rest of the space program. I hope that budgets don't get cut more than they have been. I hope that we still reach towards the stars.

Ad astra, per aspera.

Sitting in front of your computer can kill you!

Well, sitting in front of your computer for extended periods of time can possibly cause blood clots, which can possibly kill you. Of course, the truth is never quite as interesting as a sensationalist title, eh?
Here's the story at The Australian.