Diary of a Network Geek

Tomorrow, it’s back to the salt mines.

Today is my last day off before the new job. My beard has grown in fairly well, so I’m comfortable there. I got a couple of financial things taken care of that I needed to do before I was comfortable travelling. And, I got us both new phones. That’s actually more important than it sounds! Over the weekend, my old phone got dropped into a puddle and was reading “Headset” permanently, which made it useless. So, now we have two, nice, new GSM phones and a new, cheaper calling plan that starts on th 17th.
Today, though, I plan on taking it easy. I do have a little ironing to do before work tomorrow, but the rest of the day is going to be nice and slow. The wife and I might take in a movie, since I’m off. Some low-impact shopping, too. Nothing too fast paced or stressful.

I’m pretty excited about starting the new job, but a little apprehensive, too. I mean, it’s the “prefect” job for me, so if it doesn’t work out well, I’m sort of sunk. The job description reads like my resume, which is good, but if I hate this job for some reason, where would I go? Of course, most of that kind of thinking is just fear talking. I’m sure that everything will go swimmingly. And, really, I am looking forward to it.

Okay, this seems a little strange even for me…

But, I suppose it had to happen sooner or later. Have you ever been hankering for a site that’s just filled with links to blogs that are all about God and Christianity? Well, now you can rest easy because there’s Blogs4God!
Now, I identify as a Christian, though I try to be inclusive of other’s religious beliefs as well. I certainly don’t think that my Jewish friends or the Dalai Lama are going to hell for not accepting Jesus as their Lord and Savior! But, the idea of a blog dedicated to nothing but religious material seems, well, “odd” somehow. Not sure why, but it just does. To me, at least. I guess it has something to do with my own less-than-personally-satisfying spirituality. Maybe, at some level, I’m even a little envious that someone could be so consumed by their belief. But, frankly, it’s never been that big a deal. At least, I don’t feel the need to try and convince everyone around me that what I believe is “right”. I don’t know, maybe my lack of missionary spirit makes me a lesser Christian, but prosthelytizing just makes my skin crawl.
Anyway, it is an interesting idea for a blog/aggregator. And, it sure suprised me how many God-related blogs there seem to be!

I’m sorry I missed a “fun” link yesterday.

Yesterday was my last day at Loomis, Fargo & Company. It was a bitter-sweet day, I have to admit. I’m glad to be moving on to something that I think will be a much, much better job for me, but I’m really going to miss a lot of the people I used to work with there. It’s sort of ironic, really, that I’m going to miss this place, because when I started, I never planned on staying very long. I always saw this as a place-holder, or stepping-stone, to somewhere else on my way to a better job. It was just something to pay the mortgage while I waited for the market to recover. Well, the market still hasn’t quite recovered, but it’s getting better and I’ve spent about 18 months treading water.
Okay, that’s not quite true. I did learn a lot more about Linux and I got my CompTIA Linux+ certification. I also updated my CNE (Certified Novell Engineer) to version 6.x. I haven’t quite completed my CompTIA Security+ certification, but that’s been mainly due to the upheaval of changing jobs. After I settle in, I’ll start working on that again and bang it out. It is, after all, a single test that will certify me for life. And, of course, I also learned more about Unix in general and the Veritas backup program on Sun Solaris in particular. All of which has been very, very cool.
But, one of the things I was “promised” was that I would be working on more Windows 2000 servers. The plan was to be replacing all the 35+ Novell servers with Win2K servers at all the branches. Well, that never happened due to budgeting problems and a CIO that didn’t understand why remote sites needed servers. (Yeah, I know, I can’t believe it either!) So, what that meant was I did a lot of backup administration and played nursemaid to a bunch of old, cranky Novell Netware servers. Not a great “resume builder”, is it? Well, I didn’t think it was a great use of my CNE either. So, when the rumors of outsourcing started, I started paying closer attention to the job-list e-mails that I got. And, well, the rest is history.
So, I found myself another job, but I also managed to place a friend of mine from the “old days” at Harbor at this position. He’d been out of work for 15 months. It was a pain that I knew all too well and I was very happy to help out a fellow CNE who was down on his luck. Also, this guy used to report to me so I knew he could do the job. It was a really good fit. And, in 90 days, I get a kickback from the recruiter, so it’s all good!

I’m really going to miss working with a great bunch of people, but I really look forward to meeting some new friends and working in a new, challenging environment that will really use my skills.

Could it be true?

Well, according to this article on AustralianIT, that’s just what they’re doing! They’re allegedly opening up their operating system and the technology for their SPARC chip to the OpenSource community.
I’m assuming that they hope to generate more interest and, therefore, sales. Also, I’m sure they’re hoping that making it open will make it easier for programmers to develop new tools and utilities for their OS. More tools equals bigger market. It makes sense, really, but I wonder what it means for the Unix market and the industry…

How’s your morale today?

Well, if you’re like the majority of people in IT, your morale stinks. At least, according to this article on SearchExchange.com. Of course, my morale is pretty good, but that’s because I start a new job in week, but the same can’t be said of many of my coworkers. As the article states, lack of incentives and rumors of outsourcing have really damaged morale. They claim that it’s industry wide, but all I know about is my own little slice of reality. Unfortunately, it holds true for that little subsection of the world.
On the bright side, there are some new jobs turning up. In fact, I may get an old friend placed in my old job, so things could be worse. And, again according to the article, employers are looking for ways to remotivate their employees. I guess only time will tell if it works.
Happy Monday!

Well, at least it’s a job working for the “Family”…

Okay, it’s not a job with the “La Familia”, aka “The Mob”, in the US, but the Eastern European Mob. At least, according to this article on AustralianIT, they’re hiring hackers for assorted, illegal, online scams. Primarily, they seem to be hiring programmers, but I’m sure they need support people, as well.
Among their scams are “phishing” and straight-up extortion. Holding websites and other Internet assets ransom seems to be a favorite technique.

It’s a strange time for the IT marketplace. Who knows where we’ll end up? I can see the resumes now “Special Security Consultant to Confidential Private Investors – May 2004 to January 2005 – Slobovia, Slobostan” God help us!

Since I’ve been “Googlespammed”…

I found this interesting. Apparently, if enough bloggers link to a particular website with certain words in the link, it can radically effect the way a search engine “sees” that page. This article on Wired News about John Kerry getting Googlebombed is a little old, but it sums the issue up nicely.
I guess that’s what’s next for me, right? This bottom-feeder that snaked my #1 Google search result is going to Googlebomb me for making his “job” harder. Oh, man, I can’t wait. Oh, God, what has the web come to?

Hooray!

Well, I suppose I should wait to see if this article on AustralianIT is correct, or not, but Novell is expecting their Linux market to grow. I certainly hope so!
First, not only do I love Novell, but I love Linux, too! Okay, sure, I really dig the Netware kernel because it’s stable as all get out, but Linux is, too, so it’s a logical step. And, it gives Novell some more marketing leverage in shops that they might not have gotten a foothold into before! Remember, ZenWorks isn’t just for Netware anymore. You can run that on Win2K and, soon, Linux as well as the Netware kernel.
And, yeah, I have to admit, I’m biased because I’ve been Novell certified since 1994. (Well, I’ve been certified since 1993, but I’ve been a CNE, or Certified Novell Engineer, since 1994.) Well, here’s hoping it’s a growing trend!

Wow, what a fast response from Google! Over the weekend, I Googled on CNE Resume to see how my rankings were doing only to find that one of the two most egregious pages were gone. Now this morning, I checked again and they both are gone!! So, I’m back at #1. Cool! Thank you, Google!

Not by me, though!

Hey, this is really just a link to an article about RSS Aggregators on WiredNews. It is a good article, though. And it sums up the different options quite nicely.
I thought I’d supply a quick link to it, though, since I know several people read my blog via RSS.