Diary of a Network Geek

As a fourth-generation Chicagoan, I celebrate this day a little differently.
You see, not only is this a day that greeting card companies crafted into a reason to waste money on cards, flowers and candy for someone who should love you without all that junk, but it was also a very important day in Chicago history. Today is the day when, in 1929, Al “Scarface” Capone gathered together seven of his closest friends and gunned them down. Yep, the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre. Old Al was clever, too. Not only did he get seven of his arch rival’s men together, but he dressed his hired guns up as police officers so that if they were spotted any witnesses would assume everything was under control because the police were already there! Yes, sir, that Al sure was an innovator.
So, as you shell out your hard-earned cash for disposable junk that will most likely go to waste, remember how they used to celebrate St. Valentine’s Day on the South Side. Feels about the same, doesn’t it?
(Oh, and sorry about yesterday’s tease. I just couldn’t resist!)

She’s a cute, little thing.
She’s got short brown hair, which is nice for a change. And I could look into her dark brown eyes for days. She’s a little on the skinny side, but I bet I could fatten her up well enough. I’m pretty sure I knew her sister quite well, but I’d never be so crass as to bring it up. Her parents tell me she’s a bitch, and that she doesn’t like little kids or cats, but that’s okay. I think she’s a sweetheart. Her name is Annie and you can see her picture if you follow this link to her on-line profile. Take a look. I promise, you won’t be sorry.
And, just in time for St. Valentine’s Day, too!

Oy, more sushi?
Oh, yes, more sushi. And, you know what? There’s more to come, too! This time, though, it’s “printer sushi“. Yep, that’s right, there’s a nut out there “printing” sushi. Actually, he’s printing things on the seaweed wrapper that makes the sushi, but still, it’s sushi that’s been printed out, or on, and served up. And, people seem to dig it! Oh, what a world.

I know, I know, it’s goofy, but it’s also Friday, so just click on the link!

It’s a fine line between idiot and hero.
I’ve crossed that line. To the hero side, you weisenheimers! Notice that I’ve been a little quiet on what I’ve been doing at work since I got back from Florida? Well, that’s because things have gone horribly wrong. The whole idea of having a single base ZENWorks for Desktops Imaging installation of Windows XP just didn’t work out the way we’d planned. It was taking too long to make the “addon” images to customize everything for the individual models. And, every little, tiny change Dell made in the chipset was making the addon images fail, too. So, about two weeks ago, I was told we were abandoning that line of thought and going with what I originally suggested, namely, an image per model. And, that I had until Monday the 14th to get it all working.
Yikes!
Well, I got it pretty well there until Monday a fatal flaw was found. With the Dynamic Local User option enabled, when we installed Groupwise as one user, none of the other users could access it. Not even the local administrator of the machine! WTF!? So, I rebuilt the image, twice, each time making sure that all the updates were included. No go. Then I tried every variation of installing the Novell Client and the ZEN for Desktops clients. Same thing. As soon as I hit the network, in any way, only the user that installed Groupwise could access it, or the directory it was installed in. After almost a week of this, you can image how stupid I was starting to feel! Though, no one else could come up with an answer for why this was happening, either…
Well, this evening, at about 6:00pm, I found it. The answer was in the Local Security Policies. The setting was unser Security Options, Network access: Sharing and security model for local accounts. It was set to “Guest only: local users authenticate as Guest.”, but should needed to be set to “Classic: local users authenticate as themselves.” As soon as I changed that, BAM! It was all working just like it was supposed to work. I tested it twice and got out before something else went wrong!
So, yes, it was a fine line between idiot and hero, but by the end of my very long working day, I was the hero. Again. Yea, me!

Carly Quits!
Holy Cow! This is pretty damn big news. Apparently, Carly Fiorina has resigned as CEO of HP, effective immediately. According to this article at the Register, she cited differences in strategic vision between herself and the board. However, her “stunt-double”, Robert Wayman, was complimentary in his memo regarding the change in management. Wayman, HP’s CFO, is temporarily taking over as CEO and will lead the hunt for Carly’s replacement. I wonder if that’s going to mean layoffs or other unpleasantness here in Houston? God, I hope not. We’ve had enough punishment in the IT job market and things were finally starting to look better.
Well, we’ll have to wait and see.

My parents are getting a dog.
We’ve always been a doggy family. (And, no, I don’t mean that I used to pee on the rug!) When I was a toddler, the family dog, a Collie named “Lady”, taught me how to walk. Literally! I used to grab onto her and she would walk forward very slowly, dragging me to my feet. Then she would slowly walk forward while I held on for balance. She was a great old dog. Patient as the day was long.
Then, when I was a kid, I had my own little mutt, “Happy”. I named her “Happy” because she seemed so happy to get out of that cage and come home with us. She slept curled up on my lap all the way home. We adopted her from a place called Lamb’s Farm. It was, and I presume, still is, a place that severly developmentally disabled people who are still functional can live and work. The pet adoption was one of the things they did to raise money to support the Farm. It was a good place and I have fond memories of going there as a kid.
Of course, I’ve already posted about my latest doggy happenings. But, before I committed to mutts, my parents were all into pure-bred dogs. Well, now, they’ve gone and gotten themselves a Cardigan Welsh Corgi. They’re like the Pembrooke Welsh Corgis, only the Cardigans keep their tail. And, they’re the breed that the Queen raises, or so my mother tells me. They’ve named their dog, Duchess, and they pick her up in another week, or so, from the breeder. In the meantime, though, you can click on the thumbnail and see a nice big picture of her. Isn’t she a little heartbreaker? I think I need to volunteer for H.O.P.E. this weekend!

Hey, I almost missed this!
It was on this day in 1910 that the Boy Scouts of America was incorporated as a youth organization in the United States. The idea for the Boy Scouts came from a British Army Officer named Robert Baden-Powell who returned from a war in South Africa to find that the young people in his country had grown soft and undisciplined in his absence. He created the Boy Scouts as an organization and wrote a book called Scouting for Boys that became the Boy Scout manual.
I was a Boyscout. In fact, I was an Eagle Scout. (That’s the top rank a boy can earn, in case you were wondering.) Oh, my, that was years and years ago, it seems. But, you know, I still use things I learned in Scouts every day. Things like the motto: Be prepared. That has led me to have an umbrella in every car I’ve owned and to always travel long distances with at least one roll of toilet paper in the glove box. Also, that motto has motivated me to carry a pocket knife most of my life, not to mention a lighter. And you should see the things I have in my carry-on bag when I fly!
I was a “boy leader” when I was in Scouts, too. Not only a Patrol Leader, but the Senior Patrol Leader, in fact. That experience, along with the skills I learned while managing my Eagle Service Project, has served me well in business. (Alas, none of it helped my spelling!) I’m told that Eagle Scouts get an automatic chevron when they enlist in the Army. Now, if it only gave me an edge meeting attractive, interesting, young women…. Ah, well, maybe that’s a little too much to ask!
Anyway, Happy Birthday Boyscouts! Many happy returns!

There’s been a couple of security “issues” lately.
As many of my regular readers know, security is near and dear to my heart. In the past couple of weeks, there have been several computer security notes that have come up in the news. First, there was the Big Browser Bug. Basically, if you haven’t read about this yet, it’s based on a “feature” called IDN (International Domain Name) which allows people to use special characters in non-English languages to resolve domain names. Well, phishers can use this to disguise their domain name even more to lure unsuspecting suckers into giving up their information. Bad news. Worse news is that this is mainly a problem for non-Internet Explorer browsers, like Firefox and Mozilla. So, what to do? Well, in Mozilla, type “about:config” into the URL bar and set “network.enableIDN” to false. Simple. Of course, it disables an interesting feature, but better safe than sorry.
Second, there is the “evil twin” wireless router problem. In a nutshell, a cracker finds an office or apartment near an unsecured wi-fi router. (Which isn’t that hard. I’ve been squawking about how insecure wireless is for years. I think it even contributed to my job change at that-damn-boat-place.) Then, the naughty person sets up a router that mimics the unsecured one and forwards all the traffic on to the “real” router. Of course, before it does that, the “evil twin” router logs all the info. In a way, it’s just a more aggressive and sneaky way of phishing. The end result is the same. All your personal data ends up in the hands of a crook. That’s one of the reasons I ran Cat 5 in my house instead of going wireless.

Now, for a more positive story, the Register is running a bit about how computer forensics have cleared teachers and students of illicit porn collecting accusations. Apparently, a folder of pornographic images was found on a school computer and was seemingly updated during regular class time. The school brought in an independant consultant who was able to show that it was, in fact, a piece of spyware that was doing the downloading and updating. So, sometimes, we geeks can come in handy, eh?

You know, in today’s world of crackers, hackers, phishers, virus-writers and disgruntled employees, we just can’t be too concerned about security. It’s a very, very big deal. Every single person in IT is responsible, to a greater or lesser degree, for some aspect of computer security in their business. Even the Receptionist has to be thinking about security these days. After all, if I can get physical access to a machine, I’ve just beaten a majority of the normal security measures most companies put into place. It’s something every one of us need to think about every day, both at home and at work.

Not mine, thank God.
This morning I found myself walking down the street to watch the Jersey Village Fire Department put out a fire just down the street. Five houses, or so, down the street, actually. Apparently, the people in the house were out of town and something caught fire in their attic. By the time I heard the sirens and went to investigate, the entire second floor was engulfed in flame. In fact, there were flames coming out of the center of the roof. When the firemen finally got to the fire, it had started to come out one end of the house. Right out the attic vents under the eaves. The entire house will no doubt have to be gutted. What wasn’t ruined by fire and smoke was destroyed by the chemicals and water that put the fire out. Thankfully, no one seemed to be home, so no one was hurt.
Quite a crowd gathered and I met some new neighbors. Hell of a way to meet your neighbors! We were all saying how terrible it was for this family to have to come home to a fire-gutted house, but we were all thinking “Thank God it wasn’t my house.” I do feel sorry for these folks, though. They just moved in six months ago and have four small children. It has to be devestating for them. If they even know yet.
Seeing something like this really brings home what’s important. I’m whole and healthy. I have friends and family that love me. I’m safe and have a roof over my head. I’m a very, very lucky man. Sometimes, I think I have problems, but, really, I have very few problems. And the problems I have will be resolved, sooner or later.

Yeah, I’m glad to be alive today. And, yeah, I’m pretty damn lucky.

A follow-up to last week’s Friday Fun link.
I never did get my sushi last weekend, so maybe that’s why I’m still thinking about it this week. In any case, this Friday Fun link follows the same theme as last week: sushi. But, this time, we’ve gone a bit more “low-tech” with Windup Sushi. Thanks to Gizmodo, I now have new wind-up desk toys to lust after. Of course, first I have to get a desk, but still….

Anyway, it’s Friday and you know you want to slack off for a bit, so just click the link.