Diary of a Network Geek

Yikes! I almost missed it!
Well, actually, I will because I’m just too busy this weekend, but you, my faithful readers, will not have to miss Free Comic Book Day! So, quickly, before all the good ones are gone, find yourself a local comic shop and get your free comic! (Okay, check first to see if they’re participating, because not everyone is.)
C’mon, it’s a kind of literacy! It helps your spelling, I promise. Don’t use me as an example, I started reading Larry Niven in the Fifth Grade. If I’d started with comics, my spelling would have been better.
Honest. You can trust me. I would not lie about something as important as this.

There’s a frightening, new people search engine in beta.
It’s called ZabaSearch, which is Greek for something. Frankly, I don’t care what it’s Greek for, but this thing rocks! I don’t know how long it will be free or in beta, but it’s frighteningly good. I always use certain people to search on as a test of the people searcher. Myself, of course, and a few old friends. And, yes, I have to admit it, an old girlfriend from college or two. But, here’s the thing. None of the other people finders have ever actually found some of these people. Until now.
So, now I’ve found an old flame. Someone that I would think about when relationships would get rocky. When I’d be sad and lonely, I’d find myself wondering what she was doing and who she was with. Now, I’ve found her. And, yes, I’m pretty sure it’s her because she has an unusual name and the address is in the general area where I heard from her last. How many “Gaylenes” can there be? Even in San Francisco?
So, I’ve found the girl I always thought of as “the one that got away”. Do I call her or not?

No, trust me, this is really cool.
Okay, Gizmodo had this on their site weeks and weeks ago, but now, you can actually buy it. And, I just may. It’s the VooDoo Knife Holder, and, as I said, it’s for sale, or it will be in June. You can get it here. Though, you have to put down a $20 deposit, according to the article, and you can contact the company who makes it, ViceVersa, at this page, if you can manage the Italian. The total is going to be $40, but, I think it’s worth it for the shock value. And, when I start dating again, it will be a good test of my future wife’s sense of humor. If she doesn’t find the VooDoo Knife Holder amusing, she won’t be my future wife.

Anyway, it’s been another crazy week and we all made it to Friday, so go ahead and click the link. You know you want to do it!

I’ve been blogging, in one form or another, for five years now.
Wow. That’s a lot of meaningless nonesense spewed, eh? Take a look back through the archives and see what I’ve babbled about over the years. It’s occasionally interesting. Do a search on “black helicopters” and see what turns up, for instance. Freaky.
We’ve seen a lot of changes over the years, this blog and I. I don’t really know how many readers I’ve had over the years, though I know some of you have followed my rantings for quite some time. I’ve changed just about everything on this site since I first started, including blogging software! And, I’ve made more than a few changes in my personal life, too. It really is interesting to look back over some of the archives to see what I was concerned with four or five years ago. Very different than my concerns today. Shoot, everything in my life is different now than it was five years ago. I never realized just how much could change in that short amount of time before. Freaky, indeed.
Well, I hope you’ve enjoyed the ride so far. I’ve tried to keep it upbeat and interesting, if occasionally somewhat salacious. I hope you’ll stick with me for the next five years, at least. I promise, it’ll be just as crazy and strange as the last five have been!

Looks like I’m going to be a Unix admin!
Yeah, it definately looks like we’ll be using some form of Linux at the new place. If not Novell’s Open Enterprise Server on Linux, then Red Hat Advanced Server. Of course, I’ll end up running SMB as a Windows PDC, for the login scripts, but, hey, at least I can do it! And, it almost sounded like the boss was actually leaning toward Novell’s solution. It actually worked out to be about the same, cost-wise, as Red Hat. Though, the Novell pricing doesn’t include any support if anything went wrong. But, I suppose we could pay by incident. I mean, I hardly ever call Novell anyway these days. Their online knowlegebase has most of the answers I need.
And, of course, there’s all the Mac and OS X stuff, too. That’s BSD, essentially, with a Mac X Windows front end. Funny, it all comes around to that GUI, doesn’t it? All point and click. Oh, for the good, old days when all we had was a command prompt and we were darn lucky when we got that! These kids today don’t have any appreciation for what a good command prompt can do. Why, I remember, back in the “before time”, messing around on an old HP-UX system and figuring out how to read mail from reading the man file! So, here I am, again, back where I started, about to become a Unix admin again.

Cool.

I have a window.
Have I mentioned that before? My new cube at my new job has a window. It’s nice, especially on Friday afternoon when I’m trying to figure out how to fill the seemingly endless hours of weekend without thinking about how lonely I am or whether I should just swallow my own tounge and not worry about it. Much to my own surprise, I usually find things to do that have more merit than choking myself on my own tounge. I wonder how long that can last?
In any case, on Friday afternoon, the window is nice. But, on Monday morning, when I’d rather still be sleeping, it seems a very naughty distraction. Not that there’s a lot to see, mind, but it beats the heck out of my monitor and ToDo List. Not to mention thinking about the payment plan I had to work out with the IRS for the additional money I owe them. Apparently, TurboTax isn’t quite foolproof enough for me, and it let me missfile something. Ah, well, it could be worse, I suppose. I could be unemployed!