Diary of a Network Geek

I’m thinking about running a contest.

I’ve been thinking about running a contest to promote another site I’ve been working on.  Now, before anyone get’s too excited, this is something that I’m just speculating on right now and wouldn’t even start for months, if I do it at all.  For whatever reason, I’ve been a little nostalgic for the old, Internet “boom” days.  Those heady days when the Internet bubble hadn’t quite burst and receptionists might be paper millionaires.  It was that culture that launched many of the websites that we all love today, like Amazon.com, along with so, so many that never made it.  There are still some remnants from those days, like ThinkGeek.com, who sold us all crazy t-shirts and junk for our desks, a way to spend those ridiculous salaries so many geeks were making at the time.  I should note, however, I was not one of those making the giant salary.  I was just a “working-class” geek who ground out networks like some kind of piece-worker who lusted after so much of that material culture.  I especially loved the imported vinyl toys that were around then and have since passed into a kind of obscure subculture that still lives on the web.  (You can find examples of what it’s become at KidRobot.com)  So, the idea I had for the contest has been influenced by all that.  Also, I’ve always been fascinated by pictures of other people’s desks and bags.  I love to see the contents of their life as bounded by the confines of an office or the bag they carry.  Of course, there’s a trick writers use to help define their characters by what they carry in their bag, or luggage.  Obviously, the idea that what one carries on a daily basis in some way defines who they are.  I know I’m not the only one, too.  There’s a Flickr group dedicated to “what’s in your bag” that I find endlessly entertaining.

So, it’s with that in mind that I started thinking about the contest.  I had in mind to put together six or twelve bags, filled with junk, as if they belonged to a designer or geek who’s life one might covet.  Perhaps someone I wanted to be once, or wish to be in the future.  Maybe just what strikes me as an interesting character or someone I would like to meet.  I’d like to include some sort of branded merchandise, whether it’s the bag or pens or something else, I’m not sure.  Ah, but that does put me in mind of another theme from that era that seems to have changed some; schwag.  This was the stuff that was passed out at the trade shows that seemed to happen every week, advertising new companies and new services and even reminding us of the old companies.  There were companies back in the day that only seemed to exist long enough to produce a month or two worth of schwag and then slip silently beneath the waves.  (In fact, I suspect I have a few t-shirts from some of them!)  At one point, there was so much schwag floating around that there was a company who did nothing but package and ship schwag to subscribers, called ValleySchwag!  They don’t exist any more, but a new company has replaced them called Startup Schwag.  In any case, a lot of us who were in IT during that time have fond memories of running about collecting the “best” schwag at conferences and trade shows, so, I’d love to include some of that sort of junk in my contest give-aways, too.

At heart, I’m a marketer.  I have a degree in Marketing and, perhaps more importantly, I grew up with an inveterate salesman.  He was always talking about sales and marketing and how integrated that all is in business at every level and, somehow, that became supersaturated into my personality.  I’m always thinking about promotion and advertising.  People always talk about getting people to read their blog or look at their photographs or whatever, but they almost never do things to make that happen.  It’s not rocket science.  All you have to do is give people something they want, something they need.  Word will travel.  Honest.  So, that’s my intention with this contest.  I’m not entirely sure how to get everything squared away, but by the time I’m ready to launch it, I will.  Until then, though, what would you all like to see in the bags?  Keep in mind that I won’t include electronics like laptops or iPods, or weapons, or cash or anything that equates to cash like gift cards.  Most importantly, no “adult” products, like porn or condoms or anything crazy like that.  (Well, okay, maybe condoms because that strikes me as funny.)

So, if you want to see something in one of the bags, or have suggestions for running a blog contest or any other related comments, leave me a comment.  Also, if you have something that you’d like to include, let me know!  We can probably work something out to let you benefit from the advertising push.  This is, incidentally, a contest I plan to run for about a year, either monthly or bi-monthly, depending.  And, no, it won’t be on this blog, but another project which I don’t want to directly link to this.  Don’t worry, though, if you’re a regular commenter or an old friend or have suggestions about this contest, I’ll be sure to let you know what the project is and when the contest starts.

Okay, so this is really a local news item, but I think it’s still noteworthy.

It will come as no surprise to anyone who lives here that Houston has an ant problem. However, what may come as a surprise is just how bad it is and why. According to Wired and Yahoo! News, we’re being over run with the “crazy strawberry ant”, which is much worse than their cute name would imply. Now, the good news is that they kill fire ants, which are a plague of the worst order, but the bad news is these crazy strawberry ants love to foul electronics. Also, they’re resistant to current chemicals that kill them and they have multiple queens in a single nest, making them doubly hard to kill.

Luckily, there is an adorable solution to the entire mess: the South American tamandua. I don’t care if they cost $4500 or more. I want one!

Oh, how I miss the hotel industry!

Back in the day, I used to sell my soul to the hospitality industry, one minimum-wage paycheck at a time, and, as a result, tune into all kinds of crazy travel and hotel trends. Apparently, one of the latest trends is something stolen from the Japanese, capsule hotels. Now, these used to be the province of drunken salarymen who missed the last train home, but they’re being exported everywhere.

The latest trend in these capsule hotels are to “Gibsonise” them, and throw in all kinds of high-tech goodies to appeal to the modern consumer. Phillips is the latest company to do this, according to this Gizmodo article, and using their own line of electronics.
Crazy stuff.

My laptop saved me.

As most of my regular readers know, my laptop really saved me when I was in the hospital getting my chemotherapy treatment. If I hadn’t had that, I might have just about gone crazy. For one thing, it kept me in touch with many of my friends via e-mail and blogs. For another thing, I was able to get some things done at work via that laptop and a secure, remote connection to our server. That wasn’t my intention when I bought it, but, still, it’s been a very good investment and I’m very, very happy to have made it. I’d even say it was worth going into a bit of debt to get it when I did. It was something I’d put off doing for… Well, for a very long time.

Anyway, if you’re thinking about getting a laptop, the upcoming Christmas season is as good a time as any. These days laptops go on sale just like all electronics do, at Christmas, after Christmas and at the beginning of the school year. But, with deference to the TechRepublic article from which I drew the main points, here are ten things to keep in mind when buying a new laptop:

#1: Operating system

#2: CPU#3: RAM

#4: Video card

#5: Ports

#6: Screen size

#7: Integrated wireless

#8: Integrated Bluetooth

#9: Track pad

#10: Battery life

So, if you’re taking advantage of the great sales at the last minute, keep that in mind.  And, if you’re in the market for a laptop, Microcenter is going to have some pretty great sales just after Christmas this year, it looks like.  They’ve always done right by me.
That’s NOT a paid endorsement, by the way.  They’ve just always done right by me.

What should I write for NaNoWriMo?

So, I’ve got two ideas floating around in my head for NaNoWriMo. Well, two BIG ideas, with many variations on them that could go a lot of different ways. Naturally, the ideas in my head have polarized between two extremes of fantasy and science-fiction.

Under the fantasy ideas, I have two, I suppose. One is an expansion of the idea I first explored in The Chrome Girl over on Fantasist.net. The idea, in short, is that magic is a virus, a disease. Specifically, a sexually transmitted disease. And, naturally, it spreads quickly and has lots of unintentional consequences. I see this starting with an expedition to find something, well, historical. Something from the time of Christ, back when miracles were more common. That “something” turns out to have a blood-borne pathogen on it or in it or whatever and that gets out and infects someone on the team. Sadly, that person would have to be a bit trampy for the rest of the story to work, but, I think you all get the idea anyway.
The other story that’s fantasy-based is a bit more, um, complicated. Imagine, if you will, a war in fantasy land. Anthropomorphic caterpillars with sabres and muskets fighting goblins mounted on racing snails with lightening lances fighting winged monkeys armed with repeating crossbows complete with bioluminescent tracers. I see a landscape of huge mushrooms and magic run wild. I’m not sure what the cause of the war would be, exactally, but I can figure that out. Naturally, the war would be epic and completed by the end of the NaNoWriMo book.

On the science-fiction end of things, I mainly see a survival story. Possibly a world-wide pandemic combined with one or more meteors and an EMP event that knocks out electronics all over the US. Maybe the fast travelling disease just disintigrates people or maybe it makes them zombies. And, to add a bit of motivation and flavor, the main character has a daughter, say, or a son, in another state that he has to go and “rescue”. Though, how that rescue turns out is sort of up for grabs. Naturally, depending on the zombies/no zombies options, we have two very different stories. (And, yes, this was very much driven by The World Without Us, which I recently read.)

So, what do you all think? Which way should I go?
(And, by that I mean, vote in the poll on the sidebar.)

(Note: This “post” was written over the space of two long waits in airports after gliding through easy and over-hyped security.)

08/11/06

Well, there wasn’t any free wifi at the airport that I could find, even using a cool new tool I found for Linux called Wifi-Radar. Super slick little proggie that scans for available open wifi networks and automagically attaches you to the network of your choice. Pretty cool. Anyway, security was a breeze. As usual, the blood-sucking, bottom-feeders in the alarmist media totally overhyped the delays. I got Hilda checked in, stopped for gas and slipped into the Park-N-Fly by about 10:45 AM. The shuttle got me to the airport no later than 11:15AM and I was checked in and through security in less than 20 minutes. That’s with an eTicket and a driver’s license that still has my last name misspelled with an extra letter. You’d think that would raise a red flag, right? Hell, it doesn’t even raise a damn eyebrow.

Feeling extra secure yet? So, we hear all kinds of stuff about how bad security is going to be, but, as far as I could see, the only thing added to security was that they were restricting fluids on the plane. Yeah, so, no drinks through security, which, of course, means that everyone was buying drinks in the terminal. I didn’t look at how much I was gouged for my bottle of water and masked the whole cost with a couple of magazines. No Maxim, though. Just PopSci, Scientific American, Men’s Health and Real Simple. You know, I may end up getting a subscription to Real Simple instead of Dwell. It’s more my style. Not quite so avant-garde and infinitely less expensive. I was very glad to have gotten my iPod back, though. And, I even managed to sync all of Tristan und Isolde to it before I took off in the morning. Sadly, I didn’t have quite enough time to create a playlist that let me listen to the entire opera in order, but, still, I have it in there. According to iTunes, I have almost three days worth of continuous music on my Nano. Based on the silly media hype, it sounded like I’d need it, so, I was thrilled.

The one interesting thing was that I was almost on the news. No, not because I tried to sneak something dangerous on the plane. Though, God knows, I have done just that so many times it really makes me question the supposed security training they give those TSA agents. Anyway, there was some cute, Hispanic news chic there with her cameraman interviewing passengers about the virtually non-existent security delays and they saw my “Sunguard Secure, Disaster Recovery Experts” shirt. Right away the camera guy is all “So are you a disaster recovery expert?” and I start laughing at them both. I explain that, yes, I am an IT disaster recovery expert, but not the kind they were looking for. Oh, sure, I could have gone on TV and made a credible security expert, but that’s mainly because I’m well read and I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about security for IT, which includes physical security, not because I’m a real anti-terrorist expert. But, why? Why the hell would I want to have my mug all over the TV news? I hate them, the alarmist fear-mongers always whipping the mass of unwashed humanity into a damn frenzy. Idiots. They’re not journalists anymore, just talking heads. It’s all about jumping on that fear-hype bandwagon, not about reporting real information that people can actually learn something from anymore. I don’t know, maybe it’s time to get a subscription to a local paper again. Ha! “A” local paper, that’s funny, isn’t it? It’s either the Chronicle or an out of town paper, like the Chicago Tribune or the Wall Street Journal. Oh, well, it’s almost all bad news anyway….

08/14/06

Well, here I am again, killing time in an airport waiting for my flight after breezing through security. I can’t tell if it’s just the media blowing things so far out of proportion or just people stupid enough to argue with the TSA agents and trying to break the rules. Honestly, I think it’s the TV news media who have to justify their existance by whipping everyone into a frenzy about the terrorists who weren’t even on US soil. Sure, I’ll grant you, getting blown up in a plane would really ruin my travel plans, but we’ve been living with this since 9/11 and, frankly, I think it’s about time we just adjust to higher security than we used to have. I mean, really, compared to most of the world, we’ve been skating along pretty free and easy. They’ve been dealing with terrorists in Europe for years and the British were more relaxed about this last incident than we were, even though it was their countrymen that were going to be blown up! This is just going to be a fact of life from now on. We need to get past the panic and fear and make our adjustments and move on with our lives, otherwise the terrorists have already won. So, in any case, I glided through security, in spite of not shaving, having a scruffy goatee and being loaded down with electronics. I guess it helps to just blank your face and go with the flow. Not like I have a choice, after all, so I might as well just accept the process and go with it. Seems to make things a lot easier. So, crazy security concerns aside, I had a good visit with the family.

Turns out, my parents were wrong and I wasn’t going to be presenting my nephew with his Eagle award, but it really did seem to mean a lot to him that I was there. Actually, it seemed to mean a lot to everyone to see me. I guess I shouldn’t be so surprised, but I never realized how important I was to my family. Of course, I spent some time setting up my parent’s new laptop and transferring settings and files over from the old one. I first thought that I’d be able to do that via a USB thumb drive, but there was just a little too much there to get onto a single one gig drive, so I had to use the network cable and crossover adapter that I’d brought with me. Good thing I have a little bit of experience being an IT consultant on the road and thought to bring some “extra” stuff I probably wouldn’t need, just in case. Sadly, I forgot to bring the copy of Word that I had for Mom and scratched the first CD of the Works install set, so I’ll have to ship them the CD and walk Mom through the install. Oh, the funny thing about her new laptop is the wireless connection. I cranked up that laptop and found five or six networks in the area with at least two that were unsecured, so I used that to piggy-back to the Internet. I think that ease of use just about convinced her to invest in broadband at their new house when the finally move in. They already have digital phone service through their cable, so I’m pretty sure they’d get a discount on the Internet connection, too. That along with a wireless router would really have them in the modern age of computing. And, I think they’d use their laptop more. Well, at least, Mom would. Dad mainly tells her what he wants and sends her off to do it, but he thinks he’s pretty high-tech, which is kind of funny. Actually, if you ever met either of my parents, it’d amuse you think of either of them being all that high-tech.

Though, somehow, they turned out at least two of us that make our living via technology. That’s just one of many things my brother and I have in common, though… It was nice talking with him some, though, I think we both wouldn’t have minded talking more. Eleven years apart and a vast difference in life experience, but we’re still the same in so many ways. Sadly, we both have many of the same things to fight through and over come. Both shy, each in our own way. Soft-spoken, but determined and, often, very single-minded of purpose. I honestly think that my brother has a PhD. because someone told him he couldn’t do it. We’re funny that way. Sometimes, that’s an asset, but not always.
Still, we often have very similar political views and, talking with my sole niece, Rachel, I was surprised to see how well our philosophies about kids meshed. That “little” girl has grown into quite a young woman. Just barely fifteen, but almost as tall as I am and, thankfully, looking more like her mother every day. I sat with her after her brother’s Eagle Ceremony and talked with her a bit, since I realized I didn’t really know her that well these days. The boys all center on me like iron filings on a magnet and that often seems to leave little room for Rachel. The last time I was home, she spent most of the time with Allison, my former step-daughter, and I didn’t get to talk to her. In any case, I took the opportunity to chat with her about a lot of different things, including driving, boys and her future plans. She didn’t have a boyfriend right now, but she’s already had two, which, at fifteen seemed like a good, slow start. She broke up with the last one, she told me, because he’d been smoking marijuana. Smart girl. Already learned that guys who smoke enough dope lose all motivation and ambition. It’s not just a stereotype. So, she was single, but didn’t seem in a big hurry to find the next guy, which I though was a good attitude, too. When I asked her about school and ideas for a career, she told me she wanted to go into nursing. Like I said, smart girl. It’s a good field and she has the right kind of personality for nursing. Even at fifteen, she was worried about her poor, old Uncle Jim standing when everyone else was sitting at the reception. I was glad for the chance to sit and talk with her. I just wish Allison had more of an opportunity to know her former cousin. I think Rachel would have been a good influence on her. Ah, well, maybe they’ll reconnect one day. Stranger things have happened.

Her little brother, Michael, my youngest nephew, is a whole different animal. This poor kid has no small amount of adversity to overcome. As a little guy, he got repeated ear infections and is, as I recall, legally deaf. But, since he was very small, he’s worn a hearing aid in each ear and does quite well. He has a very slight speech impediment, but he seems to make up for that with enthusiasm and volume. He certainly has no trouble making himself understood when he wants to get a point across! But, he also has a fairly rare back and spine condition that will require him to wear an obviously uncomfortable back brace for most of the next three years. He’s a good kid and doesn’t complain much when his parents tell him to get his brace back on, but it can’t be something he likes to do. I don’t know if any of the kids at school give him trouble for it, but I think his mother has already given her permission to pop the little wiseasses if they do sound off. And, if I ever hear about any grief, I tell you, Mike will have a mean uncle from Texas coming up to crack a couple of skulls for him. He’s a good boy and puts up just a tiny fuss at having to deal with all his physical troubles. And, in spite of all his reasons to be unhappy, I’d say he’s the most gregarious and, well, “jolly” of all my nephews. Always smiling and laughing and joking, even when irritation occasionally creases his forehead, it sure doesn’t cloud his world for very long at all. I know quite a few adults that could learn thing or two from this young man.

Then, there was my “redneck nephew”, as I like to call him.
John Dwight is a big kid. He looks slow and ponderous and even sounds a little thick, but he’s not. He’s a smart kid who lives in a town that doesn’t put much stock into “book learnin'” and it shows. Mainly, I think he’s just not very motivated. I think he sees the futility of his situation. He can only go so far in that little town outside of Rockford, Illinois. After that, if he wants more and bigger opportunities, he’ll have to leave. Based on how his mother and father have dealt with that decision, I doubt he’ll leave. Though, he is talking about enlisting in the military. He claims he wants to be a sniper, but with less than perfect vision, I think that’s not going to quite work out for him. He likes to work on cars, though, and seems to think he can bide his time waiting for the sniper program while being a mechanic. I don’t think he understands the military enough to know that once he starts as a mechanic, he’s likely to stay a mechanic, but, at least he’ll have a skill and a way to make a good living after mustering out. It would be a good way for hime to go.
He shadowed me for most of the time I was working on my Mom’s new laptop. I think partly because he wants to get a shiny, new laptop himself, but also because he’s interested. I talked with him about what I was doing and promised to send him one of the super cheap 1 Gig USB thumb-drives I’d found at MicroCenter and was using. He seemed genuinely excited about that. I’ll send that to him after I get back along with a Knoppix CD, so he can learn a little Linux. If he learns Linux and is still interested, I might send him an old Dell laptop with Redhat or Novell’s free OpenSuSE loaded on it. That would be another direction he could go. A little military experience and a couple of professional certifications and he could really go far.

Finally, my oldest nephew and godson, Bill…
As I write this, he’s on his way to his first year of college. He’ll be a Physics Major at Purdue University. Kid’s going to be a genius PhD, like his father. He has a girlfriend, Jenny, who’s nice enough, but tries a little too hard to be liked. When she forgets to work at it and relaxs, though, she’s a nice kid. Bill and I had a little talk on Friday night when his family came over for dinner. (Mom made “creole chicken”, a soulfood recipie that my grandmother picked up on the Southside of Chicago.) He’s so much like his father that it’s almost scary. I was touched Saturday when I figured out that he really just wanted me at the ceremony because he missed his Uncle Jim. I made sure to give him my cell number and told him he could call for anything but bail money. I hope he takes me up on the offer. I gave him the best advice I could for a Freshman going into that big, wide world of college. “Never go into a weekend without twenty bucks and a condom.” I explained that to him, but those stories will have to wait for another time on the blog. My plane is boarding, so I’m shutting down the laptop. Next stop, Houston!

Update:
Made it home safe and sound. Got my poor Hilda from the vet today. Apparently she barely ate, hid from the “keepers” and generally trusted no one. On the upside, she did learn to use the “doggie door” really well! That’s where she ran to get away from the people who were supposed to pamper her. *sigh* She wouldn’t even eat her home-made treats. Apparently, she just didn’t trust the kenel staff enough to take even the yummiest of muffins from them. (In fact, they said they smelled so good they almost ate some themselves!) She was so excited to see me, I could barely get her car harness on her. She wolfed food when we got home. And treats. And attacked a new rawhide chewie bone I’d gotten her. Well, she’s like her old dad, doesn’t trust anyone new and is loyal to a fault. She’s my dog, sure enough.
Glad to be home. And, finally, after all this time and all this trouble, this is home.

Advice from your Uncle Jim:
"It is only when they go wrong that machines remind you how powerful they are."
   --Clive James

If you’re a tech head, like me…

That’s what this new bomb they’ve developed would be. According to this article in the IEEE Spectrum, they’re real and ready for the real world. Or, pretty darn close. Of course, the threat of an EMP (Electro Magnetic Pulse) weapon has been around for quite some time, but this is a little different. First, they’ve changed the name. Now they’re called high-power microwave (HPM) weapons. And, they’re portable and, it seems, reusable. So, if you’re not familiar with this, what happens is it blasts out a huge amount of magnetic radiation, or in this case microwave radiation, that cripples electronics. The idea being that you could, say, take out an enemy’s infrastructure while leaving the physical structures intact. Picture this at, oh, I dunno’, a great big airport somewhere. Imagine the chaos as, suddenly, no on can talk to each other via radio. Okay, now, imagine terrorists with this bad-boy out on the streets. Scary, huh?