Giving Away The Internets

Such a strange new world we find ourselves in. Something that was once a sought after commodity is now cheap currency on the world market. It used to be that the thing itself was worth something, but now everyone is just giving it away.

When did we start giving away the Internet? Who decided that we couldn't charge for this anymore? Why is everyone convinced that free Internet is what we need more of in this world? Not that I'm complaining. Well, maybe I am.

Do you remember the sound of dial-up? That sweet minute or so of anticipation while you waited with bated breath for the connection protocols to finish their handshake?

"Hello, sir"
"Good morning!"
"I'm looking for 33.6k"
"Sorry best I can do is 3200 baud"
"Ah.. are you sure? I can try back later?"
"No, no... that's the best we can do."
"Alright. Shake on it?"
"Agreed. Welcome to the Internet"

And then you were on the Internet and all else was near utopia. Chatting with people halfway around the world, electronic mail and text based gaming. Could the world possibly get any better? For me this experience cost me plenty. @ 16 I bought an AST computer for $2,100 from Circuit City.  I paid for my own phone line in my bedroom and paid monthly for my Prodigy service. And it was worth every red cent it cost me.

Now here we are in 2012 just giving it away.

Yesterday I spent most of the day setting up free WiFi in our buildings. Free. No strings attached. You connect, you get on and then browse the web for nothing. No $2100 computer, no phone line no prodigy service.

What do they think people in my office are going to use this for? Edification? Looking up facts for clients? Searches for how to replace commas in Excel spreadsheets with a return carriage? No. They can already do that on our corporate Internet connection. They will use free Internet browsing for all those things we are blocking on our corporate LAN. A direct stream to all the stuff I spend months of time try to protect the network from.

Who needs anti-virus, anti-spam, web filtering and IPS level protection when folks can now connect their corporate computers to the free Internet and get all that unhindered via the free Wi-fi?

Because people need the Internet, for checking Facebook, Googling pictures of Abraham Lincoln and reading stupid blogs...

Wireless Installation

Working in a small IT shop affords many benefits. One of the best is being able to perform so many different jobs. Today I found myself installing new wireless access points in one of our buildings.
These are little square devices that connect to the metal frameworks that support false ceilings. It allowed me to learn a couple of things.

1. Ceiling tiles are evil
2. People love to watch other people work

I have enough ceiling tile dust in my eyes, hair, ears and collected in my shoes and open pockets to tile the ceiling of a new building. I also have a pretty fare idea that I don't like the way ceiling tile dust tastes. Who needs fiber cereal when you could ingest ceiling tile dust.

"CST- The REGULATOR!"

Plus the little buggers take a downright maniacal pleasure in not functioning as designed. You can pop one out but have you ever tried to get one to re-seat properly in the framework? Impossible. Not going to happen. You need pop out an adjacent tile in order to wrap your finger around to push down the first one. Now of course you have a different tile up. Give it a wiggle. Nothing. A tap. Nada. Then you pry it, push it, squeeze it, grab it, force it, jam it and curse it. All the while teetering back and forth on your ladder trying to get some leverage on this horrible little beast!

So you end up having to pop up some 20 odd tiles moving the wedged up corner from tile to tile hoping that the next one will be slightly loose and just fall back down in place. As it was, of course, designed to do.

Luckily though, you're not alone. No sir, you've got an audience. A whole building of workers who never say hello, but will watch you out of the corner of their eye. If you turn around to look their heads whip back and they pretend that they didn't notice you.

"What? A 230lb tech wrestling ceiling tiles for the last 20 minutes? In this building?!"

Not that I really want to chat with anyone when I'm busying playing Whack-A-Mole with the tiles.

"Whatcha you doing?"
"Installing stuff"
"What kinda stuff"
"Cisco 1400 Wireless Access Points."
"For what?"
"Wireless. It's even in the name..."
"Why do you have to plug them in if they're wireless?"
"..."

So, I was on my last one of the day with very few interruptions. I'd gotten through almost all of my ceiling tile madness when someone rounds the corner and looks up at me.

"Whatcha you doing?"
Sigh... Here we go.

And then out of nowhere it came to me and I spurted this off without missing a beat:

 "As part of the new green initiative we're installing these new collectors. They absorb negative thoughts from the employees and we turn that into energy to power the servers."

He looked at me, looked up at the wireless controller and said, "Wow. What will they think of next." And then he walked away.

Unbelievable. Or, apparently not.

Trackballs and the Promise of the Future

Trackballs look like the future. They are sleek, odd and different. They do exactly what mice do, but do it while looking awesome. Trackballs are a vision of tomorrow. Except...

...they don't quite live up to that hope. They don't work any better than mice, in fact in some ways they are less useful. They tend to gum up pretty easily, and require frequent cleaning. In addition to that, they're kinda gross. Rolling your hand over nasty germs, dirt and all those dead cells from other people who might have rolled your trackball.

But...the ball is really fun to play with. Sometime you want to take it out and just roll it in your hand. You sit there playing with it and rolling it around and start to think to yourself, "I wonder if I do that thing that the Goblin King did in Labyrinth, and roll it up and over my fingers?" You then think about David Bowie in really tight leather pants. After you force breakfast back down your throat, you grab tightly to your trackball ball and give it a try. Surprise, surprise...

...it drops. With a loud THUD and rolls across the ground and under a metal filing cabinet and there you are. Metal filing cabinets are NOT anything like the future. They are the past.

They hold the relics of a part remembered memory. Those sections of your your mind that you printed out in hope of preserving knowledge. Knowledge that got edged out of your brain in desire to retain more useful information. Information like the all the dialogue in Star Wars: A New Hope, and every IP addresses of DNS servers from companies that have long since been dismantled. (216.174.194.53) There is nothing new to be learned from a filing cabinet except what you might have already forgotten.

So you find yourself down on all fours; face to the ground, on your dirty office floor peering under a filthy filing cabinet searching for your future. How is this anything like the promise you were offered not mere moments ago? See the overly simplified analogy? The future is like a trackball, and if you're not careful you'll find yourself stuck in the past wondering what happened to your hope.

How People See Me: PC Gamer

A little mindless humor...

Let me know what you think, or do one for yourself! Here's a blank template for you. It's pretty fun.

Hammer Time

You will not find this procedure in the manual for the $10,000 Quantum Superloader that up until recently resided in one of the racks of our server room. That doesn't mean it is not an effective means of extraction when the bolt has been stripped and your hand will not fit into the space to grip it. Plus hammers bring with them their own credence and understanding.

A hammer rarely says, "I'm here to negotiate a truce." Even technology can understand that sort of persuasion.

The Quantum Superloader, put up very little fight...

iMac? Say It's Not So!

So I just got a new work laptop. My old laptop was purchased in 2004 and routed to me in June of 2005. It has been a faithful companion with a simple and stable Windows XP OS. I have kept it clean of temporary files, viruses and any bloat-ware.

In return it has dutifully connected to any and all network devices I have thrown it's way. Email, routers, Interwebing or whatever I needed. But the said truth is, as more and more software cram down more and more updates, the poor little fellow is lagging behind. Lets face it 1.66 Ghz isn't what it use to be. So I was delighted to hear that after 6 years I would be getting an upgrade. Oh that new upgrade smell...



At this point all of you regular readers just had your eyeballs pop out of your sockets! Sorry bout that.

We'll wait a moment for you to begin stuffing them back and begin the proper application of lubrication. Okay. Let's have another look. See, all is right in the world, it's a Dell.

The fact of the matter is I cannot stand Windows 7. No... I HaTE iT! Hate isn't even strong enough. What's worse than hate? Despise? I would go so far to say despise or even "if it were possible to order a fatwā against an operating system I would have no regrets in putting forth that measure and following through on it."

Yeah, so lots and lots. It's a very annoying, overly needy and just generally a piss poor attempt at an OS. It is intrusive, overbearing and stubborn. Like having a clone of me inside my computer. Only this prick doesn't agree with one thing I have to say.

I say, "Please stop asking me every two seconds if I want to allow an application to open when you know that I just clicked on 'Open'."

Windows 7 says, "Are you sure? This might decrease security!"

I say, "Please don't group all my open windows in the taskbar so I can't actually see what is running."

Windows 7 says, "Sorry that's a new feature that cannot be disabled."

To which I responded, "AHHHHH!!!!"

Then I started foaming and the mouth and bashing my head on my desk. When I awoke, hours later, I felt much calmer and I made up my mind (what little of it I had left) that if I in fact disliked this new Windows SO MUCH, would I rather have an OS X desktop overlay on my Windows 7 computer so that I wasn't required to interact with the vile substance that is Windows 7? Maybe, that would be better for my sanity, my skull and my office furniture.

I figure if it's going to try and be as annoying as a Mac at least it should have the simple GUI of a Mac. I mean, why be annoying, ugly and complicated? At least it can be pretty and simple. Heck 2 out of 3 isn't so bad. So my new Mac disguise is actually pretty cool. It's like having all the convenience of OS X with none of the cost or shame of actually having to own an Apple product. For me? A total win win!

Holding for Abuse

I'm stilling in the Symantec Enterprise Support phone que. I've been on the phone for 26:34 at this point indicated by my phones digital readout. In between the mind numbing 50's music remixes (Bobby Vinton is belting out a painful verse of Blue Velet right now) and monotone announcements a perky voice pops on every 3 minutes and informs me:

"The customer waiting longest has been on the line for less than a minute."

This is in Symantec Time. Programed by the same people who make the progress bars. The same tech that will shortly pop on the line and say. "We can fix that in about 20 minutes or so."

This acually means that you are about to endure a three day agony of "top tier tech support" where they will mangle your data, destroy your settings and eventually conclude that a full reinstall will completely solve your issue.

"I just called to fix an issue with a pull down menu."
"Yeah and if we had known about that corrupted database this would have been much faster"
"You corrupted the database by canceling the integrity checker halfway through"
"Well it said it was going to be completed in less than a minute..."

Going Back To Geek Bootcamp

Video games. It's my real only purpose for a home PC. Sure I like email and the web, but they do not afford the real computing meat that comes from gaming, the entrée or substantial repast, if you will. Don't misunderstand, I do enjoy the occasional You-Tube side dish, but what is rice without a savory curry of RPG, FPS or RTS? Hollow. Wanting. Mac like, if you will.

Anyway. So I have an older PC that I've tried to keep current over the years. Maxed out the RAM in 2008. Bought a cutting edge GPU in 2009, upgraded to 1Tb 2010... blah blah. You know, $100 here and there over 3 years is pretty painless. Over all it has allowed me to keep up with my gaming habit with little issue. Save one little issue. My CPU. It is a sad and pitiful 2.4 Ghz Pentium 4 with almost no L2 cache. I'm ashamed to admit it, but there it is. I feel like a computing failure.

Knowing that I still didn't have a lot of coin, I thought I would just upgrade a notch to a simple dual core processor. This one specifically. I figure for $150 I could stave off the upgrade fairy for another year and still get enough power to play some newer games. Oh gentle reader, I must admit to you that I have been a long time removed from my hands in computer cases. I haven't build a computer from scratch since 2001 and had no notion of ever undertaking the endeavor again. So, it never occurred to me that my Dell mainboard with a Socket 775 wouldn't run this processor.

The resulting bios beeps where deafening. Especially since there is no return policy on processors. Ah yes, a familiar path. If you recall my GPU upgrade a couple years ago. So here I am with thermal paste on my fingers wondering what to do next?

I did what I always do. Take a bad situation and juggle it with massive amounts of poorly thought out decisions mix that with potential disaster! It's my MO!

So I shelled out for a brand new outdated mainboard and cheap unfiled computer case! I spent $89, which brought my total up to $240 something and left an astounding $6.34 in my paypal account. How stupid can one man be? It was that or have a $149 processor paperweight.

Anyway. So last night saw me trying to recall over a decade of lost skills. I felt like I was back in geek bootcamp, "Drop down and find that jumper switch pasty!!" I forgot how tedious computer builds really were. Still I did alright. Started at 7:00 and finished getting all the new drivers installed by 10:30 or so.

BTW if you upgrade your motherboard, Windows XP needs to be reactivated. It will not let you install your NIC driver first, so you must punch in two hundred thousand digits on the telephone to an electronic operator. If you weren't aggravated before you got to this point, you soon will be.

I can't complain too much. I do have a working system that is clocking about 3.4Ghz on Core 2 Duo. It is certainly a step up from where I was. And tonight? Well I think it might be time for a little DragonAge...

The 36" Monitor

So.... I might have acted a little rash. Maybe my geekiness got the better of me. Maybe my lack of sleep affected me. My wife believes I've lost my mind. Who knows she might be right, but I would never admit it to her.

Here's how it went down. I was surfing Craigslist when a posting for a free 36" monitor popped up. I calmly took a deep breath and then mashed out a very well thought out e-mail.

"WHOA BABY!!! I WANT IT!! I can come and get it tonight!!!!"

The seller responded, "Okay. Here's my address. That's a 3 hour round trip for you."

"Leaving NOW!" Clearly something had taken hold of my better judgment and shook the living daylights out of me.

After my hour and twenty minute drive I arrived. As soon as I saw the beast, I knew I had made a gigantic mistake. What to do? My brain and I discussed it.

"Take it, before he says no!!"
"It's absurd. I don't have space for this..."
"36" inches! DUDE TAKE IT! Can you imagine playing video games on this?"
"Can you imagine my legs breaking after the desktop gives way?"
"You have a fine desk and it will have no trouble supporting this trifle of a weight."
"This trifle is almost 225lbs!"
"I believe it is worth the risk!"

So against my better judgment I began down the path to herniated disks and hoisted it into my pickup. I couldn't even see out the rear view mirror.

Hooked up the laptop and made sure it worked!


Then the wife and I muscled it on to my desk and waited for sounds of breaking wood. After a few hours, we figured it was okay and decided to test it out. I couldn't help but smile. This was just too cool! Made my keyboard look like a PDA attachment!

Downside? Well, it's not so great for reading e-mail as the highest resolution is 800x600, but for gaming...this is amazing! The wife fired up some of her games and we played for a while. Hidden puzzle games are a joke on a 36" screen.

"We're looking for angels on the head of a p-"
"Got it. Next?"


Then I brought out the serious guns. Elder Scrolls IV.


After a 6 hour gaming coma I pronounced it good. When characters heads can be life size you know you're at total immersion. Oh and attacking monster literally had me jumping out of my chair!

Intimidating Servers

When I first got into computers I was 14 or so. The man who helped us get it all plugged in said something interesting to me.

"After doing this for as many years as I have" David Smith mused, "I've come to the conclusion that all computers have personalities."

As he was 40 and I was 14 I did what all folks my age do. I dismissed the old man of being senile, and set about using my computer to play BASIC games and make me gobs of money.

Now, as a 33 year old computer administrator with no more BAISC games that interest me and slightly shy of my gobs of money, I find myself agreeing with David and wishing I had paid his advice more heed at the time.

Computers have personalities... It's true. Ignoring these personalities will only make your job harder as a computer administrator.

Windows Vista PC's are like IT managers. They think they know better than you, even when they don't.

"Access restricted: See your network administrator"
"I just want to open my E-mail..."
"Sorry, when we devised the acceptable use policy it was decided that e-mail wasn't a critical application."

Mac's are like Beverly Hills residents busy overpaying for peripherals and software upgrades.

"Have you tried the new Leopard darling?! It's wonderful and finally utilizes all my BEST features!"
"Sounds good. How much is it?"
"Four times the going rate! It's a must have this season."

But servers are the worst. There is something inherent that comes with knowing you are relied upon to maintain a business network that makes them self important. This responsibly breeds a sort of arrogance that can only be described as "The Office IT Guy". That's right our beloved servers have taken a que from our own cynicism and general distaste for the users. They are a dark reflection of us, their geeky keepers. For months they'll be chugging along working tirelessly and then one day, for no good reason, all work stops.

"Why did you stop serving files?"
"I'm busy, torrenting some Dr. Who episodes"
"What?! You can't do that, you've got spreadsheets to host!"
"It's on my list. I'll check into it, probably just a loose wire in the server room..."

Solution? I go Jack Bauer on them. It's the only thing I can think of. I'll bring an innocent server down and start taking out parts. I do this on the floor of the server room so all the other boxes can see.

"What's he doing to XEON?"
"He was working fine!"
"SWEET MERCY! Is that his HBA!"
"That's not hot swappable you MANIAC! What's wrong with you!"
"There's no way he'll get him running again, you're not even grounded!
"YOU FREAKING SICKO!"

Just for good measure I'll leave parts scattered on tables with the server chassis opened up and cables hanging loose like some horrific technical autopsy. I find, for me, the process has been quite effective. Sometimes though, on particularly suborn machines even more pressure is required to bring them back into obedient servitude.

"I'm Windows 2008 R2. You can't possibly know what rouge services I might be running by perusing the task manager. I could be doing ANYTHING I want with my 16 cores..."

In these times I bring in the consultant. Not because the man knows more than me. No actually quite the opposite. The last time we had a hardware consultant in to swap out a RAID controller card he grounded out the mother board. Then to make matters worse, during the mother board replacement he ended up wiping all the data from both RAID sets. This man is a full fledged mobster in the eyes of my servers.

"No not Wes. Look look, Net Logon is up again. IT'S UP AGAIN!!! Please tell him to put his tools away"

Sure it might not be considered best practice but for ultimate reliability and five nines or better? Intimidating servers is the way to go.

Software Coders Needed

I hate coding. Seriously I'm the last person you want staring at code all day. I'm dyslexic and my brain is completely disorganized. I have never been capable of thinking in a straight line. I work in circles rarely completing a full thought, and leaving sentences hanging in most of my conversations. I have never successfully followed all the directions in any manual or instruction booklet, nor do I wish to. Personally I believe that is what makes me a good troubleshooter. I work more on instinct and jump quickly from thought to thought. My boss rarely asks anyone to work with me on projects in an effort to maintain the sanity of my co-workers.

These qualities might lead me to fix a hardware or network error in record time, but they are near useless for any one looking for good linear process. As I have been painfully reminded today, code requires straight line logic. I got none.

Even with this shortcoming I am on occasion relegated to the task of mashing code. Mostly because there is no one else around to do it. Code mashing is the only appropriate term for what I do. Actually pulverizing isn't bad either. Email I sent to my boss two weeks ago after a similar assigment.

subject : I now code in VBS

Boss;
4.5 hours for 2 lines of code.
Do I get a pay raise or do I get fired?

-Peter

Given that benchmark, and the fact that I'm still gainfully employed, I figure I have a decent chance of improving on todays task. I set out to accomplish a simple task. Or rather what I presumed to be a simple task. Find out how many client computers on my network where missing anti-virus software. We have a nice shiny and expensive Altiris Management Server. You would expect there to be big button like:

"Tell me if everyone has anti-virus software installed on their PC so some dingle butt in accounting doesn't bring the network down while searching for chili recipes on the Internet"

Look as I might there was nothing like that. Only the ominous, "insert your raw SQL query here" field. Raw SQL? Sounds like a dermatologist nightmare.

Well it only took 3 hours, 12 Google searches and 7 or so typo's for me to finally get the query working. I sent out another email.

subject :Software Filter in Altiris

All;

Anyone needing a software filer added to Altiris should ask me within the 15 minutes. After that time the process will be removed from my brain as an act of self preservation.

-Peter

It's been 2 hours. It's gone now and I can think straight, er not so straight, again.

Edgar the Friendly Computer

Some things are just scary. Public speaking, bungee jumping and spending a weekend alone with a four year old. Other things are just vile. Things like poopy diapers and pickled herring. Personally I can't tell the difference between the two.

For some the list of things they are scared of is rather short. On that list would be, flinging ones self off a roof top with only a pull-cord to save your skin. For me it would include holding a bull frog. The fact is though, everyone is scared of something. The obvious fears aside, there are also people out there with a fear of our friend. The beloved computer.

For whatever reason technology scares some people. A man will go to the store, buy the most expensive computer he can afford and then not use it for fear of breaking it. When I used to do tech support, I would tell people, "There's nothing you can do to hurt this machine save throwing it out the window. Everything is fixable." Obviously I lied to them. In part because my customers were complete dingle heads and could break a cotton ball but mostly I lied in order to relax them.

When you are relaxed, you tend to trust your instincts more and are less likely to make mistakes. When you're relaxed you can recall what you've done and remember the step required to finish something. So how do you make people relax around technology?

I think it's all in the name. A computer named HAL evokes fear, anxiety and mistrust. Who wants to trust your taxes or bank accounts to a computer named after a maleficent electronic entity?

"Tell me what my bank balance is HAL?"
"I can't do that Peter."

But change the name to Edgar and it's not so scary. It sounds downright friendly. Who would be afraid of a computer named Edgar?

"Check the home security system Edgar"
"I've unlocked all the doors and sent ransom notes to the local constabulary."
"Edgar, you old card!"

See no fear at all. Sure you'll be a bit peeved when you're picking slugs out of your abdomen. But later after the clotting kicks in and the pain pills have begun their work, you'll smile, knowing Edgar was just 'having a good time' at your expense.

You'll even have a better time taking it apart piece by piece and mangling the boards in the blender.

"Next time I'm getting a computer named Raymond."

Mac Bash

As many of you are aware, I'm a computer guy. As such I'm anti Mac. To be honest the Apple computers themselves are fine machines. It's the people that ruin them. It's hard to be a computer guy and hate a computer, I mean...

...is it the OS's fault that the users don't know what files are in their /etc directory?

..is it the processors fault that no one needs a quad core to sync an iPhone?

..is it the logo's fault that people will pay four times more for a computer than it's worth only to browse the web?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, then there can be no doubt. You're an Apple user. As I've said before I don't have an issue with the computer. Additionally I have Mac friends. I'm not trying to upset anyone, I just will never understand the reasoning. Most Apple users are also so smug.

"Why pay that much for a computer?"
"Because it's worth that much."


"My Mac is user friendly"
"There's only one button. How could it not be?"



"My Macbook is incredibly thin"
"Found a good use for that considering the extra grand you blew on it?"



"I have a Mac because it's better at graphics"
"How much graphics do you do on your Mac?"
"..."
"Exactly. My computer can surf the web too."

OR

"My Mac is a neat clean, all in one box"
"Like a TV with built in DVD. What happens when the DVD breaks?"


"I can run Windows on my Mac"
"So can I, and I paid 1/6 the price to do it"
"But you can't run Mac OS"
"Sure I can, it's called FreeBSD. It's free, you wouldn't understand"



I think it was the iPad that put me over the edge. I mean, this should have been a bomb. It should have gone the way of Apple TV. It should be a boat anchor product for Apple. Jobs should be sinking in an ocean of his own absurdity over the iPad. There is no GOOD reason to buy one. It offers nothing that the iPhone and laptop didn't already do better. And YET.... and YET people are clamouring to purchase them. Why? Because it's Apple. That's it. Honestly?

Your wish has be granted!


I love a good side by side!


iPad - Beta release...


iMaxi carrying case.


Welcoming all points of view... Even from the Apple fanboys! :)

Your Inner Geek

I sit here a bit tan from my trip. I'm not golden brown or anything, but I would say I definitely have color on my face and arms. Eight days in Southern California can do that for you. Most people would be fine with that. Geeks, as you are no doubt aware, are not like most people.

The issue is this, I like looking geeky. Not gross, just a bit geeky. I shower, wear clean clothes, and always do my hair, but there is something off about me. I'm normal pretty pale, have crazy hair and have loads of 'geek wear' shirts. It's a culture thing. Geek culture is a thing that I've embraced for a over a decade. Growing up in the 90's, unlike the 70's, geeks are an accepted culture class. We aren't the broken spectacles and pocket protector crowd, we're the cynical computer fixers and troubleshooters. Funny t-shirts, anti-social to outsiders and a fear of eye contact.

So now that the sun has betrayed me and my avatar is no longer relevant, I need to find my inner geek. So what makes someone truly a geek, not just in appearance but in substance.

Love of Technology

Without this you're just in it for the pay check. Money is good, but getting paid to be around what you love is even better!

Belief In Absolutes

If you don't have an opinion, you're not ready to wear the badge, "geek". I've witnessed thousands of geek stand-offs on everything from how to configure a router "properly" to which unix editor is the "right" one.

Caffeine

You can't maintain an Internet stand-off, if you're sleeping. Get up, get caffeinated, be right!

Humor

Humorless geeks are called 'dorks'. If you don't get the humor it's time turn in your wireless tablet and get on the managment fast track.

Semi-Social

Geeks are social, very much so. Just not so much outside our circles. I'll launch into a conversation with anyone about RPG's, network topology or technology. If you ask me about my favorite movie star, reality show or sports car, you will get feet shuffling and sidewards glances. I'm not anti-social, I just have nothing to say to you.

Cynicism

All interactions must first be viewed through the prism of cynicism. Yes it will always work, but it's always harder than you think it will be. Be safe, be cynical.


What Am I Missing?

Risen

My latest diversion...


Stranded on an island by a torrential storm, you're an outsider in a world ripped apart by powers not of this world. Yeah, the typical RPG setup. Lone stranger here to save the world, nothing new there. Whatever the recipe it's still fun to play a new game. It's been a while and this one is a fun distraction. I know it's good when I dream about it.

"Sleep well?"

"Gnomes stole my bastard sword."

"If I had been given a million years, I would have never guessed those would be your first words to me this morning."

"In 11.5 hours I can play my game again"

"Looks like another full blown addiction..."

In the game you can either join up with the likes of the criminal underworld of the Don, or choose to throw in with the tyrannical leadership of the Inquisition. Not much of a choice for someone who always plays Lawful Good in RPG's

I'm currently on a path that is supportive of the tyrants. The game has a fairly hazy morality to it and it's hard to know which way to go. I figure I'll side with the law for now. We'll see about how my allegiances hold throughout the game. Either way, if you like killing boars, collecting priceless artefacts, forging swords, mining iron ore and abusing your absurd amounts of power then Risen is worth the money.

Here's the trailer, enjoy.

Artificial Intelligence

To me the stumbling of artificial intelligence is as simple as syntax. It's a question of understanding. If you don't know what I mean, how can we communicate? I will always be a septic of computer intelligence, until this question of syntax is address.

When it comes to computer input, syntax is everything. If the statement isn't exactly what the blasted machine machine needs to hear, there's no way in the the world you're going to get your task completed. Somedays I feel like I just don't have the patience for it.

An easy to grasp example for the non-geeks:

Me: copy file from a to b

**Error, 'file' not known***

Me: copy file.txt from here to there

***Error 'file.txt' not known***

Me: copy c:\data\file.txt from here to there

***Error 'here' not known***

Me: CopY c:\data\file.txt FROm 'This LONELY place were we currently exist BECAUSE YOU WON'T COPY THE STUPID BLASTED DATA FILE' to there

***Error 'exist' not known***

Me: NO DOUBT!


So... do do you understand? If not please leave me a man file for your required syntax. I'd love to interact with you properly...

Me: (loading gun)

The Mourning of Sendmail

Sendmail is a simple functional Unix based mail server. It requires a small amount of knowledge to install and get running but once up; it runs forever. At my office we had a 5 year old server running on a 1.1 Ghz processor with 256 MB of RAM. On that box was a free distro of the Fedora project and a installation of sendmail. For 5 year it just worked. One time in 5 years it stopped working. It stopped working because some clown in the office moved our domain name to a new ISP and brought down the mail server. Other than that Sendmail did it's job. Sending mail. In fact in 5 years I would be surprised if it was rebooted more that 10 times.

Recently the powers that be axed my box. Why? Because they don't understand servers without pictures. No mouse on the screen, no wizards or pretty icons that move. No trash can, widgets or start button?

"Are you sure this is a server?"
"Of course it's a server!"
"Is this the screen saver?"
"What?! No it's called a command prompt."

Welcome in the new era. A shiny bright clean Windows cluster. Two giant silver hulking Hercules. Both running Windows 2008 Server 64 bit with a Siamese brain that is the Windows clustering service. Each server sporting a dual quad core and 16 GB of RAM. You know what they do differently than my Sendmail box? Nothing. Send mail. That's it. Nothing new here. Only now we've got to install Symantec Backupexec in case the Exchange edge server configuration crashed. (My old backup? A single sendmail configuration file ftped weekly via a cron job.) Install anti-virus software as these little beauties are ripe for attack! (My old Anti-Virus? Non-existent) No sir. Pretty pictures, poor security and severely bloated power houses.

So now what? I put the last of my Linux production boxes out to pasture.

"What's going on?!"
"Sorry, no one is looking for a free stable OS and simple functional software that doesn't cost them a dime to install."
"Are you kidding?"
"Afraid not. You've been replaced with an Exchange edge cluster."
"Whoa! You're serious."
"Absolutely"
"Well, if I was you I wouldn't wipe my drives you might need me when they crash"
"I've already cloned you friend..."

Just in case!