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Email Brian Bilbrey

Orb Grafitti is sometimes a conversation, sometimes a soapbox. I use Linux most often, and I write about that and related software frequently. I also have a day job working as a dogsbody for a small manufacturing firm here in the SF Bay Area. Tom Syroid and I have co-authored a Linux Book. It was cancelled by $LARGE_PUBLISHER, so we're posting it online, here and here. Have a looksee! I'm glad you've come to visit, and always happy to hear from you.

EMAIL - I publish email sometimes. If you send me an email and you want privacy or anonymity, please say so, I'll pay attention to your wishes.

Good Morning. Happy Monday ... heh. Sad joke, I know, but I had to try. Those of you who have perused my resume may recall that I spent a significant amount of time in the 1980's working for a firm called Nellcor. I was employee 29, and in the first three years I was there, we grew from a VC-money-losing startup to a profitable, publicly traded company with income headed towards 250 million dollars a year. Nice position to be in.

It's the kind of firm (because of the people) and the kind of business (medical electronics - actively saving lives) that makes for a loyal workforce and a strong bond. There are several people who were already there when I started in 1983, or shortly thereafter, who remain working there today. Two of these people, Pat Yazolino and John Walsh, are retiring from the firm after all these many moons. Fun, good friends whom I haven't seen in FAR too long, so I am going to brave the traffic to head out to Nellcor this afternoon and help see them off.

Nellcor did very well indeed, and was a shark in the water for quite a while, locking up about 75 percent of their primary market, and making enough money to be a player in the field, buying up Puritan-Bennett (a respiratory gear house of some repute) and doing quite well before being swallowed by the firm Mallinckrodt. You can still see some of the products that I worked on, here. Well, no you can't, actually. It appears they've all been phased out, although the N-100 and N-200 Oximeters are still in hospitals all over. The sensors that I worked on and helped design (or actually designed myself, in the case of the neonatal sensor) ARE still on the job, seen here.

Woo hoo. Anyway, it'll be really, really nice to head out to see everyone. I am looking forward to this afternoon a lot.

In other news, the propogation of DNS data appears to be progressing apace. All of my email's appearing on the new box now, including that list traffic that keeps me so busy. If you can resolve the web page http://www.orbdesigns.com/benden.html (which is simply a copy of my index page, renamed and ONLY on the new site, then you're looking at Orb's new home online (thanks, Greg). If you get bounced email, or see any other problems, send me email at work - Please don't use the speakeasy address for anything, and remove it from your address books, as that account will be going away when they shut off the DSL here. It may be back one day, but it depends how well pleased I am with AT&T @Home, and how much I end up hating not having my server next to me.

Now it's time to water the plants and head out the door. Take care, have a lovely day - see you later!

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And later it is... Good Morning! I had a bloody marvelous time yesterday. Saw faces that I couldn't put with the proper names after a 12 year hiatus, but lots and oodles and scads of old friends - about the best bunch of people on the face of the planet. We were gathered to pay a gently mocking tribute to John Walsh and Pat Yazolino, and they were suitably embarrassed, and pleased too, I think. We had come together with purpose, and made a difference. By our third full year of production, when Oximetry became a Standard of Care, it was estimated that several thousand lives were saved each year, due to the products we built. And the people we honored yesterday, Pat and John, have continuously been the heart and the conscience of the organization for all this time... What a joy!

In the course of reading the Mailman-Users list mail, I ran across an email which directed me to a web page as an example of archived html mail with attached images. I am seriously a non-fan of list mail with attachments, but I can see the use in a corporate environment. So I followed the link, and...

Sent: Monday, July 30, 2001 4:48 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: I immediately thought of you

dunno why

http://www.kanga.nu/archives/Noted-L/2001Q3/msg00031.php

read the message, scroll down to the picture.

RE: I immediately thought of you
From: "Robert Bruce Thompson"
Date: Tue, 31 Jul 2001 08:18:47 -0400

Heh. Thanks. I've posted the URL on my journal this morning.

--
Robert Bruce Thompson
mailto:[email protected]
http://www.ttgnet.com/rbt/thisweek.html

My other wonderful friends in the Infernal Revenoo Disservice have managed to do something I don't dislike as much as normal... We got our teeny-tiny rebate check, but $600 is still way better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick, especially with this move in progress. So this afternoon I have to pitch this into the bank, then head over to the estate agent's office for a meet to hand over first and last month's rent, pick up the garage remotes, house keys and I dunno what all else. The gig keeps going.

Now to head into work. Have a lovely day, see you around.

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Good morning, and welcome to Picture Fest. I have a few snaps from over the last week or so to share with you, so let's jump into action...

First, some special final pictures from our trip... As you can see from the picture at the left above, when Tom says something about the kids having taken over the bed, so he and Leah didn't get much sleep, well, now you know HOW the kids take over the bed - that is, entirely. In the middle, we have Landon headed across the kitchen on a major mission of some kind, I think his firetruck is just out of the shot to the left. Last in line above, we have a couple of new items that come to us from the lovely Nina, these are presents for the Once and Future George (George is going to be the name granted to the first dog to grace our household, sometime later this fall). Nina decided that George needed his housewarming gifts now, even though we haven't moved, and probably won't get a George until October-ish.

Next, we have the moving house blues. We've already boxed the entire living room. It's packed and stacked next to the empty shelves, waiting for moving day. I use that "we" in a very liberal sense, Marcia did most of the work on this bit, since I was heavily concentrating my efforts towards the server migration, which also seems to have (so far, crossed fingers) gone off without a hitch. At the right we have three snaps providing a panorama of the mess that needs to move to a new space. I think I have a little more room in the new place. Marcia gets the bigger space, but she shares that, as it is also going to be our spare bedroom for guests.

Finally, we'll close this edition of Pix-O-Rama with five snaps of the famed Patio Garden. Three shots to the left with varying light, two of the still radically over-achieving tomato plants, and one of the herbs in their hanging planters behind the Spider plants. (The Spiders are up for repotting after the move is done). At right, we have some closer-in pictures of the tomatoes doing their thing. They are SO yummy, to boot.

Yesterday, late afternoon, I dropped off two checks for first and last month's rent on the new digs. In return, I got some bits of metal, and some small plastic electronic devices (aka keys and garage door openers). On my way home, I dropped in to the house, which is a good thing. We're already getting mail there, as Marcia has been very proactive in getting our new info out to all the people who collect money from us on a periodic basis.

Today, the first of our services go live - the fax line is transferring to the new place, and I having the AT&T @Home cable internet people out to install in the afternoon. So I've got the laptop and the linksys ready for portable setup over there, to test connectivity right away. The basic rule is get it working before I let the guy leave. Sound good to you? Me, too, thanks! I'll let you know how it goes from there.

I am sad to hear the news that Poul Anderson is continuing his journey without us. Here's the letter I sent to the Anderson's at Jerry's gentle prompting...

Dear Poul,

Brian here, writing at Astrid's suggestion, which Jerry kindly passed on to his readership. I wish to convey to you my heartfelt respect at the learning and joy that you've brought me through all of your works over the years. I've been reading you since shortly after I found real science fiction (as opposed to the comics) - I was perhaps 7 or 8, growing up in Orinda, California.

Some books have come and gone from my collection over the years. Every once in a while, I find that books are stacked on books are stacked on every flat surface, and it behooves me to make a donation of several hundred science fiction novels to the nearest public library each time, before my lovely Marcia decides to remove them all (eeek).

There are books I can't part with, by you and Jerry, Bob, Isaac, Arthur, Larry, David Brin, your talented son-in-law Greg, and a few others. So I winnow it down to the barest 200 or so that I CAN'T LIVE WITHOUT, and start accumulating again. Time and again, I turn to Tau Zero, to Harvest of Stars and to Nick van Rijn to while away a few hours with my friends and my imagination. And of course, every so often I get out my well-worn third or fourth copy (I forget which) of Silverlock, which I am aware is a joy to you and Karen as well.

You have helped define who I am, and where my interests and heart are centered. I wish for you in your lives and your loves all the best, always, on the roads you are to travel. I shall celebrate the time and bits of yourself that you shared with me, each time I sit down with one of your tales.

With my deepest regard and respect, I bid you good journey, and my love and prayers to those close to you in a time that is doubtless difficult.

From my heart, thank you.

Brian Philip Bilbrey
Sunnyvale, California

Sigh. Take care of yourselves and each other - catch you on the flip side.

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Poul William Anderson
November 25, 1926 - August 01, 2001

Poul made good use of that third drink at the Hippocrene.

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Good morning and TGIF. Thanks for bearing with me through that moment of silence for Poul Anderson - I had said what I wanted to say in the letter, posted on Wednesday, and I didn't have anthing left to add (though I could have rambled on for quite a while, needless to say).

We've made more progress on the move. I've packed about three quarters of my office. I sure hope I don't need one of my ORA books, or any of my Linux CD's for the next week and a half. This weekend is wiring weekend. As I may have mentioned previously, while there are three distinct drops from the pole down to the house for phone service (yummy, an extra if I decide to go with SDSL later down the road), there's only ONE outlet inside the house - a wall mount inside the kitchen.

My original plan was to bring the phone lines to a 12 port patch panel in my office, and then home run everything - do it right. Problem is that I just don't have the right location to do this in, and I would end up needing 24 ports because 12 just won't cut it with three phone lines in, 10 drops and not counting data (which I want to put everywhere, now).

So instead what I am going to do is use some Cat3 Solid, and do a stock daisy chain install for the phones, with a terminus in the same wall mount jack that already exists in the kitchen. At each interim drop, I'll simply punch down onto an RJ12 keystone jack, and let the wire continue.

Then for data, I'll put in a quad plate in the location behind my desk, and put out 4 home runs of Cat5E wire, one to each bedroom and one to the living room. These will terminate in the same wall plates as the phone outlets, so I'll use triple outlet keystone wall plates in these locations. Then I'll just keep things straight by ordering the jacks top to bottom: Phone One, Phone Two, Data. Voila. So that's my weekend project.

A brief Syroid update - I heard from Tom yesterday. He's in Indianapolis, enjoying 95° temperatures and 98% humidity. Really. <grin> However, he says the meetings with the people at StudioB are fine. Great synergy and feedback apparently. You'll have to wait for him to get back to Saskatoon, resolve the connectivity problems on his line (the Linksys router is the major suspect) and start posting again to get the real story. Bottom line, Tom's fine, thanks for asking (and several have).

Final note, on the topic of Fun with SirCam, this is from the SVLUG mailing list, which is publically archived. However, I'll replicate it here in all its glory for your enjoyment...

[svlug] Fun with SirCam
From: Rick Moen >[email protected]>
To: [email protected]

If you're typical of this list, you've been getting an amusing barrage of SirCam-infected file attachments for the past week. I've gotten dozens of them. Each attachment purports to be some sort of MS-Word document, Excel spreadsheet file, or such, which were in fact lifted from the poor sucker's hard drive and bodily included -- prefaced by (it turns out) 137215 bytes of Win32 binary worm code, created in Borland Delphi.

But, even though gobs of potentially juicy private documents are getting spewed across the Internet by MS-Windows users -- including reportedly some from sundry governments -- most of us have been simply discarding them as spam-equivalents. Which, I submit to you, gentle readers, is a waste!

Just about any binary editor will do, but I recommend John H. Swaby's very useful "fb" viewer/editor for binaries, available in x86 Linux or Win32 binaries, or GPLed source code that'll compile just about anywhere: http://home.mho.net/jswaby/fb.html

To separate the attachment into its binary-payload (worm) and document portions, use fb like this:

fb c 0.137215 attachment sircam.worm
fb c 137216 attachment document

Happy reading!

--
This message falsely claims to have been scanned for viruses with F-Secure
Anti-Virus for Microsoft Exchange and to have been found clean.

_______________________________________________
svlug mailing list
[email protected]
http://lists.svlug.org/lists/listinfo/svlug

Have a great Friday, and I'll get back with you later, or tomorrow before the cabling fun starts. TTFN

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And here we are, Saturday morning before the cabling fun starts. Good morning. When we retired for the evening, I was quite tired. Then I lay awake for what seemed like decades, making mental lists of materials I need for today's work, and laying out the order in which I am going to do things. Now I am exhausted and I haven't even started yet. Whew!

I'll be taking some pictures of the process, and putting them ALL up in competition for the most boring photo on the Internet - jeez, I hope they beat out that picture of Bob (T.) wiring a single electrical outlet, the recent title holder.

Now for a cup of coffee, a quick shower, and then I am off to the races. I have to get some more mounting boxes to cut into the walls, a few grounded outlets (none of the bedrooms have grounded outlets), and some phone stringing stuff. Following that, I'll prep the walls for the boxes, drill holes through the plates, and lay out all my wire. Hopefully this won't take too long, but we'll see.

See you later!

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Good morning. I have lots and lots and lots to do today, so I'll be hasty, if not brief. First, and important to the 'Net, there's now a new worm running about called CodeRedII. This is the name from a string inside the beast, but this is not a variant of CodeRed - the payload is entirely different, and much more dangerous.

The first sign of CodeRedII for many is a logfile entry that looks like this (trailing slashes added to compensate for Bowman's broken browser, really it's one LONG string):

208.179.58.7 - - [05/Aug/2001:07:48:01 -0700] "GET /default.ida?XXXXXX \
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX \
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX \
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX \
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX%u9090%u6858%ucbd3% \
u7801%u9090%u6858%ucbd3%u7801%u9090%u6858%ucbd3%u7801%u9090%u909 \
0%u8190%u00c3%u0003%u8b00%u531b%u53ff%u0078%u0000%u00=a HTTP/1.0" \
404 272 "-" "-"

Note that the 'N's of the first CodeRed (which perform the function of filling the buffer to the overflow point) have been replaced by 'X' characters. Also, the spreading function has changed dramatically - It preferentially spreads within the same Class A or B subnets as the machine which is infected - only one in 8 infection attempts are to a randomly generated IP address. Lastly the CodeRedII trojans your system by, among other activities, copying cmd.exe to a location accessible to IIS, and renaming it to root.exe. Someone can then telnet to your machine's port 80, do a GET on "/scripts/root.exe" and your box is owned. Sigh. More information about this can be found in this archived message from the incidents mailing list at SecurityFocus.com

DO this NOW - Tell your less clueful friends and associates to patch their systems now, now now. The URL for information about the patch is http://www.microsoft.com/technet/treeview/default.asp?url=/technet/security/bulletin/MS01-033.asp.

Yesterday, by the time I'd been to Fry's and Orchard, and brought a bunch of tools over from the apartment, it was after 11 AM. I quickly marked out and cut in several openings for boxes, then drilled down through the plates and subfloors. Each hole was marked with a length of ground wire with some electrical tape wrapped at the end, then pushed down through the hole into the crawl space.

Above, you can see the entrance to the crawl space, which is only a shade bigger than I am. A moment of trepidation came and went, especially once my eyes adapted to being inside. All the venting provides a good amount of light, and it's quite dry down there, which is also nice. In the right-most picture above, you can see Brian's Bane - that first beam running the length of the house. It's height about ground is less than I am thick about the middle. Mmmm. The disadvantage of stopping smoking...

I had prelaid out and configured all my voice wiring, and was pulling that in with me, the data wiring was pushed down from above, and I would be putting each endpoint up into the proper location, along with the voice cables. The beam problem I overcame by grabbing a garden implement, and doing a bit of shallow trenching to let me squinch by underneath the beam. (I had to do that again, in another spot at the end, to get halfway underneath one, in order to reach the drop for Marcia's office. All told, I probably spent an hour and a half sweating and swearing and rolling around in the dirt. I came out looking worse than Pigpen EVER did. I called Marcia and had her bring me a shower towel, and a change of clothes. She didn't want to get near me, and I don't blame her!

Above I've shown a touch of the inside work. First are the two box cutouts for voice and data in my office. This is from prior to my under-house adventures, with the ground wires poked down into the crawl from above. In the second snap, the voice jacks are wired and installed, and the data's ready to go. The final picture shows the setup in the living room, just before I pop the box into the wall, and the plate onto the box. I've used rear punchdown keystone jacks throughout. Easy installation, easy change and add if I so desire (though not bloody likely I'll go under this house again).

Now, I have to go finish wiring up the last pair of outlets, then we have the Costco run. Following that I'll be cleaning up my mess, then we'll move the garage today... I think. You have a great day yourself. Later!

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Visit the rest of the DAYNOTES GANG, a collection of bright minds and sharp wits. Really, I don't know why they tolerate me <grin>. My personal inspiration for these pages is Dr. Jerry Pournelle. I am also indebted to Bob Thompson and Tom Syroid for their patience, guidance and feedback. Of course, I am sustained by and beholden to my lovely wife, Marcia. You can find her online too, at http://www.dutchgirl.net/. Thanks for dropping by.

All Content Copyright © 1999-2001 Brian P. Bilbrey.