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Welcome to Orb Graffiti, a place for me to write daily about life and computers. Contrary to popular belief, the two are not interchangeable. EMAIL - I publish email sometimes. If you send me an email and you want privacy or anonymity, please say so clearly at the beginning of your message.. |
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August 19, 2002 - Updates at 0750 EDT
Good morning. The best news from yesterday is that the new grill does an excellent job of cooking New York strip steaks, turkey burgers, and marinated bell peppers. We'll keep breaking it in, at regular intervals ... for quality control purposes, of course.
At some point here I'm going to actually have to slow down a bit. I'm very tired. I don't think my body's adapted to this climate yet, and I've kept fairly active doing the wide variety of things that are needed post-move. So I plan to stand back just a bit, as soon as I can. Perhaps after the next three days or so. The garage needs organization still.
I'd surf around and find some interesting things for you to start off your Monday morning properly, but I have no time. Work today, including paper work, client meetings, and a feeble attempt to setup a real schedule. So I'll see you around... I know, pictures soon, soon.
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August 20, 2002 - Updates at 0745 and 1130
Good morning. I spent the day at work yesterday, doing paperwork as well as hitting two different client sites that I'll be spending time at in the future. At one, there's a 2U rackmount box that we'll be building into a Linux-based backup server. I need to spec out an IDE card and some high-capacity drives for the purpose... right now there's just a single Western Digital 20 GB drive. I wouldn't want to leave that there, as every WD drive I've ever been responsible for has failed, usually sooner rather than later. Maybe it's just me?
Today, Covad puts in an appearance (theoretically). I wonder if I'll have DSL before long. It sure would be nice, but I am suspicious of the fact that I can't sync here, even from the NID. It could be that the modem that's been working fine for the last two years is now DOA, but I don't know. Verizon said that an Alcatel modem sync'd fine, but that was in the CO, over a mile from here.
They're supposed to be here shortly, so I'll get ready for that, and get back here a bit later, I don't have any work today. See you in a bit.
1130 - Hullo. Covad has lobbed the ball back into Verizon's court, since their results with trying to connect from the NID were identical to mine. Why they couldn't believe me and do the next step last week when I reported the same behaviour is beyond me. So, no DSL for Hovel Bilbrey today. Maybe tomorrow? Nah, of course not. Tomorrow it'll be Covad's fault again. Geez! I am irked. Now here's some Hard Disk feedback from my friend and fellow daynutter, Mat (I'll be taking up a collection to get him that second 'T' one of these days) ...
Subject: Drives
From: "Mat Lemmings"
Date: Tue, 20 Aug 2002 14:49:07 +0100"every WD drive I've ever been responsible for has failed, usually sooner rather than later. Maybe it's just me"
Nope. It's WD. Crap drives, crap distributors (here in UKLand, anyway) and crap turnaround on DOA and warranty stuff.
Come to think of it, Seagate and IBM are as bad.
Only HDD Company that's ever given me anything approaching what I consider satisfactory service is Maxtor. Fujitsu were by far and away the best IME, but as you know they're no longer in the small IDE drive marketplace.
Glad to see you're settling in after your move East. Good luck!
Mat
Yeah, but I figured that someone else would write in and be ruder than I. Mmmm, my cunning plan appears to have worked. Just call me "Baldrick", if you please.
Thanks, yeah. Except for connectivity, all is well. Even that is OKAY, if you count dialup as connectivity.
See you folks later.
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August 21, 2002 - Updates at 0715
Howdy! There was a post yesterday afternoon here, and it isn't pretty. Covad now (unofficially) blames Verizon. Film at 11. Sigh. Today Verizon is supposed to check things more fully, and maybe find what both I and the Covad tech suspect: That they handed my DSL off to some other pair, going to some house that's not ours. But I am not hopeful at this point.
I looked at Comcast yesterday by way of research. They've got a business connection product: 3.5M down, 384K up, 5 static IP for $95. That's not too bad. And no contract. Might be a good idea... we'll see.
I've got to roll, there's an early meeting with my boss at the office today, then I'm out to a client site for a network/systems documentation gig most of the day. Tonight we'll see where the finger is pointing. See you around!
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August 22, 2002 - Updates at 0735
Good morning. Wonder of wonders, Verizon didn't point back at Covad this time. Apparently the line is actually broken. Not that anyone was TELLING ME this, the status page for my line had no updates on it when I got home yesterday. And no sync with the DSL modem. What a shock! So I called, and two entries were in the Covad log on my trouble ticket from Verizon... But I'm not waiting any longer. I cancelled that order and put in a request to Comcast to get out here and install their "Pro" or "Business Plan" service. Next Tuesday is the second earliest time for installation. The first was this afternoon, but I am going to be at a client site. I can't change that. So I wait some more. Oh, well. There's always tin cans and string, or smoke signals. Or that Carrier Pigeon Protocol...
Yesterday started with a client proposal meeting followed by the balance of the day on site at a customer's place in Wheaton, doing some printer moves, software installations, and the front half of a documentation effort of their systems and network. I'll be going back there next week. As noted, I'm off to Falls Church, Virginia today for tuning and updating a Win95 box that's in primary service for a home-based business. I've got to get busy pulling together my updates toolkit for Winboxen.
Meanwhile, Dave Markowitz (he who shoots flowers) has written in to commiserate regarding my broadband woes, and says that the Comcast "Pro" package looks pretty good for me. Remind me to ask Comcast why, when they say "static IP", they mean 6 month DHCP lease. First I'll get the service running, THEN I'll start rocking the boat a bit. And Rick wrote in with questions about the relative merits of security training from either the Meta Group or CERT. IIRC, the former are just analysts, where as CERT is an actual research and implementation organization. If you have recommendations for systems, network and Internet security training, send them my way and I'll post a summary here based on people's experience.
Now I'd best start getting ready. See you around.
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August 23, 2002 - Updates at 0745
Good morning. Bear with me just a moment while I fill out my timesheet for yesterday...<Insert Jeopardy music>... Thanks, done. I just didn't get to it last night because when I got home we hared right out again, up to Baltimore. There we picked up the hope chest that closely matched our bedroom set. Not a bad deal, and we found the place with reasonably little trouble. But I was whacked by the time we got back here.
Ahhhh-HA!
White Plains, New York, Aug. 22 (Bloomberg) -- BT Group Plc lost a bid to claim that Internet service providers were infringing its patent for a Web linking tool when a judge dismissed its suit against Prodigy Communications.
And it couldn't have happened to a dumber bunch of lawyers, too. (link here to the PDF of the decision) Why can't they penalize this sort of flagrant misuse of the judicial system in such a manner that plaintiffs had best be damned well sure of themselves before tying up resources and hampering their commercial opposition for no good reason. I've got an idea. Plaintiff lawyers that FAIL in their suits are disbarred and prohibited from working in any field related to the law (including contracts and other commercial activities). It's perfect, and then we'll have a great migrant labor supply, too.
Roland Dobbins (speaking for himself) has chimed in with his opinion on security training...
Subject: The only security
From: Roland Dobbins
Date: 22 Aug 2002 12:46:25 -0700'training' that's worthwhile is what I call the 'Nike method' - Just Doing It(tm).
CISSP and so forth are a waste of time and money, producing blowhards who use large, authoritative-sounding, but essentially meaningless phrases such as 'zone of trust' and 'principle of non-repudiation', yet can't map the standard TCP/IP protocols onto the OSI model or demonstrate installing Apache into a chrooted jail environment. The only security conferences worth attending are Blackhats, DefCon, and CanSecWest - all the CERT-/ISS-/other-sponsored stuff is just a huge ripoff.
For network training, Cisco books/courses are good, very comprehensive; still, it's best if a) you tinker some in the Real World prior to training, and b) continue to tinker afterwards. It's an ongoing process. Training by itself is worthless.
And sure, that's true. However, I think that training can start the brain thinking about how to ask the right questions, to be aware of what's possible. Rick, I hope this helps some!
Now I've got to head out to a client site for the day. See you around.
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August 24, 2002 - Updates at 0849
Good morning. Not much to report at the moment. I had a nice sleep-in, until after eight. It's raining outside now, which is nice, and needed. There's thunder in the distance and moving this way, so I'm going to keep this very short, post and disconnect from the phone jack. The house is really coming together now, just a few more things to do, then we can start feeling at home, rather than just dreading the list of chores remaining.
I'll be back later if I get the chance.
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August 25, 2002 - Updates at 1123
Good morning. I'd just gotten started with my pathetic little dialup session this morning when the truck pulled up. It was Sears delivering our new fridge. The old one, supplied with the house, was old and trashed. Although it did keep things cold, I imagine that it was a bit of an energy hog as well. We got a Maytag, small model, similar to the one we used in the Sunnyvale house. Originally we'd been under the impression that the landlord here was going to replace it, but that turned out to be one of many less-than-truths told by the maintenance guy. We'll need one after we buy anyway, so we got something that had the minimal set features we wanted (no use paying an extra $400 for a stainless steel skin), a brand we trust and a model we're familiar with. So that's done, bought yesterday, delivered at the front end of a two hour window today. Pretty efficient, I'd say!
We've got more to do, preparing for our first house guests this next weekend. And hopefully, before too much longer, I'll have some decent connectivity setup here, the home network will start working right, Marcia can start posting again, and all will be right with the world. Uh-huh. But if it works as planned, Tuesday afternoon...
Oh, here's Sally settled into her bed, her in the new house. We'll have some more pictures up in a short while, but not while I'm on dialup. Sally appears to have settled in fairly nicely, and she's responding well to her thyroid replacement therapy. All in all things are good. I suppose I'd best get back to chores now, but I wanted to say hello. So there. See you 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 © 1999-2002 Brian P. Bilbrey.
