I went all the way and upgraded to WordPress 2.0. I feel state of the art. Actually I had to because the upgrade from 1.2.1 to 1.5.1 broke my RSS feed. It’s all good now. I’m working on a new theme I found call Framefake. I’ll use this theme’s css as a template and then match the old one with some new frame type features. The cool thing about themes is that I can change back to the old look if I don’t like the new one.
Back off. I upgraded.
Since WordPress 2.0 has been out for a couple of weeks I decided it was finally time to upgrade to version 1.5.1. Don’t want to be too cutting edge you know. Okay truth be told, I’m just slack. I intended to upgrade all the way to 2.0 tonight but it’s a two step process (1.2 to 1.5, then 1.5 to 2.0) and let’s just say I got halfway done and I’m happy. I even converted my old .css to a “theme” (which is just another way of saying style sheet). And whadda ya know, twerked.
So welcome to WordPress 1.5….see the difference? I didn’t either. Just like most women the best parts are the one’s you don’t get to see. Unless she’s yours.
Headhunters and Pack Rats
In the past I’ve made it a point not to write about any circumstances surrounding my employment situation. But lately I’ve been getting a lot of calls about new job opportunities. While I’ve only spoken directly to 1-800-Pack-Rat about a hands-on MIS position I’ve also been contacted by Alphanumeric and Matrix resources regarding what I think is the same Network Admin position that sounds interesting. All that I know so far is that it’s with a rapidly expanding company, not unlike Pack Rat, but of course headhunters usually won’t disclose the names of clients they’re recruiting for until an interview’s been scheduled.
So I have some internal reckoning to do. Is it really time to move on from Dillon Supply? I’d certainly like to think it’s worth staying but in reality it seems as though promotional opportunities and foward momentum are not even in the long term future. It’s unfortunate because I was really hoping to stay somewhere more than 2 years for a change.
I’ve always had a habit of thinking about future opportunity. Hard work and good execution should equal advancement in pay and position. Snail’s pace implementations and just getting by from 9 to 5 are not in my persona. There have been a few good technical successes at Dillon and the cleanup effort from the original deployment was monumental. I’ve stopped the bleeding. I will try to keep those points foremost in mind but smart, controlled investment in technology as a future business facilitator does not seem to be of much interest to Dillon right now. Cutting costs does.
AMD beats Intel in September US retail desktop sales
AMD beats Intel in September US retail desktop sales
For several months now AMD has beaten Intel in the consumer market. This is long overdue. AMD first generation dual cores out perform the newest Intel dual cores which are now known as the Intel D840. Intel dropped the Pentium brand. Probably because AMD made it look bad. Has Intel even begun to address diagonal cache prefetching in dual architecture?
I’ve never owned an Intel machine as a personal PC. I always found AMD superior and more affordable. I once read a quote on a gaming website I’ll never forget. How do you upgrade a Pentium PC? Buy an AMD.
This blog is powered by a 3 year old AMD Athlon 2600.
Office Space
I now work in the 21st century again. Dillon Supply finally got an occupancy permit for the new corporate headquarters and I was one of the first five people to move in. Mostly because I have to ensure network connectivity for everyone else and watch over the installation of the new phone system. My new cube has a lot more space than the cramped wooden desk from 1964 I had in the old building.
I’ve decided not to go back to the old downtown location unless I have to pick up something. On Thursday I’m modifying the core router, moving the branch router into the new location and creating two new sub-interfaces on the company DS3. We’ll also be patching in 96 Cat6 ports and moving an AS400 and a company file server into our new telco/data center. I’m keeping busy. This much activity warrents my absence for at least three days after Christmas when I’ll burn up the last of my vacation time for the year. And oh yes, that’s a genuine HermanMiller Mirra chair. Not an Aeron but also not a knockoff.
Bring Back Black
Amy’s going to be mad – I found a “deal.” No, really. I got $35 off internet prices on a pair of “open box” Roland DM-10 powered monitors at Sam Ash music. Let me tell you right now that if you’re listening to music from your PC using anything but professional grade digital studio monitors you simply do not know what you’re missing. And you can own them for less than the cost of some “gaming” surround sound PC speaker systems from Altec Lansing and Bose.
This all started because I needed a set of speakers for my PC since I have none. I’ve always used a stereo receiver and speakers. I began by looking at regular 3 piece PC speaker sets but was not happy that all of them were “PC silver.” My motivation for monitors became dual pupose – sound and appearance. When I walked into Sam Ash and they offered a discount on the last pair of DM-10’s in stock, I took ’em. I know it was weak and impulsive but these things sound incredible. If I feel bad about spending the money so close to Christmas all I have to do is turn them on and listen to Octane or The Coffee House on Sirius.
First World Frustrations
David Rakoff is the author of the new book Don’t Get Too Comfortable: The Indignities of Coach Class, The Torments of Low Thread Count, The Never-Ending Quest for Artisanal Olive Oil, and Other First World Problems.
This book delves into the hypocritical aspects of American life, the luxuries many of us take for granted and the absurdities we simply ignore. And, once again, it got me thinking about how good everyone in America has it compared to the rest of the world despite our frustrations at home and work and our self commitment to a never ending rat race. I looked up some encouraging facts any westerner should pay attention to if you ever feel like you’ve got it bad:
1. If you woke up this morning with at least $350 US dollars in the bank you are in the wealthiest 8% of the world’s population.
2. If you consider yourself a somewhat healthy American then you are far ahead of the 1 million people in third world countries that will die today because they lack access to basic amenities you take for granted – like vitamin A in their food.
3. If you’re religious and you feel free go to your place of worship regularly in America you’re way ahead of the almost 2 billion people who are assaulted, arrested, incarcerated and tortured each year for attempting to worship or participate in their religious beliefs.
4. If you woke up this morning and took a shower or used a toilet then congratulations, once again you’re ahead of approximately 2.6 billion people, or 40 percent of the world’s population, who lack access to basic sanitation.
5. If you put gas in your car recently, at any price, think about this: in a passenger car, for example, typically only 10 percent of the oil’s energy actually moves the car. Of that, only about two percent actually moves the passenger. So you are wealthy enough to afford an energy resource you will only use at 2% efficiency to haul you down the road. The rate of cars being built now exceeds the rate of growth of the world’s population*. And you are fortunate to be among the 28% of the world’s population that owns them.
6. As of 2004 the impact of the average U.S. citizen on the environment is approximately 3 times that of the average Italian, 13 times that of the average Brazilian, 35 times that of the average Indian, 140 times that of the average Bangladeshi, and 250 times that of the average sub-Saharan African.
Source: UNICEF, The State of the World’s Children
So don’t be surprised to find me laughing at anyone who is about to bust a blood vessel because they forgot to put ketchup in the bag at the drive-thru.
*NOTE: To clarify this is growth rate based upon percentage. From 1974 to 1999 the number of automobiles manufactured per year increased 44% and the world’s human population only increased 16%. As of August 2003 there was 1.9 cars in America for every licensed driver. – Source: Transportation Alternatives, NYC
Calling VanDyke CRT from a Microsoft DTS
One of the things I have always disliked about administering Windows servers and workstations is their inherent inability to act as a basic terminal. You’ve got to use terminal emulation software to login to NFS based firmware and appliances. Recently this became a huge issue when we were required to delete the contents of a volume on a NetApp SAN at Dillon Supply. Here was the scenario:
We have a volume vol0/dscsql2db on a NetApp FAS270 filer. Every night all of the NetApp “snapshots” on this volume need to be deleted. The snap delete command native to the snapdrive service on Windows 2003 servers cannot perform the force deletion of an entire volume. The snap delete command in the OS of the filer can delete the entire contents of a volume regardless of a snapshots state or condition. More specifically, one of the snapshots we wanted to delete is mounted as a read/writable volume on a server (busy, LUNs). Therefore the arguments available in the snap delete command on the filer are required.
So we needed a way to log on directly to the NetApp filer from within a Microsoft SQL DTS (Data Transformation Service) and execute the snap delete command to remove the entire contents of the volume. Basically, I needed to run a Vbscript as a job executed by a DTS against the Netapp filer. That’s where VanDyke CRT came in. I could have used custom expect scripts and spent a long time figuring out how to get them to run through Telnet. Instead we set up a default Telnet session for the CRT application to use when called by the parent DTS (by IP Address) then it automatically executes the following login script:
#$language = “VBScript”
#$interface = “1.0”
Sub main
‘ turn on synchronous mode so we don’t miss any data
crt.Screen.Synchronous = True
‘ Wait for a string that looks like “login: ” or “Login: ”
crt.Screen.WaitForString “ogin: ”
‘ Send your username followed by a carriage return
crt.Screen.Send “root” & vbCr
‘ Wait for a tring that looks like “password: ” or “Password: ”
crt.Screen.WaitForString “assword:”
‘ Send your password followed by a carriage return
crt.Screen.Send “ya, you wish” & vbCr
crt.Screen.WaitForString “etapp1”
‘ ++++ Begin Production commands to delete snapshots
crt.Screen.Send “snap delete -a -f -q dscsql2db” & vbCr
crt.Screen.WaitForString “etapp1”
crt.Screen.Send “snap delete -a -f -q dscsql2logs” & vbCr
‘ ++++ End Production commands to delete snapshots
‘ turn off synchronous mode to restore normal input processing
crt.Screen.Synchronous = False
‘ This will wait 30 seconds
crt.Sleep 30000
‘ dismiss the app
crt.quit
End Sub
Notice the crt.whatever.wait and .send vb scripting objects. It’s these objects included in CRT that made this all possible. Once the script command executes to delete the contents of the volume on the NetApp filer, it closes CRT and our SQL DTS can proceed with creating a new snapshot of our production database volume, mounting this snapshot to a remote server where it is then attached to MS SQL as one of the last steps. Bang! The refreshed reporting server is on-line.
None of this would have been possible without our $35 copy of CRT.
July Recap
This month was hotter and busier than any I can remember. At work, at home, even at my parents house something was going on all the time. We started off by taking Connor to see fireworks for the first time. He jumped straight into Amy’s lap when he heard the first explosion and didn’t get out until they were over. But he liked them. And I managed to get out of the fairground parking in under 45 minutes so I didn’t mind it much either.
The weekend following the 4th we threw my mom a surprise birthday party. Amy and Mary Kay organized it and had well over 50 people there. When mom walked around her house into the back yard she was genuinely surprised. It was a well kept secret. Then later that week I had a Colonoscopy.
The next weekend I lost my wedding ring in the deep end of a diving pool. I noticed it missing from my hand that night after we got home. I went straight back the following morning but despite all my self-proclaimed genius I did not bring a snorkel, goggles – nothin’. But I did spot the ring on the bottom.
First Amy dove to try to get it. She felt around on the bottom but couldn’t grab it. I watched it drift around on the bottom for about ten minutes and told Amy to go get a mask. The trip took her about thirty minutes. During that time a bunch of other people got in the pool and stirred the water. I lost site of the ring and never saw it again. I wished I had never seen it on the bottom to begin with.
Later on in the month Connor took a couple of trips to Pullen Park to ride the choo-choo, boats and merry-go-round. Last weekend when we went I saw a guy I know on the choo-choo with his daughter, Ava. Dawson Roark, if I remember correctly. The last time I saw him was last year in St. Louis at the Prophet21 convention. So we talked about work and P21 for around thirty minutes.
Speaking of work; this month Dillon Supply officially moved the forklift division across the street in downtown Raleigh so I turned up a new segment of our wide area network. Very smoothly if I might add – 1 minute 45 seconds total down time on the core router; a Cisco 3745 which now supports three T1 circuits (two are bonded) and a 45Mbps DS3. Tomorrow morning I’m installing the first component of our new storage area network, a 1TB NetApp FAS3000.
It’s been a helluva month.
When a hoax is not a joke.
This is a legitimate, safe trend started by the East Anglian Ambulance Service:
Paramedics will turn to a victim’s cell phone for clues to that person’s
identity. You can make their job much easier with a simple idea that they
are trying to get everyone to adopt: ICE.
ICE stands for In Case of Emergency. If you add an entry in the contacts
list in your cell phone under ICE, with the name and phone no. of the
person that the emergency services should call on your behalf, you can save
them a lot of time and have your loved ones contacted quickly. It only
takes a few moments of your time to do.
Paramedics know what ICE means and they look for it immediately. ICE your
cell phone NOW!
Then some narrow minded idiot tried to ruin a good thing.
Quickly following on the heels of advisories to add “ICE” entries to mobile phones were hoax warnings that doing so would trigger premium charges thanks to malicious text messages or viruses randomly sent to phones to scan for such entries:
“To all those who received a copy of the e-mail recommending that the word ICE be added to their phones address book (In case of emergency contact). I can not say for sure that information I have received this morning is legitimate, but better to warn you all.
I am very sorry to report that some small minded idiot has created a text message that is being sent out randomly to mobile phone users, this text has a programme included that searches your phones address book for the word “ICE” or “I.C.E” and if found, you are charged for a premium rate message.”
The instigator tried to turn ICE contacts into a hoax.
Matt Ware, spokesman for the East Anglian Ambulance Service, asked people to ignore the hoax email.
“I have been inundated with emails and phone calls from people worried that, having put ICE into their mobiles, they are now going to be charged for the privilege,” he added.
“We would like to assure people that that’s not the case. Whoever began this second email chain is obviously a malicious person with way too much time on their hands.”
The bottom line:
No one can send a text message to anything but your cell phone number. A text message cannot do a reverse lookup for a contact name in your address book. It’s safe to add an ICE contact to your cell phone.