Month: April 2003

This weekend off, or maybe not

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This weekend I have plans to goto my cousin’s Synde & Wayne’s house. If I evern finish my bio’s or “cast of charicters” of my life you would know who they are. Basically they are the closest thing I have to an aunt and uncle since I don’t speak to my real ones.

Because work has been bad, and they have busy schedule’s I havent seen them since last fall. Not happy about that. We made plans for this weekend way back in march. Like I said they keep busy. I am not sure what we are going to do, but it is always interesting going over to there house. They have three kids. Merric (10), Arriel (7 I think), and Cerina (turns 1 next month). I think both the older ones have soccer on Saturday so maybe I can get a game in. Last time it was funny to watch Merric play soccer. He played like I used to when I was his age. Not very well, but he didn’t care. He had a good time.

The biggest security hole in the world

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Do you know what the biggest security whole in any company is? It is not intricate file permissions. It is not flaws in firewall’s or in IIS web servers that have not been patched. The biggest security flaw is people. Gus showed me someone else’s blog that ranted about that. His quote was perfect. It boils down to people are lazy. People generally say “security is good, and important”, but when you say don’t tell anyone your password they do. You tell people to make difficult passwords, they find the craziest ways around your restrictions. My own dad who I consider a smart guy doesn’t even have good passwords. I consider him the typical user. If he needs to reinstall AOL he needs me to give him his password. Who am I kidding if he needs to reinstall AOL I do it for him, but you get the idea.

How do we fix this problem? Smarter minds than mine have pondered this for a long time. My answer is you don’t. You just cant. You can try and try, but in the end it is plugging a whole in a dam with duck tape. Even good biometric security has flaws today. Maybe one day it will be good enough to use. Then 3 years after that day when it is cheap enough to deploy I will sign up for it.

OK, enough about security. WOW, I actually said that. Last night we had to do some last minute fix’s on one of our websites when an image server died. It was actually weird. I told Keith Monday morning that something was wrong with that server and he needed to fix it. So he waited till late in the day and ended up at our colo at 6pm. I was at dinner with my sister after that, so he actually took care of the restore and reconfiguration of the backup box. It was kind of nice not having to do everything. Of course it took him 8 hours to do what I asked, but hey I can’t ask for everything.

We are looking at resume’s for the helpdesk guy we are going to hire for our new office. Man people cannot read. We post a job for Kingston, NY (it is about 2 hours north of NYC, 1 hour south of albany so you know the distance) and I get applicants from long island, California, and anywhere else you could think of. The crazier thing is I get applicants asking for more money than I make. It is crazy. Gus got a laugh out of it, but in reality it is not funny because we need to find someone quick. I have about 4-5 people I want to call and see if they are worth a face to face interview.

It is hot, it is monday. A bad combination

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Well it will be 75 degree’s in NYC today. Don’t think that is hot. Try being in a building where the AC is never just right. Then it gets warm. Lets hope things are working and we are all nice and frosty today. It is beautiful outside. I went out without a jacket again today. I really should not complain about the weather. I am outside maybe 45 minutes a day it seems like now. The problem with not wearing a jacket is that you have no pockets to throw stuff in.

I played with red hat 9.0 this weekend. I installed it on my old windows 2000 server just like I said I would. Before I did that I tried to install BSD 5.0. I had some trouble with the install, and said forget it. I am already trying to learn one OS. I figure I should master that first before going on to something else. I also did a test install of MRTG at home. It installed but I can’t get it to work. I think because my linksys cable router does not support SNMP. I will play with it more at work today, I hope. Now I have 2 linux box’s at home. One to break and try stuff on, and another one where I actually have some stuff running now. This will hopefully prevent me from destroying my movabletype install.

I also spent some time sunday trying to understand some more about Windows 2000 Group Policy Objects (GPO’s). I have used them, and understand the basic concepts, but every time I deploy one I get event log errors all the time. The objects still work, but errors persist. I went online to try and figure out why. All I succeeded in learning is that I have allot to learn. I knew all the basic stuff, but the advanced stuff is hard to find documentation on. This is the story of me and helpful information. The basic stuff is too easy, and the advanced stuff is either too advanced or you cannot find it anywhere.

Today I have to deal with some more telecom vendors. I need to sign some T-1 contracts today. That is going to be fun. More later.

Deal is done, so why am I still stressed?

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Can’t answer the title question just yet. Probably because there is still tons of work to be done, but I have no idea.

Today I got my hair cut. Hung out at home and fixed some stupid problems at work. I went out to dinner and a movie with Rich and Amanda. We drove around for a half an hour trying to find a place to eat. We didn’t want to get garbage food and didn’t want to spend much money. We ended up at Boston Market. I normally don’t eat there, but it was OK. I saved room for the mandatory popcorn at the movies. We saw Identity. It was pretty good. I like a good mind fuck movie. Not as good as a 12 monkeys or a sixth sense, but it was good.

I also downloaded Free BSD 5.0 again today. I brought it home a few weeks ago and make a copy but I can’t find it. I ended up taking it off the ftp site at work. I am burning a copy now. I am finally getting rid of my windows 2000 server. I have my website up on my red hat box. I also am no longer using exchange so the win2k server is not in use. it has actually been off for most of the past week or so. I want to try some stuff in linux, so instead of messing up my web server I will build bsd on another box and break that. I may also do a dual boot into red hat 9. Not sure yet.

I need to start reading up on voice over ip systems. Now that we own one I need to understand it more. Dam, I also need to figure out how to use Cisco’s layer 3 switches also. I know the foundry commands but Cisco is different. I have been slacking on the network commands recently. So much business stuff to do. Keith has been doing good, but I want be able to do, well everything. I know I can’t so I at least want to know the switches, and basic firewall commands. I have learned it is one thing to look at a configuration and know exactly what it means, compared to actually typing out all the commands.

Not sure what is in store for me tomorrow. I at least have to gas up my mom’s car. I used it a few times this week and want to leave her with a full tank when she gets back from her cruise. If I don’t I won’t hear the end of it.

Got a call from Glenn (the CEO of the company I work for). He thought their was a problem with our main website. I was on the way to dinner at the time and my cell phone was almost out of juice. I luckily was able to get in touch with mark and Keith in time to hand off the problem to them. It was weird. I have had Keith take trouble issues before, but this was the first time I called and told him to run with something. Actually mark was taking charge, but I usually am in on problem resolutions. It feels good that I can hand off some of that responsibility if even for a short while to someone else. Turned out there was no problem with the system. The person placing the order (in this case our president) put an incorrect address into the system and it kicked back an error because of it.

Well I am hopefully going to bed soon. I was up till 1:30am this morning for no good reason. I need to get a good night sleep one day this week. More tomorrow or monday.

VoIP Day is over! (or almost)

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Sorry about the military lingo in the post, but it gets difficult coming up with snappy yet topical slogans for the title.

I will be the first to admit I have limited business dealing experience. Today was my first time negotiating on a big business deal. Our Data Center deal was big, but not close to this hardware purchase.

We did it. We signed the contracts. We are now the proud owners of a Cisco Voice Over IP hardware solution running a call center package called Zeacom Smart-connect. It is light years ahead of what we are running now, but it is also sort of a compromise. It is an advancement because we are currently using an old phone switch that is near its capacity. The switch also was never designed as a call center switch. It is a trade off because we are keeping our current software. The users like it, but it has been difficult to manage so far. We are told it is easier when using VOIP.

You would think I am happy. I am, but I can’t relax just yet. We still have voice and data circuits to order and install. Telecom companies have no idea about deadlines. I gave 2 of them deadlines of today and both of them blew them. One lost the deal because of it, the other I am willing to wait till monday.

Now that we bought all this stuff I need to actually have it built. And all sorts of other hardware needs to be purchased. For example we need desktop computers, server and other crap. I need to work on those quotes also. I also need to measure our server room for space, and figure out our cable plans. Tons to do, and about a month to do it in. I really don’t think we can keep this target date, but the boss wants it so I will do all I can to meet it. That translates into no life for about 4-8 weeks. Not that I had a big social life in the past 4-8 weeks.

I am physically and emotionally exhausted from todays activities. Who would have thought sitting and talking in a conference room would be so tiring?

I am on the train going home friday night. I am tired. That means I will stop writing. More over the weekend after I rest some.

VoIP Day

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Do you smell it? A deal is in the air. It is like the smell of the hunt. The vultures, I mean sales people are swarming. The people that don’t think they got the deal are scrambleing to meet and discuss further. The guys that think they got the deal are trying to fatten up their offer. I for one just think this is a necissary evil in the build out process. I actually think Gus enjoy’s dealing with these people sometimes.

Still outstanding is our voice and data lines. Because what is a call center without phone service. We are close to a decision, but don’t have papers in front of us just yet.

On the flip side, dan our director of operations is working on the construction quotes and we hope modifications to the space should start within a week. I personally think that is a pipe dream, but who am I to know or not.

To make things interesting is that today is Cisco Systems end of quarter. Since like 6 out of 7 quotes we are looking at involve Cisco hardware they want to move fast on this.

Now is the hard part of verifying what we were promised is now in writteng before we put ink to paper.

Other problems today will include moving some users around. We have a new guy starting on Monday. To put him in the seat we want, we have to move someone and double that person up with another guy. our office has nice large cubes. Good for individuals, and it works if you put 2 people in them without allot of stuff. We did it in 3 other cubes and it works. Everyone is not happy about it, but they get by. Well, we need to do that again today. The guy getting doubled up will probibly not be very happy. It is short term, until our call center starts growning in the new facility, but still 3 months can be a while for some.

VoIP Day T-Minus 0.5

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Completed work today without a stroke. This deal making is stressful. Up until now I have been very vague at what sort of hardware deal I am talking about. My company runs a call center. We are opening a new call center in upstate New York since our current office is at capacity. We have been shopping around since like January for a solution that will work for us. We needed a phone system, network gear (switches, routers, firewalls) and a software solution that will run the call flow for the call center. We wanted to do this with as few vendors as possible. In addition to the above listed items we also need server, desktops, laptops, cabling for the floor (that is not done by itself:), setup and testing of the gear, etc.

Because there was so much stuff we looked at no fewer than 6 vendors to do this for us. Each offered a variety of options. We narrowed down the call center software package that we will use to 2 products. this we did early on. we had a new product produced by Cisco, and the current one we use by a company called zeacom. We built our configuration around either of these products. Now months later we are almost at the final choice. We have narrowed down the playing field from Avaya magix or difinidy PBX switches. We looked at NEC VoIP switches, and also a few lower end systems that we didn’t like. Now we are down to the wire. We have 2 vendors we like, one more than the other. I can’t say specifics because things are not done yet.

In a nutshell that is what has been going on as far back as december 2002. I have a background in data networks. That being said I am a fan of the Cisco hardware. It is Cisco, support is good. They make (or buy companies that make) good hardware. I work for people that are VERY cost aware. Being the best does not fly with these people. We have to justify what we spend. At first it drove me crazy. It still does, but I appreciate it, and it is now a challenge to do everything we want and spend small amounts doing it. As much as working a deal sucks in my opinion (i hate sales people), it is nice to shave off $17,000 off a quote in 20 minutes of a phone conversation.

We meet tomorrow to finalize and hopefully sign contracts. I await final paperwork tonight. I just hope all we asked for is in writing for tomorrow. This is the biggest decision I have ever made for a company. Yes, I am nervous. I think we thought it through and are making the correct decision. It was a collaborative effort. Keith, Gus, & I reading up on the technology. Gus working the deal. I hammered out the design and worked the deal a bit. But even after that, you still are nervous until you take that first call, and that 100,000 call…

Once this is done I can focus on actually building what up until now has only been a concept written on my white board in my office. That and quotes piled 3 feet high on my desk.

The big remaining obstacle is lease terms. We don’t want to pay tons of money cash to pay for all this equipment now. Being a relatively new company we need to work on getting good terms. That is ongoing but I don’t want it to affect our deal.

OK, stressing still. I just want this to be over. As I write this I got emails with some revised numbers that I don’t like. Working on correcting. Dam sales guys…

VoIP Day T-Minus 1

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This year my company is trying out a softball leagure. It is a place where people with no athletic skill get together and compete in softball games with other out of shape people at other companies. Generally I am told this is done while consuming large amounts of alcohol. I got arm twisted into joining the team. I don’t like softball, and I am not very good at it. We will see how many games I actually make. Especially since we are in the middle of prepairing a new office. We got our tee shirts yesterday. I don’t even know if it will fit me, but I got the number I wanted. Lucky #3. I still have to fill out the release form to play, but don’t tell paula that or she will kill me. Guys from work went out yesterday and hit some balls at the batting cages. Today is their first official game. I am still working on hardware quotes so I don’t know if I will make it.

T-minus 1 day for our hardware decisions for the new office. We decided that papers need signitures by friday on our telecom purchases. We need to order T-1’s, and get a hardware intergrator picked. We are narrowing down things now, and hopefully will be putting the finishing touches deals friday. Of course we have said this before and things have slipped. This time feels different. I will know tomorrow.

I spent almost all day yesterday dealing with planning for kingston. We also had our weekly technology staff meetings. Those are always interesting.

I got some nice unexpected words from David yesterday. Dave is our call center manager, and an all around good guy. After our meeting with our CEO on our project plan he took me aside and said he was very impressed with how I know and explain correctly what I do to people. He was like he does not think that about most people. I was very touched. Dave is a hard guy to please, and to get those words from him was a welcome surprise. That goes to show you that I cannot read people, since I thought I fumbled a bit durring our planning meeting, but according to him it was well done. He said he has seen our CEO rip people appart for not having answers, but I got him to go along with almost all our proposals. Feels good, now all I have to do is make things actually happen.

On another note as I said in an earlier post this week, we were having problems with some database transfers throughout the night that killed our internet connection. Well, it is still happening. We are nowhere near close to stopping it in my opinion. Sometimes I get the felling that some people could not navigate themself’s out of a paper bag. Those are probibly the same people that would over engineer a wheel if you know what I mean?

Well I am train tunnel bound so I will close this entry out. Hopefully today brings most of these deals to a close, but I am not sure just yet.

The Dentist is not my favorate type of Doctor

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So I had to leave work early today and goto the dentist. I had my biannual cleaning. Actually this is a new thing for me. I was one of those lazy people that forgot about the dentist for like 4 years. I started going back around a year and a half ago. What is worse is that my dentist is like family. We have know them since before I was born. My parents are best friends with their aunt and uncle. I think my dad once bailed one of them out of jail in Jr. High (another story). I say they because their are two brothers who took over their fathers business. I would goto thanksgiving and get “hey haven’t seen you at the office in a while” and other comments so I finally went back. Why, I have no idea. I go and it costs me money. And it hurts. Well normally it hurts. today was not that bad, but it doesn’t feel good when they clean your teeth.

I need to go back. They say I have the makings of like 4 or 5 cavity’s. So they are going to plug them up before they get bad. I love how they try to cheer you up by going they are small and we caught them before they got bad. Does that change the fact that I have 5 cavities? Up until today I have only had 2 cavity’s my whole life. Oh well.

My parents are on vacation this week, so I dropped by to get their mail. I need to remember to do that again later in the week. I also need to remember to buy my sister a CD-RW drive to burn images of the baby onto.

Gotta go do some work now. More later.

MRTG never lies

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As you may know or guessed by these posts I actually work in the technology field. More specifically I deal with network & server operations for my company. Because we do that we monitor lots and lots of things on our systems. Anywhere from network traffic to temperature of equipment, to performance counters. This gives us an idea of what is going on when we are not watching the systems. Some of this is manual (stuff gets logged but to understand what is going on we need to look at it) and some things are automated (something is not working we get paged about it). That being said late this morning I took a look at our network monitoring pages for the weekend. I was surprised to see huge utilization between two of our sites. More specifically a database server in one site is sending data to two servers in another site. We use MRTG to watch bandwidth. It is a free linux tool. It is great. I for one am just getting into linux, but stuff like MRTG gets me wanting to learn more. So I bring the problem to everyone’s attention. Now here is the problem, half the people dealing with our database servers are saying nothing is going on at the time we see a problem. The other half agrees something is wrong but not sure what. Turns out, oh yeah we run some stuff late at night and an anomaly happened to cause it to send out 600 meg files and not 20 meg files, or something like that. So some of these same fun guys are saying that nothing is going on, but our T-1 pipe is flooded for 4 hours with traffic because some servers are trying to transfer well over a gig of data.

The moral of this story is that tools like MRTG don’t lie. We knew (well, Gus, Keith and I knew) from the first second we saw this what was causing the problem. We just didn’t know why it was happening. If it wasn’t for some sherlockian tactics from the man “Gus” we would be shooting in the dark. Never doubt the tools you use to figure out problems. When you doubt their ability it is time to get new tools, or test them. MRTG has not failed us yet, but we still have skeptics claiming “everything is ok”. Wake up and smell the coffee. Or wake up and drink some coffee to stay awake.

This whole problem boils down to a sherlock holmes type mystery. That is how I think of it. You have a problem, and you have to logically deduce what it is, and why it happens. Don’t ignore the obvious. Coming up with a complicated explanation as to why something is going on is stupid when a simple one fits the same criteria. There is a term for that, that I cannot spell so I won’t mention it here. I sometimes think that is all I really do when it comes to fixing problems. I try to use deductive reasoning. Probably why I like sherlock holmes so much.

This blog may seem like a rant, but it really is not. it is to say pay attention to the obvious, and think things through. Some people forget to do that, or just never think.

In other work news, we are still working to get a deal for voice service in our new facility. Dealing with telecom people is a nightmare. I thought dealing with routers was hard. And I remember when I thought programing a switch was a daunting task. Boy was I naive.

I spent the entire day dealing with telecom quotes or the above mentioned bandwidth issues. What is crazy is I know we have tons more in monitoring to deploy and watch. Right now we are finding tons of stuff. I wonder what we are letting slip through the cracks? Maybe nothing, but you never know.

I am left work at like 7pm tonight so I won’t get home till like 8pm. I need to make dinner, and relax a bit. today was very stressful day.