Technology

Fall Cleaning

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Today I decided to do some Spring Fall cleaning. I did both physical and virtual cleaning. I moved around some components and moved a piece of furniture. I am trying to move my computer gear into a place where I have easy access to it, but it doesn’t make my living room look like crap. I pulled out a huge pile of wires that I don’t need anymore. or I hope I don’t need them, but everything seems to be working without them so far.

What started the whole day of cleanup was my powerbook not performing as well as it used to. I have put allot of crap on it, and tried some stuff out that I probably should not have put on my main computer, but I did anyway. I had been pondering wiping it and reinstalling everything for over a month. I was going to do it over the long weekend next week, but I woke up this morning and felt daring. I backed everything up and took the plunge. The majority of the rebuild didn’t take anywhere near as long as I thought. In under like 2 hours I had most of the main software I use on the computer, and I was well on my way to getting all my custom settings back. I know I will be customizing everything for a few weeks but the majority of what I use is back up.

While the powerbook was rebuilding I rearranged the furniture and pulled the cable. I also went to best buy and bought myself a wireless mouse & keyboard for my DVR computer. I also got a 4 port USB PCI card for the machine since I ran out of ports. I put that together (in 15 min thankfully) and my TV setup is basically done.

Feeling even more daring now that I moved the DVR functions to a dedicated computer I decided to wipe my Presario desktop and put a fresh copy of Windows XP on it. I am in the middle of the updateathon of windows patches now.

Once I am done with getting Windows on the Presario I won’t be putting any programs on it except for VMWare Workstation. My goal is to put all applications in a virtual machine. that way I can easily remove or revert back to old setups. I am trying that at the office also. In theory it is a sound idea. I will let you know how it goes in a month or so.

Wiring Day

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Today Jayson and I spent most of the day rewiring a cabinet in the office. Try as we might these cabinets get super messy with cables everywhere after a while. We rewired this same cabinet over a year ago but it looked horrible again. The issue is that we keep putting in and taking out different kinds of gear. The cables get really messy.

To keep things cleaner we moved the PDU’s, rewired all the electrical, moved some servers to different racks, and took out the thick analog KVM cables and replaced them with IP KVM’s that run over regular CAD5. The result is a much cleaner rack. That and everything is neat and tied down helps. We next need to get the electrical guys to come in and add some more circuits.

We still have to clean up the mess of cables and old servers we pulled from the cabinet, but we can do that during the week.

The work was messy, and we came in on a Saturday but the results where worth it!

Security Is Inconvenient

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If anyone has every told you security is convenient for you, they are lying. Security is very inconvenient. The more secure something is the more difficult and or expensive it is to use. it is much harder to support a group of people you force hard passwords on vs a group you let set a password to anything they want. You know I am right. People give lip service to wanting more security, and when they are given it they don’t like how hard it is to use whatever system you secured.

Take for example something I read a few months ago that said AOL was offering a secure ID like FOB for people to enhance the security on how they log onto their accounts. I have used Secure ID’s for years (i haven’t used it in years, but I have used them long ago, they are not new) and it is not some new wiz bang system. Will the masses use it? probably not unless they are forced to. Do you really think that (i always use my dad as the example) my dad would carry around a keychain secure id to just log into AOL? He would screw it up and get frustrated inside of a week.

Westchester county in NY is trying to legislate securing Wifi networks. In principle it is nice that the county is trying to protect citizens, but come on! Do you really think a person or small business that is ignorant enough to put up an unsecured WIFI network will be compelled to register with the county and secure the system just because there is a law saying it. Hello people this won’t do anything but piss people off and generate some revenue for the county. Like I said before, security is a myth. You cannot legislate the population into security compliance. If you could people in rural areas won’t still leave their houses unlocked and keys in the car!

This of course will be the problem going forward with everything becoming digital. The more secure you try to make something, the less mainstream it will become, but the more mainstream something becomes the more secure it needs to be to protect the public.

More Great Mac Tools

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While working on something today (i honestly can’t remember what), I got side tracked. I am so happy I did. I have been slowly playing with the unix shell and ports for my mac. Today I found a bunch of cool (and free) tools that make life and my job much easier. I am so loving the power of this Powerbook!

First I found Xutils‘ RDP Menu program. it lets me launch multiple windows remote desktop connections at a time. Microsoft should make that work out of the box, but at least 3rd party developers are doing it.

Rawr-jour is a cool utility that lets you browse all the Rendezvous Bonjour networking. it is really cool. If found it really easy to mount volumes on other mac’s.

The 2 products listed above are by far my favorite of the bunch, but I also found 2 SSH & Telnet connection managers that both seem really cool. Saves my lazy ass from typing in all those switch and firewall host names when I want to connect to them. I also found a random password generator, but I honestly think the one I have on my XP machine is much better. The difference is the mac one I have was free and I actually paid for the Windows based password generator.

Freevo Version 4.0

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I have been using Snapstream’s Beyond TV 3 for almost a year now. I have spoken before of how great a product it is. They just announced Beyond TV 4.0. Having no need for over the air HDTV tuning I bought the upgrade anyway. Truth be told I wanted to check out the Divix encoding option on the new version.

For a few months I have been pondering turning my custom built celeron pc into a media center box. I have been using Beyond TV as a PVR on my good HP box. I had been too lazy to reconfigure the setup. The announcement of the new version of Beyond TV got me thinking, upgrade. I did some research on decent PCI video cards that are compatible with my TV Tuner USB device. The computer I was going to use as the DVR has a built in video card that is not compatible, and since it is such a small PC it didn’t have an AGP slot. I found a good PNY card at Compusa for the unit. I also upgraded the 160gig drive in the computer to a bigger 250gig. I performed the hardware upgrade and checked that the gear worked. then I installed windows from scratch. All I put on the machine the latest windows updates, the USB IR drivers, the video capture card drivers, remote, and Beyond TV. I did some heavy rearranging of my living room and moved the computer to my entertainment center. I rigged it up to my computer using the computers built in VGA port (nice).

There were a few minor issues, but all in all the upgrade went well. I am running some test recordings now to verify the system works correctly, but so far it looks good. This setup actually fixed an issue I had with my old computer not working with the resolution of the HDTV I have. The new video card plugged into the VGA slot (vs the RCA slot on the old setup) fits the screen perfectly. What is weird is the resolution the computer is at is not the native resolution of the TV but it works, so I won’t complain.

Once I am happy with my new setup I can blow away the HP computer and rebuild it to use as a general workstation. I use my Powerbook as my main computer but I always need a Windows box around for something.

Now I am off to clean up all the dust and dirt I created and unearthed with all my moving of stuff around my living room.

Mac Sync

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So I am kind of ticked at Mark/Space. Not for a bad product, or support or anything. For releasing a product that solves all my problems but not announcing it until it is out. A little heads up on the new Missing Sync 5.0 would have been nice. it would have saved me the $149 I spent on Daylite and then have to go out and buy the upgrade for the Missing Sync. Daylite is a great product, but the integration the Missing sync now gives me with the Address & iCal apps make it hard not to use them. I can get invites again without having to manually add them. I get all the fields from Address book that I couldn’t before. And the biggest advantage is that calendar categories move back and forth with iCal now. Daylite was a bit limiting on allot of those features, but it had the best task lists, and ability to assign or associate people, projects, etc to tasks and appointments. The question is are those nice advanced features worth not having basic features like what Address book and iCal can now give me with the Missing Sync? Honestly I don’t know, but I am once again using the Mac PIM apps and the new Missing Sync 5.0. Will I get fed up with them in a few weeks and switch back to Daylite? Maybe.

But for now I am happy with what I am using. Now if only Marketcircle could integrate better with the Missing Sync and have iCalander support for invites. The best of both worlds would be nice.

Best Way To Send A Large File?

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Do you know the best way to send a large file? Lets say a gig or bigger for argument sake? The answer may surprise you. Someone once told me they heard a CEO of a big bandwidth company ask that question. The answer wasn’t some whizzing technology. It was sneakernet. Don’t get the reference? Take the file and walk it wherever you need it to go. Part of our operations tasks is couriering around drives with updated data between offices. It is cheaper to do that then send over the internet a 100 gigs of data. I sometimes find it funny we do it, but it makes sense. With many servers of the same hardware configuration we can also build servers and send the drives to their intended location and plug them into a different shell. Old idea, but it never ceases to amaze me how simple and effective it can be.

Crazy the things you think about when your mind isn’t preoccupied with something!

ESX Server?

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I have praised VMWare’s products for some time on this blog. As things look now, I will continue to do so. I have used their workstation product for almost 2 years. I have used GSX server for about a year. Now comes ESX server. It looks awesome. I have a project that requires allot of new hardware to be built. ESX server looks like an good alternative to server sprawl. Instead of building dozens of servers, the same solution done virtually can be done with a few (not many) ESX servers. The cost benefit is real. I ran some figures over the weekend and it can save us a nice amount of money by going virtual. Then there are the saving space, and energy issues. And the flexibility we get by having a virtual setup. I am really excited about what we can do.

I have been trying out ESX on a test box we setup (reminds me I have a VM building right now that probably needs some click next help). The install was quick. I now have to read the dozen or so white papers spread across my desk (my computer desktop and physical desk). This software solves problems I didn’t even think about until I got to reading about the solutions. Multi vlan support is nice, as well as NIC teaming. I have allot of reading and testing to do in the short amount of time I have until we have to deploy the solution. I don’t think have been this excited about a technology since Call Manager. More info as I play (i mean test).

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The Evil Empire

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I have so much I want to say, I don’t even know where to start or how much I will get out. Some people have their own impressions of “evil” corporate empires exist out there. I have friends that bash some retail store chains as being evil, or others who can’t stand some or all media empires. Most of those opinions are based on ideals, and some passing interaction with said companies. I on the other think the true “evil empire” out there is one that is partially transparent to people. I am talking about a company I will call the LEC that will not be named. If you don’t know a LEC is better know as “Local Exchange Carriers”. They are the SBC’s, Bell South’s, & Verizon’s of the world. You most likely deal with them with your home phone. The thing is everyday people don’t realize is that if you use an alternate provider for anything like phone service, or even business class T-1’s you still must use a LEC. The LEC owns and operates the physical lines in a given area. They own the copper and or fiber into buildings and houses. in some rare cases you have providers also having their own fiber or copper into an array, but that is uncommon.

So here is the situation most people don’t realize can happen. You have big name internet provider X as your data T-1 or voice T-1 service. They are a huge company but they do not own the local lines in the area you do business. That means between your office and provider X’s POP (Point of presence) you must utilize a LEC. If you don’t know better provider X won’t ever really bring that up, but I know this is the case. it is not that they hide that fact from you, but it is not something that will be highlighted on page one of a contract.

So this is the situation. You take time and effort to design a highly resilient internet backbone for an office that needs high availability on their voice and data setup. You spend the time and money to get multiple POP’s from provider X. You also get multiple routers setup with HSRP & BGP. All bases are covered, right? Wrong. The LEC who will not be named has a problem at their central office. All those nicely diversified circuits all go through the same LEC. Remember provider X will give you diversity, but they don’t own or control the lines into your office. If your area is serviced by 1 LEC, all your lines go through the same conduit out to the same CO (central office). Well if that CO has a problem with lets say some hardware, all your network diversified circuits are down. The LEC is the pinch point in most situations. Now if you have provider X, they will try to fix the issue. If they can’t figure it out, they will escalate the issue with the LEC who will not be named. Here is one problem. YOU or I are not a customer of the LEC who will not be named. Provider X is. You are considered a wholesale customer of the LEC who will not be named. To them you are the least important person. Now, they may say otherwise, but if you ever negotiated a T-1 between provider X and the LEC who will not be named, the LEC all but says you are not important if you use provider X. Is it true? I think so, but it may be a negotiation tactic. In any case when you have a problem, the LEC who will not be named seems to not care. Even if they ARE quick to respond they have the attitude of “we are big LEC who you have to use. We will get to you whenever we want”. I have had that feeling several times over the years. That is why I have come to the conclusion that the LEC who will not be named is the true evil empire.

So in a vague (or not so vague depending on if you know the true story) I have vented about my technical woes today. I know shit happens. When people ask why something is down (when telecom circuits and major network gear is down, not the minor stuff) I tell them I honestly don’t know how the stuff works the 99.999% of the time it does. Really. People think I am kidding, but if you ever had to spend 12+ hours trying to get the LEC who will not be named on the phone when you have an outage and when you finally do get them to do something it is fixed in 20 minutes you will begin to think like I am. I mean come on at least look like are trying to care about my problem!

And that reminds me of what Howard said to me when he stopped by my office today in the middle of the disaster that was my day. He was like, at least you are not having capacity problems like Sixaprt and their Typepad service was having. I had to laugh. He didn’t realize I use them. I think he thought I was using Gus’ server still. The funny thing was I gave them prop’s for how they were handling the situation. I sent an email to their CEO commenting on their outages and how they are communicating the issues to customers and I got a response in like 2 hours. How then can billion dollar LEC who won’t be named take 3 hours just to get one of multiple tickets into their system when calling the emergency support line? I am not talking about calling the “hi, my home phone isn’t working” number. I am talking about the “I spend allot of money and many circuits are down” number. It is really scary how a small company can be so responsive and a large one just plain old suck. Of course I should know that by now, since my company is not that big and we are SO much more responsive to issues than people we deal with. Yes small plug for my own tech group, but it is true.

Ok, by this point in my writing tonight I think I am just rambling. It has been a long day, and by now I am sobering up, but yes I did have a few drinks before I got home and started writing tonight. Hey it is Halloween and I went out for a few with friends from the office before coming home. I can’t remember if I have been over my opinion on the evil empire? If not I think I made myself clear tonight. Am I asking for too much? All I want is to get a person on the phone when I have a problem, and have them seem interested in solving my issue and get me back up and running. That person should also speak clear understandable english, and must understand when others speak clear and concise english. Forgot to mention that issue. Not sure what was worse, the FULLY automated ticketing system of one company today, or the get an offshore support person who cannot fully understand what you are saying number? Then there was the automated update system that called every 30 minutes with a message telling us nothing has changed. that would have been ok, if it wasn’t for the fact that we had 4 issues open at the same time, so Jayson had calls every few minutes. And in their attempt to be good about contacting people on alternate numbers if you didn’t answer your primary one, they would call Jay’s cell phone if he didn’t pick up his work one. The issue was he didn’t want to get more calls from auto response guy, but they kept calling.

Really I have come to the conclusion that I should not write about things that really bother me right after they happen. When I do, I write allot of stuff that is true, but when I am calmer I might not have written. For my own safety names of companies and details of issues have been deliberately modified in this post. The general issue is true, and yes I had a bad day today. I need to take a vacation day soon! On that note, I am going to stop writing. If I have more things to say about the LEC who shall not be named I will write later. On a semi positive note, provider X was not as bad as the LEC who shall not be named. They sucked allot, but at least their sales guy who I deal with allot was able to get some escalations in for me. That is saying something, in a day full of problems. Did it help? I don’t know, but it made me feel a bit better.

Backup of Files

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I am trying to weekly rsync my files from the firewire drive on my Powerbook to the mini. I am using my Mac Mini and its Firewire drive as a backup set of my laptop. I have had trouble with the rsync choking on large initial copies. Not sure what is up with that. Some of the replications needed to be ran 3-5 times before they would complete. I have had better luck with the weekly updates. I guess with less file coping I get less errors. It kind of works for now, so I wont go crazy trying to debug it more.

I have a few more items to replicate but most of the important stuff is done.