I just saw this photo courtesy of /. and I had to post it here. Just too damn funny how little thought to sanity checking can occur in some businesses.
Posted in Funny, Opinion, Photo, Thoughts.
I just read the abstract for a posting on /. talking about the Mobile Plate Hunter Cameras that are starting to make in roads into the various Law Enforcement departments around the country. I first learned about the company that made these devices a few years back. At the time I was working for a Consulting company that dealt a lot with the local Muni and County Gov entities and I had a chance to work with the LE groups at those levels. This type of equipment has a very real potential to improve their ability to enforce the laws they are entrusted with. Of course at the time I hadn’t taken into the consideration of taking geo-code GPS data and marrying it with the shutter-times on the captures to create a who-where type database.
The principle is sound but given that this activity would soon be learned about by the bud guys, it won’t take them long to resort to counterfeiting plates from out of state locations to cover themselves. That then leaves just the normal folks who would then be exposed to a very easy to produce informal surveillance data. But in my mind, who cares? The fact that they can identify a vehicle at a location still faces the same challenge that Photo-Radar based prosecution faces and that’s connecting the driver to the vehicle.
The other posters on /. took the article and when on another bent with it altogether. The last messages I read were more about the ability for the data to support insurance law enforcement and the contrasts between countries in the EU and States in the US with regards to urban sprawl and the governments approach to public transportation infrastructures.
Interesting.
Posted in Automobile, Opinion, Security, Thoughts.
Well, here I am back from vacation! It was an awesome time. Short and undeniably sweet. The only really sour part of the trip was the travel back home. Due to storms in Philly last Sunday we pretty much spent four hours in the plane just waiting. We did head back to the gate after the first couple of hours to take on some more fuel and also to let some of the passengers who needed to make new transfers get off. Many of the other took the opportunity to nip out of the plane to get food for the next set of additional hours waiting we were sure would follow. Again, despite all of that, it was tolerable. The pilot on that flight managed expectations admirably and even got the passengers on side with his commitment to us that he would get us home that day.
The vacation was composed of a Disney Cruise on the Wonder to Nassau and to Castaway Cay (Disney’s private island). We left Philly on Wednesday and spent the night in the Orlando Airport Hilton then took a bus ride the next day to the cruise terminal at Port Canaveral. A lot of wonderful new experiences for the girls and us. This was Becca’s first airplane flight and a first time cruising for all of us. I know that this single experience pretty much sold us all on the idea for future vacations in this mould.
So far the return to work has been peaceful. Nothing too outrageous happening and just more continuing work on the migration from Big Brother and Nagios to Zenoss. The biggest pain in the butt so far is getting all of the Solaris boxes configured with net-snmp. We’ve got some really old installs with a lot of very odd configuration and file system layouts that are frustrating. I am trying to avoid having to setup a compile machine so I am relying on binaries from sunfreeware.com but that also leads to a lot of missing dependencies. Also, I think I managed to figure out how to prevent the other admins from being spammed by the zenactions daemon. I set an additional filter on their Alerting Rules to limit the messages they get to only relevant systems. I still think that this was somekind of config or setup bug since the behavior is inconsistent. Some devices and services were sending pages to anyone while others were not. I don’t suppose that the default notification state would be that if no one is specified in the Admin properties for the device or class that it would just send to all users right? Now I am contemplating the upgrade to version 2.2.3 but I think I’ll wait a bit before I do that. I have a lot of other stuff coming up that needs attention as well.
I’ll try to post a bit more on the saga of the upgrade as I get a chance.
Posted in Biography, OpenSource, Operations, Opinion, Thoughts, g33ky, linux.
We recently deployed Splunk at work. I’ve only pointed a few servers (the core ones) and the networking gear towards it and it’s already making a HUGE impact by simplifying the tasks that rely on log review. Just by adding the domain controllers and core switches, we immediately gain visibility to Authentication and DHCP matters. As we move forward, we will continue to extend the flow to include in process operations logs from Enterprise Applications like SAP, Oracle eBusiness, and all of the other ERPs we have in house. So far the log flow is pretty light (only about 240MB/Day average) but once we start to ramp up the use of the system I expect this to grow dramatically.
So far I have been really happy with the way Splunk works. I am just now starting to hit some frustration as I start install some of the applications and actually go through their implementation. This is fairly typical of open source type software and the additions available from the splunkbase are not an exception to the rule. In particular, I am trying to get the CheckPoint OPSEC LEA Application installed and configured. The installation only hit one snag on the CentOS 5 box I have splunk running on and I noted the fix on the applications page.
So now I have the application installed and I have no idea what to do next to configure or verify if it’s working. It looks like I’ll have to drop back to the original source project to run my troubleshooting from… I’[ll post more on this as I move along in hopes it will be helpful to others.
Posted in Active Directory, CentOS, OpenSource, Security, Splunk, linux, msserver.
It sure seems like it. I’ve spent a good portion of this month in Naperville, IL getting our new Tax Processing Office online and functioning. That’s got to be the longest I’ve been away from home in ages. It was productive but somewhat vexing due to the travel hassles. At least at the end I can say that the office is up and working and on schedule.
Kind of an odd month too in the way of the weather. Not really too many hot days yet (and I guess I shouldn’t complain) and it seems like there are a lot more rainy days as well. Still the rain is good for the trees in the back yard. I can just see them fairly bristling with growth.
The girls are all doing well and enjoying their summer break. All expectant of the up coming Disney Cruise in July. I know I am looking forward to it for a chance to photograph some new sights. About the only thing that makes me somewhat nervous is the air travel to and from. Still, this is our first ever cruise (for all of us) and we’re all looking forward to the experience.
I’ve switched Shirley over to old Sony Reader
in May and she’s tied to that thing as much as I am now. Now it’s just a matter of cleaning up some of the older books from the house. That’s definitely got a bitter sweet feeling to it as I have had some of those books for a very long time.
In part of the clean up effort I am also selling off a bunch of stuff that’s just gathering dust around the house. I got rid of the old huge floor speakers that we got from Shirley’s dad. That’s a nice chunk of garage floor space back! I think the push to get organized is just another one of those cycles I tend to fall into occasionally.
I really need to get back on track and start posting more regularly again. It’s just hard to break away from the stuff I am doing lately and by the time I get a clear moment to try to post, I am usually quite exhausted and cannot think very clearly. Well, time to get to that long list of tasks now. First some user requests related to Websense and then some AD Administration! Have a great day!
Posted in AUP, Active Directory, Biography, M$, Operations, Security, Thoughts.
Today’s got that odd kinda feeling. :crazy:
I flexed yesterday off and spent the day with Shirley and then my Doctors appointment in the afternoon so it feel like Monday today! A very odd sensation considering its Wednesday. I’ve got to go through the results of the External Penn Test with the internal stake holders today and get the corrective actions plans together and then attend to my numerous ongoing projects. I almost want to do a stop and take-stock activity but the abbreviated week makes it hard to get motivated to do this. Not only is it a long weekend coming up but we’re also in the middle of a HUGE Oracle Apps upgrade. I am just praying that the applications teams don’t run into any odd ‘Ooopses’. that will require intervention. 
I managed to drop in a nightly build of Gallery yesterday but I haven’t cut over into that version as I am still trying to figure out what gets lost in the translation. It’s not as easy as just upgrading since the original install was from a Debian package and hence the file locations do not match the standard version from the publishers site. So far it looks like I will loose the comments and ranking data as well as breaking the links I have already strewed about if I do a clean install and then re-add the images. Now I think I need to drop back and re-try it with importing the database into the fresh install to see if that will work any better. I figure if I do it that way all of the existing references to/from the images to the assigned image object IDs should be preserved. I’ll document that method once I get a chance to finish hacking it out.
We’ve been invited to a picnic/get-together on Sunday that should be quite fun. We’re gonna start prepping the stuff we’re going to be bringing to it starting either today or tomorrow. That means a lot of de-boning and marinating to get all of the ingredients and materials prepared for cooking.
It’s a moderately overcast day again today. I don’t mind since it looks like it will clear out starting tomorrow and will leave us with a nice Memorial Day Weekend. It’ll be nice to get that long break. :thumbup:
Posted in debian, g33ky, linux.
Tagged with debian, g33ky, Gallery, Life, linux.
It really doesn’t seem like forty years 
. I certainly don’t feel any different today after having crossed that almost middle age threshold… I suppose that can be attributed to the “frog in boiling water” analogy right ?
No really big changes going on. Just the every day normal goings on. Lots of work projects that just keep popping up along with a raft of the every day activities as well. One small annoyance :wtf: that’s been nipping at me is the fact that I can get the “Desktop Effects” working on my notebook after I upgraded from Gutsy to Hardy. I’ve tried the NVidia distributed drivers but had a hell of a time getting them to compile in such as way as not to keep crashing when they’re loaded. I’ve dropped back to the Ubuntu restricted-drivers set again but I am still struggling with getting it to work the way I had it working in Gutsy. …sigh… Ah well. Would that all future problems will be as trivial. I’ll work on it some this weekend and see what I can get going.
Shirley and I are both looking forward to going to see Speed Racer this weekend. The visuals look really nice and I am hoping that the plot and story line will be able to hold up as well.
Ah. I’ve lingered too long. Time to get back into it. It’s our monthly IT Breakfast this morning and I need to get some more stuff done before that starts.
Posted in Biography, Family, linux.
Tagged with Biography, Family, linux.
I know it sounds silly to marvel at something so pedestrian as a sandwich but I find myself is just such a position. I normally make a couple of folded sandwiches with which to break my fast during my hour long morning drive to the office. In recent past these are usually nothing more than toast with some butter or CheezeWiz on them. But an inspiration took me to try adding some luncheon meat to the folded feast and upon trying the product, I decided that this was a good thing. I’ve varied the types of luncheon meats that I have used in them and have found that I detest any kind of honey baked ham but that I love pastrami. This helped to greatly improve the morning breakfast menu.
Today was notable in that I also added some very thin slices of white onion to the sandwich. The experience was an epiphany. No, really. I know we all have those moments of absolute clarity where we understand where we are in the universe (although without actual comprehension of the fact) and find a level of contentment as sought by the the tenets of Zen. The moment remain quite clear in my mind. The traffic was even quite agreeable to the moment in question, such that the experience was that much more intense. I am almost afraid to see what the effect of adding mayonnaise to the equation will bring.
Not much of a radical nature in life right now. It feels like I am in a period between the ebb and flow of tides. Work life is wonderful and the challenges and situation very much suited to my temperament of at this time. I am deep into reading a LOT of books thanks to finding a new source for material. We’re well into the new allergy season and as such I am pretty much closeted in my room for the balance of time I am at home and not having to do any yard work. And when I do have to engage in outdoor activities I am careful to wear a dust mask to limit exposure to all of the allergens. The kids are well and Shirley is quite happy with her studies. Now if only the economy can find it feet again, it would truly be idyllic.
Posted in Biography, Family, Reading, Thoughts, creative.
Tagged with Biography, creative, Family, Reading, Thoughts.
As I was reminded recently, I had a commitment due to a long time acquaintance. Never let is be said that I failed to deliver on that… So enjoy the plane plans!
Just like the reminder from Mike, this plane is a fond memory from bygone days of childhood.
Posted in creative, g33ky.
Tagged with g33k, Paper Plane.
Having been in the Management seat for more than a few times, I often try to give Management the benefit of the doubt. I know that making decisions and then communicating the results of those decisions are some of the hardest things that leaders have to do. Just like the axiom of technology and users; Technology is simple, users are not. In this case the decision may have been simple but communicating the results was absolutely NOT.
I read this article on TechDirt this morning and while I tried to follow my own rule of giving the management of Creative some benefit of the doubt I am challenged in doing so in this case. I can understand the fact that there is an infringement on their patent but the usage is benign and even helpful to them in this particular case. I cannot understand why they did not turn this into an opportunity to strengthen user support and create deeper customer loyalty. In their shoes I would have reached out to the coder (Daniel_K) and offered him some degree of thanks in his efforts and then on their boards, state that while these mods are helpful, they are not officially supported by Creative. Further to this, to satisfy the legal folks, they could even add the disclaimer that any damages resulting from the application of these modified files are on the users that choose to implement them. Then some points on taking some feedback from users that do elect to use these mods in an effort to feed that data back to their own development teams to help get their formal products fixed.
In that way everyone would have been satisfied and they would not be facing the fire storm as a result of their negative management approach to this matter. I also tried to think of what decision support data could possibly have led them to their current conclusion and I am mystified. Then again, the data isn’t always the only deciding factor. Often times the decision makers can also be at fault. After having witnessed train-wreck after train-wreck of poor decisions even in the face of good data, I can honestly say that this remains an unfortunate reality. I can just hope that Creative will wise up and rethink their position on this matter. It’s better to accept “Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa” than to continue to herd the burning hay wagon downhill against the breeze.
As a long time Creative customer, I will also rethink my position on this matter with regards to my choices as well as those of my recommendations to others.
Posted in Audio, Gaming, Opinion, g33ky.
Tagged with Audio, g33ky, Gaming, Opinion.
