Analogies

So,  a message queue on a mail server, is like a  straw in a boba (“bubble”) tea.

If someone puts an attachment on their e-mail, the rest of the office isn’t going to be able to get much tea when a piece of boba comes sucking through that straw.

So imagine my chagrin, when a user tries to suck up a watermelon (10Mb pdf catalogue) instead of a piece of boba.

Then imagine upon further examination, while I am clearing the catalogues out of the message queue and lecturing the offending user, that I see yet another different person is trying to suck a Buick up through the straw (32Mb video file).

Some days the IT department tools should include a hammer.

Cancelled

I read my blogs via a feed reader, every time there is a new post on a blog I follow, it shows up in bold font and I simply go to the listing for that blog and read the new entry.

Every once in a while though, I try to organize my feed reader.  Some blogs that I’m really no longer enjoying I just unsubscribe. But for some, I’ve ended up making a folder called “possibly dead” for feeds that don’t add a new post after 3 or 4 months.

When I made the folder, I meant “dead” as in no new posts for a prolonged period. But now, sometimes I wonder. One of the blogs I followed was from someone who was fairly ill. One of the blogs was from a woman who’s last post was about this creepy guy where she worked.

Blogs can be odd ducks, people just lose interest and stop writing. But due to the anonymity of the internet, sometimes you really don’t know who these people are and really, for all I know they could be dead.

I think I’ll rename the folder to “post deficient” and just wish for their return.

Like Found Money

Have you ever done anticipatory work and then forgotten about it?

It’s so awesome, it’s like finding money on the ground.

We got a new network laser printer at work. Normally with a network printer you install a driver share it and you are done.

However I’m in a special case with this particular printer. Our sales/accounting department uses different colored paper for different purposes on various types of sales orders, or different copies.

Normally not a big issue, most software will just let you save printer settings and let you choose the proper color when you send the printjob.

We’ve got a particular piece of custom software however that will have none of that. It sends crap right to the printer and your driver has to be set to use the color of paper you want, no choices can be made at time of print.

The workaround is to set up as many printer drivers for that printer as you have different colors.

The new printer came and it had 2 default paper trays with the option of adding more, but the optional paper trays were on back order. We had decided to add 3 extra paper trays.

Apparently anticipating the delivery of the new paper trays within the next week or 2 I figured I might as well install the needed drivers last week and just share them as the trays came in. I remember doing it now,  but when I went to start the driver installs today I hadn’t.

So, the hour of work I did last week setting up the extra drivers and setting the default print settings is an hour of work I don’t have to do today. Wohoo!

Boom

You see these photos and you always wonder what happened.

Well, this is my friend JR’s car. He was at the head of a 4 car pile up. I imagine each of the 2 cars hitting the one behind him, drove it a little further up his butt.

It’s a shame too, looks like he had just gotten it washed.

An Homage To The Geeks That Have Gone Before Me

Thank fuck for the internet.

I’m a network administrator at a small company, which means if it has anything to do with technology I’m the person that gets called when something goes astray.

Today’s dilemma was actually computer related and caused by me. I installed a new printer on the network. Loading the printer driver onto the print server crashed the print spooler service. Nothing would get it back up and running. So I go from 1 network printer short(the new printer replaces a heavily used one) to all network printing being down and out.

In a word… SHIT!

I’m not classically trained. I don’t have a computer science degree, I did have MCSE certification, but it’s 8-10 years out of date. When I got certified, Windows NT was the server of choice and things were just moving to Windows 2000 server.

Everything moving to Windows Server 2003 and soon higher, you are left with a plethora of operating systems you may have to have knowledge about because very rarely do offices upgrade everything at once, or in some cases everything at all.

Sometimes when you’ve purchased specialized software, it will only function on a particular operating system. New operating systems come around but the people who made the specialized software made their money and moved on to other things. These are called legacy systems.

Once you’re starting to work with these, the people that have gone before you and left notes are your lifeblood.

If you know how to use Google well, you can find the answer to 98% of all technical difficulties on line. You may have to read through 10-15 books worth of information, but 98% of the time the solution is out there.

So, 15-20 minutes to set up a workaround for people that have to print RIGHT NOW! and then 30 minutes of searching for solutions of geeks past and I’m back to normal.

So to the geeks who have gone before, I am deeply indebted and you have my thanks.

Comedy For The Physics Circuit

My dog is lazy, but smart.

He only chases Schrodinger’s cats.

How lazy can you get though? Both are in a box and one is dead, it’s not as if he has to put in a lot of effort.

When he barks at them you hear an echo.

He thinks he caught one once but he’s not sure.

It Must Be Friday

Apparently all the clocks in the office are running backwards or have stopped completely, which means of course that it must be Friday.

My lovely wife is getting together some of her artwork and displaying it this weekend at the Cal Cup art show.

We’re very excited about this.

Ok I am excited about this, she’s all wound up and freaked out and nervous

I’m really going to try and work hard in the next little while to get a proper website set up for her.

iTunes U

I’ve mentioned it before but I thought i’d put it out there again to encourage and remind those of you who haven’t tried it yet.

Apple iTunes, your favorite source for updating your iPod or iPhone has a tremendous amount of free resources.

Many educational institutes put out full semesters of courses up as video podcasts with links to the actual open source course materials.

MIT OCW Introduction to Computer Science and Programming Fall 2008 is what I am taking at the moment. 24 50 minute lectures, and all handouts, quizes and exams are available from the MIT open courseware website.

Of course, now I have to learn calculus to better make use of some of the programming feature sets.

New Toy

I have a new toy.

It’s an Archos 5 multimedia tablet. It’s very similar to the iPod touch but it’s slightly bigger in screen size. I can play mp3’s watch video, surf the web and check e-mail if near a wireless network.

As an added bonus it comes with a few extra’s that the iPod touch can’t do. I also bought an optional accessory that allows it to become a DVR. I can record and play video when attached to the TV.

I can also attach USB devices to it like our cameras and pull the pictures on to it’s 60Gb hard drive. I can look at all the photos too.

It will read PDF’s and play flash games as well.

Another great thing is that my car has an auxiliary input jack so that I can play all the mp3’s on it through my car stereo.

I love technology

To The Burbank Sushi Bitch

So, I have been sick for the last few days. Sunday night I was finally feeling well enough to go out of the apartment, so Dar and I went for sushi at our regular favorite sushi place.

Sitting to my right were a couple of nice mid 20 girls and to my left a couple our age.

The female of the couple was trying to engage her husband in a personal conversation regarding their friends. He was having none of it. It seems he did not want to discuss personal issues loudly in a public place.

She was upset that he cared more about what the other people in the restaurant thought than what she thought.  She started to talk louder and then started talking to Dar to bring her into the argument with her husband.

Out of sympathy for the husband, we didn’t make a big stink or scene. Had it continued, I had played out the whole conversation in my head. Goes something like this:

While I applaud your attitude that you shouldn’t give a fuck what people think of you, I think you are failing to distinguish the difference between giving a fuck what we think of you and the fact that you are having an affect on our ability to enjoy our meal since we cannot ignore the shrill cacophony that is your harpy like voice.

Your right to be oblivious ends when you intrude into my dining experience.

Also, there is a natural order to things. The earth revolves around the sun, the moon revolves around the earth and contrary to your belief system , none of it revolves around you.

You are an ignorant bitch, and the only reason your husband doesn’t divorce you probably stems from his desire to remain financially solvent.

In short, fuck off.

Last Day Of the Long Weekend

So, last nice long weekend until Thanksgiving, Dar and I went to the beach.

Then we went to dinner at Duke’s of Malibu. It was really nice. Good food and the service was great.

I drove home and was wiped so I had an extended nap which of course means, up until all hours of the morning.

I just almost sprained something trying not to wake up Dar laughing my ass off at this blog post.:

http://thebloggess.com/?p=3817

recommended by a blogger I read daily. Go laugh your ass off. Wake people up if you must, don’t hurt yourself.

The Computers Know

Technology likes me.

At least that is what my users build me up to believe after a little while.

My boss’s laptop will not access his webmail, until he brings it to my desk. I open up the browser and follow the steps that he did, works like a charm.

It frustrates them to no end. They watch me do the exact same thing they did and it works for me, where as it didn’t work for them the last 4-6 times they tried it.

Now, it can be simple things I am sure. The wireless access point in the building is at my desk, so it could just be that the boss’s laptop was losing signal through the 2 walls between my desk and his desk.

But who are we kidding? It’s a vast mechanical conspiracy and I’m going to be one of the few saved to care for the machines when they take over the world. They know it, I know it, and they know that I’m ok with it.

Your time is limited users.

Wish I Had My Camera

As I was coming home from work late last night, since I live very close to where all the fires are burning, I got quite a spectacular view of the fires.

I was reminded of Joe Vs. The Volcano, when the volcano actually erupts and the flow of lava in the shape of the company logo flows down the mountain. The views I had coming home were very similar with flames in very haphazard places down the entire length of the mountains on fire.

I was much too tired to go back out with Dar on camera duty.

Tonight I worked late but actually still got home before dark, so I didn’t get the spectacular view, but that made for the safer drive. People looking at burning mountains does not make for the safest drive home.

This Week I Shall Be Living In An Ashtray

In case you didn’t know, California, is on fire again.

We see the news coverage everyday, we assume everyone knows, but I know local coverage dominates my set.

I have been hiding away indoors doing some much needed vegging the last week of my vacation. I have been out of the apartment, but not for long stretches of time, and not in my neighborhood.

This is not the closest the fires have ever been to my actual residence, but these are the biggest ones that have been close. As a result, it felt like a punch in the stomach when I left my front door this morning.

It literally took my breath away for a minute. I walked out the door and I could not breathe for about 30-40 seconds. Luckily years of suffering from asthma prepares you for such occasions. You don’t panic, well I don’t panic anymore (I must admit I used to),  you just realize you must eventually breathe and go through calming steps in your mind.

I took the closest entrance to the parking garage and embraced the stale crappy non smoke filled air the moment I entered.

On my drive to work, even though I have the air set to recycle, I drove through banks of smoke that let the smell seep into the car.

This week promises to be less than enjoyable.

Bolsa Chica

So Dar and I went to the Bolsa Chica wetlands bird conservatory on Monday.

I think this is my best shot of the day.

A few things to note.

1) Dirt = good sunscreen

I wore sandles and the walking paths were very dusty. I have odd burn patterns on my feet where the dirt didn’t layer evenly.

2) Wear sunscreen.

3) Owwww