Here’s a new web ad from Apple, and I’ll admit, it is pretty clever. It even looks like Mac and PC are interacting with the leaderboard. Have a look:

Apple: Because you’re to dumb to use a PC.

I’ve taken an informal poll around my cube area, and everyone agrees: We long for the olden days in IT, the outlaw days. The time when we got things done.

This was back before Enron and it’s accounting fraud debacle which ended with Sarbanes-Okley lockdowns. In a nutshell SOX is required for all public company in the US, and allows strict auditing of all procedures. It’s the bane of IT, as it means that systems under one groups control usually can’t actually do the work needed, but have to call an entirely different group. To simplify it, it’s basically this:

Person A: Opens door, enters room. “Hey, it’s dark in here.”
Person A feels around and finds the light switch. Via candlelight they write the number of the light switch down on a piece of paper.
Person A opens a service ticket and assigns it to the Lighting Control group requesting that light switch 309189 in room 204, building D, 11th floor, be moved from the current state of OFF to a new state of ON. To clarify, the ticket also includes the reason for this: To correct an ocular error.
Several hours later, after a few back and forth calls, Person B comes to the room and flips on the switch, then leaves.

That’s it. Honestly. Very few departments escape the clutches of SOX - monitoring is the exception. I can run my tools with complete authority and act as I need to. This has made me remarkably more efficient then my coworkers. Which means I end up getting bored a lot, waiting for them to have someone flip the switch they need, so I can do my thing.

Before Enron, the Dot Com bubble, and all that jazz, IT had a Wild West flair to it. It was, as I like to say, the pre-nuclear days.

You were assigned a job and you did it - no matter what needed to be done to accomplish it. You ordered the parts, you wrote the software, you decided which vendor, you created the infrastructure, the documentation was yours - you did it all. In short, it was a bit like before the first nuclear bomb was tested.

Before that initial nuke test, nations (in my example, nations are the departments within IT) basically went and created weapons as they pleased. Nothing was to crazy - the damage was all contained locally. People outside the defense departments didn’t really know nor did they care what the governments were spending their money on.

Then, we went and entered the atomic age. We created nuclear fission. Enron faked data in their electronic accounting books. The outcomes were the same.

After the nuke, nations really started to watch what each other was doing, with a finer degree of precision then they used to. Sure, Russia created an X ton bomb, so we can create an X+1 ton bomb and we’re better. But now, Russia created an X ton bomb of material X, and where did they get those materials? And how did they interface the prelaunch thrust vectors to the launch boosters and other things I don’t know.

After Enron, SOX came along and said we really need to know exactly how you do things, and we want to make sure that the people in accounting can’t manually change the data unless they file tickets with the SQL people and the SQL people can’t do anything unless they ask the SOX compliance people and the SOX compliance people refer to some extremely thick 3 ring binder that contains, in excruciating details, how thing A is supposed to be done.

And before, during, and after the nuke test we had a shit ton of activists sounding the alarm about this new technology. I’m not against activism, if you know me I’m about as activistic as you can get - but at least attempt to be knowledgeable about what you’re protesting. These pioneer anti-nuke activists had little more knowledge about nuclear physics then you could glean learning that Peter Parker was bitten by a radioactive spider and then voila - he shoots webs. This was what they went on the airwaves and in the streets with, this tiny amount of knowledge that might be based on a bit of truth if you allow theoretical situations. They scared everyone and caused more harm then good.

In IT, we had the dot com bubble, which made the public aware of these ‘interwebs’, which made people see kids becoming millionaires overnight and people being paid $250,000/year to design web sites with AOL’s page designer. Well, as could be expected, droves of college kids with dollar signs in their eyes switched from History, English, and Mythology majors to CompSci and engineering. Man, they can’t wait to be 6 months into their degree then snapped up by a hot young startup for an easy 6 figures and a boardroom table that converts to a billiard table. These kids, with the tiny amount of knowledge that they gleaned from the 75 point font headlines in the World Weekly News about Batboy Creating Internet Startup thought this was the way for them to make a ton of cash. Almost all of them were wrong, and they did more harm to the industry then good.
Now, 8 years later, we can look back and laugh - those who were in before and are still in are seeing a spike for our skills. We’re getting in demand as the new school IT people switched back to their liberal art degrees, leaving us techies alone to bask in the electric sex that was the soft glow of our CRT screens.

But now we need to fill out 37 forms to do anything. We’re making more money, and doing less work.

I wish for an IT circa 1995. I want pre-nuclear technology.

While searching Microsoft.Com for ‘download powershell’, I came across not only the download I wanted, but a How To on how to download it. Says a lot about the user base, doesn’t it?

The last time I had a girlfriend that I didn’t meet online was 1994. Ever since then, the women I’ve dated have been met through the internet - whether via accidental means or through personal ads. In those 13 years of reading and writing ads, I’ve come to learn a few things about dating and people in general. I’d like to share a few of them with you if I could. It could save you a lot of pain and heartbreak - if you listen to them. Read on for the tips!

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It’s been a few days, and I apologize. Normally I steal some time away from work with which to write but time has been fairly short - not to mention, we’ve been taken things easy lately - beginning to wind down.

I may head to the Minnesota Music Festival today - it’s a mile away, well within walking distance. Not sure though, tickets are $30 a pop and there’s the 2 of us.

Today marks my month anniversary of not smoking. I’ve gained some weight - though I’m not sure if it’s because I’m eating more or because I no longer take the 5+ minute walk to the smoking area several times a day. It doesn’t matter, I’m taking care of it - need to exercise more, but the eating side is under control - a lot more water and a lot less soda. In fact, except for coffee I’m slowing down on the caffeine consumption as well.

I bought Mishka a couple dozen roses last week and a balloon. She’s spent a lot of money on me for my birthday, I can just tell, and I feel so guilty about it - no one ever really spends money on me, girlfriends included. So I had to ‘give something back’.

This is going to be a long post, so I’ll cut it short here - click to read the rest of it.

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Last night it stormed like crazy in the Twin Cities. Around 11pm it finally hit were we live. I was laying in our large comfy bed, watching the lightning outside, listening to the rain hitting the windows and came to the realization - maybe something bad happening doesn’t always have to follow good things happening. It felt good. Looking out and watching the blurred loglo of America in front of me - the crimson red sign of UBS, the stoic yellow of Wells Fargo, the patriotic Red white and blue of Bremer bank - it all seemed to calming.

Anyway, I’m leaving work early today because I have to get a new desk. I have a desk, it was given to me, but it’s not ‘my‘ desk. It doesn’t feel like me. A desk is almost a religious thing to a geek - we spend a lot of time there, it’s the focal point of our career and our hobbies - it’s our personality. The desk I was given is of steel and glass - quite beautiful to look at, that’s for sure - but it’s not me. It’s all show, no go. I’m going to Ikea, and I bet I can find something there for me.

Then, we have to go to Swank to pick up this mod 70s dresser we bought the other day - they sold to new owners so a lot of the stock is liquidated - all the accessories were 50% off. The dresser, which we sorely need, wasn’t included in the discount - but we bought a few other things there and talked him into letting us have it for $55 less then it had on the ticket - so all in all that was a cool deal.

So after a new dresser, then a new desk, we can finish unpacking and get rid of the boxes.

And be truly, home.

Sorry I haven’t written much - the Fringe Fest started on the 3rd and I had to errrr  a friend had to work on directing his play. It was fun. A helluva lot of fun. Next year will be even better!

Ha ha! I won it! I won the auction for a 1979 Gottlieb Buck Rogers pinball playfield! He gives it a 9.5 out of a 10 in regards to shape, just a few things missing but other then that it’s almost brand new - just needs a couple parts, some polish, and then it’s coffee table time! I’m hoping to do it a bit cleaner then the person who wrote the HOW-TO; my woodworking skills aren’t great at all, but I think I can pull off a few things to make this table more refined and include things like miter joints. I’ll also need to work on a proper circuit to supply power to it - I’m thinking of using one of the rechargeable 18 volt batteries used in my Ryobi system + an additional charger. I figure I can use a DC-DC step down to convert from 18V to the ~6.3V the lights need, plus what ever additional power is needed to compensate for resistance. I can gut the charger, connecting inline to the battery and that way it can just charge the battery, or charge the battery while powering the lights, or just power the lights. Not bad for a $40 investment, $20 for the charger, $20 for the battery. Plus, this battery is a standard Ryobi uses so I can count on them being available for quite some time. Anyway, I’m stoked! I’m also hoping (Though not real sure I will) that I also win this auction, which is for another pinball playfield - this time for a 1978 Bally Playboy machine. It’s not in perfect shape, but it’ll clean up real well. If I get good enough at this, maybe I’ll try to sell them. I figure at most $250 for the parts, and it should easily sell for $500+, call it art and I can go as high as $800 no sweat. And $250 would be the max, a lot of the playfields go for only $50 or so, it’s just a tight market suddenly.

Anyway, pics of the new Buck Rogers playfield after the jump.

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It’s a typical Friday at work. Slow, painfully slow. Not much gets started on a Friday, and not much gets completed.
I’m standing, oddly enough, between 2 positions - one being Sr. Infrastructure Engineer, the other the MS Operations Manager guy. Beginning Monday, my time will be split 50/50 between the two. The MOM gig pays more, and I think I can even get more then what they offer - purely based on the fact I’m the only person even remotely qualified for this position that isn’t attached. I’ve been asked by 3 additional firms if I’d like to try for this position. My current firm is already jockeying for someone to backfill my current roll of reading email and clicking buttons.

Don’t get my wrong, I love to make a metric ton of cash doing nothing but surfing the web and blogging as much as the next guy, but I really wish I had days filled with work and tension - I thrive on pressure. The MOM gig is right up my alley.
It’s a solo thing, there’s almost always only 1 monitoring guy in an organization, no matter how large it is or how many servers it houses. This monitoring guy is in charge of a minimum of 2, maximum of 18, monitoring systems spread throughout the company. It could be something as large and robust as HP OpenView or MS Operations Manager, or it could be Bob’s Script that checks on custom application x34, which runs on a Windows NT 3.5 server, connecting to DB2, and using Bill’s (He left the company 10 years ago) custom connector.
Monitoring, reporting, and alerting is an intrinsically important part of any company, especially if your business is online. What doesn’t make sense is, no one wants to do it. Everyone loathes the thought of writing rule logic to intelligently alert when a cluster goes into a failed state, they run away from trending reports which attempt to figure out when the SAN will need to be expanded, they scurry from the idea of creating color-branded graphs that attempt to lay out the company’s entire IT infrastructure in as few primary colored lines as possible.

I, however, thrive upon it.

I love constructing complex rule logic, ensuring that the proper alerts are sent to the proper parties at the proper time. I feast upon the algorithms that I use to create trend reports. I’m enamored with the prospect of creating custom graphs, showing the progress that a company is making as a whole - I love the fact that something I created, something I made, is being shown to the most powerful people up the ladder. I like it.

It’s not for the feint of heart, that’s for sure. There’s a small sect of us in the midwest that do this type of thing, and we are as fanatical about it as the next Harry Potter fan. We hav e one hand deep in the corporate driven high-dollar professional suites such as MOM and OpenView as well as the archaic deep knowledge of open source free solutions such as Cacti, MRTG, RRD, Nagios and it’s derivatives to numerous to name. It’s not something you become, it’s something you are - an almost asberger-like devotion to the craft. You are timeless, steeped in protocols such as SNMP and Syslog, while also honing your knowledge on XMLRPC and MSMQ. It’s one of the few things that I get visibly excited talking about, my face lighting up as I explain how it can all come together.

I have several projects lined up I want to work on, one involving system and application monitoring. Several other involve industrial art pieces. Another involves electronics. I need to work on those. I hope the new loft will be an inspiration to me. I also hope that canceling my World of Warcraft subscription and getting rid of all the other games on my PC will excel that as well. I need to get my ass in gear an act on some things that could have a high payout in the long term.

How’s that for an ADHD riddled rant? I wonder if anyone can follow my blog except me. I’ll probably have another post later, but figure I should seperate this train of thought with the one that is occurring simultaneously right now, lest they truly clash together into a thought train wreck the likes of which William G. Crush could have never envisioned (I’ll take obscure 19th century train publicity stunts gone bad for $1000, Alex).

Till next time.

Just because, I’m going to list some of my favorite websites that I visit every single day. Maybe you’ll see one you like in there, and it can become one of your favorites, too.

• MAKE Magazine - I’ve been a subscriber since it’s inaugural issue, and will be a subscriber until they stop making it. It’s people making things.
• Hack A Day - Amazing hacks of everyday items, made into not so everyday items
• I Can Has Cheezburger - Yes, I too have fallen prey to the LOLCAT phenomena
• LifeHacker - Excellent productivity tips, hints and how-tos. Highly recommended.
• Freakonomics Blog - The insight and wit of a rogue economist.
• XKCD - A webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math and language
• Worse Than Failure - Curious perversion in IT, indeed.
• Engadget - If it’s a new gadget, it’s here first. Love this site, and it’s how I learned about the upcoming Max OSX touch screen based iPod coming out!
• Slashdot - News for nerds. I’ve been going there daily for almost a decade now.
• Instructables - How to DIY with EVERYTHING. One of my absolute faves.
• The Photo Forum - Great group of people here, as well as plenty of news reviews and tips.

There are a lot more sites I go to, but they aren’t an everyday thing. Most of them I subscribe to via RSS with Google Reader - I highly recommend it too, it’s now my favorite newsreader - especially being able to maneuver it purely by using the keyboard is a huge plus. You can also share items you like, care to see my shared items? I only recently started starring and sharing things, so there might not be a lot listed - you still get an insight into how my mind works. So tread lightly.

Any links you’d like to share? Post em!

COMING SOON: Updated blog, new theme, new things, same smoky flavor!

So the Geek Prom came and went this year. Me and Mishka have vowed to go to it every year now, and to work on some better costumes for next year! As it is, here’s some pictures to brighten your day!

Mishka behind the sign!

This is one of the winners of the “Spaz Dance” contest - look at how damn sweaty he was. It was a typical dance contest, dance until the judges tapped you out.

And this is one of said judges - yes, he does look a tad like the actor in the Starburst ‘Berries and Cream’ commercial - and he did a perfect imitation of it too.

Tunes were provide by ELno, a twin cities coverband of Electric Light Orchestra.

And when ELno were in the green room relaxing, the tunes were provided by this DJ. I can’t for the life of me remember his name, all I remember is he was chosen as the city pages reader’s choice best DJ for 2003,2004,2005,2006 and 2007. Go him!

Us by the dance floor. Yes, I gained some weight. 2 months of unemployment does that to a person, but I’m getting it back down thanks to NutriSystem and an exercise bike

Ah hell, just go here and few some of the ones I took whilst I was there.