when I started a C programming class at San Diego State University. I was introduced to Unix at that time, and fell in love with it's power and simplicity.
I was content to be a user, but when I started working in the computer industry in 1995, I was introduced to Linux by a co-worker and fellow Unix lover (Thanks Martin!). I got bitten by the sysadmin bug then. We had a part-time consultant sysadmin then, and I emailed him with problems I was having with my Linux box, and he helped out immensely. Even when I brought down the email system with a badly configured sendmail.cf, he was patient and walked me through it.
As I started taking over day-to-day administration of the Solaris and SunOS servers at work, I found it invaluable to use the knowledge of the Unix propeller-heads at work. All were engineers, but they knew enough about Unix to give me a hand when needed. I also made friends with some old-time Unix-heads that proved to be a wonderful resource.
Don't underestimate the power of a mentor. Find someone with a long beard to talk with regularly. Also, read, read, read. Surf the net. Install software "just because". You will screw up, and have to recover. Nothing compares to removing "libc.so",
I now have 6 years of sysadmin experience under my belt. Even when sysadminning wasn't my official job title, I still found a way to do some. I've got the sysadmin bug, and bad. I love the challenge of it. I love knowing that every time I upgrade some software, or tune a system, that the people who make the product that pays my salary are able to do their work that much more easily and quickly.
As far as certification, it might look good on a resume for a PHB, but in real life don't mean much. Like an MCSE. You know the books, but real life can be much different. In short, if you have the time and $$$ to burn, go ahead. But your time can be equally well spent hacking on a system.
Oh man. Reminds me of a trick that I played on a fellow Unix geek. I found a sound on the Internet called molfart.au (yes, it's as funny as the name would imply). This guy had a Sun on his desk, and as sysadmin, I had root. So, I created a crontab entry that would play the sound at 38 past the hour, every hour. He came to me a couple of days later asking about the strange sound coming from his box. It had him totally stumped.
I let him off the hook, but it was really funny when he came to ask me to fix it.
Come on folks. We are all pretty smart. In the eyes of Joe-average-computer-user, POP email is both ways. For those of us that know, POP is incoming, and SMTP is outgoing. It's much easier, and less confusing, to just say that "POP access is limited to MSN Explorer, Outlook, and Outlook Express". In essence, more people can identify POP than SMTP. Let's try debating the actual issue. Arguing semantics is just silly.
For my $.02, I think this is just another shot at people who want to use something Different. Once we figure out what MSN is looking for, it's easy enough to change our email clients to emulate the MS tools. This is not a widespread problem (yet), so to those who are affected - break out a sniffer, do some manual SMTP, play with it. Then, find a workaround. I know that if I was in this situation, I would do the same.
Try Insight from bynari[bynari.net]. They make both a client (Insight) and a server (Insight Server). The client can talk to an Exchange server, and includes calendar, addressbook, and email, just like outlook, but on Linux. The server is feature-compatible with Exchange, and is built on exim, openldap, and cyrus IMAP/POP. Outlook clients can talk to the Insight server just fine, even transparently. I am demoing it right now, and it might just replace Exchange here, and allow me to run Linux exclusively.
This sounds like a CYA move. If someone were to get in legal trouble for a site they created, MS could avoid getting dragged into any courtroom by hiding behind the EULA. "Your Honor, the EULA clearly states that you cannot use the software to create such a site. Our hands are clean."
It's a sad commentary on our society that I come to that conclusion, but there it is.
When trying to access a couple of the attacking sites, I get a download of a file called wbk832.tmp and a second IE window opens with the URL of mhtml:http://xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx/readme.eml
Snort has been going nuts this morning. I am getting about the same results. Although, in my case, the attacks are coming from 63.x.x.x, which is the same/8 as I am on.
From here, it looks like a variation on Code Red. Should be an interesting morning.
Here is a list of Clear Channel stations to avoid in Salt Lake City, UT. Remember, these guys depend on listenership for $$$. If we don't listen, and encourage others not to, we might send a message. List follows:
It affected my bowling game! See, I was sitting in the bowling alley, waiting for the game to start, when my pager went off, wishing me a happy billennium. My game went to pot.
...with a monkey on his shoulder. He sits at the bar, and announces in a loud voice, "I bet a glass of beer my monkey will eat anything you give him!"
The bar patrons were intrigued. One walked over with a square of chalk from the pool table and handed it to the monkey. The monkey took a look at the chalk, and swallowed it right down.
Another patron walked over with a cardboard coaster from the other end of the bar. The monkey took it gladly and chewed it up without any problem.
One of the more drunk patrons picked up a cueball from the pool table and handed it to the monkey, who looked at it for a minute, then swallowed it whole! Nobody could believe it, but a bet is a bet.
By this time, the man had three beers in front of him. He gave one to the monkey and drank two himself, then got up and left with the monkey.
The man returned a week later with the monkey, and sat down at the bar. He didn't make his offer this time, but ordered a beer.
The drunk who offered the monkey the cue ball walked over with a bowl of peanuts and sat down next to the man.
"Mister, I feel bad about the cue ball thing. I was drunk. Can your monkey have a peanut?"
The man accepted the apology and let the drunk give the monkey a peanut. The monkey took the peanut, stuck it up his butt, pulled it out, and ate it.
Quite simply put, menstruation is God's curse to womenkind because of Eve's actions in the Garden of Eden. If she hadn't have corrupted Adam, then we would still be living in Paradise.
And, without that act we wouldn't know joy, for without bad, good is arbitrary. Even if Adam and Eve would have been able to reproduce in a perfect state (possible?), their children (us) would not know that Paradise was so good.
For me, I'd much rather have some evil in the world. When I have a bad day, the good things in my life stand out all the more brightly.
WRT the simple vs. complex applications: Isn't that the Unix philosophy? A number of simple, small utilities that work together to perform complex tasks! Edit a file with VI, check it with ispell, convert to the format of your choice with any number of utilities. Given, modern users don't like the command line, but couldn't we create GUI programs that allow the same interoperation?
We use college sports teams here for engineering servers - aztec, wildcat, triton, etc. I am starting to name our GIS servers after muppet characters. I considered using LoTR names, but that seems a bit worn out. Just pick a large group of related names, and go for it! Tell the PHB's that you will use the corp name scheme, but just use those as aliases to the "real" names.
Slashdot Mirror
when I started a C programming class at San Diego State University. I was introduced to Unix at that time, and fell in love with it's power and simplicity.
I was content to be a user, but when I started working in the computer industry in 1995, I was introduced to Linux by a co-worker and fellow Unix lover (Thanks Martin!). I got bitten by the sysadmin bug then. We had a part-time consultant sysadmin then, and I emailed him with problems I was having with my Linux box, and he helped out immensely. Even when I brought down the email system with a badly configured sendmail.cf, he was patient and walked me through it.
As I started taking over day-to-day administration of the Solaris and SunOS servers at work, I found it invaluable to use the knowledge of the Unix propeller-heads at work. All were engineers, but they knew enough about Unix to give me a hand when needed. I also made friends with some old-time Unix-heads that proved to be a wonderful resource.
Don't underestimate the power of a mentor. Find someone with a long beard to talk with regularly. Also, read, read, read. Surf the net. Install software "just because". You will screw up, and have to recover. Nothing compares to removing "libc.so",
I now have 6 years of sysadmin experience under my belt. Even when sysadminning wasn't my official job title, I still found a way to do some. I've got the sysadmin bug, and bad. I love the challenge of it. I love knowing that every time I upgrade some software, or tune a system, that the people who make the product that pays my salary are able to do their work that much more easily and quickly.
As far as certification, it might look good on a resume for a PHB, but in real life don't mean much. Like an MCSE. You know the books, but real life can be much different. In short, if you have the time and $$$ to burn, go ahead. But your time can be equally well spent hacking on a system.
Do it, do it, do it. I love this job.
Jeremy
Oh man. Reminds me of a trick that I played on a fellow Unix geek. I found a sound on the Internet called molfart.au (yes, it's as funny as the name would imply). This guy had a Sun on his desk, and as sysadmin, I had root. So, I created a crontab entry that would play the sound at 38 past the hour, every hour. He came to me a couple of days later asking about the strange sound coming from his box. It had him totally stumped.
I let him off the hook, but it was really funny when he came to ask me to fix it.
Jeremy
Come on folks. We are all pretty smart. In the eyes of Joe-average-computer-user, POP email is both ways. For those of us that know, POP is incoming, and SMTP is outgoing. It's much easier, and less confusing, to just say that "POP access is limited to MSN Explorer, Outlook, and Outlook Express". In essence, more people can identify POP than SMTP. Let's try debating the actual issue. Arguing semantics is just silly.
For my $.02, I think this is just another shot at people who want to use something Different. Once we figure out what MSN is looking for, it's easy enough to change our email clients to emulate the MS tools. This is not a widespread problem (yet), so to those who are affected - break out a sniffer, do some manual SMTP, play with it. Then, find a workaround. I know that if I was in this situation, I would do the same.
Try Insight from bynari[bynari.net]. They make both a client (Insight) and a server (Insight Server). The client can talk to an Exchange server, and includes calendar, addressbook, and email, just like outlook, but on Linux. The server is feature-compatible with Exchange, and is built on exim, openldap, and cyrus IMAP/POP. Outlook clients can talk to the Insight server just fine, even transparently. I am demoing it right now, and it might just replace Exchange here, and allow me to run Linux exclusively.
This sounds like a CYA move. If someone were to get in legal trouble for a site they created, MS could avoid getting dragged into any courtroom by hiding behind the EULA. "Your Honor, the EULA clearly states that you cannot use the software to create such a site. Our hands are clean."
It's a sad commentary on our society that I come to that conclusion, but there it is.
When trying to access a couple of the attacking sites, I get a download of a file called wbk832.tmp and a second IE window opens with the URL of mhtml:http://xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx/readme.eml
This looks like a bad one. Anyone have any ideas?
Snort has been going nuts this morning. I am getting about the same results. Although, in my case, the attacks are coming from 63.x.x.x, which is the same /8 as I am on.
From here, it looks like a variation on Code Red. Should be an interesting morning.
Jeremy
Here is a list of Clear Channel stations to avoid in Salt Lake City, UT. Remember, these guys depend on listenership for $$$. If we don't listen, and encourage others not to, we might send a message. List follows:
KALL-AM - 910
KISN-FM - 97.1
KKAT-FM - 101.9
KNRS-AM - 570
KODJ-FM - 94.1
KURR-FM - 99.5
KWLW-AM - 700
KZHT-FM - 94.9
Also, post a list for your city! We need this information spread!
It affected my bowling game! See, I was sitting in the bowling alley, waiting for the game to start, when my pager went off, wishing me a happy billennium. My game went to pot.
I really doubt it was my bowling prowess...
;)
Jeremy
You would've thought the second one would've ducked!
...with a monkey on his shoulder. He sits at the bar, and announces in a loud voice, "I bet a glass of beer my monkey will eat anything you give him!"
The bar patrons were intrigued. One walked over with a square of chalk from the pool table and handed it to the monkey. The monkey took a look at the chalk, and swallowed it right down.
Another patron walked over with a cardboard coaster from the other end of the bar. The monkey took it gladly and chewed it up without any problem.
One of the more drunk patrons picked up a cueball from the pool table and handed it to the monkey, who looked at it for a minute, then swallowed it whole! Nobody could believe it, but a bet is a bet.
By this time, the man had three beers in front of him. He gave one to the monkey and drank two himself, then got up and left with the monkey.
The man returned a week later with the monkey, and sat down at the bar. He didn't make his offer this time, but ordered a beer.
The drunk who offered the monkey the cue ball walked over with a bowl of peanuts and sat down next to the man.
"Mister, I feel bad about the cue ball thing. I was drunk. Can your monkey have a peanut?"
The man accepted the apology and let the drunk give the monkey a peanut. The monkey took the peanut, stuck it up his butt, pulled it out, and ate it.
The drunk was horrified. "What was that for?!"
"Oh. That. He checks things for size first now."
Of course! If I had the mod points, this would go UP!
I am also surprised that nobody has brought it up. Come on folks!
Jeremy
Quite simply put, menstruation is God's curse to womenkind because of Eve's actions in the Garden of Eden. If she hadn't have corrupted Adam, then we would still be living in Paradise.
And, without that act we wouldn't know joy, for without bad, good is arbitrary. Even if Adam and Eve would have been able to reproduce in a perfect state (possible?), their children (us) would not know that Paradise was so good.
For me, I'd much rather have some evil in the world. When I have a bad day, the good things in my life stand out all the more brightly.
Jeremy
ObParallelPort: I had a set of LED's on mine that reported processor load, etc. I lost the stuff on a job move though. Maybe it's time to rebuild!
Get the cygwin tools. It includes a port of the actual OpenSSH code. Everything works splendidly, and you get a unix shell and tools for Windows!
WRT the simple vs. complex applications: Isn't that the Unix philosophy? A number of simple, small utilities that work together to perform complex tasks! Edit a file with VI, check it with ispell, convert to the format of your choice with any number of utilities. Given, modern users don't like the command line, but couldn't we create GUI programs that allow the same interoperation?
Jeremy
I have this working under Linux and Netscape 4.7 right now. The below URL gives the details:
http://www.linu x.com/tuneup/database.phtml/X11/Netscape/000932.ht ml
I can scroll the pages with the wheel, and use the middle button to open a new page on a link.
HTH, HAND
We use college sports teams here for engineering servers - aztec, wildcat, triton, etc. I am starting to name our GIS servers after muppet characters. I considered using LoTR names, but that seems a bit worn out. Just pick a large group of related names, and go for it! Tell the PHB's that you will use the corp name scheme, but just use those as aliases to the "real" names.