Happy Birthday Blog

For some reason, Blogger dumped some of my earliest posts prior to December 24, 2007.  That's the oldest date for which it retains a posting at this point.  I should probably read the EULA/terms to see if they have a cut-off date for older posts.  In any case, from my best recollection, I started this blog in November 2006 and maintained it through now with a few manically depressive drop-outs and whatnot.  \

Since early 2008 I've tried to maintain a regular presence, especially throughout the period of unemployment between March and June of 2008.  As much as I hated it, the blog was somewhat of a therapy instrument (I apologize for dumping so many of my stupid hair-brained rants on you all - er - all three of you, that is).  Somehow, I overlooked the November anniversary date, which would have been four years.  Since my birthday is next week, I figured I'd just lump it together and wish my blog a belated happy birthday.  I'll have to drink an extra beer or three this weekend. 

In fact, I may be providing some technical assistance to some friends who are producing a beer-tasting podcast show.  They were going full-bore for a while and hit a road bump and had to put everything on hold.  But now they're firing the engine back up and they asked me to help with some tidbits.  I hope to have some interesting news and links to share soon.  Til then: CHEERS!

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The Social Network vs. the Book

I saw the Social Network a few months ago, and I liked it very much.  I found it to be very entertaining.  The pace is just right.  The dialog is assembled well.  The scenes don't leave you snoring for the most part.  But then again: That's just my stupid opinion.

Then I read the book from which it was derived: "The Accidental Billionaires".  It too is entertaining. But some of the hyperbole and anecdotal comments the author tosses around made my eyes roll.  For example, there are some sentences in the beginning, when he describes the process by which Zuck pilfers the photo libraries of each of the campus house servers. 

As he hits each one, he lays it on thick as though Zuck is some uber-God that possesses magical superior powers unknown to mortal men.  Um, hello?  wget and grep have been around for decades and I've known literally dozens of genius hackers that could have accomplished that basic feat with less effort.  Come to think of it: Mitnick would have probably figured out a way to get the houses to send it to him without having to write any code at all.  Of course, Mitnick possesses "social engineering" skills, rather than "social networking programming" skills, but whatever.  That part of the book almost made me stop reading, but I persevered and somehow made it through.

Could I have done what Zuck did back in the era mentioned in the book?  Probably not.  I had left college (and UNIX) life behind when I graduated in 1999.  My life since 2000 was (and still is) mostly Microsoft oriented.  But if I had stayed immersed in the world of vi, emacs, pico, grep, regex, wget and apache/php, who knows.  I do know this: there were hundreds of people around at that time that could have easily done what the author paints to be a picture of God-like powers.

But what really matters is timing and luck.  Mark was at the right place, at the right time and struck while the iron was hot.  That's all that matters in the business world.  The more you read books like Myths of Innovation and What Technology Wants, the more you'll realize that few ideas are truly unique.  Most every "innovation" can be traced to many simultaneous discoveries, but only one was lucky or persistent enough to follow through with it.

So, if I had to provide a comparative rating to the book versus the movie, I would have to score a win for the movie in this case.  Usually the screenplay trims out the best details of whatever book it comes from, but in this case it cleaned it up.

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What I've Accomplished This Week

• Packaged Office 2010 using OCT and Config.XML modification to deploy with SCCM
• Wrote scripts to customize MED-V client deployments via SCCM
• Wrote scripts to customize MED-V client workspace management features
• Worked on integrating SCCM with a web interface and SQL
• Installed and testing IE9 RC, Chrome 11, and Firefox 4
• Testing the IE9 Developer Tool (F12) Network Trace toolset (very nice!)
• Updated my Google Chromebook CR-48 to the Dev Channel (0.10.x)
• Finished reading a few books:
• Dan Brown's "The Lost Symbol"
• Laura Hilldebrand's "Unbroken" (very good!)
• Started reading "The Accidental Billionaires"
• Reading samples of several books to decide on which to buy next:
• Don Rumsfeld: "Known and Unknown"
• Dan Brown: "Digital Fortress"
• a few others
• Watched "The Town"
• Ironed four shirts
• Polished one pair of brown shoes
• Ran my first full mile, without a break, since I was in my 20's - just last night!

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Business and IT Stupidity

If you push Office 2010 to 1000 networked computers using a GPO you should have your fingers and your nuts removed with a pair of vice grips. If you were forced to do it by way of lacking budget or CIO ignorance, then you get a pass (as long as you offer up those folks for tasering)

Company "A" decides to switch cell phone contracts to a new provider because they were offered a huge discount. The decision was made at corporate headquarters where cell coverage was reliable. However, at the biggest operations office there was no coverage at all by the new provider. After issuing phones, employees realized they were useless and turned them back in. Great savings plan.

Company "B" wrestled with cost reductions and decided to close one office and move the operation to the nearest branch some 25 miles away. The relocated branch was home to one of the most lucrative contracts in the company. The customer insisted on a clause that required the service provider to maintain a "suitable presense" within 5 miles of their facility. Now there was none. Contract cancelled, and bids went out for a replacement. Company "C" wins the bid and hires employees away from the faltering company "B". Problem solved.

Company "D" decided one year to change their compensation package from mostly cash to mostly unvested stocks and options. From 70/30 to 20/80 actually. Withing six months of applying this new mix to performing employees, the reason became clear: they were selling the company and nullifying unvested and un-optioned shares awarded. Awesome benefit plan!

IT engineer at company "E" decides it would make sense to remove an expensive engineering software product from 3 workstations and install it on their Terminal Services host so everyone could use it without installing it locally. After it was suggested they confirm that with the vendor first, they chose to ignore the concerns and proceed. A week later they realized there were issues with multiple users launching it concurrently inside the TS host, so they called the vendor. The vendor rather politely informed them that had they read the EULA, it clearly states TS hosting is strictly forbidden and unsupported. After the IT guy argued back the vendor said "ok, then we will bill you one license for every TS CAL you own for that host" (the cost per license was $10,000 at the time and they had 250 CALs). The product was quickly removed.

All of these are 100% true and I witnessed them firsthand.

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IT Support 101

This question was asked at an interview session of about a dozen individual applicants. The point was to assess their diagnostics skills and behavior patterns. There were many other questions asked as well. I cannot name the employer, but the responses were interesting.

"You get a call from a user saying they logged on and were working fine, but now they can no longer access the web, print documents or send e-mail. What would you do?"

After hearing everything from running diagnostic tests to rebooting the computer, not one of these certificate-holding, college graduate applicants offered up the obvious:

Check the cable connections.

I thought of this today when someone I know freaked out over "losing" a ton of documents on their computer. The document files are/were stored on an external USB hard drive. The cable had come unplugged, but the system cache still showed the drive as being active. Thankfully, it was cured by just re-attaching the connector.

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Irony or Ignorance?

It seems odd to me that the popular perception of municipal jobs is that they're overpaid and underworked. Yet whenever I ask someone why they don't pursue a job in their city government they almost always reject the idea because they can make better pay in the private sector.

Union or not, I don't give a shit. I don't care about unions or corporations. I just want to see everyone working. My point here is that the popular view on municipal jobs is one of trying to argue both sides at once.

Which is it?

Well, after reviewing the publicly available salary rates for municipal jobs at some 20 city and state web sites, the answer is painfully clear: the private sector pays better rates by almost 20 percent. Anecdotal of course, but you can do your own validation as well.

And what about benefits? Glad you asked. A check on this yields an interesting trend:

Since 2007, most municipal benefits packages have been trimmed significantly lower than the private sector. Employees hired prior to 2003, in general, have better benefits, but marginally comparable to the private sector, with the exception of pension plans. Those are rare for latter employees. And even so, most packages have scaled back employer contribution rates as well.

The point I'm actually making is that the facts are laying out in plain sight, but few bother to look. The majority seems content to swallow the spoonfed distortions by media goons bent on a political agenda.

This is the same crap I saw with the "Obama-care" health care reform act legislation. I'm not defending that mess, nor am I supporting it. Both "sides" were shoveling distorted crap at a feverish rate. Not one person I met had read the bill, which was available online for anyone who cared. Most said "I don't need to read it. Glenn Beck explained to me." Or "Obama explained it to me" or some similar stupid ass nonsense.

In reality, that bill does little to attack some of the fundamental flaws of the status quo, yet the Left was convinced it fixed everything. The Right is convinced it will destroy health care. The truth is neither. But nobody bothered to read it themselves.

America, and much of the western world actually, have devolved into lazy, complaining conformists, who prefer to turn on a TV and be told (or suggested) what to believe. No care is given to the fact that their sources are paid by big business and come with hidden agendas disguised as "truth". Sadly, when the "truth" is sitting out in plain sight, they prefer to watch the TV to get the easy, lazy, distorted explanation from the well-groomed and well-dressed "expert" in between commercial breaks.

Sad.

Here's a radical idea: Turn off the radio and TV and go read the facts for yourself.

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Facebook

I forgot to mention that there's a Facebook Group for "Visual LISP Developers".  The link is http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=339867788546 but you also search for "Visual LISP" and find it.

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