Dave's List of Most Increditastical Fantabulous Drumming Tracks

(Preface:  I played drums and percussion "professionally" for about fifteen years, many years ago.
 I don't play anymore - can't afford a new set - but I still tap the shit out of my steering wheel, lap,
dashboard, and anything that's not fast enough to run away - when there's a good tune on).

Most Fun-to-Play Drum Tracks:

Track	Performer	Band/Artist	Album
Southbound Suarez	John Bonham	Led Zeppelin	In Through the Out Door
Cinema	Alan White	Yes	90125
Peaches En Regalia	Vinnie Colaiuta	Frank Zappa	Tinsel Town Rebellion
Double Talkin' Jive	Matt Sorum	Guns n' Roses	Use Your Illusion I
Doctor Feelgood	Tommy Lee	Motley Crue	Doctor Feelgood
Dirty Little Thing	Matt Sorum	Velvet Revolver	Contraband
Jessica	Butch Trucks / Jaimo Johannsen	The Allman Brothers Band	Eat a Peach
Crime of the Century	Bob Siebenberg	Supertramp	Crime of The Century
Trampled Under Foot	John Bonham	Led Zeppelin	Physical Graffiti
Greasy Kid Stuff	Chris Frazier	Steve Vai	Passion and Warfare
I'd Love to Change The World	Ric Lee	Ten Years After	A Space In Time

Most Fun-to-Play Percussion Tracks:

Track	Performer	Band/Artist	Album
Oye Como Va?	Michael Shrieve	Santana	Abraxas
Mind Ecology	Zakir Hussein	Shakti with John McLaughlin	Natural Elements

Stinkiest, Drippiest Groove-Oriented

Track	Performer	Band/Artist	Album
Never Alone	Vinnie Colaiuta	Jeff Beck	Emotion and Commotion
The Animal	Chris Frazier	Steve Vai	Passion and Warfare
Can't You Hear Me Knockin?	Charlie Watts	The Rolling Stones	Sticky Fingers
Belief	xx	John Mayer	Continuum

Trickiest to Learn

Track	Performer	Band/Artist	Album
YYZ	Neil Peart	Rush	Moving Pictures
Changes	Alan White	Yes	90125
Space Boogie	Simon Philips	Jeff Beck	There And Back
Windows To The Soul	Mike Mangini	Steve Vai	The Ultra Zone

Most Ass-Kicking, Balls-Through-the-Wall, Drum Snippets (intro or solo)

Track	Performer	Band/Artist	Album
Pick Me, I'm Clean	Vinnie Colaiuta	Frank Zappa	Tinsel Town Rebellion
Over The Mountain	Tommy Aldridge	Ozzy	Diary Of A Madman
Hot For Teacher	Alex Van Halen	Van Halen	1984

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Shiny New AutoCAD, Same Old VLISP

I'm beyond the point of crying over the demise of Visual LISP.  A once-mighty development platform with an impressive following (and one-time unrivaled volume-king of content), now relegated to bleeding out on the scrap heap of soon-to-be forgotten languages.

When John Walker chose LISP as the core extensible language for AutoCAD, he did so on the basis of its inherent dynamic polymorphic nature.  Recursion and chameleon-like characteristics made it as fluid and flexible as a the T2 walking through the mental hospital metal bar gate (without the pistol, of course).

What Autodesk is ignoring is potential. There is and always has been potential within the Visual LISP world to grow the language as a standalone platform. It could be used for so much more than CAD purposes. Even DCL could join in on the ride beyond the walls of Fort AutoCAD.

Once unfamiliar programmers got used to working with lists and functions like mapcar, apply and lambda, who knows where it could lead?

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Autodesk Product Feature Codes (FlexLM), versions 2010 to 2014

I had to look-up feature codes for Autodesk products to verify some of our FlexLM license files today and figured I'd share the fruits of my vegetating brain work.


Autodesk 2010: http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/ps/dl/item?siteID=123112&id=13219652&linkID=12305695

Autodesk 2011: http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/ps/dl/item?siteID=123112&id=15224763&linkID=13806469

Autodesk 2012: http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/ps/dl/item?siteID=123112&id=17288427&linkID=9243099

Autodesk 2013: http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/ps/dl/item?siteID=123112&id=18708301&linkID=9242258

Autodesk 2014: http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/ps/dl/item?siteID=123112&id=21374698&linkID=12305695

Enjoy!

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Biography Template - Male

Introduction

The purpose of this document is to provide a fill-in-the-blank form for creating a biographical write-up while keeping the reader interested and alert.  Just copy and paste the content below into your favorite text editor, and replace the FIRSTNAME, MIDDLENAME, and LASTNAME entries with yours, and you're ready to hand it to any prospective employer or government official.  It's that easy!

Let's Begin...

[INSERT PHOTO HERE] FIRSTNAME MIDDLENAME LASTNAME was born to parents Melvin Shanghai Sukimbo, from Cuba, and Shi-Shi Von Uteristein, from Afghanistan, while living in the small Italian village of Ombwata Kickbutti, on the Eastern shores of Chad.

At the age of two, FIRSTNAME learned to speak fourteen languages, and read and write six more.  Upon entering the first grade, he had mastered multivariate Calculus and factored all of the prime numbers, when he stayed home from school with a mild case of Herpes and Ebola.

By the time FIRSTNAME had entered Middle School, his family had to relocate to Australia to avoid his paternity suit with four Elementary School teachers and the assistant principal.  The suit was eventually dropped when the five plaintiffs mysteriously turned up in an old, rusty, solar-powered wood-chipper somewhere in the lawless gang-ruled neighborhoods of Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia.

Prior to graduating High School, FIRSTNAME earned a scholarship to John C. Holmes University, for his exceptional work curing Cancer, AIDS and his invention of Teflon-coated undergarments.  While studying for PhD thesis, FIRSTNAME co-founded the multi-billion dollar corporation Gasious Clay, manufacturing scent-controlled automated Halon systems for office restrooms.  He sold his interests in that company and spent the next few weeks studying to earn his IT certifications.  By the end of the month, he had earned MCP, MCSA, MSCE, MCSD, MCDST, MCITP, and MCT certifications.  

Within a week after his Bar Mitzvah, FIRSTNAME earned his Cisco CCNA and CCNE certifications. Before his 19th birthday, he won the IronMan competition in France, handily defeating the reigning world champion Moses Van Roidshot.   In fact, FIRSTNAME set a new record for lifting and carrying 500 lbs of concrete blocks across a 100 yard obstacle course, walking on his hands, with the weight suspended from his penis by braided steel cables.

At his next position as the Mexican Ambassador to Somalia, FIRSTNAME solved all of the same problems your company is just now having to deal with.  This makes him the perfect candidate for CEO of your organization, even if you currently do not have a position titled as "CEO". You could do a lot worse, and you always have.

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How to Not Suck at Scripting, Part 1

I hear this ALL OF THE TIME from IT guys who have somehow not caught the script-writing bug: "I wish I knew how to write scripts". Usually it's followed by a deep breath, a sigh, and staring off either up into the ether, or down at the ground.  I'm here to tell you how you can find that bug, and make it bite you in the ass. This is Part 1 of a 2-part article.  This part will focus on the "why" aspects.  Part 2 will focus on the "what" and "how" aspects.

The Basic Basics

First off, before I get into the enumerated list, I have to explain what is this thing we call "script-writing" or "scripting".  A "program" or "application" generally implies, or denotes, program code that has been compiled into a new binary file that can be executed by the operating system, or by another (aka "host") application.  A "script", on the other hand, is generally *not* compiled into a new (i.e. binary, hex, octal, whatever) file, but left "as-is" in the original "source code".

Source Code is the stuff you type with your own sweaty, trembling Red Bull-infused hands.  If you use something like Windows Notepad to open a program file, and you can actually spot words or phrases in your native language (e.g. English, German, etc.) it's probably either source code or script code.  If you open it in Notepad and it looks like the following crap, it's probably compiled code.

MZ
(*&(#*$)@&)#($*@&#$*&^(000011100-11)!00*!&^0010010101100011100(*&@#][}{}\?<>??::^!@~&^%&^0111011010101001]]]

The simplest giveaway is the file name extension.  I'm not going to back to 101 level stuff here, but you should have a clue that .EXE files are programs or applications, while .BAT, .VBS, .JS, .PS1 and .PY are usually script files.

One important thing to remember is that while there are many scripting languages, they are all basically serving a common purpose:  providing a low-cost, low-complication resource for system admins to automate tedious or repetitive tasks.  Sure, some languages offer more robust features for certain tasks than others, but in the end, it's a matter of matching up the tools for the jobs.

This discussion dovetails a bit with my recent post titled "Why Every SysAdmin Should Learn to Write a Script", however, this one will go in the direction of establishing a few basic technical ground rules.  Stay tuned for more... :)

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Another Book Announcement and More!

I've just published another book!  Yes! I know exactly what you're thinking:  "What the...? Why do they let him keep doing this?!  Have they no mercy upon our eyeballs?!"

Well, in the interests of science, humanity, environment and the ever-pressing need to keep gasoline in the tank of my car, I've decided it was time to pull together as many of the mindless stories I could from my old-as-dirt years working in the world of IT.  That was a very long run-on sentence.  My high school English teachers are probably rolling over in their graves right now.

There's also quite a lot of blabber about how I got into the world of IT and how I swam through the sea of CAD into the ocean of Infrastructure Management and Software Development. It really is fascinating.  Not how I got into IT, but the fact that I could construct a sentence that almost sounded coherent.  Wow!

What's this New Book All About?

The new book is called "You're Only as Good as Your Last Mistake".  Sub-titled "25 Years of Boneheaded Reflection and Stupid IT Stories to Dull your Senses".  It's a blending of a little biographical nonsense, some seriously pretentious pontification, some articles adapted from my blog (this blog), and stories about things going bump in the electronic night. I suppose it could be called a BioTechieHumorFailDisasterFest.  Uhhh.  Yeah.

It's available on the Amazon Kindle store in every country where Amazon can sell books (US, UK, France, Germany, Italy, India, Japan, Spain, Canada and Brazil, as far as I know).

Here's the GOOD NEWS!

• It's only $2.99 (USD) and whatever that translates to in other currency
• Don't have a Kindle?  No problem.  You can download a FREE Kindle Reader app for iPhone, Android, Blackberry, Windows Phone, Windows XP/Vista/7/8, Mac OS, and ...
• You can read Kindle books online in almost any web browser using the Kindle Cloud Reader!
• If you are an Amazon Prime member, you can "borrow" eBooks, including all of my eBooks, for FREE!

What's the Catch?

• I only ask a small favor:  It's a BIG favor for me, and a small effort on your part, but I really would appreciate honest reviews of my books.  If you've purchased, or borrowed, any of my eBooks and actually read them (without pausing in the middle to stab yourself in the eyeballs with a fork), please go to the Amazon web site for the book(s) you've read and submit your opinion on them?
• You can start at my Author Profile page to make it easy.
• Thank you!

Sample: "Where it All Began: From Doritos to Digital Ships"

"Chronologically it's weird, because some of those jobs were in parallel with others.  For example, in that maze of titles I managed to fit in roughly five good years of rock and jazz band, but whatever. I also weaved in about ten years of artwork (painting, drawing, squishing clay stuff around, and so on) which never earned me more than "Hey man, that's cool!"  I remember responding a few times with "Cool enough to buy?", and the response to that being something like "Yeah! By somebody.", but somehow "somebody" could never be found. 

Sometime in early 1984, Mark, one of my brothers stoned friends, walked into our kitchen while I was maniacally inhaling a bowl of Fruit Loops (my favorite cereal at the time).He stopped at the doorway to exclaim "I got a job, dude!" to which we all replied with stunned silence.  I decided to inquire, saying something intelligent like "Oh yeah? What?"  

He explained that he was hired as a "Naval Designer" at a local Naval engineering firm, and went on to indulge us in this magically mysterious thing called "benefits", and something even more interesting, called a "salary". If I hadn't grown up in a Navy town (okay, a Navy "region"), I would have assumed a "Naval Engineer" designed belly-button replacements or something. 

Most of what Mark said was really fascinating, even though I could barely hear his muttering over my own cereal-chewing noise.  The best way to describe him is to think of someone who looks, sounds, and acts a lot like Jeff Spiccolli (Fast Times at Ridgemont High), only not as funny, has a mustache and wears glasses, coming in and telling you he was hired at an engineering firm.  You get the idea. 

Somewhere towards the end of my bowl of cereal Mark said something that perked my ears up.  I think it was something he mentioned about there being more positions needing to be filled, and that they paid pretty well. As it turned out, there were roughly twenty openings for "Drafting Apprentice" jobs, so I ran down and applied.  After a short interview ("Can you hold a pencil, boy? Alrighty! You is hired!"). 

I was finger-printed, scanned, questioned, photographed, probed and stamped with a badge and told to show up at 7:30 AM the following Monday.  That led to five or six years of my work as a Drafter/Designer in the U.S. Naval engineering field." 

Sample above (C)2013 David M. Stein, All Rights Reserved. May not be reproduced or copied, transmitted, in whole or in part, for any purposes or derivative use, without explicit written consent of the author (me). And let's face it: If you're so desperate that you'd consider copying this literary fast food schlock, well, you may need some serious medication already.

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Automation Potential - If Only...

After years (too many to count, or even want to count actually) of working in the IT field, I've come to realize that 99 percent of what holds back businesses, schools, organizations of all kinds from achieving even minor automation benefits from the tools they already have at their disposal is their own lack of leveraging some of their most basic features.  If only...

1. The "Managed By" field for User accounts were populated consistently in Active Directory (AD).  
2. Computers were named consistently with respect to function and disposition using parse-able syntax.
3. The "Location" field were filled out consistently for Computers, and Printers in AD.
4. The "Description" field were not only paid a little attention, but used consistently in AD.
5. A little time were set aside to clean up File shares and storage folders.
6. A basic set of tools were included in the base image of every desktop and laptop computer.

Filling out the 'Managed By' field for user accounts makes it easy to generate automatic organization charts using Visio or other chart tools.  With Visio you can not only automate the org charts, but automate publishing to an intranet location.  The "managed by" association can also be used to automate workflow operations in all sorts of applications, such as System Center Service Manager.

Note: Even if you don't use Exchange or any internal e-mail system, filling out user account fields makes it easy to automatically generate look-up tools for finding employees by name, location, title, department, and more.

When computers are named with a parse-able syntax, it opens the door for all sorts of automation tricks.  From automatic naming processes during MDT and OSD provisioning, to Group Policy targeting (WMI-filtering, etc.), to scripting, to inventorying, to whatever.  A parse-able name is one that is constructed by concatenating codes that represent specific attributes.  

For example "SVDB10012" might represent "Server", "Virtualized", "Database Role", asset number "10012".  Another example might be "DNVA4034" to represent "Desktop computer", "Norfolk, Virginia office", asset number "4034".  The potential code schemes is limitless, as long as you don't violate DNS or WINS naming limitations.

One customer I've worked with uses a scheme similar to the following (modified to protect the innocent, of course):

Device Code: 

D = Desktop
L = Laptop
T = Tablet
M = Mobile device / Smartphone
S = Server

Functional Code:

P = Physical
V = Virtual
C = Cloud hosted

Location Code:

NN = Office location code (numbers or letters)

Asset Code:

nnnnn = 5-digit asset number assigned in inventory and purchase tracking system

Additional "codes" might include organization (division, department, etc.), project or program association, security category (classified, non-classified), regulatory compliance scope (SOX, HIPAA, etc.), shared usage (kiosk, conference room, etc.), infrastructure role (telephony, scanning, CAM operations, etc.), and so on.  You can use these codes to control script behavior, Group Policy filtering applicability, OSD task sequence automation, AD queries, inventory reports, and on and on.

Whether you use Symantec Ghost, MDT, Configuration Manager OSD, or some other tool to prepare, maintain and deploy a "standard" operating environment for your desktops, laptops and tablets, don't forget to include some basic tools to help with troubleshooting and even client-side automation.  Some suggestions might include a few Sysinternals utilities, Trace32 or CMTrace log viewers, Intel or AMD processor diagnostic tools, and so on.  You don't have to do this if it doesn't benefit you, but if you discover that you've been copying certain apps or files to computers each time you troubleshoot problems, you might want to consider making those items part of the standard installation.

I'm not suggesting that you should immediately run out and start doing these things.  I am only suggesting that you stop and think carefully about how you are managing things now, and what you could do to make it possible to automate certain tasks later on as a result of the work you put in up front.  If you make some small changes now, it can open up incredible potential later on for automating tasks that otherwise can be very difficult and time-consuming.

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