Archive for 'Humor'

(To my readers who only see this in their RSS feed and disable pictures… you’re totally missing out on what’s above this line.)

I’m researching how to best build a new small office network for a client. It’s pretty much a greenfield project and whatever decisions I make will have long lasting effects for the organization. There needs to be a core server that holds all the primary roles; VPN, firewall, file and print, directory services, etc. That sounds like Microsoft SBS to most people, but I’m not set in my ways. I’ve looked at the myriad of FOSS based SMB server platforms, including products like Zentyal, Untangle, Artica, and even Amahi. The one title that seems to stand out among them all is ClearOS (the former ClarkConnect Linux).

As I’ve been diving deeply into the ClearOS literature, I found a portion of their website that includes a picture gallery. Of course, the usual galleries exist of the ClearOS folks mixing at industry events. Some of the galleries are provided by their adoring users. You’ll see office space, screenshots — the usual fare of user pictures.

One gallery is from a guy who made his own water cooled ClearOS server. In fact, he want hardcore and decided to make his own waterblock.

Okay, that’s cool. A guy makes his own custom waterblock. So what do you house that motherboard and waterblock in? Oh don’t be so closed minded. “In” is so not the open source way. How about screwing it, the power supply and hard drive to a piece of wood and hanging it on the wall!

But wait – it’s a water cooled system. The water has to come from somewhere. If you look closely, the tubes go into a reservoir on the bottom left side of the Tux mount. But, where does it actually come from? Does a person have to remember to fill the water up in that reservoir? Of course not! The only logical way to get water into your water-cooled system is to…

…drill a hole into the bathroom on the other side of the wall and use the water out of the toilet!!

That’s just…

…what the…

…I don’t even.

I’ll just leave the full gallery here.

EDIT: As has been pointed out by commenters Bryon and chx, it’s likely that the toilet’s reservoir is merely being used as a heat exchanger and not as a source of water for the cooling system. Photo 152 shows that this is likely a closed loop system. However, the murky water in the hoses still creeps me out.

EDIT 2: Nope, it now looks like the water in the system is being supplied by the toilet reservoir after all (thanks Kory!):

If you’ve seen anything crazier, let me know in the comments below. If you provide pictures, you can have the next blog post. =)

In closing, I think a Paranoid Parrot is in order:

Totally stolen from chatting with Joel Esalas. =)

Free stuff rocks. As the Open Source business model has continued to grow in popularity and financial success, more and more companies are starting to offer a lite version of their flagship product for free. Others still offer time-crippled versions of their full product that only work for a short amount of time. However, the principle remains the same: To make an informed decision, people need to try out your product before they can become happy customers. It’s no use to snag a paying customer who becomes an unhappy customer when they realize that the product does not perform well in their scenario.

However, there’s a second half to the philosophy of giving things away for free. Free means more than money. Free should also mean bereft of intimidation, expectation and especially obligation. I shouldn’t have to worry that every phone call that rings my phone will probably be a Sales Don with a blackbelt in the bloodthirsty discipline of aye-fleece-yu. I shouldn’t have to peek out my curtains before walking to the mailbox. Once I start practicing SERE techniques before going to work, I think that’s a sign that a line has been crossed.

There’s some places that only want minimal information. A name, and email address. I’m okay with that in the same way that a person is happy if a mugger only wants their paper money and not their whole wallet, backpack and gold tooth. Other places are not so lenient. Each field is required in a multi-field form. First name, last name, salutation, business title, company name, number of employees, address (some even check for address validity so 1313 Mockingbird Ln won’t work. Curses!), cell phone, business phone (with extension), yearly budget, number of servers, number of PCs, number of mobile devices, number of household pets, yearly salary, highest level of education and yes, in some cases even a credit card number.

Did someone really think that demanding all that information would be a good idea? Furthermore, are there people out there that think giving this amount of information (accurately, anyway) is a good idea? I’ve had to do a bit of my own research on eCommerce and conversion rate theory, so I know quite a bit about the need to reduce the hurtles in a form to thereby increase submissions. I find it very hard to believe that a detailed cross-examination is anything but a barrier to conversions. Perhaps some would say that a certain level of detail will weed out the merely curious from the more serious leads.

Here are some of the ways that I translate a “sign up for a free trial!” barrier:

“Give us all your deatils so we can air drop a sales ninja to your CTO or contracting employer!”

Because the merits of your product require a little extra help from shiny brochures, buzzspeak and toothsome sales associates.

“Our business can only stand on shady credit card scams so we’ll conveniently charge you some hidden fees or opt-in charges for the skrill we so desperately need”

Just don’t.

“We will stalk you and everyone who works at your company using LinkedIn, FaceBook and high school class reunions until we can find a C-level exec to drug and brainwash with our scurrilous ways.”

Because if the people who actually know technology can’t be won over, that’s just a small bump on the road to Salesville.

What do you think when there is a barrier to getting a trial software product? What about when you’re required to fill out a ton of information first? Do you have any sales horror stories surrounding what should have been a very simple product trial? Share in the comments below.

“It’s just not goin’ through!” said the Southern gentleman in a perplexed but gentle tone.

I was doing simple desktop support style work for a small organization that I’ve been acquainted with for several years. They’re a satellite of a larger, multi-million dollar organization, but are largely self contained. That includes finding their own IT support which, prior to me becoming acquainted with the leaders, consisted of nagging anyone’s sons or daughters who could glance at a computer and not immediately explode from hypertension.

“I dunno why your laptop is the only one that does this,” I said into my headset as I rubbed my forehead hard. This was a remote case. My home office is in Phoenix, Arizona and this organization was in another state, two time zones and 2,000 miles away. I had given up hopes that the day wouldn’t be totally consumed by this call. It was a simple matter of installing an online backup client and trying to track down some strange problems with Microsoft Office – but things kept going oddly awry.

I use CrossLoop at the moment as my go-to remote support tool. It’s a bit bare-bones and I’m not entirely happy with it, but it’s the best free tool I have at the moment before I commit my money to a fuller product. I’ve been deeply involved with comparing other remote support tools and am nearing a final decision (oh if only I could afford a Bomgar appliance). Until then, I deal with CrossLoop.

“There it is! Took ten tries that time!” the elder gentleman drawled in victory. He was well past retirement age, but was far from retiring. He was no fool – having done many successful things for many people over many years. He was currently in an unusual two-week period of rest in-between world travels. He had just come back from galavanting around the US at sundry speaking engagements and was planning a trip to Africa to lead a small group. That would likely not be his only trip out of the USA for 2012.

I connected to his laptop and began my tasks. In the course of my support work for him I had to reboot the machine a few times. That required the user to launch the CrossLoop executable file after logging in and once again starting the mysteriously recalcitrant process of getting connected to me.

If anyone reading this is familiar with remote support tools, CrossLoop works no different than most do. The person who needs support launches the program and reads an access code to someone else. That other person then enters the user’s access code into their own instance of CrossLoop. The one requesting support must click a “Connect” button which then contacts CrossLoop’s mediation service. The one who will be connecting also clicks their “Connect” button and the connection is brokered by the mediation service. After clicking the connect button, the button immediately turns into a “Disconnect” button so that either party can instantly end the session.

All in all it works out pretty good. Except for this one laptop.

“Great! Only took four tries this time!” the man chuckled. As I worked on the issues that I was contacted to help with, I was also trying to decide how to tackle this mysterious CrossLoop problem. It seemed unlikely that it was a network issue. I never had problems with his internet connection while I was connected. No complaints about dropped downloads, or wireless signal or anything else had been lodged. It happened regardless of where the user was located, so it seemed like it wasn’t an ISP problem.

Some very strange issues with the laptop’s applications made me wonder if there was deeply hidden trouble with the OS itself. Perhaps some fundamental driver or DLL file was corrupted in such a way that caused lossy communication under certain circumstances? I just couldn’t figure it out.

“Okay, to finish this up, I’ll need to log you off of this current user and log back in as a different user.” Unfortunately, CrossLoop requires a user to be logged in before it can be launched and receive / sustain connections. Every logout / logon event caused the user to have to re-connect with me. Of course, as it had to happen, that day’s problem narrowed down to a corrupt Windows user profile. I had to log off and log on multiple times in the course of troubleshooting and ultimately migrating files.

“Here’s your new code.” The man recited a series of numbers to me. I entered them and clicked my connect button while waiting for his side to finally “go through.”

I stared at the connection screen. I like the “Disconnect” button that shows up immediately after you click “Connect.” Just look at it! Big, chunky and orange with a nice call to action printed on it. I’ve been a student of conversion rate optimization for a little while now and am getting more into doing eCommerce sites for clients. “That’s a nice orange button. It should be used as a checkout button…”

“Whew! Eleven times that time!” This was absurd. I had to figure out why this was happening.

After some more work, I had to reboot the laptop once again. Of course, the user had to once again open CrossLoop and initiate the connection to me.

“Oh! Hey, you know what? I think the times that I’ve connected right up to ya’ll has been when I only clicked the connect button once instead of double clicking.”

I inhaled sharply.

“Ayup! I click the “Connect” button just once and it hooks right up to you!”

I’m hoping to explore the DevOps phenomena a bit more, as I’ve seen what I believe are some colossal stretches of reasoning lately. To be sure, what I’ve gathered of that general line of thinking seems to be quite an improvement on the standard systems thinking. However, as with anything, it seems to have been speciated, inbred and over sold.

As a result, if you listen to the more rabid proponents, the following is The One True Solution to all systems engineering and administration problems.

If anyone wants to take a critical exploration of the DevOps movement, holla!

I was stopped in my mouse tracks the other day while attempting to achieve Inbox Zero for a certain client’s stack of e-mail tickets. I received a spam email message that was so bad, it was good. I really got a lift out of it. I’m going to reproduce it here in case there is a poor, languishing IT worker that needs a chuckle. Any search engine hatred I get for reproducing a spam message will be well worth it.

The piercing comedy comes from the fact that this spam message does not seem to be simply packed with pseudo language to skirt around spam filters. It appears to be a legitimate attempt at ensnaring new customers for a cut-rate web hosting service in… shall we say… a certain Cyrillic-using Eastern European country. Also, the entire message was in 24 point Times New Roman, blue and underlined.

To whomever crafted this treasure of the English language (or whoever ran it sideways through a Slavic -> Huli -> Ewok -> English -> Chinese -> Inuit -> English translator), I shower you with virtual rose petals. You, dear ones, are my heroes for the day.

Welcome to e…e.biz !

We also provide services DDoS’a!

Every day our world is moving forward, walking in the footsteps of new technologies. With the development of the Internet and poyavlyaniem any electronic goods, and hence the electronic money. Currently, the volume of transactions on the Internet billions of U.S. dollars. And always someone with someone else is paying.

On our site you will be able to make the exchange of electronic money on the most favorable rate. We work with the most popular and liquid electronic payment systems of the world, including Liberty Reserve, Perfect Money, Liqpay and others.

Why are you with us advantageous?

The answer to this question is most important in the exchange – Safety and course. In two of these parameters, we offer you the best possible terms. Currency exchange rates in our exchange points are the lowest in the world. If you find a more profitable course of our – immediately vsyazhites with us and we will make the course even better! Our site is a business card – we do not ask, so do not keep data about you and your accounts. The transaction goes online (communicating with the operator), so both you and us are not afraid of break-ins.

Electronic Payment Systems

In the world there are many electronic payment systems. There is a very popular system, and there is less. Each system is different committees, the level of safety, liquidity, market and policy development on the Internet. Therefore, we only work with payment systems that allow their customers to easily make transfers in combination with high safety. Of the banks, we chose the largest and most reliable – Privatbank with his payment system Liqpay.

Constantly we are exploring e-commerce market and add areas of exchange of money online.

Sincerely Administration …

Contacts:

Email # 1: e…e.biz @ ya.ru

Email # 2: e…e.biz @ gmail.com

Skype: e…e.biz

ICQ: 6…390

E…e.biz

 The Takeaways

First, providing your customers with DDoSs is a selling point.

Second, “poyavlyaniem” isn’t a word, but it should be. So now it is. I think it means “Refunds will be paid in borscht.”

Third, seriously, why are you with us advantageous?

Fourth, the largest and most reliable bank is Privatbank with his payment system Liqpay

I hope you all learned something from this.

Some discussion with some colleagues made me consider how someone who was lazy / inexperienced / crushed for time might be tempted to solve a web app problem. If you’ve performed the following operation…. just sit in the corner and think about what you’ve done.

 

Seriously, Cisco Press. What is your problem? I used to think you were incompetent. Now I think you’re deliberately evil. They explicitly stated that transport layer traffic that uses UDP is called a “datagram.” That stands to reason. After all, UDP is a TLA for “User Datagram Protocol.” Then, immediately afterwards, they state (emphasis mine):

However, this book refers to data formed in the transport layer as a segment, data at the network layer as a datagram or packet, and data at the link layer as a frame.

No rhyme. No reason. Just fiat. “Hey, we know that it’s standard practice to call a specific type of Layer 4 traffic a datagram, but we’re gonna call Layer 3 traffic a datagram. Or we might also call it a packet too, JUST ‘CAUSE WE’RE GANGSTAH LIKE THAT!“

For those wondering, I’m brushing up on my networking knowledge by going through “Interconnecting Cisco Network Devices, Part 1 (ICND1): CCNA Exam 640-802 and ICND1 Exam 640-822 (2nd Edition)” It’s already caused me to make the first part in this series. A series which will likely have many sequels.

I’m not even halfway through it and already finding some annoying inconsistencies. I thought I left things like this behind when I stopped reading MS Press books. Apparently vendor endorsed books have a disproportionate amount of fail in them.