Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep.

So went my phone as I was trying to enjoy some Sesame Beef at dinner with Nick and JoeBuck. Nick and I fixed the network today, as we had some trouble with bottlenecks due to backups. Of course about 45 minutes after everything was up and working, everything fell apart. After dinner and Dan trying to talk us out of going back to work because of the cold, we started poking around to figure out the problem. Around 10:30 everything was stablized. The cause appears to be one of two things. Either the move confused the switches (possible, they had inconsistent data on a couple things), or scanning of large blocks of unused IP space. Both were fixed, with network services telling the switches to forget everything about those things they were confused on and relearn, and with me adding 5,119 IP addresses (yep, eth0 was the machine, I got up to eth0:5119) to one of my machines and watching the traffic and adding firewall rules to the resnet router until the traffic slowed down to reasonable. I feel bad for anyone who sticks a Windows machine in there - it looks like a virus pit right now. One machine was doing some other type of scanning, and it's totally off the network now too. Hopefully one of those things fixed it, we'll see.

Wow. Glad I don't use T-Mobile.

So today I'm looking through email and see an email from one of the loan companies with something about a 1098-E (1098 is interest you paid for those who don't pay attention to taxes). Didn't think much of it other than I'll reference it in a couple weeks. Then I figured, wait a second, that address doesn't look quite right. I figured can't be, nobody would be that stupid. Yep, they outsourced and had the company send out the email directly. And yep, follow that link and the first thing they ask for is SSN and to answer a CAPCHA. I'm pretty certain it's legit based on the fact it went to a unique address for them, but as a matter of principal... I wonder if they link to them on their web site. If not I think I may have to call them and ask for a real one and if they refer to the email only say I got one that looks like a fraud. I seriously hope nobody actually uses that link, but unfortunately most people probably do. :(

Yea, so the new toys arrived on Thursday, thus the lack of updates. So I've been migrating data, installing stuff, and trying new things. I found this thing plays divx much better than normal computers seem to be able to do (the audio stays in sync all the time). Only got one movie in over the weekend - Invincible. It's pretty decent, although it does have its shortcomings too. This article is sorta interesting, although the info isn't that surprising. That data is pretty well represented already by their customer churn rates. In other news, some people need to not make it so obvious when they're trying for easy money. First claims offense to the show and wants money, then when asked by the media for his side of the story says he can't talk to them unless they pay him. And he's worried about companies making people think most people are driven by money? Yea... I did a bit of image editing to get myself a wallpaper for my Axim, but I'm not quite satisfied. I think I need to pick a non-blurry starting image. Anyways, I just got a low battery notification. Had the thing sitting here playing Alias as a test of the quality (yea, it can keep up on the fights). I should go charge this as well as myself.

Alias Season 4 started tonight. If you haven't seen it, stop now and come back when you have. I think it was pretty good, although had issues. I think it's looking like it could be better than last season, although they need to be very careful. It's almost like they're starting over, in a bad way. The music was well picked. World is on Fire sounded really weird in this type of show based on what the theme of the song is (the video makes it really obvious if you haven't seen it), but it somehow fits the story really well. Ending with Cat Stevens really looks like someone had a statement to make too. But anyways... The whole storyline seemed like a lot of the summary of the first two seasons as far as family relationships and feelings go, but with Nadia rather than Sydney. And the last line just made me laugh. I think they managed to set it up to get going again despite the last season, but I the worry is that it'll be too similar and be boring and just go downhill again. We'll have to see.

In other news, based on routing and timestamps, it appears the two new toys are at the same point on the distribution path. They show as separate scheduled delivery dates though. If it was FedEx I wouldn't be concerned and would just expect them to come together. It'll be interesting to see if UPS are pricks as usual and actually separate them out and delay the one or just deliver them together.

So I see this last week and sorta laugh and shake my head at the same time, thinking it's odd that the people can't pay attention to what's going on around them. There's a few people who sorta did (by following the animals, or I guess letting the elephants pick them up and throw them on their backs. Then today I see things about some tribal group which survived. The last few paragraphs are interesting:

Officials believe they survived the devastation by using age-old early warning systems.

They might have run to high ground for safety after noticing changes in the behaviour of birds and marine wildlife.

Scientists are examining the possibility to see whether it can be used to predict earth tremors in future.

Sometimes I wonder how people survive when they can't see what's going on right in front of them...

Somehow I managed not to watch any movies over the weekend until today. Not sure how I pulled that one off. I actually don't remember much of what I did Saturday, other than I went to my parents' house for some food. And it was snowing and we followed a bunch of snowplows home (they were going rather slow on 694). Sunday was church followed by some shopping. I picked up weatherstriping and furnace filters and stuff and resealed the doors, and also put just enough foam in the frames of some others to keep the bass from making them resonate and rattle. After discovering Walmart doesn't have it locally anymore I also ordered a new toy online. Hopefully that will arrive this week. They shipped UPS ground though, so it'll probably sit in a warehouse for like a week. Although amazingly they're predicting Thursday. After a ton of research on Sunday I also ordered another new toy. We'll see about that one when it arrives though. Hopefully it won't take too long. Something about that resolution on that size screen makes me happy.

On Monday I called to RMA the Ogo. While the guy was trying to get the system to stop giving him errors and send the RMA labels we talked about why I was sending it back. Based on his responses to my comments about the GSM/GRPS coverage vs their TDMA stuff it sounds like it's not exactly a rare response. Actually everyone I've dealt with at Cingular seems to not question anything beyond "coverage sucks", and both reps I've talked to about the 850 vs 1900 sound like they'd like it to happen too. I guess if it helps them have fewer cancellations... I can tell students are back at Bethel, as latency sucks. VoIP phone is weird talking to myself but works fine even on two trips through the Internet link talking to someone else. It's much harder to notice since the echo cancelation is good and it pretty much makes you not hear your own voice coming back at all. Although I'm guessing it could be noticable now. I just tested and the one way latency was almost a second. :) Anyways, first movie of the evening was Collateral. It was a good movie, but not the best I've seen. I didn't think the soundtrack was all that great either. Second movie of the night was Resident Evil. I thought it was a really good movie. I think I've maybe seen parts of it before, but not sure where. I do know the beginning reminded me a lot of Cyborg 2. I guess I wouldn't be surprised if the original game and that had some of the same sources. Although that movie wasn't near as much like a video game as Resident Evil. It's actually sorta funny some of the things looking back at the movie and how they happened and things were designed and filmed.

I'm still a bit annoyed that Alias is moved to Wednesdays. Having TV shows during the week sucks in my opinion. It's too bad I don't have an HD card for my myth box (which I need to get going again). Oh well, I guess I'll deal with it. Tomorrow is back to work. Should be interesting - hopefully nothing major will happen.

Not too much interesting today. Usual around the house stuff. Also the usual reading and catching up on stuff. Garden State arrived so I watched that. It was a pretty decent movie. Very well done technically, especially on the music selection and timing. The plot seemed bland though. The first half or so wasn't so bad, but I think the last half was rather boring. It does remind me of a certain other movie it's often compared to, but I think it's better. It certainly gets the plot across without resorting to crazy stuff to do it. I do think it's probably one that people who relate to it like a lot more. I finished that up just in time to send it back in the mail today. Also decided to pay some bills. Xcel apparently managed to not note my payment that they deposited so still want it from me. I'll have to try to figure out if they've figured it out in their system since they printed the statement or if I need to bug them about it. Stuff like that is why automated payments are a bad idea for a lot of things (like anything that can change amounts). After doing more stuff around the house I watched The Client. Good movie, and it even has Homer Simpson in it. It may be slightly far fetched, but was well made.

I'm still debating the ogo. I'm pretty sure it's going back, but I could keep the hardware for $20 if I did it right. I'm pretty sure it's locked up with their servers though, so probably not worth it. I'm sorta looking at other things now. My palm seems to be constantly complaining about low battery, and I guess I can't be too surprised since 3 year old lithium ion batteries from that era don't tend to be very good anymore. I'm sorta considering combining the two and upgrading. I really like PalmOS, but the wifi capable palms are kinda pricey. I'm looking at the PocketPC ones, but even though I'm OK with Windows 2003 on servers for managing Windows machines, I can't stand it as a desktop OS. They could run Linux though, and PalmSource said they're making a PalmOS to overlay on a Linux base... Maybe I'll have to see if I can try linux on one of the iPAQs I have in my office (Erik's post got me thinking about that one). That and see if I can get my hands on a Tungsten C for a week or two to try. Anyone have any good suggestion of hardware on either side? I'm basically looking for decent battery life, wifi, and a decent screen. On the software side a browser, text/open ebook/pdf viewer, contacts, maybe calendar, and a decent password manager. The hardware side is sorta required, on the software if it supports me writing stuff I'd say lacking pretty much anything is fair game.

In other news a bunch of linguists got together (again) and now want to get rid of the word "blog". Although I don't know how much linguists who say they are "uber-serious" should be trusted...

This past year has been horrible for those who use Windows machines and those stuck on the same network as them, as anyone in academia or working at an ISP (and even some non-tech companies) knows. Even SP2 is not safe. It's primarily due to design issues. I also have a link to a file which will crash windows when displayed (yes, if you save it on the desktop it will crash on login). Thankfully the season of new computers has prompted some articles about it. Some are just informative, and provide references on how bad it is, how fast a Windows computer can get infected, and things people are trying to do to deal with it. Then there's how a computer person can deal with non-computer people and the "trojan horse under the tree". Then there's tips to pass along for everyone. That last link is one you may want to pass around a bit. For those contacted by people wanting computers you could always consider linux if it's someone who just uses email and browses the web or is very comfortable with computers. For users who will want to do other things or those new to computers, try here. Also, be wary of anyone pitching firewalls or software solutions - the market is driven by money (If you've been to a Microsoft conference recently, you've hopefully noticed that they've "partnered" with Trend Micro on everything). For business users, think of it in terms of cost. Hopefully some of you guys find that useful, and at least pass along some tips to your less computer savvy friends and relatives. Please? I really don't like removing them from the network/reporting them to their ISP.

I'm tired. I think part of that has to do with getting done working a 14 hour day, with very little of it sitting. In fact it was mostly standing, with large portions of bending over, squatting, kneeling, and lifting stuff. Tuesday wasn't too exciting. I slept in quite a bit, and read stuff online, followed by watching movies. I watched .com for Murder, which could have been better, but could have been worse. Sorta interesting in how other people probably see online stuff... Then Bethel's Internet provider apparently had issues, which also seemed to take out other schools and the Star Trib. It got resolved pretty quickly, I wonder which one they cared most about. :) I was impressed that my phone resynced within seconds of it coming back up. Pretty good... Then I watched The Bounce Supremacy, which is a good movie. I stayed up later than I should have watching extras.

Wednesday I overslept and woke up at 7. Nick did too though, so we didn't care too much. We both needed breakfast and caffeine to get us going though. We started work a bit before 8. The first server room was sorta annoying, since we had to work around boxes that needed to stay up. Of course this is in the process of repatching all the network stuff and putting in new power strips. The power strips are fancy, and measure volts, amps, va, watts, power factor, kilowatt hours, and power on time, and can alert when there is too much draw. Yea, they're geeky, but they will hopefully help power management so we can keep circuits evenly balanced. We managed to do it all though, and I only had all core services down for maybe 10-15 minutes. It took me around an hour to get blackboard back up and running though (after I discovered it didn't come back cleanly). That place is a ton cleaner though, and now we just need to label some stuff and clean up some serial console lines. We probably pulled out over half the length of patch cables in the room though. We ended up finishing that room at around 2, and since schdav arrived we dragged him along to lunch at Culvers.

We got back from lunch around 3, and moved to the other server room. This one was easier since there was one server in our racks that we needed to keep up as much as possible. So it got its cables moved to the side, and moved directly to the outlets on the wall. We then proceeded to rip out every patch cable and power cable in the room. They all went on the floor, later arranged into piles. It felt like walking on some really weird carpet... Then we pulled out switches, put them in new places, repatched serial lines, moved servers to make better use of space, and mounted new fancy power strips everywhere. That room looks like a new place. Then Nick and I spent a couple hours hooking up power cables, repatching network stuff, and routing lines to be as clean and manageable as possible. We went from a room full of mostly 16ft patch cables to mostly 5 and 7ft cables. Yea, the big ones really weren't needed for most things. Even though I'm sore and tired, I'm glad it's done. It has been needed for a long time. Now to go get some sleep...