February 4, 2008 – 12:00 am
Because of the new server room and the wiring that it involves, today we shutdown every server and switch because the power was going to be out for a number of hours. It was quite the experience to be in an old bank building basement in the oh so quiet dark!
Working on Sunday’s is very tiring for me since I just don’t get the rest I otherwise would. For me, Sunday’s are one of the few days in the week these days I can do whatever pleases me. Whether that be sleep, hanging out with friends or some other activity I find relaxing/enjoyable. So once the servers were back up and running I came home and promptly crashed on the couch and didn’t wake up until about 9pm when the Big Game was about to end.
January 29, 2008 – 12:24 am
With one of the classes I’m taking this year we have two quizzes a week, thus far I’ve not cracked the books open once and I’ve never gotten less than 80% on any of them. I’m not quite sure what to make of this. Either the course is so far easy, or I know more than I had thought on the subject. While I’m not going to argue with it, it does bother me in that it’s almost like I’m just giving the school money for a piece of paper. I realize that this isn’t their fault, but it kind of bothers me. I mean, what’s the point if I’m already decent at it other then as “proof” I can do it?
Oh well, employers only seem to take notice when you have some degree…or a ton of experience.
January 29, 2008 – 12:16 am
Today I realized that most of the addresses that had issues with incorrect locations of the network map may have been related to old and expired reverse DNS entries. Apparently part of our supernet DNS wasn’t being deleting old reverse lookup entries. Of all the misplaced network nodes, the entries seemed to all corresponded to that part of the supernet. We’ll have to wait about a week for the DNS service to finally clean out it’s lists, but I’m hopeful that that’s the reason for the jumping nodes!
January 25, 2008 – 7:40 pm
I’ve been searching high and low all over the internet for a “network mapper”, something that will find all the nodes on the network, and tell me where they are plugged in on which switch. However even after weeks of searching and even having started my own solution, there is still no hope.
This quest first started simple, get something that will find which ports on which switch go to which nodes. Well you’d think that a simple ARP and mac table gleaning from the switches along with some simple algorithms to find the relations would be all there was. Well you would be wrong, oh so wrong. No, for some reason Nodes A,B,C, and D which should be on Switch B, are showing up on Switches A and R!
Today I did find an application that almost, almost meets my needs. Solarwinds LANsurveyor, is a pretty slick application that scans you network and builds network maps. (It can even export them to Visio!) It also can hook into/launch *VNC application to make your remote computing easier. However the problem I have with it is the same as my own work, it doesn’t give accurate or consistent results as to what is plugged into where. So the search continues!
If any of you fellow techies know of any applications that do what I’m needing, let me know! I’d be super glad to hear it!
January 25, 2008 – 7:13 pm
Last…Tuesday? I finally got a haircut! No more long hippy hair for another few months! There were a number of reason I got it cut, but the most important one was that my hair was getting caught in my fan! It is pretty annoying to be woken up in the middle of the night because your fan is chomping on your hair (and it doesn’t feel that great either)!
I’ll have to find my camera and get some photos uploaded so you can see my new ‘do!
January 25, 2008 – 7:07 pm
With Tax season upon us here at Christianson & Associates it’s getting pretty busy here. So busy and hectic that AJ and I are now on call! We rotate through the week, he has some days and I the others, but basically I have to be able to respond to calls until 8pm! So now I have been given “The Brick” so my personal phone isn’t bothered.
The Brick is a Samsung-i760 Pocket PC and it’s pretty slick. I’m still in that “getting to know” period of that I go through when I first get something new.
Somethings I’ve noticed about it.
- It’s thick! I really wish I had a case for it to hang on my belt or something. I guess I’m just too use to my slim KRZR!
- The number pad is definitely made for the lefties among us, so it’s kinda hard to manipulate with my right.
- The QWERTY keyboard is nice, but you have to be a finger contortionist to use the shift key and the left side.
- There’s a noticeable lag while the screen switches from normal to “widescreen” (when popping open the QWERTY pad) and vice versa.
- VPN doesn’t seem to work, even when using my own Wi-Fi AP.
- Flash seems to have problems (no Youtube yet
).
Even with those annoyances, the fact that it has a built in Wi-Fi card is pretty sweet!
January 20, 2008 – 7:11 pm
What a way to bring in the new year! If Cloverfield is any indication to what this year will bring for movies, I’m really looking forward to it!
Cloverfield follows a group of friends who are caught up in an attack of an unidentified beast on New York. We follow their misfortune through one of the character’s hand held camcorder. While this makes for a shaky visual experience, I feel that it really helps immerse the viewer in story. Now I’m not normally scared during a movie, but for Cloverfield, the camera work really left me scared during the movie. Often times, I caught myself trying to crane my neck around in a vain attempt to try to see what was going on!
Though I’ve never read any of the Cthulhu Mythos, I was hoping that Cloverfield was going to be about Cthulhu. But alas, it would appear it is not. I am hoping with the way the movie was told and how it ended, that there will be more movies about this story/universe. Only time will tell!
January 13, 2008 – 12:24 am
- Ran for Student Senate President (and won).
- Obtained an internship/job/career at Christianson & Associates in the field of work I enjoy. (No more food service!)
- Started Tae Kwon Do and obtained the rank of Yellow Belt.
- Made a ton of new friends (Listed in no particular order. Please don’t be hurt if you’re not on it! It’s not intentional!)
- Emily and Nicole (AKA Dewey and Ole)
- David (AKA John)
- Kevin
- Andrew
- Tasha
- Kori
- Aaron
- AJ (AKA Fonzie)
- Kelly and Trisha
- Kelly
- Jamie
- Jake
- Turned 21.
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Flew to Albuquerque, NM.
- Figured out a way to “prove” chess moves with slope equations. I’m sure others have done this, but I’m pretty happy with myself regardless.
- I’m sure there’s more.
Well, there’s the look back at 2007…and I guess I’m still imitating Nick! :/ But oh well, I’ll just leave you with this song about the new year.