Thursday, June 01, 2006

It's a good thing virus writers are idiots.

Slashdot | Extortion Virus Code Cracked

Part of my job is to ensure that the network at my company remains secure. I follow security mailing lists and various other things to keep abreast of security threats. The above "extortion-ware" was something that scared the shit out of me when I first heard of it.

Thankfully, the idiot who wrote it didn't follow good programming practice and left the password unencrypted in the code. The article has the password, but if you're too damn lazy, it is:

mf2lro8sw03ufvnsq034jfowr18f3cszc20vmw


Have fun.

Monday, April 24, 2006

Feel the power..

A buddy just sent this to me. While some of the acting isn't perfect, the fight scenes are well put together. I'm impressed. Check it out.

Monday, April 10, 2006

The Best Free MMORPG and MMO List

Yeah, yeah. It's been a while and I've been busy. I found a great site that contains a LARGE number of free MMO's. Enjoy the fun here.

Wednesday, March 01, 2006

Goatse in the sky...

Ah crap. I've been around the Internet for a long time. Long enough to have clicked on embedded links Slashdot comments and been struck dumb by the images that were displayed in front of me. The long-standing image is one from what used to be goatse.cx. No! Don't go there. It may not be up, but if it is, you'll want to kill yourself after you see it. I didn't hyperlink it for a reason. If you want to know more, go to Wikipedia's treatise on the matter. But, in tribute, one of my daily commic reads, Diesel Sweeties, aludes to it. Behold, Goatse in the sky with diamonds.

Friday, February 17, 2006

Into the breach

I haven't posted here in a while. But, here I am. Things have been extremely busy since my return from Mexico. The office remodel at work is well underway. The new data center (or server room) is almost done. We are now preparing to move equipment.

Tonight is a big night, however. We get to power down our primary network switch and upgrade it to support our VoIP server. I'm the most nervous about this particular component because there's a ton of risk.

Note: I've come to a conclusion about this blog. I ramble too damn much. I don't write for the sake of writing, and I don't really have any desire to do fiction, like Alhazred. I'm going to keep trying however. I also don't need a blog as a personal outlet because I can't relate to the outside world. I need to find a focus here or it will flounder and sit. I've often considered doing a somewhat tongue-in-cheek blog pertaining to my hobby, World of Warcraft. Maybe that will work...

Sunday, February 12, 2006

Everyone needs some time

It's been a while since posted something here. Things have been busy since my return from Mexico. As we all know, the Seahawks didn't win the big game, but it was a good one (except for the bad calls) and I think the rest of the country now knows that we're not a bunch of hicks out here in the Northwest.

We are deep into our office renovation at work. That has been taking up much of my time. This pace is going to continue for at least another 4 weeks. I'm hoping that I'll be able to make time and update things and put together something a little more creative.

I resolve to do one thing, however. I will do everything in my power to get The One Fez site up and running. Even if I have to beat Lunchbox with a tuna.

Thursday, February 02, 2006

And the chaff falls away

Today was the first day back from my vacation in Puerto Vallarta with my wife. We had a great time, and I came back feeling refreshed and ready to attack life. That feeling lasted all of 6 hours. As of this very moment, I'm dead tired. The time change has something to do with it, I'm sure. At about 2pm today, I simply ran out of energy. Here are a couple of highlights of the trip:
  • I slept. I slept a LOT.
  • I am tan, which means I laid out in the sun.
  • I got my wife hooked on Battlestar Galactica and was able to watch all of Season 1 with her.
  • My old boss met us down there. We went out and had a good time and a good dinner.
  • We went on a pirate cruise on the Marigalante. The sun was good. The motion sickness of my wife was not.
  • We shopped and met a delightful man that used to live in Everett, Wa. We went to his shop twice.
We didn't take many pictures, sadly. I'm finding that both my wife and I aren't good completely good with actually using the camera when we take it. I'm not sure why, but it just happens that way.

In other news, I came the the realization that I don't really have a great track record with consulting gigs. I've only had 2 so far, but I can't seem to make more than $400 on any of them. The first, with MGT America, didn't go any where through no real fault of my own. The parent company decided to go a different route and my contact there was downsized. The last one, with a software development shop, came down to time. I didn't have any and they wanted too much of what little I had.

I'm not too worked up, except for one small thing. The CFO, who ostensibly was my primary contact, didn't have the balls to call me and tell me that they found someone else to do their stuff, he made my friend to do it. I'm not really surprised, however. Oh well. I'm off to send them an e-mail letting them know that I won't be charging them for any of the work I did and will be removing their client software from my machine. I'm also going to ask them for a written confirmation that the contract period has ended and that I am no longer held by it.

More later..

Wednesday, January 25, 2006

Flight of fancy


I'm a closet fighter pilot. I've been in love with airplanes since I was a kid. A guy in my program at the University of Phoenix did fab work at Boeing on the F-22. He was kind enough to send me this photo of the F-22 over downtown Seattle. It's gorgeous.

Sunday, January 22, 2006

The time has come

Well, I am now, officially, a college graduate. I had the last classroom session of my final class in my degree program. Woot!!! I just ordered my diploma and now hold a Bachelor of Science in Information Technology. Not that this changes much for me right now. The company I work of doesn't have a lot of upward mobility for me right now, but I'm willing to be patient.

In other news, we were able to successfully migrate our equipment from our old racks to our new ones with a minimum of trouble. The worst part was a missing crossover cable for my the outside interface on my firewall.

The final note in my triumvirate of good news is that the Seattle Seahawks are going to Superbowl XL! (I did this wrong in my initial post. Somehow, I think that the real Roman numeral representation of 40 will be more appropriate when the Seahawks win. )

(Interesting fact: My wife and I were talking about the game on Sunday and the Superbowl. It's the 40th Superbowl and my wife will be 40 this year. She thinks it's fate. The 'Hawks are going to win.)

Friday, January 20, 2006

Mac Setup and more on Flickr - Photo Sharing!

Oh my freaking lord! Check out this dude's setup. This should make Chewie and his lovely wife drool.

Mac Setup and more on Flickr - Photo Sharing!

Tuesday, January 17, 2006

A solution to life's problems


My worst fears have come true. The joy that was to be my final day in class will now be marred by Qwest and a data center move. They have wanted us to move for several months. The couldn't get the data center work completed before Christmas, and I told them that I would move during the first part of January '06. I didn't hear from them upon my return from the break. I shouldn't have called them on it, but I was concerned that they would tell me that they wanted me to move right in the middle of our buildout at work.

Luckily, we won't be deploying our 100Mb/s Metro-Ethernet circuit. That means I don't have to worry about router configurations and new VLANs for at least another month. While I'm relatively comfortable with doing them, Cisco has changed the OS on their Catalyst switches enough that I can't fall back on my 6509 for guidance. Dammit.

Of course, I was hoping to not have to work this weekend. But, that is not to be. I'm not happy about it. Not at all. While looking through my e-mail, I found this note from Fez and it seemed appropriate. Thanks Fez!

Sunday, January 15, 2006

Today marks the first day of my freedom from newsgroup postings as part of my degree program. Huzzah!!!! Actually, I can't believe I just put that down. I guess I'm letting my geek show a little too much. I'm on a countdown to the end of my degree program. I have one presentation to do and part of a team project. That's it! I'm done after that. I have but to order my diploma and walk at the graduation ceremony in June.

I'm really looking forward to this individual assignment. I am supposed to reflect on the person I was when I started the program, the things I learned while in the program, and then the person I am now. It should be fun. I've got some good ideas for the actual presentation, but I want to mull them over a bit before I get started.

Friday, January 13, 2006

I don't have a problem...

I have been outed by Fez. A few weeks ago, we found a site and made South Park characters. He's put them up on his site, and methinks I'm going to beat him. I was planning on using mine later and I cant' now. Ah well. I can't blame Fez. He's finally doing a blog, and I get to harass him in yet another way. What could be better?

Sunday, January 08, 2006

It never fails.. Dell 30" monitor?

I don't this to become a technology blog, but I just happened to look at a link on Slashdot that blew me a way. Dell is now selling a 30" wide-aspect LCD display. Kinda makes my new 24" LCD look puny. Although I don't think that I could fit it on my desk. My new one takes up almost all of the space my 2 18" inchers took before. Good god.

Dell Monitor 3007WFP Product Details

and then, there was peace

I figured out the "blanking" problem with my monitor. It turns out that my kick ass video card doesn't support 1920X1200 on DVI. It almost does, which is why it blanked. I switched cables back to analog and I haven't had a lick of trouble since.

On a good note, my father-in-law wants to buy one of my old NEC 18" LCD's. Maybe I can put that money from that toward a new video card. :-)

Thursday, January 05, 2006

The ball is rolling

The last couple of days have been both busy and not busy. With the new year comes all of the IT projects that we've put off. I'm just beginning the process of outlining our goals for the year and fleshing out the who's, what's and where's of them all. It's looking to be a busy 6 months.

On the personal side, I received my new monitor on Tuesday and have been up waaaay too late playing. It works great, except for one issue. Randomly, my screen will blank and come back. I'm afraid that it's my video card, but it may just be DVI support on my card. I'm going to try switching it back to analog to see if it performs better. If not, I'll need to decide what to do.

Tuesday, January 03, 2006

Sun, glorious sun

My buddy just sent this to me. This picture, I think, summarizes why I love living in the Northwest. A beautiful sunrise on January 3rd, 2006. The skies are clear and it's just cold enough to make you want to drink something warm.

The image was taken from his office window, which overlooks downtown Seattle. He told me that he was blinded by that sun about 5 minutes after the picture was taken and that he had to shut his blinds. It was worth it though.

Monday, January 02, 2006

In with the new...

The first day for 2006 proved to be both relaxing and enjoyable. The little shindig was quite fun, although Aaron bugged out at about 11:30PM. I hope he got busy. At this very moment, I'm trying to log into World of Warcraft. I started off by sitting in queue. I don't think I've ever seen the server full. I then sat through the character loading screen. Now, I'm sitting at the login screen, which has been the same for what seems like 10 minutes. What a load... wait.. I'm in. Bye!