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This post is completely off topic for this blog. I beg your indulgence while I rant for a bit.

In 2005 I bought a Samsung DLP at Circuit City and purchased Circuit City's extended warranty as well. I normally don't buy those, but given the price of the TV and the newness of the technology I thought it was worth having a little bit of insurance. The Circuit City Advantage Protection included a bulb replacement which would almost pay for the warranty by itself, so it seemed worth it. Little did I know that I was buying months without TV and many days waiting for a TV repair guy.

In January of 2008, I began to hear buzzing for a extended period of time when I turned on the TV. I called for warranty service and was told that a local TV repair show would call me within 24 hours to schedule an appointment. I did not receive the promised call but the TV difficulties were still tolerable so I didn't followup.

In April 2008, I found that I could not longer put up with the noise (apparently from a failing color wheel). I called for service and an appointment was set up with G&E Television. On April 7th, a technician from G&E put in a light bulb and left quickly before verifying that the problem was solved. I found that the picture on my TV was actually worse than before. The screen was very dark and was shaded on one side. A followup appointment occurred and G&E replaced the color wheel, light bulb and ballast on April 9th.

While I continued to hear the occasional grinding/buzzing noise at startup it was brief and occasional enough that I considered the problem solved, but was glad to have more time on my warranty in case the situation worsened.

Unfortunately the situation did worsen. My TV began to spontaneously reboot while watching shows. The reboots often occurred at startup and once it rebooted a handful of times it would perform normally. It later progressed to continuous reboots that would not be solved until the plug was pulled. These reboots could occur immediately when the machine is turned on or it might occur an hour after the TV is on.

I called Circuit City Warranty in July to resolve the reboot issue. They scheduled Advance Video to come out on July 9th to look at the problem. It should be noted that G&E Television provided a TWO hour window and Advance Video provided a 5 hour appointment window. Advance Video is located in Baltimore MD according to their website. The technician, Jimmy, said he only comes to Virginia a couple days a week (further slowing response times).

Jimmy could not reproduce the rebooting problem during the brief time he was here, but explained that given what was already swapped out, the problem is likely the light engine. He said I should call him directly if the problem recurs within the next two weeks. Jimmy said he would order the light engine so it would be ready when I called. By Friday the problem had recurred. When I called Jimmy he had not yet ordered the light engine. Jimmy called me on 7/15 and let me know that the part was ordered and would take 5-10 days.

When the part came in Jimmy set up an appointment for 7/31 from 10am-1pm. Jimmy said he would try to work it in on the early side of that. At 1:10pm when I hadn't heard from Jimmy, I called him. I found out that he was in Woodbridge, which by my estimation is more than 30 minutes away. Since I couldn't continue to take off work to wait for a TV repairman, I called Circuit City Warranty. They asked if I was available on Saturday 8/2/08 at 11am for Jimmy. At 1:10 pm I received a call from Jimmy who was just leaving Waldorf, MD (50 miles away). Around 2:30 Jimmy finally arrived.

He put in a new light engine and the TV would not power up. He put in the old light engine and it wouldn't power up. Since it would power up before he arrived I questioned just what he did to the TV. I offered to show him a video I took demonstrating the problem to show that the TV did power up before it just rebooted spontaneously. For some reason he declined to see the video. I would think a technician would want to see that. Jimmy now tells me it will be another 5-10 days to get a power supply in. He claims that he will hold onto the light engine.

I am not happy about the large appointment window times of Advance Video.
I am not happy with the technician missing the large appointment times.
I am not happy this problem has not yet been resolved. It appears to me that rather than having Samsung certified technicians we have jack-of-all-trades technicians who throw parts in the TV until either the consumer gives up or Circuit City declares the TV a total loss.
I am not happy that it takes 5-10 days to get necessary parts for the TV.

8/20 - 2.5 weeks after Jimmy ordered the power supply I still haven't heard anything.
I call Circuit City Advantage and find I can no longer speak to a human. Instead a automatic ticket is put in for another TV repair company from Maryland to call me! (I eventually get that canceled since my parts are already on order through Advance Video.

I call Jimmy, the part has apparently come in, but they only come to Virginia on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
So I take yet another day off of work as with an appointment window of 12-5 there isn't much point in going into work.

8/21/2008
"its not the power supply." exclaims Jimmy
I never thought there was a power supply issue unless he blew it. Turns out there was a loose wire. I suspect he knocked it loose when he was putting in the new light engine
So now it powers up. Because Jimmy had put the original light engine back in it on August 2nd I am still at the original problem reported on July 9th.

Jimmy no longer had the light engine that was ordered for me. Since its a $650 part I wonder what happened to it. He did have a light engine destined for another customer and he received authorization to put that light engine into my TV. It still didn't work, so he put my original light engine back and diagnosed (guessed) that the problem was the analog and digital circuit boards (those are pretty much the only things left). I asked Jimmy if it would be another 2 weeks to order the boards, he replied "oh no, since we know what the problem is now, it will be much quicker." That makes no sense.

9/3 I called Advance Video since I haven't heard back yet.
Oh goody another 12-5 appointment.

9/4
Waiting for jimmy. Fortunately he shows on the early side of the window. Puts in the two boards and a new light bulb.
TV stays up two minutes before rebooting.
Jimmy comments "that the light engines are on back order. Since we already tried a light engine this TV should be declared a loss."
He tries to call someone for guidance and gets voicemail. Says he will call me back.

9/8
I call Jimmy since he did not call me back. He says that I should have heard back from "victor". I need to call victor.

9/9
I call Advance Video and ask for Victor.
Victor is on a week of vacation. According to my file I need a light engine.
I told them we already tried one new light engine. I've been without a tv for two months and have taken numerous days off work due to their incredibly large appointment window.
They will email victor and call me back.

9/10
I got a call back from advantage video. They say I need to call my warranty people.

9/11
calling circuit city warranty.
They tell me I need to call
888 615 8156 consumer relations option 2 twice
The person at customer relations says "they will send to the exchange dept to get an auth number. It will take 7-10 days. They will call me."

9/24/2008
Since 14 days have passed, I called them. Jessica says that it will be 14 business days from 9/11.

This post will be updated as the saga continues. As I've googled, I've found plenty of experiences posted to the web about Circuit City Warranty ripoffs. The best written one is at Made by Mark..

From what I've read online, I have several things to look forward to still.
1. Assuming I ever get a "authorization number" rather than being able to use it at my local store, they will pick a random store within a 45 mile radius.
2. Rather than giving me a dollar amount toward a new TV, they will attempt to stick me with some refurb/open box item. I spent months researching HDTV models (look where that got me) and they expect to replace my TV with some random TV that has been kicked around their store room?

9/30/2008 - Progress
I got a call from Circuit City Warrenty and now have a claim number. I'm told to call the entertainment manager at my local circuit city.

So I've dodged two bullets 1) its approved, no more long waits 2) its a store of my choice rather than of their selection. That had been a concern.

So the next hurdle is making sure I get money towards a TV of my choice or at the least a TV that is acceptable.

I've written before about the Filezilla project lead's lack of people skills. Its getting to the point that I'd rather buy something than use this guys product for free.

I've been getting disconnected from FTP servers within seconds of concluding a download. I couldn't find the keepalive settings in Filezilla, so I thought I'd check out the forum to learn how to do that and I found this thread, "Filezilla disconnects automatically please help."

Here are some gems:

"FileZilla does not disconnect on its own. The server or some router or firewall disconnects you. This is not FileZilla's fault."

"Go ahead, prove me wrong. Show me which part of the code is causing the disconnects. Good luck finding what's not there."

"With seven nines reliability, I can assure you that the problem sits between chair and keyboard."

It was worth it just to see this PARODY of the developer/site admin's reply:

Filezilla is a totally flawless, dare I say bulletproof piece of software. There is absolutely nothing wrong with Filezilla.

You're probably hallucinating. It's ok though, I'm hallucinating too. I experience the same problem despite all my other FTP clients working fine on the same computer on the same network. We're not alone, there are other threads with people claiming the same strange visions, Here's one for example:
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=7065

As soon as you start thinking that it might be Filezilla's fault, shoot yourself in the face. I found shooting myself in the face to be far less painful than having a rational conversation with the developer.

Then there is this thread

"Guess I should spend more time in my ivory tower, happily coding away. Customer support makes me want to bash my head into the nearest wall.
I do not like to be accused to be wrong, I want to be proven to be wrong. One possible proof for a software problem is a patch."

"Do I have to start banning people? FILEZILLA DOES NOT ****ing DISCONNECT YOU, THE SERVER, SOME ROUTER OR FIREWALL DISCONNECTS FILEZILLA."

I received a funny email today from Mr X.

From: Mr. X Subject: Business Opportunity Hi I m 21 year's old guy, and looking for some business Opportunity that's why i need u'r help. So kindly will u tell me something about u'r Organization and what's u'r future planning.

Actually, that's a small step from all the sales guys that have been calling. "You dont know me from adam, but tell me about your security needs."

Clippy: It looks like you're writing a letter
Sales guy: What can I sell you today
The answer to both is surprising similar.

I renewed my GIAC certification in Securing Windows today. When renewing a GIAC for the renewal fee you also get access to course materials (mp3s and the course books). I found it a bit dificult to listen to the MP3s. I did notice that when I took the course live I think there was some "you need to know this" where as this time around the only guidance toward the test was "everything in the workbooks."

GIAC certifications now require proctored tests. They are still open book, but you can't use electronic books. The answer isn't as easy to find when you can't just find it by searching PDF files. The test is 150 questions and you have a four hour limit.

I struggled a bit with IPSec, RRAS and PKI, but did fine over all. I'm glad I don't have to do that again for another four years.

looks like someone forgot to renew grandcentral.com. doh!

http://www.iptools.com/dnstools.php?tool=whois&user_data=grandcentral.com

Domain Name: GRANDCENTRAL.COM
Registrar: EASYDNS TECHNOLOGIES, INC.
Whois Server: whois.easydns.com
Referral URL: http://www.easydns.com
Name Server: NS1.EASYDNS.COM
Name Server: NS2.EASYDNS.COM
Name Server: NS6.EASYDNS.NET
Name Server: REMOTE1.EASYDNS.COM
Name Server: REMOTE2.EASYDNS.COM
Status: clientHold Updated Date: 20-may-2008
Creation Date: 19-may-1997
Expiration Date: 20-may-2008

A commenter asked for advise in starting his own blog.

The first step in starting a blog is deciding what its going to be about. Is it going to be about everything, your life, or just one topic. While some people post about everything, and separate their topics in categories, I think a work related blog like this should stay on topic. People came here a specific reason. They dont necessarily want to hear how my day was, what the dog did on the carpet, or what I think of Hillary. To do otherwise is kind of self-indulgent and abuses the loyal readers.

A lot of bloggers give their full name or use real whois info if they buy a domain. If the purpose of your blog is self-promotion, than you'll have to attach your name to your opinions. I think when your real name is attached to your blog, it makes it more difficult to blog about work. Its too easy for someone to gather information about the company you work for. Even if you blog pseudonymously, I would recommend blogging as if who you write about will read it later. You dont want your management, co-workers, etc mad at you later if you do end up sharing the URL with them.

When it comes to setting up a blog you can go with a hosted solution (typepad, blogger) or you can go buy hosting space and set it up yourself (movabletype, wordpress). I use movabletype although wordpress seems much more popular. I enjoy tweaking the design templates, installing plugins and doing the upgrades.

In terms of content, original content is preferred over linking. If your blog contains nothing but links, why should I read your stuff? There are already a ton of blogs out there with little to no original content. Yeah, it annoys me that they get more visits based on their (copyright violation) cut and paste of other people's work. When you do link, have a opinion and insight. Keep your quotes brief and clearly labeled. If your target audience is the general public then its not as bad to spend time aggregating data for them. Ultimately though if you're blogging for the right reasons, then post what makes you happy.

In terms of promotion, I am really antispam and gaining eyeballs wasn't my goal in writing. I added a link to this site in my sig on a couple of sites where I was already a member and frequent poster and I made sure google found my site. That's about it.

So that is my two cents. There are plenty of articles out there on 'movabletype versus wordpress' or other things like 'getting your blog noticed'.

These bring back some memories

Fred, I promised someone remote access. What is remote access...
I opened that virus, just like you told us not to...
I'm taking user error to a whole new level...

The following post was originally written in June but not posted. I was stressing out about our Full Disk Encryption selection. I didn't want to talk to the Snr Manager for a few days after this dream. I can laugh about it now.

I had a dream last night that I got fired. It was so real.

We were trying to deploy an update to some software that I'm not responsible for in real life. My Senior Manager said to install it on the server so all the clients would get the updates. I responded that didn't make any sense, we would have to deploy to each client. In my dream, the Senior Manager said, "that's it, you're through" and asked a co-worker to help me clean up my office.

At first I just found their advertizing really annoying. More recently, as I've followed the Sunbelt Blog, I realize, I just can't stand Alex.

Here's his latest whine. "Oh no sales people are reading the case studies on our public website and then calling the customer offering them a competitive upgrade. Waaaa."

"Oh no, Webroot people are saying mean things on my blog waaaaaa." (actually the comment was by the Webroot guy was pretty funny.)

"Waaaa, Webroot PR is mean like Karl Rove." I guess we now know the politics of Alex Eckelberry. Whatever dude.

Obviously my prayers are with the students, faculty and parents of those at Virginia Tech.

"And there were in the same country shepherds, abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them! And they were sore afraid ... And the angel said unto them, "Fear not! For, behold, I bring you tidings o great joy, which shall be to all my people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ, the Lord."

"And this shall be a sign unto you: Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger." And suddenly, there was with the angel a multitude of the Heavenly Host praising God, and saying, "Glory to God in the Highest, and on Earth peace, and good will toward men."

"That's what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown." - Linus Van Pelt

More fun with Symantec licensing.

The license file we were finally able to download during Monday's marathon phone call with Symantec didn't actually work when I went to install it.

Thursday I tried to cal licensing but calling at 10am (eastern) is apparently too late in the day. I waited for 90 minutes before abandoning the call.

Today, I called again and waited 75 minutes to speak with someone. After a total of 2.5 hours on the phone with licensing they said it wasn't a licensing problem and to call support. Its pretty clear to me that it is a license problem. At this point the license will import, but the product still says it is expired. The license file has 3 entries for the product. Two with expired dates and one with the correct date. I dont think support can help me with that. And still I wait. 50 minutes on hold for support and counting.

License files. A necessary evil, or just evil? I nearly went insane while trying to obtain a license file from Symantec yesterday. Half the day was shot waiting on hold. Today I attempted to apply the license file. No dice.

The knowledge base wasn't helpful. It suggested I use a later version of the product. I'd like to do that, but Symantec likes to trickle out access to major releases. As a result, I dont have access to the latest major release. The KB further implies that my license file is incomplete because I did not add all available serial numbers to the licensing website before creating the license. Since I only have the one serial number, I don't think that is the case.

To avoid hour long hold times, I should call in early tomorrow. Unfortunately I have a morning meeting, so that isn't going to happen.

Psalm 100
A psalm. For giving thanks.
1 Shout for joy to the LORD, all the earth.
2 Worship the LORD with gladness;
come before him with joyful songs.

3 Know that the LORD is God.
It is he who made us, and we are his ;
we are his people, the sheep of his pasture.

4 Enter his gates with thanksgiving
and his courts with praise;
give thanks to him and praise his name.

5 For the LORD is good and his love endures forever;
his faithfulness continues through all generations.

I was in the helpdesk today trying to makes sure the lead guy in there and I were on the same page with a password reset website I'm going to be putting out there.

One of the temps comes over and asks someone right behind me, so and so is on the phone and he wants to know if he can use the Intel Wireless Driver on his Dell Truemoble card.

I've been noticing the Cisco Telepresence commercials lately and been kind of surprised. That is a really high end CEO type of item from what I've heard. Its insanely nice, but not the kind of thing a TV junky would be buying. I dont quite understand why Cisco is spending so much money on product placement to become a household name.

In a way I do, I LOVE seeing the Cisco IP phone that I have on my desk in TV shows. I loved it when Cisco's self-defending network showed up on 24. But this Telepresence item costs $$$.

Anyway, if you missed it, Cisco has the show clip posted www.cisco.com/web/solutions/telepresence/fox/

Based on a Microsoft Monitor post, I decided to check out Google Reader. Its a web based RSS Reader. Its also quite forgettable. I did not realize that I had used it before, yet when I went there today, it had a big list of the feeds I read (but not the current list).

I'm open to switching RSS readers. I currently use SharpReader and it can use a ton of RAM. It would be nice to be able to follow my RSS feeds from any computer.

-The interface is kind of cluttered. It doesn't have enough room to read the article on screens the size of my tabletpc.
-Worse yet, its slower than my Sharpreader.
-I dont see a way to import my OPML file.
-If there is a way to be notified of new posts, I haven't found one. Perhaps the Google Talk client could notify me of new posts the way it notifies me of new emails.

I just dont see why the Microsoft Monitor writer falling all over himself to give Google credit for a great product.

For a brief moment, I thought to myself, what if software security companies tried to sell software with the same shocking tactics as the Safe Happens commercial series from VW. Then I came to my senses. These companies already do sell based on the idea that your data is toast without them. What is shocking in a car commercial is all too common from security vendors.

In the VW commerical, people get in to a jaring physical accident and in the security commercials people are threatened with losing all their data, the internet melting down, SCADA and a new Y2K.

Here's a clip from 24 where Cisco saves the day. (quicktime required)

On September 11th, Rick Rescorla successfully got 2700 employees of Morgan Stanley out of the south tower of the World Trade Center. He was last seen on the 10th floor going back to look for stragglers.

I'm not sure if this photo is from 9/11 or not. Rick regularly ran escape drills for the employees of Morgan Stanley so this could have been from earlier. It is known that on that day, he did reassure people as this picture shows.

God bless Rick.

http://www.medaloffreedom.com/RickRescorla1.htm

http://www.rickrescorla.com/

The folks over at Movable Type are very proud they they are the technology behind a new website called Its Our Net, sponsored by Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, AOL, Haliburton and Enron.

It seems to me that these huge companies want to provide big bandwidth items. They dont want the ISPs to stand in the way of these big companies getting eyes on the content.

They say they dont want a tiered Internet. There is already a tiered system between dialup and broadband. Even in broadband, I can pay more and get a faster connection. They don't want quality of service. Quality of service is important in keeping my neighbors bittorrent downloads from affecting my ability to surf the web.

I checked out their site, and it looks like scare tactics. Imagine a world where you can't successfully research health issues online! I dont see that happening today. What I see is the opposite. Big company ESPN is making ISPs pay so their subscribers can access premium content. They imply that any ISP not paying is providing degraded service. Why don't they just go the subscription route like every other premium service? They are just following their lessons learned from the cable world. Its easer to force a cable company to make all their customers pay, than it is to get them to sign up individually.

I wonder if so-called net neutrality would allow ISPs to block malicious traffic or undesirable traffic? Would porn filtering family friendly ISPs be allowed to exist anymore? I kind of wonder? They aren't exactly "net neutral" if they are blocking.

Hands off The Internet has much better arguments in my opinion.

In a long overdue move, OWA 2007 will be allowing users to see the mail headers.

- source You had me at EHLO

An article in the San Jose Mercury News reports that HP is cutting back on telecommuting within one of its divisions. This is seen by those discussing the article as a man bites dog story. They ask how could any company be backing away from telecommuting? After all, the federal government is doing all it can to encourage telecommuting to ease traffic congestion.

The answer is found within the article. For starters they are banning full time telecommuting, not telecommuting in general. It sounds like you can still telecommute multiple days per week. It seems that what started as an incentive program to keep valued employees was now seen as an employee right. The head of the division felt that it is important to build teamwork, and that only occurs when you actually work together. The younger workers needed to learn from the older workers, and that doesn't occur when everyone is at home working in their PJs. It is those moments of downtime around the water cooler that provides bonding and creates corporate culture.

tip of the pen to Rod, saw this article linked from his blog.

If you take part in the mailing lists over at myitforum, you need to resubscribe. They've moved to a new server and are not migrating subscriptions. If you're not subscribed, your missing some great discussion.

http://myitforum.com/cs2/blogs/myitforum/archive/2006/05/27/20658.aspx

So I had one of the oddest experiences I've had at work for a really long time.

I had a vendor coming in to do a pitch on their product. Originally they were going to do this online as a webdemo, but they realized they'd be in town so they might as well come by and do it in person. A couple months ago I got yelled at by security for bringing a foreign national by for a meeting without filling out some paperwork first. In that instance they let the person upstairs for the meeting. I wanted to do it right this time so I look on the company intranet for the proper procedures and find the Foreign National Visitor Form. It pretty much has 5 things. Their name, their nationality, their company, my signature and my directors signature. I turn the form into security and ask if that is everything they need. They respond that it is. I also provided date of visit and purpose of visit although there is not a place on the form for that.

My meeting was about 4 business days later. On the morning of the meeting, I get a phone call telling me they will have to have their password xeroxed. First of all, it does not seem like a good practice to have people xeroxing identification papers. Second of all, its the morning of the meeting. Its too late to contact them and ask them to bring a password. I had told them to bring ID such as a drivers license. At least of the people works locally and of course only brought a Virginia drivers license.

So security has a freaking cow because they dont have the correct identification. I was told they would not let them upstairs. To that I asked I could use a conference room on the first floor. Since outsiders are allowed in the cafeteria on the first floor, could I use a conference room on the first floor not in the secured area. Security responded that the conference room is in a controlled area. I asked how it could be in a controlled area when there is not a locked door separating it from the "public" areas of the building. They responded that I could meet in the cafeteria. The cafeteria is certainly a great place to meet with a vendor. I wonder if I could set up a projector and a screen in there. I'm seriously thinking about next time just hooking their computer up to the plasma screen in the lobby and using that for our meeting. I asked to speak with their director in the hopes that he would allow us to meet in the conference room on the first floor which is in a non-secured portion of the building. That is when things began to get interesting.

Rather than listen to my concerns about the Foreign National Visitor process, or my experience in getting foreign nationals into the building in the past, the Director cut me off and repeatedly said I was not within policy. He would not answer my questions as to why I was not informed of a passport requirement before the morning of the meeting when I had turned in my visitation form the previous week. This Facilities Director basically called me a liar by denying events that I have experienced (having foreign nationals visit without this hassle), he then made up policy that is not recorded on the company intranet, and basically belittled me. Somehow he managed to do all this while making sure to only say things about how he wanted to help. It was a thing of beauty how he was able to humiliate me while at the same time verbally maintaining his desire to help. He put the cherry on top by sending out an email to me about how much he wanted to help. He certainly knows how to play the game of politics. If only he actually desired to help people with the same ardor. For people like this power is their aphrodisiac. And the wielding of it better than any sex they can have. The satisfaction that comes from crushing power games is still there even when wielded against people many pay grades below. This is a man to be pitied. For he is nothing if not a Dilbert cartoon character.

I understand that given the nature of the facility that we have requirements regarding foreign nationals. But policies need to make sense. I'm just trying to talk to a couple of vendors, not make a huge production number of it.

I still dont know exactly what a foreign national is. Is it a non-U.S. citizen? What if they have permanent residency or a work permit here? I guess I could have learned something if the Facilities Director didn't have such a huge attitude problem. So now I'm supposed to attend a reeducation session with security. That was the trade off for getting my vendors into the building. Right. I dont think so. I cant wait to see what happens next. Will they lock out my badge (again)? Will they "write me up". Will they try to yank my clearance (if I have one, you aren't supposed to admit to having such)? Or perhaps they will merely slow walk the renewal process for it.

I thought about putting this in my personal blog. It would have less potential to cause trouble. I keep that one under password protection. But this issue directly relates to what we do in security. Make the security irrational and people are going to resist it. If you respond by protecting your sandbox and lashing out as this Director did in his passive agressive way, you will find your kingdom despised. Sooner or later the important things you are trying to do will be trivialized, marginalized and ignored. Piss off enough people and you'll be on the outside looking in.

I'm receiving a Master of Science in Computer Science concentrating in Information Security from James Madison University. Its been a long road, and I can hardly believe I'm at the end of it. So I'll be down in Harrisonburg on Saturday at graduation. George Allen is speaking. Weather looks to be 68 and mostly cloudy with a chance of showers.

On saturday it will be two years since I started this blog. I'm going to be out of town Friday and Saturday, so I'm posting this now.

While I do this mainly for myself, it is nice to see the the visitor count. Hopefully I'm getting one or two readers and the traffic isn't just all blog spammers.

Maybe its just because I've got actual work to do this weekend, but I find the April Fools websites to be really really lame this year. Its the same old joke. The site is closing. Oh no. Or perhaps its some funny new product. Did you see Google Romance (Beta). It a barrel of laughs...Not. Actually its something we could all see them doing. They already know everything about me through their storing of my email and my search data. Hey, match maker match makter make me a match.

I've got a project due today in my computer forensics course. Right now, I'm frantically trying to learn everything I can about FAT and how recover files when the file allocation table has been erased. It looks like its been done in such a way that I need to recreate the FAT table by hand. I haven't found any utilities that can recover these files for me.

12 hours to go. Full panic mode now. :(

Did I mention that my company updated their education assistance policy? After 5 years of allowing people to leave freely the second their company paid for degree was obtained, after I've been taking classes for two years, now in the final year of my degree they have changed the program so that if I leave within one year of them giving me money for a class, they will demand reimbursement.

Now most people think two things about this. The first is that I'm trying to shock by using the phrase indentured servant. I think they have confused the phrase 'indentured servant' with 'wage slave.' I'm not making a comparison to slavery. That would be incredibly insensitive. No I am using the phrase indentured servant correctly. Websters defines an indentured servant as a person who is bonded or contracted to work for another for a specified time, in exchange for learning a trade. This is exactly the contract I have been forced to accept. I would like to not accept the company money, but I know the odds are I'll stay where I am forever anyway so I might as well take the money.

The second reaction people have is that the company is Just in requiring people to stick around for a year after accepting money for school. I think that these people are not looking at it from my point of view. To frame the argument in a way they can understand, I ask, what if the company's matching funds for your retirement fund only fully vested after you stayed for an additional year after each deposit. Many companies have a vesting period. Perhaps we should have that also so we the employee don't skip out the door after taking the retirement money.

The bottom line for me is that I have increased my worth to the company through self-study, obtaining certifications and working on this degree. Under corporate policy its not possible for them to increase my pay at the same rate at which I have increased my value. So now in the moment where I have the upper hand, the velvet handcuffs that were the company benefits have become steel.

This is why I have a countdown to my Freedom day on the front page of this blog.

Starting the last semester at school. I've got two classes one in Secure Operations and one in Forensics.

The Secure Operations class info looks like fun.
Course Objectives:
Upon successful completion of this course a student will:
Justify configuration choices, using the principles of secure operation
Justify choices of intrusion detection strategies, using principles of intrusion detection
Justify security incident response strategies, using principles of response
Design a secure configuration for a host operating system, firewall, or Internet
Have experience with penetration testing of a computer system
Have experience administering a computer system and performing intrusion detection and response on it

Still waiting for the syllabuse for the other class. Classes start on Monday.

Here are my wishes for you all to have a great 2006. That you'll meet new friends, and stay in touch with old friends. That you'll grow professionally. That you'll stay healthy or improve your health where necessary. And that your'll get right with God.

Best wishes for the coming year

Roger

Luke 2
8And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. 9An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. 10But the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. 11Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ[a] the Lord. 12This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger."
13Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying,
14"Glory to God in the highest,
and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests."

I heard about this sketch on SNL this week. Thanks to Skoble, I've got the link to the video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch.php?v=zLElfJ9YCh0

Its all about the hamiltons yo

Its almost cliché, but I have to post about my experience at Circuit City tonight.

I stopped by Circuit City to pick up an external hard drive that I purchased at their website. Before picking up my item, I did some window shopping in the store. Of course I didn't make it down one isle before I was asked by a sales associate if I needed anything. Giving him too much credit, I asked if they carried any tablets. Since I was standing next to the laptops, I figured the context was rather obvious. But he asks if I meant the sales circular. At that point I explain that I mean a tablet pc. He still really doesn't know. Since I had looked at what was on display and no tablets were available so I got the heck out of there.

I have an assignment in school to model a mutual authentication protocol using CSP. So to get some boilerplate about csp for my intro, I went over to wikipedia and searched for CSP. My result:

CSP is an abbreviation that can be interpreted as one of the following:

Communicating Sequential Processes
Certified Safety Professional
Compulsive skin picking or chronic skin picking
Chicken Slayer Productions
Concentating Solar Power (Technology)

um, I think I want the first one. lol

Have you ever been handed a wrapped present and told you couldn't open it until Christmas? That's how I felt waiting for the movie Serenity. After waiting a year for this movie, movie executives pushed it back further to September 30 to avoid going head to head with Star Wars and Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. More waiting. During the waiting, I was teased by several preview showings in DC, but word of these showings always spread slower than the ticket sales. So again I was forced to wait.

Today was finally the day that I was able to see the movie I've waited so long for. And it was worth it. The movie serenity is based on characters from a short-lived Fox TV series Firefly. During the series, I grew to love these characters. After watching the movie, I would say that it is accessable to those who have not seen the series as well. Great flick. Go see it. Then go see it again. :)

When disasters occur some people look for people to blame. Some people give into looting. Other people have a can-do spirit and get things done.

I wish that certain bloggers would stop trying to politicize hurricane Katrina. Or even trivialize it by pretending it should already be fixed. We have an major hurricane with a 200 mile wide path of destruction.