TECH SERVICE: My WSP is less than impressive in alternatives

Monday, June 4, 2007

When the hospital’s free wifi (beggars can’t be choosers) was blocking FTP, I pinged my WSP for help. A day later (Drop Dead While Waiting), I get this useless “help”. Argh!

*** begin quote ***

From: support @ 1and1
Sent: Monday, June 04, 2007 12:54 AM
To: reinkefj
Subject: C75194506 – 1&1 Internet Support

Dear Ferdinand Reinke, (Customer ID: 9113251)

Thank you for contacting us.

Unfortunately, FTP is universally using only port 21. We have no alternaltive ports for FTP. You can use the Secure FTP or Secure Shell to upload the files however, this is not supported in your current package. SSH (@port 22) is only available in 1&1 Business Linux and higher packages.

If you have any further questions please do not hesitate to contact us.

—
Sincerely,
Neil Parilla
Technical Support
1&1 Internet

*** end quote ***

Why bother? I didn’t ask for alternative ports. I ASKED for an alternative PERIOD.

I find their service highly available (I can’t ever remember being “out of service”) and “cheap” (I pay about $250/year and “collected” all my web sites in one place with gobs of space and bandwidth left over).

But they could do a better job answering questions faster and should really have an non-FTP alternative to updating a web site. What happens if this core protocol has a major problem (unlikely, but someone always wins the lotto!) and they have to take down FTP.

Seems like an SPF (Single Point of Failure) to me?

Argh!

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Note: Updating my Alumni News webpage until I got home to my great cable ISP. :-) When everything always works PERFECTLY! :-)

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TECH HARDWARE: Resetting Your Internet Connection

Sunday, June 3, 2007

FROM PCMECHANIC

Resetting Your Internet Connection

***Begin Quote***

If you use either DSL or a Cable Modem and find your Internet connection has unexpectedly gone down, before you dial up tech support, try “resetting” your Internet connection. Here is how:

***End Quote***

My router can be accessed from the client and rebooted. I usually try that before I go crazy.

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RANT: What DO you do when you think no one is watching?

Sunday, June 3, 2007

HILLARY CLINTON DEFENDS USE OF CORPORATE JET FOR FAMILY VACATIONS
By Dick Morris Reports <dickmorrisreports@dickmorris.com>

*** begin quote ***

On Wednesday, Hillary Clinton was challenged by the press about the Clinton family’s acceptance of more than $900,000 in free private travel from Infousa, a company linked to scamming the elderly.

Her reply? She said that she had complied with all Senate ethics rules and reimbursed the company for the amount of a first class air ticket — usually about 1 percent of the cost of the luxurious private jet travel. According to Hillary, “Those were the rules. You’ll have to ask someone else if it’s good policy.”

In other words, get lost.

*** end quote ***

I agree with Dick. Hilary just doesn’t get it. For a supposedly smart woman, she’s tone deaf in what the public perception is. As a kid the good nuns used to say, “behave, as if you were going to have to tell your mother what you did”. Good advice that has served me well. They say conscience is what you do when you think no one is watching. In this case, Hilary’s doing anything she thinks she can. She may well believe the story she’s telling. It’s sad. The “elite” think themselves above the rules that they force others to follow.

Argh!

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INTERESTING: Interesting but maybe gooferment is a mental disease?

Sunday, June 3, 2007

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/
arts_and_entertainment/books/book_extracts/
article1874664.ece

http://tinyurl.com/34antt

From The Sunday Times
June 3, 2007
Her other man
As Hillary Clinton emerges as frontrunner to be America’s next president, friends and former aides talk to her biographer about the tragedy that scarred her first years in the White House
Watergate reporter Carl Bernstein

***Begin Quote***

Foster’s suicide, the president later told friends, had “destroyed” Hillary. “I think she just bled deep inside,” a close friend of Foster observed. “I don’t think she ever really quite recovered from that.”

***End Quote***

I have no first hand knowledge, but, just looking from what we have been told about the Foster “suicide”, I’m not so sure that I buy into what might be just a “cover story”.

Interesting how dead people just seem to stack up around the Clintons. Interesting how Hilary is too smart for her own good. Interesting the hubris of what might be “good people” corrupted by the system.

Interesting but maybe gooferment is a mental disease?

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TECH SERVICE: Hospital wifi is blocking ftp

Saturday, June 2, 2007

Argh! And, the WSP does appear to support anything other than FTP to update websites. Argh! Argh!

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JOBSEARCH: UVP, USP, and collateral materials

Saturday, June 2, 2007

FROM AN EMAIL EXCHANGE WITH A FELLOW TURKEY

>”Misery” just about sums it up.

Nothing is as miserable as being pecked to death by a big fat old turkey!

> I’m getting out of the house to do the introspection/analysis/writing and whatever else it takes.

Unnecessary imho, you can create your UVP in the can with the door locked. Since it’s unlikely to be right on the first shot, it’s an iterative attempt to define an objective.

>Nothing like low-grade panic to focus the attention.

Doesn’t sound like panic. It sounds like fear induced lethargy. What have you been doing between 5/5 and 5/27? What is your Number 1 priority? I’m interested if it’s not creating your UVP?

>Later on today I’ll start professional-izing my website. I’ve only used it for experimentation and such.Again, nice, but who cares. You can have the best web site in the world and no UVP, no one is going to put coins in your cash register.

>My marketing collateral, such as it is, is at .

“Marketing collateral” assumes you have a USellingP. Can’t have that without a UVP. How can you sell a product that you haven’t defined? How can you define a product, if it’s not something you can deliver? It all starts with UVP. (In My not so Humble Opinion)

>The website is the first part of that address. None of it is really public, just my remote file cache.

Again, nice, but …

Also, anything you put out on the internet there is public. I got it. If I did, Google did. If Google did, then any recruiter, HR, or hiring manager did.

If you got no interest or no call backs, that might be why?

>

Focusing on what you DO have. Let me see what you’re UVP might look like.

*** begin quote ***

{Privacy; redacting to prevent identification}

*** end quote ***

OK, you might be able to:

* “Market innovative school networks seeking to leave the high TCO Microsoft environment and move to the low cost LTSP solutions”

* “Make networks happen and do it while bringing Customers, Colleagues, Suppliers, and Consumers to a common level of understanding”

* “Market new network capabilities to solve old business problems”

* “Enable better productivity in Government, NGO, private sector, and real people by using networks innovatively”

* “Save schools money while improving communications by better networking”

How’s that for five UVPs that you MIGHT have (and make big bucks from) but haven’t expressed. They are all drastically different. Which one are you? If not, what are you?

Lunch time is over. Enough fun working on real problems. Back to my employer’s paying ones!

P.S.: I’m adding two more people (in a BCC, so they can decline without offending anyone) to this message.

P.P.S: I am inviting you to help “resuscitate” an old XXXXXXXXX  turkey! I would appreciate any thoughts as we go along in how to get XXXXXXX back into the ranks of the high earners. He’s been deflated for a while, (died of “old age” I think), and we’re trying to give him “jobsearch CPR” and breath some new vigor into him. There’s no greater test of a Turkey Master’s power than to bring “dead” turkeys back to life (with apologies in advance to any religious metaphors). Seriously, my toughest case to date was the fellow who was out of the workforce for 3 years tending to his dying wife. That was essentially really easy. I continue to hone my Turkey Master powers by seeking out the tough old birds to “help”. Maybe some day, I’ll learn humility. So, I’m trying to help ABCABC get back into Information Technology Networking and the big bucks. Being not absolutely confident in my prowess as a Turkey Master, I will of course seek to spread the blame around by involving as many as I can in a successful out come. So, if you of a mind to “help”, please introduce yourself to the “crowd” (i.e., XXXX, YYYY, ZZZZ, and of course me). We are real early in the process and I am trying to get ABCABC to pop with his UVP to start. (Amazing how everyone wants to write resumes to start! Or web sites! Even before deciding what they want to be when they grow up.) Respectfully submitted for your consideration, the biggest fattest oldest turkey hisself

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LINKEDIN: Real People, Recruiters, and other denizens of LinkedIn

Saturday, June 2, 2007

FROM AND EMAIL EXCHANGE ON MLPF

On the net, no one knows your a dog!

On LinkedIn, you can’t be sure you’re not linking with a “dog”!

I tend to talk in shorthand and seem to always assume too much.

In my taxonomy of entities you find on LinkedIn, I have some “findings”.

* Real people, like me! Seekers, loafers, helpers, tryers, stumbling blocks, mean well, dumb as rocks. Real people in strange places like New Jersey with all sorts of connections, motivations, and understandings.

* Recruiters — both (head)hunters and (executive)searchers — retained and contingency — with varying degrees of altruism, cooperativeness, and helpfulness.

Now, the newbies and naive think that this is all there is. Unfortunately, that is not all there is out there. I’ve begun to classify all the strange “identities” that I’ve found.

Usually found “close by” a recruiter:

* “hostages” — I think a recruiter creates a profile for some one that they are representing and not permitting any contact except for a fee.

* “strawman” — I think a recruiter creates a mythical person as “bait” with the characteristics they see in “their” candidate. They do this to encourage connections from inside or outside recruiters where they can then “switch” in their candidate.

* “beauty” or “zombie” — I think a recruiter creates an identity, with all the characteristic of someone they wished they represented. When connected, they then try to form up a solid opportunity with they can present to the real person.

* “clones” — I think a recruiter takes a profile that he likes and “replicates” it into his geographic hunting zone for the purpose of finding “buyers” and like minded “sellers”.

I think they do this to advertise candidates they represent, troll for unadvertised opportunities to sell services, find hiring managers? I don’t know. All I know is I think I’ve see it.

Usually found around individuals:

* “ghosts” — An individual creates a profile of a past boss or coworker to get endorsements.

* “pranks” — People set up profiles of people for hahas responding or not as the spirit moves them.

* “psuedos” — I’ve seen no degreed candidates create a “clone” of themselves and add a degree. Then, control access to the “psuedo” and, when approached, they will try to sell into the opportunity.

I’m just an injineer; not a hunter, nor a seeker, and I haven’t stayed in a Holiday Inn Express lately.

I only tumbled to this “barbara streisand” when I tried to reach an old College friend and hit a toll boother. Another time I found my “credentials” on LinkedIn copied to someone in Kansas City. Exactly; my babblings are pretty distinctive, so they do show on searches. So my curiosity was piqued, I pinged, and never heard anything again. I deemed that was a “clone”, designed to flush out a buyer in that area?

This is posted not to give you ideas, but to give you an insight as to what you might find.

Remember, on the net, no one knows your a dog!

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RANT: Legacy dot com quote “what problem”

Saturday, June 2, 2007

Operators of Legacy dot com claim “what problem”. You have to love the ability of support people to deny a problem in the face of an email thread which includes email from their own people saying we see a problem and are fixing it. Great Brother Jasper’s Ghost!!! That is aggravating. Argh!

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JOBSEARCH: LEGENDS (Examples you can use in an interview)

Friday, June 1, 2007

SEEKERS NEED TO HAVE LEGENDS READY TO GO

Here’s some samples.

***Begin Quote***

Significant accomplishments past job, career, and personally

* I created the first formal mentoring program for minority non-college graduate employees to become programmers for AT&T of the initial class of 30, 29 were offered full time jobs and five years later 28 were still there. In an organization that lost 75% of each class in two years, this was a huge success. The program was turned over to HR and in two years results were worse than expected. Management just wouldn’t listen why it was successful. By using “busy programmers” as mentors, the company sacrificed some productivity (maybe theoretical imho) for developing a cadre with spirit de corps. It started with existing non-management employees working in “computer-related” positions with good performance and recommendations, who volunteered for the program, conducted on their own time, working with working programmers, and taking “freshman classes”, maintaining their positions. It was an easy chance for AT&T to develop scarce as hen’s teeth programmers, at a fraction of the cost they were spending. Thirty years later, I ran into one who was a Division Manage in AT&T, who thanked me profusely, for what I did. What a payoff. He was still trying to get the program restarted along the lines he had experienced.

* Being a “skunkswork” type of guy, when I heard from friends at DOD about the Windows NT domain problems, and when my warnings went on deaf ears to MER management, I took one old desktop, and three old IBM Thinkpads and installed NT on them, wrote some code and scripts, and demonstrated the “Monday morning” problem. An NT3.5 domain pdc can only do 2 password changes at a time every 60 seconds (due to a hard limit in the MSFT code) not counting network delay time. The “Monday morning” problem is that, with 70,000 workstations with a 90 day password rotation policy, about a 3,000 users will be forced to change their password on a Monday morning. So the last one completes about Tuesday afternoon. When demonstrated, a redesign was begun on the same day.

* At CSFB, disaster recovery was part of my job. When I met with end users (what a novel idea), I began to get a sense of the “timing” of their business day. Basically they came in on Monday, did some trades, cleared them over the next few days. Each day’s work relied on the prior day’s. So in considering “datacenter disaster recovery”, the metaphor that the datacenter was using said that they were ready in 12 hours. When the business was brought into the plan, recovery was accomplished on the following Monday, regardless of when during the week the disaster occurred. This was a shock to everyone. Recovery planning then began in earnest. The result of that effort was used in the first WTC disaster. I have been told that my wall chart was used in their recovery from the second one as well.

***End Quote***

Every seeker, at some time or another, will be asked to give and example of something or other. They need to be prepared with “epic poems” of great stories. It is certainly possible to have only one or two. But the well-prepared seeker has a virtual stable of these stories. I call them “legends” because they have to be true, easily rolled out when needed, and demonstrate the values that you wish to portray. During my last search, I had 82 when I landed.

A good legend starts as a written document of a true story. It’s at most three paragraphs. I like the PAAR strategy (Problem, Analysis & Actions, and Results). You are selling the A&A. When they hire you then they get the A&A. A legend tells the P and the R. With enough detail to whet the listeners appetite to hear more and ask “how’d you do that”.

A great legend matches the interviewers need. A fantastic one anticipates the problems they expect to have in the future. A rotten one gives away the A&A or generates a “who cares” reaction.

You have to have your legends well rehearsed, but not rote. You have to be able to recall them at the drop a hat with an indicator trigger.

Homer had his stories. Do you?

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LIBERTY: All empires fall

Friday, June 1, 2007

http://vtcommons.org/node/769

ORAL ARGUMENT: 10th Grade Vermont High School Student Speaks To Nonviolent Secession in an English Class
Submitted by Rob Williams on Fri, 06/01/2007 – 9:19am.

***Begin Quote***

All empires fall, few with grace. Although it is debated whether or not The United States is an empire, it shares two key characteristics: it is huge and highly centralized, which is highly unsustainable.

***End Quote***

So obvious, it’s apparent to a Tenth Grader, Ari Erlbaum. Wish I had that realization when I was in that grade. We have TV shows like “Are You Smarter Than A Fifth Grader”; we need a show “Do You Understand Political Philosophy as well as a Tenth Grader”.

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MONEY: Cash is trash?

Friday, June 1, 2007

http://www.lewrockwell.com/sennholz/sennholz18.html

Money Is Flooding the World Markets
by Hans F. Sennholz

Dr. Hans F. Sennholz was professor and chairman of the department of economics at Grove City College.

***Begin Quote***

A few pessimistic economists are convinced that a devastating economic cataclysm lies ahead. They usually point to three threats that may have a serious impact on the American economy. There is the burgeoning tower of public and private debt resting on a foundation of greed and overindulgence. There are a multimillion-dollar list of promises to a retirement system and a vast building of government guarantees and promises that are bound to be unkept. There even is a world of complex derivatives, the value of which depends on something else, such as stocks, bonds, futures, options, loans, and even promises. They all, according to these economists, will be the victims of the coming cataclysm.

This economist, who has observed central bank policies since the 1950s, is in basic accord and feels sympathy for these pessimists. They seem to have a clear view of the principles of money markets and the policies conducted by governments ever since they discarded the natural money order, that is, the gold and silver standards. But these pessimists tend to ignore the countless ruses, devices, and stratagems used by government officials and central bankers to hide the consequences of their policies. Long before there will be a financial Armageddon, there will be a myriad of government regulations, controls, edicts, and rulings that hide the consequences of monetary policies. Policies will be readjusted frequently to cover the actual effects. Given the public confusion and unfamiliarity with monetary policies and their consequences, a large majority of the public is likely to accept official explanations and welcome the regulators and controllers.

***End Quote***

We know that the gooferment is broke, made promises it can’t keep, and will be mia when the you know what hits the fan.

Self-defense: Zero debt, save; save in things that don’t inflate or depreciate or disappear; be aware; be educated; be vocal; develop skills; stay healthy; be prepared; be practiced. imho

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TECHNOLOGY: SURFACE glitz and glamour signifying zip

Friday, June 1, 2007

http://www.surface.coml

Surface computing has arrived.
Posted by: “Vincent Wright”
c/o MyLinkedinPowerForum
Thu May 31, 2007 8:30 am (PST)

***Begin Quote***

Surface computing has arrived.
http://www.surface.com
—
Thanks!
Vincent Wright

***End Quote***

At risk of being a grinch, I don’t see it. Maybe in the yuppie paradises for toys, but not in my life or times.

Has anyone looked at a computer monitor and seen the gunk that collects without a lot of fingers deliberately touching it? And, drinks on a screen … disaster?

Nice video, nice sounds, sell MSFT!

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INTERESTING: Ever been to an ER; don’t go if you can at all avoid it

Friday, June 1, 2007

Well unfortunately the always exciting always interesting saga of “Frau Reinke Faces Life” played out another episode yesterday. (Note: Frau Reinke is my beloved wife of 36 years whose fashion sense makes me look less like a nerd and common sense keeps me from making more social blunders. Hey, I r an injineer.)

So when last we left “Frau Reinke Mystery Patient”, she was quietly living out her days dealing with a weakening heart, a ton of drugs, and finding happiness in her “kids” and a daily dose of drool. (AKA Days Of Our Lives).

We went to a routine appointment with Cardio Doc (a nice mild manner man who always wanted my advice on computers; like I have expertise). Routine EKG. Not overly happy, but he’s usually becomes dour when “his problem patient” walks in.

SO then he asks the fateful question “How are you feeling?” Where she ADMITTED “not to good”! (Stunning! Like if she was that fellow with the iron rod impailed in his head, she’d have said “fine, but I might have a headache now and then”.) He ran through the exercise of extracting her symptoms from her (which I as an ex First Aid guy “knew” were angina, but I don’t have the MD or DVM after my name where my opinions might have some weight with her.)

He said “Off to the ER”. She said “how about next week. it’ll get better”. He said “Ithinkyoushouldgo today”. “But they won’t do anything today” “idfeelbettertoday” (He starts to talk fast and quickly when he gets agitated.) She turns to me, “but you have to go to work this afternoon for that meeting”. My bright response “It’ll go on without me.” So she concedes to go to the ER. (I don’t think he believed her. Hey, she’s been his patient for several years.)

We went home to get some stuff. And, lunch. We both knew this would be an ordeal. If you weren’t sick going into the ER, the process would make you sick.

She walked thru the doors at about 1430; she was in her room in ICU at about 2130. And, she was an “expedited at-risk cardiac” patient. When I left, the ER was over flowing with sick people just waiting. (Desperately in need of some free market solutions.)

Argh, I can NOT describe a worse experience. Even the old NJDMV with its rude workers and day long waits wasn’t as bad. I guess because at the DMV it really wasn’t important. If any of the old AT&T M&Pers (Methods and Procedure folks) say this they would be horrified. Chaos. No Customer feedback loop, massive numbers of people waiting around, no visual themes. It may be “organized”, but it was bedlam and chaos.

Cardio doc popped up about 1800 and praised her for coming right in. He had the blood work and told her she had had another heart attack. (He was “normal” in his appearance.) Kidney doc came by. Only the diabetic doc phoned it in, and the orders were wrong (I don’t like that broad!)

So with Frau firmly ensconced in CCU North 07, I called it a day.

Mentally tired, I went home and counted my blessings that it was me that was the sick one. I firmly resolve with the help of the Intelligent Designer never to get stuck in that world as a patient. But, (thinking about employment opportunities), it might be fun to make it better. Unfortunately, it’ll never be better because it’s run by gooferment diktat. Sigh!

Note: My attentions may be diverted from the blog, email, or such as I tend to my higher priority problems. Actually, stuff might be better as I might focus my time better?

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