It certainly feels like I have been writing a lot of love letters to Nintendo lately, what with the announcement of the Revolution’s purported capabilities and the DS redesign. Now they are talking up how Metroid Prime Hunters will now feature voice chat and a download service. All this is adding up to the actual potential of the Revolution console and frankly I am frothing in anticipation. E3 can’t come soon enough.
Archive for February, 2006
It would seem that the spectre of insomnia is lurking at my shoulder again casting its pall of wakefulness over my nights. Often, it would seem, that it is fueled by worry with money, marriage, and health being the primary targets and in that regard I am no different than anyone else excepting that I am a craftsman. I grind, work, and polish my concerns until they shine with an internal luster, smooth to the touch, but are heavy and cold. Fret is a mild word for my activity. It is more that I hound these affairs through the dark and twisting woods of my mind, treeing and holding them there until they devise an escape.
Single minded, obsessive, driven are all words that friends and family have labeled me with. In some regards that handful of syllables can be applied in a positive fashion. Those qualities are what have made me an excellent project manager; I am unrelenting and will not leave a job undone if tasked with it. Fine qualities in the business world but in one’s personal life where compromise and fluidity are the touchstones of success I find myself as I do at this moment deep in the evening.
I cannot imagine a time in my life where my mind has been still; maybe in those fleeting moments before drifting off to sleep on a warm fall afternoon when the windows are open letting the air, spiced with falling leaves, drift over me. My grumblings for vacations, breaks, and recesses are largely a result of the quickened pace of my thoughts and emotions. To be honest, no vacation has ever satisfied or refreshed–I leave harried and return tired. It is vicious though with age I have learned to channel the energy and mitigate its effects.
The past year has been a good one for finding distractions. This site and Candied Pop are perfect receptacles for pouring in time and energy and while there may not be a tangible return I do find that both have proven to be the perfect distraction for my trips through the woods. Now, if only I could sleep.
In a recent article, UNIX Security: Don’t Believe the Truth, Thom Holwerda attempts to take to task Unix security and falls flat on his face. He argues that a limited user rights environment gives people a false sense of security because their personal files might be at risk during a virus outbreak.
A hypothetical virus or other malware on a UNIX-like system can only, when it is activated by a normal user, wreak havoc inside that user’s
/homedirectory (or whatever other files the user might have access rights to). Say it deletes all those files. That sucks, but: UNIX rocks, the system keeps on running, the server-oriented security has done its work, no system files were affected, uptime is not affected. Great, halleluja, triumph for UNIX.
Yes, triumph for Unix but he continues:
This is the false sense of security I am talking about. UNIX might be more secure than Windows, but that only goes for the system itself. The actual content that matters to normal people is not a single bit safer on any UNIX-like system than it is on any Windows system. In the end, the result of a devastating virus or other malware program can be just as devastating on a UNIX-like system as it can be on a Windows system– without the creator having to circumvent any extra (UNIX-specific) security measures.
Hello? Thom? It is called performing regular backups of personal documents just like you should be doing on any other OS. Let me spell it out to you, real slow like, ok? I run Ubuntu at home on my laptops and on two servers. I also have a disaster recovery plan in place for all those machines. What is that you say? Yes, Thom, I perform daily backups of all the important files and directories (/var/www, /etc/apache2, /home–these are incremental). Why you ask? Gee, Thom, to be covered in case of a disaster like the one you’re writing about. How about on the job? Well, that is a pure Windows environment and we do the same thing for exactly the same reason.
The argument about users having a false sense of security is weak. Backups should be part of the daily maintenance of any computer, sort of like oil changes and tire rotations on a car. It is easy to set up a cron job to take care of it in Linux/Unix and if my 70 year old mom can do it why can’t anyone else? At the end of the day nothing is infallible and your sense of security should be grounded in reality. If it is your job to take care of things than you have no one to blame if you screw it up.
Anyway, keep up the good work, Thom, it’ll keep my side business hopping having more users like you out there.
Over the past couple of months I’ve been finding people dropping off misbehaving Windows boxes on my doorstep to be tamed by my unique methods of sysadmin discipline. The street-level buzz must be positive as they keep coming and no one ever balks at my fees. But does this mean I’m under-pricing my services? Worth an investigation…
It is an interesting position that I find myself in, particularly since a year ago I wholesale abandoned Windows at home and attempt to find every possible reason to recommend alternatives to people asking for help–usually Apple products but for the more adventurous I let them take a spin with my Ubuntu powered laptop. And now, I find myself not having as much passion for the argument that Microsoft should improve their product as it would mean less requests for my services. A difficult position indeed.
It would seem that the rate of PC purchases over the past several years has reached a critical point that makes the boutique service market viable again. In the 80’s when PCs were a hobby stores catering to that market boomed but died off in the latter part of the decade, however, it would appear that they are making a comeback but in a slightly different incarnation. The new breed of owner-operated stores are more focused on fee-for-service and are blossoming around the fact that Windows based machines are impossibly easy to cripple.
In town we have one such store and while you do not see much foot traffic they have conspicuously placed their test bench in the front window, as a display of their technical prowess, and their is no shortage of aging Dell, Gateway, and eMachine boxes rotating through. Like me, I am sure much of their business centers around the average user who has reached a point where they cannot keep their computer operation, for whatever reason. OSes are like modern cars in that changing the oil yourself is now a real undertaking–I can’t even find the oil filter on Management’s 2006 Corolla–and with the proliferation of malware and the daily uncovering of new security exploits keeping a Windows PC operation requires dedicated time and resources.
So, even as the local IT industry continues it meltdown it is likely that I can still find some side work keeping peoples computers operational, provided that Redmond continues to ship Alpha code. So on behalf of the local computer support industry and myself, please continue clicking every pop up, surfing for porn, and installing each and every toolbar you can find. We thank each and everyone of you for it because without you we wouldn’t be in business.
The past week has been hectic and not just with the launch of Candied Pop. The confluence of work and life has reached that interesting point where you pass from bobbing gently in the waves to actually working to keep upright. whenever that happens I dream of warm sunny places to visit.
As I have often opined, Management and I have not had a real vacation since our honeymoon and the last time I took off from work was spent sitting in my boxers sipping coffee and catching up on my RSS feeds. Not exactly a dream vacation that would be featured on the Travel Channel. With the inclusion of the dog into our life an actual traveling vacation looks even more remote.
Contrary to popular belief the tree growing in our backyard is just a Horse Chestnut and one of money; boarding for a dog Peri’s size would be more per diem than we would spend on a hotel. Camping is the next suggestion often flipped our way. If you knew Management the way I know Management you would not advance such opinions. She was very generous when we were first dating and did come on a short two day camping jaunt to Vermont and we had a good time–the operative word is had. Since that trip she has evolved an opinion that the camping trip was a near death experience and that camping in general is a dangerous slide from civilization. My Internet addicted self is inclined to agree though my nature boy side pines for crisp mornings and the smell of sun warmed nylon.
Where does that leave us? Honestly, I’m not too certain. We do need to get away but it is going to have to be affordable and allow for us to bring a dog along. We had thought about renting the house the same house as our honeymoon but to our dismay discovered it is a no dogs allowed facility. Anyone have suggestions that meet a tight budget, allow an 85 lbs four-legged toddler, and possibly do not involve Management searching the wilderness for a power outlet?
