Diary of a Wolfeman

So, you’ve just bought the expansion drive cage (8 more SFF drives! W00t!) and you’ve got the SAS RAID controller Expansion Card as well. Great! Only one problem – HP forgot to include a crucial bit of information regarding how you wire the damn thing in.

Step 1: remove the existing SAS cables from the existing drive cage and motherboard. Discard these short cables.

Step 2: Take the shorter pair of cables from the expansion card kit, and route them from the SAS ports on the motherboard to ports 8 and 9 on the card. Then proceed with running the remaining cables from the two drive cages to ports 2-5 of the card.

The instructions that came with my kit left these two steps out, and I wasted about an hour trying to figure out what I did wrong (Whaddya mean there’s no new drives in the ACU?). Finally found an article with pictures in the HP site, but they could have saved me the trouble by just printing the above two lines in the kit.

How’d the rest of it go? Rather smashing, actually. That server now has 60GB (!!) of RAM and another 900GB of RAID5 storage.

If you’re not using the SharePoint site in your SBS network, there’s no need to clutter up the desktop with links to the Internal site. Here’s how you can remove this little annoyance:

1. Open the Group Policy Management console and navigate to Group Policy Objects – Windows SBS User Policy. Go to the Details tab and make note of the Unique ID. (Should look like {767E4A4B-9CA6-40A2-BE97-2E52F0B7FDD9} )
2. Open Explorer and navigate to %windir%\sysvol\sysvol\%userdnsdomain%\Policies and from there into the folder corresponding to the ID you found previously.

3. In that folder, navigate on to User\SBS\ and then open GP.xml in your favorite editor (as Administrator, of course.)

4. Comment out both lines that start with “<ShortCutLink” by surrounding them
   with “<!--“ and  “–>” , then save the file. This stops the GPO from reproducing the shortcuts on the desktop and adding them to favorites.

5. Add the following line to your login script:
   DEL “%USERPROFILE%\Desktop\Internal Web site.lnk”
   This deletes it from the desktop at login.

Thank you, Microsoft, for making something that should be very easy annoyingly difficult.

So one of our  Partner suppliers requires that a certain number of our staffers be certified in their product line. It’s been a couple years since the last time we took the test, so our certs have expired and we need to re-certify our people. No problem, right? I mean, we all passed the test last time we took it…

Well, the test is technical in nature, and the guys who work with us understand that the certification itself is kind of a silly marketing/buzzword thing, so they made it possible to take the test directly from their website without a proctor. Us being the devious techies we are, we cheated outrageously – three of us got together in the conference room, threw the test up on the projector, grabbed our copy of the study materials and brought up a Google search window. Then we got serious about cheating and recorded the entire session for reference.

We got through the first taking of the test pretty well – 82%, where 80% is required to pass. Not bad – especially considering there are only 62 questions. (That’s right, 62. No idea why that many.)

Since each time the test is brought up it grabs a different collection of questions from the pool of all possible questions, the second taking was of course different. Sometimes we got the same question with re-arranged answers, sometimes the answers were completely reworded. And sometimes, the questions were pulled from deep in the bottom of the WTF? bucket.

Now here we have three previously-certified techs, taking a test that has not changed in two years, with a full copy of all the study materials, and this thing brought up several different questions that we had never seen anywhere. One even went so far as to use terminology we’d never heard EVER and had to look up in Wikipedia before we had a clue what the question is about.

We failed the test: 79%.

Now, it seems to me that if three previously-certified techs cheating for all they’re worth can still manage to fail your test after already passing it an hour before, then something is wrong with your test.

It’s been a while – time for a little rant.

Portland is known far and wide across the land for their progressive take on public and alternative transportation. Those of you that live or visit here know that the city is quite proud of it’s Pro-Bicycle stance and the things they have done to make things easier for bicyclists.

What they have not done, however, is sat all the damn bikers down and explained to them the laws actually governing their use on public roadways. This has gotten to the point that your average bicyclist thinks that none of the regular traffic laws apply to them. You want to know what the absolute rarest sight in Portland is? A cyclist stopping at a stop sign.

So, without further ado, this page lists all of the ordinances that exist in regards to riding a bicycle on public streets and sidewalks. I’ll be going through the most important ones to explain and amplify.

“Deja-Bu” – that feeling you get when you pass someone driving a Subaru identical to the one you are driving yourself.

Here is a phone pic of my computer 3 minutes into the process of installing Internet Explorer 9:

Why a phone pic? Because it had to completely shut down everything else, including:

• Antivirus
• Firefox
• Media Monkey
• All the widgets
• Logitech software
• and Windows Explorer.

So why it took 6 whole minutes when it wasn’t fighting anything else for my processors or 6GB of RAM, I have no effing idea…

So no, it didn’t actually require a reboot, but it did completely take over my computer for 6 solid minutes while it downloaded and installed the new package. So yay, no reboot, but WTF?!? Why are you STILL making the browser such an integral part of the operating system?

Chrome, Firefox and Opera all run quite happily without being so integrated. What the hell do you do that needs to be so wrapped up in the whole system other than allow a canny hacker access to core OS functionality through one of the inevitable security holes you provide with each release? Hmm?

Okay, enough of that, time to run it through some tests. So, load up my main work website, go to the toughest and slowest page it has and… huh. Right. IE9! Does so much more!! Look at all the pretty HTML5 it can do!!!

But apparently it doesn’t do Ajax, which means we can’t use it at work, which means it is utterly useless. Go Team Go.

So, right here is where I plug ChromePlus, a mashup that comes pre-loaded with IE-Tab right in the download. All the speed and security of Chrome AND the ability to run IE-required pages.

In conclusion, IE9 looks to be just what I expected it to be: several good ideas completely screwed by a company that refuses to pull it’s head out of it’s ass.

The time has come where the good ship HS Golightly (AKA “Holly”) must be retired and a replacement brought in. The reasons behind the move are mainly financial – it was a terrible loan rate and the car was actually rated as worth only about $500 more than the cost of some needed repairs (some damage to the heads when the timing belt went and a power steering pump). There is also the idea of tourney season coming up, and we need more cargo room to haul our ever-expanding camping gear collection.

Like most people, I hate car shopping. The entire process of buying a car from a dealer is not designed to make things easy for you. You only get to compare cars side-by-side if they happen to be at the same lot, so when you’re shopping for used you must resign yourself to a lengthy process as each dealer tries to coerce you into buying what they’re selling, never mind what you told them you’re actually looking for. (Yes Mr. A.M., I am talking about you and your damn Equinox.). Or (almost) worse, you get a dealer with a huge selection – that is scattered over 5 different lots scattered across town.

In any case, to chop several paragraphs of me griping about the process out of this post, suffice it to say that we eventually did find a car that was both A) worth driving and owning and B) we could fit into the budget. The surprising thing was the car we ended up with.

Originally, I was looking at a 2004 model, but in the end it turned out that the dealership had spent so much money on the car already (trade-in value, repairs, etc.) that they wouldn’t be able to fit it into my budget as well as make my upside-down Kia loan go away. They could do all of this, however, if I were to instead buy this 2009 model…

As can be expected, Microsoft made a lot of changes in the SBS 2008 / Exchange 2007 combination, and while it has been out for several years now, I have yet to find any articles or HOWTO’s that specifically address the problems of getting ancient, legacy code to reliably send email alerts with the new systems.

With Exchange 2003, it was simple and mostly just built-in, all you had to do was add the IP address of things like your scanners and other fairly dumb systems (or even advanced ones, like Backup Exec and APC Powerchute) to allow them to relay email alerts through Exchange.

Well, in Exchange 2007, they made things a little more difficult and force you to create new Receive Connectors with specific restrictions to allow these systems. It has been well documented before, so I’ll just include a link: http://msexchangeteam.com/archive/2006/12/28/432013.aspx

I will point out one thing, however: my experience (and a blog posting I cannot find again today) says that to make this actually work, the remote network range for this connector must be 0.0.0.0-255.255.255.255, and not limited to the single machine or short range of IP addresses. I tested this extensively, and always came up with the same result: narrow IP range = no workee. This means that you must create rules on your firewall to strictly limit incoming SMTP traffic to make sure you don’t set up an open relay on the Internet. You should already be doing this anyhow, considering how cheap Postini spam filtering is.

So today, Da Wolfe did his civic duty and showed up for Jury duty, and was pissed off inside of 45 seconds. Jury duty is of course served in a courthouse, which is high on the list of places you’ll be subjected to what people say is keeping us safe – the mass-annoyance of everyone who has to go into the building.

This wasn’t always so, as evidenced by the design of the building, which has an entryway juuust wide enough to put an X-Ray luggage scanner into, so the prep area where one is supposed to put their keys in the bowl is in this tiny vestibule that is almost outside – which today meant 2 degrees above freezing while I was forced to divest myself of jacket, cell phone, keys, thumb drive, change, bluetooth headset, cap, wallet, watch, belt and my fucking shoes.

Thank you, oh shoe-bomber for that last bit you fucking asshat.

Then I got to sit around until noon, when they let us out for lunch. “Oh, and you get to use the Employee Entrance when you come back!” (She said it with Capital letters) “It’s easier than the public entrance.” Cool, I thought, I only have to want to rip their heads off once today.

Riiiiight.

The Employee Entrance? 10 feet down the sidewalk, only it doesn’t have the vestibule, so I’m taking off my jacket, cell phone, keys, thumb drive, change, bluetooth headset, cap, wallet, watch, belt and my fucking shoes a second time with a freezing-cold breeze blowing up the back of my shirt.

Y’know, if this is all to ensure my safety while I’m in the building, I’d rather be mildly unsafe. And I sure as shit won’t be flying anytime soon, because there’s no way I’m getting through airport security without punching someone.

9:30am. Breakfast with the lovely Illyana at Holman’s. (A great little dive, by the way; you should check it out on a day when I’m not going to be there – I like it quiet.)

11:30am. Left the restaurant and called my insurance company – and got the “please call back during business hours” message. I called back again, and this time impersonated a clinic and got into the automated system, which then confirmed I am eligible for lenses and frames; no idea on the value thereof. Went to the mall.

Noon. Saleslady confirmed that I indeed have a hardware credit available and priced things out for me – both sets of frames I chose fell under the coverage limit, but the lens options I wanted would bring the total up to $169. Money well-spent, I figure. It’ll take 10 days to get them though.

Crap.

This is where I give some mad points to Binyon’s: they offered to give me a pair of “loaner” lenses to use until my ordered lenses come in. This is extremely cool, because it involved them throwing away a set of basic lenses – it’s not like anyone else will have my exact ‘scrip, so they won’t be able to re-use the lenses.

So, either they are very cool about this, or the lenses and two hours’ worth of technician time to grind and fit them is really a lot cheaper than they want us to think it is. I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt this time and say they’re cool.

Noon to 2:00pm. Wandered ’round the mall killing time while Binyon’s built my glasses.

2:00pm. Picked up my new glasses. I be stylin’ now. Once my eyes get used to the change in ‘scrip, I’ll be able to see a little better. Now time to vacate the mall because I have spent far too long there for one day.

5:00-8:00pm. Office Holiday Party at Uptown Billiards. Food was good, table arrangement in the party room is still poor – one of the pool tables is pushed too far to one side to allow for a dartboard, and wouldn’t you know it, half our group ended up hanging out on the narrow side of the room and were constantly being asked to step aside for a pool shot. I expect a little better out of a pool hall. The Boss stole all of my blackjack mojo, and I ended up just breaking even this year.

Saturday needed help, but the weekend turned out ok.