Steve Gets A Life

sasser worm causes DoS

the latest worm to hit the internet has had a horrible side-effect on the internet, that is, it has effectively DoS'd all internet news and security update sites.
want to know about recent developments in p2p? gotta wade through the sasser-fest first.
even want to learn exactly sasser is? you have to find which one of the zillions of posts has any kind of useful information (tip: it is article number [one zillion minus one]).

ugh. i hate these trends in online publishing. it reminds me of People magazine ("bennifer! bennifer! brad and jen!")

sasser worm causes DoS

the latest worm to hit the internet has had a horrible side-effect on the internet, that is, it has effectively DoS'd all internet news and security update sites.
want to know about recent developments in p2p? gotta wade through the sasser-fest first.
even want to learn exactly sasser is? you have to find which one of the zillions of posts has any kind of useful information (tip: it is article number [one zillion minus one]).

ugh. i hate these trends in online publishing. it reminds me of People magazine ("bennifer! bennifer! brad and jen!")

"Bush's war on truth"

check out this recent salon article (get the "day pass" to read the whole thing, you just have to sit through an ad).
essentially, bush and his cronies are calling out kerry in regards to not wanting to use the word "war." and its totally out of context, therefore irrelevant. its almost like gossip: someone overheard part of kerry's speech and passed it onto the republicans who are using it without actually checking the context. jeez.

tech support sucks

so i think i might hate my job. well, im sure i hate it sometimes. and its not often i come home elated about my day at the office.
but what really gets me is the lack of respect i get from students. i hope i wasn't like this to the tech guys when i was in college (considering i was basically already doing the same job as them, i really hope not).
i get students walking in (five minutes before their project is due) saying "whats wrong with the printers?" uhhh.... well considering you're the first one to come complain to me about it, and i don't spend my time watching the printers, waiting for something to fail, id have to say "i don't know, what is wrong with them?" "well they aren't working" .... i go, find that the paper is out. apparently posting a giant poster saying how to troubleshoot printers is totally ineffective when there is a "computer guy" available to but for little things like that.
but i digress. what really gets me is when the students put on the whole "um ya, could you take care of that? like yesterday? cause i have a class in five minutes and its really important and i didn't do it earlier cause i was printing out pictures of my mardi gras party then. oh ya, and you can't possibly have better things to be doing, so would you wipe my nose for me too?"
i think i need to bring my degreeS in here and hang them on the wall. maybe that will help. no way.
so it doesn't bother me that i spent an hour of my day working on my resume today. cause i need to get the f outta here.

cause no one likes you, monkey-boy

dammit. how is it that i am a web-monkey again? i took the "responsibility" of maintaining both the college and the department websites. both of which need some serious work.
like, serious work.
and now, im all into pure-css stuff, something i know nothing about. so its going kinda slow. and im relearning that the only victims in the browser wars were the web developers. stupid non-compliant razzle-frazzle...
[...sigh...]

why jesus hates macs

"If you are using a new Macintosh running OS X then you probably have these "daemons" on your computer, hardly something a good Christian would want! This clearly illustrates that not only is Macintosh based on Darwinism, but Darwinism is based on Satanism."

check out this article to discover just how evil Macs really are. i mean, the devils, the bitten apples, the .. uh, the apples.
a few more goodies:

"Hypnotically encased iMacs trick unsuspecting computer users into accepting Darwinism"

"the new MacOS X contains another Satanic holdover from the "BSD Unix" OS mentioned above; to open up certain locked files one has to run a program much like the DOS prompt in Microsoft Windows and type in a secret code: "chmod 666". What other horrors lurk in this thing?"

"the "e" in "eMac" ostensibly stands for "education", although it should be obvious to readers by now that it's really a cryptic tipping of the hat to their true agenda: "Evolutionism". eMac is also a referrence to "Emacs", a program that is a standard-bearer for the Communistic Open Source movement mentioned above and whose mascot is some sort of effeminate-looking, horned devil-man. Is there no end to this tangled web of evil?"

"Although called "Switch", this campaign is actually "Bait and Switch", luring the average, unsuspecting person with the false promise of "compatibility" (both with normal computers and Christianity) only to later foist acceptance of Evolutionism and anti-Christian values on them via the techniques discussed above."

"an industry standard connection for peripherals is idiosyncratically retermed "FireWire" (or should we just be honest and call it "HellFireWire"?) while the familiar Recycle Bin is given its new cult name of "Trash Can". Any "Switcher" trying to purchase equipment for their new computer or get assistance will be forced by this linguistic ghettoization into dealing with the only people that can understand the strange argot: brainwashed Macintosh users. It is then that the process of unbuilding the "Mac Newbie" and reshaping him or her into an Evolutionist begins."

just to top it off, here's this guy's take on our dear Ellen Feiss:

"I have been informed that the teenage girl in the "Switch" commercial was not on drugs at the time, as I had previously suggested. Apparently, her incoherent rambling was the result of something called a "reality distortion field" -- which, I'm assuming, is some sort of strong magnetic field generated by a device (similar to the one I reported on here,) that Apple Computers developed to assist in their mind control. My apologies to her and her family."

this guy needs a hobby.

stupid at&t

dammit. gotta send back my camera phone. so lame.
apparently you cant get a good new phone if you're just extending your contract, only if you're a new customer.
also, they didnt bother to tell me all about this till now, 9 days before the 30-day trial period ends, after which they would have sent me a bill for the full price of the phones (about $450 total) and then charged me $200 per account (another $400) if i had ended my contract after that point (and i called them about something totally different, they just mentioned this little fact on the side).

ill be happy when this is all finished.
grumble grumble.

now what do i do with my bluetooth usb adapter? ebay here i come, i guess.

new phone

its almost done. maybe ill write up a little bit on what ive gone through with at&t trying to get this phone deal done.
anyways, andria and i have new phones (1, 2) now. now that i've got my bluetooth phone, ive realized that my g5 doesn't have a bluetooth module. aaaaagh! then why does it have a bluetooth antenna? dammit. i knew i should have checked on that..
so ya, gonna try to get one from the bookstore, if they're even open on new year's eve.
soooo cloooooose to techno greatness.
update!
got it working. so awesome.
went to the bookstore and got an external bluetooth adapter (only $30!). one stupid complaint: nowhere on the device does it say "bluetooth," not even the little logo (see picture), so it could get confused with a storage USB stick. but ignoring that, its awesome. i can bring it home and sync on my PC too. schweet.

finally

apparently the magic number is 4:20. thats right, 4 hours, 20 minutes on hold with AT&T wireless.
what are you laughing at?
well, i spoke to a real person for all of 10 seconds and she put me on hold again. at least there's music on this one. kinda funky too.
damn. no dice on getting the deal. gotta call up customer service and see if they will give it to me. apparently if your order just doesn't go through, they don't give a crap.

horrible horrible horrible

oh hold with AT&T going on 3 hours now.
wtf.

im your printer monkey

today some student waltzed in with a "do my bidding, my senior project is due this week" look on her face.
she looked around the room and said

"is the printer techie guy in here?"

i found myself glaring at her. i wanted to ask "where is the girl who draws flowerboxes all day?" (she's a landscape architecture student).
argh.

---

on iTunes: On the Turning Away from the album "A Momentary Lapse of Reason" by Pink Floyd

careers vs jobs

i have a job right now, not a career. ive noticed the difference this weekend. went to a party down here in Redlands, populated mostly by Andria's highschool friends. i went through the whole "hi im steve, i do computer work, etc" thing. what i found myself saying was stuff like "oh, i just do IT stuff" or "no, i dont really use my degree(s)."

so what the hell. i talked it over with andria (which always helps) and came up with the fact that i need to think about getting a real job. id really like to get into the security buisness, which basically means looking for a job with the government. which likely means moving to DC or VA. which is strange.

i mean, should i go for the FBI/CIA crazy security thing? am i right for that kind of work? would they even look at me? i mean i expect they get a lot of applicaints from Ivy League, etc. why would they choose a guy who slid through UCIV? (err SB).
so then, what about private firms, doing internal security? hard to get into. basically you cant get an entry-level job doing security for a company. gotta find some kind of security-consulting firm. the only ones i know of are counterpane and ... hm. well there are plenty of groups but i dont know about actual companies.

and what about experience? do i need to start learning the intricacies (sp) and specifics of virii / encryption algorithms / remote exploits / intrusion detection systems? id like to think i know a thing or two about all of those, but not down to the nitty-gritty. but i know guys (well, one or two) that do. what are they doing? getting their PhDs. should i do that? i got an offer. i totally could go back. i mean, the door is open, but i dont think i want to go in.

anyways. the idea is that i need to just keep working this job till andria graduates. the only reason why i work there is convenience until she is done with school. i mean its a good job, but its just not my thing i dont think. i cant imagine being 35 replacing toner on the damn hp2500 laser printer all day.

or i could just open up a bike shop.

printers suck

i think i probably spend 30% of my day working on printers. some days its closer to 75%. the trouble with printers is that there are so many possible problems, and nobody wants responsibility for it.
who should handle the problem?
apple? no, its HPs driver problem.
HP then? no, it works fine for us, you must have a configuration problem.
is it photoshop/illustrator/pagemaker/whatever then? maybe. go check every possible page setting in there, rotate the canvas, etc.
maybe its the connection between the application and the application? maybe the app is handling the image right, but doesnt see the driver?

argh.

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in other news, i think i figured out how to allow comments again.

fight the man

i liked this article about a president of a university who threw a hissy fit when her letter didn't make the front page. the president of the American Society of Newspaper Editors didnt like that too much and let her know in a convincing manner.

AT&T online (in)security

I just got off the phone with AT&T wireless. for some reason, i cant pay my bill online. i think its cause i signed up when they were just getting their "next generation" thing going. basically, my account has been hosed in the past and has never been right since.
aaaanyways. the point to this post (besides me liking this blog thing) is that when i told the customer service woman about my problem, she asked me for my userid and my password.
...
now think of back in 6th grade when AOL first came out and it was cool and you actually used it. do you remember the email / message you got weekly saying "AOL employees will never ask you for your password under any circumstance" ?
well, i do.

basically, asking a user to divulge his/her password is horrible computer security. i like to think i know a little about computer security, but who knows. anyways, the service agent was actually quite open about how this is the only way she has to look at my account when it comes to the website. apparently this is the same with some internal duties she does as well. when someone inside at&t calls her about something, often she has to ask for their password. this is just bad. i suppose i should quote bruce schneier or something, but nothing comes to mind.
anyways, i thought that was totally lame.