Fortune's ode to the GC

Reclaimer, spare that tree!
Take not a single bit!
It used to point to me,
Now I'm protecting it.
It was the reader's CONS
That made it, paired by dot;
Now, GC, for the nonce,
Thou shalt reclaim it not.

-----------------------------------

This text was spewn out by the fortune program at logon, don't know who wrote this.

Fortune message of today

This morning I booted my PC, logged on and was greeted by this funny "Fortune message"


For example, in Year 1 that useless letter 'c' would be dropped to be
replased either by 'k' or 's', and likewise 'x' would no longer be part of the
alphabet. The only kase in which 'c' would be retained would be the 'ch'
formation, which will be dealt with later. Year 2 might reform 'w' spelling,
so that 'which' and 'one' would take the same konsonant, wile Year 3 might
well abolish 'y' replasing it with 'i' and Iear 4 might fiks the 'g-j'
anomali wonse and for all.
Jenerally, then, the improvement would kontinue iear bai iear with
Iear 5 doing awai with useless double konsonants, and Iears 6-12 or so
modifaiing vowlz and the rimeining voist and unvoist konsonants. Bai
Iear 15 or sou, it wud fainali bi posibl tu meik ius ov thi ridandant letez
'c', 'y' and 'x' - bai now jast a memori in the maindz ov ould doderez - tu
riplais 'ch', 'sh', and 'th' rispektivli.
Fainali, xen, aafte sam 20 iers ov orxogrefkl riform, wi wud hev a
lojikl, kohirnt speling in ius xrewawt xe Ingliy-spiking werld.

Windows Update Error 0x80024d007

I encountered some machines showing error code 0x8024d007 while trying to update through windows update. Trying to resolve this error I stumbled upon this Microsft document http://support.microsoft.com/kb/956701. But while trying to execute the "regsvr32 wuaueng.dll" the command exited with error code 0x80070005. After some googling and checking stuff I checked the REgistry permisions for the user I found out that the permission settings on the registry key "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\WindowsNT\CurrentVersion\SvcHost" was set on read-only for all local system users and no access was granted to the Domain's system administrator. Adding access to modify the registry key for the domain admin rfesolved the issue.

UPDATE: My photos on Shmaps guides

Update, also a third photo was published on Smapsh guides, this time 8th edition of antwer.

The foto is the one of the Pelican, see the smapsh page here

Want to see all the pictures that have been included in Shmaps guides go to my Flickr Shmaps Set

My photos on Shmaps guides

Shamps Guides has included 2 photos of my Flickr stream into their Guides

The one included in the Rome Guide is a picture of a fountain on "Piazza del popolo"and the other in the Brussels guide is a photo of the famous Atomium in Brussels.

The originals from the Flickr stream:
Atomium
Piazza del popolo

A third photo of a pelican taken at the Antwerp zoo has been selected to be included in the Antwerp guide.

The death of the SFP-module

This morning I had a surprise when entering the office one of our tape drives was down. leaving us to 1 drive. So first thing I connect to our Backups software and do a "drive up". The drive comes up again. Pffff.... we back on I think, unfortunately 30 min later the drive goes down again this time however I'm unable to pull the drive back up because the the path to the drive is missing. Connent to the Library web interface and get drive status, It says a nice "No light" on it FC interface ! Darn time to get to the data center. Change the Fibre with a brand new since the old had some narrow turns in it, but nothing changes. Next thing a drive reset , nothing. Drive diagnosis, no errors return. Ok so pull out the Fibre and put it in another FC-switch port, Bingo ! Light returns. So yank out the SFP module from the port where the drive was connected to earlier and put in a new one, reconnect the drive to that port, drive logs into the SAN. Back in business.

The "Weekly Overload Recreational Killer"-Virus

The Center for Disease Control has issued a medical alert about a highly
contagious, potentially dangerous virus that is transmitted orally, by
hand, and even electronically. This virus is called Weekly Overload
Recreational Killer (WORK). If you receive WORK from your boss, any of
your colleagues or anyone else via any means whatsoever - DO NOT TOUCH
IT!!! This virus will wipe out your private life entirely. If you should
come into contact with WORK, you should immediately leave the premises.

Take two good friends to the nearest LCBO and purchase one or both of
the antidotes - Work Isolating Neutralizer Extract (WINE) and Bothersome
Employer Elimination Rebooter (BEER). Take the antidote repeatedly until
WORK has been completely eliminated from your system.

You should immediately forward this medical alert to five friends. If
you do not have five friends, you have already been infected and WORK is
controlling your life.

Sysadmin Network

Beside my first helping tools "Google-ing" and the rocking "Community" I can also add "The SysAdmin Network" a new social network for Sysadmins

RTFM !!!

As always it's been a while since I wrote. This time about a situation I encountered at work. Let me explain shortly what happened. A software was installed on a desktop by our Hyperion guys, the software t must connect to a server on a different LAN, while the application tries to log on to the server it exits with a cryptic error.

So the application guy calls me for support, and starts explaining what happens. I reply him that probably the error is generated due to the firewall which is in between both LANs, I tell him I'll we'll have to open a request to the security team to open the needed ports for the software's communication with the server. The Hyperion guy puts up a strange face and asks me "Ports ? I don't know which ports, how do I know ?" At that point I really would have liked to answer "RTFM !!!" but of course you keep calm and inform the user that a perfect place to get the information would be the applications manual. At that point I find out that the Hyperion guys don't have the manual they have to download it, but to make this even worse he asks me "where can i find that in the manual ?". So you calmly tell him it could be in the troubleshooting section or maybe in another section.

The next day we receive a mail telling that the software needs 2 ports (8200 & 8299) so we forward the info to the security teams which promptly modifies the firewall. A test is done but nothing. Hmmmm, So you start reading the manual to find out that there's a section called "PORTS" in the manual with a subsection with the same name as the application, and strangely you can find that both ports (8200 & 8299) are mentioned but beside those another 10 ports are mentioned and 3 of them are dynamically defined by the application's server.

Is it possible that a person who is a consultant for a certain program isn't aware of how his software/application works ?