dc0de’s & friends notes…

Here’s a great post I ran across…

Six Performance Tips for Stressed IT Pros.

“- Every day we hear how bad the economy is. Even if you’re not getting downsized, or losing a mortgage, or trying to recover some of your lost investments, you’re exposed to the news everyday and everywhere. Like a healthy person eating junk food, it all starts building up internally. You can lose perspective, becoming more emotional and stressed out.

- There seems to be little precedent for this gloomy, worldwide situation. Usually, when times are tough, we can look to leaders, experts, or older or wiser individuals for guidance based on experience. It’s comforting during a crisis to hear someone say that they’ve seen this before, and they know what to do to fix this thing. But this time seems different. Further, it seems worse than before. And everyone seems to be just guessing. Looking for guidance, we often hear conflicting feedback. Consequently, on a subconscious level, our minds keep engaged on the subject. We can’t get that nourishing sleep or enjoy the good times quite like we did before.

- People’s fight or flight response may kick in but not have any outlet. So your body gets charged up, ready to take action. But instead, you’re spending time in the office, the car, or at home, and you’re not doing anything physical. Your body and your psyche then react in a bad way because our systemic responses were designed to deal with problems physically. Likewise, very few people regularly do things to calm down those hormones and enzymes through mental practices.

Each of these reasons is insidious. Any one of them can create enough stress to cause someone who is physically and emotionally healthy to start exhibiting unhealthy symptoms. When combined, these three reasons could be a recipe for a disaster if they aren’t dealt with effectively. Stress causes individuals to perform more poorly in all three key life aspects: career, personal, and financial. Most of us know that to be the case, but we don’t do much about it.

Here are six suggestions I’ve been sharing with our clients at BusinessSuccessCoach.net”

Phishing Scams Surround PayPal Account Holders - SPAMfighter.

How does this really continue to happen today? Really.  PayPal instituted the ability to use a two factor authentication method for their services over two years ago.  For as little as $5 per key, no monthly or recurring service charges, you can puchase a two-factor authentication token for use with your PayPal account.

Use your phone/sms or purchase a key for $5 (one time charge)

Now I have more security on my PayPal account than exists on 99.9% of all Online Banking websites.  (I’ve had my key now for over two years.)

You can get more information on this very easy approach to securing your Paypal account, and sleeping quite a bit easier knowing that it is now more difficult to gain access to your PayPal account.  (Now if the Online Banks would wake up…)

Ok, so this “morning”, when I finally rolled out of bed, I started playing with Matlego CE again, to see what I could learn today.

As always, I tend to search for things that I know will give me results, such as my one “nickname/handle” or my personal or professional email addresses, websites, etc…

Today I wanted to test out the phrase entity in Maltego. So, I did what any geek would do, I searched for dc0de. (My nick/handle.)

After I filtered out the other people using my same nick/handle, I came up with this diagram:

The upper left of the image shows the documents  that reference the phrase, some of them are mine, some are other people’s who referenced me in their presentations. There’s also an email reference from Mr. Feinstein’s  presentation at Defcon. (Thanks Ben!)

The lower left, shows the websites (with icon of a server) that have links, accounts, users, or other references to the phrase.

And the purple “germ” icon, shows the tweets from twitter that reference the phrase.

It’s pretty amazing, and I’ve found that I’d forgotten about a few sites, didn’t know about some others… and also got to see where other people had been talking about me on IRC, much to my amusement.  (Dagmar… funny stuff from 2008).

For my next trick, I’m going to redo the same phrase, then do a search on one of my email addresses, to see how well it cross correlates the information.

Ok, this one is a winner… bear with it, it’s pretty long. But, let me set the stage first…

- Friend of mine owns a company reselling HP product
- I do his IT support after hours
- HP sent him (unsolicited), a HP Mininote 2133 with Suse Linux Enterprise Desktop v.10, for surpassing a sales target

Ok… now given that, he asked me to set it up, so when he’s out traveling next week, he can show off HP’s nice little netbook. Sounds great so far…

So, I setup the netbook, create his user account on the box, and setup Evolution, and prepare to perform system updates, to ensure I have the best security posture on the system for his upcoming travel.

Here’s where it gets interesting. I was presented with a screen while adding the Novell repositories to the update manager, requesting my HP Software Key. So, I diig through the product box, all the cds, and all over the system. (external and internal). So, I go for the call to HP.

Well… the first three calls I make, get me to the wrong queue, every time, regardless that I tell the system that I’m calling for technical support on an HP Mini-note 2133 Netbook. I first end up in the Commercial Laptop Queue, they transfer me to a different group, where I receive a “Please enter the extension you’re trying to dial” message, and I hold for 3 minutes, to have an agent ask me what I’m holding for. He tells me that I’m in the wrong queue, and transfers me back to the Laptop Queue. (that’s 30 mins). I explain my situation to the Laptop queue again, they transfer me to the “mini notebook” group. After holding for 18 mins, I get someone in the Netbook group!!! Woohoo…

Only to be told that I’m in the WINDOWS netbook queue, and have to be transferred again. So, I hold, for another 15 mins, and actually get to the Linux, 2133, HP Mini-note queue.

Ok. So, I go through the 9 rings of hell, and I get to the right queue. I’m expecting some solution to the issue. After all, I’ve got the serial number of the unit, explained that the company is a reseller, and how the unit was received. It’s just a matter of someone telling me the associated software license key.

Nope. That’s not going to happen. You see, I’m told, by not one, but THREE different HP Support people, that I need to have a Software Subscription or “HP Carepaq” for the unit. Ok, so, I’m asking them for the part number, so it can be added to the unit.

I’m told, that if the Carepaq isn’t ordered with the Unit, that you (get this!) CANNOT purchase one for the unit after the fact.

I’m stunned. So, I repeat back to the people who have told me this, “If I understand you correctly, you’re telling me that I cannot purchase a software support contract with HP for the Novell SLED 10 software that shipped on a Netbook that was ‘gifted’ to my reseller friend?”

They all validated that you CANNOT purchase this after the fact… only with the original order.

Now, as someone with a “little” bit of sales experience, If this is true, then HP is going to tank like GM. I was ready to purchase the software support/Carepaq, and frantically tried to find out what is necessary, so that a HP Reseller could show off their product.

I felt like I was standing in the middle of a store, with a wad of $100 bills, waving wildly over my head, screaming for someone to help me… and getting NO response. Hello HP? Can this even be true? Does anyone know if I can get the upgrades for SLED10/SLED11 on the HP Mini-note 2133 with 4gb SDD? Is it true I can’t PURCHASE a software upgrade license?

So, I gave the netbook to my friend, setup for his out of town trip, and informed him that if we cannot get the software upgrade / license from HP, that I’ll simply wipe it out, and load EasyPeasy. After all, I KNOW that will update without any issues.

Oh, and on the bottom of the unit by it’s Serial #, there’s a label that states, “1 year warranty”, and during one of my discussions with strangers in a foreign land, I was told that the warranty expires this July. The unit was received only 3 weeks ago. I guess the 2133’s aren’t selling that well, as this one’s been on a bench somewhere for 3/4’s of a year.

If anyone can help, please let me know… if not, I’ll keep you posted on the installation of Ubuntu.

(oh, and now I REALLY love my Asus eeePc.)

Ok, this one is a winner… bear with it, it’s pretty long. But, let me set the stage first…

- Friend of mine owns a company reselling HP product
- I do his IT support after hours
- HP sent him (unsolicited), a HP Mininote 2133 with Suse Linux Enterprise Desktop v.10, for surpassing a sales target

Ok… now given that, he asked me to set it up, so when he’s out traveling next week, he can show off HP’s nice little netbook. Sounds great so far…

So, I setup the netbook, create his user account on the box, and setup Evolution, and prepare to perform system updates, to ensure I have the best security posture on the system for his upcoming travel.

Here’s where it gets interesting. I was presented with a screen while adding the Novell repositories to the update manager, requesting my HP Software Key. So, I diig through the product box, all the cds, and all over the system. (external and internal). So, I go for the call to HP.

Well… the first three calls I make, get me to the wrong queue, every time, regardless that I tell the system that I’m calling for technical support on an HP Mini-note 2133 Netbook. I first end up in the Commercial Laptop Queue, they transfer me to a different group, where I receive a “Please enter the extension you’re trying to dial” message, and I hold for 3 minutes, to have an agent ask me what I’m holding for. He tells me that I’m in the wrong queue, and transfers me back to the Laptop Queue. (that’s 30 mins). I explain my situation to the Laptop queue again, they transfer me to the “mini notebook” group. After holding for 18 mins, I get someone in the Netbook group!!! Woohoo…

Only to be told that I’m in the WINDOWS netbook queue, and have to be transferred again. So, I hold, for another 15 mins, and actually get to the Linux, 2133, HP Mini-note queue.

Ok. So, I go through the 9 rings of hell, and I get to the right queue. I’m expecting some solution to the issue. After all, I’ve got the serial number of the unit, explained that the company is a reseller, and how the unit was received. It’s just a matter of someone telling me the associated software license key.

Nope. That’s not going to happen. You see, I’m told, by not one, but THREE different HP Support people, that I need to have a Software Subscription or “HP Carepaq” for the unit. Ok, so, I’m asking them for the part number, so it can be added to the unit.

I’m told, that if the Carepaq isn’t ordered with the Unit, that you (get this!) CANNOT purchase one for the unit after the fact.

I’m stunned. So, I repeat back to the people who have told me this, “If I understand you correctly, you’re telling me that I cannot purchase a software support contract with HP for the Novell SLED 10 software that shipped on a Netbook that was ‘gifted’ to my reseller friend?”

They all validated that you CANNOT purchase this after the fact… only with the original order.

Now, as someone with a “little” bit of sales experience, If this is true, then HP is going to tank like GM. I was ready to purchase the software support/Carepaq, and frantically tried to find out what is necessary, so that a HP Reseller could show off their product.

I felt like I was standing in the middle of a store, with a wad of $100 bills, waving wildly over my head, screaming for someone to help me… and getting NO response. Hello HP? Can this even be true? Does anyone know if I can get the upgrades for SLED10/SLED11 on the HP Mini-note 2133 with 4gb SDD? Is it true I can’t PURCHASE a software upgrade license?

So, I gave the netbook to my friend, setup for his out of town trip, and informed him that if we cannot get the software upgrade / license from HP, that I’ll simply wipe it out, and load EasyPeasy. After all, I KNOW that will update without any issues.

Oh, and on the bottom of the unit by it’s Serial #, there’s a label that states, “1 year warranty”, and during one of my discussions with strangers in a foreign land, I was told that the warranty expires this July. The unit was received only 3 weeks ago. I guess the 2133’s aren’t selling that well, as this one’s been on a bench somewhere for 3/4’s of a year.

If anyone can help, please let me know… if not, I’ll keep you posted on the installation of Ubuntu.

(oh, and now I REALLY love my Asus eeePc.)

I was working on a friend’s AD tonight, that was having issues authenticating, and had to retire one of the older Pentium III servers that was acting as an AD server for the domain. The newer server has drive space, while the older Pentium III is out of drive space.

The drive space issue couldn’t be easily resolved, and since the box is being replaced with a new server, we decided to take the risk of demoting the older server.

Well, as Murphy would have it, the lack of drive space, the fact that the two AD servers wouldn’t replicate, and that I didn’t want to spend all night fussing with the server we were going to retire. So, I shut down the older server, and began removing the AD objects from the ADUC, ADS&S, and AD Trusts management consoles.

After I had removed the older server objects, and all of it’s NTDS settings, I realized that I hadn’t fully transferred all of the server roles.

That’s where a quick google search turned me on to Ntdsutil.exe. What an easy tool to use, find a good document on Microsoft, or any other site that has written it up, and you can very easily seize all of the roles to whichever AD server you choose to connect to from the command line inside the tool.

It took me less time to use the command line utility, than if I had performed the steps “Properly”, using the UI’s in the MMC..

This tool needs much better documentation (irongeek), and some good press. I’m happy to say it’s going in my “save your ass” toolkit.

“Using words such as “imposter” and “usurper,” an active-duty Army officer in Iraq has joined a California lawyer’s lawsuit intended to force President Barack Obama to prove he is a legal U.S. citizen, and therefore able to legally serve as the commander in chief.”

I fully support this suite, as both a citizen and a former soldier.  The legal requirements to obtain a passport, drivers license, or any other federally recognized identity document requires a verifiable birth certificate.

Obama has had every opportunity to produce an original, and could REQUEST an original from the state of Hawaii, however, he has decided to let this hang over him as the plague that it has become.

When will we find out if our President is legally sitting as Commander-in-Chief?

http://www.military.com/news/article/February-2009/officer-calls-obama-usurper-imposter-president.html?col=1186032325324&ESRC=army.nl

So, we got a snowstorm in Georgia, one that was expected, but dumped quite a bit of snow on our area. At about 6:30pm on March 1st, 2009, we lost our internet and cable tv. We notified comcast, and also found that there were some comcast people on twitter.

I contacted @comcastcares on twitter, and he escalated to the area management as the outage shouldn’t have been > 2 hours. That was last night. I sent him a twit this morning, letting him know that we were still down.

His reply was that we shouldn’t be down for > 13 hours and he was going to look into it further.

I haven’t heard back from him.

I called comcast, and their front line tech was confused, stating, “Well, it’s only been down for 4 hours, it’ll be back up soon.”, to which my wife replied, “No, we’ve been down since 7PM on MARCH 1ST, not 7AM this morning…”

Once they realized their mistake, the story didn’t change. It would be another 2-4 hours… no further information.  Then, the comcast first line rep tried to UPSELL VoIP services, making statements like, “It’s battery backed up, so power outages won’t effect your ability to call…”  — What about a complete SERVICE OUTAGE?!!?

So, I’ve sent twitters to @comcastBill, @comcastcares, and then got online to their support chat application.

Below is the transcript:
==========================================

user Jim_ has entered room

Jim(Mon Mar 02 2009 12:32:47 GMT-0500 (Eastern Standard Time))>

Internet and Cable have been out since 7PM March 1st… can I get a better idea of the recovery of this service than 2-4 hours from now?

analyst Chris has entered room

Chris(Mon Mar 02 2009 12:42:28 GMT-0500 (Eastern Standard Time))>Hello Jim_, Thank you for contacting Comcast Live Chat Support. My name is Chris. Please give me one moment to review your information.

Chris(Mon Mar 02 2009 12:42:45 GMT-0500 (Eastern Standard Time))>Hello Jim.

Jim_(Mon Mar 02 2009 12:44:11 GMT-0500 (Eastern Standard Time))>#CR156620424 - Waiting for service to be reestablished.

Jim_(Mon Mar 02 2009 12:44:20 GMT-0500 (Eastern Standard Time))>Hello Chris.

Chris(Mon Mar 02 2009 12:44:35 GMT-0500 (Eastern Standard Time))>There is currently an outage in your area. It will be fixed as soon as possible. We do not have an estimated time of resolution.

Jim_(Mon Mar 02 2009 12:44:56 GMT-0500 (Eastern Standard Time))>Can you tell me if the trucks are on site?

Chris(Mon Mar 02 2009 12:45:08 GMT-0500 (Eastern Standard Time))>No, I’m sorry we are unable to see that.

Jim_(Mon Mar 02 2009 12:45:21 GMT-0500 (Eastern Standard Time))>can you tell me anything other than 2-4 hours?

Chris(Mon Mar 02 2009 12:45:43 GMT-0500 (Eastern Standard Time))>It will be fixed as soon as possible.

Chris(Mon Mar 02 2009 12:46:05 GMT-0500 (Eastern Standard Time))>I’m sorry for the inconvenience. Once the service has been restored you can chat or call back in and we can apply a credit to your account.

Jim_(Mon Mar 02 2009 12:46:21 GMT-0500 (Eastern Standard Time))>yeah, great… not helpful. Ok. thanks.

Chris(Mon Mar 02 2009 12:46:39 GMT-0500 (Eastern Standard Time))>Is there anything else I can help you with today?

Jim_(Mon Mar 02 2009 12:47:14 GMT-0500 (Eastern Standard Time))>nope, except tell someone that I’ve been waiting for over 17.5 hours to get my service back…

Chris(Mon Mar 02 2009 12:47:36 GMT-0500 (Eastern Standard Time))>Have a good day.
==========================================

Why can’t a service provider give better information? These are services that we rely upon for employment, communications, and in some cases, telephony.

Keep checking back, I’ll add to this post as the SAGA continues….

—- Update —-

We’ve now passed the 20 hour mark… No reply from comcast, and the flashing orange light is starting to mock me.

Here I am, yet again, 2 months later, explaining to people who claim to be intelligent, that the delay in packets that travel ~9,000 miles can’t be sped up. No matter how I try to explain that bandwidth has NOTHING to do with how fast a packet travels on the wire, they don’t seem to “get it”.

On one hand, I wanted spend the time, effort, and frustration explaining the basics of an object traveling through space at maximum velocity cannot, (as we understand it today) go faster than the speed of light.  On the other hand, I really don’t have the patience for people who don’t even try to understand.  Now when you add to that, the delay in propagation on copper, fiber, and all of router hops the traffic has to take to get between India and the South East United States, the problem compounds.

I finally found this web site, which is now added to my Delicious pages…

It’s the Latency, Stupid

I recommend it for ANYONE in networking.

When I first started working on this problem, I was on a conference call with a bunch of people from around the world, and someone asked, “Can you explain what the cause of the latency between India and Atlanta is?”… to which I replied, “The pacific ocean?”

This past time, I had to remind everyone that the packets travel over 9,000 miles to get to Atlanta, and that using a very inefficient protocol like RDP is going to really show off the latency.  Regardless of how much bandwidth there is on both sides of the connection.  (A 7mbps link in India, and 2x DS3’s in Atlanta).

Ahh, the joys of a “Global” network.

It was a good opening talk by Bruce Potter, and the con has started.