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Eric's Cyber SoapboxScholar, Lover ... Geek
September 15 Security Spending and ROII read an article by Bruce Schneier called Security ROI in CSO magazine. http://www.csoonline.com/article/446866/Security_ROI_Fact_or_Fiction_ Here is an excerpt from it: "Assume that all the new airport security measures increase the waiting time at airports by -- and I'm making this up -- 30 minutes per passenger. There were 760 million passenger boardings in the United States in 2007. This means that the extra waiting time at airports has cost us a collective 43,000 years of extra waiting time. Assume a 70-year life expectancy, and the increased waiting time has "killed" 620 people per year -- 930 if you calculate the numbers based on 16 hours of awake time per day. So the question is: If we did away with increased airport security, would the result be more people dead from terrorism or fewer?" I thought, what an interesting way of looking at this. Now take this creative tidbit with the knowledge that his point in the article is that the ROI calculations performed by companies to validate security products they sell are bogus and highly biased. Read the entire article. I recommend it. August 28 Kinetic RecallHave you ever completely forgotten how to do something until you just started? As a technology professional I find that it happens a lot. I call it Kinetic Recall. Let me start with some examples. You go to the phone to call your best friend but you can't seem to remember his or her number. As you place your hand on the numbers your fingers seem to remember the sequence better than your mind. As your fingers dial the number it comes back to you. This kinetic recall happens when internalized actions have been habitually reinforced to a level where you can perform them on autopilot but it can be impossible to verbalize or conceptualize it without first performing the action. Some other situations where kinetic recall comes into play would include driving to a familiar location, performing routine tasks on the computer, and tying a tie.
Have you ever thought about this before? If so, let me know as I find it facinating. August 22 Pipe DreamSo I was working on a problem at work today. We can only copy 4000 files at a time and we need to copy millions of files. I grabbed a directory structure with file counts using treesize and dumped that to an excel spreadsheet. Next we wrote a program to take all folders that have more than 4000 files in them and separate them into smaller chunks. The next step was to output batch files with thousands of xcopy commands inside that could run during certain windows on our servers. this is where we ran into a snag. What do you do for folders that have more than 4000 files? We separated them out but we do not have the file names for all the files inside those folders. We only have the folder name and the file count. Well, I came up with an idea. I thought, how about we put variables into the batch file we are programmatically creating and then use a command such as dir to send the files to the copy command. I typed out some pseudo batch file code and we talked about it. Here is what I had.
dir [source] @1 | xcopy [source]\@1 destination\@1
The dir command or some similar command would output all the files in the directory specified as [source] and put them one by one into the variable @1 which would then run xcopy to copy those files using the pipe |. Well, here comes the name of my blog post. The idea was good and well received by the team but the commands did not support a syntax like that so we termed the idea my "pipe dream".
August 19 Interviewing Tips from MicrosoftIn a 2008 blog entry by Steve Clayton at Microsoft he mentions the five things he looks for in candidates when hiring. This information is useful for both job candidates and those looking for qualified people. Here are his five tips:
Read the entire article here : http://blogs.msdn.com/stevecla01/archive/2008/08/18/5-tips-for-hiring-a-star-team.aspx For interviewing help go to http://interviewexcellence.org
July 03 Interview ExcellenceAfter a long time without a proper website, InterviewExcellence.org has a brand new layout. I am working on creating additional content for the site. There is also a forum so if you are interested in being a better interviewer, check out the site and join the forums. http://interviewexcellence.org June 14 Aimee's BirthdayFor Aimee's birthday I took her over to mom and dad's house where I had a bike hidden. That was one of her birthday gifts. We then loaded both of our bikes onto her car using a bike rack and took them down to the metro parks. I hid a picnic basket in her trunk. When we got to our destination I setup the picnic on the edge of the water and we at some fruit and sandwiches and talked. After that we went riding in the metro parks. In the evening we went out for pizza. She had a wonderful time. Here are some pictures from the picnic.
April 17 Full Text Catalog Organ TransplantFull text searching allows more complex searches such as word or phrase searching, inflection matching, proximity searching, and relevance matching to be performed on many different fields within tables. In order for these searches to run SQL server builds and maintains a catalog. We have such a large amount of data that rebuilding a full text catalog can take as long as 14 days. We needed a way to be able to bring the full text catalog back without rebuilding it, essentially, we needed a backup. Microsoft does not backup the full text catalog in normal backup operations and you cannot access it with software while the server is running because it is always in use. You cannot use standard backup commands to back them up and Microsoft does not have any utilities available for the task either. They do, however, have a guide for how to migrate it from one server to another. We needed to do just that. I call the process full text catalog organ transplant because organ transplants require the patient receiving the organ to have the same characteristics as the donor in order for the body to accept the new organ. Full text catalogs need to have a destination system with many of the same characteristics as their previous system or they will not work at all. The characteristics that must be similar are the SQL server version, full-text catalog folders and file locations, full-text catalog folder and file names and contents, and the same database id and table ids on both servers and databases. The first few similarities are easy to recreate on the destination system. The database id is a little more difficult as some DBAs do not even know what the id is for their databases. You can obtain the database id of a SQL server database by issuing the following command: Select db_id() You have to be in the database you want to query first. Use databasename will accomplish this. This database number is generated when the database is attached to the instance. Since the numbers have to match between source and destination, you need to create a situation where the database will receive the same database id when attached to the destination as it did at the source. We found that you can reuse numbers from databases that have been detached so the process involves knowing the database ids of the databases you will import and then the ones in use at the destination. If there is a database using the needed id, simply detach it, attach the imported database, and then attach the database you just detached. The imported database will assume the detached database’s id as long as it is the lowest available number. If you have a gap in numbers such as in this example where there is no database with an id of 6 you will need to fill that gap first. NOTE: master, tempdb, model, and msdb always have the numbers you see below. You can do that easily by attaching the database with the id you want to use first so that it consumes that spot.
If you have a number of gaps and not enough databases to fill them you can create new databases with no data in them to consume database ids. The rest of the process can follow the guide outlined here so I will not go into details on the procedure. I hope this helps you if you are in the same situation. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/240867/ April 16 Caesar and ChristI am still reading Caesar and Christ during my lunch breaks. Durant, the author, is finally talking about the church. It is interesting to read how a non-Christian skeptic interprets the evidence of the Gospels but I acknowlege his obvious bias and the lack of the Holy Spirit's illumination. He has read the scriptures but without the Holy Spirit it is only facts to him and some of those facts he does not believe. I am mainly intrigued by the historical information surrounding the events of the Gospels, Acts, and the Epistles. Durant has talked about the role and perception of several church leaders like Peter, James, and John, Paul's upbringing, and the persecutions. It is also good to learn about the growth of the churches and their locations in the Roman empire. The cultures and types of people in these areas required special attention in the epistles in targeting their sin or need for spiritual growth.
Durant also pointed out the difference in the way the Gospel of John was written compared to the other Gospels. I find Americans and myself are often most inspired and connected to the Gospel of John and I never really understood why until Durant pointed out that it was written in more of a Greek fashion and we all grew up with the Greek way of teaching and a "Greek" value system. The Gospel of John targets us and has more meaning and utility with its form and descriptions that "hit-home" to the way we think. I have also enjoyed the descriptions of how the Roman emperors and the Herodian dynasty tried to appease and integrate the Jews with no success because they did not understand the Jewish culture. It is plain to us Christians in studying the Old Testament how God had separated them and instructed them to be different and not integrate with other cultures. The Romans, not understanding this, tried to force this integration on them and then wondered why they would resist so much. I was able to see why Herod acted the way he did in the scriptures, why there were money changers in the temple, and the jurisdiction given to the Sanhedrin by Rome in governing their affairs. I better understand the environment in which Jesus grew up and developed his ministry. I had expected to see how different the culture was back then from now but I have found the opposite. We are much the same as we were then and that makes the Bible so much more applicable. One cannot argue that we are different and that parts or the meaning of the Bible do not apply. The Bible addresses things that are inherently human that do not change with technology, culture, or location and also the unchangeable nature of God. It is relevant for all generations. Reading this book accentuates that concept. I recommend it to those interested in learning more about the environment in which Christ lived. April 01 Wedding UpdateAimee and I have been moving forward on the wedding plans and I thought I would update everyone. We were going to do a traditional wedding and then the expenses started adding up so we decided to do a fantasy wedding instead. I wanted our wedding to be different so we decided on a Star Trek wedding. Still, that has been done before so instead of dressing up as Starfleet officers or Klingons we decided to do a Vulcan wedding. Our vows will be spoken in High Vulcan with some traditional Vulcan music for the bridal entrance. Since we cannot afford travel to the actual Vulcan, we decided to have the ceremony in the small town of Vulcan, MI in a building that looks almost like the Vulcan temple in Star Trek IV. I have to way it was a logical choice. As the universe is made up of a diverse group of cultures we are going to allow those attending the wedding to dress in their choice of Vulcan, Klingon, Cardasian, or Federation apparel. No Ferengi or Romulans please. Aimee and I will dress in traditional Vulcan wedding attire. Aimee's mother will be making the elaborate outfits. I know this is all sudden but I hope you will be supportive and possibly excited about such a unique wedding.
Live long and prosper! March 29 Florida VacationI was finally able to take some time off work and go on a vacation. God blessed us with a wonderful opportunity where we were able to spend time in a Florida condo. The views were wonderful. I was able to go on walks along the beach with Aimee and tour Anna Maria Island. On one walk on the beach we encountered an artist painting the ocean. He had a tricycle with a cart on the back in which he was selling prints of his work. He had one painting of the very beach we were at so we decided to buy it as a souvenir. He also gave us some nice suggestions for things to do on the island. I later noticed some of his work in local galleries. I relaxed for most of the trip and read a book by the beach. We did take a trip out to see a museum on the history of the island. It was interesting to see pictures of the island from each decade starting in 1920. The island was almost totally unpopulated less than 100 years ago and now there is hardly a single plot of land left untouched. On Sunday we attended the church Aimee’s brother Dave goes to. It was a lively inspiring service which we all enjoyed. We spent some time visiting with Dave and Bethanie and met Carrie’s sister Anna from Orlando as well. February 02 Arcade UpdateIt has been a while since I posted anything about the arcade machine and for good reason. It has been a while since I have done anything with the arcade machine. Last Friday, Aimee and I had a little party for some friends and Chris and I were playing King of Fighters on the arcade machine when he made a comment that the screen was fuzzy and that I should replace it with a new LCD screen. This got me thinking. The next day I opened the case and found the VGA port on the board but there were other cables connected to it. I disconnected those cables and attached a 19" LCD to the system but nothing ever displayed on the screen. I pulled the mainboard from the machine and moved it to my workbench for further analysis. After a few hours of messing with mainboard jumpers I found out how to change the output mode from NTSC to VGA. I tested it on the monitor and it worked but I could not do anything as the mainboard was not connected to the coin ops. I put the board back into the machine and setup the LCD close to the machine and did a full test of games and found that it did look a lot better. The monitor that was in the arcade machine must have been 25-30 years old so it was due for a replacement. The next step was to price out a good monitor. I wanted to get something rather large as it is a decent sized arcade machine. The problem, however, is that my budget is not large. I finally found a Sceptre 23" LCD with a low resolution for a very fair price. Normally I would be ashamed to buy a large monitor with a low resolution. I always buy the monitors with the highest resolution. In this case it is actually better as the machine will not output in a high resolution and the further away I get from a LCD's native resolution, the worse the monitor looks. The next step was to remove the old monitor from the machine. Once a number of boards and glass was removed from the front of the machine, Ian and I were able to remove the old monitor. I then measured the case and the new LCD monitor and went to Home Depot to get several boards. I also got poster boards and cut them to size around the monitor so that it would be framed within the machine. On Friday, Chris and I built a frame for the LCD with the boards and then covered the boards with a thin packing material for cushioning and to resist slippage. My measurements were correct and the LCD fit perfectly in the system. We then put the newly cut bezels in front of it and connected the new screen. I have to say that even I was impressed. You cannot tell that the screen is a replacement screen as it fits so perfectly in the system and the colors are perfect. The screen is very bright (300 cd/m2) and it has a good contrast ratio (1000:1). Both Chris and I are very happy with the latest modification to the system and I have been showing it to everyone who stops by. A special thanks goes to Chris for his ideas and help installing everything. So what is next? Well...There have been a few items that I have never gotten to with the system. I still need to add a new vent to the top of the system and a fan or two to the bottom to increase air flow. I also have a broken A button on the player 1 console so I need to fix that as well. There are also a number of nicks and scratches that I want to paint. I would also like to do some customizations to the main menu screen so that the games are displayed in a better order. In the next year or so I may replace the sound system and I am thinking of adding some side art too. The arcade project is an ongoing one but the nice thing is that I can still use it as I slowly upgrade things. It is a lot of fun. January 31 My LifeguardThings have been difficult lately with work and other commitments. Please keep me in your prayers. I am trusting in God through the struggles. Here is something I wrote. Man goes about his ways like a drowning man. He flails his arms and legs in an effort to stay above the water's surface but his attempts only drain his strength. The Lord is a lifeguard to the drowning man. Like the lifeguard who dives into the water to save a life, Jesus dove down to the Earth to save my life. He has a firm hold on my still struggling body. What I must realize is that the struggling is not necessary and it is not what keeps me afloat. It actually makes it harder to Christ to do his work in me. In all things though, God's will is done. Jesus will carry me to the shore. The best course of action for me is to rest in his arms and let him lead me. December 21 EngagementLast night Aimee and I went out to dinner. We went to a place called Vivo downtown. It is a nice Italian restaurant where we have dined once before. I met Aimee at her house with a pink/white rose. Dinner was nice and the weather was good for late December. After dinner we headed back to my place to sit in the hot tub as is our custom. Aimee came out ready to soak in the tub when I handed her a dozen roses of different colors followed by one more rose in which she found a hidden engagement ring. I told her how much I loved her and how God has made us such wonderful compliments of each other and how I want to spend the rest of my life with her. I then asked her to marry me and she said yes. We walked out on the deck to the hot tub to find rose petals floating on top of the water, candles on the edge of the tub, soft hot tub lights, and wine. It was a wonderful evening.
I uploaded some photos of the evening.
December 17 Oscar’s Exotic FishLast month my fish tank sprung a leak. I have a 75 gallon bow front aquarium so it made quite a mess. I managed to save most of the fish; praise the Lord! When the water settled and my floor was mopped, I began looking for a fish tank that would not break a seal like that. I decided to get an acrylic aquarium without seals to break. The only mistake I made was in my choice of stores. Oscar’s Exotic Fish had the lowest price on the net but the worst service. I ordered my aquarium on November 22 but by December 17, my aquarium still had not arrived. My fish had been living in a quarantine tank for weeks and I was seriously concerned for their health. In the mean time, I received my credit card bill to find that Oscar had billed me three times for an aquarium that never arrived. I tried contacting Oscar right away. First I emailed him and then called him. I called him every day for a few days without a response. I finally called my credit card and disputed the three payments. I will not tolerate that kind of service. Oscar, you should be ashamed of yourself. So how does the story end? I ordered a different tank from Truly the Best and I am currently waiting for it to arrive. I emailed them before placing the order and they verified that it will arrive in 14 to 21 days. It is quite a beauty of a tank. It is a 90 gallon SeaClear System 2. It is all acrylic and it has a built in wet/dry biological filtration system built into the back of the aquarium. The tank has a 350gph submersible pump so it is very quiet and the bio balls should keep the tank water very clean. I will put my 200W compact lighting on top of it. I am so excited.
[Edit] The tank arrived last week and I got it all conditioned. The fish were moved over yesterday. Here are some pictures. The tank looks great and the fish love it.
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