[Intro Music]

[Keith] Welcome to A Couple Of Admins Podcasting. I'm Keith Albright

[Rich] and I'm Rich Niemeier.

[Keith] And, this is Episode 7 recorded on June 22, 2007. How's it going Rich?

Chit-Chat - What's going on with you?

[Keith]

It's been a heck of a week. Email Problems and drive failures. I had a good Fathers Day. I got a couple movies. I geeked out and watched WarGames? [SOUND EFFECT] and Sneakers. My wife surprised me and got me the movie 'Click!' with Adam Sandler. If you haven't seen that movie, get it. It was exactly what my life was like at my old job. You'll find it interesting Rich.

[Rich] This weeks been OK just had issue with one PC being infested with Viruse. But we're working throught that. Last week finished up with NBA finals. Cleveland lost. It's amazing though all the excitement that exists for these teams and the energy that creates. During this vist I had a few issues to overcome.........

Housekeeping Items

Rich? Did not realize Motorola also controls Netopia

  • Motorola Completes Acquisition of Netopia, Inc.
Link: http://www.motorola.com/mediacenter/news/detail.jsp?globalObjectId=7695_7624_23

acquision of past year+ or- is move to IPTV Broadband Media

4-18-2006 Orthogon Systems 6-2006 TTP Communications 1-18-200 Kreatel Communications IPTV- Linux Based 11-2006 Broadbus - On demand TV 11-2006 Netopia Firetides - Wireless mesh network 9-25-2006 Vertasat 3-30-2007 TUT System IPTV appliance 5-22-2007 Modulus Video Mpeg4 -- Video Compression

  • Motorola Recycles
While looking at Motorola's website to see who they have been taking over, I stumbled acrossed what appears to a great intiative by Motorola. The timing might be bad since a lot of schools are out. But check out the site it might be a way to recycle and benefit your school.
Link: http://www.racetorecycle.com/about.html

Nike recycle shows

http://www.nike.com/nikebiz/nikebiz.jhtml?page=27&cat=reuseashoe

Keith

  • NOTE ON THE RECYCLING PROGRAM: While looking at the site, I found they have a section on erasing the data on your cell phone. They have instructions for a wide variety of phones and it's not just Motorola brand phones.
  • Frappr map
  • We were discussing wireless security and interference in the last episode and I used Fenway Park as an example since I had done a lot of work there when the wireless was being installed. Interestingly, the latest issue of NetworkWorld? has an article on wireless and in the section about interference, they quote Steve Conley, IT Director for the Red Sox regarding interference caused by the camera trucks. I mentioned it because of the close proximity of home networks and that had been an issue during the initial installation. I worked quite a bit with Steve. He's a good guy. I'll never forget giving him guff over being on the cover of eWeek right after the Sox won the World Series. I think he was embarrassed. He apparently gets tagged for a lot of stories since NetworkWorld? is up in the Boston area.
  • Update on my server migration problem from last episode. (SQL jobs moved from old to new server). Turns out it was a permissions issue within the application. Within the app, there is role-based security and the user needs to be an admin to do this function. The user was an admin (always had been), so I didn't check it until after I banged my head against the problem for a couple days. Lesson learned.

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Listener Feedback

From listener Cate

Hi guys,

Thanks for another informative podcast. I think you're probably not getting enough user feedback from other countries, just the Ukraine, so I'm just going to jump in here.

I'll start out with an answer. The question is, "Why do some people use a Read receipt on every single email they send?" I happen to know the answer to this one! They're using Outlook Express, which is configured by default to send a receipt request.

When I am at a client, I always turn that off. Most of the time I don't even ask; I just turn it off. You're right --- it's appalling. I don't ever use it. If I get a request in my personal account, I don't even respond to the email. In the business email account, I offer to tell people how to turn off that "feature". The worst is a request for a receipt in an email sent to a mailing list. Yikes.

I do want to comment on the audio. No, I don't have a solution, but just a comment. I'm not using the iTunes feed, just the regular feed. I also notice the difference in volume between Keith and Rich. I don't hear much difference in Episode 6 from the other podcasts. What I am struggling with in Ep 6 is that the whole podcast is really hard to hear. The intro music is fine. (I'm still listening to the podcast so I don't know what the outro is like, if there is music for the outro.) But the volume of both your voices is such that I have to turn this mp3 player up all the way, and it's still hard to hear you. This is not happening with the other podcasts I've got on here today. You probably just need to increase the gain on the whole thing. When I took my ear buds out and plugged into the car stereo, I had to turn the volume on the m-3 player up all the way AND turn up the car stereo to 50. (It won't go any higher than that.) And with even one window down, I couldn't hear you guys. But when I switched back to CD I almost blew my head off.

Finally, the link to the Wavosaur utility is 404. This one works for me: http://www.wavosaur.com/.

Thanks again; I've really been enjoying your comments.

Best, Cate

News Items

From EnGadget?: RFID Tracking via Dutch Umbrella

The RF-ID Weblog says RFID umbrellas are a hot property in Philadelphia. It’s an experiment in mobile advertising. Dutch Umbrella is selling advertising spots on umbrellas to shopkeepers and restaurateurs in the Fairmount neighborhood of Philadelphia. RFID tracks their movement and location.

People can borrow an umbrella or leave it at a “RainDrop?” located at participating businesses.

A Motorola RFID tag is inlaid in the handle. ....... periodically dispatches an employee with a handheld reader ...... Merchants can then pinpoint the areas ...... target those particular areas for advertising and promotion.

.......Merchants are required to pony up $100 per month in order to receive the marketing intelligence, and can then use it to determine where umbrella carriers go once the downpour begins in order to better position future ads.

[Rich] My Notes Control and retrieval is one thing, but monitoring ones behavior? Are people really aware they jst gave up their respective rights to privacy?

[Keith] I'm not a big fan of these Big Brother marketing techniques. In Europe there are signs that can broadcast an advertisement to your Bluetooth headset and SMS your cell phone when you are in proximity. I know I'm a privacy freak, but I don't know why people would want or allow that kind of "in-your-face" advertising.

Tech Leaders Seek Computer Efficiency

Link: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=11007403

Safari Browser on Windows

A beta (test) version of Safari 3 is available from the Apple website (apple.com/safari) I've downloaded it and started using it. I have not seen any dramatic advantages other than size. I love programs that are more stream lined. An article I read suggested that it was paving the way for integration with I-Phone. And what about users complaining that it is not displaying web pages correctly as well as other misc. issues. I present a definition of Beta -2. preliminary or testing stage of a software or hardware product; "a beta version"; "beta software" . for me testing seems key.

Link: http://www.apple.com/safari

[Rich] My Notes

I always think apple is more geek... I mean Safari has a Left Feed Back option That takes you back to where you left comments on blogs and such. I think it suites the geek in me.

[Keith] One quick personal item on Safari. I started having problems with iTunes not being able to start and throwing the following error:

Runtime Error! Program: C:\Program Files\iTunes\iTunes.exe This application has requested the Runtime to terminate in an unusual way."

Did a little research and found some folks indicating it was caused by loading Safari and the Safari updater/updates. Unloading Safari didn't work for me. Then I found an entry in a forum indicating loading iTunes 7.2 fixed the problem. Sure enough, I load 7.2 and it worked. Not 100% sure it was not related to Safari, but keep it in mind if you have a problem.

Rich's Topics

  • NBA finals - oh my god
-Deleted emails - Thank you corporate email group - Lisa
-AT&T Internet outage in Cleveland Area majority of the Day, Caused trouble processing Credit Cards.
-Keith had a good idea but I was unable to use it. I will need to experiment with it more.
-ICS
-CD-R with critical business information unreadable, recovered by Ascend in Cleveland area same day. Thanks Alex, great service. But it wasn't free. I did recommend this before my revolation about CD-R media being so sensitive. But what happened to PAPER for business critical archiving.
-POS systems otherwise general issues. Could end users please own their systems.
..By own I mean take an active roll in understanding how the system can be used to there advantage.
..I find as I have been given more responsiblity the role I used to be able to offer of understanding the EU side of the application and how it works has become secondary to administration of the network and hardware.
-EU from another site seeking assistance to support a POS system from a noncontracted non-employeed source. STOP!!!!!!!!!!
..Obviously this is out side my comfort zone. Have I every done this? I can't remember the specifics but possiblly? However this would have been before all the Credit card rules, SOX, ediscovery. I mean really let in a person who has no true business purpose with your company.
  • Ebay ? when is it appropriate to be used in an enterprise enviroment to supliment legacy hardware?
-No not ever - well maybe
-I work in a company where ,at leat in my domain, legacy POS systems are more the norm than the exception. I have come to understand that all the years I have spent preserving these systems may be the reason I am still stuck with these systems. How does one offer an appropriate level of support and let the legacy systems receed? You know like the glaciers where unless you are actively paying attention you won't notice it for say 10 years. Or maybe that's my problem I don't have enough drama that my EU's pay attention? Let me drop an A-Bomb that leaves them scrambling.

Keith's Topics

  • Thursday before Fathers Day weekend, our outbound email fails again. I do the usual tricks restarting the services, forcing connections with the Exchange System Manager, etc. and nothing is working. Finally, I find a DNS entry on the SMTP configuration that doesn't make sense, so I remove it and get it running. I don't know why it was intermittent vs. not working at all, but it seems to have cleared up the problem.
  • Then, not more than an hour later, Inbound email stops. Our Symantec SMTP gateway is overwhelmed and won't forward. I restart, no luck. I move the backlogged queue to temp and still no luck. I restart services, server, increase inbound & outbound threads, etc. still no luck. Finally, I bypass the box and go straight to the Proxmox gateway, it handles the load no problem. I log a critical case on Symantec's web site. After waiting an hour, I call Symantec, and the guys tells me I don't get support after 5PM PST. He starts playing games, telling me he can't hear me and putting me on hold. Finally, he hangs up. Since I had a work-around, I called it a night. Next day I get an email telling me I shouldn't use the web case create since it is not for critical cases (yet I had the option to choose type 'Critical'. So, they downgraded it to 'Major' and gave me all the solutions I told them I had already tried (I even referenced the exact solution ID's in my web case). So I call and they are more helpful, unfortunately, she tells me I need to upgrade to the latest version (which I am eligible for), but I don't have the hardware on which to load it. Long story short, I'm running the MS SMTP service for initial receive and Proxmox for Anti-Spam until I can figure out what to do.
  • Then on Monday after Fathers Day, I come in to find 2 drives in the same RAID 1 array for the NOS drive gone. Luckily, the storage enclosure was the culprit and once I replaced it, it was back up and running.
  • Note on Spam Spikes targeting appliances like Symantec.
-Spam spikes wreak havoc
-By Gregg Keizer, Computerworld, 06/04/07
-Extremely aggressive spam blasts against individual domains, dubbed "spam spikes," are on the upswing and can disrupt small and midsize businesses as much as a determined attack designed to knock a company offline, MessageLabs? said Monday.
-The purpose of a spam spike is to defeat appliance-based anti-spam systems that rely heavily on signatures, rather like desktop antivirus software
-10,000 emails in the course of 11 hours comprising 75% or more of email traffic
-For smaller businesses, ....A spam spike can have an effect similar to that of a DDoS? (distributed denial of service) attack
-data also indicated a continuing trend in targeted attacks that aim one piece of spam at a single recipient.
-NetworkWorld? Article Link: http://www.networkworld.com/news/2007/060407-spam-spikes-wreak.html
-MessageLabs? WhitePaper?: http://www.messagelabs.com/download.get?filename=2007%2005%20May%20MLI_final.pdf

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IT Organizational Structures

[KEITH] Participants that I quote here: Paul Groce of CTPartners?; Johna Till Johnson of Nemertes Research; Jerry Luftman of Stevens Institute Of Technology and others

  • Groce: How can the CIO construct a hybrid model that provides the efficiencies of a centralized organization while still maintaining touch with the business? One of the more effective solutions appears to be the hybrid model that allows centralized production activities but maintains contact with the business through business-relationship managers, who make sure that business needs are heard.
  • Luftman: We’re really pushing the hybrid or federated organization, which combines the strengths of centralized and decentralized organizational structures..........Another issue is the career for IT professionals in a federated structure because they now report to the business.
-[KEITH] I agree that to effectively add value to an organization, IT needs to be aligned with the goals and visions of the business, however, I think one needs to exercise caution when turning over some of the control of the IT organization to the business side. Yes, I understand that ultimately IT always reports to the business side. It is typically a cost center, not a profit center. What I'm getting at is that some control cannot be given to the business side....
-[KEITH] I once held a position that had a very good federated structure at the core. Unfortunately, it didn't carry well into the front lines of IT. Most of the staff at that level was in the field at profit center locations. The IT staff had no formal reporting to the central IT staff and their salary, development, etc. was handled by the business managers at the location. The CIO would say to be that we had a Matrix structure and that it worked for us. It didn't. We had a Matrix all right, but one that even Neo couldn't penetrate. Personnel development was horrible and turnover was high because the business managers were aligning IT with the P&L.
-[KEITH] This made it impossible to effectively administer from an IT perspective. Also, we had IT personnel making decisions influenced by business people that didn't understand the IT ramifications of their actions. (Ties to Rich's ebay server discussion) In some ways, you can call this a case of the Business people needing to know more about the business of IT.
  • Johnson: The cliché is that IT departments need to better understand business issues. ............. They need to take a more holistic view of when and where IT can become a differentiator or a value proposition ......... What I mean is not just VoIP?; it’s unified communications.
-[KEITH] Which I don't think necessarily means giving up control. It means a transfer of knowledge between the two entities...a cross-breeding if you will. People who have worked with me will be familiar with my philosophy; "I don't advocate technology for technology sake. I like the newest gadget as much as the next person, but I won't advocate an IT investment unless I believe in the value-add."
  • Luftman: With a federated organization, you centralize those things that everybody would agree makes sense to centralize: infrastructure, networks, databases, common systems. The things you decentralize are the applications that are directly in support of meeting the business objectives.
  • Luftman: With a federated organization you also want a federated governance process. Such a process says that IT decisions — such as what projects are done, what projects aren’t done, how much money is invested in certain projects — those decisions are made jointly by the IT and business unit people.
-[KEITH] Stupid things would happen. $1 million spent on a new system, but no money allocated for training of IT on the new operating systems, underlying DBMS, or even the new system itself. Again, this is a case of the Business people needing to know more about the business of IT.
-[KEITH] While I may be criticized for this; I do firmly believe that IT people require a different management style. By our nature, we are drawn to the technology field and that differs us in personalities, motivations, beliefs, etc.
-Link: http://www.networkworld.com/news/2007/050707-it-reorganization-your-say.html
-Link: http://www.networkworld.com/news/2007/050707-it-reorganization-holding-it-organizations-back.html
-Link: http://www.networkworld.com/news/2007/050707-it-reorganization-slides.html?page=1

Website Picks

Rich - http://www.physorg.com/

Cool stories about new Science / Technology stuff

Rich - http://www.insight24.com/utilApp/webcastcentral/index.jsp

Nice site that indexs podcasts/webcasts from manufacturers

Keith - http://whocalled.us/

Neat little community site where you can look up unknown inbound numbers (800, 877, 866, etc) and see who is calling. I used it for these annoying calls I keep getting claiming to be Sprint/Nextel. I don't know if it's legitimate or not, but a lot of people are receiving the calls.

Keith - http://www.feedthepig.org

Maybe I'm being preachy with this one, but I have a genuine concern with how people in this country live beyond their means. I can be guilty of it myself at times, but I always keep those to a minimum in both frequency and scale. Great tips here. Like dieting, it's a lifestyle change and one that pays off later rather than now.

Last Call [RICH]

All right, well that is it for the show. For listener feedback you can reach us in many ways; you can email us at RichandKeith? [at] gmail.com or you can post a comment on the main site at ACoupleOfAdmins.com or, if you use iTunes, write a review.

And a new feature ----

Post a pin on our Frappr map and let us know you are listening.

Lastly, you can drop any show ideas or topic requests on the wiki. There is a link to the wiki on the main show site. If you would like to participate in the show; either through an interview, a segment contribution, or any other way, please let us know.

<<<<<<< Thanks everyone... and cheers to the geek in all of us.

Thanks everyone.

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