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[Keith] Welcome to the Mind Of Root. I'm Keith Albright

[Rich] and I'm Rich Niemeier.

[Keith] and this is Episode 92 streaming live on Ustream.tv on Wednesday March 17th, 2009. Today's show is sponsored by Quest Software; Helping you rule your domain. We are also sponsored by Sapien Technologies; the makers of PrimalScript?.

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

[Steve]

[Rich]

  • News- IBM to be buying SUN.....?

[Keith]

  • FiOS? switch - Neighborhood oversubscribed
  • Son needed stitches
  • Steve is now a firefighter. At least, that's what his email said. I may have misread, but he said he was tied up at work fighting fires.

Housekeeping Items

[Rich]

  • It was funny I listen to the last show. The topic about allowing remote users to connect remotely to do work. In particular hourly workers. I have a situation where there is and employee that looks at his willingness to perform the service as enough permission for him not to be paid. But the training the company I work for suggests, permission or not, if your working you need to be paid.

Recording tonight using, DWL-G730AP? > High Speed 2.4GHz (802.11g) Wireless Pocket Router/AP, this is a little travel router that allowed me to work wirelessly at a location with only wall jacks. Especially since this wall jackis no where near the desk wher eyou can set your laptop.

-- P.S. Quality Inn @ Newtown CT, Lexington, KY definately a reason they are cheap.

Link:http://www.d-link.com/products/?pid=346

[Steve]

[Keith]

____________________________READ QUEST AD COPY____________________________

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  • New Laptop [RICH]
- Lenovo T400, Nice Sound system, Wide Screen, Intergrated Webcam. Think this model is because of the company directive to do more online meetings and instead of travel.
-Do most people keep a list of the preferred appliactions they like to have available on a laptop? I don't mean givens that every PC needs like word processor and AV
-If so what are these?
-Putty, VNC, PcAnywhere?, Firefox, Paint.net,GIMP?,Adobe Digital Editions, Virtual PC software (Microsoft, Qemu),Qemu Manager - not against command line but a nice GUI, Filezilla, Angry IP Scanner, 3COM TFTP server, Package to load all codec, Adobe Reader, Compression tool like WinZip?, ITunes?, feed reader, twitter, Skype,
-Used to like Lantricks but the licensing either changed or was made clearer
  • PXE boot [RICH]
- Started not finished - Thanks to Brad Call, got distracted though will go back to project after I am done with Baseball openings. Hope is to be able to add to servers at big sites to allow booting to UBCD4WIN? for support.
  • Webcam [RICH]
-Software - Yawcam, security type software.
-Anybody got other recommendations if a person wants to setup a little home security.
-I want something opensource that can do loops in set time periods like 24hrs, 8hrs, ect..
  • Reverse DNS [KEITH]
-Open NSLookup? and type SET TYPE=PTR
-Type in the IP Address of the host in question. You will get back the DNS name of the server.
-Whois will give you who owns the address block, but this will tell you the DNS resolve name.
-It's not always exact in the case of shared hosting. If you run this against www.mindofroot.com you will get the DNS name perfora.net which is the domain name used by our hosting company.
-Why it's handy. For inbound SMTP, you can enable RDNS lookup to ensure a box connecting from an IP address that claims it is from Yahoo.com really comes from that domain based on the DNS entry. One step in authenticating the email.
-Link: http://
  • KVM switches [RICH]
- 'Avocent'
-Got used Avocent DSR2010? can get DSview? software for $3,500.00, Called sales rep and he kept saying old, old, old.
-I kept saying still functional KVM's haven't changed in years give me another solution I can afford to re-use this instead of replacing.
-Wouldn't this be a good way to be Green? I understand the business behind it but come on.
-This equipment is not good enough for the corporate data center but is still more than sufficient to be used in a medium sized data room.
-People need to remember, reduce, reuse, recycle. Hey, Avocent I am just trying to follow the R's. Can't you throw the community a bone?
-Avocent recommends Autoview 3050 for my current needs- List - Plus Connectors-Total.
-Looks like a good solution thing we already use something similiar.
-Autoview 3050 $832.00 ++ 8x$70.00= $560.00 // $1392.00
-IOGear?
- which has servered me well - Not as advanced KVM over IP GCN1000? - regular KVM that is compatible GCS1758KIT?, supports both PS2? and USB - Will report back once I have used it.
- GCN1000? $350.00 + GCS1758KIT? $400.00 // $750.00
- Belkin- Product F1DP108G? – Price $749.00 ends for cables 8X$70.00 -$560.00 $1309.00
- Suggestions comments?
- Want to look more into remote reboot power applicances as well.
- Side note on shared keyboard from laptop device.USB Laptop KVM Switch with File Transfer. Is not exactly what I was looking for. is reported on some blogs as not able to see connected computer at a hardware level like bios.
  • Are you getting paid to think? [KEITH]
-
-This has come up in several contexts recently on several projects. I've been confronting a lot of "We've always done it this way" mentality of late.
-Applying critical thinking as a concept. Using logic, verifying credibility, verifying facts.
-People lie. They don't always realize they are doing it. It can be from self defense or fear of change, but it comes down to the facts being distorted and possibly leading to a wrong conclusion or decision.
-Also, don't mistake mis-communications for a lie. I had a recent conversation about CC processing and I mentioned we process about 850 through our site each month. The CS manager jumped in and said that was wrong and heard I was using that fact elsewhere. We bandied about and found she was using a number from her billing mgmt system and I was using one from our CC processor. Mine included all transactions (declines, chargebacks, voids, etc.) My number was important because of our rate based on usage. Hers was important for determining payment type percentages by customer.
-I've been trying to apply this more.
-Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_thinking
-Link: http://
-Link: http://

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Listener Feedback

From listener....Jason VonRuden?

Steve, Keith, and Rich,

While collecting freeware applications form my site www.fantasticfreeware.com, I ran across a freeware program, visual text log file analyzer and highlighter called Highlighter that blows away any other log file analyzer that I have found to date. I have included a screen shot of the application since the author's site did not. I found out about the program from an interview with the creator on the CyberSpeak?'s Podcast March 1st episode. Direct Link: http://cyberspeak.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=438897 Highlighter - text log file analyzer and highlighter

http://www.mandiant.com/software/highlighter.htm

Highlighter is a free utility designed primarily for security analysts and system administrators. Highlighter provides a user with three views of the log or text file being analyzed:

  • a text view that allows users to highlight interesting keywords and remove lines with “known good” content
  • a graphical, full-content view that shows all content and the full structure of the file, rendered as an image that is dynamically editable through the user interface
  • a histogram view that displays patterns in the file over time. Usage patterns become visually apparent and provide the examiner with useful

[KEITH] This one is a little different than the one I spoke about which was for aggregating and searching logs, but this one rocks. Worst part is that I heard this interview on CyberSpeak? and it didn't click since I only thought about it from the forensics aspect. But that is exactly where I can use it against my SMTP logs when troubleshooting.

Website Picks

Rich - http://

Steve - http://

Keith - http://www.diseno-art.com/index.html

Last Call

Anyone....Anyone....Buehler.....Buehler....

Closing Test- I'd like to thank everyone in the chat on UStream?.tv we always enjoy the additional comments and interaction. everyone should remember that there are numerous ways one can interact with the show. For listener feedback post comments on the main show site, or email us at feedback[at] MindofRoot?.com.

It's always fun to see where our listeners live, put a pin on our frappr map there is a link to this on the main show site.

To become even more involved you can leave suggestions for future shows on the topics request wiki. Again a link to the wiki can be found on the main show site.

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. We are also a member of the Techpodcast network. Check out some other great shows by going to Techpodcast.com.

test end-

All right, well that is it for the show. For listener feedback; you can email us at Feedback [at] mindofroot.com or post a comment on the main site at mindofroot.com. If you use iTunes, you could write a review. If you just want to show us your listening, drop a pin on the Frappr map...there's a link on the show site.

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. We are also a member of the Techpodcast network. Check out some other great shows by going to Techpodcast.com.