The Technologist

My New Blog And Podcast

2006-10-10T15:22:00.000-07:00

Check out my new Podcast and Halo Wars Community Site

Halocommand.com the ultimate Halo Wars site

Halo Wars Trailer

2006-09-27T19:58:00.000-07:00

I can not wait for this one!

http://blog.onekps.com/blog/2006/09/27/halo-wars-trailer/

Ebaumsworld Vs. The Rest of the Internet

2006-01-09T08:24:00.000-08:00

Well, it was only a matter of time but you can’t ignore the virtual mushroom clouds on the horizon. Eric Bauman’s Ebaumsworld.com is being systematically blasted off the internet. His crime? The fact that he has time and time again swiped other people’s work and slapped his personal watermark in order to pass it off as his own. Ebaumsworld.com (in case you didn’t know) is long running website that has hosted some of the best viral videos, flash animations and the funniest pictures the web has ever known. The problem is that Eric has been less then honest at times about the sources his content and completely ignored content creators who have asked him to either remove his watermark or take down their creations.

The straw the broke the camels back was when ebaumsworld.com posted this oddly hypnotic animation of Lindsey Lohan. Originally created for the awesome site YTMND.com. After ebaumsworld ignored the requests to have, the content removed an all out ping war broke out. With not only the ytmnd.com community throwing in but also the large and tight knit communities from somethingawful.com and newgrounds.com (both groups have already had run ins with Eric before hand) throwing down to. The end result, was a total denial of service on the embaumswrold.com forums and a massive performance slowdown on the entire ebaumsworld.com website.

I for one hope the Bauman will pull his head out of his exhaust port and changes the way he gathers new content for his site. With all of the traffic he has enjoyed over the years you would think his site makes enough money (and god knows it has enough ads on it) to hire some talented animators and start making their own stuff.

Source

Google Videos To Add Pay Per Download Content

2006-01-06T06:41:00.000-08:00

It seems Google is moving in on iTunes turf with their own content on demand (and for small fee) service. Later today a deal with CBS and the NBA will be announced. There is no word yet on the cost per download or the extent of what you can do with your purchased media. I have to admit that I was at first skeptical of the concept of paying for TV shows when apple first started offering it. But damn it if I have not spent at least 30 bucks on episodes of Lost (what the hell is up with that island anyways).

Is anyone else out there starting to feel like Google is becoming very “borg” like? It seems that they have their fingers in everything these days. How much longer until they hit critical mass I wonder?

Source

MS releases WMF patch early

2006-01-05T13:52:00.000-08:00

I guess the screaming users and the 3rd party patches popping up everywhere got to them. It was not supposed to be out until Tuesday but here it is

Security Update for Windows XP (KB912919)

Microsoft Annocnces Xbox 360 external HD DVD

2006-01-05T06:55:00.000-08:00

During his CES keynote speech yesterday Gates announced that MS would be shipping an HD-DVD external add-on box in 2006. Now, the press release does not state if the box will be used to play games in the future, but I doubt it. History has shown that add-ons like the Sega 32x for instance or Sega CD tend to hurt the success of a console. What, you do when your release such a device is to split your user base into two groups. Those who have the add-on and can play the games that require it and the people that do not have add on and cannot play. My guess is they external drive will only be used for Movies and other media that will be released on HD-DVD format. Basically, the Xbox 360 would work like any other HD-DVD player that you could buy of the shelf. I honestly don’t think PS3 having an internal high capacity DVD drive built in (in their case Blu Ray the last I heard) will make any impact in the console wars. Even the biggest RPG’s can fit on one or two DVDs and swapping is very infrequent.

Below is an excerpt from the press release:

Building on Xbox 360 leadership in high-definition experiences, the company announced plans to deliver a new Xbox 360 external HD DVD drive in 2006. The new drive will offer millions of Xbox 360 owners the ability to easily enjoy HD DVD movies and will provide consumers with even more choices for experiencing high-definition content, in either physical or digital form.

MS Press Release

Side by side comparison Kevin Rose vs Chris Prillo

2005-12-18T08:28:00.000-08:00

Both of these guys are (in case you didn't know) former hosts on Tech TV. Both have founded and maintained popular web sites and tech news portals. But in my mind that's were the similarity’s end. In fact I have found that when I meet new techie type people that one of the quickest ways to size them up is to ask them who they prefer. The reason this works is because these two personalities represent opposite ends to the technology spectrum.

Chiris Pirillo represents the extremely nerdy end (not that there is anything wrong with that) he is the kind of guy that was a proud member of his high school's AV club. He is helpful, cheerful, clean cut and way over caffeinated (remember his attempt at the 24 hour call for help-a-thon?).

Now Kevin rose on the other hand represents the bad boy, grey hat, computers can be sexy end of the spectrum. He is like the guy from High School who hung out with skaters and punks and was the go to guy when a garage band needed a website. He's the kind of guy who would be happy to show you how to bypass the schools web filters. And, when a website appeared out of no where with embarrassing pictures of the Vice Principal on it, a guy like Kevin would be the prime suspect.

So, what could cause such a drastic difference in the way two guys with similar interests and backgrounds would be perceived by their peers? Well my guess is just a couple of years time is all really. According to Wikipedia, Pirillo was born in 1973 and Rose in 1977, at first glace 4 years might not seem like a lot, but if you think about in the terms that Pirillo would have graduated High School in 90 and Rose in 95 you might start to see what I am getting at. In 90 computers were not for the mainstream there was no internet, no instant messenger, no Napster and very little porn. In 95 things were changing fast, suddenly it was cool to be know about PCs. Being able to edit HTML and throw up a website was a skill to be admired not ridiculed. I mean today if you don't have a Myspace site, a blog and a fliker account you are on the outside. So with out further ado, I present my side by side comparison and after that there will be a chance for you to vote.

Chris Prillo

Drinks Coffee (lots of it)

Formed Lockergnome

Told people not to steal music

Labeled as a blog princess for allegedly throwing a fit at a convetion when required to show ID

Chris Pirillo: Poor Richard's E-mail Publishing (Yeah that really took off)

Has been know to whore himself out for software like Incredimail

Owns websites that have been filled to the gills with ads and generally look…spammy

Fired from TechTV

His podcast is sometimes on the top 100 in iTunes

Most embarrassing moment on TechTV: Total mental breakdown 8 hours into an attempt at a 24 hour call-a-thon

Kevin Rose

Enjoys many types of tea

Started Digg.com (one the fastest growing websites on the internet)

Showed people how to download music and lots of other stuff too.

He has a very well done blog, with minimal ads and good information (although he rarely posts now in the age of Digg)
Core member of TWiT

Most embarrassing moment on TechTV: Accidentally showing a porn site on a live broadcast

The Dark tips (remember how cool they where?)

Free (and working) Anti-virus and Spyware blocker from the big MS

2005-12-01T20:29:00.000-08:00

Microsoft has released a beta of its Windows Live Safety Center. According to the webpage it has the following functions

Check for and remove viruses
Learn about threats
Improve your PC's performance
Get rid of junk on your hard disk

The “Live” moniker means the application is installed online, which raises some issues right off the bat. If you were to choose this as your sole means of virus protection you would have to install your OS, connect to the Internet and then install your AV. This, would be a really piss poor approach since you will be on the Internet (at least for a little while) with no AV. Still, since it’s free it might be useful when your Mom asks you if she needs anti-virus or something.

I took it for a spin on one of my test rigs and I found installation was very easy (your Mom might not even need your help) and took just a couple of minutes. Then I decided it might be a good idea to see if to works or not, so I pointed my browser at some scumware tainted sites (mostly serial key type sites you know the ones). I even clicked yes when an “install me” popup came up and you know what Safety Center did stop me. Afterwards, I ran another spyware (ad-aware) checker and I was still clean.
I then shutdown all of my firewalls and left it sitting, on my broadband connection for about an hour, usually I would at least see one worm attack with in 10 mins doing this. After about an hour I was still clean.
So big, points to MS for making something that actually works at protecting your PC. However, this hardly makes up for making an OS that’s like Swiss cheese and needs 10 different applications just to keep it somewhat safe. I hope that they continue improving this beta and slipstream it into future operating systems. Moreover, damn them if the decide to charge for it, which would be to low even for them.

Please keep in mind, these are very limited tests, I am by no means giving this a rubber stamp. I will keep using it on the test box and see what happens. In addition, I am sniffing packets for unusual traffic (like a worm that is Security Center may have missed) I will update if anything changes.

How to keep your Xbox 360 from crashing

2005-11-29T17:04:00.000-08:00

I swear to god this is my last 360 post for awhile but, it seems the source of new platforms crashing issues are due to overheating in its gigantic power supply. A couple of people have emailed me stating that once they elevated their power supply off the carpet the crashing stopped. As a side note, for gods sake never put any video game systems on the carpet, thats just asking for trouble.

Update: Looks like other websites are reporting the same thing. Over at Nforcerhq, they have some testimonials and some creative workarounds.

Like this one:
"Goldeneyemaster - My 360 was crashing a lot (like once every 20 minutes). So I took the power supply off the ground and suspended it in the air with some string. I have been playing for about 3 hours straight and no crashes so far!"

Another Update: You know it's not every day someone drops an internet gem in your comments like this one
"my operating system isnt microsoft, it is windows"

Whoever wrote that one, thanks man you make blogging worthwhile...idiot.

Possible root cause of Xbox 360’s echoing issues

2005-11-26T17:57:00.000-08:00

If you are one of the few, the proud and the patient (or well connected) lucky souls to have already got your hands on a Xbox 360, you have probably already run into the nasty little echo problem that has been occurring during voice chat on Xbox live. If you have not seen (or heard rather) let me tell you it can be very distracting. It can be so bad actually, that you will find your self removing the hear piece and checking your ear for bleeding. Okay that last sentence was a bit overblown. But it can get really bad. I decided to do some basic trouble shooting and see if could nail down the root cause of the issue. With the help of some buddies online I think I have it figured out. Turns out it is most likely caused by Microsoft’s own wireless adapter. This conclusion was reached pretty quickly; one of the people helping me test this was using the add-on. Every time he joined the game the echo started and whenever he popped out the echo went with him. Then we had him connect his Xbox with a LAN cable and when he joined a game there was no echo. He stated that his wireless router was well with in range and his laptop (also on the wireless network) was showing no issues at all. Of course this is by no means a scientific test, but the evidence is pretty compelling. If this is the cause of the issue what is MS going to do to fix it? I can only guess that the issue stems from the way the wireless adapter handles VOIP packets. If so, well it require a software patch or will a firmware update be necessary. Either way, the echo is unacceptable and sort of surprising that it even exists. Up until now I have only had good things to say about Xbox live, let’s hope this gets fixed quickly.

Xbox 360 core systems still available!!

2005-11-20T20:45:00.000-08:00

It might not be too late to get your hands on a 360 tonight, if you’re willing to downgrade. It seems some vendors may have a few of the core systems still available. If you already had a Premium package on reserve, you might be able to talk them into letting you have a core instead. The question is whether you are willing to wait possibly months to get the deluxe model or be able to play Perfect Dark tonight. I have decided to take the core and buy the add-on hard drive (which they may also have an extra of). In my opinion the HD is the most important add on, since without it you will not be able to play any older Xbox games (like Halo 2). To everybody who is going to enter the fray of consumer driven madness tonight, good luck. Also, no matter what happens please do not take your frustration out on the poor bastards behind the counter; it is not their fault for the shortages. It is Microsoft’s fault.

Of course, if the guy behind the counter asks you if you want to reserve something after he tells you that you can’t have your Xbox 360 until next June. Then perhaps a verbal beat down is warranted.

Update: Far be it from me to add gas to the fire, but think about this. Gamestop profits from every pre-order that we make there. Even if you go and cancel it now, for the 6 months that Gamestop had your money they had it invested somewhere. Which might not seem like a lot, but if you think of on a nationwide scale it would be a staggering amount of cash. I imagine taking a pre-orders in even for something they know the can not provide is just part of their business model.

Gamestop Xbox 360 Shortages Confirmed

2005-11-10T07:01:00.000-08:00

If you pre-ordered your Xbox 360 at your local GameStop, you might be in for a night of misery and disappointment, come November 22. I have been able to confirm with an inside source that GameStop will not be able to meet the demand of their pre-orders. My local store for instance has over 300 pre-orders and will only be able to supply 30 units. WTF!!!! Another store in the area will only be able to supply 6 of its 100 preorders. Customers who do not get their Xboxes on time will get them in the next shipment. Also, they will be going in order of when you preordered. Since I waited till September I am pretty much F-ed in the A on this one. I still plan to go and get in line on the 22^nd anyways, because Plueballs is doing a podcast live from the line. Which should be even better now, since it is likely a riot will break out (I hope, nothing is funnier the rioting geeks).

My comments section is being spammed like mad right now and I have to approve each comment. So there might be a delay, but I would never censor anybody.

How to get to HOWARDSTERN.COM if your company has blocked it.

2005-11-02T11:28:00.000-08:00

For years Stern fans had to live with the fact that there was no official webpage for Howard Stern. Now that there is one (and it rocks) more and more companies and schools are unfairly adding it to their blocked site lists. I mean it contains no actual ; hardly any swearing and no hate oriented material. Honestly the thing should have a PG-13 rating at best. Well if have been trying to get to the site and can't your in luck. Below are several ways you get one over on the man and connect to Howardstern.com anyways.

Now first, I have to tell you although these methods will get you to howardstern.com, some of them may be traceable. If you have already gotten in trouble for going to Howardstern.com or other sites, then don't even try it. It your ass, not mine. Lets not forget what the job market looks like out there. Also, if your successful in this endeavor, keep you mouth shut about it. Some of these methods depend on your IT staff being lazy, if the word gets out, then management will kick them in the pants and before you know it your trick won’t work anymore.

Because there are several web monitoring solutions on the market there is no magic bullet solution that will work for everybody. Part of this will be figuring out what product your up against. An easy way to do that is to go to a site that you know is blocked (I suggest something that is not too bad like a video game site) and write down what it says in the “this site is blocked message” the product name is always somewhere on this page.

I am going to categorize my tricks into three groups, the 1st involve not using your corporate network at all. Some of them are just common sense things you may have not thought of yet. The 2nd group involves exploiting shortcomings in the Webcontrol software itself. And the 3rd group involves using a computer external from your corporate network (like your home PC) to bypass the blocks.

Part 1: The No S@#$ List

Trick 1:
Using a wireless card to connect to an open access point
This trick depends on two things, 1st you must be in range of an open access point and 2nd you must have the correct privileges to install hardware. If you work in urban setting the 1st item is much more likely. If for instance, you know the coffee shop on the corner offers free Wireless then its possible that you can jump on this signal with a good wireless card from your desk. I suggest using a USB card like this one Since opening your PC case and installing an internal one would defiantly not go unnoticed. You may have to disable your internal network card in order for your PC to use the wireless card and not existing network card. You can do this be either unplugging it or going into your network properties, right clicking on it and selecting disable. Of course while your network card is disabled you won’t be able to get any email or access network resources and for gods sake unplug the wireless card and take it with you when you’re done for the day.

Trick 2:
Remember dial-up?
Yes I know it is slow, but if you can do it, it’s almost completely untraceable (but the phone logs could still be a concern). In order for this to work the following things will have to be true.

1) Does your PC have a modem (or can you install a USB modem like this one)
2) Is your desk phone line capable of handling data? Not all work phones are these days, the only way to find out is to try it

A lot of people don’t realize that they get a dial-up account with their broadband package. I know for a fact Earthlink includes dial-up for their broadband users. Give their customer service line a call and find out. If you’re going to try this don’t forget to mute your PC speakers because sometimes modems will simulate dial up sounds through them. Like in the previous trick you may have to disable your internal network card to pull this off.

Trick 3:
Get your self a Internet enabled phone or handheld device
This trick is pretty obvious but if you have not looked at new cell phones or PDAs in awhile you might be surprised in how far they have come. Check out the LG VX9800 EV-DO Phone for instance

Sure your going to have to sink some money into this and it will be on a tiny little screen, but is the most foolproof way to go. There is just no way for your boss to know what you’re doing unless he has a camera on you. And if you work at that type of place I think you better off just keeping your head down and working.

Part 2: Exploiting the system

The top 2 in the web monitoring market are Surf Control and Websense. So in this section I am going to give you a couple of ways to blow right past them.

Trick 4:
Getting past surf control is very easy, due to a serious bug in its code. It blocks a website based on its name or its IP address, but websites address can also be written in hex. Simply Hex is another way to write a number like binary. Anyways Surfcontrol does not know what do with a hex address so it just lets it go through. Long story short if your company uses Surfcontrol click here http://0x40.0xeb.0xfa.0x32/ and you can probably get to Howard’s website. Newer versions of the software might be able to block it, but that depends on your company spending money to upgrade and your IT staff getting off their asses and patching the servers.

Trick 5:
A very easy way to bypass Websense is to disable the proxy setting it needs to work. If you’re using Internet Explorer you can do this by going to tools, then internet options, then go the connections tab, on the bottom that page click on LAN settings. On this page look for the Proxy server box and Uncheck it. Then click OK and then OK again. Finally open and close your browser again. Some IT departments are aware that you can do this and deny permissions to the Internet Explorer control panel. The most common way of doing this is to change the name of the file that runs launches the control panel in the system folder. But you might be able to find it with a litte bit of searching.

Part 3: Going External

In this section I am going to cover the basics of using a computer outside your corporate network to bypass censorware. These tricks are a little more complex then I can cover in one post. So at the bottom you will find some links to other websites that will cover them in even more detail.

Trick 6:
Remote Desktop, is an awesome feature of Windows XP that is not widely known out side of the techie world. But if you have XP at home all you need to do is enable it and find out your IP address. The upside of this trick is that it leaves no trace of the sites you have been to. Everything but the keystrokes is done on your computer at home. If your PC at work is running XP then you will already have the client piece installed. It should be under asscerories/communcation. If your work PC is Windows 2000 or older you can install it from Microsoft’s website. But, again you will need admin rights for that.

Trick 7:
Web proxies or a proxy service are sites that allow you to connect to another website through their site. Basically you just point your browser at the proxy, which has its own address bar on the page you put the address in, hit enter and it shows you the page. The web monitoring system can only see that you connected to the proxy and it has no idea what you are really looking at. The downside is that eventually web proxy pages end up on the band list too. But, new ones spring up all the time.

Trick 8:
SSH is a tunneling protocol developed for linux. There is a handy windows based client called Putty.exe. With it and a linux box set up at home you can pull off something called port forwarding. This is way out side the scope of this post. But I will tell you this is what us IT pros do to bypass stuff. If you want to know more use google to research it.

Below you will find a list of some of the best Proxies for remaining anonymous and addtional resources to explain some of these topics in more depth. One last thing do not forget to clear your history and temp files when you are done surfing. I don't know about you guys out there but I can not wait for Howard Stern's big jumpt to Sirius satellite radio I think the show is going to be twice as good with out censors. Oh yeah, and get back to work you slackers!!!

Xbox 360 early review/hands-on

2005-10-28T18:40:00.000-07:00

Today I was one of the few and very lucky to get some alone time with the 360. Overall I was impressed, but despite how badly I wanted to be, I was not blown away. I spent about an hour digging through every option, demo and movie I could, trying very hard to keep an open and analytical mind about what I was looking at.

Lets start with the good stuff. The new controller is excellent they have slightly improved the feel and the design is a thing of beauty. The menu is system is also very good, it is fast and well thought out. Being able to access stuff mid game via the side bar is a really great innovation.

I must say I am confused by Microsoft's choices in demo titles. I mean Kameo, while its sort of neat is a kids game, King Kong is a movie tie-in and Call of Duty 2 is a PC port. Why not let us see Perfect Dark 2 or PGR3, these are supposed to be the flag ship titles. None of them in my opinion really show case the power and strengths of the system. I spent the most time on COD2, and it was during this time that the hopes and dreams that the MS hype machine had built into my brain began to crack and crumble. Anyone who is hoping that the Xbox 360 will let them play games that run just like they do on a top of the line PC is in for a rude awakening. I installed COD2 on my PC (3ghz 1.5 gb Ram and a 6800 GT ultra) earlier this week and played about 6 hours of it, so I am able to make a fair comparison. Compared to the way it runs on my PC COD2 looks like ass on a 360. I could not believe it when it first loaded, but I could not deny what I was seeing, jaggies (lots of them) sub par textures and poor lighting. I am hoping this was just a rushed port, but my anticipation is down a bit after today (although I will still be inline on the 22nd with the rest of you nerds).

Now before I get flamed right off the internets let me state the following.
1) I realize the demos are 1st gen titles and 1st gen titles never look as good as latter games in a systems life cycle
2) I am not a Playstation zealot. I don't even have a PS2 and have no plans to buy a PS3 when it comes out

I know its still to early to pass a final judgment and I am hoping that when I finally get to play some other 360 games I will be blown away. All I am saying here is that I was really excited to see what the 360 was like in real life and I walked away a little disappointed. This is just one guys opinion, if you have the chance check the ever growing lists of demo sites in the comments section on joystiq and check it out for yourself.

http://www.joystiq.com/entry/1234000360064191/

Holy Crap!! it is like a street fight up in this comments section. I am getting spammed like mad right now, so I have to approve each comment. So there might be a delay, but I would never censor anybody.

Thanks for reading!

Observations on Live Action Role Playing

2005-08-24T19:07:00.000-07:00

Let me start by saying there is something great about a person or a group of people who are secure enough in their own skin to go out and do something truly uber nerdy (like live action role-playing) and not care who knows about it. I could never do this my self. And to put pictures of it on the web for the whole world to see, that takes gonads of steel my friends. That being said, after I found the page from where these pics came, I was filled with an inner light and a new sense of self-confidence. Why? You ask, well because now I know no matter what sort of ass I make of myself or how gushy I might get over a new video game I will always know that I can never be the biggest nerd on the planet. These people already hold that title, and they are awesome.

The calm befoe the storm....

Worst goblin....ever

One breast plate size fits all..my ASS.

No caption I could ever write could make this pic any better.

Did they lose a bet?

I said no PICKLES bitches, you know the dark lord hates pickles.

Is this the newest look for Slipknot?

Hmm, maybe there is something to this roleplaying stuff after all.

This is just a small fraction of the treasure trove I found. Hit the link below if you want to browse the rest. I warn you though, I am still looking through all of these. They are kind of like crack that way.

http://www.caldaria.com/IG/Gallery/11-2002.html

Christopher Walken 2008 is a Hoax

2005-08-13T13:02:00.000-07:00

When I first stumbled on this site http://walken2008.com/index.html I have to admit I was excited about it. I have no idea where Mr. Walken stands on the issues that are important to me, but the thought of watching him mentally disassembling some other candidate in a debate is just thrilling. I don’t know if he would have a snow balls chance in hell but it would be fun to watch regardless. Unfourtanetly my skeptical mind took over and I felt the need to dig a little to find out if this was even for real or not. Here is why I believe this to be a hoax (although a really good one)

1)All of the images of Walken can be found on other websites. Most of them show up with simple a Google image search.

2)A who is look up returned the following data:

Administrative Contact: Strickland, Richard

admin@walken2008.com

PO Box 1180

Destin, Florida 32540

United States

Phone 8505478427

I tried calling the number several times to speak with the admin, the number has been disconnected. I doubt any legitimate web designer that was lucky enough to be contracted for such a major project would have a disconnected phone

3) The press release for this site states that a press conference was held at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York on August 9. I attempted to call the front desk of the hotel to confirm this. They would not to do so, but they did refer me to the PR section of their corporate offices. The fact that there had allegedly been a press conference and that the only mention of this announcement any where in the main stream news is linked to walken2008 site is very telling. The conference was held 2 days before the site launched, if it was real then I am sure we would have heard about it somewhere else in that time.

4) In the bio page there is a reference to the famous cow bell skit, to me this reeks of fanboyism.

Now, I could still be wrong, and this could be for real but I doubt it. Monday, I plan to call the IRS and see if there is any record of the non profit “Christopher Walken for President” that allegedly paid for the site. I am by no means a campaign finance expert but, to my knowledge such groups have to register with the government and that information should be public record. In closing I would actually would like to tip my hat to the hoaxsters involved. At first glance the site is rather convincing and actually had me for a second.

Update:
A tip of the hat to mrstbone9112 for this insightful post in the comment section. Please note, I have not been able to confirm this. But it sounds very legit.

mrstbone9112 said...

Just an FYI - any Presidential candidate or candidate for the US House or US Senate must register with the Federal Election Commission (www.fec.gov) prior to accepting any contributions for their campaign. They should also register with the IRS for a taxpayer ID number. Walken's "committee" is not registered with the FEC or the IRS, so we can only conclude that this is a hoax. Furthermore, a presidential candidate who has an official website without any means to contribute $$ to their campaign is extremely questionable.

Everything you need to know to make it in Information Technology

2005-08-12T12:58:00.000-07:00

This article is written to share everything I know about surviving in IT a field that I have been working in for 5 years. It’s not meant to tell you how to get a job, that’s a whole subject in itself. This is a guide for holding on to your job once you gotten one. IT has notoriously high rates of both burn out and turnover. I have seen more then a few co-workers either driven out or just out right fired for incompetence. Maybe they never belonged in their jobs to begin with or maybe they just did not know how to properly cover their own asses. This is something I have mastered…..

Part 1 How to not look stupid

Google is you friend, maybe your only friend when your swimming with back stabbing sharks. Never ever, ask a coworker (either above or below you) a question about something you should know until you have spent more then 30 minutes trying to find it on Google. If you have been looking on google for a while and you still can’t find the answer to an issue, you’re probably not asking the question in the right way. Reword it and try again.

If you’re getting into subject matter that you’re not strong in, avoid communicating with your peers or managers in person or on the phone. Use email, it will slow the process down enough to give you a chance to google terms and ideas your not the familiar with. With a little effort you can go from the noob in a team to the subject matter expert. You always want to be the subject matter expert.

Part 2 How to deal with a question or issue that you have no idea how to answer

So what do you do when you have been blindsided by a question from a user or your boss that you just can't answer. You want to avoid saying “I don’t know” at all costs. There are many good responses you could use, but I have selected my 3 all time favorites. I have also included visual aides to make the body language you should be using clearer. Just like they say you should smile when on phone interview or if your working in a member services capacity because it conveys its self in your tone of voice; you should physically act these out so you sound sincere over the line.

1) Huh, That’s weird.

This works particularly well with users, because every user wants to feel special. They want to believe that fact that they can’t figure out some simple stupid little thing out for themselves is the computers fault not their own.

2) Freakin Microsoft!!!!

This works well because every one hates Microsoft; you can blame them for almost any issue. This is also handy for venting your anger at the user in an indirect way that won’t get you escorted out the building.

3) That Bill Gates, he got us again or We can thank old Bill Gates for this one.

This is similar to the last one, but focuses more on building a kinship with the user. It plays into the idea that we are all at the mercy of technology. Sometimes we just have to accept the fact that computers are designed by people (and all people are flawed) and therefore we just have deal with the fact they don’t always work the way we want them to. Unless you have a Mac. All joking aside they way to make a go of it in IT is to know your shit and to work hard. If you want to get ahead, read at least one computer realted book a month and build your own test network at home. IT is still a great field to get into despite the users.

Embarrassing Middle school Picture of George W. Bush Discovered

2005-08-10T18:00:00.000-07:00

Ladies and Gentelman your Commander in Chief.......

Digg Leeching Exposed

2005-08-10T00:05:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I was lucky enough to have something I wrote make it to the index page of Digg. This of course resulted in an amazing amount of hits on my site tracker. I was paging through the referrals when I noticed that I had been linked to on some other blogs. So, I of course felt the need to check out the sites that I had been linked from. What I found was very interesting. As is clearly stated in the about Digg page, blog linking is not only allowed but encouraged. The website has been setup to allow for single click blog linking once an account has been setup. The problem is that there seem to be some scumbags out there using this to basically leech off Digg and make it look like their own content. I have 2 examples of this and a 3^rd page that shows how Digg blogging should be done. And before you flame me on this I realize by linking these B.S. blogs I am sending them traffic, but I am trying to make a point here.

http://speedloadertech.blogspot.com/

As you can see this is an out of the can blogger site. The only thing this guy has ever posted is digg stories. No comments of his own, no opinions or additional views whatsoever. It looks like the Digg Konfabulator widget just in blog form. It seems like the process may even be automated, notice how some of the posts occur in the same minute. The problem here is that if you did not know what Digg is you might think this guy was just a really prolific tech writer and was generating all this content on his own. Actually I doubt any one would really think that but, I think that’s what he’s going for.

http://alientech.becauseitspossible.com/

Now this leech looks to be a little more tech savvy, but I have the same basic issues with his site. His tagline “Aliens from cyberspace giving you todays tech news” really shows that he is trying to misrepresent here. He wants you to believe that he is the source of this content. His tracker shows that he as actually seen a fair amount of traffic to. The worst part is that he has Google AdSense on his page. He is trying to make money by basically copying and pasting dig to his blog. How lame is that?

http://crashreport.blogspot.com/

Now this guy is using Digg’s “blog this” function the way it is meant to be used. In addition to doing his own writing, he is linking dig stories he thinks are interesting and often adding his own input.

The reason that I am concerned enough about this issue to write this post is simple. I fraking love Digg. It’s the best new site I have seen in years. Right now the user controlled model is working well. But, I think we can all see where it could go wrong. If we don’t love dig enough to self police it, then it could end up being just another spammy junk site. After seeing how the “Blog This” function is being misused I think Rev3 should consider adding some human verification into the process of blogging dig submissions.

Update: http://alientech.becauseitspossible.com is now posting orignal content. The kid is a pretty good writer to, I hope he sticks with it.

Why the PSP is tanking

2005-08-08T18:54:00.000-07:00

Like a lot of other people out there I was extremely excited about this platform when it first came out. I actually broke one my own personal rules and went to Wal-mart the day it came out because I knew they still had them. And like every other new platform there has been the dreaded post launch dry spell for games. Many of the release titles where pretty good; Wipeout, Lumines and Hotshots golf are all decent games but none of them are what you would call killer apps. Now, several months in we are starting to see the second wave titles and guess what….they suck. I even convinced myself to buy Dead to Rights after reading negative reviews because I wanted it to be good so badly (it was returned after less then ½ a day). I will not even begin to discuss my disappointment with Coded Arms. Now, reviews for Death Jr. are coming out http://www.gamerankings.com/htmlpages2/920140.asp and it feels like a punch to stomach. The Christmas line up shows no glimmers of hope either. Although, I did briefly enjoy the Firmware 2.0 web browser, its memory issues make it nearly useless. All of this started to make me think that, now would be a good time to trade my PSP in at EB and at least get some of my money back (they are currently offering 170 in trade). I just happened to be at EB yesterday afternoon and brought this up with my inside guy there. As a subtext if you can get through the corporate policy BS and get to know an EB sales rep they are a wealth of information. So I causally asked him if they have seen a lot of PSP trade ins lately. I was not surprised to find out that they had seen a 30% increase in trade ins on the handheld and that a large number of people are rolling the money over to credit on an Xbox 360. So to wrap this up, get rid of you PSP as soon as you can, since the amount of cash you can get back goes down when the amount of returns goes up.

My humble vision for Ipod next

2005-03-08T17:35:00.000-08:00

Steve Jobs made an honest music fan of me. Since iTunes was ported to Windows I have not stolen a single track. Its just so much damn eaiser to pay a buck and get a song thats properly labeled, sounds great and organizes itself for me. And, did you ever try to piece a whole album together off of Kazaa? So, it has been welll documented that the ipod+itunes is a huge runaway success and you know what I think they should do next? Kick the movie bizz in the pants, thats what. Imagine if you will, firing up iTunes and finding every movie blockbuster is supposed to have (but never actually does) waiting for you. I could only guess at pricing but lets say 10 dollars to own and 3 bucks to hold it for a couple days. Then you just drag and drop the evenings picture show over to your ipod, pop your precious out of the cradle and walk over to your regular old TV. Where you have another cradle waiting for you (or a couple lose cables if your cheap I am speaking directly to you here Chris), one cable from the back of the cradle runs to the audio in connector and the other leads into the video connector. Just find your selection from the ipods menu system and press play. Bam, your watching a new release and you didn't even have to burn fossile fuel or lose any hair follicles to do it. Of course getting a video adapter inside the iPod would be a challenge but who could tackle it better? After seeing an iPod photo set up to display pictures and stream audio in Compusa it seemed to clear to me that this is already the direction Apple is heading. I think it can't lose, they already have the infrastructure and the loyal user base. People hate blockbuster (their no late fee thing is a scam, read the fine print sucka) and while NetFlix is a cool idea its so damn slow. The world is ready for this, there is no good reason that in the digital age we should actually have to drive somewhere to watch a movie (legally at least). So come on Steve, make an honest movie fan out of me...I dare you.

P.S. Mr Jobs my karma thanks you in advance.

First Post

2005-02-20T17:10:00.000-08:00

So here it is the first post on my new shiny blog. My purpose here is simple; I want to crush the term geek. It is an outdated and useless word. Well, not completely I suppose it could still be used to describe some people in the world. You could I guess still use it to label someone with a stunning lack of social skills, poor clothing tastes and pension for some obscure nerdy hobby (like pen collecting or an obsession for Buffy the Vampire Slayer). Please note that some of my best friends are geeks and there is nothing wrong with that. What I object too is the broad use to describe any one who “gets it”. I play games online (and trust me I pwn noobs…hard), I rock the Ipod, I know how to get free stuff from the internets and yes I know Linux. But guess what else I can do. I can talk to girls, dress my self in dapper threads and when I walk into gym I am not going to be the most scrawny pasty dude in the place. So the next time refers to you dear non-existent reader as a geek, tell them “Fuck you I am no mere geek, I am a Technologist!!!”

And no I will not fix your computer.

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