Brian's Blog

Yesterday I woke up to find my home "server" system dead. It looked like it was turned off so I tried to turn it on. Nothing happened, no drives spinning up, no display, no beep from the POST, nothing except the power supply fan and the hard drive LED on solid. Oh boy, what fun. I hate it when this happens even when it is a secondary system that my daughter plays Dora the Explorer and Tux Paint on. So I grabbed an extra hard drive I had thinking it was one of the drives bringing it down. I disconnected all of the drives, including the CD-Roms and floppy and this darn thing still refused to reboot! What the heck... So, I simplified even more, by striping it down to the power supply, CPU, motherboard, and memory but still no life could be breathed into this thing. I even tried an extra power supply just in case. You'd think that it would give the BIOS beeps about not having a video card but it didn't. Time to simply even more so out came the memory and BOOM now I get BIOS beeps about missing memory. I don't have any PC2100 memory laying around so I guess I'll have to put Newegg's return policy to the test and start ordering parts to trouble shoot with. 512MB of memory is on the way, if this works then I'll have a nice memory upgrade in the name of troubleshooting. I just hope it isn't the CPU or motherboard.

To continue the technology theme so far I finally decided to check out the M$ AntiSpyware Beta. It looks to have promise but let us not give M$ all the credit. In the normal Microsoft fashion they simply acquired the technology when they bought out GIANT Company Software Inc and stuck their name on it then called it an innovation. We'll see what they turn it into though. I'm always on the lookout for good Spyware/Adware removal tools since the majority of my job seems to boil down to cleaning up the PCs of hapless users. I think I spend a good 70% or more of my time dealing with Spyware/Adware, browser hijacks, and viruses. I'm glad I use Linux at home so I can actually use my time to do something useful or fun with my system instead of endlessly defending it. I've only played with Microsoft AntiSpyware for all of 15 minutes but it did find and remove several bits of nastiness and looks like it can help you remove browser hijacks. I'll know more after I get a chance to see how it stands up against a badly overrun client PC.

That being said though on Monday I had a chance to actually use some of my MCSE skills! This is a rare thing since most of our customers are so small that they don't bother using most of what I was used to doing at IQE. I got to help a couple of internal IT guys who needed an "expert" to help them adjust from NT to Windows 2003 SBS. So I got to be teacher at the same time as helping them use Group Policy to reach their goals. One of these days my Linux skills will be sufficient enough to actually use them in a work environment but not yet. Speaking of increasing skill I need to actually get back into some reading and experimentation. I just haven't been in the mood lately for some reason.

Now for a total subject change. Tonight was a fine night spent with the family. We had a really nice warm fire in the fireplace since the weather is so darn cold and we watched The Sound of Music (again) while Cindy and I played with the kids. We all really like having a fire but the only problem with the open face style of fireplace we have is when the fire goes below a certain level the amount of heat sucked up the chimney is more than the fire is giving off. A fully enclosed stove like my parent have is more efficient but it doesn't look nearly as nice. It's a worthwhile trade off though.

Oh, I checked the status of the fermenting beer and it's well underway. There is a thick foam on the surface and you can see the yeast has grown significantly. The beer itself is cloudy but should clear up when fermentation stops. The cool thing is if you sniff at the pressure release lid it smells just like beer! So I guess we are on the right track.

Actually, what a past 4 work days. For the past 3 days I got to take heat for problems caused by the stupidity of others, unreasonable customers, and customers downright lying about what I did seemingly trying to get me into trouble. Or to at least make us reduce the price in an effort to keep their business.

However, today I got the distinct honor and pleasure to waste an hour or so of my precious time speaking with Compaq's "World Class" Technical Support Professionals located in sunny India. The conversation went something like this:

Compaq: Thank you for calling Compaq Technical Support. What kind of issue are you having today?

Brian: Hello, I have a Presario 1700 laptop that locks up solid but seemly under heavy load only. It's kind of random. It seems better since I just ran the restore disk but it happened again during Windows Update and I'd like to just rule out hardware. Do you have any diagnostic software that I could run?

Compaq: It locks up?

Brian: Yes, it locks up solid. The mouse stops working, CTRL-ALT-DEL doesn't bring up the Task manager, and pressing Caps lock doesn't even toggle the caps lock LED. The only way I can get back into it is to power cycle it.

Compaq: OK, what I need you to do it to reboot the system, then press F8 repeatedly. Then in the menu that comes up select Safe Mode.

Brian: Safe mode? Why safe mode? The system isn't locked up, like I said, it only locks up under heavy load and I've already rebooted it. The software should be fine since I just finished the Restore Disk moments before I called.

Compaq: It's not locking up then?

Brian: Yes, it is, but not right now. Like I said, it's random and I'd like to just run some diagnostics if you have them available to rule out hardware.

Compaq: OK, then what I need you do it is click on Start, then Run. In there type in msconfig and click OK.

Brian: What are we doing in msconfig?

Compaq: I want to remove anything that isn't needed during start up. Now, click on the Start up tab and...

Brian: But the software is at factory default. How could there be anything in there other than what Compaq ships with it?

Compaq: ...and list off one by one the items in the list.

Brian amuses the clueless tech and disables all the items in msconfig and reboot. Amazingly enough the system starts perfectly.

Brian: I'm not sure what this is proving. Usually when there is a software problem you just run the System Restore to rule out software. Since I've already done that I just want to test the hardware. Can you check if you have any kind of Diagnostics available please?

We argue for a little over hardware vs software. Compaq puts me on hold to "search their database".

Compaq: I've searched our database thoroughly and the solution to this problem is to upgrade the RAM. You will need to upgrade from 256MB RAM to 1GB.

Brian: Uhhh, how can upgrading the size of the RAM fix this problem? I mean, it's running with the OS and drivers supplied with it freshly installed. It ran for a couple of years without problems with this amount of RAM. If anything is wrong, it's a subtle hardware problem and I would really just like to run a diagnostic program. Dell used to have actual hardware tests to run, including Diagnostic floppies to stress the system. Compaq doesn't have those?

This isn't even the entire conversation but at this point I was totally frustrated. This person was obviously working off of a script and chances are that the lint from my belly button knows more about computers than this woman did. The worst thing about this situation is that she mindlessly keeps going with her script and ignores my questions about diag procedures related to hardware. On top of that, the laptop is out of warranty so Compaq charged $40 to talk to a clueless, mindless tech who didn't resolve my problem or even get me closer to resolution.

The truth is I don't really care who I talk to, what gender they are, or where the hell they live. What I really want it someone who I can understand, who understands me, is knowledgeable, and above all is willing to work with me instead of against me to resolve a problem. Is that really so much to ask for?

This article at the Seattle Times and mentioned on Slashdot where I found it is about how technology and the fast paced world it has caused is stressing us out. Personally, I've thought similar things in the past and it's nice to see that someone is actually studying the subject beyond the hunch that I've had for years. Specifically it mentions multitasking and task-switching as not really thing humans are good at. And that doing multiple things at once actually reduces how well we could do any one of those things if we just concentrated on one thing at a time. I don't know about anyone else but this seems like an obvious thing to me. The problem is that we are pushed to multitask and it's having negative effects on us.

This makes me think of a time when I worked at IQE. Our SMS server went nutty and was causing a handful of the workstations to bog down with 100% CPU time taken by the SMS client. I was the designated SMS "expert" so it fell to me to fix. This wasn't an easy fix, and I eventually had to open a case with Microsoft to work it out which took most of the day. During this time my boss decided it would be good to check on my progress every 10 to 15 minutes, probably because his system was one of the ones affected. I noticed that every single time he interrupted me it took a good 10 minutes for me to get my mind back into the troubleshooting mode. Eventually I snapped at him and told him to leave me alone. The point being that all these interruptions, the multitasking of troubleshooting and explaining progress, increased my stress and reduced my efficiency.

One particular quote in the article from a Roman philosopher named Publilius Syrus that applies well is, "To do two things at once is to do neither." Supposedly he said this in 100 B.C. And I thought we've made progress since then!

I've often thought that we let this happen to ourselves. We let the companies we work for use technology to make us work from home, and even while on vacation. The problem is, to say no to any of this looks bad for you because you'd be the only one doing it. Even so, I don't care about how I look, I'll work form home occasionally but only during hours I'd normally work. And when on vacation my laptop stays at home and the mobile phone is off. I like to think that I'm the one with my priorities in order, not some corporation.

Anyway, the article is a good read and provides food for thought.

Today was an interesting day. Actually, the last two days were interesting. Well, not really that interesting but still...

Anyway, the last two days have been spent at a dentist's office working out their network woes. It started off with the server randomly rebooting itself because LSASS.EXE had some strange error given by Microsoft as nothing more than a long Hex number that no one seems to know what it really means. Anyway, every time this error would happen you'd get a box saying the system will reboot in 60 seconds. Checking the event log showed a few errors regarding Removable Storage Manager having issues with the CD-ROM drives just before each reboot so I thought it was something screwy with the IDE chain. So I just disconnected the CD drives and about an hour later it did it again.

Now this place has no Internet connectivity other than 3 PC's with dial-up. Thus, all the system are terribly out of date both patch wise and virus definition wise. They used to only use the dial up on one of the PC's that was not connected to the LAN but recently changed that and decided to transfer some stuff from the Internet only PC including E-mail to one of the PC's that had both dial up Internet and LAN connectivity. After much questioning I figured out that there problems started shortly after they did this.

Well, to not make a story longer than it needs to be, they managed to get an oddball virus called W32.korgo.AB on just one of their PC's. This virus scans the local network for other PC's to infect and is known to crash the LSASS.EXE mentioned already. So, just from the simple act of transferring some data to a PC it spread to every single PC on their network and was causing a good part of them to reboot randomly.

I've spend the past two days troubleshooting the server and cleaning up viruses. They are now looking getting DSL and a firewall so they can get the latest patches and updates.

To bad they can't consider Linux. Well, they could, but I'm the only one at work who knows anything about Linux and I don't feel comfortable enough with it to suggest that they use it. Plus due to ignorance one of the owners just against Linux and anything else open source.

I'm not looking forward to work tomorrow. I have to go to a client (who shall remain nameless) and attempt to help them get them directory structure security into some sane order. The problem, and the reason I'm not looking forward to going, is that their administrator is in way over her head in this subject and tends to get flustered when I get technical. I don't want to upset her in anyway, but I can't make this subject any less technical. And to water it down will defeat the purpose of the security changes. I just hope I can convince her to take my recommendations to heart, even though they'll be a pain in the ass in the short term.

On a different subject, I can't seem to get into the Christmas spirit at all. It's only a couple of weeks away and every day just seems like any other. Get up, get ready for work, go to work, fix things, come home, eat, spend time with family, stay up later than I should screwing with my computers, go to bed, repeat. Maybe it's because we haven't had time to actually decorate the house and the tree still isn't up. I'm pretty sure my scheduled surgery in the near future is having some part of it, but I can't buy that it's that much of a cause. Hopefully I'll set myself right by Christmas Day. At the least watching my kids open their presents will get my mood better.

Oh, I finally managed to get SSL compiled with Apache 2. It's been pulling my hair out and all I had to do was tell configure where the SSL includes where. Now maybe I can keep going in Sam's Apache 2 book.