What an eventful few months... Whew~~

I was sooooo ver y overwhelmed by the amount of work I seem to have. My to-do list is around 60 items, spread out over 4 A3 sized pages. How can anyone cope with this?!?

Thus, I went to find a book: Time Management for System Administrators. It's a very very good book, so extremely good, I am considering buying it.

One of the suggestions was an actual way to deal with a lot of interruptions from user requests and still get work done. The main thing is to pick a project to concentrate on, while writing down every single work requests that come my way. Then plan exact to-do items to complete every day. What an effective idea!!

Another suggestion was to show my boss my to-do list, hoping it will scare him. I did that, or rather my boss made me do that. Surprisingly, my boss then realigned my work priorities, to focus on storage and the storage process. Yes, I know that was the main thing anyway, but he stated the 80-20 rule of thumb, with storage taking up 80%!!! Suddenly, 80% of my to-do list became second priority... Same amount of work, but less pressed. Wee~

Right now, the major fire fighting seems to be over. Hopefully nothing happens during this intermediate period, such that I can finish proposing and setting up the new infrastructure.

Sitting tight....

Went on a shopping spree these few months. Here are the things I got. Now now, they are very good products I have been itching to get for years, so don't nag me.

1) Computer!
My laptop died. After 4 years of lugging it around, it died... Sigh. So I went to get a new desktop.

2) Orthotics
Yeap, I got one pair now from 2-ft in Far East Shopping Centre. semi-rigid type. Freakingly expensive, around $370. Hopefully, my knee pains will lessen now. Yes, I have ITB, bow legs and over-pronates. So it's very justified.

3) Shure Ear Phones
Yes, I've got a pair of Shure earphones now. It's the E2C model. Bought it from Funan Challenger for $149. It's worth it, okay? It's designed to block out sound by plugging into the inner ear canal. I went into my server room, and I can still listen to my radio/mp3 at volume ZERO! Whahahahah..... My ears are saved!! I won't be deaf as a post when I'm old and creaky.

This is a rant post, triggered by an msn nick totally unrelated to the incident which triggered this... So, ignore this, if you will. You are most likely not the target.

<rant>

Some people have the mistaken notion that their actions are accountable to God (or whatever deity they worship). That is utterly utterly wrong. Everyone is accountable for their own actions. Why do people want to pull God into their arguments?

God passed down His set of Teachings to benefit mankind. Ultimately, the way to interpret the Teachings, and the method to put them into practice lies with ourselves. Does how people mangle the Teachings affect God? NO! I believe it just made Him feel sad. After all, He is above all that.

Now, I am not saying we should just be selfish. Some people think that "being accountable for their own actions" mean they can simply do whatever they want to do. This attitude is ridiculous too. So, one does not need to account for how one's actions harm others? Geez.

Simply put, every one is accountable for his own actions. The whole sum of it, good AND bad. You do good, you get the credit. You do bad, you get the credit too. Ultimately, when we pass away, God judges us by what we do. He may feel sad if he has to punish someone for doing bad deeds, but it's all that person's own fault. The writings are on the wall; God has already made His Teachings clear. No one can blame others, let alone God, if he gets punished.

One is accountable for one's own actions. No one else.

</rant>

Now, I am not talking about the Christian God. "God" is used here as a generic term for all deities. I am a Buddhist after all. This is my path, and the path I choose to take.

Sometime ago, my aging 4 year old laptop died. After sitting around for a month, not knowing what to do every night, I finally borrowed some money to buy a new desktop. What.... I have just started working, so I don't have that kind of cash.

After several attempts to stay on budget, I ended up with this specifications:

Intel E6750 Core 2 Duo 2.66GHz
Gigabyte P35-DS3P FSB 1333
Asus EN8600GTS 256MB
Kingston 2GB DDR2-800 Hyper X
Samsung SATA-2 Lightscribe
Seagate 500GB Sata2 Hard Disk
Coolermaster 550W Extreme Power
Coolermaster Centurion 5 Casing
Philips 19" Wide-screen LCD 190CW

Guess how much does this cost? After adding up everything including some planned upgrades/add-ons, I think it is going to cost around SG$2.2k just for the bare metal. Wee~

But I can't get my hands on an 8800GTS graphics card.... Oh well...

Of course, I'm installing Gentoo and Windows XP on the system.

Hmm.... Maybe I should put the installation troubles in another post. Stay tuned.

Now that I have my super duper machine, the first stop is to put my favourite Linux distribution on it. Yes, yes, me very free.

Surprising, the installation went very smoothly, considering it's a 64-bit installation. Somehow, I don't even have to configure my ALSA or do much X configuration! It just worked! Whahahahah.... What....

I have to admit that I'm using the NVIDIA binary blob though. Guess I can't be a FSF advocate then.

Maybe I should try to get Compiz working. But playing games seems more important now....

Speaking about games, somehow I can't get any SEGA Genesis emulator to work. Not Gens, or Generator, nothing!! All my ROMS just crashed after loading. Oh well.... More incentive to install Windows XP then.

I just saw this on my friend's blog. No, he doesn't want me to link to him.

Fun!

Wow! Found this gem when researching on BIND hardening: Rob Thomas' CYMRU Secure BIND Template.

O'Reilly also published an excerpt of their DNS book (DNS and BIND, by Paul Albitz and Cricket Liu), which detailed more security tips. Yes, this book can be found in the National Library too.

During a security scan, one of my DNS servers was fingerprinted by NESSUS, so I think I will disable all CHAOS queries from now on.... Grrr......

I often have to code many many scripts for my daily work as a system administrator. In the (vain) hopes these might be useful to someone else, maybe I should release these into the public domain.

My style of coding hasn't really stablised; still trying to find a style that allows secure coding and easy readability. If you have suggestions, please let me know.

Of course, if there a bugs, please let me know. Thanks!

Wee~ My wushu pals gave me an Owly stuff toy which I had been eying for a year.

He looks so confused.... He even has my porcupine brother's mascot, Wormy, on his head! Cool eh?

Anyway, I've plonked him on the top of my monitor. Whahahahah

Win... Someone actually sang about IPV6 at the recent RIPE 55.

From the video description:

The Day The Routers Died... a song performed by the secret-wg in the closing plenary of the RIPE 55 conference

a long long time ago
i can still remember
when my laptop could connect elsewhere

and i tell you all there was a day
the network card i threw away
had a purpose - and worked for you and me....

But 18 years completely wasted
with each address we've aggregated
the tables overflowing
the traffic just stopped flowing....

And now we're bearing all the scars
and all my traceroutes showing stars...
the packets would travel faster in cars...
the day....the routers died

Chorus (ALL!!!!!)

So bye bye, folks at RIPE 55
Be persuaded to upgrade it or your network will die
IPv6 just makes me let out a sigh
But I spose we'd better give it a try
I suppose we'd better give it a try

Now did you write an RFC
That dictated how we all should be
Did we listen like we should that day

Now were you back at RIPE fifty-four
Where we heard the same things months before
And the people knew they'd have to change their ways....

And we - knew that all the ISPs
Could be - future proof for centuries

But that was then not now
Spent too much time playing WoW

ooh there was time we sat on IRC
Making jokes on how this day would be
Now there's no more use for TCP
The day the routers died...

Chorus (chime in now)

So bye bye, folks at RIPE 55
Be persuaded to upgrade it or your network will die
IPv6 just makes me let out a sigh
But I spose we'd better give it a try
I suppose we'd better give it a try

I remember those old days I mourn
Sitting in my room, downloading porn
Yeah that's how it used to be....

When the packets flowed from A to B
via routers that could talk IP
There was data..that could be exchanged between you and me....

Oh but - I could see you all ignore
The fact - we'd fill up IPv4

But we all lost the nerve
And we got what we deserved!

And while...we threw our network kit away
And wished we'd heard the things they say
Put all our lives in disarray

The day...the routers died...

Chorus (those silent will be shot)

So bye bye, folks at RIPE 55
Be persuaded to upgrade it or your network will die
IPv6 just makes me let out a sigh
But I spose we'd better give it a try
I suppose we'd better give it a try

Saw a man with whom I used to peer
Asked him to rescue my career
He just sighed and turned away..

I went down to the net cafe
that I used to visit everyday
But the man there said I might as well just leave...

And now we've all lost our purpose..
my cisco shares completely worthless...

No future meetings for me
At the Hotel Krasnapolsky

and the men that make us push and push
Like Geoff Huston and Randy Bush
Should've listened to what they told us....
The day...the routers....died

Chorus (time to lose your voice)

So bye bye, folks at RIPE 55
Be persuaded to upgrade it or your network will die
IPv6 just makes me let out a sigh
But I spose we'd better give it a try
I suppose we'd better give it a try

Words and performance by Gary Feldman

I still have no idea how to put IPV6 in an IPV4 network (Singapore!!) though...