Larry Osterman has a terrific post up today on the guts of Windows security identifiers, or SIDs. A small taste:
Order in the port: Port Reporter Parser released
Port Reporter is a nifty tool from Microsoft that you can use to log TCP and UDP activity on Windows machines; it logs port activity on ports that you specify to a text file. It’s extremely useful for monitoring traffic from specified machines or services, and it has a variety of useful features that I won’t enumerate– go download it already.
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Filed under General Stuff, Musings
VERITAS buys KVS
Well, this is interesting: VERITAS buys KVS for $225 million in cash. Considering VERITAS’ failure to turn their own archiving product for Windows into a real competitor for KVS, this is an interesting move.
Filed under General Stuff, Musings
E-mail free Fridays
Jeremy Burton has a good idea: declare Friday as an “email-free day” in his department. This story, which I first saw in the WSJ, has grown legs as people debate whether this is a good idea or not. I think the stimulus that led to Burton’s edict is something we can all identify with: he wondered how much time his folks were wasting on email.
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Filed under General Stuff, Musings
Vote early, vote often
There’s been a running discussion of election fraud on the IP list for several months now, mostly focused on electronic voting systems (here’s a sample). Recently, Jonathan Goldstein invited IP readers to come work with him on Election Day in Philadelphia to see what kind of non-electronic shenanigans go on. In that vein, I was surprised to see the Blade report on a New York Daily News story claiming that an analysis of the NY and Florida voter registration rolls found 46,000 voters who were registered to vote in both New York and Florida. The full story has some great quotes from several of the criminals (my favorite: “I’m not here right now”). In summary, there is no current means of detecting dishonest (or stupid) people who register, or vote, in multiple states; the process relies entirely on the honor system. Oddly, of the 46K duplicates that the NYDN story found, 68% were registered Democrats.
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Filed under FAIL
Great Toledo airshow photos
We didn’t go to the airshow Saturday because we were supposed to go fishing; when the weather prevented that, we decided to give it a miss. We didn’t go on Sunday because it was Sunday. (The Thunderbirds will be in Lafayette at Halloween, and the Blues will be in New Orleans the week before; maybe we’ll go for one of those). Anyway, Micah eases the pain with a trove of cool airshow pictures, including an album showcasing Air Force One’s arrival and a great clip of the Thunderbirds taking off. Micah, you can definitely put me down for a copy of the DVD when you get it done!
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Filed under Friends & Family
Hail to the Chief
On Saturday, we loaded up the boys and went across the street to Fort Meigs, where the President had scheduled a campaign rally. Several of our friends parked in our driveway, so we had quite a procession: three couples (plus Mom) with ten children, plus some stragglers (hi Fritz!) who came later. We arrived at the fort about 3:15; the gates were open from 2-4pm, and the President was scheduled to speak at 5:10. It was about 80° and very humid, but we figured we’d have no trouble finding a comfortable spot to stand. Well, not exactly. We found a spot, but it was airless thanks to the crush of people squashing together in an attempt to see the actual stage. (Reported attendance was 15,000, or 12,000 according to the Blade.) After about an hour of feeding the boys cookies and letting them take turns playing games on my phone, we moved to a much better location, with actual Fresh Air™. We then endured several local politicians, including Randy Gardner and Larry Kaczala. Kaczala, who’s running against arcy Kaptur, made several stupid and tasteless jokes about Kerry’s Vietnam service. I don’t think the arguments made by the Swift boat folks can easily be dismissed, but having this bozo make fun of Kerry’s combat experience didn’t sit well with me. (On the other hand, I’m not in his Congressional district, so I don’t get to vote against him).
Fritz had said that he’d heard a “national entertainer” would be appearing; sure enough, after all the politicans departed, we were favored by a few songs from Lee Anne Womack. I don’t remember the first one (might’ve been “Something Worth Leaving Behind”); the second was “I Hope You Dance” (which I liked a lot better live than the saccharine radio version), followed by “This Land is Your Land” and another patriotic song I’d forgotten. The boys were getting restive, so Arlene bought them some hot dogs and lemonade; that kept them entertained until the President made his entrance.
He gave a very energetic speech, almost entirely focused on the positive. There were a few jabs at Kerry’s voting record on the Iraq war (and the follow-on resolution), and an acknowledgment that Ohio’s unemployment rate is still higher than the national average. Since he was preaching to the faithful, I didn’t expect a real barnburner of a speech, but overall I was impressed with his delivery and message. David & Thomas were thrilled to see the President in the flesh, and it’s something I hope they remember.
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Filed under Musings
OnHD.TV launches
Philip Swann, a well-known TV pundit, has just launched a new site: OnHD.TV. It purports to be an all-in-one, consumer-focused guide to HDTV, including what shows are in HD, which ones are worth watching from a production-values standpoint, and how to choose suitable HD hardware. Stop by and check it out.
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Filed under HDTV and Home Theater
Barracuda Spam Firewall: first look
I’ve been testing the Barracuda Networks Spam Firewall 300 for the last couple of weeks. So far, I’m very pleased with it; it has done an effective job of filtering spam and virus messages. The best thing is that it incorporates rate control along with other more conventional filtering (including Bayesian and header analysis); this saved me from a huge comment-spam attack last week (see the big blue spike on the “daily mail statistics” graph in the picture below). The unit was very easy to set up and install, and it has worked without interruption since I installed it.
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Filed under General Stuff, Musings
Interesting tidbit on credit card bills
From this morning’s Al’s Morning Meeting:
But wait a minute. More Americans paid their credit card bills on time in June than they have in four years. Would anybody like to make a guess about why this is so and what it means?
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Filed under Musings
David meets the lawn mower
Last week, David experienced a rite of passage that most young men face at some point: he started learning to cut the grass. Our yard is about 2/3 acre, but it’s got a fairly regular shape, so I put the mulching plug in, gassed up the mower, and outlined an area for him to start on. He had a great positive attitude at first, but that faded somewhat when two of his friends came over to play. He didn’t much like that Thomas got to play while he had to cut (though he liked it a little better when he got a crisp $5 bill as payment). You can definitely tell that the yard was cut by an amateur, as there are lots of wandering, curved tire tracks and more than a few little triangles of missed grass. Overall, though, he did well. Thomas picked up a quick $2 for sweeping the sidewalks and piling up a bunch of tree branches that we’d trimmed. Now they’re both talking about cutting yards next summer. Hooray for entrepreneurial spirit!
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Filed under Friends & Family
Happy anniversary!
Thirteen years ago, on 24 August 1991, I put on my dress blues and headed to the First Baptist Church in Decatur, Georgia to get married. Thanks for thirteen great years, Arlene. I love you!
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Filed under Musings
Buckeye overnight outage
Last night, my inbound connectivity failed. As near as I can tell, the last inbound message spotted by the mail filter was at 2348, so let’s say the outage started around then. This morning, I called Buckeye as soon as I got up and noticed the outage. “No, Perrysburg is up. I’d have noticed a lot of calls if it were down,” said the support tech. He promised to call me back by 0830, which of course he didn’t do. When I called them back at 0915, lo and behold: Perrysburg is down, with no ETA for a fix. I called my sales rep to see whether this is expected support practice. I’m definitely wondering if I should go back to Speakeasy, even though it is twice as expensive.
Update: they did fix it about five minutes ago, and Mark was kind enough to call me and let me know that it had been fixed. Apparently the Perrysburg router failed.
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Filed under General Tech Stuff
Commercial support for SURBL in Exchange
So, last week I wrote a column about SURBL. This week’s column, which went out today, is about the regexfilter, a free filter that– among its many other tricks– happens to support SURBL. No sooner did it go out than I got two press releases from Jeff Chan of SURBL.org.
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Filed under General Stuff, Musings
Boyd: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War (Coram)
Col. John Boyd, USAF, is one of the greatest military minds you’ve never heard of. Coram has written a supremely readable hybrid: it’s a biography and an entry-level introduction to Boyd’s two most seminal innovations: the energy-maneuverability theory (which quantified the previously ad-hoc business of air combat maneuvering) and the OODA loop, the first real practical explanation of the theory of maneuver warfare. Boyd’s theories– and his hard-fought efforts to publicize and prove them– gave us the F-15, the F-16, and the Marine Corps’ amphibious feint in the first Gulf War. As a man, Boyd was unyielding, incredibly stubborn, uncouth, profane, and more than a bit eccentric. He was a poor officer in most respects; he hated (and that’s not too strong a word) anyone who he perceived as having put expediency over accuracy, and he was more or less forced out of the Air Force as the result of the cumulative effect of all the impolitic things he said and did (and there were plenty!) At least the way Coram tells it, Boyd was also a terrible husband and father. In fact, the accounts of how indifferent this otherwise brilliant man was toward his wife and children to my mind diminished his stature considerably. A little more consideration and interpersonal skill could have made his life and career much more pleasant for everyone involved. However, that lack doesn’t reduce the scope of what Boyd did, and Coram tells the story with flair. There’s enough detail on E-M theory and the OODA loop to introduce them without overwhelming people who aren’t fighter pilots or military strategists; Coram also suggests several follow-up references that I’m digging into as time allows. Highly recommended. One final note: Boyd was also a Georgia Tech graduate. Go Jackets!
