Patrick’s Rants

I just got my 1400+ page copy of Windows Server 2008 Inside Out. Even this book can’t help me. Windows Vista, Server 2008 and the upcoming Tupperware version, Windows 7 all have UAC. Now, UAC is supposed to prevent programs from just running and installing malware or tweak the registry and is supposed make your computer safer.

The truth is that it normally just annoys the users.

At the tax office I am in the process of migrating from a Windows 2003 server to Windows 2008 (with 64bit) server. I have had a few stumbling blocks, but yesterday I managed to finalize installation of seven years worth of tax software. Out of all of the years the 2006 and 2007 versions have the stupid “protection shield” on the desktop icon meaning the user has to enter and administrator password every single time they run the program. What exactly is the point of having regular user accounts if they have to know an administrator password to use the software installed on their computer?

There are three options for UAC.

1. I can turn it off completely – defeating the purpose of UAC.
2. I can give the regular user the Administrator password – defeating the purpose of Administrator accounts vs. user accounts.
3. I can set all users as Administrators – defeating the purpose of Administrator accounts vs. user accounts.

There is no option to save the Administrator password for a specific program so that next time the user uses the program it won’t prompt for the password. There is an option to Run as Administrator and to set that for all users… but it’s not checked so why is it prompting like it is checked? There is also a program that I found that will allow me to set UAC for individual programs… but from what I’ve read it’s bloated and for one feature it’s not something that I want to install.

So all of the users are now in the Administrators group because MS didn’t provide a way to override UAC on a per program basis.

I managed to finish up The Lost Symbol yesterday. Dan Brown keeps his fast paced style that sucks you along like a riptide. My earlier review of the computer characters might have seemed a touch harsh. The fact is Mr. Brown seems to have to have tried to create characters out of Google, search engines in general and lackluster computer nerds. These are all supporting cast members and might as well be part of the voiceless crowd of extras. He could have left out the cheese puff eating computer geek and no one would have noticed. The character is lightly developed and before you realize it the last page has been read and our IP cracking geek has disappeared like smoke wisps from a freshly extinguished candle.

Brown does spend time developing his main characters, a bizarre mix that does not easily lend itself to knowing who to trust. He maintains his fast paced romp through Washington DC, history, noetic science and a little religion – you might forget that this all occurs in only a twelve hour time frame. With each turn of the page there is the chance that the reader will think, “I didn’t see that coming,” and Brown does his absolute best to continue to surprise page after page.

He also seems to be making amends for the religious backlash to his prior works. I’m not sure if it was purposeful or if the Masons truly believe the concept of a “universal god”, but Brown lays it on thick through the character dialog.

In the end, the writing is fast-paced and engaging with more than a jolt or two on the psyche. Don’t read this book in bed, you won’t want to get to sleep.

My wife pre-ordered The Lost Symbol and it showed up last week. I was slow to get started reading it, but have made it nearly halfway through now. It seems not quite as fast paced as The Da Vinci Code or Angels & Demons but it’s been a pretty good read so far. The only thing that has tripped me personally has been his description of computer tracing and searching techniques. For this reason, I’m not waiting until I finish the book to write about his insight into the minds of otherwise brilliant minded computer geeks… actually these guys will have to turn in their geek cards. On page 107, our intrepid meta/mega-search guru runs a traceroute command to find the location of a server showing only its IP address.

Trish typed the sequence of commands to ping all the “hops” between her control room’s machine…

Series of commands? Oh Dan. traceroute ibm.com For those impaired with a Windows computer: tracert.exe ibm.com
The next paragraph is rather computerly (is that even a word?) mundane, and then turn to 108 for this “gem”

Her ping, for some reason, had hit a network device that swallowed it rather than bouncing it back. “It looks like my traceroute got blocked,” Trish said. Is that even possible?

Possible? Yes. Trivial even. Turn off ICMP replies at the firewall, or router, or… you get my drift. They go on to discuss running whois, except it’s written ‘who is’, and our computer programmer, Trish, pops over to the web interface for the whois query. Really? The web interface? Turn in your pocket protector too. Right now. You are not a geek. Just skimming chapter one of Hacking Exposed: Network Security Secrets and Solutions, Sixth Edition will show that what they are doing is pretty simple stuff. And although Trish thinks of whois as “lowbrow” it does what the character Kathrine wants, tells you who this IP* number belongs to.

Except not in this case.

In this case, they have to place a phone call to a higher form of computer geek. One who sits home alone on a Sunday watching football while tapping away on his laptop. $2000.00 they offer to pay him to figure out who owns a particular server. Enter the next geek failing,

“Trish, this IP has a funky format. It’s written in a protocol that isn’t even publicly available yet.”

Which means that there is no way they accessed this server across the internet. Period, end of story. I know it’s supposed to add to the mystique of the story. In this case it threw me like a mechanical bull. A protocol that is not publicly released is like a blind person walking an incomplete bridge, there is no way to get across the big gap in the Golden Gate Bridge and there is no way to see across the other side to know where it ends.

Dan Brown, you could have called me to ask about this trivial computer networking stuff. I would have helped you for $1000.00, heck maybe even just lunch.

Despite this partial review, I’m picking the book up again today. I may finish this weekend unless I get a call from Dan. It’s probably too late on this since the book has already been printed and I have been swept much further along than this detour might let you believe.

*I’m sorry non-geeks, this is Internet Protocol.

A little while ago, the Superintendent of our local schools announced that he was retiring effective at the end of December. He stated his reasons for the announcement at this time is to allow for an orderly transition and successfully search for his replacement. Our local newspaper is reporting that two existing assistant supers and an unnamed third will run things until they find his replacement.

And here’s what I got to say ’bout that. This is supposed to cost around $80,000. This includes $6000.00 stipends for the temporary job duties of the existing superintendents to “step up” and take on a few more job duties. In many many many places when someone steps up to take on more job duties that’s called being a team player. No you don’t get extra pay for it. In the private sector there are all kinds of people doing more for the same or less pay. This shouldn’t be any different. Heck, if you really want to pay these guys to help out with the job search give them the stipend. Make it a deferred stipend declining by oh say $1000.00 per month that the job isn’t filled (and when it is filled then Kevin Brown can be jettisoned at no cost – he’s on a month to month contract, heck the amount saved on his contract can even be the source of the stipends). And just so that they don’t hire the first schmo they find on the street let’s tack on a couple of extra stipulations:

1. No Dick Cheny. If you find that you are the best candidate (and I think it’s safe to say that many people want someone outside this small town politic) then no one gets a stipend
2. The new hire needs to stay for – oh say three years minimum. It’s costly to search for and hire qualified candidates. We don’t want to have to pay to do this again in a year or so, because “it didn’t work out”. Cut the stipend by $500.00 per month that the new superintendent leaves short of the three years.
3. Forget about filling this “temporary” director. Concentrate on filling the vacancy.
4. Lastly, you have to stay in your job until three years after the new superintendent comes on board. Don’t stay, no pay. If we have to start a new “search” for your replacement, you get to pay for it by losing your stipend.

Money is a big motivator for most people and I have no doubt that the current staff is no exception. If they have to fill the position with a well qualified person in a fairly short period of time or risk losing out on $6000.00 you can bet the position will be filled with a well qualified person in a short period of time. Heck, I’m willing to start the penalty clock in January. Fill the position by January 30, 2010 and you still qualify for the full stipend – paid out at a monthly rate of $500.00 – in January 2013.

Jake has a couple of articles regarding the multitasking myth. The YouTube video is pretty funny and the blog posting is very accurate. But I probably won’t be able to convince my wife that it’s true.

I wrote about using the low stock prices at the beginning of this year to lower your taxes a little and to lower how much you have “at risk” in Intel (INTC). If you had followed the 100 share strategy I mentioned in March here’s what would have happened.
First, let me arbitrarily pick June 1, 2007 as your original purchase date. INTC closed at $22.36. For simplicity I’m going to use the close price of the day. I’m also going to ignore the August 3, 2007 dividend (simply because I haven’t checked the ex-dividend date. I will count the intervening dividends)

• Purchase 100 shares of INTC June 1, 2007 = $2,236.00 (plus commissions, discount brokers will run around $10, others will run as high as $50-$75)
• November 5, 2007 dividends of $0.113 = $11.30 added to your account (using the discount broker you just made back your commissions)
• February 5, 2008 dividend $0.128 = $12.80
• May 5, 2008 $0.14 = $14.00
• August 5, 2008 $0.14 = $14.00
• November 5, 2008 $0.14 = $14.00
• February 4, 2009 $0.14 = $14.00
• May 5, 2009 $0.14 = $14.00 (only counting 100 shares worth of dividends, the ex-date timing could have doubled that)

If you had read the article on March 4, and decided that I wasn’t crazy, you could have bought your new 100 shares for $12.31 = $1,231.00. Holding the shares for around 35 days, you would have sold your “first in” shares on June 5, at $15.92 at the close $1,592.00. This gives you a $644.00 loss based upon the original purchase price on June 1, 2007. In a couple of transactions you have lowered your basis – or purchase price – in INTC, thrown off some beneficial tax losses and kept the same number of shares in your account. The long term capital loss over $3,000.00 can be applied to gains if you had them or carried forward for when you do have them.

Plus there’s almost $700.00 of dividends up there, so if you are using that cash for your new purchase your new shares only cost around $600.00.

I was sitting at the traffic light on Milton and S Plaza way. As I started to pull away when the light turned green I noticed the woman in the blue mini van behind me acting a bit animated. I couldn’t tell if she was talking on a cell phone or whatever. In my distraction at her animated state – and the fact that she might as well have tied her bumper to mine as close as she was – I was going under the speed limit: 30 vs. 35. No matter, I was nearing my destination and flicked the turn signal for turning right into the Starbucks (collecting coffee grounds for the fledgling compost pile). She really started to go off, flailing her head around, looking very pissed off. I noticed that she slid into the turn lane behind me and as I completed my turn into the parking lot I saw her right turn signal was on. She – it seems to me – was livid that I turned in in front of her, as if I deliberately slowed her down by the one to two seconds the 100 feet at 30 mph cost her; as if I saw her turn signal and flipped mine on, just to make her mad.

Had I thought about it, I would have walked into the Starbucks right in front of her – and paid for her coffee. That would have really pissed her off I’m sure.

I have some suggestions for the wild haired woman:

• If you are running so late that 5mph over 100 feet makes that much of a difference in your life, skip the coffee
• If you weren’t on my ass over that 100 feet, I could have seen your turn signal – and maybe just skipped Starbucks this morning (as it turns out, there were no used grounds this morning, I very well could have skipped it)
• If such a little thing makes you so angry, you don’t need caffeine to amp you up, switch to decaf
• Road rage ain’t just a video game, the next person you ride like that might not be so laid back

As an aside, driving like that isn’t good for your brakes, your insurance rates and you could have gotten a ticket for following too closely.

The worms continue to be happy. I noticed on my top bucket of one of my stacked bucket system that a few worms had made it to the top. I had been filling the bucket way too fast with kitchen waste and it was filled to the rim. There was simply no more room to add so I stopped. Now there are some people who say you can over feed your worm bins, and if they stink, they’re overfed. I was worried that mine would start to stink out in the hallway and I would have to get rid of them. I lucked out and about a month after I stopped adding anything to the top bucket there are worms near the surface – and the height has dropped about three inches. It looks like it will be worked over after all. Now it’s time to start peeking to see when the bottom bucket is ready for “harvest” of the worm castings.

We built a new framed bed on Sunday. It was a man’s day in the garden. J and I started out the morning by loading up the oversize pallets used to transport stone counter tops onto the trailer to haul out to the “country house”. Once there we made sure to ice up the Coronas and place them in the shade and opened up a couple of cold, less than top of the line cans of brew. On days like this this cold and cheap beats warm no matter the quality.

We tossed the pallets onto the ground, and I grabbed the wrecking bar to pull the 2×4 pieces apart. Since they were built to carry counter tops, they each consisted of something like seven 12′ 2×4s, eight or ten 31″ 2×4s and the cheap planks secured to the top of the upper 12′ 2×4s. The planks are not salvageable and will become fuel for the fire pit that we have only thought about. The 2×4s became a single framed bed, 48″ wide, 12′ long and 14″ deep. Assembling the frames took only a short amount of time. Tearing the pallets down, drinking beer, and eating pizza took most of our day. Of course with the sun beating down on us we were required to consume large amounts of water as well.

Once the frame was built up, we carried a bale of straw over and dumped it into the frame. I used the garden fork to break off “flakes” of straw about an inch or so thick each which we used to line the bottom of the frame to smother the weeds that the frame was placed over. A couple of days ago we got 25 gallons of sheep manure to add a layer over the top of the straw. I’m thinking that we will want another 25 – 50 gallons of sheep manure, then we’ll layer loose straw. We’ll start another one or two of these frames over the next month or so and that might be enough for now. This will give us three raised/mounded rows and three frames – all about the same size. The frames are much more uniform than the double dug beds we prepared in the spring. And we might just be able to build a hoop house over the top of two of these new frames – we’re still a little slow on deciding to do that or not.

In the meantime, we have bid on a pickup truck and pickup bed water tanks for use on “the farm”. It’s a sealed bid that closes in about a week. If we don’t get the truck or the water tanks we still can borrow the truck we’ve been borrowing and there are other water tanks for sale around. It would be nice to have our own for use whenever we want instead of having to schedule it, but beggars can’t be choosers.

I have learned that some of the things written about the transportation department in the Arizona Daily Sun boil down to jealousy. Not someone’s dating somebody that someone else wants to, but jealousy over data. I’m not sure how many databases exist within the district. I have a couple on my computer that have nothing to do with anyone else. We have a database for bus routes and field trips – each new year means a rollover of the prior year data and a new dormant database populated with the old data. We have a discipline database, again rolled over yearly. Then there is SIRS, a student information database. Excuse me databases. Because each school runs their own copy. And the administrative office has a “master” copy. And then there are the countless grade databases, and calendar databases, and lunchroom free/reduced/prepaid lunch database. And the database that handles the logins for the new web site. And the IEP database. And the new state database for student discipline.

And none of these databases talk to each other. And instead of granting access to the IEP database so the transportation department can use the data contained within to provide transportation for special needs students, the “information” is faxed – faxed to the Transportation department. The faxed pages are two or three students to a page, so they have to be cut apart and shuffled like a deck of cards. The student database is woefully outdated (the news article quotes parents who describe how their student’s address was years out of date) because, well because the parent may or may not have updated their address with the school. If the school had the right address it may not have made it into the database. And if the parent in their annual IEP meeting said, “oh, you don’t have the right address – let me give you the right one,” did that go into the main database or merely onto this sheet of paper and (maybe) into the IEP database? (which remember is jealously guarded and not what Transportation uses for determining routes) When I was in school, the yearly emergency contact card had the same wrong information that my mom had updated the year before. I know the same thing happens today.

It’s no wonder that the routes, especially special needs, suffered from missteps. There are somewhere around 400 special needs students. If just 10% of those have incorrect addresses and contact information it’s a huge mess. And if the information is so jealously guarded that transportation doesn’t have access to the correct information – and when it does it’s in the form of 1/3 sheets of paper; it’s a wonder that any kids got taken to school.

So here are my suggestions:

• Give access to those who need it. Don’t horde it. You’re not doing anyone any favors. Yes, student information has to be protected, but special needs requires no more stringent protections than my kids’ information.
• Eliminate redundant databases. How many student information databases are needed?
• Where they can’t be eliminated, allow the databases to talk to each other. Let the new state database pull the student information in that’s required to enter discipline issues. Let the student information database be updated by the IEP database when student information changes – so that the bus driver stops in front of the right house.