It's Time for 5 Stupid IT Questions

You got IT questions? I got stupid answers.  Pull up a chair, sit down, and destroy your precious little mind reading my stupid ramblings for a bit.  What else do you have to do?  Silly Earthling.

(Note:  This is going to be an ongoing series, I think.  It depends on feedback from folks like you)

Question 1 - "In VMware Workstation and VMware Player, it has an option to preallocate the virtual hard drives.  What does this do and why should I consider it?"

Answer: It carves out physical storage space (on whatever drive/disk/volume you have it pointed at) to store the disk .VMDK file before using it the first time.  Like most things in life, there's a trade-off...

On the good side, preallocating space avoids the need to incrementally allocate more space as needed.  The incremental growth usually happens while the VM guest is running, causing some delays and pauses at times.

On the bad side, preallocating space takes up designated storage space which may not be fully-used on the inside (guest VM referencing).  For example, if you specify a 60 GB disk, it will grab 60 (plus a little chump-change space for overhead) right away.  In the end, you may only end up filling 40 GB within the guest machine, leaving 20 (or thereabouts) unused but still occupied on the physical disk.

If space isn't a concern, preallocate it to squeeze a little more performance from your virtual toyland.

Question 2 - "If I want to roll out a new Group Policy ADMX template during production hours, what negative impact would that have?"

Answer: "Would" or "Could"?  The answer depends on several factors.  But starting at step 1:  deploying an ADMX template into an AD environment involves updating the SYSVOL on the first domain controller.  From there it replicates (because domain controllers like to replicate, as nasty as that sounds).

The factors that come into play after step 1 are like a Rubik's cube.  Site link configurations, replication schedules, the size of the ADMX files, the WAN links, the network configuration, the KCC mess in the background, the amount of drugs your engineers consume, the prevailing winds, the high tide, the... whatever.  Hopefully you get the idea.  I would recommend that (after you've tested them in a separate environment of course) that you deploy them during off-peak hours.  If that isn't possible, blame it on the last person to have quit.

Question 3 - "Will shifting my SCCM environment over to a user-demand, Application Catalog scheme fix all my problems with overseeing software deployments?"

Answer:  It depends.  In general, the answer is "no", it won't fix "all" of those "problems".  Can it lessen your workload?  At best: usually.  At worst:  it will replace one set of problems with another.

Will it eliminate some problems on the whole?  Sometimes.

It depends on how diverse your applications are and how diverse the target platforms are in your SCCM site.  If you support 4,000 products, but they are well-defined in terms of assigning one product+version for each business role, then you will be better off.  If you have a lot of alternatives for the same role/purpose, start drinking and get your Liver in good shape.

The surprise "gotchas" I've seen, or heard about, with handing over the role of installing applications to end users via a catalog shopping-cart concept, have been basically from two general areas.  Each of which breaks down into two more areas:

1. Setting up the catalog
2. Cleaning up messes

The first area (setting up the catalog), involves not only building the catalog, but assigning roles and permissions, but that's the easy part.  Then comes the spaghetti-like enigma of validating product licensing and usage terms, as well as planning out the potential conflicts.  Those are the nasty things like "Product A and Product B cannot exist on the same client or they break things." or "Product A only works with .NET 4.0 while Product B only works with .NET 4.5" and so on.

The second area (cleaning up messes) involves hand-holding users that mistakenly install things and run into problems with them.  Even if you teach them how to remove those mistakes, there are going to be the breaks that require rolling up your sleeves and taking time away from other work.

The secondary issues are delegation reliability, and platform resiliency.  Big words.  I like big words.

The former (delegation) involves how well your delegated staff hold up with handling rights and assignments, as well as tech support issues that arise.  The latter (resiliency) involves how mature your environment is with regards to platform standards and methods for repairing breaks in the assembly line.  How many versions of Windows you support, how many device types, models, vendors, component versions (JRE, .NET).  Good stuff for beer talk.

Question 4 - "Is it more important to have a college degree or a certification when entering the IT field?"

Answer:  My kids' friends and their friends hit me with this question a lot.  Usually after some introductory phrase like "Excuse me, old man?  Can I axe yuze a question about getting a computer job?".

From an entry perspective (first-time job seeker), it depends on what kind of IT job you're aiming for.  If you're looking for a fairly low to intermediate job, such as anything from Tier1/desktop support, to even Systems Admin or Systems Engineer, it helps to have a degree, but it really helps to have a lot of (current/recent/relevant) certifications.

Many entry level IT jobs only require A+, Network+ and Security+ certifications, unless you start getting into VMware or Cisco type stuff (and so on).  Even then, having a Microsoft MCSA/MCSE will help a lot.

If the job your aiming for is "senior research scientist" or "database architect", well, start filling out those college enrollment applications.  It won't hurt to have your CCNA or MCSE/MCwhatever, but most high-level, expert type fields within IT expect more educational background.  And don't forget those Analysts and Project Managers, who may need a mix of schooling and certs like PMP, ITIL, etc.  Just poke around the job postings online and you'll see what I mean. (Not that I've been looking of course, cough-cough.  That's just what I've been told).

Question 5 - "What is the toughest part of getting technology to work well?"

Answer:   People.  It's just human nature to try to pound nails using a wrench.

(Thank you for reading!  Stay tuned for more IT stupidity coming soon...)

AU Virtual 2011 - Network License Manager Course

If you haven't done so already, you should definitely check out Jimmy Bergmark's course on "Autodesk Network License Manager".  It covers a vast amount of information about setting up, configuring, managing and troubleshooting the FlexLM environment and your Autodesk products.  Good stuff!  Highly recommended.

Children's Guide to Politics and Elections

Listen up children, this is important stuff.  More important than Angry Birds. Yes, I know that's impossible to comprehend, and that "comprehend" is a big word, but it's really really really reeeeeeeeeaaaaally important.  So listen up.  Yes, I know I already said that.  But listen up anyway...

Election


An election is when people choose who the next president will be.  Or the next senator, congressman, mayor, councilman, police chief, superintendent, or hall monitor.  It makes us feel important and gives us a feeling of making a difference.  This is why they say "every vote counts". That's because every vote counts, just not counts towards winning.  Some votes count just to be counted but they don't count for anything.  You can count on that.  If every vote really counts, then whoever is in office is who everyone wanted, so that means every vote counted.  When you stand in line to choose, they call that "casting a vote".

Voting

Voting is when your mom, dad, grandmother, grandfather, aunt, uncle, sister or brother, neighbor, teacher and the creepy old guy that takes pictures of you at the park, run over to your school and stand in line to pull a lever or punch a button to say who they want to be our next president, senator, congressman, mayor, or city council person.  The only vote that really counts is the one for everyone else *except* for the president.  You see, the president is chosen by a special group of people in a secret club called the "Electoral College".  They look at your mom and dad's votes and then decide how they want to vote.  Only sometimes they decide to vote however they want.  Kind of like when your big brother or big sister takes your bowl of ice cream and says they'll beat you up if you tell mom or dad.

Two Party System

There are two political parties, or clubs, that run for every election.  One is called the Democrats.  The other is called the Republicans.  Neither one of them do anything except spend tons and tons and tons of money on annoying TV commercials calling the other side liars and crooks.  Their job is to keep everyone busy believing that they're really going to change things, but they never do.  If they ever really changed things, we wouldn't need them anymore, so they keep saying they will as long as you keep voting for them.  When they don't change anything, they just blame the other side for cheating and messing things up.

The only real difference between these two parties is that one believes everything is broken and everything needs to be fixed with lots and lots of money.  The other thinks nothing is broken and nothing ever needs to be fixed and that things will just fix themselves.  You are probably part of what was once called the "middle class", which is the special group of people that neither of these parties care about, so you have nothing to worry about.

Special Interest Groups

This is a special name they give special people who carry around special suitcases filled with special cash.  Some people call them corporate sponsors.  Some call them defense contractors.  Some call them late for Tee time at the golf course.  But whatever they're called, these are the people who really make the decisions.  You see, when Mr. or Ms. Senator is in their office and their secretary rings their phone and says they have a visitor, they look at the list and see someone like your mom or dad, and they tell the secretary to tell them they're extremely busy balancing the budget.  They're really practicing their golf putt in the office while wearing nothing but a shirt and tie and underwear.  When the secretary says it's Lockheed Martin, or Walmart, they drop the putter and pull up their pants and race real fast to get the office in clean shape to meet with these important people and their important bags of cash.

You see, without those special bags of special cash, they can't afford to buy those interesting and informative TV commercials that you can't wait to watch every day and night.  They need those to help re-program your brain to believe their enemy (the other party guy) is a liar and a thief.

Hard Work

Being a politician is hard work.  Much harder than brain surgery, being an airline pilot, or digging ditches.  It's really tough.  How tough?  First off, they have to sit at a desk for an hour every day.  Then they have to get up, and go to meetings and conferences and give speeches about how hard they're working.  Then they have to film more TV commercials and it requires a lot of talking to tell you that his opponent is a liar and a thief and how he's changing things, but he needs your vote to keep changing things.  Then they have to muster the courage to go out and play golf with those special interest people with their special golf carts filled with special bags of special money.  Afterwards they go to more cocktail parties, which sound fun, but they're not!  They have to "mingle" and "schmooze" with other special people so they can talk them into giving him some of their special money.

They do this ridiculously hard stuff for weeks and weeks and then they are forced to go on what's called a sabbatical.  It's horrible.  They have to take off half of the year and do nothing at all except get paid.  It's unbelievably painful and many of them can't handle the stress.  When they can't handle the hard work anymore, they tap out (like you see on TV when your dad watches UFC) and they accept an offer to go work for one of those special interest companies and are forced to get more of that special money.  Most of the time though, they do their absolute best to help America and Americans by passing special laws to help those special interest people before they quit and take one of those special jobs at the special interest companies.  This is called "serving the people".

Conclusion

Well, I hope you learned a lot about our political system.  After all, it is the BEST political system in the entire world!  Many people say that it's the best one that money can buy, and they aren't kidding.  So be sure to get out and vote so you can help these special people keep changing things by helping those special money people.  After all, this is America and every vote counts.

Microsoft Tech-Ed 2011: Memorable Moments

• The Braves-vs-Phillies game on Sunday at Turner Field
• Dinner with my nephew and his family in Alpharetta on Sunday night.
• The "Desktop Deployment Game Show" session on the last day, with Michael, Johan, Jony and Tony and some others - was hilarious.  Absolutely entertaining and educational as well.  The questions presented via the Jeopardy-style game board were obviously aimed at inside knowledge, since nobody in the audience even tried to answer when the panelists couldn't figure them out.
• Wednesday night.  Sitting in Peachtree Station mall at closing time, aside from the floor cleaner guy, it was empty.  Myself, Mike and Todd were getting a bite to eat from one of the two shops still open, then sat down to chow and along comes Wally Mead who pulls up a chair and works on his Subway sub while we talked for about an hour and a half.  For non-geeks, this is probably meaningless.  For anyone who works with System Center Config Manager (or SMS), it's indeed a rare event.  Wally is a really cool guy.  Laid back and great to chat with.  I learned so much in that short time.  Even about dogs, kids, houses, places to live and places to travel to, not to mention his knowledge from being at Microsoft for 17 years.
• The two sessions on memory management with Mark Russinovich
• The "Solving Unknown Mysteries of…" session with Mark Russinovich
• Getting a book signed by Mark and a brief chat.
• The final session of the conference with Mark Minasi on DNS was funny and very informative.  He's a great speaker.
• Breakfast in Building C open Hall.
• Lunch at Building C open Hall.
• The Expo floor and the open bars and food buffet every night
• The SpecOps team party on Wednesday night at Max Lager's.

Basic Math is Dead

It amazes how many people pull a "decision" from their ass without taking a few seconds to do the math.  Here's a simple case in point:

A former co-worker was lambasting the Keurig K-cup coffee/tea brewing machine as being a waste of money.  Now, excluding individual/personal vices and virtues, I'm not going to pick on him for smoking cigarettes, drinking beer, or buying camoflage clothing (when he rarely goes into the "woods"), but regardless, he insisted that the Keurig machine was indefinitely more expensive and could not "pay for itself" by comparison to walking over to the nearby 7-11 for an 8oz cup.

Here's the math:

• Price of Keurig machine at Sam's Club: $110
• Price per box of 80 count k-cups at Sam's Club: $30
• Price per k-cup: $0.38
• Cups per day: 2
• Price per 8oz cup at 7-11: $1.00
• Savings per day with k-cups: $1.25
• Savings per 80 weeks: $112.50

So, after 80 weeks, the savings from lower supply costs will have paid for the machine itself.  Of course, this is skewed logic, but it still illustrates that nobody in the room had any idea if the k-cups were even cheaper until one person whipped out a notepad and pen and did the math on the $30 80-count box.  Frustrated with the number, the co-worker then turned to the coffee pot and said "well, that's only 50 cents per cup!" 

What's Wrong with Public Education?

This was an e-mail response to one of my brothers recently regarding what is generally thought to be the "problem" with public education and why America is continuing to fall behind the rest of the "developed" world with regards to test scores and aptitude testing.  I would appreciate any thoughts or comments on this.

Well... Having put four kids through public schools in two cities, and working for a city government as well, I have some experience in the challenges of this issue. Parents blame schools. Teachers blame parents. Both of these groups are frustrated by constraints put in place to mitigate legal risk. The rules today are not like those we encountered growing up. Not at all. If you think I'm kidding, just wait until your kid gets bullied in middle school and go meet with the "officials".

The public doesn't want more taxes, let alone alone status quo taxation, yet operating costs continue to rise, so schools cut programs and teach the bare minimum to avoid audit problems from the state and federal agencies. Do less with less. The budget forecast briefing I sat through today was sobering. I may delve into that later.

Government folks distrust school boards, mainly over political differences. Govt folks often have their kids in private schools. No dog in the fight so no concern to affect its outcome. Big business sees no value in public education because of the political, legal, demographic, racial sensitivity issues, and why would they? They're busy leveraging cheaper labor in foreign lands. A higher educated workforce requires higher pay and that's bad. Add to that an exponential increase in process automation and you have inverse diminishing returns with nobody in power giving a shit about tossing any life rings at their expense.

Kids are giving up. Parents are giving up. Schools are struggling. Politicians provide lip service. The media plays all sides to pump up outrage and revenue.

As always, I'm probably going to have this diatribe picked apart under the auspices of inferior educational absorption and substandard intellect. In any case, in my humble simpleton view: the situation as it is, and as it is evolving, is unfixable. Not because we don't possess the means or the desire to "fix" it. But rather, because no two groups (political, racial, demographic, etc.) can agree on what "fix" means. So we just let it slowly unravel. In our rush to appease every single identifiable group we have positioned the system into a standstill. To fix that you would have to reverse a lot of cultural expectations and perceptions built over the past 50 years.

How To: Eat Sushi (Properly)

I am the only person I know that doesn't like Sushi, but this is for all my friends that love the stuff….

The Virginia Beach Election Erection Eradication

Yes, I said it.  That’s what it means, and I mean what I said.  Our choices on the ballot this year are a “boner killer”.  A cargo ship laden with Viagra pulling a barge filled with bottles of the best wine, poured by a naked and oiled-up Jenna Jameson can’t overcome this level of crap.  Ok, maybe Jenna alone can, but only if she ran on our ballot.

If you don’t live here, that’s fine.  But if you do live here, and you may chuckle (or just shake your head in disbelief) at the sexual innuendo, but the choices this year are desperately lame.  LAME.  L-A-M-E.

Let’s break down the choices:

Platform…	Glenn Nye (D)	Scott Rigell (R)	Kenny Golden (I)
Jobs Stimulation	Beg the Navy to keep JFCOM alive and keep carriers in Norfolk	Same	Same
Address Transportation Congestion	N/A	N/A	N/A
Basic Platform Message	“Keep jobs by keeping the Navy happy”	“Keep jobs by keeping the Navy happy”	“uhh… what those two guys just said.”
Education Spending	Blah blah	Blah blah	Blah blah
Alternative Energy Investment	Blah blah	Blah blah	Blah blah
Qualifying Experience	Ran around with the Marines	Owned a car dealership	Once had hair
Most Significant Accomplishment in the Past Year	A spiffy new web site	A spiffy new web site	A complete piece of fucking shit web site (but a nice new suit)
Personal Distinctions	Young and Nerdy	Old and Nerdy	Wears Hats
Would I trust to Babysit one of my daughters	No	No	“uh, whatever those guys said.”

As a consequence: I have made a FIRM DECISION (unlike any of these pukes) to skip their vote and vote only on the remainder of choices: Virginia State Constitutional Ammendments, City Council Representatives, and School Board.

As for how I’m voting on the other folks: none of your business.  That’s why they have curtains on voting booths.  Right?  Am I right?

Ok, I’ll clue you in: Our region has some of the worst transportation problems I’ve ever seen in the U.S.  Whoever convinces me they are interested in fixing that (and by they, investing in fixing it, thereby investing in jobs, materials, and helping us in the long term by leaving our children in a better situation…) will get my vote.

Peace.

A Worthwhile Idea?

I had an idea that I need to vett in public to know if it’s worth pursuing.

Challenge:

The Hampton Roads area of Virginia has been neglected by technology vendors for years.  Few ever bother to show up and demonstrate their products, provide presentations or collaborative sessions.  Folks here that want that sort of thing have to drive to Washington, D.C. usually, if lucky maybe Richmond.  Most employers can’t afford to send their tech staff to conferences in NY, Chicago, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Orlando, etc.  So we’re left to view web sites, videos, and maybe books.  Sharing ideas is a matter of personal connections, blogs, web forums, and that’s about it.  This is the Siberia of technology-related community.

Proposal:

Gather technology folks from various idioms to present topics at one place, maybe once per year, at some place like the VB Convention Center and charge local visitors nothing more than cans of food for the local Food Bank.  Topics could range from “how-to” sessions on popular products like Photoshop, iMovie, Visual Studio, to operating systems and enterprise topics like Windows Server, MDT deployments, System Center products, SQL Server, Sharepoint, scripting and so on.

Get folks together to share ideas, learn, grow.  Maybe give vendors something to show up for and pitch in as well.  And all of it for a good cause.

So far I haven’t had much luck getting any interest.  If you, or someone you know, lives near the area**, let me know if you think this is a good idea.  Whether you’d be interested from the aspect of being a presenter, or an attendee.  I’d like to know if this is a feasible idea.

(Hampton Roads is a colloquial name that refers to the southeastern corner of Virginia and includes the cities of Hampton, Newport News, Yorktown, Williamsburg, Norfolk, Chesapeake, Portsmouth, Suffolk and Virginia Beach)

Edukashun

I’ve been thinking about what “education” means today.  To me, anyway. In most instances, I, like probably most people, take it to describe “school” or “schooling” of some form.  Someone imparting information in a one-to-many dispersal paradigm.  But we all know that education occurs all the time, from all sources, not just in a classroom or within a formal instruction medium.  To “impart” is one thing.  To “receive” is another.  A form of “imparting” is broadcasting, which is technically what a classroom or online lecture is.

The difference between broadcasting and education is the reception part.  Information that it is transmitted is only useful if it is received and processed.  Otherwise we call it noise.  Noise is simply a term for the information or data which we have no use for and turn off our receptivity and processing for it.  Noise as in static on the radio or TV.  But also noise as in music or commercials or voices we don’t like.  It’s also the subjects and topics we are not interested in (or just outright loath). We hear the music, but we don’t like it, so we tune it out by becoming distracted with other things (when possible).

But one common misperception about education I see repeated constantly is that it’s a future tense.  Information is bestowed upon us.  We are requested to perform analysis upon it, usually through exercises designed to demonstrate our understanding and ability to put it to measured use.  Then we take a test to prove we retained that analytical and cognitive understanding, and we move on to the next subject.  We often refer to the approach of the “next subject” as education.  Being educated.  But this is only half of it.

Once you’ve absorbed a baseline, done the proofs, and left it behind, is that really “learning”?  Learning is supposed to be a dynamic, evolutionary process.  Not just going forward, but generative refinement as well.  Right?  So shouldn’t that mean we should revisit what we’ve learned and apply our newer arsenal of absorbed intellect to the information we stored previously?

As developers, do we not revise our work over time?  Do we not learn new techniques for our chosen languages and platforms?  Do we not learn newer versions of our tools?  Do we not apply that to improve our work and produce revision-incremented products?

So ask yourself these questions:

• When was the last time you evaluated an algebraic expression by hand?
• When was the last time you looked at a sentence and identified the nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs and conjugations?
• When was the last time you gave thought to F=MA when looking at the scene of an accident (rather than just the carnage)?
• When was the last time you re-read a book you last read years ago?  Not just your favorite book, but a standard classic that you were asked to read in school?

I don’t know about you, but my current situation is such that I still owe an enormous sum towards paying back my student loans.  I managed to graduate with a BS in Information Systems though, which was the good part.  But due to a series of career setbacks, family issues, and a few general misfortunes, I will never be able to repay them before I kick the bucket (statistically that’s 75, the last time I checked, but then again, most of my ancestors barely reached 70, with few exceptions).  That said, in all practicality, I will not be able to attend a school of higher education again, unless one of the following occurs:

• Win the lottery
• Receive an unexpected inheritance
• Trip over a bag filled with cash
• Bump into someone insanely generous enough to cover it for me

I’m not holding my breath for any of those at this point.  So, I’ve decided to educate myself in a little more structured and methodical approach than I had been considering.  Each week, I’m going to pick a subject that I’ve been educated on in the past, and revisit it to review what I’ve learned and try to apply my current abilities to help me better understand it holistically.  No, I’m not planning on doing a page of Multivariable Calculus problems, but I do want to review Limits, Integration, and Axioms and so forth at the very least. 

Most of us know these terms and can provide a Cliff Notes explanation to our kids.  But how many times have your kids come to you about something and you’re just dumbfounded?  Usually over some very specific aspect, rather than the topic as a whole.  Sure, you can rattle off an overview of Algebra all day, but do you really remember the Quadratic Formula?  Can you demonstrate what it was used for (in tangible terms, not just theoretical terms)?  If you can: I hate you.  Just kidding.

Even within programming terms, things like refactoring, sorting algorithms, rationalized heuristics, and self-healing theory.  Big words, sure.  But not really complicated to describe in a short sentence.  I just want to wring at least that much from my spongy brain.  Re-dunking my tea bags to get more from them.

So, as of today, I’m going to be pushing myself harder to learn again.  It’s not going to be easy for me, since I’m a person that prefers a classroom with limited distraction, and my home is one giant distraction most of the time.  I will put on the headphones and do my best.  Some of the tools I plan to use are textbooks, online resources like MIT Open Courseware, and so on.  This week: Linguisitics and Philosophy (good stuff!).  I can’t wait to get started.

And at the very end of my endeavors, I hope to be able to find the answer to what I consider to be the most important question of all physical existence: Why do we have two nostrils instead of one?

Stop Saying "America is Number 1"! It's Killing Us!

I'm so sick of everyone walking around saying "America is Number One!" "We're number 1" "this is the BEST country on Earth".  Not that I don't love it.  I do.  I love this country.

BUT.

When all our kids hear is that they're the best; they're number one, it means they don't need to try harder.  They don't need to do better.  They're already at the top.

We're not.

By any measure America has fallen behind other countries in education, health care, safety and security, shit, even Internet service.  We are only number one in all the wrong places like obesity, Diabetes, Crime and deaths from car accidents.  You are statistically more likely to contract a deadly infection in a U.S. hospital than to die from a highway car accident.  That's a solid, indisputable fact.  Look it up yourself.

In our grandparents youth, they did NOT go around saying that America was number one.  I've spoken to more elderly folks than I will ever be able to count.  They all say the same thing: They were always told they were not the best and to try harder.  They were told to work hard, study hard, innovate, in order to make America better.  The best.  That's how they accomplished so many incredible things like the space program, Hoover Dam, the interstate highway systems, sky scrapers, aircraft, ships, trains and submarines.  They didn't get motivated to think up those things by patting themselves on the back and saying "We're already the best.  Why try harder?"  That's just stupid.

So stop.  Think about what we are telling our kids.  Tell them we are NOT number 1.  We need to try harder to get back to the top.  And even when we do get back there, don't rest on that.  Keep trying.

I was Finally Reimbursed for my College Tuition

It's taken almost exactly ten (10) years to happen, but my former employer finally mailed me a check to cover the tuition and book costs they negelected to pay in full when I went to college from 1996 to 1999.  Based on my approximations, with an average tuition of $1,100.00 per semester (full time with labs), and $300-$400 in books, and using the grade scale they used back then where an A earned 100%, B earned 90% and C earned 80%, I averaged an A- (or GPA 3.46), and having skipped one Summer (1998), that would come to somewhere around 7 full semesters and 2 half-time Summer semesters (at roughly $600 each).  That would equate roughly to (7 x ($1,100+300)) + (2 x ($600 + $150)) or around $11,300 for the whole joy ride.  In actuality, they paid me roughly $600 to $800 per full semester, citing a justification that most of my CS/IS degree "required" courses weren't related to my job in IT.

Here's my check…

Ok, so it's not really for tuition reimbursement.  It is actually not related to anything prior to 2008 at all.  It's just the balance of adjusted withholdings for insurance benefits from my final paycheck when I left the company this past July.  Oh well.  I'm going to pretend it's tuitition reimbursement.

Dear Mr. Prez-o-dent

Politically speaking, because I once read something with the word "politics" in it years ago, it seems like a very bad idea for a president to endorse a Mosque at ground zero for two reasons: it only helps polarize and anger an already divided constituency, and it doesn't help already-strained relations with Israel, one of our only real allies in the Middle East.  At best, I would think he should have stayed clear of the whole issue.  


But regardless, I say again: Is this the most important issue we have to face right now?  I mean, is the economy all patched up and looking good?  Are we safe from terrorism yet?  Are we driving electric cars and trucks yet and giving the middle finger to OPEC?  Are our kids graduating from school at pace or ahead of other countries?


All of this stupid concern over gay marriage, health care and bank bail-outs seems to give the message that all of the other issues are done.  There's nothing else more important, or even AS important to address?  Really?!


Don't get me wrong. I'm sure gay marriage and health care are important to a lot of people.  But when there's not enough jobs to keep us moving forward it seems like we're worrying about a split toenail when we have a gaping wound and losing blood.  Let's fix the BIG issues FIRST, and THEN move on to the lesser issues.  It seems we are letting the news media dictate what WE feel is top priority, rather than assessing the issues OURSELVES and making this determination.  Our priorities are upside down.

Objective Objectification of Objects

Why is it that nobody seems to be able to describe or explain "Object Oriented Programming" worth a shit?  I'm serious.

During seven years of college (ok, 2 years for my AAS, and 5 for my BS, I can add, and my loans sure add up, but nevermind) all of the courses and textbooks and lectures tried to clear this up, over and over again.  None of them hit the nail on the head.  None.  Nothing I've read since then either has done much to really clear this up or serve as the official definition for all levels of understanding and background.

Here's where they fail:  They attempt to describe the concept to what they think is a target audience of programmers. A very bad choice.

I get it, as do most programmers, but then again: we're programmers.  If you can't state the definition to someone who has NEVER programmed, what OOP means in ONE sentence, and they nod in complete and total understanding, then this is still unfinished business.

Anytime you want to explain something "clearly", think of your target audience as a room full of senior citizens who just consumed their daily dose of sedatives and laxatives and are lounging around the TV room waiting for their worthless kids to never visit (unless they need to discuss legal or financial matters, of course).  These are the people you need to inform and impress.  Pay attention, this will show up again in your life.  Imagine the following conversation in a room of these people. One of them asks "what is 'object oriented programming' Jimmy?" (you're Jimmy of course)...

You respond: "Well George, it's where you define things in 'classes' and then 'instantiate'..."  BANG!  conversation is over.  They already drifted off.  Either towards the Wheel of Fortunate chatter on TV across the room, or just went comatose on you.  You can snap your fingers, poke or pat their arm, or even straddle their wheelchair and grab their head with both hands and shake them like a paint can machine.  It's not going to help.  See that picture above?  That's your audience.  Start practicing.

This article on "Object-Oriented PHP for Beginners" written by Jason Lengstorf, on NetTuts (link: http://net.tutsplus.com/tutorials/php/object-oriented-php-for-beginners/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+nettuts+%28NETTUTS%29&utm_content=FaceBook) is very good, but it also joins the long list of nails whose heads have been left unscathed by the hammer of clarity.  (Damn! That was a clever line.  Hold on... I have to basque in the glory of having thought of something cool like this....I should copyright it.  Ok, I'm back.)
Near the beginning of this article, the author provides a quote box with the following OOP definition: "Object-oriented programming is a style of coding that allows developers to group similar tasks into classes."

This is 2010.  Holy shit!  WTF is that?!  If a "programmer" doesn't know the definition, or at least a rough idea, of what OOP is, they are also likely new to programming in general.  If you're talking to a noob, that statement doesn't cut it.  This is exactly what I'm talking about.  I am not picking on Jason here, he really is not to blame, and his article is very good indeed.  The institutions of programming and training are to blame.  Authors and instructors are to blame.

Programmers have an extremely tough time correlating tangible concepts to intangible concepts.  At least those that are classically trained.  Those that are self-taught often possess a good grasp of the conceptual relationships, but struggle to verbalize it to novices.  It's one of those "I can drive there, but don't ask me for directions" kind of things.  Let's face it, a lot of cooks can make awesome dishes but are incapable to sharing the details on how they're made.  "A little of this" and "a little of that" don't really mean much to someone new to cooking.  We need "a quarter teaspoon of this" and "2 cups of that".

So, you ask, "Why don't YOU attempt to correct this, Mr. Know-it-all?  Hmmmm!?"
I didn't say I have the answers.  I just said that none of the other answers are worth a crap.

I did however attempt to employ my 11 year old son as a test subject (he calls it being a victim, but whatever).  He was poking around learning Javascript because his friends told him it was the key to hacking his favorite online games.  So he got a book at the library and started tinkering.  I have no idea where this came from, but I was impressed of course.  He got to the chapter on "OOP" and ran into the expected confusing blob of words that makes no sense to anyone except seasoned programmers.

I'll spare you the details, but essentially I used the common 'People' class example, with one of his friends 'Mark' as the object instance of the 'People' class.  That was so-so.  Then I used the 'vehicle' class example, with 'automobile' sub-class, 'chevy' sub-class, and my truck as the object (with a specific VIN to identify it from other trucks).  He quickly reminded me that I sold the truck a year ago, so I had to back up and use the Subaru example.

He got the idea but it was almost as awkward and painful to get through as describing the birds and bees to him.  Come to think of it, birds and bees could be an example for OOP, but only when they hit their teens.  I'm sure he'd quickly raise his hand and ask how birds and bees are related at all, which is a good point.  Someone should have used "bees and flowers" instead.  Oh well.
The point here is that OOP is tough to explain, clearly, in purely intangible terms.  It always leads to using tangible metaphors and analogies, and then trying to stitch that together with a painfully clumsy jump to the intangible side, and that's like watching Gilbert Gottfried running a 100 meter hurdle race.

Like I said: I don't have a good answer.  I'm just begging someone with literary skills, a decent grasp of OOP and an ability to think tangibly and intangibly, to take a better stab at this than I (or anyone else thus far) has been able to accomplish. Please.  For the good of all nerdkind.

Aligning the Facts with the Fax

I hate shitting on anyone’s dream. I really do, but sometimes I just have to say it and be done with it.  I had a friend years ago named Pat, who was insane about electronics and building insane projects in his living room from scratch.  Amazing stuff.  He would spend days, even weeks, building LASERS, Tesla Coils, you name it.  Once he asked me to check out his new “green LASER” project he had spent a week building.  It wasn’t done, but he was close.  When I saw it, I asked him “so, uh, what are you going to do with it?”  It was total silence for a full minute.  Try that.  Sit silent for one full minute.  Awkward, huh?  Yep.  Then he calmly said “f*** it.” and he never finished it.  I felt bad about that for a long time.  I poured water on the fire of his imagination.  Oh well.  Now I look back and the water has become beer.

So, a friend of mine was all pumped about volunteering for some campaign thing and going around irritating, oops, I mean “getting the word out” about his candidate.  When he tried to test his selling abilities on me, he learned it was a huge mistake.  Not only do I hate sales pitches, ANY sales pitches, I hate politics even worse.

Mind you, I don’t disrespect “democracy” and the ideals of “freedom”.  It’s just that we really, technically, legally, do not have either in this country.  What we have is “relative” democracy and freedom.  (sidenote: I handily won an ad hoc classroom debate back in college about this very subject, a-hem…).

Let’s digress upon the facts, shall we?  Let’s…

1. American citizens do not directly vote anyone into the Executive office.  We perform the function of “public voting”, which is used to guide and inform the Electoral College as to how to cast THEIR vote, which is the ONLY vote that counts.
2. Four times in American history, the Electoral College has cast their vote in contradiction to the public vote.  Each time it was said to be due to them knowing better what we wanted than we really wanted.
3. No presidential election in American history has been decided by less than 100 votes.
4. I have yet to find evidence of a single politician in history executing their promises faithfully once in office.  Some of the promise, sure.  All of them? Never.  Not even once.
5. Elections are almost always won as a result of influence exherted upon the public by way of mass media bombardment.  Mass media costs money.  Money comes from PAC contributions.  Most PAC contributions come from lobbyists’ clientelle.  Most clientelle are big businesses and powerful “special interest” groups.  Most citizens are none of these.  If YOU were the politician, who would you listen to?

George Carlin made an interesting and excellent point that by NOT voting, you earned yourself the right to complain about the sucky world of politics.  By casting a vote, you become part of the reason the system remains sucky, and therefore have no right to complain.  It’s a weird twisted logic, that I actually like.  So, after almost 30 years of voting, I think I’m done.  And, statistically speaking, it won’t matter anyway because no election has ever been decided on a single public vote.  Ever.

This time, however, I didn’t try to talk this guy out of voting or even his desire to “make a difference”, whatever that means.  I just helped him to realize he wasn’t ever going to change my mind without a gun pointed at my face.  This same logic works on Mormons and Jehovah’s Witness guys by the way.  Great entertainment on an otherwise boring weekend.

I know that voters out there will do a fine job of making sure our system remains as it always has remained.  Just take a look at Portsmouth, VA mayor James Holley.  I rest my case.  Good luck, and God bless!

Certification Regurgitation

This is the MS certification track I followed and completed…

MCSA (4 exams) – July 2008

• 70-270 - Windows XP
• 70-290 - Windows Server 2003 (manage & maintain)
• 70-620 - Windows Vista
• 70-291 - Windows Server 2003 (network infrastructure, dns, dhcp, rras)

MCITP – Server Administrator (3 exams) – October 2009

• 70-640 - Windows Server 2008 (configuring AD)
• 70-642 - Windows Server 2008 (network infrastructure)
• 70-646 - Pro: Admin Windows Server 2008

MCITP – Enterprise Administrator (2 exams) – February 2010

• 70-643 - Windows Server 2008 (app infra: wsus, iis, sharepoint, etc.)
• 70-647 - Pro: Enterprise Admin (review test)

Normally the EA set consists of 3 exams, but the third exam is a toss-up of 620 or 680.  Since I had passed 620 already I didn’t need it.

For me, the toughest exams were 291 and 642.  However, 647 was the trickiest.  I failed it the first try by one question.  However, I did try to make it through while going head-first into a bad stomach Flu, so I tried to hurry up half-way through.  I passed it the second time about two weeks later, after studying every spare minute I had.  The trickiest part of 647 is reading the questions.  The wording throws you off.

Why I Feel Politics is For Kool-Aid Drinking Idiots

We try to draw physical boundaries (states, counties) around illogical regions (blue-tards vs red-tards).  Which has always added confusion to our landscape in America as far as how we expect people to vote.  Every state has varying degrees of left-vs-right depending on which geographic area you happen to be in.

But I don't buy into the notion that one side of the tired left-vs-right debate has inherently "better" followers than the other.  The red-tards are knuckle-dragging, tobacco-chewing neanderthals for the most part, but the blue-tards tend to be smug, obnoxiously close-minded and prima-donna-ish while espousing having a more "open mind" yet any counter-opinion is immediately and venomously attacked as being red.  If you’re not blue, then the blue-tards call you red.  If you’re not red, the red-tards call you blue.  There is no tolerance for purple or green, not from either side.  I see it is another cycle in the long rolling history of America's polarization, which follows economic cycles.  

When things are bad, the red-tards come out swinging with anti-immigration and conservative rhetoric, church this, school that, and the usual book-burning diatribe of isolationist idealism.  But the blue-tards come out with the kool-aid and insist everyone drink it and all will be fine.  Gay tolerance for everyone, no bounds on topics for books tv radio for anyone, regardless of age or (gulp!) religious leanings, no more torturing peoples that want to destroy us, pass all kids through school regardless of their ability to add numbers or read a sentence and so on.  One side is no free lunch, not even if you’re starving to death.  The other insists on free lunches for all, even those who have a full refrigerator.

I ask this question to everyone that jumps into political discussion after each election: what has really changed from this?  Tell me.  What specific improvements have you seen that directly impact your life?  Every time it’s the same response:  A lot of hemming and hawing.  Let me translate that answer for you: NOTHING.

Looking over the elections of the past 30 odd years that I’ve been involved or familiar with, I can summarize the impacts of each election:

• It impacts the lives of people in oppressed lands around the world
• It impacts the lives of people in disaster-stricken areas
• It impacts the world markets
• It impacts the banks and financial systems
• It impacts defense spending
• It does nothing for Americans

I’d like to see improvements to public education, health care, the environment, transportation, personal taxation, energy resources, national security, space exploration, undersea exploration, and the general well-being of mankind around the planet. 

But we will never see that. 

Why?  Because no two humans agree on what those improvements should be.  Some actually think those individual topics are fine as they are or should actually be eliminated.   Politicians simply play to the statistical base of their demographics.  They have to, or they don’t have a paycheck to count on.  They will eternally tell us what they think we want to hear.  Why wouldn’t they?  That’s why you will never hear a politician directly admit that we’re in the midst of a religious war around the globe.  That would be political suicide.

So ask yourself how the following issues have been improved as a DIRECT result of any given election:

• Conflict in the Middle East (as bad as ever)
• Public Education (as bad as ever, maybe worse)
• Public Health (worse than ever, even statistical mortality)
• Environment
• Taxation (ha!)
• Transportation (in isolated areas it has improved.  overall it’s worse)
• Terrorism (oooooh.  Not better, sorry)
• Economy (nope.  it heals itself.  everyone else just takes credit)
• Unemployment (same)
• Immigration (same)
• Gay marriage (hey, didn’t they promise this too?)
• Drug Enforcement and Drug Crimes (no difference at all, ever)

I have voted for blue as often as red.  Not because I’m keeping a quota, but because:

• There are usually only those two choices
• I vote by individual clarity of agenda (i.e. do they have a lucid plan?)

And when neither side has an idiot-liar, oops, I meant “candidate”, I feel is worth voting for?  I skip.  It hasn’t hurt anyone, so relax.

Wearing a badge does not make a person automatically viable, smart or worthy of my vote.  That's my biggest gripe.  I'm just fucking tired of people telling me I have to drink the kool aid.  I stopped drinking that crap years ago.  I don’t give a shit about NASCAR or gay marriage.  So the next time you feel like trying to aim your bullhorn in my direction, just please STFU.

This is Why Lawyers Have a Bad Reputation

Seriously? Read the “Warning” information in the image at left.  This is a tube of Carmex lip balm.  It says “External Use Only”?  “Avoid contact with eyes”?  I suppose if you have Cerebral Palsy or a bad case of Tourette’s or just a regular case of too many bottles of 5-hour Energy Drink, then you might spaz out and poke it into your eye or up your ass or something.  Wow.

Go ahead and laugh, but I predict that soon we’ll be seeing warning labels on everything from doors, to tennis shoes to baseball caps.  I mean, my can of WD-40 says “point nozzle away from face”.  Deoderant says to “avoid use near open flame”.  Here’s a sample of how fucking stupid we’ve become:

Doors: “Warning: Injury may result from failure to open with caution or without moving out of the path of the opening door.  Keep fingers and other body parts away from door closure and jamb.  Failure to do so may result in injury or amputation.  Keep small pets and animals away from door operating area at all times.  Children should be assisted by an adult to avoid injury.”

Baseball Caps: “Warning: Do not place cap over face or injury may result from obstructed vision.  Never wear over face while driving or operating machinery.  Never place adjustable strap around neck.  Cap may become entangled in protruding objects and could cause injury.”

Tennis Shoes: “Warning: Shoes are intended for use on feet only.  Injury may result from misuse or failure to place shoes on the correct foot (left or right) or on other limbs/extremities (arms, feet, head).  Never wear shoes which are not sized properly for your feet.  Failure to tie shoe laces may result in tripping, falling, entanglement, which may result in injury or death.  Never tie laces around neck or feed to small animals.”

I could go on and on and on with this, but you get the point.  It’s coming.  You just wait and see.

Is America “Number 1” at Anything Now?

Let’s take a look…

(name) = country ranked #1
[x] = U.S. ranking

Category	U.S. Rank	Who is #1?
Marriage Rate (per 1000 people)	1
Divorce rate (per 1000 people)	1
Obesity Rate (per capita)	1
Prisoners (per capita)	1
Car Thefts (total)	1
High School Graduation Rate (per capita)	>158	Kirbati
Teachers as % of Labor Force	15	Iceland
Children Out-of-School (Primary level, total)	3	Pakistan
Mandatory Primary Schooling (years)	7	Germany (13 yrs)
Infant Mortality (per capita)	46	Iceland
Defense Spending (% GDP)	18	Eritrea
Military Personnel (active duty)	3	China
Manufacturing (value per $1000 GDP)	75	Thailand
Gross National Income (per capita)	5	Luxemborg
Patent Filings (by residents only)	2	Japan
Suicide Rates (per capita)	7	New Zeeland
Murder Rates (per capita)	25	Columbia
Birth Rates (per capita)	153	Niger
Married Couples with Children (per 1000)	22	Italy
Single-Parent Households (with children)	3	Canada
Total Death Rate (per 1000)	94	Botswana
Death by Cardiac Arrest	2	Egypt
Death by Cancer	9	Netherlands
Death by HIV/AIDS	34	South Africa
Infant Deaths (per 1000 live births)	152	Afghanistan
Abortions (per capita)	6	Russia
Automotive Sales	2	China
Automotive Manufacturing	3	China
Railway Passengers (per capita)	73	Switzerland
Broadband Access (per capita)	16	South Korea
Life Expectancy at Birth (male)	49	Macau
Official Executions	7	China
Drug Offenses (prosecuted)	41	Germany
Food Production (total output)	81	Tajikistan
Labor Hours Worked (total)	3	Australia
Labor Force Foreign Nationals %	5	Luxemborg
Education Spending (% of GDP)	37	Cuba
Bank Liquid Reserves Ratio (index)	165	Panama
Debt (per $ GDP)	52	Iraq
Components of Property Taxation	3	United Kingdom
Tax Contribution by Middle 40% (% of total taxes)	13	Denmark
Highest Marginal Income Tax Rate	41	Camaroon
Total Tax Rate (as % of GDP)	17	Sweden
Jews (per capita)	4	Israel

Sources: CIA World Factbook, U.S. Census Bureau, Gallup, UN / WHO, World Psychiatry Assoc. (via NCBI), WIPO, USPTO, US FTC, US DOC, NationMaster.com (UNESCO), World Bank

A Tale of MBA’s Gone Stupid (Again)

Once upon a time there was this little company that did engineering work for a government customer.  They grew fast and instilled a culture of teamwork and reward for effort.  Times were good.  At least, that’s how it appeared on the surface.

Some people (ok, ok, software developers) within this company developed this rather useful piece of software to help them gain a competitive advantage, and it in fact did just that.

Then their competitors came knocking.  They wanted to know if they could buy or license this wunderkind software product to use for their business needs.  And the MBA wizards and warlocks, in their magic capes and cone-shaped hats decided to… (dramatic music here please…) do nothing at all.  They didn’t even give an answer.  Not to the competitors, and not to their own employees who inquired about it.

Months passed without any reply to repeated inquiries from inside and outside of the company.  The wizards had gone into hibernation.  Then at a large meeting of masterminds of genius innovation and ultimate circle-jerking (without Jergens though, no budget for Jergens), the wizards were cornered.  The HPIC (that’s Head Peon In Charge) asked again: “Have you decided what we’re going to do about these requests to license our product?”

One of the wizards asked “why?”.  He then sat back into his oversized chair as if putting the battleship on cruise control and watching the stars streak by in hyperdrive on the way to Alpha Cent-assface.

The leader of the peon-pack, the developer epsilon minion himself responded:

“…Because it would not only bring in additional revenue, sir, but we could require a subscription contract and that would in-turn mean forecast-able revenue.  In addition, it would mean our competitors would by nature become proponents of our product, which would in-turn build momentum for additional licensing and yet more revenue.  Let’s not forget, three of our five competitors are asking, and not just once but every week for the past few months.  And not least: it would mean that our competitors would become dependent upon us for this lifeline of productivity.  These are all positives for us.  Sir.”

The MBA straightened his overpriced suit, positioned his pen on the table top (to be perpendicular to the table edge, of course), rubbed his fragile, recedent chin and furrowed his manicured brow: “I don’t like it.  I don’t want to sell our product to the competition.  I wouldn’t want to buy a competitor’s product either.”

The peon/minion quickly replied with a grin: “But sir, we already buy a competitor’s product.  Remember that PO you signed for?  Requesting X seats of ‘Product X’ last month?  You recall it was for $10,000 per seat, plus maintenance and support?  I believe that PO amounted to over a million dollars, sir.  That product is owned and sold by ‘Company X’ who is one of our BIGGEST competitors.”

The MBA sat still with utter shock: “Impossible!”… “Is this true?!”

Conclusion

Just because you earn an MBA does not make you wise.  It does not make you knowledgeable either.  It doesn’t even make you aware of what your own company spends money on, even when YOU are the one signing the fucking checks.

And we are still somehow amazed when companies like Enron, AIG, ChoicePoint, and so on pull the pin on their corporate suicide vests and blow themselves to pieces on the evening news.  An MBA is a symbol of accomplishing a pile of work.  It is not a knighthood or religious symbol to be worshipped.

(In case you’re wondering, yes, this story is absolutely true.  And those same MBAssholes are still raking in great salaries making bad decisions)