Weekend Update

What appears to be a world littered with twitter messages and facebook status message updates, I thought it appropriate to update those who care enough to read. I have neglected the communication I often share with everyone due to the constraints of time and sleep. Given the choice to ensure a rigid routine or talk to you all late into the night, I am selfish and choose sleep and eating. Sorry, just the caveman in us all. ...

July 11, 2009 · 5 min · Nick

Legacy in the IT/IA Community

Information technology and assurance both are commonly seen as negative costs in a budget. Deploying a new or replacement server is seen as “sunk” cost for very little gain. In the same vein implementing costly security packages before an attack seems imprudent. “We haven’t had security issues thus far” is a slogan to be plastered on the side of Silicone Valley. Sticking with legacy platforms and code bases to dodge the upgrade bullet only serve to hit you with cost later down the road. As a good friend of mine Marc states “plan to do it right first or plan on doing it again later.” ...

May 22, 2009 · 4 min · Nick

The Family at Work

As we move into a fully connected world there is a bigger expectation that we allow intrusions into our personal lives. While it may be a blackberry or a pager, in today’s world the expectation is that there is no more 9-5. This social contract is acceptable as long as the contract extends both directions. Studies show that employees that visit facebook or twitter are more productive than those that are expected 8 full hours of heads down work. The reason is simple, the brain is designed to process way more information than we can utilize. By pulling away from a problem the synapses can evaluate in a different vantage. ...

May 17, 2009 · 2 min · Nick

Lexmark Drivers for Ubuntu/Debian

Lexmark provides subpar Linux drivers for any distro, but Ubuntu/Debian is horrible. At work we moved from HP Printers to Lexmark. The situation reminds me of ATI hardware in the late-90’s, great hardware and crappy drivers. I converted the Red Hat RPM for Debian based systems. Attached below: To install sudo dpkg -i drivers-lexprtdrv_552-2_i386.deb

May 5, 2009 · 1 min · Nick

Error in Service Module

If you are on a OpenSuSE or SuSE SLES/SLED machine and have recently mounted /var to a new parition, you might get the following error: “Error in service module” If it keeps you from logging in, boot single user and touch /var/log/lastlog as root

April 17, 2009 · 1 min · Nick