As most of you know by now, we are pushing the July meeting out a week so it will not conflict with Blues Fest.
July’s Topics:
19:00 at Pythian
It seems I’m a bit verbose this week.
First, my ISP is still having problems letting me send email from my servers. I am of the opinion that rebooting a cisco router multiple times a day in the vain hope that I will get the port unstuck is a bit much to expect. So far, no response to my question as to how much longer I will have to put up with this. Stay tuned for another exciting episode of “Help Desk Opera.”
At least that is what happened in my previous post, which is why it only showed up today. Of course, even if I had hit Submit, you probably wouldn’t have gotten a notification…
ISP issues… My outbound email was blocked at least most of last week if not longer. I really have no idea how long, but my mail server does show successes up to at least June 17, so it had to be working until then. It appears that the NCF (read as techsavvy) is blocking outbound SMTP. This is supposed to only affect dynamic IP address customers, but it apparently got applied across the board. An email with appropriate information showing the blocked port got me the full response rather than a “What are you talking about?” response.
Every now and then you have to do one of those fun tasks like change the passwords on everything at a site or data center or whatever. Bloody frustrating is what it is when you have to do this for a couple of hundred unix boxes AND you have to use different passwords depending on what the box is classified as.
Back in the day (early 1990’s), Don Libes had put together a tcl tool kit called expect, which could automate all manner of things. I have used it over the years and always liked it. Included in the kit are sample scripts, one of which is called passmass
You know, sometimes the right thing gets the right name…
Microsoft recently released their new search site/engin/whatever called “bing.”
I’ve seen it pop up on several sites, references to it in google ads in gmail, etc. The next thing that showed up in my inbox was a commentary on this. I thought I’d share.
You really have to appreciate the irony though. Pay attention to the URL below.
http://encarta.msn.com/dictionary_561501581/bing.html
bing
[bing](http://encarta.msn.com/encnet/features/dictionary/Pronounce.aspx?search=bing)
*plural* bings
noun
Definition:
Scotland: **heap**
a heap or pile of something, especially a slag heap
Early 16th century. Old Norse *bingr*
"heap, bolster"