Digital Choke Daynotes

"Daynotes" are popularized by a Internet Web site called the "Daynotes Gang" (http://www.digitalchoke.com/daynotes or http:/www.daynotes.org), a collection of the daily technical and personal observations from the famous and others. That group started on September 29, 1999, and has grown to an interesting collection of individuals. Readers are invited and encouraged to visit those sites for other interesting daily journals. You can send your comments to us by clicking on any mailbox icon.

It's been a busy long weekend, and end of the week. Friday at work was spent getting ready for this week's trip. I got a new laptop (Compaq Evo N800v). Really fast, nice big screen (very clear text), DVD/CDRW, lots of memory, and a fast processor. It has Windows XP Pro. I spend most of the day Friday getting all the various software on it that I needed. Let's see, there's MS-Office XP, Dreamweaver MX, FTP Voyager, mail client, network client, firewall (ZoneAlarm), Norton Utilities, etc. And get all the Windows updates. That took most of the day to do, in between doing other things. Like getting together all the material I will need to do to keep me busy after hours.

I have big plans on getting quite a few things done. I've got some material from the SANS conference to review and digest. There are some proposals for a custom application for another department to review by Wednesday. I need to make another pass though the "Microsoft Prescriptive Guidance -- Security Operations Guide for Windows 2000 Server" manual. This is the one that I've been talking about, and here is the link to it: http:/www.microsoft.com/technet/treeview/default.asp?url=/TechNet/security/prodtech/windows/windows2000/staysecure/DEFAULT.asp .

Saturday was also busy. Did a few maintenance things around the house, then went out house shopping in the afternoon. While we were out, got a call from my real estate agent, who said he had a good offer for our house. It was a bit low, but there were no contingencies: the buyer had already sold their house, were well-qualified, and was quite interested in the place. So our agent came by the house that night, and we did a counter-offer for our desired price, which he accepted. (As Brian Billbrey would say "Woo...and Hoo!".) It looks like about a 40 day closing time (not exactly sure yet), so we need to get cracking on finding a new place (and all that packing...sigh...).

My lovely wife and I took a look at a few places today; some open houses and some drive-by's in a neighborhood we are interested in. My wife will be going out with the agent on Tuesday to look a bunch of houses. (I am out of town all week.) My agent said that I don't have to be there to decide on a house, he and my wife can do all that just fine. Only one of us needs to sign the offer. But my wife has promised to let me take a look at the house she picks out when I return. And she'll be taking pictures with the digital camera.

So, here I sit at the hotel (it's nice, by the way). Like most hotels, it has a "STSN" ethernet network. I had tried one of their hotel connections in 2000, and their software installation really messed up my computer. This one worked right out of the box. Just hooked up the cable, started the browser, and a screen asked me if I wanted daily ($10.95/day) or weekly ($49.95/week), and it charged my choice to the hotel room. No software to install, it just works. Nice speed on the connection.

This post might not get there until Monday AM. I had a few problems configuring the FTP connection to my server; Brian B (who hosts the place along with Greg Mazin) has really good security on his system, and I screwed up on the password, so got locked out. (As a information security guy, I appreciate that kind of service.) But since I wrote it on Sunday, we'll call it a Sunday post. (I get to set the rules around here...)

Well, it took a while to get things set up to upload Sunday's post, so there it is up there. Today's post will happen later tonight.

The posting problems were mostly my fault, along with some good security practices on the part of my web site host. Since I am on the road, I needed to configure my laptop for Dreamweaver MX, and to set that program up with this site configuration. Part of that is to set up the FTP file transfer, with appropriate logins (user name and password). And I put the wrong password in for the initial connection. When the FTP process started, it sends out the login information. If unsuccessful, it tries again a certain number of times (not sure how many). When it didn't work the first time, I tried a couple of more times. The web site sensed those multiple unsuccessful attempts as password-guessing attempts, and so it locked out the account for a time period. The actual time period is configurable by the site administrator.

So, I had a lockout time that I had to wait until it expired. And I had to configure the correct password. I ended up contacting Brian to change the password to a new value, and then wait for that to be done. (Brian was quite fast in doing that.) And, since I don't have Internet connectivity at the training center (they seem to want you to pay attention in class), it took until this evening to get everything configured properly so I could post the pages. But it is all fixed now.

There are some interesting lessons here. Brian (and Greg M), the administrators of my web space, have good security practices. They have configured their system to reject any password guessing attempts. They also reject (it appears) multiple FTP concurrent logins. (I tried a FTP connection via Dreamweaver and FTP Voyager within a short period of time.) These (and probably other good practices) indicate a very knowledgeable system administrator that is sensitive to the security needs and practices required to properly manage web services. If you are looking for a good, secure web hosting site, you should contact Brian Bilbrey (bilbrey@orbdesigns.com). And Brian has a good Daynotes site, along with good knowledge of Linux.

And, I fixed a couple of coding problems on this page, related to the graphics images. While I was trying to fix my FTP problem, I got the source code for this page with the View, Source command. That screwed up a the image tag that specified the location of the file, so the tag was pointing to the wrong spot, and the image file wasn't there. All the pictures should be visible now.

Also, I don't have access to any email messages sent to via the mailbox icon. They are being gathered on the home computer, so I will get to them this weekend. This mostly means that I will be delayed in getting my (welcome) grammar classes from Brian C. <grin>

My wife sent me some links to some houses she will be looking at tomorrow. We've had several good discussions of what we both want in a new home, so I am looking forward to her report tomorrow. There are some interesting places to look at. And with the interest rates as low as they are, now is a good time to make a home purchase.

I also spent some time reviewing some proposals for a business application that one of the department needs. There are only four proposals, which is a good thing. And I've been watching, probably along with most of you, a lot of news lately. Opinions about the conflict in Iraq aside, there is some interesting technology in place. And the fact that we can see so much of the conflict on the news in so much details is quite interesting.

Tomorrow is more training classes. And more reviews of security material. But now, it's time for my daily rounds of the Daynotes gang, and some other interesting sites.

The PeopleSoft products are very powerful, and complex. I've been working in the application design area in their classes this week. They seem to have a good process to create applications. I haven't worked with their specific applications, but I can see how they would be a powerful product. If their base products are complete in function, adding and customization is fairly easy to do, although powerful and complex. I can see why there needs to be good qualified consultants on a product like this.

So, class continues tomorrow. Long days, lots of information. I don't think that I will use a lot of the information in my day-to-day operations, but the basic knowledge of how everything works together will be helpful as our company implements it in our billing operation.

I spent this evening in the hotel room evaluating the four proposals for another business process for another department. There were two proposals that were roughly equal. One if for a new product that meets most of the needs, but it is a brand-new product. The other product will require a bit more modification to make it work, but the product has been around longer. Both companies seem to have the necessary qualifications. I sent off the evaluations to the project manager; I expect that he and I will talk about this tomorrow during my lunch break.

On the home-search front, my wife found two houses she liked. They happen to be across the street from each other in a more upscale subdivision. Their prices were $20K apart; one seemed to be a bit overpriced, according to my agent (who knows his stuff). Both had similar features; the lesser-priced one is on a slightly larger lot. My wife took a lot of pictures, but had problems sending them (4MegPixels picture files can be quite large, and I neglected to show her how to compress the pictures before sending them. We figured out a way to do them, but there are 10 pictures, and that will take a while to process and get to where I am.

Either of the two houses are quite nice and desireable. So she made an offer on both of them. The agent says that might motivate one or both to come up with a good (and lower) counter-offer. Or one might decline, and we'll grab the other one. Or whatever. I trust what our agent recommends. We'll see how it works out. And since I don't have any dog pictures to post (like other Daynoters), I guess that you'll have to put up with new (to us) house pictures later this week.

And, tonight was a new episode of "24". Good show, as usual, with the usual surprises. I am now watching ABC News "Iraq" special. I like their approach, along with the NBC/MSNBC productions. Both have interesting and reports that seem to be thoughtful (although Koppel can get a bit dramatic/corney at times).

Not much to report today. Still in a holding pattern on the house buying thing. Still learning some more about PeopleSoft software. Still reading some of the material I got from the SANS conference. (There is a stack almost three feet high of that material. I only brought about 9 inches of it to review.) Still catching the news updates.

Brian C is the unofficial editor of this place. I usually write these pages late in the evening, and sometimes I just have enough energy for a quick re-read of what I have written. So there are (more often than I like) grammatical and logical errors on these pages. Brian helps find them, and I fix them. For instance, I hadn't noticed that the links at the top of the page pointed to last week's pages (now fixed). Not surprising, since I use the previous week's page to build the new week's page. That usually results in some broken or incorrect links, which Brian told me about this week.

I also got a message from John Dominik (I enjoy reading his Daynotes), who said I need to create a redirect page "if I want to be a proper Daynoter". So one of my tasks for the weekend is to create a blank page that will be properly set up that I can use every Sunday for the new week. I'll also work on the redirect page, and a bit of a redesign of the main and other pages to tie together all of the changes.

Last night, I spent some time reading some of the material from the SANS Conference. The topic for last night was hacking techniques. I figure that I am going to call myself an Information Security Specialist, any knowledge gained is important. If you are interested in that topic, the SANS site (www.sans.org) has lots of good information about computer and network security.

I had stopped by the Border's store and picked up a copy of the latest 2600 magazine, a true hacker's quarterly. I read that while working on some takeout from Chili's: chicken tacos, hot barbeque chicken wings (boneless), and some great strawberry lemonade. By the time I finished all of that eating and reading, I started to nod off, and hit the sack. And that's why there is nothing to see up there.

Finished up with the PeopleSoft classes a bit early today, so headed on home. I was greeted by my daughter's car, which had a dead alternator and a dead battery. I had heard about this by phone a couple of days ago, so it wasn't a big surprise. My father-in-law thought it was a bad alternator, so he bought a new (rebuilt) one, but he wasn't able to get the old one out. I got home this afternoon, changed my clothes, and got out the tools. Put the new alternator in, and got ready to put in the battery he also bought, but it was the wrong size. I tested the old battery with a hygrometer, and it showed that one of the cells was dead. So I suspect that the problem with the car not starting was the dead/dying battery, not the alternator.

Quick lesson in troubleshooting a car's charging system. The theory is that the alternator's job is to provide more voltage (current) to the battery than the engine is taking out of the battery. If it does, the battery is kept charged by the alternator as you are driving around. But if the alternator doesn't put out more voltage than what the battery has, the battery will slowly wear down and the engine will stop (or not start).

So, a test of the charging system is quite easy. All you need is a voltmeter (you can get a cheap one for about $10 down at the local electronics store, or a hardware store). With the engine off, measure the voltage of the battery. It should be a bit over 12 volts. Now, start up the engine (jump it if you need to). Carefully measure the voltage at the battery terminals. It should be more than the value you measured with the engine off (probably about 12.5 volts). If it is not, you have a bad/failing alternator. If the reading is higher with the engine on, the alternator is just fine.

To test a battery, you need to check the specific gravity of the acid inside the battery. That's what the hygrometer is for (you should be able to find one down at the auto parts place for under $10). With the engine off, gently pry off the caps to the six cells of the battery. Then use the hygrometer as per the instructions. The values of all cells need to be about the same. If you find that all the cells read a bit low on the scale, charge up the battery and then measure it again. But if you find that one cell is much lower than the other, then that cell is dead, and so will be the battery.

Now, back to the present. My father-in-law had already taken off the drive belt for the alternator, so I wasn't able to do the above test. But my trusty hygrometer said that there was a bad cell, so I took it down to the local auto parts store. They didn't think that the hygromter test was good enough, so they hooked it up to their fancy battery testing machine. It said that the battery needed charging before the testing could start, so I left it there to be charged and tested. I came back an hour later, and they said that the battery was bad. (Well, isn't that what I already told you?). So the kid behind the counter banged on their computer's keyboard for a while, and figured out the warranty credit, and I walked out with a new battery that only cost $15 (instead of $50). Tommorrow I'll put in the battery, and all will be well.

This evening, my wife and I did a bit more searching on the 'net for some houses to look at tomorrow afternoon. We're going to do a few drive-by's before we go out with our Realtor on Monday. We might also look at a couple of housing developments in a different area to see what they have to offer. (You knew, of course, that Realtor has to be capitalized, since it is a trademarked/copyrighted term for the exclusive use of licensed real estate agents.)

This is a three-day weekend for my wife and I, courtesy of Cesar Chavez. He was a great champion of the migrant workers, and led a big march in the 70's (?) from the farmlands down south into Sacramento, trying to get some basic rights for the (mostly) migrant farm workers. The result is that we get Monday off, which we will use for a bit more house hunting. Probably important to do, since we have to move out of this place the first of May. It would be nice to have a place to move to.

So, a busy weekend is the plans. House hunting, web page fixing, car repairing, and some lawn mowing. And the 'honey wagon' is coming on Monday. You'll have to figure out what that means. I'd be interested in your gueses. You know where the mailbox is.

BIg happenings today. We (mainly my wife, although I was allowed to participate in the decision) found a house that we like. It's a new house in a new subdivision east of town, almost in the hils (maybe 150 feet above the flatlands), in a pretty quiet area. It's a 4 bedroom, 2 1/2 bath, about 2400 square feet, two stories (bedrooms upstairs). The cost is reasonable, considering the prices around here. The commute to work is about the same as our current place, although there is a carpool lane for half of the drive (my wife and I commute together, we both work for the same company, although in different departments). So, we gave them a deposit check, and will go back next Saturday to get all the paperwork started. The timing of that is good, since that's when our buyer's 14-day "are you sure?" period expires.

The house won't be ready until August, and we are supposed to get out of here in early May, so our current plan is to rent an apartment for the transition, and put most of our stuff in storage until the house is ready. I am really looking forward to the moving part....not.

Minor correction to the battery/alternator testing thing from yesterday's post. A good battery will read at about 12.5 volts. A good alternator will put out about 14.5 volts. As long as the readings are somewhere around there, all is well in the charging department. I know those values are right, because that's what I found when I got the new battery in my daughter's car. All is working well on that front.

So, we've made major progress on getting a place to live...at least, in August. Lots of stuff to do in the meantime.

Daynotes	a daily journal of our activity	Send us email
Digital Choke	an action that is sometimes needed for your computer; also a short techno-story available here.	Send us email