Imaging an Optiplex GX270

Tom Turner, one of my co-workers at UNI, has posted a good tip for anyone experiencing problems attempting to image a Dell Optiplex GX270 with DeployCenter/ImageCenter:

If you have a Dell OptiPlex GX270 with integrated Intel Pro 1000 MT (i82540) networking and a SATA hard drive, you will likely have problems imaging the system with PowerQuest's ImageCenter 5.x (5.51 and 5.50 tested). I spent several hours trying every trick I could think of with various boot disks and many versions of both MS NDIS2 and Novell Client32 NIC drivers, but ImageCenter (as part of DeployCenter) - PQIMGCTR.EXE - would always hang at various stages. I never got past the part where you name the image you want to create, though; it would always lock up, before getting to the final screen.

Testing out Zempt now

Now I'm giving Zempt a try, it seems better than NewzCrawler, less likely to insert random annoying P tags all over the place, and it's specifically made for MovableType.

Photo Albums

I've posted a bunch of my digital photos online in my new Photo Album section of this site. I used a nifty Java program called Jalbum to make the web pages, it was fairly painless, just CPU-intensive to do all the resizing and bandwidth-intensive while I uploaded the results to my hosting provider.

Rare Virus

We had an instance of a rare virus on campus last night, only TrendMicro has a writeup about it yet, but I submitted a copy of it to Symantec, our antivirus vendor, and they've supplied me with beta defs to stop it. They're calling it W32.Gaobot.SN, and it lives in a file called msgfix.exe From what I could see, it attacks machines with weak or blank Administrator passwords, then attempts to spread to other machines on the network. It also listens on port 6667 for instructions from the creator of the worm, so that it may do his dastardly bidding. Cleanup is pretty easy, just stop the process, delete the file, and remove the registry entry that calls it when the machine starts. Hopefully Symantec will have a writeup about it soon...

We Don't Support That

Salon has a great article (you'll have to click and watch the annoying ad before you can read it for free) today about the folks who provide telephone support for major computer vendors. It paints a grim picture of that industry, and leaves you wondering how people ever get any problems solved. In reality, you're going to need a local tech to diagnose most problems, as most of those script-readers are fairly useless, as the article points out, the system actually works to get rid of the helpful and knowledgeable technicians.

In my years of doing desktop support, I've developed my own tricks to work around their system. First and foremost, just plan on lying about something before you call. The reality is that I have 15 years of experience with PC hardware, and the person on the other end of the phone likely has about 15 minutes of experience. Is it unethical to lie to them? That's up to you to resolve. I think it's pretty unethical to sell people on your great phone support, which is really provided by a guy in India who has a lifelong dream of making minimum-wage someday, reading scripts to you that have nothing to do with the problem you're experiencing. The American call centers aren't any better, because they're run the way the article illustrates.

So, assuming you're knowlegeable, what should you do? Waste all day performing the random tasks the callers want you to try, when you already know what the problem is? Or feed them a bunch of crap to send you the new part that you know you need? I'll take the part, please.

The article talks about three types of people you might reach: the punters, the givers, and the formatters. All of them can be defeated.

Punters can be easily defeated, I've done it many times, you just keep telling them that you already did whatever it is they're going to tell you to do. Refuse to let them get you off the phone, no matter what punt they try. Eventually, they'll give you what you want, or escalate you to get rid of you. You may have to tell some whoppers here, but they're probably not going to be gutsy enough to call you an outright liar, so just keep going with it.

Givers are pretty good, when it comes to desktop support, they'll give you what you want to fix the computer, with a minimal amount of hassle. Being condescending to them actually helps your case, because you can overwhelm them with your technical knowledge, and they'll assume you're right, and you know what you're asking for, so they'll give it to you to get you off the phone.

Formatters are my favorite to deal with, mostly because I'm a formatter at heart. If it could possibly, in any universe, be a software problem, I'll have formatted before I called, and I love being able to throw that back in their faces. This forces them to fork over the part I want, or to escalate me to someone who can actually help me. You can usually hear the defeat in their voice as they do it, too.

Keep in mind, you should really know what you're doing to use these strategies. If you truly have no idea what the problem with your system is, hire someone locally to come fix it for you.

Listen up Dell

In this article, Dell's President and COO says that corporate customers aren't asking for AMD chips, so that's why Dell doesn't sell them. In my career here at UNI, I've purchased several hundred of Dell's corporate desktops and laptops, and I'd jump at the chance to buy AMD from them, especially the new 64-bit CPUs. So, Dell, stop making excuses, and admit you're in bed with Intel, who is cutting you a sweet deal on Intel chips as long as you don't ship any AMD based products.

SpamAssassin, Qmail, and Razor

I've been working on building a linux-based mail server over the last month or so.  I started off with sendmail and some realtime blackhole lists, then I added SpamAssassin, and today I topped it off with Vipul's Razor.

One of the other sysadmins on campus (a total Linux guru) offered to replace my sendmail with qmail, which he says is superior, though no one can really explain why to me in less than two paragraphs.  After a couple hours of re-compiling and tweaking, sendmail has been replaced, but my realtime blackhole lists are gone!

I can add them back in with qmail, but to do so, I'll have to compile a tcpwrapper to wrap around the qmail smtp service.  It makes my head hurt just thinking about it...

On the plus side, the spam-filtering is great!  I invoke SpamAssassin and Razor via my .procmailrc file, and divert all the junk into folders to be reviewed and deleted at my leisure.  Razor seems to do a better job of detecting the true spam, but Assassin catches a lot of other assorted junkmail and moves it out of my inbox.

You might be thinking "I just push the delete button, and it works for me".  Well, that's nice, but try reading your e-mail on your "Visor" over a 14.4K cell-phone link, and you'll appreciate having fewer junk messages to download.

Selling your soul to Bill Gates

We took the plunge a couple of weeks ago, and sold our soul to Bill Gates.  At least that's what you'd hear if you talked to the Anti-Microsoft camp around here. What we really did was sign a Campus Agreement to cover the college that I support here.  It's costing us about $10,000/year, but we have unlimited licenses and upgrades for all of the Microsoft software we use.

Sure, that's a serious chunk of change, but I did the math, and found out that we were spending nearly that amount already, with a lot more administrative work involved, and without any of the flexibility our new license offers us.  Compared to the money we spend to license SPSS, AutoCAD, and some of our GIS apps, the Microsoft agreement was pretty reasonable.

As for the Anti-Microsoft folks, I can understand the Linux crowd, and even sort of agree with them on certain things.  The people I can't stand are the people who bash Microsoft because they think it's the "cool thing to do".  This group includes both technical people and laymen.  I have faculty who refuse to use Internet Explorer, because it's a Microsoft product.  Of course, these same people use Microsoft Word and Windows all day long, and wouldn't dream of switching to Linux or even a Mac.

It's the hypocrisy that pisses me off, not the opinion itself.  I agree that Microsoft does some shady and downright evil things, but it all boils down to two options.  Either you pay the devil his due, and embrace Microsoft's software, or you purge it from your organization and use Free software completely.  The middle ground is rapidly disappearing.

Thanks for the linkage Hal!  I thought you all would have forgotten about me during my hiatus, but I glanced at my referrer log, and realized that someone must still be reading my random thoughts.

Dan gave me some useful tips to correct the ghosting on my KVM switch too, I'll have to give it a try if the $16 adapter they're sending me doesn't work...

Switch-a-roo

My Avocent Switchview MP KVM Switch came in yesterday.  I've hooked it up, and can now control my Windows XP box, my iBook, and my Linux mail server all from one workstation, plus whatever random faculty machine I'm re-building at the time.  It works pretty well, but I'm getting some ghosting on my display, and it's annoying me.  Apparently, there's a VAD-12 adapter that they make to deal with resolutions above XGA, and I've got a rep working on finding that now...

TechnoLust

I think I'm in love.  I'm in love with the new iBook that Apple introduced today.  It's a nice little piece of computing equipment that's priced quite reasonably at $1249 for those of us in education.  For a good look at the new machine, check out the cheesy promotional video.

I won't be placing my order just yet though, as I'm going to wait until they actually ship with OS X pre-installed.  I don't see any reason to buy the laptop now, and then have to shell out the $120 for OS X when I could wait and buy the iBook with OS X installed in July.  Here's a tip for Apple, ship the iBooks with 9.1 installed now, but bundle OS X for free, for those early adopters who are comfortable installing the OS themselves.  By postponing the bundling of OS X, you're just giving people an incentive (to the tune of $120) to wait to purchase their new machines.  I'd like to take this opportunity to point out that you can buy new PCs with new versions of Windows & Office from manufacturers such as Dell before the retail versions of the OS & office suite are available, not four months afterwards.  Perhaps this illustrates that Microsoft does a somewhat better job of beta-testing their software...

The iBook looks quite nice to me, the screen is 1024x768, which was one of the required improvements for me to consider purchasing the device, I don't do 800x600.  If I had to nit-pick, I'd complain that all of the ports are on the left side of the notebook.  I like to use external Microsoft optical mice with notebooks, and having to run the cord all the way around the left side and the back of the notebook is a minor annoyance.

Several people I talked to were disappointed in the 12.1" LCD display, as they were hoping for something bigger.  A 15" display is all fine and good, but opening the laptop in cramped quarters (like an airplane) is made much easier with a smaller display.  Also, bigger screens mean more weight.  I sat in my office today comparing two new Dell laptops, the Latitude C600 and the C800.  The C800 has a nice big screen, but when you've got them both in your hands, you tend to appreciate the 4.9 lb. weight (same as the iBook) of the C600.

My only other gripe is that to get a three year warranty, you've got to fork out an additional $237 for the AppleCare coverage.  That's $118.50 a year for the additional two years of warranty coverage.  Considering that Dell gives the three year warranty to their education customers by default, Apple could learn a thing or two here.  They're like a new car dealer that shows you the low sticker price, but then charges you outrageous prices on all of the optional extras. Check out the prices that Apple charges for RAM, you'll see my point.

In spite of all of this, it's a gorgeous piece of hardware.  I hate to gush over the product like a rabid Mac zealot, but realize that I don't own a single Macintosh, and really do like Windows.  But the wannabe Linux guy in me appreciates the potential of OS X, and the showoff in me loves the flashiness of the new iBooks.  I'll keep my eye on Macintouch, in case there are some problems with the design of the new iBooks, but if all goes smoothly, I'll be placing my order right after Apple announces the iBooks are shipping with OS X...

Steve Jobs, are you listening?