Wahid's Blog

I was reading a post on LifeHacker called Take the web offline, in which they discuss Webaroo. I was looking for a program just like this and never found it. While in Afghanistan, we’d constantly lose internet access and if we did have it, it would be slower than dial-up (much slower). Webaroo would have really helped, I sent some of my friends the link to it.

Also cool is andLinux. I forgot where I saw this app but I just got around to installing it. It allows you to run Windows and Linux applications side by side (in Windows). That’s awesome, I haven’t tried it yet but hopefully now I can use amaroK to play my music. I used Linux exclusively for a few years on my computers and there’s still some apps that are linux only that I really like.

Something went wrong initially when I installed andLinux. I rebooted but when I logged in, andLinux wouldn’t start. I ignored it for a while until I tried to start up iTunes. iTunes couldn’t start due to an “audio configuration” problem. Weird. I knew it was andLinux because I hadn’t installed anything else today so I uninstalled andLinux. I rebooted again, re-installed andLinux, and re-installed the “QuickTime only” version of QuickTime and it appears everything is working great together!

Website publishing has not changed much since I created my first webpage in 1995. I’m pretty sure I used Microsoft Frontpage with Frontpage Server Extensions. I don’t do any kind of web development now so I haven’t kept pace with all the changes but I was surprised to find out that Frontpage Server Extensions are going away (thank God)! I knew Frontpage was end of life because I worked exclusively with SharePoint when I was at USfalcon, Inc managing several portals for the military customer.

For a lot of the customizations that we needed, I *had* to use SharePoint Designer. I had been working more with Macromedia (now Adobe) Dreamweaver so I was used to that. I had really bad experiences with Frontpage, especially when I opened my web pages in notepad and found a few thousand extra lines of language that didn’t need to be there; Dreamweaver was much cleaner and designed with standards in mind. Frontpage seemingly ignored standards but thankfully, the new Microsoft web authoring tools do not ignore standards.

I was asked by a customer if they should use Frontpage Server Extensions or FTP for their web publishing needs. At the time, I wasn’t too opinionated one way or the other. My stance was that it depends on what was easier for the developers. I think either choice could be setup pretty easily and be secured as well.

However, after doing some research today, I’m leaning towards either FTP or HTTP web publishing (with SSL). I definitely don’t want to advocate Frontpage Server Extensions since its being shelved and the technologies are outdated. Does anyone even miss those cute little webbots? I’m inclined to suggest either Microsoft SharePoint Designer or Microsoft Expressions Web. I haven’t used Expressions Web at all but it looks pretty simple and from what I’ve read, the publishing works the same as in SharePoint Designer. Hopefully there is enough documentation out there showing how best to secure it.

I don’t think that web publishing has come very far at all. I understand technical limitations but there really should be more choices out there. Like how about versioning? Perhaps versions based on browsers or based on country (like Google Search). Or how about a server-side pull? Where an editor or manager can pull the version of the site you’re working on and can provide feedback before you’re finished. Wouldn’t that be useful? I don’t know, i’m just trying to think outside the box. Maybe such tools do exist, they certainly don’t seem mainstream though.

Since I mentioned the portals I managed earlier in this post, here is a link to one of the public sites: CSTC-A ECA
There isn’t much on there but you can see the VCR Pics, which will give you an idea of life in Afghanistan now. Its different from the same 100 sq. ft. images shown on news media.

More on the Symantec Endpoint Protection. It was installed on a file server and everyone started having problems. Computers were extremely slow to start up and most of the employees could not work (they use mapped drives almost exclusively). I read a post on how people were losing their shares when installing to file servers. Anyway, its uninstalled until I can test it some more.

Other than that glitch, its running smoothly. It’s great when a product works like its supposed to. Before this, the customer was going to every computer and updating the virus definitions every month. Now, they’re updated every day, automatically. My job is done.

That brings me to my point of security, job security. This customer may not have any more work for me, which means now I’m making less money. However, I don’t buy into the traditional notion of job security. That being: keep some knowledge to yourself, don’t cross-train, always make sure you’ll always be needed. This is just garbage. In Afghanistan, I’d always tell my peers that we have to make it so we’re no longer needed OR make it so that if another crew replaced us, they’d have no trouble transitioning. So, we started documenting everything, the way things were set up, wrote password lists, etc. We also started automating as much as possible by writing scripts to send out the reports we needed and ensuring systems like WSUS, SMS, and Symantec anti-virus were working as they should. If we do everything this way, it makes the network way more efficient. Yes, it could mean that you’ve put yourself in a position to be fired but so what? It really shouldn’t be that much of a concern to you if you’re really good. Plus, most likely, you won’t get fired. Most likely you’ll be rewarded. Most likely you’ll build a great reputation for yourself. To me, that goes a longer way towards your career than keeping secrets. To me, it means you can move on to the next (hopefully bigger) challenge.

In Afghanistan, it wasn’t too hard to do this. Most of the contractors were prior-service military who value information sharing. My friend told me about a job he worked at in Texas where it was the total opposite. He was hired to build and test Active Directory and Exchange servers. But like me, he’s very diversified. He knows Cisco, he knows security, and he has experience with all of it. So one day, the network guys were having some problems. On their Cisco switches, ports were randomly shutting off or just not working. They’d reset it and it would break again. He heard them discussing this and popped his head in. Without touching the switches he knew what the problem was. He offered his help, it would’ve taken 5 minutes to fix and they would have learned why this issue occurs. Instead they told him to get out: “Hey, what do you know? You’re the Exchange guy.” That’s really really disappointing and I hope I never have to deal with that. Later on, my friends boss had a talk with him and asked him to refrain from doing what he did. In their eyes, he was trying to steal their job. He soon left that company.

I can work by myself, I’ve done it a lot. But team work and collaboration are such a better way to get things done. And when you’re doing that, you’re only as strong as your weakest link. Right?

I haven’t posted for a week! Ack, I need to keep up but I’ve been busy recently with a client that had a plethora of system problems. So, I was hired to:
-Install Exchange
-Make OWA work from the outside
-Use ISA 2006 to ensure its security

When I started, it turns out they already had Exchange and ISA installed and working well. OWA was not working though and that was the priority. I had some trouble with it because I’ve never used ISA 2006 so I was wishing they just had a Cisco PIX or something. Their only firewall was this ISA 2006 server and after reading through step-by-step guides, I still could not get it to work right (read: at all). I finally found this article that I thought would solve all my problems. Its called “Solving the Dreaded 500 Internet Server Error – The Target principal name is incorrect.”

Its based on ISA 2004 but most of it still applies. Anyway, according to the article, the most common cause would be that the name on my certificate didn’t match the name of the site. This wasn’t the case, I checked and re-checked, even recreated the certificate and reinstalled it. On my way home I was complaining to my girlfriend and told her that “its usually something small, like a check box somewhere.” Guess what? It was a check box somewhere.

I started to re-verify every single setting I could find including on the Exchange server. I found that Forms-based authentication was still enabled. I disabled it and voila! Everything is now working perfectly.

It turns out the client needs some more stuff fixed on the network. They had me look at their Symantec Endpoint Protection deployment. My first impressions: I don’t like it. The interface is java based (which just never ever works out well for me) and its very simplified. I can’t even go in and see a summary off all my clients and the related information (OS, client version, definition date). They have reports now for most of that stuff, which is cool for manager types because it’ll make nice pie graphs, but I just need the info.

It’s running a lot better now that I’ve upgraded the Management Console to MR1, before this it kept freezing up on me and giving me errors. Anytime I tried to generate a report, a new window would pop up with an IE 403 Forbidden error message. That was pretty frustrating but I haven’t gotten it once since I upgraded.

I also ran into issues deploying the client and the definitions because Windows Firewall AND Network Threat Protection were enabled. The client would rather have Windows Firewall and unfortunately there isn’t a way to just disable Network Threat Protection that I know of. You’d have to re-install Symantec Endpoint Protection and choose not to install that component. I added a permit all rule on top After reconfiguring Windows Firewall group policies and a LOT of troubleshooting I think the clients are updating policy and definitions from the server. The next step is to deploy this to the other servers (and unfortunately most are web servers). Not sure how it’ll work because it seems Symantec Endpoint Security uses ports 80, 443, and 8443 for its communications. We’ll see!

On my way runnuning errands with my girlfriend, we saw the Premium Outlets that people are always talking about. It was nice, we stoppedin to Coach – quite impressive. I’ve been thinking about investing inthe company for several weeks now and after seeing the buzz at thestore, I will. You might think people are strapped for cash because ofmany possible reasons – poor economy, paying debt after christmas,etc. You wouldn’t think so at Coach and it gives me some confidence.

Also recently, I was in Indiana interviewing for a consulting job (don’t think I’ll take it) and my friend took me out to Buffalo Wild Wings – also a company I’m considering investing into. BWLD (stock symbol) was great food, it was better than I expected. Too bad you don’t see more of them around.
So you’ve guessed by now that I’m expanding the technology focus of this blog to stocks as well. Why not, right? It’s all learning!
By the way you can check out how poorly my investments are doing at Covester – http://www.covestor.com/mbr/craveness/blog

Certifications, how important are they? I’m talking about the big ones in IT: A+, MCSE, CCNA, etc.

I’ve always had a somewhat cynical view regarding these certifications. How much do they really mean? The sponsors (in most cases, the companies behind them) will lead you to believe that you can’t succeed without them and that the level of your certification defines you, professionally.

Obviously, that’s not true, but I wonder how many recruiters, HR people and corporate managers DO think its true. I’ve been turned down for jobs strictly based upon it, thats no surprise, but by now wouldn’t you think more people get it?

Get what? My cynical view comes from articles I read when I was researching this topic years ago. The premise is simple and it makes sense and it is probably very true. Companies like Cisco and Microsoft saw that there is a great deal of money to be made by creating these certifications. First, it produces residual income. Unlike the vendor neutral A+, Network+, etc. series by CompTIA, you have to renew your MS and Cisco certs regularly. Yes, it keeps you current on technology but its great for profits. Second, wouldn’t someone certified in Cisco be MORE likely to recommend and buy Cisco products? Definitely. And thirdly, once that person is a manager, wouldn’t he or she be looking for someone with that entry level CCNA to run his or her network?

Is a CCNA equivalent (knowledge-wise) to a Network+ ? Maybe so and maybe not. I don’t know any recruiters that would substitute the CompTIA exam for the Cisco. Today, it seems that not even 20 years of experience would substitute for an MCSE. To me, that’s just nuts. The Microsoft exams are cheapened in value by the hundreds of boot camps. An MCSE (Must Call Someone Else) doesn’t mean you’re ready to engineer an Exchange rollout. The test needs reform. At least the Cisco exams are lab-like in nature. You do need to understand the underlying technology and theories to pass.

The point? The value placed on corporate sponsored certifications today is not properly adjusted to the work experience required to have the knowledge, skills, and abilities. Work experience should far out weigh the value of a certification. And the certification should definitely NOT be a requirement.

That being said, I think the certifications do have a purpose and are definitely relative. Perhaps there needs to be some reform so that not just anyone can get certified. I’m definitely for that. I don’t have any certifications, I could, but I’ve chosen not to. I know people will say that because I don’t have the certs, I’m writing negatively about them. I’m simply stating that people who are not in the know, overvalue them. I welcome any thoughts on the topic.