Tag: I.T.

Black listed, Really? WTF

One of those days today!

I was asked to take a look at a SBS2011 server by someone today as emails were not being sent but were being received.

So I set about sorting through the list of errors in the event log, as per normal there was a to be expected reboot right in the middle of everything!
It kind of reminded me of when I got contacted by my old employer, after they had made me redundant, to look at a problem that stopped their Service Management System working. The idiots that they brought in to oust me had applied all their skill (all 3 of them) to fix the problem and come up with 4 reboots! Yes 4 reboots! Needless to say that after 4 it still wasn`t working. So a quick look through the logs I found the issue and reported back to them.

Anyway, I looked through all the logs on the server, but couldn`t see anything, so I checked out the send connector and see that there was a huge old queue reporting DNS lookup failures.
So I checked that the Smart Host was in DNS. I then checked that I could connect to it on port 25, which I could. I tried a DNS Reset and Flush just to be safe, but it didn`t work.

I disabled the Smart Host connector, created a new send connector and set it up to send via DNS, and the emails left the queue.

I then reported back as to what I had done and asked them to check out to see if they had paid the bill for the Smart Host. Later that day I got a call to say that it was a fault with the Smart Host, apparently the company that provided the Smart Host service had one of their internal desktop machines infected with a virus by an employee and it has spammed out a load of crap! Jesus! Seriously?

I was somewhat surprised that
A) They got infected with a virus!
B) They were sending emails out on a connection that was used as a smart host by a customer (and most probably more than one)!
C) They told a customer exactly what had happened!

A quick check showed that they were on some black lists for sending out spam.
I will leave that a few days before I check back to see if they have been removed…

Rexcam, like Yodacam but with a snake called Rex

I’ve had yodacam running for nearly 10 years now, recently I added a few pages for Rex, H`s corn snake so people could see them both, and for H to record shedding and feeding as a bit of a project.

He kept asking me when it would be going live so he could tell everyone, which got me thinking about adding a webcam in with Rex.

I got out all my IP Webcams out and got the smallest one I could find, made some authentication adjustments to the .Net code that pulls the image and put it in the corner of rex`s vivarium.

I then decided to buy rexcam.co.uk so that Rex could have her own bit of web space, and H had more to tell people – for a few quid and an infrastructure that was already pretty much set up, a new logo, a quick copy, paste, ctrl-h and replace all, Rex had her own website ready to go.

There is currently one webcam in with her and I’m working on adding a second, i just need her vivarium to be a bit bigger so that i can put the webcam somewhere out of sight or somewhere that is not that obvious.

But for the time being, H is happy and he gets to show of his snake to everyone, and I guess that its all about making your kids happy isn’t it?

Self-assigned job title

Today, while waiting for what seemed like a never ending installation, there was a short lull in productivity. To fill that rare gap I engaged in a conversation about job descriptions.

It reminded me of the days gone by at my last job where the organisation chart and employees job descriptions were amended when a new contract bid required it!

After a lot of discussion and ideas for each other we whittled the list down to just 1 for each person. The list was as follows –

Micro Management Specialist
Part Time Unaware Operative
Piss Taking Strategist
Vacab Consultant and Pun Controller
Chief Grumpy Office and Junior Piss Taking Executive

Needless to say that I was given `Piss Taking Strategist`, which I have so say I was more than happy with.

Much like a self-signed SSL certificate the self-assigned job titles mean very little outside of the office, shame though as it would go great with my `Sex and Distribution` name badge that I got from Microsoft all those years ago….

Windows 8 Phone

Today I replaced my trusted Blackberry with a Nokia Windows 8 Phone.
It was a choice between a Windows 8 Phone and an iPhone, but as my network provider does not sell iPhones I opted for the Windows 8 Phone. I got a good deal getting pretty much unlimited Texts, Calls and Data for a few pence more than I was paying for my limited Blackberry tariff.

Form what I have seen around on different network providers I’m paying around half of what it would of cost to get an iPhone!

It’s a great phone with a nice big 4.7 inch screen and it feels nice and solid.

I set up the essential applications, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram but had some very concerning issues with them, mainly that they didn’t update themselves when I got new messages, updates and notifications etc.
I was tearing my hair out, I removed and reinstalled the apps, checked for updates but it stayed the same. It would mean that I would need to manually check the apps for messages etc. every few minutes to make sure that I didn’t miss anything, I’d have to check while walking to work, while at work, while eating lunch, while drinking coffee, while going to the toilet, while fixing computers – but how would I check when I’m driving? I can’t miss any updates while I’m driving??!! What am I going to do?!?!

Oh, but hang on, I’m 42 years old, not 12, and really don’t give a shit if I don’t get any up to the second message notifications. The world won’t end if I don’t respond to some shit app request (all thought it might for the requester).
I have a life and a job and I’m sure I’ll get round to reading notifications when I get a few minutes free…..

Apple Mac`s again, no permanent routes

Yet more dealing with Mac`s again today and again another disappointment! So glad I binned my iPad for my Surface RT Tablet.

The set up that had been running fine for a few years had to be changed due to a `security update` that was introduced as a result of the work a few days ago.

Due to expert advice we changed the way that we do things which meant that I had to add some routes to the Mac clients to route network traffic to a different subnet.

All this messing about with adding routes to get traffic to flow where it needs to go reminds me of all the agro I had at my old job. I say agro, it was more me being excluded from being able to access things to change them and make them work. This time the A Team refused to add routes for the 3 additional subnets, mainly because they didn`t know what a subnet was and why they were needed! The subnets were in use by the engineers, Directors and the VOIP phone system. Needless to say I got the grief because the Directors couldn`t get emails and no one got the telephone stats!
Boy do I not miss that shit!

So I had to add a script!? so that the routes were added back in when the machine booted back up. Seriously not sure why that was and I really cannot be bothered to find out the reason, but thankfully the need was short lived as things were changed again so that we no longer needed to add a permanent route.

Fed up of computers?!

Blaaaaaggggghhhhh! Some days I get really fed up of computers, today, and a few days before, are one of those times.

I don’t know what it is or why it happens but it only lasts a few days.

Maybe it was triggered by me having to send an email to someone with some instructions that took me 8 times as long to write as it should of and the fact that it was full of spelling mistakes that I then had to go and spend 4 minutes correcting.
To takes too long to dumb down something technical so that a dumb person can do it, when in fact a dumb person shouldn’t be doing something technical in the first place.
It also doesn’t help that I rushed it so that I could go and watch my favourite Essex hottie on the tv.

Time to snap out of it me thinks.

Can you help – a challenge?

One of the things I say to people is that ‘I like to fix the things that people say can’t be fixed’.
I also like to say ‘why are you two idiots reinstalling that computer from scratch to fix a small problem like that’ sadly I found myself saying that a few times back in the days of BOR!

Anyway, so when I get asked by a friend if I can have a look at their daughters laptop as she has forgotten her password and can’t get in,  I of course say ‘Yes’.
Even more so when I’m told a large PC Retailer has said ‘it can be done but she will lose everything on the hard drive’ and one of their friends has spent several hours trying to do it!

Obviously it didn’t take very long to fix the problem and return it to the owner – it just makes me wonder if people either don’t know what they are doing, taking the easy way out or trying to do a fast one ?!?!?!

Apple Mac`s, are they really as good as I am being told?

My first dealings with fixing some Mac issues today and to be honest a very disappointing one.

I`m always getting told by people that Mac`s are far more superior to PC`s and how much easier they are to look after! Really? Well today I leant that to fix a relatively simple problem of newly created users not being able to login, the whole Mac OSX Server needed to be reinstalled!

Seriously, I don`t think that in all the years that I have been fixing PC`s that I have had to reinstall to fix a software problem, with the exception of machines that have suffered hard disk failures that have corrupted windows way beyond fixing.

To me it seemed to be such a minor issue to fix yet it needed a complete reinstall.

It turns out that after a rebuild the same issue presented its self again which again needed a rebuild of the server.

Amazingly, again the same issue then reappeared yet again after everything had been set up, but this time it was fixed by rebuilding the OD database.

I wonder if that fix could have been done to start with. Hmmmm