I decided to make a wish a reality, so I got some for my team.

We can write ticket numbers on the back in silver sharpie and leave them on peoples desk when we're looking for them. Eventually I'm going to run a technological strike team. =D

I wish your app, monitoring product and/or device would take the following list into consideration when you decide to add SNMP Notification (trap) support.

1. You probably don't need more then one custom trap. A few different traps for different types of notifications is fine. 30,000 different traps that all have identical structure is not ok. (I'm looking at you Symantec I3)
2. Use a different OID for each piece of information. Please don't make us use regex to pull out the data.
3. If you're trapping about a problem, trap about when the problem is resolved.
4. Cold/warm start, link up, link down and most of the other basic RFC traps that are well defined are more then welcome.
5. If you're going to tell me the status changed of something, tell me what it is! (I'm looking at you Arista Networks.)
6. If you're going to tell me the status changed  of something in particular, tell me how it changed!
7. Nobody ever got angry because you provided too much data. If I have to poll your device to find out what happened you're doing it wrong.
8. If there is extra data you might think is useful (Say the label on the port when you trap the port had a link down event.) please provide it. You can still do this and conform to the RFC spec.
9. SNMP V2c support is fine, nobody cares about V3. Feel free to support it but don't assume people will use it by default and don't make people jump though hoops to disable it.
10. Don't hold internal state of the "Alert" you're trapping about. If I have to manually log into your system and clear or acknowledge your alert before you'll tell me it happened again you're doing it wrong. (I'm looking at you RAD Data Comm.)
11. If you're reporting on state changes, tell me every state change every time! Nobody ever complained about too much data.

My team is responsible for monitoring a large number of hardware devices (Are they working? Did something break? Is it fixed?, servers (Are they responding? How's their storage? Is something trying to kill it?) applications (Is it running? Why did it crash? Can it start up again?), and business processes (Did these jobs fail? Will they succeed before someone needs them? Can they be rerun?) It's a broad set of responsibilities and it involves working with many different teams.

One of the more interesting parts of my job is monitoring a new device or application. It usually goes like this. "We've just purchased something new and we want it to send it's alerts to you. Can you make that happen?" Why of course! Someone from that team will ask a few questions, turn on "SNMP" on the device, point the "traps" at our servers and walk away. My team will see these "alarms" and panic. It usually look like a cross between mayhem and spam. Neither are good and frankly I don't want either of them on my watch. There is sometimes some yelling. "Hey knock that off!" "No! This is important!" And then we sit down and work things out. Let me give you some background first.

SNMP for the purposes of this story is a simple way for things to send us messages. These messages when sent to us are called "traps". Things send us messages about anything they want to. Maybe they're hungry. Maybe they just turned on. More often then not they speak up when something goes wrong and it's usually along the lines of "Help I've lost power!" or "I HAD AN ERROR!" or "My eighth port on card 23 had too many collisions in the last 30 seconds!".

My systems listen to these messages and decides what's important and creates Alerts for my team to respond to. These are along the lines of "Pardon me sir, A switch named core-12 in New York is seeing too many errors on the following ports. Here are the procedures for this type of thing and here are the tickets from when they happened last week. Do have a nice day." I've trained my systems to be very polite.

When a device is set to send us all their messages, my system does it's best to guess what's important and ignores the rest. It's harsh but necessary. There are some standard messages that most devices know. (some useful some not) but there is such a plethora of useless chatter that it would be very troublesome to pay attention to all of it. That stuff gets recorded but not alerted. "Why yes that's very interesting that you just did that thing. I can tell it's very important to you, I'll write that down and put it over here for later."

Often the devices don't know how to tell you what's wrong, or tell when anything happens but not what happened. "I need help." or "Hey, I saw something!" Neither are helpful. Helpful devices will be very specific and tell you when problems go away. "I lost something." followed by "Hey I found it again!" is a very nice occurrence and my system knows it can resolve that Alert and we can all go on with life.

Today I found a device that didn't want to bother me. If it had an issue it would tell you, but only the first time. "I lost power! but.. I lost power a few weeks ago, I shouldn't bother you with that again. I'll keep it to myself." I don't understand why someone would make a device like that.

I wasn't honest before. Applications can talk SNMP too. It's not just for devices. Most of the applications that talk to my system do it poorly and I know who made them do it. They sit on the other side of my office and while I'm not a mean person, I do judge their work quite harshly. They're notorious for spam. You see, if you can tell a computer to send a message once, you can easily tell it to send a message a million times. Or even better, you can tell it to send you a message every time it thinks something. A ton of messages from an application that deals with city dog registration isn't helpful if all it tells you is "I thought about dogs." every time a dog comes up in conversation. In fact that's a bit rude. I'm often asked to ignore things "for now". Could you ignore that for very long?

To be fair application programmers don't want to be rude. Their application was made to do a task not alert about it. They usually do the task very well and that is most important. But when things go wrong (and they will, and soon) how they tell my team suddenly matters and is the difference between the right reaction and an very slow wrong reaction. Imagine if the dog registration program was handed a cat and decided it couldn't work with any more dogs until someone took this cat away. Does it even know what a cat is? Can it say "I have a cat and I'm stumped what to do with it. Its not very dog like at all." or will it just say "I can't think about this dog!". One message will make sense to me and I'll be able to help, the other will not and I wouldn't be able to guess what it meant.

I hold that it is important to talk to your NOC before sending us any new messages. But it's a step that's often forgotten.

I've barely scratched the surface of what life in the NOC can be like, But I should stop myself before I go on for too long. I hope this gives you a greater understanding some of what we do. I also hope it helps garner a greater respect for your local NOC workers in your neighborhood or city.

Other non-spoiling things I learned about Hugo from it's marketing that turned out to be untrue.

• It was animated.
• It was a love story.
• It was about a heart shaped key.
• It was about a little boy who's a thief on the run from the law for killing possibly his father.
• It was about a steampunk 1930's Paris.
• It was about a robot who befriends Hugo after Hugo fixes him.
• It was about a crooked Paris Inspector who hates little kids.
• Everyone is Paris is English.

I don't want to tell you what the movie was about because discovering it was half the fun. Maybe that's what the movie was about, Adventure and discovery.

Enjoy.

The problem with nice umbrellas are they cost a lot. The BLUNT Mini is $80 and I'll probably leave it somewhere before it breaks. I'd have to go though more then 20 of the $4 umbrellas you can buy on every corner in Manhattan when it rains. I'd rather not have tons of crappy umbrellas traveling around the world only to end up buried in a long island landfill but I wonder if the manufacturing costs (in money and environmental impact) of the Blunt outweigh a couple of them making that trip.

This is neither here nor there, I have a better use for the $80. I also don't mind getting wet.

Ira Glass of This American Life spent a few weeks in Glynn County, Georgia investigating a "drug court" that seems to have the power to legally imprison people without oversight, for indefinite amounts of time and relatively small charges. In the show's two acts he touched on two points I found very pertinent.

1. The judge behind the injustices, Amanda Williams, has enough power as not to be challenged by anyone in her county.
2. What she is doing is legal and the victims have no recourse. They can't appeal once they enter the Drug Court program.

There will always be people who overstep their power, make mistakes, make bad judgments, etc. It's why we have checks and balances. No one can rule absolutely. What makes me angry is that there is no checks on Judge Amanda Williams. She has overstepped her bounds (on the record) on multiple occasions, and it takes an out of state reporter to come in and show what's happening.

Since this is the kind of journalism and programming I want to encourage I've donated $10 to the "This American Life" show. If this is the kind of thing you want to encourage too, please donate at least a dollar, either via paypal or by buying the episode on the iTunes Store.

Listen to the episode or read the transcript (pdf).

Next up;

This Developers Life did an interview with Remon Zakaria, an Egyptian programmer who runs a successful business working on projects with American companies. Remon was an active participant in the recent revolution, against his family's wishes and with a company to run.

His turning point was when they shut off the internet and phones. He discovered that most phones still had data connections; they were limited to the networks they were on. To keep his team busy he had them develop a Twitter-like program that could run on every phone they could find (Nokia, Android, and weird java implementations on feature phones), but instead of requiring the internet they would scan the phone's subnet for other phones. They would connect with them, transferring messages and information about other phones. This led to a localized Twitter that could connect people in an area.

He talks about why older people trusted the TV more then any social media. That led to a great disagreement in what was actually going on in the streets and if his family should be involved. He also covers how life has changed since the revolution ended. It's worth a listen.

I got work consulting right out of college. I quit school. It was more giving up spending mtoney on something I wasn't happy with than not wanting an education. (Not to speak ill of Rowan University, but I wasn't happy in the middle of nowhere New Jersey.) When I came home I figured I'd straighten myself out and go back to school elsewhere. My godfather had plans for me in the meantime.

He figured as long as I was home I should work repairing computers (a hobby of mine). I didn't have anything better to do so I went along with it. I made some flyers; "$20 an hour, fix anything PC or MAC!" and got someone from my old junior high school to let me stuff the teachers mailboxes with them.

That led to a few jobs, which led to a few more. I talked about my new venture with anybody who would listen. I gave out cards all the time. I offered free advice, tons of free advice. Leaned the phrase, "Well to figure out anything more I'd really have to take a closer look, here's my card." And eventually I had enough work where that I felt like I was undercharging.

Two things convinced me. A guy at a copy center asked how much I was charging (I was telling a friend about my new business) and when I told him he immediately said, "That's way too little, you'll never make it." I spun off, "Oh I'm just starting blah blah blah" and he didn't elaborate further. (He ran away quite nervously if I recall.) But that guy was right. I started noticing that people really didn't mind paying for my work.

And while I was getting better at what I did every day, I could barely believe that anyone was giving me money. It felt like a scam. This was a hobby, I mean I actually liked what I did. But as long as they insisted on paying I bet I could get more.

And so began my trek up the pricing chart. $20/hour turned into $35/hour, turned into $55 residential, $65 business, turned in to $75/$85 and so on. $85 an hour was a plateau that kept me happy and ensured clients reserved me for the interesting jobs. I began working with a startup around that time and quickly became unavailable for most of the trivial work. But if I ever needed money I had a roster of clients a phone call away. There's always something I can do to help them.

A side effect of charging low was that people didn't mind wasting my time and would argue over pennies. My best guess is if they don't see you valuing your own time, they won't value it either. They wouldn't show up, or they'd spend hours talking to me, not learning about computers (I try to teach as much as I can), but sharing personal stories about computers, telling me about their family, their personal problems, etc. Some people became good friends (you know who you are) but it's an odd experience when you charge by the hour.

I'll leave you with the quote from this blog post that inspired my story.

Your response reminded me of how I moved from a $20/hr web developer to a $120/hr web developer in about 12 months simply by increasing my rate at every contract bid I put out and occasionally doing some very high, just-to-see type bids. I never lost a contract due to cost (unless I wanted to ;) ), it was purely a mental barrier.

I wasn't writing to these points, but if you want a take away:

• Teach as much as you can. Keeping your client dumb doesn't keep you in business, it just keeps your business with them dumb.
• Charge more with every project until it becomes prohibitive to the clients. As long as you're honest, you won't get paid more than you're worth.

Good luck!

I saw them visit the next day too.

(tron is brought to you by daft punk)

Busted Lock and Bent Door

It's been a long week. Everyone (even Alex) is OK. I wanted to thank everyone who's helped out and everyone's who's offered. We have amazing friends.

Me starting roborooter.com

My new job has me tired but excited. It's got me up at 6am and and working all day long. It's a wonderful feeling.

Of course it doesn't have me posting on my blog during the day either.

This Week in Tech
http://twit.tv/ (You might also like This week in Google)

Planet Money
http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/

All Songs Considered
http://www.npr.org/blogs/allsongs/

You can listen on the website or just search on iTunes. There’s also Google’s “Listen” app for the droid that auto downloads podcasts on your droid. Search for it in the market place or scan the QR code. I love this app, it makes my morning commutes disappear. (iTunes works on the iPhone/iPod/iPad, but it doesn't auto sync or auto download directly onto your phone.)

http://listen.googlelabs.com/

Lastly I continually change what I listen to, I add new podcasts and drop old ones. The latest version of "Listen" can integrate with Google Reader so I can share all the items I listen to.

I went looking for balsa wood planes but Neargaurd pharmacy's toy shop only had Gayla styrofoam and sticker planes. As much as I love the powered balsa wing gliders these are top notch!

It was written in response to someone who really didn't want a friend of a friend staying at their house, but didn't want to be rude and say no.

This is a classic case of Ask Culture meets Guess Culture.

In some families, you grow up with the expectation that it's OK to ask for anything at all, but you gotta realize you might get no for an answer. This is Ask Culture.

In Guess Culture, you avoid putting a request into words unless you're pretty sure the answer will be yes. Guess Culture depends on a tight net of shared expectations. A key skill is putting out delicate feelers. If you do this with enough subtlety, you won't even have to make the request directly; you'll get an offer. Even then, the offer may be genuine or pro forma; it takes yet more skill and delicacy to discern whether you should accept.

All kinds of problems spring up around the edges. If you're a Guess Culture person — and you obviously are — then unwelcome requests from Ask Culture people seem presumptuous and out of line, and you're likely to feel angry, uncomfortable, and manipulated.

If you're an Ask Culture person, Guess Culture behavior can seem incomprehensible, inconsistent, and rife with passive aggression.

Obviously she's an Ask and you're a Guess. (I'm a Guess too. Let me tell you, it's great for, say, reading nuanced and subtle novels; not so great for, say, dating and getting raises.)

Thing is, Guess behaviors only work among a subset of other Guess people — ones who share a fairly specific set of expectations and signalling techniques. The farther you get from your own family and friends and subculture, the more you'll have to embrace Ask behavior. Otherwise you'll spend your life in a cloud of mild outrage at (pace Moomin fans) the Cluelessness of Everyone.

As you read through the responses to this question, you can easily see who the Guess and the Ask commenters are. It's an interesting exercise.

I also think people, even worthwhile people can be dicks sometimes regardless of why.

Gource output of one of my latest projects from reconbot on Vimeo.

I was reading this http://grahamweldon.com/blog/cakephp-a-visual-history-0–1-3–0 and got inspired to try it out on my own code. This is me (and my laptop who didn't have the user correctly set) working on a project for work here and there for a few weeks.

"You must be the change you want to see in this world." — Gandhi

If you have an amex online account they limit your password to 8 characters and you can only use numbers and letters. That’s not very secure (I could write a program to guess every password in those restraints in a matter of minutes.). So someone complained. (Note: I’ve complained by phone myself and got no response.)

I wish that I could use a stronger password for this site. 8 characters are NOT enough.
Response (Gaurav Sharma) 02/06/2010 05:53 AM

And the response.

Thank you for your email regarding your online password.

I would like to inform you that our website has a 128 bit encryption. With this base, passwords that comprise only of letters and alphabets create an algorithm that is difficult to crack. We discourage the use of special characters because hacking softwares can recognize them very easily.

The length of the password is limited to 8 characters to reduce keyboard contact. Some softwares can decipher a password based on the information of “most common keys pressed”.

Therefore, lesser keys punched in a given frame of time lessen the possibility of the password being cracked.

Moreover, American Express is committed to protecting the privacy and security of all of our Cardmembers, both on-line and off-line. We believe that our current security measures, which include our sophisticated monitoring systems to detect unusual or fraudulent card activity, provide strong, ongoing protections for our Cardmembers.

Rest assured, I have forwarded your comments to our webmaster for review. During this review, we may contact you if additional information is required.

We value your membership and wish goodness and health to you and your family.
Sincerely,
Gaurav Sharma
Email Servicing Team
American Express Interactive Services

Eight characters makes a pretty weak password. The rationalization is twofold. First, when looking though a keylogger's output the password will be hard to identify, and if it was really long and random it would be easy to pick out. (Think the output of virus that is reporting back thousands of people's keystrokes.)

Secondly when a password is stolen or guessed that they can detect the fraud with their "special sauce" monitoring and take care of things after the fact.

I'll assume that the credit card companies want to protect themselves from losses of which fraudulent charges are a large part. I can attest to credit card companies alerting me my number was stolen way before I noticed it. (It's happened a couple times, I even had my card copied by a cashier once.) So I figure they must have run tests and figured out this was the best way to protect their money.

The problem is I think they're wrong and the limitation is part of a hold over from old computer systems. They wouldn't lie would they?

Image via Wikipedia

I hate the feeling of being sold.

I've been getting a lot of emails and letters in the mail from my Alumni Association asking for me to update my info. Let me correct that.

I've been getting a lot of emails and letters from a book company that my Alumni Association has sold my information to. If you're a Brooklyn Technical High School alumni you've probably been getting them too. So I called them up, give them my info they so desperately needed.

They said I'd probably be surprised to know how many other Alumni might be in the area of Brooklyn that I live in. I told them, "No I wont, everyone is on facebook." Going downhill from there, I was hard sold on the $100 book (two easy payments..) and then the $80 softcover book , and then the $40 CD-ROM.

I can't honestly figure out why they're selling a CD-ROM.

I guess I can, most of their customers are going to be older alumni. (Like my dad, who didn't buy the book either. Hi dad!) I can actually think of a few good reasons to own the book, like getting in touch with older alumni mostly. But I can't justify spending that much for a list of names with pictures and stories.

I figure if they're going to use my info for their business I'll use my info for my business.

My education at Brooklyn Tech gave me an extra edge when I entered college and the workforce. I have applied the lessons I learned there, in both classes and  clubs, to my work and my life. Notably, founding BTHSnews.org taught me what it takes to lead a team of people, and the CCNA classes taught me how to take care of complex networking issues with ease, allowing me to concentrate on higher level problems when I started Wizard Computing, LLC, my computer consultancy.

Seeing the directions the people I met in school, and continue to meet though BTHSnews.org, are going makes me proud to be an alum.