Do you have a quirky stuff saving habit?

Hello all,

I am going to share a story I find amusing, and I would like to hear your story about this.

The other day I was in my garage, cleaning things up and moving things around when I had a flashback to my childhood that got me laughing at myself.  I realized I have some of the same habits that I observed in others around me.

When I was quite young I hung around my uncles and other old timers who were a part of the Great Depression.  Many of these people were mechanically inclined and worked on cars and just about everything else in their life.  I remember it as if it were yesterday, sweeping the floor of my grandfather's auto repair place, some old timer yelling to me, "Come here boy!  I want to learn you something!"

These old-timer guys were my true heroes.  Sure, there was Robin Yount, Cecil Cooper, Don Money, Gorman Thoms, Jim Gantner, Paul Molitor and all kinds of other sports athletes that wow'd me.  They were fun to watch from a distance, but these old guys knew everything. 

I would sit and listen to their stories about just about everything under the sun.  They would talk about the hard times when they were growing up, things that they did to entertain themselves (like actually play OUTSIDE!) and the mischief they would get into.  I really miss those stories.

"Come here boy!" usually meant I was in trouble or they were going to show me something.  I learned all kinds of stuff about cars and fixing stuff.  They just did things creatively right.  But more than only listening to their stories, I observed and learn from what they did without telling me.  And this is what got me laughing.

When these guys would change the oil in a car, they would turn the cans upside down and put them in funnel, and let them sit there for a few hours.  Remember the old oil cans that you would open with a can opener?  Or, if you were 'high tech' you would have one of those gouge pour funnels that you could just pour the oil into the valve cover opening.  So they would let these cans sit in a funnel for a few hours to squeeze every last drop of oil out of the can.  After about 20 quarts of oil, they would save about 1 quart of oil in a jar to use for themselves.  You could imagine that if you change enough oil you could save enough to change your own oil when that time arrived.

So, I have 5 empty quarts of oil standing upside down with the cap on, with about 1-2 tablespoons of oil resting in them, waiting to be poured out into the master oil bottle collector.  My old-timer mentors would be happy and proud to know that their legacy live on.  I might even get an "Attaboy!"

So what is your story?

Tom

How does a brain of a tech person really work?

Hello again all,

A few days ago, after helping someone with a fairly complex computer/network problem, I was asked, "How in (expletive) did you figure that out?  How does your brain work?"  We had a few laughs and I began to wonder that myself.  So I began thinking......

The concept of "normal" is all based on relativity.  I believe that most of us use the standard gauge measure of 'normal' as ourself.  "I am normal" and everything is either left, right, or in-line with "normal".  But what if somewhere along the line of brain function, I was introduced to 'abby normal'  (Young Frankenstein reference).  My standard of normal wouldn't change because I am still "normal"; only to which side the balance most ideas/people rest.

First, I and my friends are convinced that that if there is a filter between my brain and my mouth/keyboard it simply doesn't work.  Things just seem to slip out and before I know it, I am wishing I could reel it back before it reaches anyone.  I have this saying, "If I have offended you, I truly apologize.  If I haven't, wait a few minutes, I'll get to you as soon as I can."

So, with these two presuppositions, I am 'normal' and any chance of having a working filter doesn't exist, how does my thought/reason process, my brain, actually work?

Plinko in 3D and an absence of gravity!

A thought, idea, concept, problem, issue, etc someone gets into my head.  It then bumps into and knocks up against all kinds of other thoughts, ideas, concepts, problems, issues, etc, on its way to some sort of resolution or conclusion.  The resolution or conclusion then itself becomes a part of the Plinko game, thereby furthering the game.

Some people believe that in Plinko, the ball or peg bounces around nilly-willy without rhyme or reason and just happens to end in a certain spot because of random chance.  I don't believe that for a second.  I believe there is some calculation and groups of calculations, which, if we could properly put it all together, we could understand and even plan a certain outcome.  We call actions or events "random" because we can't or don't want to spend the brain power figuring out the how and why.  And even if we would have a magical algorithm that figures out everything, there is a string that throws off everything; "but God...".

So, my brain and that of most IT tech people, in some strange way, works like a giant 3D Plinko game.

Thoughts?

Minuteman UPS follow-up

Hello all,

This is a follow-up to my previous blog about all the problems I was having with my Minuteman 3000RM2U.

Everything in my previous blog is still accurate, however, there is a happy ending.

Today, I received 8 new SNMP-SSL cards from the manufacturer.  I spent about 3 hours installing them and configuring them.  I am glad to say they are running and performing as I would have expected.

These might turn out to be good UPS systems.  Time will have to make up for it.

Minuteman UPS systems - my anger- STAY AWAY.

Hello all,

Here is a short story of my very first experience with Minuteman UPS's.  I have been working on 8 - 3000KV 2-U RM units.

The UPS's look pretty and solid.  They seemed to be okay and honestly, they seem to function okay.  The problem comes with the network management card, SNMP-SSL.  That is the name of the card.

I fired up the UPS systems and remoted into the system with their RJ45 to DB9 interface, using HyperTerminal.  I set a static address and turned off DHCP.

I opened up a web browser to finish configuring it with a pretty interface.  According to their instructions, one step is to check the firmware version with what is available online.  I did.  The firmware on the SNMP-SSL card is 2.05 and the download version is 2.10.  I downloaded the new version from their website.  Again, according to their instructions, you can upgrade the SNMP-SSL card via the embedded web server or their special upgrade utility.

I upgraded the card with their web server, connected using Windows 7, 64bit, using IE8.  The upgrade seemed to take just fine, but didn't.  For some reason, every the card is restarted, DHCP is re-enabled and the static IP Address is over written with a DHCP address.  Every time a setting is changed in the card, the card asks to be restarted for the settings to be applied.  And...as you can guess, if I reset the card, I lose connectivity to the card because it reassigns a DHCP address.  I proved this over and over again.  And then I called support.  OI!

At first they did not believe me that this was the problem.  They had me do all kinds of things that, if I could, I would have reached through the phone and strangled the guy.  "Is it plugged in...is it displaying a page...are there lights on...."  Okay...I get it...they have to go through every possible thing.  But once I let them know I kinda know what I am doing in general, he should have backed off a bit.

So, he had me re-flash the firmware, nada.  Then he said that the web based upgrade doesn't work on IE, so I tried Firefox, nada.  Then he said that it doesn't work on Windows 7, so I went to Windows XP.  So then they said that the flash doesn't work in the web version at all, and I need to use their special utility to upgrade the firmware, nada.  Then they said that I needed to use a special version of the utility that they had to send me in order for the flash to work, nada.

After about 10 hrs of messing around with this I finally blew a gasket.  Did I mention that these are brand new out of the box?

I asked for them to join.me in a session because they still didn't believe what was happening.  Once they saw it happen right before their eyes, the excuses just kept flying.  "We have thousands of these out in production and this is the first time we are hearing ANY problems!"  Really?!?!  Why is it that is seems that I find all kinds of unknown and unreported bugs?  In this case, maybe nobody else is using the management cards for management?  I just have a hard time believing that "I Tom Hafemann" am finding all kinds of bugs that nobody else in the entire world can find.

So...the manufacturer of the Minuteman UPS's are sending me 8 new SNMP-SSL cards.  If they don't work right out of the box they are going back.  The WHOLE THINGS!

Above all of this, I haven't even begun to configure management yet.  In order to configure the SSL Manager I must have static connection to the Manager server!  Even more GRRRRRRRR.

If you don't mind spending all kinds of time on something simple like a UPS, by all means save some money and buy Minuteman UPS.  Otherwise, buy something for a little more that you know works and will not give you any problems.

A few years ago I tried Eaton UPS and it was really good.  The thing just works, management just works.  The clients just work.  I had the UPS up and running and totally configured on all the systems I wanted in about 2 hrs.