Midwest Geek

There was a great book I stole my title from, and this is what I have become. Plugged in, casting scripts, building servers, and forging applications.

Between personal and professional projects I have no idea where to really start. I am totally overwhelmed and somehow managed to get that way in less then 24 hours. I’ve put myself into one hell of a pickle and I am not sure how to get out, I think I’m going to develop ADD before this is all over.

Yesterday in our weekly staff meeting, a project that had been threatened to be rolled out for sometime was, and it was rolled onto me. Part of the fun of said project is that I get to learn a new Operating System by the end of the year. Now this isn’t a case of a simple introduction like a pleasant “Hi How are you?”, I’m to get all medieval on it, medieval to the point that both Ving Rhames and Quentin Terantino will avert their eyes. Along with running a OS that I have never operated before last night, I get to install, configure and run a mail server, challenge response system, user controls, firewalls, etc (I’ve never used any of them before). Oh ya, and the best parts, write all the technical documentation and train everyone else (Did I mention I am the NEWEST employee)! I was told that since I used a “tougher” OS at home for fun and no profit, I am the best suited for this gem of a project.

NaBloPoMo is also upon us and I want to really participate, I need to write more for myself, and this is something that will motivate me to do it. Hopefully I will spill something interesting on this site that is marginally better then the drivel I normally spread. As this is my first post, I honestly hope it doesn’t go down from here. Because I mean, come on.

I think any chance for a site redesign this month is probably not going to happen. By probably, I mean not a chance in hell. I have scratched out some designs that I am thinking through, however to sit down and work is really just not going to be a possibility until December. In the few minutes I took for lunch today, I found, what I think is the most beautiful site I have seen to date. In my humble non-professional web design opinion, http://www.verdurethought.com/ is by far the best use of pixels available. If I pull something off 1/10 or hell 1/100 that good, I would be very happy.

Aside from those fun projects, I still haven’t even cracked The Grapes of Wrath and that brothers me. I will more then likely start braking down my day to 1 hour and 30 minute increments and assigning tasks to them, once this server roll out is done, I’ll be good again and really ready for a vacation by then.

Tonight I get to curl up with a wonderful little page turner about advanced message transport systems and a couple of cups of pudding, because pudding just makes things better.

I’ll start with a bit of background on the hole I dug for myself .

We have a select list of people that we send Security related issues to, they are the security administrators for our clients, and we have a lot of them. To help us manage this list, I volunteered to keep a address book up to date and share the updates with my coworkers. This takes about 10-20 minutes of updating and deleting contacts on an as needed basis, no big deal. In meetings regarding this issue it was brought up that if we installed an ldap server (if you don’t know what an ldap server does and you work for a large company…when you click on the address book in Outlook and the entire company comes up…that’s ldap, basically your local address book installed on a remote server for everyone to share) that everyone would be able to have everyone add/delete/update the book on an as need basis.

Since I am rather new, and want to impress a little bit, but not too much, I mentioned that we could place this ldap server on our internal web server since it doesn’t do much…other then host like 8 links. The idea was accepted and I was told to track down one of the admins that keeps our web server up to date, find out if they will do the install or someone from our team would do the install. No big deal..I know I can handle this issue, I have been using the phone for close to 25 years, and talking for even more, if there is anyone for this job….of making a phone call…it’s me.

I make the call to the sys-admin manages our server, and here is the conversation basically paraphrased

SysAd: Leave a voice-mail because I’m not here.
Jason: Hi, I know you don’t care who I am, and because you have never heard of me, you are not going to return this call, so I am really just leaving this message because I told my boss I would. Thanks for deleting this message.

Three days later, I call him back.

SysAd: Hello.
Jason: HAHA, THIS IS JASON AND I HAVE YOU NOW, VICTORY IS MINE!!!
SysAd: Ohh…Ya I remember you, I deleted your voice mail late last week, you have 5 minutes before I hang up on you.
Jason: Now that I have you, you will tell me of the ldap options that we have.
SysAd: ldap is a piece of crap, and I don’t want to install this for you.
Jason: I don’t care what you think, it’s the only option we have…I MUST have it.
SysAd: I really don’t want to install it, have you thought about using Outlook or the ticketing system, it doesn’t involve me at all.
Jason: Fool, we have pulled the addresses from the the ticketing system and outlook really isn’t an ldap server now is it?
SysAd: Again, let me tell you about two options that won’t work and don’t involve me.
Jason: Now you are just not being very nice.
SysAd: There is really no chance that I am going to install this for you, and additionally I hope you get mauled by a Bear.
Jason: That hurts my feelings
SysAd: I hope you get run over by a large boulder.
Jason: I’m telling my boss.
SysAd: *click*

So I walk into the meeting on Tuesday and explain that I didn’t get far and that I think my Boss should go ahead and make a call, he agrees. Flash forward to today, when my boss stops by my desk.

Boss: Hey Jason, go head and email SysAd with the name and IP address of the web server that we want the ldap server installed on.
Jason: Sure, what’s up.
Boss: They are going to install ldap on the web server, and we are going to admin it.
Jason: Awesome, this will only take a second *sends email*
Boss: Great, once they have it installed, go ahead and import all of the addresses that we have, test everything and then write up a manual for us.
Jason: I have no idea how to do anything that you just said, however I am going to sit here and just nod my head in agreement *nods head*
Boss: From the nodding of your head, I can see that you are in total agreement and totally adept in knowledge of what I want.
Jason: *gulp*
Boss: Check your email again.
Jason: *Checks email* We got a reply, it’s installed. *gulp*
Boss: Have a good weekend.
Jason: *muttering* Fuuuck!!

I then spend the next two hours reading the manual on ldap and this is what I can tell you at this point.

This is an actual ldap command

dapsearch -x -b ” -s base ‘(objectclass=*)’ namingContexts

I have no idea if that is the command that makes the server work perfectly per our intentions, makes me attractive to all women, and tunes my car to perfect operating specs, or simply turns off the Internet.

I have a lot of reading to do this weekend, from the bottom of my hole (after seeing Clerks II with Monk).