shintara . net - keepin` it real!

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It was a cold, let me rephrase 'damn cold' evening when we finally pulled into our accomodation at Coloundra in Queenslands Sunshine Coast, the beach outside the appartments seemed to have a mystic look about it. I braved the cold and stepped onto the beach with tripod in one hand and camera in the other and took a handfull of photos. Who said taking photos is easy?

On the verge of insult!
I have often wondered what goes on behind the scenes in the selection process after a job interview, what indicates to the interview panel that a certain person is the right one for the job. In all honesty I didnt expect to get the job that I recently had an interview for, it was a management position, a position that involves a high - let me rephrase a very high level of knowledge in Information Technology with focus on digital imaging.

I consider myself to have quite an extreme knowledge in IT, and in the present position that I work in I am often quizzed by many people on IT advice and how things work. I have also played a huge role in moving towards a fully digital Radiology Department and have helped with the planning of the digital image network infrastructure.

If you havent guessed it, I didnt get the job that I was 'encouraged' to apply for, which in all honesty I am glad that I didnt get - yes the monetary rewards were great but my sanity is something that I would like to keep. I felt that I didnt sell myself in the interview, and in fact I really didnt do well overall in it.

So why am I insulted? To put it plainly and bluntly the guy who got the job is at the level equivalent to struggling with spreadsheets and I am at the level of creating a dial in server on a spare FreeBSD machine (see below) so I can dial into it when I work evenings, weekends or nightshifts to surf the net. Insult is the only word I can use to describe the demoralising feeling that, yes maybe he did better than me in the interview, but I am by far more qualified for the position.

This doesnt mean the end for me though (well I hope not!), my current manager was pleased/relieved when I told him that I didnt get the position. From what I have been told and word that has been spreading around is that I have pretty much secured that same position here at my current place of employment. What makes this even more effervescent to me is that we are going to be fully digital before the place where I went for the interview last week!

Projects ahoy...
Project number 1: Creating a FreeBSD dial in server.

Telstra have again played havok with my feelings, well they have 'made life harder' for me. At work we can only dial out numbers that dont have a zero in front of them and we must dial a zero to get an outside line. The problem with this is Telstra over the last year have phased out thier old dial in numbers and now have an 019 number that for me cant be dialed out to from work. This means that when work is slow (like right now at 5am) I am unable to hook a phone line up to my laptop and do some constructive web surfing.

There are two solutions to this situation, the first one which just wont cut it is to beg and grovel and try to get a phone line that enables me to dial out with the current settings. This plan wont work, and could see me out of a job. Solution number two is the one that sounds constructive, interesting and more importantly intellectually stimulating to the neurons that are amongst thier millions in my brain. I am going to build a dial in server so I can call my home phone number, log onto my computer and surf the web through it.

So after scouring the net for some articles on how to do this I am going to try and make a dial in server (wait for it) with RADIUS authentication to allow me to do come constructive work at work!

Project number 2: The shintara project.

Its time for me to migrate shintara.org to a Windows based server, stick some content on there and learn some ASP which I know for a fact will make one Iserv webmaster a very happy person. I must say that I do feel like I am letting the team down, in quite a big way, but for me to move onto the next level I need to start learning Microsoft Windows. This is a daunting task for me as I am totally lost in the Windows environment, yes this might sound silly but its true, I dont know where to start when using a Windows machine for development and Windows ideology doesnt make any sense to me at all.

I spent yesterday afternoon researching a whole heap of documents about IIS and how to (in)secure it from the bad guys on the internet. Most of these documents stated the same thing, that is/was that no matter how secure or upto date you are with your IIS server dont feel secure as there are people planning new exploits every day! I am scared, very scared to tell you the truth as I have never as such had a box owned, shintara.org is running on a stock standard apache install with php compiled aswell, the last time I checked the uptime it was 108 days live on the internet and it still hasnt been owned. Mind you there have been quite a few attempts but they are all IIS related exploits!

The ungeek side
All this geek speak is making me sleepy, tired and zoned out, its 5:15am I am sitting by myself in the radiology work area, the last patient I xrayed had a nasty fracture to her humerus at the proximal and distal ends but I suppose these things happen to you when you start getting older. Less than three hours to go and I can blow this joint and get some sleep, I have now missed out on my usual half hour to hour 4am sleep. Hmmm on that note I might finish this off a little later this afternoon...

Back
Back from the depths of deep sleep, its now 3:45pm and I am relaxed and wanting to sleep a little more but thats the last of my nightshifts for some time and I now have to get accustomed to the daily 9-5 grind. I just checked my email and it looks like I have 57 emails that will more than likely comprise of some form of spam. I have recieved an email from Pedro Bradley who has the same email address as I do, dave at shintara.net! This is a joke - kill spammers dead.

Silver
I am not a very active participant on IRC any longer, I chat to a limited few people online these days and occasionally help in the security and FreeBSD channels, and to be honest I have very little interest in all things IRC. Though when I do procrastinate I do sit in the Help.Security and FreeBSD channel on irc.telstra.com, ponder thoughts, chat to either Dan from vilesilencer or Brad from Iserv - these are the two people who always make the spurious comments about writing another mirc script. Now I am no fan of Windows or mIRC, to be honest I hate the two and I hardly use the Windows operating system. Let it be known that I am writing this on my Compaq 2500 laptop that is sporting an install of FreeBSD 5.2 release and running the Windowmaker windowmanager and using the Anjuta editor.

Back to the reason why I am writing this, seeing that I am planning on letting Windows grace my network with its insecure presence I have now been pondering on re-releasing the silver script as an updated version. I do know that due to the version of the mIRC binary (sorry .exe in doze users terminology) that is supplied supplied with the script users are limited as to what server they can log onto as it is a buggy version. So to remidy this I have been pondering that I may do a small update on the script and re-release it as an updated version. I wont bother doing this if there is no interest in anyone using the script, so if you are interested in using the script please let me know - email me on dave at shintara.net or follow this link and let me know if I should go through with it. If i do generate enough interest in silver it will be available for download once again, over four years after its original release!

A conclusion to a long update
This has been the longest update that I have done in quite some time, it has felt good to have the time to put fingers to keys and do something like this, I actually feel invigorated after writing this. Time for me to head off to the yonder.

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