On July 12th this blog will be participating in an “INTERNET-WIDE DAY OF ACTION TO SAVE NET NEUTRALITY” in order to help raise awareness and spur action on a part of the masses.

Cheers!

In the first example, a SOAP/XML interface to a third-party wasn’t accepting transactions. Well that’s proof positive that it’s a network problem, right? A simple “telnet” test to the IP address and port from the origin server was successful. Yet the response from the team reporting the problem? “If it’s not the network we don’t know what to-do next” which left me speechless.  After a 15 minute conference call, I had the third-party restart their back-end service and magically transactions started flowing again.

In another example, I was notified that a SOAP/XML interface that we host on the public Internet was inaccessible – must be a network issue. I verified that I was unable to connect to that specific host from the internal network on the TCP port specified and advised that they should check the specific host in question, I was rebuked by the application analyst telling me, “Nginx is up and running”. A co-worker remotely connected to the specific server and found Nginx prompting for the passphrase (password) for the SSL certificate that Nginx was trying to load. The team in question had never even checked the server.

It’s one thing to say ‘I don’t know what’s going on here and can you help me”. It’s a completely different thing to say “it’s a network problem, you need to fix it”, especially when it becomes abundantly clear that the team/person making this statement has done zero troubleshooting or due diligence and doesn’t even understand the details of the problem.

Occasionally we run into a genuine problem, yes they do occur. Unfortunately I’ve heard too many crying wolf stories that I almost never trust what I hear until I verify all the details myself.

How about this, I’ll take your credit card (Visa, Mastercard, Discover, no Amex) and if it’s a network problem I won’t bill you. However, if it’s not a network problem I’ll be sure to make it painful enough that the next time you’ll definitely do your homework before you come calling.

I’ll close this post out with the following line,

It’s Not Always the Networks Fault!

Cheers!

It’s our jobs as the technical experts in our various fields to help educate and advise our employers or clients when determining timelines and project budgets. The goal is to strike a balance, if our employer or client is only worried about 99% uptime then we can reduce the design appropriately. If they are willing to accept 802.11n instead of 802.11ac, or 100Mbps to the desktop instead of 1Gbps to the desktop, or 1Gbps uplinks instead of 10Gbps uplinks those are all compromises that directly impact the design requirements and ultimately the costs. In my opinion the key is striking a good balance between cost, time, features and requirements.

I’m usually pretty passionate about technical debt because if the solution doesn’t work who do you think the users will be coming back to? Who is the help desk going to be calling at 2AM on a long holiday weekend?

What do you think? Any stories to share?

Cheers!

Image Credit: Pierre Amerlynck

Almost every aspect of the book matched some experience I’ve had over the past 20+ years working in IT. All too often IT is viewed as just a cost center or a road block when IT should be an integral part of the business. In the end of the book everything worked out for Bill and his team, unfortunately the real world isn’t all that easy, in some cases there’s no convincing the captain that he/she should change course until the ship literally hits the rocks and sinks, and then you can say “I told you so”.

If you’ve read the book let me know what you thought? If you haven’t read or listened to the book I would highly recommend it.

Cheers!

I was about to add liquor tax, but that’s already taxed in Philadelphia at 10% of retail sales. The soda tax is only a few pennies right? In the current proposal, Philadelphia’s proposed tax could add 36 cents to the cost of a 12-ounce can of soda – and 54 cents to the cost of a fountain drink of the same size.

In November 2014 Berkeley, Calif., became the first U.S. city to pass a law taxing soda. In 2013 New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg attempted to ban large size fountain drinks but was blocked by the courts. From the reports in the local newspapers it appears that Mayor Kenney has the votes needed to pass his soda tax.

I’m just concerned what other taxes will potentially follow. How long before they raise the tax to make up additional shortfalls?

What do you think? Is taxing soda the approach to getting America healthier? What do you think could be next?

Cheers!

T-Mobile’s Binge On is a service that allows access to specific content without that content counting toward the user’s monthly data cap – zero rating. The service does optimize the video for 480p (DVD quality) which isn’t too bad given the general size of most smartphones and tablets. That said there is a discussion going on within the community that T-Mobile’s Binge On violates net neutrality. I didn’t originally agree that Binge On violates Net Neutrality since the service is completely optional, you don’t need to use it if you don’t want. It’s pretty clear that T-Mobile is being a disruptor in the cellular market. As a customer with three teen aged daughters the service is a big hit with them.

You can realize my surprise when this IT colleague told me that T-Mobile is actually throttling all video traffic regardless of whether or not the content provider is participating in the Binge On program. I quickly found the article from Jeremy Gillula titled, EFF Confirms: T-Mobile’s Binge On Optimization is Just Throttling, Applies Indiscriminately to All Video.  After this revelation I now feel that T-Mobile is violating net neutrality rules by impeding traffic from content providers that aren’t participating in the Binge On program when the Binge On feature is active on the phone and not communicating that fact to their customers.

It appears to me that T-Mobile wasn’t being truly transparent in this case. And of course the feature is optional but it is enabled by default, but of course it is enabled by default. It wouldn’t serve T-Mobile anything if it was opt-in and not opt-out. In a story from Jon Brodkin titled, T-Mobile’s Binge On: When throttling may not break the rules, John argues that because the feature is optional that it may not violate net neutrality.

Are you a T-Mobile customer? What do you think about Binge On?

Cheers!

• Ghost in the Wires: My Adventures as the World’s Most Wanted Hacker
• In the Plex: How Google Thinks, Works, and Shapes Our Lives
• Worm: The First Digital World War
• Spam Nation: The Inside Story of Organized Cybercrime – from Global Epidemic to Your Front Door
• Dead or Alive by Tom Clancy
• Minecraft: The Unlikely Tale of Markus ‘Notch’ Persson and the Game that Changed Everything
• Threat Vector by Tom Clancy
• Locked On by Tom Clancy
• Against All Enemies by Tom Clancy
• Command Authority by Tom Clancy
• Tom Clancy Presents: Act of Valor
• Battle Cruiser: Lost Colonies, Book 1
• Dreadnought: Lost Colonies, Book 2
• Swarm: Star Force, Book 1
• Warship: Black Fleet Trilogy, Book 1
• Call to Arms: Black Fleet Trilogy, Book 2
• The Second Ship: The Rho Agenda, Book 1
• Immune: The Rho Agenda, Book Two
• Wormhole: The Rho Agenda, Book 3
• Constitution – Legacy Fleet Trilogy, Book 1
• Warrior – Legacy Fleet Trilogy, Book 2
• Victory – still waiting for this one to release

Cheers!

Why is it that major news media outlets continue to publish the name(s) and or pictures of these villains?

While there is no such thing as the “Mass Shooting Bill”, I would think that common sense would start to prevail after more than 300 recorded mass shootings in the United States already in 2015. Why do the major news media outlets continue to provide a platform to publicize these notorious and infamous villains? I fear the news media inspiring additional copycat killers just so they too can get their 5 minutes of fame. We don’t need to know their name, read their name, hear their name or see their picture. I’m all for the First Amendment here folks but when can we expect common sense and human decency to trump ratings and ad sales. How about exclusively covering the victims, and the so many other lives that are left in shambles.

Cheers!

The latest addition to my library is Spam Nation. Spam Nation is Brian Krebs account of the Russian pharma wars that raged years ago. While a large amount of the story and information is somewhat dated there are still a lot of details to absorb. There’s also significant coverage of all the large botnet takedowns. I can still remember the takedown of the ZeuS and SpyEye botnets by Microsoft in 2012.

I personally enjoyed Spam Nation and it didn’t break the piggy bank which also made it a welcome addition to my library. If you are at all interested in getting a glimpse of the digital underworld then I would definitely suggest this book to you. Full disclosure here, there’s no affiliate link in there just in case you were wondering. :)

Cheers!

Note: This is a series of posts made under the Network Engineer in Retail 30 Days of Peak, this is post number 2 of 30. All the posts can be viewed from the 30in30 tag.

What’s the problem?

While quite a few people take the time and effort to adequately document and describe their problem, including the troubleshooting steps they’ve already taken, far too many folks don’t take the time to provide the basic details of the actual problem or the environment around the problem when posting a question or asking for assistance.

All too often I’ll see a post or a comment that says something along the lines of “I have a switch and an IP phone and it’s not working can you please help?“. So my answer is “sure, if you can provide enough detail around your configuration and environment!”

When you make a post remember that the folks that are going to respond have no clue how your network is designed or configured. They also have no idea what you’ve tried and what you haven’t tried in order to resolve the problem. And while there are quite a few of us out there happy to answer questions and offer support, we generally won’t waste our time trying to pull answers out of people that should have originally provided the basic information when first soliciting (free) help.

Describe the problem and/or symptoms with enough detail

Here’s what I suggest as a basis when making a post requesting assistance;

• Thorough description of the problem and all symptoms.
• When did the problem first start?
• Has it ever worked properly (help identify a potential configuration or operational issue).
• Was there a change made that preceded the problem?
• The switch models and software releases of each.
• Is the problem easily reproducible or intermittent?
• What have you done to date to try and resolve the problem?

While I realize I’m probably preaching to the choir with this post I’m trying fill my roll and help.

Update your original post and/or question with the solution

If you were able to resolve your problem and/or issue with someone’s help please don’t forget to update the thread with the outcome so that the next Joe or Jane will have the benefit of your experiences to get them through their problem or issue. And as always it would be nice of you to say ‘Thanks!‘ to those that took the time to respond to your post and/or question.

Cheers!

When I initially heard of the soda tax last year I honestly thought it was a joke. Mayor Michael Nutter of Philadelphia is again proposing a two-cents-per-ounce excise tax on sugar-sweetened beverages in order to close a $629 million school budget spending gap. Now I’m all for supporting our schools and these uncertain economic times are difficult for everyone but you honestly want to tax soda?

How many taxes do we as citizens of the United States of America already pay?

• Capital Gains Tax (15% on long term gains)
• Cigarette Tax ($0.36 per pack)
• Corporate Income Tax
• Federal Income Tax (25% for household making $100,000)
• Federal Unemployment Tax (FUTA)
• Gasoline Tax ($0.48 per gallon)
• Inheritance Tax (4.5% direct descendants, 12% siblings and 15% other heirs)
• Interest Expense (tax on the money)
• Liquor Tax ($0.08 per gallon)
• Local (Wage) Income Tax (Philadelphia residents 3.928% non-residents 3.4985%)
• Luxury Taxes
• Medicare Tax
• Property Tax (assessed value x 8.264%)
• Real Estate Tax
• Sales Taxes (8% in Philadelphia)
• School Tax (3.9280%)
• Social Security Tax (4.2% for employees and 6.2% for employers)
• State Income Tax (Pennsylvania is a flat 3.07%)
• State Unemployment Tax (SUTA)
• Telephone Federal Excise Tax
• Telephone Federal, State and Local Surcharge Taxes
• Telephone Federal Universal Service Fee Tax
• Telephone Minimum Usage Surcharge Tax
• Telephone Recurring and Nonrecurring Charges Tax
• Telephone State and Local Tax
• Telephone Usage Charge Tax
• Vehicle Sales Tax (6% for title and registration)

List taken from Yahoo Answers and shorten to remove permit fees, user fees, etc. I’ve added some of the rates for Philadelphia and Pennsylvania above. If you look over the list it’s pretty scary to see all the different taxes that we pay.

So when you make your money you are taxed at the federal, state and local levels. When you spend your money your taxed again via the state sales tax and a host of other “additional” taxes. When you invest the money you’ve made and you in turn make more money you are taxed yet again.

I can see why the politicians wouldn’t mind adding yet another tax to the list.

As I previously mentioned I understand supporting our local, state and federal governments and our schools but we just can’t keep adding taxes to close what politicians and administrators see as “spending budget gaps”. On the flip side I do recognize that the US isn’t the worst country in the world as far as taxes goes. Look at Ireland for example, a country where I have many relatives and that I’ve personally visited has a federal income tax rate of 20% for earnings under ~ €45,400 (married couple) and 41% for earnings over that amount.

It’s not easy find a slice of the American Pie with Uncle Sam eating it all up.

Cheers!

It’s the start of Memorial Day weekend here in the United States. The official start of summer and a time to honor our active and retired armed service members and those that have made the ultimate sacrifice for the freedom and liberties that we enjoy today.

Happy Memorial Day

I can sum up every article, book and column written by notable management experts about managing IT in two sentences: “Geeks are smart and creative, but they are also egocentric, antisocial, managerially and business-challenged, victim-prone, bullheaded and credit-whoring. To overcome these intractable behavioral deficits you must do X, Y and Z.”

On initial glance it doesn’t look that promising but let me tell you that is one of the best articles I’ve read on the subject. It’s a long article but well worth the time and effort.

http://www.cio.com/article/501697/The_Unspoken_Truth_About_Managing_Geeks

Cheers!