The (mis)adventures of a macintosh administrator.

Man how weird. I finished up a long week, I feel good that I got lots done, but I also feel like my time just isn't my own. I'm supposed to help out the nice old lady next door with her new PC and wireless router, but frankly I'd rather stick needles in my eyes. It's friday night, I'd love a beer but tomorrow is the work Halloween party, so drinking tonight would just be silly. I'm exhausted but bored and a little restless. The teenager has his GF over, which really makes me uncomfortable in our small house, so its down to the basement Lab I go. Julie is busy with a quilt project (I've been ignore more and more lately since she got her new long-arm quilting machine, but she is so happy and motivated, I can't say I don't understand it.) So I feel compelled to tackle a fun and totally useless tech project down in the somewhat clean basement Lab. So what do I do when the moon is full and I'm restless for some tech fun? That's right. Time to bust out the BIG MACS and get an AU/X server up and running, and on the web. Why the hell not? I have 3 workgroup servers, 2 SCSI cards for them, drives stacked up over Logan, and some hours to kill that are mine all mine. No phone calls, please.

Posted by dvsjr at 6:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Track Shipments/FedEx Kinko's Orders
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Ship date
Oct 25, 2007
Estimated delivery
Oct 26, 2007 by 10:30 AM

Destination
MA
Service type
Priority Overnight

Status
In transit

Posted by dvsjr at 10:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I've always been fascinated by computer viruses. I've read lots of books, and in my job, used to take great delight in the challenge of removing them from friends/coworkers computers. This goes back to when I was living in NYC. I used to post to the antivirus newsgroups, I've communicated via email back and forth a few times with Dr. Solomon, emailed Robert Morris at MIT like some sad groupie (under the pretense of asking him if it was ok to use the MIT NTP servers which he was in charge of at the time) saved a woman's doctoral thesis from an attached virus and certain doom, stuff like that. I have even kept a small collection of viruses (both Mac and Windows based). And so coming across an old stash of Mac virii tonight, I decided to scan one with the latest Mac OS X AV scanner, Clamxav.

To whit:

Scanning /Users/dschultz/Desktop/worm in here/Desktop Print Spooler
----------- SCAN SUMMARY -----------
Known viruses: 293043
Engine version: 0.91.2
Scanned directories: 0
Scanned files: 1
Infected files: 0 <---------------------------!!!
Data scanned: 0.05 MB
Time: 3.132 sec (0 m 3 s)

Now for a second test, I google an online file AV scanner, and upload the exact same file:

Attention!
Kaspersky Anti-Virus has detected a virus in the file you have submitted.
Scanned file: Desktop Print Spooler - Infected
Desktop Print Spooler - infected by Worm.Mac.Autostart.a

How sad is that? A PC product finds the Macintosh virus without any problems. The macintosh AV breezes right by, and I suspect has absolutely no database of Macintosh virii. (yes I am talking about viruses for Mac OS 9 and earlier, not X specifically)

Posted by dvsjr at 1:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Zip Drives (SCSI),
originally uploaded by dvsjr.

Posted by dvsjr at 4:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Yeah, you. Close your eyes. Well, you're reading, so think about closing your eyes. And relaxing. Find a clear moment to sit in. Got it? Ok.
Now. Imagine your computer is going to betray you. Your precious ally, your confident, is about to give up the ghost. Visualize losing all your bookmarks on your computer. Now envision your precious digital photos, all your birthdays and anniversaries, poof. Your address book, filled with 7 years of addresses of friends and family, some contacts you only have here and in no other place. Those Word documents, the ones you typed out. Work you spent days on. All your itunes music, bought and paid for. You know, they don't offer repeat downloads of that stuff, no matter how much you cry. And what about the much larger illegal collection of tunes you stole? Ouch right? Never mind digital movies, DVD projects, sound files, and good lord, EMAIL?

Scary right? But you're ok.

For now.

Now go backup.

Posted by dvsjr at 8:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

My Apple Airport Base Station gave up the ghost a week ago. I knew it was time to start looking for alternatives. I found it needed to be reset several times for no reason. Just red lights on the front panel saying, "Something wicked this way comes". But being more than 4 years old at least, I was psyched to update the thing anyway. Apple has a nice interface for configuring a home network (I need to use port forwarding to get my newton server online. I wish it had some fundamental features that all wireless routers seem to lack (like a simple way to see if you are handing out IP's to the neighbors) without having to set up a syslog server. Which I did, but only because I thought it was cool, and I was bored.

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Posted by dvsjr at 7:36 PM | Permalink

Recently, Brad Suinn from Apple took down his own personal .mac home pages where he has worked for quite a while, amassing info on the vagaries of ASIP and how to navigate its less than documented waters. It got me thinking about the passage of time, and what it means for Mac Managers. I emailed him when I saw something about it in the ASIP mailing list. I stay on the list, even though I'm working with and interested now in ASIP's big brother, Mac OS X Server. He emailed back, and I won't say what he said, since Apple is just this side of Big Brother, just that he would be finding out what was to become of the ASIP black magic files soon, once Apple decided where they should go, Im certain. ASIP black magic was the name of the tips and tricks Brad had put together, nothing more than a basic FAQ for Mac admins who were looking for help.

Continue reading "ASIP, Black Magic, Helpers and Time" »

Posted by dvsjr at 3:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)