9/11 - My Day

9/11/2001 Started out as a normal day for me. I remember it was a beautiful day. Mid 70s and not a cloud in the sky. If things at work went well I was going to sneak out early.

I was at a customers integrating a firewall with a web content filter. I had the basics working and moved on to the more advanced parts. One of the customer's employees came into the room and announced two planes had crashed into the World Trade Center. She found a TV and moved it into the conference room.

I hurried to get my work done so I could get to watching TV. I felt numb. I remembered the previous attack on the WTC. I had assumed that was an isolated incident by a few radicalized, American hating, muslims whom learned how to build a "fertilizer" bomb from the Internet.

My phone rang a couple of times. It was my wife. I was thankful she called. We shared in our shock at what was happening and exchanged "I Love You's".

Then my phone rang again. I didn't recognize the number other than it was a downtown Chicago number. I answered the phone to hear an obviously crying female voice say hello. I recognized the voice as a customer.

The last couple of months I was doing some work for her company. Her office was in an unique location. Her office, and the computer systems she supported, was located within the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.

The Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago is a few blocks of the former Sears Tower.

Hearing her sobs I said, "Hello. Are you ok? What can I do for you?".

What she said stunned me....

Struggling to compose herself she said, "Two plans flew into the World Trade Center. We were just told a plane is flying towards the Sears Tower. The building is being evacuated. My boss told everyone to get out."

The gentle sobs erupted into a flood of fear, panic, and terror. "My boss told everyone to get out except me... I have to stay and watch our systems to make sure they are secure." "He said if someone else will watch the systems, I can leave!!"

"Go!!" I said. "Thank you" is all I heard.

I talked to her a couple of times in the next two or three days, but never after that. For the next week I monitored their systems and saw nothing unusual.

I was happy to learn she left her employer a few weeks later.

As We May Think - Atlantic Mobile

Director of the Office of Scientific Research and Development, Dr. Vannevar Bush, 1945

http://theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1945/07/as-we-may-think/3881/


As Director of the Office of Scientific Research and Development, Dr. Vannevar Bush has coordinated the activities of some six thousand leading American scientists in the application of science to warfare. In this significant article he holds up an incentive for scientists when the fighting has ceased. He urges that men of science should then turn to the massive task of making more accessible our bewildering store of knowledge. For years inventions have extended man's physical powers rather than the powers of his mind. Trip hammers that multiply the fists, microscopes that sharpen the eye, and engines of destruction and detection are new results, but not the end results, of modern science. Now, says Dr. Bush, instruments are at hand which, if properly developed, will give man access to and command over the inherited knowledge of the ages. The perfection of these pacific instruments should be the first objective of our scientists as they emerge from their war work. Like Emerson's famous address of 1837 on "The American Scholar," this paper by Dr. Bush calls for a new relationship between thinking man and the sum of our knowledge. —THE EDITOR

By Vannevar Bush, 1945

Click here to read the full article

-Bill Carter

Who Needs English

Looks like I have encountered a licensing issue. Upgrading Unity Connection, customer is in the United States, Unity gives this error.

"The Cisco Unity Connection license file(s) that are installed do not allow you to use U.S. English for language-specific Connection features, and no other languages are installed. Do one of the following:

Download and install one or more Connection languages. Languages for your version of Connection, as well as documentation on how to install them, are available at http://www.cisco.com/kobayashi/sw-center-sw-voice.shtml.
If you have one or more license files that allow you to use U.S. English, go to the Licensing page and install them now.
If you do not have additional license files and you want to use U.S. English, contact your Cisco account team to purchase a license upgrade that allows you to use U.S. English."

Price of an IPv4 address $11.25

Microsoft has just bought more than half a million IPv4 addresses from Nortel Networks for $7.5 million (or $11.25 per address), as part of Nortel’s bankruptcy proceedings. Internet IPv4 addresses are hard to come by these days, notes ZDNet’s Steven Vaughan, so it’s no surprise that Microsoft bought 666,624 of them as demand for Internet addresses increases.

http://blogs.forbes.com/parmyolson/2011/03/28/morning-tech-wrap-apple-google-firefox/

Virtual Desktop at My House?

As a typical geeky network engineer, I enjoy those times when the awesome technology I work with makes its way home. I remember in the late 90's introducing my wife to the joys of a dial up modem and the Internet. Years later I brought home a Linksys Wireless Router and Comcast Broadband Internet Connection. She wasn't that impressed when I said the cable Internet connection was faster than the T1 I used at work.

I need to preface this with, we have five girls, 10 months to 9yrs. They are very technologically advanced. For Christmas, the four oldest got Apple iPod iTouchs.

The girls like to use our laptops to go to nickjr.com and starfall.com. Ok, we can handle it, we have two laptops, we can all share. Oh No!!! It was World War III in our living room. Four girls, two laptops, "Daaadddd she has been playing for a long time!!"

By the time you read this, we are the proud owners of a 1/4 acre of land with a hole in it. We are building a house. My wife is doing a wonderful job designing the kitchen, selecting flooring, and picking paint colors.

I am working on the technology for the house. Fresh off the girls fighting for laptops, I wondered what could be done. Then the light bulb went off, Virtual Desktop! Why can't we have four Virtual Desktop terminals? I wouldn't have to worry about the kids deleting programs or documents, messing up configurations, and the static nature of having terminals, monitors, keyboard, and mice physically located in their own space.

So I am exploring my home based VDI initiative. I am not sure what I am getting into financially. I can piece together some physical servers with VMware. I need to find some terminals, possible Wyse devices.

How the Internet went out in Egypt

Good Article. Egypt is just blocking access to their DNS servers. Another good reason to use Goggle's Public DNS servers: 8.8.8.8, 8.8.4.4
How the Internet went out in Egypt