A burst of creativity…

For those of you (all two of you) who have been reading my blog, you know I generally shy away from advertising products or just posting random links to this or that — or just trying to sell you stuff.  If you have read hardly any of my articles, you also know that I am a computer nerd and work as one here or there.

That being said, I have lots of information that I need to keep backed up.  Various videos and music that I have created or own, lots of pictures (even more now that I have a one month old son trying to crawl around the house).  These things are rather important to me and I want to make sure that I have them all saved online somewhere, just in case of a major disaster.

Enter: Backblaze — a company that will let you backup your computer for as little as $5 per month, or if you pay them by the year, $50 per year.  The program backs up all of your files, except for programs such as Microsoft Word, or Google’s Chrome Web browser.  The backup runs behind the scenes so you just install their software and away you go!

In the event of a major disaster or if you accidentally delete something you need, you can go to the Backblaze web site, and download the files that you need.

Okay, okay… that’s enough of me talking about it!  Check it out here: www.backblaze.com

As always feel free to post comments and let us know what YOU think about this product!

It has definitely been a while!  I’ve been busy and what-not trying to get things ready around the house for my wife and I to have our first kid!

(insert celebration sounds and noises here).

That being said, I’m looking for some help from folks are actively making money online doing whatever…  I’m not looking to become the next internet millionaire or what-not.  I just want something where I can make a few extra bucks a month.

Anybody have any suggestions?

See Yas!
~Brant

I generally stay away from political discussions simply because of the crap that you often have to wade through in order to get to the bottom of things.  In a conversation with someone, I once heard a point made that I whoeheartedly agree with:

When it gets to the point that it takes lawyers and judges to decide if a law is correct and constitutional or not, at that point the country is no longer run by the people, but by the politicians that make the rules.

I have to say that I agree with that completely.  My goal behind this article isn’t to talk about politics, really.  What I want to do is incite a movement among the people of America that will help us to return our country back into our hands.  I have begun laying out a plan that I think will work, and in coming weeks and months, I will be revealing and refining more of it as we go.

I am simply asking that you think about the things that you dislike about the way our country is run, and post back with things that you would do to fix it.  There are many things that I believe about the way our country should be run:

1. The Bill of Rights and our Constitution are the final law.  This pretty much covers anything that our country needs to deal with here at home.  We do not need congress trying to make amendments to this document.
2. We DO need laws and, like our current form of government, we need a system of checks and balances so that one part of the government cannot control the entire country.  What we don’t need are laws with wording so complex that it takes three hundred politicians and 5 supreme court justices to make a clear interpretation of that law.
3. I believe that the money needs to be in the hands of the American people.  Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t like taxes as much as the next person, but they are a necessary evil.  What we don’t need are our tax dollars wasted on government bail outs and keeping big business going.  I’m sorry… well, no, I’m not.  If you run your business into the ground, do what the rest of them do, and close up shop and go find a new job.  I don’t care if you are the biggest bank or car manufacturer in the world.  Go home.
4. I believe that big business should have no part in electing our country’s officials (yes, Labor Unions, this includes you!).  If a politician cannot get himself elected on his own — do you REALLY want them ‘representing’ you at the national level?  (At the state levvel too, even, but that is another topic).

I believe there’s a lot more to it than what I’m saying above.  And I believe a lot more than what I’ve written here.  I will continue this later.

Write back and tell me what you believe about the way our country is run, and tell me your ideas and why you like them.  Heck, comment on what I’ve written so far, just to let me know that there are still people out there who care!

I have a message for them, not of hate or to be harsh, but a message  – or more really a question…or ten.  I am really hoping to find answers to these questions, and I believe that the Westboro Baptist Church congregation and/or Rev. Phelps will be able to answer them clearly.

Question 1) Scripturally speaking, what is the basis for  the protesting that you do?

Question 2) The Bible teaches us to love others as we would ourselves.  How are you expressing this both within your community as well as in the national spotlight?

Question 3) How are you deciding when and where to protest — is it a matter of individual prayer or corporate prayer, etc …  and has this changed in the national spotlight?

I will likely respond to all sincere responses whether they are from someone at Westboro or not.  I am genuinely interested in a response from them.  I would like to start a dialogue to find out more about what your church believes.

Network Visibility: What is really happening on your network?

I’ve recently been reading about several high profile companies being hacked, and am currently undergoing review after cleaning out a few script kiddies hiding in some old software that we had running on some systems here. In a lot of the articles that have read, I see no mention of such attacks being visible on network devices and the like. I will focus my attention on one of the utilities that I use on my own network : Snort.

I currently am using Snort (http://www.snort.org) and a couple of other home-grown systems to monitor my network. Now, before you go screaming and shouting about me just being hacked, and not knowing what was visible on my network — I know, I have no excuse, lol.

That aside, it reminded me as to the importance of knowing what is on all sides of our network. There will always be external threats — that is a given. The job of tools like Snort and the like are to alert (or block if you have them configured correctly) such exploits or attacks from entering (or leaving) our networks, and then telling us that we are being attacked, so we can respond appropriately.

The problem with a signature based solution like snort, is you have to know about the traffic BEFORE it hits your network. In my case, I learned a great deal about the traffic AFTER it hit my network, rendering Snort useless. There are many popular sites that detail and keep announcements up on exploits and some even offer sample code for TESTING YOUR OWN SYSTEMS (hacking somebody else’s computer without their permission is illegal, ya know?).

Now that I know about these kinds of attacks, I can configure Snort (or any other product that I would be using) to aggressively take care of such issues without me having to dig out and find hundreds of places where hackers have put files or code on my website.

What is really important, though, is that your Network has some sort of visibility to it, so that you can identify when your systems are being (or have been) hacked, and that you can do an analysis to find out how one set of hackers got in. By updating your network appliances, you will be preventing other hackers from getting in, and you will be able to SEE who all is trying.

I am by no means a security expert (yet). But I learn as I go and learn from the school of hard knocks. I’d be more than happy to hear from anyone that has helpful hints or suggestions into tools available (commercial or open source) — or even comments or suggestions about ways to monitor my networks.

Don’t be a stranger!

Y’all come back now. Ya’ hear?

So… Here’s my attempt to make up for the lack of attention!

For anybody who reads my blog that is an IT Professional, I highly recommend that you take a look at Spiceworks (http:/www.spiceworks.com).

As a member of a small IT Shop (4 full timers) for a college campus of roughly 1100 people during a semester,  keeping an accurate inventory of our (college-owned) PCs/Macs/Linux machines  and networking switches can be rather difficult.

The Spiceworks product will help you to accurately inventory the network by scanning any ip ranges that you specify and connecting via WMI (for windows),SSH (Linux/Mac), and SNMP (Network switches –also SSH/Telnet) to gather useful information (software installed, system specs, etc).   Once it discoveres your sytem, it will monitor the Windows Event Log and keep you up-to-date on the event log entries on your network.

One of the nice things about Spiceworks is that it allows you to record other information about the system, such as cost, or who it belongs to, where it’s located, etc.   Another one of the nice things about Spiceworks it that is has a Helpdesk system as well.  The helpdesk system allows you to keep track of who (which user and computer) a helpdesk ticket blongs to so you can keep track of problematic machines, etc.

Spiceworks is free to use in your organization.  They do offer a paid option that removes the (very relevant) ads from the web-based console, and it is extremely reasonable!

The *BEST* thing about Spiceworks is the community-driven forums.  It doesn’t matter what branch of IT you are in (or are getting into), there is a place for you!

If you are in the market for a system that can help you monitor what’s on your network, or inventory your systems, give it a whirl.

Hope this finds you all well!

~Brant~

With the advent of the computer revolution of the mid-to-late nineties and now the sudden what-can-I-cram-into-the-palm-of-my-hand rave, computers and technology are setting up for yet another computer revolution.

Imagine yourself in the future say…..oh….five or ten years from now.  There likely will be laptops and such in existence still, but rather than them being a machine that we use for portability, they will be machines that we use for most of our primary needs.  I need to check my email — oh yeah, let me pull out my super duper handy flexible screen and do that.  It likely will pickup a near by internet connection from some device or another and bam, you have your email…or your office’s super secret documents right there underneath your morning coffee.

It may take us a lifetime to understand how computers work or we may not care — just as long as they work.  But for someone like me, the ever shrinking world of electronics will take a lifetime to compute!

See ya later!
~Brant

We are all fortunate to have survived the day.  To persevere and hang on to whatever keeps us going.  I am here to tell you NEVER quit, and NEVER give up hope!  There is always someone in a worse position that you are — always.  Look on the bright side — there’s always tomorrow, and it won’t be the same as what you dealt with today.  Not exactly.  So keep hanging on!  There’s an old saying I’ve heard and I like it a lot…  “When  you think you’re getting close to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hold on!”

I hope you guys keep coming back and reading my blog.  Please leave comments / flames, or whatever you feel like leaving.  I could use a few choice words to describe today…but self control prevents me from writing them for the world to see, although I probably mumbled them under my breath at some point today!

So anyhow, ’till next time!
~Brant

Ok, ok, I’m just kidding!  I’d like to take a minute to welcome you to my blog.  I am currently a network administrator and enjoy writing about technology and fiction and anything else that may come to mind.  I’ll try to keep my shameless plugs for software products to a minimum so yawl can be busy doing what you want to do (like read the rest of my articles).

I’ve lived in Georgia pretty much all my life, so if I come across as being a dumm southerner, too bad that you missed out on all the fun!  I have enjoyed my life in the state, close to most of my family.  The summers can be a real pain, and the winters are just cold and wet.  So that being said, yawl feel free to comment and introduce yourself or what-not, and I’ll have a real post up sometime tomorrow!

See Yas!

~Brant