A Christmas tale

ABOUT 4 WEEKS AGO, I WAS RUSHING AROUND TRYING TO GET SOME LAST MINUTE SHOPPING DONE. I WAS STRESSED OUT AND NOT THINKING VERY FONDLY OF THE CHRISTMAS SEASON COMING UP. IT WAS DARK, COLD, AND WET IN THE MULTI STORY CAR PARK AS I LOADED MY CAR UP WITH THE GIFTS I FELT OBLIGATED TO BUY. I NOTICED THAT I WAS MISSING THE SHOP RECEIPT WHICH I WOULD NEED TO GET OUT OF THE CAR PARK WITHOUT PAYING, SO MUMBLING UNDER MY BREATH, I RETRACED MY STEPS TO THE SHOPPING CENTRE ENTRANCE.

AS I WAS SEARCHING THE WET PAVEMENT FOR THE LOST RECEIPT, I HEARD A QUIET SOBBING. THE CRYING WAS COMING FROM A POORLY DRESSED BOY OF ABOUT 10 YEARS OLD HE WAS SHORT AND THIN. HE HAD NO COAT. HE WAS JUST WEARING A RAGGED AND STAINED T-SHIRT TO PROTECT HIM FROM THE COLD EVENING CHILL. ODDLY ENOUGH, HE WAS HOLDING TWO FIFTY POUND NOTES IN HIS HAND.

THINKING THAT HE HAD GOT LOST FROM HIS PARENTS, I ASKED HIM WHAT WAS WRONG AND HE TOLD ME HIS SAD STORY. HE SAID THAT HE CAME FROM A LARGE FAMILY. HE HAD THREE BROTHERS AND
FOUR SISTERS. HIS FATHER HAD DIED WHEN HE WAS SEVEN YEARS OLD. HIS MOTHER WAS POORLY EDUCATED AND WORKED TWO FULL TIME JOBS TO MAKE ENDS MEET. NEVERTHELESS, SHE HAD MANAGED TO SCRIMP AND SAVE TWO HUNDRED POUNDS TO BUY HER CHILDREN CHRISTMAS PRESENTS.

THE YOUNG BOY HAD BEEN DROPPED OFF, BY HIS MOTHER, ON THE WAY TO HER SECOND JOB. HE WAS TO USE THE MONEY TO BUY PRESENTS FOR ALL HIS BROTHERS AND SISTERS AND SAVE JUST ENOUGH TO TAKE THE BUS HOME. HE HAD NOT EVEN ENTERED THE SHOPPING CENTRE, WHEN AN OLDER BOY GRABBED TWO OF HIS FIFTY POUND NOTES AND DISAPPEARED INTO THE NIGHT.

"WHY DIDN'T YOU SCREAM FOR HELP?" I ASKED.

THE BOY SAID, "I DID."

"AND NOBODY CAME TO HELP YOU?"

THE BOY STARED AT THE GROUND AND SADLY SHOOK HIS HEAD. "HOW LOUD DID YOU SCREAM?" I ENQUIRED.

THE SOFT-SPOKEN BOY LOOKED UP AND MEEKLY WHISPERED, "HELP ME!"

I REALISED THAT ABSOLUTELY NO ONE COULD HAVE HEARD THAT POOR BOY CRY
FOR HELP SO I GRABBED HIS OTHER TWO FIFTY POUND NOTES AND F**KED OFF!

You have the right to remain silent... night.

Police in Dorset (UK) got the jump on some cocaine dealers yesterday, whilst staying in the festive spirit.

Dressed in top hats, cloaks and carrying Victorian lanterns, they knocked on the door of a well known local dealer.

Maybe it was the festive spirit or the ounce of coke already floating through his system but the dealer happily answered the door. Only to discover that the carol singers were armed with CS gas and stab proof vests. Two people were arrested.

Police said ‘We found £400 worth of snow, man’. :)

Flash Games

Here at TJB we have decided to bring you a list and links to some of the best free online games around. If your board at work why not take time out to take a look at some of out top ten online game...

Ultimate Billiards

Cheese Hunt

Avatar Chat

Space Dude

AIB

Flash Sonic

Squeaky

Midnight Strike

Cone Crazy

The Black Knight

Castle Defender

Ultimate Football

Have fun and good luck!!!

Beware of Bad Santa's

Tis the season to be jolly...
All over the globe people in Santa suits will be charged with Assault, marijuana possession and sexual harassment this holiday season. While checking the news this morining it seems that this has now become gang related.

Forty drunken Santas have gone on a violent rampage in New Zealand. Rejecting the festive the spirit, the men and women attacked security guards, stole from shops and even assaulted a Christmas tree in central Auckland. "They came in, said 'Merry Christmas' and then helped themselves," one store owner told the New Zealand Herald. Police said some of the Santas threw beer bottles, one tried to climb the mooring rope of a cruise ship and a security guard was punched. Police admitted identification may be a problem in their investigation. "With a number of people dressed in the same outfit, it was difficult for any witnesses to confirm the identity of who was doing what," said Senior Sergeant Matt Rogers. The "Santarchy" event was launched in protest against the commercialisation of Christmas. Such protests were launched about 10 years ago in the United States. Demonstrators mark Christmas in anti-commercial manner involving street theatre, pranks and public drunkenness.

News Taken from: http://www.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,91059-13481264,00.html

What will the dress up santa's be up to next????

Father of the web blogs

The father of the World Wide Web, Sir Tim Berners-Lee has started a blog..

Without Sir Tim the Jammy Blog wouldn't even exist so a big thanks to Sir Tim....

Warning

You Have Been Warned!!!

Top 10 System Administrator Truths

I figure with enough time and effort, anyone could be a System Administrator. Really, it’s not hard, it just takes practice, methodology, and trial and error. A lot of trial and error. These truths will certainly get you on your way. Let’s get started.

#1 – Users Lie

Oh yes, they do. Don’t think you’re immune either. Have you ever been on a tech support call, convinced that you know the problem and the guy on the phone says something like “Would you put in the recovery CD, restart, and scan your memory?” “Oh, I’ve tried that,” you say with eyes rolling. Believe it or not, sometimes we crazy admin peeps suggest these fixes because they work. When a user is protesting my assessment, the best is to politely insist them to do what was asked until the doing is done.

#2 – Email is the Lifeblood of Non-Techies

I love my non-techie bretheren—I mean, how else would I know what happened on the OC and Gilmore Girls?—but at the end of the day, email is #1 in their book. Now a lot of it is business related, and certainly that shouldn’t be taken lightly, but most likely they were waiting on a warm, fuzzy message from their daughter or sister and really needed their email back up ASAP (“I’m waiting on a proposal!” they screech — see #1)

#3 – Printers Suck

Ever had to clean a laser or, God forbid, an inkjet printer? It’s like stabbing yourself in the eye. It’s not just the grime either—it’s the fallacy that a little chunk of ink could make the machine just stop working. 90% of the time (or better), this isn’t the case (instead, check the fuser/print heads). In terms of network troubles, HPs Jetdirect cards have a pretty solid reputation of failing every few years, so expect to shell out $200+ for those on a semi-regular basis, depending on what kind of printers you run in your office. For those with network cards integrated into the printer mainboard—what were you thinking?

#4 – Cleanliness is Godliness

Ever open up a PC and see the Ghost Of Dust Bunny’s Past in there? It’s scary stuff, I tell you. I’ve seen some PCs begin to lock up “for absolutely no reason” while the innards tell you different. Sure Peggy in Accounting wasn’t stuffing her machine full of cloth, but that blanket she keeps at her feet will slowly shed and the PC fans suck that stuff right up. When you’re completely stumped, make sure there isn’t something inside gunking up the works.

#5 – Backups are Crucial

This needs to be said. I’ve been caught with my pants down on this one a few times myself. Backup, Backup, Backup! Nothing (and I mean nothing) will bite you in the ass like a piss-poor backup schema. If your server dies right now as you read this post, what are you going to do about it? Do you know where the install discs are, do you have a configuration backup, do you know who to contact regarding tech support on that box? If not, you need to get your act together before you have a disaster and a lot of excuses and apologies following it. I use Retrospect at my job and consider it better than Backup Exec. It has amazing Macintosh support and is cheaper too.

#6 – Switches and Hubs (Usually) Die One Port At A Time

You can spend hours tracking down a bad network card or cable just to figure out that a port in a switch has died. You’re pinging and pinging and looking, the lights are on but there’s nobody home. The trick here is to know that a single port doesn’t spell the end of the hardware, quite the contrary. Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. If a port does go out, that hub or switch may work for years without another outage, but do be sure to stuff an RJ45 connector in that bad port so you don’t forget (and chase down phantom problems) in the future.

#7 – No One Ever Got Fired For Buying Microsoft

So sad but so true. This old saying used to reference IBM, but oh how times have changed. Linux may be powerful, but the command prompt and configuration files and filesystem obscurity will just as soon get you a pink slip if something goes wrong and no one knows how to fix it but yourself. Even so, with as much stupid crap as we admins have to put up with on a daily basis, configuring some of the ‘high end’ Microsoft software is enough to drive you insane. Ever tried installing Exchange Server or, worse, installing Exchange Server and migrating a 5.5 install to Exchange 2000? I feel your pain, oh how I feel your pain.

#8 – Politeness > Brevity

You can come up with all sorts of analogies for this one. You’ll get more bees with honey, a spoonful of sugar, etc. But generally, you probably have very little day-to-day contact with end users. This means that when you do finally get to speak to one of those souls fortunate enough to login to your domain (both figuratively and literally), you should be sure to be as polite as possible about it. Even if the network is down. Even if the server is having weird, irrational problems. Use please, thank you, I’m sorry, and don’t be too proud to apologize or ‘make nice’ with those who may ultimately influence your career path down the line. The peon you insult today with a “I sent an email about this, do you not check your own email?” could very well climb the corporate ladder and let your rude ass go in a few years. Mind your manners, peeps.

# 9 – Know Your Needs

This one could also be called “Learn Linux.” Many admins get wooed into the idea that “managed solutions” are always the correct ones. A web interface on a switch is cute, but rarely useful. A huge Cisco router may not always be necessary, sometimes a ‘lo-fi’ approach is best. When you want a spam solution, before looking at $5,000 servers and huge licensing fees for Windows Server software take a look at one of those old ‘junk’ PCs you have in the closet, download your favorite distro of Linux, and install procmail and spamassassin. You (and your budget) will thank me later.

#10 – The Holy Grail of Tech Support

…is the reboot. Rebooting can cure ailments of all sorts, can stop network troubles, crashing computers, find missing documents, and rescue cats in trees. System admins all over the world have, by and large, trained their users to reboot before even calling support. I mean, when’s the last time you didn’t reboot to see if it cured a problem? If you’re not, then you’re either stubborn or you’re an admin who knows better. Rebooting doesn’t cure all ailments, but it cures so many of them it’s hard to not throw out a “Can you reboot for me?” to the end user when they call with some off-the-wall issue. Use and abuse as necessary.

Caption Competition

Time for another caption competition! By now you should all know the rules, so get posting!

Things to do when you're stuck in an elevator!

Today a contributor to TJB got stuck on the second floor of the works elevator, so we thought it appropriate to blog this...

1. Ask people on the elevator if they've seen the first part of the movie Speed.

2. Push all the floor buttons. At every floor, get out, look around, mutter, ``Looks okay so far,'' and get back in.

3. Put notices in the elevators that read ``Last Inspection: Passed. Next Inspection Due: Jan 87''

4. Use physics to determine how fast the elevator will be going if it free-falls from the top floor.

5. Countdown ``5...4...3...2...1'' and then suddenly duck.

6. Get on the elevator at the top floor and ask, ``Going down?''

7. Keep muttering, ``I hope it doesn't happen again...''

8. Have a friend with you, but act like he's a complete stranger. After a while, turn to him and say, ``Wanna trade?'' Then promptly trade wallets.

9. Replace the 3 on the third floor button with the Greek letter pi.

10. Put on a crash helnet, and take one of those mini-trampolines into an elevator. Stand on the trampoline, then say to a friend holding the emergency phone, ``Ok, Dave, I'm ready. Let 'er RIP!'' (This doesn't quite make sense, but hey, you can't have everything.)

11. Grimace painfully while smacking your forehead and muttering, ``Shut up, dammit, all of you just shut UP!''

12. Stand silent and motionless in the corner, facing the wall, without getting off.

13. When arriving at your floor, grunt and strain to yank the doors open, then act embarrassed when they open by themselves.

14. Greet everyone getting on the elevator with a warm handshake and ask them to call you Admiral.

15. Bet the other passengers you can fit a quarter in your nose.

16. Listen to the elevator walls with a stethoscope.

17. Announce in a demonic voice, ``I must find a more suitable host body.''

18. Wear ``X-Ray Specs'' and leer suggestively at other passengers.

19. Crack open your briefcase or purse, and while peering inside ask, ``Got enough air in there?''

Monkey business..!

After a noticeable absence, I am please to announce the return of TJB’s Caption Competition!

The best entry will win a lifetimes supply of fresh air, so get your entries in now by clicking the comments button.

Puggs,