Working in a software company gives you some intersting insight into the technological advances we can expect in the near future. I overheard one of my colleagues talking about this and thought I'd try and find some video for it. Behold the result: the Microsoft Surface PC. It seems like a pretty exciting technology that can have a lot of commerical and educational benefits. We shall see how well it goes over, as I'm sure the initial price tag will be something only the five richest kings of Europe will be able to stomache. However, if it does become a common phenomenon, you can kiss all that confusion about who ordered what at a restaurant goodbye.

A little too gadgety for your tastes? Perhaps. But working well, this kind of user-friendly technology might be the linchpin when it comes to moving away from the standard desktop PC. We've already seen the explosion of handheld devices drawing more and more attention away from the traditional box. I've had several clients sending e-mails asking about the compatibility of our software with portable devices and tablet PCs. Not just yet for the small outfit I work for, but who knows what kinds of things the future will bring?

The above video, though kind of long, and perhaps not presented as flashy as the potential of the technology suggests, gives you a good working overview of the kinds of applications that can be implemented by this software. I think it's also an attempt by Microsoft to try to wrest some market share of mp3 players away from Apple. My take? A silly sub-ploy that won't go over so well. I, for one, think it's a damn shame they'd have to resort to this kind of technological integration to get people to buy those sorry-ass zunes. Seems to me, people aren't going to buy an mp3 player just because you can trade songs on a neato graphical interactive table.

As for the potential in restaurants, resorts, and casinos? I see people jumpin' on that bandwagon real quick. There's no doubt the kids are gonna love it, too!

I wonder how many potential spin-offs there will be to this. It could very well be that we'll finally have the holographic touch-screen computers that we always seem to see in sci-fi films.

So the other day I had the bright idea to try this for grins:

1. Delete all the files on the Toshiba IDE hard drive (the one that came with my laptop, but I removed in favor of a 100 gig Samsung replacement).
2. Copy all important files to a folder on the C drive of the borrowed Compaq PrettySorryO, and then replace the Samsung laptop hard drive with the Toshiba listed in number one.
3. Install the newest evaluation copy of Server 2003. Update the drivers if necessary: web cam, headphones, network card, and possibly the removable storage device. In fact, I probably shouldn’t erase the Samsung hard disk until I’m sure I can find and install all the necessary drivers.
4. The idea is that the drivers necessary for the equipment that’s on that laptop are already loaded in the memory of the Toshiba hard drive, so I shouldn’t have trouble with my sound card any longer.
5. Also, it might be a good idea to buy a cheap desktop from someone on craigslist. Then I could install another Server computer to screw around with. Or I could just download and use VMWare.

OK, so I tried this. I deleted and formatted the Toshiba IDE hard drive. Then I installed the R2 version of Server 2003 that came with the book. I found a CD with the driver of the network card. I also upgraded a related driver for the network card listed in the device manager. I still should try and find the newest firmware for both the card and router. Although, I should check to see which version of the router I have. I was reading earlier on the Linksys forums that I could have some potential problems if I want to screw around with VPN routing through the Linksys router. Apparently the version 5 & 6 releases of the router had serious limitations to VPN routing, but a guy on the site recommended ‘flashing’ the router with some open source UNIX software, and that seemed to fix the problem.

I haven’t bothered with trying to search for and/or install the drivers for the headphones, web cam, or storage device, but I get the same problem when it comes to the sound card and the PCI card, the drivers for these devices just don’t seem to be supported with Server 2003. Once I get that new computer I’ll once again wipe the notebook hard drive and install XP on it, and hopefully that will have the necessary sound card drivers on it. It makes sense if you think about it. Why should you need to have a sound device on a server? That’s not its purpose. There were also a couple of other devices (consistent with the last install) that failed to load, but I don’t think any of them are necessary for server functionality.

As for the drivers that DO work with the Operating System, namely the Device Driver for the Logitech USB headphones and the web cam (even though it’s not digitally signed), I suppose I can find and copy them to CD from the entries I have in the WINDOWS folder on the Samsung IDE hard disk, which has now become the external drive. When I finally make that laptop my functional production XP computer, I’ll wipe that external drive and use it just for storage: unless, of course I find a cheap laptop that will support it. Then perhaps I can load another operating system on it and have another working networked computer. Maybe I’ll load the version of Puppy Linux I saw available for download. That’s pretty sweet to be able to have a functional operating system for FREE!

Also, I found a lot of really good general information about computing from some PC World articles.

But even after the installation of said OS, the installation of Active Directory, and a brief check of the DNS utility to make sure all of the necessary resource records were there, I was unable to ping client to server / server to client. I suspect firewall problems. How else would I not be able to receive the necessary ICMP packets. What was more perplexing was the fact that I didn’t receive a helpful reply when I ran the nslookup utility on the server.

What’s up wit dat? I think I’m gonna play a game to see how long I can go without getting frustrated or giving up. Also, I think I got rid of File and Print sharing services for the workstation’s NIC based on bad advice when seeking help at an MCSA forum.

Try putting that back on, then make sure the firewall is turned off, then make sure that you’ve got static IP addresses on the client and server and the client is set up to use the server’s IP address for DNS name resolution. Also check the router configuration to make sure that nothing is preventing it from routing packets between machines, though I don’t know what could be doing this, and have never seen the router interfere with traffic on the local network, but I suppose it’s worth a try. Also, give the workstation a reboot and then try to join it. You might even pre-stage the computer account in Active Directory Users and Computers, and then try to join it.

Log of Events leading to an eventual career as network administrator or as the head of my own private e-business:

There are a number of skills I must possess in order to ensure optimal performance of a network. The most current issue that has been perplexing me is the inability of my test workstation to join my test domain.

Relevant facts and actions are:
The server is configured as a domain controller, a DHCP server, an IIS server, and a DNS Server. This is necessary, although not best practice, because it’s the only server I have in my possession.

The DHCP server has a scope configured in the private IP address range from 192.168.1.100 to 192.168.1.254. Scope options are configured to assign IP addresses within the range and to provide the DNS server address of 192.168.1.102. This is the address of the server, but I can already see a problem in the fact that I’ve configured the server with an IP address within the scope. It would be better to configure the server with a static address that is NOT within the range, i.e. anything between 192.168.1.2 to 192.168.1.99 as this would prevent the computers (even though all I have is the one workstation) from having IP configuration redundancy problems. I have also assigned a default gateway server option of 192.168.1.1. This is the address of the Linksys wireless access point router within the network used to send packets back and forth between computers and to and from the internet via the ISP. At some point I suppose I should install forwarding for internet accessibility, and use the local DNS server for name resolution to network shares in an internal domain. I’ve disabled DHCP and DNS on the router.

Most of the time the culprit of not being able to join a workstation to a domain is simply entering an incorrect domain name. But this most assuredly is NOT THE CASE, because I’ve checked it a dozen times.

I can ping the workstation from the server and vice-versa. The client is configured to obtain its IP address from the DHCP server. It is able to do this successfully, so it doesn’t seem that the problem lies with DHCP.

However, I am unable to ping the FQDN (fully qualified domain name) of the server from the workstation or server itself suggesting there’s either a problem with Active Directory or the DNS server as these two services are inextricably linked. These are the most likely culprits responsible for the failure of the workstation to find the domain server when I try to join it to the domain. The error I get when the workstation fails to find the domain states that it was unable to find the DNS SRV resource record necessary for joining the domain.
So, in order to diagnose DNS I could use debug logging and / or check the error events on the DNS server Event Viewer. It makes sense to verify whether or not it’s the DNS server that’s causing the problem, as its elimination as a possible culprit would mean it was the Active Directory partition that’s malfunctioning. I should research the results of the Event Viewer errors or the ‘Incoming’ results of debug log. I will document the results of this process in the next post.

Also, I should run the dcdiag command-line utility to test the integrity of the Active Directory server. There are a bunch of diagnostic tools available to troubleshoot server malfunctions. The difficult part is knowing what to do with the information that gets returned, or being able to make any sense of it for that matter.

What I have done so far, in my reckless haste, is to just remove the DNS service altogether and reinstall it with the same parameters as before. This has proved inadequate in solving the problem. I also tried restarting the DNS Server Service to no avail.

Then, in feckless reckless haste I removed and reinstalled the Active Directory partition, something of course you would NEVER want to do in the context of a large production network. But, I did learn that removing the Active Directory and replacing it to make it possible for the workstation to join the domain was also ineffectual. And to further complicate matters, I should have realized that doing so would create a new Administer User Profile that would replace my old one. It makes finding necessary files and folders created in the context of my previous User Profile difficult and time consuming. Plus I have to reinstall a lot of programs and tweak a bunch of settings just to get back to the setup I had before uninstalling the AD. Let that be a lesson to you, young man!

So now, I need to organize the files and folders of the various administrator accounts and merge them into the current profile. In fact, I need to start thinking about which files I plan to save once the evaluation copy runs out of time, and backup those files to the external hard-drive. At some point I plan to get another computer to be used as a full time server, so that I can replace with OS of my laptop with XP Professional (I’m finding some devices and programs just don’t work the same on Server 2003). I suppose the rule is Server is Server and Client is Client and never the twain shall meet.

Ideally, I’d like to find a computer that can run Server 2003 from some schmuck on craigslist who also has a copy of the XP Professional CD because I ended up having to install the one copy I have on a borrowed workstation.

The painful lesson I learned from this fiasco is that if you upgrade to XP Professional, you can roll back to 95, 98, ME, or 2000, but you can’t roll back to XP home edition. I put the evaluation copy of XP on the (borrowed) computer and had to install my legitimate copy on it once the 180-day evaluation period ran out. If I hadn’t, there would have been hell to pay because of all of the files on the computer would have been lost, and I might not have been able to borrow the computer again.

Another issue that has caused me some concern was my inability, back in the day when I successfully networked these two computers in a domain, to copy the local profile and save it to the network share of user profiles on the server. The idea was to do this, and then create a user account in Active Directory with the same name as the local account and point the profile location of the user account to the share on the server. I tinkered with nearly everything I could think of in my ill-fated attempts to do this, including changing the local security policies to deny logon rights to the Administrator. That was brilliant! Luckily I still had another administrator account I was able to use to return the security policies to their default settings. So as you can see, it’s been basically a comedy of errors when it comes to smooth network functionality, but I suppose the important thing I’m learning is what NOT to do.

Rule number one: Don’t do anything in haste and frustration. Problem solving requires patience and discipline. You need to approach each problem you come across with the cool analytical reasoning of a machine. You should use the following process as a guide:

• Encounter the problem
• diagnose the circumstances
• eliminate possible culprits
• isolate the cause
• determine a remedy
• fix the problem
• document everything you’ve done
• recreate the problem
• fix the problem again
• smirk like a badass

Nowhere in this process is it written to give up, get pissed off, smash the computer with a golf club (although the thought has occurred to me more than once), or state that the problem is beyond your ability to resolve.
Hopefully the next post will be filled with glowing highlights of how I figured out was wrong, successfully joined the computer to the domain, and created a roaming profiles of all user accounts.

If at first you don't succeed . . .

I got over the hump last Friday, and obliterated the 70-291 Server Infrastructure test with a score of 920! I was meticulous in going over the practice tests provided in the CD that comes with the Microsoft Press text book in addition to reviewing a host of other materials provided to me by my mentor. Additionally, I did a lot of supplemental reading from other texts included in the course website. I found the text, MCSA/MCSE Exam 70-291: Implementing, Managing and Maintaining a Windows Server 2003 Network Infrastructure Study Guide (Syngress Publishing 2003) to be a MUCH more informative an interesting read than the robotic drivel churned out in the Microsoft Press study guide. As such, I'm determined to read whatever preperatory text they have for the 70-293 exam from cover to cover before registering to take it.

As a result of the last accomplishment I'm more than halfway done now with the MCSE certification. Whether or not this is going to translate into a worthwhile investment remains to be seen, but I know I've seen a lot of job postings that specifically mention this credential as a prerequisite or at least an attractive supplement to experience.

And speaking of experience . . .

It's noteworthy that I've failed to mention so far in any of my postings what it is that I do, and what, if any, relationship this might have to my stated objective of becoming a network administrator. The reason for the ommission is that at the time I came home from from overseas and started working, I was extremely paranoid that any mention of the company I was working for on a personal site might constitute a breach of the non-disclosure agreement I had signed. Also, I'd probably be much more likely, if I started blogging about my job to do what most people inevitably do when they start talking about work, to bitch and bitch and bitch. But, I'd heard horror stories about people who'd been fired from their jobs for complaining about working conditions there on blogs or myspace acounts. So I decided to just stay away from the issue entirely.

But no more . . .

Seeing that I no longer work at the position mentioned above I'm at liberty to present to you my list of gripes and bitter wounds suffered from slaving away for 'the man':

From late January of this year to late September I was working as a contractor for ExxonMobil as a clerical assistant hired on for what was initially a six month project. The project consisted of archiving producing property well sales and prepping these documents for shipment to offsite storage. It was an easy job, as admin contract assignments usually are, and towards the end of it I was even moved into my own office, a rare treat for such a peon job title.

All in all I really can't complain too much about the position, but I will say the department I was in is full of fossils, some of whom can't control their bowels. Initially I was sat caddy-corner to this one guy who made no attempt to control his rampant flatulance. No joke. I'd be sitting there and it would be real quiet, and then out of nowhere 'BRAAAAAAAAAAP!' like a cruise ship was coming in to dock.

I also found that my manager was forgetful and unfocused, often blaming myself and another coworker for mistakes she had made. She was hypocritical too, deriding me for coming in late a few times when she herself was consistently late the whole time I was there. Conflicts were really rare, however, so I don't want to present the impression that it was a hostile environment. Really, I got away with murder most of the time. My co-contractor and I would sometimes go into vacant conference rooms to play hackeysack for a good fifteen minutes at a time in addition to taking far more smoke breaks than we had been allowed. Not to mention the fact that all I did was study or surf the internet the vast majority of the time. But my colleague was no different. What set us apart was his constant interaction with boss. He even went so far to go out with the boss and her husband one night to prove that even though he was a white boy, he could shake that thang with the rest of the brothahs. It was at this point that I new favoritism had set in, and if there was going to be a decision as to who was going to stay and who was going to go, it was gonna be me.

I just wish I would have had a little more warning. I called in on a Tuesday morning a couple weeks ago to say that I wasn't going to come in because I was sick, which was true. My boss showed real concern in her wish for me to get better, and didn't seem to be upset in the least by my abscence. Then about two minutes after I hung up, the temp agency called me to say that my manager had had a meeting the previous day with her boss, and they had concluded that the project was nearing completion and therefore ExxonMobil (which had made a record 36 billion dollars in the summer quarter) could no longer afford to have two contractors working on the project. It would have been nice to at least finish out the rest of the week.

But who cares because I found another job, an open-ended temp assignment at Royal Dutch Shell, just a few days after being let go. This one is slightly more related to the networking industry as it involves the retention of records in Outlook for the litigation department. My hope is that such experience will help to better understand the function of Microsoft Exchange Server in terms of remote access, security, deployment, retention of records, etc.

I'll keep you informed of further developments . . .

Wow, talk about a hell of a long time since a last post! I'll skip past the petty excuses, and just delve right into the nexus of the issue. The issue is that ever since coming back from Japan, I haven't been able to think of a compelling role for this blog. Of course, what with two jobs and studying for an MCSE, I could of course make the all-too-often used, but palpably true, excuse of being too busy.

I have, though, finally thought up a point to this blog, which will, out of my impatient human nature, demotivate me just as much as motivate me to write about it. My plan, now that so much suspense has been built up for it, will simply be to chronicle my studies up to and possibly, beyond becoming a network administrator. Or if not this lofty goal, I hope it will at least find me some kind of position in the IT industry.

First, the background . . .

I have been studying for certification exams since January of this year, and so far have received:

• The CompTIA Network+ Certificate
  
• A Microsoft Certified Professional Certificate (which seems kind of a dubious title, seeing as it in no way has made me feel like a professional of any sort) for Windows XP Professional, also known as the certification of a passing score in the 70-270 exam.
  
• A Certificate of passing the 70-290 exam which covers implementing, managing and maintaining a Windows Server 2003 enviroment.
  
• Currently, I'm working on the 70-291 exam: Implementing, Managing, and Maitaining a Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Network Infrastructure.
  

I have studied for, and have been able to pass the first three listed test using the curriculum provided by TechSkills here in Houston.

For any of those who might be thinking about developing a career in IT, through said institution I hereby submit my review:

Techskills is the type of institution that can be beneficial or a complete waste of money solely depending, (like life in general) on the ability of the student to motivate himself to study.

The curriculum, if given it's just scrutiny, is relatively sound. Generally you are shown a series of web-linked lectures related to a particular topic or objective of the test. These may include things like: installations, transferrng settings, troubleshooting, file sharing, backups and restores, DHCP, DNS, VPN, network topolgy, routing, terminal services, updates, performance monitoring, disk management, recovery tools, IIS, user profiles, group, user, contact, computer accounts, device management, security, etc. this list is by no means exhaustive. Anything you are willing to learn about is made available to you.

This is, in addition, to an on-line tech library which makes available hundereds of related e-texts, which I understand you will be able to use, even after the period of your education has expired.

In addition to this, you are provided the corresponding industry-standard text for each exam. The most useful of which I find to be the included software. You get technical encylopedia and extensive practice tests included in the CD that comes with the book, although these I find to be tangential in that they cover a lot more than the related objectives require. What's really useful is the evaluation copy of the operating system covered on the test. You get 180 days to modify, monitor, maintain and mangle (should the fancy take you), an enterprise edition of Server 2003 (which I'm using to write this entry, as a matter of fact). A pretty good value, if you consider the retail edition of the same OS costs upwards of $500. And luckily for me, I've got four more tests to go, which means, an additional (not including the time remaining on this edition) 720 days in which I can use Sever 2003 to mess around with before I have to decide whether or not to buy a real copy.

Another benefit, and I believe this to be crucial for anyone just starting out, like myself, is the physical lab available on-site which uses Norton's Ghost software that captures images of an O.S. to be distributed out to networked computers.

Say for example you want to see the permutations of networking ServerNT with a Linux Red Hat computer and Windows ME. All you have to do is find the corresponding file in the Ghost Server, boot the client using the Ghost boot disk, relay the image to the client and you can create that network without having to go through the painful process of physically installing each OS.

Some technologies, however, might be employed by the more savvy at a much lower cost than that offered at Techskills. For example, you could buy the test prep book on your own, install the evaluation CD, then install Virtual Server offered as a free download by Microsoft or some other 3rd party virtual networking software. You can then install OS instances of up to 64 other computers with the one caveat, that it will eat up your processor, so you'd better have something fast if you plan to employ a lot of images. I've even heard that Microsoft is now making Virtual PC free of charge to keep pace with other virtualization virtuosos.

Form my point of view, the real lab is the environment most conducive to learning because it gives you an idea what it will be like troubleshooting both hardware and software issues, the likes of which you are sure to come a cross in a real networked infrastructure. It's important for me, at this point, to feel the connectors on the 10BaseT ethernet cables (or RJ-45s if you want to sound techy) and follow them along to the switch or hub. The physical aspect forms a better basis for visualising the infrastrucre and topography of the endless scenario questions you are sure to encounter in each of the exams. Also, it provides an added dimension to troubleshooting, and error elimination useful for test and real world issues.

The crux of the success of the Techskills company lies in their ability to guarantee passing scores on the exams by providing weekly tests that resemble, uncannily at times, the actual questions you will find on the vendor exam. I've gathered so far, that the exam application TestPrep is an in-house application developed from previously released versions of the test. I assume that this is different from some web-sites that offer complete brain-dumps, or entire pools of every question that might show up on the exam.

It's my assumption, that as these have become more and more popular much to the dismay of Bill Gates and professionals in the industry who got where they are "the hard way," a lot of the tests are being revamped to include less multiple-choice questions, and more hands-on skills, such as actually creating the right kind of share permissions, or going through the motions to set up a performance baseline based on question-specified requirements.

Even so, the practice tests allow you to demonstrate your knowledge of the specified test objectives and give you a greater since of confidence if you are able to navigate the questions successfully.

I don't want to give the impression that the school is all flowers and chocolate, however, so I'll end this post with a few gripes:

• Be prepared to pay for some of your test vouchers. Each exam you take requires a voucher that you have to buy. The kind of course you decide to take determines how many vouchers will be paid for by the school. In my case, I went with the deluxe package which basically provided me courseware and materials for 15 months for the grand total of $8,000. Although this was never explicitly stated before I signed up, that fifteen-month period only included three vouchers. That's right count 'em, three. So from here on out, I have to pay for my own vouchers to take the tests.

• Don't be fooled by the Test Past Assurance gimmick. They say that if you fail an exam, they'll pay for you to retake the exam five times with no questions asked. The course is set up so that you are not even allowed to schedule a vendor exam until you have scored at least 900 or more on each of the school final exams. This is a difficult feat, and some courses have more finals that you have to complete than others. I only know of a few people who have been allowed to schedule an exam after failing it once until the mentors are fervently convinced that the student has the capacity to pass it.

• Don't expect a lot of help from the mentors. You'll find them extremely busy with orientations and sales pitches or just screwing around on the internet. Aside from some rare exceptions, they usually don't give you but a few minutes of their time to help you with a configuration issue. To give you an example, I once handed in a lab to be graded by a mentor, only to have him jeer at me, sloppily sign the front page, and toss it back to me. They will, however, get on you if you have gone too long without taking a weekly exam.

Even so, you come back to the realization that your success in an IT career, just as any other career, generally depends on you, and your motivation to learn, master, and apply the material in a real setting. My gamble is, that if I get enough certifications, I can get an entry level position and then have the opportunity to learn from the seasoned professionals who have been doing it long before me. And there is always the alluring hope of tuition reimbursement. Just whether these possiblities are realized remains to be seen.