Friday Fiction

Walking out of the office building and feeling the sun on his face was a small pleasure, but it was one he enjoyed immensely. Most days at the office meant 10 hours in the chair shuffling papers around until the sun had well and truly disappeared. Today however the opportunity to leave early had been proposed and he didn’t need to be asked twice. What to do with these precious few hours was not in question either. He was driving straight home to surprise his sweetheart Alicia. From there they would head down to the beach with some fish and chips and watch the always beautiful sun as it set into the waves. He excitidley jumped into his car that was parked 5 levels down into the bowels of the earth and drove the countless stomach turning ramps back to the surface and pointed his car straight for home.

Just the thought of taking his shoes off and walking barefoot in the sand was enough to distract him as he turned into the street, so much so that he failed to notice the grey pickup parked on the kerb out front of his house. Hoping to perpetrate the perfect surprise he had shut off the cars engine as he turned into the driveway and rolled the last few meters to the garage door. Getting out of the car slowly and closing the door gently he tiptoed up to the front door. The trick would be getting the always noisy lock open and in the door before Alicia wised up to what was going on. He reached up to the door handle slowly and was about to push the key into the lock when he noticed the door was already unlocked and slightly ajar. That made it easier for him, but he had spoken to Alicia a number of times about being security conscious when she was home alone.

Stepping inside the house he was about to close the door quietly when he became aware of a muffled screaming sound coming from the back section of the house. “What the hell is that”  he mumbled. “Alicia” he called, but the noises went silent. His mind raced, what was happening. Had he disturbed a burglar who was attacking his wife? Was it just the TV? He called again, a little more desperate this time “Alicia!”. Still no response. There was no time to waste, his heart was racing so he took off running towards the spare bedroom at the rear of the house. “Alicia!” he screamed as he ran, still no response, but he could hear sharp whispers and movement. Without stopping he braced his shoulder and crashed into the closed bedroom door. “Alicia!” he yelled as he burst into the spare room ready to take on anyone or thing that dared hurt his beautiful wife.

The scene in front of him was nearly as comical as it was disturbing. Lying face down on the bed was his naked wife , a pillow lay discarded on the back of her head. She wasn’t moving. Next to the bed was a naked man hopping on one leg, desperately trying to get his shorts on. “what the fuck is going on here?” he screamed. Without waiting for an answer he launched himself into the pantsless man. The first punch was a bell ringer and sent the unknown male to the floor in a heap. The force behind the successful punch had thrown him off balance and he toppled over right next to the unconscious male body. When he looked up he was face to face with the biggest cock he had ever seen. No wonder this guy was having so much trouble getting his pants on he thought. It would have been like trying to hide an elephant under a doona cover. This thought alone enraged him even more and he found himself delivering more punches and kicks to the already prone man. All of a sudden he heard Alicia’s voice breaking in over the white noise screaming in his ears. “Jimmy, Stop it, You’ll kill him”. He spun around to see Alicia standing on the bed, covering herself with a sheet, tears streaming down her face. “Who the hell is this?” he shouted, pointing to the prone body on the floor. “I thought he had killed you! You were just lying there when I came in, I thought he’d hurt you or something!!” She just stared at him blankly, her bottom lip trembling. “I….I don’t know…I…I just” The sobbing was making it hard for her to speak and it was during her pauses that he put two and two together. ” I don’t believe it, You’re cheating on me?…In my own fucken house! you BITCH!! ” He turned and stormed out . Alicia grabbed for him but it was a feeble attempt and he was out of the room in a flash, the anger at fever pitch.

As he stormed away he let loose with another huge punch. This one landed right in the middle of the hallway wall and his fist went clear through and into the other room. He didn’t even feel the sharp metal as it cut deeply into his hand. He ripped his arm out of the newly decorated plaster and continued on out the front door. He headed straight for the grey pickup he could now see on his front kerb. The drivers door was unlocked and the keys were sitting proudly on the dash. Clearly this guy was in a hurry to get inside both the house and his wife. He grabbed the keys, sat in the drivers seat and started the truck. He had no idea why he started it, but it felt good to have control of something that wasn’t his for once.

His hands were clenched like iron around the steering wheel and he started to wrench on the wheel as hard as he could. Back and forth, slamming his back into the seat, pulling and pushing trying to get some result. The scream he let out came from way down low in his chest. It was such a violent sound that he scared himself a little. Tears were running down his face, and as he cleared them away from his eyes he noticed Alicia running out of the front door still only wrapped in the bed sheet. She was screaming something but he couldn’t hear her over the sound of the pickups motor he was now revving heavily. As she came closer he was overwhelmed with the desire to be as far away from her as possible. He slammed the truck into gear and tore off down the road, wheels spinning hard, digging deeply into his neatly manicured front verge. Large chunks of dirt and grass  spewing out the rear of the pickup. Alicia cut a sad figure in the rear vision mirror, covered in bits of mud, tears streaming down her face in a filthy old bed sheet. Good he thought as he jammed the accelerator to the floor and just drove.

Beware the bug catchers.

An article published today on ITNews.com.au highlights the intentions

of the UK ISP Virgin Media to alert users, who are connected to its network, when they have been infected with malware. On the surface this scheme appears to have great merit and could save home users the cost of engaging a computer tech and potentially costly losses or repairs. Unfortunately it does raise a few issues with the limits of responsibility as it relates to the user and the ISP.

Consider this scenario, a customer of Virgin Media is the proud owner of a laptop installed with a Microsoft Windows operating system. On a recent business trip they took along their personal laptop and were required to utilize the hotels Internet connection for browsing and social media activities. During this time the Virgin Media user visited a site that had been compromised with a particularly nasty malware. The type that is actively looking for personal and financial information from its victims. The users computer has now been infected due to a less than rigid regime of updating their computer with the latest software updates. Remember of course that the hotels ISP is probably not Virgin Media and if it was, would more than likely not be connected to the residential systems that this article refers to. Fast forward a few days and this customer is now back home and has connected their laptop back onto the Virgin Media ISP connection installed at home. Over the next few days the systems at Virgin Media detect this malware attempting to crawl around within its network. They identify the endpoint that the attacks are originating from and are able to contact the recently traveled customer to inform them of this detection. I have never been privy to correspondence of this nature but I imagine it would be worded something like this:

Dear Virgin Media customer,

A recent security scan on our systems has alerted us to a computer you are using on our network is infected with a malware program. In order to continually enjoy our premium internet services we suggest that you download our latest and greatest security scanning software to rid yourself of this blight.

Yours sincerely Customer service dude.

PS if you don’t rectify this problem within the next fortnight we will cut you off.

Or something like that. Now depending on the amount of time passed from the initial infection until the ISP communication arrived, the damage may have already been done. If this customer has visited financial sites before being made aware of the infection then those details have already been compromised. It is therefore entirely in the realms of possibility this customer will feel that Virgin Media has been at fault here by allowing them to become infected. After all, if they can detect the infection why couldn’t they stop it? I understand the desire for ISP’s to get customers using their networks to have malware free computers but offering a hand to help someone these days can sometimes result in getting that same hand bitten.

Will robot doctors really work?

One of the major points being touted by the Gillard government is the ability for doctors to use

video conferencing to diagnose patients. This  point is being used as a major driver for the implementation of the NBN and the astronomical bill that comes with it. Having a background in the IT support industry I am wondering how such a system will be accepted by the public and will it erode the current patient/Doctor system or enhance it?

When I started in IT support, everything was done whilst sitting in front of the users computer. Software was installed, errors were corrected and rapport was established with the user. Over time however, remote support technologies found their way into the industry and slowly but surely support personnel found themselves chained to their desks using products like VNC and remote desktop to solve problems. You know the somewhat scary experience when your helpdesk operator announces they are taking control of your machine. Suddenly your mouse is whizzing around, seemingly with a mind of its own. Visiting sections of your computer you never knew existed until the error is rectified. This was viewed as a benefit to the helpdesk and support department. Users could get immediate remediation  and the IT helper could immediately move on to another issue. On paper this is correct, but in practice there are some negative aspects to this form of support .

The loss of the face to face chat is the most important. This form of interaction is a benefit for company and staff moral. Some people spend their days only conversing with the same handful of people. Having someone else they can talk face to face with can be an enjoyable interruption to the daily routine. Some say that your resident nerd may not be the most scintillating repartee but beggars can’t be choosers right ? One other aspect is the loss of the environmental diagnosis. By this I am referring to the ability of a support person to diagnose an issue based on what is happening outside the PC. Perhaps the user has moved the physical PC and its new location may be contributing to the current issues. Using remote technologies this may never be ascertained by the support professional.

If this situation is compared to the Doctor talking to their patients via video link it is imperative that the technology is used sparingly and with the understanding that incorrect diagnosis is a real possibility. Training for the Doctors and a level of understanding from the patients will eventually make this an invaluable service but it should never replace the face to face time that in itself can be a form of healing for some.

The reason IT departments can be so stingy.

There are many challenges that face an IT support worker in a day to day environment.

Starting at the urgent call from someone who has to be back up and working within the next 5 minutes or the company will lose millions, to the inane questions about which PC is best to do web surfing or send emails. For the record any computer on sale today is more than capable of sending every email you are ever going to write or display every webpage you are ever going to visit without raising a sweat. However, the challenge that causes the most consternation for those poor individuals tasked with keeping PCs running, are the “non-standard” requests. The request for that new piece of software or that different type of hardware you believe will give your machine slightly better performance, or simply give it a better look. While this may seem reasonable enough from the users perspective, especially if it is driven by a business need, it can be the catalyst for a large headache in the IT department. So why is a standard so important? To answer that we need to look at what a standard is and why we have them in IT.

Standards are a virtual green zone for the majority of IT workers the world around. It is the locked down settings for Internet Explorer or your Office programs, the brand of PC on your desk and the type of monitor attached to it. It is the way your IP phone is locked to only a few different ringtones and your handheld can only run approved applications. While most home users will install the latest and coolest software or buy the biggest and prettiest hardware, enterprise software and hardware is chosen due to its reliability, cost in units of a thousand or more, the availability of support and spares 24 x 7 x 365 and most importantly the familiarity the support staff has with using and fixing the technology. Of course this is not to be confused with the standards used in industry that dictate the laws on how virtually every device is to be used safely and correctly. No, these standards are the guidelines developed by the internal staff to best suit how the company works as dictated by the business.  If a standard environment has been implemented within your company then this ensures problems that occur en-masse are easily handled. You see, if all devices are simply a clone of each other then you can be extremely confident that a fix that works on one device will work on every other device in the network. This allows IT departments to be slightly more proactive than reactive, as they can test and rollout patches/fixes/upgrades after a relatively quick testing turnaround because they have been able to run through all the required tests on devices that are identical to what the user has in front of them. Well that’s the plan. Unfortunately these plans are completely undone by the previously mentioned “non-standard” request.  Some of these requests turn out to be frivolous and are simply due to a lack of knowledge on the requestors behalf of what assets or device capabilities are already available to them. However, there are always legitimate requests that will ultimately save money/time/resources or all three for the business. It then becomes the challenge for the IT department to shoehorn this new device or technology into the current asset fleet without causing problems or failures with the existing technologies. However, it must be kept in mind that a non-standard request just for your machine, no matter how logical or beneficial, can often be met with resistance from your IT department. Remember as soon as your device moves away from the standard you become a unique case that has to be catered for separately to the rest of the asset fleet. Multiply this by a few hundred to a few thousand depending on your company size and all of a sudden the IT department is running around personally attending to all these unique devices every time a patch, change or upgrade is required. With IT budgets the way they are in the current climate, you quickly begin to see why the “standard” environment is so strictly adhered to.

Google has moved in and it’s a bit on the nose!!

A month  ago, Google moved into their new digs on Pirrama Rd in Pyrmont, Sydney, Australia. It is a fantastic looking place. A speculatively built 6 Star energy rated building.” The first of it’s kind to be built in the southern hemisphere” the building placards announced. Built close to Sydney’s world famous harbor and close to every conceivable facility. There wasn’t much fanfare, just a slow trickle of Google employees started appearing around the area as they were moved into the building. The Governor-General, Quentin Bryce attended the official opening of the Google offices and the media were escorted around the lavish offices and Aussie themed meeting rooms.

It was only a few days later however that many of us who work near the new offices started to notice an unbelievable stench  emanating from the building. When I say stench I mean take your breath away stuff. The mornings seem to be particularly bad and for myself and my colleagues, the job of walking past the building in the morning is extremely unpleasant. You see, just as you get to where the smell is at its worst there is a gradual rise in the footpath. Now being a typical 8 hr/day, desk bound I.T. worker I am probably not as fit as I could be, and that gradual rise in the path compels you to start drawing in slightly heavier breath. Let me tell you, when you get that first whiff of the “Google cheese” as we have affectionately nicknamed it , you nearly gag. You find yourself clenching your jaw shut and lightly breathing through your nose so as not to permanently stain your mouth  and perhaps end up with bad breath for the rest of the day.

Now in all fairness to Google the stench was around well before the first sod was turned on their new building, but unfortunately for them they are now the perceived owners of the problem. Especially since the building proudly advertises the overly clever sewerage plant attached to the side of the building that is clearly visible from the street due to its glass walls and LCD instructional display.

Perhaps one day soon they can get together with Sydney Water, The building owners and a plumber and work out the problem, but until then if you are ever invited over to the Sydney Google building, by all means go, but just don’t let them take you round the back for a cigarette because you might set off an explosion that literally causes the shit to hit the fan.

Entry to CSU

Today marks the first day I am officially a student of Charles Sturt University. I will be spending two years completing the “Master of Networking and System Administration”. There have been no official instructions from the University yet but I will soon receive a confirmation pack and info on my first two subjects.