Almost ten years ago I was on a roadtrip to Moses Lake, Wa to attend the wedding of my computer guru. On the first morning of a week long trip I awoke in a South Dakota motel room to a the picture of a tower in flames. As I watched a second plane hit the second tower and I as most of the country went into a what is going on mode. As I continued to travel westward the only thing on the car radio was more grim news of the happenings in New York and Washington and in a little town in PA. The news was horrible to say the least. And as you can imagine the rest of the trip was one of many failures as all the planned visits were closed for fear of more attacks,all national parks and landmarks were closed and I ended up in a motel room 5 days earlier than planned.

Now today I awake to the news that the mastermind of these attacks has been killed! Am I over joyed? Doh! I am glad that, that weasel is finally dead. I know that his death will not bring back all the lives that were lost that day, the innocent people from not only this country but many others and the lives of the brave first responders that also gave their lives in a futile attempt to save others. Am I jumping with joy? No I am just sitting here ready to say that chapter of my life is over as it is for many many more of the surviors and their relatives. I thank the US Seals that preformed the mission and for the many others that still today are fighting for us and the world to rid the planet of such people. 

Okay enough with the rain and freezing rain and the storms in general hard enough to get in the swing of things without a ton of bad weather on top of everything else. 

Sorry to have ignored the site for some time however I am slowly getting ready to start full time once again or that is the game plan today. And no I have not given up Linux or Mepis and am still fiddling with both. Thanks to all who have written and called to ask as to why the long lag in production. I will be writing more as the days progress. Really I will.

It’s doubtful that anyone really likes having to upgrade, but at some point it has to be done. For those particularly adverse to the upgrade — like enterprise users, with good reason — there are extra-long windows, but eventually even those windows close. Last week, Red Hat announced that the oldest of its supported platforms has officially entered the homestretch.

Believe it or not there is a guy in my lug that still swears by this version oh well all good things must come to a end. Baldy

The End Is In Sight For RHEL 3

I have been humbled over the last two weeks by the over whelming out pouring of offers of help in ways that have left me shocked and totally humbled. From friends that I had not heard from in years came out of the woodwork in ways I can not put into words.And from the everyday friends even more has been offered and for all of you there is no way I will ever be able to repay you or even come close to doing so. I have always said I am picky over those to whom I call friend and each and everyone of you will always have a special place in my life, as it seemed that you are all the best choices for the title of friend I could ever have chosen and I have no idea how I got this lucky in life to be able to call you all my friend. I only wish that everyone had a list of friends that I seem to have collected through out the years, for you are all the heros a person needs at time and you all have come through with flying colors.

As you all know I am on the list and have been moved up so it is a sit and wait for now and yes you all will be notified of any changes that happen, and of that I promise. Until then once again I have to say thank you all and if you every need anything trust me I will be there for you all.

In Humbled and Heartfelt thanks.

Baldy aka John

What happened to the old “sysadmin” of just a few years ago? We’ve split what used to be the sysadmin into application teams, server teams, storage teams, and network teams. Now look at what we’ve done — knowledge is so decentralized we must invent new roles to act as liaisons between all the IT groups.

Now this I personally have first hand experience the old idea of one admin to rule them all is now a part of history as much as windows 3.1, Baldy

IT Strangled by Overspecialization

I still have my copy of the 1975 issue of Popular Electronics with the Altair on the cover.

H. Edward Roberts died this week at age 68. If you don’t know the story of how Roberts helped launch the personal computing revolution, let us fill you in.
[...]
Even with $250,000 in debt and a collapsing business, Ed. Roberts didn’t waver from his commitment to personal computing. He persevered building the prototype of the first personal computer, the Altair 8800, named unofficially after a planet visited in the Star Trek episode Amok Time.

The Altair 8800 saved the company. Ed. Roberts had brokered a deal with Intel to buy Intel 8080 chips in bulk for $75/chip (normally they were $360/chip). The cheap CPUs allowed the Altair 8800 to retail for $439 ($621 assembled) at the time when Intel’s Intellec-8 Microprocessor Development System, another Intel 8080 based system, sold for $10,000.

The cheap Altair 8800 not only proved a mild commercial hit, but it helped launch the world’s biggest electronics company today, Microsoft. In 1975 Bill Gates and Paul Allen, students at Harvard at the time read about the Altair. They contacted Ed. Roberts telling him they were developing a programming language interpreter and asking if he was interested in purchasing in it.

---

R.I.P. Ed Roberts, Personal Computer Pioneer

As you can see he really has gotten into getting really comfy when it comes to his morning nap.

Yuppers the blizzards were not enough because here is the ice storm. Jeeesh what a nice winter.

These are branches that normally are 5 foot above the deck and here they are.

Okay for goodness sake enough is enough! With only 5″ of snow on the ground this is all the new stuff over night and with 12 hours more to come there should be a great mess by morning when the high winds hit.