I’ve been haunting the digital wilds since about ’94, back when the web crackled, hummed, and occasionally threatened to set your modem on fire just for looking at it funny. A personal website here, a blog there, sometimes both held together with duct tape, HTML guesswork, and sheer optimism. Realising that I’ve been online for more than three decades is… equal parts impressive and mildly horrifying. At this point I’m basically qualified for a seat on the Internet Druids’ Council.

So yes, by the ancient laws of cyberspace, I am fully authorised to shake my metaphorical walking stick at the TikTok generation. All you hyper‑edited, dance‑looping, algorithm‑summoned sprites may kindly vacate my virtual lawn with your chaotic jingles masquerading as music. I was here when “You’ve Got Mail” was a cultural event, when websites proudly displayed hit counters, when we all wanted to FREE KEVIN, and when animated GIFs were considered the height of sophistication. (That last bit is, of course, a filthy lie. Animated GIFs have never been acceptable. And it’s Gif, not Jif. Do not make me fetch my stick.)

And yet here I remain, still typing, still tinkering, still refusing to log off, and now deeply amused to discover that the Internet Archive has been quietly preserving my online ramblings since the late ’90s. Which means there are, quite literally, thousands upon thousands of historical documents chronicling the last thirty‑ish years of my life, preserved for all eternity. Or at least until World War Three wipes out all technology.

I always assumed I was hysterical. I never expected to be historical.

So the other day the Support Guys were a bit confused over a request in the Ticketing system.

Subject: Website URL’s

Please could you set the following websites to point to IP 192.168.123.2

www.******.co.uk
www.******.co.uk
www.******..co.uk
www.******..co.uk
www.******..co.uk
www.******..co.uk

******= to protect identity.

The more observant amongst you will have noticed that is a Local IP address, and if Websites are pointed at it they will not work for anyone else in the world. So We queried the IP, and asked them to double check.

Imagine our surprise when they responded telling us that was what their IT company was saying needed to be done, or they would not be able to create email accounts on the exchange server.

Yes. Apparently an IT form needed websites pointing to a 192.168. Local address before they could create new accounts on an Exchange server on a different IP range/network.

This leads us to a conflict of interest.

Professionalism V “The Customer is always Right”

Its been a while since I have vented my spleen on here about the things that go on at the Asylum.  So I thought I would take some time out and have a little “Vent“.

I was originally hired at the Asylum as a Developer, and advanced my way up the ranks to Head of Development, then after an asylum wide reshuffle I relocated to the Systems Department as a Linux Sys.Admin.

Now I occasionally get thrown small development jobs are are complicated or in a rush, which is fine as we all like to help each other out. Only now its getting a bit silly.

I’m thrown Dev job after Dev job and told theres more coming in (am I a dev again?)

Then “Oh can you just make some android apps for layar?” (I know nothing about phone dev, and not done any programing in many many years)

Followed by “I’ve ordered a Mac Mini, so you can start on making some layar based iPhone apps now” (Ignoring the facts 1)I’ve never used a mac 2)I know nothing about using mac’s or mac software & 3) I know nothing about programing iPhones)

Now I’ve been asked to take part in a conference call to deal with a customer who’s website is bringing down the windows server its hosted on to discuss best ways of resolving these issues. (err I barley use Windows as a user unless I really have to, and that’s normal windows, I know nothing about Windows servers. I think our Windows Server guy would have been a better choice for this call)

And that’s just this week.

So here I am, your friendly neighbourhood Swiss-army CodeNinja

I forget exactly when this incident happened. I do remember it was towards the end of the University season (either the year end, or midway). It was in my second to last year in University, and everyone was rushing about trying to finish papers, coursework and get everything handed in on time.

Of course the Lords of Chaos were out in force, and the Universities Network was down, and had been for about a week, people were seriously starting to panic.  The network at the time was Windows 95 running of a Novell network. Now somehow (no info was ever posted) the windows image had become corrupted.  You could log onto the network, and it would copy the global copy of windows to your workstation ok, only winsock, and several other network important files/libs were corrupt meaning windows could not talk to the network.  This had a knock-on problem of all the program files & user data were stored on network drives.  Basically you were left with a corrupt and damaged version of windows that was of no use to anyone.

Now some of the computer labs had computers that also had local copies of windows on them, for specific software/applications. Unfortunately these were not set up to use the network, or the internet, in fact they had been set up specifically to be unable to use the network. (for security and to help prevent the pirating of specialised software)

After a few days of no net-access a friend and myself got fed up and decided to do something about it. We found one of the small labs with local copy windows machines, and using some of the libraries off the corrupt net-work versions, plus manually rewriting sever config files we were able to get two machines fully running on the uni’s network, and hence the internet. So there we were happily using the internet to plan the weekends fun when a Lecturer wandered into the lab.

“What are you guys doing in here?”

“err, just finishing some coursework to email in”

“What, do you think I’m stupid? The network is down”

I pointed at my screen and invited her to come look, pointing at a couple of websites to show it was working, and pointed out since we were desperate to finish our coursework we “fixed” the two machines we were using. She looked thoughtful for a while, then asked could we do the same to all the others in the lab, since she had an important lesson that afternoon that she had already put off once due to the broken network.

It was another week and a half before they fixed the network and all the universities computers were usable. But for that week and a half there was one small computer lab that was fully functional, and its location was spread about like a secret. After all, if everyone knew about it, you’d never get a free computer.

I like to think we helped a few people be a little less stressed in the run up to exams.

It started off as just another day in the Asylum.

Well not just any old day, but a Friday. The countdown to the weekend had been started. The coffee brewed. and all was well!

Then IT happened.

And not a cool interesting intergalactic space spider who likes to disguise herself as a friendly clown called Pennywise. No not a good IT at all.

He thrusts his fists against the posts and still insists he sees the ghosts.

No this IT was getting called into a phone meeting, something that to date has tended to go the same way every time. I go into the meeting, i sit about for an hour listening to the marketing guys discuss what name to give things, then I have a ten minute contribution about the development, then another hour of pointless marketing drivel. (I think I fell asleep at one point in the last meeting I went to).

This was luckily just a 15 minute quick meeting to discuss what is the next area of development to concentrate on. You see the site in question is getting a major overhaul and is currently in a situation where the development site can be made live. There is just some final testing going on.  This testing will be finished today, so the site will be live by Monday.

Yet in the meeting, the Governor decided that we needed a development site for the development site. So that while the development site is being tested to go live, a development version of the development site can be worked on. Now, should any bugs be found in the development site they would have to be fixed there and the fix duplicated to the development, development site. while new work is done there. We now have three versions of a site, all for the sake of waiting a day.

I don’t know if any of you can see the sense in that, I know I can’t.

Ah well on with the multiple dev site creating.

I am on holiday this week.  A full week away from the Insane Asylum, work, customers or as I like to call them “The Bane of My Life“.  So far I’m still full of the festive cheer, festive beer, and festive treats.  I have been working my way through the DVD’s I got for Xmas, There is a nice layer of snow over everything making the world look a peaceful place.  There is only one thorn in my festive happiness…… CUSTOMERS!

Monday the Governor of the Asylum threw a support ticket at my email marked urgent. It was from a customers developer. They had asked for a new hosting area with Joomla installed on it, and it was done on the last working day of the year (last job before we finished for the day)

Monday:

HI. You set up a Joomla hosting for us, and you set it up wrong. I can not get it to upload modules, I’ve checked the permissions via FTP and they are wrong. I need this installed correctly, fix the permissions and test it!

Hello? We installed it wrong? Have you ever installed Joomla? You ftp the files to your hosting, go to a webpage, answer a few basic questions and its installed! Idiot!. Ok, so he has a permission problem, so he’s decided to use the web server to upload the files instead of putting his FTP details into Joomla’s config to let Joomla handle it. OK. Now. the guy knows enough to check permissions with FTP.  So why does he not change them with FTP to fix his problem? Its a rush job, we’re on holiday, be quicker to do it himself.  Anyway, permissions changed, idiot informed it quicker to change them himself.

Tuesday:

Hi. Our developer is being a hero and working over his holiday to get our new website developed, He has a problem with you installing Joomla wrong, can you fix this urgently!

OK. Now I am mad. Firstly: -Your developer may be working over his holidays, That does not mean everyone else should be working over theirs. Secondly:- The Install was not done incorrectly, Your developer does not seem to have a clue. Thirdly:- I spoke to your developer yesterday, If he’s not informed you thats his problem not mine!

Do you get the feeling I’m not a people person?

Wednesday:

Hi. I changed the permissions on the folder and it still will not let me upload files. Can we restart and install Joomla correctly!

OK, maybe he has a point. Lets look. ok, he lists the directory he having trouble uploading into, he says he set permissions to 777. Oh, thats odd, permissions have not been changed. oh look, theres a directory of the same name one branch down, and that has 777 permissions, The idiots only changed the wrong directory.  I would not mind but he sent me the path to the correct one, why couldn’t he have followed his own instructions.

If I get another set of emails from him, I may just stop being polite.

When learning a new programming language, The Internet convention is to make a “Hello World” program.  For those of you none-coders out there, that is as simple as it sounds. A simple program to output the words “Hello World” onto your screen, or a page on a web browser. The idea is to use something very simple, so you can speedily see the output of your code before you start on anything more complex.  In theory there is nothing simpler in code than the Hello world program.

For example:

• PHP: <?php echo “Hello, world!”; ?>
• ASP: <% Response.Write(“Hello, world!”) %>
• ASP.NET: <asp:Label ID=“Label1” runat=“server” Text=“Hello World”></asp:Label>
• BASH: echo ‘Hello, world!’

You noticing a trend here? Very simple, and not much code involved. Hell if we look at assembly language itself, which is considered a complex and long language.

bdos    equ    0005H
start:  mvi    c,9
        lxi    d,msg$
        call   bdos
        ret             

msg$:   db    'Hello, world!$'
end     start

Now. this week I have had to look at the insanity that is called “Ruby on Rails“. One of our customers is demanding we host/support it as he now has a new “Developer” (And I use that title in the loosest way) And the new guy only does Ruby On Rails (Or RoR from now on).  Now we have the facility to host it pre-setup on our servers.  So all we had to do was throw up a quick test page to double check it was all running OK. What was needed was a RoR “Hello World” test.

So following the examples in a book I set about writing a simple application to display “Hello World” onto the web-page. It took several hours of work, required over 200 different files, and a virtual-Host setup different to normal hosting before the words “Hello World” were there on the screen.

How shit a language (If i can call it a language) is RoR? Instead of the normal ONE line of code it took 207 individual files to do the same thing. Has there ever been a shittier application language invented?  If there is then I have never heard of it.

And to top it all off. the Developer in question seems clueless about the language. For example he did not have a public folder (required by Apache). he removed the default index page (which is correct) only he never re mapped root in the config/routes file. And has been bombarding our support ticketing system with very basic questions.

On a side note. While learning RoR, I got bored so played on the Interwebz. I found this developers, Twitter, Blog, Facebook, Company website. Yes it turns out he is a freelance web applications developer.  And yet his website is the worst I have seen in a long time.

Takes all sorts I suppose.

I was at my parents place last night for a family meal.  As I went to retrieve my laptop bag and coat to leave I spotted my father moving the furniture in their 1st room apart to make a large free area of floor. (No idea what you would call the room, it looks like a sitting room with a comfortable sofa, coffee table, etc. They just never use it for anything) ..

Now nothing my parents do really surprises me so I ignored it and collected my stuff, as i went to leave my Dad said “I’m just checking this thing i think i have a fault somewhere” So I look at him to see if he’s talking to me or himself. I get another couple of steps closer the door “I’m programing this nurse call system i designed…”  OK i think, He must be proud of it and want to show me what he’s done. So I wander over to where he’s laying out blueprints, wiring diagrams, and such across the floor as his laptop boots up.

So he starts pointing out the several dozen call points, lift monitoring, alarm light/buzzers, display panels, control panels, etc. And explains how when a point is activated it displays its details on a defined display, lights up certain lights so nurses can easily see where the problem is. As he’s pointing to the blueprints and explaining I make the obligatory “ohhh” “ahhh” “cool” appreciative noises, after all I had just had a nice meal.  So when he’s finished and been quiet for a bit I go to stand up, “I just need to redo part of it, the lights are not working right and…” I sit back down.

He now goes on to inform me the programing uses groups, areas, zones. *laptop is in the way of some paper and gets slid a bit closer to me* He shows me the software that you use to program and set up the whole system, and explains how once its all setup on the laptop you just upload it to the main control and it configures the entire system. He leans over to point at something on the blueprints *laptop moves closer to me as it was in the way of something* “See, This section I’m calling the yellow zone only I need these lights on when any points are activated, and this light here” *pointing at part of diagram as laptop is moved closer to me out of the way* “and its not working correctly“.  He then reads out part of the instruction booklet he has about zones.

“Ah, I see the displays are groups, cal-points areas, and lights zones. Its not like the  old skool alarm zones, I see where that must be confusing” I say. “and zones can be activated by areas or individual points, Nice”  He looks at me blankly for a second, makes a quick note of what I said and goes “Humm what do you mean?” *laptop is turned round to face me*

I sigh. And show him on the software how the lights have multiple ways you can control them. “Oh, i think i set it up wrong when I programed the system. I’ll have to redo it all 🙁” Yes, I heard the emoticon in his tone of voice. So I sigh again as its always good fun, and start checking on the software for programing this stuff.

A couple of hours later and I can now program and design these systems to do whatever is needed, I’ve reset his program up to do what he needs as he walked through each section of the hospital, And I even managed to translate the terms it used into the terms my Dad is more used to using so he can do it himself from now on.  It is hard, He has spent many years working on all sorts of alarm systems (He taught me how to wire/design alarm systems) and ever since year 1 a zone = an area of comman alarms items. In this system a zone is an individual or group of lights. So we have it all setup as he wants it, I stand up from the floor, streach and “Thanks, now how do we program it so if an alarm goes unanswered for a set length of time the other nurse stations are buzzed?” Sigh, sit back down.

At least he now has the basic system programed up, and better yet he understands the new terms, and how to use the software. So he should be able to do all future changes himself.

See, no such thing as a free dinner, There was not even a sweet!

I read a book many, many years ago. It was one of the Foundation series by Isaac Asimov, Either second foundation, or foundation and earth, I forget which. (I did read them all in order straight after each other, so the actual books blurred into one story).  Anyway, In this book the empire wants to find the second foundation people who they suspect of controlling everyone’s choices. So they send out one of their guys in a state of the art spaceship to go find them.  The ship had a thinking brain as its computer, and what the pilot did not know was they suspected him of being one of the advanced second foundation people, and had given him a broken ship so if he was able to fly it, then it proved he was one of the people with advanced minds…

Some days I feel like that pilot. I swear they are testing me! Let me explain. I was given a new project, out the blue, with a deadline of a week. And I mean deadline since the Governor was setting it up at the customers site in exactly one week. (OK. that’s partial hindsight as I was only told the deadline at hometime the day before he was due to install the system!).

So, Whats the project?

Right,  What is needed is to integrate the LDAP address book on grandstream phones with the LDAP address book on a kerio email server. Simple!

Do I have the necessary tools?

Like what?

Do I have a Grandstream phone with LDAP capability?

Err no, you don’t.  There is a fellow inmate at the other side of the building who has one.  You could do a bit of code work, walk over to his desk, test the phone, walk back to your room and check the code? Oh, I should mention He is one of the phone support guys, so he is on the phone all day long, so you may have to wait until he’s not using the phone before getting a quick test!

Right, Do I have an account on a kerio server so i have an address book i can use for testing?

Don’t be silly, Kerio accounts cost money, so no account to test with!

Do I at least have documentation on the phones? details on how it talks to the LDAP server? format it needs responses in.

No documentation at all, No information, The only person with that knowledge is not working on this project so You’ll just have to find it all out yourself. Oh, you do have the web address of a script someone else has written. Did I mention that?

No you did not. So I have an example script that does what I need to do, so I can work from that? That’s not too bad!

Oh. You have a link to a script. I should say it does not work on any account based LDAP server so falls over if you try using it on a Keri server. And even if it did work, it does not do what you need it to do since its a script to make an xml address book to import into older phones, so a)does not work, b)Not what you want.

So. Just to summarise. I have been asked to develop a system where a phone talks directly to a kerio email server and auto populates the address book? and has the search functionality built in? I have no phone to test with or see how it works, No account with an address book, No documentation, And only a broken script that doesn’t even do what I need? Great!!!!

You forgot less than a week to finish it and get it tested!

I’ll just go out back and shoot myself now!