Tuesday, October 26, 2004
DNS & Color Coded Girls
I seem to be stuck in a professional rut lately. As I am providing my services to fix people's problems ... someone else's problems somehow manage to affect what I'm doing. Perfect example was today's mishap.
I develop several websites for one of my clients. I admin a few servers that these websites reside upon. I however do not manage their DNS. The gentleman who is their computer supplier maintains their email, public websites, and DNS for the companies. I have never intended to move in on his homeland. When I need domains created, I would send him and email and eventually they would be setup.
Over the weekend I did massive amounts of coding and testing to complete the section of a website to manage and maintain employment records and vaction/sick time for a group of employees. After I was completely satisfied with the result I checked in the code and updated the live server. I planned to go down south and demonstrate what I had done for the client.
So after a very small amount of sleep (I went to bed around 5:00 A.M). I got up in the morning, showered and trucked on down. Pumped up to show off my work to Robyn, I strike up IE on Win XP at her desk. Cannot Find Server. WTF?!?!?!?! I just updated it last night? like a few hours ago?
I start the technical hunt. I can :
1. ping other boxes through the same gateway so we have network.
2. I can ping the actual box by IP so the server is up and running.
3. I can log in to the server via ssh so it is the right one and not some IP mess.
4. I can reach other virtual domains on the same webserver so apache is running fine.
5. I can get into the proper website by IP address only. (it's the default virtual host)
6. nslookup was giving some wierd errors. (I don't trust windows anyways)
So it's a name thing? I give the local computer guy a call and he comes over. I found out that the guy who manages DNS got pissed off at his ISP for charging him too much and cancelled his account. So he's moved his server's to dial up temporarily _AND_ he didn't tell anyone. The DNS rollover (IP change) takes 1-2 days to propegate properly (such is DNS). And this will happen again when he moves the servers to a new ISP shortly (Another 1-2 days of downtime). Knowing I have no control over the DNS and now it's semi-fried for the time being, I realize I just wasted my time going down to the office. I do appreciate the good conversation with Robyn though.
I wish some people would just get a clue!!!!!
Maybe some people need hints ... which leads me to my next topic. I was watching a TV show with a court case going on. the case was a 14 year old kid accused of sexual assault. Apparently it was at a "sex party" where the kids would pair off and "do stuff". It came out in the court case that to eleviate pressure on the girls who attended, the girls would wear colored bracelets. An orange bracelet meant "kissing only", a blue bracelet meant "oral sex", and a black bracelet meant "I go all the way".
I thought to myself as I was watching this that it was pretty sad that children jump into a social situation like that and don't really ... then I realized that those kids were onto something. Wouldn't it be cool if grown up women did that? "Hey you with the green bracelet, can I buy you a drink?". (I'm not telling you what the green bracelet means). Women are mysterious creatures to begin with. Don't get me wrong, women are fabulous, and should be worshipped and pampered accordingly. Women are mysterious ... and guys are pretty simple sometimes ... so why not just advertise for us? I mean every guy would just wear _every_ colour bracelet (except pink ... pink means something very very bad ;-)) ... wouldn't he?
Then I got to thinking ... wouldn't it be great it this wasn't just a sex thing? Wouldn't it be great if the computer people of the world who really don't have a clue wore the red propeller beanie on their head? I could wear my black top hat and happily go about my daily routine of fixing the red beanie's messed up attempts at something. Then I could poke the red beanies with my walking stick. *poke* *poke*. Stupid red beanies.
At least this way the red beanie population would eventually dwindle ... people would start to reckognize the red beanies and run from them like the bubonic plague. Meanwhile the upper class top hat wearing folk could streamline the entire professional world, and no propblems would happen in my euphoria.
All and all it really wasn't a very bad day. The DNS crap irked me earlier, but it opened up my day to go for coffee a few times with different friends, and clients. So my planned day of demo and coding turned into a relaxing day of schmoozing. Which is actually about to continue. Time for coffee again.
ΒΆ 8:58:00 PM
I develop several websites for one of my clients. I admin a few servers that these websites reside upon. I however do not manage their DNS. The gentleman who is their computer supplier maintains their email, public websites, and DNS for the companies. I have never intended to move in on his homeland. When I need domains created, I would send him and email and eventually they would be setup.
Over the weekend I did massive amounts of coding and testing to complete the section of a website to manage and maintain employment records and vaction/sick time for a group of employees. After I was completely satisfied with the result I checked in the code and updated the live server. I planned to go down south and demonstrate what I had done for the client.
So after a very small amount of sleep (I went to bed around 5:00 A.M). I got up in the morning, showered and trucked on down. Pumped up to show off my work to Robyn, I strike up IE on Win XP at her desk. Cannot Find Server. WTF?!?!?!?! I just updated it last night? like a few hours ago?
I start the technical hunt. I can :
1. ping other boxes through the same gateway so we have network.
2. I can ping the actual box by IP so the server is up and running.
3. I can log in to the server via ssh so it is the right one and not some IP mess.
4. I can reach other virtual domains on the same webserver so apache is running fine.
5. I can get into the proper website by IP address only. (it's the default virtual host)
6. nslookup was giving some wierd errors. (I don't trust windows anyways)
So it's a name thing? I give the local computer guy a call and he comes over. I found out that the guy who manages DNS got pissed off at his ISP for charging him too much and cancelled his account. So he's moved his server's to dial up temporarily _AND_ he didn't tell anyone. The DNS rollover (IP change) takes 1-2 days to propegate properly (such is DNS). And this will happen again when he moves the servers to a new ISP shortly (Another 1-2 days of downtime). Knowing I have no control over the DNS and now it's semi-fried for the time being, I realize I just wasted my time going down to the office. I do appreciate the good conversation with Robyn though.
I wish some people would just get a clue!!!!!
Maybe some people need hints ... which leads me to my next topic. I was watching a TV show with a court case going on. the case was a 14 year old kid accused of sexual assault. Apparently it was at a "sex party" where the kids would pair off and "do stuff". It came out in the court case that to eleviate pressure on the girls who attended, the girls would wear colored bracelets. An orange bracelet meant "kissing only", a blue bracelet meant "oral sex", and a black bracelet meant "I go all the way".
I thought to myself as I was watching this that it was pretty sad that children jump into a social situation like that and don't really ... then I realized that those kids were onto something. Wouldn't it be cool if grown up women did that? "Hey you with the green bracelet, can I buy you a drink?". (I'm not telling you what the green bracelet means). Women are mysterious creatures to begin with. Don't get me wrong, women are fabulous, and should be worshipped and pampered accordingly. Women are mysterious ... and guys are pretty simple sometimes ... so why not just advertise for us? I mean every guy would just wear _every_ colour bracelet (except pink ... pink means something very very bad ;-)) ... wouldn't he?
Then I got to thinking ... wouldn't it be great it this wasn't just a sex thing? Wouldn't it be great if the computer people of the world who really don't have a clue wore the red propeller beanie on their head? I could wear my black top hat and happily go about my daily routine of fixing the red beanie's messed up attempts at something. Then I could poke the red beanies with my walking stick. *poke* *poke*. Stupid red beanies.
At least this way the red beanie population would eventually dwindle ... people would start to reckognize the red beanies and run from them like the bubonic plague. Meanwhile the upper class top hat wearing folk could streamline the entire professional world, and no propblems would happen in my euphoria.
All and all it really wasn't a very bad day. The DNS crap irked me earlier, but it opened up my day to go for coffee a few times with different friends, and clients. So my planned day of demo and coding turned into a relaxing day of schmoozing. Which is actually about to continue. Time for coffee again.
ΒΆ 8:58:00 PM
