Chris Meller

I’ll have to remember to show this to Matt tomorrow at work, because I know he’s been having some problems (I know, that’s horribly mildly put) with Javascript and CSS in IE.

Looks like Microsoft has released a beta version of a Developer Toolbar for IE. Aside from the disturbing lack of icons (the toolbar is pure text), looks like it’s virtually identical to the Web Developer extension for Firefox. The DOM viewer actually looks like an improvement (although I haven’t actually used it yet, just looked at it).

I’m not in the middle of any projects at the moment that would really benefit from this, but I know I’ve needed something similar in the past. Can’t wait to see how it pans out…

Major Hat Tip: Weblog Tools Collection

Is it just me, or does it seem like excitement in the tech industry and the blogging arena come in spurts? I feel like we were on a good run there for quite a while, and now there’s just… nothing.

Oh, and you know, I’ve never typed “Lull” before… It’s one of those words that just doesn’t look like it’s ever spelled right. Wait… is it?

The only real thing of any significant interest to me lately has been Akismet, the blog SPAM-blocking service designed by Matt Mullenweg and integrated into WordPress.com. I really wanted to do a more in-depth commentary on Akismet, since there are several things I don’t like about it, and several things I just don’t understand all-together about it, but I guess there’s no time like the present, right?

Akismet
My first question is this: Why does it require a WordPress.com invite?

I can see where you’d want to have a somewhat limited “open beta” (so-to-speak) for a service that will generate this much traffic, but I’m not seeing why you would want to integrate that into another invitation-only system.

Let’s look at it this way: You have to have a WordPress.com account (read: blog) to use Akismet (since that’s where you get your Akismet API key). That means that you already have a blog protected by Akismet (the WordPress.com-hosted one). So really the people getting WP.com invites to use Akismet obviously have no prior interest in WP.com. Now they’re just clogging up the WP.com invite-only system and “wasting” invites that could be given to people who actually want a blog, simply so they can get their hands on an Akismet API key.

Do you follow my logic here? I think it just would have made a lot more sense if we’d maintained two seperate programs for these services. I don’t think signing up for one or the other should inherently require a membership to its counterpart, but that’s just me…

My second question is: Who wrote this WordPress plugin? I don’t even think this qualifies as being non-feature-rich. This is like the stone knives and bear skins of WP plugins.

Don’t you think it would be at least somewhat helpful if the comment that has been moderated were, oh I don’t know, actually displayed? Isn’t the content a tad bit of a key point behind determining whether something really and truly is SPAM or not?

I guess the last thing I had to say was a request: How about private black / white lists? Seems to me it only makes sense. Joe says nasty things to me, so I don’t like Joe. He’s not SPAMing (per se), but I don’t want his comments anymore. Of course I have this exact same complaing about the Cloudmark Desktop that I use to filter my email SPAM… I guess they figure some things should be handled externally from their app, since they’ve been around for years and have yet to add these.

Oh, one more thing. Where are my email notifications? I think I should still get an email when I get a comment, even if it’s blocked by Akismet. Otherwise, I never know that some potentially non-SPAM message is sitting in my moderation queue, ticking ever slowly closer to auto-deletion.

What say you, WordPress users? Anyone else that reads my blog using Akismet yet?

For those that are wondering, our comments here are being protected by Akismet. Thus far, it’s blocked about 40 crap messages from ever making it to the built-in moderation functions (which have been catching it all so far anyway). Sure it has some rough edges, but there’s some kick-ass stuff at the heart of this service.

I was walking one of our Operations staff through the new backup procedure for our primary file server today. Since it had recently downloaded an update from our WSUS server, Windows 2000 Server was displaying the annoying “Restart Now or Restart Later” box, which it will continuously pop-up every 5 minutes until you actually restart the damn thing.

Our Operations person, who is totally computer illiterate, as ironic as that is, asked “Should I click Restart?” and moved towards the left button, to which I shouted “NO!,” unintentionally scaring her.

As I explained to her that that would take our file server down, which would prevent people from doing virtually anything (you’d be surprised how much we have that relies on that server in some small way), I began to think… What mission-critical systems am I responsible for?

Desktops
Our WSUS server is managing 53 individual employee desktops. Since we have a few scattered non-domain clients around, the real number is probably in the 55 to 65 range.

Servers
This is where it really gets messy, so I have divided them into two categories: Servers I Manage and Servers I Don’t Manage…

• Servers I Manage
  • Exchange 2000 / Active Directory Domain Controller / DNS / DHCP / WINS
  • File Server
  • WSUS Server / Norton AntiVirus Server
  • FTP Server
  • Intranet Server I
  • Quantim Repricing Server
  • Phone System Server
  • Phone Recordings Storage Server
  • eFAQ Knowledge Base Server
  • Terminal Services Server
  • Temporary SQL 2000 Server (while importing client data)
  • Novell 5 Server (kinda)



• Servers I Don’t Manage
  • Oracle Server
  
  
  • Web Server
  
  
  • Intranet Server II
  
  
  • Novell 5 Server (kinda)
  
  
  
  

If you’re wondering about the Novell server, none of us really know what we’re doing there, so we pass around the huge certification book and let anyone who wants to take a crack at the problem have some fun.

So now that we look at this list, even though - in theory - most of these servers should sit and run untouched and with a minimum of day-to-day changes and maintenance, my involvement in the company’s IT infrastructure is, unquestionably, extensive.

Now, I’ve known that for quite some time (even if no one else realizes it there). I guess I’ve just never sat and thought about it before. I’ve never considered exactly how fucked they would be if I were to leave or… you know… die. It’s not like I maintain one or two miscellaneous systems… I run virtually all of them.

I guess sometimes I just need to reassure myself that I’m useful, even if no one else seems to notice how useful…