This morning I'm posting a bit of tech-related advice.
This advice is platform independent, so Mac users and Windows users should be equally able to benefit from it. Linux guys . . . Maybe.
Yesterday the Bounced Mail folder caught an email from one user in our company to another. The problem came when the mail was rejected because the second person (a former employee) had a disabled account.
Then we noticed the email contained attachments in total over 10MB. This is large for an email, but well within the limits for internal mail.
But what could one user send to another by email that couldn't be shared on the web portal or the company FTP drive?
Apparently, naked pictures of Pamela Anderson.
Since we'd been discussing the email out loud, we had no choice but to notify management. Even if we'd been given a choice, I'd have reported it. Who wants a co-worker dumb enough to do that? No telling what else they'd do.
Of course, I don't want to get anyone fired. That isn't my thing. I'm more a sock-full-of-dimes-in-a-darkened-parking-garage kind of guy, but once this kind of thing happens it is always up to management how far it goes. Non-technically, it is out of our hands.
Regardless, I suggested that, to be fair, pictures of Pamela Anderson with clothes on are pretty tough to find online.
Management was considerably less amused than I was about that.
So. The tech tip for the day seems pretty basic but apparently some people need it:
Don't mail pr0n to or from a corporate email account. Seriously.
Automated systems find it and tell us about it. Millions of dollars have been spent developing ways to check the contents of email for just about everything.
I know this leads to a very obvious question:
"If I can't use my corporate email account, how can I distribute my pr0n collection over teh interwebs?"
Um, yeah.
Gmail, maybe?
Set up a server at home (not on the DMZ in a corporate network like some people at a place where I used to work)?
Just call your pr0n buddy on a cellphone and describe the pictures in lurid detail?
Burn the files to CD and USPS them Media Mail for next to nothing to your regular holiday mailing list?
Hey, you can even steal the blank disks from the office.
Geeks don't generally count the blank media.
We do notice when you drop pr0n on the mail server in the middle of the day.
Okay.
The problem is that anyone who has read this far would never make that mistake in the first place. If there is one thing to be said about regular readers of this blog it is this: They know how and how not to distribute pr0n.

I come here all the time to confess various moments of weakness.
In all honesty, I don't have "moments of weakness". I have moments of strength precariously suspended in a web of cowardice and ethical flexibility.
Since confessing a moment of strength is boring, I'll delve into another weakness.
I've got a profound weakness for the little guy.
While I make 100% of my income from Microsoft-based software, I use Open Source as often as I can.
When I could buy bottled colas at a giant chain for $1.15, I choose to spend $1.29 at the tiny corner store. Not $1.61 downstairs at the cafe after the price hike, though. There is a difference between "supportive" and "bleeding cash from every pore".
Every Wednesday I stop by the little local comic book store on my way home from work. I buy three of four comics, talk to the owner for a few minutes, and then get on with my life.
The comics are different every week. Mostly Marvel Civil War, but it isn't always out (like yesterday).
Here is the thing: Before I have even bought them, I've started downloading them in electronic format.
Usually, I could read them the following day from the comfort of my laptop with no worry about the oils in my fingers destroying the delicate ink. Regardless, I wash my hands about 20 times a day, making my skin as brittle and dry as antique chalk, only lighter in color.
Further, I've been playing World of Warcraft with six million of the geekiest people on the planet, so I haven't even made time to read the electronic versions currently occupying over 100 gigs of space across three separate storage volumes.
In other news, my ISP hates me.
I buy the comics every week because I like the idea that a fellow nerd can make a living doing what he loves.
I can support that.
I like it when people are able to work to do what they love, not just make the mortgage.
If I get comics out of the deal it is a bonus.
The other benefit of buying from a local shop is that the owner has pointed out other comics to me, knowing my taste.
He hasn't showed me anything in a style I hate or featuring a character I don't care about.
It is like his mutant gift is in identifying the style of the geek in question. He has me pegged as a Marvel Civil War, DC 52, Joss Whedon X-Men enthusiast and as the last Aquaman fan on the planet not living in a some kind of "facility".
This is 100% accurate.
Freakish.
I'd be happier if I could buy Dungeons and Dragons books there, but I don't think he has enough traffic to support that.
In still other news:

Coke Reward Points = 1,976

Waaaaay short of the recently re-added Sony digital camera, but almost twice the amount I've redeemed so far on the PlayStation 2, a copy of EverQuest and a magazine subscription no one reads.
Gwynyth is happy to help me empty 12-packs of Coke Zero, but we can't seem to drink fast enough. I'm thinking of having the water cut off at home.

I'm all about the environment. Every morning I drink coffee brewed at work out of a giant Styrofoam cup stamped with the corporate logo -- but I feel bad about it, you know?
Two years ago, in a shameless attempt to appease their greener thinking constituents, the federal government passed a law designed to save some energy and help out with global warming. The same power point presentation they watched to decide to take action was later made into a movie.
While they could have set up better co-generation regulation to encourage industry to clean up their act a little more or, better yet, provide some help to the outdated and horribly toxic third world factories immune to the Kyoto Accord (in exchange for lucrative trade deals and cheaper iPod knock-offs), or even work with the gulf coast fishermen who have been completely devastated through a combination of decades old net technology which more often than not yields catches composed of over 90% "trash fish" which are just dumped overboard to rot and a massive decline in marine life overall due to agricultural run-off.
Instead, they moved forward the "spring forward" part of Daylight Savings Time by two weeks.
Well.
Thanks.
While admittedly this could save (somehow) dozens of dollars nationally in energy costs, it has caused quite a bit of trauma for one sector of our society.
One cultural group has been singled out, deemed unimportant, ground under the green wheels of environmentally conscious frenzy. These people cried out for justice, but their wails fell on deaf ears.
Consider for a moment the plight of the geek.
Here is the thing:
Microsoft has had access (like all of us) for years to the calendar for daylight savings time. As a courtesy, because changing the system clocks on a massive number of computers twice a year is a pain, Windows does it for you unless you say you are in Arizona or one of the other "freak states" that ignores the rest of us.
Please note, the term "freak state" is not meant to imply that people from Arizona are freaks. Sure, they seem to live in a little bubble reality and the rest of us assume they constantly throw their hands over their ears yelling "lalalalalalala" every time the rest of the country wants to do something like create a holiday or change all of our clocks, but really. We are trying to have a society here, Arizona.
Okay. So the dates are pre-programmed in every server released since, oh, forever.
But wait.
They changed the dates.
Hang on.
Better.
They changed the dates for, like, three years or something and then they plan to put it back.
As a result. Every server in the country (not in Arizona, the freaks) will need a patch. Otherwise, time functions will be an hour off.
Meeting requests will be an hour off.
Email will arrive an hour before it is sent.
Time clocks.
Call logs.
Error messages.
Interest rates.
Everything breaks unless this patch (released last month) is applied everywhere.
One mid-sized bank has estimated 400 hours will be needed to test and deploy this patch.
Here, we have 200 servers and close to two thousand workstations (those aren't my problem) to patch within our six hour maintenance window.
If we miss the window, the time will change before the next one.
You know what? I had other stuff to do during that outage window, but there is no way it will get done.
All I want to do is finish my regular projects. Or play World of Warcraft all day.
Whatever. Anything but patch a bunch of servers one week before our automated patch deployment system is scheduled to be installed.
To clarify, I don't hate the planet. I like baby seals as much as the next guy (especially in a light butter sauce). But anytime the government legislates work for one sector of society, using Ted "Series of Tubes" Stevens as a technical reference, I'm going to take issue.
In a later post, I may detail the things I don't take issue with. It would be a short post, I'm sure.
I take issue with short posts.

Yesterday morning early someone had completely opened the blinds between my cubicle and the rising sun. I stepped out of the server room into the glare and threw a hand up, hissing loudly.
I ducked behind my cube wall and hunched over my coffee in the relative shade.
A co-worker saw my display and walked through the light to my desk as though it did not burn him.
"You know," he started, "You are the most stereotypical geek I've ever actually met. People joke about caffeine addiction all the time but you seem physically addicted in an un-funny way. You acted like the sun really hurt you. It isn't even that bright."
"Trying to kill me," I muttered, more to my good friend the coffee than to my co-worker. I hadn't decided whether or not I'd be offended by his analysis.
Normally, the blinds along the east wall are lowered to the point where the 28th floor can't see the sky over the horizon without going over and crouching down. These little aluminum slats stand between me and the hateful glare of the sun. I love those little aluminum slats.
Someone had disabled them, crammed them up into the top of the window and flooded the area of my cube with the searing golden light of dawn.
Of course, my thoughts turned to violence.
I sipped at my coffee to soothe the urge. Coffee stops the hurting.
I checked the time. 7:06AM.
I crawled out into the cubicle hallway, keeping my eye on the orange line cast on the carpet by the flaming orb outside the window. I avoided that area as though it were on fire.
Carefully, I crouched and later crawled over to the cubicle block that had invited this pain into my life.
It was empty. Someone had left the blinds opened all the way the day before while the sun was on the west side of the building and then inconsiderately left them open in an obvious attempt to reduce my efficiency and make certain that my Monday morning would begin with a crawl on hands and knees across the stain-hiding industrial carpeting. Crawling across the carpet is more of a Thursday thing!
Spinning the empty high-backed office chair before me, I used it as a vinyl shield.
I needed to get to the far corner of the cubicle to reach the control cords for the blinds, so I rolled the chair alongside me.
Suddenly, the full glare of the sun bounced off the flat screen monitor on the desk, searing my retinas and evoking another hiss.
I slammed my eyes closed and reached blindly for the cord, yanking and trying to get the angle right to release the mechanism.
At last they fell with a metallic slap and, relieved, I opened my eyes.
And screamed.
The blinds were not only up, they were up in the open position. The sun was sending little daggers of light into my eyes as I rolled onto the filing cabinet and worked the ridiculously slow clear plastic rod to close them again.
I rested for a moment, my breathing labored from the long crawl, dive and stress.
I walked back to my cubicle, comforted in the cool shadows of morning, ready to accomplish something. Or at least ready for another cup of coffee.

Sunday featured one of the signs of the apocalypse. If you own stock in anything, sell now.
We were supposed to go to Katy's house to watch the Superbowl (commercials) with some friends.
Unfortunately, Gwynyth struggled all day with allergies and had to give up on leaving the house before it was time to go.
Since her allergies did not come with cable TV, I was forced to find the Superbowl (commercials) elsewhere, solo.
Shana told me that she knew that Angela and Daniel down the street were having another couple over for the game, so I decided to crash.
Angela and Daniel are from Germany. The other couple, Andrew and Morven, are from Ireland.
Since neither of those countries is Canada or France, I figured it was pretty safe.
However, in this odd conjunction of viewers I, being the only native American football viewer, became the "go to" guy for questions relating to the sport.
Me.
The only guy who showed up planning to cheer for Baltimore.
Now, when the conversation naturally shifted to Star Wars (as it seems to a lot around me) I could answer everything from Rebel recruiting practices to 'droid naming conventions to the military career of Grand Moff Jerjerrod.
Why in football sometimes the clock continues to run and sometimes it stops at the end of a play was a bit harder so I tended to just make stuff up. For instance, if the clock stops, then if the last person holding the ball played college football geographically further from Miami than the person who pushed him out.
If it continues to run then the guy running the clock is drunk or dead. Or both. Probably both.
I think I helped out the NFL.
I doubt it hurt anything anyway.
Having seen the game, I have no need of my traditional annual statements which, I feel, mask my lack of sports knowledge at work. A guy needs some response ready so he doesn't have to admit he didn't know there was a game on. If you need them, here is my list:

1. (Team A) just wanted it more.
2. Ever since they started letting people contest penalties by instant replay the game has lost its heart.
3. What about that one play? You know? The one? With the guy?
4. The refs were completely on the take, if you ask me.
5. I missed it. I was drunk and I killed a guy in a fight. Can I hide in your cube for a bit?

Earlier this week there was a spirited debate through email about whether Eve Online was more or less awesome than World of Warcraft. I chose to support World of Warcraft (Duskwood server, Webinara, 93 skill points in Leathercrafting) because I've got an almost irrational issue with Sci-Fi role-playing games.
With each argument (most were actually valid) in favor of Eve Online, I replied with the ability to kill a giant spider in WoW and make boots out of it. Could you do that with an enemy spaceship? Would they be boots anyone would want to wear?
Apparently, they would, as this argument ending reply from an Eve Online playing co-worker would indicate:



Why the hate? Wait. I know the answer to that. All online games generate hate fields towards all other online games. I think it is a CPU-cycle-stealing function of the graphics processor, but I doubt the feature is documented.

Later in the evening, Shana and Gwynyth and I recreated scenes from some of Shakespeare's work using paper cut-outs. We are big DAHT fans, with no DAH's.
Shana totally started the Romeo and Juliet bit before I could get into character and I ended up having to be a nasally falsetto Juliet. It was, perhaps, slightly more comedic than the bard intended.
My Witch #2 and Witch #3 from the Scottish play were dead on. Ground-breaking. Award worthy.
I'm still in major Disaster Recovery hell at the moment.

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Abort, Retry, Fail?