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Little bit late, but Happy Halloween! I went to a party here in chi-town. My costume…a Dell Poweredge Server! What can I say…I had a moment of inspiration. Yes, there are pictures, and yes, I will be posting them.

My cousin Sam was passing through town the other day, and I was able to meet up with him (and his girlfriend) for the first time in a few years and catch up on old times. (What am I, fourty?) In any case, I gave him a brief walking tour of Chicago and then hit up Gino’s East for the best Chicago-style deep dish around. Then it was a quick cab ride back to Union Station so he could settle down for a 12-hour train ride. ...

I was reading Eric S. Raymond’s How To Become A Hacker tonight and this zen poem caught my eye: To follow the path: look to the master, follow the master, walk with the master, see through the master, become the master. I would encourage anybody who associates the word ‘hacker’ with a negative connotation to read this document.

smbpasswd -j DOMAIN -r PDC -U admin This is typically the command one would use to join a Linux Samba server to a Windows domain. On a (fairly) default Windows Server 2003 PDC, this seems to fail with the following error: Error connection to PDC Unable to join domain DOMAIN.COM If you pass a -D 10 to smbpasswd, a couple of the error messages include: smb_err=49152 smb_flg=136 smb_flg2=49153 failed tcon_X Fortunately, the fix to this is pretty easy. Unfortunately, it does compromise some of the security of your Windows network. The setting in question is SMB signing, and you need to disable it here: HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\LanManServer\Parameters RequireSecuritySignature=0 ...

I never thought I would see the day, but I want a mac. I want a G5 Powerbook, and I want it now (too bad they’re not being made…yet). I want a stable Unix operating system with the most beautiful user interface ever to grace a bourne shell. I want to be able to press F9 and have all my open windows displayed as a thumbnail, ala Expose. I want extensive documentation at-hand as to how to script every aspect of the operating system. I want to be able to walk out of a room and have my screen lock when my bluetooth cellphone goes out of range. I want something I have yet to experience for more than five minutes at a time. I want a mac. I want OS X.

Motivation is an odd thing. It is frequently driven by an internal process, occasionally sparked by an outside force. At least for me. For example, I was driven to stay up until 3am three nights this week developing a perl script to parse PIX firewall configurations and draw a pretty picture from them. What kept me going? The challenge, most likely. The desire to produce a usable end product that could ease my life. On the night of the second day, I collapsed into bed mentally exhausted. My body was fine, but my mind had been pushed for two days straight and it felt so good to let it rest. So I got up and did it again. Now, at the end of the third day, all motiviation seems to be lost. I was successful in creating the script, but anything else is just blah at the moment. Perhaps my motivation will perk up again around midnight, as it does tend to do this. Perhaps I’ve driven myself hard enough that it needs to take a break. I couldn’t tell you where my motivation went, but I can tell you that my program, pixparse, RULES! ...

I’ve finally decided to move the development site over to the usual dcortesi.com. Old links still work, but I do eventually want to add the old entries to the new site, just to keep everything in one place. In any case, if you feel the need, you can still access the old site at http://old.dcortesi.com. Enjoy, and let me know if anything broke or if something is missing!

I recently set up PHP 4.3.3 on a Windows Server 2003, IIS 6.0 environment. There were a few tricky quirks relative to security. After setting up the proper web service extensions and application extensions for the web site, I received an access denied error. It turns out that not only does the anonymous web user (IUSR_) need access to the webroot and PHP dll’s, but the “NETWORK SERVICE” account also needs access to the PHP dll’s. Of course, in my paranoia, I had restricted the Users and EVERYONE groups from being able to access those directories. I feel much better knowing I’ve been able to adequately restrict access to those files, however.

I recently felt some nostalgia for “country life”, in that I missed being able stop alongside a back road and pick up donuts and Apple Cider. Quite the odd feeling for me - made me feel like an uptight “city” person, but…isn’t that what I wanted? Funny the twists life can take.

Kerry Wood just hit a homer in the bottom of the 2nd to tie the NLCS Game 7 with the Marlins at 3. I live just down the street from Wrigley and can hear the crowd cheer. I can’t wait to venture out after the game and watch the craziness!