Still Falling Down - Working

Read the RFCs! That's why they're there!

webmaster@stillfallingdown.com (Writer) — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 10:20:35 -0400

Once again, I've been told that an IP address can only have one PTR resource record.
We got a new Internet connection in the office, and I requested 2 PTR records for an IP address on that connection to provide reverse address lookup. Can't have email rejected for lack of a reverse IP entry. After being ignored by Support for 2 days, I sent the request to the Account Manager, who said the request was rejected because I had 2 hostnames for one IP address, and that's not allowed.

I've heard this almost every time I've set up a new Internet connection since 1996. I can't believe there are techs who still think this is true.

From RFC2181 (http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2181.txt):

10.2. PTR records



   Confusion about canonical names has lead to a belief that a PTR

   record should have exactly one RR in its RRSet.  This is incorrect,

   the relevant section of RFC1034 (section 3.6.2) indicates that the

   value of a PTR record should be a canonical name.  That is, it should

   not be an alias.  There is no implication in that section that only

   one PTR record is permitted for a name.  No such restriction should

   be inferred.

Let's go folks. Just because Jon is dead, it doesn't mean that RFCs don't matter anymore.

How not to improve a grocery store

webmaster@stillfallingdown.com (Writer) — Wed, 23 Aug 2006 09:06:32 -0400

I went to the Gristede's supermarket (well, supermarket as it's defined in Manhattan) the other morning because we were out of milk. It was too early for the D'Agostinos to be open. I haven't been going to Gristede's recently because I found the store dirty, and the employees rude, but especially after one visit where I asked the manager to turn off the music on the PA. It was the worst kind of gangsta rap, including lyrics about killing policemen.

As the manager finally rang up my items (all three of them), I saw a circular on the wall announcing a company contest. Apparently, the corporate headquarters finally got tired of all the complaints about the stores. There were at least 8 different categories, including cleanliness, employee attitude, and produce quality. The contest was to reward the store manager whose unit improved the most in all the categories.

Wow. This just seemed wrong on so many levels. It may sound good to reward a store for improving in all these areas, but think about it. The manager (and, by extension, the district manager) who allowed this store to become the undesirable place which prompted so many complaints, would be rewarded and praised for bringing it back to the minimum acceptable level it should have been all along.

Also, this is basically a sales contest. The behavior driven by sales contests evaporates the instant that contest ends, or it participants realize that they can't win.

So, once this effort is finished, the stores will stop being cleaned, the employees will go back to insulting the customers (after they're finished ignoring them or discussing last night's drunken screw-ups), and the produce will stay on the shelves longer.

If Gristede's really wants to change this behavior, then the managers who were directly or ultimately responsible for the operations of these units should be demoted or fired. This is not about underperforming, this is about not doing their job, plain and simple. This goes all the way to the top. Maybe Mr. Catsimidis should spend more time in the stores and less time running for mayor.

If you want someone to excel at their job, make them understand that's what their job is about, day in and day out. Contests are for one-time jolts. Store cleanliness and employee attitude are not subjects for one-off and forget it contests.

Put your PC to work for something besides games and porn

webmaster@stillfallingdown.com (Writer) — Tue, 07 Feb 2006 11:33:28 -0500

No other technological breakthrough has demonstrated the power of individuals more than grid computing. By donating your unused computer time, you can begin to change the world for the better.

That's what is says on the World Community Grid website. And they're right!

Your PC at home or at work is in use MAYBE 5% of the time. So, assuming you have an ancient Pentium III processor runnning at over 1 BILLION Theoretical Operations per Second, each day that goes by sees 82,080,000,000,000 potential calculations NOT being performed.

Now, suppose that you could install a piece of software that knew when you weren't using your computer. It would communicate with a central source, download some work to do, use a few trillion of those available calculations, and report the computed results back to home base.

Now suppose that this is done every day by hundreds of thousands of computers worldwide, and that the work being done allows scientists and other researchers to avoid hundreds of thousands of hours of trial and error research. IMAGINE the things that might be achieved!

The World Community Grid offers a screensaver which will use the available, otherwise unneeded computing power of the machines that sit idle almost all day long while you sleep or are at work or anywhere to develop new anti-AIDS treatment, to analyze the human genome for potential disease prevention, or for any of the other projects that will utilize this platform.

Get this screensaver now. Think of the lives that are lost because of every second you delay!

Seriously. This is a GOOD thing. It's not a security risk, it's not spyware. It doesn't impact you when you're using your PC. Do it. You have no idea what you might be accomplishing.

If the projects at World Community Grid aren't to your liking, break out your favorite search engine and look for "screensaver distributed grid computing".

PHP Conference in New York

webmaster@stillfallingdown.com (Writer) — Mon, 30 Jan 2006 08:47:35 -0500

The New York PHP Users Group has announced that it will hold a PHP Conference in New York City in June. NYPHP is not the typical techie user group where a bunch of spotty geeks sit around telling war stories. NYPHP has monthly presentations with substantial content on a variety of topics, offers classes, not only in PHP syntax, but in practical implementations as well, including security issues.

To find out what PHP represents as an full-strength solution to enterprise-class problems and as an alternative to that bloated, (see also) marketing hype whose name we won't mention, attend this conference.

-- Sign-Up Now To Lock in Your Early Bird Discount
http://www.nyphpcon.com/attendee_registration.php

-- The Call For Papers is Now Open
http://www.nyphpcon.com/call_for_papers.php

-- Official Press Release is Available
http://www.nyphpcon.com/NYPHPCon06PR.pdf