Some Brisbane Guy

The Cisco VPN Client Broke TCP/IP!

We have some clients who use Cisco PIX firewalls, and to access their systems we need to logon using the Cisco VPN Client. Normally this is no problem — you just install the client, configure the VPN you’re connecting to and you’re outta there. But for some reason on MY computer this week when I tried to set it up, TCP/IP was completely screwed.

After reinstalling a few times in disbelief, trying to repair my Local Area Connection (or any other connection) would yield “Failed to query TCP/IP settings” and that was it. No connectivity to anything that smelled like a network.

I found some links on Google, but whilst using another PC so I don’t have them here — you will have to take my word for it. They said to do all this complicated registry hackery and editing .ini files, allowing you to uninstall then reinstall TCP/IP. I’m way too impatient for that, so all I did was go into the Properties for the Local Area Connection and untick TCP/IP…click OK and then go back in and tick TCP/IP again. This must reset the settings for the TCP/IP protocol on that network interface.

Now it works.

To quote that passe yet once very trendy book The Cluetrain Manifesto,

“To be human is to be imperfect. We die. We make mistakes.”

The Cluetrain guys were talking about human fallibility to illustrate how people create their “turf” within their company and make themselves an authority so they can avoid being shown up and exposed as “frightened little boys, fallible and uncertain.”

But I don’t want to talk about that. Anyway, it’s sexist: little girls get scared too.

I want to talk about IT and software development, because I think in a lot of places, nobody can make mistakes.

Do I mean people aren’t allowed to make mistakes? Well, sort of. When it happens, it can be bad. Customers can be inconvenienced, time and money are wasted. People don’t give themselves room to make mistakes. Non-repeatable, non-verifiable methods of getting things done, like using a GUI to implement database changes, or a list of IP addresses that needs to be kept up to date manually. Having no automated testing of your software.

“Humans fail” is a nice philosophy for things like coding conventions too. If you can tell where a variable comes from just by its name, that’s going to help a lot in a month when you come back to that code. A method signature like getNameFromDB(personID) instead of getName(ID) will save your neurons and your time.

It’s just too much thinking and too slow and inefficient to try and rely on humans to remember everything. Rely on a check (like a software test) to tell you if you’ve stuffed it, then you go back and fix it. Letting the customer tell you that you messed up doesn’t count.

I need a new phone. Currently I’m using an old Nokia 6310i, which is nice for its age and really fast to use. What I don’t like is that it’s a bit big, maybe a bit heavy and it has no colour screen or camera. Plus I kinda want something a bit tougher because I’m a bit of a moron; I drop my phone pretty frequently. I used to have a Nokia 5100, which was great because it was really tough (it still worked after I dropped it in a beer…for about a week), but it was slow and clunky to use because the menus were slow and the buttons were soft and rubbery and didn’t give you nice clicky feedback.

So, I now either want a cheap phone, so when it is stuffed in a year I won’t care; or a tough phone that will last longer and have more features, possibly even organiser-type features like reminders. And of course I want a camera. I was looking at Nokias, but they’re really not value for money; you pay for the brand and I don’t think it’s really worth it. Sony-Ericsson look to be better value, but still a bit more. Siemens phones seem to be really cheap for the features they have. I had to use an old Siemens at a previous job — it was the support phone — and I liked it. The menus are a bit different but they make sense once you get used to them. So here’s my shortlist:

• Nokia 6610i - Cheap (under $AU 200), outdated looks, not very tough. FM radio! That’s a plus.
• Siemens C65 - Really cheap (under $AU 100), tiny size, light weight, plenty of features
• Siemens M65/CX65 - Cheap (under $AU 200), heaps of features and is tough. No CX65s on ebay.com.au
• Sony-Ericsson T610 or T630- Cheapish (over $AU 200), tons and tons of features.
• Nokia 5140i - Not that cheap (around $AU300), heaps of features, but apparently the same rubbery buttons I hated on the 5100. Not keen.

So far, the Siemens M65 is my favourite. There’s a few on ebay at the moment. There are a few C65s as well, and they’re even cheaper. But I think the extra features and toughness of the M65 could win. We’ll see.

The Sydney Morning Herald has been running a series of extracts from Australian scientist Tim Flannery’s new book. I couldn’t fit a link to this one in that last sentence. I came across these references from Big Gav’s Peak Energy blog, where he discusses lots of interesting stuff including the excellent prospects for geothermal energy in Australia.

Call me Captain Obvious, but I think now would be a good time to invest in some alternative energy companies. Nuclear energy interests, uranium mining companies, wind and solar power as well as geothermal power companies could be good prospects. I’ll be looking further into this.