Linux and Unix

Friday, December 12, 2008

thingamajob needs to hire me, they obviously have no clue about how to do their job

I was looking at a set of jobs and filled out some applications.  It is OBVIOUS that thingamajob.com needs to hire me.  Here is a sample of the e-mail their computers sent me in response to a position.  How sad!!  You know, it is NOT THAT HARD to have variables actually display the contents of the memory location instead of the name of the variable.  It is also NOT THAT HARD to actually TEST your systems.

---

Welcome David,
You just took a big step toward finding a fantastic job by applying to the below position through one of our partners, !@WSVENDORNAME@!. This message is to confirm that your resume has been sent to !@COMPANYNAME1@!, Inc. via Thingamajob, the free online job search tool for the Allegis Group Family of Companies.
Title:UNIX/SAN Architect
Company:!@COMPANYNAME1@!
Skills Needed:UNIX, SAN, BILINGUAL SPANISH
Location:Miami, Florida
Category:Information Technology
Rate:!@RATE@!
Job Type:!@JOBTYPE@!
Posting ID:1835002

To receive emails from us more effectively, please add us to your “Contacts” (i.e. Address Book, Buddy List, etc.)
In order to process your online job application, we had to create an account for you in !@COMPANYNAME2@!, Inc.’s online job search tool - Thingamajob.com
Thingamajob is owned by Allegis Group, parent company to some of the world’s largest staffing companies including Aerotek, TEKsystems,and Stephen James. These staffing companies work with the hiring managers who have the jobs you want. When you put your resume online or apply to a job posting on Thingamajob, a recruiter matches your experience with one of our many opportunities. If your experience meets the job’s objectives, a recruiter will contact you to prepare you for the interview and get you in the employment seat.
To log into Thingamajob to track your application, or update your resume, please use the following login information
Username: !@USERNAME@!
Password: !@PASSWORD@!
If your experience meets the qualifications of the position, a recruiter will be in touch with you shortly to further discuss your professional background.
To log in, go to Account Login http://www.thingamajob.com/My-Thingamajob.aspx
Thank you for using Thingamajob.com… Remember We’re Hiring!

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Friday, November 28, 2008

Converting ^M

I keep running into files that have weird encoding for returns.  I suspect it is a combination of optimization and obfuscation.  I particularly see this with javascript files.

Here is the fix…
First, to get the ^M which is a control M, type ctrl v followed by ctrl m.
To get ^@ type ctrl v followed by ctrl shift 2 (or ctrl v followed by ).

Second, the conversion…

In vi (or vim) use the following:

:%s/^M/\n/g

or with perl on the command line:

$ perl -pi.bak -e ’s/^M/\n/g’

^M is ASCII 13 (Ctrl M), which is the carriage return.

Different operating systems use different symbols to set the end of a line/new line.
Unix uses newline (\n)
Mac uses carriage return (\r)
And Windows/DOS use both (\n\r)

The reason I put the ^@ one on there is because some times when I convert the ^M to \n, it becomes ^@ instead, which doesn’t help.  Well, in reality it does.  You just convert the ^@ back to ^M.  When you convert the ^@ back to ^M, then the code looks all pretty.

In vi (or vim) use the following:

:%s/^@/^M/g

or with perl on the command line:

$ perl -pi.bak -e ’s/^@/^M/g’

As with all things nerdy… your mileage may vary.

Monday, November 17, 2008

Software as a Service - A response to Scatterbrain

Scatterbrain had a posting (http://klcollins.org/2008/11/17/software-as-a-service/) where he responded to an article on zdnet web site (http://blogs.zdnet.com/SAAS/?p=609&tag=nl.e539) about a company saving a considerable amount of money by switching from internal exchange servers to using Google mail.

I was going to just leave a comment on his site, but as I thought about it and started responding, it was enough that I thought I would put it here and share with both my readers. So, the “you“‘s in this response are to Scatterbrain… you are intelligent, you can figure it out....

--- a response ---

I think you are glossing over MANY issues and questions that need to be addressed. However, to boil things down, I can EASILY see where moving your company’s mail to Google would be valuable, good, wise, and the right move. However, I would be speculating on a lot of things in making that argument. So, let’s stick with the article and the information it provides.

Your contention, based on the question, “who owns the data?”, is that if a company uses Google mail (or any other 3rd party service) then they cease to “own the data”. This is ludicrous. Ownership of the data never changes. However, what does (potentially) change is the network(s) that the data goes over and where it is stored.

The article stated that they had:

800 users
18 countries

They also stated that they were using Postini. Postini is a hosted message security and compliance product owned by Google. Hosted where? Google servers.

So, in their environment, ALL the data is already going to Google servers.
In their environment, ALL accounts are already set up on Google servers.

Your next argument was that once the data leaves your premises, It leaves your control and you have no idea how it is handled, who is handling it, and what’s being done with it.

Umm… this is the internet. That already happens.

You make a case for all the data being in your care where you can ensure that backups happen. It runs in your own colo facility. You control the process end-to-end.

Okay, so you use a colo facility. So, your data goes over a network that you do not control, where others have access, and you have no visibility. Thus, it is not internal. It is mostly internal, but not completely.

To bring this back around…

You state that interanl corporate collaboration data needs to stay internal.

My question to you is why?  Is the data such that if it got out it would substantially harm the business?  I would suspect that for MOST data the answer is no, it is not.  There is probably a few pieces that might fall into this category.  My response to that is then the wrong medium is being used.  Try the phone.  Oh, sorry, can’t do that based on your response - as you certainly do not control that public utility.  Try a fax… nope, again, public utility.  Oh, I know… try printing it out and hand couriering it.  Lawyers do that for sensitive stuff, so there is a precident.

--- end response ---

Thursday, May 22, 2008

Compression never ceases to amaze me

I have a bziped file…

168403791 something_log.bz2

That’s right as a bz file it is 168,403,791.  Divide that by 1024 and you get 164,456.824 K, divide it again, and you get 160.6 M.  So, I have a 160 Meg file.  Now, personally I think that a file that gets shrunk by 90% is freakin’ impressive.  So, for it to be freakin’ impressive the unzipped file would be 1600 Meg.  But, what if it compressed 95% - that would make the original twice as big so 3.2 Gb.  Now, that would just be peachy-keen-rockin’ cool!  Well, I would like to say it got that small, but I can’t.

It ended up
6,211,364,237 something_log

That would be 2.7% of the original size!

I did another file…
bz2 file is 42 meg
un bz’ed and it is 1.8Gig
2.27%

I have to come up with new words… I don’t know what is beyond peachy-keen-rockin’ cool! 

You Thawte what?

We live is such a litigious world my mind has gone that way for better or worse. 

Thawte is a company that sells secure certificates.  They are, according to their site, owned and operated by Verisign, Inc.

We get our secure certificates from this group because, “thawte - its a trust thing” is their motto.  Okay, that’s not why, but it is an important thing to remember as you read the rest of this entry.

I was on their site purchasing a certificate.  There was a “must read” agreement.  You know the ones, you never read them, you just click saying that you have.  Well, I read mine. 

All the way down at the bottom there was a phrase I was not only unaware of the meaning, but my limited law understanding told my gut that things were just not right. 

So, I ask you, faithful reader, what does “Third Party Beneficiary Rights” mean?

Not knowing, I looked them up.  I started with the easy and put the phrase in Google.  Thie first thing it sent me to was Wikipedia… well, okay, lets see what they say.

Quote:  “A third party beneficiary, in the law of contracts, is a person who may have the right to sue on a contract, despite not having originally been a party to the contract. This right arises where the third party is the intended beneficiary of the contract, as opposed to an incidental beneficiary. It vests when the third party relies on or assents to the relationship, and gives the third party the right to sue either the promisor or the promisee of the contract, depending on the circumstances under which the relationship was created.”

Okay, so this third party benefits from the contract even though they are not a part of the agreement.  The question is what benefits would the 3rd party get?

The contract is basically:

I promise I will use the certificate on one web ssl server, that I am a legitimate representation of the organization that I claim to be, and that I will pay for the certificate. I also promise that if they revoke my certificate, I will remove it from all appliances.  I also make some promises of what I won’t do.  I promise I won’t use the certificate:

(i) for or on behalf of any other organization;
(ii) to perform private or public key operations in connection with any domain and/or organization name other than the one you submitted on your Certificate Application;
(iii) on more than one physical server or Device at a time, unless you have purchased additional licenses that permit the use of a Certificate on multiple Devices (“Licensing Option”);
(iv) for use as control equipment in hazardous circumstances or for uses requiring fail-safe performance such as the operation of nuclear facilities, aircraft navigation or communication systems, air traffic control systems, or weapons control systems, where failure could lead directly to death, personal injury, or severe environmental damage. If you have selected the Licensing Option, you acknowledge and agree that this option can result in increased security risks to your network and that Thawte expressly disclaims any liability for breaches of security that result from the distribution of a single key across multiple devices.

Thawte promises that
They have investigated the requester to some level (depending on the certificate) and that to that level they are who they say they are.  If things change, they will reissue me a certificate reflecting the change.  Additionally, they promise that they have not introduced errors into the certificate.

There are 26 sections and each section has zero or more sub-section.  Each section/subsection is at least one paragraph.  Total it is eight pages. 

Finally, we get to paragraph 26 which states....

26. Third Party Beneficiary Rights. You agree that Microsoft, Inc. shall be an express third party beneficiary of the obligations contained in this Agreement.

What the heck?? What does Microsoft have to gain from this agreement?  How are they a beneficiary?  How do they have rights?  How are they a beneficiary of the obligations contained in this agreement???