As is usual being a chronic handwasher, at the end of dinner I went into the washroom to wash my hands after eating and out of the corner of my eye saw a flyer on the inside bathroom door. It was about a family that the restaurant was doing a fundraiser for.

The Gruber family consists of Joe, Laura and their 2 kids, Joey (6) and Courtney (3). In November of 2009 Joe was diagnosed with testicular cancer and has been receiving treatment. At the time he was working two jobs, neither of which provided benefits.

The restaurant is hosting a fund-raiser for the family to help offset their medical costs as Joe goes through treatment, as well as help them with their mounting bills. The fund-raiser is happening on February 21, 2010 at the restaurant (see link). You can find more information on the family and the fundraiser by from the flyer I scanned when we got home, or at the web site for the event, hosted by the Friends Helping Friends Foundation.

All food proceeds at this event will go to the family.

Jonna and I will definitely be attending and hope that our friends in the area will come and try to help out. If nothing else, you get great food and a good atmosphere to enjoy the afternoon in. The plan is to also have raffles – and the folks throwing the event are looking for donations of items such as gift baskets, sporting event tickets, etc for these activities.

If your not in the area and want to help, you can make donations via PayPal on the Friends Helping Friends web site.

How does the language we use effect how we behave? Is it possible that the common practice of using terms like “partner” and “customer” causes us to behave in such a way that we are disconnected, at least mentally or emotionally, from the people that we try to make a difference with?

This has long been a pet peeve of mine. I think these terms cause an artificial separation between groups. An example that I used in a meeting recently:

At a company I worked for at one time, it was impossible to get a software release out without incident. There was not enough structure, and it was obvious that tools were required to automate the process that were not available at the time, for the particular platform we were working on.

Thats right folks, this was a time in which even Capistrano didn’t exist.

I wanted to help solve the problem. At the time, with the specific deployment model this company used, solving this problem required access that I did not have. Because I was not part of the group that got this access, I was not able to get it – until I transferred.

Yes, I actually transferred to this group to solve the problem. Two days later, I had the access required.

Same person – different access.

Much feverous work ensued. Finally it was done. The problem was solved.

So I transferred back to my previous group. Guess what went with the transfer?

Yep – the access.

Same person – different access.

It sounds ridiculous doesn’t it? But it happens – a lot.

In corporate culture we tend to use terms like “Partner” and “Internal Customer” to reference each other. I think it often causes unintended consequences.

It’s kind of funny. As I was telling this story, I thought about the story of the Sneeches. You know, the folks who some had “stars on thars” and some didn’t. Each were treated differently according to the status of the markings on their bellies. In the end, they were all the same – they just didn’t know it. Actually, in the end, when the markings were automated, no one knew Who was Who.

Corporations spend (and waste) a lot of time fighting who is at what level, whose responsibility is whose. Defining roles and their responsibilities rather than getting things done. Its not that defining roles and responsibilities is bad, but we tend to confuse people with roles and in doing so keep them from performing at their full potential. We fail to realize that people may have many skills and can serve multiple roles.

The next time you use the term “partner” or “internal customer” – think about this a bit. It might make you think a little different. It’s definitely been something I’ve been thinking about lately.

I opted to go with a Mac Mini server – for a few reasons. The price was basically comparable to an Intel server with the same technical specifications (minus any kind of CDROM drive, which I found out later) – but the big selling point for me was the amount of space I could save in the office with the Mini. A side benefit was, of course, being able to play with Snow Leopard Server.

After the initial set server setup – which was painless – my first task was to create a caching DNS server so that all of the machines in the house could point to the same place they were when the Linux server is shut down. One of the primary purposes of the Linux server over the years, aside from being a file server, has been to cache and manage local DNS for the machines in the house. I already had plans to run an Ubuntu Server in a VM on this box to replace my aging Linux box (I still need Linux around), but didn’t think it was acceptable to have to boot the machine, THEN a VM in order to have DNS working. I also did not want to do a DNS setup on a box by box basis on every machine in the house.

I was a little confused at first. I’m used to configuring bind directly. After some googling around and not finding much of anything around doing this on OSX Server, I posted a tweet asking if any of my followers knew of a HOWTO that would explain what I needed to do.

I actually tweeted a little too soon. I think I found the settings about 2 minutes after the tweet went out. It was way easier than I thought it would be and I thought I’d throw up a quick step-by-step tutorial so that folks wanting to do the same thing could save themselves a couple of seconds.

So here we go.

In the dock, find the “Server Admin” icon and click it. It looks like this:

OSX Server System Admin

When the “Server Admin” Tool opens, you will see the main screen like the following. The blue arrow is pointing to the domain you specified while setting up the server.

OSX Server Admin Tool Main Screen

Open up the domain for your network, and you will see a bunch of services to configure. Select DNS as shown in the following screen shot:

OSX Server Admin Services Menu

Once you select DNS in the side navigation, select “Settings” at the top. This will show you the following screen:

Server Admin DNS Settings Screen

You’ll see a box conveniently titled “Forwarders”. Add the IP addresses of the DNS servers you would like to forward requests to in this box by clicking the ‘+’ key and adding each independent IP. As you can see here, I am primarily using Open DNS with Google DNS as a backup. Trust me, contrary to the picture, OpenDNS is first.

Once you have entered your DNS IP addresses, click “Save”. Point your boxes to the IP for your Mac Mini server and voila! You have a caching DNS server.

I hope this was helpful. For those of us who are used to configuring bind with vi, it may be a little confusing or intimidating to try to mimic this functionality on OSX Server. As you can see, its really a no-brainer – and no text editors need be opened.

Historically, Manson has been looked at as this mind controlling genius that somehow got a bunch of kids to attempt to enact his ‘end of the world’ scenario – one that he truly believed. This extremely well written article shows Manson for what he really was: a paranoid, self-centered, sociopathic, master manipulator, who after shooting a man who he thought was a Black Panther manipulated those around him to enact murders that he thought would throw the Black Panthers off his trail and keep them from coming after him – in other words, he was trying to save himself by sacrificing those around him.

Most interestingly, this write up explains many things that have confused people for years – including why the Tate-LaBianca murders seemed so “random”. This article is the first explanation of the reasoning behind the randomness of the acts that actually makes sense, as well as explaining some of the things Manson did in order to gain control over his followers.

This is the most rational, thought out explanation of Manson that I have ever read, coming from someone who had an intimate role in some of the most horrific and publicized murders of all time. Hopefully, it helps take away some of the mystique and fascination that some young people still have for him today.

The Myth of Helter Skelter, by Susan Atkins.

Susan Atkins is suffering from terminal brain cancer and was recently denied parole after submitting a request for “compassionate release” due to her illness.

Update September 25, 2009

Susan Atkins has died at the age of 61.

You can find a host of information at their web site, walla-pa-looza.org, including an opportunity to become a sponsor of the event if you are a local business.

The event will feature four bands that have contributed their time and talents:

• Blush
• Peter and the Versatiles
• Danny and the Devils
• and Always Frantic

The thing that blows me away about this is it started out with Craig just wanting to have a party on his one acre lot. He, his wife, and a friend started talking about the economy and how it would effect charities – and that got the ball rolling. They decided to do something about it.

It’s definitely a worthy cause. I know I’ve lost people to cancer, as I’m sure many of you have as well. Jonna and I will definitely be donating and attending – and I would encourage anyone local in McHenry County to do so as well. I would also encourage local business to visit the sponsor page to find out how you can help and get some advertising out of it to boot!

Make sure to visit their web site to get more information and, if you are so inclined, donate (by the way, they support Paypal donations – so if you’re not local you can still donate to the cause!). Their goal is to raise $20,000 for the American Cancer Society. Let’s help them blow this goal out of the water.

Hopefully, we’ll see you there!

By the way, Walla-Pa-Looza also has a fan page on Facebook. Become a fan today!

Well, at least there’s Twitter and Facebook.

I know from statistics that the tutorials on this site have been at least helpful, but am curious as to whether I should take them down or not given the fate of the tool. I myself have moved to Git, which has really good integration with Subversion.

So I’m asking you. Do you want the tutorials to stay, or can I get rid of them?