JiggletheCable.org

Signature files

2025-09-02T15:01:00.005-07:00

Back in the day it was cool to have ascii art in your sig file. Then everyone got all pissy about how much space that took up. Like you are making the internet slow because you have a 5 line sig file (bytes used to matter).

Now it's all about removing pronouns from your sig file. Whatever you do, don't get caught with a pronoun in your signature - you'll lose your federal funding! Can you believe that's where we are as a society?

Today I was on an email chain with someone (I am in academia) who has a 26 line signature that included 6 different links. There were 5 different acronyms (none I even recognized) after their name and PRONOUNS!!!

I thought my eyes were gonna explode.

Okay, I'd better get over to the buffet for the early bird special so I can get to bed. I just realized I was talking about a sig file. Like anyone knows what that is anymore.

_.-;;-._

'-..-'| || |

'-..-'|_.-;;-._|

'-..-'| || |

'-..-'|_.-''-._|

Clear the cache

2024-02-05T07:20:00.003-08:00

Yes, this will solve most of your browser-based application problems. If not this, try a private browser.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/edge/learning-center/how-to-manage-and-clear-your-cache-and-cookies?form=MA13I2

Zabbix demo

2021-01-07T12:38:00.007-08:00

Zabbix is back on the list of things to research

https://www.zabbix.com/demo

Network Monitoring Alternatives

2021-01-07T09:56:00.005-08:00

I think with the SolarWinds news, a lot of people are lookin for alternatives. Here is a great list of Network Monitoring solutions.

https://phoenixnap.com/blog/best-server-monitoring-tools-software

Pi-Hole Magics

2018-11-07T14:37:00.003-08:00

I just set up my Raspberry Pi as a Pi-Hole and I couldn't be more pleased.

It was super simple to set up and install the Pi-Hole software. You can read all about it on pi-hole.net. I just updated my Pi and followed their instructions. I set a static IP on my router and even pointed my local network clients to use the Pi-Hole for DNS (IPv4 and IPv6). It was that simple and now everything on my Wifi is "safer". I was especially shocked at all of the legal adware sites that are being "pi-holed".

I like to think that most of the information is anonymous but why risk it when something like this is available for free (I plan to donate) and so easy to set up. Go get yourself a Raspberry Pi and get it done.

Invoke-Command removing temp files

2016-07-25T08:17:00.003-07:00

For some reason c:\windows\temp seems to be filling up with Windows Updates on a lot of our servers. Here is a quick Invoke-Command solution.

Invoke-Command -ComputerName $computername -ScriptBlock {Remove-Item c:\windows\temp\* -Force -Recurse}
Invoke-Command -ComputerName $computername -ScriptBlock {Get-PSDrive c}

Spotlight Issues

2016-03-17T06:52:00.000-07:00

I'm not sure what upgrade did it but at one point, Spotlight became totally unusable for me. I think it was a major update that enabled web-searches as part of Spotlight.

Now I've been using Spotlight for years to launch applications. There's nothing easier when you're typing along and need to launch an application than hitting 'command - space' and continuing to work, or to do a quick bit of math, or a to take a quick note... the possibilities are endless (okay, not endless but it's a lot!). At some point, that quick little shortcut became a long, long pause.

Now recently I decided to tackle this issue as it became just too frustrating. I messed with the Spotlight preferences, I re-indexed, I searched, but eventually gave up until I launched activity monitor to see what was going on behind the scenes. I saw that 'suggestd' was pegging the CPU during that time. A quick search brought up this link which seems to have solved the problem.

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7264893?start=0&tstart=0

Basically you need to delete the ~/Library/Suggestions folder and relogin. I'm sure there is some kind of cache in there that was corrupted somewhere along the way. Anyway, this was a great find for me and I'm happily back to using Spotlight on a regular basis.

Using Credentials in Powershell

2015-08-31T13:11:00.000-07:00

Gracefully borrowed from http://www.adminarsenal.com/

Putting it all together

We now know how to convert a SecureString to an encrypted standard string. We can take any method we like to get a SecureString, convert it to a standard string and then save it to a file. Here is an example of each:

Exporting SecureString from Plain text

"P@ssword1" | ConvertTo-SecureString -AsPlainText -Force | ConvertFrom-SecureString | Out-File "C:\Temp 2\Password.txt"

Exporting SecureString from Get-Credential

(Get-Credential).Password | ConvertFrom-SecureString | Out-File "C:\Temp 2\Password.txt"

Exporting SecureString from Read-Host

Read-Host "Enter Password" -AsSecureString | ConvertFrom-SecureString | Out-File "C:\Temp 2\Password.txt"

Any one of these examples should provide you with a Password.txt file that has an encrypted standard string the represents the password.

When you need to use this encrypted password, you simply reverse the process by importing the data from your file and use ConvertTo-SecureString. If all you need is a SecureString, you can stop there. You could even take it a step further and create a PSCredential object.
Creating SecureString object

$pass = Get-Content "C:\Temp 2\Password.txt" | ConvertTo-SecureString

Creating PSCredential object

$User = "MyUserName" $File = "C:\Temp 2\Password.txt" $MyCredential=New-Object -TypeName System.Management.Automation.PSCredential ` -ArgumentList $User, (Get-Content $File | ConvertTo-SecureString)

Apple Launches iPhone 6 camera replacement program

2015-08-24T10:34:00.004-07:00

From the everlasting, all-knowing Slashdot. It should be noted that this is just for the iPhone 6 PLUS model.

http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/15/08/22/1419206/apple-launches-free-iphone-6-plus-camera-replacement-program

https://www.apple.com/support/iphone6plus-isightcamera/

CBS Now Offering Monthly Service

2015-06-22T08:31:00.000-07:00

One of the big networks are finally offering a monthly fee service. CBS is now offering a CBS All Access service at $5.99/mo. for streaming all content. They claim even the NCAA basketball tourney will be streamed. Not a bad price for access to all of the shows. Now I need to start choosing keeping closer tabs on the monthly service fees for streaming.

It makes me wonder how long it will take someone to start up a service to package these streaming services and make them available the way cable companies should have done long ago.

LastPass Password Management

2014-06-17T07:47:00.000-07:00

I've been really pleased with LastPass as a password management plugin for Chrome. It has the ability to store and generate complex passwords for all your sites as well as store encrypted notes about each one.

Just make sure to turn off the "Automatically Fill Login Information" option if you work in Systems Administration. Just the other day it updated this information on a site I was using without me noticing. I had to scramble for the valid username and password before systems started throwing alerts.

Typical Network Speeds

2014-03-10T07:06:00.000-07:00

Borrowed from http://www.channelz.org/network-speed-table/

Tech	Scope	High	Low	Typical
POTS	WAN	56,000	300	50,000
ISDN	WAN	2,048,000	128,000	128,000
T1	WAN	1,544,000	1,544,000	1,544,000
E1	WAN	2,048,000	2,048,000	2,048,000
802.11b	WLAN	11,000,000	4,300,000	4,300,000
DSL	WAN	52,000,000	256,000	6,000,000
802.16 WiMAX	WLAN/WWAN	70,000,000	10,000,000	10,000,000
Ethernet	LAN	10,000,000	10,000,000	10,000,000
Cable	WAN	400,000,000	512,000	16,000,000
Token	RingLAN	16,000,000	4,000,000	16,000,000
802.11g	WLAN	54,000,000	4,300,000	19,000,000
802.11a	WLAN	54,000,000	5,500,000	23,000,000
E3	WAN	34,368,000	34,368,000	34,368,000
T3	WAN	44,773,000	44,773,000	44,773,000
802.11n	WLAN	248,000,000	4,300,000	74,000,000
Fast Ethernet	LAN	100,000,000	100,000,000	100,000,000
FDDI	WAN	200,000,000	100,000,000	100,000,000
ATM	LAN/WAN	622,000,000	622,000,000	622,000,000
Gigabit Ethernet	LAN	1,000,000,000	1,000,000,000	1,000,000,000

GB = 1e9

10GB = 1e10

New Remote Desktop for Mac (about time)

2013-10-18T05:53:00.000-07:00

Apple and Microsoft have released a new client for Remote Desktop for the Mac. The old client has been in sore need of an update for years and the new client with IOS and Android versions is a welcome improvement.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/microsoft-remote-desktop/id715768417?mt=12

Apparently you can't save shortcuts with passwords, or at least I haven't figured it out yet. There will certainly be a learning curve and maybe a few updates (now that it's in the App store) but I sure hope I can have shortcuts with passwords, or maybe I should just rethink that from a security stand point anyway.

Flickr's iOS App Finally Gets Auto Upload, Lets You Take Advantage Of That 1 TB Of Free Storage [feedly]

2013-10-10T07:18:00.002-07:00

Flickr's iOS App Finally Gets Auto Upload, Lets You Take Advantage Of That 1 TB Of Free Storage
http://techcrunch.com/2013/10/09/flickrs-ios-app-finally-gets-auto-upload-lets-you-take-advantage-of-that-1-tb-of-free-storage/

via feedly.com

Amazon Instant Video Support for AirPlay

2013-09-17T07:30:00.000-07:00

Everyone is playing catch-up with technology that Apple has been offering for years.

http://www.macworld.com/article/2048887/amazon-instant-video-for-ios-adds-airplay-support-imdb-integration.html

How to solve the 10 most common tech support problems yourself

2013-09-05T06:44:00.000-07:00

Here are some great tips.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/2047667/how-to-solve-the-10-most-common-tech-support-problems-yourself.html

9 Reasons SysAdmins Hate You | ITworld

2013-06-18T18:15:00.000-07:00

9 reasons sys admins hate you

http://www.itworld.com/it-management/361516/9-reasons-sys-admins-hate-you

Happy sys admins mean happy systems. By avoiding these 9 common mistakes, you can stay on your sys admin's good side.

SCM Build and Release Community: A Comparison of Nagios, Zenoss and Zabbix

2013-05-28T07:12:00.001-07:00

Not sure where they got their information on Zenoss. It DOES have a Google Maps plugin.

SCM Build and Release Community: A Comparison of Nagios, Zenoss and Zabbix:

IT Monitoring Buyers’ Guide 2013 by GroundWork, Inc.

2013-03-27T09:19:00.001-07:00

IT Monitoring Buyers’ Guide 2013 by GroundWork, Inc.:

Google’s 10 rules for designing data centers — Tech News and Analysis

2013-03-12T09:06:00.001-07:00

Good information on Google Datacenters.

Google’s 10 rules for designing data centers — Tech News and Analysis:

OS X Screenshot Key Combinations

2013-02-28T14:35:00.000-08:00

How many times have I looked these up?!?

From MacRumors.com

Command-Shift-3: Take a screenshot of the screen, and save it as a file on the desktop
Command-Shift-4, then select an area: Take a screenshot of an area and save it as a file on the desktop
Command-Shift-4, then space, then click a window: Take a screenshot of a window and save it as a file on the desktop
Command-Control-Shift-3: Take a screenshot of the screen, and save it to the clipboard
Command-Control-Shift-4, then select an area: Take a screenshot of an area and save it to the clipboard
Command-Control-Shift-4, then space, then click a window: Take a screenshot of a window and save it to the clipboard

Python Tutorial

2013-02-21T09:17:00.001-08:00

What a better thing to do on a snow day!

http://docs.python.org/2/tutorial/

Linux 3.8 Released

2013-02-19T07:30:00.001-08:00

Linux 3.8 Released: diegocg writes "Linux kernel 3.8 has been released. This release includes support in Ext4 for embedding very small files in the inode, which greatly improves the performance for these files and saves some disk space. There is also a new Btrfs feature that allows for quick disk replacement, a new filesystem F2FS optimized for SSDs; support for filesystem mount, UTS, IPC, PID, and network namespaces for unprivileged users; accounting of kernel memory in the memory resource controller; journal checksums in XFS; an improved NUMA policy redesign; and, of course, the removal of support for 386 processors. Many small features and new drivers and fixes are also available. Here's the full list of changes."

Apple TV update brings iTunes in the Cloud, Bluetooth keyboards | Ars Technica

2013-01-28T11:56:00.001-08:00

Another step up on the competition. Will we ever have the App Store on AppleTV?

Apple TV update brings iTunes in the Cloud, Bluetooth keyboards | Ars Technica:

NETGEAR Connected Entertainment

2013-01-08T06:19:00.001-08:00

It's about time someone challenged AppleTV. I just might jump ship for Google if they pull it off well.

NETGEAR Connected Entertainment: