Yet again, I haven't touched this lately... But hey, what with migrating all my computer systems to SuSE Linux and getting KDE looking all pretty, I haven't had the time.

Well, I've been at this helpdesk lark for nearly two months now, and I think I'm starting to get the hang of actually being nice to people. I get a kick out of fixing their problems, and the reactions I get when the customer is noticably grateful... I even got an offer of a Christmas Card from one happy customer who had been offline for over a fortnight :)

On the other hand, I still have to deal with the other customers, the ones where nothing is good enough, the ones who are rude, surly, ungrateful and snide. Those are the worst. A thank-you goes a long way to making my job a lot easier, and it doesn't take long.

But hey, I'm doing alright.

Well, this thing hasn't been updated in a while...

I've did an awful lot last month, and never quite got round to putting it down here. Where to begin...?

I managed to obtain two geriatric old PCs for my Frankenstein-esque experiments into home networking and have successfully build one system as a headless firewall/router and fileserver. Attempts to implement a caching nameserver on said box remain beyond my feeble brain. The firewall runs Vector Linux, a nice light distribution based off slackware.

Also, the interview that I mentioned in my last post was successful, and I have undergone four weeks of gruelling training in preperation for getting on the phones, which happens next week, under laboratory conditions with guidance and help from all sides, a Customer Service playpen, if you will.

Oh well, one has to dash.

Another Interview tomorrow, this time with a large national ISP! It's a helpdesk role, so it's time to break out the 'customer facing' skills... Wages don't sound bad, as I will be going for the late shift as the day shifts pay peanuts.

I'm learning C++ at the moment and I've hit a wall in my current project, I must have said 'pass by reference' about twenty times today, but I still haven't got my convoluted code working.

In other news, SCO revokes SGI's Unix licence, SGI fail to give a monkeys.

For more on this hilarious story., check here

...Not me, apparently. Damn. I was told however that I aquitted myself brilliantly at my interview, impressing them with my technical knowledge, design skills and shining personality... However, they decided to select a candidate with a background in graphic design and no HTML knowledge. Ah well, back to the drawing board.

To summarise my feelings on the matter, refer below.

bogosity   /boh-go's*-tee/ n.     1. [orig. CMU, now very common] The degree to which something is bogus. Bogosity is measured with a bogometer; in a seminar, when a speaker says something bogus, a listener might raise his hand and say "My bogometer just triggered". More extremely, "You just pinned my bogometer" means you just said or did something so outrageously bogus that it is off the scale, pinning the bogometer needle at the highest possible reading (one might also say "You just redlined my bogometer"). The agreed-upon unit of bogosity is the microLenat. 2. The potential field generated by a bogon flux; see quantum bogodynamics. See also bogon flux, bogon filter, bogus.

Hmm, I'm starting to get worried now. I still haven't heard any word about my Interview, which fills me with a certain amount of trepidation. Best thing to do would be to ignore it, and hope it goes away.

I started looking into PHP, which looks slightly interesting, given that I know next to nothing about it, but I have found several good sites with guides and online documentation. I'll be coding like a pro in no time.

This blog was brought to you by HOWTO, FAQ, man -k, README and RTFM.

I took a long trek today, fully kitted out in suit and tie, somebody had neglected to mention how far away the Interview venue was from the train station, bound as I am to public transport at this time.

The interview went smoothly (as far as I can tell), so I think I may be in luck. The employers informed me that I would hear word tomorrow, and all I can do is sit and hope. If by some chance I get the position, I will be required to finally tackle PHP head on, which can only be good for me.

For Christmas I would like a 90 node Beowulf Cluster.

Have you started drawing up your Christmas list? What do geeks want for Christmas? This site could give you some clues...

A lone, rather drowsy looking wasp has taken up residence in my window, the excesses of summer now over, he has decided to spend his well earned retirement at Casa del David pretending to be deaf, writing pointed letters to the Daily Mail and shouting at kids on the lawn. I for one wish him all the best.

In other news, I've got an interview tomorrow, which will require the use of my only suit and a drastic haircut, as I'm developing a McCartney proto-mullet.

Fingers Crossed.

Yesterday I came across some interesting sites while looking for references to 'Vadding'. It seems there are a lot of organisations and clubs worldwide that are involved in the sport of Urban Exploration, the art of exploring abandoned buildings, drain networks, bunkers and other places supposedly 'off limits' to the public. Obviously, this is another one of those pastimes that borders on illegal, as it can be construed as trespassing.

It is very interesting however to read through some of the descriptions of the areas they explore, as the general public usually do not get access to these sites. There is advice on which torches to use, how to pop a manhole cover from beneath, how to avoid getting caught and how to behave.

The whole thing seems very civilised, very organised and almost safe. Thanks to these brave explorers, we get to see another side of Urban sprawl that is usually hidden from us.

Some great sites are:

Infiltration A Canadian E-Zine, great stories
Sydney Cave Clan Sydney Chapter of the Australian Cave Clan.
Drains of my City Exploring Edmonton, Canada

Not much time, have to get moving off, but here's another definition from the Hackers Lexicon

MEGO     /me'goh/ or /mee'goh/     [`My Eyes Glaze Over', often `Mine Eyes Glazeth (sic) Over', attributed to the futurologist Herman Kahn] Also `MEGO factor'. 1. n. A handwave intended to confuse the listener and hopefully induce agreement because the listener does not want to admit to not understanding what is going on. MEGO is usually directed at senior management by engineers and contains a high proportion of TLAs. 2. excl. An appropriate response to MEGO tactics. 3. Among non-hackers, often refers not to behavior that causes the eyes to glaze, but to the eye-glazing reaction itself, which may be triggered by the mere threat of technical detail as effectively as by an actual excess of it.