Talking crap and pissin' folks off. These are a few of my favorite things - in a good way, of course! Not a type "A" win-at-all-cost jag-off like the folks you want to punch right square in the face at a sporting event. For me it's to bring out the competitive spirit and comradeship between friends. This is most likely why I am drawn to fishing so much. Challenging each other, to see who gets to take the walk of glory vs. the walk of shame back to the truck, is always a good time. Read more
TWTV2811>en Read more
TWTV2811#conf t
TWTV2811(conf)#banner exec #
Network management is sometimes as difficult as trying to eat undercooked beef in front of guest. The more you chew the bigger and worse it gets. Of course that's when folks want to ask me a thousand questions... Like anything, lets take it small first and then work our way up to the bigger stuff.
First off, forget all of the GUI stuff, trend markers and way cool pie charts. Understanding the underlying design of all network management tools will take you from basic to alpha geek status in minutes. It's kinda like David Lee Roth walking into a Van Halen themed nightclub, always cool. Read more
Does anyone out there remember the show, "The Fall Guy" with Lee Majors and one of my big time young punk kid crushes, Heather Thomas. The theme song was as popular as the actual show (especially the later seasons which sucked worse then a "Think Outside the Box" workshop). Looking at Cisco Cat switches and routers, to me the true "unknown stuntman" of networking is Netflow. Read more
I am wanker when it comes to VOIP. I am not a huge VOIP fan. Nope. Not much at all. When I was growing up, phracking never really appealed to me. I remember tripping my first 5ESS and not thinking "that’s cool" but "so what". Kinda weird because VOIP possesses all the elements I like in engineering design. It has many parts, separate protocols, programming elements, high end user satisfaction, massive extensibility and lots and lots of tweakable elements. All a plus in the Jimmy Ray book of fun stuff to do on a weekend. Read more
If I was to write a movie script, on a Manly Man Sys Admin who would I use a base to draw from. It’s certainly not some of the total knobs that have been pushed on us by Hollywood casting agencies. Look how they had portrayed us with folks like Matthew Brodrick, Keanu Reeves, Johnny Lee Miller, Pierce Bronsan, etc... OK, Kevin Smith I understand but the others, Come on man!! Nope if I was to write a script about a Manly Man Sys Admin it would be based on one Dude. A Dude that broke the friggen mold on Manliness. Read more
The fish just haven't been biting here in the Land of Cheese this year. So that has gave me tons more time in my lab geekin' and phrackin'. I was playing around in my lab the other day trying to build out a low to no cost SMB security design and hide out from my in laws. Of course many vendors already offer good solutions to this problem. But as a victim of the IBM, Unisys days of "My way or the highway" I never ever like to turn over control of my network to a vendor. Plus it really helps me to see the value add of what a vendor is really providing. Read more
Training. Deciding on a career in IT is also making a decision to be a career student. We can’t escape it; Moore’s Law also works in the training area as well. I have been to bootcamps, online training, classroom training, seminars, private training, mentored training, apprenticeships plus I read books like crazy on IT to keep my skills sharper then a SOG knife. Heck, when I interview for a job my first and deal killer question is; "What is your policy on training?" Read more
What does eating at Vegan restaurant and attending a four day conference in Waukegan on the external factors influencing paint drying times have in common? Let me be rude here and answer that question with another question; What is the difference between c:\windows, c:/windows/, file:/c:\windows\ and %WINDIR% if your answer is no difference in taste or suck factor then move to the highlighted square and continue your hack... Read more
I am pissed off. I am not sure what at so I thought I would start writing and see if I can figure it out. I know who I am pissed at and that is Hewlett Packard (HP). It's not a competitive thing either. I love the competition between anyone. Heck, that is what I miss the absolute most (still) about field sales. That two roosters in a hen house attitude slugging it out for every single dollar was the BEST. Oh man! I still get the chills thinking about it. Read more
How many Star Trek classic fans are in the house? Man, I just love that show. I honestly believe that is was Star Trek that generated my interest in engineering and of course kept me from getting dates until college, but that's a story for my therapist. There is an episode called "The Corbomite Maneuver," where the intergalactic King of Cool Captain Kirk bluffs a goober alien into thinking he has a heavy duty bomb onboard and the alien backs off. Then he, Spock and Scotty drink a case of Newcastle and ash out a Cohiba. Read more
TV Dinners. Not only is this an ultra cool song by ZZ Top but on the surface of the twenty year turkey in a thirty year old skin it should be a perfect meal for folks on the go. The majority of your food groups are all there, cooked at once on a throw away dish. Perfect right? Read more
There a few milestones in my life that I can look back on and know that I have turned a corner. For example; Read more
- When I could no longer recognize the names in the Police Blotter section of the paper; I knew I was older.
- When I could actually taste a difference between good beer and Pabst Blue Ribbon; I knew my pallet was getting better.
- When I heard of CUDA and immediately thought of Compute Unified Device Architecture instead of a bad to bone MOPAR with a Hemi; I knew I was a major league geek.
Having a network that tolerates delays is like wearing a leather jacket on a moped. In this phase of networking where email is too slow, video streaming is 28% on Internet traffic and Public Switched Telephone Networks are being bypassed with the use of SIP Trunking, delay of any type is the last thing I want on my network. Read more
I really enjoy tweaking things to squeeze just a bit more power out of what I already have. If I am building a small-block Chevy engine, over-clocking a server, reprogramming a EEPROM or trimming out a fishing lure, I love pushing stuff to its absolute limits.
However, sometimes all the modding in the world just can not solve the core problem. Putting a .265 duration cam, rollers, headers and hi riser will improve the suck factor of 305 Chevy very little.
It's time to scrap the crap and move up to the next big thing. Read more
There always a few phrases that come to mind when folks say one thing and do another. Practice what you preach, Physician Heal Thyself, Lead by example, etc...
I have designed many networks all over the world and without a doubt the single most important issue is redundancy. Fail over is measured in milliseconds in today's networks. When designing a network for redundancy it's the little things that get you in the end. Skimping a few bucks on this or that can cost big cash in the future.
I had that happened to me first hand last weekend. Read more
I like it when folks are proud of what they do. Not just a silly pride like; "My football team is better yours" (or course mine IS better: The Indianapolis Colts baby!!!) But the kinda pride that folks can back up with fact and take on all challengers. Read more
It's really hard to beat layer 2 hacking to really mess stuff up. While folks are up at layer 4-7 messin' around with this socket or that scripting vuln, I am down here at layer 2 all fat, dumb and... fat. Read more
Eavesdropping VOIP is the equivalent of "Just wait until your Father gets home" on the network. When folks talk about VOIP security they tend to immediately go straight to eavesdropping without considering the more valuable and resellable vectors like Toll Fraud. But without a doubt, eavesdropping is a great demo to do at a trade show or customer pre-sales call. Man, the purchase orders will just start flying out of pockets! Let's just get real here, eavesdropping is a very time consuming process for a low yield. Personally, I will take email over voice for information stealing. Read more
The more things change the more they seem to stay the same. I have been working on a few Bluetooth 2.1 hacks for the past couple of days and in the end I thought that while they worked they weren't very interesting. The time-effort::benefit ratio was more slanted towards the time-effort side of the house. Kinda like finding a security hole in Token Ring today. Read more
Jimmy Ray Purser is the technical co-host for Cisco's TechWise and BizWise TV. Jimmy Ray also conducts advanced training for engineers across North America and Europe and regularly speaks at industry conferences such as VON, CeBIT, N+I, and Networkers. As a field engineer, Jimmy Ray experiences networking first hand behind the console or in the rack. He is an active member in the IEEE and the Ethernet Alliance and has designed, installed and tested numerous networks for Fortune 500 companies, the United States military and other institutions worldwide. He holds 3 U.S. patents for Ethernet security algorithms with two others pending and one defensive publication, as well as numerous other vendor certifications in networking and security.
Purser holds a Bachelor of Science degree in electrical engineering from Southern Illinois University is currently pursuing a master of science degree in electrical engineering.
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