Monday, March 26, 2012

Office jargon and what it means.

Compiled after several long nights of reading documentation and lab reports.

Statement - All methods of procedure and standard configuration templates have been approved by the chief technology group.
Means - Don't complain to us if you don't like the way it's been done.

Statement - A commercial solution from an approved, industry leading vendor has been utilised in line with their recommendations.
Means - We wasted heaps of time trying to do this ourselves, until we discovered you can just buy one.

Statement - The test lab was configured with a standalone VLAN environment, and real world physical conditions were simulated with a 20dB attenuator between the port and the termination device.  A JDSU HST-3000 test set with 3HE12398BAA01 optical module and LC-SC/APC patching was configured to simulate a termination device before throughput testing to T-BERD/MTS-4000 console acting as a host device.
Means - This has little relevance to the real world, but it's what we had available.  If you come to us complaining that your results are different, we will point out that you're using a different setup to us.  Don't expect to replicate out results.

Statement - Packet filter and forwarding settings varied with test conditions and objectives.
Means - We dicked about with the settings for ages until it suddenly started working.

Statement - Simulation parameters were chosen based on empirically realistic values and expected real world conditions.
Means - We made stuff up.

Statement - Standard port configuration should be in line with the supplied table of VLAN settings, 0x800 802.1Q encapsulation requirements, FDB table entries, MTU 8192, Ethernet regeneration profiles and optical transmission parameters.
Means - No idea why this works.  We got it from the last guy who touched it.

Statement - The completed installation was left to heat-soak overnight in order to assess the thermal tolerance and stability of the proposed solution.
Means - We went for a few beers.

Statement - Performance analysis was conducted using a world standard diagnostics package from an approved vendor.
Means - We put all the numbers into a magic box and we're calling what came out a design.

Thursday, March 22, 2012

I see dumb people

Dumb act of the day

My computer idiot mate has just sent me an error message from his machine.

He achieved this by writing down the error, then scanning the note, then e-mailing the scanned image.

Fuck me...

What a bastard of a day

Still dealing with a cut hand, had a blue with the handbrake over the kid being a little cunt as usual, then sliced my index finger badly on a pair of shears I had just sharpened (well, apparently).  Claret everywhere.

 

Then discovered the clothes dryer was stuffed, suspect secondary to the aforementioned handbrake not flicking the start switch back to run, and burning out the start capacitor.  Handbrake protests “it’s only a $20 secondhand dryer.”  No, IT’S BLOODY NOT.  IT’S A $400 DRYER, WHICH IS WHAT IT COSTS TO **REPLACE**, regardless of what I paid for it.

 

Then I cut myself shaving for work, paid $1.55 for fuel on the way in, and had a bastard of a shift handling irrelevant bullshit we should not be worrying about in the first place, only intermittently interrupted by some intelligent conversation with a couple of people I respect. I did get to hack on some gear though, which is always good – especially when I have proved the vendor is bullshitting us.

Tuesday, March 6, 2012

Igor, pass me another brain

Rebrained my router with DD-WRT on Sunday evening, and I’m amazed at the performance increase.

 

(I’m even more amazed I managed not to brick the thing in the process due to being somewhat impaired by homebrew bourbon at the time.)

 

Transient response improvement I can only describe as a quantum leap over the stock Linksys firmware, and the configurability is all that I could ask for.

 

Software companies of the world – you should look at the DD-WRT model carefully.  It’s a beggarware/crowdsourced product that I would actually pay money for, BECAUSE IT WORKS.