Session Initiation Protocol – The Secrets

For multimedia communications, a standard has been around called the Session Initiation Protocol or SIP. My sister platform, The Museum of Telephony, has explained this in a way that it’s an app-driven telephony like interface.

Originally for the fusion instant messaging or IM, video and voice calls, SIP became an international standard for basic telephony extensions (or “stacks”) for such technologies to work over the Internet.  SIP is an open standard, in “theory”. As you read along, it’s going to become a cliche pretty quickly.

This isn’t telephony per se, and it gets extremely technical. And degrading men can act like fanboys of this technology too. Trigger warning! Link contains non-laymen content from an apparent misongyst!

I digress. Just bare with me.

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What I Get Left Behind Handling Tier 1 Repairs

Since I had just mentioned my Day Program Problems, let’s look into how far behind I am helping out able bodied tech savvy people

  • IP Surveillance Camera system (Implementation began in July 2015 – No Completion Date)
  • SIP based Telephony Service, in house  (this kinda changed over time) – (Implementation Date April 2016 – Never was completed)
  • Single Sign On for intranet, WiFi (RADIUS), via Apple’s vintage Open Directory 10.5 (Pilot 2016, Implementation 2017, full cutover 2018, but due to a bug in the administration, it hasn’t been fully complete)
  • Routable LANs, migration from “flat”, but seperate VLANs (Mid 2018 to present, estimate time of completion Start of 4Q 2018)
  • SharePoint/content management database of multimedia (this is how the New Instagram profile has content), decided to use Apple’s Wiki service for the 10.5 Server, since this is an internal server in the first place. Simple but has a nice databse. Piloted in 1Q 2018, due to server corruption, it has been halted)
  • A share to stream movies for the ol woman to watch if her iPad is too full. (NON BUSINESS RELATED, and has been delayed because the complex process of DRM-based media.) Because of this non business matter, this is not a priority.
  • Help Desk Ticketing System (envisioned as far back as 2011, a pilot project began in 2016, a form was designed in FileMaker Pro, but never was fully completed, due to the ankle biting Tier 1 requests.)
  • Fixing broken printers (2016/17) – with some cash perhaps both can be completed by end of CY18.
  • ERP – to track my money, purchases, etc. 2011, never went to fruition
  • Web filtering, and proxy – End of FY 18, but due to a firewall breach on my Netgear, the project has been delayed.
  • The Museum of Telephony, adding content of article length? Life got in the way bitches1

So if you want a better outcomes for ACCOUNTABILITY, COMPLIANCE AND TRANSPARENCY, Tier 1 Requests, whether it’s frivolous or not, in an excessive manner will just delay very important long term solutions. This is akin to calling 9-1-1 for breaking an ankle. Before you contact Tier 1, THINK BEFORE YOU ACT!

Now I am an official grumpy sysadmin.

VMware…

Oh how I love you VMware. You love to make my life frustrating as hell somedays. But then what else am I supposed to use for “Type 2 Hypervisor” (you know the one with the basic operating system designed to run virtual machine files?) KVM is a joke, would I really want to use Xen? * laughs * I guess Promoux could be another option, but that’s like a Lego kit without directions.A And there is no Type 2 (if I am not mistaken) hypervisor for VirtualBox. So yeah, I’m stuck with these nitwits!

Exiting out of IT!

(I meant “IT” as an acronym to be silly!)

Life is all about changes. Sometimes changes happen suddenly, not just technology, but people. I have changed over the last few months. I am no longer interested in technology. It’s not to say I am going off the grid, but I may not be purchasing more IT gear in the going forward. It’s not to say I don’t have interest tinkering around with a server or two it’s just that…

  • I do not like the direction Big Tech is going to.
  • I personally hate Microsoft’s roadmap post Win32 (this includes Windows XP/2003/2000 and some of the other pre NT Windows). I am tired of reteaching myself an entire new operating system with the same brand name. Windows 7 to this day makes me swear and get peeved off often figuring out why something can’t work because the thing is so damn secure, even a moderate genius can’t figure it out!
  • I personally am skiddish on Apple’s roadmap as well and how selling phones and internet connected computers will sustain product development. I do not like how Apple has abandoned servers, server appliances, the networking gear, and others alike.
  • I am skiddish on the cloud, and feel that leasing apps will cost me more than spending some apps refreshed every decade on a CapEx (savings account.) I don’t like the consumerization of IT, even in the business sense. Why would a company spend cash in the long run on operating expenditures and get half rate quality of applications only because people want to touch screens more than using a USB rodent and a keyboard?
  • The idea of perpetual upgrading because of “planned obsolesce” because breaking websites is the only way to keep “innovation” afloat by forcing users to upgrade operating systems or buy new hardware to “defend” the small growth the industry makes. 20 years ago it made sense that PCs had to be swapped out every 3 years.
  • AI, social media and other ethical concerns also make me skiddish of the future.
  • People are so happy about the future, but what about jobs?

I’m really tired of messing around with PCs, Macs and other stuff. It’s like a “job” and I do not like how the industry is going all apps, and other glorified garbage for pro-consumer solutions.

I just want to create things now…

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My Thoughts for Living Digitally at “Home”

My home folder, I didn’t want to share how big it is. It’s local because I don’t currently have a remote file share that can sync my MacBook’s files. But I should though in case of failures…

You may have heard the phrase “home directories” in some capacity in enterprise tech.  I have strongly felt your home for your files should live somewhere else not just your computer.

In modern computing since the beginning of the 21st Century, files are stored in a specific and systematic matter. The directory typically is in a matter of the physical disk, a folder, then a follow up folder such as your name or username or login handle, whatever phase works best

Hard Drive > Users > login handle

In your “home” is the following folders where you keep your digital belongings:

  • Documents
  • Desktop (the clutter on your background can be seen as a folder too)
  • Downloads (most browsers know this is a preset folder and by default will automatically keep downloaded files into this folder
  • Music (for iTunes and other music players)
  • Movies (home video captures, etc.)
  • Pictures (a landing pad for photos exported by any digital camera or smartphone)

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The Sad Macintosh Gallery!

Computers are like humans, they no longer are spring chickens.

Today’s subject is on the Mac, and it’s bootup process when it fails. The most ideal failure should result in a black screen, showing Susan Kare’s infamous “Sad Macintosh” icon, (known for it’s frown on it’s right hand side, an extra pixel or two), and an accommodating “Chimes of Death”, if all failure goes as planned per to the startup process on the vintage Macintoshes.  All Macs made before 1998 had the Sad Mac Icon, but any Mac made after 1987 (beginning with the SE and Macintosh II) had the “Chimes” to go along. (The original Macintosh, the Fat Mac, the XL, 512Ke, and the Plus did not have such ability.)

Any modern electronic equipment is vulnerable for failures as they age. While the subject is on the “Sad Macintosh” icon appearing at startup sequence in vintage (“Classic” Macs), failures shall not be limited to Macs, but PCs and even other computers like minis, etc. A PS/2 from the early 1990s could not boot properly only because it’s capacitors are failing as well.

The recommended directions by Apple was to bring your Mac to your Authorized Service Provider. Other than that the documentation wouldn’t say too much. Because I do not have access to historical Apple technical documents (since knowledge bases of this type predates the Web) it’s unsure if capacitors, etc was common. I think it’s safe to say because it’s more of an age than anything else.

(As a sidebar: In the early 1990s, Apple also produced a small number of Macintosh service handheld devices for the use of Authorized Service Providers. In models after 1990, the SCSI port would open up after the Sad Macintosh screen, and send additional information to this device, which would then backup on some flash device, which then was downloaded onto another Mac to figure out additional problems. There was also ROM cards that a serviceman would plug in depending on the type of Macintosh, one flash card was for LC line, one for the II line and another for like the Classic.)

Most of the electronics that are failing are due to blown up capacitors, and sometimes when it blows up, it’s like taking a bottle of Coke and throwing it into the circuit board. This doesn’t mean its totaled, you may need to replace them, (by the use of a soldering iron.)

Sometimes all attempts may not work and you may need to surrender reviving your Mac.

Classic Macs, the hardware sense, the ones with the all in ones like the 128K to Color Classics are most vulnerable because of the capacitors that hold power for the monitor. This part will need some expertise as dealing with display capacitors can be lethal.

The following YouTube videos feature Macs failing the usual failures of the startup process. (and yes I have vetted to ensure that they aren’t manipulated, etc.)

REALLY UNSUAL SAD MAC FAILS

The Macintosh Portable wants to Jam! Now these models had no “Power On Key” so the user would strike a key. But it goes right to the Sad Mac, so therefore something failed immediately.

Typically a Sad Mac should cut right in. Now I can’t tell if there’s an arm on the left of the picture trying to do an Interrupt, but it’s not normal for a screen to wipe down, stay black, then the Sad Mac to appear.

Yeah, things are peachy for this Classic II. Analog board must had been busted.

SINGLEHANDED CASES OF CHIMES OF DEATH WITH A BLACK OR GREY SCREEN

While this may or may not show the Sad Mac, but it’s not out of the realm of possibility you may run into any Vintage Macintosh that may have a grey screen and just hear the Chimes of Death and nothing coming on screen, not even the disk icons, Happy or Sad Macintoshes. This was never documented in any of the end user Macintosh guides, and any of the technical docs I own does not discuss just the singular Chimes of Death situation. Typically this is where you can rule out capacitor issues. This became a subject on the vintage boards on Apple Discussions  a few years ago, starting the awareness of the vulernabilities of aging PCs.

Here’s a better example

Another example of the Chimes without a Sad Mac

Fast or Slow and/or High or Low Pitched Chimes of Death?

Yup I’ve witnessed it!

That’s all!

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Is Software an Expense?

They say software is the real beauty of technology. The inner technology is the most valuable in the field. While it’s cheaper for say a technology company to avoid producing too much hardware using off the shelf parts at a razor thin margin, the real question is can people really afford software, and why is that not a “commodity”? Is the inner beauty could very well be it’s own worst enemy?

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