Chatter Of The Squirrel

Cisco Certification

Been working in IT for years. In a few vaguely related fields.

If I were to describe my field of expertise, I’ld have to say, as a Jack of all trades. If I could design my own name card, I’ld prefer it to say “Resident Genius”.

Although some might say that this is only because I swim in ’shallow waters’.

I’ve never managed to take any certification exams to ‘prove’ my abilities. The reasons are myriad. Local employers won’t sponsor you to take the course. And if they do, they will make you sign a bond for at least a year. If you take the course at your own expense, no one will give you a raise.

Such is the mentality of small IT companies I guess.

But with my time hopping around these companies, I do acquire real world skills. Knowledge that I need on the ground. It’s unstructured learning, but my knowledge covers a pretty large field, and I can always dig my way out of a problem wherever it might arise.

It’s a great way to learn. Unfortunately, I can’t ‘prove’ such knowledge in a job interview… And when applying for positions that’s a little more focused, my book knowledge in that particular field will be found lacking.

Have considered taking some certification before. The most popular around being Microsoft certification, or Cisco certification. And my friends will know that I’m a little anti M$. Met plenty of MCSE ‘professionals’ who can’t get the job done sometimes. Very often you need more out-of-the-box thinking. And all those guys had, was some demonstrable skill in scoring MCQs.

But if I ever had the chance, (read: if I meet an employer who isn’t too cheap to sponsor my training), I would certainly shoot for Cisco’s training on Security.

Have always been interested in locks. Since the days of MacGyver, I took apart locks and learnt to pick locks on my own. Even crafted my own lockpick. But alas it’s still too clumsy for a REAL JOB. But the fascination has always been there. And network security, is just one big electronical lock that is begging me to disassemble it…

Unfortunately my career paths have never taken me down that road.

Perhaps one day I might find the impetus to chart my path. Instead of waiting for pigs to fly, and for my employers to offer me training with no strings attached.

And should that day come, I know that a Cisco certification will be the first step I’ll take.

Movie: The Ruins

So out of boredom, I read a random top movies of 2008… And The Ruins was listed.

Just looking at the poster, you can probably guess that it’s going to be your typical B-grade horror.

1. Introduce the fodder
2. Bring them somewhere with some ancient, but hidden danger
3. Kill the fodder
4. Let one or more fodder live
5. Attempt an M.Night twist

And somewhere in there, insert gratuitous nudity. Either a shower scene, or a sex-romp. Or just Nicole Kidman taking a piss on the toilet.

The whole point of these films is the nature of (2). Sometimes, writers do come up with interesting ideas.

The idea of The Ruins really wasn’t bad. But you don’t see what it is till halfway into the movie. The build up was too slow. And there wasn’t enough fodder. Too much time focusing on amateur surgery. Didn’t give enough opportunities for (2) to shine.

And a lame-O twist at the end that was no surprise at all.

Movie: Horton Hears A Who

“On the fifteenth of May, in the Jungle of Nool, In the heat of the day, in the cool of the pool, He was splashing … enjoying the jungle’s great joys . . When Horton the elephant heard a small noise.”

Jim Carrey as Horton the elephant. Steve Carrell as the mayor of Whoville.

This is based on a book by Dr. Seuss. The 2000 Broadway musical Seussicals also used this story.

The main catch-phrase, “A person’s a person, no matter how small”, incidentally is not intended as an anti-abortion statement although it’s been appropriated for their political agendas.

Jim Carrey’s voice is only somewhat entertaining, and his monologues not very much so.

But what’s most enjoyable is the animation of Whoville, a city in a world inside a speck of dust sitting on a clover. It is people by Whos, a specie of microscopic, furry, gangly bipeds. Kooky creatures invented by Dr Seuss to illustrate his kooky poetries.

Growing up with Bugs Bunny and Wile E Coyote, I seem to have an affection for cartoon physics. I adored every moment in Whoville. Less so the scenes in the Jungle of Nool.

It was an enjoyable watch. It hit the theatres earlier this year, but it came and went before most people even noticed it.

It’s an interesting story for children. The morals in the story is myriad. There’s the obvious morals of kindness, honouring ones words, perseverance, and stoicism in the face of public persecution. And there are also warnings of the evils of society, like the casual and gleeful malice of a mob of monkeys, so willing to mete out harm unprovoked, motivated only by the prospect of causing harm to someone who won’t fight back. But scariest of all, is the self-righteous & judgmental anger of the Sour Kangaroo, representing all that is foul and irrational in nosey, busy-body, ‘leader of the community’ who will so readily turn a mob to fulfill her angry agendas.

Thermal Goop

Dug up an old discarded notebook.

It was state of the art in its time. But now many years obsolete. It’s still running Windows Millenium, and I can’t reinstall anything on it cos it doesn’t have a CDROM drive.

Tried using PCMCIA & USB CDROMs, but the notebook won’t boot from them either.

It hasn’t been used in a while, so I opened it up. Managed to find a service manual of the notebook, so I managed to get it open without serious mishap. Only losing a screw, broke one claw, and cracked one fragile connector. Nothing critical.

Main thing that needed serviced was the thermal goop.

There’s a crusty yellow cake all around the processor.

Out comes the IPA, and scrubbing ensues. There’s a thick cake on the motherboard controller too, so thick that I had to shave it off like I was whittling wood.

The processor, I’ve got some Arctic Silver 3, super synthetic oil & 70% silver particles goop to interface it properly with the heatsink.

The motherboard controller, is a little harder. There’s a 1mm gap between the controller and the heatsink. Need some kind of thermal pad thick enough to interface them.

A quick check in my storeroom, and I dug up an old CD-ROM drive. As I remember, (from hours spent taking things apart for random reasons), there are these rubber thingies that interface the hot integrated circuits with the metal case of the CDROM to sink away heat.

And I got just enough to do the job.

Managed to put the notebook back together, and it still runs.

Not sure if there’s a discernable performance difference. But there’s great satisfaction in taking care of your hardware.

I’m thinking of ordering a new battery for the notebook to give it a new lease of life.

The specs is very modest. But the fact that it’s still chugging along after so many years leaves me in awe of its engineering. I have a stack of dead Dells that won’t boot up anymore, and some with floppy hinges that’s looking like shit already.

But this dear little thing, it’s worthy. I won’t mind spending maybe RM200 to give it new life.

I’ve already cracked open this one’s dying battery. 8 lithium cells, that I’m not confident that I can find in stock in Malaysia. And eBay is turning up some reasonable leads that doesn’t cost all that much.

Further updates to come…

Looking forward to installing Linux on this via network.

Movie: Kung Fu Panda

Awesome cartoon.

I am BLINDED by its awesome-ness.

Usually, I find Dreamworks cartoons to be 2nd tier.

Yarr, their animation is top notch. But in originality, story-telling, and just plain enjoyability, they’ve got more misses than hits.

Antz. Never found Woody Allen funny. Lame story. And coming so close after Pixar’s A Bug’s Life. This was disastrous. But as far as bug movies go, way better than Bee Movie.

Prince of Egypt? Forgettable. The whole Shrek franchise? Never liked them. Further hated it for taking the Oscar away from Monsters Inc. And I don’t agree with fluffing Mike Myers’ deluded sense of importance and relevance in our generation’s pop culture.

Shark Tale. Horrible. Don’t understand why they are kissing the grounds that Pixar had stepped on. It’s like all the lame-ass gambling movies following God Of Gamblers. I don’t see how taking a theme someone else just did, and then fitting your sucky story into the theme, can be profitable.

Madagascar. The world can do better sweeping David Schwimmer under a carpet and pretend he never was. Other than the KGB penguins, this didn’t have a lot to offer.

But with Over The Hedge, Dreamworks turned a corner. This must be where they put the self-indulgent producers against a wall and shot them. And allowed good writers to write a good story, unhindered by the putrid input from producers who want to change something just so they can take some credit from the movie’s success later in case it’s a hit. It’s how they measure their manhood. Well, everyone indulges their manhood one way or another, but when producers do it, billions go down the toilet, and the collective intelligence of millions of viewers are given a smack in the face.

Over The Hedge? Truly great and inspired!! Flushed Away? Great fun too.

Kung Fu Panda? Awesome-ness. It bears repeating.

Was a little reserved earlier on cos of Dreamworks, and Mr. Nacho Libre… But I was happily proven wrong. Already seen it three times.

A little disappointing that the characters of the Furious Five were not fully explored. But the movie is all about the panda. Taking damage.

The eternal gag of fat people getting hurt, or getting smacked around. It’s funny. It’s inexplicable. It’s cruel. But it’s true. Moe getting punched = funny. Jackie Chan getting punched, not so funny.

Other than the 101 scenes of Panda getting hurt. The kung fu ‘action’ was also pretty impressive. It’s fantastical, but it’s visually entertaining. Much like The Transporter. Over the top unreal is fun to see.

The story isn’t deep. But just plain fun.