@docsmooth: Signs of twitspam: bio is tinyurl; <100 updates, >200 following/ers;all updates “from twitfeed”, inc. link; no conversation. Check yourself!

I just went through my followers list on twitblock.org and thought I’d write a bit deeper on this subject.

Ways to determine a twitter spammer – higher scores are more likely spammers:

• Bio link is tinyurl or bit.ly or other URL shortener. There is *never* a reason to put this in your URL link on Twitter, unless you’re hiding the destination. +10 pts
• you have more than 200 “friends” and less than 100 updates. +2 pts
• you have a follower/following ratio below. .5 +2pts
• Every single tweet has a link. +5 pts
• Every single tweet is from TwitFeed. +5 pts
• More than 2 tweets are from an unregistered API app. +8 pts
• You have never @replied anyone. +1 pts

I generally block anyone above a “9″ score on this scale.

(cross-posted from my personal blog as well)

The biggest issue I had, though, was after the upgrade, TweetDeck was just showing a blank window, with only the “Tweet/All Friends/Replies/Direct Messages/Groups/Favorites” etc. buttons on the top. There are a lot of posts about how to run Adobe Air and TweetDeck on x64 Ubuntu, but this is a 32-bit machine, so those fixes weren’t working.

The fix is surprisingly simple: make sure kwallet is running with an open wallet. Full details in a nice concise post from Peter Upfold, here. One of his commenters mentioned an issue, but I believe it turned out to be a “no wallets were open” problem. Thanks Peter!

As you may remember, back in January I was invited to speak at Directory Experts’ Conference, 2008. If you weren’t there, I spoke about integrating 30+ Linux servers with a 2000-user Active Directory forest at one of the U.S.’s biggest home improvement providers. At the time, we had used Centrify DirectControl 4.0 to accomplish this integration, and they were the ones who invited me to speak at DEC.

As part of my preparations, I reached out to Quest Software to ask about Vintella, now renamed “Authentication Services”, and to Likewise Software, who sent me software and support contacts (at my request), so that I could learn Likewise Enterprise as well as I knew Centrify DirectControl. That was a very tall order for Likewise Software to fill, as I had spent the past 6 months learning DirectControl inside out.

After 4 weeks of building demonstration machines (with both products), capturing video in case the demos crashed (which they didn’t), and building a presentation and practicing it, DEC was upon us.  I gave two presentations, one specifically for Centrify on Monday, and the primary one on Wednesday.  At the end of both presentations, we recieved a lot of great questions which Centrify’s Director of Product Development helped answer.

At the end of the conference, Likewise offered me a job. After many discussions with them, my friends and family, and my customers, I decided to take the opportunity. This is not a decision I made to slight Centrify, who’s support of me through my time as a customer was amazing, and who’s assistance through the presentation was fabulous. It’s just one of those opportunities that comes along that I couldn’t pass up.

So for the past 6 months I’ve been the Project Manager for Deployments for Likewise Software. I’ve been on the road about 80% of the time, working with customers to install our software in their environments. Many of the posts I’ve made in that time have been in response to an issue we’ve seen or avoided at a customer of Likewise. I will continue to write these, and I’ll work on doing so at my old (2007) pace of about 3-4 posts a month, since they have been (according to my stats) useful to many people, which is the point of writing this blog.

That means, no changes here compared to last year, but I will have a wider variety of topics, and I’ll likely start mentioning our software specifically. I want it to be clear it’s not advertising, but just the state of what I’m working with. Again, Centrify makes a great product, and I was very happy to have chosen it for my needs at my previous employer.  However, I’ve chosen to move forward with this open source company (Likewise Software) for the next stage of my career, and will continue to write about software and integration with a view towards open source software.

Thanks for continuing to read!

Robert Auch

Back in another week!

I make it a point in my work to make sure someone else can effectively back me up on all aspects of my work.� There are some people I�ve worked with who seem to think that if they are indispensable, then the company can�t fire them.� However, it also means, to me, that they can�t be promoted, can�t go on vacation, and can�t even have an evening at home with family.� So, when I design things, or fix something that broke, or make changes to make something work better, I make sure to include as many team members as I can, so that I can do things like take my wife out, and not be tied to my phone, worried that it may ring, even when I�m not officially on-call.

To that end, I spent a lot of time over the past few weeks giving a lot of history to the newer members of our team, so that they understand the decision making process that led us to the system state we�re at now.� Why do we have to reboot Terminal Servers every weekend?� Because of a memory leak in Windows 2000 that our application and settings trigger fast enough to require it.� Not just �which servers do we have to have up 24/7?, but why those servers, and not others, even if they�re in the same priority group.�� This has been tremendously helpful to them in their day-to-day work, evidenced by the lower volume of questions they�re asking to other members of the team.

So, after all this work, how are things set?� Does everyone in the team have the exact same skillset at the same level as me?� No, because we�re different people.� Will it maybe take them a few minutes more to solve <insert particular problem here>?� Maybe, because I may be the most knowledgeable person on that application, but that doesn�t mean that they can�t fix it quickly.� So I spent half of the day today re-iterating those facts to people who are worried that the company will fail if I�m not here (it surely won�t – I�m not that important).

Now, then, off to vacation – I�ll write a blurb about it in 2 weeks, then a few days later about how busy I am catching up!

Reading further, the stats get more interesting.� The more TVs in the house, or the more times the kids ate at McDonald�s per month, the greater the preference for the branded food. The whole paper is a really fascinating read, but it does get (as most scientific publications do) pretty stats-heavy, so if you don�t follow statistics very well, just plow through it and check out the graphs and findings.

Moral of the story?

For parents: Remove TVs from the house, and eat healthy at home more often.

For businesses: your branding can be extremely powerful.� Even the kids who NEVER ate McDonald�s preferred the branded food.