@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!

The act of “trusting” that a computer will do something every time the same way, only because it did the last 2 times you tried it.

The alternative is to actually learn what the computer is doing, so that you can know it will do the same thing each time, because you’ve controlled all of the appropriate parameters.

Usage: “This sysadmin is performing IT by Voodoo – he just asked if I have faith that my file copy will work.”

Now that it’s defined, can we all stop doing it?  There’s enough resources on the internet to figure out how anything works down to the API call at least, and in some cases down to the processor registers, if you care to go that far.

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

Don Jones had the next session, but I had to skip out on it to prepare for my session. I did hear some great feedback, but was disappointed, since his was one of the sessions I was most looking forward to prior to the conference start.

I spoke at 11am about how to integrate Linux/Unix systems with Active Directory. Download the deck here. It was a great experience, and the bit of feedback I’ve heard so far has been really positive.  It sounds like several attendees have moved their integration projects forward with information I presented, so I think it was successful.

After lunch, the Microsoft Windows and Active Directory product teams had a chalk talk about what’s next with AD where they solicited a LOT of suggestions from the attendees.  I was surprised by the number of people who are using “Prune and Graft” techniques for domain migrations.  Microsoft was very clear, however: do not EVER prune and graft domains.

And I’ll leave it at that.  In all, in was a great experience, and I learned so much.  I’m going to go back again!

Kevin Sullivan talked about the new “GP Preferences” and client side extensions available for WinXP and higher OSes, that will be available with the new Remote Server Administration Tool (RSAT). I’ve been looking for that download every day since they mentioned it. Still waiting…  but with some new security initiatives at one of my smaller clients, I’ll be using these soon as well!

Mark Foust from Microsoft had a great discussion on security audits and the most common problems found – they’re amazingly simple ones to fix, too, like cleaning up members of built-in groups such as “Schema Admins”, that even large enterprises miss.  A great reminder of where to start with security house cleaning.

We then had several “Birds of a Feather” sessions – I attended the Group Policy one lead by Kevin and Darren.  We had some great back-and-forth about how other companies are using Group Policy, how to do upgrades to the new Client-Side Extensions, and other GPO subjects.  There were some requests for better reporting than the RSoP provides, and a request for a way to dump RSoP reports into something that can be audited against, like with System Center 2007.  It’s not something I had noticed as missing in my environments, but the idea was mentioned, I realized how great it would be.  Hopefully Kevin has taken the idea back to Redmond for further review.

The evening was spent mostly in the Centrify hospitality suite, talking Linux/Windows interoperability with several other attendees, and an early trip home to rest up for the morning!

Sunday March 2nd was only registration and the reception for me. I just used the brief time downtown to meet with the Centrify and Likewise teams who worked so hard over the previous month to help me prepare my presentation for Wednesday. I met a bunch of great new contacts as well – not a conversation passed that I didn’t learn something new.

Monday the 3rd included Gil Kirkpatrick’s discussion on AD administrators vs. software developers, Jerry Camel and Brad Turner’s overview of proper architecture for ILM “2″, how Microsoft is using Windows Server 2008 (Brian Puhl), an amazingly indepth look into AD with Dean Wells and Joe Richards, and a discussion about how Centrify DirectControl works (in Centrify’s vendor track).

Gil Kirkpatrick covered things like mistakes that developers often make because they’re taught how to write well-constructed SQL queries, but not well-constructed LDAP queries. He discussed at great length 11 tips to help ensure that directory-integrated software performs as it should, without killing domain controller performance. The most interesting part, however, was his suggestions on how to talk with software developers so that both halves of the IT team can create a well-rounded product.

After lunch, Brian Puhl with Microsoft IT spoke at length about the rollout of Windows Server 2008 within Microsoft. He talked about the problems they encountered running a release candidate OS, and how their rollout process works, from the test domain to the “pre-production” forest of 5000 real users, to the “real” production forest. That they’re able to run in 2008 Forest mode already is impressive to me. The discussion of using RODCs (Read Only Domain Controllers) in DMZs and remote offices was also very cool.

Dean Wells and Joe Richards – if you ever get a chance to see them speak, take it. Not only do they know things about AD that nobody in the audience knew (and the attendees at DEC are *smart*), but they present really well – personality, humor, and great new info. They covered things like exactly what AdminSDHolder does, and how precisely the Infrastructure Master role works (down to the changes inside the DIT itself). They also had a few things to say about the Second City itself.

I spoke in Centrify’s vendor track about their DirectControl product. We had a decent turnout, considering it was a vendor-specific talk. Likewise Software, NetPro software, and OptimalIDM threw some pretty great parties after hours. It was interesting meeting people like Mark Foust, Mike Dube, and Stuart Kwan from Microsoft, Manny Vellon from Likewise Software, David McNeely from Centrify, and John Serban from WaMu, and talking to them about work and other things.

I’ll follow up on Days 2 and 3, including my presentation, in the next few posts.

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!