Batter, Batter, Batter, SWING!!!

I was suppose to have this week off. Oh wait… I was suppose to have last week off and got delayed to this week. I am so frustrated by whoever the idiot is who keeps hiring the hackers that I coulds scream.

Kevin is keeping up with the installs. I’m handling the stuff I usually deal with, including Mr. “I forgot how to clear my cookies”. Poor George is up to his eyeballs in hack attacks. They seem to like hitting our network around 10pm, just as George is heading off to bed. So, up he gets when the server screams….(insert auuugha noise here) and off he goes to battle whichever idiot is trying to hack the system. It usually takes him about 6 hours to stop the attacks. Plus, reset the network, servers etc.  So far, we have noticed just a few things….

• All the hackers are West Coasties.
• There are at least 5 so far.
• Only one has gotten past the outermost firewall
• We have no idea of what the hell started all of this.
• George is not a terrorist or whatever else the $$$ is telling the hackers he is.

This whole thing is drivng us nuts. George isn’t getting any sleep. It is making him very crabby. I told him to go take a nap today. He actually did it. The hackers don’t seem to attack during business hours which also makes us think that they are doing it on the side. Why we are being attacked like we had some sort of information is beyond us. We are just tired of it. At this point, George is just about ready to call the local branch of the FBI. He has a bunch of info to give them about the hackers.

Meanwhile, when I’m not dealing with Mission Impossible Central, I have been taking classes. 4.0 grade point average so far! Scary class starts next week. Business Algebra…… Pete and George both say they will help. Now to not melt into a bowl full of jello!!!

Hackers part 2

Ok, the idiot didn’t give up. George got peeved enough at him that he actually called the guy at his desk. Tried to tell the guy that hacking an ISP is against the law. Something to do with the Homeland Security Act…

The guy still didn’t get it. Some idiot walked in with a big check, and told the guy that George was some kind of evil genius terrorist. That hacking him would save the planet, etc….

Oh My Bloody Gods.  pounds head on desk repeatedly

I think it took George an hour to convince the guy that he WASN’T the bad guy. I gave up trying to work and went home at noon, because George was still talking to the idiot. Maybe, just Maybe by next week this will all be done and I can get back to work. Better be soon, because billings need to go out and I still don’t know which one is my accounting server!

Hackers

Work has been interesting. Slow, but that is ok. Probably a good thing all considered. Between me trying to cope with my classes, dates with Pete and everyday stuff, the hackers attacking our network has made things frustrating. Three days ago, George noticed that the network was working harder than it should be. He started investigating it and noticed that we had someone trying to hack our server. He smiled and went to take care of it. He figured that it was gone, as we have hack attackes from time to time. Just the sort of thing that happens because we are an ISP. Idiots think that they are l33t h@ks0rs… and have to prove their testoterone driven systems by attacking other computers. No, I do not understand that aspect of being a geek at all.

Then last night, George’s computer started screaming at the top of it’s little speakers voice. A claxon alarm. Once he got it shut off, all I heard was “Dammit all to fuck” and the sound of the network being torn apart. Good thing I was done with work early and we had just been sitting around talking. When I left, George was knee deep in computer wires. He was ripping things apart because some hacker had gotten all the way into his system. Not sure if he was shredding the network because of safety issues or because it stung his pride. Either way, I was getting out of there.

Came to work this morning to find that my desk had been moved. I have a new monitor to use with my system and the entire office has been redone. It will take me at least a week to figure out where George has relocated everything. I’m not even going to think about the actual system. I really didn’t understand all the ins and outs of the various machines, and George has taken off all the taped names off them for the moment. They had been named after Lord of the Rings characters. Aragorn was the server, my machine was Galadriel, etc. Now I think George said he was using the Kama Sutra or Hindu mythology. All I know is that the big bad server is now called Kali. I’ll have to wait until he gives me all the particulars and passwords later. Meanwhile, I don’t even have a printer. If I want to print, I have to drag a cord across the offce.  I’m just wondering what George did to the hacker. He has a bag of tricks, and none of them nice.

I’ve got a date with Pete tonight. I think we are going to the movies. Night at the Museum II is playing. What I want to see is the other Iron Man movie. At least while we are at the movies, Pete won’t ask me how class is going. I’m doing alright, but I am not sure I am ready for Accounting II. Yuck. I have psch I and Business ethics coming up. Wheee…. I get to learn how to ethically play with your mind.

I am SO Pissed…

The Financial Aid office is at the top of my hit list this week. I think I have taken them copies of my taxes and other financial documents at least eight times. I faxed the first set and they wouldn’t take it because I didn’t add a cover sheet. So, next time I sent it in with Pete. No, that wasn’t good enough either. I had to sign a copy in front of them. Then, they lost my file. I was so pissed by this point that I think I had steam coming out of my ears.

But…. do you know what the last straw was? Their computer crashed. I’m standing there, watching it happen and know I can fix it. I tell them that I can fix it. Oh no! They have to call a professional. So, I leave.

I get back to the office after lunch and there is a phone message…. Can You Guess Who? Yep! College Admissions Office!

So, I put my nice little office id on my shirt, grabbed one of the clipboards and head out. When I get to the office, the gal looks at me and tells me that she still can’t process my financial aid because her computer is still down. I tell her I know, and that I’m here to fix it. She didn’t believe me. So, I show her the id. She looks at it like I forged it. I got pissed and called George, and let him talk to this idiot. I could tell he was mad, because he sounded so polite while he shouted that “Yes, she IS the TECH!”

I got to work, and discovered that the computer had a virus. The ditzy secretary had been cruising the Internet on her lunch hour. Lots of social sites and she picked up a bug. Such fun. Oh, and she hadn’t updated in about six months. This being a Windows machine meant that it took me nearly three hours to download the updates, reinstall the virus software and then bring the machine back up. I took off all of her twee little task bars and set it back to the college standards. That freed up almost a gig of hard drive space. Stupid People!!!

However, my financial aid paperwork is all done and the company is $350 richer. Ha!

Classes and questions

Okay, I’ve started more classes. Since I’m not doing just a one off adult ed class, I had to do all the financial paperwork like FAFSA. Of course, I had to tease George. Told him I needed to quit work, as I made too much money. Once he got over the ice cream headache, I explained that if I wanted a Pell grant and a free ride, I’d have to make less money. As it is, my cost is about $150 a month. Not bad as I am going for a business degree.

I no sooner got my first class roster than Pete grabbed it, hauled me to an adviser he’s friends with and changed it all. Now it’s a business TECH degree… Can I scream now? Oh, and George took one look at my first class-MS Office Suite… and decided that he could crib from it for his project with Kevin. The business is branching out into training. sigh…

On a sad note, our 9am joke calls will now have to be made from heaven. Our client who called and told us a joke each morning died suddenly.

I also switched my machine to dual boot. Not happy about it, but most of my classes use Windows. grrrrr….. I don’t wannna~~~~~waaaaaaaa!!!!! My computer now runs Windows XP and Ubuntu 9.04. I will get use to it eventually. Answer me this though if you have a clue…. Why does a college that touts just how advanced it is in technology not cater to anything except Windows apps? They won’t even use Firefox! That was a real culture shock. I haven’t used Internet Exploder in 5 years! However, as I told George and Pete, I do wash my hands after I log off Windows….  I thought that they were going to die laughing. Kevin who overheard me sprayed Dr. Pepper all over his lap.

Back to school

Good thing I like him… Pete and George were talking and the two of them ganged up on me… About college. Granted, Pete has an unfair advantage. He is a college professor. Don’t know how I missed that at first. I guess I just figured he was a high school teacher when he said he taught. Never asked where… But George did! (sigh….) Pete picked me up at work one afternoon and George started talking to him while I got ready. George found out more in 15 minutes than I had in five dates! Pete teaches political history, and governmental studies at the college. Which is why I didn’t run into him when I was taking my accounting class.

This of course lead to a conversation as to why I hadn’t gotten my degree… Now they are trying to talk me into getting a Bachelors in Business management. I’m still trying to resist.

I also learned a lot about George listening to the two of them talking. George did stuff in the military, which I suspected he was in, but never had any conformation. He and Pete were talking about the job George had last month. The one where the government was milking techs for information and not paying them. It was this whole scheme where they’d call you up, and give you a few trial jobs as part of the interview process… You’d fix the tech issues and then have an interview. Next thing you knew, after maybe 20 hours of work, you’d be waiting to get a phone call saying you had a job…. Instead, you got a call saying “no thanks!”.  George billed them for 50 hours with most of the the work done on this virus, Ghost.rat. They did the whole “yeah, get the contract signed and paide at the end of the month…” I don’t think he even got home before they called him and said “thanks, but no thanks!” Oh he was furious. Once again, there was military crap that he couldn’t talk about and that kind of thing, but oh… He was so angry. The only good part of the whole deal is that he made a patch for the virus, but didn’t give them all of the documentation. This way, they can’t do anything but let his repair work. No source code to play with or anything else. So, if Ghost.rat  eats them for lunch, they are just screwed.

The other thing going on around here is an effort by George and Kevin to revamp the business. Repairs are going down the tubes. People rather just throw things away than fix them. Expecially if the fix is going to cost almost as much as a new computer. The guys are trying to figure out how to make the business work without the repairs section bringing in as much revenue.

argh……

rePete or is that Repeat?

I haven’t posted much, because I feel like I have nothing new to say. Gads, that sounds lame, but it is true.

Viruses… I am still doing all the low level tech work because George is gone so much of the time lately. He’s up working with this company that has a defense service contract about 100 miles from us. George actually got ahead of the big boys on this monster and now he is being tapped to help kill it. Makes me really wonder what George did before he ended up here. Oh well, I’ll never know. Not unless I get George really drunk… (ha! like that will ever happen)

Frustrating part is that George can’t talk about a lot of what he is doing because it is “classified” stuff. sigh… No juicy stories… pout. I’m not sure what is irritating him more. The work, the stupidity of the people he’s working with, the hush hush games or the virus. Either way, he is antsy as all hell when he goes up and must call me 8-10 times a day while he’s gone. Mostly to let off steam. Last week he called and asked me if I had those laptop parts yet. I said “Huh?” because I didn’t know what he was talking about. Then he said, “You know, the one for the Yarr’s computer.”  The Yarr’s have a desktop pc older than dirt, which is when I figured that he wanted to come home. I replied that I had it and he had better get back quick, because they wanted it yesterday! George then said he’d be back in 2 hours. Found out later that he’d had enough bullshit, and needed a way out. Whee!!!

George left this morning in the snow, and I’m sure I’ll hear from him once or twice before the day is over. This is one job I just wish was over and the invoices paid. Over 75 hours logged and not a dime yet, because it is a sub-contract. grrrr.

Our other two techs, Dan and Kevin have only been working part time. Not enough work. The only reason that I still work full time is because George is out of the office so much that someone has to answer the phones. Hughes, our competition we love to hate has closed his shop. Still working from home, but no more storefront. They had a picture of the guy in the newspaper rewiring a phone system. Oh my! What a mess… George figures it will be about a month before they call us in to repair his “repair”.

Then there is Pete. sigh…… Ah, the way to a g33kgURL’s heart. He likes that I’m computer savvy. That I have a brain and I’m not afraid to use it. We went to the local bookstore’s chess night last week. He played. I watched. It has been way too long since I played chess. I could have sat down and played with the beginners, but it was nice to just watch. Afterwards, we went out for chinese.

Mr. Clark likes Pete too. I guess that is a bonus as my sister and brother suspect him of some dire deed. Can’t figure that one out, but neither one really likes him. Oh well. They aren’t dating him.  Maybe it was the fact that the other day I missed a family dinner because Pete and I were too busy smooching on the couch!   Oh well. Don’t care. And for the record, this blog is staying G rated. I so am not publishing my love life online.

Viruses are us…

Oh. My. God! I am so sick of viruses that I could scream. Here I am supposedly studying for my A+ exams in a month and all I do is load Clamwin and debug machines at the moment. There are a bunch of new viruses out that just hammer machines. Open up back doors and copy keystrokes, take screenshots, turn off your virus and update programs and make a hash out of your system. Ugggghh….. And why am I doing it all? Well……

After the other day when I made an off the cuff comment and came up with a solution, I get to “sharpen” my skills. All I said was that “if you can’t get the desktop to respond, why don’t you shove a live distro disk in and see if that will let you access the data”. Apparently, that was the answer sent from heaven and I didn’t even know it. I’d just been listening to George and Kevin complain about this virus that left your icons up and didn’t let you use your mouse. I thought about the live distro and suggested it. It was an answer to the problem. Wow…..

So, I’m doing all the low level stuff so that they can concentrate on the big and bad stuff. Oh, and redoing yet another Hughes job. The guy is an idiot. However, he is our best asset. He gets us more customers than an ad in the papers.

However, the best thing going on lately and the main reason I haven’t posted as much…. is because I have been dating!!! No fainting! Oh hell, I about passed out. Pete, the guy I did the install for….. the #7 on the cute scale, came in a few days later to say that he was having some issues with Fedora. Learning curve stuff. So, George sent him over to me. I was so embarrassed. Here is this gorgeous guy asking me computer questions. So, I took a deep breath, pretended he was my brother Jim, and started answering questions. It took about an hour. Most of it was file issues and music. Fedora doesn’t do mp3’s, so you have to add stuff via root. It took a little bit, but not too long. I gave him the bill, and as he paid it he said he had one more question. I said, “ok”, and was putting his check in the drawer when he asked if I’d like to go out for lunch.

I’m pretty sure you could hear a pin drop all the way to the corner. I just blinked and then like an idiot, asked him “What?”. Where upon he was nice enough to aske me again. After turning beet red, I said yes. Ten minutes later, we were out the door and off to the Bistro. It’s a new place that serves decent food. I had only been there once as it is clear across town and I usually don’t have time. We ate and then Pete dropped me back at work.

I was ready to hit George and the other techs, because they would not stop asking questions. And, if I ever find out which one of them called my mom,…… Geeze! One Lunch, and they have me married. OOOOOOOOHHHHHhhhh!!!

Three days later, he called and asked me out. Pete had forgotten to get my home number, so he called work. Of course, George answered the phone…. and afterwards I had to deal with him teasing me.

We went to the movies, and saw Taken. Wow! That was a cool movie. Funny part is that I kept thinking that the Liam Neeson character reminded me of George. Odd….. Granted, I don’t know what George did before he came here. Maybe I’ll ask. Back to the date. It ws a nice relaxed date. He didn’t even try to kiss me. However, we chatted a lot about work and families. (single, no former wives lurking in dark corners, 1 dog, fairly new to town, no family locally, works for the city) When I asked him why he decided to ask me out, he said….”you seemed a bright and intellegent woman. someone I could hold a real conversation with who didn’t giggle everytime I said file, byte, gigs or notebook in a conversation.”

Huzzah for being a g33k! I love being appreciated for my brains. Even if they are scrambled by blue screens of virused death!

Install goddess-hood!

We got this laptop in a few days ago. Totally virused and the owner wanted a new operating system on it. No one had time to do it what with the work load we’ve had. The owner called and asked how it was going. I didn’t want to lie, but said that it was being worked on and should be ready by the weekend if all went well.

I gave George an update when he came in that evening and he said that starting tomorrow, I could back up all the data and start working on the computer. I flustered. He said I could do it, as I’d done it on my own machine. He had me there. So, I got started on copying the data to these little thumb drives that Patriot makes. 8gb in a drive the size of my thumb joint. The guy had about 14gb of data on this thing. I got it done and then told George it was ready for him to put on the new operating system.

George laughed and told me to get on with it.  huh??? George smiled and told me I could do it.  yeah, right! He said he’d walk me thought it, but I had to do everything.  Okay…. The guy wanted Fedora 10 on the laptop. I got on the web, and went to the Fedora project page. I started downloading the iso image and answered a few calls while that was going on.

Then, I burned a cd of the iso image. George just smiled. After that, I checked to see if the laptop could boot from CD and then booted the disk. Up it came, and I did the install. It was a LOT easier than I figured it would be! After I got the basic install done, I got the updates and then loaded some of the programs on that were needed like Open Office, Gimp, Scribus and such. Then I re-installed his data, restored his bookmarks on Firefox and his email on Evolution. Wow that one was easy! Everything worked!

Today, the guy came to pick it up. (a 7 on the cute meter!) He was very happy with it and told me to give the tech his thanks. I said, “Your’re welcome.” and he gave me a puzzled look. I then had to explain that I was the tech who did the work. Oh was he surprized. He paid his bill and even gave me a $5 tip! Wheeee!!! I could get use to this.

What I didn’t know was that George and Dan were watching from the breakroom. After the guy left, they teased me about flirting with the customers! argh…. However, even their silly Boyz behaivor couldn’t spoil my day. I wouldn’t share my tip either!

Wheeeee!!!!

ps…. George wants me to go for my A+ exams now…..

Certifiably Geekieeeee!!!

We have been working our asses off! Hughes screwed up some major jobs and we have been rewiring things until I’m seeing wiring diagrams in my sleep. Oh, and let’s not forget the phones. They  have been ringing like crazy too. I’d thought with so many out of work, that we’d actually slow down. Nope! Weird!!!

We had to go up to our warehouse supply store that does all the right bits for the right prices. Windtronics. They are always so nice. Bottles of water, good conversation, cookies sometimes and lots of cool stuff to buy. George went in for two phone connectors. (yet another Hughes job) What he found though was this bag he could put all of his tools in for half the weight and price of other bags he’d been looking at.

George wrenched his back a week or so ago trying to lift a toolbag weighing 75 pounds on the run. (stupid man!) So, he has been trying to downsize his stuff ever since. His new Samsung NC10 came in and he has been over the moon with it. But,… back to the bag. It was adjustable, just like a camera bag. Lots of bits to change around and fiddle with. He put it up on the counter and said if he could make things fit, he’d buy it. The counter help at Windtronics just laughed and helped him out. 25 minutes later, everything except the laptop was in the bag! We were paying for the bag and the connectors when the boss came out and gave us each a tool kit with pouch about the size of a small apple and a pocket protector with Windtronics on it. I laughed so hard I could barely breathe!

They said that I was now a certified geek! LOL!!!! I proudly stuck it in my handbag with the ad flap sticking out. The tool kit is pretty cool too. Drivers, hex tools and a mini wrench. Best of all, I don’t have to share!