Job

I started this job almost 3 years ago. I did quit, not really quit but just took a rest for a while, for 1 year, then here I’m here again, with the same job, same environment.

Somebody says that It is not a real job, it just a part time job. Okay, you can say so, but for me it is a real job, a job that needs responsibility. It makes me realize that to work is not so easy, I have to deal with many things from not-so-pleasant things to very-annoying-things .

Then why I decided to take this job anyway ? Hmm…honestly, I thought It was cool to have a part time job, I could earn some money, making friends, enjoying life, and the more important things is I can enjoy my hobby, that is computer network.

I met computer world actually since I was in the secondary school. My father bought me a computer. It was IBM PC with MS-DOS operating system. I didn’t know anything about computer before and I didn’t have any resource or document about my computer. I just thought the device was very cool. I could play games on it, I could write a letter, and sure I did wrote my love letter,it was my 1st love letter , using WordStar. It wasn’t latest technology at that time, because It was around 1997/1998 .

That was a little history about computer and myself.

Back to my job. This noon, I went to my office to check the cabling to one of the room in my office. I needed to put another UTP because one computer was being moved. The thing is I had to put it on the plasterboard so I had to went upstairs with many unshielded electricity cable allover it. I had to be careful because of that. God, I sweat much ! Not only because the upstairs was quite hot but also it was dark so I really needed to be careful. It took about 30 minutes to put the cable. After that, I was wondering why this was quite dangerous. It shouldn’t be like that ! I think it was because no good plan when build this office. Maybe they didn’t think about capacity planning that include electricity, Internet cabling, and so on. So every time they need to put a cable, whatever the cable for, they just put it without any consideration regarding scalability of it in the future. The scalability I mention here, of course, also includes safety. That, I think, why this world needs engineers!

Geezz…surely I think I will remember this day in the future!

There are [still] hopes

OK, here the story goes…

This morning was one of my judgment day. Why I said so ? Hmm… let yourself read the whole story then you will [hopefully] find the answer .

Antennas and Electromagnetic waves lecture is one of the compulsory subject I have to take in my major. I’ve already taken this subject twice, and now I haven’t pass it yet. If I don’t pass this subject this semester, I cannot graduate in the next July

Antenna, I called it for short, is one of the most difficult subject in my Major. Taught by the very famous professor in my major (yes, because he has been teaching this subject since I don’t know when, 30 years ?, and everyone who graduate from my major in my university must know him and must have good impression about the way he teaches ). IMO, he has a good and deep knowledge about antenna and electromagnetic waves. It is difficult to get A in his lecture, umm… please don’t say A, C is enough to prove that student _enough_to_be_said_ understand about antenna and electromagnetic waves propagation.

There are 7 quizzes and 2 exams. To get C, I have to earn 5.5 points. And until now, I’ve just earned 50 % points to get C . There are still 3 quizzes and 1 exam left. And I have to earn 30 points (!) from all the quizzes. In other word, I’ve to earn 10 points ! each quiz . How difficult it will be… (

Then why I said there are [still] hopes ? Because 10 points is possible ! It is the maximum point though, but you get my point, rite ? It _is_ possible ! I got 7.3 for this morning quiz, quite better than the previous quiz, 2 :p.

Thirty points left to go. Let myself study harder and do the best.

Miracle is the last hope after hard work !

Another stupid thing

After changing my network topology, I forgot to add this in the postfix main.cf :

$grep -e “mynetworks =” /usr/local/etc/postfix/main.cf
mynetworks = aaa.bbb.ccc.ddd/xx

This entry must be added because the network is now divided into 2 subnets, and it is already stated in main.cf that “mynetworks_style” is subnet.

$grep -e “mynetworks_style” /usr/local/etc/postfix/main.cf
mynetworks_style = subnet

Because of this problem, the user that using POP3 MUA to retrieve and send email and outside the scope of the subnet (previously it was /25 and now it is /26) can’t use the mail server as relay server (relay access denied).

Ughh…. should be more careful next time !

Scoping on windows filesharing

Just discovered something in windows file and printer sharing.

One of the staff in my office asked me why she couldn’t see other computers in her “My Network Places”. Hmm… this I had predicted before.

Last Saturday, I changed the topology of our office network. Formerly, our office network is a flat network and the router was outside our building, in the NOC building. We just had a cisco WS-C3524-XL which connecting our network through the router using VLAN. This kind of network I inherited from the previous network administrator in my office. I hate this kind of topology because It makes me difficult to manage my network.

After changing the cabling topology, I installed a PC-based router and divided my flat network into 2 subnets based on the organizations in my office. FYI, in my office, there are 2 organizations that have different management. Everything was under control until I found out that some computers that shared same hub doesn’t has connection to one of the segment as I intended. It is connected to different segment. It was so late, so I decided to go home. Just a bit of change on some computers can be done later, I thought.

And as I had predicted before, there was a complain in the Monday afternoon .

I searched on the Microsoft website to find the possible solution. I found out a solution to modify the firewall on the corresponding computer. It didn’t say about scoping explicitly, but it was a good start. From “Windows Firewall” window, I found “Exceptions” tab. Scrolling down, I saw that “File and Printer Sharing” already checked. Looking deeper in the options, I found that the default option is subnet.

By changing “subnet” option to “custom” and filling to the intended subnet, the corresponding PC can decide which other PCs that can connect to it.

Hello world!