Power (overwhelming)

Posted on by Michael

I actually built this quite awhile ago, but hadn’t blogged about it yet…

http://www2.wou.edu/pls/wou2/housing.ackerman.power_usage

With the help of many folks, we can measure the power usage of each community in Ackerman Hall (the new green residence hall), and graph them against each other.

We are pulling data every hour, with incremental usage totals. This will give us a myriad of opportunities to slice-n-dice the data and make all kinds of charts and graphs.

Next week I’ll be meeting with Patrick Moser from Housing, to discuss their needs/wants and some of our creative ideas to maximize this data and these graphs.

Oracle UTL_HTTP

Posted on by Michael

VERY cool…

I found some UTL_HTTP code that will make my life and possibly others easier.
In the past we’ve had some need for PL/SQL to “post” data to a URL (usually off campus) and retrieve the response.
Throughout many attempts, I have always been thwarted. But, at last, I have overcome. I found some code on the web that was already organized into a PL spec/body so I copied it and compiled. Looks simple, seemed to work OK. But I’ve pulled code off of webpages before, so that’s no big deal.

It’s the POST that’s complicated. AND the response.

So I did something naughty. I passed the form variables in the URL AND told the page to POST … and something magic happened. No errors. A little more screwing around and lo-and-behold – I found return data in the third header … or the 2nd one … I don’t remember. I tried again without doing both and I got errors and crashing and …

But it works. You can POST data to a website inside of the code, AND get a response AND do something about it … all on the server … all securely … all without pain or delay.

It’s brilliant.
The procedure also has the ability to use a username/password and a web proxy. These are details that might be handy to authenticate to our Wiki server, or mine data out of a website remotely. Who knows?

re-Captcha

Posted on by Michael

To enhance security on our digital systems, WOU has begun to implement re-Captcha.

The captcha technology is designed to make it so that “bots” (automated computer scripts) cannot attempt to hack into web pages. Computer programs have advanced to read letters out of standard images, so the captcha images are purposefully obfuscated to allow humans to read it (although possibly not easily) and impossible for computers.

As an added value, re-Captcha uses real scans from books or magazines as the security words. So, in the process of security campus systems we also help Google digitize old copies of documents that computers have had difficulty with.
It’s the perfect marriage – security + academic progress!

Overall, the system works quite well. I’ve only had problems once or twice when entering the words. It allows you to refresh many times to find an image you think you can type in. Also, it provides an audio version for those unable to read the messy letters.

Mini Dreams

Posted on by Michael

Multiplication!

I now have 34 Mac Mini’s with which to cluster.
Cloud computing is becoming all-the-rage, and I intend to plug a bunch of these bad boys in and cluster them together to do…something.

I’m thinking Ubuntu Cloud.

Again, still don’t have any real SETI-type work to do, but having a cloud just seems super powerful, and like a lot of fun. That’s why the call it research, eh?

Updates Burst

Posted on by Michael

There is a lot going on. September has arrived. Busyness has increased. Stress is climbing. Projects are nearing completion. Vacation time will have to wait until November…

Yet hope remains.

Today I sent my touch-screen Dell over to Richard so he could start monitoring the network. The Cisco IPS has been a really valuable tool in securing our network perimeter. It tells about of basically everything and we can simply filter out events that aren’t helpful/pertinent.

I cleaned up my desk and am trying to prioritize my myriad of tasks to help me stay organized during this busy and stressful time of year – in preparation for a new school year.

We released the SSO bar and the video. The Web2.0 experiment appears to have failed, but I don’t really like Web2.0 so I’m not really disappointed.
We have two upcoming videos starring … NOT ME. I’m excited to be able to give other staff member the opportunity to present areas of expertise and increase general knowledge/training of topics like security, VDI and Banner/EDW.

I’ve been working with Dr. Dukes and Mike Ross to get the Health and Wellness center program purchased and rolling. Ross will be taking over this project next week – after I help them finalize some details.

We’ve made some upgrades to DNS/DHCP that will help the campus run more securely and with greater stability.

That’s all for now.

Internet Security

Posted on by Michael

We’ll we’ve talked about it before, and we’ll do it again.
Phishing.
It’s when you get an email, that says it’s from Ebay or your bank … or us, and asks you for your password, or gives you a link to login to, or … whatever. But if you do, then naughty people have access to your information and you spend the next 3-6 months fixing your credit cards, or email account or … whatever.

Here’s the thing: The Internet is not secure. It’s not nice. It’s not safe. Not really.

You CAN safely surf the internet and bank online and buy things on eBay. CAN. Please don’t assume that everything you do online is “safe”, “secure” and “anonymous”.

Here’s a list of digital weirdness to avoid:

  • Phishing

  • Email attachments

  • Websites containing questionable material

  • Websites asking you to install a plug-in

  • Reasonably normal software asking you to install a Toolbar

  • Floppies. Seriously.

  • Free wallpaper, screensavers

  • Emails from people in foreign countries offering to send you $

  • Links in emails or social networking sites to generic places like “my beach pictures”

  • “Free” antivirus (besides AVG or something from a known provider)

  • Entering personal information into a page without the magic golden lock

You know, we really do like answering questions. Ask us! We like to help. Have you asked 20 times already? Ask again! We’d much rather answer a 20 second question, then have to take your machine for 4 hours and rebuild it from scratch. So would you 🙂

I’m going to be releasing an Internet Security video soon. It’ll give everyone a brief overview of things to do (and not to do) and how to stay safe on the Internet.

Best practice: If you’re not sure – don’t. Wait and ask us. We’re happy to help.

Web 2.?

Posted on by Michael

You know…
Web 2.0

It’s all the rage… I think. So I tried it. We posted a video attached to a new project, and I setup a Web2.0 interface. Does it work? Sure. But … does it work? The vote is still out.

I, personally, just don’t get it. Why would people want to comment about everything? More importantly – when do they have the time?
Oh well, I guess I’ll just have to wait and see.

VDI

Posted on by Michael

Well, we’ve got two now. Oracle & VMWare both have solutions that we’ve implemented in test.
Next week we’ll make our final decision and work to put a VDI architecture into production for Fall Term. That gives us just a few weeks to finalize details, test and roll it out to one computer lab on campus. That lab will be in production for Fall Term for load/stress testing and will give us a better understanding of rolling it out to campus. Once we’ve done that, we can begin migrating things off of the Terminal Servers. That’ll mean less maintenance, headache, frustration and we can pour that time and resource into VDI.

The Single Sign-On family keeps growing, and growing…

Posted on by Michael

You’ve heard it here … now:

WOUAlert
&
BannerINB

can now be accessed via the WOUPortal. Where you ask? Well, next week you’ll see the new Single Sign-On bar in all it’s glory.

BannerINB users have some additional security requirements but WOUAlert is significantly simplified. Even brand-new users that may not have been uploaded can successfully access WOUAlert via the WOUPortal.

VPN

Posted on by Michael

Last week Steve (Mountain States Networking), Paul and I worked on setting up some VPN technology. Our security configuration creates quite a bit of complication, for a seemingly simple project. We prepared to setup off-site access VPN, but ran into some of those complications and put that on the backburner.
We then turned our attention to site-to-site VPN (for a TRI Eugene project), and ran into nearly the same issue. With both of those complications, we decided to take a step back and spend a lot more time doing design, etc… before we plunge in again.