Recently, a client approached me asking me the question “I’m about to deploy Configuration Management. Which tool should I use, Puppet or Chef?”. In an effort to provide them with as much non-biased data as possible, I responded in turn with the following email: Full disclosure: I have in the past worked directly for Puppet Labs, and still maintain a close relationship with them (they are another one of our customers). As a firm, we [...]

Let me preface this post… I like LDAP. A lot. I think it gets a bad rap because of its complexity. However, this post is not about the positive merits of LDAP and using it for more than address book storage or AAA within Linux. I’ll leave this fine post here if you’d like to learn more. I highly encourage it, as many of my future posts will discuss how to start using LDAP for a [...]

One of the things that I hear as I interface with technology professionals and management alike are the complex challenges that they face every day with developing and maintaining appropriate security within their organization. Security practitioners within organizations are often battling an immense amount of complexity within their organization. These complexities are only becoming more tangled as companies venture into new competitive markets, and as a result fall within the oversight of regulatory bodies and [...]

I’ve been meaning to get on the RVM bandwagon for a while now, and some conversation in the local IRC channel prompted me to take the plunge today. However, being on OSX Lion, I find myself running into all sorts of odd issues. Here’s today’s fun one…

A few years ago, a native of Tennessee passed on a recipe to me that I am now going to pass on to everyone! This is a fantastic party drink that everyone I have made this for speaks very highly of. The best part of it, it is very easy to prepare and can be made in an instant.   Word of caution: If you make this drink, please make sure that you drink responsibly. [...]

Okay,  so I ran into yet another OSX bug that is both silly in nature and somewhat concerning. First, the error: An error occurred. Unable to import “<Certificate Name”>. Error: -2147415740 ZOMG! What on earth did I do to cause OSX to spit out such a wonderful error to me? I must be doing something wrong, right? Here is the scenario: I have a group of friends that have this self-signed certificate chain. I want [...]

Travel often introduces situations that I often reflect on and wonder how on earth something happens. In this case, my story is slightly bizarre, if not worth writing down for stupidity’s sake. I’ve been on the road now since Sunday, and I brought with me four days worth of clothes. The initial idea would be that I would come out to San Jose and then fly back to Nashville. However, I have  a scheduled trip to [...]

I hate shaving. Absolutely hate it. It is one of the reasons that I grew my facial hair for so long, and was reluctant to change it. It’s such a chore to shave every single day. Also, every time that I shave I get horrible razor burn, develop a bunch of ingrown hairs, and seem to break out all over my face and look even more like a prepubescent child. What on earth can I [...]

The Honorable Marsha Blackburn 217 Cannon Building Washington, D.C. 20515 James Fryman 2633 Blair Park Circle Thompson’s Station, TN, 37179 Dear Representative, My name is James Fryman, and I am a voter of the 7th District currently residing in Thompson’s Station, TN. I am an Information Technology professional with a focus on Computer and Network Security. I am writing you today in response to your vote and cosponsoring of H.J.RES 37 (Disapproving the rule submitted by [...]

Lots of fun stuff happening recently – but not enough time to sit down and catalog. I’m going to do my best to go over some of it, but I’m sure a lot of the little details will be lost in time. If only we had that DeLorean! One more recent observation I’ve made is the concept of time here in the Philippines. This should not be a foreign concept to me, given I grew [...]