Bob Plankers

Bob Plankers is a man who wears many hats. In his professional career he has spent three decades leading teams that design, build, operate, and talk about reliable, secure, and compliant IT infrastructures, both in the public sector and in the high tech industry. He currently focuses on applied security, compliance, and operational resilience for virtualization and cloud platforms.

Consistency Is the Hobgoblin of Little Minds

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Ever heard someone tell you “consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds?” They’re misquoting Ralph Waldo Emerson by leaving out an important word: foolish. That’s like leaving out the word “not” in a statement. The whole meaning changes because of the omission. We can all agree that “I am on fire” and “I am not on fire” are two very different statements. The same is true here. Let’s examine the actual quote: A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. As with most things, context matters, which is what …

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Advice On Downgrading Adobe Flash

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VMware has a KB article out (linked below) about the Adobe Flash crashes that happen if you’re running the latest version of Flash (27.0.0.170). A lot of us were caught off guard recently when our PCs updated themselves and we couldn’t get into our VMware vSphere environments. The VMware KB article suggests downgrading your Flash client. Left by itself this is completely irresponsible advice. 1. The Adobe Flash update addresses a critical security vulnerability that is being exploited in the wild. The security advisory (linked below) states: Adobe has released a security update for Adobe Flash Player for Windows, Macintosh, Linux and Chrome OS. This update addresses a critical type confusion vulnerability that could lead to code execution. Adobe is …

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Stop Chrome Autoplay

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If you didn’t catch this on Twitter: If you use Google Chrome, go to chrome://flags/#autoplay-policy and set it to “Document user activation is required.” Boom: no more auto-playing videos. You’re welcome. — Chris Meadows (@robotech_master) October 3, 2017 In short, go to chrome://flags/#autoplay-policy and set it to “Document user activation required.” It’s funny how simple things can be so virally popular. While Chrome can sync settings between browsers where I am logged in, I have got to figure out if there’s an API to set Chrome configuration options automatically…

Software is Always Broken

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I’m sitting here watching my iPhone update to iOS 11.0.1. Apple says that there are just a couple of fixes: some security updates and a fix for the Exchange email problems. The update is sure taking a while, though. That’s consistent with my knowledge of how software development works. Color me skeptical that the first point release of a new iOS only has a couple of changes. My bet is that there are hundreds of fixes for all sorts of problems reported during the beta, but weren’t large enough to stop the release. Development of software like Apple’s iOS or VMware’s vCenter never stops. At a certain point someone takes a snapshot of the way it looks and decides that …

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Calibrate Your Monitor

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When I build a new computer one of the things I do as part of the setup is calibrate the color of the monitors. It’s actually pretty amazing how much better things look after just a few minutes of adjustments. It’s also nice to have the monitors synchronized, so if I move a window between them it doesn’t change color. I use Microsoft Windows 10 (1703 as of this writing) on all my desktops now, and here’s my process. Apple appears to have a similar calibration tool built in to MacOS, and all my Linux boxes are headless, so you are on your own. Sorry. 1. Reset the monitor(s) to factory settings. On my Dell LCD panels there’s a “Reset …

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Let’s Prosecute Unlicensed Engineering in IT

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Have you been watching this whole dustup with the Equifax CISO, and how people are saying that she is unqualified because, instead of a Computer Science degree, she had an MFA in music composition? Not surprisingly, there’s a massive backlash from the IT community, much of which doesn’t have a computer science degree, either. That’s part of the appeal of technology for many — on the Internet nobody knows you’re a dog. I’m a mutt, too. I’ve always found computer science programs intentionally inaccessible, with the faculty actively eschewing any form of practical curricula because they’re not a technical college. Snobbish? Yeah. Not my style. What I find very interesting in all of this is the ignorance of some of the …

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Fix WinRM Client Issues

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My team manages a lot of Dell hardware. Over the years we’ve run into situations where we have to replace the system board on a host. The system board’s management interface, iDRAC, has a license key on it, and when you replace the system board it’s helpful if you can export the license key ahead of time. That way you can reimport it again easily without getting your sales team involved to reissue a key. Unfortunately sometimes that’s not possible, such as when the iDRAC management interface is what died (my case today). Turns out that Dell has the “Dell EMC License Manager” (get it from support.dell.com under the Systems Management downloads for your hardware) which you can proactively take …

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The Dangers of Experts Writing Documentation: A Real Life Example

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There are some real, tangible dangers to having experts write documentation. Experts have the perfect tools, skip steps, know where things are based on experience, use jargon, have spare parts so mistakes aren’t a big deal, and as a result make terrible time & work estimates. This leads to confused, and subsequently angry, people, which is probably not what you wanted. I was thinking about all this as I entered my fourth hour of installing a trailer wiring harness on my Mazda CX-9 today. It’s a unit from Curt Manufacturing, kit #56016. When my CX-9 was in the shop for an alignment a few weeks back I had them put a hitch on it. They got squirrelly & weird when …

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Intel’s Memory Drive Implementation for Optane Guarantees its Doom

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A few weeks ago Intel started releasing their Optane product, a commercialization of the 3D Xpoint (Crosspoint) technology they’ve been talking about for a few years. Predictably, there has been a lot of commentary in all directions. Did you know it’s game changing, or that it’s a solution looking for a problem? It’s storage. It isn’t storage. It’s RAM. It isn’t RAM. It’s too slow to be RAM. It’s too small for storage. It’s useful now. Nobody will use it for years. Yup. Confusion. It’s because Optane is a bunch of different things. It’s consumer and enterprise, and it’s both storage and memory. There are plenty of articles out there on the technology itself. There’s a small M.2 version for desktops …

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Install the vCenter Server Appliance (VCSA) Without Ephemeral Port Groups

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Trying to install VMware vCenter in appliance/VCSA form straight to a new ESXi host? Having a problem where it isn’t listing any networks, and it’s telling you that “Non-ephemeral distributed virtual port groups are not supported” in the little informational bubble next to it? Thinking this is Chicken & Egg 101, because you can’t have an ephemeral port group without a Distributed vSwitch, and you can’t have a dvSwitch without a vCenter, so how do you install vCenter when you need something that only vCenter can create? Yeah, me too. Here’s the secret, though: don’t remove the default “VM Network” port group, or if you did, put it back, and restart the installer (or just back up to select the host …

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