I never thought I'd be able to say this, but I'm contributing to an open source project.

I'm pretty damn excited about it.

I use Wireshark almost every day to decode all sorts of voip messages. One thing that has always bothered me is not all the SCCP messages (the protocol used to control Cisco IP phones) are decoded properly. I would wind up referring back to the standard and decoding the hex. Ugh.

Thanks to the wonderful world of open source I can fix this.

Here's the dissector for sccp packets.

I've got my build environment all setup with SVN syncing the source from the wireshark repository.


I've compiled the code from SVN and it worked right off the bat!

Next step:

Make my modifications to packet-skinny.c and compile it again. I've got a slew of SCCP packet captures to test against.

I would love to have my name in the AUTHORS file of Wireshark. How bad ass would that be?

Wish me luck!

I passed my CCIE Voice certification.

After three grueling attempts I am finished. I managed to come out passing with CCIE # 20707.


This last test I really destroyed. I walked out of there a few minutes before the exam ended because I knew it was done.

I put as much brain power into it as I had with me. The lab was finished to the best of my ability. Apparently my ability is enough to get a CCIE.

Awesome.

I now am free to focus on anything I like. The burden of unfinished responsibility is no longer mine to bear.


I am going to celebrate. After that I am going to figure out what to do with $5000 dollars. Something shiny with an engine might be in order.

And now.. on to the rest of my goals:

1. Tour NC on my motorcycle
2. Get pilot license again
3. Write google calendar integration plugin for pidgin
4. See a motogp race
5. Rebuild web server / mail server for hosting

I just finished my third attempt at the Voice CCIE today.

My first impressions:

1. Wow, I've never seen any of these questions before.

2. Wow, I can do all of this.

3. Man, I kicked that tests ass.

Things went much better than the first two attempts.

And now... Cinco De Mayo!!!

I have to wait to get my results back tomorrow. I hope like hell that I passed. The grading can be a real bitch on this test and it's completely possible that I'll fail again... even though I think I've done everything correctly.

I'll post again when I have results tomorrow.

Took a while to update this one.

I failed my most recent round of CCIE testing.

I did better than the first time, but not good enough to pass.

I knew all of the answers, but I was not calm, cool, or collected enough to correctly apply this information in a timed test.

Next time I hope to do even better. Maybe even close to passing

I looked back and read my first post on my first CCIE attempt.

All of those things apply again.

I was more nervous than I should have been and made stupid mistakes because of it

int ser 1/0:23
shut

left unchecked for several hours.. then me doing my testing wondering.. wtf why isn't that working?

or answering some easy question, then not fully understanding the ramifications.. and making it now impossible to dial all of the phones at one site.

My configuration was done quickly enough.. I had to keep looking at the test though because it was pretty different than what I was used to setting up. My fatal flaw is not being able to just read the test, internalize, then spit it all out into one glorious and shining config

All in all there were 2 things I was unsure about, that might pass or might not.

There were 3 things I will certainly not get points for.

Now it's up to time to see if I pass or fail. I'm certain of failure.

If I pass I'll be ridiculously over joyed... but for now I'm looking to see when the next free date is I can schedule.

If passing happens I'll get drunk, buy a new comp, maybe play some WoW.

If failing happens I'll get even more drunk, schedule a new lab, and start studying again.

This test may well wind up destroying any shred of mental sanity I have left after dealing with customers.

I'll be sure to post as soon as I get my score report.

I got my CCIE Voice Lab score report this morning.

I failed.

Time to sign up for the test again and give it another try.

I would say that I was close.. but I don't know that for sure. In fact I even got 0% in some of the sections. Apparently I need to try harder.

Right now I'm just tired.

I can take it again Jan 10th in San Jose, CA.. or June in Raleigh.

We'll call this post CCIE attempt number 1. I've completed my first attempt at the CCIE. I'm not sure how high in number these posts will get.

I sat down, read through the test.. and then said WTF on about 4 or 5 of the questions. Most everything was doable... but some of it was completely out of left field and I would have had no way to study or prepare for it without having taken the test and seen that specific question.

I completed everything but 4 questions out of a 25 page test. The stuff I finished I tested and then tested again.

My rough estimate has me passing.

Cruise Control Alert:

I MIGHT NOT KNOW MY SCORE UNTIL MONDAY THE 26TH SINCE THE PROCTOR IS GOING ON VACATION.

/cruise

That's a little frustrating. Waiting 6 days to find out if I passed or not after MONTHS of studying and preparation. We'll see if I get notification sooner, but I don't think I will.


I feel completely drained. I haven't been on a normal schedule in over a month. I was on site at Cisco in the lab or working on cases for the past 30 days straight. Sometimes pulling 12 hour days just studying, or working then studying.

It will be a great relief to wake up and know I don't have to go study or be responsible for any kind of mental activity.

I hope like hell I pass to have this over with. I think I made a pretty good attempt.


The part that surprised me was how nervous I was during the entire test. I didn't have a calm "you've done this before. just repeat what you've practiced" moment. I sat down, read through the test, freaked out a little, then continued to rush and mess things up.


I can't count the number of times I typed

dp shwo rnu

instead of

do show run

or some such similar goofup. So much nervous energy.

The night before I went to bed early.. like 8:40. I woke up at 12, 1, 1:30, 2, 2:50, 3:00, 4:00, 4:30, 4:50, 5:20....

then at 5:30 I decided enough was enough.. no more sleeping for me.. and showed up early. I felt confident walking in, I even felt confident walking out knowing I didn't complete some of the questions. The ones I did complete I think I completed well.

Seeing the test format fucked me all up. It wasn't what I was expecting. Word problems never are.

If you're going to make me do something, put it in a logical order.. or make a giant diagram

I sat down.. read the whole test.. then tried to make some sort of a game plan.. at that point I felt like i was already behind though.. that's when the nervousness kicked in.. :-/


anyway... we'll wait and wait and wait.

I'll try to enjoy my Thanksgiving and get some serious relaxing in. Maybe I'll play some WoW... or read some books.. I would love to read something that wasn't Voice CCIE related.


FUCK.. I'm going to do that right now. Time to get past the second chapter of "Atlas Shrugged"

Wish me luck. Let's hope my configs don't get erased before they grade my shit (which has happened before).

Justin had some interesting comments on serviceability and error messages:

http://tinfoilsoldier.com/blog/2007/11/02/net-helpmsg/

I run into this crap CONSTANTLY day after day trying to figure out what a certain error message means. Turns out it all depends on who programmed the lines of code spitting out your specific error.

Suck! We need to make this better from the start. Programs should never print out

I now know at a glance that

-1932787616 translates to FFFFFFFF8CCC0060 which means "Directory Login Failure".... but dammit I had to open the C header file to find that error defined.

What.

The.

Fuck.

So I brought home some books and have some material here for CCIE studying.

I think it's finally time I started since I posted about it a LONG LONG time ago. So hopefully I'll stick to studying for the next few months and you guys won't be seeing too much of me.

If you do see me doing something besides studying.. yell at me.

Today we had a slow day at work. This was quite possibly the best thing that could ever happen to me.

I worked on an escalation, worked on my backlog, and just got to sit there without the phone ringing off the hook.

I even got to close a 70 day old case.

A very welcome change of pace from months of "struggle to get as much work as possible fit into the 11 hour day you know you're going to work even though you could work 24 hours straight and still be weeks behind"

Also, today the high will be below 95 degrees for the first time in a while. Good thing I rode my motorcyle in

In closing... Awesome