Dear DNS administrators
If you administer a DNS server, please... know the rules and follow them!
NS records must be a valid, fully-qualified domain name (FQDN). They should (I think "must," but I haven't taken the time to be sure) match the nameservers listed in your whois/root-delegate record.
Your SOA record must point to a valid, FQDN nameserver that is the primary authority for the domain's records. That's what start-of-authority means.
These aren't just courtesy... using invalid information in your NS or SOA records will cause problems for caching name servers, and will result in users who cannot reliably reach your site. And they don't have to run a "broken" caching DNS server themselves... BIND9 gets confused by caching invalid NS records, returning a valid response on early attempts, but later returning "host not found" responses because it can't reach the invalid NS server. (Because it cached the NS record, not the root-delegate information.... your broken DNS record told it that record was authoritative, after all.)
If you are the DNS admin for a hosting service and you publish broken DNS records for your customers, and then argue with the person who points it out to you that "everything works fine"... you deserve to be fired. I will suggest that your customers find a more reliable hosting service.
Oh... and your SOA record better have a valid, properly-formatted contact in it. And keep your primary and secondary in sync... they shouldn't return conflicting information for days and days.
Long story short, if you don't understand DNS, keep your paws off of it, and don't you dare put "DNS administration" on your resume. Find a mentor who can review your work before you commit it to a public server. Set up a private server and practice on it. Read "DNS & BIND" for gosh sakes. It wouldn't hurt you to skim the relevant RFCs.
And never forget: Just because your DNS server _lets_ you do it does not mean that it is safe or valid to do it. Your DNS server is stupid (even BIND9, yes) about the rules and will let you do many evil things without a hint of complaint.
If you're using BIND9, use named-checkconf and named-checkzone. Get dnswalk and run it against your nameserver.
I'm not a DNS expert. There are a lot of little nooks and crannies that I've not explored or needed to use. But dammit, NS, MX, SOA, A, and CNAME records.... these are the basics, folks. If you can't play by the rules, please don't play at all.
Because you have wasted far too much of my day.
This has been a public service announcement. Thank you for listening.
A Guitar Center experience, with a happy ending.
Thanks to a little Christmas money, I just bought a "real" guitar... something a step above the rock-bottom basic models, with a solid-wood top. A Yamaha FG730S, if you must know, but that's not terribly important. This story isn't about the guitar, it's about the Guitar Center in Wichita, KS.
Now, before I even asked for GC gift cards, I had picked out three models I knew I was interested in. Something around $300, solid-wood top, quality construction. (A Seagull, a Yamaha and a Takamine, if you must know.) Something that wouldn't give me fits like my $80 used Harmony that just couldn't be adjusted to suit me.
So, armed with my gift card, I headed down to Guitar Center with the intent to play all three, maybe couple others in stock, and probably pick one. Little did I know that today was the last day of their extended holiday hours, and it was a popular day to be there. At any given time, there were at least five people in the acoustic room playing... at least two different guys who were playing loudly and SINGING, one of them for nearly half-an-hour. One guy was having a jam session with his girlfriend and her little brother (I guess). I picked up a guitar, but I couldn't even hear it clearly. I wandered off to look at books, and wandered back every so often... the people playing rotated, but there were several people who walked in, looked at how many people were in there, and promptly walked back out.
Thing is, I'm pretty sure that the people who were in there the longest and playing the loudest had no intention of actually buying a guitar. Certainly the trio jamming away weren't planning on buying three. And I get that Guitar Center is about hands-on, getting to play the guitar before you buy, but this was too much.
After about 45 minutes I gave up and went home, figuring I'd either go back on Monday during the day (I have the week off) or maybe I'd run down there later tonight around 6... they normally close at 6 on Sundays, but were open until 7 for the holiday. So figuring most people won't know they're open, or are dealing with dinner or whatnot, I got impatient and headed back down to arrive at 6. And it paid off... I had the acoustic room all to myself for close to an hour.
Now here's where it got even better. I had checked the web and knew they should have all three models I wanted to try in stock. I tried the Takamine first and it just didn't live up to all the rave I've heard about it... I was disappointed and I easily knocked that one out of the running. So I started looking around for the other two models and couldn't find them, just as an employee walked in... the first that had spoken to me.
Now, I have to disclose, it turns out I know the guy. Will used to play guitar at a church I attended for several years, and he's a pretty cool guy. I hadn't seen him around GC for awhile, but he remembered me. So he hunted down the two guitars I wanted and I set to comparing them.
So, giving them both a shot, it was a much better experience than with the Takamine. I wanted to like the Seagull better... even though it was most expensive, it was also the most beautiful, had a slightly wider than standard neck which I liked, and it's made in Canada instead of Asia. (Though both Yamaha and Takamine are very respectable guitar makers, I'm trying to spend my money closer to home if I can.) But I couldn't... it was just too brassy and not as clear when strummed with a fingernail or pick compared to the Yamaha. And Will even unpacked a second identical Seagull out of the back room and let me try that, since, being made of wood, each guitar is unique and may sound different. (I'll note that this model was, at sticker, a hundred bucks more than the Yamaha, so I'm sure he'd like to make the higher dollar sale.) And the second one did sound better, but it still didn't sound as good as the Yamaha. And, dollar value not withstanding, Will agreed.
I sat there with the two guitars on stands on front of me, alternating between them... playing something on one, then the same on the other. I wanted to prefer the Seagull, but I was having a hard time making up my mind. It wasn't bad, and it was brighter than the Yamaha, just a little too bright when played even a little aggressively.
At the crucial decision point, a couple teens (maybe early twenties) came in and started playing. They weren't terribly loud, but they did make the process harder. But after a few minutes, they realized I was trying to make a real purchasing choice, and they kept it quiet for the five minutes or so that I needed to make up my mind. Thank you, who ever you were, for not being Guitar Center wankers. I appreciated the gesture, and I'm sorry I didn't get a chance to actually thank you while I was there.
I gave in and choose the Yamaha. It really did sound better to me, and it didn't hurt that it was the cheaper of the two... and when I looked at the tag, it turned out to be discounted even lower than the website price.
My thanks to Will, who was very helpful, and stayed after 7 on a Sunday, at the end of a nine-hour busy holiday shift when Sunday is normally six hours, without pressuring me to make a decision or giving me any kind of attitude about it.
Sometimes Guitar Center is noisier than I like, and sometimes the customers make it difficult to talk to the sales people or to hear the instrument you're demoing, but I've been very pleased with the service I've received in the several times I've been in the store. I started with buying microphones a couple years ago, looked at buying my son and myself guitars over a year ago, looked at digital pianos for my son, bought harmonicas, strings, picks, capos and so on. Every time, the staff has been helpful and courteous, no matter how many tattoos or piercings they had. I'm kind of a straight-laced 40-year-old, and I don't really feel like I "fit in" at Guitar Center, but no staff member has ever made me feel like I don't belong there.
That isn't the story I typically hear about Guitar Center elsewhere, so I thought it worth sharing.
Microcredit… an alternative to a hand-out
I make a reasonable living, and I share a portion of my income with
those in need, both through my church and through
Heifer International. I like Heifer
because they do more than just give aid... they provide livestock
(cows, goats, chickens and so on) and training to the poor in
third-world countries, with a requirement that the first female
offspring be given to someone else in the community. Give a man a
fish and he eats for a day, give a family a cow and pretty soon
everyone in the village has their own cow. (Well, assuming there's a
bull around.)
Now I think this is great... my money doesn't feed a family for a
couple days, it helps provide the seed that can pull an entire family
or even community out of poverty by giving them an long-term
advantage.
A few months ago, I learned of another organization that I like for
similar reasons... Kiva. Kiva is a
microcredit (Wikipedia)
organization. Microcredit is the extension of very small loans to the
poor who are unable to get a loan at a traditional bank. In Kiva's
case, these loans are to small businesses in poor countries. (Made
through local microfinance banks in the borrower's country.)
And the really fun thing about Kiva is that you're not giving your
money away... you're just loaning it. You receive no interest, and
it's always possible that you may lose the money if a borrower
defaults on a loan. Barring a default, eventually your loaned money
gets credited back to your account. Then you can loan it out again,
or even (easily) request Kiva return your money. Out of the
eight nine loans (just re-loaned another $25) I've
made starting seven months ago, not one borrower has missed a payment.
One of the other fun things about Kiva is that you actually get to
pick which entrepreneur you want to support. You can loan as little
as $25, and your money gets pooled with other loaners to meet the
amount being asked for. You can view photographs and summaries of
what each business is involved in or starting up, how much money they
want to borrow, and why they want to borrow it. It might be a farmer
needing $300 to buy seed for this year's planting. Or a shop keeper
wanting to expand her inventory. Or a taxi driver who needs to repair
his car to say in business.
"It takes money to make money," as they say, and Kiva gives the poor
entrepreneur the financial leverage necessary to get their business
off the ground, take it to the next level, or get through a rough
spot. It's not a hand-out... the entrepreneur pays back the loan plus
interest, just like any other small business. The big difference here
is that traditional banks won't extend credit to these businesses.
The amounts are too small (sometimes only a few hundred dollars), and
the return on investment too low. The microfinance banks are often
non-profit and run to help this specific class of business. Kiva
loaners help the microfinance bank stay afloat and able to help these
businesses by providing interest-free capital to invest in helping
small businesses.
If you're looking for a non-cluttering Christmas gift for someone this
year, a Kiva gift certificate is a worthy choice. Unlike just
donating money in someone's name and giving them a card, the recipient
of this gift gets to choose how to disburse the funds, and when the
loan is paid back, can loan it out again. Instead of a card pinned to
a bulletin board, it's an ongoing involvement with an organization
that helps change people's lives.
(For the record: I have never received paper mail from Kiva. Heifer
sends me catalogs and regular requests for money, which can be kind of
annoying. Kiva doesn't do that.)
