Token Card Renewal Blues

I'm living in a Dilbert cartoon. At least it feels like it after this little episode. For Sun folks who want to connect to the Sun network via VPN from their computers at home over DSL, there is an authentication process. This involves typing in the response generated by your handy dandy token card into one of the initial startup text fields for your VPN connection software. You get that token card from Sun. It is especially keyed to you (each person has a unique pin id).

It's been this way for several years. My first token card lasted for a long time. I noticed over the winter break that my second one was fading fast. It wouldn't always show all the "digits" of the response. If I shook it, or whacked it gently, then the display got clearer, but there was still one digit that I had to make an educated guess with. Time to get a new card.

So literally the first thing I did upon returning to work just after the New Year was to submit a servicedesk ticket to get a new one. The next day, I received a reply saying that it had been sent out to me. Yesterday (eight days after submitting the ticket) it finally arrived in the post at my home address. Just an envelope containing the token card. Nothing else.

Now here's my problem. When I got the email reply saying that it had been sent to me, I also received a set of instructions on what I had to do to get it recognized by the system. These started with:

  **NOTE:  You MUST be on a Sun Microsystems, Inc. Site**

Now that's not a problem for me. I usually work during the day at a Sun campus so I can complete these steps today. But what about the folks that are now in the Sun Work From Home project fulltime? Especially the ones that are a long way from a Sun office (and I know that there are several of these). Let's ignore the fact that it took eight days for the new card to get to them when presumably they would not have been as productive as they could have been. Let's ignore the fact that the instructions are in their email inbox on a server on the Sun network which they would need a working token card to get to, in order to read them. Now they also have to go to a remote Sun location just in order to get their new card authorized, so they can then go back home to use it? That doesn't seem the best use of their time. What if your computer worked that way. Imagine that it couldn't find the keyboard when it was booting and it gave you a message like:

Keyboard not found. Press any key to continue.

Oh wait. That's a bad example. Anyway, my credit card company seems to have a much simpler system to authenticate a new credit card received from the mail. One phone call to a machine at the other end. Enter a few responses and you are validated. Why can't there by something similar for these token cards?

I better stop now. I hear somebody outside the office door. Oh, hello Wally.

[Technorati Tag: technology]

[Technorati Tag: Rants]

( Jan 12 2005, 07:54:27 AM PST ) [Listen] Permalink Comments [4]

Abattoir Blues / Lyre of Orpheus

He's back! After a series of lack-lustre albums, Nick Cave (and his Bad Seeds) have a great double CD collection, with some of the feel of their early best work. I've noticed that other Sun bloggers have been doing the occasional blog on what's currently in their CD player. Well there is rarely anything in mine. I don't even have a Music blogging category, so this will have to go under General.

I get most of my music nowadays from Internet radio stations like Radio Paridise via iTunes. But on Monday, a belated Christmas present to myself arrived and the two albums were playing in my CD drive for most of yesterday.

I first heard Nick Cave on 2RRR, an alternative radio station in Sydney, Australia in the early 90's. This would have been about the time that Henry's Dream was first released, and I was hooked. I'll quote the first reviewer of the album on Amazon, which pretty much sums it up:

The imagery that Nick uses in his lyrics is on par with Hemingway. Simple, sometimes gross, sometimes terrifying, always vivid.

The new double album set brings back some of that original feel. Some of his best work. There are riffs and phrases that are going to be stuck in my head for many weeks to come. Definitely worth checking out.

[Technorati Tag: Music]

( Jan 12 2005, 06:02:39 AM PST ) [Listen] Permalink