The Soundtrack of Technology

I’ve mentioned before that I grow up around a very musical family. I remember on Sunday’s sitting around on the porch with the whole family playing music. Heck anytime I go back home to Tennessee, we go and play music until early in the morning. Now I was never much of a musician at all.  Although to be quite honest, I’d stand up to the crap today for sure. “You kids git off my lawn!!!”

The one thing I noticed is that life itself has a sound track, so it makes sense to me, that technology also should have a soundtrack. So from the somewhat legal music files of Jimmy Ray Purser, here is my recommendation for tunes based on the technology.

Switches: Traveling Wilbury’s. There’s just something about the smooth melodic sounds of this group that just ties the tech together. Switches are the focal point of the network so the band has to stand the test of time and have a happy tempo for sure. Hey it’s switching, one of the coolest technologies out there. Getting in the Ether groove is easy with the Wilbury Boys.

Routers: Rush. With routing, you’re climbing the stack a little higher and getting into more complex stuff. Oh sure you still a command line commando using your weapons of Command-Tab (Alt-Tab for Bill’s crew) between sessions using alias commands to shortcut longer commands, etc. You need some heady-er tunes that you can sing a bar or two too but also just enjoy the more intellectual groove it puts you in. Hard to beat Rush for that stuff for sure! Dad gum I feel all Mozart smart and stuff listen to this without being a whanker about it.

Wireless: Any Industrial or Trance Electronica. Personally I grab Enigma most of the time but I feed Trance Soma thru the lab and soak it up. With wireless, you have to imagine most of it, then test. There are so many variables in wireless you really need to use music to expand your mind and float ya down Maxwell’s currents to Fourier’s shores.  Other bands come with lyrics and memories that divert your focus too much.  Honorable Mention and super close second: Yes.

Security:  Radiohead. Namely the OK Computer album. Oh man you have to remember you’re plugging your network into the world and challenging everyone. Radiohead gets you in the groove, smashes the record then eats it. That’s what you need as a security person. Think outside the friggen box, against the grain and break the beer bottle over your head.

Hacking:  Ramones. OK when you start to hack, you are breaking the rules and the law in most places. You can’t take prisoners and have to be more like Francois L’Olonnais. He was a French pirate that actually ate an enemy’s heart to terrify the enemy prisoners to make them show him an escape route out of certain capture. They did and he escaped to fight another day. That’s the mind set of a good hacker. Whatever it takes to get your data will be done. Honorable Mention: Sex Pistols/PiL

Data Center: Boston. Data Center technology is truly a solution that you have to not only work with multiple vendors but every single piece has work perfect for the server to boot off the SAN. So it needs something different, ground breaking and high energy. Hard to beat Boston for that task for sure.  I mean come on man! Tom Scholz (lead guitar picker) didn’t like the sound of rock music so he invented his own!! Plus he was such a perfectionist he delayed an album over two years until the sound was just right. Oh yeah, that is a data center mindset right there!  Honorable Mention: Daft Punk. It puts you on grid baby!

Storage: Pink Floyd. Storage seems to be the most elitist of all technologies. They do EVERYTHING different on that side of the world for sure. Kinda like eating over at a friend’s house for the first time. Not that it’s a bad thing at all. Their methods and practices are tried and true. They are responsible for the data itself so the rules of zero loss tolerance are non negotiable. When I was a young boot camp storage rookie, I’d question why this or that and the result was the same; “You don’t understand yet, but you will in time if you keep at it” That was the same answer I got when I said; “WTF???” after listening to Pink Floyd’s Animals album.

VOIP:  Bjork. Yeah get it config’ed so you can turn this off and go grab a beer and chicken wings at 80’s throwback bar and jam to some hair band tunes!

And to finish it up; my personal happy song…When I’m in a great mood and everything seems to be going A+ you can just bet that the song; “Walking on Sunshine” by Katrina and Waves is on a loop in my head!

So…music tends to be a really personal thing. I think I’ve seen more fist fights over music then girls or sports teams. (I need new friends, I know…) Do you agree or disagree with my song selection? What is YOUR happy song in the sound track of your life?

Jimmy Ray Purser

Trivia File Transfer Protocol

The first record to sell one million copies was The Glen Miller Orchestra’s “Chattanooga Choo-Choo” way back in 1942