04.27.07
Posted in Technology, Funny Stuff, Life at 6:27 pm by Stoner
It’s become apparent to me that I have to buy a UPS. When we lived in Dale City, the co-op power company buried the power lines. This had several wonderful benefits:
- no unsightly overhead power lines
- no place for birds to perch and crap on vehicles (although they are good dive bombers, I’ve found)
- high winds, heavy ice and falling branches didn’t disrupt power (with one notable exception)
Now that we live out in the stix, our power is more…varied. Lights flicker a lot. We’ve had 2 outages that lasted 4 or more hours. We’ve have power “blips” (complete power loss of a few seconds.) It’s this last aspect of Allegheney Power that has me peeved. Just today, I was on a conference call and my power went out. No power = no cable modem. No cable modem = no Vonage. No Vonage = no conference call. Yesterday, we had a blip between 7:30 am and 8:00 am. When I got up, the clocks were blinking “12:00″.
Every time these blips come down the line, my computers shut off. Computers don’t like having the rug pulled out from under them. So, to remedy, I’m going to have to purchase a UPS. I have a 21″ monitor, two desktops computers, a cable modem and router that all need plugged in to it. That’s a lot of juice so I need to shop for a UPS that can handle it.
APC is “the” name in UPSs. I’ve had varied experiences with APC. I’ve had more than a couple completely fry themselves when the power was lost. Any they really don’t like surges. At all. One fine day, back when I worked at the University of Pittsburgh, a co-worker, Tom, had a slight “accident.” He had a UPS on a table and had just removed its metal cover. He turned to put down the screws and screwdriver he had in hand and set the metal cover on top of the UPS. Well, the battery terminals were exposed metal plugs and when the metal cover touched the plugs, he created a short. Oh, and the UPS was plugged in at the time. There followed a loud POP, followed by some sparks. The resulting surge went around and blew 5 other UPSs. Not tripped so that the equipment was running on battery but completely fried them. A minute or so later, a nice cloud of ozone formed that filled 3 offices. It was quite the event and Tom was the talk of the town for the next 2 weeks.
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Posted in Technology, Hobbies at 3:38 pm by Stoner
I read a brief article in SysAdmin Magazine about a network monitor called PBNJ. No, it doesn’t stand for Peanut Butter -N- Jelly…but rather Ports, Banners -N- Junk. It uses nmap to scan systems to see what ports are open, records that in a database, then allows you to run subsequent scans to see what changed.
This really isn’t anything new and lots of projects do this already. I used an nmap extension to Big Brother back when I worked at Blackboard. I had to abandon it due to performance reasons but I’m very familiar with the practice and implementation. I thought I’d contribute some of what I know to the fledgling project.
I already contacted the maintainer, Josh Abraham. I gave him some advice on the docs detailing the database integration. I’m going to check out the code from the subversion repository and give a good going-over. I know I can contribute more than a few comments, given all the stuff I’ve done with Big Brother, working in the ASP/hosting space and being a sys admin for 9 years.
This’ll be fun. Since the project is fairly new, there’s room for more folks to help.
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04.26.07
Posted in Technology, Linux at 8:51 pm by Stoner
I’m giving Ubuntu 7.04 a spin as my primary desktop. My Gentoo is sitting under the desk with only a power cord and network cable plugged in. I enabled X11 forwarding for ssh and set up an authorized key so I can pull files or run any programs I need.
I just thought of something….the Gentoo box is 32-bit x86 and the Ubuntu is 64-bit AMD - will that make a difference with forwarded X connections?? Gonna hafta give that a real go. I already ran MyPasswordSafe remotely. I did see some cryptic error messages but it didn’t seem to impact functionality of the program, maybe I just got lucky on that one. This’ll be an interesting experiment.
As for running Ubuntu for a full day - it was pleasurable. Some things I ran into:
- I had to install a few audio/video codecs for Totem (so I can watch/hear Windows Media and Mpeg4.) Nice smooth playback.
- Firefox is 64-bit, which means binary plugins like Flash, Java and Acrobat Reader won’t work. I found a page that details how to install the 32-bit Firefox along-side the 64-bit, but really, I don’t want to have to switch between the two. I’ll hold out with the 64-bit Firefox.
- No OTR plugin for Gaim/Pidgin in the default Ubuntu repositories.
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04.20.07
Posted in Technology, Linux at 11:12 pm by Stoner
I just loaded Ubuntu 7.04 onto my AMD64 desktop. Very impressive. Kudos to the Ubuntu team for putting together a solid release. Now, I’m very tempted to switch from Gentoo to Ubuntu because it seems so much faster and smoother….but then, I’m comparing apples to oranges. The Ubuntu box is a AMD64 1.4 GHz processor with 512 megs of ram whereas the Gentoo box is Intel Pentium III 800MHz with 256 megs of ram. That’s a major difference.
I tried running Beryl but the video card I slapped in this isn’t up to the challenge (an old Matrox card.) I tried running the Beryl window manager and the screen simply went grey…nuttin’ but nuttin’. I had to Ctrl-Alt-Backspace to kill the X session and login with Gnome. Oh well. Video cards aren’t hard to come by these days.
I do like how the Ubuntu community is more “on top” of releases. For instance, Gaim 2.0.0beta6 is available in Ubuntu 7.04 whereas with Gentoo still has Gaim 1.5 marked as stable and 2.0.0beta6 as unstable. Actually, I masked it so I could install it…and it crashed. Not sure if it was Gaim or the Jabber plugin (I need it to use the Jabber server at work.) Also, I’ve been struggling to get Amarok installed on Gentoo. Some bug somewhere in kde-base/kdelibs (don’t know if it’s a code bug or a bug with the Makefile) is preventing it from installing. Without kdelibs, Amarok just aint gonna happen. With Ubuntu, I selected it in the Synaptic Package Manager and it happily downloaded it and installed it.
Which brings me to another item that’s been on my TODO list: check out Amarok. I’m listening to some selections from the integrated Magnatune.com store because I haven’t transferred any of my music library to this machine (I just built it, damnit.) Very sweet. I like the interface, I like how easy things are. Things “just work” the way I think they should. It just made my list of “must-have” apps for a pleasant computer life.
I’m gonna keep giving Ubuntu and Amarok a spin around the block. There’s so much more I want to check out on it. I need to throw in a CD burner, a new video card, a bigger hard drive (I can easily fill up the tiny 10 gig drive that’s in it now) - hell, I’m gonna try throwing it on my IBM ThinkPad 560 to see how it performs there (this laptop needs a new battery…it won’t even hold the date/time after power off!)
If you run Ubuntu or use Amarok, what do you think of them?
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04.17.07
Posted in Life, Family at 8:56 pm by Stoner
Saturday was rain and fog. Sunday was fog and rain. Monday was 24+ hours of 30+ MPH winds. Monday night was…darkness. Somewhere, a spark happened and we & many of our neighbors ended up 17 hours without power. When Denise and I woke up Tuesday morning at 7, Allegheney Power was “investigating” the power loss situation.
So, Denise lightly washed up and dressed while I detached the garage door from the chain by pulling the dangling rope, then hefted the door up so she could go to work. Then I went and lightly washed…and ran out of water when it came time to brush my teeth (we have a well and small tank.) So I got dressed, unhitched the other garage door and moved the Blazer into the drive way. Since both garage doors were detached from the chain, I had to go back in the garage, lock the inside door, then go out the back door, then proceeded to hop in the Blazer and drive to Apple Mountain Garage and convenience store to buy some breath mints and a cup of coffee.
During the power loss, the propane fireplace worked though without the fan running, it didn’t seem to be too effective. Also got another few hour’s use out of our Mr. Heater, a portable heater than runs on those 1 lb. propane tanks and has that ceramic plate with hundreds of holes in it. It totally rocks.
While at work, Allegheney Power’s automated system called the house, which kicks to my cell phone because I switched off the surge protector to the cable modem and VoIP router before leaving for work (thinking to further protect my equipment in the event of a surge.) It asked me if power was restored to the house. The menu didn’t have a “How the hell should I know I’m at work” option so I just hung up. I figured if they wanted to know bad enough, they could drive by my place and check the meter.
This is the second power loss that lasted more than 6 hours since we moved here. I’m going to splurge and buy a whole-house generator. Lowe’s and Home Depot sell the exact same thing (though under a different name - go figure) for around $2,000. They run on propane, which is a bonus because we already have propane service. I’m no longer going to go to bed when it’s less than 50 degrees inside!
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04.13.07
Posted in Uncategorized at 1:16 pm by Stoner
Now with RAPID FIRE capabilities. Posting via (formerly Gaim) Pidgin and the (probably soon-to-be-renamed) gaim-blogger plugin.
ed: seems the plugin isn’t all that stable. Immediately after posting this, Pidgin crashed. Not surprising since the code hasn’t been touched in a while.
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04.11.07
Posted in Technology, Life, Hobbies at 1:08 am by Stoner
I’m just totally exhausted and I’m not sure why. Driving home Saturday and driving back Sunday night didn’t help (4 hours one way.) On Monday, I totally slacked and read a good chunk of “Dune.” Tuesday is my Living Hell day. Conference calls from 11 am to 6 pm with a 1 hour break. On top of that, I had a client maintenance window beginning at 9 pm, lasting 1 hour and another at midnight, lasting another hour. I hate Tuesdays.
But, life is good in other ways. On Monday, I drove to Gander Mountain and picked up another side arm. This time, a replica 1851 Navy revolver (black powder) along with all the necessary gear like lead shot, wadding, Pyrodex charges, percussion caps, etc. While black powder take a lot more to load and clean, there’s just that nostalgia about them, kind of like shaving with a straight razor. Now I gotta find a shooting range that permits black powder guns (most indoor ranges prohibit them due to the excessive smoke.)
I need to launch a site where I can complain endlessly about where Web 2.0 is going, in a tongue-in-cheek fashion. Seriously, I get more and more annoyed with all the new crap coming out for developing Web 2.0 sites…and that’s all it is, crap. There’s nothing new about all this. What’s worse, management eats it up. Spends gobs of money on shit that doesn’t prove to be any more efficient than technology from 15 years ago. I’ll bitch more about this later…for now, I’m tired and heading to bed.
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04.04.07
Posted in Technology, Life at 8:58 pm by Stoner
I’m ready to crash. I’ve been awake since 8 am, Tuesday, April 3rd. Thirty-eight hours! Damn…I haven’t felt this good since college when all-nighters were several times a week. We had a big SAN maintenance Tuesday evening. This was an all-hands maintenance since it touched almost all clients. I drove to the data center because last time, Comcast dropped my connection in the middle of the maintenance window. It’s not fun talking someone through troubleshooting a failing Redhat cluster over a cell phone.
After maintenance was over, I drove to the office and worked for that morning. I didn’t want to face driving over an hour to get home, especially in morning rush hour traffic. After lunch, I drove home but wasn’t tired and I kept getting calls regarding problems that cropped up due to the SAN maintenance. After a while, the calls died off so I went for a drive.
I stopped at the local K-Mart and Mountain Dan’s hunting Suplies. I picked up some shooting glasses, targets, gun oil and 2 boxes of .45 ACP. Afterwards, I went looking for a rifle range that’s supposed to be close to the 4-H Ed Center near my house. Couldn’t find it but it was a nice drive through the valley. I’m itching to go shooting but it probably won’t happen this weekend since we’re going to Pennsylvania for Easter. Maybe the weekend after that.
That’s all for now. I have a meeting with my pillow in 5 minutes.
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04.02.07
Posted in Technology, Linux, Hobbies at 11:01 pm by Stoner
Well, I made some headway on my three projects:
DS-330 Voice Recorder: apparently, people smarter than me have tried to get this working under Linux but had no luck. The encoded files use a proprietry format (DSS) and the SDK is a Windows-only library. So nerts to Olympus. Looks like I’ll have to sell it. Shame really, it’s a nice recorder and worked very well. If yo’re interested in buying it, let me know.
Amarok (kdelibs): still haven’t built this damn library. I changed to serial compiles (instead of the default parallel compiles) but that didn’t fly. I filed an addendum to bug 171397. Hopefully they can figure it out (I have no desire to sift through the tons of code for kdelibs and Qt 3. Ick.)
Gumstix RTC: I tried soldering a 4-wire cable (hacked off an old IDE cable) to the RTC breakout. No luck. The tip on my solder iron is too damn big! I couldn’t get good heat transfer. I’ll have to grind the tip down to a finer point and try again.
I did write a script to save the date and time when I shudown my gumstix (posted it to the mailing list.) That way, when I boot it up, the date doesn’t revert back to January 1, 1970. This screws with programs that use a file’s timestamps (last access, last modification and last change.) My script prevents time from going backwards so those types of programs are happy. A battery-backed RTC and ntpd would be best…and I’m getting there.
Transferred all my music from the Dell/XP to the Gateway/Gentoo. Bonus. Now I can work with my tunes…gotta have my tunes. Music doth soothe the savage beast.
Tomorrow, we’re grilling steaks! A friend sent us some porterhouse steaks from Omaha Steaks! Damn, they’re good! I bought some hickory chips to throw on the coals. Tomorrow’s gonna be some good eatin’!
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04.01.07
Posted in Life, Family, Hobbies at 8:21 pm by Stoner
Busy weekend, it was. On Saturday, after getting called at 05:30 by our C3 org (they monitor the “big board” in the NOC and call in help when needed) I decided to stay up, brew a pot of coffee and read a bit of Dune. After Denise got showered and dressed, we went to Pancake Day in Winchester and ate breakfast with the whole damn town. Seriously, the line to get in stretched a quarter mile. It moved along at a steady pace and soon we were sitting down to short stacks and sausage links. It was pretty good, all things considered.
After filling up, we drove to the Home Depot and bought some knobs for the kitchen cabinets - 22 of ‘em. We also picked up a few odds and ends and headed over Circuit City. We picked up a Netgear 2.4 GHz Wireless-G PCI card and a new Sony Handicam to replace our ailing digital camera (it will no longer focus without zooming first - very annoying.) Spent a cool grand for all that (oof!)
After mounting all the knobs to the drawers, I headed to the basement and tore it up completely. Took out the Dell running Windows XP Home, moved the desk into a different corner and put my Gateway running Gentoo on it. Rerouted all the power and network wires and made a big mess in the process. Fun. I installed the Netgear wireless card in the Dell and put that upstairs in the “yellow” room. Now Denise doesn’t have to pester me about wanting to use the computer to play Neverwinter Nights 2.
On Sunday, the C3 woke me up at 05:45 to take care of a problem. Again, I stayed up and brewed a pot of coffee. I set in the recliner and read some more of Dune. Well, that recliner is so comfy, I just nodded off until around 10:30. Nice. So I got up and showered and headed out the door.
I met my buddy Looee at the gun show at Dulles Expo center. Saw a lot of cool stuff, rifles, pistols, revolvers, knives, swords, sub-machine guns, .50 caliber sniper rifles - you name it, it was there. Almost went in on a pair of 10 year old black powder revolvers (with consecutive serial numbers) with Looee. $200 a piece wasn’t too bad of a price. Instead, I picked up a model 1911-A1 .45 by Springfield Armory. My first pistol. Sweet!
I wanted a model 1911 because when you hear “.45 caliber pistol” - the image that comes to mind is the model 1911, guaranteed. It just looks cool. The weight is nice. It fires a big bullet while making a big bang. The slide is a bit stiff but a few hundred rounds and some good cleaning+oil will take care of that. I soo want to go to the range and start putting holes in some targets but I really need to clean it, remove the excess oil and “get to know your firearm” before slapping a loaded clip in to the magazine.
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