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Sunday, 22 April, 2001 at
10:43 PM -0500
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The weekly Diary of a PC Geek |
Monday, April 16, 2001
Yup, I sure am. Scared hell out of myself this morning as well. I drive 35W into the City (Matt Beland's nodding as he reads this), and this morning was my first trip back. Aside from the shrieking of the alarm, the "Oops, the date on the milk's the twelfth, not nineteenth, oh well, let's see... hmmm... tastes like milk to me", the usual putzing of a seven-year-old who doesn't want to go anywhere...
Though things definitely improved when she got to Daycare. Her old teacher, who left about two months back, has come back. She was let go at the place she went to. Simple reason - they say she restrained a child. Hmmm... What happened? Kid was running out of the room, and it wasn't time for that sort of activity, so the teacher merely took the child onto her lap. Poof. Gone. Oh well. We benefit, which is good news for me, I guess - Rhiannon really loves Jennifer, so this is good news all around - the fill-ins just were not working out as expected in that room. One was very cut-and-dried and did not brook nonsense. Would chew the child out if they failed to add "miss" in front of her name. Other fellow, who looks to be about three years older than the "fourteen and your out" rule, spent more time playing the Nintendo 64 than watching the kids. Three days out of five I walk into the room and the "teacher" is with a group of five kids, back to the door, ignoring everything as I come in, get my daughter, and leave the room is pretty sad. Told the assistant director, who was going to look into it. I can only hope he did.
And yes, before I go on, there's a lot I didn't mention about vacation last week. Such as the times when we went to the Winery - you could hear the birds and frogs and crickets, even in the middle of the afternoon. You could hear the wind. Where I live, most of the wind is generated by I-35, which splits about a half-mile from my apartment into 35E and 35W. Lots and lots and lots of traffic noise.
I also want to remember the feeling of freedom. Don't have to be anywhere special, any time special, just go on, get on, get going, and do what you want. Some day, about six months after I die, I'll probably recapture that. I wish I'd won that bleeding lottery last week - financial independence for me would be nice. Oh well. At least I've got a job. Anyway, the trip there...
There's a stretch along 35W just prior to the Minnesota River. I call it the river bottoms, and it's fairly large - several hundred acres, certainly. Almost a mile from one shore to the opposite edge of the bottoms. All fairly low land, which floods in the spring to a certain extent. It's usually about ten feet or so below the freeway level at the highest point. There's also a power plant down there along the river.
So, this morning, after going through part of the reclaimed flood plain and driving up (vertically up, that is) to get to the entrance ramp, I pulled onto the freeway and nearly wet myself. The water's about a foot and a half below the surface of the road. Yup. That close to closing down yet another freeway crossing of the river.
Tonight, on the way home, I heard that the MnDOT work crews are planning on shutting 35W down to one lane each way tonight (7 pm to 5 am) to work on a temporary dike on the east side of the road. We'll see how it goes.
In 1993, we had serious major flooding here in the Metro area. In 1997 we had bad flooding outstate. This year we're getting nailed with both outstate and Metro flooding. Ain't that just fun? Oh, and the wake up temps this morning were in the balmy upper TWENTIES. Yup. Froze my new-started tan right off just walking to the car. Oh well. Best I not tan anyway.
And when I got to work, it's nice to know I'm missed. Piles and piles of surprises (too bad someone didn't get piles and piles, if you know what I mean. Hooked up the videoconferencing unit, which was easier than doing the VCR/DVD/TV dance last month. Started Revamping another computer for a programmer to get him from a 400 Mhz P2 to an 800 Mhz P3. I think he'll notice the difference. And some good news after week-after-lasts' head-rolling episode... Seems we ended up contracting a couple of trips one fellow was scheduled to make to him. And we're working on a way to bring them back in the fold. Gotta like that.
Of course, I also hear we're losing our senior C/C++ developer, who's going elsewhere. Lovely. Now we're short three programmers. This is starting to get scary. So that's why I'm working on a new resume... I'll link to it when I get it done.
And then I started introducing myself to Susie. 7.1, specifically. The weird thing is I've got a sister Susie, so this one should prove relatively easy to overcome - I think after thirty-five years or so, know how they work. Except A) I'm not related to this one, and B) I've managed through some choices on my part to eliminate some resources I was going to rely on. So, we'll do this the usual Dominikian fashion - bull and plow until we're neck deep in scheiss, and then see if we've remembered the shovel.
The thing that continues to slay me about Linux and the various distros that are out there are the commands that, I swear, aren't real. Last week Brian had one I swore was a joke -
deb http://kde.tdyc.com potato main crypto optional
Huh? Potato main crypto optional? What the hell are dinner veggies doing in an OS? I can remember SCO UNIX coming with a calendar program that allowed you to see the missing weeks in the 1200s? 1400s? I don't remember off-hand; but vegetables? Good grief.
At least it was a potato. If he'd said "eggplant main crypto optional" I'd have been out of there like a shot. Potatoes and corn and I get along well. Lettuce works, as does the occasional well-cooked pea. Carrots, both baby variety and large (but well cooked) are tolerable. Beyond that, if you're a vegetable, begone from my site. Er, sight. Whatever.
Probably comes from a meal of boiled swiss chard and eggplant I had once, long ago. Amazing how some things stick with you for ever. I've still got the shakes when I think about it. EEeeewwww...
But that's vegetables, not OSes. Which still begs the question - what the hell is a potato doing in my, or any, Linux install? Oh well. Looks like I'll need the shovel anyway. Whodathunk gardening would start early and with computers? Oh well.
And I was so proud of myself today. Ate my oatmeal like a good little boy. Now that we're back from vacation we're both working to help the other lose weight. Sheesh. Ain't this fun? I have to keep telling myself it's not punishment, it's a lifestyle choice if I want to live longer and healthier. I'm not getting younger, my stress levels aren't decreasing, and I've got to start taking care of myself. I've yet to spend a night in a hospital as a patient, but that's not a good indicator that I never will. I see a doctor annually for checkups and the "let's see what we can find HERE!" exams, so I guess I've got to start the other half of the bargain. Watch what I eat and exercise more.
Could be worse, I guess. I could be dead.
Tuesday, April 17, 2001
Probably not. But it beats self-abuse. <ba-dum-bump>
Today was THE DAY where I'd slam that Linux CD into the drive, and go. And boy, did I go. Round and round and round and round and round... Felt like the CD at the end of the day, too... Flattened, polished to a shine, and completely, utterly useless.
I started, two weeks ago, by downloading the SuSE LiveEval version of 7.1 - one CD, and some attendant files. Followed the directions, and created the bootdisk. No directions for the "ISO" image, so I figured "just put the damned thing on CD." So I did that.
Oh, stop laughing, those of you who are smart people, and let me tell the story my way.
I sat down this morning, and booted with the floppy. It trundled and reported a disk error. Hmmmm, says I, I says, and chopped up another new disk this time for the bootdisk image. THAT one rewarded me with the pengiun and lizard(?) image on the monitor. Tooled just fine, until it came time for to find the CD. You got it. Nothing.
Checked the CD. Of Course I could read it. One file, 650 megs, or thereabouts. I said stop laughing, you in the back... Started scratching my head.
Gee. I wonder if there's some unpacking that has to be done to the ISO? Off to Google to search for help on "burn CD ISO Linux". Lots and lots of people know how to put an ISO image onto a CD... using Linux. Them that know how to do it without Linux already running ain't talking... I found two spots where they mentioned creating a Linux CD using a Win9x workstation, which is what we have here.
One, to a stupid java applet that barfed all over three computers and died (thus proving, at least to me, that it's not the Java implementation of Windows 98, NT, or 2000, but quite possibly Microsoft's fault - probably the programmer's, though). Just exactly what I needed from the abstract discussion that appeared on Google.
The other? "yeah, it can be done. You just need the right tools." And those are? (see "bupkis" above).
Back through, did another search, found a couple of message threads that seemed to give me hope - until "you have to make sure you can unpack the ISO and tell your CD Burner software how to get it on CD". Well, duh. That's what I need. And it apparently doesn't exist in my half of the world.
So, I figure, it says ISO, right? Someone mentioned the "el torrito" format, which I couldn't find information on; I did realize, after some serious thinking, that if the thing I'm putting onto the disk is called "an ISO" it probably requires ISO9660 format, instead, maybe... burn to ISO9660 format, and... Nope. Not. Yes, you in the back. Yeah, with the beard... Stick a cork in it.
More scratching (it's a proven fact that men think better whilst scratching. Preferably themselves). Hmmm.. I've got Easy CD Creator, which is about as useful as feathers on a raccoon, so... Download a trial of Nero. "Nero my God to thee..." sorry. More bad puns. Useless Dominikian Factoid #783 - the worse the day, the more (and worse) the puns there are.
Start to install Nero... "Scuse me - if you wanna use me, you gotta get rid of that Easy CD Crappola". Nope. Not gonna do it. Damned thing's finicky enough, and someone's absconded with the original CD, so we're hosed as to reinstalling... Loverly.
So - back to the drawing board again. This time I says "screw it" I'd found, through Brian, an outfit called "Cheapbytes". They sell CDs basically for the cost of copying them. Great way to try it out (which is what my company needs right now). So, I go to their site, and get ... nada. Bupkis. Nothing. Cart times out, site times out, and it's just not working.
Until you wait, literally, 22 minutes. Then, out of the blue, the site comes up. Zip in, find what I'm looking for (or near enough), and look to bail out. Then, it occurs to me - I do have a copy of RedHat 6.2 ready to install, with full docs, which should be worthwhile for something - we'll try that one.
Ever get the feeling you're reeling drunk through life, only to find out you're the only sober one? I'm like that, sometimes. And the really sad thing is that I drink only on vacation. Only. This last vacation to Iowa, I had the rough equivalent of ---
And I heard a good one this morning from a friend I helped with a batch file ("never fear, grasshopper, .Batman (note the dot) is here!"). At the end, she had a pretty good note - "ours is not to reason why, ours is to backup or die." I think I'm going to get that printed on t-shirts. Perfect quote for any decent network admin worth his ... well, book weight, at any rate.
And the waters continue to rise here. They're saying the peak should be Thursday or Friday in the metro - they "diked" 35W last night, said dike consisting of one layer cement road dividers covered in plastic, one pile sand, sand bags, and the like in the middle, and another layer of cement road dividers on the inside. Half the shoulder's gone to this, and we're hopeful it helps. If it doesn't, that's over 100,000 vehicles a day that will need to find alternate routes. Yuck.
On the way home tonight, it certainly looked like they got the dike in just in time. I get on 35W most days at Cliff Road, which is pretty much the furthest north ramp from Burnsville. Just north of that is Black Dog Road. This road drops down to an underpass, just as the freeway is rising. This morning there were four vehicles (including two TV vans with towers extended) broadcasting from what small part of Black Dog Road was above water. Tonight, about half of the "clear area" was covered. At this rate, we'll be looking at a crest about half-way up the 35W dike by Friday. Provided we don't get rain.
Oh well. Off to do some stupid things. I don't know what, exactly, but some stupid things.
Wednesday, April 18, 2001
And the OFIM actually worked today, using the "M" for morning. I crept out of bed at the shriek of the alarm, turned it off, turned on the television, and promptly conked back out. Oops. At 6:15, I was up like a shot. Well, a bourbon shot, at any rate. Got the eldest up for her frosted flakes, and hit the showers. Hopped out for the rush to dress, and found she was already getting monkey boy combobulated and the good news was that he reacted to her just like he does to me - despite having his new favorite shirt on (he got an orange-colored "Jersey" last week, and since he does love the Disney Channel show "the jersey" it's been a constant hit), he still wailed and whined.
Out the door (and screwed for lunch since I didn't make one last night) into the car, and off to work. And today's commute in has to be one of the all-time weirdest. I'm at a stoplight (I typically take a route that goes through eight lights before I get to the freeway, and another twelve after I get off the freeway) before getting onto the freeway, and there's a rather attractive woman in the vehicle next to me. So I look. A few miles later, she's behind me. Doing her makeup. Which irritates me. A few miles further on, and she's next to me again. This time, shaving. Yes, shaving her face. At that point, I figured it was my wife's way of reminding me I can look once, and even twice. I'll allow her to finish the rest of the saying, should she so choose, on her site. I figure it's the least I could do after she gave me the nightmares last night. Strangely familiar, pillowy mounds marching across countrysides, singing like Julie Andrews in "The Sound of Music". I'm sure there's a message there somewhere. I'm equally sure that I don't want to know what it is. <SHUDDER>
I figured since I've been babbling about the flooding situation, I'd
bring the camera for pictures. I remembered it after the ...
individual with the makeup and razor issues pulled onto the freeway and
zoomed away. So, here are pictures of the "river bottom flooding". And
they link to larger images.
To the left, that's the power plant in the middle of all this. To the right, that's a barge with a backhoe on it. It's about fifteen feet higher than normal, and the barge is normally there loading from a company that's under water right now. Again.
And once I got to work, things were definitely improved over yesterday. A number of people wrote to tell me of the same, or similar issues regarding the blasted ISO stuff I went through. Phil Hough even said he'd spent a couple days downloading RedHat 6.2 via dialup; he then put it on CD and put it away. And JHR mentions similar difficulties...
<RANT>
One thing that continues to irritate me regarding Linux and Linuxen is their "we know and you don't" attitude. On the web there are countless resources, but it's a great deal like Gene Kranz at a press conference. In his book "Failure Is Not An Option" he says he would treat press conferences like poker games, revealing only what was asked for, and not delivering too much, unless the reporters asked the right questions.
Linuxen (If I might be so bold as to compare one with the other) are like that. Some, such as Tom, Brian, and Matt, among others, are very forthcoming and WANT you to learn. Others, such as the ones I see in on-line discussions, tend to play the "did you ask THE RIGHT question?" game.
That's one. Another thing that I find frustrating is their general attitude towards hackers and hacking in general. As a network administrator, I've got a billion things on my plate. Securing my network is a high priority. It's not a hobby. I can usually get the resources to do what I need. But when I find things like this that tell you how to set up a Linux firewall, and then pointedly also show how to hack, I get irritated.
There used to be such a thing as an ethical hacker. They'd break in, let you know they got in, and leave. For them it was the joy of the crack, as it were. Then, hacking grew to be less of an art form and more of an "assault" weapon. Crack the server, take it down, deface the site, embarrass the owners, show off your technical cojones, all the rest.
In a copy of Maximum Linux I picked up last week for reading material, I found a couple of articles complaining about hackers being treated harshly or unfairly, and people praising those who would hack and destroy systems.
I, for one, am disgusted by that. I'm more disgusted with those who publish not only hacking tools but hacking methods so any junior-high kid can then hack his way into the school computer and pull a Ferris Beuler, or worse.
It's all incredibly frustrating. Working with Linux, I feel somehow a little dirty by association - I'm not hacking, I'm learning a new tool. I'm trying to develop new skills, and I'm trying to stretch my mind (some would say it's already snapped, but that's beside the point). But Linux needs respectability. And it's going to gain that slowly until the "hackers" out there learn that it's not "OK to hack".
</RANT>
Anyway, after yesterday's spinning in a circle routine, today was much
more successful - I brought in my old copy of RedHat 6.2 along with my
copy of the book Running Linux. And lo and behold if this time, on
good hardware, the damned thing didn't work. I'm stunned,
flabbergasted, and ready to rock and roll.
That picture to the left is my Linux box, in RedHat mode. Some other good news is below...
And one other pleasant surprise - I managed to acquire, through the hardware shuffle of the last few days at work, a new Dell laptop computer which is much better than the old Toshiba I was toting around. And, wonder of wonders, the Kodak Picture Transfer application that works on Windows 95/98 also works on Windows 2000 Pro! I had absolutely no joy with the thing on NT (which is my preferred OS right now), but on 2000 it hums along, grabbing pictures and running just fine. I doubt the rest of the experience will go as well, but what the heck. It's only a computer, right? ;-)
That resounding slap you heard about 11:30 am CST was the sound of my hand, slapping my bare forehead. Through sheer stubbornness, I tend to view directory listings usually in "details" mode within Windows. Which is why it never occurred to me. However Gary M. Berg wrote
>From: "Gary M. Berg" >To: John Dominik >Subject: Burning ISO images >Date: Wed, 18 Apr 2001 12:18:44 -0400 > >You know, you're going to hate yourself. Double-click the ISO image and >Easy-CD Creator should open it up ready to burn... > >As you've probably already read 20 times today... > >------------------------- >This email was sent without any attachment and should have arrived without >any. If there are attachments, DON'T OPEN THEM! Actually, no, you're the first one. I'll go try that next (though I've got Red Hat on and running, it wouldn't hurt to have alternatives...) THANK YOU!
No, Mr. Berg - just the first. And boy, do I feel like an idiot. Ran over to the BurnerTower box, looked there (and in large icon mode, it was apparent it looked just like all the other CDs we had saved on that box. <SLAP> Repeat after me - "it's not supposed to be this hard".
By that time, of course, I was well-past Neck deep in a Red Hat 6.2 install... In fact, I'd seen the blessed LILO prompt whiz by in the promised five seconds, and was, after a short wait reminiscent of booting SCO, rewarded with a "Login" prompt. Which I did. Stumbled a bit until I remembered "startx" (and oh, the case-sensitivity came back right away - LS -AL doesn't mean anything, but ls -al is what I want, all right). And away we went.
Reminds me of my favorite UNIX "joke". I'd been "teaching" a younger fellow UNIX. Said "teaching" methods consisting mostly of "here's my bag-o-tricks file about UNIX, call me if you get stuck, and this sheet on the wall? Don't do any of those." Sure enough, he did, got himself grossly entangled. He'd su'd to root and had done a great deal of things and was trying to get out. He remembered my one "escape hatch" note in the BOT - "if you're ever thoroughly stuck, kill -9 -1 will get you out." So he did. As root.
Yes, you fellows who were laughing yesterday can laugh WITH me today... ;-)
And one last whack to the base of the skull - the Astronomy Picture Of the Day (APOD) has been on my "gotta see" list for some time. Today's really hurt the old noodle. Too much to think about, I'm telling you. The current apod is here, while this should link you to the permanent home of the painful image...
And, by the end of the day, I had TWO versions of Linux running at work. SuSE 7.1 finally installed on the tower - had a second hard drive from a machine (which had lost it's drive cable, CD-ROM Drive, Floppy Drive, Network and video cards already).
This Linux stuff sure has come a long way from last time I mucked with it... I like it lots now... Looks like I'll need to start working on the server at home, then. This could get to be REAL fun... ;-)
Now, off to bed - My boss's boss is coming in tomorrow and meeting with each of us individually to find out what the problems are and what our goals are. Mine? Remain employed. Get more storage and more servers. Keep things running. Pretty simple.
Thursday, April 19, 2001
Well, that was fun. Let's see, where to start...
First up, if you're the type that's willing to do so, some kind thoughts for Bob Walder's father wouldn't hurt. Mr. Walder the Elder (that's Bob's dad - Bob himself's a bit on the sensitive side when you call him old) is in the hospital with pancreatitis, which we around here know is a pretty painful thing to go through. As I told Bob, the doctor told me when Ann had it that it was worse than childbirth. Guess there's another reason she's stronger than me. He did say that most of the men who get this tend to tough it out far longer than they should, which is bad for us - more pain for longer periods.
Anyway, a kind thought for Bob's dad would be much appreciated by the Walders.
No easy way to segue after that, so I'll just bump right on into it. Found an old friend's e-mail address before we went on vacation, and it's pretty apparent (as I've sent him a couple of e-mails) that he's moving on with his life. I'll miss him and our talks. Oh well. Speaking of e-mail, I've changed the e-mail link on these pages; you might want to update your records - John_Dominik@hotmail.com. You've been warned.
I did manage to find another old friend today... shell scripting. Yes, that's me.
I was pretty proud of myself today. After yesterday's "full boat" install of RedHat, and a somewhat more minimal attempt at SuSE (on a different hard drive), today was another YALI (thanks, JHR!), this time in the general direction of RedHat being a smaller, more secure, more managable setup. Or at least I hope.
You see, the purpose for all of this is to install a Linux Firewall (using ipchains) to get to a point where I can identify the only ports open, and control them. Once this is done, that box goes into the middle of a network where I'm going to use it for testing SQL Server and IIS and various other technologies I need to to get things done at work.
Yes, I'm painfully aware that the combination of Linux and Microsoft apps in a test network is likely cracking the fourth seal on the apocalypse, but then again, given the fact that I've married a beautiful red-head with a twisted sense of humor, I've got to pay my dues somewhere, don't you think? (yes, he's sucking up, but he's not, as far as he knows, in trouble - though one can never tell around here, and it never hurts to suck up. You know what they say about voting in Chicago - "Vote early, vote often." Same goes for sucking up to the boss)
Anyway, I went plumbing the depths (oh, okay, the shallows) of Linux, and I discovered the damnedest thing - I can't get the network working. In fact, to really piss me off, the install recognized that I had not one but two network cards in the box (one for the outside IP, one for inside), and didn't do anything with either one. I've got two problems now...
First is that while I carefully printed out the Systems Information stuff from not one but two separate Win98 installs, the bottom line is that both show one network card's IO and IRQ clearly. The other card reports "no resources used". Unfortunately, I've got two Intel EtherExpress Pro 10 Meg cards. Two different models would have been better, I guess, but anyway... At one point today I was scrounging around the office for an unused hard drive I could use to put DOS 6.20 on, so I could fire up DOS and get in at that level to see just what I had in the system. Didn't do it, but came close.
Second problem I'm having is how to get into the networking and get it going. I went into RH's Gnome environment, hit System, Control Panels (logged in as myself, su'd to root, of course) and went into the Network control panel - I was able to set up the hostname (rhfirewall, all in lowercase), the domain (my_employer.jpd, just to make it easy), and then the IP address for both cards. I was able to assign one to eth0, and the other to eth1, but when I tried to ping out to my gateway, nothing happened, and nothing blinked on the hub in my cube. Pinging localhost worked just fine, but the rest of the world was silent.
So, if you've got brain cells to spare tonight/this morning, here's two questions for you;
1) how can I get Linux (or some floppy-based tool) to report what IO/IRQ settings my network cards are using? I don't mind reinstalling Windows to do it, but Windows only reported on one before. I don't mind reinstalling Linux, either - actually, the last YALI I did with RH took only about 2 hours. Windows takes significantly longer, probably because the machine only has 32 megs RAM.
2) how to start the networking interface under RedHat? I think I was getting close this afternoon, until...
I met with my boss's boss this afternoon. Being the networking guy in a development office working for a large company, I felt pretty exposed when the job cuts started a few weeks back. When the sword fell, and I was on the live side, I was pretty stunned. When word came that the boss would stop in for a visit, I was very, very nervous. You see, a few months before I came on board, the company sent a few people to Minneapolis to interview people; about two weeks after that, they all got severance offers that ran to the two and three month range, and that was it.
So, when I met with Jim, I figured I'd be up front with him. After we chatted a bit, he did tell me that regardless of the IT people in the corporate office, he's got people like me in every office, and he said that we were pretty much a requirement, not a "spare body". Phew.
The next nice thing he said after I gave him my list of hardware issues was "can you give me specifics - model numbers, part numbers, things like that?" Soitainly, says I.
I left the office feeling better than I have in a long time. I'm finally making progress and getting somewhere...
Then again, maybe not. Mr. Jim Kershner's been picking on me over on his site. Hmmm.....
But the best news I could get happened this evening. Jack and I were doing the dad and son thing, and I flipped through the channels. He wanted to stop at the library access channel, which was showing the video feeds from NASA and the Endeavour. We happened to catch the launch sequence (and they finally showed what it was like with crew on the mid-deck, and what it looked like in the cockpit prior to launch. Some day I'd like to see what the cockpit looked like during launch, and during re-entry. Anyway, we watched the launch together, and Jack really got into it.
Though I couldn't help but hold my breath when one of the launch team members said "... go at throttle-up."
Yippie Skippie it's...Friday!, April 20, 2001
Oh, I know it's Friday, but all of this flapping around this week deserves SOME technical content, don't you think?
Where to start, where to start. Let's see. John Doucette, a fellow daynoter and one of the Canadians stealing our warm weather (today we're projected to break 70 - first time since 10-31-2000, or in 170 days. Or, in other words, too damned long - but I digress) sent me an e-mail which suggested I try looking on Intel's web site - Which at first was the equivalent of asking Microsoft "but what does THAT do?"
Little tip for you - if you need to search Intel's web site, and they keep forcing you to pick a product, a platform, or anything else, go to http://www.intel.com/search/. It will barf you out and give you a link to this page which allows you to search all of the intel sites. And I finally, finally found SoftSet. Actually, SoftSet2, which is the utility I used to use while back about two jobs and messing with local network cards. Under Novell. Yeah, I guess you could say I was well-traveled.
Anyway, after some discussions back and forth with a couple of redheads which frankly left me fearing for my life (and any stew I might eat at home in the future), I bounced out to the useful sites. First one I've been living with is the Linux Firewalls HowTo, which is pretty juicy when it comes to information. But the problem was that I didn't know how to get there from "here", where ever the heck here was.
Then I went back to the LinuxDocs.org site, and found this Howto, with ethernet basics in it, and viola! (or as they occasionally spell it here, wah-lah!) - What I needed to know... except for one thing. Back to the intel site, where I thought I saw mention of Linux. Of course, no joy.
Bad habits sure do not take long to return. On this install of RedHat, I left off most of the graphical whiz-bangs, and I'm attempting to be the Anti-JHR. Mr. Ricketson is exploring Linux on the graphical side, and I'm going to try to stick with the CLI exclusively. Heck, it can't hurt, can it? I've only got eight graphical machines around me at any given time - one clunky old command line box is pretty much required in that particular environment, then, isn't it? Anyway, the "bad habit" I refer to is my propensity to log in on multiple terminals on the console (Alt-F1, Alt-F2, Alt-F3, and so on) and use them for multiple things. It's not unusual for me to have two or three man displays up, editing in vi ("I'm home!") in another, and two or three command-line sessions going. Jeez, I'm a geek.
But sometimes it's tougher to find where you were - easier to start another session. Until, of course, you realize all twelve keys are now occupied. Oh well. Kill kill kill kill. Wonderful little command in Linux for the bloodthirsty...
Then Mr. Bilbrey comes roaring through with information that quite literally saves my bacon. Except for one thing. The netconf tool is a bit picky about what you leave empty and what you fill, and if stuff's empty, you're somewhat at the mercy of it's error handling routines. Which are not the greatest. Not Brian's fault, certainly. He's got shoe issues to deal with at home.
But I stumble and bumble along, getting networking configured, reconfigured, misconfigured, and finally, configured right (I hope) and then I did a stupid thing. I had downed the system (after, of course, checking that all of my other sessions were off, and did the shutdown. After the first two installs, this one seemed to be unwilling to shutdown normally. Of course, my initial desire is to do sync three times and then haltsys, but that's just me.
So I headed down the shutdown road, and thought I'd brought the thing all the way down. Hit the reset button, and as I did I heard the tell-tale grumble of a disk write. Oh, fiddlesticks. Shoot. Darn. Rats. Fooey. Son of a Bit. Etc. And you just know what happened after that. I sat there, watching it come up, praying the fsck would clean up the disk. Sorry. Kernal Panic. Couldn't get the superblock read, or something. Tried the LILO boot disk, and again. No Joy. As was once rumored about Soupy Sales, "every time I show you F, you see K!". I think you can figure it out from there.
So, in goes the Red Hat boot disk. In goes the CD. I didn't quite like that install, anyway, so a new installation fired right off, and this time we're tweaking a little more. We'll get there.
And then that Mr. Kershner's at it again. Picking on my wife. Don't feel bad, Jim. She reads me all the time, but I can't
get my mother or sisters to check it out. One sister fancies herself a writer (note I said "writer" and not "author"). I'm
a geek, who writes. I'd like to be an author (author="writer who gets published on paper"), some day, but I'm still working
on my million words. Of course, as windy as I am, it might well take me three or four million. Oh well. And Jim?
That
singing boob thing? Same problem. Nightmares. Bad, bad nightmares.
But the hamster, pal? Come on... Here's a better picture...
And I look NOTHING like that gopher. NOTHING. As to dancing
ability, well, I'm not exactly Fred Astaire, I guess.
And so, after work tonight, we hit the video store (it's supposed to rain all weekend) and then went to church for "Beach Party Night". Very, very crowded, and a huge turnout. So big they ran out of food and had to get more. I was doing OK until they played YMCA (those damned Village People) on the DJ's system. I was out of there like a shot.
Came home, plugged my new laptop in, sat down, started to connect to my home network, and got stumped. The new one's got Windows 2000 on it, and I'm not running any sort of domain (yet) here at home, so I figured I'd just add it to my home workgroup. Oh, grasshopper, your brains in your socks again? Rebooted the laptop, and tried to log in. "Cannot log in - check your caps lock". Damn. I carefully typed in my password. "Cannot log in". Well, hell. "...caps lock or domain..." Oh, shit. I've got the wrong domain, and I'm probably going to have to reinstall 2000 to get this thing back. Lovely. I was just getting comfortable with it, too. Now I've got a nice, Dell-labeled brick until Monday.
Sometimes I just shouldn't be allowed near sharp objects, computers, or chocolate. It's just safer if I'm not.
I also stumbled across BuyDomains.com which sells domain names at $16 a year; they also offer hosting at $24.95 a month (100 Meg storage and unlimited bandwidth usage), billed quarterly. I need to do some research here, but I'd like to have a plan in place for the eventual implosion of Spaceports, and the other ad-supported sites. I started this whole thing on the cheap, and I think I can keep it on the cheap, but the bottom line is that I've got to convince her that it's worth it. We'll see how it goes...
Oh, well. You're all big people now... I'll end with the jokes.
First, one Ann sent me.
A little boy comes down to breakfast. Since they live on a farm, his mother asks if he had done his chores.
"Not yet," said the little boy.
His mother tells him he can't have any breakfast until he does his chores.
Well, he's a little pissed, so he goes to feed the chickens, and he kicks a chicken. He goes to feed the cows, and he kicks a cow. He goes to feed the pigs, and he kicks a pig. He goes back in for breakfast and his mother gives him a bowl of dry cereal.
"How come I don't get any eggs and bacon? Why don't I have any milk in my cereal?" he asks.
"Well," his mother says, "I saw you kick a chicken, so you don't get any eggs for a week. I saw you kick the pig, so you don't get any bacon for a week either. I also saw you kick the cow, so for a week you aren't getting any milk."
Just then, his father comes down for breakfast and kicks the cat as he's walking into the kitchen.
The little boy looks up at his mother with a smile, and says, "Are you going to tell him, or should I?"
Second; Ann quoted me out of context in her post this evening, I'd like to set the record straight.
> > --- Ann Dominik wrote: > > That would be my point, oh less than colorful one. > > > > Ann > From: john dominik > To: Ann Dominik > > I sense I'm being abused again, somehow, but I'm not sure why... Oh > well. > --- Ann Dominik wrote: > You just aren't the product of 100,000 years of natural selection. > > Ann From: john dominik To: Ann Dominik Nope. Millions. You have to remember, you female types are new to my planet. That's the only explanation that makes sense. For some reason, you've developed a symbiotic relationship with my species, and your previous rarity and newness caused my species to chase, covet, and desire to possess you. We're slowly learning, though, that this is, at best, a two-edged sword - something we do not like to be on the wrong end (that being the pointy one) of. Conversely, if one accepts the theory of evolution, and accepts that my species is now too stupid to breathe without instruction, as your species is continually trying to tell us, we are then forced to conclude that we've been far, far dumber in the past. In fact, if we were as stupid back then as we're supposed to be now, we'd have been trampled by a heard of prehistoric turtles before we picked our drooling faces out of the primordial ooze. Provided, of course, we hadn't drowned ourselves in our own vomit first.
Picked us out of the ooze. Right. Likely as not they created it so we'd slip and fall in it, and look stupid. They've got those fancy shoes to stay out of the slop with. Oh well. It's the weekend. Thank God.
Saturday, April 21, 2001
Yes, folks, it's time for another public service I do here occasionally. Tips for Telemarketers.
First, if you're in the telemarketing field, please note my congratulations. You've managed, through education, hard work, and sheer determination, to arrive at a career that's only the second-most-universally despised, world wide. I'm sure that, if your slide continues, you might reach that number one position, and become a real spammer some day.
Secondly, I'm pretty sure that, given the fact that your mental capacity is something short of a goldfish, we should cover that old "when and how to call" rule again.
And, just in case it isn't already clear; in the twelve years that we've been playing our phone bills and having our own phone number, I can assure you that we did not, and do not, purchase anything via the telephone. So stop wasting your time, and ours.
Yes, yes. Another
gratuitious shot of Buck Hill. No more skiing there. Though I think
you can see in this image (which as usual links to a larger one) a orangy-white
smear on the eastern hillside up there (this is a view to the south, I should
have explained long ago, so east is left) is the last of their snow. As,
early in the season, they were making their own snow, that's pretty much what's
left. The orange color is from the iron content in the water - I'm
assuming that they've got some special permission for their own wells up there,
as it would otherwise be prohibitively expensive to spray sterilized,
flouridated water (as is required in this state) onto a hillside. Ah,
government.
And yes, the above anti-telemarketing rant was prompted by a phone call at 9:10 am this morning that she answered - "would you like to hear about a three-day, two-night trip to Branson, Missouri?" Hell, no. Not at 9:10 am, nor at any other time of the day, thank you very little.
And I've got nothing against those of you who started in telemarketing and got out. Heck, some of my best friends were telemarketers. You do what you have to to pay the bills. But to my mind, there are three intrusions that I do not tolerate. The first is a door-to-door salesman - I'm an intelligent, grown man. If I want to learn about, or purchase, your product, I'm fully capable of doing so. I've got countless resources, such as the internet, the yellow pages, newspapers, magazines, etc. The second is telemarketers. I pay my phone bills, I provide the phone in my home for my needs. I'm not providing it for you to waste my time with. The third is Spammers. Here, and only here, is technology allowing us to win that battle.
I use Outlook, where I used to use Outlook Distress. I know JHR calls it "Look-Out" but in terms of mail fumbling, I needed to keep my life as easy as possible. I use Outlook at work. I need something with a very robust address book, mail handling rules, and organizational capabilities. In order to keep my life as simple as possible, I stick with one tool.
I use Outlook's rules to do quite a bit of the filtering for me. I do some basic filtering right off the bat, and run out a lot of the crap (see below). If the message makes it through the first layer of filtering, I copy it into a folder called "all inbound". That way, if a rule destroys something I wanted to keep, I've got it. Second layer of protection is that I never directly delete (here) something coming in. I move it to the deleted items folder if I'm certain I don't want it. If I'm pretty sure I don't want it, it goes into the "Temp Trash" folder. Than, if a message is addressed to me, it goes from "Inbox" to a folder I call "Real Inbox". Then the fun starts. If the message comes from the daynoters, it goes into one sub-folder. If it's from me and an archival copy of something from another mail account, it goes into another folder (depending on the account it came from).
Back in the regular inbox, I go back an filter based on specific criteria and phrases. If the letter mentions "Nigera" and "funds" and "bank account" and "transfer", for example, it goes into temp trash. Once I get a rule tweaked to the point at which I'm sure it works, I move it ahead of the "archive copy" rule so I stop copying crap into the all-inbound folder.
There. Now if I could do that with phone calls...
And I'm pretty proud of myself. Ever since hearing Faith Hill's latest (If My Heart Had Wings, I think), the tempo's been bugging me. I've heard the song maybe five or six times, and I was having a heck of a time figuring it out. You have to remember that, for a percussionist, knowing the tempo is key to listening to a song. It's probably obsessive (some would say pathological, and I won't argue), but I want to know the tempo - you know, four-four, three-four, two-four, etc.
And this song was giving me fits. There were triplet-elements in it, which lead me to think 3/4 (think a waltz, but much, much faster). Then, for a while I thought it was 4/4 with triplets (remember, this is the fellow who went through five summers of marching band, able to walk to 4/4 time and still play triplets regularly in a cadence - drummers might well be the only people in marching band who could walk, chew gum, AND play their instruments all at the same time. Unless you were in one of those oddball "marching bands" which used marching bass guitars or some other abomination). Anyway, it finally, finally, hit me this morning at the end of the song. 6/8. Six beats to the bar, and an eighth note counts as one beat. That was why the "one" in the measure seemed to be moving around.
Now that we've got that earth-shattering development out of the way, let's see what's in store for us for the rest of the day... ;-)
Later...
Later: Well, that's a bit of a surprise. Last year around tax refund time, I splurged on myself and dropped over $100 on a couple of CDs for Dungeons and Dragons. Yup, the nerd runs deep. Anyway, while on vacation last week, I picked up a couple of Dragon magazines. Years and years ago, I had a bunch of friends who played, and the general rule was that only one fellow (our regular DM) could read that magazine, as it had tricks and things that we might end up using as part of our regular campaign. So he got it, and I didn't.
Got fed up with that (took me nearly 20 years) and picked up four issues last week. I noticed a couple of things.
TSR, which used to be based in Geneva, Wisconsin, was purchased by Wizards of the Coast, which I knew of, because I ordered that software last year. If you're wondering (like I was) where the cash came from that allowed WOTC to buy TSR, all I'll say is "Magic; the Gathering." Aka that stupid "card game" wherein the kids would flip cards, win or lose, and do other silly things. Apparently WOTC did so well at cardboard that they could afford to buy TSR. And Avalon Hill went down the tubes... sheesh.
Anyway, I had read last week that WOTC was A) Acquired by Hasbro, and B) working on the 3rd edition rules for D&D.
If you were at all familiar with D&D, one of the issues I picked up was rather enlightening. I found that at one time I owned one of the fourth printings of the original D&D books. You see, I picked up Dungeons and Dragons before they "advanced". In fact, I tried, and failed, to play the game back then. Then I ran across the hard-cover "Monster Manual." Picked it up on a shot. Kept going. At one point, I had an AD&D backpack - no, not an official logo backpack, but a cheap backpack I'd picked up at Shopko. That held all eleven books. Then I had a tacklebox I'd picked up also at Shopko (mainly because Shopko was across the street from Baker's Craft and Hobby, which was the only store in town at the time to carry the AD&D stuff, along with miniature paints and brushes), which carried my 200+ miniature figures - most hand-painted. Some still unfinished.
Anyway, the point of this digression. I picked up the Second Edition materials, all on CD-ROM, and the Core Rules Expansion Pack. The goal was to carry around a laptop instead of invest another $300 in books (I'd rather invest $2000 in a computer instead of $300 in books. Am I screwed up or what?) and then be able to do all of that stuff I wanted to do.
So tonight I figured that, since the Third Edition was out in book form now, I'd see if a software update was available. And it turns out there's only one software title available right now. And it's just basically a map kit. Hmmm...
Oh well. The wife's watching "Hanging Up" which despite the rather funny write-up on the case and the commercials we'd seen, turns out to be a very, very depressing movie. Lovely.
And, to top it all off, it seems we qualify for anything up to a 1 Meg DSL line here, for the relatively low cost of $44.95 a month. While that's only $20 more a month, it's more than I want to shovel over to the local piss-poor phone company.
Sunday, April 22, 2001
Well, today's been a bit frustrating.
We got up late, had a late brunch, and then waited around for a phone call that never materialized. Then we took the kids to McDonalds to get a real workout. Then we came home, and put them to bed, after a few more struggles.
The whole time it was raining. In fact, if I had to guess, with about two hours left in Sunday, we've had rain about 30 of the last 46 hours, and it looks like we'll get 32 of 48 by the end of today. And that's just not what we need. We need sunny, dry weather. We'll see how bad this is, but there's a flash-flood warning for a number of counties here, including my parent's, Stearns County. While they live on the mississippi, they're far enough up-river to have avoided some of the floods, and far enough above the water level (the bottom of the basement floor is about eight feet above the standard river level, and quite a lot farther than that above the theoretical water level (as my parents are on the high side of the river, and the other side's fairly low; additionally the bank slopes downward as you get closer to Sartell, until they reach a point where the road is about four feet above river level.
Anyway, that was today. Not a whole lot of fun or computer stuff - I worked on a memo for work, and found a virus on my machine (got here relatively quickly, died just as fast - good reason to keep your AV software up to date.
Oh well. I guess you could call this a Phil Hough Sunday. ;-)
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