Older blog entries for miah (starting at number 25)

gilbou - do I win a prize?

http://www.bwild.com/magflasravli.html

Its a raver toy! I tried to goto your website, but it was in the middle of being rm -rf'd, it worked at first, then pages started disappearing, and when I refresed even the pages that worked no longer worked.

work..

Been really busy with work.. work, and work.. We just moved from the 5th floor to the 1st floor, and I ended up changing lots of network configurations. Finished migrating people to my new mail server, and have basically stopped 99% of the spam we were getting.

life..

Cathy and I are looking for a new apartment in Boston.. its tough. Trying to move from Malden into Somerville.. I'd like to live near Davis Sq..

personal interweb fun.. I also migrated my server from a colo in NM to my workspace were we have a T1. Its nice that I can just go downstairs and work on my server now.

Trying to get mailman to work on my new server.. its complaining that the postdrop group doesn't exist, even though a grep of /etc/group proves it does.. something is definately wrong somewhere..

Migrated my entire mail system from mbox to maildir, had to migrate my procmail setup and mutt.. still have to finish mutt.

I've been so busy the last two weeks... guh

Depressing day.. The disk in my fileserver decided to die.. Had lots of code there.. I was able to make a backup of the code before the server went totally dead, but I did end up losing some data.

I realize I've been one to speak out and remind people to backup. And I've been pretty good about backing up, but since the baby I haven't been on schedule, so my last backup is over a month old and I've done so much in the last month.

Owell, atleast I was able to save the code. Everything else I can replace. I'm planning on buying two large ide disks and getting a ide raid controller so that I can do disk mirroring. I'm now reading up on dump, going to look into setting up a real backup solution. I have a tape drive that's "ok" it'll backup 24gigs of data, which is much more than my code currently consumes.

Since I've also been reading up about GNU Arch (especially now that the GPG support is in (GOOD WORK GUYS!!)) I will likely setup a off site mirror of my repository. So that will give me several saftey nets should I need them.

Is there anything out there thats better than dump/restore thats not extremely complex to setup? If so, please email me, I might not see responses on here. Thanks!

Ah, also just noticed that my last post was Nov 5th. Since then I've become a dad. Nov 14th, my daughter was born. She's great!! I could go on for hours about her.

I've been moving more stuff into our new workspace. My friends and I are renting an old bakery for use as a workspace. Well, My friends have been renting there for about a year, and I've just joined. We already have a T1 in place, and the basement is all setup with racks. On the mainfloor we have a store-front with a kitchenette, whiteboard, big table, our projector, places to sit, and Battlezone. Behind the storefront, we have our workspaces. Basically a big room with our desks. It's working out pretty well. This month I'm going to try to move sunrise-linux.com there. It might be tough, since I'm going to be a dad sometime next week.

I've managed to put a bunch of work into sunrise. Fixed some other little bugs in a couple packages. I haven't been able to get the cool stuff on the TODO list done yet, but I'm trying. My friend that was helping with the project has been really busy with school (I think, he hasn't logged in to check his mail for like 2 months now).

wainstead - man screen

Long time no update... Gonna be a dad in like 3 weeks!! Been getting lots of atari 2600 stuff lately.. Love those old games.. Trying to find a cheap 5200 and some games..

Still working on sunrise, but things are going really slow right now. I have four packages to update before I consider releasing another alpha, and of course have lots of installer stuff to check, and possibly fix.

Been reading Practical C, its such a good book.

31 Jul 2003 (updated 31 Jul 2003 at 19:05 UTC) »
life

Not much going on lately. Been playing xbox too much (KOTOR is awesome). Between KOTOR and .hack//infection I really haven't gone out much. Last weekend I did goto the midnight showing of some Kung-Fu movie at the Coolidge with some friends. It was called 'crippled avengers' (imdb link below) it was great, I laughed and had a good time.

http://us.imdb.com/Title?0077292

work

At work I've been getting to know user-mode-linux (I wont say UML because I know that will confuse everybody). So far its a pretty interesting system, but I think there are some obvious things that should be fixed (like if a xterm cannot open for the default console dont hang the system, fail gracefully). I've managed to figure out alot of the options and moved default console over to a telnet port, which is nifty but it seems like after the system has completed booting that port disappears. Owell. I downloaded one of the redhat filesystems from their site, it kind of worries me in that it doesn't seem to create new ssh server keys, and how do I know I can trust all the binaries in that disk image? I'll likely end up making my own disk image in a couple of days.

I've also been dealing with the backup stuff still. I'm really beginning to hate retrospect. But its what we've got and I have to work with it. I guess its really not retrospect I hate so much as some of the systems I'm having to backup. We have a Raidzone OpenNAS system, with 1TB of IDE Raid5. Pretty neat, and from what I hear it cost alot less than a netapp would have cost. Anyways, the thing that bothers me about the raidzone is you cannot upgrade easily as its a binary only kernel module. I want to drop in a IntelPRO1000xt NIC but I worry that the 2.4.6 kernel they provide wont support it well enough and it seems I wouldn't be able to upgrade to 2.4.20. Sure, I could upgrade if I fork $2500 over to raidzone. If there are any companies out there violating the GPL right now I am willing to bet Raidzone is one of them. You can't download anything from them. Its sad because they're in the business of selling Linux RAID systems and they're totally screwing themselves. Somebody at raidzone should read 'the magic cauldren' because I really do like this system, but the binary only driver is really screwing me. My current thought is if after adding this NIC and I cant get it to work I'll swap it out with a different IDE Raid controller (Like something from 3ware, from what I can tell their drivers are included in the Linux kernel). If anybody has any other recommendations I'd appreciate it, email me.

other

If you're in the Boston area you should come to the 2600 meet tomorrow. Its at the prudential center, in the food court. We meet around 5p and leave around 8:30p. Its not just a gathering of 12yo's talking about AOHell, and trading warez. Many of us are Linux/UNIX/OSS enthusiasts' and some of us even work or have worked for OSS companies. It's open to everybody, and we usually have alot of fun.

16 Jul 2003 (updated 16 Jul 2003 at 16:47 UTC) »

My xbox modchip should have arrived today. The tracking number says it has, but when you live in a apartment complex you learn to never trust that until you're holding the package.

I've been working more on my gpg article. I should actually have it ready for review before next week. Then I'll need to have some people review it and give me feedback. I'd like to get it online soon.

wow to friendster. If you haven't seen it www.friendster.com I've been finding lots of my old friends on this thing, I haven't met anybody new on it though.

Retrospect

Its a backup software, it backs up windows, macos, and linux clients. The server runs on windows or macos. I currently have 6.5server running on windows2000 and its performing so slowly that its almost easier to copy everything manually. I've been trying to figure out what the bottleneck is. I replace the network cable from the server to the switch, replaced the switch, and made sure the client (the one with 300gb of stuff to backup) is connected directly to the switch. I'm getting at the most 20MB/min backup rate which is really really damn slow.

Another problem I'm having with it is when running in 'proactive mode' my client (with 300gb) keeps deferring itself. The people at dantz told me to 'uninstall the client, reboot the system, and then reinstall the client' and to that i answered 'uh, its linux' but they still insisted. They don't seem to understand that it shouldn't make a difference if i reboot, and if its a server with 300gb of stuff it probably needs to stay up all the time.

Woo, long time no update.

I'm employeed now. I'm the 'ASS' (Application Support Specialist) for chip.org now. I'm feeling alot better with the job situation. I really like this place. I've been here almost two months now, and things are going very well.

Did alot of updating on sunrise. helo did a bunch of updates to the installer and the bootdisk set, but he's disappeared so I haven't seen the changes yet. I forgot to reregister sunriselinux.{com,net,org} and now some pr0n site has picked them up. I find it slightly funny.

I'm back at my apartment with my gf. Things are going alot better on that front. I've been trying to sell off a bunch of my unused computer hardware. If you live in the boston area, email me and I'll forward you the list of stuff I'm trying to unload.

Also, if you're in the boston area, goto www.blu.org, or goto 2600. The local 2600 group is pretty cool. Lots of smart and fun people there. I run the local 2600 mailing list, it can be found at: http://www.sunrise-linux.com/mailman/listinfo/617-2600

I'm also happily typing this entry out on my purdy new laptop. My new employer got me a PowerBook G4 15.2" 1ghz/1gigram.. It's really nice. I must say I really like OSX. There are a few things I dislike though, and I kind of feel like there isn't a easy way to complain about it. I really need to look into that more though.

I've been reading lots of books lately. I'm just about finished with 'All tomorrows parties'. Its pretty good. Feels like it took a while to get into the good part, its good when you get there. Before that I read 'zodiac' which i really liked. I often found it hard to put down. I also read 'the ratmans notebooks' which is what the movie 'willard' was based on. I also liked that book. I highly recommend both if you can find them.

11 Jul 2003 (updated 11 Jul 2003 at 18:28 UTC) »

Woo, long time no update.

I'm employeed now. I'm the 'ASS' (Application Support Specialist) for chip.org now. I'm feeling alot better with the job situation. I really like this place. I've been here almost two months now, and things are going very well.

Did alot of updating on sunrise. helo did a bunch of updates to the installer and the bootdisk set, but he's disappeared so I haven't seen the changes yet. I forgot to reregister sunriselinux.{com,net,org} and now some pr0n site has picked them up. I find it slightly funny.

I'm back at my apartment with my gf. Things are going alot better on that front. I've been trying to sell off a bunch of my unused computer hardware. If you live in the boston area, email me and I'll forward you the list of stuff I'm trying to unload.

Also, if you're in the boston area, goto www.blu.org, or goto 2600. The local 2600 group is pretty cool. Lots of smart and fun people there. I run the local 2600 mailing list, it can be found at: http://www.sunrise-linux.com/mailman/listinfo/617-2600

I'm also happily typing this entry out on my purdy new laptop. My new employer got me a PowerBook G4 15.2" 1ghz/1gigram.. It's really nice. I must say I really like OSX. There are a few things I dislike though, and I kind of feel like there isn't a easy way to complain about it. I really need to look into that more though.

I've been reading lots of books lately. I'm just about finished with 'All tomorrows parties'. Its pretty good. Feels like it took a while to get into the good part, its good when you get there. Before that I read 'zodiac' which i really liked. I often found it hard to put down. I also read 'the ratmans notebooks' which is what the movie 'willard' was based on. I also liked that book. I highly recommend both if you can find them.

Well, this month has been hell. I'm still doing all I can to find gainful employment. I recently sent out my resume to a bunch of places and I'm once again getting the "Please send your resume in word format, so we can open it". I send out my resume in PDF, which is quite possibly one of the most Portable Document Formats.. sure its not free, but there is a viewer for every OS, so I don't know what these peoples problem is.

Haven't done much work with my distro. I have however written a small amount of perl code that controls the LED scroller at my friends apartment. I basically modified it and added in more 'meta-spys'.. The little pages where you can see what people are searching for on altavista, and metacrawler.. It now has support for 'altavista, metacrawler, kanoodle, galaxy.com, and ask jeeves'. I need to find more of these to add to it.

I've been kind of kicked out of my apartment by my GF. She thinks my motivation needs a kick in the ass and well, it does. I really wish there was another way to work things out, because this is very hard. We went out saturday and vistited some friends, drove around and talked, then went to a party. We both had a great time. The main issue is space, we have a smallish one bedroom apartment and since we've not had much cash we've been both at the apartment alot. The second issue is money, I'm still not working fulltime and I guess I haven't been looking hard enough. Finding a decent job right now is so hard.. I'm still working part-time for BWH, its fun, but I'd rather be doing something else, especially something where I get more than 10hours a week.

jfleck: You should grab either 'Ad-Aware' or 'Spybot Search and Destroy'. Both are great programs for windows that remove spyware, and the sex dialer programs. Adaware is currently undergoing a rewrite and thus hasn't been updated for a couple of months, but spybot has and its a great piece of software. It's really sad that there is a market for such programs, but atleast they're both free. I'm suprised the sex industry hasn't taken a tip from the anti-virus industry and started selling products that removed their crappy software. =)

I released a updated alpha of my distro. Still need to get the apt repository setup and upload the source rpms as well.

Hacked up a little script for rpm to do md5sum checking on source tarballs before extraction and compilation. I've started work on a similar script to do gpg signature checking as well. I will likely post both to my website by the end of the month.

Still alot of stuff to fix in the distro, but as only like 3 people run it I'm not very motivated.

A friend of mine that has been helping with the distro by maintaining our installer is currently porting it to uClibc. Hurray.

- Personal.

Last night I went to the Boston Linux Users group, which is held at MIT. Wow MIT is such a maze of a campus. Anyways, the talk was good and I won a door prize 'Practical C++ Programming' (a book I actually had on my amazon wishlist).

When we were leaving the LUG I ran into a friend who attends MIT and we went to the campus arcade for a while. After a couple games of Ms. PacMan and Pool we headed to the 'Thirsty Ear' to listen to some interesting idm. A study buddy of my friend showed up and I headed to the T to go home and on my way there I ran into another friend who was on his way to a club. We chatted for a bit on the sidewalk and then went on our way.

It was good to get out and actually the first time I'd left the house this week.

My job situation is getting annoying. I've seen searching for a decent full time posistion and still have not found anything. It makes me feel like I've worked my ass off for the last 6 years for nothing. Went from a good high paying job in San Francisco to a low hour(I work maybe 5-10hours a week) part time hourly posistion, and now I can go get a great job at McDonalds. I feel like I've chosen a great career path and have a great life ahead of me.

If anybody knows of a decent company in the Boston area looking for a Linux person, and you're not taking the job, please send info my way.

- Complain

I actually had sent my resume to ximian when I first moved here, and they were interested in me and called to schedule a interview. I returned the call and never heard back from them and of course they hired somebody else without ever even interviewing me. I feel kind of cheated on that. Anyways, that happend almost a year ago so it really doesn't matter. But it was the first time I had hope for a decent job in the last 2 years (since my job at penguin computing).

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