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Archive of "Computer stuff" Category
PITA POS Dell Server
So I’ve been dealing with one of our ancient Dell 4300 servers. This thing is a beast, weighs in ~70lbs and it only has two 400Mhz Pentium3 processors in it. So it’s been hanging on boot up complaining about firmware being out of date. I was unable to get into the bios, or the utility module since it would just hang there.
The solution: unplug the mouse…:sigh:
Unplugging the mouse eliminated the firmware error messages and the damn thing booted right up…Really…The mouse…:shakes head and goes back to work:
Posted in Computer stuff, Work Stuff |
2 Comments »Weird laptop issue
I’ve been using Fedora 9 since the Beta release came out a month or so ago with few problems…I did a fresh install when the Preview release came out last week. I love it! Only a few small, annoying issues so far.
I was having wireless issues but only at home…That seems to be due to a weird WEP issue and is solved by switching to WPA which I should have done a while ago. Now for the other weird issue…I have my /home, / , and swap encrypted using LUKS. Everything has been fine since the Preview re-install until I got home today..My normal procedure is typing 3 passphrases to decrypt everything when the laptop boots up..
When I got home my swap passphrase wasn’t working…I couldn’t change the passphrase since it seemed to not have a passphrase set…So here’s what I did:
This reformatted the swap partition. I wasn’t worried about data since it’s just swap.
WARNING!
========
This will overwrite data on /dev/sda2 irrevocably.Are you sure? (Type uppercase yes): YES
Enter LUKS passphrase:
Verify passphrase:
Command successful.
Now to turn it back into swap
[root@voodoo ~]# mkswap /dev/sda2
Setting up swapspace version 1, size = 2146791 kB
no label, UUID=ce65e513-a0b8-3345-a834-a8989a57ac04
And finally turn swap on
swapon /dev/sda2
Really strange that it all of the sudden lost the passphrase…
Posted in Computer stuff, Geek Stuff |
No Comments »For The Record
I just want to say how much I *HATE* Windows…For the last month I’ve done nothing but deal with 2 Windows servers that we are stuck with here…I am *not* a Windows guy by any stretch. The last time I touched any Windows server related stuff was before Hurricane Katrina when I was working on the MS Gulf Coast. That’s going on 3 years now…
I have also removed any reference of Windows from my resume. I will never again say that I have experience with any Microsoft product..Fuck Windows…
Posted in Computer stuff |
1 Comment »Synergy
I’ve been using a great little program for over a year now that allows you to share a keyboard and mouse between to separate machines. I use it to combine my desktop and laptop at work. Check out Synergy and then head over to my Wiki where I have documented how to set it up and also included an auto start script.
Posted in Computer stuff, Geek Stuff |
1 Comment »Merging PDF’s
I had a user ask me if it was possible to merge multiple pdf’s into a single pdf. Why of course it’s possible. Grab the following script and make it executable. It runs from the command line right now. I will probably get around to making a gui for it this weekend. Usage is as follows:
mergepdf 1.pdf 2.pdf 3.pdf 4.pdf etcYou will need to rename your pdf’s in the order you want them to appear in hte merged copy. A new page will be created for each number.
Posted in Computer stuff, Geek Stuff |
1 Comment »Thanks For The Help!
I was looking though the help docs for the Gnome Desktop today and clicked on the Gnome Key Ring documentation and this is what I saw…
Posted in Computer stuff |
1 Comment »Venting
Working in several high stress jobs in my life I’ve seen how people cope with different things. Like the doctor who, after a major trama, would go out and buy doughnuts and milk for everyone in the ER and then sit around for 20-30 joking about the worst trauma’s we’d ever work. When I moved back to the ambulance it was the same way. After a stressful run we would talk about how “fucked up” that guy was..Or how we were so lucky not to be him/her.
Now in the computer field it’s not life or death stressful. Althought some of our users would have you believe it’s life or death important. But the same thing happens now. Computers are easy to me. Always have been. I get frustrated with them, hell I get down right pissed off at them. But they are logical machines that do what you tell them to do. People who operate computers aren’t. This is a very high stress job simply because each user thinks their problem should be top of the list no matter what. So, yes we talk about our users. I am never unprofessional to their face and I alway give them my full attention. But when we are talking amongst ourselves we will talk about the difficult,stupid, and just plain funny calls we get.
(more…)Posted in Computer stuff |
3 Comments »Developers, Listen Up!
How to torture your system administrators: a checklist for developers.
1. Insist on using /etc/hosts instead of DNS, because it is more secure that way.
2. Run everything as root, because your application is secure. You’ve heard of no problems with it.
3. Scatter the components of your application into no less than five filesystems.
4. Demand the latest versions of libraries and languages even though the ones that ship with the OS you are on have everything you need. Newer is definitely always better.
5. Treat your database as a flat file (”select * from TABLE”).
6. Use more than one programming/scripting language for a project.
7. Store data in /tmp.
8. Insist that your application needs its own server, for performance reasons (dual quad-core Xeons, 16 GB of RAM).
9. Hard-code IP addresses into your applications and scripts.
10. Always use ‘debug’ level logging. Always. To syslog, using authpriv.crit.
Shamelessly pulled from The Lone SysAdmin
Posted in Computer stuff |
No Comments »What access??
Before I left from work on Friday I grabbed one of the Verizon v620 cards that’s “supposed” to allow you broadband connectivity where ever you go..Maybe everywhere except Mississippi that is. I tried connecting from my Dad’s house, and honestly I didn’t hold much hope of it work. My cell phone barely works that and service is spotty at best. So I wasn’t surprised when it errored out. So when I went to Laurel I parked in the Wal-mart parking lot and decided to try it again. Still erroring out.. At this point I am kinda surprised that it’s not working. Laurel is fairly up2date with good cell phone service.
Currently I am sitting in JavaWerks and the damn card is still erroring out. I know there are Verizon cell towers down here…So I’m thinking about going to a Verizon store and seeing what they can tell me. I fully expect that since I’m using Linux that I will get the “I’m sorry but that’s not supported speech”. But it’s worth a try right? It would have been really nice to have broadband access from my Dad’s house. I don’t think I can make you fully understand how far out in the woods they live. You have to see it to belive it.
Posted in Computer stuff, Things that suck! |
3 Comments »Microsuck
So this deal between Micro$oft and Novell/SUSE stinks really badly. I don’t see Micro$oft out to “help the people”. I see this as an attempt to flush Linux out of the market. I have never been a fan of SUSE Linux and this surely doesn’t help their image in my eyes. I fully agree that during this Micro$soft/Novell/SUSE “partnership” everyone who uses SUSE should migrate all their servers/desktops to something else. Yes I work for Red Hat. But I don’t care who you go with. Pick CentOS or someother distro just don’t let Micro$oft pull the wool over everyone’s eyes and destroy Linux.
I totally agree with this article.
I see this being a long and ugly fight.
First they ignore you.
Then they laugh at you.
Then they fight you.
Then you win.Mohandas Gandhi
Welcome to the fight.
Posted in Computer stuff, Geek Stuff, General, rant |
1 Comment »“Some one has a case of the Mondays”
This has not been the best Monday i’ve had. This weekend start with my laptop hard drive dying. No problem, it happens. I pull a drive that I had in another machine, come to find out it has bad sectors as well. Ok..So i’ll wait until I get to work to put a new drive in.
I get to work this morning and move the mouse on my desktop machine to wake it up. Nothing. I hit a key and the computer is waiting for me to put in my root password to run a manual filesystem check. Not good…So I put in my password and try and let the filesystem check do it’s thing. I go to reboot and get the message “There are no linux partitions on this drive”. Great!!!! So now I have no desktop machine or laptop. And to make things better my desktop wasn’t backed up. Aaaaaand this is the machine I use for building rpm’s and doing basic development work. So basically 7 months of work is gone. It’s my own fault for not backing up. I just kept putting it off and putting it off.
So my day was spent rebuilding my laptop and desktop. I did have a backup of my laptop at work current as of Friday. And at home I had run a backup Saturday. So all in all my laptop will be ok..But my desktop is completely lost.
Can I have a do-over??
Posted in Computer stuff, General, Things that suck! |
4 Comments »Missing icons
During a recent update my thunderbird icon came up missing in the toolbar and when I alt+tab. To fix do the following:
mkdir -p /usr/lib/thunderbird-{$VERSION}/chrome/icons/default
The dir's that will be create are /icons/default. Then run:
cp /usr/lib/thunderbird-{$VERSION}/icons/mozicon50.xpm \ /usr/lib/thunderbird-{$VERSION}/chrome/icons/default/default.xpm
Restart T-bird and you should be good to go..This was tested of FC5 & 6 and also RHEL4
Posted in Computer stuff, Geek Stuff, General |
1 Comment »Today…Was a good day…
Today I took and passed the test for RHCE. I can honestly say this is one of the hardest tests I have ever taken and i’m glad to have it out of the way. Now I can focus on learning more about the systems I work on daily.
Posted in Computer stuff, Geek Stuff, General |
3 Comments »VPN Dropping Connection?
If you run Linux and use the Cisco VPNclient and have had your connection dropping randomly. Try this:
Open a terminal and run
ifconfig < $your_vpn_connection>That should return a good bit of info. The main part you want to look at is:
MTU:1356
If you increase the size of the MTU that will keep the Cisco VPNclient happy. To do that put in the following:ifconfig cipsec0 mtu 1500That should ease the dropped connections. Worked for me
Posted in Computer stuff, Geek Stuff, General |
1 Comment »VPNC Easy??
I deal with people who talk so much shit about this program. And while it’s not my first choice I was amazed at how easy it is to setup and use. I set it up on Fedora Core 5 and Ubuntu and was up and running in under 5 minutes.
To all the folks who have issues…Check your config and make sure everything is correct…Works for me!
Posted in Computer stuff, Geek Stuff, General |
1 Comment »
