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GRAFFITI -- July 26, 2004 thru August 01, 2004

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Welcome to Orb Graffiti, a place for me to write daily about life and computers. Contrary to popular belief, the two are not interchangeable.     About eMail - I publish email sometimes. If you send me an email and you want privacy or anonymity, please say so clearly at the beginning of your message.

Ron Paul in 2008

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Read LinuxGazette, get a clue.

MONDAY    Tues    Wed    Thu    Fri    Sat    Sun   
July 26, 2004

0727 - Good morning. Well, the good news is that I'm pretty sure this is just a bad cold, and not a flu bug. The bad news is that I still feel like crap, and slept pretty badly, not just because I was sleeping until noon yesterday. We successfully put Dani on the plane homewards yesterday. I hope and guess she had a good time ... I really can't tell. Marcia certainly had an excellent week off. I'll bet that you can tell from where you are, just how overjoyed she is to be headed back to work.

I've got a day at the office today, then I'll spend more time this evening working on the sample topic for this book that I might write. I'd best be on my way.

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Mon    TUESDAY    Wed    Thu    Fri    Sat    Sun   
July 27, 2004

0701 - Good morning. Thunder and lightning and rain, oh my! Through most of the night, unfortunately. And I was awake for much of it, more's the pity. But for whatever weird reason, I am feeling better. Also, I got the writing sample for the proposed book out yesterday evening ... after coming home early from work and resting for a bit. So not all is lost. I have a couple of pictures from the yard, but no time to get them up here today, so look for them tomorrow. I've got to get rolling - I'm at the distant client site. Have a great day!

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Mon    Tues    WEDNESDAY    Thu    Fri    Sat    Sun   
July 28, 2004

0726 - Good morning. It was an unsuccessful day yesterday. We worked hard to connect a piece of serial equipment to a Digiboard port server. But the product has an obfuscated 4 pin RJ-11 serial interface, other than TX and RX, we're not sure what signals are being used, and the manufacturer has been less than forthcoming with appropriate data. We tried a lot of permutations yesterday, more tomorrow, perhaps. But for today, I'm at NERDS, and working on ... um, something. An interview with a prospective new NERD in the morning, and a bit of nearby client work in the afternoon. Proposal writing, network move planning and other fun stuff should fill the day.

I promised pictures:

Brightly colored succulants Another Straw Flower blossom Lucy on guard duty More corn coming up nicely

On the back deck, most of the pots hold herbs of one kind or another. But a couple of the flowers are really taking off, most especially those miniature succulents shown above left. I've more of those in the ground in front, but they're not doing nearly as well there, I think because it's too hot with the direct late afternoon sun. The Straw Flower plant is also just pumping out blossoms. Meantime, Lucy guards the immediate yard, and as much of past the fence as she can see, hear or smell. And in the garden, plantings two and three of the corn are coming up right nice.


On 07/27/04 16:44, Mike Garvey wrote:
> I'm currently looking at Xandros Desktop OS 2.01 Open Circulation
(build 2004-06-07 09:52) on VMware Workstation 4.5.2 build-8848 on
Windows XP Professional and it looks good so far (audio support is
spotty -- sometimes it works, othertimes not, and the ALSA drivers kills
things right-good), do you have some tips on getting the VMware Tools to
work here? I've seen no success reports on the Xandros forums, so I
hesistate to proceed. Any ideas you have here is appreciated.

Well, hesitation means you don't get to discover stuff on your own, but...
I've never been happy with sound under VMware. I wouldn't bother about 
it. If you want sound, use the host OS.

VMware 4.5.2, build 8848 running on Gentoo Linux host.

Clean install of Xandros 2.0.1

Xandros networks, get all updates. (remember to restart ssh, the 
script doesn't do that, /etc/init.d/ssh start).

Then in Xandros Networks, search for gcc. The resulting package: 
C/C++ development tools, install it.

There, now go do the vmware tools thing... If you've not done that before, 

VMWARE -> VM -> Install VMware Tools, then in the guest OS, open a terminal 
window (Applications > System > Console), become the root user (su -):

cd /tmp

tar zxvf /disks/Removeable/cdrom1/vmware-linux-tools.tar.gz

cd vmware-tools-distrib

./vmware-install.pl

Take all the defaults, it picks up the kernel headers in 
/lib/modules/2.4.24-x1/build/include tree. It also installs the correct XFree86 
server slick as a whistle.

OTHER NOTES:

SSH doesn't start at boot by default.

cd /etc/rc2.d                     # runlevel 2 is default for Xandros

ln -sf /etc/init.d/ssh S51ssh     # this starts it at boot in future

/etc/init.d/ssh start             # if it isn't already, start it

That's it. Have fun!

.b

I'll leave you on that note, have a great day!

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Mon    Tues    Wed    THURSDAY    Fri    Sat    Sun   
July 29, 2004

0756 - Good morning. Two days to go, and another month's down. Wow, where does the time go. Me? I've already been at work for nearly an hour, I got out of the house at about 0615. Lots of stuff to do today, mostly mailserver configuration and documentation efforts, I think right now, although things can change. I'd best be about it - I want to bail out of here early. Unlike the last week or so, it's unlikely to rain today, so I can do the mowing. Otherwise, it's out to next week and a double cut, because another set of systems drops in on us tomorrow for 3 or 4 more days of damp. Have a great day!

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Mon    Tues    Wed    Thu    FRIDAY    Sat    Sun   
July 30, 2004

0731 - Good morning. Well, I haven't heard anything bookish back following the sample submission that I wrote and sent in Monday night. Given that I heard back the next day following the initial proposal and resume submission, I'd guess that no news isn't good news. And more to the point, I'd be willing to bet that they wouldn't offer an advance that's even close to my hourly rate. So it's probably all for the better. I've got other projects hanging fire anyway, like that Mailbox writeup that needs finishing.

For what it's worth, I've got to put my two-cents worth in with Bob Thompson and vote in favor of GoDaddy. John Dominik's troubles are real, but they aren't with GoDaddy, they're with DomainsByProxy, or perhaps with the interaction between GoDaddy and DomainsByProxy. But for the amount of pain that's John's been through, I don't understand why he doesn't take direct control of the domain. Sometimes it just isn't possible, I know, if the holding party isn't doing their end of the deal. But why flog a dead horse, especially when this time it wasn't GoDaddy's fault? I mean really, enter your data four times, the fourth time it works? That means pilot error in any endeavor that I'm used to. Yah, yah, cut-and-paste... but if it was an HTML email the first time, and a text attachment the second time, then the first email may have contained invisible non-ascii characters, or an easily picked-up kerned space or who knows what. An alternative, John? How about working with DomainsByProxy to move the site to another registrar, then?

Okay, I'm sore from mowing the jungle front and back last night - getting home "early" meant that I was mowing by 5 ... and finished by around 1915. I've got most of a working day in front of me today, and a network move planned for tomorrow, then a social event here in the neighborhood tomorrow night. Lots to do and little time, the story of everyone's life, it seems. Gotta fly!

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Mon    Tues    Wed    Thu    Fri    SATURDAY    Sun   
July 31, 2004

IMPORTANT -- INTERNET EXPLORER UPDATE AVAILABLE FROM MICROSOFT LATE FRIDAY AFTERNOON. YOU, RUN MS UPDATE NOW. PASS THE WORD. And if you're smug about running Linux, pass the word and help your friends anyway - we share the Metaverse, you know.

0745 - Good morning. It wasn't the best of days yesterday, a few issues with online personalities kept it from being a day of light and joy. But the work went well, we're prepared for today's network restructuring, which is where I am off to in a moment or 5. In the evening, we watched Emeril for a while, then I came upstairs to work on an LDAP implementation, I didn't have the energy for anything that held out hopes of success.

Now I've gotta go. Have a great day!

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Mon    Tues    Wed    Thu    Fri    Sat    SUNDAY  
August 1, 2004

No post here. Too darned lazy, cleaning, shopping, etc. Grin. Have a great day!

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Visit the rest of the DAYNOTES GANG, a collection of bright minds and sharp wits. Really, I don't know why they tolerate me <grin>. My personal inspiration for these pages is Dr. Jerry Pournelle. I am also indebted to Bob Thompson and Tom Syroid for their patience, guidance and feedback. Of course, I am sustained by and beholden to my lovely wife, Marcia. You can find her online too, at http://www.dutchgirl.net/. Thanks for dropping by.

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