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GRAFFITI -- December 03, 2007 thru December 09, 2007

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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.

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MONDAY    Tues    Wed    Thu    Fri    Sat    Sun   
December 3, 2007

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December 4, 2007

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Mon    Tues    WEDNESDAY    Thu    Fri    Sat    Sun   
December 5, 2007

1059 - Good morning. Sorry about the delay, but on Monday morning, we spotted a disk error in the logwatch mailing from Zidane (the server that hosts these pages, email, etc., etc., for several people). Hmmm. That's not good. Several hours later, the EXT3 filesystem started logging errors and creating new files ... wasn't working, in spots. Greg did a bit of quick shopping, and we landed a new box with SoftLayer Technologies. We started configuring on Monday night, and by about 0030 this morning, the new box was live and firing on several more cylinders than the old Zidane even had. Thanks for your patience.

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December 6, 2007

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Mon    Tues    Wed    Thu    FRIDAY    Sat    Sun   
December 7, 2007

The view from my desk
The view from my desk

2018 - Good evening. Finally, I'm catching up with the week. Wednesday we had the first snow of the season. The weatherliars said 1-2 inches, then upped that a bit for areas west and north of DC. We're east, so not an issue, right? When I got home from work Wednesday night, I quickly shovelled three inches off the deck in back to cut down on icing problems for the dogs the next morning. By 9 PM, another 2 inches had accumulated. And still, today, there's some snow around. Usually the first snow of the year is gone within 24 hours. And what's especially nice is this view out the window next to my desk. Yeah, I have a window. The view can be nice, but I'll trade you for the glare off my monitor, most days.

Greg and I have continued to fettle the new Zidane - overall it seems pretty nice and snappy. Most of our issues arose from migrating between distributions. Zidane the Elder, hosted at The Planet (nee EV1 Servers, nee Rackshack) was on RHEL ... 3 I think, maybe 4. It was part of the service, and worked for us. When it was clear that we had to switch to new hardware, Greg took the time to shop around - and we found the good deal at SoftLayer. Then we had to decide what to do about the OS. There are several options, including CentOS (the other EL). But Greg and I have always been partial to Debian and derivatives, because of both the breadth and depth of the package repositories, and Apt, the best package management tool in the world.

So Ubuntu 6.10 LTS was the choice. While we're running services mostly with the same programs as before, Ubuntu puts some things in different places than Red Hat ... and several of our core services were hand-built and installed in the /usr/local tree previously. Now we're strictly using packaged software - a big maintenance win on all accounts! But after getting everything up and running, there were plenty of little details to occupy the last couple of evenings without even breathing hard.


On the home front, the window dressing is almost done, minimal as it is. The micro-ornament-tree (about 28 inches tall, and all plastic (Plastics Are The Future)) is in place with some other holiday-shrine items on the game table in the library. A few gee-gaws are about, too but that's it. This weekend we'll knock out the cards and then we're done until I go shopping on the 24th. See y'all later.

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December 8, 2007

2033 - Good evening. Not much to report. The default connection limit on MySQL may have bit us on the butt today, causing multiple authentication and service issues ... mostly with Bob, somehow. Lucky bloke. Marcia had an errand this afternoon, then we went window-shopping at Home Depot - looking at fixtures, colors and whatnot. We have this cherry vanity and bathroom wall unit that need to be gotten out of the dining room before we can remodel that. So I took some measurements today, I think I can easily make everything work. We'll probably tile the top in glass tile, and use a drop-in sink unit. We looked at mirrors and sconces, too. I may start demo next weekend, who knows.

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December 9, 2007

1623 - Good afternoon. Reading. Watching a bit of the final Pirates movie. I was awake and up before 0730, yet accomplished little. Some days are like that, but whenever I do slow down a bit, it's accompanied by guilt. We have people out in the world, fighting and dying. How can I do less than give 110%, as they do?

I have no answer to my question. I am not a marine, nor soldier, sailor, or airman in a far land where usually, someone within a few stones throws would be happy to part me from my life. Their motivation is more immediate than mine, sharper. They do us all honor in their duty, in their service to country.


I'm reading Hyperion, by Dan Simmons. It's a loaner from a cow-orker, and I'm enjoying it more than I though likely. It's SciFi, strewn with current day references as puns and placenames, in the form of the Pilgrim's Progress. I have less than 70 pages left, and I'd like to finish by suppertime. Ciao!

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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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