Update: Dortmunder

Anthony commented on one of the early pictures of Dortmunder, asking “How does your new computer behave?”

Unremarkably is perhaps the best answer – in that there’s nothing to remark on, it just keeps ticking on. It’s currently acting as my home IMAPS server (dovecot), as well as an IRC (irssi) launching spot that stays connected in a screen session.

Agog:~ bilbrey$ ssh dortmunder
Last login: Thu Aug  9 17:40:36 2012 from 192.168.1.100
[bilbrey@dortmunder ~]$ w
 17:41:11 up 25 days, 20:38,  1 user,  load average: 0.11, 0.04, 0.05
USER     TTY        LOGIN@   IDLE   JCPU   PCPU WHAT
bilbrey  pts/3     17:41    0.00s  0.15s  0.04s w
...
[root@dortmunder pacman.d]# pacman -Qu | wc -l
68

And given that Arch is a rolling-release Linux distro, I’m not surprised that there are 68 packages awaiting update. But not right now. Now it’s time to feed the mutt.

August Already?

Time flies. I’m “in between” classes, so I’m just reading ahead for the first class of the Fall session, which starts on August 20. This weekend, I got some work done replacing broken shelving in Marcia’s fabric room, cleaned up and fixed up a couple of things in the woodshop, harvested a metric big volume of veggies (mostly tomatoes), made more salsa, made some chili, and… oh, yeah, worked at the office for a few hours yesterday. I’ve got gear that’s making me very, very angry (as nearly everyone’s favorite Martian has been known to exclaim).

*      *      *

Our condolences to the families, friends, and units of these fallen warriors:

  • Sgt. 1st Class Bobby L. Estle, 38, of Lebanon, Ohio, died July 28 in Wardak province, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered from enemy small arms fire.
  • Pfc. Jose Oscar Belmontes, 28, of La Verne, California, died July 28 in Wardak province, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered from enemy small arms fire.
  • Spc. Benjamin C. Pleitez, 25, of Turlock, California, died July 27, in Mazar E Sharif, Afghanistan.
  • 1st Lt. Sean R. Jacobs, 23, of Redding, California, died July 26 in Khakrez, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when he encountered an enemy improvised explosive device.
  • Sgt. John E. Hansen, 41, of Austin, Texas, died July 26 in Khakrez, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when he encountered an enemy improvised explosive device.
  • Gunnery Sgt. Jonathan W. Gifford, 34, of Palm Bay, Florida, died July 29 while conducting combat operations in Badghis province, Afghanistan.
  • Gunnery Sgt. Daniel J. Price, 27, of Holland, Michigan, died July 29 while conducting combat operations in Badghis province, Afghanistan.
  • Lance Cpl. Curtis J. Duarte, 22, of Covina, California, died Aug. 1, while conducting combat operations in Helmand province, Afghanistan.
  • Spc. Kyle B. McClain, 25, of Rochester Hills, Michigan, died Aug. 1, in Salim Aka, Afghanistan.
  • 1st Lt. Todd W. Lambka, 25, of Fraser, Michigan, died Aug. 1, in Paktika province, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when he encountered an enemy improvised explosive device.
  • Pfc. Jesus J. Lopez, 22, of San Bernardino, California, died Aug. 1, in Paktika province, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when he encountered an enemy improvised explosive device.
  • 1st Sgt. Russell R. Bell, 37, of Tyler, Texas, died Aug. 2, in Kandahar province, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when he encountered an enemy improvised explosive device.
  • Staff Sgt. Matthew S. Sitton, 26, of Largo, Florida, died Aug. 2, in Kandahar province, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when he encountered an enemy improvised explosive device.

Fuzzy? Mac Air MiniDP/HDMI vs. Samsung Syncmaster P2770HD

What a lovely lead, eh? But I had a heck of a time finding my answer, and while I never did find precisely what I wanted via search engines, I did get enough of a hint that I finally figured it out.

I have Agog, this Mac Air. It’s got Thunderbolt/Mini Display Port output and I’ve got a MiniDP-to-HDMI adapter. I also have this 27″ HDMI + DVI Samsung Syncmaster P2770HD display. Here’s the problem: When I connected the Air to the Syncmaster at full resolution, the screen image was displayed with about “half an inch” missing at the top and bottom. To get the whole screen displayed, I had to muck with the over/underscan setting in the Display Settings dialog. That would get me to where I could see the menu bar and the whole doc, but at far too great a cost: fuzzy, fuzzy display. Hinky for pictures, awful for text.

There was lots of griping in the assorted forums that I found talking about this issue, but no one had the right answer. Some extremely helpful folks said, “Well, it works for me!” Isn’t that special!

But someone was writing about menu settings … on the display. I had tried and failed with Auto Adjustment – it appears not to have any effect for the digital input modes on this monitor. However, I found the fix: Menu -> Size & Position -> Image Size. It was set to 16:9. When I changed it to “Screen Fit”, the magic happened. Now I have the Air happily displaying crisp text and images on this big screen, which is a good thing.

Hopefully this helps someone else down the road. Ciao!

Getting Things Done

But not GTD in the larger sense. But getting things done, lower case: I shaved the lawns yesterday, front and back. I did a bit of weeding in the garden, also. And today, I find that for the second summer session class, I ended up 1 point shy of an ace, out of 500. Yes, absolutely where I should have been for a class on UNIX and shell scripting. But now just two classes to go! Huzzah!

*      *      *

Our condolences to the families, friends, and units of these fallen warriors:

  • Staff Sgt. Brandon R. Pepper, 31, of York, Pennsylvania, died July 21, in Ghazni province, Afghanistan.
  • Petty Officer 2nd Class Michael J. Brodsky, 33, of Tamarac, Florida, died July 21 at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, Landstuhl, Germany, of injuries sustained July 7 in Kandahar province, Afghanistan, related to a dismounted improvised explosive device blast.
  • Pfc. Julian L. Colvin, 21, of Birmingham, Alabama, died July 22 in Kandahar, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered from an enemy improvised explosive device.
  • Staff Sgt. Richard L. Berry, 27, of Scottsdale, Arizona, died July 22 in Kandahar, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered from an enemy improvised explosive device.
  • Sgt. Eric E. Williams, 27, of Murrieta, California, died July 23, in Pul-E Alam, Afghanistan.
  • Pfc. Adam C. Ross, 19, of Lyman, South Carolina, died July 24, in Wardak province, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when he encountered small arms fire.
  • Spc. Justin L. Horsley, 21, of Palm Bay, Florida, died July 22 of wounds suffered when enemy forces attacked their unit in Pul-E Alam, Afghanistan, with an improvised explosive device.
  • Pfc. Brenden N. Salazar, 20, of Chuluota, Florida, died July 22 of wounds suffered when enemy forces attacked their unit in Pul-E Alam, Afghanistan, with an improvised explosive device.
  • Sgt. Justin M. Hansen, 26, of Traverse City, Michigan, died July 24 while conducting combat operations in Badghis province, Afghanistan.
  • Pfc. Theodore M. Glende, 23, of Rochester, New York, died July 27, in Kharwar, Logar province, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when enemy forces attacked his unit with small-arms fire.

SuperDuper! to the rescue!

Today, I changed the password on my Mac Air, Agog. I then cooked dinner, and watched a couple of episodes of Poirot. I came upstairs … and I don’t remember the password I set. It was a good one. I have backups a couple of different ways, but neither of them seemed to be immediately accessible to me. In order to recover from the Time Machine backups, I need WiFi configured *and* I need to mount the volume that has that sparse image on it. That path seemed blocked to me. But there’s a better way!

I make periodic backups of my system using a program called SuperDuper! Among other lesser capabilities, it duplicates the whole system onto another (external) disc, and makes that bootable. Except that when I booted while pressing the Option key … the USB external drive wasn’t being presented to me as a boot option, as the documentation says it should. Sigh.

After spelunking around in Recovery mode (hold Command-R while booting) for a while, and taking a break to walk the dog, I came back, and FINALLY, in Disk Utility , the Apple menu offered me the option to set the boot disk. I selected the AirDuper disk I’d refreshed just last weekend, and that’s what I’m booted into now. I’m using that to restore Agog’s internal flash drive, which is happening in the background as I write this.

Whew!

*      *      *

Our condolences to the families, friends, and units of these fallen warriors:

  • Staff Sgt. Carl E. Hammar, 24, of Lake Havasu City, Arizona, died July 14, in Khost province, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered from enemy small arms fire.
  • Sgt. Erik N. May, 26, of Independence, Kansas, died July 14, in Ghazni province, Afghanistan.
  • Spc. Sergio E. Perez Jr., 21, of Crown Point, Indiana, died July 16, in Wali Kot District, Afghanistan, from injuries suffered when his vehicle was struck by enemy rocket propelled grenades.
  • Spc. Nicholas A. Taylor, 20, of Berne, Indiana, died July 16, in Wali Kot District, Afghanistan, from injuries suffered when his vehicle was struck by enemy rocket propelled grenades.
  • Sgt. Daniel A. Rodriguez, 28, of Baltimore, Maryland, died July 18, in Ghazni City, Afghanistan, when his vehicle was struck by an enemy improvised explosive device.
  • Sgt. Jose J. Reyes, 24, San Lorenzo, Puerto Rico, died July 18, in Ghazni City, Afghanistan, when his vehicle was struck by an enemy improvised explosive device.
  • Cpl. Joshua R. Ashley, 23, of Rancho Cucamonga, California, died July 19 while conducting combat operations in Helmand province, Afghanistan.
  • Spc. Krystal M. Fitts, 26, of Houston, Texas, died July 17 in Kandahar, Afghanistan, from injuries suffered from indirect fire.
  • Senior Chief Aviation Warfare Systems Operator Sean P. Sullivan, 40, of St. Louis, Missouri, died in a helicopter crash July 19 in Oman.
  • Naval Aircrewman (Helicopter) Second Class Joseph P. Fitzmorris, 31, of West Monroe, Louisiana, died in a helicopter crash July 19 in Oman.
  • Pfc. Jeffrey L. Rice, 24, of Troy, Ohio, died July 19, in Kandahar, Afghanistan.
  • Spc. Darrion T. Hicks, 21, of Raleigh, North Carolina, died July 19 in Ghazni, Afghanistan, from injuries sustained from an enemy improvised explosive device.

From the Garden

Last week, a couple of tomatoes, a few potatoes, and these butternut squash:

Butternut squash

Butternut squash

Yesterday I made first salsa. Five tomatoes, one each habañero, jalapeño, and cerrano pepper, and some cilantro from the garden. A small onion, and half a clove of garlic. Yummy, but a full 2.75 on my 3 point scale of salsa. I could not finish a measly three cups of salsa – I stopped when I noticed that my lips, cheeks, and tongue were all numb with the heat. Yummy, but too darn hot. It was four hours before that wore off…

Today, from the garden:

Tomatoes, zucchini, and insane cucumber

Tomatoes, zucchini, and insane cucumbers

Mob Rule

Yikes: http://culturewars.com/CultureWars/Archives/Fidelity_archives/parricide.html So much for a happy celebration of Bastille Day (yesterday). The things people do to each other… Sigh. It’s on teh Internets, so it must be true! Alas, not much in the way of references there, so for me, for now, a grain of salt. But I think I want to know more, in a way that doesn’t really want to know that sort of thing at all. Compared to that account, the worst doings in Iraq and Afghanistan are the work of a few isolated children.

*      *      *

Our condolences to the families, friends, and units of these fallen warriors:

  • Staff Sgt. Raul M. Guerra, 37, of Union City, New Jersey, died July 4, in Spin Boldak, Afghanistan.
  • Spc. Jonathan Batista, 22, of Kinnelon, New Jersey, died July 8, in Zharay, Kandahar province, Afghanistan, when enemy forces attacked his unit with small arms fire.
  • Cpl. Juan P. Navarro, 23, of Austin, Texas, died July 7, in Kandahar, Afghanistan, when he was attacked with an enemy improvised explosive device.
  • Staff Sgt. Ricardo Seija, 31, of Tampa, Florida, died July 8, of wounds suffered when enemy forces attacked his unit in Maidan Shahr, Wardak province, Afghanistan, with an improvised explosive device.
  • Spc. Erica P. Alecksen, 21, of Eatonton, Georgia, died July 8, of wounds suffered when enemy forces attacked her unit in Maidan Shahr, Wardak province, Afghanistan, with an improvised explosive device.
  • Spc. Clarence Williams III, 23, of Brooksville, Fla., died July 8, of wounds suffered when enemy forces attacked his unit in Maidan Shahr, Wardak province, Afghanistan, with an improvised explosive device.
  • Pfc. Trevor B. Adkins, 21, of Spring Lake, North Carolina, died July 8, of wounds suffered when enemy forces attacked his unit in Maidan Shahr, Wardak province, Afghanistan, with an improvised explosive device.
  • Pfc. Alejandro J. Pardo, 21, of Porterville, California, died July 8, of wounds suffered when enemy forces attacked his unit in Maidan Shahr, Wardak province, Afghanistan, with an improvised explosive device.
  • Pfc. Cameron J. Stambaugh, 20, of Spring Grove, Pennsylvania, died July 8, of wounds suffered when enemy forces attacked his unit in Maidan Shahr, Wardak province, Afghanistan, with an improvised explosive device.
  • Spc. Sterling W. Wyatt, 21, of Columbia, Missouri, died July 11, in Kandahar province, Afghanistan, of wounds sustained when his vehicle was attacked with an enemy improvised explosive device.
  • Sgt. Michael E. Ristau, 25, of Rockford, Illinois, died July 13 in Qalat, Zabul province, Afghanistan, of wounds sustained when his vehicle was attacked with an enemy improvised explosive device.

The Dortmunder

I’ve decided to name the newest Linux system in the house Dortmunder. It amuses me greatly to name this bitty Raspberry Pi system after a spaceship the size of a small city. This one, however, isn’t captained by Andy Umberger, even though he is a friend of a friend. I’ve deployed Dortmunder in the “wiring closet”, running headless and hopefully trouble-free for a long, long time.

Dortmunder deployed

Dortmunder deployed