Older blog entries for backtick (starting at number 9)

10 Feb 2001 (updated 10 Feb 2001 at 03:38 UTC) »

Wow. I have been way too busy. Weird, huh? I'm even busier now, but I decided to post stuff here regardless, as a de- stress plan :-)

So, Bellsouth got out to my house on December 20th, and finally agreed with me that it was a wiring issue. You see, while ON THE PHONE with a BS rep, listening to him tell me it was a software problem, I rewired a jack using backwards pairs, and suddenly they saw my end of the connection. I explained what I had just done, and said I was going to go out to the NTI on the side of the house and start plugging things together randomly (and I mentioned I had a power outlet right next to the box, along with my main power feed from the utility company, AND my cable feed) if they didn't roll a truck. Next day service, and the tech even said "Wow, I've never seen a whole box wired backwards like this" :-) But, it's working now, the roaring-penguin PPPOE software works great, and maybe in the next 3 months or so they'll finally quit billing me for the OLD service *sigh*

So, the Queso stuff is STILL on hold. I haven't even LOOKED at it lately, and the whole new kernel thing has kept me playing with other stuff in the few free minutes I DO have.

Well, that and finally updating my web site.

22 Nov 2000 (updated 10 Feb 2001 at 02:07 UTC) »

Finally managed to kick Bellsouth into gear; the order is in, and soon, SOON we'll be back online...

Wonder if I should just switch to Telocity when the line is installed and tested???

I really hate not having any net access from home! I'm *STILL* waiting on bellsouth to find the DSL order for the new house in their system *sigh*

Well, the drives are working fine now, and I'm pushing data into them using 'dd' or 'tar' w/ 1 MB blocks at a rate of 5.9 MB/sec each. Not bad, since the manufacturer said 6 MB/sec. Now, if I use 'standard' tar w/ the default setup of 20 512-byte blocks, the rate drops to 2.4 MB/sec! Sheesh, it's all in how you optimize, as always.

Now all I have to do is get the Library acting as a normal robot, and we'll be fine :-)

Again, with moving and all, no time to play w/ host identification. *sigh*

Whew, another LONG several days. No time to work on the OS analyzer for queso; Been buried getting a Sun E220R to recognize the SpectraLogic tape unit we have. See, the SL is loaded with a couple of Sony AIT-2 500X drives, and the damn unit reported them back as HP JetStore drives. Never used a HP JetStore drive, but it ain't the same thing :-)

So, the new Fluke DSP-4000 is in for cable testing (yet another tool in the uber-toolbox of ethernet/fiber/coax destruction/installation *grin* we do here), and it comes with the serial cable and software to dump your reports to a Windows machine for printing. EWWWW!

Now, I think Fluke did some REALLY neat things; they gave all the pinouts in the manual, and the format of the reports makes me think it's just some normal ASCII. Wonder how hard it'll be to make a Gnome applet for reading data off the Fluke? Heh, a little Fluke-meter in the toolbar...

Quick thought regarding moving: Don't ever do it. Just burn down your old house. Think about it; the only stuff you really care about is on a hard drive that'll fit in a coat pocket.

I hate moving...

Well, we just had a SERIOUS storm front come through. Nothing like watching trees fall down around your data center, see power lines outside arcing together, and not even get an alarm inside the datacenter proper, much less any kind of actual power failure. Kind of cool, actually :- )

And I think some of our sales crew had some potential clients here, so I expect they'll be reasonably well versed in what our center can handle! Maybe mother nature was helping close the deal? :-)

9 Nov 2000 (updated 9 Nov 2000 at 19:32 UTC) »

Gods, the last day or two has been interesting, considering the "election that just won't die" is still going on. FLIP A COIN! If the vote is this close, and people refuse to use a popular vote as the real voting mechanism (for which there is a great supporting article on /.), then let fate decide. Heck, if the vote is that close, no matter what half the people will be mad. At least that way no one can claim it's rigged :-) Thank gooodness we don't have to declare random or pull entropy from the kernel for coin tosses!

Okay, so geek related... I'm trying to see if I can't find some of the fingerprints that seem to be missing from Queso/nmap/etc to make those a bit more current. That'll be a spare time kind of thing, tho :-)

I'm using a few things as 'recent reference' material:

http://www.insecure.org/nmap/nmap- fingerprinting-article.html

http://www.networkmagazine.com/article/NMG20001102S0005/1

7 Nov 2000 (updated 7 Nov 2000 at 23:30 UTC) »

Wow, finally managed to remember to set this up. This will be the first in a string of random diary entries, as I'm not even going to think about saying I expect I'll do this regularly. I'm amazed I remember to wash clothes or eat on a regular basis. Oh, and for those geeks who hang out in #linpeople, I was a regular in there WAY back in '94 and for a few years as 'fstab'. Unfortunately, the real world got in the way. I happened to wander back in the other day for a few minutes, and got a real kick out of getting to help linux geeks via IRC again.

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