December 2010
1 post
Registry tweak to keep Internet Explorer's...
While you can just as easily accomplish this by downloading a large file, unchecking the “Close this dialog box when download completes” and cancelling the download, once in a blue moon it might be useful to accomplish it programmatically. Here’s a .reg to accomplish that.
(I’m unsure if this can be applied to HKLM or not.)
Info on the “reg.exe” command line...
November 2010
2 posts
1 tag
Weird state-save (KVM/libvirtd) issue on Ubuntu...
As mentioned in my previous post, I’m enjoying getting to know KVM (http://www.linux-kvm.org) on an Ubuntu Server 10.04.1 64-bit install in my lab at home.
While things were going quite well (Linux, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, and WinXP VMs all ticking along nicely so far), I ran into a sizeable frustration: in virsh, I could not perform a “save” operation (e.g. commit a VM’s...
Networking in FreeBSD 8.1 x64 on KVM
Just a quick note on network functionality for a FreeBSD 8.1 64-bit guest on KVM (http://www.linux-kvm.org): type “virtio” was a no-go, but a network device of type “ne2k_pci” seems to work like a charm:
<devices> [...]
<interface type='bridge'> <mac address='52:54:00:53:65:83'/> <source bridge='br0'/> <model...
June 2010
1 post
4 tags
James Brown + Markov Chains = LOL
With the Markov Chain generator implemented in Ruby found here:
http://blog.invisible.ch/2005/01/15/markov-chains-in-ruby/
…and a text file composed of James Brown lyrics from here:
http://www.lyricsmania.com/james_brown_lyrics.html
…We get the following:
Now darling you feel better! Get up offa that funky music white boy Play that thing, and movin` to release that thing, and...
May 2010
1 post
5 tags
Sleep issues on Ubuntu 10.04 on Dell Inspiron 5150
After resurrecting and upgrading an old Dell Inspiron 5150 for a friend, I installed Ubuntu 10.04 Desktop and installed all available updates.
I don’t have a ton of experience with Linux as a desktop OS, but I gather sleep and hibernate functions can be problematic. Hibernate definitely doesn’t work out of the box on this Dell unit, but that’s not a big deal; my biggest concern...
April 2010
2 posts
4 tags
Access SMS messages from an iPhone backup
An iPhone’s SMS history is stored in backups of the device as an sqlite database file which is readily accessible using the sqlite command line tools. The file in question is 3d0d7e5fb2ce288813306e4d4636395e047a3d28.mddata.
My iPhone’s SMS backup database is located in:
/Users/[username]/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup/[uid]/
By cd’ing to the directory and...
5 tags
Fix that ?!@#*! Finder -10810 error
I’ve had intermittent issues with Finder hanging up on volume ejections; after killing it, it refuses to relaunch, displaying the error “The application Finder can’t be opened (-10810).”
Turns out you can pop into Terminal (I’m using Visor, so I always have one open; you could try opening it from Spotlight too) and...
March 2010
5 posts
a grammar: unsung heroes of healthcare reform,... →
This morning, for reasons that are PERSONAL and MINE,* I wound up watching “I, Borg,” the 1992 episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation in which the crew picks up a wounded Borg and nurses him back to health. Also they name him Hugh, he becomes friends with Geordi, and over the course of…
4 tags
UNetbootin: very cool bootable USB drive generator
http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net
UNetbootin allows you to create bootable Live USB drives for a variety of Linux distributions from Windows or Linux, without requiring you to burn a CD. You can either let it download one of the many distributions supported out-of-the-box for you, or supply your own Linux .iso file if you’ve already downloaded one or your preferred distribution isn’t...
4 tags
Fixing gem installation after Snow Leopard upgrade
If you’re trying to install Ruby gems after upgrading to MacOSX 10.6 and receive the following error:
computron:~ root# gem install json
Building native extensions. This could take a while...
ERROR: Error installing json:
ERROR: Failed to build gem native extension.
/System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/1.8/usr/bin/ruby extconf.rb
mkmf.rb can't find header files for ruby at...
5 tags
Fugly bash script to monitor remote Web server
I bet this can be done better. If you feel the same way, please feel free to edit the following Gist:
http://gist.github.com/340464
#!/bin/bash
if test -z "$1"; then
echo "Usage: curl.sh hostname"
exit
fi
RESULT=`curl -sI ${1}|head -n 1|awk '{ print $2 }'`
if [ ${RESULT} -eq "200" ]; then
# All is well
exit
else
echo "OH NO SOMETHING IS BROKEN -- curl returned HTTP...
5 tags
Creating files of arbitrary size in Windows
When asked how to do this, my first reaction was to Google for a Windows port of dd. Turns out that since at least Windows XP, there’s been a built-in command line utility capable of this.
From Microsoft’s fsutil documentation:
Fsutil is a command-line utility that you can use to perform many FAT and NTFS file system related tasks, such as managing reparse points, managing sparse...
February 2010
2 posts
“Science is the only news. When you scan a news portal or magazine, all the human...”
– Stewart Brand, “Whole Earth Discipline”
No One Knows What the F*** They're Doing (or "The...
alfajango:
Feeling Like a Fraud
Have you ever received praise, or even an award, for being great at something despite having no clue what you’re doing? Do you feel like a fraud, wondering what sort of voodoo you’ve unwittingly conjured up to make people think you know what what you’re doing, when the reality is quite the contrary?
I recently had a conversation with my girlfriend (going to...
January 2010
5 posts
Cognitive dissonance in marketing
From a recent Blackberry Bold 9700 ad:
“Whether conducting business with partners or conducting imaginary trains with your 5 year old, give every moment your undivided love.”
I’m reminded of the Bill Hicks bit on marketing and advertising…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDW_Hj2K0wo
7 tags
Photoshop CS3 and case-sensitive HFS on OSX
I recently reinstalled OSX 10.6 onto a shiny new hard disk. Upon restoring my backups, I discovered my (legit) Adobe Photoshop CS3 installation wasn’t working. It would immediately crash upon startup, and the OSX error report included something about a missing framework:
Dyld Error Message:
Library not loaded: @executable_path/../Frameworks/AdobeAGM.framework/Versions/A/AdobeAGM
...
3 tags
Compress rotated process accounting logs on...
A default FreeBSD system with process accounting enabled, either manually through ‘accton [accounting file]’ or by setting ‘accounting_enable=”YES”’ in /etc/rc.conf, will rotate through 3 *uncompressed* process accounting log files.
Here’s a snippet of /etc/defaults/periodic.conf:
# 310.accounting
daily_accounting_enable="YES" # Rotate acct...
Help prevent idiotic powerdown/reboot mistakes...
We’ve all been there: it’s past quitting time, you’ve got a half-dozen terminals open, and you halt or reboot a machine… only to realize moments later (with creeping panic) it was the wrong one.
molly-guard is a straightforward script that intercepts reboot/shutdown-related commands. Here’s an example where I punch in reboot, but fail to confirm the hostname...
5 tags
Keylogging on Mac OSX
A friend recently had a Webmail account compromised. Being a reasonably savvy user, he was concerned a keylogger may be present on his Mac.
This led me to realize I knew nothing whatsoever about OSX keyloggers.
A bit of Googling led me to logkext [ http://code.google.com/p/logkext ], an open-source kernel extension for key logging. (Sadly, the project page indicates it is no longer under active...
November 2009
6 posts
Symantec Endpoint Protection 11 client on Windows...
If you’re having grief installing SEP11 on Windows 7 x64, give this a try:
Install LiveUpdate (via SEPWin64\x64\LUSETUP.exe in the original installation discs/files)
Reboot the machine
Re-try your SEP client installation.
I was unable to install either from those original installation files or a managed client package before following the above procedures.
Thanks to Paul Murgatroyd for...
“It’s hard work being prey. Watch the birds at a feeder. They’re...”
– Bruce Schneier
Quickly dump volume GUIDs on Windows 2008
The “mountvol” utility can be used to quickly determine the GUIDs of various storage volumes on a Windows 2008 server.
(I needed this to enable scripted mounting of TrueCrypt volumes; backups are now happily dumping to encrypted USB drives that are automatically dismounted when the job completes. I’ll post some details on that later, but it’s pretty straightforward.)
“All human cultures evolve institutions of law, religion, and philosophy, and...”
– Marvin Minsky, “The Society of Mind”
4 tags
Determining the motherboard in a Linux box
(As root)
# dmidecode
Look for the “Base Board Information” section.
Example output:
[...]
Handle 0x0002, DMI type 2, 15 bytes.
Base Board Information
Manufacturer: ASUSTeK Computer INC.
Product Name: P5LD2-VM
Version: Rev 1.xx
Serial Number: MB-1234567890
Asset Tag: To Be Filled By O.E.M.
Features:
Board is a hosting...
September 2009
6 posts
3 tags
Dumping production Rails DBs to development
I wanted to dump out a production Rails database and import it into a development DB for poking and prodding. I figured there was a Rails Way to accomplish this; however, I found no built-in rake tasks or the like.
I did, however, come across this:
http://github.com/adamwiggins/yaml_db
From the README:
YamlDb is a database-independent format for dumping and restoring data. It complements the...
5 tags
Installing the sqlite3-ruby gem on FreeBSD 7.2
Had a bit of trouble getting the Ruby sqlite3 gem installed on FreeBSD 7.2. While I’m certain I’ve done it before without difficulty, I figured I’d make a note in case I (or any Googling users) run into it again.
Running “gem install sqlite3-ruby” resulted in:
install sqlite3-ruby
Building native extensions. This could take a while...
ERROR: Error installing...
Restoring Windows XP default service startup...
Ah, “enthusiasts” with local administrative rights… disabling all those pesky little system services in an attempt to give their machine that extra dash of zip.
Since it’s a bitch to reset every service’s startup parameter to defaults by hand, I recommend checking out BlackViper.com’s ready-to-go registry patches:
http://www.blackviper.com/WinXP/registry.htm
...
"scponly" issue/fix for Ubuntu 8.04 x64
From the scponly wiki (http://sublimation.org/scponly/wiki/index.php/Main_Page):
“scponly is an alternative ‘shell’ (of sorts) for system administrators who would like to provide access to remote users to both read and write local files without providing any remote execution priviledges [sic].”
Using its included chroot version, one can effectively lock down access to a...
5 tags
NEAT-O: bash + Growl == love
If you’re not familiar with Growl, it’s a non-intrusive little notification system for OSX:
http://growl.info/
Now, check out this Gist:
http://gist.github.com/180943
function n {
"$@"
status=$?
if [ "$status" == "0" ] ; then
result="completed"
else
result="FAILED ($status)"
fi
growlnotify -m "Script $result" -s "$@"
}
This snippet of bash shell scripting...
This got me thinking.
“So what I would encourage on an individual level to do, is to explore backwards as far as you can go to the most clear, joyful, playful image that you have. Whether it’s with a toy, on a birthday or on a vacation. And begin to build to build from the emotion of that into how that connects with your life now. And you’ll find, you may change jobs — which has happened to a...
August 2009
3 posts
Use RT? Want to use it offline/sync it up later?
http://blog.bestpractical.com/2009/08/prophet-and-sd-07-cavil-are-now-available.html
SWEET.
I’m a long-time RT user and a huge fan of the software. I’m very much looking forward to giving SD a whirl.
4 tags
Rails 2.3 / Outlook attachment issue... solved!
I was experiencing an interesting frustration while using Action Mailer to generate outbound mails with a plaintext body and attachment (an image stored with a Client record using the excellent Paperclip plugin).
The message body would appear fine in Outlook 2003 or 2007 clients, but the attachment would not (unless you removed the plaintext part of the message). Viewing the raw message, the...
Extending partitions in Windows 2003 ESX guests
Forget booting to a GParted CD: use Dell’s extpart tool.
After increasing the size of the virtual hard disk in your ESX guest VM’s properties, use extpart ( http://ftp.us.dell.com/app/ExtPart.txt / http://ftp.us.dell.com/app/ExtPart.exe ) to increase the size of the partition.
It’s a little less messy and worked great (I ran chkdsk /f c: afterwards and restarted just to make...
July 2009
1 post
“I’m not sure how appropriate it is for the Backup Exec documentation to...”
– A sysadmin friend
June 2009
3 posts
“when a customer means to say “sorry for any inconvenience”
and...”
– a friend
On career opportunities presented by the Internet
Sean: yeah, you might be a plumber or something
Sean: instead of routing data you'd be routing poop
5 tags
mailwrapper segfault on FreeBSD, post 7.0-7.1...
After a recent FreeBSD (x64) 7.0 -> 7.1 upgrade via freebsd-update, the mailwrapper utility (linked from newaliases, sendmail, etc. on the system in question) was segfaulting with signal 11.
The problem turned out to have a simple fix.
During the 7.0 -> 7.1 upgrade, the following file (/etc/mail/mailer.conf) should have been edited by yours truly during freebsd-update’s config update...
May 2009
2 posts
Vista 64 audio glitches on ICH9 chipset
A buddy of mine had a strange issue on his Vista x64 box (Gigabyte P35-DS4, 4GB, E6750, 8800GT). Alt-tab’ing, mouseovers, animations… anything video-related seemed to cause peculiar audio stuttering.
Turns out the cause was a loose power connection on one hard disk (which had its data cable attached), as noted here:
...
April 2009
8 posts
Quick n' dirty Mac imaging with Carbon Copy Cloner
Had to deploy a batch of Mac Minis for public use and came across this superb little app:
http://www.bombich.com/software/ccc.html
Here’s the basic procedure I went through in building a Guest account and cloning the gold unit:
Apply all OSX updates and install all desired software packages.
Followed the fine instructions here (...
Serves me right
Due to our status as a poor-ass non-profit, some of our infrastructure is the IT equivalent of gruel and worn-out socks. Fifteen or so old IBM desktops, once proud servants to our hard-working provincial bureaucracy, are now loaded up with pfSense to act as firewalls/VPN endpoints at our branch locations.
( They’ve actually been totally rock-solid and I rarely hear a peep from them. Two...
“Thank god they invented cell phones so we can all send telegrams.”
– A friend
Windows network drive frustrations
To replicate what’s maddening me today:
Create a network share on a Windows fileserver.
Map it to clients as a network drive letter through a .VBS login script. (Note that this login script destroys all enumerable network drive mappings first!)
Create a network share on another fileserver ( via FSMT, for example - http://is.gd/u7r9 )
Destroy the share on the old fileserver.
Try to map...
Harry Potter: Freestyle
the world is coming to an end. please log off. said:
mc dumbledore's hit single "u can't cast this" is burning up the charts
Sean - muggle please:
mugglez want 2 ryde
the world is coming to an end. please log off. said:
loungin' on my thestral/sippin' on pumpkin juice n gin
Sean - muggle please:
hahahaha
Sean - muggle please:
i run mad divination/while u practice masturbation
the world is coming to an end. please log off. :
cast patronus on one/transfigure on two/rhymes flying like brooms/what a muggle gonna do?
Sean - muggle please:
hahahha
Sean - muggle please:
fo' the ladies i'm a seeker/y'all ryhmes keep getting weaker/ain't no, powers, y'all not witches/just a lazy group o' mugglez n' bitches
the world is coming to an end. please log off. :
i can't beat that, you win
OpenSSH kicks ass. Please donate.
If you administer a UNIX-like machine that isn’t sitting directly in front of you, chances are you’re using code from the OpenSSH project when you connect to it. If you are reading this on the Internet right now, you’ve benefitted from the hard work of the OpenSSH project. The impact it has had on networked systems is mindboggling.
Here’s something repugnant: despite using...
Pattern recognition
If my shoddy understanding of neuroscience serves me, the one thing a human brain is exceptional at is recognizing patterns. Despite this, I have observed so many IT users repeat the same series of actions over and over and experience the same errors over and over… failing to recognize the pattern in their actions, and thus failing to report it until it’s become a critical...
“I often dream about falling. Such dreams are commonplace to the ambitious or...”
– Heinz Pagel in “The Cosmic Code”