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GRAFFITI -- June 09 thru June 15, 2003 >> Link to the Current Week << Last Week << Mon   Tues   Wed   Thu   Fri   Sat   Sun >> Next Week Search this site : 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   
June 09, 2003 -    Updates at 0734 EST

Good morning. Well, it was a full weekend. Full of rain, full of clouds, full of chores, full of tasks completed. I need a vacation to recover from this weekend, but then I'll always say that. And if I did take a vacation, I'd probably just work on stuff, and need a longer vacation to recover from that. So be it. Anyway, there's a few snaps and some interesting things if you look back on the weekend past. But here's some mail to tide you over for today...

From: Dave Markowitz <dave can be found at davemarkowitz.net>
To: bilbrey from a certain orbdesigns.com
Subject: Spoofed return address
Date: Sat, 7 Jun 2003 10:39:56 -0400

Brian,

FYI, it looks like somebody has a virus and it's spoofing your address as the sender. I received the following email with a .scr attachment, purportedly from you. Since I know you run Linux, I figure it isn't really you.

I doubt there's anything you can do about it but figured you'd want to at least know about it and maybe post something on your site.

Regards,

Dave

----- Original Message -----
From: <bilbrey looking for orbdesigns.com>
To: <dave wandering about in davemarkowitz.net>
Sent: Friday, June 06, 2003 7:04 AM
Subject: **JUNK** Re: Movie

> Please see the attached file.

Thanks. Many virii now pull both sender and recipient from the infected host's address book. I got one yesterday "from" Jerry. Yah. Since I know that Jerry's using Rocket as smarthost, I looked at the headers and see that it came in from another machine, not Jerry's and had proof that it wasn't Jerry who originated that virus (not that I needed it).

The good thing, from my perspective, is how very few of these land in my inbox. That speaks well for the people who have me in their address

books.

Grin.

One of those people who *is* infected with a virus can be found at PROPELLER (h141.6.40.162.ip.alltel.net [162.40.6.141]), as they send me a copy of something recently, purporting to be from Jerry Pournelle. Update your AV software, dudes and dudettes. Now for the next mail item:

From: Robert L. Willoughby <bobwilloughby looking for a good time around attglobal.net>
To: brian bilbrey <bilbrey is taking a nap in orbdesigns.com>
Subject: your Acer...
Date: Sun, 08 Jun 2003 21:55:12 -0500

Brian,

I installed Red Hat 9 on an old Thinkpad 770X and it runs fine until I get to analog dialup and then things go to hell in a handbasket in a hurry. Further I have determined that pcmcia slot 1 is dead as a mackerel; slot 0 still works.

When I surveyed laptops recently, I was surprised to learn that the Acer TravelMate may be the only one left with an integrated floppy disk drive. All the others seem to have gone to USB floppy drives, and I do not know if this new breed will boot from a system disk to DOS or not.

Anyway, I know from Graffiti that you use an Acer daily that has Linux installed. Would you mind telling me the model you have.

This has been quite a revelation to me. I have built my own systems since 1989 and I can build a box that whups up on Linux handily. My pride and joy right now is a dual athlon system that has done nothing but purr along and handle everything I have thrown at it since I built it over a year ago. But... laptops are in a world of their own -- rude buckets of sand at best!

Thank you for any suggestion/recommendation you may have.

...bob

Actually, the Acer started spontaneously rebooting every few minutes, back last fall. So I went out and bought a Sony Vaio PCG-GRV550. While there is the possibility of using a USB floppy with this unit, I didn't buy one (it's optional). I figure that for Linux recovery, I can always use a boot CD, which works fine. The Acer did work great through 2.5 years of continuous (and I do mean continuous) use. It was only turned off in transit.

Well, categorizing laptops as buckets of sand may be a bit harsh. Besides, remember that it's a bucket of sand that you can carry around with you - it's like a little bit of beach vacation where ever you are. I've had almost no problems with Gentoo, Red Hat, and Debian on this laptop. The only dicey thing is Wireless LAN, where my experience is like Tom's. Sometimes it's a breeze, sometimes it isn't.

Send me the output of running "lspci" as root, and I might have a useful tidbit or two to tell you about your Thinkpad.

Have fun Linuxing...

And finally, one more letter, then I'll let you get on with your Monday:

From: Dave Browning <dbrowning14 hangs out on comcast.net>
To: bilbrey goes dancing near orbdesigns.com
Subject: A few little things.
Date: Sun, 08 Jun 2003 22:17:46 -0500

Brian,

I just noticed that Samba 3.0.0 beta 1 has been released. I thought you might not have caught it yet. Given the great deal of knowledge I have gained from Graffiti and LinuxMuse, I thought I would see if I could return the favor in a small way.

I have a couple of questions. One, someone whose site I regularly read recommended the book Linux Server Hacks. I thought it was your site, but couldn't find the reference. If it was your site, I just wanted to say thank you. Also, I thought I remembered your talking about writing and finishing an article about CVS that was going to be published somewhere at some point in the future. Did anything ever come of that?

Well, I'm off to see if I actually want to try running the new Samba in a non production environment.

Thanks,

Dave

Thanks for the notice about the new Samba. I'll be hauling that down for a looksee right quick. Yeah, I recommended Linux Server Hacks - I still have it in my O'Reilly Safari Bookshelf, I'll want to read it one more time before I trade it for another title.

And yes, there's a secure CVS configuration article that's been written for IBM DeveloperWorks. I turned it in for tweaking and submission on March 29. I don't have any idea when IBM got it, or, having received it, will finish with their edits and post it. Be sure that I'll post it when I know when it's up there.

Thanks for dropping me a line.

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Mon    TUESDAY    Wed    Thu    Fri    Sat    Sun   
June 10, 2003 -    Updates at 0803

Good morning. I got a good chuckle last night out of an email message that popped up through the SVLUG (Silicon Valley Linux Users Group) mailing list. Some poor soul has signed up for MSN 8 as his mail tool. Shortly thereafter, a colorful HTML email popped up on the list, announcing to all and sundry that his soul was in hock to the Borg of Redmond. That drew a quick and firm response from the officers, as a violation of several list rules. I wrote in, suggesting that it was probably some automated thing from MSN, sending out to everyone on his recently uploaded address book and not at all what he intended to do. I did note, however, that it made me laugh out loud, nearly passing caramel-coloured, caffeinated, carbonated beverage through my nasal passages. The potential for ironic, sardonic or just plain flames in reply to the MSN advert is sure to be entertaining.

I had a productive day, yesterday, at the NERDS office. We got done a bit early, so I popped on home and got the lawns mowed before the next weeks' worth of rain moves in. That's likely to be tomorrow, not today, though. Two sunny days in a row here... I don't know how to behave! I guess what I'll do, since today appears to be a washout for work, is laundry, chores, some test installation work and documentation. Sounds fun and exciting, no? No... um, okay. Have a lovely day. See you later when something resembling interesting happens.

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Mon    Tues    WEDNESDAY    Thu    Fri    Sat    Sun   
June 11, 2003 -    Updates at 0700

Good morning. There's sun outside that window. That's three days in a row ... three week days, but hey, who's complaining? It's supposed to be raining today. According to the radar, it is already raining to the west of the District. So I presume this sun stuff is sneaking in underneath from the east as the clouds and inclement weather come in. Lovely.

Email configurations and setup were the main order of the day yesterday. I mostly replicated a setup that Greg and I did last week, then I jotted a few notes for a friend and sent them off. I also put them, verbatim, onto LinuxMuse, in the Software section of the messageboards. I'll be doing this yet again on a Debian system shortly, so as to cement my new-found knowledge.

On tap for today, I have some learning to do about Samba 3.0 - as I noted from an email published on Monday, the first Beta is out, so I've got to blow away the Alpha24 that I installed last week and start again. But that's fine. That's how I learn, by keeping my hand in, and repetition. So I'd best get on to that customer site, and get started. Have a great day, yourself.

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Mon    Tues    Wed    THURSDAY    Fri    Sat    Sun   
June 12, 2003 -    Updates at 0622

Good morning. Why so early, you ask? Well, I'm blessed with a visit to the dentist today. Nothing pressing, mind you. Just the tri-annual gum-torturing routine by someone referred to as a hygenist. It's a euphemism for a much less nice trade, if you ask me. Heh. It isn't really that bad, most times. Doc Drewyer is great and his staff is nice and competent - I really have no cause for complaint, I'd recommend him to anyone.

With time short, I've less to do here, more's the pity. One item of note, Dell has built a new box: the Dimension XPS. It's an i875 chipset board, P4C processors, 800MHz FSB, lots of fast ram, big drives, two DVD cupholders (one a writer), and much more. I configured one nicely on the Dell site for about $2900. Then I went out and priced top-of-the-line individual components to build my own comparable box. Without being too anal about finding the lowest price, I was able to scrape $300 off of that Dell price. Not too shabby - that's more than the cost of Windows XP Home, neh?

At the customer site yesterday, we had lots of fun working with Samba, and designing double- and triple-redundant data routes for the new NOC. Not everything is working yet as planned, so we have to still learn more things and make new plans. There's time for that, though. Now, I really must wrap this up and fly. The recycling's got to get out to the curb, and I've got to be in the car. See you on the flip side.

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Mon    Tues    Wed    Thu    FRIDAY    Sat    Sun   
June 13, 2003 -    Updates at 0645

Good morning and Happy Friday. Did I mention that we had lightning, thunder, and opened sluice gates on Wednesday night? No, I thought not. I will, however, tell you that we got a repeat performance as a late matinee starting shortly after 5 yesterday afternoon. The NOAA called it a severe thunderstorm watch in combination with a flash flood warning, throughout the region. I say, dude, the drought is over, back off a bit, eh? The rain itself started up shortly after 1730, with a half-hour long warm-up show of distant thunder, marching steadily closer. As it was, just as the rain petered out, the fun began. I spent most of the evening working on an ailing Cobalt RaQ 550, remotely.

Well, I can't complain. The plants have finally started growing. Even partial sun is a big help. I got home yesterday fairly early, as my client stop was a no-go, put off until next week. So I got in some more yard time - reseeding some ugly patches of lawn, getting more flowers in, and a little herb action. In the shot at left, those two concrete pots were sitting flat on the ground before. Evidently both the concrete front porch and the bottom of the pots were flat enough that the drainage holes didn't matter - the tulips we had in there put up a valient fight, but they drowned and rotted. So I emptied the pots today, then floated them up an inch or so with river rocks. Then I used a shard to shield the drain hole, and replace the mixed and amended soil. Now I've got four annuals in each pot - they should be fine.

At the right, you can see the whole raised bed where the tomatos are home. In front of the bed is the herb garden, in pots. There are two new basil plants right front, as the old ones from seed didn't survive the weather of the last month. In the bed, to the right with their wire cages in place, are the eight tomato plants. At left in that bed are peppers and zucchini. The tomato plants have doubled in size in the last week, with a little sunshine as encouragement. There's a closeup of those to the left here. You can see the one fruit that's growing right now, front and center. The peppers and squash have apparently been holding out for drier weather.

In the other raised bed, at right, we have bush beans, yellow squash and scallions. The latter two are really rather pathetic at the moment, but we'll see how they do, down the road. I do like growing plants rather a lot, and I think that the act of gardening is good for me, much as I like to whine about my aching back and all the sweat dripping off of me. It doesn't cool me by evaporation here in the summer months, as the humidity is such that the air is as damp as I am. From my perspective, the good news is that in another 45 days or so, we should be eating very nicely off of our tomato and squash plants.

The preferred crop around here, if this rain doesn't let up, however, may be tropical hardwoods. I'm thinking about a business in Mahogany, Koa and Teak. What say you?

On the Linux side of life, I've gone back to Red Hat 9, warts and all, for Gryphon. The major reason is to give Ximian Desktop 2 a good going over. As I mentioned last week, Ximian impressed me enough with it's Gnome 1.2 implementation that I was spending a considerable amount of time in that environment, more than a year back. Now it's time to try again - and join that up with their Red Carpet Express service. Yes, a full installation and the higher service levels costs money, and yes, I bought it. Why not support vendors that do good work? Right off the top, I'll tell you that I'm impressed. They've done a lot of work, and brought Gnome 2 up to the bar that KDE 3.1 set. Have a look at their features, on that link. I'll have more to say on this over at LinuxMuse in a few days.

Now, on to Rockville with me, after a short stop into the office to take care of the Cobalt. Then I've got a Data General disk or five to clone, plus more work with Samba. You have a lovely day, and revel in the Friday-ness of it all, as I will do. Take it easy.

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Mon    Tues    Wed    Thu    Fri    SATURDAY    Sun   
June 14, 2003 -    Updates at 0842

Howdy! Did I mention that we've apparently moved to Washington STATE (instead of DC) ??? Here's what the weather radar looked like in the mid-evening yesterday, courtesy of my favorite news station in the DC Metro area, NBC4:

Yeah, that active spot just right (east) of DC - the one halfway between the District and Annapolis? That's on top of us! And the rains came down, heavier than any night this week. Look at this:

Overall, yesterday was a good day. The disk backups went well, and the mail server that was so carefully crafted over the last couple of weeks went live last night, as planned. I nearly had a full-time set of hours for the last two weeks, and that was with a day and a half free this week. And next week is booked up already. Whew, that's fun!

Today has dawned sunny, humid and green. We've got the weekly shopping to do (moved from Sunday to Saturday by fiat decree). and rearranging the sewing factory, moving it downstairs in advance of the really hot weather, and in advance of Marcia's surgery in July, which will remove stairs from her life for a few weeks. So I don't think there will be much on the computing front today, but if there is, then it'll be about installing Debian in VMware 4, which I did last night.

One last note. Tom's going on Daynotes sabbatical for a while, as you might have noticed. I spoke with him last night, and all is well - he's got too much on his plate, and priorities demand cutbacks. However, I did tell him that his plan to remove his pages from public view was a bad thing. It's not only part of his extended memory system, searchable by Google as long as it's up, but it also works for other people, as long as it's there. So I told him that if he were to pull his pages I'd have to put up a full mirror. Later I decided to be preemptive about it - Syroid_Insights.orbdesigns.com is up, and static as of last night, up here on Rocket. Just a fall-back position, mind you, but it's already here. I'll publicize it more, and get the search engines going that way, if I need to.

Now on with my day, and you with yours. Have a good 'un.

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Mon    Tues    Wed    Thu    Fri    Sat    SUNDAY  
June 15, 2003 -    Updates at 1145

Today's guest head is physicist and Professor Emeritus at MIT Philip Morrison. My main connection to Morrison is through the PBS series and accompanying book, The Ring of Truth: An Inquiry into How We Know What We Know. Written and presented along with his wife Phylis (who died a couple of years ago), I found the Morrison's presentation of how science has enabled us to know more about the world. Philip Morrison studied theroetical physics under Oppenheimer, and practical physics in 4 years at the Manhattan project - he was an eyewitness to the Trinity Test. In the nuclear era, Morrison has been associated with nuclear non-proliferation, cosmology, SETI and other varied interests. There isn't as much online about Philip Morrison as with some of the other Sunday guest heads, but a search can always lead to interesting places.

Sorry for the delay this morning. I was busy until pretty late last night building Marcia a new cutting table (picture linked from the thumbnail at left) for the downstairs sewing room. I started the project with a run to Lowes and Home Depot at about 1300, and had it inside, assembled and in the corner by shortly after 2000. It's built of pine 1x3 and 1x4, with melamine top and shelf. There are three inch casters underneath - the front two are locking. This way she can pull the table out into the room and set it, then work all four sides of a design. The table itself is 6' by 4' and stands 36 inches high at the tabletop.

When I got up this morning, among the log reports, list traffic and other email was a question about the origins of Bilbreys. I spelunked off to the usual sites for genealogy to see if there was anything new to see before I composed the short answer. There wasn't. The earliest recorded Bilbrey is one Thomas, born in 1745 in England (or in 1739 in Chatham County, NC???). He served in the North Carolina Militia, and died in 1788. Of his sons, Isiah, Johnnie, Nathanial and Lawrence, Nathanial died in North Carolina, the other three made their way to Tennessee, where they commenced to reproducing like rabbits. How do we know this? Well, certain parts of TN are to this day simply swarming with Bilbreys - my grandfather was one of 14 children, to give one firm example. Wow. Please note that I haven't seen firm records on any of this - and there's a lot of conflicting information online. What searching is good for is focussing the research and getting to the right sets of county records. That's the best and only way.

Now I need to get some food and some ibuprofin in me. My day is likely to be fairly sedentary, following yesterday's exertions. Have a lovely 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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