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GRAFFITI -- August 15, 2005 thru August 21, 2005>> Link to the Current Week <<Last Week << Mon Tues Wed Thu Fri Sat Sun >> Next Week 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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August 15, 2005
1349 - Good afternoon. In all, a lazy weekend. That is, one that involved yardwork on Saturday morning, and recovery there-from, thereafter. I did get the analog-tv functions of my HD-3000 (pcHDTV) card working late yesterday evening. I'm still putzing around working on the HDTV side of things, as figuring out which QAM list of freqencies to use with Maryland's Comcast is somewhat problematic. There are documentation issues no doubt brought on by the extreme lack of interest the cable companies have in providing good data for Linux users to watch HDTV without an accompanying HDTV decoder box rental.
Here at work, I'm picking up a couple of new tasks, order placement and fulfillment, to backstop another person who's currently sole source for getting that end of the business done. In addition, I'm reviewing documentation, preparing the configuration of a network shift, and generally having lots of fun. Ciao!
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August 16, 2005
No Post.
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August 17, 2005
No Post.
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August 18, 2005
Still No Post. No problems but too busy to see straight. I'll catch you up tomorrow. Thanks!
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August 19, 2005
0646 - Good morning. Thanks for your patience. Due to a chance alignment of the planets, it's been one-armed paper hanger time around here. First off, we have houseguests. Cousins Barb and Shirley are in town from Michigan for a few days, and prepping for their appearance yesterday evening ate up some of our free time. That along with dogs, bills, chores, getting new life insurance physical exams... the hours flew by!
Then at work, where you've often seen me at least eke out a miniscule post of some kind, I've been even busier. I'm now handling export control verification (at least for the time being), covering ordering of appliances and software in someone else's absence, and fighting with borked printers, a hosed Linux install, and rebuilding/enhancing the offsite backup scheme. In reverse order, I've converted to high-bit AES encryption completely, in the wake of some of the data loss events of recent months. It's taken a while for everything to move through the rotation, but stuff is locked down tight, now. (I do that also for my home data that I move offsite from here). Regarding the borked Linux installation, I'd been running Debian, blended Testing and Unstable from before Sarge's release as 3.1. The downside of Testing is that immediately following a stable release, the floodgates open, and changes that had been held back for the months of freeze leading up to release are loosed upon the version. Upon me. I thought I was careful with how I had packages and version pinning configured, but something crept in and made life miserable for me. So I did the obvious thing, and put my Xandros Business 3.0 edition to work. After installing and updating and pullling in a few bits that I really needed, I started reconstructing the one bin directory full of scripts that I'd forgotten about, and reached a bork in the road.
When you want to talk to Samba servers, and Windows 2000 Servers, and XP boxes and the like, you use smbfs (session/server message block file system) on the Linux side of the fence, to mount shares as a client. When talking to WIndows 2003 Advanced Server, you really, really need to have the cifs (common internet file system) module for your kernel. It's supported in Samba 3, and in the later 2.6.mumble kernel series. Among other things, it provides complete session encryption, rather than just secured authentication bits) However, bless their little hearts, Xandros chose to build and ship the cifs as a separately packaged module, independent of the kernel. So when I went to "modprobe cifs", it failed with an Invalid Module Format error message. Bastards. After a couple of false starts, I got a revised Xandros-patched SMP kernel built and installed with the cifs module integral. Cat's meow, now, and I can transfer my backups from the partition on the backup server to an encrypted filesystem removable media drive for offsite storage. Rock on.
Marcia's taking today off from work, and tour guiding Barb and Shirley around the District today. I don't know what we have on for the weekend, yet, except that it's supposed to be hot again, and I've got to mow. Especially since it rained overnight ... hard enough to wake me at 0400 or thereabouts. But for now, I've got to head into work. Happy Friday, and have a great day!
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August 20, 2005
0801 - Good morning, in a sense. Meet Yugi. Yugi is visiting with us for the next 9 days, while his dad (with whom I work) and family are off on a vacation. This wasn't particularly planned, but the person who was going to be Yugi-sitting for the duration bailed yesterday morning, which really sucks. They would have had to kennel Yugi on very short notice, which is either bloody expensive, risky to the dog (because you haven't time to properly qualify the kennel), or both. Of course when I heard, I piped right up and volunteered Hovel Bilbrey as a boarding facility.
Yugi is (IIRC) a cross between a Standard Poodle and a Golden Retriever: he's big, playful and 10 months old. And when they came in the door, Yugi took off on a whirlwind tour of the house. We only found out later that he left us a rather large steaming present at the top of the stairs during the initial inspection. After the introductions and instructions were complete, Yugi's dad left, and we worked at getting the dogs settled down. After due consideration, we decided to crate Yugi his first night, then let him have the day to acclimatize before giving him night-time free-run (as is his usual routine). But he didn't sleep well, between strange new house, and being crated while people are around. So he yipped and whined on and off through the night. I didn't sleep much, and I'm a cranky bastard this morning. Hopefully I'll be able to nap a bit during the day. No mowing today, I'm too bloody tired to start with. Maybe tomorrow.
I think I'll go watch some TV and zone out for a while. Ciao!
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August 21, 2005
1636 - Hi. I was out and starting on the yardwork at 0900, out of the shower at 1225 and on to the shopping. I got back from that in time to chide Marcia for cutting towards her hand ... and into it. Then I went back out to pick up some dermally neutral medical tape of some sort. Finally, I've just finished my "lunch" and it's time to start warming dinner. Hmmm. Yugi got all enthusiastic when Linda Rose showed up and gave her all sorts of paw prints to remember him by. I've crated him for the evening, poor fella. Meantime, lives go out like candles in the middle east:
Time to prep for supper. See ya next week.
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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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