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GRAFFITI -- February 06, 2006 thru February 12, 2006 >> 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.

MONDAY    Tues    Wed    Thu    Fri    Sat    Sun   
February 6, 2006

0731 - Good morning. Not much going on at the moment. I hear the Steelers won the Super Bowl. Yay for them. I accidentally saw the Rolling Stones play at halftime (I went downstairs for supper at the wrong moment) -- they should take their money home and retire. Or just do studio work. But (as Grace Slick once put it) they need to stop jumping around letting all those saggy bits flap around in public. Yeah, and Keith Richards still looks dead. I continued to muck about with the MacMini when I wasn't called upon to be hospitable while our guest was in town. I do like Jennifer, but I figured that she and Marcia needed girl-time as much as possible, so I just stayed in my cave some of the time.

Now I've got an agreement to review, and plenty of other work to follow that, so I'd best be about it. Have a great day!

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Mon    TUESDAY    Wed    Thu    Fri    Sat    Sun   
February 7, 2006

0848 - Good morning. Another day ahead, not much exciting about it. VMware Server, their new free (as in beer) virtualization product is out. I've downloaded it for mucking about with, and we'll see where it takes me. That, and some deep archiving, and some organization of old hardware for recycling, reuse or disposal should put paid to the day, and perhaps the week. Happy Tuesday!

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Mon    Tues    WEDNESDAY    Thu    Fri    Sat    Sun   
February 8, 2006

0655 - Good morning. Well, that was a little exciting. Last night as I was completing the backups (one night later than usual, as I forgot to bring home the mobile disk on Monday), I got an email from Vroomfondel, the home server: "A Fail event had been detected on md device /dev/md0." Ditto for /dev/md1. Yikes! A quick check showed that something must have hiccupped on /dev/sdb (one of the two 250G SATA drives in this system), causing the mirrors to lose sync. On reboot, the software raid detected the two sdb mirror partitions as non-fresh, and booted them from their mirrors. However, the sdb drive itself was apparently fine (I'll suspect otherwise if this event repeats itself). Once the reboot was complete, I logged in, and ran these two commands to add the sdb partitions back to their respective RAID 1 devices:

$ mdadm --manage /dev/md0 --add /dev/sdb2

$ mdadm --manage /dev/md1 --add /dev/sdb4

$  cat /proc/mdstat 
Personalities : [raid1] 
md1 : active raid1 sdb4[2] sda4[0]
      227464256 blocks [2/1] [U_]
      [====>................]  recovery = 22.0% (50050880/227464256) 
           finish=46.1min speed=64032K/sec
      
md0 : active raid1 sdb2[1] sda2[0]
      15623104 blocks [2/2] [UU]
      
unused devices: 

The /proc/mdstat pseudo-file shows the current status of any md (RAID, etc) devices in the system. As you can see from the above listing, the md0 device is already rebuilt and happy, while the larger data partition has a ways to go yet. The most fun of the whole thing is that most of the Google responses about this sort of problem relate to the old school raidtools, rather than the new mdadm interface. Spelunking and reading manual pages helps a lot, as usual.

Yesterday's deep archiving project went well, and I'm continuing to use the Mac Mini as my primary workstation for the time being. It's nice, but I'm not sure that I won't be better served by getting an AMD 64 X2 system .... well, it all depends. There really isn't anything that I need to do faster or better than I do today. And gaming just sucks most of the time, now. Well, I'll think about it, anyway.

Now to work with me. Have a great day!

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February 9, 2006

0730 - Good evening. The temperature was 24 degrees outside when I left this morning. By the time I got home an hour or so ago, it had peaked in the mid-thirties and was back below freezing. And we may finally have our first real snow of the season, this Saturday. About damned time, say I.

More than that, there really isn't. I've been organizing, recycling, dismantling, and organizing some more. My back hurts. I guess that's enough about that. Now I've got some software issues to decide: where to install VMware Server, for one. What to do about our Quicken 2003 software is another thorny issue. I'm strongly considering GnuCash, since the current Quicken's "Sunset" policy means that they're shutting down (remotely, for all I know) the "online" portions of the software, including the interactions with my bank's website. The bastards - it's working fine, they just need to keep the money stream going, by breaking things that work. Okay, I'm not going to go into full rant mode, but that might yet appear one of these days. Mañana ...

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Mon    Tues    Wed    Thu    FRIDAY    Sat    Sun   
February 10, 2006

1904 - Good evening. Friday's working day is over, yay! It's been a long, fairly physical week, as such things go. I'm quite tired. But by tomorrow afternoon the snow will be falling, and I'll be continuing to relax, so that's all good.

An Amazon email touting Sony BMG music just appeared in my inbox. Hey, do you think ... um, no. Hell, I don't trust Sony hardware anymore, either. If they'll incorporate root-kit technology into their music CD's, where it's relatively detectable, what do you suppose is lurking in Sony firmware, BIOS chips, and the like? Yeah, I figure more of the same. I've no proof of that, of course, just an irrational fear that it might be so, enough to keep me from knowingly purchasing their products. Your decision is up to you.

Ten minutes with nothing else to say have passed, so I'm done for now. Have a great evening, see you around!

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February 11, 2006

No Post.

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February 12, 2006

2212 - Good evening. I've been a busy beaver. Details on that tomorrow. But for now, as Major Media turns its blind eye towards Turin, I think it important to keep in mind the losses our troops incur as they execute the mission...

• Cpl. Jesse M. Zamora, 22, of Las Cruces, N.M., died in Bayji, Iraq, on Feb. 3, when an improvised explosive device detonated near his HMMWV.
• 1st. Lt. Simon T. Cox, Jr., 30, of Texas, died in Taji, Iraq, on Feb. 2, when an improvised explosive device detonated near his M2A3 Bradley.
• Sgt. 1st Class Lance S. Cornett, 33, of London, Ky., died in the vicinity of Ar Ramadi, Iraq, on Feb. 3, of injuries sustained earlier that day while engaging enemy forces.
• Spc. William S. Hayes III, 23, of St. Tammany, La., died in Baghdad, Iraq, on Feb. 5, of a non-combat related injury.
• Staff Sgt. Christopher R. Morningstar, 27, of San Antonio, Texas, died in Al Husayniyah, Iraq on Feb. 5, when an improvised explosive device detonated near his Stryker Engineer Squad Vehicle.
• Sgt. Jeremiah J. Boehmer, 22, of Parkston, S.D., died in Al Husayniyah, Iraq on Feb. 5, when an improvised explosive device detonated near his Stryker Engineer Squad Vehicle.
• Spc. Sergio A. Mercedes Saez, 23, of New York, N.Y., died in Baghdad, Iraq on Feb. 5, when the HMMWV in which he was riding accidentally rolled over into a canal.
• Spc. Patrick W. Herried, 29, of Sioux Falls, S.D., died in Rawah, Iraq, on Feb. 6, when an improvised explosive device detonated near his Stryker military vehicle during patrol operations.
• Petty Officer 3rd Class John T. Fralish, 30, of New Kingstown, Pa., died Feb. 6, when enemy forces opened fire on a U.S. patrol northwest of Methar Lam in Laghman Province, Afghanistan.
• Spc. Allen D. Kokesh Jr., 21, of Yankton, S. D., died at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, Texas, on Feb. 7 of injuries sustained in Baghdad, Iraq, on Dec. 4 when an improvised explosive device detonated near his HMMWV.
• Spc. Roberto L. Martinez Salazar, 21, of Long Beach, Calif., died in Mosul, Iraq on Feb. 4, when an improvised explosive device detonated near his up-armored HMMWV during patrol operations.
• Cpl. Brandon S. Schuck, 21, of Safford, Ariz., died Feb. 6 from an improvised explosive device while conducting combat operations against enemy forces in Baghdadi, Iraq.
• Pfc. Jacob D. Spann, 21, of Columbus, Ohio, died Feb. 6 from wounds sustained as a result of an improvised explosive device while conducting combat operations against enemy forces in Hit, Iraq.
• Lance Cpl. Steven L. Phillips, 27, of Chesapeake, Va., died Feb. 7 from a non-hostile vehicle accident while conducting combat operations against enemy forces near Al Qaim, Iraq.
• Pfc. Matthew L. Bertolino, 20, of Hampstead, N.H., died Feb. 9, when the vehicle he was traveling in was involved in a rollover while operating as part of a combat patrol near Jalalabad, Afghanistan.

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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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