Orb Designs Graffiti, a Daily Blog - October 09, 2006 thru October 15, 2006

GRAFFITI -- October 09, 2006 thru October 15, 2006

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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
October 9, 2006

2104 - Good evening. Sunday night eaten by cooking and guests, followed by CMR mailbag processing. Then Monday morning eaten by formatting Jerry's column for the week. Reset. See y'all tomorrow.

Top / Email Brian

Mon TUESDAY Wed Thu Fri Sat Sun
October 10, 2006

0946 - Good morning. And w00t to you, too! I've ordered FIOS from Verizon. That is double the speed for half the price of our current Comcast connection to the Intarweb. 15Mbit down, 2Mbit up. Yow! Most stunning of all, they're claiming an install date of 10/20 ... next week. I'm stunned. I expected December or so. Once the annual contract for Cable runs out in January, I'll be downgrading that service to its lowest level (but keeping it, as a fallback). Why? Marcia works from home ... having alternatives in case of problems is a good thing.

Now, back to work with me. Have a lovely day.

Top / Email Brian

Mon Tues WEDNESDAY Thu Fri Sat Sun
October 11, 2006

0817 - Good morning. Microsoft dropped on us yesterday...

If you've been putting off updating your system at all over the last few months, it's time to jump on the bandwagon.

There are multiple critical code-execution vulnerabilities that are fixed by this month's patches from Microsoft. Some are system level (Windows) and some are application level (Office).

To get the all the right updates, you need to use "Microsoft Update" (not "Windows Update"). If the only choice available to you on the Start menu or in IE under Tools is "Windows Update", then begin by "upgrading" to Microsoft Update. Go to the Windows Update link, then follow the links and instructions to get Microsoft Update. You may need to reboot. Please note that Microsoft Update _does not_ replace Windows Update, but is installed alongside. That's normal.

Once that's done, run Microsoft Update. You can either run via the "Express" route, or if you want to see the non-critical updates and make some further selections, use the "Custom" button. When all is said and done, please to have installed ALL of the "High Priority" updates for your system. Do not delay this action. The Office programs vulnerabilities are particularly bad, and many of you count on being able to safely receive documents via email from colleagues.

Hardware updates are at your discretion, as are the "Software, Optional" updates. For the latter, beware of installing crufty Windows DRM if you do the Windows Media Player 10 dance. You may find yourself unable to play video you recorded on your own camera, depending on how Windows DRM regards it. Be suspicious.

Finally, please go to http://www.adobe.com/ and click on the "Get Adobe Flash Player" button, and follow the links to install the latest version. There were vulnerabilities in prior versions that could lead to code execution.

In other news, Marcia managed to damage her calf yesterday. Whether a strain, pull, or tear, we won't know until she's been to see the doctor today. She can bear weight on it, so it's not as bad as it might be, I guess. She'll likely have more news on her page later today or tomorrow.

Work calls. Have a great day!

Top / Email Brian

Mon Tues Wed THURSDAY Fri Sat Sun
October 12, 2006

0715 - Good morning. So, Marcia managed to tear the medial head of the gastrocnemius. Here's link in a web page about the type of injury. The location of the injury is in the region marked 'C' in this illustration. Ouch! She's in a new age ortho-boot, with pressurized supports that she can inflate or deflate to manage the fit of the boot. That's for four to six weeks, along with physical therapy. No surgery, though. That's as well. The doctor was worried that she might have torn her Achilles tendon, which would have required surgical repair, and taken the best part of a year in recovery. So, not as bad as it might have been.

Bob wrote yesterday about the elegance of Linux. That's not to say that there aren't voids. They can be filled, mostly, though. And most of them are in the arena of playing well with Windows. As the new kid on the block, it has been incumbent upon Linux (the system, the "distribution" (whichever), as opposed to the kernel, the OS) to accomodate itself to cooperation with Windows. Stuff that's relatively easy in Linux, from scripting to massive re-writes and the ability to walk away from some backwards compatibility, is hard in the Windows world. But on the other hand, there are tools that are made for Windows systems that aren't or won't be ported to Linux. So recently, when I borrowed a Plextor ConvertX box from Bob, to get a couple of family videos from tape and onto digital media and into my backup rotation ... Well, the tools were Windows-based.

I can live with Windows-based tools for specific needs. But I rarely boot into my Gaming partition these days. Anyway, back to the story. The MPG file that it created used MPEG-2 codec. Right. So a Windows box without a DVD decoder can't watch this six minute family video. Now I don't really have qualms about buying an inexpensive DVD software package for Marcia's machine. I don't have qualms about being able to watch it on my Linux box with the software that DVD Jon wrote helping me. But I can't come up with the right combination of tools to convert it to a format that doesn't require a Windows user to have a DVD decoder. I was able to get video, kinda crappy ... or audio, but not both.

Long story short, I bought Nero 7 uber ultra enhanced extra (whatever!) for Marcia. Now Marcia has a full suite of tools for her dual DVD setup on her computer, she can watch the videos. That's enough for me.

I've already been at work, as such: doing email and getting an early server update rolling. But now it's time to start driving into the office. Happy Thursday!

Top / Email Brian

Mon Tues Wed Thu FRIDAY Sat Sun
October 13, 2006

0822 - Good morning. 31 degrees F as I left the house this morning. mid-twenties in the northern 'burbs. Fall is here, I guess. Hey! Friday the Thirteenth. Rock on!

On the geek side of the ledger, there was this mail earlier this week:

I have the Kubuntu Edgy Beta, updated and configured to the point where it is about like I want it, on /dev/hda2. I would like to move it to /dev/sdb1. Can I simply copy or move the fileset and rejigger GRUB (which is installed to hda) or does Linux need to be "installed" into a partition ala Windows?

Now this sort of query is right up my alley. It also goes here, so that I don't have to put it in email again, and someone, anyone, might have a hope of finding this answer using Google.

NOTE: 2006.10.15 Changes may still be needed to get the following directions to work. Edgy Eft has different Grub parameters than Dapper Drake. Feedback and/or direct experience would be appreciated...

Somewhere between those two extremes.

You may read all this and just decide to do a clean install. Take these
directions with a grain of salt, because I'm not EXECUTING them, but I am
using lightly modified current files on my Dapper system here to give
reasonable answers.

If the filesystem for your root partition is ext3, then you can always use
Ghost to migrate it from drive to drive. There would still be editing
steps, though, and you've the swap partition to consider... So, here are
the few, simple steps:

Assumption:
   /dev/hda1   Windows
   /dev/hda2   /          # edgy root filesystem
   /dev/hda3   swap       # edgy swap partition

This work is all most easily done by booting the Edgy live cd, and working
from a root terminal (type "sudo su -")

Check to make sure you have your /dev/sdb1 partition comfortably larger
than you like, and that it is of type 83 (Linux). If you also want to
migrate your swap partition to the other drive, you should make sure that
partition  exists, let's assume /dev/sdb2) You can do both of those things
with cfdisk

  cfdisk /dev/sdb

Once the partition tables are right, reboot, and get back to the root
terminal, then

  mke2fs -j /dev/sdb1   # to create the ext3 filesystem (ext2 +
journalling)

  mkswap /dev/sdb2      # to write the swap partition

Let's mount the new and old filesystems, and copy the data:

  mkdir /mnt/old
  mount -t auto -o ro /dev/hda2 /mnt/old
   # mounted readonly so we can't screw up your old data with these steps.

  mkdir /mnt/new
  mount -t auto /dev/sdb1 /mnt/new

  cd /mnt/old && rsync -av * /mnt/new/.

When that's done, all of your data from the old partition is on the new
one.
Now to tweak some configurations. Use your favorite editor (mine's Vim):

  cd /mnt/new/etc
  vim fstab
        any references to hda2 need to be changed to sdb1.
        make similar changes if you migrate your swap partition.
        for example, after editing, the specific lines might read:

     /dev/sdb1       /               ext3    defaults        0       1
     /dev/sdb3       none            swap    sw              0       0

Almost done...

I'm going to "assume" that your drive ordering is hda, sda, sdb, ... This
is significant for Grub, which numbers the drives accordingly. So Grub
drive 0 is hda, grub drive 2 is sdb, in the following commands. Type these
commands (you needn't echo the comments, eh):

      grub
      root (hd2,0)
        # should detect as ext3, if we've been following along...
        # that says the root partition is 3rd drive, first partition
      setup (hd0)
        # still boot from hda, but your boot menu is now in your new linux
        # partition, in /boot/grub/menu.lst
      quit

Finally, you'll need to edit that menu.lst file, so:

      cd /mnt/new/boot/grub
      vim menu.lst
         # page down past all the comments, and you'll have stanzas
         # like this:

         title    Ubuntu, kernel 2.6.15-27-686
         root     (hd0,1)
         kernel   /vmlinuz-2.6.15-27-686 root=/dev/hda2 ro quiet splash
         initrd          /initrd.img-2.6.15-27-686
         savedefault
         boot

       For each Linux stanza, you'll want to change the "root (hd0,1)"
       line to "root (hd2,0)". Note that you'll have to interpret this
       to the drive ordering, as I've discuscopy to a new drivesed above.
       Then, in each "kernel..." line, change the "root=/dev/hda2" bit
       to "root=/dev/sdb1".

That *should* do it. Please note that if something goes wrong and you want
to revert, you should be able to just "rescue" your prior install to get
booting again, do a clean install on sdb1 + swap, then migrate data and
settings (like your whole home directory, settings and all).

Of course, your circumstances may be different, you'll need to be able to generalize from the examples above. If not, feel free to inquire about my consulting rates. Grin. Happy Friday!

Top / Email Brian

Mon Tues Wed Thu Fri SATURDAY Sun
October 14, 2006

0840 - Good morning. I'm slacking. With FIOS going in next Friday, I have some serious house-wiring to do. And I've been up since just after 0700, when Molly decided to be sick. Poor puppy. Better now, it seems. So I'm going to go out and pick up a couple of wallplates, some keystone jacks, and some Cat5e, or Cat6. Then I can get busy doing what needs doing. More later, perhaps.

Top / Email Brian

Mon Tues Wed Thu Fri Sat SUNDAY
October 15, 2006

1139 - Good morning. And here it is, later. Yesterday's plan suffered meltdown. I picked up from Home Depot a 1000' spool of CAT5e riser cable (plenum isn't needed for residential applications, so why spend twice as much), a few keystone jacks, and a couple of faceplates. When I got home, though, Marcia had bailed out on her writing class, because her battery (in the car) had gone dead. She got a jump from a tow service, and drove back home. I demounted the battery, and took it in to get replaced at Autozone. Popped the new battery in the car, and all was fine. It was after noon, and warm enough to do some much needed mowing. So I pruned out some frost-damaged annuals, and mowed the lawns front and back. Then I did the backyard dog patrol.

Finally done with the outside, I went to scope out my actual path for adding some vertical network runs to the house. The path I planned on appears to not exist, as such. From attic to basement, there's a large vertical cavity for the air handler return, I didn't expect that to be sealed at each floor, but it is. So, the alternative is to cut in through the sheetrock in a couple of places, and go through the plates. That's going to lead to some refurbishment work afterwards. I may give that a go, today. I've already done the shopping, solo, since Marcia's still gimped up.

And in Iraq and Afghanistan, the wars continue. Our young men and women lay down their lives... and it was a bad week.

Cpl. Benjamin S. Rosales, 20, of Houston, Texas, died Oct. 4 while conducting combat operations in Al Anbar province, Iraq.
Cpl. Fernando D. Robinson, 21, of Hawthorne, Calif., died on Oct. 2 in Korengal, Afghanistan, from injuries sustained when his patrol came under attack by enemy forces using small arms fire and rocket propelled grenades.
Staff Sgt. James D. Ellis, 25, of Valdosta, Ga., died in Taji, Iraq, on Oct. 2, of injuries sustained when an improvised explosive device detonated near his vehicle.
Spc. Raymond S. Armijo, 22, of Phoenix, Ariz., died in Taji, Iraq, on Oct. 2, of injuries sustained when an improvised explosive device detonated near his vehicle.
Spc. Justin R. Jarrett, 21, of Jonesboro, Ga., died in Taji, Iraq, on Oct. 2, of injuries sustained when an improvised explosive device detonated near his vehicle.
Spc. Kristofer C. Walker, 20, of Creve Coeur, Ill., died in Taji, Iraq, on Oct. 2, of injuries sustained when an improvised explosive device detonated near his vehicle.
Pfc. Dean R. Bright, 32, of Roseburg, Oregon, died in Taji, Iraq, on Oct. 4 after being attacked by enemy forces using small arms fire and other weapons.
Spc. Timothy R. Burke, 24, of Hollywood, Fla., died in Taji, Iraq, on Oct. 4 after being attacked by enemy forces using small arms fire and other weapons.
Staff Sgt. Christopher O. Moudry, 31, of Baltimore, Md., died in Taji, Iraq, on Oct. 4 after being attacked by enemy forces using small arms fire and other weapons.
Spc. George R. Obourn Jr., 20, of Creve Coeur, Ill., died in Taji, Iraq, on Oct. 4 after being attacked by enemy forces using small arms fire and other weapons.
Cpl. Carl W. Johnson II, 21, of Philadelphia, Pa., died on Oct. 7 in Mosul, Iraq, from injuries suffered when an improvised explosive device detonated near his vehicle.
Cpl. Nicholas A. Arvanitis, 22, of Salem, New Hampshire, died on Oct. 6 in Bayji, Iraq, from injuries suffered when he encountered enemy fire.
Pfc. Shane R. Austin, 19, of Edgerton, Kan., died on Oct. 8 in Ar Ramadi, Iraq, from injuries suffered by enemy grenade fire.
Staff Sgt. Lawrence L. Parrish, 36, of Lebanon, Mo., died Oct. 7 in Baghdad, Iraq, from injuries suffered when an improvised explosive device detonated near his vehicle during combat operations.
Spec. John E. Wood, 37, of Humboldt, Kan., died Oct. 7 in Baghdad, Iraq, from injuries suffered when an improvised explosive device detonated near his vehicle during combat operations.
Sgt. Brandon S. Asbury, 21, of Tazewell, Va., died on Oct. 7 in Baghdad, Iraq, from injuries suffered when his unit came in contact with enemy forces using small arms fire during combat operations.
Spec. Timothy A. Fulkerson, 20, of Utica, Ky., died Oct. 8 in Tikrit, Iraq, when a landmine detonated near his vehicle during combat operations.
Pfc. Phillip B. Williams, 21, of Gardnerville, Nev., died Oct. 9 in Baghdad, Iraq, from injuries suffered from enemy contact during combat operations.
Sgt. Julian M. Arechaga, 23, of Oceanside, N.Y., died Oct. 9 while conducting combat operations against enemy forces in Al Anbar province, Iraq.
Lance Cpl. Jon E. Bowman, 21, of Dubach, La., died Oct. 9 while conducting combat operations against enemy forces in Al Anbar province, Iraq.
Pfc. Shelby J. Feniello, 25, of Connellsville, Pa., died Oct. 9 while conducting combat operations against enemy forces in Al Anbar province, Iraq.
Lance Cpl. John E. Hale, 20, of Shreveport, La., died Oct. 6 from wounds received while conducting combat operations against enemy forces in Al Anbar province, Iraq.
Lance Cpl. Stephen F. Johnson, 20, of Marietta, Ga., died Oct. 8 while conducting combat operations against enemy forces in Al Anbar province, Iraq.
Cpl. Bradford H. Payne, 24, of Montgomery, Ala., died Oct. 6 while conducting combat operations against enemy forces in Al Anbar province, Iraq.
Lance Cpl. Derek W. Jones, 21, of Salem, Ore., died Oct. 8 from wounds received while conducting combat operations against enemy forces in Al Anbar province, Iraq.
Lance Cpl. Jeremy S. Sandvick Monroe, 20, of Chinook, Mont., died Oct. 8 from wounds received while conducting combat operations against enemy forces in Al Anbar province, Iraq.
Capt. Robert M. Secher, 33, of Germantown, Tenn., died Oct. 8 from wounds received while conducting combat operations against enemy forces in Al Anbar province, Iraq.
Chief Warrant Officer Scott W. Dyer, 38, of Cocoa Beach, Fla., died Oct. 11 in Banditemur, Afghanistan, from injuries suffered during combat operations.
Capt. Shane T. Adcock, 27, of Mechanicsville, Va., died on Oct. 11 in Hawijah, Iraq, from injuries suffered from enemy grenade fire.
Sgt. Justin T. Walsh, 24, of Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, died Oct. 11 at National Naval Medical Center Bethesda, Md., from wounds received while conducting combat operations in Al Anbar province, Iraq, on Oct. 5.
Private 1st Class Thomas J. Hewitt, 22, of Temple, Texas, died on Oct. 13 at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center, Washington, D.C., from injuries sustained during a Sept. 26 incident in Baghdad, Iraq, during which an improvised explosive device detonated near his vehicle.
Spc. Jason A. Lucas, 24, of Columbus, Ohio, died on Oct. 13 in Kandahar, Afghanistan, from injuries sustained when his vehicle was struck by a suicide bomber using a vehicle-born improvised explosive device.
Sgt. Gene A. Hawkins, 24, of Orlando, Fla., died on Oct. 12 in Mosul, Iraq, from injuries sustained when an improvised explosive device detonated near his RG-31 Mine Protected Vehicle.

Top / Email Brian

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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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GRAFFITI -- October 09, 2006 thru October 15, 2006

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