Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2006/09/06/serial-console-woes/
So, I’m setting up a box. I need to test different filesystem configurations, which will involve a lot of boot-configure-install-post-install-benchmark cycles. We have a nice network boot infrastructure, but getting serial booting to work is always fun. Today I found that the vendor has set up BIOS “remote access” to COM2. Funny thing, the box only has one serial port! So, I set that to COM1, and configure console redirection only up to the boot loader, tell the bootloader that I want text console=ttyS0 and we’re in business!
But man, if SuSE’s YaST aint a bloody mess when it downgrades to text on a serial port:
What you don’t see here is the constant slow screen-redraw, constant pressing control-L. This is what it looks like at a good moment!
I think I understand why. I mean, I would think that Linux developers would take serial consoles and text mode to heart. After all, that’s the whole point, right? But that’s how I think, because I manage dozens of servers at a time, remote, and all my boxes are rack-mount jobbies with lots o’ fans and nobody wants to be in the same room.
But the developers who hack on Linux probably aren’t hard-core SysAdmins. Their dev system is some beat-up old hardware sitting near their desk, wired up to a spare VGA monitor, so yeah, text mode is kind of an afterthought. Especially given the pain in the butt that setting up serial consoles can be!
2 Comments
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2006/09/05/popularity-pays/
Says Paul Graham:
Of course you have to have a business model eventually. But experience so far suggests that figuring out how to make money from something popular is a lot easier than making something popular.
I get a lot of criticism for telling founders to focus first on making something great, instead of worrying about how to make money. And yet that is exactly what Google did. And Apple, for that matter. You’d think examples like that would be enough to convince people.
Is this another Bubble? I don’t think so, not so far. There may be a lot of lame startups being started, but that’s not the definition of a bubble. A bubble is when a lot of money is being invested in lame startups, and that’s not happening yet. The reason so many new startups are getting started is that the cost has gone down, not that funding has gone up.
This is one reason I’m optimistic about my present employer: we’ve got something that is proving to be very popular. We’ve got a good thing going such that we can become hugely popular, and if we can capitalize on that even a little bit, we should be doing alright.
As to whether this is the mentality that brought us the Bubble, I think the thing to watch out for is Irrational Exuberence, and over-reaching. Popular or not, VC-backed or not, I haven’t heard any of that since the bust. I’d like to think that we of the Silicon Valley have Gotten Over Ourselves a bit–our experiments, called “startups”–have some sense of scope, and few companies outside of Microsoft or Google have barrels of F-U money to throw around. We’re no longer surrounded by IPO-funded Mercedeses and BMWs, and nobody I know is paying $2,000/mo rent. I hope we retain this sense of sensibility.
Feedback Welcome
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2006/08/07/yelp/
It is Monday morning and I rolled in to work around 10. Yay flex hours! I checked on and repaired a technical issue I’m working on, then got down to checking e-mail. I found a link to this article which does as good a job of any at describing my new employer.
At first the graph displaying traffic growth is gratifying, then I notice that it is a logarithmic scale, and say to myself “oh yeah, I have a lot of work coming my way” as keeping servers up and running is my little contribution to the whole build-a-better-web-site-by-building-better-users dealio.
The video was fun to watch, though my coworkers look a lot younger. They haven’t deported the British Guy yet: he’s just too cool. I would “embed” the video here but WordPress seems to eat up the HTML code. Dang. Anyway, back to work!
1 Comment
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2006/06/23/feeling-lucky/
Ahhh, Google Custom Home Page, you are having a bad day.
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Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2006/03/30/more-dst-fun/
From Wired:
“This is like Y2K except this one is really happening,” said [Purdue University] IT spokesman Steve Tally.
Currently, most Indiana computer users set their PCs to a special “Indiana East” setting — Eastern time that doesn’t spring forward every April. Starting this April, however, they’ll change their PCs to Eastern Daylight Time. The few who observe Central time set their computers to Central, and will also make the switch. Tally predicts the changeover will create havoc with the widely used Microsoft Outlook calendar application. When the time changes, he said, appointments will still be listed according to the old Indiana East time. The calendars of Central time Outlook users, in turn, will continue to list appointments according to Central time.
With a nationwide shift in daylight-saving scheduling slated for next year, Indiana’s experience offers a preview of potential glitches in store for the rest of the country. Starting in 2007, daylight-saving time will begin on the second Sunday of March rather than the first Sunday in April, as it does today. Daylight-saving time will end the first Sunday of November, a week later than it does now.
I heard on the radio yesterday that computer technology actually plays a much bigger roll in the growing gap between high-wage and low-wage employees than does immigration, such that those opposed to immigration should also be opposed to computers. I suppose one could look at the legislature mucking around with timekeeping as a way of creating demand for IT jobs, and thus slowing, ever so slightly, the rate at which IT efficiency disempowers low-wage workers.
My favorite DST bug was when Windows first started doing DST compensation automatically. The first time Windows computers were trusted to “fall back” an hour there was a bug such that several computers set their clocks back, and then set their clocks back, and then set their clocks back again . . . some computers ended up three, four, five, six hours behind . . . (more…)
2 Comments
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2006/03/07/customer-service-rant/
So, we use Bugzilla at work, and our users are mostly comfortable with it. On the other hand, there’s a popular “ticket tracking” system that is designed to track IT-type issues, which are considerably different from, although similar to, bugs. So, I have been asking around for advice . . . one reason I like RT is that it is simple for the user to send an e-mail directly into the system. A response was “well, then you don’t get enough information to solve the problem, so making the user fill out all the information in a web interface is better.” This . . . this, is one of my peet peeves:
Ah, personally, I HATE any system that makes “reporting a bug” any more cumbersome than absolutely needed. You need to make it as easy as possible to record that “something is wrong” and then query your customer for missing data as needed. All these “customer service” forms that have ever forced me to supply 5, ten, fifty pieces of frequently irrelevant data, and then ask me to explain my problem in a tiny little window . . .
No. Tools need to accomodate customer needs, and customer needs low barrier to entry. My cynical take on requiring the user to answer twenty questions is that you gain “efficiency” by making it sufficiently cumbersome for a user to report trouble such that the user will simply tolerate all but the very biggest problems, meanwhile cursing the jackasses over in the support organization with their “talk to our dumb*ss web interface” mentality.
A good compromise is to capture the user inquiry, and then, if there’s a standard questionnaire that needs filling out, have them fill it out.
Just, ah, my 2c. :)
I am so exhausted right now. Where has all my energy gone? Grr!
Feedback Welcome
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2006/02/19/chicago-wireless/
As reported in the AP:
CHICAGO – The nationwide rush to go wireless appears poised to extend to its biggest city yet. Chicago is launching an effort to offer wireless broadband, city officials said Friday, jumping on the Wi-Fi bandwagon as similar initiatives proceed in Philadelphia, San Francisco and smaller cities.
Well, that is the coolest news about my home town that I have read in a while. Municipal WiFi? In the yuppie neighborhoods and in the ghetto? Speedy Internet for all the schoolchildren and the tourists? Amen to that!
Meanwhile, in a parallel universe, we awoke yesterday to find snow on the ground . . . in California! Well, sure it was up on Mount Diablo, and it had been rained away by the afternoon, but it merited a celebratory call home to Mom in Chicago, where there is no snow at the moment, but there is certainly cold.
And next year . . . wireless!
Feedback Welcome
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2006/02/09/advice-for-salespeople/
“There’s two kinds of vendors in this world, my friend. There are those that, when I ask for a quote, send me an Excel spreadsheet, and those that are likely to get my business.”
It is more complicated than that, but:
- If I check “I prefer to be contacted by e-mail” on the form, don’t call me.
- If I have already filled out my company’s name, you are not allowed to mis-spell it.
- If you are a Data Center company named “Colo(Whatever)” then don’t send me a quote for “collocation” services. Paper documents are collated, servers are co-located.
- If I ask for 1 unit of bandwidth, don’t raise your price by sneaking in a second unit of bandwidth.
- Dude, who offers Data Center tours twice a week?
- SysAdmins don’t always have ready access to Microsoft Excel, and Word documents can break when you e-mail them to a customer running a different version. Nobody wants to pay “Err: 5” for services. Text or PDF or death!!
By the way, I need to hire a SysAdmin . . .
Feedback Welcome
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2006/02/04/boycott-yahoo/
I wrote a letter to Yahoo! today. I am curious what answer I will get:
Hello,
I live in the Bay Area. I have friends who work At Yahoo, Google, and Microsoft. I am a big Google fan, but I am also all about Flickr!. I purchased an account even before Yahoo! bought them and have since written a Flickr plugin. I have followed the recent controversey over google.cn’s launch, and I have come to the conclusion that Google is doing the right thing:
- They will openly censor searches in accordance with Chinese law.
- They will not offer services that would put them in a position to compromise privacy: mail, blogs.
I have heard press reports that Yahoo! and MSN have cooperated with the Chinese government to reveal the identity of Chinese Bloggers, and have them arrested. This is wrong. And as a user, as someone who pays Yahoo! … I want to know, what are you guys doing about free speech in China? Wouldn’t you agree that disengagement in business activity that leaves you involved in arresting people is the way to go? What is Yahoo! going to do?
Do I need to stop using Flickr if I want to feel good about using the Internet? Do I need to encourage others to boycott Yahoo!, as consumers once boycotted companies engaged in human rights violations in South Africa?
Thank you for your time.
Sincerely,
-danny
Perhaps, you too, should contact Yahoo!, or perhaps Microsoft, to express your concerns. I will post any reply I receive here.
-danny
3 Comments
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2006/01/30/gapers-cubicles-redeyes/
The past week has been good. Saturday was the excellent Birthday Party #30. Sunday I got some work done, then I was getting up to pick up Jessica at the airport when she called and reported that her Southwest flight had landed 40 minutes early! So, I met her at the BART instead. Monday and Tuesday I was out-of-sync, and Tuesday at work was spent doing some emergency resuscitation of a dead laptop . . . Wednesday morning, I think it was, I was back on my game, and on the bus ride in to work, I saw something really cool: a full traffic break.
I had been wondering why the Southbound traffic was so sluggish. Then, all of a sudden, I saw the traffic evaporate in the Northbound lanes, which were led by a Highway Patrol car, weaving to a full stop, four lanes of traffic behind him. Everybody stopped, and the officer got out in the middle of the highway, to remove some chunks of wood. A guy in a white pickup truck at the head of the third lane hopped out to help remove debris, as our Southbound traffic sped away. “Northbound 680, all lanes stopped at Danville to remove debris. Gapers Southbound,” is how that might have been reported on Chicago radio.
Gapers. Gapers is a traffic delay that you get when drivers slow down to gape at something interesting along the highway. “Something interesting” usually means a traffic accident. And in many cases, it is only reasonable to slow down, just to make sure people aren’t leaking from the incident into the traffic lanes. For my part, I thought the full traffic break, during rush hour, was a sure sign that we are civilized: we empower a single cop in a patrol car with the power of Moses, to part the rolling seas of a busy highway, to make 70MPH a dead stop. I heard an opinions piece on the radio some months back, a guy from India felt that Stop signs were emblematic of America’s true power. In India, nobody would ever stop at a stop sign, so the government doesn’t bother with traffic control. In America, people will come to a full stop nearly every time, even if they don’t really need to, because our civilization is in such a state that people respect and understand the legitimacy of our laws. (more…)
2 Comments
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2006/01/29/photos-flickr-04/
Hello,
I have written a basic WordPress plugin to present a Flickr photo stream from a WordPress blog.
Photos Flickr provides for basic browsing of a Flickr photo stream from within a WordPress blog.
You can see this plugin in action at http://dannyman.toldme.com/photos/ and if you would like to try this plugin yourself, you can read more about it at http://dannyman.toldme.com/photos-flickr/.
Thanks,
-danny
Feedback Welcome
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2006/01/25/battlestar-galactica-paid-download/
[From an e-mail I sent to the Sci-Fi Channel . . .]
Hello,
I don’t have cable, and my only access to TV shows has been via Netflix and Internet downloads.
I am very excited that you folks are now offering paid downloads of Battlestar Galactica! Bittorrent works great, but I’d like to see you guys compensated for the creative work and production costs, right? And since I only watch a few shows per month, the $2/episode is definitely a better value than buying Cable access, which is overpriced for my needs.
UNFORTUNATELY, the iTunes store is a closed, proprietary system, that can not be accessed from my home entertainment center, which runs on FreeBSD. So, even though I own a video iPod … I can not easily obtain the downloads from your vendor … and if I do somehow get to the iTunes store, I have no idea if they’re DRM-protected, which would block me from watching your show on my entertainment center anyway. :(
Please … please try to either:
a) Convince Apple to open up iTunes access to third parties. A while back, the open source community reverse-engineered the iTunes protocols so that Linux users could access this resource, but Apple locked these consumers out again.
b) Consider adopting Google Video as a sales channel — they have the capability to sell videos via traditional web browsers, which would allow ALL computer users to access your content, increasing consumer accessibility and sales for Battlestar Galactica.
Failing that … can I Paypal you guys $2/week for the episodes I have been obtaining via Bittorrent? :)
Thanks,
-danny
Feedback Welcome
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2006/01/23/daylight-saving-sucks/
I am one of those contrarian freaks who despises Daylight Saving Time, regarding it as a stupid fix to a problem that does not exist. You want more daylight after work? Set your alarm clock ahead and get to work an hour earlier! Don’t go changing my schedule . . .
Most people . . . normal people, don’t feel strongly about DST. “Yeah, it is annoying to change all my clocks twice a year, but then I don’t mind the extra daylight in the evening.” Of course, my last job I was working 7AM-3PM anyway, so I was saving Daylight . . .
So, enough bitching. Let’s talk turkey. Let’s talk Operational Qualification for third party auditing of a production database system. When I run the regression tests for PostgreSQL-7.4.8, the “horology” regression test fails. The README for this version reports that this may happen if you run on the day of DST switchover . . . or if your Operating System naively applies current DST rules retroactively. But, in my case? Huh, just don’t get it: (more…)
Feedback Welcome
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2006/01/12/glowing-green-pigs/
The BBC reports that Taiwanese researchers have bred fluorescent pigs:
Scientists in Taiwan say they have bred three pigs that glow in the dark.
The pigs are transgenic, created by adding genetic material from jellyfish into a normal pig embryo. Taiwan is not claiming a world first. Others have bred partially fluorescent pigs before. But the researchers insist the three pigs they have produced are better. They are the only ones that are green from the inside out. Even their heart and internal organs are green.
As a coworker mused “green eggs and ham.” (more…)
1 Comment
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2006/01/12/beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep/
This is a test.
This is a test of the new WordPress admin interface via Sidekick 2.
The web servers in your area, in voluntary cooperation with danny, his web site, and RSS feeds have devised this test in order to distract you in case of boredom. (more…)
2 Comments
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