dannyman.toldme.com

HOWTO: Create a Tar Archive From a File List

Link: https://dannyman.toldme.com/2004/09/14/howto-create-tar-archive-from-manifest/

I had a list of files that someone requested. I wanted to put them in a tar archive, but the tar on the box doesn’t have an option to add a list of files. Huh. Well, this is quick and dirty, and will choke if you have any space in the filenames, but it met my purposes: (more…)

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Quick Unix Tip: “Look”

Link: https://dannyman.toldme.com/2004/08/18/look/

You may already know about /usr/dict/words, /usr/local/share/dict/words, /usr/share/dict/words or wherever it is on your local system that the list of English-language words is installed. I don’t know how many times I have egrepped this file to check my spelling.

Apparently though, there’s been a handy command available since Version 7 AT&T UNIX. It is called “look” and it is handy for looking up words. (more…)

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Props to FreeBSD and its USB Support

Link: https://dannyman.toldme.com/2004/05/05/props-to-freebsd-and-its-usb-support/

I spied a pretty Microsoft mouse laying near my desk. It has laser beams. Cool. I swapped it in to my workstation. I was apprehensive at first, because the existing mouse is PS/2, and this new mouse is USB … oh man, this could be a pain in the ass. I even avoided unplugging the PS/2 mouse. Back in 1997 when PS/2 mice were new, I recall a coworker at NCSA being reluctant to reboot FreeBSD so that it would see the PS/2 mouse, which was in those days only probed at boot.

Well, wouldn’t you know, but the new mouse worked right out of the box, so to speak. The USB architecture detects the mouse, then runs the appropriate daemon and hooks it up to /dev/sysmouse, which X is looking at. Everything was great, except the wheel didn’t take. I dropped by the awesome and handy Mouse Wheel Support for X in FreeBSD, edited my usbd.conf, restarted the moused, and everything was groovy.

Yeah, Windows handles mice better, but I’m impressed that FreeBSD did well enough in one of its weak spots – I didn’t have to restart X or nuffin’!

/danny

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Gettin’ the Job Done!

Link: https://dannyman.toldme.com/1999/06/18/gettin-the-job-done/

Ah, so yesterday I drove over to Wal Mart and picked up some Liquid Wrench and a kit with a 2 ton jack and jack stands. And I adjusted the brakes. They’re better now, though not as good as I’d like … some of those adjusting stars are damned stuck. I’ll take it some place professional and hard-core perhaps.

Got to work around 3:30. Then I figured to punch down the Ethernet cables I could to the patch panel once and for all, while I installed FreeBSD on a machine to determine if Apsfilter and Samba could do a better job of sharing a printer than NT Workstation. Been bleeding my forehead trying to figure out how the freak Windows 95 clients were supposed to print to the NT Workstation that had adopted the printer before my arrival. FreeBSD and Samba proves to have better interoperability with Windows than NT Workstation does. The irony is not lost on me.

Since the machine I found happens to be a PentiumIII at 450 Mhz, and I was installing FreeBSD, and the graphics card looks pretty bad-ass too, I’m using the print server for my new desktop machine. It is too hard-core to be a humble printer server.

Left work around 3:30. My message about getting printing to work was well received, especially with the Windows 98 crowd. Slept in. Then I went to the Men’s Wearhouse and spent a lot of money. I bought a suit, shirt, two ties, socks, fancy shoes, some italian sandals, hell a belt, uhmmm. I even got a Men’s Wearhouse credit card. My first suit. Well, I bought about half a suit once for the Allen Hall formal one year, but this time I got all hard-core.

With the Men’s Wearhouse credit card, you get free pressing.

Anyway, then I did the laundry, eating at this chinese greasy spoon. Greasy food, but well, a big plate o’ stuff for $4.90, probably the best deal I’ve had yet in California.

Oh, I got the car washed yesterday too. There’s this big ol’ place on El Camino right by the house (like, a block or two away) where this army of Mexicans in blue shirts cleans your car inside and out for $13.25, I think it was. There’s a sign that says that they recycle the water, so going to the car wash uses less water than doing it yourself. And they give you lemonade and popcorn so it’s just really sweet.

I think the guy who gave the car back was hoping for a tip though. Next time. While they didn’t get all the little insect guts that had been pounded onto the hood at 75 MPH and then cooked on in the California sun over these past weeks, the car was really clean … I like it. Had that newish feeling.

Well, the plane leaves tonight at 11 PM. Mom is gonna meet me for tomorrow morning’s 4AM layover at O’Hare.

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Live!

Link: https://dannyman.toldme.com/1997/12/17/live/

Wed Dec 17 23:43:45 CST 1997

Bought a QuickCam the other day from a place called PC Mall. It wasn’t easy, but I got it hooked up and running under FreeBSD. Now, the ultimate in geekness, it’s live on the web!

The first reaction I get from folks is “What about if you want privacy?” to which I reply “I live in a Quad – there is no privacy!”

It’s really not that bad at all, especially since it doesn’t handle low light well. If I’m really cool I’ll get to hack up some of the source over break and see if I can’t convince it to do some auto-correction of contrast and brightness and such.

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