Coredump

Antipixel -type buttons are great: they're simple, have a small footprint, and look elegant. They're the ubiquitous buttons one sees for XML or RSS feeds. (Take a look at the Feeds / Credits section in the sidebar.) So, in the great tradition started at Antipixel.com, I made myself a few buttons for you to steal. Go get them. Enjoy!   Credits to Antipixel.com for the idea, Taylor McKnight for more buttons to steal, and Jason Kottke's Silkscreen font.

Have been browsing through my mail a while ago when I got an invitation from Migs Paraz to join his techscene blog aggregator . Well, I must say I was flattered. I mean, I never intended for my blog to be much else but as a vent for my frustrations and idle thoughts. It's just as well, now that I think about it, nothing wrong with sharing what I've been learning in my (mis)adventures into technology (and in life). Still, I think there isn't much to read in here, just the "random rants and raves" or whatever catches my fancy. Maybe when I do get around to having a particular project in mind, I might -- just might -- have something real (and original) to share. But for now, Migs' readers will have to contend with -- like what I told him -- "insipid and content-free technobabble". By the way: I'm thankful that I got introduced to feeds. It's a wonderful way of self-publishing content. Now I know that Blogger.com, for one, uses Atom; and there...

Palmtops and Zires, Web hooks without wires, iPaqs and Tungstens, They're real sexy kittens. Connect to the network without any strings. These are a few of my favorite things.

The corporate intranet site in the workplace has finally been deployed. It's called "NIAnet: The corporate intranet site of the National Irrigation Adminisration Central Office", at http://intranet.nia.gov.ph . It features news and updates on Central Office activities, discussion forums and polls, a document repository, and a content management system. It runs on Drupal , which was installed in less than an hour. With the addition of other Drupal modules, the complete site was set up in a little over two hours. It is served through a LAMP-configured box. The site is still in its infancy, and there isn't much to see. But soon, when content from the responsibility centers have been added, the site will serve as the portal for office workers, and, hopefully, be a venue to cultivate a networked corporate culture in the workplace.

This is my office. That's my desk over there, with the console connected to four boxen (three servers and one desktop). My wiring cabinet containing the main distribution facility for my network. It houses the patch panels and switches. Soon, I'll have the router and leased line modem placed in the tray below.

Command Description cat /proc/version OS version cat /proc/sys/kernel/name Host name cat /proc/sys/kernel/domainame Domain name cat /proc/cpuinfo Hardware information cat /proc/swaps Swap partitions cat /proc/partitions Local filesystems cat /proc/self/mounts Mounted filesystems cat /proc/uptime Uptime Reference: Mariusz Burdach, Forensic Analysis of a Live Linux System , Part Two. SecurityFocus. http://www.securityfocus.com/infocus/1773 .

-----BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK----- Version: GnuPG v1.2.3 (GNU/Linux) mQGiBEDVhtgRBADFYUttWyaIFBkVr5sEEzAP5pLs9wSniJ4+x2HRQNxUSen9w1nx ny8WN0KOolNXlM82YS/r5qIGNga6X+b28Pfqys+hc+xkUW9yHY2P2Qz4N97W+3N5 6G0kDEhpG2Jdhn39hRt0U240dkm+UZDUakKokiSX9GMUOQ5JWii5ZdvdAwCg8Hmq uYLL6BQPC5Js4sFm6TeAOkED/3+ytJvCYs4n8socdBQzMICqpIVAg35WXMGxDp67 ibW4Qky4jo0mGBA3KpSeXl7r4WApiOTM312Plr+4y8OrQW8yPRhB95Mvhjcbjr8n zBdIB1CpdVYqwf4pYiZxMGZe4UdizZM1+4/bBNlLNC+ndQDxLVXE0kOgudJCca8V elsjA/9tM0W6Efnne/c+h3CkSq7sup10IOMK6cfs389gsDk41sSJ3oDdfC47Qkxp zhSZ41LbCYLotgtLVbKoiJsPeSceipPt//XIan4o0QOMAVvkqZkY384Mt7NAGJh1 vJqhpPr/3KxGetgullKLRRfxkeELDprbkMHbo/D94QnZwSsSxbRESWFuIERleHRl ciBSLiBNYXJxdWV6IChodHRwOi8vaWFuZGV4dGVyLmNvLm5yKSA8aWFuZGV4dGVy QGdtYWlsLmNvbT6IZAQTEQIAJAUCQNWG2AIbAwUJAeEzgAYLCQgHAwIDFQIDAxYC AQIeAQIXgAAKCRBCbyv8XcsSy1k/AJ9Ep62TzekLlLHHPovhXqSHjhYrdQCglbRT i/U9Nhkk11cajpenHKBX3cO5AQ0EQNWG2hAEAOfAJQ5XFto7kXUEbp/z18++QMCV AvmOYE+PEznyRy7YZeKX4n0HgmTiUl5SaF5ioms10glCCMHbKr4Ehk1qGbyQxqvM 8RFOlNho/UB/bt116hH...

Ooopsss. Hehe. I tried to pull a fast one on Blogger and Google. When I logged on to my Blogger account, I saw the GMail invite right below my profile. I thought, "Hmmm... another invite?" Sorry, I got greedy, so I went for it. I clicked through the links up to the "Sounds good" button; negotiation with the server. Ooooppsss: "...From now on, you can log on to your account at https://gmail.google.com" Nice. I thought I could pull one over. Hehe. No dice. Oh well, will just have to wait for the offer to invite other friends to try GMail. Now, how much is a GMail account going on Ebay?

Just have to write these, just have to... Errors often encountered by tech support: "PEBKAC" ("problem exists between keyboard and chair") and "ID 10 T" ("idiot"). "There are two major products that come from Berkeley: LSD and UNIX. We don't believe this to be a coincidence." - Jeremy S. Anderson ls -r / | xarg rm -f Repair your computer using, er, brute force . John Lennon's Yesterday -- variation for programmers. Yesterday, All those backups seemed a waste of pay. Now my database has gone away. Oh I believe in yesterday. Suddenly, There's not half the files there used to be, And there's a milestone hanging over me The system crashed so suddenly. I pushed something wrong What it was I could not say. Now all my data's gone and I long for yesterday-ay-ay-ay. Yesterday, The need for back-ups seemed so far away. I knew my data was all here to stay, Now I believe in yesterday. Addicted to vi You press the keys with no e...

Web standards, that is. I've been messing around with HTML for about eight years now. I know, it's puny compared to the web gurus' out there, but it's a considerable experience nevertheless. I've had my share of coding using table layouts, (now) deprecated tags, frames (guilty!), and other utterly browser-specific markups. But I've realized the problems when my pages barfs when viewed in other (less popular) browsers. I've even made it a point to install major browsers (Netscape, IE, Opera and Mozilla) in my boxes, and have them opened while I code. (BTW: hand-coding for me all the way. Tried Dreamweaver once, seemed pretty bloated to me. I shun Frontpage.) I even changed my screen resolutions, trying to design on 640x480 screens. My eyes get bleary from all that. The point is: I've had my share of frustrations about cross-browser compatibility and other issues regarding web design and development. And I got tired of it. Enter CSS and XHTML . Heaven-se...

Yes! It's like winning the lottery. After helplessly drooling at others on mailing lists and blogs raving about the famous Google beta , I've finally been, eherm, offered by Blogger.com to try it out. This comes at a moment when I was thinking about whether to get my own POP account because I'll be moving out of the workplace soon and will be without any POP accounts. I was conjuring up nightmares about email bounces and unsent messages once my work accounts are closed. Then comes this saving grace that is GMail. Now I'm free! Now I'm elite, one of the chosen few. Yes! Not. Hehe. I don't consider myself "elite", just because I got GMail. It's just another tool. While others will do anything to get a GMail account , I on the other hand simply choose to let it slide. It wil come when it comes, is one of my motto. (Of course, I'm just feeling magnanimous -- I'VE GOT GMAIL, FOR PETE' S SAKE!) Now, I'll be transferring all those email ...

This has probably been written elsewhere -- and better. Still, I have to write this down so that later on, I could use this for reference. Besides, this works FOR me. Linux can read (and write to, given the proper permissions) to native Windows partitions. Well, VFAT at least. NTFS read-write is in alpha, I think. I have installed a patch to read my NTFS partition in FC1, but I'm more prudent regarding the write stuff. There is also a big issue of why Red Hat -- and consequently, their community project Fedora Core -- doesn't support NTFS natively. But that's another story. My box, for example, has two harddisks: a Seagate 40GB and a Maxtor 2GB (it's an old one from way back 1997, still usable though). The Seagate is partitioned into one big wallop of WinXP NTFS occupying 30GB, and Linux partitions sharing the rest of the meager 10GB. Linux doesn't complain for the allocation. In fact, it could do with about half of that. Try that with Windows. (On a side note: I ke...

Having two operating systems is a good way of having the best of both worlds. Well, there are hardly "best-ofs" in Windows, but since people here at home are all WinXP users, I can't get rid of that just yet. Besides, I do some of my, uhm, design work on WinXP, so it stays. But I digress: yes, having two OS is great, but it can be even greater if one can share email from the same accounts between the two OS. Gone are the days when I use Outlook for WinXP and Mutt for Linux. (I still use Mutt at work, though.) Presenting Mozilla Thunderbird , an email and newsgroup client from the developers of Firefox . It boasts of a clean interface, powerful anti-spam features and a host of extensions, making it have virtually unlimited features. Plus, it's open source. I've been using it for a week now for both Windows and Linux, making a few changes in the preferences by hand -- try that with Outlook (you CAN'T). I have two office accounts: one for office correspondence a...

Updating W2K-AS to Service Pack 4 was the culprit. That userenv.dll error was a result of a bug in the SP4, which trashes the said DLL and userinit.exe . Browsing through the tech forums, I came across several recommendations: reboot (didn't work -- was still there), re-install SP4 (couldn't do that -- I installed SP4 from the net, and I couldn't even log on), or through the recovery console. That, I did: pushed in the W2K CD, went to "Repair installation", then Recovery Console. It rebuilt the OS from a previously working registry, and restored the victim file. A couple of reboots (yeah, this is normal in Windows) later, I can finally log in. Turns out I have a CD that Microsoft gave away. It contains all the cumulative updates from Win 98 to XP. Fired that up, then installed the SP4 from there, this time, I opted for archiving so I can uninstall later on. Again, a few reboots later, I have SP4 on G2. Looking at RH9, seems I got a bit of a problem in the yum I ...

More like a rant versus Microsoft. I've finally installed FC1 on G3. No bumps there, smooth riding all the way. Then I just fired up yum 's nightly cron job to update all the installed packages -- mostly security-related and critical updates of httpd , iptables , mysql , php , and a couple of other essential services. While I was at it, I installed yum on the Red Hat 9.0 proxy server (as up2date 's demo account with Red Hat has already expired), pointed it to the mirrors provided by Fedora.us , then yum'med the updates. Easy as a breeze. I've also reinstalled W2K Advanced Server on G2. Again, no hiccups on the install (well, aside from the usual long process). I proceeded to going to the Windows Update website to get the critical updates. Okay, a few confirmation screens, and it's downloading. I had to go home: my eyes were bleary, my head splitting, and my stomach grumbling. So I called it a night and let the servers take care of themselves. Next day, back at t...

Wow! Two servers at once. Okay, I have to think this through thoroughly. Compaq Proliant ML370 G2 will be the domain controller running Windows 2000 Advanced Server . HP Proliant ML370 G3 will be the mail and web server running Fedora Core 1 . G2 and G3 have three Ultra3 SCSI 36.4GB disks each. One SCSI disk from G2 will be transferred to G3. Why? For fault-tolerance as it will be a mission-critical server. (Domain control is not that critical for now.) G3 SCSI disks will be configured for RAID5: three (disk distribution) + one spare. That's my roadmap. Off I go...

Finished reading The Cuckoo's Egg by Cliff Stoll . It's an engaging techno-thriller set in the tailend of the Cold War: an astronomer discovers evil hackers cracking into US military sites from his computer. He lays traps, plays cloak-and-dagger and hide-and-seek with the sinister forces behind the black-hatters. He saves the day for Truth, Freedom and the American Way. Not! A astrophysicist in charge with maintaining computers in Lawrence Berkeley Labs is fascinated by a problem: the 75 cents missing in their computer usage accounting. So he analyzes the problem, build tools to study it, and stumble upon a hacker that insidiously steals connection time to crack into military sites in the Arpanet and Milnet (remember these?). This leads to a convoluted tale of hide-and-seek, of outguessing the hacker, of laying down traps to trace the culprit that lead to his eventual arrest, of frustrations with the supposed authorities on computer security. The tech is good, the writing is ...

Cleared up the mess here in my network operations center (NOC). Got rid of rotting furnitures and fixtures; tucked away the 17" monitor behemoth and a kludgy old Acer Aspire; and re-laid-out my work area. I also got another KVM cable for the switch. Now, I can access the servers from one console, instead of moving back and forth between monitors. Of course, I could always ssh to the other servers but now that I have connected them to the KVM switch along with an XP workstation, I can easily select servers at the touch of a hotkey. The data cabinet looks neater, too. None of that old spaghetti rat's nest wiring. I'm a bit contented now that I have done all these. I can go away happy.

My dad just joined the community of bloggers. I helped him set up his own weblog at Blogger.com , guided him through the process of selecting a template, adding and editing content, and a few minor tweaks. Now, he's on his way. I bet his blog would create a fuss among his colleagues -- he's a journalist, by the way. This self-publishing scheme is nothing new to him, having published several community-based newspapers himself. Of course, he has to learn a bit of HTML, but none that he can't managed. Heck, he did well with producing newspapers from the design to publication; this should be peanuts to him. This just goes to prove that if you have content, and put it out on public, that's it, you're on your way. As a blogger (I forgot who and where now) once said, "If you don't try, you don't learn."

My foray into dynamic web hosting just hit a snag. Apparently, my DSL connection is a bit unstable: the connection sometimes drops on startup. This means I can't get PPPoE up, on which ddclient depends, so DynDNS does not get the updated dynamic IP and the URI points to an old IP. Another problem is that if the old IP now points to another host that has a webserver running, that would be disastrous. Imagine having someone else's website -- a hobbyist, perhaps, or -- heaven forbid -- a turd -- being pointed to by *my* web address. Again, the options: get business DSL with static IP (too damn costly!) or hit on a free webhosting service. Or live with it, and give out the address only to trusted individuals. Too bad I can't set up a round-robin type of dynamic IP redirection wherein if the web address being pointed to by the given IP has no authentication, the DDNS fails over to the next one on a list. That means several negotiations between the DNS server and the host machin...

Okay, a quick post before I go to bed. I've successfully set up this URL redirection. I've also opened an account with DynDNS.org for dynamic DNS. So far, I've done two things: set up dynamic DNS to point to my home server, then URL redirection to cloak that server name. I've also set up apps on the WinXP and FC1 partitions to dynamically update the IP pointed to by DynDNS since I'm on dynamic IP on my DSL connection. My problem now is that I have two servers -- one on the Windows XP partition and the other on the Fedora Core 1 -- and I have to mirror their contents for consistency. Interesting problem. One approach I can think of is to dump the MySQL databases on each, then do the updates on whichever partition is currently active. I can make a script on Linux there; and probably an autoexec.bat entry on WinXP. For now, I'm going to sleep.

One that personifies your character, or reflects who you want to be, at the least? Or, even better, one that is free? Right. Thanks to the PLUG mailing lists , I came across CO.NR -- a free domain name service. The path towards CO.NR was a bit convoluted, but I got there. I could just as easily have Googled it , but I was a bit lazy. Hehe. But now that I got this, well, I might just jumpstart that community-blog project I've brewed with a couple of pals. CO.NR has dynamic IP redirection, which means I can host a web server here at home (with the slow 256kbps DSL I have) running on Fedora Core 1. Maybe I can now deploy Drupal , as it has more features that I need, rather than TikiWiki , which can be a pain to configure. I'm setting my sights on Plone , too. Hmmm... So many plans... Okay, back to my scheming. Will have to explore the dynamic IP redirection now. You are viewing http://www.iandexter.co.nr .