2007-03-30 17:44:00
In a few days I'll be giving a mini-presentation about Assembly 2007 at Snow's monthly gathering. Because my presentation contains two short demos that are worthless without audio I enquired about audio capabilities at the office. I was shocked to hear that there are none in our main assembly hall. Remarkable!
Anxious to not see my talk go up in flames I quickly scoured the web for a decent pair of speakers that I can easily hook up to my iBook. The need to be portable, yet also provide decent sound quality. I don't even remember -how- I found them (I think it was through the Apple Store), but I found them: the LaCie Firewire speakers.
These rather good looking speakers are brand-spanking new as the US website still claims that they will become available in April. I managed to get my hands on them anyway through Central Point, which was a very lucky strike because apparently they've been selling like hot cakes in the Netherlands.
First impressions? Colour me impressed!
* They look great, although a bit more squat than the picture's on the web would suggest.
* The only two wires required are the one that connect the speakers together and the Firewire cable.
* When used through Firewire you will not need anything else. No adapter, no additional cables, nothing.
* They work in Mac OS X without any drivers as OS X is prepared for Firewire audio from the get-go. Windows folks will need to install a driver.
* Sound quality is sharp, yet a bit characterless. 1995 by Kewlers sounds awesome and full bodied, while the whole Blame it on the youth album sounds a bit soulless.
* Because the speakers only contain one driver each the perceived sound quality depends quite a bit on your position relative to them. If your sitting close to them you'll need to aim them properly, while sitting further off you won't have this problem as much.
I would heartily recommend these speakers to -anyone- looking for a portable set of good speakers. The fact that they're bus powered means that you won't even need a socket in the vicinity since the speakers run off your laptop's battery. I'd say this kit is well worth the $99!
kilala.nl tags: other tech,
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2007-03-27 19:11:00
My aging, old Powershot A10 still does everything I want and works well enough for me not to consider buying a new camera (not that we could afford one). With one unfortunate exception: it sucks at indoor photography, so I would love to get the wide angle lens that pops on the front of the camera.
That would be the WC-DC52, which still is up for sale at most shops since it fits most Powershot A-series bodies. I'm sad to say though that this hasn't improved the price, which still rings in around e100. At that price I might as well invest in a new camera.
But then this eBay auction comes by! I'm expecting the auction to level out around $50 which, including shipping, won't even bring the price above e50 for me. And that's for the complete set including the requisite conversion ring!
Damn me and my "We're not spending any money we don't have to" rule! ;_; Fifty euros can be put to a lot of good uses and this lens really isn't that important anyway. *sigh*
My apologies for my bitching and whining. I had to get it out of my system, else I'd be bothering Marli with it all evening :3
kilala.nl tags: other tech, meh,
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2007-03-27 14:39:00
My best friend Menno recently tipped me about the Valve Headcrab hat, which is available through the Steam online store.
I've never played Half Life but I was a huge fan of it nonetheless. It was one of the first shooters that managed to put my hair on end and to get me really riled up just watching over my brother's shoulder. Naturally the famed Headcrab was one of our favourites, providing loads of comic relief. And now this!
It's a shame they only deliver in the US...
kilala.nl tags: games, geeky, awesome,
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2007-03-26 19:32:00
A little while ago I ordered the awesome Hong Kong maffia-flick Time and tide for my brother's birthday. Since Amazon.com doesn't have it in stock I ordered it through the Amazon Market Place instead. Ordering went smoothly and soon my brother found the DVD on his doorstep. And then another...
I immediately e-mailed the seller to notify him of his mistake since sending DVDs from the US to Finland isn't the cheapest joke around. Haven't heard from the guy since, until Mistoffelees found yet another disc in his mailbox! Now we have three DVDs for the price of one. And the seller still hasn't replied to the e-mails I've sent him. I feel a bit guilty about it, so I'll keep on e-mailing the guy. In the meantime I'd like to thank my brother for the amusing photos he took :3
kilala.nl tags: money, movies, holy shit,
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2007-03-26 19:03:00
In the past I've regularly worn a kilt to outings related to my hobby at the time: the SCA. The kilts I wore back then were rather shabby affairs that I'd hastily put together myself, yet they were still uber-comfortable. I sometimes think back to those kilt-wearing days with a nostalgic yearning for freedom in my nethers, making me wish for a decent looking modern-day kilt.
Which is why the guys over at Utilikilt.com rock! :3
They make good looking kilts that are suitable for most uses known to modern-day man. Their Original, Workman's and Survival models sport a great variety of pockets that are suitable for most outdoors' or casual affairs, while the Mockers and Tuxedo models are more suitable for business environments. Let's not get started on their Leather kilt, shall we? As their website suggests: I'm just not man enough. ^_^;
I would love to get my hands on a Mocker or two, since I could wear those very comfortably to the office, at home and at the very events I visit. They'd even look rather good on me. There's only thing holding me back: the costs ;_;
You see, the Mocker I'd order for myself (41in waist, 21.5in length if you're curious) rings in around $175, or e145. That's about as much as I spend on clothing every three months! I cannot possibly reconcile the acquisition of one piece of clothing at that price, unless it's part of a good looking suit! Especially given our current monetary situation.
Which leaves me one other good option: I could make the kilts myself at a fraction of the cost. It'd most definitely be quite a lot of work and the results wouldn't nearly be as good looking as the Utilikilt, but still... To get started on that I'd need to get a proper pattern for a man's kilt first... No clue where to find those, although I believe the Internet will be more than helpful.
For now the Utilikilt has been moved to my birthday/Christmas/When-hell-freezes-over wishlist :)
kilala.nl tags: clothes,
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2007-03-25 18:43:00
A few months ago the Anime 200x staff received a very interesting event suggestion. One of our regular gophers Atomsk suggested that we organise a premium event based on the Bartender anime which was aired in Q4 of 2006.
The basic premise of the event being the showing of two or three episodes from the series, with the hotel's bartender serving cocktails from those episodes to our guests. This would be a paid, premium event with a rather limited signup possibility because one bartender can only make so many drinks in twenty minutes. A great idea that we're all in support of!
Atomsk got me curious about the Bartender series, me having never seen one episode, or even having heard of it. Regrettably, the only way I can get my hands on the series in a format that I will be able to understand is through the magic of fansubs (the series hasn't been licensed to a western company yet and hence there are no official subtitles available). The only subs available for Bartender are rather high resolution Matroska files, which were too heavy to play on my Powermac so I had to burn'm to DVD.
Anywho, with that out of the way: I sincerely love Bartender. Each episode focusses on the life-story of a new person visiting the Eden Hall bar, explaining their conundrum and how they deal with life's issues. The stories are mostly told from a flashback or third-person point of view, with the main characters sitting at the bar while reliving their story.
Given the show's name it's hardly a surprise that the show also focusses on cocktails and other alcoholic beverages a lot. Each episode introduces two or three new cocktails, describing their ingredients and part of their back story. The main featured cocktail also reappears in the closing credits with a real bartender preparing the drink in the background. It's one way of learning the history of cocktails :)
IMHO the animation's a bit basic and the amount of CGI may be offensive to some (I'm not too bothered by it). The music's great though and each episode successfully conveys the atmosphere.
To summarize: I'd heartily recommend Bartender to anyone who's looking for a slice-of-life story, with an adult approach.
kilala.nl tags: anime, tv, anime 2007,
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2007-03-24 16:36:00
Since I've gotten the Go Ahead from management I am now making preparations for Snow's presence at Assembly 07 (summer edition).
First off I'll need to get people excited about going, which requires a small promo campaign inside the company. Luckily I've already got three people on my side and the monthly get-together is planned in about a week. Perfect timing! I'm putting together a small presentation that I can run as part of the evening's schedule that'll tell my colleagues about Assembly, what it is, what we're going to do, what it'll cost them, etc.
Because I want the presentation to be as successful as possible I will not settle for a boring, black-and-white presentation. No, I'm making something that fits the colour scheme of ASM07 and that includes a snazzy logo (one that goes well with my previous mission badges).
I'm really looking forward to both giving the presentation, organising the trip and then actually going to Finland for a week ^_^
kilala.nl tags: conference, work, snow, geeky,
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2007-03-24 12:26:00
As much as it pains me to say it, it's still true: I don't hate Playstation 3.
I've just come back from Toys'R'Us, quickly popping in to have a look around after doing all the groceries. The Playstation 3 is being introduced in a grand manner with banners, boxes and all kinds of other ads hitting you immediately upon entering the store. And everyone is very eager to point out that yes, we have loads of'em in stock.
The credo goes "know thy enemy as good as thyself", so I decided to -not- ignore the demo pod, but instead to pick up the controller and play a bit. To my surprise they will actually let you play the console (usually stores unplug the controllers and just let a demo run). The box was running Motor Storm and I have to admit three things:
1. The dual shock controller is a pretty good design. Rather comfortable.
2. The graphics are awe inspiring.
3. Motor Storm is -a-lot- of fun. It's easy to pick up, it's fast paced and it has the arcade-racer feel to it that I like.
We still won't be getting one mind you. On the one hand there's the huge price tag and our even huger bills and debts. And on the other there's my undying loyalty to Nintendo.
Speaking of: I'm afraid that Nintendo is hurting itself in Europe. None of the Wii demo pods I've encountered are playable, which means that less people are getting hyped up about the gameplay. And still there's absolutely no Wii stock available: every shop I've been to is still sold out!
I sincerely hope Nintendo get their act together real quickly, so they can take the local market by storm. *prays*
kilala.nl tags: games,
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2007-03-22 22:24:00
Think back if you will to 1993: I was still a pimply-faced high school kid of a mere fourteen years old. Me and my friends were only taking our first, real steps into the magical world of computers while a few hundred miles from our doorstep a bunch of Fins were creating digital art. Two years later that piece of art made it to my newly bought Presario CDS524 and it blew my mind.
Second Reality showed me what -real- programmers could do. For those wishing to take the trip down memory lane with me, here's a copy on YouTube.
Now, speaking of those crazy Fins. Back in '92 the local demo scene started the Assembly festival which has grown immensely over the years. My brother visited the event last year and apparently he had a blast! This year, I'm trying to convince my employer to allow me and a few colleagues to travel over there. On the one hand for the fun and on the other for the learning experience since there's still a boat load of very serious people who visit Assembly.
/me crosses his fingers and sends an email to the CEO.
kilala.nl tags: geeky, internet,
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2007-03-21 06:32:00
It's my jaw line.
For nigh nigh on six years I've worn a beard. One the one hand because I like how it looks, on the other because it compensates for my baby-face.
Well, the baby-face is back and I'm relatively happy. Let's see how it works out for a couple of weeks :) Goodbye beard trimming, hello trying to balance those gorramn sideburns.
kilala.nl tags: holy shit,
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2007-03-21 05:37:00
Make sure that, if you have a SNAFU earlier on, things are still working properly! Yesterday I had a little accident while moving files around on the web server and I thought I'd restored everything. Apparently I hadn't, which led to commenting on the main page being broken.
It's fixed again. Thanks to DrFaulken for pointing it out :)
kilala.nl tags: website, snafu,
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2007-03-20 22:28:00
All that talk about website optimization and such leads me to the following: I really am curious what it could be that makes people turn away from my website at their very first page load.
I'd really appreciate any and all feedback that you guys can give me.
Here's what I'm aware of so far:
* most of the stuff in the Apple section needs to be dusted off and updated.
* the same goes for the stuff in the Manga/Anime section.
* most of the incoming searches lead to my Sysadmin section, which gets updated regularly.
kilala.nl tags: website,
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2007-03-20 21:58:00
A few months ago my friend Dirk tipped me about Google Analytics. He uses GA to keep track of all the visitors and customers at his forum server and it helps him in optimizing the flow of his website.
Since September of 2005 I've been using a free Stat Counter account and I liked it pretty much. The only real downside being the fact that it would only track the last hundred visits to my site (an upgrade to your account lets you track a thousand visits). Even so, Dirk's tip peeked my curiosity and I created a GA account, just to give it a try.
Two months down the road I have to say that I am rather impressed with Google's work! Not only does the site provide me with detailed information, but it also looks absolutely great! The interface is rather user friendly (although one or two minor glitches pop up in Safari) and it contains just the right amount of eye candy to spiffy things up.
One of the most interesting features Analytics provides you with, is the option to configure Goals. By telling Google about the path you would like visitors to take through your website and by setting certain milestones you will be able to track how effective your site's design is. Google will tell you exactly at which points along the path people stop moving towards the goal you've set, allowing you to optimize the relevant pages.
A very simple example: I would like people to leave comments on my blog, hence one of the goals I've set for my website is for people to reach the addcomment.php file. In order to get there, people will have to visit both index.php and viewcomments.php.
Using Analytics it becomes clear that:
1. Out of 3927 hits to index.php only 72 have progressed towards step two of the funnel.
2. Out of 72 visits to viewcomments.php all 72 have progressed towards the final step and thus towards the goal.
This could lead me to conclude/brainstorm a few things:
* There's nothing wrong with my commenting page. Everyone who gets there intends to leave a message and they do.
* Only 1.8% of the hits to my front page actually lead to comments by visitors.
* This could mean that my front page design sucks and that people are not aware that they can leave a comment. I think this is rather unlikely though, since the commenting links are in plain sight.
* This could also mean that my blogging is ultimately dull and that people die from boredom before they can actually leave me a comment, cursing me to eternal damnation for their suffering. I am well aware my writing isn't the greatest and I'm also aware that I write about rather mundane stuff. So it's definitely a factor.
* This could also mean that I attract a huge lot of hit-and-run visitors who find their way to my site in a rather random manner, who have a quick glance and who decide that it's not for them.
This last idea is supported by some of the other data Google Analytics provides me with:
* Out of all the visits I've had in the past two months approximately 30% are returning customers. The rest visit once and never show their face again.
* Looking at the depth of all the visits we see that ~2600 visits only load one page before leaving again. ~550 load two pages and the rest (my regulars and a few sysadmins digging around for Nagios stuff) load more than three pages.
* This is supported by the bounce rates amassed by my pages. They seems to average around 65%-70%.
Again, this could lead me to a number of conclusions:
* my content is uninteresting.
* my website's layout and design is boring and unattractive.
* people come here to looking for something, but find that my site doesn't have what they hoped for.
Anywho... Loads of lessons to be learned from the information that Google Analytics provides me with. Aside from all the stuff I've mentioned so far, GA also provides the bog standard stuff that all others give you: browser stats, OS info, platform info, geo-location (most of my readers are from western Europe and the east of the US by the by), stuff like that.
kilala.nl tags: website,
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2007-03-20 21:01:00
One of the rules my employer Snow imposes on its employees is a rather strict certification track. Technically speaking each employee progresses through five C-levels, starting at 0 and ending up at 4. As you reach new levels of certification you will also reap benefits of your hard work.
Let's take the track that applies to me as an example:
C0 = no certification
C1 = LPIC1 (101 and 102) and ITIL Fundamentals
C2 = LPIC2 (201 and 202)
C3 = SCSA1 and SCSA2
C4 = SCNA and others
The irony of the matter is that I've already achieved both SCSA exams and the SCNA exam a long time ago, but that I'm still stuck at C0 because I haven't done my LPICs. So to work myself up the ladder I'm slogging my way through the requisite LPIC stuff, even though I'm not that fond of Linux.
The challenge here lies in the fact that haven't used Linux in a professional environment that much, so I'm at a disadvantage when compared to the rest of my colleagues. I'm really glad I've always been a rather good student, so cramming with a few books should get me through. I managed to score a 660 (87%) at my LPIC-101, so that brings some hope :)
And now I'm cramming for the 102 exam! Since I was postponing it way too long, I reckoned I'd better get my act together! This week I took two days off to dedicate myself completely to studying. I managed to work through six of the nine objectives in these two days, resulting in a thirty-one page summary so far. In two weeks time I'll take another two days and then I'll be ready!
Like last time I'll post my summary over here, to help out all those other souls trundling through their LPICs.
kilala.nl tags: work, lpi, studying,
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2007-03-18 15:37:00
This week I'm on stand-by duty for $CLIENT; my first whole week since two years. It's been quiet all week, with only two harmless calls in the early evenings. But wouldn't you know it? The one day that I had plans this week is fraught with problems and calls! Oh the irony :)
Got called at 2200, worked an hour. Got called at 0200, worked two and half hours. Got called at 1300, work for three hours. I'm beginning to see a pattern here! I bet I'll be called again around 1900, for four hours of work or something. We'll see... At least the pay's good :3
kilala.nl tags: work,
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2007-03-18 00:12:00
Don't ask me how I got here ('cause it's in a password protected blog post :p), but this evening I've discovered a band whose music I rather like. I'm talking about Ohio based The Sun and their Blame it on the youth album.
Now I'm not much of a music critic, so I'd have a hard time describing their music properly. Me, I'd just class it as weird rock. ^_^ The song that got me introduced to them is Romantic death which is about that adult-activity related "death". I love it.
The music video that goes with Romantic death is pretty good as well, but I'm not going to link to it from here. I'm sure you guys could find it yourself if you wanted to. You see, the video consists completely of footage from Beautiful agony.com (NSFW!), so it's basically three minutes of people showing various stages of their O-face. It's all in good taste and there's nothing graphical about it mind you.
EDIT:
I just remembered that not all those who frequent my blog know what NSFW means. It's the acronym for Not Safe For Work, meaning "websites that are liable to get you fired". Also, please forgive the Office Space reference ;)
kilala.nl tags: music,
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2007-03-17 10:17:00
Hooray for another new feature to the website: searching o/
Right now it's rudimentary at best, with the following limitations:
* It only searches through titles and blog post contents. No tags or articles outside the database.
* You cannot use (double) quotes to string together queries like "os x". The quotes will be removed by Dirk's MakeSafe function and thus the search will find all posts containing both os and x.
Still, better than nothing ^_^ Now all I need to do is enter all the blog posts from before July 2005 into the database.
kilala.nl tags: website,
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2007-03-16 22:43:00
This evening I've reworked the feed subscription buttons in the menu. I didn't really like my previous set of buttons, mostly because they didn't have a unified look to them. With some GIMPery and a few hours fiddling, this is what I've come up with. Still not great looking (mostly due to my inexperience), but good enough for now.
You can now subscribe to my site's feed in five ways: my local RSS feed, through Technorati, through FeedBurner, through Google Reader and through e-mail.
kilala.nl tags: website,
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2007-03-15 12:51:00
The MacFreak team has decided to close down the forum section of their website. They were moved to make this decission because of a slander campaign directed at their lead man that's been going on for years.
Quite recently a few of the bastards had taken up the challenge of creating as much ruckus on the MF fora as possible, thus overloading the team of mods with work. Combine this with the negative effects that their lead man has been experiencing in his professional career* and you've got a rather nasty mix :(
I mean sure, Ars Technica and other fora have problems these as well with people who were banned ragging on Caesar and the likes. But I don't think it's every gotten as far as this. Shame really...
Should be an interesting case for psych-students: figure out what the heck it is that makes people obsessive-compulsive about harassing someone who, in their eyes, has wronged them.
*: MacFreak is the Netherlands' largest Apple-related forum. Just about everyone in the business who uses Macs visits the website and will thus pick up one or two things from the slander directed at Leon. This in turn affects his own business, since these people are obviously affected by what they hear about the guy, wether it's false or not.
kilala.nl tags: apple, internet, annoying,
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2007-03-13 20:25:00
I'm well fed up with the whole PCMCIA switcheroo that I had gotten into to run my stand-by duties. I finally went out to Media Markt to get myself a Wifi card of my own. Who cares if the laptop belongs to $CLIENT? I want to work dammit! X[
I bought the Linksys WPC54g which is the first card that I'd borrowed from a colleague. Back then the card worked a treat and I had no problems whatsoever. But this time around, nothing but trouble! ;_; I think the crucial difference lies in the fact that the card I bought is v3, as opposed to either v2 or v4 (which was what I'd borrowed earlier). Incidentally, I'm running Windows 2000 on this Thinkpad.
Installing the card seemed to work alright: the driver installed perfectly, the card was recognized and the configuration utility installed as well. But for some reason the config util would keep on reporting the card as "WPC54g is inactive", suggesting a driver problem.
Well... A little digging around led me to this thread at the Linksys fora. It seems that the configuration tool (aka "Network monitor") is actually a piece of shit software, that doesn't work properly with the WPC54gv3 *grr*. As was suggested in the thread I installed McAfee Wireless Security, which is an alternative and free configuration tool for Wifi cards.
And lo and behold! It recognized the card and found my Wifi network. Got me connected without a problem. Thank God for McAfee! (Never thought I'd say that!)
Needless to say that my trust in Linksys has gone down a bit. All in all this took me a good two hours, which has well soured my mood :/
kilala.nl tags: annoying, windows, other tech, sysadmin,
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2007-03-13 15:05:00
Today I was working on a shell script that's supposed to process multiple text files in the exact same manner. Usually you can get through this by running a FOR-loop where the code inside the loop is repeated for each file in a sequential manner.
Since this would take a lot of time (going over 1e6 lines of text in multiple passes) I wondered whether it wouldn't be possible to run the contents of the FOR-loop in parallel. I rehashed my script into the following form:
subroutine()
{
contents of old FOR-loop, using $FILE
}
for file in "list of files"
do
FILE="$file"
subroutine &
done
This will result in a new instance of your script for each file in the list. Got seven files to process? You'll end up with seven additional processes that are vying for the CPUs attention.
On average I've found that the performance of my shell script was improved by a factor of 2.5, going from ~40 lines per three seconds to ~100 lines. I was processing seven files in this case.
The only downside to this is that you're going to have to build in some additional code that prevents your shell script from running ahead, while the subroutines are running in the background. What this code needs to be fully depends on the stuff you're doing in the subroutine.
kilala.nl tags: unix, work, unix, sysadmin,
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2007-03-13 08:11:00
Well, It works, I can use my iBook at home from my desktop PC at work. I'd tested the whole setup at home, using both my Powermac and the Thinkpad $CLIENT gave me and VNC worked properly and rather smooth.
Unfortunately the Internet connection at $CLIENT isn't too great, so the VNC connection is a bit sluggish. Changing desktops (I run Desktop Manager to sort my apps across four desktops) takes a second or three and building a completely new screen takes about two. So it's not great, but it's doable at least.
I'll try this out for a few days, see how it pans out. If I don't get stuck in any way I'll leave my iBook at home from now on.
kilala.nl tags: apple, other tech,
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2007-03-12 22:08:00
For weeks on end I've been dragging my iBook along to the office at $CLIENT, even though I'm not allowed to connect it to their network. My iBook is indispensable to me, because it contains all of my archives and past projects, all my e-mail and my address book and calendar. I even use my iBook to keep track of my working hours (thank you TimeLog 3!).
Unfortunately, dragging my laptop around can get tiresome, especially if I ride my bike to work. Which is why I'm very grateful to one of my colleagues for suggesting the use of VNC or another remote desktop solution. Seriously, the suggestion was so obvious that I'm really ashamed that I didn't think of it. I guess I was just clinging -too- much to my dear, sweet iBook.
Anywho... What I'm about to describe is only one of many ways to implement a remote desktop solution for your Mac. A few other options exist, but this is the one I'm using. What we're going to be building is the following:
* I'm at my desk at work, using one of the PCs over there.
* My iBook, running Mac OS 10.4 is at home, connected to my wifi network.
* I will be using my iBook, from my desk at work :)
What you'll need:
* A VNC server. I chose to use Vine Server, which came recommended.
* A VNC client. For Windows and Linux I chose to use Tight VNC and for OS X I use Chicken of the VNC.
* An SSH server. This comes built in, as part of Mac OS X.
* An SSH client. For Windows I use PuTTY, while Linux and OS X come built in with a client.
* Your home IP address. You can find this by browsing to What is my IP address? at home.
Setting up SSH at home
You can use the basic SSH configuration that comes with OS X, but it's not rock solid. If you'd like to be extra secure, please make the following changes. This will disable remote root access and will force each user to make use of SSH keys. If you didn't, you could log in using your normal password which opens you up to brute force password attacks.
* Open Terminal.app and enter the following commands.
cd /private/etc
sudo vi sshd_config
* Change the following lines, so they read as follows. The last two lines a
PermitRootLogin no
PasswordAuthentication no
UsePAM no
* (Re)start SSH
Open System Preferences.
Go to "Sharing".
(Re)start the "Remote access" server.
Setting up the VNC server at home
Vine Server comes in a .DMG and you can simply copy the binary to its desired location. By starting the application you're presented with the applications configuration options, which has buttons at the bottom to stop and start the VNC server.
* You can leave most settings at their default values, but it's extra safe to change the following:
Connection -> set a password
Sharing -> only allow local connections
This secures your VNC server with a password and prevents people on your local network from connecting to your desktop. You'll only be able to login to VNC after logging in to your system through SSH.
* Press the "Start server" button.
Setting up your router
You will need to make your SSH server accessible from the Internet. Configure your router in such a way that it forwards incoming traffic on port 22, to port 22 on your Mac.
Setting up your SSH client at work
If you forced your SSH server to use public/private keypairs earlier, then you'll need to configure your SSH client to do the same. You can use ssh-keygen (OS X and Linux) or PuTTYGen (Windows) to generate a key pair. Please Google around for instructions on how to use SSH keys.
You will need to tell your SSH client to connect to your SSH server at home and to set up port forwarding for VNC. In both examples $HOME-IP is the IP address of your Internet connection at home.
* On Linux and OS X (from the command line): ssh -L 5900:127.0.0.1:5900 $HOME-IP.
* On Windows (in PuTTY): SSH -> Tunnel -> local port = 5900, remote port = 127:0.0.1:5900
What you're doing here is rerouting any traffic that's coming in at your work PC at port 5900 to port 5900 at your home box.
Setting up your VNC client at work
All of the real work is being done by the SSH session, so you can instruct your VNC client to simply connect to desktop 0 at localhost, or at 127.0.0.1. Enter the password that you set up earlier.
Adding more security
Unfortunately Hot Corners don't work through VNC and FUS kills your VNC session, so we'll need to find another way to lock your OS X desktop. Luckily I've found a way in this article. You can use Keychain Access to add a small button to your menu that will allow you to lock your screen.
And there you have it! A fully working VNC setup that will allow you to use your Mac at home, from work.
kilala.nl tags: apple, other tech, writing, sysadmin,
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2007-03-12 06:44:00
Yesterday was a day spent well! A delegation of the Anime 200x staff made the trip to Almelo, to visit our friends of the Theater Hotel. This year's festival will be the fourth to be held at THA and things just keep getting better and better.
What I love about working with the THA folks is that they are very helpful and that, after four years, we have really found our match with them: they know what we want and how to implement these wishes.
Things that we covered yesterday include:
* Meeting over coffee, with some small talk to get into things :)
* Question round. We have a whole wad of new staffers who've never worked with the THA folks before, so they had a few questions about what's possible and what's not.
* Rounds over the convention grounds. Visit each room we've rented (which comes to 95% of the hotel), go over the requisites for each of them and investigate how changes to the rooms affect our plans.
* Meeting with the kitchen's chef, to go over the buffet's menu.
* Some more chit-chat over a lovely tapas luncheon.
About that tapas: if you're ever in the vicinity of Almelo, check out Solera. The place is run as part of THA and the food really is quite good! And their coffee frape! OMG! GOODNESS! I will most definitely spend a few hours relaxing at their place, while Anime 2007 is on.
So... Things are looking up for Anime 2007 and they seem to be falling together nicely. Working with a dozen staffers instead of just us five takes some adjustment though since, instead of doing all the work ourselves, we now need to coach a bunch of guys in doing that very same work. Exciting times!
kilala.nl tags: anime 2007, anime 200x,
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2007-03-12 06:22:00
*sigh* They often go awry, those plans...
One of my personal lackings lies in the fact that I meticulously plan certain activities and dates and times etc, but that I later forget to check my own planning. Case in point: this week. I was going to start riding my bike to work again today, but I just found out this morning by glancing into iCal that I'm on stand-by duty this week. Well, there's no way that I'm taking two laptops with me every day, so back to the car it is =_=
Combine that with the fact that my "real" laptop from $CLIENT is out for repairs and that I'm stuck with a Thinkpad without Wifi. This means that it's doubtful that I'll even be able to run stand-by, 'cause I don't have a wired network at home (and I most definitely are not going to modify our network, just because the laptop from $CLIENT needs a wire).
Geh... Things'll work out... It's just a little frustrating, so early in the morning. Thank God my cellphone survived the crash when I flung it at the floor :/
kilala.nl tags: work, other tech, meh,
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2007-03-09 11:52:00
I've had three days off from work, to recover a bit from the irregular schedule I've had for the past few weeks. These three days have been spent quite well, both being -utterly- lazy (I've watched four seasons of Two pints of lager...) and being rather productive around the house.
We've had a bit of a mouse problem in the downstairs storage, so I cleaned it all out and bought a huge, plastic container to put our bin bags in. We used to leave the bags in an open basket, waiting for trash day on Friday, but apparently that got the meeces in. Anywho, this barrel easily holds four bags and has a lid so I'm sure I'll get rid of the mice rather quickly.
After the cleaning I've reorganised some of the shelf space, gotten rid of loads of crap that was still lying around after remodeling the place and I've -finally- done the final phase of moving into our apartment: I've finally moved the last of the tools and moving boxes into storage! ^_^ Was about time as well, after thirteen months...
I'll spend the rest of the day cleaning up and I may go for a bike ride as well. You may notice how I've inconspicuously left "exercise" and "bike rides" out of the previous paragraphs, even though I'd said I would ;_; Ah well... At least I'm relaxed again :)
kilala.nl tags: holiday, work, house, relaxing,
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2007-03-08 09:51:00
Thanks to a tip on Ars Lounge (thanks DrFaulken) I sauntered by the BBC What am I like? test. It's a sort of Myers-Briggs Light if you will. Apparently it's part of some new TV show they're running: answer twenty questions and you get some insight into your own psyche.
Well, my outcome had no surprises as you can see in the image above and the verdict was: realistic. Although there is the excellent remark made by DrFaulken:
A shortcoming with any of these tests is that people sub/consciously select answers that matches to their perceived lifestyle, and not always their actual self.
So, maybe I've just been answering the questions in such a way to reaffirm my own mental image of myself. Not entirely unlikely and there's also the fact that I really do have a horrible brain when it comes to remembering things! One day I think I hate X but two months later all of a sudden I love X, for example. My brain often does weird things and doesn't remember interesting/important stuff. Sort of like an inverse colander, where the big, important things fall through and the grit is caught.
Also, I just love saying colander ^_^
kilala.nl tags: career, life, internet,
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2007-03-07 10:44:00
Great :) We've finally gotten off to a start with the big maintenance around our apartment building!
Today BAM will be replacing and repairing parts of the driveway in our common garden. The work's been estimated at 150 square meters and they'll be at it all day. I've seen some of the parts they've finished and it looks pretty good. I'm just awfully glad that our drive way will be restored to a decent state again! PropertyValue++. Comfort++. That sort of thing.
kilala.nl tags: house,
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2007-03-06 17:19:00
Oh how exciting! A mystery shows up at my doorstep!
Today I received a parcel in the mail: an anonymous, brown paper wrapping, with dutch stamps and no discernible sender. The only marking on the enveloppe that can hint to its origins is a piece of text in the top-left corner: Blog Fullfillment Ltd.
Hmm... Fulfillment, eh? That could be anything! It could be someone nice, helping me with one of the wishes or problems I've expressed on my blog. Or it could be someone whom I've heartily pissed off, trying to get back at me. And since it's no chore to find out my home address *cough*WHOIS*cough* it really could be either!
So here's the facts:
* A quick Google shows no listing for "Blog Fullfillment Ltd" (note the incorrect spelling of the word fulfillment), nor when the second word's spelled correctly.
* The stamps show that the parcel was sent from somewhere in the Netherlands, on the third of march.
* The shape of the parcel doesn't let anything on, but it does bend a bit.
* The wrapping had split open on one side and I could make out what seemed to be books.
Books you say? Could this be related to my blog post about expanding my reading list? Opening the parcel gave me three novels by Tom Holt.
Now... This gives me three probable suspects.
* It's most likely that Niels decided to offload some of his older pockets onto me. He commented in said thread and actually mentions Holt's name. Niels is also in the habit of giving friends loads of his older books.
* Willow is also a frequent reader of my blog and she's also an English major with the same sense of humour as mine. However, given her background as a translator I doubt that she'd make the fuLLfillment mistake.
* The least likely suspect is Faragon. She's a semi-regular reader and upon visiting Holt's website I immediately recognized a character she also has up on her website. Apparently she's been reading Tom's books as well. However, since we're more acquaintances than friends I don't find it likely that she'll simply send some books my way :)
Whoever it was: thanks a million ^_^ You've brightened my day with a surprise and a little mystery.
kilala.nl tags: reading, awesome, holy shit,
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2007-03-05 19:37:00
In the course of one's life certain words or sentences get stuck in your head, never to leave there again. You'll be repeating something you picked up when you were seven years old when you're eighty-seven and in the old folks' home.
For me these include things like EnWiAkDuFa, which was my reminder for my wednesday's schedule during my third year in high school. Or SOSCASTOA, which was a maths shortcut to the Sine-Cosine-Tangent rules. Or Zij brengt rozen op Gerrit's graf bij vies grijs weer (or translated into English Betty brings roses on Yorick's grave by vapid, grey weather), which is the engineer's shortcut to the resistor colour codes.
Two other lines that I will never forget came from the weekly Donald Duck comic magazine. For as long as I can remember my whole family's loved those strips and we've always had a subscriptin. My dad's even had a sub for most of the years that the magazine's been published in the Netherlands!
Unfortunately I had no way of tracing the quotes back to the original comics, even though I tried using Google. So I wrote a letter to Uncle Donald, asking whether his librarian could help me out. And they did! They put me on the track of the excellent I.N.D.U.C.K.S. website, which strives to index each and every Disney comic every published. Thanks to them I finally know which issues or comic books I need to hunt after ^_^
Ach en wee ben ik de klos, met mijn boog schoot ik een albatros! (Woe is me, I'm at a loss. With my bow I shot an albatros!) came from the 1966 Carl Barks classic The not-so-ancient mariner. This is of course a pun on The rime of the ancient mariner, by S.T. Coleridge.
RabarberBarbaraBarBarbarenBaardenBarbier (RhubarbBarbaraBarBarbariansBeardBarber) came from the 1991 Evert Geradts Rabarber. This was a two-page story featuring Gyro Gearloose (Willie Wortel). AFAIK, the sole basis of this comic is a dutch tongue twister, occasionally used in speech therapy.
Now! To schedule a day to dig through the piles and piles of Ducks at my dad's place ^_^ Glee!
kilala.nl tags: comics, childhood, geeky, awesome,
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2007-03-04 14:14:00
I don't care that it's actually way past lunch time. It's been so long since I've had proper, english bacon and sausages so I just -had- to do something with the yummies Marli brought over from the UK. While there, she'd hopped into Morrison's to get me some of my favourites, including a few steak pies! :3
So I made us a UK-style cooked breakfast. The only thing missing for me was black pudding and mushrooms, but that's alright...
Say Menno! When's the next time you'll be staying over for the night? I'll make a hearty breakfast after a night of films and video games! ~_^
kilala.nl tags: cooking,
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2007-03-03 18:30:00
One of the many wonderful things that Marlijne brought back home from her trip in the UK is a DVD containing a classical Doctor Who story arc: The Dalek invasion of Earth. This story features the very first Doctor, was filmed in black and white and dates from the sixties.
It's no great secret that both of us l.o.v.e. Doctor Who, although Marli's fondness is saved mostly for the 2005/2006/2007 series (mostly because of that yummy David Tennant). Me, I'm interested in just about anything of the show and was thusly madly happy with the DVD she bought me.
As you can guess from the title, the Doctor and his companions find themselves back on Earth which has been occupied by the Daleks who have a sinister plot. The group gets split up and they find themselves in the midst of Daleks, Robomen, the resistance and the Slyther! Suspending my disbelief and completely disregarding the camp acting it really is quite exciting!
But then they pull an unexpected trick! Something that just made me groan and go "Why God, why?!"
kilala.nl tags: doctor who, tv, geeky,
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2007-03-03 11:52:00
Recently I've been expanding the functionality built into my website's CMS. A few days ago I implemented the Flash audio player which allows me to inline MP3 files and today I'm adding something new again!
Instead of just plonking links to video in the blog posts I can now inline video as well. It doesn't like very pretty just yet, but I'll try and find a way to make things look better. The video player functionality comes courtesy of the Anarchy player project of the An-Archos network. It works rather nicely, as you can see here.
kilala.nl tags: website,
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2007-03-03 09:36:00
Yesterday we went out for dinner and since I didn't feel like going to one of our regular places I dug around IENS.nl. IENS appears to be a relatively objective restaurant review site, where actual visitors of the restaurant leave their reviews and their scores. So I stumbled upon Naast de poort in Wijk bij Duurstede. They don't have a website of their own, so here's their IENS page.
The thing about Wijk bij Duurstede is that I used to come there relatively often as a kid. My dad used to take us on car rides over the dykes of the Rhine in summer, to gawk at the ships going through locks and to generally have a good time. We'd always end up in Wijk to have a drink or some ice cream, after which we'd head home again. In my teens Menno and I made a few trips from Veenendaal to Wijk by bike, going through the old parts of Rhenen and taking ferries across the Rhine and back. The town has a rustic, old center that I like to just wander around in.
And of course, Wijk is where Marlijne and I met almost seven years ago ^_^
But anyway... Back to that restaurant :) Finding it was no trouble at all with our trusted TomTom and parking was a breeze: the market place where they're located has a few parking spaces, although you're only allowed to park for an hour. The interior's rather charming in a minimalistic kind of way, which is a good thing since the dining room is not much larger than our living room! With around thirty seats it sure isn't the largest restaurant around!
There's only three members of staff that we saw (a waiter, a waiter/maitre d' and the chef), but they managed quite well for the first part of the evening. We were getting prompt service all evening, until a few familiars of the maitre showed up, which resulted in him chatting away for five minutes. But still, the service itself was impeccable and both waiters are -very- courteous. It seems that the maitre has elevated his gallantry into a character that he assumes at work. An interesting fellow, to say the least.
The menu is small, which is a good thing if we're supposed to believe Gordon Ramsey: five starters, two soups, five plates with fish and five with meat and one menu consisting of starter, main course and desert. Marli had the beef carpaccio (they were out of veal) and the pigeon, while I had pate of grouse and wild boar stew. We finished off with chocolate mousse and banana/chocolate cake. The cake was the -only- thing that I wasn't wild about; the rest was absolutely wonderful!
So yeah, a dinner at Naast de poort doesn't come cheap but it's not an arm and a leg either. All in all we ended paying seventy-four euros for the full meals and at least five drinks. That's around ninety dollars, for the USAdians reading this. Seems fair for the quality and quantity that we received that evening.
kilala.nl tags: restaurant,
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2007-03-01 14:26:00
Today I faced the task of replacing a failing hard drive in one of our Tru64 boxen. The disk was part of a disk group being used to serve plain data (as opposed to being part of the boot mirror / rootdg), so the replacement should be rather simple.
After some poking about I came to the following procedure. Those in the know will recognize that it's very similar to how Veritas Volume Manager (VXVM) handles things. This is because Tru64 LSM is based on VXVM v2.
* voldiskadm -> option 4 -> list -> select the failing disk, this'll be used as $vmdisk below.
* voldisk list -> select the failing disk, this'll be used as $disk below.
* voldisk rm $disk
* Now replace the hard drive.
* hwmgr -show scsi -> take a note of your current set of disks.
* hwmgr -scan scsi
* hwmgr -show scsi -> the replaced disk should show up as a new disk at the bottom of the list. This'll be used as $newdisk below.
* dsfmgr -e $newdisk $disk
* disklabel -rw $disk
* voldisk list -> $disk should be labeled as "unknown" again.
* voldiskadm -> option 5 -> $vmdisk -> $disk -> y -> y -> your VM disk should now be replaced.
* volrecover -g $diskgroup -sb
The remirroring process will now start for all broken mirrors. Unfortunately there is no way of tracking the actual process. You can check whether the mirroring's still running with "volprint -ht -g $diskgroup | grep RECOV", but that's about it.
kilala.nl tags: unix, work, other tech, sysadmin,
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All content, with exception of "borrowed" blogpost images, or unless otherwise indicated, is copyright of Thomas Sluyter. The character Kilala the cat-demon is copyright of Rumiko Takahashi and used here without permission.