October 2005 Archive
I've been back and forth between creating my own System Trending app using RRDtool, and using some other prepackaged ones like Orca and Cacti. I love the look of cacti, however it wasn't exactly intuitive the first time I tried to use it. So I gave orca a try, and I really didn't like the idea of having to scp off the log files, to a collecting host. I would much rather have the collecting host poll hosts its configured to watch. With that in mind... I don't like SNMP either for a system. For appliances and network devices its great, quick and easy. Because the vendors usually have specific MIB's that can be used. There are generic ones for systems, but I would like to extend this to track applications on the system as well, this will require custom scripts, and with SNMP, custom MIB's as well. Which I really don't want to mess with. Keeping the monitoring system as basic as possible, using one monitoring system to grab all of this is what I had in mind. After spending a week or so creating some custom python scrypts to perform both functions of gathering data and pulling it to a central location, and creating graphs was quite extensive, and I really would like to atleast somewhat finnish this project within the next couple weeks. Creating my own solution proved to be a bit more complicated than I would have hoped. So, going back to using an existing project I took another look at cacti. This time around it proved to be much easier to understand. Not sure if its because I took the time to learn more about rrdtool specifically or what. However, this time I was able to create some data gathering scrips for cacti to execute and an xmlrpc server that answered the requests on the other end. They seem to be working currently and I've only really been working on them for a couple hours over the last day or two. I *hope* to have working client scripts and gathering server written by the end of the week for most of the basic functionality. Just need to do a little more reading and playing with python and the parseconfig module(?). Should hopefully have something by this time next week. I'll keep you updated.
My little brother who's blog is availible at http://shawn.metauser.net, told me that he's unable to access my blog(at school), and his because of it. Says its blocked because its labeled as a "Forum/Discussion Board" web site. Which it is I suppose, blogs kind of stemmed from this. I'm not so much upset at the label their web filtering software has given my site. I'm more upset at the fact that they're blocking those types of sites period. This is an education institution, their *job* is to teach kids how to learn. Learning is a two way street, in that for kids to learn they need to interact, and blocking web sites that inspire this interaction inhibits the learning of the student. In all honesty, I wouldn't be where I am today without this interaction. Admitidly, I'm not very social in person(the reasons for that I'll leave for another day), online however, I'm constantly reading through posts of personal opinions, learning from posts of others experiences in whatever subject has my interests at the moment. I also used to frequent IRC channels, and currently read through hundreds of emails a week from various mailing lists, replying when I have something to contribute. These things are what makes the internet community work, they're the meaning of making the world flat again. Allowing people to communicate with anyone, anywhere in the world, without ever leaving the classroom. Socializing and new ways of thinking, expanding the minds and possibilities for anyone that learns how useful these mediums of communication can be. Why are educators compeled to remove these possibilities from students? Because they need to be protected from porn? Heres a thought: Teach them of the Internets possibilities and show it to them. I must admit that I don't think its the kids that have trouble realizing this. Its the educators. Living in such a conservative state most adults here seem to fear change, fear things they don't understand. Resulting in blocking everything out of their lives that *might* harm them. However, kids arn't this fearful, and because these *adults* refuse to learn anymore about this technology than they absolutely have to, because its set in their minds that its evil and their kids shouldn't be on it at all. Kids therefore are becomming the teachers, they're learning more about this technology than the adults because they are open to it. Kids are then able to get around any kind of counter-measures an adult would put in place to protect their kids from some of the evil things of this world.
Kids, to some degree, early in their development need to be protected and taught right and wrong through the values of the parents. Only as they mature should they be exposed to more and more of the world around them(this will happen with or without the guidance of the parent, so a note to parents, follow along this path *with* your *student*). However, when the students understanding of this technology exceeds that of the teacher, when the proper grounding hasn't yet been finnished, who then is the student going to learn from? Do you, the teacher, understand that making a stand and sticking your head in the sand is not going to stop the student's curiosity? Life is about learning and growing, if you ever stop this process, or try to stop someone elses, you *will* loose.
October 21, 2005 Posted by mitch |
technology |
About a year ago, Netflix had teamed up with TiVo to announce that they were going to offer a downloadable Movie rental service. I believe I blogged about it back then, if not I should have..., which I thought was a really good idea. However, it seems the studios have yet to sign off on it. Arstechnica has a write-up on it. And I must say I agree with Eric that the entertainment industry needs to rethink their distribution methods. However, I believe I disagree with him on his point about the industry not keeping up with technology... they're all about keeping up with it for the purpose of making that next *blockbuster* with all the special effects and CGI stuff included. With the advances in technology that allows the studios to do these types of effects, comes consumer goods and expectations in other forms as well, like the Sony PSP, Video iPod, etc. Which I believe is what he was referring that they do not keep up with, because these devices are much more decentralized than their current methods. Somehow, it seems, they think that these devices are going to cost them more than they would make. Given the alternatives however... I don't see much else in the way of choices. My wife an I haven't been to the movies nearly as much as we did a year ago. Not sure if its specifically been because even I (normally I'll do anything to go see a movie) haven't been to excited about many of the movies comming out. Or if its a cost thing because we usually spend around $20 to see a movie. Its probably a little bit of both, and possibly other factors I can't think of at the moment. One thing is for certain... I rent alot more movies now than I ever used to.
October 20, 2005 Posted by mitch |
dog |
I came from work tuesday to find kira waiting to be let inside by the back door. She was shaking and holding her right rear foot off the ground... Wondering how bad she hurt it this time I let her in and watched her walk around... She wouldn't put any weight on it at all, and being as mellow as she was, it must have hurt. Wednesday morning she was still not putting any weight on it, so I took her to the Vet that afternoon... After the x-rays, the doctor found a broken bone in her toe. Shes got her leg wrapped up in a splint and shes supposed to have it like that for 3 weeks. I don't know how well this is going to work. Especially when she starts feeling better. Its going to be all we can do to keep that splint on her for that long... With that and keeping her inside the whole time... its going to be a mess... shes hyper enough as it is... being cooped up inside is going to kill her. *sigh*
October 20, 2005 Posted by mitch |
website |
Incase you didn't notice, I've migrated my blog from bBlog to WordPress. The reason mostly was because of the comment spam. I've been getting 15+ a day lately and I couldn't take it anymore... I'd set bblog to not even allow comments on any of my current posts and it was still allowing them, among other things... So it was time to migrate to something with more features. This has alot of them. One of my upgrades you'll notice currently is the Amazon Wish List. :) Now you know what to buy me! Anyway, I'll be working on getting the RSS feeds back as well. I'll be rolling out other features as time permits as well. Going to be lots of fun! :)
October 18, 2005 Posted by mitch |
internet |
I've been upset at the current state of my broadband options for a while, not sure how much I've expressed that here. Which is mostly why I bought a house in a Utopia member city. I hate Qwest, and while I have Comcast cable internet, I just find them the lesser of the two evils for broadband options... Currently I'm still looking at not getting Utopia untill 2007! Which I don't particularly like, but you can bet I'm going to be on it as soon as its availible. What brought this post about however, was an article linked up on Slashdot which links up an article about the state of broadband in America. Which we currently rank 16th!!! Now I'm not going to do any comparisons with other countries, however I must say that *this* is what you get with monopolies. We used to be 4th, and the current powers that be, think we don't want or need faster connections. The truth to the matter is, they're comfortable making $$$ and don't want to *invest* in upgrading their infastructures to continue passing along bandwidth to us lowly consumers. Why spend more money upgrading when you can spread the FUD around that customers don't want more? FUD is cheaper right? This is the exact reason why I support UTOPIA, and any other project like it. Move the infastructure into a non partial third party controlled by the citizens using it! Think of UTOPIA as virtual road ways. You wouldn't want a private company owning roads would you? They just might neglect roads to competing businesses, which is exactly the type of stuff that happens around here with Qwest. They're always going to give you the lowest price for DSL, because they own the lines, and get the right to charge fees to anyone else that wants to use them. Removing that and giving it to a non-profit, non-partial entity controlled by the users of the network means more fair competition. Giving the *users* what we want. Why? because we'll pay for what we want, and not what we dont... with Qwest you don't have the luxury.
October 15, 2005 Posted by mitch |
technology |
Let me start off by giving props to them for being bold enough to stand up to Microsoft for whats right. Currently Microsoft seems to be pulling out all the stops and using the media to try and further influence Massachusetts to their way of thinking. Some how microsft doesn't understand the word "open" in this case. They claim that their new Office XML format is open, however the two or maybe three problems with it, is 1) Microsoft controls the format. One of Massachusetts requirements is that the format should be in an open forum for discussion. If you don't have that, then your only sligthly better than running any other Microsoft office format, which currently changes with every new release of Office with no warning, simply to force people to upgrade from what I can tell. 2) Documents you create arn't solely owned by you *the creator*. Its kinda of a joint relationship with you and Microsoft, and guess who can trump the other? :) 3) The license is crafted in such a way that prohibits opensource (namely GPL'd software) from supporting the format. There is also pieces that require any implementation written to read the file format must support the full format. Now why would you included that? I really have no idea, just asking the question. However, you can tell that anyone drafting the license has never really coded much in their life. For some things writing some code to support the very basics of the format is all that is desired. Such as a web page that allows you to download office documents and instead of forcing the uploader, or whoever is setting up the site and files, to have to manually add in the documents title... why not just write a little piece of code to read the title from the document itself?
I can't grok what it is they're trying to accomplish unless it boils down to the fact that they really don't think that they could play on a level playing field in this arena. I still find it interesting that they can still, with a straight face, say they're trying to do whats best for their customers. Ideally, whats *best* for their customers is choice. An open document format is what is best for their customers.
October 12, 2005 Posted by mitch |
technology |
I ran accross this article today and find it very interesting that the employees of the IRS are just willy nilly giving away passwords. This is your tax information people! And for those that don't know, IT personel *NEVER* need your password. Why you may ask... if they *really* needed to get into your account they'd reset the password themselves. Generally they have known test accounts however, and these are used for situations that call for them. So everyone knows, never give your password to anyone, over the phone or through email, IM or anything else. There really is no need for such situations. The Idea of computer security has been on my mind for a while now. Its a constant battle over how much do you really entrust to users, if they're just going to give away passwords to the first person that asks no matter what the excuse. Some system administrators take this very seriously and watch every move users make, others take a very lax approch to it. I'm still on the fence at what I will be, and since I don't have any 'users' other than myself on my systems, its very easy to know whats going on on them :)
I've decided to learn python. I've been writting a could hacks here and there to get a feel for the language so far so good. The language itself it fairly simple with alot of power packed into it. Reading other peoples code isn't bad either. (Which is the rep perl has...) I'll link up some of my code once its "ready". I just got "Python Cookbook" in the mail today. So I think I'll hit it for the next hour or so and see what happens.
October 1, 2005 Posted by mitch |
redhat |
Well, I've been in Las Vegas all week preparing for the RHCE exam, which I took on Friday. I was stressing the exam all week because last time I took it (This was my second attempt), I barely passed the troubleshooting (well, I finnished 5 minuted before the time ran out), and I took long enough to get through the Installation and Configuration section that I didn't have enough time to test anything, which was my downfall last time, only earning me the RHCT. However, this time... I took 35-40 minutes to complete the whole troubleshooting section, and was able to complete, with testing, the Install and Configuration section with an hour to spare. Typically RedHat promises by the following Wednesday's end of business you'll have your results. However, it seams the grading people at RedHat like to work late on friday, and I recieved my results yesterday around 5pm MST. The verdict is..... I PASSED! I'm now, offically, an RHCE. As a reward for myself, I rode the roller coaster here at New York New York, and went to the "Tournament Of Kings" at Excalibur. Both were really fun, the Tournament of Kings is dinner and a show. Dinner was somewhat true to the times for the middle ages. No forks/knives/spoons were provided. You have to use your hands. The menu consisted of a small chicken, broccli, couple potato wedges, a roll, and some tomato soup. Also after the test to kill time before we went to the tournament of kings, we went and visited the Aquarium at Mandalay Bay. It was very interesting and I rather enjoyed it. A great way to end a couple weeks full of stress (with school finals last week and this this week... I'd about had enough). Anyway, I need to finnish packing things up so I'm ready to leave sometime in the next half hour.
