Ramblings

Well, I finally got tired of waiting around on campus for my computer to finish compiling, and I didn’t like the idea of leaving it here in my office over night. So, I remembered that emerge has an option called ‘fetchonly’. This allowed me to grab all the files I would need to finish the upgrade and disconnect from the network. I decided to take my computer back to my apartment around midnight, where I set it back up and got it working on compiling again.

When I got up this morning, it was still going, but it was working on OpenOffice (the last package on the list). By the time I got out of the shower and dressed to go to work, it was done. Whew! Only twelve hours after it had started. Just so someones says it, this long of a compile time is highly unusual. It was mainly due to the fact that I haven’t been able to run the updates in months since I don’t have an internet connection at the apartment. Frankly, I was suprised that it was finished so quickly. I guess I still haven’t gotten used to how fast the new computer is.

Or any other Linux 2.6 driven distro … nice article over at LWN describing a workaround/fix.

Well, here it is almost 10PM and it’s still going strong. Currently I’m compiling QT, which happens to be the midpoint (package count-wise) of the compile process. However, just because I have compiled half of the packages doesn’t mean I’m half way done … oh no. Most of the ‘heavy’ packages are in the bottom 1/4 of the list, mainly because they required a whole slew of other packages to be upgraded first. So, I wait …

Wow! I brought my personal computer (Aragorn) to work with me today so that I could run updates and such on it this evening. Well, ok, it was mainly so that I could grab a few pieces of software for camp and get them all nicely configured. Anyways, I am currently running ‘emerge -u world’, which all you Gentoo users out there know means to upgrade any packages I have installed to their newest ‘stable’ version (I run x86, not ~x86). So, I have 160 packages that either need to be upgraded or installed. Um, ya … some of those packages are Gnome 2.6, OpenOffice 1.1.1, Samba 3, MPlayer, Mozilla … so I will be compiling for a long time. I’ll probably have to leave it overnight and hope it’s done tomorrow morning.

Since I got the RAID array working a while back , I decided it was time to move some of our more critical files over onto the array. I began the process last last while I was over at Lucky’s place (for the Enterprise finale). I moved all the home directories over and setup a symbolic link so it would behave correctly (I eventually want to mount the RAID array as the root, but I’m not ready for that yet). Little did I realize that everything was working except Apache. Apache didn’t want to follow the symlink. I thought I had it configured to follow them, but it looks like it was set to follow symlinks once inside the web root. So, I updated the config file to account for that unforseen ‘gotcha’.

After I got that all working, I began thinking about the Apache config file a little more. Right now I am hosting a ton of different domains and subdomains on Gollum (this server). Apache handles this very nicely, but I was wanting to clean things up a bit from how I’m doing them now. So, instead of having all the virtual host definitions in one file, I have them all in separate files that get included by the main file. This allows me to drop new vhosts in quickly, and gives me more readability and space to leave comments on each host.

I’d still like to find some MySQL to Bind interface that would let me keep my zone files in a database …

OK, so my cell phone has been out of commision for a while. I tried to add some time to it (it’s prepaid) the day my minutes were set to expire, but wouldn’t you know it, they ‘closed’ my account just before I could add the time. Once my account went into this semi-closed state they wanted to verify that the phone number that the bank has on file for the card that I was trying to use to add time matched what I told them. Not only that, but they wanted to be able to call that number to verify that it still works. Oh the headaches!

The bank had an old number on file (the landline that I got when I first moved off campus) that is disconnected these days. The cell phone company (AT&T in this case) wouldn’t allow me to use my debit card to pay for new minutes since the numbers don’t match. So … I dropped by the bank this morning to update my number with them. I got there right after they opened the lobby so not everyone was in place yet, including the customer support desk people. One of the tellers noticed that I was lingering around the customer support area and came over to help me.

I told her what I needed to do and she handed me the appropriate paperwork, which really wasn’t much. I asked how long before I could expect the changes to take effect and she replied with something along the lines of ‘Really just a few minutes from now.’ I was cool with that since it meant I could add time to my cell phone this morning sometime. Ha! Think again.

I didn’t get around to trying to add time to my account until about 2PM, giving the bank plenty of time to process my request. Guess what, my attempt to add time failed because the bank hadn’t updated my information yet. So, I call the bank … and someone finally answers after who knows how many rings.

The lady that answers actually works back at the customer support desk. I explained the situation to her and she asked wich side of the desk (left or right) I was at when I filled out the paperwork this morning. Like that matters! I soon realized why that did indeed matter. I told her the left side (which was the truth) and she promptly told me that wasn’t possible because she works the left side. Anger … rising … must … control. I told her about being there early and how the other teller came over to help, blah, blah, blah.

OH! In that case since I’m not responsible anymore, now maybe I’ll actually look around for your paperwork. What do you know, she found it laying on the counter in front of her. Thankfully she promised to take care of it while I was on the phone with her, which she did, even to the point of verifying the information got entered correctly.

So, I finally got to add time to my cell phone … call me.

General Apartment Shots – In this case, just some outside shots as you approach the apartment. Just thought it would be nice to have a reference.

Misc stuff on and around campus – Right now just some shots of a ton of fiber and other cabling and one shot of a dumpster with a riding lawn mower hooked up.

AHH!!! I’m going to go mad over this. I’ve been working on this project (and related side projects) for months, but I’m finally nearing the end. For those of you who haven’t heard, the school now offers you the ability to pay on your Student Account online. This currently only is available for Traditional Undergraduate students, but I’m working on the upgrade to allow everyone else to pay online. It’s this last piece that is driving me nuts because there are just enough changes to cause a slight ripple effect, causing me to have to revist some older code and table layouts. Errr!

This is way too cool. If they can pull this off, the cost of moving a payload into orbit would drop significantly. They estimate somewhere around $1/ton/mile.

The Real History of UNIX :)