G'day Mate (Mk III): July 2005 Archives

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July 31, 2005

Mission Statements

The company that currently pays my mortgage has decided to engage in a orgy of team-building enthusiasm on Friday and Saturday this week. Among other things we will be proactively re-engineering our mission statement, massaging our corporate goals and being bored out of our brains. As part of the reflective process that substitutes for preparation, I had to check out the Dilbert Mission Statement Generator. I reckon we could save heaps of time and have more fun by just clicking on 'Regenerate' until we get a good sounding (but meaningless) phrase like:

Our mission is to enthusiastically foster emerging infrastructures in order that we may completely engineer performance based intellectual capital to meet our customer's needs.
Our mission is to continue to efficiently disseminate quality data while continuing to authoritatively maintain unique sources to exceed customer expectations
Our goal is to synergistically build quality resources in order that we may authoritatively promote business content for 100% customer satisfaction
We have committed to enthusiastically foster inexpensive intellectual capital to allow us to authoritatively enhance diverse infrastructures while maintaining the highest standards

(All copied from the Dilbert generator).

Posted by Peskie at 12:00 PM | Comments (5)

July 30, 2005

Curves

A figure with curves always offers a lot of interesting angles.

Posted by Peskie at 12:00 PM | Comments (1)

July 29, 2005

Standards

The nice thing about standards is that there are so many of them to choose from.
-- Andrew S. Tanenbaum

Posted by Peskie at 12:00 PM | Comments (3)

Useful Documentation

How about this lovely extract from Sun document 817-4054-11:

Caution – Spring fingers and EMI gaskets may detach from the CPU/Memory board and fall into the system. This may cause damage. Make sure that the EMI gaskets and spring fingers do not fall into the system.

Apart from having absolutely no idea what a spring finger might be, the puzzle is how to prevent them from detaching themselves. Do you think a stern lecture would help?

Posted by Ozguru at 06:00 AM | Comments (1)

July 28, 2005

Lies

A very poor substitute for the truth, but the only one discovered to date.

Posted by Peskie at 12:00 PM | Comments (1)

July 27, 2005

Windows Vista

From a Slashdot article, I collected a list of the features that will be included in Vista (as opposed to the extremely long list of features that got left out of Longhorn):

Among the key features of Vista as it currently stands are: security enhancements, a new searching mechanism, lots of new laptop features, parental controls and better home networking. There will also be visual changes, thanks to Avalon, ranging from shiny translucent windows to icons that are tiny representations of a document itself. On the business side, Microsoft said Vista will be easier for businesses to deploy on multiple PCs and will also save costs by reducing the number of times computers will have to be rebooted.

Let's check those fantastic features one by one:

security enhancements = the previous implementation sucked = BUG FIX

new searching mechanism = the previous implementation sucked = BUG FIX

lots of new laptop features = we didn't guess how popular laptops would be = FEATURE (you can put Windows to sleep and it might wake up again)

parental controls = the previous implementation sucked = BUG FIX

better home networking = the previous implementation sucked = BUG FIX

visual changes = eye candy to fool the consumers = PAINT JOB

easier for businesses to deploy = the previous implementation sucked = BUG FIX

reducing the number of times computers will have to be rebooted = this bug has been around since Windows 3.0 = BUG FIX

I sometimes forget how good it is on the Mac side of the fence. What was that old line? Windows 95 = Macintosh 88. Now we have Windows Vista = MacOS X Beta (but with more bugs).

Posted by Peskie at 12:00 PM | Comments (1)

July 26, 2005

More than 100%

Ever been asked to contribute more than 100% - especially in a work situation? Well, Cynical Cyn has done the maths to show it might be possible...

From a strictly mathematical viewpoint it goes like this:

What Makes 100%? What does it mean to give MORE than 100%? Ever wonder about those people who say they are giving more than 100%? We have all been to those meetings where someone wants you to give over 100%. How about achieving 103%? What makes up 100% in life?

Here's a little mathematical formula that might help you answer these questions:

If: A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z is represented as: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26.

Then:
H-A-R-D-W-O-R-K
8+1+18+4+23+15+18+11 = 98%

and
K-N-O-W-L-E-D-G-E
11+14+15+23+12+5+4+7+5 = 96%

But,
A-T-T-I-T-U-D-E
1+20+20+9+20+21+4+5 = 100%

And,
B-U-L-L-S-H-I-T
2+21+12+12+19+8+9+20 = 103%

AND, look how far ass kissing will take you.
A-S-S-K-I-S-S-I-N-G
1+19+19+11+9+19+19+9+14+7 = 118%

So, one can then conclude with mathematical certainty that While Hard work and knowledge will get you close, and, Attitude will get you there, Bullshit and Ass kissing will put you over the top.

Posted by Peskie at 12:00 PM | Comments (12)

July 25, 2005

Faith

The temporary Sunday School teacher was struggling to open a combination lock on the supply cabinet.

She had been told the combination, but couldn't quite remember it. Finally she went to the pastor's study and asked for help.

The pastor came into the room and began to turn the dial. After the first two numbers he paused and stared blankly for a moment. Finally he look serenely heavenward and his lips moved silently. Then he looked back at the lock, and quickly turned to the final number, and opened the lock.

The teacher was amazed. "I'm in awe at your faith, pastor," she said.

"It's really nothing," he answered. "The number is on a piece of tape on the ceiling."

Posted by Peskie at 12:00 PM

July 24, 2005

Life is a game?

Ever feel like life was a game and you had the wrong instruction book?

Posted by Peskie at 12:00 PM | Comments (2)

July 23, 2005

Zen Students

Do students of Zen Buddhism do Om-work?

Posted by Peskie at 12:00 PM | Comments (2)

July 22, 2005

Marriage...

An optimist is a man who looks forward to marriage.
A pessimist is a married optimist.

Posted by Peskie at 12:00 PM

July 21, 2005

Sudden Death

A middle aged woman has a heart attack and taken to the hospital. While on the operating table she has a near death experience.

During that experience she sees God and asks if this is it. God says no and explains that she has another 30 years to live.

Upon her recovery she decides to stay in the hospital and have a face lift, liposuction, breast augmentation,and a tummy tuck. She even has someone come in and change her hair colour.

She figures since she's got another 30 years she might as well make the most of it. She walks out of the hospital after the last operation and is killed by an ambulance speeding up to the hospital.

She arrives in front of God and complains: "I thought you said I had another 30 years."

God replies, "I didn't recognize you."

Posted by Peskie at 12:00 PM

TechTip: Static Route? Gateway? Speak English...

Q: My server can't see Fred's server.

A: Do you have a route to it?

Q: What is a route?

A route is a set of directions that tell the computer how to send traffic to various destinations. You can see the current route table (even under windblows) by asking nicely:

bash-2.05# netstat -rn

Routing Table: IPv4

  Destination           Gateway           Flags  Ref   Use   Interface

-------------------- -------------------- ----- ----- ------ ---------

10.0.0.0             10.0.0.83            U         1   2907  hme0

224.0.0.0            10.0.0.83            U         1      0  hme0

default              10.0.0.8             UG        1    622  

127.0.0.1            127.0.0.1            UH        2   3467  lo0

The -r displays the route table and the -n means to use numeric addresses (don't resolve them using DNS*).

We can ignore the 127.0.0.1 (loopback interface) and the 224.0.0.0 (multicast datagrams). That leaves us with a route to 10.0.0.0 (a network address) via 10.0.0.83 (our address) and a route to default (another network address) via 10.0.0.8 (some arbitrary ip address). Notice the flags (U, UG or UH), the 'U' means up, the 'G' means gateway and the 'H' means host. Note that the lack of a H implies that we are talking about a network route.

This table tells the sever that it can talk directly to the 10.0.0.0 network or at least some minor part of it. How much of the network we can talk to is governed by the netmask (which we are not going to discuss today). The table also says that all other requests should be sent to a gateway which has the address 10.0.0.8. Note that the gateway (or router) is on a network we can talk to (10.0.0.0). A gateway with some other address (say 142.68.81.93) would be useless because we would have no way to reach the gateway :-)

This table is normally build and maintained dynamically by the operating system but it is possible to add temporary changes:

route add net 10.0.2.0 10.0.0.52 1

The numbers are network (10.0.2.0), gateway / router (10.0.0.52) and hops (1). The hop-count is a way of telling the system how far away a particular gateway happens to be. This is used to make sure there are no loops in the route topology and can also be used to penalise a slower link**.

What if you wanted to make this route permanent? Enter the /etc/gateways file (which is very poorly documented on Solaris). Each line in the file should look like:

net <remote-network-ip> gateway <gateway-ip> metric <hop-count> passive
or
net <remote-network-ip> gateway <gateway-ip> metric <hop-count> active

If the gateway is really permanent, use the keyword 'passive'. Otherwise (keyword 'active') the operating system will occasionally check the route and delete it from the routing table if it appears to be down. Note that the gateway will be recreated on the next boot unless you remove the entry from the gateways file.

[* This is important if you are trying to work out why you can't see the DNS server. Leaving the -n will hang netstat as it does heaps and heaps of lookups...]

[** Say you have a high-speed route and a slow-speed route to a particular gateway. You would give the slow-speed router a higher hop-count (i.e. claim that it is further away) so that the high-speed route is used. If for some reason, the high-speed router fails, the system will "fall back" to using the low-speed route.]

Posted by Ozguru at 06:00 AM

July 20, 2005

History

History is the version of past events that people have decided to agree on.
-- Napoleon Bonaparte, "Maxims"

Posted by Peskie at 12:00 PM

TechTip: What the heck is a token ring?

Is that like an engagement ring but you don't really mean it?

See, I even get to answer the strange questions. This question is not all that strange if you know a bit about your computer history. Way back last century (early 1980s), it was not real clear which one of a number of competing network protocols would eventually become dominant. There was a "standard" (ISO) which everyone outside of Europe ignored, there was Token-Ring and there was Ethernet. Of course, we all *know* that Ethernet won out but in the early days that was not obvious for two reasons: TokenRing was plug and play (no dodgy thicknet taps or transceivers) and (according to IBM) it performed better. As time passed, ethernet got faster (10Mb -> 100Mb -> 1000Mb) and adapted the far more familiar phone-like connectors.

You can still run TokenRing on your Unix systems. For Sun servers, the two relevant cards are TRI/P (TokenRing Interface/PCI) and TRI/S (Sbus). The part numbers are X1039A and X1144A. I have seen the TRI/P card running under Solaris 7 and 8 and it should still be supported in 9. Note that there are some critical patches if you have a large token ring network. In fact one of the patches was the result of a bug (to do with MAC address translation) that I logged and researched :-)

My favourite comment on Token Ring is a Dilbert cartoon (see extended entry).

Posted by Ozguru at 06:00 AM | Comments (2)

July 19, 2005

Measles

Census Taker to Housewife: Did you ever have the measles, and, if so, how many?

Posted by Peskie at 12:00 PM

Insufficient metadevice database replicas ...

One day you reboot your Sun server - the one that has only two internal disks configured as mirrors using SVM (Solaris Volume Manager)* - and it says something like this:

Rebooting with command: boot
Boot device: disk:a File and args:
SunOS Release 5.8 Version Generic_108528-13 32-bit
Copyright 1983-2001 Sun Microsystems, Inc. All rights reserved.
WARNING: md: d20: /dev/dsk/c0t1d0s0 needs maintenance
WARNING: forceload of misc/md_trans failed
WARNING: forceload of misc/md_raid failed
WARNING: forceload of misc/md_hotspares failed
configuring IPv4 interfaces: hme0.
Hostname: foo
WARNING: md: d23: /dev/dsk/c0t1d0s5 needs maintenance
metainit: foo: stale databases
Insufficient metadevice database replicas located.

At this point, your boss will walk in and ask "How's it going?". This is known as SNAFU.** The important point is that you should not panic. Instead, you can boot into single user mode (the messages above will be followed with a 'Type control-d to proceed with normal startup, (or give root password for system maintenance):' and fix the problem.

Run metadb and look for the dead copies:

# metadb flags first blk block count a m p luo 16 1034 /dev/dsk/c0t0d0s7 a p luo 1050 1034 /dev/dsk/c0t0d0s7 a p luo 2084 1034 /dev/dsk/c0t0d0s7 W p l 16 1034 /dev/dsk/c0t1d0s7 W p l 1050 1034 /dev/dsk/c0t1d0s7 W p l 2084 1034 /dev/dsk/c0t1d0s7

Note that (in this case) there are three dead copies but they are all on the one disk. Clear all three at once:

# metadb -d c0t1d0s7

You may get a message about something being read-only. Ignore this and reboot the server:

# reboot

The server will come up normally now because there are only three copies left and they all agree (the quorum rule requires more than 50% of the copies to agree).

When the server comes up, start by replacing the dead disk. You will almost certainly need to copy a new partition map onto the disk (see the extended entry for a step by step guide). You can then re-establish the mirrors by checking the advice of the metastat command:

# metastat | grep metareplace Invoke: metareplace d10 c0t1d0s0 Invoke: metareplace d20 c0t1d0s1 Invoke: metareplace d30 c0t1d0s3 Invoke: metareplace d60 c0t1d0s6

Now, you don't actually want to run these commands as shown. Instead, use the '-e' option to replace the disk with itself:

# metareplace -e d10 c0t1d0s0 # metareplace -e d20 c0t1d0s1 # metareplace -e d30 c0t1d0s3 # metareplace -e d60 c0t1d0s6

Next we need to repair the metadb copies by recreating them:

# metadb -a -c 3 c0t1d0s7

Note that you should recreate the same number of copies as you found previously (three in this case).

Once the system is stable (the resync's have all finished), ytou might want to think about being a little smarter with the quorum rules. In general, you probably want to put metadb copies on at least three disks but if that is not possible, some versions of disksuite (SVM) will honour a special kernel flag:

set md:mirrored_root_flag=1

If you add this line to the system file (before the "MDD root info") line, you may be able to save yourself some hassle next time :-)

[* Previously known as SDS (Solaris Disk Suite).]

[** Situation Normal, All Fouled Up.]

Copying a disk layout

For this example, we have three disks: c0t0d0, c0t1d0 and c0t2d0. We want to copy the layout of c0t0d0 to c0t2d0 (bold is what you type, italics indicate comments):

# format Searching for disks...done AVAILABLE DISK SELECTIONS: 0. c0t0d0 /pci@1f,4000/scsi@3/sd@0,0 1. c0t1d0 /pci@1f,4000/scsi@3/sd@1,0 2. c0t2d0 /pci@1f,4000/scsi@3/sd@2,0 Specify disk (enter its number): 0 selecting c0t0d0 [disk formatted] format> p p for partition partition> p p for print partition> n n for name Enter table name (remember quotes): foo partition> q q for quit (partition sub-menu) format> di di for disk (d by itself is ambiguous) Specify disk (enter its number)[0]: 2 format> p p for partition partition> s s for select 0. foo 1. unnamed Specify table (enter its number)[0]: 0 partition> l l for label Ready to label disk, continue? y partition> q q for quit (partition sub-menu) format> q q for quit (from the format program) #

At this point the two disks will be laid out the same way. Note that if you cannot see 'foo' in the list of partition tables, it means that the two disks have different sizes and therefore you cannot copy the partition map.

Posted by Ozguru at 06:00 AM | Comments (2)

July 18, 2005

Cowboy

The Easterner had always dreamed of owning his own cattle ranch, and finally made enough money to buy himself the spread of his dreams in Wyoming.

"So, what did you name the ranch?" asked his best friend when he flew out to visit.

"We had a heck of a time," admitted the new cowboy. "Couldn't agree on anything. We finally settled on the Double R Lazy L Triple Horseshoe Bar-7 Lucky Diamond Ranch."

"Wow!" his friend was impressed. "So, where are all your cows?"

"None of 'em survived the branding."

Posted by Peskie at 12:00 PM

July 17, 2005

Project Planning

Carelessly planned projects take three times longer to complete than expected. Carefully planned projects take four times longer to complete than expected, mostly because the planners expect their planning to reduce the time it takes.

Posted by Peskie at 12:00 PM

July 16, 2005

Equality

Women who want to be equal to men lack imagination.

Posted by Peskie at 12:00 PM

July 15, 2005

Stult's Report

Our problems are mostly behind us. What we have to do now is fight the solutions.

Posted by Peskie at 12:00 PM

July 14, 2005

Sales talk

When the store manager returned from lunch, he noticed his clerk's hand was bandaged, but before he could ask about the bandage, the clerk said he had some very good news for him.

"Guess what, sir?" the clerk said. "I finally sold that terrible, ugly suit we've had so long!"

"Do you mean that repulsive pink-and-blue double-breasted thing?" the manager asked.

"That's the one!"

"That's great!" the manager cried, "I thought we'd never get rid of that monstrosity! That had to be the ugliest suit we've ever had! But tell me. Why is your hand bandaged?"

"Oh," the clerk replied, "after I sold the guy that suit, his guide dog bit me."

Posted by Peskie at 12:00 PM | Comments (2)

July 13, 2005

Jury Exemption

Just as she was celebrating her 80th birthday, our friend received a jury-duty notice. She called to remind the people at the clerk's office that she was exempt because of her age.

"You need to come in and fill out the exemption forms," they said.

"I've already done that," she replied. "I did it last year."

"You have to do it every year," she was told.

"Why?" came the response. "Do you think I'm going to get younger?"

Posted by Peskie at 12:00 PM | Comments (1)

July 12, 2005

Work Environment

Despite how you may have personally felt about the issue, there was a good logical reason for removing the Ten Commandments monument from the Alabama Supreme Court building.

You cannot post things like "Thou Shalt Not Steal," "Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery", and "Thou Shall Not Lie" in a building full of lawyers, judges and politicians. It creates a hostile work environment.

Posted by Peskie at 12:00 PM

July 11, 2005

Golf

Last summer Ed met a woman while on vacation and fell head over heels in love with her. On the last night of his vacation, the two of them went to dinner and had a serious talk about how they would continue the relationship.

"It's only fair to warn you, I'm a total golf nut," Ed said to his lady friend. "I eat, sleep and breathe golf, so if that's a problem, you'd better say so now."

"Well, if we're being completely honest with each other, here goes," she replied, "I'm a hooker."

"I see", Ed replied, and was quiet for a moment. Then he added, "You know, it's probably because you're not keeping your wrists straight when you tee off."

Posted by Peskie at 12:00 PM

July 10, 2005

Virus Alert

[From my cousin - thanks J.]

G'day....everyone needs to know about this virus....

Alert. There is a dangerous virus being passed electronically, orally and by hand.

This virus is called Worm-Overload-Recreational-Killer (WORK). If you receive WORK from any of your colleagues, your boss or anyone else via any means DO NOT TOUCH IT. This virus will wipe out your private life completely. If you should come into contact with WORK put your jacket on and take 2 good friends to the nearest pub. Purchase the antidote known as Work-Isolator-Neutralizer-Extractor (WINE).

The quickest acting WINE type is called Swift-Hitting-Infiltrator-Remover-All-Zones (SHIRAZ) but this is only available for those who can afford it, the next best equivalent is Cheapest-Available-System-Killer (CASK). Take the antidote repeatedly until WORK has been completely eliminated from your system.

Forward this warning to 5 friends. If you do not have 5 friends you have already been infected and WORK is controlling your life. This virus is DEADLY (Destroys-Every-Available-Decent-Living-Youngster).

Update 05-05-05: After extensive testing it has been concluded that Best-Equivalent-Extractor-Remedy (BEER) may be substituted for WINE but may require a more generous application.

Posted by Peskie at 12:00 PM

July 09, 2005

Habits

Have you heard about the pharmaceutical company that developed a new drug which, when administered to women, compels them to go join a convent? The FDA refused to license it, though.

Seems it was habit-forming.

Posted by Peskie at 12:00 PM | Comments (1)

July 08, 2005

Power of Prayer

A voyaging ship was wrecked during a storm at sea and only two of the men on it were able to swim to a small, desert like island. The two survivors, not knowing what else to do, agree that they had no other recourse but to pray to God.

However, to find out whose prayer was more powerful, they agreed to divide the territory between them and stay on opposite sides of the island.

The first thing they prayed for was food.

The next morning, the first man saw a fruit-bearing tree on his side of the land, and he was able to eat its fruit. The other man's parcel of land remained barren. After a week, the first man was lonely and he decided to pray for a wife.

The next day, another ship was wrecked, and the only survivor was a woman who swam to his side of the land. On the other side of the island, there was nothing. Soon the first man prayed for a house, clothes, more food. In time he had all of these. However, the second man still had nothing.

Finally, the first man prayed for a ship, so that he and his wife could leave the island. In the morning, he found a ship docked at his side of the island. The first man boarded the ship with his wife and decided to leave the second man on the island. He considered the other man unworthy to receive God's blessings, since none of his prayers had been answered.

As the ship was about to leave, the first man heard a voice from heaven booming, "Why are you leaving your companion on the island?"

"My blessings are mine alone, since I was the one who prayed for them," the first man answered. "His prayers were all unanswered and so he does not deserve anything."

"You are mistaken!" the voice rebuked him. "He had only one prayer, which I answered. If not for that, you would not have received any of my blessings."

"Tell me," the first man asked the voice, "what did he pray for that I
should owe him anything?"

"He prayed that all your prayers be answered."

What you do for others is more important than what you do for yourself.

Posted by Peskie at 12:00 PM | Comments (1)

July 07, 2005

Cab Drivers

Two cab drivers met. "Hey," asked one, "what's the idea of painting one side of your cab red and the other side blue?"

"Well," the other responded, "when I get into an accident, you should see how all the witnesses contradict each other."

Posted by Peskie at 12:00 PM

July 06, 2005

Pig Breeding

A farmer decides that his three sows should be bred, and contacts a buddy down the road, who owns several boars. They agree on a stud fee, and the farmer puts the sows in his pickup and takes them down the road to the boars. He leaves them all day, and when he picks them up that night, asks the man how he can tell if it "took" or not. The breeder replies that if, the next morning, the sows were grazing on grass, they were pregnant, but if they were rolling in the mud as usual, they probably weren't.

Comes the morn, the sows are rolling in the mud as usual, so the farmer puts them in the truck and brings them back for a second full day of frolic. This continues for a week, since each morning the sows are rolling in the mud.

Around the sixth day, the farmer wakes up and tells his wife, "I don't have the heart to look again. This is getting ridiculous. You check today." With that, the wife peeks out the bedroom window and starts to laugh.

"What is it?" asks the farmer excitedly. "Are they grazing at last?"

"Nope." replies his wife. "Two of them are jumping up and down in the back of your truck, and the other one is honking the horn!"

Posted by Peskie at 12:00 PM | Comments (2)

July 05, 2005

Bishops

A local church was celebrating its 100th anniversary and several former pastors and the bishop were in attendance.

At one point, our minister had the children gather at the altar for a talk about the importance of the day.

He began by asking, "Does anyone know what the bishop does?"

There was silence. Finally, one little boy answered gravely, "He's the one you can move diagonally."

Posted by Peskie at 12:00 PM

July 04, 2005

Forecasting...

When forecasting, give them a number or give them a date, but never both.

[I learned this as: "Give them a number or a scale, but never both..."]

Posted by Peskie at 12:00 PM

July 03, 2005

Vacations

When properly administered, vacations do not diminish productivity: for every week you're away and get nothing done, there's another when your boss is away and you get twice as much done.
-- Daniel B. Luten

Posted by Peskie at 12:00 PM | Comments (1)

July 02, 2005

Disco is...

Disco is to music what Etch-A-Sketch is to art.

Posted by Peskie at 12:00 PM

July 01, 2005

The Women Were Right...

Okay, Okay, it all makes sense now...

I never looked at it this way before:

- Mental illness

- Menstrual cramps

- Mental breakdown

- Menopause

- Guynecologist

AND ...

When we have REAL trouble, it's a

- Histerectomy.

Notice how all of women's problems start with MEN?

Posted by Peskie at 12:00 PM