myrddin.org: weblog

Now that I work near the city I occasionally get the train into work. Well, in the several weeks so far I’ve caught the train only one week, and have driven the car or motorbike to work every other week.. but anyway, when I’m on the train I like to watch tv episodes my shiny new 80Gb Video iPod. This way I can watch a normal 42 minute episode and still listen to a good 5 or 6 music tracks before I have to get off at my stop.

The iPod sure has made the train trip oh so much more bearable, I’m really *not* a public transport person… The headphones that come with the iPod really are quite good in their own right but I’m not a fan of ‘in ear’ headphones, even tho the iPod headphones really comfortable when compared to others, they still annoy me. Another thing that’s a pain in the ass is the going through train tunnels and people chatting loudly on the train and so on.. I’m forever turning the volume up so I can hear the iPod over the ambient noise and down again when I deafen myself cause its too loud!

A few weeks ago I was in a local Apple store and in particular I was looking at their nice little Sennheiser stand. One thing that caught my eye was a pair of the PX200’s as they collapse down into a small carry case that I can easily throw into my laptop bag. This ability to collapse the headphones caught my attention as they are a closed headphone so noise doesn’t escape or get in to a certain extent improving my listening experience and the experience of those innocent bystanders who constantly whinge about being able to hear other commuter’s iPod’s while at high volume. Even though I don’t whinge about it myself, I personally don’t like being able to hear some other tosser listening to Justin Timberlake or other such freak of nature… Moving right along.. while I was checking out the headphones I was told about the same headphones but a pair, the Sennheiser PXC 250’s, that have a Sennheiser noise cancelling feature whereby small microphones are embedded into the headphones and a small device that attaches to your belt inverts the phase of those ambient noises and feeds them back into the headphones, effectively cancelling out those annoying noises! The headphones are specifically marketed at those consumers that travel by bus, train or plane. This was enough, I was convinced! I had to order a pair and they arrived after a couple of days which was good.

They would have to be the most impressive set of headphones I’ve owned so far. They certainly make my Phillips closed ear headphones sound like rubbish in comparison. the device that attaches to your belt takes 2 x AAA batteries and while at first I thought it would be a little annoying, really isn’t.. When the noise cancelling device is turned on, it is like as if a heavy door has been closed to block out the noisy outside, everything almost comes to complete silence! Albeit there is a very slight hum when the device isn’t plugged into the iPod and playing music, but whats the point of that really? What made them even more handy was that for the past week and a bit I’ve been in and out of noisy server rooms, of which I could be in a very noisy atmosphere for a day at a time. Without ear protection I’m sure I would have had some industrial deafness (if I didn’t have that already), but with the new headphones, it was almost like as if I had turned all the servers off and I was able to quietly listen to tunes all day/week!

I think now that I have myself a pair of Sennheisers, I really don’t think I can go back to anything else. I think the next on my list will be a pair of eN-250’s.. *drools*

Filed under: m.o

Apparently I’m referred to as Mr Perfect by my old team.. rather amusing really..

Oh and the person who thought I was referring to him in a previous post, I wasn’t, it was someone else. So who was I referring to? *attempts to cause more controversy*

Filed under: m.o

I thought I’d escape the wrath of Serial Attached SCSI, dodgy vendors and not having suitable source code when I left my previous job.. however it turns out that the shitfight had only just begun!

Previously I had a handful of xSeries machines that had SAS raid controllers of which there were no source code released for. This meant we were at the whim of the vendor to release binary modules for relevant distro kernels. There was one scenario in particular where the was only 1 binary module released, for a kernel that was about 2 years old! It was one of those fuck arounds that I had hoped to have left behind. This as I found out last week was not going to be the case.

My new employer has another hardware vendor that also have started producing hardware based on the new Intel dual core rigs which have embedded Intel raid controllers. The 2RU database servers aren’t much of an issue as the kernel module for their SAS raid controllers are in the 2.6.17 kernel and work quite well, however there are a significant number of new 1RU boxes for smaller tasks like web/application servers that use the embedded controller of which there are no open source kernel modules available. A quick visit to the Intel website uncovers some binary modules for those nasty RHEL and SLES servers (not the most up to date kernel versions either I might add so that also doesn’t help me in the slightest!).

I’ve since made a bit of progress in the last few days, but we’re still waiting for the vendor to pass on the relevant source so I can go off and install *lots* of sexy new machines. It has been a fair bit of a run around which isn’t surprising at all. The vendor doesn’t really know what they are doing at all and keep going back to Intel, Intel don’t seem to be willing to cough up either relevant kernel modules or the source as appropriate.. I really felt like pulling out my hair today.

Now to move onto the other part of the topic, I installed ‘ubuntu edgy’ last week on my new work slappy. I did it because I couldn’t install debian on it straight from the installer *shock horror*.

I spent a good half a day trying to convince debian stable and testing installers to install on my new Dell work laptop but they wouldn’t have a bar of it. I could have quite easily have done the install by booting off a live linux cd containing a recent kernel, doing a simple bootstrap install and going to my usual unstable/experimental combo, but I succumbed to Nicholas’ ranting about Ubuntu so I thought I’d give it a go. Surprisingly enough it was really easy to install, but that was most likely to do with the more recent kernel used by the installer. I must say that ubuntu is very ‘pretty’ looking… I’m really not into ‘pretty’ looking as opposed to functionality though… I have my own ways of doing things, which really isn’t what Ubuntu is about… Either way, I’ve had it installed on this laptop for a week now I think and I haven’t trashed it (yet). I’m even using it with firefox 2.0 to write this entry, downstairs over wireless… Yes, it really is quite simple to get ubuntu (or debian in general for that matter) configured with wireless, however, I don’t like using clickity clickity gui tools to do so, I prefer cli (voodoo: man interfaces #:P) I’m a shit stirrer aren’t I? hehe

Dammit, spent too much time getting side tracked .. slaptop flattery is almost.. flat.. *beep*beep*beep*

Filed under: m.o

I’ve been in my new job for 2 weeks now and I can definately say it is *sooOOo* much better than my previous one..

My first week was a little too slow for my liking, but I guess thats the normal deal with the first week in a new role. The second however wasn’t, and I’ve really started to like the new job. It is a *very* different experience which is really good for me. I was with my last employer for 6 years and it was most definately time to move on and its a step that I’m so very glad I did. They do say, after all, that one needs to obtain a new job every 3 years…

The new people I work with are really cool and they most certainly know their shit, unlike 85% of the previous team I worked with! The slightly amusing thing is that the really *good* people I used to work with appear to be following my lead and are also looking to venture elsewhere. I really can’t blame them, their salaries, like mine was, were woeful.. I really hope the remainder of the team I used to work with figure out that they can almost double their salaries by getting a new job… There were a few people in the old team who I used to work that sometimes boasted that they were on 6 (AU$) figure salaries, one of which really really shouldn’t have been because he is completely useless technically inept when it comes to Linux.. I guess thats why my previous employer didn’t want their employees from talking to each other about how much they were on (yes, they would actually get our managers to specifically tell us not to talk about these things)…

I wish the dudes who are moving/looking to move to a better role the best of luck, I really do! One of the guys who actually has had some good luck is has landed himself a role elsewhere in what appears could be a really sweet place to work, onya!! This is the same dude that convinced me to run Linux as my desktop and really got me on the linux bandwagon many many moons ago (so you can all blame him for my linux zealotry) so he over anyone really deserved the move to a new role!

On another note, I have worked pretty hard in the last week and a half to get the first of my assignments in on time for my Master’s degree. I don’t think I got to sleep before midnight on any day in the past week or so. The assignment was most certainly a lot harder than I had anticipated! I submitted my assignment with about 40 minutes to spare! Lucky they have electronic submissions and I had until 2359hrs to get it in. I most certainly won’t be waiting until the last minute to submit assignments in future! I am however looking forward to future assignments and exams as I love the challenge, so lets see what else is in store.. Bring it on!

Edit: Seems that I forgot that quite a few ppl read this, so I had to sanitise it a little

Filed under: m.o

There are a couple of new screenshots over in the screenshots section.

Filed under: m.o

A few weeks ago I was successful in obtaining a new job! I start the new job in a few weeks time and I’m really looking forward to it. It is pretty much what I’m doing now, minus all the things I don’t like about IBM. And to make things even better, I actually get a pay rise! I had almost forgotten what a pay rise was!

It would have been my 6 year anniversary with IBM in December. The IBM Linux Services A/NZ team I have been working with for the last few years have been the best bunch of guys I’ve worked with for a very long time. It is a shame to leave them, but hey, thats life..

On another note, I was accepted into the Masters of Networking and System Administration course at Charles Sturt University which is really cool. I’m doing the Linux stream which goes down the Novell (SLES) certification track. I started a few weeks ago and have been rather busy studying the first module. The first 2 modules will also prep me for my Cisco CCNA which is cool. It will be nice to have industry certification on the networking side under my belt. A while ago I decided to frame and hang my industry certification certificates in my computer room instead of filing them away and losing them amongst the mess, but now its gotten out of control and I’ll need to start using a new wall! The really cool thing about the Masters degree being a being Cisco and Novell Linux related is that I find it personally interesting (cause yes, i’m a linux freak) and work related which has the added bonus of keeping those PHB’s happy

The only drawback of the Masters is the amount of time I need to spend doing the modules. I knew this was inevitable, but what I have found is that during the week I tend to be too busy to study and end up doing it over a weekend, leaving not much time to do anything else. I just need to manage my time a little better, and I’m sure I’ll have this down pat after another week or two. Its just a matter of getting into the rhythm.

Filed under: m.o

“I’m sorry! You said we had a problem, not a big galactic emergency!”
- Brigadier General Jack O’Neill (Stargate SG-1 s8e16 Reckoning Part 1)

The SCI-FI channel has announced they will not be renewing Stargate SG-1 for their 11th season. Over at gatworld.net, Stargate SG-1 executive producer Robert C. Cooper has indicated that SG-1 will continue but exact details are not yet clear.

There is already a Save Stargate SG-1 site and an online petition.

* Image credit goes to Nicole.

Filed under: m.o

It’s been over 2.5 years now since I had fish tanks, but its only recently since my cat’s have realised what is actually in the tanks! I have 2 cats, Sam & Jesse and it seems that the female, Jesse, is the only one so far to realise what actually resides within the tanks.

Filed under: m.o

This week I have been attending the Red Hat Certified Architect course RH442 - Red Hat Enterprise System Monitoring and Performance Tuning. I must point out that I’ve never been to a course where it has been challenging and/or interesting. This RH442 course on the other hand satisfied the challenging AND interesting categories, it was bloody awesome! I learnt so much stuff over the past week its been unreal! The stuff I’ve learnt I can use directly with my work as well as outside therefore it has been extremely beneficial.

I sat the 4 hour exam today and it was VERY challenging. I don’t know my results yet, but if I pass, it will be a pleasant suprise.. Time will tell I guess. Either way, I’ve been really happy with what I got out of the course overall.

The possibilities are virtually endless to linux performance tuning.. I thought I knew a reasonable amount about linux performance tuning before this week, but now I have a whole new perspective..

Filed under: m.o

I sat my Novell Certified Linux Professional exam today and scored 100%!

Novell, it would appear, have finally got their act together and fixed up their exam. I wonder if this would have been a result from what I would assume to be heaps of complaints and exam result contests.. This time around I got a compeltely different exam, which was GREAT to see. I would have felt a bit put off if I had received the same exam objectives again.

The best part of the exam improvements was that the objectives were VERY clear in what it needed you to do. There was even a section where it indicated exactly what config file I had to create and/or modify to achieve part of the objective. The file in this instance was unfortunately one of the ones that YaST creates which I was a little dissapointed with, especially when the Novell practicum web site stated that it didn’t matter how you achieve the result as long as the objective was completed. The additions and changes that had to be done to the config could have been equally valid in an alternate config file than the one that YaST creates while still achieving the same result. This is likely to explain why almost everyone I know who had done the earlier CLP exams had failed or almost failed on objectives requiring config changes when the objectives did not explicitlly indicate that it had to be the YaST specific file, not the generally accepted configs..

At least now the exam was quite good. I did however feel that the exam was rather lame, I didn’t feel challenged at all. Not that I really expected to be challenged with this low end exam to begin with.. I was more concerned about having to try and decypher what the objectives actually wanted me to do as the earlier exams were extremely vague. Now I have slightly more interest in actually doing the Novell Certified Linux Engineer (CLE).

Now I just have to try and maintain my 100% pass results. First 100% was with my RHCE and now 100% for my CLP..

Filed under: m.o