an observation

just when I start to think there may be some hope for the world, I stop to read the Dallas Managed News' Letters To The Editor, or even Fundies Say The Darndest Things.

I then reallize that, indeed, There Is No Hope, put my headphones back on, and continue along my way.

how to end The War

Oooh, I like this bumper sticker. Gotta run out and buy me a bumper to put it on!

Send The Twins Bumper Sticker

small joy for the math major

Today, it was about the little things in life. I happened to be charging my PowerBook upside down (don't ask) and noticed the five (5) green LEDs to show the percentage charge on the battery. Three solid and the fourth flashing? Uh, that means between 60-80% charged.

You can tell I was a math major in high school, right?

success! (more or less)

Okay, so I (mostly) pulled it off. My "white box" PC now contains:

Windows XP (SP2)
Linux (Fedora Core 6 .. a/k/a FC6)
Solaris (10 11/06)

I settled on using GNU GRUB 0.97 for a boot loader, which is what shipped with FC6 .. it's slightly ahead of the 0.95 flavor that's in Solaris. There's no Boot Loader option in XP .. aside from various freeware/shareware/COTS products .. i.e. not worth the effort tracking it down.

This was not without some miscues and one (near) PANIC! toward the end of this three-way, when something (I'm not sure what) flipped a bit in the partition table and marked the XP partition as "Hidden" (i.e. not bootable). After Google'ing for the error message ("autochk program not found - skipping AUTOCHECK"), then tweaking the partition table from another (running) OS, I can now boot any of the 3 operating systems.

As I suspected, FC6 looks/acts a lot like RHEL, so what I learn on one should be mostly portable to the other. I found myself online and browsing away about 15 minutes after starting the installation of FC6, not so with Solaris.

One remaining big issue: there's no network support under the Solaris installation - yet. Will it turn out that my gigabit Ethernet card isn't supported, or is this another "fit and finish" issue where the network adapter just wasn't enabled? I should know in a few days, after I get some cycles. I'll check the Solaris HCL and make a decision based on what I find there. If I have to buy a new adapter, I'll have to tweak the other two OSs (Linux and XP). Let's hope it's not that ... oy.

Monday update: rumor has it that if I'd read the Solaris How To Install Guide, my life would've been easier. Well, maybe .. but who reads documentation?

playing with software

Hmm .. have I done anything noteworthy lately? Hardly much to write home about.

I finally got around to installing Parallels Desktop on my Mac Mini, partly to play with virtualization software. I don't expect to run much XP software on the Mac, but it'll be amusing to play with it. The default installation is to set aside 10% of the Mac's disc as a virtual XP machine, so .. that's what I did.

Then (on a real XP box) I tried Secunia's Software Inspector which looks for the latest versions of certain critical XP software (SP2; Adobe Reader 8; QuickTime 7; iTunes 7; IE7; Media Player 11; FireFox 2; RealPlayer 10; Java JRE 1.5) and all checks out okay. It did a credible job, pointing out that I had old (insecure) versions of MacroMedia Adobe Flash Player on my system - which have now been removed.

I've been using VersionTracker Pro for the past couple months, and .. while it's not perfect .. it does appear to do a credible job keeping my application software updated. Downside: their crippled demo version is complete junk.

Finally, I repartitioned another XP box so I can play with both Fedora Core (Linux) and Solaris. I found a copy of Partition Magic (currently owned by Symantec) at a good price and sliced the 120 GB drive in half, since so much of it was going unused. At this moment, it's busy uncompressing the download into a single DVD image of Solaris 10. Since I understand that Solaris GRUB doesn't play nice with Linux GRUB, I'll install Linux second and Solaris last.

I did want to try RHEL (Red Hat Enterprise Linux) but quickly learned that those ISO images aren't available for free download - only for sale. How do I know I'd ever want to buy it if I can't test it first? And yes, I know that Linux is "free" but there are now hundreds (seriously .. 300+) of implementations, so I tried to pick something that would resemble one of the commercially viable flavors. I'm hoping Fedora Core will fit that bill.

when the lights go out ...

I was reading Pat-Bob's blog, and spotted an interesting exercise: how many machines/electronics did you use today?. Weekday or weekend? Do AA batteries count? Hmmm.

Should I attempt this from midnight-midnight?
6am-6am?
Will that matter?

Should I keep the list on a piece of paper, so that my PDA doesn't become part of the mix? Do I include light switches? Should I include my home alarm if I merely go outside to fetch the mail (and hear the alarm sound as the door opens/closes)?

I suppose I could go into the "would this device fail if the electricity were out?" mode but then that would include my home furnace (sparked by a thermostat) ...

His next day's post was slightly different .. the number of times he had to identify himself as he went through The Daily Routine. Perhaps I could start there, then progress to the much larger list. Hmmm.

just another Sunday ...

well, this doesn't sound so bad, now does it?

A MAJOR ICE STORM IS LIKELY SUNDAY. PREPARATIONS TO PROTECT LIFE AND PROPERTY SHOULD BE RUSHED TO COMPLETION. PREPARE FOR EXTENDED POWER OUTAGES FROM DOWNED TREES AND POWER LINES. HAVE NON-PERISHABLE FOOD AND BOTTLED WATER ON HAND. DO NOT TRAVEL UNLESS IT IS AN ABSOLUTE EMERGENCY. IF YOU MUST TRAVEL...KEEP AN EXTRA BLANKET... FLASHLIGHT...FOOD...AND WATER IN YOUR VEHICLE IN CASE YOU BECOME STRANDED.

I hacked into the NWS computer and found the original draft of the advisory. It said:

PLEASE TRY TO AVOID CANNIBALISM DURING THE CIVIL UNREST .. IF THAT FAILS, DINE ON ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS FIRST

Tuesday update: although some rural areas nearby got enough ice to ruin their day, here in The Big City all we got was a glaze. By noon, most of that had evaporated (excepting underpasses and other light-free areas).