Unixpeople

I signed up for Netflix streaming mode and one of the first movies I watched was called “Suicide Room”. It was a decent flick – I’d give it 7/10. It was about a kid who spends a bunch of time hanging out in a virtual reality chat room. After watching that movie, however, every time I logged into Netflix, the suggestions were all movies with LBGT content. I think the first time I logged in after “Suicide Room” it suggested, “Longhorns”, “Private Romeo”, and “Blue is the Warmest Color”.

It took a few months to get it dialed in.

The TADDM Model can be a pain in the ass. Customers don’t normally ask me to add site information or admin information to Objects in TADDM. The last time it happened was over 2 years ago, however, my current customer asked me to add it from a spreadsheet that they provided to me (never mind that the spreadsheet contained host information that was more than 6 months old (since prior to Hurricane Sandy).

Ok, so I looked back to try to find the code form the previous time I added site info programmatically and I couldn’t locate it. Oh well, its not rocket science.

I wrote a shell script which used awk to pull the fields out of the provided spreadsheet (in CSV format) and then wrote a java program to create a SiteInfo object and add it to the computer system which was fetched by name from TADDM using an api call.

Here is the important part of the shell script:

h=`echo $line |awk -F, ‘{print $3}’`
site=`echo $line |awk -F, ‘{print $1}’`
rackpos=`echo $line |awk -F, ‘{print $4}’`
busDesc=`echo $line |awk -F, ‘{print $5}’`
busOwn=`echo $line |awk -F, ‘{print $7, “,”, $8}’`

And the call to the java program:

java SetAdminInfo localhost administrator collation “$h” “$site” “$rackpos” “$busDesc” “$busOwn”

Now, the tricky bit. If you were going to set something in TADDM that shows up in the details panel as “site”, you might search through the model and eventually settle on the SiteInfo class (which is what I did). You’d be wrong.

I went to all the work of adding the stuff to the computer system object by attaching a populated instance of SiteInfo only to find that it didn’t show up in the UI. I went through all the standard troubleshooting assuming it was a problem with TADDM (restarted the UI, etc.) but to no avail.

Turns out the proper object to populate is AdminInfo. Here is the salient parts of the java program:

 /* create new AdminInfo */
Class aClass=com.collation.platform.model.topology.admin.AdminInfo.class;
AdminInfo admininfo=(AdminInfo)ModelObjectFactory.newInstance(aClass);
admininfo.setObjGuid(comp.getGuid());
admininfo.setSite(sitename);
admininfo.setName(comp.getName());
admininfo.setDescription(busdesc);
api.update(admininfo,null);
aClass=com.collation.platform.model.topology.admin.SiteInfo.class;
SiteInfo siteinfo=(SiteInfo)ModelObjectFactory.newInstance(aClass);
siteinfo.setName(sitename);
siteinfo.setRackPosition(rackpos);
comp.setSiteInfo(siteinfo);
api.update(comp,null);

As you can see from the code, I needed to set BOTH AdminInfo and SiteInfo because AdminInfo doesn’t have a place to set rack location….

Success! Except, I now notice that SiteInfo doesn’t show up on the details panel…. I opened RFE 33221 on that.

Overview
I’m a Canadian who has been living in California for about 12 years. I still go back to Ontario, Canada a few times per year to visit. For several years I’ve toyed with the idea of flying my Cessna 172 back to Ontario from California. I seriously considered it last Christmas, but I left the planning too late and decided it was better to just fly commercially. Of course, its impossible to justify the flight financially as the cost of the fuel alone was enought to fly two or three people on an commercial flight.
In addition, the time committment was enormous – The jeppesen lo-level planning chart says Its about 1800 nautical miles from San Francisco to Detroit. I figured I would average about 120 knotts Eastbound and 100 knots Westbound.
For those of you who are pilots you know this was not about practicality – It was an adventure. An accomplishment.

The aircraft was N733KK, a 1977 Cessna 172 Superhawk (180HP conversion) equipped with a garmin 430, an MX-300 comm/nav unit, a DME and an ADF (which may seem insignificant, but read on…)

Pre-flight planning
I used the jeppesen lo-level planning chart to try to find a route that would keep me off the dotted lines – I’d like to fly at 11500 or less Eastbound and 10500 or less Westbound.

I also needed to make sure I had printed copies of the following documents:
-Radio License
-Insurance
-POH
-Weight and Balance
-Registration
-Air Worthiness
-Medical, Pilot License and Passport

The route I decided on was:
Byron, Linden, Hangtown, Squaw, Mustang, Lovelock, Battle Mountain,
Bullion, Wells, Lucin, Ogden, Fort Bridger, Rock Springs, Cherokee, Medecine Bow, Scottsbluff, Alliance, Ainsworth, O’Neil, Sioux City, Fort Dodge, Waterloo, Dubuque, Janesville, Badger, Muskegon, Pontiac,
Salem, Windsor.

So, the first thing I needed to do was order charts. I used the
Sporty’s website to order the required charts:
San Francisco, Klamath Falls, Salt Lake City, Cheyenne, Omaha, Chicago,
Detroit, Toronto. The Toronto chart was a Canadian chart – a VNC
(VFR Navigation Chart). This is the equivalent of a sectional in the US.
Canada has VTA (VFR Terminal Area) which is the equivalent of a
Termainl Area Chart in the US.

In addition, I ordered the complete set of AFDs for the US. I neglected to order the CFS – Canada Flight Supplement and the IFR approach charts for Canada.

In hind-site, I should have purchased the IFR charts for all airports on my route as well as the Garmin 430 data for the entire US and Canada.
My Jeppesen GPS data subscription is for the Western United States only. I made a conscious decision not to purchase the upgrade for the GPS data. I learned to fly on steam gauges and I figured it would be a good refresher.

I knew I could fly between 4.5 and 5 hours on a full tank of fuel and I planned on being able to average about 120 knots Ground Speed on the East-bound trip. Based on this, I was able to plan out where my
fuel stops would be. For each of the fuel stops, I wrote the relevant information on a yellow sticky and stuck it on the sectional near the point of landing. The information that I find I like to have handy
is Airport Elevation, Runway information (#, length, TPA, and traffic direction), frequencies (ATIS, Tower or CTAF, Ground, and Departure). In addition, I printed out an IFR approach chart for each of the airports where I would be landing.

Weight and Balance
My wife decided to load me up with a couple large bags of clothes to take back to Canada for her. In addition, I had two sets of golf clubs, a tool box, my suitcase, some spare parts and oil, a sleeping bag and tent and a bunch of food and drinks as well as my flight bag and laptop. I weighed each bag and pre-packed the plane the night before. When I got home, I ran the weight and balance and found that it was slightly outside the allowed range. The weight was fine – it was the CG that was a off.
I shifted the golf clubs from the most rear baggage compartment, and
replaced them with some lighter things. That got me into the right range, but then I ran it again without the fuel (for landing) and I was again out of spec. I moved the toolbox and spare parts up to
the floor of the back seat and that got me into the right range for landing.

Self-imposed Limitations
————————
No night flight in areas with terrain elevation above 8000′.
No hard IMC in mountainous areas.

The Trip
——–
C83 -> Wendover, UT
I got up in the morning and called for a flight briefing.
This leg started out pretty well. I got away at 5:15am local time. I contacted ATC and asked
for flight following. When approaching South Lake Tahoe, ATC asked me if I was aware of the TFR over South Lake. This was the day when Lake Tahoe was being plagued by forest fires. I had not been told about the TFR during my briefing. Thank-you ATC!
Three hours and 45 minutes later, I landed at Wendover. I refueled at Wendover and called for a weather briefing for the next leg. I had also dipped my tanks before departing and then when I arrived
in Wendover. I wanted an accurate fuel burn number. I was flying at 60% power at 11500′ and my burn was 8.2 gallons per hour. If I don’t include the climb, its 8 gph
This is 1.2 gph above what the performance charts for my plane say.
Doesn’t surprise me as the 180 HP conversion addendum says “performance: no change”, but I never believed it. I have to admit, when doing the flght planning, my biggest concern was the mountainous
terrain. If you have a look at all the sectionals connected together, you’ll find that there is a lot of “brown” areas between here and Nebraska. While flying, however, I noticed that, for the
most part, there are a lot of places where one could perform an emergency landing. Lots of deserted roads and flats.

Wendover, UT -> Laramie, WY 16:45Z – 20:00Z
On the lo-altitude chart, I had actually planned to fly via Medicine Bow to Scottsbluff for this fuel stop, but once I looked at the Sectional, I realized there was almost 200 miles without an airport with fuel
between Wells and Scottsbluff, so I chose to fly a little south to Laramie. I should have re-checked the lo-altitude chart, however, as on the way to Laramie from Cherokee, the terrain rises VERY high –
I actually climbed to 13500 and was only 500 AGL or so. I landed at Laramie – elevation 7286 and fueled up.
I called for a flight briefing and it was excellent again. The winds aloft were very favorable.
The temperature was 32 C and the density altitude was 10700. I was on the very last box on the takeoff distance chart – almost 4000′ (not including the headwind). It was at this point where I realized
that figuring out what timezone I was in and converting to zulu time was becoming onerous, so I set my watch to zulu time.

Laramie, WY -> Sioux City, IA
During this leg, I noticed that the suction guage was actually just below the green arc. Watched the DG and the AI pretty close.
After a time, however, the suction guage made it back into the green. It was on this leg when I hit my best ground speed of the trip – at one point the GPS indicated a groundspeed of 150 knots. I noticed that my oil temperature goes quite high (bordering on the red) on the climb out.
I enriched the mixture, and used a shallower climb angle but the temperature didn’t drop until I got to cruise. Flying through Utah, ATC called out traffic to me, “733kk, traffic at your 12 O’clock.
16 miles. 500′ below you, heading 090.” My heading was 270. I’m not used to ATC calling out traffic that far away, but then it became apparent on the next call to the traffic that was approaching me.
“Mustang leader, traffic at your 12 O’clock 12 miles, heading 270, flight restricted above you at 11500.” Those F-16s went by me at about 300 knots.
The FBO at Sioux City is open 24 hours which is nice. I landed at 7:30PM local time and
had to make a decision whether to press on or stay for a while and rest. They had a nice pilot lounge with a couch, so I decided to stay and sleep for a few hours.

Sioux City, IA -> Dubuque, IA
Around 2am, I called for a flight briefing.
My next planned stop was Kenosha, WI but the briefer told me the Kenosha area was IFR with fog and low ceilings which were forcast to get lower. I only had one approach chart printed out for Kenosha – I didn’t have any other charts for an alternate in the vicinity and there was not a printer
available to be able to print them from AOPA. My GPS data would go as far as Iowa, but I would be on steam guages in Wisconsin. After much consideration, I decided to continue on, and fly until the
weather started to get poor. This turned out to be a pretty good decision. I picked up flight following and when approaching each of my check points with a good airport (one with fuel), I would ask ATC for the weather at the next airport. I figured if the weather was poor further on, I’d just stop at the one I was approaching. Finally, I set down in Dubuque. I really noticed the apparent non-equivalent fuel burn between the left and right tank on this leg. The gauge for the left tank was showing 1/2 and the right seemed to be still pegged at full. I switched to the right tank to make sure I wouldn’t have any issues and it ran fine.

Dubuque, IA -> Windsor, ON 1115Z – 1430Z
I fueled up and contacted Canada Customs at 888 CAN PASS. I also had to file a flight plan. When I set off, there was quite a lot of haze. I climbed above the haze and all was well. Crossing lake Michigan is one of those things that can be a little disconcerting. Essentially, there is a 40 minute period of time where, should the engine fail, I’m going to get wet. Clearing customs in Windsor was pretty easy. I taxied to the customs building and shutdown. A customs officer walked out and examined my documents and gave me a number that said I had cleared.

All was well except that Canada uses some different terminology. The “control zone” is the area around the airport. Also, when you talk to the tower, you refer to them as “terminal”.
When you land at an airport in Canada, they automatically close your flight plan. I stopped at the FBO and while I was there, I was chatting with them about my trip. The guy suggested I get a copy
of the Canada Flight Supplement (which is like our AFDs and covers every airport in Canada). They didn’t have any current ones, but they had one that was a couple months old, so they gave me that one.
Fuel is pretty expensive in Canada – I paid $1.60 per litre == $6US per gallon.

Windsor, ON -> Leamington, ON
-8 minutes of flight time.
-landed right traffic to runway 19

Leamington, ON -> Rockcliff, ON 1330Z -1630Z
I’ve done this drive in a car many times. Usually its about 8 hours of time. The flight was 3 hours. That is really nice. The hand-offs for flight following aren’t as nice as they are in the US. It seems that I had to tell each controller where I was going.
The flight briefing number is 888 WX BRIEF and the briefing was very similar to what we get here. They used the term CB a lot which is cumulonimbus. Filing is slightly different. They open your flight plan automatically at the time-off you specify. So, unlike here, if you file, then don’t make the flight, you have to call them to cancel it. Also, the type codes are different. /A doesn’t
exist. You can just tell them what you have. Although I was a /G,
I didn’t have data, so I filed as a /S/D/C which means standard (VOR and ADF) + DME + mode C transponder.

Rockcliff, ON -> Sightseeing tour
Flying in Ottawa is kind of like flying in the Washington ADIZ. You are supposed to have a transponder code when you take off. I called 800 GET CODE and got one.

Rockcliff, ON -> Markham, ON (Near Toronto)
I was concerned that my flight to Markham would need to be IFR, so I went ahead and picked up the book of Approach charts for the route. As it turns out ADF approaches are still alive and well in Canada.
Its the most common type of approach there. I guess because of the distance between VORS, NDBs are an economical way to do things.
My flight to Markham was pretty quick, but this is where my unfamiliarity of flying in Canada got me. When landing in Markham, a guy from the ground asked, “do you have prior permission to land here?” I said, “um, no”. Anyway, he had me land, then he came out and showed me in the CFS where
it said PPR which means Prior Permission Required. The owner of this “aerodrome” is apparently a hard-ass, but they called and asked him if I could stay the night. After much checking, he agreed. My family, (who were already in Toronto), picked me up and the next day we went to the hockey hall of fame.

Markham, ON -> Buttonville, ON 1940Z – 1948Z
The Markham airport was closed when I tried to depart, but luckily a guy named Ken was there who purported to be the guy I should pay. So, I handed Ken my $10 and took off. First stop was Buttonville to get fuel.

Buttonville -> Carp, ON (CYRP) 2020Z – 2200Z
I fueled up, then took off for Carp. 1.5 hours later, I was on the ground.

Carp, ON -> Leamington, ON (CLM2) IFR 1500 EDT – 1830 EDT
I payed my $35 tie-down fee ($7.50 per night), filled up and departed IFR for Leamington. I picked up my clearance and it was completely different from what I filed. The gave me a much more Northern route. Was in IMC for a little of it, but mostly just flew on top of a broken layer during the trip.

Leamington, ON -> Sandusky, OH (SKY) 1730Z – 1753Z
Had to call customs to pre-arrange a time to arrive at an airport of entry. Another pilot in Leamington suggested Sandusky, OH. When I called customs, they mentioned that I needed a customs decal.
I had to hop online and purchase one ($27.50) and print out the receipt.
The flight was less than 15 minutes. Landed and taxied up to the customs area. Two gentlemen came out and I got out of the plane. Turns out these guys were from the FAA and they were performing random ramp checks. Just then a uniformed customs agent approached and he was angry that I had
exited the aircraft. I told him that I was sorry, but that I thought these guys were customs. Anyway, it was at this point that I realized I had left my wallet along with my pilot’s license sitting in Leamington.
What a nightmare. I had my passport, so I was able to clear customs, but the FAA was not happy. They told me I had to call Oklahoma and have them fax over a copy of my license. I got on the phone with Oklahoma and they said they would fax it, but it never arrived. The FAA folks said that if
I left without my license, it would be an enforcement. The strange thing is that they were able to confirm that I had a license, but they wouldn’t let me leave. The fax had to come from Oklahoma, too. The other option was to have my buddies in Leamington drive my license over. Although its a 15 minute flight, its a 3.5 hour drive, so I didn’t bother with that.
What I decided to do was to hop online and see if I could find confirmation of my license at the FAA website. Turns out this is quite easy to do. Just go to http://faa.gov, click on Licenses and Certificates, click on “Replace an Airman Certificate”, click on “Request a replacement certificate online”. Click on Login, enter your email address and password (or register if you haven’t done that yet. Finally, click on “Request Temporary Authority to Exercise Certificate Privileges”. You can choose whether they will fax or email the document to you – I chose email. I also ordered a second
copy of my pilot’s license which will forever live in my flight bag 😉

Sandusky -> Windsor
Filed my flight plan, and called Canada Customs and set off back to Windsor to clear customs and pickup my wallet. Once I landed, the same customs lady was there. I explained why I was back and she laughed and wished me a better day the next day.

Windsor -> Leamington
8 minute flight and I landed. My buddies wife was there to pick me up.
She brought me a cold beer which I desperately needed at this point 😉

Leamington -> Detroit City (DET)
Decided to clear customs in Detroit City the next day. This way if anything
was forgotten, it was only a short drive to get there. The flight was 25 minutes. I landed, taxied to the customs building and waited… and waited… about 30 minutes after I landed, the door opened and two
gentlemen asked me for all my documents which I provided. Shortly after, they cleared me to leave and I taxied to the FBO and fueled up – at $5.41 a gallon.

Detroit -> Dubuque, IA 1355Z – 1730Z
Called for a flight briefing. Things were pretty much clear for my next leg. I briefly considered detouring to Oshkosh but figured there wouldn’t be much to see when Airventure is not on.
Fueled up at Debuque, called for a briefing – and pressed on.

Dubuque -> O’Neil Nebraska 1830Z – 2220Z
Fueled up in O’Neil. I asked the guy what O’Neil was famous for. He kind of looked at me and said, “we have the highest Irish population in Nebraska”. Ok. I called for a briefing. Things were clear to Scottsbluff, but beyond that it was looking like a lot of Thunderstorms.

O’Neil -> Scottsbluff 2305Z – 0135Z
Temperature was 38C. Briefly considered taking off from their grass runway (but decided not to bother). After landing at Scottsbluff (Western Nebraska Regional), I fueled up and decided to rest a few hours in their pilot lounge before heading out (they had a nice lounge). Unfortunately, the FBO closed at 2000 and it was currently 1950. Sigh. I called for a briefing to figure out if I should continue on. The briefing was not positive, so I decide to get a hotel and a good steak and head out in the morning.

Scottsbluff -> Ogden, UT 1200Z – 1610Z
Salt Lake Radar was OOS, so I was on my own for an hour or so of this flight. Had a delicious breakfast – chicken-fried steak and eggs.

Ogden -> Reno, NV 1710Z – 2055Z
Fueled up at $5.71 per gallon. Nice pilot lounge here. Called for a flight briefing. There were TFRs all over the place for forest fires.

Reno -> Byron, CA (C83) 1410 PDT – 1545 PDT
Called Ground and they asked me which way I’d be heading over to Squaw. I hadn’t really chosen it, so I just decided to fly South until I had enough altitude to get over the mountains. I ended up having to circle a few times to get the altitude. The climb performance was horrible.

Lessons learned
Don’t take an unopened bag of fritos to altitude… I’m still picking them out of my plane.
Don’t plan to fly more than about 10 hours in a day. Its a fun trip to do in a 172 ONCE. But I wouldn’t try it again unless I had an aircraft capable of another 50 knots of airspeed.
Keep a spare license in your gear bag.
Flying the heading bug rather than the needle on your NAV unit really does make sense – especially when flying on old steam guages. I’d forgotten how much the needle wanders.

(rant was first published May 20, 2003)

I opened the snail mail tonight, and found that my vehicle registration is due.

Here is a breakdown of the bill:
Registration Fee: $30
Vehicle Registration Fee: $504
County/District Fees: $8
SMOG Abatement Fee: $6

Ok, so I’m not even going to think about how the SMOG abatement fee somehow makes the air cleaner for me, but whatever – its only $6.

What I’m really annoyed about are two things.

First, at the bottom of the Fees section, there is an item called “VLF Offset: $-340.00”

So, why do they do that? Maybe I’m supposed to feel better about the bill? “Whew! I dodged a bullet there! The government just gave me $340.00!”. Why don’t they just change the VLF fee at the top from $504 to $164????

The second item – and its way more annoying – as a matter of fact, it really pisses me off – is the nice box on the left that says:

————
RENEW VIA THE INTERNET
Your Renewal Identification
Number is 999999 (see attached insert)
Our Web address is
WWW.DMV.CA.GOV
———–

So I look at the attached insert and it reads like some guy announcing the prizes on a game show:

—-
Congratulations! You’ve won an all expenses-paid trip to Hawaii, with three wonderful nights and 4 days in beautiful Maui!!!!!!
—-

Except its like this:
——
You are eligible to rewnew your registration on the Internet!
——

“Oh Martha, get yer coat! We get to renew via the Internet!” Then it continues….
——
DMV has added online registration renewal via the Internet as an alternative method of doing business. Be among the first to take advantage of DMV’s new online service and renew your registration within minutes.
——

I’m going to add that to my resume:
… as well as being the 404th guy that watched the Mars probe landing over the Internet, I was also *one of the first* to use DMV’s online registration service!”

But wait! There’s more!

——
Online Renewal is:
Convenient: Your registration is renewed within minutes…
Simple: Your billing notice contains a RIN that is your access number
Easy: Using your RIN and a credit card, you may complete your renewal in a few easy steps!

There is a $4 convenience fee to renew your registration online
——–

Explain to me how “Simple” is different from “Easy”. Maybe I’m so “simple”, that I need to be told twice?

Hold the phone! What the heck is that last bit there? Let me read it again….. “There is a $4 convenience fee….”

Oh you see. Now I’m really pissed. I really, really hate it when places charge me a convenience fee. I don’t mind a “bend-me-over” fee, but don’t call it a convenience fee. What they are saying when they do that is, “well, we simply found an easy way to charge you some more money!” There. That was simple and easy!

See my BART rant about convenience fees – oh and look for a new rant about ticketmaster – coming soon.

I’m serious here. We need some truth in advertising. I think something like, “In order to cover the cost of additional infrastructure to handle these new Internet transactions, there is a $4 fee associated with
the online renewal. Once the infrastructure is paid for, this fee will no longer be charged.”

I would gladly pay the $4 in that case, but don’t call it a fucking convenience fee!

But really folks, Why should it cost me a “convenience fee” when its going to save them money? They don’t have to pay someone to open the envelope and enter the payment into the computer, then take the check to the bank and deposit it and wait for it to clear, etc. etc. They don’t have to pay for this person to attend extensive sensitivity training so they know how to be sensitive while ignoring me while I’m standing in the fucking line waiting for those incompetent bastards to provide me with “outstanding service”.

Next time you are in the DMV, have a look around at the signs on the walls. Have you ever noticed that there are a multitude of signs that remind you that it is a federal offence to threaten or annoy the DMV workers, punishable by several years in ram-me-in-the-butt federal prison? Why do they find it necessary to remind us of that? Does the seven-eleven have similar signs? No. They remind us of that because it happens all the time. Because they don’t know how to run a fricking business. But you know – thats another story.

Hmmm, lets see… Do I renew over the Internet or via snail mail? Its a tough choice… I’d better think about this for a while…. I know! I’ll think about it while I’m looking for my check-book and stamps.

I purchased an IBM B-50 from ebay.
When it arrived, I followed the standard practice at Collation and:
-attached it’s console to the lantronix terminal server
-added the console port and its IP address to DNS

Its standard at Collation to install servers and workstations using a network install. We do network installs of Solaris via jumpstart, and linux via kickstart, but unfortunately, it seems that I need something called NIM to install it, and NIM has to run on an AIX box. Since this is the first AIX box, I’m going to have to do it manually.

Try to buy a copy of AIX 5.2…. see my other rant on this.

Finally, get AIX 5.2. Put cdrom #1 in the drive and boot the machine. Press the “1” key or the “5” key after seeing the keyboard test on the console. “5” causes the machine to boot off the cdrom.

At this point I realized that there was no hard drive in the machine… Ok, so I add a hard drive – externally – because the proprietary hot swap bay is $250… Ouch.

Reboot the machine from the cdrom. Indicate that I want english and I want to install on the hard disk and I want this tty to be the console.

Installation proceeds, then the system reboots. I get the Console Login prompt, but I can’t login. Its like the ENTER key is not being accepted….
Try all sorts of terminal emulation programs – minicom, hyperterminal, etc. Try connecting directly and through the terminal server – same result.

Eventually, I booted off the cdrom in Repair mode, and used smitty to enable dhcp on the network interface. On reboot, the machine gets and address and I can successfully telnet into the machine.

+++Talked to an AIX guru friend of mine (Thanks Jabbar) and he says that the machine is probably expecting to talk to an IBM 3151 terminal.

Added the NIS server, asterix, and its IP address to /etc/hosts, then used “mkclient -S asterix” to configure NIS.

Started ypbind.

I used smitty to umount and delete /home, but left the mount point.

Used smitty to start automountd, but regardless of what I did, I couldn’t get it to use the NIS auto.master and auto.home tables.

Eventually, I just configured the /etc/auto_master and /etc/auto_home but still no joy – its almost like automounter is just totally broken on AIX. Even tried using the /usr/samples/nfs/auto_master file as a template.
Tried restarting automountd using “stopsrc automountd” and “startsrc automountd”. It still doesn’t work. Try rebooting. automount doesn’t even start.

+++Jabbar says that the automounter on aix is just broken – don’t use it.

Try “ypcat -k auto.master” – it says domainname isn’t set
Where the hell are the error messages?
+++Jabbar says to use “errrpt -a”
Why isn’t the domainname set on reboot? Where the hell is the console terminal type set?

Periodically, ypbind (which does seem to know the NIS domainname) starts claiming that the NIS server is not responding. Reboot the machine – Now it works. Thats just ugly.

Gave up on automountd. Disabled it with smitty and removed all the /etc/auto* files. Used smitty to mount/home via nfs from majestix. Of course on reboot, it wasn’t mounted….

Try to get /home to be persistent. Use smitty
->System Storage Management (Physical and Logical)
->File Systems
->Add/Change/Show/Delete File systems
->NFS

Wait! whats this! NIS settings….
->NIS
->change NIS domainname!

Ok, I don’t know why the AIX people put the NIS settings under NFS, but at least I’ve found them now.

Download ssh from www.bullfreeware.com Run the .exe file which appears to be a self-extracting archive containing a .bff file. Tried to use “smitty install_latest” to install the bff file – it fails
when I press F4 to list the software in the directory. Tried using “.” as well as the fully qualified path – doesn’t work.

Here is the error message:
—-
1800-106 An error occurred
geninstall: The specified device /home/abarclay/src/aix/ is not a valid device or file.
—-

Run “man -k install” – fails. Run “catman -w”, then re-run “man -k install”
Tried installp – nope… looking for /dev/fd…..
Dammit, its the f4 thats failing to make a list of the available software… why would it fail. in desperation, copy the bff file to /tmp and change to that directory and re-run the smitty install_latest
Now it works! Thats just stupid.

Create the host keys using ssh_keygen -t rsa and ssh_keygen -t rsa1
and ssh_keygen -t dsa
Created the sshd priv sep user. Apparently, can’t use /bin/false as a shell
for the user – have to use a real shell….
Had to use “sshd” as the pgroup, not the gidNumber…. Thats unusual.
Had to create /var/empty and /var/empty/sshd before create user
Finally, sshd started.

Now, we need to figure out how to get it to start on system reboot.

The ypbind is just really flaky. It keeps saying that the NIS server is not responding, AND when that happens, all network access seems to just die. Ping doesn’t even work – Not even by IP address! Finally created a yp server on the same subnet so the ypbind could broadcast to find the server and now its perfectly happy.

Tried to download the latest critical patches for AIX following instructions from Bruce Spencer’s newsletter. The fucking applet doesn’t work on linux and the ftp from the command line keeps throwing connection resets. I’ll try later from Windows.

When I try to scp to the AIX machine, it reports “scp not found”. I know that ssh is trying to run scp, but it should know to look in /usr/local/bin…. create a link from /usr/local/bin/scp to /usr/bin/scp
and now it works.

Need to install lsof. bullfreeware doesn’t have it pre-packaged, so I decide to compile it. Download the gcc package from bullfreeware and run it to extract the bff file. Copy the bff file to /tmp and it runs out of space. Have to use smitty to bump up the size of /tmp to 400 meg. Re-try the install. Hmmmm, for some reason it doesn’t see the gcc software. It only seems to see the ssh. Ah, it seems that smitty creates a .toc file and doesn’t bother checking to see if there is new software there – very efficient and very annoying. Remove the .toc file and re-try the install Now it works.
Also download and install sudo using the same procedure – don’t forget to
remvoe the .toc file.

Used smitty to increase size of /usr to 900 meg
Try to build lsof
$ ./Configure aixgcc
$ make
-failed
Gave up on building it – found a binary

May, 2003

My two year old son ripped the arms off my wife’s sunglasses and I was tasked with getting them fixed.

So, I go to RayBan’s website, and they have instructions for sending them for repair. Of course, when you call the phone number, its pretty much a recorded message that focuses on WARRANTY repairs. Now, I understand that this is not a warranty issue, its a REPAIR issue, so I sent the glasses back to the address they listed.

Issue Number One:
Its not RayBan, its some company called Luxottica Group – and it seems that they just handle the customer service for rayban – I could be wrong here….

Issue Number Two:
The address where you have to send this stuff is a post-office box. Thats a pretty serious problem because UPS won’t deliver there, so you have to send it regular post and there is no way to insure the package (These are $150 sunglasses).

So I sent them regular mail along with a check for $10 (processing fee) hoping that the sunglasses would actually get there. I included a note that said, “Please repair the sunglasses and if there is an additional charge, please let me know”.

A month goes by and a package from the Luxottica Group arrived today, Fri Jun 27, 2003. I openned up the package, and the un-repaired sunglasses are included – along with a note.

The note starts by saying how much they appreciate my business, then quickly falls into some dribble, saying, “this is not a warranty repair, and that style is discontinued” – essentially, “Sorry about your luck.”

The sunglasses are only two years old?????!!! Its fine to discontinue stuff, but companies should be required to keep parts around for a few years. I know automotive manufacturers are required to produce parts for a certain number of years.

I would have been happy if they had offerred any sort of compromise – Even something like, “Look, we have a similar pair of glasses available, and we are willing to sell them to you for half the list price…..”

I will never buy another pair of RayBan sunglasses. I used to buy ONLY RayBan. I liked the glass lenses and the feel of them. Also, in the past, I always received good service from RayBan. It seems they have decided to cut costs at the expense of customer service. I think thats really short-sighted.

On May 16th, 2003, I contacted linksys support because the two WAP-11 Access Points were hanging. The only fix for this was to actually unplug the power to the access points and then plug them back in.
———–
Hi,
I can consistently get my WAP11 to hang when I send a bunch of data though
it. For example, when I ftp a 200 meg file from my laptop to a local server,
the WAP11 will almost always hang.
———–

On the 17th, I received the following response:
———–
It would be better if you lessen the file transfer a little bit to prevent
heavy trafffic on the network.

If you have further questions, please contact us at (800) 326-7114 or send
us an email at support@linksys.com so that we may further assist you.
Please use this phone number given as reference for future support calls.

Thank you and have a nice day.
———–

Thanks! Thats like the old joke, “Doctor, it hurts when I lift my arm like this! – and the doctor responds, “Don’t do that”.

I responded to this with another email:
—————-
Hi Gloria,
Although I believe that your workaround will fix the problem,
I’m afraid I’m not satisfied with the response.

I am using two WAP11s here at my workplace. There are normally
two or three people using the wireless concurrently. How is
it that I can keep them from not doing large file transfers?

I don’t really care how slow the wireless is, but I don’t
feel that the WAP11 should HANG and require a hard reboot
to recover.

I have successfully ran several users though an old apple
airport and have never had it hang – EVER.

Have you had other customers with this problem? Is it
hanging because of too much data on the wireless side, or
too much data on the ethernet side? If its too much data
on the ethernet side, can you offer some suggestion on
how to limit the data throughput?
—————-

And got the following response:
————-
With regards to your problem, you may try setting the thresholds (RTS and
Fragmentation) of both WAP11 to 2304 but there’s no assurance that you’ll
not experience hang ups anymore. You may also try to upgrade the firmware of
your access points.
————-

Um, I’ve checked, and I’m already running the latest firmware, so that leaves the other thresh-holds. I was busy, so I waited a few months, and just made a point to rebooting the APs whenever they hung – This was usually 3 times per day or so.

Finally, in July, I got tired of this and I set the parameters as per the email from linksys support.

Of course, it hung again, so as a last resort, I called linksys phone support.

I can now say that I have officially spoken with the absolute, most idiotic tech support person ever.
I explained my situation, and asked him what else I could try.
He had 3 suggestions:

1) try changing the channel

2) try changing the ESSID. I stopped him here. I said, “what the hell will changing the ESSID do?” He responded that it will boost the signal…… Oh my God. Attention technical support people – Try not to blow smoke up my ass like this. Go ahead and tell me things like “Look, the product is crap – you should upgrade to the new access point. It will work for you”, but don’t tell me that changing the ESSID will boost the fucking signal.

3) try upgrading the firmware. I said, “I’m already running the latest firmware”. He said, “upgrade it anyway – sometimes it fixes things”.

Ok, I’m certainly not going to change the ESSID. This is a non-trivial event because all my clients have it hard-coded, and I’m not going around to 20 machines and making the change.

But you know what – I will try changing the channel and the re-flashing the firmware – while I wait for my new Proxim AP-2000s to arrive.

Wed Aug 13 14:09:54 PDT 2003

One of the people here at work dropped his laptop yesterday. I went to Dell’s website to see if I could figure out how to send it for repair.

While there, I noticed a tab on the left side of the page that said, “Manage my systems”. Clicking on it, I noticed it seemed like I could enter all my service tags and then it would
be easier to lookup updates, etc.

In terms of the dropped laptop, I eventually gave up trying to find the information on the website and phoned up the Gold support line. Dell gets an A+ for this one because they actually told me on the phone that the repair of the laptop is covered under warranty – even though I asked them for their billable repairs department. So thats all worked out, but now back to the website
issue.

I start entering service tags and descriptions. I finally get to number 16, and it says, “Error, you can’t add any more service tags”. What the heck? I have about 25 dell systems that I manage, and the service is useless if I can’t add them all. So, I send a message to the webmaster using a link at the bottom of the page.

Very blatantly, it says on the page, “This is NOT a technical support email. This should only be used for website issues”. So, I fill in the question, “I want to add a bunch of service tags to the “manage my system tab”, but it only lets me add 15. Why is that, and can I increase it somehow?”

I get back a response which is just stupid:

Thank you for contacting Dell US eSupport. An artificial intelligence tool designed to interpret your message and respond quickly will conduct this first reply to your message.

….. snip – some stuff deleted ……..

1. I want to upgrade my system’s memory, what do I need to order?
2. How do I install my memory upgrade?
3. I’m curious, SIMM, DIMM, RIMM – what does all of this technical stuff mean?

It then provided the answers to these questions…..
I just don’t understand it – They KNOW its not a technical support question because I sent it to the webmaster. Why provide me with answers to technical support questions?

At least it did say I could respond to this email if the answers didn’t fit my question. I’ve done that. Lets see if the actual human is more helpful.

November, 2004

Although I live in California, I own a house in Canada which I rent out. Scotiabank handles the mortgage on this property and I have a chequing account with them for this reason.

About 6 months ago I wanted to pull the equity out of my house up there (its currently a rental), and purchase another rental property. This was driven by the fact that I don’t have enough interest and expenses to offset the income and I really don’t want to pay Canadian income tax.

So, I email my rep and get the ball rolling. She says its no problem and she gives me the costs associated with the thing. $400 for an appraisal, then they will let me take out up to 75% of the value as a kind of line of credit which I could use to put a down payment on the new property.

I tell her to go ahead with this. 3 days later she calls me back. She says that they don’t normally loan money to people with addresses outside of Canada, but since I’m such a good customer, they will let me pull out up to 50% of the value of the house, but if I purchase another rental property, they will only give me a mortgage if I put 50% down on the property. Well, it didn’t take me long to do the math on this one – it just won’t work. I told her that I didn’t think this policy made any sense, but I just decided it wasn’t worth making a fuss about.

Last week I noticed that I no longer seemed to get any interest in my chequing account. I asked them about it and they mentioned that the chequing account no longer earns interest, but that I should open a money master savings account. Ok, so I go down to the branch while I was in Canada for vacation and ask about it.
“You’ll need to make an appointment for some time next week”, the receptionist says. “Um, I won’t be here next week”, I say…. “Can I do this over the net?”. She says, “Sure, over the net or by phone will work”.

So I call them on the phone and open the account. “I’d like to automatically sweep anything over $2000 from the chequing account into the savings account each month”, I say. The guy on the phone says, “Sure, how much do you want to transfer each month?” I say, “I don’t know. Just whatever is greater than $2000 in the account”. He says, “Ok, I’ll transfer $2000 per month into the new account.”. I said, “No, just whatever is greater than $2000…”. We finally get it worked out and he says, “Um, we can’t do that. We can
only transfer a certain amount of money each month”.

I give up – I tell him that I’ll just do it manually. He says, Ok, it will take 72 hours to setup the account (it will be visible via the Internet) and another 4 days before I can actually transfer money into or out of the account.

I get a call today and he says that he is sorry, but they can’t open the account because I have a US address. The account has to be a foreign account with tax withholding. “Ok”, I say, “make it one of those accounts”. He says, “you’ll have to go into the branch to do that”. I try to explain that I can’t just pop-in to the branch at lunch time because I’m 2500 miles away, but this seems lost to him.

I explained to him that he is really making it hard for me to continue dealing with Scotiabank. They just can’t seem to deal well with people who don’t have a Canadian address.

Wed Oct 29 08:03:28 PST 2003
I needed an architecture independent method of installing Collation’s Confignia product, so after reading a bunch of reviews, I decided on Zero G’s InstallAnywhere software.

Of course, it makes sense to evaluate the product before buying, so I tried to download the trial edition.

So, I go to their site to download the product. There are 3 products to choose from, and I finally found a comparison sheet. I’ve decided that we need the enterprise edition – its $2995. So I click on the download and it sends me to a registration form. I fill out the registration form and click submit and it gives me a tomcat error. So I click back and submit again, and this time it says it works.

Yesterday, I get the email (shown below) and click on the link to download the product and I get connection refused. I decide to just wait until today and try again. Today, it doesn’t give me connection refused, it just sends me back to the main zerog.com page after a short delay – NICE!

I figure, ok, its time to ask them for some support, so I click on the link to get support and it takes me to a form that I can fill in. I fill in all the parts and click submit, and (you guessed it) jserv error.

Technology just doesn’t work.