February 2004 Archives

I know these things are totally random, but imagine getting this fortune as you are contemplating a new venture like I am.

To replace all occurances of "shtml" with "php" inside of all of the *.php files in a directory. $ perl -pi.bak -e 's/shtml/php/' *.php See: hacks.oreilly.com: Global Search and Replace with Perl for more examples.

See: Sistani demands UN guarantee on polls

NAJAF: Iraq's leading Shi'ite cleric demanded yesterday a UN guarantee that elections would be held this year, as the world body ruled out returning to Iraq soon because of security concerns. In a statement released in Najaf, Ayatollah Ali Sistani, the revered Shi'ite spiritual leader, accepted that polls could not be held by July, but said he wanted a UN Security Council resolution to set a firm date.

This really pisses me off. 1) If it wasn't for the US if this guy had even thought something like this in Iraq Saddam's thought police would have taken him in the night and tortured him to death. 2) Demanding a resolution from the UN for elections... because the UN was the force behind the ousting of Saddam in the first place... NOT! 3) Sit down and shut up. Regardless of if the War in Iraq was/is the right thing to do. I am so sick and tired of this anti US bullshit. We aren't the evil empire so get over it already.

For every real comment that I have on this site, there seem to be more than a dozen that are blog spam. Simple problem, simple solution... No more open comments. If you have a response, want more information, or just would like to say hi, send me an email. max <at> clarksys <dot> com

Every single time I rack mount, or for that matter do any work on a rack mount sun server I walk away bleeding. It's insane. Gary and I used to joke about how we litteraly built this site in our blood. If you look under the raised floor you can still find our blood stains. One time I gouged my finger so bad that I couldn't hand scan into Exodus. In retrospect I probably should have gone to the ER.

To see the 10 largest files on a directory or partition, use # du /partition_or_directory_name | sort -rn | head    -- Dru genesis [at] istar [dot] ca From the FreeBSD fortune file.

# cd /oldir # tar cf - . | (cd /newdir ; tar xf -) This is the best way to totally preserve a copy of a directory tree between the current directory and /newdir

Receptionists should be the highest paid employee at every company on the planet. Not only that but the should be smart.

Why?

Think about it, if someone wants to call your company who do they talk to first? If someone wants more information on a product, or wants to talk to a sales person who do they speak to first?

Why is it that companies hire the dumbest person they can find to be their receptionist. I must have spent 15 minutes today trying to give this one company my business, after unsuccessfully being transferred to a sales person several times, and then calling back, I finally gave up. Oh well, I guess they are doing so well financially that they don’t need my business.

My next stop gap business card. Not bad for a non designer.

I bought a Tux this weekend. :) No you don't get a better picture of it, you have to wait to see me at our wedding.

What's the line from American Beauty?

What's that in the driveway? That is a Pontiac Firebird. I have always wanted one, and now it is mine. I rule!

I wanted a Handspring Treo 600 and now I have one. I rule!

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration said Thursday that during the past month and a half, the total number of visits to its home page, which hosted images and video feeds from the two recent rover landings on Mars, was greater than the total population of humans on Earth. NASA said its home page received 6.53 billion hits--the number of times someone pulls up a Web site--surpassing Earth's population of 6.3 billion people. The visitor numbers cover the period from Jan. 4, when the first rover, Spirit, landed, through Thursday.

For the full story: NASA: 6.5 billion served on the Web This is incredible, let me put some perspective on this. January 4th, through the 19th of Febuary is 46 days. This works out to: 141,304,347.826 million hits a day 5,887,681.159 million hits an hour 98,128.019 thousand hits a minute 1,635.447 thousand hits a second That is a lot of traffic.

Like this is a suprise to anyone living in Los Angeles.

The interchange of Ventura Freeway US-101 and Interstate 405 ranked as America's worst highway bottleneck, according to a report issued Thursday by the American Highway Users Alliance, a Washington, D.C., lobbying group that presses Congress for more money for highway construction.

Read the full story: L.A. freeways top list of worst bottlenecks

These tips and tricks detail the command syntax necessary to test common services using a telnet client. Network and System administrators can attest to how invaluable these types of tests can be when troubleshooting a system.

I have just released version 0.1 of mrtgsql. You can download it from Creative Thought’s web site.

mrtgsql - a MRTG to SQL logging and reporting tool for MRTG

Copyright (c) 2004 Max Clark <max@cthought.com> and Creative Thought Inc.

mrtgsql is composed of two programs: mrtgsql which inserts data from the MRTG .log files into a database, and mrtgreport which reports usage on the interfaces in total GB and the 95th percentile.

Feedback and comments are welcome.

Creative Thought - Free Software

Rick Dees, the host of KIIS FM's morning show has been ousted, due to poor ratings. Rumors have been circulating over this for a while now given the lackluster ratings of the show. See Air: Rick Dees Says Farewell To Morning Show

Dees said "it's been decided" that he will no longer be hosting the popular show that he's helmed since 1982. Dees had been in contract renegotiations with the station. ... Television stations in Los Angeles have reported that "American Idol" host Ryan Seacrest is being wooed to replace Dees.

My current cell phone (Motorola V60c) has been on its last leg for quite some time now, and I really do need to replace it. Only for some reason I cannot seem to bring myself to spend the couple hundred dollars to buy a new one. It has just turned into one of those �things� if you know what I mean. Meanwhile over the same period of time I have been needing to buy a new PDA. Christina is using my old Handspring which given the fact that I don�t particularly want to carry one worked out fine for me. I could buy a decent Palm for $199, but for some reason it is just one of those �things� for me, and I can�t bring myself to it. Last night Christina and I went out to the Century City mall to spend some time out of the house together. We went to Tiffany�s to look at wedding rings, we went to this great watch store that carries Patek Philippe, and Jaeger LeCoultre (two of my favorites for when I can afford to spend $100K for my wrist). And we also went to the Palm Pilot store so I could look at my options. [While I am on the subject I will digress for a minute. The Internet is a powerful thing with ecommerce a company can reach every person on the globe. But when it comes to a consumer shopping for something that they do not know a lot about, holding a thing in your hand is the ultimate shopping tool. Ecommerce companies know this, look at how Apple, Gateway, and Dell are scrambling to create actual storefronts. Anyways�] There is a PDA that I want more than I could imagine. Actually it is a Handspring Treo 600 phone. It�s sleek, it�s sexy, and it�s a phone and a PDA built into one compact package. It kills two birds with one stone. It�s perfect� except it is not available on the Verizon network. And there is my dilemma. Consumer reports reciently did a report on Cell Phone carriers and coverage. In a nutshell it said that if you are looking for new cell phone service you should use Verizon, and that the GSM networks that are still being built out have the expected dead zones of coverage. Something I wasn�t too surprised to hear given my personal experience switching from Verizon to Nextel for my then employer, to AT&T to AT&T GSM, and back to Verizon. Friends and co-workers of mine with AT&T/Cingular GSM have a whole slew of problems, and most have switched over to Verizon. So here is the question. Do the features, functionality, and coolness of the phone outweigh the loss/lack of cell phone coverage that I will end up with? How does one truly make this decision?

There is an email going arround that identifies itself from "service@paypal.com" asking you to verify your information. DO NOT FOLLOW THIS LINK, OR ENTER ANY INFORMATION! The link "http://210.187.122.110/Verify.htm" is run off a site in Malaysa. These scams are becomming more and more common, unwitting people that fall for them are subjected to identity theft and credit card fraud.

According to ABC news:

In an internal memorandum distributed on Wednesday, the department declared "Courier New 12" - the font and size decreed for US diplomatic documents for years - to be obsolete and unacceptable after February 1. "In response to many requests and with a view to making our written work easier to read, we are moving to a new standard font: 'Times New Roman 14'," said the memorandum.'