Tom's Insights - Week of 2/11/02

Week of February 11th, 2002

Most Recent : Sunday February 17, 2002
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Sunday February 17, 2001

Yet another stunning day. The temp's a lofty 6º C, the sun's shinning, the show's melting... I could learn to like it here ;-).

I guess this is later. I did intend to return last night, but I got all caught up in cooking up some pork and rice filled filo pastry thingies. Man were they good. Sometimes I truly amaze myself. Just one little tiny problem has reared its ugly head, however. Everyone loved them, and wants me to make them again some day. The problem is I don't know what I added. I cook like that sometime -- Hmmm. A little of this, let's try some of this, add a dash of that... But therein lies the problem. When you come up with something really good, like I did last night, I can't repeat it. Bother.

Tonight I'm going to try something really unique: turkey breast stuffed oyster and spinach and corn bread stuffing, served up with a garlic and red wine sauce. I'll let you know. This one's from a recipe, so if it's good I can at least repeat it.

Samba 3.0-alpha15 continues to run like a top. It's hard to believe the code base is still considered alpha. Note to self: I need to find another machine to set up as a Win2K server so I can test the AD and replication functions.

Somebody asked me the other day how to convert C to F. Here's a little trick I often use: double it, and add 32. So 6º C would be about 42º F.

And lastly (at least for now), before I forget, a couple links I was going to post yesterday:

Here's a cool HOWTO on tunnelling NFS over OpenSSH. Who said NFS can't be used securely.

I stumbled on this one the other day when randomly following links. It's an good 5 minute, quick and dirty HOWTO on configuring Samba.

And speaking of HOWTOs and tutorials, here's a great source to bookmark for anyone new to the world of Linux.

Cheers. And have a peaceful Sunday.

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Saturday February 16, 2001

I've been a' burning up the processors around here this morning. I grabbed the latest Samba HEAD branch (aka v 3.0 alpha 15) via CVS and "gcc'd" it into working form. I'm impressed. No errors, lots of new functionality (AD support looks close to being complete, and SAM replication is well-along the development path), and so far, it appears remarkably stable for an alpha release. I also compiled up a new kernel: linux-2.4.18-rc1. It too compiled without protest or incident, and is humming along as advertised (I was running 2.4.9-10 up until this morning; all this on Phoenix my current PDC for SYROIDMANOR).

The weather remains glorious. It's about +5 or 6 C today, and once again the streets are running with melting snow. Of course, no one in 'Toon Town expects this to last forever, but it sure is nice to have a break from the cold. Shortens the long winter months dramatically.

I'm off to dig up a few URLs I wanted to post; back shortly.

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Friday February 15, 2001

Remarkable. Absolutely remarkable. Sometime in the last two weeks the weather changed, and I didn't even notice until today. There's water running in the streets, grass peaking out from the edges of our sidewalk, I went for a walk today wearing a short sleeve t-shirt, it feels like spring, and it's the middle of February. Somehow all these remarks don't belong in the same sentence.

I do apologize for not posting sooner. I've had my writer's cap on all week. Actually, I've had my writer's cap pulled down tight to the exclusion of all else for about 10 days now. Happens now and then, especially when I get into that wordsmithing "groove". 8,000 words in two days. Heh. And it just all flowed out. Love it when that happens. Anywho, it's finished and submitted. "It" is a tutorial for IBM on building/configuring Samba as a PDC. I'll post the link when it goes live. Depending on the amount of material they've got on the go, and how bad they want some new content, it could be anywhere from a month to three before it goes up.

Speaking of remarkable... I watched Titanic today for about the 20th time. What an amazing movie. Great love story. Excellent special effects. The wardrobe is perfect. If you haven't yet -- do so. I can't decide which I'd nominate for my all-time favorite flick. It's between Sound of Music, Bicentennial Man, and Titanic. Guess it's OK to have three favorites, eh?

I'll try to drop back later tonight after I get some server maintenance done. I've got to upgrade SSH (to 2.9.9p2-5) and CommuniGate (to 3.5.5)

Congratulations to Sale and Pelletier. Always nice to see people get their just rewards.

-oOo-

Done. All my key programs are up to date. I made an 'oops' in reporting my old OpenSSH version #. I was at 3.0.1p2; I updated to 3.0.2p1. I also compiled up the latest rsync source (2.5.2). Everything's humming along; Hydras is a happy computer.

Happy belated Valentine's day to all. I did up a fresh whole spring salmon for Leah last night. I started with a vegetable base (carrots, onions, celery, garlic, cooked in olive oil), then tranfered it to the bottom of a roasting pan along with a bunch of fresh spinach. I then put the roaster on an element and added a bunch of Merlot red wine, and let it simmer for about an hour. I then laid the fish on top of the vegetable/spinach/wine bed and tossed it in the oven for 20 minutes. I served the fish on a bed of Basmati rice. With fresh green beans on the side. Yep. Pretty yummy. Be good. Later.

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