Trouble in Vacuum Cleaner Paradise

Ann spent most of Wednesday cleaning up after Christmas.  Taking off the ornaments and tinsel to have a nice clean house before the New Year starts.  I managed to do the heavy lifting putting the tree away until next year and packed up all the boxes in the garage.

She topped off the cleaning with a nice sweeping of the carpet to give it a nice fresh look.  She’s been using the Oreck because it seems to do a good job at cleaning up after our dachshunds and her preferred Dyson 17 was full and I couldn’t empty the canister since our garbage cans were full of the usual after Christmas stuffing’s.

I told her I would give the Dyson a good overall and cleaning to bring it back to new, but I’ve been too busying at work to get to the chore.  But a spider was spying on me in my home office and I needed the Dyson with the wand to suck up the little sucker.

The spider pretty big , but it just didn’t want to come out of the corner.  The wand had no oomph to it.  Eventually I got it and emptied the canister for my wife.   The suction was really weak so I dislogded as much as possible to get the fluffy stuff out plus all the 1/8th inch wide paper shreds I vacuumed up last week when I cleaned the paper shredder.

I thought I got it all but when I extended the wand out to full length the motor on the dyson seized requiring me to take the stupid thing apart.   After watching a few videos on how to unclog your dyson, I got the lower tube off and unclogged the remaining paper shreds along with a Sharpie I sucked up about a year ago.

The shapie still works btw.

My wife is nice and happy now since she likes the dyson over the oreck because it is easier to push.  I liek the oreck over the dyson because, I think it cleans better.

 

 

Hungry for a Spot Burger

It’s been a long time since I’ve eaten at The Spot in Carpinteria.  But I can tell you that they make one of  California’s best burgers.   Layers of lettuce and tomato make thicken the juicy burger where it is nearly impossible to open your mouth wide enough to eat.

Top that off with onion rings and you’re all set for an  incredible meal.

I personally like the double w/ cheese, but my wife likes the plain old hamburger.  I figure since we only get to eat there once every few years, I might as well get the most out of it.

Most people agree with me:

that it is great place to eat.

Their quality seemed to suffer a little when the original owners of about 30 years sold the burger joint, but that is no longer true and the quality is good as ever.

Be prepared to wait since they cook your meal to order.  Plus ask for the burger “well done” since it only adds to the flavor.

Besides burgers, they have a selection of Mexican entrees.  Taquitos is one of my favs, but the tamales are also good.

Adobe moving platforms to the cloud

Until Adobe resolves latency issues with their real time and graphic intensive programs, I doubt that designers will adopt the SaaS model.

Amplify’d from visibilityondemand.wordpress.com

According to this story in the SF Chronicle, by 2015, the company says half its revenue will come from subscriptions – representing 800,000 users. Over time, the company expects 100 percent of revenues from its digital media division to come from subscriptions.

This is also shows how rich cloud application functionality has become. Adobe products are highly advanced, expert level software tools that you would think would be almost out of reach for cloud because of basic functionality and responsiveness limitations. While it appears they have a collaboration component to their vision (which is very much cloud), they want to move away from boxes to services. Adobe wants the recurring revenue, will the design community want the monthly fees? Should be interesting to watch. Read more at visibilityondemand.wordpress.com

 

See this Amp at http://bit.ly/ryTpad

Broadcom FCoE

What competitor offers 10GbE with 1.36M IOPS? Perhaps CISCO?

Amplify’d from www.marketwatch.com

World’s Fastest Converged Network Adapters from Broadcom Earn FCoE NetApp Ethernet Advantage Validation

World’s fastest FCoE performance – 80 percent faster than nearest competitor(1)

“Server virtualization, cloud computing, and the need to contain costs and complexity are all major factors driving the need for 10GbE converged network adapters (CNAs). Broadcom is meeting that demand with the world’s fastest CNAs and is proud that its fully offloaded FCoE solutions have earned NetApp’s certification. Read more at www.marketwatch.com

 

See this Amp at http://bit.ly/rpzipq

2011 Candlelight Processional

This year our church wasn’t selected to participate in Disney’s 2011 Candlelight Processional, but there is a good chance that my wife and I are going to be in the center of Main Street singing along with the other choirs.

Main Street: Disney Candlelight Processional

I took this photo on Sunday the day after we sang in the 2009 Processional. The best place is right there if you can get a ticket for a seat, but you want to stay on stage right so trees don’t block your view.

How to solve xinetd rsync problems

Yesterday was a very perplexing day trying.  Perhaps a complete waste of time setting up my ReadyNAS Duo backup jobs to rsync files from my vmware Ubuntu directly to the NAS.  Never mind that I already was running backups to the ReadyNAS using simple backup.  But no, I had to try it the hard way, I had to learn how to solve xinetd rsync problems.

I use vmware to experiment prior to going live and of course the whole point of rsyncd was to backup my Dachshund website and the multisite blogs that are living in the Rackspace cloud.  Get it to work here and apply it to the cloud server.  In theory, that should have be five minutes worth of work:

1. Configure the /etc/rsyncd.conf file
2. Configure the /etc/rsyncd.secrets file
3. Add a /etc/xinetd.d/rsync service
4. Restart xinetd

A simple test from bash: rsync me@localhost::share and it works just fine.

Next I configure the backup job from the ReadyNAS admin:

ReadyNAS backup job configuration to rsync a remote server

Press the “Test Connection” and the connection hangs.

So I double check the files and everything looks good to go.  Try it again and still no good.

Now it’s time to add a log file by simply inserting “log file = /var/log/rsyncd.log” into /etc/rsyncd.conf.  Restarted the xinetd process then retest locally.  The log file shows:

2011/07/26 21:10:14 [24820] connect from localhost (::1)
2011/07/27 04:10:26 [24820] rsync on share/ from hyoung@localhost (::1)
2011/07/27 04:10:26 [24820] building file list
2011/07/27 04:10:26 [24820] sent 138 bytes  received 58 bytes  total size 0
2011/07/26 21:13:18 [24884] connect from localhost (::1)
2011/07/26 21:13:20 [24884] auth failed on module share from localhost (::1): password mismatch

Try it again from ReadyNAS.  Nothing.

Okay, I skip xinetd altogether and run rsync as a daemon.  Local test okay, ReadyNAS fail.  Spend a half a day trying to see if anyone else had this problem and apparently not.   Perhaps you have?

The whole point of the exercise was to get an automated backup of website -> ReadyNAS.  So you can also use FTP to run as the backup job protocol.  I got this to work on the first try.

After wasting my afternoon not getting this to work, I install the same configuration files onto the Cloud server.   Run rsync –daemon and test the connection from ReadyNAS.  What do you know, it works!  It’s gotta be something blocking the connection to the guest OS.  I’ll let you know once I figured out how to solve xinetd rsync problems.

Dachshunds are more fun than a barrel of Monkeys

What’s more fun than playing with your Dachshunds? Moving their site to the cloud; and, for even more fun than a barrel of monkeys, configure WordPress as a multisite.

Screen Clip of 3doxies.com running on WordPress 3.2.1 multsite Configuration

Last weekend I installed 3.2 on a Rackspace Cloud server and started moving my sites over from multiple shared hosting accounts. With careful planing, I assumed things should not take to long nor break too bad. So far what I learned:

Start from scratch. Go buy a domain or use one in your inventory that is sitting around. I used something like my-media-network.net. This will give you a single management tool for your blog network.

If you’re planning to update from shared hosting, now is the time to do it. Use vps.net or Rackspace cloud servers. They run $10 – $50 per month but well worth price. My personal experience is with Rackspace and my clouds have been raining 24/7 for over 700 days now.

1. Configure your multisite using subdomains. You may not be able to do that unless you have access to the Apache virtual host configuration files. I have root access to the VPS, so it isn’t an issue. Otherwise, use sub-directories for the configuration.
2. Don’t be afraid to reinstall over and over if you don’t like the configuration or if it’s not working. Simply use phpMyAdmin to delete the tables from the database.
3. Install the plugins. Many of your plugins will not work on a multisite. Below are the basic plugins that appear to install and play together:
• Keyword Strategy link generator plugin Version 1.8.1
• WordPress MU Domain Mapping Version 0.5.4
• WordPress SEO Version 0.4.2 | By Joost de Valk (Sorry, All in One SEO isn’t multisite friendly)
• WP Super Cache Version 0.9.9.9
• XML Sitemap Feed Version 3.9.1 (I may use WordPress SEO 0.4.2 instead of this)
4. Copy your themes over and test them using my-media-network.net. Add some dummy posts to see if they work.
5. Start creating subdomain sites.
   •   Update the permalinks so they are the same as the old one.
   •   Export your posts from the old blog.
   •   Import your posts to the new blog.
   •   Test.
6. On a side note, I noticed that I lost categories on one import, so I’m not sure if I did something wrong or if it is a bug.
7. After you’re happy with the subdomain version, configure the domain mapping then update the DNS records.
8. It’s a simple but tedious process going to multisite, but with 10 or more blogs, it is worth the investment to go that way.

Council gets behind new sign design

Interesting local politics where the local car dealers at the auto mall want to replace the existing signage with a new Vegas type flashy full-color LED display. The current sign only displays the time and temperature when you drive by.

Council gets behind new sign design.

Disneyland Candlelight Processional 2010 (VIDEOS)

Many thanks to 3catower to recording the Saturday December 5 8:00 PM Candlelight presentation. With rain predicted on Sunday, we decided to skip Candlelight.  It was raining in Ventura Co. and from the radar map, it looked like it was raining during both the at the 5:30 and 8:00 shows.

Pre-show

Begins Tom Skerrit reading Lk 2:8-12, followed by “He is born”. Next reading is Lk 2:13-14, and then “Angels We Have Heard on High”. 3rd reading is Lk 2:15-17 and “What Child is This”

Reading from Matt. 2:1-8, “We Three Kings”, Reading Matt. 2:9-11, “Sing Noel”, “Joy to the World”

“Silent Night”
Noche de paz, noche de amor,
Todo duerme en derredor.
Entre sus astros que esparcen su luz
Bella anunciando al niñito Jesús.
Brilla la estrella de paz,
Brilla la estrella de paz.
Then in English with the audience.
“One Solitary LIfe” based on writing of James Allan Francis, 1926 read by Tom Skeritt. Followed by variation of “Oh Come All Ye Faithful”

Reading Isaiah 9:6 followed by “Hallelujah Chorus” from Handel’s “Messiah”. We all stand when this number begins. Then Thank you’s and closing remarks by Tom Skerrit.

Surprise, Surprise, Surprise

I was a total GP (Gomer Pyle)  last night or 2 AM this morning, and I can only imagine what my wife was thinking if she woke up to see me standing in front of our TV singing Hallelujah Chorus.   She probably thought she was married to a nut-job who walks and sings in his sleep.   All I can say is that she should be glad that I was singing in ppp instead of FF.

For what ever reason — and I don’t believe in coincidences — she left the TV on tuned onto a PBS station that was playing G.F. Handel’s Messiah.  No picture, just audio.  I awoke to For unto us a child is born.

In Disney’s Candlelight, the narrator gives a wonderful speech and includes part of the text from For unto us a child is born.  Of course, in the Messiah, the Hallelujah Chorus follows and of course I just had to sing my part in Tenor.

So what does this mean. Probably nothing, but when I visited my favorite conspiracy site, there was a pleasant surprise to the normal gloom and doom.

Hallelujah Chorus in Macy’s