Posts on kenops

How I’m Winning with Windows 11 (without the nags)

Sun, 05 Oct 2025 21:51:42 +0000

Windows 11 is ideal for multifunctional use - Office, Games, WSL, HW Options Kazoo - but the built-in defaults slow me down and get sooo annoying. These tweaks make it fast, clean, and predictable:

Windhawk mods for the stuff Microsoft won’t expose:
Taskbar Clock Customization (rich clock/date formats example: %date%, %time% ?%upload_speed% and %weather% ?%cpu% ?%ram% ?%download_speed% Better File Sizes in Explorer (human-readable sizes), and Taskbar Icon Spacing/Size (tight or roomy as you like). Windhawk
Everything + Everything Toolbar for instant file search from the taskbar/start area. Windows Search sleeps; Everything sprints. Voidtools
Start11 to restore a sane Start Menu—and wire it to Everything so Start menu searches are local, fast, and ad-free. Stardock
AutoHotkey to supercharge virtual desktops:
ALT+1..9 jumps to a desktop; SHIFT+ALT+1..9 moves the focused window there. It’s a perfect “almost-tiling” workflow without the rigidity of a tiling WM. My keymaps live here: https://github.com/ske5074/windows-desktop-switcher . AutoHotkey (Be sure to use the 1.x version of AutoHotKey) - Update! Another project that’s close to the same - almost! https://github.com/dankrusi/WindowsVirtualDesktopHelper
Twinkle Tray for one-click monitor brightness (and quick volume), right from the tray—especially handy with multi-monitor setups. Twinkle Tray
Kate a super lightweight editor that is GIT aware but not intrusive or annoying or requiring 8GB of ram to run!
Kagi A pay for search engine that has NO ADS. You pay a small fee for use, and that’s how they survive. No Ads, no search shaping for sponsors, none of that BS
Filelight Provides a way to see where your storage consumption is on your drives. My new go after using windirstat for years.

Net result: a quiet, fast Windows 11 desktop that works the way I do—no Edge promos, no Start menu fluff, and muscle-memory moves between clean, purpose-built desktops.

Upgrade Proxmox ZFS boot drive with mirroring

Sun, 06 Apr 2025 19:05:38 +0000

From https://pve.proxmox.com/pve-docs/chapter-sysadmin.html#chapter_zfs

# zpool status
pool: rpool
state: ONLINE
scan: resilvered 9.32M in 00:00:00 with 0 errors on Thu Apr 3 23:20:51 2025
config:
NAME STATE READ WRITE CKSUM
rpool ONLINE 0 0 0
nvme-eui.0025388581b66796-part3 ONLINE 0 0 0

# lsblk
NAME MAJ:MIN RM SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINTS
sda 8:0 0 1.8T 0 disk
--sda1 8:1 0 1.8T 0 part
zd16 230:16 0 32G 0 disk
--zd16p1 230:17 0 100M 0 part
--zd16p2 230:18 0 892M 0 part
--zd16p3 230:19 0 31G 0 part
zd32 230:32 0 10G 0 disk
--zd32p1 230:33 0 9.5G 0 part
--zd32p2 230:34 0 1K 0 part
--zd32p5 230:37 0 510M 0 part
nvme0n1 259:0 0 476.9G 0 disk
--nvme0n1p1 259:1 0 1007K 0 part
--nvme0n1p2 259:2 0 1G 0 part
--nvme0n1p3 259:3 0 475.9G 0 part

Duplicate the partition tables on the new drive (/dev/sda)

# sgdisk /dev/nvme0n1 -R /dev/sda

change the GUID so they are not the same

# sgdisk -G /dev/sda

Use parted to fdisk to expand partition 3 into the full capacity of the new disk

# fdisk /dev/sda
Welcome to fdisk (util-linux 2.38.1).
Changes will remain in memory only, until you decide to write them.
Be careful before using the write command.
Command (m for help): p
Disk /dev/sda: 1.82 TiB, 2000398934016 bytes, 3907029168 sectors
Disk model: SSD
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: gpt
Disk identifier: 126F0F8E-624E-4F4D-8CD4-89F8B2EDE74A
Device Start End Sectors Size Type
/dev/sda1 34 2047 2014 1007K BIOS boot
/dev/sda2 2048 2099199 2097152 1G EFI System
/dev/sda3 2099200 1000215182 998115983 475.9G Solaris /usr & Apple ZFS
Command (m for help): d
Partition number (1-3, default 3): 3
Partition 3 has been deleted.
Command (m for help): n
Partition number (3-128, default 3): 3
First sector (2099200-3907029134, default 2099200):
Last sector, +/-sectors or +/-size{K,M,G,T,P} (2099200-3907029134, default 3907028991):
Created a new partition 3 of type 'Linux filesystem' and of size 1.8 TiB.
Command (m for help): p
Disk /dev/sda: 1.82 TiB, 2000398934016 bytes, 3907029168 sectors
Disk model: SSD
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: gpt
Disk identifier: 126F0F8E-624E-4F4D-8CD4-89F8B2EDE74A
Device Start End Sectors Size Type
/dev/sda1 34 2047 2014 1007K BIOS boot
/dev/sda2 2048 2099199 2097152 1G EFI System
/dev/sda3 2099200 3907028991 3904929792 1.8T Linux filesystem
Command (m for help):

Change the label back to “Solaris /usr & Apple ZFS”

Command (m for help): t
Partition number (1-3, default 3): 3
Partition type or alias (type L to list all): 157
Changed type of partition 'Linux filesystem' to 'Solaris /usr & Apple ZFS'.
Command (m for help): p
Disk /dev/sda: 1.82 TiB, 2000398934016 bytes, 3907029168 sectors
Disk model: SSD
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: gpt
Disk identifier: 126F0F8E-624E-4F4D-8CD4-89F8B2EDE74A
Device Start End Sectors Size Type
/dev/sda1 34 2047 2014 1007K BIOS boot
/dev/sda2 2048 2099199 2097152 1G EFI System
/dev/sda3 2099200 3907028991 3904929792 1.8T Solaris /usr & Apple ZFS
Command (m for help): w
The partition table has been altered.
Calling ioctl() to re-read partition table.
Syncing disks.

Check what type of boot partition you have (Grub / EUFI)

# proxmox-boot-tool status
Re-executing '/usr/sbin/proxmox-boot-tool' in new private mount namespace..
System currently booted with uefi
F0A5-6343 is configured with: uefi (versions: 6.8.12-4-pve, 6.8.12-9-pve)

Copy boot partition detail to the new disk

# proxmox-boot-tool format /dev/sda2
UUID="" SIZE="1073741824" FSTYPE="" PARTTYPE="c12a7328-f81f-11d2-ba4b-00a0c93ec93b" PKNAME="sda" MOUNTPOINT=""
Formatting '/dev/sda2' as vfat..
mkfs.fat 4.2 (2021-01-31)
Done.
# proxmox-boot-tool init /dev/sda2
Re-executing '/usr/sbin/proxmox-boot-tool' in new private mount namespace..
UUID="F84D-06C6" SIZE="1073741824" FSTYPE="vfat" PARTTYPE="c12a7328-f81f-11d2-ba4b-00a0c93ec93b" PKNAME="sda" MOUNTPOINT=""
Mounting '/dev/sda2' on '/var/tmp/espmounts/F84D-06C6'.
Installing systemd-boot..
Created "/var/tmp/espmounts/F84D-06C6/EFI/systemd".
Created "/var/tmp/espmounts/F84D-06C6/EFI/BOOT".
Created "/var/tmp/espmounts/F84D-06C6/loader".
Created "/var/tmp/espmounts/F84D-06C6/loader/entries".
Created "/var/tmp/espmounts/F84D-06C6/EFI/Linux".
Copied "/usr/lib/systemd/boot/efi/systemd-bootx64.efi" to "/var/tmp/espmounts/F84D-06C6/EFI/systemd/systemd-bootx64.efi".
Copied "/usr/lib/systemd/boot/efi/systemd-bootx64.efi" to "/var/tmp/espmounts/F84D-06C6/EFI/BOOT/BOOTX64.EFI".
Random seed file /var/tmp/espmounts/F84D-06C6/loader/random-seed successfully written (32 bytes).
Created EFI boot entry "Linux Boot Manager".
Configuring systemd-boot..
Unmounting '/dev/sda2'.
Adding '/dev/sda2' to list of synced ESPs..
Refreshing kernels and initrds..
Running hook script 'proxmox-auto-removal'..
Running hook script 'zz-proxmox-boot'..
Copying and configuring kernels on /dev/disk/by-uuid/F0A5-6343
Copying kernel and creating boot-entry for 6.8.12-4-pve
Copying kernel and creating boot-entry for 6.8.12-9-pve
Copying and configuring kernels on /dev/disk/by-uuid/F84D-06C6
Copying kernel and creating boot-entry for 6.8.12-4-pve
Copying kernel and creating boot-entry for 6.8.12-9-pve

Add the new disk to rpool as a mirror device. Important - you have to use partition 3, not the just the disk designation.

# zpool status
pool: rpool
state: ONLINE
scan: resilvered 9.32M in 00:00:00 with 0 errors on Thu Apr 3 23:20:51 2025
config:
NAME STATE READ WRITE CKSUM
rpool ONLINE 0 0 0
nvme-eui.0025388581b66796-part3 ONLINE 0 0 0
errors: No known data errors
# zpool attach rpool nvme-eui.0025388581b66796-part3 /dev/sda3
# zpool status
pool: rpool
state: ONLINE
status: One or more devices is currently being resilvered. The pool will
continue to function, possibly in a degraded state.
action: Wait for the resilver to complete.
scan: resilver in progress since Fri Apr 4 03:35:18 2025
378G / 378G scanned, 853M / 378G issued at 35.5M/s
841M resilvered, 0.22% done, 03:01:01 to go
config:
NAME STATE READ WRITE CKSUM
rpool ONLINE 0 0 0
mirror-0 ONLINE 0 0 0
nvme-eui.0025388581b66796-part3 ONLINE 0 0 0
sda3 ONLINE 0 0 0 (resilvering)
errors: No known data errors

# zpool status
pool: rpool
state: ONLINE
scan: resilvered 371G in 03:10:09 with 0 errors on Sat Apr 5 11:24:50 2025
config:
NAME STATE READ WRITE CKSUM
rpool ONLINE 0 0 0
mirror-0 ONLINE 0 0 0
nvme-eui.0025388581b65b82-part3 ONLINE 0 0 0
sda3 ONLINE 0 0 0

Once synced up, Power off and replace the old drive with the new drive. System should still boot if UEFI.

Once booted, you’ll have a degraded mirror, you can safely remove the old drive

# zpool status
pool: rpool
state: DEGRADED
status: One or more devices could not be used because the label is missing or
invalid. Sufficient replicas exist for the pool to continue
functioning in a degraded state.
action: Replace the device using 'zpool replace'.
see: https://openzfs.github.io/openzfs-docs/msg/ZFS-8000-4J
scan: resilvered 371G in 03:10:09 with 0 errors on Sat Apr 5 11:24:50 2025
config:
NAME STATE READ WRITE CKSUM
rpool DEGRADED 0 0 0
mirror-0 DEGRADED 0 0 0
14929228184534084580 UNAVAIL 0 0 0 was /dev/disk/by-id/nvme-eui.0025388581b65b82-part3
nvme0n1p3 ONLINE 0 0 0
errors: No known data errors
# zpool detach rpool 14929228184534084580
# zpool list
NAME SIZE ALLOC FREE CKPOINT EXPANDSZ FRAG CAP DEDUP HEALTH ALTROOT
rpool 472G 367G 105G - 1.35T 21% 77% 1.00x ONLINE -
If you expanded partition 3 to be larger, tell zfs that you want to expand into the available space.
# zpool set autoexpand=on rpool
# zpool online -e rpool nvme0n1p3
# zpool list
NAME SIZE ALLOC FREE CKPOINT EXPANDSZ FRAG CAP DEDUP HEALTH ALTROOT
rpool 1.82T 367G 1.46T - - 5% 19% 1.00x ONLINE -

Proxmox GPU Passthrough for LXC for Docker, for apps WebODM, immich

Sun, 30 Mar 2025 16:37:08 +0000

Proxmox GPU Passthrough for Docker using LXC to host WebODM with ClusterODM

References:

Remove Old NVIDIA Drivers

List existing NVIDIA or CUDA packages: apt list --installed | egrep -i "nvidia|cuda" | cut -d/ -f1
If drivers are listed, uninstall the current NVIDIA runfile driver: sudo ./NVIDIA-Linux-*.run --uninstall
Re-check installed packages: apt list --installed | egrep -i "nvidia|cuda" | cut -d/ -f1
If any packages remain, remove them: apt list --installed | egrep -i "nvidia|cuda" | cut -d/ -f1 | xargs apt remove -y

Setting Up GPU Passthrough on Proxmox Server

Install required packages: apt install pve-headers dkms pciutils

Using Fit-statUSB to provide visual server health in my homelab using proxmox

Mon, 17 Jun 2024 13:58:37 +0000

https://www.amazon.com/Compulab-FIT-STATUSB-fit-statUSB/dp/B07CKFLQ5V

#!/bin/bash
# Define color variables
BLUE="000011"
RED="010000"
YELLOW="050500"
GREEN="000100"
WHITE="111111"
OFF="000000"
DECAY="#FF0000"
# Initialize the serial port
usbreset fit_StatUSB
if [ $? -ne 0 ]; then
echo "Device not found. Aborting."
exit 1
fi
sleep 5
stty -F /dev/ttyACM0 9600 raw -echo -echoe -echok -echoctl -echoke
sleep 5
# Function to send a color command to Fit-statUSB
send_color() {
echo Sending: "B#${1}-250#000000-1000${DECAY}-9999"
echo -e "B#${1}-250#000000-1000${DECAY}-9999" > /dev/ttyACM0
sleep 1
}
echo -e "F0001" > /dev/ttyACM0; sleep 1 # Minimal Transition
echo -e "#${RED}" > /dev/ttyACM0; sleep 1 # Red
echo -e "#${GREEN}" > /dev/ttyACM0; sleep 1 # Green
echo -e "#${BLUE}" > /dev/ttyACM0; sleep 1 # Blue
echo -e "#${WHITE}" > /dev/ttyACM0; sleep 1 # White
echo -e "#${OFF}" > /dev/ttyACM0; sleep 1 # Off
while true; do
# Get processor idle time using vmstat
idle=$(vmstat 1 2 | tail -1 | awk '{print $15}')
# Get Proxmox health state
expected_votes=$(pvecm status | grep 'Expected votes:' | awk '{print $2}')
total_votes=$(pvecm status | grep 'Total votes:' | awk '{print $2}')
flags=$(pvecm status | grep 'Flags:' | awk '{print $2}')
if [ "$flags" != "Quorate" ]; then
proxmox_status="$RED"
elif [ "$expected_votes" != "$total_votes" ]; then
proxmox_status="$YELLOW"
else
proxmox_status="$GREEN"
fi
# Check network connectivity
if ping -c 1 8.8.8.8 &> /dev/null; then
network_status="$GREEN"
else
network_status="$RED"
fi
# Determine processor state color
if [ "$idle" -lt 10 ]; then
processor_status="$RED"
elif [ "$idle" -lt 20 ]; then
processor_status="$YELLOW"
else
processor_status="$GREEN"
fi
# Repeat the sequences 6 times before re-evaluating the system state
for i in {1..6}; do
# Create and send blink sequence with breaks
send_color "$BLUE" # Initial Blue indicating start of the dataset
send_color "$processor_status"
send_color "$proxmox_status"
send_color "$network_status"
done
done

Updated Homelab using M910Qs and P320s

Wed, 31 May 2023 13:01:03 +0000

Recently, I gave my homelab a fresh upgrade by adding Lenovo ThinkCentre M910Q Tiny systems and a few P320s equipped with Nvidia Quadro P600 video cards. These systems are compact yet powerful, documented to support up to 32GB of RAM each—but with a bit of tweaking, they can handle an impressive 64GB! They might not be the most powerful setups out there, but with their small form factor and affordability, they make fantastic little Proxmox machines, offering big potential in a small footprint. Used PC4-21300 2666MHz CL19 32GB SODIMMs for memory, with Intel Core I7 CPUs

Armbian custom builds for different SOCs, using docker

Sat, 08 Oct 2022 20:40:50 +0000

I’m impressed with how well Armbian works with SOCs. Since I couldn’t find a Raspberry Pi recently, I tried out a “LePotato” board, which has performed well overall. The main issue is the lack of a headless install option for Armbian. Without a FAT partition for /boot, configuring the OS on a PC or Mac before installation is challenging.

I attempted adding /boot to an existing image but struggled. Eventually, I found I could compile Armbian with a revised lepotato.conf file by adding BOOTFS_TYPE="fat". Typically, compiling OS builds requires specific hardware, compilers, libraries, etc., making it a hassle. However, Armbian’s DIY-focused approach made the process surprisingly easy. I even used Docker, so my main OS stayed clean—very cool indeed!

LePotato and NanoPi Neo Plus2 Goodness

Sat, 01 Oct 2022 14:20:10 +0000

Using DietPi to install current versions of Debian is fantastic! The little NanoPi, while missing 2 USB ports, boasts WiFi, Bluetooth, and 8Gb emmc!

Move OS to the NanoPi Neo Plus2 8GB emmc:

Get an Armbian Image for the NanoPi and boot it from the microSD. After initially configuring, run /sbin/nand-sata-install. Follow the prompts to copy the root filesystem to the emmc. Remove the SD card.

Installing DietPi to the 8GB eMMC flash on the NanoPi:

Booted into Armbian on the internal SD card and put The dietPi image in a USB to microSD dongle. The DietPi image was small, so I chose to create an fsarchiver image of it on the Armbian filesystem temporarily. This may or may not work for you if you don’t have enough space on the booted OS in the internal microSD card.

Octoprint container in Debian Windows WSL 2 and Docker Desktop

Sun, 11 Sep 2022 02:45:10 +0000

Here’s a list of steps to get octoprint to run within a container on Windows. I happen to have a windows system running next to my ender so instead of infinitely waiting for a raspberry pi I decided to run octoprint in a container within windows - if possible. Using Debian was a challenge, but I prefer it over Ubuntu, so I took the extra time to figure it out. Enjoy!

Docker volume backup and restore the easy way.

Mon, 29 Aug 2022 21:06:02 +0000

I haven’t had to move docker volumes around in a few years, but I finally had the need today. As usual, I searched for the process, knowing that most examples are… well… not very good. Well, as I almost resorted to pulling a manual job using ubuntu, I found a great write-up by Jarek Lipski on Medium. Here’s how you backup using alpine and tar. Also, make sure you “docker stop” the containers that use the volume, so you get a consistent backup.

Home Lab KVM with MeshCommander

Fri, 26 Aug 2022 22:45:11 +0000

No Homelab Remote KVM? Intel Chipset? No Problem with Intel’s Management Engine and MeshCommander!

Mesh Commander is an application that can communicate to the Intel Management Engine (IME) available on most systems using an intel chipset. Once IME is configured, Mesh Commander will provide an entry point into the system and can provide a whole range of options from power cycling the system, remote controlling the system, and even accessing the BIOS. So how does it work? Here are the steps I go through to enable it:

Where's the truth...

Tue, 19 Jan 2021 03:20:42 +0000

By not being on social media sites, I have a choice in what I consume from a news perspective. I want sources that give me the data to form my opinion rather than get opinions framed as news. So this is what works for me:

Use a web browser “incognito” mode so tracking cookies aren’t used. This will help prevent news shaping. I use a web browser called Duck Duck Go that helps prevent tracking data from being used. I highly recommend using it for a browser on your phone and the search engine on your desktop. Once google has some history on you, the shaping algorithms will take hold quickly.
I use multiple sources. If I watch CNN, I also try to watch Fox News and so on. It helps to see the different perspectives and the spin applied on all sides.
For any of the “news” sites, I first look at the ad’s that I’m bombarded with. I want to determine right off the bat how the site makes money, and what generates the most revenue (typically its the product you see most of). They will usually not tell you directly, but you’ll get a sense of why they want you to buy while you stay on the site.
I use Axios; they are trying to be a news source with little spin. You can see their mission statement here: https://www.axios.com/about/ They tell you how they gather information, how it’s gathered and qualified, and how they make money. Most of the content is short and concise with little fluff. I appreciate the attempt.
I use allsides.com frequently. allsides is an aggregate site that tried to rate news stories as right, left, and center. It’s a good site to get an honest perspective on things. Their take is no news is unbiased, so they show you how. There was an exciting science project from Middle Schooler where they looked at bias in google search engine using data from allsides. More detail on the science project is located at:
https://www.allsides.com/blog/teen-proves-media-bias-google-search-results-can-influence-political-opinions
Is the content focused on the subject, and is the opinion kind? If the content attacks aperson rather than a position, it’s typically because the position they are trying to make is weak and doesn’t hold up well on its own.

I’m sure I can keep rambling, but the above list encompasses most of what I do. Let me know if you have better methods!

Add HEIC support to nextcloud

Mon, 18 Jan 2021 01:57:59 +0000

From https://eplt.medium.com/5-minutes-to-install-imagemagick-with-heic-support-on-ubuntu-18-04-digitalocean-fe2d09dcef1

sudo sed -Ei 's/^# deb-src /deb-src /' /etc/apt/sources.list
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install build-essential autoconf libtool git-core
sudo apt-get build-dep imagemagick libmagickcore-dev libde265 libheif
cd /usr/src/
sudo git clone https://github.com/strukturag/libde265.git
sudo git clone https://github.com/strukturag/libheif.git
cd libde265/
sudo ./autogen.sh
sudo ./configure
sudo make
sudo make install
cd /usr/src/libheif/
sudo ./autogen.sh
sudo ./configure
sudo make
sudo make install
cd /usr/src/
sudo wget https://www.imagemagick.org/download/ImageMagick.tar.gz
sudo tar xf ImageMagick.tar.gz
cd ImageMagick-7*
sudo ./configure --with-heic=yes
sudo make
sudo make install
sudo ldconfig

sudo apt install php-imagick
cd /usr/src/
wget http://pecl.php.net/get/imagick-3.4.4.tgz
tar -xvzf imagick-3.4.4.tgz
cd imagick-3.4.4/
apt install php7.2-dev
phpize
./configure
make
make install
sudo phpenmod imagick

A restart of apache2 should finish the job. Check with the phpinfo() call…

Take control - from the Center for Humane Technology

Sun, 11 Oct 2020 20:37:31 +0000

I couldn’t agree more about how to take control of your digital consumption from, “The Center for Humane Technology”. Here’s the link and a snippet from the web site:

https://www.humanetech.com/take-control

The Social Dilemma

Sun, 11 Oct 2020 20:21:46 +0000

I thought I understood the general concepts and algorithms that companies like google, Facebook, twitter, etc. use but I was astounded about how much it impacts us as a society. The documentary, “The Social Dilemma”, on Netflix, is filled with conversations with many of the original architects of these systems and how monetization though ad targeting is driving behavior modification of billions of people worldwide.

The Social Dilemma also goes on to explain how our younger populations are being affected and correlates the dramatic increase in many conditions like anxiety are due the nature of keeping someone always engaged in a platform for monetary gain.

zfs glory and snaphot hell

Sun, 11 Oct 2020 19:55:20 +0000

This page is to document my trials with zfs snapshots for backup purposes. There a problem I found that entails when incremental snapshot sends are performed when the receive side has changed in some way. I’ll provide complete details soon. Good news my zfs retention script looks to be running well. I’ll document that as well soon. Here’s a teaser…

So long, Facebook, and Thanks for all the Fish ...

Sun, 11 Oct 2020 19:49:02 +0000

Good Morning!
After not being active on Facebook for almost a year now I made the move to completely delete my account. While it was surprisingly tough initially it was a great decision. I realized all the ads and shaped content was not worth the family and friend connection I was actually seeking. My account on Instagram will probably be deleted soon as well. I’m getting ads and such on that platform as well. It’s not surprising since Instagram is also owned by Facebook.

Password-less ssh in 2 Glorious Steps...

Wed, 17 Jun 2020 23:54:55 +0000

Local System - Let’s call it alpha
Remote System we don’t want to have to enter passwords for,
Let’s call it foxtrot

Prep: Harden your existing ssh keys since RSA 1024 sucks. This will create a new 4096 version - ed22519 is actually preferred so you can skip the rsa creation if preferred.

me@alpha$ mv ~/.ssh/id_rsa ~/.ssh/id_rsa_legacy
me@alpha$ mv ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub ~/.ssh/id_rsa_legacy.pub

Step 1: Generate new keys:

me@alpha$ ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 4096 -o -a 100 #RSA version
me@alpha$ ssh-keygen -o -a 100 -t ed25519 #Preferred ed25519 version

Step 2: Copy the Ed25519 keys to the remote system called foxtrot:

HomeLab Build

Fri, 05 Jun 2020 05:36:50 +0000

Since I had a old windows laptop as a plex and file server for years I thought it would be good to try something new. After researching options I ddecided to try FreeNAS. Since it has ZFS and I’m an old Sun guy - why not. Well…. After a few weeks I decided to abandon FreeNAS and roll my own using a ThinkCentre M93p Tiny. I’ll try to post some notes on how the build goes.

Rock64 System on a Chip (SoC) Review

Thu, 04 Jun 2020 07:42:09 +0000

I’ll review my experience with this SoC shortly…

Raspberry Pi backup using fsarchiver and other tricks

Tue, 13 Jun 2017 06:56:17 +0000

So I ran into a few issues using the dd image backup I referenced prior Raspberry Pi 3 SDCard backup

The Image is very large even though the data was not. For example on a 32GB SD card I was getting a 12GB file. I only have 3GB of data! so that was a bummer.
When it comes time to recover, I have to expand the gz image file to a full 32GB to then image it onto another SD device. There’s tricks around this I’m sure but still.
Since dd was reading 100% of the SD card (/dev/mmcblk0) even with compression it took a LONG time to create the image. 20 minutes or so. Since I’m backing up a live system this was a real issue.

I did manage to figure out how to create a partial image if your partition sizes were smaller than the actual device - This seemed to work but it still was storing 6.6GB of data which was over double what I actually had:

Raspberry Pi 3 SDCard backup...

Mon, 27 Mar 2017 17:52:31 +0000

From https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=63&t=77492 dd if=/dev/mmcblk0 | gzip > /media/usb/mmcblk0.img.gz Checking if this works. More to come :)

Living on a Raspberry Pi!

Sun, 05 Mar 2017 01:52:59 +0000

This feels a little weird! Playing with the overclocking and it really makes a difference! The settings below look stable but make the proc very hot (over 85 degrees c.) From /boot/config.txt:

Overclock settings - disabled until heat sink is added. 170327 SeanK

#arm_freq=1350 #core_freq=500 #over_voltage=4 #disable_splash=1 ##force_turbo=1 #boot_delay=1 #sdram_freq=500 Also created a script to put the governor in ondemand mode and put it in the init.d directory:

root@webpi:/sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq# cat /etc/init.d/sk-perf-set-cpu-governor.sh
#!/bin/sh
#
# 20170327, Sean Kennedy
#
# From /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_available_governors:
# conservative ondemand userspace powersave performance
governor="ondemand"
echo $governor > /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_governor
root@webpi:/sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq#

Also got ganglia to report on CPU Frequency and Temp using this init script….

Snipe heaven

Sun, 18 Sep 2011 01:07:56 +0000

Ah good times… Below is from 2010! Here’s some new details on snipes… https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?t=49073

I have 4 VM’s running MS-DOS and Netware. Game On! Instructions:

Use a vnc viewer like TightVNC (realVNC didn’t work for me, only gave me a blank screen).
Go to one of the following server wijgalt.homeip.net
Connect to one of the ports, 5901 thought 5904
If you already see activity on the screen, just exit and try another port.
Go to drive G:
Run nlsnipes
If there’s a game already going it will tell you. Just wait a bit and try again!

Enjoy!

How to pickup someone at the airport

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 16:02:32 +0000

This is Greg picking up a friend at the airport last weekend. He looks like Jamie Hyneman from the mythbusters. The person laughing in the background is the cop Greg got to shoot the video.

Netgear Stora NAS

Sat, 24 Oct 2009 22:31:50 +0000

Warning: Nerd Content ahead" loading="lazy" src="https://www.kenops.io/uploads/2009/10/stora.jpg">

Since I work helping companies manage their enterprise storage environment, I tend to be very anal with storing my data at home. It needs to be resilient, redundant, and fast. Why? I’m retarded. Most of the time, I spend more than enough money on something I have to manage and tweak constantly. No inexpensive NAS device has had all the features I wanted in an embedded device - until now.

High School 1957 vs 2009

Fri, 02 Oct 2009 17:21:12 +0000

From a recent email spam - that was sorta funny… Scenario 1:

Jack goes quail hunting before school and then pulls into the school parking lot with his shotgun in his truck’s gun rack.

1957 - Vice Principal comes over, looks at Jack’s shotgun, goes to his car and gets his new shotgun to show Jack.

2009 - School goes into lock down, FBI called, Jack hauled off to jail and never sees his truck or gun again. Counselors called in for traumatized students and teachers.

Supersonic Electronic - Awesome!

Mon, 21 Sep 2009 05:55:34 +0000

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNyG-xu-7SQ

GapMinder

Mon, 07 Sep 2009 15:10:21 +0000

See the world in a new light… http://www.gapminder.org/

Bacon Explosion

Tue, 25 Aug 2009 19:30:50 +0000

This is from a person I met onsite last week! It looks VERY GOOD.

Best way to tether your iPhone - PDAnet

Tue, 25 Aug 2009 19:18:06 +0000

Unlike most apps that will provide a proxy web service to your computer through your iPhone PDAnet will provide a complete network solution for tethering your computer. Basically, you can use your iPhone as a computer wifi device, without restriction. While proxy apps will work well for web applications, it doesn’t work for stuff like email, ftp, ssh, etc. PDAnet can handle all network traffic. I’m using my iPhone right now to access the internet from my Macbook Pro and it’s quite fast! Check PDAnet out! http://lifehacker.com/5086490/the-best-way-to-tether-your-iphone-to-your-laptop-for-free

Sony's latest piece of...

Sat, 22 Aug 2009 02:49:56 +0000

Sony Releases New Stupid Piece Of Shit That Doesn’t Fucking Work This has been around for a while but it’s fun. There’s language so make sure you blast this at work. Happy Friday.

Old fashion "Open Folder" Icon in the Dock

Thu, 20 Aug 2009 13:50:46 +0000

While the newer versions of OS X have been great and the dock has matured, I hated one thing. Sometimes I just want to put a directory on the dock without it doing it’s crazy effect stuff to it like Fan, Grid, List, etc. Many times all I want is a dock icon that will just open a directory in finder. Fortunately, I figured out how to do this!!! Create a link to the directory of your choice on the desktop. For instance, I created a link (By holding down the “option”, “apple/command” keys down) of my home directory on my desktop. Now, drag that link to the dock. Bingo! I have a dock icon that will just open a finder window of my home directory.

Credit Card Swipe Dance

Thu, 20 Aug 2009 04:07:23 +0000

Why is it that every time I purchase something with a credit card at most stores I end up having to do the credit card swipe dance. And how did this ever replace the good ol’ “cashier single swipes the card and here’s the receipt” days? Technology sucks sometimes… Me: Swipe now? oh not yet. ok now? YES ok… Cashier: “Press the yellow button, and… wait - need to add your special member discount to the amount. Canceling the transaction.” Me: So… Now swipe again? oh not yet…. ok now? YES. ok… Cashier: “Press the yellow button and it should say credit or debit, press 7 for credit… It’s not saying anything?” Me: It says - “wait for cashier”. Cashier: “Ok - now it should say credit, …” Me: Ok, pressing credit. whoops, pressed cancel. Cashier: “Um… ok I’ll restart the process. Press the yellow button….” Call me crazy but this whole process just seems stupid. Stores should never trust that I could do something better than their own staff.

A little humor for today

Thu, 30 Jul 2009 17:38:35 +0000

Using rsync for replication on OS X

Thu, 30 Jul 2009 05:50:11 +0000

I recently began a quest to replicate my house data with a hosting service so if my house goes up in a fire I still have my data elsewhere. The utility that seems to work the best for this is called rsync, and is available on most flavors of Unix, including Apple’s OS X. Why is it good? Well, rsync talks to the remote host and compares file meta-data like modified times, checksums, etc. to determine if a file needs to be transmitted. It can handle partial file retransmission which is very nice if your dealing with large files. It’s much more efficient than other methods that clumsily send all data over the line to have the destination server determine if the data should be discarded or not. Here’s an example of the command I use (disk1 is a directory with a bunch of directories and files):

The 4th Electrical Element, Memristor

Wed, 29 Jul 2009 15:32:03 +0000

Last year HP Labs was able to create the long theorized electrical element, the Memristor. While most people have not heard anything about the memristor, it will soon change the whole face of our electronics world. The Memristor was a theoretical element in electronics that was postulated in the late 1960’s and was finally created in 2008. Our entire electronics work today is only based on the other 3 elements - Resistor, Capacitor, and Inductor. Why should you care? Imagine your next computer with 10 terabytes of RAM, with no hard drive and no need to “load” programs. Imagine the same computer powered off without loosing any information, requiring no voltage draw and at a fraction of the size of the smallest computers today - heck I could have described the iPhone of the future. That’s just the tip of the iceberg. Analog processors, extremely fast crossbars, and others are on the near horizon. 20-50 years? No. I’m talking about the next 2-5 years. Here’s a few links regarding the memristor:

Computer Hardware Chart

Tue, 21 Jul 2009 20:25:08 +0000

The size of our world

Tue, 21 Jul 2009 20:06:48 +0000

Local Denver Artist - John Common

Tue, 21 Jul 2009 19:22:22 +0000

If you ever get a chance to kick back at a java joint with John Common take it.

Time lapse photos using your TI calculator

Mon, 20 Jul 2009 14:53:44 +0000

This is a great project for just about anyone who ever went to class with a TI calculator. With a few lines of code on the calculator and a 2.5mm male to male plug you can create time lapse photos. Turn a TI Graphing Calculator into an Intervalometer and Create Time Lapse Videos - More DIY How To Projects

Su.pr to shorten urls

Sat, 18 Jul 2009 18:34:03 +0000

I just started using su.pr to shorten long urls and it has the ability to do some very cool stuff if you link it into your wordpress site. I prefer it over tunyurl and others. Check it out!

9 Habits to Stop Now

Sat, 18 Jul 2009 17:13:20 +0000

I highly recommend reading the blogs, “The Not-To-Do List: 9 Habits to Stop Now” and “How to Check E-mail Twice a Day… or Once Every 10 Days”, by Tim Ferris. Great recommendations for all of us who don’t seem to ever have enough time for anything these days.

Tesla's B-day today

Fri, 10 Jul 2009 17:27:03 +0000

Tesla’s birthday is today! Here’s a cool video of the person who invented modern electricity and the death ray….

Great Data Storage Presentation

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 14:47:48 +0000

If you go to http://dsstos.blogspot.com/ there’s an excellent presentation on data storage concepts and recommendations. It’s HDS AMS focused, but the majority of the presentation relates to general data storage. Great stuff!

Cleanup the Open with... menu in OS X

Thu, 25 Jun 2009 19:39:04 +0000

For OS X Leopard this worked for me. Cut and paste this command into terminal:

/System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.f*/Frameworks/LaunchS*/Support/lsregister \
 -kill -r -domain local -domain system -domain user

Tesla Motors

Thu, 04 Jun 2009 00:46:14 +0000

This is my next dream car. I saw one of these beauties in Ft. Lauderdale and it was so sexy. 100% Electric, quick charging, 0-60 in 3.9 seconds… Awesome.

My datacenter is all blowed up...

Mon, 01 Jun 2009 13:43:05 +0000

This is a marketing video from HP simulating a datacenter disaster causing a fail over to a backup datacenter. People often ask me what I do for a living and for most of the time the answer I usually give doesn’t help. If the conversation continues with printer driver questions in Vista I know I failed to describe what I do. So in short, I help companies with the design, build, and implementation of large storage arrays that are designed to minimize application downtime due to hardware failures. These same storage arrays also have extended capabilities and features that help customers create enire copies of their datacenters in case thier primary datacenter gets “blowed up”. In this video, I would be one of the goofy white coat guys. Enjoy!

Website tracking with Google Analytics

Tue, 26 May 2009 21:34:07 +0000

I recently started using Google Analytics to track my web site usage and so far it’s been great. By creating a account, and installing the wordpress plugin “Google Analyticator” I now get detail on how my site is being viewed. Great stuff - try it out!

mySql search and replace within a field.

Tue, 19 May 2009 15:22:16 +0000

When moving wordpress sites from one domain to another, it’s common to have hard coded urls in the database of the old web site. To update the majority of the posts, you can use the following sql statement to update the post urls. You may also need to run the statement on the guid foild as well.

UPDATE wp_posts SET post_content = REPLACE(post_content, ‘staging.server.com’, ‘www.productionserver.com’);

Twitter Weekly Updates for 2009-05-17

Mon, 18 May 2009 01:18:00 +0000

4 Hours into migrations for 5 systems. I’m getting tired. #

Jesse Ventura and Waterboarding...

Wed, 13 May 2009 18:16:48 +0000

For a ex-wrestler and gov, Jesse can still impress at times… http://www.boingboing.net/2009/05/13/jesse-ventura-i-coul.html

synctoy for Windows file syncs...

Wed, 13 May 2009 02:37:45 +0000

I found the following application from Microsoft to be quite useful for syncing files between hard drives and network drives. Check it out!

http://www.microsoft.com/prophoto/downloads/synctoy.aspx

Why pre-flight checks are good...

Tue, 12 May 2009 22:05:00 +0000

This video was taken by Mr. Brown while we were at the Cherry Creek RC airfield (http://www.denverrceagles.org/) last week. If you watch the video you’ll see the starboard aileron at full deflection. The guy who flew the plane had a hard landing earlier that day and didn’t forgot to do another pre-flight control check before this flight. I do a lot of pre-flights now mainly because I’ve crashed my share of planes making stupid mistakes. My first famous blunder with a RC plane was from a elevator that was responding backwards, so when I pulled up, the plane actually wanted to go down. Simple fix - you click on a reverse switch on the transmitter and you’re good to go. Since I didn’t care to do a pre-flight check, I only realized the issue after I managed to get the plane in the air. When I realized what I did I figured, up is down and down is up… Got it. Seconds later, the plane started to climb, and I instinctualy went down on the controls. Well, down was up… so the plane continued to climb and basically looped - right after take off. Now it was pointed right at us! Death from above I thought; Clear the deck!!! I managed to miss everyone involved, and the plane crashed. From that point on I vowed to always make sure I check the plane before flight to help insure the control surfaces are working like they should.

Goodbye Sun Microsystems...

Mon, 11 May 2009 05:03:33 +0000

So Oracle is in the final stages of buying Sun Microsystems Inc, a company I adored for years. It’s too bad to see Sun go, and with all other Oracle buyouts I’m sure not much will be left of the original idea of Sun. It’s sad to see, but after seeing Sun as the premier UNIX envorinment in the late 90’s go through it’s demise in early 2000’s the writing was on the wall. I remember distinctly being at a good friends house discussing a plan we had to get in the car, drive to Merlo Park CA, and tell the then CEO exactly how to get back on track:

747 Training Video

Sun, 03 May 2009 22:56:19 +0000

My A-10 Foamie and F4U Corsair

Sun, 03 May 2009 16:22:36 +0000

Here’s my new A-10 warthog just completed and the F4-U Corsair I’m building. The A-10 is my first ducted fan plane so I’m excited to see how it does. I expect to “mod” it for Colorado’s altitude. I got the A-10 kit from NitroPlanes and while the parts are a bit cheezy, the foam construction is very good. I’m also very excited about my F4-U Corsair. Debi got this plane for me years ago, and I’ve been frustrated about not getting it built - I plan to have it flying by next month! It calls for a .40 size engine so of coarse I’m installing a .60 MDS or a .70 Supertigre so it should scoot around just fine. More to come.

I'm ready for Summertime

Sat, 02 May 2009 22:04:37 +0000

My Bro Stuart in South Park

Sat, 02 May 2009 21:45:53 +0000

Appropriate Term

Fri, 24 Apr 2009 22:20:33 +0000

[caption id="" align=“aligncenter” width=“550” caption=" http://imgs.xkcd.com/"][/caption]

My favorite comedian - Eddie Izzard

Tue, 21 Apr 2009 17:16:54 +0000

This is hilarious…

Latest iPhone prototype...

Mon, 20 Apr 2009 23:58:42 +0000

This thing is incredible… http://www.iwood3b.com/

Inside the Meltdown...

Mon, 20 Apr 2009 04:15:15 +0000

I was in Texas last week and was able to see a number of “Tea Party” protests that are generally against big government, and are fed up with the currently elected government and the recent bailout monies allocated for these large banks. Since I fancy myself as a person who agrees with these ideals, I started researching into what really is going on with the recent bailouts. I’ve learned about how republican hardcore conservative political bodies suddenly were asking congress to pony up billions of dollars to shore up companies like Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, and AIG due to this newly discovered economic nightmare called, “Systemic Risk”. Republicans…. Asking for money? Seriously? So while the “Tea Baggers” have valid points, why is there such difference in handling the current economic crisis from the typical repulican platform? People generally thought that huge corporations are less likely to go belly up simply because their portfolios are so large no one event could cause total failure. With the housing market we all know and love these days, the US found out the hard way that not only are these extremely large corporations suseptable in their own right, they’re so interconnected in the markets now that when one goes down like Lehman Brothers, it causes a whole cascade effect. Example: Lehman has all these assets and bonds that go to hell because of the housing bubble popping. The government doesn’t intervene because of fears from “Moral Hazard”, so Lehman goes to bankruptcy. So why does AIG suddenly fail? So if you are AIG, and you’ve been selling insurance on Bonds and such where if a bond goes to crap and AIG will insure you against the risk - AIG is now required to honor all these insurance policies for bonds in the tank. AIG’s assets are also hurt by the market in general, and now with the prospect of having to pay all these insurance claims on bonds from companies like Lehmans, AIG is now in dire straits…. The trend goes on and on to the point now where there are entire countries like Iceland who are completely bankrupt! The best program by far I’ve seen regarding this whole deal is the Frontline episode, “Inside the Meltdown”. While this is a PBS show, I’m a firm believer that every American needs to watch this at least once. Agree or Disagree with the details, but watch the program and educate yourself - Please! http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/meltdown/view/

Cool Mac automater Actions

Mon, 20 Apr 2009 03:40:44 +0000

I just found cool automater actions at http://junecloud.com The action I’m especially please with is the “Create Clean Archive” action. This will create a archive zip file that does not have the usualy .DS_Store files and crap. Excellent stuff!

Twitter Weekly Updates for 2009-04-05

Mon, 06 Apr 2009 02:18:00 +0000

Off to the Glenn to Celebrate Rachelle’s B-day. Earlier I started work on my main wing assembly for the F4U Corsair. 2 weeks to flight! #
Just got to my hotel in Ft. Lauderdale Florida. Feeling kinda sick. Hopefully it’s just jet crud #
Wrapping up at the customer site in Ft Lauderdale. Going home tomorrow! #

Fun Stuff...

Tue, 31 Mar 2009 23:26:07 +0000

OS Boot Sounds: http://titan08.free.fr/Boot%20Sounds/

Twitter Weekly Updates for 2009-03-29

Mon, 30 Mar 2009 02:18:00 +0000

Living the dream. In Tampa for work this week. #
Using Digsby for IM, Email, and Twitter - http://twitter.digsby.com #
Just sitting at home resting after digging out the Driveway from snow. Blizzard yesterday - 60 degree sunny weather today - Colorado is … #
Working on RC planes today - Hope to get my F4U Corsair on it’s way to it’s first flight. #

Ten Trillion and Counting...

Wed, 25 Mar 2009 17:13:35 +0000

This is a frontline episode that talks about the national debt and how the country’s deficit is exploding. It also talks about how both political parties are at fault, and how the US needs to come to terms on the problem to start working on fixing it. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/tentrillion/view/

Twitter Weekly Updates for 2009-03-22

Mon, 23 Mar 2009 02:18:00 +0000

Just flew my RC planes again. Love this stuff! #

Richard Cheese

Wed, 11 Mar 2009 20:33:24 +0000

This cat is funny! Thanks Rob for the recommendation.

John Mayer

Tue, 10 Mar 2009 01:59:32 +0000

In case you’ve been in a bubble and are in dire need of decent music, I highly recommend John Mayer. There’s a few songs from him below. If you happen to be a singer/songwriter, check out John’s web site blog @ http://www.johnmayer.com/battlestudies/. A recent post called “Conscious Composition” is very cool. Good Stuff. So what album is his best? Well I like Continuum, but probably just because it’s his latest studio album. I have seriously enjoyed every album to date. Frankly you can’t go wrong with John. One album that never had big press that I enjoy is, “Inside Wants Out". Check him out! The song, “Slow Dancing in a Burning Room”, is in my humble opinion is a masterpiece: “Belief” is another great tune from John…

Howie Day @ The Bluebird

Sun, 08 Mar 2009 05:14:36 +0000

Stuart was gracious in surprising me with a Howie Day ticket tonight. Man my bro can be a cool cat. At the venue Stuart ran around taking some great pics of Howie live. Highly recommended if you like phenomenal guitar and smart songwriter lyrics. Pics are @ www.skfunphoto.com. Below are a few video’s of Howie doing his thing. His talent is in the way he can play guitar, and in using loopback devices construct a vibrant full sound – live! During the BlueBird concert he took the song below, played it, and before he ended the whole thing decided to double up the speed and start a whole techno vibe with it. Truly makes a regular DJ look like a pud. Beyond his obvious playing talent his lyrics are great too. Try him out!

Axis of Awesome 4 Chords

Wed, 04 Mar 2009 19:49:42 +0000

All these songs have the same 4 chords!

Hack your VCR

Wed, 04 Mar 2009 19:13:33 +0000

Sun Cheatsheet

Wed, 04 Mar 2009 17:28:12 +0000

I published my Sun Cheatsheet document to the world recently. It’s a compilation of Sun commands and processes that I documented over the years. Enjoy! http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dhjhzg6x_3c6d658

Bye MobileMe...

Tue, 03 Mar 2009 20:46:16 +0000

Buying a hosted domain: $100 Buying a pro membership on smugmug: $60 Installing Wordpress: $0 Able to manage my familiy’s websites with freedom and without major pain: Priceless! I recently started a journey on removing my dependancy on Apple’s MobileMe services. When .Mac ruled the land with web-based wonders, life was good. Then Apple decided to trash what worked with MobileMe, and everything went to hell. Load speeds, reliability, service limitations, email address changes, ical incompatibilities, groups disabled; all this appeared with the shiny new MobileMe. But I can sort of sync with my iPhone. Are you kidding? Did Apple really have to choose between having great user experience with .Mac and basic iPhone sync with MobileMe? Overall MobileMe is no longer worth the money and time I invested in it. So now I’m sporting a spiffy new web site using Wordpress which is very easy to use and I have completely stopped using Apple’s iWeb as a result. I have a regular IMAP email server with my web isp provider for email, and even Google Sync Mobile services for my iPhone calendar and contacts. I also use a paid picture site called smugmug for all of our photos. Why a paid site? I have complete control of the site and the themes, no Adware, backups, Share with family sections, and I was even able to point my own domain to the smugmug directly - http://pics.gridleak.com. They also handle raw picture formats which is a real plus. I learned the hard way that many of the “free” sites will tamper with your image resolutions when you upload them to save server disk space. If you’re interested in trying smugmug you can test it out with a free 14-day trail, and you can use the coupon code OHpYezYHRef9s for a discounted join rate. My Bro Stuart was the one that turned me on to the site. Yes… Stuart. The kid that didn’t have a computer until last year and started life right with a Macbook Pro. Werd! So I’m now ready to cut the cord on MobileMe. It’s sad really; Apple broke something that really worked. Even today it’s getting better again, but I’m tired of waiting. I’m also done with being at the mercy of a support FAQ web page when I have real problems. While Apple’s computer support is the best in the business, you can’t get a live person to talk to you about MobileMe issues. If you’re interested in making the plunge, or you want MobileMe like functionality, below is a list of technologies that take care of what MobileMe does for a Apple system:

Screen Cleaner

Mon, 02 Mar 2009 15:59:06 +0000

I know you don’t clean your screen very often and it is hard to do the inside, so go here: http://www.raincitystory.com/flash/screenclean.swf

RC Flying fun with the Padilla's

Mon, 02 Mar 2009 00:09:33 +0000

Today was a great day: planes, friends, and no trashed planes at the end - Perfect! Below are a few photo’s from the day’s events. The smurf lookin’ guy is me, and Grace and AJ are in the mix as well. We went to the Miniature Aero Sportsters field to fly and the hospitality was wonderful. A number of “Pros” were there doing thier thing and they were eager to see a new potential member. I got the memeber information and just sent the check in. I was very pleased with the attitude of everyone there, and I even got some great advise on my Stryker F27C delta. Good stuff. AJ flew the Alpha Trainer for the first time using a “buddy box”, which is a transmitter tandemed to another transmitter I was controlling. I use a “Train” switch on my transmitter to selectively give control of the plane so AJ didn’t have to sweat much about it. I was very impressed and he got the whole “Your plane - My plane” concept and really hung in there. It generally takes about 15 flights on a buddy box to get used to flying, and another 15 flights to be good enough to do solo take offs and landings. Simulator time can help greatly with getting the concepts down. FS1 and Real Flight are the most popular sims out there. There’s even a ready to fly starter plane kit, complete with everything including the flight sim stuff at most hobbie stores now. The Hobbico Nextstar RTF is one of them. Grace had my camera and got a number of great shots, including a few of me flying the helicopter. Thanks Grace! [gallery link=“file”]

Flying RC's today

Sun, 01 Mar 2009 14:44:41 +0000

Today I think I’ll be flying some of my Remote Contol Planes and Heli’s. It’s been a long time so today may end in tragedy! I think I’ll fly out at the Miniature Aero Sportsters site north of DIA. It’s a bit of a drive but the area is beautiful and it’s rare to be able to see real jumbo’s flying while you’re flying RC’s. A great site. Details Here: http://home.comcast.net/~tglaess/Field.html View Larger Map

Great SNL videos

Sat, 28 Feb 2009 20:25:17 +0000


On a boat	Justin Timerlake and Beonce
Lazy Sunday	Dick in a box
Jizz in my Pants	Natalie Raps
People Getting Punched	Mother Lover

Flobots Rock

Thu, 26 Feb 2009 23:44:04 +0000

My Bro-man Stuart turned me on to a local band called the Flobots a while ago and I can’t tell you how refreshing it is to hear intelligent lyrics again. It took a while for me to warm up to them, but now Debi and I like to rock to them on a regular basis. We really do it up too - Turn it up on the little pocket radio and slowly move our rocking chairs. Kick ass! Seriously - the’yre good. For starters, try Handlebars or Rise - Give them a try, and support local music!

Gennaro's Busted...

Tue, 24 Feb 2009 15:32:38 +0000

I just found out the Italian restaurant Gennaro’s next to Mr. Roper was closed due to a gambling ring - Awesome! LJ, one of the bartenders was shown on the news broadcast as being involved. Boy, this town is lively! I do miss the food… Here’s a link to the news story on channel 7 and the Court Case Document… http://www.thedenverchannel.com/video/18755915/ http://www.thedenverchannel.com/download/2009/0219/18754160.pdf

View Larger Map

Fixing the command "man" in OSX

Sun, 18 Jan 2009 05:36:18 +0000

The command ‘man’ in terminal has an annoying feature: it clears the screen on exit. So if you find a command line switch you want to try, when you exit man the detail all disappears. To correct this, change the following line in /private/etc/man.conf:

PAGER /usr/bin/less -is

PAGER /usr/bin/less -isX

Bold vs iPhone

Thu, 11 Dec 2008 06:02:34 +0000

After buying both the iPhone and iPhone 3g, I became frustrated with the typical iPhone problems - spotty 3g network access, no cut-n-paste, etc. As a result, I was excited about the Bold and got one right when it came out. Having used a crackberry in the past was I confident that it would be the device for me. I used the Bold for a number of days and learned an important lesson - Appreciate what you have. The Bold did not have all the answers, and after using the email and web interface on the Bold, I quickly realized that the iPhone was still the device to have. Now I have a new appreciation for the iPhone. It has issues, no doubt. But the core functionality has yet to be challenged by any competitor. After compiling a list of features and rating them, I posted the results at: http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pLRnDwRBVmrELW9i6ug_-fw

Business Travel Recommendations

Wed, 10 Dec 2008 23:18:38 +0000

First off I highly recommend visiting Mr. Greg Brown’s Travel Tips. Greg has put together a concise listing of great recommendations. Thank you Greg!

General Tips:

For business travel, sign up for Clear. Clear went out of business.
When selecting seats for flights, check www.seatguru.com for seat details.
Ask your preferred airline if they have a accelerated rewards program for business travelers. Some airlines will provide at cost a 3 month trial period for you to get preferred status. During this period you’ll need to fly enough flights to keep the status for the rest of the year. US Airways provides this service and it costs $215 dollars to be promoted to Silver status. If you fly 7500 miles during the next 3 months after enrollment, you will keep the Silver status. You can also get gold and platinum status if you fly 15,000 miles and 22,500 miles in the same 3 month time period. Chairman can be reached at 30,000 miles. This is a great way to get status so you can qualify for free upgrades, etc. without having to endure a lot of flight time, assuming you are actually flying enough to sustain the miles.

A few tips for traveling through Denver International Airport (DEN).

Using system wide socks proxy with iphone tethering

Mon, 22 Sep 2008 05:47:07 +0000

Recently I discovered a program called proxifier, a OS X Leopard program that will send all network traffic through a defined socks proxy server. So instead of defining the proxy settings in each individual program, simply turn on proxifier and redirect all the network traffic. proxifier is the same thing as WideCap or FreeCap in the Windows side. tsocks for OS X may work as well. So why is this important? Well, I’m on the road a lot and with a iPhone 3g that’s jailbroken you can install a socks server called 3proxy through the cydia installer and with proxifier you can route all your network traffic on your Mac through your new socks server at 3g speeds. This means I can get email, surf the web, use skype, etc. all through the iPhone Here’s the steps for a mac. It’s not that hard… Create a ad-hoc network on the mac?by using the “Create Network…” option.?I called mine “sweet” Set a static IP for your mac on the ah-hoc?network you created. I like to use?10.10.10.5 You need to have your iPhone jailbroken?and have 3proxy installed. Search the web?for details on how to make this happen.?I like quickpwn. On your iphone, select the network you created on your mac, “sweet” for me, and set iPhone’s static IP address. 10.10.10.10 will do nicely. Now, run /usr/bin/socks on your iphone. I like to set mine up in Boss Prefs so I can turn it on and off easily. On the mac, run proxifier, and point it to the socks proxy IP address of 10.10.10.10 port 1080. Your done! This looks like a pain, but if you create a network location with the IP settings, and use Boss Prefs with the iPhone, this process can be done within 20 seconds. And with FW 2.1 on the iPhone 3G the speeds are very impressive, and I even found I can answer a call while I’m surfing through the socks proxy. Make sure to turn off the socks proxy when your not using it otherwise you’ll find that your iPhone battery will run dry quickly. I also did some research on using pppd and slirp to create a complete network tunnel to the 3g network on the iphone. It appears that FW 2.x has broken slirp and it may be related to a kernel update the may have nuetered ipfw. Bummer. The following command will start a pppd session and will provide a ppp0 network interface. The problem I found is I couldn’t get the iPhone to bridge the networks. pppd is already on both OS X and the iPhone, but you need ssh on the iphone to play.

Back to My Mac Dlink Settings

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 22:37:10 +0000

Here’s a few screen shots of my D-Link DIR-655 router and it’s settings to allow Back to My Mac (BTMM) to work on my home mini:

OSX Mirrored Raidset Recovery

Wed, 06 Feb 2008 05:57:08 +0000

Today I experienced a firewire drive failure on my mini. To determine which drive was bad was a bit difficult since the apple profiler does not show serial number information about the drives and the firewire id can change depending on which drive was ready first, etc. After the experience I now have the following steps to take to make this easier in the future. The follow was done after I replaced the bad drive – There also appears to be a Disk Utility issue with disk replacements do I went the terminal window instead. mini:~ sean$ sudo su - Password: mini:~ root# diskutil list /dev/disk0 #: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER 0: GUID_partition_scheme 74.5 Gi disk0 1: EFI 200.0 Mi disk0s1 2: Apple_HFS Macintosh HD 74.2 Gi disk0s2 /dev/disk1 #: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER 0: FDisk_partition_scheme 465.8 Gi disk1 1: DOS_FAT_32 SPAREY 465.6 Gi disk1s1 /dev/disk2 #: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER 0: GUID_partition_scheme 279.5 Gi disk2 1: EFI 200.0 Mi disk2s1 2: Apple_HFS Timie 279.2 Gi disk2s2 /dev/disk3 #: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER 0: GUID_partition_scheme 931.5 Gi disk3 1: EFI 200.0 Mi disk3s1 2: Apple_RAID 931.2 Gi disk3s2 3: Apple_Boot Boot OSX 128.0 Mi disk3s3 /dev/disk4 #: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER 0: GUID_partition_scheme 931.5 Gi disk4 1: EFI 200.0 Mi disk4s1 2: Apple_HFS Untitled 1 931.2 Gi disk4s2 /dev/disk5 #: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER 0: Apple_HFS Hugie 931.2 Gi disk5 mini:~ root# diskutil checkraid RAID SETS

================================================================= Name: Hugie Disk Unique ID: EAA0BF40-5431-4DBF-B280-5D96983C4C18 Type: Mirror Status: Degraded Size: 999860862976 B Rebuild: automatic Device Node: disk5 Apple RAID Version: 2

Device Node UUID Status

0 disk3s2 BCE5791A-9FBC-471F-BCCB-AB0B9DB0A81E Online 0 -none- FC7931AC-A4F3-468F-AC75-F48C60EABFEF Missing/Damaged

mini:~ root# diskutil repairmirror /Volume/Hugie disk4 Could not find the RAID set device node mini:~ root# diskutil repairmirror /Volumes/Hugie disk4 Note: Syncing data between mirror partitions can take a very long time. Note: The mirror should now be repairing itself. You can check its status using ‘diskutil listRAID’. mini:~ root# diskutil checkraid RAID SETS

================================================================== Name: Hugie Disk Unique ID: EAA0BF40-5431-4DBF-B280-5D96983C4C18 Type: Mirror Status: Degraded Size: 999860862976 B Rebuild: automatic Device Node: disk5 Apple RAID Version: 2

Device Node UUID Status

0 disk3s2 BCE5791A-9FBC-471F-BCCB-AB0B9DB0A81E Online 1 disk4s2 21FA4F0B-7637-40CD-B396-A2C7D64589DA 0% (Rebuilding)

mini:~ root#