ProtecTIER
I spent last Friday in the IBM labs in Mainz, to evaluate IBM's data deduplication engine, called ProtecTIER, and to see how well it integrates with IBM's backup flagship, TSM. Everything went quite smooth, though we lost quite some time due to a TSM bug - apparently it only scans SCSI attached libraries during startup, so it misses any online changes to these libraries.
Mainz's a lovely city, filled with cosy pubs and to restaurants converted churches. Shame we could only stay one night...
Mainz's a lovely city, filled with cosy pubs and to restaurants converted churches. Shame we could only stay one night...
Intrepid on the eeePC
As reported previously, I upgraded my eeePC to Intrepid lately, which introduced quite some space problems. Before I continue, I need to explain the storage contained in this netbook. I acquired the 900 Linux model, which contains 20GB in total. This 20GB is in fact a 4GB SSD drive, combined with a (much) slower internal 16GB SD card. As the SSD drive is really fast, I installed the Ubuntu eee onto it in a single partition (Ubuntu eee doesn't support LVM during install mode), and converted the 16GB drive later to a LVM volume group, on which I installed /home and /opt.
A default Ubuntu install is about 3GB, which means I got 75% used disk space on the SSD drive. Ubuntu needs about 1.5GB temp space in /var/cache/apt/archives during an upgrade, which I didn't had any more on the SSD drive, but I created an extra lvol on the SD card, and mounted this as /var/cache/apt/archives before the install. All went well, but I hit a 97% barrier during the install on the root partition, so I knew I had to resolve this.
Normally, I would enter both disks as physical volumes into the same volume group, but mixing disks with a different speed is a bad idea, and this would require a reinstall also. So I opted for a more ugly approach, where I would move one or more directories to a lvol onto the SD card. /usr was 2.5GB large, so an ideal candidate for migration. This went without any problem, but after a reboot, the /usr partition which resided now on the SD card, was so slow it annoyed the crap out of me.
I decided to move /usr back onto its original place, but to keep /usr/share (still 1.2GB large) onto the slower SD card. Now, moving /usr on a Unix system can be tricky. If everything is designed nicely, you should be able to boot into single user mode without needing anything in /usr. Which wasn't the case for Ubuntu... Booting into single user, starts a program with /usr dependancies, so unmounting /usr is impossible. The easiest solution was to comment /usr in /etc/fstab, which prevented the program to start up, and dumped me into a root shell, after which I could unmount /usr.
A default Ubuntu install is about 3GB, which means I got 75% used disk space on the SSD drive. Ubuntu needs about 1.5GB temp space in /var/cache/apt/archives during an upgrade, which I didn't had any more on the SSD drive, but I created an extra lvol on the SD card, and mounted this as /var/cache/apt/archives before the install. All went well, but I hit a 97% barrier during the install on the root partition, so I knew I had to resolve this.
Normally, I would enter both disks as physical volumes into the same volume group, but mixing disks with a different speed is a bad idea, and this would require a reinstall also. So I opted for a more ugly approach, where I would move one or more directories to a lvol onto the SD card. /usr was 2.5GB large, so an ideal candidate for migration. This went without any problem, but after a reboot, the /usr partition which resided now on the SD card, was so slow it annoyed the crap out of me.
I decided to move /usr back onto its original place, but to keep /usr/share (still 1.2GB large) onto the slower SD card. Now, moving /usr on a Unix system can be tricky. If everything is designed nicely, you should be able to boot into single user mode without needing anything in /usr. Which wasn't the case for Ubuntu... Booting into single user, starts a program with /usr dependancies, so unmounting /usr is impossible. The easiest solution was to comment /usr in /etc/fstab, which prevented the program to start up, and dumped me into a root shell, after which I could unmount /usr.
Intrepid
I noticed on the web that Ubuntu 8.10 was available, but found it weird that update-manager didn't warned me about this available upgrade. Turns out that the default set-up for Hardy is to subscribe to LTS upgrades only. Weird choice of Canonical... Modifying the sources list through System > Admin > Software Sources > Updates, and selecting the 'Normal Releases' entry enabled the upgrade through update-manager.
On my desktop, the upgrade went without a hiccup, but I got more trouble on my laptop : I copied alot of the files in /var/cache/apt/archives to my laptop, which was a no-no apparently for the upgrade to perform decently. Update-manager decided that the upgrade consisted of 3 packages, which I only noticed after I pressed the 'Continue' button. After this 'upgrade', update-manager was completely foobarred, so I had to switch to apt-get dist-upgrade cycles to get things working again. But in the end, everything went fine from there.
I started the upgrade on my eeePC also, but had to create an extra logical volume on the 16GB media in order to give the upgrade the 1.5GB space it required.
Intrepid is booting way slower than its predecessor, but in the general use, is feeling faster than Hardy.
On my desktop, the upgrade went without a hiccup, but I got more trouble on my laptop : I copied alot of the files in /var/cache/apt/archives to my laptop, which was a no-no apparently for the upgrade to perform decently. Update-manager decided that the upgrade consisted of 3 packages, which I only noticed after I pressed the 'Continue' button. After this 'upgrade', update-manager was completely foobarred, so I had to switch to apt-get dist-upgrade cycles to get things working again. But in the end, everything went fine from there.
I started the upgrade on my eeePC also, but had to create an extra logical volume on the 16GB media in order to give the upgrade the 1.5GB space it required.
Intrepid is booting way slower than its predecessor, but in the general use, is feeling faster than Hardy.
Geen sneeuw meer op je TV ?
Sinds begin deze maand is de VRT gestopt met analoge uitzendingen (via antenne dus). Deze worden vervangen door digitale DVB-T signalen (die wel analoog worden doorgezonden). Een flinke mediacampagne met ditto website moest alle resterende antennekijkers hiervan op de hoogte brengen. Ik vermoed dat de meeste TV-kijkende Vlamingen meewarig hun hoofd schudden met deze berichtgeving : in het door de kabelmaatschappijen geregeerde medialandschap in Vlaanderen zijn slechts zo'n 60000 kijkers nog antennekijkers.
Ontvangst van DVB-T is de laatste maand stukken moeilijker geworden voor wie met binnenhuisantenne werkt; goed beeld is hier soms millimeter richtwerk met de antenne, en kan at random ineens veranderen. Inderdaad geen sneeuw meer, maar wel blokjes, en een beeld dat soms seconden blijft hangen. Hallo, VRT ?
Sinds begin deze maand ook, is Canvas+ beschikbaar op DVB-T. Wie de vorige maanden zijn setop-box configureerde, doet dat dus best nog eens, wenst men Canvas+ op de magere kanaallijst toe te voegen. Eén+ volgt begin volgend jaar.
Ontvangst van DVB-T is de laatste maand stukken moeilijker geworden voor wie met binnenhuisantenne werkt; goed beeld is hier soms millimeter richtwerk met de antenne, en kan at random ineens veranderen. Inderdaad geen sneeuw meer, maar wel blokjes, en een beeld dat soms seconden blijft hangen. Hallo, VRT ?
Sinds begin deze maand ook, is Canvas+ beschikbaar op DVB-T. Wie de vorige maanden zijn setop-box configureerde, doet dat dus best nog eens, wenst men Canvas+ op de magere kanaallijst toe te voegen. Eén+ volgt begin volgend jaar.
Hayke
Sinds gisteren terug de trotse bezitter van een huisdier, en wat voor één ! Hayke is een Berner Senner teefje, dat uit een nest van 10 pups komt, en nu onze huiskamer vult met zijn drukdoenerij. De eerste nacht verliep gelukkig redelijk geruisloos, want zo'n eerste eenzame nacht is voor veel pups serieus wennen.
Snow in London
I stayed in London last week for a course of Implementing Cisco SAN networks solutions. It was the sixth time in London, and I must say I like the melting pot of cultures, languages and people London is. It even snowed on Tuesday night, first time in 34 years it snowed there in October.
Only drawback the course had, was that the course location changed on the last minute from central London to Brentford, 17 km from my hotel. This meant a 10 minute walk from my hotel to the underground station, 30 minutes on the tube, and finally a 20 minute walk to the class room, and all of that twice day. Aw, my aching feet !
Only drawback the course had, was that the course location changed on the last minute from central London to Brentford, 17 km from my hotel. This meant a 10 minute walk from my hotel to the underground station, 30 minutes on the tube, and finally a 20 minute walk to the class room, and all of that twice day. Aw, my aching feet !
The 4 seasons
I received a coupon as a christmas present last year, which lets me choose a picture to be printed out on canvas. I got the idea to build a collage from several landscape panorama's at 4 moments throughout the year. The result is an impressive view at the change of the local nature during the different seasons. Today uploaded to Flickr, tomorrow in my living room.
Laphroaig, 10yo
It is a wide and wonderful whisky world out there and the only way to explore it is one dram at a time. It took me a while to get to Laphroaig (the name means "the beautiful hollow by the broad bay"), a pure monument in the whisky world, and Lagavulin is to blame for this. Lagavulin was my first real peaty whisky, which at that time I found it quite too salty, and I assumed Laphroaig had the same kind of taste. Quite wrong, it seems.
This is the stuff that can polarize whisky drinkers. There are tastings where both men and women absolutely LOVE the stuff, whether new to malt whisky or not. I have also met folks who spend thousands of pounds a year on whisky and swear they would never touch this stuff. Amazing. Interesting. Crazy.
The bottle came with a small booklet, which contained information about the Friends of Laphroaig. There, you can claim your own piece of land (a square foot large) at the distillery, which you can let for the yearly price of a dram of Laphroaig, to be claimed at the distillery.
The smell : smoke, peat a hint of medicine, and pretty much nothing else. For one or other weird reason, my wife finds the smell absolutely revolting.
The taste : as complex as a one-dimensional line. Brutal, and as soft as a punch in the stomach. Smoke and peat all over the place. Oily, a little salt, but quite within the limits. Licorice root, sand, walking along a beach on a misty and rainy November afternoon. Surprisingly elegant, rounded and balanced.
Big, brutal, and excellent. A must-have in every whisky lover's liquor cabinet.
PS : at the shop, I got the chance to taste a 19 yo Laphroaig. Impressive, very sharp and spicy. Quite heavy with its 56% and its 93 euro price tag. But absolutely worth every dime of it.
This is the stuff that can polarize whisky drinkers. There are tastings where both men and women absolutely LOVE the stuff, whether new to malt whisky or not. I have also met folks who spend thousands of pounds a year on whisky and swear they would never touch this stuff. Amazing. Interesting. Crazy.
The bottle came with a small booklet, which contained information about the Friends of Laphroaig. There, you can claim your own piece of land (a square foot large) at the distillery, which you can let for the yearly price of a dram of Laphroaig, to be claimed at the distillery.
The smell : smoke, peat a hint of medicine, and pretty much nothing else. For one or other weird reason, my wife finds the smell absolutely revolting.
The taste : as complex as a one-dimensional line. Brutal, and as soft as a punch in the stomach. Smoke and peat all over the place. Oily, a little salt, but quite within the limits. Licorice root, sand, walking along a beach on a misty and rainy November afternoon. Surprisingly elegant, rounded and balanced.
Big, brutal, and excellent. A must-have in every whisky lover's liquor cabinet.
PS : at the shop, I got the chance to taste a 19 yo Laphroaig. Impressive, very sharp and spicy. Quite heavy with its 56% and its 93 euro price tag. But absolutely worth every dime of it.
Pup
Hoera ! Onze nieuwe pup zijn we gaan kiezen, en we hebben één van de aktievere eruit gehaald. Wat 3 weken geleden nog de grootte had van een cavia, is momenteel uitgegroeid tot een gemiddelde teddybeer. Enorme aaibaarheidsfactor, maar wel flinke bijtertjes. Enkele bite marks zorgen voor een 'mooie' herinnering, en waarschijnlijk een indicatie van wat nog komen moet. Binnen 2 weken is 'em de onze, en is het byebye met de rust...
Start to walk
Onlangs een pedometer gekregen, u weet wel, zo'n dingetje dat je voetstappen per dag telt. Ik heb het eens meegenomen tijdens een normale werkdag, en ik moet zeggen dat de resultaten nogal verrassend zijn :
Op een ganse werkdag (van 6h t/m 18h) heb ik zo'n 4459 stappen gezet, wat neerkomt op 2.67 km en -hou u vast- slechts een energiewaarde verbruikt van 161.2 kcal, wat niet eens 10% is van een normaal energieverbruik. Dat ik mijn gewicht nog redelijk onder controle heb, is bij deze uiterst meegenomen !
Op een ganse werkdag (van 6h t/m 18h) heb ik zo'n 4459 stappen gezet, wat neerkomt op 2.67 km en -hou u vast- slechts een energiewaarde verbruikt van 161.2 kcal, wat niet eens 10% is van een normaal energieverbruik. Dat ik mijn gewicht nog redelijk onder controle heb, is bij deze uiterst meegenomen !