Mined my first 100 Dogecoins

I'm currently using an older desktop to run Plex Media Server.  A lot of the time it sits idle, so I thought I'd try to mine some cryptocurrency.  

I did some quick research and decided that Dogecoin would be best to get started.  They can't readily be computed with ASICs so my little box could have a chance.  Also, Dogecoin is sending the Jamaciaan bobsled team to the olympics after all.

I followed Dogecoin on Linux, the Complete Beginners Guide to install a wallet and a miner.  I don't have a graphics card installed yet, so I'm running minerd.  The only issue I had was a "duh" moment when I realized that my worker's password contained a bang ("!") and bash puked on me.

I signed up with a pool and a few days later, I'm finally at 100 Dogecoin.  I'll be installing a graphics card soon and I'll see how much faster I can get my idle box to generate coins.

I'm not married to Dogecoin, so I may also switch to Litecoin or something with a better exchange rate.

Crashplan on headless linux box

I setup my home network to use my linux server as a backup repository using a variety of tools (Time Machine, Crashplan, etc) and as a media content store for Plex Media Server, a shared iTunes library, and several massive iPhoto libraries that need to be sorted/deduped at some point.  

That solved my local data backup problems for my home network, but what can I do with the data to get it off site?  I though of doing periodic backups to a huge USB drive that I keep in the office, but that just plain blows.  After a lot of searching, I found that you can setup crashplan to run on a headless linux box.  I decided on this as my solution over using Amazon S3 or other similar cloud storage. 

Crashplan has a very simple model and I don't have to do much to configure it after installing.  Crashplan also has a mobile app that allows you to download any file in your backup, like a movie to your mobile device.

Here's the detail on how to setup Crashplan on a headless linux box from their website.  

http://support.crashplan.com/doku.php/how_to/configure_a_headless_client

The quick version - you port forward the crashplan desktop app to your server:

1. Find the ui.properties file on your desktop crashplan installation
2. Uncomment the servicePort=4243 and change it from 4243 to another high port
3. Do your port forward eg ssh -L 42009:localhost:4243 yourusername@headless.server.address
4. Launch Crashplan on the desktop, now you are controlling the instance on the server.

Easy peasy.

If you need it, here's how to install Crashplan on Linux - about half way down.

http://support.crashplan.com/doku.php/getting_started/installing_crashplan

Bedrock TM1 - IBM Cognos TM1 Resources You Can Actually Use

Stumbled on this awesome site today:
Bedrock TM1

It is basically a site built for everyone using IBM Cognos TM1 and saying, "I can't be the only one who  needs to do this".  Open source TM1 Turbor Integrator processes are available for download.  They only ask that you contribute your improvements or help with the guides/manuals for the TI processes.

From their front page:
If you download and install Bedrock TI you will notice vast improvements in your time-to-market, cost of ownership and a marked reduction in TI code and hence system risk. Your TM1 documentation will also be kick-started with comprehensive help documents. White papers describe Best Practice approaches to TM1 and core explanations of TM1 functionality for beginners exist in a series of Training Papers.

Hopefully I can stop feeling like I'm reinventing the wheel with TM1.

Who's your favorite Doctor?

The Day of the Doctor, The Doctor Who 50th anniversary special is about 3 months away.  While I spend time scouring rumor sites, I thought I'd post my top 5 favorite Doctors.  Who are your favorites?


 #5
Christopher Eccleston
You never forget your first Doctor, and Christopher Eccleston was mine.  Sure, I'd seen some other older episodes before but never really got into them until the new series.  "Fantastic!"

#4 
Patrick Troughton
The second Doctor, Patrick Troughton, made me trust him immediately.  Gentle, using words instead of violence (mostly) and the Tomb Of The Cybermen was amazing.

#3  
Tom Baker
The 4th Doctor, Tom Baker, is as goofy as his scarf.  But then came the Key Of Time series, where you see him get serious is amazing.  Particularly the Pirate Planet by Douglas Adams, amazing stuff.

#2  
John Pewtree
The James Bond of Doctors, if James Bond could pull off a cape.  A much more grounded seriers due to budget cuts made the writing that much more important.  John Pewtree does a fantastic job of showing that while The Doctor looks old, he's definitely packs a punch (or Venusian Karate Chop)

#1  
David Tennant
David Tennat's turn as the Doctor was a difficult one for me.  At first I couldn't stand him, then I couldn't believe the series would continue without him.  My favorite moment of all is in the Family of Blood 2 parter, when he must take the decision to "murder" John Smith in order to save everyone.  I found it more gut wrenching than the "I don't want to go" line.

VMWare HA Agent had an error

I recently had a problem with one hoste in a 3 node VMWare ESX 3. 5 cluster. For some reason, the HA Agent would not start after I applied outstanding software updates. I kept receiving "VMWare HA Agent had an error" in the alerts after the host came online. I had recently needed to change the IP address of the VMWare 3.5 ESX host, so I figured that was the root cause.

I tried the standard VMWare HA Agent troubleshooting steps in particular order:
1. Reconfiguring HA on the affect host - FAILED
2. Removing and Adding the Host - FAILED
3. Removing the vpxa package from the console on the host - FAILED
4. Verified that the hosts file contained all of the cluster hosts and the VC & that resolv.conf had the correct DNS Servers and search domain
5. Rebooting the VMWare ESX 3.5 host
6. Various combinations of the above

Nothing worked.

I did some more research, and discovered that the HA Agent caches host information in the following file: /etc/opt/vmware/aam/FT_HOSTS

I simply moved FT_HOSTS to a different filename and reconfigured HA on the VMWare ESX Host. A new FT_HOSTS file was created and HA is now up and running.

I hope this helps someone from spending as much time on this problem as did!

-Jugg

Installing ImageMagick

So this is a bit of a technical post, I promise lighter fare in the near future..

I needed to install ImageMagick on a SLES 10 Sp2 box tonight and ran into a couple of minor hiccups.  Thought I would post them and the solutions I found in case someone else needs them.
First off I got this during make:

grep: /usr/lib/libjpeg.la: No such file or directory
/usr/bin/sed: can't read /usr/lib/libjpeg.la: No such file or directory
libtool: link: `/usr/lib/libjpeg.la' is not a valid libtool archive

Fair enough, I was missing a development package.  Easily solved with:

yast2 -i libjpeg-devel

I ran make again without errors.  After running make install without errors I thought I was home free.  Then I got this error when testing the install with convert:
convert: error while loading shared libraries: libMagickCore.so.2: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

Oops - needed to update the links with the following command:
ldconfig /usr/local/lib

Ran convert again and blammo, ImageMagick works. Hope this helps save someone a night of pain.

Restless Leg Syndrome is a Big Fat Lie

Does anyone else have a loved one who suffers from Restless Leg Syndrome? If so, you're an idiot. Restless Leg Syndrome is a big fat lie. It's a fake disease invented by disgruntled women who need an excuse to literally kick-the-crap out of their boyfriends/husbands/lovers.

I know this because my future-wife has "RLS". Hers is a peculiar case, as it only exhibits its symptoms after we've had some sort of disagreement. We'll argue for a while and then go separate ways. Soon bedtime approaches and future-wife acts all sweety-mc-sweet-sweets, showering me with kisses, spooning, etc. Then, after she's lulled me to sleep, the "RLS" kicks in and she starts jamming her foot into my back, my butt, my man-marbles (Ouch!).

Isn't that great? A completely made-up, totally bogus disease that allows women to assault their peacefully sleeping counterparts. I don't know how to combat this egregious offense against the sanctity of our relationship, but I do know one thing: I'll be wearing shin guards to bed from now on. And a cup.

-M