Category Archives: sysadmin notes

What if I told you that you can set up a low powered, virtually silent, fully functional linux home server for only $30 (not including shipping)? Because that’s exactly what I just did. I set up a home server for … Continue reading →

As you probably already know, I have been trying to live more on the command line these days. I’ve been using Pine as my primary email client and doing most of my file management with command line tools, and stuff … Continue reading →

Friends, Romans, Sysadmins – lend me your /dev/ears so that I can listen to myself talk. Actually, I’m more interested in you talking. So tell me, what kind of tools do you use in your line of work, or in … Continue reading →

On Monday I wrote about my experimental shift to command line email clients. Or rather about being unhappy about the available command line client choices. Still, I sucked it up, configured Pine (well Apline but whatever) for my work IMAP … Continue reading →

Lately I’ve been trying to experiment with weaning myself off the CPU/Memory expensive GUI clients and instead try living more on the command line. I came to a conclusion that you can’t really go wrong with command line. For one, … Continue reading →

Remember how I always talk about redundant backups? Let me tell you a story about what happens when you don’t have them. Few months ago I purchased a 2TB external drive to replace an older LaCie drive that I suspected … Continue reading →

Have you ever tried printing something from an iOS device lately? Can you explain to me why Apple decided not to give power users a way to use standard network printing protocols? Apple devices do not to TCP/IP printing. At … Continue reading →

I initially wanted to post it on Wednesday, but I figured I might as well push it ahead a day because the problem is interesting, and there is not much publicity about it out there. Dan, a buddy of mine … Continue reading →

Sometimes you gots to script windows. If it’s my personal rig I usually just use Cygwin because that’s where all the tools I need reside on Windows boxen. Either that or I just hack in Python which became my replacement … Continue reading →

Two weeks ago I explained to you why I use vim. Last week, I taught you how to configure it. This week I want to talk about something different: power user stuff. Let’s talk useful vim tricks. Everyone amasses an … Continue reading →

In my super-massive vim post I have mentioned that CTAGS are the bees-knees of vim lifestyle. A lifestyle which may not be as glamorous as that of marketrioid marsupials for example, but we fucking like it. I just found a … Continue reading →

Last week I posted this long winded persuasive article trying to convince you why using a nearly 40 year old text editor is a good idea. I hope by now I have all of you convinced, or at the very … Continue reading →

If you are like me – a computer nomad, roaming from one machine to another throughout the day – you should put your Vim configuration files under source control. Cause, you are using vim, right? If you are not using … Continue reading →

In the previous installment of this story, I have learned that the company somehow managed to fill 200GB of free space on the network shares, overnight. I was more baffled than surprised, as this sort of thing was not new. … Continue reading →

It’s Monday morning, and I’m sick. I thought that I was smart when I got my flu shot a few months ago. I figured that I can cock-block the influenza virus, and skate through the winter unscathed. What I did … Continue reading →

In the last week or so the Java plugin on my laptop completely broke. I’m not sure what exactly has happened but it just stopped working. At first Chrome started complaining that my Java is out of date but I … Continue reading →

Before I begin this rant I want to make it clear I am not a Dell hater. I am a rather happy owner of a Dell XPS desktop and I work on a team that professionally maintains a fleet of … Continue reading →

I think I won’t be far off the target if I say that most of my readers are probably fairly competent technology users. I know that not all of you are programmers or IT workers, but I don’t think there … Continue reading →

Not so long I was tasked with setting up a web server for a new project. The list of requirements was simple: it needed to run PHP. I was told the rest of the details were up to me. The … Continue reading →

Passwords are really bad from security standpoint. They positively, absolutely suck. You know how I know that? Because I can actually remember a lot of peoples passwords, that I never asked for. People just tell them to me while I … Continue reading →

The thing about being an IT professional or a sysadmin is that your workload comes and goes in waves. Some days are just slow and lazy, and there is not much for you to do. You are all caught up … Continue reading →

It has been almost a week since Steve’s visit. My daily interactions with Verizon have settled into a very predictable pattern. Every afternoon I get an “unexpected” visit from an on-site tech. I explain the problem is not local, and … Continue reading →

On the last episode of The Firewall Saga we met Steve – a peculiar Verizon technician who turned out not to be the “Network Specialist” we were promised. I managed to co-opt him into a crazy plan of getting the … Continue reading →

Welcome to the penultimate yet another installment of the Firewall Saga (it was supposed to be penultimate but it did not work out that way). If you haven’t been following it, please try to catch up. It will make more … Continue reading →

Since I blew my entire weekend exuding hate towards car salesmen (weekends are when I queue my posts), here is another quick and easy post. This time it is a list. Lists are cool, right? If you recall, not so … Continue reading →