Somebody said it right "You are your own worst enemy" .
Last couple of weeks have been slightly crazy , with my bipolar disorder swinging my moods from pole to pole. For no apparent reason that I can think of, the demons in my head were gnawing away all that was happy and good. Making me feel like my grey matter was turning into wriggling maggots.
Here comes little sister to the rescue , a cold-blooded reptile when it comes to feelings , moods and all that sentimental bullshit. Knew I could trust my own blood , we were always there for each other.
She takes in all the information that I give her , then turns all my feelings into chopped liver.
Her input is all your feelings at work or play .
Her output is a cold-logic processed data flowchart that can be literally pasted onto a Visio diagram.
Some people are real shredders when it comes to all the fluffy stuff and you cannot help but admire them .
Moral of the story ? I have to place this thought in my head, and make sure it stays there ,
"Suck your own thumb next time , you wimp !! Don't you f**king lose control over your go*damn moods again , you as**ole !!"
Monday, June 23, 2008
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
Getting Things done
Getting Things done (GTD) is a project managementmethod proposed in the book by David Allen
It follows the principle of recording all the data (or thoughts) that we receive , into a database (either in software or in meatspace) , so that the mind is free from the work of storing this volatile data and can spend more effort in processing information.
Here is what David Allen says about this action management method :
“Get everything out of your head. Make decisions about actions required on stuff when it shows up — not when it blows up. Organize reminders of your projects and the next actions on them in appropriate categories. Keep your system current, complete, and reviewed sufficiently to trust your intuitive choices about what you're doing (and not doing) at any time.”
Check this wiki link for more information on this.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Getting_Things_Done
As suggested in the seminar, I have tried using quite a few software based tools , the one that I liked the best is a free java based software called "Thinking Rock" , which strictly adheres to the GTD principle.
As they say , the best things in life and software are free.
Sunday, June 1, 2008
Powertop
I got this one from my manager , it is a must-have for Ubuntu on laptops.
Run "apt-get install powertop " to install.
Simply run "sudo powertop" when on battery .
It gives you useful suggestions on conserving power.
Hardy Heron and VMware annoyance
Ever tried using Hardy with VMware workstation or Server ?
Try launching a windows VM (virtual machine) inside and switch it to full-screen or quick view mode .
Then come back to Hardy , you will find that the Shift and Control keys don't work anymore !
Switch context to the windows VM again , they seems to work fine inside it.
This problem is intermittent and the only way I can fix it is to run "setxkbmap" (I got this from Launchpad Bug #195982)
Running setxkbmap alleviates the problem only for a short while.
It will reappear intermittently , on switching contexts.
I use my laptop with a secondary monitor . My laptop runs Hardy and my production (official) machine is a windows xp guest running on VMware .
I have the guest use the secondary monitor in full-screen mode and Hardy takes my laptop screen.
To switch contexts (which I do often) , I simply move my mouse cursor to the other screen (they are spanned with nvidia twinview)
Since there seems to be no solution for this bug yet , I have created a custom launcher in the gnome panel for running setxkbmap (See image) . I click the launcher whenever the damn bug pops up !
SAN admin anyone ?
I spoke to my old friend, a few days ago. He wants to come to Bangalore and get into the storage industry and become a SAN admin.
It gets real funny when people say that , what exactly do they mean by that , I wonder ?
Its like saying I want to get into the "computer" industry !
Just goes to show that little knowledge can be worse than complete ignorance.
I asked him, what does he want to learn about storage ?
No surprises here , he mentioned he wants to learn about Clariion .
Damn, I have heard this about a zillion times. I always get that stupid answer.
Clariion is one of the low-end arrays made by EMC , it doesn't even have an active-active storage processors !
I wonder why nobody talks about symmetrix or Hitachi HDS etc.
But in any case , a SAN admin job doesn't just involve managing arrays. In fact , that would be the least of his
concerns , most of these boxes have "made for dummies" type GUIs.
I advised learning more about switches and storage technologies in general and then moving onto specialized topics , like individual arrays and associated technologies.
That does not mean that you ignore arrays altogether , but you can take up arrays later.
The major part of the work is the fibre-switching , patch work , zoning and most importantly, implementation.
It becomes less of a "button-pushing" and more of a planning affair.
My friend also mentioned that he is trying to learn Unix , which he believes will be an advantage in the storage industry.
I seriously don't get this , WTF has Unix got to do with the storage industry ??
There is negligible host based configuration involved these days, nobody does any kind of LUN masking from the host side.
I offered my opinion , which is most likely going to be ignored . For one person offering the right bit of advice , there will be ten other fools trying to convince in the other direction.
It gets real funny when people say that , what exactly do they mean by that , I wonder ?
Its like saying I want to get into the "computer" industry !
Just goes to show that little knowledge can be worse than complete ignorance.
I asked him, what does he want to learn about storage ?
No surprises here , he mentioned he wants to learn about Clariion .
Damn, I have heard this about a zillion times. I always get that stupid answer.
Clariion is one of the low-end arrays made by EMC , it doesn't even have an active-active storage processors !
I wonder why nobody talks about symmetrix or Hitachi HDS etc.
But in any case , a SAN admin job doesn't just involve managing arrays. In fact , that would be the least of his
concerns , most of these boxes have "made for dummies" type GUIs.
I advised learning more about switches and storage technologies in general and then moving onto specialized topics , like individual arrays and associated technologies.
That does not mean that you ignore arrays altogether , but you can take up arrays later.
The major part of the work is the fibre-switching , patch work , zoning and most importantly, implementation.
It becomes less of a "button-pushing" and more of a planning affair.
My friend also mentioned that he is trying to learn Unix , which he believes will be an advantage in the storage industry.
I seriously don't get this , WTF has Unix got to do with the storage industry ??
There is negligible host based configuration involved these days, nobody does any kind of LUN masking from the host side.
I offered my opinion , which is most likely going to be ignored . For one person offering the right bit of advice , there will be ten other fools trying to convince in the other direction.
Grep fan
Major part of my work involves checking for certain events in log files and try to trace out activities that happened just before and after these events. This is commonly called Root Cause Analysis (RCA).
Earlier , when I was new into this job , I used to do a "less" on the log files , one by one .
Then scroll page by page in each log to find out where the interesting parts were.
It became easier , when I learned about the "/" in "less" . If ya hit "/" when in less , you can perform a simple search , and sort through the results by "n"(next).
Now I don't even do that , I just do a
grep -i "event_im_searching_for" "list_of_log files or wildcards" -A5 -B5
The A5 , B5 give me 5 log entries before and after the event ! Can't get any better than this.
This may look childish to a Unix guru , he would probably use some regexes with grep to do this even better . But I'm learning , I'll get there.
Earlier , when I was new into this job , I used to do a "less" on the log files , one by one .
Then scroll page by page in each log to find out where the interesting parts were.
It became easier , when I learned about the "/" in "less" . If ya hit "/" when in less , you can perform a simple search , and sort through the results by "n"(next).
Now I don't even do that , I just do a
grep -i "event_im_searching_for" "list_of_log files or wildcards" -A5 -B5
The A5 , B5 give me 5 log entries before and after the event ! Can't get any better than this.
This may look childish to a Unix guru , he would probably use some regexes with grep to do this even better . But I'm learning , I'll get there.
Can't live without tail -f
Let's say performing a step produces an unexpected result or an error.
And you want to find out more information from the logs about the error.
Initially I would gather all the logs on my end , and then I would do the "grepping" thing on them.
But every time I tried a troubleshooting step(and it didnt work or did something else ) , I had to go back in and then do the "grepping" again.
Found out that this works out far better , if you do this with tail -f.
Open a few ssh sessions to the esx/unix/linux box.
Do a tail -f /var/log/whatever for each log file that you want to examine.
Then perform the step that produces the unexpected result or error.
The "-f" continues polls the logs , so it lets you see the relevant information from the logs in real time.
And you want to find out more information from the logs about the error.
Initially I would gather all the logs on my end , and then I would do the "grepping" thing on them.
But every time I tried a troubleshooting step(and it didnt work or did something else ) , I had to go back in and then do the "grepping" again.
Found out that this works out far better , if you do this with tail -f.
Open a few ssh sessions to the esx/unix/linux box.
Do a tail -f /var/log/whatever for each log file that you want to examine.
Then perform the step that produces the unexpected result or error.
The "-f" continues polls the logs , so it lets you see the relevant information from the logs in real time.
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