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Typhoon Approaching Okinawa and Kyushu

In the summer of 1987 I was temporarily assigned to Kadena AB, Okinawa from my duty station at Misawa AB, Japan. During that summer a major typhoon hit the island of Okinawa. I will never forget the fury that nature can hurl at a city in the form of a typhoon. The service men and women were locked into dormitory style barracks with lots of food and drink; the planes all flew away to safety elsewhere; those of us off base or in contract quarters had more liberty to move around, but were warned very strictly to take shelter and we did – coming out only during a lull in the storm. The hotel we stayed at lost power, and the owner negotiated with the building across the street to run a long heavy-duty power cable across the street to get some power to the lobby (mostly for the fridge and some fans). The damage was awe-inspiring to review in the days that followed and the people of Kadena and Okinawa recovered and rebuilt. The news that Okinawa is in the path of a much larger storm is sad; and I hope the wonderful people there weather this coming monster storm as well as they did the one I witnessed first hand.

2014 07 07 snolan Environment
News
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Selenium browser automation makes testing websites easy

Selenium is a Firefox plug-in that lets you record your web activity and save those actions as a script that you can then play back over and over again measuring and timing the results. It is very useful for testing web sites.

Simply install the plugin, start the Selenium IDE (Tools/Selenium), point Firefox at the website you want to test; then press the record button, click through the site as you expect your users to do, then stop recording. You have a Test Case. You can put several Test Cases into a Test Suite. Very handy for making any repetitive web work easy and fast.

2014 06 25 snolan Computers
Web Design
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Sublime Text 2

Every now and then you run into a new solution or tool that revolutionizes the same work you have been doing for ages. As a UNIX and Linux Systems Administrator I edit a lot of text files, and vim has been my text editor of choice for decades. Well, I still use vim habitually, but there are situations where I am discovering some huge advantages to Sublime Text 2 (available for Mac, Linux and Windows). Sublime keyboarding is new enough to me that I am faster in vim, but Sublime lets me open multiple files in a SID or Norton Commander style file browser and really get organized, and cutting and pasting blocks of text between open files and tabs is delightfully easy.

It has been a real game changer, and I have stopped using MacVim (vim with Mac GUI stuff) entirely, though I still fall back to text only vim for complex regular expression activity. Another bonus is that I finally have a free and easy to use yet powerful text editor for the rare time I get on Windows or Windows Server, and the interface is the same regardless of platform – so Sublime tricks can be shared with Windows or Linux based co-workers.

Highly recommended: Sublime Text

I have created a symbolic link (aka: alias) on my Mac:
/usr/local/bin/sublime -> /Applications/Sublime Text 2.app/Contents/SharedSupport/bin/subl

That allows me to run “sublime .” on the command line and use the amazing file browser to edit several files in the current directory.

Update: I should be clear, Sublime is free to download and try, but it licenses per user at $70, which is an awesome deal to me for something I can use across machines and architectures.

2014 06 23 snolan Computers
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Max OS X Keyboard Tips

Mac OS X Keyboard Tricks:

Use the Command (⌘) key (aka: splat or apple key) like you would a Control key in Windows (⌘c copies, ⌘v pastes, ⌘ Tab to switch between running apps, ⌘~ to switch between App WIndows inside one App)
⌘ Space brings up Spotlight Search with actually works wonderfully, Command-Space-Mai-Return starts the first program that begins with Mai (Mail) – fast task start without leaving keyboard
Control-Shift-Power or Control-Shift-Eject will lock the screen the way Windows-L does on a PC
Four fingers slid from left to right or the other way will swipe between virtual desktops, four finger swipe up will allow you to add more desktops (drag any app window to the top right to create new).
Two finger tap is like a right mouse click (though you can change this if you like)

2014 06 19 snolan Computers Comments (0) Permalink

Clustered SSH can be very useful to sysadmins

This is not new, but it is surprising how stuck we all can get in old habits, and we can miss out on some real time-savers.

One such time-saver for systems administrators or anyone who must frequently run the same commands on several hosts is clustered ssh, some scripts for your desktop/laptop that allow you to open several command line windows into different servers and run the same commands against them all at once.

On my Mac laptop I run bin/csshX host1 host1 host3 user@fqdn4 and Terminal opens up with five windows, one for each server and an additional, colored red, for driving the others. Anything I type into the red window gets run on all the others simultaneously. On a multi-display system, I use bin/csshX -screen 2 host1 host1 where 2 is the number of the screen so the windows don’t show up “hidden.”

2014 06 17 snolan Computers Comments (0) Permalink

Resetting iPod Classic

I keep forgetting how to recover my preferences on my iPod classic after I rarely have to reset it, so I decided to capture them here in hopes it helps me (and others) recover after a reset.

By the way, a reset is to toggle the hold slider on and then off, then press and hold both the Pause/Play button and the Menu button for 6-8 seconds. This reboots/resets your iPod classic.

First things I will try to do after a reset from now on is:
* Settings/Shuffle Off (I like to play several episodes of a podcast in a row)
* Settings/Repeat Off
* Settings/Clicker Off
* Music/Playlists/Select a Playlist/Play
** Press the Center Button Three Times to select Shuffle Mode, I like Songs

That last sets each Playlist you select to Shuffle by Song mode, be careful not to do that with Playlists that are audiobook chapters.

2014 05 22 snolan Fun
Music
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Tricks for surviving the cold

* Stay inside, or at least out of the wind, and layers of clothing
* Open cabinet/cupboard doors under those sinks against exterior walls so warm air gets in and keeps pipes from freezing
* a heating pad can fix a frozen pipe given enough time
* turn on gas fireplaces while there is power to reduce load on electric heat, and so they are already on if power goes out
* did I mention layers of clothing? Seriously – several long-sleeved t-shirts is better than one “polar” fleece, and tights under jeans or long johns under jeans, and two pairs of socks, etc, etc
* plan outside time before going out – take a moment to imagine each step from the door to the car, or car to the office, etc – BEFORE stepping out
* Office Space on DVD never gets old – neither does Princess Bride

2014 01 07 snolan House
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Poor Website Design

I am disappointed with the new Virginia State Board of Elections website design. It should be easy for voters to figure out their voting place without putting any more personal information than an address. That this website would even attempt to collect last four of SSN and Voter ID number is insulting and a huge privacy concern. Can you guarantee this site will not be hacked? Addresses are public information already and should be sufficient for honestly and openly telling voters exactly where their polling places are. The changed site is a giant step backwards.

Despite the attempts of Virginia to keep voters in the dark, please go vote today.

2013 11 05 snolan Virginia Politics
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AppleID (aka: iTunes Store) accounts finally get two step authentication

This is a much more secure, if a little more annoying, way to protect your AppleID. Since there is real money involved with your iTunes and App Store purchases now, I strongly recommend you set up two-step authentication on your own AppleID.

I recommend you go to appleid.apple.com and Manage your Account, then take 10 minutes and set up two-step authentication with a trusted device or two. Then you need your password AND the device to update your account security preferences (this makes it much harder to swipe your account and change your password).

Hat tip: The Verge

2013 03 21 snolan Computer Security
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Taming iTunes 11

I am less than thrilled with iTunes 11, and am trying to figure out how to use it for all the same functions I enjoyed with earlier versions of iTunes. A lot of this is simply look and feel and slowly growing accustomed to new style and process, but in the interim I can make iTunes 11 look a lot like iTunes 10 by doing the following:

  • Get the sidebar back by clicking View > Show Sidebar (or hitting Alt+Cmd+S).
  • Get the status bar back by clicking View > Show Status Bar (or hit Command+/).
  • Click Songs in the top bar, and sort by Artist for the traditional list view.

Now, iTunes 11 should look about the same as iTunes 10.

I still miss the Album Art preview in the left hand side bar… and some of my Album Art may have vanished; though it is hard to tell without the sidebar preview, still analyzing my huge (~26,000 song) library.

The sharing options are important to me too; as I use iTunes extensively to share music and movies around the house, so this must work perfectly.

2012 12 19 snolan Computers
House
Music
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