Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Lunesta nightmare



For the love of Christ, what a hell were they thinking... This is amazingly creepy..
And I'm not alone with the thought...




I dreamt that the creepy Lunesta Butterfly was violating my ear while I slept
The Creepy Lunesta Butterfly

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Tuesday, December 28, 2010

Seasonal travelling


Ezeiza, yesterday around eight PM.
Trying to fly away from the freaking Bs. As. heat.

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Sunday, December 26, 2010

Happy go holidays

Slowly unwinding from work and getting ready to get the hell out of here, and, even tho the freaking heat is getting on my nerves, last night caught a nice movie on cable, Happy-Go-Lucky, it was the first "new" movie that I see complete in quite a while.

Now I'm saving myself for Tron Legacy, it opened around, matter of fact, it opened one day early than in the rest of the world (the marvels of globalization....).
Haven't been to a theater in nearly 6 years now, nothing got my attention so far, but this one seems to be like a nice way to get back to the cinema. also, I'd like to take my goddaughter to see it in the US; she's 12, hopefully she won't be that scared.

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Saturday, December 25, 2010

Fucking summer, horrid heat

Not much to say, been covered by work these last couple of weeks...

This summer looks like it is going to be a (heat) blast.
Not 4 days old now, and already easily topping above the 30s...

The only thing that keeps me alive is that come Monday I start my holidays and I get the fuck out of town.

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Tuesday, December 14, 2010

Customize mouse cursor icons on Snow Leopard

Or fuck off and die a slow death, I-Beam!

Well, took me a while, but I finally got rid (mostly) of the awful I-Beam cursor icon.
The idea of editing the CoreGraphics file went nowhere... So I installed Unsanity's Mighty Mouse.
Right now Mighty Mouse does not have an official Snow Leopard release, so it is necessary to use the one for Leopard.
There are some instructions floating around on the internet how to do so, like this one Changing your mouse cursor (OSX 10.6), but I found them to miss a part or not easy to follow; so here is my setup step by step.

Install APE, and then reboot.
Download Mighty Mouse, tested with "mightymouse-20b1.dmg", mount the dmg file, and then:


cp -R "/Volumes/Mighty Mouse/Mighty Mouse Installer.app/Contents/Resources/ui/Mighty Mouse.ape" \
~/Desktop/
cp -R "/Volumes/Mighty Mouse/Mighty Mouse Installer.app/Contents/Resources/ui/Mighty Mouse.prefPane" \
~/Desktop/
cd ~/Desktop/
cd "Mighty Mouse.ape/Contents"
cp Info.plist Info.plist.ORIG


Edit the Info.plist file with your favorite editor, it has to end like this:

<key>APELeopardCertified</key>
<true/>
<key>APESnowLeopardCertified</key>
<true/>

Then:

cp -R "Mighty Mouse.prefPane" ~/Library/PreferencePanes/
cp -R "Mighty Mouse.ape" ~/Library/Application Enhancers/

I had to create the directory
~/Library/Application Enhancers/
.

Logout and then log back in, and start using it.
Been using it for the last couple of weeks without any issues on 10.6.5, even tho I have a valid license from when I was using Mighty Mouse -the PPC version- on Tiger it seems like Unsanity has changed its registration process, so it doesn't work; nad incidentally, everything seems to point that Unsanity is out of business so I guess I'l have to keep using this unregistered version, which has nagging window now and then.

Related posts:

Small potatoes? Big cursors!
The fight against IBeam goes on
The fight against IBeam goes on (and on...)
The fight continues...

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Thursday, December 09, 2010

Crappy weather ahead


Damn! It looks like we'll be cooking our asses off on Friday, and I bet most of Saturday as well.

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Wednesday, December 08, 2010

Books & time

It has been a while since I post something about books and the crap I'm reading in general.

After the one on Yeager, got my hands on "La Costa de Los Mosquitos" (read in in Spanish, IIRC, it was the first and only book on Spanish this year, shame on me...).
Found it an amazing book, I've seeing the film many, many years ago, and it was rather good, but the book as simply an excellent read.
It was the second book I've read from Theroux, the other one being "Saint Jack", I simply couldn't not read that book after seeing Bogdanovich's film (Here is an excellent review of the film).

After that one, got my hands on "Alas, Babylon", got it during my last vacation, but didn't had any time to read it until now. Being a "fan" of the genre, this book seems rather naive, but then again, it was one of the first ones written on the subject of post apocalyptic war.

This summer (my summer) have to get me a copy of "War Day", even if it is a used one thru Amazon.com.

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Tuesday, December 07, 2010

The current Trantor desktop


I have to say that when it comes to wallpapers, I'm a meat and potatoes kinda guy... The default just do the thing for me.

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Monday, December 06, 2010

(Quick) Nagios setup

A quick & dirty "guide" to get Nagios monitoring on a local Linux server in no time. This has been done on CentOS, but the same applies to just about any other distro, as long as you take care of the paths to the configuration files.

cp template.HOSTNAME.FQDN.cfg $HOSTNAME.cfg
emacs $HOSTNAME.cfg

Meta X replace-regex HOSTNAME host
Meta X replace-regex $HOSTNAME.FQDN $HOSTNAME

Section "define host":
Replace "Description here" with the real data
Replace "ip.address.here" with the real IP address of the host

Section "define contact":
Replace "Description here" with the real data, a concise description.
email Replace with the real email addresses of the contacts, or the contact that should receive notifications from this server.

Section "define contactgroup":
Replace "Description here" with the real data of the Linux server.
Be sure to add more services to suit your needs, or the needs of the monitored server.
Copy the file to the Nagios directory:

sudo cp $HOSTNAME.cfg /etc/nagios/objects/


Edit the commands file:

sudo emacs /etc/nagios/objects/commands.cfg


Specifically, edit the strings "***** Nagios *****" on 'notify-host-by-email' & 'notify-service-by-email' to something that identifies the box from which the emails are coming from.
I usually leave like this:

** Nagios $HOSTNAME **

Edit Nagio's master configuration file, so it uses the cfg file just created, and discard the default localhost.cfg one.

sudo emacs /etc/nagios/nagios.cfg

Comment the line:

cfg_file=/etc/nagios/objects/localhost.cfg

And add a line with the cfg file just created.

cfg_file=/etc/nagios/objects/$HOSTNAME.cfg

Before launching Nagios, tight a bit the web access:

sudo emacs /etc/httpd/conf.d/nagios.conf

And setup basic security (enable SSL, setup the password protection, limit IP range, etc).

Test it

sudo /usr/bin/nagios -v /etc/nagios/nagios.cfg

And if its OK, launch it.

Here is a copy of "template.HOSTNAME.FQDN.cfg":

## -----------------------------------------------

## History

## -----------------------------------------------

## sudo /usr/bin/nagios -v /etc/nagios/nagios.cfg

define host{
name HOSTNAME-host
use generic-host
check_period 24x7
check_interval 5
retry_interval 1
max_check_attempts 10
check_command check-host-alive
notification_period 24x7
notification_interval 120
notification_options d,u,r
contact_groups HOSTNAME-contactgroup
register 0
}

define host{
use HOSTNAME-host
host_name HOSTNAME.FQDN
alias Description here
address ip.address.here
}

define contact{
contact_name HOSTNAME-contact
use generic-contact
alias Description here
email 1@email.com, 2@email.com, 3@email.com
}

define contactgroup{
contactgroup_name HOSTNAME-contactgroup
alias Description here
members HOSTNAME-contact
}

# SERVICE DEFINITIONS

define service{
name HOSTNAME-generic-service
active_checks_enabled 1
passive_checks_enabled 1
parallelize_check 1
obsess_over_service 1
check_freshness 0
notifications_enabled 1
event_handler_enabled 1
flap_detection_enabled 1
failure_prediction_enabled 1
process_perf_data 1
retain_status_information 1
retain_nonstatus_information 1
is_volatile 0
check_period 24x7
max_check_attempts 3
normal_check_interval 5
retry_check_interval 2
contact_groups HOSTNAME-contactgroup
notification_options w,u,c,r
notification_interval 120
notification_period 24x7
register 0
}

define service{
name HOSTNAME-service
use HOSTNAME-generic-service
max_check_attempts 4
normal_check_interval 5
retry_check_interval 1
register 0
}

define service{
use HOSTNAME-service
host_name HOSTNAME.FQDN
service_description Connectivity
check_command check_ping!100.0,20%!500.0,60%
}

# Define a service to check the disk space of the root partition
# on the local machine. Warning if < 20% free, critical if
# < 10% free space on partition.

define service{
use HOSTNAME-service
host_name HOSTNAME.FQDN
service_description Partition /
check_command check_local_disk!20%!10%!/
}

define service{
use HOSTNAME-service
host_name HOSTNAME.FQDN
service_description Partition /boot
check_command check_local_disk!20%!10%!/boot
}

# Define a service to check the number of currently logged in
# users on the local machine. Warning if > 20 users, critical
# if > 50 users.

define service{
use HOSTNAME-service
host_name HOSTNAME.FQDN
service_description Current Users
check_command check_local_users!20!50
}

# Define a service to check the number of currently running procs
# on the local machine. Warning if > 250 processes, critical if
# > 400 users.

define service{
use HOSTNAME-service
host_name HOSTNAME.FQDN
service_description Total Processes
check_command check_local_procs!250!400!RSZDT
}

define service{
use HOSTNAME-service
host_name HOSTNAME.FQDN
service_description Current Load
check_command check_local_load!5.0,4.0,3.0!10.0,6.0,4.0
}

define service{
use HOSTNAME-service
host_name HOSTNAME.FQDN
service_description Swap Usage
check_command check_local_swap!20!10
}

define service{
use HOSTNAME-service
host_name HOSTNAME.FQDN
service_description Service SSH
check_command check_ssh
}

define service{
use HOSTNAME-service
host_name HOSTNAME.FQDN
service_description Service HTTP
check_command check_http
}

# EoF #

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Friday, December 03, 2010

The new Trantor (2)

A little more on setting up my beloved MBP.
Couple of more installed programs:

IP calculator Widget
UNIX perms calculator Widget
Telephone

And setting up the Dock the way I want it, not the ridiculous default new one:
defaults write com.apple.dock no-glass -boolean YES; killall Dock

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Thursday, December 02, 2010

What's in store for us...


Here we go, full blast ahead...

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Updates dujour

Installed these today, no problems so far.

2010-12-01 14:33:33 status installed man-db 2.5.7-2ubuntu1
2010-12-01 14:33:40 status installed hicolor-icon-theme 0.11-1
2010-12-01 14:33:42 status installed python-gmenu 2.30.0-0ubuntu4
2010-12-01 14:33:42 status installed desktop-file-utils 0.16-0ubuntu2
2010-12-01 14:33:45 status installed python-support 1.0.4ubuntu1
2010-12-01 14:33:46 status installed grub-common 1.98-1ubuntu8
2010-12-01 14:34:01 status installed grub-pc 1.98-1ubuntu8
2010-12-01 14:35:43 status installed linux-image-2.6.32-26-generic 2.6.32-26.48
2010-12-01 14:35:45 status installed libpango1.0-common 1.28.0-0ubuntu2.1
2010-12-01 14:35:45 status installed libpango1.0-0 1.28.0-0ubuntu2.1
2010-12-01 14:36:16 status installed flashplugin-installer 10.1.102.65ubuntu0.10.04.1
2010-12-01 14:36:16 status installed flashplugin-nonfree 10.1.102.65ubuntu0.10.04.1
2010-12-01 14:36:16 status installed libpurple-bin 1:2.6.6-1ubuntu4.2
2010-12-01 14:36:16 status installed libpurple0 1:2.6.6-1ubuntu4.2
2010-12-01 14:36:16 status installed linux-image-generic 2.6.32.26.28
2010-12-01 14:36:16 status installed linux-generic 2.6.32.26.28
2010-12-01 14:36:17 status installed linux-headers-2.6.32-26 2.6.32-26.48
2010-12-01 14:36:18 status installed linux-headers-2.6.32-26-generic 2.6.32-26.48
2010-12-01 14:36:18 status installed linux-headers-generic 2.6.32.26.28
2010-12-01 14:36:18 status installed linux-libc-dev 2.6.32-26.48
2010-12-01 14:36:19 status installed openssl 0.9.8k-7ubuntu8.4
2010-12-01 14:36:19 status installed pidgin-data 1:2.6.6-1ubuntu4.2
2010-12-01 14:36:19 status installed pidgin 1:2.6.6-1ubuntu4.2
2010-12-01 14:36:20 status installed xserver-common 2:1.7.6-2ubuntu7.4
2010-12-01 14:36:20 status installed xserver-xorg-core 2:1.7.6-2ubuntu7.4
2010-12-01 14:36:21 status installed indicator-sound 0.2.6-0ubuntu1
2010-12-01 14:36:22 status installed libc-bin 2.11.1-0ubuntu7.5

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