Ramblin' Dude

Solaris: Rotating the pacct file

2011-12-16T12:40:00.000-08:00

If you happen to have the process accounting (pacct) enabled and the pacct, found under /var/adm to be growing stupendously. You can have it rotated, by means of:

/usr/lib/acct/turnacct switch
This will rename the pacct file to pacct.X, where X is a decimal digit

Or added into cron to rotate at desired interval, daily at midnight for example:
0 0 * * * /usr/sbin/logadm -p now rotate_pacct

Lastly, by mean of logadm, which I'm not covering here, because I'm lazy

Solaris: Useful ok prompt (OBP) commands

2011-11-25T21:30:00.001-08:00

The boot process can be aborted, if you are at the terminal, the abort sequences are Stop-A, L1-A or Break (depending on keyboard type), which can be emulated over remote consoles (rsc, alom, ilom, xscf)
Entering the following commands would obviously have consequences, and they are:
boot - boots to multi user mode
boot cdrom - boots from cdrom
boot -r - reconfiguration boot
boot -a - interactive reboot
boot -s - single user mode

Solaris: init runlevels

2011-11-25T21:23:00.001-08:00

Run levels are basically the operating mode that the Solaris OS will boot to after initiation.

Run levels that are available on the Solaris OS:
init 0 - power down, and drops to the OBP (Open Boot Prompt a.k.a. the ok> prompt)
init S/s - single user mode, used for maintenance or for troubleshooting
init 1 - administrative state, all file systems are mounted and local logins are allowed
init 2 - multi user, all daemons running except for nfs - nfs exports are not allowed
init 3 - multi user, this is where the Solaris OS goes live
init 4 - unused alternative multi users, unused unless defined
init 5 - power down - shuts down the OS and automatically power off if it is supported
init 6 - reboot

Solaris: Checking which process is bound to which TCP/UDP port number

2011-11-08T11:50:00.000-08:00

On solaris, you'll need lsof, but it seems that lsof is not part of the Solaris default installables. It should be available on Sunfreeware

# /usr/local/bin/lsof -i:123
COMMAND PID USER   FD   TYPE        DEVICE SIZE/OFF NODE NAME
xntpd   335 root   19u IPv4 0x600282a2c40      0t0 UDP *:ntp
xntpd   335 root   20u IPv4 0x600282a2840      0t0 UDP localhost:ntp
xntpd   335 root   21u IPv4 0x6002cb81ac0      0t0 UDP scglob20:ntp
xntpd   448 root   19u IPv4 0x30016a2c800      0t0 UDP *:ntp
xntpd   448 root   20u IPv4 0x6002f088500      0t0 UDP localhost:ntp
xntpd   448 root   21u IPv4 0x30016a2ca00      0t0 UDP 161.19.6.146:ntp

Else, you can do the following, the pid the following command could return multiple results

# port=25
# for i in `ls /proc`; do
>    pfiles $i | grep AF_INET | grep "$port" 2>&1 >/dev/null; portfound=$?
>    if [ $portfound -eq 0 ]; then
>       echo "pid $i found to be bounded to port $port"
> fi
>done
pid 17175 found
pid 2874 found
pid 29348 found
pid 4482 found
pid 463 found
pid 6696 found

This can be followed with, use the pid output from the earlier output
# ps -eo user,pid,comm | grep
e.g.
# ps -eo user,pid,comm | grep 17175
    root 17175 /usr/lib/sendmail

AIX: Checking which process is bound to which TCP/UDP port number

2011-11-08T10:59:00.000-08:00

Had no idea what so ever at all on how to do this at first, Linux has a very convenient way of doing this. Say if you want to find out which process is bound to port 8080.

# netstat -Aan | grep 8080
f1000200031b6b98 tcp4 0 0 *.8080 *.* LISTEN

# rmsock f1000200031b6b98 tcpcb
The socket 0x31b6808 is being held by proccess 1306834 (httpd).

Solaris: Calculating swap utilization

2011-11-08T10:46:00.000-08:00

In the case, where you'd have system monitoring in place and you need to find out how much swap space has been utilized. The way of calculating the percentage of swap space utilized on a Solaris system is:

% swap utilized
= (swap used / swap total) %

The swap total should be:

swap total = swap used + swap available

And when you subsitute the value from swap -s

# swap -s
total: 10527072k bytes allocated + 1647056k reserved = 12174128k used, 3572696k available

actual swap total
= 12174128k + 3572696k
= 15746824k

% swap utilized
= (12174128k/15746824k) * 100
= 77.31 % (rounded to the nearest two decimals points)

You can conveniently script this using bourne or bourne again shell.

swapinfo=`swap -s`

swapused=`echo $swapinfo | awk '{print $9}' | sed 's/k//'`
swapavail=`echo $swapinfo | awk '{print $11}' | sed 's/k//'`
swaptotal=`echo $swapused+$swapavail | bc`

swapusedpercent=`echo "scale=5; ($swapused/$swaptotal)*100" | bc -l`
echo "Swap utilization is at $swapusedpercent %"

AIX: enclosure0 and enclosure1 error

2011-11-08T10:34:00.000-08:00

Encountered the following error, as reported by the AIX errpt utility

# errpt | more
IDENTIFIER TIMESTAMP T C RESOURCE_NAME DESCRIPTION
BD797922   1108110011 P H enclosure1     SUBSYSTEM FAILURE
BD797922   1108110011 P H enclosure0     SUBSYSTEM FAILURE
BD797922   1108100011 P H enclosure1     SUBSYSTEM FAILURE
BD797922   1108100011 P H enclosure0     SUBSYSTEM FAILURE
BD797922   1108093511 P H enclosure1     SUBSYSTEM FAILURE
BD797922   1108093511 P H enclosure0     SUBSYSTEM FAILURE
BD797922   1108070011 P H enclosure1     SUBSYSTEM FAILURE
BD797922   1108070011 P H enclosure0     SUBSYSTEM FAILURE
BD797922   1108060011 P H enclosure1     SUBSYSTEM FAILURE
BD797922   1108060011 P H enclosure0     SUBSYSTEM FAILURE
AA8AB241   1108050111 T O OPERATOR       OPERATOR NOTIFICATION
AA8AB241   1108050111 T O OPERATOR       OPERATOR NOTIFICATION

Dig out more information on the error on enclosure0
# errpt -aj enclosure0
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
LABEL:          SSA_ENCL_ERR1
IDENTIFIER:     BD797922

Date/Time:       Tue Nov 8 11:00:30 2011
Sequence Number: 5643
Machine Id:      0055617A4C00
Node Id:         riju26
Class:           H
Type:            PERM
Resource Name:   enclosure0
Resource Class: container
Resource Type:   ses
Location:        USSA33C8
VPD:
        Part Number.................9L1850
        Serial Number...............AC1433C8
        EC Level....................000000R000
        Manufacturer................IBM053
        ROS Level and ID............0020
        Device Specific.(Z0)........DISPLAY=33C8
        Device Specific.(Z1)........BYPASS1_16= 09L5510
        Device Specific.(Z2)........BYPASS4_5= 09L5510
        Device Specific.(Z3)........BYPASS8_9= 09L5510
        Device Specific.(Z4)........BYPASS12_13= 09L5510
        Device Specific.(Z5)........FAN1=09L2794
        Device Specific.(Z6)........FAN2=09L2794
        Device Specific.(Z7)........FAN3=09L2794
        Device Specific.(Z8)........PSU1=
        Device Specific.(Z9)........PSU2=09L4299
        Device Specific.(ZA)........CTRL= 34L3820
        Device Specific.(ZB)........OPERATOR= 08L7924

Description
SUBSYSTEM FAILURE

Probable Causes
SUBSYSTEM

Failure Causes
SUBSYSTEM

        Recommended Actions
        PERFORM PROBLEM DETERMINATION PROCEDURES

Detail Data
SENSE DATA
0802 2100 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000
0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000
0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000
0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000
0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

And on enclosure1
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
LABEL:          SSA_ENCL_ERR1
IDENTIFIER:     BD797922

Date/Time:       Tue Nov 8 11:00:30 2011
Sequence Number: 5644
Machine Id:      0055617A4C00
Node Id:         riju26
Class:           H
Type:            PERM
Resource Name:   enclosure1
Resource Class: container
Resource Type:   ses
Location:        USSA56E7
VPD:
        Part Number.................9L1850
        Serial Number...............292C56E7
        EC Level....................000000R000
        Manufacturer................IBM053
        ROS Level and ID............0020
        Device Specific.(Z0)........DISPLAY=56E7
        Device Specific.(Z1)........BYPASS1_16= 09L5580
        Device Specific.(Z2)........BYPASS4_5= 09L5580
        Device Specific.(Z3)........BYPASS8_9= 09L5580
        Device Specific.(Z4)........BYPASS12_13= 09L5580
        Device Specific.(Z5)........FAN1=09L2794
        Device Specific.(Z6)........FAN2=09L2794
        Device Specific.(Z7)........FAN3=09L2794
        Device Specific.(Z8)........PSU1=09L4299
        Device Specific.(Z9)........PSU2=
        Device Specific.(ZA)........CTRL= 27H0708
        Device Specific.(ZB)........OPERATOR= 08L7924

Description
SUBSYSTEM FAILURE

Probable Causes
SUBSYSTEM

Failure Causes
SUBSYSTEM

        Recommended Actions
        PERFORM PROBLEM DETERMINATION PROCEDURES

Detail Data
SENSE DATA
0802 2200 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000
0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000
0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000
0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000
0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

And if you will notice that the lines for enclosure0
        Device Specific.(Z8)........PSU1=
and, for enclosure1
        Device Specific.(Z9)........PSU2=

It looks rather suspicious doesn't it, with my obvious lack of experience with AIX or IBM RS/6000 (7026-6H1), prompted me to look up the 7133 Models D40 and T40 Serial Disk Systems Service Guide. This took me a while to figure out as I wasn't sure which documentations to refer to, the IBM RS/6000 under 7026-6H1 or the IBM SSA 160 SerialRAID adapter. And at last, found what I was looking based on the SRN generated for enclosure0 and enclosure1.

# ssa_ela
enclosure0 SRN 80221
enclosure1 SRN 80222

Oh and, enclosure0 and enclosure1 mentioned are the disk enclosures, for this case.

Earlier on, I was mentioning something on the suspicious, PSU1 and PSU2 on enclosure0 and enclosure1 respectively. And apparently they're missing. It takes a lot of guess work to do perform hardware diagnostics remotely for a server that is halfway around the world.

# ssaencl -l enclosure0 -p
enclosure enclosure0
component PSU_1
present   FALSE

enclosure enclosure0
component PSU_2
present   TRUE
fault     FALSE
exchanged FALSE

# ssaencl -l enclosure1 -p
enclosure enclosure1
component PSU_1
present   TRUE
fault     FALSE
exchanged FALSE

enclosure enclosure1
component PSU_2
present   FALSE

Kids say the darnest things...

2011-10-12T06:22:00.000-07:00

and when you eye-ball that same kid 20 years later, trying to exactly that, what would say? I'd say, "What an idiot".

Right, so well, man...... I used to dread coming home after my office hours are over. What was I suppose to do at home once I'm off from work, anyway?

Well, that was the old me. As oppose to now, (yep there's the new me, there might not be an 'I' in me, but hey *shrug*) I would actually count the days till the days would turn into the weekends, and off I go screaming (in my head), yes, TGIFF. And that's for, "Thank God, It's Freakin Friday". Then I'd just get into that "Hari Tidor Sedunia" mood, or "Worldwide Sleeping Day", and take your pick, you can even go eenie-meenie-miney-moe get in that mood to pick either one of the weekend days, and nobody would bug you after that. Now that's democracy.

Oh and, I had an interesting conversation with a colleague of mine. And his name's Nik, a cool Malay chap really. As I was composing a "Tai-chi" e-mail to another team who-has-absolutely-nothing-else-to-do but to request for an RCA, and that's Root Cause A[for something]. It's a term/definition for a process to identify the underlying cause for an incident (a.k.a. problem, issue, yada yada). But anyhow, that's a different story altogether. And this Nik, was saying, "Wow, that's heck of an e-mail you're writing, and you know what, they should appoint you as one of the Managers, and that's what Manager's do, they write e-mails". Haha. And of course, my manager was sitting about five meters (or less, I think) away from us, when this particular conversation took place.

And my cost center manager, that's a fancy shmancy word for the big boss, well alright, he's not THE big kahuna, and come to think of it he's more like an achovy, well ok, maybe sea herring, and he's seemingly particular about the hours you spent in the office. Hmm.. I wonder would he actually keep track of the time I spent out of the office taking puffs (yep, you read my mind, talk about curry puffs, kaya puffs, you name it) eh? It's either me slouching/dozing off at the desk, or me taking my puffs outside. Talk about productivity.. see now that's what I'm talking about. I think I should be a Manager, I'm old enough, I think. How old should a Manager be anyway?

*drum rolling*

There, and back again...

2011-10-09T11:30:00.000-07:00

And now I'm back to where I was about two and half years ago. At least, I'm "better" prepared this time around. I'm with a German multinational, instead of an American one, which is apparently a subsidiary of DTAG, or Deutsche Telekom AG. And I'd like to stress how to properly pronounce Deutsche [doich-e] this time around, simply because I didn't quite get it right before having heard the CEO pronouncing as it should, while at the same I'd be telling myself, "Ahh, so that's how you pronounce it".

You know what I did for a good half an hour? I actually re-read my own previous blog posts, and guess what? I actually enjoy reading my own blog postings, haha, or am I detecting the slightest hint of vain-ness, in myself? Hmm.

Internet explorer control panel

2011-04-23T01:00:00.000-07:00

If you're like me who switches his browser setting when accessing the Internet from home or in the office. Accessing the Internet from office is by means of connecting via a proxy. I like shortcuts as oppose to locating the particular icon of the intended application that I would want to use.

In order to access the Connections tab from the Internet Explorer Panel, try this from the Run (Start -> Run), control inetcpl.cpl,,4

Iban Dictionary

2011-03-27T20:00:00.001-07:00

A useful thing to have would be an Iban dictionary, http://ibandictionary.blogspot.com/2010/12/free-iban-english-dictionary.html

Dazed? Confused? or rather perturbed

2011-03-10T00:02:00.000-08:00

Five days ago, I thought I knew what was going on. I did something, it was actually my girlfriend (yes I do have one) and myself, who had inadvertently offended a friend. Alright, maybe I was wrong, I was actually going to accept to the fact that my girlfriend and myself had imposed on them. As a matter of fact, I was going to apologize to them.

And as of last night, I've actually been hearing all sorts of "concocted" (suspiciously perhaps?) stories about how repulsed people or rather how repulsed our circle of friends are with us, with our hmm.. how should I phrase this, our conduct. I actually called this other friend, (oh just so happen to be in this particular circle) and apologized to him outright, if we have in any anyway, conducted ourselves repulsively, and now I'm hearing a totally different set of facts.

And now, as I uncontrollably scratch myself on thehead, asking myself what sort of uncomfortably sticky situation did I get myself into now? What did we do wrong. Who's with who? Or rather, has the paint finally chipped itself off, revealing an ugly facade?

RHEL/CentOS on ESX4i Udev Unknown Key

2011-02-28T01:03:00.000-08:00

While you may or may not get the following error message, but still since it's most likely that it will, and in some cases it might just prevent your virtual machine from progressing any further:

*********************************************************************************
Starting udev: udevd[572]: add_to_rules: unknown key 'SUBSYSTEMS'
udevd[572]: add_to_rules: unknown key 'ATTRS{vendor}'
udevd[572]: add_to_rules: unknown key 'ATTRS{model}'
udevd[572]: add_to_rules: unknown key 'SUBSYSTEMS'
udevd[572]: add_to_rules: unknown key 'ATTRS{vendor}'
udevd[572]: add_to_rules: unknown key 'ATTRS{model}'
*********************************************************************************

 This seemed to have been caused by the installation of the new vmware tools, pressing the Ctrl+C might just work when you encounter this message.

To fix this, simply edit the file "/etc/udev/rules.d/99-vmware-scsi-udev.rules" and comment out the lines as shown below:

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
# Redhat systems
ACTION=="add", BUS=="scsi", SYSFS{vendor}=="VMware, " ,  SYSFS{model}=="VMware Virtual S",   RUN+="/bin/sh -c 'echo 180  >/sys$DEVPATH/device/timeout'"

# Debian systems
#ACTION=="add", SUBSYSTEMS=="scsi", ATTRS{vendor}=="VMware  " ,  ATTRS{model}=="Virtual disk    ",   RUN+="/bin/sh -c 'echo 180  >/sys$DEVPATH/device/timeout'"

# SuSE / Ubuntu systems
#ACTION=="add", SUBSYSTEMS=="scsi", ATTRS{vendor}=="VMware, " ,  ATTRS{model}=="VMware Virtual S",   RUN+="/bin/sh -c 'echo 180  >/sys$DEVPATH/device/timeout'"
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Reboot, and voila !

R.I.P. Gary Moore

2011-02-07T20:10:00.000-08:00

Robert William Gary Moore ~ 4 April 1952 – 6 February 2011

ls and egrep

2011-01-04T22:54:00.000-08:00

This is something I oughta remember with a flip of a switch, drop of a coin, from the back of my hand, yada yada, and as I was writing a shell script to verify the presence of files of a certain file extension I actually had too google for this, unbelievable. The file extensions are: .zip and .txt

ls /opt/payments/prov1 | egrep "\.(zip|txt)"

Oh and, I am finally

2010-12-20T18:16:00.000-08:00

going to let it slide, it's probably just never something that's never meant to be. What was I thinking? Would you take a ~~hummingbird~~ mockingbird away from all the glorious budding flowers? I know I won't, why should I?

Revisions, revisions, revisions

2010-12-20T18:10:00.000-08:00

Oh well, even people like me needs to take exams or else. Anyway I am, at the moment, the designated exam taker, the fulfiller of vendor partnership requirements, ~~the exam taker~~, the certificate collector, if you will. I've already obtained my SCSA or Sun Certified System Administrator certification when I took the SCSA I and SCSA II exams. And I'm proud to say, I failed SCSA II on my first attempt. Next in line, is the SCNA or Solaris Certified Network Administrator, and once I can gather this last one, only then will I gain my Sun Cerfitied Solaris Expert status. Aha, quite a mouthful isn't it? I'm actually pretty sick and tired of these, really. If I had the chance, I just wouldn't give a fuck. But then again, in my line, if I wanna be one of those high-rollers, I am going to need all of these papers. Oh well at least they're not academic papers. And that's something I'd probably have to work on later.

By God's will, is it a second chance or is it.....

2010-12-15T21:44:00.000-08:00

Just this week, as I had found out an acquaintance who had just had a health condition or so that particular acquaintance says. I am at birth a curious creature, well, the "at birth" part, well at best, is debatable but I'll just save this debate for another day; but I am, or so I say. And I would say this acquaintance is at birth an attention-deficit creature, who craves attention like a five year old, or less.

Anyway, just as he proclaims that by God's will, he was given a second chance, and this thought had just crossed my mind... hmm.. like 15 minutes ago? And maybe, just maybe, by God's will, is His way of telling the rest of us, "Aha, you're screwed.. I'm giving and returning him back to you insolent others as punishment". I know, it's not exactly the most appropriate thing to say, but this particular acquaintance's character; how should I say this, is questionable "to the max" (quoted from a friend), and a bloody hypocrite. Of course, I might just change my mind, if this particular acquaintance would just change for mankind's (and of course womankind's) benefit. And hopefully world peace.

Crazy schedule

2010-11-04T02:42:00.000-07:00

I've just landed myself with another one of those crazy work schedules again, which requires me flying to a.... well, discreet location.

Just went through a round of discussion just today in the morning, as the tasks that was outlined for the whole of next week was made in tabular format, and it kinda hit me that my name was mentioned almost on all of the rows under the Action Person column. That's depressing, really. Another thing that hit me was the deployment date which is suppose to be from next Monday onwards, and I just found out about it just today.

Yippie.

Tongue-twisters

2010-10-22T02:23:00.000-07:00

In French

Les chaussettes de l'archi-duchesses sont-elles sèches, arch-sèches?
- Are the archduchess' socks dry, very dry?

Un chasseur sachant chasser sait chasser sans son chien.
- A hunter who knows how to hunt knows how to hunt without his dog.

Whereas this one's, in Finnish

Vesihiisi sihisi hississä.
- A water troll was hissing in the elevator.

Heres, one in Spanish

Porque no nada nada?
Porque no traje traje

-Why aren't you swimming(nada) at all(nada)?
Because I didn't bring(traje) a swim suit(traje)

Ha ha

Gawai celebrations, breakups and marriages... (or soon to be)

2010-05-30T07:20:00.000-07:00

And... yep it sure is that time of the year, again. Haven't written in a while, in about two months or so. I've a lot of happenings since the last Gawai celebrations. And I have also had a packed schedule for a good full year, as my travelling days will soon be over in June or July if my boss permits it.

And here begins the part where this dude would start his rambles (oh oh not again).

There has been a recent tide of event with my eldest brother as it seems, as had dumped (or for the lack of better term) his girlfriend. I don't even know what was that all about. And now, he has a new beau, as I had also found out that he's going to tie the knot the next year. And from what me mum had mentioned (and that was today by the way) his soon-to-be (as it certainly looks that way) father-in-law is already in the midst of renovating their home to accommodate another car, and what I've been told, another bedroom too. I reckon I won't even have to guess who will be moving into that household.

It seems all my elder brothers are in the habit of leaving our family's nest, and I'm going to be the only one left again, if I had a hand in it, well, I'm not going to, not that I ever will. It does sound trivial at best, but there's going to be change, change which I hate, and of course, which I will have to reluctantly.... accept. And as to-date, I still haven't accepted one bitter fact in my life just yet. Maybe I will soon.

And just two days ago, it just so happened that I had a meet up with an old friend who had returned from Simanggang who'll be driving up to Sibu with his family for their Gawai celebration. Called him up for a drink and he gladly obliged. I've had this notion all these years that this is a fella who always seem to have the utmost positive outlook on things and life. To tell you the truth, I've had a sort of respect for this fella. He spoke about a few interesting things/details about himself, trivially annoying matters do affect him in one way or another, I guess he's normal after all. I actually foolishly thought it wouldn't affect him at all. Not that I've lost my respect for him at all, in fact, I now, have a new profound appreciation for who he is.

And we did talked about a vain person on Facebook (especially with regards to his status updates) and who coincidentally so happens to have mutual friends in common, and that would be us. Some people are just so oblivious of the fact that there are those who are not dumb as he think we all are. To sign this entry off, life's like that.

NTP.. another techie note

2010-04-05T23:38:00.000-07:00

I hate NTP.

The man pages makes it look so easy.

Here's an excerpt from tldp.org on basic ntp config.

# --- GENERAL CONFIGURATION ---
server aaa.bbb.ccc.ddd
server 127.127.1.0
server 127.127.1.0 stratum 10

# Drift file.

driftfile /etc/ntp/drift

Then you can restrict by adding, only add after the earlier config has been fully tested

# Prohibit general access to this service.
restrict default ignore

# Permit systems on this network to synchronize with this time service.
# But no modify our time.
restrict aaa.bbb.ccc.ddd nomodify

# Allow the following unrestricted access to ntpd

restrict aaa.bbb.ccc.ddd
restrict 127.0.0.1

stratum 10 mentioned earlier will change or rather adjust your system time gradually. sometimes it doesn't really work, the system time will still remain the same, or maybe I'm not patient enough. Sheesh

Xerox DocuPrint 210 on Ubuntu 9.10 aka "Karmic"

2009-12-01T03:40:00.000-08:00

You'll be in for a surprise if you happen to own a Xerox DocuPrint 210 Laser Printer, if you intend to use Ubuntu (doesn't matter what version) or even any other types of distros. Be sure the choose Generic PCL 6/PCL XL Printer Foomatic/hpijs-pcl5e or Generic PCL 6/PCL XL Printer Foomatic/hpijs-lj5gray.

I've just finished swearing because I was wasting papers as fast as I would be dispensing toilet papers.

Selamat Datai ka Betong

2009-11-25T02:30:00.000-08:00

Had the liberty of driving to Betong again yesterday. Was supposed to have departed from Kuching at 8am. I actually ended departing sometime around 10am, so much for plan A. Reached Sri Aman at approximately or rather guestimate 11-ish. And by the time I had received a text message from a colleague who'll be staying in Betong until this coming Friday, "hey bos. mana u?" at exactly 1:49pm, and it just so happened I had just made the left at the junction that led me into Betong, when I had received the particular text.

By the time I had made the grand entry into the conference room on the block where the Land and Survey Department is (at the State Government Complex). It was 2pm, on the dot, talk about being punctual huh.

Anyway, that night after having dinner with a few colleagues and rightly after we had down a couple of bottles of that yellowish drink called Tsing-Tao, we'd thought, what the heck, maybe we should patronize the only "pub" there is in the Betong town itself. It didn't actually take the guys/ladies in blue long enough to raid the place where we werer at, which was conveniently ordained by the owner as the "silver valley". Sounds as inconspicuous as El Dorado the city of gold doesn't it. Hehe. I think last nights visit should by my first and last to the "silver valley".

Oh and guess I seem to have forgotten to mentioned that we were required to take urine tests for whatever reason it is they can think of, which I'm not bothered to spell it out here. And that number 1 written down on my hands which supposedly corresponded to the urine test plastic bottle with a permanent marker, which is still pretty much visible, even as I write this entry.

That's that

Oh little kitties..

2009-11-21T01:33:00.000-08:00

These are my four kitties. The two white-furred in actual almost alike, it's hard to tell which is which. Where as the other two tabbies are not so much different from each other except the slight yellowish tinged fur on their face.

Trying to keep four kittens is an effort, especially when you're overly protective of them. There has constant visits from possible kitty daddy candidates whose has been loitering around our house. I use to have two alpha male cats, so I know very well, how territorial and how they would react upon encountering litters which are not their own.

I do feel a bit guilty on confining them in the house, and this has it's merits and downside to it. I'd have to make sure the cage is clean on a tri-daily basis, especially with my mum's absence.

Just last week, I was lucky enough thank god, to have an acquaintance who'd be willing enough to adopt one of the white-furred female kittens.

A certain lacking..

2009-11-20T10:13:00.000-08:00

Deep down, there's a certain lacking. Sometimes it feels like getting your stomach gutted might not suffice to quench this annoying indescribable titillation or sometimes the inclination to mistaken it for the feeling of thirsting for something that is not quite there.

After being submitted to countless and repeated undertakings, and when being devoid of such, you will have the tendency to hate yourself and the other for it.

And here I go again, trying to be philosophical on something is plain for the eyes to see.

All these bugs

2009-11-19T08:30:00.000-08:00

I've got bugs, I've got them in my room, in my makeshift bed
Bugs in my ears and god damn it they're in my shoes.
And in the way i feel about , did I mention they're on my window too?
Bugs have a way to tickle my nausea, and only if they're edible, I'd eat them, woo hoo.
Or do I just let them crawl all over, or overwhelm me.
Or was I ever their target to begin with. If I was how do i kill them?
Should I befriend them?
Should never have let them surround me, all I see now are bugs.

It was once all up to me, to let them come in, or do I just shrug.

Configuring package repository /extras for Open Solaris

2009-11-14T03:23:00.000-08:00

Fire up your browser and point it to http://pkg.sun.com
Login if you have a Sun Online public account, if you don't have any, create one.
Once you have logged in follow the instructions stated at the same page as you would download the two certificates required to add the /extra repository.

If you're using root, just perform the following instead
# mkdir /var/pkg/ssl
# mv OpenSolaris_extras.key.pem /var/pkg/ssl
# mv OpenSolaris_extras.certificate.pem /var/pkg/ssl
# pkg set-authority -k /var/pkg/ssl/OpenSolaris_extras.key.pem \
-c /var/pkg/ssl/OpenSolaris_extras.certificate.pem \
-O https://pkg.sun.com/opensolaris/extra/ extra

Run the following to list the packages available on the extra repository
# pkg list -a 'pkg://extra/*'

Or just fire up the package manager on your taskbar, and choose Extra at the top right corner.

Whack 'em up

2009-11-09T23:38:00.000-08:00

To my amazement, there was an interesting tide of event, today, we (myself and a teammate included) had whacked another team, well actually my teammate did most of it, I tried to be as neutral as I can whenever I am able to.

Whacking is not recommended, and it should only be done if you have your facts right. And we were luckiy we did have facts to back us up.

As it was due to an e-mail reply which we had gotten from another colleague who had intended to whack another colleague, and we only found out that it is after the final reply. Funny how we whacked the whole team in return

Do I feel guilty? Probably not. Just hope that it doesn't have to turn this way from now onwards.

Poor kid

2009-11-05T06:07:00.000-08:00

I'm pretty sure everybody has pretty much read about that girl from Sri Aman whose father is an Iban and the mum whose of mix Chinese-Iban parentage. And she was not considered a Bumiputra for some reason. In a way, I can say I'm pretty lucky, I'm not even half Malay, my mum's Chinese, Iban, Melanau parentage and my dad's Malay and Chinese parentage, I'd say if it weren't for that one quarter Malay, I'd be non-bumi.

yikes

2009-11-05T05:54:00.000-08:00

It has been a very busy year for our team surprisingly. Never did I anticipate for us to have so much projects this year, I've been to places where I would never dreamt or thought of going if it were up to me. The places which I have been to this year: Mukah, Sarikei, Kapit, Betong and Phnom Penh. I haven't exactly been in the right mood to write about Phnom Penh, great place really, felt like Sri Aman, hmm well, except bigger. I've also have photos of the city which I also haven't quite made the effort to ask from a friend/colleague of mine who was with me in Phnom Penh, whose camera I had to borrow from time to time to snap photos from at that time. Did spent a night in KL and for some reason (not sure whether I have written about this before) felt like I was coming home. talk about weird, huh.

And I would probably miss the upcoming Christmas celebrations and most likely my friends' wedding reception. It was just so happen I gave him a ring today to ask him when his folks were to suppose to be in KL. As it turns out, it was today. I was suppose to have handed an Angkor Beer souvenir t-shirt to his folks so they could hand it over to him. Besides the fact that I have to make a trip to Betong again, and probably next week, damn didn't feel at all thrilled about driving up to Betong all by myself again. Did I mention both of my other colleagues' Missus are expecting, yikes, which means there will on my boss and myself, just the two of us. And I have been feeling a rather needy lately for some reason, come to think of it, it's been like that for some time.

Guess, that's that.

Booting Solaris 10 into single-user mode

2009-11-03T00:34:00.000-08:00

Yeah I know, what's with the recent influx of techie stuffs. I have written/typed too many of those important techie notes of which I have the utmost tendency to loose even after a mere 5 minutes after the note was written/typed.

To boot Solaris 10 into single user mode (maintenance mode)
perform
reboot -- -m milestone=none

As compared to Solaris8/9 (on SPARC) where instead of executing the above, you'd run
init 0 (reboot to OBP)

boot -s
or boot into cdrom and single user mode.
boot cdrom -s

All this SMF framework on Solaris 10 is nothing quite like your usual conventional init level and scripts.

lessfs

2009-11-02T22:30:00.000-08:00

open source alternative to dedup
tried installing it on Centos 5.3, will not work do to kernel version (lower version)
required kernel version is 2.6.26 (I believe)

Prerequisites
FUSE (http://fuse.sourceforge.net/)
Tokyo Cabinet (http://1978th.net/tokyocabinet/)
lessfs (http://www.lessfs.com/wordpress/)

Steps

Fuse
Download from http://sourceforge.net/projects/fuse/files/fuse-2.X/2.8.0/fuse-2.8.0.tar.gz/download
tar xvfz fuse2.8.0.tar.gz
cd fuse2.8.0
./configure
make && make install

Tokyo Cabinet
Download from http://1978th.net/tokyocabinet/tokyocabinet-1.4.36.tar.gz
tar xvfz tokyocabinet-1.4.36.ta.gz
cd tokyocabinet-1.4.36
./configure
make && make install

lessfs
Download from http://sourceforge.net/projects/lessfs/files/lessfs/lessfs-0.8.0/lessfs-0.8.0.tar.gz/download
tar xvfz lessfs-0.8.0.tar.gz
cd lessfs-0.8.0
set env variables
export PKG_CONFIG=/usr/local/lib/pkgconfig
export PATH=/usr/local/bin:/usr/local/sbin:${PATH}
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/lib:/usr/local/lib
./configure --enable-off64 (to enable the database limit to >2GB)
make && make install

again like mentioned in the 2nd line above, don't have any centos or rhel with kernel 2.6.26, so to be continued....

Solaris 10 on Compaq Evo Desktop

2009-11-02T22:15:00.001-08:00

Apparently doesn't recognize/unable to detect Intel Pro/100 VM NIC

Run prtconf -pv

# prtconf -pv (will give a long output)

                compatible: 'pci8086,103b.e11.12.81' + 'pci8086,103b.e11.12' + 'pcie11,12' + 'pci8086,103b.81' + 'pci8086,103b' + 'pciclass,020000' + 'pciclass,0200'
                model: 'Ethernet controller'
                power-consumption: 00000001.00000001
                fast-back-to-back:
                devsel-speed: 00000001
                interrupts: 00000001
                max-latency: 00000038
                min-grant: 00000008
                subsystem-vendor-id: 00000e11
                subsystem-id: 00000012
                unit-address: '8'
                class-code: 00020000
                revision-id: 00000081
                vendor-id: 00008086
                device-id: 0000103b
                name: 'pcie11,12'

Locate Ethernet controller (as show in the output snippet pasted above)

Go to http://pci-ids.ucw.cz/read/PC/
Use the vendor-id and devicei-id to locate the correct device name
103b - 82801DB PRO/100 VM (LOM) Ethernet Controller

run
# grep 82801DB /boot/solaris/devicedb/master
pci8086,1039 pci8086,1039 net pci iprb.bef "Intel 82801DB Ethernet 82562ET/EZ PHY"
pci8086,103d pci8086,103d net pci iprb.bef "Intel 82801DB PRO/100 VE Ethernet"

edit /etc/driver_aliases

add the following accordingly (into /etc/driver_aliases of course silly0

iprb "pci8086,103b"

load the driver
# modload /kernel/drv/iprb
# ifconfig iprb0 plumb

# ifconfig iprb0 x.x.x.212 netmask 255.255.255.0 up
# route add default x.x.x.1

Permanently configure IP address for iprb0

Create a new text file /etc/hostname.iprb0
x.x.x.212

Create another new text file /etc/defaultroute
x.x.x.1

Edit if doesn't exist, create /etc/resolv.conf
nameserver x.x.x.20
nameserver x.x.x.13

Edit /etc/hosts accordingly to make it look something like this (sample output only, please amend accordingly, yes silly)
::1     localhost       loghost
127.0.0.1       localhost       loghost
x.x.x.212      europa europa.jupiter.space

Make sure the following exist or amended accordingly (if need be) /etc/nsswitch.conf
hosts: files dns

do a reconfigure reboot
# reboot -- -r

2009-10-28T09:17:00.000-07:00

Hands to hit,
Hands to hurt,
Hands to break
Without even touching.
Eyes to see,
Eyes to stare,
Eyes to weep
Over the missing.
Rage to crush,
Rage to condemn,
Rage to burn,
Without even seeing.
Loss to empty,
Loss to consume,
Loss to despair,
Whilst never knowing.
Grief to denial,
Denial to anger,
Anger to acceptance,
But never forgetting.

Due diligence..

2009-10-09T12:11:00.000-07:00

Ever since I've been involved in this so called "IT Infra Upgrade . . . " with some organizational entity (not wanting to give away the full details). I have been hearing a lot this "due diligence" being uttered by the top most managers and executives, and yet not being reflected when in action.

We've been cleaning a lot of scraps, mess-ups, crap (yes crap) and sheet left by others who coyly preaches "due diligence". Which would you prefer? Having to spend a lot of time in diligently exercising "due diligence" or would you rather be oblivious with the consequences of your actions (or lack there of), and how it might affect others.

I used to have the nickname of "Rubbish bin" because I used to always have the tendency to finish half-eaten food. And it's rather tiring to do exactly that in the project I have had the ~~unfortunate~~ fortunate opportunity (yippie) be involved in with.

And I think I rather would stick with the name that was ordained to me by my parents.

Here and back again...

2009-10-08T02:54:00.000-07:00

Phew, a 3 hour drive down from Betong alone took quite a toll on me. I was beginning to wonder when I was going to stop talking to myself. My first trip ever driving out of Kuching, in which I have also discovered night life in Betong can/will/usually be pretty much spent at your nearest local kopitiam.

Oh and I oughta ...

2009-10-03T12:22:00.000-07:00

tone down the dirt that comes out of my mouth. It has been getting rather bad lately, in actual fact it's getting worse. Yeah, tone it down boy. Sit boy, sit. Good dawg.

Maybe I oughta .......

2009-10-03T12:18:00.000-07:00

consider have job change. I seem to have been, hmm... been rather successful in assisting hmm how should I say with couples who've almost had the inevitable. And not trying to boast or anything of this rather enlightening realization, but the funny part is, I'm not involved in anything with anybody and I've never quite attached myself to anybody or anything and since for most of the time that anybody or anything wouldn't want to attached themselves to me to begin with, and did I mentioned I'm not permanently attached to a particular half. I'm still one half and that other half is still missing.

Maybe I oughta consider changing my job from an IT Field Engineer to a marriage councilor. Anybody up for some councilling ?

Shit happens

2009-10-03T12:01:00.000-07:00

It sure does. But when the shit hits the fan, what do you do? Cover your face with your arms, duck, turn your back towards the incoming inevitable? Or if there was another person who happens to be standing right behind you not realizing the what is about to happen. Do you shove him aside or do you just watch as the shit hits him right freaking smack in the face?

The morale of the nonsensical babble I've just presented.... is.......

shit happens, so deal with it, don't dwell and stop staring at yourself with the shit all over your face.

Thinking of..

2009-09-26T09:38:00.001-07:00

letting it slide

Just around the corner..

2009-09-17T11:42:00.000-07:00

Four days till Aildilfitry or how us Malaysians call it, Hari Raya (Hari as in Day, Raya as in celebration). Not a big fan of this day of celebration, never quite enjoyed it to begin with due to hmm rather inconvenient and unpleasant experiences back then. Not that I'm saying it was pleasant to begin with. The month of madness will be over very soon. It took me an hour to ride the traffic from the State Library back home. Oh and won't be going to work tomorrow as I'm taking my leave in order to well make necessary preparations for the festivities. Not that I'm keen on that either. The only thing I'm keen about is just being at home while dilly-dallying in anything that keeps me amused.

Touchy..

2009-09-17T11:34:00.000-07:00

Been a bit touchy lately for some reason. I wouldn't exactly call it sulking but touchy. That is so unbecoming of me, and to me it's unfathomable. Not to everything or anyone, just to the selected few.

What a bunch of bollocks..

2009-09-14T11:53:00.000-07:00

Note: The below 3 paragraphs are all whinin' no ramblin'. You have been warned.

got off the toilet seat (pun very much intended, take it or leave it till death do us part) and after much soul-searching in an attempt to inspire myself. Not that I'm the uninspired or anything, there's just too many things for my to decipher, the meaning of life is one and the only conclusion I could make after 30 years or so, I still can't figure out how the darn thing works or why the grass needs the rain and why the moon comes after the sun, I know I know, everybody has read about this at school or discovery channel at anytime.

Oh, the month of madness has arrived. This is the only period of time in the 365 days or 12 months (give or take) where people would hog parking spaces like flies hovers over a dead carcass, just so that they could buy food at our expense. Not that I would mind, well actually I do mind, this is the time where we dread leaving the office so long as it's after 2pm. If you could just trade parking space as gold traders were to trade gold bullions to gullible buyers.

And it's amazing how some people can just shrug off anything that might just push them over the edge or cliff or out of their comfort zone and it's not like there's much of a cliff or ledge to begin with. There's this bunch of people who well, I'll be frank, I work for a IT SI company. And we're suppose to be doing SI as in System Implementation for anything that is Unix or Linux or non-Microsoft. We're not computer hardware specific as one might think, as the name of our team might imply and which happens to be Sun Support. As how businessman and women alike likes to call it diversifying in this dog-eat-dog economic world. There's this bunch of people, who calls themselves a specific brand, let's call it brand X, and what do they do, they do Wintel on brand X only. You heard it right, Wintel (MS Windows on Intel hardware platforms). Anything that is not brand X, they'll just say it's not part of their job responsibility. And because of this we're taking over some piece of crap of a project for a Thin Client deployment on Windows XPe simply because it's a Thin Client deployment and guess what, the deployment was on Brand X and well Windows XPe (as I've mentioned earlier). Unfortunately all they do is, install the server or rather enterprise version of good ol' Microsoft Windows and ships them out. Come'on form five leavers can do a better job than that, if you nudge them in the right direction. That 12 year old Indian kid could pass the MSCE and how can they not pick this up when they're twice the age. They had it easy for them, I just can't imagine how narrow their sights are over this. If a prospect client were to come to us requesting for a proposal for Wintel on brand Y, they'll just shrug it off and tell them, and yes, tell prospect clients that they don't do Wintel on brand Y. Funny bunch of people who doesn't seem to want to do business or to put it simply, "they don't want money ka?"

Yeah, that was some whining eh?

Note: It's not so much as the project that is crappy, it's how it ended up on our platter that makes it crappy.

Hello Thursday, so long Mukah

2009-07-02T06:07:00.000-07:00

I just got off the twin otter flight back from Mukah, and since I wasn't doing anything, thought I'd write about Mukah and all the three trips I've had. Actually, the time that I actually arrived at the Kuching Airport, still not used to calling it KIA, why do I even bother...

Have I ever mentioned that I loved flying. Until recently I was excited over flying in an ATR 72, Malaysia Airlines' latest addition to their domestic fleet for Sarawak. I was in for a surprise when I boarded the DHC6 Twin Otter which happens to be a 19-seater (I think, got this from Google), hmm I think in, the last time I boarded one of these was when I was about 6 or 7 to Marudi. So it has been, 25 years since I last boarded a Twin Otter. And oh-coincidentally, my friend had buzzed me over GTalk and had mentioned that to fly in a Twin Otter is in fact a blessing in disguise, as it is supposedly (as claimed by him, and others) is the safest plane for anybody to be flying in (or with). "If any of the engine fails (or both), the pilot can just glide the plane to safety", he says or somewhere along that line. The more reason for me to like the Twin Otter. I just love bumpy rides and for those who thinks that I may have had it meant the "other" way when I mentioned bumpy. Sorry to dissapoint you but it just literally means what it reads, b u m p y.

Back to the reason why I wanted to write this post: Mukah town. Let me just state a few interesting facts about Mukah.

The Mukah airport is just 10 minutes away from the town itself
The Mukah town itself basically comprises of the new township and the old market or 'lau pasat' (I don't know how to say old market in any other local dialects or languages)
The tallest building in Mukah town is the Menara Pehin Seri Setiaraja (I have a funny thought with regards to the compound security which leads to this building, which is also agreed by a Land & Survey staff-friend of mine)
The distance between the old market and Menara Pehin Seri is well measured in minutes on foot, and it's 20 minutes. How do I know? I talked the talk, and walked it myself.
The distance between the new township and Menara Pehin Seri is it's a 10 minutes walk.
The new township is right smack in the middle of your way if you're headed to Menara Pehin Seri.
Driving around the Mukah town, well will just take you minutes for you to go around.
The Mukah town is a laid-back likeable place.
Finding halal food is easy, even when you're at a chinese coffee shop. There's only a handful of chinese coffee shop which are offlimits to Muslim food-goers.
There are two type of Umai (or Umei, or you can pronounce it as 'Oooh-may'), the dipping type and the already mixed type.
Is a haven for any sago related by-products, and of course Umai.
The best way to go to Mukah is by flight, unless you prefer the 4-hours safari ride by bus from Sibu.
If you happen to hear a conversation that sounds like Malay (not trying to offend any locals or anybody that speaks that particular widely used local dialect), and .. and .. when you notice yourself trying to strain your ears trying to understand just what the heck they are saying, then you're definitely hearing a conversation in Melanau. Don't bother yourself.

Tadaa.. more will come, as I prepare to get up from this toilet seat.

Uncle Peck's Birthday

2009-05-22T04:45:00.000-07:00

Today's my uncle's 60th birthday, as I have just found out from my mum who just got off the phone after her birthday wish to him. My mum's 58 this year. And from what my mum had told me after my recent trip to Miri, for work of course, he actually forgot who I was when I was at his place. He must've been wondering who this fella was and what was this fella up to at his house, haha. It's kind of funny in a way, not the ha-ha funny, but knowing him at that age, well can't blame him for that. Before I know it, I'll be 60 and I might just forget who was it I'd be talking with.

...

2009-05-08T22:47:00.000-07:00

With the recent passings of well relatives, I'm sick and tired of repeating myself especially with regards to them, of course not to disrespect those who had passed on. I've lost my cat "blackie" just last week, to whomever it was who ran him over, to them he may just as well be a roadkill but to me he is more than that. And to top that off I have run out of things to write about.

One road to freedom

2009-04-20T22:16:00.000-07:00

Tell me which road are you travelling which road are you travelling on

Tell me who will you turn to when the light has gone

I hear somebody calling to me with so many roads to travel

There's just one can set you free

There's just one road

One road to freedom

Just one

In my life I have been blessed

In my life I have been cursed

I have lived the best of times

I have suffered the worst

Do you know which road you're travelling

Do you know where you want to be

With so many roads to travel

There's just one can set you free

There's just one road, one road to freedom

-Harper, Ben

So many things.. too little time

2009-04-06T06:46:00.000-07:00

Yeah there you go, as what the title is obviously stating, the 24 hours in a day does not seem to be sufficient especially when dealing with people who work at the speed of a turtle, who happens to require constant following up. I've just had quite a month or two, in my previous I had mentioned my dear aunt who had departed from us, the three weeks that followed, my grand aunt had left us and lastly my dear uncle. INALILLAH WA INALILLAHIRAJIUN. It was quite a unfortunate saddening experience, I unfortunately did not have the chance to be at the my late aunt's funeral, but I was fortunate enough to be present at the funeral for both my grand aunt and uncle.

My late grand aunt who would always fondly probe me with "Ni hau ma?" or "Lu eh ho bo?" every single time and she never misses the chance to ask me so. And as for my uncle, hmm.. it was a rather heart-wrenching to know he left us. We were all expecting for him to leave us, not that I'm saying I would want him to leave, but he has had some health complications as of late, and I can only imagine for him to find out his younger sister had left us before he did. I can only imagine how he must have felt.

And I still haven't taken the plunge, and it's a rather mind-boggling matter as I try to weigh the cause and effect of the former. But at the same time, it's a rather comfirting feeling of having knowing there's a said presence.

Dearly departed

2009-02-26T07:12:00.000-08:00

I was just having a leisurely bath after returning from the Land and Survey Sarikei office, when I heard that my phone was ringing, three times to be precise and not to forget the two text messages. The first being "Urgent! Joneh Tenat!" and the later, "Ngah Joneh passed away". INALILLAH WA INALILLAHIRAJIUN, my aunt whom I loved dearly had departed from us at aproximately 6PM. My late aunt of whom I remember fondly for making milk coffee, biscuits, raya rendangs and curries, curry puffs, nasi lemak and aplenty of other things, will always remain in memory till the arrival of that particular day.

Expectations...

2009-02-15T08:21:00.000-08:00

Ever since I've been coming to work on the January 28th, well things been proceeding rather slowly. A big small step back for humankind (well this particular hu-man). As much I dislike to admit it, I'm actually avoiding the general crowd of acquaintances here in Kuching. Things are proceeding slowly as I've mentioned earlier, but it still has a rather good vibe to it. Even though it does felt as if I never left, but how do you explain that 16 months gap. It does have that surreal tinge to it still though.

Ever since I've been back, I have been able to come upon the following:

How bad the flood was in Kuching.
How the prices of vegetable had increased 3-fold or more?
There's going to be another Starbucks outlet at Jalan Song.
How kids can grow up so fast (for those I have not seen in the 16-months period)
They've finalled closed off the old SAINS office at 3rd mile (so no more McDonalds after my official visit to that office)
Tunku Putra International school is now the Lim Kok Wing institute.
Des' blog was featured on CNN.
There are so many eateries nearby my office, and there's one just next door it's so close I can have teh tarik (kurang manis, thank you very much) sent to my office (it's not that I've done that already)
The difference between a want and the need to, and taking the plunge.

Voila, think that's that for now.

Installing OpenSSH on Solaris 8

2009-02-03T23:59:00.000-08:00

I know, I know, what's Solaris 8 and why not Solaris 10. I've been tasked to familiarize myself with the internal workings of Sun's Solaris operating system.

OpenSSH is an open source version of the SSH or the Secured SHell System. Since I'm going to take the easiest way to install OpenSSH on the Ultra 10 which I have just acquired. I would have to resort to using the binary packages made available on sunfreeware.

The following are the list of steps which I have taken to install OpenSSH (openssh-5.1p1) made available on sunfreeware., before I even began preparing for the installation, it has been mentioned that OpenSSH has the following dependencies:

zlib-1.2.3
libgcc-3.4.6 or gcc-3.4.6
libiconv-1.11
libintl-3.4.0
openssl-0.9.8j

Hmmm....

2009-01-10T02:35:00.001-08:00

Surprisingly, I'm more excited with the fact that I'll be heading to Seri Kembangan after Jan 15th for my very brief period on unemployment, more than I would of returning home. Huh, who would have thought of that.

How does it feel ...

2008-12-23T05:54:00.000-08:00

when you're sittin' at a table dining, and at that particularly comfortable moment surrounded by friends; new and old, you would unknowingly be making sidewardly glances; you see a 29-year old on your left, and sitting opposite of yourself is a soon-to-be 24 year old on December 26th, and there's a 26-year old and well I don't think I need not dwell or be borthered further on the age consensus which I had just thought of in my head.

At that spur of a milisecond, upon realizing that I'm the oldest of those who were at the table on that particular moment, I realized I still feel exactly the same way as I was when I was 25, 20, 17, 15... I could just go on and on. I still get excited when I make visits to a computer games store sifting though computer games that comes in CD, DVD, or even diskette format (that was back in the late 80's). Of course, then there are cars, motorcycles, knives, et cetera cetera.. yada yada... And I still get that same tingly sensation when I see a nice looking girl.

Boys will be always boys, who on certain occassions are called men.

Life is like...

2008-12-23T05:47:00.000-08:00

.. a box of chocolate you'll never know when you're going to get it..

Here's another one:

.. a box of chocolate gone bad, you'll never which one it is.

Where art thou, my muse

2008-12-23T01:41:00.000-08:00

The lacking presence of my muse seems to have left me dried, have got lots of things to write about, but I just don't feel like it, can't put it into words to form sentences, in this state I won't be able to write anything as serious as to why I like to smell my laundry.

What transpired today

2008-12-17T02:52:00.000-08:00

As I have expected, I was pulled into the nearest freely available conference room. It was a fairly short discussion, as I have explained to my future-upcoming-soon-to-be-former manager why I'm leaving. He did sounded sincere about his offer, I mean, if I ever thought of wanting to come back, that I should let him know and he can make "certain" arrangements to have me back. Though I'm not sure of wanting to take his word for it, provided that he will still be the Tower Delivery Manager though.

Oh, hmm.. gotta go and finally fix the bumper first thing tomorrow morning. Haih.. Ciao

LOR

2008-12-16T20:44:00.000-08:00

I've just submitted my LOR yesterday, not going to elaborate on what an LOR is, just leave it be as it is. I'm expecting myself to be called or pulled away into a conference room for a discussion with my manager and/or AL, I hope it will be a short one, hands-off, ok-tata-bye-bye.

Huh

2008-12-16T20:29:00.000-08:00

Er, I've just made a girl cry today, I mean she's one of those TM's call centre agents. I was swearing alright, but I consider it as mild by my standard, but at least I wasn't screaming, as opposed to the guy to whom I was talking to last night though. I wasn't angry at her in particular or anything, I was just mad at the way they handle my complaints: the hands-off houdini method - lodge the complaint, gimme-the-report-number, disengage, and never-hear-anything-from-them then onwards standard MO when lodging a complaint to TM. I've never been amused by it, never did, and I don't think I ever will.

Exactly the reason why I am very particular when it comes to reprimanding somebody or about something. er, everytime when there's a girl, or for more politically correct definition, the ladies are somewhat involved. I don't think the ladies are weak-minded IMHO, I mean I've had my fair share of beating, as in mentally, thank you very much. It's the crying part that makes me go weak on the knees.

What a weekend

2008-12-15T09:40:00.000-08:00

Oh yeah, just what exactly had happened during the weekends? I've pretty much scratched my friend's front bumper. And the first thing popped out of my mouth? Owwwhhh... sheeeett.. It's a new Vios by the way, the E model was it. It's dugong shape just makes it hard to estimate how much further ahead the curb was, and no I'm not blaming the car, as a friend was trying "hard" to point out, as I'm always in the habit of blaming the trees, the birds, it's that other guy/gal, or was it the shop owners of groceries stores that sell those cigarettes. I guess it's the form of escapism that I could relate to, as I always try to see find the funny side (or the lighter side if you would call it) of everything regardless whether it's painful and/or bitter, and no, I'm not in denial.

Oh back to the scratched Vios, so I went to the Ikano store at the Curve, and inquired one of the friendly store assistants on the sort of scratch that those rubber compound car products would be able to fix, and especially on the Vios. I call a minor scratch, and the owner's version of the description? "You call that a minor scratch?!?!?". Not really sure whether he's pissed or annoyed, but I think I should be able to pretty much surmise that it's somewhere in the middle.

Oh, and did make a stop at a nearby auto shop and was told by the owner of the auto shop (I think) that a respray of the whole front bumper would cost me 250 pak lah dollar. And according to Pengulu Seri Kembangan, that's decently cheaper that what he had to pay to respray his Wira's back bumper.

While this entry is being written, and as I'm currently watching an episode of House "One Day, One Room", the TV series, where this rape victim lady was insistent on wanting to talk to House about everything else but on what had happened. It's not so much on the whole classic House lines that interests/amuses me, since I've already watched this particular episode a dozen times, it's more on what was quoted, where "life is a series of rooms, and who we get stuck with in those rooms determines how our lives play out". Now that's food for my thought for the day.

Clean laundry

2008-12-07T08:23:00.000-08:00

I can't seem to be able to express how I like clean laundry. Yep, I've said it clean laundry. I will always get blast over sniffing my clean laundry, how good it smells and feels like, when you brush it over your nose and/or cheeks. Today, or rather yesterday was such a day.

Traffic Report

2008-12-04T05:36:00.000-08:00

Nothing to report except the roads that leads into KL was damn packed, had to loiter around Pusat Bandar Damansara for an hour and a half. Half an hour sitting my sorry behind down at Starbucks downing a cup of Cap and a slice Blueberry cheese cake, or was it? Goddammit I missed my old cellphone, else I'd be snappin' pictures of it and of the traffic. Nothing beats a photo or two, if one photo speaks a thousand words, imagine how many thousand words worth would it be if there were more than one or two photos.

Do infants....

2008-07-19T12:23:00.001-07:00

Do infants enjoy infancy as much as adults enjoy adultery?

The older you get, and a word of advice...

2008-07-19T12:21:00.000-07:00

The older you get, the more important is it not to act your age.

Kisses blown are kisses wasted...

2008-07-19T12:19:00.002-07:00

Kisses blown are kisses wasted,
A kiss isn't a kiss unless it's tasted.
Kisses spread germs and germs are hated,
so kiss me baby, I'm vacinnated!

Some chain Letter

You can pick your friends

2008-07-19T12:19:00.001-07:00

You can pick your friends and you can pick your nose, but you should never pick your friends nose.

Again never do this when you're hungry

2008-07-19T12:01:00.000-07:00

Do what? Make mashed potatoes especially in the middle of the night. You'll just end up feeling hungrier that you initial felt.

Never shop when you're hungry

2008-07-19T11:55:00.000-07:00

Never shop for groceries when you're hungry; why ? You might end up buying unnecessary food items. The sort of food items that aren't suppose to stay in your fridge for more than a week. For instance, poultry, lamb, beef, meat et al. Or try picturing this instead; how cooked rice looks like after being left in the open for three weeks.

The Top One Fuel Saving Tip is....

2008-06-08T10:35:00.001-07:00

Don't drive, well if somebody offers to give you a ride to the office, say yes, that way you won't consume any fuel.

I was looking through this list of tips on how to save fuel. Maybe you can try to give a guess at what is at number 10. I won't even bother to list the others.

Recent fuel hike

2008-06-08T10:21:00.000-07:00

With the recent fuel hike for RON79, a 78 cents hike from 1.92 ringgit to 2.70 ringgit. I don't know what else to say, I've been driving my friend's call from the past three months, and on the next morning after coming back from the Gawai trip home, having to find out that the car was missing, which indeed, as it turns out it was stolen. Well, as much as I really want to state my case, where I don't have to worry about the fuel hike, this recent hike will take it's toll for those mere simple man like myself to a mere peddler, and to every single able body (else). Electricity tariffs, and god knows what else, all food operators are feeling the pinch now and inadvertently every single able body who happens to consume food, electricity and everything else will feel it, if not now later. We're not exactly getting the correct figures on the health of our country, nobody seems to want to tell when shit has started hitting the fan.

Gawai Trip Home

2008-06-08T09:32:00.000-07:00

Gayu Guru Gerai Nyamai or Selamat Andu Gawai as some would wish it to their relatives and friends, which was justly celebrated last week. Gawai Dayak is a festivity which celebrates the rice harvest by the Dayaks in Sarawak. Though I don't exactly celebrate this particular festivity, but I feel more than inclined still, to fly home. Well, at least it's good to know or have something to look forward to, as oppose to wading through the mundane life I know live. Having to come home, has always been exciting to me, or else, what is the point in all of these. As of late, I've also had the pleasure in knowing there are other things to look forward to when coming home.

When I was back home, had the unfortunate event of knowing my dearest aunt had a knee problem rightly after her deserved trip to Mecca for her Umrah, or the mini-Hajj is what I call it. From what I found out from her, she may have to have an operation done on her knee to fix it. I just feel so sad not knowing I wasn't around to know about her latest ailment with her already ailing knee.

Then it was driver duties, with the exceptional few meetup with friend of new and old. A dinner with a friend and even a movie outing, which I had initiated and not my friends. Even left the car keys in the car once, and even forgetting to lock my bro's car in another trip or drive around town. As one of my friend was telling me, "This certainly isn't the Shahmat I know, hey what have you done with ol' Shahmat". Just can't help but laugh at myself. Twelve years too late as I would call it. And I ain't going to elaborate any further than that.

Paid a visit to the newly opened Boulevard in 4th Mile with me mum. As I exclaimed to her in Hokkien, "Is that it?". Not that I'm complaining, well guess I was sort of. But at least it beats the thought of visiting Sarawak Plaza and Riverside and not to forget Tun Jugah. Spring wasn't too bad, the only great think I could think about the place was that they had a Starbucks outlet, they hav Crocs sandals/shoes over at Parkson, did I mention Sushi-king (at least it's better than not having any sushis at all), and I think that pretty much sums the experience I had visiting the newly opened shopping complexes in Kuching.

And when the time comes for me to end the rather pleasant trip back home, I was feeling a bit heavy hearted on wanting to leave. It's so nice to drive back home, again I have to say that traffic jam back home is still ok and acceptable, or to put it simply, by right I should never loose too much of my patience.

And now here I am again in Seri Kembangan, making a trip on foot from home in the rain, taking the ERL, so that I could have a taste of my mum's halal version of Bak Chang (another festivity to commemorate the Dragon Boat Festival or so my friend has mentioned to me).

Step 1 - Grab one

Step 2 - Open em up

Step 3 - Take a bite

It's as easy as the three previous steps that I've just mentioned. To conclude this latest blog entry, I'd certainly hope to be able to come home again on Aug 8th, no no no, not for the Beijing 2008 Olympics but for a wedding reception, and then for Raya, and hopefully in time for Christmas too.

A call for cab

2008-05-20T10:19:00.000-07:00

I've been meaning to write about this mind-tingling experience I've had while trying to catch a cab from Damansara Perdana to my office. As I dialled up the cab company contact number, and uttered my usual telephony greeting 'Hello', I spoke to a person which I had assume to be an elderly man, and asked if he could send in a cab to pick me up and drive me to my office.

Ramblin dude: Hello?
Cab company elderly guy: Yes, what can I do for you?
Ramblin dude: Yes, could you send a cab to pick me up from Damansara Perdana to HP Tower, Damansara Heights?
Cab company elderly guy: Ok, what is the name of the place in Damansara Perdana do you want our cab to pick you up from?
Ramblin dude: Er. Well, I'm at this place, called 'The Place'.
Cab company elderly guy: Eh, don't you dare play tricks on me ah..
Ramblin dude: Sir, I'm not playing tricks on you, I am now standing in front of this building block called 'The Place'.
Cab company elderly guy: Haiya, you young people think you are so clever ar? Think you go to college and universities, you think you are so clever ah?!?
Ramblin dude: (Ended the call)

After that brief confrontational stint I've had with cab company elderly guy, I've had to resort to give another cab company a call, and asked for a cab to pick me up from Emerald Condo, which was quite far from where I was earlier prior to making the initial call to the first cab company.

Back to where I started, huh.

Funny DHL Ad

2008-04-29T10:32:00.000-07:00

Seri Kembangan KTV

2008-04-27T13:59:00.000-07:00

One of our few KTV sessions at Seri Kembangan KTV on one of the past few weekends. (I wonder how to rotate the video, can't figure that part)

Never trust labels that says 'One-size-fits-all'

2008-04-09T08:00:00.000-07:00

Right, one size fits all. Unless you're a shortie or have really small feet.

Have you ever seen a drunk korean lying at the road side?

2008-04-09T07:51:00.001-07:00

Have you ever wondered how a drunk korean would like lying at the road side. Well, they look just like any other drunk lying at the road side.

And here's a public service announcement, presented to you by a Directory (oops.. Director) of Technology.

How far would you go for this?

2008-04-09T07:43:00.001-07:00

Yeeaaah, had almost forgotton to upload this photo. Laksa laksa, lovely laksa, that's Sarawak laksa. I used to have this for breakfast, lunch, brunch, during tea time, dinner, supper, you name it.

I drove all the way to Seri Kembangan just to have this. Can you imagine that. It only took the about 10 minutes for Pengulu Seri Kembangan to convince me to drive all the way from Sri Hartamas to Seri Kembangan, just last Saturday.

And then, si Ken Geng helped out Kim with the Chinese style dinner (right... right... with the 5 minute chicken), Kim did a great job with the dinner which reminds me of my mum's cooking, and it makes me feel hungry as I'm updating this blog entry.

Usted habla inglés ?

2008-04-09T06:47:00.000-07:00

Of course, I do. My blog is in English. My citizenship states that I'm a Malaysian, a former British colony back in the 50's. So there must've been a lot of people speaking in English back then, which should have rubbed off with the locals, which would be us, or in which case, probably our grandparent or great grandparents.

I recalled having a conversation with a colleague, which I happen to have had the chance to know thereof, had asked me which department am I with? Marketing? Sales? "Ahh no... none of those, unfortunately, I'm with ITO or outsourcing." He replied, "Ah well, GCM". "Aha.. " (exacto mundo).

So bla bla bla, we talked about a lot of stuffs, about the company, about what he's doing. And also about what I'm doing. And all of a sudden he asked, "So... I was just wondering... you wouldn't happened to be a local, would you? Are you a Malaysian?" I said, "Yes, I'm local, but to be politically correct, yes and no, I'm from Sarawak." And all of a sudden he said, "Ah... that explains it.." "Huh, that explains what?", I asked him. "Your accent.." he then again replied. Me being a Sarawakian explains that I have an accent, yeah that would make sense. Make what sense. Since when did I have an accent?

Car broken down, so goes the driver

2008-03-18T14:10:00.000-07:00

Lately, well, more like starting from yesterday, I've had just started driving. The notion of myself driving a car, is at most, intimidating to me. You can give me other things to do, I will just say, "Hell yeah, gimme time, I should be able to get use to whatever it is I'm suppose to do". I started driving my friend's Toyota Corolla GL which is most probably older than I am, in which Toyota had probably rolled them out of their manufacturing line back in the late 1970s. I have nothing against old cars. Enough said. As the title of this blog entry is "Car broken down, so goes the driver". The title of this entry would also entail, the fact that the driver who is the rambling dude is not the owner of.

Back to the broken down car, well, to put it simply, the battery had gone flat. Ahhh... The first thing that came into my mind as I inserted the keys to the ignition was, it did nothing. None of those "click, click" noise that those alternators should be making when twisting the keys while it is in its ignition. You'd probably think, the possibility that I might have left either the airconditioning turned, or was it the headlights, or was it even the radio by any chance, which of course, I've had the pleasure to discover that I've had pretty much had all of those covered, those electronic/electrical devices that all car owners would be able to find in the car had been rightly turned off. As it turns out, I did a "mistake" of not twisting the keys out of the ignition when I had parked the car, which I did not realize that I was capable of making in the first place, at well, fifteen-eighteen hundred hours (15:18 or 3:15PM GMT +8) as of yesterday.

Which driver in their rightly deserved praises at the technological marvel we all call vehicular transport (or car) would know that you're suppose to fully twist the keys while it is still stuck in the ignition before taking it out. And of course, drivers would normally have to do that in order to fully park the car, without having to have the driver still placed in the car. Most cars I've driven or known of does not even permit you to take out the key ouf of the damn ignition. How was I to know? Goddamn old car. Maybe I should've paid more attention, and I have to make the effort to buy a battery (a Yuasa NS-60 - was it) which will figuratively burn a hole in my pocket and deprive me of one hundred ringgit (plus plus) in order for me to get the freaking battery replace (obviously with a new one). Another friend tells me, whoaah... that's good shit batttery..

Rightly so, as of the moment, I'm pretty mad as an oxen (do oxen get mad easily). But lately, I have been so laid back that I can almost outrightly state that I am being almost awkwardly or morbidly patient. I don't know what else to say.

Intel Inside

2008-02-28T08:48:00.000-08:00

The whole two-block building where my office is at, is called HP Tower. Surprisingly, Intel Malaysia has an office in one of the building blocks. HP Tower Intel Inside. A friend of mine told it has been a joke amongst him and his journalist'ic friends. Or what about HP Tower, powered by Intel. That would be interesting.

Karma

2008-02-03T12:17:00.000-08:00

Kar.ma [kar-muh], is an act upon which oneself has commit oneself to, in most cases leads to a certain inevitability, either good or bad.

I have an interesting story to tell about karma. About two months ago, while I was on my way to work, and coincidentally I had bunked at my bro's place and it's just so happened that he had to send his car for repair, or was it for servicing. So we ended up, taking the cab to work, which we had decided that we would split the cab fare. Also, what I have actually had contemplated on that same fateful day was deciding whether I would want to get a new mobile phone. As I was about to enter the cab which my bro and I had hailed, as I was about to board the cab, I looked down. Well well, what do you know.

A Sony-Ericsson W580i, which I wasn't able to turn it on simply because the battery had ran out. Picked it up and kept it to myself (without even telling my bro about my lucky find), brought it back home, charge it up and I threw away SIM card that was in the cellphone. Of course, after committing myself to such an action, conscience had somewhat crept in. The idea of returning the cellphone did came into mind, but I had simply put that idea out at a mere effort.

So two months has gone by, I was at best, the least worried about what I had done, and while I was on my way to meet with an old friend from school accompanied by another old friend. So my old "long-time-no-see" friend had decided that he'd stay at Cititel for some reason. So of course we would decidedly to meet up with him in Midvalley. So the best course of action for the meet up was to decide whether to go or not to go and how do we go there. So we, in turn, decidedly to meet up with the later old friend at Sentral and take the "bloody" kommuter. Did I just say bloody? Never mind, that's a totally different story altogether.

As usual, those who has no other choice but to commute with the bloody kommuter had jammed themselves in them kommuter like freakin' canned sardines. And as we were about to reach at the Midvalley stop, I had to squeeze my freakin' way out, and by the time I was out of the kommuter, I had simply lost my mobile phone. I searched and searched, and to no avail, I had to simply be content with the fact that I had lost the freakin' mobile phone which wasn't exactly mine to begin with. Talk about not wanting to believe in karma. After this particular incident, would you still doubt that there is such a thing called karma?