Nem W. Schlecht

This has been a really, really, weird week. I’ll try to sum it up:

• I’m usually very careful when making changes to code or to databases, but I messed up both (although I still don’t understand why my ‘rsync’ of my Slips system didn’t work and the screw-up to the ‘db’ MySQL table didn’t really matter). What was odd about this was that obelisk, the campus backup server, was down that day and took hours to come back up. Usually that machine (and the group of guys who admin it) is rock solid. Sucks when you mess up and can’t get to your backup – especially when you’re spanky new help-desk software is one of the victims.
• For some reason, port forwarding Oracle on port 1521 (yes, that is its normal port) wouldn’t work on any host other than localhost. After much testing and experimentation, I figured I’d just try 5121. It shouldn’t make any difference, but for some reason, it does. 5121 works fine for localhost and remote connections, 1521 doesn’t work. At least I got this to work – life is much nicer now without being forced to use SQL*Plus. Although, Oracle is still a smelly pile of crap. It’s a huge and highly functional, but still a pile of crap.
• Speaking of Oracle, they distribute different libraries in their “instantclient” versus their full install. On some Solaris 10 boxes (like my home workstation), the instantclient version causes memory errors. The full version doesn’t, though. Nasty messages no longer appear when using the Oracle client library.
• Yet another Oracle thing. Usually before you install Oracle on a Solaris box, you need to modify /etc/system and set a bunch of parameters. The most important being the amount of shared memory a user can use. I didn’t want to reboot my server (current uptime: 235 days). Luckily, Solaris rocks the house, and you can just set up a ‘project’ space for a user:
  

  projadd -c “Oracle” ‘user.oracle’
  projmod -s -K “project.max-shm-memory=(privileged,4GB,deny)” ‘user.oracle’

  If you’re already logged in as user ‘oracle’ you need to log out then back in again, but after that, you’re golden for an install.

• My iBook laptop hard drive died. Then the boot CDROM I put it in won’t come out (in fact, it’s still in the drive). I took out the drive, tried various methods of getting data off of it with no dice. I took off the logic board, cleaned the contacts I could, then re-seated it. No dice. Then I froze it (-13F) and tried again. Still no dice. Then I banged the crap out of it, plugged it in, let it sound like a grinder for 10 seconds, then magically, it mounted. I should have made it worse, but now, I’m happily backing it up.
• Found out my workstation at home had an old CGI script that allowed access to the e-mail headers, which some spammer also found out about as well. I caught it after a couple of days, but the damage was done. Bug fixed, sendmail queue cleaned, and now I just have to wait a couple days to get out of whatever tarpit my IP was put in.
• Got a Geek Muse plug on another podcast, which isn’t all that odd, just kind of rare (and appreciated!)
• After procrastinating for a week, I finally edited and published episode 50 of Geek Muse. Our longest one yet, just under one hour and twenty minutes.
• My boss’s boss shaved his beard, leaving just a mustache. He kinda looks like a cop now. (Not that’s bad or anything, just different).
• I started eating at the student cafeteria (and food court) this week, and I’ve been pleasantly surprised.
• My eye checkup came back great – I still have 20/15 vision after my LASEK.

While not all bad or good, it’s just been a really odd week.

I grilled up some of my favorite sausages (Turkey & Chicken with Habenero Peppers and Monteray Jack Cheese) and headed over to Mark’s place to watch the Superbowl. Lala showed up later and probably wanted us to get the hell out of her living room. Later we all enjoyed some peanut butter cookies Mark had whipped up (recipe from Dayna).