Terminal Neutering

been off for a long time

2009-08-24T13:51:00.002+05:30

been off for a long time, posting anything sensible here. mostly stuck in work. and kind of re-evaluating the direction which life is taking...

nothing great to report...other than the fact that i like the windows 7 tests i have been doing...again nothing new, i guess, everyone who has tried vista and has stuck to xp are kind of happy with windows 7....

cheers...

Whats up in my tech world

2008-09-01T10:12:00.002+05:30

i seem to have got bitten by the BI.

Have been playing around with pentaho bit suite, and trying to get a grip on all the various components of pentaho, ie the kettle, mondrian, spoon et al.

wooh! looks good, but i have not be able to go past the pre installed sample database.

next was the microsoft performancepoint server, again connected to BI. just about managed to setup the whole kaboodle of eval versions of all the applications and software required.

let us see where it goes!

b-hive conductor

2008-06-03T20:54:00.002+05:30

been working the last few days on b-hive conductor. an interesting product from an enterprise point of view.

been struggling to get it running under vmplayer on winxp

funny enough, its up and running on a vista 64 bit, running vmware 2.0 beta. huh!

web huddle

2008-03-17T13:20:00.003+05:30

just thought that i should scream into the blogland that i have got web huddle working on wintel box. seems to be doing quite well, the performance and response across the WAN seems to be quite workable.

...

pcq 2008 linux

2008-03-17T13:14:00.002+05:30

got my had on a pcq 2008 linux dvd, been trying to get it to install under vmware. i had not been able to spend much time with it till now.

i was not able to proceed further than the vm disk creation and then getting stuck with a message that disk cannot be found to install.

did some goggling, figured out that this could be possibly because i was trying to do the install with the standard vm with a scsi disk, i recreated the disks as ide, and away i go installing the os.

this version of pcq2008 linux is based on centos..this is my first look at centos.

with this the list of distros i have come across and dabbled with are gentoo, redhat, fedora, slackware, centos to name a few....

will post more stuff on this a little latter.

Onenote 2007

2008-01-31T18:08:00.000+05:30

just an update, my love affair with onenote 2007 still going strong, i have got a few converts to onenote 2007 , a few of them have managed to change the very way they are working and organizing their work and private life.

One product which i have user friendly. There seems to a lot of developments going on , some of new add-on's i have got from a few onenote 2007 bloggers.

thanks to all the work being done by you all!

for those of you few people who visit this place in the blog land, check out the microsoft site for pretty long eval version of the software here

Top tips for OneNote 2007 - OneNote - Microsoft Office Online

2007-06-28T16:17:00.001+05:30

As you learn to use Microsoft Office OneNote 2007, you are sure to discover many shortcuts and timesaving techniques. This article offers some of the most popular timesaving tips, collected from OneNote users just like you. These tips can help you discover and work with a variety of useful OneNote features that you may have overlooked.

Tips for getting started with OneNote

To increase your note-taking area on a small screen, you can hide the titles of the page tabs by clicking the Collapse Page Tabs arrow in the page tabs column.
To maximize your available screen space while taking notes, press F11 to use OneNote in Full Page view. (Press F11 again to exit Full Page view.)
Page tabs appear on the right side of your notebook by default. To display the page tabs on the left side of your notebook, in the Display category in the Options dialog box (Tools menu), select the Page tabs appear on the left check box.
To change the default color that is applied to a new section, right-click the section tab at the top of the page, point to Section Color on the shortcut menu, and then click the color that you want to apply. Click None to remove coloring from a section entirely.
If you want to change the way OneNote is set up, you can customize any of the items on the menus and toolbars by right-clicking a toolbar and then clicking Customize on the shortcut menu.
If you have a microphone and a webcam, run the Tuning Wizard before you attempt to record audio and video notes. On the Tools menu, click Options. In the Options dialog box, click Audio and Video, and then click Tuning Wizard.
If you have a Microsoft Windows Mobile-based smartphone or Pocket PC, you can install OneNote Mobile and synchronize notes between your computer and your smartphone. Connect your mobile device to your computer while OneNote 2007 and Microsoft ActiveSync are running. Choose to install OneNote Mobile when prompted, or install it manually at a later time. (On the Tools menu, click Options. In the Options dialog box, click OneNote Mobile, and then click Install OneNote Mobile.)
To view a list of useful keyboard shortcuts that make accessing OneNote tools, commands, and dialog boxes faster and easier, click Keyboard Shortcuts on the Help menu.

Tips for taking notes

If copying and pasting text and graphics from a Web page to a page in your notebook doesn't seem to properly retain the formatting, try capturing the information in a screen clipping instead. On the Insert menu, click Screen Clipping, and then drag the pointer to create a rectangular selection around the content on your screen that you want to capture.
Save time by creating AutoCorrect entries for words and phrases that you type repeatedly. When you type the short form of AutoCorrect text on a notes page, OneNote automatically replaces it with the full text that you specified. On the Tools menu, click AutoCorrect Options. In the Replace box, type a word or phrase that you want OneNote to automatically replace when typed. In the With box, type the text that should appear in place of the replaced word or phrase.
To see when a block of notes was last written or updated, right-click the paragraph handle preceding the text in any note container. The last two items on the shortcut menu will show you when the text was created or updated, and by whom.
To move an item, such as a block of text or a picture, so that it appears over or under another item on the page, hold down ALT while moving the item.
To quickly remove a note tag, place the cursor in the text that is tagged, and then press that note tag's keyboard shortcut (CTRL+1 through CTRL+9). You can also use this keyboard shortcut to quickly select or clear a To Do note tag.
To hide notes that you already followed up on and marked as complete, select the Show only unchecked items check box in the Note Tags Summary task pane.
You can easily modify the templates that are included with OneNote and create a custom design of your own. Start by applying an existing template to a new, blank page, and then add or change anything you like. On the Format menu, click Templates. In the Templates task pane, click Save current page as a template.

Tips for formatting notes

To quickly create a numbered list, type 1. followed by a space, type the list item, and then press ENTER. The next line of text will automatically begin with the number 2.
To quickly create a bulleted list, type an asterisk (*) followed by a space, type the list item, and then press ENTER. The asterisk changes to a bullet, and the next line of text will automatically begin with another bullet.
If you are typing in a bulleted list and you want to start a new paragraph of text within the same list item, press SHIFT+ENTER.
To turn a numbered list on or off, press CTRL+SLASH MARK (/). To turn a bulleted list on or off, press CTRL+PERIOD.
To quickly increase or decrease indentation for a line of text, place the cursor in front of the text that you want to reposition, and then press ALT+SHIFT+RIGHT ARROW to increase the indent, or ALT+SHIFT+LEFT ARROW to decrease the indent.
To create a hyperlink to another page in your notebook, open the notebook section containing the page that you want to link to, right-click the tab of the page in the margin, click Copy Hyperlink to this Page, and then paste the hyperlink wherever you want it to appear in your notes.
To create a hyperlink to another section in your notebook, right-click the tab of the section that you want to link to, click Copy Hyperlink to this Section, and then paste the hyperlink wherever you want it to appear in your notes.
To create a hyperlink to another OneNote notebook on your computer, right-click in the Navigation bar the name of the notebook that you want to link to, click Copy Hyperlink to this Notebook, and then paste the hyperlink wherever you want it to appear in your notes.
To create a hyperlink to a Web site whose URL contains spaces, type an angle bracket (< >) at the beginning and end of the URL (for example, type <http://wide world importers>).
To create a hyperlink to an e-mail address, type mailto: and then type the e-mail address (for example, type mailto:someone@example.com).
To create a hyperlink in your notes to a document on your computer, type file:// and then type the document's location and file name (for example, type file://C:\My Documents\Resume.doc). If the file name contains spaces, type an angle bracket at the beginning and end of the path (for example, type <file://C:\My Documents\My Resume.doc>).

Tips for organizing and searching notes

To rearrange the page tabs on the side of the current page in any notebook, drag any page tab to a new position.
To rearrange the section tabs at the top of any notebook, drag any section tab to a new position.
To rearrange your notebooks in the Navigation bar, drag any notebook tile to a new position.
To search your notes faster, you can install Instant Search. On the Tools menu, click Options. In the Options dialog box, click Other, and then click Install Instant Search.
After searching your notes, press ENTER to navigate through the search results.

Tips for sharing notes

Before sharing your notes, check for spelling mistakes. Press F7 to open the Spelling task pane and start the spell check. If the task pane is already open, click Start Spell Check.
To preserve the appearance of notes that contain special or complex formatting (for example, diagrams, overlapping note containers, or notes with a variety of handwritten annotations) and share them with someone who doesn't have OneNote, you can save notes as a Web page. On the File menu, click Publish Pages. In the Publish dialog box, click Single File Web Page (Publish a copy) (*.mht) in the Save as type list. After the file has been created, you can send it in e-mail, copy it to a shared location on a network, or publish it on a Web site.
To quickly send notes in an e-mail message to another user, select one or more notes pages by clicking their page tabs. Next, click E-mail on the Standard toolbar, and then type the appropriate information in the To, Cc, and Bcc boxes. If necessary, modify the Subject of the e-mail message, and type any comments for the recipient in the Introduction box. If you change your mind before sending the message, click E-mail on the Standard toolbar again to cancel the message and return to your notes.
If you frequently send your notes to others in e-mail, you can add an e-mail signature to your notes. Signatures can help identify the subject or the source of notes, such as your name or contact information. On the Tools menu, click Options. In the Options dialog box, click Sending E-mail. Select the check box Add the following signature to e-mail messages and Web pages created in OneNote, and then enter the text that you want OneNote to include in the footer of your notes pages.
To quickly share your own customized stationery with other OneNote users, apply your stationery to a new, blank page, point to Send to on the File menu, and then click Mail Recipient (as Attachment). Recipients who have Office OneNote 2007 installed can use the Save current page as a template option in the Templates task pane to add the design to their list of available templates.
Use different colors to identify participants in a live sharing session. Ask each person to use a specific pen or font color when he or she adds notes to the shared page. For example, you can type your notes in blue text and use a blue pen to mark up a diagram. Another person can use green text or a green pen. Add a list of names and corresponding text colors at the top of the shared note page so that session participants know who is typing or writing.

Tips for doing research with OneNote

Use OneNote to help you study for an exam. If you take notes by using an outline format, collapse your outline down to the highest level of information, and then quiz yourself about the details hidden in the collapsed levels. To work with outlines, turn on the Outlining toolbar. On the View menu, point to Toolbars, and then click Outlining.
The audio feature in OneNote can help save time when you are doing research on the Web. As you drag information into side notes, try annotating that information with audio notes that you record.
To begin recording audio without first starting OneNote, right-click the OneNote icon in the notification area (at the far right of the taskbar), and then click Start Recording Audio on the shortcut menu.
You can keep an audio To Do list by recording notes to yourself by using the OneNote audio feature. To follow up on each item, add a To Do note tag to each audio clip, and then check off the items as you complete them.
To quickly open a side note, even when OneNote isn't open, press the Windows logo key+N.
Side notes are automatically saved to a special section called Unfiled Notes. On the notebook Navigation bar, click the Unfiled Notes button to display information you collected in side notes. You can copy or move information from side notes into any page, section, or notebook.

Tips for protecting personal notes

To keep notes in a particular section safe from prying eyes, right-click the section tab, and then click Password Protection on the shortcut menu.
To automatically lock a password-protected section in your notebook, you can set a time interval in the Passwords category in the Options dialog box (Tools menu).

Tips for customizing OneNote 2007

To help you line up items on your pages (for example, note containers or pictures), OneNote automatically snaps the items to an invisible grid as you move and reposition them. To temporarily disable the grid, hold down ALT while you move an item on the current page. To permanently turn the page grid option on or off, click the Snap To Grid command on the Edit menu.
If you accidentally turn off the OneNote icon in the notification area of the taskbar, you can turn it back on. On the Tools menu, click Options. In the Options dialog box, click Other, and then select the Place OneNote icon in the notification area of the taskbar check box.
If you use OneNote on a portable computer or a Tablet PC, you can optimize the amount of battery power that OneNote consumes. On the Tools menu, click Options. In the Options dialog box, click Other, and then select the Optimize for the following battery life option that you want.

Original page: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/onenote/HA101951431033.aspx

Inserted from <http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/onenote/HA101951431033.aspx?mode=print>

Take and format notes - OneNote - Microsoft Office Online

2007-06-28T16:12:00.001+05:30

Note-taking in Microsoft Office OneNote 2007 is as easy as writing in a paper notebook, but by using OneNote, you can also move text anywhere on the page or to other pages, create space and add pages when and where you need to, and tag important notes for follow-up.

Your notes can include any combination of typed text, pictures, and graphics — including text and images you collect from the Web pages — as well as digital handwriting, audio and video clips, and more.

What do you want to do?

Type or write notes on a page
Move text on a page
Add space to a page
Create a new page
Change the order of pages
Save notes
Insert the time and date
Create a bulleted or numbered list
Add or edit a hyperlink
Create a table
Insert a picture
Insert a screen clipping
Add note tags to important notes

Type or write notes on a page
- To make typewritten notes, click wherever on the page you want the notes to appear, and then type. OneNote creates a note container for each block of text that you type or write.
- If you're using a pen-input device, click Pen on the Writing Tools toolbar, and then handwrite your notes anywhere on the page. To switch back to typing at any time, on the Writing Tools toolbar, click Type/Selection Tool. .
Move text on a page
Do any of the following:
- To move text within the same page, move the pointer over the text. When the note container appears, click the top edge of the note container, and then drag the container to a new location on the page.
- To copy or move text from one page to another page, right-click the top edge of the note container, click Copy or Cut on the shortcut menu, and then paste the notes to the page you want.
Add space to a page
- Click Insert Extra Writing Space on the Writing Tools toolbar.
- On the page, click where you want to insert more space, and then drag the pointer in the direction indicated by the arrow to add as much space as you want.
Drag to add space at the edges of the page or between lines of text.
Tip To quickly add more space to the bottom of a page, click Scroll Down by Half Page

on the vertical scroll bar.

Create a new page
- Click the New Page button above the page tabs to quickly create a new page. (Click the arrow next to the New Page button to choose a blank page, to create a subpage in a page group, or to create a page from a template.)
- In the Title box at the top of the page, type a title for the page. The title you type appears in the page tab along the side of the OneNote window.
Change the order of pages
- To move a page within a section, click and drag the page tab slightly to the right until a small arrow appears, and then drag the page tab up or down to a new location in the current section.
Save notes
OneNote automatically and continuously saves your work while you take notes, whenever you switch to another page or section, and whenever you close sections and notebooks. There is no need to save your notes manually, even when you finish them.
Tip To save a copy of a section of your notes to a different location, use the Save As command on the File menu. OneNote will automatically save any further changes to that section of notes to that new location..

Insert the time and date
Depending on how you use OneNote, you can use your computer's current date and time in your notes to mark or track chronological events. For example, you can keep a log of phone calls received at specific times during the day, or mark entries in your OneNote weblog or diary with the current date.
- Place the pointer where you want to add a date and time stamp.
- Do one of the following:
  - On the Insert menu, click Date and Time.
  - To insert the current date and time, press ALT+SHIFT+F.
  - To insert only the date, press ALT+SHIFT+D.
  - To insert only the time, press ALT+SHIFT+T.
Tip OneNote automatically adds a date and time stamp under the page title whenever a new page is created. To change the date or time stamp of a page, click the date or time, and then click the calendar or clock icon that appears. OneNote will use the new date and time stamp when searching the page for notes.

Note By default, OneNote uses the date and time format specified in the Control Panel in Microsoft Windows. To change the way dates and times are displayed in OneNote, double-click the Regional and Language Options icon in Control Panel in Windows, click Customize for the locale you have selected, and then choose the Time and Date format you want. The changes apply to new note pages, but not to note pages that you have already created.

Create a bulleted or numbered list
Create a bulleted list
- On the Formatting toolbar, click Bullets .
- Type the text you want for the first item in the list, and then press ENTER.
  A new bullet for the next list item is created automatically.
- To end the bulleted list and continue typing a regular paragraph, press ENTER twice, or press BACKSPACE to delete the last bullet in the list.
Tip To automatically begin a bulleted list, type * (asterisk), and then press SPACEBAR or TAB.

Create a numbered list
- On the Formatting toolbar, click Numbering .
- Type the text you want for the first item in the list, and then press ENTER.
  A new number for the next list item is created automatically.
- To end the numbered list and continue typing a regular paragraph, press ENTER twice, or press BACKSPACE to delete the last number in the list.
Tip To automatically begin a numbered list, type 1. and then press SPACEBAR or TAB.

Add or edit a hyperlink
OneNote automatically creates a hyperlink whenever you type or paste an Internet or World Wide Web URL into your notes.
Add a hyperlink
Do one of the following:
- In your notes, type or paste the Internet address that the hyperlink should point to. For example, to add a hyperlink to the Microsoft Web site, type http://www.microsoft.com.
- On the Insert menu, click Hyperlink, and in the Insert Hyperlink dialog box, specify the Internet address that the hyperlink should point to, and then specifiy the Text to Display where the hyperlink appears in your notes.
Tip To create hyperlinks to other locations in your notebook so you can navigate more quickly, click the notebook section containing the page you want to link to, right-click its page tab in the margin, click Copy Hyperlink to this Page, and then paste the hyperlink wherever you want it to appear.

Edit a hyperlink
- Right-click the hyperlink, and then click Edit Hyperlink on the shortcut menu.
Create a table
Tip You can create a table more quickly by drawing it. On the Standard toolbar, click the Insert Table button, and then drag the pointer down and to the right to specify the number of rows and columns you want. You can also use the TAB key to create a table and to add new columns to a table, and you can use the ENTER key to add new rows to a table.

Insert a picture
You can insert pictures, graphics, and clipart into your notes.
To insert a picture from a file on your computer, do the following:
- On the Insert menu, point to Picture, and then click From File
- In the Insert Picture dialog box, navigate to the location where the file is located, click to select the file, and then click Insert.
To insert a picture from the World Wide Web, do the following:
- On the Insert menu, point to Picture, and then click From File
- In the Insert Picture dialog box, in the File name box, type or paste the complete URL of the image file, and then click Insert.
Note You can annotate pictures that you have inserted into your notes by typing text over them. Therefore, unlike most other Microsoft Office programs, clicking an inserted picture in OneNote does not select the picture. Instead, it places an insertion point for typing text. If you want to select a picture that you have inserted, move the pointer over it. A dashed blue border appears around the picture, and a blue cross-hair handle appears next to the picture. Click the border or the handle to select the picture. Once the picture is selected, click and drag it to a new location on the page.

Insert a screen clipping
You can use OneNote to take a picture of all or part of your computer screen, and then insert it into your notes. These pictures, which are called screen clippings, let you quickly capture information that you do not need to edit. For example, you might take a picture of your business trip itinerary on your travel agency's Web site, and then paste it into your notes so you can view it when you don't have access to the Web.
You create screen clippings by dragging the pointer to select a rectangular area, which can range from a 25-pixel square to the entire height and width of your screen. Anything within the rectangular area is included in the image and is automatically added both to your notes and to the Clipboard. You can easily paste additional copies of the image onto other pages in your OneNote notebook or into another program.
Note Screen clippings are static images. When you take a screen clipping of something (for example, a Web page), and the information changes at the source, the screen clipping is not updated.

Add note tags to important notes
OneNote provides several predefined note tags, such as Important and To Do, that you can associate with your notes. You can also create your own custom note tags and search for tagged items.
Add a note tag
- Place the pointer in the paragraph that you want to tag.
- On the Standard toolbar, click the arrow next to the Tags button, and then click the note tag you want. For example, to attach a check box to something that you want to follow up on, click To Do .
After you add tags to your notes, you can search your notes for tagged items and you can group tagged items together according to tag name.
Search for tagged notes
- On the Standard toolbar, click the arrow next to the Tags button, and then click Show all Tagged Notes.
- In the Note Tags Summary pane, narrow the Search scope if needed, and then click Refresh Results.
Note You can use the To Do note tag as a check box to indicate whether you have followed up on an action item. Select or clear the box in the Note Tags Summary task pane or on the page containing the note tag.

Original page: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/onenote/HA101212551033.aspx

© 2007 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

Inserted from <http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/onenote/HA101212551033.aspx?mode=print>

Create or customize page templates - OneNote - Microsoft Office Online

2007-06-28T15:44:00.001+05:30

In Microsoft Office OneNote 2007, you can use templates to apply a uniform page layout and design for the pages in your notebook. Page templates can enhance the appearance of your notes through consistent use of color, background images, and text formatting.

You can use OneNote templates as they are, change them as you like, or create your own.

What do you want to do?

Apply a page template

OneNote provides several page templates to help you get started; from decorative backgrounds to functional notes pages, like planners and To Do lists.

Do the following:

On the File menu, point to New, and then click Page from Template.
In the Templates task pane, under Add a page, click a category in the list, and then click the name of the template you want to use. OneNote creates a new page in the current section based on the selected template.

Tip To quickly apply recently used templates to a new page, in the page tabs list, click the arrow next to the New Page button, and then click the name of the template you want to apply. Click Blank Template if you want to create a new blank page.

Note Many template designs include page content that appears in specific places. Templates can therefore be applied only to new pages that do not already contain notes. To use a template for notes you have already taken, create a new page from the template you want, and then copy your existing notes to it.

Customize a template

If you do not want to create an entirely new template yourself, you can easily change the contents and appearance of an existing template and then save it as a custom template.

Do the following:

On the Format menu, click Templates.
In the Templates task pane, Under Add a page, click a category, and then click the name of the template you want to modify.
On the File menu, click Page Setup, and then in the Page Setup task pane, change any options you want.
Change any content on the page so that it is the way it should appear whenever new pages are created based on your modified template. Likewise, delete any existing template content that you do not want to keep.
At the bottom of the Page Setup task pane, click Save current page as template.
In the Save As Template dialog box, type a name the Template Name box.
To apply this template to every new page that you add to the current section in your notebook, select the Set as default template for new pages in the current section check box.
Click Save.

Note Templates that you have customized are automatically added to the My Templates list in the Templates task pane.

Create a new template

In addition to the templates that OneNote provides, you can format a page in your notebook the way you want, and then save it as a new template.

On the File menu, point to New, and then click Page.
Note You can also create a new page by clicking New Page above the page tabs.
On the File menu, click Page Setup, and then in the Page Setup task pane, set any options you want.
Add any content to the page that you want to appear whenever new pages are created based on your custom template.
For example, if you are creating a template for meeting notes, you could add an agenda section and headings for the meeting's date and time.
At the bottom of the Page Setup task pane, click Save current page as a template.
In the Save As Template dialog box, type a name the Template Name box.
To apply this template to every new page that you add to the current section in your notebook, select the Set as default template for new pages in the current section check box.
Click Save.

Note Templates that you create are automatically added to the My Templates list in the Templates task pane.

Original page: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/onenote/HA101212561033.aspx

Inserted from <http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/onenote/HA101212561033.aspx?mode=print>

Still Alive Post

2007-04-28T16:30:00.001+05:30

the blog is still alive, life is kind of hectic. so not posting much.

posting after a long time

2006-07-01T18:11:00.000+05:30

posting here after a long time.

what am i checking out now?

working on the beta version of vmware server which has become free.

trying out a few of the vmware appliances, what i have tested is the vmware with zenoss appliance. just got it up and running. not spend much time on this.

also working on evaluating helpcore helpdesk system. have got stuck during the installation , the installation process is searching for a mmcache(somekind of accelerator for php?) package for windows and not getting it...need to spend some time on this.

not spending much time on software eval last month or so, most of the time spend on trying to work out my audio equipment setup!

fully patched xp/2003

2005-12-29T16:51:00.000+05:30

is still vulnerable. a zero day exploit being reported.

Malicious hackers exploit zero-day Windows flaw - Computerworld

A some new boxes

2005-12-15T18:37:00.000+05:30

we have just received a new blade box. 8 server! wow in a 6u factor!

have got redhat running on one of the blades... wowie!

Where have the penguins gone?

2005-08-25T17:55:00.000+05:30

where has the penguin gone?

Here is the story of my last couple of months.

Unbelievable but true. I have not worked on a Linux box the last few months, other than for a few routine cleaning up and stuff like that on the Linux boxes I run.

What have I have been working on during this time? Windows! I am now grudgingly developing a liking for windows operating system. For the first time we are implementing a windows based application.

Active directory and what not! A few web based applications don’t seem to be very stable running under IIS 5.0 and mostly seem to be the applications problems.

More on this, latter.

sugarcrm

2005-04-03T10:43:00.000+05:30

just downloaded this and installed it yesterday, this seems to be a wonderfull crm package. and the cost is great.....free.

let me check the utility and will post more on this if there is anything to be posted..

linux is amazing...

just setup a redhat 9 server.

so the count of different linux distros being(or have worked on) run by me

a) redhat 7.3, redhat 9
b) gentoo linux
c) slackware(not being run)

Nagios configuration tools

2005-03-03T16:12:00.000+05:30

though nagios is a nifty tool, setting up the equipment to be monitored is a real painful process. of course this is not the tools issue, it is just laziness on my part, kind of dislike filling up a config file using vi and punching in ip address etc..

so my laziness lead me on a quest for finding out if there are simpler methods of doing this...

ahhh a plethora of tools each with it own quirks in configuration.

the first one it tried out was nagmin, nagat talked about it last time. still not sure about using this.

then i tried nagisoweb

then i tried fruity , this one seem to be the way to go...very simple to use, product is still in the initial stages. (i had downloaded .51 version and then i saw .60 and will working on this, 0.65 was released) .THIS WOULD BE THE PRODUCT TO KEEP AN EYE OUT.

A funny name for a product but it is really doing what it is supposed to. Thanks Fruity!

Nagios

2005-03-01T03:58:00.000+05:30

ah i have been breaking my heart out on nagios for the last few day, i finally got it working. by the end of setting up on host(manual config of the files) to be monitored i kind of figured that i need to have in some tool to simplify the configuration management.

the next step to figure out how to get nagmin to work. i have finally got it to come uptill the webmin interface. now i need to figure out how to get the system details into it. hey by the way nagmin is a webmin module for network management. somewhere along the line it uses nmap,rrdtools etc.

the third tool connected to nagios which i am working on is Nagat. have got it up and running. only thing i need to do is set up the file permissions on the config files.Nagat is a nagios adminstration tool

this has been one tough nut to crack. possibly because in my old age i kind of figured out that i could work this module without going through the configuration instructions. ofcourse i learnt otherwise.

nifty set of tools. will post more details of this soon.

of course all this is running on a gentoo solaris distribution.

Network Adminstrators Tools

2005-02-23T10:09:00.000+05:30

A few of the tools which i have come across and have been using for quite a period of time.

a ) NMIS : a network management information system. an nifty product which gives you a dash board view of your entire network. the performance and monitoring. uses rrd for data accumulation etc and done in perl.

b) MRTG : if you go to the site you will see people doing more than monitoring networks with this great tool.

c) routers.cgi : this is a kind of wrapper, which gives you some serious report on network utilisation, works of the rrd databases.

d) NTOP : a kind of a network equivalent to the top command in unix. browser based, nifty interface , running version 3.x something now.

e) NESSUS : who can live without nessus, one powerful tool to check your systems vulnerabilities.

top of the mind recall tools.. will try and build the details of usage on each of them as individuals products, latter on

a bit about gentoo

2005-02-23T09:59:00.000+05:30

this is one of the more refined distro of linux, and possibly one variant which runs on sparc,x86,ia64,amd,alpha and god knows what else.

i am sure there are other distro's around which can do most of the same stuff.

but get it running on sparc was so easy with gentoo, ofcourse you need to go through the documentation a few times (for an old guy like me atleast)

the other names i had looked at were ultralinux,aurora sparc project, debian and mandrake were also mentioned along with the word sparc. finally i kind of settled down on gentoo.

there is this utility called "emerge" in gentoo, this is the wishing well equivalent in linux.

you just "emerge this" or "emerge that" and you have this and that installed on your box. want to upgrade mysql , emerge mysql, and voila your wish is my command,of course you would need to have a nifty internet connection.emerge downloads the required packages from repositories on the net, and ensure that the necessary dependancies are taken care of,by downloading them too.

what else to you need in life.

New Scientist Black holes, but not as we know them - Features

2005-02-22T21:41:00.000+05:30

New Scientist Black holes, but not as we know them - Features: "Baby black holes
You don't have to go to space to find a black hole: mini versions could be created to order, right here on Earth. That's what some physicists claim will be possible using the world's most powerful particle accelerator, due to turn on in 2007.
Currently under construction at the CERN laboratory in Geneva, the Large Hadron Collider will smash protons together with a collision energy of 14,000 billion electronvolts. This might just be enough to create several black holes every second, provided some strange ideas about unknown physics turn out to be right. Each mini wonder would weigh no more than a few micrograms and be smaller than a speck of dust.
A black hole is thought to form when the core of a massive star collapses under its own weight and is crushed to a point. Vast amounts of matter weighing more than a few suns are needed to produce gravity strong enough for this to happen.
Yet the special theory of relativity gives a clue to making black holes in the laboratory. Einstein used the theory to show that energy is equivalent to matter. So black holes should also pop into existence when vast amounts of energy are concentrated into a point, and that's exactly what happens when particles smash together at extreme energies.
But there's a snag. According to our existing knowledge of particles and the forces that operate between them, the minimum energy needed to make a black hole this way is 10 million billion times more than LHC can produce. And the chances of ever building a particle accelerator that can reach such energies are virtually nil.
In the past few years though, the prospects for making black holes in the lab have improved. This is down to a theory that says gravity is actually much stronger than we think. Huge masses are needed for the force of g"

i was at the nix game

2005-02-22T19:48:00.000+05:30

i first got my hands on linux in the year 1995 or 1996. This was "Slackware linux".

and this was the first time the song with the words "no body has seen the troubles i have seen" kinda got stuck in my head.

hey by trouble i mean the good kind.

it took me 2 days to figure out that the floppy which i was using for the boot disk was defective, everything was working, it was booting up to a point and then if i remember right "panic"ed.

did i pull my hair out that day. then the challenge of making it work took over and i got it to meow!

post this enlightenment, i had it up and running, my own first web server! wow!

in those days to get hooked on to the internet on a dialup was, to be put it diplomatically,"HELL" and for what? terminal based internet? but this helped me hone my linux/unix skills.

the box which was running slackware? a 486-dx2 with 16 mb of ram. and this was a fast machine.

kernal compiling was a breeze, i used to leave it overnight. i remember one of my major compile took about 16 hours.

things have gotten kind of better since.

then there was the linux from pcquest magazine (dont remember what flavour this was based on)

somewhere along the line, redhat came into the picture, have been tinkering around with this for quite sometime now, about 10 years now...various versions.

about a year back,for some reason, i wanted to have linux run of the sun hardware. some research on the various sparc ports of linux, finally led me to Gentoo Linux .

wow. this is one mean port.

this concludes the small note, on the background behind this blog.

the intention is to build and flesh this blog and document the intresting titty bitty stuff i have come across during my last 10 years playing for the nix.