BLOGical Thoughts

A Programmer’s Ramblings

Thursday, 7 August, 2008

Filed under: Uncategorized — August 7, 2008 @ 5:18 am

The SuSE Linux software repository doesn’t seem to have the width or depth that the Ubuntu repository has. I have unsuccessfully tried to find several programs in SuSE that were readily available in Ubuntu. These are programs I use all the time, but they don’t seem to be available for SuSE. My decision to not switch back to SuSE remains.

I downloaded the latest version of Mepis Linux (7.0), verified the download and burned a CD. The CD will not run correctly - I end up at a command line prompt. I will try this on another machine. If that doesn’t work, I will burn another CD on another machine. I really would like to see what the latest Mepis looks like, but this is discouraging.


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Wednesday, 6 August, 2008

Filed under: Uncategorized — August 6, 2008 @ 5:08 am

The way to get KDE 4.1 in SuSE 11.0 back to the classical menu style is to right-click on the start menu. There is a menu entry there that will allow you to select the old menu style. My thanks to Sean for pointing this out to me.


Here is a list of the things I have done at work in the past year. Each completed software project includes unit testing and bug fixing.

  • Wrote customer assets management program in Delphi to maintain a SQL Server database of information about customers.
  • Wrote a program in Delphi to allow limited access to the customer assets database. Our Support people require this to supply passwords to customers.
  • Wrote a Windows service in C# to audit SQL Server database actions, locally or remotely, for as many databases as there is memory to support.
  • Wrote a Windows program in C# to help configure and test the configuration for the Windows service.
  • Modified Bugzilla Perl code so that when a new bug is entered, that information is also entered as a Defect in VersionOne.
  • Wrote many tools in XML to process log information from various sources.
  • Wrote many log readers in Java to read log files or database information and present it to the log tools.
  • Wrote a Windows DLL in C to allow information from a program deployment to be displayed in McAfee’s ePO dashboard.
  • Modified shell script programs for Linux, HP-UX, AIX and Solaris that start and stop a java agent that monitors those O/Ses.
  • Tested the Tool Configuration section of the main application to verify it was ready to be deleivered to our customers.

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Tuesday, 5 August, 2008

Filed under: Uncategorized — August 5, 2008 @ 5:23 am

This month I am celebrating the one year anniversary of working at that network security company in Post Falls. I will be making a list of the projects and languages I have used in the past year while performing my job. I was going to include it this morning, but I want to make sure it is as comprehensive as I can make it. I think you will be surprised at the variety of things I have done. I know I am.


The monthly meeting of the North Idaho Linux Users Group will be held this Saturday. I missed last month’s meeting because of a Dutch oven event, so I am looking forward to this month’s meeting. One of the things we will be doing is discussing our participation in Software Freedom Day.


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Monday, 4 August, 2008

Filed under: Uncategorized — August 4, 2008 @ 5:32 am

I have figured out why SuSE 11.0 could not find a couple of my Linux distros. It takes the short-sighted approach of looking only where it is installed. What I mean is this: there are two kinds of partitions on a hard disk - primary and secondary (logical) partitions. There can only be a maximum of four primary partitions, and if you want more partitions, one of the primaries must be configured as a secondary partition.

If SuSE Linux 11.0 was installed in a primary partition, it would look at the other primary partitions for other operating systems. If it was installed in a secondary partition, it would only look there. The latter is what happened to me - the two Linux distros it could not find were installed on a primary partition, while it was only looking on the secondary partition.

To fix this, I reinstalled all the Linuxes. For the distros, I put each one in a logical partition, adding to the secondary partition for each distro I installed. I installed Vector Linux, Linux Mint and Ubuntu in logical partitions. None of the distros had any trouble finding each other.

Doing this brought up another problem: the SuSE Linux 11.0 partition editor would not let me create a logical partition from unallocated space. It insisted that I needed to create a primary partition. So I went looking for a partition editor that would let me get around this. I finally found QTParted on an old Mepis Linx disk that would let me resize the secondary partition to encompass the entire disk. I could then create a secondary partition with the SuSE partition editor.


I enjoyed the Art on the Green over the weekend. I went on Sunday, as it was easier for me. There were a lot more booths than in the past, and there was a lot of interesting quality crafts present. I even bought something this year, which I haven’t done in about 15 years.


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Friday, 1 August, 2008

Filed under: Uncategorized — August 1, 2008 @ 7:28 am

I found the extra programs I installed in SuSE 11.0. Unlike every other desktop manager in the known universe, KDE will not display new items in it’s menu until you log out and log back in. This is very shortsighted and incredibly stupid, because most people will not know to do that.

I found no way to change the start menu back to the old style. I’m not saying there isn’t a way, but they’ve done a Microsoft and moved everything around so you can’t find what you want. I was also unable to recover the two Linux distros that were supposed to be on the machine. So I ended up with SuSE, Vector and Debian with Mandriva and Linux Mint gone into the great bit bucket in the sky.

I have an overall impression of SuSE Linux 11.0 and KDE 4.1 of lots of glitz, some substance and little cohesiveness. It was an interesting exercise, but I will not be using SuSE on my main workstation.


I mentioned the other day that the Dutch oven cooks would not be doing anything else in Rathdrum this year. The day after I mentioned that, I picked up the Rathdrum newspaper and it had an activities guide from the Rathdrum Parks & Recreation. I looked to see what it would say about the Heritage Festival, since we and the mountain men would not be there. Imagine my surprise when I read “Dutch Oven Cookery and Bluegrass Hootenanny”. I’m not sure where E.L. will get the Dutch oven cooks. She sure isn’t one herself.


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Thursday, 31 July, 2008

Filed under: Uncategorized — July 31, 2008 @ 5:42 am

Since I had a single remaining partition on my test computer, I installed SuSE Linux 11.0 on it last night. The installation went fine, and was much faster than earlier versions of SuSE Linux.

The problems started after the installation. First, the grub boot menu came up and showed boot entries for only 3 of the 5 distros on the hard disk. It seems that the SuSE installer didn’t recognize Mandriva Linux or Linux Mint. So I will have to manually put those two distros in the grub menu.

Next, the KDE Start Menu. It really, really, really sucks. The KDE crew has gone for bling over substance, and has come up with something that takes much more effort to navigate than the original start menu. If given the choice between cuteness and smoothly functioning operation, I will choose the latter every time.

I installed this distro from the Linux Format DVD. It was missing stuff - specifically a lot of necessary programs like The Gimp. I decided to install a bunch of the programs, so I did that using the Yast package installer. The programs were downloaded and I presume they were installed. But I can’t tell, because none of them showed up in the start menu. None. of. them.

More on this later.


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Wednesday, 30 July, 2008

Filed under: Uncategorized — July 30, 2008 @ 5:45 am

I have received at least a half dozen emails about this web site’s bandwidth reaching 80%. I will be emailing my web host to try moving to another hosting plan. My current plan is way old. It allows 1GB storage and 10GB bandwidth for $25 per month. I will move to their large plan, which is 2.5GB storage and 60GB bandwidth for $20 per month. If they let me. That should shut down the bandwidth messages and save me $60 a year.

I can actually use the space, as I will be creating the nidog.org domain very soon. That stands for North Idaho Dutch Oven Group, which is the group that is replacing the Inland Empire Dutch Oven Society group, which folded last year.


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Tuesday, 29 July, 2008

Filed under: Uncategorized — July 29, 2008 @ 5:16 am

I just got an email notifying me that this web site has reached 80% of it’s bandwidth; 8.1GB out of 10GB. It must be more popular than I thought it was. What are you people doing here? Are you looking at the pictures, downloading ebooks, or just reading my prose and the recipes? It’s a mystery to me…


Well, Art on the Green is this weekend. I’m not sure if I’m up to yet another weekend of going and doing, but I will try to get there anyway. I have only missed one Art on the Green in 24 years. That one just got past me somehow.

I bought a leather-covered notebook at Art on the Green about 15 years ago, and I am still using that notebook to this day. Home-crafted goods don’t seem to have a built-in ‘fall-apart’ date like almost everything you buy in a store.


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Monday, 28 July, 2008

Filed under: Uncategorized — July 28, 2008 @ 5:13 am

I enjoyed the Dutch oven workshop I was part of on Saturday. We taught about 15 people how to cook in a Dutch oven, and at the end of 5 hours, we got to eat what we cooked. My beef stroganoff was a big hit. And the pineapple upside down cake disappeared, too.


There will be no mountain men, black powder riflers or Dutch oven cooks at the Rathdrum Heritage days celebration. The person who used to be in charge of making the arrangements was George Holcomb, who knows the people in those groups.

His job was appropriated by someone whose initials are E.L. and who doesn’t know squat about any of those groups. She decided that she would invite the mountain men and black powder people for a single day instead of two days. George told her they would not show up for a single day, but she refused to listen. The end result is those people and the Dutch oven group (which consists mainly of people from the other two groups) will not be participating.

I’ve known E.L. for over twenty years, and I have never known her to pay any attention to anyone else’s opinion. So that’s how it goes. No more Dutch oven sessions in Rathdrum this year.


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Friday, 25 July, 2008

Filed under: Uncategorized — July 25, 2008 @ 5:40 am

I’ve been trying to get a pressure washer for a couple of months now. I went to Harbor Freight again last night, and they had the floor model, but none in stock. Yet again. I think I will just go down to Lowes or Home Depot and get one there. The price at Harbor Freight is not worth the hassle.

I did get some more giveaway items at Harbor Freight. I always donate something to the door prizes at the various teardrop gatherings I go to. This time I got three pairs of welder’s gloves for $8. They make dandy gloves for handling very hot Dutch ovens.


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