My weblog is now hosted on my new server! The new server name is dropkick

It has the following specifications:

• Intel Pentium 4 3.6Ghz with 2MB cache
• 2x 1GB DDR2-533 Mhz
  
• 4x Western Digital 320Gbyte SATA-2 disks
• Areca ARC-1110 PCI-X raid controller
• SuperMicro 5014C-MT barebone 1U server

The disks are in a RAID-5 setup for reliability (I started hating failing disks after 3 Maxtor disks died in one week). It's running Debian GNU/Linux instead of Solaris (which ran on Polaris).

I moved the webserver to Apache 2. It currently also serves all my other websites and my mailserver (which I moved off phoebe towards this one)

A couple of years ago I bought my first Mac, it was an iBook G3 and at first I was totally in love with the Mac. After the iBook G3, I bought myself a G4 Titanium Powerbook for more performance and it was good. However the last year I started hating Mac OS X more and more.

On my normal workstation (intel based linux machine) I use PWM  as an window manager. Great to use, very minimal and very fast. And it has the one thing that I really require in a windowmanager, and that is sloppy focus. That brings me to point #1 why Mac OS X sucks - No Sloppy Focus

Another point that is very annoying in Mac OS X (according to myself ofcourse), is the fact that the title bars and menu bars are using quite large fonts. I like them small so I can cram more on my display (which is needed with the relative low resolutions that the iBook and Powerbook have).

Another thing I miss in Mac OS X is that there is no default package management system, ofcourse you could install fink or darwinports, but still it stinks.

A little related to the above point is the fact that there is no default development tools installed, you have to download this enormous package yourself. No way to download individual tools, no you got to get them alltoghetter. Which is a pain in the ass if your normal OS is Debian.

Also there is no 'advanced' mode tot configure things in the GUI, these have to be done in the old fashioned text style way. The problem with this is that these changes are going to clash with changes made GUI wise.

Why Mac OS X Sucks in 5 points

1. No Sloppy Focus
2. System fonts way to large
3. No Default Package Management
4. Development Tools not included by default
5. GUI tools do not understand manual changes.
   

Recently I got an invitation for PaiQ, a dutch profile site, but totally different. There are no profiles on the site, the site generates matches based on information you input. You can also speeddate with a random other user of the site but stay anonymous. The only thing you know about the other person in the beginning is sex, age and status. A vague picture will be there also, but the nice thing is that this picture will become more clear as longer as you chat with the other person.

People that are looking for invites for PaiQ please contact me. I've got some left.

Last year I built my self an Cisco/Foundry BGP config to RPSL generator to create RPSL for in an routing registry (I primarily use the RIPE database). I did this because there where only tools that could do the other way around, generate a config from your RPSL entries in the routing registry database. As I currently can't find any tool in the wild that can do this I'm hereby opening it to the world.

It's written in perl and is focused on the RIPEdb. It can be found here. It has some examples incorporated for it.

It currently defines it preference and as-set we announce by peer-groups in the router config. I was busy rebuilding it so it can figure this out by it self and only needs the router config to be fed by stdin and automatically find out which AS-SET is being used and which preferences and metrics are going to be used.

Feedback is very welcome as well are updates, patches and bugreports. There is still a little todo list to add to the script which includes communities and metrics.

Notice that it only builds import/export and remarks line, the rest of the aut-num object has to be build around it.

Update: Version 20041127-2.pl has been released. This version incorporates automatic localpref, metric and community setting in the rpsl object. Unfortunately AS prepending does not work. The RFC2622 describes it, but the RIPEdb (which I test on) does not accept it.
The next step for updaterpsl.pl will be automated local interface detection. In the far future also announcements can be auto generated from the configuration. Currently this is hardcoded in the file.

Update: I just found a tool that does about the same but is less portable because it relies on SNMP to do the trick. You can find it here

There seems to be a bug in MT 3.11's MT::PluginData that breaks MT::Blacklist if you use PostgreSQL. MT's authors are using an (what I call) flaw in MySQL that makes MySQL let you store binary data in an text field. They assume it's the same on PostgreSQL, but as PostgreSQL is more of a database then MySQL it won't.

Therefore it will break. On MT::Blacklist's Forum there is a thread going on how to fix this. There is a link to David Rayne's Weblog that hints how to fix this issue.

It consists out of editing lib/MT/PluginData.pm to have another data subroutine.

ABC News Online reports:

Scientist believes Atlantis found off Cyprus

The quest to find the lost city of Atlantis has begun in earnest off Cyprus's southern shores. A US-led team of explorers claims the ancient city lies on the seabed between Cyprus and Syria. With the aid of unique underwater maps, a US researcher claims to have assembled evidence to prove the mythological island of Atlantis really existed. Using sophisticated sonar technology, California-based Robert Salmas says he has not only been able to pinpoint Atlantis to a sunken land mass off Cyprus's southern coast, but even discern its geographical features as described by Plato.

The alleged discovery has been greeted with barely concealed mirth by the Mediterranean island's tourism office.


The Pakistan Daily Times says:


Hunt for Atlantis leads to Cyprus

A US researcher who is convinced the fabled city of Atlantis is lurking in the watery deep off Cyprus will launch an exploratory mission this summer, he said. “We believe our discovery will put Cyprus at the centre of the world stage forever,” Robert Sarmast told Reuters.

Sarmast said the east Mediterranean island is actually the pinnacle of the long-lost city and the rest of it is about one mile below sea level. Using deep-sea maps and clues found in Plato, Sarmast said he has discovered a sunken rectangular landmass stretching northeast from Cyprus toward Syria.

“We are going to sail 70 miles offshore Cyprus, directly over the spot where we believe Atlantis City lays submerged and waiting to be discovered,” he said. The mystery of Atlantis — both whether it existed and why it disappeared — has fired the imagination of explorers for centuries. Many believe the ancient civilization was destroyed in the biblical flood and that it was possibly the site of the Garden of Eden. Greek mythology says Atlantis was a powerful nation whose residents were so corrupted by greed and power that Zeus destroyed it.


That there is something like Atlantis is pretty clear according greek mythology and especially Plato's reading material. The current location that is speculated is around greece and makes it pretty believable that it's really there.

This evening I was fiddling around with the new proxy setup at work. We use DNS roundrobin to spread the load among our two proxy servers. I was wondering if there was any possibility to specify priorities for these 2 servers. As they are different in specifications. Then the following idea came into my mind:

- Give the 2 A records for proxy different TTLs
- e.g. proxy1 has a ttl of 600 and proxy2 a ttl of 1200
- proxy2 is the big box, proxy1 the smaller box

Why will this give priorities ? Well clients that resolve proxy and use proxy1 will refetch the proxy record after 600 seconds. And thus making use of this proxy for a minimum of 600 seconds. The same is true for proxy2 but this proxy will be used for a minimum of 1200 seconds. As the selection of A record for proxy is almost random, this will provide some sort of prioritizing.

I've configured this setup for our proxy round-robin setup and will see the results tomorrow as all customers start bashing our proxy servers. I'll keep you posted!

UPDATE 07-04-04

It seems the current TTL settings of 600 for proxy1 and 1200 for proxy2 don't have the desired effect. Loadbalancing seems almost 50/50 at the moment. I have now adjusted the TTL's to 600 for proxy1 and 3600 for proxy2. Tomorrow evening I'll have more info if this approach is effective.

UPDATE 09-04-04

Ok, using TTL's for DNS prioritizing does NOT work. Our proxies are both evenly loaded (approx 5% difference). So using TTL's for DNS priority loadbalancing will not work in practice. I'll write a new article summarizing this issue after I get back home.

I saw some search request for the BU-303 GPS in my logs. And yes I had some information about it on my site. So here it is again :)

The BU-303 is shipped by two companies so far as I know. They are Deluo and NaviLock. They cost about 90 euro's in the Netherlands and are available from any retailshop that get's their stuff from JavoCom (more)