stuff for geeks, swing dancers, and geeky swing dancers

Update!!

Ben — Thu, 20 Jul 2006 16:52:00 +0000

Some of you may know, but anyway I've been the only unix admin at my company since January - and since January we've had more system rollouts the first four months of the year then the previous year and a half. So it's been hectic. I did get promoted to Senior which is nice. And I have a nice new toy!! A Zaurus (linux based PDA) which is totally a fun thing to tinker with. Awesome stuff!

On another note, the hosting company which hosts geekswing.com did something with the host configs that broke my mailing list software I wrote. So if you haven't received an email yet and you've subscribed that's why.

If you haven't been seeing updates in the deal blog (obviously), well, I can't blame that on my hosting company. But I do appreciate you guys checking in and subscribing and I'll have something special for list subscribers after Camp Hollywood.

Thanks!!!!

da vinci code movie

Ben — Thu, 25 May 2006 20:39:32 +0000

The more busy I get, the more I want to write, but the less time I have :(

So Girl Geek and I saw "The Da Vinci Code" movie this past weekend. Overall I did like the movie, but because Dan Brown wrote so much interrelated material in his book, I really think this is a no-win situation for the movie.

The people who have read the book may feel disappointed because it cannot come close to covering all the material in the book. You'd need like a six hour movie for that. Plus there are a lot of scenes of "explanation dialog" - and those are the hardest scenes to produce for screenwriters, directors, and editors

On the flip side, the people who have not read the book may be a bit confused because of the inclusion of all this explanation and material that seems understandable only if you've read the book and now all the material.

Not to mention I couldn't understand the French accents.

But yeah I still liked it. Kind of like Star Wars: If you're a Star Wars fan you'll still like Episodes I and II because it's a part of the phenomenon. If you're a Da Vinci Code fan, you'll like the movie (but just prepare to be slightly disappointed)

My favorite kind of emails

Ben — Thu, 11 May 2006 19:51:37 +0000

There are no other sweeter words in an email to a sysadmin than:

"Please disregard the previous email ...."

*sigh*

Yes it's been busy as you can tell with the lack of posting and during these busy times this kind of email makes my day.

Triumph at the Star Wars opening

Ben — Wed, 03 May 2006 17:37:00 +0000

Of course we geeks can laugh at ourselves:

Triumph interviews Star Wars fans

Unix baby ....

Ben — Wed, 26 Apr 2006 20:03:25 +0000

i'm not really that bad am i?

Refurbished Mac Stuff at Apple

Ben — Wed, 26 Apr 2006 16:43:02 +0000

Get 10% to 20% off list price and more at the Apple Store on refurbished products. Including my baby - Macbook 2.0ghz Intel Core Duo regular price $2499, refurbished $2199.

20% off at Art.com

Ben — Tue, 25 Apr 2006 22:10:25 +0000

Use code EQH4 and get a 20% discount at Art.Com. Including lots of dance and jazz art. Expires April 27

Do you think Ma Bell had issues?

Ben — Thu, 20 Apr 2006 19:14:37 +0000

You ever notice that on the phone the letters "MOM" spell out "666" ?

Uses for Duct Tape # 178

Ben — Wed, 19 Apr 2006 19:57:00 +0000

Give a little surprise to your napping friend

10% Macbook Pro @ OnSale

Ben — Fri, 14 Apr 2006 22:30:14 +0000

Purchase extended warranty on your MacBook Pro at OnSale.com
and get 10% off - use code BWBE0753.

Magical moment this past Wednesday

Ben — Sat, 08 Apr 2006 22:57:07 +0000

This past Wednesday, at two minutes, three seconds after 1:00am, the time and date was:

01:02:03 04/05/06

Cool huh?

Now that I'm starting to like MAC OS X

Ben — Sat, 08 Apr 2006 22:55:02 +0000

Now that I'm starting to really like my Mac OS X, they go and do this: Boot Camp: Macs do Windows too. I think personally Mac gave in .. should have stuck to their ground .. so far it's such a better OS. But yeah, very smart to do this :) I do still have a few windows apps I love (third party) for all my geeky things I do.

DBA Sysadmin crossover (mysql)

Ben — Fri, 07 Apr 2006 19:43:00 +0000

The previous point generalizes well over to the database world. In this case specifically with MySQL -

Summarizing: when you delete all rows out of a table, the associated disk space frees up. But when you delete only some of the rows, the associated disk space doesn't change until you run an optimize on the table. Then the disk space frees up.

Cool how when you know about one operational discipline (sysadmin, dba, networking, etc) it generalizes well to all operational disciplines?

Caribbean trips @ Expedia

Ben — Fri, 07 Apr 2006 19:46:00 +0000

So I'm guessing this shop talk may be a bit too much, especially when Girl Geek sees how the deal blog :) So this one is for Girl Geek .. perhaps part of the geekswing tour will take us to the Caribbean. Book by next weekend, travel is good until late September:

Caribbean trips @ Expedia from $399.

df vs du and YAY FOR lsof

Ben — Fri, 07 Apr 2006 19:38:00 +0000

Some sysadmin things never change. This one happened to me today. A useful little tidbit. For the non-unix out there, this kind of thing is something which will impress your unix buddies.

On unix/linux often times you will see disk usage discrepancies between the du and df commands. Most often it is when you delete a file but a process is open still "using" the file. So du will report less disk space (since it won't see the file) than df which works on the directory inode info - which will still think the file is open and being used.

Answer?

Run lsof (THANK YOU FOR THIS!) and grep for the particular filesystem or file that you deleted. If it shows up then the file is still open. A process will be listed with it. As soon as all processes with that file open are killed, then df will start reporting the correct usage.