DAR is a Disk ARchiver, or, in other words, a nice utility for creating backups. I've been experimenting with it over here, comparing the trade-off between speed and compression. The story so far:
Compression Time Size ---------------------------------- None 13.7s 511MB gzip 99.7s 210MB bzip2 173.6s 196MB
I'm backing up to a spare disk, with the eventual goal of moving the archive files to CD-Rs, so compression isn't as important as it might be otherwise (CD-R blanks are cheap). I'm going to live with DAR for awhile before I render judgement, but I'm still looking for something that can back up straight to CD-R or DVD-R.
Tip o' the hat to Grzegorz Adam Hankiewicz for his HOWTO
that got me started.
Posted by Kurt Wall
at 23:01 2008-04-29
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Random Updates
(General)
Lots of tidbits to report, but nothing urgent. Those of you with more important things to read can come back later.
The Big News™ is that Kelly and I accepted an offer for the KurtWerks Pittsburgh campus. The potential fly in the ointment is that the purchase of our house is contingent on the sale of theirs. They are well along the road to selling theirs, so, God wiling, we will close soon. It will be a great relief not be making a mortgage payment and a rent payment…
I take TruckWerks back to the DMV on Friday, May 9th. Naturally, I have to go to Los Gatos because the San Jose field office has been closed for renovations. Pray for me that this will be the last in-person trip to the DMV. On a related note, Kelly and I received our permanent drivers' licenses on Saturday, well short of the three to six weeks that DMV originally predicted. I'm taking this as a hopeful sign that the next attempt to register TruckWerks will be more successful than the previous attempt.
Over two months after getting a jaywalking ticket, the officer still hasn't turned it in or at least it still hasn't been entered into the traffic court's computer system. I called this morning in a panic when I realized that the court date (or what looked like it on the citation) was yesterday. The notion of getting arrested for failure-to-appear over a jaywalking ticket is amusing and absurd, but I really didn't want to go to jail. Not to fear; bureaucracy has actually served me well in this case. The ticket hasn't been keyed in, so it doesn't exist. Works for me.
Posted by Kurt Wall at 20:10 2008-04-29 | Trackbacks (0) | Comments (0)
San Jose Flea Market (San Jose)
Today's mini-adventure was a trip to the San Jose Flea Market, on Berryessa Road, about a mile east of our apartment. There was plenty of junk, to be sure, but what Kelly and I liked was the awesome produce section. $12.50 bought us 2 pounds of tomatoes, 4 pounds of oranges, 4 boxes of sweet strawberries, about half a pound of green beans, a mango, and a papaya. The tomatoes were 99¢/pound; the oranges were 4 pounds for $1.00; the strawberries came in at 4 pints for $5.00, the bag o' green beans was $1.00; the mango was $1.50; and the 2-pound papaya was $1.50/pound. Goodbye, Safeway produce department!
Posted by Kurt Wall at 15:45 2008-04-26 | Trackbacks (0) | Comments (0)
DMV: The Saga (San Jose)
I went back to the DMV Thursday morning past to register TruckWerks. That didn't go so well. Before getting my plates, I had to have it inspected, so I pulled into the inspection lane and waited my turn (fifth in line). When the inspector got to me, he started to read the VIN from the dashboard but couldn't see the entire number because a piece of foam from the seal as covering the number. He told me I'd have to move it or go to CHP to have it inspected. Evidently, his job does not extend to getting it off the engine block or reading it off the inside of the door. I was instantly pissed because I don't have time for this, having had to take time off from work, whereas Peckerwood was getting paid to be there.
Lesson number one: Don't use tools when you're pissed off.
Lesson number two: Don't use tools near your windshield when you're pissed off.
I start trying to move this rectangular piece of foam sealer. I didn't have any tools in TruckWerks, so I eventually used the longest narrow thing I could find, which turned out to be the flat end of the tire iron. Bad Idea™. I cracked the windshield in precisely the spot where the VIN shows through the the black mask on the bottom of the windshield. At that point, I left earth and was in orbit. I also left DMV because it was clear the registration wasn't going to happen.
Lesson number three: Don't tell an antagonized customer "It's not my job." Especially when he has a tire iron within reach. For the record, I didn't succeed in moving the piece of foam out of the way; TruckWerks did not get registered Thursday; Peckerwood did not get a tire iron implanted in his forehead.
TruckWerks got a new windshield yesterday. I'll be on my way back to DMV to complete this process, God willin' and the crick don't rise. If Peckerwood or one of his colleagues decides something else is wrong with TruckWerks, I hope Kelly has sufficient savings to post bail.
Posted by Kurt Wall at 08:19 2008-04-26 | Trackbacks (0) | Comments (0)
Gardens (Parks)
Yesterday was Visit Gardens Day here at KurtWerks. Our first stop was Kelley Park, home of the Japanese Friendship Garden. It was a very pretty and tranquil place, except for the older children running around yelling and raising a ruckus. I guess that's what happens when older children are bored. Pictures are here.
Stop number two was another visit to the Heritage Rose Garden in the Guadalupe River Park and Gardens. There was much more to see than there was during my previous visits because a fair number of the 3,700 varieties of roses (and something over 5,000 plants!) were blooming. I guess there's a reason it is called "The Sangerhausen of the West." I get the impression one could go every weekend and see a different garden.
Posted by Kurt Wall at 10:12 2008-04-20 | Trackbacks (0) | Comments (0)
Fun with DMV (San Jose)
Kelly and went to the DMV today to get drivers' licenses and register our vehicles. I was hopeful but had low expectations of the DMV. They neither frustrated my hopes nor surpassed expectations.
I made an appointment for two people to get two licenses and to register one vehicle. The clerk at the front explained that her printout only showed one person on the appointment request, so I got the appointment number. I was done and had my interim license (more about that in a minute) in less than an hour. I scored a perfect 36/36 on the written test. I rule! The place was busy, so I was pleased.
Kelly, not so much. First, the guy at the identification verification desk did not believe that Kelly's legal name included a single letter, A, for her middle name and we did not have the particular piece of paper demonstrating that was so (it's a long story, don't go there). Even though our marriage certificate uses the initial, he wrote down the name from her birth certificate and, when she later protested about that, had the stones to claim she wrote it. So, now her license, rather, her interim license, claims she has a middle name other than A.
Second, the guy at the testing desk told she only had to answer the questions on the front of the test sheet. When she returned the test for scoring, he told her she also had to do the flip side of the test because she was from outside California. Why couldn't he have said so in the first place, then?
Finally, when it came time to register Kelly's car, we had to:
- Leave the building
- Drive to the inspection area
- Ring a bell
- Get the inspection
- Exit and re-enter the parking lot
- Go back through the line
- Go to two different windows before we got the plates
Needless to say, we were happy to leave. I don't tolerate screaming children running loose very well, so my nerves were shot by the time we left.
Now, about those interim licenses. WTF is up with that? It takes all of 3 minutes to spit out a nicely laminated license with the picture they already took. But, no, I get a flimsy piece of paper that says "Interim License" that is good only for driving (not for identification), which I have to use for three to six week while $deity knows what happens. Even as bassackward a state as West-By-God-Virginia or Missi-Dumber-Than-A-Stump-ssippi has the technology to print a laminated photographic driver's license is less than 5 minutes.
Posted by Kurt Wall at 20:08 2008-04-17 | Trackbacks (0) | Comments (0)
Tax Rant (Tirades)
our fearless legislators developed amounted to a whopping $94.00 for me. I guess the rocket scientists in Washington decided that I make too much money to need stimulating. Frankly, if they want to give me a stimulus, they can lower my taxes, not give me an insulting $94.00 tax rebate. 'tards.
That "stimulus" will buy me 1.25 tanks of gas. Yes, I filled up my truck on the way home from work tonight. I was running on fumes and a prayer, so the tank was effectively empty. 17.6 gallons later, my wallet was $68.33 lighter. I believe that's the most I've ever paid to fill up any vehicle I've ever driven. I'm glad I had it to pay, of course, I just had a bit of sticker shock.
Posted by Kurt Wall at 22:55 2008-04-15 | Trackbacks (0) | Comments (0)
Stupid (Tirades)
Both of the mother and the father described in this article should be forcibly sterilized so they can't have any more children. He got arrested after storming into the video store where she works, threatening to kill her, and vandalizing the store. What were they arguing about? "His girlfriend told police that they had been arguing about the upbringing of their son and which gang he should belong to. The teen mother, who is black, is a member of the Crips. Manzanares is Hispanic and belongs to the Westside Ballers gang, the woman said."
Amazing. The toddler is four years old and they're arguing about which gang the child will join. It's important to plan ahead, of course, but I submit the child should be free to make his or her own life-ruining choice. I'm relieved that Mom and Dad are taking such care to plan their child's future.
Like I said, sterilize them both so they can't make still more baby Crips or Westside Ballers.
I couldn't make this up.
Posted by Kurt Wall at 19:33 2008-04-15 | Trackbacks (0) | Comments (0)
Gangsta Rap a Government Plot (Tirades)
Or so Alicia Keys charges.
WTF? "'Gangsta rap' was a ploy to convince black people to kill each other. 'Gangsta rap' didn't exist." Right. And that gold AK-47 pendant she wears? It's just "to symbolize strength, power, and killing 'em dead."
Man, that's a level of paranoia and conspiracy that rivals Farrakhan's claim that the US government created Hurricane Katrina (and dynamited the levees around the city) to kill black people in New Orleans. She fails to appreciate the irony of that gold pendant she wears, namely, that it glorifies the gangsta rap culture that "the gummint" created.
Alicia Keys has an fabulous voice. And an empty head.
Posted by Kurt Wall at 18:32 2008-04-13 | Trackbacks (0) | Comments (0)
Back to Santa Cruz (San Jose)
Kelly and I went to Santa Cruz this morning. We took some pictures. For me, the highlight of the trip was eating fresh seafood at Stagnaro Brothers on the wharf. Kelly had a plate of steamed clams; I went for the scallops (Sizzling Sea Scallops on the menu). The clam chowder was terrific; multiple clams in every spoonful and they weren't stingy with the garlic, either.
In addition to eating, we took a nice long walk down the beach, strolled the amusement park on the boardwalk, and enjoyed the ocean views and the sea lions. I'm so glad we went over early, too. On the way back, Highway 17 heading west to Santa Cruz was backed up from Scott's Valley to Los Gatos. That's about 13 miles of bumper-to-bumper traffic. If I were stuck in that, I think my head would explode.
It was a pleasant day. I really enjoyed showing Kelly the beachfront environment that planted in my mind the dream of living in northern California. It never fails to leave me speechless as I listen to the deep-throated crash of the surf and watch the waves relentlessly roll in. I could watch it for hours. She was similarly affected.
Posted by Kurt Wall at 18:32 2008-04-12 | Trackbacks (0) | Comments (0)
Back to Work (Work)
Actually, I've been back to work since March 31st. It's been a hectic two weeks.
In addition to the standard fare, such as filing bugs against test regressions and dealing with incoming customer bugs, Lonni and I have had to deal with some vexing issues in the test harness. In the first place, we've had at least two PSUs go south, which introduce hard-to-diagnose test failures. Then there are the outright system failures, which require fairly quick replacement if we are to avoid downtime for the test harness.
There was also some display driver breakage that required chicken blood, toad piss, registry hackage, and wholesale file deletion to "fix." Rather, to workaround. Even the engineers couldn't sort it out, so the final workaround was disabling 3-D acceleration on the desktop.
Perhaps most frustrating was dealing with, um, less-than-clueful "QA" members from other groups and the complete morons from marketing and sales. I'm not the brightest bulb in the light fixture, but some of these folks make me look brilliant.
The highlight of this week was the apparent midnight requisition of some storage shelves for Lonni to use. It was funny to see Ian, Lonni, and me tag-teaming an ungainly, heavy set of metal shelves from one building to the next. But at least Lonni has additional storage for all of the assorted hardware and peripherals that has, until yesterday, been sitting along the windows next to his row in the cubicle farm. Posted by Kurt Wall at 08:36 2008-04-12 | Trackbacks (0) | Comments (0)