Recently in Annoyances Category
As part of my day to day work I spend a lot of time on the command line. In the vast majority of cases this means ssh into devices as diverse as Linux Servers, Cisco Switches, Juniper Routers and Fortinet Firewalls. While in some cases there will be a GUI available, it's a lot easier to document, script and backup what is being done on the CLI. Ssh also the advantage that it can be accessed on anything from a mobile phone to a perl expect script.
I have had the chance to play with a Dell MD3000i over the last few days, which is basically a rebadged LSI/Engenio SAS Raid Array. It's a nice bit of kit however Dell have seen fit to use the SMI interface for managing the array. The SMI interface is great idea which means that there is a nice "object-oriented, XML-based, messaging-based interface" (buzzword overload!) for doing day to day managment.
There is a CLI interface to this in the form of SMcli. In the case of Dell, this is a java app which requires sacrificing goats and/or virgins in order to get running on anything other that Windows, RHEL or SLES. So much for Java allowing platform independence!
What annoys me is that people have gone to the trouble of creating SMcli, so why not use it as a shell on an ssh server running on the array itself. This would all of sudden mean that they gain a lot more platform independence, and therefore a larger potential market. The other technologies needed in order to setup the MD3000i are iscsi and dm-rdac which are already a solved problem and relatively easy to setup.
Am I mad in thinking that it's in Dell's best interests to put as few obstacles as possible in the way of setting up their products?
I have had the chance to play with a Dell MD3000i over the last few days, which is basically a rebadged LSI/Engenio SAS Raid Array. It's a nice bit of kit however Dell have seen fit to use the SMI interface for managing the array. The SMI interface is great idea which means that there is a nice "object-oriented, XML-based, messaging-based interface" (buzzword overload!) for doing day to day managment.
There is a CLI interface to this in the form of SMcli. In the case of Dell, this is a java app which requires sacrificing goats and/or virgins in order to get running on anything other that Windows, RHEL or SLES. So much for Java allowing platform independence!
What annoys me is that people have gone to the trouble of creating SMcli, so why not use it as a shell on an ssh server running on the array itself. This would all of sudden mean that they gain a lot more platform independence, and therefore a larger potential market. The other technologies needed in order to setup the MD3000i are iscsi and dm-rdac which are already a solved problem and relatively easy to setup.
Am I mad in thinking that it's in Dell's best interests to put as few obstacles as possible in the way of setting up their products?
I had an interesting issue today where up2date was complaining because a package was already installed. The error showed up as follows:
Running "up2date -u --force" just gave me the same error. The eventual solution after much head scratching and wandering down deadends was to run the following commands:Fetching Obsoletes list for channel: rhel-i386-es-4...
Fetching rpm headers...
########################################
Name Version Rel
----------------------------------------------------------
e2fsprogs-devel 1.35 12.11.el46.1 i386
gd 2.0.28 5.4E.el46.1 i386
krb5-devel 1.3.4 54 i386
krb5-libs 1.3.4 54 i386
openssl 0.9.7a 43.17.el46.1 i386
openssl-devel 0.9.7a 43.17.el46.1 i386
perl 5.8.5 36.el45.2 i386
tzdata 2007k 2.el4 noarch
Testing package set / solving RPM inter-dependencies...
########################################
RPM package conflict error. The message was:
Test install failed because of package conflicts:
package perl-5.8.5-36.el45.2 is already installed
up2date --get perlOnce this was finish, "up2date -u" happily went about it's business again.
rpm -Uvh --force perl-5.8.5-36.el4_5.2.i386.rpm
I ordered a nice new toy from Komplett over the weekend and got a email with a "Track And Trace" code for DHL Europlus. I went to www.dhl.ie, saw a nice DHL Fast Track search box on the top right and entered my code. I got a page
entitled "Tracking Good Afternoon" (at 6 in the evening) and search
boxes all over the place. Besides not looking well in Firefox, it didn't show the code I had just entered anywhere.
I put my code in the top search box (Air Express), pressed search, and up popped a box saying entitled "DHL Road Express Shipment" telling me:
The point of this rant? Their system was smart enough to realise that the code I entered was a European Road Express TrackNet code. Why didn't it simply redirect to the proper page from the main page rather than carrying me into a page with multiple search boxes? Instead of a popup explaining where I need to go, why doesn't it redirect to the right page? Or even a link to the right page in the popup? Was there any UI testing done at all on the site?
I was talking to someone who once worked in a company bought by DHL. I was told that their biggest problem is that as they are buying up smaller local companies to do local deliveries, they are aren't integrating the new IT systems properly. This does explain why the tracking mightn't as great as it should be. However it doesn't explain why they can't add a small bit of intelligence to their site.
I put my code in the top search box (Air Express), pressed search, and up popped a box saying entitled "DHL Road Express Shipment" telling me:
You may have entered a DHL Road Express Licence Plate Number / Identcode Number.The main page also had a section entitled "DHL Road Express Parcel Tracking", so out of interest I tried the code there and got the same popup. I then clicked the European Road Express TrackNet as they wanted, and figured out how to add my code and submit as needed. The tracking as it turns out is pretty dire. According to them, my package is in Tilberg, NL since yesterday morning. It better be wrong!
Please use the European Road Express Parcel Tracknet below to track this shipment.
The point of this rant? Their system was smart enough to realise that the code I entered was a European Road Express TrackNet code. Why didn't it simply redirect to the proper page from the main page rather than carrying me into a page with multiple search boxes? Instead of a popup explaining where I need to go, why doesn't it redirect to the right page? Or even a link to the right page in the popup? Was there any UI testing done at all on the site?
I was talking to someone who once worked in a company bought by DHL. I was told that their biggest problem is that as they are buying up smaller local companies to do local deliveries, they are aren't integrating the new IT systems properly. This does explain why the tracking mightn't as great as it should be. However it doesn't explain why they can't add a small bit of intelligence to their site.
alias whois='whois -H'Put that in your .bashrc (or equivalent) and get rid of the legal disclaimers which usually mean that you have to scroll up two pages to get the actual results! I should have looked at the whois man page ages ago.
I'm in Heuston Station for a while and I have had to use Eircom wireless to access to the internet. What was disappointing was that the login page for Eircom's wireless does not have a valid SSL cert.
I logged in anyway (naughty, I know) as the IP it was pointing at was an eircom ip, and I am stuck. I am surprised that Eircom can get away without using a valid SSL cert for pages that have to handle credit card details.
I would have thought that one of the requirements for Credit Card processing would be having a valid SSL cert!
I logged in anyway (naughty, I know) as the IP it was pointing at was an eircom ip, and I am stuck. I am surprised that Eircom can get away without using a valid SSL cert for pages that have to handle credit card details.
I would have thought that one of the requirements for Credit Card processing would be having a valid SSL cert!
By default "apt-get remove package" doesn't purge everything related to the package. This eventually means that a log of configuration files are left scattered around the place with no corresponding packages. A couple of weeks ago, the following solution was proposed on #linux:
This is good for cleaning up after the fact, but is also possible to get apt to purge configuration files automatically. To accomplish this put the following in /etc/apt/apt.conf:
APT
{
dpkg --purge `dpkg --get-selections | grep deinstall | cut -f1`
This is good for cleaning up after the fact, but is also possible to get apt to purge configuration files automatically. To accomplish this put the following in /etc/apt/apt.conf:
APT
{
This will cause apt-get to automatically purge the configuration files every time you do "apt-get remove"Get}
{
Purge "true";
}
Somehow I occasionally manage to turn my number pad into a mouse by accidentally hitting the magic combo. I can then never remember how to switch it back to being a number pad.
To make the combo easier to find in the future I'm putting it here:
Ctrl-Shift-NumlockNow I've just got to figure out how I manage to hit that combination of keys by accident!
Why is it so hard for a a sizable minority of Irish drivers to use an indicator? Having people slow down for no apparent reason and then swerve into a turn without any prior indication is no fun. Or for extra bonus points, stop for a full thirty seconds watching the lack of oncoming traffic and then turn to the right just as a car behind you attempts to overtake!
Michele posted about the fun and games with Domainnews and copyright two months ago. Domainnews seem to have finally realised and their "Chief Editor" has replied claiming innocence. Unfortunately he still does not seem to realise what he has done wrong, and he still hasn't as much as apologised yet. In fact Michele had to send a DMCA Takedown notice to Google before anything was done.
For fun and giggles I had a look at the Domainnews site and spotted a post attributed to "press" which is a copy of the domains.asia press release here. According to Domainnews: "press is one of our editors and not someone we are trying to credit this to". What's even more fun is that the DotAsia press release is covered by a Creative Commons Attribution License (look at the icon at the bottom left of DotAsia's press release) which probably means that DotAsia would at least like a link back.
Even if they didn't have the CC license, it is just a common courtesy to link back to the originating site, even for a press release. There is no point posting about DotAsia starting a new program, if the reader can't click on a link and have a look around to get more details. The whole whole point of the Internet was/is to share information.
While I was dropping Ewan into the Train Station in Limerick today, we were both surprised to see every traffic light flashing either yellow or red. Ewan rang the Gardaí to find out what the story was, only to be told that they were all off because of the Limerick Vs Tipperary replay.
This might make some bit of sense if they had Gardaí at the intersections doing point duty, but there was nothing. Trying to drive across O'Connell Street was like playing Russian Roulette with oncoming traffic, but people had no choice but to take silly chances in order to get out. It was surprising that there was no accidents.
Can anyone thing of any valid reason to turn off all traffic lights in a city because there there might be a bit extra traffic due to a match? Maybe turn off traffic lights at some of the major choke points and put Gardaí on point duty at them in order to keep traffic flowing, but all lights? Imagine what would happen in Dublin if they turned off every traffic light in North Dublin just because there was a match on in Croke Park.
