RSSStress
Jul 18
Literature, Work haiku, Work No Comments
Rustling in my bed
Issues floating in my mind
Nightmares while awake.
[TipJar] Common Punk: replace my text
May 12
FLOSS, Non-FLOSS, Tipjar regexp, text editor, Tipjar No Comments
The SOA server I am currently working with had a nasty quirk on its services that I havent figured out yet on how to fix: it fails on requests with an XML comment. We use SOAPUI to trigger requests and the quirk requires most of us to strip the comments that is automatically generated by the tool. This quirk however gives me a good segue on this IT tipjar: how to leverage pattern matching to batch remove comments. This should serve as an introduction in other pattern matching applications when dealing with text/ascii content.
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First RPi mishap
Jan 18
FLOSS, Gadget, Top of my head floss, raspberry pi, Tech 2 Comments
Yesterday pixie, my RPi serving as the torrent/dlna box, stopped responding. Rebooting it doesnt help as it eventually reverts to only having the red LED on which I have started to interpret as the system is not yet booted.
I pulled pixie out of its nook and hooked it to my monitor before rebooting it. It showed that the boot process is encountering errors when reading from the SD card. The process stopped while asking for the root password to start the file check maintenance, or Ctrl-D to continue the boot process. I plugged a keyboard and here lies the conundrum: this is a debian system and I have been administering it as the pi user. I have been relying on the sudo mechanism and never replaced the root password so I cant provide it. That realization blows.
No other recourse now but to pull out the SD card and have the partition checked on my desktop. A “sudo fsck /dev/sdb2 -y” command (because sdb2 is the partition assigned to it by udev) and ten minutes of automated fixing later pixie is back online serving its DLNA goodness.
Now I made sure I have changed the root password so this can be fixed without booting the desktop. Come to think of it, I am doing it also on my Ubuntu desktop. 😉
ciao!
Onward to a problematic new year
Dec 31
Garbage Garbage, pragmatism No Comments
The pragmatic in me kicked in and I realized again that problems are what defines our existence. Only the dead are free of them.
With that said I wish your problems will be sur mount able, your challenges manageable, trespasses against you forgivable, and your heartaches forgettable.
Year 2013, bring your best and worst. We already have gone through the millennium bug and the mayan calendar end. We are as ready as we are going to be for the next round. 🙂
ciao!
Raspberry Media Server is now online
Dec 29
FLOSS, Gadget dlna, floss, raspberry pi, Tech, torrent 2 Comments
Hectic schedule but I finally finished having my own TorrentBox/DLNA/UPnP server out of the Raspberry Pis. One concern that got answered is if the system is usable as a media streaming server as there has been reports of slow throughput since the Pi’s ethernet (network) and USB system share the same memory space. Early on the file I/O throughput on the SD card I am using as the BIOS and operating system is a little bit slow, and as a techie friend (named Gideon[1]) pointed out its the class of the card itself that is the bottleneck.
The instructions are all over the net so Ill just reference the articles I used and add the other stuff I did to make it work on Pixie (the name of this Pi).
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Apparently a headache
Dec 27
Technology gloating, home, Tech No Comments
Thats the difference between 21 and 32 inches at 2 feet away. 🙂
Sounds great in theory but sucks a bit in actual use. 😐
ciao!
Fixture fixing with matchsticks
Dec 16
Top of my head DIY, home No Comments
Two jumping “healthy” nieces and a cookie-cutter bedframe made out of rubber wood is not a good combination.
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The RPis have landed
Dec 16
Gadget gadget, raspberry pi, Tech 4 Comments
I had some difficulty in locally procuring Raspberry Pis because even if there is a local RS branch, they initially sold a single batch for almost twice the price. When we last checked they are no longer selling them unless we are ordering by the hundreds to make it their while to import it. They said we could order directly from the UK office. Bummer.
Then I heard that Filepp, a colleague from a previous project, is on a short-term assignment in UK. So we grabbed the chance to ask a favor to procure a couple of RPis for us and now they have landed and the cases were given as gifts. (Note: Thank you Filepp. I’ll try not to torture you too much if I get to work with you again. Crap, we know I cant keep that promise 😉 ).
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A short story of bad decisions
Nov 30
Garbage home, repair No Comments
It started as a small drip
which an incompetent “plumber” sent by the Village maintenance head turned to a warzone slash swimming-pool
good thing my wife knows some good plumber sub-contracting for their company. The plumber was able to figure out that it was the Malunggay tree roots in front of the house that blocked the drainage pipe
so the tree had to go
And now our indoor sink is back to normal. Well it still needs a coat of paint but at least the sink is now usable. 🙂
Morals of the story:
- Always get a certified plumber to diagnose and fix leaks and blockages.
- Always get commitment that the plumber can put back whatever they demolish.
- Dont plant a shrub or tree on top of your drainage pipe.
Starting the journey with airport food
Nov 09
Rubbish, Top of my head, Travel review, Travel No Comments
My wife and I embarks in our first out of town trip today for the last 3 years. Our plane leaves at 730 so we were at the airport by 5am to avoid any checking hassle. It was a good thing as the group of passengers ahead of our queue took a while as the counter crew, to their much chagrin, tried to explain to them the concept of “allowable hand luggage”.
We were done with the checking procedures by 545am. With stomachs grumbling, we scouted the food stalls and the choices were a bit meager: a rice/noodle vendor, go nuts donuts, Krispy Kreme donuts, Mrs fields cookies, chaikofi cafe, and two kiosks of a sandwich vendor. The rice-chowing Asian in me made the choices clear: rice toppings for me.
The pickings were limited as most of the menu items are not available. I settled for chicken asado toppings with coke in can, and my wife ordered the two pieces of siopao (asado and bola-bola) with bottled water. The bill was Php310. Pretty steep price so my expectations already rose up.
The food came in quickly. The asado came with 3 quarter inch slices of chicken with asado sauce and spring onion bits. The siopao were the size of teacups.
The food fare was, for lack of a more positive adjective, “geared towards the international palate”. The chicken was butter soft. Oh wait that was the plastic spoon and fork that came with the meal. You have heard the joke about siopao being made from cat meat? Well this is different as the siopao feels as hot as a cat’s nose. My wife’s first bite was a smorgasbord of flavor: she couldn’t identify the flavor. She ended up not finishing the second siopao so it was up to me to get our money’s worth. I am grateful for the Chili oil in the table because I don’t know if I would have done without it.
What’s good with the food? The coke in can was cold, and the Chili oil has the right spiciness and bite.
What was bad? Everything else. Next time you are in the area, choose the branded franchises as you would know what to expect. And don’t listen to the instincts of a hungry stomach.
The kiosk’s name is “Let’s Chow” with the tag line “mapapa-chow ka” (i think a weak play on the wow expression). All I can say on that is “pu-chow naman o” (my play on a local curse phrase). If I paid thrice the amount of a similar fate from 7-11 then I expect the flavor to be as good.