Why My Life Sucks

OK, 10.5.6 fixed a lot of the issues I have with, to the extent that my humping around mac has been converted to 10.5.6, KDE 3.5 running. Not quite as well as it did under 10.4.11, but Good Enough. The Big Mac isn’t, normally, it does has an external drive that can boot that way, but that’s it’s normal way.

But that’s not what I hear to talk about.

What I’m hear to talk about is the fact that OS X isn’t really Unix, it’s some sort mutant almost Unix.   Not quite like say, AIX, but close.

For example, it does use the various Apache text configure files.   However, if you make even one change “by hand”, you are fucked if you use the GUI to do any thing, in that it will, with out warning, nuke your changes. This really applies to SSL related configurations. That doesn’t effect most web sites, just, oh ones that need to get credit card numbers, like say $WeSellUsedMacs

Here is the thing that really chaps my buns about it, however.     If you poke around on something that really does need the GUI, like, for example,   the mail server (OK , yeah, I could go in a beat up on postfix’s main.cf, but life is to short for that),   at times, your web server control files get stomped on.

This is sub optimal.

It’s really sub optimal if your mail sever’s anti-spam/anti-virus thing has gone off the tracks and is eating 50-70% of the CPU time, resulting in a web server that seems to be running on a 386sx machine.

I did mention, some where that our mail server and our web server are the same physical machine right?

Any rate, after fixing the damn it’s a freaking pig in deep mud speed issue (Field fix.   Turn off the spam filter), I then get SSL related issues, because it (OS X’s GUI Server interface) mangled the Apache files.   Thank all the small gods for back up files.

Let’s start with my car.   Well, the battery.   It’s dead.   Need to get that fixed ASAP.   dur.   Should have done it this weekend.

Which brings us to “I feel like shit.”   More or less literally, given that I’m taking a crap about once every 45 minutes or so.   For the last 3 days.   “Lots of that virus going around” the doctor says.   My crapping eating habits, due to the various anti-freak out meds I take may also have something to do with it.

Then there is my VoIP provider.   I’ve got 2 routers, and two number, one one each router.   Each router has two phone ports.   I wanted to add a 3rd number to the second phone port of the first router.   This should be simple.   It wasn’t.   6 (six) calls, average time 40 minutes each, and 2 (two) supervisor level personages.   This did not make me a happy camper.   There service if first rate, assuming you don’t have to change any thing.

The Craptop’s hard drive died.   However, I have a cunning plan, and the fact that I know what to do with Gentoo now should make it an faster rebuild.   Bonus, the cunning plan will make the hard drive bigger.   Score all around!

Got a Doctor’s appointment later this week.   Need to tweak my Cymalta I think.   Current load doesn’t seem to be working quite right.

$WeSellUsedMacs is becoming more and more surreal.   Average life span of a tech working there seems to be about 3 weeks. When I’m the most knowledgeable person about Mac hardware/Software in the building they have problems.

Google.   Go back to the way iGoogle was before you fucked it up.   It fails to read RSS titles about 70% of the time and each freaking tab has it’s own settings.   This does not make me a happy camper.   Actually, just fix the RSS feed issue and give and option to apply setting and theams to all tabs and that would fix it.     I may need to go look at my Google Lab stuff, this might be a side effect of those.   More later.

Spammers.   “Comment Spammers” in particular.   Please use software to comment spam that at least tries to make it look like a real comment. The “comment” on the top of the Spam Karma reject pile is ‘22gy2zo5g0a0f8lg paucyh yhtrg’. This, of course, is really a link to really random web sites, but, come on, what happened to “This is very interesting web site. I will be back later” comment spam?

Well, off to see if the Jump Buddy has enough juice yet.

Let’s talk about Apple OS X Leopard.   The server version.     Upgrading from “Tiger” or 10.4.11 to “Leopard” or 10.5.5 has a couple of issues.

If your a old school Unix person, and keep your stuff, for what ever reason, in the /home vs /Users (where the Apple folk you should keep them, fascists that they are) please be aware that the upgrade is going to make the /home directory appear to be empty.   Don’t panic.   It really didn’t nuke it, despite what some web pages may tell you.   You need to go into the /etc directory and edit the auto_master file.   Either delete or comment out (# as first character) the line that has /home listed.   Once you do this, reboot the box and your old /home directory will come back.   You may unclench your ass now…

Next, play close attention to your mail.log file.   The upgrade doesn’t tweak your postfix main.cf file, which may or may not be good thing, because it DOES upgrade the version of postfix.     Depending on what you have set, it might need to add a few lines to reflect the new options that postfix has.

The one thing you do want to do is turn on the spam filters.     It kicks of the ass.   I created a special mail box to redirect the mail marked as spam to.     So far, in the last week, it’s taken in 23,303 pieces of email.       Oddly enough, Thunderbird marked all of those as junk mail when it connected to the server.   Funny thing that.

As major server upgrades go, it’s fairly pain free.     I don’t want to talk about desktops right now, I’m still fighting to get X11/KDE3.5 up and doing the right thing.   More about that once I do know what it going on with that.

Things that sucks

1. Last night, for reasons I’m not going into for privacy of others reasons
2. Freon.   Or the lack of it in a central air conditioning system.
3. Either the Bank of Oklahoma or Well’s Fargo.   Maybe both.
4. The City of Tulsa’s abatement inspectors
5. One of my neighbors.   not sure which one.
6. ONG.   Just in general.
7. Postfix on Mac OS X 10.4 PPC
8. Fink on the Mac PPC OS X 10.4 version
9. Ingram Micro,Petra,D & H, and Navarre’s some what odd B2B data systems. Each sucks in their own odd way.
10. Dog Poo
11. The GSL
12. AOL and   ComCast’s white listing system
13. Subscribe Me Professional (yeah, related to above)
14. What ever it is in the air this week that is making me sneeze
15. Forgetting to take my sleep aid
16. Getting a total of 6 hours of sleep over 3 days (yeah, see above)
17. The Cities of Wichita KS and Oklahoma City, OK
18. Internet streaming radio “stations” with ads.   A limited number of ads that you hear over and over and over and over.

Things that don’t suck

1. The Darling Wife
2. Art Dude and Redheaded Girl
3. Dungeons and Dragons 4th ed.
4. Jolt Cola
5. Choc 1919 beer
6. Cats and Kittens
7. Miniature Pinchers
8. German Shepherds

I’ve made the blogging big time!   I’m getting content spam!   Yeah!

Actually,   Spam Karma 2 is still kicking them out, but it means I’m high enough in the Google ranks to get noticed…..

Do Not Want!

Yesterday, I mentioned that I tried to use Netscape 4.04 on the modern web. This was less than good.

Well, I’ve been using FireFox 2.0.0.x for while. I’ve got a few add on that I think are pretty close to required. Google Toolbar, DownThemAll, Adblock, Web Developer. I also loaded FireFox 3.0.4 beta and tried using it on and off. I could live, sort of, with the fact that I had to use AdBlock Plus instead of AdBlock. Grumble about it, but in general, I could deal. Today, FireFox Beta 3.0.5 came out. What the fuck you mean Adblock Plus doesn’t work??? Fuck that and the horse it rode in on. No freaking way on God’s green earth, or under the Invisible Pink Unicorn’s holy hooves am I going to web surf with out Adblock, even of a day or so while they fix it to work with the latest beta. I can live with out the other tools, but given the amount of time I spend in ad heavy parts of the web, there is no freaking way I’m going to not have AdBlock, or it’s mutant older brother AdBlock Plus.

I think I’ll wait until it comes out of Beta and a week or so has gone by so that the add on folk have had a chance to fix their toys first.