Category: Activities

And this is supposed to save me time… how?

I got my DVD burner today. It’s a 16X, only $50 at Staples. I took a couple of DVD blanks from Steve, the guy whose DVD burner I’ve been using all along. They’re Verbatim 4x and I’ve never had any problem with them in Steve’s drive. But the first couple gave me some weird-ass error, as mentioned in a previous post. My cow orker Rob suggested I try K3B, which is what he uses. In the process of installing it, I needed to chase some dependencies, and one of them suggested that the version of the Linux kernel that I’m forced to use (for ClearCase dependencies) has a SCSI bug. I get it installed and Rob comes over with a blank DVD. This one is a Memorex 4X, but I didn’t think the different media was signficant. It burns cleanly while I’m logged in as root. I log in as myself and try to burn another DVD. I get a few percent through burning, but then the LEDs on my keyboard start flashing and the computer is hung. I power cycled. I thought maybe I’d corrupted that DVD on a previous burn attempt, so I try a few more, with different combinations of being logged in as root or not, being booted to the 2.4.20-8 versus 2.4.20-13.9 kernel, etc. Sometimes burning woudl get part way through and then tell me that I don’t have any media in the drive, other times I get the flashing LEDs and a hung computer. I made a bunch of coasters.

Then Rob tells me that DVD burners are far more sensitive to the media than CD burners are, and I should try the Memorex blanks again. I do, and it works first time.

On the way home, I stopped off and bought a 10 pack of Memorex blanks. Hopefully tomorrow I’ll actually get some work done instead of making coasters.

UPDATE: The Memorex DVD+Rs I bought burn nicely at 16X, and they boot just fine.

DVD arrived, still not satisfied

After the company ordering system said that it would be several days before I got my DVD burner, my boss sent his secretary out across the street to Staples, who have one on sale for $50. I got it and installed it, but unfortunately I can’t burn to it. I get the following error:
Blocks total: 2297888 Blocks current: 2297888 Blocks remaining: 948384
Starting to write CD/DVD at speed 4 in write mode for single session.
Last chance to quit, starting real write in 0 seconds. Operation starts.
Waiting for reader process to fill input buffer ... input buffer ready.
trackno=0
BURN-Free is OFF.
Performing OPC...
Sending CUE sheet...
Starting new track at sector: 1349670
Track 01: 0 of 2635 MB written./usr/bin/dvdrecord: Input/output error. write_g1: scsi sendcmd: no error
CDB: 2A 00 00 14 98 26 00 00 1F 00
status: 0x2 (CHECK CONDITION)
Sense Bytes: 70 00 05 00 00 00 00 12 00 00 00 00 21 02 00 00
Sense Key: 0x5 Illegal Request, Segment 0
Sense Code: 0x21 Qual 0x02 (logical block address out of range) [No matching qualifier] Fru 0x0
Sense flags: Blk 0 (not valid)
cmd finished after 0.003s timeout 200s

I think I’m going to have to shut down again and check that I’ve got the devices jumpered correctly.

That burning sensation

At work I’m working on a way to upgrade our systems in the field from RedHat 7.3 and the 3.3 version of our software to CentOS 3.4 and the 3.4 version of our software, while preserving as much as possible of our current content and state.

I’m experimenting with custom install DVDs with my own kickstart file. It’s been a process of trial and error, mostly error, so I’m burning about 3 or 4 DVDs a day. Each time I have to go bother the guy with the DVD burner to make sure he’s not burning anything, then copy my ISO file over to his machine, eject his blank CD (he always keeps on in the drive in case he has to burn something when he’s not here), burn the DVD, and run over to put the blank CD back.

I put in a request for a DVD burner. They cost about $50 these days, or $60 if you need the dual layer, which I don’t. My boss approved it, and I suggested that I go out after work and buy one at Circuit City, but for reasons I don’t quite understand, we have to go through “IT Purchasing”, aka “Mordoc, Preventer of Information Technology Upgrades”. Mordoc is charging our department $129 for this burner, and I’m told I should have it in two to three weeks, by which time I should be finished this project and not need to burn DVDs any more.

If I had any need for an IDE DVD burner at home, I’d buy one, install it at work, and when I’m done with this project take it home.

I’m trying to count up how many different ways this is wasting the company’s money doing it this way, and I keep running out of fingers.

Reason 147 why MySQL is not my favourite RDBMS

There are three components to my waypoint generator

  • A set of scripts to load or reload some of the data when an update comes in.
  • A set of scripts that actually generates the databases.
  • A web interface.

All three components are written in Perl, and all access the same database. As mentioned previously, I’m using MySQL because PostgreSQL was too slow on the limited resources I have on my Linode.

Last night, I ran one of the load scripts, and while it was running I tried to access the web interface. The web interface start up accesses and updates a couple of “session information” tables, which the load scripts have no reason to access. So somebody tell me why the web interface startup timed out with the error:

[Wed Jun 08 22:08:37 2005] [error] [client 66.67.112.52] FastCGI: server "/config_backup/navaid.com/htdocs/CoPilot/index.fpl" stderr: DBD::mysql::st execute failed: Lock wait timeout exceeded; try restarting transaction at /config_backup/navaid.com/perl/WaypointDB.pm line 312.

Line 312 in WaypointDB.pm is a line that deletes from the table sess_main. And like I said, nobody else should be updating it. So why the hell should the fact that a load script is running cause a lock wait timeout on that table?

Oh Canada

You know, there are times when I really miss living in Canada. Two examples from today:

Calling for my weather briefing for the flight home: Most briefers at the Buffalo AFSS read you the text, exactly as you get it from the computer yourself using DUATS (Direct User Access Terminal System), and read at approximately broadband speeds. If you get a better than average one, he might summarize all the local forecasts like “four to six thousand scattered to broken”, which is fine and a good time saver and short hand. I rarely get any insight or analysis. But every single time I talk to the briefers at Gatineau Flight Service, I get advice, I get analysis, I get exactly what I need. Today, I’d seen the TAFs showing the possibility of thunderstorms during the period, but only as temporary (TEMPO) or widely scattered. I looked at the Intellicast Northeast Radar Loop, and didn’t see any signs of these thunderstorms so I breathed a sign of relief. When I called for my briefing, the briefer told me what to expect (marginal VFR conditions, high ceilings but very low visibility in haze), and then he explained that when the TAFs were issued the forecasters were unsure about where the atmospheric instability was going, but it seemed to have dissipated and moved off north of Montreal, and in his opinion I wouldn’t have to worry about anything developing along my route during my flight. He twice asked me if I had any more weather questions. I couldn’t have asked for a better briefing, and while I could see the far off lightning on the Lance’s Stormscope on the way home, there was no evidence of any activity anywhere near my route.

The other example was listening to Cross Country Checkup on CBC radio. They were discussing a pretty controversial topic, the post release restrictions on Karla Homulka. My favourite Canadian expatriate, Maddy, hated Rex Murphy, but to me he’s what a radio host on a call in show should be. He took calls from “law and order” types who lamented the fact that Canada doesn’t have the death penalty, people who expressed a fond hope that she’ll be murdered after her release, all the way to people who felt that while it’s unfortunate that the police botched the investigation so badly that they had to make a deal with devil, but they made a deal with her and so it isn’t fair to impose further penalties after she served her sentence, either because the restrictions are a slippery slope that could lead to life-time restrictions on lesser and lesser crimes, or just because it would make it harder to make these sorts of deals in cases where the police really do need some cooperation to save lives. And with all these callers expressing all these varied views, Rex was polite, he found something to agree with them and amplify, and sometime to challenge with probing further questions. He gently kept them on topic and got them to say their piece and get off. He never yelled at anybody, he never shouted anybody down or cut off their microphones, he never insulted them or made disparaging remarks about them after they were off the show. Such a huge difference to the Air America show I heard on the drive home from the airport, or any other call in show on either left wing or right wing radio in America.