I installed Fedora Linux, Core 8 inside of VMWare and upon getting to a command prompt I tried to get into the CPAN shell. Well, needless to say (and to cut to the chase, this is what I was presented with:
$ perl -MCPAN -e shell
Can't locate CPAN.pm in @INC (@INC contains: /usr/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.8/i386-linux-thread-multi /usr/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.7/i386-linux-thread-multi /usr/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.6/i386-linux-thread-multi /usr/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.5/i386-linux-thread-multi /usr/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.8 /usr/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.7 /usr/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.6 /usr/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.5 /usr/lib/perl5/site_perl /usr/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/5.8.8/i386-linux-thread-multi /usr/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/5.8.7/i386-linux-thread-multi /usr/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/5.8.6/i386-linux-thread-multi /usr/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/5.8.5/i386-linux-thread-multi /usr/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/5.8.8 /usr/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/5.8.7 /usr/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/5.8.6 /usr/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/5.8.5 /usr/lib/perl5/vendor_perl /usr/lib/perl5/5.8.8/i386-linux-thread-multi /usr/lib/perl5/5.8.8 .).
BEGIN failed--compilation aborted.
Yes, that kind of left me scratching my head. I have never had Perl just simply hurl like that. So, after doing some checking around and not finding any nice solution, I decided to download Perl 5.10 and am presently doing an installation of it. We shall soon see what becomes of it.
Monday, April 28, 2008
Sunday, April 27, 2008
New Servers
Oh, happy day. I have been waiting for this for a little while now. Whilest my home office is still in the process of being constructed, I am gathering some of the hardware that will make up my main server system for my network.
Yesterday, a good friend of mine who has a plethora of servers and equipment, was kind enough to part with a Sun v280r and a Sun E450. Now, those of you who know your Sun machines are probably not terribly impressed, but when the word FREE is associated with such equipment, you don't exactly turn your nose up at it. I, personally, am open and accepting to whatever is thrown my way. I love computers and all of the hardware I can acquire.
I already have plans for these. The v280r is going to be my main processing server. It will handle all the heavy loads. The E450 on the other hand is going to be my file server. Upon giving me the E450, my friend was kind enough to load it with 20 hard drives. They are all 4.2 gig hard drive (for a total of 84 Gig of storage, but that is hopefully to change. My friend also has a bunch of 18 Gig hard drives in cradles other than Sun (ie: compaq and such) and is going to be unloading them, hopefully into my E450. That would be a sweet addition to my new system.
I already have a Sun 711 storage array with 6 - 18Gig drives, for a total of 108 Gig of space. Another nice addition. So, my network slowly grows. I have an abundance of Ultra2's, some Ultra1's and a couple of Sparc5 machines.
I just had to share. I love getting new toys to play with.
Yesterday, a good friend of mine who has a plethora of servers and equipment, was kind enough to part with a Sun v280r and a Sun E450. Now, those of you who know your Sun machines are probably not terribly impressed, but when the word FREE is associated with such equipment, you don't exactly turn your nose up at it. I, personally, am open and accepting to whatever is thrown my way. I love computers and all of the hardware I can acquire.
I already have plans for these. The v280r is going to be my main processing server. It will handle all the heavy loads. The E450 on the other hand is going to be my file server. Upon giving me the E450, my friend was kind enough to load it with 20 hard drives. They are all 4.2 gig hard drive (for a total of 84 Gig of storage, but that is hopefully to change. My friend also has a bunch of 18 Gig hard drives in cradles other than Sun (ie: compaq and such) and is going to be unloading them, hopefully into my E450. That would be a sweet addition to my new system.
I already have a Sun 711 storage array with 6 - 18Gig drives, for a total of 108 Gig of space. Another nice addition. So, my network slowly grows. I have an abundance of Ultra2's, some Ultra1's and a couple of Sparc5 machines.
I just had to share. I love getting new toys to play with.
Saturday, March 29, 2008
Realization
Its funny, when you have a love for something like an operating system (say, Solaris Unix), and you have been using it for about 10 years. Then, after a very long time, you get it installed on your laptop for the first time (or any x86 platform for that matter) and it doesn't take but a few days for you to realize that its not really suited for your daily activities.
That was the realization that I came to yesterday. Yes, I know, I put a fair amount of effort into getting some things worked out, but after playing around with it and actually trying to do my day to day stuff on the web, I realized that it really have the support that I needed for some things but Linux did.
Don't get me wrong, Solaris is still my OS of choice when it comes to being a server, but when it comes to the desktop, Linux has it hands down. So, I installed Suse 10.3 last night and have been getting things situated today.
That was the realization that I came to yesterday. Yes, I know, I put a fair amount of effort into getting some things worked out, but after playing around with it and actually trying to do my day to day stuff on the web, I realized that it really have the support that I needed for some things but Linux did.
Don't get me wrong, Solaris is still my OS of choice when it comes to being a server, but when it comes to the desktop, Linux has it hands down. So, I installed Suse 10.3 last night and have been getting things situated today.
Monday, March 24, 2008
Solaris 10 - Laptop: Update #2
Well, I had a chat with a very nice Sun employee who gave me the scoop on why its not good for Solaris to start the interface on boot. It slows it down if it does.
Instead, he pointed me to a very nice tool called "inetmenu", which can be downloaded from the opensolaris website, that handles all of your network connections either through a gui or on command line.
So, I have downloaded that and tonight will work on getting it configured and setup for use. (Thanks again Ben!)
I guess its on to the Broadcom driver from here.
Instead, he pointed me to a very nice tool called "inetmenu", which can be downloaded from the opensolaris website, that handles all of your network connections either through a gui or on command line.
So, I have downloaded that and tonight will work on getting it configured and setup for use. (Thanks again Ben!)
I guess its on to the Broadcom driver from here.
Sunday, March 23, 2008
Solaris 10 - Laptop: Update
I DID IT!! For the first time in the 10 years since I first touched Solaris Unix, I have Solaris on the internet....... WIRELESSLY!!! This is just excellent!! Solaris 10 x86 supports my Intel PRO/Wireless 2200 b/g wireless card perfectly!!
Granted, it wasn't a piece of cake and did take some tweaking, but it WORKS!!! For instance, I had to add an entry to the /etc/netmasks file, I had to create the resolv.conf file and I also had to edit the nsswitch.conf file to allow for dns.
Other than that, the software installed fine, plumbed ok, and grabbed an IP from my router. Only issue I have left, is when I reboot, it doesn't load the interface back up again. So, I have to re-plumb and grab an IP from dhcp. Hopefully I will figure that out shortly and be SET!!
Next, I have to install the driver for my Broadcom 10/100 card and I will be doing just fine!
Granted, it wasn't a piece of cake and did take some tweaking, but it WORKS!!! For instance, I had to add an entry to the /etc/netmasks file, I had to create the resolv.conf file and I also had to edit the nsswitch.conf file to allow for dns.
Other than that, the software installed fine, plumbed ok, and grabbed an IP from my router. Only issue I have left, is when I reboot, it doesn't load the interface back up again. So, I have to re-plumb and grab an IP from dhcp. Hopefully I will figure that out shortly and be SET!!
Next, I have to install the driver for my Broadcom 10/100 card and I will be doing just fine!
Saturday, March 22, 2008
Job Change
Well, I am no longer working in Boston. I have a new job and am working in Westford, MA for a company that works a lot with VoIP(for those of you who have my LinkedIn profile, you can find out where I am working). Having read the job description before interviewing and even after the initial phone interview with my (present) boss, I really wanted this position.
I cannot pinpoint any one thing that intrigued me about the position, it was instead the position as a whole. The chance to finally learn not only about VoIP but how it all works was an opportunity I couldn't pass up. Plus, the scripts that I will be working with are mostly written in Perl.
One thing that does really peak my fancy is learning new technologies, and one of the new things I am working on picking up now is AJAX. I am starting by learning Javascript, since that is one of the foundations of AJAX. Once I am done with that tutorial, I will move on to the AJAX tuturial. There is nothing like a vertical learning curve to keep a geek on his toes. :)
I cannot pinpoint any one thing that intrigued me about the position, it was instead the position as a whole. The chance to finally learn not only about VoIP but how it all works was an opportunity I couldn't pass up. Plus, the scripts that I will be working with are mostly written in Perl.
One thing that does really peak my fancy is learning new technologies, and one of the new things I am working on picking up now is AJAX. I am starting by learning Javascript, since that is one of the foundations of AJAX. Once I am done with that tutorial, I will move on to the AJAX tuturial. There is nothing like a vertical learning curve to keep a geek on his toes. :)
Laptop Trouble
I had some computer issues the other night. While browsing the Internet on my laptop (under Windows), a whole slew of things happened all at once:
Well, completely fed up and not wanting to waste any more time on the issue, I decided to re-install my laptop. Now, mind you, I had a dual booted system with Windows and Linux. What I didn't want to do was re-install Windows and have this same thing happen again. So, I made the executive decision and grabbed my Solaris 10 DVD off the shelf and placed it into the drive. After a couple of hours of installation and such, I had Solaris 10 installed and working on my laptop. Mind you, I still have some configuration to do. For instance, Solaris 10 does support my wireless card. So, I have downloaded the drivers, I just have to get it installed and running now. Plus, I have to install the driver for my 10/100 card as well. On top of that, I have to fix the boot manager as it doesn't show the Linux partition as an option.
So, my laptop is Windows free and running two different versions of *nix. ***sigh*** it feels pretty good. The solaris piece will help me get back some of the Admin skills that have become slightly rusty from not really using them since the last time I was a Sys Admin. I am really looking forward to sharpening them up.
Anywho, I will give more updates on the laptop as I make progress. I would love to know what that was that effected my computer, but at this point, I doubt I will find out.
- my background changed to a warning that my computer was infected with spyware and that I should "click the link" to scan now. The background ended up being set to an html page. If you click the link, it takes you to a page offering to sell you spyware and virus removal software. A rather cruel, sick joke if you ask me.
- A bunch of pop up windows appeared on my machine, all pointing to that same, unwanted offer page. Again, just not right!
- Both my wired and wireless network interfaces were not able to get an IP address from my router. I know the router still worked because my wife's machine still worked fine. I don't know exactly what happened to the devices, but they seemed completely locked.
- I was not able to Ctrl-Alt-Delete and pull up the task manager. A message appeared saying that the ability to do so had been disabled by my System Administrator and that I should take it up with him/her. Ok, I AM my own Sys Admin!!!
Well, completely fed up and not wanting to waste any more time on the issue, I decided to re-install my laptop. Now, mind you, I had a dual booted system with Windows and Linux. What I didn't want to do was re-install Windows and have this same thing happen again. So, I made the executive decision and grabbed my Solaris 10 DVD off the shelf and placed it into the drive. After a couple of hours of installation and such, I had Solaris 10 installed and working on my laptop. Mind you, I still have some configuration to do. For instance, Solaris 10 does support my wireless card. So, I have downloaded the drivers, I just have to get it installed and running now. Plus, I have to install the driver for my 10/100 card as well. On top of that, I have to fix the boot manager as it doesn't show the Linux partition as an option.
So, my laptop is Windows free and running two different versions of *nix. ***sigh*** it feels pretty good. The solaris piece will help me get back some of the Admin skills that have become slightly rusty from not really using them since the last time I was a Sys Admin. I am really looking forward to sharpening them up.
Anywho, I will give more updates on the laptop as I make progress. I would love to know what that was that effected my computer, but at this point, I doubt I will find out.
Tuesday, February 05, 2008
The Life of a Software {Engineer | Developer}
I was reading slashdot this morning and came across an article written by a software developer, describing what it is like to be one. IMHO, the article is very well written and the author provides plenty of material to tempt your pallet and inform you of a career you may have no idea about.
What I didn't know, that the article mentioned, was that the word "Engineer" cannot be applied to a software developer in Canada as it is not allowed by their standards. To me, this is just fine as like the author, I prefer the term "Software Developer" anyway.
Here is the article in its entirety at the authors own site. Enjoy!
What I didn't know, that the article mentioned, was that the word "Engineer" cannot be applied to a software developer in Canada as it is not allowed by their standards. To me, this is just fine as like the author, I prefer the term "Software Developer" anyway.
Here is the article in its entirety at the authors own site. Enjoy!
Sunday, January 13, 2008
What's the buzz?
So, what is the Buzz you ask? Funny you should ask. Back in December 2007 (specifically, on the 7th of December, 2007), I was reading the newest entry on the Perl Buzz website. The article was about what the author called, "A Couple of Happy Perl Users". Much to my suprize, the user in the second paragraph was ME! I was taken aback and could not believe it. My blog had gotten mention on Andy Lester's Perl Buzz. How absolutely cool was that?
Well, it made my day yet again when an article I wrote for TheScripts.com was mentioned on Perl Buzz. The article was about how to install Strawberry Perl, a distribution of Perl for Windows. I was overjoyed yet again. The comments on the article began to come in, but they weren't all positive. Since the article was written, you see, Strawberry Perl had released a newer version of their distribution that was based on Perl 5.10. The new version had newer capabilities that the 5.8.8 Alpha 2 version did not. The article that I wrote was based on the 5.8.8 Alpha 2 version and not the 5.10 version, thus, it is not valid for the newer version.
With that discovered, I made a modification to the beginning of the article to mention that it is for the previous version of Strawberry Perl, not the present version. You see, with the 5.8.8 Alpha 2 version, in order to get the CPAN interface working properly, I discovered that I had to install the Windows binary version of some of the Unix tools that were needed by the CPAN interface, and after doing so, all worked fine and still does (since I have not upgraded to 5.10).
In a slight defense to myself though, I did post a comment to the article on Perl Buzz (see comment #3), in order to clear up the confusion that seemed to have ensued. On January 8th, a follow-up article was posted on Perl Buzz that mentioned that the article I wrote was not in accordance with how 5.10 works. I also commented on that and mentioned the version difference. As I mentioned in my comment, I will work on getting the article updated for 5.10 once I have had a chance to update my system.
Well, it made my day yet again when an article I wrote for TheScripts.com was mentioned on Perl Buzz. The article was about how to install Strawberry Perl, a distribution of Perl for Windows. I was overjoyed yet again. The comments on the article began to come in, but they weren't all positive. Since the article was written, you see, Strawberry Perl had released a newer version of their distribution that was based on Perl 5.10. The new version had newer capabilities that the 5.8.8 Alpha 2 version did not. The article that I wrote was based on the 5.8.8 Alpha 2 version and not the 5.10 version, thus, it is not valid for the newer version.
With that discovered, I made a modification to the beginning of the article to mention that it is for the previous version of Strawberry Perl, not the present version. You see, with the 5.8.8 Alpha 2 version, in order to get the CPAN interface working properly, I discovered that I had to install the Windows binary version of some of the Unix tools that were needed by the CPAN interface, and after doing so, all worked fine and still does (since I have not upgraded to 5.10).
In a slight defense to myself though, I did post a comment to the article on Perl Buzz (see comment #3), in order to clear up the confusion that seemed to have ensued. On January 8th, a follow-up article was posted on Perl Buzz that mentioned that the article I wrote was not in accordance with how 5.10 works. I also commented on that and mentioned the version difference. As I mentioned in my comment, I will work on getting the article updated for 5.10 once I have had a chance to update my system.
Wednesday, January 02, 2008
Happy New Year!!! ( and updates)
Well, it is 2008 and I can well imagine that we are all looking forward to a hopefully wonderful year. Personally, I have a lot of things that I want to accomplish this year and am hopeful that I will get most of them done.
My biggest project of the new year is to finish my home office in the basement. The construction is still at the point of being bare skeleton (framing) with electrical and network wiring in place, but nothing else accomplished. Most of this is due to the young nature of my kids and the allotted time that I have had to work on it, which has been NONE!
I recently decided that I need a nice powerfull desktop machine that will not only last a while, but will be able to do everything that I need to do, and not worry about clicking on something and waiting for hours for it to happen because of all of the other operations going on. So, at the CompUSA going out of business sale, I picked up and new computer case last weekend. I had researched the case want and decided upon and bought the Antec Nine Hundred. Sure, it is labeled as their "gaming" case, but it has the potential for seven internal hard drives. How sweet is that?
To top it all off, I have already scoped out the AMD Phenom Quad Core chip that I want, as well as the Gigabyte MA790FX-DS5 motherboard. The motherboard supports up to 16 Gb of ram, and has 6 total Sata connections internally and 2 Sata connections externally, 6 USB ports, 2 firewire, as well as gigabit ethernet (I know, that's almost a standard on motherboards these days). I plan on loading this puppy up with several large hard drives (500+ Gb), DVD writer(s) and also a 650 Watt power supply.
It will take a while to get the parts (money and all, you know), but when its done, WOW!! will it be a sweet machine!
On the flip side, my venture into Python is going very well. There is A LOT to learn about the language and I am still trudging my way through two different texts. The first is the Dive Into Python (DIP) text that is online, and the other is Beginning Python from Apress. Both are great books. DIP is just what it says, a head first dive, right into the language itself. It pulls no punches and gives you what you need to get going in the language. Beginning Python, on the other hand, provides me all of the insight I need to understand the topics that puzzle me. Magnus Lei Hetland (the author) has done a wonderful job at putting all the details into the book. Hopefully soon I can sit down and start producing some code.
Anyway, Happy and Prosperous New Year to all!!!
My biggest project of the new year is to finish my home office in the basement. The construction is still at the point of being bare skeleton (framing) with electrical and network wiring in place, but nothing else accomplished. Most of this is due to the young nature of my kids and the allotted time that I have had to work on it, which has been NONE!
I recently decided that I need a nice powerfull desktop machine that will not only last a while, but will be able to do everything that I need to do, and not worry about clicking on something and waiting for hours for it to happen because of all of the other operations going on. So, at the CompUSA going out of business sale, I picked up and new computer case last weekend. I had researched the case want and decided upon and bought the Antec Nine Hundred. Sure, it is labeled as their "gaming" case, but it has the potential for seven internal hard drives. How sweet is that?
To top it all off, I have already scoped out the AMD Phenom Quad Core chip that I want, as well as the Gigabyte MA790FX-DS5 motherboard. The motherboard supports up to 16 Gb of ram, and has 6 total Sata connections internally and 2 Sata connections externally, 6 USB ports, 2 firewire, as well as gigabit ethernet (I know, that's almost a standard on motherboards these days). I plan on loading this puppy up with several large hard drives (500+ Gb), DVD writer(s) and also a 650 Watt power supply.
It will take a while to get the parts (money and all, you know), but when its done, WOW!! will it be a sweet machine!
On the flip side, my venture into Python is going very well. There is A LOT to learn about the language and I am still trudging my way through two different texts. The first is the Dive Into Python (DIP) text that is online, and the other is Beginning Python from Apress. Both are great books. DIP is just what it says, a head first dive, right into the language itself. It pulls no punches and gives you what you need to get going in the language. Beginning Python, on the other hand, provides me all of the insight I need to understand the topics that puzzle me. Magnus Lei Hetland (the author) has done a wonderful job at putting all the details into the book. Hopefully soon I can sit down and start producing some code.
Anyway, Happy and Prosperous New Year to all!!!
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