oesediez: December 2010

Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Lunesta nightmare

For the love of Christ, what a hell were they thinking... This is amazingly creepy..
And I'm not alone with the thought...

I dreamt that the creepy Lunesta Butterfly was violating my ear while I slept
The Creepy Lunesta Butterfly

Labels: links, Stupidity

Tuesday, December 28, 2010

Seasonal travelling

Ezeiza, yesterday around eight PM.
Trying to fly away from the freaking Bs. As. heat.

Labels: Life, Pictures

Sunday, December 26, 2010

Happy go holidays

Slowly unwinding from work and getting ready to get the hell out of here, and, even tho the freaking heat is getting on my nerves, last night caught a nice movie on cable, Happy-Go-Lucky, it was the first "new" movie that I see complete in quite a while.

Now I'm saving myself for Tron Legacy, it opened around, matter of fact, it opened one day early than in the rest of the world (the marvels of globalization....).
Haven't been to a theater in nearly 6 years now, nothing got my attention so far, but this one seems to be like a nice way to get back to the cinema. also, I'd like to take my goddaughter to see it in the US; she's 12, hopefully she won't be that scared.

Labels: Films, Life

Saturday, December 25, 2010

Fucking summer, horrid heat

Not much to say, been covered by work these last couple of weeks...

This summer looks like it is going to be a (heat) blast.
Not 4 days old now, and already easily topping above the 30s...

The only thing that keeps me alive is that come Monday I start my holidays and I get the fuck out of town.

Labels: Heat, Life, Weather

Tuesday, December 14, 2010

Customize mouse cursor icons on Snow Leopard

Or fuck off and die a slow death, I-Beam!

Well, took me a while, but I finally got rid (mostly) of the awful I-Beam cursor icon.
The idea of editing the CoreGraphics file went nowhere... So I installed Unsanity's Mighty Mouse.
Right now Mighty Mouse does not have an official Snow Leopard release, so it is necessary to use the one for Leopard.
There are some instructions floating around on the internet how to do so, like this one Changing your mouse cursor (OSX 10.6), but I found them to miss a part or not easy to follow; so here is my setup step by step.

Install APE, and then reboot.
Download Mighty Mouse, tested with "mightymouse-20b1.dmg", mount the dmg file, and then:


cp -R "/Volumes/Mighty Mouse/Mighty Mouse Installer.app/Contents/Resources/ui/Mighty Mouse.ape" \
~/Desktop/
cp -R "/Volumes/Mighty Mouse/Mighty Mouse Installer.app/Contents/Resources/ui/Mighty Mouse.prefPane" \
~/Desktop/
cd ~/Desktop/
cd "Mighty Mouse.ape/Contents"
cp Info.plist Info.plist.ORIG

Edit the Info.plist file with your favorite editor, it has to end like this:


        <key>APELeopardCertified</key>
        <true/>
        <key>APESnowLeopardCertified</key>
        <true/>

Then:


cp -R "Mighty Mouse.prefPane" ~/Library/PreferencePanes/
cp -R "Mighty Mouse.ape" ~/Library/Application Enhancers/

I had to create the directory

~/Library/Application Enhancers/

.

Logout and then log back in, and start using it.
Been using it for the last couple of weeks without any issues on 10.6.5, even tho I have a valid license from when I was using Mighty Mouse -the PPC version- on Tiger it seems like Unsanity has changed its registration process, so it doesn't work; nad incidentally, everything seems to point that Unsanity is out of business so I guess I'l have to keep using this unregistered version, which has nagging window now and then.

Related posts:

Small potatoes? Big cursors!
The fight against IBeam goes on
The fight against IBeam goes on (and on...)
The fight continues...

Labels: Apple, Aqua interface, MBP 13, Mouse pointer shape, Scripts, Snow Leopard

Thursday, December 09, 2010

Crappy weather ahead

Damn! It looks like we'll be cooking our asses off on Friday, and I bet most of Saturday as well.

Labels: Heat, Weather, Widgets

Wednesday, December 08, 2010

Books & time

It has been a while since I post something about books and the crap I'm reading in general.

After the one on Yeager, got my hands on "La Costa de Los Mosquitos" (read in in Spanish, IIRC, it was the first and only book on Spanish this year, shame on me...).
Found it an amazing book, I've seeing the film many, many years ago, and it was rather good, but the book as simply an excellent read.
It was the second book I've read from Theroux, the other one being "Saint Jack", I simply couldn't not read that book after seeing Bogdanovich's film (Here is an excellent review of the film).

After that one, got my hands on "Alas, Babylon", got it during my last vacation, but didn't had any time to read it until now. Being a "fan" of the genre, this book seems rather naive, but then again, it was one of the first ones written on the subject of post apocalyptic war.

This summer (my summer) have to get me a copy of "War Day", even if it is a used one thru Amazon.com.

Labels: Books, Dystopia, Films, Life

Tuesday, December 07, 2010

The current Trantor desktop

I have to say that when it comes to wallpapers, I'm a meat and potatoes kinda guy... The default just do the thing for me.

Labels: Apple, MBP 13, Screen Shots, Snow Leopard

Monday, December 06, 2010

(Quick) Nagios setup

A quick & dirty "guide" to get Nagios monitoring on a local Linux server in no time. This has been done on CentOS, but the same applies to just about any other distro, as long as you take care of the paths to the configuration files.


cp template.HOSTNAME.FQDN.cfg $HOSTNAME.cfg
emacs $HOSTNAME.cfg

Meta X replace-regex HOSTNAME host
Meta X replace-regex $HOSTNAME.FQDN $HOSTNAME

Section "define host":
Replace "Description here" with the real data
Replace "ip.address.here" with the real IP address of the host

Section "define contact":
Replace "Description here" with the real data, a concise description.
email Replace with the real email addresses of the contacts, or the contact that should receive notifications from this server.

Section "define contactgroup":
Replace "Description here" with the real data of the Linux server.
Be sure to add more services to suit your needs, or the needs of the monitored server.
Copy the file to the Nagios directory:


sudo cp $HOSTNAME.cfg /etc/nagios/objects/

Edit the commands file:


sudo emacs /etc/nagios/objects/commands.cfg

Specifically, edit the strings "***** Nagios *****" on 'notify-host-by-email' & 'notify-service-by-email' to something that identifies the box from which the emails are coming from.
I usually leave like this:

** Nagios $HOSTNAME **

Edit Nagio's master configuration file, so it uses the cfg file just created, and discard the default localhost.cfg one.


sudo emacs /etc/nagios/nagios.cfg

Comment the line:


cfg_file=/etc/nagios/objects/localhost.cfg

And add a line with the cfg file just created.


cfg_file=/etc/nagios/objects/$HOSTNAME.cfg

Before launching Nagios, tight a bit the web access:


sudo emacs /etc/httpd/conf.d/nagios.conf

And setup basic security (enable SSL, setup the password protection, limit IP range, etc).

Test it


sudo /usr/bin/nagios -v /etc/nagios/nagios.cfg

And if its OK, launch it.

Here is a copy of "template.HOSTNAME.FQDN.cfg":


## -----------------------------------------------

## History

## -----------------------------------------------

## sudo /usr/bin/nagios -v /etc/nagios/nagios.cfg

define host{
 name                   HOSTNAME-host
 use                    generic-host
 check_period           24x7
 check_interval         5
 retry_interval         1
 max_check_attempts     10
 check_command          check-host-alive
 notification_period    24x7
 notification_interval  120
 notification_options   d,u,r
 contact_groups         HOSTNAME-contactgroup
 register               0
 }

define host{
 use                    HOSTNAME-host
 host_name              HOSTNAME.FQDN
 alias                  Description here
 address                ip.address.here
 }

define contact{
 contact_name           HOSTNAME-contact
 use                    generic-contact
 alias                  Description here
 email                  1@email.com, 2@email.com, 3@email.com
 }

define contactgroup{
 contactgroup_name      HOSTNAME-contactgroup
 alias                  Description here
 members                HOSTNAME-contact
 }

# SERVICE DEFINITIONS

define service{
 name                         HOSTNAME-generic-service
 active_checks_enabled        1
 passive_checks_enabled       1
 parallelize_check            1
 obsess_over_service          1
 check_freshness              0
 notifications_enabled        1
 event_handler_enabled        1
 flap_detection_enabled       1
 failure_prediction_enabled   1
 process_perf_data            1
 retain_status_information    1
 retain_nonstatus_information 1
 is_volatile                  0
 check_period                 24x7
 max_check_attempts           3
 normal_check_interval        5
 retry_check_interval         2
 contact_groups               HOSTNAME-contactgroup
 notification_options         w,u,c,r
 notification_interval        120
 notification_period          24x7
 register                     0
 }

define service{
 name                   HOSTNAME-service
 use                    HOSTNAME-generic-service
 max_check_attempts     4
 normal_check_interval  5
 retry_check_interval   1
 register               0
 }

define service{
 use                  HOSTNAME-service
 host_name            HOSTNAME.FQDN
 service_description  Connectivity
 check_command        check_ping!100.0,20%!500.0,60%
 }

# Define a service to check the disk space of the root partition
# on the local machine.  Warning if < 20% free, critical if
# < 10% free space on partition.

define service{
 use                   HOSTNAME-service
 host_name             HOSTNAME.FQDN
 service_description   Partition /
 check_command         check_local_disk!20%!10%!/
 }

define service{
 use                   HOSTNAME-service
 host_name             HOSTNAME.FQDN
 service_description   Partition /boot
 check_command         check_local_disk!20%!10%!/boot
 }

# Define a service to check the number of currently logged in
# users on the local machine.  Warning if > 20 users, critical
# if > 50 users.

define service{
 use                   HOSTNAME-service
 host_name             HOSTNAME.FQDN
 service_description   Current Users
 check_command         check_local_users!20!50
 }

# Define a service to check the number of currently running procs
# on the local machine.  Warning if > 250 processes, critical if
# > 400 users.

define service{
 use                   HOSTNAME-service
 host_name             HOSTNAME.FQDN
 service_description   Total Processes
 check_command         check_local_procs!250!400!RSZDT
}

define service{
 use                   HOSTNAME-service
 host_name             HOSTNAME.FQDN
 service_description   Current Load
 check_command         check_local_load!5.0,4.0,3.0!10.0,6.0,4.0
}

define service{
 use                   HOSTNAME-service
 host_name             HOSTNAME.FQDN
 service_description   Swap Usage
 check_command         check_local_swap!20!10
}

define service{
 use                   HOSTNAME-service
 host_name             HOSTNAME.FQDN
 service_description   Service SSH
 check_command         check_ssh
}

define service{
 use                   HOSTNAME-service
 host_name             HOSTNAME.FQDN
 service_description   Service HTTP
 check_command         check_http
}

# EoF #

Labels: CentOS 5, Linux, Monitoring, Network monitoring, Scripts

Friday, December 03, 2010

The new Trantor (2)

A little more on setting up my beloved MBP.
Couple of more installed programs:

IP calculator Widget
UNIX perms calculator Widget
Telephone

And setting up the Dock the way I want it, not the ridiculous default new one:

defaults write com.apple.dock no-glass -boolean YES; killall Dock

Labels: Apple, links, MBP 13, Programs, Snow Leopard

Thursday, December 02, 2010

What's in store for us...

Here we go, full blast ahead...