11.13.08
Posted in Geek Culture, rant at 11:17 pm by Nate Smith
We need a new unit of measurement to roughly estimate quantities of data, The HDEQ or Hard Drive Equivalent. For now, I think it should be the equivalent of a 1TB hard drive (let’s not split hairs over whose version of a Terrabyte).
Why do we need this?
You may have noticed a lot of people adding things like “please consider the environment before printing this” to the bottom of their email.
With the HDEQ we would have an offhand way of asking “I wonder how many HDEQs are filled up with this message?” and we would have a pretty good idea of what we meant.
It would come in handy in other places where we need to estimate how much storage will be needed or is in use or where we need to discuss the economics of storage. In a few years when 10 TB disks are commonplace, that will become the new HDEQ.
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11.10.08
Posted in miscellany at 7:54 pm by Nate Smith
A new release from the Smiths and a recent release from The Cure. Two great bands, one very defunct and the other very old.
http://www.amazon.com/Sound-Smiths-Very-Best/dp/B001ED7C5S
http://www.amazon.com/4-13-Dream-Cure/dp/B001FBSMOO/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1226368316&sr=1-1
Couple these with the onset of Winter and let the seasonal depression begin.
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11.07.08
Posted in Bacula, Linux/*BSD/Unix, Windows/Microsoft at 4:47 pm by Nate Smith
If you use Bacula to back up Windows Servers you need to be backing up the Windows system state. This saves the registry and associated information in a snapshot. Bacula itself cannot grab the registry because the files that make up the registry are always in use.
Prior to Windows server 2008 (Windows 2000, XP, 2003, etc.) you could do it like this:
create a file like c:\systemstate.bat and place the following line in it:
ntbackup backup systemstate /F c:\systemstate.bkf
This will cause the systemstate to be written to a file called systemstate.bkf so that if you need to do an exact restore of the machine you can.
Windows 2008 throws everything for a loop.
You get an error if you try to use the wbadmin equivalent:
wbadmin start systemstatebackup -quiet -backuptarget:c:
If you do that, you get an error. Windows will no longer allow you to back up the system state on Windows volumes that are classified as “critical volumes”. This will include the boot disk among others. Fortunately there is a workaround found in this MS KB article http://support.microsoft.com/kb/944530 . However…..
You have to read carefully.
It says you need to add a DWord entry to this subkey:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\wbengine\SystemStateBackup\
I did not see that the “SystemStateBackup” subkey did not exist in mine so I did not create it. Make sure to create it if you do not have it. Then add the following:
Name: AllowSSBToAnyVolume
Data type: DWORD
Value data: 1
Save the registry and you should be able to save the system state using the commands outlined above.
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Posted in Uncategorized at 4:27 pm by Nate Smith
One thing that makes me very happy is the sight of parts of wind turbines on semi trucks on the highway. Lately a lot of wind farms are being built in Iowa and I think it is one of the greatest things to happen in my lifetime. I don’t know much about the lifespan or the maintenance on one of these behemoths, but it seems like such an obvious idea when you compare it to someting like a coal or nuclear power facility. Wind power is distributed, not inherently dangerous, and the raw material (wind) supplies itself; there also isn’t a giant ecosystem set up around it like some other production methods. I’m not foolish enough to think that wind can supply all our needs, but it sure is great to finally see it being explored in a meaningful way.
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