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Looking For Quacks In The Pavement

Author: Karel Kerezman

  • Now I know what, just not why.

    40 working hours ago (that would be Monday morning, and yes it has been one long damned week already) we began a painful process of dealing with and sussing out a series of crashes on our Groupwise server. We’ve tried the usual maintenance procedures, we’ve tried patching the OS and email systems, and we’ve tried cursing. Lots of that, actually.

    Today, the (verbose) logfiles have finally given up their secrets. For each abend there’s a temporary file in the MTA working directory. Each file is locked by the MTA because even though its thread has died the MTA doesn’t know it so it won’t release the lock. After ratcheting up the logfile verbosity, the MTA told me two things: That it’s failing on an address lookup, and that the address is “kmttcontests.” It didn’t take a genius to figure that the rest of the address is “@kmtt.com,” mind you.

    So just now I sent a test message from my Groupwise address to that recipient. Guess what? Another thread died! Eureka!

    Now I know what’s causing these specific crashes. The question is… why does that one email address cause the MTA to lose a processing thread? I have no idea, and neither Novell’s support site or Google’s usenet searching capability have been much help. Right now my fate is in the hands of those busy guys at Corporate…

  • Can’t update. Still working.

    Friday? About 10 hours.

    Sunday? Eight hours.

    Monday? 13 or so.

    Tuesday? A bit more than 10.

    Today? Who knows?

    If you’re wondering why I haven’t had the energy to write or anything to write about, now you know. I’ll be glad when the half-dozen ongoing emergencies all die down around the office… whenever that will be.

  • The Geek Test. Again.

    Maybe I took it and posted the results on Zero, back in the day. Ah well. I’ve (re)taken The Geek Test, and here’s what it has to say:

    36.29191% – Major Geek

    I’d probably have done better if I was more into Trek, RPGs and math. And by “better” I mean “geekier,” so take that how you will.

  • Past, Present, Future – Round Forty-seven

    PAST: Did you, or did you not, eat your vegetables as a youngster?

    PRESENT: What sorts of veggies will and won’t you eat nowadays?

    FUTURE: Which would you rather end up: Vegetable or mineral? (We’re assuming you’re currently an animal, here. If otherwise, you should really let us know.)

    A bit silly, yes, but at least it’s not directly topical for a change! Leave your answers (or a link thereto), and while you’re at it feel free to suggest “seed ideas” for the Final Five…

    Thanks for stopping by!
    PPF Permalink

  • A bit of this and that

    I did take another picture, the other day. I couldn’t be bothered to upload it until tonight. Sorry.

    Yep, Erica made a bunny out of snow. Ain’t that cute?

    So here I am at work, past 8pm on a Friday night. Why? Email stuff, mostly. As in, if I don’t get the email server purges done now I may face a catastrophic failure before Monday. Le sigh.

    One of the engineers was kind enough to run me down to Zupan’s and back with some food to keep me going for the evening. While looking for snack chips, I spotted a product that made my eyes bug out… so of course I had to buy and try it.

    Is it just me, or do these two words not go together? Of course… these Cheetos are quite tasty, so I suppose I’m making much ado about nada.

    Now back to watching the email maintenance run, and run, and run. Have a great evening, all!

    UPDATE: Jenn came up with something that makes even less sense… vegetarian bologna. What’s the world coming to, eh?

  • The The

    First we had a sports station named The Fan.

    Recently Rosie… er, Rosey 105 became The Buzz.

    And now, as of yesterday, country station KWJJ has become… The Wolf.

    Remember a time when radio stations were known by their calls? Apparently that time is now past, or at least it’s no longer fashionable in the industry.

    What’s next? Will our oldies station become The Fogey? We could change our news/talk to station to The Talk. It’s hard to say what classic-rock stalwart KGON would become. The Rock? Nah, we’d get in trouble with Prudential and some nutjob wrestler/movie-star over that one. No good suggestions come to mind for our “new rock” station, KNRK, though plenty of snarky ideas are easily conjured.

    Branding, baby. It’s the buzzword of our times. Welcome to the new age, a lot like the past age but with sillier nomenclature.

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