BenV's notes

Blog posts

Check_MK diskstats on Xen virtual hosts

by on Jun.14, 2012, under Software

Hej look! A new WordPress release…. 3.4…. and it automagically updates, nice going guys 🙂
What’s new? A bunch of stuff I don’t care about, a few more rounded corners … meh.
And apparently they’re green. Oh well. I can be green too, see? 😉

Back to stuff I do care about: Check MK released a new major version a few days ago – it’s now on version 1.2p1.
Among the new stuff some shiny interface updates (you know, rounded corners and the like), a ton of fixes and new agents/checks (postgresql is among them), a Logwatch Pattern Analyzer and tons more.
(continue reading…)

3 Comments :, , , more...

Libgphoto retarded limits

by on Mar.11, 2012, under Software

Today Digikam didn’t quite want to do what I wanted. Yesterday I made a bunch of new photos and all I wanted was to transfer the new photos to my disk. (continue reading…)

Leave a Comment : more...

Windows Firewall blocking applications

by on Mar.10, 2012, under Software

These days windows has a built-in firewall that’s good enough for most people. However, other than nagging you about “OH NOES YOU’RE ON A NEW NETWORK!!! ALERT!!! ALERT!!!” you need to go through quite a hassle to manually say “Don’t allow this program to make outbound connections“, something that I often want. (for example when running pirated^Wnetwork tests). (continue reading…)

Leave a Comment :, more...

World of Warcraft patch 4.3.3 and wine64

by on Mar.04, 2012, under Software

Seems like they released a new patch for World of Warcraft, increasing the version to 4.3.3 build 15354.
Obviously this broke on my wine64 installation of the game:
* Start wine64 Wow-64.exe
* Login
* “Patch required” -> OK
* “Downloading Update” -> OK

Patch 4.3.3 under wine64

Patch 4.3.3 under wine64

(continue reading…)

Leave a Comment :, , , , more...

Windows 7 hiberfil.sys

by on Feb.25, 2012, under Software

My windows partition was low on free disk space so I looked around for what game to remove.
Until I noticed C:\hiberfil.sys taking a whopping 12 GIGABYTES of disk space.
For a feature that I never use. (I either play games on windows or don’t run it at all, sleep mode etc was already disabled).
Seems like turning off the hiberfil.sys takes more effort than in XP (where it was a checkbox hidden in the power management options).

To disable it:
1. Start a command prompt as administrator
2. powercfg -H off

Voila, diskspace.

Leave a Comment more...

Slackware64 and Digikam

by on Feb.22, 2012, under Software

Last week we bought a new toy — a Canon EOS 600D (including a lens with about the same pricetag). So far I’m happy with it, it’s nice to play with a ‘real’ camera for a change. (our previous one is a simple Samsung TL205. Apples and oranges.) (continue reading…)

Leave a Comment :, , , more...

World of Warcraft and wine64 — update!

by on Feb.22, 2012, under Software

Earlier I reported on my first World of Warcraft under 64 bits wine experience. It somewhat worked but couldn’t play the game because it got stuck on the loading screen.
Just now I decided to give it another shot and pulled the latest wine from git. Currently we’re on wine version 1.4-rc4. Before building that I upgraded my NVIDIA driver to their latest as well, 295.20.

After compiling and installing the new wine release candidate the results are in:

World of Warcraft on 64 bits Wine (1.4rc4)

World of Warcraft on 64 bits Wine (1.4rc4)

So it seems like the guys working on Wine did some good work!
Loading the initial screen is still a bit slower than the 32 bit version, but apart from the it seems good. Haven’t tried any dungeons yet, so I have no reports on ingame performance, but I might complain on that later if it sucks 🙂
If not I have another reason to move my old 32 bits slackware partition to the shredder.

Leave a Comment :, , , , , more...

IPSec-Tools and Slackware64

by on Feb.16, 2012, under Software

Today I wanted ipsec-tools on my Slackware64 (v13.37) domU.
Sounds simple: figure out where they host the stuff, download, configure ; make ; package, install. Right?
*BZZZZZ* WRONG! (continue reading…)

2 Comments :, , , more...

Cisco webmaster skills

by on Feb.15, 2012, under Fun, Morons

Here’s a funny for today:
For some reason I needed an original firmware for a Pislink E2000, so I went to http://www.linksys.com/ as a first guess.
After (automagically) being redirected about 2398472389347 times (first to http://www.linksysbycisco.com/ as if there’s a linksysbymicrosoft as well, then to http://www.linksysbycisco.com/NL/nl/home with a bunch of geolocation cookies, THEN because they’re really retarded a redirect to http://home.cisco.com/nl-eu/home?referrer=www.linksysbycisco.com … seriously) I finally got a xhtml document. Well, they claim it’s xhtml, because the W3C Validator sure as hell doesn’t think so. (continue reading…)

1 Comment :, more...

DRBD 8.4.1 compiling the kernel module

by on Feb.09, 2012, under Software

In an attempt to try out the latest DRBD version (8.4.1 atm) on a new Xen installation, I ran into some issues.
Initially I built the kernel with the included DRBD module, but I soon realized that this version was older than I wanted to play with (the included version was 8.3.11), so I grabbed the source and tried to build it myself. (continue reading…)

Leave a Comment :, , , , more...