I upgraded my phone to a Samsung Galaxy Nexus recently, and thought it might be worthwhile to list the apps I’ve found to be useful:

• ConnectBot – ssh client
• K-9 Mail – mail reader
• Google Authenticator – for 2 factor authentication
• Sipdroid – SIP client for VoIP
• Evernote – note application
• Chrome
• aNag – useful Nagios client
• TripIt – travel organiser
• Facebook / Google+ / Twitter – social network applications
• Ubuntu One Files / Dropbox / Google Drive – cloud storage applications
• File Expert / ES File Explorer – random file managers
• Barcode Scanner
• KeePassDroid – password management app
• Battery snap – battery monitoring application
• Hacker’s Keyboard – useful replacement keyboard
• Google Reader
• Mxplayer – video player
• Kindle / Kobo – eBook readers
• Search Light – torch with viewfinger
• Timeriffic – control phone settings

For more applications see the Play Store.

These are my links for January 17th:

• Course: Introduction to Moodle Programming – Needs a moodle.org account
• HP Directories Support for Management Processors – Includes iLO bulk updater
• VMware Communities: bensykes’ blog: Running VMware ESXi inside VMware Server 2 –
• HP StorageWorks Enterprise Virtual Array (EVA) family HP StorageWorks HBAs (Emulex LightPulse 4 Gb/s, 8 Gb/s) VMware ESX3.5 Best Practices White Paper (pdf) –
• The Oracle+PHP Cookbook –
• LDAP enrolment – MoodleDocs –
• Red Hat Knowledgebase: How do I configure kexec/kdump on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5? –
• If I add several hundred GB of RAM to a system do I really need several hundred GB of swap space ? – RH swap sizing recommendations
• MediaCoder – more than a universal audio/video transcoder –

These are my links for January 12th:

• memcached: a distributed memory object caching system –
• cooltools: Cool Tools at OpenSPARC T1 – Open source applications optimized for Sun Solaris
• Canon Europe – EF LENS WORK III EN –
• Deploying Exchange Server 2007 on VMware Infrastructure: A VMware Internal Case Study –
• [freshrpms.net] – Oracle 10g Instant Client on RHEL4 and RHEL5 –
• Yum Repository at Utter Ramblings –
• The Omni Group – OmniFocus – Personal task management software for OSX
• Perl Advent Calendar FAQ –
• Getting Started with PowerShell and PowerGUI in your Virtual Infrastructure –
• Blackboard migration – MoodleDocs –
• Systems Administration Advent Calendar 2008 –
• Troubelshooting ISW deployments –
• bFree – Blackboard™ Course Content Extractor –
• Nixu Software – Virtualization-Ready DNS and IP Addressing Solutions –

On RedHat with Oracle Instant Client you need to be very particular with $ORACLE_HOME, as the following shows:


$ ORACLE_HOME=/usr/lib/oracle/10.2.0.3/client/
$ export ORACLE_HOME
$ $ORACLE_HOME/bin/sqlplus
Error 6 initializing SQL*Plus
Message file sp1.msb not found
SP2-0750: You may need to set ORACLE_HOME to your Oracle software directory
$ ORACLE_HOME=/usr/lib/oracle/10.2.0.3/client
$ export ORACLE_HOME
$ $ORACLE_HOME/bin/sqlplus

SQL*Plus: Release 10.2.0.3.0 - Production on Thu Jan 8 14:48:32 2009


That is, it can not have the trailing / on it.

These are my links for January 5th:

• Using vmware-vim-cmd to Modify a Portgroup -
• HP disaster tolerant solutions using Continuous Access for HP StorageWorks Enterprise Virtual Array in a VMware Infrastructure 3 environment (pdf) -
• EPEL – FedoraProject – Port of Fedora packages to RHEL based Linux distros
• Patch Check Advanced – Patching tool for Solaris that doesn’t suck
• PCApatch – Addon to PCA to be more smpatch like
• Kiwi Enterprises – Windows based Syslog server etc
• Let me google that for you – Self explanatory really
• Viral Video Chart – Top 20 Viral Videos -
• VMware Distributed Power Management: Concepts and Usage -
• SQL Server Workload Consolidation on VMware ESX (pdf) -
• meebo.com – Web based instant messaging client
• The Hacker FAQ -
• PetrolMonkey – Tracks and compares your fuel consumption
• Windows Server 2008 UNIX Interoperability Components -
• YouTube – MontyPython’s Channel – Monty Python’s YouTube Channel

These are my links for December 29th:

• Gun Lovin’ Dwarf Chick » Pre-Naxx Gear Guides or Getting Ready to Play with the Big Boys -
• VMware Communities: VMware Technical Resource documents listing -
• WoW Inscription Guide (1-450) -
• Creating bootable Windows 2000/XP/2003 Disc (CDBurnerXP 3) (Windows 2000/XP/2003) – TACKtech Corp. -
• CCleaner – MS Windows System Cleaner
• OpenDNS | Providing A Safer And Faster Internet -
• ISODisk, free software for mount and create ISO disk image -
• Big Think – We Are What You Think -
• EULAlyzer® -
• Dimdim: Web conferencing that just works. Dimdim provides easy, open, affordable collaboration. Use for online meetings, eLearning, desktop sharing, training, distance education, unified collaboration, webinar, free web meetings and more. -
• VMware Update Manager planning makes a difference | VM /ETC -
• Logical Domains (LDoms) 1.0 Documentation – Sun Microsystems -
• Enterprise Password Vault: Password Management Software – Cyber-Ark Software -
• Password Manager XP – Secure Password Keeper -
• NTFS-3G: Stable Read/Write NTFS Driver -

To resize a filesystem and logical volume after booting off a RHEL disk in rescue mode:


# lvm vchange -ay
# resize2fs /dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00 20g
# lvm lvresize -L 20G /dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00


Seemed to work ok for me in shrinking a file system, but YMMV.

I’ve just upgraded to Firefox 3 to try out Mozilla Weave to sync my bookmarks etc between computers, and it was fairly trivial. I setup WebDAV on my Dreamhost website, and then followed these instructions. Basically, install the extension, point it to my website instead of Mozillas, then log in. It seems to work ok so far, I’ll be doing more testing in the next few days.

These are my links for September 8th:

• VMware Communities -
• Homepage of ZABBIX :: An Enterprise-Class Open Source Distributed Monitoring Solution -
• Virtual Geek: So, how **EXACTLY** does VM HA’s admittance algorithm work? -
• Free Online Course Materials | MIT OpenCourseWare -
• Arcane Brilliance: Gearing your Mage for Karazhan – WOW Insider -
• Welcome to Talisman Island: A fan site dedicated to Bob Harris’ Talisman – The Magical Quest Game as published by Games Workshop -
• Talisman: Sorceres Tower Expansion -
• USENIX – Publications – Proceedings -
• VMware TSX NICE APRIL 2007 -
• Red Hat Summit 2008 -
• RTFM Education » Ultimate-P2V -
• Panamatic – Panoramic tripod accessory -
• Phonetic alphabet tables – Alpha Bravo Charlie -
• Asterisk™: The Future of Telephony -
• Multi Operating System Administration -

I’ve been playing with Google Chrome today, and I think I like it. The architecture is quite nice, the way the tabs work feels seamless, and there’s lots of nice little features I keep finding. The comic gives a good feel for the design etc, and is well worth a read. My biggest issue for switching to it is a good way of syncing bookmarks between multiple computers, time will tell how much the browser is picked up and if many plugins are done for it.