Wednesday, May 30, 2018

wakeonlan - remotely starting another computer

This is something I have been using for literally decades.  Since I have been setting this up in my home office, I am reminded that some people just may not have an idea this exists, and that they almost certainly have it on their computers.  Just a matter of turning it on.

I would have my "big" machine in a room away from where I was seated, then I'd wander off and sit on the couch with the little machine. Then I would need something on the big machine across the network. Since it was typically on my third floor it was impractical to take the laptop upstairs when the TV was on in the downstairs living room. To make it handy I wanted to turn that beast on so I could play music in the kitchen or read a document I have on it on my little machine. This little trick would let me do it.

"Wake On Lan" is simple conceptually. You send a "Magic Packet" to another computer on your network, or across the internet. The packet talks to the ethernet card, some wifi cards reportedly work but I have never figured that bit out. When the packet gets there, the computer turns itself on.

Think "Magic Bullet" to wake the computer sleeping at home while you are at work.

Mind you, there are steps to get this to work.:

You have to turn it on in your BIOS.
Ok, better said, you have to find out where it is in the pages of your BIOS, then turn it on.
If you have ever seen your BIOS, and know what's up in there, you probably are in a small minority of people, but trust me there are good things there.

You look for a prompt that says "Enable Wake On Lan" and make sure it says yes or is turned on or "selected", then save and reboot the computer.

That computer must be using a wired connection to the internet - an ethernet connection must be used and not Wifi, although I have seen that some people have managed to get this to work on Wifi.

Technically that's all you need on the "distant" computer you want to wake up, however you do need a few bits of information.

Every network card has a "MAC Address". Think of it as a telephone number. That network card, and only that network card has that specific number. I have mine, you have yours. Same thing as the phone number on your phone, or your IMEI number on the phone. You and only you have THAT number. It may also be in your BIOS, but every BIOS may vary.

You feed it into a wee little program and it fires off a magic packet to your network.

The packet wanders around your network and the ethernet card is listening. If that packet matches the address on the card, the card will wake up the computer from hibernation or turn it on with a "cold boot".

Then you can get your "stuff".

The business of across the internet is a bit more complex. You actually would have to punch a hole in your firewall for the purpose, and this is beyond this posting of "Hey look at this cool stuff".

RaspberryPi users, sorry, you can't wake a Pi across the network, and I really wish you could! The hardware is built more simply, and the Ethernet port actually sit on the USB Bus.

For Linux users (and BSD) with Debian XFCE, you can find out your MAC Address by looking at the connection information when you right click on the Network Connections icon in the status bar or in the Settings, Network Connections on the applications menu. Right click on the Wired Connection you have hooked up. Look for "Hardware Address:: and you will find a number that looks like 01:23:45:67:89:AB

Windows users, check your hardware manager under My Computer.

Mac, sorry, one isn't handy to me but the base commands should be there under your network manager.

Look for the Mac Address, again it's six pairs of Hex numerals that look like 01:23:45:67:89:ab, and write them down.

To test, hibernate or shut "this" distant computer down. Then go to the "other" computer, and launch a Wake On LAN Client. There are many, and they are generally free. Mine is called "wakeonlan" on Linux. It runs at a command line (gasp!) by typing (horrors!) in "wakeonlan 01:23:45:67:89:ab".  You can easily encapsulate it in a bash shell, of course.

Then after a short pause, the computer turns itself on and presents itself at a login prompt.

Your network shares will be available on that machine, or you can use Remote Desktop or VNC to use it directly from where you sit.

Wake on Lan clients are available:
Linux - called wakeonlan and is available by "apt install wakeonlan" in Debian.
Windows - there are a bunch of them that are available here.
Mac OSX - wakeonlan is available here.

Sunday, May 27, 2018

I went bowling with my son yesterday... Next time I'll use a bowling ball, however he was a good sport. It's a shame he went on strike, I guess I'll have to pick up a spare.

When I read this one this morning, I got a big smile on my face.  Ladies just might like this one!





Compliments

This 60 year old woman is naked, jumping up and down on her bed laughing and singing.

Her husband walks into the bedroom and sees her.

He watches her awhile then says, "You look ridiculous, what on earth are you doing?"

She says, "I just got my checkup and my doctor says I have the breasts of an eighteen-year-old."

She starts laughing and jumping again.

He says, "Yeah, right. And what did he say about your 60 year-old ass?"

She says, "Well, your name never came up."



As for this second one?  Everyone has something to be laughed at!




A dad buys a lie detector machine and waits for his son to come home

When the son comes home:
Dad - So you were at school right?

Son - yeah
Lie Detector - BEEP

Son - Okay, okay I was at the cinema with my friends
Lie Detector - BEEP

Son - ....I was having a few beers with my friends

Dad - What??? When I was your age I NEVER touched alcohol
Lie Detector - BEEP

Mom - Hahahaha! Well honey, he IS your son
Lie Detector - BEEP

Saturday, May 26, 2018

What do you call a group of musicians with wives? A hus-band.

Oh I don't know why, maybe it is the rain, but this one made me laugh out loud.  Let's go have a beer!


Mr Singh walks into a bar in London

He orders 3 glasses of beer and sits in the back of the room, drinking a sip out of each one in turn.

When he finishes, he comes back to the bar counter and orders 3 more.

The bartender asks him, "You know, beer goes flat after I fill it in the glass; it would taste better if you buy one at a time."

Mr. Singh replies, "Well, you see, I have two brothers. One is in Dubai , the other in Canada and I'm here in London . When they left home, we promised that we'll drink this way to remember the days when we drank together."

The bartender admits this is a nice custom and leaves it there.

Mr. Singh became a regular in the bar and would always drink the same way. He'd order 3 Beers and drink them in turn.
One day, he came in and ordered only 2 Beers. All the other regulars notice and fall silent.

When he comes back to the bar for the second round, the bar tender says, "I don't want to intrude on your grief, but I wanted to offer my sincere condolences on your great loss."

Mr. Singh looked confused for a moment, and then he laughs.... "Oh, no,"
He said, "Everyone's fine; both my brothers are alive. The only thing is...
I have quit drinking"!!!

Wednesday, May 23, 2018

Frog In The Shutter

Once upon a time, there was a house.

The house had some truly awful windows.

They leaked air when the wind blew.  They leaked water when it rained.  They were more complex than necessary.  In an air conditioned house, they were expensive.  In winter, it was colder than necessary.

They had to go.

They did go, but the problem was that in that weird construction, and all that complexity, there was a guest sheltering there at night.  My tree frogs.

When the windows were gone, they were evicted.  

I hoped that they would come back, but they never did.

Tree frogs are gentle and harmless.  They will eat bugs and nasty bite-y creatures that you don't want living close to you.  These frogs are mainly quiet, and just hide near you asking nothing but a hiding place to sleep.

There was a single return the other day for two separate nights. 

A much smaller tree frog than the previous ones perched itself in the shutter of my front bedroom.

It didn't mind us, we didn't mind it.  Of course getting a picture was a requirement.

We live much closer to wildlife here than we did up north, and that is quite fine.  I could do without the iguanas jumping into my swimming pool at dawn, and the ducks are a major nuisance these days.  If I ever have to mop duck droppings that were tracked into the house again, it will be too soon.  It's been a while since a gecko decided to try to hunt inside, and the patented Gecko Safe Removal Tool is going dusty.

But as for the frogs, well they don't come by that often. 

Sunday, May 20, 2018

Why was the fishing show so successful? They had a great cast

Ok, this is so dumb and so wrong... that I just laughed out loud when I read it.






You must be single...

A woman was shopping at her local supermarket where she selected: a half-gallon of 2% milk, a carton of eggs, a quart of orange juice, a head of romaine lettuce, a 2 lb. can of coffee, and a 1 lb. package of bacon.

As she was unloading her items onto the conveyor belt to check out, a drunk standing behind her was watching.

While the cashier was ringing up her purchases, the drunk calmly stated, "You must be single."

The woman was a bit startled by this proclamation, but she was intrigued by the derelict's intuition, since she was indeed single. She looked at her six items on the belt and saw nothing particularly unusual about her selections that could have tipped of the drunk to her marital status.

Curiosity getting the better of her, she said, "Well, you know what, you're absolutely correct. But how on Earth did you know that?"

The drunk replied, "'Cuz you're ugly."

Saturday, May 19, 2018

Who is this General Failure? And why is he reading my external hdd?

Having been in a university library far many more hours than I could count, I can see how this would be a disruption.



A guy asked a girl in a library,

“Do you mind if I sit beside you”? The girl answered with a loud voice,

"I DON’T WANT TO SPEND THE NIGHT WITH YOU!!!" All the students in the library started staring at the guy and he was embarrassed.

After a couple of minutes, the girl walked quietly to the guy’s table and she told him “I study psychology and I know what a man is thinking, I guess you felt embarrassed, right?”

The guy responded with a loud voice: "$200 JUST FOR ONE NIGHT!? THAT’S TOO MUCH!!!"

And all the people in the library looked at the girl in shock and the guy whispered in her ears; “I study Law and I know how to make someone feel guilty"



You've had a bad day but...

The parachute company says you'll get a full refund.

The flesh eating virus barely touched your other arm.

Imagine what would have happened if your ex-wife had a good lawyer.

The fertility drugs worked 4 times better than expected.

The insurance company said they will pay the full book value of $455 for your 1966 Corvette.

At least the operation was partially successful.

Don't worry about who the real father is, your son's chances of getting a full scholarship just increased significantly!


Wednesday, May 16, 2018

Have You Ever Really Looked At A Coleus Flower?

I spend a lot of time in my garden.

At 7:30, every single morning, I have an alarm set.  It tells me that I have to go outside to the yard to inspect the irrigation system.

There's a ritual here.

I stand up, put some water into the French Press coffee mug I have and call Rack The McNab SuperDog if he isn't paying attention.

Usually he has beat me to the back door by now.  Only if there is an active thunderstorm will he hold back.

I open the sliding glass door with a "Hi Oscar" to the parrot, and walk outside.

That coffee mug gets emptied into the garden with a chuckle.   I've been told "it's Gardener's Gold and must not be wasted.  Parts of my garden is more than half coffee grounds and the rest is that beach sand that passes for soil here.

But I do have to go out, inspect the swimming pool and make sure that the pots are getting watered.  They have a short, ten minute time period, where the irrigation pump is dribbling water into the orchids, mangos, various cuttings, onions, and green onions, and all the rest of the things that I have in a little terra cotta prison.

They get drip fed their water, and I walk around and enjoy them.

It also is what the photographers know as the Golden Hour.  The sun is up, now in mid May, but not up so much as to be harsh.  There's a golden glow on everything.  Shadows are prominent.  Flowers are back-lit to a brilliance that the noon sun's harshness would overpower.

Everything is burnished in gold.

If you are fortunate, you will get to see this.  Just at the right time, just at the right angle, simple things become amazing.  The forgettable becomes something to remember.

I was fortunate that day.

Inspecting the Milkweed plants that were being turned into stumps by baby Monarch caterpillars, I looked closely at every single pot.  I wanted to know if my green onion was going to be the temporary home for a pupa, as it has happened before.

My showy leaves on my involuntary coleus were shining.  Usually their reds, greens, and yellows were more muted, but this particular morning, at this particular time, they were radiating a glowing show of colors.  My friendly office plants that insist on dropping seeds into pots that I would rather not have them in so thickly were singing a chorus of beauty.

Then I spotted it.  The Inflorescence.  Coleus bloom dozens of little pale purple and lavender flowers on a flower spike, called an inflorescence.  This one inflorescence was backlit perfectly.

I had to remind Rack that I had pictures to take, this was too good to miss.

When I got back inside, I looked at the tiny flower.  There were hairs that were radiating as if they were shine lines on a comic drawing.

I had taken the time to smell the Coleus flowers and it showed me a side of it that I have never expected.

Sometimes, the very things that you have in abundance that have faded to become mundane, can be so beautiful you have a new appreciation for them.

They're all over my yard.  I have been pulling them up and tossing them in the thick tangle that is the utility easement behind the pool.  They taunt me by growing even back there in the shade.

I guess that if they can grow in a ninth floor north facing single pane window in a cold Philadelphia winter, they can gather enough sunlight to grow here in the riverine wetness that is South Florida.

And if you are lucky enough, you just may be treated to their shine.


Sunday, May 13, 2018

What's the difference between a diameter and radius? A radius.

Ok, so how often do you hear a one liner about Geometry?

Anyway...


A Taxi passenger tapped the driver on the shoulder to ask him a question.

The driver screamed, lost control of the car, nearly hit a bus, went up on the footpath, and stopped inches from a shop window.

For a second everything went quiet in the cab, then the driver said, "Look mate, don’t ever do that again. You scared the daylights out of me!"

The passenger apologized and said, "I didn’t realize that a little tap would scare you so much."

The driver replied, "Sorry, it’s not really your fault. Today is my first day as an taxi driver – I’ve been driving a funeral van for the last 25 years."





Here's another one for the road...


I was a new Army basic trainee at Fort McClellan, and one requirement was a demanding 12-mile march. We got started at 6 a.m. and were pumped up for the trek.

An hour later, feeling the heavy load of our packs, we wondered if the end would ever come.

"Men," our sergeant yelled, "you're doing a fine job. We've already covered four miles!"
Revitalized, we picked up the pace.

"And," continued Sarge, "we should reach the starting point any minute now."

Saturday, May 12, 2018

Dancers use 5, 6, 7, 8... because musicians use 1, 2, 3, 4

One for the ladies, and a short one for the guys


A woman hears a noise

She thinks it's and intruder and decides to call the cops.
The dispatch officer asks her if she saw anything.

She replies she only heard it but that she is sure someone is in her house because she can hear footsteps.
The dispatch said that they would send the next available officer but that they were a little occupied at the moment and the closest officer was about 45 minutes away but will be on their way soon. The officer tells the woman to hide and stay quiet and disconnects the call.

The women in fear for her life cant believe what she just heard. There is someone in her house and now she is alone. So the woman picks up the phone again and dials the police once more.

The same dispatch officer picks up.

WOMAN: "I am the woman that just called regarding the person inside my home."

DO: "Yes, man. Are you still safe?"

WOMAN: "Yes, I was calling to actually tell you do not worry about sending an officer anymore, just an ambulance please. I shot and killed the man intruding in my home."

DO: "Wait..."

The woman hangs the phone up. 5 minutes later she hears a knock at her door. It's the police.

They begin to ask where is the man that has been shot is at?
 The woman says no man has been shot.

The officer says we were told there had been a man shot .
The woman says yeah I was also told you were 45 minutes away.



Women are like razors guys use them to look more manly

Wednesday, May 9, 2018

A Beginner's Notes On Soap Making

I had one of my frequent writer's block wanting to write about something else.  This stuff kept floating back into my consciousness and I figured why not let it out.

It's basic info - meant to help me later, but if you are considering trying this on your own, you will probably find a few details that could make life easier for you.

And this is not exhaustive, I'm most likely leaving a detail here or there out of what I am writing since I am still learning this.

If you have ever gone to a flea market and saw someone with boxes of soap to sell, it's probably one of three processes to make the stuff.

If you can bake from scratch, anything, I'd wager you can do this.  Just be careful, lye can be dangerous.

Basically Soap Making is one of three processes.

Melt and Pour.  This isn't what I do.  You go to a arts and crafts store, buy a brick of this clear stuff, melt it down, add scent and color, pour it into a mold, and call it done.  That is all.  It usually has a brilliant color and a pleasant looking result, and it works well enough.  But you're not really "Making" soap so much as re-batching someone else's work.

Cold Process Castile Soap.  I've done this and got excellent results.  My very first batch was this soap.  You mix your oils together, add them to a cooled down mixture of Lye and water.  Stir constantly until it begins to thicken and moving your spoon through the mix will leave a trace of your path through it.  This is referred to as Trace.  It will still be liquid when you pour this into a mold.  Unmold and slice this tomorrow, and allow it to air dry and cure.  I allowed my soap a month to cure.

Hot Process Castile Soap.  I did this to make a bread loaf sized block of soap that I sliced about four hours later.  You mix your oils up and warm them to the temperature of the Lye and Water mix (140F or so).  Then add them together in a double boiler, and stir until trace begins.  Pour into molds, and allow to firm up before slicing.  This should be ready to use a week later or so.  The heat speeds up things greatly.  If your soap is firming up in the pot, pour into a mold immediately.

Castile Soap is named after the Kingdom of Castile, a precursor to Spain, where it was popularized like other similar soaps.  There were people there that realized you can make soap out of Oilve Oil, Water, and Lye.  This formula came about separately, elsewhere, before the Spaniards got it, but they popularized it in Western Europe.  My second batch was strictly that recipe and, as expected, it did not foam up for me well. It was an excellent cleansing soap.

Yes, I know I am oversimplifying that story.  This is a damn long article.

Recipe.  Look around your house for what oils you have that you want in your soap.  My first batch was all out of date oils.  I fed them into a "Lye Calculator" and it told me what I could do and how much water/lye mix I could add to my oils to make this into soap.  To the fraction of an ounce - or to the gram. Absolutely use the Lye Calculator!  It makes this recipe stuff into Child's Play.

Then refer to the next link for what properties you want in the soap...

Different oils will change the properties of the soap.  Olive Oil makes for a firm soap but does not foam well at high concentrations (over 50%).  Coconut Oil will aid in foaming.  Shea Butter or Shea Nut Oil will make for a moisturizing soap and you only need about 10% so it goes a long way.

My first soap was a mix of every old oil I had in the house that was past its sell by date.  Olive, Coconut, Corn, Safflower, Shea Nut Oil, and perhaps others.  That "mutt" had less than 50% of Olive oil.  I ended up with a pure white bar of soap that made huge amounts of lather.

Lye.  Lye is caustic.  Nasty stuff.  It can be used as drain cleaner.  ALWAYS wear eye protection while working with lye.  ALWAYS, even you!  Even ME!  Long sleeved shirts and long pants are recommended.  Cover up.

Don't let this scare you, you should be able to do this.

What you need is 100% Lye Drain Cleaner with zero additives.  It must say 100% Lye or Sodium Hydroxide.  If the package specificially says For Soap Making, that will work well instead of Drain Cleaner.

I paid just under $6 a pound with tax at an old line hardware store.  You can get it cheaper in bulk, however you are using it a few ounces a time per batch and it will degrade if it picks up moisture from the environment.

Work with Lye under a stove hood that vents outdoors, or preferrably work with it outdoors.   The fumes that Lye makes when added to Water are poisonous and will burn.

Yes, do this outdoors if you can.  I did in a well ventilated area.

If you are well prepared, you can use ice instead of water, freezing the correct amount and adding the lye to the ice to counteract the heat the lye will give off.  This will allow you to add the mixture to the oils quicker since the two liquids should be within 20F/11C of each other to minimize risk of any flare up.

Lye Discount or Superfat.  There is a trick to making moisturizing soap.  What you are doing is making a Chemical Reaction called "Saponification".  The Lye and Water mix will react with the fats in the oils to make soap.  If you follow the recipe you can choose to have a discounted amount of Lye (Lye Discount) or not.  A Lye Discount results in leaving some of the oils unconsumed by the chemical reaction and your skin may appreciate it.  I used a 4% lye discount on my first two batches, but will reduce that in the future.

Fragrances.   Optional.  I used Rosemary essence in mine which was unnecessary but pleasant.  There are different calculations for when you add the essences depending on which of the three kinds of soap you are making.  They are available on the Lye Calculator that I keep referring to. Add after you get Trace.

Other Ingredients.  My second batch I used no water.  Substituting milk for water meant that it would be more of a moisturizing bar since there are proteins, solids, and fat in the milk that would not be saponified.  Glycerin is used in making Melt and Pour soap base.

Preservatives are typically added so that you do not get the "Dreaded Orange Spots" on the bars.  One of the bars from my first batch of Cold Process had some of the Dreaded Orange Spots.  They are mold.  I cut the mold out and used that bar immediately.  This is stopped by adding preservatives to the mix when you go to form your bars or your cake.  I still have to research that for my next soaps.

Supplies.  Your utensils can be silicone, plastic, wood, or stainless steel.  Whatever you use for soap making should be separate from the normal baking supplies because of cross-contamination.  Wood will absorb the soap and the mixes so I personally won't use it.

Goggles for working with Lye are required.

You will want a stick blender, again at the thrift stores.  I got mine for $8, and ended up saving that new one for later since the older one I had in the house would be sacrificed for soap making.  You can use a stick blender to mix the soap mix until it is ready to trace.  At that point you can pour the soap into the mold.  Making soap will be tough on a stick blender so if it gets too hot, let the thing cool down.

A silicone soap mold that has multiple molds is an excellent suggestion, however if you are making a large "ingot" of soap that will be sliced down later, I found my silicone bread loaf pan will hold 40 ounces of soap and will be used for that on my next large batch.

Line the bottoms of your flat bottomed molds with parchment paper.  Yes, and you will thank me later.   You will also want to tap those molds to let trapped air float upwards  and out of your soap.

Go to a Thrift Store or Dollar Store or Pound Shop for as many supplies as you can get.   I spent $8 and got all my mixing spoons, many molds, and a gallon (4 liter) stock pot for this process.  Buying retail for this process is a bit spendy - take advantage of the thrift stores.

Absolutely you will need an electronic gram scale.  It should do both grams/kilos and ounces/pounds.  Which ever measurements that you are more used to using, do use them.  Smaller batches I have found are best done in grams, larger in ounces.  Round numbers are easier to work with after all.

Curing.   Times will vary due to how hot/humid/drafty the room is that you are curing your soap.  Hot Process soap will cure much faster, and I was able to use my hot process soap in a week.   I allowed my Cold Process soap to cure 5 weeks.  Curing allows the excess water in the soap to evaporate and produce a much more firm bar.  It also mellows the causticity of the soap because the Saponification process does not stop when you pour it out of the pot and into the mold at trace.

An excellent way to test for curing is to segregate one specific bar of soap for this test.  Weigh it In Grams as soon as it is ready to be set in a frame to cure.  Write the weight down.  Repeat this every second day (or so).  When the weight stops dropping, the soap is cured and ready for use.

Sensitive Skin issues.  Here's the disclaimer.  I am not a doctor, nor do I give medical advice.  This is merely what I have noticed from using this soap exclusively for two months now

I love this soap.  There's nothing in this stuff that I didn't put into it. 

Your results may vary since if you have skin problems, you may be allergic to your ingredients, you could have something that irritates the eczema, or you may be lucky like me and have it just about completely clear up any problems you have.  I noticed a week after switching over to the hot process soap (90% olive oil, 10% shea nut oil) that my skin was softer, my hair was softer, my eczema was clearing, and I was even getting a better shave.
Don't take my word for it, but do go into this intelligently.  If you are allergic to Coconut Oil, do not use it because the allergens may still be there.  You can use a very long list of oils to make this soap.  I did the first time, and the second time was simpler.  Both soaps cleaned the same.  My skin is much better than it was.

So it may work for you, it may not.  Like I said, eczema is a very tricky beast.  I never thought I would find a soap that worked better than Ivory.  My hands do not burn when I handle the homemade soap.

Conclusion. The best suggestion I can give is that if you do try this, make a small batch first.   A bath sized soap bar is between 3 and 5 ounces.  You can scale the batch down to make one single soap bar.  That is about 3 ounces of oil plus water and lye.

Find a Soap Calculator and use it make the calculations and proportions for you and your particular preferences, needs, and mixes of oils.  I could not calculate a soap recipe for the life of me, but I don't have to.  It's a matter of fiddling with the numbers until I get what I want.  My first batch was 20 ounces, the second was 45.  You don't have to do things the same way every time.   I'm sticking with tiny one bar (5 ounce) batches until I find the soap for me.

After all, it really is all about getting what you want.  If you can't do better than what you find in the market, why bother?  On the other hand, there's a great feeling of satisfaction of walking down that soap aisle and thinking "Nah, I can do better!".

Good luck!

Sunday, May 6, 2018

Name a word with a letter in it. Envelope

So there was this man.

He was a from Portugal and every time he had to go somewhere, he would knock on the door.

His friends were intrigued by this and one day they finally decided to ask hy he didn't use the bell. "I don't know why, but there's something about bells that I just can't stand."

Later that day he a competition about you could knock on doors faster and he thought "Finally I found something just for someone like me"

And he was right.

He went in and started competing and nothing could stand in his way. He practiced day and night and went to every competition he could and noone could stand in his way to becoming the best and fastest door knocker in the world.

Then he was finally good enough.

He got to the world finnal and was against his nemesis. Both knocked vigourasly at rate of 500 knocks per minute.

And then he won, his hate for bells had finally amounted to something after all those years of misery.

It was worth it because he won a NoBell prize.

Saturday, May 5, 2018

What country is next to USA? USB

The king of the insect kingdom is feeling depressed...

So he asks his advisors for help. The king says, "Oh, advisors, I am feeling quite sad. Our life is so short as insects and we don't do anything but work!"

The advisors tell him that he needs to find the best joke ever to cheer him up. The king thinks this is a good idea so he travels the kingdom to the different tribes in search of the joke. Each tribe knows only one joke that they have kept for years.

First, he goes to the Super Beetles tribe and asks them for their joke. They start saying, "There was a man who really likes this nun on a bus..." The king says, "Already heard it!" and leaves.

Next, he goes to the Large Ladybugs tribe. They tell him, "A fancy restaurant is hiring a new pianist..." The king says, "Already heard it!" and leaves.

Finally, he goes to the Monstrous Mosquito tribe and they tell him, "A man named Dave tells his boss that everyone knows him..." The king says, "Already heard it!" and leaves.

He dejectedly returns home and tells his advisors that all of the jokes have been told before. The advisors consult their sacred textbooks and find what they were looking for.

"Aha! We know who has the best joke now! The real joke lies with the Come Ants!

Wednesday, May 2, 2018

Even if you Backup your computer, it may not be enough.

Have you ever gotten so deep into a project that you got lost?

In my case this was trying to get something called Remote Desktop working on the main computer.

It showed me the errors of my ways. 

Hmm, seems like I need an Amen here, doesn't it?

See, I'm trying to set up a clean environment here.  One where I can work for a client without it getting all mixed up with "my" stuff. 

My stuff being Web Development, Video Authoring, Audio Authoring, and general nonsense and "futzing" around on the computer.

I have one machine that I use for almost everything "mine" called "moose".
I have another computer that I will use for the client work called "caribou".

Yes, everything here is named after moose.  Rudolph, Caribou, Moose, and "MoosePi".

It's all handmedown stuff.  The newest one is a year or two old, and my "big" laptop is older than five years old.

Linux installed on everything runs faster than you would expect.

Now there's a piece of software called "Remote Desktop" that should help - "xrdp".  The default behavior isn't what I want.  This exists on Linux, as well as Windows, and is a pay for option on the Mac just like everything on the Mac.

If you ever played with a Raspberry Pi, they're doing it right for what I need on that wee little computer. 

The Pi will have something called a VNC Server, and it even has a pleasant blue icon on the desktop control strip.  You tell it you want to be able to share the desktop, and you go to your other computer and can control it from the couch.  It presents what you were doing "over there" on it. 

It's presenting the "console session" to you.

However while doing support, there's a different program.  xrdp on Linux.  It works just like Remote Desktop on Windows.  It creates a fresh, clean session for you to work with.

I'm on the trail of figuring all that out.  Unfortunately, I bit myself with this one.

I want the "me" computer to present the console session.  xrdp doesn't do that.  It can be configured to do that.  I did it years ago on other software. 

As in back in the 1990s.  Yes, I've been using Linux since the mid 1990s.

So since the documentation for this product does not tell you how to do this "Remote Assistance" method, I tweaked.

And Tweaked.
And Tweaked "my" laptop.

You get the picture. 

Then I realized that I lost track of time.  Two and a Half weeks of Tweaks meant that I really should reboot the computer instead of hibernate.  See where I was at.

Got to the familiar login screen, hit enter.
Flashed a black screen and was placed

at the login screen - again.  I was in a login loop.  I had tweaked myself out of a working laptop.  I Had Killed Moose.

At least I had a good back up from 2 and a half weeks ago. 

Just copy "My stuff" from the current laptop drive to the back up and reboot.

Nah.  Didn't work quite right.  Other things got in the way, but my library of thousands of pictures, hundreds of which I took this year for my blog and for my own entertainment are safe.

Client work is safe.

Web stuff is safe.

But the machine itself is ... wobbly and needs some attention.

Want to know where I will be?  Sitting at my desk, grinding my gears, and growling.

Bottom line, folks - always do a back up. 

Luckily in my case, the backup is a full clone of the computer.  I think I botched it when I copied my "home directory" over and that introduced instability due to permissions.

We will see.  Doing a full reload of the computer is an afternoon affair.  Faster than you might expect so "fixing" this machine might be harder than starting over from scratch.

Still don't have Remote Assistance working, but Remote Desktop does.

Not that I want that, but you take the good with the bad.

*shrug*  I guess the gator got my shoe.

Back to the grind.  Stay Tuned.  Enough of this Naval Gazing!  I have work to do!

If I ever get things stable, I'll have to try again with this whole project.  Or not.  It's for convenience, not life or death.