The snow report comes from steamboat.com which offers up an XML feed of the report, however it has been broken for years because it has no “style” associated with it, making it useless for anyone with a normal RSS reader to subscribe. So I made up a cron job to scrape the snow page on steamboat.com and dump it to a php for including here. If you would like to use the no frills raw scrape of the report for viewing on your phone or whatever just point it to http://phrog.org/snow.php and stay updated. I promise you your browser will not complain about plugins your missing, and it wont crash because of some fancy web designers effect is overpowering your device. Just the snow report.

Getting the Weather was much simpler. NOAA kicks ass when it comes to sharing info and the Weathericon plugin uses the information from noaa.gov to fill in the weather info I want into the sidebar, its simple and I recommend it to anyone who would like weather in their wordpress.

I was quite pleased with myself yesterday when I woke up all hung over and stumbled downstairs to my computer and saw the mountain had 5 inches at 5am. When I got on the mountain at 8am it was at 11 inches. My official first powder day of this season.

I did not write this. it got dugg and the site hosting it went down for the count. I had to share.

I only met my brother’s ex-girlfriend’s family once — the year they invited our family over to share Thanksgiving dinner. Since we were basically a group of strangers looking to make a good first impression, the table conversation was nothing more than friendly idle chitchat.

When I asked our hostess for more mashed potatoes, she took the opportunity to ask me about myself while dishing out my second helping — “So Shaun, what do you do for a living?”

Hesitantly, I responded: “I work in computer support.”

The transition to silence was immediate. All eyes suddenly turned to me, raised eyebrows all around. If you hadn’t heard my response, judging from everyone’s reaction you might think I said something outrageous like I was a male stripper or a gynecologist — but I knew the awkward silence would soon be broken by an overwhelming outpouring of computer questions.

“Oh wow, a computer guy!” — “So you know how to remove spyware and viruses and stuff, right?” — “Our family computer is really slow, I think it has a virus.” — “Do you have a business card, or can I get your number?”

I politely and patiently answered their questions, hoping that we’d exhaust the subject in a matter of minutes and then move on to something else. As it would turn out, my hopeful prediction was very wrong — the gentleman sitting next to me scooted his seat closer to me to begin an interrogation.

This man I was meeting for the first time must’ve truly believed that I was going to help him with his problem at that very moment. It didn’t matter how uninterested I looked or sounded, he was convinced that I must know the answer he’s looking for and he was determined he would get it.

Situations like this one were common for me. I’ve had eavesdropping strangers approach me with questions about their computer while I was eating in a restaurant. I’ve had oblivious coworkers step in front of me in a buffet line to tell me about their computer problems while I was serving myself food. I’ve had neighbors who spotted me from their window rush outside to coax me into working on their home computer while I was walking to the corner market. My knack for solving people’s computer problems had become so well-known among my neighborhood that these circumstances were near impossible to avoid.

You might be thinking, “So why complain? If your help is in high demand, why not embrace your talents and charge people for your time?”

I tried to for seven years. I’ve worked in the computer industry in various ways — help desk support, web design, consulting and sales, field technician, freelance computer specialist, and whatever other fancy name you want to give “the computer guy.”

I stopped enjoying it. There were certainly times when I enjoyed myself, but most of those times were when my computer talents were still developing. Once I stopped learning new things on the job, I would become fidgety and want to move on to something else.

From my career-hopping experiences in the computer industry, I’ve become acquainted with the Top Ten Reasons it doesn’t pay to be the computer guy:

Reason #10 – Most Of Your Accomplishments Are Invisible

The computer guy never hears anyone tell him, “I just want to let you know … everything is working fine!”

The reality is that people call the computer guy when something is wrong.

As a computer guy, if you work really hard to make everything work the way that it should, and things work fine, then people believe you don’t do anything. Everything you manage to get working correctly or do perfectly will forever remain unnoticed by computer users. They’ll only ever notice that you do anything when something isn’t working correctly, and you are called upon to fix it.

Reason #9 – Every Conversation You Have Is Roughly The Same

When the computer guy dares to mention what he does for a living, the typical response is, “I have a question about my home computer…”

Or when the computer guy first hears about a widespread problem within the computer network he’s responsible for, he can barely begin to assess the problem before a dozen other people call to report the same problem.

Or when the computer guy explains a certain process on a computer to a user who is incapable of retaining the process, he will inevitably need to reinstruct the user of this same process — indefinitely.

Reason #8 – You’re An Expert Of Bleeding-Edge Technology Products, Aren’t You?

The computer guy often finds himself in situations where someone is asking him for advice on a pending investment of the technological variety.

“I heard about (some hardware or software product) that can do (something desirable) for me. I brought you these (advertisements/reviews/printouts) because I wanted your recommendation. Which would you buy?”

Although the inquiring person sincerely trusts the computer guy’s judgment over their own, in almost every instance the real objective of these meetings is to ensure their own immunity from making a risky purchase.

If it turns out to be a bad investment, and they cannot get (the hardware or software product) to do (anything desirable), then you will be their personal scapegoat — “But honey, the computer guy said I should buy it!”

Reason #7 – Your Talents Are Forcibly Undervalued

Thanks to the constantly declining price of new computers, the computer guy cannot charge labor sums without a dispute. If he asks to be paid what he is worth, he will likely be met with the “why not buy new?” argument.

That is, desktop computers are always getting smaller, faster, and cheaper. It’s possible to purchase a new desktop computer for under $400. If the computer guy spends five hours fixing a computer and wants $100/hour for his time, his customer will be outraged, exclaiming “I didn’t even spend this much to BUY the computer, why should I pay this much just to FIX it?”

Reason #6 – You’re Never Allowed A Moment’s Peace

The computer guy is so prone to interruption that he rarely finds an opportunity to work on his own problems. This is because:

1. Computers never sleep.
2. Computer problems aren’t scheduled.
3. Every problem takes time to diagnose.
4. The computer guy can only give one problem his full attention.
5. Each user believes their problem deserves attention now.

Consequently, the computer guy has a 24/7 obligation to keep critical computer systems running, while simultaneously juggling everyone’s problems. He’ll often need to forfeit any opportunities to tend to his own needs for the sake of others — because at any moment, of any day, he can be interrupted by someone who wants to make their problem his problem.

Reason #5 – People Ask You To Perform Miracles

The computer guy is often mistaken for someone who possesses the combined skills of an old priest and a young priest. I’ll sum this up easily by example:

“No, I really can’t recover any files from your thumb drive, even if you did find it after it passed through your dog.”

Reason #4 – Your Assumed “All-Knowing” Status Sets You Up To Let People Down

There is no common understanding that there are smaller divisions within the computer industry, and that the computer guy cannot be an expert in all areas. What makes things worse, is when the computer guy attempts to explain this to someone asking for help, the person will often believe that the computer guy is withholding the desired knowledge to avoid having to help.

This is somewhat related to the next reason:

Reason #3 – You Possess Unlimited Responsibility

The computer guy is expected to solve problems. It is difficult to determine the boundaries of that expectation.

Some of the oddest things that I’ve been asked to do include:

1. Use pirated software to undelete important company files.
2. Create an Intranet, after explaining I didn’t know how to.
3. Teach someone how to hide their pornography collection.

Solving problems can range from replacing batteries in a wireless keyboard to investigating why the entire building loses power at the same time every morning. Resolutions can necessitate weaving a 50-foot cable through a drop ceiling, or wriggling under a house on your belly to add an electrical outlet.

Reasons #4 and #3 boil down to this: no matter how often you want to play the role of a hero, there will always be circumstances that test the limits of your ability to be one. It’s difficult to judge when helping someone means doing something immoral, and it’s even harder to admit you are unable to solve someone’s problem — and chances are, that someone will view you as incompetent because you were unable to help them.

Reason #2 – A Life Of Alienation

People only talk to the computer guy when they need him to fix something. Also, when the computer guy approaches a user, they’ll hop up out of their chair under the presumption that he’s there to fix something — as if it would never be expected that he only wants to strike up a conversation.

The fact that the computer guy never gets a moment’s peace can also practically force him to withdraw into solitude. His co-workers don’t understand that he doesn’t want to hear about their computer problems during his lunch hour — he does that every other hour of the day. That’s why the computer guy eats lunch alone with his door closed, or goes out to eat every day — not because he’s unfriendly, but because he needs to escape the incessant interruptions.

Reason #1 – You Have No Identity

It’s an awful experience when the computer guy shows up at a neighbor’s doorstep with a plate of Christmas cookies, only to have the child who answered the door call out, “Mom, the computer guy is here!” He begs for an identity that is not directly associated with computers, but “the computer guy” label walks ahead of him — it simply cannot be avoided. I was given a name and I’d love to be addressed by it.

Having read these reasons, you may believe that I’m complaining. It’s true that I was upset with many aspects of my life as the computer guy, but I’m past the point of complaining.

I took a good hard look at my existence and realized that things were not likely to change in the line of work I had chosen. Instead of just complaining, I took action and began making positive changes in my life.

Working in the computer industry isn’t for everybody. It wasn’t for me. I’ve compiled my reasons for putting it behind me and placed them here, so that anyone who is unsatisfied with their life working in computers might recognize it’s not for them either.

This could really happen.
Read this article from the pilot

First off I had to figure out the real IP. For this I abuse a web site called whatismyip.com by dumping the text into awk, ripping out the IP and exporting the variable $IP.

I did this by adding this to the top of /etc/init.d/S95custom-user-startup:
for myip in `links -dump http://whatismyip.com | awk '/ Your IP Is/{print $NF}'`
do
export IP=$myip
done


Then I had to turn off demon mode of ez-ipupdate in /etc/init.d/S52ez-ipupdate

Find this line:
/usr/sbin/ez-ipupdate -d -F $PID_F -c $ddns_conf -b $ddns_cache -i $wan_interface -e $ddns_exec_ok

Change it to:
/usr/sbin/ez-ipupdate -a $IP -F $PID_F -c $ddns_conf -b $ddns_cache -e $ddns_exec_ok

Please note the addition of the “-a $IP” above. This is where we pass the real IP to ez-ipupdate.

Then I added this line to /etc/init.d/S95custom-user-startup to restart the ez-ipupdate after the $IP variable has been passed.
/etc/init.d/S52ez-ipupdate restart

Then I added a cron job that checks and updates the IP every half hour.
crontab -e
*/30 * * * * /etc/init.d/S52ez-ipupdate restart
/etc/init.d/S60cron restart

Reboot the router and your DynDNS IP should get updated! w00t!

Manually Install new hard drives: This was simple. It’s a dell with some green rails that make it easy.We set them both as masters and threw them on different IDE channels so we have /dev/hda & /dev/hdc and then we got busy.

fdisk the /dev/hda drive

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hda1 1 13 104391 fd Linux raid autodetect
/dev/hda2 14 12463 100004625 fd Linux raid autodetect
/dev/hda3 12464 12713 2008125 82 Linux swap / Solaris

We don’t worry about the hdc drive because we are going to set up one drive and then just let the RAID restore the second drive, so we tell mdadm to create the array with a drive missing.

mdadm --create /dev/md0 --level=1 --raid-disk=2 missing /dev/hda1
mdadm --create /dev/md1 --level=1 --raid-disk=2 missing /dev/hda2

Then we format them

mkfs.ext3 /dev/md0
mkfs.ext3 /dev/md1

Mount them up

mkdir /mnt/md0
mkdir /mnt/md1
mount /dev/md0 /mnt/md0
mount /dev/md1 /mnt/md1


Next we go to single user mode and copy all the files over

init 1
cp -dpRxv /boot/* /mnt/md0
cp -dpRxv / /mnt/md1

Remount /dev/md0 to /mnt/md1/boot

umount /mnt/md0
mount /dev/md0 /mnt/md1/boot

Then chroot

chroot /mnt/md1 /bin/bash

Edit fstab changing sda to md’s

#/dev/sda2 / ext3 errors=remount-ro 0 1
#/dev/sda3 none swap sw 0 0
/dev/md1 / ext3 errors=remount-ro 0 1
/dev/md0 /boot ext3 defaults 0 2

Change the swap in fstab

#/dev/sda3 none swap sw 0 0
/dev/hda3 none swap sw 0 0
/dev/hdc3 none swap sw 0 0

Then we had to deal with grub

/boot/grub/device.map
#(hd0) /dev/sda
(hd0) /dev/hda
(hd1) /dev/hdc

/boot/grub/menu.lst
title Debian GNU/Linux, kernel 2.6.17
root (hd0,0)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.17 root=/dev/md1 ro
#kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.17 root=/dev/sda2 ro
initrd /initrd.img-2.6.17
savedefault

Install grub on the raid drives

grub-install /dev/hda
grub-install /dev/hdc

Then re-installed the linux-image so a new initrd would be built & installed
dpkg -i /usr/src/linux-image-2.6.17.dk5.1.deb

Now we reboot and when we get to the grub on sda which is still plugged in we hit “e” for edit and change root=/dev/sda to root=/dev/md1 and then hit “b” to boot it to the raid. and drink a shot of tequila.

So now we have it booted up on the md devices, however we still have to bring the second drive into the array. We start by copying the partition tables over.

sfdisk -d /dev/hda | sfdisk /dev/hdc

Then add them to the array

mdadm /dev/md0 -a /dev/hdc1
mdadm /dev/md1 -a /dev/hdc2

Let it rebuild, when finished you end up with this

/proc/mdstat
Personalities : [linear] [multipath] [raid0] [raid1] [raid5] [raid4] [raid6] [raid10]
md1 : active raid1 hdc2[0] hda2[1]
100004544 blocks [2/2] [UU]
md0 : active raid1 hdc1[0] hda1[1]
104320 blocks [2/2] [UU]

unused devices:

Reboot and disconnect scsi drive
Linux Software RAID Upgrade … done

usb 1-5: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 2
usb 1-5: device descriptor read/64, error -110
usb 1-5: device descriptor read/64, error -110
usb 1-5: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 3
usb 1-5: device descriptor read/64, error -110
usb 1-5: device descriptor read/64, error -110
usb 1-5: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 4
usb 1-5: device descriptor read/8, error -110
usb 1-5: device descriptor read/8, error -110
usb 1-5: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 5
usb 1-5: device descriptor read/8, error -110
usb 1-5: device descriptor read/8, error -110

If I Remove the USB2 driver with “rmmod ehci_hcd” the ohci_hcd module works just fine but its USB1 slow. So I’m updating the kernel in hopes that this is some bug in the ehci module that will be fixed up good in the newer kernel.

I’m into the world of “emerge” and this could take a while to get the stuff I need updated. I kinda wish “hugh” was like the rest of my computers here, running Debian so I could just install a pre-built kernel quickly to test my theory.

Okay, Hours have passed and I finally got the new kernel installed. I must stress two things that got me good.

1) grub needed to be config’ed by hand. I screwed up and learned this after rebooting.

2) Running etc-update is required! I again screwed up and the init scripts were completely b0rked.

I’ll wrap this up with some good news, the new kernel 2.6.18 is now running and the USB2 is working great and hauling ass. w00t!