Scott.Buffington.me

More so than ever before Virtualization could be extremely useful for my personal use. Over the past few months I have been trying to come up with scenarios to reduce my need for multiple computers being used as well as multiple computers being powered on for extended periods of time as servers. Over the past couple years I have often used two computers acting as servers within my home, OpenSolaris and VirtualBox on one machine could replace both.

I kind of forgot about my LDAP server.  Oh well, seems to be working just fine. 

(w1mvsun01-root: /:129)-> uptime
  8:49am  up 542 day(s), 20:45,  1 user,  load average: 0.07, 0.06, 0.06

I mentioned online backup services, specifically SpiderOak, before and I do think there prices are relatively reasonable. But in the current economy it can be difficult to warrant spending $10 or more for off-site backups. If you have a trusting friend who does not mind you borrowing some of his bandwidth at 3am, you can opt for my solution.

My buddy Scott Wood and I were throwing around ideas for off-site backups while chatting on instant messenger and we decided that the best option was to provide each other some space. He provides me some disk space and Secure shell authentication to his home server and I provide him some disk space and Secure Shell authentication to my home server. We are starting out relatively small for now, about 50 GB each, but it's free and a whole lot more than the 2 GB that the online services provide for free. If this solution works well we always have the option of sending larger disks to one another.

Provided you have a similar setup, you could use software like Unison, which works on Windows and UNIX (Linux, BSD and such) systems, to synchronize your files on two hosts. For the record, even if you do not have an off-site alternative, software like Unison is still worth looking into, Unison can even work with two disks on one computer. You might find other software that you like better if you take the time to search around.

On the Macbook my solution is to continue with TimeMachine for my on-site backups and I scheduled a AppleScript to run at 3am which calls rsync to synchronize my home directory with the backup at Scott's house. Since discovering rsync a couple years ago I literally have used it thousands of times. I used rsync to copy terabytes of data at work from an old filesystem to a new filesystem on the same machine which enabled me to initiate rsync off hours and stop it in the morning and resume where I left off later on. By using rsync I was assured that I did not miss any changes to any files as rsync updates any bits that changed with any file, rsync is an awesome utility and far superior to a standard copy for so many reasons.

The past year, or at least going back to October of 2008 I have had perhaps the best ever year in the life of a sports fan.  The only other year that might compare for me is perhaps 1979 through 1980, but this year is probably superior.  In every major sport the team I root for now holds the championship.  I do not really follow the NBA or NHL other than reading headlines, but the teams I have rooted for during my lifetime has not changed.

• NFL Champion - Pittsburgh Steelers
• MLB Champion - Philadelphia Phillies
• NHL Champion - Pittsburgh Penguins
• NBA Champion - LA Lakers

Additionally the local American Hockey League team, the Hershey Bears have won the Calder Cup.  The two oldest trophies in the world now call Pennsylvania home.  My son Jacob touched the Calder Cup the other night at the Harrisburg Senators game.  Before someone asks, I have always been a fan of the LA Lakers.  Pittsburgh did not have an NBA team and the Phillies are the only major sports team I cheer for from Philadelphia. 

"Now we're talking price. Snow Leopard will be $29 to upgrade for Leopard users.  The Family Pack upgrade will be $49. It will be available in September, but the near-final developer preview will be available today."  -- Bertrand Serlet

So, how much are we going to pay for Windows 7 which is just a fixed Vista?  How long can Microsoft continue to run the cost commercials, nevermind every machine the people choose in the commercials are poorly reviewed junk.  You get what you pay for folks, well you do from Apple anyway.

Fun show at Hershey Park Stadium on Friday night and I can now say I finally saw Bruce Springsteen Live, something I have always wanted to do.  I just have never had an opportunity before and was extremely disappointed I could not make the show last August.  Friday was a beautiful night with temperatures in the low 70s and a packed stadium of 30,000 brought out a lot of energy from Bruce and the band.  This was the first stadium show of the tour and the second show featuring Jay Weinberg, Max Weinberg's 18 year old son.  Jay was AWESOME!  He thundered the house all night long on the drums.  I thought the show might have been the longest of the tour so far and I confirmed that at 2:58 it was indeed the longest show so far featuring a tight 27 songs.  The show began at 8:19 p.m.

"Hello Hershey, are you ready to be delivered?" Bruce asked as the band took the stage.
1. Badlands
2. Spirit In The Night
3. Outlaw Pete
4. Radio Nowhere
5. Out In The Street
6. Twist and Shout (sign request, tour premiere)
The sign read: "If U play Twist and Shout" I'll burn my Hannah Montana CDs"
7. Working On A Dream
"Good to be here tonight in the wonderful home of candy" Bruce said to the crowd.
8. Seeds
9. Johnny 99
10. The Ghost Of Tom Joad
11. Raise Your Hand
Bruce collected signs, there were so many.
12. Give the Girl a Kiss (sign request, tour premiere)
I met a guy from the Baltimore area and he said many people thought Bruce would play this at the Hershey show in August of 2008 but he did not.  Bruce picked up a sign that was a big Hershey kiss and on the white wrap it read: "Give the Girl a ...."  This was soundchecked earlier in the afternoon.  "This is very obscure," Bruce said. "Being we are in Hershey, Pa. we'll play it."  Then he was asking the band "How does it start? What's the first guitar part? Oh, just sing it... Who knows this one?"
13. Trapped (sign request)
"I've seen a lot of signs for this one," Bruce said.
14. Waitin' On A Sunny Day
15. The Promised Land
16. Backstreets
17. Kingdom of Days
Bruce mentioned how Patti was home recovering from falling off a horse and that she was also home because it was, "Prom night. My daughter is 17. Security!"
18. Lonesome Day
19. The Rising
20. Born To Run
House lights go up, 30,000 people in Hershey Stadium go crazy.  Even the kids, many 10 years old and younger were singing every word to every song.  You could feel that Bruce and the Band were feeling it.

Encores:

Before the encores Bruce said "I love all the signs but it's getting a little ridiculous."  He then mentioned "18-year-old Jay Weinberg taking over for his Dad. he's the first guy to sit in that seat for 35 years except for his pop. If you want to sit in that seat - that's saying something."
21. Hard Times
22. Thunder Road
23. Tenth Avenue Freeze-out
24. Land Of Hope And Dreams
25. American Land
26. Rosalita
The band was ready to leave when Bruce shouted out "We'll do one more!"  He called Jay and the others back out as they were leaving the stage.
27. Bobby Jean

Show over at 11:17 p.m.  I first discovered Bruce Springsteen when I was 13 years old during the "Born in the USA" craze, immediately dug the story telling style of his songs.  I quickly realized he had a whole lot of other awesome music way before that.  Though I have always had a soft spot for "No Surrender" and "Glory Days" both off "Born in the USA", neither one was played at this show.  But so many other great songs were played that I cannot say I was at all disappointed.  Let me tell you, this was three hours of music, with no long guitar or drum solos while the rest of the band disappeared, there was no intermission.  It was three hours of the Boss rocking the house and the entire E Street Band doing their thing.

Because sometimes he sings songs about me.

I made the last updates to the song count for the 2009 Tour today. 

Today the Space Shuttle Atlantis lifted off for what is being called the last visit to the Hubble Telescope.  The original Hubble mission was a huge disaster and a huge embarassment to NASA.  The missions that followed, that corrected Hubble and serviced the Telescope are among NASA's greatest achievements.  I think the images that come from Hubble are the most amazing and beautiful images ever taken. 

The STS-125 Team will install two new instruments, repair two inactive ones and perform the component replacements that will keep the telescope functioning into at least 2014.  I am wishing the team good luck, if indeed this is our last visit to Hubble, it would be fantastic to finish on a high note.

We have become a World that takes space flight for granted, very few people probably even knew about this mission.  Looking back at just a few Hubble accomplishments such as proving the existence of Black Holes, providing looks at stars and galaxies that we would have never seen, long views of the universe that have allowed us to look back in time and Hubble has even given us a better view of the planets in our own Solar System that it's importance to Science is just amazing. 

Those of us that were the early denizens of the Internet will not only remember GeoCities for its aesthetics, but also because many of us got our HTML feet wet there.  Anyone seriously interested in having a web presence quickly moved from the likes of GeoCities and Angelfire to their own domain and paid web hosting.  Yahoo has announced that sometime in the next year they will be officially closing GeoCities and its fabulous collection of blinking gifs and animated banners. 

GeoCities lost popularity with Internet beginners when blogging services and social networking sites the likes of MySpace and Facebook came onto the scene.  MySpace allows the ability for Internet newbiess to make even more annoying web pages than GeoCities could have ever dreamed, comprised of horrible gifs and loud auto-playing music and videos.  While Facebook prevents it's userbase from making the world's ugliest website, it makes up for these shortcomings with the endless parade of brain numbing applications, all stealing your privacy away with hardly an afterthought from the Facebook community.

Sure MySpace and Facebook are superior in many, many ways, but GeoCities will always have a warm place in my heart and many others.  One of the true pioneers to the Internet we know and love today will soon cease to exist.  Those of us who were here in the beginning will always remember the many black back grounded GeoCities sites with midi music and blinking gifs for as long as we live.

My oldest memories of baseball involve watching the Phillies and listening to Harry Kalas and Richie Ashburn call the games.  We lost Ashburn in 1997 and yesterday, 4/13/2009, we lost Harry Kalas. 

I mentioned Kalas and his call of the final out of the Phillies World Series victory this past Fall.  One of the other calls I vividly remember is Harry Kalas calling Michael Jack Schmidt's 500th homerun. 

I have no idea if I will ever latch onto another broadcaster as I did Harry Kalas and Richie Ashburn.  I doubt I will, with media being so broad now, those intimate relationships are not as prevalent.  The days of radio and 12 or 13 TV channels is gone and a unique voice and flair for calling baseball just does not seem as common anymore.  For me and every other Phillies fan, Kalas was the voice of the Phillies and baseball, though Vin Skully deserves a mention in my book.

Last night Comcast Sportsnet rebroadcast Harry Kalas' final called game, a Phillies 7-5 comeback victory over the Colorado Rockies at Coors Field.  As I watched the game and listened to Harry Kalas signoff for the last time I knew one of the last pieces of my childhood was gone.