seigafuse.com » Mike

The check_cuda plugin for Nagios has been updated

Mike — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 13:38:03 +0000

Thanks to Ray who pointed out a problem with the script under PHP5, the download of the plugin now includes a version that functions under PHP5, it can be found on this site here.

Best practice configurations

Mike — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 20:01:03 +0000

Just in case you didn’t know it … CIS is a great source for best practice configurations for various platforms from a security perspective. They also have audit tools available to members, but the benchmarks (best practice configurations) are available for public download. There is also a download for consensus security metric reporting in addition to other very useful information available on the site. It is worth spending a bit of time there if you have an interest in Information Systems security.

Site Updated

Mike — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 23:58:55 +0000

I updated the site to focus strictly on technology. All of my personal and photography related content has been moved to http://www.seigafuse.net. I also installed a new theme to freshen the layout and colors a bit.

Windows 7 Upgrade

Mike — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 15:31:08 +0000

I upgraded my home PC to Windows 7 this week. Vista was giving me issues (what else is new), so I decided to do the Windows 7 upgrade sooner rather than later. I don’t usually adopt a new OS this quickly, but given I was on Vista it seemed like a good idea.

The upgrade process was pretty simple, and other than a few annoying items (having to deauthorize the computer in iTunes prior to the upgrade, and having to deinstall ATI drivers) it was mostly painless. The upgrade did take several hours for me, as I do have a good amount of data (around 130GB).

I had to reinstall Roxio Easy Media Creator suite afterwards to get rid of an annoying messages about the Roxio Cine Player Media Decoder being missing. Also, the screen seems odd. The resolution setting is set the same as it was under Vista at 1440×900, but it looks like it has an odd aspect ratio. I was hoping to install new ATI drivers, but it appears Gateway has NO drivers at all for Windows 7 yet (see screenshot below).

No Windows 7 Drivers

So far the upgrade has been fine other than the look of the screen. New features are nice, I like the sticky and the fact that sleep mode works, peeking at the desktop, and the photo support for the desktop background and screensaver, but I like stability and reliability even better. Time will tell if Windows 7 delivers, but so far so good.

An update to OCS Diff Scripts

Mike — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 19:22:08 +0000

Here is an update to the OCS Diff Scripts courtesy of Dioni Vidal. Dioni is from Brazil and speaks Portuguese, so some of the messages are in Portuguese. If someone takes the time to translate, let me know and I will post the translations as well.

The installation remains the same as the original version, and you can find the details here. Dioni’s version adds reporting of sound and video changes to the hardware script, and adds software change reporting (added or removed) via ocssoftware.php.

Don’t forget to change the email addresses in ocshardware.php and ocssoftware.php on lines 15,16 and 17.

Once you are done the related cron jobs are likely to look something like this:

10 * / 1 * * php * apache / usr / share / ocsinventory-reports / ocsreports / ocssoftware.php
10 * / 1 * * php * apache / usr / share / ocsinventory-reports / ocsreports / ocshardware.php

Problems displaying source code

Mike — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 12:13:04 +0000

I had a few issues with displaying source code using the All Your Source plugin, but they are now resolved. Source code is visible on the site again.

Use your cell phone as a PDA without the PDA price

Mike — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 18:23:35 +0000

I used to use a Palm Pilot (a long time ago) as my PDA and I really liked it. But I really didn’t want to carry a PDA and a cell phone. I’ve always wanted to be able to use my cell phone’s calendar applicaiton to keep track of my appointments, but I didn’t want to go the Blackberry route and since I use Thunderbird for my home email my options were limited. At least they were until I found SyncCell. SynCell works great with my Verizon LG ENV3 and Thunderbird 2. I am using the Lightning 0.9 extension to add calendaring functions to Thunderbird and this combination is perfect for me. I can add my appointments on my PC or on my phone and SyncCell keeps them synchronized for me with just the click of a button. I just connect my phone to the PC with the USB cable, click on the One Sync shortcut in the quick launch bar and away it goes. I had tried to do this previously with my Razor and Motorola Phone Tools (MPT), but that never worked out since MPT didn’t support Thunderbird. I don’t have all the bells and whistles of a full PDA or a Blackberry, but that works for me since I don’t really need all those things and I didn’t want to have the platform dictate which email system I had to use. Check SyncCell out it might work for you as well.

Publishing websites and image galleries from Lightroom

Mike — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 18:03:17 +0000

I worked with a friend of mine to get his website and image galleries online. Since he is a Lightroom user and wanted to run his own website (as opposed to using something like SmugMug) I researched what his options were. I ran across a series of tools that fit his needs perfectly. The tools can be found here and all operate within Lightroom. My friend has Lightroom 2.4 and used the TTG LR Pages module to create his static pages such as Home, About and Contact. Then we setup TTG Highslide Gallery Pro and TTG Auto Index for the image galleries. Theses addons to Lightroom are great for a photographer who isn’t also a webmaster and just wants to publish pages and galleries from a tool he or she is already familiar with. TTG Highslide Gallery also allows a gallery to operate in “proofing/selection” mode to allow online client proofing and print selection. Check these tools out, the price is very good and it just might be what you were looking for. The site I helped my friend put together can be found here.

Update: Passed the CISSP exam!

Mike — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 14:38:39 +0000

Just a quick entry to note that I did pass the CISSP exam! I still have to get endorsed by an existing CISSP (done) and get my years of experience proven (paperwork submitted). Now I am just waiting for ISC2 to complete the process so I can officially say I am a CISSP!

Update: I got confirmation today (April 9th, 2009) that my endorsement and certification were approved. So, I am now officially a CISSP!

Studying for CISSP exam

Mike — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 13:44:04 +0000

I have been studying to take the CISSP examination. You can read about the CISSP exam here. Since this has kept me pretty busy, but I did not want to fall behind on my Fifty Two project I combined the two and ended up with the shot below. I think it turned out pretty well