The iPod is probably the best portable music player the world has ever seen. It's simple to use, easy to operate, and instantly updatable. It's easy to take this beautiful and reliable device for granted. But the iPod isn't perfect. One of our pet peeves is the inability to transfer an iPod's music back to a computer. There are a handful of nice applications you can use to take back control of your iPod.

So, I was doing some work for a customer the other day. And I had to transfer files from one point to another, sadly, the only thing I had to work with was either rcp or ftp. So basically, I got to choose between two things I dislike quite alot.

Anyway, the structure was all in place, it was just the files that needed to be updated. Since ftp and "mput *" doesnt traverse directories I made a simple solution...

Well... I've been terribly bad at updating this page. I'd like to blame it on the fact that its been a bother, at my previous employer, to actually move the scripts like three times before I can publish them.

But well, if I really would've been inspired to do that, I would've done it. So... im just lazy.

Anyway, time to start publishing some scripts. There is a new theme. I've cleaned the page up a bit and we're kicking it off.

Wrote a little one-liner for the countdown (or count-up rather) to Epoch time being 1234567890
It shows Current count, seconds left, and the target.

while sleep 1; do NOW=`date +%s`; let CD=1234567890-$NOW; let HOUR=$CD/60/60; let MIN=$CD/60%60; let SEC=$CD%60; printf "$NOW $HOUR:$MIN:$SEC ($CD seconds) until 1234567890 \r"; done

Enjoy it, while it lasts!... :-)
And remember, anyone claiming to be born before 1970 is lying!

I had the fortune to work as Oracle DBA for a while in a place where we had no administrative tools at all, so we had to do with good ol' sqlplus.
Here are two scripts, the first to check size and usage of all tablespaces and the other is for checking data files sizes and names.

I was directed to a link with some seriously impressive batch-coding.

This guy uses the very limited commands in batch programming to create a PI-calculator. Amazing.

Watch this:
http://thedailywtf.com/Articles/Stupid-Coding-Tricks-A-Batch-of-Pi.aspx

I also recommend following the links in that post.

Thank you hlindhe, next time. Post it yourself :-)

Today I had to reset the password on a HP9000 GSP (Guardian Service Processor), here is how to do it:

Log on as root at the console:

# stty +resetGSP < /dev/GSPdiag1

You will be prompted to press 'p' after a short while, do so, and then press ctrl-b and log on to the GSP using a blank user and password.