bigbrovar » Life

Why You Should Never Steal From a Linux Admin

gnPkRQiZBCnkyZo — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 09:39:46 +0000

Being a sysadmin does come with its ups and down. It’s not a job which comes with glory or fame. When things work no one even remembers to give you a pat in the back. You only hear from them when things go wrong (+ It won’t get you laid or score you high with the girls ). You get to spend countless hours dealing with “me myself and I” users who always seem to have issues that can escalate to bringing the world as we know it to an end if not promptly attended to. The pay is bad and the work hours are long. Simply put system administration is a job for those who love and have a passion for administering computers and their users.

However being a sysad is not all doom and gloom. Occasionally some ray of fun and power shines through the lonely boring Text based computer terminal (where we get to spend most of our working – and non working- hours). THAT day was one of the such days.

I had to do some work in the computer lab the day before. But when I closed for the day I left behind my most priced Scandisk 4GB usb thumb drive. I left it attached to a workstation I was setting up. I realized this very late and even then was too tired to bother going back to get it. Next day when I got to work I discovered that my thumb drive was missing. I asked some students who use the lab if there have seen my drive but no one seem to have any information about it. I was going to give up when a colleague suggested I check the syslog to see when the drive was removed from the pc it was attached to. Syslog showed it was disconnected around 22:05 5 hours after I closed from work.

Jul 22 22:05:19 aust-desktop kernel: [25109.783629] usb 1-6: USB disconnect, address 4

Every computer where I work has been configured to authenticate with our central ldap server. The particular PC I was working on however has not been set up to use this authentication so chances are that the individual who took my usb drive must have gone to the PC with the intention of use it for work before noticing the drive. He most have tried logging in and because the PC was not connected to ldap must have been told his login was not successful. Either way I decided to check the auth. Log of the PC which keeps a record of all logging attempts. From there I noticed a failed logging in from a certain username at around 22:03 (about the same time the usb was disconnected).

Jul 22 22:03:49 aust-desktop gdm-session-worker[2653]: pam_succeed_if(gdm:auth): error retrieving information about user nameofuser

I went through the record of our users and was able to link the username to the particular user. Thankfully his phone number was also part of the records. I simply gave him a call and politely asked him to give back what belong to me. He stuttered and said he had taken it for safe keeping. I said I completely understood thanked him and told him I would appreciate if he could drop the drive at my desk. I am happy to say that I got my drive back Thanks to a little bit of luck mixed with some sysadmin Ninja moves.

Guess we can say the moral of the story is NEVER steal a usb drive belonging to your system admin especially when it is connected to a system that runs *Unix. Or better still don’t steal period

A walk in the Savannah

gnPkRQiZBCnkyZo — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 11:44:46 +0000

Walking is one of my favourite hubbies . I always love to take an evening walk to no where in particular, just follow the road and see where it leads. It helps me think and clears my head of clutters.

The first thing I fell in love with since moving to Abuja is the abundant (unspoilt) natural environments (having loved little since then.) Even from my sit in the plane my first view of Abuja was a wowed moment for me. The grassland dotted with trees, the little (sometimes large) hills and rocks which surrounds the city.

This is completely different from what I am used to in Lagos, which unlike Abuja lies in the Rain forest region of Nigeria, characterized by Thick Rain forests, many of which are being lost to Urban expansion everyday. (A story for another day.) Abuja lies in the Guinea Savannah belt (Where the desert meets the forest)

I made a promise to myself that one day I would take a walk into the wood lands and get lost. So last week I needed to clear my head after a tough week of work (and other things) I decided to fullfill that promise. It was the most refreshing experience ever.

The best things in life are free. In a world obsessed with concrete and anything with an electronic chip, it was such a refreshing change to be alongside nature. Escaping from all traffic and human structures, all I could feel was the wild breeze blow across my face. I had time to really take in every little detail such as watching the trees, to feel so tiny and insignificant among rolls and rolls of grass land, dotted with trees which stretch as far as the naked eye could see. It felt so good, that I came back to my apartment with a clear, calm head and mind. I was ready to face another day in this concrete and electronic chip obsessed world

This weekend its Football not Free Software

gnPkRQiZBCnkyZo — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 05:35:59 +0000

Beside computers and free and open source software, and music and watching classic movies, my first ever passion in life was football. Fell in love when the Nigerian Youth team played in Saudi Arabia. I still remember the game tagged the miracle of Dar-man when we were down to the then USSR by 4-0 and with 20 min to go we equalized and went on to win the game on penalties. Ever since i have been a loyal supporter of the Nigerian National team through thick and thing.

This weekend we had a crucial world cup qualifier game against Tunisia it is a must win game for us. If we lose or draw then our qualification to the world cup would have left our hands and would depend on Tunisia (who currently top our group) losing . I decided to do something i have never done before. Bought a ticket and went to see the game live at the Abuja National Stadium. I was not alone and lots of Nigerians and non Nigerians came out in large numbers all wearing the national colors so the whole arena was painted green and white.

It was a great game our boys played really well, but we drew the match which was really painful because we led the game twice but the Tunisian came back. oh well i guess there are no guarantee in life we live to fight another day i guess. Anyway here are some pictures i took at the stadium thought i should share.

P.S I really missed the presence of someone who is very dear to me, just want to say i missed you very much and i love you dearly. i wrote this for you. (you know who you are)

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The Geek and his Girlfriend

gnPkRQiZBCnkyZo — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 23:00:54 +0000

Some 4 years ago I was still in college studying law. I met this cute girl under the tree in a student park area of the Lagos State University. It wasn’t quite love at first sight cause the first time we met my sight was else where. However the second sighting was when I was hooked. Looking into her brown eyes I knew then that this was the girl I had been searching for , we hung out a lot and eventually got to know each other, we basically liked the same kinda music,movies, and even the same attitude to life. However it took a year of being good friends ( and sometimes enemies) before we had our first kiss. A kiss that signaled the start of a relationship. Through thick and thin we have weathered the storm. It wasn’t easy but because we had each other it was a fun ride through all the tears and laughter and all the stumbling we meet along the way. We have come out stronger and more determined to be together. Fast forward to 4 years later and she is till at school while I got a job to as a system admin for the African University of Science and Technology AUST in Abuja about 10 hours drive from our home in Lagos .It would be the first time we would ever be apart. But we have weathered the storm yet again and today being our 4^th year anniversary I would like to tell you Tope Aino that I miss you very much and I love you dearly and would want to spend the rest of my life with you. Thanks for all your support and encouragement I would never have been where I am today without you. I love you very much and I promise that as long as I have my breath in me you will never walk alone

N.B and sorry for all the time I spent more time in my Geeky world than give you the attention you truly deserve but has you know I have gotten better. But my grand evil plan is to make you become a Geek so am getting you a gadget before the end of the year. which I hope would bring out the geeky side of you so that we can both live geekly and happily ever after.

Give me Freedom …To trust a Nigerian

gnPkRQiZBCnkyZo — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 01:48:52 +0000

After getting tired of the cat and mouse game i had to go through to get my ipod touch to play well with my Ubuntu .. i finally gave up sold it and ordered the Nokia N810. The iTouch by its self is a cool device. I had no problem with it. But I run basically A free Operating system which the iTouch was not build to support. Although I could get it to sync with Amarok and Gtkpod with the help of jailbreak and some special hacks it wasn’t ideal and I would have to be within a wireless network for the hack to work. Add that to the guilty conscience that comes with using the most proprietary device ever made by man. i never had this feeling of community and ownership I get with my Ubuntu box. And although I could use it relatively without the risk of been locked in a proprietary system like Mac or Windows. i was not completely free because if my iTouch firmware got corrupted then I would need to reload using iTunes running on Windows or Mac.

Selling the ipod proofed to be the easy part . I posted the specs in Nairaland (a large on-line communities of Nigerians) and got a buyer in no time . However getting a replacement for it wasn’t so easy. I settled for the Nokia N810 .my choice wasn’t hard it does just about everything the itouch does plus its runs on a free OS and runs Maemo a port of Debian for Mobile device what else could I ask for. Now the hard part .getting hold of the Tablet . I tried searching the length and breath of Nigeria. Called every Nokia store, all the back street of Computer Village ( a huge open market were computers devices are sold in Lagos). Nothing . There was no chance in hell for me to order one on-line . Everything on-line transaction by a Nigerian in Nigeria is banned for reasons we all know .so I didn’t even try. Just when I was about giving up hope . I met a Nigerian based in Canada who promised to help me buy the tablet for a fee and ship it down to Nigeria. Hmmm sound like a scam to me .. only that there was something about this guy that was different . I couldn’t place it but I didnt have any problem trusting him . Sent $460 to his account cost of Device + a pouch + an 8gb micro sd card plus shipping. It was a stupid thing to do I know ..i broke the eternal rule (trusting a stranger on the net and not just any stranger a Nigerian ) and I was going to get burnt. Has if this was not bad enough I also ordered for the dell xps m1330 with Ubuntu pre-installed and paid over $1541 to his account for the dell notebook and a couple of accessories . Right now am keeping my fingers crossed and in two weeks time we shall know whether my extreme attempt to support free and open source software has blocked my sense of reason. I could easily get a dell m1330 running vista from a local store here and easily load Ubuntu on it . But for the first time I want to vote with my pocket and support a hardware company that support Linux . Even if I risk being duped . If in the end am scammed of over $2000. would it be worth the effort .. I guess we shall know in two weeks time .

Linux is taking over – in my work place

gnPkRQiZBCnkyZo — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 16:37:23 +0000

We run ubuntu servers and all our computer labs run ubuntu. We do this not because the school management liked free as speech, but because its free as air. I am the IT guy and part of my job is to migrate of school computers to Ubuntu (including staffs computers given to them by the school). All our staffs run vista on their work laptops. I tried telling them about Linux but all i got was the middle finger (well more or less) . I could have forced them but that would make me a bad guy. So i waited knowing windows vista would do the dirty job for me eventually. It didn’t take long. I got a call, the accounting officer’s laptop got hit by a virus Norton was helpless. I told her our best bet in the long run was to install Linux since i couldn’t guaranty it wouldn’t happen again. She was nervous but i promised her that in a weeks time if she is not used to it then i would change her back to windows “cool”. So i grabbed the laptop, wiped out vista installed Linux Mint added screenlet, and all was ready ( yeah everything worked) and she was really impressed. 2 weeks later when she came back from a trip outside of town. I asked her how it was going, her response “awesome” no slow down, crashes or hanging, and the system is much faster. She loves openoffice, and rhythmbox … (i didn’t even tell her about rhythmbox she most have figured it out her self)

2 The school librarian runs xp on an ancient dell 1.1ghz celeron with 256 mb. the computer was has slow as hell. So i offered to speed things up with Linux. she said WTF is that, just do whatever .. as long has its fast and works .. so i plugged in the Ethernet cable and booted from the network (ubuntu life cd wouldn’t even boot).. from there i installed a CLI version of ubuntu, then i installed Xubuntu-desktop. added the lxde repo then installed lxde i removed firefox 3 and installed seamonkey, then installed mirage and made it the default picture viewer, for music i used sonata (setup with MPD) and rhythmbox. Now the laptop rocks and its blazingly fast. The lady thanks me everyday she is so very happy am sure if i ask i would probably get laid in a show of gratitud – but that is btw … and she is just some plain ol average jenny now she uses linux .. and probably doesn’t even know it ..

3 ..My boss called me to his office, i was scared turned out he wanted me to install a software on his windows laptop a djvu and a postscript viewer for windows i asked if he needed same for is ubuntu desktop he said naaa “ubuntu just work “. so after Google and finding nothing he liked i offered to dual boot is vista with linux he said ok so i installed ubuntu for him,. when everything was setup and for the first time he said thank you .. twice !

now the news is out that Linux is better after all .. some staffs are still holding out .. but trust vista .. it wont be long ..

How Linux Greatly Changed my Life

gnPkRQiZBCnkyZo — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 10:21:24 +0000

In the Beginning

First I missed my one year anniversary on Ubuntu which was on july 5th 2008. Its funny how I came to start using Linux because my journey started in a flame war btw me and some “Linux Geeks” in the biggest online forum for Nigerians http://www.nairaland.com/nigeria?top…262#msg1188262 ( I was such a jerk back then ) I was supporting windows vista (feel so ashamed right now) I have never used anything other than windows so I thought it was the best that computer can be. During the argument one thing which touched me was the continuous use of “open source” , “free”, (not the price free) and “community” by the linux guys. This concept were alien to me but they sounded good and I have always wanted an OS where the community matters something didnt get with windows and i thought that was how god made things to be .. so i MP one of the Linux guys apologized for being a jerk .. and asked him how i could install Linux .. if it had a GUI, if i could play music and use it like a general average user uses is computer without running geeky commands .. and he said yes and recommended i try Ubuntu .. so my journey began .. but it wasn’t an easy one .. i had to download the Ubuntu DVD.. (yeah i know i could have gone for the cd version but i wanted something big that wont require me to use the net too often) anyway it took me a week to download the 4gb dvd on my 10kbs modem.. b4 then i searched the web like i have never done before .. from blog to blog looking for how to dual boot and use Ubuntu .. i met many pple who told me that it was save and it wont kidnap me or my family. so

The BiG Change

mid night July 5 2007 .. the last bits of feisty fawn was downloaded .. it was i cold raining night .. so i grabbed a coffee .. went down to the closest thing to a basement in my house.. the it started .. i followed the guide to a T .. Gave Ubuntu 17gb out of my 160gb .. .. rebooted .. checked that windows was ok .. rebooted logged into Ubuntu .. and was greeted a splash and the welcoming sounds or feisty fawn .. for the first time in my life i was in a Desktop other than windows .. with the help of Adewale.. my former enemy now a comrade .. i setup Ubuntu for everything i needed .. with time i could do everything i did on windows on Ubuntu .. and because i used less and less of windows .. the vista partition started shrinking from 17gb-ubuntu – 45gb vista rest storage … it became 50gb-Ubuntu vista 20gb rest storage .. now its 50gb-ubuntu vista 0 rest storage

Giving to the Community
ever since coming to Ubuntu i have always wanted to be more than just a user .. i wanted to give back to the community and since am not a programmer or an artist and am always broke and cant donate .. i decided to with the help of Adewale form [url]ubuntunigeria.wordpress.com[/url] an Ubuntu loco that with the aim of promoting the value of open source and letting pple know that there is life outside windows .. to press home our point we got involved with many flame war in nairaland (the same forum where i was converted) and we objectively made the windows fan boys understand that Linux has moved from the bad old days of redhat and slax (no insult intended) .. we posted screenhots and and guides and howtos .. we left our numbers in the blog to offer support.. to bypass the lack of internet for most pple in Nigeria .. i made aptondvds that has almost everything that a new user would ever want .. we also used Ubuntu ultimate distro ..with is a wonderful distro for new users .. with time the calls started coming in .. people from all over Nigeria wanted to know more about ubuntu .. or get involved with our user group .. to make things easy we took in users from the different regions in Nigeria .. and we armed them with Ubuntu cds and aptondvds .. and if anybody request for an ubuntu cd ..we just directed him to the closest ubuntu Nigeria member to him .. so far the success has been quite modest .. i have been able to physically install and configure Ubuntu for more than 50 pple in Lagos alone .. not to talk about pple that we have influenced to make a switch .. for a country of 150 million pple that is tiny .. but remember to everyone that has changed .. it makes a different to them and we are a tiny group .. but we are highly motivated and passionate about what we do …

Payback Time

it started with call .. a certain Andy was having problems setting up dailup on his ubuntu box .. from his ascent i knew he wasnt Nigerian .he tried the guide i posted in the Ubuntu Nigeria Blog but it didn’t quite work.. and he called the number i left by the guide in case anyone had problems following the guide .. we went over the problem and got it fixed ..
next thing he send me an sms about job offers for linux geek in Abuja .. and he wanted me to come over for an interview .. i told him i dont have any certification in Linux and he said F that …i asked the community for tips and the responses were awesome .. http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=821616
he paid my flight to abuja and the interview was has smooth as butter ..
the next day was giving the job .. at AUST Afican University of Science and Technology .. its a new University which is backed by the world bank .. the aim is to build a world class university that would build the next generation of African Scientist .. the schools uses only open tools and my job was to deploy Ubuntu on all their systems and laptops for the students .. their job was to provide me with free accommodation with all the convinces ,free food,free laptop,free desktop… plus i get to use the gym,swimming pool,tennis court if i want to… the internet is also free i control it BTW… all this for a guy who start using ubuntu last year and who has formal IT qualification i read law in school .. but there liked my passion and the fact that i have a very good knowledge of the linux desktop ..

THE AUST CHALLENGE
TO make things easy we setup system imager which i used to build a customized ubuntu containing the very best of open source science tools that i got from research online … we mounted the home directory of all the users on an Ubuntu fileserver using NFS and ldap was used for authentication …
i took the students on how to use ubuntu .. and in the first few days things were rough but .. now must are pretty cool with it and are having it smooth ..

How to Help
Any tips on how to effectively manage an Educational Institution .. would do

Thanks

My Biggest Thanks goes to Afolabi Adewale he was instrumental in making me what iam today .. he helped me a lot made my transition not as rocky as it would have been if i did it alone .. i cant thank u enough

Man2fish we started Ubuntu almost at the same time .. he installed Ubuntu b4 me and told me that the coast was clear and he had not yet dead .. we are still good friends till this day ..

SupaSonic
my very good friend he encouraged me to take the job when i was afraid i might now be good enough .. we also helps me sort out some issues i have with ubuntu ..

barbedsaber
he is my best friend in the forums .. he has been a good friend of Ubuntu NIgeria and helped me edit some of my post they .. u awesome mehn for being a good friend .. thanks

and most of all to all the devs and the community who without u i wont be where i am today .. u have brought meaning to my life .. at a time when things were really down for me .. i promise to always support the open source course in everything i do …

Good to be Back

gnPkRQiZBCnkyZo — Mon, 18 Jun 2007 11:42:29 +0000

Its a Global village and its Been a while . This would be the first time time that i would be writing a post…i even forgot that i had a blog and attempted registering another blog when i was told i already had one account with wordpress..Now that i have constant internet access i hope to keep my blog up to date from time to time…in the spirit of sharing i have decided to share some of my experiences with window vista since a lot of people seem to be having problems with it in future post i would do a review of the Relatively New OS.although this is coming 6 month late..i believe that they are still a lot of people who would still like to read a review of the “controversial” OS.(yes controversial because many people have said many things about it some good / some bad.some are outrightly wrong/others have some element of truth in them).My review would be a from a end user point of review.
also hope to use this blog as a means of sharing some of the freebies that i enjoy in vista like wallpapers,cool utility applications and tricks and tweaks that would enhance your usage and Experience.
lastly these blog is also about my life and experience of daily life in Lagos..i love photography and my blog would be fall of them..

Its a global village and am happy to be a member of that hermlet ..once more