A random thread for small computing things that don't really warrant a thread of their own

[David Martin]

I've got a cisco 2950 sitting on a shelf in the office that I must find a use for at some point (and learn how to configure.)

[Afasoas]

I've got a cisco 2950 sitting on a shelf in the office that I must find a use for at some point (and learn how to configure.)

That's a blast from the past!
I spent 3 days last week learning to configure some Dell S4048T-ON switches which I'll be installing in our data centre next week. First time I've used a serial port to configure anything and first time I've used a CLI only switch.

On a different note, I need to find myself a USB to serial-in-ator so I can configure the APC IP-enabled PDU I've required for the home-rack. It will be nice being able to remotely switch the lab on and off, as well as monitor the power utilisation of each plugged in device.

[David Martin]

I'm not sure I followed much of that at all. We might roll it into a lab network switch with authorised MAC addresses only to provide a secure net for our ancient lab kit that we can then bridge to the wider world via an appropriate gateway (possibly a raspi or similar with a script that will upload to a shared folder on Box)

[Afasoas]

I'm not sure I followed much of that at all. We might roll it into a lab network switch with authorised MAC addresses only to provide a secure net for our ancient lab kit that we can then bridge to the wider world via an appropriate gateway (possibly a raspi or similar with a script that will upload to a shared folder on Box)

Honestly, Unless you need all the ports on the Catalyst, I'd just get an 8 or 16 port 'smart' switch. They are relatively cheap and the Web GUI makes them fairly easy to configure.
As a gateway device, I'm not sure I'd use a RasPi ... strictly speaking it would need two network ports, unless you are hopping from ethernet to WiFi.

[David Martin]

In my case I will probably discuss this with our IT folk and let them use their expertise to enable a solution that works for us all. A far better choice. At the moment it is sneaker net.

I had a quick look at the 2950 manual - 600+ pages. Some of which might be written in English. Out of my depth here.

[Mr Larrington]

Crivens! Google have done an update to Chrome for iOS which has actually fixed a problem, specifically that it is no longer slower than a drugged-up slof.  It's still slower than Puffin, but a good deal easier to read.  Soz, Puffin.

[Feanor]

I've got a cisco 2950 sitting on a shelf in the office that I must find a use for at some point (and learn how to configure.)

If it talks RS232 out of an RJ45 connector, you'll need the cisco RJ45 to DB9 serial cable.
Let me know if you need one...

[Bledlow]

Apple - bah! Fucking rip-off arsewipes!

£19 for a cable to connect an iPad to a charger.   And it's only needed because the old one (original one supplied with the iPad, so what the Californian profiteers say is 19 quid's worth) decided to short out where cable meets plug. Cue burning smell, heat which melted the insulation, & an electric shock for Mrs B when she pulled it out. Well-made & worth almost £20? I think not.

Hi-ho, it's off to the nearest vendor of apparently reliable replacements at less than half the price, the Shop Known as Maplin, because Mrs B can't wait for something much cheaper still off the Interwebs & take the chance that it won't work.

She could get one for nothing, in theory, but she'd have to go to Oxford to collect it from her employer's IT base.

[Kim]

While exciting new connector standards are a big part of what you sign up for with Apple products, you do start to wonder why they persist with these evidently far too thin power cables...

[tiermat]

My phone curled up its toes today. I have had it just over a year, the camera started playing up a couple of months ago and the reboot I did today was, obviously, a reboot too many! Back on to the previous phone for now until I get the new one, from Hong Kong, next week. I have had enough of Oneplus so am going for a Moto Z.

[Bledlow]

While exciting new connector standards are a big part of what you sign up for with Apple products, you do start to wonder why they persist with these evidently far too thin power cables...

Yeah. Thinner than those for any of our other (all non-Apple) computing devices.

It's basically a USB cable with a proprietary connector on one end, but much thinner than any of the drawer full of other USB cables we have. Perhaps it's trying to be elegantly minimalist, inspired by the late Mr Jobs. 

The iPad's not Mrs B's choice, BTW. NHS-supplied, illustrating a distinct lack of joined-up thinking, as of course it doesn't work with the password-protected USB stick the NHS gave her for transferring data between devices.

[Mr Larrington]

Apple - bah! Fucking rip-off arsewipes!

£19 for a cable to connect an iPad to a charger.   And it's only needed because the old one (original one supplied with the iPad, so what the Californian profiteers say is 19 quid's worth) decided to short out where cable meets plug. Cue burning smell, heat which melted the insulation, & an electric shock for Mrs B when she pulled it out. Well-made & worth almost £20? I think not.

Hi-ho, it's off to the nearest vendor of apparently reliable replacements at less than half the price, the Shop Known as Maplin, because Mrs B can't wait for something much cheaper still off the Interwebs & take the chance that it won't work.

She could get one for nothing, in theory, but she'd have to go to Oxford to collect it from her employer's IT base.

I got one the other week for a tenner from Mr Sainsbury's House Of Toothy Comestibles.

[Biggsy]

Or get one for pennies off eBay - although it'll also be thin to save copper (might even be alubloodyminium wire).  I suppose App£e's are thin for the sake of high flexibility and fashionability.

[ian]

I've never broke a lightning cable and I regularly screw them up and toss them in a bag for transport around the world. They don't seem notably thinner than the USB cable on my desk (which might admittedly be made out of Chinese cheese string) and unlike USB, they aren't whichwayround shit. That said, they seem to breed under my desk and I unaccountably seem to find them lying on the pavement (OK, I've found two).

[Feanor]

My kids go through lightning cables like crazy.
They dangle their phones by them and all kinds of nonsense.

They get bulk-grade Amazon ones now, they last no better or worse than Apple originals.
But at a fraction of the price, I have a hidden stash to be doled out as required.
The stash needs to be hidden, otherwise they would just steal them the moment they couldn't find one in their middens.

[ian]

Well, I wouldn't pay £20 for a cable (though if it's minidisplay port-VGA or HDMI cable suck up the cost and buy the Apple one, I have a draw full of Chinese knock-offs that distinguish themselves by failing to work in several different ways – if you really don't like the colour blue, I have the cable for you).

As a fruity type, I have a house that seems to accumulate Apple chargers and cables. This iMac came with two cables and then I had the mouse replaced on account of wobbles, so they gave me another mouse and cable.

[Mr Larrington]

It's only a matter of time before the pukka FruitCo one that came with this fondleslab snaps just south of the Lightning end; the outer insulation looks as though it's been nibbled to DETH by an okapi.

[T42]

Went into the social security site yesterday to get an EU Health Insurance card. The appropriate page directed me to a full-page country selection which directed me to (ta-da) the local social security site. Another link thereon prompted me to Get the App!!! Thinking thereby to get a phone-based card I flashed the QR code**, downloaded & installed a snazzy-looking piece of shininess which when launched downloaded about a meg of data, then brought up a full-screen country selection page which, when I tapped the wee French flag, took me by a series of very familiar options to the phone version of (ta-da') my local social security site.

Ouroboros, thy name is Sécurité Sociale. Only they do not eateth their owne tayles, they live with their heads up their arses, admiring the view.

**and the front wheel fell off. No it didn't.

[T42]

Sequel: phoned up the local SS office.  "Sure, what's your number? Gotcha. OK, you'll have it in 10 days. What's that, you tried via the web site? You shouldn't do that, it doesn't work."

[Bledlow]

Apple - bah! Fucking rip-off arsewipes!

£19 for a cable to connect an iPad to a charger.   And it's only needed because the old one (original one supplied with the iPad, so what the Californian profiteers say is 19 quid's worth) decided to short out where cable meets plug. Cue burning smell, heat which melted the insulation, & an electric shock for Mrs B when she pulled it out. Well-made & worth almost £20? I think not.

Hi-ho, it's off to the nearest vendor of apparently reliable replacements at less than half the price, the Shop Known as Maplin, because Mrs B can't wait for something much cheaper still off the Interwebs & take the chance that it won't work.

She could get one for nothing, in theory, but she'd have to go to Oxford to collect it from her employer's IT base.

I got one the other week for a tenner from Mr Sainsbury's House Of Toothy Comestibles.

£7.99 for a short (but just long enough) one from Maplin. Progressively longer ones £1 more for each step up.

[Afasoas]

Made my biggest mistake by a country mile in a very long time.
I wound up deleting every file over 60 days old under '/' on the home server. I suspect the only reason I still have internet access is Linux's ability to continue running despite losing its underlying file system. This is going to be a fun few days, and an opportunity to find out how good my backups are.

I figure it's not a bad time to make the switch from Ubuntu to Debian either.

[Afasoas]

My backup regime works. Home server is up and running and all services are restored 
I've added 'set -eu' to all the backup scripts so changing a variable name doesn't mean that lines like 'find ${backupFolder}/* -ctime +60 -delete' become potentially lethal.

All I've got left now is rebuilding the backup server on Debian Jessie and re-enabling the ZFS backup jobs.

[Ham]

This may only apply to Nougat on Nexus.

Recent upgrades (how difficult would it be to leave a readme.txt or the like on the phone to let us know what has happened?) appear to have some very useful enhancements. Now, if you tap and hold an icon on enabled apps (=Google apps at the mo) you get shortcuts to common tasks. eg, on gmail, compose and mail to common contacts, messages, create message etc. All more useful than it first sounds.

[Afasoas]

Asus' iKVM aint no DRAC but it sure is nice sitting on the sofa whilst installing Debian on my backup server.

Really pleased to report no issues running QEMU/KVM or ZFS under Debian.

[andrewc]

https://my.matterport.com/show/?m=Vz8kCqGRjQA      3d walk through the National Museum of Computing (seems to be a work in progress).