Category Archives: IT

Quicksilver slowdown, crashes, but fixable

My Macbook Pro was getting slower and unresponsive. Then, Quicksilver started to crash. Thanks to some other blog, I found the clipboard module was trying to store huge clipboard data, resulting in a 930 Mb file. To fix it, stop Quicksilver, remove ~library/Application Support/Quicksilver/Shelves/QSPasteboardHistory.qsshelf and restart Quicksilver. My MBP is now fast again.

client-side backup of CALDAV calendars

I recently published a server-side script to backup all calendars stored in a Davical server. On request and idea of Bruno Friedmann, here is a script to save your own calendars from the client. It’s not very elegant (eg it doesn’t discover your calendars but need a static list) but basically works.
#!/bin/sh
#
# save ICS calendars [...]

a test from my iPhone

Blogpress is an iPhone app to post blog entries. With BTstack, a Bluetooth keyboard and a jailbroken iPhone, it’s quite usable for posting on the go.

1195 days uptime. Try this with Window$

I’m sure someone will complain about the non-patched status of this server and tell me I’m a loosy admin.

expensive thermometer

I had to certify a new device category on a customer NMS, naming a Cisco 2911. To check whether Cisco did a good job with their MIB, I had to cool it down, which was easy, as we have winter right now.

Success, zone-IntakeLeft went down to 10°. I had to close the windows to avoid [...]

DAViCal automated backup

This little script automates the dump of your DAViCal database :
#!/bin/sh
PATH=/bin:/usr/bin
export PATH
backup_location=/data/backups/davical
now=`date “+%Y.%m.%d_%H.%M.%S”`
backup_file=$backup_location/davical_$now.pgdump
su – postgres -c “pg_dump -Fc davical > $backup_file”
gzip $backup_file
# remove old backups
find $backup_location -type f -name “davical_*.pgdump.gz” -mtime +30 -exec rm {} \;
exit 0
Install it as /etc/cron.daily/davical_backup on your Linux box.
To restore your database after a disaster, use this :
createdb –owner davical_dba [...]

davical rocks

DAViCal is an implementation of the CALDAV standard. It’s open source, developed by Andrew McMillan, and quite simple to install if you know a few bits of Apache configuration. I got it working with two iCal instances and 2 iPhones (wife and me), with a few shared calendars for family and kids stuff.
In version 0.9.8, [...]

Another normal day at work

Two CCIE’s trying to solve a multicast issue, half an hour before getting drunk during the X-mas party.

SNMP get limit on ifAlias lifted

If you have a Cisco device with an extremely long interface description, NMS platforms and tools (like snmpget and snmpwalk) only shows the first 64 bytes of the ifAlias field.
To lift this limitation, use this command :
snmp ifmib ifalias long
The limit is then rised to the MIB maximum for DisplayString (255 bytes). The command is [...]

Brother QL-570 on OS X Leopard

I bought this label printer based on the OS X and Linux support. Respect to Brother for their multi-platform drivers, other manufacturers ignore anything beside Window$. The printer comes with a cool software called P-touch Editor.
I downloaded the software online, but when using the version for OS X 10.5.x (Leopard), it always crashed with this [...]