Tools and waiting

Posted on 2006-07-29 by frank

I pulled one of the wheels off the car using the new socket set, breaker bar, and jack I bought last week. My plan was to jack up the car using the lift point under the very front of the frame, then put a jack stand under the one behind the front wheel, then jack up the rear of the car using the one under the tow anchor, then put another jack stand under the one in front of the rear wheel. That way, I could rotate the tires while doing the brakes, and jack stands seem like a better idea while working than the jack itself. There’s good news and bad news. Good news — I don’t see any T40 fasteners anywhere around the brakes, so I don’t think I need to go buy one of those afterall. Bad news — the new jack is just shy of tall enough when fully extended on the front lift point to get the front tire off the ground, so it looks like I’ll be returning that $20 jack set for a slightly taller version.

FedEx says the rotors and pads are out on the truck for delivery so I hope to get those today. I’d much rather try this job on the weekend than after work!

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The Do It Yourself Dilemma

Posted on 2006-07-29 by frank

Or, how I’m trying save money and increase my self-reliance by doing things myself, but because I’m relatively new to it, I’m spending much (most?) of the monetary savings on tools.

For example, the Saab was recently up for spark plug replacements, so I ordered the spark plugs and did that job. While I was in there, I realized the air filter and ventilation air filters were both overdue to be replaced. I haven’t been doing such a good job on keeping up with some of these things, so of course I’m turning to the geeky solution — find an application to help!

The engine air filter was easy, just a couple of clamps I removed by hand. To replace the ventilation air filter, I had to remove the windshield wipers, which of course required a socket I didn’t have. I went to Sears with Scott on the way back from lunch one day to get this 13mm socket, and ended up buying a 155-piece tool kit, on sale for 33% off. I figured I’d be set!

Not two days later, the front brakes on the Saab started squealing. Inspection and consultations with friends and mechanics pointed out that the brake pads and rotors both needed to be replaced — we’ve put 32K miles on the car and the pads weren’t new when we bought it! I may or may not need a Torx T40 to replace it. I guess I should jack up the car first to see. Of course, the toolset I bought last week doesn’t have a T40, so if I need it, that’s another trip the hardware store.

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Panther Server’s Open Directory forgot how to authenticate me

Posted on 2006-07-18 by frank

So I was sitting at my desk this morning, more or less happily working away. I needed to ssh to the xserve a couple of times for some reason or other. The last time I did it this morning, I was unable to authenticate. It asked for my password, strange enough in itself since I use ssh’s public key authentication for logging in to that server.

I had some problems a couple of months ago with my admin users losing the ability to authenticate changes on the directory, so we couldn’t do things like change user’s passwords when they forgot them. After searching far and wide on the web and finding nothing, as well as asking Applecare Premium Support for a fix, they suggested I export all the Open Directory user entries, demote the server to standalone, re-promote it to OD master, and then import all the users. Of course you can’t export the passwords since they’re all encrypted at rest, so I had to generate new passwords for the 20-odd users we have. It was slightly painful, I wouldn’t want to do it again, but not the end of the world.

I’ve always suspected I had those original authentication problems because at one point I had problems logging in as a user, so I changed them from using Open Directory password to using a crypt password, then back again. I got the impression that was a bad idea, so I didn’t want to try it again in this case.

I figured since my user couldn’t log in and changing the password didn’t help matters, I’d just delete the user and then re-create it with the same user id and attributes. When I did that, I was surprised to see Workgroup Manager complain there was already a user with that name!

A few more go-rounds with Applecare Premium Support led me to discover the user also had a stub of an entry in the NetInfo database on that server. When I deleted that entry stub, I was able to use Workgroup Manager to re-create the user’s entry, and now everything seems back to normal.

Except, of course, the three hours it took to go through this process, which I would like back. I’m beginning to think Apple isn’t too good at enterprise-level service and support, and that we should have bought a nice Linux box and a support contract from IBM or something.

I’ve entered a number of bugs against Mac OS X Server, and the response I typically get is that engineering is investigating the issue, and it usually seems to result in them advising me to upgrade to OS X Server 10.4. However, after reading all the discussion boards on Apple’s support site, I’m frankly terrified of 10.4 Server, since it seems like people have more problems with it than they did with 10.3!

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MORE COFFEE!

Posted on 2006-07-15 by frank

Another coffee shop opened up in Evans. This one is in a new strip mall with a nice facade across from the Super Wal-Mart, in the same strip as American Dream Machines and a bunch of empty storefronts. It’s less than a mile down the road from Serendipity, and less than two miles from the two Starbucks located in Mullins Crossing.

On the mornings I’m too lazy or hurried to make my own coffee or for some reason rationalize to myself that I DESERVE a commercially prepared fancy coffee beverage, now I’m presented with the tough decision — which coffee shop?

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Almost pro for five minutes

Posted on 2006-07-10 by frank

Yesterday morning I ended up riding a new route with Phil, Brian, and Brett. Phil’s training for a really long ride, something crazy like 750 miles in 92 hours, so he had already ridden 40-something miles when he met us at the Park. The other two guys were new to me. Apparently they’ve got a few other folks at work who also ride, and since they’re out in Grovetown already, they just start from there rather than meeting at the Park for the regularly-scheduled group rides. As an added bonus they start earlier, which means if I went riding with them sometimes I’d probably be able to get home for dinner!

Anyway the new route started out heading to Harlem counter-clockwise, then instead of continuing that loop, you turn right on County Line Road, just before Gordon Highway.

The resulting loop is a really nice 52 miles, with two notably excellent stretches of road. First of all, after turning off County Line Road and heading back towards Appling, the road is pretty rough for a bit, but then transitions to smooth pavement and slightly downhill rollers for a couple miles. This is a section of road where reasonably fit recreational cyclists can feel, for five minutes, what it might be like to be a pro, as you hammer along in a paceline at 30+ MPH. Of course we only manage to keep that pace for five minutes, not five hours, as the downhill rollers end in a short but momentum-sapping hill that returns us to our 15 MPH reality.

For a look at how the real pros ride, check out Levi Leipheimer’s ride up Le Mont Ventoux in the Dauphine-Libere.

I also like this route because I can see a century based on this route by starting out clockwise towards Harlem, then continuing out to Thompson before heading up to the lake. I’ll have to see about getting some folks to give that a try in a few weeks.

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