Posts

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View hardware detail in FreeBSD

If you’re running FreeBSD and need to find out information about the physical hardware the system is running on the following commands may be helpful to you.

atacontrol list # Show ATA devices
camcontrol devlist -v # Show SCSI devices
pciconf -l -cv # Show PCI devices
sysctl hw.model # CPU model
sysctl hw # Gives a lot of hardware information
sysctl hw.ncpu # number of active CPUs installed
sysctl vm # Memory usage
sysctl hw.realmem # Hardware memory
sysctl -a | grep mem # Kernel memory settings and info
sysctl dev # Configured devices
usbdevs -v # Show USB devices

There is also a handy script I use called memconf that will give you detailed memory information on a variety of *NIX OS’s, on FreeBSD you will need to install dmidecode which can be found in the ports tree..

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Giving up control…

So I’ve been avoiding iTunes for at least 5 years, simply because I was unwilling to relinquish control of my music. After recent issues with winamp’s support of my old iPod nano I finally decided to download the latest itunes and give it another whirl. I know I should have simply bought a non-apple mp3 player but this one was a gift and until it dies I’m going to keep using it. So far so good, my iPod has been behaving well and iTunes hasn’t been too annoying. As a nice bonus our new house has a central speaker system that I have the airport jacked into, so we can play our music from iTunes wirelessly to the house.

One side of me hates supporting the man and giving up control of my music but the other side is tired of constantly organizing and dealing with ripping CDs. iTunes is definitely a one stop shop for importing and managing my music. Damn you Apple!

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Elance Fail

I signed up for elance a few years ago when I was looking for work and thought of doing a little consulting. I never really saw any decent paying work on their site and really kinda forgot about them until I received this e-mail today.

Dear xxxx,

We recently learned that certain Elance user information was accessed without authorization, including potentially yours. The data accessed was contact information — specifically name, email address, telephone number, city location and Elance login information (passwords were protected with encryption). This incident did NOT involve any credit card, bank account, social security or tax ID numbers.

We have remedied the cause of the breach and are working with appropriate authorities. We have also implemented additional security measures and have strengthened password requirements to protect all of our users.

We sincerely regret any inconvenience or disruption this may cause.

If you have any unanswered questions and for ongoing information about this matter, please visit this page in our Trust & Safety center: http://www.elance.com/p/trust/account_security.html

For information on re-setting your password, visit: http://help.elance.com/forums/30969/entries/47262

Thank you for your understanding,

Michael Culver
Vice President
Elance

I commend them for going public with this rather embarrassing story, a lot of companies hide these events. However, I’m annoyed that all these companies that retain this kind of data really only care about security after this kind of thing happens.

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Sun Creator3D UPA

So I recently decided to reload my ultra10 machine with a recent copy of Solaris 9. Once the system was reloaded I had what appeared to be 8 bit color on my Creator 3D framebuffer. Issuing ffbconfig -prconf only listed resolutions, not color depths I could use. I found the answer on google, by issuing the following command I set my card to 1280×1024 @ 60hz and 24bit color depth:

ffbconfig -dev /dev/fbs/ffb0 -deflinear true -g 1.1 -res 1280x1024x60

If you don’t set the -g (gamma) option your color will look washed out. Another bit of strangeness I noted was that the part number (525-1746-06) on my creator3D UPA framebuffer can’t be found in Sunsolve which made it awfully difficult to identify the card and get it’s specs. Just thought I’d post this info in case someone else out there is looking.

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A sad day

I don’t normally post personal items on this site but I just found out through a post on his blog that Mark Hoekstra has passed away at the age of 34. I never had the privilege of meeting Mark but I have been reading his blog for years. I share his love of technology, old and new. I will truly miss his posts. My heart goes out to his family and friends.