Author: Darren

Categories
Linux Sysadmin

vnStat Network Traffic Monitor

I just discovered vnStat, a network traffic monitor for Linux. Here’s a blurb from the website:

vnStat is a network traffic monitor for Linux that keeps a log of daily network traffic for the selected interface(s). vnStat isn’t a packet sniffer. The traffic information is analyzed from the /proc -filesystem, so vnStat can be used without root permissions.

It will tell you how much inbound and outbound bandwidth that your Linux machine is using—hourly, daily, weekly, monthly, yearly. That’s handy.

By inspection, I’ve been able to tell that it runs like so: it installs itself as a cron job that runs every five minutes to update its internal database. Then you can type vnstat on the command line to give you the stats.

I’d post some sample output, but since I’ve just started running it, there’s nothing to show. I’m glad to have found it, though.

Categories
Rant Tech

More Word Processor Bashing

As you may know, I really hate word processors and how they work. I much prefer document formatters or text processors. Anyway, on this forum thread, second post, I read something that made me nod and laugh. Thanks Gomer_X:

I get so frustrated with Word type wordprocessors (OO Writer included), that I resort to writing stuff in HTML. At least then I get what I want. Every time I have to deal with Word’s helpful attempts at doing bulleting/numbering for me, I want to slit my wrists. I mean it can’t be that hard. It’s certainly not intuitive.

As a bonus, following a link to the Ubuntu documentation project later in the thread, I came across these two excellent resources for technical authors:

Categories
Music

Midnight at the Liberty

I’ve been listening to this song by the 5 Chinese Brothers (no relation to China) over and over this week. The lyrics tell a good story, even though I can’t identify a single one of the cultural references. Maybe it’s not my culture, or maybe I’m not supposed to. But I’m hooked on the song.

This is now the third 5 Chinese Brothers song I’ve fallen in love with. Time to buy some albums, I think.

“Midnight at the Liberty” by the 5 Chinese Brothers (1.3 MB)

Update: A few days after making this post, I was talking to my mom on the phone and she asked me what I would like for my birthday. I was about to say “nothing really” when I remembered this band. Well, my birthday has come and gone and now I’m the proud owner of their album Let’s Kill Saturday Night, which features this song plus two others that I really like. Thanks, mom! 🙂

Categories
This Week Online

This Week Online: Week 52

Jason writes a fun essay entitled “Mentors”.

Categories
This Week Online

This Week Online: Week 51

Elver sees the world in a whole new way. Literally.
Wil begins podcasting, and the heavens rejoice.
Dave tells us a bedtime story about him giving up on Wikipedia. And then some second thoughts.

Categories
This Week Online

This Week Online: Week 50

Michelle comes “om” for the holidays.
Jason notes how user interfaces affect the work that we produce.
Ravi explores the variety of Linux distributions, based on user needs.
Steven makes a few remarks about traveling.

Categories
General

The Mad Runner

Now that winter is upon us and the evenings are dark, I’ve started running. Okay, so I like running in the dark in the winter evenings. But I’m really trying to do something other than sit in front of a computer all day and all night. It feels good when I get out and run, and I’m hoping to make a routine out of it.

So, to hold myself publicly accountable, I’ve started a running log. It’s nothing fancy, and I probably won’t publish anything there to read. But it’s just a place to record my progress and let people check up on me if they care to. I’ll consider 3 times a week to be satisfactory, but 4 times a week would be better.

Why a Blogger blog? Well, there’s lots of running log software out there, plus a handful of websites for this sort of thing. But I wanted something web-based, plus it had to have RSS. Blogger fits this as good as any, and I don’t really need any fancy features tailored to running. Besides, what I’m doing is totally machine-readable, and someone else’s solution probably wouldn’t be. And it’s handy. I don’t have to log in to Blogger to post—I can post via email.

Categories
General

The Truth About Harry Potter

I haven’t laughed this hard in a long time:

<JonJonB> Purely in the interests of science, I have replaced the word “wand” with “wang” in the first Harry Potter Book
<JonJonB> Let’s see the results…

Categories
This Week Online

This Week Online: Week 49

Jason manages to collect a million files.
Michelle earns her Master’s, and a job.

Categories
China Philosophy

In Urumqi

What can I write about my experiences in Urumqi? Her family received me well. There is a lot going on. The family is going through a 7-day period of mourning (embedded in longer periods as well) according to the Uyghur/Muslim custom, and every day there are ceremonies and events taking place. I’ve only been able to watch as a dumb observer, and only on a couple of occasions.

Her brother graciously put me up in a hotel owned by the company he works for. I spend most of my time here, alone, waiting to be summoned by the family, silently supporting my Tchou Tchou from a closer distance than Beijing. Twice, now, she’s been able to take a break from the family obligations to come see me.

She really struggles with the endless procession of visitors, the formalities and ceremonies the custom requires. It is not her way to be so formal and extroverted all the time. The three weeks in the hospital were tiring, demanding 24-hour care of her mother, taken in shifts by her and members of her family. Now she just wants to rest and be quiet together as a family. But this is not possible. So I provide the rest, quiet, and emotional support that she so desperately needs. That is why I’m here.