2008-04-08

I had another game of squash planned for today, but the guy I was to play didn’t recall that we’d made a pact to do such… and he’d already settled into a couple of beverages and so it would have been a little unfair to do it to him.

So instead, I troddled on down to the gym in my building complex. It’s not too bad, a rowing machine would really spruce the place up, but beggars can’t be choosers. I only did another short workout, 13 minutes on a stepping type machine (i don’t know the name of one machine from another… it wasn’t actually steps, but more like a “cyclic walker”???) and 10 minutes on an electronic bicycle.

I have to admit, these cycles aren’t too bad, almost as good as the rower, but it’s not… The rowing machine is my favourite. The cycle machines hurt your butt! Maybe that’s only a problem if you have a big butt, or something.

I did a little over 20 minutes, but I was sweating profusely today. The place isn’t too greatly ventilated, and the sweat was literally dripping of me (I mean, how else does it come off you?). I went back up to my place for a shower and fell asleep instead.

I was woken by a friend that reminded me we were having dinner tonight at “Taylors On Central”. I had steak (and chips)… tisk tisk… And two glasses of soda water. So upon coming home I donned the workout gear and back to the gym. Only another 20 minutes, pretty much the same routine.

But then I did something I have NEVER done before, or at least it feels that way… I WENT FOR A SWIM!

I only did half a dozen laps, but that’s half a dozen more than I have done in the last 10 years. I HATE swimming, but recognise it is an exercise that is low impact, so I should try and get into it. I don’t see it myself, but we can only wait and see.

Weight wise, I started this phase on Sunday 6th April 2008 at 95.6kg. This morning I weighed in at 94.8kg. almost 1 kg in 3 days. Tonights meal is not going to help matters too much, but we can’t eat healthy ALL the time.

We have to be realistic. :-)

2008-04-07

squash racquetI played a game of squash with Woodsy today. A tall bastard with the reach of inspector gadget. I don’t know why I play him… Yes I do, because he kills me… Literally

He wipes the floor with me, but today I had a reprieve. He had a visitor from out of town so we played 2 on, 1 off. The sitting off never lasted long, but it was a break none-the-less. And this other guy gave Woodsy a run for his money. I don’t think he dropped a set all day, but I got close :-)

So we were on the courts for almost 2 hours and it was good. On the way home I stopped off at the Strawberry Hills hotel for a $5 steak (and a soda water). Considering these meals are so cheap, they are of exceptional quality. I have paid 2, 3 and even 4 times that for a steak of a much lesser standard. If you are ever in Sydney and like a simple meal (I mean, it’s can’t be too complicated for $5), then drop into the Strawberry Hills hotel on Devonshire Street. The serve meals til late. This almost feels like a shameless advertisement, but it isn’t. I have no vested interest in the place, other than the occasional meal.

Then after getting home, having a shower and getting changed, I decided to go to the gym at work and start and get all sweaty again. 15 minutes on the rowing machine which equated to about 3km. I then jumped on one of the computerised cycles and did another 10 minutes there. I raised a sweat, but I probably should have raised more…

next time…

2008-04-06

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And what a start today was. It always seems to be the way that it is much easier for me to go for one of my walks when I find a purpose to it.

Todays purpose was a computer fair at Kensington… So into my walking shoes I jump and off I go.

The fair was less than 5km away, but going on to the beaches after it and doing the coastal walk from South Coogee to Bondi. Once there, that almost made 15km, so a bus ride was required for the trip home ;-)

Phase II

Today marks the start of Phase II. Phase I went well maxing out at a 12kg loss, but sliding back down to only 10kgs at the end of 3 Months. I’d lost 12kg in the first two months and in the last month I put 2 back on.

January was a GREAT month and February wasn’t too bad, but March just saw me falling back into my old ways… bad bad March

April is the new January. Back to doing all the things I need to do:

Exercise… eating well… and the hardest part, cutting back on the grog. April is supposed to be alcohol free, so [fingerscrossed], let the games begin

Ubuntu – changing DHCP to Static

Before jumping in and making the changes, do
ifconfig -a
and note down any particular settings which you may need (if you don’t already know them)

Then edit /etc/network/interfaces

change:

iface eth0 inet dhcp

to:

iface eth0 inet static
address 10.0.0.101
netmask 255.255.255.0
network 10.0.0.0
broadcast 10.0.0.255
gateway 10.0.0.100

May also need to add nameservers to /etc/resolv.conf, eg:
nameserver 10.0.0.100
nameserver 192.122.108.211

Obviously change to suit your network settings.

Once done, don’t forget to restart the networking interface

sudo /etc/init.d/networking restart

Synergy in OpenSolaris and Ubuntu

I have been tinkering with linux distros for a while now, my favourite (generally) would have to be Ubuntu. It is one of the few that installs quickly and simply on most of my systems here.

A package I also use is Synergy. This is one of the best pieces of software ever developed for multi-desktop computing. Much better than VNC and Remote Desktop, although they each serve their purpose and offer different functionality.

To learn more about Synergy, visit http://synergy2.sourceforge.net/

To learn how to install it in OpenSolaris (I am using preview 2) it is simply a matter of:
wget ftp://ftp.sunfreeware.com/pub/freeware/intel/10/libgcc-3.4.6-sol10-x86-l...
gunzip libgcc-3.4.6-sol10-x86-local.gz
pkgadd -G -d libgcc-3.4.6-sol10-x86-local
wget ftp://ftp.sunfreeware.com/pub/freeware/intel/10/synergy-1.3.1-sol10-x86-...
gunzip synergy-1.3.1-sol10-x86-local.gz
pkgadd -G -d synergy-1.3.1-sol10-x86-local

You have to make sure that /usr/local/bin is in your path.

tip: I use/prefer BASH, to edit the user path for BASH in OpenSolaris you HAVE to edit the file .bashrc located in your home directory. Editing it anywhere else will have no effect since (in Preview 2) this file explicitly defines the path WITHOUT inheriting the original path. You have been warned (it took me a few hours to find this!)

for ubuntu there is an excellent walkthru here: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/SynergyHowto

note: for the ubuntu install, make sure you have added the universe repositories http://dav3.net/ubuntu/repositories

Adding Ubuntu Repositories

In a nutshell
edit the file /etc/apt/sources.list

You can edit it from the command line ( http://help.ubuntu.com/community/Repositories/CommandLine ) or use the GUI from the Ubuntu desktop: System –> Administration –> Software Properties and add to the repositories by adding a channel (the add button). You can also add new repositories there as well.

For a very well documented HOWTO: visit http://help.ubuntu.com/community/Repositories/Ubuntu

SSH Server in Ubuntu

To securely administer your Ubuntu Server remotely, you need to install SSH server. SSH provides you with a secure connection to your server and allows you to run commands all as if you were logged in at the terminal itself.

To install SSH server in Ubuntu
$ sudo apt-get install openssh-server

All going well, your install is complete. your RSA and DSA keys have been created and you have a default config file.

Connecting to the server
To connect to the server from other machines use ssh (on *nix computers or putty on windows systems). You log into the machine by typing:

$ ssh 192.168.0.4 or c:\>putty 192.168.0.4
(this is an example IP address, use whatever IP address is assigned to the server)

Configuring SSH
There is a default config already with the SSH Server, you can chop and change it to suit your needs. For security you may want to disable root logins and X11Forwarding. If you don’t know what they are, then you probably do want to disable them anyway. The configuration file you want to edit is /etc/ssh/sshd_config

Disable remorte root logins
Search for and edit the following line in the /etc/ssh/sshd_config file:

PermitRootLogin yes
and change it to:
PermitRootLogin no

Disable X11 forwarding
Same file as above, search for and change the following line:

X11Forwarding yes
to:
X11Forwarding no

Restart the SSH Server
After you have made these changes, you will need to restart the SSH server. At the command prompt type:
$ sudo /etc/init.d/ssh restart

More on X11 Forwarding
If you want to use X11 Forwarding option so that you can connect your remote machine desktop using Xterm if you want to connect the X11 session you need to use the following command

ssh -X serveripaddress

Copy Files Securely using SCP
Another common need is to be able to copy files between servers you are administering. While you could set up FTP on all of the servers, this is a less-than-ideal and potentially insecure solution. SSH includes within it the capability to copy files using the scp command. This has the added benefit of copying the files over a secure channel along with taking advantage of any key-based authentication you might have already set up.

To copy a file to a remote machine use the following command

scp /path/to/file user@remotehost:/path/to/destination

If you need to copy from the remote host to the local host, reverse the above command

scp user@remotehost:/path/to/file /path/to/destination

if you need to copy an entire directory full of files to a remote location, use the -r argument

scp -r /path/to/directory/ user@remotehost:/path/to/destination/

If you are transferring logfiles or other highly compressible files, you might benefit from the -C argument. This turns on compression, which, while it will increase the CPU usage during the copy, should also increase the speed in which the file transfers.

Use the -l argument to limit how much bandwidth is used. Follow -l with the bandwidth you want to use in kilobits per second. So, to transfer a file and limit it to 256 Kbps use the following command

scp -l 256 /path/to/file user@remotehost:/path/to/destination

Day 65-77

So, as I just mentioned a couple of posts ago, I have been very bad the last couple of weeks. As can be evidenced by the graph on the front page. I went to Adelaide to visit my brother (photos are a click away on the left if you are interested), and my weight did jump up a bit while I was there, but I’m almost back to where I was before I left.

He and his wife just had a new baby boy, Tanner. Good looking kid, takes after his uncle.

Things got in a tither pretty much from the moment I got there. I was suppose to be there for 6 days (which I was – and was nearly extended, but it was planned that baby Tanner would arrive around the day before I left. In the end, he arrived the day after I got there! Well, less than 36 hours anyway.

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As a result, the walks and exercise I had planned while I was down there pretty much got thrown out the window. But I didn’t mind LOL!!

A week in Adelaide in the height of their longest heatwave on record. No day I was there reach a high of below about 35. And in the suburbs, it got to 40 a few times. At night, it rarely got below the low 20s.

Day 72 – a good day, amongst the bad

Since being back I have only done 1 day of moderate exercise and that was on DAY 72, the day after I got back. Actually it was pretty good, and if I could do this once or twice a fortnight, it would make all the difference.

I caught the bus down to Circular Quay, then took the “nurses walk” which is around 100 stairs up towards the Harbour Bridge.

At the bridge, I climbed the stairs at Cumberland Street twice (~108 stairs from memory). The first time, I got to the top and walked down to the next set of stairs, which comes out just south of the sports center there. I then walked back up Cumberland Street and did the climb again. Rested briefly and walked back down.

Across and under the bridge and off to High Street to Hickson Road, to the Great Stairs I found there. I only did those ones 4 times (105 steps each). I like doing all stairs 2 at a time, but on the last two runs up them I had to take them one at a time. My legs were burning so hard. Not as hard as the first time I did them though.

From there across to Darling Harbour where I found one more set of stairs up to the old Glebe Bridge (~50 stairs). Walked to a shop at Ultimo where I bought some computer equipment and walked back home again.

The entire walk was about 8km. The walk wasn’t hard, but the stairs were. I am finding this is the thing hurting me the most at the moment. So I will harness that pain

Day 64

The Giant Staircase

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This was a pretty good day. I actually started off with a train trip to Bondi to have some breakfast, then back home to get changed and then met 2 friends at Central railway Station.

We caught the 9.55am train to Katoomba and another mate jumped on at Strathfield. The only thing wrong with the whole day was the fact the train trip was 2 hours each way. The pain of the train strip was removed with the quality of company on the day.

When we got to Katoomba we decided to have lunch at a Coffee shop we found on the way to Scenic World. We downed that and we were on our way.

Once there, although the board only lists full return prices, we found that if you ask, you can by one-way train tickets to get down the mountain. This cost us $10 neat. A bottle of water for the trip and we were on our way.

The whole walk itself wasn’t too bad, quite easy and recommended for anyone. However the stairs at the end were a killer. I had to stop a few times, but once I finally got to the top it was really easy. I recovered well and started jogging to the end point (echo point). I think the stairs took about 30 minutes (for me) and the whole walk was not much more than an hour. An hour and a half tops.

The walk back to the station wasn’t that hard, but it was all uphill. We didn’t have long to wait for the train, and before we knew it, we were all back home.

There’s another group of us planning to do a similar walk in a few weeks. This one is going to involve an area known as the ruined castle. It’s visible from echo point and pretty much just involves walking in the other direction. This walk will also finish off with the Gian Staircase.