Tag: SysAdmin

Collaborative and Quick Code Sharing

I often need to share code or a configuration file when collaborating with someone, here is my current approach.

I found Ten Best Collaborative Sites for Quick Code Sharing on SmashingApps.  Ten is more than I am going to use and I as I have written, or preached, about often, I tend to start with a tool that appears like it is going to contribute beyond its existing function.  Like using Epistle because I use Dropbox.

I do live in Portland, but I am not going to use Snipt because they put a bird on the logo.

So I am set to use Gist because it is part of a git repository Github.

Gist is a simple way to share snippets and pastes with others. All gists are git repositories, so they are automatically versioned, forkable and usable as a git repository.

Time to learn something that propels you to understand a bit more about Git, and even Github, if you are serious about programming.

On The Bench: DNSMasq as a DNS Forwarder and DHCP Server

I have been pondering DNS resolution on small networks to solve problems that I am having with resolving name requests.  I wanted something simple, lightweight, tested, opensource.  I have dd-wrt and it uses DNSMasq and I find that will service my DHCPd needs, give me a dynamic naming interface, is well aware of the Windows and Samba naming resolution issues; however, I want my primary server to function in this capacity so I have setup DNSMasq and am testing it.

I will be rolling this solution to my school network where I expect that it will solve a great number of the naming request issues that I experience inside my lab.  Sweet to begin getting experience on this commonly deployed solution.  Even better to work with something that works with my favorite router software.

Well I am using it already and it does solve my number one problem, that of having a FQDN resolve to the internal address of a machine and not the external address.  This feature alone will be a tremendous increase in speed for my students using my Moodle and Student Web servers which are dual-homed.

Watching Online Training on Fedora 15

I went to begin watching online Lynda.com training on my third monitor.  You may remember I use Synergy to control the screen as I use an entirely separate computer to drive it.  That computer was recently updated to Fedora 15.  When I went to watch the video, using the Advanced QuickTime format which allows me to control the speed, one of the many things Lynda.com does right, I get the message: Need to download an MPEG-4 AAC decoder, and H.264 decoder.  I clicked on the Fedora Search button and it informed me that I already had them installed.

A quick Google search made me remember that I hadn’t installed VLC yet.  Which means it was time to install the rpmfusion repository rpmfusion.free.release.stable.noarch.rpm.  Installing VLC also installs the Gstreamer codecs and now the video displays quite nicely.