http://www.mibus.org/ Recent content on mibus.org Hugo -- gohugo.io mibus@mibus.org (Robert Mibus) mibus@mibus.org (Robert Mibus) Wed, 12 Jul 2023 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.mibus.org/2023/07/12/who-built-the-holodecks/ Wed, 12 Jul 2023 00:00:00 +0000 mibus@mibus.org (Robert Mibus) http://www.mibus.org/2023/07/12/who-built-the-holodecks/ Seriously, who actually made the holodecks? Where did they come from? My head-canon: Holodecks are alien technology that the Federation duplicates without understanding how it really works. Largely-separate power grids. Weird behavior in power outages. Poor safety controls. Different storage technology. Regular accidental sentience. Holodecks can accurately model unknown physics TNG’s “A Matter of Perspective” did this first, correctly simulating an energy converter prototype. Voyager used holodecks in “Threshold”, in order to model warp-ten travel. http://www.mibus.org/2023/01/18/most-frequent-advice/ Wed, 18 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0000 mibus@mibus.org (Robert Mibus) http://www.mibus.org/2023/01/18/most-frequent-advice/ What’s the most frequent advice I give? Read “Crucial Conversations”… regularly. Crucial Conversations is literally my #1 book recommendation, and has been so for most of a decade now. It’s just so useful at helping understand where discussions can go astray, and gives you great ways to think about how to approach them to bring them back on track. “Debugging Teams” is also on my list. Have a career plan - the easy way What are your life goals? http://www.mibus.org/2022/12/18/path-to-staff-sre/ Sun, 18 Dec 2022 00:00:00 +0000 mibus@mibus.org (Robert Mibus) http://www.mibus.org/2022/12/18/path-to-staff-sre/ I recently got promoted to Staff SRE, and ended up in a conversation about the path my career took to get here. The path I would have described a few years ago seems pretty simple: Part-time local school Part-time friend’s startup Full-time friend’s startup Full-time in a larger (400-500 person) company Full-time in a larger-again company (~2500) Full-time in a FAANG Or maybe I would have described my roles: http://www.mibus.org/about/ Sat, 17 Dec 2022 00:00:00 +0000 mibus@mibus.org (Robert Mibus) http://www.mibus.org/about/ Father / Systems Engineer / Staff SRE / Engineering Manager. Professional Summary I’ve been a developer, Systems Administrator, SRE, and people manager. I can spend all day in a hex editor, or drafting roadmaps for teams to work together on. I’ve led small teams and cross-team projects; I do coaching and mentoring on everything from career goals to communication skills. I like to take a step back and ask what problem we’re really trying to solve. http://www.mibus.org/2018/02/26/google-home-calendar-announcements/ Mon, 26 Feb 2018 00:00:00 +0000 mibus@mibus.org (Robert Mibus) http://www.mibus.org/2018/02/26/google-home-calendar-announcements/ We have a couple of Google Homes for our house’s common areas, and for Christmas all of our kids got Google Home Minis for their rooms. One of the problems in our household is simply remembering when to do basic things - when to start cooking dinner, and whose turn it is. Noticing that it’s bedtime for the kids and making sure they head off to their rooms. So - we have networked speakers in rooms and I’m already running http://home-assistant. http://www.mibus.org/2014/03/05/ipv4-and-nat-the-future/ Wed, 05 Mar 2014 00:00:00 +0000 mibus@mibus.org (Robert Mibus) http://www.mibus.org/2014/03/05/ipv4-and-nat-the-future/ A discussion came up during lunch at the IPv6 Roadshow… is NAT robust and well understood? Since this is kind-of an opinion piece, I’m not going to cite evidence; it’s just random experience and anecdote that (to me) makes a lot of sense. NAT is robust: NAT, for the sake of NAT - sure, maybe it’s robust (or “robust enough”). But even if you argue that NAT itself is robust, it in turn breaks a host of other things. http://www.mibus.org/2013/03/27/moving/ Wed, 27 Mar 2013 00:00:00 +0000 mibus@mibus.org (Robert Mibus) http://www.mibus.org/2013/03/27/moving/ I’ve been [comparatively] quiet for a while now, and I can finally announce the results of my endeavours: I’ve resigned from Internode (ie. iiNet) in order to accept a position at Google in Sydney. This means that Missy and I and our kids are all packing our bags and getting ready to head eastwards, looking forward to new and exciting adventures. FAQ: When? My last week in Adelaide is the week of the 22nd of April. http://www.mibus.org/2013/02/27/lca2013/ Wed, 27 Feb 2013 00:00:00 +0000 mibus@mibus.org (Robert Mibus) http://www.mibus.org/2013/02/27/lca2013/ I presented “After Arduino” at LCA2013, explaining how to dig deeper into what “Arduino” really is, and how to get better control over your embedded devices. If you are just after the slides, PCB schematics, or example code, then you should grab them here: https://github.com/mibus/AfterArduino A video of the talk is available in MP4 and OGV formats (or if you’re with Internode, you can grab unmetered MP4 and unmetered OGV files). http://www.mibus.org/2013/02/15/making-gnome-shell-plugins-save-their-config/ Thu, 14 Feb 2013 00:00:00 +0000 mibus@mibus.org (Robert Mibus) http://www.mibus.org/2013/02/15/making-gnome-shell-plugins-save-their-config/ I’m working on a GNOME-Shell plugin that can show alternate timezones. As part of the plugin, I want it to remember what the user’s selected timezone is. A good extension to pull apart seems to be the “System Monitor”. The “short version” of the minimum you need to do is as follows… Add a schema name to your metadata.json, eg: "settings-schema": "org.gnome.shell.extensions.system-monitor", (Replace “system-monitor” with a unique name for your own extension) http://www.mibus.org/2012/12/02/ping-faux-flood/ Sun, 02 Dec 2012 00:00:00 +0000 mibus@mibus.org (Robert Mibus) http://www.mibus.org/2012/12/02/ping-faux-flood/ I’m having trouble admitting this publicly, but I learnt something new recently about ping, of all things. To quote from the man page of ping: -f Flood ping. For every ECHO_REQUEST sent a period ``.'' is printed, while for ever ECHO_REPLY received a backspace is printed. This provides a rapid display of how many packets are being dropped. Seems reasonable enough. I mean, “flood” is pretty clear, right? Except, during troubleshooting this week I found that pinging a responding host and a non-responding host resulted in sending a different rate of packets. http://www.mibus.org/2012/11/23/multiple-ssh-port-forwards-all-in-a-row/ Thu, 22 Nov 2012 00:00:00 +0000 mibus@mibus.org (Robert Mibus) http://www.mibus.org/2012/11/23/multiple-ssh-port-forwards-all-in-a-row/ Sometimes, you really need to get from point “A” to point “B”, but you can’t. Restrictive firewalls, poor change control, you don’t own the infrastructure, or maybe it’s just “temporary” and you don’t want to have to go to all that effort just for a few days. Struggle no more! SSH Port Forwarding Primer Let’s just say that you have an application on server “A”, and you want it to be able to reach a web service on your local desktop. http://www.mibus.org/2012/11/17/gnome-shell-multi-timezone-clock/ Sat, 17 Nov 2012 00:00:00 +0000 mibus@mibus.org (Robert Mibus) http://www.mibus.org/2012/11/17/gnome-shell-multi-timezone-clock/ As many of you know, the company I work for (Internode) was recentlyish purchased by iiNet. iiNet’s headquarters is in Perth, which is 1.5 or 2.5 hours “behind” Adelaide time. There’s no longer a multi-timezone clock available for the panel, so… oh well I just wrote one myself. Right now, it only supports GMT+8 as the “remote” timezone, but it’s easy enough to change the code. The code is up on GitHub: https://github. http://www.mibus.org/2012/11/11/networker-random-stalling/ Sun, 11 Nov 2012 00:00:00 +0000 mibus@mibus.org (Robert Mibus) http://www.mibus.org/2012/11/11/networker-random-stalling/ One of the things I’ve spent a lot of time with, has been EMC NetWorker (previously Legato NetWorker). A vaguely common issue is for a process of some kind - backups, staging to tape, restores, etc - for no reason just stop making any new progress. Once you’ve checked off the common reasons - like making sure you haven’t run out of disk space or usable tapes - it seems like the only option is to restart NetWorker as a whole, losing any in-progress actions (even ones that are to devices that haven’t stalled). http://www.mibus.org/2012/11/08/ipv6-for-sysadmins/ Wed, 07 Nov 2012 00:00:00 +0000 mibus@mibus.org (Robert Mibus) http://www.mibus.org/2012/11/08/ipv6-for-sysadmins/ IPv6 is a new and complicated piece of technology; like any new technology it takes a while to get used to and discover what does and doesn’t really work. Who am I? I’m Robert Mibus, and I helped roll out many of the IPv6-enabled services at Internode (now part of iiNet). I’m writing this based on my personal experience and opinion, so even though I reference Internode frequently, please don’t consider any of the below official communication from them, OK? http://www.mibus.org/2012/09/23/doctor-who-sans-python-iview/ Sun, 23 Sep 2012 00:00:00 +0000 mibus@mibus.org (Robert Mibus) http://www.mibus.org/2012/09/23/doctor-who-sans-python-iview/ Just to illustrate the insanity of ABC’s position in the takedown of Python-iView - here is how to “download” the latest Doctor Who episode from iView, without using an application that infringes the takedown notice as I understand it. Update: To be clear, this may well still violate the iView Terms of Service… that I’ve never read, and that you don’t get prompted to if you follow the below; the below I pieced together without use of the site. http://www.mibus.org/2012/09/18/letter-to-the-abc-re-the-takedown-of-python-iview/ Tue, 18 Sep 2012 00:00:00 +0000 mibus@mibus.org (Robert Mibus) http://www.mibus.org/2012/09/18/letter-to-the-abc-re-the-takedown-of-python-iview/ Dear ABC, As a regular ABC watcher, I was dismayed to hear that a takedown notice was sent to Jeremy Visser with regards to his distribution of the “Python-iView” software: https://jeremy.visser.name/2009/08/python-iview/ Python-iView is, in my mind, little more than a VCR or PVR for the iView service - and from a moral perspective is thus no more or less “wrong”. The approach you have chosen to take would not be legal to take against Tivo or FetchTV recording the FTA DVB-T broadcasts, so it should not be taken against Python-iView. http://www.mibus.org/2012/06/26/when-life-gives-you-lemons-ask-for-oranges/ Mon, 25 Jun 2012 00:00:00 +0000 mibus@mibus.org (Robert Mibus) http://www.mibus.org/2012/06/26/when-life-gives-you-lemons-ask-for-oranges/ It’s a pattern I’ve seen repeated endlessly around me, a pattern I’m guilty for falling into entirely too often myself. You want something, but you don’t ask for it. Maybe you think you’ll get a “no”, maybe you’re too worried about what the other person will think, maybe you don’t want to annoy or offend someone. Maybe there’s some other reason. Ultimately, it all goes the same way. You don’t get what you want. http://www.mibus.org/2012/05/31/gsolaris/ Wed, 30 May 2012 00:00:00 +0000 mibus@mibus.org (Robert Mibus) http://www.mibus.org/2012/05/31/gsolaris/ Among other things at work, I help look after a small set of Solaris hosts. One of the real frustrations I have with Solaris is the lack of functionality in many of the “standard” applications, things that I’ve come to consider usual (and often essential). We work around these shortcomings by having GNU utilities installed, but with a “g” prefix so that scripts depending on the native Solaris flags and options still work perfectly. http://www.mibus.org/2012/05/28/mythtv-du-find-out-what-shows-take-up-the-most-space/ Sun, 27 May 2012 00:00:00 +0000 mibus@mibus.org (Robert Mibus) http://www.mibus.org/2012/05/28/mythtv-du-find-out-what-shows-take-up-the-most-space/ I was wondering where all my space was going in MythTV recently, so I figured I’d whip up a quick “du” that will give me a per-title breakdown of usage. It assumes you have just the one storage area for recordings. #!/bin/bash STORAGEPATH='/mnt/storage/Media/MythTV/recordings' DBPASS='abc123' QUERY="SELECT basename,title FROM recorded ORDER BY title;" MYSQL="mysql -u mythtv --password="$DBPASS' mythconverg" SIZE=0 COUNTING_FOR='' echo $QUERY | $MYSQL | tail -n +2 | while read BASENAME TITLE; do if [ "$COUNTING_FOR" ! http://www.mibus.org/2012/05/12/attiny85-flasher-for-mothers-day/ Sat, 12 May 2012 00:00:00 +0000 mibus@mibus.org (Robert Mibus) http://www.mibus.org/2012/05/12/attiny85-flasher-for-mothers-day/ To help my kids celebrate Mother’s Day this year, I wanted to do something a little different. Instead of just a present, I wanted the kids to be able to give her something a bit more one-of-a-kind. I’d bought an ATtiny85 to play with some of the ATtiny Arduino support (or failing that, work out how to use avr-gcc directly). I also had a bunch of very bright LEDs and some cheapy cell batteries sitting around doing nothing. http://www.mibus.org/2012/02/24/godaddy-mixed-case-dns-wtfery/ Thu, 23 Feb 2012 00:00:00 +0000 mibus@mibus.org (Robert Mibus) http://www.mibus.org/2012/02/24/godaddy-mixed-case-dns-wtfery/ A friend passed me a bounce of mail to my domain; DNS-related it said. Dutifully, I checked the record: $ dig @ns43.domaincontrol.com mibus.org mx ; <<>> DiG 9.7.3 <<>> @ns43.domaincontrol.com mibus.org mx ; (2 servers found) ;; global options: +cmd ;; Got answer: ;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 541 ;; flags: qr aa rd; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 3, AUTHORITY: 2, ADDITIONAL: 0 ;; WARNING: recursion requested but not available ;; QUESTION SECTION: ;MibUs. http://www.mibus.org/2012/02/22/desktop-scram/ Wed, 22 Feb 2012 00:00:00 +0000 mibus@mibus.org (Robert Mibus) http://www.mibus.org/2012/02/22/desktop-scram/ So the problem goes like this: A coworker asks if I want to join them for a coffee. (This happens multiple times per day, FWIW). I say “Yes!” and jump up… …then sit back down to lock my computer screen, and hop back up… …only to realise I’ve left my music playing - so I sit down, unlock my screen, pause my music, and re-lock my screen… …at which point, my coworkers have already long since disappeared. http://www.mibus.org/2012/02/21/arduino-neat-stuff-raining-demo/ Tue, 21 Feb 2012 00:00:00 +0000 mibus@mibus.org (Robert Mibus) http://www.mibus.org/2012/02/21/arduino-neat-stuff-raining-demo/ At LCA2012, I spent some time learning about the poster child of the Open Hardware world, Arduino. I bought the Pebble v2 demo kit and attended the “Arduino miniconf”, and the “bag schwag” included the Freetronics LeoStick. Here’s a demo video I made of a Raining display on the LCD: https://youtube.com/watch?v=C8twFFL32Zs It uses the Pebble v2’s 20x4 LCD display and custom characters to display a “rain” effect (the LCD needs to be mounted sideways, as shown in the video). http://www.mibus.org/2012/01/17/linux-conf-au-ipv6-automatic-reverse-dns-mappings/ Tue, 17 Jan 2012 00:00:00 +0000 mibus@mibus.org (Robert Mibus) http://www.mibus.org/2012/01/17/linux-conf-au-ipv6-automatic-reverse-dns-mappings/ Today is the day for my IPv6/Automatic reverse DNS mappings presentation at LCA2012. Get the custom pymds fork here; it’ll be merged upstream shortly-ish. http://www.mibus.org/2011/12/31/oracle-java-6-ubuntu/ Sat, 31 Dec 2011 00:00:00 +0000 mibus@mibus.org (Robert Mibus) http://www.mibus.org/2011/12/31/oracle-java-6-ubuntu/ This is semi-draft, as I haven’t gotten around to testing the packages I build… Caught out needing new “Sun” Java packages for Ubuntu, by the DLJ revocation? Grab a usable set of build source packages from http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu/pool/partner/s/sun-java6/ - you’ll need an *.orig.tar.gz, a *.dsc, and a *.debian.tar.gz file for the version you’ve picked. I used a 6.26 version from Natty. Grab a latest (currently 6u30) “bin” Linux packages for each architecture from http://www. http://www.mibus.org/2011/09/09/linux-conf-au-1/ Fri, 09 Sep 2011 00:00:00 +0000 mibus@mibus.org (Robert Mibus) http://www.mibus.org/2011/09/09/linux-conf-au-1/ Just got this email…: We're pleased to announce that your proposal(s) has/have been ACCEPTED for LCA2012. <SNIP> --- IPv6 Dynamic Reverse Mapping - the magic, misery and mayhem --- So - wow! I’ll see you there :) http://www.mibus.org/2011/01/04/how-not-to-screw-up-dns/ Tue, 04 Jan 2011 00:00:00 +0000 mibus@mibus.org (Robert Mibus) http://www.mibus.org/2011/01/04/how-not-to-screw-up-dns/ DNS is a wonderful distributed system, with plenty of safeguards and fallbacks to ensure continuous operation. But still, screwups happen. Here’s some tips on what to do to try to ensure you aren’t caught out in the cold. Tip 1: Have multiple servers. Without a doubt, this is the biggest tip about DNS. Designed in from the beginning was an assumption that you’d have multiple nameservers for a given zone. So… have them! http://www.mibus.org/2010/09/27/recording-accurate-cdrs/ Sun, 26 Sep 2010 00:00:00 +0000 mibus@mibus.org (Robert Mibus) http://www.mibus.org/2010/09/27/recording-accurate-cdrs/ If you’re serious about your call data records - because you’re billing customers, or because you want to automatically reconcile calls against your invoice - then they’d better be accurate. An easy win here is to normalise the numbers you call. In South Australia, a number listed as “(08) 5550 1234” can be dialled as either 0855501234 or 55501234 - the “08” prefix is optional, since it merely clarifies the area code. http://www.mibus.org/2010/08/16/asterisk-using-callerid-to-make-decisions/ Sun, 15 Aug 2010 00:00:00 +0000 mibus@mibus.org (Robert Mibus) http://www.mibus.org/2010/08/16/asterisk-using-callerid-to-make-decisions/ CallerID information is carried along quite readily within the SIP protocol; most SIP providers pass that along to their customers for free. Other than just showing it as “This is the number the call is coming from”, can we do something more useful? Absolutely! As an example, imagine the contexts incoming (where calls go to when they come in to Asterisk from a SIP provider) and outgoing (which allows outbound calls from internal phones). http://www.mibus.org/2010/06/30/sage-au-presentation/ Tue, 29 Jun 2010 00:00:00 +0000 mibus@mibus.org (Robert Mibus) http://www.mibus.org/2010/06/30/sage-au-presentation/ I did a presentation to the SA chapter of SAGE-AU last night - the first presentation I’ve given in a very long time! Download the slides here Overall, I think it went pretty well - it didn’t seem too obvious that I hadn’t had a chance to practice the talking that went with the presentation, and only one of my demonstrations failed. A handy hint for doing PDF exports from OpenOffice. http://www.mibus.org/2010/06/21/hacky-ip-forwarding-with-ip-aliases-and-ssh/ Sun, 20 Jun 2010 00:00:00 +0000 mibus@mibus.org (Robert Mibus) http://www.mibus.org/2010/06/21/hacky-ip-forwarding-with-ip-aliases-and-ssh/ We interrupt your regularly scheduled broadcast of quality sysadmin programming to bring you a brief announcement on using SSH and hacky port forwards to access something via a LAN IP over the Internet. If I have a server at home that can only be accessed via 192.168.1.12 (say) - perhaps because it is a web application that rewrites all internal URLs to always go to that IP - how do I get access? http://www.mibus.org/2010/06/07/ipv6-is-boring/ Sun, 06 Jun 2010 00:00:00 +0000 mibus@mibus.org (Robert Mibus) http://www.mibus.org/2010/06/07/ipv6-is-boring/ Please note that this is all personal opinion, and is not a reflection on the opinion, or policies, of any employer, past, present, future, or comma-less. What is IPv6? IPv6 is the next step after our current IPv4 addressing scheme - and not a lot more. Instead of the we-thought-it’d-be-ample 2^32ish addresses, we get the it’ll-be-enough-this-time-for-sure 2^128ish addresses. If nothing else, it’ll take us a long time to run out again! http://www.mibus.org/2010/05/24/community-based-alerting/ Sun, 23 May 2010 00:00:00 +0000 mibus@mibus.org (Robert Mibus) http://www.mibus.org/2010/05/24/community-based-alerting/ There are so many ways to monitor whether a particular application is working properly or not. For the average website - Is the server pingable? Can you open a socket to port 80? Can you do a GET request and get a “200 OK” response? Some checks are more complicated again - “Does the page ‘/index.php’ include the text ‘Blog’?”. A few even go so far as to simulate multiple page-loads, “clicking” along a path to ensure functionality. http://www.mibus.org/2010/05/10/asterisk-specifying-outbound-routes-for-fun-and-profit/ Sun, 09 May 2010 00:00:00 +0000 mibus@mibus.org (Robert Mibus) http://www.mibus.org/2010/05/10/asterisk-specifying-outbound-routes-for-fun-and-profit/ …or at least a little savings. You’re in a quandry. You’ve found VSP1, with brilliant general rates. VSP2 has fantastic rates for mobile calls. VSP3 has the cheapest calls of all to England, where you have family. You can’t use just the best bits of each… can you? With Asterisk, yes you can! The extension configs here assume that you’ve set up your VSP peers already as vsp1, vsp2, and vsp3. http://www.mibus.org/2010/04/26/asterisk-email-notifications/ Sun, 25 Apr 2010 00:00:00 +0000 mibus@mibus.org (Robert Mibus) http://www.mibus.org/2010/04/26/asterisk-email-notifications/ One of the things I like about Asterisk, is its ability to send email notifications to me if certain things happen. There’s no built-in ability to send emails by itself, so we’ll use its integration with the underlying server to do it. Let’s start by sending me an email if someone uses my VoIP line to make an international call. In Australia, all international calls are prefixed with “0011”… [regular_outbound] ; Email me for international calls exten => _0011. http://www.mibus.org/2010/04/12/asterisk-dual-dialling-to-save-money/ Sun, 11 Apr 2010 00:00:00 +0000 mibus@mibus.org (Robert Mibus) http://www.mibus.org/2010/04/12/asterisk-dual-dialling-to-save-money/ Asterisk saves me money, even using just the one VoIP provider. (Disclaimer: The provider I use is run by my employer, but I’m writing this only as a happy customer! :). It just so happens that my work desk phone number is a free call, but my wife can never remember the number and is usually in too much of a hurry to stop and think about whether I’m at my desk yet etc. http://www.mibus.org/2010/03/29/plain-text-password-storage-is-good/ Sun, 28 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0000 mibus@mibus.org (Robert Mibus) http://www.mibus.org/2010/03/29/plain-text-password-storage-is-good/ …or at least, not as bad as it’s sometimes made out to be. Please note that I am not discussing any password system used by any employer, past or present. This is based on general industry knowledge only, and is meant to explain why so much software suggests or requires plaintext passwords to be stored. When I first came across a professional application that used plaintext password storage (about six years ago now) - I thought, “Ugh, why would anyone store passwords cleartext? http://www.mibus.org/2010/03/15/asterisk-database-driven-callerid/ Sun, 14 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0000 mibus@mibus.org (Robert Mibus) http://www.mibus.org/2010/03/15/asterisk-database-driven-callerid/ One of the nice things Asterisk can do is manipulate Caller ID information on the fly. Since I’m too lazy to update the stored numbers within my individual cordless handsets, I use Asterisk to cheat. Asterisk looks up the incoming phone number (“08XXXXXXXX”) in a MySQL table, finds matching text (“Bob”) and passes that along to the handsets for display. This assumes you have a MySQL database on the same box as asterisk, with a username of asterisk, password of mypassword, your database is called asterisk, and your final internal destination is SIP/myphone. http://www.mibus.org/2010/02/28/asterisk-adding-game/ Sun, 28 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0000 mibus@mibus.org (Robert Mibus) http://www.mibus.org/2010/02/28/asterisk-adding-game/ A quick adding game for Asterisk. Set up an extension (I used “4263”) to Goto(game,s,1). It will speak two numbers from 1-8, and expects a single key to be pressed for the sum of those two numbers. I’ve only used fairly standard sounds, so there’s no recording involved. Hoping that my five-year-old enjoys this :) [game] exten => s,1,NoOp(GameSTART) exten => s,n,Set(num1=${RAND(1,8)}); exten => s,n,Set(maxnum2=$[9-${num1}]) exten => s,n,Set(num2=${RAND(1,${maxnum2})}) exten => s,n,Set(total=$[${num1}+${num2}]) exten => s,n(quest),SayNumber(${num1}) exten => s,n,Playback(letters/plus) exten => s,n,SayNumber(${num2}) exten => s,n,WaitExten exten => _X,1,NoOp(GameHazDigits) exten => _X,n,GotoIf($[${EXTEN} = ${total}]? http://www.mibus.org/2010/01/29/you-have-a-pabx-at-home-why/ Fri, 29 Jan 2010 00:00:00 +0000 mibus@mibus.org (Robert Mibus) http://www.mibus.org/2010/01/29/you-have-a-pabx-at-home-why/ When I mention to someone that I have a PABX at home, people always ask me - WHY??? Early Media - this is a fancy way of saying that when someone calls me it doesn’t just go “ring ring” - I have it going “rrrrrinngggggg rrrrrrinnnngggg” like an old-school telephone. I’ve considered having cackling monkeys, but I don’t want to confuse people too much. Free Calls Home - Anywhere I have full Internet access (like at an Internode CityLan hotspot ;) I can connect to the PABX and call the “extension” that rings my home phone. http://www.mibus.org/2008/11/21/three-months-and-eight-megabits/ Thu, 20 Nov 2008 00:00:00 +0000 mibus@mibus.org (Robert Mibus) http://www.mibus.org/2008/11/21/three-months-and-eight-megabits/ Well, it’s been three months at Internode - a bit over, actually. And… it’s cool here. I really like that I can focus on just sysadmin work, instead of trying to divide my attention sixty ways. (That’s Anton’s job now :-). And I still get to spend time on forums (think Whirlpool), though it’s not quite as easy to justify! I also have had quite a few freebies already (coffee mugs, shirts, hats, etc - from node itself and vendors). http://www.mibus.org/2008/07/25/end-of-an-era/ Fri, 25 Jul 2008 00:00:00 +0000 mibus@mibus.org (Robert Mibus) http://www.mibus.org/2008/07/25/end-of-an-era/ Well, it’s done. Over. My last day at Ballistic Media (CGSociety) is now finished. To my friends - for five years, my family - good bye. Keep in touch! http://www.mibus.org/2008/07/01/changing-jobs/ Tue, 01 Jul 2008 00:00:00 +0000 mibus@mibus.org (Robert Mibus) http://www.mibus.org/2008/07/01/changing-jobs/ Wow. It wasn’t that long ago that I never thought I’d do this. On the 25th of July, 2008, my time at Ballistic Media will come to an end. On the 28th of July, I will begin working for Internode as a Systems Administrator. Wow. So many reasons - mostly that I need to explore new things, and try new stuff out. It’s been one of the hardest decisions I’ve ever made: giving up the family and security that I’ve had here at Ballistic, for the dream of something new and different. http://www.mibus.org/2008/05/28/foundation-questions/ Tue, 27 May 2008 00:00:00 +0000 mibus@mibus.org (Robert Mibus) http://www.mibus.org/2008/05/28/foundation-questions/ A beautiful quote from Asimov’s “Prelude to Foundation” Why, he wondered, did so many people spend their lives not trying to find answers to questions - not even thinking of questions, to begin with? Was there anything more exciting in life than seeking answers? Hari Seldon, subchapter 54. http://www.mibus.org/2007/04/19/utf-8-issues-in-msn-messenger/ Thu, 19 Apr 2007 00:00:00 +0000 mibus@mibus.org (Robert Mibus) http://www.mibus.org/2007/04/19/utf-8-issues-in-msn-messenger/ Please note that the following was written some time ago, when the described flaw was only freshly fixed. I found the document recently, and have cleaned up the text in minor places; other than that it is as written in early 2004 MSN Messenger inconsistent UTF-8 handling (Or, How I Learned To Start Worrying and Hate UTF-8) Introduction UTF-8 is a godsend. It allows encoding of foreign (including non-Latin) characters into a file that’s still compatible with US-ASCII for all English-only use.