Author Archives: Laz

Simple PERL file backup script

by

4

I am one of those type of people that like to make backup copies of files before I tinker with them, especially when I am modifying important files like system stuff. It’s always a good idea to make a backup copy before you edit something so you can put it back if you break it. For that reason, I wrote this simple little PERL script that I then put somewhere in my path so I can run it from anywhere. I call it simply “bu” so that it’s easy to type and use. What it does is copy the target file you specify, to a file of the same name only with a date stamp appended to it. I have found this to be a really handy tool, so I thought I would share.

Take a look at the script here.

Check it out, I hope you find it as useful as I have.

Make your crontab more user friendly!

by

2

All you *nix users out there are probably just like me. You use cron a lot, and for some mighty important things. However, you just don’t quite use it enough to keep the exact order of the values for when to kick off a job in your head. Well, for me, an easy way to help that is to put what I call headers into your crontab. These are in fact comments, but they spell out what to put where and act as a reference so you can get back to getting work done, instead of googling for the information! Check it out:


# minute (0-59),
# | hour (0-23),
# | | day of the month (1-31),
# | | | month of the year (1-12),
# | | | | day of the week (0-6 with 0=Sunday).
# / | | | | commands
3 2 * * 0,6 /some/command/to/run
3 2 * * 1-5 /another/command/to/run

How’s that? Pretty nifty, huh? Be sure to take out the last two lines that I stuck there for examples.

Enjoy!

New Article On Data Protection

by

2

I have posted before about Backups and their importance in the world.  The subject has inspired me to write a whole article on the subject of Backups, Disaster Recovery and Mitigating Downtime in the hopes that I can explain a few things, share some ideas and observations, and maybe help you understand the different aspects of data protection that go into the subject of backups.  I hope it will prove helpful!

Mechanical Computers Rise Again?

by

0

Here is an interesting article I ran across, talking about new designs for mechanical computers for use is high stress situations where normal computers can’t quite take the abuse.  Kind of interesting how the pendulum seems to be swinging back now.  I have seen this many times over the years, where one technology fades out in favor of another, only for it to come back in one form or another in the future.

One example (in my opinion anyway) would be mainframes that got replaced by minis, and commodity servers.  These are now getting consolidated and replaced by virtual servers, which is one big server or many servers that act as one to run all of the virtual servers.  Isn’t that pretty much what mainframes did?  Aah, the cycle continues!

Great Whois tool for Windows

by

2

It’s getting on to Friday, and I thought I would post another Cool Tool for your enjoyment.  For anyone who dabbles in domain names, or does much with networking, you have undoubtedly used the Whois command.  Whois is a tool for querying domain name information, like who is the owner of it, the DNS servers, and more.  It’s very handy when you want to see if that domain name you always wanted is taken or not.  Why not just type it into the browser and see if it comes up, you ask?  Well, just because a domain doesn’t show up in your favorite browser, doesn’t mean it is not registered.  Sometimes the domain owner hasn’t done anything with it yet, or they might use it for email but not a website, or it could simply be that a domain squatter has it, and therefore only owns it to resell it.

Aside from that, I have been in troubleshooting situations where I needed to find out some info on a particular domain name, like mentioned above, the DNS servers for example.  Or one time, I was getting spammed to death from one domain, and we determined it was a virus with a little research, so we looked up the domain owner and were able to tell him that his server had been infected.  He didn’t even know!

Regardless of what your needs are, if you need a good, fast, and free Whois client, check out win32whois from gena01.com.  It’s a kicking little program, that I have made sure to add to my trick bag.  It appears to be very well written, fast, and best of all it’s free.   Check it out and happy Whois-ing!