Linux Server Freakout Day (aka Friday)

It is a seemingly normal Friday morning and, like any other morning, from your Windows pc, you attempt a Putty session into a Linux backup server to check the status of your backup tapes in NetBackup.

You enter your login information successfully then something quite sinister occurs.  You enter the command to get NetBackup going and instead of NetBackup opening you instead see this message: “Missing MAX_MEMORY parameter X connection to localhost broken (explicit kill or server shutdown).”

Say whaaaaa?!

Before you freak out, race to the server room for visual checks of the server, and tear up over your life flashing before your eyes, do the following:

1. Watch this Hamster Meditation video, it will calm you down:  https://youtu.be/Op-7bYoAdQ0 – it is one minute and 20 seconds of pure tech Zen
2. Close your Putty session.
3. Exit Xming (aha! Xming wasn’t even running was it? The error listed above will always occur if you forget to start Xming before you begin your Putty session).
4. Start Xming.
5. Start your Putty session and try again.

I hope this helps:)  If not, check out http://www.redhat.com  – they are the Mack Daddy of sweet documentation.

It doesn’t matter what electronic devices you have, you can read e-books! Well, I guess maybe a fancy toaster wouldn’t work…

I occasionally run into users who believe they must purchase a specific electronic device (ie. Kindle, Nook, etc) in order to successfully read e-books.  This posting is for them.  Below I outline what is necessary in order to read e-books from a few well-known retailers and web sites.

Project Gutenberg offers free e-books.  Here is one simple example of how you can read their e-books:

1. From any computer, laptop, smart phone or tablet, visit this web site:  https://www.gutenberg.org/
2. Click on any book under the “Some of Our Latest Books” section towards the top of the web page.
3. Select the first link called “Read this book online:  HTML”.
4. Start reading!

If you want to purchase a book that requires the Kindle, then just install the Kindle App so you can read Kindle e-books from several electronic devices, no Kindle required! Here’s how:

1. From any computer, laptop, smart phone or tablet, visit this web site:  https://www.amazon.com/gp/digital/fiona/kcp-landing-page and click the download button to download and subsequently install the Kindle App.
2. Purchase any e-book from Amazon and download it, here is an example of a e-book you may purchase that is a Kindle e-book:  http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00FIX5LGC
3. Open the Kindle App on your device (you just installed it).  Inside the Kindle App, login using your Amazon account.
4. Start reading!

If you want to purchase a book that requires the Nook, then do the same thing as with the Kindle:

1. Download and subsequently install the Nook Reading App from here from your smart phone or tablet: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/h/nook/apps and be able to read Nook e-books from several electronic devices, no Nook required!
2. Purchase a book.
3. Open the Nook Reading App on your device (you just installed it).
4. Start reading!