BLOG Posts

Sometimes you have a bunch of files, for example a bunch of images, which name consists of just a number and an extension. When you want to process them further sorting them will sometimes fail when they are not prefixed with a zero. That’s easily solved in a one-liner

Sometimes you encounter a device which is old enough that it needs an ActiveX control for set-up. Some old IP Camera’s for example need this. Technology however moved forward and a “new” browser, such as Microsoft Edge, does not support ActiveX.Do we now have a piece of “e-waste”?

In another Blog Post (Monitor certificate expiration) I showed a small script which checks local certifciates for their expiration date and warns when it is near. This due to the fact that lets-encrypt does not send out warning mails anymore. Checking a remote host is also something that a small bash script can do.

Lately I got a message from letsencrypt stating they are ending the notification mails they send out to remind you of certificates expriring. As I do have letsencrypt certificates which are not auto renewed because of the challenge mechanism I liked those messages. But nothing that a small bash script can’t fix.

Sometimes you want to create a quick snapshot of a few files / folders. rsync is a great tool for this. And sometimes you don’t want to copy the files because that takes up space and you might be copying them to the same filesystem. Hardlinking is quite a nice option in this case (if the filesystem supports it) I needed to create a quick snapshot of a few virtual tapes. I use virtual tapes which I copy over to physical tapes. Because this is a long proces I create a snapshot of them before I start transferring them to a physical tape. So how to have rsync hardlink them instead of copy?

I’m making use of Ubiquiti AP’s and therefore use the Unify software to manage them. I have it installed within an “ordinary” vm. The software normally uses a self-signed certificate. This is not a big issue as it is my local network. However Chrome starts warning more and more and Safari doesn’t seem to like the self-signed certificate at all after the latest updates. So it became time to install a “proper” certificate. This little article explains how.

Sometimes when you’re writing code you can encounter the situation only one session / thread may execute it (the code) at a time. This is commonly referred as a “Critial Section”. How do you solve such a problem within the Oracle Database?

When running code you sometimes have the need to debug the progress of the statements. One way is to use a table and write your debug output into it by means of an autonomous transaction. But sometimes it can be easier to just hand the debug info to a different session. Say hi to Dbms_Pipe…

Sometimes you need to resize a filesystem because it grows out of it’s available space. With virtual machines this is quite easy, just resize the disk. But…. how do you make Linux know the disk has been resized?

As I read an article about Oracle providing version 23c “for free to developers” (https://blogs.oracle.com/database/post/oracle-database-23c-free) I wondered if it was usable for a quick deploy of Apex. As ORDS has been updated as well it turns out that needed some tweaking…

For my audio system I’m making use of Logitech Squeezeboxes as I’ve converted most of my CD’s (yes I’m old ;)) to MP3 format. In this way I’m able to play/stream the same music throughout my house. Spotify is also integrated into this set-up so I’m able to play that as well. But I also have a record player (old remember ;)) with vinyl records. It would be nice to play them through the same system….

It’s almost becoming a series about UTM, my quest of finding replacements for tooling I used on my Intel based MacBook Pro. This time a little article about how I’m using UTM as a replacement for my usage of Vagrant.