Well, as anyone who has read this blog regularly, or can even do simple subtraction, can see that it has been quite awhile since I have posted anything to this blog. I apologize for that, but I also have several good excuses. The Lord has seen fit to give me a very busy/stressful time of life right now, and that has lead to my going to bed earlier and therefore not having the semi-groggy time at night to do my blah, blah, blah, blah’ing (aka blogging).

Since I have my fingers going, I will remind you of two things, first, Beth has put up a few more pictures of the boys on the photo gallery. Secondly, my experiences with UML and UMLazi have continued to prove quite satisfactory. I am hoping to be able to have some time to write some scripts to handle the automation of users in the UMLazi method and also some sort of addition to the postfix and Apache config files for internal proxying of non-routable ips. Eventually I want to make this solution even more robust for WBC, but we shall see.

A few months ago I volunteered to help out my alma matter, Western Baptist College. The head CS professor is a great guy, but he doesn’t know much about linux yet. As he wanted to do a couple week hands-on section of the Operating Systems class in linux, I volunteered to help him get it all working.

I immediately thought of user mode linux and how I could use it to make a virtual computer lab for the students on just one machine. The last couple of times the course had been taught by a different professor, and all the machines in the computer lab were setup to dual boot win2k and linux. I didn’t like that idea because I wanted the students to always have access to their linux boxes, even outside of class. This way not only could the instructor give true homework assignments, but that they would be available for the students to “dink around” with linux on their own time without having to go through the “trouble” of installing linux on their own. (That is what the Salem LUG is for.)

My own experience with UML had been fairly limited, and I wanted to find a system that Eric could use easily and still have alot of functionality at his finger tips. During my search I came across these links: UML Co-op, UML-based pseudo-dedicated hosting service, and UMLazi, not to mention a miriad of other community sites and the official site. After reading through all of those sites and looking for the best solution, I decided on UMLazi because of the simplicity of the interface.

Using UMLazi you configure a template of both configuration options and root filesystems, and it sets up the rest for you, it even handles the networking configuration of tuntap or bridge networking. Needless to say, this suite of tools is a time-saver, and it really makes setting up new umls very easy. The author was also very helpful to me. Although this software package is still in development, the currest stable version is feature rich and stable, with more features being added.

My experience with UMLazi has been excellent, and as I get to know it better I hope to be able to contribute some code to this neat project. If you are interested at all in User-Mode Linux, then check it out.

One of the dangers that I have with posting a blog is that is can provide a very rapid means of spreading information, i.e. it doesn’t get reviewed by someone else, or even spell checked. This can easily lead one to “say” things that aren’t what you truly feel or think, it is just a reaction. It also keeps you from having to say things out loud which is usually a very good method of making sure you don’t sound like a complete fool or worse.

James 1:26 says “If anyone thinks himself to be religious, and yet does not bridle his tongue but deceives his own heart, this man’s religion is worthless.”

I can have a quick and very sharp wit at times, and I have to be very careful about what I say, especially when I want to react in a situation. This verse is a dire warning to me, and it today’s age, not only do I need to bridle my tongue, I need to bridle my hands.