Jubelhoptoberale

Is Jubelale a celebration of Hoptober? Or, is Hoptober just the perfect season for Jubelale?

At long last, it’s fall. That is, at long last it feels like summer. Warm days, cool nights. The mornings aren’t crisp yet, but soon. Soon. Busted out a blanket last night (with the window wide open). And, god–what a delight, to wake up in the middle of the night–cold!

Cooked like a fiend this weekend. Climbed a V2 yesterday, for the first time since I injured my back. Ran four or five miles with my Dad yesterday (he was in town for my niece’s first birthday), and felt good at the end. My lungs felt tired, but healthy. Scored a run at kickball tonight. The apartment’s clean. I’ve got laundry in the wash. My checking account is in the black. Built to Spill tomorrow night (!!!). And the fridge is stocked with Jubelale and Hoptober.

God help me, if I’m doing this well single, absent a social circle, and living in Phoenix–I have one bright future. Though I miss mountains (and mountain culture) keenly, I’m happy here. I’m healthier and stronger than I’ve been in years.

Jack thought it twice and thought that that fact made it true.
Some brains just work that way /
That's what chemicals can do.
He thought he'd have a beer thought he was alone.
He thought an Albertson's stir fry dinner /
would make his apartment a home.

Bottoms up and this time /
Won't you let me be?
Bottled up but this time /
Won't you rescue me?

You should have been here last night /
and heard what the Big Dipper said to me.

~Big Dipper (Built to Spill)

Computer running slow? Diagnosis it here.

Diagnose 75% of common causes of computer slow-ness with one short article.

If your computer is running slow, it’s likely the result of either adware or a hardware failure. Of the two, it’s far more likely to be adware.

Before trying to diagnose and fix the problem, however, your first step should always be to ensure that all of your data is backed up. Slowness can be a warning sign of pending system failure.

Fortunately, keeping an up-to-date backup of your information and data is easier today than it used to be. There are a number of online backup solutions which are simple, effective, and incredibly cheap.

I personally recommend (and use) Backblaze (http://www.backblaze.com). For $5 / month, Backblaze maintains a complete and automated backup of all the files on your computer. In the event of a system failure, retrieving your data is as simple as logging in to their website and downloading it (or paying to have all your data overnighted to you on an external hard drive).

However, online backup software has its limitations. Depending on the amount of data you have and the speed of your internet connection, it may take as much as several weeks for the initial backup to complete (after which time your files will be backed up nightly).

Once your data is safe, we can try to figure out what’s causing the problem. But before we do, let’s dispel a few myths:

  • My computer is running slow because I have too many programs installed. Status: myth. With a few qualified exceptions, your computer’s performance will be unrelated to the quantity of applications you have installed. The number of applications running can be an entirely different matter. More of this later.
  • My computer is running slow because I have too much stuff / music / pictures. Status: myth. As long as you have at least 10% of your hard drive available as free space, your computer’s performance will not be noticeably affected by how much “stuff” you have on your hard drive. If you’re concerned that you may be running out of space, check by following these instructions.
  • My computer is running slow because I have a virus. Status: unlikely. It’s been years (literally) since I encountered a computer whose primary problem was a virus. However, there are other related classes of software (especially adware and spyware) that are common and will bring your computer to its knees.

Broadly, there are two possibilities: hardware failure, or a software problem.

Adware

If you get lots of pop-ups when browsing the internet, or if your browser exhibits odd behavior–such as clicking on a link and ending up somewhere other than you expected, or having your search results redirected to an unfamiliar search engine, then the odds are good that you’ve got adware (that is: software that is designed to expose you to advertisement).

Adware is software designed to expose you to advertisement. It differs from a virus in that whereas a virus is designed to harm your computer, adware is designed to turn you into a revenue stream. Most users expose themselves to the risk of adware by downloading and installing seemingly innocuous applications like free screensavers, smileys, or games. Visiting pornographic websites similarly exposes you to a high risk of adware infection.

If you think you have adware, remove any unwanted programs that start when your computer does. Then, do a system scan using Trend Micro’s free, online HouseCall application. If HouseCall identifies many “infected” files, you’ve identified your problem.

If you’re infected with adware, the only reasonable and reliable solution for you, as an end user, is to wipe everything out and restore your computer to its factory state. Alternatively, you can bring your computer to a repair shop, and expect to pay $100 – $300 for the shop to attempt to “clean” your PC. If the shop is unable to clean your PC (as is often the case), the shop will wipe and reload your computer for you.

I advise strongly against trying to use anti-adware utilities such as Ad-Aware, Spybot S&D, or Bazooka. Three reasons for this. First, even with a best-case scenario, it’s typically faster to wipe and reload than to spend hours running repeated scans–often simply to realize that you need to wipe and reload anyway. Second, the odds of you successfully resolving your problem with such utilities is quite low. Adware and anti-adware utilities are in a cat-and-mouse struggle. Adware is typically in the lead, meaning that even the best anti-adware utilities are typically unable to remove the newest varieties of adware. Third, there’s a chance you’ll just make things worse, owing to the proliferation of fake anti-adware utilities which are, themselves, adware. Differentiating real (Ad-Aware) from fake (Super PC Cleaner!) isn’t easy.

Hardware

If your computer is running slow but isn’t bogged down by adware, you may be experiencing a hardware failure. Most cases of hardware related performance lost owe to one of two culprits: a failing hard drive, or bad capacitors. Diagnosing either is relatively quick and painless.

A failing hard drive can be reliably diagnosed by running the CHKDSK utility (instructions here). If you run CHKDSK once and it finds and corrects errors, this is normal. If you run CHKDSK a second time and it finds and fixes additional errors, this would indicate a failing hard drive. If you run CHKDSK a third consecutive time and it finds more errors, your hard drive is failing. Turn your computer off immediately and bring it to a repair shop that can (attempt to) clone your disk to a new hard drive.

Bad capacitors (or, bad caps) are rare, but can slow a computer system to a grinding halt. The only way to diagnose bad capacitors is to open up your computer and look. If any of the capacitors are bulging or leaking catalytic fluid, you’ve found your culprit (if you’re unsure what you’re looking for, watch this YouTube video). Though possible to repair, in most cases you’ll be better off replacing your computer with a new one.

Deer Tick

Deer Tick is a band from Texas. This isn’t true, but pretend it is. They’re as redneck as they come–at least in appearance: Wrangler jeans, plaid, well worn t-shirts. Lead singer John McCauley sings with a conspicuous (and new) silver tooth, tattoos, mustache, and a full head of hair.

Rock star move of the night: McCauley (on top of the kick drum, above) kneels, picks up an open bottle of Budweiser with his teeth, chugs bottle-up-head-back, and replaces--all the while playing with both hands on his electric guitar.

But imagine rednecks who played really good music. Really good. All the brimming, just beneath the surface emotional volatility we assign to a stereotypical redneck, channeled through drum kit, electric guitars, bass guitar. Given voice in a raspy, nasally, syncopated bursts.

This is Deer Tick. Their music resonates with simple and compelling emotion. Crude? Perhaps. But their music cuts to the core. It resonates, reverberates, humbles and inspires. And, god, they’re good live.


(see the full song here: http://elektrikfish.blogspot.com/2010/05/deer-tick-show.html)

They’re not an establishment band. They don’t play music particularly like any you’ve heard before–and no one else plays like Deer Tick.

Genre is no longer applicative–not to Deer Tick, and not to any other contemporaneous band that’s playing something new. Instead, let’s start describing a band with tags (or genres — plural). Deer Tick is indie–obviously–but then some mix of folk, country, and rock.

And, yes, they trashed the stage on their way out. Guitars were thrown. Drums were kicked. Glass was broken. And the crowd went wild.

Emeralds + Caribou

Caught Emeralds and Caribou at The Clubhouse last night. Both blew my mind.

I’ve been searching for music that fits the my “Phoenix” season in life. I think I’ve found it, with electronic / ambient / noise.

Let me preface this by a humble admission that I’m new to these genres, myself.

Noise is the music that we imagine we’ll listen to in the future — but never will. We imagine it because we possess these odd utopian images of future humanity–constructed by Hollywood–and characterized by emotional restraint–precise emotional restraint–smart, well tailored dress, and a cool objectivity. Most of which is bullshit. I don’t doubt that our environments will continue to evolve–the iPad on the sofa definitely seems like a device straight out of the future, not to mention the microwave. But we won’t. We’ll be very much the same sloven, depraved, ambitious bunch then we are now. We’ll be ever bit as human. And we’ll be listening to country music and overproduced hip-hop, not noise. As much as we fancy the notion that everyone will listen to noise in 2020. I suspect our future to be much of the technologically infused back-woods nowhere of Firefly than the intellectually refined future of A.I.. (Who knows? In 2060, this blog will be here. I’ll check back then–let you know how my predictions panned out.)

But noise. Check out this gradient: white noise, traffic noise, noise. Or, extended: white noise, traffic noise, noise, ambient, electronic, electro-pop, hip-hop, pop, 97.1, KISS FM.

That’s what noise is. It’s the distillation of the melodies and harmonies of modern society. Of a thousand billboards, TV specials, magazines, advertisements, people–bumping, shoving, pushing, loving. It’s a hundred thousand honking horns and screeching tires, distilled into its essence: the rhythms and motions of humanity.

I imagine noise being created in an urban basement (the five C’s–cash, car, credit-card, condominium and country-club membership). The disaffected, seizing their environment–something mechanized, distant, cement, plastic–and producing something of dissident, revolutionary quality.

And, to listen to it, noise really is dissident. It’s an intellectual manifesto. An out-and-out condemnation or endorsement of our modern age. It’s something. It’s a natural response to blogs and Blackberrys. It embraces or it excoriates. I can’t say which.

But it’s eminently modern. It’s eminently now. It’s something you can connect to–if only for its embodiment of a lack of connect. Or, of the supplanting of digital connection for human connection.

Emeralds played for 45 minutes without pause, break, or respite.

It strikes me how much “electronic” is created with “real” instruments. Played on guitars, on drums. It’s not a cold, calculating compilation using Pro Tools. It’s a felt, hammered, slid, drummed expression. It’s immediate. The sound of the guitar–thrice distorted–may not be recognizable. But its human genesis absolutely is.

LAMP Virtualhost Backup Script

I’ve cobbled together a couple scripts to create a handy LAMP (Ubuntu) environment backup script for web servers running multiple virtual hosts. The script dumps each of your MySQL databases to a gzipped file, then backs up each sub-directory in your web root directory (e.g. /var/www) to a separate gzipped tarball with a bash array loop.

The script automatically rotates daily, weekly, and monthly backups automatically.

It’s messy as hell, but gets the job done.

If you have an Ubuntu slice from Slicehost or any other Ubuntu web server, this should cover your bases in terms of local, daily backups.

(more…) “LAMP Virtualhost Backup Script”