Month: November 2022

Somehow my main Linux workstation (non-work equip.) has achieved 384 days of uptime. Sure, that’s fine, but Xorg has been running for 384 days, too, which is fairly impressive:

(destiny:21:06:EST)% uptime
21:06:58 up 384 days, 22:53, 22 users, load average: 1.77, 1.17, 0.89
(destiny:21:06:EST)% ps -eo pid,lstart,cmd |grep "[X]org"
1947 Sat Nov 6 23:13:49 2021 /usr/lib/xorg/Xorg :0 -seat seat0 -auth /var/run/lightdm/root/:0 -nolisten tcp vt7 -novtswitch
(destiny:21:07:EST)%

It’s a pretty beefy machine and I’ve kept things like browsers, libc, and SSH up-to-date while avoiding touching any Xorg-related things like Xfce4 and.. uh oh.. Nvidia drivers.

I’ve also, unintentionally got a few other impressive uptimes at my home since I suppose power is fairly decent in the area. Although, we’ve had 5-6 minute interruptions a few times over the year and all my UPSes have come in very handy.

Wi-Fi router (Jetway box running Debian):

(trill:21:14:EST)% uptime
21:14:57 up 508 days, 21:22, 1 user, load average: 0.02, 0.03, 0.00
(trill:21:14:EST)% uname -a
Linux trill 5.3.0-3-686-pae #1 SMP Debian 5.3.15-1 (2019-12-07) i686 GNU/Linux
(trill:21:15:EST)% ifconfig br0
br0: flags=4163<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,MULTICAST>  mtu 1500
        inet 10.3.6.254  netmask 255.255.255.0  broadcast 10.3.6.255
        inet6 fe80::c872:cbff:fe3d:6002  prefixlen 64  scopeid 0x20<link>
        inet6 2620:6:2003:106::1  prefixlen 64  scopeid 0x0<global>
        ether ca:72:cb:3d:60:02  txqueuelen 1000  (Ethernet)
        RX packets 3718876922  bytes 1054181901663 (981.7 GiB)
        RX errors 0  dropped 0  overruns 0  frame 0
        TX packets 5010257194  bytes 4495091370445 (4.0 TiB)
        TX errors 0  dropped 0 overruns 0  carrier 0  collisions 0

The Jetway box above is running an Atom D2700 CPU that can run in 64-bit but the Jetway BIOS doesn’t support it, unfortunately. I’ve done about 5 TiB of Wi-Fi in 500 days. That’s not too much I suppose but my TVs and other streaming devices don’t use Wi-Fi!

Juniper EX2200-C virtual chassis:

{master:0}
prox@zero> show system uptime

fpc0:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Current time: 2022-11-26 21:13:13 EST
Time Source: NTP CLOCK
System booted: 2021-07-10 14:09:30 EDT (72w0d 08:03 ago)
Protocols started: 2022-08-11 09:20:26 EDT (15w2d 12:52 ago)
Last configured: 2022-11-08 21:45:05 EST (2w3d 23:28 ago) by prox
9:13PM up 504 days, 8:04, 1 user, load averages: 0.79, 0.86, 0.79

fpc1:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Current time: 2022-11-26 21:13:14 EST
Time Source: LOCAL CLOCK
System booted: 2022-08-11 09:22:34 EDT (15w2d 12:50 ago)
Last configured: 2022-11-08 21:44:43 EST (2w3d 23:28 ago) by prox
9:13PM up 107 days, 12:51, 0 users, load averages: 0.01, 0.08, 0.07

Alright, at least half of that VC has some decent uptime.

This one takes the cake, though. It’s an Atlantic.net VPS that is $0.99/mo in Toronto, Canada:

(tiny:21:11:EST)% uname -a
Linux tiny 4.14.0-3-amd64 #1 SMP Debian 4.14.12-2 (2018-01-06) x86_64 GNU/Linux
(tiny:21:11:EST)% uptime
21:11:22 up 1777 days, 23:53, 1 user, load average: 0.00, 0.00, 0.00
(tiny:21:11:EST)%

APT frequently fails to fork() and I have to stop things like SmokePing and snmpd to run any upgrades. It only has 256 MiB of RAM.

[I also tweeted this here (my second tweet about the issue) but Twitter is going through a rough time right now so I figured I should blog it, too]

Before moving in June of 2021 I created a list of every service or organization that had my address so I knew what I needed to update after moving. The update process was a huge pain in the butt, as one might expect. It took about two weeks for Loudoun County to process the paperwork for the sale so it was well into July before most 3rd party systems were up-to-date. USPS was updated pretty quickly and I have a feeling that was due to the builder submitting that information ahead of time. There were a couple items that took some extra time and action on my part, though:

• Google
• A Bank
• Best Buy
• FedEx Delivery Manager [the topic of this blog entry]

After 6+ weeks Google still did not have my street address in the system. It had the street itself but not the unit number, which was a little weird. After awhile I just submitted an update to Google Maps and manually placed my unit number on the map. Within a day it was updated. This unblocked a variety of services that use Google Maps data for address verification. I noticed another builder in the area had this pre-populated on Google Maps even though the homes were still under construction.

A bank (out of many others that I had no issue with), which will remain nameless, required me to call to their technical support line to update my address. They kinda blamed me for doing things wrong to begin with but then magically it was updated.

Best Buy, of all things, took a few months to recognize my address. I’m not sure what 3rd party system they use for address verification but this one remained on the list for awhile.

The last one is still broken but I don’t think it’s just broken for me. FedEx appears to have a few different uncoordinated systems that can store user profiles and FedEx Delivery Manager appears to be a standalone one. It’s similar to UPS My Choice in that one can select preferences for where packages are held or delivered and some other options. It doesn’t appear to have all the functionality of UPS My Choice (e.g. the notifications when a label is created for an inbound package, which is really useful) but still is nice to have. It wouldn’t accept my address for months and I went back & forth with someone on Twitter about this who indicated I needed to call technical support, which I did but then I couldn’t figure out how to speak to a human. I finally just left it on the list as “broken” and called everything done.

Over a year later after FedEx randomly delivered a package to my garage, which is kinda stupid since the front of my unit is directly on a street and package thefts are not prevalant in the area, I decided to give it another try. Nope, it still gave me an error. I decided to try it without the suffix (Sq or Square) and it accepted the address! I was able to successfully complete the sign up. However, this wasn’t right because I know for a fact there’s another street with this name in the surrounding area and the suffix is different (although the ZIP code is different, too). I decided to try other things, too. It turns out I can make up addresses and it’ll let me sign up!

My only conclusion is that Sq or Square (yes I tried both) is not recognized as a valid suffix in the FedEx Delivery Manager system. I ended up canceling the account for the address without the Sq becuase I didn’t want it to somehow affect my shipments, which seem to work fine (guessing it’s using FedEx’s official address verification system). Square is not too typical of a suffix I suppose but not as odd as some of the other ones in NoVA like Terrace (Ter).

Ultimately, I suppose I’m not really missing out. The bulk of my packages are delivered via USPS, AMZL, and USPS. I’m not really interested in expending the effort outside of this blog entry to try to get this fixed because at the day, I’m really only a gnat.

[Whoops, this was a draft that I had written up in February of 2022 but never published it and then forgot about it. Well, I figured I’d just publish it now because even though it’s largely irrelevant it’s better late then never?]

Yes, I’m weird. I can’t decide between Android and iOS when it comes to mobile devices so I have both.

My Android phone was a OnePlus 6T up until this week when I decided to try Samsung’s Galaxy line and went with the S22. I was thinking about the S22+ but the screen size at 170 mm was larger than the One Plus 6T at 165 mm, which I consider the max size of a phone, for me. The S22 comes in at 150 mm, which feels small but is about the same as my iOS device, an iPhone 13 Pro (155 mm).

This will also be the first Android phone where I don’t enable root access.

After a week with the phone and the Samsung-branded leather case, my first impressions aren’t all that great:

1. It took me days to shut off and disable/uninstall the Samsung garbage apps and endlessly-annoying notifications & suggestions. The sheer amount of junk made it feel like buying a Windows 98 PC from the late 1990s from a shady manufacturer. I almost threw the phone out the window halfway through this process.
2. The biometrics (face and fingerprint authentication) are AWFUL. When comparing it to my other phones, iPhone 13 Pro >> OnePlus 6T > Galaxy S22. I’m surprised it’s that bad. It’s gotten to a point where I just don’t expect them to work at all and always start to enter my PIN after turning the screen on. [Update 2022-11-20: The fingerprint authentication got much better after many months of updates but the face authentication is still mostly useless as it does not work most of the time.]
3. [Update 2022-11-20: The screen is slippery to the point that double tapping (to zoom or zoom out of Google Maps, for example) is a fail most of the time. It’s the most slippery phone I’ve ever owned. I don’t like the idea of screen protectors so I have just gotten used to it over time.]
4. I’m still able to turn off animations/transitions using developer options
   without rooting, which makes the phone instantly feel 10x faster (if I couldn’t do this, I would have returned it).
5. The camera performance is the best I’ve ever seen on a phone. The low-light/night photography blows away anything the iPhone 13 Pro can do. This is the best feature of the phone. However, the inability to have the camera application reset all settings to default (zoom level, night mode, etc.) on exit has me frequently yanking my phone out of my pocket to quickly take a photo and then scowling as I have to reset some setting before taking the shot.
6. The phone is very light. I’ll compare against the iPhone 13 Pro since it’s the same dimensions – it’s 204g and the S22 is 167g. Even though it’s light build quality seems to be good.
7. I’ll get a better idea of battery life over the next month but it seems like it’ll last a day and a half for me. It’s got a bunch of battery/power options, though – I’ve left the setting at “optimized” for now.

Overall, I’m not too impressed with the S22. Maybe I’ll try to re-record the biometrics to see if that improves things. [Update 2022-11-12: Nope, that didn’t do anything, but software updates did help]