ok...just kidding...no idea what's up with the syslog process

Just an update, I have no idea what's causing the syslog process to hog all the cpu. It appears to be related to the periodic daily task, but not sure which one..

syslog consuming 100% cpu part deux

So, from the previous post, I thought I may have been on to something with 100GB daily.out file. As it turns out, I wasn't. But, I kept digging today. And I found something interesting in system.log file

Mar 26 03:30:41 Legolas [0x0-0x219219].com.apple.dock[4729]: 2009-03-26 03:30:41.448 DashboardClient[5247:10b] (com.iSlayer.iStatpro4.widget) file:///Users/kevin/Library/Widgets/iStat%20pro.wdgt/scripts/core.js: TypeError: Result of expression 'this.isSectionEnabled' [undefined] is not a function. (line: 528)

Could it be this simple, the iStat widget was throwing an exception which caused the churn in the syslog process? It looked like this exception was being thrown every 3 minutes, non stop. Every three minutes doesn't seem like enough activity to cause the problem...but, I uninstalled it and going on 12+ hours without cpu saturation

It started with syslog consuming all my cpu

A rather strange phenomenon has been occurring on my Mac over the last several weeks. Don't know what started nor do I know if it's over, but I want to tell you the tale of the 110GB daily.out file and the syslog process that kept (maybe keeps) consuming all my CPU.

At least once a day, the syslog process starts consuming 100% of the CPU on my Mac Book and does not stop without force quitting. Searching through Google, I learned that many others have the same problem, but no consistent explanation. So, I resigned to force quitting the process whenever it would misbehave...until tonight.

I start up Openoffice.org to create a spreadsheet to for a household budget when I receive a nice message saying that my root disk is almost full. Opening the disk utility showed that I only had 600MB of free space left. I did the natural thing, I emptied my trash bin. That only gave me back 10MB, so I'm at 610MB.

I did some googling on how to run the disk utility or look at other 3rd party utilities that could help determine any unwanted, and large files were lurking on my drive. I went back into the disk utility again when all of a sudden it was reporting 0 bytes of space left!

Yikes!

I went and looked in the /var/log directory, as this is where many (if not all) log files are written. I did your friendly "ls -help" command and to my astonishment, the daily.out file was 110GB in size!

Stunned silence.

After the shock wore off, the awe kicked in and I went to see what in the heck was going on. As it turned out, on 2 days, Jan 24 and Feb 6, I started receiving an inordinate number of "kernel[0] " messages in the log. No other description provided. Google didn't help much either other than providing that the only similar errors actually related to disk i/o errors and the kernel.

Now I tried googling "how do i control the size of the daily.out log file mac os x" which lead me to maxosxhints.com. Here, I found a script that will rotate out the daily (and weekly and monthly) log files once they become larger than 50kb. Chalking up the kernel errors to some anomaly that has since gone away (at least I hope so), I went ahead and set up the script listed in the comments section of the post on the page and then executed, thus purging the 110GB daily.out file.

I now have 120GB freespace according to disk utility. The math doesn't seem quite right, but at least I took care of the drive space issue.

Now, if the cpu hogging syslog process has/had anything to do with the large file (or vice versa), I don't know. Only time will tell and I don't have an answer for any of you out there that google "syslog consuming 100% cpu" and end up on this page, but this was a journey that I had to share.

And you think your system handles a high transactional volume?

My buddies at work always start chuckling when we look at some performance stats on our middle tier system. We proudly proclaim how we are pushing 5 transactions / second with a quarter second response time on average. This is all somewhat tongue-in-cheek, as we are very aware that this is child's play.

So, when I was reading the Amazon Web Services Blog about how they peaked out 70,000 transactions / second, I could help but laugh harder. Damn, I wish I had the opportunity to work on that type of system.

"Our customers are keeping S3 pretty busy too. To give you an example of what this means in practice, the peak S3 usage for October 1st was over 70,000 storage, retrieval, and deletion requests per second."

.

Goes to show just how small of a fish I really am in this big ocean.

Gassless in Nashville

Yep, that's right, we are without gas here. It started Friday. Apparently, one pipeline that is responsible for supplying gas to Nashville runs through Houston and the operator has not had power restored. The net result, a shortage of gas in Nashville. They are saying 80% of the gas stations are without gas. We have 1/2 tank in our Toyota and 1/4 tank in the Explorer. Needless to say, we aren't going anywhere anytime soon. I've reverted to emailing coworkers looking for gas. Heck, maybe this is a good time for me to go and buy a bike. I just had my annual physical and my doctor said I need to start exercising...maybe she's conspiring against me and taking up all the gas.

Ode to credit card payments using machine or human

I travel a lot. And as a result, I fly out of Houston Hobby airport and become very efficient and getting there, parking, and making a fast get-a-way. Something occur to me a few weeks ago as I was peeling out from the parking garage to head home.

When paying for parking, you have a couple of options. You can use an auto teller and swipe your credit card through a machine, or you can do it the old fashion way and interact with a parking attendant who will gladly process your credit card.

The issue is, when I use the machine, I insert my parking ticket followed by the credit card and usually 15 seconds later, a receipt is printed and I retrieve my credit card. Now, in the event that the automatic machine is down (which is often), I have to go to the parking attendant. I give them the parking ticket, a total is calculated, I give him my card, he swipes the card, I wait about 1 minute (I've timed it), he hands me clipboard, sign the receipt, and then get my card back and my copy of the receipt and then I'm out of there.

My question, why is it that I have to sign a receipt when using the parking attendant but do not have to when I use the automatic machine? I've heard that transactions under $25 don't require signatures, but most of the time, my parking ticket is on the order of $50. What gives?

What I hate about the Internet is...having to select my credit card type

In case if you didn't know, you can determine the type of credit card, i.e., Visa, Master Card, Amex, and etc. by looking at the number you enter. The prefix and width (including spaces) for the major credit card types are:

CARD TYPES............PREFIX................WIDTH
American Express.....34, 37....................15
Diners Club..............300 to 305, 36........14
Carte Blanche...........38..........................14
Discover...................6011.......................16
EnRoute...................2014, 2149.............15
JCB..........................3............................16
JCB..........................2131, 1800..............15
Master Card.............51 to 55..................16
Visa..........................4...........................13, 16

Therefore, it stands to reason that by looking at the prefix of a credit card, you can derive the type of the card. And finally, as a programmer, I know that Verisign does not require you to send in the type, only the number itself and a few other bits of information.

What I hate about the Internet is...everyone wants you to create an account

It never fails...any website you shop on...they want you to create an account when you check out.

Why?

When I go to my local mall and buy something in my favorite shop, the store doesn't ask for my address, phone number, email address or any other personal information. Normal shopping experiences include an exchange of pleasantries with the sales person, handing over cash, debit, or credit card...and obtaining a receipt and walking away with the goods.

Why shouldn't shopping on the Internet be any different?

What I hate about the Internet is...

While messing around on the Internet, again...I realized I was obsessing over the useability of the Internet and websites I visit. Most of the thoughts are along the lines of what could be better about websites, what sucks about websites, and what's missing. Therefore, I'm going to (but no promises on how often I will update) create a new series of posts regarding these very thoughts.

For the one person who reads my blog somewhat consistently, stay tuned for the first post.

ZFS File System...now that's big

As I surfed the Internet tonight, came across an article about the ZFS File System. Not being familiar with it, I did a bit of reading to learn more, as that is what one may due when trying to learn.  Anyway, looking on WikiPedia, I found an interesting assertion that frankly, made my head hurt.

If a billion computers each filled a billion individual file systems per second, the time required to reach the limit of the overall system would be almost 1,000 times the estimated age of the universe.

Wow, not that's a lot of data.  Makes you wonder how much it really is...ok, maybe not.

Judge upholds $30M Judgement against Ebay...what the?

The AP is reporting that a federal judge upheld a ruling in favor of a small Virgina based companies claim of patent infringement by EBay. The article states:

The dispute revolves around eBay's "Buy It Now" option, which sells
merchandise at a fixed price instead of fluctuating bids. MercExchange contends
the system tramples on its patented technology.

Since when is buying merchandise on line at a fixed price an infringement of a patent? The article concludes with:

Since the legal tug-of-war began, MercExchange's payroll has shrank from more
than 40 employees to three. Thomas Woolston, MercExchange's president, is trying
to revive the company's growth by licensing patents to other e-commerce sites.

MercExhange is the name of the company that filed the lawsuit...hmmmm...I guess patent holding companies are a thing of the past...at least with respect to Internet intellectual properties.

A Christmas Tragedy

Once I realized that it was the woman sitting a few chairs down from me snoring and not some special affect, I was able to realize how bad of a telling of Charles Dickens A Christmas Carol put on at the Alley Theatre really was.

From freakish choreographed ghost dances you would be proud of at your 5 year old daughters dance recital; the predictable transvestite maid servant of Scrooge; a steam clock; and to the tricycle riding ghost of Christmas future, the play was an utter disappointment. Until last night, I didn't realize it was possible for a professional stage group to put on a poor performance.

Yes, you read right, the ghost of Christmas future was riding a rocket propelled tricycle full of exhaust steam, twisty pipes, and some kind of canisters that you would see at an oil refinery.

Suffering from an identity crisis, the producers and directors tried to bring A Nightmare Before Christmas to the stage through this classic story. Needless to say, neither are a Tim Burton and their attempt was unoriginal, boring, and down right stupid. I found myself laughing out loud throughout the play as scene after scene contained some kind of cheese that Kraft would be proud of. For example, there was an entourage of 5 ghosts doing some stupid choreographed dance routine between many of the scenes wearing Halloween masks straight out of the movie Scream.

Suffice to say, I'm going to think twice next year before slapping down my $67 per ticket to avoid suicidal thoughts to rid myself of the agony of watching this play, as it was truly the worst play I've ever seen.

P.S.
I'm not kidding about the lady snoring.

Dirty Santa

While catching up on my news today, read an article from the Associated Press about a Microsoft Messenger Santa bot talked dirty to kids. The Santa bot allows kids to chat with Santa through MSN Live messenger about what they would like for Christmas. Apparently, by directing the conversation the right way, you could get Santa to talk dirty to you. For example:

One of the publication's writers replicated the chat Monday. After declining the writer's repeated invitations to eat pizza, a frustrated Santa burst out with, "You want me to eat what?!? It's fun to talk about oral sex, but I want to chat about something else."

A Microsoft spokesman had the following comment about the bot:

Sohn said Santa's lewd comment was sparked by someone "pushing this thing to make it do things it wasn't supposed to do."

Now, if that isn't the response of a developer, I don't know what is.

No keyboard found, press F1 to continue

Over the last week, been working to remove some spy ware, trojan horses, and other viruses that recently got onto my mother-in-laws computer. During one of the reboots, I got an error message during the system check:

No keyboard found, press F1 to continue.

Hmmmm, would like to if the keyboard was found.

Wow, another email...it must be my lucky year

From:   vitomas00@hotmail.fr
Subject: Please reply me as soon as possible.
Date: October 26, 2007 10:45:05 AM CDT
Reply-To:   vitomas1@yahoo.com

DEAREST ONE ,
AS I WAS ABOUT SEARCHING FOR A TRUST WORTHY PERSON  .I MUST NOT HESITATE TO CONFIDE IN YOU FOR THIS SIMPLE AND SINCERE BUSINESS IN WHICH MY WHOLE LIFE DEPENDS ON.
I AM  VINCENT THE ONLY CHILD AND OF LATE CHIEF AND MRS RUBEN JAKO WEMBER .MY FATHER WAS A VERY WEALTHY COCOA MERCHANT BASED IN ABIDJAN, THE ECONOMIC CAPITAL OF IVORY COAST BEFORE HE WAS POISONED TO DEATH BY HIS BUSINESS ASSOCIATES ON ONE OF THEIR OUTINGS TO DISCUSS ON A BUSINESS DEAL HE NEVER KNEW HE WAS THE PLAN TO BE KILLED ONLY BECAUSE HE REFUSSED JOINING THE  SPONSOR  OF THE WAR .
 
MY MOTHER DIED ON THE 21ST OCTOBER 1988, MY FATHER TOOK ME SO SPECIAL BECAUSE I AM MOTHERLESS AND THE ONLY CHILD.BEFORE THE DEATH OF MY FATHER ON 24TH JUNE 2006 IN A PRIVATE HOSPITAL HERE IN ABIDJAN. HE SECRETLY CALLED ME ON HIS BEDSIDE AND TOLD ME THAT HE HAD A SUM OF US$16,600,000 (SIXTEEN MILLION SIX HUNDRED THOUSAND UNITED STATES DOLLARS) HE STOCKED IT IN A CONSIGNMENT BOX AND DEPOSITED INTO A SECURITY COMPANY HERE IN ABIDJAN, THAT HE USED MY NAME AS THE ONLY SON IN DEPOSITING THE BOX WITH THE SECURITY COMPANY AND TOLD THEM THAT I WILL PRESENT TO THE SECURITY COMPANY THE FOREIGN PARTNER AND BENEFICARY WHO WILL CLAIM THE BOXES.
HE ALSO EXPLAINED TO ME THAT IT WAS BECAUSE OF THIS WEALTH THAT HE WAS POISONED BY HIS BUSINESS ASSOCIATES, THAT I SHOULD SEEK FOR A FOREIGNER IN ANY OF THE OVERSEA  COUNTRY OF MY CHOICE WHERE ,AND THAT I SHOULD MAKE SURE THAT I TRUST THE PERSON THAT HE / SHE WILL NOT CHEAT ME OR KILL ME LATERON BEFORE I CAN DISCLOSE TO HIM WHERE THE CONTACT OF THE SECURITY COMPANY .HE SAID THAT THE CONTENT OF THE BOX MUST BE A CONFIDENTIAL BETWEEN I AND THE PERSON BECAUSE THAT NOBODY EVEN NOON OF THE SECURITY COMPANY WORKERS KNOWS THAT THE CONTENT OF THE BOX ARE MONEY.HE SAID THAT HIM DECLEARED THE CONTENTS OF THE BOX AS FAMILY VALUEABLES SUCH AS  GOLD DUSTS. 
I AM HONOURABLY SEEKING YOUR ASSISTANCE IN THE FOLLOWING WAYS AND I AM ASSURING YOU THAT THIS TRANSACTION IS  LEGAL AND 100% RISK FREE HENCE YOU LISTEN TO MY WORDS AND BE SURE THAT YOU ARE WILLING TO HELP ME FROM THE BUTTOM OF YOUR HEART
 
2) TO SERVE AS MY GUARDIAN AND YOU WILL BE PRESENTED AS LATE FATHERS FOREIGN BUSINESS PARTNER.SINCE I AM A BOY OF 21 YEARS OLD   
 
3) TO MAKE ARRANGEMENT FOR ME TO COME OVER TO YOUR COUNTRY TO FURTHER MY EDUCATION AND TO SECURE A RESIDENTIAL PERMIT FOR ME IN YOUR COUNTRY.
MOREOVER, I AM WILLING TO OFFER YOU APPRICIATIVE SUM FROM THE TOTAL MONEY AS COMPENSATION FOR YOUR IMMEDIATE ASSISTANCE AFTER YOU HELP ME CLEAR OUT THE BOX FROM THE SECURITY COMPANY 
 
FURTHERMORE, YOU CAN INDICATE YOUR OPTION TOWARDS ASSISTING ME, AS I BELIEVE THAT THIS TRANSACTION WOULD BE CONCLUDED WITHIN SEVEN (7)  WORKING DAYS .IF YOU HAVE  INTEREST TO ASSIST ME PLEASE ENDEAVOUR TO FURNISH ME WITH YOUR TELEPHONE AND FAX NUMBER SO THAT I WILL FORWARD THEM TO THE SECURITY COMPANY OFFICE AS MY LATE FATHERS FOREIGN BUSINESS PARTNER WHO HE DEPOSITED THE METALIC BOX ON HIS BEHALF.
THANKS AND GOD BLESS,HOPING TO HEAR FROM YOU I WILL BE HAPPY TO CHAT WITH YOU ON THE PHONE SOONEST.
IN GOD WE TRUST.
YOURS SINCERELY,
VINCENT JAKO WEMBER.
NB: PLEASE  REPLY ME THROUGH THIS MY PRIVATE E-MAIL  FOR SECURITY REASON. THANKS
vitomas1@yahoo.com