Today I checked the MySQL backups for ziggy and noticed that the database hadn’t been backed up properly in weeks. I manually ran the backup script and was greeted with the following error:

Table 'mytable' is marked as crashed and last (automatic?) repair failed

To correct this, I opened a MySQL console and repaired the table with:

REPAIR mytable;

This appeared to correct the issue, but like most computer problems, I have no idea why it happened in the first place.

You can upgrade MySQL 5.0 to MySQL 5.1 on FreeBSD using portupgrade as follows:

1. portupgrade -o databases/mysql51-client databases/mysql50-client
2. portupgrade -o databases/mysql51-server databases/mysql50-server
3. mysql_upgrade -u root -p

Ah, more obscure bugs to try to deal with. I have a blog, running WordPress 2.7.1, that will not show posts in the correct, descending chronological order. Instead, I see the following:

1. May 6th, 2009
2. June 5th, 2009
3. May 15th, 2009
4. May 1st, 2009

Notice that the post from May 6th comes before the posts from June 5th or May 15th. Furthermore, this problem seems to only occur on the main index.php page. When filtering the archive by date it works fine. The problem also seems to happen regardless of the theme being used.

The version of MySQL running on this system is mysql Ver 14.12 Distrib 5.0.81, for portbld-freebsd7.2 (i386) using 5.2. The PHP version is PHP Version 5.2.9.

Update Ah ha, it isn’t a bug in WordPress at all. Some hapless user set the Sticky flag for the post for some arbitrary reason, causing it to always appear at the top of the page.

If you are using the fxp0 driver in FreeBSD 7.2, you will find that clients can no longer connect to your server successfully using certain DSL connections, such as AT&T or BellSouth. You can temporarily work around this issue by executing the following command:

sysctl net.inet.tcp.tso=0

To persist this change after a reboot, add the net.inet.tcp.tso=0 line to /etc/sysctl.conf.

There’s a whole thread about the TCP differences in FreeBSD 7.2 versus FreeBSD 7.1, and a poster seems to provide an explanation for why this occurs:

The problem was caused by the reciever side (usually PPPoE clients, e.g. DSL users) which proposes a smaller MSS than the interface MTU, the previous implementation sets the packet length to interface MTU instead of the negotiated one, which would cause the problem.

Setting net.inet.tcp.tso=0 would turn off TCP Segment Offloading completely. The previous release of FreeBSD does not include this feature.

I’m just surprised that such a glaring bug made it through to release.

Update: This issue has finally been added to the FreeBSD 7.2-RELEASE Errata.

Grades for ECE 506, Architecture of Parallel Computers, have now been posted. They are as follows:

• Homework 1, 100%
• Homework 2, 100%
• Homework 3, 95%
• Homework 4, 100%
• Homework 5, 100%
• Homework 6, 100%
• Homework 7, 100%
• Midterm Exam, 90%
• Final Exam, 96%

Final average: 95% (A+)
Costs: $2100 (tuition)

Finished with graduate school!

Grades for CSC 513, Electronic Commerce Technologies, have now been posted. They are as follows:

• Homework 1, 97%
• Homework 2, 100%
• Homework 3, 94%
• Project 1, 100%
• Project 2, 100%
• Project 3, 100%
• Project 4, 100%
• Midterm Exam, 84%
• Final Exam, 88%

Final average: 93% (A+)
Costs: $2100 (tuition)

One more final exam to go, and then I’m finally done with graduate school!

Update: Originally, the grade was an A, but after appeal the grade has been changed.

Microsoft offers discounts for US Students on Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate Upgrade through their Ultimate Steal program. Unfortunately, the download consists of three files:

• boot.wim
• install.wim
• X14-63452.exe

and these files are intended to be run from an existing Windows OS installation. It is far more useful to have these files in a bootable ISO image format, so that it can be burned to DVD and then installed on a clean system. This can be accomplished through the following steps:

1. Download and install the Windows Automated Installation Kit.
2. Run the X14-63452 executable. This will launch the Windows Vista Setup Preparation application and create a Vista subdirectory.
3. Exit from the Windows Vista Installation screen, and copy the Vista subdirectory to a convenient location, like C:\Vista.
4. Run oscdimg -bC:\Vista\boot\etfsboot.com -h -u2 -m -lVISTA_EN_DVD C:\Vista\ C:\VISTA.iso, or see the oscdimg command-line options. Be sure to run this command through the Windows PE Command Prompt within the Start Menu.

Congratulations, you now have a working Windows Vista Ultimate with Integrated SP1 DVD.

When I attempt to delete a file in Windows Vista, after several minutes of disk churning, my screen goes completely blank and then I am greeted with the following error message:

Logon process has failed to create the security options dialog.

The title bar of this dialog box simply says “Failure – Security Options”. That’s awesome.

Update: It looks like the problem has to do with Cygwin and the way that it sets file permissions.

If you upgrade your Java SDK, the NetBeans IDE may give you the following error message (Invalid jdkhome specified) at startup:

Cannot find java.exe in specified jdkhome.
Neither C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.6.0_10\jre\bin\java.exe 
    nor C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.6.0_10\bin\java.exe exists.
Do you want to try to use default version?

This can be corrected by manually editing the netbeans.conf file found under:

%PROGRAMFILES%\NetBeans 6.5\etc