Mindless Techie

I just found a couple cool programs called turbotail and multitail while searching for rbot using eix.

Turbotail is just like tail, but it uses dnotify instead of auto refreshing a defined number of seconds.  I always thought it was kind of silly to keep refreshing the screen searching for new content with tail.  Turbotail just sits there until the kernel notifies of a change in the file that you are tail’ing and then it updates what you see.

Multitail looks like a VERY robust way of viewing multiple files.  It can tail any number of files and supports text filtering and even syntax highlighting.

Turbotail works great, but unfortunately multitail crashes when I try to run it from my Yakuake console.  I get this:

--*- multitail 5.2.0 (C) 2003-2007 by folkert@vanheusden.com -*--
 
A problem occured at line 511 in function mynewwin (from file term.c):
 
Failed to create window with dimensions 55x9 at offset -27,-4 (terminal size: 167,19)

Seems to work just fine from a regular console though.  It will take me a while to actually learn all of the features of multitail.

After a while of looking for a new job, I finally got a new job. Well, actually, I’ve been working my new job for about 3 months now. So… I guess it’s not really a new job anymore.

I’m now a full time Linux administrator with ExLibris. Unfortunately, Red Hat is the preferred distribution. That’s to be expected. Most business want to make sure they use something that’s proven and has a clear line of support.

The new job is in Des Plaines, Il, which means I’ll have to sell my house and move a little closer. So far, the job seems pretty good. It’s doing something I like and the people are nice, and most of them seem pretty smart.