Leinninger.com

Here’s a great reason to perform regular backups and use some kind of redundant solution for server storage… I had issues with disk space that caused the server to hang during backups… so I disabled backups “temporarily.” That was in October of last year. Well, the striped RAID array in the server failed and just about everything was lost (web sites, mail). I have some backups and I’ll try to recover what I can, but I learned my lesson. I replaced the striped array with a redundant auto-rebuilding mirrored array as well as external backups to CD-ROM (for now) with plans to implement my DLT backup system soon. I made some significant changes to the site since then and I hope to have them back sometime during the next month.

- Duane

The last race weekend of the 2006 WHRRI was quite… eventful. The Spec Neon points leader rolled his car on Saturday, but had it back together and ready to race on Sunday. During the first race on Sunday, I got tangled in a 3-car incident when a neon 2 cars ahead of me spun. I locked up my brakes to avoid it, but no luck. I bashed in the front of my racecar. From the looks of my car you would think that the guy I hit looked pretty bad. Not true… his bumper cover was just loose on the driver’s side. I managed to pull the front crossmember out enough so that it didn’t rub on my pwer steering pump and hammer out enough of the damage to race in the final feature of the season… with a lot of duct tape (aka “racer’s tape”) on the front of the car. I had my fastest lap during the feature, an unoffical 1’23″4. Some work on the car as well as my technique should make next season very exciting, indeed.

Gina and I traveled to Indianapolis last weekend to crew for Glenn at O’Reilly Raceway Park (formerly known as IRP/Indianapolis Raceway Park). The track and facilities were HUGE. The walk from our paddock location to the grid seemed like a 1/2 mile! A track that size favors horsepower and sticky tires with a 125 mph first turn after a 3/8th mile front straight! Glenn steadily improved his time during the weekend, and avoided a serious accident involving at least 3 cars in his class (sending 2 of them home for the weekend). One off-course excursion resulted in a little aluminum repair, but otherwise a very clean weekend. We had a great time driving around Indianapolis, we saw the outside of Indianapolis Motor Speedway (Home of the Indy 500) and feasted upon Hardee’s goodness.

- Duane

A few days ago I had to wipe my windows computer due to a nasty trojan horse (that’s what happens when you don’t boot/update your computer for 2 months and check your email while downloading updates). I took the oportunity to install Ubuntu with the Compiz XGL enhancements (see video below, warning: cheezy loud music when you hit play). I haven’t tinkered with a computer at the os level in some time. I used to spend hours at night customizing the appearance of my OS… every OS: Macintosh, Windows, and Linux. The first really crazy window manager I tried for Linux was Enlightenment. Ubutnu with compiz and XGL blows it out of the water. I’m still going to install Windows on another partition so I can test code and play games occasionally, but I think I’ll be using Ubuntu for a while. It’s by far the easiest desktop Linux install I’ve every tried (yes, even easier than Knoppix). Check it out if you have a chance!

- Duane

The line that Chris showed me last race weekend helped a lot. Joe (#33), the other driver from my driver’s school class with a first-year race car, had a little more horsepower this weekend thanks to his newly unrestricted exhaust and under-drive pulleys. During the Saturday race another driver decided to dive bomb us in turn one on during the start and we went 3 wide into the corner! He took most of my mirror off in the process, but I fared better than the next guy he tries to pass: he punted the left-rear of that car, breaking a tail light and crunching the quarter panel. That same driver held up a handful of us during the Sunday race, when he refused to let anyone by. He was given furled black flags three laps in a row, and did not acknowledge the caution. The Sunday feature race was exciting, I had the lowest “best time” of the weekend in my group, so I started last. I moved up pretty quickly after the first few turns due to some attrition and a better starting position (the inside line). With only a lap and a quarter to go, I got by Matt (#9, also from driver’s school) when he got a few wheels off going into turn 6.

- Duane