We use vmware for most of our servers and recently moved them from one Ubuntu server to another. There are not a lot of concise, easy to read howtos on mounting a usb drive and copying files to it, so I thought I would document a pretty simple process for doing that:

First, make sure your usb drive is actually working before using on the server (helpdesk 101)

Plug it into the Ubuntu server

cd /mnt

if there is no folder in which to store the mounted files, make one. I usually make a folder called usbdrive

mkdir usbdrive

Then, run fdisk command to find the actual drive location on the machine:

fdisk -l

The last entry should be your USB and will be something like “/dev/sdb1 “. Then mount the drive

mount -t ntfs /dev/sdb1 /mnt/usbdrive

Then I usually cd to the mounted location to confirm the files from the usb drive are there:

cd /mnt/usbdrive

Then you can cp any files from the local machine to the usb drive. For example:

cp -Rf /home/david/myfiles /mnt/usbdrive

would copy the entire myfiles directory to the root of the usbdrive

I have just received a batch of my Hasselblad rolls that I had digitized. Let me know what you think:

[View with PicLens]

We loaded the new version of the Kinamu plugin and upgraded our Sugar recently. Everything worked fine except that the Generic Search in Kinamu dialog inside of Outlook was not working at all. I found the solution, and thought I would share with the world. This was posted in the Sugar discussions by Christian Knoll. Thanks man, it works:

This ultimately is an issue in Sugar I think. Lots of changes made to the Sugar search…badly needed changes I might add. Perhaps among these changes, this was missed.

Edit  modules/Contacts/Contacts.php
find the function build_generic_where_clause
Comment Out the array_push for accounts.name and ea.email_address

Edit  modules/Leads/Lead.php
find the function build_generic_where_clause
Comment Out the array_push for ea.email_address

Edit  modules/Opportunities/Opportunity.php
find the function build_generic_where_clause
Comment Out the array_push for accounts.name

These changes should take care of the issue

Lesson 3: It is important in any business to construct a compensation plan that properly motivates employees to be productive.

Case in point: Staking a tomato field

Unless your idea of planting tomatoes for your garden is buying two Topsy Turveys and hanging them on your porch, its pretty much guaranteed that you will need to stake your tomato plants so that they will not fall over onto the ground and rot. There are several ways to do this: Many people use a cage contraption that surrounds the plant and gives it support as the branches grow through the sides of the cage. Old school support was provided by staking a plant with a 4 foot wooden stake and then using some material to tie up the plant along the stake. You can tie off with any variety of materials, my grandfather even used old panty hose for this task, though few people these days have enough old panty hose sitting around the house. More commonly, folks have used a thin twine for the job….a little lighter weight than the twine of a hay bale, but not quite as narrow as a common cotton string. The traditional method for staking a plant involves driving the stake into the ground about 6-8 inches from the base of the stalk, then cutting short pieces of the twine and tying the base and the larger branches to the stake, working your way along the height of the plant.

The first year that we planted a field of tomatoes we hired a family of migrant workers to stake our field. My father agreed to pay each of the family members a little over minimum wage to stake each plant (which as you know from my earlier post is a lot of staking, cutting and tying). At lunch time of the first day, the progress was not impressive. My Dad estimated that it would cost a small fortune to have the field staked at the current pace, and wondered if the people who had recommended this family for the job might have been insane. Dad resolved to come to terms with the family for staking the entire field. This price should include each plant being properly staked, and would not be based on the amount of time taken to finish the job, as long as the job passed inspection at the end. In this way, my dad could be insured a fixed price that was predictable, and the family would be motivated to pick up the pace.

To my father’s surprise, the family happily agreed to the terms. When they returned from their lunch, it was clear that this was not the first time such a negotiation had taken place. First, their “gear” looked strangely different than the morning gear:

1. Twine: it was no longer in a small spool, but was in a large box strapped like a bowie knife to one of the teenage boys’ belts. Also, the twine exited the large box and was now threaded through the end of a broom stick like a home made make shift giant needle
2. Stakes: No longer on a cart, they were now in a cotton-picking-looking long burlapish bag, low to the ground and attached to the shoulder of a young boy that looked barely able to drag the large bag along the ground.
3. Hammer: transformed from a small, slightly larger than a common hammer, sledge hammer, into a giant 20lb sledgehammer that was wielded by a muscular Gladiator looking dude that swung it as though it were a two handed broad sword in battle.

The technique was oddly simple and almost rhythmic in routine. The small boy with the bag of stakes would scurry along the ground and every other plant would pull a stake from the bag and hold vertically without even looking up. The Gladiator would crush the stake into the ground with 1 to 1 1/2 swings and move on to the next stake. When one row was complete, the young man with twine attached to his belt and oversized needle in hand would run, literally run up the row, weaving the twine from one side of the plant to the other completing a full wrap on each stake and surrounding the outside of the tomato plant with twine on the lower portion, and then at the end of the row would tie off the end stake and repeat the routine higher up the plant until there were three pieces of supporting twine on each side of the plant. In this way, the plant had been staked with external support much like the cages we use in our gardens, but with speed and accuracy which almost had to be experienced to fully appreciate.

So, in essence, this family had the skills of experts, but because we were not properly compensating them, had not unleashed the proper motivation for them to use their skills. By the end of the day, the field was finished, and from then on, we paid by the field to stake our tomatoes.

Lesson 2: Tasks which are great in scope may only be achieved one small step at a time

Case in Point: Pruning tomatoes.

Most of the average gardeners in America have no idea that a tomato plant should be pruned when it is about 8-10 inches high. Truth be told, I had no idea when we started planting tomatoes that such a think was even possible. However, only a few weeks after me and my bro had completed planting the fields of tomatoes we were told that each plant must be pruned by hand.

For those who are not professional tomato farmers, pruning is a simple task. Each plant has a main stalk and then its branches. At about 8-10 inches, each plant begins to grow a tiny branch in the upper crevasse of the more mature branch, just where it meets the stalk. Unknowingly, most gardeners think that this growth is a good thing, a sign of a healthy, soon to be robust and full of fruit tomato plant. However, these tiny growths have a strange characteristic. They produce abnormally shaped fruit…known in the business as “cat faced” tomatoes. These tomatoes are not only ugly, but they take over growth and reduce the overall productivity of the plant. As a result, professionals prune the plant by simply pinching off the tiny outgrowth before it gets big enough to cause any trouble. However, the “simply” part of the previous sentence exists only for the casual gardener, while pruning for the professional-i-have-5-plus-acres-to-prune is ANYTHING but simple.

Getting back to the actual job, my brother and I were tasked with this portion of tomato farming exclusively. Now I have no idea how many actual plants were in that field, my Dad probably knew the exact number, but I just knew there were TONS more than I wanted to have anything to do with. By the end of the first day,  we knew we were in trouble…only a couple of rows complete, and our fingers were raw, nearly bloody and stained a semi-permanent green that faintly smelled like several sprigs of asparagus after they had been processed through your system and were being exited through your pee. (So in short my fingers hurt and were gross in several ways) Additionally our backs felt like we had been picking cotton for weeks, having been literally bent over for 8-9 hours in 90 degree heat.

Day two came, and I remember literally asking for God’s mercy, and begged for a “special” kind of never before seen miracle: super pruning with one word….suddenly all of those annoying little branches falling to the ground all at once….alas it was not to be. So, we pruned. For days.

Eventually the end was in sight and piece by piece, little by little each plant was allowed to have a healthy productive future, and we learned another important lesson: Given time, patience and perseverance even the largest of insurmountable tasks can be achieved.

NPR is running a series on summer jobs that have impacted you the most, and it got me to thinking about the same subject. By far the summer job that has impacted me the most in life was working the tomato fields for my father on the farm….a 300 something acre farm in Pendleton, SC, where I grew up. We milked Holsteins there as well, but truck crops were king in the summer, and the dreaded work associated with planting, caring for and picking tomatoes shaped me and my brother for the rest of our lives. I learned how to drive in those fields…a story for another time, but for now I will break up these stories into the lessons I learned…lessons that I still apply to my life every day.

Lesson 1: In any work place, there is a “right fit” job for everyone, even if it is not apparent at first.

Case in point, planting a tomato field.

When we first began planting my brother and I were little guys. I don’t remember exactly how old but I am pretty sure we were in Jr High…7th or 8th grade, and Q and I were smaller than most of the kids our age. Now having never planted a tomato in our lives, we were relegated to a “less” important portion of the task: gathering water from a nearby creek in 5 gallon buckets and pouring a small amount of that water on each plant as it was placed in the ground. Needless to say, the job was back breaking and not well suited for kids that were not much bigger than the buckets being lugged out of the creek full of water. After a few days of this we convinced my father to let us give planting a try, after all, as short guys were were closer to the ground and able to move more quickly than most of the guys trying to plant. Dad agreed and my brother Michael and I were off…and by off, I mean off to the races….we were three times as fast as the most experienced planter in the field, and quite good in technique as well. From then on, the big guys were left to water the plants and the little, fast guys put plants in the ground.

Dad did what he thought was best….put the most experienced guys on the job that most impacted his wallet. However, given the opportunity to discover the best fit for each worker, he discovered a much more efficient system for getting tomatoes into the ground….a lesson that I still learn from today. Each person has a “right fit” on any team….work or otherwise…..without taking risk you will never discover where each person fits.

Mark Karnes, Clyde Fowler, Brenda Bowers, Jack Radcliffe, Nick Berger, Jesse Berg, Leonardo daVinci, Fairfield Porter, Richard Diebenkorn, Jasper Johns

See, Hear, Meet, Do:

A Hard Rain’s Gonna Fall

Oh, where have you been, my blue-eyed son?
Oh, where have you been, my darling young one?
I've stumbled on the side of twelve misty mountains,
I've walked and I've crawled on six crooked highways,
I've stepped in the middle of seven sad forests,
I've been out in front of a dozen dead oceans,
I've been ten thousand miles in the mouth of a graveyard,
And it's a hard, and it's a hard, it's a hard, and it's a hard,
And it's a hard rain's a-gonna fall.

Oh, what did you see, my blue-eyed son?
Oh, what did you see, my darling young one?
I saw a newborn baby with wild wolves all around it,
I saw a highway of diamonds with nobody on it,
I saw a black branch with blood that kept drippin',
I saw a room full of men with their hammers a-bleedin',
I saw a white ladder all covered with water,
I saw ten thousand talkers whose tongues were all broken,
I saw guns and sharp swords in the hands of young children,
And it's a hard, and it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard,
And it's a hard rain's a-gonna fall.

And what did you hear, my blue-eyed son?
And what did you hear, my darling young one?
I heard the sound of a thunder, it roared out a warnin',
Heard the roar of a wave that could drown the whole world,
Heard one hundred drummers whose hands were a-blazin',
Heard ten thousand whisperin' and nobody listenin',
Heard one person starve, I heard many people laughin',
Heard the song of a poet who died in the gutter,
Heard the sound of a clown who cried in the alley,
And it's a hard, and it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard,
And it's a hard rain's a-gonna fall.

Oh, who did you meet, my blue-eyed son?
Who did you meet, my darling young one?
I met a young child beside a dead pony,
I met a white man who walked a black dog,
I met a young woman whose body was burning,
I met a young girl, she gave me a rainbow,
I met one man who was wounded in love,
I met another man who was wounded with hatred,
And it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard,
It's a hard rain's a-gonna fall.

Oh, what'll you do now, my blue-eyed son?
Oh, what'll you do now, my darling young one?
I'm a-goin' back out 'fore the rain starts a-fallin',
I'll walk to the depths of the deepest black forest,
Where the people are many and their hands are all empty,
Where the pellets of poison are flooding their waters,
Where the home in the valley meets the damp dirty prison,
Where the executioner's face is always well hidden,
Where hunger is ugly, where souls are forgotten,
Where black is the color, where none is the number,
And I'll tell it and think it and speak it and breathe it,
And reflect it from the mountain so all souls can see it,
Then I'll stand on the ocean until I start sinkin',
But I'll know my song well before I start singin',
And it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard,
It's a hard rain's a-gonna fall.