Evaggelos Balaskas - System Engineer

You can find my gimp template here:

pocketmod gimp template

it looks like that:

Why i chose archlinux as my primary desktop distro.

a non techinal approach

I am using linux for personal and work related use, from 2002 on a daily bases. I work as a unix system engineer, so i think of my self as an intermetiate user and not a newbie. Not at least on the majority of linux things, cause things are changing too fast and we must adopt to the new world. In this blog post, i will not write down my linux history but i believed that a prolog should be in place, so everybody (me and you) have the same context.

I am using archlinux from May 2009 so its almost four years now. You could say that i got around archlinux as a mistake (i was using ubuntu at that time and a space character after “rm -rf /usr /local/src/something” made me remove my /usr folder) but the test i’ve made (installing archlinux) that evening changed my life.

Why i chose archlinux ?

at that point, I had three options:
a. fedora
b. archlinux
c. freebsb

I had used fedora before 2009 and i wasnt impressed. At that time ubuntu was the only true choice for someone like me. So the next step was installing archlinux or freebsd. I chose archlinux cause it is a Linux distro and not unix.

So i took a risk.

What i did know about archlinux at that time:

• archlinux was a binary distro
• archlinux didnt have any configuration/automate tool
• didnt have a nice installer but only a text based menu
• archlinux had the best wiki i’ve ever seen
• archlinux had a large active forum
• archlinux had an impressive amount of packages at the default repositories
• archlinux had an EVEN impressive amount of packages at AUR
• archlinux had a simple text file for reconfigure a package (PKGBUILD)
• all of the archlinux packages was as close as the upstream had just uploaded !

i didnt know much about archlinux and all of that obvious things i’ve learned them in a just a few days.

From the first day - i wanted to contribute somehow to that amazing distro.
So the first gallery of archlinux installation had been published at the next couple hours

http://balaskas.gr/ArchLinux/

What i learned in the next couple days.

• archlinux has a simply to use/configure package manager, called by archers as pacman ! neet
• archlinux DOESNOT setup Xorg !
• archlinux doesnt have any configure/automate tool

wait a minute - i knew that already, but there is NONE

if you want to setup your network - you must know how to do it.
You need to read manual pages for breakfast and do it all my hand.
There isnt any tool to setup nothing.
Audio ? you must put your self in the right group and you have to read the wiki.
You have to learn.

And it was perfect for me. I’ve learned so much just by using it and i am still learning.

Any big changes ?

Yes there are some things i didnt like and the main problem is the attitube of arch devs. They are intelligent people and document everything but they make hard decisions that none of the arches around the globe appriciate - at least at the current momment.

I mean, remove tcp wrappers cause the last version was ten years ago ?
stupid, right ?

• Change your /lib to /usr/lib
• Convert your init to systemd
• Remove the text base menu installer !!!
  (still pretty angy about that)
• grub2 as a default boot loader the same day that gnu released an annouchment that grub is legacy!

and some other things that people dont get along.

There was a time that updating your linux kernel meant you had no system after that!

So what about know ?

what i know now about archlinux

• archlinux is a binary distro
• archlinux dont have any configuration/automate tool
• archlinux has the best wiki i’ve ever seen
• archlinux has a large active forum
• archlinux has an impressive amount of packages at the default repositories
• archlinux has an EVEN impressive amount of packages at AUR
• archlinux has a text simple file for reconfigure a package (PKGBUILD)
• all of the archlinux packages are as close as the upstream upload them !

so … this is the most stable linux distro i have ever use !

The feeling of understing and knowing your linux distro is underappriciate to every other linux distro user cause you need to learn linux.

What about pacman ?

Till archlinux, i had the feeling that the package manager of a distro isnt that important.
You add packages, you remove packages and every now and then you upgrade packages.
Every six or nine or 12 months you have to dist-upgrade your distro version.

And then … there is pacman !

pacman is a strong package manager that uses simply text files that describes how to build a package.
PKGBUILD are easy read and easy to hack. So you can have your own packages in just a few minutes.

Archlinux is a rolling distro. You are always on the latest version.
Is it stable ?

I dont see how it shouldnt be!

Security updates are just a momment away, as the upstream upload a new version of their software
Non free code? non opensource codex ? doesnt matter. We just want to have a desktop awesome desktop distro.

I want to use vlc to play mp3 and divx - i care enough about opensource, but i also dont care enough to be an evangelist
or make my life difficult.

Yes the stable versions of the packages arent tested enough but lets face it,
is just how the opensource word works! You find a bug - you are yelling to the internet.
Perhaps you are the first one that had a problem with this new version of program.
So its for you to contribute.

Same policy as fedora project, or unstable debian.

Are there any cons ?

yes they are, its a bleeding age linux distro.
you have to ugprade at least every week your machine.
You need to read the news section first,
you need to read the wiki,
you need to read the manual pages.

So if all of that are cons, then thats it.

You system is broken ?
You can blame Alan for that.
Everybody else does that - why not you ?
There are actual times that he blames himself too.
So everybody happy - you have someone to blame.

Learn and adopt archlinux.
You need to time to adopt - i understand that.
But you need just one evening, then its all there - at the wiki.

GReek comminuty ?

yes and no

They (we ?) keep a low profile. None of the “major” players attrack attetion.
We (they ?) just use the archlinux forum/irc/wiki to interact with others.

There is a greek site - just to translate the news section (mostly).

So give it a spin - if you have a couple hours to spare - and start using,
perhaps the last linux distro you’ll ever use.

tl;dr

click here: html5test

full blog post:

I use a lot of different web browsers on a daily bases for testing and viewing company’s web applications and of course for browsing through the internet.

I use firefox cause it’s just works - without a lot of tweeks and has a huge addon library.
I dont like chromium cause i need to work through a lot of different proxies and chromium doesnt have yet a FoxyProxy plugin (or i havent found one yet).

I like working with midori web browser cause is the most light WebKit engine browser and when firefox is giving me the pain, i immediately switch to midori (till i have to work with foxyproxy).

In most cases everybody have an another web browser that they use for time to time but isnt their default browser or doesnt work perfectly as they want, but they love it as if it was their own baby project. This is my feelings about vimprobable2. It’s an amazing project - amazing.

For my line of work, i couldnt bypass internet explorer (even if i wanted to - and i want to) so in the mix i will bring up IE too.

I wanted to test their html5 capabilities and these are my results:

So clearly chromium is the leader and firefox Nightly with it’s gecko engine just behind.
I also loved that vimprobable2 scored better that midori.

IE version 8.0.6001.1872 scored 42/500 !
Nightly is Firefox Nightly version as of this blog post writing time

Every project tested (except IE) was in its latest version.

So test your browser with: html5test

Inside your project, there is a .git directory

> cd ~/awesome_project/

> cat .git/hooks/post-commit

git show -C | mail -s "git  commit at `hostname`"  myemail@example.com

simple !

Install needed packages:

sudo pacman -S xbindkeys xdotool

append (or create) your .xbindkeysrc with this

"xdotool click 3"
    Mod2 + Multi_key

and run xbindkeys

your is now a right click mouse emulator

Reading v13’s blog post about Raspberry Pi under QEMU i was insired to do a similar post for archliux.

This is the easy-way (you can find a lot of copylefts here) !

Step Zero: Downdload the archlinux version of raspberry pi

Go to the archlinux arm site and download the disk image: archlinux-hf-2013-06-06.img

Decompress the image

$ unzip archlinux-hf-2013-06-06.zip

and here you are !

Step One: Find a propel kernel to boot the disk image

V13 built his own kernel - i am lazy !

From xecdesign i’ve downloaded their kernel:

wget -c http://xecdesign.com/downloads/linux-qemu/kernel-qemu

Step Two: You are ready to boot your archlinuxarm disk image:

tldr note:

qemu-system-arm 
        -kernel kernel-qemu 
        -cpu arm1176 
        -m 256 
        -M versatilepb 
        -no-reboot -serial stdio 
        -append "root=/dev/sda2 panic=0" 
        -hda archlinux-hf-2013-06-06.img

Step Three: Play

Do you want to know a little more ?
Click here

a summary - without notes
assuming you are using a http server

cd /var/www/html/
 
mkdir -pv archlinux/x86_64/

cd archlinux/

wget -c http://ftp.otenet.gr/linux/archlinux/iso/latest/arch/aitab
wget -c http://ftp.otenet.gr/linux/archlinux/iso/latest/arch/checksum.x86_64.md5

cd x86_64/
 
wget -c http://ftp.otenet.gr/linux/archlinux/iso/latest/arch/boot/x86_64/vmlinuz
wget -c http://ftp.otenet.gr/linux/archlinux/iso/latest/arch/boot/x86_64/archiso.img
wget -c http://ftp.otenet.gr/linux/archlinux/iso/latest/arch/x86_64/root-image.fs.sfs

add these lines to your pxelinux.cfg/default file

LABEL ArchLinux x86_64
        MENU LABEL ArchLinux x86_64
        KERNEL http://10.10.10.1/archlinux/x86_64/vmlinuz
        INITRD http://10.10.10.1/archlinux/x86_64/archiso.img
        APPEND ip=dhcp archiso_http_srv=http://10.10.10.1 archisobasedir=archlinux/ checksum=y

an ongoing list for prons & cons

people usually start with prons - but a con maybe a deal breaker.

Cons:

• You HAVE to sign/create an account on Kobo site or login with your facebook account.
• There is no file browsing - library of books is just a find on supported format files
• Havent found a bookmark work around
• good UX but needs work

Why the above are cons:

I dont have a FB account !
I dont want to “give” my email to kobo site.
If i dont to that - i cant use my hardware (this is wrong in so many ways).

I use my computer to create folders and organize my ebooks. I wanted shelves to be related to folders.
I have 100 books (at this moment) and i need to manually create kobo shelves or search to find an ebook that i have already organized it my folder.

bookmarks - i want to borrow my kobo to a friend to read a book (like i do in real life) when i am at work or on dentist.
He/she can read the book but will mess with my reading stats. I worked around this - using an annotation.
But it could be great to have bookmarks support.

Pros:

• Fast rendering
• github account: kobolabs
• touch screen - only two buttons: backlit and sleep/power off/on
• you can configure margins and line spacing
• you can add your own fonts
• pdf are readable !
• Can follow url links on epub format (useful)
• wifi - web browser
• has a good concept of gamification with awards and facebook (not related with me - but i appreciate the effort)
• chess/sudoko and sketch pad (extras)
• you can add notes (annotations - work around for bookmarking)
• dictionaries & translation dictionaries
• you can add bookmarks by touching the right upper corner

Annotations are powerful with this kobo.

Starting a new category!

I’ve recently bought an ebook reader: Kobo Glo

Here are a picture:

Project Fonts

I wanted to add some opensource fonts.

So i’ve gathered my ttf fonts to a folder and attached my Kobo Glo to my ArchLinux Box

Copied to Kobo Glo

and after that reboot my ebook reader

I’ve made a test to find the best “compressed” solution for thin provisioning on virtual machines.

f18.qcow2 is a default minimal Fedora 18 installation.

$ qemu-img info f18.qcow2
image: f18.qcow2
file format: qcow2
virtual size: 20G (21474836480 bytes)
disk size: 1.1G
cluster_size: 65536

Below is the result, sorted by size

1170252 f18.qcow2
 746188 f18.qcow2.spars
 253552 f18.qcow2.spars.compressed
 236860 f18.qcow2.spars.compressed.lrz
 236076 f18.qcow2.spars.compressed.xz
 151028 f18.qcow2.xz
 146172 f18.qcow2.spars.xz
 141276 f18.qcow2.spars.lrz
 141048 f18.qcow2.lrz

It seems that Con Kolivas has made an extraordinary work with lrzip

And these are the commands i’ve run (sorted by the result of above output):

My specs are:

$ grep 'model name' /proc/cpuinfo | head -1
model name : Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-3517U CPU @ 1.90GHz

$ grep -c processor /proc/cpuinfo 
4

$ grep MemTotal /proc/meminfo 
MemTotal:        8038060 kB

I’ve recently bought a new laptop.
It has a hybrid disk (470G HDD and a 30G SSD).
On the 30G ssd disk i’ve rsynced my archlinux from my previous laptop to the new one.

The boot process takes almost a full two minutes !

I thought i was drafting to the dark side and my sanity wasnt as good as a couple days ago.
After asking to archlinux forum, they suggest to use

# journalctl -b

I have found that there was an entry at /etc/crypttab (that doesnt exist) and the timeout was almost 90 seconds.
Comment that out and then 14sec to login !!!

After six and a half years i’ve decided that it is time to make myself a present: a new laptop.

My previous/current laptop is an impressive machine but through the years and (lets be honest) with my use its time to retire it. I am so impressed from Amilo Si 1520 R2 that i wanted to buy only from fujitsu. My needs are only work related so the screen/graphics werent a necessity. Memory and size were the key elements on my research.

For 850€ i bought the cheapest ultrabook that i could find.

For a review you can click here

For a quick gallery click here

Already runs archlinux (with secureboot off) and on the next weeks i’ll try to write down some notes.

I am doing a rather large dd and its being a long time (over 30minutes) so far.

How can i find the status of dd ?

at hsgr someone is telling me: KILL KILL KILL

searching through dd manual page, i came up with:

Sending a USR1 signal to a running ‘dd’ process makes it print I/O statistics to standard error and then resume copying.

eg.

# kill -USR1 5579

on the dd terminal:

7626752+0 records in
7626752+0 records out
3904897024 bytes (3,9 GB) copied, 2442,27 s, 1,6 MB/s

for more info

man 7 signal

things that make me angry:

1. Empty Subject:

Its really annoying when people are not writing a subject in their emails.
I am sure that in hell exist a circle (dante’s inferno) only for that people.

2. Irrelevant Subject:

Its as annoying to write an irrelevant subject tittle as to not write at all.

eg.

Subject: Is internet down?
Body: i am having problem login into thunderbird, but google.com is opening just fine!

3. Body test in Subject:

Another annoying thing is when people are using subject title as the begin of their body:

Subject: Yesterday one of the servers
Body: crashed but i fix it

This isnt elegant - Be lazy on the right things

4. Large subject - aka write body text into subject:

no comment on that.

eg.
Subject: “Re: Fwd: Plz investigate the problem in communication between contact.center@example.com and customer.service@example.com accounts with the domain thisisnotanexample.com”

5. RE: & FWD:

aka mail chain spam

eg.
Subject: RE: FWD: FWD: FWD: RE: FWD: RE: hello kitty

i want to punch these people really hard

6. Urgent & SOS

eg.
Subject: URGENT THIS EMAIL IS URGENT - PLZ SOS
Body: I cant login into webmail

those types of email for unknown to me reason are always on my Trash!

emailcharter

There are a gazillion other things that can drive your coworkers to spit in your coffee, so read this:
emailcharter

Suggestion:

PLz Try using tags as subjects in your emails.

There are very useful in search and keep your recipients sane.

eg.
Subject: login problem with webmail
Body: I am opening google.com (so i know i have connectivity), but i cant login into webmail.
The msg error is: Wrong Credentials

And on that i would reply instantly with:

Subject: RE: login problem with webmail
Body: We are using the wrong password, try another.

and problem solved !

greek version ONLY

Ένας και μόνο έλεγχος για να διαπιστώσεις εάν ο λογαριασμός σου χρησιμοποιείτε από κάποιον άλλο για να στέλνει SPAM.

Το mail συνθηματικό σου είναι το ίδιο με το username ή 123456 ή [otenet|forthnet|hol|cyta][0-9]?

(πχ username: ebal123 & password ebal1234)

Τότε στέλνει κάποιος SPAM με τα στοιχεία σου.
Δεν έχει σημασία εάν δεν έχεις λάβει εσύ κάποιο από αυτό.

Έχω λάβει ήδη εγώ (postmaster)!

Σίγουρα κατά καιρούς, σου έχουν έρθει κάποια του στυλ: “Η αποστολή απέτυχε προς το huge_penis@example.com”
Εάν ακόμα δεν το κατάλαβες, αυτό δεν ήταν SPAM. Ήταν η απάντηση του spam email που έστειλαν με τα δικά σου credentials.

-Τι μπορείς να κάνεις;
Ευτυχώς που κάνεις αυτή την ερώτηση φίλε μου, άλλαξε το mail συνθηματικό σου σε κάτι με πολλούς χαρακτήρες.

πχ. ebal1234menoakomastospititismamasmou

Τόσο απλά.

Εάν διαβάζεις αυτό το άρθρο, σε παρακαλώ πολύ, άλλαξε το mail συνθηματικό σου τώρα.
Αλλιώς θα τα ξαναπούμε … όχι τόσο όμορφα.

-ebal

ΥΓ: Μάθε εδώ πως μπορείς να φτιάξεις ένα συνθηματικό

The last few days i am working with febootstrap.
febootstrap is a tool to build a tiny linux appliance based on your system.

To build an appliance, febootstrap downloads every package it needs from the internet, using the defined repositories on your pacman.conf file.
If you want to test different packages or you have to build libguestfs, febootstrap will try to download again and again the packages from the internet.

The main reason is that it use a custom cachedir and root dir for fakeroot to take place and setup your new appliance.

I work-around that i posted a guide a few days back here. But that guide is telling you to edit your basic pacman.conf.

The developer of febootstrap, Richard WM Jones has a great amount of tolerance so i’ve bugged him enough to think about adding at febootstrap a command option for using your own pacman.conf file.

From today we (archers) can use febootstrap (from git at the moment - PKGBUILD is here) with our own custom pacman.conf file.

Below is a quick setup of using your own local/custom-repo/mirror with febootstrap without editing /etc/pacman.conf file.

If you have already downloaded or saved your packages to a custom location, you can bypass the first step.
The whole process doesnt need root privileges.

Step One:

$ mkdir -pv /tmp/cachedir
$ cp /var/cache/pacman/pkg/*pkg.tar.xz /tmp/cachedir/
$ repo-add /tmp/cachedir/local.db.tar.gz /tmp/cachedir/*

Step Two:

$ cp /etc/pacman.conf /tmp/
$ vim /tmp/pacman.conf 

comment out the exist repo sections: core - extra - community
add the below lines

[local]
SigLevel = Never
Server = file:///tmp/cachedir/

Step three :

test it !

$ febootstrap -o /tmp/ -v --names rsync --packager-config /tmp/pacman.conf

greek post - random thoughts

Τον τελευταίο καιρό, όλο και περισσότερο διαβάζω για τα παράπονα και την γκρίνια των:

• σε ποιον ανήκουν τα tweet μου,
• σε ποιον οι φωτογραφίες μου,
• σε ποιον το profile μου
• σε ποιον τα προσωπικά μου δεδομένα

κι άλλα τέτοια.

Την “δημόσια” αρχή έκανε το facebook εδώ και μερικά χρόνια, αλλά ούτε η google - αλλά ούτε και καμία άλλη εταιρεία (data mining) δεν “διευκρινίζει” ξεκάθαρα ότι τα δεδομένα που εισάγεις - τους ανήκουν!

Αλλά τους ανήκουν.

Σάλος για το archive του twitter! Όταν δεις τι έχεις αναρτήσει … θα καταλάβεις ότι το χρησιμοποιείς λάθος.

πχ στην yahoo δεν μπορείς να διαγράψεις το profile σου - όπως και στο facebook πριν από λίγο καιρό.
Πιστεύεις δλδ όταν πατάς διαγραφή - αυτό ως δια μαγείας - διαγράφεται αυτόματα από παντού - από όλα τις συσχετίσεις - από όλα τα backup files ?

Κι όταν εγώ σε “δηλώσω” πάνω σε μια φωτογραφία; Αυτό θεωρείς ότι διαγράφεται;

Δεν θέλω να μείνω στο νομικό πλαίσιο - δεν έχω καν την διάθεση να μιλήσω για αυτό.

Ας γυρίσουμε λίγα χρόνια πίσω (πριν το 1999)
Στην αρχή του internet ήταν αυτονόητο ότι θα χρησιμοποιήσεις κάποιο handle κι όχι το πραγματικό σου όνομα. Πχ. Crash Override
Ποτέ δεν συμπλήρωνες καμία σελίδα με προσωπικά δεδομένα και ποτέ μα ποτέ δεν έκανες εγγραφή σε μια λίστα για DEALS ή που σου υπόσχεται 95% έκπτωση.

Και τώρα;

Τώρα ανεβάζεις προσωπικές φωτογραφίες:

δλδ την φωτογραφία με την γυναίκα σου και το νεογέννητο παιδί σου κάτω από το χριστουγεννιάτικο δέντρο, δίπλα στο τζάκι με ανοιχτό το χρηματοκιβώτιο να φαίνονται τα λεφτά από την άλλη πλευρά η 54” τηλεόραση και στο τραπέζι οι πιστωτικές σου κάρτες να φαίνονται

κι από κάτω ως λεζάντα γράφεις: “αύριο ξεκινάμε για διακοπές μια βδομάδα στο χωριό”
ενώ η φωτογραφία έχει κρατήσει το gps στίγμα και φαίνεται ακριβώς και η διεύθυνσή σου.

Στο δρόμο για το χωριό tweetάρεις: “στο δρόμο για το χωριό - ξεκινήσαμε πριν από μια ώρα”

Μετά από μια βδομάδα - γυρνάς στο σπίτι κι ως δια - μαγείας σου έχουν πάρει την τηλεόραση, το δέντρο και σου έχουν ξηλώσει και το τζάκι από τον τοίχο!

Ακόμα αναρωτιέσαι πως;

Ούτε εγώ προσέχω ή καλύτερα ΔΕΝ προσέχω όσο θα έπρεπε.

Data Mining:

“Η πληροφορική είναι η επιστήμη που ερευνά την κωδικοποίηση, διαχείριση και μετάδοση συμβολικών αναπαραστάσεων πληροφοριών”
Φαντάσου μια εταιρεία που κατέχει yottabytes από το σύνολο του πληθυσμού χωρίς καν να τα έχει εισάγει αυτή. Τα εισάγεις εσύ για αυτούς.
Το προϊόν είσαι εσύ !

Κάνε click εδώ και να μάθεις περισσότερα: Safe Browsing

Προσθήκη: Please Rob Me via comzeradd

There is an updated blog post about febootstrap. Click here

At some point, especially if you are using libguestfs, you will end up using febootstrap.

febootstrap is a tool to build a supermin appliance to boot strap a tiny base.img with the packages you need.

febootstrap support archlinux so we (archers) can use febootstrap or libguestfs based on an archlinux boot strap tiny appliance. So no extra work for archlinux in rescue virtual-machines or mount virtual disks.

febootstrap has the ability of searching through Arch User Repository to include any extra packages that dont exist in default repositories. This isnt the right way of installing packages from aur … but for lazy people febootstrap seems to do exactly what it should be.

Yesterday i’ve sent my first tiny ocaml patch at febootstrap for changing the location of aur packages.
You can check the patch here.
Hopefully its ok.

Today i want to write down the right way of installing extra packages from aur. The main reason is that aur has a lot of flagged-out-of-date packages and some of them are really … lets say the PKGBUILDs arent up-to-date or with proper dependencies. I am not expert in archlinux packaging so this from a user perspective guide.

1.

First, download the PKGBUILD you want (or use a customize abs PKGBUILD) of the package you need to install in febootstrap.

Check the PKGBUILD, correct the version, add checksum (for package integrity), review the dependencies, make the pkg. Check it again.
This is the most important thing. Try hard not to be lazy on this.

2.

Create the package with makepkg command. You’ll need base-devel packages for this.
Check the files inside the package

pacman -Qpl *.pkg.tar.xz

binaries must be under /usr/bin, libraries under /usr/lib

Be careful

3.

Create a new directory to hold your custom build packages from aur or abs.

eg.

 mkdir -pv /opt/custom_repo/

and move your *.pkg.tar.xz file (or files) under this directory

eg.

move *.pkg.tar.xz  /opt/custom_repo/

4.

At this point you are ready to create your custom repo db file

eg.

repo-add  /opt/custom_repo/repo.db.tar.gz  /opt/custom_repo/*pkg.tar.xz

and

5.

append the below lines at your /etc/pacman.conf file

[repo]
SigLevel = Never
Server = file:///opt/custom_repo/

type

pacman -Syy

to sync your repositories and you are done!

Now you can use febootstrap without searching in aur.archlinux.org for extra packages.

using virt-df is simple as writing df on your terminal.

Below a real life example:

# virsh list --all
 Id    Name                           State
----------------------------------------------------
 1     win2003                        running
 4     win2008                        running

# virt-df -d win2008 -h
Filesystem                                Size       Used  Available  Use%
win2008:/dev/sda1                          40G        38G       1.9G   96%

Έχω μονάχα ένα laptop: FUJITSU SIEMENS: Amilo Si 1520. Τα τεχνικά του χαρακτηριστικά T5600 - 1.83 GHz - 2Gb Ram. H fujitsu το κατασκεύασε το 2005, εγώ το αγόρασα στα μέσα του δεύτερου εξάμηνου του 2006. 6 χρόνια δουλεύει μέρα νύχτα και πραγματικά θα μπορούσε να σας πει μερικές τρομακτικές ιστορίες. Τον τελευταίο καιρό όμως έχει αρχίσει να φτάνει στα όρια της ζωής του. Για να είμαι ειλικρινής την έχει περάσει πολλά χρόνια τώρα, αλλά έχει αντέξει στην χρήση μου, σε χτυπήματα και σε κάτι περίεργα ρεύματα (εντός κι εκτός ελλάδος).

Ψάχνω για τον αντικαταστάτη του και τον βρήκα στο πρόσωπο του FUJITSU UH572. Αναζητώντας μέσω skroutz το βρήκα διαθέσιμο (σε απόθεμα) στην cosmodata. Κοιτώντας τα χαρακτηριστικά διαπιστώνω ότι ο επεξεργαστής είναι ο: Intel Core™ i7 3617. Θέλω να δω εάν υποστηρίζει VT-x, VT-d (Hardware Virtualization)

κάπου εδώ ξεκινά ο Γολγοθάς μου

Ψάχνω πρώτα στην Intel - Δεν υπάρχει
Ψάχνω μετά στο site της fujitsu - Δεν υπάρχει
Ψάχνω μετά στο google - Υπάρχει, αλλά μόνο σε ελληνικά online καταστήματα !!!!!!!!

Μα πως είναι δυνατόν - αναρωτιέμαι.

Τηλέφωνο στην cosmodata, ο πωλητής με συνδέει με το τεχνικό τμήμα.

-(εγώ) Ενδιαφέρομαι για ένα laptop κι έχω μια ερώτηση σχετικά με τον επεξεργαστή του.
-(τεχν) Τι πρόβλημα υπάρχει;
-(εγώ) Δεν βρίσκω πουθενά στο internet το cpu model - νομίζω ότι έχει γίνει τυπογραφικό λάθος

…

-(τεχν) δεν έχω λόγο να αμφισβητήσω τον κατασκευαστή.
-(εγώ) δεν μπορείτε εσείς να μου πείτε το μοντέλο;
-(τεχν) όχι, δεν έχω μπροστά μου το laptop

μέχρι εδώ, σχετικά καλά. Δεν περιμένω να γνωρίζει κάτι παραπάνω. Απογοητεύομαι λίγο όμως γιατί δεν μπορεί να κάνει το κάτι παραπάνω ώστε να βρει το μοντέλο και να διορθώσει το site. Ξανά πίσω στο τηλεφωνικό κέντρο - τώρα με πωλητή

-(εγώ) Ενδιαφέρομαι για ένα laptop και θέλω να έρθω να το αγοράσω από το κατάστημα.
-(πωλ) Θα πληρώσετε παραπάνω, αγοράστε το online.
-(εγώ) Δεν με ενδιαφέρει, θα πληρώσω παραπάνω. Βλέπω είναι σε απόθεμα, θέλω να έρθω από εκεί.
-(πωλ) Μα θα πληρώσετε παραπάνω!

(πρώτη φορά στην ζωή μου, βλέπω πωλητή να μην θέλει να πουλήσει ακριβότερα)

-(εγώ) δεν με απασχολεί το ποσό. Θέλω να έρθω να το αγοράσω από κάποιο κατάστημα. Θέλω να μου πείτε όμως από ποιο κατάστημα ή πότε μπορώ να περάσω για να το αγοράσω/παραλάβω. Μην έρθω και είναι σε κάποια αποθήκη κάπου μακριά.
-(πωλ) Να σας συνδέσω με κάποιον άλλο.

φαντάζομαι ο αποθηκάριος/λογιστής κάποιος που να ξέρει την τύχη του.

-(εγώ): Ενδιαφέρομαι για κάποιο laptop. Θέλω να το αγοράσω από το κατάστημα. Βλέπω είναι διαθέσιμο, πείτε μου παρακαλώ πότε μπορώ να περάσω κι από που για να το αγοράσω/παραλάβω
-(αποθ): Ποιο μοντέλο
-(εγω): το τάδε …..(κωδικός)
-(αποθ): Είστε σίγουρος;
-(εγώ): Ναι, το βλέπω μπροστά μου στο site σας
-(αποθ): Είναι καινούριο ή παλιό;
-(εγώ): Δεν ξέρω
-(αποθ): Περιμένετε

…. … … (περιμένω) …

-(αποθ): Δεν υπάρχει αυτό το laptop
-(εγώ): Μα λέτε ότι είναι διαθέσιμο!
-(αποθ): Δεν υπάρχει

Προς: Cosmodata

• Αναφέρεις ότι πουλάς ένα laptop με λανθασμένα τεχνικά χαρακτηριστικά σε απόθεμα που δεν υπάρχει. Περιμένεις δλδ τους πελάτες, να αγοράσουν διαδικτυακά, να πληρώσουν για κάτι που δεν υπάρχει, αλλά πουλάς σε απόθεμα. Αυτό λέγεται ΑΠΑΤΗ