Have Ewe Herd ...

Puppies Coming Soon

2011-07-19T13:53:00.000-07:00

Ivy just had her x-ray today and she has 7 puppies in there. Pups are due any day. Pedigrees are on my website, www.elcapitanskennel.com I will post pics as soon as the pups are born. If interested in a pup, send me an email @ mmagnuson@charter.net or call me at 775-287-1195.

Back to the dogs

2011-01-30T11:26:00.000-08:00

Well, back to the dogs I go. I am in the process of selling horses. I have one left to go.

I have agreed to purchase an Open trial dog from Bev and Norm Sommers. His name is Tic and I am very excited to get him. I won't be able to get him until the end of February because of Canadian/US importing issues. Flight rules are changing due to terrorism and we have to wait 30 days to fly him.

I had hoped that we would be able to compete at Sonoma. However, I will only have Tic for 2 weeks or so that is out. It takes some time to get in sync with a new dog. Not to mention the fact that I have not worked a dog for awhile. I am excited and I hope that we can go to some big trials this year. Now I need to buy a few sheep again.

Gloria and I are planning to go to Zamora and watch for a day. Maybe next year Tic and I will run. Zamora is a hard trial to train for because of the short winter days and the weather. I work dogs in the desert to get ready for trials and if we have a wet winter, I can't get out there. Conditioning is also an issue. The Zamora course is huge and the dogs really need to be in shape or risk injury.

The only other thing that I do is work. I work for a new department now and it is much different than the old one. Now, I have to put in for vacation and it has to be approved. Before I used to just put my days on my calendar and that was it. I hope this does not conflict with trialing. I am going to have to plan ahead.

I will try to keep my blog up-to-date in the future.

Dunnigan Hills Sheepdog Trial

2010-04-25T08:45:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, Gloria and I went to Zamora, CA to attend Bill Berhow's trial. Sorry to say that I did not take any pictures. It was gorgeous day and a little on the warm side. I love the trial and the green rolling hills. Tess had a wonderful run. We left before the end of the trial so, I don't know the results. I think Tess finished in the top 10 but I am not sure, I guess we will have to wait for the results to be published.

It was nice going to a trial with a friend. I have always gone by myself so, it was a treat for me.

Coop went home to his new owner. I am sad to have to sell him but, I am thrilled with his new home. Erin is wonderful and she loves him already and that made it a little bit easier.

Coop is coming home

2010-02-23T18:53:00.000-08:00

On Sunday I am going to go pick Coop up. I am looking forward to it. I have missed my boy.

Coop videos

2010-01-04T21:11:00.000-08:00

Here are some new (old) videos of Coop's training progress. I have not been very good about getting them posted.

November video

December video - 1st work

December video - 2nd work

Kitt video's

2009-09-05T20:24:00.000-07:00

Here are Kitt's videos

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43jI1RHfTs8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QtcybySIPmk

Coop Video

2009-09-05T19:57:00.000-07:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADPJlvPmpHU

I need to learn how to turn off the microphone on my video camera.

Sheep Thrillz Photos

2009-07-13T18:49:00.000-07:00

Here are some photos that Bonnie Block shot of Tess at the last trial.

July Update

2009-07-10T19:11:00.000-07:00

Over the 4th, Tess and I ran at the Sheep Thrillz SDT in Scio, OR. We finished 9th both days and made it to our 1st double lift finals. However, I could not get Tess to look back for the second set of sheep so, we had to retire. Darn it.

Brie went to her new home at Scio. I hope all is well on that front.

I have a new puppy coming from Scotland. I think she should be here next week but, I am not sure yet.

In August, we will be going up to Camas, WA to the Lacamas trial. So far 79 dogs are entered. It should be fun.

Stay cool and have a great rest of the summer.

Hauling out

2009-05-30T11:25:00.000-07:00

The adequan came on Tues. Tess got her first shot that day. She'll get her second shot tomorrow. I worked Tess in the arena a couple times this week. So far all is good.

This morning, I hauled out early. It was nice. A couple of people were out target shooting but it wasn't bad. It is kind of beneficial to trialing because I know my dogs don't care about it. I only worked Tess once but she was tired and hot. We had a big thunderstorm yesterday with a lot of rain. It made it kind of muggy this morning. I think it was worse at dog level than at my level. I was happy with Tess and it sure felt good to get out. I am sure it did felt good to her too.

I worked Brie twice. I wanted to see how close she is to trialing. I started out like I was at a trial. She has an awesome outrun. She took her stop whistle on the fetch and then I had her bring the sheep around me and do a drive away. She handled that well and took her lie downs. We did a flank and a cross drive. Brie did well. It was small cross drive but she did it and it was under control.

On our second work, I walked with Brie driving. I don't think she liked me being that close. It seemed to push her more and I had a harder time keeping her walking straight into the sheep, she kept wanting to flank away from me. Next time, I'll try walking with her but farther away. She did a huge outrun. I want to enter her in some Nursery classes in July. I think she'll be ready if we get out more often that is. If I can haul out twice a week, I'll be happy. It would sure be nice to have my own field. Someday...

Picking up purebred Katahdin sheep

2009-05-25T19:55:00.000-07:00

On June 13th, I will be making a run up to Eagle Point, OR to pick up some purebred Katahdin sheep. If anyone wants some, please let me know and I can bring them back. Ram lambs will be $175 total. I need to add some money on for fuel and vet certs. I believe there are some yearling ewes and some ewe lambs available, too. I would need to check on their prices. I will need to know a week in advance.

Tess update

2009-05-23T20:04:00.000-07:00

Adequan is on order. I hope it is in early next week. I have high hopes that Tess will be back to normal soon. I finally worked her last night for the first time in two months. She still seems a little off, not bad most people would not notice but, I do. She seems good today so....keep your fingers crossed.

The SunTrip Samoyeds and A Border Collie: Blog Followers

2009-05-14T17:47:00.000-07:00

The SunTrip Samoyeds and A Border Collie: Blog Followers

Blog 13

2009-05-02T12:02:00.000-07:00

What kind of jobs are out there in the Linux field, where are they, and how much could you make? Research the Internet and tell me what you find.

There is a ton of information on the internet about Linux jobs, salaries and areas. One of the sites that I thought had a lot of information was www.payscale.com . You could look at graphs of just about everything, by experience, location, job, size of company, and on and on.

I grew up in Montana and I would love to go back there. So, I looked for Linux jobs and salaries in MT. It’s sad, the State is hiring but the salary is $56,000. For MT, that is pretty high. When I left MT, I was making between $29,000 and $32,000 (I can’t remember which, it was a long time ago). My dad had worked at the State for 30 years, had a college degree and I was making more than he was.

The job that I looked up was for a Linux System Administrator. Here are some areas and what the internet says Linux administrators are paid.

Helena, MT $56,000
Billings, MT $61,000
Boise, ID $56,000
Reno, NV $71,000
Spokane, WA $73,000
Sacramento, CA $77,000
San Francisco, CA $81,000
Portland, OR $72,000
Salem, OR $77,000
Eugene, OR $80,000
Klamath Falls, OR $79,000
Pendleton, OR $90,000

The lowest paying type of job is the System Administrator and the $62,500 range and the highest was the Sr. Software Engineer in the $94,000 range.

If you looked at salaries by experience, I found the following: minimum experience less than 1 year the salary was around $59,000 and over 20 years experience pays over $100,000. That just gives you an idea of the start of your Linux career to what you would be making at the end of your career. That’s a pretty good range.

There are several different paths in the Linux field. Some of them are:

System Engineer
Programmer
System Administrator
Software Engineer
Web Developer
Jboss
DBA/Developer

LinkedIn Jobs had 31 pages of jobs that required Linux experience. All the jobs seemed to be in large metropolitan areas with the bulk of them being in CA, around the Bay area. There was one job listed for Microsoft. I could not resist looking at the job description and it did say that they required Linux experience. I think that’s funny, Microsoft wanting Linux.

Reading some of the job descriptions and requirements was intimidating. I think every one of them required a 4 year college degree and lots of experience. It seemed that there would not be very many people that would qualify. On the upside, it was really nice to see that even in the current economy there are a lot of Linux opportunities out there.

Blog 12

2009-04-25T20:27:00.000-07:00

Find out or make up story where Linux came up with the penguin as its “mascot”.

After a few years of Linux, Linus finally decided that they needed to have a logo. They had a contest to create the logo. For some reason it had to be an animal. A platypus, a fox, a shark, an eagle were some of the animals that were suggested. Linus was not happy with any of those and he mentioned he liked penguins. There were lots of stories about Linus being bitten by a penguin.

A young man by the name of Larry Ewing was picked as the winner of the contest. His creation was of a plump, contented and cute penguin. This penguin was named ‘Tux’. Supposedly the name does not come from the fact that it looks like he is wearing a tux but from Torvalds Unix. I know that’s what they say but, I don’t buy it. If you are using the first letter of Torvalds, then you would use the first letter of Unix. That’s TU, not tux. If you were using the first and the last letters it would be TsUx. So, I really think the black and white penguin had something to do with the name.

One of the big things about logo is that it is also, open source, like Linux. Anyone can change the graphic anyway they want as long as they give Larry Ewing and Linux the credit. The fact that Ewing used GIMP to create Tux.

Actually, I think it’s a great Border Collie name. I plan on using it someday when I have a boy that fits the name. Black with a white chest and black front legs maybe white front feet. Cute, huh, maybe even cuter than a penguin.

Blog 11

2009-04-17T12:35:00.000-07:00

How do companies who sell open-source products (like Red Hat) make a living?

Apparently, this has been a hot topic on the internet for several years. Personally, I never knew it existed until this class. I had not even given it a thought until you asked the question.

In my research, I found a white paper by Robert Young, who is a founder of Red Hat. It was pretty interesting and can be found at http://oreilly.com/catatlog/opensources/book/young.html . I am sure you have already read it.

To make money with open-source products you need to sell a service not a license. Red Hat has several subscription support levels. They, also, sell a middleware called JBOSS and they get paid for their consulting and integration services. Red Hat actually incorporates hundreds of open source solutions into one software package. Then they sell the support to that package.

Red Hat initially started out as a software distribution company selling cd’s of software. Linux was one of their best selling cd’s and they saw a new potential in the marketing of open-source software. They have done a bang-up job of marketing their brand. I would bet that more people know of Red Hat than Ubuntu or any others.

A lot of companies in the open-source realm do not charge for the desktop version of their software but they do charge if their software is used commercially. They get around the licensing issue because the customers are able to modify the source code.

Some other ways of making money are certification programs and training programs. That’s big money if you ask me. I have an MSCE+I in NT 4.0 that cost close to $20,000 to get and a solid year of my life and then it was obsolete the next month. I started to get a certification in SQL Server, finished one test, and they were already moving on to the next version and I decided to get off the merry-go-round. At the time I was working and attending UNR part-time and I thought I would put my degree on hold because it was going to take me so long to graduate since I was just taking 2 classes a semester. I thought I would be smart and take a fast track and get certified. I just did not realize that the certification path never ended. At least getting a college degree path ends eventually. What do they say, hindsight is 20/20. Actually, I can’t complain because I doubt I would have the job that I have today, if I did not get certified.

Do I get 10 points for BS'ing?

Blog 10

2009-04-12T08:39:00.000-07:00

What is Samba? Why could you or your business use it?

Samba is an application that runs as a service on Unix/Linux computers. It uses SMB (server message block) to communicate with Windows based computers or network. It is primarily used as file and print servers. Windows users don’t even know the file or the printers that they are using are on a Linux server.

NV Energy could use Samba/Linux (but they won’t) to house their network printers or they could also, use it to authenticate Active Directory logins.

2009 USBCHA Sheepdog Finals

2009-04-02T16:48:00.000-07:00

Here is a link to a new video on the 2009 USBCHA Sheepdog Finals. I hope to have enough points to compete this year.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cv6XubwLwrw

Blog 9

2009-04-01T14:08:00.000-07:00

There are many organizations and companies who use Linux. Find a few of them and tell us who they are, how they use it and anything else you can find out about it.

First, let me say that finding up-to-date or current information on the internet is quite a challenge in itself. Almost all of the company information that I found was from 2000 to 2003. I finally found some from 2008.

3Tera is a software company that uses Linux to build their applications. They build an one called AppLogic and they are on the forefront of ‘Cloud Computing’.

Alfresco is a software company that has a product called ‘Enterprise Content Management’. One part of this application is a shared editing tool that was built using Linux. It's for sharing documents on the web (like Microsoft’s Sharepoint application). This is being used to manage content on Facebook.

Amazon is a huge open source user. Amazon is trying to get into the Cloud Computing with Elastic Compute Cloud. It is also, providing storage services with a product called Simple Storage Service. They have come out with a device called Kindle eBook that is a really cool mobile Linux device. Now that I have found it, I want one. It might have to wait since it costs $359.oo.

Sonoma SDT 2009

2009-03-27T14:18:00.000-07:00

Trial photos can be found at http://morgen.smugmug.com

The 2009 Sonoma SDT is over. It is a great trial. Lots of wine to win (raffles or placings). If that fails, you can work and get paid in wine. The Milberg's ranch is beautiful and both fields are difficult. The sheep were extremely challenging. It is one of the top trials around the country and I am certainly glad that I got to run in it.

Tess had one of the few perfect outruns and lifts. The fetch was really good until we got to the post. Those darn sheep were not going to go between the judge and me (there was plenty of room) around the post. We finally got them thru but lost all our fetch points in the process. Tess' drive was pretty good. The cross drive was great but, I forgot to give a full flank around the corner and the sheep ended up back by the set out pen. She got them off and back down to the shedding ring but that cost us big time. I only had 45 seconds to get the shed, right after the clock went off the sheep split beautifully.

I ended up scratching the Hill field. It had rained Sat. and I was concerned with Tess' pulled muscle with the steep hill and ravines. I saw too many dogs taking headers when I was scribing for Patrick.

I am already looking forward to next year.

Blog 8

2009-03-26T13:24:00.001-07:00

Now that Windows is coming out with Windows 7, the debate is on again that Linux is dead. What do you think? Is there room for both Windows and Linux? And what about Apple?

No, Linux is not dead. I think each OS has its own strengths and weaknesses and that includes Apple. There is room for all three OS’s. All three have been going for years now. Just because Windows 7 seems to have fixed Vista problems does not mean that they can’t all survive.

Personally, I do not like Vista and I hope Windows 7 is better. If Vista’s problems are fixed, I would suspect that some users that jumped ship might come back.

Competition is great on all fronts. Each company gets pushed to come out with something better. However, I don’t think any one of them can deliver a knock out punch.

Chiro update

2009-03-16T16:36:00.000-07:00

On Saturday, I took Tess and Brie to a new chiropractor. I have been looking for someone that I liked for quite sometime. I am very happy to have found a good one.

Tess has a pulled abductor muscle. She will be getting babied for awhile. I hope the trial this weekend and the trial in April do not hurt it any more. I definitely don't want her on the injured list for the Finals. After her adjustment, Tess sprawled out the width of the back seat and slept all the way home.

Brie needed adjusting, also. She was not too bad. Her back was arched when she went in and flat when she home. Tess and Belle will be returning in a couple weeks.

I will post a trial update next week. I have a new (in progress) photo site at http://morgen.smugmug.com . I will post photos of the trial there. Right now I only have a couple of photos on the site.

Weekly happenings

2009-03-11T19:46:00.000-07:00

I finally got to haul the sheep out and work the dogs tonight. It's still a little muddy but not too bad. I am trying to get used to some new whistles. When I was at Suzy's last time she told me that I wasn't blowing my stop whistle properly. That it sounded just like a 'there' whistle. So I have been working on it. They sound right to me but, I am not getting the quick response that I want.

Tess and I are working on slower flanks. Which goes back to the whistle again. I am working on blowing the whistle slower.

Brie did pretty well. I have been using her to separate sheep and load the sheep in the trailer. She is learning that there is a reason to lie down when I tell her to. She seems to enjoy driving now, too.

Saturday both Brie and Tess go to Truckee for chiropractic. Tess sure needs it. It's been really tough finding a good doggy chiropractor. I hope it works out well. It would be nice for Tess to feel good for Sonoma the following weekend.

Sonoma run orders came out today. There's a total of 99 dogs running over the 2 days, 44 and 45 each day on both fields. That's a lot dogs. I have campgrournd reservations at Calistoga. I am not looking forward to 4 dogs in the camper with me but... that's the way it goes. I am really excited about the trial, it should be a lot of fun.

Blog 7

2009-03-11T19:38:00.000-07:00

Do a little research and tell me a good reason you might use the crontab as root. How about a normal user?

You would use the root crontrab anytime you need to run a system-wide scheduled task at a regular interval. Like system-wide maintenance, database backups, corporate system backups. At NV Energy we have an area on the network to place files temporarily. Every Friday all the files get deleted. The root crontrab could be used for that.

A normal user could use their crontab to backup all their personal files or they could use it to send themselves an appointment reminder. Any repetitive task that you have to do on a regular basis would be a good candidate.

Blog 6

2009-03-07T12:43:00.000-08:00

In your own words explain how linux kernels are numbered.

Geez, who’d a thunk it? Obviously, not me, I had no idea that so much could be written about the version numbering of an OS. I really don’t know that I can make this subject interesting or think of a new way to explain it. It seems an overdone subject to me. Here goes…

The first release of the Linux kernel was in September of 1991 as 0.01 by Linus Torvalds. In October, it went to version 0.02 and so on. In March 1994 they went to 1.0.

The numbering scheme currently consists of four numbers, like A.B.C.D and maybe some letters. Let's take Pandora’s revision number of 2.6.13-1.1532_FC4 and see if I can explain it.

The first number in the ‘A’ position is the kernel number. It rarely changes. That’s kind of obvious since current kernel is only at 2.b.c.d right now. That was easy.

The second number in the ‘B’ position is 6 for major kernel revisions. This position used to be an odd/even system. When the number was odd it was a developmental version. When the number was even it was a stable release. The problem with that system was that a lot of people did not want to put a developmental version on and risk losing their system or their data. So, when they did release the stable version more bugs would be found because of new scenario’s that did not get tested in the development phase. Now with the 2.6.x numbering scheme they have eliminated the odd/even system.

So, let’s look at the ‘C’ position, in Pandora’s case it is 13-1. This position was for minor revisions such as bug fixes, new drivers, features, and security patches. Back at release 2.6.8 there was a serious flaw that had to be fixed immediately and that gave us the ‘D’ postion. With revision 2.6.11 a new policy was implemented and bug fixes and security patches are now in the ‘D’ postion. The ‘C’ postion is now only for new drivers and features.

Pandora’s ‘D’ postion is 1532_FC4. The ‘D’ postion is also associated with the ‘build’ number. The build number is the number of times the compiler has built the kernel. So, I think, in Pandora’s case it would be 1532 times or 1532 bug fixes to the kernel. From what I can find out about the letters that are added in, those would be the developer’s initials. You could also, see ‘rc1’ or ‘rc2’ which stands for release candidate 1 or release candidate 2 instead of the developers initials. I think I got it.

Weekly happenings

2009-03-05T06:28:00.000-08:00

Due to weather conditions there has not been much dog working going on this week. I say not much, try none. It's a muddy soupy mess in the sheep pen. Yuck!

I am supposed to go to Geri's trial in Tulelake on Sunday. I'm not sure if I'm going to make it. I don't know how much sense it makes to drive for 4 hours, have a 12 min. run with Tess and then 4 hours home when I haven't worked my dog for a week.

Good news is that I made the draw for the Sonoma SDT.

Blog 5

2009-02-23T20:28:00.000-08:00

Research the Internet to find out what AppArmor is and explain in your own words who and how you would use it. While you are searching find another cool tool you can install on Linux.

AppArmor is an Intrustion Prevention Program by Novell. It basically keeps your network safe from attackers that gain access to your network by exploiting flaws in software. Novell says that it is simple to use, however, I found other websites that said it was very complicated. Each application can have a different profile and the program can review application behavior and ‘learn’ what behavior is acceptable. AppArmor can keep logs and has a lot of reporting features and there are no licensing fees.

There are a ton of ‘cool’ linux tools out there. One that caught my eye was TestDisk. It is a utility that helps you recover lost partitions and boot files. It must be a pretty cool tool because it is included with a some live cds such as Knoppix and GParted.

Blog 4

2009-02-22T13:51:00.000-08:00

Search around for different Linux editors. Explain what they are and how they are different. You can also tell us how to get them.

There are a ton of Linux editors. A lot of them are free. There are also different kinds of editors. Some of the types are GUI (graphical user interface), console (text) editors, html editors, image editors and source code editors.

I am just going to concentrate on a GUI editor called Gedit and a text based editor called Pico. Graphical editors are like Windows based editors. Text based editors are like VI and VIM where you have to uses key strokes and key combinations to move around the screen.

Gedit is the default editor for GNOME. It is a free software that was designed for editing program code and structured text. It includes syntax highlighting for program code and text markup formats. You can edit multiple files. Gedit has numerous plugins that are included in the program. You can download Gedit from this link http://linux.softpedia.com/get/Text-Editing-Processing/Others .

Pico was developed by University of Washington. It has a two line display and at the bottom it shows the keystroke commands so you don’t have to learn the commands. It’s supposed to be a lot easier than VI. It has paragraph justification, cut and paste and spell checking. Pico is the editor of the Pine (now Alpine) email program. The documentation said that Pico can be downloaded from http://www.washington.edu/pine but, I could not find it. It looked like you have to subscribe or something. I did find a clone called GNU nano that you can download from this page http://linux.softpedia.com/get/Text-Editing-Processing/Others .

Blog description

2009-02-19T16:27:00.000-08:00

This blog originated as a requirement for a Linux class that I am taking at TMCC, Reno's Community College. So, I am going to kill 2 birds with one stone, so to speak and make it both a class blog and my personal blog.

The Cathedral and the Bizarre

2009-02-14T21:50:00.000-08:00

Blog 3

Research and find out what you can about “Cathedral and the Bizarre”. Tell me in your own words what it is and why it might be important.

The Cathedral and the Bazaar was written by Eric S. Raymond as an essay. It’s about two different programming methods: the Cathedral method and the Bazaar method.

The Cathedral method of development is confined to a closed group of developers. Code is available with each software release but the code that is developed between releases is only available to the closed group of developers.

In the Bazaar method, which sounds ‘Bizarre’, code is available to everyone over the Internet. The idea being that the more people that see the code, the faster bugs will be discovered and fixed.

It’s important because Raymond call it Linus’s Law after Linus Torvalds and the inventor of the Bizarre method of Open source programming.

Blog 2

2009-02-05T21:11:00.000-08:00

What functions do Linux and/or Unix provide in today’s world?

In today’s world, Linux/Unix is used by a lot of businesses, large and small because of it’s networking, multi-tasking and security capabilities. Linux servers are very stable and reliable. Because the servers do not require frequent reboots they provide a high availability and very little down time.

This reliability and security makes the Linux operating system a favorite for database servers, web servers, firewalls and proxy servers. The company that I work for (and the reason I am in this class) uses Linux servers for our Oracle databases.

The fact that Linux is a free and open source operating system is a definite plus. Since thousands of programmers are contributing code, when bugs are found they are fixed quickly.

Another important function of Linux is extreme range of hardware that it can utilize. It works on high-end servers clear down to PDA’s and everything in between.

"7 things you don't need to know about me"

2009-01-27T20:17:00.000-08:00

1. All my free time is spent with Border Collies and sheep.
2. I trial sheepdogs in USBCHA sheepdog trials throughout west.
3. I have worked for NV Energy for the past 11 years.
4. I was born and raised in Montana.
5. I have a side photograpy and web site business.
6. I have way too many computers.
7. I have absolutely no idea on how to blog.