This week we will change things up a bit and have a look at an IBM/Rational ClearCase utility used for importing files into ClearCase source control. The utility command, clearfsimport, can be used to import any sort of file from a variety of other source control...
Engineering Operations
How To Add More Disk Space To Your Redhat Server Without Reformatting
(Originally published in 2012, updated January 2022.) One of the common tasks for any system administrator is managing disk space on a server. A common question is how to increase disk space on a linux system. I won't go into a boring lecture on why managing disk...
Incorporating Accessibility Into Your Software Engineering Projects
Are you missing out on reaching 25% of the US population with your current software engineering project? Maybe the elderly, at 13% of the population, aren't part of your target market, or maybe it's the 12% of the US population who are disabled that you aren't...
Metrics, Metrics, Metrics in PTC Integrity: Part 4
In the three previous rounds of this Metrics, Metrics, Metrics series, I discussed gathering metrics, and building Reports and Charts in PTC Integrity Lifecycle Manager. In this article, we will discuss how you can take various charts, reports and queries and...
Leveraging Group Policy to Setup Wireless Access
In my last post, I introduced Clonezilla as an easy way to deploy Windows-based workstations into a corporate environment. But once a workstation enters the corporate network, what sort of policy applies to it? What sort of actions can a user take on their...
Security layers on a modern website
Last time, we looked at a basic website design. Now it’s time to start digging into the details around what’s really being used behind the scenes. This time, we’ll focus on security aspects. When a user starts their browser and connects...
Computer System Validation: A Closer Look at 21 C.F.R. §820.70(i) and FDA Warning Letters
Avoiding 21 C.F.R. §820.70(i) FDA Warning Letters
Enterprise Backup – Using Bacula to save time and money!
One of the main areas SPK focuses on for our clients is backups. I won’t go into a long lecture about why backups are mission-critical for your business because you already know they are. Even the standard backup schemes, such as Grandfather-Father-Son, have been...
Creating a low cost, high performance ESX cluster
As Senior Systems Integrator for SPK and Associates, a California based IT services company specializing in infrastructure management services, I recently completed an interesting project. The goal was to create an ESX cluster for a small engineering group...
License Management and Monitoring using X-Formation License Statistics
Over the past year, I have been doing a lot of work with clients who use high-end CAD and/or EE software tools from respected vendors like Cadence, Synopsys, and Mentor Graphics. The majority of these software tools require a license server to be setup on your local...
Solve 100 Problems with a Bootable USB Flash Drive
Unlike using MultiBootISO, which required experimentation and custom linux-configuration for each tool, setting up YUMI is a straightforward affair: Get YUMI Multiboot USB Creator from Pendrivelinux.com. Download the Internet! You can go crazy with your office’s...
How to Setup a Local Redhat 5 Update Repository
In a previous post, my colleague Mike described how to setup a Redhat 4 (RHEL4) local update repository. With Redhat 5 (RHEL5), the procedure to setup a local repository has changed somewhat. At SPK, we often will setup a local update repository for Redhat or...