This may not be a good idea. There’s only one quote relating to this that I can find, in the ARD Admin guide.

Note: Multiple users logged in via Fast User Switching can lead to confusing or
conflicting reports. When a second or third user logs in to a computer, there is no way
of knowing which user is the active user. Session length may not reflect actual usage,
and login and logout times overlap.

So, 3 users logged in using Fast User Switching can confuse ARD. Bad start. What I saw happen just today, though, was ARD getting so confused, that it wouldn’t let me Observe or Control the client any more. Kickstarting ARD didn’t help either. Did I mention this server was in a different time zone?

I ended up rebooting the server. Good thing SSH was turned on. I’m trying to reproduce this on another system. I’ll update if I can make it happen.

So, avoid fast user switching over ARD.

I heard a commercial on the radio the other day, pushing IT training as a way to become irreplaceable. That’s the way to job security!

This is a bad way to get job security, for a lot of reasons.

First, let’s take it from your point of view. Assume for a moment you achieve this goal. You’re the one source for (for instance) information and solutions when it comes to your server systems. You’re the go-to person. Then you get married, and you head off to a nice week (or two, if you’re lucky) of honeymooning bliss with your sweetie. Your phone will ring in the airport while you’re waiting to board your plane. Guaranteed. You’ll have voicemail when you get off the plane. You’ll spend a lot of time on the phone. Your significant other will not be amused.

I’ve been irreplaceable, and it sucked. My time was no longer my own. I had brought upon myself an obligation to serve the need I had created.

Now let’s look at it from you employer’s point of view. You have this IT guy (or gal), and he (or she) knows all. Irreplaceable.

Let’s first assume you’re a good person, and they trust you, and like you. And then you get married. And you’re off on your honeymoon, and your phone doesn’t work. Or you’re having a child. You’re in the hospital, and your phone is off. Something breaks, and you’re not available. Sure, you’ll be back in a couple of days, but now your employer is thinking, what if this person gets hit by a car? What if he dies? We’re screwed.

Congratulations, you’re now holding your company hostage, whether you want to or not.

Now let’s assume that you’re sort of a curmudgeon, prone to cynicism. Effective, but not exactly pleasant. At some point, your employer will think, what if this guy snaps? What small thing is going to push him from just cynical and unhappy to resentful and possibly vengeful?

Congratulations, you look like you could hold the company hostage at any time.

Either way, it’s your very irreplaceability that might push your employer to find a way to replace you before accident or malice put the company’s future in your hands.

So how do you achieve job security? I don’t know. I’ll tell you what I’m doing right now, that seems to be working well. I do the best I can. I try to be honest about what I can and can’t do, and be honest with myself about what I’m good at and what I’m not good at. I strive consciously to maintain my drive and my focus, because that doesn’t just happen, you have to push yourself to be motivated sometimes. You do your best.

bin/rm: Argument list too long

Ever seen that before? I ran into it while trying to clean out /var/virusmails on a Tiger Server system. It had about 230,000 items in it. The solution? find and xargs.

find /var/virusmails/ -name 'spam*' -print0 | xargs -0 rm -f

This will remove any file in /var/virusmails whose name starts with “spam”. Of course, if you just want to remove any file in there (like those virus and banned ones), regardless of name, you would instead use

find /var/virusmails/ -type f

which will just return anything that is a regular file. find has a lot of very interesting options. I highly recommend that you check out the manpage for it. And for xargs, while you’re at it.

Something to note: putting sudo before the command will sudo the find, but not the rm. Better to run the whole thing as root. Just be careful. Avoid tyops.