Posts Tagged ‘plenty’

Monitoring chronyd time service is synchronized, get additional time server values with Zabbix userparameter script

Monday, March 21st, 2022

monitoring-chronyc-time-server-synchronization-zabbix-logo

If you''re running a server infrastructure and your main monitoring system is Zabbix. Then a vital check you might want to setup is to monitor the server time synchronization to a central server. In newer Linux OS-es ntpd time server is started to be used lesser and many modern Linux distributions used in the corporate realm are starting to recommend using chrony as a time synchronization client / server.

In this article, I'll show you how you can quickly setup monitoring of chronyd process and monitoring whether the time is successfully synchronizing with remote Chronyd time server. This will be done with a tiny one liner shell script setup as userparameter It is relatively easy then to setup an Action Alert


1. Create userparameter script to send parsed chronyd time synchronization to Zabbix Server

chronyc tracking provides plenty of useful data which can give many details about info such as offset, skew, root delay, stratum, update interval.

[root@server: ~]# chronyc tracking
Reference ID    : 0A32EF0B (fkf-intp01.intcs.meshcore.net)
Stratum         : 3
Ref time (UTC)  : Fri Mar 18 12:42:31 2022
System time     : 0.000032544 seconds fast of NTP time
Last offset     : +0.000031102 seconds
RMS offset      : 0.000039914 seconds
Frequency       : 3.037 ppm slow
Residual freq   : +0.000 ppm
Skew            : 0.023 ppm
Root delay      : 0.017352410 seconds
Root dispersion : 0.004285847 seconds
Update interval : 1041.6 seconds
Leap status     : Normal

[root@server zabbix_agentd.d]# cat userparameter_chrony.conf 
UserParameter=chrony.json,chronyc -c tracking | sed -e s/'^'/'{"chrony":[“‘/g -e s/’$’/'”]}'/g -e s/','/'","'/g
[root@server zabbix_agentd.d]#

The -c option passed to chronyc is printing the chronyc tracking command ouput data in comma-separated values ( CSV ) format.

2. Create Necessery Item key to get chronyd processes and catch the userparameter data

 

  • First lets create a an Item key to calculate the chronyd daemon proc.num
    proc.num – simply returns the number of processes in the process list just like a simple
    pgrep servicename command does.


monitroing-chronyc_zabbix_item_report_to-zabbix

Second lets create the Item for the userparameter script, the chrony.json key should be the same as the key given in the userparameter script.

obtain-chronyc-statistic-variables-from-remote-chronyd-to-zabbix-windows

Create Chrony Zabbix Triggers 
 

Expression 

{server-host:proc.num[chronyd].last()}<1


will be triggered if the process of chronyd on the server is less than 1

 

chronyc_monitoring_process-is-not-running-screenshot

Next configure

{server-host:chrony[Leap status].iregexp[Not synchronised) ]=1


to trigger Alert Chronyd is Not synchronized if the Expression check occurs.

chronyd-is-not-synchronized-trigger-iregexp

Reload the zabbix-agent on the server
 

To make zabbix-agent locally installed on the machine read the userparameter into memory  (in my case this is zabbix-agent-4.0.28-1.el8.x86_64) installed on Redhat 8.3 (Ootpa), you have to restart it.

[root@server: ~]# systemctl restart zabbix-agent
[root@server: ~]# systemctl status zabbix-agent

● zabbix-agent.service – Zabbix Agent
   Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/zabbix-agent.service; enabled; vendor preset: disabled)
   Active: active (running) since Thu 2021-12-16 16:41:02 CET; 3 months 0 days ago
 Main PID: 862165 (zabbix_agentd)
    Tasks: 6 (limit: 23662)
   Memory: 20.6M
   CGroup: /system.slice/zabbix-agent.service
           ├─862165 /usr/sbin/zabbix_agentd -c /etc/zabbix/zabbix_agentd.conf
           ├─862166 /usr/sbin/zabbix_agentd: collector [idle 1 sec]
           ├─862167 /usr/sbin/zabbix_agentd: listener #1 [waiting for connection]
           ├─862168 /usr/sbin/zabbix_agentd: listener #2 [waiting for connection]
           ├─862169 /usr/sbin/zabbix_agentd: listener #3 [waiting for connection]
           └─862170 /usr/sbin/zabbix_agentd: active checks #1 [idle 1 sec]

Warning: Journal has been rotated since unit was started. Log output is incomplete or unavailable.


In a short while you should be seeing in the chrony.json key History data fed by the userparameter Script.

In Zabbix Latest data, you will see plenty of interesting time synchronization data get reported such as Skew, Stratum, Root Delay, Update Interval, Frequency etc.

chronyd-zabbix-reported-time-synchronization-offset-leap-residual-freq-root-delay-screenshot

To have an email Alerting further, go and setup a new Zabbix Action based on the Trigger with your likings and you're done. 
The tracked machine will be in zabbix to make sure your OS clock is not afar from the time server. Repeat the same steps if you need to track chronyd is up running and synchronized on few machines, or if you have to make it for dozens setup a Zabbix template.

Getting Console and Graphical hardware system information on Linux with cpuinfo, neofetch, CPU-X (CPU-Z Unix alternative), I-nex and inxi

Tuesday, September 17th, 2019

getting-console-information-and-graphical-hardware-system-information-Linux-cpuinfo-neofetch-cpu-x-i-nex-1

Earlier I've wrote extensive article on how to get hardware information on Linux using tools such as dmidecode, hardinfo, lshw, hwinfo, x86info and biosdecode but there are few other hardware reporting tools for Linux worthy to mention that has been there for historical reasons such as cpuinfo as we as some new shiny ones such as neofetch (a terminal / console hardware report tool as well the CPU-X and I-Nex  which is Linux equivalent to the all known almost standard for Windows hardware detection CPU-Z worthy to say few words about.
 

1. cpuinfo

 

Perhaps the most basic tool to give you a brief information about your Processor type (model) number of Cores and Logical Processors is cpuinfo

I remember cpuinfo has been there since the very beginning on almost all Linux distributions's repository, nowadays its popularity of the days when the kings on the Linux OS server scenes were Slackware, Caldera OpenLinux and Redhat 6.0 Linux and Debian 3.0  declined but still for scripting purposes it is handy small proggie.

To install and run it in Debian  / Ubuntu / Mint Linux etc.:

 

aptitude install -y cpuinfo

/usr/bin/cpu-info

 

Linux-get-processor-system-info-in-console-cpu-info

 

2. neofetch

 

The next one worthy to install and check is neofetch (a cross-platform and easy-to-use system information
 command line script that collects your Linux system information and display it on the terminal next to an image, it could be your distributions logo or any ascii art of your choice.)

The cool thing about neofetch is besides being able to identify the System server / desktop hardware parameters, it gives some basic info about number of packages installed on the system, memory free and in use, used kernel and exact type of System (be it Dell PowerEdge Model XX, IBM eSeries Model / HP Proliant Model etc.

neofetch-OS-hardware-information-Linux-ascii-system-info-desktop-notebook

neofetch info generated on my home used Lenovo Thikpad T420

neofetch-OS-hardware-information-Linux-ascii-system-info-pcfreak-home-server
neofetch info from www.pc-freak.net running current machine

neofetch even supports Mac OS X and Windows OS ! 🙂

To install neofetch on Mac OS X:
 

/usr/bin/ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)"


or via Mac ported packages using brew

brew install neofetch


neofetch-screenshot-from-Mac-OS-X

neofetch is even installable on Windows OS that has the scoop command line installer tool installer manager with below PowerShell code in cmd.exe (Command line):

powershell Set-ExecutionPolicy RemoteSigned -scope CurrentUser
iex (new-object net.webclient).downloadstring('https://get.scoop.sh')
scoop install git
scoop install neofetch

neofetch-microsoft-windows-hardware-command-line-report-tool-screenshot


By the way Scoop was quite a finding for me and it is pretty handy to install plenty of useful command line Linux / UNIX tools, such as curl, wget, git etc. in the same easy straight forward way as a standard yum or apt-get on Windows (without explicitly installing things as GnuWin and CygWin).
 

3. CPU-X graphical user interface hardware report Linux GUI alternative to Windows CPU-Z


The packages for CPU-X are a bit outdated and even though there are rpm packages for Fedora, OpenSuSE and .deb package for Debian for Debian, Ubuntu and ArchLinux (pacman), there is no up to date version for Debian 10 and the package builds distributed for different Linux distros are a bit outdated.

Thus to install CPU-X on any Linux distribution it is perhaps best to use the portable version (static binary) of CPU-X.
It is currently available on https://github.com/X0rg/CPU-X/releases

To install latest portable version of CPU-X

wget https://github.com/X0rg/CPU-X/releases/download/v3.2.4/CPU-X_v3.2.4_portable.tar.gz

mkdir CPU-X
cd CPU-X

tar -zxvvf CPU-X_v3.2.4_portable.tar.gz
-rwxr-xr-x yohan/users 4563032 2019-01-13 22:15 CPU-X_v3.2.4_portable.bsd64
-rwxr-xr-x yohan/users 5484968 2019-01-13 22:15 CPU-X_v3.2.4_portable.linux64

 

cp -rpf CPU-X_v3.2.4_portable.linux64 /usr/local/bin/
ln -sf /usr/local/bin/CPU-X_v3.2.4_portable.linux64 /usr/local/bin/cpu-x


Next run as superuser (root)
 

hipo@jeremiah:~$ su -c 'cpu-x'

 

As seen from below screenshots cpu-x reports a lot of concrete specific hardware data on:

  • Processor
  • Motherboard
  • Memory
  • System
  • Graphic card
  • Performance

cpu-x-cpu-cpu-z-alternative-linux-screenshot-CPU-info

cpu-x-cpu-cpu-z-alternative-linux-screenshot-caches-info

cpu-x-cpu-cpu-z-alternative-linux-screenshot-Motherboard-info

cpu-x-cpu-cpu-z-alternative-linux-screenshot-memory-info

cpu-x-cpu-cpu-z-alternative-linux-screenshot-system-info

cpu-x-cpu-cpu-z-alternative-linux-screenshot-graphics-info

CPU-X can be installed also on FreeBSD very easily by just installing from BSD port tree sysutils/cpu-x/
It is also said to work on other *BSDs, NetBSD, OpenBSD Unixes but I guess this will require a manual compilation based on FreeBSD's port Makefile.

4. I-Nex another GUI alternative to CPU-Z for UNIX / Linux

I-Nex is even more useful for general hardware reporting as it reports many hardware specifications not reported by CPU-X such as Battery type and Model Name  (if the hardware report is on a laptop), info on USB devices slots or plugged USB devices brand and specifications, the available Network devices on the system (MAC Addresses) of each of it, Installed and used drivers on Hard Disk (ATA / SATA / SCSI / SSD), HW Sector size, Logical Block size, HDD Sectors count and other specific Hard Drive data as well as information on available Audio (Sound Blaster) devices (HDA-Intel), used Codecs, loaded kernel ALSA driver, Video card used and most importantly indicators on Processor reported CPU (temperature).

 

To install I-nex

Go to https://launchpad.net/i-nex or any of the mirror links where it resides and install the respective package, in my case, I was doing the installation on Debian Linux, so fetched current latest amd64 package which as of moment of writting this article is i-nex_7.6.0-0-bzr977-20161012-ubuntu16.10.1_amd64.deb , next installed it with dpkg
 

dpkg -i i-nex_7.6.0-0-bzr977-20161012-ubuntu16.10.1_amd64.deb

 

As the package was depending on some other .deb packages, which failed to install to install the missing ones I had to further run
 

apt –fix-broken install

i-nex-cpu-info-linux-hardware-info-program

 

hre

I-Nex thermal indicators about CPU temperature on a Linux Desktop notebook

i-nex-gpu-info-linux-hardware-info-program

i-nex-mobo-info-linux-hardware-info-program

i-nex-audio-info-linux-hardware-info-program

i-nex-drivers-info-linux-hardware-info-program

i-nex-system-info-linux-hardware-info-program

i-nex-battery-info-linux-hardware-info-program

 

There are other Hardware identification report tools such as CUDA-Z that are useful to check if you have Nvidia Video Card hardware Installed on the PC to check the status of CUDA enabled GPUs, useful if working with nVidia Geforce, Quadro, Tesla cards and ION chipsets.

If you use it however be aware that CUDA-Z is not compatible with 3rd-party linux drivers for NVidia so make sure you have the current official Nvidia version.

 

5. Inxi full featured system information script

 

Inxi is a 10000 lines mega bash script that fetches hardware details from multiple different sources in /proc /sys and from commands on the system, and generates a beautiful looking console report that non technical users can read easily.

inxi-10-k-mega-bash-shell-script-reporting-on-installed-system-computer-hardware

 

inxi -Fx

 

 

inxi-report-on-installed-hardware-on-my-lenovo-thinkpad-home-laptop

Each of the pointed above tools has different method of collection of Hardware information from various resources e.g. – kernel loaded modules, dmesg, files like /proc/meminfo /proc/version /proc/scsi/scsi /proc/partitions.
Hence some of the tools are likely to report more info than otheres, so in case if some information you need regarding the system plugged in hardware is missing you can perhaps obtain it from another program. Most Linux distribution desktop provided GNOME package are including Hardinfo gui tool, but in many cases above mentioned tools are likely to add even more on info on what is inside your PC Box.
If you're aware of others tools that are useful not mentioned here please share it.

Psychological instability and the gap between desire and reality

Wednesday, August 7th, 2013

sad reality - bulgarians see no future, protests in bulgaria are the least people can do

I'm in Sofia just for a few days and I'm stunned how expensive is life here if compared to people's revenues. I think it is almost impossible to live normal live in Sofia with money lower than 500 eur. I'm here for a  4 day with my Belarusian girlfriend and I'm trying not to spend too much and already spend about 200 EUR. This makes 50 euro per two person a day and this is just for going outside public transport Metro, Buses and taxis. This makes about 50 euro per day or 25 euro a day required for person to live normal (not at all luxury life) … It is no strange that people are protesting for already about 50 days here in Sofia and that Bulgarians are heavily drinking and smoking and don't want to work. Our Bulgarian nation is depressed and there is a good reason for that. We are forced to live almost like animals. There are no money for renovation the buildings, no money to eat properly, young people's morale is totally messed up for the reason culture here is almost dead or even the one that's left is heavily  connected with godlessness, sexuality and consumerism. It is no strange our structures politics and infrastructure here is so messed up. It all starts with people's messed heads and all this gets materialized in our daily lives … Money are the main aim of living of young people and life here is made in a way that you have to only strive after money and for money you should learn to do anytihng … I just don't understand how we ended up here, its quite a pain especially as I lived in end up communistic Soviet time sand I remember people was not so much after money as there was money for normal almost middle class life in Socialistic Bulgaria … There are plenty of knowledgeable people in my dear homeland. Plenty of brilliant and good people but most emigrate for the reason here conditions of living has become extremely abnormal. Truth is European union totally smashed us. With all this shop chains in Western model like Lidl and Billa  made just to collect even our last money and the lack of industry, if something doesn't change ASAP we will simply be cleaned up of the face of the world or at least noone will stay in this country. There are plenty of emigrants already, the problem is even in western europe and most other countries there is big problem with unemployment so even if we Bulgarians try to go out we can't find job. I know this post is a big rant but I feel sad for my beautiful homeland. We have one of the most beautiful natures in Europe, we have Sea Beaches and Mountains, we have culture of 15 centuries and own well developed language. But it seems we're loosing our identity day by day. Almost everywhere you go you hear some music in English – even though most people in Bulgaria do not speak decent English and are far from understanding music in English I more and more think there is almost straight logic information in English. Most song lyrics are just fractured and incomplete or messed up, mostly speaking about evil than good. It is tragedy how young people spend there time here in Bulgaria for nothing hanging in pubs and bars spending money for alcohol and cigarettes trying to waste themselves for the only reason they see no future …
 

The history of Climate change in 83 seconds – The ridiculous climate protection negotiations and actions of world governments

Friday, June 14th, 2013

The last 15 years, we've been accustomed to listen about the Climate Change and the Global Warming problem. I remember for a first time heard about this possible problem from my Grandfather in late 1990's. Since then there is plenty of initiatives like Kyoto (Protocol) Convict for reduce of unwanted emissions. While browsing I found interesting video which is short overview of History of Climate Change. I think it is worthy to see it and get idea on the pure mess and lack of interest of governments to work well for solving the is issue…

There are plenty of youth organizations who claim to suggest how to solve global warming. But most of it is just talks. The fact is to stop it, the only way is by individual change of each of us. It is impossible for a consumer society to keep going. From time of creation of human, God created us not as consumers but as creator beings. Now most of us are dumb consumers hanging in front of Computer in Youtube and Facebook all day, watching post after post video after video, then you go to shop and you buy a lot of food. Because we're depressed of the unhuman way of living most of us eat plenty of food to somehow mitigate our awareness of unhappy reality (Americans are best in that). With overeating there is the increased number of health issues in us. We produce too much and consume too much, if we don't stop this parasite behavior soon it is more than clear, humans and our planet as ecosystem will not survive.

Истории Ветхого Завета мультфильм / History of Biblbe old Testament in Russian – Kids movie

Saturday, June 15th, 2013

While looking for Bulgarian Orthodox Bible to listen. I submed upon a Russian video,re-telling the story of old testament in Russian. I decided to share the movie as I liked how the story of old testament is retold. Its on very understandable language, so even kids about 5 years old can understand. It is perfect for big kids like me too. After all as the saviour Jesus Christ said all of us Christians, has to "become like Kids to see the Kingdom of Heaven". Watching such movies is  definitely a good way to strengthen faith 🙂 Enjo!


 

History of Old Testament Russian Cartoon / Истории Ветхого Завета мультфильм все серии

By the way currently Russian Orthodox Church is in big bloom and there are plenty of other Animations for kids revealing the truths of faith for the tiny one. I hope one day, if God Bless and have kids myself I will play this video to teach them the wonders of our Christian faith.

How a Ponzi Scheme works – Ponzi the most famous fraudulent network

Monday, March 4th, 2013

Classic_Ponzi_Scheme_ad_650

Those who are living in ex-communist countries who have been through the so called "Perestroika" – Pre-structuring of economy and in the so called privatization process which is selling factories, land and whateve in a country to a private sector business investors have already experienced the so called "Pyramidal" structure businesses which at the end collapse and left after itself a tens of thousands of cheated "investors" without their capital money. In my homeland Bulgaria, during this pre-structuring which in practice was "destructioning" there was thousands of companies for a very long period of time who somehow used this pyramidal structures to steal people investments which already melted in times because of the severe inflation that invaded the country. Near my city in Dobrich. There was a company called Yugoagent started by a "serbian Pharaoh – a charlatan CEO" whose company was promising extraordinary profit interest for people who invested money in Yugoagent as well as big reduction of prices of all investors to purchase "white technigue" home equipment from Yugoagent stores. What happened was maybe between 10 000 to 30 000 of people because "investors" to Yugoagent led only by the blind faith and personal desire to earn. The interest offered by Yugoagent was more than 10% to money put in, I believe he was offering 30% of interest or so and people easily get into the trap of his pre-determined to collapse company. What happened after was Mirolub Gaich's company survived for few years while some of the "investors" ripped benefits, where the multitude just lost their money because of epochal bankruptcy of YUGOAGENT.… I know even some of my relatives has been fooled into the obvious fraudulent business, because our society in Bulgaria lived in communism and was not prepared to face the sad reality of money only centered economy – the so loudly proclaimed as "just" democracy.

Today there are plenty of companies around the world still opened and operated under the same fraudulent model leaving after their bankruptcy their makers with millions in banks smartly stolen and claimed as company losses right before the collosal company collapse. A friend of mine Zlati, took the time to invest some time to research more into how this fraudulent Scheme works and found some references to wikipedia which explains the Scheme in details. Thus I also red a bit and thought my dear readers might be interested to know also how the scheme works. I believe it is a must for anyone who has the intention to be in business. It is good to know to escape the trap, cause even in Pro and High profit businesses there are companies operating under the same hood. Today there are plenty of online based companies today who are somehow involved into Offshore business or even do some kind of money laundry frauds, while offering beneficial investments in a booming companies. It is useful for even ordinary people to get to know the fraudulent scheme to escape from it. With the worsening crisis, the fraudulent activities and companies that does some kind of fraud to make profit increased dramatically and thus the old but well known fraudulent model is blooming.


 

How Ponzi scheme works explained in 5 minutes

To know a bit more about the Ponzi scheme as well as the so called "Pyramid" based fraudulent business check in Wikipedia Ponzi scheme

For those lazy to read in Wikipedia, here is extract from it explaining the Ponzi fraudulent Scheme in short

A Ponzi scheme is a fraudulent investment operation that pays returns to its investors from their own money or the money paid by subsequent investors, rather than from profit earned by the individual or organization running the operation.
The Ponzi scheme usually entices new investors by offering higher returns than other investments, in the form of short-term returns that are either abnormally high or unusually consistent. Perpetuation of the high returns requires an ever-increasing flow of money from new investors to keep the scheme going The system is destined to collapse because the earnings, if any, are less than the payments to investors. Usually, the scheme is interrupted by legal authorities before it collapses because a Ponzi scheme is suspected or because the promoter is selling unregistered securities. As more investors become involved, the likelihood of the scheme coming to the attention of authorities increases. The scheme is named after Charles Ponzi, who became notorious for using the technique in 1920.
Ponzi did not invent the scheme (for example, Charles Dickens' 1844 novel Martin Chuzzlewit and 1857 novel Little Dorrit each described such a scheme),[ but his operation took in so much money that it was the first to become known throughout the United States. Ponzi's original scheme was based on the arbitrage of international reply coupons for postage stamps; however, he soon diverted investors' money to make payments to earlier investors and himself.

Djigan – Derzi mne za Ruku (Hold me for the hand) – Nice Russian modern disco pop song

Thursday, January 24th, 2013

In Vkotankte (Vk.com) – or the so called Russian Facebook there is a functionality to listen music while putting info on your wall or just chatting with friends. It's very, very handy functionality which facebook lacks. There while listening to some random Russian songs I come across a very, very nice modern disco pop song, I'm sure many others will like it. Too sad people part of western culture knows nothing of what is happening in Russia and this part of the world. There is plenty of nice Russian cultural things and modern songs to listen to.
 

Djigan – Hold me for the hand (Derzi mne za ruku) / Джиган – Держи меня за руку

Currency converter Free Desktop Software for Microsoft Windows

Saturday, December 8th, 2012

Business or not a business entity, in the mostly globalized world it is almost inevitable to go on at least monthly basis without a need for some kind of currency convertion. Of course there are plenty of websites allowing Free Money Convertion services out there. However as I'm not a big fan of the Software as a Service (SAS). I don't like other people to be able to sniff what kind of money, amounts I'm intending to convert as well as I don't like google or other search engine to profile me how frequently I'm converting or intending to convert money. Thus today I did a quick research what kind of Free and  Open Source Software FOSS is available to do the money convertion operation custom on my own webserver or my desktop PC. Though It was not exactly what I was looking for I found a Windows Desktop Software -CConverter which is capable of convertions between mostly if not all Currencies around the world. I'm not a m$ Windows user myself, but I was glad to know a Free Software exists for the task. CConverter is definitely a piece of soft useful for Businesses and People. In future if I do my own business it would be nice to know of this little handy soft existence and I will put it in action (to save costs) and add confidentiality to my business money transaction / convertions. Below is the two screenshots of CConverter I found on the project's sourceforge website:

Desktop Currency converter program cconverter windows desktop currency converter program

cconverter money desktop currency converter m$ windows software in action $$$

My long lasting study university dilemma is it really worth Investment to study in University? Don’t study – invest your money in something more meaningful

Thursday, December 13th, 2012

I'm trying to graduate for a really long time, so far. Let me in short perephrase my story, as I'm sure there are probably plenty of people out there who are into the same shitty situation as I.

I graduated school while being 17 years old (one year earlier than supposed), studied in a Mathematical oriented High School with majors Informatics and Mathematics with itensified English language studying. 

While turning 17 I had my regular fancy-dress carnival (ball) as we have it each year near the end of May and beginning of June in Bulgaria, in those joyful times plenty of High School graduates has their celebrations. I don't know how it is in other countries but in Bulgaria, graduates are often mislead and does not have clear idea what exactly they want to study, because schools do less to properly orientate the student on what kind of study stream field or what kind of sphere of life he would like to be employeed (maybe it was just my alumni) or the alumnis student generations that emerged just 10 years after Communism regime fall, maybe it is just my individual case. Or maybe it was like this everywhere? Anyways I graduated desiring only to study informatics for the only reason, Informatics was fashionable and it was thought the future of existence will be fulyl pre-dominated by informatics. Therefore in my school me and many classmates thought graduating in informatics is the best thing one can do. Computers back in the day was not so heavily spreaded (every person did not have a computer), so still computers were perceived by Bulgarian people with high dose of mysticism and interest. And those interested in computers were much more interested into learning something and much less consumer oriented society … but doesn't matter, I can write a lot of this but will stop here as this is not the ultimate goal of this article ….

Once graduating in PMG Ivan Vazoff – The High School where i graduated, I tried to apply for a student by following the standard student entrance exams for the study stream of Computers and Information Technologies as this was my primary field of interest back in the day. Back in the day the only way to enter for study stream of Computer Engineering was lay exam solving 4 mathematical complex problems, mathametics. I'm a very bad mathematician and bad in counting, since my childhood I guess I had some bad teachers which didn't spend enough time explaining, I was lazy or just I don't have the talent to be good in mathematics, so following the exams in few mainly Technical Universities in few Bulgarian cities produced no good results. Because of my bad exam marks (my best one was 3 out of 6, where 2 is negative and 6 is positive – yeah the standard education system in Bulgaria is from 2 (poor) to 6 (excellent), I was not accepted in any of the universities to study informatics. You can understand my high disappointment, I was so keen to study informatics really! but the stupid system never allowed me to do so! Hoping I will be able to transfer to another study stream I signed in Varna TU (Technical University) in a study stream called "Machine Building and Instruments Construction". I was received in student with a very low mark of just 3 out of 6, there was practice back in the day that the students with worst marks entered into the Machine Building and Instruments Construction or Automation specialties. I was a total user, as the name of the specialty sounded not so bad and I hoped the specialty should be closely related to Informatics, I had hope. Spending just the first semester in the University I realized this specialty – as it was taught back then has almost nothing to do with Computing; besides that it had plenty of Engineer Drawings. As a graduate from a High School where accent was Mathematics, I never did even one Engineer Drawing! So it was a complete, mess I tried hard to learn  it but it was not possible, even though I tried my best I couldn't properly Draw. After all I never had the habit and even the basic knowledge on How Engineer Drawing is done. It was sad and stressful times, besides that I had to follow two University Higher Mathematics (Chapter 1 and 2) in 1st semester and University Technical Mathematics (Chapter pt. 3 and 4). First semester I couldn't pass Mathematics exam  1 and 2. Because of the reason the teacher was mostly terrible in explaning and also the level of mathematics required to know was very high; for me it was even harder as I never ever had good understanding or knowledge in mathematics. I failed the exams I hardly passed 2 out of 4 exams, I had troubles with few subjects certification (in those university studyign students, had to be certified by the teacher to go to the exam – if you don't attend the lectures you don't get certification and you can't go for the exam). It was a mess. After the end of 1st year I realized, I cannot in any way make it, to move myself to study in some study specialty that has to do more with Computer Science, so I stopped studying. 

During the summer I visited some private Mathematics lessons and tried my best to apply again to study for informatics this time for another University (The Economic University of  Varna). Though my hard attempts to learn a set of model mathematical tasks to solve, on the exam in June I only could achieve again a low mark 3.80 out 6. I needed at least 5 in order to be approved to enter the pre-selected number of students which would study Informatics. Here a note to make here is most of the students who studied informatics did not hold even basic understanding in computers or did not even been keen on computers ….

So in practice again I couldn't enter the study stream I wanted so I was accepted in a study stream called Commodity Knowledge (which consisted of a lot of Chemistry doing chemical analysis of products testing, if they're suitable for putting in store things like this). As a bad mathematician my knowledge in Chemistry was also not good, not to mention I had a very short life memory, so sciences with a lot of formulas (and a lot to remember) are so unsuitable for me …. Anyways I was trying to be very diligent in this Commodity Knowledge study, and I could even pass all my  exams in the first year with not so bad overall marks of around 4.30 out of 6.

I should say I spoke with administration and in first semester I was told it is possible to transfer in Computer Technology specialty if I have relatively good marks, they blutantly lied to me, since after talking with them in the end of the first year I was told the two study systems of Commodity Knowledge and Computer Technology has difference, so the only option is to start again from year 1!!!!! I was mad and disappointed, but decided to just study Stock Knowledge for the reason I already started it with hard intention this time I will graduate. Somewhere in the middle of year 2 in University, I was totally pissed off the studies, besides that at home there were plenty of family problems, so I was devastated. My mother and father was hardly urging me to find a job immediately because they cannot (or will not)  financially support me anymore. After some search on the Internet I was referred by a friend (from my school years who lived in Sofia) about a company called Design.BG which is looking for a Linux system administrator. I already had plenty of experience with Linux and Operating System as this was my hobby and most of my free time was invested in learning Linux, advancing my knowledge in Operating Systems, learning Computer Programming etc. etc. I went to the interview and was approved !!! Hooray I had job but I was paid a very funny money 250 lv (125 EUR) – of course I was just starting in this job but come on 125 EURO for a system administator responsible for 6 servers – 125 EURO per month was meakly ridiculous….

I worked in this company Design.BG for overall of 7 years. After 4.5 year of working and a working sallary of 450 lv I just quit, they were plainly using me as a Robot is used, ridiculous and stupid. I had some good times in the company made some friends, advanced my knowledge this is true. But after all after 4.5 years working in an office I had neither savings, neither achieved something and living on rent – working month by month for my rent and monthly food (very similar to people in Africa). A friend of mine who lived in Dobrich and also was very disappointed from his started Education and quit, told me he will be signing to study in a (comparatively new College) located in Dobrich (Holland-Dutch College ICA – International College Albena). I went to this college and signed up for the studies, usually the students were asked to study 1 preparation year, because they need to advance their English (all subjects were taught in English). As I had a relatively normal English I went to an interview in the College and to one Intelligence test exam and I was approved to start studying immediately without following preparation year 1.

The days while being in the College was relatively good, as somehow I managed to pass two years there in the specialty of International Business and Management (IBMS). After year 2 it appeared there was not enough students in my student group, so there couldn't be year 3. We were only 6 students in IBMS and 3 of them had plans to transfer to continue their studies in another Business School (Arnhem, Business School) in the Netherlands. I was again in a difficult situation, from one side I wanted very  much to go and see how living is abroad from Bulgaria, since I never went out of Bulgaria, but from other side I didn't have enough money to do it, so I had to ask for financial support from my parents, I went to banks asking for Student Credit but since my parents had little of earnings, the banks were not willful to provide me a student credit of 10000 lv. (5000 EUR) which even will not be enough for graduating; however I was dreaming to go and study abroad so I make plans that I can gradute with maybe only 7500 EURO. It was just after I realized how my plans are wrong I needed much more to graduate. The good news I had job as I continuously worked for Design.BG (as remote system administrator). so I was earning 650 euro – a money I hoped will be enough to support my studies, as well administrating few other Servers for Winner Ltd (a smal.l company started and owned by my best friend from my youth years). After a lot of "disputes" with my family

I was able to convince them to help me with money to go to the Netherlands.. I went here in Holland, thinking it is all like a bed of roses. I thought here I will be able to find a good job make a good earning. But guess what it was nothng like this. I realized it is pretty hard to find a good job in Netherlands, besides that Bulgaria was not in Shengen so we Bulgarians could only work if we have a special issued work permit document – the Employer however issues this only in case if there is no suitable Dutch person for the job + issuing this document is often seen as problematic by employeer. Thus as a consequence most of Bulgarians even if they find job have to "work in the dark" in the grey economy without being officially employed with a contract or paying a social security or taxes. Such kind of jobs are mainly provided by Turkish or Kurdish and often even those who get job are underpaind or the employeer lies him with money, and you have nothing to do since officially you have no employment contract ….

I signed up for itjobboard.nl a website providing some resources for people who are involved in IT searching for job but nothing decent poped up.

In Arnhem Business School I signed up under Human Resources and Quality Management specialty – this was one of the biggest mistakes in my life (from current perspective) – was always interested in social studies, so I thought HR will be good. However it might be, but the people I meet in face of teachers in University of Arnhem and Nijmegen (ABS) in HRQM was a hell. They were even worser than the ones in Bulgaria (and I always thought in Bulgaria people are narrow minded), here in Holland they were even more narrow minded. They were preaching what they believe, trying to impose themselves on the student constantly trying to manipulate you. Trying all kind of techniques which are against the normal people code of ethics. Experimenting hardly with experimental Psychology, Hypnosis, NLP – what can I say just a bunch of totally crazy ungodly people. Education, here in the Netherlands was a hell.

Teachers didn't care for the student even more than they don't care in Bulgaria. Teachers failed to identify brilliant minded students, but was forcing ahead only students, which somehow was pretending to be smart. Besides that my colleagues in study group's IQ and experience was far from the even minimal for a serious study and scientific thinking (of course this are just my 5cents), I had troubles with money. What made it even more of a nightmare was the fact in Netherlands people though being smiling and ethical was not too much believing in God and there was no regular Orthodox Church services. There is just one Orthodox Church here in Arnhem and they had 1 Church service per month  …. I have studied plenty of Bullshit subjects in Arnhem Business School. The only so-so reasonable was Counceling and International Labour Law. What made my studying situation even more hellish was the fact. The subjects taught here in Arnhem Business School are not identical as content to the ones I was taught over the 2 years I studied in Holland-Bulgarian College (International College Albena). The style of teaching was also very different. Here the student is left on his own to spend his nerves on shit issues, most of which are caused by the badly architectured university system and the unwillingness of teachers to be helpful to students. From my overall experienced in Arnhem Business School in HRQM. I urge you don't sign and Study for HRQM. This might be the biggest mistake you will make. The nerves,. the lost times and the brainwashing you're about to get with a shit content is not worthy the time and the price of tuition fee of 1672 euro per year. I've studied 1 year here in Arnhem Business School somehow managing it and I was totally devastated for the reason I spend 1 year with Teacheres who constantly practice brainwashing techniques doing lecture over the students. Besides that all system in the specialty is centered around a false Philosophy of Brainwashing. The teachers claim, they do all to help the student – they even have a study-buddy system but in practice it is totally opposite. Teachers do opposite to what they speak, acting often totally devilish. It is not a place for ethical people with high morale. Besides that I was amazed about the stupidity of information system in Arnhem Business School, all is built very complex and hard for the student; Whole information system is based on Proprietary Microsoft software. Even the wireless access to the Internet from the University is not officially supported for Free Opearting systems like GNU / Linux or FreeBSD. This  is a good indicator on how narrow minded the whole university is …. well it is the same old story with almost all education I have faced in my life. You pay and you get "shit" for your money, if hopefully you graduate you're not prepared so it is just like spending a lot of money on almost nothing.

The investments one does for his whole studying is another story, very often you spend about lets say 10000 to 15000 EURO for studies and the ROI could come someday or maybe not. With the harsh economic crisis and the reduce of management positions and increase of technology, the likeness of not getting a job or getting a shit underpaid job with or without Higher Education is quite high. Even the knowledge you get in moment of graduating is already out date due to the high dynamics of economics throughout the world and globalization. 

I have planned to complete Arnhem Business School for just 2 years of time, but the teachers and subjects make me stumble, so it is already almost 4 years and I still haven't graduated. Where I'm a position where I had to take two accounting exams. Here the subjects in Arnhem Business School has all fuzzy names like ILLW / (ACF1, ACF5Z0) / HRA. What makes situation even worser is this code names are changed with time. As I didn't studied for an year and half I had issues re-signing for studying. Even after I was said I can continue my studies from the moment where I stopped, there was plenty of issues that might be because the fact they changed the HRQM study content and even the specialty name HRQM was changed to IBS. Now I'm in a situation, where I need to pass two accounting exams they were used to be called under the fuzzy names ACF5 and ACF7 (Accounting and Finance). Again I'm a big troubles because I'm so bad with numbers and the university is so unflexible so they don't give you any alternative option to following the two accounting Exams. After all there are plenty of HRQM Managers out there which have not a good idea about numbers, besides that being an HR does not require you to have the knowledge of a professional accountant. But according to the exams I have to follow I have to study from a book which seems like for professional accountants ….. Passing the 2 accountings would have not been such an issue but the big problem is this two accountings ACF5 and ACF7 are a continuous ones from a previous ACF1,2,3,4 and I never studied ACF1,2,3,4 in Bulgaria but instead studied a different kind of accounting, which besides that was poorly taught by the teacher who didn't speak a good English and the Exam content has nothing as prior said nothing to do with the Accountings in ABS. Even though I spoke with the teachers and explained my situation numerous times, noone wants to take my big issue seriously and now I'm suffering trying to learn for this exams, but with my knowledge it seems hardly possible to pass the exams. Besides that which is mostly ridiculous is just for passing this 2 exams the university wants to charge me to pay them for a whole Study Year enrollment (via StudieLink – an online based system through which the student Sign ups for studying in Holland Universities – in Holland there is a commission of people who approves if one will study or not). It could be my bad luck, maybe my temper which is freeedom loving or the complexity of modern life, but I didn't like it.

Even if I graduate after some time find the enormous sum of about 1650 EURO, I don't know if I will be able to find job after that. Just to give you an idea about the approximate sallary in Bulgaria is about (150 to 200 EUR) MAX. Where only the IT jobs and some managers take like 1000 EUR of sallary. It is ridiculously high, what is even more ridiculous I forgot to mention is even though in year 2011 (January – June) I didn't studied or attended even one lecture the university required me to pay the Semester Tuition fee of 836 EUR (the second part of the normal study year). My explanation that I couldn't go to school because of health issues and financial reasons was not taken in consideration at all. I come to the conclusion that all studying are just made to drain your money and nobody really cares of you. And even at the end who cares what kind of diploma you have you only find Job in 80% of cases only if you have a person to refer you , recommend you  and place you in company. It is just sad how stupid and fragile the education system is in the EU.

Moreover this stupid European Union helps me nothing, they just say they help the countries but what I see happening in Bulgaria and across most of the European Countries speaks the opposite. 

12 Lessons Steve Jobs Taught Guy Kawasaki – SEO Summit Guy Kawasaki speech

Monday, July 30th, 2012

I'm not a big fan of Steve Jobs, neither I like the cult that is nowdays to his personality. After his recent death the cult to Jobs and his works has bloomed once again. From philosophical point of view I don't like Jobs ideas that there is no good and bad but only success matters. However I should admit as a SEO and as a business enterpreneur his achievements are significant. Hence I decided to share with you a video of SEO Summit ex-employee Guy Kawasaki, who "worked for jobs twice and survived". Jobs is famous for not being loved too much by his employees. Also it is not a secret historically he screw up, Steve Wozniak and a number of other people who were either employeed or worked in any way with him.

The points his ex-employee KAWASAKI shares on this SEO Summit presentation are quite interesting and are things, beginning business enterpreneurs like me could learn tremendously from. One key point that is hardly underlined in the presentation is the importance of simplicity.

* Simplicity in everything is essential for the success. It was quite curious to me Steve Jobs presentations were consisting often with a slides of just one word. Obviously this means Jobs was a simplicity freak.

Some of other concepts of Jobs was:
 

Either it works or it doesn't work.

You see again his trend to be simplifying things. In business we all know the SMART (Keep it Simple And Stupid). It seems Jobs SMART was only SAS (Simple and Stupid) 🙂 ….

Some other things Kawasaki learned from Jobs was:
 

Never believe Experts

– If someone tells you he is an expert in something he is definitely not ….

Another belief (understanding) of Jobs and probably many other succesful enterpreneurs is that DESIGN COUNTS. Design is one of the most crucial points in any product, so one has to be extra-careful here. A fail in design is a fail in product line ….

There is plenty of other interesting stuff in the video but the key point is SIMPLICITY. Enjoy Kawasaki Speech …

12 Lessons Steve Jobs Taught Guy Kawasaki