I had a heck of a day today at a client's site. I wasn't able to fully complete either goal I'd wanted to get done.
The first thing was installing the new mail server. It's online but the SMTP service isn't listening on the network. I'm sure it's a simple Postfix config item but I obviously need to resolve it before I can migrate them off of their old box. I didn't have time to finish tinkering with it, because of job #2. (I can SSH into it from home and have a test account for myself on it, so I should have it squared away soon.)
The second goal I had was to extend the size of the RAID 5 array on their web server by adding two more disks. This will require breaking the array, adding the disks, and recreating the volume. Obviously, we need a good backup that we can restore from before doing this.
Unfortunately, their Dell PowerVault 124T tape loader decided to go tango uniform last night. So, no current backup. The PowerVault's Remote Management Unit is not recognizing the existence of a tape drive in the box, and the autoloader is stuck at "Initializing." I spent an hour and a half on the phone with Dell Enterprise Support this afternoon troubleshooting the problem. In the end, my client is going to get their money's worth out of their Gold Support plan. Dell is sending out a tech to repair or replace the tape loader. By the time we reached that determination, I'd been there for most of the day.
Note: If you have one of these PowerVaults, connect it to your LAN before calling Dell, so you can access the management web page. The factory default IP is 192.168.20.128/24.
Their main reason for going with a tape autoloader was so that they could do backups of large amounts of data, and easily take tapes offsite. Considering how you can now buy 500 GB USB hard disks, I wonder how long it'll be until you can get a 1 TB USB hard disk. At that point it may make sense to switch over to disks rather than tapes. That's assuming that you don't give anything up in reliability, of course.
Saturday, October 21, 2006
Thursday, October 19, 2006
Back From Chicago
The SCTE conference wrapped up yesterday morning. Overall, I think it was very worthwhile to attend.
My flight wasn't until 4:10 Chicago time but hotel checkout was noon, so I wound up getting to O'Hare with plenty of time to spare. I made it through the TSA gauntlet without having to submit to the anal probe, then wandered around looking to find somewhere to grab lunch. I would up getting some McDreck and camping out at a relatively quiet gate.
O'Hare doesn't have free wifi but I had enough time to occupy that I deemed it worthwhile to buy access from Boingo; $6.95 for a 24 hour period. I used it for an hour or so, enough to check email and a couple of forums. The speed ranged from OK to dreadful, probably depending upon how many people were trying to use the connection simultaneously. That, or someone was downloading some massive PowerPoint presentation.
After awhile at my gate, I began to wonder if I was at the correct gate. There weren't any updates on the board behind the counter, and I saw that the monitors operated by United showed that my US Air flight was departing from a different gate. After going to that gate I found that the stamp on my boarding pass was correct. I ran into a few other people who did the same thing. I subsequently spoke to a US Air rep, they know about the problem, and United refuses to correct it. This is emblematic of the "customer last" attitude of US airlines. If United won't fix it then someone at US Air needs to go up the food chain at O'Hare and get them to kick United in the butt.
Once in the air things went a lot more smoothly. Even though we were late in boarding and taking off, we had enough of a tailwind that we made up enough time to actually arrive early. Even better, once we debarked I got my bag in about 15 minutes, a record for Philadelphia, where up until know it has usually taken nearly an hour.
My flight wasn't until 4:10 Chicago time but hotel checkout was noon, so I wound up getting to O'Hare with plenty of time to spare. I made it through the TSA gauntlet without having to submit to the anal probe, then wandered around looking to find somewhere to grab lunch. I would up getting some McDreck and camping out at a relatively quiet gate.
O'Hare doesn't have free wifi but I had enough time to occupy that I deemed it worthwhile to buy access from Boingo; $6.95 for a 24 hour period. I used it for an hour or so, enough to check email and a couple of forums. The speed ranged from OK to dreadful, probably depending upon how many people were trying to use the connection simultaneously. That, or someone was downloading some massive PowerPoint presentation.
After awhile at my gate, I began to wonder if I was at the correct gate. There weren't any updates on the board behind the counter, and I saw that the monitors operated by United showed that my US Air flight was departing from a different gate. After going to that gate I found that the stamp on my boarding pass was correct. I ran into a few other people who did the same thing. I subsequently spoke to a US Air rep, they know about the problem, and United refuses to correct it. This is emblematic of the "customer last" attitude of US airlines. If United won't fix it then someone at US Air needs to go up the food chain at O'Hare and get them to kick United in the butt.
Once in the air things went a lot more smoothly. Even though we were late in boarding and taking off, we had enough of a tailwind that we made up enough time to actually arrive early. Even better, once we debarked I got my bag in about 15 minutes, a record for Philadelphia, where up until know it has usually taken nearly an hour.
Monday, October 16, 2006
TSA Rant
Since I'll be flying out to Chicago for the SCTE conference this afternoon, I had to go through my laptop bag and remove all the contraband. The major items were my Gerber Multiplier and Victorinox CyberTool 41, along with a few other assorted things. And to comply with the new TSA rules regarding bringing fluids on planes, I put my allergy meds, eye drops, etc. into a single one quart Ziploc bag.
I feel so much safer knowing that nobody on the plane will have any knives or unbagged toothpaste. {/sarcasm}
The TSA's rules are fucking bullshit and I will rant about them every time I need to fly. Taking away potential weapons from all the passengers makes nobody safer. The bedwetter's mantra to always cooperate with hijackers netted us the loss of two airliners and the WTC on 9/11/01. Only the heroics of the Flight 93 passengers that grim day saved lives -- obviously not on the plane but on the ground. More recently, that line of "thought" has facilitated gunmen being able to take over schools.
MAKING YOURSELF DEFENSELESS DOES NOT PREVENT VIOLENCE.
Predators are deterred ONLY by knowing that their aggession will be resisted. Why is this so hard for most liberals to understand?
I feel so much safer knowing that nobody on the plane will have any knives or unbagged toothpaste. {/sarcasm}
The TSA's rules are fucking bullshit and I will rant about them every time I need to fly. Taking away potential weapons from all the passengers makes nobody safer. The bedwetter's mantra to always cooperate with hijackers netted us the loss of two airliners and the WTC on 9/11/01. Only the heroics of the Flight 93 passengers that grim day saved lives -- obviously not on the plane but on the ground. More recently, that line of "thought" has facilitated gunmen being able to take over schools.
MAKING YOURSELF DEFENSELESS DOES NOT PREVENT VIOLENCE.
Predators are deterred ONLY by knowing that their aggession will be resisted. Why is this so hard for most liberals to understand?
Saturday, October 14, 2006
From servers to sushi
Today started out very frustrating but it got better.
This morning I was down in Wynnewood, PA at a client's office to install a new UPS and fix a misbehaving backup job. His "server" is a PC running Windows XP Pro (plenty for the 3 or 4 people in his office) and we'd been using SyncBack to backup his data partition to a Maxtor USB drive. The problem was that apparently SyncBack would to start recreating ghosts of directories that had been moved. I was baffled by this behavior, so I decided to just zap SyncBack and install Dantz Retrospect Express, which came with the Maxtor drive.
I was able to set it up to do a backup each night at 10:00 PM.
I was planning to get to a second client's office today to add a disk to their RAID 5 storage array, but didn't want to get started in the afternoon. I think I'll need to break and rebuild the array, then restore from backup, so that's something I'd like to start early on a Saturday.
Another project I'm working on for this client is a new mail server. Naturally, I wanted to build it using FreeBSD as described in my TechBuilder article. Unfortunately, trying to install FreeBSD 6.1 on a Dell SC430 is a good way to give yourself an ulcer.
Dell eliminated the PS/2 ports on the SC430, so you must use a USB keyboard. (It would've been nice of them to specify that on their website.) I tried using a PS/2 to USB adapter with my keyboard but the Dell only recognized it intermittently, even when poking around in the BIOS. And unfortunately, while FreeBSD supports USB keyboards, it only does so after you've installed it and made the appropriate entry in rc.conf. Grrrr.
So, I tried adding an Adaptec SATA card to Bagend -- which has PS/2 ports -- so that I could temporarily put the Dell's SATA drive in it, install FreeBSD, then move it back. Windows barfs when you try something like this but BSD and Linux can often handle it.
However, when I tried doing this the FreeBSD install kept hanging, repeatedly.
F*ck it, I give up. I did some googling and it looked like the SC430 is compatible with CentOS Linux, so I downloaded the Server Install CD for CentOS 4.4, burned it to disc in Nero, and installed it on the Dell without any difficulties. Yay. I'd stopped at MicroCenter on the way home from my first client to pick up the SATA controller card, and while there also grabbed a cheap Micro Innovations USB keyboard, which appears to work fine.
I have to say that while I remain a fan of FreeBSD for use on supported hardware, so far I'm quite impressed with CentOS. It's been several years since I last used a Red Hat-derivative and it doesn't seem as crufty as I'd remembered. I'm setting the box up in a manner similar to my FreeBSD article, using Johnny Hughes' guides. I'll still be using Postfix, Dovecot, and Squirrelmail, but may use Mailscanner in lieu of amavisd-new. I haven't decided yet.
A major reason I'm a fan of FreeBSD is the ports/packages system, which allows you to install and update software with a few commands in the shell. Created by Yellow Dog, yum serves an equivalent purpose on the modern Red Hat derivative Linux distros (e.g., Fedora and CentOS). It does a lot to keep you out of dependency hell, assuming that the app you need is in the yum repositories.
I want to get the box finished tomorrow since Monday I'll be flying to Chicago for the SCTE Business Services Symposium, and returning Wednesday evening. My current plan is to install it on site next Saturday.
Finally, I packed it in little after 1700 and went to dinner with Judith, the girls, and my MIL. We went to Minado, a Japanese buffet nearby. Holy moly that place is good. Excellent sushi and udon, along with a good selection of Japanese salads. We'll be back.
This morning I was down in Wynnewood, PA at a client's office to install a new UPS and fix a misbehaving backup job. His "server" is a PC running Windows XP Pro (plenty for the 3 or 4 people in his office) and we'd been using SyncBack to backup his data partition to a Maxtor USB drive. The problem was that apparently SyncBack would to start recreating ghosts of directories that had been moved. I was baffled by this behavior, so I decided to just zap SyncBack and install Dantz Retrospect Express, which came with the Maxtor drive.
I was able to set it up to do a backup each night at 10:00 PM.
I was planning to get to a second client's office today to add a disk to their RAID 5 storage array, but didn't want to get started in the afternoon. I think I'll need to break and rebuild the array, then restore from backup, so that's something I'd like to start early on a Saturday.
Another project I'm working on for this client is a new mail server. Naturally, I wanted to build it using FreeBSD as described in my TechBuilder article. Unfortunately, trying to install FreeBSD 6.1 on a Dell SC430 is a good way to give yourself an ulcer.
Dell eliminated the PS/2 ports on the SC430, so you must use a USB keyboard. (It would've been nice of them to specify that on their website.) I tried using a PS/2 to USB adapter with my keyboard but the Dell only recognized it intermittently, even when poking around in the BIOS. And unfortunately, while FreeBSD supports USB keyboards, it only does so after you've installed it and made the appropriate entry in rc.conf. Grrrr.
So, I tried adding an Adaptec SATA card to Bagend -- which has PS/2 ports -- so that I could temporarily put the Dell's SATA drive in it, install FreeBSD, then move it back. Windows barfs when you try something like this but BSD and Linux can often handle it.
However, when I tried doing this the FreeBSD install kept hanging, repeatedly.
F*ck it, I give up. I did some googling and it looked like the SC430 is compatible with CentOS Linux, so I downloaded the Server Install CD for CentOS 4.4, burned it to disc in Nero, and installed it on the Dell without any difficulties. Yay. I'd stopped at MicroCenter on the way home from my first client to pick up the SATA controller card, and while there also grabbed a cheap Micro Innovations USB keyboard, which appears to work fine.
I have to say that while I remain a fan of FreeBSD for use on supported hardware, so far I'm quite impressed with CentOS. It's been several years since I last used a Red Hat-derivative and it doesn't seem as crufty as I'd remembered. I'm setting the box up in a manner similar to my FreeBSD article, using Johnny Hughes' guides. I'll still be using Postfix, Dovecot, and Squirrelmail, but may use Mailscanner in lieu of amavisd-new. I haven't decided yet.
A major reason I'm a fan of FreeBSD is the ports/packages system, which allows you to install and update software with a few commands in the shell. Created by Yellow Dog, yum serves an equivalent purpose on the modern Red Hat derivative Linux distros (e.g., Fedora and CentOS). It does a lot to keep you out of dependency hell, assuming that the app you need is in the yum repositories.
I want to get the box finished tomorrow since Monday I'll be flying to Chicago for the SCTE Business Services Symposium, and returning Wednesday evening. My current plan is to install it on site next Saturday.
Finally, I packed it in little after 1700 and went to dinner with Judith, the girls, and my MIL. We went to Minado, a Japanese buffet nearby. Holy moly that place is good. Excellent sushi and udon, along with a good selection of Japanese salads. We'll be back.
Thursday, October 12, 2006
Screen Spanning Doctor
This is cool. Apple's older consumer-oriented iBooks and iMacs don't support extended desktops when using more than one monitor. This functionality was restricted to the higher-end PowerBooks and PowerMacs. No more. Screen Spanning Doctor unlocks your PPC Mac's ability to span your desktop, instead of just mirroring the display, and it's free. (Yeah, it's been out for awhile but I just discovered it today.)
Don't forget to check if SSD is compatible with your Mac. The list of supported machines is here.
Note that the currently produced MacBooks enable desktop spanning from the factory.
Don't forget to check if SSD is compatible with your Mac. The list of supported machines is here.
Note that the currently produced MacBooks enable desktop spanning from the factory.
Tuesday, October 10, 2006
Eric Clapton Concert Report
Last night Judith and I went to the Eric Clapton concert at the Wachovia Center in Philadelphia. This is the third time I've seen him live and Clapton still rocks.
The lights went down a few minutes before 7:30 (imagine that, a rock concert starting on time) and the Robert Cray Band came on for the opening set. Robert Cray is a well-known, excellent blues guitarist and singer, and was warmly received by the crowd. Cray has written a couple of songs for Clapton, e.g., Old Love on Journeyman, and played on Journeyman and From the Cradle (he may have played on other Clapton albums but I'm not sure). Cray played about half dozen songs.
After Cray left the stage there was a 10 – 15 minute break while the roadies redid things for Clapton and his band, who came on stage a little before 8:30.
Clapton led off with Pretending and I Shot the Sherriff, then dove into some deep cuts like Got to Get Better in a Little While, and Anyday. He did a few acoustic numbers including Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out, and Living on Faith. Cray joined Clapton's band on stage to play Old Love, something I'd be hoping for. Towards the end of the main set he played Layla and Cocaine. There's a full set list here.
For the encore, Cray again joined Clapton and band on stage for a neat version of Crossroads, in which he sung the first verse.
Throughout the show Clapton's playing was top-notch, starting with his first solo. His singing was good, but the guys handling the sound mixing had everything cranked up so loud that except for the sit-down set he sounded distorted.
Clapton's band was interesting. Overall they were really tight. Aside from him, he had Willie Weeks on bass, Steve Jordan on drums, guitarists Doyle Bramhall II and Derek Trucks, pianist Chris Stainton, Tim Carmon on Keyboards, along with Michelle John and Sharon Weeks singing backup. I was very impressed with Bramhall, Trucks, Weeks and Stainton. Jordan is quite competent but I'm not a fan of his style, and while Carmon's good I thought his solos were a bit over-long.
As a side note, Bramhall is the son of Texas bluesman Doyle Bramhall and previously played with the Fabulous Thunderbirds. Derek Trucks' uncle is Butch Trucks, one of the two drummers in the Allman Brothers Band; the influence of Duane Allman is readily apparent in his playing. Derek has actually played with Allmans on recent albums.
I'd hope to hear more Cream songs, especially Sunshine of Your Love and White Room. One thing I disliked was how loud the show was. It may have been where we sat but last night's show was even louder than The Who a couple of weeks ago in the same venue (and that's saying something). Aside from being uncomfortable sometimes, it distorted the vocals.
Volume aside, I really enjoyed the show.
The lights went down a few minutes before 7:30 (imagine that, a rock concert starting on time) and the Robert Cray Band came on for the opening set. Robert Cray is a well-known, excellent blues guitarist and singer, and was warmly received by the crowd. Cray has written a couple of songs for Clapton, e.g., Old Love on Journeyman, and played on Journeyman and From the Cradle (he may have played on other Clapton albums but I'm not sure). Cray played about half dozen songs.
After Cray left the stage there was a 10 – 15 minute break while the roadies redid things for Clapton and his band, who came on stage a little before 8:30.
Clapton led off with Pretending and I Shot the Sherriff, then dove into some deep cuts like Got to Get Better in a Little While, and Anyday. He did a few acoustic numbers including Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out, and Living on Faith. Cray joined Clapton's band on stage to play Old Love, something I'd be hoping for. Towards the end of the main set he played Layla and Cocaine. There's a full set list here.
For the encore, Cray again joined Clapton and band on stage for a neat version of Crossroads, in which he sung the first verse.
Throughout the show Clapton's playing was top-notch, starting with his first solo. His singing was good, but the guys handling the sound mixing had everything cranked up so loud that except for the sit-down set he sounded distorted.
Clapton's band was interesting. Overall they were really tight. Aside from him, he had Willie Weeks on bass, Steve Jordan on drums, guitarists Doyle Bramhall II and Derek Trucks, pianist Chris Stainton, Tim Carmon on Keyboards, along with Michelle John and Sharon Weeks singing backup. I was very impressed with Bramhall, Trucks, Weeks and Stainton. Jordan is quite competent but I'm not a fan of his style, and while Carmon's good I thought his solos were a bit over-long.
As a side note, Bramhall is the son of Texas bluesman Doyle Bramhall and previously played with the Fabulous Thunderbirds. Derek Trucks' uncle is Butch Trucks, one of the two drummers in the Allman Brothers Band; the influence of Duane Allman is readily apparent in his playing. Derek has actually played with Allmans on recent albums.
I'd hope to hear more Cream songs, especially Sunshine of Your Love and White Room. One thing I disliked was how loud the show was. It may have been where we sat but last night's show was even louder than The Who a couple of weeks ago in the same venue (and that's saying something). Aside from being uncomfortable sometimes, it distorted the vocals.
Volume aside, I really enjoyed the show.
Monday, October 09, 2006
New Article Online
My latest article for TechBuilder.org, Turn an Old Laptop into a Portable Network Troubleshooting System, is now online.
Further Developments
Work has been a bit slow so I haven't had much to write about lately.
Last week I did become a floor captain, as I'd mentioned in my last post. I'll be getting a Blackberry, which will help me keep apprised of what's going on the next time we have an emergency. I already have the floor captain's emergency kit, which I need to inventory and make suggestions to HR about. It's fairly minimal, which is fine, but there are a few things that should be added, in my opinion. One good change going forward is that batteries for the flashlight and megaphone will be replaced twice a year, when the clocks are changed to go on daylight savings time and back off of it. Just like you should do for your smoke detectors.
I was off on Friday because Amanda had her adenoids removed and new ear tubes put in. Hopefully, this will take care of the recurring sinusitis she's had to endure. She bounced back very well from the surgery and in the hour and a half after waking up from the surgery, she ate 11 Oreos and drank three 8 ounce cups of apple juice. She hasn't needed any painkillers since Saturday night.
Yesterday I managed to throw my back out while playing outside with Amanda. It's still stiff today but the Percocet I took yesterday loosened it up enough that I was able to come to work today. That stuff is some good shit.
Tonight my parents are coming over to babysit while Judith and I go see Eric Clapton at Philly's Wachovia Center. I saw him twice way back in college and I'm really looking forward to the show. The Robert Cray Band is opening, so we'll make sure to get downtown in time to see him as well.
Last week I did become a floor captain, as I'd mentioned in my last post. I'll be getting a Blackberry, which will help me keep apprised of what's going on the next time we have an emergency. I already have the floor captain's emergency kit, which I need to inventory and make suggestions to HR about. It's fairly minimal, which is fine, but there are a few things that should be added, in my opinion. One good change going forward is that batteries for the flashlight and megaphone will be replaced twice a year, when the clocks are changed to go on daylight savings time and back off of it. Just like you should do for your smoke detectors.
I was off on Friday because Amanda had her adenoids removed and new ear tubes put in. Hopefully, this will take care of the recurring sinusitis she's had to endure. She bounced back very well from the surgery and in the hour and a half after waking up from the surgery, she ate 11 Oreos and drank three 8 ounce cups of apple juice. She hasn't needed any painkillers since Saturday night.
Yesterday I managed to throw my back out while playing outside with Amanda.
Tonight my parents are coming over to babysit while Judith and I go see Eric Clapton at Philly's Wachovia Center. I saw him twice way back in college and I'm really looking forward to the show. The Robert Cray Band is opening, so we'll make sure to get downtown in time to see him as well.
Friday, September 29, 2006
A Couple of Interesting Developments
I received word earlier this week that I got approval to attend SCTE.org's Business Service Symposium outside Chicago next month. Since the attendance fee is about $100 less if you're a member of SCTE, and membership costs $58, I also signed up as a member. I'm looking forward to the conference although not to the flights there and back. Although I'll only be away for a few days, I'll need to check a bag, since the idiots in charge at the TSA have decided it's too dangerous to allow me to carry on my Gerber Multiplier, Swiss Army Cybertool, or my Benchmade Griptilian.
The other interesting development is that it looks like I'll be a floor captain. I made it known that I'd be interested in being one after the clusterf*ck last Thursday. With my background in the Civil Air Patrol in a search & rescue squadron plus my ham license, I figure I'm as qualified as anyone, and more so than most. I'm hoping that by getting involved I'll be more in the loop the next time something happens.
The other interesting development is that it looks like I'll be a floor captain. I made it known that I'd be interested in being one after the clusterf*ck last Thursday. With my background in the Civil Air Patrol in a search & rescue squadron plus my ham license, I figure I'm as qualified as anyone, and more so than most. I'm hoping that by getting involved I'll be more in the loop the next time something happens.
NeoOffice Revisted
In my never-ending quest to find a good alternative to Word 2004, I am giving NeoOffice another shot on my iBook. I've had Nisus Writer Express on here, but while it's nice I don't need it enough to shell out $69 for a license. NeoOffice 2 is the Aqua port of OpenOffice.org to OS X. I've had OO.o 2 on the box for awhile but it requires me to run X11, which increases overhead. Since NO2 doesn't require X11 I'm hoping it's a bit nicer to use. Launching is still slow but we'll have to see how it is when I'm editing an existing long document.
I configured NO2 to save text documents as .RTF files by default, in case I decide to axe it. The out of the box setting is to save them as .ODF (Open Document Format) files. Saving as .RTF means that I can more easily open any new docs that I create with TextEditor.app or Word.
I configured NO2 to save text documents as .RTF files by default, in case I decide to axe it. The out of the box setting is to save them as .ODF (Open Document Format) files. Saving as .RTF means that I can more easily open any new docs that I create with TextEditor.app or Word.
Thursday, September 28, 2006
iPod Video
Oh heck, a new vice.
I recall that when the new Battlestar Galactica show was announced my reaction was along the lines of, “Ughh, that’s gonna suck.” I watched the original when I was a kid and loved it then. But a few years ago SciFi ran it again in syndication and I had to turn it off after about ten minutes before I vomited due to massive ‘70s cheese and crappy acting. So, when I watched the pilot for the new show and saw how good it was I got hooked. The old show was definitely for kids, and trying to ride on the coat tails of Star Wars. The new show, in contrast, is for adults.
I watched the first season and halfway through the second season, then stopped watching pretty much any TV. But today my boss wandered into the lab and told me about the BG “Story To-Date” show he downloaded for free from iTunes, which got him hooked. I decided to give it a try, and downloaded it to watch on my iPod on my train ride home.
Damn thing worked. Video on the iPod screen is surprising watchable, and since I’m listening through ear buds the sound is great. The end result is that I’m downloading all of Season 2 to get back into the show. There are 20 episodes in the season, three of which download at a time. I figure I’ll leave it running overnight and then update my iPod when I get up tomorrow morning, so I can watch on my ride in.
I recall that when the new Battlestar Galactica show was announced my reaction was along the lines of, “Ughh, that’s gonna suck.” I watched the original when I was a kid and loved it then. But a few years ago SciFi ran it again in syndication and I had to turn it off after about ten minutes before I vomited due to massive ‘70s cheese and crappy acting. So, when I watched the pilot for the new show and saw how good it was I got hooked. The old show was definitely for kids, and trying to ride on the coat tails of Star Wars. The new show, in contrast, is for adults.
I watched the first season and halfway through the second season, then stopped watching pretty much any TV. But today my boss wandered into the lab and told me about the BG “Story To-Date” show he downloaded for free from iTunes, which got him hooked. I decided to give it a try, and downloaded it to watch on my iPod on my train ride home.
Damn thing worked. Video on the iPod screen is surprising watchable, and since I’m listening through ear buds the sound is great. The end result is that I’m downloading all of Season 2 to get back into the show. There are 20 episodes in the season, three of which download at a time. I figure I’ll leave it running overnight and then update my iPod when I get up tomorrow morning, so I can watch on my ride in.
Sunday, September 24, 2006
Pietta 1858 Remington Revolver
I had a Cabela's discount card that was burning a hole in my wallet, so last week I ordered a 5.5" barreled Pietta 1858 Remington revolver from them. It came on the 13th and I shot it for the first time last night. (In the US, muzzleloading guns using loose powder and ball are not legally considered to be firearms under federal law. Some states do restrict them, but not Pennsylvania. So, I was able to order it online and have it shipped to my door via UPS.)
My first impressions are very favorable. I noticed one small ding from handling on the back of the frame to the left of the rear sight notch. Also, the bottom edge of the trigger has a little roll of metal that appears to be left over from a grinding oepration, but otherwise it looks great. The fit and polish of the brass triggerguard is superb. Wood-to-metal fit of the grips is excellent. The grips themselves are nicely-grained and finished walnut. Overall fit and finish is definitely better than my Euroarms 1858.
The Pietta's action is quite smooth, more like my Uberti 1851 Navy than the Euroarms 1858 Remington, which is rougher. The Euroarms gun seems to have a heavier hammerspring than the Pietta, but the latter still pops the caps just fine.
Two inches less barrel helps the balance quite a bit. My Euroarms hangs well and works great for offhand shooting. The Pietta is less muzzle heavy and in general is faster handling, but still hangs well.
Last night my dad and I shot it. We shot at 7 yards, one handed. Loads were Hornady .457 balls, 28 grain by volume of 3Fg Goex, CCI No.10 caps, and Dixie wads between powder and ball. Except for fliers, our groups were all one ragged hole.
I had a couple of instances where when loading the chamber must not have been perfectly aligned with the rammer, so I couldn't seat the ball flush. I had to remove the cylinder and smack the ball in with a mallet, then replace it and resume loading. I've never experienced this before. I think I'll chamfer the chamber mouths so if the rammer isn't quite aligned it'll be funnelled in.
I popped a cap on each nipple before loading and I experienced no ignition failures.
The gun was lubricated ahead of time with Ballistol. After a few cylinders it was starting to drag, but I'd forgotten to bring a bottle with me. So, I wiped down the base pin and put a couple of drops of FP-10 on it. For BP, FP-10 is definitely inferior to Ballistol.
Cleanup was quick and easy with Windex and hot water. I've come to favor Windex for BP cleaning. I think the surfactants in it do a great job of getting the fouling out.
I give the Pietta two thumbs up.
My first impressions are very favorable. I noticed one small ding from handling on the back of the frame to the left of the rear sight notch. Also, the bottom edge of the trigger has a little roll of metal that appears to be left over from a grinding oepration, but otherwise it looks great. The fit and polish of the brass triggerguard is superb. Wood-to-metal fit of the grips is excellent. The grips themselves are nicely-grained and finished walnut. Overall fit and finish is definitely better than my Euroarms 1858.
The Pietta's action is quite smooth, more like my Uberti 1851 Navy than the Euroarms 1858 Remington, which is rougher. The Euroarms gun seems to have a heavier hammerspring than the Pietta, but the latter still pops the caps just fine.
Two inches less barrel helps the balance quite a bit. My Euroarms hangs well and works great for offhand shooting. The Pietta is less muzzle heavy and in general is faster handling, but still hangs well.
Last night my dad and I shot it. We shot at 7 yards, one handed. Loads were Hornady .457 balls, 28 grain by volume of 3Fg Goex, CCI No.10 caps, and Dixie wads between powder and ball. Except for fliers, our groups were all one ragged hole.
I had a couple of instances where when loading the chamber must not have been perfectly aligned with the rammer, so I couldn't seat the ball flush. I had to remove the cylinder and smack the ball in with a mallet, then replace it and resume loading. I've never experienced this before. I think I'll chamfer the chamber mouths so if the rammer isn't quite aligned it'll be funnelled in.
I popped a cap on each nipple before loading and I experienced no ignition failures.
The gun was lubricated ahead of time with Ballistol. After a few cylinders it was starting to drag, but I'd forgotten to bring a bottle with me. So, I wiped down the base pin and put a couple of drops of FP-10 on it. For BP, FP-10 is definitely inferior to Ballistol.
Cleanup was quick and easy with Windex and hot water. I've come to favor Windex for BP cleaning. I think the surfactants in it do a great job of getting the fouling out.
I give the Pietta two thumbs up.
Tuesday, September 19, 2006
Arrrrrrrrr!
Avast me hearties! Today's International Talk Like a Pirate Day ye scurvey dogs! Today we be testin' ye Corsair keyboard.
An' beware o' the buccaneers o' ye Linus!
An' beware o' the buccaneers o' ye Linus!
Monday, September 18, 2006
Several Updates to The Shooter's Bar(SM)
I made a few additions to The Shooter's Bar(SM) today. Additions include Chuck Michel of CA, David Strachtman of RI, and Darius Arbabi of MA. As far as I can tell, TSB is the largest free online list of pro-RKBA attorneys. I started it back in 1997 on Fidonet and the Paul Revere Net, and transisitoned it to the Web shortly thereafter.
Getting listed is free although it sometimes takes me awhile to get around to updating it. Attorneys who would like to be included need to email me with their info in the same format as shown on the page. You do not need to be a "gun lawyer," only pro-RKBA.
Getting listed is free although it sometimes takes me awhile to get around to updating it. Attorneys who would like to be included need to email me with their info in the same format as shown on the page. You do not need to be a "gun lawyer," only pro-RKBA.
Back in one piece
We made it back from Arlington in one piece.
The drive down on Saturday wasn’t too bad, although we did run into traffic on I-95 in Delaware due to construction, and on I-495 outside Washington due to an accident in one spot, and then a mattress laying in the middle of the road a few miles down.
We stayed at the Marriott Residence Inn in the Roslyn section of Arlington. They’re doing reconstruction but we were several floors above it. It’s a good place for an extended stay and includes free Internet access via iBahn in the room price. They appear to block outgoing port 25 SMTP traffic, which was a bit of a PITA. I had a few messages to send and had to wait until we got home yesterday. If they’d been really important I would have tried sending them via Gmail’s SMTP server, which uses port 587 and SSL. (Instructions on how to configure Mail.app for POP3 and SMTP access to Gmail are here.)
The party for my grandfather on Saturday was a lot of fun. I don’t see that side of the family too often so it was nice to be able to hang out with them. One cousin in particular I hadn't seen since we were both kids, sometime around 1977. The years have been very kind to her. (!!!)
We got back on the road relatively early yesterday and got home by about 2:00. I crashed for most of the afternoon.
And now, back to the grind ….
The drive down on Saturday wasn’t too bad, although we did run into traffic on I-95 in Delaware due to construction, and on I-495 outside Washington due to an accident in one spot, and then a mattress laying in the middle of the road a few miles down.
We stayed at the Marriott Residence Inn in the Roslyn section of Arlington. They’re doing reconstruction but we were several floors above it. It’s a good place for an extended stay and includes free Internet access via iBahn in the room price. They appear to block outgoing port 25 SMTP traffic, which was a bit of a PITA. I had a few messages to send and had to wait until we got home yesterday. If they’d been really important I would have tried sending them via Gmail’s SMTP server, which uses port 587 and SSL. (Instructions on how to configure Mail.app for POP3 and SMTP access to Gmail are here.)
The party for my grandfather on Saturday was a lot of fun. I don’t see that side of the family too often so it was nice to be able to hang out with them. One cousin in particular I hadn't seen since we were both kids, sometime around 1977. The years have been very kind to her. (!!!)
We got back on the road relatively early yesterday and got home by about 2:00. I crashed for most of the afternoon.
And now, back to the grind ….
Friday, September 15, 2006
A Quick One
This week has gone by rather quickly.
I did some modem testing at work on Monday and Tuesday morning. Tuesday afternoon after a conference call regarding our new WiFi-related efforts I left at 1:30. I wanted to be home so that I wouldn’t be rushed when I later met my friends for dinner and to see The Who at the Wachovia Center in Philly.
This was my third Who concert -- I saw them in 1989 and 2002 -- and they still kick ass. The Philly show was the opener for their 2006 US tour. The band consists of the two remaining original members -- Roger Daltrey on vocals and Pete Townsend on guitar and vocals, plus John “Rabbit” Bundrick on keyboards, Pino Palladino on bass, Simon Townsend on backup guitar and vocals, and Zak Starkey on drums.
Daltrey sounded good although he can’t quite hit the high notes like he used to. Pete sounded good as well, and his guitar playing rocked. He still does his trademark windmill. Palladino is a great bassist (although obviously he’s no John Entwistle) and Zak Starkey, well ...
Zak Starkey may be the best damn drummer in rock today. He’s that good. His playing is very reminiscent of Keith Moon’s.
The Who started the concert with I Can’t Explain and followed with some of their early tunes, The Seeker and Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere, then kicked it up a notch with Baba O’Riley. They also played their new mini-opera Wire and Glass. Pete was rather apologetic to the crowd for making us sit through new stuff, but it was well-received. I liked it. They also played The Relay, which I haven’t heard on the radio in years, and a good selection of tunes from Tommy including a great rendition of Amazing Journey/Sparks. Nothing from Quadrophenia, however.
The one down part of the night was the opening band. Someone thought it would be a good idea to have Peeping Tom -- a rap act -- open for The Who. A real WTF?!? moment there on par with when The Who opened for Herman’s Hermits or Jimi Hendrix opened for The Monkees.
My next concert will be Eric Clapton in October. His opener is going to be the Robert Cray Band, which should be very good. I’m really looking forward to the show, having seen Clapton twice back when I was in college.
Wednesday I was back in the office for a short while before our department picnic. Yesterday I spent hanging out with a guy from Arris who was upgrading a CMTS in our lab. We’re evaluating some of their pre-DOCSIS 3.0 channel bonding technology. Imagine a cable modem which supports download speeds of 150 Mbps and upload speeds of at least 40 Mbps. Cool stuff indeed.
Today I’m doing a bit more testing of one of our modems. I’m also playing around with Nisus Writer Express. I’ve been looking off and on for a lightweight word processor for OS X. Word generally works OK but has a lot of overhead. NWE is definitely lighter and by default saves files in RTF format, but will read .doc files. Complex Word files do not translate perfectly, however. So far I’m mostly liking what I see, so I’ll putz around with it for the rest of the 30 day trial and then decide if I want to pay for a license.
Tomorrow we’re piling into the truck for a trip down to Arlington, VA for a 90th birthday party for my grandfather. I’m expecting the drive to suck but it’ll be worth it to see him and the rest of the family.
I did some modem testing at work on Monday and Tuesday morning. Tuesday afternoon after a conference call regarding our new WiFi-related efforts I left at 1:30. I wanted to be home so that I wouldn’t be rushed when I later met my friends for dinner and to see The Who at the Wachovia Center in Philly.
This was my third Who concert -- I saw them in 1989 and 2002 -- and they still kick ass. The Philly show was the opener for their 2006 US tour. The band consists of the two remaining original members -- Roger Daltrey on vocals and Pete Townsend on guitar and vocals, plus John “Rabbit” Bundrick on keyboards, Pino Palladino on bass, Simon Townsend on backup guitar and vocals, and Zak Starkey on drums.
Daltrey sounded good although he can’t quite hit the high notes like he used to. Pete sounded good as well, and his guitar playing rocked. He still does his trademark windmill. Palladino is a great bassist (although obviously he’s no John Entwistle) and Zak Starkey, well ...
Zak Starkey may be the best damn drummer in rock today. He’s that good. His playing is very reminiscent of Keith Moon’s.
The Who started the concert with I Can’t Explain and followed with some of their early tunes, The Seeker and Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere, then kicked it up a notch with Baba O’Riley. They also played their new mini-opera Wire and Glass. Pete was rather apologetic to the crowd for making us sit through new stuff, but it was well-received. I liked it. They also played The Relay, which I haven’t heard on the radio in years, and a good selection of tunes from Tommy including a great rendition of Amazing Journey/Sparks. Nothing from Quadrophenia, however.
The one down part of the night was the opening band. Someone thought it would be a good idea to have Peeping Tom -- a rap act -- open for The Who. A real WTF?!? moment there on par with when The Who opened for Herman’s Hermits or Jimi Hendrix opened for The Monkees.
My next concert will be Eric Clapton in October. His opener is going to be the Robert Cray Band, which should be very good. I’m really looking forward to the show, having seen Clapton twice back when I was in college.
Wednesday I was back in the office for a short while before our department picnic. Yesterday I spent hanging out with a guy from Arris who was upgrading a CMTS in our lab. We’re evaluating some of their pre-DOCSIS 3.0 channel bonding technology. Imagine a cable modem which supports download speeds of 150 Mbps and upload speeds of at least 40 Mbps. Cool stuff indeed.
Today I’m doing a bit more testing of one of our modems. I’m also playing around with Nisus Writer Express. I’ve been looking off and on for a lightweight word processor for OS X. Word generally works OK but has a lot of overhead. NWE is definitely lighter and by default saves files in RTF format, but will read .doc files. Complex Word files do not translate perfectly, however. So far I’m mostly liking what I see, so I’ll putz around with it for the rest of the 30 day trial and then decide if I want to pay for a license.
Tomorrow we’re piling into the truck for a trip down to Arlington, VA for a 90th birthday party for my grandfather. I’m expecting the drive to suck but it’ll be worth it to see him and the rest of the family.
Monday, September 11, 2006
Five Years
Five years. It seems like yesterday that I walked into the lunchroom at work and saw the Twin Towers burning and later felt the anxiety of not knowing how my family members in New York and Virginia were doing.
Never forget. Never forgive.
Five years and what have we done? We removed the Taliban from power in Afghanistan and the Baathists from power in Iraq. We haven't done anything about the Wahhabiasts in Saudia Arabia who financed the 9/11/01 attacks, nor have we done much to curb the threat of nuclear terrorism from Iran or North Korea. We have, in the guise of the Department of Homeland Security and the Transportation Security Administration created more overbearing, incompetent Federal agencies whose main goal is to promote the appearance that they are doing something.
We're in a war for our survival against Islam. A religious war whether we like it or not. They started it and we insist on idiotic, PC, feel-good euphemisms like "Global War on Terror" (as if you can declare war on a tactic) and "Religion of Peace" (for a religion that spread by the sword and continues to call for holy war against unbelievers).
We piss away American lives and money in futile nation-building efforts for people who don't want us there and barely understand the concepts of democracy and fundamental human rights. Money and lives that could be better spent on developing energy independence that would allow us to stay out of the Middle East and deprive the barbarians of their source of money, which they use to finance their war against us.
Five years and we still haven't done anything to plug up our leaking southern border. Five years that we've continued to fund the United Nations, a tool for Muslim countries to foment hate against the US and Israel.
Five years of bipartisan pussified idiocy which brings us no closer to dealing with the real problem -- Islam -- than we were before the first plane hit the World Trade Center on 9/11/01.
Never forget. Never forgive.
Five years and what have we done? We removed the Taliban from power in Afghanistan and the Baathists from power in Iraq. We haven't done anything about the Wahhabiasts in Saudia Arabia who financed the 9/11/01 attacks, nor have we done much to curb the threat of nuclear terrorism from Iran or North Korea. We have, in the guise of the Department of Homeland Security and the Transportation Security Administration created more overbearing, incompetent Federal agencies whose main goal is to promote the appearance that they are doing something.
We're in a war for our survival against Islam. A religious war whether we like it or not. They started it and we insist on idiotic, PC, feel-good euphemisms like "Global War on Terror" (as if you can declare war on a tactic) and "Religion of Peace" (for a religion that spread by the sword and continues to call for holy war against unbelievers).
We piss away American lives and money in futile nation-building efforts for people who don't want us there and barely understand the concepts of democracy and fundamental human rights. Money and lives that could be better spent on developing energy independence that would allow us to stay out of the Middle East and deprive the barbarians of their source of money, which they use to finance their war against us.
Five years and we still haven't done anything to plug up our leaking southern border. Five years that we've continued to fund the United Nations, a tool for Muslim countries to foment hate against the US and Israel.
Five years of bipartisan pussified idiocy which brings us no closer to dealing with the real problem -- Islam -- than we were before the first plane hit the World Trade Center on 9/11/01.
Wednesday, September 06, 2006
McCain-Feingold Reminder
As several other bloggers have mentioned, we are now in the McCain-Feingold Incumbent Protection Period.
I'll refer you to my post from last year on this issue, Regulate This! and the McCain-Feingold Insurrection. A pox on any politician who tries to regulate free speech.
I'll refer you to my post from last year on this issue, Regulate This! and the McCain-Feingold Insurrection. A pox on any politician who tries to regulate free speech.
Amendment I
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
Tuesday, September 05, 2006
Goodbye Summer
The end of another Labor Day weekend and another summer. Time sure flies.
Saturday night I went to the range with my father, brother Josh, and Judith. This was J.'s second time ever. I let Josh handle instructing J.; he formerly held NRA pistol instruction certification but let it lapse. Anyway, this time she used my dad's 50th Anniversary Ruger Mark II .22 autoloader, which she liked much better than my S&W Model 18. At 21 feet she's able to keep almost all of her shots on a 9" pie plate, which is doing very well for someone just starting out. I'll be picking up a Ruger for her sometime soon.
I brought my Springfield 1911A1 and Browning High Power Practical. I had two new Chip McCormick Shooting Star mags to try in the 1911 and two Mec-Gar 15 rounders for the BHP. The CMC mags worked fine but I found that one of my old CMCs was causing last round failures-to-feed. Rather annoying.
The Mec-Gar mags worked perfectly in the BHP, as expected. They came with some sort of sticky preservative on them though which seemed to persist even after I wiped them down with FP-10. This caused the BHP's trigger to be absolutely awful -- heavy with a lot of creep (the mags affect the trigger pull in the BHP due to the magazine safety). After getting home I wiped the Mec-Gars down with Hoppe's No.9 and using some Flitz, polished the point on where the magazine release bears. This improved the trigger somewhat but I really need to remove the magazine safety.
Sunday I took some time and primed 100 .38 Special cases and set up my loading dies to seat and crimp Speer 148 grain hollow base wadcutters. I used my RCBS hand priming tool to prime the cases and I'm not sure why, but 5 of the primers got mangled in seating. I shot WD-40 into the cases to kill the primers then decapped them. It may be that the Federal primers are towards their maximum acceptable size while the primer pockets in my Winchester brass were a little tight. In the past I've used a Lee Auto Primer and never run into this. I plan to get the cases loaded sometime during the week using a light charge of Bullseye and the aforementioned Speer wadcutters, for nice .38 target loads.
I spend most of yesterday outside doing yard work. We had a small pine tree planted in a half barrel off the back patio, the top of which was getting too close to some wires. Removing it gave me the chance to try out the Gerber Camp axe I bought awhile ago at REI. It worked well. Before chopping down the tree I sharpened it using my belt sander, which I clamped upside-down to a folding workbench. I also used it to sharpen a machete and a tomahawk. Aside from the pine tree I bundled up a number of branches that were laying around so that I can dispose of them, and cleaned up our back patio which was covered with leaves that blew down when Ernesto came through over the weekend.
I still didn't get a chance to test the slimjim antenna I constructed on Friday, but hopefully soon.
Saturday night I went to the range with my father, brother Josh, and Judith. This was J.'s second time ever. I let Josh handle instructing J.; he formerly held NRA pistol instruction certification but let it lapse. Anyway, this time she used my dad's 50th Anniversary Ruger Mark II .22 autoloader, which she liked much better than my S&W Model 18. At 21 feet she's able to keep almost all of her shots on a 9" pie plate, which is doing very well for someone just starting out. I'll be picking up a Ruger for her sometime soon.
I brought my Springfield 1911A1 and Browning High Power Practical. I had two new Chip McCormick Shooting Star mags to try in the 1911 and two Mec-Gar 15 rounders for the BHP. The CMC mags worked fine but I found that one of my old CMCs was causing last round failures-to-feed. Rather annoying.
The Mec-Gar mags worked perfectly in the BHP, as expected. They came with some sort of sticky preservative on them though which seemed to persist even after I wiped them down with FP-10. This caused the BHP's trigger to be absolutely awful -- heavy with a lot of creep (the mags affect the trigger pull in the BHP due to the magazine safety). After getting home I wiped the Mec-Gars down with Hoppe's No.9 and using some Flitz, polished the point on where the magazine release bears. This improved the trigger somewhat but I really need to remove the magazine safety.
Sunday I took some time and primed 100 .38 Special cases and set up my loading dies to seat and crimp Speer 148 grain hollow base wadcutters. I used my RCBS hand priming tool to prime the cases and I'm not sure why, but 5 of the primers got mangled in seating. I shot WD-40 into the cases to kill the primers then decapped them. It may be that the Federal primers are towards their maximum acceptable size while the primer pockets in my Winchester brass were a little tight. In the past I've used a Lee Auto Primer and never run into this. I plan to get the cases loaded sometime during the week using a light charge of Bullseye and the aforementioned Speer wadcutters, for nice .38 target loads.
I spend most of yesterday outside doing yard work. We had a small pine tree planted in a half barrel off the back patio, the top of which was getting too close to some wires. Removing it gave me the chance to try out the Gerber Camp axe I bought awhile ago at REI. It worked well. Before chopping down the tree I sharpened it using my belt sander, which I clamped upside-down to a folding workbench. I also used it to sharpen a machete and a tomahawk. Aside from the pine tree I bundled up a number of branches that were laying around so that I can dispose of them, and cleaned up our back patio which was covered with leaves that blew down when Ernesto came through over the weekend.
I still didn't get a chance to test the slimjim antenna I constructed on Friday, but hopefully soon.
Friday, September 01, 2006
Yaesu FT-7800R Remote Mounting
I took today off to make this a four day weekend.
Yaesu sells a kit to allow you to mount the detachable face of their FT-7800R mobile 2M/70cm transceiver on your dashboard, while the rest of the radio is placed out of sight under a seat or in your trunk. The remote mounting kit is basically two cables, one to connect the faceplate to the radio and one speaker wire. Even though I use my FT-7800R as a base radio, I wanted to do something similar to free some desk space. The only problem is that Yaesu wants about $65 for the kit, which IMNSHO is ridiculous.
Thankfully, the Yahoo Groups FT-7800R mailing list to which I subscribe supplied the answer. The cable to connect the faceplate to the radio body is nothing more than a flat 6 conductor telelphone cable terminated with RJ12 plugs. Unlike a phone cord, the Yaesu cable needs to be wired straight through, not crossed. So, today I picked up an appropriate cord and some RJ12 plugs. The cord was already terminated so I had to replace an end. Instead of the $65 I spent about $12, split evenly between the cord and the package of RJ12 plugs, the unused portion of which I added to my network cabling kit.
I moved the radio to the top of my gun cabinet and attached the faceplate which incorporates the controls to Bagend's monitor with some double-sided Velcro tape. The setup is a big improvement. If I buy or make an extension for my headphone cord I'll be able to move the radio a little further over to the other side of the room. The other option I'm considering is putting the radio and power supply on a shelf above and behind the monitor.
Another ham radio related project I did today was to make a 2M Slimjim antenna, based on plans I found at Ham Universe. Rather than the copper pipe construction described at HU, I used the ground wire from some Romex in my electrical parts box. Last year I made a J-Pole from it and it worked great. Since the wire isn't rigid, I taped it to a piece of 5 foot long 3/4" PVC water pipe, with the coax cable fed through the bottom and out through a hole I drilled in the side of the pipe at the feed point. I drilled another hole up near the top and looped a cable tie through it so that I can hang it. I hope to try out the Slimjim with my VX-5RS over the weekend.
Yaesu sells a kit to allow you to mount the detachable face of their FT-7800R mobile 2M/70cm transceiver on your dashboard, while the rest of the radio is placed out of sight under a seat or in your trunk. The remote mounting kit is basically two cables, one to connect the faceplate to the radio and one speaker wire. Even though I use my FT-7800R as a base radio, I wanted to do something similar to free some desk space. The only problem is that Yaesu wants about $65 for the kit, which IMNSHO is ridiculous.
Thankfully, the Yahoo Groups FT-7800R mailing list to which I subscribe supplied the answer. The cable to connect the faceplate to the radio body is nothing more than a flat 6 conductor telelphone cable terminated with RJ12 plugs. Unlike a phone cord, the Yaesu cable needs to be wired straight through, not crossed. So, today I picked up an appropriate cord and some RJ12 plugs. The cord was already terminated so I had to replace an end. Instead of the $65 I spent about $12, split evenly between the cord and the package of RJ12 plugs, the unused portion of which I added to my network cabling kit.
I moved the radio to the top of my gun cabinet and attached the faceplate which incorporates the controls to Bagend's monitor with some double-sided Velcro tape. The setup is a big improvement. If I buy or make an extension for my headphone cord I'll be able to move the radio a little further over to the other side of the room. The other option I'm considering is putting the radio and power supply on a shelf above and behind the monitor.
Another ham radio related project I did today was to make a 2M Slimjim antenna, based on plans I found at Ham Universe. Rather than the copper pipe construction described at HU, I used the ground wire from some Romex in my electrical parts box. Last year I made a J-Pole from it and it worked great. Since the wire isn't rigid, I taped it to a piece of 5 foot long 3/4" PVC water pipe, with the coax cable fed through the bottom and out through a hole I drilled in the side of the pipe at the feed point. I drilled another hole up near the top and looped a cable tie through it so that I can hang it. I hope to try out the Slimjim with my VX-5RS over the weekend.
Tuesday, August 29, 2006
Camino
I've been running Camino 1.0.2 for the past few days on my iBook. In the event you're unfamiliar with it, Camino is a native Aqua app but uses Mozilla's Gecko HTML engine.
When I last tried it out over a year ago, Camino was not ready for daily use and I saw no reason to switch from Firefox. That's changed. Although it still doesn't support Firefox extensions (and AFAIK it never will) it's stable and fast. Firefox of late has really become sluggish on any platform, which lead me to start using Opera and Safari more. Both are fine browsers but because Camino uses Gecko, it renders more pages without the little quirks you run into with Opera or Safari.
Camino is worth a try if you're running Mac OS 10.2 or later.
When I last tried it out over a year ago, Camino was not ready for daily use and I saw no reason to switch from Firefox. That's changed. Although it still doesn't support Firefox extensions (and AFAIK it never will) it's stable and fast. Firefox of late has really become sluggish on any platform, which lead me to start using Opera and Safari more. Both are fine browsers but because Camino uses Gecko, it renders more pages without the little quirks you run into with Opera or Safari.
Camino is worth a try if you're running Mac OS 10.2 or later.
Sunday, August 27, 2006
Rally Point 8/25/06 AAR
Yesterday was the latest Rally Point Shoot, held at the Langhorne Rod & Gun Club north of Philadelphia. We had about 35 - 40 folks show up. Thw eather worke dout well -- about 80 degrees and overcast, perfect for shooting.
I brought along my Springfield M1911A1 Loaded, Ruger 10/22, Colt AR-15A3, and Arsenal SA-M5.
The last time I shot the Springfield was back in March and it was giving me failures to eject, with many spent cases getting jammed between the breech face and the barrel hood. I am pleased to say that I fired 82 rounds (50 Rem-UMC and 42 Federal AE) through it yesterday with no malfunctions. I am pretty sure that my March problems were due to the magazines. Then, I used a couple mags which came with the pistol. Yesterday I used two stainless steel Chip McCormick Shooting Star 8 rounders. I'll be getting some more of these.
Accuracy at 50 feet was good, too. Before my hands got tired from the .45 recoil I was able to keep all my shots inside about 3 - 4" offhand. A better shot would get tighter groups but for me that's not bad.
I put 100 - 120 rounds of CCI Subsonic HPs through the Ruger 10/22, through both a factory mag and a Butler Creek Hot Lips 25 rounder. The CCIs are accurate, reliable, and quiet.
Later I moved to the big bore range and took out the Colt and Arsenal. Incidentally, if you show up at one of these shoots you'll get to see a lot of cool toys. I saw many AR-15s (one with a can), several AKs, a few Garands, an M-1903 Springfield, a few FALs, an an M-1944 Mosin-Nagant carbine. There was also a suppressed Savage 110 in .308 which sounded like a .22 when it was fired.
I only ran 40 rounds through the Colt, on which I'd mounted my new Hakko scope. I need to zero it at 50 yards to get it on paper before shooting it at 100 yards again.
The Arsenal SA-M5 got a workout. I put 160 rounds through it -- 120 Wolf 55 grain JHP and 40 Federal American Eagle 55 grain FMJ-BT. It prefers FMJ ammo. I had 3 or 4 instances of the JHPs getting hung up on the breech when trying to feed into the chamber. Pulling back the bolt and releasing it allowed them to feed. The steel cased Wolf gave no problems with extraction or ejection, which is as I expected. AKs are designed to siphon a healthy amount of gas from the barrel to cycle the action under adverse conditions, so ejection was vigorous.
Before shooting the brass cased Amercian Eagle ammo, I cleaned the chamber with some FP-10 on a couple of patches. Steel cased ammo does not obturate as well as brass cased ammo, so it dirties the chamber more quickly. I've found that shooting brass cased ammo after steel cased can cause intermittent extraction problems.
The magazines I used in the AK were Bulgarian 20 rounders. They functioned perfectly and since they don't protrude as much as 30s, are much better for shooting from the bench. I plan on picking up a few more of these.
I was impressed with the K-Var handguards on the rifle. I got the gun good and hot but they stayed cool. The built-in heat shields work.
Before leaving I wanted to run a couple of patches through the bore. Like a dumbshit I put a couple of .35 caliber patches on the loop of my Otis cleaning kit and got it good and stuck in the throat of the bore, which is of course .22 caliber. I couldn't push it out. This morning when cleaning I figured out how to get it unstuck: unscrew the cable from the tip then push the loop back out with a cleaning rod. It popped back out of the chamber with just a little bit of pressure. Whew!
I brought along my Springfield M1911A1 Loaded, Ruger 10/22, Colt AR-15A3, and Arsenal SA-M5.
The last time I shot the Springfield was back in March and it was giving me failures to eject, with many spent cases getting jammed between the breech face and the barrel hood. I am pleased to say that I fired 82 rounds (50 Rem-UMC and 42 Federal AE) through it yesterday with no malfunctions. I am pretty sure that my March problems were due to the magazines. Then, I used a couple mags which came with the pistol. Yesterday I used two stainless steel Chip McCormick Shooting Star 8 rounders. I'll be getting some more of these.
Accuracy at 50 feet was good, too. Before my hands got tired from the .45 recoil I was able to keep all my shots inside about 3 - 4" offhand. A better shot would get tighter groups but for me that's not bad.
I put 100 - 120 rounds of CCI Subsonic HPs through the Ruger 10/22, through both a factory mag and a Butler Creek Hot Lips 25 rounder. The CCIs are accurate, reliable, and quiet.
Later I moved to the big bore range and took out the Colt and Arsenal. Incidentally, if you show up at one of these shoots you'll get to see a lot of cool toys. I saw many AR-15s (one with a can), several AKs, a few Garands, an M-1903 Springfield, a few FALs, an an M-1944 Mosin-Nagant carbine. There was also a suppressed Savage 110 in .308 which sounded like a .22 when it was fired.
I only ran 40 rounds through the Colt, on which I'd mounted my new Hakko scope. I need to zero it at 50 yards to get it on paper before shooting it at 100 yards again.
The Arsenal SA-M5 got a workout. I put 160 rounds through it -- 120 Wolf 55 grain JHP and 40 Federal American Eagle 55 grain FMJ-BT. It prefers FMJ ammo. I had 3 or 4 instances of the JHPs getting hung up on the breech when trying to feed into the chamber. Pulling back the bolt and releasing it allowed them to feed. The steel cased Wolf gave no problems with extraction or ejection, which is as I expected. AKs are designed to siphon a healthy amount of gas from the barrel to cycle the action under adverse conditions, so ejection was vigorous.
Before shooting the brass cased Amercian Eagle ammo, I cleaned the chamber with some FP-10 on a couple of patches. Steel cased ammo does not obturate as well as brass cased ammo, so it dirties the chamber more quickly. I've found that shooting brass cased ammo after steel cased can cause intermittent extraction problems.
The magazines I used in the AK were Bulgarian 20 rounders. They functioned perfectly and since they don't protrude as much as 30s, are much better for shooting from the bench. I plan on picking up a few more of these.
I was impressed with the K-Var handguards on the rifle. I got the gun good and hot but they stayed cool. The built-in heat shields work.
Before leaving I wanted to run a couple of patches through the bore. Like a dumbshit I put a couple of .35 caliber patches on the loop of my Otis cleaning kit and got it good and stuck in the throat of the bore, which is of course .22 caliber. I couldn't push it out. This morning when cleaning I figured out how to get it unstuck: unscrew the cable from the tip then push the loop back out with a cleaning rod. It popped back out of the chamber with just a little bit of pressure. Whew!
Tuesday, August 22, 2006
Busy Monday
Yesterday I took off so that I could take my Expedition into the shop. When I had it in for an oil change last month I asked my mechanic to take a look and see why it sounds like there’s a hole in a part of the exhaust system. Well, there was a hole in the left exhaust manifold. Due to the fact that unscrewing a 9 year old manifold may result in broken bolts, which in turn would require removing the engine to get the manifold off, he wouldn’t do it. So, it’s at a local Ford dealer. While there I’m also having them add refridgerant to the AC system, lubricate the drive shaft, and do some front end work.
It’s going to be a big damn bill {sigh}. Unfortunately I can’t afford a new vehicle so I have to sink money into this one. Our next new vehicle will probably be for Judith because her ’99 Nissan Sentra is small. At least the dealer paying for a rental car for the day or two I’m without my truck.
While I was home I worked on my next article for Techbuilder.org. I’m using my old Dell Latitude CPiA as a test bed, so I loaded FreeBSD 6.1 onto it. The install went very smoothly. I did have to go back and install a new X server – the framebuffer server – to get the GUI working.
Since the box is cramped on disk space (5.5 GB) and has a slow processor (P-II/366MHz) without much RAM (128 MB) I’m using FVWM as my window manager. It’s got a few more features than the default TWM but doesn’t kill system performance like KDE or Gnome. The heaviest desktop I’d use on this hardware would be XFCE.
Once the article is available I’ll post a link.
Finally, I received two new antennas that I ordered last week from Gigaparts. The first is a Comet SMA-24 2M/70cm for my Yaesu VX-5RS HT. The MFJ 1720S 2M/70cm/6M that I’d been using worked OK but made the radio really top heavy. I couldn’t just site it down without propping it up on something. I was also worried that it was putting undue strain on the SMA connector.
In contrast to the MFJ, the Comet SMA-24 is a very thin and light whip that allows the radio to sit on a flat surface without tipping over. It doesn’t work for 6M but for an HT that’s not a problem.
The Comet is very whippy. Above the base, the antenna wire seems to be coated with a rubber layer with a small nub on the tip. Once it starts moving it takes awhile to stop. To give it a little more rigidity I put a piece of heat shrink tubing on it down near the base, and to prevent poking out anyone’s eye I added a small flag of orange duct tape to the tip.
I also got a Diamond MR77 mobile antenna for my truck and field ops. The MFJ 1729 I bought last year vibrated into unusability in short order. The MR77 is a mag mount antenna for 2M and 70cm, with a PL-259 (UHF) connector on the end of the coax cable. I have a UHF-to-SMA adapter cable for use with my VX-5; the FT-7800R has an SO-239 on the back. Before I put this on my truck I’ll probably seal the antenna/base junction with liquid electrical tape to keep our moisture. I noticed that water did get into the MFJ mag mount and when I disassembled it I saw some rust.
So far I’ve used the SMA-24 for listening but not transmitting, while the MR77 is still in the packaging. I’ll post reports once I’ve had the chance to use them for a bit.
It’s going to be a big damn bill {sigh}. Unfortunately I can’t afford a new vehicle so I have to sink money into this one. Our next new vehicle will probably be for Judith because her ’99 Nissan Sentra is small. At least the dealer paying for a rental car for the day or two I’m without my truck.
While I was home I worked on my next article for Techbuilder.org. I’m using my old Dell Latitude CPiA as a test bed, so I loaded FreeBSD 6.1 onto it. The install went very smoothly. I did have to go back and install a new X server – the framebuffer server – to get the GUI working.
Since the box is cramped on disk space (5.5 GB) and has a slow processor (P-II/366MHz) without much RAM (128 MB) I’m using FVWM as my window manager. It’s got a few more features than the default TWM but doesn’t kill system performance like KDE or Gnome. The heaviest desktop I’d use on this hardware would be XFCE.
Once the article is available I’ll post a link.
Finally, I received two new antennas that I ordered last week from Gigaparts. The first is a Comet SMA-24 2M/70cm for my Yaesu VX-5RS HT. The MFJ 1720S 2M/70cm/6M that I’d been using worked OK but made the radio really top heavy. I couldn’t just site it down without propping it up on something. I was also worried that it was putting undue strain on the SMA connector.
In contrast to the MFJ, the Comet SMA-24 is a very thin and light whip that allows the radio to sit on a flat surface without tipping over. It doesn’t work for 6M but for an HT that’s not a problem.
The Comet is very whippy. Above the base, the antenna wire seems to be coated with a rubber layer with a small nub on the tip. Once it starts moving it takes awhile to stop. To give it a little more rigidity I put a piece of heat shrink tubing on it down near the base, and to prevent poking out anyone’s eye I added a small flag of orange duct tape to the tip.
I also got a Diamond MR77 mobile antenna for my truck and field ops. The MFJ 1729 I bought last year vibrated into unusability in short order. The MR77 is a mag mount antenna for 2M and 70cm, with a PL-259 (UHF) connector on the end of the coax cable. I have a UHF-to-SMA adapter cable for use with my VX-5; the FT-7800R has an SO-239 on the back. Before I put this on my truck I’ll probably seal the antenna/base junction with liquid electrical tape to keep our moisture. I noticed that water did get into the MFJ mag mount and when I disassembled it I saw some rust.
So far I’ve used the SMA-24 for listening but not transmitting, while the MR77 is still in the packaging. I’ll post reports once I’ve had the chance to use them for a bit.
Friday, August 18, 2006
Truck fun
My '97 Expedition has been in need of a trip to the shop for awhile now. According to my regular mechanic, there's a small hole in the exhaust manifold which is the source of some loud noise while the engine is running. I've also heard a couple of loud clunks which sound like they're coming from the transmission, so this morning I stopped putting off the inevitable and made an appointment to take it in on Monday.
If the bolts securing the manifold to the engine block break while trying to change it, the engine will probably need to be removed to get them out, so he won't do it. I'm going to take the thing into a local Ford dealer, which I'd rather not do but it seems to be the best option right now. Tomorrow I'll try to hose down the bolts with Liquid Wrench to minimize the chance that the break off on Monday.
{sarcasm}I can't wait to see how much this costs.{/sarcasm}
If the bolts securing the manifold to the engine block break while trying to change it, the engine will probably need to be removed to get them out, so he won't do it. I'm going to take the thing into a local Ford dealer, which I'd rather not do but it seems to be the best option right now. Tomorrow I'll try to hose down the bolts with Liquid Wrench to minimize the chance that the break off on Monday.
{sarcasm}I can't wait to see how much this costs.{/sarcasm}
Wednesday, August 16, 2006
Monday, August 14, 2006
Monday update
Saturday we schlepped up to Nutley, NJ (within sight of Manhattan) for a birthday party for one of Judith's cousins. The most direct route is to take the PA Turnpike to the NJ Turnpike to the Garden State Parkway. We hit traffic on the way up, but big sections of the southbound NJ Turnpike were parking lots. So, we took an alternate route home.
Instead of taking the Garden State to the NJ Turnpike, we got off the former at I-78W and took that west to US-22, across the Delaware into PA, until we got to the Northeast Extension of the PA Turnpike, I-476. Then 476S to the Norristown interchange and home. Mileage-wise it was probably longer but it took us the same amount of time as the trip up and the drive was much nicer.
I'd planned to go to the range yesterday since the weather was beautiful, but instead got the bug to organize/clean up my office. It's gotten extra cluttered of late to the point where it was bugging even me.
I put a lot of old documents -- ATM receipts, charge slips, old pay stubs -- through the shredder, then installed about ten feet worth of shelf space. This allowed me to get the coffee cans holding empty brass, along with other miscellaneous stuff up out of the way.
The shelves are nothing fancy, just 1x8 pine boards held up with braces and screwed into studs. Since my office is also the laundry room I don't worry about cosmetic details in there.
During my Lowe's run to get the shelving, I spied a few items on closeout that I snagged. They had a Nite Ize Multi Pocket belt pouch which should hold my Yaesu VX-5RS radio along with a few other items. Then there was a Lansky-type knife sharpener, and a butane torch with soldering tips. The knife sharpener should help me retouch the edge on my Benchmade Griptilian, which is made from rather hard steel. I worked on it a bit with my Arkansas stone and didn't make much progress. The only soldering iron I have is pretty cheap, so the torch should come in handy the next time I want to make an antenna.
Instead of taking the Garden State to the NJ Turnpike, we got off the former at I-78W and took that west to US-22, across the Delaware into PA, until we got to the Northeast Extension of the PA Turnpike, I-476. Then 476S to the Norristown interchange and home. Mileage-wise it was probably longer but it took us the same amount of time as the trip up and the drive was much nicer.
I'd planned to go to the range yesterday since the weather was beautiful, but instead got the bug to organize/clean up my office. It's gotten extra cluttered of late to the point where it was bugging even me.
I put a lot of old documents -- ATM receipts, charge slips, old pay stubs -- through the shredder, then installed about ten feet worth of shelf space. This allowed me to get the coffee cans holding empty brass, along with other miscellaneous stuff up out of the way.
The shelves are nothing fancy, just 1x8 pine boards held up with braces and screwed into studs. Since my office is also the laundry room I don't worry about cosmetic details in there.
During my Lowe's run to get the shelving, I spied a few items on closeout that I snagged. They had a Nite Ize Multi Pocket belt pouch which should hold my Yaesu VX-5RS radio along with a few other items. Then there was a Lansky-type knife sharpener, and a butane torch with soldering tips. The knife sharpener should help me retouch the edge on my Benchmade Griptilian, which is made from rather hard steel. I worked on it a bit with my Arkansas stone and didn't make much progress. The only soldering iron I have is pretty cheap, so the torch should come in handy the next time I want to make an antenna.
Thursday, August 10, 2006
Craigslist
I've been amazed at the amount of interest I've been getting for the ads I placed on Craigslist for the items that didn't sell at our yard sale last Saturday.
Sunday morning I put up an ad for the crib and changing table, tandem stroller, and three balloon strollers. As I mentioned on Monday I got the first reply in less than five minutes. That woman came over shortly thereafter and bought the balloon strollers and a couple of toys.
Sunday afternoon I got a couple of emails expressing interest in the tandem stroller. After emailing pictures I got one "no thanks" and it looks like the other person may come over sometime today to buy it. If she doesn't, yet another woman emailed me this morning requesting pictures.
Lesson learned: Craigslist is a great place to sell baby stuff once you're finished with it. Adding pictures to an ad will help quite a bit. Any future ads I place will incorporate pictures, which I'll host using my free Photobucket account.
When you consider that posting in Craigslist's "For Sale" classifieds doesn't cost a cent, this is an especially good deal.
Sunday morning I put up an ad for the crib and changing table, tandem stroller, and three balloon strollers. As I mentioned on Monday I got the first reply in less than five minutes. That woman came over shortly thereafter and bought the balloon strollers and a couple of toys.
Sunday afternoon I got a couple of emails expressing interest in the tandem stroller. After emailing pictures I got one "no thanks" and it looks like the other person may come over sometime today to buy it. If she doesn't, yet another woman emailed me this morning requesting pictures.
Lesson learned: Craigslist is a great place to sell baby stuff once you're finished with it. Adding pictures to an ad will help quite a bit. Any future ads I place will incorporate pictures, which I'll host using my free Photobucket account.
When you consider that posting in Craigslist's "For Sale" classifieds doesn't cost a cent, this is an especially good deal.
Monday, August 07, 2006
Productive Weekend
It was a productive weekend.
Saturday morning we had a yard sale. We advertised it as running from 8:00 until Noon, but the early birds came out. I sold my copy of MS Streets & Trips 2004 at 6:45 AM, just as we were putting things out!
Saturday afternoon I had a site visit at a long-time client. She uses Quickbooks to keep her business's books and for invoicing, and just upgraded to QB2006. Since the upgrade it's been running really slow on her PC and another PC in the office.
It looks like QB2006 is a resource hog. Her PC is a 2.53 GHz Pentium IV with a gig of RAM and not too many other programs running. The other PC is similar. Hey, Intuit, this isn't Photoshop, how about not turning your programs into bloated pieces of crap like Symantec does with everything they publish?
Aside from looking over her PC and making sure it wasn't infested with anything that would cause a performance hit, I also updated their W2K3 file and web servers, and their Linux mail server.
The mail server is on SUSE 9.0 Pro running CommuniGate Pro. It's a bit long in the tooth and becoming hard to support due to a lack of updates. I am going to prepare a proposal for a replacment, based on my TechBuilder.org article about building a mail server with FreeBSD, Postfix, Dovecot, and SpamAssassin. It should perform better and be easier to support once it's setup.
Yesterday I put an ad of Craigslist for the crib, changing table, and strollers that didn't sell on Saturday. Within 5 minutes of placing the ad, I got an email from a woman nearby who just found out she'll be raising a niece's 18 month old. She came over a little while later and bought three umbrella strollers and a few toys. Another woman setup a time to come over tomorrow to look at the crib and changing table. Hopefully, she'll buy the set and then we'll only have to get rid of a double stroller.
I wrapped up the weekend by joining in the MARC Sunday night club net.
Saturday morning we had a yard sale. We advertised it as running from 8:00 until Noon, but the early birds came out. I sold my copy of MS Streets & Trips 2004 at 6:45 AM, just as we were putting things out!
Saturday afternoon I had a site visit at a long-time client. She uses Quickbooks to keep her business's books and for invoicing, and just upgraded to QB2006. Since the upgrade it's been running really slow on her PC and another PC in the office.
It looks like QB2006 is a resource hog. Her PC is a 2.53 GHz Pentium IV with a gig of RAM and not too many other programs running. The other PC is similar. Hey, Intuit, this isn't Photoshop, how about not turning your programs into bloated pieces of crap like Symantec does with everything they publish?
Aside from looking over her PC and making sure it wasn't infested with anything that would cause a performance hit, I also updated their W2K3 file and web servers, and their Linux mail server.
The mail server is on SUSE 9.0 Pro running CommuniGate Pro. It's a bit long in the tooth and becoming hard to support due to a lack of updates. I am going to prepare a proposal for a replacment, based on my TechBuilder.org article about building a mail server with FreeBSD, Postfix, Dovecot, and SpamAssassin. It should perform better and be easier to support once it's setup.
Yesterday I put an ad of Craigslist for the crib, changing table, and strollers that didn't sell on Saturday. Within 5 minutes of placing the ad, I got an email from a woman nearby who just found out she'll be raising a niece's 18 month old. She came over a little while later and bought three umbrella strollers and a few toys. Another woman setup a time to come over tomorrow to look at the crib and changing table. Hopefully, she'll buy the set and then we'll only have to get rid of a double stroller.
I wrapped up the weekend by joining in the MARC Sunday night club net.
Monday, July 31, 2006
Success
Success! Tonight I was able to get onto the MARC Monday night net using my newly-mounted Comet GP-3 antenna and Yaesu FT-7800R. I was transmitting at 20W and hitting the 145.130 MHz repeater located in Paoli, PA. Net control NT3J reported that my signal was clear, though not quite full quieting. Shortening my feed line may help that. I'm not going to bump the transmit power up to high, since they are hearing me clearly.
Earlier, I was able to hear a net being run out of South Jersey, but on 20W they couldn't hear me. They run the net every Monday at 2000 Eastern, so I may try again next week and bump the power up to 50W, the maximum the FT-7800R will transmit on 2M.
Earlier, I was able to hear a net being run out of South Jersey, but on 20W they couldn't hear me. They run the net every Monday at 2000 Eastern, so I may try again next week and bump the power up to 50W, the maximum the FT-7800R will transmit on 2M.
Beds, radios, and Japanese food
We had a productive weekend.
Saturday I drove out to Lancaster and picked up the bed we ordered a week previously for Amanda. This was one of those times I was glad to have a full-size SUV. This week I'll take down the crib and changing table in her room and put the bed together. Hopefully we'll get someone to buy them next Saturday when we have a yard sale.
Yesterday my friend who's an electrician came over to replace a couple of dimmer switches with regular pole switches, swap out an old two-prong outlet for one that's properly grounded, and finally get my Comet GP-3 2M/70cm ham antenna mounted on my roof.
I have the antenna attached to a 5 foot mast attached to my chimney using a Radio Shack chimney mount. The chimney is in the middle of my roof while my office, where my radio shack (so to speak) is located is on the ground floor at the left front of the house. After securing the coax to the antenna's SO-239 connector and sealing it against moisture with liquid electrical tape, we ran the cable across the roof, and secured it to a downspout with zip ties. There's a soffet overhang outside my office window so we tucked a few feet of the cable in there for extra support, and left the remainder coiled on the window sill. I plan to make a pass-through bulkhead to secure in the window. I'll cut the excess cable (it's a 100 foot line) and put on a new PL-259 so that it can attach to the bulkhead, then use a SO-239 coupler to attach the inside line to the outside line.
I really didn't want to get involved with poking a hole through the cinder block wall, so the the bulkhead will provide an easier to work with solution.
I only had a few minutes to play with the new setup after we were done. I was able to hear the Holmesburg Amateur Radio Club's rebroadcast of "This Week in Amateur Radio" very clearly. This is transmitted from the HARC WM3PEN 2M repeater located on top of a dorm at the University of Pennsylvania. Previously I was able to hear that repeated but not as clearly as with the new antenna mounted up high. Unfortunately, nobody seemed to be listening or interested in chatting on the MARC WB3JOE repeater when I transmitted.
I am optimistic that with the GP-3 now up on the roof, I'll be able to get some good use out of my Yaesu FT-7800R.
Finally, last night we went with my MIL and Judith's aunt and uncle to Sagami on US-130S in Collingswood, NJ. It's a Japanese restaurant, though it's a sit-down type of place rather than teppanyaki. The food was excellent. It's BYOB, so Judith's aunt brought a bottle of sake. Unfortunately it had gone bad and was now only useful for cooking. What's nice is that Sagami traded us some good sake for the bottle, so we had an appropriate beverage to enjoy with the meal.
Saturday I drove out to Lancaster and picked up the bed we ordered a week previously for Amanda. This was one of those times I was glad to have a full-size SUV. This week I'll take down the crib and changing table in her room and put the bed together. Hopefully we'll get someone to buy them next Saturday when we have a yard sale.
Yesterday my friend who's an electrician came over to replace a couple of dimmer switches with regular pole switches, swap out an old two-prong outlet for one that's properly grounded, and finally get my Comet GP-3 2M/70cm ham antenna mounted on my roof.
I have the antenna attached to a 5 foot mast attached to my chimney using a Radio Shack chimney mount. The chimney is in the middle of my roof while my office, where my radio shack (so to speak) is located is on the ground floor at the left front of the house. After securing the coax to the antenna's SO-239 connector and sealing it against moisture with liquid electrical tape, we ran the cable across the roof, and secured it to a downspout with zip ties. There's a soffet overhang outside my office window so we tucked a few feet of the cable in there for extra support, and left the remainder coiled on the window sill. I plan to make a pass-through bulkhead to secure in the window. I'll cut the excess cable (it's a 100 foot line) and put on a new PL-259 so that it can attach to the bulkhead, then use a SO-239 coupler to attach the inside line to the outside line.
I really didn't want to get involved with poking a hole through the cinder block wall, so the the bulkhead will provide an easier to work with solution.
I only had a few minutes to play with the new setup after we were done. I was able to hear the Holmesburg Amateur Radio Club's rebroadcast of "This Week in Amateur Radio" very clearly. This is transmitted from the HARC WM3PEN 2M repeater located on top of a dorm at the University of Pennsylvania. Previously I was able to hear that repeated but not as clearly as with the new antenna mounted up high. Unfortunately, nobody seemed to be listening or interested in chatting on the MARC WB3JOE repeater when I transmitted.
I am optimistic that with the GP-3 now up on the roof, I'll be able to get some good use out of my Yaesu FT-7800R.
Finally, last night we went with my MIL and Judith's aunt and uncle to Sagami on US-130S in Collingswood, NJ. It's a Japanese restaurant, though it's a sit-down type of place rather than teppanyaki. The food was excellent. It's BYOB, so Judith's aunt brought a bottle of sake. Unfortunately it had gone bad and was now only useful for cooking. What's nice is that Sagami traded us some good sake for the bottle, so we had an appropriate beverage to enjoy with the meal.
Saturday, July 29, 2006
The Rally Point Shoot 8/26/06
TheRallyPoint
Date: Saturday August 26th,, 2006
Place: www.lrgc.org in Southeastern Pennyslvania (just North of Philadelphia)
Time: 9am-5pm
Rally Point events and socializing will be going on at the:
Pistol range: 15yds-25yd
Pistol/rifle range: 50yd
Big Bore rifle range 100yd-200yds
2 fields for shooting trap
Food and drinks will be available.
For Directions http://www.lrgc.org/html/location.html
Admission is $15
Sponsors: Will be announced in a few weeks.
TheRallyPoint event tends to be informal, and there will be plenty of time to socialize, but since the www.lrgc.org is very big, we decided to join forces with http://www.rwva.org/ to further our cause. We will be having a Mini-Appleseed clinic
http://www.therallypoint.org/forum/index.php?topic=648.msg3821#msg3821
Training: NRA Certified Firearms instructors will be available to instruct new shooters. If you have friends or family members that want to learn how to handle a firearm, please help further our cause and invite them to come out. This is a family friendly event.
Competitions are only a short part of the days events and are separate from the Mini appleseed clinic. The big bore (100y / 200y) will be open from 9am-5pm for open shooting, and the smallbore/pistol range will be open after the appleseed program is done.
Competitions: Rifleman survival competition, shotgun competition
Theme: Rifleman boot camp. Bring out your favorite rifle and practice with others. If you have something unique to add to the Rifleman firearm theme, please let us know what you are bringing.
Please note:
There are sponsors for this event that are contributing to the event and helping to keep costs down, please do not show up and open up a store front on the firing line and start selling things. If you have something of value to the members of TRP please contact me first. If you are interested in sponsoring future TheRallyPoint, please feel free to contact me.
Secondly, The board at LRGC asked that we not allow the buying and selling of firearms on their property. These shoots look like gun shows, but we do not want to bring in unwanted attention. Feel free to network and build friendships, but please do the transfering of firearms off LRGC's property.
Meet us at TheRallyPoint!!
Date: Saturday August 26th,, 2006
Place: www.lrgc.org in Southeastern Pennyslvania (just North of Philadelphia)
Time: 9am-5pm
Rally Point events and socializing will be going on at the:
Pistol range: 15yds-25yd
Pistol/rifle range: 50yd
Big Bore rifle range 100yd-200yds
2 fields for shooting trap
Food and drinks will be available.
For Directions http://www.lrgc.org/html/location.html
Admission is $15
Sponsors: Will be announced in a few weeks.
TheRallyPoint event tends to be informal, and there will be plenty of time to socialize, but since the www.lrgc.org is very big, we decided to join forces with http://www.rwva.org/ to further our cause. We will be having a Mini-Appleseed clinic
http://www.therallypoint.org/forum/index.php?topic=648.msg3821#msg3821
Training: NRA Certified Firearms instructors will be available to instruct new shooters. If you have friends or family members that want to learn how to handle a firearm, please help further our cause and invite them to come out. This is a family friendly event.
Competitions are only a short part of the days events and are separate from the Mini appleseed clinic. The big bore (100y / 200y) will be open from 9am-5pm for open shooting, and the smallbore/pistol range will be open after the appleseed program is done.
Competitions: Rifleman survival competition, shotgun competition
Theme: Rifleman boot camp. Bring out your favorite rifle and practice with others. If you have something unique to add to the Rifleman firearm theme, please let us know what you are bringing.
Please note:
There are sponsors for this event that are contributing to the event and helping to keep costs down, please do not show up and open up a store front on the firing line and start selling things. If you have something of value to the members of TRP please contact me first. If you are interested in sponsoring future TheRallyPoint, please feel free to contact me.
Secondly, The board at LRGC asked that we not allow the buying and selling of firearms on their property. These shoots look like gun shows, but we do not want to bring in unwanted attention. Feel free to network and build friendships, but please do the transfering of firearms off LRGC's property.
Meet us at TheRallyPoint!!
Friday, July 28, 2006
New Blogger Template
Hope you like the new look. I decided it was time for a facelift. The old template was looking kinda grungy and wasn't compatible with Safari. This one renders a lot better in Safari. Unfortunately, the Blogger posting page still doesn't work 100% with Safari, so I'll likely keep posting from withing Firefox.
Reconfiguring How I Do Email
Last night's fireworks finally provided the impetus for me to change how I get my email. I've been running mail.building-tux.com as an IMAP server on e-Smith SME server for a few years at home, but have been looking to move to a platform that isn't so old. One of the things I was considering was to stop hosting my mail at home entirely, and instead use pair.com's server, which is where www.building-tux.com is hosted.
Being in a real data center, Pair's server is a lot less vulnerable to power outages and surges. They provide webmail access using Squirrelmail, so even if I'm without my laptop I'll be able to access it from any Internet connection. Pair's spam filtering is quite good; I noticed that when they made some upgrades to it last year the amount of spam I received in my davemarkowitz.net account plummetted. Finally, not running a server 24x7 will save on our home electric bill.
So, I setup a mailbox at Pair and reconfigured the DNS records for building-tux.com. I'm now using POPS (POP over SSL) to retrieve email for both building-tux.com and davemarkowitz.net. My mail client is Apple's Mail.app.
I like Mail.app's interface and how it integrates well with iCal, the OS X Addressbook, and Spotlight. Mail.app sucks for IMAP but according to friends who use it for POP, it's good at that.
Tonight or this weekend I'll configure Mail.app to connect to my old mail server while I'm local, and I'll copy down the messages I have in IMAP folders. Then I'll be able to retire the old box.
Being in a real data center, Pair's server is a lot less vulnerable to power outages and surges. They provide webmail access using Squirrelmail, so even if I'm without my laptop I'll be able to access it from any Internet connection. Pair's spam filtering is quite good; I noticed that when they made some upgrades to it last year the amount of spam I received in my davemarkowitz.net account plummetted. Finally, not running a server 24x7 will save on our home electric bill.
So, I setup a mailbox at Pair and reconfigured the DNS records for building-tux.com. I'm now using POPS (POP over SSL) to retrieve email for both building-tux.com and davemarkowitz.net. My mail client is Apple's Mail.app.
I like Mail.app's interface and how it integrates well with iCal, the OS X Addressbook, and Spotlight. Mail.app sucks for IMAP but according to friends who use it for POP, it's good at that.
Tonight or this weekend I'll configure Mail.app to connect to my old mail server while I'm local, and I'll copy down the messages I have in IMAP folders. Then I'll be able to retire the old box.
Zap!
We had an electrical storm blow through last night and had one bolt of lightning hit fairly close. This morning when I went downstairs for breakfast I noticed that a couple circuits blew. Aside from the refrigerator, my Vonage router got fried. I tried a hard reboot but only the power light comes on, I get no link light from either the modem or the switch connected to the LAN side.
I'm a bit surprised that the Vonage Linksys box got zapped because I have an APC PNET Ethernet surge protector between it and the modem, and both boxes get their A/C from an APC BackUPS 650. Before leaving for work I took the Vonage box out and threw an old Cayman 2E-H in its place, hoping to at least restore Internet connectivity. No dice, I think the PNET got fried, too.
After I get home tonight I'll see if I can get the Cayman online if I plug directly into the modem. I know the modem itself is online because I was able to poll it from the office using our NMS (it's nice to work for your ISP as an engineer :-)). If the Cayman doesn't work it'll give me an excuse to install the Netscreen 5GT demo unit I have at home.
We'll still receive calls if anyone dials our home number because we have Vonage configured to forward calls to Judith's cell phone if the VOIP line is down.
I called Vonage tech support from the office. I think I was speaking to someone in India. I explained the situation and while the tech sounded sympathetic, he couldn't send me a new router without me in front of it to troubleshoot. I understand having a script to adhere to but when the damn box won't come up, it's time to bend a little. At my insistance, he transferred me to a supervisor, who (a) sounded like he was actually in the US, and (b) agreed that a new router is warranted. So, Vonage is shipping us a new box and we should get it Monday.
ETA: It turns out that not only was my Vonage router fried, so was the uplink port on my Netgear 8 port switch. I did get back online with the Cayman, which just needed some reconfiguration, and determined that my APC PNET Ethernet surge suppressor was not affected. The surge must've come through the power line, not the cable line.
I'm a bit surprised that the Vonage Linksys box got zapped because I have an APC PNET Ethernet surge protector between it and the modem, and both boxes get their A/C from an APC BackUPS 650. Before leaving for work I took the Vonage box out and threw an old Cayman 2E-H in its place, hoping to at least restore Internet connectivity. No dice, I think the PNET got fried, too.
After I get home tonight I'll see if I can get the Cayman online if I plug directly into the modem. I know the modem itself is online because I was able to poll it from the office using our NMS (it's nice to work for your ISP as an engineer :-)). If the Cayman doesn't work it'll give me an excuse to install the Netscreen 5GT demo unit I have at home.
We'll still receive calls if anyone dials our home number because we have Vonage configured to forward calls to Judith's cell phone if the VOIP line is down.
I called Vonage tech support from the office. I think I was speaking to someone in India. I explained the situation and while the tech sounded sympathetic, he couldn't send me a new router without me in front of it to troubleshoot. I understand having a script to adhere to but when the damn box won't come up, it's time to bend a little. At my insistance, he transferred me to a supervisor, who (a) sounded like he was actually in the US, and (b) agreed that a new router is warranted. So, Vonage is shipping us a new box and we should get it Monday.
ETA: It turns out that not only was my Vonage router fried, so was the uplink port on my Netgear 8 port switch. I did get back online with the Cayman, which just needed some reconfiguration, and determined that my APC PNET Ethernet surge suppressor was not affected. The surge must've come through the power line, not the cable line.
Friday, July 21, 2006
Browsing with Opera 9 and del.icio.us
I've been spending a lot of time this week in Opera 9 on my iBook. I still use Firefox, but it seems to be getting slower lately. I removed several extensions in an effort to strip it down but it remains slower than Opera, or Safari for that matter. Opera allows you a lot of flexibility in configuration, and as you can see below, I have it fairly stripped down to make the most efficient use of my iBook's 1024x768 screen.
Most of the sites I visit are rendered OK in Opera, although Blogger's image upload feature seems a bit borked. After uploading the image from my Photobucket account, instead of the thumbnail, the full image is shown in the Blogger compose window. So, in order to finish this post I had to login using Firefox. Weird.
In tandem with using Opera I created an account with del.icio.us, so that I can store bookmarks online and not have to worry about whether I have them synced across my various computers. It'll take a little while to populate my del.icio.us account but this looks to be a very handy way of bookmarking sites.
Most of the sites I visit are rendered OK in Opera, although Blogger's image upload feature seems a bit borked. After uploading the image from my Photobucket account, instead of the thumbnail, the full image is shown in the Blogger compose window. So, in order to finish this post I had to login using Firefox. Weird.
In tandem with using Opera I created an account with del.icio.us, so that I can store bookmarks online and not have to worry about whether I have them synced across my various computers. It'll take a little while to populate my del.icio.us account but this looks to be a very handy way of bookmarking sites.
Tuesday, July 18, 2006
Google Toolbar Phishing Scam
I just got an HTML formatted email which read as follows:
The message was purportedly from "Google Updates" and the subject line is "New Google Toolbar Released."
Naturally, the hyperlink for the URL in the message was not toolbar.google.com, it was something else.
This is a nasty bit of phishing since so many people have the Google toolbar installed.
(Google Toolbar logo)
Take the power of Google with you anywhere on the Web
Google Toolbar Gets Personal
Users Can Now Customize their Search Experience with Latest Version of Google Toolbar
The beta versions of Google Toolbar for Internet Explorer and Google Toolbar for Firefox are currently available in more than 16 languages. Both versions of Google Toolbar - Standard and Enterprise - run on Windows XP and support Internet Explorer 6.0 and higher.
More information on the new versions of Google Toolbar is available at http://toolbar.google.com/.
The message was purportedly from "Google Updates" and the subject line is "New Google Toolbar Released."
Naturally, the hyperlink for the URL in the message was not toolbar.google.com, it was something else.
This is a nasty bit of phishing since so many people have the Google toolbar installed.
Monday, July 17, 2006
Eudora Not Good for IMAP In My Opinion
Well, I gave Eudora another shot as an IMAP client. Actually, two shots.
On my iBook, Eudora 6.0.2 repeatedly crashed when trying to sync with my mail at davemarkowitz.net. On Bagend, running XP Pro, Eudora 7 was atrociously slow in syncronizing with mail.building-tux.com, which is on the same 100BaseT LAN.
Back to Thunderbird it is.
I keep toying around with going back to retrieving my email via POP3, using a client on the iBook. I do like Eudora's interface and feature set, and in the past I ran it for awhile on Windows. It worked well as a POP client, good enough that I might be tempted to go for the paid version. It stores email in standard mbox format, so migration to another MUA is pretty straightforward. I once migrated from Eudora to KMail without to many issues.
I need to think about this some more.
On my iBook, Eudora 6.0.2 repeatedly crashed when trying to sync with my mail at davemarkowitz.net. On Bagend, running XP Pro, Eudora 7 was atrociously slow in syncronizing with mail.building-tux.com, which is on the same 100BaseT LAN.
Back to Thunderbird it is.
I keep toying around with going back to retrieving my email via POP3, using a client on the iBook. I do like Eudora's interface and feature set, and in the past I ran it for awhile on Windows. It worked well as a POP client, good enough that I might be tempted to go for the paid version. It stores email in standard mbox format, so migration to another MUA is pretty straightforward. I once migrated from Eudora to KMail without to many issues.
I need to think about this some more.
Wednesday, July 12, 2006
CCNA Training This Week
I'm in a "Introduction to CCNA" all this week, hence the light posting. It's being held in our Mt. Laurel, NJ office. So far so good, and while much of this is review, I've learned some shortcuts for subnetting which make it easier. The follow-on class, "Interconnecting Cisco Network Devices," is going to be mostly new material. The instructor isn't sure if he'll be able to get that in-house, or if he'll have to send us out to one of our training partners. ICND is going to require real equipment to break work with, so if he can't get the necessary gear in we'll go to the partner.
Regular work does go on, however, so I've had to jump on a few conference calls. Monday's and Tuesday's were after the class was done for the day, but I had to cut out for an hour this morning to be on another call. We have a high profile customer for whom it looks like we'll be replacing the LAN the we installed with better equipment, and upgrading them from a cable modem to a fiber Internet connection. My background in optical networking is going to be useful in this project.
Regular work does go on, however, so I've had to jump on a few conference calls. Monday's and Tuesday's were after the class was done for the day, but I had to cut out for an hour this morning to be on another call. We have a high profile customer for whom it looks like we'll be replacing the LAN the we installed with better equipment, and upgrading them from a cable modem to a fiber Internet connection. My background in optical networking is going to be useful in this project.
Eudora as an IMAP client?
I would appreciate it if any of my readers who have recent experience with Eudora as an IMAP client (not as a POP3 client) would let me know what they think. I've used Eudora as a POP client and it works well. I haven't tried it recently with IMAP and I'm thinking of doing so.
Primary use would be on OS X, but I might use it on XP for those occasions I'm working on Bagend, my Althon box running XP.
I've tried Apple's Mail.app as an IMAP client and it sucks for that, although it maybe an OK POP client (I don't know). When accessing mailboxes via IMAP, Mail.app is slow and fails to properly expunge deleted messages.
Thanks.
Primary use would be on OS X, but I might use it on XP for those occasions I'm working on Bagend, my Althon box running XP.
I've tried Apple's Mail.app as an IMAP client and it sucks for that, although it maybe an OK POP client (I don't know). When accessing mailboxes via IMAP, Mail.app is slow and fails to properly expunge deleted messages.
Thanks.
Saturday, July 08, 2006
Infoweek: Switching to the Mac
Infoweek is running an article, Switching to the Mac: A Guide for Windows Users. It's a pretty comprehensive guide, covering Mac hardware, the OS-X UI, software, and running Windows on Apple hardware.
Wednesday, July 05, 2006
More on SLED 10 RC3
I'm doing some more work with SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10 RC3 today. I wanted to test a few things in particular:
It took a little bit of futzing around to get Helix Banshee to play MP3s. I copied a few MP3s from my iBook to the SanDisk flash drive, connected it to the Dell, then tried to import the files into HB directly from the flash drive. No go. It seemed to import the files but they wouldn't play until I first manually copied them to the Dell's hard disk, then import them. This needs to be made a bit more seamless.
I couldn't get Evolution to work with my Exchange server. When I tried to authenticate after entering in my account info, I got the error referenced here. The solution recommended is fine and dandy, but the odds of our Exchange admins adding BPROPFIND to the server's URL scan config is basically nil. Since the way that Evolution is going to make its way into many enterprises (if at all) is via a back door, the Evolution developers need to add the SEARCH method of WebDAV connectivity to Evo's capabilities.
It'll be interesting to see how SLED develops and how well it's received in the enterprise.
- Plug & play recognition of USB flash drives
- Plug & play recognition of a USB three-button wheelmouse
- How well it handled audio files, specifically in the Helix Banshee MP3 player
- Evolution's ability to connect to my employer's WebDAV-enabled Exchange server
It took a little bit of futzing around to get Helix Banshee to play MP3s. I copied a few MP3s from my iBook to the SanDisk flash drive, connected it to the Dell, then tried to import the files into HB directly from the flash drive. No go. It seemed to import the files but they wouldn't play until I first manually copied them to the Dell's hard disk, then import them. This needs to be made a bit more seamless.
I couldn't get Evolution to work with my Exchange server. When I tried to authenticate after entering in my account info, I got the error referenced here. The solution recommended is fine and dandy, but the odds of our Exchange admins adding BPROPFIND to the server's URL scan config is basically nil. Since the way that Evolution is going to make its way into many enterprises (if at all) is via a back door, the Evolution developers need to add the SEARCH method of WebDAV connectivity to Evo's capabilities.
It'll be interesting to see how SLED develops and how well it's received in the enterprise.
The Dangerous Book for Boys
I like this:
I have two girls. I don't want them to grow up and have to marry some PC, metrosexual pussy. I'm going to do my best to ensure that they can handle themselves but I want them to be able to have a man who can take care of them if TSHTF. I hope we see more like this.
The Dangerous Book for Boys by the British brothers Conn and Hal Iggulden is a practical manual that returns boys to the wonder and almost lost world of tree houses and pirate flags. It celebrates the art of teaching an old mutt new tricks and accepts skinned knees as an acceptable risk for running through fields with the same dog yapping along.
I have two girls. I don't want them to grow up and have to marry some PC, metrosexual pussy. I'm going to do my best to ensure that they can handle themselves but I want them to be able to have a man who can take care of them if TSHTF. I hope we see more like this.
Monday, July 03, 2006
SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10 RC3
I installed SLED 10 RC3 on my lab laptop this morning in a dual boot configuration with XP Pro. The box previously dual booted XP and SUSE Professional 9.3. The installation went smoothly.
By default, SLED uses GNOME as the desktop environment. I did a custom install and added KDE, though I'm playing around in GNOME for now. It seems to have installed a sensible config, and one thing I like is that the Windows key is automatically setup to open the "Computer" menu (equivalent to the Start menu in Windows).
The default browser is Firefox 1.5.0.4 with Java and Flash already installed and running. The default mail client is Evolution, which I haven't putzed with yet. Helix Banshee is the media player. It appears to be an open source work-alike to iTunes, but since there's no music on the box I haven't tested it out. Sound is working fine, however. OpenOffice 2.0.2 is installed for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, etc.
Unfortunately, my ATI video adapter is not supported by XGL, so I won't be testing that nifty bit of eye candy out on this machine.
My initial impression is favorable. I'll post more after I've had the chance to really take SLED 10 RC3 for a spin.
By default, SLED uses GNOME as the desktop environment. I did a custom install and added KDE, though I'm playing around in GNOME for now. It seems to have installed a sensible config, and one thing I like is that the Windows key is automatically setup to open the "Computer" menu (equivalent to the Start menu in Windows).
The default browser is Firefox 1.5.0.4 with Java and Flash already installed and running. The default mail client is Evolution, which I haven't putzed with yet. Helix Banshee is the media player. It appears to be an open source work-alike to iTunes, but since there's no music on the box I haven't tested it out. Sound is working fine, however. OpenOffice 2.0.2 is installed for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, etc.
Unfortunately, my ATI video adapter is not supported by XGL, so I won't be testing that nifty bit of eye candy out on this machine.
My initial impression is favorable. I'll post more after I've had the chance to really take SLED 10 RC3 for a spin.
Every American Should Read This At Least Once A Year
The Declaration of Independence of the Thirteen Colonies
In CONGRESS, July 4, 1776
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. --That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new
Guards for their future security. --Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain [George III] is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and
formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with
his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and
raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us, in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit
instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished
destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free
people.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by the Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all
Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have
full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.
The signers of the Declaration represented the new states as follows:
New Hampshire:
Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton
Massachusetts:
John Hancock, Samuel Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry
Rhode Island:
Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery
Connecticut:
Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott
New York:
William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris
New Jersey:
Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark
Pennsylvania:
Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George
Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross
Delaware:
Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean
Maryland:
Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton
Virginia:
George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison,
Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton
North Carolina:
William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn
South Carolina:
Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton
Georgia:
Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton
In CONGRESS, July 4, 1776
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. --That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new
Guards for their future security. --Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain [George III] is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and
formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with
his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and
raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us, in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit
instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished
destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free
people.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by the Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all
Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have
full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.
The signers of the Declaration represented the new states as follows:
New Hampshire:
Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton
Massachusetts:
John Hancock, Samuel Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry
Rhode Island:
Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery
Connecticut:
Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott
New York:
William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris
New Jersey:
Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark
Pennsylvania:
Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George
Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross
Delaware:
Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean
Maryland:
Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton
Virginia:
George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison,
Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton
North Carolina:
William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn
South Carolina:
Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton
Georgia:
Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton
Wednesday, June 28, 2006
Netscreen 5GT Firewall & PPTP
It seems the Netscreen 5GT doesn't like PPTP VPN pass-throughs.
When I mentioned to the people who support our hospitality product that I was looking at a Netscreen as a possible alternative to the Cisco 1811, they told me that they'd looked at one previously but rejected it because it blocked outgoing PPTP sessions. I was skeptical and asked for more information.
They told me that the Netscreen would allow the outbound request to initiate a PPTP session but blocked the incoming IP Protocol 47 - GRE necessary to establish the session. They'd experienced this with a Cisco PIX as well, although I think Cisco subsequently issued a patch to the PIX firmware to address the issue.
Anyway, this morning I configured one of our SMC8014 modems as a PPTP server and tried to reach it from an XP box located behind the 5GT. No dice. The 8014 saw the incoming request but apparently the 5GT is blocking the incoming GRE traffic, just like the aforementioned PIX was.
To verify that the 8014 was setup properly I initiated PPTP sessions to it after connecting the XP box to a different 8014, and then a Motorola Surfboard. Yep, it's working correctly.
So, I emailed my contact at Juniper about this (I'd given him a heads up over lunch yesterday). If they fix it, great. If not, it's a show-stopper. We can't block hotel guests from contacting Microsoft VPNs.
When I mentioned to the people who support our hospitality product that I was looking at a Netscreen as a possible alternative to the Cisco 1811, they told me that they'd looked at one previously but rejected it because it blocked outgoing PPTP sessions. I was skeptical and asked for more information.
They told me that the Netscreen would allow the outbound request to initiate a PPTP session but blocked the incoming IP Protocol 47 - GRE necessary to establish the session. They'd experienced this with a Cisco PIX as well, although I think Cisco subsequently issued a patch to the PIX firmware to address the issue.
Anyway, this morning I configured one of our SMC8014 modems as a PPTP server and tried to reach it from an XP box located behind the 5GT. No dice. The 8014 saw the incoming request but apparently the 5GT is blocking the incoming GRE traffic, just like the aforementioned PIX was.
To verify that the 8014 was setup properly I initiated PPTP sessions to it after connecting the XP box to a different 8014, and then a Motorola Surfboard. Yep, it's working correctly.
So, I emailed my contact at Juniper about this (I'd given him a heads up over lunch yesterday). If they fix it, great. If not, it's a show-stopper. We can't block hotel guests from contacting Microsoft VPNs.
New Survival Preps Blog
To keep my preps discussions focused, I decided to create a dedicate blog for it. Please check out my new Survival & Emergency Preparedness Blog.
Preparedness - 1
My parents have been over for dinner even more than usual lately, due to the fact that their kitchen is currently torn up and in the process of being completely remodeled. Since Judith and I get along with both sets of parents this isn't a problem. However, last night my mom said something that surprised me.
Mom is a liberal Democrat (I love her anyway), and works for Montgomery County. Earlier this week she attended a county training session on emergency preparedness, part of which was dedicated to a discussion of the possible effects of an avian flu epidemic. She mentioned how in the training it was recommended that people should have a supply of food and water on hand, in case they're shut in for an extended period.
What surprised me is that she isn't blowing this off. Mom and Dad (overall I'd rate him as a moderate Republican, except in a few areas where he's far right) are now looking at laying in some supplies. She has a list provided by the trainer. Of course, it doesn't include firearms for defense in the event of social breakdown or run of the mill crime, but thanks to Dad, that ain't an issue. ;-)
That a liberal Dem -- i.e., the type of person who by definition looks to the goobermint for help in times of need -- would take the responsibility to look out for herself in a disaster is refreshing, to put it mildly. One thing that the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina taught us is that you don't want to have to be dependent upon someone else in the event of a disaster.
It's still too early to know whether avian flu will become a real threat or a complete non-issue like the swine flu of the 1970s or the non-aftermath of Y2K, but there are plenty of other reasons to have a store of supplies on hand so you can weather an interruption of normal society, e.g.,
There are a ton of online resources available to help you get started with survival preps. AvianFlu.gov is a good place to start. Also check out your state and local emergency management agencies, who often have checklists available on their websites.
You'll note that this post is title "Preparedness - 1." I'm planning to do a series of posts which will cover this general topic. Questions and suggestions for specific topics are welcome.
Mom is a liberal Democrat (I love her anyway), and works for Montgomery County. Earlier this week she attended a county training session on emergency preparedness, part of which was dedicated to a discussion of the possible effects of an avian flu epidemic. She mentioned how in the training it was recommended that people should have a supply of food and water on hand, in case they're shut in for an extended period.
What surprised me is that she isn't blowing this off. Mom and Dad (overall I'd rate him as a moderate Republican, except in a few areas where he's far right) are now looking at laying in some supplies. She has a list provided by the trainer. Of course, it doesn't include firearms for defense in the event of social breakdown or run of the mill crime, but thanks to Dad, that ain't an issue. ;-)
That a liberal Dem -- i.e., the type of person who by definition looks to the goobermint for help in times of need -- would take the responsibility to look out for herself in a disaster is refreshing, to put it mildly. One thing that the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina taught us is that you don't want to have to be dependent upon someone else in the event of a disaster.
It's still too early to know whether avian flu will become a real threat or a complete non-issue like the swine flu of the 1970s or the non-aftermath of Y2K, but there are plenty of other reasons to have a store of supplies on hand so you can weather an interruption of normal society, e.g.,
- Hurricanes
- Less severe but still serious weather
- Winter storms
- Power failures like the Blackout of 2003
- Toxic waste spills
- Riots
- Terrorism.
There are a ton of online resources available to help you get started with survival preps. AvianFlu.gov is a good place to start. Also check out your state and local emergency management agencies, who often have checklists available on their websites.
You'll note that this post is title "Preparedness - 1." I'm planning to do a series of posts which will cover this general topic. Questions and suggestions for specific topics are welcome.
Monday, June 26, 2006
DSL Router Setup
Yesterday I went over to my brother's new apartment to setup the Netgear WGR614v6 router that I gave him as a housewarming gift. He wanted to get Comcast cable modem service but it's not available for him, so he got Verizon ADSL instead.
Verizon uses PPPoE on its ADSL connections and their online help pages were remarkably unhelpful. There's no information on their site showing you how to setup a router, for instance. As a matter of fact, they state that you cannot use any home networking equipment other than what they'll sell you to share one of their DSL connections. Verizon's "help" page claims that they work with vendors to specifically build equipment to work with their service, implying that it is totally proprietary.
Bullshit.
The Netgear router has a setup wizard which will automatically detect the type of Internet connection it's plugged into, and configure itself accordingly. I ran the wizard and entered Josh's account information, and we were up and running.
Take that, you pinheads.
Next, I had to setup the wireless part of his network. He has a 12" G4 PowerBook and wanted to be able to use the AirPort card from anywhere in the apartment. I changed the default SSID and enabled WPA-PSK encryption (which Apple calls WPA Personal in OS-X) and was able to the wireless working easily. After I tested it with my iBook and got his PowerBook connected, we disabled SSID broadcast, so that unless someone is using a wireless sniffer his network shouldn't even appear to other users.
I had Josh login to the router, pointed out various parts of the interface, and had him save a backup of the config to his laptop, in case he needs to default the box at some point.
Compared with my Comcast cable modem the Verizon speed is a lot lower. Josh was able to stream a video off Youtube easily, and checking my email presented no problems, but sending a large file attachment took a lot longer on the DSL connection than the cable modem. If I remember correctly, the upstream on the DSL is 128K. It's 384K on cable. For his uses, though, it'll suffice, and it sure beats 56K dial up.
Verizon uses PPPoE on its ADSL connections and their online help pages were remarkably unhelpful. There's no information on their site showing you how to setup a router, for instance. As a matter of fact, they state that you cannot use any home networking equipment other than what they'll sell you to share one of their DSL connections. Verizon's "help" page claims that they work with vendors to specifically build equipment to work with their service, implying that it is totally proprietary.
Bullshit.
The Netgear router has a setup wizard which will automatically detect the type of Internet connection it's plugged into, and configure itself accordingly. I ran the wizard and entered Josh's account information, and we were up and running.
Take that, you pinheads.
Next, I had to setup the wireless part of his network. He has a 12" G4 PowerBook and wanted to be able to use the AirPort card from anywhere in the apartment. I changed the default SSID and enabled WPA-PSK encryption (which Apple calls WPA Personal in OS-X) and was able to the wireless working easily. After I tested it with my iBook and got his PowerBook connected, we disabled SSID broadcast, so that unless someone is using a wireless sniffer his network shouldn't even appear to other users.
I had Josh login to the router, pointed out various parts of the interface, and had him save a backup of the config to his laptop, in case he needs to default the box at some point.
Compared with my Comcast cable modem the Verizon speed is a lot lower. Josh was able to stream a video off Youtube easily, and checking my email presented no problems, but sending a large file attachment took a lot longer on the DSL connection than the cable modem. If I remember correctly, the upstream on the DSL is 128K. It's 384K on cable. For his uses, though, it'll suffice, and it sure beats 56K dial up.
Saturday, June 24, 2006
Locks of Love
Alexandra went and got a haircut this morning. Her hair was almost down to her behind and we didn't want all that to go to waste. So, the ~10" that was cut off is being donated to Locks of Love, a non-profit organization that provides prosthetic hairpieces to financially disadvantaged kids suffering medically-related hair loss, e.g. due to chemotherapy.
Anyway, here's Alexandra with her new look (and Amanda just because):
Anyway, here's Alexandra with her new look (and Amanda just because):
Thursday, June 22, 2006
YASI
Yet another sinus infection, hence the minimal blogging around here.
Before having kids in daycare I rarely got sinus infections. Now it seems like it's every couple of weeks. This sucks.
Now, if I could just come with an industrial use for snot, I'd be all set.
Before having kids in daycare I rarely got sinus infections. Now it seems like it's every couple of weeks. This sucks.
Now, if I could just come with an industrial use for snot, I'd be all set.
Wednesday, June 14, 2006
Netscreen 5GT Firewall
Yesterday I spent most of the day in the lab working with a Juniper/Netscreen 5GT firewall. We're looking at it for a possible two box solution for our hospitality Internet service. It's a potentially easier to configure alternative to Cisco's low end boxen, like their 1811.
The 5GTs come in a few flavors but we're evaluating the lowest end box. Compared with out current setup -- and SMC8013 cable modem router -- it's still quite powerful. Like the Ciscos, the Netscreen can be configured via the CLI, but it also has a very nice web GUI.
Juniper gave me a second box to play with and suggested I take it home. I'm working on getting a second cable modem for home and then I'll be able to leave my existing modem and Vonage router unmolested, while I put my network behind the 5GT. Since I generally have an IMAP connection running between my laptop and mail.building-tux.com during the day, I plan on testing the VPN feature of the 5GT by setting it up as a VPN endpoint then getting my email through a VPN tunnel. This will give me an idea of the stablility of the box's VPN termination features. The unit I took home also has wireless, so I'll be able to see how that well feature works compared with my current Netgear consumer-grade WAP.
The 5GTs come in a few flavors but we're evaluating the lowest end box. Compared with out current setup -- and SMC8013 cable modem router -- it's still quite powerful. Like the Ciscos, the Netscreen can be configured via the CLI, but it also has a very nice web GUI.
Juniper gave me a second box to play with and suggested I take it home. I'm working on getting a second cable modem for home and then I'll be able to leave my existing modem and Vonage router unmolested, while I put my network behind the 5GT. Since I generally have an IMAP connection running between my laptop and mail.building-tux.com during the day, I plan on testing the VPN feature of the 5GT by setting it up as a VPN endpoint then getting my email through a VPN tunnel. This will give me an idea of the stablility of the box's VPN termination features. The unit I took home also has wireless, so I'll be able to see how that well feature works compared with my current Netgear consumer-grade WAP.
Monday, June 12, 2006
FreeBSD Mail Server Article, Part 2
Part 2 of my article, Building a Mail Server with Commodity Hardware and FreeBSD is now online at TechBuilder.org.
Got fire?
Yesterday I learned how to be a BBQ grill mechanic.
A couple of weeks ago the piezo electric ignitor died on our four year old gas grill. (Had it been up to me, we would have a charcoal grill, but Judith bought it with some birthday money so I had no choice.) I was still able to use the grill but had to light it with one of those long kitchen lighter things. After singing some hair off my hand when lighting it I decided that it would be smart to install a new ignitor.
So, I picked up a new ignitor at Lowe's. After taking the grill apart I saw that the part of the burner bar where I'd be installing it was rusted away, so back to Lowe's I went for a new burner bar.
With all the parts in-hand, I actually RTFM and replaced the old stuff. I turned on the gas, crossed my fingers, and pushed the ignitor button a few times.
CLICK! CLICK! CLICK! No flame. WTF?
After letting the propane gas dissipate I rummaged around in the grill and discovered that the new ignitor electrode seemed to be touching its mount, which prevented spark generation. So I rearranged it, snugged down a bolt, and tried again.
FWOOSH! I MADE FIRE!
Hehehe.
Dinner last night was BBQed filet mignon and boneless chicken breasts, washed down with Yuengling Lager, a fine wrap up to the weekend.
A couple of weeks ago the piezo electric ignitor died on our four year old gas grill. (Had it been up to me, we would have a charcoal grill, but Judith bought it with some birthday money so I had no choice.) I was still able to use the grill but had to light it with one of those long kitchen lighter things. After singing some hair off my hand when lighting it I decided that it would be smart to install a new ignitor.
So, I picked up a new ignitor at Lowe's. After taking the grill apart I saw that the part of the burner bar where I'd be installing it was rusted away, so back to Lowe's I went for a new burner bar.
With all the parts in-hand, I actually RTFM and replaced the old stuff. I turned on the gas, crossed my fingers, and pushed the ignitor button a few times.
CLICK! CLICK! CLICK! No flame. WTF?
After letting the propane gas dissipate I rummaged around in the grill and discovered that the new ignitor electrode seemed to be touching its mount, which prevented spark generation. So I rearranged it, snugged down a bolt, and tried again.
FWOOSH! I MADE FIRE!
Hehehe.
Dinner last night was BBQed filet mignon and boneless chicken breasts, washed down with Yuengling Lager, a fine wrap up to the weekend.
Saturday, June 10, 2006
Rally Point After Action Report
The Rally Point shoot today went well. It was held at the Langhorne Rod & Gun Club, which I have to say is the nicest gun club I've seen since moving to Pennsylvania in 1979. For me, the gold standard for shooting ranges is the Associated Gun Clubs of Baltimore range in Marriotsville, MD. LRG&C was the first range I've seen which compares with the AGC range, though the New Holland Rod & Gun club out in Lancaster County comes close. I'm seriously considering getting a membership.
Turnout was pretty good, though I don't know yet how many people we had. At least twenty. I spent most of my time on the 50 yard smallbore/black powder/pistol range. Centerfire rifles are not normally permitted on that range but the club appears to have made an exception today. So, I was able to run about 105 rounds through the Rock-Ola M1 Carbine that I picked up a couple of weeks ago.
The M1 ran well except for a couple of malfunctions early on. I had one bolt over base failure to feed, and one instance when the last round in the magazine popped up and instead of feeding into the chamber, stovepiped. Both malfs were with the 15 round magazine that I got with the Carbine. This particular magazine has seen better days.
I have a single 30 round aftermarket M1 Carbine mag. It generally works OK in my Underwood, but I found out today it won't fully seat in the Rock-Ola. Unless I can find some excellent condition GI 30s, I'll still with the GI 15 rounders for anything serious, anyway.
The ammo I used today was 55 rounds of USGI Ball made by Remington in 1952. I got this on clips in bandoleers in a sealed spam can from Ammoman.com a few years ago. It looks new and shoots great, although both of today's malfs occurred with it. I also ran 50 rounds of current production Remington 110 grain jacketed soft points through the Carbine without any issues. I will need to pick up some more of this ammo.
I let one of the other guys who is from NJ shoot the Rock-Ola. The rifles he brought were all Kalashnikovs -- a SAR-1, a SAR-3, and a Chinese model. To show you how fouled up and illogical New Jersey's gun laws are, the Kalashnikovs and AR15-type rifles are legal in NJ with a 15 round or less magazine, while the less-powerful M1 Carbine is banned by name in NJ's state assault weapons ban.
After finishing up with the M1 I drove down to the 200 yard big bore range. Even though it doesn't have a covered firing line like the small bore range, it's still very nice. While there I got to observe a Savage Model LE2B .308 WCF rifle fitted with a sound suppressor being fired. The reduction in the report was astounding. Full-power .308 sounded like .22 LR high speed ammo being shot from a carbine. The rifle's owner has a picture posted here.
"Soda Pop," the organizer of the Rally Point events was there selling Woolrich Elite tactical clothing, for which he's a distributor. It all looks extremely well made and designed. I got one of the vests, which for the purposes of either concealed carry or "tactical" applications, is much better designed than the generic photographer's vests or safari vests often used for such. For example, compared with the Woolrich safari vest which I bought a few years ago, the WR Elite vest has a canvas shell as opposed to a softer cotton weave. This should stand up to abuse much better. Also, the pockets on the Elite vest look to be more useful than on the safari vest.
Several new shooters got some good instruction as well, which is a major focus of these events.
Turnout was pretty good, though I don't know yet how many people we had. At least twenty. I spent most of my time on the 50 yard smallbore/black powder/pistol range. Centerfire rifles are not normally permitted on that range but the club appears to have made an exception today. So, I was able to run about 105 rounds through the Rock-Ola M1 Carbine that I picked up a couple of weeks ago.
The M1 ran well except for a couple of malfunctions early on. I had one bolt over base failure to feed, and one instance when the last round in the magazine popped up and instead of feeding into the chamber, stovepiped. Both malfs were with the 15 round magazine that I got with the Carbine. This particular magazine has seen better days.
I have a single 30 round aftermarket M1 Carbine mag. It generally works OK in my Underwood, but I found out today it won't fully seat in the Rock-Ola. Unless I can find some excellent condition GI 30s, I'll still with the GI 15 rounders for anything serious, anyway.
The ammo I used today was 55 rounds of USGI Ball made by Remington in 1952. I got this on clips in bandoleers in a sealed spam can from Ammoman.com a few years ago. It looks new and shoots great, although both of today's malfs occurred with it. I also ran 50 rounds of current production Remington 110 grain jacketed soft points through the Carbine without any issues. I will need to pick up some more of this ammo.
I let one of the other guys who is from NJ shoot the Rock-Ola. The rifles he brought were all Kalashnikovs -- a SAR-1, a SAR-3, and a Chinese model. To show you how fouled up and illogical New Jersey's gun laws are, the Kalashnikovs and AR15-type rifles are legal in NJ with a 15 round or less magazine, while the less-powerful M1 Carbine is banned by name in NJ's state assault weapons ban.
After finishing up with the M1 I drove down to the 200 yard big bore range. Even though it doesn't have a covered firing line like the small bore range, it's still very nice. While there I got to observe a Savage Model LE2B .308 WCF rifle fitted with a sound suppressor being fired. The reduction in the report was astounding. Full-power .308 sounded like .22 LR high speed ammo being shot from a carbine. The rifle's owner has a picture posted here.
"Soda Pop," the organizer of the Rally Point events was there selling Woolrich Elite tactical clothing, for which he's a distributor. It all looks extremely well made and designed. I got one of the vests, which for the purposes of either concealed carry or "tactical" applications, is much better designed than the generic photographer's vests or safari vests often used for such. For example, compared with the Woolrich safari vest which I bought a few years ago, the WR Elite vest has a canvas shell as opposed to a softer cotton weave. This should stand up to abuse much better. Also, the pockets on the Elite vest look to be more useful than on the safari vest.
Several new shooters got some good instruction as well, which is a major focus of these events.
Tuesday, June 06, 2006
Rally Point Reminder
Just a reminder: the next Rally Point shoot is going to be this Saturday, 6/10/06, at the Langhorne Rod & Gun Club. If you're in the area we'd love to have you join us.
If you're coming please let us know in the announcement thread.
If you're coming please let us know in the announcement thread.
Writing
Sunday and yesterday I answered some editorial questions regarding Part 2 of my FreeBSD mail server article, then sent them back to my editors. Part 2 should be online at TechBuilder.org next Monday.
At work I’ve been working on the formal evaluation paper for last week’s trip. This morning I shipped off the first draft to my boss and the engineer who accompanied me to CA. I’d like to have the thing done this week.
At work I’ve been working on the formal evaluation paper for last week’s trip. This morning I shipped off the first draft to my boss and the engineer who accompanied me to CA. I’d like to have the thing done this week.
Monday, June 05, 2006
Build a Mail Server With Commodity Hardware & FreeBSD
Part 1 of my article, Build a Mail Server With Commodity Hardware and FreeBSD is now live at TechBuilder.org.
Thursday, June 01, 2006
SkypeOut
Today I made a couple of telephone calls from my iBook with SkypeOut. You may be aware that SkypeOut calls are free for American and Canadian residents to American and Canadian phones, through the end of 2006. I've had a Skype account for awhile but this was the first time I've used it.
Anyway, the first call was to my boss on his cell phone to check in with a daily update. My Internet connection was through a VOD/HSIA system, accessed via WiFi. The second call was to Judith on out Vonage line at home. In this case it was the wired Internet connection in my hotel, which I believe is fed via a T-1. In both cases it just worked. The sound quality was excellent, without any echoing or perceptable lag, and it worked full-duplex. I was quite impressed, especially for the first call, which in effect was like this:
Laptop <--> WiFi <--> NAT<--> Internet <--> PSTN <--> Cellular Network
Latency is bad for voice connections but any negative effects didn't seem to manifest themselves. The single biggest factor limiting sound quality on my end were the crummy speakers on my iBook, which just need to be a bit louder. If I'd had external speakers or better yet a headset, the calls would've sounded as good as a POTS call.
Anyway, the first call was to my boss on his cell phone to check in with a daily update. My Internet connection was through a VOD/HSIA system, accessed via WiFi. The second call was to Judith on out Vonage line at home. In this case it was the wired Internet connection in my hotel, which I believe is fed via a T-1. In both cases it just worked. The sound quality was excellent, without any echoing or perceptable lag, and it worked full-duplex. I was quite impressed, especially for the first call, which in effect was like this:
Laptop <--> WiFi <--> NAT<--> Internet <--> PSTN <--> Cellular Network
Latency is bad for voice connections but any negative effects didn't seem to manifest themselves. The single biggest factor limiting sound quality on my end were the crummy speakers on my iBook, which just need to be a bit louder. If I'd had external speakers or better yet a headset, the calls would've sounded as good as a POTS call.
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