Computing

Yup. One More Year

It's been another year… and what a year its' been. Read More...

And two years go by...

It's not that I haven't had much to do, just that I haven't had the time or inclination to blog. Read More...

Quenya Keyboard

I have a running tradition that when I move to a new job, I get a new keyboard. Sadly, that day has passed. It was clear it was time for me to move on, so I found a new place to work that suits me really well. In keeping with my tradition, I decided to get a new keyboard for my office computer. This time, I wanted something different. The all-blank keyboards have been done quite a bit, but I did want to have a mechanical keyboard - the mechanical switches feel a lot better, and they last longer too. So, what to do, what to do… then the thought popped into my head about making a keyboard in Quenya - Tolkien’s “High Elfish” language of Valinor. Read More...

I'm Sensing Something

I’ve been interested in having small weather station for my house - so I know exactly what the weather at my house would be. At first, the big turnoff was the cost of the pre-packaged solutions, which are an uneconomical “all-or-nothing” approach. After digging into it a bit more, I found something cool - I found 1-Wire weather stations. Read More...

Cloud Syncing Tricks

Given the many cloud-sync services available, I wanted something I could sync over the cloud, but be secure - not “secure” if you decide to trust the service provider, but “secure” as in “good luck, NSA.” Read More...

Mandatory Access Control

I’ve been using Objective Development’s Little Snitch for almost as long as I’ve been using a Mac; it lets me selectively deny outgoing internet connections based on a number of criteria, which lets me lock down what apps are allowed to talk to places on the network - local or internet.

Intego’s VirusBarrier X6 can also do this to a lesser extent, but it’s not as refined as Little Snitch, nor does it allow much in the way of ‘this program can only connect to this host, using this protocol and this port’.

I’ve recently become aware of a different app: Hands Off!, which appears to do everything Little Snitch does, but it adds a couple of new things. Read More...

Openswan vs strongSwan

From the beginning of my VPN project, I knew about strongSwan... but I stuck to Openswan because that’s what is covered in the Openswan book I bought and read.

After perusing the strongSwan website for a few minutes, one thing became apparent: strongSwan is documented much better. After some research, I’ve switched from openSwan to strongSwan. Read More...

Success in the land of the VPN

I can finally report success with my recent obsession with getting a functional VPN for my home network. Actually, I can report two... Read More...

More VPN

I haven’t made any progress with an IPsec L2TP VPN - mainly because I’ve discovered that my ‘secondary’ internet connection (ie. the office) blocks IPsec. This makes it hard to test and verify anything. I’ll give it a go Tomorrow when I go and see my brother. Read More...

VPN Madness

The past few days (Labor Day Weekend), I’ve been learning about VPN’s - specifically, about IPsec VPNs using Openswan. A couple of years back, I bought a book by the Openswan developers about how to install, configure, setup, and use modern VPNs. Read More...

ntop

I’ve been playing with ntop, a rather neat way to monitor network traffic. I’ve got it connected to my personal machine at home, and it’s able to monitor all network traffic (of any kind - TCP/IP, raw ethernet, whatever). It’s slick and powerful. Read More...

What a Summer

It’s been quite a summer. I haven’t been able to blog anything because my wife broke her foot walking down the stairs. After that, she was supposed to stay off her feet (obviously). This meant that I had to handle all the housework. I also had to do the yardwork. Read More...

Google's New Toys

This week is Google I/O, and Google is releasing a slew of new technologies. I’m excited about a couple of ‘em:
  • Google Font Directory (and the Google Font API)
  • WebM: A new video codec, open-source, and a successor to Ogg Theora
Read More...

MythTV Follow-Up

After having tweaked my MythTV setup some, I can say it’s starting to actually work. I found another HDMI cable, and a joiner that let me join two fairly long HDMI cables into one cable long enough for the run. I then found I had to replace my nVIDIA GeForce 6200 with a newer card, preferably one that supported nVIDIA’s VDPAU extensions for X11 (VDPAU is a GPU/video decoder library). So with a cheap $40 GeForce GT 220, I can now play full 1080i HD video, with 5.1 surround sound. Read More...

Backups & Anniversaries

Well, Angela & I have now been married for one full year. We’re celebrating our anniversary first with a family reunion (not really a celebration for us, but hey, free food & company), and then we’re going to Wendover for the weekend. I’m looking forward to seeing the Bonneville Salt Flats, if nothing else. I certainly could use the relaxation.

Life has been pretty good for me; work is looking promising, with a feeling that we’re making a difference.

I’ve had a couple of my R/C Helicopters out already (just back yard hovering for the moment); I still have to service my Rappy & get it ready to fly. That machine hasn’t flown in years now...

And I’ve discovered a really awesome tool for system backups: CrashPlan. (Click for details on CrashPlan) Read More...

MythTV

A short tale of my experience with MythTV - probably the most popular Linux DVR software package. Read More...

The Big Enema

Well, I finally caved: After about three years with the same installation, I nuked my hard drive and re-installed from scratch. Read More...

Apple Mail: Triumph and Tragedy

I generally only discover new things when something isn’t working for me... and I couldn’t use Apple’s Mail.app to access my Gmail account. (And suddenly, at that -- it worked a few days ago...) Read More...

Moving isn't fun.

Moving isn’t fun... Angela & I have just moved from our lovely apartment to our Aunt & Uncle’s home. We’re going to be house-sitting for them for the next two years. Read More...

GRUB Woes

It's all fun and games until the computer won't boot. Read More...

ZFS Fun

Testing out Sun's ZFS Read More...

iPod Touch 1.1.3

New iPod Touch firmware Read More...

IPv6

Learning IPv6. Read More...

Hallelujah!

My copy of OS X 10.5 “Leopard” came in the mail today. My impressions. Read More...

Yup, I'm a geek

Iron-clad proof I'm a Unix geek. Read More...

iPod Touch & CrossOver Mac

My Impressions Read More...

iPod Touch

New toys. Read More...

Weekend of New Things

I also got Windows Vista for my Mac. I would have just used Windows XP, but Boot Camp requires a Windows XP SP2 install CD, which I don’t have. (I only have the ‘release’ disc, which is not good enough, according to Apple). And since only Vista Ultimate is licensed for VM usage, I got Ultimate. The reason is so that I could run RealFlight G3 on my MacBook Pro. (RealFlight G3 is an R/C Flight Simulator). Well, that and Half-Life 2 & its cadre of games. Yup, I got Vista to be a Wintendo.

And you know what? I’m really disappointed in Vista. Read More...

More Vista Headaches

I hate vista.... Read More...

Social Networks

I think I may be starting to get social networks. Read More...

iLife & iWork '09

My thoughts on the latest iLife & iWork. Read More...

DreamHost

New Web Host Read More...

Jumping on the Bandwagon

Bandwagon FTP Read More...

MacBook Pro

New Computer Read More...