As the subject says, this webserver is now serving the v6 Internet. At home, I am working on my v6 network with a 6in4 tunnel to Hurricane Electric. I have a Vyatta router which is my tunnel end point and a /48 for everything inside.
I am hoping to put together a post about my journey, but I suspect it will end up like the post I have been working on for my Vyatta router build.
So.. it has been a month and a half since my last post. Did you miss me? I am guessing you didn’t even know I was here. Did you? That’s Ok. I don’t hold it against you.
Where have I been I see you asking. Well, I went to Asia for a 17 days. Found out my grand mother had a stroke and has the beginnings of dementia. Built a new PC cause my File server died. Reorganized my entire network. Moved this site to a new provider and moved my old provider to a new box. Got pulled off base work for my primary contract and added as a part time admin on a new one. Drank beer. Played footbag and disk golf. Hung out with friends and enjoyed loving my girlfriend.
Let me tell you.. it has been fun. Ups, downs, lefts, and rights. The Grand Mother and job thing were my favorites for adding stress.
Asia. Asia was a blast. Anna and I were gone for 17 days. We visited Bangkok, Phnom Penh, Siem Reap, Ho Chi Minh City, and Tokyo. Over 3200 pictures that we are still sorting through. When I get the pictures put up, I will.. maybe.. go into more details.
Built a new PC. AMD Phenom 9600 Quad core, 4GB Ram, 650G HDD, Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-S2H MoBo, new case, a few fans, and a lot of time figuring out how to transfer ensure I didn’t lose my MP3 collection.
Because the file server died and I subsequently decided to not replace it with the new PC and instead am using the new PC, I had to reorganize the network. I repurpose my laptop for the time being to be an internal DNS server. I purchased a Linksys WRT54G-L which I will be putting openWRT on eventually.
I run the web servers for ClanBBF which formerly was supported by a non-profit web hosting service. The owner officially killed the web hosting portion and moved the clan site to a new box hosted by Blue Razor with a few others. My/This site used to be on that server as my compensation for maintaining it. The new box is much too slow, so I ponied up for an Ubuntu VPS with RapidXen. So far, I am very happy with them. Root 4TW!!
During this transition to the new box, my DNS got a bit hosed up. Much to my dismay, my registrar 1and1, was to blame and the tech I spoke with really didn’t know WTF he was talking about. I was very close to dealing with the PITA that is transferring registrars I was so irritated with them.
At this point, my network is together, all of the websites are up and running, DNS is correct (I think), and my PC is doing fine. Cheers to that.
Company politics is something most of us are used to and expect. The only thing that trumps politics is the bottom line. When the two collide, you can rest assured that foolish decisions will be made. In simplified form, one part of the company thought they could do the job cheaper so they are taking over the base work. My team will still be around for projects, etc. In this change though, I got pushed over to a government contract doing some Sun Access Manager support. Let me tell you, I now know where our tax money is going. Today makes 15 days since I started the process of getting a very low level clearance. If I am inferring properly from the events that happened today, the paperwork JUST got into the database. It will still be 1-2 more weeks before I have actual access.
Soon I will be doing some corporate PKI support and that will be good. Just got word that a project was finally approved so that will be taking up my time as well. Speaking of.. I should be reviewing a 200 page document right now.
More later.. I have started a list of posts that I need to make.
If you are like me and have trouble really understanding where the candidates stand on issues, then you should check out the VoteMatch Quiz provided by OnTheIssues.org. It is a simple 20 question quiz that asks you your position on a handful of topics. It then takes your respones and compares the to the candidates voting records and public statements on their position. You can also click through to see the details behind those scores. Show how your specific responses compare to the candidates responses.
Overall, I find the site very useful. Their position data is fully cited so you are free to make your own judgements of their positions.
For the past 6 months or so, I have had a pretty strong interest in Apple products. I have never owned one to date. My girlfriend has a macbook so I spent some time playing with it, seeing what the differences are and getting a general feel for the OS. After this time an paying attention to Apple, their products, and behavior I am going to have to pass on the company. I have never been a fan of their iPod due to the DRM and incompatibility with other devices/software. Now I see that the Apple mindset I don’t like about the iPod is actually Apple/Jobs and not limited to the iPod.
Steve Jobs is a control freak. It is his way or the highway. I suppose for the 95%ers, that is OK. For me, it is my device, my OS, my computer, and my life to control. I do not need someone else telling me what is the best (only) way to do something or what is or is not safe/appropriate for me. The walled garden that is Apple will not grow much further if it doesn’t tear down some of their confinements.
Been a very busy day. I am just not getting the chance to post about seeing Nine Inch Nails last night and damn was it a good show.
This is the 4th time I have seen NIN in concert and Trent Reznor never disappoints. He had a great mix of old and new stuff. I was especially fond of the light show. It reminded me of the Fragile tour which is my favorite album. The later half of the show was mostly songs from Year Zero, Ghosts, and The Slip. I have always enjoyed NIN instrumentals and the tracks from Ghosts was no exception. He did a great job visualizing the songs.
Another great concert for the memories and I can’t wait for the next show.
NIN FTW.
A few weeks ago I purchased a new video card for my laptop. It was originally configured with an ATI x1400 and due to piss poor drivers from AMD for Linux, I decided to see how the other half lived.
I found a decent deal on a NVidia GeForce 7300 Go for my laptop, got it, installed it, and was having some artifacting. I ignored it for a while and then I tried to watch a movie. It was not possible. So I contacted Doug Heihn, the proprietor of TXcess Surplus and explained the situation. He was very professional, checked to see if he had any others in stock since I still wanted the card, he did not and said that he would issue an RMA by the end of the day.
A few hours later, much to my surprise, I received an email from UPS with a return shipping label. I was fully expecting to pay shipping back and here was a label to cover that cost.
In short, I wanted to say thanks to Doug Heihn of TXcess Surplus for his superior service and professionalism.
Thanks Doug!
If I have the need in the future, I will do business with you again.
Since I am now a 100% work-from-home luck SOB, I figured it would be a wise idea to have internet service that I could be demanding of. So, I swaped my residential Comcast service over to Business class. I wanted to ensure that when I called them stating that they are fucking up my VPN connection, they would have to listen.
My experience so far has been fantastic. I have an Account Manager, a phone number to reach the Business Class tech support team, 2 static IPs (1 I get to assign, 1 assigned to the Comcast 8014), and a guarantee! Service activation went well. I called up my fancy techsupport number to setup a RDNS entry and instead of being led around by a fool I was politely told that the tech really didn’t understand everything I was talking about and transferred me over to the techs who actually manage DNS! It was amazing. He asked me what I wanted and which IP and POW it was done. No silly “wait 6 weeks” or I can’t do that.. just done. No hassle.
In addition to all of this goodness, which is quite contrary to everyone’s experience with residential service, VPN performance has increased. What a wonderful thing.
I will get it out here now.. I am a big fan of Ubuntu. In my opinion.. (It is never humble).. Ubuntu is the best Linux distro for the masses. I have tried several and I keep coming back. It’s logo says it all.. “Linux for humans”
So.. this isn’t the first time I have setup a blog and it probably won’t be the last. Lets see how long it last this time.