EMAIL - I publish email sometimes. If you send me an email and you want privacy, say so, I will respect that. If I don't know that you want your email address published, then I won't. Be aware, though, that I am (usually) human and make mistakes.

On the far right you will see the cage I built to keep the squirrels and birds off the fresh planted stuff. It turns out that the birds harvested all the miniature plants (mostly specialty lettuce) that had been coming up, THEN the steenking fluffy-tailed rats plowed it up.

I still have 60-odd emails to fast plow through, then off to work, so have a wonderful Monday. The weather here certainly doesn't appear to be conducive to being inside, much less working, but I will do my best. TTFN.

08:19 - Jim Crider first in the door with the news that I did not update any of the during-the-week dates on this page. Thanks, Jim. Give the man a Kewpie Doll. Later.


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Happy Tuesday. Given that my jaw was jackhammer'd again yesterday afternoon, I am actually feeling rather chipper. Hope that all is well with you out there in Internet-land as well. We (being the dentist and myself) got through the last of the remedial work yesterday, with one major and two minor fillings. Fundamentally, I don't have weak teeth, but through the stupid years, I did nothing to care for them. Then, during the several years I took putting the house back in order, the resources weren't in place to do much but use the county health system, which basically works on the let it go 'til it hurts too much, then yank it. The free dental clinic here in Santa Clara is run by some guy named Mengele ...

I tromped quickly through the 60 odd overnight messages -

Subject: fur
   Date: Tue, 21 Mar 2000 08:51:43 +0000

>...the steenking fluffy-tailed rats...

You mean those nice squirrels? You mean those animals that 
can provide us with nice fur for hats or scarfs? They ain't no 
rats. Taste's different anyway, and they hardly make a 
mouthfull unlike a nice fat rat ... .

btw don't use a shotgun, it spoils the fur

--
Svenson.

On another front, I am looking to nip certain impending long-distance phone bills in the bud, by experimenting with rudimental VoIP (Voice over IP) products. A decent one, free, is called Speak Freely. It was originally written by John Walker, of Autodesk fame. Now maintained by Brian Wiles, I believe that this program is actually not GPL, but is in the public domain (dunno for sure). It has hooks to strap itself into ICQ, and it works - Marcia and I talked across the apartment (OK, we can do that without, but you get the idea). It's a little fuzzy, because it uses a basic, unencumbered codec, we weren't able to set it to full duplex (probably didn't explore enough), and the jitter buffer makes things just a tad odd (worse that you can talk and hear the delay then voice from the other room). More experiments shortly, but if you have ICQ, speakers and a mic, then you can talk to other people across the Internet now. (Actually, the ICQ bit is optional - it just provides a nice directory bit for you).

I spent the other part of yesterday evening doing some remedial reading. Then a little more of that late this afternoon, and back into the guts of the new project. I *love* learning how to do new things, and how to better accomplish goals. A tad driven? Yep. Youuuu betcha. So have a nice day, where'ere you are. Later.

18:06 - A brief update (not sponsored by Fruit of the Loom), then to make dinner, followed by several hours of work... I like new projects, really I do. Shortly, prior to the system coma death over the weekend, I had started to create some scripts to automate a few functions to make life about here just a little easier. For instance, to edit this site, I execute a script called ogre, which calls the ssh command to log me in to Grendel. Then on Grendel, I have a script called bfd (BlueFish Destination - get your minds out of the gutter) which cd's to my main working html directory, then starts bluefish as a background process, then cd's back to home.

Here on Grinch, I am doing some work which I am backing up to a remote site over the Internet. I now call a new script named olb, which gets into my windows directory structure, and tar's up the whole sub where my project is living. The result is copied to a backup dir in $HOME. Then the script executes pgp -c on the tarball (not much on compression, as I do a gzip'd tar), but it is now encrypted, and I have had to type a passphrase twice (and yes, it's a pass phrase, not word, with UpperLowerNumericPunctuation features to it, like a good passphrase should have). The script then calls ftp, which opens a scripted ftp session, where I have to type my password, then when the ftp prompt appears, I can merely type $4, which executes the preloaded macro to lcd to the backup directory, put the backup file onto the remote server, then quit. That was quite a lot of typing for me in the past, and the easier I make it, the more likely I am to execute the backups. I have been quite reliable in doing so, but easier is a good thing for a lazy fellow like myself. I could fully automate the process, but then I would have to hardcode passwords and passphrases into scripts and config files... bad form.

A few port protective links that you will be interested if you run a linux box, especially as a frontline box. The following quickie blurbs are cut from the pages that are linked to thereby - I only have ever worked with a couple of these... Snort is a libpcap-based packet sniffer/logger which can be used as a lightweight network intrusion detection system. Welcome to GIAC, our mission is to provide up-to-date reports of malicious activity on the net submitted by your international community of system administrators and analysts. Whitehats is a resource to help network and security administrators by offering free software and community support. iplog is a TCP/IP traffic logger. Currently, it is capable of logging TCP, UDP and ICMP traffic. scanlogd is a TCP port scan detection tool, originally designed to illustrate various attacks an IDS developer has to deal with. PortSentry is part of the Abacus Project suite of security tools. It is a program designed to detect and respond to port scans against a target host in real-time.

Now to prep supper - have a nice evening - catch you later.


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Howdy. Mid-week blahs afflict me not! (That's a plea, not resignation, folks). My apologies in advance for this morning's brevity, but there were about 60 +/- messages in the inbox this morning, and I found many of them worthy of reading through, rather than the old glance-and-discard that I can often accomplish. Not much spam at all this morning. However, one regular appeared that I am beginning to regard as spam - Anchordesk. Jesse Berst and his crew used to do some news, and break some stories, but now their MO appears to take 2nd day bread, sensationalize it and do a Bill Joy with it (oops, did *I* say that? <SEG>).

Moshe had a mailing out, if you haven't, check him out at MoeLabs - it's interesting, and you can sign up for his newsletter, which is sporadic (1 every 2 to 4 weeks) and chock full of either humor, information or both. Also there was a Jakob Nielsen mailing earlier this week - something about only 5 users to test a website design - I guess the 10 or so on the committee in this crowded little skull make me overqualified for web QA.

At work yesterday, we thrashed out my project schedule and my working schedule. My priorities are: Quick website adjustments to bring up the visibility of a couple of products, add the DoS advertisement, talk about upcoming shows and more. Redesign of a board product for an OEM customer. Design a new short form catalog for use in the upcoming shows (4 page, ds 11x17 4C), shoot and edit pictures, write the copy. Work with Jack to design a brand new product (boards and sheetmetal) about which, like Seargent Schultz, "I know nothing!" and don't want to until it is design time. Lastly, a hard, dedicated run at the website, shooting photos and writing/adapting text for the data sheets, and design the site around some search tool to make information easier to find. How's that for a couple of months of work laid out (at a wildly optimistic pace). Then my working schedule is going to flexibly cut my hours on an informal basis to let me come home and work on my side project. Full days here and there, short days a couple of days most weeks. Should be interesting.

Now late. Gotta run. Have a good'un. Later!

Phase one accomplished - (although I left the front end off of the project list) - the new Q2 price lists are out, and the list price version will be available by html or pdf tomorrow, I think. A couple of ETS website updates to deal with delayed items are in place - mostly stopgap measures while other things get done, then we're bringing that baby in the shop for a complete overhaul. According to some lights, we have an 'edsel' on our hands, though I have received compliments on brevity and especially speed. The site I inherited two years ago from an outside shop was real pretty, but extremely graphics heavy and sloooooooow. We'll get there eventually. Tomorrow, the 4 port CAT5e module redesign.

I caught the following phrase on a radio commercial on my way home, and the shoe fit (so to speak) a short while ago. I strapped on shorts and shoes and did 2.5 miles after I got home, and found myself "sweating like a pig in fleece." Now isn't that just a too too vivid image? Ya, I thought so too.

All of Grinch's systems appear to be stable following my rebuild after the great crash. Now for a pint or two of water, a quick OS switch, and to work. Later!


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The project proceeds apace - I am learning more about GNU emacs (and its numerous predecessors and siblings) than I thought existed. Perhaps ... Nah.

Good Morning! This may be calendar Thursday, but it is also possible that it is really Friday, since payroll managed to charge me for an extra day of PTO in the last pay period. When I pointed out the error of their ways, they started making all kinds of oops squeaky noises... which I forstalled by saying "Not a problem - I will just take more time off until the books balance - you explain to Jack. But whether this is tomorrow or not depends on today's progress, so I will keep this short and move into work mode rapidly today.

Not a lot of useful in the mailbag this morning - a couple of interesting private conversations in progress, but then, well, you know... Today, a new PCB design. Tomorrow the world. Oh, also I am looking into new search facilities for this site. Hang loose for a while on that, but the initial download, compile and install went well last night. Perhaps more progress tonight in the half hour I devote to such things. Have a great day, see ya later.


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And to think that until just moments ago, it was St. Patrick's Day again today! You are all far too kind, you know. TGIF. Tom is gonna be doing the road warrior thing this weekend - Saskatoon to Vancouver and back in a mini-van. Heh. I have this image (not of Mad Max), but rather John Belushi and Dan Ackroid... "We're on a mission from God!"

You can call me ibuprofin boy today, last night's run included a half mile of wind sprints - they worked in two senses - when I was done, I was winded. This AM I am crippled. I sent the following off this morning, after reading of Dr. Pournelle's plight (a link that goes sour next Monday - then search for the phrase "bogon flux" using Jerry's search tool) regarding the anti-spam newsgroups...

Hi, Jerry.

Sorry about your battle with newsgroups - it is a rather chaff-filled environment, and it takes a lot of patience to find the gems.

You are one of the 'lucky' ones, so widely respected and therefore quoted, referenced and reviewed that the spambots can't help but to pick up your name. The suggestion I have for spam reduction for you is thoroughly empirical and YMMV (Your Mileage May Vary)- set up [email protected] and [email protected] (if you have room on your account at pair to do so) I have found that at the corporate accounts that I watch over, the info and webmaster accounts get almost no spam whatsoever.

Whether this is because of the automated list managers are written to avoid sending directly to webmasters and admins, or some oversight, I can't know and don't quite dare ask. But the amount of spam I receive on the corporate info@$CURRENT_EMPLOYER and webmaster@$CURRENT_EMPLOYER together is about a tenth of the spam received on my named corporate account.

Dana Blankenhorn's "This Week's Clue" is out on the wire and also available here, with . . . spam as the topic. Check it out and subscribe - this isn't weekly spam, just an interesting and informative read every Friday.

Meantime, I have to hack out a clean essay on Vi and Emacs - this is cool for someone with an active committee (like myself) - these editors have started the computing equivalent of religious wars in their day (and their day continues). On the site search engine front, I am looking at ht://dig (http://www.htdig.org), a search engine developed originally at SD State and is being actively maintained. The feature that I am most looking for (not provided by the Perlfect tool I am using now) is a bit of in-page context returned with each search return entry, so you can tell from context which of the multiple hits are going to be useful. We shall see, we shall see.

While jotting these brief notes, I have been reading email, surfing a little bit, woolgathering in general. Time to break out the grindstone and erradicate a nose or two. Have an interesting day - I will catch up later.

Brief I promised and brief shall it be - my eyes are crossing all on their own. In 13 hours of work, 15 researched and written pages on Vi and Emacs plus another 2.5 miles on foot. Hooorah. Tomorrow I am going to have my hair chopped off (quarterly haircut), and we are going to a matinee performance of The Alchemist at Berkeley Rep.

In other news, Jeremy Allison, formerly of SGI, now with VA Linux, and still near the top of the sandpile on the Samba team and a very, very bright guy, was interviewed by moderated questions on Slashdot this week. Here's the shortcut link to get you past the dross to the interview <G> The first question out of the gate is regarding the poisoning of Kerberos by Microsoft...

Good night, good people. See you tomorrow.


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Not quite as stiff as I was yesterday morning this time. You already know what we're doing today, and the email was incredibly . . . light. So off we go into surfing mode. Recommendation - visit Technocrat once a week. Slower pace, higher quality, moderated and generally interesting Open Source message board. Near the top right now, Open Source RAD, Internet Access Regulation and OSS release cycles.

Marcia's fingers are flying on the keyboard right now - we'll see what she has to say shortly. Over on Slashdot, a stroll through the fields reveals black holes. Then Kuro5hin displays a link through Wired to an SFGate (The San Francisco Chronicle site) story about the FBI cracker who shouldn't (well, a paid FBI 'informant', anyways). Have a look at that link - aren't you glad I hide the URL's <g>.

It's time to get organized - lots to do between now and late morning - have a wonderful weekend. Dunno if I will be back in time for an evening post or not. TTFN.


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Happy sunny Sunday at the Oscar's morning to ye. I have been incredibly lazy this am - sleeping and dozing until my body was done being tired. I rarely do that. Nearly dragged myself out of bed at 5:45, when Marcia got up to go fishing, then said to myself, "Self, NAH!". Finally rolled out sometime after 9... :).

Yesterday, after I had put up the post for the day, I started finding difficulty with accessing anything online from Linux here on Grinch. I couldn't go anywhere online, I couldn't even use ssh to log in to Grendel - first suspicion - I had done something wrong and hinked Grinch. A quick reboot, and no difference. Well, it wasn't just Internet, you see - ssh wasn't working - so I did an unpleasant forced reboot of Grendel. Lots of fsck later, I find . . . no difference. I figure that I have been hacked.

I warned Marcia that our Internet connectivity was hosed and ... what? You can browse just fine? No email, but you can browse? I reboot Grinch again, into Windows this time. Up comes the browser, and up comes the Internet. WTF??? I boot back into Linux, thinking hard and furious. I ping the primary PBI name server. Nothing. I ping the secondary PBI name server. Life. HA!

I kicked into superuser, and head over to /etc, to check out resolv.conf. Hmmm. From last week's system rebuild, there was only one nameserver usable by the resolver - the primary PBI. Add the secondary PBI as my local primary and voila - connectivity is back. I still don't understand why ssh wasn't working, but one of these days soon here I am going put bind into action and start using it as my local primary DNS, and bring up local mail (which was also hosed for most of yesterday, again). It would appear that PBI has fault attractive (rather than fault tolerant) hardware in their glass house.

I still checked Grendel for signs of tampering. All clear on the western front.

The Alchemist was a fun show, well done. I ran into another of the characters that I first encountered in John Meyers Meyers' Silverlock - Captain Face. Excellent acting, good sets and staging. 5 stars and three thumbs up from the Motie reviewer. We dined after at Cafe Venetzia on University Ave, after a quick driving tour through the Cal campus for Marcia and my parent's guest, Francois - neither of whom had seen the school before. A good time was had by all.

Now to breakfast, and to work. Later.


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