EMAIL - I publish email sometimes. If you send me an email and you want privacy, say so, I will respect that. Be aware, though, that I am (usually) human and make mistakes.

How-dee-doo. Back from the Abyss. At least that's the way Marcia looks at it, each time I approach a cliff edge to take a snap of the ocean. We had a lovely time. Slept a fair bit (would have been more, if someone had managed to install inner-spring dirt at the campsites!). Read Ringworld Throne (Niven), then reread all five of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy trilogy (Doug Addams), then wrapped last night with Red Dragon (Harris, a tangential Hannibal Lecter book). I know, 2 days, six novels (well, 5.5) - I am slipping in my old age, but then again, no one would say I've mellowed. You can certainly still tell that I love having my picture taken, eh? Snipped from that one for the new page topper. Here's a few more shots from the trip - More will be up on Marcia's page later tonight or tomorrow. Attack of the killer ground squirrels was the double creature feature, each day, aaarrrggghhh!!!

We took nothing electric except a couple of lights (and the truck, but that stayed parked and off). Oddly, I really didn't miss the keyboard at all. I had worried about a couple of mailing lists clogging the pipes, but all appears to have been well. Any uptime problems here noticed by anyone? Overall, just over 140 messages between Saturday 8 AM and Monday noon. Not too shabby. Hardly took anytime to catch up with.

I could use about a week of that time off thing, except for the sleeping on the ground bit. Yes, I know it was an air mattress, but still my back wasn't happy. Now I have a little catching up to do, a few around-the-house kinds of chores, and maybe even a nap (who am I kidding?!?). Then back to the book, tonight. TTFN, I'll drop back later probably.

Good Morning. I note a couple of major differences between waking up at home, and waking up out in the woods. At home, first, a couple of cars are going by - I am kind of used to that. Second, two or four birds are chirping in a nearby tree, sweetly greeting the brightening morning. That's OK too.

Now, camping: No cars. That's cool. No cars - no traffic - no commute. Very nice indeed. Leaves, twigs and other things rain down upon the tent. Hmmm. I can sort of tune that out. As the eastern sky lightens, approximately 400,000 birds emerge from their bunkers to once again begin a series of raucus territorial disputes that rival the various Balkan conflict in sheer intensity, except that I *know that these birds would not hesitate to use tactical or even strategic nuclear weapons if the mood struck them. Birdbrains. Once the wars start, sleeping is over - it's like an alarm clock without an OFF button.

I have this song running through and through my brain: Talking Heads' (Nothing But) Flowers. The line in the middle says it all - If this is paradise, I wish I had a lawnmower. Of course I'm joking, but I am certainly a city kid. The fun bit was not really missing the computer at all while I was gone. I thought I'd have at least some withdrawl symptoms.

Subject: Picture
   Date: Mon, 05 Jun 2000 18:00:12 -0400
   From: Robert Bruce Thompson
     To: bilbrey

Ooooh. Snazzy new picture. You look like Walker Texas Ranger (or how I'd
imagine he would look, since I've never seen the show) or some contract
assassin or something. You look like someone I wouldn't want to cross.

Bob
--
Robert Bruce Thompson
[email protected]
http://www.ttgnet.com

{grin} I would accuse you of being nearly british in your sarcasm,
except that you would promptly deny all knowledge of the original
message and get one of those really innocent looks on your face. Hmmm.
As I noted in the post, I *really* hate being on that side of the camera
- Marcia snapped one with my head down, reading, and then another, as
seen, showing my approval of her act of senseless violins.

That's done. PBI (the [email protected] address) is down again - if you need to send me email or files, then send it to the [email protected] address. Sigh. I am working really hard at moving all my mail over to Orb, since PBI's mail servers have been SO unreliable.

Made some book progress last night - wrote about RPM, and uses thereof. Only trick is deciding how and whether to write about the PGP signatures portion of the package. Two hours of work to decide NOT to cover that particular aspect of the package here. Maybe (maybe) in the Security section. OK, almost the right time, off to work with me. Have a lovely day - See you later.

20:25 - Hey. Welcome back. Working on time and Linux - a tricky subject, since Linux has so many more options to time keeping than the other OS. There's many commands, lots of options, several discordant bits of documentation and not enough time - isn't that timely. Tom and I just got off the horn, whacking through the rest of this chapter. With this section, the chapter's complete, so I'd better get to it. TTYL.


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G'day. I am starting to feel meeting-bound. We appear to be talking more and doing less. By some lights, this is a good thing, but I am not altogether sure. What? Context? Who needs it? ETS has a few new faces, as a few of the old faces bailed on us. Unfortunate, but it happens. Now the new people are pointing and saying "Why this?" and "Why that?". OK - they need to understand the processes and procedures, but some days, when, "Why don't we do it this way, instead?", I really want to just snap BECAUSE, and staple their mouths shut. Am I overreacting? {grin}

The PBI mailserver came back online sometime yesterday evening. The status page calls it a hardware problem, and claims it's resolved. I want to see several consecutive weeks of uptime - that would sure be nice. As it is, I am now getting large hunks of mail. I think that things are mostly caught up, though.

Oh. Thanks. Marcia just dropped a copy of the WSJ from Monday in my lap. I'll have to look at it this afternoon - the article is entitled "Domestic Maelstrom: The Sexes Do Battle At the Dishwasher". Say. What are the rules on this, anyway. Why capitalize every word except the second "the"? Anyway, this is the article that quotes noted dishwasher expert Robert Bruce Thompson - extremely talented, and lauded for his transition from computer expert and author to Diswasher Pundit. Film at 11. {SEG}

I think that I believe that Chapter 18 goes to Tom for finals tonight. We'll see, I am in the last section (on Time, as noted last night). I ran out of steam at about 23:40 hours last night. That's really too late for me, since I end up having to pay for late nights in lost alertness and so on. Well, I should run. Thanks for dropping in - I'll catch you later in the day. TTFN.

11:10 LCT - A brief note. Just read an interesting article over on Andover News. Jack Bryar's column points the blame finger for the crash and burn at Linuxcare at . . . Kleiner Perkins. It's been muttered, and there were several mistakes made in numerous places. This is an interesting take, though. Good, quick read. Later.

Well, in a link-free mode, we note on the side that Judge Jackson has said (and I paraphrase), "Microsoft, I'd like you to meet Bert the Fire Axe!" Hmmm. We don't know what's going to happen, but I can virtually guarantee that the effect will be (a) Not What Was Intended; and (b) Not What The DOJ Wanted. I wonder if BillG is inquiring about how many cubicles they can squeeze onto Sealand, in space leased from Havenco. Next: I don't get any ice cream until I finish adjtimex. OK. Gotta run. G'night.


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Mornin'. Funny people, those PBI folks. Listen to this:

We have recently experienced a hardware issue with our mail 
service. This issue has been resolved, and our mail service is 
functioning normally. However, you will experience a delay in 
receiving mail. We apologize for any inconvenience which 
this issue may have caused you.

Whoever wrote that should be writing press releases for Microsoft. After all, it's "working normally ... a delay in receiving mail.", which is about right {g}. I am still not getting mail back from a couple of the reflectors (mailing lists) I to which I subscribe. Sidelight: the rains came in last night. Very odd for this time of year, although they were successfully forecast, I actually hadn't believed them, figuring we'd get a miss. Now it's partially cloudy and mid-60's out. Quite nice, with very clean, crisp skies.

What? Ya, I am a little groggy, but (excepting the summary, which is on the plate for this morning), I think the chapter's done. Punted where we had to, and acknowledged the fact, then moved on. Everything we talk about and show examples of is tested. I have had too many unfortunate experiences with books that show how to do a thing - and then it doesn't work. So even when I am sure about what I write, I test it anyway, otherwise I would screw up. Yes, I've caught myself out a few times.

Now to pour some coffee and hit the road - lot to do between now and this afternoon, when I am back at the dentist for one more filling that somehow got overlooked in the first go-round. Then nothing until August 24 - Hurrah!!! In the interim, have a lovely day. Later.


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Hullo. Pretty day out there in my part of the world (speaking in an envionmentally friendly, non-"ownership" manner) - good to do anything but work... hmmm. OK, I'll work for the next 16 hours, but that's it. Actually did well to climb in bed before 11 last night - I've been running closer to midnight the last couple of weeks. Got a bit of a start into the Pre-Installation chapter for OLS last night, not sure I am happy with the approach, but words down is a good start.

Email - I am moving the rest of my mailing list traffic over the the Orb address, PBI has, from what I've been able to keep track of, about 85% uptime on it's personal accounts POP mailserver. Functionally this time, it's been down for about a week. That is, they've been saying it's fixed for the last two or three days, but I am *still* getting mail trickling in from Sunday up through the present, some double deliveries, and more fun. I have sent myself test messages in the last two days, and only received back about half. I presume that they aren't losing mail (no promises there), but that the queues are way backed up. As much as possible, please use the [email protected] address in communicating with me - I cannot vouch for PBI as anything more than a pair of wires (and for that, the connectivity has been pretty good, with decent uptime).

From Steve Litt, of Troubleshooters.com, we have Troubleshooting Professional Magazine, with the current issue, Making It in a Post-Microsoft World. Looks like a good, informative read for transitioning from MS to Linux. Additionally, check out the home page for the site - Lot's of fun stuff there. OK, the sun's in my eyes, can't type here anymore - Guess I'll go to work and start earning the food and rent. TTFN, people. Happy Friday!


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"Lazy ass bastard." That's the talk about town (about me), but really, I've been rolling since before 8. Haircut, two shopping trips, and cutting down the Costco size portions into meal size freezer fodder. Anyway, sorry for the late post. Been emailing back and forth on the backchannel with Bob, Steve and Matt about the merits (and demerits) of RoadRunner broadband Internet access. There are some hitches and some coming solutions to Linux connectivity with the RoadRunner implementation, as my reply to Matt's email (autistic license taken with formatting to make message sense...

From: Matt Beland {[email protected]}
Sent: Saturday, June 10, 2000 10:26 AM
Subject: Re: Single-disk Linux firewall/proxy/NAT

> -----Robert Bruce Thompson wrote on June 10, 2000 6:44 AM -----
> 
> Subject: Single-disk Linux firewall/proxy/NAT
> 
> Well, I'm due to get a cable-modem next Thursday, which means I need to come
> up with some way to connect it securely to my network. I may well end up
> using WinGate to provide firewall/proxy/NAT functions, but I'd like to look
> at Linux alternatives. Can someone point me to resource pages for such
> things as single-disk Linux firewalls and so on? I don't have a good handle
> on Linux, so something like "Installing and Configuring a Single-disk
> Linux-based Firewall/proxy/NAT for Dummies" would be most helpful.
> 
> Thanks.
> 
> --
> Robert Bruce Thompson
> [email protected]
> http://www.ttgnet.com

Well, the problem here is that you're not running a true cable modem; you're
running RoadRunner. Totally different story. As I understand it, the
RoadRunner is basically a very fast modem; you don't even have an IP address
of your own, you have a PPP connection through RAS, just like dial-up. I
don't know how critical security would be in a case like that.

In any event, none of the single-disk firewalls I've seen have the
configuration for RoadRunner. I have seen a document for configuring
RoadRunner under Linux; there's a link to it at the bottom of the email. I
have (obviously, not having RoadRunner) never used it, but I'm told it's the
best available. Also, don't expect any help from Time Warner; reportedly,
they're vaguely upset about people using IP Masquerading on their service,
although they have no rules against it. They also officially don't support
Linux - again, that's second hand, it might just have been that service area
(Austin, Texas.)

Here's the link:

http://linuxdoc.org/LDP/LG/issue51/nielsen.html

Here's another one off LinuxDoc:

http://linuxdoc.org/LDP/LG/issue28/nielsen.html

Matt.

Agreement. I believe that the implementation is similar to what the yutzes at
PBI are doing now in concert with their Dynamic DSL (sounds good, though,
doesn't it) ... what you're looking for is probably PPPoE (Point-to-Point 
Protocol over Ethernet).  

Suse has a PPPoE for Linux linkfarm, http://www.suse.de/~bk/PPPoE-project.html,
and then there's this one (culled from the top of a Google search on the terms
"PPPoE Linux Roadrunner") http://www.mandrakeuser.org/connect/ccable.html 

Hope this eats the rest of your saturday.  {grin}

In other news, it was bandied about on the SVLUG mailing list that upgrading to Linux kernel 2.2.16 was important to do quickly due to security problems in the 2.2.14 series, upon which most current distributions rest. Here's the original notice that appeared on SVLUG's mailing list - there's a couple of cautionary links on that message. Then, here's Alan Cox's announcement of 2.2.16. I see no other hoofowraw on the subject anywhere (yet). Well.

Anyway, I took the opportunity to really work at getting a fully operational, home-compiled kernel running - and did so. Successfully got Grinch running 2.2.16 last night, and I will be putting Grendel through the same treatment this weekend. Things went so well that I went a step closer to the edge and I am currently running 2.4test1 (pre-beta) - seems to be fine with the exception of the CDR drive - I apparently left a module out. Hmmm. Now to get down to writing - have a lovely day.


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Good Morning! Here's a progress report. About 13 pages written towards Chapter 2, 38 pages of tabular raw data for Appendix B, on packages, and 24 screen shots to be parked on Chapter 3, Installation. Lots of lots to do to get the page count up to the point it needs to be at so that the last 3 weeks aren't sleepless. I had better get to it. But first...

Two points of interest. JHR has an interesting write-up on Men, Wimmen and Computers. Also, Bob Thompson's experience with Western Digital drives has mirrored my own - WD drives of recent vintage (2 - 3 years old) die early and die often. I have replaced (5) WD drives in the last year. 'nuff said.

Now to work. Have a great day. I'll check in tonight. TTFN.


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