A New Theme

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Yesterday I applied for a summer job at a Christian camp a few miles away, I’m hoping to be a counselor (leader) for the summer, should be about 10-12 weeks of having fun with kids. I’ll be staying there overnight the whole time, though Kelly will be able to come and visit when she gets off babysitting and we can have Saturdays together too. Initially she didn’t like the idea, but just kinda realized that it’ll probably be good for us and we’ll appreciate the time we do get together rather than spending every other minute in the same house.

It’ll also be nice to actually do some real work and earn some real money. Against my will, though there was nothing I could do about it, I’ve spent nearly a year in the US and not been able to work, so while it has been nice to do nothing at all, I also feel as though I’m letting down the team and taking advantage of people and their generosity. While that is the case, and to a large degree I have been, it’s not by choice, and given the chance I would have been doing a lot more to earn my keep. Also, while it is hardly IT related, I’m glad to have another stateside work reference with a real organization with standards etc. While I try to work to high standards when working with friends and family doing computer repair etc, there is hardly a gauge to measure by how well I did something.

I was also getting bored with the old theme on my blog, and felt it was time for a change here too. The photo in the header may change some until I find something I like that fits and works, but for now it is a crop of this image:

dscf06801

I took this during the Assemblies of God New Zealand National Conference in October 2007, the week I had my interview with Gen-i. A couple of the guys in the music team are jamming, in the immediate foreground are the power, video signal and communication cables for the stage roaming camera, resting on the base for one of the front speaker towers. I think Mike was programming lights, or he may have just been playing. I know I was the photographer and only touched the lighting board if it was absolutely necessary (mostly “TURN OFF NUMBER 11, TURN ON NUMBER 12” while he was wandering the stage checking things).

In other news I have successfully installed Xen on Debian, so I have a Debian Dom0. I also have a Debian DomU that I’m playing with LDAP with, in an attempt to setup a prototype for web/shell hosting. I’m trying to figure out how to create DomU’s from ISO’s under the Debian Dom0, I have some FreeBSD CD’s that I’d like to build a VM from if possible. Otherwise I can install QEMU back on the Mac and create QEMU images for Xen that way.

Also trying to debug a regex in my logcheck system on Telly. Ever since I installed IPv6 I’m getting annoying messages in the logs every hour that I’m trying to make logcheck ignore (they’re not important, thus I don’t want to see them – unlike people trying to bruteforce my SSH or Mail servers). I have one more thing to try before I go looking for help, as soon as my apt-get dist-upgrade is done (because opening a new tab and SSH’ing a new session is *so* difficult!)

{Last Minute Update!} Just had a phone call from the camp director, he’s put out all my references and is waiting to hear back, then will set up an interview next week perhaps.

I Like Chicken, I Hate Chickens

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I promised in my last post that I’d explain my strong dislike of chickens.

Our friends from church, John and Debi have gone to Florida for a week with their family, and have left Kelly and I looking after their mail, several plants, 3 tanks of fish, and 26 poultry dishes waiting to happen. 2 roosters and 24 chickens, she tells me. I keep forgetting whether it’s 26 total or 26 chickens + the two roosters.

They live two doors down, so we wander down to do our duties before wandering back up. The chickens aren’t so bad, so long as they do what they are supposed to do, and it may improve this week when we can revert back to their routine. We’ve been doing things a little earlier or later than usual because of other things happening in our lives that we needed to attend to, but there are no planned events around chicken-time this week as yet.

Basically we deal with them 3 times a day. At around 9am we let them out of the chickenhouse, we give them a ‘snack’ of hotdog buns, then check for eggs and refill their food/water. This is not so bad, in the morning they’re rearing to get out of the chickenhouse, so once they’re out we shut the door to stop them getting in and then go in and do the work, opening it for them again when we’re done.

Around 12-1pm we go in and do an egg run, this is usually as simple as making sure as many chickens are in the yard as possible and shutting the door to them, and collecting the eggs. Again, not so bad.

The b***h of a job is around 4:30-5pm when we round them in for the evening. We’ll lock of the door to them and go in to check eggs, fill food/water etc, and then open it again and try and coerce nearly 30 chickens/roosters all through a small hole into the chickenhouse (which is rather crowded near the end) while trying not to let others back out. We also struggle in this time while we have to be in the pen with them, as the roosters are very protective and have begun to attack at us. I don’t like things I don’t understand (IE, chickens/roosters) and Kelly is afraid of birds flapping at her, which is what they do. The other annoyance is one white chicken (with a brown feather) that has escaped 3 days in a row, having to try and get it back in with minimal fuss.

I’m incredibly glad I didn’t have to deal with them at all today – this morning I was at the churches chicken barbecue, a very pleasing event ;-), this afternoon and evening I was asleep through both events. Kelly’s brother, Matt, gained leadership over the one rooster that was defying him by ‘hitting’ it with the stick (swinging it and nearly touching but not quite), and I need to do that if necessary, I’m just afraid I’ll hit it and hit it too hard – I don’t like dead things either!

So we shall see how it goes until Thursday when the family returns!

Dreaaaam.. Dream Dream Dream!

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I had the weirdest (and historically inaccurate) dream last night.

I am going to share it here for the intrigue and amusement of any and all who read it.

Now, I don’t know how, but I travelled back in time (and location?) and ended up in 1920’s England, at the primary/elementary school of my Grandad. I had my big camera with me, which was clearly out of place (Digital camera pre 1990 is very out of place!) in the time period so I was trying to take photos and being discreet as possible.

Anyway, I was in a lunchroom kinda thing, it was very grey and dull, and my 7-8 year old grandfather was at a table with 3 other boys talking quietly (I was across the room, my big 22 year old self). I recognized him almost immediately, as he looked pretty much like the photos of seen of my Dad as a young boy, and a few times he turned his head I noticed characteristics and resemblances of how he looks and acts as I’ve known him. The people I was there with decided it was time to leave, but I mustered up the courage to ask my young grandfather for confirmation that he was who I thought he was.

“Is your name Brian?”

“Yes, it is.”

“That’s your middle name isn’t it?”

“Not any more!”

“Do you mind if I ask what your first name used to be?”

“Coraline!” (I have NO clue where that came from.. I saw the movie like…a month ago and haven’t really thought about it since. Now that I think about it though, I played Tic-tac-toe/naughts and crosses with a 5 year old girl the other night, only we used pink and blue ‘buttons’ on a board of 9 squares, each containing the picture of a character from the movie. I digress..)

At this point I really had to follow the rest of my group out the door (they were all late teens/adults) but I took the opportunity to snap some more photos of my granddad across the room, he wasn’t watching having returned to the conversation with his friends.

I was led outside, and it was kindof like a gameshow. I’m not sure if I’ve had similar dreams before, or if it really is something I’ve seen on TV or in a movie, but I was to be given challenges to complete either for money or for the people I was working with (they were all teens I think) to live, big difference but I don’t remember which. May have even been both!

It was then that I realized there was snow on the ground, and my first challenge was related to one of the people on my team sliding around the school, I just wasn’t allowed to let him damage any classrooms in any way. You can probably tell by now that while my dreams are fairly specific, there isn’t a lot of detail as to how things happen, I just know they do. I guided the guy between buildings and managed to get him out onto the open sports fields, which I realised too late was a bad thing to do, as the fields themselves were/are a classroom (for PhysEd! Whether that even existed in the 20’s I doubt… We’d also slid along the inside edge of a clearly marked football field). Anyway, it was at this point where the host/gamemaster was walking along the field either with cameramen or henchmen and was about to reveal some kind of information when I woke up.

It was a weird night last night – I wasn’t sleepy, then I was really sleepy so I rolled over to sleep and couldn’t, then I got awake and somewhere in that mix (and a lot of “Are you OK?’s” from Kelly (who was also having a difficult time sleeping)) I fell asleep. Then had to get up at around 8:30 to go let the chickens out (I HATE CHICKENS.. more on them later) and came back and fell asleep awkwardly on the yellow chair, where the dream continued.

So there you have it, my weird dream of weirdness, laugh or analyze, or if you REALLY must, do both 😉

3 Almost Completely Unrelated Things…

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The first two are both geeky..

Firstly I got my control panel system past the first stumbling block: user login/out. I imagine this is a hard problem for a number of programmers as it is almost always the first step in a secure system. Now that it’s in place I can build everything else around the existing security system (rather than having to build everything else with the prospect of applying security to it later and probably rewriting it all etc).

My second achievement of the day was IPv6 vhosts. I assigned 20-odd IPv6 addresses to Telly for my BNC (ZNC is good so far if anyone is looking for an IPv6/SSL aware IRC Bouncer). Over the last 24 hours or so I assigned 10 of those vHosts. The list is available here. I will be looking into IPv6 hosts for Rizzo next week (IE, seeing if it is workable), so will work on coming up with some more vHosts then.

The third accomplishment, and completely unrelated to the other two in any way, I got my VA Learners permit. If I’d been aware that Kelly’s car actually was insured I could have taken the road skills test and got a full license, but I also think I should take some time to practice first.

That is all, good readers, that is all.

IPv6: The Way Of The Future

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Tonight I set up IPv6 on my home network. While it feeds a house of 5, only 1 will notice any difference whatsoever!

Basically I loaded the IPv6 HomeBrew customization for SmoothWall (See the forums at community.smoothwall.org), and got myself an IPv6 block (/64) assigned and a tunnel to use it through (see Hurricane Electric, or TunnelBroker). I’ve set up Yoda (smoothwall), Telly (Debian) and Big Bird (macbook) to use IPv6 addresses and so far everything works wonderfully. It still relies on my router as a SPOF, but they have their own world-accessable IP(v6) addresses. I guess I should work on firewalls etc..

If anyone is interested in testing my IPv6 IRC server, it’s linked to the United Christian Chat Network and is accessible at ipv6.i-al.net! (6667 for standard, 6697 for SSL)

I Am Amused.

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I don’t know why, I found this in the logs from while I was sleeping last night, and I found it amusing. Not hilarious, but enough to warrant a large smile.

[06:16:37] * Guest (~NewJava@uccn-DA3CFDAF.dyn.iinet.net.au) has joined #uccn
[06:16:42] <Guest> hi
[06:17:10] * Midorikawa|Psychosis has quit (Ping timeout)
[06:18:22] <Guest> anyone can they tell me how the bible is proven to not be another story like media
[06:19:14] * Mid0rikawa|Psychosis has quit (Ping timeout)
[06:20:10] * Mid0rikawa|Psychosis (~Midor1kaw@staff.unitedchristianchat.net) has joined #uccn
[06:20:22] <Guest> hi psychosis
[06:20:24] * M1dorikawa|Psychosis has quit (Ping timeout)
[06:21:49] <Guest> Anyone talk here
[06:33:40] <Guest> hey
[06:34:07] <Guest> satin has been created by the jews
[06:34:43] <Guest> jesus was a story created by the romans. The vatican must know
[06:40:44] <Mid0rikawa|Psychosis> …right. you keep believing that.
[06:42:33] <Mid0rikawa|Psychosis> By the way, if you want to troll, at least learn basic spelling.
[06:42:52] <Mid0rikawa|Psychosis> http://www.thefreedictionary.com/satin
[06:43:03] * Guest has quit (Quit: :: For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them. (Matt. 18:20) :: United Christian Chat Network ::)

Far too many stupid trolls nowdays. Nothing interesting anymore. Most of them don’t even argue their points very well..

thePortal

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I started work late last night on my 4th concurrent coding project, something I’ve been thinking about for a loong time and it was brought up by Ninex on chat again, confirming that it isn’t a bad idea.

It needs a lot more integration with things, ideally it’ll probably work a lot better once Anope supports real-time SQL. For now it just feeds of the statistics database.

So, check out http://chat.i-al.net/portal/. and tell me what you think!

The final product is intended to have configurable colors, background images, header images, as well as channel-owner-configured ‘about us’ information. There’ll also be a few statistics blocks available, and possibly logging on request? Unsure at this point how to make it integrate!

Should I Really Be Laughing?

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My wife showed me this today, and I thought it was hilarious. Not sure if I should be laughing or not, it’s a turtle using a shoe for pleasure, so called ‘shoe-raping.’ Check it out, and tell me what you think!

In other news, I’m still working on several PHP/MySQL projects

Firstly, there is ZcP, a module based control panel for linux (mostly debian) to handle Bind, Apache and qmail (with vpopmail) and PureFTPd (with MySQL auth). I haven’t found anything yet that meets my needs, so I’m writing it myself. It is intended to support multiple servers (IE a web server, primary and secondary mail servers, and primary and secondary DNS servers). It’s also modular based on task, it’ll just call a function and pass the relevant information so it should be pretty easy to create extra modules for postfix or djbdns, for example.

Second, I haven’t named it yet but a support/ticket management system. I have found two existing systems that I like, but none are quite good enough. SiT is good looking and works well, Eventum works well and has an IRC bot attached that sits in support channels and reports updates and new tickets etc. I may have to give up pretty or the bot, but I’d also enjoy the challenge of writing my own.

The third and final project is a database system for my old church, Life City, whose access database was lost in a hard disk crash (had been talking about a new one for a while). It’ll probably be a social-network type system, where we’ll create a house-hold, and individuals and then assign them to households and assign each other relationships (probably based on head-of-house, but not necessarily).

CALLING ALL GEEKS: Linksys Firmware

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OK, it’s not often I ask questions and hope for replies.

I was given a WRT54GS a couple of weeks ago because it was acting up for it’s owners and they decided to rent one from comcast. I’ve had it here running as an access point (I already have a linux router!) and it’s going about perfectly.

Now, this is a big house, and I had similar problems with the existing WRT54G that is here (switched out for the GS) with it not reaching all the way back to the far corners. Moving the router isn’t an option, nor is running cable along the floor or through the ceiling (anywhere, really). I’m considering setting up the GS with an alternative firmware and using it as a repeater. I realise this will lose 50% speed for clients connected to it, this is not a problem.

I have questions for the geek community reading this:

1) Which firmware should I install? I’m looking at DD-WRT, possibly OpenWRT and Tomato. Any others I should consider?

2) Can I revert back to the original firmware if needed?

3) If I’m using it as a repeater, can I plug a PC into it and gain wireless access that way also?

4) Is there anything else I should consider before doing this?

Notes: WRT54G v8, not mine, would rather not update firmware on it unless I absolutely have to, in which case I’ll likely give up for now. WRT54GS v7.2, is mine, will do whatever with. I also have a Gigabyte BR-01N or something that I can’t update firmware on, and I can’t use with the current wireless key (to swap out the linksys ones) due to limitations on its WEP setup.

So please, geeks, comment me and give me suggestions!

ThinkGeek!

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Today I became a ThinkGeek.com affiliate.

If you click on of the thinkgeek links on any of my sites I’ll get a 7% commission on anything you the purchase from them! Cool, huh?

Anyway, last night I went with Kelly and her mom to the ER (A&E for you Kiwis out there), where Kel’s sister Katie had been taken by her husband, Jesse. She was having all kinds of pains as well as dizziness and such. In the end it was basically decided to be an inner ear infection (she told us the technical term, but I forget). 4 hours later and we were home again!

Her friend, Laura, didn’t have a great night either – one of her room mates had attempted suicide by wrist-slitting, and there was blood all over the living room of her house.. We saw her arrive while she was talking on her phone to Katie and she told us what had happened! Not a cool day for her!

I also made the mistake of twittering where I was going, which synced my facebook status, and apparently a lot of people were more worried than they needed to be so, sorry guys!

No photos, I was nice and didn’t take the camera 😉