I'm touring colleges today, not that any of them offer degrees in heavy metal loafing. University of Maryland was the first stop. My son spent more time fixing his wind blown hair than listening to the tour guide. Hum, I wonder what I could spend $15,000 a year on rather than education... I shouldn't complain: next stop costs $33,000 a year!
Thursday, October 13, 2005
Testudo
Wednesday, October 12, 2005
Rodin Sculpture Garden- The Thinker
A correction to my earlier post: There is a life size version of The Thinker. It is at Musee de Rodin (Paris, France, near the Eiffel Tower) in The Sculpture Garden.
National Gallery of Art
I took my wife to the National Gallery of Art yesterday. We only spent about three hours, so we only saw about 10% of the West building. Being the cultural Neaderthal that I am, I didn't recognize many of the works. I did immediately recognized one painting as a Rembrandt (Portrait of a Man in a Tall Hat). Initially, I did not know one of the featured artists, Rodin, but when I saw The Thinker, I realized who he was. (A side note: I expected The Thinker to be much larger-- it was only about 2 feet tall.)
One very interesting thing about the way NGA displayed the art may be incorporated into my present home. Generally, when one hangs a picture, they bang a nail in the wall, toss it up there, and hope its level. The NGA had tracks embedded in the walls where they joined the ceiling, and would run cables from the tracks to suspend the art. Thus, no wholes in the walls to repair. Given the fact that the art is moved, this seemed very efficient. As I have only recently moved, none of our art is in place.
In retospect, I think the main thing I took from NGA was the understanding of why some art is worth millions of dollars. I'm not certain that I've ever seen a 300 year old masterpiece before, but there is absolutly no comparison to what is sold commercially. The attention to detail, color, and lighting was incredible.
One very interesting thing about the way NGA displayed the art may be incorporated into my present home. Generally, when one hangs a picture, they bang a nail in the wall, toss it up there, and hope its level. The NGA had tracks embedded in the walls where they joined the ceiling, and would run cables from the tracks to suspend the art. Thus, no wholes in the walls to repair. Given the fact that the art is moved, this seemed very efficient. As I have only recently moved, none of our art is in place.
In retospect, I think the main thing I took from NGA was the understanding of why some art is worth millions of dollars. I'm not certain that I've ever seen a 300 year old masterpiece before, but there is absolutly no comparison to what is sold commercially. The attention to detail, color, and lighting was incredible.
Friday, October 07, 2005
Blogger Spam
Ha Ha. Blogger got hacked-- sort of.
Somebody setup a spambot to watch for new Blogger posts, and comment on them. The comments tend to say things like: "Great blog. We have alot in common. I bet you'd like my site, spamspamspam.com, for low cost perscription prices." It's really very cleaver, though annoying. Now, every time I post, I have to go back and delete the comments.
Luckily, there is a way to make it a little more difficult for the spambot. In the Blogger Dashboard, you select the "Settings" tab, and the "Comments" link. Change "Show word verifiction" from the default of No to Yes.
The folks at Blogger are not of the same mind as am I. In my neighborhood, we err on the side of more secure, rather than less secure.
Somebody setup a spambot to watch for new Blogger posts, and comment on them. The comments tend to say things like: "Great blog. We have alot in common. I bet you'd like my site, spamspamspam.com, for low cost perscription prices." It's really very cleaver, though annoying. Now, every time I post, I have to go back and delete the comments.
Luckily, there is a way to make it a little more difficult for the spambot. In the Blogger Dashboard, you select the "Settings" tab, and the "Comments" link. Change "Show word verifiction" from the default of No to Yes.
The folks at Blogger are not of the same mind as am I. In my neighborhood, we err on the side of more secure, rather than less secure.
Anti-Virus Software Comparison
Over the years, I've worked with many different anti-virus software products for the Microsoft platform. Most corporate customers used Symantec, but I always felt it placed too much of a drag on the system. Eventually, I decided that McAfee VirusScan was the better product. I purchased Version 6, when loaded Windows XP, and was happy with it for several years.
A few months again, my update subscription ran out, and I was disappointed to find that McAfee would not support Version 6 any longer. Like a good consumer, I dutifully marched to CompUSA, and bought version 9. I was immediately disappointed. To make a long story short, McAfee had chosen to use Active-X as the engine to fetch virus signature updates. This presents two problems:
First, Active-X requires Microsoft Internet Explorer, but my default browser was Firefox. Thus, the update utility would launch the browser to check for updates, but the process failed becuase the browser was not IE. I used tech support chat, but they insisted that I had no choice but to use IE as my default browser.
Second, Active-X is the mechanism that the majority of Spyware uses to get onto a Windows system. Thus, the anti-virus program was opening a vulnerability. McAfee tech support said I shouldn't worry about spyware, as they had a seperate product that I could purchase guard against that threat.
The good news: McAfee offered a money back guarantee. When I called to exercise that option, they escalated my issue to Tier 2 Tech Support. Eventually, they conceded that Version 9 was a product for the mass market, rather than people truly interested in security.
So, what was I to do? I needed an alternative. I chose to try Trend Micro PC-cillin Antivirus 11. One really big issue: Trend Micro was $39 with a $20 rebate, whereas McAfee was $59 with a $20 rebate. Thus, it was 50% cheaper. Of course, if it didn't work, then cheaper was meaningless.
After loading Trend Micro, I was very quickly, very impressed with the product. Not only did it have no problem with Firefox, but it recognized and operated seemlessly with my Mozilla and Thunderbird e-mail programs. McAfee would only support Outlook variants.
Furthermore, Trend Micro's basic package claims protection from Spyware, as well. McAfee required a second product. This now made Trend Micro 68% cheaper. Another neat feature: Last night there was an indictor that a new virus had been discovered, with a warning that I should update. I initiated a manual update, only to find the system had already downloaded the new signature file.
As far as I'm concerned, the Trend Micro is a vastly superior product to the McAfee product.
A few months again, my update subscription ran out, and I was disappointed to find that McAfee would not support Version 6 any longer. Like a good consumer, I dutifully marched to CompUSA, and bought version 9. I was immediately disappointed. To make a long story short, McAfee had chosen to use Active-X as the engine to fetch virus signature updates. This presents two problems:
First, Active-X requires Microsoft Internet Explorer, but my default browser was Firefox. Thus, the update utility would launch the browser to check for updates, but the process failed becuase the browser was not IE. I used tech support chat, but they insisted that I had no choice but to use IE as my default browser.
Second, Active-X is the mechanism that the majority of Spyware uses to get onto a Windows system. Thus, the anti-virus program was opening a vulnerability. McAfee tech support said I shouldn't worry about spyware, as they had a seperate product that I could purchase guard against that threat.
The good news: McAfee offered a money back guarantee. When I called to exercise that option, they escalated my issue to Tier 2 Tech Support. Eventually, they conceded that Version 9 was a product for the mass market, rather than people truly interested in security.
So, what was I to do? I needed an alternative. I chose to try Trend Micro PC-cillin Antivirus 11. One really big issue: Trend Micro was $39 with a $20 rebate, whereas McAfee was $59 with a $20 rebate. Thus, it was 50% cheaper. Of course, if it didn't work, then cheaper was meaningless.
After loading Trend Micro, I was very quickly, very impressed with the product. Not only did it have no problem with Firefox, but it recognized and operated seemlessly with my Mozilla and Thunderbird e-mail programs. McAfee would only support Outlook variants.
Furthermore, Trend Micro's basic package claims protection from Spyware, as well. McAfee required a second product. This now made Trend Micro 68% cheaper. Another neat feature: Last night there was an indictor that a new virus had been discovered, with a warning that I should update. I initiated a manual update, only to find the system had already downloaded the new signature file.
As far as I'm concerned, the Trend Micro is a vastly superior product to the McAfee product.
Thursday, October 06, 2005
GPG and ssh-keygen
I never can remember these commands, mainly because I don't use them that often.
Before using GPG, create the directory:
mkdir ~/.gnupg; chmod 700 $_
Now, encrypt a file:
gpg -c /path/file
Encrypted file is created as /path/file.gpg.
To decrypt to standard output:
gpg -d /path/file.gpg
(You might want to redirect to another file.)
To use SSH without a entering a password, we do a key exchange. First we need a key pair:
ssh-keygen -t dsa
The key is stored as ~/.ssh/id_dsa.pub.
Transport the key to the remote system, then add it to SSH:
cat id_dsa.pub >> ~/.ssh/authorized-keys
If the permissions are not correct, the login will fail.
chmod 700 ~/.ssh
chmod 600 ~/.ssh/authorized_keys
Make sure to check permissions on both sides!
Before using GPG, create the directory:
mkdir ~/.gnupg; chmod 700 $_
Now, encrypt a file:
gpg -c /path/file
Encrypted file is created as /path/file.gpg.
To decrypt to standard output:
gpg -d /path/file.gpg
(You might want to redirect to another file.)
To use SSH without a entering a password, we do a key exchange. First we need a key pair:
ssh-keygen -t dsa
The key is stored as ~/.ssh/id_dsa.pub.
Transport the key to the remote system, then add it to SSH:
cat id_dsa.pub >> ~/.ssh/authorized-keys
If the permissions are not correct, the login will fail.
chmod 700 ~/.ssh
chmod 600 ~/.ssh/authorized_keys
Make sure to check permissions on both sides!
Wednesday, September 07, 2005
Check out my $3,700 sunglasses
I got them free from American Express. Which begs the question: If they were free, how did they cost $3700? Glad you asked. American Express gives you a point for every dollar you charge, so I used points to get the glasses.
Granted, I did get $3700 worth of other stuff, too. But, philospically, one could argue that it was the other stuff that was free...
PS: This is the fountain around the Navy Memorial.
Tuesday, August 02, 2005
ls -l `which top`
Learned a new command:
ls -l `which top`
This executes the which command to get the path of the target file, then hands that over to ls, so it can be displayed. This is a compound command that will save from issueing the two comands individually.
ls -l `which top`
This executes the which command to get the path of the target file, then hands that over to ls, so it can be displayed. This is a compound command that will save from issueing the two comands individually.
Sunday, July 10, 2005
My $1,023 Cell Phone Bill
I just got my Cingular bill: they charged me over $900 in roaming charges for calls made from my new house. So, I called customer service and asked what went wrong. They explained that even though I changed my address, I didn't change to the 410 area code, therefore all calls would be billed as if I were still in the old area code. Too bad I wasn't told that at the time I changed the address.
There is a second factor in play. I originally signed up for service with ATT Wireless, which was bought by Cingular. Appearently, I had been on ATT's local plan, rather than their nationwide plan. The nationwide plan would have cost me an extra $10 per month. Since I've had this phone for 18 months, that would have been $180.
Now, here's the question: How can Cingular think it is a good idea to stick a customer with $900 worth of roaming fees? Obviously, their technology could have absorbed the calls for $10. Instead, they agreed to wave $400, and then tried to talk me out of cancelling their service. They expect me to pay them $600, increase my monthly rate plan, and like it?
Of all the transactions I have to undertake, I dispise having to buy a house, a car, and dealing with cell phone vendors. How is this possible? You buy houses and cars maybe every five years. Cell phones are replaced every two. Why does it have to be such a big deal?
But I'm still drawn back to the original question: How can Cingular think that customers would like to pay them $600 for $10 worth of services?
There is a second factor in play. I originally signed up for service with ATT Wireless, which was bought by Cingular. Appearently, I had been on ATT's local plan, rather than their nationwide plan. The nationwide plan would have cost me an extra $10 per month. Since I've had this phone for 18 months, that would have been $180.
Now, here's the question: How can Cingular think it is a good idea to stick a customer with $900 worth of roaming fees? Obviously, their technology could have absorbed the calls for $10. Instead, they agreed to wave $400, and then tried to talk me out of cancelling their service. They expect me to pay them $600, increase my monthly rate plan, and like it?
Of all the transactions I have to undertake, I dispise having to buy a house, a car, and dealing with cell phone vendors. How is this possible? You buy houses and cars maybe every five years. Cell phones are replaced every two. Why does it have to be such a big deal?
But I'm still drawn back to the original question: How can Cingular think that customers would like to pay them $600 for $10 worth of services?
Thursday, July 07, 2005
STONITH
I learned a new acronym: STONITH
The term references how clustered systems handle a failure. During operations, all of the systems in the cluster are constantly running checks on their neighbors. If the systems, called nodes, sense that one of their neighbors has stopped responding, they force the failing system to switch offline, or power-off. Since the working node is killing the failing node, they are executing a stonith: shoot the other node in the head.
Gotta love that one.
The term references how clustered systems handle a failure. During operations, all of the systems in the cluster are constantly running checks on their neighbors. If the systems, called nodes, sense that one of their neighbors has stopped responding, they force the failing system to switch offline, or power-off. Since the working node is killing the failing node, they are executing a stonith: shoot the other node in the head.
Gotta love that one.
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