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  1. Good news, Bad news

    Cell phone exchange: going well so far. My old phone kept getting worse and worse. It started with this annoying 'white spot' in the display, and eventually led to lockups and problems turning the phone on. On the replacement, I have all the sounds and pictures transfered and have the …

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  2. Epilogue part 2.3

    Yeah, so I realized that when you upgrade your WAP from 11Mbps to 54Mbps you need to upgrade your ethernet connection, too. So.. we'll just try putting a 10/100 card in the router tonight to see how that goes..

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  3. Busy day epilogue

    Well, things are progressing slowly with the hard drive. Got the first three drives' zcavs done; the one on the 400G is still going. Things are looking pretty good, though.

    Things aren't looking quite as good for the WAP54g. The best I can currently get in G-Only mode is 900KB …

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  4. No sailing for me

    Well it seems that Ship doesn't have a place for me. So I think that brings my tally up to zero out of five jobs I've applied for there. From talking with [Brady], it's not because I'm not skilled enough to work there, so I'm just a little upset that …

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  5. Server management is a pain

    Keeping on top of security updates can be quite the pain sometimes. Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) bugs are probably the worst threat to server admins these days; popular packages that are widely deployed are much easier for script-kiddies to target than people's Bind or Sendmail installs of yesteryear. So this morning …

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  6. Tech support should always be paid

    But if you're like me, it probably isn't.

    Besides my own computers there are really only two sets of people whose computers I maintain; my parents', and Tiff's parents'.

    My parents' computer isn't too bad; typically my mom (Tiff said it doesn't matter if 'mom' is capitolized or not) will …

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  7. A better way to watch movies?

    Lindsay got me thinking about Netflix. For $18/mo, you can have 3 DVDs at a time out, and can return them any time for more.

    The feature that got me was your movie queue. I had disregarded services like Netflix before because I didn't like the hassle of having …

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  8. gpg-agent cache timeout

    Looks like there's a nifty undocumented feature for gpg-agent that limits your max passphrase cache time to 1 hour, despite what you set the default-cache-ttl to. Luckily, it's just undocumented, not non-existant.

    There is also a 'max-cache-ttl' parameter that you can set which defaults to 1 hour. The default-cache-ttl defaults …

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  9. Evening happenenings

    Recently I've been more and more annoyed by the fact that linux doesn't have some sort of auto-network-selection thing. Specifically, what I'd like is some applet to switch between wired and wireless and select the best wireless network (depending on work, home, etc).

    So eventually last night I found NetworkManager …

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  10. meeting outcome

    Had my meeting with the Deckerts yesterday. The big topic was probably called 'problems w/ management in multiple departments'. We also talked a bit about scheduling, as I'm getting very tired of weekends having worked them since I started at CTI (about 4.5 years ago).

    Things seemed to be …

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  11. RSS Syndication

    I know others have known this for awhile, but RSS is pretty slick. I've recently gotten a decent RSS aggregator for KDE called akregator. Of course, this just showed me that some of my friends really need rss feeds; so I decided to syndicate their site for them! You can …

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  12. Accidents happen

    Tiff accidentally backed into Brady's Car this evening. She just forgot that it was in our driveway and backed out of the garage like she normally does and didn't expect his car there (starting the day at 5 am to go Black Friday shopping probably didn't help). Oh well; things …

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  13. Thanksgiving activities (continued)

    Just a warning to the squeamish; don't follow the link below.

    We butchered hogs this morning; but for me and Tiff that only meant cutting everything up; the hogs were killed and gutted yesterday. This has been an annual thing for Tiff for as long as she knows, and I've …

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  14. It's good to know you're not alone

    It's been awhile since I've done this (Dennis knows what I'm talking about). It's probably equally hilarious if you have done it, or seen someone do it. Tiff was there at the time of my incident - she agrees.

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  15. Make 'em think they're hurting you

    Tiff was looking up ways to control dogs that are getting into chewing on people, and found that if you just say 'Ow' (like you mean it), the dog will typically stop and try to make up with you.

    Tiff used this tactic last night and I was able to …

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  16. Just so you don't worry

    Everything's fine; just a bit stressful at times ;)

    If anyone's been stressful, it's been Patches. Despite the (very poor) picture from the other day, most of the time she still tries to play with the cats; and they don't want to play - at least not with a dog.

    To make …

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  17. Long weekends are supposed to help, right?

    This weekend I took Saturday off to help make potato chips over at Tiff's uncle (using the lard from last year's butchering). Tiff also had off Friday, so she said it'd be nice for us to both have off both days. Sounded good to me - four day weekend!

    Unfortunately, you …

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  18. PVR 1, Doug 0

    Well, Thor is proving to be more stubborn than I thought. Apparently it's unhappy having all its PCI slots plus it's AGP slot used. Something about "IRQs" or something.

    So, Thor's going back in the closet. [Brady] might be right about the box though; I'm afraid it might be ending …

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  19. cplug'd

    It's probably been almost a year since I've been to a CP-LUG meeting, so I figured I should check it out again (plus it gave me a chance to talk to Andy about jobs over at Intellimark). While the meeting topics (synergy, VNC, and RDP) weren't too interesting, it did …

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  20. PVR Project, continued

    I thought it was so neat that I found these 2.4GHz RCA transmitter things; too bad they don't work past about 2 ft (probably due to my cordless phone).

    I've got Thor upgraded to Fedora Core 3 and KDE installed; but still battling w/ nv-tv-out to get the composite …

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  21. Participated in the Electoral Process

    While I'm not overly fond of how the Electoral Process works in the USA, I still voted. Mostly Democratic, but that's because I wasn't aware enough of the canditates (other than the Presidential Candidate). You still have two hours - get out there and vote!

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  22. lists.netmrg.net update

    Following Ian's suggestion, I updated NetMRG's forums so it should be a little more crawlable. When you have that much data (especially Ian), it's really worth it to do that type of update. I generated a patch for my installation; hopefully it will help the next time I upgrade PhpBB …

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  23. Closet Project done

    Well, the closet is done, but not the other stuff.

    There was a lot more work involved here than I orignally thought. I had the sheet of plywood to use (and it looks great!), but it didn't quite work the way I had imagined. The original piece that was in …

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  24. PVR Project, begin

    Over the past week I've been preparing to turn Thor into more than just a fileserver. I've purchased a nVidia MX440-SE video card which has both composite and s-video outputs for about \$34; this card also has hardware mpeg-2 decoding, so it should prove very nice for video output. I …

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  25. synergy is real

    Yes, I think synergy as the word is often overused in marketing-type appliations, but [Daniel] pointed me to Synergy which is an open-source keyboard/mouse/clipboard sharing program.

    "Big deal"™ you say? It's not. This gives me the ability to use one keyboard and mouse between my desktop and laptop …

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  26. leafing take 1

    Spent Sunday afteroon going leafing around South Mountain with Brady and Dennis. Almost broke Brady's muffler off (definitely did some damage) going down the notorious Ridge Road. Sadly, we didn't get very many photos; looks like stuff hasn't changed much on South Mountain. Anyway, the results of the leafing adventure …

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  27. Deck Finished!

    Yep, I know you've been waiting awhile, but the deck is finished. This includes staining and all edges. Isn't that nice!?

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  28. Logan furnishing the basement fiber run

    Been a busy week so far; This past Saturday, there was a trip to Virginia for my nephew Logan's 6th Birthday Party. Yesterday and today I've spent my drives home tracking what [Brady] and I believe to be a US Sprint (long distance) fiber line along a railroad, and today …

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  29. website found in the wild

    Yep, released another version of this website. Although I still think it needs some work, I'm much happier with it at this point than my old website, and wanted to stop looking at it. Feel free to leave me comments; I plan on updating it a bit more to fix …

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  30. TopoUSA 4.0 DVD for CD customers

    For those that bought TopoUSA 4.0 on CD (7 CDs - 1 install and 6 data), there's a fairly easy way to convert them to DVD and have all the regions available to you at all times.

    Basically, you need to make a new directory structure with a 'Data' directory …

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  31. But our Princess is in Another Castle

    In case you hadn't heard (it was last week), I didn't get the System Admin job at Ship. Well, a Systems Manager job opened up (with more pay), so I applied for that. Hopefully I don't need to go through the whole interview/reference check thing again. I think they …

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  32. NetMRG Hackage

    It's been both awhile since I blogged about NetMRG and since NetMRG has had a release, so I figured it's worth a mention

    As you can see, we've been making some changes, and hopefully have 0.17 out either Monday or Tuesday. The good thing is, it's still exciting to …

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  33. Dell Axim X30

    In case you haven't heard, I talked myself into buying a Dell Axim X30. It's an amazing little PDA; 624Mhz, 64/64 MB RAM/Flash, Bluetooth and 802.11b. What talked me into it was the price - \$267. That's \$3 cheaper than the slower model. With free shipping. I couldn't …

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  34. Vacation Complete

    Well, I should have written Monday when we got back (after our 7 1/2 hour drive home), but I've been lazy. Actually, I've been meaning to get my photos uploaded, but haven't gotten around to it yet.

    Ian has a good summary of our trip, but I should go …

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  35. Vacation X-2

    Right down the (One) road from Rehobeth Beech, DE is a little town

    called Ocean City, MD where Lindsay has been renting a tiny little house

    for the past couple Labor Day weekends. Tiff and I are going down from

    Saturday - Monday which should be a nice little break. Ian …

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  36. iMac g5

    I feel obligated to say something about the iMac g5. Lets start a list:

    1. 1680x1050 on 20" - My laptop (at 15.4") has that
    2. plugs on the back - how do you wall mount it? (isn't that what lcds are for?)
    3. the "chin" - if you're going to make a laptop a …
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  37. gmail(fs?)!

    Did I mention I got a Gmail account? No? Well then; now is a good time then.

    Actually, I got it yesterday. Daniel finally got some invites the other day (about 6 invites, I think), so he sent one my way. Of course, I asked him about it almost two …

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  38. new photo album up

    I finally have a new photo album up (see link on the right). It does a number of things I've wanted to do; mod_rewrite, descriptions, and fairly easy uploads. Check it out, it's pretty neat.

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  39. Rehobeth Beach, DE

    Which is close to Lewes, DE, which is where we stayed. We got back Thursday (the 12th) around 14:30ish.

    The trip was a lot of fun, if expensive. For a rundown of events:

    • Sunday: Leave early (06:00ish); arrive there around lunchtime. We headed down to a pay-for-parking beach …
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  40. vacation time!

    Tiff, her parents, her sister Chrissy, Chrissy's boyfriend Ryan, and I will be heading to Rehobeth Beech tomorrow. That sounds like a big list, but it's really only 6 people.

    Even though I haven't figured out if Rehobeth is in Deleware or Maryland, it has typically been a good time …

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  41. bluetooth *can* be cool

    KDE Bluetooth is pretty slick; if you have a phone with bluetooth, that is ;)

    It's able to send/receive files from OBEX compatible devices through Konqueror, and it has a nice program to do call-management (answer, hangup, deny, place calls; show caller id). It also does device detection, and can …

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  42. hiking is good

    [Brady] and I went for a hike to Lewis' Rocks on South Mountain tonight. It was a really nice trek, and had a great view at the end.

    Thor recently got an upgrade to the sound of 250G. It has some relief to it's previously-full 120+160G hard drives. Now …

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  43. repository online

    I setup my own yum repository to hold packages that I create. I don't create many packages, but the ones I do are often useful to my friends, and possibly others. Feel free to look at my repository.

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  44. blog today

    I should have something to write about everyday, right? Maybe.

    I managed to get a SATA controller for cheap (read < \$20) in an effort to get some more storage in my fileserver. I already have a 120G + 160G drive in there, but I maxed it out at the lannic. I'm …

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  45. movin up

    Vertically, anyway. Daniel is moving on in his life (good for him), so I'm going to be filling a hole in the web department. Of course, this means learning everything Daniel did, and what Sam and Chris do real quick. I think it will be fun to be back in …

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  46. Raystown 2k4

    Got back from Raystown yesterday around 15:00, and finally got all my Raystown Vacation Pictures uploaded (it's a problem when your fileserver's hard drive is maxxed out ;).

    It was a really nice vacation. When we arrived Thursday, it started to rain a bit while we were setting everything up …

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  47. decks and code

    Looks like Brady updated his website. Looks good!

    The deck is finally about done. There's one handrail that's not done; but my dad and I worked all weekend finishing up the railing. Tiff and I moved the table, chairs, and grill out. The deck looks great, and I've got the …

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  48. desktop status - disabled

    So, I was doing that whole case swapping thing the other day, and all was going well. The desktop was now in the mid-tower case and up and running, when all of a sudden it just shut off. Very odd. My first impression was that the CPU overheated and the …

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  49. time for router upgrade

    I've been having problems with my router (gunter) for awhile; sometimes named will die, sometimes dhcpd will die. Just 'give up the ghost,' as it where. I've always attributed this to my overclocking the box (it was originally to be an mp3 player). I though it was only overclocked from …

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  50. stones and mulch

    Yep - that's pretty much what I've done this week. We got 3 tons (as in, 6000 lbs) on Saturday, and we decided Monday night would be a good time to move them. We got about half of it done w/ a wheelbarrow, but then Tiff's dad showed up w/ a …

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  51. 2.6 kernel fun

    Trying to transfer files at [Brady]'s the past couple times has been a pain; I've only been getting half of what I should from 100MBit (\~5MB/s). I surmised that it might be the test 2.6 kernels I was using from the Fedora development tree.

    Needless to say …

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  52. cheap phone service

    Voip to the rescue! [Brady] and I were talking about LD Voip last night, and Vonage (Vone-age, not fawn-age). He mentioned that a couple people at Ship are using it and are quite happy.

    It's been awhile since I've looked at it, and it looks very good now. For $25 …

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  53. spring update

    Yeah, I realize I've been bad blogging about 'life stuff' (so Tiff reminded me). And Spring looks to and has been very expensive.

    We (read: Tiffany) purchased a 2004 Jeep Liberty Sport; Atlantic Blue, sunroof, etc. It seems to be a very capable SUV, and Tiff enjoys it a lot …

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  54. new tires rock

    I recently purchased the Dunlop SP Sport 5000 tires from The Tire Rack, and while I haven't had them installed long (just this morning), so far they are excellent. I know I'll never use their W-rated abilities (up to 168 MPH), but the road noise and handling is superb. Much …

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  55. new rack update

    Just so people don't get the wrong idea, the Dell Rack is for my friend [Dennis]' work, eVectis. We left a little after 8am this morning, met [Ian] at Sheetz (coincidentally), and continued on our way to PC Retro - reminds me of a chop-shop for computers. Anyway, after getting this …

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  56. new website

    It's updated again. Woo-hoo. Most of the pages are XHTML Transitional (I have some legacy stuff to port), and I have some wierd issue w/ IE6 not showing the date of the articles (but you can select it..). Hopefully it's more accessibly now; I just need to work on the …

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  57. news to me

    Pete Buchy has leukemia. I think most other people knew this, but I didn't. I met Pete in 2000 when I started working for CTI, but haven't seen him for a couple years now. I can't imagine what that's like; good luck.

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  58. Shouldn't I get an Insurance Break?

    Oooo! 24 today!

    I was looking on Slashdot at today's poll which is titled "Favorite Compulsive Behavior?". I realized I did three of the eight choices. My first choice was Pen Clicking; but I also know I do the Knuckle-Cracking a good bit too. Only after I looked at the …

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  59. keyless entry works!

    I have a 1998 Subaru Legacy GT whose keyless entry hasn't worked fully for awhile now.

    When I got the car, I don't think the keyless entry was installed quite 'professinoally'. It was dangling by my left foot, and was quite annoying. I repositioned it, but since then it never …

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  60. march update #2

    Hopefully that was my one illness for the year. I had pneumonia last year, the flu this year. Should be done now (right?).

    Tiff continues to have bad health. She now has a sinus infection, bronchitis, and laryngitis. So, she's off today and tomorrow. Luckily, Big Spring already had off …

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  61. current status - ick

    I've been home sick the past two days; and when I mean sick, I mean when I had pneumonia this summer I felt better.

    I woke up around 03:30 Monday morning to go to the bathroom and felt fine, but then had a dream that my stomach wasn't feeling …

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  62. hp zt3000 review up

    I'm even writing this blog on my new laptop! You can view pictures of my new laptop, and read how my linux installation has been going (Windows is boring, it just works ;). Things are pretty cozy now, just trying to get some things situated, but I am carrying it around …

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  63. erm.. happy new year!

    Yeah; I know. Slacking on the 'Happy New Year.' At least I update ;-)

    Happenings? Not much, thankfully. The mortgage company finally decided to pay our (almost) deliquent School Tax bill.. on December 31st. Makes me happy that I don't have to pay it, anyway. I had a nice extended vacation …

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