Scott.Buffington.me

Many of my personal experiences, particularly sad moments I have refrained from blogging about. But knowing that my brother not only loved the Internet, but also that he had checked out my websites over the years I really felt this one was important. I said good-bye to my oldest brother William Francis Buffington Jr. today, or Bill as we all knew him. 

I will never forget you Bill. I will always remember you and Janet coming over on Halloween night when I was a kid, the whole family gathering on Christmas at your home on Christmas night, Summer weekends at the cottage in East Berlin when I was a teenager and all our hardcore badminton matches. You, Steve Fritz and I going fishing and us rarely catching anything, except a laugh from one us doing something goofy (Usually Steve and his duct taped rods).

I remember you introducing me to computers and letting me play on them at your home starting when I was very young. Playing with computers hooked to your TV with a cassette tape drive in the late 1970s or early 1980s all the way to playing games on your Apple or IBM computer in the early 1980s. I decided to work in the Information Technology field because I wanted to be like my big brother.

You were more outspoken than me and although we perhaps did not always see eye to eye, I loved you dearly and I had hoped we had many more years together. I always thought you were one of the most intelligent people I had ever been associated with and envied you. Like dad, you left us far too young. Perhaps this is the crutch of being the youngest sibling, I felt I lost dad and mom too soon and now you are gone too, much too soon.

You and Janet were like second parents to me when I was kid and I often revisit all those happy memories. I love you and I will miss you big brother. Not a day will pass where I will not wish I could relive some of our moments together and I hope you knew how much you meant to me.  

In April of 2011 I began my journey to become a runner. At the time I could not run one mile without my leg muscles retaliating, who am I kidding I could not run for 2 minutes without the muscles in my lower legs becoming painfully fatigued. By the end of 2011 I had run two official 5Ks and I was running 2-4 times per week, I had become a runner. Overall I was pretty happy with my improvement in my ability to run, though for a guy who lifted weights most of his life I was pretty frustrated at how I had lost my ability to run and the competitor in me wants more.

Beginning in June I have at times felt like I could really run, although currently the good days only come about occasionally, the sense of freedom I feel running is difficult to explain. I ran on the beach, I mean a real run of several miles, for the first time in my life in July and it was awesome. I ran two official 5K races for the first time in my life, the last being Thanksgiving morning, and I was not the one puking at the top of a steep hill. All of that alone was something I could only imagine doing at this time a year ago. Now my thoughts are turning toward, how I can recover faster, increase my distance and improve my running time.

This year I want to run at least one 10K and I want to run a 5K in under 30 minutes. For the first time in my life I am going to actually monitor what I eat for longer than a month with the intent of dropping some fat off my body. I actually lost around 15 pounds running last year, but I am still roughly 20 pounds heavier than I was in my early 30s. While my shoulders are a little bigger now than they were when I was 30, so is my belly. I am pretty certain that my lower legs would recover better and take a lot less pounding if I drop some more fat from my body and considering the amount of time I spent running and weight lifting over the last year, the fat is not coming off without a diet change. My wife and I are going to work on the diet changes together, the only way this is going to work is if both of us do it together.  

My running year ended on a down note, I last ran December 23rd, intending to run again the day after Christmas. The day after Christmas I came down with a terrible cold that both drained me physically and left me congested and coughing. I was actively already working to increase my mileage prior to the new year, so I hope I can recover from this cold soon and get back out on the road again soon, perhaps tonight. Here is hoping that Run 2012 is even more productive than Run 2011 was.

Last February, I made a commitment to program more in 2011 and to explore a few new languages in hopes of improving my programming skills. In 2011 I used Shell, PHP, Python, Ruby, Clojure and Haskell, with Ruby, Clojure and Haskell being the new kids on the block. Clojure and Haskell were functional languages I toyed with over September and October mostly as diversions. Currently I could never see me writing anything major in either Clojure or Haskell, but they were interesting to visit and I might go back to them again someday.  

Being mostly a hobbyist programmer ( I do program from time to time in my day job. ) the best thing I got out of this past year is that I actually wrote some code that did something I needed and I also took a Python class through the O'Reilly School of Technology that improved my Python coding. PHP was the other language where I actually wrote some code to improve current projects as well as to scratch an itch when needed. I had hoped to write something in Objective C, Cocoa or Google GO this past year but it just did not happen.  

Overall I think my 2011 programming goal was a good idea and I was somewhat successful over the past year. My goal for 2012 is that I want to continue my programming practice, but I want to spend less time consuming content this year and more time creating. This year's programming goal will be known as Code 2012 and I intend to continue this goal on a yearly basis.                                                                                                                     

When I first became a Runkeeper user I was content with having my activities available on the Runkeeper website only.  Once I started running regularly and started to talk with other runners I was eventually asked if my activities were available at any location online.  In my mind I thought for sure that Runkeeper would have a simple RSS feed of my activities.  I had never looked for a feed before because I was posting the activities and did not feel a need to track them.  I was shocked to find that there was no RSS feed and that since the beginning runners had been asking for this feature.  There is no easier way to share activities with other runners than giving them an RSS feed of your activities.  

I looked around to see if anyone else had already written something to build an RSS feed.  While I found a couple folks had tinkered with it, they were either not doing enough or too much.  So I decided to write a PHP script that would scrape the Runkeeper activities and build an RSS feed with a fairly barebones PHP installation.  I am using PHP 5.3, but I suspect this would work with some other versions of PHP as well.  The feed that my script builds is here : http://scott.buffington.me/runkeeper.xml

Because we are scraping the Runkeeper site, I highly recommend you either manually execute this script and redirect it to a file after an activiity is posted or do what I did and setup a cronjob to call the script.  I have mine execute twice a day after times I commonly run.  Be respectful to the Runkeeper website, if not, you may get your script blocked.  There are only three variables that you need to set at the top of the script, those being your Runkeeper user ID, your email address and your name.  Otherwise this should work for anyone that has made their activities public.  This script out of the box will grab your last 12 activities, scrape the json file associated with each of the activities and build an informative RSS feed with a direct link to each activity.  I could have included more, there is a lot of info in each of the json files associated with each activity, but I thought what I included was just enough for an RSS feed.

Note: Running this script from the command line and redirecting the output to an XML file is the intended use of this script.  If you run it from the browser, it will return to the browser after it scrapes Runkeeper.  This is slow and optimally not how this script was intended to be used.  For testing purposes, running in a browser is fine.

Download : runkeeper.php

My favorite quote - "UNIX is very simple, it just needs a genius to understand its simplicity." -- Dennis Ritchie.

We are approaching the last quarter of the year and some may be wondering or perhaps forgotten about my programming commitment goal. Back in February I blogged about wanting to spend some time this year trying out some different programming languages hoping to explore their strengths and how I might use what I learn from them to do interesting things in my chosen programming languages. For anyone coming into this topic new, I am not a professional programmer, but a hobbyist. While I have not abandoned this goal, there is a reason why I have not gotten very far nor posted any updates until now.

The language I tackled first was Ruby, and while I actually thought Ruby might possibly replace my interest in Python, I quickly discovered why that would not happen now and will likely not ever happen. I have tinkered with Python from a very high level for a number of years for my non-web related programming. As mentioned before, I am pretty happy with PHP for my web programming needs. Python is a language I have started to use for little command line tools and toys and if I were going to explore Ruby deeply it was going to have to scratch that same itch. The problem I ran into is that when trying to learn how to program specific things with Ruby, a large percentage of the content on the web is for Ruby on Rails. I have no interest in in developing anything on the web with Ruby, so that framework was pointless to me. I did explore Ruby for roughly a month, and played around with it, but in the end it just made me want to dive deeper into Python.

So I ended up enrolling in a Python class through the O'Reilly School of Technology. While the class was not out of this world, it did get me thinking more like a Python programmer than I did prior to the course. Before and after the course I have been tinkering with a Python project used for file sharing with a friend (Scott Wood) and continued toying around with some of my own projects. Within the next month we will probably be doing more with our file sharing project, named Gremlin, and perhaps working on some other Python related projects.

Since I have not abandoned my goal of trying out some other programming languages, I have the last quarter of the year to hopefully check out at least two more languages that I have not experimented with before. The two languages I am considering are Haskell and Erlang, neither of which I have ever experimented with. I chose these two because I stumbled across both when initially thinking of trying this experiment. I have not started to seriously look at either language and I am not married to the idea of exploring these two specifically. If by chance anyone reading this has some other language suggestions I would love to hear your thoughts as to why I should explore another language.

Yesterday the day finally arrived for me to run my first official 5k and I successfully achieved my goal of not only finishing (I knew I would finish), but to run the entire race(no walking breaks). Here is the GPS proof of my accomplishment -Race for Grace 5k. Now you might notice a nice straight green path, I ran the red path. It turns out that due to last weeks flooding they had to change the course. I drove the original course a few weeks ago and it did not seem too hilly, the new race path was very hilly. My running partners and other runners agreed that it was a hilly event.

While I would consider supporting the Race for Grace event again, the course was not clearly marked at all and thankfully we were able to follow other packs of runners along the race route. The race was a small event, I would estimate that there was maybe 80 runners/walkers. Because it was my first 5k, I am kind of hoping it is an annual event and I can run again in years to come. I found out upon checking in that this was only the second time the event was run and the last time was two years ago.

The weather was almost perfect, upper 60's, no humidity, sunny and windy. I could have done without some of the wind, but in reality it kept me nice and dry during the entire run. I did notice how accustomed I am to running at night, the Sun felt a little brutal when I ran in full sunlight. I found myself seeking out the shade from trees along the race route.

Running with someone was a nice change and my friend Thom is a veteran of a few 5k events. He assured I did not start off too fast, which was something I was worried about doing. We both setup camp at the very back of the field prior to the start. Unfortunately this meant we had to dodge a few walkers at the start, but I do not think this slowed me down at all. I felt like running at a faster pace to start the race, but I made sure I stayed along side Thom and we trudged along as most of the 1st mile was uphill. I felt good and was able to talk the entire run, although around the 2 mile mark I had about had enough of running up and down hills. It felt like we ran uphill a lot more than we ran downhill, but obviously since we went in a circle we went down hill as much as we went uphill.

A friend of mine had suggested starting at the very back of the field to start the race and I found this worked perfectly for us. We passed a lot of runners that started out faster than us, some eventually ran slower and we reeled them in. But there were a lot of runners that we caught late in the race who started out too fast and could not will themselves to run the entire 3 miles. Not a single person passed us the entire race. I look at it this way, if I had walked any of the 5k I could not honestly say I ran a 5k. This might not bother some people, but when I ran the Harrisburg mile in 2008 and I ran the first quarter mile in 1:36, I walked at least a quarter mile if not more of the event and finished in 9:44. I felt like I had failed, because I did not run the entire event. That might not have bothered some people, but it bothered me and I wanted to make sure I ran every inch of this 5k.

I finished in roughly 35:42, passing two more runners in the final sprint to the finish. This was not a blazing time, but it was about what I expected and best of all, I ran every inch of the 5 kilometers and a little more. It is like I finally got a monkey off my back and I cannot wait to run another event. I am hoping I can manage to schedule at least a couple more events before the end of the year. Yes, I can finally call myself a runner.

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  Your web privacy, In your hands tagged as: privacy, personal_data
• HOW TO: Remove yourself from the background check site BeenVerified.com : technology:
  Excellent resource for removing yourself from various people finder and background check websites. tagged as: privacy, personal_data

• 5K Obstacle Course Zombie Race - Run For Your Lives:
  I am considering running this event in late October, but have not committed yet. But the idea is so much fun I had to share it. tagged as: running, 5k, obstacle_course, zombies, race
• Race For Grace 5K Hummelstown, PA 5K Running Race | RunKeeper:
  This will be my first official 5k. tagged as: running, 5k, race

Today is System Administrator Appreciation Day, celebrated annually on the last Friday of July. A lot of you that read this blog are sysadmins like myself or you qualify as being recognized for your work on keeping the computer systems at your place of employment running smoothly. To each of you, Happy System Administrator Appreciation Day! Here is hoping that today finds you drinking a free quality coffee, feasting on free goodies or better yet, a free lunch with a craft beer for the road.

The first few years I had a website I would redesign my websites all the time and I really had some hideous designs in the early days. But I also had a few I really liked too. The last time I redesigned I believe was when I moved to my current domain name, so it has probably been three years or more since I made a major web design change to this website. Most people are using Wordpress or another piece of blogging software where they can just move to a new theme. While I do have my homegrown solution written in a way where I can mostly drop it in, it requires a little more work to get everything just right with a new HTML design. In other words I do not have it coded in a way where it uses themes.

So what spurred this change? I am beginning to play around with HTML5, so if you are viewing this design in a browser that is not capable of displaying HTML5, it might not look quite right. Although I am sure it is readable, you might be missing some of the little touches. I do not have everything HTML5 compliant, I just wanted to start to move that direction. Overall I really liked my old design, but I felt it was time for a change. I hope for those that visit, the new design is pleasing.

Beginning in April I began doing something that I have tried a few times before only to meet failure. I started running again. If memory serves it was 2004 when I first decided I wanted to be a runner and again in 2008 where I almost succeeded, but grew frustrated. I half heartedly tried again in 2009 and 2010 but each time I encountered the same issue that has plagued me since I reached age 30, an issue I thought might be shin splints. I now think I just have conditioning issues with my lower legs. Each time I haved tried running distances since 2004 the muscle structure in the front of my lower legs (Tibialis?) became so engorged with blood that the pain was too much to continue running. I am talking to the point of pulling so hard on the knee I was forced to limp. I managed to work through it enough in 2008 to run the Harrisburg Mile, but my time was horrible due to the lower leg issues and running the first quarter mile much too fast. I knew I could do much, much better than my 2008 effort. What I needed was a better plan.

Over the years I read about the Couch to 5k plan,but I was not sure if I wanted to bother timing how long I walked and ran. I just wanted to run, like I did in my 20s. I once went on a 10 mile run with a friend at the drop of a hat, never having run that far before. I do not know how I did it.

Late last October I looked at the Couch to 5k plan again and looked for iPhone applications in the app store. I have used Runkeeper for my running, walking and bicycling and I love that application. Sure enough, I found several applications and decided to try one called, Get Running. Get Running does all the timing for you and comes with a pleasant British accented female voice to queue you when to run, walk and when reaching various points in the program. So I used Get Running and Runkeeper together, thank you background applications, to track my running and to allow me to easily try the C25k training program. I tried initially in November and I liked the app but lower leg discomfort combined with cold weather does not make for the greatest motivators. I decided to commit to a weight training program, another difficult task since I lost my training partner in 2006, and revisit Couch to 5k in the Spring.

In April I decided I was going to do it, and I was going to work until I got past the conditioning issues with my lower legs. By week four I had a failed a run and took a few days off and rolled the application back a couple weeks, I was not giving up. I seemed to be noticing an improvement, the muscle tightening issue disappeared completely from my right leg and I now only noticed it with my left leg. Even with my left leg the pain was taking longer to show up and recovery happens quickly after I stop running. Was I finally going to be able to run like I could in my 20s?

I wanted to write a blog post so many times over the past few months talking about running, but I did not want to have to face failure again, and certainly not stare at it on the front of my blog. I still go back to my Harrisburg Mile post with disappointment. So I waited. I finished week 5 and ran for 20 minutes straight, I thought I was finally a runner. Week 6 started and each run felt harder than the week before, oh no, the dreaded lower leg tightness was going to defeat me again. I made it through run number 1 and number 2 of week 6 and decided to give myself a few days off. I wanted to take 2 or 3 days off but ended up taking 4 days as I was unable to find time to run due to family commitments. I like to run late evening, I am not a morning person and I have always felt that my body is warmed up better by late day. Last Fall I did morning runs and I felt rushed to start them at 5am and I hated it.

The day arrived (yesterday) that I could try the week 6 day number 3 run. The task ahead of me was 25 minutes of running. I have not run for 25 minutes straight since I was 27 years old, I am 40 years old now. I decided I would go for a morning walk just to warm myself up for the evening run, so I managed a mile and a half walk over lunch and felt ready for the evening run. I admit I was a little nervous, I knew I was going to experience some leg tightness and just hoped it was not extreme. Though mentally I had powered through some difficult runs throughout the program, it is difficult to face muscle pain every single run. Keep in mind, the muscle pain has caused me to limp or stop running in fear that I was going to cause injury in previous years attempts.

So I started my run on a slightly humid evening and the first 5 to 10 minutes of running felt great! I am finally also noticing more of a cardiovascular workout more so than on any of my previous running attempts in the last 10 years. I was not failing running because of cardio conditioning, it was muscle conditioning related, and finally I was having to monitor breathing a little more. At the 15 minute mark my legs were tightening a little more, as usual mostly the lower left leg and as I neared 20 minutes I noticed the tightness was pulling on the outside of my left knee. Oh no, I experienced this last Fall when first trying this program and it hurt. I tried to push off a little more on my strides to force the calf muscle to stretch a little more and this worked for me. The tightness and pain became no worse and actually seemed to subside somewhat. At 25 minutes I knew I could have easily run another 5 minutes, but after a few extra seconds of running for good measure I stopped and walked. In no time at all the muscles recovered and I could actually walk at a good pace. I think I might finally be a runner, maybe?

I have three more weeks of the program to go and I am looking at probably August for a 5k, barring no injuries. July I have too much going on and my vacation week for the third year in a row falls during the Harrisburg Mile. I definitely want to run a mile again, just to beat the embarrassingly poor time I put up back in 2008. I am focused on a 5k before the end of Summer, a hopefully somewhat flat 5k. I am not quite at the distance I need for a 5k but my current training route is down an incline and back up an incline. I might try to schedule one of my upcoming runs at the local high school track to see how I do on a flat service. My lower legs would probably also thank me for giving them a break from the road running. I am positive I have lost fat, based on the mirror and my belt, since starting the program, but I cannot tell you how much because we do not own a scale. I know I was probably near or at 200 pounds back in April, I have a solid build, having weight lifted all my life, but but at 5'8" that is 20-30 pounds overweight.

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• Brutal Deluxe Forum:
  Yeah I am messing with forum software again. This is a new idea in forums, at least new to my knowledge. I have been using forum software for well over 10 years, installing it, moderating it and hacking it. So frustrated with it, I have often thought about writing my own, the creator of this forum software did it and did it the way I imagined. Simple with no fluff and focusing on the conversation. Love it! tagged as: forum, forums

• TRENCHED by Double Fine:
  Coming to the Xbox download arcade on June 22nd, 2011. A coop mechwarrior tower defense hybrid. tagged as: games, mech, shooter, tower_defense.

• Double Jack Imperial IPA from Firestone Walker Brewing Company - BreweryDB.com:
  Double Jack IPA is a Imperial IPA that features a big malty middle to cloak the high alcohol and mouth puckering hop bitterness. Huge tangerine, grapefruit and juicy fruit aroma blossom over the herbal blue basil and malt earthiness of this aggressive beer. Best enjoyed in moderation. tagged as: imperial_ipa, craft_beer, beer, california
• Just Outstanding IPA from Kern River Brewing Company - BreweryDB.com:
  This India Pale Ale has a strong malt character and a large hop profile. dry hopped with Simcoe and Amarillo hops to give it that great floral aroma and citrus finish. If you like a strong IPA, you'll find this one just outstanding. tagged as: ipa, beer, craft_beer, california
• Pliny the Elder from Russian River Brewing Company - BreweryDB.com:
  Pours stunningly clear and brassy. Stunningly refined much like the clarity. Proudly flaunts a bold west coast IPA citrus and pine hop character floral and perfume-like, starts to fill the room upon pouring. Notes of tropical fruit and grapefruit rind surface over a steady pine backing. Malt character is sweet bread like and just enough to push back the waves of pine and grapefruit hops as they cascade through the drink. Some of the hop flavor reserved in place of bitterness which flows in seemlessly towards the end of the drink and lingers in the aftertaste, smooth and drying. Flavors don't seem too bold or overwhelming but it isn't hard to appreciate how well all aspects of the drink are integrated. A fine tuned machine of a beer.Good body and carbonation to keep the beer lively and balanced. Very smooth, alcohol hidden well but leaks out on the finish. Truly the standard of which DIPAs are compared, while others may exceed this at certain features Pliny is well rounded at all corners and will always be in the discussion of top beers. tagged as: imperial_ipa, beer, craft_beer, california
• Island Pale Ale (IPA) from Coronado Brewing Company - BreweryDB.com:
  Our Islander IPA is a powerful West Coast IPA. This beer bites back with an intense hoppy zing and high alcohol content. The Islander IPA is dry hopped with tons of Centennial & Chinook hops and its fruity aroma will win your approval. tagged as: west_coast_ipa, california, beer, craft_beer
• Hop Head Red Ale from Green Flash Brewing Company - BreweryDB.com:
  Resinous hop character and bitterness balance the rich carmel malt base. We took it a step further and Amarillo dry-hopped the brew to 45 ibu's, creating refreshing and savory hop flavors and aromas. Is it red IPA? That's your call. tagged as: ipa, beer, craft_beer, california
• West Coast IPA from Green Flash Brewing Company - BreweryDB.com:
  This West Coast-Style India Pale Ale is extravagantly hopped, full flavored, medium bodied and copper colored. A menagerie of hops is combined throughout the brewing process to impart specific characteristics. Hops used include Simcoe for a unique fruitiness and grapefruit zest, Columbus for strong hop pungency, Centennial for pine and citrus notes, and Cascade for floral aroma. tagged as: west_coast_ipa, beer, craft_beer, california
• Mongo Double IPA from Port Brewing Company - BreweryDB.com:
  Like most double IPA-style beers, the taste of hops that linger for days is at work in this beer. The hops weave in and out of what little malt you can taste. C tagged as: double_ipa, california, craft_beer, beer
• Le Freak from Green Flash Brewing Company - BreweryDB.com:
  This Belgian Style IPA is an "out of the box" convergence of beer styles where American Imperial IPA meets Belgian Trippel. The end result is a zesty brew with enticing American hop and Belgian yeast aromatics that lead you to delicious malts and a complex layering of hop flavors that quench and refresh your pallet. tagged as: ipa, craft_beer, california, belgian, beer

Update: Alex tells me if I understand him correctly that it appears that Google's Music Beta seems to attempt to do gapless when cached, but does not quite pull it off.I tested playback on a gapless album and on the second play back it appears to be workingat least on the album I tested, there is a gap between tracks when played back by the Music Beta.I thought perhaps by selecting play album there might be some logic that detected the album was gapless but the tracks had the same several second gap when moving to the next track. Google is doing some caching of each track just before the track plays and it seems that after it gets everything cached the Music Beta recognizes gapless tracks or at least the lack of a gap. Really awesome and would love to hear if others are seeing the same thing.

Also of note, if you have tracks that fail on the upload, but are supported tracks. Just select a different Music library under preferences and then select the iTunes player Music library again. This corrected the failures that I encountered.

Yesterday I received my Music Beta by Google invite and unlike Gmail there does not appear to be any type of feature that allows users to invite people they know. These invitations come directly from Google provided you applied for an invitation. Prior to receiving the invitation I had read very little in the way of reviews or features of the service, I did know that the initial free space allowed was greater than what Amazon Cloud was offering, though Google has not stated what the free allocation will be when they are out of beta. Google often leaves these things in beta for a very long time and I would be surprised if the free space is under 5GB.

To upload music to the Music Beta you need to have a Mac or Windows computer and you have to use Google's Music Manager. Having moved my music to iTunes a long time ago I am happy with the features of the Music Manager. The upload options on the Mac, which is all I have tested, is to select music from iTunes player, a music folder or other folders. I selected iTunes player and because I keep all my music on my Mac Mini Server I set the Music Manger to keep my iTunes library in sync with my Music Beta library.

It seems podcasts upload, but audio books do not. It looks as though all my audio books are on the ScanFailure.log, which I suspect might be due to DRM issues. The Music Manager notes that some file types, like Apple Lossless, are not supported. Otherwise my entire music collection and podcasts were synced to the Music Beta player.

Music you have rated on iTunes carries a thumbs up on the Music Beta player and play statistics carry up to the player as well. Although I have tested playing a track a few times in iTunes and the statistics do not appear to stay in sync following your initial upload. However, if you choose to have the Music Manager keep your library in sync, a purchased song or added song to your iTunes Library is automatically synced.

While you cannot upload music to the Music Beta from a Linux computer, you can use the Music Beta player just fine from a Linux computer. My Ubuntu Linux computers worked great as did the Google Cr-48 laptop. I had mixed results using the player from the Safari browser on the iPhone, yes Music Beta loads and you can access it on the iPhone. The controls are not as responsive as they should be and in my initial tests the player would sometimes stop playing music now and then after a couple songs. I also could not seem to scroll through track lists that were longer than where the player controls start at the bottom of the page. I realize Apple might give Google some grief with releasing an applicaton. Hopefully Google can either find a way to get an applicaton in the App Store or Google can improve the player within the iPhone's Safari browser.

Overall, so far I am thrilled with the Music Beta by Google. Nothing against Amazon, but I think because I have Gmail and Google documents in full use I would prefer to go with Google for keeping my Music collection in the cloud. What it probably will come down to for me is who gives me enough space to keep my entire collection online for the cheapest price with the features I need. The next piece of the puzzle will be to see what Apple does with their cloud music service. I have a much smaller music collections than some folks, so I think these services might not be a one size fits all. With three major players in the game, I think it will only benefit the users.

• CDC Blog - Preparedness 101: Zombie Apocalypse:
  The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention wrote an article about preparing for a zombie apocalypse on their blog. tagged as: cdc, zombies, preparedness
• Just Beans Roasting Co.:
  Julie has a friend who knows the guy who imports fresh beans and roasts them for Just Beans Roasting Co. Unfortunately there is no info on the website as of yet on how to get their coffee. Unfortunate for you the reader, I am drinking freshly roasted beans from Papua New Guinea and there are no words to describe how good this coffee is. This is our second time enjoying coffee from Just Beans Roasting Company and the roast is pure perfection. tagged as: coffee, fresh_roasted

I have reached a blogging milestone that I think it is fair to say not many reach. I have been blogging for 10 years. I wrote a nice post back in January recapping the past 10 years. Rather than rehash that entire post I would encourage anyone interested to go read that post, where I wax poetically about the past decade. Instead I would like to focus on just the blogging aspect of this milestone.

There have been many statistics about how most blogs are never updated after the first post or so, it is actually very unusual for the majority of blogs to make it past 1 year. I would gather that the number of blogs created daily has fallen drastically with the popularity of Twitter and Facebook filling the niche for many. I have many of the posts I wrote over the past 10 years in the archives, but not all. This domain, scott.buffington.me, has only been my blogging home for the past few years. Prior to that I blogged many years from nitevilla.net as well as some other random domains. While nitevilla.net still exists, as a place to test code, the posts that originally resided there either reside here or they are gone. Over the years I have decided to remove some posts, for example, I once participated in something called a Blogathon where I posted a blog post once every half hour for 24 hours. I removed all those posts and many others that I felt offered little in the way of content.I could argue that I have been blogging longer than 10 years, I have been posting topics to the web on personal websites dating back to the mid 1990s, but prior to owning my own domains those posts were on sites like Geocities and those web pages are long gone.

Probably the most unique thing about my blog is not only have I managed to keep posting over the past 10 years, though not as much in recent years, but also that I still use a homegrown blogging solution. Those with the technical know how usually give up on the homegrown solution and migrate to Wordpress or one of the many other blogging platforms. I am proud that I have continued to support my own solution and have at this point made the decision that I will continue using my own solution until the web changes in some way where it would not be possible.

Now the hard numbers, this is my 653rd entry appearing on this domain. That is an average of 0.17 entries per day or one blog post every 5.5 days. As of this post, there are 1,171 comments appearing on this blog. My homegrown blogging solutions has blocked 69,765 spam comments, since I began keeping count. I would be remiss if I did not mention that I had a forum on nitevilla.net that I maintained for six or seven years before it became stagnant. During the early years of nitevilla.net, the forums were decently active with probably 20 or 30 visitors posting regularly. My blog actually lost quite a few regular readers when I shutdown the forum. I wanted to start focusing items I would often post to the forum instead to my blog. In hindsight i am not sure that decision had the effect I had hoped it would. Then again, it might be the other social changes that have occurred on the web that have limited blog interactions.

Shared bookmarks for taglr.us user Scott Buffington.

• Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal Slow Wireless Connection:

lspci |grep Wireless
If you have Atheros and a slow connection, try the following from the Terminal.

sudo -s echo "options ath9k nohwcrypt=1" > /etc/modprobe.d/ath9k.conf
reboot

If this does not resolve the issue, just remove the line from the file. tagged as: ubuntu, natty_narwhal, 11.04, slow_wireless, wireless

• Buf(Buffered)bz(buzz) - URL Shortening Service:
  My preferred url shortener. tagged as: url_shortener, url, shortener, privacy

Recently a news article appeared regarding ZFS on Mac again, but this time rather than from Apple it was from startup Ten's Complement. This post is not about the work Ten's Complement is doing, but if you are curious you can read the article here. What caught my eye in the article was the kernel level project, MacZFS, which is the continued work on the open source code that was available from Apple before they shut their project down due to Sun's CDDL open source license.

When Apple dropped ZFS I no longer closely followed news on ZFS as it no longer fit my home setup, which has a Mac Mini Server at it's core. I briefly had an OpenSolaris server installed with ZFS, but the hardware was an old Dell desktop and when Oracle acquired Sun I lost confidence in OpenSolaris. With two of my primary computers being Macs I was content with sharing an external drive across my network for TimeMachine backups and rsync backups from my Linux computers. But now after learning more about the MacZFS project, I seriously considered making my backup solution a little more robust with a ZFS pool of disks. I was nearing capacity on my TimeMachine disk and decided that now was the time to risk a small investment in some hardware and explore ZFS again.

My goal was to purchase hardware that I could repurpose if my ZFS experiment failed. External multi-bay enclosure disk vaults did not fit my needs because these devices seem to always want to do RAID for you. There does not seem to be a home solution that is just a JBOD, at least I could not find a solution. It seems to me there is a market for this type of device. The reviews on all the disk vaults seemed mixed and locking you in to their proprietary RAID seemed like a big risk if something went wrong. Lots of horror stories exist about lost data on the proprietary RAID devices. I have been around tech long enough to know that a lot of bad reviews are from folks who did not know what they were doing. That being said, my goal was ZFS and for that I just needed connected raw disks.

Over the past two years I have been using a Thermaltake BlacX Docking Station with a Western Digital Green drive along with TimeMachine and rsync without a single problem. I leave the Thermaltake BlacX plugged in 24 hours a day and TimeMachine on all my Macs has worked wonderfully as well as rsync from my Linux computers. The Mac Mini Server has five USB connections and four of them were not being utilized as my Mac Mini is semi headless or I suppose in my case armless. I decided to purchase three of the Thermaltake BlacX USB 2.0 Docking Stations and three of the 2 TB Western Digital Green hard drives. The total cost was less than I would have paid for most, if not all of the vault enclosures alone, those vaults (Drobo for example) do not come with drives. I did not want to use standard USB external hard drives because from my experience these devices contain cheap hardware and are prone to failures. The Thermaltake BlacX and Western Digital drives have a proven record of reliability for me, and I knew I could repurpose this hardware if I ran into issues with ZFS over USB.

My only real concern was that my ZFS pool was going to be running over USB 2.0. I researched how well USB and ZFS work together and I found others that were running ZFS on the Mac quite successfully using USB attached hard drives, some folks using more questionable hardware than I was planning. Meaning that quite a few folks were using the standard USB external hard drives I was avoiding. Deciding to use ZFS on the Mac is something I would only recommend for folks who are system administrator types, mainly because there is some house cleaning you should do on a regular basis. I schedule daily snapshots taken of my filesystems and a weekly scrub of the ZFS pool to make sure everything is working correctly and is healthy and happy. For those wondering, the snapshots are sort of like TimeMachine with a lot less space overhead.

Some advantages to using ZFS are that the filesystem will assure files do not slowly degrade, something called bit rot. I have my entire ZFS pool using ZFS compression and some would argue that file access with ZFS compression turned on is faster than with compression turned off. So my music, video and photo library are kept on my ZFS pool and I run a daily rsync from each of my Linux and Mac computers to a backup filesystem I have on the ZFS pool. As mentioned earlier I have snapshots taken so that I could restore any files that might need restored to my ZFS pool.

Now you might be asking, what about TimeMachine? I opted not to use my ZFS pool as my TimeMachine backup, there are plenty of folks who do use ZFS with TimeMachine. I am still running TimeMachine backups to my old TimeMachine location (the 1 TB hard drive in the picture above) and consider TimeMachine as another level of backup protection. I have setup TimeMachine for non-Apple filesystems before and you can find another post on this blog about my use of FreeNAS and TimeMachine. TimeMachine is awesome, but finding files inside a TimeMachine bundle after a machine has been retired can be time consuming. I can access multiple versions of all my files on all my machines easily directly from my ZFS pool.

As far as the steps I used to setup the ZFS pool, I followed the getting started entry on the wiki at the MacZFS website step by step and I think I would be doing a disservice to others by not pointing you to those instructions. I have had my ZFS pool online for a month and I have not encountered any issues, my ZFS pool is available at boot and has had no errors or performance issues. I am actually quite happy with the file access speeds despite being USB 2.0 connected. I have read numerous posts on the MacZFS list asking why a ZFS pool is not available at boot. The reason is that the person asking did not follow the instructions over at the MacZFS wiki. The only additional items I would add that were not on the wiki is researching ZFS compression, snapshots and scrubbing. My three 2 TB drives got me roughly 3.6 TBs of usable disk space using RAID-Z with ZFS. Using compression and having four computers completely backed up, along with my photo, video and music libraries still has me with over 3.2 TBs of available space.

I am hoping that in the future Apple has Mac Mini Servers with multiple Thunderbolt interfaces and the next ZFS pool I build is connected via Thunderbolt. I have plenty of space left on my existing ZFS pool and ZFS makes it easy to expand as well. So I have plenty of time to wait and see what Apple does in the next few years. In the mean time I finally have the ZFS pool that I have wanted since first discovering the amazing benefits of ZFS.

• Configuring Turnkey Linux (Ubuntu) Postfix to use Gmail SMTP:
  I spent way too much time looking for an answer for this. I compiled all right stuff into one post so next time I know where to look. tagged as: ubuntu, linux, turnkey, postfix, gmail, smtp, howto
• Gaiam Balance Ball Chair:
  I am giving this a shot to replace my broken office chair. tagged as: chair, balance_ball

Earlier this week I decided to upgrade my virtual web server to the latest version of TurnKey Linux, which is based on Ubuntu 10.04.01 with long term support until April 2015. Why not just do my own minimal install of Ubuntu Server? Well, Turnkey Linux has an awesome tklbam-backup that made migrating from my old install of TurnKey Linux to the new one almost painless. Once migrated to my new virtual server I discovered a few other things, cookies have been broken with my CMS for probably a very long time and I had no 404 pages setup. It is amazing what you discover does not work properly when you dig into an old website, even if you do not change anything related to the site itself.

For anyone considering setting up a Ubuntu (Debian) based server for any length of time, you absolutely have to checkout TurnKey Linux. I started using TurnKey Linux in early 2009 and I have been very happy with my choice. That choice looked even better when they announced TKLBAM last year. In a nutshell, TKLBAM is an easy and powerful system level backup and restore that makes migrating from one server to another extremely easy. In literally a couple minutes I had my websites moved from my old TurnKeyLinux virtual server to my new TurnKey Linux virtual server. All my users were migrated, almost all my software that I had additionally installed was there, the exception being modpagespeed, which is updated from Google's repository, not a TurnKey or Ubuntu repository. I also had to move one admin directory that is non-standard and I use as a home for system administration scripts. There are settings within TKLBAM where I could have had the directory included and maybe even the extra software. The fact is, TKLBAM saved me hours of work and likely saved me troubleshooting small Apache settings that I would have forgotten about if not for such an amazing tool.

One item I wanted to look at after migrating was adding the ability for my CMS to do some sort of cache of pages requested and built using the various scripts and database lookups. While playing around with caching I had to make sure that cookies still worked okay and that is when I discovered cookies were not working before I ever started implementing any sort of cache. No one commenting ever mentioned that there did not appear to be cookies used on my blog and I myself never noticed it. Once upon a time before Twitter when there seemed to be more conversation on blogs there was a specific request that I add cookies and I did. As best I can tell, once I moved toward using PHP5 the extra settings available are apparently needed in order for cookies to work properly. I added a couple more settings to the cookie and like magic they were working again. For the record, my simple cache solution is working as well. Although unless something I write some day gets Slashdotted I might not ever be able to tell if it helps. Pages due indeed cache and additional requests are served as static html.

Interestingly I also looked at the way I was presenting pages not found, a not very well thought out method of redirecting anything not found to my main page which had bots returning to urls that did not exist. I decided instead to present this as it should be and register the page as a 404, not found. But I had to be a little smarter, due to my cache, if the page was requested again Apache was presenting a 404 to the user but was using the cache and returning a 200, which is a page found. This might not seem like a big deal, I mean a user would see the 404, but it would be bad to return to a bot that the page existed. So I made sure to not cache a url that returned a 404, so multiple requests continually return a 404 just as it should. By the way, do I get geek cred for my 404 page?

• ifconfig on the Internet:
  Easy way to find your external IP Address and when using curl it only returns your IP Address. Very cool. tagged as: ifconfig, hacks, ip_address

• Synergy - Free Software Only Keyboard and Mouse Sharing:
  Synergy is a free and open source software that allows you easily to share your mouse and keyboard between multiple computers, where each computer has it's own display. tagged as: freeware, open_source, software

• The Pragmatic Bookshelf - C is the Punk Rock Language:
  Fun and interesting read. tagged as: c
• Download details: SyncToy 2.1:
  A free tool from Microsoft to overcome Windows 7 Premiums lack of network backup functionality. tagged as: microsoft, windows7, freeware, software

• WeatherSpark | Interactive Weather Charts:
  Very cool weather site with loads of weather history. Added bonus, currently absolutely zero advertising. tagged as: weather, history, graphs, maps

I recently picked up a laptop that was an absolute steal. My primary need for the laptop was a portable computer I could put Linux on for programming and some microcontroller programming projects I have planned. As part of the deal the laptop came with Windows 7 64 bit Premium edition, there were no other options. I decided I could dual boot the laptop, using Linux to get work done and Windows 7 to play games and exercise my VB.NET programming knowledge. Everything went smoothly, until I decided to setup backups for the Windows side of the laptop. I had heard praises from those in the Microsoft community that the new Windows Backup feature was as great as TimeMachine is for the Mac and based off the constant commercials one would think Windows was all about using the network. Well, this all depends on whether you have the right version of Windows 7. Remember, I had no choice with the Windows 7 OS I received with the laptop, which was fine because gaming would be the primary use of Windows on the laptop.

Microsoft continues to distribute, not two, but three versions of Windows for home users and there is an additional enterprise version as well. That is four versions of Windows 7 and I might be missing some others meant for the business side of the house. Apparently the geniuses at Microsoft when deciding on naming conventions decided that Windows 7 Premium would be their crappy distribution, the distribution they would cripple, put on most machines and thus hopefully lure customers into buying multiple versions of their overpriced operating systems. You see, Windows 7 Premium edition has this aforementioned Windows Backup feature, but to use it you have to backup to a USB drive or burn a backup to a DVD (yes that is really an option and all you will see if you do not have other storage physically attached).

I have had a Mac Mini Server running OS X Snow Leopard Server for about two years and it has served me wonderfully, no matter if I were using one of my Linux machines, Macs and even OpenSolariscomputers. I have always been able to connect to the server and run backups to the server. OS X Snow Leopard Server has Samba to enable it to play nicely with Windows clients and sure enough I easily connected my Windows 7 Premium computer to the Samba share. I was able to read and write files just fine, but for some reason I did not see an option to backup to the shared drive when I opened Microsoft's powerful Windows Backup software. I just did not understand why I was not seeing any location except my DVD burner as a backup solution, that is until I looked at help, and I read this:

You can only save your backups on a network location on Windows 7 Professional, Ultimate and Enterprise.

There is absolutely no explanation that Microsoft can give why this is the case other than that they chose to cripple the feature in their operating system most commonly installed on new computers. I was able to map my Samba share to connect at each boot, so this is obviously not a shortcoming of Windows 7 Premium with connecting to network shares. This type of crap started with Windows XP and is why I happily left Microsoft in 2005 and have never looked back. This small taste of what running Windows is still like makes me happy that my home is filled with computers running other operating systems.

Imagine a family on a budget buys a new computer and a router capable of sharing a network drive out with the intent to backup their precious family photos only to find out that they need to shell out an additional $90 to upgrade to another operating system to use their network attached storage. You know with Microsoft constantly running their "to the cloud" commercials who would expect the operating system coming with their new computer not to do something as arbitrary as backup to a network share?

Rather than complain further I thought that I might instead offer a solution for others facing the same issue. At first I thought about writing a backup script but then found a free download from Microsoft that enables you to setup your own network backup on Windows 7 Premium edition. You can download SyncToy 2.1 from Microsoft that will give you the functionality that should have been built into Windows Backup software on all Microsoft's operating systems. Once you install the product, follow the instructions under the applications Help menu for setting up a Task Scheduler to automatically run any number of backups you want to setup within SyncToy. Hopefully this saves some of you the additional $90 Microsoft wants you to pay for enabling a feature that should be there out of the box. If you did not receive the operating system with your computer like I did, I would instead encourage you to use another operating system.

If you type about:flags in the omnibox and press Enter of your Chrome browser or on the Chrome OS on your CR-48 some experimental features are exposed to you that you can enable. Some seem to work now, others do not yet seem to be fully operational. The available experimental options are fewer on my CR-48, but there are some interesting features on both the browser and the operating system that are worth checking out.

• Canabalt (app) - Chrome Web Store:
  One of my simple favorite little games that I have on the iPhone is also in the Chrome Web Store. Hint: Really you can play this in any browser on any OS. tagged as: browser, games
• Red's Rye PA from Founders Brewing Company - BreweryDB.com:
  My favorite Rye beer. We home brewed a very good knock off of this a few years ago. Founders brews a few of my favorite beers. tagged as: craft_beer

• modpagespeed - Project Hosting on Google Code:
  Enabled Mod_Pagespeed on my Apache server. tagged as: opensource, apache, webserver, performance
• Hop Rod Rye from Bear Republic Brewery - BreweryDB.com:
  Essentially a strong American IPA made with 20% rye malt. Darker in color, Hop Rod Rye boasts a huge hop aroma and flavor accompanied by a slightly sweet, malty finish. tagged as: beer, craft_beer
• Sublime Text: The text editor you'll fall in love with:
  I am a life long Vi and Vim user. Toy with coding in lots of different programming languages. Considering trying something new. tagged as: editor, programming, software
• HTML5games.com | games powered by HTML5 and the Open Web Platform:
  tagged as: games, gaming, html5

This year I am committing myself to some of my previous projects as well as some new ones, both silly and serious. I have a goal of learning a handful of new programming languages over the course of the year in the hope that this will help me find creative solutions in my chosen programming languages. Over the last year I explored Google Go and to fulfill a University requirement I learned Visual Basic. Over the past month I have been revisiting and improving my own PHP code as well as exploring the PHP code powering SemanticScuttle, making minor tweaks to the registration logic to better combat bot spam registering and also making some enhancements to the API to meet our needs. The changes I have made are featured in the installation at Taglr, if you would like to help test the project please sign-up for an account. So while I have at least glanced at a few other programming languages over the years and I have been actively doing some programming, this is more about making a concerted effort at being a better programmer.

PHP has always been my preferred choice for web programming, and I have explored a whole host of other languages over the years using them to scratch whatever itch I needed at the time. I am hoping by pursuing this goal that I might find some other languages to use as tools for other scenarios I encounter in my profession and my hobbies. My hope is not to necessarily become proficient with these new programming languages but to explore their strengths and how I might use what I learn from them to do interesting things in my chosen programming language.

The first language I am going to tackle is Ruby. I played around with Ruby on Rails a few years ago, and even wrote a rough blogging tool, but that is where my exploration ended. What interests me most about Ruby is that it is a pure object-oriented language. What little I know about Ruby is that just about everything is an object. I have read that Ruby is syntactically similar to Python and Perl, both of which I have written small programs, but nothing of real substance. Python in the last year or so has been my language of choice if I felt I needed something more than a shell script. I cannot say whether Ruby will replace Python, but I hope learning Ruby will at least enhance my Python programming abilities.

I intend to spend a month or more with each programming language I choose, as someone who enjoys learning new things this activity will mostly be a journey of learning. If along this journey I find a niche for an acquired skill I might devote more time on a particular programming language or project. As a result I do not want to put a number, an order or necessarily choose the other languages at this point, although I do have quite a few ideas.

• PlayDeb.net Beta - Welcome:
  Site featuring Debian Games (Ubuntu/Debian) tagged as: ubuntu, debian, linux, games, gaming

• Skipfish, compiling on Ubuntu:
  A fully automated, active web application security reconnaissance tool. These are my compiling instructions. tagged as: weblog, technology, google, security, web, testing, tools
• iFixit: The free repair manual:
  Self repair website. tagged as: self_repair, fixit, repair_help, repair
• Google Chrome OS Cr-48 Keyboard Shortcuts:
  My list of Google Chrome OS Cr-48 keyboard shortcuts. tagged as: weblog, technology, chromeos, operating_system

Update: Anyone get the command line terminal VT2 to work? Wondering if that is for Cr-48 laptops switched to developer mode.

• Free Online Course Materials | OCW Scholar | MIT OpenCourseWare:
  OCW Scholar courses are designed for independent learners who have few additional resources available to them. The courses are substantially more complete than typical OCW courses and include new custom-created content as well as materials repurposed from MIT classrooms. The materials are are also arranged in logical sequences and include multimedia such as video and simulations. tagged as: education, resources, free, opencourseware, mit
• Unwinnable -Video Games and Geek Culture:
  I usually do not follow gaming websites, although I enjoy gaming. I am interested in everything Unwinnable writes about, but they write enough about retro-gaming and have turned me onto enough interesting cool new finds that they are a win read in my book. tagged as: gaming, games, geek, weblog
• Replace OpenOffice.org with LibreOffice in Ubuntu:
  tagged as: office, libreoffice, software
• SGI Notes:
  Some Random SGI notes in the event I ever attain my dream of having an SGI machine running IRIX. tagged as: sgi, irix, documentation
• Z-Type:
  Amazing html5 typing game. tagged as: gaming, games, html5, javascript
• A Mini-Course in Cryptography:
  This mini-course was taught in 2007 at Google. Some course material will be posted on this page. tagged as: cryptography, encryption, learning, education, crypto, security
• Computer Chronicles on the Internet Archives:
  Popular technology television series that broadcast for twenty years from 1983 - 2002. tagged as: tv, technology, archives, retro
• Penguspy - Just the Best Linux Games:
  tagged as: linux, games, gaming

Over the past weekend and last several evenings I have been working on some updates to my homegrown blogging software. I removed some of the parts and pieces that were hosted by services, like the post sharing Javascript that I think was supplied by AddThis. Instead I opted to build in sharing tools to the four services I use myself. I also removed the random photo from Flickr and just included a link to the social sharing services I participate on along the top right column. The aim was to remove externally hosted pieces while still providing links and services those tools provided. The most time consuming part was finally making my urls search engine friendly.

Posts from my website can now easily be shared on Google Buzz, Google Reader, Twitter and Taglr.us. Taglr.us is the service you likely have never heard of, unless you follow me on Google Buzz. Taglr.us is a social bookmarking service that myself and a friend are building and that I intend to continue to use and find more interesting uses for during my daily activities. Taglr.us is like Delicious, but with more tagging features, and I personally guarantee that it is not going to disappear anytime soon.

For quite sometime I have wanted to make my urls more search engine and user friendly. All old links will continue to function, just from here on out the urls will be easier to read from a user perspective as well as being shorter in length. I thought with my blogging history nearing 10 years that I should tidy some things up around here. I hope to incorporate some of these same changes on BrutalDeluxe.us in the coming months. If anyone notices any broken features, let me know in the comments or via the contact link.

Shared bookmarks for beta.taglr.us user Scott Buffington.

• Taglr: Social Bookmarking for the rest of us. tagged as: bookmarks
• Teambox - Collaboration Software: Collaboration software for Project Management tagged as: project_management, web_development, tools
• Mac OS X 10.6.6 Released (includes App Store): New release increases stability, compatibility and security. The long awaited App Store is now available with this release. tagged as: osx, os, appstore

Looking back over the past decade it occurred to me that this past decade was probably the most relevant decade of my life, both from a personal perspective and certainly from a blog perspective. While I could be jaded because this is the most recent decade of my life in memory and I am certain major events happened in my life prior to 2000 that shaped the person I am, the last decade seemed to have the most adult life changes. Looking back through the blog it would be obvious to most that I do not make New Year’s resolutions and I do not really post about the year that was. I did post and delete a resolution last year involving my career that did not come to fruition, but things are better with my career than they were a year ago. There are and have been many events in the last decade that makes this year a post worthy event.

Having been born in the year 1970, it might be obvious to you what two milestones I experienced in the past decade. I of course turned thirty in 2000 and forty in 2010. So how is age 40? Not bad so far, I am a little less fit but I do not feel any of that is due to age, more so a lack of time as a result of the other major events of the past decade. I really feel I educated myself more over the past decade than in any other decade of my life. A lot of this education was a result of my career, an IT career requires a continuing education if you want to excel at your profession. But I am also an adult learning geek. I am also fairly certain that I have read more novels, some being rereads, in the past decade than the prior decades of my life. To go along with reading more I wrote three novels myself over the last decade by way of NaNoWriMo having participated five times and completing three of the five challenges. Only one of those novels found it’s way to print format and that printed copy is a closely guarded secret. Also over the past decade I have been slowly pursuing a bachelor’s degree. Admittedly I could have probably attained that degree if not for my penchant for becoming engrossed in other interests and again distractions from the other major events of the past decade.

Those other major events of the past decade? Each of them are documented here on my blog, those being Jacob, Riley, Emma and Zoey. Each of these distractions have provided me a lot of enjoyment and a lot of tiring days and nights. Of course each of these distractions were a result of another major event of the past decade, meeting and eventually marrying my wife Julie.

The past decade was not entirely full of sunshine and fields of flowers, just like everyone there were down moments. But that is all I am going to say about that, I am aware the events happened, they were not fun to go through but I am not dwelling on any of them and each provided a life learning experience so hopefully I will not have to experience them again. If I do, I will get past them just like I did the last time, by taking a deep breath, taking account and moving on.

Twenty-eleven is sort of a big deal for my blog because mid-May marks the 10th anniversary of my blog. The blog was on another domain in 2001, not all, but most of all that I have blogged has found it’s way here and is readily accessible in the archives. I have blogged less over the last couple years, somewhat due to Twitter (which I am taking a New Year’s break from), but also because I have really tried to only write about things that are worthy of a lengthy write.

I really feel having a blog over the past decade was valuable in multiple ways. Blogging was a factor in why I feel I learned and grew so much over the past decade. Whether my writing was good, bad or great I wrote and based on the stats, I wrote about once a week. I met or conversed with interesting people from what I can truly say are from the far reaching corners of the world and some that were not that far. Some of them you can find in the links along the right side of the blog, but not all. These people were kind, thought provoking, witty and contributed to my interests and growth. A lot of these people I would have never gotten to know or build friendships with if not for blogging. On a side note I also started podcasting with Alex, who happens to be one of those people I met through blogging. Alex and I continue our fantasy football podcast from our league website on a weekly basis throughout the NFL season. Our fantasy football league will begin it’s 10th season in 2011.

So there you have it, a few of my many reasons why the past decade and the start of the current decade were so blog worthy. I hope the next decade is as fruitful to me as the past decade in new and exciting ways.

Check.

When I first began to dig into virtualization, other than z/VM and AIX virtualization, it was with VMware Server. Over the years I still toyed with VMware, particularly when the Windows guys need help getting around ESXi from the command line. But I had really moved to VirtualBox for a lot of my virtualization needs, which includes the hosting of this blog and my other websites. I am not very keen on Oracle however, especially their dismantling of OpenSolaris, so I decided to start using VMware again. My home server is a Mac Mini Server and I have always run a virtual machine that is the only piece open to the Internet. This meant that I needed to go with VMware Fusion, which is not free like VMware Server and VirtualBox.

While I want to move away from Oracle I did not want to drop a lot of money, especially since I was only using VMware Fusion for a Linux server. I beta tested VMware Fusion back when it was first released and I picked up the original VMware Fusion for a very reduced price, I no longer had it installed on my Macbook because I no longer had any use for any Windows programs. Thankfully VMware had an offer to pickup VMware Fusion 3 for $9.99 for past VMware purchasers. This was excellent news because the only computer I have powered on 24 hours a day is the Mac Mini Server, it is quiet and uses a lot less power than just about any other desktop. So if I am going to run a web server at home, it is going to be on this hardware.

The other issue I was having was that there was no way for me to import my VirtualBox VM, I tried several tools offered by VMware for OS X and I just kept getting errors. I am however using the excellent minimal Ubuntu Linux builds provided by the folks at Turnkey Linux. Better yet, they recently released a wonderful backup and migration tool called TKLBAM. I was able to backup my configuration, download a new VM from TurnKey Linux, start it in VMware Fusion and used TKLBAM to entirely restore my configuration. The only thing I had to do was copy over an administration directory that I always create for my root tools. All my websites were working right after the restore and have been running on the new VMware Fusion powered VM for the last 24 hours.

My next hurdle, worth mentioning because the specifics were not easy to find and most of the so called fixes were not what I was looking for, was running the VM headless and starting the VM at boot with no user intervention. My Mac Mini is a server and if it were to be rebooted I want all processes to restart along with the server. I was easily able to do this with VirtualBox and I had read some complaints that VMware Fusion 3 lost the method of starting a VM headless. I was able to modify my original script that executes at boot to execute the following command, which worked perfectly.

nohup /Library/Application\ Support/VMware\ Fusion/vmrun start /path/to/vmware/vmx_file/porter_ubuntu.vmx nogui

Overall I am perfectly happy with VMware Fusion and it is nice to know that if I someday have a need to integrate Windows onto my Macs I can do so nicely. After-all integrating the Windows desktop onto a Mac is where VMware Fusion really shines.

Whenever a baseball fan witnesses a no-hitter it is special. I recall seeing my fair share over the years and each time I recall thinking how the guy pitching will never forget this one. However, what most of us baseball fans have never seen is a post season no-hitter. A post season no-hitter is something that has only happened one other time before tonight, thrown by Don Larson in 1956, I was not even born yet, not even close. There is something about following a particular team throughout your life and then witnessing special moments in sports history. Tonight I watched Roy Halladay pitch a no-hitter against statistically the best hitting team in the National League this season.

Even if the Phillies do not win the World Series this season, even if they would lose this series, there is something special about watching sports history and a moment in sports history that you may not ever see again. If baseball statistics have taught us anything, it is that no-hitters in the post season are extremely rare. Chances are, the next time anyone will see a pitcher toss another post-season no-hitter will be in just over 50 years. Tonights no-hitter was not only special to Phillies fan, but this was an epic moment in baseball history and I watched it live.

As I sat by myself watching the game my phone rang with two out to go, I thought perhaps it was one of my friends who were also Phillies fans. I did not recognize the number but I answered the call. Turns out it was Scott's Lawn Service asking if I would like their lawn treatment. I kindly explained to the caller that I could not speak right now because I was watching Roy Halladay throw a no-hitter in the first game of the playoff series. The caller responded that he understood and we each hung up not saying another word. I sat and watched as Roy Halladay dazzled the remaining Cincinnati Reds, none of them getting close to getting a solid hit. I leaned forward in my chair as catcher Carlos Ruiz scrambled forward to field a tapper off the bat of Brandon Phillips, Ruiz fielded the ball perfectly and made a solid throw around the base runner for the final out.

Yes this was an exciting moment for me as a Phillies fan, but it was also really special for me as a baseball fan to have seen a feat that had only been accomplished once before. Congratulations to "Doc" Halladay and thanks for the memories.

I attended a Rush concert at the Allentown Fair on Tuesday, August 31st, 2010. TicketMaster asked our ticket purchaser for a review. Here’s what he entered. All of us will be surprised if it is approved:

[1 of 5 stars given]

This review isn’t about the show; at least, what I saw of it. Rush always rocks and they’re my favorite band. However, this is the first Rush show in 20 years of seeing them where I didn’t have a view of Neil Peart. Unless you count the times they showed him on the video screen. When I purchased tickets to this show, I got third row in section A, which was the reserved-seating ground section furthest to the right. The seating chart didn’t show the stage, so I went ahead on faith that TicketMaster was indeed giving me the best seats available. They didn’t. We arrived at the venue and were amazed to find that our seats were nowhere near the stage. We were at least 30 yards away from stage left’s edge and were at such a bad angle we could just see Geddy and Alex. Neil’s drumkit and the video screen behind him were completely blocked from our view. From my point of view, the Allentown Fair and TicketMaster conspired to rip me off. Everyone around me felt the same way. It was shameful to charge us the highest ticket price for seats that were worse than the general admission grandstand. I won’t be coming back to this venue and I’m going to recommend against patronizing the Allentown Fair.

All three of us attending the show and all those around us were so disappointed when we were seated. We had attended a show just two years ago at Hershey and our third row seats were right in front of Geddy Lee. The seating we paid for Allentown Fair and the position of said seating would not have been appropriate for any show. But for Rush it was a particular crime and I hope Rush never plays there again. We could not even see Neil Peart, I saw a drum stick fly in the air occasionally. Anyone that has a clue who Rush is knows that Neil is a vital part of seeing Rush, and not being able to see the stage props was also disappointing. We could not see the time machine, nor the screen behind Neil, obviously since we could not see Neil. I was so upset I felt like complaining to the ushers, but realized there was no point. What was particularly disappointing is we paid the same price as those center stage and general admission had a better seat than we did. We were flat out ripped off. Here is a picture of our view.

I could say more, but I think I’ve made my point. Don’t patronize the Allentown Fair. They are ripoff artists just like TicketMaster. Rush, please don’t play there ever again.

I have been mildly interested in Google Go since Google announced the release of the programming language. I toyed some with Go but had not dove in head first. This week I decided that I might like to learn Google Go so one of the first exercises is the Fibonacci Number Sequence. This was not an experiment in using the least amount of code and this may not be the most elegant way to achieve this result in Go, but it works.

package main

import fmt "fmt"

func fiboNacci(n int) (seq int) {

seq = n

if n < 2 {

return seq

}

seq = fiboNacci(seq-1) + fiboNacci(seq-2)

return seq

}

func main() {

for i := 0; i < 15; i++ {

result := fiboNacci(i)

fmt.Printf("%d",result)

fmt.Printf("\n")

}

}

Today is System Administrator Appreciation Day, celebrated annually on the last Friday of July. A lot of you that read this blog are sysadmins like myself or you qualify as being recognized for your work on keeping the computer systems at your place of employment running smoothly. To each of you, Happy System Administrator Appreciation Day! Here is hoping that today finds you drinking a free quality coffee, feasting on free donuts or better yet, a free lunch with a craft beer for the road.

I do not get serious about baseball cards, mainly because they are a terrible investment. The cards I have and display with care are for nostalgia and conversation pieces. The only cards I have that I care about are Jacob's little league cards, my Billy Ripken error card and my Derek Jeter joke card. Otherwise I have a few boxes full of cards for nostalgia sake. This season when we went to see the Harrisburg Senators we picked up a couple decks of this years Senators team so that Jake could get to know some of the players. For those that did not know it, Stephen Strasburg started with the double A Senators this Spring, so I was not too surprised to find a Stephen Strasburg card in the pack of cards.

Most likely this card will never be worth anything, though I did see it on Ebay today with bids for $25. This would likely be the time to sell it if I cared about such things. Instead I will add it to the other cards I have as conversation pieces and if Strasburg ends up putting up a great career it might be an even better conversation piece. I probably would not have paid much attention to the card except for all the excitement about his Topps rookie card going for big money a few weeks ago. When I saw the card I told Jacob we will put this one to the side and take good care of it.

There might not be much interest in the card now, but if Strasburg puts together a great career I have to think this Harrisburg Senator card would be slightly more rare than the Topps card. At least for the moment, we have an interesting conversation piece to add to our collection.

And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.

For a number of years I have been interested in getting a mountain bike, I had some road bikes that I road alone back in the 1990's, actually one that was really good and really fast. I sold those aforementioned road bikes because they were strictly for the road and I did not like riding with cars so much. I also wanted the option of using the bike comfortably as a commuter bike if I chose, riding with the kids and I wanted to be able to at least try some light trail riding if I chose. Overall the mountain bike format just fits my wants better than a road bike ever did. After looking at prices I was amazed at how much you could get for your money now, these bikes were a lot more expensive 15 years ago. I am not sure when the prices fell, but it suffices to say that the price is much more reasonable now. The quality of the bikes just feels much better also, the bikes seem to me to be higher quality with a reduced price tag.

Reading reviews and looking at price factors I had decided that I was likely going to get a Trek 3900 Hardtail Mountain Bike, that is until I went to the actual bike shop and found that the prices were far lower than those listed on the Internet. It turned out that I could not find a Trek 3900 in the local bike shops, but after checking the prices on the very cool looking Trek 4300 I found that it was well within my price range and below what I had set aside to spend on the Trek 3900. In Gear Cycling & Fitness in Hummelstown, PA were friendly, helpful and threw in discounts on accessories including dropping an additional $30 off the price that was listed on the bicycle. I tested the bike out, made a beginners mistake in shifting gears and they, including a helpful customer, showed me what I did wrong and why the chain popped from the gears. The Shimano shifters are far different than what I had on my street bikes and very functional and comfortable to use.

Other than the ride outside the shop I have only taken it for a short spin around the culdesac after putting the front tire back on following transporting the bike home. This evening I will take it for a longer ride and maybe before the week is out I can see if my father-in-law wants to take me to some of his Rails to Trails hangouts. I am also looking forward to taking the bike with us to Kitty Hawk, NC and doing a lot more riding this year. Last year we rented bicycles and loved it, but those were beach cruisers and with only one gear we were limited on our riding.

Recently I was looking back over posts from years past and stumbled upon the results of my Internet connection speed test from Speedtest.net. Not that I have not used Speedtest.net since that post back in 2006, I have used it a few times every year since discovering the tool. What I did not realize I had, was a history of results dating back that far.

I found this history interesting so that I could see what, if any progress has been made since 2006. The results I am displaying here look pretty good, nearly 40MB download and and a nearly 2MB increase in upload speed. Before anyone gets too excited, this was the best result out of several that I ran. Mostly my download speed finished below the 2006 result. Although in Comcast's (or is it Xfinity) defense I noticed each test initially spiked over 30MB download speeds at the start, probably the speed burst they advertised heavily a while back. I noticed every test initially spiked at the start and then fell to a steady speed sometimes around the 2006 result and other times just below it. The upload was consistently and always greater than 2MB. As someone who hosts their own domain from their home I would actually like to see more of an increase on that upload speed, but to be honest my website has been stable and fast loading over the few years I have hosted from my home server.

It is worth noting that the 2006 result was run from my existing home with my existing cable modem. Also worth noting is that I ran the test to a Speedtest.net server out of Frederick, MD rather than Washington DC. I did however run some tests to the Washington DC location as well and experienced the same results, I just so happened to have the best overall result from the Frederick, MD server. The ping latency was always in the 20ms range, where in 2006 it appeared to be much higher.

It will be interesting to try and remember to continue testing this in the years to come to get an idea if we are continually getting faster download and upload performance or perhaps slower performance.

I remedied the issue with slow backups on the iPhone 3G a while back. It seems if you leave pictures on your iPhone and build up a library your backup during synchronization would begin to run really slow. In addition I have an application, iCamcorder that allows me to do video on my iPhone 3G. The not very well documented fix for speeding up the backup was always to migrate the photos and video to your computer and delete it from the iPhone. While building up a fresh collection of photos I mostly closed the backup procedure during synchronization with iTunes. The upgrade to iOS 4 requires a backup that if you cancel out of will cancel your upgrade. Before upgrading I first waited a few days, I usually always do this so the kinks are worked out, I then research the issues people are having. Surprisingly a lot of iPhone 3G users are having this slow backup issue and no one is providing them the correct fix.

If you have an iPhone 3G and you are experiencing the slow backup issue, just import all your photos and video if you have video into iPhoto or whatever program you use. Afterwards, delete all the photos and videos from your iPhone, then synchronize your iPhone with iTunes letting the backup run. The backup will run much faster and you will need this backup so that the update procedure can restore all your settings. After the synchronization is complete, initiate the Update of your iPhone 3G. Once I removed photos and videos the backup ran smoothly and the entire upgrade was completed in about 30 minutes.

Hopefully this post will help any remaining iPhone 3G users out there with the slow backup issue. As of the time of this post, I have been running iOS 4 on my iPhone 3G for over 24 hours and everything has been running great!

I have five perfectly functioning Ubuntu releases installed at the moment. Four LTS servers and a desktop that I wrestle with and complain about sound issues following every new release since 2008. There has been multiple times where I tell myself that I will not upgrade when the next release comes, but with each release I go ahead and update the desktop. This time I will be upgrading the servers as well as time permits, though I cannot ever recall having an issue with my server installations and in all likelihood I will be doing new server installs and migrating to the new server installs. I am admittedly a geek, but mostly I am probably more an operating system geek, so I know I will upgrade my desktop once again and in all likelihood I will be left troubleshooting a sound issue again. My son will be asking me why the sound does not work again and following a night or two of hacking at the computer I will have him happily computing again. I hope my existing settings are maintained and all is well, but I am also a realist and this has been the pattern over the past two years. I hate fixing things more than once, but I do like Ubuntu and usually feel the need to check out any new features. So, in a couple weeks, you know what I will be doing.

After a few hours of playing with skipfish, the Open Source web application security scanner from Google, you can color me impressed.

The first thing you want to do is download the 1.09 BETA Version. After just a couple days Google went up several beta versions and 1.09 worked awesomely for me. I was going to compile Skipfish on Mac OS X, but the requirement of libidn was so easy to meet on Ubuntu that I decided to compile skipfish on Ubuntu. The primary reason being is that I do not like to use Macports and I read about some folks having issues even after compiling libidn on their Macs.

Here are the commands (on Ubuntu Linux) to compile skipfish:

wget http://skipfish.googlecode.com/files/skipfish-1.09b.tgz

tar zxvf skipfish-1.09b.tgz

mv skipfish-1.09b skipfish

sudo apt-get install libidn11-dev

sudo apt-get install libssl-dev

cd skipfish

make

cp dictionaries/complete.wl skipfish.wl

./skipfish -o skipfish_out http://www.yourdomain.com

(this creates an skipfish_out directory -- and make sure you put a domain to scan that you actually own.)

My scan ran about 47 minutes, at the conclusion of the scan you will have an index.html file that you can view from your browser within the skipfish_out directory. This will be the results of your scan nicely formatted. This is quick and dirty, the README file is quite helpful and there is a very informative wiki as well.

I posted a version of SFCave I had in Java applet about a year ago. The game is not outstanding graphically and the controls could not be more simple, yet there is just something about it. A couple weeks ago a friend of mine pointed me to SFCave for the iPhone and iPod, and best of all it is FREE. I have been tempted to purchase the 3D SFCave, but I find it hard to believe that I would find it more enjoyable than the classic.

I did look for SFCave for the iPhone when I first bought the iPhone two years ago and I checked again when I posted my Java applet. There were some imitations, like iCopter, which may or may not be better. I kind of prefer the original no frills worm of the original SFCave though. So I am very happy Sunflat is still around and ported SFCave to the iPhone.

I never played SFCave on the Palm, so I cannot say whether it was more or less difficult than the Java applet version I have. The iPhone version I have is much easier than the Java applet version because the touch sensitivity is so good. When I try this Java applet version I find I do not even like it anymore, the controls seem so robotic and jumpy. I am also sure the full screen iPhone version compared with my tiny Java applet version adds to the ease of play. For those with an iPod Touch or iPhone, I highly recommend SFCave, a fun and simple free game.

I am sure there are lots of interesting mugs out there, but in recent years I reserve these postings for the more unique variety, or perhaps the geekier variety. In the early days I had some rather run of the mill mugs, but over the last few years I would say only the more rare and interesting mugs make the cut. So when I stumbled upon the Chalk Board Mug, I deemed it worthy as I had never come across such a mug. Sure I have seen mugs that you write or draw on and use some method to make the writing or drawing permanent, but never one that you could write on repeatedly with chalk.

The website recommends some good uses for such a mug, such as identifying whose mug is who's when you have guests over. I think this would be a fun mug for just about anyone and I can imagine myself writing a different saying on the mug each morning, perhaps something like "Nectar of the Gods" or for the geekier types, "Mana".

The Chalk Board Mug measures in at 11 ounces and seems like a cool gift for the coffee drinker who has everything. Best of all, the stick of chalk is included! Feel free to include your ideas for a morning message. While I know I opened the door for creative comments, keep it relatively clean please.

I have been an OpenDNS user for a few years now and I have been very happy using OpenDNS instead of Comcast's default DNS servers. While I noticed a improvement with how quickly pages loaded when switching to OpenDNS; some folks likely will not as mostly the change would be within a few milliseconds. However when I switched Comcast's DNS seemed to be having some problems with name resolution and it was well documented that Comcast's DNS servers were unpatched and vulnerable to a well known hack. I also liked the anit-phishing, malware and botnet protection. I recall at least one instance where the anti-phishing features saved a family member after clicking on a link in an email. There are numerous other features to like about OpenDNS as well, including web content filtering that will likely come in handy as the kids get older.

A few months ago Google announced that they were also providing public DNS, though they were skipping some of the extra features OpenDNS provides and opting instead to go with DNS that followed the standards exactly. This is still generally a nice alternative to what your ISP is likely providing and Google Public DNS does protect from malware. So while Google chooses not to offer any filtering they still have a secure and for many, faster DNS service.

I also use a number of Google services and I generally feel pretty comfortable with what Google offers. Although I do not have one complaint with OpenDNS and certainly have had no issues with my DNS experience. I decided that it might be worth looking at how fast Google Public DNS is compared to OpenDNS. I used this bash script which uses dig to test the speed of both DNS services. If you run from Linux, be sure dig is installed, dig ships installed by default on Mac OS X and BSD. The script will also provide results for your current DNS settings, so you will know if your ISP DNS settings beat either Google or OpenDNS.

#!/bin/bash
isp=$(dig +noall +stats 2>&1 | awk '$2~/^SERVER:$/{split($3,dnsip,"#");print dnsip[1]}');
m="-------------------------------------------------------------------------------";
s=" ";
h="+${m:0:25}+${m:0:12}+${m:0:12}+${m:0:12}+";
header=("Domain${s:0:23}" "My ISP${s:0:10}" "Google${s:0:10}" "OpenDNS${s:0:10}");
echo "${h}";
echo "| ${header[0]:0:23} | ${header[1]:0:10} | ${header[2]:0:10} | ${header[3]:0:10} |";
echo "${h}";
for i in "yahoo.com" "identi.ca" "twitter.com" "brutaldeluxe.us" "google.com" "bbc.co.uk" "scott.buffington.me";
do
ii="${i}${s:23}";
echo -n "| ${ii:0:23} |";
for j in "${isp}" "8.8.8.8" "208.67.222.222";
do
r="${s:10}$(dig +noall +stats +time=9 @${j} ${i} 2>&1 | awk '$2~/^Query$/{print $4" "$5}')";
echo -n " ${r:${#r}-10} |";
done
echo -ne "\n${h}\n";
done

While this probably is not an optimal test, I have to believe it gives a pretty accurate result for the speed of each lookup service. It appears that here in Lower Swatara Township, Pennsylvania that OpenDNS is faster.

+-------------------------+------------+------------+
| Domain | Google | OpenDNS |
+-------------------------+------------+------------+
| lifehacker.com | 27 msec | 19 msec |
+-------------------------+------------+------------+
| identi.ca | 27 msec | 18 msec |
+-------------------------+------------+------------+
| twitter.com | 30 msec | 19 msec |
+-------------------------+------------+------------+
| brutaldeluxe.us | 28 msec | 18 msec |
+-------------------------+------------+------------+
| google.com | 48 msec | 17 msec |
+-------------------------+------------+------------+
| bbc.co.uk | 27 msec | 20 msec |
+-------------------------+------------+------------+
| scott.buffington.me | 28 msec | 17 msec |
+-------------------------+------------+------------+

If there is one application that I did not expect but I have totally fallen in love with it is Stanza on the iPhone. My goal when purchasing an iPhone almost two years ago was to eliminate carrying an iPod and a cell phone. These were two devices that I used daily that were requiring me not only to grab them in the morning but also to charge. The elimination of carrying two devices was the lone reason why the iPhone was for me. I was somewhat interested in the applications, but most of them I did not see being extremely useful. In particular one area that I never imagined using the iPhone for was for ebooks. Mainly because I never enjoyed ebooks on my personal computer, I felt a hand held device I would like even less. It turns out that I not only enjoy reading books on my iPhone but that the application I chose is also a free application.

I received a Visa gift card over the holidays and decided that I would use it for some type of new coffee maker. Both my Senseo, purchased in June 2004, and my Mr. Coffee, purchased in October 2005, are still functioning, but both Julie and I have some further features we would like. I must confess that over the past year we have rarely used the Senseo. I used to purchase individually wrapped pods through the mail so that I could enjoy fresh coffee with the Senseo. I can be a bit of a coffee snob and the Senseo sold packets always taste somewhat stale to me. We have also been toying with the idea of trying a carafe coffee maker because it is just the best way to keep coffee fresh tasting for several hours. I decided to read the reviews for both Keurig single serve coffee makers and all the carafe coffee makers available. What I learned is, Keurig makes a shoddy product and the reviews for carafe coffee makers are not at all helpful.

I had been considering the Keurig as a replacement for my Senseo because I had heard it was easy to brew single cups with your own coffee. This is not easy to do with the Senseo and I gave up trying, instead opting for my French Press or Aerobie AeroPress. What I found out from reading the reviews was that this can be a mess with the Keurig and grounds ended up in your coffee or the Keurig clogged. From experience I know the Keurig coffee is mostly very weak. I was still considering it, until almost universally every model has been flagged to only last a year or two, in some cases much less. My Senseo is nearly six years old and still works! I think I will skip the Keurig and perhaps instead take some time to order some individually wrapped pods again.

A crisis? Not really, but some disappointment definitely was prevented. Every year since my son's first Christmas in 2001 I have purchased my son a Hess Truck, only this year for what I think is the fourth time it is not a truck but a race car. Pretty much since October every illness my kids have gotten I have also picked up in some way shape or form, easily this is a record for cold and flu for me. For roughly a week and a half since October 20th or so I have been healthy, it is really quite frustrating. To make a long story short, I kept putting off stopping in at a Hess station to buy this years Hess Toy Truck, err vehicle.

Finally today I decided was the day, I had intended to go and do this last week, but sinus pressure and a serious headache kept me from venturing out. I had this belief that these things rarely if ever sold out and I was wrong. I visited my normal stop and a sign on the door read that the Hess Toy Race Car was sold out. I asked inside if they knew of other stations that still had this years Hess toy. They said they had just sold out and that they believed all the stations were sold out. I knew of a small Hess station that I figured would not get the amount of traffic this station does. On my way I passed another Hess station that still had the signs up. I went inside and was informed they had sold out last week. My last chance was the small out of the way station I knew of, otherwise that meant I would pay double the price on Ebay and the gift would not arrive until the New Year. Checking the final station I was told they were sold out, but that a Hess station in Marysville still had some. I was out on lunch and if I was going to make the trip to Marysville it would be after work. The lady behind the counter then asked me how many I needed. I said one would be fine, but I usually purchased two as we kept one in the box. She sent the other guy in the back and he came back with two. I do not know what the story was with that, but I was thankful I found the one item that my son looks forward to each year.

In the future this will not be an item that I put off purchasing. If by chance Hess would stumble upon any of the numerous mentions I have given them over the years. I love the creativity of the various vehicles. But you guys have not done a tanker truck since 1990, I think a tanker truck once every 20 years is okay without you being repetitive. You have repeated some of your other themes during the past 20 years, for example I see numerous fire trucks. I think we are ready for a tanker truck of some type again.

UPDATE 12/2/09 - Reprieve earned, I decided to try some quick trouble shooting on my son's computer. I used the Pulseaudio configuration tool to select the SoundBlaster on my computer and sound now works. Actually sound works better now that my card is properly selected than it has on any of the recent releases of Ubuntu that I have tried. I still feel that the installer needs to do a better job at properly identifying sound cards and selecting the correct card. Especially when your audio and video section of your support forum is loaded with unanswered inquiries as to how to fix sound.

UPDATE 11/09/09 - Hey look the exact same reaction from another person that just wishes Ubuntu would stop breaking sound and blaming the user.

I have gone on record in the past criticizing and praising releases of Ubuntu Linux. The Ubuntu Server edition has worked flawlessly for me for a number of years and I still use it to host my websites. I have administered Red Hat and SUSE flavors from a Server perspective and I find Ubuntu's Server to be right up there with those other enterprise flavors. It is with the desktop and Ubuntu that I have had a love hate relationship. The latest release is no different and it is totally because of the same issues I have been fighting with for the last year and a half. I had swore to a friend of mine that after I got the last version working that I would not upgrade ever again on that computer. The technology geek in me could not resist though, so I clicked the button to upgrade Ubuntu 9.04 to Ubuntu 9.10 and as expected I am sorry I did it.

Over the last year and a half every upgrade of Ubuntu meant that I spent a week trying to get sound to work. In the more distant past I had issues with wide screen resolutions, but I have not had those types of issues in over 2 years. But sound has been a thorn in my side for over a year on all my Dell desktops and I swore after getting sound working on Ubuntu 9.04 that I would never upgrade the computer again. Well, obviously I did and again the sound is gone on the computer, everything else works flawlessly. I am usually fine with trouble shooting these matters but the sound settings look to have changed a whole lot from the last version and some of the quick fixes I tried did not work at all. I think I am officially done with Linux on the desktop until I have a newer computer to put it on, and that is no guarantee sound will work. The same old replies in the support forums show up every time this occurs, either your hardware is too old or too new and you have to perform step 1 through 15 which may or may not work (usually does not work). I heard the same exact thing when I had issues with Windows 7 and I am sorry but a computer from 2005-2006 is not obsolete and Dell is one of the most widely used brands all telling me that it should be among the first to have supported hardware.

The computer I was running Ubuntu desktop on is the computer in my son's bedroom and the web browser with Flash is just about the most important application needed on that computer. Flash of course works, just no sound, which is sort of the same as Flash not working. It is just not Flash that has no sound, the computer plays no sound period. My son is now running OpenSolaris, and trust me OpenSolaris has it's problems as well, but once something is working or hardware is supported, that support is not removed the way it is with Linux. I have upgraded to the latest builds of OpenSolaris almost as soon as they were released over the last six months and so far have not been left with a non-working desktop even once.

About six or seven months back I tested a list of five or six different Linux distributions and every one of them left me with a desktop with no sound. I have had it, at least for now. Perhaps when the time comes where I replace a desktop and I do not do so with a Mac I will buy a machine with Linux installed. I hesitate to even try to build a desktop from this juncture because I cannot say with confidence from my experience I would know which sound cards are fully supported by Linux. I keep hearing that Pulseaudio is not the problem, well what is? I see the long list of people saying they have no sound with every release but there seems to be no fix, just a recurring problem. I understand getting an operating system to work on the variety of hardware that Linux does can be a challenge, I suppose I have grown tired of trouble shooting the no sound issue and quite frankly I have never been clear on what I did to fix sound on the prior releases. In most cases after trying a whole slew of different suggestions and rebooting 10 times it would suddenly just work. That never gave me a warm fuzzy feeling. As of now this is a OpenSolaris and Mac OS X household, I hope to welcome you back someday Linux.

UPDATE - I have to say, after upgrading I was less than excited.

If you would like to try Google Wave, comment or use the contact link to let me know. The email address you use when posting a comment or you use on my contact form will be the email address I send the invitation to. I have 20, so I have more than a few.

As November approaches I am again considering participating in NaNoWriMo. I last gave National Novel Writing Month a tenth hearted attempt in 2007. By far the 2007 effort was my worst and I attributed it to having scratched the itch of wanting to write a novel. I successfully finished novels in both 2004 and 2006, even going so far as to have my 2006 novel, Danger is Awesome printed and bound. The renewed interest stems from my recent educational pursuits and a feeling that I can do better, perhaps not much better, but better never the less.

My last attempt at NaNoWriMo was a sequel to Danger is Awesome, and while I am considering a reprise of the character Ryan "Danger" Awesome, I want to go in a slightly different direction. Rather than the horror comedy genre I want to try the techno-thriller genre with some comedy thrown in. I think I emptied myself of all the zombie apocalyptic material I had in me and if you knew anything about the Ryan Awesome character, you would understand why I cannot leave out the attempts at comedy. My intention was always to take the Ryan Awesome character with me to other stories when I first imagined him, based loosely off a former co-worker. So I think my 2009 attempt is going to be a technical thrill ride with hackers, doomsday machines and just maybe an appearance by some Beer Ninjas. My working title at this point is Danger is Awesomer, Dead Hand Rising. Yes I know Awesomer is not a word, see above where I mention comedy, and I know that might sound zombie related, but trust me, it is not.

Before I am asked, it is doubtful anyone will ever know anything about the Ryan Awesome character unless I blog about him. I am not Stephen King, I am some hack who has found enjoyment in writing a 50,000 word novel in 30 days, imagine the quality. I could just do what Dan Brown does though and write the same book three different times with three different titles. I would imagine by the third try I might have something approaching quality, probably not.

I know more than a handful of you have thought about giving NaNoWriMo a shot. If you have ever considered it, I urge you to just do it. You will never find the time that you claim you do not have. There is absolutely no way I have time to do this, but I am going to give it a shot anyway.

Seems I mostly write about technology more than anything lately, even though I seem to have less time to work on the technology than ever before. I am still working on completing my degree and the kids are providing more than enough other tasks for me to concentrate on. Still, I am managing to consolidate and improve the technologies I use here in the home. Recently I upgraded my home network, primarily the wireless side of things, as well as consolidated my home servers to one instead of two using OpenSolaris, VirtualBox and Turnkey Linux.

My wireless network while functional was in need of some tweaks. Previously I had tried running a mixed wireless G and N network and the results were never stable. To resolve this I setup a router that broadcast both a wireless G and a wireless N signal on two different channels and the results have been fantastic. I have a few older devices that use wireless G and I wanted to take full advantage of my wireless N devices. I also bridge my wireless network to my entertainment center and spent some time updating the DD-WRT firmeware on the bridged router. In addition I also setup a guest wireless G network for anyone visiting that needs to get to the Internet. The result of this effort is wireless coverage in every room of the house including the patio and back yard.

For the first time since starting the BDFL fantasy football league in 2003 I managed the entire draft over a wireless connection. I had two people using my guest wireless network, a Skype conference call with four participants and a remote chatroom with three users all while drafting dynamically on FleaFlicker.com. Over a four hour period we did not have any connection drops and our Skype quality was perfect. This was the first year where we did not have connectivity with the chatroom or Skype. Though none of those issues ever involved my connectivity, the chatroom problems last year were directly related to either Internet Explorer or the Windows Operating System (Sorry but this is accurate) and the Skype issues seemed to be another users hardware setup. I think everyone would agree that despite a late start due to weather related late arrivals, everything worked wonderfully.

Also over the past couple months I consolidated some of my hardware so that I could power down a server. Using some of my existing hardware I have installed OpenSolaris using ZFS, ZFS being the most revolutionary filesystem to come along in years. Currently I am using a couple 500 GB drives for a mirrored setup providing SSH filesystem shares to my entire home network. Depending on budget I would like to build something bigger next year, but for now this machine is providing an excellent home network server. I am also running my webserver for this same hardware using a Turnkey Linux Appliance within VirtualBox.

This was all pretty high level about some of my home technology projects that I have been playing around with over the past couple months. If you made it this far in the post and your interest in reading my blog is beyond technology, I am planning my first batch of homebrew in about a year in the next couple weeks. I will definitely blog about the upcoming batch of homebrew and likely provide some pictures.

When I purchased my first Mac in 2005 I had three primary wants or needs that I wished to be met. I combined those wish list wants and made a choice as to what operating system I would steer toward when purchasing new hardware to meet my computing needs. I of course decided on Apple back then and although I have been happy with my Apple purchases I am pretty far from being an Apple fan boy. I see signs that Apple may be pushing me away from their product line in the future, specifically with the handling of the iPhone and the operating system on the device.

August 2009 marks the 40th birthday of the UNIX operating system. In August 1969, Ken Thompson, used the monthlong absence of his wife and son to sit down and code some of the most important software ever. Thompson spent a week each writing the operating system, a shell, an editor and an assembler for what would eventually be called UNIX. Thompson and colleague, Dennis Ritchie, began coming up with ideas for UNIX earlier in 1969, but it was in August of 1969 that my favorite operating system of all-time was given life.

Remember your System Administrator this Friday, July 31st, 2009. Without a system administrator you would not be able to read this blog post, your email, check Facebook, Twitter, use your phone or well use any electronic media that travels across wires and is controlled by a computer.

Like last Summer I spent a week unplugged from email and phone calls while spending a week in the Outer Banks of North Carolina. I confess I did use my iPhone a few times to check the weather, relatives fiddled with the phone more than I did, but I did not read email, twitter or answer any calls the entire week. I am still catching up on about 200 personal emails and and my Google Reader subscriptions. I know I will have a lot of work emails to catch up on Monday morning, but like last year, being unplugged from communications and many of my Internet habits is somehow liberating.

I spent part of my last evening away from daily life and the Internet sitting atop the highest sand dune at Jockey's Ridge State Park watching the Sun set while the boys ran up and down the dunes. It was a relaxing end to the week before we had to pack for the long drive home. Note to self, take the kites to Jockey's Ridge next year.

While my programming plans were pretty much an epic fail this weekend, I did earn an achievement on the game Left4Dead that makes those hours of studying The Zombie Survival Guide all worthwhile.

I managed to kill 53,595+ infected (zombies), which is the equivalent of eliminating a small city of the living dead. This monumental task earned me the Zombie Genocidest achievement and confirms that I am quite skilled at eliminating the living dead. Not bad for a Friday night and occasionally Saturday night gamer.

So Saturday I had a day where all the kids were away and Julie was working her normal weekend hours. I had planned to work on a feature of my blogging software that I have never been happy with. That feature is the search, which only really worked correctly with single word searches. What I discovered is that my PHP programming skills have decayed and my understanding of JavaScript is null and void, not that those skills were very good anyway. Remember I am a hobbyist programmer only, not really my profession. The few hours I spent on the code Saturday virtually were wasted. I spent hours reading about arrays in PHP, not exactly what I had planned. In the end I got a mostly working better search feature. Though I am still not sure I like what I have here, so this project may rear its ugly head again.

I have some JavaScript debugging to do, because if you try and search for something that does not exist in any posts, the form is hijacked and just does not work until you refresh the page. However, the successful searches work great, including a nice sort listing the blog posts first with the most occurrences. This search is still very rough, it works better than my old search feature, but is not 100% really working. I am not sure I like using all the JavaScript I am using, I dig the whole Ajax thing but I worry about it breaking and not being able to fix it.

I kind of thought that I would knock out this feature with PHP5 rather easily and that I could move onto my planned Python programming projects. I never got around to the Python programming at all. If any PHP gurus read this blog and can point me to a great tutorial on building a search feature that searches a MySQL database I would appreciate it. Most of the tutorials I found do a pretty generic search, which is what I originally coded and it did not work well or at all with searches using more than one word. Infact I think my old search feature used more SQL features than PHP. I thought I had read that PHP5 had some added functionality that would make coding a search feature better than ever, using PHP more so than SQL. I could not really find anything that I was happy with or did anything different than I was already doing.

More so than ever before Virtualization could be extremely useful for my personal use. Over the past few months I have been trying to come up with scenarios to reduce my need for multiple computers being used as well as multiple computers being powered on for extended periods of time as servers. Over the past couple years I have often used two computers acting as servers within my home, OpenSolaris and VirtualBox on one machine could replace both.

I kind of forgot about my LDAP server. Oh well, seems to be working just fine.

(w1mvsun01-root: /:129)-> uptime
8:49am up 542 day(s), 20:45, 1 user, load average: 0.07, 0.06, 0.06

I mentioned online backup services, specifically SpiderOak, before and I do think there prices are relatively reasonable. But in the current economy it can be difficult to warrant spending $10 or more for off-site backups. If you have a trusting friend who does not mind you borrowing some of his bandwidth at 3am, you can opt for my solution.

My buddy Scott Wood and I were throwing around ideas for off-site backups while chatting on instant messenger and we decided that the best option was to provide each other some space. He provides me some disk space and Secure shell authentication to his home server and I provide him some disk space and Secure Shell authentication to my home server. We are starting out relatively small for now, about 50 GB each, but it's free and a whole lot more than the 2 GB that the online services provide for free. If this solution works well we always have the option of sending larger disks to one another.

Provided you have a similar setup, you could use software like Unison, which works on Windows and UNIX (Linux, BSD and such) systems, to synchronize your files on two hosts. For the record, even if you do not have an off-site alternative, software like Unison is still worth looking into, Unison can even work with two disks on one computer. You might find other software that you like better if you take the time to search around.

On the Macbook my solution is to continue with TimeMachine for my on-site backups and I scheduled a AppleScript to run at 3am which calls rsync to synchronize my home directory with the backup at Scott's house. Since discovering rsync a couple years ago I literally have used it thousands of times. I used rsync to copy terabytes of data at work from an old filesystem to a new filesystem on the same machine which enabled me to initiate rsync off hours and stop it in the morning and resume where I left off later on. By using rsync I was assured that I did not miss any changes to any files as rsync updates any bits that changed with any file, rsync is an awesome utility and far superior to a standard copy for so many reasons.

The past year, or at least going back to October of 2008 I have had perhaps the best ever year in the life of a sports fan. The only other year that might compare for me is perhaps 1979 through 1980, but this year is probably superior. In every major sport the team I root for now holds the championship. I do not really follow the NBA or NHL other than reading headlines, but the teams I have rooted for during my lifetime has not changed.

• NFL Champion - Pittsburgh Steelers
• MLB Champion - Philadelphia Phillies
• NHL Champion - Pittsburgh Penguins
• NBA Champion - LA Lakers

Additionally the local American Hockey League team, the Hershey Bears have won the Calder Cup. The two oldest trophies in the world now call Pennsylvania home. My son Jacob touched the Calder Cup the other night at the Harrisburg Senators game. Before someone asks, I have always been a fan of the LA Lakers. Pittsburgh did not have an NBA team and the Phillies are the only major sports team I cheer for from Philadelphia.

"Now we're talking price. Snow Leopard will be $29 to upgrade for Leopard users. The Family Pack upgrade will be $49. It will be available in September, but the near-final developer preview will be available today." -- Bertrand Serlet

So, how much are we going to pay for Windows 7 which is just a fixed Vista? How long can Microsoft continue to run the cost commercials, nevermind every machine the people choose in the commercials are poorly reviewed junk. You get what you pay for folks, well you do from Apple anyway.

Fun show at Hershey Park Stadium on Friday night and I can now say I finally saw Bruce Springsteen Live, something I have always wanted to do. I just have never had an opportunity before and was extremely disappointed I could not make the show last August. Friday was a beautiful night with temperatures in the low 70s and a packed stadium of 30,000 brought out a lot of energy from Bruce and the band. This was the first stadium show of the tour and the second show featuring Jay Weinberg, Max Weinberg's 18 year old son. Jay was AWESOME! He thundered the house all night long on the drums. I thought the show might have been the longest of the tour so far and I confirmed that at 2:58 it was indeed the longest show so far featuring a tight 27 songs. The show began at 8:19 p.m.

"Hello Hershey, are you ready to be delivered?" Bruce asked as the band took the stage.
1. Badlands
2. Spirit In The Night
3. Outlaw Pete
4. Radio Nowhere
5. Out In The Street
6. Twist and Shout (sign request, tour premiere)
The sign read: "If U play Twist and Shout" I'll burn my Hannah Montana CDs"
7. Working On A Dream
"Good to be here tonight in the wonderful home of candy" Bruce said to the crowd.
8. Seeds
9. Johnny 99
10. The Ghost Of Tom Joad
11. Raise Your Hand
Bruce collected signs, there were so many.
12. Give the Girl a Kiss (sign request, tour premiere)
I met a guy from the Baltimore area and he said many people thought Bruce would play this at the Hershey show in August of 2008 but he did not. Bruce picked up a sign that was a big Hershey kiss and on the white wrap it read: "Give the Girl a ...." This was soundchecked earlier in the afternoon. "This is very obscure," Bruce said. "Being we are in Hershey, Pa. we'll play it." Then he was asking the band "How does it start? What's the first guitar part? Oh, just sing it... Who knows this one?"
13. Trapped (sign request)
"I've seen a lot of signs for this one," Bruce said.
14. Waitin' On A Sunny Day
15. The Promised Land
16. Backstreets
17. Kingdom of Days
Bruce mentioned how Patti was home recovering from falling off a horse and that she was also home because it was, "Prom night. My daughter is 17. Security!"
18. Lonesome Day
19. The Rising
20. Born To Run
House lights go up, 30,000 people in Hershey Stadium go crazy. Even the kids, many 10 years old and younger were singing every word to every song. You could feel that Bruce and the Band were feeling it.

Encores:

Before the encores Bruce said "I love all the signs but it's getting a little ridiculous." He then mentioned "18-year-old Jay Weinberg taking over for his Dad. he's the first guy to sit in that seat for 35 years except for his pop. If you want to sit in that seat - that's saying something."
21. Hard Times
22. Thunder Road
23. Tenth Avenue Freeze-out
24. Land Of Hope And Dreams
25. American Land
26. Rosalita
The band was ready to leave when Bruce shouted out "We'll do one more!" He called Jay and the others back out as they were leaving the stage.
27. Bobby Jean

Show over at 11:17 p.m. I first discovered Bruce Springsteen when I was 13 years old during the "Born in the USA" craze, immediately dug the story telling style of his songs. I quickly realized he had a whole lot of other awesome music way before that. Though I have always had a soft spot for "No Surrender" and "Glory Days" both off "Born in the USA", neither one was played at this show. But so many other great songs were played that I cannot say I was at all disappointed. Let me tell you, this was three hours of music, with no long guitar or drum solos while the rest of the band disappeared, there was no intermission. It was three hours of the Boss rocking the house and the entire E Street Band doing their thing.

Because sometimes he sings songs about me.

I made the last updates to the song count for the 2009 Tour today.

Today the Space Shuttle Atlantis lifted off for what is being called the last visit to the Hubble Telescope. The original Hubble mission was a huge disaster and a huge embarassment to NASA. The missions that followed, that corrected Hubble and serviced the Telescope are among NASA's greatest achievements. I think the images that come from Hubble are the most amazing and beautiful images ever taken.

The STS-125 Team will install two new instruments, repair two inactive ones and perform the component replacements that will keep the telescope functioning into at least 2014. I am wishing the team good luck, if indeed this is our last visit to Hubble, it would be fantastic to finish on a high note.

We have become a World that takes space flight for granted, very few people probably even knew about this mission. Looking back at just a few Hubble accomplishments such as proving the existence of Black Holes, providing looks at stars and galaxies that we would have never seen, long views of the universe that have allowed us to look back in time and Hubble has even given us a better view of the planets in our own Solar System that it's importance to Science is just amazing.

Those of us that were the early denizens of the Internet will not only remember GeoCities for its aesthetics, but also because many of us got our HTML feet wet there. Anyone seriously interested in having a web presence quickly moved from the likes of GeoCities and Angelfire to their own domain and paid web hosting. Yahoo has announced that sometime in the next year they will be officially closing GeoCities and its fabulous collection of blinking gifs and animated banners.

GeoCities lost popularity with Internet beginners when blogging services and social networking sites the likes of MySpace and Facebook came onto the scene. MySpace allows the ability for Internet newbiess to make even more annoying web pages than GeoCities could have ever dreamed, comprised of horrible gifs and loud auto-playing music and videos. While Facebook prevents it's userbase from making the world's ugliest website, it makes up for these shortcomings with the endless parade of brain numbing applications, all stealing your privacy away with hardly an afterthought from the Facebook community.

Sure MySpace and Facebook are superior in many, many ways, but GeoCities will always have a warm place in my heart and many others. One of the true pioneers to the Internet we know and love today will soon cease to exist. Those of us who were here in the beginning will always remember the many black back grounded GeoCities sites with midi music and blinking gifs for as long as we live.

My oldest memories of baseball involve watching the Phillies and listening to Harry Kalas and Richie Ashburn call the games. We lost Ashburn in 1997 and yesterday, 4/13/2009, we lost Harry Kalas.

I mentioned Kalas and his call of the final out of the Phillies World Series victory this past Fall. One of the other calls I vividly remember is Harry Kalas calling Michael Jack Schmidt's 500th homerun.

I have no idea if I will ever latch onto another broadcaster as I did Harry Kalas and Richie Ashburn. I doubt I will, with media being so broad now, those intimate relationships are not as prevalent. The days of radio and 12 or 13 TV channels is gone and a unique voice and flair for calling baseball just does not seem as common anymore. For me and every other Phillies fan, Kalas was the voice of the Phillies and baseball, though Vin Skully deserves a mention in my book.

Last night Comcast Sportsnet rebroadcast Harry Kalas' final called game, a Phillies 7-5 comeback victory over the Colorado Rockies at Coors Field. As I watched the game and listened to Harry Kalas signoff for the last time I knew one of the last pieces of my childhood was gone.

UPDATED 8/24/2009 to include latest setlist. This is the final update, if you want me to continue to update you will have to contact me.

One of my Summer of 2009 goals is to learn Python. My current path for doing this is using Python to handle some of my system administration tasks. I am quite strong in Shell Programming as well as using sed, awk and Perl to complete most if not all of my administration tasks and PHP for all my web programming, so the real challenge is forcing myself to use a new tool to complete tasks I can do with my current set of tools. This of course is a minor inconvenience all for the sake of learning Python. I am looking for other opportunities to practice Python, because the only real way to learn a new language is to use it. I am a huge Bruce Springsteen fan and I finally will be seeing Bruce on May 15th at Hersheypark Stadium for the first time. Wanting to make the most of the moment, I want to make sure I am up on all the songs he will likely be performing. I threw together a Python program that takes all the setlists starting with the Super Bowl performance, processes the setlists into a list with the number of performances of each song Bruce performs on the 2009 tour. I will try and keep this list updated on a regular basis. So far it seems likely that the top twelve songs on this list will be played at each performance.

Thinkgeek now sells a coffee mug that is as bad ass as another mug I featured two years ago. The Melee Mug is 20 ounces that look as tough as free office coffee, and if you have ever had to drink free office coffee, you know what tough is. The Melee Mug has a ceramic handle that is shaped like a set of brass-knuckles, but note that this is a coffee mug and not for real melee action.

If you are looking for the ultimate conversation starter, this is a must have mug for the office. Or if you just want to be left alone at the office, this mug will probably accomplish that goal as well. Although the attitude is sold separately. I think this would be the perfect Monday only coffee mug. Just keep it under lock and key all week and then at the start of every week let everyone know how you feel about Mondays.

How about that, a Friday beer glass and a Monday coffee mug, all from the same place. I have a few new coffee mugs in the cabinet, nothing as original as this but they should show up on a Monday post from time to time throughout the year.

When I first caught a glimpse of the </head> Tag Beer Glass over at Thinkgeek. I first thought it was a wonderful pilsner glass to go with the fine #include <beer.h> 12 ounce glasses I featured in 2004. This is a wonderful glass, but as Thinkgeek I believe correctly points out, it is not a pilsner but a Weizen (or wheat beer) glass. The tapered top is to focus the aroma of the wheat beer, a pilsner glass does not have that tapering.

I have actually been planning my first batch of homebrew in a while, an American-style wheat beer or Honey Weizen similar to what I brewed two years ago. That batch was well received by all my fantasy football mates, even those that claimed to not like homebrew. Finding this unique and geeky Weizen glass is what I would call a sign. This glass is 23 ounces of beauty, perfect for even my larger homebrew bottles. Now if I could only find out where to get the latest must have appliance, a beer pouring robot which Thinkgeek also links to. Please do read the entire description on the page, I enjoy the paragraph about the rice water.

Our beer glass supply is kind of embarassing and I never got around to purchasing the other glasses I featured from Thinkgeek. I feel an order of new glasses is in the making. Here is hoping this post makes you thirsty, happy Friday everyone!

After listening to a recent This American Life podcast, the economy in the gutter and so many people losing their jobs or finding their pay cut it got me thinking. When you were a young adult you likely had a plan and perhaps a backup plan, Plan B. Of course not many of us had a plan beyond that because Plan A was absolutely going to work. Strangely enough, my original Plan A at first became my Plan B.

When asked in junior high through high school about what I wanted to do after high school I would often say I wanted to be a systems programmer, I had no idea what they really did, but I knew they worked with computers and not just in a clerical sense. I was less than a stellar student, I did enough to get by, doing little to prepare me for the career I said I wanted to pursue. In my defense, high school was unchallenging and boring to me. The math teachers were less than interesting and any sort of computer classes we were offered were so horrible that I remember the teacher missing my senior year more than they were in the classroom. Few if any of my high school teachers had any clue how to engage me. Do not get me wrong, a lot of this was my own fault; I take as much responsibility as a teenager deserves. Like most teenagers, I thought I knew everything and that Plan A or Plan B could never fail. It is worth mentioning that I seriously considered the military, but in the end I decided against it.

Strangely enough when I first graduated from high school I was presented with an opportunity by my brother-in-law to work for a vending and entertainment company (video games and pool tables). I thought that perhaps starting out by moving and relocating this equipment that I might pursue an electronics career (Plan B). My first career choice being a systems programmer (Plan A), in today’s non-mainframe lingo, a systems administrator. I of course was ill prepared for either career, being the last of six children I did not expect my parents to pay for college. Sure they would have supported me if I had chosen that route, but it was not on my radar. To make a long story short, in less than a year I realized Plan B was not going to pan out, at least not with my current employer.

No problem, an opportunity for an entry level position that would open the door for Plan A became available. Unlike high school, I was motivated to work and went about climbing the Information Technology ladder enroot to Plan A. I have been working specifically with Plan A now for over 10 years; I did some of the college thing along the way while working full time. I had achieved about the status of an associate degree and I am currently back to school working toward my Bachelors. Trust me, if I had to do it over again knowing what I know now I would have just did the college thing, because it is important, to me anyway. I probably could have had more fun along the way as well.

In the current economy no plan is safe and I am really curious how many out there are still on Plan A, Plan B or Plan C, D, E or F. Age 40 is creeping up on me and while I would not necessarily choose to change careers, I would be a fool to not recognize it could happen someday. Like others, a change might even be welcome and the right thing to do. I know a very broad range of folks read this blog and I would love to hear about careers or plans that have done well or you think will do well in what could be long down turn in the economy. Perhaps you just want to tell us about your own adventures, all feedback is welcome.

I have been actively using Facebook over the past few months and I have belonged to Facebook for years, mainly because almost my entire family is on there. I do enjoy keeping at least somewhat notified of what they might be doing. But also after using Facebook over this time I am not overly impressed with the interface. Facebook is much prettier than MySpace which should just die already, but the user interface on Facebook is still broken.

Facebook does not replace a blog, not if you actually want to write anything with any depth. The video sharing is not that great and the quality of the video saved is just barely acceptable. Photo gallery, it just does not really cut it in this category either. As far as a status updates, Twitter and my favorite Identi.ca are far superior. I view both Twitter and Identi.ca as being like a giant IRC channel allowing you to tune in and tune out whomever you choose. My first thought every time I check Facebook is that it is a cluttered mess. Maybe Facebook will find ways to remedy these issues, but for me they have a lot of work ahead.

Personally, the constant prompting spurred by my friend's use of every Facebook application under the Sun is very annoying. The utter onslaught of crap wanting access to my personal information makes it impossible to know if there are any Facebook applications that are worth using. I think everyone should be very wary of allowing each of these applications access to your personal information that may include your phone, email address and birth date to just name a few. I have mostly ignored all prompts, not because I do not care about some cause but because I have no wish to allow my personal information to be accessed by the owners of these applications.

Scott's occasional shared bookmark linkdump.

• Safari 4 Beta:
  Apple released a public beta of Safari 4 for Windows and Mac. The browser has some interesting features and by almost all accounts is currently the fastest way to surf the web. I have been using it over the last week and it is pretty cool. I like the added button to open tabs and Top Sites is pretty cool as well.
• Ma.gnolia Online Bookmarks all lost:
  I have been blogging recently about how relying on online services as your only source for data backup is a bad idea. I mentioned a popular blogging service that died due to not having a backup solution. Ma.gnolia.com is yet another site with a pretty large userbase who lost all user's bookmarks. To put it nicely their backup solution was poorly thought out. Seriously folks, if you have a startup and need a sysadmin that will protect your data, contact me, I come relatively cheaply. I can do it with Open Source as well, it is not expensive to protect yourself. I have a Time Machine like solution I wrote for Linux servers (Works on any UNIX-like operating sytem) that would have rescued these folks.
• Marvell Plug Computer:
  Speaking of backup solutions, the 5 watt Marvell Plug Computer is an excellent device to build a backup solution with cheaply. Rumor has it that when the device is officially released there will be a $49 version available.

Zoey Michael
Originally uploaded by Scott B.

Zoey Michael Buffington was born February 13th, 2009 at 8:47AM. She weighed 7 pounds, 4.5 ounces and was 19 inches long. Both mother and daughter are doing well and resting comfortably at home. Big brother and both big sisters are very proud.

Part of what interested me in computers at a young age and continues to interest me in them to this day is using the computer to create something. For me it does not get much better than when you want to do something with the computer and some code and you begin creating and seeing results. Over the years the biggest road block for me has been coming up with ideas of something I need to program. I would probably program a whole lot more if I could convince myself to reinvent the wheel more often. Sometimes I just like the wheel so much that I cannot bring myself to start from scratch on it, if you know what I mean. Still, a large part of the motivation to host a blog in the era of Facebook is that I created this place, right down to the software I blog with. It is sort of like the guy driving the car where he rebuilt the engine from scratch.

My first real exposure to computers was probably video games, somewhere along the line I decided I wanted to know how the games worked. The curiosity to know how to program computers occured right away and I am not sure why, I just wanted to know how to do it. This is a pretty common story for most of my friends that work in the IT field. Computers were not so common in the household when I was growing up. Most households did not have a personal computer, mine did not. My exposure was through my brother, the very few friends who had one and finally the terrible computer classes we had starting in Junior High. I wanted to know how to program the computer and I want my kids to at least have a basic understanding of what is behind that computer game, music player and web browser. Perhaps one or all the kids might actually decide they want to learn more and do some programming of their own. If not, that is cool too, but at least they will have had the opportunity.

Jake is the oldest at 7, which is probably just the right age to start introducing some basic programming concepts to him. He and Riley both love gaming, Riley got her own Leapster for Christmas this year. I stumbled upon a pretty interesting little game that teaches some very basic programming concepts, concepts I was certainly not exposed to at age 7. Light-Bot has some interesting puzzles that eventually require you to create functions for repetitive actions in order to complete the puzzle. Jake spent about an hour with Light-Bot and enjoyed the puzzles; at first the functions were confusing but he was using them after having them explained. For now this is a nice start as he and his sisters continue to master their keyboard and mouse skills. I have some other ideas to perhaps spur further interest later on, but I will wait until we venture down those paths.

Scott's occasional shared bookmark linkdump.

• Tech Bytes Us:
  I will occasionally be blogging at Tech Bytes Us when it is officially open. In addition my Buff (aka woahblog) code will be powering the site, with some multi-user modifications that will likely show up on Brutal Deluxe eventually. I am not sure if I am one of those furry guys or not.
• Countup to 1234567890!:
  You are geeky enough to care but you are not exactly sure how to countdown to the UNIX Epoch time milestone mentioned here. Using this website you can officially take a drink at the exact same time as me.

I always get nervous going into these games, the only place I talk about big Steelers games is on the Brutal Deluxe Podcast. I am superstitious when it comes to any of my teams. This game was special, Super Bowls are always special, but the 2005 victory was kind of ugly and I believe game was a defining moment of Roethlisberger's career. This game was Big Ben winning it with 2 minutes and change and no matter what happens from here on out he will go down as a special quarterback.

No one is mentioning this, but I really did not want the Steelers to lose to the Cardinals. This was a Super Bowl win for the Pottsville Maroons. I like Kurt Warner, I do and I can root for a lot of the Cardinal players, but I will never root for Bill Bidwell until he returns the Maroons 1925 championship.

What a game though, my heart was in my throat and there was at least three times where Jake and I were jumping around the family room. We both were pretty down when the Steelers lost the lead. We were jumping all over the place when Ben led that last touchdown drive, it was AWESOME!

Lastly, many have asked over the last week if the Pittsburgh Steelers are America's team. As a life long Steelers fan, we are TOO COOL to allow anyone to refer to us as America's Team. We will savor this championship just as we have every one because you never know if you will see another one. GO STEELERS!

Being a computer user who prefers UNIX and Unix-like operating systems I would be remiss if I did not point out that we are approaching an interesting number in UNIX time. On Friday the 13th of February, 2009 at 23:31:30, the UNIX time will be 1234567890. I am the first to admit this means nothing, and is no more interesting than when your car rolls over to 100,000 or perhaps 123,456.

So what is UNIX time? The simple and fairly accurate answer is that it is the number of seconds since midnight of January 1st, 1970. Of course with no way to measure leap seconds this is not entirely accurate, but you get the idea. There was similar interest in 2001 when the UNIX time reached 1 billion, coined the UNIX billenium by some and again in 2005 when UNIX time was all ones (1111111111). Arguably this is the last excuse for a celebration until 2033 when the second billenium is reached. If I am still using UNIX in 2033 and UNIX time is still around I will indeed be impressed.

Hey, it falls on a Friday night at 11:30pm. This seems to be a good excuse for me to pull one of my cellared beers from the basement and have a mini celebration. So get your little C programs or scripts ready to watch the countdown to 1234567890!

UPDATE: In the Eastern Time zone 6:31pm, my bad I should have realized this. Check it.

scotbuff@growler~/Scripts$ date -r 1234567890
Fri Feb 13 18:31:30 EST 2009

Or maybe Python is your style

scotbuff@growler~/Scripts$ python -c 'import time; print time.ctime(1234567890)'
Fri Feb 13 18:31:30 2009

Either way it depends on your Time Zone.

Scott's occasional shared bookmark linkdump - Brutal Deluxe Edition.

• 2008 Brutal Deluxe / Nitevilla National Champion:
  I continue my tradition of naming the actual major college National Champion. Congratulations to the Utah Utes!
• Brutal Deluxe Football Podcast - 5 years and counting:
  Alex Harden and I are wrapping up our 5th year of the Brutal Deluxe Football Podcast. We have a few more weeks left on this season before our Spring hibernation begins. No big names, no sponsorship, just an enjoyment of talking football and sharing it with others.

As mentioned on one of my previous linkdump posts, I have wanted to try Geocaching for several years. Geocaching is high-tech treasure hunting played throughout the world by seekers equipped with GPS devices. The basic idea is to locate hidden containers, called geocaches or just caches, and then log your find in the cache log and online. It dawned on me a month or so ago that I could use my iPhone to give Geocaching a try. Jacob and soon Riley could also have fun searching for the the cache treasures. So far I am unsure if I am just terrible at the activity, the iPhone is not accurate enough or I am just not comfortable enough with some of the hides.

I do think if nothing else the iPhone is an amazing tool to use with Geocaching, with Google Maps allowing you to get satellite views of cache locations and Geocaching application getting you to the general area. I have just noticed that once in the area of the cache the distance to the hidden treasure seems to jump around even if you are not moving. Perhaps this is because of how the iPhone does GPS, by using cell towers. If I continue Geocaching it might be worth my time to pick up an actual GPS device to better zero in on ground zero.

The other issue is the hide locations of most of the caches I have tried to find. An awful lot of them are hidden in areas around shopping centers or homes. So out of the five caches Jacob and I have tried to find so far none were out of the view of homes. It feels a bit strange to be poking about a telephone pole at an empty ball field or behind a fence behind a grocery store. I guess I need to get past this, but at the same time I cannot help feeling like someone is watching me and wondering if I am looking for something nefarious. This feeling has stopped me from searching for three out of the five caches we have went for in a rather short timeframe and also stopped me from conducting a good search. Again, this is just something I probably have to get over.

So far we have found only one cache, a small film canister in Camp Hill. Which kind of makes me feel I am just not very good at the activity. Mostly I have no idea what I am looking for and sometimes I am unsure exactly where ground zero is. Jake was excited when we made our first find and is always excited about going for another one. I think all of the caches we have tried to find have been on the small side. Both Jacob and myself are excited to go for a larger container, and if we have our choice a cache that is away from homes and businesses. Longer days and warmer weather will increase the opportunity of us taking such a journey. I will have to try and search out some more out of the way caches that are reasonably close to home. Hopefully we have more success in the future, the activity is fun and is a nice learning experience for the kids, and dad.

I thought a post was worth making on some recent technology thoughts and discoveries. A couple months back I posted on how I was using FreeNAS for my Time Machine backups. This solution worked fine and I was using it successfully up until this week. The reason I chose FreeNAS is because I was unable to use a shared drive plugged into the USB port of my old G4 Mac Mini, I could use USB attached drive on the Mac Mini but could not use it shared with Time Machine on my Macbook. I had hoped this was a bug or a snag in Time Machine and not some way that Apple was using to force their Time Capsule solution. Who knows with the way Apple has been behaving with some of their hardware and software recently. There have been a few updates to Leopard and some Time Machine updates included since I last tried this. I decided to give this another shot, mainly because I use my Mac Mini often and it uses a lot less power than the computer I had FreeNAS installed on. I attached a USB drive, shared the drive and accessed the drive from my Macbook. Accessing the drive from the other Mac is important, the drive showed up as a Time Machine option as soon as I accessed it from the Macbook. I was surprised, because this definitely did not work the last time I tried it, and I fiddled with it for a couple days. Thank you Apple for finally fixing this!

Over a year ago I posted about mine and others issues with Ubuntu 7.10 and I was really displeased with how Ubuntu was working out of the box. Since that time I have used versions 8.04 on an Eee PC and 8.10 on the same desktop I reference in the post in which I complained about Ubuntu's performance. I have also used 8.04 and 8.10 on several Web Servers. What a difference 2008 Ubuntu has been compared to 2007 Ubuntu. Color me impressed, the installations have worked flawlessly for me and version 8.10 on the machine from a year ago runs circles around the performance of Ubuntu 7.10 on the same machine. I can once again recommend Ubuntu as my distribution of choice for those new to Linux or for those that want a machine and operating system that "just works". I even started the practice of requesting CDs from Ubuntu again to distribute to co-workers and friends. People are sometimes more likely to try software if it is nicely packaged on a CD.

Scott's occasional shared bookmark linkdump.

• Left 4k Dead:
  Left 4k Dead is an incredible zombie shooter made for the 2009 Java 4k Competition. The entire game is less than 4kb. I think it is pretty cool and the name is a play on the Left 4 Dead game by Valve Software, which I also own and enjoy.
• FleaFlicker Public League Championship:
  This was our first official year using and caring about FleaFlicker. I decided that in addition to our modified BDFL FleaFlicker league that I would play in a few public leagues using the default FleaFlicker rules. I believe winning one of these qualifies you for championship leagues. I joined three of these leagues and paid them a very limited amount of attention. I did make the playoffs in each one of them. The league I thought I had the worst shot to win ended up being the league I won. I was the last seed in the playoffs and beat the two best teams to win the champinship!

Christmas Beer 2008
Originally uploaded by scotbuff

For some strange reason I titled this post last year with the 2008 year. I must have already started drinking before I made that post. Anyway, here is this years stash, so far. I expect I will pick up a few more come Christmas and of course some other winter brews throughout January and February.

YuleSmith Holiday Ale from AleSmith is a first for me. I have not tried YuleSmith yet but I expect it to be a fantastic beer. Another first for me is Leinenkugel's Fireside Nut Brown Ale, this is a good brown ale, interests me in some of Leinenkugel's other offerings. What is becoming a favorite holiday beer for me is Santa's Private Reserve from Rogue, which I think is just about a perfect beer for my taste. This is the second holiday season where I was able to enjoy Santa's Private Reserve. Another beer that I had for the first time was Winter's Bourbon Cask Ale from Anheuser-Busch, it was alright, kind of a booring beer but it did not taste bad. I certainly would not say I could taste or smell any Bourbon and it seemed to be very under hopped. It was just an okay beer. Of course what would the Christmas season be without a beer that has now been named the BEST Christmas beer by among others Playboy Magazine, the Mad Elf Ale from Troegs Brewery. I usually save some Mad Elf from season to season, but lately I have had the taste for Mad Elf and doubt I will have any left come Spring. Lastly, I have Sierra Nevada's Celebration Ale, which is bursting with hops, this beer is for the true hop head, which I am.

Not really. They had a laser version of the famous Christmas Story BB gun at Bass Pro Shops. They were selling the real thing too. But we will just settle for trying out the laser version for now and stick to nerf and super soakers at home. Be sure to drink your Ovaltine.

Scott's occasional shared bookmark linkdump.

• Arena Football League cancels 2009 season:
  During the late 1980's through the mid 1990's I became a big fan of the Arena Football League. Before I became a big fan of Fantasy Football, I considered giving up the NFL permanently. This was not because I thought the AFL was superior to traditional outdoor football, only because I have been fed up with the major league professional athlete since about 1988. The AFL was minor league football with a unique twist. I will sadly miss not being able to watch any AFL this season. I hope the league and it's history is not lost forever.
• Billy Ripken - Finally Comes Clean:
  It has been 20 years since Fleer supposedly accidently released the famous baseball card, which I have. Billy Ripken finally tells the whole story about the bat and the picture on the 1989 Fleer card.
• Geocaching:
  Geocaching is the act of using GPS devices to locate hidden containers, called geocaches, outdoors. I have always wanted to try this, now with the iPhone and a very cool Geocacheing iPhone application I can do just that. Seems like a cool activity to do with the kids, so I am going to give it a try.

I have posted more than once about the things I like about the Xbox 360 console. The Xbox Live play, Xbox arcade and Netflix streaming are absolutely awesome. I am able to play the coop gaming that I prefer with friends all over the World. However, it is clear Microsoft has major problems with the hardware side of the house. As much as I feel the Xbox 360 is the killer console, especially with Neflix streaming, I would caution anyone buying this console to be ready for some frustration. My original console acquired the famous Red Ring of Death roughly six months after I purchased it; I made a mention of the Red Ring and getting the console repaired on this linkdump post. Almost a year and a half later, I again have another broken Xbox 360 console.

Since the serial number was different on the console that Microsoft sent back to me after the first repair I believe this was a brand new console and not a repaired console, but it could have been a refurbished machine. Whatever the case, I am forced to again ship my console to Microsoft, who thankfully extended the warranty to three years. Both repairs have been fully covered and I have not paid any fee for the "repairs" or the shipping, but I am still left without what is a major piece of our entertainment center for a month. While I usually only game on the console over the weekend, we do stream movies through the Xbox and it is our DVD player as well.

All of this leads me to believe that I will likely be left having to make a console buying decision as next Christmas approaches. The extended three year warranty will expire just before next Christmas and I am sure the repaired, or replacement Xbox 360 will break within the next year and a half. There are old console systems from the 1980's still working but Microsoft cannot make a console that lasts even two years. While I appreciate the extended warranty the frustrations of having to ship the console back to Microsoft will not soon be forgotten. I removed the horrible Windows operating system from all computers in my home over a year ago and have never looked back, do I have to rid my media center of Microsoft as well? I sure hope I am proven wrong and that the replacement console lasts, but I am sure you can understand that I am not very confident.

Scott's occasional shared bookmark linkdump.

• Tecmo Bowl Kickoff - DS:
  Tecmo Bowl is back! While some might not appreciate this retro classic, those that have experienced Tecmo Bowl will appreciate this remix of the classic. I have not been a fan of Madden since the 1990's. The Madden series could be great, but lack of EA wanting to make Madden have all the needed features, they instead rehash the same lack-luster game each season. Who can blame them, zombie Madden buyers purchase the crummy game that for some reason removed coop years ago. Especially on the Nintendo DS, Madden is horrible. If I am going to go backwards in my game play, I am doing it with style. Tecmo Bowl fits the Nintendo DS much better and does not attempt to pretend to be anything more than what it is. Classic arcade style American football at it's video game best.
• Boxee:
  Boxee is the free and open source way to watch TV on your HDTV or personal computer. Works with Linux, Mac and Windows and can even be installed on your AppleTV. I love Netflix streaming on the Xbox, seriously it is the killer app that sets the Xbox above the others. Well Boxee is the killer app for the AppleTV.
• Logitech Ships Billionth Mouse:
  Logitech's one billionth mouse came off the production line last month and we talked about their 500 millionth mouse on the old Nitevilla forums in September of 2003. Interestingly, I still use the exact same two trackballs I mentioned back in 2003. The Microsoft Trackball is attached to a Mac Mini and the Logitech Trackball is attached to a Linux desktop. I now use a Logitech Bluetooth Mouse with my Macbook and I love it. I also have a few other random USB mice nesting throughout the house. Logitech's milestone comes just before the 40th anniversary of the mouse, which was first used on December 9th, 1968. I see mouse use declining much like others have predicted, but not just yet. The mouse is still more precise than touchpads and touchscreens.

Green
Originally uploaded by Scott B.

As I mentioned before, I was going to attempt to create a Lego version of the classic green versus tan army men for my son this Christmas. After some late Friday nights in which I sat constructing green and tan tanks and jeeps in Lego format, as well as some time perusing Lego parts websites to build my individual soldiers, I have both sides completed. Roughly I have almost 20 soldiers per side, more than enough to rekindle this classic rivalry.

I got creative while choosing heads and tried to choose Lego heads that looked tough and rugged, few of those chosen would meet military regulations as far as haircuts. But I was not aiming for that anyway, I was aiming more for the old GI Joe look. If you look closely you will see beards, gold teeth, various smirks and even a terminator looking fellow on the tan side.

As far as the uniforms I tried to mix and match, much like what I have seen while watching World War II movies, I did not want the uniforms for either side to be identical. I wanted the colors to match but the uniforms to be vary slightly. What I have is one set of Lego soldiers who are clearly green and a second set of Lego soldiers who are wearing browns and tans.

Tan
Originally uploaded by Scott B.

Mixed in with the Lego soldiers are some Best Lock soldiers that came with the tanks and jeeps, all these parts and pieces are Lego compatible. Some of the complaints with the alternative Lego sets are that they did not lock together as well as Lego. Personally the bricks went together about as well as any Lego sets I have built, but I was not overly concerned as I intended to glue each piece so that the tanks and jeeps were permanently together. The Best Lock tanks are great and fit into what I was trying to create perfectly. I took a few liberties and put some of my own touches on the tanks to better enable multiple soldiers to man the tanks.

I think I came up with a toy idea that my son is going to be absolutely thrilled with this Christmas, and certainly a toy that none of his friends will have. If this is as successful as I hope, perhaps both sides will get some reinforcements in the future. Go GREEN!

Thanks to another generous person I am now a Boxee member. I now have Boxee running on the AppleTV and a couple of my computers. Boxee certainly makes the AppleTV more valuable as well as any media computers you may have. If any of you would like a Boxee invite, let me know. Boxee does not yet have a Windows client, so you will need a computer running Linux, Mac Tiger or Leopard or an AppleTV.

In the age of computers and particularly Google who needs a reference book? If you have never actually seen the Pocket Ref by Thomas J. Glover you have never held so much knowledge in your hands. Measuring roughly 3 inches by 5 inches and containing well over 700 pages, you will find details on everything from Automotive to Welding. I do mean everything, including electronics, first aid, tools, knots, geology, weather and weights and measures to name just a few.

I cannot say that the first time I saw the book was on Mythbusters, but that show is where I became fully aware of its existence. It easily fits anywhere, from a toolbox to a kitchen drawer and could prove invaluable if you were without any other reference. Anyone could find useful information from this reference book, particularly if you are ever confronted with home repair of any sorts. If you have ever wondered which handsaw blade to use or what kind of bolt you need to replace that rusted one you have just removed, it is in the Pocket Ref. If you need an area code for Montana or Mongolia, the Pocket Ref has it. Need to know the birthstone of the month your wife was born, the Pocket Ref has it. Need to stop the bleeding in your hand after you cut it with the handsaw blade you just looked up, the Pocket Ref can help.

If there is one reference book that I will forever keep in my home, the Pocket Ref is it. In my opinion the Pocket Ref is the most useful book ever published and if there is one that is better, I want to know about it.

Found this oldie but goodie in my archives. Requires just a left click to play. Hold your left mouse button to rise and release to fall. Post your highscores to the comments.

It has been a tough past ten days or so. We had to say good bye to our Beagle, Hunter yesterday. I have never been good about taking photos of the pets. Occasionally they show up, but for the most part I have not done a lot of pet photographing. This is an old photo, Hunter was much whiter in the face now than in this photo. Still, up until about ten days ago he was as full of life as a puppy. With children and so forth Hunter took a back seat through the years but he was liked by the kids who always laughed at his floppy ears and he would gladly lick their hands and face.

We thought Hunter was out of the woods after having a few teeth taken care of last week. But Thursday and Friday of last week he continued to regress and worsen. Sunday he was beaten and I had to make the decision to say so long to our 11 year old Beagle.

Hunter was the last of my pets from my single days, I got him as a puppy in February of 1998. He provided a lot of Beagle challenges, laughs and lastly sadness. Hunter was part of several daily routines for me for the past 11 years. Hunter, you will be missed.

Check.

There are some simply amazing Network-attached storage solutions, Netgear and Drobo have awesome solutions. Although the cost is not horrible for these units, most times once your throw in all the drives you need it is a major investment. I am not saying it is not worth it, but not the kind of investment I am ready to make. Backups are essential, I have email and pictures with remote services, but I also keep a copy on my own media. My older Dell with two hard drives was more or less unused except for a test server. I have been thinking about a NAS for quite some time and have been thinking about many solutions. I looked to see if anyone had any luck with Time Machine and FreeNAS. I really wanted Apple's Time Machine to work with whatever solution I chose because I have two Macs that are my primary computers. At the same time I wanted to be able to get to the drives from Linux or even Windows if another Windows machine someday finds it's way back into my home. Jackpot, others had accomplished exactly what I wanted with FreeNAS.

FreeNAS is awesome because it is tiny BSD operating system and even if you use an internal drive, which you do not need to, the drive is still available to share. It is very, very easy to install and be up and tinkering in just minutes. Add in some additional 500 GB USB drives and you suddenly have some serious Network-attached storage.

FreeNAS is a free network-attached storage server, supporting: CIFS (Samba), FTP, NFS, rsync, AFP protocols, iSCSI, S.M.A.R.T., local user authentication, and software RAID (0,1,5), with a web-based configuration interface. FreeNAS takes less than 32 MB once installed on CompactFlash, hard drive or USB flash drive. FreeNAS is currently distributed as an ISO image and in source form. It is possible to run FreeNAS from a Live CD, with the configuration files stored on an MS-DOS-formatted floppy disk or MS-DOS-formatted USB disk. There is also a VMware disk image available. The minimal FreeBSD 6.2 distribution, web interface, PHP scripts, and documentation are based on m0n0wall. FreeNAS is released under the BSD license.

I used these instructions over at ReadyNAS to get Time Machine working, but the drives were available as soon as I created the AFP shares. You can share the same drives with multiple protocols and because you do all the work through the web interface the machine can sit in a corner somewhere with absolutely no keyboard, monitor or mouse. You can do everything through the web interface and an amazing amount of resources are available through the web interface. FreeNAS is awesome!

I still might someday pick up one of the fancier solutions that Drobo or Netgear offer. But right now, FreeNAS is handling my needs and if you have a spare computer, it can be really low powered, and any kind of drives I would recommend that you check FreeNAS out. It is always a good idea to keep another copy of your files somewhere.

While I am a relatively quiet Phillies fan, I really am, I have followed the team since I knew what baseball was. Where I grew up the Phillies and Orioles were on TV and I always enjoyed listening to Harry Kalas and Richie Ashburn call the games. The style of calling the game used by Kalas and Ashburn won me over as a kid and the Phillies became the team I rooted for. I remember them winning the 1980 World Series and the two World Series losses in 83 and 93. While Richie Ashburn is no longer with us, Harry Kalas still is and he is still among my favorite to hear call a game. Here is how Harry Kalas called it.

"One strike away, nothing-and-two the count to Hinske. Fans on their feet, Brad Lidge stretches . . . the pitch . . . swing and a miss! Struck him out! . . . The Philadelphia Phillies are 2008 World Champions of Baseball!"

"Brad Lidge does it again and stays perfect for the 2008 season, 48-for-48 in save opportunities for the 2008 season, 48-for-48 in save opportunities . . . and let the city celebrate! Let the 48-hour wait diminish the euphoria of this moment and the celebration . . ."

"Twenty-five years in this city that a team has enjoyed a world championship and the fans are ready to celebrate. What a night! Phils' winning, 4-3, Brad Lidge gets the job done once again!"

I am old enough to remember the Phillies last World Series victory and this one was a long time coming. It has been 28 years since the Phillies last World Series victory and at times I wondered if I would ever see it again. I felt the same way about the Pittsburgh Steelers before their improbable Super Bowl victory in 2005.

This years Phillies had the most impressive bull pen ever for the Phillies, at least it performed like the best ever down the stretch and in particular the playoffs. That bull pen combined with an ace starter, great offense and a lot of hitting from the lesser known Phillies is what propelled the Phillies through the playoffs. No one seriously thought a National League team would win the World Series this year, including me. But once the playoffs started and the Phillies got through that first series I was a believer. The Red Sox were not dominating this year, except for their salaries and Tampa Bay did not scare me at all. So once the Rays were officially in I thought the Phillies had a fantastic shot at winning it all.

There have been a lot of years where I sat there at the end of the season and thought, "if we only had some pitching", well this year the Phillies had pitching and a lot of gritty ball players that made them a fun team to root for. I was disappointed with MLB again this year because of the terrible scheduling of the games, as was every other baseball fan in America, but I am going to enjoy this World Series win. Congratulations Phillies!

Scott's occasional shared bookmark linkdump.

• Happy Hacking Keyboard:
  I am a big fan of the 82 key Deck Keyboard, I have two of these and they are the best keyboards I have ever owned. They feel good, take little desk space and they are rock solid. I have heard over the years that the Happy Hacking Keyboard ranks right up there with the Deck and has additional hubs and is cheaper. The Deck is backlit and the Happy Hacker is not backlit, but I have very, very rarely found I need the back lighting which is mostly for aesthetics. Now that a Mac version of the Happy Hacker Keyboard is out, I think I am going to pick one up eventually.
• Mainframe Solaris:
  There was talk of Solaris on the IBM mainframe over a year ago but this is the first official offering. I think this is pretty cool, in the early 2000's I worked with Linux on the mainframe and even compiled from source the Marist version, the first Linux to run on the mainframe. I no longer work in the mainframe architecture, but if I did I would certainly want to try Solaris out on the Big Iron. Read more here.
• Ironkey Secure Flash Drive:
  Currently I use a generic flash drive with TrueCrypt encryption. It has worked well and I can use the drive with all my operating systems. A buddy of mine has used the Ironkey, which is encased in rugged metal, for over a year now and I have had my eye on it. Ironkey now supports storage on Linux (2.6 kernel) and Mac OSX so I am lured even more to pick one up.
• Open Yale Courses - Game Theory:
  Recently I began going back to school to finish up my degree. While the degree is important to me, continuing to broaden my knowledge is more important than the piece of paper. During my limited downtime I have found the many Open Courses available on the web, see iTunes U, very interesting. This Game Theory Course from Yale is on my todo list.
  
  With the economy and job market down the best investment one can make is an investment in themselves. This means that whatever it is that you do, it is important to get better at it. While you are at it, be sure to also invest in lowering any debt you may have.

Monster Movie Mug
Originally uploaded by Scott B.

I managed a Coffee Mug Monday for 2008. I have not really been on the look out for any new coffee mugs and I usually use the last mug featured on a Coffee Mug Monday. However, I am always open to receiving a gift mug or featuring the favorite mugs of others. My sister-in-law, Jennifer, picked up this mug that humourously depicts a fictional old style monster movie. I confess I have enjoyed more tea from this mug than coffee, but the mug does just fine with coffee as well.

Being a fan of the old monster movies, I think the monster resembles the Creature from the Black Lagoon more than anything. Interestingly I recently found out that there is a remake of the Creature from the Black Lagoon possibly coming in 2009. I love all those old monster movies ranging from the 1930's through the 1950's. When I was a kid I remember it being a right of passage that I was allowed to stay up late and watch Creature Features with Count Gore de Vol or Ghost Host on Friday or Saturday nights. Those movies seem really goofy by today's standards but they were classic movie monsters and in my opinion a lot better than the popular torture movies of today, which I refuse to watch. The over the top hosts of these movie nights is what made the films even better.

I wish the Sci Fi channel or something would create a show similar to one of those old horror movie nights. If they could actually air some of these old flicks it would certainly be better than all the original content movies they churn out. Do not get me wrong, some of the TV shows have been great, but their alligator and various dinosaur movies are absolutely terrible.

Back on topic, I will likely be going through my mugs and swapping some of them into storage. There are a few mugs that I made I made myself as well as one or two I would have difficulty replacing. If or when I do this, I can again start seeking out unique or interesting mugs to fill the cupboard again. Maybe I can manage more than one or two Coffee Mug Mondays in 2009.

Every boy, at least in the US, even those in the current generation most likely had Army Men in their toy arsenal. You know those molded plastic, usually green and tan soldiers that burst on the scenes again in the 1990's as a result of the popular video games and of course Toy Story. I had a huge collection including the Navarone playset when I was a kid. My collection was boosted by older brothers and I literally remember coating the basement floor with battles for Navarone, culminating with the fall of the top floor and the destruction of the big guns. I saw the movie (with Naverone spelled different) as a kid prior to getting the play set for Christmas in the late 1970's.

If any of you dads have tried to collect a variety of Army Men now for your kids, you quickly learn that there is not much variety and there are some that literally have no use except to destroy using some Sid from Toy Story method. I picked up a couple bags a couple years ago to use as awards for Jake when a job was well done. The molds were horrible, no detail and they would rarely stand on their own. This pretty much eliminated the purchase of this toy in the future. Even though the quality of these Army Men is horrible, Jake still plays with them, the kid actually has an amazing imagination and really plays with all his toys. It is enjoyable to listen to his stories unfold and I know one day I am going to really miss his imaginative play.

If you do not know, Jake is from my first marriage. Because he has two full time households there has occasionally been some duplication of toys. I try to come up with ideas that are as imaginative as his play and I have mostly been successful. Each Christmas around October I start thinking of ideas. This Christmas I have decided to construct the classic Green versus Tan Army Men in Lego form. For those not up on their Lego, Lego has never made modern military sets. Knights and Star Wars is about as close as you can get. In the Lego world some creative fans of Lego have been constructing even molding their own Lego modern military equipment and upon seeing some of the creations earlier this year I have held onto the idea.

I am not going to go crazy, but I have managed to find some websites where I can acquire the various torsos, legs, heads and yes even helmets that I can use to construct the two sides. Fortunately there are some compatible Lego like sets that have tanks and other military vehicles. By mixing and matching and using some creativity I should be able to put together my own Dirty Dozen for both Green and Tan. In the end, I am not going for actual scale here. If you remember our Army Men, the tanks and aircraft looked like they were built for troops half the size of our Army Men. My Lego versions should be much more impressive than even the originals and they will see Jake through his imaginative youth.

Late night weekends will likely see me constructing the Lego vehicles and troops for a Christmas Even invasion. Once I get some models finished I will post some photos.

Expresso Coffee Soda
Originally uploaded by Scott B.

Two years ago I reviewed Coca-Cola Blak and while I did not find the beverage objectionable, I predicted it would likely be off the market in a year or two. According to Wikipedia, Coca-Cola announced the end of Coca-Cola Blak in the United States on August 31, 2007. This was just over a year after my prediction. Julie picked me up a coffee flavoured soda when she visited New Jersey last week. I enjoyed the Manhattan Special Expresso Coffee Soda as much if not a little more than Coca-Cola Blak.

If the ingredients listed are accurate, which I think they have to be, this coffee soda was flavoured with sugar instead of the high fructose corn syrup that was in the Coca-Cola Blak. This makes sense since they claim to have made this recipe since 1895. The first thing I noticed when I opened the bottle was a strong coffee scent. If I was not overly excited about trying this soda at first, upon smelling a pleasant coffee scent erupt from the bottle I became more interested.

My initial taste immediately reminded me of Coca-Cola Blak, but there was a difference. This soda was less sweet and had a more pronounced coffee taste. The aroma did not lie, this soda was more like drinking a sweetened and carbonated coffee rather than an artificially flavoured coffee soda.

I would definitely drink this soda again and I recommend it to anyone who enjoys coffee beverages as much as I do. Certainly anyone that actually misses Coca-Cola Blak would find Manhattan Special's recipe a much better drink in my opinion.

Scott's occasional shared bookmark linkdump.

• Microsoft's I'm a PC ad campaign:
  Where in the commercial do any of these people say what operating system they have installed. A Mac is also a personal computer, so all these users could just as well be referring to their Macs. So if they are doing anything remotely interesting, they probably have Linux, OS X or BSD installed. I know all my non-Apple hardware is running Linux or BSD. Was it just me or did anyone else want to see where those Seinfeld/Gates commercials were going? Like a cancelled TV series, I feel like I need some closure.
• MacRumors: Buyer's Guide:
  This guide makes recommendations based off product cycles and rumors on whether it is a good time to make a purchase of Apple hardware. If you are really ready to buy I doubt this would stop you from moving ahead. If you are just thinking about it though, this is interesting.
• Bionic Commando Rearmed:
  Like last month I feel compelled to tell you about another game that is available in the Xbox Live Arcade or via download to a Windows personal computer. Bionic Commando Rearmed is an awesome side-scroller. As of now the two games I mostly play on the Xbox 360 is Bionic Commando Rearmed and Castle Crashers. Both are awesomely done and prove that side-scrollers can be done well with updated graphics.
• Technorati Profile

Mattel Electronics Soccer
Originally uploaded by Scott B.

Julie's dad had this original Mattel Electronics Soccer game with his sports memorabilia. He brought the game over so Riley had something to play with, as Jake is always playing my 30 year old Mattel Electronics Football 2. This Mattel Soccer is 30 years old too, according to the 1978 date on the back, but seems to be in a little better shape than my football game.

While the Mattel Football 2 is still my favorite of these games, the Soccer game is a lot of fun. I still play a game of Mattel Football and Baseball at least once a week. Although someone left the baseball game turned on during our fantasy football draft, so no baseball for me this week until I replace the batteries. It seems whenever someone sees one of these old Mattel Electronic classics that they just have to give it a try. Just remember to turn them off when you finish up. ;)

Soccer feels a little more like one against an entire team. Unless I am missing something there is not an option to pass and there appears to be no one to pass to. Both buttons appear to be just a kick toward the goal. Despite being one against six, there is a lot more scoring in the LED version of soccer than in the actual game. In the few games I played, I scored over ten for each team every game. Usually finishing with scores in the ranger of thirteen to twelve.

Just like all the other original versions of these Mattel Electronics sports classics there is no way to turn the sound off. So while they are a lot of fun, they are best played without others in the room. It does not take long before the various beeps will annoy those who are not enjoying the LED nirvana.

Scott's occasional shared bookmark linkdump.

• Mark All Mail Read in Gmail:
  So I had roughly 5,000 unread emails in a Gmail account. These were old forwarded messages that needed to be marked read. There was no one button or link that accomplished this feat. Thankfully I found these instructions.
• Castle Crashers - XBLA:
  An incredibly fun, funny and action packed side-scroller. These type of games are never done anymore and it is ashamed. Awesome coop action, lots of unlockables and worth every penny. Castle Crashers is easily my favorite game, at least until the Christmas onslaught of releases.

I know this is about ten days old, but I am still catching up from vacation. I have concerns with a bandwidth limit whether I am currently close to that bandwidth limit or not. I have additional concerns that I am not being provided with how much I am consuming currently. For decades we have been provided with how many minutes we on our phone bills, there is absolutely no excuse for Comcast not providing all their customers with their current usage statistics while charging for going over some limit. I have no interest in installing programs on mutliple computers or my routers. Comcast obviously knows what your usage is, your usage statistics should appear on your statement or online when logging into your account.

To say that under 1% of their users approach the bandwidth limit does not calm my fears. With devices like the Xbox, Apple TV and Roku about to explode all of us are about to use much more bandwidth. I know for certain that the amount of bandwidth I consume is going to increase quite a lot when Netflix on the Xbox becomes a reality this Fall. I suspect that more devices that are always online will be entering my household in the next few years. As my kids get older they will be online more often, we may even have multiple devices streaming movies into our house.

My opinion is that if I am told I can only use so much a month I need to know how much I am currently using each month. If it were not for the fact that Comcast does not block any ports, I would seriously consider looking at Verizon. It is frustrating that we have so little choice for broadband.

I promised some big news once I got the blog settled in at the new domain. So without further ado, Julie and I are expecting our fourth child in February. We will now be outnumbered by two! We decided a while back to have one more, giving us a very full house.

Once we find out if it is a boy or a girl the decision on whether we repaint the famed pink bedroom will be made. I had not anticipated repainting a room so soon, but Emma and Riley will be bunking up in the larger light green bedroom. Early trials with Emma and Riley sharing a room have been met with mixed results. Although I think we just about have all the kinks worked out. Sometime around the middle of February an exhausted stork will be delivering our next special package.

I spent eight days totally unplugged last week. No cell phone, no computer and no iPod. Sure I watched some TV in the evenings, but otherwise I was more unplugged than I probably have been since 1993. Including work emails, I am working on nearly 2,000 emails and nearly 1,000 Google Reader items.

I love technology, but I loved being unplugged last week. It will take me all week to get caught up, but it was worth it.

I am a long time Comcast customer and while I have had some issues over the years I have mostly had good service. Some recent experiences and changing times with digital television have caused me to come up with some ideas on how Comcast could better serve their customers, both business and residential.

Last weekend a friend of mine had his Comcast Business installed, although I use the term installed loosely. Comcast actually uses the term install fee and after deciding with my friend what service would meet his needs Comcast sent him the agreement. They apparently gave him a deal by only charging him $99 dollars for the installation rather than the standard $250 fee. Shortly after the installer showed up, 5 minutes later than the three hour window they told him they would be there, it became evident this guy was just a cable TV contractor who knew little to nothing of what he was installing actually did. Short of plugging it in and making a phone call the installer did nothing, anyone can plug in a device and make a phone call. My friend was left unable to connect to the Internet at all and the only documentation was his list of hand written IP addresses, subnet mask and DNS servers. Let me stress, these were hand written and not very well. That was it, there was no booklet and he could not get to the Internet to begin searching for help.

I have several problems with this, by default Comcast should leave their Business customer with a booklet and a quick start guide suggesting several setups for their customers. Please explain the installation fee when you are only plugging in a device and making a phone call to a support site telling them to turn the service on. These fees are excessive when from a customer point of view you’re doing nothing for them but breaking their current Internet access. Most of the Comcast Business customers are small business owners that would have no clue where to begin with this equipment, but most could certainly plug in the device, a computer to the device and make a phone call, which is all the installer did. I really need an explanation of why you would have a setup fee of $250 and leave the customer with a broken setup.

A small business is going to choose Comcast Business as an affordable option, they do not then want to be without Internet until they can hire a networking guy to set up what Comcast should be doing or at least providing some sort of documentation. I read countless posts on networking forums with customers experiencing exactly what my friend experienced. I was able to setup the environment for him but I did have to do some research on the type of gateway Comcast was providing and I had to do so with no booklet. The entire experience was not very good and my friend made several calls to Comcast customer service. When he was connected with the outsourced customer service he could not understand the accent and the suggestions were horrible and just wrong for getting him set up the way he wanted.

Regarding the digital switchover, this is not so much a complaint of Comcast’s service; the switchover is barely going to affect me. I understand I will lose a few channels with the televisions I do not have hooked to a cable box. Which I also understand would not have to happen, sounds to me like Comcast is taking a little bit away to persuade customers to pay for their boxes. Comcast, if you are serious about customer service, why not at least include two digital boxes to paying customers. Most if not all cable subscribers have more than one television in their home. We currently have four in our home with only one hooked up to a digital HD/DVR box. The time has come where one additional standard digital box should be offered for no additional charge. This would be an excellent way to stay ahead of the competitors, if they are not already offering this type of option

The bottom line is that it is clear to me that Comcast appears to be the same old small town cable company that all of us have spent many hours waiting to show up, only to have them show up late or not at all. Comcast business is supposed to be an operation with businesses, yet you are providing no documentation and hand written notes with critical information that is barely legible. From a a residential point of view, Comcast clearly does not understand that other options exist, rather than take services from your existing customer, the Digital switchover provided an excellent opportunity for you to cater to the customer and come out looking nothing like the old cable company. From my perspective, you are failing on both the business and the residential front.

I suppose this is my "Hello World" post for my new domain, but I also have some real reasons for the post as well. First, if you are unfortunate enough to have to use Internet Explorer, I apologize for some of the formatting (CSS) issues. As time permits I will work through the issues and hopefully have everything legible. I will also be moving over my blogroll and such as soon as I tackle the last of the CSS issues. I also wanted to test that the old feedburner feed works with this blog and also needed to overwrite the actual xml file, as it did not reflect the actual posts on this domain.

On a personal note I have some relatively big news coming up that I probably should have mentioned before now. Once I know that my Internet Exploring visitors can read it I will make it official. Thanks for moving with me to my hopefully permanent home on the Internet.

• delicious blog » Oh happy day — the new Delicious is here:
  It looks beautiful, not sure the functionality of the website is better. Thoughts?
  tagged as: web, bookmarking, social, del.icio.us, news
• Alpine Messaging System:
  Swood turned me onto Alpine. A rewrite of Pine, which I used years ago. This looks to be a pretty cool text based email system.
  tagged as: cli, unix, geek, tools, freeware, opensource, email, ascii, client, alpine, imap

• YouTube - Randy Pausch Last Lecture: Achieving Your Childhood Dreams:
  Awesome, if you have never seen the Last Lecture, watch it and then watch it again. Randy Pausch died July 25th, 2008.
  tagged as: inspirational, lecture, pausch, life, lessons, dreams, lifehacks
• Our Towns - Build a Wiffle Ball Field and Lawyers Will Come - NYTimes.com:
  I experienced this as teenager, we built a skate ramp on Memorial Day and ended up in a big debate. Let the kids play and the neighbors need to learn how to play, they seem have forgotten.
  tagged as: wiffle, ball
• Philadelphia Soul defeat the San Jose Sabercats, Win ArenaBowl:
  Philadelphia's first title since the 1983 Sixer championship. This was not easy, and had the Soul lost you had the feeling it would have affected all Philadelphia sports for a while. Perhaps this will have the opposite effect.
  tagged as: AFL, football, ArenaBowl, championship, Philadelphia

• DNS Exploit - Is Your DNS Patched?:
  If you use OpenDNS you are okay. If you use whatever your ISP uses, surf to the link and click "Check Your DNS" button on the right side. I highly recommend OpenDNS.
  tagged as: dns, exploit, security, tools
• Broncos' Rod Smith Retires:
  Easily one of my all-time favorites. The rare cool player who did not celebrate, nor demand the ball. He demanded to win and win he did.
  tagged as: broncos, NFL, rod, smith
• Lazy Linux: 10 essential tricks for admins:
  Some interesting tricks.
  tagged as: geek, linux, sysadmin, tips, tricks

For nine years the last Friday in July has marked System Administrator Appreciation Day. Today is the day to thank the person, who keeps your email flowing, your favorite web site available or in some cases your fantasy football league available. If a service you use is kept afloat by a computer, a system administrator is behind it. SysAdmin Day is also special to me because for the past ten plus years System Administration has been my chosen profession, for both my day and night jobs. While gifts are always accepted, coffee, donuts or a thank you is cool too.

Happy System Administrator Appreciation Day!

Shared bookmarks for del.icio.us user Scott Buffington.

• Rush soars in blistering sets- PennLive.com: Awesome show, possibly the best concert I ever saw and heard.
  tagged as: rush, music, 2008, concert
• Rush Interview And Tom Sawyer on The Colbert Report: Rush has gotten used to kicking so much ass and being awesome.
  tagged as: rush, colbert, music
• Xbox to Stream Netflix Movies: Gold membership - check, Netflix membership - check. This combined with a recently gifted Apple TV (Thanks Jules) gives me a lot of streaming options. So glad I held off on the Roku.
  tagged as: streaming, movies, netflix, microsoft, xbox

Tuesday July 15th, 2008 I again sat with my son who was intently watching the second inning of Major League Baseball's All-Star game with the time now after 9pm. I find that as each year passes I grow particularly more frustrated with professional sports. I realize it is a business but does everything always have to be about making a buck? I will be surprised if MLB does not seriously pay for snubbing young fans someday. What am I complaining about? Why is a game in which the league wants to showcase their all-stars on at 9pm on a weeknight? There is literally no chance of a young fan watching the entire game.

The World Series is already a mess that any kid that goes to bed at a reasonable hour never gets to watch. My son is 6 years old and the latest he stays up on a non-school night is 10pm except for very rare occasions. But MLB has demonstrated on numerous occasions that all they care about is when the advertisers want the game televised.

While I am at it, today’s players do very little to preserve the game. Sure they will threaten to sit out an opening day game played in Japan unless their managers and coaches are paid bonuses like they were to play. But I have not heard any MLB player say anything about ending the Hall of Fame game that had traditionally been played each year in Cooperstown. Nope, the players have no interest because there is no money to be made with playing the game. MLB does not care about the game because they could not make any money from the game.

The NFL has its problems but I do have to take my hat off to them that they still play the Super Bowl before 8pm on a Sunday. The NFL at least stays with some traditions and seems to understand that a game finishing at 10pm is a lot better than a game finishing at midnight or later.

Major League Baseball has a six year old fan that wants to get to know its players, he wants to watch your game and you continually program around him. Keep doing those sorts of things and someday you might not demand any ratings. I turned the game off after the six year old in my household went to bed at 9:30pm. You lost several adult viewers with that kind of programming, jerks.

Harrisburg Mile
Originally uploaded by scotbuff

I have never run a distance race competitively. Probably the closest thing was the old Presidents Physical fitness tests in school. I ran a lot of laps training for sports like wrestling where I needed the cardiovascular system of King Kong. But since leaving school I have not run distances very often and I have not run anything other than sprints in years. I was always a 100 meter guy. That all changed about six weeks ago and my lower legs are still not cooperating. I did achieve my goal though, under 10 minutes.

The time I crossed the finish line was 9:44, no idea what I will officially be listed at. I was told before hand to watch that I did not go out too fast, I was looking to run around a 2 minute quarter mile. I got caught up in the excitement and ran a 1:36 quarter mile, much too fast. I suffered pretty badly through the rest of the run, moving at a near crawl through the middle. However I ran the last quarter mile better and did not look too bad at the finish, although I did do a quick check where the medical staff was. The crowd was really good and cheered everyone on throughout the race.

My lower legs are still not used to running, but I intend to keep at it and come back next year to crush the 9:44 time. I think I will concentrate on logging longer runs, maybe work toward a 5k. I would like to run a 7 minute mile next year, but that might be a tall order. I finished and managed to walk to the free beer tent to reload some carbs.

• Slashdot | TrueCrypt 6.0 Released:
  Truecrypt is the bomb, works on every OS. I use it over any built in encryption on all my usb thumbdrives in the event of loss. Protect your privacy!
  tagged as: encryption, privacy, security, freeware

• Saints Standout Colston Joins AIFA Harrisburg Ownership Group:
  Arena Football coming to Harrisburg. SWEET!
  tagged as: football, news, arena, harrisburg
• Asterisked Bonds Ball Arrives at HOF for Display:
  Properly asterisked, the ball that Barry "cheater" Bonds hit for his steroid assisted HR record finally arrived at the HOF. In a few weeks the ball will properly mark the cheating era in MLB and be displayed at the Hall of Fame.
  tagged as: asterisk, cheating, Bonds, homerun, baseball
• Harrisburg Giants:
  On June 30th, 2008 the Senators honored the Harrisburg Giants of the Negro Leagues including wearing throwback uniforms. They looked great, but lost to the Bowie Baysox. Jake got a foul ball.
  tagged as: harrisburg, baseball, giants, senators

I have been considering returning to school for a while now and finally decided that this might be the time to take the necessary steps. In preparation for some online classes I thought I would dual boot one of my computers with a Microsoft operating system. At a Microsoft event a few months back I was given a free copy of Windows Vista Ultimate edition. I still have Windows XP laying around, but thought I would give Windows Vista a valid try.

So over the weekend I spent some time installing, configuring and using Vista Ultimate edition. I can say with absolutely no bias, Vista is really crap. Believe it, and I hope for your sake you do not have to experience it. The firewall is a mess and confusing or apparently lacking any standard outside of Redmond. Even when you allow connections they might not be allowed by the machine, the network seems non-compliant with anything that is not Microsoft. I ended up turning the firewall off completely, the router is enough for the little bit I will be using Vista. Also when the firewall takes an error, you are told you cannot see the error without switching to this other screen, stupid and left me wondering why. Using the Vista desktop reminded me of using Linux back in 2000 when it was not ready for the desktop. Nothing seemed to work well together or without extra clicking. Vista is a huge step backwards as far as a graphical user interface. Also, when installing something I had to okay the installation at least twice for everything I installed in the event I changed my mind in the last second I suppose. In reality I think I clicked more than twice to allow the installation before I was finished. The entire experience is horrible. Seriously, Windows XP is like a dream compared to Vista. During my prior use on a virtualized machine I never really did anything with Vista. Now that I actually started setting the thing up for use I can honestly say it feels unfinished. Which if it had not been out for something like two years I could maybe understand. At this stage, should it feel that way? I remember being impressed with Windows 95 and even liking XP when it first came out.

The network seems to be among the biggest problems. I have had absolutely no trouble accessing my Mac or Linux computers from one another, but for the life of me I cannot properly remote connect to the Vista machine from the Mac or Linux computers. If my kids are going to be using a computer I want to watch their use from my computer. Within the walls of my home you are not in America, you are in Buffland, a dictatorship run by me. Vista is interfering with my parenting and I AM NOT running another Microsoft operating system just to get to another Microsoft operating system. I spent enough time over the years repairing Microsoft computers ruined by teenagers to know that when it comes to family computers freedom is bad. If you monitor your kids behavior they will not be chatting with one of those weirdo’s Chris Hansen always exposes. I would not even consider keeping Vista on this computer if I had not been given a free copy from Microsoft. If I had paid for this, wow, I would have to say I would feel like I was sold a lemon and seriously pursue a refund. Even now I am considering reloading the computer with Windows XP.

Let's continue on with the GUI, yuck, the graphical interface, yuck, even with all the graphics turned on, yuck. Does anyone actually think this works? It resembles a bad OS X rip-off. Who came up with that design? It looks like a poorly designed webpage where someone found widgets from all around the web and embedded all of them. I switched to classic view, which still has problems. With all the bells and whistles turned off Vista uses over 500MB of memory. In regards to the behavior of the GUI, I have to click on everything to accomplish anything; nothing is done for me as it was on prior Windows operating systems. To go into programs I have to click the folder and to expand program folders I have to click each of them. This feels broken and old. I am used to just hovering and each would open. Thankfully I always set up the Quick Launch toolbar to access almost all my programs. Task Manager has been routinely hanging in a way that the close button disappears. I have to find task manager in the task manager list and kill it. This is a NEW install with all the updates, what the hell? More on Task Manger, why as an admin do I have to tell it to show me all the programs running? If I am left to do all this clicking and killing of programs, what is Vista doing with all that memory?

Every operating system has pieces you would like to see function differently, but never have I seen any group literally cripple their operating system to the extent that Microsoft has done with Vista. Vista Ultimate, I would really hate to experience the five other versions and learn what they are lacking. Perhaps in the next week I might get to do some actual computing, if I can stand it. Now we know why Microsoft has extended XP support until the release of the next Windows operating system. Vista deserves all the flak it is getting and it probably deserves more.

• Diablo III is Coming!!!:
  The game returns and yes I WILL be playing it, and it will still be hack and slash crazy with of all things, a computer mouse! ;) A wink from my previous bookmark. I hope there is still a Paladin, I was the master with Diablo II.
  tagged as: diablo, entertainment, games, gaming, blizzard
• The Mouse Is Dead:
  I try to use the keyboard over the mouse, but this article is misinformed. The mouse and keyboard is still the preference for PC gaming. First person shooting with a mouse cannot be matched with a controller.
  tagged as: computer, hardware
• RIAA Radio Needs To Pay:
  99.5% of radio is Recording Industry garbage. I hope radio fights it, either way it does not affect me much. I think it is the final bullet in the foot for the RIAA personally if they push it.
  tagged as: copyright, media, radio, riaa, music
• The Associated Press: George Carlin mourned as a counterculture hero:
  RIP George Carlin
  tagged as: people
• Fantasy Baseball Owner Rips Team:
  Onion writes Brutal Deluxe style fantasy sports article.
  tagged as: baseball, humor, sports, fantasy
• New York Times Article on xkcd:
  My favorite Internet comic, xkcd.
  tagged as: comic, Internet, geek

A few years ago I came to the realization that I simply will not put the time or money into golf required for me to maintain the quality of play necessary for me to enjoy playing. I played golf for enough years to realize that your swing needs to be practiced at least weekly, realistically several times a week to maintain the type of golf game I want to play. Golf is a wonderful challenge and for me I just cannot fully embrace a challenge if I am not able to do so whole-heartedly in the manner I deem necessary. I announced my retirement from golf sometime back in 2003 to my friends until the kids have grown. For me golf is not about beating another players score, it is beating the score you previously shot on the course you are playing, it is about beating the course. Like it or not this involves large investments of time away from family and yes golf costs a lot to play. One day I will return to the game, older, wiser and yes probably not quite with the same athleticism I had. But all is not lost; time with the family allows you other pursuits.

I have not golfed in so long, it is sad. I have however been playing wiffle ball at least once a week. I played Thursday, Friday and Saturday evening. So, although my golf game is suffering, my wiffle ball game is all-star material. I made two amazing diving catches on Saturday; both would have been Sports center material. I also hit homeruns on Thursday and Saturday, overall I had a great series.

Shared bookmarks for del.icio.us user Scott Buffington.

• Suse 11 Hands On: I really dug Suse in the early 2000's. I have since grown to prefer Ubuntu as my Linux of choice. That being said I do not agree with everything said in this hands on.
  tagged as: suse, linux
• Harrisburg Senators Manager Interesting Baseball Career: Perfect attitude you want for a manager and to teach young players. The guy was best known for standing up to Dave Parker, breaking Parker's cheekbone in a collision at home plate.
  tagged as: Senators, Harrisburg, Stearns, manager, baseball

• More motocyclists hurt, dead without helmets.:
  They needed a study to figure this out. The helmet law makes no sense when you have a seatbelt law and well... If you choose not to wear a helmet, well... Insert your thought there.
  tagged as: helmets, motorcycles, laws, moron
• sshblack -- Automatically blacklist SSH attackers:
  Useful tool.
  tagged as: ssh, block, sysadmin, security, tools
• Cool Tool: Organizes desk-bound cords:
  These look handy and relatively cheap.
  tagged as: cables, organization
• ZFS Mentioned on Snow Leopard Server Page:
  Wonder if it will be included with non-server Snow Leopard. Cool Sun pieces continue to find their way into OS X.
  tagged as: apple, mac, osx, zfs

• Upstart - Replacement for init on Ubuntu:
  Upstart replaced init a little while ago on Ubuntu.
  tagged as: linux, ubuntu, sysadmin, upstart, documentation
• Dharma Food Labels:
  Might print some of these off. :)
  tagged as: Lost, labels, dharma
• 25th Anniversary of Wargames:
  Has it really been that long since the release of what still goes down as my favorite computer oriented movie.
  tagged as: nostalgia, security, technology, movies, computers
• Supersteak tomato:
  This is the type of tomato I am growing this year. If all goes well I will add another vegetable or two next year.
  tagged as: tomato, gardening

While trying to think of some ideas to introduce or spur a passion for Science in my kids I recalled launching model rockets growing up. One of my older brothers toyed with this hobby and me and some friends did also. The Estes kits are still widely available and I had a lot of success making my own rockets with cardboard and masking or duct tape. I only recall one incident where we had a pretty bad malfunction; a wing fell off the rocket during launch.

• OpenOffice 3 Beta:
  Although a lot of Mac OS X verbiage, this release could be useful for all operating systems. Opens A LOT of office formats.
  tagged as: freeware, opensource, software, office
• 30 Useful PHP Classes and Components « PHP::Impact ( [str blog] ):
  Useful PHP resources.
  tagged as: development, programming, resources, php
• TeamSpeak - Welcome to TeamSpeak:
  Interesting alternative to Skype.
  tagged as: voip, software, tools
• How To Install A TeamSpeak Server On Ubuntu | HowtoForge - Linux Howtos and Tutorials:
  Easily setup a TeamSpeak Server. Believe Alex has one. :)
  tagged as: voip, linux, ubuntu, software

• Harrisburg Mile:
  My first ever distance race. I will be running in the Harrisburg Mile on July 16th, 2008 as part of my corporate team.
  tagged as: running, harrisburg, mile
• Craft-brew set now has option to can their beer:
  Via Phil - Makes sense, really a better way to store beer.
  tagged as: beer, cans, craft

A the very end of February I set a fitness goal for mid-May. The goal was to simply achieve 12 plus reps of 225 pounds and the post detailed how I had mostly been inactive for quite a while. Along the way I hit quite a few bumps in the road, that included a cold from mid-March until April. Near the end of April I severely pulled my back moving a tree, and this was not Dinosaur Training. Despite achieving 13 reps this past weekend I was quite disappointed in the whole goal. I nearly achieved 12 reps by week three and from the point I caught the cold right up until the back injury that laid me up for a week and a half I made little gain. I could have trained harder through the cold and the back injury was due to me being an idiot and not warming up. I certainly would not walk up to a heavy deadlift without working myself up to the weight. When I first got back on the bench after the back injury I could not even flatten my feet on the floor.

The truth of the matter was that the goal never grabbed me like I thought it would, I was largely umotivated once I caught the cold. After managing to maintain through the cold I did not step up the intensity like I should have. A week or so before I decided to just finish off the entire challenge I dug through some old training notes and just decided to use one of my old and successful training routines. I also stepped up the cardio once I injured my back, weight training at that time was the last thing on my mind.

My business partner has turned into an avid runner in the past year and this brought to light one of those achievements that I would like to complete in my lifetime. Which is completing a distance race of some type. I am sure each of you have some things on a list in the back of your head somewhere that you would like to achieve. For example, one of mine was writing a novel, something that I have achieved. Although I ran a lot during some of my athletic endeavors, I have never took part in any kind of distance race.

Due to my body being totally unaccustomed to the jarring of road running, I have not even played tennis in more than a year, I am starting very slow. A lot of non-jarring cardio activity and hopefully by June I am ready to begin full on running. In the mean time, the old weight training routine is feeling very awesome and my motivation is much higher. I have also already signed up to run in the corporate challenge leg of the Harrisburg Mile, which should be a nice introduction of what to experience as I later try to tackle a 5k or greater.

While I feel Ubuntu has done a lot for the growth of Linux on the desktop and I still have two computers running the Long Term Support, Hardy Heron in my household, it is time for me to branch out and try another operating system. While a tweaked Hardy Heron runs nicely on the Eee PC and the Hardy Heron Server Edition is powering a headless (no console and no desktop installed) older Dell that I only ssh into, I have grown tired of ATI graphics issues with Linux. While I understand the difficulty of supporting the loads of hardware that Linux does and I realize the manufacturers do not think of Linux first from the driver perspective, I have decided to try another road. With the official release of OpenSolaris 2008.05 a few weeks ago, I decided to give it a whirl.

First things first, I probably would not yet recommend OpenSolaris to just any user, but I am a long time UNIX guy and I am fairly confident a few of the Linux variants are still the best option for many users looking to escape the clutches of Microsoft or even Apple if they are too proprietary for you also. The last two or three releases of Ubuntu have just not worked well enough graphically on a few of my computers. This is largely due to the ATI video cards in some of my computers. OpenSolaris seems to do a much better job of supporting the ATI video card I have, the first test was that it could actually run the screensavers, something Ubuntu would do less than 10% of the time. Was the lack of screensavers a big deal to me? No, but the crashing of applications, the desktop and the beta web browser was. After a week of use, OpenSolaris has worked without any of the aforementioned issues. I simply used the screensaver test to determine how well the graphics card was supported and OpenSolaris performs better job for my computer.

Overall the entire system seems to run more solid and perhaps a little faster than it did with Ubuntu installed. I have run no official benchmarks, but I have not been asked for a week why something was not working on the computer by my son. My Hardy Heron install was a fresh install and I had the exact same issues I had after initially upgrading the system. Within the first day an educational game my son was playing hung, the desktop crashed a few times over the past couple weeks and I was not entirely happy to see that a beta web browser was the officially packaged browser. Yes I am aware I could install another browser, that is not the point.

OpenSolaris met my conditions for the computer in question, good graphics support, office documents support with Open Office, package management with IPS, virtualization possible with VirtualBox and nice entertainment software for the kids. OpenSolaris also has the same Gnome desktop that Hardy Heron has by default and a current but stable Firefox version. With DTrace and ZFS being extra technology perks, I am feeling even more confident on my decision to welcome OpenSolaris into my fold.

I have heard Samba takes some work to get working and for some users that could be an issue for some folks. Also the amount of packages does not come close to Linux, but almost certainly everything that most users would need is there. Besides, I have no problem compiling software if I am trying something out of the ordinary. For the first official release OpenSolaris looks nicely polished and meets my needs without me having to troubleshoot graphical issues. If you have had similar issues as myself, you might want to give OpenSolaris a try. I suspect Ian Murdock, the Debian GNU/Linux founder hired by Sun, is a very big reason for the quality of the release.

I never call myself a programmer in my day job. Sure I do program from time to time but it is part of my System Administrator duties and never would I list my day job as a programmer. I do some programming in my spare time but overall most of my programming experience over the past 10 years has been with shell scripting, a little C and C++ thrown in and PHP for web development. I could throw in some other languages that I checked out (Python and Ruby) and the Perl that I use as a command line tool more than I have as a programming language. When asked last week at my day job if I knew C or Java I responded that I know C from the hobbyist perspective and that I would not pursue a profession at this time as a C programmer. As far as Java, I wrote a Java applet or two in 2003 when giving the language a look but I spent no more than a few hours coding Java.

That being said Java and I have crossed paths quite a few times over the years. Some of my primary duties used to be with WebSphere and a host of other applications I have installed or supported over the last few years seemed to have some Java tied in somewhere. I have installed and updated Java so many times that I have lost count. Shortly after I was asked whether I knew C or Java I was told to start learning Java. Along with my System Administration comes the UNIX user support duties that often means those involved with building the product we sell to run on UNIX systems, Windows and even Mainframe need a tool to do something. I have also had my hand in supporting and improving the packager and installer for the product. I suspect a Java piece is wanted for some task and I am going to be taxed with writing it.

One thing I will say about my current employer is that I am encouraged to expand my knowledge. While my day job is not what I would call perfect, I am afforded time to learn other IT skills without being made to feel as if I am doing something wrong. Something I experienced hands on and to the extreme with a former employer.

Over the past week or so I have been exploring and toying around with Java, writing dozens of programs to do mostly trivial little tasks. I need to learn to walk before I can run. Coming into Java now that it seems to be a mature language, I am really impressed. I would go so far as to say I am enjoying learning Java and I could see me doing future projects in Java rather than some of the other programming languages I used in the past. It is obviously too early for me to say it is my language of choice but I am enjoying adding it to my toolbox.

• Hanover Brewing Company Update:
  Great to hear things are still moving along, even though it has been slow.
  tagged as: beer, craft, brewery
• Arlen Specter Calling for Investigation on Spygate:
  I agree Goodell is hiding how big of a wrong this was. Not sure I want tax payer money paying for yet another sports scandal. Just revoke the NFL's antitrust if they do not punish as they should.
  tagged as: patriots, cheating, nfl, spygate
• Slashdot | HP Seals the Deal Buys EDS:
  
  tagged as: for:twit, eds, hp
• Irix or Vista? Irix of course:
  I agree with this post. My limited experience with Irix was pleasant. I do not understand why anyone would think Vista looks good. Compared to OS X it looks blah.
  tagged as: irix, desktop, vista, unix, osx

• Request a Free OpenSolaris 2008.05 CD:
  I requested my copy. Last time I tried this I was not impressed, but that was over a year ago and this is the official release.
  tagged as: development, freeware, opensource, opensolaris, os, software, unix
• macvim - Google Code:
  VIm specifically built for the Mac.
  tagged as: vim, mac, osx, editor, software, free, freeware, vi

This is a NEW list of software for Mac OS X that I consider "must-have". The software on this list is software that I use frequently, but the list should be considered dynamic in nature, it may change at anytime. This list is additional software that does not come with the operating system and is updated for Leopard. I had this update sitting around for a while and rather than edit the original post which was geared toward Tiger, I thought I would put up a new post.

Internet and communications

Adium

Adium X is the best multi-protocol instant messenger client, and supports the major transports, such as AIM, ICQ, MSN, Jabber, Yahoo, and more. The interface is very nice and the software is free.,

Firefox

I have used Firefox, well since it was called something else. Firefox has a handful of extensions that keep me using the browser, it is a good web browser but minus the specific extensions I could happily use Safari as well. As matter of fact, I mostly use Safari.

Fugu

Fugu is an open-source FTP and SFTP (SSH Secure File Transfer) client and browser. Fugu has not been updated in a while, but it does everything I need and is free to boot. Transmit is wonderful software, but paying for such an application with Fugu available just seems silly to me.

Multimedia and Graphics

VLC

VLC media player is a highly portable multimedia player for various audio and video formats (MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DivX, mp3, ogg, ...) as well as DVDs, VCDs, and various streaming protocols. I used it on OS X and Linux and it even streamed Alex's ogg vorbis stream on the Mac when all others failed.

Audacity

Audacity is a free, open source software for recording and editing sounds in Mac OS X, Linux and other operating systems. I use this application to record my side of the podcasts, which I then export to FLAC format. FLAC stands for Free Lossless Audio Codec, an audio format similar to MP3, but lossless, meaning that audio is compressed in FLAC without any loss in quality.

Flickr Uploadr

The Flickr Uploadr provided free from Flickr is all I need to get my photos to Flickr. I drag and drop from iPhoto to the Flickr Uploadr where I can apply tags, descriptions and even create sets or add photos to existing sets. Recent releases have improved functionality, so if you have not checked it out in a while you might want to.

Gimp

GIMP is an acronym for GNU Image Manipulation Program. It is a freely distributed program for such tasks as photo retouching, image composition and image authoring. I am in no way a graphic artist, GIMP serves this amateurs needs.

Productivity

NeoOffice

NeoOffice is a Mac-only port of OpenOffice.Org. It is a free and excellent office suite that meets all my office suite needs, and enables you to work with Microsoft generated office documents too. If you are using OpenOffice on the Mac, NeoOffice is what you should be using.

BuffSched

Buffsched is a command line scheduling application I wrote in shell script and is currently compatiable with Mac OS X, Linux, AIX, Solaris and HP-UX. A simple text file holds all your scheduled appointments and ignores any entries that are not in the BuffSched format. This is so you can keep a todo list, an address book and any other information you deem useful in the text file. I carry mine on a thumb drive so I can access and change my schedule at work and at home. I mostly use BuffSched on my servers as a replacement for Message of the Day and include the program in users default profile. I can easily keep users posted of scheduled maintenance with BuffSched.

MacVim

MacVim is a port of the text editor Vim to Mac OS X that is meant to look better and integrate more seamlessly with the Mac than the existing Carbon port. After trying other Mac Text editors, I am back to Vim. The bottom line is that I can install Vim on all the other operating systems I use and it works the same. Being an old UNIX jockey I am familiar with vi on the command line. There can be no argument, Vim is the best!

svnX

SvnX is an open source GUI for most features of the svn client binary. SvnX allows you to browse your working copies, spot changes and operate on them. SvnX can also browse logs and revisions of your repositories. I have been working with a Subversion server hosted on AIX and svnX has worked wonderfully.

System Tools

TrueCrypt

TrueCrypt is free open-source disk encryption software for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux. I use TrueCrypt to encrypt my thumbdrives and with TrueCrypt I can access the drives from my employers Windows machine or from any of my Linux or Mac computers. I needed a solution that I could use with all the major desktop operating systems, TrueCrypt is that solution. TrueCrypt is an awesome encryption solution even if you do not use a Mac.

VMware Fusion

I purchased VMware Fusion during the beta phase. VMware Fusion runs the only Windows installation found in my home and is useful for trying different distributions of Linux. Vmware Fusion has been running Windows Vista Ultimate edition on my Macbook just fine. Though I confess that I really have not had a reason to boot my virtual Windows guest in months.

• Hivelogic - Regarding Backups:
  Nice backup solution ideas. The Drobo is something I linked to when it first became available. Enticing but the intial price still seems a little steep.
  tagged as: backups, mac, osx, storage
• Forget Brain Age - Software Proven to Make You Smarter Developed:
  Simple software, although not available yet I have an idea for creating my own simple alternative. I still see a benefit to the Brain Age games.
  tagged as: education, science, training
• Ultimate Homebrewing Setup:
  Computer controlled beer brewing rig. You have got to see this. Scroll down and watch the videos.
  tagged as: beer, brewing, homebrew, homebrewing, video

• Ubuntu Server Edition JeOS | Ubuntu:
  Optimized for virtualization.
  tagged as: linux, ubuntu, virtualization, vmware

Hot Corner
Originally uploaded by Scott B.

This past weekend the local baseball leagues officially kicked off. Beginning Friday night Jake played his first official tee-ball game. Saturday they had pictures, opening ceremonies which included three Harrisburg Senator baseball players and a game. Although they do not officially keep score, the kids are pretty aware that they are getting outs. The team looks good, several of the kids, Jake included can field and throw to first base. During his games they often get three outs before the other teams full order bats. Every kid does get to bat each inning and the games are only 4 innings. Thankfully there is no pitching, all the hitting is off the tee, this is a VERY good thing. All the kids have improved at fielding and hitting from where they started and so far his team has not hit into three outs in any inning.

I cannot say enough how much I like the way the games are played. At this age most of these kids would not hit a thrown pitch and it would only promote bad habits. All of them have improved a lot and with the game moving at a swift pace their attention is maintained. I am also thrilled that Jake enjoys the game of baseball and he is very serious about his game. When he is running the bases some of the spectators have commented on his game face. Shortstop is probably his favorite position, most of the kids do not pull the ball so a lot of hits go up the middle. He did get to play the hot corner in his first game, they play a different position each inning. Which is great because they learn how to play each of the positions and how to cover the bases. There are no psycho parents and his coaches are fantastic, all and all a great experience for his first exposure to organized sports.

All this of course takes me back to my childhood and how excited I was to just play neighborhood wiffle ball and the like when the weather warmed up. We used to play this modified baseball game with taped up wiffle ball bats and tennis balls at one of the playgrounds. At this particular park we had to use tennis balls because we routinely hit homes on the other side of the street. We called the game homerun and thankfully the home we hit most was that of one of the guys who played with us. The park was lined with massive trees that knocked down most of the balls, the challenge was catching balls while avoiding playground equipment and trees. There was some real circus catches made and I perfected my modified knuckle ball playing that game. Another advantage of tennis balls is that you could play with less than a full roster on each team, you were allowed to hit base runners with the ball to get them out. When I was a kid everyone had some modified game based on baseball with homefield rules. Jake and I have been fine tuning a game like that here at Buffington grounds, our season will start when his tee ball league ends. It is Spring folks, PLAY BALL!

• Mac Mini Media Centre / journal / hicksdesign:
  This is something I have been considering for a while. Definitely a project I want to follow.
  tagged as: apple, mac, osx, entertainment, media
• 2008 the year of Linux on the Desktop:
  A switch to Linux because he failed to backup his data on a Mac and now he is switching his family rather than teaching them to backup. I like Linux, I use it too but I do not get this guy's arguments. Read the comments.
  tagged as: desktop, mac, linux, backups, moron
• Weewar.com | online multiplayer strategy game:
  Hex based Advance Wars knockoff. I enjoy Advance Wars on the DS, I have not tried this year but likely will give it a try. Looks cool.
  tagged as: games, fun, strategy, online
• Coffee Drinks Illustrated | Lokesh Dhakar:
  Easy visual representation of the differences of various coffee drinks. I prefer the old standby, a cup of black coffee mostly. But occasionally I indulge in these "dessert" drinks. The straight expresso is for the hardcore coffee person though.
  tagged as: coffee, reference, drinks
• Spygate - Needs Final Chapter:
  The NFL and the Patriots are hoping it just goes away. It is up to the fans and the media to make sure we get a final HONEST ending.
  tagged as: NFL, cheating, Patriots
• How to ... pour yourself a beer the optimal way:
  (Via Phil) Fantastic article! I used to keep frosty mugs, pour down the side to prevent head. I have since learned, clean room temp glass and center pour. Enjoy your beers flavour.
  tagged as: beer

Updating my search for the best way to consume the news and standard media available to me, over the past week I reviewed all my RSS feed subscriptions (via Google Reader) and I eliminated the Del.icio.us feeds I was subscribed to, except for my network of friends. For Tech news I decided to just use Slashdot, I subscribed to the RSS feed for my old hometown newspaper, I review Google News at least once a day and of course I remained subscribed to all the feeds of the personal blogs I track. Many of you out there do a nice job of filling in the news crevices I might somehow miss. I also now receive a morning newspaper which I take to work and look through during down time. In a few minutes you can literally scan the daily paper way faster than any news website, of course those that have continued doing the newspaper thing likely know this. Instead of relying on the Internet solely I have cut down on the amount of Internet media I am consuming, limiting it to what I consider quality. I do listen to several podcasts, some of which also keep me updated on technology, I will likely publish a full listing of blog and podcast subscriptions in the near future. The changes I made have drastically helped with staying informed and at the same time made me less attached to my RSS reader.

This brings me to another item I am curious to hear feedback on. Some of you I know use MySpace, Facebook and Twitter. I am signed up to all these services, I never use MySpace and I would recommend Facebook over MySpace to someone looking to use a service like this. I think Facebook looks more professional and seems slightly more interesting. That being said, I am mostly on these services for networking purposes I rarely sign into any of them. I commonly hear the self-proclaimed A-list bloggers talk about these services and how great they are. All of these folks like myself have a personal web space and are easily found. So, what are they possibly using these services for if not just doing some sort of blogging at another site further boosting their egos. I have not at all heard of a good use for Twitter yet. the A-list bloggers often say they use the services for different things in their world. What a bunch of baloney, they never say what that purpose is "in their world" and if you read their Twitter it is just micro-blogging that their plane just landed, or a link. I am open minded, all I am asking for is a legit and honest answer to the question of what possible different use do these websites have over a personal website(blog)?

Unlike most of these folks, I have real deadlines. I work a real Information Technology job, one where I need to get things done, not just talk about how many people follow my Twitter feed. If your profession is to inform me about technology and good uses for such, then please enlighten me, do not act as if you live in some mysterious world where you need to blog on five different sites because one location is not enough. That my friends defeats the purpose of technology, it does not embrace the best method. I am all ears and if the answer is that they do not provide anything different, then say so and I can accept you enjoy having imaginary Internet friends. This post likely could have been two different posts, but in a sense it all involves the use of my time, media and consumption of said media.

• Generation MySpace Is Getting Fed Up:
  How revolutionary, a guy left a social network to start his own website. Someone pointed out a while back that MySpace is the current Geocities. It sucks!
  tagged as: socialnetworks, sucks
• Original Schlitz to be bottled up once more:
  (Via Phil) Perhaps when I lose my next cheap beer guarantee I will get some original Schlitz.
  tagged as: beer, nostalgia
• Sheppard-Myers Stadium: Crowd seeks answers:
  I am an alumni and I vote for renovating Sheppard-Myers, that place has football ghosts. The football atmosphere in the town makes it special. Moving football out of town would be sad.
  tagged as: football, Hanover, Sheppard-Myers
• Hanover barber shop to close:
  My old barbershop when I was a teenager. I used to get my flat tops at Huff's. I remember my friend Kurt going there also. Check out the audio and slideshow for a trip in time.
  tagged as: barber, Hanover, Huff, barbershop
• Ophcrack Live CD:
  Small Linux Live CD I used to find Admin account on in-laws laptop that they had been locked out of. Fantastic! Password was cracked within seconds of bootup.
  tagged as: opensource, windows, hacks, geek, sysadmin, tools, passwords

I noticed for quite some time that it is not uncommon for me to completely miss major news, sometimes for several days. Perhaps I am going about my every day practices in the wrong way, most certainly I am. Sure I am busy, but there are people who are much busier than I and certainly they are more informed on current events. While I enjoy technology and consider myself to be very well informed on current technology, when it comes to current events, local and worldwide I am at times very uninformed. I have come to the conclusion that XML feeds are not the answer alone to keeping me informed. How can this be?

The problem with my feed subscriptions is that I choose them, and I subscribe to more than I can ingest in any one day. Unlike some of the so called "professional" bloggers I have a family and a life and a real job. My feeds many times show me the same news 15 times over and I am cut off from other news that while I would be interested I cannot subscribe to news on every subject. I enjoy staying connected to the technology world, but in my current situation I am cut off from the rest of the world. I have to imagine others find themselves in this same situation.

What does this have to do with print media? Well, when I read the newspaper everyday and I did this in the 1980's and through much of the 1990's I was exposed to articles that if given the choice I might have left out of the newspaper. I consumed a variety of news, because it was there for me to at least glance at as I turned the pages. Using the Internet it is difficult to consume the same variety as quickly as I could with a newspaper. Does that make sense? Think about it, when you glance at a typical newspaper you commonly take in a wide variety of news and a lot at once. I do not feel I do that same thing quickly perusing Google news or any news website. I also do not watch the news on TV anymore, which I do not intend to change. I spend the majority of my day in-front of a computer screen, whatever time I eliminate from the TV I consider to be good. I still think I watch too much TV.

What about the readers, how do you keep from getting media overload and do you subscribe to print media, aka newspapers or magazines? I am going to eliminate some of my feed subscriptions and adding a newspaper subscription to my home. Do not take this wrong, I love feeds! I really do, but my method for consuming news is currently in a box that I built all wrong. Sure I will mostly still consume more technology news than other news, but perhaps I will try to stop consuming the same technology news many times over. Email and feed subscriptions are beginning to kill my free time. I would really love to hear what methods others use to stay informed without information overload.

• Netflix thief gets caught:
  Guy sets up video camera and nails Netflix thief.
  tagged as: video, fat, kid, stealing
• Mail a brick to junk mailers using paid postage - Creative tips with dealing with spammers and bulk mailers:
  I am going to mail some of my heavy junk to mass mailers.
  tagged as: junk, mail, humor, fun
• Neal Stephenson's next release:
  I have enjoyed some of Neal Stephenson's works.
  tagged as: stephenson, books

• Why Beer Can Be Good for You:
  "In moderation, it's part of a wholesome diet". Wow, combine the effects of beer consumption with my coffee consumption and I might just be super human!
  tagged as: beer, health, news
• mozilla prism:
  My primary use for this would be keeping those who share my computer from closing Gmail and Google Reader, keeping those applications out of my browser.
  tagged as: mozilla, web, desktop

I noted this comment has a word that would be great to include in the scrambled word of the day.

# Obtain an array of the current generations; the array
# will be ordered lexicographically according to generation
# number.

Look for it in the rotation

• My Name Rhymes - Pong in 30 Lines:
  Cool!
  tagged as: python, games
• Arthur C. Clarke, Premier Science Fiction Writer, Dies at 90 - New York Times:
  2001 is one of my all-time favorites.
  tagged as: sci-fi, books
• How to Build a Square Foot Garden | Frugal Dad:
  This seems like the most reasonable way to try gardening on a small level.
  tagged as: food, gardening, garden, howto, plants, tutorial

We need more owners for the 2008 Brutal Deluxe Baseball League. If you have any interest in giving fantasy baseball a try, sign up. The draft is on Saturday, but if you cannot make it the system will draft a team for you. The past couple years has been a lot of fun, get signed up NOW!

League ID#: 179246
Password: brutal44

http://baseball.fantasysports.yahoo.com/b1

• Brick Arms:
  Some guy is making Lego Army men. COOL!
  tagged as: lego, army
• Hanover Brewing Company:
  My hometown is opening a brewery! Already the snack food capital of the World, I will soon be able to pick up craft beer. AWESOME!
  tagged as: beer, craft, brewery, Hanover, Pennsylvania

Jake started his first year of tee-ball today. The practice went well and he seemed to really enjoy himself. Of course I started the year out by forgetting my camera. I did take some cell phone photos but they came out absolutely horrible. Today was strictly base running instruction and fielding practice. Jake seemed to enjoy the fielding and he is capable of throwing well on occasion.

One of the coaches was not using a glove when they first started throwing, after Jake threw his first ball they decided to put a glove on. When Jake throws with all his mechanics correct he can put a little something on his throws. Though by the end of practice I could tell he was either tiring or not concentrating on his throwing. His throws to first base and home late in practice were falling rather short.

The team chose a name at the end of practice and after a vote, his team is the Green Lightning. Next practice I believe they will be hitting off the tee, which will be interesting. He has not hit off a tee in a while, I probably should have kept him hitting from the tee. He is so young that the coach will be able to correct any mistakes and he will build some good hitting habits hitting from the tee. The games start in mid-April, I am looking forward to seeing him out on the field. I remember as a kid when we broke out the baseball equipment that it was a sure sign of Spring. I had the same feeling today, of course the warm weather helped.

Shared bookmarks for del.icio.us user Scott Buffington. Had to kick it twice this week. Del.icio.us needs to allow some type of markup in comments. The markup I tried to add smited my automation script.

• Gary Gygax, Father of D&D Dies: While not really a D&D player anymore, I certainly have played enough Role Playing Games over the years.
  tagged as: gygax, fantasy, rpg
• Beer for the ages: I have a Barley Wine (corked) in my basement beer cabinet right now, along with many other big beers. No hurry to drink them.
  tagged as: beer
• A heads-up for beer lovers: How to serve the perfect glass: Quick and simple way to serve specific beer styles correctly.
  tagged as: beer
• Favre Calls it a Career: I am shocked, because the guy was among the best still at age 38. I understand the decision and can only say, what a thrill it was watching him play.
  tagged as: Favre, NFL, Packers
• OpenDNS | Providing A Safer And Faster Internet: I continue to use OpenDNS, so seemless I forgot I even switched. AWESOME!
  tagged as: dns, router, networking
• Monster Cables are BS: Coat hanger performs as well as monster cable, again no surprise here.
  tagged as: cables, marketing, music, video

• Myron Cope, 79, Writer and Steelers Broadcaster, Is Dead:
  Cope retired in 2004 after over 3 decades of broadcasting. You most certainly have seen his name printed on the "Terrible Towel".
  tagged as: steelers, NFL, towel

Since moving into our home, nearly two years ago, the move along with other challenges totally derailed what had been a life long commitment to weight training. Besides the obvious recovery from carrying furniture, boxes and of course my weight equipment, my old training partner is no longer across town but nearly twenty miles away. Just far enough that after work he no longer feels like making the trek to my home to train two or three times a week. The distance back and forth was just too much for him to justify the trip. Anyone who has ever weight trained or exercised with a friend knows that if there is no one counting on you, it is far easier to just skip a workout. Still though, I had a life long habit of exercising and I managed with a concerted effort to continue. Unfortunately the outside distractions were not finished, within four months of the move I lost my job. My wife and I just weeks before found out we had a baby on the way, adding a third child to the clan. Everything compounded and I strayed from exercising for the longest period in my entire life. Just over a year and other than a couple half-hearted sessions I have not been exercising. In the past I motivated myself with goals, if I am going to get out of this funk I needed a new goal.

With a goal in mind and hearing plenty of news about the NFL combine I decided to set a goal for Spring of bench pressing 225 pounds for maximum repetitions. By May 2008 I would like to see if I can eclipse at least 12 repetitions. Judging by the feedback from the NFL scouts, 25 repetitions seems like the benchmark for a good number. I would like to see how close I can get to 25 repetitions. Not since prior to October 2006 have I even attempted anymore than sets with 135 pounds. I have always been strong in any pressing movement, including overhead lifts so this is not as extreme as it sounds. Over my life-time I have easily handled weights greater than this. I am using this goal to get me into the gym so that I exercise, I will be doing full-body weight training and cardio, not just bench pressing.

Now for the vitals, I just visited my doctor last week. My blood pressure was good and an EKG (Elektrokardiogramm or electrocardiogram ) also checked out well. I am 37 years old, 5 feet 8 inches tall and weigh roughly 185 pounds. Thursday, February 21st I tested where I was at in relation to my goal. I worked up to 225 pounds and easily lifted the weight two times, I could have done at least three repetitions but knew I would be feeling the heavy session the next day. I was really surprised how light 225 pounds felt, so I think the goal is feasible.

I have always been goal oriented and part of achieving a goal that you are serious about is to tell others about the goal. That is the reason for the blog post. Publicly stating the goal adds value because others are likely to ask about the goal and you are more likely to stick to said goal. Bench pressing 225 pounds for maximum repetitions is not a training goal I had ever set before. Being a brand new goal also motivates me a little more than if this is something I had tried before. Of course the primary goal here is better fitness and more physical activity throughout each week.

As the weeks progress I will give periodic updates on my progress and in May I will attempt an all out effort. I will need to work out the specific date based on when I can get a friend to come over and spot me. I might also see if I can line up a video camera so that their is visual proof. Wish me luck and maybe my goal can motivate others looking to get off their couch.

• Microsoft Giving Development and Design Software to Students:
  Freely available on Mac and Linux already. Lack of these tools is why I left Microsoft permanently. Nice gesture, but nothing the others have not been doing for a long time.
  tagged as: software, development, microsoft
• Brew Ginger Beer - Wired How-To Wiki:
  Simple method to easily make your own homebrew. We brewed a beer with ginger this past Christmas. I imagine this recipe would make a fairly light beer. Get the ale yeast.
  tagged as: beer, brewing, homebrew, recipes
• Samuel Adams Hop Sharing Program:
  Via Phil:So we looked at our own hops supplies at Boston Beer and decided we could share some of our hops with other craft brewers who are struggling to get hops this year. Sam Adams just loves the art of brewing.
  tagged as: homebrew, beer, brewing
• The CakePHP Framework: Your First Bite [PHP & MySQL Tutorials]:
  I have hacked at PHP for years now, time to look at a framework to tidy things up.
  tagged as: php, programming, framework, cakephp, tutorial

Iomega Zip Drive Parallel Port
Originally uploaded by Scott B.

I must have lost the initial post that mentioned the Iomega Zip Drive when I converted my blog to my own blogging tool (some posts did not make it). I know once upon a time we discussed the Iomega Zip Drive here, sometime around July of 2004. My friend and I purchased the Zip 100 Parallel port models when they were initially released so that we could easily transport data back and forth from one another's home. This was around 1994-95 and we used the devices quite heavily through the late 1990's. During this time other models of the Zip drive were released and Iomega used cheap manufacturing practices and the device turned out to be a real lemon. The "Click of Death" was coined to describe what would happen to the Zip drives in a fairly short time.

I however had tremendous success with my "first" generation model of the Zip Drive. Although at one time the 100 MBs seemed huge, I remember installing games onto the disks rather than my hard drive to conserve space, now I struggle to find a use for my Parallel port Zip 100 Drive. Due to a shipping mistake, myself and my friend ended up with a supply of Zip 100 disks that I have never had to replenish. I still have disks that have never been written to waiting to replace disks that finally fail. I currently have the Zip Drive hooked up to my Linux backup webserver. Each night when I run my synchronize script to synchronize the website and MySQL database on the Mac Mini I place a dated gzipped copy of my databases onto a Zip Disk. This is one of three backup locations I use, this is not my mission critical backup but simply a use I found for my old Zip Drive.

The complaints about the majority of Zip Drives is very well warranted. I just find it amazing that the company apparently made a damn good product initially. My buddies Zip Drive no longer works, but it did still work well into the 2000s. Because of most folks experience, the Zip Drives have made countless "Worst Product" lists. Amazingly, my Zip Drive is still functioning 14 years after I bought it. I have no idea how much longer the drive will work, but I will likely hold onto this piece of hardware for nostalgia. When it does finally die, I have thought about retrofitting the device with a USB flash drive.

Shared bookmarks for del.icio.us user Scott Buffington.

• Goodell Open to Reviewing Maroons Stolen Championship: Not only that, but a movie deal is definitely underway, there is also an IMDB page for the Pottsville Maroons.
  tagged as: pottsville, maroons, 1925, NFL
• Hack MySQL :: Scripts and documents for hacking MySQL: Could be useful in keeping my MySQL server happy.
  tagged as: mysql, reference
• Monster Cables - Monster Ripoff: I have been saying this for years. Now some testing backs up my claims. Although I conducted my own tests years ago.
  tagged as: electronics, hardware, TV, video, cables, ripoff

Lang Clubs Drago
Originally uploaded by Scott B.

Since the moment Rocky Balboa dropped Ivan Drago you have wondered. The subject was never breached ,but now finally 24 years later the question is answered. Ivan Drago surfaced just after Rocky Balboa defeated Clubber Lang in a rematch, Balboa having lost to Lang the first go around. Surely Lang would have wanted another shot at the title, having only a loss to Balboa on his resume. Balboa retired right after the Ivan Drago fight and left the title vacated. What you were never told is that Ivan Drago's next fight was against Lang, Drago's handlers hoping to solidify Ivan as the number one contender.

The fight was an impressive matchup if you enjoy all out slugfests. Ivan Drago's style was taylor made for Clubber Lang however. The two fighters traded bombs for two rounds, a bruised and battered Ivan Drago was game and confronted Lang at the center of the ring in round three. Lang matched Drago's power and chin and certainly had better boxing skills than the giant Russian. About half way through round 3 Lang landed a right cross that dropped Drago. Ivan Drago was unable to get off the canvas and faded into obscurity.

Lang claimed one of the vacated heavyweight title belts and Tommy Gunn's handlers made sure that he never had to face "The Southside Slugger". Lang finished out his heavyweight career never losing another match, all the while wishing he could avenge his only loss. Of course with Rocky retired, not fighting again until what must have been about 2005 we were never given the opportunity to see Balboa versus Lang III. Well, there you have it, now you know.

• Guitar Rising:
  If this is legit I would definitely be into this. Guitar Hero for a real guitar. I think it would make learning to play more fun at the entry level.
  tagged as: game, guitar, music, education
• A Look at Ubuntu 8.04:
  I think Ubuntu will be more impressive this go-around than the last release.
  tagged as: ubuntu, linux
• The Complete Guide to iPhone Car Integration | iLounge:
  
  tagged as: howto, apple, hardware, iphone, car
• The Skeptics Guide to the Universe:
  Latest podcast I am listening too. So far very good.
  tagged as: astronomy, podcast, technology, science, space

What a great Super Bowl and what an even better outcome. Before the game the Patriots tried to claim they did not care about the records they set, as they listed them. Brady and company seemed to know all their records by heart. Those records are meaningless, it is meaningless that you threw most of your TD's late in the 4th quarter in meaningless games, it was meaningless that you cared so much about winning the games that meant nothing in the big picture. Congratulations on your records Patriots, the championship is going elsewhere.

I hate comparing teams from different eras, because you simply cannot do it. You can speculate but you can never say this team is the greatest ever. It was getting to the point that the Patriots were almost saying it on your television every week. This Patriot team was hard to like and it is appropriate karma caught up with them tonight. Luck has a lot more to do with what happens week in and week out in sports and a lot bigger effect than most fans like to admit. Tonight, the luck was on the Giants side and they took advantage.

This was the biggest upset in Super Bowl history, it has to be listed as such. That being said, we saw one of the greatest defensive lines in NFL history this season. The Giants defense deserved to get the MVP, the whole squad. The Giant offense squaundered a lot of opportunities and the defense held them together until the offense finally executed.

When I heard last week about this book, I could not have wanted the Giants to win more. The bottom line is that the idea of such a book should never have been uttered until it happens. The running up of the scores, the cheating, the attitude and this book is exactly why everyone outside New England is laughing right now.

For those in the media that never wanted to see Art Monk in the Hall of Fame (and you know who you are) the day has finally come where the quiet receiver with HOF numbers will be known as a member of the Hall of Fame. I have talked and wrote over the last few years about Art Monk and the snubbing he received because he did not talk to the media as much as they would have liked during his playing career. Over the past couple years the attention this snubbing attracted from those in the media and those of us fans that noticed the injustice became bigger than those orchestrating it. For the record, Monk never said anything to the public of this snubbing over the years, he just left his numbers do the talking. Congratulations Art Monk!

• Big Rat Predicts Six More Weeks of Winter:
  Despite being silly, I imagine this could be fun to check out sometime. I imagine it being a day of beer drinking.
  tagged as: fun, holidays, pennsylvania, entertainment
• Monk's HOF omission a mystery - NFL - Yahoo! Sports:
  Time for my yearly soap box. Those associated with Sports Illustrated have kept Monk out long enough, proving either an effort to do so or proving they lack understanding of the game.
  tagged as: monk, nfl, hof
• Professor of beer shares his top 10 Winter Break brews:
  Via Phil: Wow, a Yuengling beer made his list. I have had 90 minute IPA and the Yuengling. I should start noting my top 10 beers for each season.
  tagged as: beer
• 10 Universities Offering Free Writing Courses Online -- Education-Portal.com:
  Loving the free courses offered by universities.
  tagged as: education, free, resources, writing, college

Chess 2008
Originally uploaded by Scott B.

To my surprise Jake began inquiring about learning to play chess. Back in the early days of this website (blog) I had numerous online chess games on the site. My last games of chess were a few years ago though, I do not play online anymore and the last game I played on a board was against my friend Scott Wood before he moved to Charlotte. Most of my board gaming is when the kids want to play a game. I was thrilled that he was interested in learning chess. This is the end of our first game in which I really just tried to teach him how each piece moves. What I was wondering most is that if he would still enjoy the game after finding out that it was not checkers.

He seems quite taken, we played two more games last night and three today and while we are still working on piece movement, we are beginning to explore using pieces in combinations. He spent the afternoon setting up the pieces and playing games against himself. I thought this would be good while he is interested so that he could cement learning how the pieces move. It is fun having someone in the house interested in playing chess and what a great game for learning how to develop strategy.

Of course the tough part right now is that he really does not have the skill to beat an adult, which means there is some frustration. He does like to win and that is not really happening right now. Sure I can throw a game, and I have done that in order to up morale. We could set up scenarios and teach him to play through those, but I never really did that when I was learning. I am self taught and am not a strong player in my opinion. But at least he has someone to show him some tactics, something I did not have being self taught. I can teach him a few tricks that he should be able to use to grab some games

Last night Julie and I finally had an opportunity to have dinner at the Lancaster Brewing Company in Harrisburg. While Lancaster Brewing Company does not necessarily make some of my absolute favorite beers, they brew some very fine craft beers and their menu at both locations is very nice. I have been looking forward to LBC opening in Harrisburg because I do feel their beers are more interesting than Appalachian Brewing Company and the LBC location on Eisenhower Blvd is right around the corner from me.

We had previously heard the atmosphere was a little "stiff" at LBC in Harrisburg and I agree, although we were in the dining room and not the bar area. The parking lot was completely full on a Wednesday night, so if the atmosphere means good business for LBC I am fine with it. The menu is not cheap but the prices are fair.

Now for the beer, I ordered a pint of Milk Stout, I usually will get the Milk Stout or Hop Hog IPA. Julie surprised me and ordered the sampler tray of 5 oz glasses. She actually found that she really liked the Strawberry Wheat and although she tasted everything, I acquired a few additional glasses which included Hop Hog for my own consumption. The full sampler tray last night included Amish Four Grain, Strawberry Wheat, Milk Stout, Hop Hog IPA, Fest Beer Amber Lager, Celtic Rose Irish Amber Ale, Baltic Porter, Dunkel Weizen and the Gold Star Pilsner.

I asked when the Harrisburg location would be brewing beer on location and we were told they were about 6 months out. So hopefully by July and certainly by next winter we might be getting some unique beers brewed on site that are different than the traditional offerings from LBC in Lancaster. We were certainly led to believe that something different would be brewed at the Harrisburg location, beer only available on tap. Overall the visit was awesome and I am thrilled to have LBC so close to home.

• Slashdot | Mystery Malware Affecting Linux/Apache Web Servers:
  This is why I host at home. The only open port is 80 and I use the shell to maintain. Control Panel and the like do not belong in Server Administration. Should I go on?
  tagged as: security, web, internet
• AOL Adopting IM Open Standards:
  This is not ready yet, but when it is, what service ID will I choose to use as my end all, be all IM ID? Probably my Gmail ID.
  tagged as: IM, XMPP, standards, aol
• Updating BIOS for my homegrown Dell Linux Machines:
  Easy to do using these instructions. Updated both my older Dell systems. Be careful, I made a stupid mistake that took some fixing.
  tagged as: dell, flash, howto, linux, ubuntu, bios
• Five myths on leasing a car.:
  We own our Jetta but we are considering a mini-van to replace the Jeep. I am considering leasing, thinking we likely will want to exchange it after a few years.
  tagged as: reference
• University quenches thirst for knowledge with 'Beer 101':
  Via Phil: This is my kind of college course.
  tagged as: beer, education

I felt this post was worth making since my late Saturday night, Sunday morning linkdump is going to contain a link to these very good instructions (discovered via Don Becker) for updating your Dell's BIOS, your computer's Basic Input/Output System. This refers to the firmware that is used to identify and initiate your hardware, in short it prepares everything for your operating system and other goodies. Anyway, I have probably done firmware upgrades hundreds of times over the years and I know better than to be distracted or hurry through this process.

Well, I hurried through this process with my Dell 8400, which is the computer I call brutal. I went through all the steps prior to turning in for the night, all except the warm reboot. I was updating via SSH from another room and something took me away from the task at hand. I went to bed and then the next morning I remembered that I still needed a "warm" reboot. This is where you tell your computer to restart, not power off. As I fed the dog, packed Jake's lunch and readied myself for work I decided to quickly reboot the computer. Stupid, not paying attention Scott selects power off, well the Dell 8400 did not like that and apparently the current firmware did not have any failsafe to fall back to the current firmware. Some computers when faced with this predicament will boot to the previous BIOS and boot right up, not the Dell 8400. The reason you need to do a warm reboot is because the new flash of firmware is held in memory, if you power down, your memory is cleared.

I knew I had to clear the CMOS and sometimes this can just involve pulling the CMOS battery, but I read that Dell uses jumpers for clearing the CMOS. I did not find specific instructions, I really did not look that hard, but I did read about a PASS or PSWD jumper or a CMOS jumper. I found a PASS jumper and a CMOS jumper, I pulled the CMOS jumper and powered the computer on. I then powered off the computer, replaced the CMOS jumper the machine booted telling me that the clock was not set. Nice, it worked.

I again followed the linked instructions, and this time properly did a "warm" reboot and my Dell 8400 is back in good working order. This little mistake allowed me some time to blow the dust out of the inside of the computer case with some canned air. The Dell 8400 is running quieter than it did previously, seemed the BIOS update slowed down the fan on the back, yes it is still running, but not as loudly. I will have to keep an eye on the machine and make sure it does not overheat, currently I am thinking that the fan was running way too hard anyway. Hopefully, my dumb mistake can help someone else avoid an error or correct their BIOS if they make a similar mistake.

Four O - Honoring The Guarantee
Originally uploaded by Scott

Around week three or week four of the 2007-08 NFL season I stated on the Brutal Deluxe Football Podcast that if Tom Brady broke Peyton Manning's TD record I would drink cheap crappy beer. I was thinking of something like Bud, but the comments started coming in. I believe Four O was one of the suggestions. Well, tonight is the night, around 9:15pm I will be twisting open this big bottle of liquid something or other that someone decided to classify as beer. I make no promises that I will finish it, but I will drink it throughout the podcast. Never let it be said that I am not a man of my word.

I was just going to drink a traditional cheap beer, but in the comments I agreed that if I could find something particularly awful I would indeed drink it. I stopped by the local pizza shop tonight, which I knew sold single bottles and I knew I previously spotted some 40 ounce selections in the cooler. I gazed upon the wonder that was Colt 45 and a collection of Bud 40 ounce bottles and even some Yuengling among others and suddenly I spotted Four O, which also advertises itself as "Street Legal". As I approached the counter the cashier began laughing, I guess I do not look like the 40 ounce type. I headed home bearing my paper bag encased 40 ounces of malt liquor.

I am not kidding myself, I fully expect this to possibly be one of the worst beers I have ever tasted. I purposely did not put this post under the beer category, as I am pretty sure as a home brewer I would be banned from further brewing if I categorized Four O as beer. I suspect that my first reaction will be similar to the reaction that I recall Rick Flair having while watching NWA wrestling as a kid. Often while Flair was taking a beating you would clearly hear him exclaim, "Oh God!" Perhaps from watching Rick Flair do this so many times, I have been known to utter this same phrase when experiencing something awful, like a bad cup of coffee. Judging by the review on Beer Advocate, I chose a real winner, Four O is graded as an "F".

• macosxhints.com - Listen to iTunes over the net via a free streaming server:
  Simple method for streaming your iTunes Library.
  tagged as: itunes, internet, opensource, software, streaming, howto
• Sun Microsystems Announces Agreement to Acquire MySQL, Developer of the World's Most Popular Open Source Database:
  Big news.
  tagged as: MySQL, Sun, database, opensource
• Ubuntu Hardy Alpha Release:
  Newer Xorg with better auto-configuration. This was one of the items I thought was terrible in the last release of Ubuntu.
  tagged as: linux, ubuntu, hardy, alpha

Otherwise my blogs popularity has exploded. Over the past year or so I have generally rolled along with around 50 subscribers, according to Feedburner stats anyway. Today I noticed that my subscriber number jumped to 535, yeah I think their numbers are skewed today. It is fun to imagine that I have that many subscribers, and more believable if the number climbed over a period of time, rather than one day. If I really had that many subscribers I would need to make a better effort at posting. Anyone else getting weird results from Feedburners statistics?

Shared bookmarks for del.icio.us user Scott Buffington.

• Pottsville Maroons Official Site: Those fighting for the Pottsville Maroons back this as the official website of the team.
  tagged as: pottsville, maroons, 1925, NFL, champion
• The 50 Greatest Arcade Cabinets: I am a sucker for any computer retro type thing. Born in 1970 and having experienced the Arcade in it's glory. I played many of these games.
  tagged as: games, geek, nostalgia, arcade
• Nitevilla National Champion 2007-08 - Kansas Jayhawks: I have always had an opinion on the college football National Championship. I crown my own each year, no more ridiculous than how the BCS and AP does it and mine means more.
  tagged as: ncaa, football, bcs, champion

I confess that I knew nothing of the Pottsville Maroons until one of the former owners in the Brutal Deluxe Football League claimed the name for his team. When he declared that they were the 1925 NFL champions, I decided to do some research not realizing an NFL team at one time called Pottsville home. When I originally researched the Pottsville Maroons there was not nearly as much information as there is now available on the Internet concerning the interesting history of the team. The Maroons were also mentioned on Monday Night Football the season following the Maroons popping up in the BDFL. The MNF crew at the time touched on the conspiracy of the stolen 1925 championship and I revisited the story again. We even discussed it on the forums and those that chimed in all seemed to feel the Pottsville Maroons were indeed robbed of the 1925 NFL championship. I believe that same season, at the NFL owners meeting, the owners voted on whether to restore the championship to the Maroons, only the Philadelphia Eagles and Pittsburgh Steelers voted to return the championship. Sadly, I believe the other owners have never looked into the full story or the old boys club that include Bill Bidwell refuse to right the wrong. If the owners do indeed know anything about the history, I would love to know how they could possibly vote against returning the championship to the Maroons. There is no other excuse other than the old boys club siding with Bidwell's Cardinals. Recently I became aware of a fantastic book detailing the interesting history of the Pottsville Maroons and the stolen 1925 championship as well as where the NFL and the game of American football fit into 1925 America. Breaker Boys: The NFL's Greatest Team and the Stolen 1925 Championship is one of the best sports books I have ever read and if you have any interest in sports history or general history I highly recommend this book.

What was so interesting about the 1925 Pottsville Maroons was that at the time for the most part the NFL was looked at as being inferior to college football and indeed overall it was. The reason for this was that rosters changed weekly and most teams were a collection of mercenaries. The NFL teams rarely were true "teams", that is until the Maroons paved the road to what we see today. In the 1925 NFL it was not uncommon for a guy to play for one team on Saturday and another team on Sunday under an alias. The NFL teams were not capable of beating the good college teams, and NFL teams really did not practice so there were no game plans. Because of the lack of practice and team camaraderie the games were mostly a handoff up the middle and a cloud of dust. The Maroons in 1925 broke this mold, they had players who accepted salaries for the entire season, the players lived in Pottsville and they practiced. The team was a mixture of ex-college stars, and a few working men from the coal mines of Pennsylvania, including the greatest running back you never heard of, Tony Latone, the Human Howitzer. America loved football and the semi-pro leagues did have rabid local fans. Often the teams from the coal leagues arranged games with NFL teams, that's right, an NFL team would often pad their schedule with a coal league team, particularly during the common end of season barnstorming of schedules that occurred. Most seasons the end of year barnstorming was the only thing that kept the teams in the black.

The NFL was struggling in 1925 and many thought the league would not make it. The Pottsville Maroons paid an entry fee in 1925 to join the league, they were hated by the NFL as was another small town team, the Green Bay Packers. The NFL wanted to rid itself of the small town teams. The only reason Pottsville was allowed into the league was because the NFL needed the money and they felt that the other NFL teams could use the Maroons to pad their records. What the NFL did not count on, was that the Maroons would set the stage for how a professional football team should be run if the game was to be taken seriously. while the Maroons scooped up some good professional talent, the heart and soul of the team was Tony Latone. Latone was forced to work in the mines from a young age and never finished school. In the mines Latone had become a freakishly strong and powerful football player. Pushing two to four thousand pound carts filled with coal will do that to a guy. Latone was capable of wearing down any team put before the Pottsville Maroons. The Maroons also threw the ball more than any team had ever thrown in the NFL before them, and they threw successfully and even developed what is today called a screen pass. The Maroons were not a one man show, late season injuries showed how deep this star-laden team was.

Why I liked the book Breaker Boys and I think you would too, is the description of the lives of those that worked the coal mines, what life was like for those living in 1925, the state of the NFL and football in America at the time. One item that comes to mind, I did not really know where the name Packers came from, it becomes clear where the name came from and it is amazing that the name stuck throughout the leagues history. I am sure Green Bay fans already know their teams history, but I did not. The book was well researched, open minded, well written, an easy read and details how professional football in America rose from industry and region competitiveness. Another interesting story was how Pottsville made arrangements for play by play to be sent by telegraph from Chicago and from Philadelphia during the two championship games. That reminded me of how today we might follow games with Yahoo's play by play. Even in 1925 technical guys were thinking of ways to deliver content for others to consume. The greatest stories are those that are true when they are so well written, Breaker Boys is that kind of book.

Some facts to leave you with, the Maroons soundly defeated the Chicago Cardinals in what everyone billed the NFL Championship game. The Cardinals refused the title after NFL stripped the Maroons for playing and defeating the famed four horsemen and seven mules of Notre Dame to end the season, a game that undeniably gave the NFL credibility. The Bidwell family later claimed the title after purchasing the team in 1932. The NFL used a territory rule that the league has never produced, probably because the rule did not exist. There were two teams in Chicago for crying out loud. There were witnesses and affidavits supporting the Maroons owner's claim that he received permission from the league office to play Notre Dame. In 2003, those representing the Pottsville Maroons stated they would accept sharing the 1925 title with the Cardinals, Bill Bidwell shot this idea down and continues to use his power with the NFL to deny the Maroons what is truly theirs. Read the book and judge honestly for yourself. I am not saying the New England Patriots should be stripped of their NFL titles or denied one this year if they should win it, but certainly their infractions are a comparison we can use to what happened to the 1925 Pottsville Maroons. The NFL has stated that the Patriots were warned repeatedly, the Patriots infraction was cheating against a documented rule during the games. The NFL has never had any such territory rule that was used against the Pottsville Maroons and more importantly, the infraction was certainly not cheating against an opponent.

Somehow this coffee making device eluded my attention for the last year or so. Yes the AeroPress is made by the same Aerobie company that makes the well known flying disk. The AeroPress is priced reasonably at under $30 and is an amazing, simple and cool coffee making device. After using the Aeropress, I might go so far as saying that not only does Aerobie make the best flying disk in the world, but they now make the ultimate coffee maker. The first comparison I thought of when I first saw the AeroPress was that it was some kind of French Press that sits atop your coffee cup. Not so, the AeroPress is an entirely new way to make coffee.

Unlike the machine single serve coffee makers, like my Senseo, the AeroPress allows you to use whatever coffee you would like without wasting time making your own pods. While I still enjoy the ease of my Senseo, I cannot help but feel I am forced to only drink the coffees available in the pod format. For the freshest and best coffee, you have to grind your own and only grind your beans right before making the coffee. I always generally felt I made my best coffee using a French Press, however there is an art to using the French Press and sometimes you would end up with some bitterness. With the AeroPress, the advantages of the French Press are there, but the bitterness is eliminated.

The quick and simple steps to making a cup of coffee with the AeroPress are as follows:
1. Put one filter on the bottom of the AeroPress.
2. Put the AeroPress on top of your favorite coffee mug.
3. Put two AeroPress scoops of finely ground coffee in the chamber.
4. Slowly pour in the hot water up to the number 2 on the chamber.
5. Stir the grinds and water for 10 seconds.
6. Put the plunger on the top of the chamber.
7. Push very slowly on the plunger taking about 20 or 30 seconds to bottom out.
8. Remove the plunger and over the refuse bin, pop out the grounds. A quick rinse and everything is clean.
9. Relax and Enjoy the double expresso you just made, or top off the mug for a standard cup of coffee

After reading all the five star reviews on Amazon, at last check all 47 were five stars and I totally agree, and reading various other reviews and comments I have some tips for those who have an AeroPress.

• Use a fine grind, this is documented everywhere but some people apparently refuse to read instructions. You may need to experiment with the grind, really even a standard grind does not make a bad cup of coffee but the water will run right through the grinds.
• Do no boil the water, take the temperature to around 175 degrees Fahrenheit. A cycle in my Microwave for a cup of water achieves this temperature perfectly.
• Pour the water into the AeroPress slowly, do not just dump it in. Although like the grind, even if the grinds do not expand fully you will get a decent cup of coffee.
• If you are seriously concerned about using all the 350 filters and having to buy more, you can reuse the filters. The filters can be rinsed off and reused and they function quite well. Also, be sure you are not accidentally using more than one filter, unless that is your goal. Seriously though folks, I bought the extra filter pack and I imagine it will be years before I need to buy more.

The AeroPress instructions may look intimidating but seriously, do not worry about pressing the AeroPress too fast, too slow or experimenting with different grinds. I found that even if the coffee strained through quite quickly, that the cup of coffee was still quite tasty. Experiment and like homebrewing beer, relax and enjoy perhaps the best cup of non-bitter coffee you have ever tasted. I purposely made some strong cups of coffee with the AeroPress, and even the strong brews were bitter free. This is it folks, the AeroPress works as advertised and I think I have found coffee Nirvana, the AeroPress is that good and I am sorry it took me so long to discover this amazing coffee maker.

• Consumers Avoiding High-Def DVD War:
  You have to be a moron or someone with money to throw away to even think about buying either format. Standard DVD is good enough, at least until one standard is chosen.
  tagged as: movies, technology
• Verizon FiOS Still Blocking Ports:
  This is why I will not switch to Verizon Internet Service, after all these years they are sill blocking ports.
  tagged as: verizon, FiOS, web, Internet, IP
• ongoing · 2008 Prediction 2: Windows Looks Bad:
  Just give OS X a chance. For all the complaints you will have, you will be forced to admit that it is just better. A WELL installed Linux system is better than Windows too.
  tagged as: windows, apple, linux, osx, microsoft
• Netscape To Be Discontinued 2/2008:
  I used Netscape at one point, I am now a Firefox and Safari user. Fond memories of old Netscape.
  tagged as: browsers, history, Netscape, Internet, software, web

"B" Coffee Mug
Originally uploaded by Scott B.

My cabinet has been pretty full for quite a while, so I do not often get mugs anymore. Aunt Jo Ann gifted me this very nice looking mug for Christmas, which I am noticing Julie and I are both fighting over. The mug is about the same height as most coffee mugs, so it is not overly tall. But it is wider than most, so you still get a larger cup of coffee than normal. The mug is the "perfect" size because it fits our Senseo, something most large mugs do not accomplish.

No idea if I will have the opportunity to do any Coffee Mug Mondays during 2008, this is only the second installment for 2007. As I said, my cabinet is pretty full of mugs right now, I am really only in the market for unique or interesting mugs. Perhaps I need to rotate some of my current mugs into storage and refill the cupboard. We will have to see if the mood strikes me.

While on the subject, I accept visitor submissions as well. Have a mug you really like or you find unique? Send me a picture and I will feature it on a Coffee Mug Monday. Happy New Year!

• Lancaster Brewing Company - Harrisburg:
  Opening any day now. I have visited the brewery in Lancaster, this one will be minutes from my home.
  tagged as: craft, brew, beer, brewery, Lancaster, Harrisburg
• Phil Pfister - 2006 World's Strongest Man:
  I watch these all the time and somehow missed the 2006 final. An American won! The first time since Bill Kazmaier in 1982. He beat a tough field as well, it included now 4 time champion, Mariusz Pudzianowski.
  tagged as: strongman, 2006, iron, game, strength

I have not hacked the iPod Touch yet, but I will be adding applications. Awesome little gadget. Thank you Julie!

• Bush writes letter to author of book on 1925 Pottsville Maroons:
  President Bush wrote a letter to David Fleming.
  tagged as: 1925, pottsville, maroons, nfl
• Pottsville Maroons 1925 NFL Championship:
  Sign the petition to be sent to Roger Goodell and the NFL owners to restore the 1925 NFL Championship to the Pottsville Maroons
  tagged as: NFL, 1925, Pottsville, Maroons, petition
• Desktop Tower Defense:
  This is my favorite free tower defense game. If you play, add your score to the group Nitevilla and see how you compare.
  tagged as: games, flash, game, fun, tower, defense
• Guiness Shown to be Beneficial to Health:
  I would love to know the Lager they used in this test, I suspect an American Pilsner. I drink ales, stouts and porters almost exclusively. I suspect the bigger ales provide this benefit.
  tagged as: beer, health, stout
• Laptop: Put Linux on your laptop:
  My friend and business partner loaded two Linux laptops for his kids Christmas gifts this year.
  tagged as: linux, laptop
• PETER JACKSON AND NEW LINE CINEMA JOIN WITH MGM TO PRODUCE "THE HOBBIT" Movie:
  The Hobbit is the easiest read of Tolkien's classics. If you have not, I urge you to read it.
  tagged as: movies, entertainment
• Apple Paying Homage to Rankin Bass:
  I guess I am sort of an Apple fan boy, because I find these commercials funny. Or perhaps even those who do not use a Mac do as well.
  tagged as: apple, mac, video, rankin, bass, christmas

When I first started listening to podcasts and of course producing them myself I knew the one thing that I really liked was the massive decrease in advertising compared to commercial radio. Of course advertising crept in and for the most part as far as the podcasts I listen to advertising is done in a much smarter way than it is done on commercial radio. The biggest improvement is that there is far less of it. Most would argue and rightly so that the producing and distributing of the radio program costs a whole lot more. While I agree, I think radio used to do it right and have stumbled so far away from the right way to advertise that they are doomed to never again know success like they once did. Radio has no one to blame but themselves, radio could still be king but things need to change.

Have you ever listened to old radio programs? If you have, no doubt you heard the ingenious and creative way they used to do product promotion. Occasionally, and I do mean very, very seldom I hear it done the old way and when it is, it is a treat and much better than the high volume advertising that is all over the airways. In America at least 20 minutes of each hour is filled with advertising on commercial radio and almost all of it is trash begging the listener to tune out. It is dispersed throughout the hour and makes it seem even worse. For those that have seen the movie A Christmas Story, remember the Ovaltine advertising. It was thrown in by the announcer or part of the show, never did they leave the program to where you had to reduce your volume or were so annoyed you changed the station, something I do now every time.

I listen to some radio in my car, not as much as I used to, and it is so obvious I am listening to a dying medium that has no one to blame but themselves. Over the years, I have had a few products allow the DJ or person whom I am listening to in the case of talk radio do the advertising. It is so much better, the volume does not rise and you have a sense that you are still listening to the show, something that is very important. I am positive most of you out there would agree, so what happened? I confess I listen to mainly NPR other than sports radio and NPR really only advertises itself. But I would listen to more commercial radio if the advertising was not so badly done.

So what prompted this post? A couple of the podcasts I listen to have some advertising, usually only one product in a half hour to one hour show. Very acceptable and in some cases done very, very well. A few examples of advertising done right, TWiT with Leo Laporte and whomever else joins him do the advertising on their own. They do not run a commercial, they talk about the advertiser at the end of their podcast. What is interesting is that the broadcasters, the guys that do the show every week made it interesting. They recommend products from the advertiser and talk about how great the service is and perhaps something they purchased from the advertiser. This is a hundred times better than if the advertiser had made their own commercial. In my opinion, this is the way all advertisers should do it. Even if a podcast adds another product and inserts it into the show creatively, I would still not be bothered and may even be interested in hearing more about what the advertiser has to offer.

Another podcast I listen to, Buzz Out Loud from CNET has one advertiser and the snippet is so short and well done that I forget I ever hear it. But I can tell you in all cases who the advertiser is. The advertisement is short and always at the same point and never do I feel like I am wasting my time and fast forward the podcast, and I could do so. Rarely ever is advertising done well on commercial radio and mostly I never remember who was advertising in the first place. Many times and mostly I change the station during advertising and I have no idea when to switch back because the advertising breaks are so long. Sometimes I never tune back and I find it hard to believe that other radio listeners do not do the same thing. If so, would that not tell someone that the current form of radio advertising is not working?

Because both advertisements in the two mentioned podcasts are done so well, I find it only fair that I provide a link to Audible.com and Earthlink and not necessarily that the advertisers do it well but that they allow the podcasters to do it well. Commercial radio ratings have to be at an all-time low and podcasting will make it tougher and tougher for them as more people discover the medium. Commercial radios death has nothing to do with technology and everything to do with their terrible advertising model. At least for this listener, the medium of radio could still king, especially for commuters or those at desk jobs, but instead I choose prerecorded podcasts or my iTunes library because no one wants to listen to badly done advertising for 33.34% of each hour. If radio were done creatively and right, I would still choose it more often than I do now. However, as more and more of the information I am interested in moves to podcasting, I will move more and more away from radio. I already listen to much less radio than ever before and do not even keep a radio actively set up in my home entertainment unit any longer.

The podcasting advertising model killed the radio star.

• 30 Years of Lucasfilm Christmas Cards:
  This one is for Andy.
  tagged as: art, christmas, starwars
• Fluid App:
  This is interesting for my webapps and the potential of assigning them to a specific space (desktop).
  tagged as: webkit, web, tools, osx, mac
• Beer Geek Breakfast:
  One of my birthday beers. I loved it! Computer geek yes, football geek yes and beer geek.
  tagged as: beer, geek, stout
• Greg Lydon:
  This was a funny article that Greg's friends find often. It is time for a link so that the search for Greg stays relevant.
  tagged as: Lydon, Greg, bdfl

I felt it was worth noting that I applied some upgrades to the blogging software (Buff) that I use here at Nitevilla. For a few years now I have had the FCKeditor built into the software on the Brutal Deluxe website. Over that time I have always just handcoded the HTML when I needed to use it in posts. Having a few friends who seem remotely interested in possibly trying out my blogging software, I felt it was time to cleanup the configuration of the scripts making up Buff as well as doing some standardization of the tool. On more than one occasion I have also made a few errors with my HTML causing posts to display correctly. The nice thing about the FCKeditor is that I can still display or write my posts using HTML source if I choose and I can preview my post.

A few of the benefits of upgrading. I can much easier type up ordered and unordered lists. I can stop using the PHP function nl2br to format my posts. For posts that did not have any markup, this method worked quite well. But whenever I wanted to post something with markup, I had to assure I had everything merged into a giant block of code. This made it difficult to update the post later. So I recoded Buff so that now when I make a post, all new lines are removed. This also seemed to be the best choice so that I can still use the nl2br function to retrieve old posts, which rely on those new lines for the post to format I wanted. I did not want to try and convert the 500 posts I have made here at Nitevilla.

Another benefit is that I have all the configuration mostly in one file. This will make it much easier for me to apply future updates, mostly I should just be able to drag and drop updated scripts to any domain using Buff. While I say mostly, I am still doing some individual tweaking of post display on each website where I use Buff. This is because I do not always use HTML heading tags for the title of my posts on all my websites. I have no one to blame for this but myself, when creating the various web templates and CSS for all my domains I rarely use similar standards. In the future this will be something I pay more attention to detail while performing a website redesign.

Lastly I am considering turning on some HTML tags for comments. My simple spam prevention has worked wonderfully, I do not remember the last successful spam comment that made it through and well over 600 attempts have been made in the last few weeks alone on Nitevilla. Other than allowing markup within comments I am happy with the state of my blogging tool.

I did not realize it until I started receiving comments and emails on my Ubuntu 7.10 post, but I had some quotes out of place on my previous update post. As a result there was a lot of text that was not visible. See this post to read what I did with my Ubuntu troubled PC and the couple issues I had with Leopard. I must have been on the move the night I initially made that update post. Hopefully this and the comments on the original post will stave off any additional emails. I do appreciate all the feedback, but I am past the issue.

• A Soldier's Silent Night:
  
  tagged as: poem, Christmas
• Commodore Love Affair Continues:
  I never owned a Commodore, but I did have a chance to use a few. Memories of Shane and I hacking about with his Commodore come to mind.
  tagged as: commodore, computers, history, nostalgia, technology
• Good Bye Pay Phones:
  Julie and I were just discussing this after noticing a pay phone outside a restaurant we were eating at.
  tagged as: technology, phone
• Inventor of Fantasy Football:
  No idea if this is accurate, but it is interesting.
  tagged as: fantasy, sports, history
• Winningest Football Coach on any Level - John McKissick:
  Summerville, South Carolina has the winningest football coach in the history of American football.
  tagged as: football, history

Christmas Beers 2008
Originally uploaded by Scott

Enough with all these technology posts, I am going to lose my readers if I do not get back to the real issues. Deuane (brewing mate) came by tonight with my case of Christmas Beer for 2008. I actually have a few more coming at some point, but here is what I have so far. Flying Fish Brewing Company - Grand Cru Winter Reserve Lancaster Brewing Company - Winter Warmer Ale Rogue Ales - Santa's Private Reserve Wild Goose Brewery - Snow Goose Winter Ale Sierra Nevada - 2007 Celebration Ale Pyramid Breweries - Snow Cap Winter Warmer Bell's Brewery - Winter White Ale Summit Brewing Company - Winter Ale Troegs Brewery - Mad Elf 2007 (I still have some 2006 left) Abita Brewing Company - Christmas Ale Stoudt's Brewing Company - Winter Ale Breckenridge Brewery - Christmas Ale Avery Brewing Company - Old Jubilation Ale Smuttynose Brewing Company - Smuttynose Winter Ale The Brooklyn Brewery - Brooklyn Winter Ale Weyerbacher Brewing Company - Winter Ale This post aught to bring back some of the old readers. Now if you will excuse me, I have some beer to drink.

UPDATE December 2008 - Why did I title this post 2008 and the picture? It was still 2007. I must have started drinking before making the post. I updated the title, it is confusing.

• Old Apples Never Get Rotten:
  My Mac web server is hardly old compared to these.
  tagged as: apple, web
• Google and NORAD Teaming Up To Track Santa:
  I have looked in on NORAD over the years on Christmas Eve and I am looking forward to what Google adds to the fun.
  tagged as: santa, 2007, NORAD, google, maps
• The Saskatchewan Roughriders Win 95th Grey Cup:
  I pay some attention to the CFL. First Defensive MVP since Baltimore Stallions defensive back Karl Anthony took it in 1994.
  tagged as: football, CFL

• Internet Explorer Still Stinks:
  I just wish we could stop worrying about this lousy piece of software. Every redesign I have ever done IE has caused issues.
  tagged as: browsers, css, standards, ie7, browser
• An Open Letter to Comcast and Every cable/Telco on P2P - updated - Blog Maverick:
  Mark Cuban doesn't get it. His suggestion of recoding audio to a video format and putting it on Google video just adds to it. P2P is not just kids swappin mp3's dude.
  tagged as: comcast, p2p
• Sorry NFL, but getting games to fans is your responsibility - USATODAY.com:
  NFL's testing ground for pay per view. Another example of a major league sport snubbing the real fans.
  tagged as: nfl, television, football
• Firefox 3 Beta 1:
  I am going to give this a shot. My one complaint about Firefox is the freakin memory leaks.
  tagged as: browser, mozilla, internet, software, technology, browsers
• Von Hayes - Manager Lancaster Barnstormers:
  I blogged about Von Hayes before. As a kid growing up in the '80's, Von Hayes was the man. I will be going to a Barnstormers game at least once next season.
  tagged as: baseball, vonhayes, lancaster

For those of you that visited Nitevilla or Brutal Deluxe over the past few weeks, you might have noticed the websites were unavailable at times. After cutting tickets with my web hosting company for nine days in a row I made the decision to finally move the existing two domains I had hosted externally to my home. Alex volunteered some of his hosting space for Brutal Deluxe because we host our podcasts from that url and there was concern that my ISP may cut back on speed when you have 250 plus people downloading a 25MB file every week. Thank you Alex for taking the baton for our league website. Nitevilla however is now happily running from my home and has seen some changes as well.

The biggest change for Nitevilla is the unveiling of the new Brutal Deluxe Forum , Vanilla, a lighter and faster forum software was chosen. I have been unhappy with SMF for my personal forum for quite some time. For a large forum I think SMF rates right up there, but it was more than I needed for a personal web site and I felt my new choice did a better job of promoting discussion. Rather than users or even random visitors having to dig down into boards, they are immediately brought right into the current discussions. Vanilla, like my Buff CMS is much lighter and faster than many of the more popular choices.

I will keep the old Nitevilla Forums, circa. 2001-2007(I told a lie, I do have the forums on a backup but continuing to host them online meant patching the forum) as an archive permanently at the original url, but I have disabled registration. One of my pet peeves with SMF is that other forum software developers had difficulty writing conversion scripts. Many that did successfully convert SMF still had issues with users signing in after the conversion. I tried making my Buff CMS tie into SMF so that BDFL team owners could sign in to post news on Brutal Deluxe several years ago. I ran into nothing but problems trying to hash the password for SMF and soon gave up. Others have had similar issues and hence the lack of conversion scripts. I decided it might just be time for a new start. As a result you will have to register again to post on the Nitevilla Forum. This is something I hate asking people to do, and my hope is that it is the last time ever. More Open Source software need to adopt OpenID or come up with very GOOD documentation on how to tie into the user databases. I hope all that had and used the forum would again register but I certainly understand if it is not a priority. This post is more of a heads up to those tht visit that things have changed.

Back to my web hosting issues. While I feel HostRocket has lost their way in providing good web hosting, I do have to commend them for refunding the ENTIRE amount that I had paid through December 2008. They did not argue with me at all and I was not going to argue with them. I was polite when I cancelled my account and explained the scenario to them. They did not dispute anything I said and although by their terms they only had to refund 70%, HostRocket refunded 100% of what they owed me for the next years worth of hosting. That was an extremely classy thing to do, especially without making me jump through hoops to make it happen. I think HostRocket has turned their sights and their technical staff toward a Voice over Internet Protocal business and as a result are allowing their hosting to die a slow death. That is unfortunate, I terminated a six year relationship with them and up until my recent problems considered them to be a very good web host.

• AIX 6 Unix on Friday - 11/9/2007:
  This is going to be impressive.
  tagged as: aix, unix, os, virtualization

This past weekend while trying to keep the programming juices flowing for this aforementioned project that will be kicking into high gear over the holidays. I decided I needed to do some code cleanup and enhancing to Buff. While poking around on Brutal Deluxe I was noticing many pieces that no longer needed to exist and were no longer functioning since moving our fantasy football league to AOL's fantasy sports service. Without me really paying much attention, the Buff engine mutated into two separate branches a few years ago. Over the last couple weeks I noticed continual hits trying to post comments to one of my other websites powered by Buff.

I started the cleanup of some of the features on Brutal Deluxe and the branching of the site engine became even more evident. Actually Buff was three branches now that I think about it, but the third branch lacked the functionality of the other two branches (on purpose) and was left with my former employer. They owe me money for that work since I worked on it during my off hours, but they have enough to worry about right now, karma is a wonderful thing. :) The Brutal Deluxe branch spawned from me needing to create an easy to use interface for the team owners, as well as maintain a multi-user database. I hope I succeeded in doing that, only they could answer that question. Funny thing is some of them are still using the news (blog) for league purposes as opposed to the feature offered on AOL. I thought only Alex and I would use it for podcasting, but I am happy to see it still used for other purposes. I will probably keep these branches somewhat separated, as long as others continue using it anyway.

Those continual hits trying to post comments, well those were spam bots trying to break my very simple picture challenge that no human would have trouble with. Sure a person might have a mistype now and then but it would not continue for hours. The reason such a simple method works is because the spam bots have no idea how to attack a tool they know nothing about. I decided that I would start to track these, beginning with here at nitevilla. If you are curious, in the lower portion of the left hand column you will see how much spam Buff has eaten in the last day or so. That is the CMS consuming spam, not me.

While adding this simple feature I noticed something that came to my attention some time ago. I really need to start at the beginning of my code and walk all the way through it and tidy the code up a bit. Because I added features here and there and everywhere throughout it's original inception, I could really clean some of the functionality up. I do not want to go into detail necessarily but I am sure some of you that created similar projects know exactly what I mean. I often have thought that Buff would be something I might consider releasing as opensource. I actually think some folks would be interested in using it instead of Wordpress and the like, especially with it being much smaller and simpler. Tinkerers like myself could add features and generally hack together a nice blog or CMS. The other solutions are so bloated, I suppose they need to be because with blogging being so mainstream most of the folks using them are not technical and they want easy ways to make plugins without coding. Or some simply do not want to code their own tool, even if they could. Which is cool, but since I can do it myself, I see no reason not to use my own solution. Buff does everything I need it to and it is definitely not bloated, mostly powered by one script. Buff is easy to extend and is less vulnerable, somewhat because of less bloat and mostly because it is not used by enough people for any nefarious individuals to care about hacking it.

I have had a few problems over the years on my websites with script kiddies (these kids are not intelligent, just socially inept) using someone else’s tools to scan for known vulnerabilities in various opensource software. The root of all my problems was always Flashchat, which I utilize for draft purposes on Brutal Deluxe. I have seen similar complaints regarding script kiddies about other popular opensource software. All the tools I wrote on my own have never had any such problems, which is a big reason why I continue to use my own solutions. As far as releasing Buff as opensource, huge code cleanup, administrative documentation along with installation scripts would need done. Supporting the CMS could suddenly become a chore rather than an escape from chores. Buff might then become vulnerable to script kiddies as well as known to spam bots that might try and attack my anti-spam measures more intelligently. Sure I still want to tidy up the code, but I really think opensourcing Buff would be a bad idea. In Addition I would likely be told just how ugly the code is. The code is probably not that bad, but I know there could be more elegance.

• 5 Scientific Reasons a Zombie Apocalypse Could Actually Happen | Cracked.com:
  I keep telling people this stuff and they think I am crazy. Just like the velociraptors. Don't come crying to me if your brain gets eaten.
  tagged as: zombies, science

• macosxhints.com - 10.5: A number of ways to access Screen Sharing:
  Don mentioned this in the comments. I liked Chicken of the VNC and Enterprise VNC, but I will likely be bidding farewell.
  tagged as: apple, vnc, sharing, desktop, osx
• Pumpkin beer captures flavors of the season:
  This is a style of beer I enjoy, but I also think there is room for more variety in Pumpkin Ales. Brutal Deluxe Breweries 2006 Pumpkin Ale was one of the best. We went more traditional this year.
  tagged as: beer, pumpkin, homebrewing, Halloween
• Don't Fear Big Beer:
  Via Phil - Article tells what I already knew.
  tagged as: beer, history, news
• Using LDAP to Manage Unix Accounts:
  
  tagged as: sun, ldap, unix, nis
• Direct Link Digg Feed:
  I was going to code my own, searched and found someone already beat me to it.
  tagged as: digg, feed, rss
• Speedball 2: Brutal Deluxe (XBLA):
  Finally, about two months late. Larger leagues and other extras.
  tagged as: speedball, games, gaming

Internet and communications

Multimedia and Graphics

Productivity

System Tools

• How to Survive a Zombie Attack || kuro5hin.org:
  It's Halloween season, I am writing another zombie novel and it's good to brush up on zombie survival skills.
  tagged as: zombies, survival, howto
• Building Wine From Scratch - Mac OS X:
  I am done with Windows, but emulation is sometimes necessary.
  tagged as: mac, osx, howto, wine

• Greenpeace Scaremongers Again -- Goes After Beer:
  Forget the claim the rice is tainted, the beer has rice. Rice does not belong in good beer. :)
  tagged as: beer, politics
• For NFL officials, scrutiny begins long before kickoff - USATODAY.com:
  Ed Hochuli, I would like to do some weight lifting and have a beer with Ed. He has your tickets to the gun show hanging off his shoulders.
  tagged as: nfl, hochuli
• Southern York County Podcast:
  I am going to check out this podcast, having grown up in York County, I like to stay in touch with my roots.
  tagged as: podcast

• Slashdot's CmdrTaco Rob Malda Looks Back at 10 Years of 'News for Nerds':
  I think the crowd at Slashdot is generally more intelligent than the Digg crowd. I am not a Digg fan but I respect Slashdot, fantastic achievement!
  tagged as: geek, web, slashdot, news
• More On PHEAA:
  Wonder if they included the money for PHEAA's tshrits, bags and private party they had for themselves?
  tagged as: pheaa, stealing, pennsylvania
• York Barbell:
  Phil details the poor care and condition of the Weightlifting Hall of Fame.
  tagged as: York, Barbell, weightlifting, hof
• Atari 2600 Turns 30:
  I loved my Ataris. I played a lot of Atari 2600 and 5200 during the early to mid 1980's. These systems spawned my interest in how computers work.
  tagged as: gaming, history, atari
• Willey Running Scared:
  Wonder if a certain VP of IT who does not know what CPU means will be next? Or perhaps a VP of security who orders employees to lie to auditors? Hmm...
  tagged as: pheaa, crooks, lowlifes
• Sputnik - 50th Anniversary:
  Interesting read.
  tagged as: history, space

ADDENDUM: I owe Google an apology, Google was being blocked by my free DNS provider. I did not ask why, I only asked them if they were blocking Google. They responded that the sites were no longer being blocked. Perhaps to cut down on traffic maybe? Apparently the Yahoo crawler was not blocked. I left my original text below in tact, perhaps it will help others if they notice similar symptoms. I am actually glad I was wrong about Google not including me for some other reason, I am a fanboy after-all. :)

I have to admit, I am a bit of a Google fanboy, but that might be changing for at least their search engine. First off I love the things I hear about their company, secondly I love Gmail and I have always preferred their search. Recently however I noticed something about their crawler that has me baffled. Google refuses to crawl the websites I host from my home, claiming that the domain name cannot be resolved. Yahoo search, has no such issues and many topics I wrote about on CPUUG shows up in Yahoo searches. So am I asking this question just because I am being shunned by Google? Partly, but mostly this got me thinking.

I think the reason Google is refusing to crawl my privately home hosted domains is because of my dynamic IP address. Which is just stupid in my opinion, perhaps someone else can let me know if this is the reason or if it is something else, perhaps my DNS provider. I would guess this is Google's way of trying to stop some type of abuse, but if so, dismissing this type of website could be dismissing a large percentage of valid search results. The best example of this is the instructions I wrote for Compiling Apache, MySQL and PHP on AIX 5.3, which are the best instructions for accomplishing this task. I know, because I helped plenty of people do it and plenty of others used pieces of the documentation I wrote. Keep in mind, this is my second writing of instructions, the first post was over a year ago. On Yahoo, my post is the number one search result, just as it should be. On Google, my website does not appear, and I have submitted it to Google.

All this got me thinking, if I have good documentation out there and Google's crawler or their rules do not allow them to include it, what else is Google missing? I certainly cannot be alone in this, so I will most certainly have to start checking Yahoo first and only using Google if I do not find what I need using Yahoo. Better yet, I hate all the Yahoo clutter, so I can just use AltaVista, which is minimalistic like Google but uses Yahoo's search engine.

Perhaps I am missing something obvious, so what gives with Google? Anyone? I am certainly no expert on Google's rules of engagement and why they will not include my privately home hosted domains.

Alex and I recorded another Zubritsky's Corner Podcast Tuesday night. We talk quickly about some of the news items over the past couple weeks. We kept it short, both because my voice is not fully podcast ready and also because most of our sports attention is BDFL related.

Links:
• Zubritsky's Corner Podcast Feed
• Email us text or audio comments!: BrutalDeluxe at gmail.com
• Barroid Asterisked in Cooperstown

Credits:
• Mixed, edited and mastered by Alex
• Music: "Look and Feel Years Younger" by Brad Sucks.

• The science of beer:
  (Via Phil) This made me thirsty.
  tagged as: beer, brewing, homebrew
• Draper Bee's Honey:
  I have been using their chunk honey with my tea.
  tagged as: tea, bee, honey
• Asterisk Barry Bonds:
  Here is your chance to save some face for this generation of sports fans. Asterisk 756 for eternity, I did.
  tagged as: baseball, MLB, Bonds, steroids, cheating
• Life Is Far Too Short To Drink Cheap Beer - 10 Ways To Maximize Your Beer Value:
  Excellent article - via PsychoPhil
  tagged as: beer

• Filezilla FTP Client:
  Wonderful opensource tool that is now available on Linux, Mac OSX and Windows.
  tagged as: linux, mac, windows, ftp, freeware, opensource, utilities
• Alta Vista - Search Engine:
  Uses yahoo as the backend but very lightweight like Google. I currently might try this over Google.
  tagged as: search, altavista
• Open Source Mac - Downloadpedia:
  
  tagged as: opensource, freeware, mac, osx, software

Alex and I recorded another Zubritsky's Corner Podcast Tuesday night. We review some of the sports news that occurred over the last week. We talk a little Fantasy Baseball, MLB, NCAA football including the Notre Dame vs Michigan match-up, NFL football, and a little about men's tennis and the Williams sisters attitudes.

Links:
• Zubritsky's Corner Podcast Feed
• Email us text or audio comments!: BrutalDeluxe at gmail.com
• Tug McGraw Foundation

Credits:
• Mixed, edited and mastered by Alex
• Music: "Look and Feel Years Younger" by Brad Sucks.

A couple weeks ago I switched my router over to start using OpenDNS and I have to sing the praises of the free service. The most simple way to explain DNS is that it translates the URL that you type into your browser into the IP address of the web page that you are visiting. I am a Comcast customer and I suppose I was so used to the delay while Comcast's DNS resolved the hostname lookup of the web page I was visiting that I grew used to waiting. Recently I started to really notice this delay had worsened and wondered if a change in DNS would make a big difference. For me the change with the speed pages loaded was noticeable immediately after switching to OpenDNS.

Several years ago I had set my DNS to not be Comcast's slow DNS servers, at that time the servers seem to just go AWOL now and then. Along the way I changed routers a couple times and lost the DNS servers I had been using. I ended up just using the default for the past couple years and really did not give much thought to changing my DNS. A while back I heard about OpenDNS but just never looked into using the service. When I noticed web pages were resolving very slowly as of late, and since it seemed to be the resolution of the web pages name I was pretty certain it was a DNS issue. The first thing I really liked about OpenDNS, there was no need for me to signup. The setup and DNS server IP addresses were right there for me to grab. With family members sometimes using my computers, I liked the idea of the phishing protection.

I encourage anyone on Comcast especially to give OpenDNS a try. If you use another ISP, you may not notice any speed increases. Comcast has been notorious for having bad DNS and obviously from my experience they have not improved. By the way, if you are considering trying OpenDNS, just make the change on your router, not on every computer you own. Really the only way there is an advantage to changing the DNS directly on your computer is if you own a laptop and are always on the go using different networks. I would be curious to hear others opinions who have tried OpenDNS or perhaps another DNS service.

• Grid Iron Greats:
  It is up to today's players to help the greats that paved the way.
  tagged as: NFL, players, greats
• CHALQ - Social Fantasy Sports:
  Not sure what to make of this. What the heck, I will watch it.
  tagged as: fantasy, sports

Links:
• • Zubritsky's Corner Podcast Feed
• • Email us text or audio comments!: BrutalDeluxe at gmail.com
• • Tug McGraw Foundation

Credits:
• • Mixed, edited and mastered by Alex
• • Music: "Look and Feel Years Younger" by Brad Sucks.

IMG_0010.JPG
Originally uploaded by Scott B.

What a long strange trip it has been. Seems like yesterday I posted this. This past Monday Jake started Kindergarten. That is him climbing on the bus with the Spongebob backpack.

• The Zombie Diaries: A film by Kevin Gates and Michael Bartlett:
  I requested Netflix get this movie. Love the idea.
  tagged as: zombies, movies
• Happy Trails Time Lady:
  I love technology history.
  tagged as: history, news, nostalgia, technology, time, timelady
• Gateway Purchased by Acer:
  I know some people hate Gateways. My one experience with them in 1999 was great, easily one of the best desktops I ever bought and I liked the cow spots.
  tagged as: gateway, pc, computers

Alex and I recorded another Zubritsky's Corner Podcast Friday night. We review some of the sports news since we last recorded. We again talk a little boxing, NCAA football, NFL football and MLB football. Andy comes through with a logo. If you wanna hear Alex and I talk a little beer, check out the Brutal Deluxe Podcast too.

Links:

• Zubritsky's Corner Podcast Feed
• Email us text or audio comments!: BrutalDeluxe at gmail.com
• Tug McGraw Foundation

Credits:

• Mixed, edited and mastered by Alex
• Music: "Look and Feel Years Younger" by Brad Sucks.

Shared bookmarks for del.icio.us user Scott Buffington.

• Weight Training Workout Sheet « Corrie Haffly: I mostly prefer old tablets or at this stage of my life I know what weights to use but this could be useful for motivation.
  tagged as: weights, weightlifting, free, tracking, lifehacks
• Apache 2.2.4, MySQL 5.1.20 and PHP 5.2.3 on AIX 5.3 - AAMP: Compiling Apache, MySQL and PHP on AIX, more detailed than my previous how to.
  tagged as: aamp, aix, apache, mysql, php, unix, howto
• Roast Coffee in Popcorn Popper: I think I linked to something like this years ago. I first heard of this several years ago, but these instructions are better.
  tagged as: coffee, howto, roasting

• DailyLit: Read Books by Email or RSS:
  Via Jaboobie - read small parts of books via a daily email or RSS. Always wanted to read, The Art of War and now I am.
  tagged as: books, reading, time
• Vista is the new Millenium Edition:
  I first said this to my friend Shane. I tested the resource hog Vista for a friend and yuck. I know I will get slammed by MS fanboys but Vista really does suck.
  tagged as: microsoft, vista, millenium, windows, windoze
• Mystere - Cirque Du Soleil:
  I starred in the show - 8/8/2007 - Las Vegas. That's right, I was right up there on stage, starring in Mystere.
  tagged as: cirquedusoleil, mystere

Alex and I recorded another Zubritsky's Corner Podcast Friday night. We review some of the week that was in sports, including the loss of a baseball great, another milestone in baseball and we talk a little mixed martial arts and boxing.

Links:
• Zubritsky's Corner Podcast Feed
• Email us text or audio comments!: BrutalDeluxe at gmail.com
• Tug McGraw Foundation

Credits:
• Mixed, edited and mastered by Alex
• Music: "Look and Feel Years Younger" by Brad Sucks.