Its Been a Long Time

Well there have definitely been a lot of things happening since I last posted in April. On the Army Reserve front I've had it in the back of my mind that I was definitely getting out and being done with all of this before my unit deploys in Sept, but it doesn't appear that I'll be getting out as I hoped. I've had a few episodes of Atrial Fibrillation which makes my heart do some unnatural rhythms, I'm pretty much healthy for the most part except for the fact that it could or could not happen again in the future. So most of this year I have been on a permanent profile for that and I've pretty much thought I had a lock on not getting deployed. This was before they asked for my medical records and what my current heart status was. So I sent them all of my medical records with all the info I had on my incidents but of course I didnt have any current stuff which is what they really wanted. I figured I could go to the doctor and just tell them I didn't want to go to Iraq and bam they'll just tell the Army that it would be too stressful or whatever. The doctor thought otherwise and let me know that my heart will not get me out the Army because I was ok. So now I'll just have to wait and see if they'll get mad because I didn't send the current stuff before the deadline. I guess whatever way it goes I'll be getting ready to deploy, I've been trying to get together lists of things I may need when we go. I know if I do go I would be on point with everything but I just don't want to go. After my 3-week AT in South Dakota last month I was pretty much done with Army crap. It wasn't the fact that I got picked to go back to South Dakota again after last year was crap, or the fact that we got shitted on by the units we were attached to, or the fact that there was NOTHING as far as work for us to do, it was the fact that I had a retarded NCOIC that was a kiss ass with the other units so he helped shit on us. Then he would turn around and lie to our faces about stuff, so I'm sitting there thinking that I do not want to be over in a war zone with this man. I dunno, I guess I'll just have to wait and see how these next 2 months turn out.

On the work front my business manager got fired, apparently while I was gone to South Dakota she mounted some kind of offensive to try to get me fired. The details are slim but apparently she was fired in the process. She really couldnt give anybody any real reasons why she should fire me so that probably helped. Now work is relatively calm without her there, if I was making more it would be great.

[TechLife] So much to do, So little time

I seem to have slacked off big time in my updating here.

First off, the new job is getting a bit tiresome thanks to management but I can deal. The work is still proving to be interesting though. I have been trying to keep up my skills on the side as well. I'm currently trying to up my skills in Linux by doing a Stage 1 installation of Gentoo, which is pretty much starting with very little and trying to build up a system from it. I'm currently doing this on my laptop which is not very fast, so it will probably take me a few weeks to finally get it done. Not because it's that slow but I seem to need some extra steps in between all the slow steps that are dragging things out. I have a system at work that is Gentoo so that is the main reason why I'm doing this, it doesn't work right now and I'm trying to get a better background in Gentoo to try and fix it. After Gentoo I'll probably try to get into some LiveCDs and the eventually LFS (Linux From Scratch)

To all who know me its definitely no secret that I prefer using linux over windows, but at work that's pretty much most of my job. I'm pretty much getting everything down since I really didnt have much background in administration within a windows environment, but I think I can hold my own with Exchange and Active Directory now. I'm really into the scripting now, since I know you can script just about everything I'm trying to build an admin console for myself that will house some of my most used scripts.

Idea Bin:
Net Admin LiveCD (WMI scripting, Nagios monitoring, blah blah, ...and other stuff)
Custom Linux Distro
Office solution for small/med sized businesses (Computers, Phones, Software, pretty much all the basics)

--
Posted by TJ to TechLife at 4/25/2005 02:53:00 PM

The Forgotten

There are so many things that we forget through out the course of our lives, events, places, people, etc....blah blah blah. I guess I would try to combat that on a certain level by writing a whole lot (yea, I'm slippin), with pictures or whatever. I'm not really sure why I thought of this though today but I can't seem to write in cursive anymore!!!! Yea, I know that thanks to the computer most of the stuff that I write is typed into the computer and when I do write on paper its in print. You could argue that there is really no use for me to remember that fancy art of writing, but man..... I was sitting there struggling to try and write a whole sentence. It didnt help that I had to look up how to write a cursive Z. I'm not gonna spend too much time on this but it really has me goin for the moment.

Plate is Full

Man, things just seem to get crazier and crazier by the minute. Since I started this new job I seem to be working with less time or something. I just can't seem to put everything into its correct place, even at work I'm kinda zoning out. It's not really because of the lack of work I seem to be working on things constantly, just not enough time to do them. I have a solution for Spam that I'm supposed to have working by Friday but right now I can't even get the machine its on to boot up. Not to mention that fact that this same Spam solution is going to go into production pretty soon. It probably would have been easier if I would have made up the thing but it was left by a previous employee with very little instructions. I guess it's the projects like that which seem to make time tick a little faster.




irwiwtotmiwkwtd

[TechLife] Maybe it is working

Well it appears as if this freaking thing is working, so I should now be able to better categorize my posts

--
Posted by TJ to TechLife at 3/31/2005 08:53:00 PM

[TechLife] this freaking thing isnt working

this isnt working

--
Posted by TJ to TechLife at 3/31/2005 07:29:00 AM

Whistle While You Work

Work is going pretty well (I guess) I am definitely getting the opportunity to work on a variety of new things that I wasn't before. My job is alot more intense than before but I think that will eventually equalize out and I should be good. They sent me to the Dayton Information Security Conference which started today and lasts till tomorrow, going to that has definitely opened my eyes on some stuff and that's just from talking with people there. Things are a little busy right now but I'll add more later.

Development

Well the first week and a half of work have been going pretty well with a lot of work to keep me busy. I now seem to be doing a lot of R&D work so I do a lot of searching for products or solutions to problems a customer may have and they all seem to vary widely with custom needs. So I think for all of those things I'm definitely looking into open source solutions just because I feel I could get very specialized solutions from them without alot of financial burden.

One of the first things I was looking for was a Crystal Reports type application, I found JasperReports which seems to be what I was looking for but they don't have any freakin installation information so I'll have to see whats gonna happen with that. I'm also going to a customer site to recommend NetOffice, since they were looking at a project management type solution.

So that's my time at work in a very brief nutshell, I'm gonna end this and try to find some more stuff on installing JasperReports.

First Week

Well I can definitely say that wherever I see my career going in the future, I can definitely start out in the right direction from where I'm at now. My revised title for my new job is now Network Cosultant / Developer. I pretty much handle in-house network administration, Web design/development, Application development, Linux consulting, and pretty much whatever I need to do to get the job done at a customer site.

I currently have a Error 721 issue with a VPN that needs to be resolved. I just got done with correcting a half done setup with Exchange & Outlook Web Access. That's just a little bit of what went on during this busy week. I'll post more technical stuff later on the Tech Life side.

Bookmarks Synchronizer

I've been using the Bookmarks Synchronizer for Firefox for about a week now and I have to say that I really like it. I have a bunch of different sets of bookmarks and this pretty much helped me to condense them to just one list at work and at home. So if you have Firefox you should grab it, if you don't have Firefox you should get it.... You'll more than likely like it.

Spread Firefox

Burning Bridges

My current employer didn't really take too kindly to the short notice of 2 weeks notice. I guess technically it was only a few days notice since I was gonna be on vacation during the majority of my last 2 weeks. So now things aren't so hot in the office place. On the good side of things I did go to my new job today and do some work. They told me I was gonna go with them to do an initial talk with a customer on terminal services. When I got there I found out that they were actually trying to secure the contract to do the work, which kind of suprised me. I went along with it and wasn't too nervous about it all because everything we talked about I was looking forward to doing. So hopefully we'll get this client because from the start I'll be the lead on that site, so that's cool.

DIY Home Theater Projector

A DIY Projector is definitely in my near future, this is as good as link as any to start with.

Sub $300 Home Theater Projector
Sub $300 Home Theater Projector II

Free Ringtones

For those of you that love putting ringtones on your phone, this is definitely a site for you. Downloading ringtones is cool.... downloading free ringtones is better. smashTheTONES

Cellphone Carriers Available:
AT&T
Cingular
Verizon
Nextel
T-mobile
Sprint
Alltel
HickoryTech
Qwest
SureWest
Telus
Rogers Wireless
Bell Mobility
Fido

I haven't had the chance to try it yet, but with the promise of free ringtones I'll give it a shot.

Crack Open The Books

Well I start my new job on the 21st and its pretty much the job that I've always wanted. Just about everything I've ever been interested in relationg to computers and technology I'll more than likely be doing it at my new job. On top of that they're paying me to learn, as well as upgrades in pay for every time I upgrade my knowledge (Certifications). So it really is a good deal and I'm so very pleased that it has come along.

Now as for what I'll need to brush up on:
Macromedia Studio MX (Web design as a whole)
Visual Basic .Net / 6
Perl / Other scripting languages
Linux
EDI (What I do now)
System / Network Administration
Cisco
Oracle

For the administration stuff, I know alot about the systems and networks in themselves but I haven't had that workplace experience doing it. So I'll start seeing more problems typical of regular office type problems. Like I said its a great opportunity, great learning experience, and a definite change for the better. So like I said before I'll probably have alot more tech posts relating to alot of the stuff I'm working on. I know starting off I'll have to figure out why one of their servers scsi hard drives keep crashing. I'll also have to work on a new website for the company and figure out some network problems that one of their clients is having. :D Good Fun

Toolbars

I don't really use any of the toolbars/desktop utilities that are out right now, I usually just google everything from the main page and all my popups are blocked thanks to Firefox. Now with everyone fighting for a place on your desktop and web browser with a search bar I may just have to try them out to see if any are of any use.

Microsoft
MSN Toolbar - I'm definitely not a windows guy but I'll still try this out to what it offers.
Microsoft Desktop - Oh wait.... that's built in, Let's see how it compares :)

Yahoo
Yahoo Toolbar - I think I've used this one before but I'll install it again
Yahoo Desktop - "Requires Windows XP or Windows 2000 SP 3+" .... yea, ok

Google
Google Toolbar - Just Google it
Google Desktop - Haven't tried this but I'll give it a shot

Network Administrator/Developer

That boy is in there!!!! :D

Network Administrator....... We'll see.....

Well I had an interview today that I can honestly say was pretty damn good, the job itself should be one great learning experience. Everything I could as for technically in a job is in this one, I was supposed to have a 2nd interview next week but the called me and asked me to come back tomorrow. So I hope all goes well :D If I get this job I'll definitely have more tech to talk about.

On the technology front I just started working with a guy on an EDI module for perl. Pretty much you'll be able to translate your documents from EDI to XML. That in itself may not seem like a big deal but it can become one when you start incorporating that functionality into open source translating software. Now there are some open source EDI translators out there that I would like to try out, with BIE being number one on my list and probably followed by OBOE or MEC Eagle.

Do it myself

With the recent layoffs on my job it kind of shook things into perspective for me. I was trying to leave my job for "better" opportunities working for an IT Staffing company as a consultant. The problem with that being that what I work on and how much I get paid for doing it is pretty much limited to the stuff that the recruiter finds. Seeing as the recruiter is being flaky already I've decided not to take my chances. I personally know that my skill level far exceeds my previous jobs or even my current job, I know that and alot of other people know that too. So why not just do it myself, I think it is something that should have been done and taken seriously awhile ago. There are so many things that are happening right now that are telling me that is the smart way to go.
Of course with all the ideas I have running around in my head things have to become more focused. Computer and Network consulting will definitely be the main focus, I'm trying to study constantly to get as many certifications under my belt. Along with that the real estate ventures will become a bigger player now because that's gonna be my retirement right there and how things are gonna get done in my life in the future. There are so many things that are going to branch off from both of those that I can't wait to see.

A New Year

Since I was questioned on the lack of content on my page :) I figured I should at least write something about what's going on with me and some techy stuff if I can think of anything.
I've resumed my CCNA studying pretty hard now and I hope to be 100% ready for the INTRO exam at least by Feb. 1st. There is a definite need for me to get all my skills in order because the helpdesk scene is not really my thing anymore. Don't get me wrong though because it sure pays the bills but I'm just not feeling it like I did when I first started. I hooked up with Robert Half so hopefully they'll locate some good stuff for me.
Still got some other projects going on the side, so we'll see what comes of those as well.

On the P2P front I haven't really been downloading anything lately but if I was I don't think Exeem is something I would be using. It was pretty much being touted as the new version of Suprnova.org pretty much with better everything wrapped into a nice gui package. It really seams as if they're just trying to make a buck with the inclusion of some known spyware into their app. I'll be getting back into the download mood again but I think I'll find another way to get my fix.

Vivitar Vivicam 3746

My girlfriend has a Vivitar Vivicam 3746 digital camera that I wasn't sure would work under Linux. I found out that it was a fairly simple process.

load the modules: modprobe modprobe usb-storage and modprobe sd_mod
mount the camera: mkdir /mnt/camera and mount -t msdos /dev/sda1 /mnt/camera

And that was pretty much it, I use Redhat 8 so I also created an icon and stuck it on the panel. So when she uses it she can just plug up the camera and hit an icon so she can access the pictures.

Something odd I just noticed is that her camera has the words in different places than the ones in the pictures that I have found. hmmm

Free Credit Reports (For Real)

Most people need to see to believe so let's get that out the way first. HERE

Well it seems under a new law we will be allowed 1 credit report from each of the 3 credit bureaus every year. It started Dec. 1st in the western states and the rollout across the country will begin on various dates. I check my credit report fairly regularly so this is great news.

Find out what your dog really thinks of you

Snatch up a dog translator and find out, it seems like something pretty cool to have but unfortunately my dog doesn't seem to want to bark.

Coming Along Nicely

Of course me being the person that I am I have various sites spread across multiple domains with many many different email addresses to my name. They all reflect a specific idea I had in my head at one time or another. Now I've finally managed to actually begin to develop something with a few of those ideas.
I've been interested in real estate investing for a few years now, but I've been reading so much books, acquiring so much information, and doing so much "stuff" that I haven't really really got started doing anything. I created The Creative Birddog in hopes of creating a community of people wanting to learn the ropes of birddogging and investing like The Creative Investor. Since I wanted to start with a community from the start I kind of got stalled in the development of it all.
I think I'm gonna go with a simpler idea for it all, I'm not experienced enough to create a community behind my knowledge of birddogging and real estate. I will say though that I have enough experience to share what I know, see , and will possibly deal with when doing it. If it can grow into a community from that then that's good and I would have the resources in the background to be able to expand. Here is a demo of what is to come DEMO SITE

'Brainwave' cap controls computer

I don't even know what to say about this, I've read the stories about the brain controlling the robotic arm but I guess I didn't really expect to see something like this right now. For the simple fact that it is just a cap that you can put on your head without any special implants or surgery is amazing. I think this has surpassed the feelings I had when I saw the story about Human Pacman. :)

Rasterize some images

I've always found those rasterized images pretty cool but I never got past the pretty cool feeling to actually find a way to do them myself. Well I stumbled upon The Rasterbator over at The Sect of Homokaasu and I'm very eager to try it out when I get home. The images that people have used to create their works look pretty good. I even know who I'm gonna rasterize first. :D

New Look

Well I'm trying to customize things a little bit, I figured I would learn a little bit of CSS and change things up. Everything is not totally valid CSS yet but I'm getting there, I looked at a lot of different things people have done with CSS and I was pretty impressed. I would definitely recommend CSS Zen Garden for ideas on what you can do.

Office Humor

Newspaper Cubicle This is what having too much time at work can lead to. This is what happened to a co-worker that happened to be off on the wrong day.

Excel password breaker

One of the things I can't stand at work is working on a spreadsheet that has a bunch of macros, gadgets, and all these functions but it seems to break and you can't fix it because it is password protected. Yea its probably there for good reason as to not have everyone messing around with how the sheet works. It becomes a pain to me when it prevents your team members from adding useful features that could possibly be useful, that just seems like someone ensuring job security to me. I guess I'm more of an open source person, I like to share the scripts I build with the team so they could add to them and make them better.... but that's a whole other story.

Anyhow, this is a macro for a password breaker in excel and there's nothing to pay for. Just cut and paste in to the macro editor and save. Voila!!! Then you can run the macro on any sheet you want to open.

35% of internet traffic from Bittorrent

I know I use bittorrent alot myself, I never knew that it could account for so much traffic though. Of course with so much traffic it is only a matter of time before lawsuits will start flying for users of this as well. Read the article over at the Wired.

Blast from the past....

This is something I wrote almost two years ago when I was first introduced to knoppix and I've pretty much still enjoyed ever since. I've now incorporated a few other live distros under my belt based off knoppix with WHoppix being the one that currently has my attention. But there's so much packed on to each one you use its kind of amazing that it is just running off a CD.

Subject: Knoppix reviewed
Sent: 01/09/03 12:50 PM EST
By: tj1037

If you have ever heard of Knoppix you know that it is getting great reviews from everyone. You can use it as a demo to introduce others to Linux , or use it help you rescue those broken windows boxes.

What is knoppix?
Before I get into why decided to download knoppix, I guess I can give some insight into what it is. This is the definition from the knoppix site:
KNOPPIX is a bootable CD with a collection of GNU/Linux software, automatic hardware detection, and support for many graphics cards, sound cards, SCSI and USB devices and other peripherals. KNOPPIX can be used as a Linux demo, educational CD, rescue system, or adapted and used as a platform for commercial software product demos. It is not necessary to install anything on a hard disk. Due to on-the-fly decompression, the CD can have up to 2 GB of executable software installed on it.

Getting & Installing Knoppix
There are a few different ways to get a hold of this distribution. The most obviouse of course for those with broadband would be to download it. Those who have dial-up and do not want to wait a couple days for it to download can purchase a copy from a list on the knoppix site. I downloaded my copy within about 2 hours, I burnt the .iso to CD and I was ready to go. Of course there`s really no installation ivolved seeing as the whole thing is on CD. So you only have to make sure you pop in the CD and restart the computer.

What do I do now?
After you restart your computer, you`re presented with a boot prompt. I read the help fle and found that knoppix lang=us would put me onto the english desktop, I also found that if you just leave it alone and let it do its thang you`ll get the same results. After that it goes through its configurations, autodetecting and autoconfiguring your devices on your machine. It bookts up into the KDE 3.0 desktop environment by default but if you read the cheatsheet you can figure out how to get Gnome or a different window manager if you like.

Need something to do
After booting into KDE, I was greeted by a very clean desktop. I was amazed by the great amount of software that came with knoppix, especially programs like The Gimp, OpenOffice, Bluefish HTML Editor, Ethereal...and a bunch of others. Everything runs at a decent speed but even better when you configure a swap partition on your hard drive. That`s right, did I mention it auto mounts your hard drive partitions, it even does NTFS. Your hard drive partitions however are configured as read-only by default, but a quick right click can change all of that...changing it from read-only to read and write. although it mounts ntfs so you can read, you`re not going to be able to write anything to it. I wanted to see if I could browse the internet. I have a network using DHCP so after checking everything in /etc/resolv.conf, I was ready to surf. There are a few plugins that you need to download to make sure you`re able to reach all your favorite sites.

Conclusion
Applications load up a little slower than usual, but thats to be expected for one its on a CD and two its compressed pretty well. I had a hard time printing, only because I selected the wrong driver. Other than that everything was great, an abundance of software, easy setup & configuration makes this a definite one to try. Best of all it does not interfere with your current system setup so when you`re done ..logout..take out the CD...reboot...and you`re back to your original setup. I have such a high opinion of it that I`m giving away CD`s to people I know. If you need a copy leave me a not or drop me an email and I`ll put one in the mail for you. So give it a try you`ll like it.


This review was brought to you by TJ on his new Knoppix CD using Mozilla

We Do Not Send Spam

I had a two hour long meeting today discussing the fact that we do not send spam and the new tool we have to filter spam out of customer accounts. So I can no longer tell a customer if they have spam in their account because technically I don't know. "Mrs. Johnson, I'm sorry to say that I really don't know what kind of messages you have in that account. I don't know what you would consider unsolicited or solicited email. For all I know you may be passing out viagra samples as christmas stocking stuffers."
Yea, I know that's extreme but I needed something to think about while sitting there while my brain started to numb. So if someone mentions the word spam then all kinds of red flags and lights will go off..... seriously, there's a red light that reacts to the word spam if said on the phone...... well ok, not seriously but it was a long meeting so I put that into my thoughts as well.

Got this from mikedup.net

Grab the nearest book.
Open the book to page 23.
Find the fifth sentence.
Post the text of the sentence in your journal......along with these instructions.

:::

"Expectation is another powerful mental process that you can harness." from Using HTML 4, XML, and Java 1.2

How to never miss another episode of your fav show with BitTorrent and RSS

I think I can definitely say that I am a big fan of bittorrent, I hardly watch TV due to the fact that I don't have cable or satellite. (Probably due to the fact that I get everything from Suprnova) Anyways I use Azureus as my bittorrent client of choice and in while I was doing my daily searches today I came across a little article on how to get bittorrent to automatically download your shows from tvtorrents using RSS.

I haven't tried this yet since I'm still at work, but I will give it a try when I get home though. Also who says you have to use just tvtorrents, i bet you can find some suprnova rss feeds to throw in there.

The how-to:

1. You will need to use Azureus. It’s a pretty good BT client and I’d recommend using it anyway. It is a Java application and works on most platforms.
2. You will also need the RSS Import plugin for Azureus. Installing it is a matter of dragging the unzipped folder into the plugins folder in your Azureus directory and restarting Azureus.
3. In Azureus, go into the preferences and expand the plugins tab. Choose RSS Importer.
4. Check the Activate RSS Importer Plugin box.
5. Enter http://www.tvtorrents.net/rss.php as the RSS Channel to import. You can also enter http://www.btefnet.com/backend.php, each some shows that the other doesn’t.
6. In the next text box, Filter …, enter a regular expression that matches the name of torrent of the the show you want to download. A quick guide to the kinds of regular expressions that are expected here is provided on the RSS Import page. For The West Wing, for example, I put in west.wing.*hdtv — which means download any file that include the letters west, followed by any single character, followed by the letters wing, followed by any number of characters, followed by the letters hdtv, to make sure I get the HDTV version and not the VCD version. For multiple shows, separate them with a semi-colon, so west.wing.*hdtv;enterprise.*hdtv would download The West Wing and Enterprise.
7. Under Recheck channels… I would recommend putting in 60, so as not to bombard the TV Torrents server with more requests than necessary.
8. And you’re set. Don’t worry about the other options. Now you just have to wait for the next episode to air. You should have it in your downloads folder the next day.

The original howto is over at pealco.net

It always seems that while I'm at work that either me or the guy that works nights with me finds odd things on the net. Yesterdays installment of Matrix Ping Pong was courtesty of him, today as I looked through the list of weird flash movies I found Odd Todd . He has a bunch of funny cartoons to watch and what better way to kill time sitting at your desk at work. The one from the list that had me crying was "Seeing Jesus H. Christ". Here's another one about a worm I guess.

In case you were wondering I had to go to that specific list directory because the main page is blocked by our filtering software.

Matrix Ping Pong
I'm guessing its from a Japanese game show, interesting little piece.

I always seem to have extra time at work for some odd reason, so why not fill that time with something of great importance. By constructing so Origami models.... I just finished my crane and I'm now starting an Azalea. Oh, I mean I'm getting back to working on those trouble tickets that I still have open. :)

All Jokes Aside ....

I'm not gonna say I'm a super funny person, even though I tend to do some super funny stuff or have super funny faces. My jokes never really seem to fall into that super funny category though. Hell they usually don't even fall into a funny category sometimes. I guess it probably has to do with the fact that I to lure people into my funny trap before I spring the "This was merely a joke". By then however its too late, people have either decided that they didn't get it or that it wasn't funny.

I guess my "jokes" are not really funny because people always play some on me, then me being me tries to get all technical and logical by that time the "I'm joking" card has already been drawn but I haven't had a chance to explain anything. I guess that is where my problem lies though, I allow too much time for other things to pop up killing anything funny within any of my comments.

Example

Scene #1

person #1 - "I just told So-n-So that you pee in the bed."

Person #2 - "You did wha..."

Person #1 - "LOL Just kidding, I'm playing with you"

Scene #2

Person #1 - "I just told So-n-So that you pee in the bed."

Person #2 - "You did what?!?"

Person #1 - "Yea, I told them you had a weak bladder and you can never make it to the bathroom in time"

Person #2 - "OMG, I'm gonna kill you!!!"

Person #1 - "LOL Just kidding, I was just messing with you"

Person #2 - "... ... ... .....ARGGGHHH!!! I'm gonna kill you!!"

Person #1 - "Wait...wait...Nnnoooo!!!"

It's obvious that I seem to fall into the second scene category alot more. About time its revealed that everything was a joke in scene 2 it's pretty much too late and you're well on your way to a beating.

Winter Sky

I'm not really into fall all that much, I'm probably more of a winter person. I don't really enjoy the cold but being from Milwaukee I can take it. What I really enjoy most about the winter though is the snowfall. During the snowfall, the one with the giant snowflakes and the temperature close to freezing, everything just seems to be calm and quiet. Well at least during the night it does.

I used to live on a relatively quiet block and when it was snowing sometimes I would go out in the middle of the night and just sit in our yard in the snow and just think. The sky would be cloudy with a deep purplish tint to it. The air would seem unusually warm and it would be so quiet and still that it seemed like everything stopped except for the snow.

Then if you incorporate all of that with the soft glow of flashing christmas lights, you'll get the other reason why i like winter. I'm really big into christmas, I even like the corny christmas commericials and christmas music. But enough of that.....

I currently don't have any bluetooth enabled devices myself, but I've found alot of bluetooth hacking information. The most interesting that I found was this. A Bluetooth Sniper Rifle ..... whoa

The Flexilis teams demonstrated the gun with some home-brewed Bluetooth scanning software. They pointed the gun down the hallways and out windows. Almost instantly, vulnerable phones with their unique Bluetooth device numbers appeared on the laptop screen. The device is powerful enough to detect devices through building walls.

You can pick off a bluetooth enable device from a mile away.... hmmmm

Video Tutorial For New Diebold Voting System

It seems as if they still have a few bugs in the system. Hilarious stuff... Download the Video.

Original link


:::EDIT::: Fixed the link, should work now and I still have 3 Gmail invites if anyone needs one

....Just a Few Days Gone By

By few I should probably say about 5, so let's try and play a little bit of catch up. I should finally be closing on my house pretty soon, it has taken so long to try and get the house to this point that I'll be glad when its done. Not really looking forward to the mortgage but it's something I'll have to deal with. Then after everything settles I'll start thinking about house mods...the home automation type stuff. Something like MisterHouse will do, so I'll be able to control all different kinds of things in the house.

For those that would like to play their Divx/Xvid movies in a standalone player, I would highly recommend the Philips DVP642. I've been in a gadget buying mood lately (wasn't really trying to) and I picked this up because I really wanted a DVD player that played Divx. After I figured out how I should be burning my movies to cd I didn't have anymore problems with it. Check out this review. On the flip side to that coin be sure to avoid the JVC XV-NP10S.... Let me say that again Do Not Buy the JVC XV-NP10S. Its a nice slim dvd player with a pretty blue light in the tray, it also has plenty of card slots if you happen to use them for your digital camera/device/whatever. It just sucks at playing most Divx movies, which is not good for a certified Divx player. So the moral of this story...... buy the Philips DVP642 not because it plays Divx better, it's also $50 bucks cheaper.

Customer Service Sucks.......

Yes, I work in Customer Service.....and yes it sucks, especially today. I just got another "monitoring" form today for a call I received yesterday. Did not offer further assistance, Did not give a reference number, Did not thank the caller for calling, and did not log the call at all. On a normal call with a normal customer I would have probably did all of the above things, but this call was from another customer service rep at another company we deal with frequently. They called to say "Hey, these files are bad... send them again", so I find out what's wrong and resend them. It becomes tedious if I have to say that long drawn out speech everytime I work with these people. I guess really I was taking a chance and hoping the QA Monster was not listening in on the call.

No such luck, I had a visit quickly after logging into my phone brought with her was a form with a list of all the things I did wrong on it. She began to go down the list of charges while pointing to the various pieces of paper that have taped to my cube with the scripts that we need to remember. Blah...blah...blah...blee...blee...blee...Just give me the paper so I can sign already. SHEEP

On an up note my son should be here next week, I still need to finish some things around the house though before he gets here. Like hmmm getting another bed to put in the other bedroom and maybe getting the shower fully operational. The time seems to be running out so I need to get a move on.

What are the odds of buying someone the same exact card for a holiday like Valentine's Day or on Sweetest Day? This happened to my girlfriend and I on Sweetest Day this past Saturday. We had bought the same exact card, it was pretty funny and interesting all at the same time. I guess that does show that we pretty much feel the same way since the card probably best said the way we feel about each other.

Trip to Chicago
Well I drove up to Chicago with my girlfriend with the intentions on bringing back a rat terrier puppy. Well we didn't get the puppy, but I think we still had a good time regardless.
The hotel was pretty nice, even though they tried to stick us in the same room as someone else. Yea that's right, right after we checked in this other young couple had checked in and we happened to follow them into the parking garage and happened to follow them onto the third floor of the hotel. We almost happened to follow them into room 325 on that same floor but we both found that kind of odd. We went back down to the lobby to tell the front desk person that there was someone else that just walked into our room. After he checked to find out who checked the people in, he apologized and set us up in a "nicer" room. So we hurried off and went to our room before they changed their mines about the nicer room. I'm still not sure how much nicer it was since I didn't get to see the other one though.
I even attempted to see my best friend in Milwaukee since we were so close. I had talked to him prior to coming up there and he sounded pretty happy we were coming. He did mention that he was drinking some Paul Mason and some kind of 211 beer that I have never heard of, That was pretty much the last sentence I heard from him. When we got there his girlfriend answered his phone and told me that he was pretty much trashed and not responsive to anything. We went over his girlfriend's house and there he was just spread out on the bed....not going anywhere for a long while. His girlfriend attempted to wake him when we got there and when that worked attempted to have me wake him... even though I knew that was gonna have the same effect as me poking him with a q-tip. So not to totally ruin her Sweetest Day, we all went out to CO2 Ultra Lounge it was a pretty nice place and a nice change from the places here in Dayton. After that we left and went back to Chicago.
Even though we didn't get the dog while we were there, I really enjoyed the time we had. To be able to spend some time away felt pretty good. I'm really looking forward to the next trip to NY.

Before I get into the detail of my weekend there are two things that I need to be sure to write about. They both have to deal with two small problems I had when using my linux box a couple times. One has to do with eth0 not starting up on boot and the other was a problem with the cdrom drive refusing to open.

Eth0 not starting on boot

Well for a few weeks now I have been having this problem, It probably happened the last time my cable internet went down and didnt come back up. I went in and changed something on my network settings to get my network connection back up but never changed it back. Not really sure what it was, and I really didn't notice the problem till I tried to run Nmap recently. It kept telling me that I had to specify my source address because it could not find it. I found it interesting since I have DHCP running and I should have had one.
After the ifconfig indeed showed me that there was no IP specified for eth0 I had to try to resolve that. Since I use redhat I went into "neat" and saw that my network device was eth0:1 instead of eth0. To get my network connection working on startup again I copied the ifcfg-eth0:1 into ifcfg-eth0. When I did this it showed eth0 as a selection for one of the network devices. I deactivated eth0:1 and activated eth0, did a restart, and it came up on boot this time. I also did an ifconfig and saw that I also had an IP address. I think this also caused me some network congestion problems, but that had to do with my gateways. On to the next problem...

Cdrom drive will not open

This was a very interesting problem since at the time I thought I had no programs running and I wasn't currently doing anything to the drive. Every time I tried to unmount the drive though it gave me the "device is busy" error. So I had to figure out what in the world was going on, so I did a google search for possible solutions to my problem. I found that in LSOF, I did /usr/sbin/lsof /mnt/cdrom and it showed me a process that still had a hold of the cdrom drive. After I killed the process I was able to unmount the drive finally.

::: GMAIL invites to anyone who needs one, I have 3 left :::

I had a pretty good weekend I just got in from Chicago.... I'll fill in the details tomorrow.

How many people actually know someone with the first name Tillman? ...... Don't count me

Read MAC disks on your PC

I have to say that this free utility to read mac disks was pretty easy to use. The only thing I did was basically download it, run the program, and drag 'n drop the files into Windows Explorer. That's it.... and it's free

To be able to read MAC disks - Download it from here
Visit homepage

I stopped by my parents house today to kill some time before I had to go into work. Shewas talking to me about things I needed to finish doing to my house to get it together and stuff she wanted to do to their house in the near future. Then she happened to mention a message left for me from a Congressman Thomas Reynold's office inviting me to an Annual Dinner with President Bush. Now first off, how in the world did they pick the people to come? and why me? It is pretty interesting though, I'll probably call them to find out what its about. My dad got one for Kerry, so I am interested in hearing where they are getting the names from. Now onto something else...

A digital home is something that I have been thinking about for a little while now. There are so many different things that I want to do to my house and to put in my house that I felt I could write for days on all of it. Well the story that I saw in this month's PC Magazine was pretty much exactly what I've been thinking of doing and wanting to do. From DVRs and Video Games to Wireless Networking and Security Cameras, I basically want to do it all. I think this could function as a guide and inspiration for all of it, of course I'll pick and choose what actual technologies I would use in my personal project.

Even though a lot of the products that they choose to use in this guide are pretty nice and slick, I don't have pretty nice and slick money. So I'll more than likely begin finding different open source and free software alternatives whenever possible. For the hardware I would more than likely have to see how low and I can and still have some relatively decent equipment to work with.

So I guess I can now combine my dream of an Uber-network into my plans for my Uber-house. I'll provide links later for everything.

I know what I always sit around and think about.... What if they made movies that I like into Hip-Hop musicals, that would be interesting. Ok, I really don't sit around and think about that but I did find something that was pretty damn close and pretty damn good.

Star Wars - Gangsta Rap Special Edition

The intergalactic gangsta rap now has a whole new flava in this Star Wars Gangsta Rap Special Edition. This remake features all-new and improved animation that would blow away any Death Star. Check it today.

Thanks to Muts for dropping through, He's the one who brought you the Whoppix that I seem to be talking so much about lately. You can find him here. I'll be sure to send those videos to you when I'm done.

Man Melts Pot While Boiling Water

I guess today is just one of those days, a day where it is just extra blah for one reason or another. Well I guess it really didn't get that way for me till I had an accident trying to boil water. I know....accident and trying to boil water should not be that close together in one sentence, but that's the way it goes today.

I poured the other half bottle of Drano down the kitchen sink in another attempt to try and dislodge this stubborn clog. I'm really not sure if it is even a clog, the way the water is moving it seems more likely to be a small body.....well not really, but its moving pretty damn slow. Well since I'm getting just getting my gas cut on since I moved in the house I currently don't have any hot water. As per the instructions on the back of the bottle I needed some hot water, so as I did just the night before I put a pot of water on the stove ..... on high. (Mistake #1) Then me being me I left the room and became distracted by computers and video games. (Mistake #2) After becoming so distracted I forgot about the pot of water in the kitchen sitting on the stove on high.... so I left.

I come home about an hour and a half later to house filled with a smell similiar to a factory. As I went into the kitchen and looked at the stove I see an empty pot with a red bottom. I know that's bad for the simple fact that I have never seen a pot get that color before. I knew it was really bad when I picked up the pot and liquid metal came pouring out onto the stove. Of course, when the metallic liquid came out it began to harden on the stove surface. After all was said and done the casualties were two of the silver plates under the eyes on the stove, and alot of burn marks on top. I'm just glad the stove was the only thing to get burned..... but I honestly do know how to boil water. Oh, and cook.

HACKER:

[originally, someone who makes furniture with an axe]

1. A person who enjoys exploring the details of programmable systems and how to stretch their capabilities, as opposed to most users, who prefer to learn only the minimum necessary.
2. One who programs enthusiastically (even obsessively) or who enjoys programming rather than just theorizing about programming.
3. A person capable of appreciating hack value.
4. A person who is good at programming quickly.
5. An expert at a particular program, or one who frequently does work using it or on it; as in `a UNIX hacker'. (Definitions 1 through 5 are correlated, and people who fit them congregate.)
6. An expert or enthusiast of any kind. One might be an astronomy hacker, for example.
7. One who enjoys the intellectual challenge of creatively overcoming or circumventing limitations.
8. [deprecated] A malicious meddler who tries to discover sensitive information by poking around. Hence "password hacker", "network hacker". The correct term is cracker.

Where I found this HERE


:::EDIT::: I did not see that this post really messed up the browser under IE, So I changed it.... Should be good now.

While you're out and about go pick up yourself an email icon to show off to all of your friends. They currently have Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo, and MSN.

"If we deny love that is given to us, if we refuse to give love because we fear pain or loss, then our lives will be empty, our loss greater."

Been kinda quiet lately, I guess that's good.... no problems to report .... Everything is O.K. Well I'm supposed to be going with my best friend to go pick up a dog this weekend. I guess that means I still have time to add my input into the name thing, although any names that I really thought up would either be tech related or just dog. I'm not sure everyone would appreciate "Dog" as the dog's name though. It's gonna be a long trip to go get the dog, but hell I'm all for a getaway even if it's to the middle of nowhere (a.k.a. Illinois).

I need to figure out what I'm gonna do with the other bedroom, my son should be down here at the end of the month and I need to have something in there for him. I either need to make it just a kids room or a room that "big" people can sleep in..... hmmm we'll have to see what I do.

Sweetest day is coming up, this will actually be a year that I will remember the day before its actually over with.

A site I came upon awhile ago that I'm not sure if I mentioned or not: Cooking For Engineers.

Well I downloaded my copy of WHoppix - 2.4 and have gotten to play with it a little bit..... good stuff. I was also trying to look around to find some more stuff on the pieces that went together to make WHoppix what it is:
MetaSploit Framework, Part 1
MetaSploit Framework, Part 2
MetaSploit Framework, Part 3

K-OTIK Exploits & Code

PacketStorm

I'll start making up some videos of WHoppix in action when I get a chance.

Well it seems as if they've pushed back the realize of Whoppix 2.4 till the 10th, the more I read about it the more I get interested. The Demos that they have are pretty interesting to :D
*These Flash movies are fairly large and will take awhile over dial-up*
Metasploit in Action
Cisco HTTP Bug
Wireless WEP Attack
Getting NESSUS to Work

I got an older laptop that I can use this with, I can't wait for it to come out.

WhiteHat Knoppix (Whoppix) is a knoppix 3.6 remaster designed to be a standalone penetration testing toolkit. Heavily modded by muts, Whoppix includes a full set of penetration testing tools and a huge repository of exploits (Framework 2.2, Packetstorm and Securityfocus exploit archives).

Dowanload will be available on the 10th Oct HERE

MD5 Checksum d87e7e90f9a1f80bb2954e1db865a130 *Whoppix-2.4.iso

A friend had just called me all in a panic because a disk holding all of her papers for class just crapped on her. She stuck it in the machine and it told her that it can not read a MAC formatted disk. Unfortunately for her she has only been using PCs, so when she asked if I could help my first reaction was like there is no way windows can read a MAC disk. Well I checked and they actually have software that can do it, Executor is one solution. Executor is a Macintosh Emulator, I'm not really sure of all of its capabilities but I'll download it and test it out at home. Well hell....If Windows can do it then Linux obviously can do it better :D and damnnit it does. Besides Executor being able to run on Linux, you can read Macintosh Hierarchical File System (HFS) thanks to kernal 2.x.x. I can prove it too..... See. So we'll see if I can open the file from home, then we'll see if she's really hosed or not.

I couldn't really tell you why I'm up so freakin early, I did fall asleep on the floor again. Another one of those nights where a talk on the with my best friend turns into falling asleep next to the phone while its on speakerphone. I think it was a weird dream I had that woke me up....ormaybe just the frog in my neck that was killing me while I slept. Anyways, I've been up for about 40 mins though...got up and got some cereal...transferred my space heater to my bedroom from the computer room...try to figure out why my network seems to act up when there is something plugged into port 3 of the switch...do another base-config on my fresh debian install....see, just typical stuff people do when they just happen to get up too early.
I've been joining a lot of different websites lately, all of them dealing with hacking or technology. They all seem to be good sources of information and if they are new they seem like they will one day develop into that. I think I've joined a few too many though cuz I think I may have forgotten which ones I went to already.
I'm kind of tired, but that still isn't keeping me away from this computer. I wanna lay back down but I know that if I lay back on the floor that I'm not gonna be comfortable in any way. Right now my room is too cold to be of any comfort either, so I guess I'm stuck here for now. I applied for this "Desktop Support Analyst" position and the guy keeps emailing me back wanting more detail in my resume. I guess I can work on that but the problem I'm having is figuring out what to put and how to put it. Anything that I've learned about computers has been self taught, I've only taking one computer class that I didn't know what I was doing. (That was high school in an IB Programming class that I hated) So trying to put down my experiences and trying to some how make them look a little bit more formal is what's killing me. I guess there is nothing more that I can do except do it, so we'll see what I can cram into there.

I keep forgetting these simple commands for some reason, so I'll put them here (Redhat 8):

Burn the ISO after I've downloaded it
cdrecord -v speed=8 dev=0,0,0 blahblah.iso

Burn the VCD after I've downloaded the .cue and .bin files
cdrdao write --device 0,0,0 blahblahblah.cue

Create an ISO image from directory
mkisofs -r -o /image.iso /dir_of_files_to_use

Reference Page
How to become a Hacker

:::EDIT:::
I just finished a Debian 3.0 (Sarge) net install that was fairly painless, however, the machine on it is too freakin slow and my retarded self downloaded the desktop environment when all I really needed was a file server. I'll figure out how to take all that other junk out later.

You think you know what cool is..... but you have no idea

See what cool looks like

....and I definitely know you don't what being "too cool" is.

You know what, I think I may really have to try out that Whoppix but I'm gonna wait for version 2.4 to come out this week. I think I'm gonna have a lot of fun with it.

I'm hearing a little buzz about Whoppix, a linux live-cd distro geared towards penetration testers and also those who wouldn't mind getting their hands on a website full of exploits all rolled up into one convenient little package. I'm currently at work so there's not much I can do from here. I'll download it and play with it when I get home though.
I had changed my stats counter a few weeks ago to use the one from Statcounter.com, and I will definitely say that I am very pleased with the results of that and with IpLocator as well.

Started playing a wargame over at Next Generation Security, I would definitely say this is some very interesting stuff hopefully I can make the rank of "g00r00" so I can start on the next one. I've done a couple of these before but I've always seemed to have gotten bored or just forgotten about it. I think I'll stick with this one to the end, I need to add to my skillset and this is just the way to do it. I'm currently at a level 5 working on level 6.... my goal will be to get my skills to the point where I can pass their certification exam.
Other than that I had a pretty damn good weekend, hung out with my best friend for the whole time which is always a plus. If she wasnt around I would probably be spending a lot more time staring at a blank ceiling than I already do. :)

*Sigh* ..... man ...... Today is not really a bad day or anything, nothing is wrong, nothing just too out of this world fantastic has happened either... just a day. I guess I've been thinking a lot more lately, I know that we think all the time.... but I guess recently my brain has been working a little more than usual. That's not necessarily a bad thing either I guess it was just something that I noticed. I guess I would describe it as a thinking mood, not really reacting too much just soaking up everything. I find it funny sometimes that people usually don't realize how much I pay attention to things or how much I may actually know but don't talk about. I don't fault people for doing that because really the majority of the time you're dealing with other people they're not really paying much attention anyways. But for some odd reasons most people don't like it when other people think they "know" them or what they're gonna do. People don't really like to see as if they can be easily figured out like a simple math problem. So I never really say anything about it and really use anything that I feel I may have learned to myself. I don't claim to just be able to instantly know everything about a person, but I will stick to it and learn what makes them tick then just try to put the pieces together. I guess it's just something about figuring out what makes people tick that makes doing it so interesting.

I went to court today to fight my ticket for "Noise ordinance", I felt I did not deserve the ticket (Do we ever?) on the fact that I didnt have my windows down trying to blast my music for everyone to here. I also wasn't in the area where the cop said I was on the ticket... you see I was outside of the city limits but he put it upon himself to put an address on the ticket that was inside the city limits. So as I went into court today, feeling all sorts of butterflies and knots in my body from going over my whole story of what I wanted to say, I began to just daze off waiting for everything to get going. The prosecutor began calling off peoples' names and talking to them to see what she could do for them. So guess who shows up next to me, Mr. Officer in his sporty blue corduroy blazer, "Have you talked to the prosecutor yet?.....Well I'll talk to her and get a deal for you." I found that very suspicious given the fact that I knew he knew that I knew that he knew he didn't pull me over within the city limits. So the prosecutor calls me up and tells me the deal .... "The officer has agreed to drop your ticket, so all that leaves are the court costs". So hey why fight it, talked to the judge ...agreed...and paid my $65. I probably still should have fought it more though but I'll save that for next time. I would also like to say... NO THANKS!!! to my people at Pre-Paid Legal. They basically told me they couldn't help me with this ticket but I could pay a reduced rate for an attorney. Yea whatever!!!!

I was sitting here thinking about the plan I had adopted when I moved to Ohio, I had it in my head that the way I acted when I lived in Milwaukee was completely unacceptable. So I set out to change my ways in hopes that one day I could live and feel free from the shackles of whatever guilt that I had from before. There's two things wrong with that scenario.... for one, I'm thinking that I changed the wrong things..... two, I changed the wrong things. I changed into what I thought was the right direction to go. I just needed to continue being who I was and not worry about all the other crap going on.

I have found a few more places to roam Elite Hackers and Phrak, I've been to Phrak before but I havent went there in awhile. I've always found very helpful information from there and it looks like Elite Hackers will provide some as well. Would you believe that with all this tech crap stuck in my head and in what I do that I really don't use IRC at all. Well I'm diving into that too, we'll see how it goes.

I've also been having these strange deja-vu type feelings today, I would see something and then it triggers this image in my head. I really can't see the image too clearly though, it's almost as if I'm trying to remember and old dream or movie but its just not coming through. Its pretty strange... I dunno.

Look at this.........

Evolutionary Psychology and Natural Rejection: Thoughts on Rejection in the Mating Process
by William A. Spriggs

Now let's suppose for a moment that we have selected someone that we would like as a mate. Once our eyes and minds are captured by someone we find attractive, and we begin to make outward movement towards this individual as a potential mating partner, something happens. When we "naturally select" or focus attraction, we "naturally reject" all other candidates. When you make a "natural selection," you set several events into motion. Your actions effect yourself, the person you have selected, and the people you have "rejected." Now this is very important here -- when our ancestors made their selection, their natural habitat was the small social herd grouping. When a selection was made, the whole herd knew who was mating with whom. And in our earlier stages of development, they most likely mated in full view of the herd. Since every one knew whom was selected, they also knew who was not selected. It may not seem that you have rejected anyone, because your sex hormones have begun to activate, and you are too busy focusing on the events that are about to occur. But this essay is about the rejection part of the mating process. What happens when beautiful people reject our advances or fail to flirt back and we become "rejected?" Simply put, it hurts emotionally. And the crux of this essay, is to ask, why?

When one is rejected in the mating selection process one feels a sense of loss, of not being able to obtain the goal of our innate mating objectives. We become saddened because we will not be allowed to feel the comfort associated with being close to a loved one. The chemical "balance" of being wanted and needed by a potential mate is very desirable. The linking of one's soul to another gives us a anchor in uncertain times. It gives justification and motivation to provide and care for one's mate and one's children. It is our passage to the next world. It is our claim to perpetuity. In the mating process, our innate feelings drive us to find that someone, because the locating of a mate is a milestone in our lives. We search for a mate because it help's to bring stability to our lives. From this stability, we then begin to focus our attention to building those events that enhance our lives and the lives of our future children. Most of us don't stay sad for long when we are rejected. The process of being rejected by a potential mate means not only negative feelings and a blow to our self-image, but the frustration of having to make the search all over again. It means going on another diet or exercise program; joining a social group to meet new possibilities; going to new places and doing new things. I theorize that, in terms of evolutionary psychology, our depression at rejection is caused by the unconscious realization that we have slipped one step closer to being pushed out of the circle that forms a core social grouping among primates-- one small step away from feeling secure--to one step closer to death and extinction.

Black Sheep Effect

I've reintroduced myself to the study of psychology, I've always been interested by psychology because of the answers it seemed to have brought me about alot of things. Aside from some readings and a few social sciences classes I haven't really gotten back into it though. I think since then I've been in my thoughts... viewing and analyzing what's going on. I need to go back to that learning process and see what else i can pick up. I think a little bit of evolutionary psychology should work, some more social psychology, and throw in a little bit on the study of behavior for good measure. I think I have used up the knowledge that I have gained so far, I need to fill that well up again.

This page on natural rejection within evolutionary psychology is very interesting indeed.

Get those brain juices flowin and look at some of the courses that are open to the public over at MIT. I was very interested when it first came out that they were doing this, it has more classes now than when I first looked at it.

Feeling like a real slacker today.....feelings of having nothing accomplished are just overflowing within me. My idea of the day doesn't even seem to be there for me, so now I'm just flying by the seat of my pants trying to find stuff to do. Found this article about hooking up a PS2 in your car, it's a little basic and pretty much common sense but hey it is something to look at. This site is a lot more interesting in the fact that you're hooking up a computer in your car with a hell of a lot more features to it. Eventually I want to do that, but the current car and current funds are not gonna allow for something like that. I guess that did give me something to look for, for a hot second.... motorized in-dash LCD screens. I actually found some really cheap ones for about $150, I'll have to do something one day for a low budget media center for the car.
Oh .. yea, I didn't get the network admin position.... but that seemed kind of obvious from the beginning though. Oh well, I'll just have to deal with the customer service for a little while longer.

Ramble Rant

I sit here in my 3 walled cube contemplating about where my life has been, what it is, and where it is going. I know for certain that what I want out of life is way more than what I have right now. I'm not really sure how its gonna come about though, There are other times when I'm not even sure its gonna come about at all. It gets very easy sometimes to succomb to the voices telling you that you can't get what you want. That's when the plans for the future just seem to crumble right in front of your very eyes. I was never really to fond of making out plans before, especially the ones that had to deal with.... Life. I don't think I can answer the "What are you doing in 5 years?" type questions, but I do know that I want my plans to be a success. Hell, I may even say that I know they will be.

Friday ..... and not a day too soon, another sequence of days at this place called work and I would probably fall out or something. It was just one of those weeks that you wish was over on Monday... No... wait, Sunday night before the week even gets started. Every once in awhile those weeks comes around and just bugs the fuck out of you, but what can you do. This day is beginning to drag ass straight from jump, hopefully its not like this the rest of the night..... Wait, what am I saying? Of course its gonna be like this for the rest of the night, nothing left but to kick back and enjoy. Tmorrow should be good though hopefully get some cleaning done early, see a movie or something, maybe my best friend would come through or whatever.

I did figure out how to get these VCDs I downloaded onto CD, I was being lazy about at first and wasn't looking hard enough to find the answer. Out of the whole procedure I had the simpliest part to do, just put the thing on CD.
I run RedHat 8 on the machine where the VCDs are, so all i really needed to use was CDRDAO. The command was: cdrdao write --device 0,0,0 movie.cue

And that begins the burning process, if you dont know what the device number is just do this command:
cdrecord -scanbus
Find the device number for your burner and stick it in in place of the 0,0,0 that I have. Other than that the process was relatively painless, now I just need to figure out how to turn other movies into VCDs.

These links go out to all of my fellow techies working in the trenches of tech support in help desks, call centers, and CS positions all around the world.

Tech Support Comedy
Bullshitjob

Check out the tribute to Office Space on Bullshitjob.com

I have finally come to the distinct realization that I really am a sheep in this thing called "Corporate America" even if I was trying so hard not to be. I started this job thinking I could use my big brain for something useful... come up with all kinds of time saving programs and scripts, making things more efficient, more productive. I know realize that it is not my job to do that, they don't pay me to think ... just do. The funny thing is that it took me this long to finally realize that. I guess that's why doing your own thing is so important, so you can feel like less of a sheep than you already do.

You know what else I think my problem is.... I really want to break free of that. Break free of alot of things and not have to just do and follow.... I want to be able to be, live, and enjoy. What I think bothers me the most is just being another face in the crowd, when I want to be so much more.

I would also like to add that even though I maybe a sheep right now, I should still be out there fighting on. Trying to help other sheep not be sheep any longer.

Find MP3s using Google

Now I'm gonna say that you should only download legal MP3s, I'm not gonna promote illegal downloading or anything..... but this was just something that I saw that I needed to share.

Find MP3s using Google

I got the idea when I saw the show notes for The Screensavers and they were talking about this. I figured they obviously were searching and found this so I could probably find it too. It's a fairly interesting use of Google, which only leaves me to think of what other things can you search for.

It's sort of funny how things seem to come back around on you, that whole reaping what you sow thing... yea thats it. I guess I've always been paranoid about it because I know all of the things that I have sowed.....with relationships in particular. Now I'm not saying that I had a girlfriend/boyfriend relationship recently that has shown me that. I do have a friendship though that has shown me that, certain things in my life still have not been dealt with. I think I have come a long ways from before though, I no longer feel bound with trying to keep up these many worlds and many faces that I created. Things have become a lot clearer as well, I still had those things I was holding on to though. Fear of the not known, fear of not having control, fear of being hurt ..... Those will definitely slow down and progress that I feel I may have made. So I guess from now I'll probably try to adopt more of a "Fuck It" approach, not really in a bad way fuck it but just become more open, more vulnerable, and pretty much more receptive. I'm still a really closed off person and I've never wanted to deal with it, now I think I will.

Had the interview today and it went pretty well if I do say so. There were quite a few other people that applied for the position, so we'll have to see how I do against the crowd. I know I would definitely love my job after that, I would actually get to do some techy type stuff. Not to say that I don't already have some tech stuff interlaced into my work, but it's starting to feel a little different now. My job doesnt really feel as techy as it once did before, I guess now I know its just commands you push to bring up the information you need. It's not really much different that having a gui with all the buttons and stuff. Now it just seems kind of backward and outdated, the interface that we use could be alot better but of course there's really not gonna be any research into that. I thought about doing it and trying to come up with some easy to use scripts in PHP or something.... I dunno if I don't get the admin position I may still think of that.

This is something that I wrote up a few years ago

Subject: Privacy Issues...Freedom Issues...
Sent: 10/10/01 1:50 PM EDT
By: tj1037

How many people are really concerned with the privacy and freedom related issues that have been in the news the past few months. Freedom issues which seem to really come to light after all the drama with Napster. Yet people weren`t really for or against Napster for what it was actually doing, helping distribute copyrighted music, everybody was basicallly indifferent. What most people were angry about was the fact that it took away from a lot of freedoms we might have enjoyed before MP3s became commonplace; Fair use is one. Issues against the DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act), which brought the whole online music scene to life, were being fought out by only a few. Now a new bill is headed our way the SSSCA, which basically says that new technology will begin to be made with copy protection controls to prevent anymore illegal copying. This includes any digital content or consumer electronic device, and any violations could result into 5 years in prison or $500,000 in fines. But hey if you don`t watch bootlegs or even burn your own CDs, you might not find any of this scary.

After the Sept. 11th attacks issues related to online privacy have begun to resurface. Such as talks against Americans to have in their possession any type of strong encryption programs. Or even the fact that the government has begun to monitor emails even more than before. As before you might not even shop on websites that use the encryption to process your orders and it might not bother you to have God knows who else reading your emails.

What are your own personal views on this or other subjects like this?

http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,46747,00.html

http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,46655,00.html

http://www.msnbc.com/news/TECHPRIVACY_front.asp

http://www.google.com/search?q=dmca

Well tomorrow is the day, I get my chance to be interviewed for the freshly vacant network admin position. It almost seems pointless though as they have already seemed to have found their golden boy. So I guess I could just call this interview practice for any future network admin positions that may come up, more than likely at a different company though. I've been doin customer service for about 2 years now, when I began I was just so excited and pumped at the opportunity to be doing a job even remotely IT related. Now I'm here collecting my check.... Thanks to all of the QA, employee monitoring, and write ups I have lost just about all enthusiasm I once had for my job. I used to always sit and think of ways to try and optimize the way we did our work, the tools that we used, and how we used them. Now it just seems as if it no longer matters, who cares that I use windows NT, who cares about the errors, who cares about the sluggishness, who cares that the customer can not seem to find his message for the umpteenth time.
I need to start looking into some more options before I become a little bit too cynical on the job. I did find something though that may get me going for a little while though. I currently have 2 computers under my work desk: a Windows NT box, and a HP (HP-UX 10.20) box. My thing is that I do not want to log into the HP anymore, I take a few calls every now and then though where I'll have to access stuff on that box because it connects to another server to bring up the data. I don't know where the information is coming from so that I could try and get to it from my windows box. I also do not know how to find out on my HP where it goes to get this stuff. So my thoughts are is that I need to set up some remote sessions on my windows box to access my hp so that I can view my desktop on the hp remotely and access those special links that go to a server I have no clue where its at and get this information I hardly ever use. I think this post may help, it points me in the right direction of Cygwin. I'll have to give it a shot and see what happens.

::: GMAIL INVITES :::

http://gmail.google.com/gmail/a-fdefa7ce32-552fc5c73e-a533042baa

enjoy

Well now that I have my internet connection back up at home after a very long hiatus, I'll probably get back into my filesharing moods. I think the most logical way to go about it for me though is through bittorrent. There is just a better selection of things to chose from, and whatever it is you're bound to find it. I use redhat 8 and wanted a gui to use with it, I did a search and found azureus. It's a java client for bittorrent that I think is just so easy to use with alot of nice features. Also being that its java its pretty portable as well, there are guides for Windows, Linux, and OSX on the site.
I think the next stop for me is getting some help on making up some SVCDs in Linux, since I've never attempted I really don't know how. I found a how-to on Big J's Linux site, I'll follow it and see how it goes.
The house, when I get around to it, is gonna undergo a bit of a tech makeover. I don't have any plans set as of yet but they will be good though.

This article in a way spoke to me, basically dealing with a stressful workload at work and how some can handle it but others can't. I believe I'm one of those that can handle it, I would frequently work later nights working on the next big project that would help everyone. It also says in the article that if you feel that you're just a cog in the whole machine with no say so, no control, and really no position of importance it was a definite cause for burnout. I think I'm on that whole burnout thing right now, I used to like what I do... but now it seems so unimportant. The work I do has become a tedious chore that no longer excites me to think of new ways to make it "better". I just recently applied for a network admin position at our company which would definitely put that spark under me again.... Well lets hope I get it.

Found my motorcycle key though :)

Man... This day is just starting off spectacular, one of those days where every body is hell bent on trying to piss me off. Started off with my dad this morning at 5:45 in the morning hammering shit in my hallway, but hell I needed to get up anyways to finish some work before the carpet people came. So I go to putting down my tile floor that needed to go in before the carpet people came, while he's working on the wood floor that I've previously laid down. He went back through and did some clean up cuts on some of the pieces that I had. From jump I already told him that it was not gonna be a quick 'n easy task because some of the pieces get kind of iffy... him bein my dad doesnt listen anyways. So he's going along cutting and stuff, then it comes time to put the floor down and he was just irritating me to the point where I wanted him to just shut up. No... no... you have to do this this way.... :| Ok man, I already put this floor down once and you're just making up stuff I think I know what I'm talkin about. So he continues on with that and I just don't feel like talking. Then the carpet people come and he's doin his usual thing of hassling the people.... normally I really don't pay any attention when he starts doin that but today I just got even more annoyed. So finally I was done with that situation ..... done, over, forget about it. On my way to work .... la la la la.... ....... You've got to be kidding me ..... Sir, do you know why I pulled you over? ..... Actually, I dont ..... For your cracked windshield and loud music ..... Cracked windshield ...hmmm ok ... loud music?!? grant it I do have some speakers in my trunk, but they were not loud at all. So I'm like .... with my windows up and everything my music cant even get that loud, only a mild rattle of my license plate..... Well I heard bass and I was within 25 feet ..... FINE!!!!! So of course he doesn't give me a ticket for the windshield but for the music instead. All of this of course happens close enough to the time I have to be at work that I am actually late. Then I'm faced with the joyous calls that a tech support guy receives during the daily grind.....I can smell my gears churning.

I was over a Slashdot doing my normal news check of the day when I saw one of the stories on there about how America is so far behind in the broadband race. Compared to a few other countries we are pretty behind in that aspect the speeds you can get over in other countries is something we won't see in awhile. That's unfortunate though, especially me being the techy that I am. I know alot of techno-phobes anyways though, and that's gonna have more impact on us than just being behind in broadband speeds. Give it some years and you'll see.

:( I can't find my motorcycle key

Well the house is almost done .... well I guess it really has been almost done for awhile now. I at least have my stuff in the house though, and its semi-livable. Once things get painted the kitchen should be done and it would probably be the most complete room in the house for right now. So that's cool .....
This QA crap at work is killing me, everything we do is monitored ... phone, email, work tickets. I guess that wouldn't be so bad if we didn't get points taken off for such stupid stuff. It seems that there's a network admin position about to open up so I'll get my resume ready and see what will come of that.

Today was one of those days that you just dread at work, you sit there and just can't get anything accomplished. I was no good today, I couldn't concentrate on anything and I just felt like leaving. Funny thing is, it'll be midnight soon and of course I won't leave work on time because I'll find some last minute stuff to do. For some odd reason I seem to work better after I'm already off... don't know why, just do. I still haven't gotten my tire fixed on my motorcycle yet after its unfortunate accident with a nail. I'll get that fixed soon ... like before next week if I'm really tryin to take it to Milwaukee with me. ::::: Update on the house ::::: Still not done, carry on.
I do however have my phone and my internet up at the house, of course that just leaves me without food and a bathroom but hey those two things were overrated anyways. I just wish this crap would be finished.... I'm ready to move already.

I know everyone is dying to know how my birthday weekend was... Did I do some extra special stuff or any blow out parties or anything? Well I had to go to drill this weekend, so I spent most of it doing army stuff and sleeping. I did however go to P.F. Changs, my friend took me there for my birthday she knew I haven't been so that was nice of her to do that.

Well the site for The Creative Birddog is coming along, I'm getting stuff figured out and put together. I'm working on getting alot of the content together and also getting alot of the things I feel are necessary for the site together. I started putting up alot of the questions for the FAQ, I havent answered them yet but I'll get to that. My birthday is next monday, I'll be the big 25. Exactly what I'm gonna be doin I don't know, but whatever it is I'll be sure to have fun. Of course I have to go do my reserve drill this coming up weekend, so there won't be that much partying goin on this weekend. I would say for a birthday gift to myself I should by some parts for my bike, but I know I was gonna do that anyways so I dont need an excuse. Unfortunately I may need a new rear tire, I found a giant screw in it the other day. Of course after I looked up on how to repair it on the net, Ifound out that I should have just left it in and then just took it to the shop. :| So I guess I'll just be getting me a new rear tire, I'll probably get an ignition advancer and some filters too.

:::100th Post:::

You know what .... I could probably continue on trying to lie to myself and say that I'm not looking for someone to be with and don't have any interest on finding anyone. I could... but I would be lying, I'm not saying that I really want to feel this way right about now not really much I can do to stop it though. I think as long as I don't let that engulf me I'll be ok, I think I've come damn near closed to bein engulfed though. On-line dating, Off-line dating, dating ... dating ... dating... I pretty much stopped before I even really got started. Where do I think my problems lie with that? Sometimes I can tend to be "One-tracked" I may like someone and it would be hard as hell for me to concentrate on finding someone else to like. You may say ... Hey, that's great that you can like someone like that and be so focused on them. The catch to that is, more than likely its not really a mutual exchange at least in most of my situations. So then I have to figure out how to get untracked and get my head back straight. I think with that, to get my head straight I would have to find someone new .... which is just about as difficult. So it makes this into a very interesting scene to watch ... Well I guess if you had the sub-titles from what's going on in my head that would probably make it better.

:::UPDATE:::
Obviously wheelies are not scientifically proven to bring back any forgotten memories..... I tested that theory many many times this morning and it just didn't seem to do it. But hey, at least I can clutch em up now :D

I've reopened my TechLife blog as well.

Well I supposedly had a list of things to do today, but the problem when you don't write down that list.... you tend to forget. I just can't seem to remember that one thing I know I was supposed to do, maybe it'll come to me later. I had actually written up another post yesterday at work but I had left it there without even publishing it.
Well it looks like I'll be back in Milwaukee the weekend of Aug. 21st, I guess I should put in for some vacation time now so I can at least spend more than a couple days there. By the way it sounds I may need to, Javion has this list of things that we need to do: Go to movies to see "Yu-gi-oh", go ice skating, go to Wisconsin dells ..... damn... did i forget that list too? Well his I have written down somewhere, besides he'll probably have more stuff on there before too long.
I need to get working on my bike pretty soon, not looking forward to that. The 2nd gear is out and its gonna be a pain in the ass to get it fixed, I've said I was going to attempt the fix myself instead of taking it to the shop..... Don't know if thats good or bad but we'll find out. I think today I may go practice some wheelies for a little while though, maybe that'll jog my memory.

Today was actually a pretty good day for no reason at all, I got all GQd up and went to work. I just felt good. I may try to go out somewhere tonight that will depend. I might go down to the Oregon District and go to sloopy's or somethin. I dunno, we'll see.

Hmmm...How is my day going? How do I really feel? I'm not really sure I'm
pissed off but I don't really know about what. It almost feels like an "I
told you so to myself", I realized that dating sucks and I'm not even
dating. Hell even liking people sucks... I guess it only sucks when things
don't go your way I guess. Does that make me a brat cuz I don't like it when
things go my way? Kinda, I think how I deal with it after the fact is what
determines that. I can either sit in a pit of "Whoa as me" or I can suck it
up and drive on.