Pros:

• Tags along with something I already carry and keep track of, my keys… never leave home without them.
• Plenty of space to include a live CD and all of the diagnostic utilities you could ever need.
• Reasonably Priced for such a unique flash drive.
• So far the construction and materials seems very durable.

Cons:

• Not the fastest flash drive at 26 mb/s Read and 16 mb/s Write
• Doesn’t have hardware level encryption (wishful thinking), but nothing TrueCrypt can’t take care of.

Conclusion:

I would highly recommend this to anyone that wants to have a flash drive with them all the time. I have been carrying the drive for about two weeks now and it’s been great. I have actually found that I am using flash storage more because it is so convenient. Stay tuned for what I loaded it up with…

This was the first time I used the GPS on my iPhone for tracking and marking waypoints. I stuffed it in a pocket on the top of my backpack and I must say it worked quite well. I used the iPhone app Trails to record the hike. The battery life was great, it only used about a third of the battery for the 3 hours it was tracking. One nice feature was the use of the light sensor (near the ear piece). When it was covered, the screen automatically shut off to help save the battery. The accuracy seemed quite good as well, there are even posts saying the phone/app bests a $200 Garmin.

Here are some pictures from our hike on the Merryman Trail at the Loch Raven Reservoir in Timonium, Maryland. We parked on Warren Rd. and had easy access to the trail. We got side tracked at the feeder stream waterfalls and took the fire road up to a neighborhood and decided to turn back (as you can see from the maps). Overall it was a nice hike and beautiful spring day. You can view more details on our Hike In and Hike Out @ EveryTrail.com.

More information about the trail can be found here.

If you are a early generation Honda automobile owner and your power window needs “help” rolling up, you may be a victim of HSWS (honda slow window syndrome). Don’t worry you aren’t alone, may people around the world face the same annoying and sometimes embarrassing problem.

Almost all early generation Hondas have one problem in common… slow power windows. Rolling them down isn’t usually the problem, it’s closing them up. They screech to a halt (errrr) and often need physical help to seal them up. If you are like me, you probably think that the motor is just weak and needs replacing. If you have waited until your window stops… this probably is the case. However, if they still move… there may be a fix.

Recently my wife’s ‘99 Honda Civic’s driver side window just about called it caputs. After a $200+ dealer quote, I decided to take matters in my own hands. It doesn’t pay to just replace the motor. The module comes with the regulator, motor and wiring harness. I found a good after market source selling them for under $60 shipped. The installation was pretty easy. The only problem I ran into was that the replacement motor mount was looking for nuts instead of a bolts. I just hacked off the plastic and threads from the OEM motor mount and used them as nuts. Once I had everything put back together I was excited to give the new motor a try. Bummer… again, rolling it down was not problem… but rolling it up was still slow. The only culprit left is friction. Duh!

I took some spray white lithium grease and covered the window tracks and slowly but surely things started to speed up. After about 4 cycles, things were back to what I would consider normal. The new regulator and motor definitely helped, but ultimately the track needed lubrication. It seems like a routine grease application to the window tracks may prevent HSWS. So if your windows are getting slow… start treatment today.

Photo by “commondream”

This past month Amazon sent me an early Christmas present, their very own content deliver network (CDN). Adding to their already robust line of “cloud” offerings, Amazon Cloudfront brings edge server routing to the mix. I have been using Amazon S3 for static content delivery since my most recent hello world. Cloudfront takes the highly scalable and redundant S3 and puts it closer to the end user, thus distributing throughput and reducing latency.

When it comes to web development, one of my driving forces is performance. I love seeking out and shaving milliseconds off page loads and network requests. One of the best ways to do this is to put the content as close to the source as possible. Content Delivery Networks do just that. If my viewers are in Asia, I don’t want my server in New York and vise versa. With a CDN data is cached at several geographically optimized locations as needed. When a request comes in, it is routed to the nearest location.

The quickest route to the Jungle

A good tool to analyze network routing, latency and a bunch of other stuff is pingplotter. They have a free version and pro version. The free version works great for my purposes. Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP) Pings are a lightweight and predictable way to provide insight on latency and network conditions. Here is a comparison of my routes between Amazon Cloudfront and my standard web server.

As you can see, with Cloudfront I scream right to Amazons Newark, NJ server as apposed to going through McClean, VA, then ATL, and finally to my server in Dallas, TX.

How Cloudfront performs in the CDN storm

Pingplotter works great to determine *your* route and latency.

Just-ping.com provides a great way to test your host/cdn from many geographic locations at once.

Disclaimer: The below analysis was put together to illustrate a general concept. Accuracy and real world conditions will vary.

.	Geographic Location	Single Web Server	Amazon Cloudfront	Akamai	LimeLight

. Florida, U.S.A. 34.4 29.4 36.5 36.9 . Chicago, U.S.A. 34.5 6.6 19 1.3 . San Francisco, U.S.A. 43.6 2.2 3.6 2 . New York, U.S.A. 43.9 5 8.9 6.6 . Santa Clara, U.S.A. 47.1 3.9 2.8 6.9 . Vancouver, Canada 73 52 4.5 95.6 . Austin1, U.S.A. 102.4 38.1 5.2 76.3 . Austin, U.S.A. 102.7 38.1 5.3 76.4 . London, United Kingdom 108 13.2 1.8 1.6 . Amsterdam3, Netherlands 114.3 19.9 0.7 7.4 . Amsterdam2, Netherlands 115.8 20.6 1.5 8.1 . Amsterdam, Netherlands 118.6 0.9 0.5 0.7 . Lille, France 120.3 12.9 14.2 110.9 . Munchen, Germany 129.1 7.6 10.2 7.7 . Zurich, Switzerland 130.8 10.6 2.8 25.7 . Cologne, Germany 131.8 9 5 20.4 . Groningen, Netherlands 133 4.3 5.7 4.3 . Copenhagen, Denmark 137.9 15.6 4.1 25.3 . Antwerp, Belgium 139.7 5.5 4.2 4.4 . Stockholm, Sweden 142 32.7 5 23.6

. Madrid, Spain 142.4 45.2 2.5 25.1 . Paris, France 149.9 8.3 17.5 1.4 . Cagliari, Italy 165.5 30.1 29.5 30.4 . Auckland, New Zealand 173.7 159.8 1.1 161.4 . Krakow, Poland 174.1 31 8.8 43.6 . Haifa, Israel 177.9 78.1 0.5 64.5 . Porto Alegre, Brazil 179.1 149.9 30.2 169.9 . Nagano, Japan 185.8 4.8 13.1 4.7 . Sydney, Australia 204.8 159.2 3.3 166.2 . Hong Kong, China 206.8 2.3 2.2 65.6 . Melbourne, Australia 207.6 177.9 1.7 166.6 . Singapore, Singapore 238.7 137.1 13.3 3.5 . Shanghai, China 249.1 153.5 308.3 87 . Mumbai, India 280.3 259.1 1.6 263.5 . Johannesburg, South Africa 304.8 293.2 19.3 274.7 . Average (miliseconds) 144.1 57.65 16.98 59.15

Setting up and configuring Amazon Cloudfront

Setup was super easy with the latest S3 Organizer Firefox Add-on. You can also complete the setup with a Curl Script.

Are you sick of playing target practice with your remote controls?

I tried several “remote control extenders”. Most of them relayed the infrared signal from one room to another. You still had to point the remote at the sensor and in most cases aim it. When I stumbled across the Next Generation Remote Control Extender I was skeptical. “You put the what where?” Yes… you put a Radio Frequency (RF) transmitter in place of one of the batteries in your Infrared (IR) remote. Don’t ask me how the thing works, but it transmits the signal to the odd looking receiver in the other room. At first I thought the receiver was battery powered. But it comes with an AC Adapter and actually charges the second smaller battery that powers the transmitter. This way you always have a battery ready to go, brilliant.

I am currently using Microsoft’s Media Center Remote Control and Keyboard with it and that they both work WAY better. I was on the verge or replacing the keyboard because you really had to point it to have fluid mouse movements. Now both remotes work on command and flawless in any room in my house!

Pros:

• Super easy to setup.
• Works like any RF remote, no direct line of sight required, thought walls - up to 100′ away
• 433.92 MHz - seems like a good frequency with little or no perceived interference.

Cons:

• I have heard it doesn’t work with all remotes, but it has worked with ever one I have tried.
• Battery doesn’t last long with one battery remotes.

Conclusion:

The technology and engineering behind this device is award winning. It does exactly what it claims to do, convert almost any IR remote to RF. I have been using it for about a month with great success!

Get yours here:

I couldn’t help but take this picture at lunch today.

I know this contradicts my recent anti-printer/paper post… I found myself needing small pieces of paper with my social coordinates on them. I tried offering to beam a vCard. Don’t ask me why… it just isn’t socially acceptable or in most cases even possible. So, I needed some cards.

I spent quite a bit of effort researching different styles and formats. There are some amazing custom cards out there. I didn’t want to break the bank or wait six months to have them made. I did want something unique and fun. I found the perfect thing; MOO cards. Apparently they have been all the rage in Europe and among trendy start-ups. I couldn’t help giving them a try.

The entire MOO card experience was first class all the way. It started at the website. The interface was clean, easy to understand and simple to use. You can import your pictures from Flickr or upload them one at a time. For twenty dollars you get 100 cards and each card can be unique. The only downside is that they are currently only printed in Europe. Standard shipping to the US costs seven dollars and take a couple of weeks. Once they arrived, I was delighted with the quality. The paper weight and print finish compliment the format nicely. They are packed in a hefty plastic box (made from post-consumer material) and the marketing material is pure genius.

If you find yourself needing or maybe even wanting these little pieces of paper, give MOO cards a try.

“The business card is the single most successful networking tool of all time, predating cellphones, the internet, and PDAs by some 300 years. Not bad for a bit of paper.”

http://moo.com
Flickr Group - MOO MiniCards

No my site isn’t broken…

Today I am observing CSS Naked Day to help promote web standards. Not that I am completely compliant, but who really is when you have browsers that don’t want to play nice.

The topic of CSS for me always brings up the great debate of CSS vs tables. You will notice that I use a mixture on this site. That is because I absolutely hate absolute positioning in css. Another thing (that is gone with no css) are my sprites. They are great to cut down on requests and improve site performance. Here is what you are missing:

Now that I am looking at my site without css, maybe we should start an advertising naked day to show how cool our sites would be without them.

Fore more reading take a look at: What are web standards and why should I use them?

Why do we print things on 8.5×11″ pieces of amalgamated fibers? It’s a valid question these days. We have trained ourselves over thousands of years to cling to something physical or tangible. I just call it stuff. The digital age has brought about new adaptation challenges and the bad habits that come with them. Printing on paper is just one of them.

What makes us convert that index-able, indefinitely achievable, extensible digital file to a physical, fragile and perishable paper format anyway? The first answers that come to mind is portability and well… just plain habit. We want to take that information with us; in the car, to a meeting, or for later use. It is convenient (for the most part) to print something in expectation of needing it in the future. It is so common to want to hold onto that physical representation of information, it has become habit. But think about it… is printing really the best solution. Maybe in isolated cases, but for the most part there are much better options. The Internet for one is extremely portable and convenient. Do yourself a favor, keep those digital files… they aren’t going anywhere (as long as you have a backup strategy). Your mobile phone or portable computer most likely can (or will very soon) allow you access to ALL your files.

Another reason printing it is a bad habit is the stress it causes. For me it has always been a nightmare. Before the affordable laser printer; dot-matrix and ink jet were the norm. Paper jams, head cleaning, calibration or just running out of ink where daily occurrences. I currently have a HP-1020 that for the most part has served me well (aside from the early vista driver issues). Most of what is printed is single use, never to be looked at again. The paper ends up in a stack and ultimately gets in you way. It takes tremendous amounts of time to sort papers. This is where the duplex scanner comes in, but why print on the paper it in the first place? If you really need to “print” it for an archive, try doPDF.

I am sure you have heard about the paperless movement. It’s just another reason to ditch the printer. It sounds great, but we are just on the edge of making it a reality. I am no-where near paperless, but like most of us, have already started the process. Most of my bills are now paperless. I recently changed my car insurance policy with Progressive, they even offered to plant a tree in a National forest if I went paperless! The incentives for businesses are huge. I think the individual/consumer has yet to see or feel the full value. Everyone wants less junk mail, but what about the other benefits. Getting rid of or reducing your printing is a big part of the equation and should be a motivator. It definitely is for me.

Next time you print something, ask yourself… “do I really need this on a piece of paper?” Do yourself and the world a favor… break the habit.

Print this page

Photo by “yoppy”

Just as the news that the Microsoft Xbox 360 external HD DVD drive was declared extinct, I found a use for it: load up my new Asus Eee with Windows XP. It is hopefully the last OS that has to be loaded from an optical drive and lets not forget about the F6 floppy driver loading routine (thankfully not needed for the Eee).

I was going to use a Bytecc IDE to USB with an old drive I had laying around. But why not let this already defunct technology marvel go out with a bang. It worked great.

Anyway, I loaded up the Eee with an nlite-ed version of XP for a mere 480mb footprint. I followed this great tutorial over at i64X.com, thanks Jason!

My first impressions of the Asus Eee are very good. I am finding all sorts of uses for it. I already voided the Newegg warranty by installing a gig of Geil RAM, we’ll see about voiding the Asus warranty and installing some hardware hacks (maybe GPS, bluetooth and 3G?). I promise, this isn’t going to turn into a Eee blog, but I will have more on it soon. This thing is amazing!

You have undoubtedly heard about this outstanding book/movie. Well if you haven’t seen the movie yet, the consumer copy is being released on March 4th. This is a must see (and/or physically own if your primitive squirrel instincts are in overdrive).

I will warn you; when I saw this movie in the theater this past fall, it inspired me to do all sorts of things, including selling all my DVDs/CDs on half.com. With that said, the link to the right is to the Amazon Unboxed pre-order.

This is one you can’t miss.

I just installed Windows Vista SP1 and so far have noticed quite a performance improvement. Nothing scientific here… just “click of the mouse” impressions. But everything seems more responsive and smooth. One tangible difference is network file transfers. While moving files, pre-SP1 to a network drive I would get consistently 25mb/sec. Now the same transfer is moving along at 32mb/sec. Again, nothing concrete, but that is a 28% improvement. This is just one of the notable changes in SP1.

I have always enjoyed vista. There are a lot of XP die hards out there, understandably not wanting to upgrade. I built a new computer when I migrated to vista, so I didn’t feel the impact as much. The benefits have been great; environment is pleasurable and reliability has been top notch. I picture the trade offs like this…. sure windows 98se was faster than XP on the same hardware . It’s only natural that XPsp2 will be faster than Vista on the same hardware. Every OS has it’s issue, even the prim and proper Apple got slammed for Leopard bugs. Change always brings new issues, but it also bring good.

I have to thank Microsoft for this service pack. Yes, I know… they technically fixed something that was “broken”. But, it isn’t often that you see this noticeable of a performance gain without upgrading hardware or bumping your vcore.

Installation was flawless, 32 minutes on my system. (i twitter-logged it)

I downloaded the stand-alone update via MSDN. Microsoft is expected to push the release date up to late February as apposed to mid March. If you wait for automatic updates to kick in, you won’t get it until mid April.

I am quite happy.

click images to enlarge »

Field boxes are an essential part of rc flight. As I graduate from backyard flying, the more I realize this. There is nothting worse than getting to the flying field close to sun-down only to realize you forgot something. Having the right tool/band-aid could make the difference of another flight or heading home. Here is a list of things I keep in my flight bag. I restock as items are used and complete a checklist from time to time to make everything is there.

The bag is a Craftsman Professional 11-Pocket 8 in. Electricians Tool Tote
from Sears. It fits everything nicely and is compact and light.

“A study conducted by IDC determined that only 41% of small companies and 35% of large organizations monitor Internet DNS response times.”

“DNS failures account for as much as 29% of system downtime costing companies millions of dollars.”

The Domain Name System (DNS) is arguably the single most important part of the internet. Just think: If websites only had a numerical lookup… our Rolodex’s would be massively confusing. Why don’t webmasters/hosts treat DNS with the same priority? DNS servers carry such a high importance. Without them, no internet. They are often the target of massive Distributed Denial of Service (DDOS) attacks. Are your DNS records configured properly and secure?

DNS Performance & Security Enhancements

Most of the Internet is run on Berkeley Internet Name Domain (BIND) based servers. There have been a lot of failed attempts to create a BIND alternative (GnuDIP, MooDNS, Dents, OakDNS, CustomDNS and dproxy). A couple of active projects are PowerDNS, NSD, djdns and MaraDNS. All boast better security and performance improvements in different environments. If you are hosting your own DNS, you owe it to yourself/network to review your options.

Another performance and security innovation that is becoming increasing popular across many stateless services on the internet is IP anycast networks. It is a network addressing and routing scheme where data is routed to the nearest or best destination. It helps provide higher availability and load balancing. Many of the TLD servers name servers are already running on anycast networks. In fact these servers survived the massive DDOS attack last year. UtraDNS, Netriplex and DNS Made Easy are among the few providers to deliver DNS over an anycast network. I imagine many more fill follow suit.

Minimizing down-time with TTL

Most of us have been effected by DNS outages. There is not much you can do when a record gets out of whack or a server goes down. You can flush your local cache, maybe even try to resolve against a different server, but the only real cure is time. That is because each DNS record has a setting called Time to Live (TTL). This is how long the record should persist. Once this time expires, a new record is fetched. Also, if the servers aren’t available, you don’t get a record.

A good rule of thumb when setting your TTL is to use your average visitor time. For example, if the average visitor spends five minutes on your site (check your analytics), you should set your TTL to 300 (in seconds). The idea is; in the event of a failover, it has the least impact on visitors and doesn’t require a performance hit for numerous DNS lookups. Some DNS providers won’t allow a TTL setting this low. A lower TTL mean more DNS queries and ultimately more expense.

Should I outsource my DNS?

A lot of network architects will actually advise webmasters to host their own DNS records. The route/latency will be the same as HTTP traffic, thus making lookup time approximately the same as a web requests. It also reduces the risk of outages caused solely by DNS. If they are hosted on the same subnet, routing glitches are minimized. If they are on the same server as your website, it will even further reduce the risk of DNS only outages.

However, if you don’t have the time/experience to monitor, review logs and maintain your DNS servers, outsourcing is a great option. But beware, all DNS networks/servers are not created equally. If you are hosting your records with a budget registrar, chances are you are at risk. They are often the target of DDOS attacks, endure lengthy outages/maintenance and have congested networks. Security by obscurity; in the last two years I have had clients with DNS outages lasting greater than 6 hours at two of the major registrars.

The Cadillac of DNS currently is NeuStar’s UltraDNS. They have a globally redundant/optimized network with proprietary DNS software powered by Oracle replication. However, they charge by the query, so if you have a busy site, it will get expensive in a hurry. Another high-end service is Netriplex. For small to mid size company’s the only way to afford either of these services is to increase unfortunately to your TTL.

The best budget priced service with high-end features/support I have found so far is DNS Made Easy. They have a great feature-set, excellent and knowledgeable staff all at a great price.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

There have been reports of falling Search Engine Results Placements (SERPs) taking drastic drops soon after a DNS change. Changing just the IP address has not caused any notable problems. It is domain contact and name server changes that have have caused the speculation. Many claim it resets the sites Google “trust points”. There are many influences on SERPs and SEO is always a moving target, so take this warning with a grain for salt. But I thought it was worth mentioning.

For More Information

DNS Wiki - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_name_system
DNS Forum - http://member.dnsstuff.com/forums/
Web-based DNS Tools - http://www.dnstools.com/
DNS Surveys - http://www.seoconsultants.com/tools/dns/surveys/

Whoa, easy on the Acronyms….

One of my biggest challenges setting up my Small Office and Home Office (SOHO) Voice Over IP (VOIP) network has been related to Quality of Service (QOS). Have you ever been on a VOIP call and had people complain that you sound like you are in a tin can? Most residential broadband connections have a capped upload speed. If your internet habits are anything like mine, at times you can max your connection in both directions. Creating room for voice traffic can be a challenge. Current voice coding algorithms require 16 - 80 kbps for a single voice connection. If the throughput is not available or the latency is too high (> 250ms one way), voice quality will suffer or with some clients completely drop. A lot of routers/switches claim to come with QOS, most of them are pretty crude and require bandwidth/node fixing. There are also a number of plug and play solutions claiming to clear up the problem. They are generally expensive and do not offer custom traffic shaping.

The Solution

A couple years ago Linksys went open source on one of their most popular broadband routers firmware, the WRT54G. There have been a number of different firmware releases. I tried everything I could get my hands on. The one that stood out from the pack with both features and usability was Tomato by Jonathan Zarate It has a number of enhancements from the default firmware, the most notable being:

• AJAX enabled interface
• Sweet bandwidth usage monitor
• Advanced QOS
• Access Restrictions
• New wireless features such as WDS and wireless client modes
• Raises the limits on maximum connections for P2P
• Allows you to run your custom scripts or telnet/ssh in and do all sorts of things like re-program the SES/AOSS button
• Adds wireless site survey to see your wifi neighbors

Installing Tomato

Jut a couple of notes here. Make sure you check your device’s hardware version number. Unfortunately you can’t walk into your local computer superstore and pick one up anymore, v5+ hardware is not supported. If your WRT54G is a couple of years old, chances are you have one of the supported devices. Installation is pretty straight forward, just flash it with the latest firmware. This will wipe your settings, so make sure you grab screenshots/write them down before you get started. The default GUI username is “admin” or “root” (username is required), ssh and telnet username is always “root”, and the default password is “admin”.

Configuring Basic Firewall Functions

This step will vary depending on your ISP, network configuration and VOIP provider. WAN/LAN configuration is straight forward and should be configured the same as it was in your default firmware. Port Forwading depends on what VOIP gateway hardware you have. The standard signaling port for SIP is 5060-5063 UDP and RTP voice travels on 16384 - 16482 UDP (some phones may need ranges up to 10000 - 20000 UDP). I have setup a Trixbox PBX locally for handling calls (thinking of trying asterisk on linode). Forwarding the above ports allows me to authenticate a trunk with my provider, voip your life. Make a couple of test calls over a quiet internet connection to insure everything is working. Audio in both directions should be without glitch.

Setting up Quality of Service

With tomato you can classify data by IP or Mac Address, Source/Destination Port and how much data is being transfered. You will want to adjust these setting to match your usage. For example, I am digesting a shoutcast stream 24/7 and have set 8000-8006 to highest priority to avoid interruptions.

Enabling QOS

• Log-in to your router
• Open the QOS > Basic Settings Menu
• Check “Enable QOS”

Note: if you use applications that do a lot of ACKnowledgment requests (BitTorrent), you might want to consider turning this option off

Outbound Rate / Limit

• Max Bandwidth: this is your maximum outbound (upload) bandwidth. You can determine your speed at DSL Reports, SpeakEasy or Speedtest.net. A hack to ensure you have enough overhead is to intentionally low-ball this number. You would only want to do this if absolutely necessary as you would not be fully utilizing your bandwidth.

Note: These are the settings that work for me,
you will most likely have to tweak them

Inbound Limit

• Max Bandwidth: Use the inbound (download) results from your tests above.

Note: These are the settings that work for me,
you will most likely have to tweak them

Classifications

• Open the QOS > Classifications Menu
• Add Entry for Any Address, TCP/UDP, Src or Dst 5060 (your SIP Signaling port), Highest Priority
• Add Entry for Any Address, TCP/UDP, Src or Dst 16384-16482 (your RTP Voice port range), Highest Priority
• Move them to the top of the list
• Note: If you have any other traffic (P2P) on ports these ports, you should try the SIP I7-Filter.
• Note: Another solution is to setup a QOS classification for the IP/Mac addresss of your standalone VoIP phones or adapters if they are connecting to a trunk over the internet
• Note: Some phones require a different RTP range for example, my Linksys SPA942’s call for 10,000 - 20,000 UDP. Check with you phone or ATA documentation to determine the actual RTP port range.

Testing, Testing, Testing

Now that you have established a baseline for your QOS, it’s time to see if it works. First, if possible test on a clean connection to make sure nothing is out of whack. Now for the fun part; max your connection out. Start your P2P, BitTorrent, Large file Uploads, Video Streaming and anything else you can think of. You can check how much you are using in the Bandwidth > Real Time menu. Tomato also comes with two very useful tools to debug your QOS settings.

Distribution Graphs

• Use these graph to determine where your connections are being classified. If you see something out of balance, you can adjust your classifications accordingly.

Detailed View

• This shows what traffic is currently flowing and how it is being classified. Take a look at each of the connections and make sure it is classified correctly. This report is also useful for determining the source of rouge traffic.

The Downside…

Yea, there is usually a con with every pro. To make this setup work correctly, you are essentially capping your throughput. Some networks offer pooled connections and have “boost” speeds. You will not be able to take advantage of these features. Most of the bandwidth related troubles with SOHO VOIP is outbound, so one workaround is to turn off the Inbound Limits. It is not fool-proof, but in some setups will work just fine.

Summary

As you can see, the Tomato firmware gives you granular traffic shaping control. Implementing these QOS settings has not only eliminated my VOIP problems, it has also made a noticeable difference in the overall speed and consistency of my connection. DNS queries resolve faster, multiple HTTP requests are balanced and I can transfer large files in the background. Even if you are not ready to take the leap to VOIP, I highly recommend Tomato Firmware.

Three Red Belly Piranhas

I started these fish in a 20 gallon long aquarium while I was waiting for the biomass to build in the 55 gallon. They were the size of a quarter when I bought them. They eventually outgrew the 55 gallon and I had to return them to the fish store. They were a lot of fun, but also a lot of work.

First Saltwater Tank

This tank was started with a variety of damsels and later the home for a maroon clown, coral beauty and a crab.

Scooby the Guppy

This fish was amazing, she lived to be one and a half years old! She started her life as a feeder fish for my red belly piranhas. She found a comfortable hiding spot between one of the logs and a plant and managed to survive for almost a month. She deserved a home of her own. I moved her into a 5 gallon tank where she somehow managed to give birth to 5 babies! This was truely a miracle fish. She ultimately died of natural causes.

This is a classic…

“Matt, Hi it’s Rob. I wanted to give you an update on the power point projector that we loaned out. We haven’t used it yet, and there is a reason. Um… Before, we were going to use it for a client presentation, we had a supplier come in and borrow it to present some of his own things to us… and the stink in the room was so bad, we thought it was the guy. Today we tried the power point… lcd projector again and it is the projector. Matt, I don’t know what it is, but the… ventilation of this projector is blowing out a stink like BO like you would not believe. We can’t even sit in same room with it. So I just wanted to give you a heads up. I don’t know what is wrong with it, but I can’t see anyone being able to use it… for a presentation. You might want to look into maybe cleaning the filter or something on that thing. That was it, thanks bye.”

This is a real voice mail I received a couple of years ago when I was an IT Manager for a media buying company.

Welcome.

If you are reading this post, the migration is complete. As promised, an all new site, with all new content.

With this much needed upgrade, I chose Linode.com as a host. They have many distros to choose from and a great management console. I am also partial to hosting facilities located in Texas for the geographic advantages. In the migration, I implemented Amazon S3 storage for all my static files. I have also scratch built a wordpress theme with minimalist styling and speed in mind. I still have a lot of tweaking to go, but it was time for launch.

More to follow…

http://chart.apis.google.com/chart?cht=lc&chd=s:cEAELFJHHHKU
ju9uuXUc&chco=76A4FB&chls=2.0,0.0,0.0&chs=200x125&chg=20,50,
1,0&chxt=x,y&chxl=0:|0|1|2|3|4|5|1:|0|50|100

… turns into this …

… beautiful isn’t it.