Ximok's Blog

How to play ball when you are at work... you don't.

2009-02-26T18:24:00.000-08:00

This is the coolest thing I've seen in a long time. This dog, Jerry, has the best toy EVER! While mom and dad are away from home, Jerry can keep himself preoccupied all day long playing ball.

Here is the caption on YouTube from the author:

I built the ball machine because I thought my dog Jerry, might like it and that it would be something fun for me to build. So after two years of on and off work, with many safety features such as IR proximity sensors to protect Jerry and my son from the machine, I finally complete.

Far from being a replacement for me, I was always right there with him enjoying his fun. And with all the troubles that I went through to build the ball machine, I still end up throwing more balls than that the machine could count! According to the computer, he played with the machine by himself only 3 times in his life.

I recently put this video on YouTube to keep alive my earlier memories of him and (hopefully) provide some "humorous distractions" for anyone that might drop by.

Now I've got to build me one of these for my dog... if he'd play ball... hrmm....

I've watched the video about 5 or 6 times now and have to admit that I am shocked at how quite the machine is when it launches the ball. I would expect a lot more clanking of part as the carriage (It's the only appropriate term I could come up with on the fly) flies into it's idle position (waiting to accept a ball).

Why Dual Homed Servers Suck

2009-01-24T12:56:00.000-08:00

So a friend asked me the other day why some of his clients could get to his dual-homed server (a server with network cards in two different subnets) and some could not. This naturally was followed by the "why the heck are you dual-homing the server" question. It turns out his predecessor was trying to improve the speed of the server by allowing it to have a finger in another network, avoiding a hop. Needless to say, this really didn't solve his problem as the speed of access to the server was never inhibited by the multigigabit network he had nor the gigabit network card in the server.

There are very few reasons to multihome a server or client, but there are right and wrong ways to do it.

You are using the device as a router (or actually is a router or firewall)
You need to sniff traffic in another network. In which case, the second NIC probably isn't being used for traffic, but as a passive participant without an IP address.
Your physical server is a Virtual Machine Host and needs physical legs in multiple networks. In this case, each Virtual Machine (VM) probably has access to only one of the NICs anyway.
Your server has direct access to a Storage Area Network. In this scenario, no one is addressing to the SAN facing NIC, so it works just fine.

The reason why most dual-homed fail is because of improperly routing configurations in the server. A device can only handle 1 default route. Look at the following configuration of a dual-homed setup (assume that the same router is handling both the 10.1.1.0 and 10.2.2.0 networks):

Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection 1:
IP Address: 10.1.1.2
Subnet Mask: 255.255.255.0
Default Gateway: 10.1.1.1

Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection 2:
IP Address: 10.2.2.2
Subnet Mask: 255.255.255.0
Default Gateway: 10.2.2.2

We may have entered two default gateways in the configuration pages, but look what happens in the routing table on the machine:

Active Routes:
Network Destination         Netmask     Gateway     Interface
           0.0.0.0         0.0.0.0    10.1.1.1     10.1.1.2
          10.1.1.0   255.255.255.0     On-Link     10.1.1.2
          10.2.2.0   255.255.255.0     On-Link     10.2.2.2

As you see, any traffic that doesn't match the 10.1.1.0 or 10.2.2.0 network will leave from the 10.1.1.2 interface.

Lets pretend for second that you have DNS setup to point server.mydomain to both 10.1.1.2 and 10.2.2.2. If DNS Round Robin is setup correctly (which is probably is) half of your hosts will go to 10.1.1.2 and the other half will go to 10.2.2.2.
If your hosts are on the 10.1.1.0 network and happen to get pointed to 10.2.2.2, guess which server IP is going to respond: 10.1.1.2. This is kind of cool, but the packet will be dropped because it is coming from a different IP than what the client asked for. Bad news. If you have a request coming from 10.2.2.0 and it's going to 10.1.1.2, then the 10.2.2.2 NIC responds and the packet gets dropped.

To complicate it, lets pretend you have a client on the 10.3.3.0 network and they perform a request to the 10.2.2.2 NIC. Which IP responds? Yep, the 10.1.1.1 NIC, because it has the default gateway defined on it.

So, how do you fix this? Easy! Prevent your 10.2.2.0 network from trying to contact the 10.1.1.2 IP and prevent your 10.1.1.0 network from trying to contact the 10.2.2.2 IP. No, you can't do this by blocking the packets at the firewall/router. You actually have to prevent those clients from ever wanting to contact the wrong interfaces.

There are many ways of doing this, like by setting up DNS to not point the same name to both NICs, but most likely, you'll find it's just easier to get rid of the dual-homed setup, and keep to one IP address on the server.

This is not to say you can't get your server running at multigigabit speeds or in a dual-homed, it's just that there are usually better ways. Like if your network drivers support LACP and your switch supports LACP, you can combine multiple NICs together to form one logical interface that is X times faster.

Now, I've heard people say that they like to put one card of a Mail or Web server in their DMZ and one in their private network. This is a bad idea. If your server gets compromised in this scenario, the attacker now has a direct line into your private, "protected", network. This completely defeats the purpose of having a firewall.

If you want your server in your DMZ, put it in your DMZ. Your inside clients will still have access to your server, but it won't have access to your inside clients. This is a cool trick that firewalls can do and is why so many of us spend thousands of dollars on said firewalls. Even in a scenario where your inside clients have full access to the mail server, the firewall can still prevent some attacks from the inside network.

If you can't figure out how to put your public facing server in your DMZ correctly, please consult a professional who understands your model of firewall before you do something silly like dual-home your mail server.

A time to study...

2008-07-13T14:49:00.000-07:00

Well, I'm back into the study cycle officially. I received my SNPA book on thursday, so I've been working my way through that book. For those of you who aren't all up in the lingo, SNPA stands for Securing Networks with Pix and ASA firewalls. The SNPA (Sometimes pronounced snippa) is one of the tests for the CCSP (Cisco Certified Security Professional). In a nutshell, if I pass the SNPA exam it means I should know something about firewalls and should be able to set one up.

For those who are wondering, yes I do work with Cisco firewalls already, this is mostly validation of that knowledge. Anyway, I've decided that I need a study break from that.

Just signed up for twitter in a desperate hope that I can keep everyone updated a little better. Sure, it makes me "hyper-connected", but at least it's not more connected to work.

Went over to Amazon the other day and picked up a couple of songs from Katy Perry. You can preview her music on her website. Personally, I like her rendition of Your Love by the Outfield (Her version is called Use Your Love)

Really, I just love that guitar riff at the beginning, I could listen to that all day long... I'm not sure what it is that draws me to the song, maybe it's that "summer love" feeling. If you don't know the feeling then you missed out on your teen years, obviously. I just now realized that Bryan Adams used a very similar riff in Summer of '69.

Speaking of relatively new artists out there, Flyleaf has been turning my head a lot lately. (Their music also available on Amazon) Their style reminds me a lot of Bjork... but without all the weirdness.

Some Real Hot Blacktop

2008-07-02T19:33:00.001-07:00

So, I was reading Slashdot today and came across this article about using the curtains in your house as a flexible solar panel (solar textiles). Ok, nifty, it'll help a little bit, but the gains frankly aren't going to be mind blowing... yet. The technology still has much improvement, just like traditional solar technology does.

Then I saw THIS article about creating canopies over parking lots and putting solar panels on top to generate electricity for the business. GENIUS! You keep your employee and customer cars shaded and cool, which they think is just awesome, while keeping your electric bill nice and cool. I can think of many parking lots that are much bigger than the buildings they support, this makes PERFECT sense.

The only thing I would do different is make at least some of the canopies 14 feet tall to accommodate semi trucks.

I should have thought of this. And here I was, thinking that putting solar panels on buildings was a good idea, while overlooking the parking lots. Heck, these would be good in winter to keep the snow off the cars. DOH!

Peter Noble, CCNA

2008-06-04T14:52:00.000-07:00

WOOO HOOO!!!! I PASSED THAT STUPID TEST!!!! Ok, the CCNA exam is not a stupid test, but I am so glad to be done with it that it's not funny.

For all you to hear my story of success, I left work today to head to lunch and take the CCNA. My test was at 1 PM in the valley, so I figured I could get a quick bite before the test and relax a bit.

12:10 PM I find the testing center, flip the truck around to the pizza place I was going to eat at, parked it, and walked in the restaurant. Looked around and realized that this place only makes whole pies to go. OH NOES! No food?!?!?! So, I walk outside and find this Tex Mex place across the street, hop in the truck, pull what is probably an illegal manuever on a 1-way street and head in.

12:15 PM The waitress just noticed that I had been sitting at the bar for 5 minutes. I order the special for today: a Chili Dog. The waitress informs me that it will be a few minutes, and walks away with my order.

12:20 PM The waitress informs me that they ran out of chili (they might as well have run out of hot dogs too). At this point, I'm nervous because I'm supposed to show up to the testing center 15 minutes ahead of time...

12:30 PM The waitress brings this monstrosity of a hot dog. This thing has chili dripping off the sides and through the plate. She sets it down with a plop on the counter which creaked under the weight of the beast on top of it. I see $3 chili dog on the menu, I think "Hot dog with some chili on top". This was more like Chili, onions, cheese, jalapenos, and a a little bit of hot dog in with it all.

12:45 PM I strut my way into the testing center, thinking about my aching tummy and all the wonderful things Tex Mex makes you do.

The only part of the test where I completely froze up was this really awkward NAT configuration problem they throw at me. They gave me a bunch of internal and external addresses then said map them. However, the number of addresses implied that it should be static translations, but it also implied that it could be dynamic. I completely bombed the question because I never got the network working the way it was supposed to. Other than that, I did pretty good.

Frain Bried!

2008-05-31T20:16:00.000-07:00

Well, I spent 6 hours studying for the CCNA today... and my brain hurts. Mostly I worked on NAT, ACLs and some subnetting stuff. Advise: Don't try this at home. Take regular breaks and spend some time outside.

This whole thing makes me nervious because many of my co-workers say they didn't pass the CCNA on their first 2 or 3 tries and I really want to pass on the first try. I've been studying this stuff since 2003, I really should know it by now, I'm just afraid I won't pass, I think I'll be close, but I'm afraid I still won't pass on try one. I know this is a bad way to look at it, but I've seen sample questions and many of them are worded in a very awkward manner.

We'll see how it all goes on Wednesday I guess.

Holy Dead Blogs Batman!

2008-05-27T00:24:00.000-07:00

Sorry to anyone who might actually be reading this thing. I haven't been updating it again.

News:
I've got a new job. I've been working for my new company as a network engineer since May 1. It's been a lot of work (read: fun) and I've been traveling a lot more than expected, which is cool, but fun still. I'm in a new apartment because of the new job... and it feels like I've slept in it a whole week during the month I've lived here. My wife and dog will be moving here soon (once she finishes the school year), which will make this place feel a lot more like home.

I'm probably going to be in and out on this thing as I'm working on getting some of my Cisco certifications (CCNA, SNPA) before the end of the summer. So far, I'm scheduled to take my first CCNA exam in a few weeks, making studying one of my highest priorities.

Well, it's late and I have a lot of driving to do first thing in the morning.

I promise, no more of this 1 month stuff...

maybe

Shredding it Bot Style

2008-04-28T21:59:00.000-07:00

Just saw something REALLY cool "Slashbot". The cool thing about this beast is that it plays Guitar Hero... much much much better than me. Here's a video of it playing "Cliffs of Dover" on Expert @ 96%...

How cool is that?

Ok, back to packing up the house. Just thought I'd put this out there for all you geeks.

Dreaming of Electric Sheep

2008-04-27T23:16:00.000-07:00

I was working on my wife's computer the other day when I noticed that she had changed her background to a fractal image. Nothing special, just something nifty. It sparked a memory of a project I had looked at a few years ago called the electric sheep screen-saver.

Back then, electric sheep was in it's infancy. I'm not even sure they had come out with version 1.0 and I think it was only out for Linux at that time too. Well, it looks like the project has grown all up and gotten a few thousand users (sweet) and even has it's own spot as a permanent online exhibit at moma.org. So, if you are tired of your boring old screen saver (admit it, "Starfield" has its intellectual limitations) and need something with a little more spunk for your desktop, Electric Sheep is at LEAST worth checking out. (By the way, if you haven't figured it out, the shot above was generated by Electric Sheep) There are versions available for Linux, FreeBSD, Windows, and Mac OS X.

Note: The screen saver runs at 640x480, so if you want a real crisp looking screen saver run it in "Normal" mode not "Fullscreen"

4:00 AM Edit: Don't be discouraged if the screen saver runs for a couple of hours and doesn't show anything this elaborate. It has a lot of information to download while it works. Let it run one night while you sleep and you should be greeted in the morning with something very cool. I know I didn't say a lot about the technical side of the screen saver in this post. I'll probably get into a long winded rant about distributed computing here in a few days.

Burnout Paradise - Cagney Update

2008-04-27T11:57:00.000-07:00

Ah HA!

All you burnout fans out there, we now know when Cagney is going to be released! Yeah, I know it's easy to find on the Criterion website, but sweet! So, come early June, we should all be cruising the streets with a cop car with a working siren, cool sounding audio from certain vehicles, new challenges, and apparently a new motorcycle background for the game. Motorcycle? I haven't read everything nor listened to all the podcasts, but I would imagine that this is a teaser for whats to come... motorocycles? I wonder how they plan on making that work considering there aren't people in the game... From what I've read, the answer is in the April 23rd podcast.

Maybe when I'm done moving into the new place, I'll take some time, sit down and listen to that podcast to figure out what the heck is going on.

Stupid people who don't update their blogs...

2008-04-18T21:46:00.000-07:00

Ok, so I haven't updated this thing in a month... and then some. The truth: I have been busy. But I have exciting news: I am moving. At the end of the month I will be moving to a new city (bigger one) and taking a new job that is more in line with what I went to college for.

So... I probably won't be posting a whole lot this month anyway...

In other news: the Burnout Paradise "Bogart" update has been released on XBox Live (free update). It does look like they have fixed some of the control issues while boosting and some other stuff that I'm not going to talk about here yet cause I haven't tested them out. The boost changes were immediately noticeable, and I think it really does improve the game. Unfortunately, I was under the impression that this update contained the new "Island" for burnout, but it looks like we won't see that for some time yet...

Saving money and the planet too

2008-03-16T19:27:00.001-07:00

Golly gee, too many more posts like this and I'm going to sound like a tree-hugging hippy. (No offense meant to any tree-hugging hippies out there)

So, my wife and I were in our local Costco the other day when I saw a pallet full of compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs) . My eyes lit up because lately I've been on a crusade to replace all of the incandescent bulbs in the house. Sure, they cost more, but in the long run, I'll save money on the bulbs, my power bill, and conscience.

As I was looking through the pallet to find a good deal on bulbs I ran across a gold mine: PAR38 Indoor/Outdoor Reflector bulbs... in CFL form at $10 for four. These are those massive outside security lights many people have in their driveways and back yards to light the whole area up. The only problem with PAR38s is that traditionally they are 120 Watts and frequently are left on all night for security reasons. In my case, I have three that light up my driveway: 360 Watts to light up my driveway. I can go through a Kilowatt in three hours.

I pay between 6 and 8.5 cents per Kilowatt hour. We typically like to run our security lights for 5 and 6 hours a night. We'll call it 6 hours because the winter months and summer months will balance out. On that logic, if I run those lights at that rate, I'll run them for 2190 hours each year. At 360 Watts, making 700.8 Kilowatt hours making it $67.01 a year to run these lights

So, the cool thing about the lights replacing them? They only use 23 Watts each and actually produce more light than the ones they replaced (score!) and are supposed to last for 5 years (actually 10,000 hours... so probably more like 4.5 years in my case). So, the three lights together use 69 Watts... Just a little more than your standard brightness incandescent bulb and a little less than a 75 Watt bulb. It would take me about 14.5 hours to go through a Kilowatt. So, I only pay 8.5 cents to run these three bulbs together over the course of 14.5 hours. (SCORE!) My yearly cost: $12.84. A savings of $54.17 minus the cost of the bulbs, $10, making a total savings of $44.17 in the first year. Over the course of the remaining 3.5 years on the bulbs, I'll save an additional $189.60, for a total savings of $233.77. (I could buy a whole gallon of gas in 4 years basically) By the way, these numbers don't include the floodlight in the backyard I replaced as well ;) If you want to include that one, it's actually a savings of $305.02.

In reality, I probably would have replaced those incandescent lights 2 or 3 times over the next 4.5 years, so the cost of the bulbs is likely a wash anyway.

Some Things You Should Know About CFLs

Many CFLs are not for use with photosensitive ("Dusk Till Dawn") or motion sensitive fixtures . These can cause your bulbs to go bad before they are supposed to. Check your packaging.
99% of CFLs do not work with dimmer switches and will cause your bulbs to go bad prematurely. There are now some that are manufactured that are specifically to be used with dimmer switches.
Fluorescent bulbs (CFLs and the long tube type) require a short warmup time. This amount of time is getting shorter and shorter and with some bulbs you don't even notice it. Don't judge a bulb's light output by how it performs for the first 5 seconds. After a while, you won't notice this startup time. In addition, most lights you leave on for longer than 5 seconds.
Fluorescents use a "starter" (technically called an "Electronic Ballast"). Basically, when the bulb is starting up it uses a little extra electricity to get the bulb started. After a second or two it begins normal operation. If you turn the light on and off rapidly, you will burn out this starter, severely limiting the life of your bulb. Generally, it is recommended to leave any fluorescent light on for at least 15 minutes before turning it off again. (This is based on a recommendation from the Energy Star website)
If a CFL or Fluorescent light breaks, the Environmental Protection Agency has posted directions on how to cleanup after your little accident. (The following instructions were pulled from the EPA website on 3/17/2008)

Fluorescent light bulbs contain a very small amount of mercury sealed within the glass tubing. EPA recommends the following clean-up and disposal guidelines:
Before Clean-up: Ventilate the Room

Have people and pets leave the room, and don't let anyone walk through the breakage area on their way out.
Open a window and leave the room for 15 minutes or more.
Shut off the central forced-air heating/air conditioning system, if you have one.

Clean-Up Steps for Hard Surfaces

Carefully scoop up glass fragments and powder using stiff paper or cardboard and place them in a glass jar with metal lid (such as a canning jar) or in a sealed plastic bag.
Use sticky tape, such as duct tape, to pick up any remaining small glass fragments and powder.
Wipe the area clean with damp paper towels or disposable wet wipes and place them in the glass jar or plastic bag.
Do not use a vacuum or broom to clean up the broken bulb on hard surfaces.

Clean-up Steps for Carpeting or Rug

Carefully pick up glass fragments and place them in a glass jar with metal lid (such as a canning jar) or in a sealed plastic bag.
Use sticky tape, such as duct tape, to pick up any remaining small glass fragments and powder.
If vacuuming is needed after all visible materials are removed, vacuum the area where the bulb was broken.
Remove the vacuum bag (or empty and wipe the canister), and put the bag or vacuum debris in a sealed plastic bag.

Disposal of Clean-up Materials

Immediately place all cleanup materials outside the building in a trash container or outdoor protected area for the next normal trash.
Wash your hands after disposing of the jars or plastic bags containing clean-up materials.
Check with your local or state government about disposal requirements in your specific area. Some states prohibit such trash disposal and require that broken and unbroken mercury-containing bulbs be taken to a local recycling center.

Future Cleaning of Carpeting or Rug: Ventilate the Room During and After Vacuuming

The next several times you vacuum, shut off the central forced-air heating/air conditioning system and open a window prior to vacuuming.
Keep the central heating/air conditioning system shut off and the window open for at least 15 minutes after vacuuming is completed.

Well, while you are reading this, get involved, change some bulbs, save the planet. Go join OneBillionBulbs.com. Join my group at One Billion Bulbs and have your stats show up on this blog alongside mine.

www.OneBillionBulbs.com

Meeting David Oliver Relin

2008-03-11T22:49:00.000-07:00

Tonight I had the rare opportunity to not only meet but also help interview (I managed the sound equipment) a New York best selling author. When I first met David Oliver Relin, I didn't have a clue of who he was other than he had written a book, heck, I didn't even know it was a best seller or even its title. You want to talk about ignorance, I'm feeling like a train wreck of it.

So, we finish our little interview and I shook David's hand a few times thanking him for allowing us to interview him. I'm sitting here thinking how cool that we have a great way to kick-start podcasting at the high school library when I should be thinking how cool it was to meet such an amazing man. Don't get me wrong, Mr. Relin was a cool guy and very personable... I'm just an idiot.

Fortunately for the train wreck, I was intrigued enough to stick around to hear him talk. He talked about his book, Three Cups of Tea, like any good author, but more importantly he talked about rural Pakistan and how the lack of educational opportunities, like the ones you and I take for granted daily, affect the local people, the region, the country, and ultimately the whole world. One of the things that he continued to stress is his concern that the words "Muslim" and "terrorist" are sometimes used interchangeably, when they shouldn't, and how this war on terror (aka the Afghanistan and Iraq wars) doesn't necessarily solve our terrorist problem. It just gets rid of some of the symptoms. The true way to solve the global terrorist problem is with education.

The more we (the world) can educate the underprivileged and poor people of the world, the greater our chances are of preventing extremist groups from capturing these peoples minds and using them against everyone. I'm not just talking about Americans and the rest of the Western world. I'm also talking about the friends and families of the people that terrorists recruit. Mr. Relin made a very valid point: extremest groups want people who feel like they have nothing to live for. Someone with an education usually does not have this problem because they know there are other options. Someone who wants to be a doctor, scientist, accountant, baker, or whatever they want to aspire to, has "suicide bomber" as the furthest thing from their mind.

I keep hearing that we need to educate the women and girls of middle eastern countries. Until now, I assumed the only reason was that women have fewer educational opportunities due to oppression. In reality, there is a very good logic behind educating the women and girls of these countries: If you educate a boy, he'll have a tendency to leave his hometown (usually for a bigger one) because of the opportunities. If you educate a girl, she will have a tendency to stay in her community, but will also pass that education on to her children, continuing the educational process.

So, everyone who is reading this, I beseech you, go get a copy of Three Cups of Tea and read it. If you plan to buy it from Amazon.com ANYWAY, use the link on the Three Cups of Tea website to have up to 7% of the proceeds donated to the Central Asia Institute. It looks like the current cost of the book is $8.25 USD

I know I didn't mention it earlier in the post, the Central Asia Institute is the non-profit organization responsible for building schools in rural Pakistan (If you haven't figured it out, this is a good thing). The good news, unlike the Canadian exchange rate, the exchange to Pakistan is insane. Our dollar goes a lot further over there ($1 = about 63 Rupees) . What this means is even a small donation can help a lot.

Other ways you can help:
Start a Pennies for Peace program at your local school, place of work, local gym, etc. (100% of all donations through Pennies for Peace go to building schools for the Central Asia Institute)

Buy the book, Three Cups of Tea, for a friend, family member, co-worker, whoever.

I'll be posting the link to the interview here in a few days, so stay tuned.

David, if you read this (thank you), and if you see an error in the information, please feel free to let me know. If you are reading this, you already have my email ;)

All the book info you ever needed

Title: Three Cups of Tea
Authors: Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin
Publisher: Viking
ISBN: 0670034827
Book Website: http://www.threecupsoftea.com

Central Asia Institute Website: http://www.ikat.org
Pennies for Peace Website: http://www.penniesforpeace.org
Greg Mortenson's Website: http://www.gregmortenson.com
David Oliver Relin's Website: http://www.davidoliverrelin.com

PDFCreator - Making your own PDFs for Free

2008-03-09T14:56:00.000-07:00

There are a number of situations where I have a document (like a receipt) that I want to keep a copy of, but don't necessarily want to print a hard copy of. Frankly, I have enough paper on my desk. A great solution to this problem is to use PDFCreator to make a PDF of whatever you are wanting to keep.

Any program you can print from, you can create a PDF. Just hit print and select PDFCreator.

In a nutshell, the program creates a new "Printer" on your computer that allows you to take any document you are printing turn it into a PDF. It's as easy as printing, but saves trees.

Website: http://sourceforge.net/projects/pdfcreator/
Cost: Free (Open Source)
License: GNU General Public License (GPL)

MythTV 0.21 is out!

2008-03-08T23:06:00.000-08:00

Looks like MythTV 0.21 was released today. I'll probably post more on this when I upgrade my Myth box and test out some of the new features such as:

-UPnP support - In theory, this should allow me to watch my shows from my Xbox360
-FLV Viewing support in MythWeb - I believe this allows you to stream from within a web browser to watch your shows. Pretty sweet if you don't have to download a whole show anymore.
-Numerous Bug Fixes

I've upgraded through the last few updates, but frankly, I think I'm going to flatten the whole box and replace the hard drive in it with a larger one for more storage capacity and then decrease my compression ratios so I have better quality video.

Head on over to the MythTV site to get the new update.

Dwarfing the Net Red Flix

2008-03-07T22:12:00.000-08:00

I decided to hook up an extra computer that had an S-Video connection to my TV today to see how useful I could make Netflix's relatively new Instant Watch service. I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the video, its darn near broadcast quality. I was even more pleasantly surprised to find all 8 seasons of Red Dwarf available for the service. Forget the postal service, I'm watching my shows NOW!

Instead of using a keyboard and mouse with the low resolution TV, I'm using TightVNC on the computer with a VNC Viewer on a Palm TX that sits next to the couch. It's just like having a keyboard and mouse, but without all the mess.

Say what you want about Red Dwarf, it's kind of like "Mom's home cooking". You can go years without it, but it's always nice to have it when you really want it.

Saturday Night Update: I went out and purchased a wireless mouse to simplify the whole setup. Much more convenient, now if only I could get internet explorer to look better on the screen.

I'm Back

2008-03-04T15:47:00.000-08:00

Yes, I know I didn't post much after day one of the NCCE. After I got back from the NCCE I was so tired I just slept. I went back to work on Friday, slept Saturday and Sunday then realized on Monday morning I wasn't just tired, I was sick. So, I slept Monday too. I feel like I'm getting over it, but I can tell the body is still fighting it.

So, back to the NCCE. We did a bit more on the whole podcasting piece, who knows, maybe I'll start a podcast all you (count them: 1 maybe 2) yahoos can listen to.

On a side note, I forgot that I'm always supposed to plug Northwest Gamers

NCCE

2008-02-27T20:09:00.001-08:00

Well, I finished the first full day at the conference and so far I am glad I came. We covered some vodcasting today and tomorrow we are doing podcasting, which seems backwards, but will allow us to touch on some other concepts that were either understated or just completely missed. (You have to walk before you run.) This looks to be a perfect opportunity to do some additional staff training via vodcasting. We also covered some concepts relating to online courses and how students learn. It was pretty cool and makes me want to get my vocational certification.

A Hotel is a Hotel

2008-02-26T21:27:00.001-08:00

Writing this one from the bus and I think I'm getting the hang of writing on the phone. We just passed Renton and should hit Seattle within 15 minutes. Here are some pics of the hotel... No, you don't get pictures of the room.

Midnight note: We spent an hour figuring out what the heck happened with our room reservations. Turns out, my co workers are sharing a room in this place, and I've got a place at the Hilton six blocks away. Also looks like something weird happened with the billing, so I'll have to get my employer to resolve those issues with the hotels in the morning.

On a side note, the 15 Year Old Scotch I had with my 11PM dinner was excellent and made me forget most of my woes ;)

Note: I do not condone drinking as a form of dealing with problems. If you or someone you know has a problem with alcohol, please contact an Alcoholics Anonymous group in your area.

2008-02-26T20:15:00.001-08:00

Well we made it to seattle with at least one wing and some passengers still on board. I'll send pics from the hotel, supposedly it's "posh".

2008-02-26T18:59:00.001-08:00

Big airplane

People Watching at the Airport is Fun

2008-02-26T18:43:00.001-08:00

Well, here I am at the airport and view charge for wifi access and here I am, the idiot who forgot to bring the bluetooth adapter for my laptop so I could hit the net with the phone. We got bumped to an earlier flight only to find out we have been delayed almost to the time of our original flight... Go figure. Oh our flight is landing so we should be leaving in five or ten minutes.

Heading for the Airport

2008-02-26T16:26:00.001-08:00

From the road... Literally. Right now I am writing this post from the backseat of a co-worker's car. I guess the only way this could be cooler is if I was 10,000 feet off the ground. We will see if the FAA ever gets that approved. I just realized that sending mms messages from the phone eliminates my ability to use a hard return... You folks will just have to bear with me for now. It looks abit cloudy off to the west, which is expected this time of year for Seattle.

I'll say that's not too bad of a view from the backseat of the car... and people wonder why I like living in the Northwest. Speaking of the west coast, this is one thing we have over the east coast : sunsets on the ocean.

Counter Strike Source: Making Res Files

2008-02-25T20:51:00.000-08:00

This one comes by special request from a buddy of mine down in San Diego.

So, you run your own Counter-Strike Server with your custom maps being downloaded from a separate web server using the "sv_downloadurl" parameter and you just picked up a really cool map, but it doesn't have a res file, so no one can download all the custom textures. NEVER FEAR! A FIX IS HERE! (Hrm... Maybe I shouldn't say that ever again)

The first thing we need to do is extract the compressed file that has all the files to a separate directory. You do this so you can identify all the files associated with that map, and nothing else.

List of Files and their Directories

maps\coolmap.bsp
maps\coolmap.nav
materials\coolmap\coolbricks.vmt
materials\coolmap\uglybricks.vmt
models\coolmap\meanchicken.vmt
sounds\coolmap\moo-cow.vmt

Notice how the files I listed didn't show the whole "C:\blah\someplace\somewhere" stuff. That's because we don't care. It isn't relevant. All we really care about is where these files sit relative to the cstrike folder. Which means we include each folder AFTER the cstrike folder.

Fortunately for us, this particular map only has a few files. In reality, you may see as many as 100 files. If so, you are in for one heck of a ride.

Now that you know what files you have and where they are, you need to know the structure of the all-mighty res file. It's actually not hard, but if you mess up, it can throw a real wrench into the works.


"resources"
{
  "directory\somefile.vmt" "file"
  "directory\anotherfile.bla" "file"
}

Notice that the first line is "resources" followed by a { on the second line and the very last line is a }. Everything the two brackets is a piece of cake: each line contains a filename enclosed in quotation marks followed by the word file enclosed in quotation marks.

So, here is how the res file for our "cool map" up above would look:


"resources"
{
    "maps\coolmap.nav" "file"
    "materials\coolmap\coolbricks.vmt" "file"
    "materials\coolmap\uglybricks.vmt" "file"
    "models\coolmap\meanchicken.vmt" "file"
    "sounds\coolmap\moo-cow.vmt" "file"
}

just save it as coolmap.res and put it in the maps folder. Just remember to do this for both your game server and your web server. As a rule of thumb: if it's on one server, it should be on the other. Unless you have compressed your files in bz2 format, then of course you may see the compressed version on your webserver.

Notice how we didn't include the bsp file in the res file. That's because the gamer will already be downloading the bsp file.

Congrats, you should be all ready to make res files like a pro. And shame on those silly mappers for not including res files in the first place.

NCCE or Bust

2008-02-25T15:15:00.000-08:00

Looks like I'm off to the NCCE this year. That's Northwest Council for Computer Education for those of you who don't know it. I'll be in the glorious city of Seattle, WA for a better part of the week. It also looks like I'll be going to a Sonics game against the Denver Nuggets. I'm not much of a basketball fan, but I'm rarely disappointed going to any pro sporting event.

From the itinerary it looks like our primary focus is going to be Podcasting and Video Casting for the classroom. Should be some good wholesome fun. Especially considering we get some free (after our registration fees) software out of the deal.

I've been asked by a few staffers why we care about Podcasting at all in the classroom environment. In reality, we don't. But some highly motivated teachers and students are. Podcasting is an excellent opportunity for our student body to project into the community what they know and what they are doing. Really, why not have video of our kids shooting off the rockets they spend months building, or snippets of our latest band or theater production?

Our elementary teachers could use it as a way to update parents on what their kids do in school. Anytime you can improve that teacher-parent connection you will be improving the ability that group has for educating that child.

Well, off my little rant. This week looks like a perfect opportunity to try blogging from my Cell Phone and PDA, so watch out for some strange (short?) posts from the road.