General
Network…
Mar 6th
Finally decided to revisit my home network – LAN and Wireless, especially with respect to wifi security.
My setup essentially is this: a private Gigabit Local Area Network [LAN] using 192.168.0.x ip address range served by a dhcp server running off Smoothwall Express – an open source based excellent firewall program. I downloaded the iso from here, and installed it on a hardly used old but trusty Dell Poweredge 2300 server. My main server – running Windows 2008 has a static ip address and runs on a Dell Poweredge SC430. The 10/100/1000 gigabit switches – mainly cisco/netgear – enable me move large 3d rendered graphics files and family video files been edited across my server to/fro my prime Quad-core windows 7 64bit 8gb workstation.
For wireless – l gave away my old linksys a/b router – this router supports only WEP which is easily hackable. Retained my Dlink DIR-625 wireless router – set to 172.168.0.x ip address range, with the ethernet input from the smootwall green output. Smoothwall setup was Green+Red – Green is for the internal LAN while red represents the external network/internet interface from usually a home cable modem. I use WPA2-PSK for security at 802.11n wifi speed. The main reason l got this particular wireless router is – it offers parents the ability to lock out kid internet access at specific time. You simply reserve specific ip address for say kid x’s PC. Set a rule such as : internet off from 9pm to 5am workdays.
My 2nd wireless router is the Buffalo Airstation Turbo G WHR-G545 – 802.11g which l set at 172.168.16.x ip address range, with security set at WPA-PSK, key set to renew every 60mins. It supports TKIP as well as AOSS also. Installed at the 2nd half of the home, this gives adequate wireless coverage to any laptop that can authenticate with the right password.
Lingo:
A PSK is a 256-bit value, known to every device in the WLAN. That PSK is usually generated by combining the WLAN’s name (Service Set Identifier, SSID) (define) with a passphrase (an ASCII (define) string, 8-63 characters.)
Ella Wheeler Wilcox…
Jan 29th
Found online another amongst many, wonderful poem by Ella Wilcox – heres a link to the site, and a link to her wikipedia reference.
Search my tags under life for another excellent poem <or click here> by Ella Wheeler Wilcox l find particularly amazing.
CIRCUMSTANCE
Talk not to me of souls that do conceive Sublime ideals, but,
deterred by Fate And bound by circumstances, sit desolate, And long for heights they never can achieve.
It is not so. That which we most desire, With understanding, we at last obtain, In part or whole.
I hold there is no rain, No deluge, that can quench a heavenly fire.
Show me thy labour, I straightway will name The nature of thy thoughts.
Who bends the bow, And lets the arrow from the strained string go, Strikes somewhere near the object of his aim.
We build our ships from timbers of the brain; With products of the soul we load the hold;
Where lies the blame if they bring back no gold, Or if they spring a leak upon the main?
There is no Fate, no Providence, no Chance, The will is all. So be it thou art pure,
And strong of purpose, thy success is sure; But fools and sluggards prate of circumstance. Yesterdays.
By Ella Wheeler Wilcox.
London: Gay & Hancock, 1916.
Preventing DNS hijacking by your ISP…
Jan 24th
Here is a link and interesting discuss on doing this if you use comcast. Here is a direct link to their solution webpage. Here is the link to OpenDNS. I’ve always found it annoying when you get redirected to a comcast search control+ad page, or a bing.com page when you mistype a url. This might be great for basic users, but power users would not l suspect like – you type hotmail.com in IE8 and your browser re-directs you to bing.com with hotmail.com as the first search result.! Now you need 2 clicks to simply get to hotmail.com
Movies to see…
Jan 20th
Nexus One – Android 2 – Eclipse
Jan 15th
Decided to revisit Android development due to the release of Google’s Nexus One Phone
Here are my steps so far:
- Download and install Eclipse Development environment from here [eclipse-jee-galileo-SR1-win32.zip ]
- Simply extract this to say, c:\eclipse
- Run eclipse
- Install Google’s ADT Plugin for Eclipse from here
- Download and install the SDK from here – in this case – up to Android 2.1, API 7, revision 1
- Extract above and run SDK Setup.exe – l had to to to the settings on the left hand side and check “force http…”, then choose accept all.
Nexus One…
Jan 5th
Check out the recently announced cool new Google phone – Nexus one. This might be the iPhone killer phone, especially with its apps, 800×480 wvga amoled touch display, gsm support, android os and Qualcomm QSD 8250 1 GHz processor.
Unlocked or with a contract, your best bet for getting it is from t-Mobile, since this phone does not woork on at&t, verizon or sprint frequency band but it supports most common world-wide gsm bands.
Click here for the Nexus One homepage, and here for the technical specifications.
2010
Jan 1st
Wishing you all peace and prosperity this new year!
Check out this New year celebrations video.
Here are a couple of quotes to start the year…
“Let us rise up and be thankful, for if we didn’t learn a lot today, at least we learned a little, and if we didn’t learn a little, at least we didn’t get sick, and if we got sick, at least we didn’t die; so, let us all be thankful.”
“Meditate. Live purely. Be quiet. Do your work with mastery. Like the moon, come out from behind the clouds! Shine.”
And finally as Mark Twain said:
“New Year’s Day: Now is the accepted time to make your regular annual good resolutions. Next week you can begin paving hell with them as usual.”
China in Video 2009….
Dec 16th
Videos l converted to wmv – windows media format from HD using Adobe CS4 Media Encoder, taken by a friend James Soult on his recent trip to China using his Canon Vixia HD camcorder.
My videos Shanghai China 2006
SQL Azure
Dec 6th
SQL Azure is a fully relational database in the cloud by Microsoft.
See this link for the main website.
For how to connect to Azure using ADO.Net heres a good link from msdn and another link which l’m currently using to work on plugging the northwind sample database to azure and using a WPF datagrid view to present the data.