Recently in Test Category

test

Wow, 24 hours and it just came back up.

I was actually teching it on the phone with support (up in Canada) and had set up an appointment to have someone check the pole...when BAM - the line lit up.

First thing I see is a gmail from Justin....


That cowboy is twisted.

Storm damage has affected my cable line...some links will be down until it gets fixed....mainly links to music, graphics, and large files that I keep on a storage server.  Had to post this from work this AM, but we've been down since yesterday.

I've got some switch/router/firewall work to do on this stuff, so parts of the site might be down for a bit.

The Management

I am having some minor difficulty with Google re-directing me to adware sites.

My normal anti-spamware programs, Spybot and Ad-aware, don't seem to be picking it up.

There may be some interruptions in service whilst I am dicking with this.

The DNS structure I needed to implement with the current firewall is too slow. I'm jacking in another one. Tweaking continues.

As the firewall I was using before Christmas crapped out and I had switched to a direct computer connection - I am installing another firewall. There may be some missing links until I get it tweaked.

This is the same firewall that I had a problem with before. I threw it back in because I want to see why it connects to 99.9% of the Internet fine, but blocks certain sites. Plugging the cable directly into my computer does away with all problems, so I know it's the firewall. As I am not filtering squat (technical term), and really only using it for PAT and forwarding of parts of my blog, I'm going to need to check logs and get deeper into the tech support. All outbound requests should be passed, but a few are not.

All sites that are registered/hosted by what appears to be

Name Server: NS3.HMDNSGROUP.COM
Name Server: NS4.HMDNSGROUP.COM

are blocked: timblair.net, saysuncle.com, powerlineblog.com...etc. Altho I have no problem getting to e-nough at http://www.e-nough.hmdnsgroup.com/. This is HostingMatters.

That is strange. If I cable direct into my machine I'm OK. When I cable thru this firewall only things coming from HMDNSGROUP are blocked at the firewall. Getting closer to the solution. Spoofing the MAC address on the firewall to match that of the desktop doesn't work either.

Update: OK, getting down to it.

Adding the DNS server IP address from HostingMatters to my desktop as an alternate allows access to the web sites thru the firewall, but then the blog doesn't resolve items (mainly pictures) kept on my local machine. Adding the DNS address to the firewall directly doesn't seem to do anything. I'm going to static up the IP on my local machine and see if adding HostingMatters DNS as a static alternate does any good.

Nope...in order to get access to HostingMatters web sites thru this firewall, it wants the HM DNS server to be the primary. If I do that, then I can't access items local to my machine on the blog. I'm going to play a bit with the order.

Solved it, but I'm not sure why. I removed HostingMatters DNS server IP from the router, and added it as the primary on my desktop, with Comcast DNS as secondaries. I can access all the sites and my blog appears to have connection with the items hosted on my local machine. Why would this wireless router set up simply as a gateway cause this problem - when I plug Comcast directly into my machine the problem goes away. So to solve the problem, I'm using another company's DNS server as a primary instead of the DNS servers of my ISP. That's just wrong.

Oops. Everything but Google. Can't have that.

Last Update: Clearing the resolver cache and adding the HostingMatters DNS server as the 3rd resolver on my desktop - leaving the DNS servers on the firewall only to Comcast - seems to have done the trick. As far as I can tell I'm getting everywhere now. Really tho, I should not have to add a HostingMatters server to my DNS list only when I'm connected to a firewall.

Testing Fonts Colours and Sizes.

Testing block quote, strike, ^{super script}, and _{sub script}

OK, Testing images of a ceiling fan...….

That’s cool…drag and drop and wysiwyg resizing and editing.  That’s easier than w.bloggar.

Lets try video.

Macromedia Flash Player (tm) 7 required

That didn’t work. It stripped out the video and just left the part reminding people to get flash player if the video doesn't sense it.

OK, how about music.

This thing isn't too bad tho...I'll play with it for a while

I'm getting seriously hammered at work, and what time for blogging I have is for reading and for a search for a new client. I've been using w.bloggar for years, but I'm having trouble with it and the vendor seems to have gone belly up. I've tried three different types of entry and they all sucked. Ecto fried my machine for a while. Too bad, it had some neat features. I'll keep trying, but w.bloggar is getting to be a pain in the ass. Trying the fourth now...blogjet.

to upgrade to Movable Type 3.2. I had problems last time....be prepared for outages. Update: Success...I bypassed 3.2 and went right to 3.3. It's got a neat 'junk' feature. 3.3 identified 987 comments and trackbacks that were spam and moved them into a junk folder. It will refuse any more comments/trackbacks from anything in that folder. I can't seem to get the 'trusted' commenters to work the way I want it to. After I approve someone, they should automatically be able comment immediately without waiting for approval. That ain't happening. I don't want to go to typepad right now (altho I have a key). I'll keep on it. Update: Apparently I can't designate commenters at trusted (which can be done with a checkbox) unless they are 'authenticated'. That means typepad or the like.

My kids chipped in and got me a new Dell E510 media center for my birthday....pretty sweet as a desktop. Fortunately they held my payment off until just before they left...that's usually a pointedly voiced despair that I'm a Right Wing Death Beast. Do you see what happens when you raise them to think for themselves...they think for themselves. *sigh* As a loving parent, I feel bad when their favorite causes turn out to be based on moonbeams, and their candidates need a long rest in a rubber room...but, after all, I am a right wing death dad. I'm moving blog stuff over to it, so be prepared for missing pictures, links, and the like for a bit. Good thing too...I've got to take my company laptop off line and bring it into the office for a while. At least until I get assigned another project. Update: I wiped the drive and installed 2003 Enterprise Server, added IIS back and pointed virtual directories at the files I store for the blog. That's working. The blog might look weird for a while as I install other software and have to reboot. I'm on vacation this week so I've got plenty of time to play with it.

It looks like my dynamic DNS company has crapped out. No pictures until they come back on line...if they ever do. I might have to switch to another company. I use dynamic forwarding from my firewall to an inside private network to link to large files, music, pictures, etc. The reason I can do this is thru the efforts of a dynamic DNS service run on the web. It constantly checks my external IP, and if changed by my ISP, the service updates the Internet....that's why all my pictures etc., are linked to by bjbarron.thatip.com:81 rather than a public IP address. Update: I have replaced my dynamic DNS entry with the actual IP address. The pictures will show until the DHCP number changes (usually every couple of days). Hopefully the web service will be up and running by then.

My desktop, an old friend rebuilt many times since purchased new in 1992 is finally dying. There may be outages on pictures and links until I can get a new one on line. I've been building up parts for a while and will have to finally buy a new motherboard and chip...to go with the new box and drives I have stashed. Bummer. 14 computer years is 56 in human years ( and 98 in dog years )....Hell, it's almost as old as I am, and I'm well aware of the heart-ache and thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to. Update: I pulled my blog drive out of old blue and stuck it into an external USB case. I installed the web services on my laptop and pointed the site at the external drive. I tweaked my firewall to point at the laptop, and voila...back on line. The laptop is set up as wireless, so I'll need to see if I get any better speed with a LAN line. I doubt it. My cable only uploads at about 400K and my wireless is getting 5 megs. I should be OK until I get my new motherboard and chip. That'll have to be quick....I use this laptop occasionally for work now, and will use it a lot more in July when I get on a new contract.

One of my several accounts on 'the trainer' website was picked up by a spammer and used to send hundreds (maybe thousands) of emails in the name of trainer@the-trainer.com. I cancelled that email (and another on that site). I personally would like to strap an open ended metal box full of starving rats against these people, light a fire on the closed end, and let the rats eat their way out thru the spam-bastard dirtbag.

The power is out in Toms River for the moment.... The site will be trashed until I get home to reboot everything. - The Management

Something like this perhaps.... Gettin' there - little by little.... I've got to move everything over toward the center, drop it down a bit, and fill in the background with dark blue. I've also got to close up the two banner pictures at the top a bit. Enough for tonight. Got that...tomorrow I'll work on the fonts/colors. Then I want to reorder the sidebar. Not too shabby so far.

I'm starting to get antsy to change the look of the blog again....stay tuned. Update: Well, that was a disaster. I tried to upgrade to Movable Type 3.2 and fried the blog....totally and utterly. Fortunately I keep a backup of the system files and archives. That was a waste of an hour. No management, no posts, it was gone except for the last updated page...it would never change. I don't back up my computer, but I back up the blog...go figure. I've been playing with templates and stylesheets again....it's a bit of a handicap (handicapable?) being colorblind. Count yourselves lucky that you don't have to look at some of the stylesheets I'm trying. Aarrrgg - my eyes!!!

It looks like my file server is down at home. Most pictures and some links will be unavailable until I can get there to see what's wrong. Update: Apparently when I unplugged my laptop to take it on a job this morning - I unplugged the cable modem. That's what I get for living with poor cable management behind my desk.

This is a bit of a primer on how to use your home computer as a storage dump for large files for your blog…things like pictures, video, and music. You’ll need a couple of things: (1) A blog or a website hosted on a commercial server

I recommend a commercial site because they take care of the nitty gritty things like PERL and CGI scripts. Personally I don’t have the skills necessary to support these utilities on my home machine. These types of software are required to get the functionality we've come to expect with blogs...they usually run on Unix boxes.

(2) A computer at home that you mostly leave running

This does not need to be a monster speed demon. Your upload speeds (this is the speed that people will get when they attach to your home links) will rarely be over 350K even if you have high speed cable. A 486 can handle that. I use an old 550 AMD and save my Pentium 4 for other stuff.

(3) An Operating System that supports a web site

Most of you will have Windows 2000 or XP. Both of these have a personal web server built in. I use 2000 Advanced Server, but that’s not really necessary.

(4) Dynamic DNS software

This is a service you contract for on the web. There are plenty of companies and they are insanely cheap…(I pay $40 a year for their best service). You need this if your ISP periodically changes your IP address (a process known as DHCP). The Dynamic DNS software monitors your address, and when it changes Dynamic DNS notifies the Internet immediately that your address has changed. They can be a cheap as $1 a month. You pay a bit extra for speed...mine guarentees to do it's thing within 2 seconds.

I'm assuming that you have a blog hosted on a commercial site. Either something hosted like Blogger or you’ve uploaded Movable Type or Typepad to your ISP, configured it successfully, and it’s working pretty well. If the latter, you certainly have the skills to use your home machine as a dump. Our problem is that you’re paying for either bandwidth or space and can’t really host or link to the photos, video, or music you want to. My hosting company has a 60 meg cutoff….I have nearly a Gig hosted thru Dynamic DNS on my own computer for free. As I mentioned above I use an old P3 analog as a storage dump…the advantage is that it’s got a couple of 80Gig hard drives…compare that to the 60Megs I’m allowed on my ISP. If it isn’t running already (and it probably is), you’ll need to install the built in website that came with your operating system. You’ll find it in [control panel] [add-remove Programs] [add/remove windows software]. Dig down and you’ll find something called “Personal Website” or “Internet Information Services” It installs cleanly and by default, picks up the IP address on your network card, points to a default directory that you can dump files into, and turns on all services necessary. Bingo! You’ve got an (empty) website hosted on your machine. By default, websites use IP port 80 as a communication portal. When you are surfing on the web and type www.whatever.com, your computer appends :80 after your URL as the default. At home I have several web savvy applications running...this means that they each need a different port to communicate. The ports I am using for various web access include 80, 81, 3789, 9100, 8000, 8080 and probably more. Depending on some factors we’ll talk about in a bit, you’re nearly done. Get on the web and search for Dynamic DNS companies. I use www.thatip.com. You’ll download a bit of software that keeps an eye on your machine’s IP address and reports it to the Internet. Remember, when you installed your website, the software picked up the IP on your machine as the address to type to get to your web content, for example: http://65.78.90.32/ would get anyone on the internet to your (probably) blank web site. This is called an 'anonymous' site. The problem with this is that the IP address changes periodically (DHCP) and people would rather type a URL to get to your site, for example: http://yourname.thatip.com You can understand the advantages to this. We are just using this new website as a data dump, so we don't need index pages or fancy content. We just want a place you can put various types of files so they can be accessed by the Internet. On your blog you could create a link to “http://yourname.thatip.com/musicfile.mp3”…when people click on that link they get redirected to your site and can play or download the music. When someone clicks on the link on your blog, they are resolved and redirected (via the Dynamic DNS company) to your home machine, the services pick up the request, send it to the website directory, and they get your music file. For example, my website installation defaults to directory “d:\inetpub\wwwroot\” so that is where I would drop content if I was using the simplest installation. The installed website software on my machine knows that it should always look in that directory for files. That’s it. Anyone who has their cable modem directly connected to their computer can do the above without any further configuration Firewalls and Routers Of course the above would mean that your machine is dangerously open to the Internet, so you could be using a router or firewall. If you are using a router or a firewall (like I do) you’ll have another layer of difficulty. Your router/firewall is the appliance getting the IP address from your ISP, not your computer. Your computer is probably using a static (non-changing) IP address or an IP address given it during the installation procedure of the router (which doesn't change). In this case, the Dynamic DNS company needs to be monitoring the firewall/router and not your IP address on your computer…basically just a check box on the Dynamic DNS software. However, you’ll need to configure something called ‘forwarding’ on the firewall/router so web traffic hitting the outside of the firewall gets 'forwarded' to the inside machine with the actual web site. This is actually pretty simple. Assuming you’ve got a home-owner friendly router (like a Linksys), the router will have a ‘forwarding’ screen in its configuration. You basically type in the IP address of the internal web server sitting on your desk and something called a ‘port’. It is a number (1 – 65535) that you match to your website in it’s management properties. As I mentioned above, the default port for a website is 80, but it might not always be....you can check. For example. I go to my desktop, open the management screen for the website, and the first thing I see is a place to put the IP address and Port I want to use. My address is 192.168.1.100 (given to it by the firewall – so it’s already there) and the port I chose was 81. Second, on the firewall’s forwarding screen dialog, I essentially tell it that “ if any traffic comes in marked for port 81(see example below), forward it to 192.168.1.100 (the IP address of the web server). This is why you will see links on my blog to http://bjbarron.thatip.com:81/../content.whatever. I’m a firewall guy and have about a half-dozen…a PIX, a 2514 router with firewall software, a Checkpoint, a Linksys wireless, ISA 2000 and 2003 (software firewalls), and others. When I get bored with one I change it out. They all do port forwarding, but they all do it slightly differently...either graphically or by command line. I’m also a tiny bit more skilled with websites, so I actually have created several ‘sub-websites’ (called virtual directories) on my web server. They appear to be subdirectories…one for music and one for other content. It looks like this when you hover over a link… http://bjbarron.thatip.com:81/blogfiles/beerformyhorses.mp3 or http://bjbarron.thatip.com:81/blogfiles/gatlinggun.wmv Using Windows permissions, I allow people to download anonymously only from the directories pointed to by the website, but to upload requires knowing passwords….and I have access to the entire machine remotely. Once you’ve got these web directories recognized by your website, you can dump any file you want into them and link to the files on your blog. If you're a blogger and wonder how some guys can host video and music on their sites, knowing how much the bandwidth and storage charges are...the above is one way you can do it.

My Desktop or Firewall appears to be down, so some links and photos won't work until I get home to check it out. Update: Sucker was frozen for some reason....reboot. I hate computers.

My IP address changed again. I use my server at home as a dump for large files, eg, music, videos, and pictures. I link to them from the blog by IP address and port. I pay for a commercial website for the blog so this saves on data storage ( & money ). Every time Comcast changes my IP address, I have to change all the redirects on my blog, signatures, and other places. It's a pain in the ass. I went with a Dynamic DNS redirection outfit. Theoretically I can use foonman.thatip.com as the URL and it will always point to my home server...even when the IP address changes. For example....I could have a link on the blog to http://foonman.thatip.com:8163/blog/studmuffin.jpg And no matter how many times Comcast changes my IP, the link would still be good. You have to add a client that keeps track of your IP and has a heartbeat up to ThatIP. Well I configured it, but I am still resolving to the initial default supplied with the software...you change it to your current IP and it is supposed to instantly update their DNS. That didn't happen. Eventually I'll get it to work, and then I won't have to worry about retyping in a hundred addresses around the Net every time my ISP changes my address. Update: Apparently my ISP has a 2 hour TTL on the DNS cache...it took a while but it's working.

I am still experiencing difficulty since the cable modem crapped out and I needed to put another in. No links that access the desktop from the outside network are working. My router is picking up the wrong IP from Comcast when I put that in the loop. I may have to spoof a MAC address to get the correct IP. I'll try that tonight when I get home from class. PITA

My ubr905 cable modem crapped out. I spent a day and a half working on it and finally just put my old comcast modem back on line. It seems to be working fine now. No internet access, no email, no porno for two days....bummer. As a side note, I rebuilt the blog after making some changes to the individual archives and added about 30 megs to it...resulting in immediate contact from my ISP. Sooooo, I changed the archives back and rebuilt again. Hopefully I won't be over my quota now. Back on line yes, but I'll need to reset NAT on my router. All the IP addresses changed for gateways and DNS. I'll do that late at night. At the moment, I don't want to screw up my connection. Update: Working. I even put the wireless back up ( I had pulled the equipment for a lab in my class). Jess is down for the holiday and wants to use his Mac (gag) on wireless...assuming he is sober enough to find the house tonight. Update II: While a direct connect into my computer seems to work fine, when the cable modem is connected to my Cisco 2514 it seems to be intermittant. That's not good. I do not want a direct connect into my computer, for the obvious reasons. Oh well, looks like ISA. I installed ISA (Microsoft's firewall software) and configured it. Everything seems to be working OK. If I leave it up, the kids will have to install a firewall client when they bring their machines down. The wireless is still working as a simple bridge. I'll leave it like this for a bit, and then try the router again...altho ISA is doing a better job as a firewall.

The Web has been very spotty for two days. I'm getting 5 minutes of access for every hour of down time. I had to switch my internet connection away from my router and directly into the laptop to get a slightly better connection. That means things on the blog won't 'port translate' and there will be some missing graphics, music, and videos...at least until the connection firms up. Update: Well we seem to be back. I went back to a routed network (instead of a direct connection to my computer) as everything seems to be back on line. My routed network (using Cisco firewall software) allows me to port translate to services on my internal private network. In other words, if you connect to a link on my commercial website you are redirected to an internal server sitting in my home office. Larger files like video, music, and large graphics can be hosted locally - saving me bandwidth and storage fees at my ISP. However, this means that my home network must be reliable. My home network consists of a ubr905 cable-router (used as a bridge) connected to a 2514 router. The 2514 is connected to a 1912 switch. All Cisco equipment. The switch connects to a desktop, a jetdirect external box, and a wireless router (again used as a bridge). The laptop is connected to the network via Linksys wireless and winds up in various rooms of the house. The jetdirect connects to a Laserjet 6p. There is also a HP psc 750 connected into the laptop via USB for color printing/scanning/copying, etc. There is a standalone fax stashed in a corner. The 2514 router is running a Cisco firewall IOS which allows me to publish files out to the internet from my private network. The wireless box is protected by WEP codes and also generates DHCP addresses for visiting computers. For Example: Only Time - Enya is hosted on my desktop on a private network but can be shared thru the firewall with the proper combination of firewall commands and desktop software. The firewall commands use a combination of NAT and Port Addressing while the desktop host has IIS with virtual directorys and a very specific permission scheme. My router setup is after the jump.

I found an almost new KDS 19" monitor at a garage sale today...woohoo. I'm back on my desktop and the laptop is in the guest bedroom where it belongs. Soooooo much faster.

I have gotten a handle on comment and trackback spam by using SpamLookup. Referrer Spam is another problem alltogether. My ISP does not support .htaccess files in perl which are the main defense against this type of spam. The only thing I can do is go through my logs, type each referrer URL into a domain whois database to find the IP, and then ban the IP in Movable Type. A cumbersome method. I did about 50 of them tonight...and it took about an hour. I've got about a hundred to go. About 90% of my spam comes from domains owned by the cock sucker known as Justin Wong (probably a fake name) in British Columbia. May he burn in hell forever. I don't understand why people don't just track these fuckers down and burn them at the stake. Believe me, if Justin Fucking Wong was local to me...he would die a mysterious yet hideously painful and lingering death. Pour l'encouragement des autres! Update: Ultimately I blocked 25 IP addresses that were responsible for 371 pieces of referrer spam in the first two weeks of May. Those 25 addresses referenced 91 seperate sites that I wouldn't touch with gloves on. Futile...they just change their addresses on a regular basis. Readers of this blog don't see referrer spam...it just clogs up my logs. For those of you who do not know, referrer spam refers to how owners of crap sites can link to other sites in such a way to create a link back to their own garbage, and thereby raise their hit count on places like Google. If you typed in some porn search on Google, you get the sites at the top of the list with the highest hit count...even if it is artifically created by referrer spam. I was getting hit a couple of thousand times a month with referrer spam until I started fighting it...popular sites can get hit with thousands an hour.

This utility is working wonderfully now that I have it set up properly....I have had only 3 pieces of comment spam make it past the blocker, and those were dropped into the "moderate" bin. No trackback spam has made it past the filter. Seeing I was getting 2000 hits of trackback and comment spam a month for a while, this is great. I'll be able to leave comments on until the spammers figure out how to get around SpamLookup.

We're going to try the new Movable Type system for comments. Maybe we can keep the Viagra stuff to a minimum, doncha think? Update: Well that is wierd. My comments are there, but the background is black. You are also supposed to see a 'word' to type in to make sure the comments are coming from a human. Some configuration is in order. Fixed the colors, but the new SpamLookup program is twisty. It seems to work, but I can't get into the configuration to play with it to give it a 'word' to varify humanity. And comments are moderated...I don't want that. I'll get it working... Update II: Ok, I had to contact the author, but I was able to get this plugin working, sort of. I am still wondering about the comment passphrase utility. It passes all the built-in tests, but when I actually try to add a comment to my own freakin' blog, I'm told that I've been banned. Great. I will keep playing with it because I like the passphrase part of it. Eventually comments will work, and maybe, just maybe, I won't get swamped by comment and trackback spam...I've got enough sources for Viagra to last me a lifetime.

I'm redesigning the blog for three columns, be prepared for wierd stuff for a while.... Update: OK, I got three columns in and populated them. The structure was done via the style sheet. Populating the third column just meant moving some stuff from one part of the blog's main template to another part. I still expect to tweak the colors, sizes, and shapes, but the hard work is done. At least it was hard for me. I ain't a programmer. It took me about three hours to tweak the style sheet to get it right...then about a minute flat to populate the columns and upload them to the ISP. Absolute vs. Relative vs. left margins vs. right margins....bleech!

To give you an idea of what I deal with, Blacklist has blocked 2077 comment spams since I installed it around January 9th. I still get several dozen comment spams a week which have to be reported and removed manually. That's with comments turned off. That doesn't even count the trackback spam infesting the Net. Two days into the month, I've got 27 log entries already for trackback spam. This is more difficult for me to get rid of because my host does not run the Perl modules that would allow me to run a proper .htaccess file. Trackbacks are off also for all the good that does me. I can only imagine the horror for the most popular sites. I expect that their hosts do more to help them, and I find that most of them are not running MovableType as a blog engine. I've cut down the crap quite a bit, but I'm still getting whacked.