Not So Famous…

I went with my friend Gabe to the new Rocky Balboa movie, and was amazed at how much I enjoyed it! I have always enjoyed the Rocky series.  It’s always good for some cheesy entertainment, with Adrian screaming for Rocky, and Rocky screaming for Adrian. You go to a Rocky movie, and you know what to expect, you know?

First off, I like that they didn’t call it Rocky VI. It’s definitely not the same movie that we’re used to seeing with Rocky. I won’t spoil anything, but it’s really an emotionally charged movie. It’s good to have seen the earlier movies, thought, as they do pay a great deal of homage to what has come before.

And here’s something I didn’t know if I would be able to say after this movie; This film is seriously wholesome. The Rocky series has never been about debauchery or violence. Sure, the whole point of the movies seem to be boxing, which many see as needless violence. However, I remind you, the movies are far more about Rocky trying to provide for his family and make a place for his family in the world.  He was never about fortune and fame.  He supported his wife with his only skill, and that was boxing. You can question his choices…that’s fine.  But if more men would use all of their being to love and support their families, I think we’d read the news in a far better mood these days.

The new Rocky movie contains no swearing that I can remember. There’s absolutely no adultery. And Rocky is one of the most giving people I have ever seen on the silver screen who is not portrayed as overtly Christian. Sure, he prays before he fights. He has the Scriptures read to him before he goes into the ring. But the film isn’t preachy, except perhaps to remind people that if they love Rocky as a character, it’s because he is a wonderful person. Reminds us that if we would like to be loved, perhaps we ought to be as loving as he is.

This movie is just stunning, and I was happy to have seen it in the theater. I would like to leave you with a surprising quote from Sylvester Stallone that convinced me that I should see this movie.

“The more I go to church,” he said, “and the more I turn myself over to the process of believing in Jesus and listening to His Word and having Him guide my hand, I feel as though the pressure is off me now.”

He admits that he’s not always followed the example of Christ, but that he is attempting to turn his life around, beginning with going to church.  In this quote, Stallone reminds us that Christianity isn’t a solo gig.  He reminds us why the Lord calls us to not forsake meeting with one another.

“You need to have the expertise and the guidance of someone else. You cannot train yourself,” he said. “I feel the same way about Christianity and about what the church is: The church is the gym of the soul.”

This is the original article from citizenlink.org, and I recommend both the article and the movie for your edification.  :)

The Gym of the Soul

I wish each and every one of you a blessed Christmas. May you spend it with the people whom you love. Drink responsibly, and always remember the real meaning of Christmas.  If you’ve temporarily forgotten it, watch the Charlie Brown Christmas Special, and pay close attention to what Linus says when Charlie Brown asks him what the real meaning of Christmas is.

Whatever would possess me to change a perfectly good noun into a verb, you ask? Simple, really…my hatred of technology. Not really…here’s what happened.

A couple years ago, I got a Linksys Wireless-G Broadband Router from my work so that I could do work from home while being protected by the NAT firewall of the router. Now, I realize that is a lot of techno-babble, but trust me, it all makes sense. When I left the company for which I was working at the time, I had to give the router back. I purchased a replacement router, and it’s worked alright since then. My problem with the Linksys routers has always been that I could not reserve IP Addresses for my computers based on their MAC Addresses. (More techno-babble, I know.) Basically, I want the router itself to distribute IP addresses based on the network card’s MAC Address. This way, my desktop computer always gets the same IP address, my TiVo computer always gets the same IP address, etc. I know I can always set up static IP addresses in Windows, but that’s just not the same, and it doesn’t help when it comes to printers and other, “dumber” IP devices. If I take my laptop outside my network, I have to change IP Address from the static IP address to “Obtain Automatically”, and that’s just a hassle. Furthermore, I know that Windows provides a Backup Setting where you can specify an IP address, but if that IP Address isn’t available, you can set it up to automatically look for one, but that always took my computer around 5 minutes to resolve. I don’t want to wait that long if I just want to get on and check my e-mail. The best solution was just to forget that IP Address reservations based on MAC Address ever existed; a tall order considering the fact that with Windows Server 2003 at work, I set up IP address reservations all the time. I figured I’d just have to do without.

Fast forward to this week where I’m looking for a free, configurable VPN solution. I came across OpenVPN, which is a great solution, though definitely non-trivial to configure. (In searching for configuration instructions, I came across a guy who said, and I quote:

“The particular router I used for testing is a Linksys WRT54G version 1.1 running Sveasoft’s Alchemy firmware.”

Whoa! Wait a minute…did he say he’s using the firmware from another company to run his router?? Is that possible? As I begin to do a little bit of research on the subject, I come to find out that not only is it possible, everyone except from my circle of friends has either done this themselves or has at least heard about it. How did I miss out? Apparently, the reason that Linksys wireless routers are so popular was because you could upgrade their firmware to a 3^rd party firmware which adds all kinds of neat features, and often is more stable than Linksys’ own firmware. When I go to read some of the features that the 3^rd party software has, I discover this little line:

“Static DHCP address assignments”

Wait a minute…Static DHCP assignments??? WOOT!!!! This is something I have been wanting for a couple years now! Finally, I can do this! In addition, I find that I can have a better interface than Linksys’ original firmware, and I can boost my wireless signal by 600% without breaking the law. Tell me that isn’t the coolest thing? Sounds like a no-brainer, right? I mean, Linksys released the source code to their firmware, and open sourcers modified it, making it better. Isn’t that how Linux has improved over the years? Isn’t that exactly how Open Source works? Linksys has even re-incorporated some of the 3^rd party changes into their official firmware proving the wisdom of their decision to release the source. I have a Linksys router, so shouldn’t I just go for it?

Hold it right there, Turbo.

Turns out that there are 6+ versions of Linksys’ WRT54G router. Versions 1 through 4 are all upgradeable. They use the Linux operating system, and contain 4MB of flash memory. This means that standard Linux firmwares will work, no problem. In version 5, however, Linksys changed the specs of their router to run on VXWorks OS, and shrunk the amount of memory from 4MB to 2MB. This SUCKS, because these new firmwares only run on Linux, and I HAVE A v5!!! However, I came across instructions with how to change your v5 or v6 to Linux, as well as the proper firmware to use; something called DD-WRT Micro. WOOT! I purposed in my mind to do this at my earliest opportunity.

“My earliest opportunity” turned out to be last night. I asked Gabe and Daniel to be there to cheer me on. It turned out that they were there to assure me that something was going to go wrong. They continued to assure me that I would destroy my router in doing this. Needless to say, I felt good about it. I followed the process, flashed my router, and everything was working awesome. The new firmware was nice-looking, and added far more features than I previously had. I was stoked…no trashing of my router tonight.

However, I failed to notice something that I think was crucial. The Micro version of the DD-WRT software did not have all the options of the full version of DD-WRT firmware. Namely, the PPPoE protocol (which MOST DSL connections use to connect…mine included) was completely missing. After much research, I discovered that the full version would work just fine. So I flashed to the new version…or so I thought. The Micro version popped up again. So I flashed to another firmware entirely…Micro came back. I couldn’t flash to anything!!! Furthermore, as soon as the lease on my DSL’s IP ran out, I was screwed…I wouldn’t be able to connect to the DSL! As I looked around, I found out that the 2MB of memory that my router had was hampering my upgrading. The major firmware releases are all 3MB or higher, so I couldn’t load those. I could ONLY load stripped down Micro versions of firmware, and only DD-WRT made a Micro…or did it?

After looking some more, I came across a firmware called OpenWRT, which claimed to be for advanced users. I placed myself in that category, and looked into it. Turns out that THEY made a firmware that was micro and was supposed to have far more features. In a moment of desperation, I flashed to the new firmware, and immediately regretted it. When they said “advanced users”, they meant “users who have experience setting up a Linux Distribution as a routing computer”, which clearly excluded me. The new firmware didn’t even have a web interface, and I had to telnet into it to configure it. I was fastly getting FED UP with what all was going on, and decided to flash back to the original firmware. Let me tell you, this is also not trivial. Here’s what I had to do.

First, I had to unplug my router from power. Then, I had to start up a continuous ping of my router with a 10ms timeout. Then I had to open a new command window and prepare the TFTP command to send the binary firmware to the router. (Don’t press enter, now.) Then, I go back up and plug in the router. As SOON as my continuous ping started getting replies, I was to hit enter and begin the TFTP process sending the firmware to the router. It took a couple of times to get this right, but within about 20 minutes, I had the firmware flashed. I reset the router, and it was dead.

THIS is what is referred to as “bricking” the router. The definition of “bricking”? “The process by which a moron takes a perfectly good router and turns it into a perfectly worthless paperweight with little fiddly antennas sticking out of the back of it.” At this point, there’s NOTHING I can do with the old WRT54G v4. All I can do is look to the future. Some background about the options I have available to me in terms of a new router.

Linksys’ decision to move away from a Linux OS was not a popular one with the WRT54G community. Their decision to shrink the available memory: also not popular. In fact, there was so much public outcry that Linksys released a router called WRT54GL to placate the masses, which is essentially the v4 router that has been rebranded. They returned to the 4MB memory and the Linux OS, and is now the best choice for those wanting to flash their firmware. It being Christmas starting up here, my options for purchasing a WRT54GL online all involve a lengthy shipping process that can get the thing to me by no sooner than Tuesday of next week. So here I sit, wishing that a local vendor carried it so I could have a new router today, but knowing there is nothing I can do about it except wait for it to get here. NewEgg.com ships fast, though.
My advice to you? Check your router version before flashing to new firmware, if you have a WRT54G. I definitely recommend some of the 3^rd party firmwares out there…the features are just too nice to pass up. You can turn your router into a far more expensive device with a free piece of software. Truth be told, these firmwares are basically a gussied up version of Linksys’ own firmware. However, I recommend against doing so if you have DSL, and a v5 or v6 Linksys router. The Micro version of DD-WRT is excellent if you run Cable Modem, or another type of connection that doesn’t require a user name and password. I was really happy with all the neat features they left in there. I just wish they hadn’t removed PPPoE. The only reason I bricked my router was trying to get it back to the original firmware. They are serious when they say that the chances of bricking yours are very low. However, make sure you know all the information before going in.

I don’t have the greatest picture, but this is so cool, I thought I’d blog about it. I don’t know if it’s legible, but it says “Graduated with Honors” below my name! YAY! I’m so happy! :) Merry Christmas a week early to me! :)

And by this, I mean the people who run their blog using software like WordPress, or some of the other more advanced (read: Pain in the rear) blogging softwares that you have to install yourself, etc.  Are you plagued by blogspam?  Do you get long lists of links that are more annoying than a gnat in your eye?  Perhaps Akismet is for you.

Many of you probably already know this, but Akismet is a blogspam-stopping plugin for many blog softwares.  It comes pre-installed in WordPress 2.0+ builds, but you have to get a Wordpress.com account to activate it.  Allow me to say that it’s more than worth it.  If you have your blog on Movable Type or some other blog software, Akismet may have already been adapted to work with your software.  Head over to their site for a list of software adaptations here. (Link opens in new window.) The Akismet software talks with the Akismet servers and sort of compares notes, if you will. When anyone else running Akismet marks a comment as spam, that information is shared with the Akismet servers so that everyone can benefit from the spam-blocking.

I only share it with you because I love it so much.  :)  For what it’s worth, according to Akismet’s site today, they have blocked almost 1.5 million spam comments today, and 94% of all comments are spam!

Today I got to drive for a couple hours all over a couple counties to pick up a couple sets of plans that needed to make their way back to the main office. Sometimes driving for hours is a chore in the Central Valley. (I blogged about this a couple years ago.) Today was very nice, though. Very few people on the road, and all of those people were very courteous and calm; something we don’t get around here very often. Anyway, while driving to counties that I normally don’t get to visit, I get to listen to more than just our local conservative talk radio. Today, I got to pick up a program out of Fresno called the Ray Appleton Show, which I rather enjoyed. On this show, Ray read the top 10 Junk Science Moments of 2006, which was rather enlightening. Junkscience.com was the originator of this list, and I hereby present it for your learning enjoyment.

Top 10 Junk Science Moments of 2006

This is an official TheDow Public Service Announcement.

Please don’t encourage e-mail spammers. Many spammers are members of affiliate programs who make money simply by people clicking links in their spam. If you get an e-mail from someone pushing WHATEVER, and it reminds you that you’ve been needing to pick up some WHATEVER, just buy the WHATEVER by opening your browser and going to the site directly.

Furthermore, don’t follow ANY stock tips you receive in mail.  These are just pump and dump scams, used much by the mob in recent years.  The SEC frowns upon manipulating stock prices in this manner, and if you actually purchase the lame stocks they are recommending, you’ll end up with worthless stocks at a loss that you HAVE to keep or risk losing lots of money.  “Pump and Dump” refers to the method of scammers pushing these stocks via cold calls or e-mails, and when people buy them, they dump their stock at a major profit.  Their dumping causes the prices to drop catastrophically, and you’re stuck with stocks that are worth nothing.  Sounds like fun, eh?

At any rate, PLEASE don’t buy anything from spammers.  I’m sick of getting these freakin’ messages, and I know most of you are too.  I don’t know if this message is actually going to do anything, but I just felt like typing.  :)  I’ve got a funny Bay Area story, but I can’t blog about it until after Christmas.  :)

(Sorry about this technological rant for those who aren’t technologically inclined. This is about the newest version of Windows, so even those of you who are techno-dolts, as my mother-in-law likes to refer to herself, might enjoy this article. I’m in Information Technology, so I occasionally discuss my work.) :)

Well, Microsoft’s new OS has been released to manufacturing, and many bloggers are commenting on what they’ve discovered in the beta versions they’ve tested. Beta 1 was readily available, and many tried it out, myself included. Overall, I liked the OS…I think the new look is well-overdue. I think the search capabilities included in Vista are welcome, though easily accomplished through third-party software. Overall, I think the little touches here and there are nice. Needed? Not really, but nice to have.

However, Microsoft is being rather quiet about some of the “features” of its new OS. Specifically, Windows Vista is very DRM (Digital Rights Management)-friendly, leading some to wonder if they’ll be prevented from doing what they want to do with their computers. Specifically, there is a new feature in Vista that will actually turn off video outputs that have devices connected to them that aren’t copy-protected. The apparent focus of this (according to my inside source, Gabe), is high definition video and on-demand television. In terms of video, we’re talking about HD-DVD and Blu-Ray discs. In this case, it’s up to the content providers to implement the copy protection technology. However, I’ve read of other cases where some copy protection in the Macrovision spec will provide the same functionality for TV analogue ports. Basically, if you’re viewing content on a computer monitor or TV that does not contain the copy protection or on a video card without the same type of protection, the movie/content might either be of degraded quality, or else won’t play at all. Now, I’ve been told by my inside source in the industry that the protection for HD-DVD has been put on hold to allow the technology to get off the ground. However, it is my suspicion that we haven’t heard the last of this type of technology, and that more details will come out as soon as more people get their hands on the final versions of Vista.

However, I would like to point out what many others are pointing out….”What’s new??” Microsoft has been moving this direction for years. In fact, when Microsoft released their version of Altair BASIC in the 70’s (after promising it before it was even developed), Mr. Gates was angry that people were copying his software. He wrote a letter to the Altair user group saying, “most of you steal your software”, etc. MITS was powerless to do anything, but was afraid that Bill’s loud mouth would alienate their user community.

Peter Coffee from eWeek magazine wrote an article detailing that the realization of Vista is really unchanged from Mr. Gates’ original vision, which can be found here: An Unchanging Vista. (I am quoting from the print version, which differs slightly.) This is what Mr. Coffee had to say about Microsoft.

Thirty years ago, to put it plainly, a company given to premature promises of software capability explicitly accused its hardware partner’s customers of being unethical abusers of digital content-but had neither the technology nor the clout to do anything about it. The last clause sums up what’s now changed.

So it’s immaterial who won [the PC Wars of the 90's]-because users have settled for a definition of success that conceals their fundamental loss. Remember the personal computer? So do I.

In the online version, Mr. Coffee expands on what he means by his last paragraph.

So, has Microsoft won? Measured by market share and money, certainly. Measured by whose vision of personal computing in 1984 looks more like the reality of today, clearly not.

If our standard of measure, however, is the power to create and control the lightning in the bottle of what the PC can be, then the question of who has won is immaterial—because the user has settled for a definition of success that conceals a far more fundamental loss.

Remember the personal computer? So do I—and I miss it.

Sure, Microsoft’s product interoperate well together. Sure, they’ve made great strides in security and stability. However, the financial success that has come with their successes in these areas has been used to develop freedom-reducing technologies. And before you spout off that a Christian should not be pirating software/movies/music anyway, I feel I should point out that current copyright laws permit me to make a backup copy of any content I own for personal use. They also deny me the right to circumvent copy protections to do so. As I approach the time wherein I will be having kids, I want my DVD’s and CD’s to be protected, so I don’t have to purchase replacement copies for what they destroy. What if I want to bring a backup copy to a friend’s house to watch a movie for an evening? (As long as I take it home.) According to current copyright law, I could be investigated by the FBI for piracy. This is getting ridiculous.

Microsoft’s friendship with DRM technology worries me, because I am currently using a video card and monitor that I don’t plan on replacing for the next however many years they last. If I switch to Vista, I’ll not be able to watch HD-DVD’s when they activate that copy protection. This bothers me, and I’ll be darned if I’m going to replace my hardware just to make the MPAA or RIAA happy.

This is all quite sad, because I really like Vista. It’s going to be Microsoft’s most stable and secure OS release ever, and as I said before, it’ll have some good features. Too bad they’re all a bunch of nazis over there at Micro$oft.

Originally, I posted this to let everyone know that I had disabled comments to one of my spam-prone posts, as I’m sick of getting 2-3 spam comments a day on that one post. However, I did some research and found out that the new version of WordPress came bundled with a spam reduction service called Akismet, which is free. So I did some poking around and enabled that service. The nice thing about this service is that it learns from what I mark as spam if one slips through!

I’ve re-enabled comments on that post I was talking about. I dare them to spam it. :)

Holy Cow! The problem I mentioned last week that had been plaguing me all week has just resolved as of this morning. It’s a very techie-sort of problem, but I’ll explain what I can without making things geekier than they need to be.

Basically, GoDaddy blocked a LARGE IP address range, which is apparently their favorite thing to do. This IP address range contained my company’s IP address, which meant that every company who uses GoDaddy was not able to receive e-mails from my company. This was kicked up to Code Red when we noticed it on Monday. (We were unable to e-mail one of our common correspondents.)

When I contacted GoDaddy to ask them to remove the block from my IP address, they claimed that my e-mail domain was not set up properly with reverse DNS, so they would not unblock it. EXCUSE ME? You block an entire pool of IP addresses for no reason, and then you refuse to unblock a specific IP address when asked nicely? That is NO way to do business.

I harped on the reason for being blocked for awhile when it became apparent to me that it didn’t matter to GoDaddy whether or not there was a reason for blocking me. They are apparently unconcerned that the businesses who use their services are unable to conduct business with us (and many others). Basically, if you use GoDaddy, know that they don’t give a crap whether or not they are making things difficult for you. At this point, I turned to getting reverse DNS set up properly so I could get unblocked by GoDaddy.

This turned out to be a week-long ordeal, which stressed me out in a big way. I have it all fixed now, but I wanted to let everyone know that if you use GoDaddy, I highly recommend switching to someone else. I can recommend a couple hosting providers or domain registrars instead of GoDaddy, either of whom will serve your business better than GoDaddy.

And for what it’s worth, I’m not the only person to have suffered from this problem. I found at least 1 blog entry that specifically mentioned GoDaddy as the offender. Countless other problems on the message boards I found didn’t mention GoDaddy, but when I looked at their messages, they were having the same problem. It wouldn’t surprise me if GoDaddy was the problem there too. Basically, I don’t really think anyone should need another reason to switch providers other than the fact that GoDaddy is proving with their obstinacy that they are not interested in helping their customers do business. How is an attitude like THAT good for business?

If you want to know who I suggest for domain registration and/or hosting, please post a comment. I’m more than happy to.