Category: MuchTall.com News

Off for the week(end) to spend some time in Vegas with the most wonderful woman in the world! More details (and pictures) to come.

Well, the time had come to finally get rid of the beast known as the 96 Cougar XR7. The V8 was fun, and the car was fast when I needed it to be, but I was getting concerned with its health going into the winter months, and it apparently wasn't pimp enough for some people.

I went into the dealership and found a mint Arctic Green 2002 Ford Explorer XLT 4x4, 4.0 V6 with ~65000 miles. I talked the guy down from 15K to 13.5 (with the help of my wonderful girl, Kaylan), and the sales guy shook hands on giving me $1000 for my trade, sight-unseen. Sucker! hehe.


Anyhow, the beauty is now in my hands, and the beast has been given the last goodbye. Take a look at my new pride, my new ride...

Small animals... beware.

Update: So the Monday morning I brought my trade in, the ABS light came on in the Explorer and hasn't gone off since. I went on Google, and it turns out I'm not the only one (Search: "Rear ABS Sensor" 2002 Explorer). I called the dealer on Tuesday, and set up an appointment to bring it in today (Thursday) to get that looked into, as well has have the keypad/keyless entry code retrieved from the computer. I brought it in this morning and got a call back a couple hours ago with the news. Sure enough: The rear ABS sensor needs to be replaced. The service dept wanted to charge me $200 parts/labor, but I told them that I didn't have the truck more than 2 days and the light came on. If it was going to cost me that much, I'd rather look into other options. He ended up going back to the sales manager and explaining the situation to him to try to get a discounted rate, ~$100 was his estimate. But thankfully, he just called back and left me a message stating that they will fix the problem for free. Let's just hope that the light stays off for at least 30K miles. I'd hate to be replacing that thing every 8K at $100 a pop.

Just a quick note. The server is finished moving.

Hey everybody! The server is moving to a new location tomorrow and I need everyone to change their DNS settings. Your current nameserver settings are probably set to:

NS1.NEWTOW.ORG
NS2.NEWTOW.ORG

They NEED to be changed to:

NS1.MUCHTALL.COM
NS1.NEWTOW.ORG

ASAP!!!!

Let me know if you need help with this. Here is the change status if each domain I am aware of:

alsgameshack.com
chipvalhousing.com
ckmenterprises.com
deadlypeons.com
h2ostreet.com
kc2422.com
newtncomputn.com
newtn.org
newtnwireless.com
newtow.org
schrofelan.com
shukoski.com

(UNMOVED : MOVED)

No, Linuxwhore.com isn't gone. It's still right here, however I'm going by a new domain name: MuchTall. Among other reasons, I decided I needed a more unique name. As of this date, the only result that MuchTall gets on Google is some site that randomly happened to squish much and tall together in their search engine keywords. So it's pretty much a clean name without evidence of use anywhere else but here. Today would be it's Google christening.

I'm still keeping Linuxwhore.com, and I still contend that I was the first. I'm not really pleased that so many people decided to rip it off. It was a unique identity, and they pretty much ruined it. When people start squatting on addresses like linuxwhore@gmail.com, I get a little pissed.

I need to learn how to negotiate...

Network Systems and Data Communications Analysts

Hmm.

It's been years since I conceived the idea, and then the idea was forgotten. Or rather more likely, dropped due to lack of interest, or motivation. I had the idea for a web-based family history site where family data could be updated frequently, high-res photos could be posted, and stories could be added as recalled. However, I didn't know where to start. I didn't have anything to use as an example. But that changed last month when my Great Aunt Lorraine finished the John E. Holmstadt Family History book. She'd put so much effort into it, but unfortunately, none of it is in electronic form.

So here's where I plan to step in. I'm going to start on my PHProots project and see if I can use the information she had gathered as a springboard. Hopefully it will provide enough structure to lead me in the right path, design-wise. The first step will be to import all the data back into electoric form by scanning in all 334 pages. I'm not sure just yet what format I should use for this, but my initial thoughts are to use 2400 DPI scans of the pages (in case someone wants a replica print of the book), and then make a downsampled copy of the images at ~150-300 DPI for scanning purposes. All the pages will then be ran through OCR and dumped into raw text files. This text will provide the filler for the initial database design.

...(much programming and design tweaking takes place)...

After a working site has been created, I want to invite family to re-submit photos and high-res scans for the website. Many of the photos in the book are poor quality, possibly due to low-quality reproduction. Not to mention, all of them are black and white.


Finally, I want to design a PDF-izer and CD/DVD-izer feature into the PHProots suite. Basically, a person could take a snapshot of the album at any time by pressing a button on the site, and minutes later a print-qulity PDF, CD, or DVD would be generated, ready for printing or multimedia viewing.

It's ambitious, but I think it'd be cool.

It occurred to me recently just how far I've come along the lines of IT knowledge. Years ago I experienced the frustration of not understanding the operation of computer hardware or software and wishing I knew more. I just kept plugging away and time after time, a new idea would be revealed to me like a veil was lifted from my eyes. I still experience this nearly every day. It's hard to quantify just how much knowledge a person has in IT until you start supporting the real newbies, the guys that struggle with installing a printer, or understanding the difference between a telephone port and an ethernet port.

It's funny, because I sometimes meet people decades younger than my mother that seem to be less computer literate than her. I remember back in my early helpdesk days priding myself upon patience for the customer, and encouraging them whenever they felt uneasy about what they had done or in their ability to just work the computer. It's actually pretty wild. It seems the people I worked with on the phone on a daily basis were waay more savvy than the people I work with now. Heck, at least those people usually knew how to connect. I dunno, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I just look back more fondly than I should upon that experience. Maybe it's that the scenarios were much more structured than the scenarios I work with.

Anyhow, I'm still learning, and having fun too.

Just a quick commentary to help keep my site from getting too stale (too late).

I recently re-committed myself to mental and physical restraint in one area of my life. Since I've been struggling to quit this addiction for over a decade, I've needed to look to others for help, and to other methods of helping myself.

Something that I've never tried, but that seems to be helping tremendously is wearing a rubberband on one wrist. The rubberband itself does nothing, it's power is in how you use it. Whenever I have a bad thought that tempts me back toward regression, I just give myself a good snap. This helps to de-program my mind by giving it a negative response to a bad thought. This overcomes the decades of bad programming when I recieved pleasure from acting upon those thoughts.

This little rubberband has helped me to rebuild and uphold my commitment to my faith. I hope someone else finds this suggeston helpful in reshaping their daily thoughts as well.

I just thought I'd take a moment now to say I kick arse. If you knew how much I rock right now, you'd faint. My geek skills are so white hot, you'd get burned just watching me work from a distance.


More details to come. I have to sleep :-)

Ok, so here's the deal. Due to a few reasons that I can't reveal, that company that I work for lost its internet connection on Monday night. So for most of the day Tuesday, we were dead in the water, with no chance of getting our T1 turned back up any time soon. After going over serveral options for internet access, we came to 1 immediate solution. Run the company's internet activity over my cell phone's unlimited data access. So by Tuesday evening, we were running a ~60-70 person network over a ~115kbps connection. Painful, but workable. I even ran our email over it.

Yesterday, a co-worker approached the business next door about sharing internet access for a couple days. So, after setting up a laptop with IPCop, we had a reasonable internet connection up and running. One problem tho, we were now running over an already NATted connection: no port 25 (SMTP/Email) access. We do, however, have a ServerBeach system with Win2K3 installed. After investigating the option of doing connection sharing there, and running port 25 over a VPN link (too complicated, and risky routing), I decided to setup an SMTP server. However, much like most MS products, you can't do what you need without spending a fortune. The solution? XMail. I was able to set it up to receive mail for our domains, then forward the message via the VPN link. Much simpler, and less risky. After a few hour pouring over the docs, and realizing that I was missing a carriage return in the config files, we were up and running.


It's now Thursday, and since ~8AM Monday, I've been either working, driving to/from work, or sleeping (+/- 1 hour free time). So yeah, I could care less what a certain previous employer claimed: I kick ass.

I thought I'd let everybody know that on February 1st, I will be moving in with my cousin Chris in St. Paul. This will cut down on my commuting costs (~$300/mo), and will allow me to start building a new social network.

I'll make it quick, because I'm running on about 33 hours without sleep.

Just yesterday I took employment with American Summit Corp. / Wealth Spring Mortgage as their chief computer guy. It's a pretty wide ranging position, so I'm not really sure of the title at the moment. I'm basically going to be handing nearly everything for them that's computer related.

I've got to see if now's a good time for sleep, so I'll comment more on this soon. Yipee!!!

Well, I've been considering this for some time now, and I'm not sure how I'm going to approch this when I actually implement it. I'm thinking of changing the name of Linuxwhore.com. It'll still be accessible by that name, but for reasons of presentability, I think that I need to go by one of my less offensive psudonyms. Therefore, I have purchased and aliased muchtall.com to linuxwhore.com. I'm probably going to keep things as they are for now, and over the coming months I'll be changing the titles on the site to muchtall.

Just was thinking about stuff that I want after I get a job, so I thought I'd make a list. Something to keep me motivated, beyond the usual annoyance of not having a decent income.

A New PC. Integrity, my workstation, will turn into my MythTV server.

Liquid-cooling equiptment. My current box is way noisy.

DVD-+RW DL Drive. Both my burners are going downhill.

A Linux-compatible Scanner. I'd like to be able to scan in old photos and send faxes from my computer. Probably the Epson Perfection 2400. SANE says they support it. Finding a scanner that did 2400x4800 AND was supported by Linux wasn't easy.

iPod. I'd like to be able to keep my whole music collection on 1 device.

1G SD/MMC Card. For my Zaurus.

New SprintPCS phone. My old one works fine, well, except in fringe signal areas. I'd like one with 1MB or more of storage. Camera too maybe. Streaming internet audio would be good too. I'm even considering a Treo (sorry Zaurus).

MythTV expansions. Several new things for my MythTV box. A fanless TV-out card. A 250G drive. Another MPEG2 capture card, maybe 2.

Xbox and a mod chip. I'd like to use it for my MythTV frontend, if it works well.

Color Laser printer. I've got an old used LaserJet 4L now, and inkjets are horrible to keep maintained (clogged heads, expensive ink). Laser color looks so good, and the colors don't run. I was thinking maybe the Konica Minolta Magicolor 2300DL. CUPS says it's supported as well.

Nice Digital Camera. My current one is 1Mpixel and has no zoom.

Wireless keyboard and optical mouse. I've got a wireless set right now, but no optical mouse. Minor really.

The Seinfeld Box set. Seasons 1, 2, and 3. I hope that they still have the full set with the bonus DVD after Christmas.

TV. I don't have one, just an old Packard Bell monitor on my MythTV box.

Philips DVP642 DVD Player. Plays even MPEG4 movies.

Lord of the Rings Book Series Boxed Set. I've seen the movies, now I'd like to imagine them.

Bowflex Ultimate XTLU. Beefcake! I really want to have some workout equiptment, and as long as I'm buying some, it might as well be good.

New Car Radio. Not sure what all I want here. I'm kinda wanting tape, kinda wanting XM, kinda wanting CD, and kinda wanting MP3... all in one single-DIN unit. Pipe dream. I may have to settle for transferring my tapes to MP3/MP3-CD, or just get a nice tape deck with XM.

Dental work. It's been 8 years since I've seen a dentist. I've got a couple chipped/cracked fillings, and maybe a chipped tooth. My fillings are ugly silver/gray too. I'd rather have the white ones.

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For several years now, I've been looking for a good open-source router distribution. Smoothwall comes close, but it's a little simplistic for a good Cisco router replacement. Now, I don't know why I've not heard of it up until now, but here's what sounds like a good option: XORP. I downloaded the LiveCD and I plan to use it on my router box here at home. I hope it's good.

Fedora Core 3 is out. Yay. http://linuxwhore.com/heidelberg-binary-i386/

w00t! Gaim has hit 1.0! Hmm. I don't feel any different? :-)

Anyhow, as usual, there appears to be some odd aversion to developers releasing Fedora-compatible RPMs. Maybe I'm missing something, but it's really quite simple (rpmbuild --rebuild gaim-1.0.0-0.src.rpm). But in the words of Bubba, "I feel your pain". I hate compiling too. So rejoice! Gaim 1.0 RPMs for Fedora Core! These could be different from the "official" RPMs (whenever we see them) but I woun't know the difference. They work fine for me.

Let's see how many people paint me as a nutcase this time around :-)

Update: After a few hours of installing dependencies on my FC1 system, recovering from a power outage, and some router weirdness, I have RPMs for Fedora Core 1 as well!

Whoohoo! I finally got an Orkut accout! Hopefully this leads to a Gmail invite. If you know me and would like an invite (sorry if I missed you), let me know.

Update 8/29: Uh... WTF? I tried to log in to my Orkut account today, and I get "login failed: invalid password". I'm certain I've got the right password, checked the caps lock, and even followed the password change procedure without error. Still no dice. I emailed Orkut help and so I'm waiting for a response. I'm really eager to get back on... I've got smack to lay down.

Much delayed Update 9/19: Ok, so like a week later, it just fixed itself. No reply from Orkut or anything. It appears tho that this was a wide-spread but not all-inclusive problem, so I forgive them.

It's official, I've moved. I've moved back to my hometown, Plum City, and will be staying with my parents until I find a new job. If you wish to contact me, you can still call my cellphone, otherwise you can try my parent's land-line at 715-647-3178.

I still plan to come back around for LAN parties, and I plan to be back yet this weekend to pick a few left odds and ends.

Gentoo: Linux for those who just can't seem to waste enough time.

Just reading through the Fedora Core 2 test 1 release announcment thread on Slashdot. Seems that every other thread is about how much fun it is to compile all your packages for i686 and gain minimal speed increases after waiting hours for it to complete. I'd say that Gentoo is the home for the Linux zealot/purist crowd. No regular user wants to be bothered with compiling. Heck, even I hate compiling.