Archive

Job Change

Published
by
Vanberge
on October 10, 2008
in Journal
. 6 Comments

It’s not every day you have your “last day” at a job you’ve worked at for nearly 4 years.  But, that’s what today is for me.

Everyone’s been very nice to me during this transitional phase - but I can’t help feeling very strange about it all.  On one hand, it’s very exciting for me to be looking forward to an amazing new opportunity.  In fact, I can’t wait to start!  But on the other hand - the people I’ve worked with over these years have become friends; and it does feel strange to think I’ll never be back here again…

Regardless, I’m embracing this change in full, and I feel very optimistic being a young professional in an exciting field.  I’m realizing that the IT industry has alot to offer (even in West Michigan) - and it’s definitely worth seeing it from a fresh perspective.  And I must say - I don’t feel bad about getting out of banking with the current economic climate.  I’ll feel significantly more secure working in the health care industry.

All in all, it’s a very exciting time for me - and I look forward to learning alot of new things and getting a breath of fresh air.

Music Comeback

Published
by
Vanberge
on October 2, 2008
in Journal
. 3 Comments

It’s probably just me - but for about a year I have struggled to find any ‘new’ music that I enjoy.  It’s partly my fault, because I’m admittedly picky about music for some reason.  But that has seemed to start changing lately…

First, I made a point to start using my ipod as it was MEANT to be used. Instead of hacking it, linuxing it, rockboxing it, etc;  I decided to push the default apple firmware onto it,  I upgraded to itunes 8,  and finally synced some new music over to it.

My ‘new’ music is mostly it’s new; but some is just new to me.  I’ve been listening to the following:

I really like Metallica’s new CD.  It’s cool to see they’ve gone back to their “roots” a bit with this new album… I didnt hate  albums like Load or Re-Load; but their older stuff was definitely better.

Taproot seems to continually improve;  They’re just a great band overall and their new Cd is just awesome.  I would even say I love Taproot.  

Finally, I simply must thank Russelteee for putting me into Austrian Death Machine.  This band plays sheer metal; and their subject matter is all based on Arnold Schwarzenegger movies.  The lead singer acts like Arnold, and the songs are based on movies like Terminator, Total Recall, and Predator.   It does sound a bit ridiculous, but the music is good and I cannot get enough of this band.  

Finally, it’s been good to be able to take advantage of my ipod.  Particularly in my car.  I previously used a DLO transpod, which is an FM transmitter that has never fit very well in my car because of where my lighter jack is located.  But I recently talked Mickeyvb into trading me FM transmitters; so I’ve been using the Griffin iTrip instead.  It works way better in my car, and has helped me in gaining a renewed appreciation for music.

Crank Ringtone

Published
by
Vanberge
on September 21, 2008
in Misc
. 3 Comments

I saw “Crank” (great action flick with Jason Statham) when it came out in theaters like 2 years ago… But, I hadn’t seen it since then.

It’s a 100% guy movie, and it’s unique enough to be an interesting watch.

Anyway - I re-watched it today because I woke up way too early, and it was available for free on demand. I noticed that Jason Statham’s character, Chev Chelios, has a cell phone with a pretty sweet ringtone.

I’ve been diligently searching for ANY replacement to my “CTU 24″ ringtone, but all the ones I’ve tried have ended up being temporary: Metal Gear codec ringtone, GTA4’s mission complete - gg vanlandw, and a couple other random ringers. It’s been difficult to find a suitable replacement, but I’m digging this ringtone and plan on keeping it for the foreseeable future.

If interested:
http://www.palmerforpresident.com/misc/Ringtones/Crank-Ringtone.mp3

Or, just click on ‘files’ on the header nav - there’s a couple more ringtones in there. I found a sweet plugin that lets you list out directory contents within the wordpress content. I’ve been meaning to get that installed for awhile now.

Road Trip

Published
by
Vanberge
on September 13, 2008
in Misc
. 4 Comments

So today, as previously posted, I worked. Our bank is trying out new saturday hours where one IT person has to be on staff in case of issues.

Overall a pretty quiet day, and then I misused the shutdown command.

At our Lansing branch, there’s been a computer on for a few days that still has somebody logged in. It’s been throwing tons of account lockout errors into our logs and flooding the crap out of our logging reports. So, I figured I’d do myself a favor and shut that computer off.

I know the microsoft windows shutdown command very well… It can be used to remotely shutdown or restart computers as long as an administrator account is used. Well, I used my admin account and I typed the command so fast and fluidly that I didn’t realize my mistake until it was all over. “shutdown -s -m \\xxx.xxx.xxx.130″ …Hmm… Wait… the computer IP that I wanted to shut down was .30, not .130… shit… what did i just shut off? Pull up our IP list… Double shit. The Lansing domain controller/print server.

A couple people were working at the Lansing branch, but nobody had the necessary clearance to get into the datacenter. And Lansing being a remote market, I didn’t configure HP’s integrated Lights out on that server. There was simply NO possible way to get that server to turn back on aside from driving two hours round trip.

I drove one hour in pouring rain to arrive at our lansing branch, I pushed a power button, and I drove an hour back to GR in pouring rain. But, I stopped at Arby’s at least.

DD-WRT

Published
by
Vanberge
on September 13, 2008
in Journal and Tech
. 3 Comments

I’m writing this post from work; since it’s my first time doing a Saturday rotation and there is nobody else around. :-)

I’ve known about DD-WRT for a long time.  But, probably not many other people have.  So, let me start with a little background.  DD-WRT is an open-source linux based firmware for consumer grade broadband routers.  The idea is that you install DD-WRT, and in the process, erase the default (linksys, netgear, etc.) firmware.  Normal people might say “Why do you want to do that?” - Well, because.  BECAUSE.

For me, I can’t stop hacking things.  It’s almost an OCD.  I’ve hacked my ipod to put Linux and Rockbox on it.  I’ve hacked my Razr v3m with seem edits, I have a modded Xbox (thanks again JJA), and in general I just like to ‘hack’ at things and see what I can do with them.

But with DD-WRT, there’s more of a benefit than just ‘hacking’ your router.  You can turn a bare-bones wireless router into a much more useful piece of equipment.  Your basic device can be transformed to have VPN capabilities, QoS, Vlans, Bandwidth graphing, SSH access, and enhanced security features.

Now, DD-WRT isn’t a new thing by any means.  But for me, I have hit one of those compulsive phases in my technical life where I simply MUST do this.  I MUST use DD-WRT.  Unfortunately my stupid Netgear WGR614v6 does not agree, and is not supported by any open firmware projects.

So I began shopping on ebay, craigslist, consult.it, and any friends I knew that owned a Linksys router.  The Linksys WRT54G is famous for being a hackable device (Linksys actually open sourced the Firmware).  I was simply hell bent on finding a Linsksy WRT54G v4.  Specifically, version 4 is by far the best router to have when looking at DD-WRT because it has 4 megs of flash memory and is not locked down nearly as hard.  In fact, you can upgrade to DD-WRT right from the default Linksys web interface.

After a few hours of looking around, fighting the ebay crowds, and coming up empty overall; I stumbled across an amazing tidbit of information on Wikipedia.  Apparently, there was such a high demand for these WRT54Gv4 models, that Linksys re-released them and still currently sells them.  They just rebranded it and label it as an open source router.  The new model number is WRT54GL (with the L standing for “Linux”).  

I found one of these WRT54GL routers on CircuitCity.com and it was currently 15 dollars off AND had free shipping.  And, since Vanbergs still owed me a birthday present, I decided to cash it in on a brand new router.

Now I’m just waiting for it to get to my house so I can immediately flash it with DD-WRT.

Anybody need a ‘non hacked’ Netgear wireless router?

HD Cable Surprise

Published
by
Vanberge
on September 7, 2008
in Misc
. 1 Comment

For about the past year, I’ve used a small indoor antenna to pick up local HD channels.  It’s always worked pretty well for me - allowing me to pick up Wood, WZZM, and Fox17 without any trouble.  This has served pretty well for me, especially since I downgraded my Comcast cable to the LOWEST possible level which cost 14 dollars and gives me like 15 channels.

However, there’s always been one issue that’s plagued the entire setup: wireless internet.

As soon as Flo, Vanlandw, and/or Vanbergs would boot up their laptops and connect to my WLAN - the HD tv reception just immediately tanks.  I tried changing my wireless to different channels, I tried three different antennas, and overall I messed with the setup WAY too long.

So over the weekend, I decided to try something completely random.  I took my standard Comcast analog cable and plugged directly it into my HD tuner (removing the antenna completely).  I used the HD tuner to rescan the channels…  And, to my sheer surprise, I picked up about 25 channels - and about 6 in pure HD.  I get more HD channels this way than I did with the antenna!

I thought for a minute and tried to figure it out…  But I couldn’t come up with an answer.  How could I possibly be picking up crystal clear HD over an analog cable signal?  Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining - but at the same time I absolutely hate when I can’t figure something out.  So, I did the inevitable and consulted the smartest man on the planet:  Mickeyvb.

His statements made perfect sense, and I was almost embarrased that I hadn’t thought of it.  But seems like my cable, connected to the telephone pole outside my house, is acting as an antenna and pulling the signals out of the air.  With miles and miles of cable to pick up the signals, the reception is perfect.  Every channel has a perfect and full signal, even with laptops around. 

Looks like I can ditch my little indoor antenna for good…