scott

Static IP Bliss

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I finally took the plunge. I finally forked over the extra money to my cable company for a static IP address. Granted I have had the same ip since I moved in, but my provider (RCN) blocks web and SMTP ports. That means I couldn’t host a website or a mail server. With my static ip (and RCN having $20 a month from me) I can (according to tech support) host stuff on my server now. I am kind of pissed that I have to pay since I was able to do this with Time Warner for free in the past. Granted I am not sure if TW actually allowed it but it was technically possible to do. I could have gotten a port redirector service to allow me to host my site with port 80 being blocked but RCN did offer me this pay for an IP option. I cut back on my cell phone since I haven’t been using it so the cost to me is a wash.

I have just configured my router for the static VPN tunnels that I have. Stupid changes were needed on the Pix’s on the other end to get it to work, but after about 10 minutes on each tunnel I was up and running again. With 2 configuration changes on my router I was able to get a demo page up on apache. Seems to be working now. All I have to do is take the virtual machine I am running my site on, back it up and move it home. Hopefully everything comes up ok. Once I move the site to my home machine I can begin to work on a linux only version of the site.

Once the site is moved I can really test and see if RCN’s claims are accurate about their ip service. More news on that later.

Lazy Saturday

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I hung out at home yesterday. I watched a bunch of TV off my Tivo, and finished installing Mac OS 10.4 on my mini’s. I am almost done on that front. I moved my iTunes music collection to my work mini before I went to bed.

I didn’t do as much cleaning of my apartment as I would have hopped. Maybe tomorrow.

Today I am planning on going to John’s for some Halo on the Xbox. Not sure what time I am leaving. I should probably get showered and dressed now just to be sure I am ready. More later.

Police Disturbance

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After picking up my copy of Mac OS 10.4 (see last post) I was off to my office to pic up my Mini there so I could install the new OS over the weekend. As I got out of the subway at union square I was greeted with more crazyness. Some sort of bike protest was planned (i think) and the cops were out in force to deter the people from doing it. It was the second time in 2 months that I saw that many Police bikes in one place.

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I got my mini from work and then met up with Cari, Jack, & Rajive for drinks around the corner from work. Jay & Gretchen meet up with us and J, G, Cari, & I went to dinner. It was a nice end to a very interesting day.

OS Tiger (10.4)

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I told myself I would wait, or I didn’t need it. But when Apple finally released tiger, I decided I wanted to go get it. I didn’t realize that it wasn’t available until 6pm Friday. I thought it would be available Friday. Turns out it was available just around the time I was done dropping the rental car off and able to go down to SOHO to the Apple store.

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I got to the store and I told myself I should flee right now. The place was mobbed. There was a line around the corner and halfway down the block to get in. This was probably like 6:30PM. I figured I would get on line and see how long it would take. I could always leave.

I am glad I stayed. it was weird. There were tons of people. A guy in a tiger suit (sorry no photo’s). People with video camera’s. It was an interesting spectacle. People kept walking by going I wonder what is going on at the apple store that had such a line. By waiting on line I think I may have become one of “those” Mac people.

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Thankfully I didn’t listen to myself and I stayed on line. After less than 15 minutes I was in the store, grabbed my copy of Tiger and was on my way to the line. A store employee “suggested” I go upstairs because of less of a line as he moved me towards the stairs. I am glad I listened. it was crowded upstairs but I got on line and only 1 other person was in front of me. With less than 30 minutes passed from the time I got on line, I was on my way out of the store. Not bad. I didn’t linger to look at the warez since it was crowded.

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Busy Day

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Today was at times very busy and very easy going. What do I mean? We finished our work upstate early, so we decided to head home. But as we were doing that others had problems that were ongoing. Jay and I decided to hit the Walmart on the way home. I needed food.

After loading up on food and a new watch we headed home. When we rent cars and go upstate we usually fill up with gas at the last gas station in New Jersey on the palisades parkway. Well it was closed for construction. We had no choice but to get fuel in the city. Have you seen many gas stations in Manhattan? I haven’t either.

After dropping my groceries off at my place we headed off to find fuel. Jayson knew of a place near his house (which BTW was near the rental car return place). By now it was after 4pm on a friday in NYC. traffic was horrible. it took us 40 minutes to get to the gas station. then we had issues with it being too crowded and we were unable to get a pump on the side where our truck had the gas cap. After a fit of frustration we were going to drive into queens to find a station and then come back (we were right by the 59th street bridge anyway). knowing that would take forever we doubled back and the original gas station we went too was less crowded. 20 minutes after we originally showed up to the station, we got fuel. Another 20 minutes (to go 3 avenues and 8 blocks) we dropped off the rental car.

I was then off to the Apple store. I wanted the latest OS (10.4) and it just went on sale. See next post for details.

Need To Know

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My dad always taught me information is on a “need to know’ basis.  I think he did that so he didn’t have to tell my mom all non-essential things.  It wasn’t that he was keeping things from her, but just omitting information until she needed to know.  This worked and backfired on him all the time.  Fortunately or unfortunately (depending on how you look at it) that mentality has rubbed off on me.  For personal or professional reasons I have had to selectively give out information. My friends call it being a security minded individual. I guess that is true.

Not Too Chatty

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I haven’t been too chatty recently. it is not because I don’t have anything to write. It hasn’t (this week at least) been because I have been too busy to, I have just been having wrist pain and have been refraining from typing unless it is for work. The wrists still hurt a bit as I write this but I wanted to get something on the site.

I am off upstate for work for 2 days. I will write more about the trip (i hope) on my work blog. Sorry it is password protected. I got the pictures from Jenn the other day. I have not had a chance to post any yet. Soon, I hope. I should be getting ready for bed since I have to get up early tomorrow to get the rental car, but as usual when it comes time for bed I am not tired.

Switch Move

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Jayson and I are off to Kingston Thursday. We are bringing up some gear and covering for chris and kai who will be doing a move of our Core switch to its new home on the first floor. We christen the 1st floor telco room Thursday night with moving the core downstairs. Besides acting as the core for the entire office it will act as the switch for all users on the first floor.

Hopefully nothing goes wrong since it is (dare I say just) a hardware move. Of course when you are dealing with large, complex, & expensive hardware nothing is simple.

Jay and I will stay overnight and cover the Friday day shift to also ensure that no problems ocure after the move. Lets hope all is well…

T-Mobile Coverage Maps

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I have found another reason to still be happy with T-Mobile as my mobile provider. They may not be the biggest carrier in the US but they are coming up with nifty things that shouldn’t be innovative, but they are. Check out the street level coverage map. Punch in your address and it tells you how the signal strength should be. The accuracy seems correct for outside coverage. I punched up Jaysons address and it says he should have perfect coverage. he does when he is outside his place, but gets no signal in his apartment. I then punched up my companies office upstate and it accurately showed me where good signal would be and where it won’t. now I understand why there is no good signal at the train station. there is no tower nearby. Like google maps it was very fascinating to just punch up an address and see the coverage.

I don’t understand why Cingular and Verizon don’t stop treating their customers (in my opinion) like criminals and give them information like this? or allow unlocked phones, or changing price plans without signing new contracts, etc. Kudos to T-Mobile for another reason why I am still a customer even if they don’t have plans for a faster data network for a few years.

Last Night

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More people showed up last night than I thought would. my brother in law’s sister and new family showed up. The new twins (6 weeks old) slept most of the time. They are cute! Morgan was not in a happy mood early on and had nothing to do with me, but she got better after she recovered from her nap. Then she was very playful. That kid is too cute for her own good.

I hitched a ride home with my brother in laws sister and husband. They live a few (like 20) blocks from me so it was on the way. I think all in all I had a good night. I have a ton of take home desert!!!