Posts by Year

2024

Zweig’s Echoes in Wein

1 minute read

Sitting in a coffee shop in Vienna feels like stepping into a timeless tradition. The air is filled with the rich aroma of freshly brewed coffee and the sub...

2 Years on towing with the Lightning

2 minute read

It has been two years since we picked up the Lightning, and I wanted to discuss what has changed. Many of my first posts focused on the present rather than t...

Happy Mother’s Day - Here is a Tesla

2 minute read

My Dad and I drove to Ohio to pick up the Tesla Model 3, which I had traded for my beloved BMW Z4MC. At the time, buying a Tesla in Michigan was illegal due ...

2023

Measure Twice, Cut Once Trades Scholarship

1 minute read

Alicia Schmidt and I are proud to announce the “Measure Twice, Cut Once Trades Scholarship,” which is two $2,500 awards to those in Arenac County pursuing vo...

Comparing the US to EU on Grid Security

3 minute read

I am fortunate to have exposure to work on grid policy and implementation in both the US and European Union. The duality of those two worlds colliding helps ...

Grid Security…It is complicated

8 minute read

The current landscape of security approaches within Utility and ISO Programs is reminiscent of the early DITSCAP, DIACAP, and Rainbow Series progression of t...

Der Hauptmann von Köpenick

1 minute read

Köpenick holds a special place in my mind as a homecoming from my childhood. I spent formative years bouncing around Bitburg, but returning to Germany as an...

Electrifying Tractors

6 minute read

Jack Morrison, from Scythe Robotics, made a post on LinkedIn talking about the electrification of tractors and how autonomous systems can aid in the process....

Pixel 7a Review

2 minute read

My thoughts on the Pixel 7a from a standard user…

2022

Best of 2022 List

7 minute read

You can’t grow up in tech and not feel obliged to share an end-of-year wrap-up. So without further ado - here is mine for 2022.

Dunkelflaute

less than 1 minute read

When you learn new languages, you can often find connections in words and ideas. Sometimes it’s wholesale incorporation of a word into the zeitgeist.

My 2022 of Travel

1 minute read

Intro If you closed your eyes tight enough and opened them without hesitation, it felt like pre-COVID a little this year. If you acclimated you’d realise it ...

BlueCruise, Charging, and Trip Stats

4 minute read

Charging networks are just as strategic as battery suppliers. Everyone who isn’t Tesla needs to focus on build-out. What we have today is not acceptable to t...

Steam Deck Review

3 minute read

I have struggled a little to collect my thoughts around the Steam Deck. The Linux geek in me is astonished that I sat on an aeroplane and played Halo on an A...

Prague Spring

less than 1 minute read

Prague is a familiar location for our marriage; we have found ourselves here for my work. We were here often enough to have made friends, had favourite local...

Optimise Later

1 minute read

One of our design philosophies at Blueprint Power is that you don’t spend too much time optimising code early on but instead focus on writing maintainable co...

2021

It is all energy

2 minute read

I have had the fantastic opportunity the past few years to learn the energy space inside and out at Blueprint Power. Everything from regulatory frameworks to...

Frogger and Young Nick

1 minute read

My Father was stationed at Comiso Air Station when I was around two years old and was our home until kindergarten. The air station has since closed, but it h...

The disappearing digital divide?

2 minute read

I live in a beautiful town called Standish, Michigan. Our total population is around 1400 people, and the majority of our population are farmers. That is to ...

Open Source On the Go

5 minute read

Is there a more prominent sign of being a geek than wanting to have your special OSS tooling at hand 24x7? I started writing this post as a review of the Pin...

Not everything new is sucky

2 minute read

Our team had a lively discussion yesterday around Kubernetes and the fallacy of innovation & ROI from tech. I am usually the curmudgeon old grey beard, b...

Fleet EV Charging in NYC

1 minute read

I landed at LGA Airport yesterday and, for the first time, had a Tesla Uber Model 3 I was a bit surprised to see. We lived in Brooklyn and drove a Model 3, a...

Thoughts on Rural Energy Transition

1 minute read

In between calls, I decided to split some wood. I find it incredibly relaxing, and it’s a great workout. I was thinking about a conversation I had with a bud...

2020

2019

Kinderlevel Deutsch - Keeping Current

3 minute read

TL;DR There is a reason, despite spending an abundant amount of hours in Tcl/Tk and Perl, I can only barely read the codebases of years past. I lost it. Germ...

2018

Where I Get My News

3 minute read

Introduction I value my time abroad at all stages of my life. While making me not only a better and more curious person, it has changed the way I consume and...

Istanbul

2 minute read

It was 2013, and there I sat in Istanbul International waiting for my third flight of the day. Beaten up from the multiple timezones and airline meals that e...

2017

Headless Steam Big Picture Streaming

2 minute read

Introduction In both of our homes I have a Unix server for a variety of uses, but something that has been on interest for awhile was Steam in Home Streaming....

Migration from Wordpress to Jekyll

2 minute read

TL;DR - Migrated 11 year old Wordpress blog to Jekyll. Wouldn’t recommend at all to multi-user, beginner, or corporate entities. Was a fun and geeky experime...

2016

OpenWRT and PIA

1 minute read

I use an OpenWRT travel router to deal with public WiFi access security and geolocation concerns. I have written extensively prior  and ran into an issue wit...

Ring Doorbell Security

5 minute read

The Ring Doorbell has been invaluable as we travel the world. The reactions of people are often times pretty funny as the doorbell they just pressed begins t...

Apache and HTTP Headers with Underscores

less than 1 minute read

Starting with Apache 2.4, headers were dropped that contained items to include underscores and expects dashes instead. Red Hat backported this change into th...

Lenovo Yoga Tab 3 Pro Review

3 minute read

After the unfortunate loss of my 2014 Nexus 7 tablet I was on the prowl for a replacement. I prefer to keep an Android tablet due to the flexibility to use i...

2015

Liquorice Stick and Memories

2 minute read

“Mom, I don’t want to play clarinet! It is for girls!” I remember yelling at my Mother as I prepped for band my middle school years. We were poor growing up ...

Withings Home Camera Review

2 minute read

I am always in search of products that help me automate and secure my home. I have run a mix of Foscam, D-Link, and Panasonics cameras dumping to a Linux ser...

2014

Traffic Control on Linux with FireQOS

2 minute read

In order to make full use of my half-duplex WiMAX link, I started looking for anything and everything I could use to optimize it. Linux has some pretty decen...

The machine is self aware…

less than 1 minute read

I live in the boonies now, but thankfully we have some semblance of broadband with SpeedConnect. It is a WiMax setup with a modem that needs to be reset once...

What do I want to do when I grow up?

1 minute read

Circumstances were such that I could not make a more public notification when it actually occurred, but I am now able. I have sold my portion of Spec Ops Tec...

ADS-B Receiver and Plotter with Arch Linux

1 minute read

I love aviation and love software defined radios so building an ADS-B receiver and plotter was high on the lists of to-do. In Standish Michigan there are not...

Spiffy Schmidts one year on…

3 minute read

Today marks the 365th day we have been blissfully married. It is hard to believe as it feels like yesterday we were standing on top of the mountains in the C...

Celebrate Geekiness Day

2 minute read

I was asked by SingleHop to write a blog post about being a geek. I imagine they found my name through the URL which is hard to ignore when looking for geeks...

Top 11 Pet Peeves of Hotels

3 minute read

We live in hotels most of the year. Last year we “lived” in our house for less than 30 days if you don’t count our frequent reminiscing via home security cam...

2013

2013 Investment Recap

4 minute read

I like to look back at the year and see how good (or bad) my investments were in stocks for the year. As the rest of the year is going to be crazy busy I wan...

BASH Profile Calculator and Extractor

1 minute read

Most likely my favourite addition to my otherwise untouched BASH profile is the calc function. From the shell on my Linux box I can simply type “calc 2*10+10...

The Great Illusion

1 minute read

I started my day with a run and was lost in the writings of Norman Angell. A month or so ago I read his book, Great Illusion,  and was awe-struck on how much...

Simulating WAN Links with Linux and TC

1 minute read

Simulating WAN links used to be a difficult process. I would load FreeBSD with a dummynet driver and play with the settings to tweak where I needed it for th...

Travel Tips from a Frequent Traveler

6 minute read

“Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears!” This year alone I have been in 12 countries and accumulated over 500k miles of travel and want to share my ...

Microsoft Lync on Linux

1 minute read

Microsoft Lync is prevalent through the corporate world. Honestly its a pretty decent product on a Windows machine. On Linux and Mac though it is really a ha...

2012

1965

4 minute read

—- Cross Post from the Spec Ops Technology Blog —-

Dual Time Machine Locations

less than 1 minute read

Apple must have been reading my blog when I wrote-up how to use two locations for Time Machine. Now in Mountain Lion it is built in and is much more seamless...

Race to the median travel screen…

2 minute read

TL;DR – Sometimes the smallest laptop isn’t the best option for a traveler. If you live on one machine then maybe sucking up the weight for power isn’t a bad...

Dreamhost was hacked

2 minute read

It is highly infuriating to be a security person and have your own house knocked down. This was the case if you visited my site as of late and found broken l...

2011

Don’t Mess with Momma Bear

4 minute read

Usually the text posted to this website is related to some technology or recent hack, but today it will be a little different. My tenacious personality and d...

Tools of the Connected Geek Trade

9 minute read

As we move up the food chain of life, our free-time becomes more and more precious. There are only so many hours in the day and my generation utilizes them t...

Need no more – Gifts and Holidays

1 minute read

There comes a time when we realize there is too much stuff in our lives. I have been blessed to not need for anything beyond a smile and love. As many of my ...

OpenBSD Laptop mini-HOWTO

2 minute read

Awhile back I wanted a fully supported laptop to use as my OpenBSD development machine. I ended up with a Lenovo u150 which has worked out great and the pric...

Why is my /dev/sda missing?!?!

less than 1 minute read

I am in the midst of testing some of the latest Linux kernels and realized that my old kernel config was wiped. In my desire to finish the build I forgot to ...

Virtualization Tool Support Matrix

less than 1 minute read

I would argue it is pretty sad that the tools needed to abstract the OS from hardware are tied to specific platforms. Companies that pride themselves on deli...

Advice for new ISSO or ISSM

2 minute read

Someone in /r/netsec posted a question about what advice us old sages would have for a new ISSO. The below was my response that I hope is useful to my reader...

Your new CAC, Linux, Mac, and You

2 minute read

Earlier posts outlined howto utilize OpenSC to ensure your CAC worked in Linux or Mac. The problem is that there are new 144k CAC being passed out that do no...

Configuring OpenBSD softraid for encryption

3 minute read

My original idea was to post a dual how-to for both softraid and svnd, but due to the size of the posts with screenshots, I have decided against that. Since ...

Closed Network != Security

4 minute read

To this day I am flabbergasted by the assertion that because your network is not connected to the big “I” Internet you can practice lax security. Countless p...

WAMU{.org/.com}

1 minute read

WAMU, our local NPR station in DC, left me with a cliff hanger as I rushed back from the grocery store. In the days prior to the streaming web I would have j...

OpenBSD Drive Encryption Benchmarks

less than 1 minute read

Let me start by saying I am not a benchmarker. At all…so these results are posted for friendly banter and I make no claim to their validity. Consider this th...

What happens when you use TOR and Facebook

less than 1 minute read

Facebook for all the lack of privacy controls and bad press, does in fact keep an eye on users. A few times since I started connecting to their jabber chat s...

Placebos and Security

1 minute read

There was recently a study that found when people knew that they were taking a placebo, it still helped. The common idea in the past was that you could utili...

BitlBee and OTR … then add some TOR!

1 minute read

With the release of 3.0.1 of BitlBee you can now chat from your favorite IRC client with the peace of mind that your protected. Since the OTR portion is stil...

-fno -fno -fno stack protection

1 minute read

2 days straight now on IRC (##security on irc.freenode.net if you want to say hi) I have had to help someone compiling a program deal with it failing mid-str...

2010

Geeks, Charity, and the impact of Reddit

4 minute read

When Digg migrated to Microsoft for advertising a few years ago, I took a personal stand and left. I was desperate to find a home on the internet again and c...

Google ChromeOS Cr-48 Review

5 minute read

It seems everyone is posting their review after a few days of working with the laptop. I decided to take a different perspective with the initial review. Whe...

Using TOR on your Android Device

2 minute read

In my continuation of howto secure your phone habits while on the go, we have come to anonymizing your traffic. There are a few reasons to do this:

CR-48 ChromeOS Security Posture

1 minute read

Since everyone is talking about the fit and finish (which is great other than the battery) I thought I’d talk about the security of the device. Google has al...

Field Marshal Nick

1 minute read

I always have thought personality tests were somewhat goofy and inaccurate. I took one this morning and it was scary right:

GPG on your Android Phone

4 minute read

All the traffic coming off your phone, if unencrypted, is clear for the telco to see. With the advent of sniffing using RF or IP based solutions it is becomi...

Have you been using my CAC?

3 minute read

For there record if you say "CAC Card" in my presence you will be "SOL Luck" talking again soon.

No Shave November – Aftermath Report

2 minute read

Men in my Family either grow kickass beards or what amounts to patchy peach fuze. Having been military and in the corporate world my whole life I was unable ...

Left Boeing

4 minute read

This morning I gave my badge back to the Boeing FSO. Lots of smiles and hand shakes, but a sad day all the same. Leaving anything you have been with for 3 ye...

Civ V for Mac = Borked with Black Screen

less than 1 minute read

I purchased Civ V for Mac the day it was released. LOVE…LOVE…LOVE Civilization. I had this issue after the 4GiB Download on 3 different machines and configur...

Boeing Acquisitions 2008-2010

less than 1 minute read

My twitter feed once again signals a Boeing acquisition. Cutting lots of fat internally while buying more companies doesn’t compute, but oh well. I decided t...

Updated Stable

less than 1 minute read

Since a lot of my fellow nerds have mentioned they are looking at the stables page, I updated the computers as well as providing some insight into why each m...

Log File Size

less than 1 minute read

I struggle with ROM for log file storage. It is one of those things that no one EVER looks at, but everyone covers their asses. As an example DHS requires 90...

Happy 17th Birthday Debian!

less than 1 minute read

I love Debian (looks over lovingly @ the fileserver) and look forward to many more years of stable releases. Debian was my first distro when I ran 1.3 at th...

Going Agile

2 minute read

Agile Software Development using SCRUM is one of best force multipliers a team can utilize to speed-up cycles.

Private Browser Cleaner

less than 1 minute read

There is so much hoopla about Private Mode browsing not actually keeping you private. Most of it is due to your addons for Flash and Java. Here are the exten...

Switching to Android

1 minute read

A few months ago I started compiling the iPhone libraries for Linux to allow syncing without WIFI. I thought I was king of the world as I bypassed all of the...

Software Project Mgmt Reading and Blogs…

4 minute read

As I learned in a sink vs. swim situation, I wanted to share some books and blogs that helped me. UP FRONT LET ME STATE: I am still learning and screw-up ...

Juniper Connect 64bit Debian

less than 1 minute read

These are the steps needed to get Juniper Connect working on Ubuntu 10.04 64bit. Some of the steps will work in 32, other than the ia32 package install. G...

Sony Vaio P788K Ubuntu 9.10 Load

2 minute read

Ubuntu 9.10 is the last usable version of Linux for use with the GMA500 craptasic video card. As it stands today I cannot recommend using Linux full-time on ...

Fix for GNOME Keyring prompt on Autologin

less than 1 minute read

Autologin in Ubuntu 9.10 would not default unlock your keyring for security I assume. If I am using autologin, chances are security isn’t high on the list an...

OpenVPN Install Ubuntu 9.10

4 minute read

A good buddy of mine, Trevor, had mentioned wanting to bridge his Brother‘s and his networks. Having done an OpenVPN install many moons ago it had resonated ...

N900 Banshee Fix

less than 1 minute read

You can compile the latest builds from Banshee if you’d like, but for those of you on older non-bleeding edge machines here is the .is_audio_player needed fo...

Test from n900

less than 1 minute read

MaStory is a nice little blogging app. Testing xmlrpc with it

Running Comic

less than 1 minute read

I am up at the crack of dawn and off to run. Found this quote and made me giggle.

Tourist in my Life

less than 1 minute read

I love Parks and Recreation. What started as Office knockoff has really grown into its own. A clip on last week’s episode made me stop and go hmmmm….

Nokia N900 Demo Unit

1 minute read

I think in part to my tweets of N900 lust and desire, Nokia contacted me to see if I was interested in a demo unit. After validating the email was NOT from N...

Top Romantic Songs

2 minute read

I was going through and creating a Valentines Playlist for dinner tonight. We have friends coming over and I struggled to make this list. It seemed every goo...

Bearded Nick

less than 1 minute read

Being a military brat and dude I really never had the chance to grow facial hair. This past holiday break, while not serving to provide the full 2 weeks as p...

2009

The quest for a Media Center Machine

less than 1 minute read

With the synergy (ugh manager talk, sorry) of media and television I often find myself wanting to consume laying down or on the couch. Currently I slap a lap...

What Linux/UNIX do you use?

1 minute read

At work I often get asked what UNIX/Linux I use. Truth of the matter is I am an OS harlot :) I run NeXTStep and Rhapsody for fun. When I buy systems I force ...

Clearwire Review – Richmond Metro

1 minute read

I was in a bit of a predicament for the past few months. I live in DC and the girlfriend lives in Richmond. Being a somewhat busy dude (60 hours a week the u...

Show Desktop

less than 1 minute read

One of my favorite features with GNOME/KDE is the show desktop button. Expose is great, but I am always clicking around on the dock. This morning the RSS fee...

Flickr

less than 1 minute read

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

Defining Security

less than 1 minute read

A great post from W. Mark Brooks asks when did Information Security become IT Security? The point is very much in line with my triangle theory, that security...

Systems Engineering and Redundancy

1 minute read

I posted this to ServerFault.com today. Folks loose site of requirements and systems engineering and it drives me batty. Here was my response to the guys que...

Open Source Security Professionals

2 minute read

In economic times such as these it is imperative that architects and leads alike look beyond the glossy software catalog and instead to the web. In the past ...

Weekend Update

5 minute read

What appears to be a world littered with twitter messages and facebook status message updates, I thought it appropriate to update those who care enough to re...

The Family at Work

1 minute read

As we move into a fully connected world there is a bigger expectation that we allow intrusions into our personal lives. While it may be a blackberry or a pag...

Lexmark Drivers for Ubuntu/Debian

less than 1 minute read

Lexmark provides subpar Linux drivers for any distro, but Ubuntu/Debian is horrible. At work we moved from HP Printers to Lexmark. The situation reminds me o...

Error in Service Module

less than 1 minute read

If you are on a OpenSuSE or SuSE SLES/SLED machine and have recently mounted /var to a new parition, you might get the following error:

Here is a quarter

1 minute read

I am a quarter way through my life. Assuming of course that I live to 100 years old, but that doesn’t seem unreasonable considering the rate of life expectan...

Conky Setup

less than 1 minute read

I love me some eye candy that is actually useful. Conky falls into this category for me. In the olden days it was either gkrellm or a WindowMaker plugin. I h...

Long Time

less than 1 minute read

It has been awhile since I have posted here since work started blocking my website (BLOCKED FOR HACKING TUTORIALS – Seriously!) and I wanted to make sure I c...

Jig

less than 1 minute read

I was thinking back to one of my favorite comics this morning as I danced around the room. There are certain songs that make me just dance around like there ...

Fix for Songbird showing songs still on iPod

less than 1 minute read

I formatted my iPod recently and noticed that Songbird still thought the Library had media on it. Loading up a factory restore didn’t help. To clear the iPod...

2008

Travel Days for 2008

less than 1 minute read

Why stop a geeky tradition?! Here is 2008’s travel graphs. This year I did hit the 2 full trips around the Earth. I am not sure what 2009 holds, but I had a ...

Securing MySQL

less than 1 minute read

Here is my quick secure guide for MySQL:

Fix for Songbird and iPod

less than 1 minute read

I LOVE SONGBIRD, but it wouldn’t recognize my iPod Shuffle. I use this one to workout and need hopping tunes to keep my miles time down. If you have an iPod ...

Machiavellian Leadership

7 minute read

Contents 1 Defense and Military 2 Reputation of a Prince 3 Generosity vs. Parsimony ...

I use a microscope to read maps…

2 minute read

Or in other words I am shortsighted. I watched outside the CRJ700 as Tucson appeared. Flying into Tucson I was surprised they had finally finished the renova...

Passion

1 minute read

What is your passion? The collegiate response is that passion is an intense desire or enthusiasm for something. Passion is a word that posses a meaning that ...

Parking

1 minute read

The morning was clear as Oscar and I made our way down the elevator for the new morning routine. We walked past the water fountain on path to the doggie walk...

Kicking it old school

less than 1 minute read

I setup the Cube in the living room today. After hooking it up to the Xbox controller and big screen I am ready for some Mario Kart throw down. Now if you wi...

I have one hand in my pocket

2 minute read

I rarely carry cash around (as evident by the many lunches I owe coworkers) and often times find bones of it in pockets. Tonight as I threw on my jacket from...

Leaving for the city

1 minute read

This morning with my lungs pressed up against the cool morning air I ran through the country. Past the cows in the pasture and up the hill where the horses d...

I hate Windows

less than 1 minute read

I run Windows XP in a virtual machine for those few programs that lack Linux and Mac clients. I booted my FULLY PATCHED, FIREWALLED, and Windows XP Service P...

Dress Code

1 minute read

I dress like a big geek sometimes. It isn’t uncommon to see me roll into work with jeans on and an untucked Polo shirt. On really bad days (the ones where I ...

McAfee buys Secure Computing

less than 1 minute read

The most beautiful firewall I have ever come into contact with is Sidewinder. The first day I learned about Blurbs in the military was the day I began to jum...

So true

less than 1 minute read

Everyone makes fun of me because my phones have the classic ringer. You know, like Grandma’s old phone that could take down a robber. As always XKCD hits it ...

Multipath and Redhat Linux 5

2 minute read

As many of you know, multipath was finally integrated into Redhat Linux with the 5 series. This is great when you have multipath enabled during an install as...

bin2iso for Leopard 10.5

less than 1 minute read

I compiled bin2iso from source for all the mac users out there. For some reason bin2iso is not in macports. Link below:

Bittersweet Day

1 minute read

I looked up at the calendar resting in my SuSE box tray (oooh shinny!) and it occurred to me that today is a weird one. To the majority of America today repr...

PPC Loki Games

less than 1 minute read

Here is a blast from the past…way back past…

SheepShaver on Ubuntu

less than 1 minute read

I wanted to run MacOS 9 in my Ubuntu Intrepid dev box so I went ahead and grabbed CVS. Problem was the autogen script never dumped a config.sub. Instead I to...

Airborne Warfare

2 minute read

The mark of a good system administrator is laziness. I mean this in the sense that laziness in the computing world fuels automation and thereby lower costs. ...

Fallacy of Distance

1 minute read

As we progress down the road of technological advance we must learn to remove from our minds the grasps of time and space. It is in the advancement of techno...

Smart People

2 minute read

One of the greatest benefits to working with bright people is bright conversations. There are people in this world who I yearn to be near for no other reason...

Memoirs are Dead

less than 1 minute read

In a world of twitter and 140 character posts, how will the world change in the realm of memoirs? My memoirs are here, each blog a cross section of my intell...

Government Planning Perfection

1 minute read

I was allowed to leave the Air Force with no strings attached in 2003. I found this slightly odd as I had a special security code attached to my AFSC making ...

Drobo for me

less than 1 minute read

Oh darn Dad! Looks like I got your Drobo :)

Change your device alias in Open Firmware

less than 1 minute read

If you happen to have a G4 Cube or another system with a MCE upgraded superdrive, you have the issue of dealing with the Master/Slave mappings. You loose the...

6am to DC

less than 1 minute read

I don’t care how often I take this flight, 330 rolls around quick. The world is eerily quiet this early.

Inversion of Schedule and Process

3 minute read

Programs are held to rigid standards by the very nature of the word. “A planned series of future events and items” accurately portrays the course of action w...

Storm Racing

3 minute read

“Looks like rain today” my Mother commented as we shared an after Mass lunch. “Yesterday was a mess with all that storming” I agreed. Rain it seemed was my w...

History Books

1 minute read

Did you know that Saint Paul was actually a woman? I bet you didn’t realize that Columbus was really from Germany and not Genovese.

Reason and Imagination

2 minute read

Bearing your soul in words is a dangerous proposition. Admitting to yourself in a permanent fashion is much more difficult than simply bypassing it with nons...

Bought a Kindle

less than 1 minute read

I love books. I actually love reading but hate the one aspect of being a traveling reader…carrying them all. A few reference computer manuals and a college b...

Beagle Travelers

1 minute read

Oscar only whines when he is wanting to go play outside with another dog or he is upset. Luckily he is a pretty happy dog and does neither with any sort of r...

Joy of Flushing

3 minute read

I live in an old home. Over 70 years old at least. I don’t know the exact date, but I know that this whole area is named for the original owners. Th...

Muster

3 minute read

We all stood in line this morning which seemed the perfect crowning to the definition of military efficiency. The middle aged officer (she had the officer lo...

Geek and Backup Pride

3 minute read

Geeks pride themselves on the ability to institute good backup routines. We laugh in the faces of those poor souls who scream and yank hair as they watch the...

PPC Linux

3 minute read

Why Linux and which one? Let me take a second to review:

The air I breathe

1 minute read

I have my chillout playlist on as I sit comfortably in the Sky Harbor Airport. Today I packed up all my things and put the mini cooper on the back of a truck...

The Scientist and the Eye Ball

less than 1 minute read

I am reading through Theology of the Body again after many of times. I now use it more as reference material than actual reading, but tonight I started Chris...

NEXTSTEP 3.3 RISC SparcStation 5

less than 1 minute read

I finally found a copy of NEXTSTEP 3.3 and got it installed on a SparcStation5. I am rocking retro 1993 style. Screenshot for street cred:

login: Looking Back on Debian 1.3

3 minute read

Back at the tender age of 12 I picked up a magazine at the Base Exchange. This magazine contained a CD. This CD contained Debian 1.3. All was well in the wor...

OpenSolaris Shortcomings

1 minute read

I want to like OpenSolaris. I love compiling away on my Sun Machines at the house. The simple fact is though the “Open” is a misnomer of great proportions. W...

I want a pony and a nintendo…

less than 1 minute read

I remember growing up I would pray with such fervor for things. This morning as I was driving to work I did the same thing! You would think after 23 years I ...

GBA PSP Emulator SDTV

less than 1 minute read

Load up the emulator Plug in the Composite Cable Without getting a wretched headache, get into the Graphics and Sounds menu option Set Video to: Sca...

Workout and Food Log

less than 1 minute read

Let me start by saying I **LOVE** thedailyplate.com and use the thing (as the name suggests) daily. Recently they added an option to export all your data to ...

Fix for Skype

less than 1 minute read

For all those running the Skype 2.0 Beta on Ubuntu Gutsy.

Hey Ya

less than 1 minute read

I am not one for rap usually, but this rendition rocks my socks. Turns the pop-rap into this dramatic song about life :) 

Brrrr

less than 1 minute read

I ran this morning in 20 degree weather…with snow! It was pretty chilly and I am hoping when I awake in the morning the run will be much more enjoyable.

Moment in Time

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Sometimes when we leave a place we know it isn’t forever. Yet you still look around with deep breath and soak it in. What is “it”  that we need to soak?I had...

Twitter Updates for 2008-01-19

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I did a fricken pushup! Less than a month after a motorcycle I am back to running 6 miles and pushups. Victory Dance! #

Food Time!

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On airplanes it is really funny to watch the stewardess get the drink cart ready. In complete unison trays on the back of seats drop for their yummy infant p...

I diet geeky style

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From the DailyPlate website I track my food for keeping my weight (steady, not trying to loose) and today after working out I was given this little note:

Speechless

less than 1 minute read

Other than the language and video games, it is so so true…

What Geek am I?

1 minute read

  This is a picture someone published online that shows all the different types of geeks. I figured I would quickly look at the image and find, THE NICK. My ...

2007

Best Man Toast

2 minute read

I want to look back on this with my Brother. Here it is for the world to mirror!

Dead Poetic – Vices Lyrics

1 minute read

I love this song, it is a little hard rock but the lyrics hit me so hard. It is refreshing to hear Christian music that talks about the true struggle. 

Absolution

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God, the Father of mercies, through the death and resurrection of his Son has reconciled the world to himself and sent the Holy Spirit among us for the forgi...

WOOT! Arm in sweater

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Since the accident I have been rocking a lot of short sleeve shirts. That is great if it was summer, but winter is killing me. The past few mornings I made t...

What I need Recap 2

1 minute read

In a fight recently, I wrote down a list of needs. The boat had done sailed by time these were written down but I left them on my fridge (along with what Nic...

Living Room

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If you are clicking here you know what this is… Living Room For the whole house… Click Here 

Water

2 minute read

I ran my hand through the water on the banks of the pond that day. As I sat under the golden crisp light beaming down on me, I knew the time was not for deci...

407

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It is often in the course of life that we are put to the test of our faith. My little brother just txt’ed me saying “Shotgun is at mom’s...

Linux and Skype – NOW WITH VIDEO!

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Skype (or ebay) have been killing me for years now. I am a huge Skype user and always loved the video chat option. I have gone back and installed webcams for...

New Exhaust RC51

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For a heck of a steal on ebay, I picked up a new exhaust system for the bike. Ready for the price…wait for it…wait for it…125 dollars pl...

Apple Mail.app and TimeMachine

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I love Leopard! Single best upgrade I have done this year for operating systems. Vista was obviously a waste of time and Gutsy was incremental over Feisty. O...

Xgrid and Multiplatform Clients

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This allows you to setup a Xgrid controller without mac server edition. What is nifty is that the clients can run on other platforms such as Linux and Window...

Project Indiana (Ian’s OpenSol…

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Project Indiana (Ian’s OpenSolaris) and OpenBSD 4.2 released with Leopard in the same week?!?! How can I be expected to work!?

OpenSuSE 10.3 < Ubuntu Gutsy

1 minute read

I am done dealing with OpenSuSE 10.3. Before anyone starts I realize that it is a beta release candidate “blah blah blah.” I expect simple things to work wit...

3 OS on a 1996-era machine…

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I always wanted an SGI machine after watching Jurassic Park as a kid.Its a UNIX system. I know this!

Dorky Nerd God

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NerdTests.com has confirmed what we all knew…I am a Dorky Nerd God…stop the presses!

iPhone + Mini Cooper = Super Hotness

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I am happy to report that usingthe ICE Link for my Mini works great with the mini. I now have a mini computer in my mini car. It even fades when calls come i...

In spite of divisions among Ch…

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In spite of divisions among Christians, all those justified by faith through baptism are incorporated into Christ, brothers and sisters in J

Pope Quote…

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In spite of divisions among Christians, all those justified by faith through baptism are incorporated into Christ…brothers and sisters in the Lord – Pope Joh...

Military Men — WHOORAH!

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While there was much talk about the Army raising the maximum age for new recruits from 35 to 42, the lesser-known development is that the Pentagon managed no...

Wine in MacOSX

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Macports now has the latest wine. What this means is that X11+Wine = steam hotness! I will post more info as I figure stuff out.

Dang you Apple! Why must you p…

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Dang you Apple! Why must you put iPhone commercials on when I watch TV, I am doing my best to NOT get one…sheesh!

Why I am a geek

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I love nmap, one the greatest network security tools ever created. My favorite part of nmap is the hidden geek easter eggs. For example while I was compiling...

There is hope for us all…

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Linus Torvalds, creator of Linux, while in college. This is what he did on top of designing a great Operating System. There is hope for us all. I find it fun...

Seedless Grapes

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Todays reading is Matthew 13:18. I read something like that and think of being a seed…what a feeling?! Can you help but go through today’s gospel and figure ...

Misguided revolts

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I can’t image what he would think if he saw this shirt for sale at the Gap. I think it is funny how misguided and idealistic my generation is. Embrace the ga...

Patchstick AppleTV Hack

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I was really excited to have SSH on the AppleTV…why? No Clue. I am a geek. I use my Logitech remote for my roomba. This is simply something I do. Here is the...

Jr. High Review

6 minute read

Some people call Jr. High yearbooks humiliating. I call them perspective makers. I look back at the pictures and remember all the concerns I had in life and ...

GOING HOME!! Flight is 40 minu…

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GOING HOME!! Flight is 40 minutes delayed due to the killer storm last night in Tucson, I care not…just get me home

The story of my life…

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I do a lot of online shipping. I love UPS and FEDEX tracking via Google (Thanks for being able to just to type into Search Google Friends) and watching the b...

I am close to be done with the…

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I am close to be done with the house, it has taken a lot. Feels great to rock out to music @ 2200 knowing the nearest neighbor is 2 acres

Wow I am sitting at my desk in…

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Wow I am sitting at my desk in Huntsville! What a shock to be working @ the place I live. Had a long day of moving yesterday. Almost done!

I think everyone forgets somet…

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I think everyone forgets something when we talk WWDC…developers…developers not users. I think we all get really excited for nothing

Please oh please let there be …

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Please oh please let there be a ultraportable macbook pro. I miss my 12″ powerbook. If it doesn’t drop today I am off to pickup a sony tx

I love WWDC, it is an exciting…

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I love WWDC, it is an exciting look at technology as a whole. Steve still has it! Safari on XP/VISTA is a huge move’

What is the most days someone …

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What is the most days someone can work straight without collapsing? Good thing Ericca came to visit me out here

Airports and Standby

1 minute read

Let me quickly speak of airports and booking flights. Why in the world would a company book a flight 10 people over. I know 10 doesn’t sound like a lot but o...

Jabber Mix Client 1.3 Beta

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I am wanting to OTA because BlackBerry refuses to open up to Linux Machines. If you need to install JMC 1.3 to your blackberry/nokia OTA then use the links b...

Thanks Continental! My red eye…

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Thanks Continental! My red eye flight is delayed an hour but failed to update tracking times…they knew since last night

Tucson Graveyard

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While on business travel in Tucson I came across the Air Forces’ graveyard for old airplanes. A very fascinating place! I will upload the pictures en masse l...

AppleTV and Extreme

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I geeked up this weekend and purchased an AppleTV and matching router. Stay tuned for review!

Posted from my n800

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A program came out called Maemo Blog…and I am using it. Hooked up to my bluetooth keyboard I am able to type a post that would have taken ages with the other...

New motorcycle – Honda RC51

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I debated and thought about it a lot before deciding on this bike. The money it cost to buy a used bike was enough to purchase a run-of-the-mill 600/1000cc I...

Ian Murdock leaves Debian

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The Sun folks are sounding the alarm that this is the end of Linux! I think what they fail to reailize is the state of Debian and his original project leads....

I am the computer man!

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I sent this out to prove that I wasn’t as geeky as everyone made me out to be. Proof that I maybe a geek…but I will never be the “THE COMPUTER MAN!”

Crazy Mac Mini People

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For some reason in the twilight zone a G4 Mac Mini is still worth near it’s asking price. Why? I cannot for the life of me understand who is paying these pri...

Bluetooth GPS GPT-801 / Quick Review

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I purchased the generic GPT-801 bluetooth GPS after being put-off by the high price of others. Basically the device works. It does everything a bluetooth GPS...

2006

Evolution tip

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~/.evolution/mail/exchange/$mailbox/favorites

Linux Map

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One poster and one page to explain Linux. You decide :)

ARRR!! I am a software pirate

1 minute read

And it is easier…I do my best to use opensource software at all times but there are times when I need, specifically, Windows XP. I just purchased a 24″ iMac ...

I am getting an iMac…

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Just which one?! I mean really all that seperates them is the following things:

Bye Bye Treo…

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The Treo 650 is a great phone. I purchased it after a horrible experince with Windows Mobile and decided to go the Palm route for the excellent Linux support...

One command to rule them all!

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sudo apt-get install nmap tcpdump ngrep etherape ethereal ettercap kismet aircrack john airsnort dsniff hping3 fragroute arpwatch nessus nessusd openssh-serv...

Ich speak Deutsch und English

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I was watching a documentary on the Vatican tonight and they were interviewing the Swiss Guars, who obviously, speak mostly German. Maybe because I have been...

Rocks Cluster

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Rocks Cluster rocks my socks. After battling with their FTP to grab the latest ISO, I was finally able to do a VMWare Install of version 4.2. The key for doi...

Electricity makes me giggle

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And tingly for that matter. I was on the phone last night with Kade when I began to troubleshoot the broken TV. Let me walk you through this slowly so you ca...

DS Lite Loving

1 minute read

I broke down ladies and gentlemen. For months I have been working hard now on my GP2x from Korea. While the device runs linux and many emulators well it lack...

Cheap Geek

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I woke up this morning when Google Calendar sent a txt to my phone informing me that I had been paid today! “What?! I just got paid 2 weeks ago!” I looked in...

Ruby vs Python

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I am going to attempt once again to learn a programming language. I wanted to look at the pro’s and con’s of each language in my work enviroment, military/DO...

GUI Babies

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While discussing security and such with the awesome TSgt. Harkleroad, he used my now favorite phrase: GUI Babies. This made me giggle. The problem with techn...

Geek Code

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Geek Code is almost a necessary addition to any website dealing with techie crap. After many years of NOT putting one on I decided to cave in. I now will be ...

Asus M5n ACPI Fan

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I am posting this so I can later go search and find it. Stupid fan was driving me nuts!

Sansa e260 and Linux

2 minute read

I broke down and purchased a new MP3 player after the trusty iPod Mini bit the dust. Thank you Apple for including a wonderful 6GiB CF Drive though :) Moving...

Check out HOWTO’s

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I have started to centralize all my tutorials and howto’s I have written over the years. Take a look and let me know what you think!

Using Gmail as GNOME’s default mailer

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As a security expert I have to say that this is total hogwash with all the uproar over his script. I sure hope these same people practice AWESOME security ev...

Motorcycles

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I hate motorcycles. I do. I can’t stand the fact that I am chronically cheap to the point that I won’t consider a new one. I told Kade about the Ducati I saw...

Live from my phone!

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Yep I am now able to post from my phone. officially a dork now :)