I got remote access working. It took me about 30 minutes. By remote access I mean I am able to setup a DMZ machine. This means I will be able to setup a web server etc.
I followed these howtos: (which I found after about 5 minutes of googiling)
http://www.broadbandreports.com/forum/remark,14242520?hilite=westell+6100+linksys+verizon
http://members.verizon.net/~res08lyg/6100.htm
I am soooooo sooooo soooo happy!!!!!
Yeah me!!!!
I have installed Windows 2003 server under vmware on my new server. I did it all over the network via the VmWare admin console. Pretty slick if I do say so myself. Now I need to install exchange and SQL server.
I have also installed a copy of SUSE Enterprise Server (actually novells version of it). I just had to copy the files off of there demo DVD (which I got at SCALE). Trying to find documentation on it now. I can’t login 
My only gripe with VmWare thus far is that the performance of the console over wireless isn’t so great. However the latency on my connections seems kind of high for some reason. I am running the bcm43xx driver on ubuntu with a custom 2.6.17.1 kernel. I couldn’t get wireless to work with the kernel that ships with ubuntu.
Speaking of ubuntu, I am VERY impressed with it. Very polished and slick. No crashes or anything. All nicely integrated. I setup stuff like thunderbird and gaim to start when GNOME does. I also setup keybindings for vmware/firefox and the term I like (MultiAterm for those who are curious). The default gnome-termnial is way to heavy for me. I tend to have up to 10 shells open at a time. So I need something small/efficent/clean. No menus or transperency etc.
So far I am sticking with gnome and think I will continue to do so. Its nice not having to manually mount cdroms or usb devices. Ubuntu/Gnome takes care of all the little things and lets me do what I need to do on the system. All in all very impressed.
I got bluetooth to work fairly easily. Still no headset support however 
Haven’t gotten the web cam to work yet (I want to play around with Motion) and setup a web cast of the geckos. Also still trying to get 3d acceleration to work on the laptops 3d card.
Multimedia support is great. I can now watch videos integrated into web pages (so things like cnet and eweek tech stuff will work). I can listen to Mp3’s (so I can be more selective about what I throw onto my MP3 player).
Anyway I am off to finish setting up the Windows install and playing around with Meta Sploit.
Oh I almost forgot. I have a technical phone interview/screen with a prospective employer tomorrow (at 8:30 am) (yes I am a morning person
I upgraded my laptop to the 2.6.17.1 kernel last night in order to try the new bcm43xx driver. I am happy to report it works quite nicely. I just moved a 400 megabyte file from the laptop to my server. Worked perfectly. md5sums matched.
I am in the process of downloading ubuntu. I am going to install it on my laptop. It is installed on my wife’s and works quite nicely. I am tired of fiddling with desktop related things (multimedia etc). I just want the system to work so I can move on to other things (php and ruby coding mostly).
I am in the process of converting Patti’s old system into a server. It is a decent desktop to which I have added:
I have also removed all of the X environment (GNOME/KDE/OpenOffice etc). I have made a backup of my home directory to it as well as my /usr/local/apps directory. No LVM or anything fancy like that. It has a dual layer DVD burner which I am using for backups.
Once I figure out how to setup the firewalling and other goodies on the DSL modem, I plan to install a web and mail server. It will also be a VPN end point. I have VmWare on it, and am planning to install:
I am also going to install
and play with clustering etc. I am also going to add another gig of ram to the machine. Maybe upgrade the CPU. Not sure yet. Need to do some load testing. Also going to add a second wired network card to test high availability. All good things to learn. I plan to do them over the next week.
Need to keep my skills current. I was recently laid off due to hiring someone in another state to do my job cheaper. I have spent the past week looking for work and attending a course on how to find a job. I have an interview this week.
Starbucks AP’s are free on weekends. I am on it now. Coolness.
So I have some free time today. I started playing around with bluetooth. I downloaded a tool called bt_audit. I used it against my Razr as follows:
1. On the Razr go to bluetooth settings -> Setup -> Find Me
2. On a Linux host run hcitool scan. With my phone this resulted in:
hcitool scan
Scanning …
00:17:00:8B:66:ED Motorola Phone
3. Run the btdsd_sample.sh script as follows:
./btdsd_sample.sh 00:17:00:8B:66:ED xyz
The script takes two paramaters:
Bluetooth device address
Output file.
I uploaded the results of my scan.
This gives me all types of good data. File system paths for Obex transfers. And other goodies. Yea Hah!! It appears T-mobile doesn’t lock down any capabilities of the Razr. That’s a good thing. Now I just need to figure out how to transfer J2ME apps to it and I’ll be all set. Maybe I shall do some bluedriving around town today. Or perhaps an evening this week.
Oh in other news I am making progress on my Exchange project. The base iso boots now. It wasn’t before for some odd reason. I am now working on the main module.
I saw this today…
First they chipped the products,
and I didn’t speak up,
because I was not a product.
Then they chipped the livestock,
and I didn’t speak up,
because I was not livestock.
Then they chipped the house pets,
and I didn’t speak up,
because I was not a house pet.
Then they chipped the immigrants,
and I didn’t speak up,
because I was not an immigrant.
Then they chipped the felons,
and I didn’t speak up,
because I was not a felon.
Then they chipped me,
and by that time there was no one
left to speak up for me.
Its very interesting.
RFID chips on immigrants. An interesting idea. I doubt it will go over well, but we shall see. I don’t really agree with it myself. But only because the long term effects of RFID use on humans is unknown.
As for the ethical debate around it…. (Oh no they are going to track us), well we are all tracked to the nth degree anyway. So I don’t see what the big deal is. Our phones and internet traffic is monitored. Our purchases. Everything. It all comes down to the old saying: If you don’t have anything to hide, you won’t mind me looking.
On another note, I have had very very very very limited main stream media exposure since late last year. No radio/tv/print news. A little bit of general news on the web. I got sick and tired of hearing about Iraq deaths etc. It has been quite nice. I have kept up on technological and financial news but even that has slacked off a bit due to quite a bit of extra work I have had to do.
However that serenity was shattered today. It came to my attention that national guard troops are being deployed to the Mexican/California border to provide logistical/technical support to the Border Patrol, and that the govenor of Texas is going to put cameras on the border and allow them to be web accessible. The idea of both these actions is to provide assistance to the U.S. Border Patrol.
I don’t feel these things are necessary. There is already extensive technological methods and trained personnel in place to perform these functions. I am talking about sophisicated day and night optics/IR (yes there is such a thing as daytime IR). Sensors that can determine traffic type based on a wide variety of factors with near 100% accuracy. Ground radar and sonar. Over the horizon scatter radar. Millitary units on 24/7 standby in all border states to respond to border incidents as neccesary. This has been there all along. Nice and quietly operating and providing much needed intelligence and support to the border patrol. Whether or not the border patrol uses that information effectively is open to some debate. I am going to say its not based on a detailed converstation I had with a highly informed source. But this is not the fault of the providers of the information. Not at all. There are laws in the United States that prevent the U.S. millitary from performing law enforcement functions except in a state of emergency. Hence they pass information on to the border patrol.
I shall write more later. This is just an initial brain dump….