I am done with school in Virginia, and am on vacation now! A sweet vacation it has been so far as well, and its only the first week. Carol and I bought a Wii, and have been playing Mario Kart and doing the Wii Fit. The weather in Vermont is pretty much perfect now as well, so we've gone on some runs and bike rides. My only gripe about this place is that there are so many dang hills. They really take the fight out of you on long treks, be it on bike or foot.
Also, I've been playing some Warmachine recently, and I've started to feel like I am getting the hang of it. The new expansion, "Legends" just came out, and it is pretty interesting. There are a whole lot of new models to play with, and the accompanying rules are awesome. I am also a big fan of the story and art as well. I would totally be into a book or series of books put out by these guys (Privateer Press), I think the world and setting they base their game in is really compelling.
In other game news, take a look at this picture-
Let me explain. This is a picture of my girlfriend and her mother, playing magic together. I was culled from the game pretty early on, playing a little goblin deck. They are both playing elves, and the synergy between their elf decks is pretty ridiculous. Carol is at 63 life, and her mom is at 238. All that is really cool, but I think that the best part is that my girlfriend and her mother are playing Magic. Definitely a good vacation.
Cha Cha Changes!
Whew! It has certainly been a while since my last update. Things have been going nuts though, so I haven’t exactly had all that much time to do postings. Things are actually still a bit nuts, but they are cashew nuts so its ok.
Carol and I spent a week with Amy, Rob and Mary Lou (and Cooper) in Hoboken. We may have annoyed Rob a bit with our constant singing (humming, really) of the “Cooking with Dave” theme song, but we had a great time. I even got to go to Ellis Island for the first time, and see the Statue of Liberty closer than ever before. Rob also took Carol and I to the Rockefeller center, where we went to the top and took a bunch of pictures. I was sad to go.
However, I am in Virginia right now, at the lovely Dam Neck base, taking a Navy taught class. We just had our first day today, so I can’t really go into great detail about it, but it seems like we will be learning a lot about Unix and operating from the command line as well as the proprietary Navy GUI for the system. While may or may not be useful.
Having never been to Virginia before, my amigo Bill took me out to see the sights. Downtown Norfolk is actually pretty nice. There are restaurants and mermaids everywhere. Really. We ate at this Tai place, and it was pretty awesome. I had noodles. There is just something about noodles that I am crazy about. After that we went out for a couple of beers, and Bill introduced me to “La Fin Du Monde” (the end of the world). It’s an extraordinarily smooth French beer, which I am going to have to try and search out back in Vermont.
The next day we went to Virginia Beach and took a walk on the boardwalk. There was some sort of chalk drawing competition earlier in the day, so we got to look at the entries. We actually ended up walking a good six or seven miles down the beach, past good ol’ king Neptune. It was a pretty damn nice day, too.
Also, Bill turned me on to a couple of pretty awesome... videos? I guess two of them are actually TV shows, but the other is a musical blog, called “Dr Horrible’s Sing Along Blog”. You will never guess who is in it- Felicia Day, (of “the Guild” fame), Neil Patrick Harris, and Nathan Fillion (from Firefly). It is freaking AWESOME. Trust me on this on, ok? Go see what I am talking about here.
The other is a show everyone probably already knows, “Its Always Sunny in Philadelphia”, but I am a little behind the curve so give me a break. The last is called “Metalocalypse”, and it is an animated series on Adult Swim. It is the definition of hardcore! Yarr!
Review of "The Happening"
Here is my take on The Happening, the new movie from M. Night Shymalan. This is the authoritative text on the movie. Its word is law, saved in PDF format.
The weather is nice, and my butt has been a little lax in updating, so I do beg forgiveness. Lets get to it.
The past week I had the pleasure of attending a preparatory “Boot Camp” for the CompTIA Security + exam. It was five days of intense tutelage, provided by the Ultimate Knowledge Institute. Despite the silly name, the instructor they sent (a Mr. Jerry Kingston) was one of the most skilled teachers I have ever had. He had only a week to bring a group of IT people of varying specialties and degrees of knowledge up to speed on a complex subject, and he did so in a regimented yet interesting way. He first learned a little something about everyone in the class, and then used that material to build a progressively more complete picture of personalities/skill levels, which he would constantly reference during the instruction, putting the subject matter into context for us. Watching his teaching style was as much fun as learning the class material, which I must confess to have a particular interest. I’m sure you can guess what happened- on Friday, after a mere four days of learning, every single person in the class passed. So now I have another certification to add to my portfolio, which is always nice.
Speaking of security, today we had a vulnerability scan which discovered that we were using the default SNMP community name without a password. This was not good, needless to say. The vulnerabilities appeared mostly on printers, and I was tasked with addressing the problem. Most of our networked printers are equipped with JetDirect cards, which allow you to type in the IP address assigned to the printer into your web browser and configure the printer from there. So I used HTTP to get into each of the cards and just disabled the SNMP service completely. All was safe and secure, or so I though, until a user called reporting that the printer he was trying to print too was displaying as offline. I was in the area so I went over and wracked my brains trying to figure out why the printer would be offline. When all the usual troubleshooting failed, it dawned on me to check the SNMP settings, and sure enough it was one of those I had disabled. I enabled it, changed the default community name, and set the administrator password, and all was well. A few other printers went down during the rest of the day with similar problems, but I did the same to them and they worked, so I decided that all of the JetDirect card should get the same treatment, and no hiccups so far. I was a little confused as to why some would go down, and others would stay up, but one of our network guys in Groton postulated that if we dug down enough we would find that SNMP would be working on one end or the other of the stack, and if one side was disabled it would cause the other to fail.
In other news, I downloaded the Backtrack v3, in hopes of broadening my Linux skills, as well as my security/penetration testing knowledge. It took last night and most of the day for me to get it installed correctly from a USB drive to my new EEEPC, but its on there now and its working great (note- in order to use the integrated wireless card, it has to be enabled when Backtrack loads in). Despite some frustration, the whole experience has been good for my knowledge, and I understand the file structure and basic commands a little bit better now. I am updating the Slackware version now, and its taking forever, but I can’t wait to really start using it.
After all that technical stuff, I feel as if I should say that I did go kayaking last weekend. Well, alright, I guess we were just taking some boats out for a demo, but technically it WAS kayaking, as we were in a kayak and paddling on real water. Which was nice. I think that Carol and I would definitely get one if I wasn’t moving so soon. We also looked at bikes, but good god, they are expensive! Besides that, I found a good place to play Friday Night Magic, which was awesome because I haven’t played a Magic Draft Tournament since I lived in Canada. There was a guy from work there as well, so I had a nice introduction. I put up a good showing also, if I may say, winning four out of seven games for two of three matches. I also got a sweet DCI foiled rare land card. Which I will probably never use.
I really need to start painting again. My Scrapjack has been languishing, coated in red and in need of highlights. Tomorrow, I vow!!!
New Pictures!
Courtesy of Rob, who is Pro at Photo-ing. They are located right here, and are almost my whole Warmachine army. I have another squad of pikemen to do, and it will be all done.
I also just passed my Microsoft Server 2003 Environment test. Two down, two to go for my MCSA. Good stuff. The next one is the Network Environment test, which is apparently the most difficult. You have to know all about sub-netting and network protocols, which might be good actually, since I have my Network + Certification already.
Also, I’ve been using my long trips to Vermont to listen to some audiobooks. Not just any audiobooks, mind you. I have been trying to take a page out of Carol’s book and learn things when I read/listen, so I rented a Brief History of Time, by Stephen Hawking. This was a good move on my part, because it was fascinating. I learned a lot of things that I had always wondered about, like how they measure the distances of stars from each other, or determined the makeup of a planet’s atmosphere. Also, I rented a couple audiobook courses. I finished a Fantasy Literature course, and am almost done with a Science Fiction Course. They have both been informative, and read by an extremely intelligent professor with a pleasant voice. I will post his name when I next look at the box.
I think I am going to go check Neuromancer out of the library now.
YES
Thanks for pointing this one out, Stu...
Tech Updates
While studying for the Microsoft Server 2003 exam, I've come across a few very interesting things. They are mostly things that I'd heard of, but didn't really know too much about. For example, the basic levels of Software RAID, how to install active directory and promote your server to a domain controller, some of the ways you have to work with domain controllers, etc... Its good stuff to know. I just wish the book were a little more... engaging.
Here is a neat little command that I didn't know about either- WINMSD. You type that in the run box and you will get a system overview. You can also print out lists of devices and stats and things like that from here, which makes auditing a system and generating reports easier. Most of you already knew about it I'm sure, but it was a nifty new little trick to me.
Speaking of auditing, we were doing some computer "forensics" of our own today in the shop. My boss had confiscated a hard drive on suspicion of shenanigans (the kind where someone at work goes to the nether regions of the internet) and he showed my how to analyze the data from the hard drive.
What you need to do is install a program that will be able to read the Index.dat file in the user's profile. There are a couple of index.dat files, in temporary internet files, and other places like that, but the one you are looking for when you want to see a lists of the sites that a user has been visiting is generally located in the cookies section. To read this index.dat file, you need a program like Index.Dat Analyzer. That one is especially good, because you can sort the files by date last accessed, or date created. Anyway, good stuff to know.
Here is a quick video on SQL Injection "Hacking". Although it doesn't really qualify as hacking, its a good trick to know to crack a weakly secured website.
Today's Video
Case Migration
Ever since I installed my two 8800 video cards, my computer has been running a little hot. The Falcon Talon case is great, and the cabling was very clean and neat, but it was just a little too small, and had a few too less fans to move the air around right. It started to make some noises I wasn’t all that fond of, and the case started to get hot to the touch after extended periods of use. Due to this, I decided that it was time for an upgrade.
I went ahead and ordered the Thermaltake Armor case from Newegg. It was about 180.00 dollars, and due to the proximity of Newegg’s shipping facility, it arrived overnight. Which is awesome. I also had to order a new fan for my Heatsink, due to my foolishly breaking it while doing some cleaning.
The case arrived (as did the new fan). The box was huge, and the case was very heavy, but it looked great and was well packed. I put off putting everything together for a couple of nights, but finally buckled down and started in on it.
I took some pictures of the process, not only to for before and after purposes, but also because I wanted to have some pictures to reference if I couldn’t find out what went to what while I was reconnecting everything.
Reassembly was fairly simple, most of it being intuitive. The Thermaltake case was supposedly a “screwless assembly” which was total crap, but it didn’t use as many screws as some other cases that I have worked on, which was nice. Inserting the drives was a snap. Except for the hard drive, which required unscrewing the back of the case and a great deal of head smacking in figuring out which screw to take out.
There were two problems which gave me a run for my money-
After I had everything placed in right, screwed down and plugged in, I hit the power switch, and waited expectantly. The computer started up, then switched off after about two seconds of beautiful blue led light and fan revs. I rechecked everything, and then noticed a simple mess up- there were some extra screws in the back of the case, which were touching the motherboard, thus causing it to ground and short out. The fix was annoying (i had to take out everything to remove the cursed screws), but after that was done it started up fine. Which brings me to the next problem I had.
The computer would boot up fine, and run full cylinders for about two minutes. Then the power would cut off completely. This frustrated me for a good two nights, before I threw in the towel and took it in to work. I showed it to my boss, Mike. He took out his watch, and timed the shutoff every time the computer was booted. He noticed that it stayed on less each time- bingo. An overheating problem, which was pinpointed to the processor, as it was basically the only thing that I had only done any extra work on, due to the necessity of replacing the broken heatsink fan. So on his advice, I took out the heatsink, reapplied some extra thermal paste, reseated the processor, screwed everything back together, and with great joy, watched the computer stay on and on.
Everything is now working great. The case has amazingly good airflow, and with five fans, its definitely cool enough. Its a little heavy (it actually broke the desk, but thats another story). I would have to say I am happy with the purchase though.
Lovecraftian HORROR
I have been reading this book called Alhazred, by Donald Tyson. Recognize the name? If not, don’t feel bad. Actually, go ahead and feel bad. You should know the name. It is the moniker of the author of the fictional(?) work that H.P. Lovecraft is always talking about, called the Necronomicon. Anyway, this book is written about him (often referred to by Lovecraft as the Mad Arab, Abdul Alhazred) and details his life since the age of nineteen. It is horrific at parts, and captures very well the aura of other-worldy fear that good old HP so infused his stories with. Its difficult to put it down, even when he is eating human body parts...
Speaking of Lovecraft, I recently played the Arkham Horror game. I bought it because it looked awesome, and the vendor promised me that it would be quote, “very simple to learn and play, almost like settlers of Catan”. This should have been my first clue. So I busted it out at home, and guess what? hundreds of tokens, pieces, and cards. And a rule book that is over forty pages long. Despite this, we forged ahead, read the book, and played out a game against the monstrous deity known as Yigg. We prevailed, but at a terrible cost, for our collective Sanity had lowered dramatically, and many townsfolk were on the verge of fleeing. Despite its extreme complexity, I had a great deal of fun, and would certainly play again. I don’t know if the same can be said for the other players though.
I have been playing the new DoW game as well, and so far it is pretty awesome. I have not been able to get very far with my trusty Space Marines though, due to some computer “glitches” which I will explain about more in the next post. It is quite a tale.
Speaking of horror, I am going to be moving from Newport soon (June, actually) and leaving my sweet apartment as well as my proximity to Carol behind for a while. My rotation time has come up in the Navy, and apparently they want me on a ship on Sea Duty. Despite the fact that I will have thirteen months left in the Navy in June, they want to milk the last drop out of me and send me out on deployments. What fun. I am going to try to make the most of it, but if anyone has any suggestions on what type of ship to go on, feel free to email me. Ah well, what can I do? Nothing, thats what. Sailors are supposed to go to sea, after all.
Heck yeah! I finally passed the Microsoft test. I am officially a Microsoft Certified Professional. I also have five more tests to go before I can become a Certified Systems Admin. Ah well, such is life.
If you are thinking about taking the test, the best advice that I have for you is to take a class that will prepare you for it. In addition to some hands on instruction that you might not be able to get to (depending on your computing resources) they should give you the Microsoft Book companion, and in the back of the book a study CD. STUDY THIS CD. Do the questions over and over. There are plenty of questions that repeat themselves, and besides that it will give you insight on how Microsoft structures their tests and words their questions.
Besides that, I am having some more fun with Warmachine. A couple of weekends ago, I played at my local game center and managed to win (albeit by an extremely slim margin). I played my Khador against a rampaging Skorne horde. During the game, I managed to freeze out most of his large assets, which allowed me to beat them to frosty, bloody pulp with my warjacks. My warcaster Sorcha herself struck the final blow against their heathen warlock. Despite my victory, up review and discussion of the game with some of my fellows at the store, I could have wrapped it up a lot sooner had I committed the necessary resources to the kill (namely, threw Sorcha in there earlier). I always find myself babying my casters during games, and while this certainly keeps them alive longer it doesn’t use them to their full devastating potential. What good is an avatar of destruction, if it is hidden behind a rock?
Oh oh! I should also mention that I have been watching a lot of Lost recently. It as recommended to me continuously by friends, and now that I have seen the whole first season my esteem of said friends has increased. It is a truly good show. I also rented Firefly the other night with Carol. Space cowboys? I haven’t gotten through the first episode yet, but I am sure that it will prove to be an interesting experience.
What else? Dawn of War: Soulstorm, is coming out in March. I HIGHLY recommend that you check it out, as the first three were goddamn amazing. You can download the demo here, and find more about the setting here.
I also thought I should post my gamer tag/handle. This is what I use for all of my games, whether it be CoD4, Dawn of War, or Battlefield 2. Also, this is my XFire name-
theHobbes (or some variant of that).
Speaking of which, Carol got me the entire collection of the Calvin and Hobbes comics for my birthday. Its heavy enough to dislocate any number of disks in your back, and full of classic Waterson goodness.
Taking the Microsoft XP exam
Tomorrow, in fact. Which is also my birthday. Wouldn't it be a great present to pass? Yes, yes it would. I made a little study guide, which is just an informal off the cuff sort of thing, but it does contain some useful nuggets of information. Its located here.
Some New Pictures
Just a quick update, I posted some new photos of miniatures on the photos page.
What a day...
Ok, so this is an email I sent to my friend Bill, about my day yesterday. I didn't feel like typing it up anew, but this is the story.
"so i had duty this morning, which means i had to get up at 5am and go to the hospital to unlock the doors and such. no big deal. i am showered and ready, and i go down the stairs out of my apartment. however, as soon as i open the door, i almost step on a furry little shape. upon closer inspection, it appears that this furry beast is, in fact, a skunk. I have a moment to begin to say, "oh sh..." before it sprays me. no, correct that, it fucking DOUSES me. then the little bastard runs away.
I am gagging with the smell. It should probably be pointed out that i am carrying uniforms to be dry cleaned. they are doused. i am wearing a raincoat (its unseasonably warm, and a bit rainy, which is probably why the skunk was out there in the first place). So my uniform i am wearing, my coat, my shoes, and my hand are anointed with skunk ass. i don't have time to change though, because i have to unlock the damn doors at the hospital, so i reluctantly get in my car and drive to work.
At this point, my car smells like rotten ass. i go home and take a long shower, trying to scrub off the stench, and after a while it seems like its been removed. unfortunately, as i find out when i enter the office at work, my nose has just gotten used to the smell which still lingers, much to the dismay of my coworkers. they print me out some skunk cleaning instructions/ingredients, and tell me to go home for the day.
The coup de grace comes when i go to buy skunk neutralizing supplies at the commissary. i exit my car (still foetid), and as the door clicks shut i realize that my keys are in the ignition, and the car is still running. the doors, however, are unfortunately locked. my cellphone lays on the passenger's seat. it is windy, cold, and raining.
What follows were mostly incoherent gargles of rage at my own stupidity and the cruelty of an indifferent world, where skunks spray innocent passers by willy-nilly, and malevolent gods watch idiots lock themselves out of their cars as they piss rain down out of the sky.
Anyway, base security got the door unlocked, i took the car to get detailed, and all my uniforms are at the dry cleaners. the world is a less smelly place for me now."
THE FUCKING END.GRRRR...
YAAAAAARRRRGH!!!
This superbowl was a torturous rollercoaster of emotion. And Tom Brady, well, his misery is a sweet and delicious nectar on my tongue. Mm... tasty...
Pirate Ship
Here is a rough draft of the pirate ship Carol and I painted for the Dougal contest-
TempleCon
Hello to all. Sorry about the lack of recent updates, I have been quite busy recently. However, I do have a couple cool things to talk about. The first of these cool things being TempleCon, an annual game convention that takes place in Providence, RI, so if you are in the area you might want to check it out. They have all manner of games there, and quite a few companies who sponsor and run demos including Privateer Press. They also have a Warmachine Hardcode tournament going on, with some cool prizes and incentives.
In addition to all that though, they have a whole bunch of merchants in the industry there, most notably in my case the Newport Hobby House, where I frequent (some might say haunt). They are running a painting contest there, the subject being the new Warmachine pirate figure Master Gunner Dougal McSomethingorother. Incidentally, the manager of the Hobby House is also named Dougal, and the contest is to paint the figure as much like the man as possible. I have taken a few liberties with this guideline, but have entered the contest nonetheless and have even coerced Carol into helping me with it. We have an impressive base built for the figure, replete with whitewashed beaches, palm trees, and an old pirate ship impaled on some jagged rocks, booty spilling from its breached hold. I’ll post some pictures of the WIP, and the final thing as well. The Hobby House will also be bringing all the entries to TempleCon to display, so maybe I will get a shot in No Quarter? Is that likely? No. But a man can dream, can he not?
Also, Tom of Newport Hobby House fame is building a game table in the vein of Red vs. Blue. It will have the same setup as Blood Gulch, as well as the same scenario of capture the flag. However, it will be Warmachine style, but with spawnpoints and respawning WarCasters. Very cool, needless to say.
In tech news, I have been going to the MCSA courses (XP currently) and have come across a few new tidbits of trickiness, which have been posted in the Little Goodies Section. One that stands out is the way to show NTFS file/folder security options on an NTFS formatted drive that does not have them. You know, when you right click and go to sharing and security, but there is only security? Well, to view the NTFS security options, open a new folder and go to- Tools > folder options > view > uncheck simple file sharing.
Now you can see them! Huzzah!
Another interesting thing that I learned does not have too much to do with Microsoft itself, but if you want to setup a web server at home. The product recommended to me was DNS To Go, which is not free but apparently worth the paltry sum asked.
Interesting Client Authentication Problem
One of the very last calls at work today came from a user who was having a bit of trouble. Whenever he either locked his computer to step away from his workstation for a moment, or logged off his computer, is user account would become locked out. I could go ahead into Active Directory and unlock it, but without fail if he did one of those two things, it would lock up again. At first I did not think much of it, as users are always locking themselves out, but as the calls kept coming in, I became puzzled. The user was a computer literate person, competent and reasonably comfortable with the system. It became obvious that this was more than a simple lock out due to a forgotten or mis-entered password, as he was inputing his password a single time and it was locking him out.
As it turned out, he had reset his password earlier that day on another computer, which he was still logged into. He left that one locked after he changed his password, and used a different one for work the rest of the day. It was on this different one that he continued (without success) to attempt to logon, but which required an account unlock each time in AD. I had him log into the locked computer through which he changed his password, and then had him log off of it. This freed up his account, which had been tied up and unable to authenticate (despite the fact that we allow multiple logons on the domain) to the domain controller, as it had been locked earlier after the original password change. Problem fixed.
I just thought it was an interesting little scenario. At first I thought there was no way that the fact he was logged into another computer on which he had changed his password would have any effect on his authentication with the DC, as group policy on our network certainly allows multiple logons. Obviously, nothing should be dismissed out of hand when working with computer systems, as all sorts of interesting things can happen which will bend/break the rules.
Moden Warfare, with a dash of Microsoft
So I just got Call of Duty 4, modern warfare, and let me tell you... I am blown away. I get blown away frequently in game as well, but thats not the point. The point is that this is the most intense combat game experience that I have ever had. I would imagine its fairly realistic as well, but as I have never had the dubious pleasure of actual combat, I can't really say. What I can say is that you can pick up grenades, and toss them back at the enemy. Why yes, thats right. Awesome.
So Carol got me the collectors edition of Crysis for Christmas, complete with original concept art handbook. I haven’t had too much time to explore the features of this shiny little package though. I’ve been too busy. Busy blowing things up. Busy being mesmerized by the fiery blossoms a helicopter makes when it is hit by an rpg as it hovers low to the ground, about to disgorge its payload of highly trained and heavily armed North Korean special ops soldiers.
When did it first hit me that I had stumbled upon something good? It may have as I first crawled out of the water, dripping, and found a turtle on a white sandy beach, framed with gently swaying breeze tickled foliage. It could have been when I shot out the tire of an approaching truck, causing it so skid out and down the side of a hill.
Not to say the game is perfect- the first patch just came out, and even after installing it there are still some little glitches. Like falling through the flight deck of an aircraft carrier. Or dead aliens hovering in air. Oh, and once, just once, I would like to play an entire game session on Vista that does not crash a single time.
Also, I found the alien section of the game to be a little disappointing. Crytek hyped the things so much, I was expecting a little bit more. By far the best part about entering the alien stronghold in the game are the gravity effects. Its a little disorienting at first, floating around in zero g’s and trying to fight your way through some interesting scrapes, but you get used to it soon. Also, the level is sufficiently brief, so the novelty doesn’t wear off before its time to move on.
For me, one of the best parts of the game was assaulting a North Korean position. You have marines surrounding you, helo’s zipping through the sky, explosions and yelling all around... all thats missing is the smell of the smoke. There's also one level that takes place on an aircraft carrier, and being in the Navy I have to say it was pretty neat, even though I've never really been on a ship. I enjoyed the human/human combat most of all, which is made all the more enjoyable by the pivotal hook of the game, your suit.
The suit is awesome, no doubt about it. You can choose from several different options to boost specific areas of your physique, depending on the situation. Its pretty awesome to turn on maximum speed, and zip through a jungle area, palm fronds slapping your face. Just watch out for the trees. Or, you can boost your strength and jump walls, or other obstacles. However, the one I found I used the most was stealth. You can’t beat the ability to scout and assess the danger of an area before going in guns blazing, and I generally equipped the good old silence and put on cloaking before going in with guns blazing.
The multiplayer seemed nice- I only tried one level, and it was a free for all. I think that it would be a lot more fun to get a group of friends on there and play some cooperative games, where you have to defend or take strategic points. I am looking forward to exploring this in the future.
Another feature I have yet to take advantage of is the level builder, but it looks fairly robust. There already seems to be a pretty active modding community online, and the ability to create your own multiplayer levels easily was something I always thought Battlefield 2 lacked.
So the final verdict is positive. Crysis is pretty, and has the best explosions I have seen in a game yet. The prerequisites for seeing it in all of its glory are steep though... even with my SLI rig, when running on all high settings I have the occasional frame stutter, and certain ice areas became unplayable unless the graphics were turned down. However, its definitely one of the better FPS games out there, and I feel comfortable recommending it. Now, its time to get COD4...
Blah I am sick.
My head is stuffed up, I am fighting off Nyquil induced sleep, and my nose is a little snot factory. Its really not the most pleasant of ways to feel. Blech.
I hope everyone’s holidays were wonderful. I went over to Vermont to see Carol’s family, who were all doing beautifully. They also sang in the choir at the Christmas Eve service at their church, albeit some more reluctantly than others. Nonetheless, they sounded excellent, and Rob played the piano. I had a job too- I flipped the sheet music when he needed it. Never before have I felt so vital and important. We also went down to Georgia, Macon to be exact, to see my parents in their new house. My brother was there too, and a good time was had by all. We even played golf, a game at which I could not be more terrible at. It was fun though, especially as we did not keep score...
Anyways, I have a bit of an update for you here. The first thing I want to tell you about is the OSI Model overview that I wrote up. I am going to start my MCSA soon, and in my review I obviously kept coming upon the OSI model. Now, I passed my Network+, so I have a pretty good idea of how it all works together, I just felt I needed a quick reference so that when I needed to know where a particular protocol or device fit, I could just take a look and find out.
The next thing that I wanted to show you was this, a very interesting way to discourage people from using your WAP, without encrypting it. Awesome? Yes. In keeping with the techie theme, I added two things to the Little Goodies section. The first is a way to test for SQL vulnerabilities, the second is a neat tool to map out sections of networks or the internet. If you are looking for a more robust network mapping tool, may I suggest Fierce, created by RSnake of ha.ckers fame.
Also, some more artsy fartsy stuff too. I have updated the projects gallery with two pictures which made an appearance on Carol’s Christmas book. I created it in IPhoto and although it came out nicely, it was a bit small. I will definitely use something like Coop next time, or just go for a bigger size and hardcover. On another artsy front, I have just finshed painting the bulk of my Khador Warmachine army. I have some stuff left to do, make no mistake, but what I have so far is pretty nice, if I do say so myself. I will post some pictures in the gallery soon.
Happy Holidays!
PHP Security and vampires.
Ahoy there maties... I hope everyone is having a very good holiday season, and that no one has to shovel the amount of snow that I have to shovel. I'm on the freaking snow team at work, and we have to do the entire hospital grounds... I'm going to be ripped if the weather keeps up like this though. Upsides and downsides...
Anyway, I finally figured out how to add a bit of security to a site, using a php script in your root directory. I found a pre-made script, because I am far too lazy to learn php on my own. Linked here. So basically, all you need to do is modify the script, save it to the root of your directory, use the help switch to see the preface code, and then insert that code into each page that you want protected. Its really simple (mostly because I didn't have to write it), and while not bulletproof, its pretty good. Here is my little test area on this server, if you can crack it you will be able to see a little surprise. No nakedness, don't worry.
So besides that, I've been reading another book about girls who kick vampire ass. Fancy that? Its called Once Bitten, Twice Shy (link) and once you get over the terrible title its pretty sweet. Secret vampire agents? Heck yeah.
Also, I just finished the Greylords for my Khador Warmachine army. If you did not understand a word of that sentence, that is a very good sign. You have not completely succumbed to the nerd virus. Run now, and you may escape relatively unscathed. I will have to post pictures of them in the models section when I have a moment.
Creating and working with custom Java Classes
I just uploaded this class I created. Within it are a bunch of methods that can be called on by programs that you write, just like calling something from the JOptionPane class. These generate a bunch of characters randomly, depending on what arguments you pass to the called methods in your program. This was kind of one of those breakthrough days in programming for me, because I finally grasped what exactly was going on when I called something like JOptionPane- its a class, and you can use the methods contained in it like tools, so a class is basically like a toolbox. Also, its good to note that you need to have this in the same directory as your program while you are compiling, otherwise the program will not be able to find it. This just sort of impressed on me for the first time how modular programming is really a better idea, because you can create things like this random character generator, and just use the bits of code in projects so you don't have to write everything out all over again.
Dude, just... Dude...
Warmachines in the Mist
So a few things to post about- the first, the movie the Mist. Based on a short story by Steven King, its about a small town in Maine where a strange mist rolls in to cover the area after a nasty storm. Its just mist, right, but there are things in it... I don't want to spoil anything about the movie, but the first word I used to describe it to my girlfriend was "intense". Thats pretty much how it was, start to finish. It is a really good movie, but its also ugly movie, in that it shows how people can act if they are afraid, truly afraid. Soon, you are just as worried about the humanity inside the supermarket than what is outside of it. Excellent acting all around too, and the ending... It really would be a crime to spoil it. Lets just say that the theater I saw it in was full of loud, annoying teenagers and not a single one of them said anything, or made any kind of joke, when the credits rolled. Powerful stuff.
Also this weekend I went to a Warmachine tournament. I lost every single game, but it was loads of fun. Its a good thing that I can have fun without winning, otherwise I might not enjoy miniature gaming so much... but my favorite parts are the little things which make the battle more interesting. Little things like tearing a warjack apart, or throwing a soldier into a stream... Anyway, I got three awards! I got best in faction for Khador (well, there was only one other player...), best sportsman, and best painted model. SWEET! I played against a bunch of great people, and it seems like there is a pretty good group at the Hobby House. Here's the model/best in faction certificate.
Hope everyone had a good thanksgiving. We went down to NY/Hoboken this year to visit, and a good time was had by all. I took the train, path, and bus to Hoboken from New Haven station in Connecticut, and I noticed two things. The first being that almost every single girl around the age of 17-25 had on Ugg boots. The second was that almost every single person, regardless of age and sex, had some sort of blackberry that they were furiously typing at. On the way to New York to see the Macy's balloons being blown up, I even saw one girl sitting on the train, just holding her blackberry. It was turned off completely, but there she was, turning it over in her hands lovingly... I suppose this will be happening with the iPhone as well, as soon as everyone buys one.
I got some new Mac related software this weekend courtesy of Rob. Toast, which is a Roxio product that burns dvds and lets you watch Xvid codec- requiring movies in Quicktime. I also got a program called Textmate, which is apparently an excellent text program (it highlights syntax in html/programming as well). In addition, he gave me Parallels, which will let you run a full copy of windows in a, well, window, alongside your OSX. He also let me know that I could get a copy of Leopard for $10.00, as my computer had been purchased within a certain date of the release of that OS. Good deal.
Here is some linkage that might come in handy- this will let you decode passwords which have been asterisked in Firefox. This can be very useful for uncovering passwords you have forgot. It can also be used for less savory purposes. For the greater good people, for the greater good...
Also, check this thumbdrive out. Although there is no possible reason that I could justify getting this, it is really cool and has an excellent application for military/contractors working overseas, where the theft and sale of military thumbdrives with sensitive information on them is truly rampant. We had to go through a big thing warning about this in Inforsec classes. Sweet.
Check this out... its a sweet physics game, the video demo is pretty awesome. UH-OH. Marge is here. Time for Bart to go home. And the cats, they are everywhere... Anyway, I was thinking seriously about getting Mass Effect. I even went to the store today, but I couldn't find it. This is because the store on base, how you say... blows. Ah yes. Did you know, Mass Effect has lesbian alien sex? Besides that, I finished Half Life 2. Awesome, but I don't want the cliffhanger ending, I want MORE! I guess I will have to play the rest of the twenty five games that come with the orange box until Half Life 3 comes out.
In the movie department, we saw Beowulf this weekend. Carol didn't like it, but I LOVED it. Freaking sweet, despite the sometimes wooden face captures that they used. Also, Angelina Jolie... dear god. No clothes. Well done. I like the Joe comic about it, 'tis very true. In addition to that, we saw another excellent movie, but excellent in a different way. Ever heard of Everything is Illuminated? Pretty amazing, I was certainly touched.
Java Programming
I finished my first project in my programming class this weekend. It frustrated me for a while, but it’s a really good feeling to figure something out that you have been plugging at for a while. It really should not have taken me so long or have been so difficult, but I tend to make things more complex than they need to be, and sort of code myself into a corner. I got a lot of great help from the people over at DevShed forums as well, which I must add, is an excellent source of information on all sorts of computer related things. I have posted the source code of my project in the Texts area. It’s a program that converts temperatures into Fahrenheit or Celsius, depending on which one you want.
Quidditch World Cup
This weekend felt like sports weekend, mainly because, in addition to watching the Giants play (curse you Dallas of the blue star, curse you…) we went and saw something rather unusual- the “Quidditch World Cup”, hosted at Middlebury College in Middlebury, VT.
Although perhaps not a World Cup in the sense that teams which are actually from around the world attended and participated in the sport, the event did play host to a whole bunch of Middlebury Quidditch teams (who knew there would be even one, let alone a whole bunch?!?), and also the country’s first inter-collegiate Quidditch team, from Vassar.
Despite the fact that no one flew on brooms, the game was actually a whole lot more amusing than you might think, and surprisingly physical. In Rowling’s books, Quidditch is a pretty dangerous game, and they seem to have taken that to heart in this land based adaptation. Tackles, roughhousing, balls fired into heads at point blank range… all were fair game. There were refs, but they were either very timid or allowed a great deal of leeway with the rules. I got to even experience this contact first hand, as once, when the Golden Snitch was fleeing from a Seeker into the viewing stands, the Seeker slipped and plowed into me.
That’s another thing – the Snitch is actually a person, dressed in all yellow, with a sock and tennis ball hanging out of his shorts. It was great fun to see the teams’ seekers try to get that little ball from him… He threw, pushed, shoved, and dodged his way around the field, weaving in and out while the other players furiously threw Quaffles and Bludgers at each other and the score rings, which were actually three golden rings set in the ground! Magnificent…
Throw in a couple of wisecracking commentators, and we actually had a good time. We laughed, we gasped, etc… Here are a few pictures-
Holy Crap! New Battlefield...
A short post, but check this out. Here's another one to put on the shopping list... And check out this list. Top new shooters.
Vampires, Mummies, and the Holy Ghost
These are the things that terrify me the most...
Good news for me! I found an apartment finally, and not a moment too soon. I've had enough after work watches to sour my attitude towards the housing here, thank you very much. The apartment is right in the heart of downtown Newport, next to everything. In addition to being super nice looking and at a great location, its also fully furnished and has a fireplace. Good deal. Here's a shot.
So what else? I've been reading some "Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter" books. I picked them up at a Borders in Providence, in the spirit of halloween, and I must say that I do not regret it. I've been through two of them so far and I am on my third, and I can't wait to read more. I bought the first four in a package, (there are more) which is probably good because they are not very long. However, they do present and interesting view of what the world would be like if vampires not only existed, but were not relegated to the fringes of society but instead recognized by them. You have to get a court order of execution to go after a vampire for goodness sake! Anyway, Anita Blake is a necromancer/vampire slayer. She's pretty bad-ass, despite her secret love of fluffy penguins. I highly recommend the series for some good (and so far, light) reading. A good way to get into the Halloween mood. (Oh, they also made a comic book, published by Marvel, about her. Apparently they made seven so far, and are coming out with an eighth. I ordered a compilation of them, and I'll let you know how it is when it comes in on Friday).
In the music area, I got two new albums from iTunes. I haven't really used iTunes a whole lot before, but I can see that it has the potential of become very addictive very quickly, due to ease of purchase and variety of selection. So the two albums I bought were the new Thrice one, "The Alchemy Index", as well as a new As I Lay Dying creation, "An Ocean Between Us". Although both are excellent, I would have to say that An Ocean Between Us is my favorite of the two (if you are into hardcore), with songs eight, ten, and two being super good, although the whole thing is great.
Also, pumpkin carving was had this past weekend. I tried to do a dragon, Smaug from the Hobbit. I think it was a bit too ambitious. Carol's turned out much better, in my opinion. Its some crazy ass tree. Nicely done dear!
There is a cool way to convert a picture to a pumpkin template as well, which I found out via the internet. Here are the steps (you need a picture, and you need photoshop).
Take the picture and convert it to grayscale in photoshop (image>mode>greyscale)
Then posterize the image, through image>posterize and then choose something like a three.
You are going to want to cut out the white areas completely, dig out the grey areas so that the candle light can show through, and leave the grey areas as whole pumpkin flesh. It works pretty well.
I will update with pics of the apartment when I move in, hopefully around November first.
