Good commerical was just on: “kerry wrong then, wrong now” to kerry saying “we can not fight communism all over the world” kerry as a young guy, looks like he is in olive military clothing, but with longer hair.. so perhaps in his post military hippie days seems more likely.. (more…)

I’ve been running Linux as my server for several years. RedHat 8 and then 9. I even run Samba as a domain controller. I have anti-virus/anti-spam cranked up email server, network PDF printing, centralized faxing, web hosting, and tons of other features up and running wonderfully, all free. Just takes a little knowledge.
But my new server comes in tomorrow. Nice new fast one, dual SATA drives, etc… And I need to decide what OS to install. And I was considering going with Windows 2003 server. Redhat has been annoying me lately. Mostly UTF8 issues, another few things that just never thrilled me too much.
What I would need to do is install Windows 2003 server and Exchange server 2003. A copy of antivirus for both the mail gateway and the OS. Antispam will be an issue, its just not easy on Exchange without 3rd party software. The built in backup software is good enough I guess, but no network faxing that works well, without paying for Small Business Server.

But then I downloaded the current release of SuSE Linux from bittorrent. I had to set it up at work for a project I’m working on. And whoa… I’m sold. I have an old version of SuSE 7.1 from years ago that I bought, and it has changed a lot since then! Slick install, nice update feature, all the right packages included. And its still supported unlike Redhat 9. And the Groupware server looks incredible. Take a look at those screenshots. Looks almost like Lotus Domino iNotes, which was the best thing about Notes.
So when the new box comes in, on goes SuSE. It’ll take me a few hours to migrate everything over, and then we’ll see how everything runs. I’ll have an update here when I’m done… Don’t worry, the public websites are hosted at a third party provider…

Ok, i am new to this, so forgive any errors. Really not sure exactly what i will do or write as of now.. but gonna just babble for the minute.
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Spent the day sick, which is always enjoyable of course. Backed up at work, which is more fun. What isn’t fun is every week having your priorities switch from one thing to another and when you try to keep up and pick up the slack, its counted against you.
Added a cool feature to the website here. Many people come here to read more about Pirates. Well, I try to throw Pirate content in once in a while, and I have a good set of links on the right for pirate content. But I now have a real time Amazon search for Pirate History. Or anything else you can think of.
Works nicely I think, and will change as more books get higher ratings, or other books are released. Try it and let me know what you think…

If I Ever Become a Vampire

1. I shall wear tweed, and cheerful bright clothing. Further, I shall only wear trench coats if it is raining or foggy.
2. I will not take my victims home. My neighbors are far too nosy.
3. I will be secure in my immortality. I do not have to share my story with any reporter or struggling writer.
4. I will not purchase an expensive foreign sports car or motorcycle. An economical, multi-terrain vehicle with 4-wheel drive will be just fine.
5. I will immediately become Agnostic, disarming any cross-wielding religious maniacs.
6. I shall not keep a coffin in the basement, that’s the first place people look.
7. I shall immediately purchase a Hooked on Phonics tape, in order to lose any Romanian accents I may have.
8. My ghouls shall have good posture.
9. I will purchase a digital watch with an alarm. I will set this alarm for TWO hours before sunrise, giving ample time for traffic and other inconveniences.
10. If I feel truly alone, and need a companion to share all of eternity with, I shall purchase a dog. Preferably one that is not larger than I am.
11. If the neighborhood kids are snooping around my house, I will not change into a giant wolf and attempt to destroy them. Instead, I shall call the police and have them arrested for trespassing.
12. If I believe far too many people are becoming suspicious, I shall not attempt to kill them all. I will simply move, and leave no forwarding address.
13. There is no logical reason for someone to mistake another human being for a fifteen-foot bat, not even in hysteria. Therefore, I shall refrain from such transformations in public.
14. Artists are over-emotional and unstable. I shall not keep company with them whatsoever.
15. I will not attend gatherings of my own kind. If I’m a lethal killing machine, doomed for all eternity to destroy those around me, they probably are too.

Converting to WordPress so please bear with…
Its looking much better. And the new backend interface is incredible. But, its a little tough modifying the layout to come close to what it was, but I’m getting there. Well, a few things are still broken, mostly the monthly archives, but its good for tonite!

Update!
Ok, conversion is done. Everything I can see works… monthly archives needed a small code change, but its happy now.
But I’m really impressed with WordPress. Much improved since it first came out, which is why I stuck with B2 as long as I did.
And much nicer than any of the competition.
Let me know what you think of the front end. Should be about the same, the main font is about the only major difference. I’ve copied most of the style sheet over from the old one.
DodgeBlogium has converted recently also. Takes a little bit of getting used to…

My Way News has scientific proof that dogs can understand language. Some wags in the scientific community have long said that they can’t understand language, but merely inflections in your language. Streak II, our border collie, definitely proves that they’re full of it. He knows the difference between all his toys, all the locations in the house, and different locations outside. All by language. Not mattering who says the words either.
Now if we could just hope the kids in the neighborhood get that smart!

Ok, I like good coffee. I hate bitter coffee. Right now at work we have those single serving jobs which work great.
But I don’t like “coffee houses”. This flash movie will tell you why… Note, nasty language, but funny.
Sorry Scott, I think starbucks is pretty nasty.

Got a first post on SlashDot.
Seems that zombie pc’s (systems infected with spyware, trojans, and viruses) account for almost 80% of the spam received.
And take it from me: If you get spyware, back up your data, and erase your PC, install things back, restore your data. It is not worth cleaning the system, it takes less time to start fresh. It is almost impossible to get it all off, and lately the spyware takes you to web pages to load more versions of spyware. So unless you get every single trace of it off, all at once, you will get reinfected almost immediately.

Well, it took longer than most, but it was inevitable. My software client WiSSH has been cracked. Looks like chinese hackers did it. I wrote about it in Epsiode 216. Its now out there on the 0-day sites, followed by Winall.Cracked-iNFECTED.
But, not to make it any easier for them, I’m going to have a new build released soon with some minor fixes, and I’ll just change the encryption routine on it. I just need to get a copy and see exactly what they did.

I’ve decided to write about some personal history. Just fun things that have happened in the long long ago….
Hanging out in Mr. Donut’s was the thing to do in Newark, De. Just because there was nothing else to do. So, a few hours before I left to go to Panama, at around one in the morning, I found myself there with several friends. We were bs’ing in the parking lot when a car pulled up. And out came two men and two women, all of the bare ass naked. Seems they were coming back from a nudist convention. Although where in Delaware a nudist convention would be held, I will never know. Maybe just stoned. So they were walking around the parking lot, talking to people like everything was just normal, using the bathroom in the donut shop, everything. Got back in their car and left. Funny thing was no one freaked out or anything. Just business as usual. Hey, at least the women were good looking!

New Scientist reports on headgear for cows, that will take a PDA, GPS, and speaker, and create virtual “fences” for cows. The rancher will move the virtual fence around like a video game. Imagine if your cow server got hacked by someone who didn’t know what it was, and sent all your cattle over a cliff. Best part though, was this quote:

The group has tested a static version of the virtual fence on 10 cows in a field in Vermont that was one square kilometre in size. They have only tested the moving version on a group of students.

I would have loved to have seen this, a bunch of students walking around getting zapped. Bad fratboy, keep away from that keg!

Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., with $1.75 trillion; Rep. Major Owens, D-N.Y., with $1.73 trillion; Rep. Raul Grijalva, D-Ariz., with $1.73 trillion; Rep. Danny Davis, D-Ill., with $1.71 trillion; Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Calif., with $1.71 trillion; Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., with $1.69 trillion; Rep. Julia Carson, D-Ind., with $1.68 trillion; Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill., with $1.68 trillion; and Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., with $1.68 trillion.

The list of the biggest spenders in Congress.
Ain’t it funny how they all have ‘D’ after their names? Of course, they are all against tax cuts bigtime, since that will prevent them from porking their constituents.

Well, spent all day whipping out my latest project. Figured I’d brag about it a little.
TunnelMail tunnels POP3, IMAP, and SMTP through SSH secure tunneling. This means that you can get to your internal mail servers from the Internet, and still be secure. Because no one in their right mind would ever put an Exchange server directly on the Internet. So now, you can use that Linux box running Postfix as a gateway so you can IMAP into your internal mail, getting all your folders and everything just right from home.
Give it a try, lemme know what you think.

Reading Anne Coulter today and she hit upon a great point:

In January 2003 – or three months after Sen. Tom Daschle voted for the Iraq war resolution hoping to fool the voters of South Dakota this November – he was horrified that Bush seemed to be actually contemplating war with Iraq! According to Daschle, Bush should have waited for Iraq to grow into a problem of crisis proportions before deciding to do anything – citing the Cuban missile crisis as a model to be emulated. “If we have proof of nuclear and biological weapons,” Daschle asked, “why doesn’t [Bush] show that proof to the world as President Kennedy did 40 years ago when he sent Adlai Stevenson to show the world U.S. photographs of offensive missiles in Cuba?”
The answer is and was: Because by the time Saddam had nuclear weapons, we wouldn’t be able to do anything. That’s why it’s known as the “Cuban missile crisis,” not the “Cuban missile triumph.”

That is the key point. The Cuban Missle Crisis, as celebrated as it was, accomplished nothing but the status quo. The Soviets just pulled back missles from where they were located. Didn’t even matter much. They had boomer submarines even closer.
But this is celebrated by the liberals as the great triumph of diplomacy. No, it was a giant game of chicken. No great strategy was involved. The Soviets just blinked first. Partially because they were terrified of what may happen.
Liberal thought has this as the pinnacle of power politics between nations. I always had the feeling of the crisis being somewhat wishy-washy. Terrifying in its time, but in the long run, relatively minor. Don’t tell me about the tensions and missles on alert and such. It wasn’t the only time we were that close to war or even closer…