I've known about Squid for years, but only recently got an excuse to play around with it. I commented about the stupidity of someone blocking IP addresses on a firewall to prevent people from wasting time on non-work websites, and before I knew it I was setting up a new Squid server. I think my comment was something about "the wrong tool for the job". I didn't know enough about Squid to know if it was the right tool, but after some research I was confident it could meet the needs of this client, and at the right price.

As I got started, I was struck by the depth of the configuration file. I admit I got a little lost in it. I finally managed to configure a basic installation for user access control (I disabled caching due to the age/speed of the server). Now that I've configured a few servers, I'm liking squid more and more. We're planning some new installations, this time more for caching purposes than access control, so I'll get to put that aspect of Squid's features to the test as well. I have to say I'm not a big fan of seafood, but I really do like Squid!

Posted by ra in computerish at 21:39 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

I've been dealing with a lot of Cisco routers lately. We've put in several 2811's and a 2851 recently, and I've had to reconfigure some older 1700 series routers. I'm not cisco certified or anything, but I'm fairly comfortable with IOS just because I've been thrown in to make changes on routers so many times. I've heard rumors about web interfaces or gui tools for configuring IOS, but I've never seen them. The CLI is pretty easy to use once you get acquainted with it, and I like it pretty well. I've used way too many GUI's that just got in the way and made things difficult, or outright removed functionality.

The bad thing about Cisco is of course the cost. For the price of the 2851 and WIC cards for 6 T1's you could buy a small car, new. Alas we've tried to look into other vendors, like Juniper, but can't seem to get anyone to return our calls. Oh well; we'll stay with Cisco for now.

Posted by ra in computerish at 19:14 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

After my last energy-related post, I bought a cool little device that allows me to measure power consumption of everyday electrical devices. I've been testing various computers, appliances and electronics that I have or have access to, in order to discover just how power hungry they are.

Some of the surprises included my Pentium 4 file server which uses only about 40 W, a dual processor Pentium III server which uses a whopping 175 W, and a small stereo system which uses about 22 W in standby mode! Just how much power do you need to watch for a button press from the remote control?!

Interesting statistics after the jump.

Posted by ra in other geeky stuff at 01:40 | Comments (2) | Trackbacks (0)

Although I had been planning to buy one for a while, it wasn't until yesterday after I placed an order for Wii Play at Amazon that I decided we should go ahead and acquire a Wii. Phone calls to the usual suspects yesterday turned up nothing. I decided to strike again today at lunch time. Bingo! My first call, to Meijer, confirmed that they had just ONE in stock. I raced over, ran in, and asked if they still had it. "Are you the person who just called?" they asked. Yup, I said. "That was fast!" they replied.

Posted by ra in other geeky stuff at 18:11 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

I'm interested in energy efficiency, which is why I have been gradually replacing the incandescent light bulbs in our house with compact fluorescents, or CF's. We had already been using fluorescents where possible, usually tubes or circular shapes, but now that CF's have gone mainstream, almost any incandescent bulb is a candidate for replacement. The difference in energy usage is phenomenal. I have been replacing 40W bulbs with 9W ones; 60W with 13W and 100W with 23W. I'm amazed that the light output of the new bulbs is just as good as the old ones. It really shows how much energy is wastefully and undesirably used to make heat in an incandescent bulb.

Posted by ra in other geeky stuff at 23:18 | Comments (0) | Trackback (1)

MUAHAHAHA! It couldn't come soon enough, and the last day of my verizon contract is fast approaching. But even better than that, I have stepped up the end of the agony. Exploiting the text message fee increase contract termination loophole trick, I won freedom from the contract, effective at the end of my billing cycle (about two weeks from now) which is about 2 months before the actual end of the contract.

Contrary to some reports, it took only a few minutes of chatting with the reasonably pleasant verizon rep, and I didn't need to ask for a supervisor or come up with elaborate arguments to get out of the contract. It was actually rather easy. But don't get me wrong, verizon still sucks. At least now I will no longer be a contract slave, so I'll be able to laugh at their suckage from a safe distance.

Posted by ra in gadgets and phones at 00:31 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

IP aliases are incredibly useful for testing and troubleshooting (and virtual hosting too). The other day I needed to add some IP aliases on a FreeBSD machine. I administer FreeBSD servers at work but I am much more familiar with Linux, so I had to look up the syntax.

I found out how to add an alias:
ifconfig rl0 alias 10.0.0.5 netmask 255.255.255.0
...and remove an alias:
ifconfig rl0 -alias 10.0.0.5

This contrasts with the Linux ifconfig syntax for dealing with aliases:
ifconfig eth0:0 10.0.0.5 netmask 255.255.255.0
ifconfig eth0:0 down

Or what I'm usually using-- iproute2 on Linux: (I have really come to love iproute2)
ip addr eth0 add 10.0.0.5/24
ip addr eth0 del 10.0.0.5/24

* unrelated rant #1-- Why the hell are FreeBSD ethernet devices named according to the driver that supports the card? This annoys me, and I don't see the point. I never know what the device might be called unless I happened to have just installed the nic, which is usually not the case.

** unrelated rant #2-- Why the hell is windows so lacking when it comes to ip aliasing? AFAIK, you can configure IP aliases only if the primary address is static. If it is dynamic then you are out of luck.

Posted by ra in computerish at 21:27 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)