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Ubuntu for 30 Days – Day 3 thru 10

clamasters — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 02:30:12 +0000

I was a little busy with work and baby prep so I really wasn’t on the computer all that much however, I am really liking the shear number of applications that are at my finger tips. I started using workspaces a bit more. At home I only have a single 17″ monitor, I know I know. Hopefully it’s only temporary. I’m used to having duals at work so it’s a bit of a change.

I will say that I am liking Rhythmbox as my music player and started using Miro for my video podcasts or videocasts…whatever you want to call them. I really only watch Hak5 so far but I’m sure I’ll be adding more in the future.

I had been having some problems staying connected to my VPN at work via the Cisco VPN app so I really haven’t been interfacing to my work from home a lot except from my eeePC. I want to do a site to site from home to work but I’m sure my employeer wouldn’t want that. Sorry for the boring update, hopefully some good stuff coming up.

Ubuntu for 30 Days – Day 1

clamasters — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 04:05:07 +0000

Tonight was a little rocky for Mr. Ubuntu. I was trying to help my father out with an Outlook Express issue obviously on a Windows machine. My typical remote access solution would not work as it requires Windows as the support PC. However, I went ahead and tried to do a terminal server connection to a server on his network and then launch the application. In this case ShowMyPC. The connection was SLOW!!! I then started searching around for something that was cross compatible. I found YuuGuu but apparently am too dumb to figure it out.

Does anyone have a recommendation for remote support TO Windows and OS X workstations and servers FROM linux? Preferably Ubuntu. I prefer free solutions but would be willing to pay a small fee if needed as long as it also supported support from Windows as I could use it from my job.

On a softer note, I do like RhythmBox. I want to get Pandora playable inside there but that can come later.

Setting up VPNC and the Network Manager VPN piece was pretty easy. All through apt-get… I needed this to connect into my work place and do time entries and remote support stuff.

So far so good. With the exception to remote support to Windows based clients, I’m pretty rock solid on Ubuntu.

Ubuntu for 30 Days

clamasters — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 04:07:10 +0000

Alrighty, I know it’s been a while and you are all bored or have already deleted my RSS from your reader but hopefully I’ll peak your interestes a bit. My goal for the next 30 days is to use Ubuntu 9.04 at home (sorry Windows required at work). I know this has already been done but as everyone is different, hopefully my experience will differ. If you have any feedback please let me know. Just for info, I’ll be using my new home hardware here.

Cisco – tcp-small-servers and udp-small-servers

clamasters — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 05:57:25 +0000

For some truly unknown reason, Cisco’s devices still have support for “small servers” or “simple services”. Examples of these include echo, chargen, daytime and discard. An attacker could possibly start a denial of service attack (DoS) against one or more network devices with those configured. In this case; echo and chargen are to blame by allowing an attacker to cause the chargen service to hit the echo services causing an endless loop of character generation and echo between the two hosts. To disable this, simply enter the following commands:

configure terminal no service tcp-small-servers no service udp-small-servers

These commands can be run on nearly all IOS based Cisco equipment.

Cisco Switching – switchport nonegotiate

clamasters — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 07:07:47 +0000

Dynamic Trunking Protocol (DTP) is a standard feature of Cisco switches and allows two switches to dynamically configure interfaces interconnecting each other to be trunked ports. DTP has 5 modes; Auto (default), On, Off, desirable and nonegotiate. These 5 modes all have a purpose. I have layed out the groundwork below:

auto – The default setting allows the port to willingly convert to trunking, however, the port will not trunk unless the neighbor is set to on or desirable. When two switches are connected together and set for auto, they will NOT trunk.
on – This setting forces the port to be a trunk regardless of the neighbor’s settings.
off – This setting forces the port to not trunk, even if the neighbor is set to on.
desirable – This causes the port to attempt to become a trunk, however, the neighbor would have to be set to on, desirable or auto.
nonegotiate – This setting, forces the port to be a trunk but disables DTP frames between the two switches. This is useful when you are working with non-Cisco equipment and just want to ensure that the ports won’t do anything you do not want them to….this is my preference.

To configure this on your switches, issue the following:

configure terminal interface g1/0/49 switchport trunk encapsulation dot1q switchport mode trunk switchport nonegotiate

Hopefully this was somewhat worthwhile. It is very basic so I apologize but this is the easiest way to give you the needed information without boring you to death

Cisco Command Reference

clamasters — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 06:47:12 +0000

I was working on a client’s network tonight and thought of about 10k topics to blog about.Â All the commands on Cisco routers and switches.Â The purpose of this would be to help remind me that the basics are not good enought and also expand your mind on what a command does, how to use it and possibly when to implement it.Â If at any point I’m completely off my rocker, you know what to do

Blogging FAIL!!

clamasters — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 06:14:00 +0000

Ok, I have suckedÂ pretty bad over the last few months with only personal updates.Â I apologize.Â I do have some good idea’s in store for technical articles and such but overall, I’ve just been really really lazy.Â I haven’t been putting in more than maybe 50 hours a week at work, I wouldn’t say I’m avoiding work but I’m surely not a “go getter” right now.Â Hopefully I’ll have a few articles done this week and next for you all to chew on.Â Let me know if anything in particular trips your trigger…

Great News!! Another Addition

clamasters — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 06:28:18 +0000

Yesterday, my wife and I had a great surprise from our doctor. We have been trying for about a year now and finally are pregnant. The doctor says she is 5 weeks along and we just feel very very blessed.

Earlier this year she was diagnosed with poly-cystic ovarian syndrome. I’m not sure if I spelled that correctly So with that getting in our way and me being around high powered radio waves for a while when I was in the Marines, we are definitely relieved.

Wish us luck.

New Asus eee PC

clamasters — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 03:40:41 +0000

Well, last Friday my wife and I added a new edition to the family; an Asus eee PC (XP Home, 1Gb Memory, 120 Gb Hard Drive).Â We bid the highest on the computer at my companies yearly Christmas Party.Â I really didn’t want it at first but now that I’ve had a little bit of time on it, the computer is actually pretty fully functional.Â There are a few minor issues that I see so far but overall, the computer is very very usable.

So far this weekend I’ve really only had time to do some light surfing and software installs to get my core app’s installed but I do have to say that it is very functional.Â The size and weight are great, it’s “fast enough” which I have mentioned before is a relative term.Â I won’t be playing WoW or Unreal Tournament any time soon on it but it allows me to surf from one page toÂ another without delay, watch online video via YouTube, Fox on demand or ABC online and it has different power settings depending on how I want to use it (Super Performance, High Performance and Battery Saving Modes).

I will complain that the keyboard takes a little getting used to especially if your normally on a desktop or large laptop, the touch pad buttons are a bit stiff but I can always use a mouse if needed, and I absolutely hate the way they partitioned the hard drive.Â They did 2 60Gb partitions for C: and D:.Â Why, that’s all I can ask?

We ended up keeping the black model that was the Christmas party prize but I tell you, I had to defend my manly stance pretty hard against the wife so that she wouldn’t want me to trade it for the pink model.Â

In some respects it feels faster than my desktop at work (AMD something? 2Ghz, 1Gb Ram).

New Computer – 5.9 Vista Experience for under $400

clamasters — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 05:48:54 +0000

A few weeks ago I go the go ahead from my wife to build myself a new computer.Â I have been rocking a P4 at home for quite some time…so long in fact that I just started using my work laptop as my home computer.Â It wasn’t horrible but definitely time to upgrade.Â I knew I wanted to keep the cost down even though I think I could have gotten my wife to agree to nearly any reasonable price and I knew I wanted it to be FAST!! Â That is a relative term but the items I did purchase SEEM very very fast to me.Â It would blow my mind if I were to get all the high end stuff .

Case:Â Â Â Â Ultra X-Blaster ATX Black Mid-Tower Case
Power Supply:Â Â Â Â Ultra LSP550 550-Watt Power Supply
Memory:Â Â Â Â Corsair Dual Channel TWINX 4096MB PC6400
Processor:Â Â Â Â AMD Phenom 9500 Processor
Motherboard:Â Â Â Â Asus M2N-SLI Motherboard
Hard Drive:Â Â Â Â Seagate 500GB Serial ATA
Video Card:Â Â Â Â XFX GeForce 7600 GT (already owned)
Operating System:Â Â Â Â Windows Vista Ultimate 32Bit (already owned)

Total:Â $374.98 + Tax/Shipping

I thought that price was pretty darn good.Â By the way, I don’t have all 5.9′s on Vista’s experience rating, I only have 5.9′s on everything except graphics.Â I have 5.5 there but will hopefully be able to get a 9800GT Video Card here soon which will put me up to 5.9′s Â The operating system was free because I let Microsoft spy on my Windows XP machine for a few months. In return, they gave me a copy of Vista Ultimate 32/64 Bit.