Wiebeluh

Een wiebelkonijntje in Breda (pedding zoo)

Het ganzegebeure

Geese at the pedding zoo in Breda

@ Apple with the new MacBook Air

With our Product Manager @ Apple holding the new MacBook Air. Very very flat. Very flat ;-)

Happy Camper again

Thanks to VERY helpful and knowledgable Tiscali/Telfort employee, my connection to the Internet has been re-established at the level that is acceptable. Here's one more mtr report:

HOST: localhost.localdomain Loss% Snt Last Avg Best Wrst StDev
1. fritzbox 0.0% 120 1.2 1.4 0.8 14.5 1.9
2. 82-169-7-254.ip.telfort.nl 0.0% 120 18.6 20.7 18.2 72.2 6.6
3. vpn494-telfort.bcsw1.asd-nh. 10.0% 120 19.1 23.0 18.4 143.9 14.8
4. amsix.globalswitch.netholdin 0.0% 120 27.9 25.5 19.5 33.0 3.2
5. telfort.nl 0.0% 120 20.4 20.2 18.7 28.8 1.2

And yes, I am able to use the Fritzbox again. We'll try the Zyxel one more time tomorrow...

More lack of Telfort QoS

It seems that things have improved a bit, yet telephone is still not really working. Had to reset the Zyxel 2602 modem to get rid of the red 'internet' light. After that things seemed to work. Not for long though. I was able to make a few in- and outgoing test calls, but soon that stopped working.

Internet is still very flaky. Here's another mtr report:

HOST: localhost.localdomain Loss% Snt Last Avg Best Wrst StDev
1. 10.0.1.254 0.0% 120 1.7 2.6 1.6 45.1 5.4
2. 82-169-7-254.ip.telfort.nl 5.8% 120 25.0 26.7 23.0 79.3 8.2
3. vpn494-telfort.bcsw1.asd-nh. 18.3% 120 24.8 32.8 23.4 197.3 25.9
4. amsix.globalswitch.netholdin 8.3% 120 30.5 31.3 24.2 76.5 6.8
5. telfort.nl 5.8% 120 25.1 25.2 23.6 37.7 2.0

Still no word from Telfort/Tiscali. I got a tip from temp1 in a PM on the Tiscali board to find some Telfort network admin on IRC. Let me go try that out...

Telfort's QoS

Or lack thereof maybe. Coincidentally since the last week of January I have been experiencing trouble with my Telfort (formally Tiscali) internet en telephony service. Symptoms are retraining modem; caller going to voicemail while the phone rings normally (calling party can't hear us of course).

It looks like I am not the only one according the posts on the Tiscali forum:

• http://forum.tiscali.nl/viewtopic.php?t=4560
• http://forum.tiscali.nl/viewtopic.php?t=4533

I don't think it has anything to do with the migration of Tiscali to Telfort, as they both use the same network. Surprisingly enough the internet en telephony at my parents house (same CO) works without a hitch.

I have decided to post daily mtr reports of tests ran from my Linux computer. There is no abnormal other traffic: just some web browsing and email.

Here's the first report:

HOST: localhost.localdomain Loss% Snt Last Avg Best Wrst StDev
1. 10.0.1.254 0.0% 50 1.6 2.1 1.5 15.1 2.0
2. 82-169-7-254.ip.telfort.nl 44.0% 50 25.2 25.3 23.3 31.2 1.5
3. vpn494-telfort.bcsw1.asd-nh. 36.0% 50 30.9 27.0 23.8 46.9 4.4
4. amsix.globalswitch.netholdin 24.0% 50 32.6 30.8 25.1 37.5 3.5
5. telfort.nl 40.0% 50 24.9 25.3 23.9 28.7 1.0

Telfort told me on February 6, 2008 that they would start a what they call 'Technisch Onderzoek'. Results can be expected within 10 business days. No results so far.

fs check on 5TB might take a bit...

To Plaxo or not to Plaxo?

That seems to be the question :-) Yo-han got me started on Plaxo, although I seem to remember one of my former co-workers at CyberCash invited me to it at one point. I never thought anything of it, but now see a great value. For me at least...

Here's what I like about Plaxo:

• It can act as an online calendar (didn't I use Google Calendar for that?)
  
• It can act as an online addressbook (didn't I use ScheduleWorld with SyncML to my N80i for that?)
• It acts as a online social app, which seem to have become very popular lately. See Hyves.nl, MySpaces.com, Facebook.com, etc.
• It syncs with nearly everything: Outlook, Thunderbird, Google (Calendar AND Addressbook), Facebook, LinkedIn. You name it and it syncs with it. Unless you have a Symbian phone like my N80i...

Online Calendar
I was not looking for yet another calendar, as I have been using Google Calendar together with ScheduleWorld to sync it to my Symbian phone. This works and even allows you to sync multiple shared calendars to your phone. It still has this beta/buggy feeling to it. With Plaxo one can have one Google Calendar set to automatically sync with the Plaxo Calendar. There isn't a possibility to sync multiple calendars though. Not as far as I can tell.

Online Addressbook
I have been battling with keeping my contacts up to date in all my applications and phone. It used to work well with ScheduleWorld again, but after my N80i got replaced by a new phone (new IMEI and such) things have gotten messed up. Duplicate entries that keep coming back after I sync things. I like using ScheduleWorld as it allows me to do a SyncML sync OTA (Over-The-Air). I am willing to give this up though, if I can get my phone to succesfully sync with either Outlook (work) or Thunderbird (home). We'll see.
The addressbook is pretty cool. It's complete and links locations to maps, it allows click-to-call and keeps a history. It also automatically syncs with your LinkedIn connections and can be set up to automatically sync with your Google Addressbook in GMail. On top of that, it recognizes whether your contacts in your addressbook are also Plaxo members. Depending on what information they have decided to share with whom, their contact information is automatically kept up to date.

Social App
Although I have not been into Hyves, MySpaces and the likes, I like the Pulse in Plaxo. It shows me recent activity from my connections. If someone shares a link in Google Reader, it is shown in the Pulse. As soon as I publish this blog post, it will be listed in my connections' Pulse. Even if someone updates their profile, it is shown. Finally it even shows who your conenctions connect with.

Syncing
I have been pleasently surprised by the wide variety of offline and online applications Plaxo syncs with. I have just set it up to sync my addressbook with Thunderbird. Outlook is about to finish its sync also. With Outlook it is also possible to sync your calendar, tasks and notes. For now I have chosen to just sync the contacts. That's enough for now.
Besides the offline applications like Thunderbird and Outlook, Plaxo also syncs with your LinkedIn contacts, Facebook, Windows Live, GMail addressbook.

Finally it's nice to see that Plaxo members can choose who they want to share their profile information with. One can either choose to share it with Business connections, Friends, Family, Everyone of Nobody. For me that's a definite plus over communities like Hyves and Facebook.

Hope this blog post got youinterested and made you decide to also become a Plaxo member. That way we can easily stay in touch and always have up to date contact information.

QIK | Streaming video right from your phone

Cool stuff. Will try when my N80 comes back from Nokia....

QIK | Streaming video right from your phone

Xen Rulez!

After a few days of fiddling and rsyncing data from my old server in Amsterdam to my new server on my desk, I have been able to virtualize an existing physical server to a Xen DomU guest! Woohoo!!

It started out with just rsyncing every LV from the server to an image (for each LV) on the new one. Writing a config file for Xen and boot. Ahum, wish it was as simple as that. :-(

I've got it running now and will post a complete HowTo later this week hopefully. It's not complicated, but I haven't been able to find a HowTo describing what I have just done.

Maia Mailguard

We had a customer in the past week that totally clogged up our Astaro Security appliance (that was protected against DoS by disallowing more than 20 concurrent connections to the SMTP server). Further study taught us that they receive 20000 spam emails per day on average.

Fake MX is a good practice, but we also sped up our deployment of our new spamfilter using Maia Mailguard. This baby had no trouble intercepting all spam messages. It's based on amavisd-new, Postfix and of course ClamAV. Cool stuff.

Maia Mailguard - Trac

GravityZoo

GravityZoo; kewl name for a framework. Looks interesting; let's go and see the presentation at the Open Source Business Club in Eindhoven on Nov 1. More later.

PostPath; Exchange drop-in replacement?

Came across this in Computable. Looks promissing, although it looks like it's really just a drop-in replacement for Exchange; one would still need an Active Directory. Nevertheless, they have a 12 user free version that might be worth looking at: PostPath: New Home Page

And we have lift-off!

Finally I also got the sound working in CentOS5 now. It required rebuiding alsa-drivers, alsa-libs and alsa-utils from scratch. "From scratch" these days means no more than "configure; make; make install". Lucky me ;-)

After rebooting I ran into another snag: No MP3 support. As I had setup yum to use rpmforge repos, I was able to install gstreamer-plugins-ugly for the MP3 support (FedoraForum.org - How to multimedia xmms, rythmbox, ogle, etc.). Now that tis works, DVD support is next. I have tried the Hotkeys in the meantime, but wasn't able to get them running: Pressing the WLAN button actually DISabled the WLAN interface ;-)

Acer Hotkey driver for Linux

I got WLAN (ndiswrapper) and the correct 1280x800 resolution (915resolution) working properly now, on my new Acer Aspire 5310. All that is left, is sound (it's recognized, but doesn't do anything) and the hotkeys. Found this driver; curious to see if this will work. Will let you know. Acer Hotkey driver for Linux.

After WLAN I got LDAP authentication and automounting of my /home through NFS set up. Wonderful to see all my Firefox/Thunderbird settings were used without a hitch. Exccellent!!

7 Rules for Communicating Clearly and Concisely in Email « Web Worker Daily

Email has become an important means of communication for many of us. We all complain about how many emails we receive and how hard it is to keep our inbox at a managable size. For a while now, I have been using the one-touch rul, which means I touch every email only once and then I either archive it, act on it or place it on my todo list. This way, no time is lost on re-reading old emails. Never start reading emails, if you can't react to them after reading.

These seven rules will help you to only send emails that will help you getting your work done...
7 Rules for Communicating Clearly and Concisely in Email « Web Worker Daily

Twitter.com

Guess I have just joined twitter.com ;-) There's a widget on the blog (on the right) and you can hit "follow me on twitter" to follow me on twitter ;-)

ShowMyPC.com - Instant Desktop Sharing and Access Remote PC Free

Finally had a chance to try this with my mom. For the people doing some remote computer help for friends and family, this is the perfect tool. Just a simple download and your good to go. No install, nothing.

Try it out!

ShowMyPC.com - Instant Desktop Sharing and Access Remote PC Free

4 Simple Steps to Start the Exercise Habit | zen habits

You didn't expect that huh? Well, I have been bad about sticking to my 3 times a week habbit of going to the gym and I need to get back into it. Saturday mornings I usually go there, but Tuesday and Thusday nights are harder ;-) Other people must have similar problems with their motivation. You might benefit from this article.

You didn't 4 Simple Steps to Start the Exercise Habit | zen habits

16092007109

I found a way to post photos to my blog now: ShoZu. I love it! After taking a photo it can be set up to prompt you for posting it right away. Excellent...