bohnsack.com

Check out the Gentoo Linux distribution.

I've live and online from IBM's Atlanta GA training facility.

After countless run-arounds with qwest they claim that every thing went through and I'm being charged for the new service, but the circuit is still at the same old speed. They then ask for 24-48 hours to get it fixed. This is total BS. I talked to over 20 different clueless people about this issue. I'm talking to sales now and threatening to cancel all my service if they don't get it working today.

After about 4 run-arounds, qwest claims they'll have my DSL upgraded by 7:00 PM tonight. We'll see.

What's been going on recently?

I no longer work for UGS/EAI. Last Friday was my last day. It's kind of strange. I've worked at EAI, for more-or-less 5 years. EAI was a great place to work for most of the time I was there... Brilliant and energetic people that made great things. Now I think it's another story. Much of the best talent has fled after the UGS thing. UGS seems to be enamored and entangled with Microsoft. Passable short-term strategy. *Stupid* long term strategy.

I'll miss EAI. The EAI that no longer exists is the one I choose to remember. I'm glad to be out of there. There's a whole new world beyond it!

I start with IBM on the 19th. Yes that's right.. the definition of corporatism.. Big Blue. It's so cool though. I'll be working with Linux!. My title is I/T Architect. I'll be doing architecture and implementation of Linux systems for tier 1 clients. This means designing and implementing massive Linux systems. I can't wait. If things work out, I'll be getting paid very well to do what I'd be doing if I didn't have a job... Linux! I'll be working out of my house and traveling around the Midwest. I leave for Atlanta GA on Sunday to go to IBM orientation and learn more about what I'll be doing. I return on Wednesday the 28th.

I'll have to get some bird feed so I can watch the birds from my new home office .

We've had horrible weather... Freezing rain, ice, snow, cold.

I've been doing all kinds of hacking over that last few weeks. I've migrated all but one of my external network machines to OpenBSD 2.8 and added some more security layers. I've documented the whole thing and it will be available on bohnsack.com when I upgrade the site (hopefully in a month or so). The only publicly accessible machine that's still Linux is the webserver. DBD::Mysql dumps with mod_perl under OpenBSD so the weblog won't work. I'll upgrade to newer versions of perl/mysql and debug this when I get back from Atlanta. I've moved from bind and sendmail to djbdns and qmail on my machines and perfectioncrane.com's (my secondary DNS and mail). I must say that I'm very happy with the OpenBSD, ipf, djbdns, and qmail combination... Fast, secure, and simple. I'm still using Linux internally.

I've been meaning to do some work on my ultra elite GCMP project. Perhaps some architecture when I get back from Atlanta.

Quest still hasn't upgraded my DSL speed. Why is it that telcos *never*, *ever* get things right and on time?

Test your DSL download speed from any Quest POP.

I prefer a simple:

wget http://desmpop1.desm.uswest.net/10Mg_File.class

to test against the Des Moines POP.

From The Hacker Ethic:

From the point of a view of a meaningful life, the entire work/leisure duality must be abandoned. As long as we are living our work or our leisure, we are not even truly living. Meaning cannot be found in work or leisure but has to arise out of the nature of the activity itself. Out of passion. Social value. Creativity.

Yeah!

dsniff! Wow! I'm keeping my servers' fingerprints with me at all times.

Dug Song kicks ass.

Check out DNS Bajaj. It's a really great DNS tool that draws a graph of delegation and can help you spot errors.