Tuesday, January 22, 2008

TWiT Books

The guys on my favourite Podcast, TWiT, usually recommend audiobooks for download from Audible.com, and I always forget the names of the recommendations. I've listened (read) a number of books they've recommended and enjoyed them, so thought it was cool to find this guy's site: http://www.willhallmusic.com/audibleTWiT.html

Its an archive/list of all the recommendations from the TWiT Podcast. Something that might come in handy one day...

Phone Shopping

I'm looking into replacing my phone. Currently I have a Nokia E61, which I really like, love the QWERTY keyboard, but don't like the bulk. Don't like the browser. Don't like the email client (HTML email comes up garbled). Miss having a camera. Like the Gmail client and Google Maps app.

Current contenders:

  • Nokia E61i - like that it's thinner, nice screen, and has a camera.
  • Nokia N95 8GB - love that it has almost everything, really nice screen, don't like that its thick and has no QWERTY keyboard.
  • HTC TyTN II - don't like that its thick, not sure about going back to Windows Mobile (stability, performance etc), like that I could get my old Smartphone Apps running again.
I need to do some investigation, I think before I choose. There's quite a price difference too (e61i=$700, n95=$1000, TYTNII=$1400).

Its just too hard to decide!

iPod Touch Apps Update


Sorry Dicky (http://lifeofstaff.blogspot.com/2008/01/legitimate-apps-on-my-ipod-touch.html) but I think my iPod Touch January Update experience was far more seemless, pain-free and cheaper than yours. Ready to move to NZ yet? ;-)

I simply performed the software update (when prompted in iTunes), followed the upgrade link (after the reboot) paid my NZ$27.99 (GBP10.87) and wahey - all up and running. I must admit I haven't checked the 'manually manage' button - I just sync based on a Playlist and checked Photos/Videos.

I'm very happy with the new software though. Google Maps is very cool. The email client is great - stoked that the gmail IMAP/SSL functionality is already in there. Its nice when a new mail comes in that the music volume is reduced - a cool 'ping' noise plays - then the volume returns to normal. Still don't like the onscreen keyboard though - fat thumbs. Haven't used the stocks application (don't care about that). But the weather app is really nice.

I've already recommended the update to two other iPod touch users today :-)

Tuesday, January 08, 2008

In car GPS navigation...again


I finally gave in today, and picked up a TomTom One XL in-car satellite navigation system. I used to use the TomTom Navigator software when I lived in the UK, but when I got back to NZ I couldn't get hold of any decent software for my iPaq, so I've gone without. Until today.

I thought I'd done a pretty good job shopping around and finding the cheapest price, but then I walked into J B Hifi and found they had them for $120 lower than RRP ($488). If only I'd have waited a couple of hours longer :-(

I have to say that the new little boxes are very nice. Still have all the features of the old Nav Software, but are quick to startup, use, and easy to update (both the software and the maps can be updated online through PC-USB connection).

Now all I need to find is some decent New Zealand Points of Interest. I wonder whether my old POI creation software will work with the One XL...

Tuesday, January 01, 2008

iPod Touch Video and MediaCoder

I've been looking for a decent Video converter, to get Videos onto my iPod Touch. I tried 3GP Converter , but had some issues with it particularly in getting Widescreen videos converted properly. But I found MediaCoder, and have converted a number of videos now and it works great. Its even got an iPod Touch/iPhone specific version, which is very cool.

Thursday, December 13, 2007

The Facebook Social

I thought I'd try out some more social networking lately, so got signed up for Facebook, and went searching for anyone I knew. The first thing that surprised me was just how many people I knew were already on there. Even my Mum was already there! Crazy. The next thing I noticed was just how much time people seem to spend on there. There's all sorts of mad applications people are using.

I thought this video was quite funny. Kind of sums up nicely how bizarre Facebook can be - the fact that you're browsing through peoples lives - sometimes people you hardly know.



Of course I found that video because someone in my family posted it on my 'wall' :-)

It'll be interesting to see how long Facebook's popularity lasts. 'My Space' is so last year. What strange social things is 2008 going to bring?

Monday, December 10, 2007

Home Server

Microsoft have had some strange marketing campaigns in the past, but this just tops if off for me: Stay At Home Servers - The 'book' advertising the new Windows Home Server product. Its just bizarre. Surely the market that you're aiming at to sell dedicated servers in a home environment is going to be pretty IT-literate. So why market it using a children's book? Seems mad to me.

The product itself looks pretty cool though. Remote Access to many machines in the house would be nice, but I dont like the idea of opening up TCP/80 and 443 for all and sundry. You're just going to get attacked morning, noon & night. And as for registering for a DNS name in the namespace http://myfamily.homeserver.com! Hello? Want to advertise 'come & get me' to hackers everywhere - what a great idea! :-

I'd like to run one up at home and have a play. I wonder whether you can run VMware Server on it too...

Reviewers Guide

Some of these add-ins look handy too:
http://www.wegotserved.co.uk/windows-home-server-add-ins/

Tuesday, December 04, 2007

There goes t'Internet

Oh dear, just got this email this morning from Telecom regarding their Global Internet Gateway:
"Tropical Storm hit the Oregon coast in the USA that damaged the southern cross fibre cables. It is expected to take some time to recover the damaged cables due to the severe weather condition.

You are likely to experience some congestion of your international service until this problem is resolved."

But searching for news about it hasn't revealed much. This is about all I could find: Qwest reports broad outages along north coast - OregonLive.com But that's just talking about phone lines.

I suppose if the major Internet links out of New Zealand are down/degraded then maybe the news can't get through :-)

Update:
"The area continues to experience high winds and heavy rain which have affected landline along the Oregon Coast. The stormy weather condition still prevents technicians from access to the damaged area."

Bummer eh, even the Internet is dependent on good weather!

Update:
Finally some news articles about this today:
"Storm downs Aussie ISP links"
"Blog: If the cable breaks"

This is quite interesting too: New Zealand ISP Topological Map shows the interconnects between the different New Zealand ISPs.

Monday, December 03, 2007

Halo 3 Service Record

I've been playing a bit of Halo 3 lately - completed the campaign first, then started multiplayer over XBOX Live. Just discovered the online stats - Bungie Online : Halo 3 Service Record. Its really nicely presented, just like everything in Halo 3 really.

The game history function and stats are cool - even has details of all the local multiplayer games I have vs Scott & Gareth. Very cool.
Now I've just got to get some good screenshots and maybe an action video to upload....

Wednesday, November 07, 2007

Apple Tablet PC


Now this: Apple Tablet PC is real, says Asus - would be really cool! I love my Tablet PC, and would be very keen to see a Leopard-based alternative. I thought about getting a Mac about 18 months back, when the Intel MacBook Pros began shipping, but now that I've been using a Tablet for so long I doubt I'd be able to go back to a standard Notebook/Laptop ever again. Its just too handy to be able to write, draw, make notes in meetings without a tap-tap-tapping noise distracting everyone.

I'll keep my eyes peeled for any more news on this. It could be an Apple New Year (if the tablet and a decent 3G iPhone comes out).

More:
http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/11/06/1327230
http://www.macrumors.com/2007/11/06/apple-working-on-a-tablet-mac/

Thursday, October 25, 2007

Gmail gets IMAP support


Outstanding - something I (and probably 1000s of others) have been waiting for, for a very long time (ever since first using Gmail): IMAP is now supported. Yay! Not only that - IMAP over SSL. Excellent news for me - this will make managing my email across multiple PCs and my Nokia E61 much easier.

Thanks Google! Death to POP3!

Settings to note:
Incoming server: imap.gmail.com:993 Using: SSL
Outgoing server: smtp.gmail.com:587 Using: TLS

It looks like they are rolling it out to Google Apps users too. The option's not there for me at the moment, so I'll keep checking over the next few days.

I wonder when/if the iPod Touch will ever get the built-in email client.

I found out about it here:
Gmail gets IMAP support - 25 Oct 2007 - NZ Herald: Technology News from New Zealand and around the World

Monitoring Checkpoint Firewalls with SNMP


I've been doing some work for a client with Checkpoint Firewalls (running Secure Platform, or SPLAT), and wanted to monitor them using SNMP. The two main reasons being;

1. To graph Accepted/Dropped/Rejected packets over time and

2. To Poll the Firewalls for status using 3rd Party Management Tools like "Whats Up Gold" and "BMC Patrol".

The information I found in Checkpoint SecureKnowledge was terribly confusing, contradictory and misleading (has lots of info about Nokia IPSO Firewalls which doesn't work when using the SPLAT OS).


So a brief summary of what I had to do to get it to work correctly:
1. Enable SNMPD
chkconfig snmpd on
service snmpd start

2. Edit /etc/snmp/snmpd.conf
Add "rocommunity NotPublicCommunityString 192.168.0.1"
Add "proxy -v1 -c public 127.0.0.1:260 .1.3.6.1.4.1.2620"

3. Edit $FWDIR/conf/snmp.C

Add :snmp_community (
:read (“public”)
:write(“private”)
)

4. Run cpconfig, and enable the cpsnmpd extension

5. Add required security rule to permit access to the firewall from the management server(s) (SNMP-UDP/161) (You don't need to permit access to cpsnmpd-UDP/260)


Following these changes you should be able to do a 'netstat -an' and see the cpsnmpd listening on :260, and perform a local snmp check:
snmpwalk -v1 -c public localhost 1.3.6.1.4.1.2620.1.6

Gotchas to note:

1. The local snmpwalk above uses the "public" string - the one in snmp.C - NOT the one in snmpd.conf

2. snmpwalk from a remote host uses the "NotPublicCommunityString" - not "public"

3. snmpwalk locally (and maybe remotely) using just the OID 1.3.6.1.4.1.2620 causes the cpsnmpd process to die (need to restart it using '$CPDIR/bin/cpsnmpd -p 260' or cpstop, cpstart)

Once the above are done the management servers can query the enforcement module for Checkpoint SNMP OIDs, such as accepted packets, dropped packets and Checkpoint OS OIDs like CPU usage (accurate), memory usage etc. These queries go to the Firewall on UDP/161 and internally the snmpd process proxies the snmp request for OID .1.3.6.1.4.1.2620 (checkpoint) to the cpsnmpd process on UDP/260.

This happens by default in Nokia IPSO, but not on SecurePlatform.

Some good OIDs to Graph:

Active Real Memory .1.3.6.1.4.1.2620.1.6.7.4.4.0
Total Real Memory .1.3.6.1.4.1.2620.1.6.7.4.3.0
Packets accepted .1.3.6.1.4.1.2620.1.1.4.0
Packets dropped .1.3.6.1.4.1.2620.1.1.6.0
Packets rejected .1.3.6.1.4.1.2620.1.1.5.0
Packets logged .1.3.6.1.4.1.2620.1.1.7.0
Current connections .1.3.6.1.4.1.2620.1.1.25.3.0
Processor (System) .1.3.6.1.4.1.2620.1.6.7.2.2.0
Processor (User) .1.3.6.1.4.1.2620.1.6.7.2.1.0

And good OIDs to monitor for status:
Firewall Module State (Installed) .1.3.6.1.4.1.2620.1.1.1.0
Processor Usage .1.3.6.1.4.1.2620.1.6.7.2.4.0

Useful Links:

Cacti - An excellent (+free) web front end to MRTG/RRD-Tool

Cacti Templates Index - Although the supplied Checkpoint/Nokia ones didnt work for me without customisation. I created some more graphs and data sources using the above OIDs.

What's Up Gold - The new version is very nice. Excellent Web based multi-user UI.

Friday, October 19, 2007

Google Maps Mobile for E61

Just on my way South for a Weekend away with the boat (hopefully to get in some fishing & diving), and surfing in the car on my E61. There was a link for Google Maps on the search homepage so I installed it, and its very cool. A proper map application with GPS support! Really fast scrolling between locations too. Can't wait to try it out with the Bluetooth GPS i've got mounted in my car.

I wonder how long it'll be till they release one for the iPod touch (once the SDK is released).

Wednesday, October 10, 2007

Nice DNSCMD Script

I just came across this guy's blog when searching for dnscmd.exe syntax (DNSCMD.EXE = command line modifications to Windows 2000/2003 DNS zones/records). He has a really nice little batch file to enable the creation of both A and PTR records easily from the command line:
fpschultze - Add an A and PTR record using DnsCmd.exe

Looks like he has some other handy little scripts there too.

Wednesday, October 03, 2007

The IDxx European Launch Party Tour

I'm off to Italy this weekend to catch up with friends from the project last year. Should be a pretty cool trip. We're blogging the trip here.

Wednesday, September 19, 2007

New NZ Video

This is some nice Marketing for NZ I just stumbled upon. There's more here: http://www.youtube.com/user/PureNewZealand

Cisco IOS Embedded Event Manager

Another one of the sessions today had more info and examples related to Cisco IOS Embedded Event Manager (EEM). There's a forum where people share scripts which could come in handy here. Wasn't happy to learn that EEM isn't supported on the Catalyst 3750 yet. Will have to look into that in more detail...bit of a bugger as it would be useful.

There's a whitepaper on the Catalyst 6500 and EEM here.

Cisco Compliance

Day 2 of Networkers, and I tried a few different tracks today. The first of which was about PCI/DSS Compliance. The most interesting thing that I hadn't seen before was CiscoWorks Network Compliance Manager. The report outputs look very handy for Security Managers. Its an OEM'd product apparently - no idea of the price but expect it'll be pricey.

There's a free eval download here.

Another related link: http://www.cisco.com/go/compliance

Cisco Networkers & IOS TCL


I'm at Cisco Networkers at the moment in Brisbane (Day 1 of 3). Went to some pretty good sessions today, the keynote was very interesting (Howard Charney, Cisco SVP) with lots of crazy facts about the amazing spread of the Internet & technology. Went to quite a good session in 802.1x - with plenty of gotchas and things to look out for, so the slides from that will come in handy.

The session that I learnt the most at was on getting the right events out of NMS, by Benoit Claise from Belgium. He's written a book on this stuff and had some great examples on how to use things like the Embedded Event Manager, RMON and TCL scripts to get some pretty powerful monitoring from the devices themselves. Kind of on a similar line to the TCLsh stuff I came across last week, for scripting things in the CLI - this is a good blog for examples Cisco IOS hints and tricks: IOS Tclsh resources.

Wednesday, July 18, 2007

Flight of the Conchords

I just discovered the Kiwi comedians 'Flight of the Conchords', who have recently got their own show on HBO in the US, have a Podcast available for download in iTunes. A few of their sketches are available on You Tube too. I like this one: Very funny!

YouTube - Flight of the Conchords- Business Time