It goes without saying that you don’t want some propietary commit info to be sent in notification emails so if a developer requests this sort of set up ask a few questions about what data will be needed.  Also, add yourself to the notification list for a little while to see how the developers are using the tool.

Also, this is usually a beginner level issue, be sure that your box is configured to relay mail out.  A simple test message like below should get you an email in your inbox(check junk and spam filters).

Enter this as one line:

echo "test body" | mailx -s "test subject" blah@domain.com,distrolist@domain.com

Anyhow, the Unified Government has decided that they would like to set up a Tree Board and Angela Schreffler, the coordinator at HTA, recommended me to sit on the board.

The Tree Board meets monthly and works on the issues that trees present in Wyandotte County and Kansas City, KS.  So far we’ve been talking about trying to get the city certified as a Tree City USA by The Arbor Day Foundation, activities to run on Earth Day, codifying which trees should and shouldn’t be planted on public property and we’re also working on getting a tree inventory executed.  It’s a two year appointment that is renewable and so far it’s been a really enjoyable experience.  Frankly, I’m really proud that the local government has taken such a serious step to control climate change, alleviate the heat island effect of cities and just generally make Kansas City a great place to live when we have such challenging financial issues.

Treekeepers 2009 Schedule(PDF)

Thanks!

I used to carry a sort of emergency kit of digital media. It started out with a few linux disks and one Windows 98 SE disk and eventually progressed to a fairly well thought out array of support tools. Unfortunately I haven’t traveled for a while and I forgot just how important such things were. Until my trip to Boston last week when my Dell system’s hard drive encrypting by WinMagic locked up for no particularly good reason. It just took my username and password and spit out an error 0×00007212 and told me to call Win Magic. I’m supposed to get support today for the problem and I’ll let you know how that turns out.

In the meanwhile I thought I’d list out what I’ve put in my new rescue kit. It’s a miscellany of operating systems and media types. Basically, if I can carry it on a CD, I do. Why? Because many people don’t have DVD drives in their laptops, so the older standard is more useful for rescue utilities.

1. Solaris x86 install disc. I currently support Sun systems and it’s always useful to be able to boot into the mini-root.
2. Solaris sparc install disc. Same problem, different chip architecture. There may be a dual boot disc, but for now I have two discs to solve the problem.
3. knoppix bootable CD. I’ve used knoppix in the past to fix things that were somewhat Windows problems but linux was an easier way to fix them.
4. Ubuntu desktop 32-bit install CD.  I love Ubuntu, but I have the same criticism here that I have of Solaris.  This disc can help me install or run a liveCD of Ubuntu for my laptop, but if my co-worker has a 64 bit processor, I can’t help him.  Anyhow, for those new to Ubuntu, it’s probably the best attempt at an XP like desktop.  Not much changes (except behind the scenes) so you don’t have to keep learning how to use it every time you upgrade.
5. BartPE.  It’s a bootable Windows environment.  Good for repairing XP.
6. Darik’s Boot and Nuke.  This is a disk wiper utility.  If for some reason you need to ship a disk this utility will help destroy the information on it in a way that makes forensics much more difficult.
7. Gparted and Clonezilla.  GpartEd is a partition editor similar to an old utility called DiskMagic.  If you need to resize your partitions, this is the best way to do it.  Of course, you should run backups first, but if you’re on the road you may have to take a few chances.  Clonezilla is used to make disk images.  It’s good if you need to be able to quickly restore the same system back to exactly the same state quickly.  It’s also good for propagating a disk image to a lot of similar systems.
8. Puppy Linux.  This is THE THING I WOULD HAVE PAID $100 FOR LAST WEEK!  Puppy linux is so lightweight you can run it off of a USB stick, but you need the disk to create the USB stick(or just carry a USB stick of it).  It’s ultra easy to use, so much so that many call it linux for grandmas.
9. XP Install media.  It’s old school, but I still try to keep it around if I can.
10. l0phtcrack.  This is used to get Windows passwords off of systems.  Some consider it a hacker tool.  I consider it a rescue executive tool because I’ve been expected in the past to magically make things work without access to their systems.  I’ve also used it to refine system building techniques so that I never write a good password to the filesystem in a way that l0phtcrack can crack it.  It appears that this product may not be available any more.  I’ll try to see if I can find something new.
11. Miscellaneous.  Customize this area to tools that you need but will be hard to acquire remotely.  I include my corporate VPN software for multiple OSs and Truecrypt(although fairly available, I prefer to not have to md5sum it every time I DL it.)
12. Some blank CDs and DVDs.  Useful if you need to DL and use new tools for some things.
13. Entertainment discs.  Entertainment makes me work better, so I always pack some.  Usually 2 DVDs full of movies ripped to AVI, 1 nonverbal music disk(trance/monks chanting/enya), 1 normal music disk and 1 disk of books on CD.

Please let me know if I forgot something or if you don’t concur.  Now I need to run to work.

Photo courtesy of PSD

I don’t rent to any now, but I am probably going to start investing in rentals in the future.  In the meanwhile, I’m tracking the work I do on my house, at that location.  To be honest, I’m a complete amateur when it comes to home renovation, so it might just be humorous to read what I post up over there.

Link to doughtyrental.com (like you couldn’t type it )

So, as my life has calmed down a bit more, I’ve looked for ways to learn more about trees and to also spend time with groups that take care of trees. Recently I attended a program that is run by the Heartland Tree Alliance. They’re an extension of Bridging the Gap that has a mission of taking care of trees in the Kansas City region. We help plant new trees, plan out how to add trees back into the urban setting while not creating problems like upturned sidewalks or messed up siding, and we help prune young trees.

It was a pretty great program. It consists of 6 night classes that are a few hours long and two field sessions that gave us some hands on with the trees and tools and it only cost $25. They do also ask that you volunteer 24 hours to pay them back for the time they’ve invested in you.

Like any volunteer organization, there are always a few nutcases(hey, I fit right in!) but generally it’s a group of knowledgeable people who care and want to help make the world a better place. If you know of an area in Kansas City that’s on public land and needs some attention, please feel free to contact me. Or if you would like someone to come to your business, church, school or organization and make a presentation explaining the benefits of trees I can also hook you up with someone for that.

If you’re interested in participating, you could also attend a class and maybe we’ll meet up sometime. We’ve got one project that’s going to help fight climate change. In the next 10 years we plan on planting 120k trees in the metro! But we need help locating where to put those trees.

Anyhow, here’s the link for more information: Heartland Tree Alliance

They need to do this because measuring network bandwidth usage is highly complex. Many people don’t know that every character they enter in the internet is padded with transport layers. Additionally, they don’t explain what they’re going to do if it turns out that the modem has gone bad and is flooding the network with junk(happens all the time with NICs.)

Now, sure, Windows users can install some gadgets on their desktops to monitor that individual computer’s utilization, but then you get into some sort of complex setup where you’re having to run around and add up utilization from each system.

So, overall, I think this is a more responsible strategy to employ to control their costs, but it’s still not been well thought out.

Source: pcworld

I know, you’re thinking, I don’t know how to read all those fancy schmancy financial documents.  But wait, there’s someone who will do it for you.  Bankrate.com’s Safe and Sound evaluates banks to see how good of shape they’re in.  My credit union gets a C score.  I’m okay with that because they have a ton of things that I require in a credit union, but be assured, I’ll be checking back to bankrate.com frequently to see if it’s been downgraded.

Link to the bankrate.com tool.