Sunday, May 1, 2005

This Blog Needs Photos!

Hmmm... again I realize this blog needs a bit of visual livening-up...

My digital camera is pretty crap (whaddaya expect for ~$US100 a coupla years ago :) )... and I think I've probably fried the CCD (light-sensitive chip wot takes da pickies) due to sun exposure - it has no Iris or shutter :( ... I'd like to get a better one but can't really afford it just now - so whatever appears here will necessarily be somewhat ... er ... 'artistic' :)

I'll start soon with some (pre-existing) photos from my cousin's wedding, methinks.

Once I set things up here properly I'll likely start to do some Audio-Visual stuff and maybe some regular 'driving-around-Auckland' Podcasting ... fer all'a'youse Furriners out there :)

Firewalls - Monowall, Smoothwall

I downloaded a couple of (CD ISO) images of free firewalls last night - Monowall and Smoothwall - after hearing about them from the In The Trenches (System Administrators' podcast) interview with Mike Sweeney, author of Internet Security with Linux (check this and add hyperlinks!).

I'd used vanilla Linux - Debian, RedHat or Mandrake - stripped to the essentials and using iptables as the firewall - but haven't delved into more 'modern' ways of doing things - I'd seen RedWall used at a previous job but not been directly involved. I'm hoping the GUI front-ends on these things will make things a little less tedious to configure.

I want to set up a DMZ with mail, web and possibly other servers - and probably speed up DNS and do some web proxying/caching... and tighten up things a bit - especially since there are Windows machines in here - I might isolate those off onto their own network segment (and if I'm really feeling paranoid, install VPN on all the machines here)...

...oh, and I almost forgot, I want to put up Wi-Fi access for the house (and possibly for guests) without opening a can of worms.

So when I get some spare time, I'll be installing one of the above-mentioned firewalls (maybe some others if they take my fancy) and some NIC's, in a spare PC or 2 here (sidenote: 'twould be nice to shrink it to an ARM-based board to save power costs eventually) and play with configuring and securing them.

Watch this space...

Back Into the Walking...

Went for a decent walk again last night - after a break of about 2 weeks due to general wimpiness and lethargy... we've had a cold snap and I've been flat-out busy (excuses, excuses...)

Went out around 6pm (still twilight) and covered about 8km (9500 steps odd per pedometer)...

...stopped into the local Foodtown supermarket and picked up a vacuum-pack 'brick' of some nice coffee on the way back - Melitta (? -- I'll check) Hazelnut Dream... not half bad (a little reminiscent of an Irish Cream, but "it's a bit nutty!" .... no Austin, not *that* kind of nutty ... [ewww!!] )...

The first section of the walk is maybe a 1-in-30 uphill slope for the first kilometre (~half-mile) or so; I noticed I was breathing 'solidly' - but none of the slightly-panicky breathlesness of the past...

I pushed reasonably hard initially - gradually eased off in the latter stages. The downhill km or so near the end is a welcome relief...

Some pain in the calves and achilles region... this seems to be fading and/or I'm learning to push through it... hard to tell, since I've been a dyed-in-the-wool Couch Potato / Desk Nerd since word go... I still think Sadistic Bastard Phys Ed teachers are a good way to inoculate kids against exercise - an excess of the 'no pain, no gain' mantra in operation...

My feet felt swollen & tender in the soles - this is likely to diminish as I persist, my circulation improves and my weight drops (less load!)...

Listened to a couple of "On the Pod's" on my MP3 player as I went - very enjoyable to walk to - relaxed and chatty, but with a fair amount of info gleaned from the experience... thanks, Cam and Mick!

I'll get a GPS receiver before long, methinks - the cheapest reasonable one I know of is shaped like a mushroom (like those Furuno Radar installations on fishing trawlers)... that'll make an excellent fashion statement sitting on top of my beanie as I stroll, no? :) - and log the actual location of the walk on a map - and calculate some stats... watch this space.

Someone left a Comment -- Huzzah!!!

Kewl - someone left a comment on my blog - a milestone!!! Thanks for the encouragement, Rob!