Benjamin Bryan

2002-09-28 13:03:00

by

2002-09-28 13:03:00
Scenario for Company: employees don’t regularly backup files. some files need to be shared across network. some employees have laptops. os varies from win98 to winxp. company needs to connect ~10 computers to the internet with 3 IP addresses. …budget for project: low. 

Solution: requires 1 server with FreeBSD, IPFW (firewall), ISC-DHCP, NAT (gateway) and Samba (to emulate Windows file sharing). 2x15GB HD. 256MB Ram, Dual Ethernet ports. Total cost of hardware: < $300. Total cost of software: $0.00 

Implementation Part 1: rebuild kernel with firewall and divert. configure nat to translate packets from lan to internet. install dhcp for automatic client configuration. block all ports except SSH from external network. configure Samba. 

Implementation Part 2: ..backups Map “My Documents” folder on all computers to users’ /home folders on samba server. this means everyones’ “My Documents” will actually be stored on the server. nobody will know the difference (unless the server goes down). create “pub” folder for file sharing. write backup scripts to make incremental backups of everyones’ “My Documents” folders. 

Total labor: 2×10 Hours. Thanks for helping me Meredith! I couldn’t have done it in one night without you.

2002-09-21 17:54:00

by

2002-09-21 17:54:00
Educational Software Made by Newbie Programmers?

They did it again. As you can see, this Spanish tutorial CD is having a difficult time installing itself from the “D” drive because my CD-ROM is “E”.

The programmers made a bad assumption that because their CD-ROM is on “D” everyone elses is.  

Unfortunatly this seems to be an ongoing trend with Educational software. I have had problem after problem. The worst was Career Direct which after installation my computer would not boot up until I had re-installed Windows.

I have also had random system files replaced by another Spanish tutorial. Whenever I see software for “Education” I cringe at the thought of installing it on my computer. 

2002-09-16 17:41:00

by

2002-09-16 17:41:00
I started my new job as …hmmm I’m not sur ewhat my title is. I’m a webmaster of some sort working in network services. They gave me a Sun Solaris workstation. After installing Solaris 8 on it I am dissapointed. Just to get an SSH CLIENT installed (which comes standard with most flavors of Unix and is a simple 1MB download for Windows and Macintosh) I had to download a openssl, openssh, gcc, libgcc, prmdg, and a 70MB OS patch collection! I worked on it for 8 hours and it was still installing the OS patches when I left work.  

I’ll wait on forming my final opinion until I get it working. But right now, Solaris doesn’t even compare to Linux or BSD.

2002-09-14 15:05:00

by

Yesterday we had our biggest LAN Party ever. With 8 computers on the network. Meredith setup his Linux box as Q3 server and the 5 of us logged in for a Quake III Deathmatch. Meredith whooped us all hands down. After a Pizza break Jeff and I teamed up against Jason, Meredith, and Steven for the tightest Urban Terror team Deathmatch.  
(just a sidenote, Jeff and I beat the other team almost every round despite being outnumbered)

2002-09-14 14:39:00

by

2002-09-14 14:39:00
Most mismatched computer ever owned:
My AMD K6-2 at one time had Windows, Linux, and BeOS installed (plus emulators for other OSes). All running off a partitioned Macintosh hard drive. Now the computer is the server for this website running FreeBSD UNIX.

2002-09-13 01:47:00

by

2002-09-13 01:47:00
What a day. This morning (actually yesterday morning..the 12th) I had Jury Duty.

After working the rest of the day at Tri-Pacific Plumbing i came home to find my keyboard wasn’t working…i think it is the actualy PS/2 port on the motherboard. So i bought a nice Macintosh keyboard…

Jeff and Steven had a LAN party…but Stevens computer had to many bytes so he took it to me…this picture taken a few minutes ago shows Steven overemphasizing his gratitude. Can you see what he gave me?

Now it is time to sleep. Thank you God for the wonderful day!

2002-08-28 16:16:00

by

2002-08-28 16:16:00
July in Review

Geeks night out

Finances.

Replace Motherboard

Travel to the end

On the left picture…there is something odd…here, take a look at this larger version and look closely.  Snickers bar to the first one who spots it. Update: You’re too late! Juliet Davis wins the Snickers bar.

Meredith’s family in the game of Life. Guess which one is Meredith? Guess which ones are his kids? Guess which one is Cherise?