(Do Not) Read Me

Configuring GAIM to use SOCKS through an SSH tunnel ::SUCCESS!::

2006-04-21T11:03:00.001-05:00

Ahh...
Finally. Been working on this for some time and finally learned the last thing I needed to know in order to get things to function.
Ok.. SO- At work? Have SSH but all your messaging needs are being denied by an evil IT admin?
Let's circumnavigate the firewall, so you can find out all the latest from your buds at lunch.
First off, of course, you're going to need to have access to an SSH server that -doesn't- block instant messaging clients. You can easily setup one, there are many guides easily located with a google search on how to setup SSH at home. If you're home machine is behind a router you'll need to forward port 22 to the machine with the ssh server.
Next you're going to need an ssh client. Since I'm stuck using windows at work, that's the position I'll write this guide from. So basically I'm assuming here that you've got an SSH server setup at home (if it's windows I'm going to have to suggest SFU 3.5, its closer to native and less of a hassle than using cygwin).
For your SSH client I'd suggest the free puTTY - no installer, just good stuff. And there are several utilities available from the author for a host of Good Stuff™.
Go ahead and setup putty and try to connect to your home SSH server. Once you've got it working close your SSH connection and were going to go through the settings to setup a tunnel to your home.
Open up puTTY and select your saved session. If you havent saved it already I would definately suggest doing so, to make this process much faster. On the left hand side expand connection, expand SSH and select Tunnels like so:

Ok... so now what I've done here is I added port 1020 into the Source Port and selected Dynamic button. This is what the result should look like. I left Local ports accept connection from other hosts and Remote ports do the same (SSH-2 only) unchecked, I went to Source Port and put in 1020 (you can put just about whatever you like here.. I belive 1080 is more popular), I left Destination blank (because its going to be dynamic) and then I selected from the radial below Destination the option Dynamic. I left the last selection to Auto. Then I just hit Add and the screen shot above is the result.
Next you just connect to the SSH server like we did before. Tada! You now have a tunneled connection to your SSH server. Now in any web based application, be it a browser or chat program, you can point it at the 1020 address as a socks4 proxy and you will be essentially messaging and surfing from home through an encrypted connection.
Now the next part was what killed me and made me a bit stir crazy for like twenty minutes. If you're doing this with AOL, for whatever reason (it might be something whack with my local connection.. I dont know..) but instead of login.oscar.aol.com I had to use login.glogin.messaging.aol.com. Go figure. I was able to ping plain login.oscar from home and when I'm there I can just straight up connect with GAIM no problem.. but in this particular case I had to use login.glogin.messaging.aol.com in order to connect. So my GAIM config looks like this:

Saved it and viola! Everything was good and happy. You can do the same thing with your web browser, just set the SOCKS host as 127.0.0.1 and (in this config) port to 1020 and you're set!
Ok.. anyway.. hope this helps someone out there.
ShaBot

MacZot and AppZapper

2006-04-03T11:54:00.000-05:00

Maczot is currently offering AppZapper for free, once 259 total bloggers have linked to MacZot. Not a bad deal really so here's my linkage, buggerit. It's currently down to $9.30 from $12.95. So blog this stuff, get it free.
-out.

Quick note: Reaction to the State of the Union

2006-02-01T10:35:00.000-06:00

Now.. I just want to say a couple things real quick here. How can the W make all these statements about helping the environment and reducing the US dependence upon foreign oil when only days before his administration is attempting to silence Goddard Institutes Dr. James Hansen?
With lines like how NPR is the most liberal network out there. I mean come on... NPR might be slightly biased.. but they are mostly neutral.. the fact is.. even neutral looks incredibly libral against a background of yellow, conservative news services.
What this country needs is a real media force to be reckoned with. Not a corporate whore for the current administration. NPR has attempted to remain neutral in a world where journalism is so yellow as to appear jaundiced and so right from center it appears 'rose colored'. Hell I guess it should be called Orange Journalism.
I hope enough people survive through the oncoming environmental Mardi Gras to accurately record what could have been done to help and for whos sake it wasn't (for those of you not paying attention that would be W and the Corporations).
Anyway... no one reads this blog and that's ok. But hopefully it won't get caught in some cotton-gin homeland security program and add me to the no-fly list.
Pax.

Hooray! Not much to say today...

2006-01-31T14:47:00.000-06:00

Well Hell's Bells. I've been sick since Friday night. Great way to spend the weekend let me tell ya. Anyway... some interesting stuff. IE 7 beta 2 came out... I've tried it out.. and it's pretty nice. It's no firefox killer but it's ok. Explorer.exe has crashed on me a couple times in the first 15 minutes of having IE installed... but who knows if that was due to ie 7 or not (hint... I'm still willing to bet it was!).
Anyway... someone has apparently come up with -the- premier toilet for men... called the pee tree. Caught it on gizmodo.com, ladies and gents: The Pee Tree-

From Gizmodo:

"Coming to a bar district near you, the Pee Tree. This was designed by
Joa Herrenknecht for use in public spaces. It is big, bright and
ceramic, just pee on the tree itself and lets the urine run down, or
pee directly into the receptacle around the base of the tree. The urine
is then flushed down to the sewage canal in regular manner. The tree is
in a contemporary design that could easily double as a fecal slingshot,
sweet."

So yeah... thats just great. Anyway.. I'm also trying out the latest version of performancing.. it's working pretty allright.. they still haven't fixed the bug with the master password, which is a real bitch let me tell you. Other than... seems good.
What do you think?
BBL.

Performancing Blog Tool Test

2005-12-21T09:52:00.000-06:00

Ok then. Well... last time it was flock. Flock was pretty cool and the little locker part of it was defintely unique. And while I'm not seeing anything like that here with the Performancing Extension for firefox... I'm still using firefox. And that's pretty cool. To be honest with you.. I was/still am expecting to see the features of flock duplicated in a couple of extensions in the near future for firefox. Flock was nice.. but everything that makes it neat should be available as an extension in the near future. This is one example. The locker in Flock was really nice... but I'm rather attached to my very customized and current build of Firefox. I don't want to have to sacrifice being on the tail of the latest version just to have a blogging enabled browser. Obviously I have one now in this extension. SO... while its not anywhere near as pretty.. it's still pretty slick.
Just for kicks.. I found this on Asa Dotzlers blog. Good stuff there.
I'm going to have to give this one a thumbs up. I have no idea whose thumb this is... but I'm givin' it!

Flock Post Test

2005-10-21T09:33:00.000-05:00

Weell then... let's just see how this works shall we?

Today I am using a new firefox/mozilla/gecko based browser my bud Eric pointed me at called Flock. Hopefully I won't get fired while trying to test/configure this thing. If it works... I'll be impressed. It's supposed to (basically) be firefox with a built in blog editor, websharing.... editor (?) and some other stuff (editor?). Why this couldn't be incorporated as an extension, and therefore making it much easier on the team... (editor?) or maybe not I'm not sure. Anyway... if it works it'll be cool. Needs a mouse gesture extension.. but it appears as though there may be some simple ways that you can convert firefox extensions over to Flock... as I'm using Adblock (with whitelisting) and WeatherFox.. or whatever they've decided to call it this week.

Oh yeah.. they need some friggin themes. (:

So... for testing sake.... let's try adding a photo:

Allrighty then... so that should work.. we'll see. What I don't like.. is that I can't upload to flickr from here... yet. I think it says that I can or will be able to in the future.. I'll figure that out later. All I know is that my friend Eric sent this link to me and now I have a friggin del.icio.us account or whatever.. and thats how Flock stores your favorites... which is not a new idea but pretty cool anyway.

I'm out.

PaX

Edit: Sweet.. the post... er post editor works as well.. or I think it does. Here's a link to download flock and try it out: http://www.flock.com/developer/

Lates.

Ok.. so not so lates.. here is yet another edit:

allinonegest017-UnauthFlock-Edition.xpi

There's a flock compatible (untested really) all-in-one-gestures extension for flock if you're interested. Mostly you just need to add:

...to the install.rdf file within the .xpi file itself and you're good to go.

Yes.. that's right.. its an image... because apparently there isn't or I don't know how to use a bbcode-like tag such as that will tell browsers and blogger alike to leave my text the fsck alone so that I can just post it straight up... even removing formatting didn't do it for me... likely because of the <>... ugh.. so I took a screenie.

BAH.

Oh well.. it still works pretty damn well and its a beta product.

Technorati Tags: flock, john

Damnit... and it's only 2 weeks olde....

2005-10-12T12:07:00.000-05:00

Look at this crap... *sigh*

2005 iBooks losing Airport under network load

So I just picked up my new Summer '05 iBook a couple of weeks ago.... or rather it was sent to me. Seems there were a couple of revisions on the logic board and now theres an issue with maxed out RAM and loss of wireless activity.
Thankfully I haven't (knock on wood) had to deal with this in a real world situation yet, but I was able to reproduce the issue several times. ARGH.
You know.. ya spend the dough.. you read the reviews... things are happy... then this happens... its like that line from Brain Candy™:

My ah-mother used to zing a zong to me when I was little baby, it goes a-like dis "Life is short, life is shit and then you die".... it sounds better in it's native Croatian...

Anyway... it's finally getting around to some of the larger 'Mac' news sites.. some of which Apple reads and knows may affect its profits... so I'm hoping for a fix soon.
The tech information that I've theorized is thus: These iBooks are the first to be able to use so much RAM (thats one), the logic board has been revised and the wireless card has been embedded on the logic board itself (that motherboard for everyone but mac users), it only seems to happen when you're plugged into the wall: Therefore it's a voltage issue. Not to mention that always and forever the wireless card and RAM slots have been directly next to each other. It happens when you're maxxing out your ram with big ram hoggin' applications and transfering large files over the wireless.
I suspect there will be either A) a firmware revision - what this will mean is that voltage to either the RAM will be dropped (making the ram essentially slower) or cut power to the wireless card (meaning the sphere of signal reception will be smaller). This solution sucks... but it's likely the most efficient for Apple. B) a firm recall of these iBooks where they add an additional capacitor, making sure that regardless of how much energy the wireless or the ram is using, they will each have enough and both will be "Strong like bull."
So.. anyway... I have a cool weekend ahead I think.. if everything works out and one particular person doesn't get their panties all bunched up and sandy. I could use it.... it's been rough on me lately... "What has?" you ask? .... you name it.

Here's some resources for you cunning bastards... that's right... I know you're out there...
http://episteme.arstechnica.com/groupee/forums/a/tpc/f/8300945231/m/524009175731
http://www.macnn.com/articles/05/10/10/ibook.ram.problems/
http://discussions.info.apple.com/webx?14@306.dVG3aJYYTbd.3@.68b7c1b7
http://www.macfixit.com/article.php?story=20051012074357457

Ok... I'm out -
Pax

On the subject of my birthday.

2005-10-06T16:41:00.000-05:00

Time to be a bit selfish and express my frustration about the events that seem at least at this moment to cling to the time around my birthday.

Well.. here it comes again. And as the continuance of my cursed birthdays since I was thirteen, I will be accompanying my girlfriend to Ft. Worth to say good bye to her grandmother. When I was thirteen I had planned a big birthday party, I'm not going to elaborate, it would have been a good one. However, I was instead required to help celebrate the life of my own grandmother, flying up to Illinois to do so. The plane ride back has definately left an impact on me. A child, riding in the seat in front of me and apparently lacking potty training, let loose in his seat. This caused the fluid to cascade down on to my leg... The father didn't even say anything to the stewardess, leaving the discovery to the next person to take the seat. I told the steward person (?) and I'm sure they cardoned it off or something at least.
(update)
Well I have returned. I was able to be a paul bearer for the service, which was very nice. Good turnout, alot of people were there. That much of it reminded me of the funeral for my last grandmother only last August. So many people showed up... it's surprising... well I guess not. I hope that I have as many people show up for me.
So it turns out that my birthdate is a pretty cursed one. Even this year not only was I putting someone to rest on my bday but there was an earthquake that wiped out some few hundred thousand people.
So... I figured.. lets take a look at my birthdate through the years. Here's a list of some of the terrible events that occurred on this day in history from oldest to most recent:

October 8, 314 Battle at Cibalae: emperor Constantine beats emperor Licinius
October 8, 876 Battle at Andernach: Louis the Young beats Charles the Bare
October 8, 1690 Turkish troops occupy Belgrade
October 8, 1775 Officers decide to bar slaves and free blacks from Continental Army
October 8, 1806 British forces lay siege to French port of Boulogne using Congreve rockets, invented by Sir William Congreve
October 8, 1822 1st eruption of Galunggung (Java) sends boiling sludge into valley
October 8, 1856 Chinese police board British vessel Arrow, arrest 12 Chinese crewmen on suspicion of piracy and lower British flag, begins 2nd Anglo-Chinese War
October 8, 1865 Earthquake in Santa Cruz Mountains
October 8, 1871 Great Fire kills 200, destroys over 4miles (10 km) of Chicago buildings, and original Emancipation Proclamation
October 8, 1871 Gas explosion destroys Peshtigo, Wisconsin
October 8, 1912 Montenegro declares war on Turkey, beginning 1st Balkan War
October 8, 1915 Battle of Loos, almost 430,000 French, British and Germans killed
October 8, 1918 Sgt Alvin York single-handedly kills 25, captures 132 Germans
October 8, 1939 Germany annexes Western Poland
October 8, 1940 German troops occupies Romania
October 8, 1941 Concentration camp Birkenau begins being built
October 8, 1942 Fight at Matanikau, Guadalcanal (John Hersey-Into the Valley)
October 8, 1946 Milt plane crashes at Christian HBS, 24 die
October 8, 1952 Chinese offensive in Korea
October 8, 1952 2 trains collide with a derailed commuter train, kills 112 (England)
October 8, 1958 U.S. performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
October 8, 1979 Country Music Association Award:[Approx]
October 8, 1980 Bob Marley collapses on stage, brought to Sloan-Kettering Hospital
October 8, 1988 Fire in Seattle's Space Needle causes evacuation, $2,000 damage
October 8, 1990 Israeli police kill 17 Palestinian rioters
October 8, 1993 Howard Stern releases his 1st book "Private Parts"

Here are some of the good things:

October 8, 1835 HMS Beagle/Charles Darwin reaches James Island, Galapagos archipelago
October 8, 1986 RUN DMC calls for a day of peace among LA street gangs

So yeah.. I'm not feeling so hot at this very moment. I'm glad I was able to help my girlfriend and her family as much as I could and I would do it again in a heartbeat if it becomes necessary.

Pic test - TAKE 2

2005-07-11T14:41:00.000-05:00

Allrighty then. Well... got a nice picture to start with. Deleted a couple of failed attempts and kinda getting started.

First Post

2005-04-20T11:02:00.000-05:00

Just a test really. Checking the whole thing out.
Let's see if I got it all right.