05/08/2009
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For the last few days I have been getting emails from my server to the tune of:
################# SSL Certificate Warning ################
Certificate for hostname ‘myserver.example.com’, in file:
/etc/pki/tls/certs/myserver.example.com.cert
The certificate needs to be renewed; this can be done
using the ‘genkey’ program.
Browsers will not be able to correctly connect to this
web site using SSL until the certificate is renewed.
##########################################################
Generated by certwatch(1)
which leads me to believe my certificate has expired. I logged into my site and sure enough, it expired 30-days after I created it. I don’t think I have ever had a certificate with such a short life. » Read more: Oh no! My SSL Certificate Expired.
01/05/2009
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You never realize how well you have integrated technology into your life until you try to replace it. One thing I had down was my Treo 750 in my car. It had a suction mount, bluetooth GPS and charging. When I purchased my iPhone I hadn’t given a lot of thought as to how I would use it in the car. I already had an iPod kit for my Pioneer stereo using Pioneer’s CDIB100 iPod connection accessory. Unfortunately, Apple changed the charging method on the newest iPhones and iPods which left my car-kit able to play, but not charge. So began the project.
I thought I was pretty well set already having the iPod interface. Even the charging problem didn’t bother me, I mean, how hard is it to send 5v down the USB line instead of 12v down the firewire line. It turns out… very. Luckily Scosche had a simple solution in their charging adapter. Wait, what is that in the fine print? Doesn’t work with Pioneer iBus adapters including… mine?!
Well, that’s not going to stop me. After doing some pin-out investigation and having nightmares about letting the magic smoke out of my beautiful new iPhone 3G, I decided it was time to come up with something custom. My first stop was the forums on theiphoneblog.com and ilounge.com. They lead me to a great little company called ProClip that makes in-car mounting for any car and any device. I liked this modular design since it would allow me to move my iPhone into my Jeep Commander when I get it this summer. The price of the rotating clip was a little steep, $100, but I decided I liked the idea of being able to orient my iPhone either direction for future turn-by-turn applications for the iPhone so I bought it and the Jeep Cherokee adapter. This mount also has a very nice pass-through adapter so you don’t have to plug and un-plug your connection, it’s more of a dock and it works extremely well.
My next stop was audio and power connections. This is where you get screwed. Apple has the right cable,but it’s expensive to the tune of $50. That at least gets me audio out, now for charging. The XtremeMac InCharge Auto Charger for iPod/iPhone fits the ticket providing an Apple certified 5v USB connection for auto. Now everything is installed, clean and works great.
I accidently deleted all the pictures I took of the installation. Sorry guys and gals.
12/31/2008
3 comments »
A few weeks ago my lovely wife got me an iPod Nano for my birthday. This wasn’t something on my list or anything I knew I wanted but I swallowed my dislike for all things from that white-clad trouble maker in Cupertino and gave it a try. The interface was very simple, I never had to break out the manual or even go looking for a feature. I thought the accelerometer would be cute and nothing more than a gimmick but it was actually useful in the control of the device (especially in the games). In short, I really liked it and I wanted more. » Read more: I can’t believe it, I got an iPhone, and…. I like it.
06/03/2008
2 comments »
I am working on an HPSwitching ZenPack and needed a place to store the attachment.
HPSwitching ZenPack
05/29/2008
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A few days ago I heard a knock at the door and went to see who it was. I usually just don’t open the door for people I don’t know but the kid looked so excited for someone to open it that I did. He was offering Comcast IP phone service for $20 a month and offered to discount my Comcast High Speed Internet $10 a month if I signed up. Telephone service for $10/mo! I had to break the news to him that I had that price beat.
“How could that be?”, he asked.
“Well, Asterisk”.
» Read more: Asterisk Still Rocks
04/01/2008
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Those who do not learn from their mistakes are doomed to repeat them. Yep.
About a year ago I did an upgrade for a company from SharePoint Services 2.0 to 3.0 and basically fought it for 3-weeks on and off. I just did an upgrade for the company I worked for again and sure enough the exact same things happened. I assume you are here because the SharePoint upgrade didn’t go quite right for you either. Maybe you didn’t have all the permissions needed, you had administrative rights to the server but not the database, oops. I am blown away that the installer will let you corrupt the database to an unusable state, no fear, you can recover and here is how.
What you see: Unable to get global configuration data
This is the first indicator of trouble, for me it meant that I had partially updated my database schema but rolled back my WSS to 2.0.
Do This: Rerun the upgrade to WSS 3.0 and follow through the upgrade handling any errors below.
What you see: An Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.SPServer named “sql” is using the same id as the new object named “sql” of type Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.SPServer. Every object must contain a unique id. Either update the new object’s id or delete the existing object and try again.
Do this: Clear out the Dependencies and Objects tables. To do this, go to Query Analyzer or Microsoft SQL Management Studio (Express) and enter “delete from objects; delete from dependencies;”, select the SP database and click on EXECUTE. If you try to do these individually, you will get dependency errors that are pretty miserable to resolve. I know, I did first.
What you see: The pre-upgrade scan tool has not yet been run on this database SPContentDatabase
Do this: From a command line run: C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\BIN\prescan /all then try the upgrade again
02/04/2008
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One of the big benefits of Myth is on-demand access to any episode of your favorite shows. I have a few full-series on DVD’s and wanted to find the most efficient way to copy them onto my Myth system. The first tool you need is something that can copy the DVD episodes individually to be processed into AVI’s. DVD Decrypter fits the bill nicely although there are many tools you can use. The big time saver is a nice little batch file called DVD Decrypter Multiple Feature Ripper. DDMFRip is a simple menu driven process that will allow you to define the basic structure of a DVD through a series of questions and then create multiple subdirectories correctly named for the series you want to copy. You can get a copy and a more in-depth guide here. I made one small change to the ddmfrip.bat file that capitalizes the E for episode in the filename so that a step in the later process of inserting video metadata into MythVideo will work correctly. » Read more: How to Copy Series DVD’s into MythVideos
The IPv4 shortage isn’t a hoax!
04/22/2009 No comments »Imagine that you are starting your new business, you call up the phone company to get a new phone number and they tell you, “Sorry, there are no more phone numbers left in the whole world, we’re out.”
What would you do?
What would businesses do?
What would the world do? » Read more: The IPv4 shortage isn’t a hoax!
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Posted in Networking, Social Commentary, Watch out!