Babcock

Babcock State Park, home to probably the most photographed grist mill in the world.  The Glade Creek Grist Mill.  Here take a look.

 

Took these pictures today.  I've visited this park several times, the have some cool cabins you can rent but you really need to reserve them ahead of time.  I've only gotten lucky once and that was because someone had canceled.  Really a must see in South West Central West Virginia.

Definition of Morning

How come every time you go on a vacation you just can't sleep the night before.  So the next morning instead of getting your clothes together and car packed you are just wanting to sleep.  Well 11:30 is still morning right?

 

Needless to say we did get a late start this morning but we are now in a Quality Inn in West Huntington West Virginia.  Yeah I know we were supposed to be camping but hey it is nicer in the hotel and it will give us the chance to get up and out in the morning and hit some of the cool areas in West Virginia.

A simple camping trip

Amazing what it takes to go on a simple camping trip....  Oh yeah and we still need to stop at WalMart.

Vacation.

Getting ready.  The air smells right.  Clothes are being washed.  All electronics are charged and all the camping gear is in a closet waiting to be tackled.  Yep it a vacation.  More to come.

iPhone and terms of service

Most people have heard about the iPhone "update" that bricked (technical term meaning it is broke) any iPhone which had been manipulated to unlock it from the AT&T carrier. This reaction and remedy by the combined legal, technical power known as Apple, AT&T causes one to ponder when did terms of service start allowing a company to come into your home (virtually) and destroy your personal property.

Now a lot of people on the net have been proclaiming loud and long that you bought it you agreed to the terms and you got what you deserve nah nah nah. Okay I'm game what subsection of the terms of service allowed Apple, AT&T to destroy equipment (virtually). Yes I know they had a warning "oh thank you mighty Apple, AT&T". Where is Apple, AT&T's proof that everyone who had equipment destroyed agreed to those terms. Say they did not activate through iTunes and used Tmobile as a phone carrier would they have ever agreed to those terms. Is it okay to sell a device that has such terms of services if the consumer can not view and agree to said terms prior to plunking down cash and walking out of the store. When did it become okay for a company to provide a "software patch" that destroys a device and not have responsibility for said destruction. And so what if the software patch did have terms of service as well what the heck gives a vendor the right to destroy things. Is there a clause that goes

i Blah da Blah
ii. Oh and hey if you have fiddled with this thing in a way we don't like we reserve the right to kill it.

This is where it leads folks. Microsoft has terms that states Vista home can not run under a Virtual environment. So say they detect they are in a virtual environment and if they are say the running Vista zaps the hard drive of the Operating System running the Virtual environment. Or if Sony had its way when you tried to rip a CD little spikes would come out and turn the inside of your CD drive to shreds. Actually they might even be happy if some of the little spikes flew out and did bodily harm just to teach you not to steal.

Consumers need to wake up and take a look around realize this goes way beyond cows and cheese (Read Leo Laport's blog) it goes to the heart of ownership and what it means to "have" things. If we don't pay attention some of the Sci/Fi stories about consumers existing only to support large companies might come true. Where ownership is taboo and all you are allowed to do is lease items for a "reasonable" rate and if you are not willing to lease things, well there is a van down by the river for "those" type of people.

Canon Rebel XTi

It is a joy to take pictures with. Settings are easily changeable and the basic shooting modes do a good job. In the creative modes the photographer can control just about any aspect of the shot they desire. One miss though is the control over the flash. In the basic shooting modes it does what ever the heck it wants. So you have to switch to the creative modes to force it on or off. Maybe this is something they can fix in firmware. It seems like an odd feature on such a user controllable camera otherwise.

The shake the sensor to get rid of dust spots does seem to work. And yes dust spots are a huge problem on DSLR's. I will probably be investing in a cleaning kit for the sensor at some time.

My old EF lens work great. My 200mm with the 1.6 multiplier of the DSLR is effectively a 380mm which is pretty nice. It allows you to get in real close on anything.

The weight of the camera is just about right, it has a nice heft to it, you won't forget you are carrying it but it does not weigh you down.

The function for the most part is a lot like my old old Canon Rebel EOS so it took very little time to get comfortable with the camera. And the magic of digital shows through in that you can snap off as many pictures as you want with out worrying how much it is going to cost to get them developed. You end up with a lot more bad shots but hey you just through those away and you end up with a few spectacular shots that you would have missed with a film camera

I've put up a flickr gallery of what I think of as some of the best shots I've taken with it.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/reboot95/sets/72157600506124069/

IMG_0098

IMG_0098
Originally uploaded by reboot95

Picture of a iron bird about to take flight. Don't blink, don't look away, blink and you are Dead.

Check out this blog

Check out my friend Stephanie's Blog.

She is spending a year teaching in Taiwan.

http://stephhendrix.blogspot.com/

All Things Cool

I am becoming more and more frustrated with the drive in American Business to grasp on to the the latest Cool things. This is most likely exacerbated by the fact I'm taking a very boring online course dedicated to the Japanese concept of Lean manufacturing. This is being presented as the answer to all business woes. Well why not a few observations.

Oh where to begin. We are taken into a fantasy land of a Major cooperation and follow around a new hired Product manager who is a intolerable suck up. He is given a troubled division and soon is being indoctrinated (brainwashed) into lean concepts. I really wish training creators would stop trying to be clever with these silly things. Oh yeah they come up with what they believe to be clever scenarios situations that will engage students. Then they get some of the most dull and flat voice actors in existence. Yep that works....

Next on my list. The training essentially formalizes a concept of organization, simplification, reduction. Wow there you go genius why hadn't anyone thought of this before. Well we have. The key to what is being presented is to wrap it up in a new box so people will think it is revolutionary and will make changes in the way they do things. But any system can always benefit from those concepts. The key is just to do them, so I get a bit aggravated at something that is being sold as revolutionary just to get people to do things they already know is the right way to do it.

Another fallacy is that all cultures are the same and concepts that are key in one culture will work in another. We have a lot of basis and patterns dictated by the culture we are a part of. Philosophy that might be somewhat predicated on the culture doesn't always work in another. Let's have a reality check. Japanese companies are based on a culture that has a different level of commitment to jobs and work that the American culture does. When a workforce is completely dedicated to there job above all else there is a great potential for success regardless of anything else. American culture is no longer that job focused, we are more self absorbed. For us a job pays for what we do, for the Japanese culture the job is what they do. Given what I've read though the next generation in Japan is more self absorbed so we will see what happens.

So come lets' just say hey these have always been good ideas and lets figure out how to organize simplify and reduce with out acting like we have been on a mountain and received some new stone tablets.

Snow_plow

Snow_plow
Originally uploaded by reboot95.

So don't you think the cars below are about to get a big surprise.

Brrr Brrr Ice (Originally from 1/16/2007)

We had a pretty major ice storm hit the old midwest. And you know what that means don't you. One you better go to the store and get your bread and milk. It is a midwest thing. Anytime we have snow or ice or the predicition of snow or ice we have to stock up on bread and milk. Man you if you don't have bread and milk you could die. Second power outages.

Yep power outages. The ice covered trees amy be pretty but those limbs snap like tooth picks and take out any power lines that happen to be near by. I thought I was doing good until Saturday night. As I drove up to my house I noticed hmmm lots of dark houses. Pushed the button for the electric garage door to go up nothing, pushed again, nothing. Pushed it with more force nothing. Got closer nothing. Stared at door in disbelief pushed the button again. In resignating started digging in my pocket for the manual over ride device (ie keys).

It was dark and cold bummer... Okay lets start bringing in firewood. While my fireplace is a really pretty little fireplace in the basement it does lack a bit in the heat the house department. It is more of a ohhh what a pretty flickering there is there in that there fireplace. So time to cart out the camping gear and climb in the 20 degree mummy bag and stoke the fire all night long. Not a bad night but was a might chilly. I also have a new appreciation to how much work my Dad put into heating the house with a fireplace.


And brrr taking a shower in a house that is 50F is a challenge. But don't want to smell on Church Sunday morning now do I. And the old wood fireplace makes everything in the house smell like smoke...

Stayed the next night at a friends house. Did not want to do with out the CPAP a second night. You can wake yourself up snoring only so often before you cry out enough I must do something else.

Power came back on Monday afternoon huray.... Given that the temps were in the Teens F wow that would have taken a lot of firewood. And if I had not been at home the cat would have been mad and very cold. And I'm already concerned that she might be trying to kill me. Leave her one more night in a freezing cold house and it might just push her over the edge.

iPhone

Eh.

I'm not exactly impressed by the old iPhone. One issue two year contracts, most people are currently tied up with a two year contract on their existing phone and service and breaking those contracts are really expensive.

Next it costs a lot of money, man is it expensive. Not sure I buy the idea that most people that have a smart phone have an iPod. I don't think they bought them at the same time.

Really disappointed that Apple choose to bring out a wide screen video device on such an expensive low memory platform. I was thinking about getting an iPod but not the iPhone. I'm in a two year contract.

It looks like an okay PDA with innovative features, but I already have a PDA that I paid less for and there are tons of third party applications for. And more importantly I can read a lot of books in the Microsoft reader format. Which for me is the killer PDA app.

What it did do right? I think they got the concept that these devices are for consuming data not creating data. That is where I think the PDA market has made a huge mistake in building devices that you are supposed to take notes on, put contacts in, and do you scheduling. PDAs excel at reading text and that is about it. So as a book, Bible, text web snippits reader they are great, data entry not so much.

HAMSTER DANCE VIDEO

Hamster dance...multicolour style. I a remember back when the little guy was just a set of animated gifs in a row

Openvpn with Clarkconnect 3.2

I recently installed and configured openvpn 2.0.7-1 to work on my Clarkconnect 3.2 firewall.

Here is what I did.

Down load the openvpn rpm from:
http://dag.wieers.com/packages/openvpn/
The specific one I downloaded was:
http://dag.wieers.com/packages/openvpn/openvpn-2.0.7-1.el3.rf.i386.rpm

Down load lzo from:
http://dag.wieers.com/packages/lzo/
The specific one I downloaded was:
http://dag.wieers.com/packages/lzo/lzo-1.08-4.1.el3.rf.i386.rpm

Then install both RPM's with rpm -ivh
lzo needs to be installed first.

Okay then the configuration part.

Take a look at the documentation for openvpn
http://openvpn.net/howto.html#install

The first thing I did was cd to /usr/share/doc/openvpn-2.0.7/
Then cd to easy-rsa

And follow the instructions on creating your on PKI from the openvpn howto guide.

After that cd back up one level to /usr/share/doc/openvpn-2.0.7/

Then cd in to the sample-config-files directory

Copy the server.conf file to /etc/openvpn

You will also need to copy the the following files from /usr/share/doc/openvpn-2.0.7/easy-rsa/keys folder
ca.crt
dh1024.pem
server.crt
server.key

Then you will need to modify the server.conf file in /etc/openvpn to reflect your set up.

The conf file has a pretty good set of comments to tell you all about what needs to be filled in and how it needs to be set. I really did not do anything special for the Clarkconnect firewall.

I did set
push "redirect-gateway"
So all traffic would go through the vpn and be encrypted.

Okay here is the magic part for Clarkconnect

You need to go to the clarkconnect web admin. Select the network tab under firewall select incoming.

You want to allow incoming connections port 1194 (or what ever port you set up in your /etc/openvpn/server.conf file) for UDP or TCP depending on how you set up your server.conf file.

Here is what stumped me for awhile.

The problem is with all the iptables examples that are given on the openvpn site use the A option which is append. This errrr appends the rule at the bottom of the table the problem with this is it places the new rule after the very useful for a firewall rule that says "deny anything from anywhere" the packets hit the deny anything and boom they get dropped on the firewall floor.

So to get around that do this.

cd to /etc/rc.d
vi rc.firewall.local

I added something like this
iptables -I INPUT -s 10.8.0.0/24 -j ACCEPT
iptables -I FORWARD -s 10.8.0.0/24 -j ACCEPT
Okay I changed that entry a little.
iptables -I OUTPUT -s 192.168.7.100 -d 10.8.0.0/24 -j ACCEPT
iptables -I INPUT -i tun0 -j ACCEPT
iptables -I FORWARD -i tun0 -j ACCEPT

On iptables -I OUTPUT the -s (source) address is the ip for the internal interface on your clarkconnect box.

where 10.8.0.0/24 is the subnet for the openvpn connections. I guess it would work with the interface instead of the source port
The -i tun0 worked except for the output rule

This way the rule gets added higher in the iptables and the packets are passed on instead of dropped. Also by using the rc.firewall.local the rules will survive a firewall restart.

That pretty much configures the server.

For clients I used.
For OS X tunnelblick
http://tunnelblick.net/
Go right for the version 3.0 product (it was rc3 when I grabbed it) the 2.0 version just did not work.

For Windows Openvpn Gui for windows :-)
http://openvpn.se/

You will need to check the instructions on where to copy the client certificates that you created in /usr/share/doc/openvpn-2.0.7/easy-rsa/ folder.

That pretty much is all I did to get it to work.

I'm still having a problem with routing to the CC box using the inside interface, when the tunnel is up. I can now get to the internal interface after entering the OUTPUT iptables rule shown above And anything to the outside interface, the public IP is unencrypted I think. This means any service I normally get from the clarkconnect box is not working right.

Oh yeah and it really does not work to good when I'm trying to connect from the inside you really need to be on the outside connecting to get a good test.

So far though it seems to work.

Lightening

This was from a strom that came out of the North East on July 19, 2006.  It is one of the few storms I can remember that followed that track.  There were 90 mph winds recorded. 

One of the things that was unique was nearly constant lightening for a period of time.  That is what made these shots possible.
... See my Tabblo>

The joy of a Digital Camera

CIMG1760
Originally uploaded by reboot95.

Hey check this photo out. I have the plant in front of my house one evening when I got home I thought I would take some macro photos of it.

Well this Bee kept buzzing around and around. It was pretty hard to catch it still long enough to snap the photo. That is one thing nice about digital cameras even if you take 8 shots to get one good one you don't feel so bad because you can only print off the one good one.

Oh go check out the big picture on Flickr it looks pretty cool

Disney

I'm in Florida we arrived about 12:00 on Southwest. Had a nice stroll through the airport. Rented a Red Saturan Vue. Nice care. Had lunch and we are now at the condo. Pretty nice and every things is going very well. We will be hitting EPcot in a little bit.

I'm on Dial up so I'm having flash backs 1993..... :-)

New 2006 Explorer Limited

CIMG0351
Originally uploaded by reboot95.

I did it, I really did it I have bought a new car. It is a 2006 Ford Explorer Limited. A really good looking and performing vehicle in my opinion.

The Good

• The V8 really does have more power than you think.


• The Gas mileage is as good as my V6 98 Eddie Bauer Explorer


• It has a great ride for an SUV


• Still set up high


• Nice Styling


• DVD based GPS navigation with first in class Street names announced for turns


• Roomy


• Heated Steats



• A whole set of electronic stability, traction control features

Some misses

• Door handle in a strange place, but it is there because of new side impact beams


• A bit pricey


• Still not great gas mileage


• I've heard it does not have any skid plates


• Speed electronically limited to around 100 mph


• My 98 has a few features that this one does not.


• They moved the place you put gas in to the right side, I keep pulling up on wrong side.

So what is the final verdict this is a good successor to my existing Explorer. I feel like I've taken a step up and am over all happy. None of the other SUV's I looked at had the right mix to make me plop down my money. The V8 at first does not really feel like it is that much stronger than the V6 in my 98, but when you have the right combination of speed and gear selection it will throw you back in the seat with some authority and you think yeah this engine did come out of a Mustang. The engine is a 4.6 Liter 3 valve per cylinder variable timed V8. The 6 Speed automatic is a bit slow and misses some punch at certain speeds. But once you get it right you go yeah it does have nearly 300 HP! The DVD Based GPS navigation system is pretty cool it has a bright readable screen only direct sunlit with the moon roof open makes it hard to see. It has voice prompts and will give you street names for turns this is supposed to be another first in class. It is very comfortable and the ride is a lot better than the 98. I'm looking forward to the first snow to see how the electronic controls systems help out with less than optimal traction. I've had it out in a hard rain and there was really no issue with traction or handling. Over all it had enough features to convince me to spend the money

Click on the picture at the top of the post to see the flicker gallery.

GeoSpinning

GeoSpinning it's a long road to nowhere.
Okay this probably is not a new thing but it was new to us and turned out to be fun.

Requirements:
GPS
Laptop
Mapping software
Optional, car power for laptop.

Set your mapping software to only use secondary roads.
Pick a point on the map that you have not been to.
Then let the computer pick a route for you.
Final step follow the route.

Did it this Saturday we ended up seeing Turkey, Buffalos and a really big storm. Turned out to be a nice day all in all.

In an effort to reduce confusion

Just so there will be no confusion on it's origins Microsoft has once again renamed its upcoming Windows release.

It will hence forth be known as OS X Tiger.

First Bike ride this summer

Made my first bike ride this summer. You know you just forget how much that darn seat can hurt. So now I'm walking around really really slow and going ow a lot. But it will pass I know that. Well it did last year didn't it. Few things happened that were note worth.

First flat tire. Lucky it was not my tire but Amy's tire went flat. Dave did a pretty good job of fixing it up had it repaired and we were on our way again with out any trouble. Used the Co2 pump I have, you just put the little air cylinder in there push the button and you are well on your way to having the tire aired up. Have to say I wold recommend one but you should buy a pack of cylinders. I would say it would take two or three to air a tire up. But the flat tire turned into a non event.

We did have another really really odd experience. As we were pedaling along we saw to guys coming at us and I was thinking you know they should wear shirts not everyone wants to see some guy with out a shirt. Then I sort of was thinking man those are tight shorts and they are a funny color. Hey wait a minute something just does not look right but what is it I can't really put my finger on it. There is something really odd about those two. So as I turned around to see what it was, did you guess it they were biking nude. That is just really really wrong hey people bring their kids out here. Put some clothes on idiots.. Guess they lost a bet. But how stupid.

130,000

Just turned over 130,000 miles on my Explorer this morning wow I've been here and back again in it.. I've been pretty happy with mine. It has performed well never gotten stuck and only need two major repairs. But man 16 to 18 miles to the gallon is not so good when gas is $2.18 gee whiz.

Now do I just keep it till it drops or should I start looking a new car/suv. I also really like an SUV even with the gas mileage. But I'm not sure I want to keep paying so much for gas. I've set in a new Explorer and I'm not sure I like it as much as mine. I've looked a the VW Toureg and like it but gosh it costs a lot I mean a lot. Like $56,000 that is to much money.

If I had a two car garage I might just get a newer car to drive to work that got good gas mileage and keep the Explorer or get a new SUV. Oh well decisions.

Rio Audio : Rio Carbon 5GB Player

It is here!!

Okay nice features. You plug it in and it shows up as a hard
drive. Start dragging mp3's to it and you are good to go. This
is a requirement for any mp3 players I get again. My MPIO FL100
is okay but that one feature really kept me from really liking
it. And many of the other players in the space have to use a
proprietary app. to put music on them, the Creative Zen, the
Ipod family, and the Dell DJ's. So drag and drop the Rio Carbon
has!!.. Oh Yea..

Also 5 Gig is a lot. I've got it nearly full now and I have 4.4
days worth of music on it.. I like that. And it doubles as a 5
Gig portable hard drive. And with USB 2.0 it can accept
transfers faster than I can pull the songs off my file server.
When the MP3's are local it is really fast.

Battery life seems to be pretty good. I've been trying for a
couple of days to get it discharged so I can give it a full
charge. Since I had it plugged into to various computers
uploading 4.4 days worth of songs I've already given it a fair
charge since it charges over usb. But I also have this nice
little plug in that you hook the usb cable up to for charging as
well.

I can make playlists in winamp and save them on the player and
boom they work. I've not been able to figure out how to make
playlists on my Mac OS X IBook yet. The best I can come up with
is to use VLC drag the files to it save the playlist (comes out
as .m3u) and then edit the playlist to pull out the directory
entries that I don't need, you know the /volume/carbon stuff.
Need to write a script for that.

Not to many misses. Would have like to pay a little less for it.
Can't make playlists on my Mac, well if you know how let me
know. And the silly case they sent with it. It protects it
nicely but it covers up the controls and the read out. Duh...
Some one was napping there. Anyway give it a thumbs up. And a
better than IPod rating, because I can drag and drop songs to it

Rave-MP SPORT Flash based digital audio player 128MB and 256MB, sleek pocket size

This player looks like a great player from a specs stand point and price. What with being able to expand it with a SD/Media card, FM radio and voice recorder. Then it has the old Microsoft Playsforsure logo on it.. Well let me tell you looks can be deceiving. The firmware sucked on this. Had some real major problems. It continually locked up and you would have to pull the power on it.. Also some of the features it was supposed to have did not work. I mean they really just did not work. So back to Amazon with it.. I've order a Rio Carbon. It has gotten some good reviews we will just have to see. Will post again when I get it.

Trying w.blogger

Just started using w.blogger. In fact this post is with w.blogger. Hope there is no spy ware in here. But thought I would give it a try and just see how it works. Sort of like the idea of being able to do posts offline and then put them up later. Thinking about doing that for vacation mainly. Well back to TV.

E-books

Check out Baen publishing. They have a large number of pretty good FREE e-books on their site. They are mostly Sci-Fi and Fantasy action adventure novels but if you are into that, they are one of the leading publishers. I would recommend Keith Lumar, David Drake, John Ringo, Mercedes Lackley just to name a few. Just be warned they are a lot of books that are the first of a series so if you like them you will probably end up buying some books from them too. So it is a good marketing technique.

I have to say that I would prefer to read E-books now. As long as you are not a speed reader, reading on a 3X5 screen is really pretty easy. You can carry around 60 or 70 books on a device half the size of a paper back.

I recommend using a cheaper general use PDA for this instead of a dedicated book reader. I'm finding the Pocket PC Windows to be a pretty good bet. I have not look at a later generation palm so I really can't tell

Any how fire up the browser get over to Baen down load some books put them on your favorite PDA and enjoy.

Aximsite - Axim Freezing or Sticking

Aximsite - Axim Freezing or Sticking

Thought I would throw this in for all you Axim users out there (you can see a picture of mine in an earlier post).

I had this problem with my Axim. Spent a few months with on off reset wiggle poke and stuff. Finally decided to fix this problem so I went and backed up all the data with the old back up facility. Went and walked around and stuff. Then came back and did a hard reset. I originally thought that it might be driver problem or something. Well I got stuck in the align your screen forever function. Okay time for google.

And I came up on this link I've included. And sure enough there was a worn spot on the mylar ribbon cable. Followed the instruction in the link an YEA!! it was fixed... So if you are having problems with your Axim not clicking where you poke the stylus check out this link. It is not as hard to do as it looks.