July, 2003:

With the RIAA just about ready to sue 12 year olds for singing “Metallica” songs in the shower before they’ve purchased the CD, even I’m beginning to worry. The EFF has posted on article on How to not get sued by the RIAA.

I don’t care much about windows these days, so I haven’t bothered to look into this much. But, if Keith says it’s severe, I’ll take his word for it and pass along the information.

Another security hole has been found in Microsoft’s DirectX. Users are advised to upgrade to the latest version, and then install a patch. [via KeithDevens (now with squeaky-clean URLs)]

Yesterday was my apartment walk-through. I had a 10am appointment. At 10:15, I called the office to find out why the maintenance man wasn’t there. He showed up a few minutes later.

He seemed nice, and wasn’t worried about nit-picky details (broken electrical outlet plate, etc). We had forgotten to clean the oven, which he mentioned. Additionally, he mentioned that the carpet would need to be Pet Treated. He said that it would cost $150, but that it comes out of the non-refundable portion of my pet-deposit. In the event that the carpet can’t be repaired, we’ll have to pay for new carpet. He said that, if the carpet was brand-new when we moved in (which is wasn’t) it would run us about $500. Otherwise, it’ll be cheaper than that.

Jess and I cleaned the oven last night (oven cleaner and lungs do NOT go well together). Or rather, I sprayed the cleaner on, and Jess scrubbed it off.

I also learned that, in Texas, an apartment complex has exactly 30 days from the date of your move out (or the date you supplied them with a forwarding address, which ever is later) to provide you will a deposit check and/or a list of charges. In the event that this is not recieved with a post mark no greater than 30 days, you will be given up to three times your deposit amount as well as court costs if you sue in small-claims court. That’s good to know.

I don’t have a problem with prostitution. I honestly feel that more bad than good comes of it most of the time. But, for the right people with the right mindset, it can be done safely with no negative consequences. However, I hope that there never comes a time in my life where I am this desperate for money.

This is prostitution with desperation and begging. She’s bound to get hurt, or has been hurt so badly in the past that it wont even matter to her if she does. And, most likely, she’s going to run with the money regardless of the “conditions” that you place on the loan.

Then again, maybe she really does need the money. And maybe she’s one of the few people who are in the right mindset to handle this situation. And maybe there’s a like minded guy in the area with $1500 to spare who could use a fuck buddy for the next 6 months. And maybe he will be repayed the $3000.

Do you happen to have a computer-user friend that’s hard to buy for? Look no more. The USBVibe from GrandTec is just what you’re looking for. For only $9.95 you can bring the relief of a personal vibrator to yourself or any computer-strapped friend. Simply plug the device into one of your computers USB ports, and vibrate the stress away. Buzz those conference calls into oblivion with delight. Everyone at the office will wonder why you’re always smiling. With a 6.5 foot cable, just think of the possibilities. It’s available exclusively at CompUSA. [via Gizmodo]

I expect to see these all over the office by this time next year. If any of you have pictures of one of these devices in use, feel free to post them in the comments.

And, babe, I know what I’m getting you for your birthday now.

Being introduced this week, for $11 you can purchase a Dakota Digital disposible digital camera from Ritz Camera. It doesn’t have an LCD screen, thought the manufacturers hope to have a model with a screen by the end of the year. It’s a 2MP camera, though I’m uncertain how many images it holds. You cannot connect it to your computer. Instead, you bring it back to Ritz where the images will be printed or placed on a CD for you, and then the camera will be resold. [via BoingBoing]

How much does a film disposable camera go for these days?

Update: According to the slashdot article that came out on this today (07/31/2003), the camera holds 25 images. Additionally, the $11 price includes 4×6 prints of the images and a photo CD. WOW! Despite the hackability value of this, that’s a pretty good deal. Much better than you could get on a disposable film camera. I wonder what the quality’s like?

The new apartment is shaping up nicely. Jess has done a great job cleaning and unpacking things, and it’s starting to feel like home. Tonight, I hope to get the networking taken care of by using the existing telephone wiring to handle 100mbps LAN and one telephone line.

My old apartment walk-through is today at 10:00am. I think the place looks pretty good. We put down over $1200 in deposits when I moved in, so I’m hoping to get a lot of that back. And I’m very tired of being fucked over by apartment complexes, so I’m inisiting on being there when the walk-through takes place. I just hope everything works out. I want my damn money back.

Brad and Morgan and Zoe head out for Indiana tomorrow. I’m hoping we end up with a few hours to spend with them this evening before they go. They are going to be missed terribly.

I’ve got my work schedule if the strike takes place. I’ll be working 10am – 10pm Sunday through Friday (that’s 72 hours/week for the mathematically challenged). I’ll be making overtime (at time and a half) for every hour I work over 40. I’ll have no life to speak of, and dead tired, but I’ll make a lot of money, so it’ll be worth it.

I’m getting tired of the limitations the D-Link software imposes on my ability to handle routing MY way. I’d like to turn my K6-450 (El Chupacabara has returned and he is comming for your children!!) back into a router/firewall machine. As opposed to doing it all myself, I’d like to fine a nice little pre-built package that handles the following. They are not all required features… just desired.

• Web serving with PHP. HTTP/HTTPS. (apache?)
• Basic NAT/PAT firewalling.
• Web-Based (or Linux-Based GUI) for configuration.
• Arbitrary port forwarding.
• VPN Passthrough. (IPSec and friends)
• Caching DNS Proxy.
• SSH. (for remote upgrades and operation without KVM)
• Save and restore of configured static routes.
• VPN for remote access to local network. (PoPToP? vtund? both?)
• Scripting to allow dedicated bandwidth to specific IPs/MACs when traffic is detected.
• Ability to restrict network access from certain IPs/MACs/Subnets/Interfaces and require web-based (or otherwise) registration for use.
• QoS.
• SMTP gateway. (exim?)
• DDNS updating.
• Debian based.

If you know of any such projects, please let me know. LEAF looks okay, but not great, and the LRP is dead.

A few people asked for the code to my contact info page. It’s not very complex. The hardest part was getting it to work within the bBlog template system. Of course, to make it easier, I’ve taken that part out. Here’s the code:

$oldnum = preg_replace('/[^0-9]/','',$_REQUEST['oldnumber']);
switch($oldnum) {
  case '2145551212':
  case '8175551123':
  case '9725559982':
    $ret = 'My new number is 4695554432';
    break;
  default:
    $ret = 'You didn't provide a valid number';
    break;
}

print $ret;

Enjoy!

We had planned our weekend perfectly so that we’d be able to go to the John Mayer/Counting Crows concert Sunday night. When we got up that morning, I decided to dig the tickets out of their resting place so they’d be ready to go. I took them out of the envelope so I could see what time the doors opened. They read:

JOHN MAYER
and
COUTNING CROWS
doors at 6PM
SAT July 26th, 2003

SATURDAY!?! I thought it was SUNDAY!

Shit!

Anyone want to buy two unused John Mayer/Counting Crows tickets?