AaronandSarah.net Blog!: April 2005

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Windows Perils (Tuesday, April 19, 2005)

Last night I finally got Sarah's laptop fixed. The hard drive in it was going dead, so for her birthday I purchased a new one for her, along with an upgrade kit. The upgrade kit did not work so well, but I finally remembered that every new PC comes with a "restore" disk. So, having copied all her important files, I installed the new hard drive and imaged it off the restore disk. So far so good.

The problem is, Sarah's laptop is plugged into a university network. What's wrong with that you ask? Viruses run rampant on university networks. Within two minutes of booting into the fresh new machine, there were already three viruses on it. Which leads me to wonder, why would anyone in their right mind use Windows? I hadn't even downloaded Norton AntiVirus yet! How is a new PC user expected to survive without antivirus and a firewall (one that actually works, as opposed to Windows Firewall that comes with XP SP2) pre-installed?

I think I'm done with my ranting for the day.

- Aaron

posted by Aaron and Sarah at 8:01 AM | 0 comments
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New Car! (Saturday, April 16, 2005)

That's right, yesterday I bought the Honda Civic that I was looking at. I actually got a loan from Omaha Federal Credit Union! It's a 1996 Honda Civic EX, complete with Sun/Moon roof. 5 speed, oh yea. Anyways, I'm at work right now, waiting to receive a server. That's all for now.

- Aaron

posted by Aaron and Sarah at 3:13 PM | 0 comments
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Great news! (Wednesday, April 13, 2005)

I've got great news! The police called me earlier this evening and informed me that they had located my car. And the best news of all, all my gear was still in it! Thank you, God.

All that was missing was my stereo, my CD's, and my inside door handles (?). Such wonderful news.

And to top it all off, I took a visit to Sports 'n Imports this evening, and test drove a Honda Civic that I had been looking at. It's a wonderful car. I may buy it even though my car was recovered. I haven't decided yet, but I wanted to replace my car in the near future anyways. But we'll see.

- Aaron

posted by Aaron and Sarah at 8:07 PM | 0 comments
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What a week

The only phrase that comes to mind is "wonder what's next"...

Last night I discovered an attempt to hack one of my servers at home. I promptly over-reacted, and locked down my router as I sorted out the mess. This morning, a bit more level-headed, I realized that this "hack" attempt was nothing more than a brute-force attempt to break into my system via ssh, propagated by some script kiddie. None the less, I took a more proactive approach to system security, and locked down my ssh daemon even more. So much so, that I even accidentally locked myself out for the time being. I can certainly fix that once I return home from work.

Not that I'll be driving myself home or anything. Still no news on my car, or the gear that was in it. After discussing the matter somewhat last night with my business partner Don Mundy, I took on a whole new view of the situation, and am now in the process of thanking God for his mysterious ways. Perhaps, had my car not been stolen, I might have been involved in a fatal accident later in the day. It's hard to say what might have been, but for now I'm taking a step back and worrying a little less, as there is some sort of reason why this happened. We all go through several trials in our lives, and this is just one of them. The Enemy knew that my life was getting better, and didn't like that. So he did something to shake me. Well I've got news for him: It didn't work.

- Aaron

posted by Aaron and Sarah at 10:06 AM | 0 comments
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A case of the Mondays (Monday, April 11, 2005)

Well, I definitely had an interesting day. Not only was my car not parked in my parking lot this morning when I woke up, but it wasn't towed by accident either. Oh, and if having my car stolen wasn't enough, I had over $2,000 worth of Military gear in the trunk! Oh, what a day it'll be when I inform my First Sergeant. At least my pants will fit a bit better, because I will no longer have a butt, it'll all have been chewed off.

On a lighter note, this is a sign that I should probably buy a new car. Especially if they don't recover it. What irks me the most is that there was no broken glass or anything. So either these people were neat freaks, or locksmiths. I'm not sure I like the implications of either. So, if my car is recovered or not, I am renting a garage, investing in a car alarm, and also a GPS tracking device so that should this ever happen again, I can at least know where it's at rather than worry.

By the way, if you happen to see a fading dark blue two-door Honda Accord, Nebraska licence plates OOM-o86 (assuming they were to lazy to get rid of them) driving around, be sure to let me know.

- Aaron

posted by Aaron and Sarah at 9:52 PM | 0 comments
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News! (Thursday, April 07, 2005)

I've got some news. First off, some administrative notes. I see (by checking my logs) quite a few people are getting here via google looking for information like "installing fedora core 3 on hp netserver", "debian proliant 6400 smp", "freebsd 6400r fan control", and "pc 300pl linux redhat network card". Thought I don't talk directly about these particular topics in my blog, I do have a message board, so feel free to use it! I can answer most questions on any of these topics, because it just so happens I have all the above mentioned machines (otherwise Google wouldn't have brought you here). Now that I've got that out of the way...

I've inquired with Cox Business Internet Services. And honestly, the cost won't be that bad. $25 fee to switch from home to business services, $79/month for 512k up, 4m down bandwidth (unlimited useage), and $5 each for the first 5 IP addresses (or I can buy a pack of 13 for $25). For an additional $20/month, I can upgrade my bandwidth to 768k up, 5m down. That would come later lol. I'm looking at hosting "shared" servers, for a minimal fee. I'm thinking a setup similar to this:

* 1GB storage space
* 20GB of data transfer/month
* Domain Name
* FTP access
* Possible use of MySQL databases (3-5 max?)
* Maybe more!

All for a fee somewhere between $15-$20/month. My HP box, including myself, could house 7-8 more sites with this setup.

I'm also considering (depending the cost) opening a small shop where I can keep this stuff in the back room, and offer rack space as well. I'll keep updating as I know more.

-Aaron

posted by Aaron and Sarah at 7:33 AM | 0 comments
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Big news! (Friday, April 01, 2005)

Well, it appears that Google is giving away not 1GB, but 2GB for their gmail service. This morning Google began doubling available storage space for all gmail users, until it reaches 2GB. Google also hints that this is only the beginning, that gmail will soon see even more storage space. If you don't yet have a gmail account, then feel free to contact me. I've got 50 invites to give away. And I doubt Sarah has given any away, so that's 100 invites we have to give out. Remember, just ask nicely and yee shall receive!

Speaking of storage space, I've nearly finished building out my HP NetServer. Very soon I should be able to offer hosting space. Be sure to check over at my other site when more details become available.

-Aaron

posted by Aaron and Sarah at 8:19 AM | 0 comments
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