Jamie Thingelstad

I’ve been having fun with what I expect will be my last weekend of hardcore geeking with my gear at home for a while. Once Baby Thingelstad arrives I’ll have more important things to do!

This weekend I jammed on two tools. First is Snort, which I have setup in a network intrusion detection mode. I now have one of my Fedora boxes listening on an unnumbered interface to all traffic on my gateway. Snort, with the appropriate ruleset, watches all traffic over the wire and takes note of anything suspicious. Snort then logs this to a mysql database and I’m using BASE to review the information. BASE is nothing to get excited about, but it seems to be the best out there.

I am getting some interesting information out of this rig. I’m pretty amazed at how many times SQL Slammer is still hitting me. It tries to get to me about every 20 minutes. Code Red is less active than it was before, but it’s still out there. Perhaps oddest of all is whoever is at hammurabi.acc.umu.se who is hitting Road Sign Math with a large ICMP packet on a seemingly random interval all day.

The other tool I got going this weekend is Cacti. Cacti is a better (I think?) and easier to use (without a question) SNMP graphing tool than MRTG. I’m going to leave MRTG and Cacti running in parallel probably for ever. Some things I like better in MRTG than Cacti. Cacti uses RRDTool 1.2 (as opposed to 1.0) and generates these super nice images with anti-aliasing and robust font support (static image for example, as compared to.

I’d share access to these tools with you like I do with MRTG and my web logs but they require logins and I also don’t know that I want people being able to see attack alerts my intrusion detection system is throwing. You can admire the login pages from the links at the bottom of the page. As a side benefit of this work I’ve now designated a Linux server as a first-class citizen in my server setup and can now deploy other packages on it in the future if I want.

I’ve been asked many times in the last day “Why is thingelstad.com down?” I guess I should be happy that people actually cared when my little corner of cyberspace became unavailable for 21 hours and 26 minutes in the last couple of days. But really, it’s not like “the Internet” was down or anything. 🙂

We had a wild, wild storm here on Tuesday night. This was by far the worst storm I’ve been in – maybe ever. The winds were in excess of 70 mph. It’s the first storm that I felt a real need to get into a room that had no glass in it. The power went out fairly quickly and all the battery backups did their job, as long as they could at least.

Here is a visual display of the last couple of days.

Needless to say it was more than a minor inconvenience to be “in the dark” for so long. And if you know me, you realize this is just another episode in the continuing saga of horrible electric service where I live (example, example. I’m very seriously considering a generator. Nothing huge, just something to keep the refrigerator, some lights and the Internet up. You know, the essentials.

This should hopefully be the last of these baby updates before I’m putting up a picture of the little tike! We had another check-up on Wednesday with the midwife and not much is going on. The baby is healthy and all, but seems to be liking it in the womb a whole bunch! The official due date was last Sunday so we are +4 days after the due date now.

We are going to see the midwife again on Monday along with an ultrasound to check on things. And if the baby hasn’t decided to come out by Thursday we’ll be induced then. We’d really like to avoid that, but at least there is an outside date now.

Today we go straight from the PhatBox MP3 player in the car to the Roku M1000 for the baby’s room. I decided a couple of weeks ago that we needed to get music in there, the idea is both for us, the parents, and for the kid.

For the last year we’ve been in music nirvana with every bit of music we own stored digitally on our server. Obviously I didn’t want to start dragging out CDs to listen to in the kids room so I went looking for a stand-alone, WiFi music player. There are a lot of options and I’ve even played with some in the past (like this one that I thought was horrible). I decided to go for a high-end unit and ordered the Roku M1000.

This unit is simply amazing. I unboxed it, turned it on and put in my WiFi WEP key and instantly it was on my network. After a few clicks I was listening to streaming music. If only every product worked this well. I clicked a few more buttons and had upgraded the firmware in about 30 seconds. Seriously, I’d rate this one of the best products I’ve ever purchased. I’m tempted to rip out my Audiotron and replace it with one of these.

We can now put childrens music on infinite repeat in the babies room at the drop of a hat and every now and then we can play some music or podcasts for ourselves when feeding or rocking the baby.

I’ve felt for a long time that the car was absolutely the best platform for digital music. You can be in your car for hours and you need entertainment. While a CD changer is a step in the right direction if you are like me you listen to those same six CDs for weeks, or even months, before changing them. I looked around a few months ago for solutions but didn’t come to a conclusion. Recently my friend Chris (excuse his website, I think he’s working on bringing it into this century) decided he wanted to pursue this goal so I piggybacked on his very thorough research and got a PhatNoise PhatBox.

I would say we installed it this afternoon, but unless you count fetching a few tools and asking questions I don’t have much of a place in the we. The install took the whole afternoon. A few things came up on the install. I’ll share them here for others that may try this at home.

• I had the PhatBox unit for Volkswagen but was installing in an Audi A6 wagon. The unit is exactly the same, but the cable is different. Chris did the solder iron magic and put a female DB-13 connector in place of the VW connector.

• We blew the fuse in the Audi head unit while installing due to plugging and unplugging a lot of times. I’d suggest not plugging the PhatBox in until you have the connectors fully connected.

• I upgraded the system files on the PhatBox to the newest versions. Took a few minutes on first boot but everything worked perfect.

• The physical install was a bit rough, a hole had to be cut in the back of the steel frame that held the old CD player to allow room for the cable. Be ready to cut into some serious steel.

• The screwholes on the unit weren’t ideally placed. In order to get the access panel back over the unit once installed new holes needed to be tapped into the aluminum chassis and even then the insulation had to be cut out to accommodate the unit. But after that, it fit fine.

I’ve only had it for a few hours now but I really like it. The voice prompting system seems to work well but I’m still getting used to it. When you turn it on the first time you get this rocking welcome sound. The PhatBox uses your standard car stereo so it cannot display menus with long text. PhatNoise has a fairly elegant solution to this using voice prompts. It will announce your genre for you, and it creates album names so you can pick what to listen to. As a bonus the random button on my head unit now has a purpose since it does something that is worthwhile. Anyway, you can read up on your own if you want more information.

Huge thanks to Chris for doing the install! I would have been way over my head. We didn’t take out the camera so no pictures of the install. I can now happily drive down the road listening to one of a few thousand different songs at a time. Plus, I get to feel cool since I’ve got a little Linux computer in my trunk.

PhatBox Stuff:

• PhatVoice is a program to put higher quality voice prompts on your PhatBox DMS.

• Get more voices to create prompts with.

• Various PhatBox notes.

Well it seems public opinion polling on thingelstad.com wasn’t very accurate for the baby delivery. 58% of people predicted the baby would be here by today; the official due date for the kid. If the trend continues I don’t have a lot of hope that the 25% of you that predicted today or tomorrow are going to get it right either. It’s very possible that those three people that went for the proverbial “long ball” may get this right. These are probably the same people that guess 1 cent over the highest person on the Price is Right.

Tammy can’t wait to get the delivery on. The end of pregnancy doesn’t seem to be very enjoyable in any manner. If you’ve been there, you know the drill. Lot’s of bathroom trips and never being comfortable. She’s eager to begin the trip back to being a “normal person”, however this time also being a mom.

We are prepared for everything. I’ve been on a mad dash to finish a few final projects. It’s very odd to plan everything one day at a time. Whenever I make a plan for next week I have to footnote it with “except if the baby comes that day”. I’m sure it’ll still hit me like a ton of bricks when it does happen.

Last week my mother came back from my grandparents farm with their computer. It had died, seemingly a terrible death, and I was going to see what magic I could let loose on it to bring it back. Mixed in with all of the computer junk was another item, my dear friend, the Christmas Bell.

The Christmas Bell is a fixture at the farm at Christmas. The bell has been there for every Christmas I can remember. For the simple cost of two-AA batteries the bell plays synthetic Christmas jingles for hours and hours bringing delight to all. It also has a small lamp in the dome of the bell that pulses with the music.

The bell has gone through some difficult times. A couple of years it was hanging in it’s deserved spot, by the phone in between the kitchen and the dining room, but was unable to play, victim of some shenanigans by my cousins and I no doubt. It fell several times and had broken apart only to be taped back together. The plastic next to the on/off button had melted. My uncle had even taken a soldering iron to it to bring it back to life once. It was the ultimate fighter, coming back to bring Christmas joy to all of us.

I received the bell in rough condition. It had become three separate pieces. Stiff, loose wires broken from their mounts were the only remnants of the cheer it used to bring. I traced everything and identified where it all went, soldered the connections back and flipped the switch, however no sound emitted from my dear friend. He just laid there dormant. I wondered about the switch so I bypassed that, nothing still. I did notice that the single chip on the tiny board, its heart if you will, got very hot when it was on. I’m sad to say that my best efforts were not enough to bring him back.

I have respectfully placed him aside in the hope that future technology will be able to cure what ails this great, red bell.

Grandpa with the Christmas Bell (2001)

A few months ago my mother remodeled her kitchen and in the process she took out a window. This left the annoying problem of having a hole on the outside of the house. She asked Tammy if she would do a mosaic for this spot which Tammy finished last week and we installed today.

The mosaic is 32" by 50", definitely the largest item she has done. She worked on the piece for about two weeks and was somewhat obsessed with it. All in all it took around 50 hours to complete. It was in two pieces to make it more managable to work on and to install. Neither of us have done a permanent, installed item like this so it was all new territory.

We mounted it today and everything generally went well. We had some problems with the thinset, some pieces came off as we were getting it installed but we worked through it. I grouted it in because Tammy shouldn’t be working with grout when pregnant and I didn’t like the idea of her being on a ladder while pregnant either, which she complained about a lot. 🙂

We got the piece installed over about 2 hours. The grout just needs to be sealed now and my mother is going to frame it in so it looks somewhat like a window. It looked stunning from the alley as we pulled away.

Tammy is really great at mosaic. Requests for commissions can be submitted via this website. Prices are going up though. 🙂

I’ve been busy (obsessed) with getting SNMP monitoring of my home network working with MRTG for the last couple of weeks. It’s been much harder than I would have expected, but in the end I sure know a lot more about SNMP than I did before. This gives me a lot of information on my home network, like knowing how much traffic is going to through my gateway.

I found really strange things that don’t make sense to me. For example, different CPUs end up in different OIDs from one installation to another of Windows Server 2003. That’s very confusing and doesn’t seem right, but I’ve got proof positive right here on my box.

I got my MnPASS transponder on Tuesday. I had my first opportunity to use it today on my drive into work. I hopped on the “sane-lane” at highway 100 into downtown. It only cost $0.25 so I figured I would just give it a try.

When passing under the sensor the transponder in my car beeped four times to indicate it had been recognized and I zipped on into work. I was curious to see how fast the system was so I logged onto the website when I got into work and was pretty impressed to see that my account had already been debited the appropriate amount. Very nice!

One thing I’m curious about is that the terms of use that you sign up for say they will share information with the highway patrol and they have individual timing for each car. Since they track each individual car through the lanes they can easily derive your average speed and I’ve heard of other states using toll systems and handing out speeding tickets to people based on the time in and out of the toll lanes.

All in all, it seems like a really nice system and I like how it’s being implemented.

Tonight Tammy and I took the breastfeeding class at North Memorial. I have to admit to a bit of hesitation with this class. I asked more than a couple of times “husbands are supposed to go?” Don’t get me wrong, I’m entirely into the whole baby experience but it wasn’t obvious to me what role the man really plays in making breastfeeding work.

Now after having taken the class I actually think it was one of the more interesting baby classes to date. Quite a bit of information that I didn’t know and I really left thinking how amazing the whole process is.

This weekend I’m taking the Baby Boot Camp class that is just for Dads. I’m actually pretty interested in that class. Hopefully they’ll answer some of the dumb first-time dad questions.

Over the last few months I’ve been on a steady march to increase my server capacity at home. Why? I’m not entirely sure why. How about it’s fun? 🙂

I decided to take a plunge into the deep end and get a rack for home. Getting the rack took up more space for just one or two servers, but as I add infrastructure it is much more compact. I went with the APC NetShelter VX 25U rack. I wanted to get a rack that had good depth and solid build. It also has removable sides and doors to make it very easy to get into. Overall, I like it a lot but it’s very heavy. Hopefully I don’t have to move it anytime soon.

We disposed of a bunch of servers at work and gave people an opportunity to get some in exchange for a charitable donation. I picked up four machines (they are the four Compaq 1U machines). This required the addition of another 1500 VA UPS which I just put in tonight.

Everything is working very well. I’ve got enough cable off the back to move it about 10 feet out into the room for access. The cable management in the back is a mess, but I’ll deal with that later. I decided to keep everything on the top half and leave the bottom open for later additions.

It’s all pretty loud but luckily I don’t care since it’s in the laundry room. It also generates plenty of heat. I’m done for a while now. The next thing I could see adding is an external disk enclosure to add a couple of terabytes of network storage.

Next week is national Bike-to-Work Week! Take the opportunity to dust off the bike, pump up the tires and pedal on into work. I’m planning on wheeling myself into the office the majority of the week.

I woke up in my New York hotel at 7:00 am this morning very tired. I didn’t get to sleep until fairly late the night before. I took my camera and a couple of lenses into Times Square to get some classic New York photos. My day didn’t start until 9:30 am so I could sleep in a bit.

After getting cleaned up I went to get dressed. I had flown in on a Sunday night so I was very casual coming in – sandals and shorts. Great to be able to fly in casual clothes. I got up this morning to put on my business attire, black slacks and a dress shirt.

Now, the last few months haven’t been great ones for me in regards to my weight. Let’s just use the excuse that I want to support Tammy in pregnancy. 🙂 So I’ve got a number of dress slacks that fit me, and I have a number that really do not fit. Well, as I got ready in my hotel room I put on my shirt and stepped into my slacks when sudden horror struck.

I had brought pants that did not fit! To be clear, this wasn’t a matter of just being a little tight. Oh no, these were simply not going to fit in any way, shape or form.

After expressing my frustration with the situation with some colorful language I realized how completely screwed I was. I had flown in wearing shorts and sandals. I had one pair of slacks that did not fit. I had 1 hour and 25 minutes before my meeting started. I seriously would have feigned illness, massive food poisoning or something, before showing up to a business meeting in shorts and sandals.

I shut myself of the horror after about 30 seconds and went into action. I immediately put on my shorts and sandals and headed down to the front desk. The woman there told me that Macy’s opened at 8:00 am and was 8 blocks down Broadway. I ran out, literally, and grabbed a cab. I got to Macy’s, ran to the door and found them locked. They opened at 10! She had the wrong information.

More colorful language at this point as I called back to the hotel. Things were looking very grim. The concierge told me of a place downtown, just 15 minutes on the subway that opened at 8 am. No way I would be able to make that work. I found a crappy clothing store selling super cheap junk but they had nothing that was better than what I was wearing. The concierge called a Banana Republic and they were open. As I prepared to head over there I thought about sizes. After calling them back we found they carry nothing bigger than a 38 which even at the best of times wouldn’t be for me.

I walked back to the hotel. At this point I called Tammy and expressed my despair. Panic was in my voice with only 55 minutes until I had to be at my meeting. I got to the hotel and the concierge worked the phones. Jackpot. She found a store that had the right size and would open early for me! I checked out of the hotel and headed out with luggage in hand and 40 minutes until the meeting.

I got to the store, ran in and grabbed a pair of dockers. Changing rooms were a time luxury I didn’t have. Dropped trou’ right in the store and put on the dockers. Fit! Great! Grabbed a new belt as well and left for my meeting with 25 minutes remaining, and a sense of calm having averted a total disaster.

I called Tammy to let her know the situation was under control and hung my head out of the taxi window like a dog to cool off, all the running around had worked up a sweat. I felt completely like I was in the TV show The Amazing Race. I think it’s time to segment my closet better!

It’s really hard for me to stop reading a book. Once I start I feel like I’m obligated to finish it. Usually this isn’t a problem because overall most books are worthwhile. However, sometimes I get stuck on a book. I start it, but it doesn’t catch me or it’s just not that good. As a result I just let it sit there. However, now I’ve committed to that book so I don’t get another one out. This results in a stall in my reading that can last months.

Such is the case with Bad Leadership. Mostly I found this just to be a bad book. The pitch is fine – we should focus on bad leadership to learn how to be better leaders. That makes sense. However, the author expands a topic that should be a lengthy essay into a full book. She does so by including example after example of bad leadership. Some of these stories are interesting in their own rite, but that’s not the point of the book really.

Anyway, I finally cleansed myself of this one. Decided it was okay to not finish it and have moved on to my next read.

I’m writing this on a plane. I’m flying from MSP to LGA, or for those not so “in the know” from Minneapolis to New York’s LaGuardia airport. I’m on a lovely Northwest flight flying in a trusty Airbus 320. I was bummed to not get upgraded. This flight was last minute so I’m flying full fare which almost always means you get upgraded but MSP to LGA is a really popular frequent flyer route and being silver elite doesn’t get you anything on it. Upgrades on this route are essentially the world of platinum elite only, booking over 75,000 miles a year. I did that a couple years in the past and frankly, I’m happy to sit in coach instead.

Having not been upgraded I took my spot in 17C. Aisle seat, usually I fly window but I actually kind of like this. I boarded early to avoid any hassle with my luggage in the overhead and took my seat. After a while a woman walked down the aisle and motioned to me, that universal motion without any speech, that tells a flyer that she is in your row. I got up and she took the window seat.

The plane continued to be seated with the middle seat remaining empty. The difference between flying coach with a middle seat open versus occupied is like the difference between community service and solitary confinement. This is the point where a frequent flyer develops “the stare”.

In combat soldiers talk about the “thousand yard stare”. I imagine that this is similar. I find myself glaring down the aisle as people walk onto the plane. They come down and you first look at their eyes. I’m in C, on the left side of the plane so people that start looking at the right aisles are okay. They are eyeing seats on the other side. But then others come down looking on my side. It’s just a matter of row number now. Some seat before reaching me, others go past. Either way it’s an ugly situation avoided.

What’s funny to me are the thoughts that go through your head as they approach. If looks could kill! You would think that through some mental power it may be possible to actually change their seat assignment. If only. And just as you think you’ve made it through to a more enjoyable flight, the gate agent may decide to send some stragglers on standby down the aisle. These are the real ones to be worried about. Your heart skips a beat waiting for these people to figure out who they will agonize by squeezing into just one last empty seat.

I made it through fine on this flight. The seat in-between is occupied only by magazines and papers.

Once in the air Northwest takes the opportunity to feed us. As with all airlines they’ve given up on serving actual food due to costs. Instead they serve SmartSnacks. I have to ask what it is that makes these snacks deserving of such an intellectual title as smart. The subtle implication is these are good for you, I think. After all, that would make sense as a “smart snack”. So inside is a granola bar, not bad. Summer sausage and cheese? Hardly smart. Oh, and two Oreos! Off to Harvard we go!

Before signing off from 35,000 feet I have a tip for you flyers out there. Working with your laptop in coach is always a trick. There is barely enough room, even for very small laptops. Since you have to squeeze it in, all to often you end up putting your laptops LCD screen under the lip of the seat in front of you. This exposes you to the horrible “laptop taco” potential. The scene shows the happy business traveler tapping productively away on his laptop when the massive gentleman in front of him unexpected reclines his seat, catching the screen of the laptop in the middle and bringing it to a crushing, terrible death.

Here is your tip! Use the latch for the seat tray. Once you have the tray down, flip the latch back into the down position. Now open your laptop and the screen will (likely) be stopped by the latch. This protects from any crunching of your precious screen. Your mileage may vary.

This flight is turning out to be one of the most turbulent flights I’ve been on in years. Yikes!

I finally got HTTP compression working on content that matters – like ASPX pages. It looks like pages are compressing about 4:1 or more. This should mean much faster download times since my broadband connection is my most limiting issue. I found some excellent instructions for doing this. You need to edit the IIS6 metabase for compression to work as you would want and this article explains it will.

I also moved Road Sign Math to it’s own web server now so it is isolated and I also enabled compression on it.

Let me know if you notice faster responses when you are browsing our site.