After losing a disk, I finally got around to rebuilding the database and scripts to generate KML files from the FAA's NFDC subscription. First to be redone is the Special Use Airspace KML. Microsoft's SQL Server 2008 does a far better job of importing files than SQL 2005 did. The airspace KML archive is here.
I just upgraded to Movable Type 5, and I'm testing the different comment sign-in possiblities. MT5 supports OpenID, LiveJournal, Vox, TypePad, Google, Yahoo, AIM, Wordpress.com, Yahoo!JAPAN, livedoor, and Hatena. You'll see these choices if you hit the sign in link below.
I have also enabled SSL with a self-signed cert, so if you're shy about signing in to comment via http, just switch it to https by typing the s in your link bar. And no, I have not found a way to globally change signins to SSL in MT 5.
So you want to require strong encryption in Apache's httpd 2.0? So strong that Firefox is the only browser that can connect?
In /etc/httpd/conf.d/ssl.conf, edit the two lines as below:
SSLProtocol TLSv1
SSLCipherSuite HIGH
Then go to
/etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf and edit your
<Directory> </Directory>to include the following line:
SSLRequire %{SSL_CIPHER_USEKEYSIZE} >= 256
Then
apachectl configtest
to check for typos.
Finally
/etc/rc.d/init.d/httpd restart
What this does is make browsers do
TLSv1 DHE-RSA-CAMELLIA256-SHA only.
You can then watch your SSL handshakes fail from IE and Chrome. If you want to require strong encryption across browsers, edit ssl.conf to look like this:
SSLProtocol TLSv1
SSLCipherSuite AES256-SHA
Then you'll have reasonably strong encryption.
Great article by Microsoft on their internal monitoring structure and organization.
After a year-and-a-half and over 1,000 miles on the Breezer Uptown 8, I thought I'd write a review. There is a dearth of material on commuter bicycles and bicycling. The trade press is advertiser-focused and almost all of their bicycle reviews are non-critical and improve as the price increases. Most bicycle stores don't focus on the commuter cycle market segment. If one store started doing it in or around DC, I suspect they'd get a hardcore following pretty quick. There's a rush-hour on the CCT even in the winter. (Minneapolis claims 3,000 winter bicycle commuters -- they plow 50 miles of bicycle trails there.)
First: my ride. On days that I ride (I'm not a 5-day-a-week rider yet), I ride seven miles (mostly downhill) into work in 35 minutes. That same ride home (mostly uphill) takes about 45 minutes. I carry a laptop and a full set of work clothes each way in panniers on a rack.
Overall, the Breezer Uptown 8 is a great bicycle. However, there are some things to nit-pick about, mostly because commuter bicycles are relatively new in the United States. Nobody reviews them because they're not sexy.
First off, the Uptown is comfortable. I ride in an upright position. The seatpost is suspended, and overall it's a pleasure to ride. However, it's not a fast bike. It's got full fenders and a fully-enclosed chaincase. The only place I get splashed in rain is my feet.
The built-in Shimano front hub generator and lights are great. The headlight is pretty bright. I did get a Niterider light because the trail is not lit and pitch black. The rear light connections are weak and the light failed after going over a few bumps. Some new wire fixed that. The generator does add a little drag when it turns itself on. It's great having lights without ever having to worry about a charger or batteries. I have two Planet Bike flashies (one works consisently) mounted on my panniers. That worked out especially well after I wrecked and my black laptop pannier fell off and onto the dark, unlit trail at night.
The stock tires, Schwalbe City, are heavy. I replaced the front with a Conti 1" which works fine. The rear tire I haven't replaced because the rear wheel is a pain to take off. You need to shift to 4th gear, remove the tiny screws in the chaincase, and then use a 15mm wrench. Not something to do on the trail after dark.
You can see photos of my nitpicks here.
I bought the bike at Bikes at Vienna in Vienna, and get some help with maintenance from Griffin Cycle in Bethesda. There's nothing wrong with the service at Bikes at Viennna, it's just that Griffin Cycles is close to home.
I updated the airspace KML files again -- skipping one release. The latest covers from December 17, 2009 throughFebruary 11, 2010. You can find them in the archive here.
I loved my Dell 1750 server. It has plenty of power and a great 3Ware RAID card, two 500 GB RAID-1 drives, 4 GB RAM, and ran Red Hat Linux. I bought it from the Dell Outlet site several years ago when my condo fee included electric. Since then I have moved. I pay my own electric bill, and my 1750 consumes 150 watts at idle. When I publish with Movable Type or Gallery, power consumption exceeds 200 watts. I pay $0.150845894 per kilowatt-hour. (That's summing the separate generation, transmission, distribution, demand-side surcharge, and adding the gross-receipts tax. Pepco doens't make it easy to figure out what you're paying.) With a thirty-day month, that's 108 kwh, which comes to $16.29135658. That's $16/month, just for idling. And that doesn't use the noise of the server in my office or the additional AC required in summer.
That may seem expensive, but it's far cheaper than getting that much server capacity at Rackspace. However, I don't need that much capacity. I can trade processor power for power savings, keep the disk space and RAID card, and switch to an Atom-based server. My current FreePBX Atom server runs at 40 watts with an analog card powering two FXS modules. I bet I can match that on a new server. I'd get the new Supermicro Atom Server, but it has space for only one 3.5 inch hard drive. I need two. Thus I'll be using another miniITX case. In the meantime, everything's running on another old Dell tower box.
How did I move it? First I though reinstalling all the software from scratch would be a good idea. I'd get a nice clean, efficient build. But that took way too long, and I'd have to re-customize my templates and tweaks. I had MySQL backups running for a while, why not start testing the restores? I used rsync:
rsync -avz /var/www/ -e ssh:user@mynewserver /var/www/
(Note: Please study rsync syntax. Those / at the ends make a big difference.) It worked. Next I had to tweak the new httpd.conf file. I couldn't just copy the old one, because I was using the latest Apache version. But I could use almost all of the old file. I just needed to adjust the modules it loaded, because several have changed names.
Then I restored the databases:
mysql -u root -p
enter your password. (You ARE using a PW for MySQL root, aren't you?)
mysql> create database mynewdb
then
mysql> quit;
then
$ mysql -u root -p [mynewdb] < [backupfile.sql]
But that generally does not restore your user privs on the db. Back to mysql:
mysql -u root -p
then
mysql> use mynewdb;
mysql> GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON *.* TO 'myuser'@'localhost'
IDENTIFIED BY 'pAssW0rd' WITH GRANT OPTION;
mysql> flush privileges;
Don't forget the above step or you'll need to restart MySQL to get it to work.
mysql> quit;
Then double check that the user and pass from above match your config files.
Finally, test your applications. Gallery2 and MovableType worked fine. Your milage may vary. My office is almost silent now.
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