Randy’s random musings

Ever since Dreamhost moved me to a new server without warning, I’ve been trying to get my custom SpamAssassin install working the way it used to. I’ve finally succeeded, but it hasn’t been easy…

Because of the new infrastructure plan, new email accounts and shell accounts have been completely isolated. I thought that I wouldn’t need to worry about that, since I had an existing account with shell access to my email, and the change was only supposed to apply to new accounts. Unfortunately, I was completely wrong. In the most recent newsletter, Dreamhost was soliciting volunteers to move to their new servers. Less than one day later, I was having numerous issues with email and my web sites, and it dawned on me that they had moved me to new servers without any kind of notification!

After updating my DNS and changing some email client settings, everything was almost back to normal, except for my custom SpamAssassin install, which was completely broken. Getting it working again would entail a convoluted method of forwards, procmail recipes, and filters on Dreamhost’s panel. Read on for further details…

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Recently, I had occasion to try to remedy an intermittent internet connection in Turkey… It ended up being more challenging than I had anticipated. There was a LAN with a remotely-located (around 100 meters away) proxy server, and it worked intermittently. A ping to the proxy server showed no problems, unless there was congestion on the network. A ping flood would show between 5 to 10 percent packet loss, which increased with the size of the packet.

Having established that the route to the proxy server was at fault, I investigated and learned that the cable from the switch to the proxy server was probably over 100 meters, and that at least a segment of that cable ran parallel with a high voltage power line.

Thinking about the old days of dial-up, and the necessity of reducing the connection speed depending on the line quality, I had the idea of trying to reduce the link speed from 100 Mb/s to 10 Mb/s. It shouldn’t have negatively impacted the internet connection, since it was only a 6 megabit ADSL connection. The problem was that the link speed was auto-negotiated by the switch at both ends, and there was no way to force the link speed slower than 100!

Linksys WRT54GL (loaded with Tomato firmware) to the rescue! Under advanced settings was an option to manually force the link speed down to 10. I installed the router in between the switches, and the problem was gone immediately!

Here I am, almost three months later… My wife and son have come to join me (finally!), and soon my mother/brother-in-law will be here to visit, and hopefully our dogs shortly after that. (apparently, getting the right paperwork for importing dogs into Germany isn’t the easiest thing in the world to do) We found a real nice house to rent (and possibly buy, eventually) in Wassenberg-Orsbeck, and look forward to moving in next week.

I just brought a new site online for NATO Airbase Geilenkirchen, an electronic bulletin board, of sorts. The idea is to give people a place to advertise things they want to sell, like Craigslist, but for a really small community.

My Nav-Cam with Tom-Tom has paid for itself many times over, over here in Germany… Couldn’t live without it! The battery does die quickly, though, even when it’s powered off. Qaiser has a good comment with a solution that I’ll integrate into the FAQ when I get time.

I landed in Dusseldorf this morning, and I’m relaxing at my friend Ercan’s house now. I have a few days before I start work. Cathy and Ben will be joining me in a month or two, but until then, I’ll miss them tremendously.

At the end of this year, shortly after Christmas, I expect to be heading over to Germany to take up employment for NATO, and will reside there indefinitely. Catherine and Benjamin will be joining me, but their timeframe is a bit more uncertain. We’re all very excited! We’ll miss our friends and family here stateside, but we intend to come back to visit quite often, and will extend an open invitation for guests to come visit us on the other side of the “pond”.

I downloaded the new Firefox beta a few days ago, and I’ve been using it as my primary browser since then. I have to say, I’m impressed! I’m using it on Mac OS X, and it seems to “fit” a lot better than before. Speed seems to be the primary improvement here–not only do pages seem to display faster, but my machine feels more responsive overall!

The biggest downside to using this release currently is the lack of add-on support. Eventually, add-ons like DownThemAll and ForecastFox will be tested with the new version, and released. But for now, I’m missing them…

I just finished creating a web site for my mother-in-law, who has just started a photography company. So, if you live in Arkansas or Oklahoma, and a need a good (yet cheap!) wedding photographer, check out the Day Photography web site! Or if you just want to see the ugly web site I made…

For the sake of comparison, you can see the site I made for my wife a while back: Sparks Photography. Yeah, it all looks pretty similar, but I made a lot of changes under the hood for the CSS layout. (for example, the layout of the packages on the “Weddings” page on the Day Photography site)

I ordered some stuff from NewEgg a few days ago, and I’ve been eagerly awaiting delivery of my package(s). I checked the tracking number online this morning, and was greeted with the following:

Please note that I live in Spiro, OK–400 miles from Pampa, TX!

I called UPS, and the friendly representative could only say “Well, sir, it says it’s ‘out for delivery’ today”. I asked if that makes any sense, since it’s over 6 hours driving time to Pampa, TX. Well, after further digging, it appears an error was made scanning the packages, and they actually are out for delivery here in this area.

Last time I was supposed to receive a package from UPS, I waited at the house all day, and it never showed up! After looking up the status online, and seeing the exception, I called UPS. Eventually I learned that the driver couldn’t find our house, and just gave up!

Oh, how I despise thee, United Parcel Service! If only FedEx was cheaper, or DHL was more widely available from online stores, I would never use your service again!