My FreeBSD box has been getting a LOT of portscans lately, and especially bruteforce SSH login attempts. They almost all originate in China. Makes me glad I set up two-factor authentication awhile back. Anyway, I have now also deployed SSHGuard. Take that, you commie script kiddies.
Portscan madness
November 14th, 2011Webdav for Google Docs
September 8th, 2011This is amazingly useful:
http://dav-pocket.appspot.com/
… Especially for iOS apps like Pages and Goodreader. Maybe iCloud will make this unnecessary some day, but until then.
Be-ing a Lion
August 30th, 2011Is it just me, or does the new OS X Lion interface look sort of like BeOS in some ways? In particular I’m looking at the square, bright-blue progress bars and the square buttons.
Handy iPhone RSS trick
July 10th, 2011I found this nice little tip for getting RSS articles from Mail.app to the iPhone (or whatever):
https://discussions.apple.com/message/11586098?messageID=11586098
Moving
June 29th, 2011And so it has come to pass that I am moving to California. It’s hard to describe how hard it was to get everything coordinated and packed over the last week. I actually spent five days working on the Saab, getting the engine back in. I also had to install the new drive axles and springs so I could put the front road wheels on. So now the car is rollable and steerable. It is at a garage, where it will get some work done that I didn’t have time to do: clutch, shocks, adding fluids. I just hope the engine doesn’t explode the first time they start it…
The only way we were able to get all the packing done was with the help of both our parents. I don’t know what we would have done without them. I guess we owe them big.
So as of today I am a Californian! We will be living in a hotel until we find a house. My postdoc starts on Friday. What an adventure.
RIP Baker Burg
June 10th, 2011
For the second time in as many months, one of our sweet little kitties has died. This time, it was due to kidney disease. We knew that euthanizing him was the right decision, but it wasn’t easy because he was such a young cat. Baker was an extremely affectionate cat, who was always looking for a lap to curl up on. He was also a big fan of the shower. The house feels so empty with no cats. Maybe when we move to California we will adopt another cat. It certainly is hard losing them like this though.
Google two-factor
June 2nd, 2011I just set up two-factor authentication for my Google account, yay. It looks like there is a PAM module that might support the Google Authenticator smartphone app on FreeBSD, neato. Maybe I will play with that at some point.
ETA: It’s in the FreeBSD ports collection (security/pam_google_authenticator-20110519). It works, though I did have to symlink the PAM module from /usr/local/lib to /usr/lib.
When it rains, it pours
April 19th, 2011It seems that my life consists of relatively long stretches during which little of consequence occurs. These stretches of time are divided, or punctuated, by short periods during which a great deal occurs. The last few months, continuing through the present, is one of the latter.
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RIP Chester Burg
April 13th, 2011
My favorite animal in the world died suddenly today. His name was Chester, and he was our cat. We rescued him about 5 1/2 years ago from the alley behind our house in the city, and he turned out to be the best pet anyone could ask for. He was as outgoing as he was cute. He followed us around the house, always hunting for a cozy perch from which to watch what we were doing. At night, he slept at my feet when he wasn’t patrolling the house for mice. Whenever he found a mouse, he dispatched it quickly and gruesomely. I’m sure the mice are as relieved as we are devastated.
Chester died of an acute reaction to a routine vaccination. Because it was sudden, and because he was always so involved with life in our house, his death is very hard for us. The house feels empty without him. We’ll miss you, little man.
Three letters
March 11th, 2011P H D