RawCode

Yeah wonderful news isn’t it? Yeah, RSS has been around in various forms since 1997 but I never really found a reader that I liked. After trying out a few different sites recently, I have settled on Google Reader.

The main reason why I like it, is because of the integration with the rest of the google services. Once you authenticate with one of the google sites, that validated session is good for all of them. It appeals to my apathy, so I have accepted it. I am up to 24 feeds altogether, with topics ranging from science, comics, news and of course ArsTechnica.

Filed by RawCode at 4:03 am under Banter
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And it is the Bees knees! I will post pics when I have more time and experience with the chair, but until then I leave you this YouTube video.

Filed by RawCode at 6:47 am under Banter
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However this is not news to me nor my friends.

It took a different twist a few days ago however. No, I am not being deported nor has I run into the INS.

This took place in Home Depot. I bet you can already tell where this is going.

I went to Home depot with a buddy of mine a few days ago. We were in search of a few painting supplies and a new toilet flapper to replace a decades old rotting one which was failing at it’s primary task. As I am standing in the paint section I see a guy walking towards me, but I give him a casual glance and ignore him. He then stops behind me (as I was examining something) and starts speaking to me, which at first I do not understand. How often do you have to be ready for a stranger to talk to you? I turn around and notice he has a Russian accent and has a beard much like a follower of Russian Orthodox. And he starts telling me about his remodeling project.

Him: I have work on a bathroom, I need help with it. Can you help?

Me: I don’t understand what is it you want.

Him: I have work. Do you want work? I will pay!

Me: No thanks.

Him: Why do you not want work? I pay well!

Me: I am a network engineer.

Him: That is different. *walks away*

So this just confirmed *yet again* that I look Hispanic, and had reassured me that I will be employable for years to come.

Filed by RawCode at 6:30 am under Banter
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I got linked to Twitter from a blog on Scientific American and I would have to say I find it interesting.

Twitter is a new type of social networking site. The goal of Twitter is to have their users answer just one question:

“What are you doing right now?”

To answer that question, Twitter allows you to post via IM, text message, and the web. There is even a Firefox plugin for Twitter so you can post right from your browser!
However, do we really care what someone in Russia or Taiwan is doing *right now*? That you are Dominating! a bowl of Cheerios before you head to work? That you are stuck in traffic on your commute due to an accident? I do not care for the site myself, but the site has been gaining popularity rapidly and if you combine Twitter with Google Maps, it becomes much more interesting. TwitterVison.

TwitterVision takes all the posts from Twitter, and show them on Google maps. Suddenly every post has a direct tie to reality. You see posts from the world over about… people. I like Twittervision, but Twitter itself seems to be an interesting experiment in social networking.

Filed by RawCode at 5:56 am under Banter
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We have tools to track latency across networks. You give it an IP address or hostname, it pings it periodically and displays the results on a pretty graph. Easy to understand, easy to use!

Why is there not an application that does the same thing but for DNS Queries? It would be a script or a compiled binary that performs a few basic functions:

1. Allows you specify a few different name servers to query and a query rate. (Time Interval)
2. Also allows you to specify domains to query for, and/or random domains. (Random domains pulled from google or some other method)
3. Logs all the results into a database or other file format for records and analysis.
4. Graphing of the response time of your specified name servers.

Seems like it would be pretty simple and common place, but I am having a hard time find such an application. I see plenty of stuff for statistics of the DNS server itself, (i.e. CPU usage, memory usage, queries per second and so on) but none for a client to measure DNS performance.

I did find one project out there called DNS Tester over at CodeProject.com. It is pretty basic, but it would at least show everyday users how DNS latency would affect them when they are browsing the web. Not all name servers are created equal.

So while I continue my search for an application that performs this function, I have tasked my Wireshark install to watch my DNS traffic for me. I have it set with the following capture filter:

port 53 and (host (primary name server ip) or host (secondary name server ip))

And then within these results, I have a display filter to further filter what I am looking for:

dns.time > .5

With these two filters, I am looking at any DNS traffic between my network and my ISPs name servers. And then I am specifically looking for DNS responses that take longer than .5 seconds to complete. It works, and I can compute my own statistics based on my data collection.

But it still is not as pretty as a graph.

Filed by RawCode at 3:34 am under Networking
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Well, Stomp is coming to our little town of Anchorage, Alaska and I am actually pretty excited about it. Yes, I know that almost everyone on the planet has seen Stomp by now, but I haven’t so stuff it! I bought two tickets for the show on April 11th, however the girlfriend has no idea what is in the works!

GF: We should go see Stomp!

Me: Did you know it would cost around $140 for two people to attend Stomp?

GF: /cry

Hahaha, I LIED! Ok not really, but I did exaggerate the truth a bit. It was only $115 , including service charges and fees. Not too bad IMHO, since Stomp is pretty killer for what they do. In addition it is our five year anniversary on the 13th of April, so I figured we could splurge a little bit and do something nice that she would enjoy immensely.

Filed by RawCode at 3:05 am under Banter
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This Youtube video goes quite a bit beyond my knowledge of biochemistry, but it is fascinating.

Filed by RawCode at 7:05 pm under Banter
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Yeeeaaah.

Filed by RawCode at 6:30 pm under Banter
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1. Maya a la poupee

2. Portrait de femme, Jacqueline

They were apparently stolen from his Granddaughters apartment in France in the middle of the night. Seemingly done by professionals, there were no signs of forced entry and the alarm system was bypassed. Two people were in the house and only heard a sound which woke them up, but they found nothing amiss during a cursory check downstairs.

Doing a little digging around on the net shows that there is 444 Picasso works currently missing or stolen. Picasso is a rather popular artist, but I wonder why thieves are paying so much unwanted attention on his works. Either there is a good market of private collectors that are willing to pay a pretty penny to possess such works, or a market for excellent quality fake Picassos. It would be a shame to have such works stolen away in a collection where they could not be viewed by anyone. It is rather selfish any way you look at it.

Filed by RawCode at 3:35 am under Banter
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The guys on Ars pointed me to a website that uses an algorithm to estimate the worth of your web site. I don’t think there is any real way to quantify the accuracy of the output, but it is rather fun and actually does give you an idea of how popular your site is.

Give it a try!

Here is mine for rawcode.net

Filed by RawCode at 5:41 am under Banter
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