http://www.schneier.com/blog/

This guy, Bruce Schneier, has some interesting takes on the TSA and Homeland Security in gerneral. Some pretty good reads. He does an interview with Kip Hawley, Head of the TSA.

Although I am certainly no advocate of the war in Iraq I do think that now that we are there we should finish the job.

The thing that bugs me the most is that the far left press refuses to print any positive news about the situation in Iraq. The soldiers are doing an outstanding job, are working hard and are actually accomplishing many outstanding things.

See Chuck’s post below for a few examples of what I am talking about.

Click HERE

Well, since I have a million thoughts going around in my head (is it hollow or something?) I thought I would try and organize some of them here. Usually I would shy away from something that is so “hip” or “cool” or recently picked up by the mainstream but I just couldn’t resist the urge to drive at least a few people crazy with my opinions.

This first post will be more of a “what’s going on with me” type of thing than a rant or other musing that I may come up with. I will post something more interesting soon

I have been reading a blog by Mavericks owner Mark Cuban that is really interesting. I am not a huge basketball fan (so anything he writes on Basketball I skip) but he has some very interesting things to say on other topics (movies, T.V., business, the market, etc).

It would be worth your while to take a look at his site just once.

http://www.blogmaverick.com

So, what’s been going on with me?

I have been working a good deal. Our company is taking off and it just seems like we have more and more work to do the more successful we become. My father would tell me “that’s just the way it is when you own your own business”. Add another thing to the long list of things that the parents have been right about. It’s exciting and daunting at the same time. I am a natural worry-wart so it just gives me more time to work when I can’t sleep from worrying about everything. Now that’s what I call a vicious cycle. So, if any personal friends want to get ahold of me you can call me until 2AM most nights

I am currently training for a bike ride called Hotter than Hell in Wichita Falls, TX. We are going to try and ride 100 miles in the nice Texas heat in August (thank God it’s not next month). So far we are doing rides of at least 20-40 miles and training a couple of times per week or more. It’s not RAGBRAI but it will be fun just the same. Wish me luck cause I’ll need it!

The site is: Hotter than Hell 100

I have been working on a few projects as well.

1) DLP T.V./High Definition DirecTV Tivo:

I must say, Hidef is the way to go. I got sick and tired of looking at my old 4:3 Sony rear projection T.V. so I went out and laid down a significant wad of cash for a new Samsung 50″ DLP T.V. Man, that hurt.

Wouldn’t you know it, the minute I get the T.V. I have an incredible itch to go out and get the new HD DirecTivo. That REALLY hurt.

So now I am poor but I have a kick ass T.V. and Tivo! Yay for me (not).
So, during this whole process I am thinking, hey – I need to get ALL of the local channels in HD. So, I go out and buy a $100 HD antenna for the roof. I get up there, mount it where the old oval dish used to be (The DirecTV installer put in my new oval 3 LNB dish the prior week).

A few days later the HD DirecTivo arrives. I get it set-up just in time to witness 24 in HD. NICE.
Once that was over I go about setting the thing up to my liking. Lo and behold I can’t receive 3 local over
the air HD channels. CRAP!

I consider going up to the roof to re-orient the HD antenna. Of course, it is only pointed in the “approximate” direction and could probably use some adjusting. Being the generally sneaky person that I am I think to myself “I wonder if the antenna in the attic will get HD”. Once I connect the attic antenna to the right wire in the home-run box in the garage I get ALL over the air HD’s in the 85-90% range! That just figures. I buy and antenna and the one I already have but have never in my life used works a ton better. UGH.

Anyways, I highly recommend the Samsung DLP TV and/or HD DirecTivo to anyone considering something like this. It completely rocks.

2) Hacking the DirecTivo (HDVR2 – Series 2):

I already had 3 Tivos when I ordered the HD DirecTivo. So, I gave one away (loaned) to a guy here at work. When the HD Tivo came in I gave my oldest DirecTivo to another guy here at work. So now I only have 2. Both virgin, never messed with DirecTivo’s. I simply can’t resist. I buy a hard drive and bracket online and a USB ethernet adapter and go to town on the standard definition DirecTivo. 45 Minutes later it’s done. I have a 157 hour networked DirecTivo. Full web interface, 1 hour live buffer, no more calling in over the phone line and the ability to grab any show from it and place it on VCD, SVCD or DVD. I highly recommend this to anyone who wants more storage from their Tivo. If you are interested in something like this I could literally help you do it over the phone if you have a little computer knowledge.

Mind you this is not my first experience with “hacking” Tivo’s. Every Tivo I have owned has been modified in similar fashion. I am a little wary of opening up the $1000 HD DirecTivo at this point but I will definately add another 300 GB drive to it soon (that would give it the ability to record 80 hours of HD content and 400 hours of SD material).

I made a DVD of 5 episodes of American Hotrod so that I could test the software, etc. It works really well.

3) My own Phone PBX (VOIP, etc):

I have been wanting to get a new phone switch for the office here in Dallas but I hate to just trash the one we have. The biggest problem I have with our current phone switch is that it is difficult to configure and just doesn’t QUITE cut the mustard when compared to what we used to have at Vertaport (EIC). It’s a PC based phone switch.

I have been researching going back to EIC but that will cost us around 4K. Too much.

So, I start researching cheap or open source solutions. I stumbled across an open source PBX called Asterisk ( http://www.asterisk.org ). I also found a place that sells the hardware (analog line cards, VOIP phones) for cheap ( http://www.digitnetworks.com ). I ordered their startup package (1 line analog card plus a cheap-o VOIP phone). It should come in this week, just in time for my usual Sunday afternoon geek-out time).

Now I know that most might not know what VOIP is but it’s basically a telephone that doesn’t require a landline like normal phones do. It requires a TCP/IP connection instead. So, instead of having the phone wire and the ethernet wire (for phone,computer) you just have one (the ethernet wire).

How is this better? Well, it allows you to take your phone anywhere you want that has an Internet connection and receive phone calls. I.E. I could come home for Christmas and receive the phone calls that come into my house at Mom and Dad’s. Not that I would do this but it would work well for my company since we have people that don’t live in Dallas.

You can also use VOIP for long distance calling. Companies offer extremely cheap rate plans for long distance based on the fact that it is FAR cheaper to run calls over the Internet than it is to pay MA Bell (baby bells) for the same service. I am not really worried too much about the cost. I am more into the fact that I could build the machine myself, install and configure Linux and compile Asterisk and then have a fully functional phone switch/VOIP gateway for FREE other than hardware.

I have been RIPPED OFF for years by phone switch providers, etc. I remember when I worked for Vertaport during the .com boom we were looking at a lucent phone switch. They wanted 500K for a DAMN PHONE SYSTEM! Are you kidding me? That’s insane. It’s time to try and build one myself. You watch, I will build one that has more features than the one that Lucent was trying to sell me (but less capacity of course). It’s also very interesting to me

4) Women:

I know someone would ask me about what the woman situation is with me right now. I would consider myself in-between women at the moment (although I am not putting in a lot of effort right now). I go through stages it seems. Sometimes it’s a priority to date, etc and sometimes I am totally pre-occupied with other things (imagine that). I think I am in the latter stage at the moment. That will probably change soon

Well, that’s about all the time I have to write. My fingers are about to fall off anyways. Excuse inappropriate grammer or spelling errors. I tend to write as I think instead of writing like I am in college working on a term paper.

I must give a shout out to all the Grundy people that may read this. The older I get the more I think we had a great experience growing up in such a safe, small, intimate setting.

Anways, LATER.

MANLY