Here we go. Changes are in progress.

Still alive and coding

So I think it is time to blog about things again. Been too long. Well well. mrjabba is busy writing a Rails app that manages soccer leagues. You can find the source on github.

I am not sure that I want to keep this blog in its current form anymore. Now that I have so many more deployment options, I'm considering using something like jekyll then I think I could combine that with a rails or sinatra app as the base for anything dynamic? Sound good? We'll see.

Cisco VPN, vpnc and Ubuntu upgrades

I get to do a little work from home here and there. And, I was happy to get my VPN account this fall with my new job. But, knowing that I usually just remote control my workstation at the office to do some of the work, I don't really need to boot into Windows to do this. After all, Ubuntu has a Terminal Server client that will support remote controlling a Windows box. I've done so at home. I had finally got the guts enough to install the Cisco VPN client on Ubuntu. I got it working and all was well with the world for some time.

Earlier this week, I ran some of the suggested Ubuntu updates, which gave me a new kernel version, now sitting at 2.6.24-22-generic. That broke the Cisco VPN client. And, I couldn't figure out why or how to fix it. I tried rebooting, reinstalling, etc. No love. It would start up the vpnclient, but would not be able to read my PCF (connection configuration thinger) file.

I did some searching and found a solution that worked for me. There is a package out there called vpnc. You can install vpnc using apt:

sudo apt-get install vpnc

Once you install it, you will need to convert your PCF file to get the host and address info it requires, You do this using pfc2vpnc. It's a Perl script. It should be installed and you can use it like so:

NOTE: I had copied my pcf file to my home directory. This just tells the Perl script to read it and output the results.

cd /usr/share/vpnc
./pcf2vpnc ~/myPCFFile.pcf

## generated by pcf2vpnc
IPSec ID theipsecid
IPSec gateway something.foo.com
IPSec secret ipsecsecret

IKE Authmode psk

## To add your username and password,
## use the following lines:
# Xauth username
# Xauth password

So, it didn't write that to a file that I could see. So, I wrote it down in a file to keep it handy. Once you have that, you just just start up vpnc and connect.
NOTE: I haven't been able to specify a separate config file yet, so I just typed it all. At least it works.

$ sudo vpnc
Enter IPSec gateway address: something.foo.com
Enter IPSec ID for something.foo.com: theipsecid
Enter IPSec secret for theipsecid@something.foo.com: ipsecsecret
Enter username for something.foo.com: myusername
Enter password for myusername@something.foo.com: pin and/or pass for vpn
VPNC started in background

Now you're connected to work. Or, at least I was.
So, I have to enter those 3 IPSec things for now. That's more than before. But, I'm sure with some tinkering I can figure out how to automate that out of the process and only have to enter my username and pass each time.

Good luck!

Golan 0.9.1 released

I uploaded a new version of Golan tonight. We'll call it 0.9.1. This version fixes a lot of things over the old one. You can now update an individual feed (as well as all of them using the service). But, now you can also cancel the dialog for individual updates. I'm also using SD card storage now for the feed content rather than the database. The app is much zippier now and now you don't have to worry about app bloat. My copy got up to 9 MB. And, a 9 MB app in RAM is no good. Now it's 100KB with external storage. Coming soon, plucking ability (multiple page levels). I'm close to releasing but I really want the plucking capability there first.

Get your Golan on here

Golan 0.0.8 released

I posted a binary of Golan tonight. No source yet. I still want to fix a couple of things before I show the crap brilliance underneath.

If you are feeling brave you can go ahead and give it a go. I expect I will have the source code up in about a week and up on the Android Market by the end of the month.


Golan Project

Direct download Golan 0.0.8 for Android

NOTE: this thing is still buggy but I've been using it for a while now.

Manic 8-Ball source released

Yeah. I committed my first open source project code. Version 1.0.1.

I also included a new build for download. No need to build it yourself.

Manic8ball 1.0.1 Release Notes:

- Removed some profanity questionable phrases
- Fixed tap sensitivity. It was too sensitive in previous release.

Manic8ball Home

Manic 8-Ball

Funny story. I decided to be Manic 8-ball for Halloween.

The crafty part of the costume making wasn't working out, attaching a real magic 8-ball to the top. So, I thought. Hey, Why not write a program. I'll just attach the phone to my costume. It will be more like the real character :-)

Well, 2 hours later, here's the app. And, I will be submitting the code for others to enjoy. It's a really simple app.

Manic 8-Ball Project Site