Author: yuval

Categories
Computing FreeBSD

Installing Dynamic DNS client on FreeBSD

I set up a FreeBSD server at home and wanted to run a server on it. Since I have a dynamic IP address from my ISP, Verizon FiOS, I need to have a DNS server point at my machine. I used DynDNS.org, which is a service I recommend warmly. They used to have lifetime accounts for $35, and their support – when I used it – was committed and knowledgeable so I recommend them. Anyway, you need to keep the DNS server pointing at your current dynamic IP address, and to do that, you need software to perform the updates.

You can download the client from DynDns.org website which also features most of the installation instructions. Nonetheless, the README file accompanying ddclient (which is written in Perl) assumes configurations that are just a smidge off from what FreeBSD does.
What you need to do is:

  1. Download and extract ddclient from the tgz file (tar -xvf ddclient-X.X.X.tgz)
  2. Copy the file ddclient to /usr/sbin
  3. Create a directory /etc/ddclientand put the configuration file ( sample-etc_ddclient.conf) in it, calling it ddclient.conf. (either work off of the sample included with ddclient, or use the one from DynDNS.org)
  4. Copy the daemon shell script, sample-etc_rc.d_init.d_ddclient to /usr/local/etc/rc.d/, calling it ddclient.
  5. Make ddclient run as a daemon by adding the line:
    ddclient_enable="YES"
    to the file /etc/rc.conf

Then, test run ddclient by using the line:
ddclient -daemon=0 -debug -verbose -noquiet.

If all is well, call the command:
ddclient start
and you should be up and running.

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Categories
Film

Ratatouille: Not the best movie of the year

Nor should it win any academy awards beyond the cutest movie or whatever, which it is not either. So yeah, I did not LOVE it. It was better than Pixar’s thinly veiled commercial for children, ‘Cars’, but it was nowhere near ‘The Incredibles’, ‘Toy Story’ or even ‘Finding Nemo’. It was OK.

First, watching rats cook, and I get the silliness of the situation, is just too much for me to digest. Second, seeing a swarm of rats cook, in a kitchen, even when steamed clean is just repulsive. I do not like rats. Poetic, yes; for my consumption, no. The plot falls into that great divide between parent and child humor, totally missing the sweet spot. Christopher Plummer elevates the movie from the just plain as the voice of a truly vicious restaurant critic, the only real engaging character in this movie other than the evil chef. The sequence of this critic tasting the rat-orchestrated ratatouille, whose taste transports him back to his childhood, is magical. Sadly, it is one of the few bright spots in this otherwise very plain vanilla Disney/Dreamworks fare.

Steve Jobs deserves, demands, more. B-

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Categories
General

Hotmail – can you really take it seriously?

So Microsoft, MSN, Hotmail – are playing catch up, promising share holders to catch up to Google in no time. Advertising-wise they are doing a great job (Facebook is an MSN advertising property), but Hotmail, is not.

Hotmail upgraded its interface, increased storage size, but its core is still the same old silly service that you left behind and use only because you occasionally use MSN / Windows Live Messenger. Case in point: Junk mail filter. My mailbox is set to standard filtering, which says:
“Most junk e-mail is sent to the junk e-mail folder.” Nonetheless, it appears the f- word, f-buddy, and Viagra are all not obvious words for Hotmail’s junk mail filters.

Not sure if there is a Windows port for it, but Spam Assassin is free and the fine women and men of Hotmail will be smart to change their spam filters to use it. Until then, it is the same dinky silly webmail site that you used to use but never do anymore.

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