Woodruff Research

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Today = Hardware Failure Day

Posted at December 21, 2008 6:36 pm | In Technology | By Ben Woodruff

Tags: Damn It, Hardware, Networking

Today… in a word…. sucked. Not only did we get dumped on by a blizzard, causing me to be home-bound for the day, two pieces of expensive hardware died.
My main switch drops all connections about once every 10 - 20 minutes. I temporary replaced it with my Netgear 24 port monster. I bought a gigabit replacement for it. I’ve wanted to upgrade to gigabit for a while, and this gives me an excuse, but I really wasn’t planning on the expense.
Not only that, my AirPort Extreme (which I use as a NAS and DHCP/DNS server) decided to follow in the switch’s footsteps. Luckily I don’t use it as a router, so haven’t been without internet. But I had to replace it, so I decided to go with a 1TB Time Capsule.
I was planning on buying a new MacBook Pro for when I transfer to RIT but now I’m not so sure that’s going to happen (or, at least it won’t be what I was planning on).

In addition, apparently our furnace is on the fritz. Right before Christmas. Perfect.

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That Time of the Year

Posted at December 17, 2008 9:47 pm | In Random | By Ben Woodruff

Tags: Personal, Podcasting, Random, School, Technology

Well, it’s that time of year. No, not Christmas. FINALS. I just finished my last one. I had 3, all today. Now I’m done for the semester though, and that is such a relief.
I’m looking at a house for next semester.

In other news, I’ve migrated (almost) all my crap to Google Apps. My gmail forwards there, I’ve got iCal setup to sync there, my important docs are there, etc. Some things I’m still missing: Google Reader, and other misc Google Account services. Because I don’t have an actual ‘Google Account’ for my Google Apps name… those services won’t transfer. I haven’t found an easy way to create a new Google account and migrate those kinds of things over. Hopefully Google makes that easier in the future.

More below the break.

(more…)

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Screwed over by MCC

Posted at October 26, 2008 11:44 am | In School | By Ben Woodruff

Background: I’m in the 2+2 program with MCC and RIT in an Information Technology major. Basically what this means is that I go to MCC (a community college) and pay much less tuition for the first two years of my college education, and then am automatically transfered to RIT (a very expensive private college) for the other 2nd two years - no application necessary. I’m currently in my 3rd semester at MCC, which should mean that next semester would be my last - and then I’d move on to RIT.

Situation: Registration started a couple days ago, so, because I’m the good student that I am, I started making out my schedule. I only need 4 classes: CIS 209, CSC 206, Statistics, and Advanced Java… none of which I was thrilled about having to take. (more…)

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Cisco PIX Configuration

Posted at September 21, 2008 2:32 pm | In Networking | By Ben Woodruff

Tags: Networking, Research

I have a Cisco PIX 501 that I’m trying to setup. I have a fairly basic network configuration (relatively) and I have everything working except remote access VPN. I want to be able to VPN home on my iPod Touch from work and school. I’m trying to do everything from the CLI rather than the PDM GUI. PAT, SSH, etc are all working so if I get the VPN going I might buy it, even though it’s an end of life device. It’s still a really nice firewall. I’ll post the config if I get it working. Otherwise, expect to see it on eBay ($200 ballpark).

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Sad Week

Posted at September 19, 2008 8:30 pm | In Random | By Ben Woodruff

Tags: Work

I was informed on Wednesday that one of the businesses that I am doing IT consulting for (through Hurricane Tech.) is closing it’s Rochester office. I very much liked working there and it’s always somewhat depressing when people you know lose their jobs.
Hopefully Hurricane will be able to provide me with new challenging tasks. I’m confident that they won’t let me down.

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Free Drobo

Posted at August 28, 2008 9:30 pm | In Technology | By Ben Woodruff

Tags: whore yourself out for gear

Enter to win a free Drobo!
All you have to do is link to http://aperturenatureworkshops.com apparently. See http://f64.com/ for details.

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Using PGP

Posted at August 25, 2008 10:54 pm | In Technology | By Ben Woodruff

If you want to send me PGP encrypted mail, my key ID is 5C57DB86 and my fingerprint is 5363 A428 7C22 803D A4F3 D242 E551 C3C3 5C57 DB (I use pgp.mit.edu)

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Lock 1Password revised - screen locking added

Posted at August 19, 2008 7:40 pm | In Technology | By Ben Woodruff

I wrote here about a cool way to lock your 1Password keychain, but I haven’t really personally been thrilled with that solution. I decided to delve into Xcode and write my first application.

The first beta of version 1 is available here: Lock_Screen_1.0_BETA.zip

Please let me know about any bugs you encounter. (more…)

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Uninterruptible Power Supplies

Posted at August 18, 2008 12:11 pm | In Technology | By Ben Woodruff

Lately we’ve been having a ton of power outages in the greater Rochester area, which is very frustrating for someone like me who lives their life in front of electronics.

I decided it was time to buy some UPSs (Uninteruprible Power Supplies). THE brand name for UPS equipment is APC. In fact it’s so popular it’s become one of those “diluted” brands like Kleenex. “APC” has come to mean any brand UPS much the same as “Kleenex” has come to mean any brand tissue. (more…)

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Do you know your email address?

Posted at August 10, 2008 8:30 am | In Technology | By Ben Woodruff

Apparently some people don’t. A Beverly, a Brittany and an Elizabeth (Beth) Woodruff keep signing up for things, telling their friends, and even buying things with my email address. I could understand and by sympathetic if this were a one-off typo, but for me to continue getting your family newsletter from Aunt Rita and your Collective Soul tickets from Ticketmaster….

So far I’ve tried to be nice and alert the senders that I’m not Beverly / Brittany / Beth and asking them to please get in touch with them to get the correct email address. Next time I think I’ll be going to a free Collective Souls concert. (more…)

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