So - you want to setup a server because you want to:

• – Share a network connection with your millions of computers;
• – Host the coolest website EVA;
• – Have your own mail server;
• – Have a way to transfer data around different networks - like music, files, backups, pictures, insane chat quotes, etc;
• – Learn how the hell things work;
• – Be a part of the Wild Wild Web in some other magical way

I think I can help y’a out. They’re easy to build and run. In fact, most people I know run servers. It just makes sense for the world today.

If you just want to share the ‘net across some machines, get a D-Link router. It’s low hassle, low cost, and quick to setup. I’d recommend something like this. Grab it from Future Shop or the like.

With the Open Source world, you can do some amazing things. Web server with Blogs (like this), mail server with webmail, complicated web applications, web forums, picture galleries, music servers, file servers, SSH servers - these are all not only possible, but trivial. A big plus in building servers for yourself is you’re showing support to the Open Source community, which is totally changing the world.

I’m not going to get into a big explanation on how to do everything. If you want to know details, ask.

A note on Horsepower:
First, get a machine. It can be a cheap POS, servers are usually not very busy. The more complicated your website, the more power you’re going to need. This server is a 300 MHz machine, btw. And it’s doing plenty, and doing it well.

The Quick Version
If you want something that you can administer through a web interface and is easy to install - check this out:
The E-smith server and gateway
I like this one ’cause I helped build it. I use it here, actually. Here’s some points:

• – It’s free;
• – To install, insert the CD, type “proceed”, after that just enter some ISP information - now that’s easy!;
• – Completely configurable via a really easy to use web interface. It just works;
• – Very easy to use, and will host your website, be a mail server, and it’s easy to extend into something much bigger;
• – Sets up a LAN for you, and does all the firewalling and routing, so you can enjoy sharing your network connection;
• – Very fast - from reading this, you can have a server working in about 4 hours. That includes you going out to get the
  second network card that you forgot about the first time

Use google and you can find more distro’s like that.

The Custom Way
Then you have the option of doing it yourself. It’s not that hard! Just pick your stuff and go. Here are some things I’d recommend if you feel like playing around:

• – For a Linux distro - I would pick Fedora Core (but anything is good);
• – Email server - I am really enjoy Qmail);
• – Blogging software - This site is using Wordpress;
• – Webmail app - there’s none better than Horde - which also has calendaring, address books, file sharing, password management, and other toys;
• – Picture gallery - I like to use Gallery;
• – IRC server - I use , but there are millions of them out there,;
• or anything else you could wish for, at FRESHMEAT

Just follow the instructions with each thing you want to install, take your time and read the instructions carefully (if you want to get something done in an hour, use the quick server I mentioned above) and just learn what you can while you’re building this thing.

Remember to keep your machine patched, and you’ll be all set. Enjoy! A server is a wonderful thing to have.

Hilarious - 4/5

I went and saw this with my cousin who’s 5 years old, and his dad. It’s a great film and targeted to Adults and to kids - I was laughing quite a bit and my cousin was totally enjoying it too.

The animation was awesome, and it’s totally worth seeing. It’s not like this is a “must see” or anything, but if you liked movies like Monsters, Inc or Finding Nemo - then you’ll enjoy this too.

Brent gives this movie 4/5

I heard from Paul that this was a good show, especially for the ladies. Opportunity presented itself and I took advantage.

March of the Penguins is a simple documentary detailing the adolecence and adulthood of the emperor penguins of Antarctica. But it’s the simplicity that sells it. Through this movie, we learn a lot about the mating habits of these animals and learn how closely their habbits are to our own.

I had no idea that penguins were up to so much stuff! Penguins are amazing! They sacrafice a lot to find a mate and to care for their young. Before I saw this movie, I thought penguins were all about swimming around, eating fish, and the like. But I was wrong. Before I saw this movie, I wasn’t sure if animals felt emotions like love the same way we do. I know your dog can “love” you, but why is that? Cause you feed him? But this movie made me see that animals actually love eachother. So….this is turning into a sappy post….

On a more macho note, the filmmakers must have been crazy! Some of the storms they filmed these penguins in were hardcore (-100C). But they did an excellent job of capturing the penguins in their environment in their most intimate momments. Some of the most amazing footage of snowscapes I could imagine. It almost made me want to go to the Antarctic to check it out for myself.

This show is rated G, so if you are babysitting and have nothing else to do, take the kids. Or if you are in the doghouse and need a way out, just about every girl I know digs penguins.

Remember Burnout 3? I remember first playing the game in Marlborough mall, and positively dancing on the spot with glee at the carnage I was wreaking. It’s a great game, and over the last year I’ve played quite a bit as a single player game, multiplayer game, and over xbox live.

When I was informed Revenge was out, I went and bought it - didn’t even have to read reviews or anything. How could it be bad?! And I wasn’t dissapointed. As far as racing games go - this gets a 4.5 out of 5 - I even think it’s better than Burnout 3.

First thing I noticed was the announcer is now a pleasant sounding woman instead of an annoying guy. Yeah yeah, I’m a guy and I should like the girl more, right? Actually, the dude in 3 was just annoying - as anyone who has played it can attest to. But it’s not just the new voice that I like - they’ve tweaked the sound so that on my surround setup, her voice comes equally strong from each speaker. This gives the experience of talking to the Star Trek ship’s computer or something when you’re playing … very fun.

On to the new features in the game. In 3, if you hit ANY traffic, you’re toast. Now any traffic that’s going in the same direction as you is fair game. You can beat the shit out of them, and what’s better is you can use traffic to take down your opponents. Feel like smacking a car off a semi into your rival who just passed you? No problem - and that’s damn fun. They did an awesome job with this new part of the game, it’s great - they call it “checking traffic”.

Next - just about every track has 15 alternate routes in it. They’re easy to see, and are usually really good shortcuts - they help you catch up on the rest of the group, and you can tell you’re cutting some big time off your lap. What’s better is that they usually involve jumps. Burnout 3 had some concept of leaving the ground, but it just didn’t feel right. This is much better. The jumps are wicked, and more impressive the further along in the game you get. It doesn’t take long and you start timing your jumps to land on your opponents. That’s a kill, too - and that’s quite rewarding. Makes you feel like it’s a monster truck or something.

The new soundtrack is quite a bit better than the old, in my opinion. I really appreciate that they threw some Crystal Method and Daft Punk on there. Nice to get some more electronic tunes.

Another new feature is how you can do a crashbreaker when you’re in a race. This is just plain fun - if you screw up and hit a wall or something and you’re surrounded by opponents, then just blow yourself up and you’ll take them all out as well. And then on top of that, you can still steer your wreck into whoever else you can reach. That makes crashing less annoying, which is a good thing - it’s fucking annoying to be flying at > 180 mph and then be stopped dead - you brain takes a second to adjust. I feel like it should come with some sort of repurcussions (you know, like airbags, or some sort of physical manifestation of pain) and an explosion fits perfectly.

Now, the main menu doesn’t sport the same options. In 3, if I wanted to play a quick game of road rage, it wasn’t a problem, I just clicked on the menu option and away I went. So, I was mad they chopped all that out. Until I realized that the single player is completely accessible and organized by difficulty level. So, once you unlock the game, you can just jump to whatever difficulty you want (from 1-10) and then choose the road rage for whatever track you want and you’re set. Takes just as long as the old menu, once you know what you’re doing. I like this setup much more that 3’s setup. It let’s me choose how hard I want to drive.

Multiplayer is beefed up too - it’s now up to 6 players, although I haven’t had a chance to play it yet. I am looking forward to it.

The graphics are still kickass, and with the jumps you get that giddy feeling again, like when you first tried Burnout and it was just ridiculously fun. The cars have more colours, and the models are really interesting. There seem to be more of them too - it’s just about every couple of races that you get a new car. You don’t have to keep track of your points or takedowns or anything, you just get lots of cars. And as expected, in the higher levels, the faster they fly. And boy, do they fly. I drove a dragster last night that was just awesome, most of the screen was a blur.

The game feels faster, and I have already played through almost to the 7th level. I really am enjoying it, and that says a lot ’cause I don’t usually enjoy playing single player. EA is nice enough to furnish us all with cheat codes too, so we can unlock even more of the game. I haven’t checked those out yet, I’ll let you know how they go when I do.

All in all - it’s a great way to waste some time.

Hmm, SE’s been pretty silent these days. Guess nobody has anything to say! Well, I still don’t, but I’ll say it anyway ;)

Years ago, I was a huge gamer, and then basically quit for 4 or 5 years. Over the last year or so, I’ve been playing XBox, though, and I’d have to say that I have fun with it! It’s a pretty good way to relax, I think, and take your mind off some things. But it’s still mentally stimulating!

I’ve been playing a couple new games lately (all I play is the XBox), so I thought I’d review some of ‘em…

Doom 3
All I can say, is that this game is scaring the crap out of me. The basic premise of the game is that scientests open a gateway to Hell, and now all the demons and stuff are lose. Like Brent said “What could possibly be scarier than Hell?” haha! Until I played this, I didn’t believe all the hype surrounding it. But seriously, this thing is freaky. It’s like a playable horror movie!

It’s a great game - decent story (I haven’t got too far yet), unbelievable graphics and sound, and totally freaky. I bought it for nostalgia from the old games and was disapointed in that regard - so if you’re looking for that, you won’t find much of it. But it’s a fantastic game on it’s own.

Fable
I’m not generally a fan of fantasy/RPG type games anymore, though I was a huge follower of Zelda “back in the day”. Beyond that, I just can’t get into them. I want to play a game, not sit through 20 minutes of cut-scenes which, if you don’t follow them, will leave you totally lost. I love to read, but I feel frustrated when it’s imposed on me by video games … let me keep the two seperate.

Anyway, whatever, I could nitpick forever :) My point is that despite all of that I really enjoy this game. You can get really creative and do some neato things. The whole Good/Evil engine is fantastic, and the story seems pretty fun, too. Running around naked and kicking chickens while gaggles of women beg you for a wedding ring is just hilarious. So, Fable comes highly recommended by me, but be careful because you’ll find yourself playing it for hours at a time without even knowing!

Burnout: Revenge
I haven’t played this much, so I guess Bett can say more, but I’m sure he’ll give it a stunning review. So far, it’s pretty impressive, but I have to admit that it didn’t grab me like Burnout 3 did. We’ll see though, I’ve heard good things about it and coupled with what I’ve seen so far, it should be good. The soundtrack is fantastic. The graphics look great - even smoother than B3, but they don’t have as much of that blurring effect that make B3 seem so fast and out of control. I miss that…

So I can’t say much on this, but from what Brett’s told me, coupled with what I’ve seen so far, it’s a great game.

How To Turn Your Hamster into a Fighting Machine!!

This is a great rant.

Katrina Rant

Today I would like to write about something stupid. This seemed like the appropriate venue.

What a society we live in. This western society that seems to be all about looking cool and knowing more about nothing than the person standing next to you at the crosswalk, waiting for the light to change. For all of the good we have, we certainly waste a lot of it. I had a lot of time to think last night, so this is what I was thinking about.

Something that has bothered me for a long time is a phenomenon that I have labelled “fashion-core”. I work in sort of a trendy part of the city, so every day, I get to see the fashion parade. Music seems to be the reason for the fashion (or is fashion the reason for the music…don’t know) and apparently, the reason for the music is change. Change could be personal, it could be a small group, or it could be spread as wide as society. But no one likes a song about the status quo, unless it’s about how much the status quo sucks. Anyways, that’s not the point…

Now, what am I talking about? “Fashion-core” are people who only do things to appear cool. They dress like they are on MTV (they even watch MTV…hmm), they attend all the parties, they go to all the shows (even if they know nothing about the music). They pride themselves on knowing about a band before you do, even though the only way they heard about them was from TV, proving nothing but the fact that A) they get more channels than you do and B) they have more time to waste. These people miss the point of music and are only driven in life by one thing: fun. Someone should tell the fashion-core that the 1980s are over. I find myself very frustrated when members of the fashion-core recieve praise of any kind.

Another characteristic of the fashion-core is an odd combination of laziness and conformity. These people will go to the greatest lengths imaginable to do something fun or something that will be later perceived by their peers as cool. Super-human feats are accomplished by the fashion-core in the name of fun. But when it comes to work, they are no where to be found. Where are these people when they are needed to support a cause? Any cause. Anything at all besides looking cool and having fun. They miss the point of it all. While a few people are working, they are out looking for fun, talking about working, convincing themselves that they are contributing to society with all of the fun they are having. For all of their individuality, they are all the same.

Now, every once in a while, one of these idiots gets an idea on how they are going to make a statement, or enact some change, provoke some thought. And what to do we get? Graphiti, vandalism, useless protests and rallies that only make the real workers look uneducated and violent (need I remind anyone of the G8 Seatle fiasco?) You cannot rage against the machine when the machine is the very thing you need. Yeah, sure, it’s fun to throw potshots at the old guys with all the money and power. But these are the people you need to convince of the social change you seek.

Well, thats the fashion-core. Selfish individuals who pass themselves off as people who care. They are no different than the old guys with the money, only interested in building up their image with obscure music knowledge, a story about some crazy stunt or dressing just like the person they saw on MTV just before leaving the house to strut like peacocks down the avenue. I don’t have much hope for the future, thanks to this insecure group known to me as “fashion-core”.

Today’s adventure was Black Prince. What a hike! That’s a 4.5/5.

What made it so great? First, it was hard, but not overly long - the entire trip was 10k and that took us about 3 hours. The views at the top were awesome. It was a tricky hike, lots of challenging terrain. And it just was fun to do. It’s just on the Smith-Dorrien, pretty close to Burstall/Chester.

The start of the hike was easy, until we got lost in some boulders. At that point, we had to find the trail that branched accross the black lake of doom. Honestly, it was a huge barren area that was all black. Pretty freaky. Then, you dive through some trees and up a bit to a huge rock field, which you make it through by following cairns to the other side. After that, you start going up. Now, this hike gives you 600m elevation in 5kms. The thing is, by 3 Kms, you’ve maybe climbed 100m. So, it goes STRAIGHT up. Note that doing this in the rain, as we did, is fun, but tricky.

Anyway, that was fun too, ’cause the mountains around us had lots of caves and there was a really nice waterfall, which is apparently called the warspite cascades. So, after a crazy ascent we make it to the cirque (the hollowed bowl left by a glacier) and we started walking around there. It was at that point that the blizzard hit. So, we took shelter behind a rock, and then decided to start back, but then the blizzard stopped! And then the sun came out and we did the rest of the hike in wonderful sunshine. It was weird, but fun - that was my first snow of the year. In the sun, the cirque was much more fun to look at, and it was very beautiful.

The hike back down was trick as it was so steep - it was easiest just to slide down in some places. Awesome view of the valleys, and the Black Prince mountain is just awesome. The hike was steeper than Prairie Mountain, but well worth the effort. Definitely hard to find the trail sometimes, though, so bring a book or map to help you out. It’s in the “where locals hike” (kananaskis version), or some Gem-Trek maps.

Also, FYI, apparently when you get to the cirque, if you follow a path up a hill, you get a view of the Black Prince lakes, but we didn’t know that, so we didn’t do it.

Just recently I decided to move my 33 gallon freshwater aquarium to a saltwater aquarium since they are soooo cool. The tank has been up for about 2 months now and it’s in great shape. I have 9 green chromis, 2 clown fish, 3 corals, a wicked starfish, and some snails and crabs. I like it muchly.

The setup wasn’t that complicated, actually. I used the same filter, same heater, same lights, same tank, and everything. I had to take out all the rocks, gravel and plants, and store them away, though. Saltwater doesn’t work with that. I also had to clean the aquarium really thoroughly. If you’re going to use the same filter, make sure it’s way over-powered for your tank. Saltwater is heavier than freshwater, and it takes more horsepower to pump water.

Now to what’s new -

First, you need a protein skimmer. That’s essential. It ran me about 150$, and if you have a bigger tank, expect to spend about $400. All it does is filter out protein in the water, and keeps things really nice and clean. It took me awhile to find it out, but make sure you get a really good one. It’s probably the most important part of the tank.

Next, I bought some salt, gravel, and a salinity meter. I filled the tank with a salt water solution and then added the gravel (which is actually aragonite) to the tank and let that sit for 2 weeks. Things seemed pretty solid then, so I bought some live rock.

WTF is live rock, right? It’s actually rock from the ocean that’s full of nice healthy bacteria. This makes it really easy for your aquarium’s ecosystem to setup, and it helps balance out toxins when you add new fish, or when bad things happen to the tank. Plus, it looks cool.

So, I let that stand for a week or so, just to make sure things were happy. Then I picked up a few clown fish, and then about every week after that, I’ve added something. The thing to note about Saltwater is that you need really good lighting. Make sure the fluorecent tube you have is rated for Saltwater tanks. The fish don’t give a shit, but the corals will die if they don’t get enough light - they live off algea that feeds off the light.

Also, note that things like anemonies and sea urchins need incredible lighting. You’ll have to shell out about 300$ for that stuff - I don’t really see the point in going that route. Granted, the anemonies are cool, but that’s a lot of money for lights.

And that’s about it! I find it much easier to take care of than my freshwater tanks, actually, and it’s survived one really bad week with no casualties at all (1/4 tank water loss, and a broken light, at the same time). All in all, I would highly recommend it, the fish are such amazing colours, and so interesting to watch. Dead easy to setup, really - worth the effort.