(P)³

Politech Posterous Ponderings
About Me

I'm a liberal geek who's into his Macs, his dachshunds, politics, news, weather, music, and social networking.

I collect glass jars, bottles, and containers. I'm an eco-freak conservationist, into the environment, alternative energy, and energy efficiency. I also believe strongly in nuclear power, and electric vehicles. (That's not an oxymoron - if you're against nuclear power then you truly don't understand it. I work in the industry. I do.)

I was silent for 8 long years, and am proud to work for a Company that values diversity and respects differing views and opinions.

That being said: it should go without saying that the views and opinions expressed herein are mine only and do not represent the views of my employer.

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From Twitter to advertising treasure
via cnn.com

I make it a habit of UN-following ANYONE that sends me SPAM through Twitter or Facebook or any other social networking site.

I don't care if we're friends, lovers, or you're the Pope or Jesus Christ himself.

(By the way, frak you @DrDrew for exploiting your followers, I can guarantee you those that followed you were interested in what you had to say not to hear you be a pitchman for some company.)

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Posted 3 hours ago

A Flawed Copyright & the Music Industry

There's been a lot of talk in various geek circles lately over ACTA - the "secret treaty" that the US is pushing for to make it a crime punishable by death for the violation of copyright laws.

Ok, so maybe not punishable by death, but if you live and work on the Internet it might as well be.

Now, I'm not a proponent of copyright theft, because it's wrong™ but I think the entertainment lobbyists are missing something very important here.

For decades, the music industry has claimed that we — the consumer — do not own the music we buy.

When we purchased the 45 single of Stayin' Alive by the Bee Gees back in 1978, we may have owned the record, but we didn't own the music that was on it.  That music was licensed to us.

When we purchased the Bee Gees Top Hits of 1978 on 8-Track Tape, which had Stayin' Alive on Track 2, we may have owned the plastic, but we didn't own the music.  That music was licensed to us.

When we purchased the soundtrack to Saturday Night Fever which featured Stayin' Alive, we may have owned the plastic, but we didn't own the music.  That music was licensed to us.

When we purchased Disco's Greatest Hits on CD which featured Stayin' Alive, we may have owned the plastic, but we didn't own the music.  That music was licensed to us.

Yes I'm dating myself.  If my father were writing this article he'd probably write about Bing Crosby or The Andrew Sisters and throw in some 78's into the mix above too.

By my calculations, I've purchased the license to Stayin' Alive at a minimum of 4 times already.

Therefore, if I want to download an MP3 of it to play on my iPod I'm sorry, but in my eyes I'm not committing Copyright theft.

You may justify yourselves and say, "but we only licensed the music to you on that 45 (or that 8-Track, or that Cassette Tape)" to whit I would respond:

Where?

Where did you license me that music on that particular media?

I seem to recall never even hearing about music licenses until only about 10 years ago.

If software comes with a license, how come I don't have to agree to a license to buy any music?

Why?  Because to do so would mean very few sales.

What the Entertainment Industry wants here is to have their cake and to eat it too.  (Why do we say that? That phrase makes absolutely no sense by the way.)

On one hand you can't tell me I only have a license for the music and then get upset with me if I choose to move that music to a new medium.  That doesn't make any sense.

On the other hand, you don't want me to own the music because If I do then that means you have less control.  To you, that doesn't make any sense.

And you've seen how well Digital Restriction Management has worked out for you with your sales of music and videos haven't you.

When Däimler-Benz and Henry Ford came along and introduced a new-fangled "horseless carriage" to the masses (Däimler having invented the auto, and Ford having been the first to successfully mass market and produce one…) you didn't see the Livery Stables and Blacksmiths petition the Federal Government to have artificial restrictions put on the autos to ensure the continued survivability of the horse & buggy market did you?  (Other than some laws which were passed for safety so as not to spook the horses.)

Progress is progress, and your distribution methods, and marketing machine, are dying.

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Posted 4 hours ago

These new Drobo's look frakking AWESOME!

Data Robotics is thrilled to announce the recent additions of DroboElite and Drobo S to the Drobo product family!

Whether you need a product with best-in-class performance with blazingly fast eSATA or a product with the most powerful and flexible Drobo platform to date, we have a solution for you!

DroboElite redefines storage economics by delivering advanced features and performance usually reserved for more expensive solutions. You and your business can get the performance you require while realizing the simplicity and convenience of DroboElite.

  • No headache dual-disk redundancy
  • Multi-host connectivity with LUN affinity
  • Best-in-class performance
  • Up to 8 disks of instant expansion to 16TB and Beyond
  • Dual high-speed iSCSI interfaces
  • Virtues of Smart Volumes™ - supports up to 255 Smart Volumes
  • Simplify your VMware environment

Join us for our "Go Beyond with Drobo" Webcast Series starting the week of 12/1/09 to learn more about DroboElite and Drobo S and how they can change your world of data storage.

Register for our webcasts

Drobo S. Built on the award-winning BeyondRAID technology with single or dual drive redundancy (that can be changed on the fly), Drobo S protects your data without any user interaction, even in the event of multiple hard drive failures. Entrust your irreplaceable data to Drobo S.

  • Multiple interfaces: eSATA, FireWire 800, USB 2.0
  • Up to 5 drives of instant capacity expansion to 10TB and Beyond
  • Protection from up to two hard drive failures
  • BeyondRAID self-managing and self-healing technology
  • Works with Windows, Mac, or Linux
via view.exacttarget.com

I love my Drobos! (Got three of 'em). Anyone want to buy two 1st gen Drobos so I can pick me up a DroboPro? :-) (Actually I'm a bit serious here!)

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Posted 3 days ago

Free Music Giveaway Tonight at 6PM Eastern

News from Matthew Ebel

News from Matthew Ebel

TWITTER | iTUNES | CD'S & MERCHANDISE | BUY A SUBSCRIPTION

November 17, 2009
Greetings George!

I have a secret I need to share...  I'm relentlessly working on a Christmas album right now.  Not just any Christmas album: The High Orbit Holiday Special.  There will be robots, Christmas carols, and 200-foot-long space sharks, exactly what every Christmas special needs.  I'm trying to get this thing done and ready to go by Thanksgiving, so if I seem a bit quiet (and insane) it's because I've locked myself in the studio.  See for yourself tonight (and every Tuesday) at 6pm Eastern US time at http://matthewebel.com/ustream

To distract you all from the insanity, here are a few quick updates...
SFTV1 on iTunes | The Entourage is GO | Polyphonic & House Concerts | The End

Songs From The Vault, vol. 1 now on iTunes

Last week I announced the arrival of Songs from the Vault, vol. 1 at CD Baby.  You guys promptly bought out every copy they had in stock (more is on the way, just so you know).  If you're still looking to get your hands on this archive album, you can now get it via the largest music retailer worldwide: iTunes.

Of course, I'll be giving away another free album during tonight's UStream concert, so tune into http://matthewebel.com/ustream at 6pm and see if you can get one for free!  Otherwise...
Matthew Ebel dot net

The Entourage is Filling Up Fast!

A few weeks ago I announced a brand-new level of fandom over at Matthew Ebel dot net:  The Entourage.  Now, finally, it's available for those truly hardcore fans that want to truly sponsor the music I'm making.  The details are all at http://matthewebel.com/subscribe, but here are just a few of the perks:

  • The entire Matthew Ebel catalog
  • One custom song
  • Executive Producer credit on new albums
  • Framed, signed copies of Songs from the Vault

And now something I didn't expect: There are only 2 slots remaining.  I announced The Entourage on Twitter yesterday and 3 of the 5 slots were snatched up immediately!  If you'd like to be a part of this, it's not too late!

Polyphonic's Advice: Tour More

I mentioned in my last update that I was applying for something called Polyphonic, part of the major record label Nettwerk.  The results weren't altogether bad, just a little disappointing:  They turned me down for now, but suggested I "tour extensively over the next short while."  Terry McBride (the label's CEO and founder) emailed me personally and mentioned "In my early days in the business the hardest thing was finding a booking agent."

Well, agent or no, I know I need to "tour extensively".  It's the only way I'm ever going to expand beyond synthesized drum tracks and Mac & Cheez dinners.

Will You Host a House Concert?

My strategy, at least in the short term, is to do House Concerts again.  This time I'm going to focus mainly on the Northeast since I can't afford to drive to San Diego and back just yet.

However, if you think you can make a house concert happen- wherever you live -please drop me a line and let me know.  A bunch of fans in Atlanta managed to get me all the way down there for a show, so if you want to see me perform (and help me grow), I want to talk to you right now!

Alright, it's time for me to crawl back into the studio and get some work done.  There are robots to revive, toys to deliver, and loud noises to make.  Thanks again to all of you who are helping me move out of the basement studio and into the rest of the galaxy!

Pax,
Matthew

PS - Don't forget to watch me tonight at 6pm Eastern US time at http://matthewebel.com/ustream - I'm giving away more free albums tonight!

TWITTER | iTUNES | CD'S & MERCHANDISE | BUY A SUBSCRIPTION
Thank you for your support!


To contact Matthew Ebel Entertainment visit www.matthewebel.com/contact
Matthew Ebel Entertainment

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Posted 9 days ago

SPAM to unique Email Address only used with iWeb Technologies

WARNING! Either someone from iWeb Technologies has sold my Email address, or their systems have been hacked.

Background: I used to have an account with iWeb Technologies back in 2007, and when I set up the account I used a very specific Email address (the joys and benefits of administering one's own Email domain).

Not too long ago I started noticing I was receiving SPAM in my Junk Mail folder being sent to this very specific Email address that I only used with one Company.

The odds of a spammer randomly picking this very unique Email address are quite slim.

So tonight I attempted to contact iWeb Technologies and confront them about this, and here is the resulting Chat Transcript.

I was informed to contact iWeb's Abuse department which makes absolutely no sense as the abuse has already been perpetrated.  My Email address is now in the hands of spammers, and while it's easy enough for me to disable that address (which I'm getting ready to do), the bottom line is that my address was bought and sold (or their database was hacked or they had a data breach incident).

Either way, and any way you slice this puppy up, none of those scenarios are particularly pleasant.

So which is it iWeb?  Was my Email address sold, or was your database hacked?

The following is a transcript of your chat session.

General Info
Chat start time  Nov 14, 2009 9:28:49 PM EST
Chat end time  Nov 14, 2009 9:51:14 PM EST
Duration (actual chatting time)  00:22:25
Operator  Simon B.

Chat Transcript
info: Please wait for a site operator to respond.
info: You are now chatting with 'Simon B.'
Simon B.: Welcome to iWeb's live chat service ! How may I assist you today ?
George Ellenburg: Hi Simon. Can you please explain to me why I am all of a sudden starting to get a boat load of spam from an Email address I used to have associated with an account that I used to have at iWeb from back in 2007?
George Ellenburg: george.iweb@ellenburg.org is not an email address that a spammer is likely to come up with on their own which leads me to conclude that iWeb has sold its customer database to spammers. Is this true?
Simon B.: just a moment to let me verify something
Simon B.: what was the associated e mail address?
George Ellenburg: george.iweb@ellenburg.org
Simon B.: so you are receiving spam from these adress?
George Ellenburg: I am receiving a LOT of spam, being sent to the address above. The only place that address has been used has been with your Company.
Simon B.: but from wich address that spam are
George Ellenburg: You don't understand. The emails are originating from all over the Internet. 78 Emails in the last 30 days, and ALL are addressed to an Email address I ONLY used with YOUR Company, which tells me someone at your Company has sold my Email address.
Simon B.: The only thing that I can suggest you about it is
Simon B.: to send an email about that
Simon B.: this the following address
George Ellenburg: http://skitch.com/gellenburg/n81nt/spam-ellenburg-mail-found-78-matches-for-search
Simon B.: abuse@iweb.com
Simon B.: ok just a moment to look at your link
George Ellenburg: I think I'm going to submit a story to Digg and Reddit and The Consumerist and warn everybody that iWeb is selling its customer database. Either that or your customer database has been hacked. How else can you explain the receipt of 78 spam emails in the past thirty days all being sent to an email address that was only used in one place and one place only, and that's as an account email address with your Company.
Simon B.: First of all, What I can suggest you
Simon B.: is to talk about it to the rigth departement
Simon B.: this departement are abuse departement
Simon B.: The one of the email address that I have show you before
Simon B.: I understand that situation can be not really funny
Simon B.: But I dont have acces to any information to help you with that
Simon B.: thats why I have suggest you to contact the abuse departement
Simon B.: Im really sorry for that
George Ellenburg: And I shall. Perhaps you might want to forward this transcript to them as well. I appreciate your apology, and apology accepted.
info: Your chat transcript will be sent to george.iweb@ellenburg.org at the end of your chat.
Simon B.: Yes if you want, you can keep the following script to use it too
Simon B.: just give me a moment please
Simon B.: I think I can give you somewhere to go
Simon B.: to make your request
Simon B.: Can you give me 1 minute to find it?
George Ellenburg: ok
Simon B.: http://iweb.com/contacts/?logOnHubCheck=false
Simon B.: you can do it there
Simon B.: but my partner still sayng to me
Simon B.: that the best way are to send email to abuse depoartement
Simon B.: abuse@iweb.com
George Ellenburg: Thank you for that information Simon, and I will carbon-copy your abuse department, but I fail to see how they are going to be able to help in this situation. The damage has already been done. Someone from your Company sold my Email address, or your system has been hacked. Either way is not very pleasant. But I appreciate your time. I'm going to close this chat now. Thank you for your time.

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Posted 12 days ago

Moving to Android

Dear Steve & Phil -

I am fed up with the whole iPhone App Store review process. I can't support a platform and Company financially that hinders innovation as much as Apple does with the iPhone.  Forget the 100,000 apps in the App Store.  If Apple truly cared about quality there wouldn't be 50 apps for farting.

I'm switching to an Android phone and heading to T-Mobile.

At least on the Android I can get Google Voice.

At least on the Android I can get Augmented Reality apps.

At least on the Android I can tether my data connection.

At least on the Android I can run multiple apps at once and have apps run in the background.

Oh, and I'm not even an iPhone developer.

I thought about becoming an iPhone developer - I work in the Utilities industry and have some interesting ideas for some apps related to our industry but after reading the horror stories from other iPhone developers there's no freaking way I'd touch the iPhone with a 10' pole (as a developer).

I love my iPhone and I purchased my original one in June 2007 and have been a devoted fan.

I love my Macs, and have consistently owned Macs since my Mac 128k.

But I've had it.

So I registered as an Android developer today and will be purchasing an Android phone soon. AT&T sucks as a carrier and now that Verizon wants to charge a $350 ETF for smartphones, even IF the iPhone comes to Verizon I'd switch to Verizon when the iPhone runs Windows Mobile. (In other words: NEVER).

And I'm not alone.

Speaking as a consumer (and not a developer): open up the platform and dismantle the whole App Store review process.

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Posted 12 days ago

Ehren Starks: The Depths of a Year

via magnatune.com

Can you believe this guy was only 18 when he made this album? One of my favorite of all time. It stays in continuous rotation on the iPod/ iPhone.

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Posted 1 month ago

Skitch.com > gellenburg > Pingtest.net - The Global Broadband Quality Test

via skitch.com

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Posted 1 month ago

Skitch.com > gellenburg > Speedtest.net - The Global Broadband Speed Test

via skitch.com

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Posted 1 month ago

You asked for it Mr. Shipley:

Got a DM from one of my twitter followers in response to a recent tweet of mine about how complex my home network is growing… anyways, they wanted details.

Details?

You want details?!

You can't handle the details!

Just kidding…

Ok, so here goes:

Internet: Comcast Business HSI (DOCSIS 3.0, 50 down, 10 up)
Why?! Stupid, frakking, bandwidth caps.  Which really gets my goat.  Before I got DOCSIS 3.0, my Internet bill was $89.95 per month for 16 down, 6 up, and with no caps.  Obviously that was equitable for Comcast then since business class customers have no caps.  So, why not just bump everyone up to that price point.  Those that can afford it will stay, those that can't will go DSL.
Now my bill is $210/ month, but $20 of that is for 5 static IP addresses.
You may think that's a lot, but please note - I don't have cable TV, Satellite, or a landline phone.  Add all of those up and I'm sure you'll find that you're paying about the same cost per month as I am.

Firewall(s):
 (1) Comcast-provided SMC-8014 DOCSIS 3.0 router/ firewall.
 (2) Apple Airport Extreme Base Station (802.11n)
 (3) pfSense (multi-homed)
 (4) Apple Airport Extreme Base Station (802.11g)
So, Firewall (1) is the main Comcast 4 port router.  I've got 5 static IPs (technically 6, because the GW address of the router is a usable address for NAT purposes).  Plugged into it are the Apple Airport Extreme Base Station (Firewall (2)) which provides WiFi connectivity to "LOCALNET" (and sharing an Airport Express 802.11n Base Station via WDS).  LOCALNET is the main household network which has all my endpoint devices.
Firewall (3) is a HP Compaq with three GigE network cards providing VLAN'ing and IDS to my server network ("SERVERNET").  It's also multi-homed to a 6Mbps ClearWire net connection for failover and backup.
Firewall (4) is an Apple Airport Extreme Base Station (2nd Generation "cone", 802.11g) which provides WiFi connectivity to "GUESTNET" (and sharing an Airport Express 802.11g Base Station via WDS).  "GUESTNET" is an open wireless access point, but its configured (and DHCP propagated) DNS servers are pointing to a VERY strict policy from OpenDNS.
All firewalls each have their own static IP address configured for their WAN address.

The Macs:
 (1) hecate
 (2) demeter
 (3) isis
 (4) persephone
 (5) venus
All the Macs are on LOCALNET, have static DHCP reservations, and are configured to only support Apple File & Print (this is by choice!)
Hecate is a 24" iMac Intel CoreDuo and is my main workstation.  It's got a Drobo (8TB) connected to it (only about 1.5TB is currently being used).
Demeter is a Dual G4 PowerMac.  It also has a Drobo connected to it (8TB) and is the main fileserver which has archives and backups for some of the other workstations.
Isis is a Quad G5 PowerMac.  It also has a Drobo connected to it (2nd Generation, Firewire 800, 8TB) which is my main animation and rendering workstation.
Persephone is a 15" Intel CoreDuo MacBook Pro.  No Drobo on it, but when she's on my desk she's attached to a 1TB external firewire 800 drive which has a bunch of VMWare images on it for research.
Venus is my 500MHz G4 Cube which as long as she boots, will always have a place on my network.  She doesn't do much now-a-days except run Firefox. :-)

The UNIX Boxen:
I realize that's not an accurate subject heading since Mac OS X is UNIX in its own-right.

 (1) pinky
 (2) brain
 (3) lenny
Pinky is a quad-core HP Compaq which is hosting several VirtualBox guest machines running headless.  Pinky is primarily my "dev" box where I test out new versions and new OSes before moving them to "production".
Brain is an eight-core Dell which is hosting several VirtualBox guest machines running headless.  Brain is best described as my "production vm server" (but it's not running VMWare).  It's got the most memory (16GB), the fastest processor, and the most disk space.
Lenny is an EeePC 1000HE netbook running Ubuntu NBR.
Both Pinky and Brain, along with the VMs running on those boxes, sit on SERVERNET.  The way the firewall rules are configured, there is a one-way trust between LOCALNET and SERVERNET.  Any traffic is allowed from LOCALNET to SERVERNET but no traffic is allowed back in.

The Toys:
 (1) AppleTV (x2)
 (2) Chumby (x2)
 (3) The Orbs (x3)
 (4) Nokia N810
Just because I don't subscribe to cable or satellite doesn't mean I don't enjoy TV every once in a while. :-)  Thanks to an exhaustive iTunes Library, Boxee, Joost, and Hulu, entertainment is a button press on the remote control away.
I fell in love with the Chumby when I first discovered them and have one on my desk in my office and one on the nightstand.  It's my alarm clock, and the two powered USB ports are ideal for charging both a Blackberry and an iPhone at night while you're sleeping!
The Orbs are something I discovered when some folks in my office brought some in to exhibit and are fantastic!  They glow different colors based on the telemetry their receiving.  For example, I have one configured for weather, one to alert me if some of my servers are down, and one to track the performance of my stock portfolio (which has been depressing.)
The Nokia N810 is an tiny Internet PC running a custom version of Linux called Maemo.  I primarily use it for Email and streaming media.
Not mentioned is my iPhone 3G, because I don't consider it a "toy". But, it's on the network too (obviously).

So why do all of this?
Because I can. :-)
But in all seriousness, I work in IT, in Information Security, and it's important I keep my skills up.

Any Windows Boxes?
I hate to admit this, but actually yes.  If you ask me in public I'll deny it, but feel free to refer anyone to this message disputing my denials. :-)
More for curiosity, and definitely not for anything serious though.
They're not powered normally, but I've got every version of DOS and Windows running all the way back to DOS 5.0 (anyone remember EMM386?), DOS 6.22, Windows 3.1, WFWG 3.11, Win95, Win95 OSR2, Win 98, NT 3.51, NT 4.0, 2000, XP, 2003, Vista (gah!), 2008, and now Windows 7.  Also configured are OS/2 Warp, last version of BSD/OS from WindRiver, Haiku (BeOS), Solaris x86, OpenSolaris, Xenix, Minix, and the lastest (as of a few weeks ago) stable releases of FreeBSD, OpenBSD, and NetBSD.
In the next couple of weeks I'll be standing up a Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise Certificate Authority here at the house (root, policy, and issuing CAs).  If you haven't guessed by now, I'm a UNIX guy, but one of my primary responsibilities at work is managing our Certificate Authority, and THAT runs Windows. :-)

So that pretty much sums up the "network".  For the most part, a 20,000ft view (but dipping below the clouds in a few spots).

Yes I'm a geek, and proud of it!

But in case you're wondering, yes my electric bill can get expensive in the summertime, and here I work for a power company!  Unfortunately, I work for a different power company than that serves my house.  Even if they were the same, it's not like I could get a discount so I'm not worried. :-)

Cheers!  Now, it's time for bed…

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Posted 1 month ago