Category: Personal

Um… personal?

Add Bookmark – Google Bookmarks, um, bookmark

In Chrome, create a new bookmark. Name it what you like and set its URL to:

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javascript:(function(){var a=window,b=document,c=encodeURIComponent,d=a.open("https://www.google.com/bookmarks/mark?op=edit&output=popup&bkmk="+c(b.location)+"&title="+c(b.title),"bkmk_popup","left="+((a.screenX||a.screenLeft)+10)+",top="+((a.screenY||a.screenTop)+10)+",height=510px,width=550px,resizable=1,alwaysRaised=1");a.setTimeout(function(){d.focus()},300)})();

Click it when you’re on a page you’d like to bookmark (and make sure you’re logged into the Googlez).

#AltGov Twitter accounts

Surely a growing list.

@RoguePOTUSStaff
@alt_fda
@AltNatParkSer
@altUSEPA
@RogueNASA
@AltUSFWSRefuge
@blm_alt
@Alt_NIH
@altNOAA
@AlternativeNWS
@AltForestServ
@AltNatParkSer
@altusda
@RogueED
@AltEEOB
@AltHomesteadMon
@AltDptEducation
@AltHHS
@Alt_DeptofED
@AltStateDpt
@alt_doj
@alt_labor
@rogue_ALA
@AltHomelandSec
@rogueFEMA
@alt_treasury
@Alt_FAA
@rogueUSedgov
@Alt_Interior
@AltFedCyberz
@AltSmithsonian
@alt_fec
@AltUSDeptHUD
@HUDFacts
@realUSDOE
@altFBI
@alt_NASA
@alt_CDC

OpenVPN Autologin

I wanted OpenVPN to autologin on one of my servers.  The issue here is two fold: UAC grabs the executable and demands confirmation, and the gui doesn’t retain credentials.  The solution to the latter does unfortunately require storing those credentials plaintext in a file, but if you’re not worried about that then read on. Continue reading →

ZyXEL C1000Z Scheduled Reboot – Windows

So there’s nowhere in its OS to schedule a reboot of ZyXEL’s C1000Z router.  Thankfully you can use Telnet to do it.

First, enable Telnet.  Log into the router, then choose Advanced Setup > Remote Console.  Under Console State choose LAN Telnet Enabled.  Set your Telnet username and password and click Apply.

Now you’re ready to go.  Create a .vbs file and populate it with the below, changing the IP address, username and password to be applicable to your router.

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Option explicit
Dim oShell
set oShell= Wscript.CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
oShell.Run "telnet"
WScript.Sleep 3000
oShell.Sendkeys "open 192.168.1.1~"
WScript.Sleep 3000
oShell.Sendkeys "admin~"
WScript.Sleep 3000
oShell.Sendkeys "password~"
WScript.Sleep 3000
oShell.Sendkeys "reboot~"
WScript.Sleep 3000
oShell.Sendkeys "~"
WScript.Sleep 3000
oShell.Sendkeys "quit~"
Wscript.Quit

Save this file.  You can double click it to test it.  After having confirmed it works, create a task pointed to it in Windows Task Scheduler.  Modern Windows OSes should natively run a vb script in scheduler.  If not, use CScript to launch the script:

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C:\Windows\System32\CScript.exe //Nologo //B X:\PathToYourScript\YourScript.vbs

Acoustic guitar drying, cracking

I moved from a super humid place – Atlanta – to two super dry places – first Tempe, AZ and then Bend, OR.  The other day I pulled down my Martin, who is neglected over my Taylor parlor guitar, to practice slide and discovered that the back was splitting:

crack

After first getting over my freakout about my precious (read: expensive) guitar cracking, I did what I always do and took to the intertoobs for answers.  I found a luthier discussion board and read about how they’d try to fix cracks by hydrating the instrument by bagging it with a wet sponge.  This, hopefully, would close the crack and allow for a surgical glue repair.  Guitar, bagged.

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4 days later, this is the status of the crack:

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Excellent news.  I’m going to keep it bagged for another week or so to see if the crack will close altogether.  Then I’ll remove the strings and see if I can reach into the soundhole to apply a bit of superglue from the inside, so I’m not potentially marring the outer finish.

Small Intestine Bacterial Overgrowth

For years now, perhaps even more than a decade, I’ve had problems with my stomach.  Bubbles, cramps, swelling, pain, unpleasant bathroom issues ranging far beyond mere urgency.  At best it was distracting.  At worst, actually debilitating.  It cast a shadow on everyday life, and ruined what should have been good times.  Eating out made it worse.  Eating not-great food made it terrible.  Thus some of my worst bouts occurred while traveling, ultimately making vacations unpleasant.  Traveling across Europe should be fun, not uncomfortable and stressful.

Along the way I had a myriad of diagnosis.  IBS. Nervous stomach.  I had a variety of procedures to no avail, from ultrasounds to, eventually – when I finally became frightened enough to start wondering if I had cancer or Crohn’s – a colonoscopy (which cost an arm and a leg since my insurance is terrible and I had it done prior to the recommended age of 50).  Nothing.  “You must have some sort of food allergy,” said the gastroenterologist.

Sure.  But it must be an allergy to food in general then, because it doesn’t matter what I eat.

Continue reading →

Windows 7 with 2 NICs

Despite supposedly having no data caps, the other day my provider interrupted my surfing with a message stating that I’d downloaded an “excessive amount” and should contact them to upgrade my plan.  Interestingly, their website also doesn’t show any data caps or, for that matter, any plans for me to upgrade to.

I’m not real worried about it, but at the same time since I work full time remote I really need my intertoobs to work all the time.  Then I remembered that the vacation rental we manage next door to me has internet that rarely gets used.  Time to slap a wireless NIC on the server and push internet traffic through that router!

Doing so was easy.  I had a halfway decent USB wireless laying around.  I slapped it in, joined the next door wireless network, and then ran a route print:

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The highlighted bit is the new NIC.  Above it is the wired NIC connecting the server to my local network.  You want the Metric on the NIC you want internet traffic flowing through to be the lowest.  Luckily mine defaulted to that.  If yours doesn’t do that you can manually set the Metric by navigating to the Advanced properties of the Network Adapters:

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After that I simply removed the Gateway address from the properties of my wired LAN access NIC and voila – all my intertoobs were coming from next door while my LAN still had full access to my server.  In order to double check I logged into my router and disabled internet traffic for the server IP address.

I also installed a groovy little tool called Network Manager so I can watch the traffic:

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