Shiny new iPod

Received a third-gen iPod nano on Monday as a thank-you for some work that I've been doing (at work), and just finally got the thing working!

These third-gen buggers require that the iTunesDB be signed with the device's serial number.

First I had to find the serial number by doing a "find" on "/proc" and grepping for "usb". The device came up, and I simply "cat"-ed the file to get the serial number.

Then, I used gnupod to sign my DB, using the command:

mktunes.pl -m /media/IPOD/ --fwguid=$(cat ~/ipod.serial )

Presto-- songs! No need to iTunes (well.. I don't run windows or OSX), but I just need to figure out how to get video and calendars onto this, and I'm set-- woohoo!

BGP + RBL == Scary?

Well, we'll see.

http://www.pch.net/documents/tutorials/maps-rbl-bgp-cisco-config-faq.html

It makes sense, but something in my gut worries me when the router is automagically null-routing based on a RBL. Maybe I don't grasp the power of it... I'm looking forward to any discussion on this at MAAWG.

A new house

Katharine and I bought a new house last week. I'd say more, but she already has.

Change of view

This is entirely premature, but...

It looks like I'll be changing departments at work. The paperwork still needs to go through, but it looks like I'll be working in the Abuse department at work. I'm really looking forward to the change and the challenge. I was told that they need someone with both system-admin and programming skills, and that I suited that nicely.

With a mailbox count in the millions, email abuse (as well as abuse in other departments) is a critical aspect to the company. Untold dollars are wasted by abusers who eat bandwidth, annoy customers, ruin our reputation as a provider, etc etc.

Once things become official, I'll post more details. Until then, here's to counting the days!

Children of Hurin

Just picked up a copy of the Children of Hurin from Book City earlier tonight-- It's been a while since I've had any time to read any fiction, and am really looking forward to this book. I only learned of it three days ago via radio, and was surprised by the low media attention that it has received-- I would imagine that following the critical hype of the LOTR films, that any new material from JRR Tolkien would be met by more attention.

Apparently not.

Perl programmer, who me?

Yikes-- it's true. Just purchased Programming Perl, 3rd Ed., from Chapters and am starting to pick it up.

First impressions: It's a damned ugly language to work with, but is very flexible, so I understand why so many sys-admins love it; you can really hack together a quick and dirty application in no time flat.

We'll see how much I like it as time goes.

Video: Advanced Python

An interesting hour and fifteen minutes: