Category: Internet

To build a windmill.

A few years ago he was plucked from the obscurity of the Malawi countryside to speak to the TED Conference – a conference of ideas and visionaries. William Kamkwamba couldn’t afford school, but he decided to teach himself by looking at the diagrams in books at the library (his English wasn’t that good so he couldn’t really read). One that caught his eye was a book about windmills, so he set off to build one in his village to power a few lights and a radio. That led to people talking about the house with electricity, and bloggers mentioning this amazing story of a kid who make a windmill from a bunch of junk.  That led to TED bringing him over to speak to the visionaries, who turned around and decided to sponsor this kid financially through high school and university. ]]>

Watch France 24 on your computer with a desktop widget

When it comes to IPTV, the US has Hulu, and the rest of the world has the really cool stuff. France 24, the France’s government-funded answer to CNN (and in English too)  has been doing some cutting edge stuff like being one of the first ‘live streaming’ applications for the iPhone.  Now they have a desktop widget that will put France 24 on your desktop with relative ease.  Just click to get the widget and turn your PC into a tv (albeit with only one channel)]]>

How to build a radio while in a Japanese POW camp

Fascinating interview here about how some British POW’s cobbled together a radio receiver while in the middle of the jungle from random spare parts they had lying about the prison.  

    The resistors were another problem. We found out that we could use the impurities in some of the tree wood and the bark, particularly cinnamon bark which was available by getting through the wire only about 2 feet and we could normally pinch that while the Japanese sentry was moving around.       We used a piece of string with the material rubbed on it from the burning of the cinnamon bark with some impurities in it (we didn’t have a chemical analysis); we weren’t very fussed because most grid-leak resistors were about a megohm or thereabouts and we had no means or any way we could measure a megohm, so it was largely a trial and  error thing to see if it would work. We made a number of these bits of string and tied them round different things to dry  them out to get the thing going. Eventually about an inch, three quarters of an inch to an inch, was about the right order of things to get about a megohm resistance. They were the two main things.
  I wonder if POWs today would have the same skill set. Heck many folks don’t even learn morse code anymore.]]>

Living without Cable TV–Month 2 observations

[/caption] Wow, it’s been over two months since I made the decision to cut the Comcast cable to the house and just live in an IPTV and ‘Over the Air’ world.  I hooked up Mac Mini’s to each of the TVs (god I wish Apple would really delve into the market of guys who have Mini’s on their TVs instead of the comparatively crippled Apple TV).  I also have an EyeTV attached to one of the Mini’s which is providing me with TIVO like functionality for those channels I get over the air.     How has it been?  I haven’t even noticed the difference. Ok, that’s a bit of a stretch, but seriously, I have not missed much.  I have the basic TV and some over the air TV from an antenna.  This is giving me the networks (though not in HD) and some PBS stations.  From Livestation and TVUPlayer I’m getting some live stations, and even some sports (watching cricket the other day–ha).  By far the biggest loss has been CNBC which is not part of the basic package and was nice background noise during the day.  But for news I’m getting by with a wide variety of options, from France24 and AlJazeera English service online, to my link up with the BBC (which is kind of tricky).   My biggest expense monthly was movies, but between Redbox and Netflix (now streaming live to the TV) I’ve got more content than I know what to do with.  I initially resisted the Netflix, feeling that with shipping times and whatnot I wouldn’t be able to watch more than $9 worth of movies a month vs. the Redbox ($1 or free, if you had a code).  Well that’s not the case.  Netflix has a facility within the 1-day mail delivery to DC so I get films basically overnight from Netflix, and with the streaming option I get a whole catalog of movies (though most are generally B-grade movies, there are a few gems inside).   I have one negative–too much content.  I mean, I don’t have time to watch everything I would like to watch.  Between podcasts downloaded and shows TIVO’d and movies I can watch on Netflix, I never want for something to watch.  Seriously–there is more than I can handle. The big test will be football season.  We’ll see how far net streaming of college football has come. Thus far, I’ve saved over $300 in two months on cable TV and haven’t looked back.  I’ve actually received quite a bit of fan mail from others who have done the same. If you are looking to do the same, this would be the setup I would recommend:

  • Mac Mini (the entry level is fine, you may want to add more memory but your call)
  • EyeTV Hybrid (this connects the cable from your antenna or ‘lifeline’ service to the Mac’s USB)
  • A DVI cable or a DVI-HDMI cable and convertor to connect to your TV
  • A Bluetooth Mouse & Keyboard (honestly, it’s so much easier than using the remote)
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Is everyone in Sweden a sex-crazed homicidal maniac? My thoughts on Wallander

[/caption] [caption id="attachment_2462" align="alignright" width="150" caption="The British Remake"]wallander2[/caption] You might get that idea in the media.  This month I finished The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, which in Swedish was called Men who Hate Women Menn Som Hater Kvinner.  It was about some murders of women…well I won’t spoil the plot other than to say sex and murder had a pretty big role.  Last night I watched the first episode of Wallander on Masterpiece Mystery.  Wallander cop stories have been a staple of reading in Europe for the last decade, and a Swedish tv version has been around for nearly as long.  The BBC took a shot at making some films and the result was pretty good, though it also dealt with the same weird sex / violent murder that seems to be particularly Swedish this month.   Wallander was pretty good.  I suspect I’ll watch the next few episodes and maybe read a book or two (heck, without cable I don’t have much of a choice besides PBS).  I don’t think I’ll be visiting Ikea anytime soon.  Too much weird Swede stuff this month.]]>

Al Jazeera English now over the air in the USA

[/caption] Al Jazeera’s English service is very slick, very professional, and if you want, very biased (depending on who you talk to).  But for most Americans without FTA dishes or access to some IPTV programs, they never had an opportunity to judge for themselves.  Until now. MHZ Networks, a non-profit in DC that rebroadcasts nearly 10 foreign news services is adding Al Jazeera English service to their lineup, so says the Washington Post.  MHZ currently offers Russia Today, France 24 and Euronews to name a few, but AJE will certainly be  a eye-catching event.   I’ve watched AJE sporadically over the last few years on the FTA dish and later on Livestation and other tv players.  It’s not my first choice for news (it is heavily focused on the Middle East, no surprise) but it isn’t bad nor is it as biased and opinionated as the more famous network Al Jazeera, called the Bin Laden channel by many of its critics. Anyway, Comcast and Verizon Fios should see the new channel soon.  No idea when we’ll get it out here in the sticks (and since I don’t have cable I probably never will figure it out).  Still worth checking if you want to hear a different slant on thing.]]>

Blocking by IP address in the 'cloud' (Mosso)

I had a hacker on one of my sites over the weekend. Found a root kit hidden away which I removed but not after he found a way to add some text to one of my webpages.

So I started by adding his IP address to my block list, but apparently that’s easier said than done with the ‘cloud’. In the cloud sometimes the server isn’t really sure where the actual request is coming from, apparently.

But fear not, I got this nugget back from Mosso support (after 48 hours or so–come on guys, security issues should be answered immediately)

Unfortunately there are some issues with being able to block by IP
address on the cloud using the standard methods. Because of our load
balancer and clustered environment the IP address in the REMOTE_ADDR
will not be the end users.

You can however use the following:

SetEnvIf X-Cluster-Client-Ip 11.11.11.11 block
Deny from env=block

in your .htaccess to block access to your site via IP. Just replace
11.11.11.11 with the IP address you want to block.

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