http://www.tacticalgamer.com/blogs/dick-blonov/ Tactical Gamer is the PREMIERE mature online gaming community. We feature games such as Battlefield 2, Ghost Recon, Joint Operations, Operation Flashpoint, Armed Assault, World of Warcraft, Battlefield 1942, and more. Our community is geared around teamwork, strategy and tactics in a mature environment. en Fri, 10 Feb 2012 19:16:32 GMT vBulletin 60 http://www.tacticalgamer.com/images/styles/UndergroundStyle/misc/rss.jpg http://www.tacticalgamer.com/blogs/dick-blonov/ http://www.tacticalgamer.com/blogs/dick-blonov/74-definitions.html Wed, 10 Mar 2010 01:00:14 GMT «A set of assumptions, concepts, values, and practices that constitutes a way of viewing reality for the community that shares them, especially in an intellectual discipline» «an uncomfortable feeling caused by holding two contradictory ideas simultaneously» «destruction of religious symbols,... «A set of assumptions, concepts, values, and practices that constitutes a way of viewing reality for the community that shares them, especially in an intellectual discipline»

«an uncomfortable feeling caused by holding two contradictory ideas simultaneously»

«destruction of religious symbols, or, by extension, established dogma or conventions»

«love of wisdom»

«characterized by an ostentatious display of dignity or importance»

DB ]]> Dick Blonov http://www.tacticalgamer.com/blogs/dick-blonov/74-definitions.html http://www.tacticalgamer.com/blogs/dick-blonov/73-open-source-goodness-gateway-part-3.html Sun, 07 Mar 2010 21:50:48 GMT Once you have gathered the hardware, grab the required software: *1-* OpenBSD (http://openbsd.org/) OpenBSD is easy to get (http://openbsd.org/ftp.html). Patching is another story (http://www.openbsd.org/faq/faq10.html#Patches). No fancy windows update, yum... Once you have gathered the hardware, grab the required software:

1- OpenBSD

OpenBSD is easy to get. Patching is another story. No fancy windows update, yum, or apt-get. Nope, you patch the source code and recompile. Hardcore baby!

Not that bad if you consider most patches come with fairly detailed instructions.

The mandatory bathroom material is excellent. Read, and read again. Anyway, we go to the bathroom a few times a day right ?

So that's the basics. I had bigger plans. Having run smoothwall, I expected the same features; web proxy, redirector and all. I did not care for the GUI, one less source of problems IMO.

Before grabbing all the other goodies, you need to decide how much pain you can endure: packages or ports. If this is any help, it, pretty much says it all:«Everyone is encouraged to use the pre-compiled binary packages»

Good enough for me.

2- Other goodies:
Squid the proxy
Squidguard the URL redirector /filter (more on this later)
apcupsd nice, powerfail graceful shutdown (more on this later)
Samba. Yes, you can run a file server on your gateway, safely.

3- Find good links. You are not alone. So scour the internet and read, read, read.
Kernel-Panic gotta love that name. Really.
Samba the official (but sometimes rather cryptic) site.
Using Samba. (where I found answers to all my questions).

4- Lastly, make sure you have time on your hands. This is supposed to be fun. ]]> Dick Blonov http://www.tacticalgamer.com/blogs/dick-blonov/73-open-source-goodness-gateway-part-3.html http://www.tacticalgamer.com/blogs/dick-blonov/65-eleanor-rigby.html Wed, 03 Mar 2010 03:35:04 GMT We all know Eleanor. I for one, work with her. She immigrated some years ago. Not many friends here. Not that she's not a nice person; just that she cannot relate it seems. Her ties are far from here. Far away, but still close to her. You can see it in her eyes. She just loves life. How come she seems so lonely? I guess the fact she moved away from home left her with this feeling she must remain strong; not to shed any doubt on her decison. Not to give in.

Her father passed away a few weeks back. She did take some time off. That's how I learned about it, through the grapevine; unwillingly caught 2 colleagues talking. I sent her a note. I saw her today and she thanked me. I felt like giving her a big hug, as if I could act as a pain absorbing sponge and make things better for her.

Well, I did not. Instead I mumbled some useless appropriate politically correct, socially sensitive crap.

So I made a silent commitment to her: I will make her laugh this week. So Eleanor might forget her sorrow for a little while. And I won't feel stupid for not listening to my heart.

DB ]]> Dick Blonov http://www.tacticalgamer.com/blogs/dick-blonov/65-eleanor-rigby.html http://www.tacticalgamer.com/blogs/dick-blonov/63-overkill-way-go-sometimes-gateway-part-2.html Tue, 02 Mar 2010 01:15:00 GMT From a dlink DI-604 to an old Optiplex GX-1 acquired for 50$ (CDN!) running smoothwall, we're talking a step up here buddy pal. Got that box with 768MB of PC-100 SDRAM! Do you really think I was going to settle for less ?

First, I decided I was going to run OpenBSD. OK, I'm Canadian And when I installed FreeBSD, it barfed at my French Canadian keyboard, what a turn off. :row__590:


But, more to the point, PF was born with OpenBSD. So why the hell not.

OK, so do I recycle my GX-1 ? Build a new mini-ITX box? Too expensive. And I had bigger plans!

Hardware selected:

Celeron 420
AsRock Wolfdale uATX motherboard
1G DDR-2 667
200 GB sata drive
MicroATX case ( funky brand)
Recycled DVD rom drive
Recycled NICs (from my old Optiplex)

Yes, this project was started in 2007, so most of this is now obsolete. Even then, the motherboard, ram, HD, cpu and case came in under 200$.

That's the hardware. Next: Open Source goodness.

DB ]]> Dick Blonov http://www.tacticalgamer.com/blogs/dick-blonov/63-overkill-way-go-sometimes-gateway-part-2.html http://www.tacticalgamer.com/blogs/dick-blonov/62-home-networking-made-easy-not-gateway-part-1.html Tue, 02 Mar 2010 01:04:51 GMT Are you happy with your lone PC connected to your DSL or cable modem? Then I suggest you bugger off. The following entries will make you sick to your stomach. Entries, yes.

I've always been turned on by technology.

I just have to know how things work. Ever since I was a kid. I stripped apart my first toaster at 8. Then on to bigger and better things. Like my Dad's stereo. Not my best idea, but I got it apart and back together before he got home from work. Which brings me to «Home networking from scratch». This evolving pet project now sports a wired LAN, wireless access point, web proxy with content filtering, DNS server, Name server, 2 lan printers, 4 laptops, 3 desktops and a file server.

Why? Why not. Fun, educational, and cool!

An a good way to recycle some of these outdated parts. Kinda.

Next: Overkill à la carte (à la credit card)

DB ]]> Dick Blonov http://www.tacticalgamer.com/blogs/dick-blonov/62-home-networking-made-easy-not-gateway-part-1.html http://www.tacticalgamer.com/blogs/dick-blonov/2-clean-slate.html Sat, 30 Jan 2010 04:46:15 GMT I'll be back! ]]> Dick Blonov http://www.tacticalgamer.com/blogs/dick-blonov/2-clean-slate.html