Cold Day!

I can’t say that I’ve ever ridden in truly cold weather, but it was 27 F this morning… The picture came from my cell phone, but I guess it came out OK…

Ice Bike

Good Penetration Testing Live-CD?

I needed a penetration testing tool to ensure that a particular computer didn’t have any known vulnerabilities. Wanting something that didn’t have to be installed I started looking for live CDs, particularly one with Open-VAS installed… I tried numerous different CDs, all of which had some show stopper issue that made it not work. Most of them seemed to put more focus on making the UI look “haxxor 1337″ than actually doing the intended job.

I finally stumbled upon a really good one! Don’t ask me how… I’d forgotten the name and tried to find it again, and even knowing a bunch of keywords I couldn’t find it with any of the search engines. Hopefully this link will help raise its position in the search game because it really deserves it!!

http://shadowcircle.org/

Shadow Circle, a PenTesting LiveCD that works!

Problems with Cygwin .screenrc file resolved!

I’ve been fighting with my .screenrc file in Cygwin for quite some time… I’d configure settings and either they wouldn’t take (such as turning off startup_message) or I’d get strange errors like Unrecognized command ”.

It turns out that my .screenrc file had dos line endings… running dos2unix fixed it!

$ dos2unix .screenrc

I post this hoping that somebody else will stumble across this when they’re struggling with similar problems.

Gardening

When we purchased our house the landscaping was rather plain, mirroring any other in the neighborhood.  Since we moved in we’ve made a LOT of changes.  Looking at the before/after pictures is quite shocking.  Interetingly a few of our neighbors have been inspired to redo their yards and our street is now much more interesting, though I believe that ours is the most ambitious, especially considering we did ALL of the work ourselves.

Here’s the house before….

The backyard pictures have a strange perspective because they’re from a Quicktime VR file that the realtor created.  The funny thing is, when we first moved in we really liked the back yard and thought we really wouldn’t do much to it, it was “just what we wanted.”

Well, that didn’t last long.  We’re nowhere near done, but here’s a few pictures of what we’ve done… (pictures can be clicked to go to a comment page where you can click them again for the full versions)

The *BIG* Bike is Almost Done!

It’s been about more than six months, but I finally got the BIG bike on the road!  I’ve been very busy and it took me a long time to get around to ordering the parts, and even longer to hand polish every little component that was staying on the bike!

Before:

From the Craigslist Posting that I Responded To

After:

After First Ride To Work

Cockpit With the Bell

Cockpit

SideViewWithoutBags

I still have some work to do…  I want to order a nice bottle cage, probably this one:  http://www.velo-orange.com/vomoststwabo.html and will probably substite a brass bell for the chrome one that I have installed in the picture above. It also came with a front rack, but I haven’t finished polishing it, so it’s not installed yet.

It’s a joy to ride and rides VERY smoothly, and even better it FITS!
It’s an ‘82 Schwinn Voyageur SP and I upgraded the wheels to 700C with cartridge bearing hubs shod with 32C Panaracer Pasela TourGuard tires, 7 speed rear derailer, Suntour barend shifters, Planet Bike Cascadia fenders (without the ugly purple logo that’s on the new ones),  Brooks B17 leather sadle, and Nashbar Moustache handlebars wrapped with yellow cotton tape with 4 coats of amber Shellac and twine trim.
I want to ride it in the upcoming Wildflower Century, but will probably swap out the inner chainring for a 26 tooth or so for those hills.

Print Media vs. Blogs

I’ve long been of the opinion that print media still has a place in the online world that we live in, if for no other reason than the fact that the longer release cycles allow for a higher standard; peer reviews and editors act as a sort of filtering.

Not that I’m the king of grammar, but I have come to expect print media to have been read by many editors prior to being released.  In online communications, where the pace is much faster, I have come to expect grammar errors to sneak in.  I often go back and read something that I’ve typed later on and see the most boneheaded mistakes that make me wonder what I was thinking, yet I feel excused in that I was focusing more on the content than the presentation.  Print media, on the other hand, must focus on presentation, otherwise why does it exist?

I was disappointed to look at the mail pile today and see this:

Are the editors at Dr. Dobbs asleep at their desks?

If print media allows this advantage slip away, what is left for them?

Murphy says that I probably made a really stupid mistake in this posting.

Chaco == Great Customer Support!!

Chaco Sandals, repaired and as good as new!

I love my Chaco sandals. I wear them every day. The last few weeks though I’ve been without them and my feet have been sad. Why? Well, after a year of wearing them while wading in the ocean at the beach, portaging my kayak through shallow rivers, hiking on rough terrain, bicycling, and just sitting around the office the soles started to separate from the footbed. I contacted Chaco and was told that it should be covered under warranty. I mailed them in and without charge they came back a week later with brand new Vibram soles, as good as new! I was surprised how deep the sole lugs were, I hadn’t realized how much I’d worn off.

Thanks Chaco!

Remembering Why I LOVE Cycling!

Bicycle Near the River

I went for a ride during lunch on my old Schwinn World Tourist.  I’ve had this bike for almost a decade now, but it’s seldom ridden because it’s neither fast nor efficient.  Lately I’ve been leaving it at the office to ride at lunch during this beautiful weather that we’ve had lately — it’s great for those casual 7-10 MPH rides with no particular destination in mind.  I ride 6 or 7 miles; down to the river, wander around a bit watching the birds and other wildlife while eating my lunch, then ride back to the office.

It turns out that this picture was almost much more interesting… just as I was about to push the shutter something huge jumped out of the water and splashed back down, but I missed it because I was watching through the small screen of my camera-phone.   You can see the rings from the landing zone just in front of the front reflector of the bike just left of where the cables intersect the water.

On Flickr

Bicycle Lights

I got home and left the headlight (35W halogen, metal housing) running for a while.  When I reached across the front of the bike to get my stuff out of the front pannier on the other side I brushed across the light housing for just an instant!  I felt a sharp searing pain that felt like I was being poked with something very sharp — instead I was being branded!  OUCH!

Free Professional Assembly

Sometimes I am asked what is wrong with department store bikes.  I give a whole list of reasons, but I just came across a great illustration of the problem…

http://www.toysrus.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2401233

In case the picture is gone, I’ve included it here…    of course this bike is mail-order (assemble it yourself), but I often see assembly work just like this at departments stores that offer “free professional assembly.”

Quickly off the top of my head:

• Fork installed backwards! (Yikes!)
• Handlebars not flipped up correctly.
• Cables all tangled, not of proper length
• Nose of saddle pointing up too much (ouch!)
• Reflectors not properly aligned (won’t provide proper visibility)
• Plastic piece meant to keep the axle from poking through the box not removed
• Sold as a “26 inch frame”, trust me, it’s NOT a 26″ frame… it’s a one-size-fits-few frame

And that’s just what I can see!  Were the bearings properly adjusted? Were the wheels properly tensioned?  Is the stem binder properly torqued?  Is the saddle binding bolt tight? Are the shifters adjusted correctly?  I doubt it.