September 22nd, 2009
Yesterday, I had some more problems with my internet connection. It seems that Bell had some trouble with some routers, and some of the traffic was being sent to Quebec, when it shouldn’t have been going through there at all, and then bouncing back and forth between routers there until it pretty much timed out. That made ICQ disconnect frequently yesterday afternoon, but it still worked for the most part. It didn’t last too long, thankfully.
Here’s the traceroute to the ICQ server:
tracert login.icq.com
Tracing route to login.messaging.aol.com [64.12.202.116]
over a maximum of 30 hops:
1 11 ms 9 ms 13 ms 64.230.197.114
2 9 ms 8 ms 12 ms dis15-ottawa23_Vlan103.net.bell.ca [64.230.228.49]
3 9 ms 9 ms 9 ms core1-ottawa23_GE11-1.net.bell.ca [64.230.241.217]
4 11 ms 11 ms 10 ms Ncore3-montrealak_POS0-4-0-0.net.bell.ca [64.230.147.141]
5 12 ms 15 ms 12 ms newcore4-montrealak_POS0-3-0-0_core.net.bell.ca [64.230.171.86]
6 16 ms 15 ms 15 ms core4-quebec14_POS5-0-0.net.bell.ca [64.230.147.146]
7 71 ms 71 ms 68 ms dis5-quebec14_GE1-2.net.bell.ca [64.230.243.126]
8 70 ms 70 ms 69 ms core3-quebec14_GE4-0.net.bell.ca [64.230.243.117]
9 127 ms 125 ms 125 ms dis5-quebec14_GE7-15.net.bell.ca [64.230.170.10]
10 127 ms * 124 ms core3-quebec14_GE4-0.net.bell.ca [64.230.243.117]
11 187 ms 184 ms 184 ms dis5-quebec14_GE7-15.net.bell.ca [64.230.170.10]
12 182 ms 182 ms 181 ms core3-quebec14_GE4-0.net.bell.ca [64.230.243.117]
13 237 ms 232 ms * dis5-quebec14_GE7-15.net.bell.ca [64.230.170.10]
14 231 ms 228 ms 231 ms core3-quebec14_GE4-0.net.bell.ca [64.230.243.117]
15 286 ms 283 ms 285 ms dis5-quebec14_GE7-15.net.bell.ca [64.230.170.10]
16 * 281 ms 280 ms core3-quebec14_GE4-0.net.bell.ca [64.230.243.117]
17 * 502 ms 359 ms dis5-quebec14_GE7-15.net.bell.ca [64.230.170.10]
18 314 ms 309 ms 314 ms core3-quebec14_GE4-0.net.bell.ca [64.230.243.117]
19 * 622 ms 548 ms dis5-quebec14_GE7-15.net.bell.ca [64.230.170.10]
20 366 ms 363 ms 360 ms core3-quebec14_GE4-0.net.bell.ca [64.230.243.117]
21 1021 ms 1269 ms * dis5-quebec14_GE7-15.net.bell.ca [64.230.170.10]
22 406 ms 403 ms 405 ms core3-quebec14_GE4-0.net.bell.ca [64.230.243.117]
23 1326 ms * * dis5-quebec14_GE7-15.net.bell.ca [64.230.170.10]
24 488 ms 490 ms 489 ms core3-quebec14_GE4-0.net.bell.ca [64.230.243.117]
25 538 ms 540 ms * dis5-quebec14_GE7-15.net.bell.ca [64.230.170.10]
26 * 535 ms * core3-quebec14_GE4-0.net.bell.ca [64.230.243.117]
27 * 27 ms 31 ms bucp-m1-vip.blue.aol.com [64.12.202.116]
Trace complete.
Not good.
I noticed that the web server has been running a bit slowly since the drive swap. I’m not sure why, because the drive is identical to the one it replaced, and seems to be running fine. It might be the drive that the web stuff is on that is causing the slowdowns, though. It’s getting pretty old. I might replace that one sometime this week to see if that will help. I should probably update all the server software, too, but that will require a lot of reconfiguring.
Also, the email server stopped sending me WordPress comment notification emails for some reason, but I got it working again by changing the email address that it sends to. Strange.
Posted in Lair, Railwolf.com, Technology
September 16th, 2009
Is it just me, or has there been a tsunami of junk mail and spam comments during the past 48 hours or so? WordPress currently has 17 comments in the Spam queue, which normally has maybe 2 or 3 at the most at any time.

WordPress Spam queue.
I also must have had about 50 messages in my email, much more than usual. The filters in Windows Live Mail are working pretty well, though. I’m glad that I replaced Outlook Express with it, although it took me a bit of time to get used to it. I just wish they had listened to my suggestion to show how many messages are in the storage folders, as it was in Outlook Express. It’s impossible to tell that there are any new messages in them when they’re all closed, and I have several email accounts, so I have some of the mail moved automatically to storage folders, and don’t keep my storage folders open because there’s just too many of them. I’m using Quick Views to get around that, by displaying all unread messages, but I’d still like to see the message counts on the storage folders, even if only optionally.
Posted in Junk Mail, Technology
September 15th, 2009
I received another package today from Amazon.ca.
CDs:
- 10,000 Shots – The Real McKenzies
- Brave New World – Iron Maiden
DVDs:
- Gran Torino
- Miller’s Crossing
I didn’t feel too well this weekend. It was probably because my neck was pretty bad last week. Some of my symptoms seemed to be related to the Vagus Nerve as in the past, but I also had some wonderful cold symptoms at the same time…. I also became depressed, and I had a really hard time sleeping. I actually got up at about 8 or 9 AM on Saturday and Sunday, and then it was impossible to get back to sleep, so I was forced to get up. I didn’t get much sleep, and I had to make it up later in the evening with naps.
Posted in Health, Life, Loot, Movies, Music
September 8th, 2009
Wow, today was interesting. I got up quite early, because I had fallen asleep last night during a nap — which turned out to last nearly five hours. So I was quite well rested today, and ready for it all.
It’s quite a bit of a coincidence that everything arrived today, even though it was in part due to the Labor Day long weekend. I received about five packages in total in three separate deliveries. My father was not really impressed by that.
From Amazon:
- CD: Pay Attention – The Mighty Mighty Bosstones (out of print!)
- DVDs:
- Casino
- Carlito’s Way: Crime Saga Collection
- Pulp Fiction
- Showtime
- Seinfeld: The Complete Series
So that’s the first of three out of print CDs I ordered. Two more to go. I got them from the Amazon.ca Marketplace, which I only did once before. It can be hard to get a new item at a reasonable price when it’s out of print, but I managed to get one of each of the CDs I wanted. So far so good…
From Dell:
- IOGEAR MiniView 2-port KVM
- APC RBC-32 replacement battery
I was waiting the stuff from Dell since about the time I ordered the hard drives. There was a delay, but it wasn’t too bad. I got the KVM on sale, probably the reason for the delay. It’s not bad for the price. I don’t use those machines much from down there anyway, but it seems to be doing its job nicely.
There was no rush for the UPS battery, since the old one was still okay. I will put the old battery in an older UPS that will power Electrocuter1 and the Gigabit switch in the basement, since those are not essential and the battery still has a bit of life left. I actually have a few models of UPS that use the same battery type, so that’s convenient.
Posted in Lair, Loot, Movies, Music, Technology
September 5th, 2009
Battlefield Heroes is now out. This is one game that I’d been waiting for to be released for some time now. It’s a war shooter, like Battlefield, Call of Duty, and so on, but it’s quite unique. There is some humor in it and some cartoon-like charm. Another interesting thing about it is that it’s free to play. I have only played it a little bit this afternoon — I played the tutorial, but my first impression is quite good. It looks like it will be a lot of fun to play.
Posted in Games, Technology
August 30th, 2009
I just received this interesting piece of email. They’re getting pretty creative now. Who would fall for this?
Anti-Terrorist And Monetary Crimes Division
FBI Headquarters In Washington, D.C.
Federal Bureau Of Investigation
J. Edgar Hoover Building
935 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW Washington, D.C. 20535-0001
Attn: Beneficiary,
This is to Officially inform you that it has come to our notice and we have thoroughly completed an Investigation with the help of our Intelligence Monitoring Network System that you legally won the sum of $10,000,000 USD from a Lottery Company outside the United States of America. During our investigation we discovered that your e-mail won the money from an Online Balloting System and we have authorized this winning to be paid to you via a Certified Cashier’s Check.
Normally, it will take up to 5 business days for an International Check to be cashed by your local bank. We have successfully notified this company on your behalf that funds are to be drawn from a registered bank within the United States Of America so as to enable you cash the check instantly without any delay, henceforth the stated amount of $10,000,000 USD has been deposited with Bank Of America.
We have completed this investigation and you are hereby approved to receive the winning prize as we have verified the entire transaction to be Safe and 100% risk free, due to the fact that the funds have been deposited at Bank Of America you will be required to settle the following bills directly to the Lottery Agent in-charge of this transaction whom is located in Lagos, Nigeria. According to our discoveries, you were required to pay for the following -
(1) Deposit Fee’s ( Fee’s paid by the company for the deposit into an American Bank which is – Bank Of America )
(2) Cashier’s Check Conversion Fee ( Fee for converting the Wire Transfer payment into a Certified Cashier’s Check )
(3) Shipping Fee’s ( This is the charge for shipping the Cashier’s Check to your home address and this fee includes Insurance )
The total amount for everything is $500.00 (Five Hundred-US Dollars). We have tried our possible best to indicate that this $500.00 should be deducted from your winning prize but we found out that the funds have already been deposited at Bank Of America and cannot be accessed by anyone apart from you the winner, therefore you will be required to pay the required fee’s to the Agent in-charge of this transaction via Western Union Money Transfer Or Money Gram.
In order to proceed with this transaction, you will be required to contact the agent in-charge ( Mr. Franco Coppola) via e-mail. Kindly look below to find appropriate contact information:
Email Address; officeoflotto9@gmail.com
Name To Contact; Franco Coppola
PHONE NUMBER; +234-8088-372-175
Should in case you need any more informations in regards to this notification,
feel free to get back to us so that we can brief you more as we are here to
guide you during and after this project has been completely perfected and you
have received your contract fund as stated.Thank you very much for your
anticipated co-operation in advance as we earnestly await your urgent response
to this matter.
BEST REGARDS
Anti-Terrorist And Monetary Crimes Division
FBI Headquarters In Washington, D.C.
Federal Bureau Of Investigation
J. Edgar Hoover Building
935 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW Washington, D.C.
20535-0001, USA Email: fraudalertfbi87@live.com
Posted in Junk Mail, Technology
August 29th, 2009
The server’s hard drive was still running at about 4 AM when I decided it was time to clone it to the spare identical drive before it failed. I’m glad I did that, because it did just that on the first reboot — it failed. The drive started making some strange noises and it wasn’t detected. I had to power down the machine several times, then remove the drive and play with it a bit, including hitting it, to get it running again. But it worked.
I cloned the drive, and got its replacement running in about 15 minutes. It took longer to actually get the old drive running long enough to clone it than the actual cloning process did.
One more bad thing happened, however. I had installed the other machine’s DVD-ROM drive as I mentioned in my last post, leaving it in the other machine while only the data ribbon cable was connected to the server. Well, when I was finished with it, I tried to remove the cable, as I usually do, but this time part of the connector broke off and the ribbon cable fell out, leaving only the part of the connector that connects to the pins on the drive. It was a delicate operation to remove the connector without damaging the drive or the pins on the drive, but I managed to do it. Very strange situation… it never happened to me before, and I pulled those kinds of cables hundreds of times over the years. It was a new cable, so maybe it was defective, I don’t know. It was interesting to see how those cables are actually made, though.
Posted in Railwolf.com, Technology
August 28th, 2009
Tonight, at about 8:15 PM, the web server crashed. I tried to restart it, but it crashed again with an “Unmountable Boot Volume” error. It had been running for about 225 days without reboot before this happened.
Apparently, one of the hard drives is failing, and that caused it. The event log had one last message in it, from atapi, at 8:15, which reads:
The device, \Device\Ide\IdePort0, did not respond within the timeout period.
That’s not good
One problem is that there is no CD-ROM in that machine, so I had to use the one from the other machine by snaking the cable from one machine to the other. I then ran chkdsk /r and that got it running again for now.
I have a few spare hard drives I can use to replace the one that might be failing, so it’s just an inconvenience. There may be more downtime tonight and in the morning as I work on this again. We’ll see.
Posted in Railwolf.com, Technology
August 24th, 2009
Today, I received a package from FedEx. This contains some of the computer stuff I mentioned that I ordered last week. I got a couple of Western Digital Caviar Black 1 TB hard drives, a D-Link DGS-1008D Gigabit network switch, and a D-Link DNS-321 Network Storage Enclosure.
The new drives replaced the 250GB drives in Colossus, while the old drives went into the DNS-321. Everything went smoothly, and it didn’t take as long to set up as I thought it would. The DNS-321 is very nicely done, easy to set up, and it has a pretty good transfer speed considering that I set up the drives in RAID1 (mirror). I’m impressed by this little box.
The D-Link DGS-1008D switch is almost the same as the one I already had, except it’s now a “green” Gigabit switch, updated to save power, which also makes it run cooler than the old one — which is going to be relocated to the basement.
Posted in Lair, Loot, Technology
August 23rd, 2009
For the past few days, I worked in the basement. I did some carpentry. I built a shelf for the network switch, cleaned up the spaghetti of network cables, and also built a train bridge.
Posted in Lair