Thursday, December 11, 2008
Tuesday, December 9, 2008
20-year Graduation Anniversary
Gimnazija "Jovan Jovanovic Zmaj". My high school. It has been 20 years since my graduation from here. Unfortunately, I missed the official 20-year gathering but I paid a visit to my old school. They keep it in a prety good shape. Looks better thatn 20 years ago.
Sneaked inside little bit. Did not meet any known professors or teachers. Students look young (as they should). For a moment, I remembered how at that time I though I was a grown up and knew everything...
Sneaked inside little bit. Did not meet any known professors or teachers. Students look young (as they should). For a moment, I remembered how at that time I though I was a grown up and knew everything...
"Sechuan" - Chinese Food in Novi Sad, Serbia
After so many years, ten years to be exact, I finally visited Novi Sad (former Yugoslavia). While walking through the downtown area with one of my old friend (my wife's maid of honor) we spotted a place called "Sechuan", which was the first Chinese food place in Novi Sad. This was a place where my wife and me togehter with our friends used to go out for dinner together. I am talking about early 90s. The food is fairly modified Chinese food adopted to local taste, but we loved it and loved to share different dishes. Typically, we went in groups 6-8 people so we got to order 6-8 different dishes. We knew the menu by heart and all the dishes by corresponding numbers.
We immediately went in and to my suprise the place looks exactly as it looked in 1990. Even bigger shock was the fact that even waiters are the same. To confirm that I asked them. One of the two guys have been there for 23 years, another one for 17. Yes, those are the faces I remembered. The menu, also same as 17-18 years ago. Without looking into the menu we ordered number 1 and 13, plus soup with "three tasty ingredients" and their locally famous desert. What a flashback.
"Simply the best" - one of the waiters quited Tina Turner in poor English. Really happy I stopped by. Hope they do not change the place for many years to come. This really became a landmark in Dunavska street in Novi Sad.
We immediately went in and to my suprise the place looks exactly as it looked in 1990. Even bigger shock was the fact that even waiters are the same. To confirm that I asked them. One of the two guys have been there for 23 years, another one for 17. Yes, those are the faces I remembered. The menu, also same as 17-18 years ago. Without looking into the menu we ordered number 1 and 13, plus soup with "three tasty ingredients" and their locally famous desert. What a flashback.
"Simply the best" - one of the waiters quited Tina Turner in poor English. Really happy I stopped by. Hope they do not change the place for many years to come. This really became a landmark in Dunavska street in Novi Sad.
Thursday, November 27, 2008
Ei Pecom 64 - Early Yugoslavian 8-bit Micro (Home Computer)
This is something peculiar. A good friend of mine obtained an original early Yugoslavian (Serbian) 8-bit micro computer. I received it the other day.
I disconnected DVD player and connected AV cable to MON and TON outputs. Switched it one and to my surprise got familiar READY prompt.
Tried the simplest ("first") BASIC program. Few keys were not working from the beginning, but after just little bit typing all keys seemed operational. The thing was just forgotten for a long time.
As much as unimpressive my programming skills are here I am extremely happy to see this thing working. This is one of these early micros I only saw on some local computer fairs. Not sure how many were built, but definitively nothing like ZX Spectrum or Commodore 64.
If I get some time, will make some more pictures and peek inside.
Saturday, November 15, 2008
Mama I am coming home...
Thank you Ozzy for the background music... yep that's the plane I am boarding. Actually I boarded yesterday. Coz mama, ...
...actually, I am already in Novi Sad, Serbia. Got here around 6pm. Met with my sister and brother-in-law whom I have not seen for 10 years. Met their two beautiful daughters.... one I never saw in person before. Ate some "sarma" and roast pig. Took a walk around the neighborhood. Met with my in-laws briefly. Installed Linux on my mom's and dad's PC (Coz mama, I am not coming home if you run Windows on your PC :). Replied to few emails back to US... Pretty hyper all in all.
...actually, I am already in Novi Sad, Serbia. Got here around 6pm. Met with my sister and brother-in-law whom I have not seen for 10 years. Met their two beautiful daughters.... one I never saw in person before. Ate some "sarma" and roast pig. Took a walk around the neighborhood. Met with my in-laws briefly. Installed Linux on my mom's and dad's PC (Coz mama, I am not coming home if you run Windows on your PC :). Replied to few emails back to US... Pretty hyper all in all.
Thursday, November 13, 2008
Crazy dough - tasty bread
I made pretty much the same dough as usual. I used "regular" yeast this time and let my bread machine to mix and knead. I left the dough in a pan, but it rose much more than I expected (which is great).
Baked it as it is. It turned out great. Light and extremely nice taste.
Kids also had fun with "mushroom like" shape. Good times!
Baked it as it is. It turned out great. Light and extremely nice taste.
Kids also had fun with "mushroom like" shape. Good times!
IPCop - Linux Based Firewall
Intro
I have been using Linksys BEFSR41 router for quite some time with my ADSL. It was OK for the most time. Being a Linux and Open Source fan I have been checking new distros for last few years. There are several specialized distros aimed at partitioning, system tools, firewalls, etc. I came across an interesting Howto article taling about making your own firewall and I decided to give it a try. IPCop seemed natural choice for me since I have Linux experience and it seemed lots of people like it.
Status Display
What hardware is needed
Basically you need a PC (even Pentium with 32MB would do) with two, three or four NICs (network cards). IPCop uses color coded designations for separate networks:
I happened to have a PC that was waiting to be thrown in trash. This was really an old eMachines tower one with 32 MB RAM, intel Celeron and 8GB hard drive. It has only two PCI slots and two ISA slots. I put two NICs into it and I was ready to try.
Installing IPCop
With two NICs I was aiming for RED and GREEN configuration. For the purpose of installation you need keyboard and monitor as well as a CD-ROM or CD-RW drive. I burned a IPCop image on a CD and booted that old PC with it. Text menu for installation was pretty steightforward. After maybe 10 minutes I was ready to try. Please note that after you install IPCop, you can access its graphical user interface via web access remotely. Throughout installation there are some questions you need to answer such as administrator and backup user passwords, DHCP enable, local GREEN lan IP range. Also, you will need to configure yor RED network conenction (one toward Internet), which I left at DHCP and it worked flawlessly.
Connection
I removed my old router Linksys BEFSR41, connected ADSL modem to network card designated as RED, and conneced GREEN network card to my HUBs and local LAN. Once you start everything your IPCop (firewall) establishes connection with Internet and behaves as Firewall and DHCP server for other computers on your GREEN subnet. To my suprise everything worked great. I set my GREEN network to be in 192.168.0.xxx range. So, in order to configure IPCop further you need to access IPCop computer via http://192.168.0.1:81 in my case.
Connection status display
System graphs (CPU and memory)
Tuning
After accessing web based GUI, in the Status tab IPCop suggested installation of an update, which I did. Then, I also turned on Proxy service, which works as Internet access cache and speeds up browsing. The user interface is great and I was able to easily activate this function. I also turned off ping on RED interface. Further tuning can be done by adjusting and adding new Firewall rules.
Traffic graphs
Proxy graphs (needs to be enabled)
First impressions
I am happy. First, my connection to Internet appears to be faster. Second, with Linksys router the outer world could access my router and tried to hack into the settings. IPCop appears as it is not there. I tested it with some online port and security scanners and everything passed. I am also glad I found some great use to my old PC that I was almost ready to throw away.
Threre are also additional services such as SNORT, and VPN. I have not tried those yet.
What Next
Will definitively play with firewall riles, snort, and maybe even VPN. I am also reading about BSD based firewall pfSense and it also seems like a great firewall BSD distro based on m0n0wall. Will try it when I get a chance. Some folks compare the functionality of IPCop and pfSense to expensive dedicated Firewall/Routers.
References
http://ipcop.org
I have been using Linksys BEFSR41 router for quite some time with my ADSL. It was OK for the most time. Being a Linux and Open Source fan I have been checking new distros for last few years. There are several specialized distros aimed at partitioning, system tools, firewalls, etc. I came across an interesting Howto article taling about making your own firewall and I decided to give it a try. IPCop seemed natural choice for me since I have Linux experience and it seemed lots of people like it.
Status DisplayBasically you need a PC (even Pentium with 32MB would do) with two, three or four NICs (network cards). IPCop uses color coded designations for separate networks:
- RED connection to Internet (outer world)
- GREEN subnetwork behind firewall to be used as your secured LAN
- ORANGE subnetwork behind firewall, but for demilitarized LAN to be used with servers that should be accessible from Internet
- BLUE subnetwork behind firewall to be used with wireles LAN stations
I happened to have a PC that was waiting to be thrown in trash. This was really an old eMachines tower one with 32 MB RAM, intel Celeron and 8GB hard drive. It has only two PCI slots and two ISA slots. I put two NICs into it and I was ready to try.
Installing IPCop
With two NICs I was aiming for RED and GREEN configuration. For the purpose of installation you need keyboard and monitor as well as a CD-ROM or CD-RW drive. I burned a IPCop image on a CD and booted that old PC with it. Text menu for installation was pretty steightforward. After maybe 10 minutes I was ready to try. Please note that after you install IPCop, you can access its graphical user interface via web access remotely. Throughout installation there are some questions you need to answer such as administrator and backup user passwords, DHCP enable, local GREEN lan IP range. Also, you will need to configure yor RED network conenction (one toward Internet), which I left at DHCP and it worked flawlessly.
Connection
I removed my old router Linksys BEFSR41, connected ADSL modem to network card designated as RED, and conneced GREEN network card to my HUBs and local LAN. Once you start everything your IPCop (firewall) establishes connection with Internet and behaves as Firewall and DHCP server for other computers on your GREEN subnet. To my suprise everything worked great. I set my GREEN network to be in 192.168.0.xxx range. So, in order to configure IPCop further you need to access IPCop computer via http://192.168.0.1:81 in my case.
Connection status display
System graphs (CPU and memory)After accessing web based GUI, in the Status tab IPCop suggested installation of an update, which I did. Then, I also turned on Proxy service, which works as Internet access cache and speeds up browsing. The user interface is great and I was able to easily activate this function. I also turned off ping on RED interface. Further tuning can be done by adjusting and adding new Firewall rules.
Traffic graphs
Proxy graphs (needs to be enabled)I am happy. First, my connection to Internet appears to be faster. Second, with Linksys router the outer world could access my router and tried to hack into the settings. IPCop appears as it is not there. I tested it with some online port and security scanners and everything passed. I am also glad I found some great use to my old PC that I was almost ready to throw away.
Threre are also additional services such as SNORT, and VPN. I have not tried those yet.
What Next
Will definitively play with firewall riles, snort, and maybe even VPN. I am also reading about BSD based firewall pfSense and it also seems like a great firewall BSD distro based on m0n0wall. Will try it when I get a chance. Some folks compare the functionality of IPCop and pfSense to expensive dedicated Firewall/Routers.
References
http://ipcop.org
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