DLOGAN.NET

In my never ending quest to reduce the amount of spam I receive (I have an e-mail address that receives had been receiving 100-200 spam messages daily), I started doing some reading at SpamAssasin’s website. I found two things that so far have been working extremely well to stop spam completely (its only been 2 hours but I should have received 2-10 spam by now). They have been so effective I thought I’d pass them alone.

1. I added “dummy” mail servers to my list of mail servers (Suggested Here)

In the DNS settings for you domain (e.g. dlogan.net) there are what are called “MX records” (Mail eXchange). These entries tell other mail servers where they should try to send a message when they have an e-mail address that ends in your domain (e.g. dlogan.net). Each MX record has a number associated with it. The MX record with the lowest number is what your standard mail server will try first. If it can’t connect to that mail server and deliver the e-mail it will then proceed to the MX record with the next lowest number until it is successful in sending the message.

Since the goal of the spammer is to get the most amount of spam out in the shortest amount of time they typically do not follow these standard rules. As a result they will typically only try to connect to one mail server once to send their message. If they are unsuccessful they do not act like a normal mail server and move on to the next MX record, they just forget about that message and move on to spamming other domains.

Unlike regular mail servers spammers do not always “follow the rules” in determining which

In my very recent post about getting an IBM x41 tablet PC, I mentioned a great tool I had run into called AuctionSniper. If you bid on e-bay, you must try out this tool (It comes with 3 free snipes)! Not only will AuctionSniper help make sure you win more of the auctions you bid on it also prevents you from paying too much for an item.

AuctionSniper  does this by automatically submitting your maximum bid for an item within the last 5 seconds of the  end of the auction (Their time is synchronized with e-bay).  I’m not sure who originally coined the use of  the phrase “Sniping” to refer to online auctions but its been in use for quite some time now. The idea being that just like a regular sniper remains completely hidden until he takes his shot, an auction sniper waits until the last possible second to place their bid. Other people who are interested in the auction don’t have a chance to retaliate to the bid until the auction is over.

With E-bay’s “automatic” bidding system theoretically you should not need to snipe since a person has already entered their “maximum bid”. As a result if they’re outbid, they should be out of the bidding. In reality the thrill of the auction often encourages people to create a new maximum bid if they are given time. This drives up the price of the auction. As a result sniping auctions usually allows you to get the auction cheaper if you do win and definitely insures that you don’t pay more than what you viewed as being your real maximum bid since you don’t have time to bid again. Since AuctionSniper places the bid automatically for you it allows you to place a last second bid without physically being sitting at your computer at that time. The fact that they’re syncronized with E-bay time also means they can more reliably submit that bid in the last few seconds. I can’t tell you the frustration of trying to place a bid at the last second only to find that the auction ended right before you placed your bid and your bid would have won.

For those of you who are not yet impressed this is just the beginning of what AuctionSniper can do. On their website they have a search tool that allows you to search more precisely through auction listings (and e-mail you the results on a regular basis if you like). In addition they have something called “Bidding Groups”. This is what helped me get my x41 tablet. What bidding groups allows you to do is schedule an auction snipe for a whole bunch of different items as part of one group. For each item you can set a different maximum bid (since each item could be slightly different). The first item in the group that you win cancels the rest of the schedule snipes in that group.

E.G. I wanted to get an x41 tablet. There were about 4 auctions that still had the tablet at price that was still below the maximum I wanted to pay for it (One auction ended in 12 hrs, one in a day, one in 3 days, one in 5 days). I setup an auction snipe for each one of these items and put them in a bidding group I called “x41 tablet”. I then didn’t think much more about it. 12hrs later Auctionsnipe e-mailed me to let me know that I had been outbid in the first auction. The next day I was e-mailed that I had won the 2nd auction. The auction snipes that had originally been scheduled for 3 or 5 days were automatically canceled as soon as I won the 2nd auction.

If this had been a regular e-bay scenario without AuctionSniper, I would have had to put my bid in early or be at my computer at the last second to place my bid and try and snipe. Regardless I would have had to check back after the auction close to see if I won the auction before setting up my bid for the second laptop. I would have had to complete this process several times until I won an auction. This would also have required me to have a block of time at least every evening to be able to handle these requests. With AuctionSniper I setup all the auctions at once and was done with it. If I was extremely busy for the rest of the week my auctions would still get bid put in.

Anyway, check-it out. As I stated in the beginning AuctionSniper actually starts you with 3 free snipes so you have nothing to lose. The best part about the free snipes is they only count if you win an auction. I’ve bid on a good 20 auctions now and only used one snipe ;-). In the auction I won there were 5 bids (of a total of in the last 2 minutes of the auction. My bid was the last one placed, and was a great deal!

Some of you might remember about 4 months ago I posted about how I was selling a Sony Vaio laptop on E-bay, in hopes of having enough funds to get the laptop I really, really wanted an IBM x41 convertible tablet. At the time it seemed extremely unlikely that I would be able to do this. Configured the way I wanted the x41 tablet was well over $2,000 which was certainly outside of what was reasonable for me to spend on the laptop at the time. Not to mention our stove had recently died and needed replacing. With a stove costing at least $400 and the type of stove my wife wanted costing around $500, there was no reasonable way to expect I could spend even $1200 on a new laptop. I came to the conclusion that I would have to get another laptop, and had actually come quite happy about it. However before I did even that, I needed to sell the Sony Vaio.
To make a long story short, this was not an easy process. I listed the laptop on E-bay three times. Three times it “sold”. Despite my auction clearly stating I would not ship internationally, twice the laptop was purchased with Buy-It-Now by Nigerian Scammers. The last time I listed the item the bidder did not pay. With the 2-3 weeks it took EACH time to haggle with e-bay to get my final value fee back literally months passed. I never did get them to refund any of the listing fees despite the fact that I strongly believe the issue of the scammers is their problem, and they should be doing something to resolve it or at least making it easy for a seller to get refund. After 3 times of having issues, I’d had enough with e-bay.

It was about this time that we found out that someone at our church had a brand new stove exactly like my wife wanted for $300. This knocked one of the big expenses out of the way At Christmas I found out that my cousin-in-law was looking for a new computer. I was able to give her a great deal on the laptop and finally get it sold. Not long afterwards I came to the conclusion that I was not going to find a laptop that did what I wanted it to do for the price I wanted to pay at either Dell or IBM’s website, and I turned back to E-bay.

After looking at many IBM laptops, I stumbled across an X41 Tablet listing. Four months ago the x41 tablet had been selling used on e-bay for for $1600-$2000+. With the new models out they were now selling for $900-$1400. That was just about in my price range! If I could catch the right auction I could get the exact laptop I had wanted for under $900! To help increase my chances of getting the laptop for this lower price I used a tool called AuctionSniper (A post about AuctionSniper to show up soon).

I was able to land an x41 tablet for $830 , complete with 1.5gb of RAM ;-). I’m very excited! Its scheduled to be delivered Tuesday but I am hoping I will see it tomorrow since its already in my local Fedex depot. God is very faithful. Several times throughout the process I was tempted to buy a laptop before I had sold the one I had. I felt like He kept telling me to wait. In the end I’m getting exactly what I wanted which originally didn’t seem possible ;-).

About 8 months ago I decided that Windows ME had to go. Since I don’t pirate software this left me with two options, buy an OS for my laptop or install something Open Source. At the time I had just started playing with a Redhat server at work, so CentOs (Redhat clone) seemed like a great option. Not to mention, how could I really call myself a computer geek if I didn’t yet know my way around linux? This was a great opportunity for me to learn something new. As a result I formatted my harddrive and started setting up CentOs.

CentOS’s made it really simple. In less than an hour I was looking at a lovely GUI interface much like my familiar Windows desktop. It had menus, it had buttons. It even had a cool little trash can. Best of all, it was NOT Windows ME. Right at the point were I was feeling all uncool and geek-like for my accomplishment, I realized my wireless card didn’t work. “Not a problem”, I said, “I’ll just go download a driver”, and proceeded to go to http://www.netgear.com .

Would you believe it? Netgear’s website didn’t have Linux listed as one of the OS options in their drop-down. “Not a problem”, I said, “I’ll just google it!”. Within a few minutes I had a whole bunch of postings a few years old stating difficulties people had getting the MA521 installed on their linux systems. Not concerned, I eventually ran into several websites talking about different ways to get this card to work. Apparently the MA521 uses the Realtek 8180L chipset. The websites listed three alternative drivers.

1. Realtek’s Drivers
2. NDISWrapper (Utility for using a Windows Driver)
3. rtl8180-sa2400 Project

First I tried Realtek’s. It wouldn’t compile on my system. Then I tried NDISWrapper, it would randomly freeze, and I couldn’t get it to connect to my wireless. Frustrated I finalley ran into the rtl8180-sa2400 projects driver. I got it running and connected to my wireless, but it wouldn’t get an IP address. Frustrated I formatted the harddrive and reinstalled. Then life got busy and I put the project on hold.

Yesterday I picked up this project again and I have no idea why I originally had so much trouble. (This could have something to do with the fact I’ve dealt heavily with Linux servers in the last 8 months). I downloaded the driver from the rtl8180 project and had it compiled in under 2 minutes. For newbies, these are the steps I followed.

1. Downloaded the driver.
2. Right-clicked on the file and chose “Extract Here”
3. Launched the CentOS menu->System Tools->Terminal Program - Super User Mode
4. Navigated to the extraced folder (in my case “cd Desktop”, “cd rtl8180-0.21″)
5. Typed “make”

That was it ;-), it did its thing and compiled the modules. I then ran “module_load” script (By typing “./module_load” (without the quotes) into the Terminal Window). Wallah, the wireless module was loaded. Now all I needed to do was connect it to the router. Following the directions in the INSTALL document, I did the following to connect to the wireless.

1. sudo iwconfig wlan0 essid SID_NAME (Replace SID_NAME with your wireless name)
2. sudo ifconfig wlan0 IP_Address (Replace IP_Address with an IP on your network)
3. sudo route add default gw GATEWAY_IP dev wlan0 (Replace GATEWAY_IP w Router IP)

Theoretically, you should be able to use “dhcp” (without quotes) instead of specifying an IP address. If you do that the last entry shouldn’t be needed either. For some reason I haven’t gotten that to work yet. I then tested my setup in the Terminal Window.

1. ping GATEWAY_IP

I got a response! It worked! I was online! However, “ping www.google.com” still didn’t work. I needed to fix my DNS. To do this, I went back to my Terminal Window.

1. nano /etc/resolv.conf (Opens resolv.conf for editing. I had to add entries for dns)
2. nameserver 208.67.222.222 (I used OpenDNS addresses, but you could use GATEWAY_IP)
3. nameserver 208.67.220.220 (or look up the ones from your ISP, OpenDNS is faster )
4. CTR+X (To Exit)
5. Y (To Save)

I was successfully online. Now I could “ping google.com”, open up a web browser and go somewhere, etc. The only problem was that every time I wanted to go online, I had to open up a terminal window and run the module_load script. This was annoying, and I didn’t want to have to show my wife how to do this if she wanted to use the laptop. ;-), as a result, I started reading to learn how to make modules load on startup.

The answer is a script in /etc/rc.d/init.d . Before I made this, however, I wanted to move the compiled modules to another location besides on my desktop. I chose to put them in the drivers folder, underneath my kernel version. To do this I went back to my Terminal Window.

1. cd /home/USERNAME/Desktop/rtl8180-0.21 (Replace USERNAME with your username)
2. cp *.ko /lib/modules/2.6.9-34.EL/drivers/net/pcmcia (The middle will vary depending on kernel)

Once the files were copied, I went to create the file in init.d, and then create a symbolic link to that location so that it would run properly. I’ve never written an init.d script, so it took a few times, but I eventually got it right ;-). Here is the file I created (You will need to change some values, e.g. IP addresses, and module location). You can download and copy it to the /etc/rc.d/init.d folder. You then need to change the permissions, and create a symbolic link.

1. (Navigate to where you saved the file)
2. cp wlan /etc/rc.d/init.d/ (Copies the file)
3. cd /etc/rc.d/init.d/ (Changes the directory)
4. chmod 744 wlan (Changes the permissions so it can execute)
5. cd ../rc5.d/ (Change to run level 5 directory)
6. ln -s ../init.d/wlan S11wlan (Create a symbolic link, Start 11th in order)

I then rebooted my computer. Sure enough, the wireless loaded up, connected, and worked great. It was finalley setup. Hopefully someone will find this useful

Well, I finalley got around to listing the new Sony Vaio I bought when I traded in my really, really, old Sony laptop (I even created an e-bay page). Hopefully it will sell for its Buy It Now price and I will find some way to get the laptop I really want, IBM’s X41 tablet *drool*. The X41 tablet weighs only 3.3lbs and gets over 8 hrs on a charge! Now… if I can only find a way to come up with the extra $1200 to purchase it after the laptop sells, I’ll be good ;-). In reality, I can’t really justify spending $1200 on a laptop right now and I’ll probably end up with a cheaper model… or a stove (Our’s died the other day). Still… 8 hrs of battery life… 3.3lbs….. “I’ll get you next time gadget!!! Next time!!!”