by jason on June 23, 2010
I bought a 92 Wrangler YJ last April from Craigslist. Amazingly, when I went to go look at it, the Jeep was in excellent condition. It only had 92,000 miles on it and the owner had padded the roll cage, added custom front and rear bumpers, put a new top on it and also included two other bikini tops for it. He’d also added four new Wrangler tires with custom rims. All of those extra goodies for only $200 over Blue Book price.
The third day I had it the master clutch cylinder went out. The washer holding the rod into the cylinder snapped and I was a mile from home buying lotto tickets and milk.
I picked up a new master cylinder the next afternoon and swapped it in myself. Bled the clutch and was good to go. It took about an hour or so from start to finish, the only tricky part was to disconnect and reconnect the hose between the master and slave clutch.
About two months later I noticed I had a small clutch fluid leak. Now, I have a severe clutch fluid leak. Looks like I’m going to be buying and replacing the slave cylinder as it seems the most likely culprit.
by jason on June 22, 2010
Last week my house got hit by lightning. It was inevitable; I live in St Petersburg, FL which is the lightning capitol of the world. My house came out of it okay (mostly) and the current surge jumped through my cable box, through my router and toasted my PC, PS3 and wireless router. Somehow the RoadRunner/Brighthouse Networks cable modem toughed it out.
Originally I thought maybe it was just the power supply unit that failed (PSU) so I bought a new one on Amazon.com and had it shipped overnight by the UPS elves. Long gone are the days I have multiple spare computers laying around so I needed something to test. I plugged the PSU in and still didn’t have power, so my motherboard or CPU were toast. There were no tell-tale beep codes so it was a safer bet it was the mobo but you never know! Without being able to tell which, I ordered replacements for each component from Newegg.com.
Yesterday I busted out my screwdriver and had my 8 year old daughter help me do the rebuild. I swapped in the new motherboard and left all of my old parts in. It booted right up without a hitch. I opted to keep the new video card, a good bargain GeForce 220 GT which is a slight upgrade over my 8600 GTS that I’ve had since 2007.
The Asus P5Q SE Plus motherboard does everything my old Abit board at a smaller formfactor. There’s still six SATA ports, front and rear USB expansion ports, and also includes SPDIF jacks with a high-definition audio chipset in the event I feel like plugging my PC into a receiver. Windows 7 booted up like a dream and installed all of the proper drivers. The only hitch was the “open box” motherboard, which didn’t have the software CD so I ended up going to Asus’ website and downloading the proper sound manager software. Without it, Windows defaulted to the SPDIF outputs which did me no good and I didn’t have sound.
My current rig is not even close to “top-of-the-line” but it handles everything I do without issues. I’m an avid computer gamer (my PS3 was used more as a Blu-Ray player and media center) and I hobby with photo-manipulation and graphics design. I don’t need a rig with SLI and can’t justify spending thousands on a computer to eek out a higher frame rate. As long as I can pull off 30+ FPS on high or medium settings with 2x AA I’m happy.
Current Specs (for those who wonder)
- 2.6GHz Core 2 Duo (soon to be overclocked to 3.2 GHz once more)
- 4 GB Corsair RAM
- Galaxy Geforce 220 GT (1GB DDR2 RAM)
- Lite-On Lightscribe DVD RW drive
- 2x320GB SATA drives (7200 RPM)
by jason on June 21, 2010
For 60+ days oil has been purging into the Gulf Of Mexico like a cut jugular. Millions of acres of marshland, swamps and beaches are at stake as well as the lives of fish, animals and people. Everyone knows it’s important, BP, the Coast Guard, the Obama administration, people who live near the gobs of oil washing up on shore along with dead birds and fish.
Congress summoned the CEO of BP to publicly chastise the company for not doing enough to clean-up the spill. Not only that, Congress demands BP setup a war chest of funds for recompensation to Gulf Coast residents which exceeds $4 billion. Despite the fact that there’s a $75 million maximum penalty capped by the Oil Pollution Act of 1990.
President Obama addressed the nation on the oil spill and his plan to clean it up. Pledging that BP will cover the costs of damages and that the National Guard has been deployed to assist. Our President also stated that he wanted to know whose ass to kick.
But what does all this mean?
Simply put, this is political maneuvering and just another crisis to be exploited by the Administration to take more control over the national economy as well as cap & trade. With the Administration having ramrodded the publicly unpopular Patient Protection and Affordability Act through the House and Senate, incumbent Democrats are worried about their jobs. Public support for the administration and the Democratic Party is slipping lower and lower.
The Congressional inquiry into BP CEO Tony Hayward was grandstanding at it’s finest with Senators taking their turns attacking Big Oil. Tony Hayward has also taken flak for being at a yacht race and not “doing more to clean up the mess.” I would agree that Hayward has made some comments that show is public-speaking skills are lacking and BP itself needs to hire a new PR firm (where are those guys from Sterling Cooper Draper & Pryce and are they available for hire?). BP did take the steps to buy Google keywords to redirect traffic to their site. Good going guys, way to spend thousands of dollars a day.
Really, now that I’m done rambling, let’s get to the meat of this.
- From the Socialist playbook – Never let a good crisis go to waste. Information on Rahm Emanuel’s socialist agenda can be read here.
- Disparage BP through Congressional inquiry to attack ‘Big Business’
- Pass a new energy bill during a lame duck Congress after the 4th of July Recess
Number 3 is really all that matters to the Administration. Democrats are watching their popularity dwindle, public opinion of the administration falter and the Silent Majority of right-leaning Democrats, Tea Partiers and conservatives gaining traction before the November 2010 mid-term elections. Before the balance of power shifts and the Democrats most likely losing their majority in the Senate (and possibly the House), the Administration wants to push through as much reform as they can before they lose power.
They already know their days are numbered. The oil spill gives the President a platform to campaign against Big Oil and push a “green” economy and energy bill. If they are going out the door they may as well try to push more through Congress while they can.
So let me leave you with these questions:
- How many millions of jobs will be lost by cutting back on oil production?
- If the Gulf oil spill is so catastrophic and important to fix, why must repair crews be union employees?
- Why did we turn away the help offered by other nations because they weren’t union?
- Who makes money on cap & trade? (List here)
by jason on June 19, 2010
First there was Friendster, then MySpace and Facebook. The original triumvirate of social network sites. They were hubs to connect people. Friends, musicians, college friends, you name it. We’ve all flocked to social media sites to keep track of our friends, our neighbors, our high school crushes and our favorite sports, movie and television stars.
Then came Twitter and Identi.ca. New social sites to connect people and ideas. (You can toss YouTube and Flickr in here somewhere, the time-line isn’t important.) You can read short messages from people you know or people you don’t know.
Now, following Foursquare, these sites are looking to add something extra. The GPS location of where you and your friends are at. With millions of people using social media and location-based services, including handy sites like Yelp, maybe we should ask ourselves one important questions: what’s the deal with location-based services?
The Benefits of Location-Based Services
Location-based services are a double-edged sword. If used properly, it’s a great way to share what you’re doing and where you’re at. Check-in on Foursquare at your favorite restaurant and maybe your friends will show up because they didn’t know where to have dinner and your update kicked them in gear. Maybe you want some friends to join you for a jog down the Pier? Check-in, send an update and now they know exactly where to be. Use Yelp or sites like it and you can find ATMs, restaurants, auto mechanics, you name it, near your location. This sort of “augmented reality” is quite beneficial for the consumer.
Samples of things you can find with location-based services:
- Restaurants
- Parks / Zoos
- ATMs and Banking Facilities
- Retail Stores
The Downside of Location-Based Services
On the other edge of the sword, the downside of location-based services: your privacy. Broadcasting your location to the Internet can be dangerous. There are reasons that people are careful with whom they share their address. Post an update from your house or apartment on from your cellphone and it’s tagged with the GPS coordinates. No need for an address, someone can track you to ten feet of where you sent it. It’s worse than just knowing the apartment complex you living or housing subdivision.
- Stalkers
- Identify Thieves
- Burglars/Thieves
Most people don’t realize that digital cameras, including those on cellphones, embed data in the picture, including the type of picture, what camera took the picture and, if applicable, the GPS location. This is great for sites that want to use your pictures for “virtual tours” but not so good if that picture is publicly indexed on the Internet. Anyone can extract the GPS data and look up the latitude and longitude to determine where it was taken. This may not be such a good idea if someone wants to track your movements.
Does the good outweigh the bad?
The answer is based on the user. Location-based services have a great benefit to the consumer. It makes finding something much easier and requires little effort to use an application on a cellphone. Are there safety concerns? Undoubtedly, we just haven’t heard of anything SERIOUS yet. It’s only a matter of time. It doesn’t have to be a stalker finding your information, the possibility exists that a hacker could gain access to the information and use it for identity theft by mimicking your patterns and activities, finding where you shop and waiting for their opportunity.
I admit that I use most of these services, I’m just diligent about what I update and who I share it with.
How To Protect Yourself
Steps to protecting your personal information are common sense.
- Limit what you share
- Share with only people you know
- Be a user of Location-Based Services and not a contributor
- Filter information before you send it
These are fairly straight forward actions you can do to protect yourself. If you don’t want people to know, don’t share it. Share sensitive personal information to only people you know. (There’s a reason I only have friends on social networks that I actually “know.”) Use location-based services but limit when you share your location. Proactively review what you’re sharing so that you don’t let something slip you don’t want the public to know. (That goes for your keg-stand pictures that you don’t want your boss or future boss to see.)
There are pros and cons to location-based information. Protect yourself and use common sense. Privacy is only an illusion and controlling that illusion is up to you.
by jason on June 17, 2010
http://healthsetter.com/brown-rice-just-2-servings-can-lower-diabetes-risk/#more-2380
Apparently eating 5+ servings of white rice increases your chances of type 2 Diabetes. I can’t imagine how pumping your body full of starchy carbs, causing your body to produce insulin to get that glucose out of your blood, can cause insulin resistance over time.
Science, once again, proves that the FDA Food Pyramid is what is making you sick.
Thanks, guys, for pointing out the obvious.
For those who may not be aware, considering that I don’t update my blog very often, I started eating and living a Paleo life style, not diet. It amazes me how much better and fuller I feel eating foods that are wholesome and good and attuned to what our bodies eat. I started last fall and eat probably 80% of my food Paleo: meats, fish, nuts, vegetables and fruits with little sugars and no refined wheat products, bread or pasta.
Today is my first 24 hour fast without any food since 6pm last night. Normally I don’t eat if I’m not hungry and when I woke up, I still wasn’t hungry this morning.
When I ate an “American Diet” riddled with inaccurate “conventional wisdom” I’d be starving by now, have a headache and be craving food. Instead, I feel hungry, but I still have a high energy level, do not have a headache, feel dehydrated nor do I feel any cravings to eat. Hungry, yes, but I do not feel an imperative to shovel food into my mouth.
For my friends out there who struggle with diet, diabetes, celiac disease, high blood pressure, or other maladies I recommend reading two web sites that set me on the straight and narrow: www.marksdailyapple.com and www.freetheanimal.com.
Both sites have great information, resources and community focused on eating and living better. If you want to normalize blood sugar, lose weight (body fat) and feel healthy, do yourself a favor and check them out.
Is complete. Well, complete meaning that Emma, the dogs and I are down here in the new house. Our stuff will be here next week, most likely on Monday. Chelsea will be up from the Keys tomorrow and then things will be much improved!
The drive was almost surreal. It was hot, dry and I don’t have air conditioning in my car. Other than that it was a great drive. Emma did good, the dogs were behaved and shared the back seat like champs. The drive was surreal in the fact that I recognized a lot places from when I drove to Virginia when I was a kid. So many places hadn’t changed in those 17 years. There were several times I experienced déjà vu.
Thankfully I made it through almost every city without hitting rush hour. I passed through Atlanta at lunch time and St Petersburg at the tail-end of the rush. I was happy that we skipped KC, St Louis and Nashville rush hours. The Jeep, stuck in traffic, is not fun in the heat. Not one little Kelvin.
I had left Omaha at 7 AM on Tuesday and drove until about 8PM and stopped in Murfreesboro, TN. We spent the night at the Best Western (because they accepted pets) and then got up bright and early and then were back on the road at 6:45AM on Wednesday. Last night we rolled into the house at 6:45 and we were beat.
Today we’re getting settled in. Making a list of items that we need at the house. All in all things are good!
by jason on June 18, 2009
I haven’t posted anything lately and for that reason I suck. Okay, not really. Consider this my official announcement to the world: on June 30th, 2009 I am moving to Tampa, Florida.
Life changes constantly and the best you can do is to adapt. That being said I am moving to Tampa/St Petersburg with my lady and our family.
On the horizon is a lot of work for me to get the house ready, cleaned up and our things packed up. Next week the moving company is going to pack and move our belongings and less than a week later I am in the road with Emma T and our dogs.
I have received a lot of questions about employment and such. I am pursuing some good options (It seems Tampa has a better job market then Omaha) and I have interviews lined up (as well as second interviews). We’ll be renting a house until we can sell the one in Omaha.
My employment at PayFlex has been great; they are a great team and I am lucky to have spent the last few months with my CIO and the team that has worked for me. I wish them the best and hope to continue to work with them to help grow their business and their people.
If you have any questions feel free to email me or call me (if you have my cell.)
Until next time.
Jason
by jason on April 18, 2009
by jason on April 11, 2009
For the curious, I am now the Director of Information Technology at PayFlex. Job found! =)
by jason on March 27, 2009
Still searching. Omaha has such a limited IT community.
Thanks to all of the people who have tried to help. I appreciate it. I’ve got some projects lined up to keep me busy.
by jason on March 3, 2009
Yes, it’s the day. That. Much. Awaited. For. Day. Square Root Day.
Screw that, it’s my birthday!
Happy 31 years on planet Earth for me. Yay!
Thanks for the all of the emails everyone!
by jason on February 27, 2009
So it’s going to snow again today. Could get 1-3 inches of the frost precipitation. Let’s hope it doesn’t suddenly turn into a blizzard. It’s arctic-ly cold outside too, so it should make for some non-powdery hard snow and not the soft stuff you want to take your kids out in to play.
Thank goodness it’ll be almost 60 again later this week.
by jason on February 23, 2009
I don’t know why, but her music is so addictive. I am listening to it right now and I can’t stop tapping my foot! Damn you, Gaga!
by jason on February 22, 2009
I am launching a new tech-focused blog at JasonLikert.com. I will continue to blog my personal life stuff here, but moving my techy-geeky stuff over there. I’m sure a few will slip through the cracks either way, but both blogs will be active and in use. No worries folks!
by jason on February 5, 2009
I love StumbleUpon. It gives me the funniest ideas at times. Today I was stumbling and found a picture of an anti-abortion rally that was quoting Bible scripture. A quote from the Old Testament: “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I dedicated you” – Jeremiah 1:5.
Clearly stating that God knew each and every one of us. Simply implying an unborn child is alive. This is not the point of my post, just clearing that up, dear readers. We aren’t discussing abortion rights here on my blog. =)
I just want to implore my Christian readers to understand something that you seem to be missing. Atheists and agnostics have no fear or respect for a scripture telling them they are wrong. Someone who doesn’t hold your beliefs quite frankly will not care if you tattoo to them to your body and jump off a bridge. Telling them that abortion is wrong based on Scripture is pointless and futile because they don’t hold the same laws or beliefs you do. Imagine them telling you that God doesn’t exist based on a mathematical formula. You play by different rules and ignore everyone elses. The same thing they do to you.
The same rule holds true for any spiritual vs scientific discussion. Science will hold their set of rules up and spirtual people will hold up their own. Each group believes their answers irrefutable based on what they find IN their respective books.
Only through a common language can you convince your opponents of right or wrongness. To not do so is insanity. You may as well study for a math test by boning up on history.
by jason on January 12, 2009
I use XAMPP heavily on Windows. It’s my primary development environment because XAMPP is easy to use and cheaper then using dedicated hosting for testing sites and blogs. I don’t need anything to do a lot of heavy lifting and XAMPP handles everything I throw at it. Is XAMPP on Mac OS X? I was about to find out.
Recently I received a new MacBook for Christmas and I wanted to move all of my develpment stuff over to Mac OS X. I am going to keep my Windows system as my gaming machine, since I love computer gaming. It’s a hobby, and doesn’t take up as much time as it did years ago, but I want to move my “professional hobby” to my Mac and keep the Windows XP system as my gaming rig since it was built for that purpose.
I digress.
I started looking for solutions on how to run Apache and MySQL on OSX. There are plenty of articles out on the Internet to do so but I didn’t want to run Apache natively. Not really any particular reason, I just didn’t want to install it as a daemon.
First I ran across MAMP, which looked good, but they want you to PAY for MAMP Pro. No thanks. I’d rather not fork over money when I can save it for food.
XAMPP On Mac OS X
I decided to check if XAMPP works on OSX and it does! Yes, yes, my precious, it does. I downloaded the .dmg for XAMPP on Mac OSX and proceeded to mount the image and run the install. In minutes I was up and running. I copied my web folder over for my latest development WordPress blog, edited the wp-config.php file and fired up the install.php page.
Boom. Error. Gnashing of teeth, I hacked at it for a few minutes and realized that when I copied the files I didn’t do it as “nobody” of the “admin” group.
If you have this problem, simply go to the directory that has incorrect permissions and use the “chown” command to change the owner.
> chown -R nobody:admin “/Applications/xampp/xamppfiles/htdocs/website_folder”
Now, that issue was quickly fixed but when I would access the install.php URL (http://sitename/wp-admin/install.php) I still could not connect. I searched for hours, reviewed the configuration in phpMyAdmin and got really frustrated. I took an afternoon to think.
After looking at it again, I realized that it was properly database permissions still, so I fired up phpMyAdmin again and looked. The user account for the database was allowed to connect from “%” which is a wildcard in MySQL that means any host can connect with the user ID. On a whim I changed this to “localhost” and it worked like a champ. I changed it back to “%” and failed.
Now maybe this is a bug, but I verified my Windows XAMPP load and it was setup using “%” for all of the test databases. I’m chalking this up to a “feature” on Mac OSX for now. Other than those issues, I’ve had no problems running XAMPP on OS X. It works great.
by jason on January 3, 2009
I’m considering starting a new blog to focus on my professional life but keep this blog as my personal blog for, uh, not professional things. Anyone have any thoughts on that?
My feeling is this: I want to brand myself as a technology professional who understands business, finance, web application, network and systems security, application security, network design and implementation as well as managing people. You may think this to be a large and disparate amount of job duties but I’ve been doing all of them for many, many years, minus my time at Crowe where I focused primarily on security and penetration assessments.
Most of the things I want to write about that are technology driven and not really of a personal nature. I’d still have my personal blog to attend to, with writings and musings of a personal nature about my love to dance, play games, work out, write, book reviews or whatever else I want to write about of a personal nature.
The other blog, the new blog, would be focused on technology, security, design and architecture and professional discussion. I don’t want to mix the two or lose my subscribers here. Not everyone loves the Tech articles and not every reads the life articles.
So let me know via the contact form, email or comments!
Happy New Year!
Jason
by jason on January 3, 2009
I was pondering today if I could sum myself up in one word, or what I do, in one word. I still haven’t figured that out yet, but I thought of “techvangelist,” which to me I think of someone who wants to bring technology to the masses and show the benefits of technology in every day life. Techvangelism, to me, would be the proclamation and demonstration of technology to the masses for the benefit of everyone. This TECHnology eVANGELISM would stretch from modernization of household utilities to corporate benefits of keeping up with technology.
Unfortunately for me, Techvangelism is not that. Apparently the Christian Mainstream has subjugated the two words to mean “using technology for evangelism.” A much different meaning then my own personal assumptions. In no way do I look down upon Christians for this, I completely understand their definition. Sadly I missed the boat on this one. It’s like my attempt to bring back “Right On” with a valiant fist pump in the air.
Oh well, time to keep searching for that perfect word.
by jason on January 3, 2009
In October of 2008 (two short months ago) I decided I wanted to pick up the habit again of not drinking soda. My primary motivation? The fact that I stopped drinking soda a few years ago and, by being a slacker, started drinking it again. I enjoyed how I felt not being dependent on a chemical to feel “alert” or “awake.” I’m also on an anti-fructose corn syrup kick.
In those two months I’ve managed to have ONE Coke, and that was just a few days ago to celebrate the new year. =)
Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t simple to just stop. Upon occasion I feel myself tempted to grab a drink based on the taste, but even still I know that the lack of caffeine in a “caffeine-free” beverage will not “do it for me.”
How To Stop Drinking Soda
This may seem too simple for many people. We all expect anything we do to take 5000 steps and require a support group that stretches nation-wide. To make a long story short, there is only one key to this door: persistence.
Any long-term change requires a conscious decision of chaining repetitive activities together. This concept can be called a “chain.” The longer your “chain” is the less apt you are to break it. What is the ancient saying, “The journey of a thousand miles starts with a single footstep?” Baby steps? Any of this ringing a bell?
I’m also saying that you need to cut DIET soda out of your larder as well. Diet soda has been linked to weight gain, as well as the “questionable” effects of aspartame on the body. Think about it… If your body requires 2000 calories of food a day and you drink non-diet soda your body still gets calories. At least you get SOME benefit via the sugars. If you drink diet soda your body receives zero caloric intake and you are more likely to eat foods to compensate.
Here are five steps you need to follow to cut soda out of your diet.
- Decide you want soda out of your life and know your reasons for doing so. This is THE most crucial step.
- Throw out all of your soda in the house. If you want all caffeine gone you need to throw it out too. This includes coffee.
- Find an alternative drink of choice. I focus on low-sugar or sugar free lemonade since it’s available everywhere. At home I drink water.
- Skip the soda aisle at the grocery store. Remove the temptation from your sight and you are more likely to not drink it.
- Find your desire to DRINK soda as your motivation to STOP. The more you desire it the more you should restrain it.
Step 5 seems to go against common sense but it works for me in a way to curb the habits that I have that I do not like about myself or habits that I consider indulgences but that I want to not be addictions. Example; most people don’t know that I dip tobacco. SURPRISE! Now, I started years ago but I don’t make this a full-time habit as many people do with booze, or cigarrettes. How do I do that?
I know my body and I know when I have a craving. I can feel when my body is asking for some nicotine. I KNOW that this is an unhealthy habit with possible long-term physical dependence and possible mouth, lip or throat cancer. That doesn’t stop me from enjoying the slight kick of nicotine. But I know how I feel when I have a craving and not when I “want” a dip. The two feelings for me are different as one is a conscious choice and the other is not. When I know that I’m not seeking it actively, I’ve tuned myself to say “no.” It takes practice but the best explanation I have is the feeling you get when you are full. You know when you are getting full but many obese people ignore the feeling and keep eating. If you eat and feel full just stop. Physically you know when your body is hungry or thirsty so you also know when your body is having a craving. Use the feeling to stop yourself.
Will my five steps help you to stop drinking soda? Yes, they can. It’s a matter of you having the mental fortitude to kick this habit. Like any habit it takes practice, but take a small step every day in the same direction and before you know it you’ve walked from San Franciso to New York City. It takes persistence and a will to see it through.
