Raid in single drive bay
Engadget has a post on a interesting Raid1 solution. IO Data Device has a hardware raid that fits 2 2.5 inch hard drives and a Raid controller into a standard 3.5" drive bay. Since this is a hardware based solution, it should work on any hardware and OS that supports IDE drives.
They are pretty expensive: 40, 60, and 80GB models are around $800 USD, $1000 USD, and $1300 USD respectively. Maybe this makes sense for a computer case that has only one drive bay.
Enabling InnoDB for SpamAssassin Bayes database
Here are the steps that I used to upgrade the SpamAssassin mysql database from MyISAM to InnoDB.
Since mysql in Fedora Core 1 comes with version 3.23.58 of mysql wirth InnoDB support configured, all that was needed was to enable it in the configuration file. Using the instructions I found on this page, I added the following lines to the [mysqld] section of my my.cnf file:
# You can write your other MySQL server options here
# …
# Data files must be able to hold your data and indexes.
# Make sure that you have enough free disk space.
innodb_data_file_path = ibdata1:10M:autoextend
#
# Set buffer pool size to 50-80% of your computer’s memory
set-variable = innodb_buffer_pool_size=70M
set-variable = innodb_additional_mem_pool_size=10M
#
# Set the log file size to about 25% of the buffer pool size
set-variable = innodb_log_file_size=20M
set-variable = innodb_log_buffer_size=8M
#
innodb_flush_log_at_trx_commit=1
- Stop Amavisd – "/etc/init.d/amavisd stop"
- Flush the bayes database – "sa-learn –sync"
- Backup the database – "sa-learn –backup > backup.txt"
- For each of the tables, run the sql commands:
ALTER TABLE <table name> TYPE=InnoDB;
ANALYZE TABLE <table name>;
- Start Amavisd – "/etc/init.d/amavisd start"
Alpine KCA-420i review
Playlistmag.com has a review of the Alpine KCA-420i, which is Alpine’s adapter so the iPod can be used with their Ai-NET head units. The reviewer states that the interface is not what he expected, but it is still the best way to connect the iPod to a car stereo.
Wireless broadband
Previously, I had talked about the problems that I have had with SBC. We are going to try going with Etheric Networks. They have a wireless plan that has a guaranteed up/download rate of 1Mbps and a burst rate up to 4Mpbs. Their SOHO Broadband package includes 2 – 8 ip address, and they permit users to share bandwidth and host servers. This with Vonage for phone service will be roughly the same price as SBC for our business phone line with business DSL.
Here are the reviews of Etheric Networks on BroadbandReports.com
Gateway Connected DVD Player
Gateway has a progressive-scan DVD player that streams content from a PC. It streams music, photos and video from a PC with built-in 802.11g. It looks like it supports MPEG and DivX video files.
PVRblog has a review of this player. The DVD player has a price of $119 on gateway.com.
One downside of this DVD player for me is that there isn’t Mac OS X or Linux server software for it.
SpamAssassin 3.0
Last night I upgraded our server to SpamAssassin 3.0, from 2.6x. There are some new featres that should help reduce the amount of spam that gets through.
- Built-in support for URI Blacklists like SURBL – This allows SpamAssassin to mark messages as spam, if they have urls that are in a lot of reported spam messages. Previously this was a plugin for the older SpamAssassin, which had to be installed separately. Here is my post where I described it.
- Built-in support for Sender Policy Framework – This helps SpamAssassin determine when messages may have a forged sender. Here is my post were I talked about SPF.
- Support to have the Bayesian databases put into a mysql database. – This one really interst me for two reasons:
- To allow backup mail hosts to have the same bayesian database for spam checking. Most people who have a backup mail server only have the up to date bayesian database on their primary mail server.
- To have the potential to have a some centralized bayesian database server. Imagine if everyone running SpamAssassin send their bayesian tokens to this centralized server. Then everyone could benefit from this large corpus of spam and ham data
Finding similar blogs
I am interested in finding blogs that are similar to the ones that I already read. I found two web sites that offer to do this.
Free Gmail accounts
The Spread Firefox team is giving away over 2,000 Gmail invites. Here are the rules:
- The site must have a Firefox button, logo or banner linking to the Firefox project either through sfx or directly.
- The person must not already have Gmail.
- The site must be publicly viewable with some content.
- The site must not consist mostly of advertising.
- The site must not contain any adult content.
Password generator
Here is a page that has a bookmarklet that will generate a password for websites, given a master password. This is how it works:
It gets the hostname from the page’s URL and mixes it together with
your personal master password using a little cryptographic magic we
call MD5.
It will always get the same result if given that hostname and master
password, but will never get that result if either changes. (Well, once
in a few billion times it might.)
Essential Mac OS X Software
On 43 Folders, there is a post that is collecting a list of essential OS X software. Here is my list:
