I've been messing with MyDNS a lot lately. It's a good little app. I've learned a lot about DNS in the mean time. I found out that I have mine all configured wrong. I should have one DNS server for my domain names and another "caching" DNS server for my ISP. The caching server is for web browsers and other internet application can find other servers by name.

So I've been reconfiguring all my systems to setup a proper DNS plan. I even had to issue a DNS change to all my customers. It's times like this that I wish I did DHCP on my network. It would be much easier to do it that way.

I am also switching my network configuration for my ISP also. I'm moving over to PPPoE with encryption. I'm moving my router over to IPCOP firewall. Lots of changes. Hopefully it will make it easier to configure and setup.

My plan is to setup every one on DHCP. No matter what URL you type into your browser, it will go to BMG50.com. Then firewall everything. The only server you can get to is the BMG50 web server. Then setup a PPPoE server that will get you to an outside IP. I think that will work. I am currently doing it with PPTP. The problem with PPTP is that it's not supported on all devices (Playstation). PPPoE is on everything I've seen so far. Encryption will be optional. I'll setup secure POP3 for email also.

Anyway, I'm still doing some checking to see it it will work the way I'm thinking.

I just had the pleasure of testing out a connection of almost 10 miles away. It didn't work. I was not the distance. I was a hill between the points. The home that I was testing from is located in Stagecoach, way up on the mountain. We were thinking that it would be high enough to make it to Silver Springs, but we were wrong.

So, I don't think I'll be able to do service for anyone in Stagecoach. I did offer to help them setup their own network, if thats what they wanted to do.

Debian is really ticking me off right now. I've been waiting for the latest versions of PostgreSQL and PHP to come out forever. They are still using PHP 4.1. 4.2 came and went, 4.3 is here and going, 5.0 is in beta right now.

I'm done with Debian. Every time I want to update something, it will brake something else. I can't just update one thing. It makes me update everything. Like right now, all my image uploading scripts are busted.

I'm moving to FreeBSD. The Ports are great. I can update them and install just one package. Say I want the latest version of PostgreSQL... I just install it. No problem. I want to upgrade to the latest PHP, no problem. And it does not bust everything on the system when I do.

By by Debian.

Now I'm just going to have to figure out how to get my servers all upgraded.

I've been trying out some new web cam programs for my Mac. I want to use my iSight for my web cam instead of the video camera. I've got to put this new iSight to use. So there is two apps that I'm looking at right now.

The first one is from WuffWuffWare.com. It's called WuffCam. It is a nice little app that has a built in web server to serve the image files. What's good is that it's simple and clean. I like the Logo also. Bad is that it does not support Multi-Part JPEG streaming to Netscape. This little app is $20.

The next app is SecuritySpy from SecuritySpy.com. It has a lot more options than WuffCam. It also supports streaming JPEG's to Netscape. I like it a lot better except for a few little things. One being the price. $50 may be worth it to have the streaming, but I can't configure the output to fit my previous setup. I would like to set the background to black and allow the image to stretch to the mini-window size.

I guess you can't have it all unless you program it yourself. CamServ on Linux was the best so far, I wish it was ported to the Mac.

But anyway, I'm leaning to the SecuritySpy app, but if WuffWuffWare implement the Multi-Part JPEG then I'll go that way. I have one month to decide.

Here is the photo of Jane and her car as promised. She is so happy. She loves this car. She was out there washing and waxing it, so I snapped this pic of her. Next on the list is to get new tires and brakes for it.

I just downloaded Adobe GoLive again to check it out. The new version is suppose to have support for PHP and CSS. I'm going to import my home page into it and check it out. All I can say so far is that it's kinda slow. I'll do a few projects in it and see what I think. I don't know if I'll buy it, because it's $400. But if it's really, really, really good I'll consider it.

For now, I'll just try it for 30 days and see what I think.

I found out recently that OmniGroup is releasing OmniWeb 5.0 soon. If you all remember, I bought two copies of OW 4.5. I am still having problems with it. (Like this textarea text edit widget. It totally sucks).

I was really upset to see the upgrade price attached to this new version. They have not fixed the problems with 4.5 and they expect us to buy a new one.

This caused me to respond on the OW mail list. I ranted for awhile about it. Others say they have no problems with it. They are starting to call me a troll. (I'm guessing they are the type that think MS Windows does not have problems.)

Anyway, there is one person on the list that is getting fed up with my Rant, so I'll quit.

I was just contacted by an Omni Group employee that said they would hook me up with a OW5 license because I had such a bad time with v4.5. That's very nice of them. I've always said their customer support was top notch. I just hope the next version of OW is as good as their customer service. We will see.

Hello, Apple! Please, please fix the Finder. There are too many bugs to list here, but this is one that I keep running into. Your dialog boxes don't stretch to fit the content, or the buttons don't trim the text within to fit the dialog box.

At least check the file extension to see if it's even sane before asking if I want to change it. How am I suppose to click the "Use .wmv" button if it's clear off the screen.

It wouldn't be too bad if the keyboard would work to change the buttons. Using TAB to move from one to the other, you know, like in all other operating systems. Even arrow keys would help.

This is rather annoying to have to go to the Terminal to rename files.

Yesterday, in the snow, we had to pull the pump up again. This time due to a short in the splice. Once we fixed that the well preformed very good. We even had showers last night!

It took about four hours for the water to clean up and settle. Now we have good water flow and I hope more water.

Now I can finally get back to work and finish up my current projects.