For those of you reading this on Facebook… nearly everything I post to my Facebook account is syndicated from my blog.  That’s what I’m referring to.

Anyway – While I would love to work with a designer and do a custom design,  until I find one who has some spare time to help me out I will be reliant on the themes of others.  Thankfully I found one I actually like without spending an inordinate amount of time searching.

A more substantial post will come later this weekend.  Probably.

That’s IPv4, anyway, an ageing protocol which is running out of addresses to allocate.

The replacement for IPv4 has been in the works for many years, and is called IPv6.  One of the chief benefits (though there are many others) is that it dramatically increases the number of IP addresses available (from 2^32 in IPv4 to 2^128 in IPv6).

So – knowing that IPv6 would become a reality eventually, I figured it would be a fun exercise to allow my home computers (both Mac and Windows, even Linux) to be able to talk to the IPv6 internet (which – despite what you might expect – is essentially a different network which exists in parallel with the IPv4 Internet).

This is surprisingly easy to accomplish.   The first thing to do is head over to tunnelbroker.net, sign up for a free account, and set up a tunnel.  This tunnel lets you wrap IPv6 traffic in IPv4, and transmit them from your home network to an IPv6 gateway (where it’s unwrapped and sent on to the IPv6 Internet). Unless your ISP natively supports IPv6 (unlikely) this is the easiest way to allow IPv6 for now.

Once you’ve got a tunnel set up you need to set up the tunnel on your side.  Some consumer grade routers have settings you can configure for this.  In my case I used the IPv6 capabilities built into my Airport Extreme base station, and manually configured an IPv6 tunnel with the details provided by tunnelbroker.net for the newly created tunnel.

For those of you with Airport Extremes – this is the mapping of what the Airport asks for and the corresponding value from tunnelbroker:

• Remote IPv4 Address : Server IPv4 Address
• WAN IPv6 Address : Client IPv6 Address
• IPv6 Default Route : Server IPv6 Address
• LAN IPv6 Address :  Routed /64

Once you’ve configured those settings properly and applied, the AEBS will reboot and – once it’s booted – you should be able to reach the IPv6 Internet.

You can check this by pinging ipv6.google.com.

On Windows that’s as simple as running “ping ipv6.google.com” from a command prompt.

For Mac OS you would want to use the following: “ping6 -c4 ipv6.google.com” from a terminal.

Your results should look similar to the screenshot at the beginning of the post.

You can also go to test-ipv6.com, which will allow you to run a test to see whether or not your systems / network is capable of talking IPv6.

[Note:  I have dramatically oversimplified much of this in an effort to make it a little easier to understand. Feel free to leave questions in the comments and I'll attempt to address them at whatever level necessary.]

*: Depending on what that value is the network is either your local network, the Internet in general, or both.  Some values are reserved SOLELY for use in private networks and are “non-routable”.

The music / video files are all still there – even if the iPod app doesn’t appear to recognize that fact.  Thankfully – it’s not terribly difficult to GET the iPod app to recognize that the files are there.

I was able to do so a few minutes ago by hooking my iPhone up to my mac.  iTunes opened and said it was syncing the phone.   I cancelled the sync (the phone is synced with another mac, not this one) then opened itunes on the phone – I got the message “updating library… this may take a few minutes”  before poof – all of my media and playlists appeared.   It would seem that kicking off the sync is what triggers this – and my guess is it was supposed to happen during the update process but for some reason did not.

Too often we become mired in the bad things, however small, that have happened.  We fail to see the great deal of good things.  By focusing on the good, we can remain positive and turn a bad day into (at the very least) a decent day.

So next time you feel as though you’re stressed out and having a bad day – take a few minutes and think of three or four positive things that happened that day.

Focus on those things.

Feel any better?

You’re welcome.

The end result is that we have a lot of things that are half-assed or, at the very least,  not done as well as they could/should be.

What we should be doing – instead of focusing on everything we WANT to do – is focus on the few things we CAN do, and do them well.  Doing this, we can eventually get to the things we want to do.   We can build a foundation of things done right, and build upon that foundation.   It should be about quality, not quantity.

Since then, though, I’ve found that paying a little extra for some peace of mind is not a bad thing at all.   IF a component fails,  they’ll fix it for free.  I’m paying for the insurance that should something go wrong, I will be able to easily get it fixed.

My most recent experience with Applecare was regarding the laptop I’m writing this post on – an early (January) 2007 Macbook Pro.  I had managed to completely burn out not one, but TWO batteries with it.  This happened several months ago.  For some reason I had thought my Applecare was already expired so never bothered to take it in.  A few weeks ago though I realized it had not expired, so I made an appointment at the genius bar and took it in.   The genius looked at it and verified that both batteries were showing a maximum possible charge of 0, meaning they wouldn’t even hold a charge at all.   Since both batteries were so severely damaged (one of them having only gone through a dozen or so charge cycles) he offered to replace BOTH batteries.    So, in my case, Applecare was able to cover not just the original equipment – but also a battery that I bought a year and a half after I bought my Macbook Pro.   Nice.   The batteries aren’t cheap either,  so I’m definitely happy about how it all worked out.

I’m happy to report that both batteries are performing very well,   and the end result has been that I use this computer a lot more since I’m not tethered to a wall.

I’m sure there are those who don’t feel Applecare is worthwhile,  and don’t see a need for an extended warranty.   That’s fine, that’s your choice.   I’ve gotten it on each of my macs so far,  and each time I’ve been glad I did.

First, there was blogging. I love blogging – even if nobody reads what I have to write.  Then came Myspace/Facebook – while I have a facebook account, I *rarely* log in.  Then there’s Flickr for photo sharing (I use regularly), Twitter – for…. twittering, etc.

And there is one thing that binds them all….. Spambots.

My first experience with spambots – outside of receiving annoying spam email – was with my first blog, which ran on a MovableType platform. At the time there wasn’t any good way to combat comment spam because it was a new problem.  I ended up having to disable comments for a good period of time.

Then, services like Myspace became a haven for fake accounts with avatars of semi naked women saying they think you’re cute and want to be friends. It was a phenomenon that made the service worse than useless – it became annoying.

Facebook has – to my knowledge – not fallen prey to that. It’s annoying for different reasons. (I’m sorry – just because you went to high school with me doesn’t make us long lost friends. In fact, I’m pretty sure you tried to shove me in lockers or something.).

Twitter is fast becoming annoying because of it’s growing spambot problem.  I get followed on twitter by half a dozen spambots a week (or so it seems).  Thankfully, the way the service works I don’t have to follow them back, and in fact I don’t really give a damn if they follow me. It *is* annoying, but a minor annoyance.

The other day I got my first bit of Flickr spam in the form of a comment on one of my photos from a very obvious spambot.

All these spam bots are doing, is making it annoying for me to use these services. They aren’t convincing me to click their links (though I suspect they do entice some of the less intelligent of us).

Since I started using WordPress, the Askimet spam filtering for comments has caught over 35,000 spammed comments. I am not a well known site. I am not a big target.  I can’t imagine how many spam comments some better known sites would be dealing with.

Spam – even the kind that comes in the form of pre-processed meat in a can – is just not cool.

So – to you spammers out there…….. knock it the hell off!

One of the big problems that caused this crisis is the housing bubble that burst in the recent past – which was driven by the subprime mortgage industry.    This was an industry that, essentially, let people (temporarily) live beyond their means.   And, ironically, that’s exactly what caused the whole industry to implode in such a spectacular fashion that it took several Wall Street investment banks, and several regional banks, along with it (not to mention the rest of our economy…).

One of the things I was taught by my parents is that it’s important to live within your means – essentially the principle that you have to have a budget, and your spending cannot be more than your income.  Preferably your spending is LESS than your income so that you’re saving money and – if you’re smart – letting it work for you (stocks, mutual funds, however you want to do it) via long term investments.  That’s how I was raised, and that’s how I operate my finances.

So, with that in mind – and with my thoughts turned to our government – I had to ask:  Why doesn’t our government do that?

It would seem that our government hemorrhages money.  It’s horribly fiscally irresponsible, and yet we’re looking at THEM to answer our financial crisis?  A group of people who have an addiction to spending money (and who wouldn’t if they could just keep printing more!?) are supposed to tell us how to fix the economy?   Excuse me for being blunt but I have to ask – are we all retarded?!

The solutions proposed are nothing more than a band-aid.  They MAY fix problems temporarily, but if I were to guess I’d say the problem will resurface in the not-so-distant future and likely things will be much worse than they are now.  

We NEED to reel in our leaders and demand fiscal responsibility.  Our spending is skyrocketing, yet very few are seeing any benefit from it.  Is our national infrastructure better?   Have we fixed health care, or schools?  Have we made any inroads in helping people in our own country?   No – we haven’t.

Schools are worse, health care is lagging, unemployment rates are up, our economy is going south. 

Where are we spending these billions upon billions of dollars?   

Well, recently, to bail out companies that took unacceptable risks and made incredibly poor decisions.  Decisions and risks that were made possible by….. OUR GOVERNMENT!  

We’re also spending BILLIONS a month in Iraq to wage a war very few here really want to be involved in, for some reason that is nebulous and difficult to really ascertain. Does anybody really know what we’re even doing over there anymore? They have a government and, presumably, a military and police force… so why are we doing all the work for them? More importantly, why are you and I paying for it?

We need to take some of the power back from the government, demand that they live within their means, and hope and pray we can get some fresh minds in Washington who aren’t going to keep on going with the status quo and will actually do their jobs – work for the people. 

A problem I’ve found myself having lately, in regards to our upcoming elections, is getting real answers about the various issues.   It’s almost impossible to get anything out of the press these days and take it for face value.  Everything with politics in the media is one big ball of spin  - depending on your news outlet of choice.  I’ve also found that, depending on your political leaning, your news outlet of choice varies.   For instance – if you are fond of the Republican party, and pretty people, you can’t go wrong with Fox News.   If you’re fond of “The Dems” you probably enjoy CNN and The New York Times. 

Why is this the case?   And Why does Ann Coulter, a journalist,  have 3 books that all have “Liberal”, used in a negative way, in the title?   The answer is corporation.

Gone are the days (or, perhaps more likely, NEVER were the days…) where reporters and journalists reported “just the facts”, and present are the days when reporters and journalists report “just the facts, as spun in such a way to make it palatable to the corporation that owns the newspaper, station or network I work for”.  If that corporation happens to favor the “right wing”, then the stories will have a slant that is favorable to the right wing.     If It’s more “liberal”, however,  the stories will be more favorable to the left. 

This brings up a fundamental problem.  If you were to ask the majority of people what the purpose of the nightly news, or the daily newspaper, was – their answer would probably be “to report the news”.  This seems like a fairly straightforward notion – a news program, and news paper, should report … well, NEWS!  What many people may not immediately realize (and some unfortunate souls NEVER realize) is that this isn’t straight news,   it’s news filtered through that agency’s agenda.   Sure, some things are just straight news,  i.e. “a triple homicide occurred last night in the downtown neighborhood of blah blah blah” – it’s pretty hard to politicize that (ok, it’s not that hard, but it IS easy to pick out when they’re doing that).  But for the most part it’s all spin.  The problem, then, is that we’re not having the news reported to us in an unbiased way, and many people (forewarning: some will probably accuse this of being elitist – it is not.  It’s the truth, and sometimes the truth sucks) don’t possess acumen to realize it.  Some people DO possess the acumen but, for whatever reason, choose to either not care or to ignore it. 

So,  why is this a big deal?     Well, perhaps it isn’t for many – but it is for me.   Why?   For the simple fact that – when a news agency starts filtering it’s stories through it’s own agenda it loses it’s objectivity, and in doing so, loses it’s credibility as a source of real, actual, news.    I can then no longer trust it to give me the facts – I have to go out and check it’s story to verify the facts, and if I have to do that then why am I even bothering to view it’s stories in the first place.

Why do they get away with it?    I have a theory on that.   People don’t like to hear things that are contrary to their beliefs.   Want proof of this?  Have a philosophical debate with someone sometime.  I was a philosophy minor in college – I know what the end result will be (I’ve been there MANY times).  If you like debating and actually KNOW philosophy you’ll probably GREATLY enjoy the conversation.  The other person will likely eventually devolve into rambling, cursing and shouting (in some rare cases, foaming at the mouth).  It will probably end with balled fists being slammed onto a table and/or someone walking out in a huff. 

Because people like to hear things that parallel their views they are instantly drawn to news sources that have a slant similar to their own.   That’s why right wing fundamentalists flock to Fox News as if it were the Mecca of television news.  

This all stems from the realization that – despite several months of reading about both candidates, I know NOTHING about what they really stand for.  Why?  Simple.  If I were to believe what I’ve read, both are, absolutely without a doubt, the single best candidate for the presidency.  Since you can’t have a plural singularity (that’d cause the fabric of space-time to implode and destroy us all.  So could the LHC at CERN, if it ever were to REALLY work, but I digress…), I know something must be broken with our media.   Or perhaps it’s working exactly like it’s intended.