Thursday, April 29, 2010

Shame on me once, Shame on me twice...

So... the other week Lynn's car got broken into. I'd left the door unlocked by mistake. I was pretty mad about the whole thing, both at myself for leaving the door unlocked as well as the fact that someone actually went up my driveway into my backyard and went through her car while we were home.

Now I've got to admit, I feel like even more of an idiot today. My car, sporting a new tire, is back in our driveway. And I left the door unlocked last night.

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

How To: Convert your webcam to see infrared

Okay, so I should put in a bit of a status update here on Operation Fury. The surveillance rig is up and running (a couple minor hiccups with the wireless connection, the culprit being a bad wireless adapter).

I still plan on doing a How To on setting up the actual surveillance setup itself, but I should probably do this one first. NOTE: This is a project in progress, I'll update the post when I'm completely done.

Friday, April 16, 2010

Operation Fury: Revenge is a dish best served cold...

Words cannot describe the rage I'm feeling. Someone is messing with the wrong dude...

Lynn's car got broken into last night. I shouldn't really say broken into, as I left it unlocked. Part of my anger is directed at myself... but we had 2 play houses for my daughter to get unloaded the other night from her dad's car, and I was carrying the little one, so we spent a good deal of time focused on getting everything into the house, so the car was left unlocked.

My car is waiting on a replacement tire at her parents because it got a nail in the tire, so there is one less car in our driveway. Typically we take my car when we go places, leaving Lynn's car alone in the driveway. Last night was our anniversary, and instead of going out, we decided to order out.

Since my car wasn't there last night, someone probably thought we weren't home. The thief probably went up the driveway as the property is fenced in pretty well on all sides (high, wooden fence) and it wouldn't be the first time I've witnessed someone sauntering down my driveway after casing our garage (cops showed up within a minute or two with a canine unit, the guy was already gone by then).

He opened Lynn's car, went through the glove compartment, center console, threw stuff around. I haven't even had the chance to check the trunk (we found out this morning as we were rushing to work) to see if anything is missing there.

Fortunately, there's not a lot to take; Lynn says her insurance card and registration is missing, but we'll have to take a closer look after work.

It's the principle of the thing that makes me mad. People think they can walk up my driveway, go into my garage, go through our property, and take what they want?! Hell no. I'm not putting up with that shit.

Read on to find out my latest project to bait and catch the bastard using a high-tech solution.

Thursday, April 15, 2010

Cisco studies

Alright folks, it's time I returned to studying for my Cisco certifications. I've been studying networking technologies over the last year off and on... and over the last 6 months it's been more off than on.

If I can get my Cisco lab set back up, I'll post some IOS configuration stuff and the like. Hell, I probably just shouldn't even bother and instead just do it all through Dynamips/Dynagen. There's just something about the whir of a commercial-grade router that's hard to beat.

I'd like to give a brief shout-out to the regulars at the
[H]ard|Forum Networking & Security forum. I frequent the forum occasionally myself, usually sticking to handling questions about SOHO networking and wireless networks that are usually fielded by confused gamers and the like. Some of these guys are pretty friggin' smart though when it comes to networking. I spent a while on a project with many of them, called PeerIX. It was great motivation for my studies and I hope to get back involved in it again, if not something similar.

Anyhow, that's all for now. Today is our (Lynn and me) 3rd anniversary. Actually, we're not terribly certain, I asked her out in 2007 around midnight on April 15th... so it could actually be the 16th, which we're leaning towards because it at least it isn't tax day.

I'm going to spend the afternoon building our daughter a play house for the back yard, and then maybe I can take us out to dinner or something. Romantic, I know...

Friday, April 2, 2010

Apologies...

I haven't blogged in a week. I've been working off and on on expanding my article on the EVO 4G and the Samsung Galaxy S, as well as dealing with the daily life of being a parent that works full time. So little time, so much to do...