Jason Antman’s Blog

It’s been a while since I’ve posted any meaningful updates here. And it’s not for lack of work – actually, I have a page-long list of projects I’ve finished and things I’ve discovered that I want to share with… well… whoever finds me on Google. I’ve got some new code that needs attention – lots of tiny little make-life-easier scripts and some not-so-tiny stuff – as well as a few interesting things I’ve found, and some projects that deserve updates.

So, over the next week, I’m going to try and make it my purpose to start posting updates and shortening the list of things to mention. However, I’ve also decided to set aside a few minutes at the end of each day to post whatever I did/found that’s interesting, or add some updates on ongoing projects. Perhaps also have a weekly writing hour (probably on the weekend) to post larger updates.

It’s also worth note that, for the most part, I never started a blog in the hopes of having subscribers. I simply think of this as a place to post some useful things that I do or figure out, in the hopes that other people will stumble by and also find them useful.

So, what have I been up to lately? Let’s start with the past two days:

• Trying to get FreeRADIUS to authenticate with groupOfNames objects in OpenLDAP, the intended end result being centralized authentication for m0n0wall’s captive portal.
• At work, designing a system to test the client-visible functionality of a large captive portal system (on the order of 700 AP’s and 50k users) – essentially, sitting on a client VLAN and checking DHCP, DNS, HTTP redirects, and the validity of the login page.
• Security auditing of everything at home, and trying to find a working Nessus web interface.
• Continuing on my move over to static IP – specifically starting to roll out HTTPS for some internal stuff.
• Trying to get Vyatta’s VPN to work with a dynamically-IPed m0n0wall endpoint (in network-to-network).
• Some cabling upgrades at home and at the ambulance corps.
• Slowly but surely trying to make major changes and release a new version of PHP EMS Tools.
• Get Bacula working better.
• Load test this web server, and decide if it’s time for new hardware.
• Some new stuff for my truck.
• Get rid of MediaWiki as my homepage and replace it with a CMS.
• Continue my move to SubVersion and setup ViewVC for it.
• Rewrite my resume and start looking for jobs, as I’m finishing classes in July.
• Try to get some sleep and keep my sanity.

Personal updates

I happened to be working with some timestamps today and noticed that we’re starting to get into territory like 1234094400. So, being the geek that I am, I wondered when we’d finally hit 1234567890. The answer is 2009-02-13T18:31:30-05:00, which happens to be 18:31:30 on my birthday. Yay!

Personal birthday, timestamp

Unfortunately, my truck was stolen this past Friday while at work. I probably won’t be posting much in the neat future, as I’m going to be quite busy trying to get things back together (insurance, etc.) while also working and taking classes.

EMS, Personal

Well, it’s been a while since I posted. Things have been horribly busy in the school world, and I have some new projects I’m working on as well. Unfortunately, due to limited resources at the moment, I haven’t been able to give Zenoss a try. If I eventually find a nice 25-30U rack for the hardware running JasonAntman.com (in the basement of my suburban home, so headroom is limited to about six feet), I’ll probably move one or two machines from my apartment back there, reorganize things, and setup a Zenoss test (*if* I can get Xen to play well with some OS that has Zenoss RPMs, or give up and compile from source).
A few of my new projects:

• Some embedded Linux work
• Getting my new Deluo USB WAAS GPS working with my eeePC, and eventually add software for mapping wireless networks
• Mount an external 2.4GHz antenna on my truck, so I can hop on RUwireless without leaving the comfort of my home on wheels.
• Get a “N” wireless card and beta the wireless-N at Rutgers.
• Figure out development for PalmOS, and write a program to sync my Palm calendar with Google Calendar over-the-air.
• Do some work with a radio scanner and a system at home for recording and logging (maybe even MDC1200 decoding).

My pet peeve for the day – blogs and other websites that don’t list a date last updated. I’ve been looking around for alternatives to KPilot, and I have to look through all of the Google results, and figure out how old they are based on version numbers and which Palm devices are listed.

And, from Rutgers Telecommunications, this is what RUwireless looked like over spring break, and the Monday that everyone came back:

Personal, Projects calendar, gps, kpilot, mdc1200, palm, rutgers, ruwireless