gramels blog

some impressions about dog rules at CCC camp 2007

A brand Rimowa Salsa Multiwheel 869.77 (110 liters) suitcase at the beginning of a longer trip.

Ein nagelneuer Rimowa Salsa Multiwheel 869.77 (110 Liter) Koffer vor einer langen Reise.

mit allen seinen Rädern

After each US flight one was missing, therefore the suitcase arrived back home like this. Maybe the US luggage handle staff had this Rimowa wheel cracking challenge. To be fair, the suitcases weight was about 31.5 kg, but the wheels should have handled that anyway.

Nach jeder Teilstrecke fehlte dann ein Rad, und der Koffer kam so wieder zuhause an. Vielleicht gab es ja einen Wettbewerb unter den Gepäckmitarbeitern an den US Fluhäfen "hey, a Rimowa, lets see if the wheel cracks". Der Koffer wog zwar 31.5 kg, aber er hätte das dann doch schadlos überstehen müssen.

Rimowa claimed a manufacturing problem and sent me new wheels (I did not want to bring it back into the shop).
Let's see, if they survive next time.

Rimowa beruft sich auf ein Herstellungsfehler bezüglich der defekten Räder und schickte mir Ersatzräder (da es mir zu mühsam war mit dem Koffermonster in einen Laden zu gehen).
Nun bin ich mal gespannt, ob diese die nächste Reise überstehen.

Yet another tobitoon with reference to me.

Please give tobitoon lots of comments .

It took me 20 years to get into one of the genius comics of my old friend from school Tobi. My visit to Alex & Tobs (plus the kids & the dog) finally made it happen.

Here it is!

intro

This howto is a extension to my recent "simple (fixed) asterisk callback configuration". This configuration is useful to trigger a callback from a location you rarely use, but provides a callerID. This is for example useful in hotel rooms for one night, phone cells, friends homes. The call process is the following:

1. you call from a phone with callerID 004144555111 the trigger number 004144555666
2. wait for the busy signal
3. hangup
4. wait until the phone rings
5. enter password
6. enter target number

The target number will then be called according to the outbound call routing in your pbx.

1. The system recognizes rejects all calls on the trigger number.
2. It uses the callerID and generates a temporary call file which will will be copied from a directory (/var/spool/asterisk/ in the example below) into the outgoing directory
3. asterisk initiates the outbound call according to the rules in the call file
4. once you pick up the callback call, you will get a dialtone and be able to dial as from a local extension

The goal of this small nerd activity is that my slimp3 networked mp3 players display displays the callerID of inbound calls so that I see who is calling even without looking at a phone. I have a networked slimp3 player in my living room as well as in my office.

Update: if you own a dreambox, see this article as well

prerequisites:

• asterisk server
• slimserver
• any kind of slimp3/squeezebox/transporter device from slimdevices
• slimdisplay.pl script (see below, modified based on gwendesigns SlimServer announcement script)

purpose:

Display incoming caller information on your squeezebox.

instruction:

intro

This a simple howto get a callback feature into asterisk.

Its based on the assumption, that you have a account at a provider, which lets you dial into your box remotely and the location you call from provides a callerID. So this setup is mostly useful, if you have a flatrate at home and would like to use it, lets say, from your parents place.

The call process looks is the following:

1. you call from the phone which sends the caller ID 004144555111 the trigger number 004144555666
2. wait until you get a buisy signal
3. hangup
4. wait until it rings
5. pick it up
6. enter password (optional, see security remark)
7. enter target number

Of course, you can setup more than one of those in case you are in a hotel and your room fone provides direct dial through callerID. Just install it temporarily for your hotel stay on your home asterisk.

Security remark: The authentication of the callback trigger is based on the callerID of the calling line. If your SIP provider allows SIP URI calls the callerID might be spoofed. I thats the case, you should but additional security in place (like a password, see below).

A more complicated setup which allows to trigger a callback from any number can be found here.

how does it work

1. The system recognizes the number you dialed and the number you dialed from (CallerID)
2. the call gets rejected
3. a fixed call file will be copied from a directory (/var/spool/asterisk/ in the example below) into the outgoing directory
4. asterisk initiates the outbound call according to the rules in the call file
5. once you pick up the callback call, you will get a dialtone and be able to dial as from a local extension

example

A while ago, I published the following picture to a security mailing list, asking:

I have seen a heavy increase of rejected mails on my mailserver since Sunday:

might be related to
http://www.f-secure.com/weblog/archives/archive-012007.html#00001087

Any thoughts...?

-L

The long term picture of this increase looks now like this:

The upper picture is the higher resolution of the jump at beginning week 4.

There are two things visible in the statistics of rejected emails:

1. an overall increase
2. a jump, beginning week 4

While 1.) is still not clear to me, a plausible reason for 2.) (the heavy increase during begin week 4) is, that my backup mx went down. It looks like, that there is certain spam (or email worms) out there, which tries to connect to the backup mx first instead of the primary mx.

Maybe because the backup mx is usually not as good protected...?

Well, Apple, well,

the products look cool (and i have to admit the iPhone might get me too), OS X is best in terms of usability, but the issues with the quality of the Displays of your flagship laptop are a killer.

MacBook Pro frustration - gramels blog

I had 3 (three) MacBook Pro and sent them all back today. The display just did not fulfill my quality requirements. My Compaq Evo N610c (3,4 years old) and my G4 15" Powerbook have better displays. Brithness and resolution are of course improved, but this is worth nothing if

• screen has a flickering shiny surface (grainy)
• viewing angle is bad

To keep a Macbook with a bad display to have the speed bump would have been a bad compromise.

Therefore I decided to avoid to be continuously annoyed about the display. I will keep my Powerbook G4 a while.

Hopefully the quality issues of Apple will go away and the displays will improve.

-gramels

Well, Apple, well,

beginning of December 2006 I thought it would be nice to have a new Laptop to play around with some photo software and get a speed bump for my Al PB 4G bought end September 2003. A MacBook Pro Core 2 Duo seemed to be a decent option. I also hoped that Apple had improved their quality management and I would not go through the nasty experience I had with my Al PB to have the screen replaced 5 times until it deemed ok (you might remember the white spots and the uneven illumination issues Apple had with their first 15" Aluminum PowerBooks). The fact that Apple was really fair with their replacement and repair policy mitigated the issues, however it was still annoying to spent hours in discussions with Apple Care reps and wait for a repair and return.

I ordered my 2.33 GHz MBP C2D 160 gig CTO matte on Dec-01-2006. It was promised to arrive Dec-21-2006, therefore I was very pleased to receive 4 days later the note, that it will ship Dec-05-2001. After TNT trying to hunt me down for some days hold it in my hands Dec-12-2006.

I booted up the nice box, but immediately recognized that something is strange with the screen. It was not obvious for me the first time. After working with it for half a day, I recognized stressed eyes. Further examinations of the screen showed the following issues:

MacBook Pro boxes piling up