Yearly Archives: 2011


Locked House 17
This is somewhat of a different blog post for me, as I’m starting it before I even know what’s going to be in it. Maybe everything will go smoothly and this will be a boring story of how I made a couple phone calls and quickly and easily cancelled two […]

A Tale of Two Alarm Monitoring Cancellation Requests: Fire Protection ...


Just in time for the holidays, CheatCodes.com has launched a mobile-optimized version of their video game cheats website. As with the mobile versions of many other popular sites (such as Facebook and Google), you can access the mobile version of the website by putting an “m” in front of the address: http://m.cheatcodes.com/ […]

CheatCodes.com Goes Mobile!


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As part of our preparations for winter, my wife gently reminded me last week that she’s been asking me to fix the gas fireplaces in the house for months. But as a geek’s geek, I can’t just fix a fireplace, I have to upgrade a fireplace! We have three gas […]

Review: Skytech SKY-5310 Fireplace Remote Control



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I often say there are only two types of data: data that is backed up, and data that is waiting to be lost. Even if you’re the most contentious hax0r who always backs up your data, if your backups are stored in the same physical location as the source data, […]

How to Back Up a Linux Server to Amazon S3 ...


The Remington Wingmaster 870 is the quintessential American shotgun. There are many other renowned shotgun makers out there, and many other shotguns that have hosts of fancy features, but like an old-timer I met at a shooting range one time told me: “Some guns just feel right like an old pair […]

How to Field Strip a Remington Wingmaster 870 Shotgun


1
I’ve written a number of posts about the Ecobee Smart Thermostat since installing my first one in 2010. Since then, I’ve received a number of comments and emails asking if I knew of any discussion forums for Ecobee users. I didn’t, so I decided to launch my own using Google […]

Ecobee Discussion Forum for Owners, Installers, and Enthusiasts



BYU 1
Congratulations to the following recipients of the 2011-2012 Jenkins Family Foundation Scholarships at Brigham Young University: Joshua Dance – Information Systems Justin Eddy – Accounting Joe Hilton – Masters of Business Administration Mauricio Molina – Business Management Aaron Robison – Business Strategy Abram Skidmore – Masters of Accountancy Nathan Woobury – […]

2011-2012 Jenkins Family Foundation Scholarship Recipients


17
One recommended way to help secure your Postfix mail server is enabling TLS (Transport Layer Security) for connections to and from Postfix. You can search for more detailed descriptions of exactly how TLS works, but basically it’s a crypotgraphic protocol that allows connections between systems to remain secure. It relies on a key […]

Configure Postfix TLS with a Free StartSSL Certificate




Home Depot Credit Card 14
I shop at the Home Depot. A lot. And, as I do with absolutely every purchase possible, I used to always pay with my American Express Centurion Card (Membership Rewards points + hassle-free purchase protection). And, every time, as I’m sure Home Depot’s company policies dictate, the cashier would ask “Would you […]

Why I’m Canceling my Home Depot Credit Card


Amazon CloudFront 7
I found a great post by Clay Loveless who wrote a PHP script to batch invalidate files files on an Amazon Web Services CloudFront distribution. You rock, Clay. Amazon doesn’t even let us do that (yet?) via the AWS Mangament Console. Until now, when I wanted to manually invalidate a […]

Simple CloudFront Invalidation of a Single File via HTTP




Google Favicon 4
If you try to access the URL of your favicon.ico directly (http://example.com/favicon.ico) and your browser opens a “Save As” window instead of just displaying it, then your Apache isn’t set up to properly deliver the .ico file type. Add this line to your httpd.conf file: AddType image/x-icon .ico Don’t forget […]

Favicon.ico not loading? Add an AddType


4
This is one of those blog posts that’s more written for my own benefit to refer to later than for the benefit of the Web-at-large, but if someone else happens to stumble upon it and it helps you out, then cool. 🙂 I had to migrate a Fedora box (the […]

How to set up two NICs on different subnets with ...


CTEK OEM Chargers 11
As some one with a small car collecting problem, I don’t always get a chance to drive all my cars all the time. Some are stored in remote locations. Some are less amenable to rainy weather (the Atom). Some stay parked when gas prices are higher (the Hummer). Some might […]

Review: CTEK Multi US 3300 & Multi US 7002 12-Volt ...



DKIM Test Message 145
For those who want or need to compile and install OpenDKIM from the source code, you can follow the instructions I wrote in this article. If you’re looking for the fastest and easiest way to get OpenDKIM running on a RedHat or CentOS system, I currently maintain the OpenDKIM package in […]

Installing OpenDKIM RPM via Yum with Postfix or Sendmail (for ...


ecobee Firmware Update Screen 4
I’ve already discussed most of the pros and cons of the product in my ecobee Smart Thermostat review, and detailed my experiences with installing a second ecobee unit and using the group features. I’ve also documented some of my frustrations with ecobee’s tethered device approach, especially in the rare cases when […]

Installing Ecobee Smart Thermostat #5




iTAC-TDL1 Tactical Light 23
I picked up a Sig Sauer STL-300J STOPLITE tactical light this week to mount onto my Sig Sauer 556 SWAT. Here’s my review of this accessory. The retail price on this piece (which you’ll pay if you purchase it direct from Sig Sauer) is $215. The street price, however, is […]

Review: Sig Sauer STL-300J STOPLITE Tactical Light


WRT54G 12
Like many owners of the ubiquitous Linksys WRT54G wireless router, I like to run aftermarket firmware on my device to unlock more of this router’s potential. I use one as my primary wireless router in my house, but I also use some as wireless Ethernet client bridges and wireless repeaters. […]

Bricked WRT54G with Blinking Power Light. Hard reset? TFTP? Nope ...


3
As I do a fair amount of air travel, I sometimes convince family members to drop me at the airport, sometimes I use a car service, and sometimes I drive my own car and park it at the airport. For me, the latter is the most convenient, but depending upon […]

WallyPark Premier Garage Review



14
A while back, I noticed a recurring error in my maillog that read: postfix/smtp: certificate verification failed for gmail-smtp-in.l.google.com[74.125.53.27]:25: untrusted issuer /C=US/O=Equifax/OU=Equifax Secure Certificate Authority If you’re seeing this too, there’s an easy fix.

Fixing Postfix “certificate verification failed for gmail untrusted issuer” Error ...


Jiffy Lube Check-in Special 4
(The following is an email I just sent to the contact address on http://jiffylubeutah.com/) SUBJECT: Feedback for Jiffy Lube #2892 To Whom it May Concern: The purpose of this email is to inform you of my experience at one of your Utah Jiffy Lube locations on May 16, 2011. After picking my […]

I had a Jiffy Lube Coupon, but instead got “Stiffied.”