Lots of Books up for grabs!

We are clearing out a spare room of furniture (already claimed), book shelf (still available), and some of the books (still available) on the shelf.  What’s the point of storing all these books unless they are going to get read?  So, if anyone is interested in any of these books let us know.  If not, we’ll just donate them or take them to a thrift store.  Just thought I’d see if anyone had any interest before I just gave them away.

(I’ll probably be adding to this list for a day or so…)

Computer Related Books:

• Practical C Programming By: Steve Oualline
• C the Pocket Reference Second Edition By: Herbert Schildt
• Artificial Intelligence Using C By: Herbert Schildt
• Learning C By: Peter Aitken
• Learn C Now By: Augie Hansen
• Supercharged C Graphics By: Lee Adams
• Systems Programming in Microsoft C – Second Edition By: Michael J. Young
• Object-Oriented Software Engineering – Examples in C++ By: Steve Hallday, Michael Wiebel
• Easy Object Programming for Windows Using Visual C++ By: Richard O. Parker
• Object-Oriented Programming in Microsoft C++ By: Robert Lafore
• The IBM PC & PS/2 By: Peter Norton & Richard Wilton
• Assembler Language Programming – For IBM and IMB Compatible Comptuers By: Stern, Sager, Stern
• Windows NT - The Next Generation By: Len Feldman
• Advanced Windows Programming – Covers Windows 3.1 By: Martin Heller
• Introduction to Networking By: Nance
• Virtual Reality Playhouse – Explore Artificial Worlds on Your PC By: Nicholas Lavroff
• Word for Windows

Books on Dogs

• Dogs for Dummies
• The Art of Raising A Puppy

Philosophy

• Great Dialogues of Plato
• Aristotle Ethics
• David Hume – An Enquiry Concerning the Principals of Morals
• Kant – Fundamental Principals of the Metaphysic of Morals

Physical

• Feet First – A Guide to Foot Reflexology

Fun day in Point Reyes

Walking on the beach at Drakes Bay, Point Reyes National Sea Shore.

To wrap-up the fun week Anna and I had (see previous post), all three of us went to Point Reyes for the day.  The Friday started out with the plan to go to SunSplash water park in Roseville.  It turned out they were closed.  We were left with the desire to play in the water, but there aren’t any good beaches in Sacramento.  So, I said “Lets go to Point Reyes”! and that’s all it took.  Next thing we were packing for the day and heading out to our favorite spot.  I’ve posted many more photos on my flickr site, as well as my smugmug site.

View of Drakes Bay as we walk down the beach.

We walked down the beach enjoying the breeze and surf, looking for unique rocks and shells.  Then Anna and I kicked off our shoes and played in the surf and dug trenches and pools in the sand.

After getting covered in sand, we cleaned off at the visitor center and drove into town for a bite to eat at our favorite restaurant Cafe’ Reyes, then walked down the main street of town checking out the many art shops.

We found a new art shop called Viewpoints that had some great photos of the area and paintings.  We picked up a few little souvenirs in the form of fridge magnets.  The paintings represented on these can be found at the artists site: Christine Decamp.  Oddly the gallery doesn’t have a web site yet.

Turtle Turtleback & Storm.

Annual Father Daughter Week! Day Three

After spelunking through mines and caverns yesterday in the Gold Country, it’s back to San Francisco to visit the De Young and the Japanese Tea Gardens.  Today the King Tutankhamun exhibit is the main attraction.  Going mid-week turns out to be great. We didn’t have very many people at the exhibit to wade through just to see the pieces.  Anna wasn’t all that into the King Tut display, but when we passed through the gift shop she liked all the King Tut related stuff.  I ended up buying her a bracelet, writing pad, pencil, & bamboo book mark with a turtle carved out, and a gem stone turtle for mom.  Once we made it out of the souvenir shop, we ran into Adam, who’s working at the De Young.  Actually I was too focused on Anna and deciding what to see next when Adam ran up and caught our attention.  It was a short conversation, I’m sure he couldn’t break away from work too long just to shoot the breeze but I’m glad we ran into him.  After talking to Adam we caught lunch at the nice restaurant at the De Young.

After lunch we browsed the rest of the displays.  The African exhibit up stairs was more interesting to Anna than King Tut was.  Once we had seen all the art, we headed outside.  I’d planned on going straight to the Japanese Tea Garden, but instead we walked around for a few minutes and ended up at this neat pond next to the museum.

Turtles and lily pads next to the De Young

Anna met a little girl and they played around this pond and park area for awhile.  I talked with the girls parents while shooting some photos. Turned out they were from Korea and the dad is a visiting professor for a year.  Their daughter didn’t speak any English, and the mother only spoke some.  However, we still managed to carry a conversation, and enjoyed watching our daughters play together.  I think Anna enjoyed that play time more than the museum or the Tea Gardens.

After a while we headed over to the Tea Gardens and I shot a few photos of Anna and the gardens.

After checking out the Tea Gardens, we headed out of town.  We were going to stop buy Anna’s Aunt’s house in Vallejo on the way home and visit for a few minutes.  Her aunt Katherine loves art and museums and Anna, so I though she would like talking to Anna about what she saw at the De Young and the Academy of Sciences.  The only problem I had was getting out of town.  My GPS was having a difficult time locating the satellites, so I just drove by feel until it finally synced with the satellites.  I was close!  Only a couple blocks from the freeway on-ramp.

Day four we stayed in town while waiting half the day for a tire place to put two new tires on my car.  We did manage to walk to Starbucks to meet mom for lunch while my car sat waiting its’ turn.  We were so hot by mid after noon when my car was finally done, we went straight home and jumped in the pool.

Annual Father Daughter Week! Day Two

We had planned to visit the De Young and see the King Tutankhamen exhibit before it left California for another 30 years, but after spending a whole day in S.F. just to see the Academy of Sciences… we thought it better to reschedule that for later in the week and try something different.

Tag board to track who is below in the mine

So, we packed our cameras and flashlights and headed for the hills looking for the Mother Load.  First we went to the Sutter Gold Mine, a real working mine still producing lots of gold.  There we took an open mining car down into the mine.  Anna was a bit scared as the car drove down the tight road to the mine entrance but she seemed fine once we were in the mine zipping down the tunnel in the dark.  Kind of the opposite of what I would have expected.

Entrance to the Mine

Once we got about 1200 feet into the mine there is a safety room dug out of solid “green rock” which is very dense hard rock.  Then they reinforce the room with steel bars drilled deep into the rock and a mesh anchored to the walls.  This is the room they go to if there are problems in the mine.

Zipping down into the mine!

Further down we got out and walked into a narrow side tunnel where they were following a vain of quartz.  Here the miner showed us the difference in appearance between pyrite and gold.  He then showed us several pieces of powered equipment the miners used to drill into the rock.  We learned about problems with dynamite and what the modern safer explosives are that they use now.

600ft or more below the surface

Then a quick ride back to the surface!  Anna had a blast and since the tour didn’t take much time, we headed out for lunch and then drove on to California Caverns.
The caverns were so dark that I don’t have many photos that turned out for that trip.  When I tried using a flash the dust particles in the air (though unnoticeable otherwise) nearly obscured the subject of the photo.  Here are the few photos worth anything.  These turned out because of some marginal lighting the had installed.

It was a long drive home on the winding roads, I didn’t use a map I just relied on my GPS to get us home, hopefully in the quickest way possible.  Next, it's back to S.F. …

Annual Father Daughter Week! Day One

Once again this year I took the week before school starts off and Anna and I spent the week checking out new places and sights we haven’t seen yet.

This year we started the week by going to San Francisco and spending the day exploring the California Academy of Sciences!  Cool place!  It took all day to see everything and Anna got to see an 4 story indoor Rain Forrest with all the colorful birds, frogs, butterflies, geckos, snakes, & more, a modern Planetarium, an Albino Alligator, a huge aquarium very similar to the Monterey Bay Aquarium, which we had taken Anna to 2-3 years ago.  She talked with the diver before he went down in the main tank for the scheduled feeding, that’s when she learned that I am a certified diver too.  She couldn’t wait to talk with the diver after the show to tell him her dad was a diver too. I had to explain the difference between a professional diver and a recreational diver.

Tank Diver

There were also several dinosaur skeletons, which Anna had fun posing with…

Saber Toothed Tiger

The planetarium was a modern digital projection on a domed ceiling that curved closely over-head.  The imagery was so clear and sharp that people were advised to close their eyes if they became dizzy or disoriented during the show.  It started out on earth at the Academy of Sciences and gradually panned out into space.  Then we visited several planets in the solar system and beyond to other parts of the milky way then out even further before returning to earth.  Anna was a bit scared at first and crouched on the floor holding my leg until we were out in space then she was fine.  Too bad I couldn’t take any photos in side the planetarium.

After the planetarium we went up to the Living Roof and got a cool breather.

Up on the Living Roof

Later after lunch we checked out the exhibits in the Natural History museum with Lions, Zebras, Cheetah, penguins, gorillas, etc., including skulls of man as he evolved that we could touch!

Day Two was very different but just as much fun…

Horse Back Riding, Point Reyes, CA

We had planned on taking a day trip to Point Reyes over the 4th of July weekend but we had not made any specific plans about what we would do once we got there.  This works fine because there is so much out-door stuff to do and sites to see that we have visited this area several times a year for the past 10 years and we still enjoy just being there.

Well, When we woke-up Friday morning I let Anna pick one of her DVD’s to watch while we slept in for a few more minutes.  She chose Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron, while she stat on the couch with her two favorite stuffed ponies, Spirit & Rain.  Suddenly it occurred to me that she would probably love to go Horse Back Riding.  So, I called Five Brooks Ranch in Olema, which is just outside of Point Reyes Station but still in the Point Reyes National Sea Shore Park.

After We all enjoyed the ride, we drove out Sir Francis Drake to the Lighthouse just in time to make it down the 300+ steps make a quick stroll around the Lighthouse and head back up the steps.  We made it just as they were closing the steps for the day.  It was a nice cool temperature the hike down and back up, though it was pretty crowded.  We usually are there during the week so we were surprised by the large number of people.  I’d recommend visiting on a week day (except Tuesday or Wednesday when the Lighthouse is closed) to avoid the crowds.  Just be there before 4:30 when they close the steps down to the Lighthouse, or 4:00 when the gift shop closes.

Then of course we had dinner at Reyes Cafe’, our favorite restaurant in town and the only one we eat at!

It was a fun day and it was hard to leave to come home at the end of the day.

Example of a Passive network TAP

Today I wired up a passive network TAP. I followed the TAP wiring diagram found at this website. I also took into account some of the comments found on other sites that explain how to make a passive TAP. So, unlike some of the photos found online, I worked to maintain the twist in the wires to keep the interference down. I used CAT5e rated ports and wire, a face plate and small matching white box to enclose the back. All parts found at Home Depot. Cost was about $18 - $20 bucks and maybe 20 – 30 minutes to wire and assemble.

I’ll test it out at work tomorrow where I have a laptop setup with Wireshark running full time. Currently I’m using port mirroring but this should give me a more complete picture with all the packets that the switch might filter out. It will also reduce the load on the switch, not having to mirror all that data to another port. This will also free up that port for other use. I have a spare desktop computer with 2 NIC’s so I can get both sides of the traffic if the initial test is good.

Great New Restaurant in Folsom, CA

If you live in the area, I’d suggest giving this new place a try!  It’s called the Acorn Café.  I know the owners and the quality of the food they prepare.  I found this Yelp restaurant review while searching web to see what information might already be out there.  I’ll have a PDF of their current menu up as soon as I get it scanned.

conficker worm infection detection

There is a simple check that can be done to see if any computer in the office is infected with the conficker / downadup worm / virus. When a computer is infected it is blocked from accessing certain security related sites. The following 3 sites I've heard are among those blocked.

http://www.symantec.com/

http://www.sans.org/

http://update.microsoft.com/ - this one won't work unless you use Internet Explorer.

This is just another level of checking. Your antivirus should keep the infection out and you can also use nmap 4.85 beta 6 or newer to detect the presence of the virus / worm in a LAN using this specific scan:

nmap -sC -p 445 -d -n -oA conficker_scan -PN --script smb-check-vulns --script-args unsafe=1 192.168.1.1-254 (use your ip range here)

or

nmap -sC -p 445 -d -n -oA conficker_scan -PN --script smb-check-vulns --script-args smbdomain={your domain},smbuser={domain admin},smbpass={password},unsafe=1 192.168.1.1-254 (use your ip range here)

nmap is a great free tool as it can very quickly scan a whole subnet for a variety issues. The biggest hurdle is learning the many options for scanning on the command line. You can also use zenmap the windows GUI interface to the tool.

Julie's Latest Creation

This is Julie's latest work of art. She has created several mosaics both in and on the house. To see more of her work check out her flickr photo site at http://www.flickr.com/photos/picksnoz/. I've also posted the video on youtube.

Just tried this outstanding Oatmeal Stout!

I’ve always liked Guinness better then any other stout I’ve had and stout is the only bear I really like.  Well, tonight I opened a bottle of Barney Flats Oatmeal Stout from Anderson Valley Brewing Co.in Boonville, CA.  (My neighbor gave me the bottle last night after I gave him some free computer support.)  This beer has got to be far and away the best stout I’ve ever had.  If you like a beer described as “Slippery, creamy, dark, and sweet as a Pacific May morning,”. 

Gold Lame' Duck Hunter... "No Daddy, I Don't Want to Wear Camo."

E-Ink Reader that beats the Kindle

Coming later this year is a product by Plastic Logic that is prettier and more versatile than the Amazon Kindle. Here is an article on their e-Reader from cnet news. It is really thin, light weight, about 8.5x11, and supports many more file types than the Kindle currently does, including MS Word, Excel, PowerPoint, & PDF. They indicate that it has wireless connectivity and a large and growing list of content companies signed up to provide their content on this device.

Check it out!

Happy Birthday Sarah!

View at youTube

Stick Fetching Day at the River

For those of us who didn’t stay home and watch the super bowl, we found it to be a great day to take the dogs to the river.  We all had lots of fun!  Check out the slide show by clicking the photo below!

Tooth Number 6!

Anna just lost her 6th tooth!  This was the easiest one.  It just came right out when she pulled on it.

Here is Anna first thing this morning, showing us what the tooth fairy brought in exchange for the tooth.

Snow Day 2009

Recently we went to Nyack for our annual snow play day.

The Traveler

I found this great little book one day while at Starbucks.  It is a simple book that even my 6 y.o. daughter Anna could read.  It has a simple yet important message.  If you have the opportunity I’d recommend picking up a copy.  It’s a quick read, just a few minutes.

 

 

Simple and to the point, this story will wake you back up before you sleep through the best days of your life. Read it, pass it on to your children, and put a copy into the hands of your friends.