https://vk5uj.com/Recent content on VK5UJHugo -- gohugo.ioen-usSun, 01 Oct 2023 23:50:04 +0930https://vk5uj.com/aprs/Sun, 01 Oct 2023 23:50:04 +0930https://vk5uj.com/aprs/APRS in VK5 / South Australia APRS in South Australia is on the 2M band, 145.175Mhz at 1200 baud. Mobile stations should beacon as WIDE1-1,WIDE2-1 as there is a reasonable digipeater and iGate network covering most of the populated areas of the state, the exception being the south east and far west of the state. Smart beaconing with short timers is discouraged, a sensible fixed beacon time of 1-2 minutes should be sufficient in most cases.https://vk5uj.com/the-little-book-of-common-sense-investing/Sat, 30 Sep 2023 20:15:00 +0930https://vk5uj.com/the-little-book-of-common-sense-investing/The Little Book of Common Sense Investing was More reviews and information at Goodreads. Good read: 7/10https://vk5uj.com/permanent-record/Tue, 19 Sep 2023 20:15:00 +0930https://vk5uj.com/permanent-record/Permanent Record is an autobiography focussed on Edward Snowdens’ life. It covers his life, his interests in computing and privacy, while providing an extensive back story about him as a person. It also goes through the events leading up to, and after his whistle blowing, more so than focussing on the information that was exposed. The book highlights that around the world, with our almost universal connectivity and devices, we are in an almost complete surveillance state where governments will go to any lengths to capture every bit of information they can.https://vk5uj.com/the-art-of-invisibility/Thu, 24 Aug 2023 20:15:00 +0930https://vk5uj.com/the-art-of-invisibility/The Art of Invisibility was written by Kevin Minick, one of the most famous and original “hackers”. The book highlights some of the ways that everything we do is being tracked and also provides ideas and tactics for methods to protect your privacy and be invisible. The book was written some years back, it’s scary to think how much worse the tracking invasion of our lives is now. In many countries it’s almost impossible to be invisible from companies and governments tracking your every move online or offline.https://vk5uj.com/blind-mans-bluff/Mon, 14 Aug 2023 20:15:00 +0930https://vk5uj.com/blind-mans-bluff/Blind Mans Bluff was More reviews and information at Goodreads. Excellent read: 9/10https://vk5uj.com/the-end-of-gender/Fri, 14 Jul 2023 20:15:00 +0930https://vk5uj.com/the-end-of-gender/The End of Gender is written by Dr Soh a sexologist, the book is an interesting and provocative read on a topic that can be quite polarising. While I’m sure there is a lot of generalisation, I felt that in her book, Dr Soh in a unbiased, systematic way offers sane and rational explanations about gender and covers some of the implications of gender, especially on young people and their development.https://vk5uj.com/dirty-genes/Tue, 27 Jun 2023 20:15:00 +0930https://vk5uj.com/dirty-genes/Dirty Genes is focussed on the field of epigenetics. I found it an ok read however by the end it was fairly repetitive and covered similar examples for each scenario. There is a clear focus that everything in your body works together, sometimes you’ll need to have targetted approach to treating X, Y or Z. Overall the message is to look after your health, eat well, excercise, sleep well etc etc.https://vk5uj.com/7-habits/Thu, 01 Jun 2023 20:15:00 +0930https://vk5uj.com/7-habits/The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People is a well recognised title and recommended classic reading in the personal development genre. In this book the author outlines principles that we can use to be more effective in our personal and professional lives. I find that people either love or hate this book, personally I found the perspectives given to be fairly practical and believe that you could use them individually or together to improve on what you do.https://vk5uj.com/money/Fri, 12 May 2023 20:15:00 +0930https://vk5uj.com/money/Money: The True Story of a Made-up Thing tries to cover some of the history of money, from ancient times to the more recent Bitcoin craze. There is a lot crammed into this short book as it attempts to document the history of money and society, I found it reasonably interesting despite it only covering most things at a fairly shallow, or simple, level. More reviews and information at Goodreads.https://vk5uj.com/farenheit-451/Thu, 04 May 2023 20:15:00 +0930https://vk5uj.com/farenheit-451/Farenheit 451 was written 70 years ago, however the themes could be taken to be relevant now more than ever. Control, lack of questioning, a captive people, group think, no dissent. I think people either hate it or love it as a book and come to their own interpretation of it. I enjoyed the story line, I wasn’t a huge fan of the writing style (2nd or 3rd person?), I would have liked to see the ending explored more.https://vk5uj.com/flash-crash/Tue, 25 Apr 2023 20:15:00 +0930https://vk5uj.com/flash-crash/Flash Crash is based on the true story of an individual trader in the UK who amassed a fortune trading from his parents home, he ended up being taken advantage of by financial advisors and prosecuted by various US Govt departments. The book was fascinating and entertaining, it is very well put together and keeps you engaged the whole way through until the end. The book highlights no matter what you think about what you are doing as an individual, once the US Govt decides to go after you for whatever reason, they will do everything in their power to create a case against you.https://vk5uj.com/survival-of-the-richest/Sat, 11 Mar 2023 20:15:00 +0930https://vk5uj.com/survival-of-the-richest/Survival of the Richest focusses on the rich and elite, how they view the world and their thought processes on surviving the future. I felt the book started off strongly in the first chapters but then faded away as it focussed on an ideology. It is good to think about the mindset that drives or influences those who are in the circles of power. More reviews and information at Goodreads.https://vk5uj.com/false-alarm/Sat, 04 Feb 2023 20:15:00 +0930https://vk5uj.com/false-alarm/False Alarm is written by an author who has a diessenting opinion to the current “mainstream” climate change narrative. It offers different ideas on possible solutions, highlights how humans will adapt to change and questions how much panic there should be. It’s always good to be open and listen to differing opinions about the data available. More reviews and information at Goodreads. OK read: 6/10https://vk5uj.com/the-queen/Sat, 07 Jan 2023 20:15:00 +0930https://vk5uj.com/the-queen/The Queen: Her Life is written by biographer Andrew Morton and provides a comprehensive account of Queen Elizabeth II’s life and reign. I realy enjoyed the book and learnt a few new things about the Queen and the Royal Family, the book did well at evenly covering all the different segments of her life from start to end. More reviews and information at Goodreads. Excellent read: 9/10https://vk5uj.com/2022-audible-stats/Sat, 31 Dec 2022 20:15:00 +0930https://vk5uj.com/2022-audible-stats/Audible generated a summary of my audiobook listening for 2022, it seems I completed just over 80 hours of book listening with Audible during 2022. This is in addition to my audiobook listening via Libby (which was the majority of my listen as I didn’t have an Audible subscription for part of the year), and also my podcast listening. I took advantage of a Black Friday special and have 15 credits to use now on Audible, so I will no doubt be doing even more book listening with Audible in 2023.https://vk5uj.com/2022-podcast-stats/Fri, 30 Dec 2022 20:15:00 +0930https://vk5uj.com/2022-podcast-stats/Pocket Casts generated a summary of my podcast listening for 2022, it seems I averaged just over an hour of podcast listening per day for the year.https://vk5uj.com/sierra-six/Thu, 24 Nov 2022 20:15:00 +0930https://vk5uj.com/sierra-six/Sierra Six is book 11 in the Gray Man series and covers the history of when the Gray Man had to operate as part of a team instead of being a sole operator. My only criticism was the constant back and forth between past and present, by the end of the book it had started to flow a lot better between the past and present. Good read: 7/10https://vk5uj.com/digital-minimalism/Wed, 09 Nov 2022 20:15:00 +0930https://vk5uj.com/digital-minimalism/Digital Minimalism is about how technology plays such a big part in our modern life today, how we can try to regain some control of our lives and attempt to manage the impact that technology and devices has on us. Near the end of the book was this statement that stood out and really summarised the book for me, very thought provoking. “Digital minimalism is about cultivating a life worth living in our current age of alluring devices”.https://vk5uj.com/relentless/Wed, 02 Nov 2022 20:15:00 +0930https://vk5uj.com/relentless/Relentless is book 10 in the Gray Man series and it’s a gripping storyline and well worth reading. In the last third of the book I found some of the plot line a little predictable (maybe that’s because I’ve read most of the series), however the book then finished in a way that I didn’t expect at all. Excellent read: 9/10https://vk5uj.com/just-keep-buying/Sun, 30 Oct 2022 20:15:00 +0930https://vk5uj.com/just-keep-buying/Just Keep Buying is a book on investing methodology. I’ve been a subscriber to the author’s blog for a while and I enjoy the content that he produces. The book was mostly what I’d expect and I largely agreed with most of the advice. A couple of slight annoyances that I noticed were: Many references to charts from the companion PDF, for an audiobook it was quite jarring. Some very specific US centric advice, especially around retirement funds and options.https://vk5uj.com/radical-candor/Tue, 18 Oct 2022 20:15:00 +0930https://vk5uj.com/radical-candor/Radical Candor is a book about how you can be a better manager, I didn’t agree with all of the methods, but certainly there are plenty of ideas and food for thought in it. It’s written from a management point of view from within big tech, the author constantly refers to her time at Google, which clearly was a great experience, but also doesn’t necessairly reflect the reality of every company that one might be a manager in.https://vk5uj.com/who-moved-my-cheese/Wed, 05 Oct 2022 20:15:00 +0930https://vk5uj.com/who-moved-my-cheese/One of the managers at work suggested the book Who Moved My Cheese to me. It’s quite a short book, rather a story about change and the choices we have on how to approach change. The version I listened to also had a prologue by the author, which was quite interesting. Good read: 7/10https://vk5uj.com/none-dare-call-it-conspiracy/Wed, 14 Sep 2022 20:15:00 +0930https://vk5uj.com/none-dare-call-it-conspiracy/In politics, nothing happens by accident. If it happens, you can bet it was planned that way. Franklin D. Roosevelt None Dare Call It Conspiracy was written over 50 years ago by Gary Allen, and while it was written from a US centric point of view I still found it an interesting take on what happens in the world. When reading books (or, listening in this case) I try to have an open mind and find what might be applicable or relevant to my world and life.https://vk5uj.com/atomic-habits-audiobook/Sat, 11 Jun 2022 20:15:00 +0930https://vk5uj.com/atomic-habits-audiobook/Atomic Habits is a fairly well written book about the power of habits. Good read: 7/10https://vk5uj.com/dick-smith-my-adventurous-life-audiobook/Fri, 13 May 2022 20:15:00 +0930https://vk5uj.com/dick-smith-my-adventurous-life-audiobook/Dick Smith My Adventurous Life is a great insight into the life of one of Australia’s most well known entrepreneurs. Excellent read: 9/10https://vk5uj.com/the-compound-effect-audiobook/Sun, 06 Mar 2022 20:15:00 +0930https://vk5uj.com/the-compound-effect-audiobook/The Compound Effect is yet another finance book. Nothing outstanding: 5/10https://vk5uj.com/one-minute-out-audiobook/Sun, 27 Feb 2022 20:15:00 +0930https://vk5uj.com/one-minute-out-audiobook/One Minute Out is book 9 in The Gray Man series. It was a good read, although I found the first person viewpoint a little off putting at first. Good read: 7/10https://vk5uj.com/mission-critical-audiobook/Thu, 10 Feb 2022 20:15:00 +0930https://vk5uj.com/mission-critical-audiobook/Mission Critical is book 8 in The Gray Man series. It was an excellent read with lots of detail, although I felt a little predictable near the end. Excellent read: 9/10https://vk5uj.com/rich-dad-poor-dad-audiobook/Mon, 10 Jan 2022 20:15:00 +0930https://vk5uj.com/rich-dad-poor-dad-audiobook/Rich Dad Poor Dad is yet another finance book. I felt it started off ok, but ended up feeling like it was just someone who had done well with property telling everyone else they should do the same. Given the book came out quite a few years ago, the property markets are quite a lot different now and some of the concepts mentioned don’t have the same opportunities. Nothing outstanding: 5/10https://vk5uj.com/the-reaper-audiobook/Mon, 01 Nov 2021 20:15:00 +0930https://vk5uj.com/the-reaper-audiobook/The Reaper is a decent book, the story is told from the viewpoint of one of the worlds best snipers and his experiences on the battlefront. Good read: 7/10https://vk5uj.com/ice-station-audiobook/Sat, 23 Oct 2021 20:15:00 +0930https://vk5uj.com/ice-station-audiobook/Ice Station is a book that captivates you and you won’t want to put it down once you have start. It has a great storyline that keeps you in suspense the entire way through. Excellent read: 9/10https://vk5uj.com/budgets-dont-work-audiobook/Fri, 20 Aug 2021 20:15:00 +0930https://vk5uj.com/budgets-dont-work-audiobook/Budgets Don’t Work delves into the human psychology around money. Just as we are different in how we approach most things in life, the goal of this book is to highlight how we are all different in the ways we work with money and finances. The book explains how to analyse and categorise your “money type”, then offers suggestions on how to work with the strengths and weaknesses of your “money type”https://vk5uj.com/kochies-11-step-money-plan-audiobook/Sun, 18 Jul 2021 20:15:00 +0930https://vk5uj.com/kochies-11-step-money-plan-audiobook/Kochie’s 11-Step Money Plan is pretty much Kochie’s version of Barefoot Investor, but somehow not as good! If you’ve read Barefoot then I’d suggest you probably won’t get much out of this book. I didn’t actually finish spend the time to finish listening, after the first few hours I found it just wasn’t compelling and I hadn’t heard anything new or revolutionary. Nothing outstanding: 5/10https://vk5uj.com/you-need-a-budget-audiobook/Sun, 13 Jun 2021 20:15:00 +0930https://vk5uj.com/you-need-a-budget-audiobook/You Need a Budget is a book by the founder of the popular YNAB system, the book explains more about the system and how it can be applied. I found it interesting to hear a bit more about the background of the system from the inventor of what is now a very popular method to manage your finances. Ok read: 6/10https://vk5uj.com/the-diabetes-code-audiobook/Fri, 21 May 2021 20:15:00 +0930https://vk5uj.com/the-diabetes-code-audiobook/Based on the authors experiences, The Diabetes Code covers how diet has a massive impact on health, particularly around obesity and diabetes. Jason goes into a lot of detail and statistics, it can get a bit monotonous at times however it is also very eye opening. Considering that low carb/low sugar/high fat diets were for many years not considered healthy or suitable, it’s great to read some of the massive differences that a diet change can make in people.https://vk5uj.com/vk5-aprs-coverage-eyre-peninsula-road-trip/Fri, 22 Jan 2021 20:15:00 +0930https://vk5uj.com/vk5-aprs-coverage-eyre-peninsula-road-trip/Recently we did a road trip from Adelaide to Port Lincoln on the Eyre Peninsula. During the trip I had APRS beaconing from my Yaesu FT3DR into a Diamond MR77 on the car roof. The output from the FT3DR is only 5 watts and the antenna is only quarter wave equivalent and has lossy cable feeding the magnet mount. You can see from the screenshots below that the coverage from the APRS network in VK5 from Adelaide through to Port Lincoln by road is pretty good, if you used a higher power transmitter I expect you would see even better coverage.https://vk5uj.com/2021-house-power-consumption/Wed, 20 Jan 2021 20:15:00 +0930https://vk5uj.com/2021-house-power-consumption/Recently I was able to confirm what the current baseload power consumption of our house is. I haven’t been able to do it for a while, however this month before we headed off on a trip away we made sure everything in the house was turned off except for: Main Fridge NAS / Server running Unraid NVR + Cameras Network routers, many wifi radios, network swtich etc Various IOT devices Base load of the house is roughly 250w draw with peaks up to about 350w when the fridge cooling cycle kicks in, there is a slight uptick in base power usage during the day as the house heats up.https://vk5uj.com/the-bourne-evolution-audiobook/Mon, 18 Jan 2021 20:15:00 +0930https://vk5uj.com/the-bourne-evolution-audiobook/While on holidays this month I read The Bourne Evolution, a new novel in the Jason Bourne series. For whatever reason I love these sort of novels and once I got started listening I couldn’t stop! Instead of randomly browsing on my phone at night or in the morning when I woke up, I found myself listening to this book and managed to complete it in about 4 days despite a busy holiday schedule.https://vk5uj.com/get-your-life-back-audiobook/Sun, 10 Jan 2021 20:15:00 +0930https://vk5uj.com/get-your-life-back-audiobook/I listened to Get Your Life Back, a self help book style book which present options on how to find relief and beauty in a world full of 24x7 rushing. Some of the ideas were quite practical, I liked the One Minute Pause idea. Ok read: 6/10https://vk5uj.com/the-simple-path-to-wealth-book/Sat, 11 Jul 2020 20:15:00 +0930https://vk5uj.com/the-simple-path-to-wealth-book/This month I read The Simple Path to Wealth, a recommended classic amongst the FIRE community. It’s a really easy book to read with simple concepts, it kind of feels like bit of an American version of the Barefoot Investor, although a lot more focussed on the long term like retirement. Roughly the last quarter of the book wasn’t super relevant to Aussies as it was focussed on US specific conecpts of 401k, ROTH IRA etchttps://vk5uj.com/the-next-millionaire-next-door-audiobook/Thu, 21 May 2020 20:15:00 +0930https://vk5uj.com/the-next-millionaire-next-door-audiobook/This month I read The Next Millionaire Next Door. I read the original millionaire-next-door-audiobook about a year ago and loved it. Ok read: 6/10https://vk5uj.com/the-360-leader-audiobook/Tue, 10 Mar 2020 20:15:00 +0930https://vk5uj.com/the-360-leader-audiobook/This month I listened to The 360 Leader, it’s targetted at people in management positions on how to be a better leader. Ok read: 6/10https://vk5uj.com/the-magic-of-thinking-big-audiobook/Wed, 12 Feb 2020 20:15:00 +0930https://vk5uj.com/the-magic-of-thinking-big-audiobook/This month I read The Magic of Thinking Big, it’s a book full of ideas on how to develop your thinking and grow beyond your present situation. Ok read: 6/10https://vk5uj.com/tubes-book/Sat, 11 Jan 2020 20:15:00 +0930https://vk5uj.com/tubes-book/This month I read Tubes - Behind The Scenes At The Internet. As someone who has worked in the Internet industry for 20+ years I found this quite a well done story on how the various Internet infrastructure comes together. Intertwined with some of the Internet history the author describes visits to newer Internet facilities such as Equinix DCs. Excellent read: 9/10https://vk5uj.com/how-successful-people-think-audiobook/Tue, 12 Nov 2019 20:15:00 +0930https://vk5uj.com/how-successful-people-think-audiobook/This month I read How Successful People Think, it’s a motivational book about how to change your thinking. The author defines 11 keys that can be focussed on for successful thinking. I think I will probably read this one again in the future to re-enforce some of the ideas. Ok read: 6/10https://vk5uj.com/the-dark-net-audiobook/Sat, 12 Oct 2019 20:15:00 +0930https://vk5uj.com/the-dark-net-audiobook/This month I read The Dark Net, a book about the darker side of the Internet. The book explores various subcultures and has some interesting interviews with a range of different people. Some of the content was heavy and quite hard going, to me this book just highlighted the dark side of human nature is everywhere, as opposed to just being an Internet phenomenon. Ok read: 6/10https://vk5uj.com/your-money-or-your-life-audiobook/Mon, 12 Aug 2019 20:15:00 +0930https://vk5uj.com/your-money-or-your-life-audiobook/This month I listened to Your Money or Your Life, it’s an often recommended book by author Vicki Robin. It contains mostly sensible commonsense advice, the audiobook version I read is a newer shorter version and it contained nothing terribly earth shattering! Ok read: 6/10https://vk5uj.com/year-of-less-audiobook/Thu, 11 Jul 2019 20:15:00 +0930https://vk5uj.com/year-of-less-audiobook/This month I listened to The Year Of Less, it’s the experiences of a young woman decluttering and simplifying her life. Nothing outstanding: 5/10https://vk5uj.com/frugalwoods-audiobook/Fri, 21 Jun 2019 20:15:00 +0930https://vk5uj.com/frugalwoods-audiobook/This month I read Meet The Frugalwoods: Achieving Financial Independence Through Simple Living This book follows the life of a couple who decided to live frugally and found out how little you actually need in life to be happy. Ok read: 6/10https://vk5uj.com/millionaire-next-door-audiobook/Wed, 01 May 2019 20:15:00 +0930https://vk5uj.com/millionaire-next-door-audiobook/This month I read The Millionaire Next Door: The Surprising Secrets of America’s Wealthy The book is based on a reasarch project about wealthy Americans, focussing on behaviours for 2 groups, those who are Under Accumulators of Wealth and those who are Prodigious Accumulators of Wealth. The main points are: Don’t spend more than you earn Avoid spending on lifestyle status Invest wisely for the future Good read: 7/10https://vk5uj.com/richest-man-in-babylon-audiobook/Sun, 10 Mar 2019 20:15:00 +0930https://vk5uj.com/richest-man-in-babylon-audiobook/This month I read The Richest Man in Babylon. I enjoyed listening to this book, set in Ancient Babylon it’s kind of like a Pilgrim’s Progress for Finance. Written in the 1920’s, parables (small stories) are used to explain concepts and outcomes and the financial advice that this book contains is well worth following. Excellent read: 9/10https://vk5uj.com/iwoz-audiobook/Mon, 21 Jan 2019 20:15:00 +0930https://vk5uj.com/iwoz-audiobook/This month I read iWoz: Computer Geek to Cult Icon: How I Invented the Personal Computer, Co-Founded Apple, and Had Fun Doing It. It’s pretty much Woz’s life from his viewpoint, so from time to time it feels a bit laboured on how awesome he sees himself! The historical back story to many parts of technology and Apple today makes it worth listening to. Good read: 7/10https://vk5uj.com/spam-rbl-performance/Fri, 21 Dec 2018 20:15:00 +0930https://vk5uj.com/spam-rbl-performance/I run scripts to generate weekly statistics of how effective various RBL’s are for whitelisting/blacklisting of IP addresses sending email into servers that I look after. Near the end of 2018, this is the current RBL performance I’m seeing on my servers. Listed as a percentage of blocked/rejected incoming mail connections. RBL Blocked % Spamhaus Zen 81.63 JMF-Black 13.56 UCEPROTECT-1 3.09 Gbudb 1.08 Barracuda 0.33 Spamcop 0.25 WPBL 0.06 I specify RBLs in my Exim configuration in order of their efficiency at blocking spam connections, from time to time I change the order based on effectiveness.https://vk5uj.com/spam-rbls/Wed, 14 Feb 2018 20:15:00 +0930https://vk5uj.com/spam-rbls/RBLs can be used for outright blocking of email or for scoring as part of SpamAssassin configuration. In my case I use RBL’s in the Exim config on cPanel servers for outright blocking, this is to minimise how much email needs to be processed by SpamAssassin, reducing server load. Whitelists Because I choose to reject email outright based on RBL blacklists, I use some RBL whitelists to first verify if email should be blocked and help minimise false positives and collatoral damage :-) They run sequentially with first match = email accepted and passed on to SpamAssassin for processing.https://vk5uj.com/cpanel-spamassassin-global-settings/Wed, 10 Jan 2018 20:15:00 +0930https://vk5uj.com/cpanel-spamassassin-global-settings/On a cPanel server the default server wide SpamAssassin settings are stored in the /etc/mail/spamassassin/ directory. In my case I wanted to adjust the default spam score of 5 to something a bit higher. 1) Open /etc/mail/spamassassin/local.cf in your favorite editor. 2) Uncomment "required_score 5.0" and update the value to suit 3) Restart the SpamAssassin daemon by running /scripts/restartsrv_spamd I also wanted to adjust the scores for SPF_PASS and SPF_HELO_PASS as I found the default values to be set too low.https://vk5uj.com/13-hours-benghazi-audiobook/Fri, 28 Apr 2017 20:15:00 +0930https://vk5uj.com/13-hours-benghazi-audiobook/This month on Audible I read 13 Hours: The Inside Account of What Really Happened in Benghazi, which is about the attack in September 11 2012 Benghazi, Libya, ton he US State Department Special Mission Compound and a nearby CIA station. The book is based on the personal stories of American security contractors who were involved in defending the locations and protecting the US staff at the sites. The saddest part is realising that less people could have lost their lives if quicker decisions had been made by those in power.https://vk5uj.com/gunmetal-gray-audiobook/Tue, 28 Mar 2017 20:15:00 +0930https://vk5uj.com/gunmetal-gray-audiobook/This month on Audible I read Gunmetal Gray, it turns out this is book 6 in a series called the “Gray Man” and is centered on a character who is labelled as the world’s deadliest assassin. There was plenty of action and suspense from start to finish and I found myself unable to easily stop listening! The storyline was well put together and keeps you engaged right until the very end.https://vk5uj.com/the-concrete-blonde-audiobook/Tue, 28 Feb 2017 20:15:00 +0930https://vk5uj.com/the-concrete-blonde-audiobook/This month on Audible I read another Michael Connelly book called The Concrete Blonde and it’s the third book in a series featuring the character, detective Harry Bosch. It was a great listen and up to the usual Michael Connelly standard, I expect I’ll be reading a few more in this series over time :-) One thing I noticed is how much different technology is in 2017! The day to day way of communicating has changed so much since 1994 when this book was written.https://vk5uj.com/red-platoon-audiobook/Sat, 28 Jan 2017 20:15:00 +0930https://vk5uj.com/red-platoon-audiobook/This month on Audible I read Red Platoon, a first hand experience from soldiers on the ground at a remote American base in Afghanistan which came under heavy attack and was overrun by insurgents. The author was awarded the Medal of Honor for his role in the “Battle of Keating” firefight where many soldiers from Black Knight Troop lost their lives defending the remote outpost. There are quite a number of sad moments in the book and it can be quite heavy going.https://vk5uj.com/operation-overflight-audiobook/Fri, 28 Oct 2016 20:15:00 +0930https://vk5uj.com/operation-overflight-audiobook/This month on Audible I read a book called Operation Overlight, it’s the memoir of Francis Gary powers who was a U-2 Spy Pilot shot down over Russia in the cold war. Written in 1970 it’s very immersive and detailed account of the U-2 program and this incident which up until now I only had a basic understanding of. I learned a fair bit about American and Russian politics, however it felt like the last quarter of the book dragged on and could have been condensed.https://vk5uj.com/archive-team-warrior/Mon, 10 Oct 2016 20:15:00 +0930https://vk5uj.com/archive-team-warrior/The guys at Archive Team have a goal of archiving Internet services that are being closed or shut down, they’ve had varied success over the years and do a good job of highlighting Internet services that are about to vanish along with the data that users have uploaded. To help out and assist in their efforts to archive, you can run the virtual appliance called Warrior. It uses a bit of CPU and bandwidth and by default starts automatically working on whatever is the current archiving project of the day.https://vk5uj.com/the-black-ice-audiobook/Wed, 28 Sep 2016 20:15:00 +0930https://vk5uj.com/the-black-ice-audiobook/This month on Audible I read a Michael Connelly book called The Black Ice and it’s the second book in a series featuring the character detective Harry Bosch. It was an exciting listen, with a number of twists and turns the storyline is of a calibre that you expect from Michael Connelly! Excellent read: 9/10https://vk5uj.com/the-martian-audiobook/Mon, 29 Aug 2016 20:15:00 +0930https://vk5uj.com/the-martian-audiobook/During August I read The Martian book on Audible. Having seen the movie before reading the book, I found that the book fills in quite a few details that aren’t necessarily obvious or covered in depth in the movie. After listening to the book it’s obvious there are some areas that were glossed over or rushed through for the movie, it feels like they could do a decent extended edition of the movie at some point.https://vk5uj.com/hashcat-versus-oclhashcat-speed/Thu, 23 Jun 2016 20:15:00 +0930https://vk5uj.com/hashcat-versus-oclhashcat-speed/If you’re familiar with the password recovery tool Hashcat you’ll know that the default go to is the GPU version, oclHashcat. A quick demonstration of why you don’t bother using the CPU version of Hashcat any more. First up, the Hashcat benchmark against md5crypt with 16CPUs on a “grunty server”. The benchmark shows a capability on this setup of 58,000 brute force attempts per second. While this will get you started, it means once you are recovering passwords beyond 5 or 6 characters, your time for recovery is going to be weeks/months/years.https://vk5uj.com/check-mac-hardware-version-osx-command-line/Mon, 23 May 2016 20:15:00 +0930https://vk5uj.com/check-mac-hardware-version-osx-command-line/Have you ever wanted to look up the hardware specifications of your Mac? It’s easy enough and can be done from the OSX command line using Terminal App. To find your hardware version, open up Terminal App and run the command sysctl hw.model in a terminal window. Running the command will print out a model number that looks something like this: You can plug this model number into the excellent Ultimate Mac Lookup by EveryMac and get a listing of the hardware specifications for your Mac.https://vk5uj.com/get-https-for-free/Sat, 16 Jan 2016 20:15:00 +0930https://vk5uj.com/get-https-for-free/A site that may be useful for those looking to get a free Let’s Encrypt SSL certificate but don’t want to (or can’t) install the official client. This website is designed for people who know what they are doing and just want to get their free https certificate. https://gethttpsforfree.com/ The website works by generating commands for you to run in your terminal, then making requests to the Let’s Encrypt ACME API to issue your certificate.https://vk5uj.com/heysen-trail-part2/Sat, 27 Dec 2014 00:23:00 +0930https://vk5uj.com/heysen-trail-part2/Today we did “Part 2” in our Heysen Trail journey, we started where we finished at the end of our Part 1, at Greenhill Rd Summertown. The first part of today’s walk was through the back of the Cleland Conservation Park, which is a well known local tourist spot. We exited Cleland at Mount Lofty, and after a brief stop for lunch we continued on with the trail going behind the famous Mount Lofty House.https://vk5uj.com/free-secondary-dns/Sun, 28 Sep 2014 20:15:00 +0930https://vk5uj.com/free-secondary-dns/Even if you have a server (or two) running your own DNS, to minimise service interruptions or outages it’s a great idea to have additional secondary DNS servers that are separate from your infrastructure. These are some of the free secondary DNS providers that I have used. 1984 5 DNS hostnames in Europe, some are anycast in multiple EU locations. Afraid Single DNS server in Chicago IL, USA. ClouDNS 4 DNS Servers 1 DNS zone, 50 records, 500k queries/mo Hetznerhttps://vk5uj.com/free-dns/Sat, 27 Sep 2014 20:15:00 +0930https://vk5uj.com/free-dns/You don’t want to run your own DNS servers? Never fear! There are some great options for free DNS providers. Below in alphabetical order are of some of the free DNS providers that I have used in the past, or currently still do. 1984 4 DNS servers in Europe Allows other secondary slaves bunny.net 20M queries/mo ClouDNS 4 DNS Servers 1 DNS zone, 50 records, 500k queries/mo deSEC 2 DNS server hostnames that are Anycast.https://vk5uj.com/create-osx-mavericks-bootdisk/Fri, 04 Jul 2014 20:15:00 +0930https://vk5uj.com/create-osx-mavericks-bootdisk/To create a bootdisk for OSX Mavericks to install on a MAC that can’t do a network install, I followed these steps. First make sure you have Install OS X Mavericks in your Applications folder, if you don’t have it, download it again from the Mac App Store. Next, format a USB drive/flash using the Disk Utility App and the following paramters. 1. Name `Untitled` 2. Format type `Mac OS Extended (Journaled)` 3.https://vk5uj.com/strip-exif-linux/Sun, 22 Jun 2014 20:15:00 +0930https://vk5uj.com/strip-exif-linux/Sometimes when I put photos online I want to ensure that embedded metadata such as location, is removed. On Linux, exiftool is an easy way to strip some, or all, metadata. First things first install exiftool, on Ubuntu it’s a simple apt-get away: $ sudo apt-get install libimage-exiftool-perl Once you’ve installed the application, navigate to the folder where your images are. To remove all data from all images, run the following command:https://vk5uj.com/ssl-bundle/Wed, 18 Jun 2014 20:15:00 +0930https://vk5uj.com/ssl-bundle/A journey of a thousand sites begins with a single click. Author Unknown When installing PositiveSSL certificates on cPanel servers, I always add the CA bundle to ensure that no browsers complain about the certificate. Some browsers will complain that the Certificate isn’t from a Trusted Authority. This is because browsers have a built-in list of “trusted certificate authorities”, some certificate authorities are not included in these lists. In order for a certificate authority to be able to sell certificates, they had to be vouched for by another certificate authority that is trusted.https://vk5uj.com/humble/Mon, 16 Jun 2014 00:15:00 +0930https://vk5uj.com/humble/Humility is to make a right estimate of one’s self. Charles Haddon Spurgeonhttps://vk5uj.com/heysen-trail-part1/Mon, 09 Jun 2014 00:23:00 +0930https://vk5uj.com/heysen-trail-part1/Today I started walking the Heysen Trail with Luca, maybe one day we’ll finish it maybe we won’t, however it’s a good father and son outdoor activity. The Heysen Trail is a long distance walking trail in South Australia. It runs from Parachilna Gorge, in the Flinders Ranges via the Adelaide Hills to Cape Jervis on the Fleurieu Peninsula and is approximately 1,200 kilometres (750 mi) in length. The above is from the Wikipedia entry for the Heysen Trail, another great resources for information about the Heysen Trail is the Friends of the Heysen Trail website.https://vk5uj.com/syslog-ng-error-setting-capabilities/Wed, 12 Jun 2013 20:15:00 +0930https://vk5uj.com/syslog-ng-error-setting-capabilities/After a recent host update one of my VPS’s, a Debian 6 “Squeeze” container in OpenVZ, started spitting out errors from the logrotate cron like this: /etc/cron.daily/logrotate: syslog-ng: Error setting capabilities, capability management disabled; error=‘Operation not permitted’ The solution I found was… Edit the default syslog-ng file with vi /etc/default/syslog-ng Uncomment the line #SYSLOGNG_OPTS="–no-caps" And then restart the daemon /etc/init.d/syslog-ng restart No more errors :-)https://vk5uj.com/great-southern-land/Tue, 30 Oct 2012 20:15:00 +0930https://vk5uj.com/great-southern-land/Tonight I watched episode 4 of a pretty neat small documentary on Australia called Great Southern Land 1. I’ll have to watch the earlier episodes soon as I really enjoyed this one, which unfortunately was the last in the series. It’s always good to remember a bigger picture perspective on what goes on around our country, it’s easy to get very focussed in our own little worlds. Great Southern Land GREAT SOUTHERN LAND will lift viewers into the heavens for a grand and fascinating look at the stunning patterns of Australian life.https://vk5uj.com/more-to-be-thankful-for/Sat, 04 Aug 2012 20:15:00 +0930https://vk5uj.com/more-to-be-thankful-for/Tonight while doing the dishes I watched an Australian Story episode1 on iView. The episode was about an Australian family who had adopted 2 Ethiopian children and their journey over time though that process. Watching the story re-inforced how blessed we are to live in Australia and have our children growing up in Australia, with access to all the good things that we do. This episode is well worth watching as a way to reset your perceptions on how “tough” your world might be.https://vk5uj.com/factory-reset-brother-hl2170w/Sun, 20 May 2012 20:15:00 +0930https://vk5uj.com/factory-reset-brother-hl2170w/Just because it came in handy for me, here’s how to factory reset a Brother HL-2170W. 1. Turn the printer off. 2. Turn the printer on while holding the GO button down. 3. All lights should be off, now push the GO button 7 times, it will flash each time. 4. Wait for a minute. The printer will start it's reboot sequence. We are in temporary accommodation and the printer was still setup on our old network and I couldn’t get into it, problem now solved.https://vk5uj.com/openbeacon-transmitter-kit/Wed, 18 Apr 2012 20:15:00 +0930https://vk5uj.com/openbeacon-transmitter-kit/Adding to my list of “want to build” items, I saw this one tonight. OpenBeacon is an open source crystal-controlled QRPp beacon transmitter kit which can output a variety of slow-speed modes, including QRSS, DFCW, and Sequential Multi-tone Hellschreiber. More reading at the suppliers website.https://vk5uj.com/february-2012/Wed, 29 Feb 2012 20:15:00 +0930https://vk5uj.com/february-2012/Some Instagram photos from February 2012.https://vk5uj.com/january-2012/Tue, 31 Jan 2012 20:15:00 +0930https://vk5uj.com/january-2012/Some Instagram photos from January 2012.https://vk5uj.com/50-rules-for-dads-of-daughters/Thu, 05 Jan 2012 20:15:00 +0930https://vk5uj.com/50-rules-for-dads-of-daughters/Of course you look silly playing peek-a-boo. You should play anyway. Michael Mitchell Found this list of 50 Rules for Dads of Daughters. It’s a good list, food for thought, and like any list it’s just a good place to start making your own.https://vk5uj.com/beach-time/Sat, 31 Dec 2011 20:15:00 +0930https://vk5uj.com/beach-time/The kids had been waiting for ages to go to the beach, so on a nice 36 degree day, the second to last day of 2001, we went to Henley Beach for a picnic dinner and splash in the water. Splish Splash - Luca and Leah Ready to Have Some Fun. How High - Luca Jumping Over Waves. Floating - Leah Practicing Her Swimming. Looking for shells - Leah Digging in the Sand for Shells.https://vk5uj.com/family-day-trip/Tue, 27 Dec 2011 20:15:00 +0930https://vk5uj.com/family-day-trip/December 26th 2011, a family trip to Victor Harbor and Granite Island. We had a picnic lunch at a park by the Victor Harbor foreshore then went for an afternoon walk over to Granite Island, we walked over the causeway and all around the island. The kids loved exploring and we all got a touch of the sun, otherwise nice as “Red Lobster” :-) Look over there Leah Pointing Out Where We Are Going.https://vk5uj.com/a-mini-expedition-for-qrp/Mon, 28 Nov 2011 20:15:00 +0930https://vk5uj.com/a-mini-expedition-for-qrp/Love this video of some guys going on a mini expedition to work QRP in north east Oregon, Eagle Cap SOTA. Great seeing them work CW and SSB QRP from a nearly 10,000ft summit. Just an awesome take off for RF and great views!https://vk5uj.com/to-become-a-father/Wed, 26 Oct 2011 20:15:00 +0930https://vk5uj.com/to-become-a-father/It is much easier to become a father than to be one. Kent Nerburnhttps://vk5uj.com/all-about-leah/Sat, 06 Aug 2011 20:15:00 +0930https://vk5uj.com/all-about-leah/Today I took Leah on a bus trip to the city and back, she had fun and got worn out. Drink Up - Enjoying a Fresh Pineapple Juice From a Rundle Mall Fruit Stand. Up we go - Taking a Quick Ride in a Lift. Very funny - Making Faces at the Camera Say cheese - Posing at the Silver Balls in Rundle Mall.https://vk5uj.com/websdr-slovenia/Tue, 31 May 2011 20:15:00 +0930https://vk5uj.com/websdr-slovenia/I was playing around with this WebSDR in Slovenia tonight, well it was around lunch time over there :-) The first station I picked up on 40m was a CW beacon “IZ3DVW/B” from Italy, I “googled” the beacon callsign and found out it’s running 100mw into an inverted V dipole. I’m not completely familiar with the geography so I used an online grid square converter to work out the distance between the SDR and beacon.https://vk5uj.com/colouring-in/Tue, 31 May 2011 18:15:00 +0930https://vk5uj.com/colouring-in/My little girl got creative with her textas and did some colouring in just for me!https://vk5uj.com/lucas-new-bike/Mon, 28 Mar 2011 20:15:00 +0930https://vk5uj.com/lucas-new-bike/Luca got a new bike from Nonna & Nonno. It’s still a bit big for him, but he is enjoying learning how to ride.https://vk5uj.com/they-love-each-other/Mon, 28 Mar 2011 20:15:00 +0930https://vk5uj.com/they-love-each-other/Luca and Leah having some fries for dinner. When they aren’t fighting like cats and dogs they do love each other :) Hugs - Yes yes we love each other! Fries - Don’t mind me sharing :-)https://vk5uj.com/nerf-gun-toting-cousins/Sun, 27 Mar 2011 20:15:00 +0930https://vk5uj.com/nerf-gun-toting-cousins/Luca loves playing nerf gun wars with his cousin Tobias. Tonight they were ganging up on a few of their uncles :)https://vk5uj.com/out-with-leah/Sat, 19 Feb 2011 20:15:00 +0930https://vk5uj.com/out-with-leah/I took Leah out to dinner. We had some hot chips and orange juice. It’s amazing how much more personality you see and learn about when you have the time to sit there and talk, actually just listening, you don’t get to talk so much… More so because Leah’s dummy was packed away in her purse, so I heard about everything :-) Dinner took a fair while to get through as Leah was quite concerned about the animals on Pet Hospital or similar that was showing on the TV screens, so there was lots of explaining to do and not tons of eating.https://vk5uj.com/new-years-eve-2010-fireworks-adelaide/Fri, 31 Dec 2010 22:47:00 +0930https://vk5uj.com/new-years-eve-2010-fireworks-adelaide/Took the kids to the family fireworks at Elder park for NYE 2010.https://vk5uj.com/continent-map/Mon, 08 Nov 2010 20:15:00 +0930https://vk5uj.com/continent-map/A map of the continents, a reminder for me :)https://vk5uj.com/very-simple-all-mode-receiver/Sat, 06 Nov 2010 20:15:00 +0930https://vk5uj.com/very-simple-all-mode-receiver/Here’s an awesome really basic receiver you can homebrew with bits from your junk box. The very simple receiver for the whole shortwave band. Regenerative control, tuning, band selection, it has everything. Even a fine tuning by moving your hand towards the coil! Read more at the authors website. As noted by Charley VK2ZYZ: This rig will never be you main rig, it is just a novelty but it is a blast, if you have a junk box and an hour to kill give it a go, build one with the grandkids.https://vk5uj.com/30m-qrss-transmitter-kit/Tue, 05 Oct 2010 20:15:00 +0930https://vk5uj.com/30m-qrss-transmitter-kit/I was just reading about this exciting QRSS Transmitter Kit by Hans Summers: This 30m QRSS Transmitter Kit was produced by Steve G0XAR and Hans G0UPL. The kit contains a keyer chip programmed with the buyer’s callsign, all components, and a 2.5 x 2-inch PCB to build my QRSS transmitter project More reading at Han’s website, however at 15 USD it looks like another kit I can add to my wish list!https://vk5uj.com/got-an-antenna-up/Tue, 10 Aug 2010 20:15:00 +0930https://vk5uj.com/got-an-antenna-up/Today I spent some time and got my G5RV / dipole back up in the air. It’s only temporarily up, the ends are on poles and the middle is on a ladder in an olive tree :-) Oh and the coax feeding the balun/600ohm ribbon is pretty horrid, so I have some work to do before it’s a permanent or useful fixture. Still this afternoon a quick listen on 20m CW I copied KH7Y from Hawaii and a quick tune up to the shortwave band I heard Voice of Malaysia on 15Mhz.https://vk5uj.com/windows-31-icons/Mon, 02 Aug 2010 20:15:00 +0930https://vk5uj.com/windows-31-icons/Ahh the glory days of Windows 3.1, who remembers installing it from 10 floppies! I read a decent article tonight on the history of computer icons, so many memories there :-)https://vk5uj.com/wlw-500kw-am-transmitter/Fri, 30 Jul 2010 20:15:00 +0930https://vk5uj.com/wlw-500kw-am-transmitter/I recently stumbled across this while reading something else on the web, as you do :) Somehow, he finagled the Federal Radio Commission into an “experimental” authorization for 500 kW, first with the special callsign of W8XO, finally as commercial WLW. More at the Ominous Valve site. It makes for some interesting reading, 500KW on AM is not to be sneezed at!https://vk5uj.com/more-radio-kits-small-wonder-labs/Sun, 25 Jul 2010 20:15:00 +0930https://vk5uj.com/more-radio-kits-small-wonder-labs/I’ve been looking around for some kits to build and one of the places I came across was Small Wonder Labs. I’m a bit taken by the Rock-Mite CW transciever, even a kit building noob like myself should be able to have a go at that. The PSK kit for something like 30m might be interesting, although some of the stuff that you can do with SDR makes it a bit pricey for a once use type kit.https://vk5uj.com/facebook-ads-they-know-me/Thu, 22 Jul 2010 20:15:00 +0930https://vk5uj.com/facebook-ads-they-know-me/I think this is too much targeted advertising for one night :-)https://vk5uj.com/whats-the-harm-using-opendns/Mon, 12 Jul 2010 20:15:00 +0930https://vk5uj.com/whats-the-harm-using-opendns/Tonight one of the regular update emails arrived from OpenDNS, I signed up with them years ago and have used their service on and off over time. The OpenDNS new Family Shield option looks interesting for those of you looking for options while we wait for the great Internet fillter of Australia! I thought I’d check out their DNS resolution again, just to see if things have improved, in the past it’s been pretty average for those of us in Australia.https://vk5uj.com/myschool-site-fail/Thu, 28 Jan 2010 20:15:00 +0930https://vk5uj.com/myschool-site-fail/So even after getting a pasting in the various media articles today the Myschool site is still failing. I thought I’d wait until the end of the day to try it out, however even clicking results just gives bogus errors. Seriously fail http://myschool.edu.au/ News articles from today: http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/my-school-website-glitches-o… http://www.news.com.au/national/technical-hitch-for-my-school-website/story-e… http://www.smh.com.au/national/education/sites-launch-off-to-a-bad-start-2010…https://vk5uj.com/about/Fri, 01 Jan 2010 23:50:04 +0930https://vk5uj.com/about/I’m located in Adelaide, South Australia. I love Photography, Ham Radio, Networks & Systems. Father of two awesome kids, husband to a great wife. You can reach me via email.https://vk5uj.com/vk5uj/Sat, 01 Jan 2005 20:15:00 +0930https://vk5uj.com/vk5uj/I started listening to shortwave radio, long distance AM radio, playing with CB etc when I was around 11. I first got my Australian Amateur Radio (Ham Radio) licence in the early 90s as VK5NOT, a Novice Licence, in the late 90s I did the extra exams for a “full call” and upgraded to VK5UJ, an Unrestricted Licence as it was known at the time. I’ve been mostly off air over the last few years with family commitments, however I keep in touch with whats happening in the world of Ham Radio and maintain a keen interest in APRS, QRP, kit building and more!