Set HTTP proxy (or anything else) with NetworkManager on Ubuntu

Posted on 5/10/2010 by Chris

I move around a lot with my laptop – home, church, Panera, airports – and hate having to make changes to various settings each time I connect to a different network.

NetworkManager provides a facility to run scripts when an network interface is brought up or shutdown. If you place a script in /etc/NetworkManager/dispatcher.d and make it executable, it will be run when NetworkManager changes the state of an interface. NM will pass the script the interface name, such as ‘wlan0”, and the status, either ‘up’ or ‘down’.

This is all well and good, but those scripts are run as the ‘root’ user, and I wanted to run scripts as my user, preventing my marginal shell scripting skills from running havoc on the rest of the system. So, I created a quick script to do just that.

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Posted in Coding, linux | Leave a comment

Mother/Daughter Blogs – Let the games begin!

Posted on 1/19/2010 by Chris

My wife and teen-aged daughter have started blogging with a view toward presenting “two sides” of the same issues. They are currently just getting comfortable with the idea of blogging and using the WordPress interfaces, but should start sharing common topics and situations, if not common view points. At some point we will move them to the 91CourtStreet.net domain, but until then they are hanging out at WordPress.com.

Wendy is the love of my life, but Petra is 99% my DNA so it should be interesting, to say the least!

It was kind of my idea so I only have myself to blame if I end up hiding out in the basement…

The wife’s blog is at http://whatdiddadsay.wordpress.com/

The daughter has a page at  http://sothedrama.wordpress.com/

Posted in General, Talking | Leave a comment

NOAA/Google Weather Maps

Posted on 12/31/2009 by site admin

When I was a kid, we listened to the local radio station for updates on impending snow storms. Next came storm tracking updates from the local broadcast TV news with updates on the half hour.

While at UMF in the early 90′s, one the computer center staff created a program that rendered raw NOAA satellite data over an image of a Maine map. We could see real-time satellite maps of a comming storm – it you counted the 30 minute rendering time on a 286 PC and nearly as long downloading the data files over the university 56k line.

Later, I remember hovering over weather.com for updated views and reports.

This morning, we are on the bleeding edge of Web 2.0 as the boys hover over the NOAA’s beta display . Their NEXRAD maps use a composite of Google Maps, radar images and weather warnings complete with animated time loops.

Now, if they could only do real-time Street View of the storm so I know when the plow trucks have blocked in the end f the driveway!

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Email to SMS Gateways

Posted on 12/4/2009 by site admin

Most major cellular carriers provide an email address for each user that will forward email as a text message to their phone. I have been digging around to find providers local to my area (central Maine) with the idea of creating a SMS prayer list tool.

Just so I don’t lose track of these:

Alltel – 2125551212@message.alltel.com
AT&T/Cingular – 3215551212@txt.att.net
Boost Mobile – 3215551212@myboostmobile.com
US Cellular – 3215551212@email.uscc.net
Nextel – 3215551212@messaging.nextel.com
Sprint PCS – 3215551212@messaging.sprintpcs.com
T-Mobile – 3215551212@tmomail.net
Verizon – 3215551212@vtext.com
Virgin Mobile – 3215551212@vmobl.com

There is a huge list available here.

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Wallpaper for the Names of God

Posted on 12/4/2009 by Chris
Names of God

Names of God

At the risk of this becoming a Christian wallpaper site, (I’ll leave that up to the real artists!) here is another 1280×800 background featuring many of the Old Testament names for God. I can make other sizes and aspect rations if you post a comment with your screen resolution.

Posted in IXOYE, Wallpaper | Leave a comment