Postfix 2.9 Upgrade 1
I recently installed APC’s PowerChute Network Shutdown so that my desktop could be alerted via a network connection from a SmartUPS 1500 with an on-board AP9630 Network Management Card to shut down when the power got low. Installation went fine (apart from having to manually install the latest version of […]

Manually Starting PowerChute Network Shutdown (PCNS) Service on a Windows ...

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Every year, for the past 36 years, the martial arts style Cuong Nhu has held an annual training event known as IATC: International Annual Training Camp. In its current form, the camp is held on Memorial Day Weekend on the campus of a major university, allowing hundreds of practitioners in […]

Cuong Nhu IATC 2013 Atlanta Survival Guide

For the very first time, the 2013 Annual Cuong Nhu Black Belt Meeting will be available via Google Hangout video conference for black belts not attending training camp. If you are a Cuong Nhu black belt who is not attending IATC 2013, Grandmaster Quynh encourages you to attend this important […]

Cuong Nhu IATC 2013 Black Belt Meeting Google Hangout Instructions

Finalizing their preferences 6
This post started in a grocery store last Saturday. My two daughters (Brooklyn – 16 and Sydney – 11) and I were shopping for the week, and we’d made it to the last item on our list: bottled water. As we headed down the water aisle, Brooklyn made a beeline […]

Which Bottled Water Tastes Best? You Might Be Surprised!

Linux Uptime
This is one of those reference posts mainly for myself, that helps me remember commands for stuff I have to do from time to time, but not often enough that I remember it without searching for it. This post is about MySQL commands. Resetting the Root Password: http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/resetting-permissions.html What to run […]

MySQL Commands: Password Reset, Initial Setup, and more!

2nd Amendment Icon
If you’re a Facebook user, you’ve probably already seen the red equal sign graphic that users are posting as their profile photo in support of equal marriage rights. I’ve even seen variations of it that have been altered to show the mathematical sign for “not equal,” in support of the […]

Second Amendment Rights Facebook Icon

Cisco/Linksys E4200 overclocked to 532 MHz 42
UPDATE: Newer versions of the DD-WRT firmware now include a web-based option for selecting your overclock speed, if it’s supported on your device. You can still follow these steps to overclock (and I recommend you continue reading so you understand what you’re doing), but now you can access overlocking on the Administration/Management tab. […]

How To: Overclock a Cisco/Linksys E4200 Router running DD-WRT

Ready to dive with a GoPro Hero 3 13
My wife bought me a GoPro Hero 3 Black Edition video camera for my birthday last month. I’m excited to try it out in a number of different environments, including the racetrack, or attached to a SeaDoo, or even while being beat up in karate class. But what I am […]

How To: Mount a GoPro Hero 3 Camera to a ...

GoPro Hero 3 can play HD videos in Windows 7, if you install additional codecs 16
My wife bought me a GoPro Hero 3 Black Edition for my birthday. It’s awesome. I’m really looking forward to shooting some SCUBA video with it in Cozumel in a couple weeks, but today I used it for the first time to film some karate self defense applications that I […]

How to Fix if Windows Media Player Can’t Play GoPro ...

Mangroomer Customer Service Rocks 1
What do flashlight manufacturer Maglite, bathroom fixture maker Kohler, and manscaping maven Mangroomer have in common? Awesome customer service, that’s what. All three companies have impressed me in the past week with top-notch customer service. Maglite Rave First, I noticed last week that one of my C-cell Maglite flashlights was […]

Rave: Maglite, Kohler, and Mangroomer Customer Service

O'Sensei Ngo Dong, Founder of Cuong Nhu 3
As I look forward to my Nidan test this May, I feel privileged to have trained under Masters John and Ricki Kay since I first joined Cuong Nhu. Both of them spent significant time with O’Sensei Dong during Cuong Nhu’s early years, and have shared countless stories of his wit, […]

Nidan (Second Degree Black Belt) Paper

Blueline PowerCost Monitor Facebook Post 5
Initially, I had intended this post to be one of my “rant” posts. In fact, I’d already written it in my head after a frustrating day of wrestling with a combination of badly-behaved piece of network hardware and unhelpful front-line tech support personnel. Regular followers of my blog are familiar […]

Rave: Blueline Innovations Customer Service

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When setting up a vanilla WordPress installation on a vanilla CentOS server with a vanilla Apache install, I kept getting 404 errors on pages and posts when Permalinks was set to anything other than the default. I fixed it by editing Apache’s httpd.conf file to add the following in the […]

WordPress File Not Found with Custom Permalinks

Tools Required for Sight Replacement on a Walther PPQ 11
Sometimes I write product reviews on my blog, and sometimes I write about DIY projects. This post is a little bit of both. I recently purchased a pair of Walther PPQ 9mm pistols. I love them. I’ve owned a Walther PPK for years, and as much as I love it, […]

Installing Trijicon Night Sights on a Walther PPQ

Potential and Kinetic Energy 5
I received a comment on a previous blog post recently arguing that “gun’s don’t make us safer.” By extension, I’ll link that to an even more general argument I’ve heard lately that “guns aren’t safe.” Oh… guns are dangerous, you say? Well, um, yeah. No duh. They’re literally designed to […]

The Argument that Guns Don’t Keep Us Safe

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I’m writing this post on January 16, 2013 — the same day that President Obama released a document entitled Now Is The Time: The President’s plan to protect our children and our communities by reducing gun violence. The full text of the document is available here. This blog post isn’t […]

Guns, Assault Weapons, and the 2nd Amendment

Upgrade from Fedora 17 to 18 with FedUp 1
Fedora 18 (codename Spherical Cow) was officially released today, and there’s a mad scramble to figure out how to upgrade to this latest Linux desktop from Fedora 17. Previously, you’d have to either do a fresh install with a CD or DVD, or you could use the built-in PreUpgrade method. […]

Upgrade from Fedora 17 to Fedora 18 with FedUp

Blackhawk 410610CBK Double Mag Case
Since I own a few different Blackhawk SERPA CQC retention holders (in carbon fiber finish, natch), I decided to pick up the matching Blackhawk 410610CBK Double Stack Double Mag Case. Up to now, I’ve been using a Safariland leather double-mag case, but the snaps are a bit difficult to manage so I […]

Review: Blackhawk 410610CBK Double Stack Double Mag Case

Winland Electronics WaterBug Sensor 22
I’ve already written plenty of posts about my experiences with the Ecobee Smart Thermostat. To say I’m a fan would be putting it mildly. But today, I became an even bigger fan after extending the functionality of my Ecobee Smart Thermostat by connecting a water sensor to it. My basement […]

DIY: Connecting a WaterBug Water Sensor to an Ecobee Smart ...

WiFi connection on iPhone 4 680
UPDATED Dec 21, 2016. This post is a reference post for those looking to squeeze maximum speed out of their Cisco Linksys E4200 v1 wireless router running DD-WRT. The DD-WRT build I currently recommend for this router is K2.6 30880 (by BrainSlayer). IMPORTANT: My testing shows that DD-WRT K2.6 builds are much faster on the […]

My Cisco Linksys E4200 DD-WRT Settings for Max Speed

Setting up multiple WLANs in DD-WRT 14
Even for the extremely ungeeky, having WiFi available throughout your house is pretty much standard these days. And while the next logical step of securing that network via encryption (WEP is for n00bs — those in the know use WPA2-AES) may not be standard, it really should be. Assuming you do […]

Use DD-WRT to Create a Guest WiFi Network and Block ...

APC RBC2 87
The concept of “planned obsolescence” is nowhere more visible than in the battery backup (or UPS – Uninterrupted Power Supply) market. With the insane prices the manufacturers charge for batteries, it’s easy to compare it to the video game console industry: the companies must barely break even (or maybe even […]

Dead UPS Batteries? There’s a Cheaper Way!

Streamlight TLR Keys 11
I like my Streamlight TLR-2 tactical light (a full review is coming eventually). Among its many positive attributes is the fact that it ships with four mounting “keys” that allow the light to be fitted to a wide variety of accessory rails. And, since my Sig Sauer P226 MK25 comes […]

Streamlight TLR-2 Mounting to a Sig Sauer P226 MK25