WithinMorgan
Mac inside, geekette outside. Now available in RSS format!
Exim4 Remote Domain Mailing
Aug 27th
Yesterday we changed the domain on on of our services from .net to .com as well as setup Google Apps to handle email and such. Everything worked great until the web server hosting the domain tried emailing anyone at the new .com domain. It would return an error message:
remote host address is the local host
And basically would let me know the email address was not routable. I believe this was related to the fact that the domain was also listed in /etc/hosts so exim was trying to use the domain as a local domain instead of trying to deliver out the email remotely. After about 3 hours of troubleshooting I finally was able to use the hubbed_hosts router from exim to get exim to understand this was a remote domain. I edited the following file:
/etc/exim/conf.d/router/150_exim4-config_hubbed_hosts
I changed it so read:
hubbed_hosts:
debug_print = “R: hubbed_hosts for $domain”
driver = dnslookup
domains = “domain.com”
same_domain_copy_routing = yes
transport = remote_smtp
So any instances of those domains would be delivered remotely. I also setup aliases so that anything like root, postmaster, www would go out to real addresses as well. To be honest I am not even sure if this is the best way to accomplish remote domain emailing, but it’s working.
That said, it’s definitely time to start my weekend…enjoy yours!
The iPhone as a Gaming Device
Aug 1st
When I got my iPhone back in 2006 I thought it was the most marvelous device ever. There really were no ‘app stores’ for phones back then. I remember my previous phone, you could purchase these over-priced Java-based games which were terrible, but other then that you simply got the programs which came with the phone and that was it. That said, it made me a bit puzzled as to why people were up in arms about the fact that there were and at that point would be no 3rd party applications on the iPhone. I mean I did understand it, but I wasn’t that upset over it.
However as time went on, I definitely started to see the potential of the iPhone and more and more wanted for there to be 3rd party applications. For one, I really wanted to see my favorite To-Do application, Things to have an iPhone application. I even started to see potential for the phone to be a gaming device. Finally Apple released their SDK and the games and other applications started pouring in.
I think one of the first games I had for my iPhone was Pangea’s Cro-Mag Rally which coincidentally was the first game (or maybe it was Bugdom) that I really enjoyed playing on a Mac. The game took advantage of the iPhone’s accelerometers which I thought was really awesome and really showed the iPhone’s potentials. After that I picked up Pocket God, Plants vs. Zombies, Minigore, Words with Friends, Angry Birds, Doodle Jump, Critter Crunch, Peggle, Tap Tap (and it’s multiple versions), Driver, Oregon Trail and more. At some point I saw a a reference which pitted the iPhone against the devices which were solely meant for portable gaming; the Nintendo DS as well as Sony’s PSP. While I am not sure I would personally put the Apple iPhone in the same category as those devices it surely can be considered a portable gaming device, however I think there’s something that separates the iPhone from those. When I game on the iPhone it’s usually a quick round of Plants vs. Zombies, or I’m playing a few quick rounds of Tap Tap. I find the Apple iPhone to be better suited for my life style in that I always have it with me, whereas my Nintendo DS or Sony PSP are extra devices I need to pack to bring around with me. The games for those devices (or at least the ones I take interest in) require me to set aside time to play them (which can be quite difficult with my busy life). With my iPhone I can just whip it out and play a few rounds of Angry Birds or I can play a quick game of Doodle Jump without needing to set aside 30 minutes or a couple hours.
Of course, most of the games for iPhone don’t have much of a story-line or go into as much depth as the games for consoles and other popular portable gaming devices have. I doubt I’ll be seeing the next Final Fantasy XIII, DiRT2 or Modern Warfare for iPhone. But for general, quick, good, fun pick-up games, iPhone is certainly my device of choice. I am really impressed with the library of games available on the iPhone and am excited to see what developers have in-store for us over the next few years.
What’s your favorite iPhone game? I think mine’s a toss up between Plants vs. Zombies and Minigore. Both very well put together games which have provided me countless hours of fun!
iptables on Ubuntu 10.04
Jul 31st
I’ve always had issues with using iptables on Ubuntu. Why they make it such a pain in the butt to work with iptables is beyond me. That said, if you’re using Ubuntu 10.04 the normal ‘iptables save’ does not seem to work the way it think should. It seems to require an extra parameter for it to save correctly.
Running the following should save your chains and rules and make them available for when the system or iptables itself is restarted:
/etc/init.d/iptables save active
I am not too sure why this extra bit is needed as our Gentoo servers and even our Debian server simply allows just the save command to be used. However, I hope others find the above useful when working with iptables in Ubuntu. I am hoping the Ubuntu team fixes this (as well as the init.d scripts from the client version of Ubuntu if they haven’t already). I really hope even with the introduction of the ‘ufw’ (Ubuntu Firewall) software they don’t dumb down the functionality of iptables to where someone who knows what they’re doing is no longer able to do so.
Crystal Tech For The Win!
Jul 21st
Ever since switching our big sites (Scribbld & SceneJournal) over to CrystalTech we’ve had no issues and when any ones have arisen they’ve taken VERY good care of us. We rely on their services and superb network to give us 99.999%+ uptime! We’ve pushed 600+GBs out of our servers and very much appreciate CrystalTech for providing us with such great dedicated services!
Visit them at: http://crystaltech.com/.
Crackdown 2 Demo
Jun 30th
The Crackdown 2 demo is now available on the Xbox Live Marketplace for users to download. I grabbed my copy last night. I really enjoyed Crackdown which came out back in 2007 so I’ve been quite excited to see the next version of the game. The one thing I really enjoyed about Crackdown was it was very similar to the Grand Theft Auto series, but to me, it was even better. There are co-ops modes as well as the you can increase the strengths and abilities of your characters throughout the game.
The demo is time-limited which I did not like. Crackdown is something you cannot put a limit on. It’s far to large and expansive. However, even in the 30 minutes I did manage to get a lot done. I was able to complete a bunch of the objectives and explore a fair amount of the city. Basically you’re dropped into a hot zone which you need to take back from the Cell operatives. Other missions include activating power sources and reclaiming other sections of the city. The game plays very similarly to the first, however I did notice the HUD seems to have received an update. I am not sure I quite understood how the agents abilities are displayed/calculated in the new HUD, but it may be I just need to spend some more time reviewing it.
Before being dropped into the game I was able to customize my agent (looks and such) which was cool. The agents also seem to dawn different attire from the first game. They seem to have a look that has a bit of a mech-ish feel, or maybe even something from Gears of War. The game includes various weapons you can pick up and use against the Cell. The game also introduces the “Freaks” which are mutant zombies that appear in the game during the night. The game includes agility orbs as well as the orbs attained from defeating enemies. One thing I found to be a bit frustrating (which could actually be my controller) is the trouble I get when switching to a different gun. Your agent seems to be able to carry 2 weapons at a time (someone correct me if I’m wrong), and when I hit the ‘X’ button (for xBox360) it doesn’t always seem to switch guns.
Overall, I am impressed with the demo and cannot wait to get my hands on the final version. The release date is only about a week away, so I should be able to complete a couple of these demo achievements before the actual game comes out!
Resources:
Crackdown 2 on Wikipedia.
Crackdown 2 at IGN.
Ohai!
Jun 22nd
Hey everyone! Sorry I’ve been away for so long. This past winter my boyfriend and parents gave me the most wonderful Christmas present ever! They sent me out to California to a riding academy in which I learned so much and really had a great time. I spent about 6 months there. I am finally back home now and have a lot of plans for this summer.
I would like this summer, to really work on Confessh.us (considering it’s been about a year since I really worked on the code), as well as work on the design and back-end code of our movie rental application. I’ve already started porting the code into the new design (sucks we don’t really have a templating system). I’m also going to take a look at some of the PHP code to see if I can slim it down or optimize it in any way. The same goes for Confessh.us.
This summer I’ve also got a lot planned with the horses and with horse shows. We’re definitely trying to recognized!
I’m also going to try to whittle away at my video game list. I’ve got so many in there. I picked up Final Fantasy XIII the other day, but I do not see myself playing that game for many months. Heck I still haven’t completed FFX-2 haha. I really love it though. I’ve also got to get crackin’ on some Modern Warfare 2 stuff, if anyone is on LIVE, hit my up, ‘vtequine’ is my gamertag!
Anyways, I hope everyone is well. Keep checkin’ for new stuff!
Happy Birthday to my BFF – Rafael! <3
Nov 20th
A very very happy birthday to my best friend who no longer has time to talk to me anymore! Rafael, I hope you had a very wonderful birthday. Here’s to another year of eliteness and codez hacking skills!
Love Morgan xoxoxo
Google Chrome OS
Nov 20th
Someone posted a link to the Google Chrome OS on Twitter this afternoon. Since it was for either VMWare or VirtualBox, I thought why not give it a go? The download itself is about 300MBs and was really quick. However, the VirtualBox image from GDGT didn’t work for me, so I ended up snagging this image instead. This one did work. You should note that these builds weren’t compiled by me or people at Google by but someone else. You may wish to make yourself an extra Gmail/Google account to try this out.
Please note, if you’re getting the “No Network Connection, Offline Login Failed” you might want to try restarting the virtual machine or even your computer. Restarting my computer seemed to fix the issue, I believe that VirtualBox doesn’t complete it’s network (virtual adapters) setup until your computer is restarted but I could be wrong. Once you’ve actually gotten the image to boot you’re prompted to login. use your GMail account info, or if you have a normal Google account (@Google.com) this will work as well.
Upon logging into the system, you’re basically presented with the Google Chrome web browser. This is pretty much it. There’s a Google Short links, which I assume will basically give you short cuts to all the Google Apps (Docs, Sites, Calendar, Gmail, etc…), but yeah that’s pretty much it. Seeing as how this is probably pre-alpha, I guess it’s a start in the right direction. I am not sure what the final goal for the Chrome OS is, whether it be simply a portal to your Google applications or a bit more of a fully featured OS. It may indeed simply be something you toss on a netbook, boot into and have almost instant access to your calendars, emails, documents from Google, but I am not sure.
Apparently you also cannot change the resolution, so you’re stuck at the awful 800×600 for the moment. There’s not much tweaking you can do to the system, you can see the battery status (which makes me think this is geared to netbooks/notebooks, and you can check on the network status (see if WiFi/Ethernet is connected or not). You can also play with the settings of the web browser (which is essentially the only thing on the system haha). That said, it’s a neat idea and I certainly wouldn’t mind tossing this on one of my netbooks when it goes final. When I use my netbook I’m never usually doing anything outside of my web browser, unless it’s in a terminal so this would work quite well. I’m definitely excited to see it develop and mature!
