Author: Gerry

Evolution of a Mail Server

Post author By Gerry
Post date August 13, 2009
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My home network consists of 4 computers- 2 desktops and 2 laptops. My wife has one of each, both of which are more modern and both of which are Windows machines. My two machines are the EEE and a desktop which I’ve pieced together from leftover parts from prior desktops. It’s not a bad machine, it just doesn’t have the most up-to-date hardware. Still, it’s good enough to make for a good server machine. My most rewarding experience has been in the world of getting it running as a local mail server.

Bread

White Whole Wheat Bread

This recipe is very similar to the Wonder Bread recipe. The ingredients:

6 cups KA White Whole Wheat flour
2 1/4 cups of water
1 1/2 teaspoons yeast
1 tbsp kosher salt
3 tbsp sugar
1/2 stick butter

Interesting- a little more water (because of the whole grain flour), a little more yeast(same reason).

Dissolve the sugar in 1 cup of water, then add 1 cup flour and the yeast and set aside. Work the butter into the remaining flour using the mixer, then add the salt to the flour. Finally, add the remaining water and then wait about 20 minutes.

Add the flour-yeast mixture to the rest of the flour and start kneading. Start at a lower speed, once the liquid is adequately absorbed increase the mixer speed up to about medium. Continue kneading until the dough gets smooth and glistens. It will not be as loose as the Wonder Bread dough.

From hear, follow the same steps as for the Wonder Bread. Allow to rise 2-3 hours, then shape the dough and allow to proof for about an hour. Stick it in a 400 degree oven on the middle rack until the crust turns a deep brown color, then allow the bread to cool for half-an-hour before eating.

I’ll just note that I allowed mine to proof too long and when I finally put it in the oven, it collapsed as it baked. Most likely because the oven spring caused it to become unstable. It still tastes OK, but it doesn’t look as nice.

Family

Notes from Vacation

The Wife’s vacation started this past Friday at about 4:30 or so. The weekend was fairly unremarkable, but yesterday we ended up at the Air Museum. Lots of antique aircraft. Unfortunately, I’m pretty sure myself and the Wife enjoyed the trip more than the kids. Stuff like that can be a crap shoot it seems- will it hold their attention? for how long? Will there be something that really grabs their imagination? Usually, if anything does grab their attention, it will be something that really isn’t all that interesting to myself.

So anyway, that was yesterday- which ended with me at our rental unit cleaning paint off of the trim which the former tenant had so kindly put there. That’ll learn me to let the tenant do painting. We hired a painter to fix some of the other damage that I can’t fix- like the popcorn ceiling. I get to go back their tomorrow so he can get started. I’ll also be taking care of other odds and ends.

Today we spent at the beach. It was hot. Easily one of the hottest days of the summer. I have to admit, I was a little bummed that we finally topped 90 this summer. I was hoping we wouldn’t just because, how often do you go through a summer that’s as cool as this one has been? If you’re gonna do it, then do it right I says.

Misc

Random Notes

I’m still trying to cleanup unnecessary packages from my EEE. It’s fairly simple to identify possibilities, but more difficult to assess whether removing them will break the system. The net result is that the process is slow…

The Wife is on vacation this week. We’ll be doing some day trips so I’ll write something up if one of them proves to be interesting. The submarine museum certainly has possibilities.

I haven’t finished the desktop paper drawer project, although it is close. I’ll detail some of the problems that came up as well as pictures when the project is done. I will say that the dovetailing on the top of the cabinet is my best effort yet.

And now, on with the rest of the day!

Computers

EEE Notes

Post author By Gerry
Post date August 9, 2009
No Comments on EEE Notes

Last night, I removed the rsyslog, portmap, and logrotate packages to help speed up the boot process. Now I get to see if broke anything.
I’ll probably remove more packages in an attempt to clean-up the little guy and gain some space.

Bread

Wonder Bread

You’ll need the following:

6 cups white flour
2 cups water
1 teaspoon yeast
1 tablespoon kosher salt
1/2 stick butter (1/4 cup)
1/8 cup sugar

You’ll also need your mixer (I’m using a KitchenAid Pro 6), a tall clear container, a loaf pan for baking (1 that’s about 14″ long or two of the more normal sized loaf pans), a small mixing bowl larger enough to hold 2 cups of liquid, and non-stick spray.

Family

The Day of the Turtle

Took the kids up to their swimming classes at the Y today. They had a good time as usual. The group they are in has 6 kids in (I think) and they all enjoy the pool. Of course, they’re all around 4 or 5, so that’s to be expected. The instructors had them jumping through hoops today- literally. They brought out some hula-hoops and laid them on the water and had the kids jump through the hoop. I guess to reinforce having them jump AWAY from the wall as opposed to straight up- which results in a nerve racking close encounter with the wall for anyone watching. My daughter was guilty of this enough for even me to remind her to jump out into the pool. They also used the hoop vertically so the kids could practice gliding through the water. After this exercise it was more of the usual laps back and forth practicing their swimming strokes.

Computers

EEE Notes

Post author By Gerry
Post date August 3, 2009
No Comments on EEE Notes

My “main” computer nowadays is a hacked EeePC900 (I replaced the default Xandros OS with Debian). I purchased it about a year ago and I’ve been really happy with it. My only quibble is the same as everyone else- the keyboard. The keyboard problem is exacerbated in my case because I’ve got above average size hands. None the less, I have “learned” how to type with a fair amount of accuracy on the little guy.

While updating the Debian install, the new Grub2 was brought to my attention. I gave it a shot and found that the EEE had no problems with the loader. The only issue I an into was with the post install command. After verifying that Grub2 worked on the computer, I thought I was supposed to type “update-from-grub-legacy.” Unfortunately, the computer kept spitting back at me that the command was not found. Frustrating. Well, it took a little while(including several reboots, thinking that the command might get uncorked or something) until I realized that the command was actually “upgrade-from-grub-legacy.” No problems since.

Woodworking

Dovetails

Post author By Gerry
Post date August 3, 2009
No Comments on Dovetails

Every burgeoning woodworker learns about the dovetail at some point. It is a joinery technique that is held in high regard- foremost because it is so effective. Dovetailed drawers and boxes that are hundreds of years old, having long since passed the point where any glue would still be effective, hold because of this unique piece of joinery. Dovetails are also held in high regard as a sign of skilled craftsmanship.

Admin

More Blog Mods

Added the Blogroll widget over there, and changed the Archive widget to use a drop down menu.

Family

The Day Ends

Rain.

July was full of it up here. I don’t know if any records were set, but I do know it was near the top for total July rainfall. Also, no 90’s today, which means April was the last time we had 90’s. The local news informed us the other day that since this sort of stuff has been recorded, only in 1920 and 1932 have June and July passed by without a day in the 90’s. To which, I think the most appropriate thing to say is- kinda cool.

Woodworking

A Bookshelf

Now a post on something a little more interesting….

This is the bookshelf I just made for my wife’s home office. It’s not particularly large and was definitely made for the space in which it resides. The dimensions are 48″ long (the top) x 30″ high x 15″ deep(the top). The dimensions of the case portion of the shelf are 14″ deep by about 44″ long. It is made entirely of maple and cherry and finished with tung oil. Actually, that’s not technically true- there is also some black walnut. The top is aligned on the back with the case, but overhangs the case on both sides and the front. Also, you can’t tell from the picture, but I rounded over the bottom half of the top to create an undercut. This helps to obscure the fact that the top is pretty beefy- 7/8″ finished.

Computers

Blog Mods Already

What’s the point of doing this stuff if you can’t personalize it some?

I just finished some minor mods to the theme, Arclite which is available at the WordPress site. The nickel version is I moved the date, author and comment info to the bottom of the post. Additionally, I added a time field in there as well. I left the title where it was. I had to monkey with the PHP code to accomplish these mods. Pretty painless really.

Anyhow, I prefer the look of it this way. Ideally, I’ll right justify the author and comment stuff, but how to do that eludes me for the moment. I don’t really know PHP, but I know enough to figure out how to move “blocks” around anyway. All part of the learning process…

Computers

Blog Setup

Post author By Gerry
Post date July 31, 2009

Just finished updating the About page. Figured I’d start trying to add some content here. So, a little about the setup at this point.

This is a WordPress site. At the time of this post, it exists only on my home LAN. That LAN consists of several computers. The one I’m composing this on is a WinXP Pro- this is the wife’s machine. It’s location in the house makes it convenient to jump on and use.

My computer is a Debian Linux/Testing machine located in the basement. I’ve got Apache running on it as well as a bunch of other server related software to make life simpler (and more interesting) computing wise. What else is the server doing? So glad you asked…

In addition to Apache/ WordPress, which you are currently using while reading this post, I’ve got Samba/ CUPS running, since we have a mixed computing environment here. Samba is configured as a PDC in this case. Further, the machine is running as a Dovecot IMAP server. It fetches mail for me and the wife using fetchmail– what else? Bogofilter is the spam filter of choice (tried SpamAssassin, wasn’t very effective for my email) along with ClamAV for virus scanning. Oh, let’s not forget about Exim as the MTA. I guess to round out the whole server theme, I’ve also installed mySQL and PHP, making this a full-on LAMP server. Now, aren’t you glad you asked about the server?

And to give credit where it’s due, it’s a testament to the open-source community and Google that I’ve been able to get all this stuff up and running- reliably no less. I wanted to link to the fellow who’s site had some extremely valuable posts regarding Apache and mySQL setup, unfortunately I can’t find him now.

So anyway- I already figure the site will evolve some, assuming I keep at it long enough. Like all of the above, I’m doing this to learn a little bit. That’s why I’m hosting this site on my LAN as opposed to going full-bore out on the web.

And with that, time to deal with the chil’ens…