Main Page

Welcome! This site is a place to document technical information and other stuff that I was not able to find easily and/or don't want to lose.

Technical Notes

• Amazon EC2
• MediaWiki
• Newtek VT5
• Wirecast
• Western Digital Mybook World Edition II
• Wowza Media Server

Links

Free Tools

Here are a number of free tools that I have found to be very useful.

Graphics

• GIMP GIMP is a versatile graphics manipulation package.
• Hugin Panorama photo stitcher.
• jhead Exif Jpeg header manipulation tool (can use -autorot flag in conjunction with jpegtran to automatically rotate images based on orientation data stored by cameras that support including many Canon Powershots).
• jpegtran Lossless jpeg manipulation including rotation (direct link for .exe version is here).
• ImageMagick I mainly use this for batch picture resizing (mogrify -resize *.JPG 1600x1600)

Video

• MPEG Streamclip Simple video editor that can read multiple formats and export them to QuickTime, DV, AVI/DivX and MPEG-4.
• VLC media player The cross-platform open-source multimedia framework, player and server
• VirtualDub Video capture/processing utility mainly geared towards AVI

Networking / Connectivity

• Firefox Web browser (favorite add-ons include Copy Plain Text, Auto Copy, ShowIP and SwitchProxy Tool)
• Skype Encrypted text & video chat that just works (even through firewalls)
• PuTTY Free telnet/ssh/serial client which supports tunneling and much more.
• UltraVNC Remote control software

Security

• KeePass Password Safe Secure, encrypted password storage with cross platform support including blackberry and other mobile devices.
• TrueCrypt Free open-source disk encryption software for Windows 7/Vista/XP, Mac OS X, and Linux (I use it mostly for a virtual encrypted disk within a file which is mounted as a real disk).

Other

• 1-4a-rename A file renamer which renames many files at once (handy for combining pictures from multiple sources and prepending numbers to keep them in order).
• CDBurnerXP Burn CDs and DVDs, including Blu-Ray and HD-DVDs for free.
• Directory Compare This handy utility will compare and/or synchronize folders including network shares and can be used for simple backups. Visit the author's home page for more handy tools: http://tp.lc.ehu.es/jma.html

Free Website Software

Here are a few free web tools and software packages that I use.

• Google Apps I use Google apps for my email & calendars (yes I realize it's the only thing in this list that you can't install on your own server)
• MovableType Publishing Platform
• Gallery Your photos your website
• MediaWiki Free software wiki package written in PHP, originally for use on Wikipedia (this site is running on it).
• Secure PHP Form Mailer Script
• Secure Guestbook Script with Image Verification
• AWStats Free tool that generates graphs web, streaming, ftp or mail server statistics.
• csv2png Very small precompiled utility for generating graphs from csv data.
• PHP RecipeBook PHPRecipeBook is a web based cookbook with the ability to create shopping lists.
• GNUMP3d Web based music indexing & streaming including recursive playlist generation.
• LimeSurvey Opensource survey application (run easy to use surveys on your own web server)

Network Monitoring

• Cacti Graphing
• Zentrack Project management & helpdesk
• Zabbix Network monitoring, alerting & graphing
• Nagios Network monitoring & alerting
• OpenNMS Network management platform (overlaps with Zabbix)

Websites that I frequent

Entertainment

• Facebook I use Facebook to stay in touch with friends
• Hulu Watch TV shows & movies online for free legally
• Pandora Free music streaming service that plays new & old music based on what you like
• National Geographic I get several e-newsletters and enjoy the pictures & articles
• slashdot News for nerds, stuff that matters

Online Games

Defunct Tetris clone (hasn't been online in years actually) Java Settlers of Catan Winter Bells Gamesbyemail This site has clones of Risk and other games that you can play with friends over an extended period of time (think 1-2 weeks to complete a game) Loadrunner

Shopping

Stores

• Amazon Buy and read reviews on almost any product
• Monoprice Very reasonable prices on cables and other IT/AV supplies
• eBay Buy stuff cheaper (sometimes) and/or locate hard to find items

Comparison/Deal Sites

• Dealnews How to go broke saving money
• Salescircular Retail store specials aggregated & sorted in one place
• Google product search Price comparison shopping

Travel

Travel research often involves many varied sites, but here are a few that I use often and a couple that are unique enough to mention.

• Expedia Tickets, Hotels, Cars, etc
• Tripadvisor Hotel reviews and more
• Airtreks Affordable, multi-airline around the world tickets (I have never actually used them but it's fun to dream)
• Travelzoo Travel Deals
• Upgrade:Travel Better Informative travel blog