Photo Frenzy Rally

Gayle and I won 1st place in a gimmick rally today. This rally was put on by Porsche Club of America's Orange Coast Region in which driver/navigator teams competed to follow route instructions and answer questions about specific photos of different stops along the route. It was certainly a different switch as Gayle and I are more used to the traditional Time-Speed-Distance events that both PCA and SCCA use extensively. We actually finished with a perfect score of 35, but not without some help from other participants along the way. All in all, it was good prep to make sure the car's still in shape and practice reading routes for Gayle. Looking forward to the next PCA rally at the end of September. Gotta keep our undefeated streak going.

BattleField 2 Server up and running!

The first official Team AlphaForce BattleField 2 server is now up and running. You can find it listed as "-=[AF]=- Team AlphaForce". It's set for 64 users, but we haven't had enough load to see how well it runs. The current server is a Compaq ProLiant with Dual Xeon III processors, RAID 1/5 on two logical drives, 2GB RAM on a dedicated DSL connection. Give it a try!

Free VOIP Solutions - Skype & Gizmo

Just started to play around with a couple of free VOIP solutions from Skype and Gizmo Project. I'll keep you all posted on some of my thoughts once I've done a more thorough evaluation. You can find more info on these at :

Skype - www.skype.com
Gizmo - www.gizmoproject.com

EA Battlefield 2 Server

We're working on getting a couple of dedicated servers up and running for EA's Battlefield 2. Team AlphaForce has been practicing the last couple of weeks on the new hardware and we hope to have at least one of the servers internet-facing in the next week or so. Stay tuned!

Back from San Francisco

It's been a while since I last posted, but it's because I've just returned from an exciting real estate trip to San Francisco, where Gayle and I got engaged on Alcatraz island. Not much tech-talk this week, but I do have to say that the free wireless connection at the Travelodge in Monterrey worked great!

MS Patch Tuesday for July

Microsoft just released their latest patches for the month of July:

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/ms05-jul.mspx

- Vulnerability in Microsoft Word Could Allow Remote Code Execution (903672)
- Vulnerability in Microsoft Color Management Module Could Allow Remote Code Execution (901214)
- Vulnerability in JView Profiler Could Allow Remote Code Execution (903235)

Summary:

If you're using a fresh copy of Windows XP SP1a or newer along with Office 2003, you're pretty much ok. It's older versions of Office or apps that use Microsoft's Java Virtual Machine that seem to have the issues. The more intriguing issue is the the potential use of an ICC file that could be used to dupe a web surfer into giving unwanted access to a person's machine. It seems that some script kiddy is working overtime to uncover the least used facets of the Windows OS and exploiting them.

Recommendation:

Patch away!

Welcome!

Today I'm starting my new blog. The old one is lost somewhere on my now defunct server. This one is free so I'm taking advantage. I just upgraded my workstation so I've officially joined the 64-bit world with an Athlon 64 running Windows XP x64 Edition. I hear the linux camp balking at this notion, but for the time being anyways, supporting Windows-based environments pays my bills. So until then, it's Windows for me. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that Windows is a better OS, but as JFK once said, the Chinese word for "Crisis" means "Danger" and "Opportunity". And the "Opportunity" of Windows is what pays my mortgage.