I’ve previously blogged about how to use Google Adwords to get 10GB of free Dropbox for life.

Hyper has discovered that Dropbox are conducting a beta program of a new photo & video import feature. By installing their new beta software and importing 5GB of photos & videos to Dropbox with the new beta features, you will be rewarded with 5GB of extra space (in chunks of 500MB, separate from the referral bonuses).

Good find Hyper! Thanks for letting me know.

I’ve done it myself and have so far been rewarded with 500MB – it sucks being limited to 1Mbit upload on ADSL2+.

It seemed that c:\windows\system32\iertutil.dll for one reason or another went missing. I found a working Windows XP Home computer and copied that file to the affected machines, and all of a sudden login works again. Although strangely both machines loaded the IE 8 install wizard and apparently re-installed IE 8.

This link has some further information on the fault.

My associate who referred this customer to me, when asked, tells me the customer is “no bullshit” and to “take him seriously” and has cited some of my customers prior jobs which are extremely impressive.

So anyway, over the last 2 months the customer has been talking about a business he is intending to establish in Los Angeles. He requires the assistance of someone like myself, who in his own words “is fluent with technology to the point new unknown challenges are of little issue”. Quite a compliment on my skills – essentially he’s intending for me to operate an IT department. He would like me to come to Los Angeles for 3 to 6 months to assist building his technology driven business. He has stated the offer isn’t rolling yet, as they’re seeking financing as it is a large scale operation. He has hinted at the financing they’re receiving, although very unspecific, it is a figure in the tens of millions to start-up.

I met with the customer earlier this week and he told me his business partner is in Los Angeles right now and only last night was approved financing. They are now in panic mode and are drafting up plans for everything. The customer will come to me in the coming weeks with an offer.

So tonight I did a bit of research into my actual expenses and determining what I think is fair. I worked out that intending to live in Los Angeles very close to my work will cost a minimum of $50,000 USD with expenses like accommodation, travel, a car, my necessary tools (computers), etc.. I also have to consider the job is intending to place me under much stress and pressure so I should be well compensated – and during the trip I would intend to travel to New York, Canada, and Mexico. Also, I’m being asked to close up a business in Australia for an extended period of time that’s taken me over a decade to establish. But maybe I can keep my Australian business rolling. If I can convince my partners brother to cut his very long hair, it may work out that I can employ him to conduct my Australian operations while I’m away and rely on Skype to supervise and train him from LA.

It seems very fair to ask for amounts upwards of quarter of a million dollars for the totality of this job.

The job is also a film or motion picture orientated business. My customer appears to be well connected to well known Hollywood based talents. The phrase “going Hollywood” pops to mind since if this job pans out, that’s what I will be doing.

I’m also fascinated by the idea that LA has extremely low cost fibre optic Internet, and its very likely my office in downtown LA would be sitting on a GigE connection with the intent of streaming real-time high definition video and providing free Internet access to customers of the business. I’ll ultimately be responsible for a couple racks of equipment, which likely will be in my office.

My partner is really thrilled by the idea that if it pans out, we’ll be jumping off the plane and unloading $50k almost immediately. The job is also interesting because my partner is prepared to give up her newly acquired job (only today in-fact) if this pans out. I can keep her occupied obviously by having her work directly for me. Alternatively, my customers business model to me obviously requires someone with her qualified skills – so either way she can come and shop and will also have a job to keep her occupied while I am. I’ll also end up proposing to my partner overseas somewhere really special.

I would also like to have my parents come visit and my partners brother, both of which I’d have to finance. My partners parents I’d like to visit too but they could likely finance their own trip. With all of them I’d intend for them to stay at our home in LA. I would use Skype to stay in touch with them too – the office should be able to saturate any Australian broadband connection with high definition video of us.

I would intend on returning to Australia, maybe, depending on how financially rewarded I can remain in LA. Ultimately I’d want to be very financially rewarded to remain in LA because I’d be distanced from my family, and have fears of differences in politics like no free healthcare in the US while we have Medicare in Australia. If I stay in LA or if I returned to Australia, either way I’d want to invest a large chunk of any income from this job into my business – I figure if my business can generate that kind of income, its clearly deserving of further investment, and takes priority number one for how to spend that money. If rolling a few tens of thousands can give this kind of reward – what can I achieve from investing $100,000? What kind of job offers will I get in another 10 years time? This kind of investment though – I’d want to do very very carefully, but at the same time, I’d have to make sure I’m not too careful and don’t retain it too long where its ultimately wasted over a long period on useless purposes.

However you have to take everything with a grain of salt. I’m not expecting this job to pan out, but yes I am really excited about it. To me it seems like an achievement that someone who does not bullshit and is the real deal is offering me such a job. If only it could be put on my business portfolio – but right now I don’t think it can since the entire project is top secret (oops, did I blog a little?).

I also have a Samsung Galaxy Gio running Android which is currently the Cyanogenmod firmware. The best method to use contacts by far on this device is “in the cloud” on Google Contacts. The calendar is the same with Google Calendar. And so are notes with Notes in Google Docs.

I previously have had lots of problems sync’ing to Android. I first used Samsung Kies which seemed alright except it had a tendency to duplicate contacts and calendar events continually so that my phone’s memory eventually filled up. Cyanogenmod won’t actually support Samsung Kies, mainly because the USB device function seems to be broken on the Samsung Galaxy Gio port and Cyanogenmod also lacks the Samsung Apps framework.

I found GO Contact Sync Mod after trying several other methods of sync’ing. When run on a PC which uses Outlook, it essentially sync’s your Outlook Calendar & Notes with Google.

Google also have put out Google Calendar Sync which will sync your Outlook to Google Calendar.

So with those two apps, you have a total sync solution that doesn’t fuck out if you run it on two PCs – and it uses the Internet connection so no direct connection between the phone and PC is needed, just the Internet on both devices.

I was finding that SimpliGio+ had some weirdness where sometimes the mobile network, GPS or WiFi wouldn’t work. The only way to fix it was to restart the device. I also had some troubles with predictive text not working at all. I probably could have fixed these issues but it was a lot of fucking around and I really can’t be bothered.

So far Cyanogenmod seems to be working great and has a good set of features. For a start it is the most used unofficial firmware, and like the DD-WRT unofficial firmware for wireless routers, it supports hundreds of devices and provides a common feature set and user interface between all those devices. Cyanogenmod has even received praise for being better than factory supplied Android firmware. At present the Samsung Galaxy Gio port is not officially supported by Cyanogenmod, but I’m guessing the low price point of the Samsung Galaxy product lines will probably change that.

I didn’t have to install sipdroid as it has native VoIP. I also setup s2e with a 300MB EXT4 partition on the MicroSD card – and now magically my phone has statics of internal memory so I can install really big apps like Angry Birds. It also has OpenVPN bundled so I’ll have to play with that later.

I’ll have to blog more about Cyanogenmod after I tinker with it. I’m still yet to reflash my partners handset with it.

Unfortunately when digital TV came out, only the lounge room had reasonable DTV reception – the bedroom dropped in and out quite a lot. Also I’m not sure the antenna should be wired like that – since the lounge room has a power injector for the masthead amplifier, and effectively my bedroom outlet receives the power injection.

There are positives of our setup however… the position of the antenna is above tree level and is mounted well enough to stand over 100KG loads – so the wind should never blow down the mast, but rather, things would fall off the antenna mast. Also I discovered that the existing masthead amplifier is digital capable and seems to be a current product.

Recently we got yet another TV and wanted a third outlet which is very close to the antenna.

To fix these issues and connect a third outlet, I got a Kingray SAM224 (PDF manual) on Fleabay and installed it on the antenna masthead.

I used a short length of coax to connect the input terminal on the SAM224 to the output terminal on the MHW34G. I then connected the original wiring to the SAM224’s 1’st output terminal.

Enabling the third outlet with the existing wiring was extremely easy since the outlet and cable had already been installed leading to the antenna – it just had to be wired to something. So I wired it to the SAM224’s 2nd output terminal.

I then turned on some TVs after turning on the power injector, and noticed on the SAM224 the power LED had illuminated. There was no signal. So I enabled the ‘power link’ feature on the SAM224 by shorting the appropriate pins with the supplied jumper and immediately a signal popped up.

After some experimentation I found that the best method was to continue using the power injector on the lounge room outlet for now. The new outlet works great, its actually the best outlet in the house since its only 5m by cable from the antenna.

I also discovered that the best configuration of the 3 gain dials available across both masthead antennas, was to have the SAM224 set to maximum gain and then use a very small gain on the MHW34G’s VHF dial and a slightly stronger gain on its UHF dial.

Ultimately I’m going to re-cable the bedroom so there is a cable running directly to the antenna. I tried disconnecting the bedroom TV’s antenna and noticed that on the lounge room and the new outlet, signal strength & quality jumps noticeably. I’m happy with the new SAM224 since there is room for this improvement, and its installation has slightly improved reception compared to what we previously got.

If I didn’t live in a fringe or regional area, I probably wouldn’t have these issues, but its just something we have to deal with living in peace and quiet.

In the next week I will be upgrading my v1.3.9h installation and I will blog about the process.

This video was helpful in the disassembly:

However I did learn that despite the connector having bent pins… as an alternate the device can be charged through the Mini USB port. So I billed my customer for that knowledge and some Mini USB cables.

Since I last used the XBox Microsoft have made a big push for IPTV, and have even signed Foxtel as a content provider. For $34.90 per month I signed up to the Foxtel on XBox service with the basic channel package + entertainment package which gives me 28 live content channels all up and stacks of on-demand content.

I thought I’d try this out for a month at least. The monthly cost is a little lower than a satellite TV install, and every quote I’ve had for a satellite TV install has been several hundred at the very least considering the TV sits a good 30m of cable length from the roof.

I also can’t actually get Foxtel in this area. When I signed up on the XBox I had to use my step-fathers business address which is in a Foxtel area, otherwise I’d be serviced by Austar.

TV over IP does actually work quite well though. Exetel provide me an excellent service through a Telstra ADSL2+ line which syncs around 8500/900. While watching Foxtel more than 75% of the bandwidth is still available for use. The on demand content hints at the actual bitrates, with hour long shows being only 700MB or so. Lately the 200GB of quota Exetel give me has been largely wasted, so Foxtel will make some kind of dent in the quota.

The quality of the video surprised me. While it isn’t the same as Foxtel HD because its only 720p, there doesn’t seem to be much loss compared to an MPEG2 Digital TV stream – if you can notice any loss at all.

The only downsides I can see, which I can probably solve, is Internet use can impact Foxtel viewing.

Another thing that Foxtel never mentioned – using their service requires you to have Gold Membership with XBox Live. However you can always create a new profile for the free 1 month membership.

It would be much nicer though if Foxtel developed a similar Android app to enable the same functionality on any Android mobile phone or media player like the Noontec A9. For a start, comparing the Noontec A9 to my XBox – the Noontec has no fans.

On Debian to setup a whitelist all you have to do is edit /etc/postfix/main.cf so that smtpd_client_restrictions includes something like ‘check_client_access hash:/path/to/rbl_override’

For example this is what I have in my /etc/postfix/main.cf:

smtpd_client_restrictions = permit_sasl_authenticated, permit_mynetworks, check_client_access hash:/path/to/rbl_override, reject_rbl_client tor.dnsbl.sectoor.de, reject_rbl_client dnsbl.ahbl.org, reject_rbl_client dnsbl.sorbs.net, reject_rbl_client zen.spamhaus.org, permit

Some hosts use SPF records in DNS to specify what mail servers are safe to accept e-mail from. To lookup this information you can run:

host -txt bigpond.com

Then you need to create your rbl_override file. It should have something like this:

# Bigpond (taken from `host -t txt bigpond.com`)
61.9.168.0/24 OK
61.9.189.0/24 OK
61.9.169.0/24 OK
61.9.190.0/24 OK

You will also need to run postmap on the rbl_override file, to create a machine parse able binary with your whitelist database.

My Postfix installation is spread across several servers, however through a rig with rsync I regularly synchronize some binaries and configs to every server so I simply use this to send my whitelist.