The Japan Page

Here's what we're trying to do:

I wanted to send myself a periodic e.mail to @gmail.com with my external IP address, both to keep a log of IP's used, and to recover in case my dynamic DNS registration fails for some reason. And of course, Google's nearly unlimited MB size is perfect for this electronic clutter !

I first wrote this script to pull my external IP address off my Linksys router. Shortly thereafter, I replaced the Linksys box with shorewall on a Linux distro. I could do ifconfig and SED the IP out, and I still might, but I may as well finish what I've started in batch.

Requirements:

• A command line SMTP mail utility like bmail, or postie would be helpful. I used to use postie a lot, but bmail does 80% of the features for free. This script is written for bmail.
• Tinyget.exe from the IIS 6.0 Resource Kit. With Tinyget.exe, you can do amazing things from the command line. (Kind of like w-get* and wput in one).

Here's the sample script:

@echo off
cls
::REM Sample batch script from www.japan-page.net/batch
echo.
echo Determine my IP address...
echo.

::REM Grab IP off the net...

::REM Note we are dropping a few extra lines of text with the find filter here.

tinyget -d www.ippages.com /simple/ | find /v "alternate" >_out.txt

::REM Send it out by e.mail...

set _too=me@gmail.com
set _frm=me@mydomain.com
set _sbj="IP Address"
set _hst=mySMTPserver

bmail -s %_hst% -t %_too% -f %_frm% -a %_sbj% -h -d -c -m _out.txt>_log.txt

echo done.

This script relies on www.ippages.com which offers a free IP lookup service. Note, you are limited to 200 queries per day, so don't run this every 60 seconds.

See this article on how to update www.easydns.com dynamic dns with a batch script and tinyget.exe.

Have fun.

With Zoundry, I can't put the word w-get (spelled properly without the hyphen) in a posting without causing it to fail. Go figure.

Posted by John Seaman at 8:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This is a photo of two Miko or Shrine Girls at Yawata Jinjya (Shinto Shrine) in Shizuoka City. This photo was shot in color on slide, then edited with Photoshop. I had a homestay in Shizuoka and my host family were members of this Shrine, so I was fortunate to be invited to attend the Shrine annual festival and take pictures. I ended up visiting for several years in a row and helped carry the O-mikoshi or portable shrine. More festival pictures here.

Posted by John Seaman at 12:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

My 1985 Suzuki Kata GSX750 in front of the Yokohama Bay Bridge.

This was my second bike in Japan. I picked this bike up off a friend for JY 30,000 or about $250 at the time, not bad for a 7 year old bike. It only had about 15,000 km on it, but the gotcha was it had been in storage for close to 2 years and didn't run worth a crap. One of my students at the time was an aspiring motorcycle racer, and part time shop mechanic, and he offered to fix it up for free. I know, I should have said thanks anyway, but he did put all the parts back where they came from. After that, I paid about JY 20,000 to have a pro do a complete carb cleanout and it ran like a charm.

More info on this model here. The Katana had an iron engine and was quite heavy, with a long wheelbase it didn't corner well, but did well on the straight away. This was one of 2 years that had the retractable headlight, and I think this model was not exported overseas in any quantity. The Japanese domestic model had the engine power limited to meet local regulations.

A few funny stories about this bike:

One rainy day I got stuck on a dead end street, going up hill of course, and had to make a u-turn. I had only been riding it a few weeks, so you can guess what happens next. Doh! This bike was so heavy, and on a wet slope that I couldn't get it back up. Fortunately for me several passers-by jumped into the street and helped me out. That was the only time I dropped it, despite doing several years of closed course motorcycle training.

One day I rode it in to Akihabara, the main electronics mecca of central Tokyo. If you've never been there, it's a maze of tiny one way streets full of people, stores and merchandise stacked everywhere, especially on the street. I got a little turned around, which is easy to do since there are no street names, and ended up riding slowly while trying to get my bearings. I heard this persistent bicycle bell ringing sound and someone yelling "tomare" or stop ! I stopped and turned around to look, it was a policeman who was pulling me over, and he was riding a bicycle ! Ha ha, turned out I was going the wrong way down a one-way street. The one-way street sign was completely blocked by an illegaly parked truck, but that's besides the point. The cop turned out to be a nice guy and let me off with a caution, then showed me how to get to the little shop I was looking for. Talk about public service !

I put about 60,000 km on this bike over 3 years, commuting to work as well as touring all over Honshu, the main island of Japan. Just before I moved home to California, I had to part with it. I ended up selling it to an Australian buddy in Shizuoka on the cheap. I would have liked to shipped it home, but I didn't have anywhere to garage it or the slightest clue how to get it smogged in California.

Keep riding !

Posted by John Seaman at 12:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Installation notes for the VMTN virtual appliance ESVA (E.mail Security Virtual Appliance) on ESX server.

1. Download the latest version of ESVA, available here.

2. Copy all the files up to the ESX server. From Windows, use pscp (Putty) available here.

3. SSH into the ESX console and run vmkfstools -i ESVA.vmdk esva.1715.vmdk. This is documented on the VMware site here. This will convert the virtual appliance from Workstation to ESX server disk formats. The new ESX vmdk file is called ESVA.esx-flat.vmdk, so you can safely delete the ESVA-f00x.vmdk files if you want to save space.

4. Create the new virtual machine. Be sure to use BusLogic for the disk type.

5. Follow the Installation Notes to configure ESVA. Be sure to change the root password before you expose this server to the net.

6. Consider installing bind utils (nslookup and host commands). yum -y install bind-utils should do it, convenient for testing behind a firewall / DMZ.

Nothing really changed from ESVA 1.6 as far as the installation instructions go. ESVA is a built-in e.mail anti-spam, anti-virus and anti-phishing appliance.

Posted by John Seaman at 11:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

How not to move your NetApp filers... *

OK, I admit it... this is a crude photoshop image I made for a Data Center move presentation. We will be more careful moving our FAS960c.

Posted by John Seaman at 11:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I had a chance to visit Taiwan in about 1995 with some Taiwanese friends I met in Japan. I was really lucky to be able to do a homestay at their family's house and see what family life was like there.

My friends didn't speak much English, but their Japanese was perfect, so this became our common language. I'm sure we made a pretty interesting sight to the locals walking around Taipei speaking Japanese...

This picture was taken at a "traditional village" that was both a tourist attraction and a setting for period TV shows and movies.

This kind gentleman helped me put on the traditional costume, you're supposed to hold the edge up when you step over the threshold. It worked, as I managed to not fall flat on my face.

Posted by John Seaman at 12:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Way back in 1992 or so I convinced my boss to buy the office a 486 PC. I was working in Japan at the time and the few PC's that were there were all NEC PC98's *. Once we got it into the office, I immediately put it to productive use by installing Adobe Photoshop and putting George on the 10,000 yen bill.

In case you never used a PC98, consider yourself lucky, they were a NEC proprietary architecture, only sold on the Japanese market, and were complete crap.

Posted by John Seaman at 12:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I ran across pictures of my computer desk, built in late 1997. I'm still using it today, though it is about to be replaced with computer desk version 2.0.

Here's the side view of the legs, which are white poplar 2x4 with a 3/4 birch ply center panel.

The top is a 3/4 birch ply sheet with molded edges.

Here's a view of the entire desk. For the record the CRT monitors were retired about 5 years ago.

Here's a view of the under structure, a 2x4 running flat across the front edge and another across the back. The corners are reinforced with a triangular bracket. I've had two 20" (50+ pound each) monitors with several PC's stacked on top, and I could even sit on the front edge of the desk (um, about 200 lbs) without it budging. Very well engineered, if I do say so myself.

This desk was built almost entirely with hand tools, the only thing electric I owned at the time was a table saw (and a lot of CRT's). :-)

After 10 years the desk is as strong as ever, though it does need a new coat of varnish. I'm fully expecting to lose my current home office to child #2, so I'll build something smaller and when it's ready this one will be retired. Hate to part with it, but it will be recycled on CraigsList so someone may be able to keep it around for a few more years.

Posted by John Seaman at 12:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We enjoyed the fireworks at Central Park in Santa Clara tonight. We got there really really late, and since didn't know exactly where they would launch from selected a nice spot behind a tree. Well, it was a 50-50 chance. I ended up dragging my tripod down the street a bit and found a decent spot to snap a few pictures.

Happy 4th of July !

Posted by John Seaman at 12:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)