Have a look at AlwaysVPN.com they’re offering a free ad supported VPN service that uses OpenVPN. It seems to be similar to the proprietary Hotspotshield service which actually also uses OpenVPN at its core.

I’ve been busy working on a project / internet startup for the last few months while also going to college. So I haven’t had any time to write anything on the blog. It’s not that I don’t have anything to write about I just want to keep the details of my project secret until I have the first public release ready.

The only real reason I am writing something right now is because I just upgraded the wordpress blogging engine and wanted to see if everything is still working.

I recently got a twitter account. You can follow me at http://twitter.com/wtip

To receive updates on new items for sale on Craigslist via email please have a look at the instructions below:

1. Do a regular keyword search on craigslist.org for the item you are looking for.

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This is a bash script that uses netcat to connect to a list of URLs and sorts them in order of response time. I used it to check a list of proxy web sites but it can be used for any kind of web site.
I was not able to post the code directly without messing up the formating so here is a link.

It will take a list of URLs like this:
google.com
apple.com
http://google.com
http://www.apple.com/babla.html

Here is an example of how to use the script (i.e. for CRON):
/path/to/script/dir/speedcheck.sh < /path/to/script/dir/list.txt > /path/to/script/dir/list.tmp 2> /path/to/script/dir/list.error; cp -R /path/to/script/dir/list.tmp /path/to/script/dir/list.output.txt

This takes list.txt and writes the sorted output to list.output.txt and any errors to list.error .

If you wish to display the output as a list of clickable hyper links you could use a php script like this (link).

Here is a list of a few possible solutions on how to bypass firewall rules, which would include unblocking websites at school, college or work.

1. Use an SSL VPN service that runs on port 80 or 443. This will work if you can install software on the computer you are trying to use.
2. Use a web proxy site like alwaysbrowse.com. This is probably the easiest thing to try.
3. Use Firefox Portable. Some computer administrators put restrictions on Internet Explorer, to only allow access to Intranet servers. If you can’t use a USB flash drive, you can also try emailing your self the application.

I took the German CLEP exam today and received 4 semesters worth of credit for German classes. Just wanted to write down some thoughts I had while taking the test.

The harded part of the exam was Listening. They played back several short dialogs in German and then would ask a question relating to the dialog. There was no way to replay the question or the dialog, so it was very important to remember all the small details. Please feel free to ask questions if you have any.

If you are looking for an easy way to switch between multiple spell check dictionaries in the Pidgin IM application, have a look at the the Purple Plugin Pack. This plugin pack includes a plugin called Switch Spell which enables you to do just that. To install this on windows download the *win32.zip file that they provide and extract the switchspell.dll to your C:\Program Files\Pidgin\plugins folder. Now all you need to do is restart Pidgin and enable Switch Spell in the plugin manager.

(Note: In order for this to work you need to select multiple Aspell dictionaries during the regular Pidgin installation)

woopdidoo…. I made it onto the Fall 2007 Semester Dean’s list.

Every time I need to edit a /etc/aliases file on one of my servers to change an email address I forget the correct way to convert the file to a hash database. So here it is:

# nano -w /etc/aliases
# newaliases
# /etc/init.d/postfix restart