Free SSL Certificates

If you have your own domain, like roysdon.net, you may at some point want to be able to login to a webpage, receive and send email, transfer files with ftp, and even connect to your own network with a virtual private network, or vpn. You'll want to do this securely so you know no one is watching your login authentication or data that you're transmitting.

Secure Sockets Layer, or SSL, is the means to accomplish this. Then you can log in from a PC and trust that your authentication and data isn't going to be intercepted or modified on the way from the PC to the server.

In order to use SSL you need at least one SSL certificate. While you can create an SSL certificate and self-sign it, the rest of the world will not trust it, and it'll cause error messages about being untrusted.

The important step here to have the rest of the world trust your certificate is to have your SSL certificate signed by a Root Certificate Authority, or Root CA. Root CA's normally charge for this service, but you can get a CA-signed SSL certificate for free.

Serial port redirection to console in Linux

There are times when keyboard and video monitor access (KVM) is not always accessible or scalable. Serial port redirection to console is a way to be able to access hosts before booting the OS in Linux.

I will discuss 3 different steps that are needed to accomplish this in Linux.

Website Gotchas 101

So you want to make the leap on to the interwebs, I mean webtubes. You want something bigger than your FaceSpace, err, MyBook page. You know those social-thing-a-ma-bobs, right? But you don't have big enough pipes coming to your house? What do you do?

You can pay someone like Hurricane Electric $1/month to host it (or GoDaddy, GKG.net, and hundreds if not thousands of others out there). But how do you choose? Here's how:

IT Geek Breakfast @ Huckleberry's, Modesto

"IT Geek Breakfast" at Huckleberry's is back on again for March! Saturday, March 13th, 8am. I've set up a Facebook Event to RSVP at. After last months success, we set up a Facebook Fan Page for IT Geek Breakfast so that we can centralize announcements.

This is a get-together breakfast of some Christians who work in the IT/IS/computer field (or are just hobbiests/enthusiasts!) so we can fellowship.

Everyone (non-Christians friends too) are welcome. But the topics will probably be highly geek/technical in nature, and probably boring for non-technical spouses.

How the Internet routes around a damaged HR policy

I was thinking this morning about a number of things.  Specifically, as to why places like LinkedIn are becoming more and more popular.

First, let me step back and explain something. There is an age-old saying, the Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it originally made by John Gilmore in TIME magazine (6 December 1993). In Internet terms, 17 years might as well be a century.

Cisco Certified Network Professional (CCNP) revamp

Cisco is revamping their Cisco Certified Network Professional (CCNP) certification program. They held two webinar/conference calls yesterday discussing the changes. Here are my notes:

642-812 BSCI is being replaced with 642-902 ROUTE
642-812 BCMSN is being replaced with 642-813 SWITCH

Using the Stanislaus County Library Computer Resources

Bravo! Good work, Stanislaus County Library technology folks. The free internet access and computer resources at the library are great.

I recall going to the library five or so years ago and being frustrated at not having wifi wireless access for my laptop. Years back, I recall going to my local Manteca library (part of the Stockton-San Joaquin County Public Library system) and using the computer for catalog access on a dumb Wyse terminal with a monochrome-orange, text-only monitor.

Free, legal, professional music online

I love music.  I could easily spend $100-200 per month purchasing music.  But even more than that, I love music that I can share with others.

I don't spend that much, and I couldn't justify that, but I love adding songs to my personal library to play whenever I want. So I've been compiling lists of free songs that I've found online that I can share with you.