Narbik’s CCIE Bootcamp

I attended the Narkib’s CCIE bootcamp last week. It was a very good CCIE bootcamp. There were a few topics that I wasn’t familiar with and always think they are very difficult. The good thing in Narbik’s bootcamp is that Narbik has made those topics a lot easier to understand. He introduced a new method to look at those topics.

Narbik’s has helped me a lot on preparing the CCIE Lab exam. However, I feel that I still need a lot of extra work before I can pass the CCIE exam.

If anyone who is looking for CCIE training, Narbik’s CCIE bootcamp is what I will recommend.

For more informatin, you may go to http://www.micronicstraining.com

Is Online Shopping Secure?? shop.waiwai.com.au was hacked!!

I was browsing the leading Chinese web site in Australia the other day and accidentally found that its shopping section got HACKED!! Wai wai online web site has been established in Sydney for a long time. It makes me think why this would happened on a online shopping web site. 

I didn’t know when this got hacked, but from the minutes I found that their shopping site was hacked until they fix the site took 2 days. What can a hacker do in 2 days? I personally haven’t purchased anything from their web site. I hope people who did business with them before didn’t lost any personal details. i.e. credit cards details, name and address, etc. because all those confidiential information can lead to idenity thief.

So far after the hacking incident, I didn’t see any annocement from Wai Wai web site about this incident. I think their users should be aware of what have happened on their web site.

I hope the wai wai web site users are aware of this incident and to change your password, and keep an eye on your bank statement/ credit card statement.

It is just like another Sony Play Station sercuity problem, but this is much smaller and only affect local Chinese people in Sydney (or other states in Australia) I believe… (as Waiwai.com.au is targeted Chinese in Sydney) .

The Heritage Court Restaurant in Hurstville 潮樓

 

The Heritage Court Restaurant is located on 33-35 Dora Street, Hurstville. It is right opposite to the Hurstville library.

I went there have dinner with Justin (but I was on another table 🙂 ). A set meal came with a whole fish, soup, chips, drink and desert. Food are good, if you are sick of Chinese Food in St. George Area (especially Hurstville). The Heritage Court is another option for your dinner 🙂

http://theheritagecourt.com.au/

booking hotline : 02 9570 2178

IPV6 – Are you ready?

Looking at the statistic, IPv4 will be exhausted in this year. I think it is time to get ready for IPv6. Unfortunately, look like none of the ISP in Australia are providing IPv6 addresses to their customers.

At least, as far as I know TPG, Exetel, Optus and Telstra, etc are not providing IPv6 as yet. However, Google has already laughed their IPv6 web site. Can you try connecting to http://ipv6.google.com ? if you see something, congarduation! Your computer can access IPv6 website and your ISP has a DNS resolver that can point your to a ipv6 website.

Oh…. not sure what I am talking about??? Point your web browser to http://www.test-ipv6.com or http://www.ipv6-test.com both site will test your ipv6 and ipv4 connectivity. It should give you some idea of what I am talking about.

In order to test out the IPv6 connectivity, I have built a IPv6 tunnel to http://www.he.net . HE has assigned me a /64 and /48 IPv6 public address. I have that setup on my router, every computer in my home is now IPv6 ready. There are more than enough ip addresses in a /48, so I routed some of them to my web server in the data center.

here are the sample configuration.

Configuration on my cisco router:

[code]
interface Tunnel2
 description IPV6 tunnel to webserver
 no ip address
 ipv6 address 2001:470:ECEE:2::2/64
 tunnel source YY.YY.YY.YY
 tunnel destination XX.XX.XX.XX
 tunnel mode ipv6ip
[/code]

Configuration on my web server (debian linux)

[code]
ip tunnel add ipv6tunnel mode sit remote YY.YY.YY.YY
ip link set ipv6tunnel up
ip addr add 2001:470:ECEE:2::1/64 dev ipv6tunnel
ip route add 0::0/0 dev ipv6tunnel
echo 1 > /proc/sys/net/ipv6/conf/all/forwarding
[/code]

in my cisco router, there is another tunnel for me to connect to www.he.net for the ipv6 connecitivity.

[code]
interface Tunnel0
 description Hurricane Electric IPv6 Tunnel Broker
 no ip address
 ipv6 address 2001:470:35:4D::2/64
 ipv6 enable
 tunnel source YY.YY.YY.YY
 tunnel destination 216.218.221.42
 tunnel mode ipv6ip
[/code]

a default route for ipv6 need to be added on the router as well
[code]
ipv6 route ::/0 Tunnel0
[/code]

After all the setting, it will be time to do some test. First, try
[code]
ping6 ipv6.google.com
[/code]

in the debain server, which I got a host not found message. It was because I don’t have a IPv6 DNS setup. To get this fix, I did the following:
[code]
vi /etc/resolv.conf
[/code]

adding the HE.net DNS resolver address
[code]
nameserver=2001:470:20::2
[/code]

After setting the DNS server, do the ping6 again, it should work now.  After setting IPv6 for the web server, I also want all my computes at home obtain an IPv6 ip address automantically and also receivce the ipv6 DNS automantically. here are the CLI command to configurate a IPv6 DHCP pool:
[code]
ipv6 dhcp pool datalan
 address prefix 2001:470:ECEE::/64
 dns-server 2001:470:20::2
[/code]

After rebooting a PC, it automantically recevice the IPv6 address and able to pass all the test on http://www.test-ipv6.com.

My next project will be setting up a PPTP ipv6 VPN, so I can access IPv6 website while I am on a IPv4 endpoint via the PPTP tunnel. I will post the configuration up if I am able to make this work.

New Photos of Purple

I have my camera with me today and want to take some photos. Here are the photos I took.

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Photographer need a good Monitor?

I was talking to my photography teacher Felix Kwan about getting a new monitor for my Hackintosh. I am using a 5 years old LCD monitor, the colour is a bit funny + it is only a 15″ monitor. I think it is time for an upgrade. I looked at the market, a normal LCD is only around AUD$2xx. So I asked him what he will suggest to get a monitor for photography need. He suggested me to buy a monitor that uses IPS panel. After doing some research, IPS Panel provides the best colour – well, the best always the most expensive. Looking at 24″ LCD monitor, it is asking for AUD$649 (DELL U2410) if you want a bigger one 27″ DELL U2711 which is AUD$799. It is more than a double of a normal TN Panel monitor. Now the question is….. how good is IPS Panel?

Quoted from Dell web site (for U2410):
•Exceptional Screen Performance: Enjoy 1920×1200 maximum resolution, 16:10 widescreen aspect ratio and 80,000:1 dynamic contrast ratio
•Vibrant, Accurate Color: PremierColor technology delivers color depth of 1.07 billion and 110% color gamut (typical)1
•Superb User Experience: Advanced digital connectivity, intuitive controls and ergonomic design for enhanced viewing comfort 
 
Before I heard/knew about what IPS Panel is, I always think that Apple’s Monitor shows better pictures. The colour of the Apple’s monitor looks richer (and at the same time they sell very expensive as well). After doing some more research, and I realise Apple’s Monitors are using IPS panel as well.

Apple 27″ Monitor – AUD$1299
Dell 27″ Monitor – AUD$799

Why would I pay more for Apple than? looking at the Tech info, respond time from Apple Monitor is 12ms while Dell only 6ms. So I am targeting a Dell monitor now, with the discount I have, I can get a brand new U2711 for $719.1 shipped. Now it is time for me to save up some money for the big screen!


Found some old Chrissie photos

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Bypassing the firewall at work

I couldn’t get back to my home router, not my linux box, not my web page control panel ever since I have changed my job. Because of the very strict firewall policys, I can only use standard ports i.e. http port 80, https port 443 and ftp port 21. Other than those 3 opened ports, I couldn’t do anything else! I couldn’t telnet to my router (port 23), couldn’t ssh to my linux box (port 22) and couldn’t get to my web portal (port 8080).
I don’t understand why they block the ssh port. SSH is a secure protocol and i don’t see how it can harm the company’s network. Anyways, I am trying to find a way out of this when I am at work, at lease I can get back to my Home CCIE Lab for some Lab work. Since Port 443 is working, what I did is to create a Port forward on my home router. I forwarded port 443 to port 22 on one of my Linux boxes. Today I got back to the office and immedately start up putty to see if i can ssh to my linux box via the port 443. And yes, it worked! The next thing I tried was to build a SSH tunnel to use with other protocol using putty. Well, all working fine as what I expected. And I can do a lot of thing now including using a remote CCIE lab at home!

Training my dog purple to be a dog model

I was testing the Canon wireless flash system the other night. The flash lights I have are Nissin Di866 and the Sigma Super DX-500. I didn’t know that they are compatible before hand. I bought the Nissin Di866 was because the Sigma didn’t work with the Canon 5D Mark II at the beginning. I then sent that Sigma back to the service center in Australia, surprisingly they fixed the flash light for me without paying a cent (I bought that 2nd hand, the only thing I paid to have the firmware upgrade was the postage.) 🙂

Here are the photos for Purple. Hope you like them. 🙂

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Some photos that taken for The One Magazine

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