Aaron Adams’s Blowhard Blog

The Google search term that brings more people to this page than any other is “free VPN client”. I’ve written about IPSecuritas before, and I’m assuming that’s the article to which the Google search links. At the same time, during my surfing, I’ve seen a number of users with questions about how to connect to the Netgear FVS318 with a VPN client, sometimes IPSecuritas specifically.

There don’t seem to be any good directions on the web for IPSecuritas and the FVS318, so I decided to post some here. Read more for illustrations and complete instructions.

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Yesterday Apple Computer made its displeasure over the leaking of unannounced products known to the world via Santa Clara County California Superior Court. From this Reuters article:

The complaint alleges that “an unidentified individual, acting alone or in concert with others, has recently misappropriated and disseminated through Web sites confidential information about an unreleased Apple product.”

The question I have at this point is, what product has been leaked? The only thing I can think of at the moment is the alleged iPod flash.

[UPDATE 12-21-2004]: It turns out that the product in question is a FireWire audio breakout box code-named “Asteriod”. This article at The Mac Observer has more details.

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I’m proud to report that I became Apple Certified this afternoon. I passed the Mac OS X Help Desk Essentials v10.3 Exam, earning my Apple Certified Help Desk Specialist certification. It’s an entry level cert that makes a nice bullet point on my resume, even though it doesn’t do much to reinforce my roles as a network admin and consultant. Now I need to work on getting my ACTC, ACSA, ACPT, or all three certs. Those can be expensive to get, especially since there is a lack of good self-training material available for these certs. Wish me luck.

This e-mail appeared in my inbox this afternoon from my friend Ted:

blah, blah, blah, laptop bag, blah, blah, blah…

…Can you possibly add more fluff to your site? I mean, I’m in a sugar induced coma already. Where’s the real news?

Let me clear this up in case there are any misconceptions… This is not a news site. The purpose of this site is to serve as an outlet for me to spout the dry, unoriginal thoughts I happen to feel motivated enough to write down. It also occasionally provides a platform for me to play with new web-related technologies and toys. There’s no news here. Now, if someone with actual newsworthy information wanted to leak that to me in a completely anonymous way so I could subject that information to my usual dry, unoriginal thinking processes, then by all means feel free. I’m not holding my breath.

I take my PowerBook with me just about anywhere I go. I use it during the day to make a living and I use it in the evening to work on personal projects (such as this web page). With all the traveling me and my PowerBook do, it’s imperative that I have a good bag or case in which to carry it.

Until recently, I used a Matias Laptop Armor case to carry around my PowerBook and a precious few accessories. And that was the problem Ñ there wasn’t a lot of room in this case to carry around the incidentals that I needed for every day computer use. Laptop Armor provided excellent protection against damage to my machine, but after putting the mouse and power adapter into two inner pockets, the side of the case bulged out and I just knew that those two things were pressing up against the lid of my PowerBook, which seems like something bad. After the power adapter and mouse, there was no more room for anything else in the case, and I needed those other things. The Laptop Armor just wasn’t going to do what I needed.

After watching a friend’s PowerBook accidentally plummet to the floor in the Cincinnati Apple Store last year when a strap on his bag broke, I wanted something that would protect my own computer from such disastrous damage, but I also wanted something that provided plenty of room with lots of pockets to hold small bits and pieces. I knew RadTech had a selection of such items, and John Grzeskowiak and the RadTech staff had always treated me great, so I decided to solicit an opinion from him.

His suggestion: RadTech’s MacTruck and Curve shoulderbag.

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