Open Source Rules! Blender....One Cool App!

While I'm waiting for parts on my next project, I thought I would write about a nice little application called Blender.

Blender is a open source, cross platform, 3D animation suite. I personally don't know how to use it, but the animations it produces is up there with Pixar's stuff.

I always get a kick out of people who think that if you want good software you need to pay through the nose for it. Its sad to know there are still a lot of people out there who dont know any better.

Theirs so much open source software out there that is just as good as the real thing, if not better!

NOTE: For those of you who are unaware of free open source alternatives, just take a look over at open source living. I'm sure you you will find any software you may need.

So back to blender....... Like I said Blender is able to kick out some very cool stuff.

Check out the video Big Buck Bunny.

BTW: Big Buck Bunny is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 and you can download the entire studio backup. How cool is that!

Follow Up To The VOIP Phone Project

Things I've Learned:

Well....let me tell ya, I have learned a few things in the past day or two so...

Shall I go down the list?

Before I do let me explain something. I didn't learn all this because the system failed. I learned all this because I can't leave a working system alone and must always tweak things. So what I mean by that is at one point I had my network down! When I say down, I mean I unplugged everything. (Router, switch, and ATA no power, no network!)

Why Would You Do This....

Testing, tweaking, and just messing around.

So How About That List?

So when the network was down and everything was unplugged (except one of my cordless phones)
The phone still worked! I had an incoming call!

Why You Ask?

1. The PSTN line is plugged directly into the ATA, from the ATA its plugged into the 5 port phone jack. The cordless phone is also plugged into the 5 port phone jack. So it looks like the PSTN carries the current from the main line through the ATA into the 5 port phone jack, even thought there is no power to the ATA. Cool eh? So in theory I can also make local out going calls on the PSTN line if both VOIP systems go down. (For $5 a month I get to keep my PSTN line...very basic)

The next thing I found was with the Skype phone.

2. I powered up the Skype phone, but kept the router, and ATA off. What I found was the same situation as above, but.....I could not use Skype because there was no network.

So time to move on and play with this a bit more!
I power up the router and now I can call out on Skype. No big deal. So I had an idea.....

Question: What happens If I press talk on the Skype phone and enter a phone number?
Answer: It dials out using sipphone/gizmo.....Cool

So with the Skype phone I can choose what service I want. For Example:
If I want to use Skypeout I just select the person in my contacts and press talk.
If I want to use Gizmo/Sip just dial a number and then press talk.
Or dial a number, select option, and select landline

Very cool!!!

Anyway, thats my big list of what I have learned.

DDWRT........ A Wet Dream Come True!

So after a year or so of using Tomato on my Linksys WRTSL54GS I switched back to using DDWRT.
Let me tell ya...I have my “Oh” face on! (Anyone who has ever seen Office Space should know what I'm talking about.)

I can not believe the amount of difference there is in this firmware. I thought it was good over a year ago, now its just amazing.

I really enjoyed Tomato, but unfortunately at this point it just doesn't provide the extra functionality I needed.
However its still a highly suggested firmware!

Why the Change?

I needed to be able to place a machine on a DMZ and not have it see any of the other machines on the network.

Call my silly, but I just dont like the idea of being able to log into a machine remotely and having access to all my other machines from that DMZed machine.

DDWRT has a VLan setting that I'll be using and in theory should make it a bit more secure. (Even though security is just an illusion!)

I'm going to set a few workstation/servers to use a VLan to keep it away from my internal network. So in theory anything I place on the VLan shouldn't have access to my second network.

Configuration and tweaking will take a little time, but it will be worth the upgrade for the additional functionality.

So Lets Start!

Firts step....back up my Tomato configuration!


NOTE: One very important thing to do is clear the NVRAM befor upgrading to DDWRT. If this is not done you could run into potential problems during the configuration of DDWRT.


Now that thats done lets do the firmware upgrade!
hmmm....yeah.., never took a screen shot of that...ah oops.

Ok, now that thats out of the way.....lets configure!

DDWRT Interface

I'm not going to hop into the advance features of this firmware as of now, just the basic settings to get us up and running.

Lets take a look at some screen shots of DDWRT V24 SP1!

The First Screen shown when logging onto the router.


I thought this was excellent. The first screen shown when logging on is to set the user and password.

MAC Cloning so we can get on the internet.


Very basic and standard feature on most of today routers.

The Basic network set up.


Not too much to say, for the most part its standard with a few exceptions.

Set Up the Wireless.


Standard once again.

Set up the wireless security.


As you can see we plenty to choices for the wireless security.

Set up MAC Filtering to allow or not allow wireless connections.


Once again standard.

Enable UPNP


Basic.

Static DHCP


Static DHCP.....always good to have!

VLAN

This is where the fun will begin!

This is where I stop for now. I havent tried to set any of the VLans up yet but will in the near future.
Its gonna take a little playing and configuring with, but I know it will serve me well!