Monthly Archives: May 2008

Worst Spam Ever

Posted on May 27, 2008 by Jeff Fitzsimons

It’s not even really spam. I assume it’s an attempt to validate random email addresses by analyzing bounces.

Posted in Funny, Internet | Leave a comment

Entertainment Center Power Consumption

Posted on May 27, 2008 by Jeff Fitzsimons

I used my Kill A Watt to measure the power consumption of various items in my entertainment center.

PVR

Antec case, Biotstar TF-7050M2 motherboard, Hauppauge tuners, 2.5″ Hitachi drive.

80 watts peak at bootup
65 watts nominal

Dell 2001FP 20.1″ LCD monitor

(not normally part of my entertainment center, but I was using it to reconfigure the PVR’s BIOS, so it was in the general area)

Monitor off: 1 watt
Monitor asleep: 3 watts
Monitor active: ?? watts

XBox 360

Off: 3 watts
Starting up: 160 watts
Loading GTA IV: 155 watts
In-game: 188 – 195 watts

Samsung 32″ CRT television

Off: 3 watts
Startup: 483 watts (momentary)
On: 92 watts

Posted in Electronics | Leave a comment

SSH Key Generation and Conversion With OpenSSH

Posted on May 21, 2008 by Jeff Fitzsimons

Key Generation

Generate a DSA key:

ssh-keygen -t dsa

This will generate an RFC 4716-formatted key file similar to the following:

An accompanying, OpenSSH-formatted public key file should also be generated under the same file name with a .pub suffix. It should appear similar to the following:

ssh-dss AAAAB3NzaC1kc3MAAACBAOKN+mbJcFmmerwSESFLF4nPt83EiVZgPq3t
u+INkwBGHyYsKvZu6DYnUr5GXiqgtAnvNEaXK3BDaStMKa9VqE6PL2b9Bbn3fqsL
JVLX09F0kwQQxI28tBoy2kpucenTPxez9fUKQObFOE6W9FWOI5t13RT14QsuijlU
dq5Uea5/AAAAFQDu45eG8YFV3l9PViXMjlwFGrjVxwAAAIAXbQRJeBO9tt3EMQJr
a19OL+PX/56Y1X/7O5FqrrGaz8rSmJmEyWQrcEP0+AeFd+pm5FP9n1vyNredHfgf
YovdQicI1XqRKrqH4wMwsmc1AbjAAMtjDenlPPP+FTC1+qln/17sWkF2B+ihLbvg
aA8pMbwEVGK50jO0+krga56JygAAAIEAy8hllDrFzQUqFG0kMe8r3dOFDjMQHf6I
TttmAiScwEPg+a5D++Sqbj42vkKSNgaYHc+Z8QPgerPehIkBde6wx0ukq0a8IXy8
F86IasXz3wzotPeJsdKimynQKzhSm9Jzbk/SK/yh5NGhJzz1VmHsg+ir/qReguMH
fqDGCI4kSFY= user@hostname

Export Public Key in RFC 4716 Format

Given a private key, export its public key:

ssh-keygen -e -f private_key

This will generate a RFC 4716 output similar to the following:

---- BEGIN SSH2 PUBLIC KEY ----
Comment: "1024-bit DSA, converted from OpenSSH by user@hostname"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---- END SSH2 PUBLIC KEY ----

Convert Public RFC 4716 to Public OpenSSH Format

Convert the exported public key from RFC 4716 format to OpenSSH format (for use in an authorized_keys file, for example):

ssh-keygen -i -f public_key

This will generate OpenSSH-formatted output similar to the following:

ssh-dss AAAAB3NzaC1kc3MAAACBAOKN+mbJcFmmerwSESFLF4nPt83EiVZgPq3t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Posted in Cryptography, Technology | Leave a comment

Compiling X264 on Ubuntu

Posted on May 15, 2008 by Jeff Fitzsimons

I noticed that HandBrakeCLI displayed this message:

x264 [info]: using cpu capabilities: none!

I thought that, perhaps, I could gain some performance by recompiling x264 directly for my AMD dual-core, 64-bit CPU. It turned out to be quite a task.

gpac

Get gpac (check the project’s download page for the latest version):

wget http://downloads.sourceforge.net/gpac/gpac-0.4.4.tar.gz

Unpack gpac:

tar xvzf gpac-0.4.4.tar.gz
cd gpac

make configuration script executable:

chmod u+x configure

Configure:

./configure

Compile:

make

X264

Install subversion:

sudo apt-get install subversion

Install yasm:

sudo apt-get install yasm

Retrieve x264:

cd ..
svn co svn://svn.videolan.org/x264/trunk x264
cd x264

Copy in gpac headers:

cp -R ../gpac/include/gpac .

Configure x264 and build:

./configure --enable-mp4-output --enable-shared --extra-ldflags=-L../gpac/bin/gcc
make

Posted in Technology | Tagged AMD, Athlon, compile, gpac, libgpac.so, libgpac_static.a, libx264, libx264.so, recompile, x264 | Leave a comment

Yay for Ft. Lauderdale Airport

Posted on May 11, 2008 by Jeff Fitzsimons

Free, open wireless. Not like lousy Dallas airport, which only has T-Mobile Hotspots ($$$).

Posted in Travel | Leave a comment