Happy Systems Administrator Day to any other sys admins out there.

Especially check out the picture pages! Nice! There are also gift ideas on the front page; a lot of neat little things.

This is here pretty much for my own future benefit, but here is a link on how to make sure Google doesn't index and serve up particular pages and/or sites within its search engine. Google provides this to help hide personal or confidential information that its "web crawlers" come across.

I've long wanted to feel happy about a Windows-based firewall for my more "server-like" boxes at home, and I think I'm finally pretty happy with my choice in Sygate Personal Firewall. I've been running the free version (http://smb.sygate.com/products/spf/summary_spf.htm) for about 12 months now, and have been very happy with it.

Recently I have become more sold on it. I am now able to very completely lock down my web server except for the bare minimum of open ports (email, web server, VNC, ftp, network share access), and I can control access via applications or even by ports/IP. I can still VNC and even connect over a network share with the system just from my own personal workstation. That's more flexibility than I can say ZoneAlarm has anymore.

ZA is still the easiest personal firewall to use, as you just install it and click "Yes" for a few days and it's good to go. But Sygate is an easy Windows-based firewall for more demanding people like me. :)

I am quite happy to also say I no longer use Internet Explorer as my web browser. I currently am using Mozilla Firefox, and I'm quite pleased to see that all of my pages work exactly as expected, despite the browser change. In fact, I think they work better since the javascript menu at the top is half-transparent when mosued-over.

Vulnerabilities have been present in IE for over a year, including some I had to find on my own from malicious web pages a friend of mine happened upon. In the past, they were little-used as vectors for attack, but they have become tools in the escalating spam/antispam/spyware/adware wars of late. Even a virgin host-based firewall does little for some of these programs that exploit such deep holes in IE...IE has become enough of a concern for me that I finally just deleted all my IE links and replaced them with Firefox.

I bought the first cds last night that I have bought in almost a year. I have bought all of 4 cds in the last 3 years. About a year ago I purchased an Enigma collection (LSD) and their latest album, the name of which escapes me.

Last night though, I picked up a live acoustic set from Sevendust and also The Gorge, a cd/dvd set from Dave Matthews Band.

As much as the RIAA will have everyone believe that mp3's and electronic music is killing the music industry, I have bought more music and spent more money since the advent of mp3's than I would have had there not been mp3's. I have seen more concerts and pursued an amazingly more varied range of genres and sounds than I ever would have by radio and word of mouth here in Iowa. I am quite the firm believer than mp3 music on the Internet is healthy for the industry, and allows an arist or band or even an entire genre the ability to spread much quicker than the channels that were available 10 years ago.

End diatribe.

By the way, the Sevendust cd is quite awesome so far. I have to admit, ever since being pleasantly surprised by their opening for Creed one year, I have always enjoyed this band. The drummer is probably my favorite drummer of any band. Dave I have opened but not popped in yet.