Basically I’m using boto to list all of the instances currently running in a specific security group, and then populate env.hosts.

This solves the problem for pushing to running hosts. In order to pull the latest codebase when a new instance fires up, we just stuck some scripts in /etc/rc.local – more on that later.

And the code…

The tool was developed by OpenDNS and is currently a preview release.

I just wanted to see the DNS traffic, so I performed a few lookups while capturing the packets…

Here is an example of a non-encrypted query:

And an encrypted query:

If you enable the lookups to traverse port 443, there will be tons of packets and I didn’t look at them.

One note worth mentioning – The client app creates a bunch of connections back to OpenDNS whenever you modify the settings.

This is some great technology and it is open-sourced. I’m assuming the networks who want total control of their users will just block the OpenDNS IP blocks to prevent users from encrypting their lookups.

You can fetch the source on GitHub – The entire Mac OS app is there!

In addition to using the built-in security features (ie. FileVault), I run 3rd party anti-virus and firewall tools. This helps me trust my machine a little bit more.

Little Snitch is a firewall and network monitor for Mac OS. It allows you to permit or deny any network connection on a temporary or permanent basis. There is also a network monitor window that displays all of your current connections.

Sophos Anti-Virus is an anti-virus tool that actively monitors your machine for malware. This is a free tool and has proved to detect virii not only for Mac OS, but other platforms as well (such as Windows and Linux).

Octopress source on GitHub

Octopress Home

The rumors will finally be put to rest today at 1pm eastern.

I usually follow the Apple events at Engadget’s liveblog: http://www.engadget.com/2011/10/04/apples-lets-talk-iphone-keynote-liveblog/

Here is an example:

Logging to flat-files

This method is fairly simple. You could pass the ‘log_file_prefix’ parameter via the command-line, or more elegantly add the options in your code:

If you have multiple instances of the same app running, I would keep the logs separate by using the port number:

Storing logs in a MongoDB collection

MongoLog is a really cool open-source centralized logging module for Python and MongoDB. It’s available on Github at https://github.com/andreisavu/mongodb-log.

Follow the installation docs in the README to get MongoLog all setup. After cloning and installing MongoLog, we need to modify our Tornado app.

First, import MongoLog:

Next we will override the ‘Application.log_request’ method to implement MongoLog.

After everything is up and running, you can view the raw logs in the database or use the web ui that ships with MongoLog:

Luckily we are served well by Twitter and can find out storm details by fellow local internet users, thank you Twitter.

Internet access has remained available, thanks to the awesome local ISPs and UPS units on our modems.

Amazon Web Services seemed to have no outages during this storm, thank you AWS.

Thank you also to AT&T and Verizon for keeping our cellular services online. I’m posting this via a tethered iPhone.

However the electricity infrastructure has proved to be unable to handle single points of failure. We are on day 2 of no power, thanks to a broken transformer miles away.

1 - Why don’t we have high-availability redundant infrastructure?

2 - Why don’t we have safer, less vulnerable, underground power lines?

We need to develop a redundant system like the internet for our electric. I won’t hold my breath. For now I’ll take it into my own hands and outfit my place with solar and diesel backup solutions.

Thank you Irene for testing our infrastructure.

Update: I just ordered this generator so I can keep writing code during power outages.

Yamaha EF2000iS 2,000 Watt 79cc OHV 4-Stroke Gas Powered Portable Inverter Generator (CARB Compliant)

My primary workstation is a MacBook Pro 17” with i7 CPU, 8GB RAM, 256GB SSD and a 27” Apple Cinema Display. I use an Apple bluetooth keyboard and Magic Trackpad.

I also use a MacBook Pro 15” for testing security related stuff that I don’t want to pollute my main workstation with.

In the background of my view are 2 Samsung displays. On the bottom is a 52” and above is a 24” that I use for displaying network monitoring and analytics info. Below the monitors is a Mac Mini running Lion Server, a Drobo with 8TB of storage, an Apple Airport Extreme, APC UPS and my dusty Xbox.

Lets dissect my network infrastructure…

Dual internet connections with 1 DOCSIS v3.0 modem and 1 DOCSIS v2.0 modem.

Protecting my network are 2 security appliances, a Cisco ASA 5505 and a custom built pfsense box.

The core is a HP ProCurve 1810G-24 switch that sits on top of my retired Cisco 3500 WS-C3548-XL-EN Switch.

My primary wireless network is powered by an Apple Aiport Extreme, and I run a Buffalo WHR-HP-G300N router with OpenWRT for guests.

Most of my servers are EC2 instances running on Amazon Web Services. However I do use a Dell PowerEdge 1950 server with VMWare ESXi for local testing.

Also in the rack is a Samsung 17” CRT Monitor, 2 Belkin KVM switches, a Foscam FI8918W IP camera and a Belkin UPS.

So far, I think there is some primary functionality lacking… There is no way to save a draft post. And the post editor is very simple.

I attempted to paste an image into this post with no luck.

I do value the simplicity but would like to be able to save drafts and embed images in the posts from my iPad and iPhone.

As I am typing this last line, I can’t even see it since the post editor does not scroll up. I had to rotate into portrait mode to finish this. I hope there are more Wordpress apps to choose from!

A static website eliminates the databases and serverside code execution.

Hosting a static site on Amazon S3 eliminates supporting the web server, load balancing, caching, etc.

By switching from a common cms system such as Wordpress, your most likely to gain a lot of speed and lower the possibility of security vulnerabilities.

A con for some users is that your only option for increasing functionality is to write JavaScript and let it run clientside. For a blog, this is perfect in my opinion.

The tools I used to create a full featured static blog:

Cyrax generates the static site (python / Jinja2 templates)

Amazon S3 serves the HTML and JavaScript

Flickr for photo hosting (could do this with S3, but I like the iPhoto integration with Flickr)

Feedburner serves the rss and publishes new posts to Twitter via Feedburner Socialize

Disqus handles the user commenting system

Google Analytics takes care of traffic analysis

In the end, I am sticking with Wordpress for T3CH.com. For simpler blogs, I’d definitely consider using Cyrax.

First up was the MacBook Pro 17 (my primary workstation). The upgrade was seamless and I have no complaints. I disabled Spotlight indexing since it was lagging the system, now it’s super snappy.

Next I upgraded a Mac Mini (my primary server). The Mac Mini was at a different physical location, so I performed the upgrade via Apple Remote Desktop. Since the box was already running Mac OS 10.6 Server, the App Store forced me to purchase both Mac OS Lion and the new Server app… which I expected.

The server upgrade did take a bit more effort. Here are the issues that I had to deal with:

- I was charged for Mac OS Lion upgrade twice. I emailed the App Store and received a refund less than 1 hour later.

- WebDAV is broken. The settings are there (they have been moved from the Web Server config screen to the File Sharing config), but it just doesn’t function… I tested with cadaver and it would not work. Instead of spending the whole night banging my head on this issue, I setup WebDAV with Apache in a Linux VM.

- FTP server is gone. Yeah FTP isn’t ideal, but I do have some devices which only support offloading files via FTP. This bugs me, but I’ll use vsFTPd in a Linux VM instead.

- The config options are lacking. In 10.6 there were way more settings and configurable options available in the Server Manager app. Here is an example of the Web Server settings gui:

#!/usr/bin/env python
from googlevoice import Voice
from pprint import pprint

download_dir = '/home/joet3ch/voicemail'

voice = Voice()
voice.login('my_username', 'my_password')

for message in voice.voicemail().messages:
    message.download(download_dir)
    #message.delete()

Uncomment the last line ‘message.delete()’ to automatically delete the message from Google’s servers after your download is complete.

To fully automate the backup script, schedule the job with cron. Here is an example that will run the script every day at 1am.

0 1 * * * /home/joet3ch/scripts/google_voice_backup.py

SpendWise enables you to make purchases with your brain, not your money…

The review process was super quick:

It’s a universal app and will run on iPod Touch, iPhone and iPad devices.  I co-developed SpendWise with SuperJessi.

View SpendWise at the Apple App Store here.

Learn more about SpendWise at: http://apps.t3ch.com/spendwise.

I co-developed this app with ipaulpro of Finer Mobile. My primary role involved architecting the backend, this includes the webservice and api. Paul did a fabulous job, as always, on the UI. Check out his work:

Isn’t that one of the most polished Android apps you have ever seen!?

For those who don’t know, droplat is a location-based file sharing service that enables users to share files with others nearby. You can install it on your Android device from the Google Android Market. The app is still in an ‘alpha’ stage, so there may be minor bugs. We are working hard to roll out new features, so stay tuned for updates.

Learn more about droplat at http://dropl.at

UPDATED:  Droplat is now in the semi-finals!  Help us get to the finals by voting for Droplat in the Entertainment category at Power Your App Contest.