In a few days I will start providing this site via an IPv6 address (normal IPv4 support will stay in place, of course). If you should experience problems accessing my blog, please drop me a mail.
Enabling IPv6 for This Site
December 17th, 2009Speedport Routers Eat Your DNS SOA Requests in Modem-Mode
November 25th, 2009Some years ago I switched to using a Speedport W701V from Deutsche Telekom on my ADSL line at home. I set it up in modem-mode and let a small Linux box handle everything else. This setup had worked fine with other modems but shortly after switching to the Speedport I noticed that my local caching DNS server didn’t work correctly anymore. I didn’t really connect the dots at this point, though.
That happened a few days later when I tried to use Apple’s Back to My Mac — it just didn’t work. After some network tracing I found out that the Apple machine sent DNS SOA requests but never got a reply back. It turned out that all SOA request got blocked somewhere. Sending requests to my own name server (host -t soa blackdown.de ns.blackdown.de) and tracing DNS there showed that no packet ever arrived.
I put the Speedport back into router-mode at this point and, who would have guessed it, SOA requests worked fine again.
After fruitless discussions with Deutsche Telekom support (it was impossible to find anyone who even remotely understood what I was talking about) and sending a bug report to AVM (the 701V actually is a FRITZ!Box) which never got an answer, I finally solved the problem by putting a Freetz firmware on the Speedport. This firmware had an option to disable the PPPoE-Filter. After disabling the filter the device worked flawlessly in modem-mode.
Now, a few days ago, I switched to VDSL and got a new router: a Speedport W920V.
First thing I did was to put it into modem-mode. And there it was again, the DNS SOA problem!
Knowing what the problem was, I found a simpler fix this time:
- Download the configuration from the device
- Manually change
dnsfilter_for_active_directory = yes;todnsfilter_for_active_directory = no;in thepppoefwsection - Manually change
ipnetbiosfilter = yes;toipnetbiosfilter = no;in thepppoefwsection - Insert a
NoChecks=yesline after theCountry=… line in the header to make the device accept the modified file although its checksum is wrong now - Upload the modified configuration to the device
(If you have a local NTP server, you also might want to add it to the server_list in the ntpclient section while editing the configuration of the Speedport.)
New-Style Last.fm Scrobbler for Ubuntu Karmic
November 4th, 2009After much delay my last.fm plug-in for Rhythmbox is now available for Ubuntu 9.10 (Karmic Koala) too.
You can get the package by adding
deb http://blog.blackdown.de/static/debian/rhythmbox/ karmic main deb-src http://blog.blackdown.de/static/debian/rhythmbox/ karmic main
to /etc/apt/sources.list.
After adding those lines, do:
$ sudo aptitude update $ sudo aptitude install rhythmbox
The repositories are signed with my GPG key which can be imported into your apt keyring with
$ wget http://blog.blackdown.de/static/gpg.asc -O - | \
sudo apt-key add -
Please remember to disable the old Last.fm plug-in before enabling mine (New Style Last.fm Scrobbler). Also please note that my plug-in requires the lastfm client to work correctly.
Read more about the plugin and get the source code at Last.fm for Rhythmbox – New Style.
Thoughts on Apple’s Magic Mouse
November 2nd, 2009A few random thoughts on Apple’s new multi-touch Magic Mouse:
- Apple killed the third mouse button! I am conditioned to open tabs in browsers with the a middle click, so this is quite some problem for me. (I still hoped for an Open-in-a-New-Tab gesture for Apple’s touch pads but I guess it is unlikely now.)
- You have to press down the entire mouse to generate a click. Not really new but on this mouse I instinctively try to use Tap-to-Click like on a touch pad. It just does not work that way. Bummer.
- Right click still requires you to lift your left finger like with the Mighty Mouse. This requires some time to get used to and also means that it is impossible to press both “buttons” at the same time.
- Scrolling with one finger works fine but touch pad conditioning kicks in again here: I tend to try scrolling with two fingers.
- There are no gestures for Exposé and Spaces. Would have been nice.
And it is flat. Almost too flat for my hands.
My conclusion is that Apple can always come up with interesting mouse concepts but still fails at actually building usable mice.
Polaroids on SPIEGEL ONLINE
August 2nd, 2009Some of my Polaroids are featured in a slide show on SPIEGEL ONLINE: Analog-Fotografie: Die schönsten Polaroid-Kunstwerke
