Comcast, loved or hated, started IPv6 trials on their own network, turning up customers on their (trial?) IPv6 network. Since IPv6 is not in widespread use today, and not all destinations on the Internet can handle v6 requests, there are several stop-gap solutions. One of them is IPv6 6RD, where RD stands for “Rapid deployment.” From my little understanding, this allows Comcast customers to encapsulate v6 traffic inside v4 packets through Comcast’s network to the IPv6-enabled destinations.

Without further wait, this is how I did it (save the several weeks of headbanging frustration that ensued):

Comcast provides their customers with some network addressing information:

IPv6 prefix = 2001:55c::/32
6rd BR FQDN = 6rd.comcast.net
IPv4 prefix length = 0

Having only a very cursory knowledge of IPv6 addressing, I stumbled my way through the configuration. The IPv6 prefix is used to determine the breadth of Comcast’s v6 network, which octets are network bits, and what bits are host bits. The BR FQDN (border router, fully qualified domain name) is the IPv4 hostname for the gateway in which my firewall will connect to reach the “v6 Internet.” IPv6 packets are encapsulated inside v4 packets, and passed through this border router for further transit.

On to the configuration. First off, I use OpenBSD 4.7 on my firewall/router. It runs on a little embedded box, using pf as the firewall packet filter.

First we must set some system variables via sysctl (via command line and commit to /etc/sysctl.conf):

net.inet6.ip6.accept_rtadv=0

net.inet6.ip6.forwarding=0

These two variables tell your machine not to accept router advertisements (don’t act like a DHCP client accepting network configuration), and the second one tells your machine not to forward IPv6 packets. v6 unlike v4, for the most part, obviates the need for NAT. Therefore if this value were ’1′, you would be forwarding v6 traffic from the external Internet to all v6-enabled devices on your home network. Unless you really intend to open up your home network to the entire Internet, keep this value as 0 for now.

I created a little shell script that creates the tunnel interface (gif0), and then configures the interface and default routes.

#!/bin/sh -x

WANIP=`ifconfig vr0 | grep -v inet6 | grep inet | awk '{print $2}'`

HOSTRD=`host 6rd.comcast.net | awk '{print $4}'`

V6PREFIX=`printf '%02x%02x:%02x%02x' $(echo $WANIP | tr . ' ')`

ifconfig gif0 destroy

ifconfig gif0 create

ifconfig gif0 tunnel ${WANIP} ${HOSTRD}

ifconfig gif0 inet6 2001:55c:${V6PREFIX}::1 prefixlen 32

ifconfig gif0 up

route -n add -inet6 default ::1 -ifp gif0

The nasty bits are mostly in the first three variables.
WANIP is the external IPv4 IP of my firewall
HOSTRD is the IPv4 IP of Comcast’s IPv6 border router
V6PREFIX: This takes WANIP and converts the IP into its hexadecimal equivalent. This is the format used in IPv6 addresses, and will make up the rest of my personal IPv6 prefix.

Most of the script is self explanatory, and large chunks are stolen from others on the Comcast IPv6 message boards. I have set my external IPv6 tunnel interface to $prefix::1, and set the route for all IPv6 traffic to go out over the gif0 tunnel interface.

At this point, if pf is disabled (therefore allowing all packets through to your machine), you should be able to ping6/traceroute6 to various IPv6-enabled Internet sites. These include ipv6.google.com, http://www.kame.net and ipv6.comcast.net.

# traceroute6 ipv6.google.com
traceroute6: Warning: ipv6.l.google.com has multiple addresses; using 2001:4860:800f::63
traceroute6 to ipv6.l.google.com (2001:4860:800f::63) from 2001:55c:MY:PREFIX::1, 64 hops max, 12 byte packets
1  2001:55c:MY:PREFIX::1  21.491 ms  19.103 ms  22.759 ms
2  2001:558:e0:52::1  20.734 ms  19.227 ms  16.623 ms
3  2001:558:e0:24::1  17.903 ms  18.821 ms  19.193 ms
4  te-0-3-0-4-cr01.newyork.ny.ibone.comcast.net  21.704 ms  23.512 ms  24.715 ms
5  pos-1-12-0-0-cr01.mclean.va.ibone.comcast.net  27.821 ms  41.616 ms  31.4 ms
6  pos-0-3-0-0-pe01.ashburn.va.ibone.comcast.net  25.451 ms  34.823 ms  25.43 ms
7  2001:558:0:f749::2  29.801 ms  39.119 ms  33.211 ms
8  Vlan22.icore1.AEQ-Ashburn.ipv6.as6453.net  34.592 ms  36.29 ms  33.039 ms
9  pr61.iad07.net.google.com  34.766 ms  34.493 ms  39.389 ms
10  2001:4860::1:0:9ff  34.941 ms  35.911 ms  32.12 ms
11  2001:4860:0:1::149  37.298 ms 2001:4860:0:1::14b  48.993 ms 2001:4860:0:1::149  37.446 ms
12  iad04s01-in-x63.1e100.net  36.593 ms  31.367 ms  33.089 ms

This post only involves getting your gateway machine speaking IPv6. I have been able to wire up the rest of my internal LAN using rtadvd, and allow them IPv6 access. There are a lot more pieces here, including rtadvd and packet filtering that I don’t quite fully understand yet how they all interact, and will require another post.

Then today I was talking with a friend who mentioned that Google Apps users can now get their own Waves for their domain. Google Apps, for those who aren’t into all the Google Kool-Aid, is hosted email/calendaring/contacts/documents for a domain or organization. I must imagine their target demographic is business users, but I use it for my own personal domain, as do many others.

But back to Google Wave. I was trying to think of a use case for Google Wave for my domain, since previously I had pretty much written it off as some useless toy. After being in a meeting at work where all I wanted was an online notepad where I could add notes, edit them later, and then email out to my team, Google Wave came back to the front of my mind.

At work we use Zimbra for our email/calendaring, and while it has a tasks list and briefcase area for writing documents saved in the Zimbra ecosystem, it doesn’t quite cover all the bases. There is no way to tell revisions, so I can’t tell when I edited a piece of the document, and exactly what I modified. While Zimbra does have briefcase documents, it feels like a hacked together solution that does not integrate well. When working with a document, Zimbra decides to open said document in a screen-maximized window, dominating other windows. Why not stick that document into another Zimbra tab?

Comparing the functionality to Google Wave, I wish I could email a wave. I understand that a Wave might contain animated Youtube videos, or other rich content, but even a static-PDF would suffice. Currently all that is provided is the ability to email a link to your particular wave.

Having only used it for a day or so right now, it has proved pretty helpful, along with having the speed and reliability of other Google products.

You might be asking “what is the difference for this use case, between Google Wave and Google Documents?”  For me personally, Wave comes across as much more train-of-thought, whereas a Doc feels more like a formalized document. What do you guys think? Are there use cases for Google Wave other than the obvious?

After some digging in the ‘find’ manual page and bothering a co-worker I present:

find $directory -mmin -240 -name ‘foobarstring’ -printf “%p\n%CY%Cm%Cd%CH%CM\n”

This prints out on two successive lines:
$(filename)
$(dated string in the date format above)

The hardest part was getting the printf syntax right. When it works, it just works.

For those not familiar with Wine Riot, it’s basically a beer festival/tasting, but with wine. A bunch of retailers, distributors and vineyards themselves come to the event and give samples of their product to attendees. This happened to be the biggest surprise for me. Having been to several beerfests previously, I am used to the brewer themselves being there. This gives patrons the ability to speak to the people behind the product. You can really learn a lot from those people, all the nuances and thought behind a new series of brews, and upcoming products. Wine Riot had a much higher percentage of distributors and wine purveyors on-hand, as opposed to winemakers themselves. To the best of my memory, I don’t remmeber speaking to more than a handful of actual winemakers or people from the actual vineyard. In total, there were about 50 booths set up in the Cyclorama in Boston’s South End.

Below is the list of wine I vaguely scribbled as myself, M, and some friends made our way ‘around the world of wine.’ In no particular order.

• Oyster Bay Marlborough Pinot Noir 2008 (New Zealand)
• Esporao Reserva White 2008 (Portugal)
• Sequana Vineyards Dutton Ranch Pinot Noir 2007 (California, Russian River Valley)
• Corvidae Wine Co Wise Guy Sauvignon Blanc 2009  (Washington, Columbia Valley)
• Corvidae Wine Co “Lenore” Syrah 2007 (Washington, Columbia Valley)
• Charles Smith Wines Kung Fu Girl Riesling 2009 (Washington, Columbia Valley)
• K Milbrandt Syrah 2007 (Washigton, Wahluke Slope)
• K Viognier 2009 (Washington, Columbia Valley)
• Terra Rosa Old Vine Malbec 2007 (Argentina)
• Porta Wines Syrah WInemaker Reserva 2008 (Chile, Acongagua Valley)
• Terra Andina Reserva Cabernet Sauvignon 2007 (Chile)
• Yellow+Blue Torrontes 2009
• Herdade do Esporao Touriga Nacional 2007 (Portugal, Alentejo)
• Podere San Lorenzo Rosso di Montalcino DOC 2007 (Italy, Toscana)
• NV Mionetto Moscato Dolce (Italy)
• Corelli 34′ Malbec 2008 (Argentina, Mendoza)
• Cahteau Lacombe Noaillac 2006 (France, Bordeaux)
• Domain La Croix Belle Champ du Coq 2007 (France, Languedoc)

My biggest surprise was the Yellow+Blue Torrontes, a wine served from a plastic container, almost like Franzia’s popular low cost wine in the square box. It was surprisingly good for the connotation that boxed-wine has.  Overall the event was worth going, especially because I was able to use a Groupon I purchased, saving me $10/ticket from the normally $30/ticket price. Local restaurants Upper Crust Pizza, Legal Seafood, and Redbones BBQ were among others selling food at the event. Given a Groupon being offered for next year, I highly recommend the event for those interested in wine, and will return myself.

In this case, I was trying to either match a date string using 8 digits, YYYYMMDD, or 6 digits, YYMMDD.

A before picture. At home I am lucky enough to have two Samsung Syncmaster 213T LCDs. Each with a 21.3″ viewable area, running at a resolution of 1600×1200.

I lugged the sufficiently heavy box home from the office and began the unpacking. The hardware came in several small plastic bags, each large piece wrapped in bubble wrap. Instructions included are in at least half a dozen languages.

The first thing I noticed was that on the tripod base, the rubber coasters to protect the base from your desk are awfully small. For someone who has a polished wood desk, the thought of having a 40 pound stand potentially scratch my desk is horrifying. I wish those rubber circles were a bit bigger, if only to ease my scratch concern.

The instruction for assembly are clear, and pictures are explanatory. Put this part into here, take X-many screws and tighten there, etc. There were a couple pieces whose connections made me scratch my head, where there was a little bit of wiggle room and I wasn’t sure if things should be aligned to the top of the hole where the screw goes, or the bottom. Considering the unit is supporting my two monitors now, I assume I did it right. The piece I refer to here is the horizontal bar which the monitors connect to. This bar rests on top of a ‘lip’ on the vertical support. I was unsure, given the instructions, whether it should ‘click in’ or just hang on the lip and be secured with the screws. Turns out, it should just hang on the lip, and be secured with the two provided screws.

Once I got the bar secured to the vertical support, the rest was easy. Disconnect the current stands from my monitors, attach the Ergotron square mounting bracket to the back of each monitor, and attach the alligator clip-like brackets to the bar. Be warned, as the instructions say, not to hang the first monitor all the way out on the edge of the arm. This will, which it did for a split second in my case, make the stand tip over. Position the first monitor closer to the center until you can attach the second monitor to balance the weight out.

Two plastic clips meant for cable management are included. They clip onto the back of the horizontal monitor arm, and are meant for you to feed cables behind. These are handy, but I only wish a few more were provided. I am only running two monitors now, but if I expand to a third, which this stand supports, I’m not sure those two clips will be enough to handle several thick DVI and power cables.

I finally connected the cables and basked in the glory of my construction effort. There was one thing wrong though, the monitors were at least 4-5″ above my eye level. The provided Allen-wrench tool is used to loosen the spring inside the vertical support, allowing the bar to stay at a lower height. This became an exercise in curiosity. Should I push down on the bar, and while holding it, decrease the tension? Or do I keep turning the wrench counter-clockwise until the bar lowers and ‘hovers’ at your preferred height? Turns out, it is the latter. After what felt like at least 100 turns of the wrench, the bar lowered and stayed at a proper height.

All told, from un-boxing to both monitors being mounted, I spent about 45 minutes getting the stand put together and installed. While installation was fairly easy, I wish Ergotron had put some more construction tips in English writing, rather than just graphics, to answer my confusion. I’ve been using the stand now for the past few days, and I really appreciate how it has helped clean up my desk. Having the monitors at eye height is a lot more comfortable. With the addition of a third monitor down the road, this stand will really pay dividends in saving me a ton of desk space rather than each monitor having its own base. Now I just have to convince myself to buy a third monitor.

Two weeks later, M and I, along with another couple friends who have become our restaurant seekers-in-crime, descended upon HLM at 12:30pm on a Saturday afternoon. To say this place was busy is an understatement. Now I don’t pretend to speak any Chinese, but that’s all I heard among the hostess shouting out numbers to parties waiting to be seated. (Being the stereotypical white male, I have heard the adage that a restaurant with ‘locals’ to the cuisine is normally very good, so I was psyched.) Without waiting more than 5-10 minutes, we were ushered through the throngs of people and incredible number of staff pushing carts to our table. I looked around and all I saw was a sea of people and staff, working the crowds entering and exiting, ushering food between tables, and turning tables over for the next party.

Within 30 seconds of being seated, we had a cart off to the side of our table, with a waitress offering us various kinds of dumplings. This is all from memory, as I was not able to either take pictures nor write down any of what we had due to the intense commotion of the entire dining room. (In no particular order)

• Beef Ball
• Tripe
• Peking Duck
• Tofu skins
• Pork knuckles with thick wonton noodles (the latter were incredible)
• Steamed shrimp dumplings
• Steamed Pork buns
• Sticky rice with peanuts
• and others I am unable to remember.

This was a new experience for me, having never had ‘cart service’ dim sum. Waitresses did speak English, but over the din of the dining room (it was incredibly loud, but still possible to carry a conversation at your table), we ended up just pointing to things we wanted and that we hoped had the food we expected in them.

There were some hits, like the peking duck, tripes, and wonton noodles. Each had a distinct flavor, never bland, and perfectly cooked, even though they had probably been sitting on the cart for several minutes making their way around the dining room. And there were some misses, although few and far between. Only the beef balls and sticky rice received less-than-rave reviews. We found those dishes to be very single-note, with not much interesting flavor. The beef balls tasted more like meatloaf, of which I am not a fan. The sticky rice had boiled peanuts, which surprisingly added no peanut flavor to the dish. We drank hot tea throughout the meal, but I must imagine cold water and soft drinks are available. Flagging down a waiter or waitress was not a problem when we were looking for more dishes, most of the time they came to us before we were done.

Needless to say, we were full, but not stuffed, after polishing off the food we had ‘ordered.’ The one thing we were unsure of was just how much money we spent, given that the dim sum menu has no prices. After giving them my credit card and hoping for the best, a bill of $44 came back. We were blown away that so much food came from $11 a person. While not an every weekend trek for us from the near suburbs, we will definitely be back to try more of the menu and experience the frenzied atmosphere of Hei La Moon.

CES 2010
Day One

CES 2010 began pretty well today. Arrived in Vegas around 11pm on Thursday night, and went to the hotel. While I expected the down economy to keep a lot of people home, along with big companies, I didn’t expect the strip to be this quiet.

Got to the show and headed towards the home theater/media area. I’ve been contemplating picking up a home media server for a while to hook up to our big 46″ LCD at home. Between Hulu, Youtube, Netflix (if I sign up for it), and downloaded TV shows and movies, it seems like a great addition to cable service where we don’t subscribe to the premium movie channels. From speaking to friends about the various offers out there, Boxee came up frequently.

The most memorable products I saw:

The iTam tam. This is the most visually appealing iPod dock/speaker i’ve seen. One problem, you need to let guests know that it isn’t a seat.

The neatest product that I can’t find more than one segment to market to:

The Entourage Edge. It’s a clamshell design product, with an e-book reader on one side, and an Android PC on the other. I can see how this could be handy to students whose teachers send out class notes, where they can annotate and mark-up the e-book pages and transfer those back to the computer for sharing. But, I would find that without an actual keyboard the Android PC side of the product is woefully underpowered for things you’d want to do. Go over to a website? Start typing on the virtual keyboard (you can plug in a USB keyboard). Still, a very cool mashup of two popular technologies.

Sony’s booth was packed, where my father and I took a break on the Gran Torismo 5 video games. We both left thinking neither of us will get in the car with the other again.

The biggest ‘gee whiz’ product I saw were the Samsung LED and OLED TV’s. The worlds slimmiest TV was there, at 6.9mm.  I haven’t done much research on the current prices of LED TV’s, but I can’t imagine they are in the sweet spot for most customers currently. Once prices come down, these incredibly flat and incredibly gorgeous TV’s will replace today’s flat screen LCD’s and Plasmas

Also swung by the Ergotron booth. While not sexy, they make a lot of ergonomically-correct desks and computer monitor stands. They were having a contest that if you tweet a photo of you and one of their products, you’ll be entered into win one of them. Check.

Day Two:

This was mostly a day to go back over some products that we wanted to hear more about. I went back towards Intel and played around with some of the netbooks there. If I get one, it would be one of the MSI Wind’s or Lenovo Ideapad. Both had keyboards that didn’t make my hands feel cramped.

I went back over towards Boxee and played with the interface a bit more. Pretty slick, although from what I saw, it handles network files only via CIFS (Samba), so if I ended up picking one of these up, I’d have to setup Samba along side NFS at home. No big deal, but something to add to the to-do list.

Saw on my Twitter feed, that I was one of the winners of the Ergotron contest. (Several days later….) I’ve been exchanging emails with a person in their marketing department. Since the contest was for a single monitor stand, and I have two at home, they are donating the single-monitor stand to a local school, and sending me a dual/triple monitor stand to review (and keep). The power of the Internets…

As part of our annual trip, our group rents a room at a local sports bar or tavern to watch the first Saturday of NFL Games. In years past, we have rented out a room at the ESPN Sports Zone. Big room, bunch of big flat screen TV’s, some comfortable leather chairs, and a minimum of food/drink we have to order. This year, we booked a ‘Luxury Skybox’ at Lagasse’s Stadium Sports Bar at the Palazzo Hotel. This is now the benchmark for places we rent out. We had about 30-35 guys, and room for more. Three huge couches with ottoman’s to relax, a pool table, and a terrace with two more couches and TV’s to match. This terrace by the way, overlooked Las Vegas Blvd. This is the way to watch the games, I highly recommend it.

Had a great time overall, it’s always neat to see the new products out there. I don’t know if anything hit me as a ‘must have’ for the coming year. Some evolutionary improvements to the home theater space with Boxee and the other products. TV’s will continue to get brighter, thinner and lighter with better resolution. Intel had its new stable of CPUs to show off, typical enhancements on power and battery-usage.

Until next year.

• Most importantly, is to get married. August 7th seems far away now, but I am sure once things pick up, surviving my wedding will be a great goal to have completed.
• Improve my programming skills. I’m an operational programmer at heart, coding to get the job done. But with all the cool API’s floating around the Internet, from Google Maps, to Foursquare, and Linode to name a few, I’d love to get more involved in hacking code and sharing it.
• Use the $100 REI gift certificate I have to get a tent, to get back into camping. Given that I got a great new digital camera over the fall, I’d love to get outdoors more often and use it. Our new condo has a lot of empty walls that I think would look great with some photography up on them.
• Get on top of my finances more. While I’m lucky enough to have the disposable income to not have to worry about it, I’d love to make my money work for me more, instead of just sitting there.
• And last but not least, to feed my vice for great food and wine even more. Exploring, tasting, and learning.