02 Jan 2013
by Nathanin linux, tech Tags: ubuntu-sshd
For security reasons, I don’t like that “Debian/Ubuntu” shows up on my sshd server string.
You can see the sshd server identification string by telnetting to port 22.
$ telnet ngmarley.com 22
Trying 106.187.97.211...
Connected to ngmarley.com.
Escape character is '^]'.
SSH-2.0-OpenSSH_6.0p1 Debian-3ubuntu1
^]
telnet> quit
Connection closed.
It’s very simple to just remove the “Debian…” part off the end.
Just edit /etc/ssh/sshd_config and append
to it.
Then re-start your sshd:
… and now verify that it’s gone:
$ telnet ngmarley.com 22
Trying 106.187.97.211...
Connected to ngmarley.com.
Escape character is '^]'.
SSH-2.0-OpenSSH_6.0p1
^]
telnet> quit
Connection closed.
13 Dec 2012
by Nathanin food, horticulture, travel
update: After 3 months, I have finally received my refund from JetStar. I still can’t recommend that anyone ever give them any of his/her hard-earned money, though.
It’s been a while since I’ve posted on here.
Our last post left off with us in Chiang Mai, Thailand, about to complete our one-month stay in our apartment. Since then, Brittany and went all the way through Malaysia to Singapore via train from Chiang Mai. It was a long, multi-stop journey. We first went from CM to Bangkok, which took about a day (24 hours. We took a sleeper). Trains in Thailand aren’t that great, and stop a lot. For apparently no reason. For hours at a time. After a night’s rest in Bangkok, we took another train to Penang, Malaysia, also on a sleeper.
We found an awesome boutique hostel in Penang called Ryokan. So we decided to stay 4 nights there in total. The food was good. Penang is famous for it’s food. Then we took a train to Kuala Lumpur.
Kuala Lumpur is the capital of Malaysia, and has everything anyone could want (if you know where to look). Chinatown is nice. There are malls with high-end designer stores (Gucci, Louis Vuitton, etc), as well as inexpensive (almost slummy) open markets with character (look up Chow Kit).
Overall, Malaysia was a big surprise for us. It was wonderful. The people speak English (Malaysia is the former British territory called British Malaya). It’s like a big melange of Muslim, Chinese, Indian and Malay culture. Who almost all speak English, at varying levels. The Malaysian infrastructure is great (especially compared to Thailand).
Anyway, after seeing 4 days of KL, we took the last leg of our train trip to Singapore.
Singapore is a huge city-state (‘state’ in this sense meaning ‘sovereign nation’). It has a lot of nice parks, flora, and almost the same mix of culture as Malaysia. Almost everyone speaks English (even better than in Malaysia). There’s a lot of Chinese influence/culture in Singapore. We found a few tea houses and some nice inexpensive Chinese vegetarian restaurants in Chinatown, which was clearly our favorite place in Singapore. Chinese vegetarian restaurants are almost 100% vegan, actually. We bought some delicious jasmine green tea in a tea shop before we left. Then we took a place to New Zealand.
Oh, and I strongly suggest, no matter who you are, or how much money you’re trying to save, don’t ever fly JetStar. No matter if they’re the only direct flight to your destination or not. Just don’t. We had the most horrible experience with them ever, and almost 2 months later, I’m still trying to get my $1419 NZD (New Zealand Dollars) back from them. From a fully-refundable ticket that I purchased with my own money, for a flight that I will never use. Which I was forced to purchase, or else they wouldn’t let me board my plane to New Zealand.
The only contact numbers you will ever receive from JetStar go to a call center in Manila, where the people there have little power to help you get anything done. I will repeat: Do Not Ever Fly with JetStar, ever.
New Zealand is beautiful. We loved everything about it, except the prices. And the tourism. Everything is so damn expensive there (hostels, food… tours to anything, which are mostly a waste of time and money anyway…).
We saw the movie set where they filmed for Hobbiton/The Shire for LOTR and The Hobbit. It was beautiful. Too bad it’s all just a movie set. They have real vegetable gardens, flowers, roses, trees, a lake, and a fake metal tree on top of Bag-End.
The farmer’s markets were the best we’ve been to. We went to the Saturday market in Tauranga and the Sunday market in Hastings. Hastings was probably my favorite. I think the combination of landscape/climate is what makes the markets so great. And the food. And coffee. Coffee is a big deal in New Zealand. Every small town in NZ has at least one espresso shop. The farmer’s markets even have at least one, sometimes more, espresso stands. Since they can grow just about anything, they have it all. Local lemons/limes/oranges. Local avocados. All types of green vegetables, swiss chard (which they call silverbeet), beets (which they call beetroot), bell peppers (capsicums), zucchini (courgettes), onions.
People in New Zealand have a very pro-NZ, anti-everything-else mentality, so if a farm or business is “100% NZ owner/operated”, then it’s seen as superior, or something. I think they call it pride. I call it nationalism.
Unfortunately we didn’t get to see the south island. (Again. I swear I’ll see it some day.)
Now we’re home. It feels great to be home again. To be able to wear more than just one pair of pants all day, every day. To be able to drive to the store. Or to drive anywhere. It’s nice.
We started eating a lot of winter squash, because it’s now in season. And delicious. I’ve been saving seeds from the organic fruits of heirloom varieties we’ve been eating. We’ve tried several, and we now have our own seed packets made up. The great thing is that most winter squash have about 200 – 250+ seeds in their seed cavities.
For example, I just rinsed and laid out 233 seeds from our most recent squash, the Kabocha (like a little green pumpkin). These 233 were the viable seeds. I threw away the runts and the not-quite-formed seeds. I can’t think of any profession other than farming/gardening (aka agriculture) in which you can get a 233% return in a year.
The end. Ok, bye.
02 Oct 2012
by Nathanin travel
My wife and I have been in Thailand for over a month now. We will be in our apartment until around October 9th.
Thailand is a beautiful country in SE Asia. The Thai culture is predominantly Buddhist and very conservative. The landscape is beautiful and the people always have a smile. But Thailand is not what it used to be. It’s not as inexpensive as in the past. Tourists are everywhere. This country loves tourism (but not necessarily tourists — just their money). Although Thailand is the “land of smiles”, I get the feeling that a lot of the Thai smiles given to the farang are not genuine. I’ve seen Thais turn from really “helpful” to quite nasty when they realize they won’t be getting any of your money.
It’s still a nice place to visit, but I could never live here.
For one thing, as a person of European descent, no matter how hard you try to integrate into Thai culture, you will never be 100% Thai because you don’t look Thai. You could speak perfect Thai, follow all the cultural norms, rules and guidelines, pray at all the same temples as the Thai, even have a Thai spouse, but you’re still a falang to Thai eyes. It’s like Japan in that way. I would guess most Asian cultures are like this.
One of the good things about Thailand is the lack of the nanny state. For example, vehicular safety devices (e.g. seatbelts, helmets) are not required by law. Or maybe they are (I have no idea), but they’re not really enforced. You won’t get pulled over for not wearing a seatbelt or not wearing a motorcycle helmet. If you get injured, well it’s your fault for not wearing your safety device.
Another thing is less government regulation (or maybe it’s the same as the previous item). This inherently means more of a free market. When my wife and I got our apartment, it took about 1/2 hour to get all the paperwork signed and be shown up to our unit. We didn’t have to have any specific VISAs in our passports (we are here on the standard tourist stamps you get at the airport/border crossings). It didn’t matter than we were foreign — in fact, that’s kind of a good thing here. Thais assume that falang have a lot of money (and they do compared to most Thais), and that they are just either tourists or retirees. Which is true for the most part. These assumptions make certain things a lot easier (like not having to show proof of income/bank statements).
Chiang Mai is nice, but we’re ready to leave Thailand. We’ve been ready since about a week or so ago, actually. About 4 weeks in Thailand is really all we needed. Things are more expensive here I had imagined (and more expensive than when I was here 8 years ago). We’ve seen temples, sites, ridden a 125cc motorbike all over town, taken a cooking class, and eaten more vegan Thai food that we ever thought we’d eat in our lives.
As I write this, we have less than a week before our apartment lease expires, so we will be traveling again very soon. Probably to Kuala Lumpur for a few days and then to Singapore. I’m really looking forward to it, as I’ve never been to Malaysia or Singapore.
*I use “farang”/”falang” interchangeably in this post. Since Thais have a hard time distinguishing between the L and R sounds, you can say either and they will understand. It means “foreign”, and refers to people of European ancestry.
26 Jun 2012
by Nathanin adventuring, freedom
My wife and I are now registered for the ASA 101 Basic Keelboat Sailing class through Learn to Sail Texas in Corpus Christi.
We’re currently the only 2 members enrolled for the July 28-29th course, but that’s full enough that the captain won’t cancel the class (unless there is a hurricane).
This is something I’ve been wanting to do for a little over 2 years now, so I’m pretty excited that I’m finally able to make this happen.
I eventually want to purchase a small keelboat or catamaran (preferably) and sail across the ocean/around the world.
There are actually several levels of ASA classes/certification, and this is only the first. But it’s a step in the right direction and by only taking this basic first course, we won’t be overwhelmed with material.
We had the option of taking a “fast-track” course which includes the ASA 101, 103 and 104 classes, but I feel like it would be too much at once since we have no sailing experience yet.
We are also excited to see my brother & his family, since my wife hasn’t met any of them yet. I want to make sure my wife gets to visit the Texas State Aquarium and the USS Lexington while we are there.
Photo Credit: Edgar Barany
06 Jun 2012
by Nathanin tech Tags: disable-firefox-speed-dial, ff13, firefox-13, firefox-13-speed-dial, firefox-speed-dial
When you open a new tab in Firefox 13, you see a preview grid of most-visited web pages or something. Maybe. I’m not sure where that list comes from. Doesn’t matter, I don’t like it. There’s no way to disable it in the Firefox preferences, so you have to tweak the config settings to disable it.
I don’t know what the guys at Mozilla were thinking when they added this not-so-optional “feature”. Someone suggested they were trying to win… “The Most Retarded New Features Competition”. I would change that to “The Most Superfluous New Features Competition”.
To disable it:
1. Type about:config in the address bar.
2. Search for “browser.newtab.url”, and change the value to “about:blank”.
That’s it.
21 May 2012
by Nathanin OSX, tech Tags: osx, osx-command-line, osx-lion, osx-terminal, terminal
Or the default shell of any user for that matter. I don’t know if this is recommended or not, but changing from /bin/sh to /bin/bash will enable tab-completion, and since I’m a lazy admin that’s what I’ll do. (Plus, less keystrokes = longer hardware life for my keyboard.)
This command will display the user’s default shell (replace root with desired username):
rivendell:~ root# dscl . -read /Users/root UserShell
Now change the shell (in this case to /bin/bash):
rivendell:~ root# dscl . -change /Users/root UserShell /bin/sh /bin/bash
Make sure it was changed:
rivendell:~ root# dscl . -read /Users/root UserShell
UserShell: /bin/bash
rivendell:~ root# echo $0
-sh
rivendell:~ root# su -
rivendell:~ root# echo $0
-bash
11 Jan 2012
by Nathanin food Tags: carrot-soup, purple-carrots, yellow-carrots
And here are some images of the purple carrot and yellow carrots we found at our local natural foods coöp.
These purple carrots have a green/yellow core.
Not all purple carrots have a green/yellow core. Some have orange cores, and some are purple all the way through.
Peels from the purple & yellow carrots. These were used in the soup.
Chopped purple, yellow and orange carrots.
More chopped purple, yellow and orange carrots.
A soup made from purple, yellow and orange carrots (and purple potatoes).
I promise the soup tasted better than it looks. Even my in-laws liked it.
11 Jan 2012
by Nathanin food Tags: beet-soup, purple-potatoes
My wife and I like to eat a lot of non-standard items such as purple and yellow carrots and purple potatoes.
Here are some images of foods we’ve eaten in the last few months.
We get these from our local natural foods coöp.
We make carrot soup with carrots, potatoes and an onion.
This was really hot. And spicy.
Delicious with a little soy mylk.
11 Jan 2012
by Nathanin Information Security, tech
This post will be of particular interest to customers of Global Payments, Inc. I received an email which seemingly came from them, asking for account login details. Since I don’t have an account with them (and before this morning didn’t know who they were), I did some detective work. It turns out to be a phishing scam.
phish·ing/ˈfiSHiNG/
Noun:
The fraudulent practice of sending e-mails purporting to be from legitimate companies in order to induce individuals to reveal personal or confidential information, such as such as credit card numbers or passwords by directing a user to a fake email message or website.
Do not trust any emails coming from the domain “global-paymts.com”, e.g. “virtualT@global-paymts.com”. This is not the company “Global Payments, Inc.” (which itself is a valid company), but a phishing scam intended to get you to enter your real payment processor login data, which the scammers will then use to access your real account and take all your real monies.
A Google search did not turn anything up, so I did a little investigating myself. The HTML form in the email accepts your login info and sends it to a script at the fjnusoft.com domain. A “whois” search reveals that this is a Chinese domain:
Domain Name.......... fjnusoft.com
Creation Date........ 2007-04-08 11:12:47
Registration Date.... 2007-04-08 11:12:47
Expiry Date.......... 2016-04-08 11:12:47
Organisation Name.... fu jianshida ruanjian
Organisation Address. fujianshifandaxue ruanjianrencaipeiyangjidi
Organisation Address.
Organisation Address. fuzhou
Organisation Address. 350000
Organisation Address. FJ
Organisation Address. CN
Admin Name........... lu qixue
Admin Address........ fujianshifandaxue ruanjianrencaipeiyangjidi
Admin Address........
Admin Address........ fuzhou
Admin Address........ 350000
Admin Address........ FJ
Admin Address........ CN
Admin Email.......... lqx@fjnusoft.com
Admin Phone.......... +86.59187248372
Admin Fax............ +86.59183560708
Tech Name............ jinfeng wang
Tech Address......... BeiGuo East Residential District 26-102
Tech Address.........
Tech Address......... Nantong
Tech Address......... 226001
Tech Address......... JS
Tech Address......... CN
Tech Email........... sales@dns99.net
Tech Phone........... +86.51385292710
Tech Fax............. +86.51385292710
Bill Name............ jinfeng wang
Bill Address......... BeiGuo East Residential District 26-102
Bill Address.........
Bill Address......... Nantong
Bill Address......... 226001
Bill Address......... JS
Bill Address......... CN
Bill Email........... lqx@fjnusoft.com
Bill Phone........... +86.51385292710
Bill Fax............. +86.51385292710
Name Server.......... ns1.dns.com.cn
Name Server.......... ns2.dns.com.cn
Below is the email I received. Note that I use mutt, a text-based email reader. If you are reading your email on a web browser and are hit with this scam email, the text of the message will be the same as below but you will probably see the HTML form and some image(s).
From: "GlobalPayments, Inc"
To: contact@ngmarley.com
Subject: Account Update
[-- Attachment #1 --]
[-- Type: text/plain, Encoding: 7bit, Size: 0.2K --]
Dear GlobalPayments Customer,
Because we registrated to many frauds we decided to lock your Virtual Terminal account.
To unlock it please download the file attached to this e-mail and update your login info.
2012 Copyright Global Payments ,Inc.
[-- Attachment #2: Login_myvirtualmerchant.html --]
[-- Type: application/html, Encoding: 7bit, Size: 2.2K --]
[-- application/html is unsupported (use 'v' to view this part) --]
[-- Attachment #3 --]
[-- Type: text/plain, Encoding: 7bit, Size: 0K --]
update: Apparently the company Global Payments, Inc. are aware of this scam, as they have an alert on their homepage and a link to a more detailed alert/disclaimer here: http://www.globalpaymentsinc.com/Alert.html
02 Jan 2012
by Nathanin horticulture
Since learning about the black carrot about a month or so ago, I have been fascinated with the idea of growing and eating them myself. The world carrot museum probably has the most information about them. They are grown in Turkey, the middle east and the far east.
Black carrots are not the same as purple carrots, although they are in the same carrot family (eastern carrots). They contain anthocyanins, which gives them their dark color.
I am currently searching for a supplier of black carrot seeds and will post any updates to this blog.
Nathan X. Marley
black carrot enthusiast
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