Andy Blyler - Blog

Issue when using Ping.fm, GTALK Bot, and iChat

Andy — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 01:38:22 +0000

I have noticed that my status update have contained duplicate links when sending them from iChat. It appears the problem is the way iChat creates the XML and/or the parser of the Ping.fm bot. An example of this can be seen on my twitter about credit card minimum purchase amounts.

If you sniff the jabber traffic you will find something similar the following:



help http://www.google.com [http://www.google.com]




help http://www.google.com

I did report the issue “ping.fm duplicating links“. But sadly it doesn’t appear that they are going (or able) to do anything about the issue.

HOWTO: Custom Domains with MobileMe on the iPhone via Postfix

Andy — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 03:21:32 +0000

It is hard to change the email address your email is coming from when sending email from MobileMe on the iPhone because it will not let you simply change it in settings, like it does from other IMAP accounts. I really wanted to use MobileMe, mainly for the push email and contact/calendar/bookmark synchronization. However, if it did not allow me to keep my current email address at my own domain it was going to be a deal breaker. Luckily, I found a way to still use my existing email address with the iPhone. In order to do this you will need:

Create an alias with MobileMe
Modify Postfix configuration
Forward your email to the new MobileMe alias
Modify MobileMe account on iPhone to use your Postfix SMTP server

First create an alias with MobileMe, this will be used by your mail server to forward mail to you. For example you could pick username.incoming@me.com. This is needed because we are going to ask Postfix to map your main MobileMe address to your existing one.

Next lets modify the Postfix configuration. For this we are going to use the email address joe@domain.com as our existing email address and assume the postfix configuration files are located in /etc/postfix. First lets create /etc/postfix/smtpgenericmaps with the following content:

username@me.com joe@domain.com

Then edit /etc/postfix/main.cf and add:

# SMTP Outbound From Rewrite
smtp_generic_maps = hash:/etc/postfix/smtp_generic_maps

This will cause any outbound email delivered via SMTP that have a from address of username@me.com to be rewritten as if they came from joe@domain.com. You will need to reload/restart postfix for this change to take effect.

Forward your mail to username.incoming@me.com. On my mail server we are using virtual domain maps, so I updated my virtual alias maps to forward my mail to username.incoming@me.com. You could also do the same thing by using a .forward file or procmail/maildrop. Note: Do not forward to username@me.com, it will cause a loop, do to the smtpgenericmaps and send a NDR to the sender of the email.

Lastly we need to modify the MobileMe account on the iPhone to use the Postfix as the outbound SMTP server. To do this goto Settings -> Mail, Contacts, Calendars -> Your MobileMe Account -> Account Information -> SMTP -> Add or Select your SMTP server.

There you have it! Now when you send an email from your iPhone it will appear to be sent from joe@domain.com rather than username@me.com.

The Little Red School House

Andy — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 01:43:07 +0000

A little over two weeks ago Stevie and I headed up to my parents to take some photos. We stopped by “The Little Red School House”, which is about a mile away from my family’s farm. It was used as a one room school house up until the 1950s. It is hard to believe that both my Uncle and Aunt from my Dad’s side both went to school there. Okay, enough history talk here are the photos.

We think this might be the date when it was built, but we are not certain.

HOWTO: Create Link to Sent Money via PayPal

Andy — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 16:00:03 +0000

A while back I created a web site for a rental property in Ocean City, Maryland called Show Me The Beach.

Recently I was asked by the owner to update the PayPal link, as it wasn’t working any more. To my dismay I could not find anything on PayPal’s site about how to create a link to send money without setting up a business account. So I set out on my own to try to find a URL that would work to link to.

It didn’t take long, I noticed that on their main page there was a link to send money. The link on went to https://www.paypal.com/sendmoney. I clicked on the link and viewed the source of the page. I then found that the field in the form for the recipient was named email. I tried the following URL https://www.paypal.com/sendmoney?email=you@ihatespam.com and to my surprise, it worked! It filled the recipient with the value you@ihatespam.com! Below you can see a screenshot of the page.

Not sure how long it will last, but for now you can again create a URL that will fill in your email address that you can give people to send you money from PayPal.

Photos from the Farm

Andy — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 01:02:15 +0000

This weekend Stevie and I decided to go visit my family and take some photos around the farm. We ended up talking and hanging out with my family more than taking photos, but here are two of my favorites I took.

The first is the front of the market from across the street where Route 25 intersects with Pear Lane. Notice how wide the Route 25 is. I wish the streets down here were that wide, it would make bike riding a lot more appealing.

Next up is the sign in front of the market. Stevie and I stood in the middle of the road to get this one. Luckily we didn’t get hit by any traffic.

Stevie took a bunch more photos around the farm, but it was getting dark out and my Canon PowerShot S3 just could handle the low lighting. So I had to settle for taste testing the strawberries, which I used to pick when I was growing up on the farm. They are just as I remember them, wonderfully sweet (just like Stevie)!

Seven Year Old Boy Steals Grandmother’s Car

Andy — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 01:47:57 +0000

Stevie showed me this video a few weeks ago. I think it is hilarious! However it is also very sad that this kid doesn’t understand how wrong his actions were.

I hope his grandma did beat his behind!

C25K W1D1

Andy — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 04:37:10 +0000

After reading about Nathan and John running all the time I decided to give the Couch-to-5K Running Plan a try.

I found a C25K podcast that contains some fast pace music and a guy giving you instructions on when to switch pace. I downloaded it and put in on my iPhone, got bundled up, and went outside and gave it my all. I must say that it did push my limits, it has been quite some time since I have been active. It felt really good afterwards to have accomplished something. I am glad that I used the podcast. It was like having a digital trainer and it prevented me from having to keep track of time.

Next workout will be on Friday! Here is to a healthier me!

We Got Married!

Andy — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 19:56:07 +0000

Back on October 13, 2007 Stevie and I got married on the Blyler Fruit Farm. It was the perfect! The weather, location, bride, ceremony, and everything else. I still get chills just thinking about it. I never thought I could feel the way I felt on that day! Love ya Stevie!

You can view all the photos in wedding photo set on flickr.

IPv6 Enabled on Plasma

Andy — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 02:48:59 +0000

After getting IPv6 enabled on my LAN I compiled in IPv6 and ip6tables support into the kernel on plasma. Today I finally got around to finishing off the IPv6 setup. I must say it was very easy and the best part is it did not require a tunnel broker! Instead it is using 6to4.

First off I copied the firewall script to a new file named firewall6. In that file I replaced all instances of iptables with ip6tables. I also replaced icmp with icmpv6. Finally I added the script to the /etc/conf.d/local.start file and also executed manually. That was enough to get ip6tables up and running.

Next I setup the 6to4 by adding the following to /etc/conf.d/net:

link_6to4="eth0"
config_6to4=("ip6to4")
depend_6to4() {
   need net.eth0
}

To finish it off I ran:

ln -s /etc/init.d/net.lo /etc/init.d/net.6to4
rc-update add net.6to4 default
/etc/init.d/net.6to4 start

At this point `ifconfig 6to4` showed that we had an inet6 address of 2002:423b:6dbf::1.

I then added AAAA records to DNS for the plasma.querx.com and www.andyblyler.com zones. So if you have an IPv6 enabled browser and have an IPv6 internet connection you should be able to browse this page using IPv6!

China Threatens to Trigger US Dollar Crash

Andy — Mon, 03 Sep 2007 15:03:43 +0000

It is scary that China has enough investment, $1.33 trillion, in the United States treasuries that it could seriously threaten to trigger a US dollar crash. However, it is very unlikely that it would ever execute such a threat.

China does not want the world economy to become unstable. Doing so would decrease the demand for Chinese goods which would be bad for the Chinese economy. This is most likely just a scare tactic that they are using in order to try to prevent the United States from imposing trade sanctions.

Don’t you just love the communists?