My #1 network troubleshooting tool is called PortQry. Microsoft provides it as a download here in command line version and here with a GUI front-end.

This is how you would find out if a machine had remote desktop running:

C:\>portqry -n server01 -e 3389
Querying target system called:
 server01
Attempting to resolve name to IP address…
Name resolved to 10.1.1.1
querying…
TCP port 3389 (unknown service): LISTENING

Since ICMP (ping) is disabled so often these days PortQry is now the new ping.

For those of us who love Will Ferrell and miss his Saturday Night Live presence we have to rely on stuff like this. (And seeing Anchorman, et al multiple times, which is what I am going to do this Thursday (see it again))

Will Ferrell spoofs GWB for ACT … “you caught me mending my fences, one of the many things i do on my ranch …” (streaming QuickTime or WMV). [via MetaFilter]

Vinod pointed me to a great Mike Tyson quote page after I questioned the origin of “I guess I’m gonna fade into Bolivian” when asked what he was going to do after losing his latest fight.

“I paid a worker at New York’s zoo to re-open it just for me and Robin. When we got to the gorilla cage there was 1 big silverback gorilla there just bullying all the other gorillas. They were so powerful but their eyes were like an innocent infant. I offered the attendant $10,000 to open the cage and let smash that silverback’s snotbox! He declined.”

“[He] called me a ‘rapist’ and a ‘recluse.’ I’m not a recluse.”

I get on the 2,3 express subway at 96th street. Many days a local train pulls up, lets people off, many of whom are trying to transfer to the express.

Without fail they will make a darting, elbowing move directly across the platform and will stand directly in front of you right on the edge and do the lean way over to look for the oncoming train. The depths of the NYC subway are not a pleasant place to be during the summer granted, but why these people feel like they own the fucking place is beyond me.

Visited my brother Kevin and his wife Julia in Toronto this weekend and stayed in their newly purchased house.

We got the full tour of the town. We went up the CN tower. Of course Hollie felt the need to call out to all within earshot that it probably wouldn’t be the “largest free-standing structure” if not for the extra-long antennae at the top. The unequivocal highlight was the glass floor, which apparently they only added ten years ago so it was new to all of us. Very strange sensation to walk out over Plexiglas with something like 1000 feet between you and the ground.

As we drove through the various neighbourhoods, business districts etc, we felt compelled to constantly compare it to what city (mostly in the US) that it looked or felt like. Overall, I’m going with Chicago as the city most closely resembling Toronto.

Kevin has a fixer-upper on his hands. As the renter of an Manhattan apartment I really miss out on trips to Home Depot and certainly am not going to get to swing a sledge hammer any time soon. Do any other city folk miss home improvement and what not?

I can’t believe it! The rumors I commented on earlier about Bush pushing Pakistan to come up with al Qaida bigwigs during the convention are true!

CNN: Pakistan captures high-level al Qaeda operative

They have no shame. Tonight just happens to be the biggest single moment in Kerry’s campaign.

From Coreyh.com on May 11th:

I have long suspected that Karl Rove has been dreaming about engineering a high profile arrest close to the election. Even if they captured somebody now they’d probably just come up with some bogus reason to hold him in secret until the political climate is more attractive for maximum possible votes.

Just to pass on some added information, about which we’ll be saying more. There is chatter in Pakistani intelligence circles that the US has let the Pakistanis know that the optimal time for bagging ‘high value’ al Qaida suspects in the untamed Afghan-Pakistani border lands is the last ten days of July, 2004.

— Josh Marshall [via Talking Points Memo]

The corporate PhotoHunt team was in Paris at the tail end of a worldwide (work) tour and found a Megatouch 2002 Machine. Even without my help they were able to achieve an impressive international debut with a #8 on the board.

Previous EPH coverage here.

I really can’t explain why I like this picture soooo much.

via Curbed

Hollie just sent this via her new camera phone. Needless to say I’m pretty jealous.

I have a Motorola MPX200 from AT&T WS running Windows Mobile 2002 for Smartphones. No camera for me unless I want to walk around with a camera apendage sticking out of the SD slot.

Based on a tip from MarcF I decided to take the plunge and install the semi-pirate Windows Mobile 2003 ROM on my phone.

It was a seamless procedure once I was able to find the ROMs online (again). Here is an in-direct link.

I’ll post a recap of how it goes in a week or so.

 

 

Here are instructions for updating the gentoo kernel from 2.4 to 2.6. I’m mostly doing this because I did this wrong about twenty times and it feels better if I share it.