So recently I had the time to set up a VPN connection to my home computer over the last week. I used the community edition of SSL Explorer. It is really handy for when you need to access your data from anywhere in the world, as long as you have an internet connection. The site here: http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/content/view/27644/111/ is definitely the best guide I have come across.

I thought I’d write this post up because I found it hard to find information on it. On another note, if the SSL Explorer Agent fails to sync, make sure you set proxy settings in another profile. Quite annoying if you have proxies at home and at other locations (hence the need for different profiles). Good luck!

Since I have a mac at home which Andrew uses, I finally got around to get file sharing to work. All our music is on my external HDD hooked up to our main pc. I found out how to share it over the network and get the mac to access it using this website. Hope it works quickly for those who need this!

I’m pretty sure a lot of people have used the voice/webcam capabilities in MSN messenger and Skype even. This is what people in the tech world call VoIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol). This basically means the transfer of audio over the internet. Some of you may have discovered that Skype can make calls to ordinary telephones after you attach credit to your account. I have been doing this for a while since I have friends scattered around the world until I found out about hardware VoIP. Hardware VoIP means that you have a dedicated “box” that controls your calls from normal telephone handsets instead of your computer.

I recently signed myself up to MyNetFone as my VoIP provider. The call rates are basically the same as SkypeOut would charge or even cheaper, except that you use the service with your normal phone. Getting hardware VoIP also means you can still access your ordinary PSTN number on VoIP devices with the fallback feature. This feature means you can still make and receive calls on the PSTN number.

I would recommend people to switch to VoIP if they have a high speed internet connection. You can finally bar all outgoing calls on your regular line (saving you money) and make all outgoing calls on the VoIP service which is exceptionally cheap for local, STD and international. The VoIP hardware will pay itself off in one billing cycle if you use the phone frequently.

My desktop needs an upgrade. I don’t want anything fancy so I was looking at some budget parts. According to MSY, I can get my bare minimums for $171 which is quite good. The specifications are:

Asus P5GC-MX/1333 (Socket 775) $61
Intel Celeron 420 $48
1GB DDR2 $23
Case with Power Supply (needed for new mobos) $39
Total $171

I should also look into spending some money on a new hard drive as the new motherboards only come with one IDE connector. It wouldn’t be wise to put the DVD-RW and hard drive onto the same connector. Hard drives are pretty inexpensive these days anyway. So my plan is to hopefully pick this stuff up in Melbourne during the Australian Open! yay

I’m taking this class at CU-Boulder called Object Oriented Analysis and Design. Basically it outlines everything about designing programs in a totally object oriented way. We strive to minimize code duplication and promote the use of encapsulation, code re-use and inheritance. Our first assignment required us to design a class UML diagram based on a given scenario. Naturally, I began my design on paper, but the submission requirements required that the assignment was to be submitted online. Seeing as that I had no UML design tools, I just used Microsoft Word to draw my diagrams. It was tedious and painful - not what I was looking for.

However, I came across a UML tool that I can use in the future assignments. It allows you to draw a sequence diagram with ease. A tool like this could save you a lot of time in transforming your UML work digitally. By creating professional results, you will probably score a few “brownie points” with your clients, or in my case, my professor! You can trial the product for 14 days to see if it meets your needs. If you decide to purchase the full program, you are backed up with technical support, tutorials, sample diagrams and free upgrades.

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