OpenVPN rocks

It has to be said, OpenVPN rocks! Forget all those proprietary VPNs you have to buy client licenses for, or the compromised Windows PPTP VPN you might get if you have Windows Server. Besides many of those just wont work when you're in an Internet Cafe because people will either block the VPN traffic or worse still the router will only allow one VPN connection through dropping the current connection as new ones come along.

Instead I use OpenVPN based on tried and test SSL technology. If SSL is good enough for banking transactions then it should be good enough to access your home network remotely... Well it is for me.

Today I installed my third OpenVPN network and everything went great. My only beef is that the server side set up requires a bit more work than is really necessary for the 95% case, but once you know what you're doing its really just bashing commands in and editing some config files in obvious places.

I've been using OpenVPN in bridged mode because it avoids having to deal with adding routes between the VPN and your current network. Plus for the average home or small business use its just to difficult to explain why they can't browse their target network just like they were at home or in the office. Performance is not the big issue here, its all about simplicity.

Yes there are competing solutions - you can get a VPN router, all the standard consumer network manufacturers sell them: DLink, Netgear, LinkSys etc. However they are both extremely confusing for the average person to configure (so you might as well use OpenVPN which isn't really any harder) or require client licenses for each remote user (so you might as well use OpenVPN which is free). The only advantage of a router based system is you don't have to have a machine permanently on to access your home network. But then if only your router is powered on what use is remote access? (Except perhaps to do wake-on-lan type operations).

You could also use one of these web based remote access technologies that offer encrypted access e.g. GoToMyPC. While these have the advantage of no software install on the remote client (OpenVPN requires an admin install of software), just browser access. However these companies certainly charge for the privilege, often $20 per PC per month and up - quite a hefty fee if all you want is occasional access - but maybe justifiable to the average business traveller. However, if you are a business traveller don't you have your laptop with you? In which case why be limited by a web based interface? With OpenVPN you can get on your network, mount network drives, browse shared folders, printers, cut and paste, remote desktop to your machine and do anything the web based systems can do - all for nothing.

So as far as I'm concerned OpenVPN rocks! And guess what it works on Linux/BSD, Windows and Mac platforms. Plus there is a version for Windows Mobile devices in the works so I'll even be able to VPN in from my humble TMobile MDA device and talk directly to my LAN Sweet! (I expect I'll have to use non-bridge mode for that :-()

Highly Defined Digital Goodness

After suffering from completely crap, yeah crap TV reception where I live I can say we've pretty much given up watching TV. For the most part we'll just download the next day (or sometimes the same day) from BitTorrent where most shows were ripped from a high definition source. Mmmmm, digital goodness. Even after compression this is way, way better than you could ever get from regular TV reception - even over cable.

Now just remember this is free to air TV content we're talking about - I don't feel any remorse over copyright or anything like that. Sure, most BitTorrent content has had commercials edited out, but lets face it, if I had decent TV reception I'd be using TiVo or something like that so I could skip over the commercials as do all my friends with cable.

Enter stage right the DVICO Fusion HDTV5 USB HD tunner and one DB2 HD indoor/outdoor antenna both orders from PCAlchemy.

Well after that, lets just say fuzzy, crappy, marginal TV reception days are gone, gooooone. Good bye NTSC, hello 780p, 1080i, Dolby AC-3 and 5.1 surround sound.

So far its been pretty much all good. The only problems are that a) my computer isn't really fast enough to deal with HD, surround sound and saving everything to HD for ad-skipping (yeah, ad-skipping you're sure you betcha) and b) for some strange reason the supplied remote control would work on none of the three computers I install the DVICO box on.

a) is no big deal, I'm on a mono-core 2.4Ghz 533Mhz FSB P4 with an nVidia Ti4200 - hot stuff four years ago but a long way behind the curve now. Sooner or later dual-core goodness and a bad ass video card will come my way.

b) is well, ultimately also no big deal. The software supplied with the DVICO box is great for watching TV but Snapstream has something a lot better and it comes with its own RF remote control.

I did contact DVICO about b) and they told me to RMA the device to the seller - PC Alchemy. PC Alchemy were very good and actually tested my device albeit on a Windows Media Center machine (mine is plain XP based). Yes they actually have tech guys to test stuff, its not just a drop-ship operation. Unfortunately for me the remote worked fine for them so they returned it back to me and offered help with installing the s/w.

Normally I would be suspicious that there is something wrong with my machine but I have actually tried the s/w and h/w on three different computers with now joy which is why I was convince my remote is broken. Since they say it works I can only assume its something driver or OS related and that most people are using this box with WMC and haven't had a problem. In any case I don't really care about the remote much... when my hardware gets upgraded I'll ultimately switch to Snapstream and have no use for it anyway.

Social Insecurity Number Humour

Following the recent spate of social security number revelations (veterans and hotel.com customers) I'm begining to wonder if there is anyone left who hasn't had their personal information compromised thanks to computer related screwups? If this goes on much longer the government will soon be able to use it as an excuse - after all if your SSID, DOB, address, phone number and credit card numbers have already been posted on the internet five times this year, what's one more?

Taking it a step further they might as well just make posting all that information a requirement before you get on the Internet so then we can all dispense with that costly security crap. Lets face it, its only a matter of time before all those phone records the NSA has been collecting get accidentally dumped onto file sharing networks somewhere then everyone will have a chance to get to grips with how they feel about the old pirvacy vs. security argument.