July 3rd, 2009 by Ryan Reed

I’ve always preferred living in the south rather then New England for various reasons but in the last year, the urge to move has been pretty large. I’ve never been a cold weather kind of guy, snow gets boring after 10 minutes.

So you might ask yourself “Ryan, why not just move then?’ Ah, there are numerous reasons but a few really stand out.

• The job - this is the biggest reason. I enjoy my job a great deal. I’m a big fan of the firewall management part of our business. It’s extremely interesting and the troubleshooting, normally, doesn’t drive me insane. I actually feel like I’ve come into my own in this respect, being able to troubleshoot firewall issues, setup VPNs, etc.
• The people I work with - I have an excellent team behind me. The shift is really rough, but I get to work with some smart and fun guys/gals. Our shift is pretty close and we have a lot of fun while getting a huge amount of work done. It’s really the reason I haven’t changed shifts
• The job - I know I said it earlier but it really is the job. Good money, good people, and good fun.
• The economy - It’s a bit harder to find a job now adays. Finding a job without 10 years of experience maybe a bit tough. Leaving my current job without a job offer would be a huge problem.

Besides those points, I really don’t have much holding me in New England. My family moved out of New England when I went to college and I don’t have a significant other at the moment. I’d really like to move someplace South/Southwest. Texas seems really nice but I’d be open to almost anything south of Jersey. I guess I’ll just keep a lookout and work on getting a good chunk of certs for a little while.

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June 28th, 2009 by Ryan Reed

So a quick update regarding the “story” I posted a couple days ago. I received a letter from the Beaumont Legal Department informing me that they cannot be held legally liable for the damages to my camera. This is in contradiction to the officer who admitted to damaging the camera on voicemail.

Needless to say, I will be sending a reply back to Mr. Martin as I’m not sure what constitutes liability now adays but an officer dropping an $850 camera during a traffic stop and an admittance to dropping the camera on voicemail seems to me like it would make Beaumont liable in this case. We’ll see how things turn out, I suppose.

Note: I really appreciate that the letter came from the directory G:\RMW\DENIAL\. Just makes it that much better.

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June 22nd, 2009 by Ryan Reed

I thought I would go and tell a true story about a run in with some police officers in Texas a couple weeks ago.


THE “STORY”
About a month ago, myself and 2 of my buddies, Randy McCaig and Brian Roy took a road trip from Providence, RI to Houston, TX to visit a good friend of ours, Matt Garza. We managed to make our way all the way to the Texas border without incident.

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June 19th, 2009 by Ryan Reed

Quick update. I passed my CCSA exam today. 3 certs this year and counting. CCNA coming very soon.

Posted in Internet Security, Network Security | No Comments »

June 8th, 2009 by Ryan Reed

Quick update, just got my JNCIA certification. Wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be.

Posted in Internet Security, Network Security | No Comments »

May 16th, 2009 by Ryan Reed

I migrated all of my websites to my new Dreamhost provider.

For the past 4+ years, I have been with 1and1.com. They had been decent for the time I was with them but I had many issues with their service. One large problem was in the amount of mysql databases I was allowed. 1 is not enough. While I could work with 1 database, it makes things easier being able to use as many databases as I want, 1 for each site.

While that was a minor issue, the biggest issue I had with 1and1.com was their service. While there wasn’t a huge amount of downtime, there was a noticeable amount. In the last couple weeks, I had seen a large amount of downtime with the site and email which was extremely frustrating. Calling 1and1.com for help only connected me with outsourced tech support who couldn’t understand what i was trying to say or ask.

Dreamhost has been extremely easy to setup, in general. Except for a minor blip in email service, which I received extremely quick support for, there was very little issues. Getting the sites up with almost no down time was extremely easy. I think the only thing I might complain about is the inability to modify a mysql database without having the domain ready. I had to wait until my domain transfers went through and the nameservers updated before I could restore the main database for this site.

I can highly recommend Dreamhost as a webhost so far. I would also recommend steering clear of 1and1 as their uptime is spotty, trying to regain domains is troublesome, and their phone support is near impossible to actually get anyone who can help.

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May 2nd, 2009 by Ryan Reed

I ended up picking a nice new Nikon D5000 and decided to get some pictures. To be honest, I’m a beginner into the DSLR world so these photos aren’t the best and my car could certainly use a good wash.

As you can see, the car was extremely dirty and the pictures are so so. I’m going to work on learning all the ins and outs of my camera. Those were just using the auto program feature. After messing around for a while longer, I think I prefer using the manual or aperture modes. We’ll see how things go. Expect some nice photos at the end of this month, beginning of next month as there is a road trip with 2 of my buddies, Brian Roy and Randy McCaig, to Houston from Providence, RI. Should be a fun time.

Let me know if you have any thoughts, questions, or anything of that nature.

Posted in Automotive, Images, VW GLI | No Comments »

April 26th, 2009 by Ryan Reed

Ah, sorry for the lack of updates. I’m a tad slow, in that regard. Anyway, I’ve been working on a few things. My first little project is my car. Since I got my car, I’ve been working on getting my car to look exactly like I’d like. Mostly thinking about different things I wanted to do to my car. Then I saw the following car:

It’s an excellent looking car. It’s classy and not too flashy. It’s lowered to an excellent height, although I’m not sure if the car would survive in New England. My buddy, Brian Roy, put his Photoshop skills to work and whipped it up to match my car’s color.


I have already ordered the grille pieces to replace my current honeycomb grille. While I enjoy the honeycomb grille (it is extremely aggressive looking), I think the Euro style grill from the pictures above is a tad more classy. The ride height will be coming later in the future. I haven’t decided if I’ll be getting a new set of wheels as I like the huff blades.

Note: I did recently see that PGJetterFTW from VW Vortex has a similar setup. It looks great.

I do think, after the grille, the Euro taillights will be my next purchase. I think they look really good. I’m disappointed that they aren’t included in the states stock but I guess it happens. It’ll take a little work and a VagCom unit but should be pretty nice looking. I’ll definitely post updates as soon as the grille pieces come in.

Posted in Automotive, Images, VW GLI | No Comments »

March 26th, 2009 by Ryan Reed

So, yet again, I decided to redesign the ‘ol site. This new design looks a little more professional but will take some more refining to get all the posts and pages to display properly. Currently, the Contact Me, Portfolio, and Resume pages have been removed. I need to update them to use the new look. Unfortunately, they don’t display properly at all. The pages are really high up on my list of things to do for the site. How will anyone find my resume if it’s not linked?

Please let me know if you notice any problems with the new view. It’s still a work in progress.

Posted in Web Development | 2 Comments »

March 16th, 2009 by Ryan Reed

Sorry it’s been so long since my last update. I’ve been busy with a few things. First, I’ve been redesigning my entire site. Again… I have a problem of wanting to code a little when I’m bored. Unfortunately, that usually means that my site takes most of the brunt. Maybe it works out better that way anyway. It keeps the site interesting. I’m not a huge fan of my current design anyway. Check out the work in progress.

Really, the last thing I’ve been busy with is my new car. I picked up a 2009 VW GLI. My last vehicle was a 2001 Nissan Xterra. I love the car but it was really bad on gas, not very attractive, and was starting to get a large decent amount of mileage on it (roughly 120k). The new car is sleek, fast, and has decent modding possibilities for when I get bored. Check out some pictures below.

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Posted in Automotive, Images, Weird | No Comments »