Another Video of Biking...

This is Jeff and Me doing a little jump on Belle Isle. It is part of the Buttermilk Trail System. We rode it yesterday. You have to ride on a foot bridge that is beneath The Robert E. Lee bridge. The Quality is very good. I am in the red jersey.



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The Blog...

Well folks as you can see on the right side of the blog, the map is blank. The archived it o their site as it is a yearly map. From December 14, 2006 to December 14, 2007 I had nearly 8100 unique visits to my site. Please help me bring in this year and lets try to bust that total!!!

I appreciate all of your patronage and continued support on my site!! It is successful because you all help make it that way!

Thank you and please keep that visits coming!!


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Mountail Biking Clips

These were taken with my Cam Phone. The quality is not that good and i am going to get some better videos tomorrow. But Watch them anyway!!

Rob doing a stunt.



Rob and Jeff Double Jump.



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Mountain Biking Today...

That is me and DC Rob Berube on Belle Island today!

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Mountain Biking...

We went to the Buttermilk Trail System this morning. It was about 38 degrees and cloudy. We ended up getting 11.39 miles or ridding today.  I have some pics and video to put up next week as soon as I get them.  Yester day I was able to get in 9.38 miles so I feel really tired but also good after nearly 21 miles for 2 days!!

 

Have a good evening…

 

RMStringer

+++++++++++++++++++++++

"We are all geniuses when we dream"

- E.M. Cioran

 

Bell Isle Trails...

Posted via my LGVX8600 phone.
From RMStringer

Birthday...

I just wanted to wish my Wife a VERY HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!
I love her very much!!!
xxxoooxxx


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Mountain Bike Stuff...

My Wife bought me a set of Kenda Nevegal 2.35 inch tires for our Wedding anniversary. I installed them lastnight with Mark's assistance. My old tires were 2.2 inch tires.

She also bought me a XPORT Splistream 4-Bike 2'' hitch rack for my truck. The rack is made by Thule.

I am going to do a ride with Jeff today at Pocahontas Park and them do Buttermilk tomorrow morning with Mark and a few other people. I hope to get in about 15-18 miles over the next 2 days.

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New bike rack!

Xport by Thule
From RMStringer

Work Update...

Well folks, it happened…

 

I am going back to days! It has been nearly 11 months that I have been on the night shift and starting on Monday, I go back to working like most of the world and I will be on the day shift.   It is going to take me a little time to get adjusted to being on days. I am glad and I was going to have to go back in January anyways, it just happened a little early. Have a good night and a good weekend.

 

RMStringer

********************

"To open the eternal worlds, to

open the immortal eyes Of man

Inwards, into the worlds of thought, into Eternity". ITN

 

 

Funny Pictures...

A friend IM'ed me this link the other day. She has some very funny drawings. There are just too many to view tonight.I just placed a few that i really like.


nataliedee.com


nataliedee.com


nataliedee.com


nataliedee.com


nataliedee.com


nataliedee.com


nataliedee.com


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One thing that pisses me off...

You know when you are driving down a road and you have various vehicles that are beside you traveling at your rate of speed and then someone tries to get out ahead of the pack. Well, Minivan drivers piss me off!!  These West End Wandas act like they are driving a racecar and will nearly run you off the road to get ahead of you! One tried to overrun me on a very small 2-lane road several days ago and they always try to blow you away on the toll road.  I try to do the speedlimit and a Minivan came speeding by me the other night and the funny thing is that we both got to the toll at the same time!!  They are not high-performance 500 hours powered vehicles, they are nice passenger vehicles.  People, SLOW DOWN in them!!  The soccer game will be there when you arrive and the Starbucks will still be open!!

 

RMStringer

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

You have no conscience and it seems you never will - Cyberaktif

 

Test

This is a test.



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Hazy Lake...

Taken with my LGVX8600 phone.
From RMStringer

Waste P2P Project

With the RIAA trying to crack down more and more on P2P networks, WASTE is looking like a more viable alternative. This came out several years ago but did not catch on like the inventors had hoped for, but now it looks like a good alternative that is secure from prying eyes!

 

 

Welcome

WASTE is an anonymous, secure, and encrypted collaboration tool which allows users to both share ideas through the chat interface and share data through the download system. WASTE is RSA secured, and has been heralded as the most secure P2P connection protocol currently in development. For technical information please see "information", but for more information on download and installation, please see "downloads". Looking for other WASTE projects? Please choose "projects", or if you are interested in the main WASTE sourceforge project, see "sourceforge". Or, if you just need some help with WASTE, see "documentation".

 

 

Overview

WASTE is a software product and protocol that enables secure distributed communication for small (on the order of 10-50 nodes) trusted groups of users.

WASTE is designed to enable small companies and small teams within larger companies to easily communicate and collaborate in a secure and efficient fashion, independent of physical network topology.

 

Some bits of information about WASTE:

 

WASTE is currently available for 32-bit Windows operating systems as a client and server, Mac OS X as a limited client and server, and as a limited functionality server for Linux, FreeBSD, Mac OS X, and Windows. Porting to other operating systems should be a breeze, as the source is provided (and the network code itself is pretty portable).

WASTE is licensed under the GPL.

WASTE currently provides the following services:

Instant Messaging (with presence)

Group Chat

File browsing/searching

File transfer (upload and download)

Network architecture: WASTE uses a distributed architecture that allows for nodes to connect in a partial mesh type network. Nodes on the network can broadcast and route traffic. Nodes that are not publicly accessible or on slow links can choose not to route traffic. This network is built such that all services utilize the network, so firewall issues become moot. more information.

Security: WASTE uses link-level encryption to secure links, and public keys for authentication. RSA is used for session key exchange and authentication, and the links are encrypted using Blowfish in PCBC mode. The automatic key distribution security model is very primitive at the moment, and may not lend itself well to some social situations. more information.

 

Network

WASTE creates a network of hosts, making whatever connections possible, and typically routes traffic via the path of lowest latency (which effectively ends up as load-balancing, though it is far from ideal).

With at least one host outside of firewalls (or behind a firewall but having one incoming port open), a WASTE network can enable all supported services (including chat and file transfer) between any two hosts.

WASTE uses three main classes of messages: Broadcast messages, routed reply messages, and local management messages.
Broadcast messages are sent from a host when the host wants to either notify or request information from all hosts on the network.
Routed reply messages are sent in response to a broadcast message, routed back to the host that initially broadcast the request.
Local management messages are sent directly between two nodes to negotiate link configuration parameters etc.
The network messaging structure is flexible and there is plenty of room for new message types to enable new services and functionality.

Each link on the network is secured and authenticated, but messages are not secured point to point, which means a trusted user on the network can theoretically spoof and/or sniff traffic. For more information, see the security section.

 

Security

WASTE builds a distributed network of hosts, and secures each link in the network. In securing each link, WASTE also authenticates each link using public keys.

WASTE also provides a mechanism for hosts on this network to exchange keys automatically with each other once a host is trusted on the network.

How WASTE Secures Links
WASTE secures the links of the WASTE network by using RSA to exchange session keys and authenticate the other end of the connection. Once the hosts have authenticated each other and both have the correct session keys, the connection is encrypted using Blowfish in PCBC mode (using different IVs for each direction of the connection). The oversimplified process for bringing a link up is (see comments in the code and the code itself for a more in depth view):
Both sides exchange public key hashes, and verify that they know that hash
Both sides exchange session keys and challenge-response tokens encrypted with each other’s public keys.
Both sides decrypt and verify the challenge-response tokens, and begin encrypted communication (a stream of messages, each message is verified using an MD5).
There's a lot more to it than that, but that's the basic idea. The reality of it is that there is also a "Network ID/Name" feature that allows you to easily keep networks from colliding, as well as efforts to obfuscate the whole process (to make WASTE connections difficult to detect). Another unique feature is the way session keys are exchanged and combined so that in order to decrypt past (recorded) traffic, both private keys of a connection need to be recovered.

Note: It might be worth implementing WASTE using a subset of SSL, to avoid any concern of flaws in this protocol. Feedback is gladly accepted on any potential weaknesses of the negotiation. We have spent a decent amount of time analyzing this, and although we have found a few things that are not ideal (i.e. if you know public keys from a network, you can sniff some traffic and do an offline dictionary attack on the network name/ID), but overall it seems decent. The current implementation probably needs work, too.

Why WASTE requires a trusted group
Since the security in WASTE relies on encrypted links, and messages are not encrypted point to point, a node on the trusted network could easily sniff or spoof messages. So yes, your friends can spy on you. But you were not really worried about them, were you?

How WASTE Prevents Information Leakage
WASTE makes an effort to prevent information leakage. WASTE sends all traffic through the same encrypted link(s), and does not (by default) bring up or drop connections in response to any user actions. WASTE messages are sent completely inside an encrypted channel, so a snooping party would have a VERY difficult time determining what kind of traffic is being sent across a link, or where the traffic originated from, or where the traffic was headed to. And because there may be redundant paths in the network, and traffic is load balanced across those paths, it further complicates things.

In addition, WASTE has an optional saturation feature, in which connections can be saturated to a particular rate (with random data, if necessary), so that a snooping party cannot see how much real data is being moved.

How WASTE Exchanges Keys Between Trusted Hosts
In order for two WASTE hosts to connect to each other, they need to know each other’s public keys. This can happen two ways. The first way, which is how you would initially connect to a WASTE network, is by manually exchanging public keys. This is clunky, and generally a PITA.

Once a WASTE host is on a WASTE network, however, it can (and is by default) be configured to automatically exchange public keys with other hosts on the network. This happens through the secure links of the network.

The main drawback to this is that it is very difficult to remove a key from the network. Each node on the network that that person could potentially connect to has to remove the key. This may be addressed in a future version.

 

 

RMStringer

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

You have no conscience and it seems you never will - Cyberaktif

 

No More CompUSA...

This really sucks for us in Richmond.  We have no big chain computer stores here. All we have are Circuit City and BestBuy.  It would be nice to have a Fry's Electronics here, but that is not going to happen anytime soon.  I used to shop at CompUSA often when i lived in Austin Texas as well as in Southeast Texas.

 

Off the wire:

103 stores to be sold or closed after holiday sales.

(12-08) 04:00 PST Dallas -- - Consumer electronics retailer CompUSA said Friday that it will go out of business after the holidays following sale of the company to Gordon Brothers Group LLC, a restructuring firm. Financial terms weren't disclosed.

CompUSA of Dallas operates 103 stores, which plan to run store-closing sales during the holidays.

Privately held CompUSA, controlled by Mexican financier Carlos Slim Helu's Grupo Carso SA, said discussions were under way to sell certain stores in key markets. Stores that can't be sold will be closed.

Gordon Brothers will also try to sell the company's technical services business, CompUSA TechPro, and its online business, CompUSA.com. It would be up to the buyers whether to continue the CompUSA name.

CompUSA has struggled for nearly a decade with falling prices on personal computers, its most important product, and competition from big-box retailers such as Best Buy.

The slowing growth in computer sales has affected other companies.

Dell Inc.'s U.S. consumer sales fell 26 percent in the first half of this year, which could have accelerated the PC-maker's announcement this week that it will sell machines at Best Buy.

CompUSA was founded in 1984 as software seller Soft Warehouse, then branched out into computers. It took on the CompUSA name and went public in 1991. It bought Tandy's Computer City chain.

Slim bought his first stake in the company in 1999 and took it private the next year in an $800 million buyout. The chain went through several CEOs and tried different turnaround strategies, such as a move this year to focus on core customers such as gadget lovers and small-business owners.

CompUSA closed more than half its stores this spring and got a cash infusion of $440 million to restructure.

During the wind-down, Bill Weinstein and Stephen Gray, managing partner at CRG Partners, will run the company. The chain's current chief executive, Roman Ross, will serve in an advisory role, CompUSA said.

Gordon Brothers created an affiliate, Specialty Equity LLC, to handle the deal. DJM Realty, a Gordon Brothers Group affiliate, will review leases of CompUSA's store locations.

James River Plaza...

Here are a few pics from this place in downtown Richmond.

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Fire Bush...

DSC02886, originally uploaded by RMStringer.

This was one of the bushes at the Lewis Ginter Botanical Gardens that had some very nice lighting effects on it. It looks like the brining bush at night. I tried to get all of the bush in the picture, but I couldn’t fit it in the field of view on my camera, so I got all that I could.

Sondra and Robert...

DSC02882, originally uploaded by RMStringer.

This is me and the wife before we went out last night.

The Walk of Lights...

The Walk of Lights..., originally uploaded by RMStringer.

GardenFest of Lights
Friday November 23, 2007 to Monday January 7, 2008
5 - 10 p.m.

It was freaking COLD last night!! It was colder than i thought it would be and i did not take gloves and my hands were freezing all night long. This was were you walked into after you bought your tickets. It was an enchanting evening to be out...