roncli.com blog

Some morons have decided that my logs website has a vulnerability that they want to take advantage of. It's gotten so bad that in the month of October alone I got 267,816 hits.

The problem is these idiots are looking for some PHP file that apparently has the vulnerability they are looking for. Being strictly an ASP/ASP.Net Windows 2003 server, there's no PHP on here. Really, what kind of fucking idiots would continuously hit a site that doesn't have the vulnerability they are looking for? What is the point? Idiots.

No matter, it's not killing my server yet, but I'll keep an eye on it and, if necessary, have some fun with it.

Labels: Logs, roncli.com, Servers

Wednesday, May 17, 2006

Projects!
Posted: 1:59:00 AM 0 comments

I decided to jump into Microsoft Project to organize my list of projects. My god, do I have a lot of projects. Not counting weekly tasks, I have 27 projects. Twenty-seven. When am I going to find time to do them all?

I suppose that's what Project is for, finding the time to do them all. It's not very encouraging at first glance, but when I glaze over the details, things do move along, if slowly. I doubt I'll ever complete all 27 projects, though, as certain projects, such as the D3TL 2003 upgrade (yes, I know it's 2006), D3DSN, and MediaSmarts probably isn't going to happen. They are the absolute lowest on my priority list right now, although I will at the very least review where these projects stand before June is out.

My goal is to get PwnedCars done before my vacation in June - by the way, I'm leaving for Melbourne, Australia on June 17th - and get some significant progress done on the new roncli Productions website. After that, I've got some long-term projects, including Cent, which I've mentioned here before. Since I've actually had to use C++ at work, I'm a bit more comfortable with the language, and hope that can help me get more done on Cent.

Here's a large (but incomplete, I must have some secrets!) selection of the 27 projects I have, for your interest:

modplug.roncli.com - Where ModPlug used to be hosted before the first crash, this box now holds some websites for MisterX (Kim), and its future is unknown at the moment. It probably will turn into a hosting box for the next modplug.com, but that's up to Kim & LPChip. (By the way, modplug.roncli.com technically isn't an address, it's just my designation for the computer itself.)

reborn.roncli.com - Reborn is my router, running FreeBSD 6.1 just like the ModPlug box. It's also my network's backup server with 300 GB of storage space. It backs up everything, including my MAME collection, OSMusic.Net, and all of the photo's Kathy's got stored on her computer.

successor.roncli.com - This is my main computer, and the reason it's a project is because I want to reinstall Windows. Yeah. That's going to be a fun day or three.

www.roncli.com - This is the Windows server where all my ASP websites live. The only thing I need to do is figure out how to backup the databases so that Backup can pick them up and put them onto Reborn.

Outpost Music - My music group that I haven't really done much with in a year and a half. Well, it's high time I got the forums working. I'll likely work on that after vacation.

The Nightstalker - Not to be confused with http://www.roncli.com, http://tns.roncli.com is solely devoted to my music. However, there's only 2 songs listed there right now. Considering I've released over 50, that's got to change.

Chess - Not sure what to call this yet, but I'm really interested in making a site with Java that will allow people to solve chess puzzles, play games, chat, and more. Definitely a long termer.

Cent - I really haven't come out and said what this is, but it's my dabbling into CrystalSpace to see if I can write a legitimate 3D first person shooter. It uses Crystal Space as its rendering engine, so once I understand it - and I understand a lot of it right now - writing the necessary code should just be a matter of time. How far I go with it depends on how well it runs.

Solar - Solar is a TCP/IP Text Processing Engine. I can hear it now. Huh? Basically, it is a telnet server that allows multiple connections, allowing them to interact. It would be great groundwork for a MUD-type application, but I really haven't had any plans to do anything with it. Putting it in as a project at least gives me an opportunity to improve it.

ChessCli - This is definitely being called ChessCli, and is my attempt at creating a WinBoard chess engine.

Outpost IRC Bot - Not sure if I even want to continue this project, but it was designed to be a cutthroat one hour compo manager. I had a lot of ideas for this about 4 years ago. Whether I can recall them, well, who knows.

roncli.com Logs - I'd really like to expand http://logs.roncli.com, as I'm recording a lot more information than I'm displaying. I'd also like to work on the performance and get this thing smoking along.

Torrent Keeper - Frustrated with the lack of true multithreading BitTorrent applications, I started Torrent Keeper about a year ago. It hasn't gone anywhere, but I figure this will likely follow Backup and Due Process as one of the first few roncli Productions offerings.

Word Field - A silly idea of mine that I'd like to follow through on eventually. Combine word scramble, mine sweeper, and some aspects of Press Your Luck, and you've got a good idea what this game will be like.

D3TL 2003 - As mentioned above, I started to do an upgrade of D3TL in 2003. The database was really badly designed, even though it was much better than just updating a Flash file every now and again. Problem is, I don't play Descent anymore, and given that there hasn't been a real game played in months, I might be better off saving an idea like this for Cent if I ever finish it.

D3DSN - This is the Descent 3 Dedicated Server Network. Yes, it's still up. No one uses it though, because the software's buggy. When I went from Visual Basic 6.0 to .NET, I really messed up with some timing issues. What I really need to do is add true threading to that application, but the last time I tried to test it with Esa, I ended up giving up because he wasn't seeing the new web services for some reason or another. Again, if I ever pick this up, it will probably be for Cent instead.

IsItUp - Recall September of last year when I high-tailed up to Lubbock, TX, to escape Hurrican Rita. While I was up there, I was interested in whether or not my servers were up. So, I wrote IsItUp, an insanely simple app. I might expand it a bit, but probably will end up being released as freeware.

Numbers - Some people write "Hello World". I write Numbers. I've written this game in many languages, including TI99-4 Basic, Macintosh QuickBasic (OS 7.0 days!), C128 Basic (dual screen!), and finally Visual Basic 6.0. It's a rather addicting game, and over the years I've added some features to it that make it even more challenging. I want to do something with it, I just don't know what yet.

roncli.com Blog - Yes, the very same one you are reading! I'd like to add some things to the blog, maybe my BOINC stats, maybe my Google Calendar agenda, perhaps some other widgets that will make the site more interactive.

Labels: Blog, Cent, Chess, ChessCli, Coding, D3DSN, D3TL, Descent 3, IRC, IsItUp, Logs, ModPlug, Numbers, Outpost Music, Projects, roncli.com, Solar, The Nightstalker, Torrent Keeper, Word Field

Sunday, February 19, 2006

Internet on the PSP
Posted: 2:49:00 AM 0 comments

Yes, it can be done. I know little about game consoles and their handheld counterparts, but I was shocked to see this in my OSMusic.Net log today:

Mozilla/4.0 (PSP (PlayStation Portable); 2.00)

I did some digging and found that people view the forums on the D3TL and download the Modplug software. I am almost interested enough to get one and see what it's like. Kudos if you surf with it, I can't imagine it being easy.

Labels: Coding, Logs, PSP, roncli.com

Thursday, February 16, 2006

Website Logs
Posted: 3:03:00 PM 0 comments

Now playing: Korn - Twisted Transistor (2:58)

Well, I've had a pretty rough time with work lately. I've been putting in a lot of extra time from home and on the weekends. As a result, my activity with some of my own projects has slacked a bit. Fortunately, this overtime is over, and I'm back to my normal relaxed self.

I've gotten some progress done on my websites, though. One of which is my Logs site, which I've been wanting to open up to the public for a while now. This is my own creation that processes IIS logs via a VB.Net application (previously it was done in all ASP, as can be shown by the now-inactive Import Logs links) and sorts out all the data as needed. The data is all in a SQL 2005 backend, which the ASP site queries to get its data. Some parts are pretty slow, like looking at the referrals on the larger sites, but overall it's a fairly fast web application.

The front page lists the number of hits for the past month, and it revealed something surprising that hasn't happened since the beginning of 2001 when I started hosting the D3TL - My own website, roncli.com, is the #1 site in terms of hits. At first this surprised me, but then I realized that the majority of those 18,593 hits is downloads of the ModPlug software.

I have always been a mirror for the ModPlug software since they implemented the partner program back in the day, but it's never seen this many hits before, which indicates that, despite active development on the tracker, the ModPlug software is as popular as ever.

Labels: Coding, Logs, roncli.com

Wednesday, July 06, 2005

Stagnant and frustrated
Posted: 1:42:00 PM 0 comments

Now playing: Antony Raijekov - Mapped (5:39)

Not a whole lot has been going on. I've become pretty stagnant over the last month. That sucks.

Not that I haven't been doing anything, though. Those that have the slightest of a conjecture as to what I've been doing should not be surprised in knowing that I've been kept busy with some new stuff over the past month. The "newness" of it has worn off, so hopefully that means I'll be working on my own stuff again.

Last couple of days has seen me working on a project using .NET with TCP/IP sockets and threading. It's scary the ease with which I understand this stuff, I had a working prototype in a matter of like an hour and a half. But the interesting thing to me is how this project came about in the first place... simply put, frustration with using something similar, and the drive to do it better. Lately, though, more than that has been needed for me to get anything done. Plus, even if I complete this project, I know for a fact that it won't get used. I guess it's more for personal "can I do it" curiosity.

The project I had posted about with the NWS stuff before has stalled entirely. Turns out the guy I was going to be working on it with moved, and it was decided the effort to do it wasn't work it. Of course, he has *since* told me that it might be up and running again... I don't know. Sometimes I feel like I should just work on the project and then one day dump the finished product into his lap and say "do something with this, dammit". Maybe that's what I need to do.

And on a final note of frustration, I decided to process my logs for the first time after three months. What a painfully long and ridiculous process that has turned out to be, I'm going to have to write something that does this for me daily.

Labels: Coding, Logs, NWS, roncli.com

Saturday, February 19, 2005

Site logs
Posted: 8:19:00 PM 0 comments

Now playing: Satya Graha - Rock & Roll Conspiracy (Bless Pirate Radio) (4:43)

I made some progress on my log analyzer web app today. I managed to speed the reports up significantly, and I also added a Page Views report, so now I know the top pages on each of my web sites.

So far it works pretty good, the only slow thing now is importing the log files from the previous days. I suppose there's not too much I can do about that unless I change the method with which the logs are imported into the database.

It'll be a while before this is really useful, but it's still neat to have all these stats available if I should ever need them.

Labels: Coding, Logs, roncli.com