tzlee.com/blog

Month: May 2010

  • 10 beautiful days in Australia

    I must say it was the best trip so far. Sydney (New South Wales) was nice, but Melbourne (Victoria) was really such a beautiful place, and I absolutely enjoyed the scenic drive along the Great Ocean Road. I will certainly return again!

    Panoramic view from the Three Sisters at Blue Mountans
    Beautiful Beaches

    On our way to the Great Ocean Road, we dropped by Pettavel Winery and Restaurant in Geelong for lunch and the food was awesome (so was the wine). We even saw people fly in via Helicopter so it must be really good. I’d highly recommend anybody going past Geelong to have a meal there. A decent meal with a glass of wine averages around S$40-60 per pax.

    Fine Dining at Pettavel

    The 2010 Holden Commodore SV6 with a 3.6l V6 engine we rented was also extremely fun to drive and handled really well around the winding coastal/mountain roads.

    Apollo Bay Motel and Holden SV6

    We also took a 10 minute heli ride in a Robinsons 44 which was worth the experience!

    12 Apostles taken from the Heli
    Robinsons 44 landing

    And of course there’s no visiting Australia without coming into contact with Seagulls. Here’s a really fat one.

    Fat Seagull

  • IPv6 over IPv4 (6to4) all up and working

    Yes, I’ve set myself out to learn IPv6. I thought it was simple – or at least with my understanding of IPv4. I was completely wrong! IPv6 has a much more complicated addressing scheme and “rules”. It requires a change of mindset for a start. The worst part? Getting it all to tunnel through IPv4 when you’re running dynamic IP.

    Anyhow, I’ve got my Linux (CentOS 5) box working and my home network is now “IPv6 ready” (hooray!) but I’m still tweaking the settings so I’ll update the technical stuff later.

    Some little bits about IPv6 I’ve learnt so far is that DHCP servers aren’t really required anymore. Interfaces can self-assign an IP based on their MAC address and this will be almost certainly unique (since MAC addresses are unique). Even in a controlled network, the interface would assign it’s own address.

    Meanwhile, here’s my traceroute to ipv6.google.com. 😀

    traceroute6: Warning: ipv6.l.google.com has multiple addresses; using 2404:6800:8005::63
    traceroute6 to ipv6.l.google.com (2404:6800:8005::63) from XXXX:XXXX:XXXX:1:217:f2ff:fe40:3848, 64 hops max, 12 byte packets
    1  XXXX:XXXX:XXXX:1::1  0.534 ms  0.392 ms  0.410 ms
    2  2002:c058:6301::1  199.142 ms  199.858 ms  199.485 ms
    3  2001:470:0:13b::1  201.157 ms  200.728 ms  198.965 ms
    4  2001:504:d::1f  197.870 ms  199.858 ms  199.927 ms
    5  2001:4860::1:0:21  290.454 ms  203.619 ms  264.787 ms
    6  2001:4860::1:0:77d  220.451 ms  220.804 ms  436.060 ms
    7  2001:4860::1:0:75  511.964 ms  511.896 ms  320.166 ms
    8  2001:4860::1:0:16  703.447 ms  399.187 ms  624.945 ms
    9  2001:4860::2:0:119c  511.687 ms *
    2001:4860::2:0:119b  529.863 ms
    10  2001:4860:0:1::e3  403.409 ms  517.593 ms  400.969 ms
    11  * * *

    Hop 11 seems to have packet filtering and dropped my traceroute.

    I’ve also masked my internal LAN IP to XXXX:XXXX:XXXX otherwise somebody could connect back to my LAN segment. I haven’t had time to figure out the firewall yet. But you can say this is the beauty of IPv6. With a 128 bit address space, every machine has a public routable address.

    Once I have my home network all ready I will begin transitioning all my servers to IPv6. Embrace technology.

  • The ladder

    A friend of mine was unhappy with his work and asked when he would make it up the corporate ladder. I shared the following with him and thought it makes a good blog post.

    Maybe I’ll elaborate on the corporate ladder part. Big companies (in your case) are big enough that you are actually insignificant. Not just you, everybody else is dispensable. These companies have stood the test of time and will stand even if the key people leave. This is what makes a company – it’s structure. CEO leaves, so what? There’s still many people under working despite his absence. People now know that if you throw a stone, you’ll hit a degree holder.

    “There’s many others that can do your job,” says your boss. Sad but true.

    The fact is that the corporate ladder is overrated and nobody should sit around a company waiting years over years to climb it. It just does not happen that way. Climbing the corporate ladder in a large corporation is mostly politics. Nobody I know sits around a company for a few years and gets promoted without meddling with some politics. Most who just stay put and “do their work” get at most a measly pay raise and hardly any promotion.

    Don’t think about the ladder. There’s a closed door at each floor. You need to convince the person staying there to open it for you. There’s usually only room for one on each floor, and that person has to go up as well. If he doesn’t move, you don’t move either.

    The alternative? Either work in a smaller company where your value is greater, or work for a company who would pay you more, or go start your own business.