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Google just rolled out their GOOG 411 service in Canada today.

You don't need a computer, an Internet connection, or even the keypad on your phone or mobile device. GOOG-411 is voice-activated, so you can access it from any phone (mobile or land line), in any location, at any time. For free. Dial (1-800) GOOG-411. Say where. Say what you're looking for. GOOG-411 will connect you with the business you choose. If you are calling from a mobile device, GOOG-411 can even send you a text message with more details and a map. Simply say "Text message" or "Map it."

I upgraded to a Blackberry Curve 8330 recently (I know, no iPhone in Canada and I really needed one for work) and now that I'm fully mobile with my email, I've revisited the Twitter scene and found it's actually quite fun (much better than those stupid Facebook status messages).

Feel free to add me or even my friend to your Twitter feed. Can't promise a lot just yet but I'll try to keep it interesting!

I set up my Adium GTalk account with Twitter as a contact and am having a blast watching the steady stream of tweets based on my tracked phrases.

I upgraded the RAM on my Cisco Pix 515E at work today. The twist is that I didn't pay out the nose prices for what was simply a pair of 168 pin, SDRAM modules. Instead, I salvaged a pair of low profile 64MB SDRAM modules, tested them with memtest to make sure they tested error free, then replaced the single 32MB module that was already installed. With the Unrestricted license, my Pix 515E with OS version 6.3(5) now shows that I have a full 128MB available.

Update: did the 7.2(3) upgrade and from what I've read, there's not a whole lot I would gain from going up to 8.x at this point. I'll have to revisit this in a few months to see what changed. One nice result of the upgrade though is that Mac OS X, Windows XP, and Windows Vista clients can all VPN over L2TP/IPSec!

In a corporate environment, it's sometimes handy to pipe web traffic through a proxy server. Unfortunately, the standard version of Firefox doesn't allow for any Active Directory Group Policy management but there is an easy way to configure new workstations so that any user who logs in is automatically set to 'auto-detect proxy settings for this network'.

I'm in the process of setting up a virtual, Ubuntu-based server on Virtuozzo and ran into a couple of issues. Apparently, there are some issues with using the Plesk interface to configure the firewall (doesn't work) and you have to resort to using the Virtuozzo module in the container manager GUI to first set the "Advanced firewall mode with default policy Accept" to set up the various chains with correct links specifically for the VZ container.

Once that's completed and you start to manually construct your iptables rules, don't forget to include an accept rule for TCP port 8880 in addition to the standard Plesk TCP port 8443. If you neglect this additional port, Plesk will throw a hissy fit and report that all hell has broken loose on your virtual server.