Google over IPv6
My day job revolves around the world of IPv6 and the Internet’s movement of data efficiently around the world. I work for Hurricane Electric and I’m a big promoter of the Internet’s ten year old protocol called IPv6.
IPv6 is, as you can tell, not a new thing; but it’s something that’s showing up more and more within the Internet’s basic infrastructure. Many people have written about IPv6 and I’ve given a few talks about my company’s role in promoting the adoption of IPv6. I’m not going to repeat any of this here as you can always go to a search engine to find out much more about IPv6.
It’s that ability to use a search engine that is worth talking about today.
Google has just released information on how to configure IPv6 as the default access protocol for any of their services. The Google over IPv6 page provides everything you need to know and if you are running IPv6 within your network; it’s well worth enabling.
Google services have been available via a special URL http://ipv6.google.com/ (with specific services accessible via URL’s like http://ipv6.google.com/news for Google News, etc.). If you are running IPv6, then this is not needed anymore – as long as you have the ability to follow Google’s instructions.
Google over IPv6 uses the IPv4 address of your DNS resolver to determine whether a network is IPv6-capable. If you enable Google over IPv6 for your resolver, IPv6 users of that resolver will receive AAAA records for IPv6-enabled Google services.
Give it a try! It’s not that I’m endorsing any specific search engine; it’s that I’m happy that real-world websites are becoming IPv6 savvy.
IPv6 is our close collective future.
$800,000 in Scotts Valley, California
It’s not me! Honest!
Lottery ticket worth nearly $800,000, purchased in Scotts Valley, still unclaimed
By Peter Kirn- Sentinel correspondent
Posted: 01/08/2009 02:48:58 PM PSTSCOTTS VALLEY – You might want to take a look at your lottery ticket.
Lottery officials say someone out there bought a winning ticket worth almost $800,000 at the Village Bottle Shoppe in Scotts Valley on Sunday, but they haven’t claimed the cash.
I’m going to stick to buying tickets at Scotts Valley’s Quik Stop; maybe it will be there turn soon.
Rural Wireless in New Zealand – Tangowahine’s success story
Tangowahine Farm Stay
Back in 2006 my wife and I took the kids around the world for six and a half months. We traveled from California eastwards thru the US and into Europe, then onwards to the Middle East, Asia and finally Australia and New Zealand. Going eastwards meant that New Zealand was going to be the last country we visited and in my opinion, the best. I’d traveled to New Zealand, before I was married, and loved it.
During this trip, we had experienced many different Internet broadband locations; some good and some not so good, some cheap and some amazingly expensive. By the time we got to New Zealand, we thought we had seen it all. We were wrong.
Tangowahine Farm Stays was our first stop in the country. It’s a 250 acre farm North East of Dargaville. This is an idyllic place to stay and at around 120 miles north of Auckland somewhat off to the beaten track. Our hosts, Hugh and Pauline, were perfect and their farm was a thing of beauty. Being idyllic sometimes interferes with being connected. Using a mobile phone meant climbing up one of the hills (which meant saying hi to the cows); or wandering onto the neighbors’ property. This choice was dictated on which carrier you were after. So, imagine my surprise when Hugh proudly states “we have wireless Internet here”. I was shocked!
Keep in mind that I’ve been building IP backbones for years and years and I know that when you are somewhere as rural as this; you’re not going to have wireless-anything. Hugh’s solution was a dial-up modem that sat behind a wireless router. It worked; but let’s just say, it was not optimal! It was simply the only way to operate in a place like this. Guests could use the wireless network; however, anything more than fetching email or the occasional web browsing was all that we could do.
After a few days of enjoying the local area, enjoying our hosts’ yummy food and wandering around the farm’s property we took a day off and visited Whangarei, which is around 30 miles away. That trip into town and the random finding of a company called Uber PC kicked off a major change to the farms wireless connectivity!
The rest of this story can be found in a news article in the Kaipara Lifestyler about Tangowahine’s new wireless broadband system. I’m quite proud of my assistance in this area! The article called Kaipara’s Broadband Breakthrough is worth a read.
Needless to say, I now chat and video conference with Hugh and Pauline via Skype using their new found rural broadband service!
If you still want an idyllic place to stay; Tangowahine Farm Stays is still that place; you just have to remember to soak up the property and not turn on your laptop!
Panic erupts in Scotts Valley Tuesday afternoon – Coffee Cat and Peet’s thrive
I read a piece in yesterdays WSJ about upcoming Starbucks training. I was flying back from St. Louis and it struck me that closing every Starbucks in the US at the same time could be an issue! It motivated me to write something about this major event and its affect on our own local town. Our town has three Starbucks and plenty of other coffee shops – which when you think about our towns size seems quite excessive.
This is what I shared with friends around town.
Enjoy.
From: Martin J. Levy
Date: Fri, Feb 22, 2008 at 12:25 PM
Subject: Panic erupts in Scotts Valley Tuesday afternoon – Coffee Cat and Peet’s thriveNext Tuesday (Feb 26th) at 5:30pm all the Starbucks in the US will close for barista training. Locally, this will set off a panic among coffee drinkers in Scotts Valley. The first signs will be seen at Scotts Valley’s copious traffic lights where frequent u-turns will cause traffic snarls at both ends of town. It takes many u-turns to navigate around town between coffee shops. Maybe the cops should direct traffic; after all they will be unable to sit at Starbucks anyway. (I love our cops and I also love that they aren’t busy).
Peet’s and Coffee Cat sales will surge and I wonder if this is finally the moment when the little coffee drive-thru on Mt Hermon has it’s day in the sun (what’s that place called?).
Statistically speaking this is nearly a 50% drop in coffee shop availability for the city. I’m discounting coffee from the donut shop – you know why!
The good news is that this closure ends at 9pm. For us who live at the top end of town, that’s well past its usual closing time!
So to my fellow Starbucks followers, let’s stay calm, plan accordingly and when we walk up to the newly-trained staff on Wednesday morning, let’s just give them all a big hug. After all, they also will suffer during this coffee-shop-outage. They will have to go nearly four hours without the warmth and support of us – the local clientele. They will miss us; of that I’m sure.
Signed,
Martin “grande earl gray – room for milk” Levy
Here’s the local map; should you need help with the u-turns
Caramelized Tofu Recipe
I found a Caramelized Tofu Recipe today and it uses one of my favorite vegetables – Brussels sprouts. That’s the upside and yet there is also a downside. It’s not that I had already written about Brussels sprouts and The London Times article about the methane gas produced by these little green wonders. I ignore that issue consume them anyway.
So, what was the downside to this discovery? It’s that I found this via a Google gmail contextual ad. I don’t know what part of my email triggered this; however in this case, it was worth clicking on the link.
The dish looks colorful, easy to make and simply wonderful. I can’t wait to try it!
Royal YouTube
I just found out that the Queen has a YouTube channel called TheRoyalChannel.
The Christmas message from 1957 is loaded up there; so that could mean there will be even more historical videos showing up in the future.
Cambodian food in Scotts Valley – Jia Tella’s is yummy!
The San Jose Mercury News finally did a review of Jia Tella’s Cambodian restaurant. The review titled “Echoes of Chez Sovan in Scotts Valley” says Jia Tella’s menu is new, and familiar. That’s because Jason Revino, the co-owner of Jia Tella’s, purchased the recipies from Chez Sovan in San Jose. Clever move.
The chicken curry stew ($11.95), possibly Chez Sovan’s signature dish, is recreated with falling-apart tender thigh meat, potatoes and carrots in a luscious yellow curry sauce. Long after the bits were gone, leftover sauce spooned over jasmine rice (brown rice is also offered) was nearly as satisfying.
Every dish is wonderful; however the chicken curry stew is my favorite dish!
I had posted my own quick review (on the chowhound site) in June 2007 when Jia Tella’s first opened. It’s been consistently good since then!
13 people at risk
Love the entry in a CNET article today stating Windows Home Server bug corrupts files.
Microsoft has issued a support document for the 13 or so (just kidding) people using Windows Home Server
…I think the 13 is a close number!
di Rosa Preserve in Napa
KQED had a wonderful program about di Rosa Preserve in Napa that ran today. It’s at the south end of Napa and that means just an hour north of San Francisco.
Located on 217 scenic acres in the Carneros region of southern Napa Valley, the di Rosa Preserve: Art & Nature provides opportunities for creative enrichment and enjoyment of art and the environment throughout the year. A gift to the public from passionate art collector, Rene di Rosa, the Preserve houses nearly 2,200 works of art in all media by more than 900 artists from Northern California, possibly the largest collection of its kind.
