2006 Nov 16 - Thu

Linux Through Microsoft Proxy

Some organizations use Microsoft Proxy to protect their network edge. To pass through the proxy, Microsoft's NTLM authentication/authorization sequence is typicially required. For regular domain users, this is typically not a problem, as Microsoft's Internet Explorer will automatically supply credentials to the Microsoft ISA Proxy Server.

When one is on a linux box, say a Debian machine, and one wants to obtain 'apt-get' updates, or to obtain Perl updates from CPAN, the Linux application will need to authenticate with and pass through the ISA server. The usual 'http_proxy=...' statement just doesn't work in this context.

When 'http_proxy=...' is used along with another application, it does work. Enter the NTLM Authorization Proxy Server. This is a wonderful little Python script that will act as a proxy to Microsoft's Proxy server.

There is a straightforward configuration file, server.cfg, where you enter the ip address or host name of the proxy server, supply a username and password for authenticating, supply a listening port, and then start with './main.py'. You'll of course need a recent version of Python running for this script to work.

Then from any machine on the network, connect to this proxy. It will authenticate to the Microsoft Proxy server. They note on the web site it will even perform this function for Internet Explorer.

For Linux machine, from the command line, use the two statements:

http_proxy=http://ipaddress:port/
export http_proxy

Commands like wget and apt-get will now function as expected. For CPAN updates, you'll need to use 'o conf ftp_proxy' once you've 'perl -MCPAN -eshell' to update the proxy it uses.

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Sennheiser HD 600

A little while I was involved in a battle of stereos. I moved into a new apartment, one with kinda thin walls. I was without a music center at the time. My neighbor would play his TV/Stereo/Whatever and I'd hear the bass and side affects. I should have done the right thing and talked to him at that moment. But naah. I decided to play along. I picked up a 6 speaker Logitech system. My neighbor is an early to bed, early to rise sort of guy. But he would go to bed with his system on and let it play through the night. Aargh. I started coming home late at night and turning my system up. Half way through the night, I'd turn my off. He must have turned his down in the meantime as well. We kinda reached a happy medium. Then one day he turned his on at 6 in the morning. That got me to the point of getting on speaking terms with the guy.

So we reached a compromise. Naturally. He'd keep his down and I'll keep mine down.

However, keeping my music down just doesn't give me the quality and depth I'd like to see, or rather, hear. So a search for a good set of headphones ensued. I ultimatedly landed on HeadRoom's web site. They do high fidelity headphones. They bring everything together in one place. And talk about their products. No holds barred.

I ended up choosing the Sennheiser HD 600 series. I don't own a $2500 CD player, but I'll play high quality MP3's. From a audioholics perspective, I can't really say by how much they beat the pants off anything else in the audio sphere, but I will attest to a few things. But, yes, they do deliver great sound. One obvious physical characteristic is their open air concept. As such, they aren't good for completely isolating you from someone close to you. But they keep you quiet from someone in the next room. But that same characteristic redeems itself in another manner. They let your ears breath. They also let in some ambient sound just to balance things out.

The things are darn light as well. Couple that fact with the design of their open air concept, I can go for two, four, and sometimes six hour extended listening tours while working through simulations or software development projects.

Just thinking about their sound quality again. I'm wearing them as I write this. It is hard to get the true heart rending bass out of them I can get from my Logitech surrounders, but the headphones are still respectable in that regards. The midrange and highs are indeed superb.

To go along with them, I splurged on the 15' Cardas Replacement Cable. I can walk around my bedroom, sit at my desk, or recline in bed with them watching a movie.

I'll go into more details in another entry, but I also picked up the HeadRoom Total BitHead amplifier to drive the headphones.

All in all, I'm really happy with this setup. The only change would be to try out the HD 650 headphones and see if they are as good as they say they are.

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