I'm a little surprised nobody has mentioned firehol - http://firehol.org/. I've been using it for my simple needs, and it is fabulous. Easy to learn, simple language, great results, and CLI-friendly. (Prior to discovering it, I used guarddog, which I found to be good but which isn't anywhere near as good as firehol.) From the firehol page:
FireHOL is an iptables firewall generator producing stateful iptables packet filtering firewalls, on Linux hosts and routers with any number of network interfaces, any number of routes, any number of services served, any number of complexity between variations of the services (including positive and negative expressions).
At my church we have a pretty simple policy: the network is protected with WPA2 encryption, it has an easy-to-remember password, and we give it to everyone who needs it. Make sure staff knows not to tell the password to your basketball guests, etc.
We change the password about once a year, and let the new password spread organically. It works pretty well. People in the congregation ask each other for the password (or more likely, ask someone whom they know is on the tech-savvy side) and so those who need it are able to get back on.
Another thing that you can do is give the network an essid name like "Sunday School Only" -- that will make your guests less likely to try to gain access, and also the Sunday School patrons will know that they should feel free to ask for the password.
Serving others from the heart is far more rewarding to the soul than anything else I know.
The International Association for Human Values is a large organization actively doing phenomenal work around the globe with very little overhead, but they are little-known in the US. Disaster relief, youth empowerment, forums for peace dialogs, community developemnt, environmental action, and rural education are some of the focuses of the organization.
I've volunteered for a few organizations, and I've found that IAHV volunteers are consistently not only driven and hard-working, but also peaceful and wonderful to work with during the day.
If the trolls won this particular battle in the war, imagine the reaction in the public's eyes if suddenly all toyota hybrids were yanked from the marketplace.
I'm fairly certain a large number of people would be pretty shocked-- and most of them more or less unaware of the dismal state of patent law. It could potentially be the needed seed to tear down all this absurd patent law.
Thoughts?
I remember being told about this girl who was "unschooled". Her parents didn't force her to learn anything she wasn't interested in.
The result?
At the age of 10 years, she was an avid botanist, both intellectually and practically.
She was also quite well-versed in U.S. Law, being able to cite many supreme court decisions, etc.
Here's the clincher -- she could not read!
I'm not sure what to think of that, but it's certainly interesting. The average college grad doesn't know much botany OR law, and both have enormous practical use.
Assumably her parents were quite devoted to her "education", as they would have had to spend considerable time explaining, and later researching things, which she could have read herself if she'd been inclined to learn that skill. Actually, IIRC, she had decided at that age that she'd better learn to read so that she could absorb knowledge better without requiring her parents' time. A responsible decision, I suppose, for a 10-y/o.
It's also just a story I heard, so one can take it with the obligatory grain of salt.
At the same time, even if I haven't remembered correctly, or if the story as related to me so many years ago was less-than-accurate, I must say that I think it is plausible. Kids have a remarkable ability to memorize stuff. The skills to use the knowledge she'd absorbed in a meaningful way are learned later in life. It's nice to have a body of knowledge well-memorized, though, and that's what kids are good at!
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I'm a little surprised nobody has mentioned firehol - http://firehol.org/. I've been using it for my simple needs, and it is fabulous. Easy to learn, simple language, great results, and CLI-friendly. (Prior to discovering it, I used guarddog, which I found to be good but which isn't anywhere near as good as firehol.) From the firehol page: FireHOL is an iptables firewall generator producing stateful iptables packet filtering firewalls, on Linux hosts and routers with any number of network interfaces, any number of routes, any number of services served, any number of complexity between variations of the services (including positive and negative expressions).
At my church we have a pretty simple policy: the network is protected with WPA2 encryption, it has an easy-to-remember password, and we give it to everyone who needs it. Make sure staff knows not to tell the password to your basketball guests, etc. We change the password about once a year, and let the new password spread organically. It works pretty well. People in the congregation ask each other for the password (or more likely, ask someone whom they know is on the tech-savvy side) and so those who need it are able to get back on. Another thing that you can do is give the network an essid name like "Sunday School Only" -- that will make your guests less likely to try to gain access, and also the Sunday School patrons will know that they should feel free to ask for the password.
Serving others from the heart is far more rewarding to the soul than anything else I know.
The International Association for Human Values is a large organization actively doing phenomenal work around the globe with very little overhead, but they are little-known in the US. Disaster relief, youth empowerment, forums for peace dialogs, community developemnt, environmental action, and rural education are some of the focuses of the organization.
I've volunteered for a few organizations, and I've found that IAHV volunteers are consistently not only driven and hard-working, but also peaceful and wonderful to work with during the day.
http://iahv.org/get_involved.asp
http://iahv.org/show_address.asp?country=United%20States
(flash warning... some pages work fine with gnash)
What do you get more of, the more you give away? Love.
Whatever you decide to do, I hope you have a wonderful time.
The need reminds me of this guy: http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2004/1101/064.html But... never heard anything about him since 2004.
If the trolls won this particular battle in the war, imagine the reaction in the public's eyes if suddenly all toyota hybrids were yanked from the marketplace. I'm fairly certain a large number of people would be pretty shocked-- and most of them more or less unaware of the dismal state of patent law. It could potentially be the needed seed to tear down all this absurd patent law. Thoughts?
I remember being told about this girl who was "unschooled". Her parents didn't force her to learn anything she wasn't interested in.
The result?
At the age of 10 years, she was an avid botanist, both intellectually and practically.
She was also quite well-versed in U.S. Law, being able to cite many supreme court decisions, etc.
Here's the clincher -- she could not read!
I'm not sure what to think of that, but it's certainly interesting. The average college grad doesn't know much botany OR law, and both have enormous practical use.
Assumably her parents were quite devoted to her "education", as they would have had to spend considerable time explaining, and later researching things, which she could have read herself if she'd been inclined to learn that skill. Actually, IIRC, she had decided at that age that she'd better learn to read so that she could absorb knowledge better without requiring her parents' time. A responsible decision, I suppose, for a 10-y/o.
It's also just a story I heard, so one can take it with the obligatory grain of salt.
At the same time, even if I haven't remembered correctly, or if the story as related to me so many years ago was less-than-accurate, I must say that I think it is plausible. Kids have a remarkable ability to memorize stuff. The skills to use the knowledge she'd absorbed in a meaningful way are learned later in life. It's nice to have a body of knowledge well-memorized, though, and that's what kids are good at!
~D.