Dan Murphy's Blog

Melting Point – Roger Collins

Dan — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 18:23:52 +0000

So continuing on with my WWII theme I decided to read this book. It was a lot heavier than the last one I read but still nothing too crazy. This is a story about WWII told from the German point of view as a regular citizen. The main character in this story ends up working for a furnace company in Germany that ends up winning a contract to make the crematoriums at Auschwitz Poland. I like this story because you get an idea of what it was like on the German side of things and you can understand how Hitler came into power. It is also interesting how about 95% of Germany, even some of the people at the camp, didn’t really know what was going on during this time. There is some great back story on Auschwitz and in the end the author mentions what is real and what is made up. Nobody really knows too much about Auschwitz as it was totally destroyed by the Germans before the Russians took the land back. Sometimes while you are reading this book you keep telling yourself ‘this cannot really be true’ a very interesting way to bring history to life and give it some context of what really happened during WWII.

Those Who Dare – Phil Ward

Dan — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 17:32:28 +0000

So since I fell asleep in most of my history classes in school, I have recently started reading a lot of WWII books because I find them interesting. Yes I realize they are historical FICTION, but this book came up as a very well researched historical fiction story. The timeline of this book is before the US has entered the war and some soldiers from the US went over to fight for Brittan. The book follows a US general turned British soldier who starts up a commando group to do gorilla type warfare on the Germans in France. His goal isn’t to defeat the Germans it is to just disrupt their progress and confuse them. After some very funny events that basically include more dumb luck then skill they start to make a name for themselves and go through all the elite training there is. I had a great time reading this book and found myself laughing and very interested in what was happening in the book. If what they were doing are based on true accounts, then the British had some very interesting skills and ideas of what would confuse the German army.

The Hunger Games Series – Suzanne Collins

Dan — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 18:22:40 +0000

Well since everyone was talking about these books, and the movie is due out in March I figured I would try and read the series. One of the nice things is that I got it for free from the Kindle Lending Library with my Prime account so it didn’t cost me anything to read it either! But I would have gladly paid for these books as they were all three very entertaining. They are also a very fast read I think on average I think it took me about 2 day to read each one.

The main story here is that Katniss, a 15 year old girl, from District 12, the poorest District in the what was formally known as North America is picked to go to the Hunger Games. These games were created by the government to show the Districts that they still need government control so each year they draw a boy and a girl from the Districts ages 12-18 to go to the Games. The object of the game is to survive and kill everyone else. Obviously no one really wants to be picked for the games but no one has a choice.

I really did enjoy the character development of the story, the only complaint I had is every once and while everything would change in a sentence. Like all of a sudden she is in one place and then BAM she wakes up in a hospital. This means it takes a few pages for you to catch up to where the story has moved to. Other than that I have no complaints about the book and would highly recommend it to anyone who wants a very fast pace and easy to read series.

The Viper Contract- Chris Broyhill

Dan — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 20:43:19 +0000

So it had been a while since I read a nice fighter jet story that I liked so when this came up through my searching I picked it right away. The author of the story is a retired Air Force pilot with 20+ years of flying A-10′s and F-16 Vipers. So needless to say he draws a lot of real life experience and knowledge into this book, which makes it awesome to read.

The basis of the story here is that Colin Pearce is a retired Air Force F-16 pilot who now spends his days flying charters on Gulfstream’s and has a pretty solitude life. He is then approached by a company that is hiring retired F-16 pilots to fly for a mercenary for hire air-strike team. At the same time he is approached by this new employer the CIA approaches him to take the job and help out the USA find out who stole 8 F-16 jets from the bone yard in AZ and is planning a big strike in the near future. Colin takes the job and has a hell of a 30 day ride while he tries to save the world from WW-III.

This was a great book and a whole lot of fun to read. In the last 30 percent or so of the book I couldn’t put it down and wanted to keep reading. The author does a great job on character development and its fun to get an insight into the world of flying from someone who has actually been there. I highly recommend this book as this is probably my favorite flying book after HAWX that I read a long time ago!

Zero Day – Mark Russinovich

Dan — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 20:32:37 +0000

So I am still chasing after a book that was a good as Deamon and Freedom and after reading this one I am still on the search. This book talks about our reliance on technology and our ignorance on how secure it is. The main character lost his family in 9/11 and the kicker is that he knew about 9/11 about 2 weeks before it was going to happen but no one would listen to him. So he leaves his government security job after that and starts his own security company and starts tracking down this new virus a few years later. After a few planes crash, nuclear power plants fail, and some financial ruin of a few companies it looks like me might be under attack and its up to him and a long time college girl friend to figure this out and stop it before it goes crazy. As usual you can never trust the Russians!

I read this while on vacation and it was nice and not too suspenseful so it took me a little while to get through it. It was alright but when compared to Deamon it doesnt hold a flame as far as techno thrillers are concerned.

Heat Wave – Richard Castle

Dan — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 20:27:49 +0000

So after becoming a huge Castle fan on TV I thought I would try and check out the books that the show is based on. This was my first Kindle Prime Free monthly rental so the price was right to try it. The book is really short and to the point. The characters are slightly different then the ones on TV and I have to say I am more of a fan of the TV version rather than the books. The book was fairly predictable but it did make me laugh a few times.

Main story here is about a multi-billionare developer who is found dead dropped out of his penthouse apartment. The usual suspects are lined up: the nanny, the widow, the best friend, the worst enemy and you go back and forth a while before finding the killer. The plot is well done and I did like the little hints they dropped along the way but I am not a big mystery reader so of course I totally missed them until the end of the book where they wrap it up.

I do not think I will be reading any more of his books but it was an interesting try.

Swarm, Extinction, Rebellion – B. V. Larson

Dan — Sun, 13 Nov 2011 17:11:22 +0000

So I wanted something different to read so looking through the Sci-Fi section I ran into this series and this author. I wanted something similar to Old Mans War with the same witty comments and jokes. Looking at the reviews for these books people were saying they didn’t like Sci-Fi but really liked these books. The best part about a Kindle is that you do not pick a book based on its cover, because if that was the case I wouldn’t have chosen these by a long shot. The basis of the story here is that an alien force is trying to kill all the humans (Macros), while this attack happens the humans are helped out by another alien force to help stop them (Nanos). After they are able to defeat the Macros the Nanos leaves them to go help the next planet. Then the Macros come back and the humans make a deal with them that they will become their ground forces since they are obviously better fighters. Then they go around solar system to solar system fighting as mercenaries different worlds until they turn on the Macros.

I did like the humor that is throughout the book, but as with most Sci-Fi books you have to read them in order and read them back to back. The next book starts off like the next chapter so you have to remember everything. The only problem with this is that you get a little bored with the writing style and the story by the time you hit the end of the third book. I thought they were entertaining but not the best sci-fi i have ever read and still enjoy the Old Mans war series better.

Internet Connectivity Lost But Wireless Still Connected

Dan — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 17:02:38 +0000

So after buying my new router I had to run the following commands on my laptops. What kept happening is they would keep the wifi connection but lose the internet connection. After running these little commands on 2 of our laptops everything has been great so looks like this might be the solution:

Reset WINSOCK entries to installation defaults: netsh winsock reset catalog

Reset IPv4 TCP/IP stack to installation defaults. netsh int ipv4 reset reset.log

Reset IPv6 TCP/IP stack to installation defaults. netsh int ipv6 reset reset.log

New Linksys E4200, Trendnet 8-Port Switch, Motorla Cable Modem

Dan — Sat, 22 Oct 2011 17:49:02 +0000

Well my router purchase problems continue. I decided I needed a new router when I woke up this morning and the internet wasn’t working. One of the reasons I wanted this router was the looks, I was tired of the flashing lights and the big antenna’s sticking out of our entertainment center from our DIR-655 Dlink. Also this one has some nice new features. 2.4 and 5GHz antennas, guest network access, gigabit wired Ethernet, NAS USB port, FTP server, IPv6 Compatible.

The FTP server was something that I was surprised by as well as the NAS USB port. The nice thing with this USB port is it just puts my USB Hard Drive as a network share. This is a way easier interface than my D-Link had which was web only and super slow. Also now I can have my FTP server running on the router and not on another machine. This helps with my monthly backups and makes things much easier security wise. The hard drive must be formatted in FAT, but that is OK as I have a bunch of <100GB external hard drive sitting around and this is perfect for backup. So to get to the drive all I have to do is connect to \\192.168.0.1\share and there it is like a normal hard drive awesome!

The guest network access is done slightly different than my last one. This one there is no encryption on the network you just choose the guest network and then go to the browser and put in a password. This makes things a lot easier when people just want to come over and hook something up to my network quickly.

Also decided that I would go my own hardware for the cable modem. Looking at my last Comcast bill I am paying $7/month for the cable modem which means the $100 cable modem I bought pays for itself in about a year. I picked up the Motorola SurfBoard 6121 with a gigabit switch and DOCSIS 3.0. After a quick call to Comcast and adding the MAC address to my account everything works great. I like this one as it is a little smaller then the last one that I had and also I think the blinking lights are less intrusive.

Also since I have 5 wired connections I need in my entertainment center (6 soon with my new home stereo) I decided that I wanted to pick up a 8 port gigabit switch for the wired devices. Since there is a lot of heavy use on these devices I wanted them wired for the fastest connection. I picked up a TrendNet 8-port GreenSwitch for this.

So with all this new network hardware I should be good for the IPv6 changeover as well as any expansion to my network at home that has about 17 devices on it currently. It is nice to have the router out of the entertainment center on the top where it is not obtrusive and still easy to access and gives a great signal. The switch is nice because it moves all the wires out of the router and puts it in a place where I can hide things. Joys of being a nerd there is always something better to buy out there to make everything faster!

Accidents Waiting to Happen – Simon Wood

Dan — Sun, 25 Sep 2011 19:08:33 +0000

So once again not sure how this made it to my wish list in the Kindle but it did and it was there and $0.99 so I decided to read it. This was a pretty predictable storyline, that I have to say I wasn’t that excited night to night from reading. It moves a little too slow for my pace and didn’t have enough action for me. The basic story line is that an insurance company decides to sell back life insurance to customers who have been termed terminal. Well over the past few years with advancement in medical procedures and drugs people who are given a terminal diagnosis aren’t dieing fast enough for the company to actually make money based on buying out the insurance plan. So the company decides to start killing off its customers, trying to make it look like an accident is what killed them. One patient was run off the road in an attempt on his life and starts to put the pieces of the puzzle together to find out what the company is doing.

It was a decent last minute read if you just needed something very quickly but other than that I really wouldn’t suggest this book.