Tom Kisner

Microsoft Codename: Visine

Back when the internet was mostly a thing of the government and academics, and when Microsoft DOS (and later DOS/Windows 3.1) ruled the corporate desktop (along with Word Perfect as the defacto word processor and Lotus 123 as the main spreadsheet), there was a different 900 pound gorilla

Fiber Internet

In 2009, when I first installed our phone at the house the very first phone call was from Verizon - "We are installing fiber in your neighborhood very soon, if you are interested in buying Verizon Fios press 1 now".  You better believe I smashed the 1 touchtone button as

Installing Mailman3 on Debian 11

Ever since Yahoo Groups shut its doors down a few years ago, I wanted to find a replacement for the groups I use. Most people migrated to Groups.io (which is free for the basic functionality, but cost money for most stuff), the Troop went to a paid service called

BBS is now on FidoNet

After about two years online, my BBS at https://bbs.kn6q.org [https://bbs.kn6q.org]is now on FidoNet.  FidoNet was (and still is) the largest BBS network in the world.  My node number is: 1:130/330 Here is the announcement on the BBS: 73, Tom

New Year, New Host

OK, I know I just said I wasn't going to do this [https://kn6q.org/windows-11-upgrade-fun/].  I've "finished" migrating my server to a new AMD Ryzen 7 3750H based host machine running Windows 11 Professional. While it looked initially like the previous Intel Haswell i5-4590T host was going to run

The (former) City of Briar, Texas

If you lookup Briar Texas in Wikipedia [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Briar,_Texas], it will tell you Briar is a "Census-designated place" which if you lookup is defined as a name of a location the Census Bureau uses to gather statistics for - but also they are usually "populated

Automating Let's Encrypt Certificate Renewal on Windows with Crypt-LE

Let's Encrypt certificate renewal automation is super simple and almost automatic on Linux.  Cerbot and plugins for applications pretty much take care of everything for you. Not so on Windows.  There are now several Windows Clients [https://letsencrypt.org/docs/client-options/] that will do the certificate requests (I'm using Crypt-LE

Trade Wars 2002 Game Server

I've added TradeWars 2002 Game Server to my BBS.  I've made it accessible from both inside and outside the BBS (outside the via telnet bbs.kn6q.org port 2002) and also on it's own web based telnet page at: The Desert Rats Sanctuary BBS TradeWars 2002 Game Server [https://bbs.

Windows 11 upgrade "fun"

I have now successfully upgraded the machine running on my closet shelf that functions as my web and mail server, BBS, and amateur radio Winlink gateway.  It wasn't without incident, but nothing broke that couldn't be fixed. I should mention this follows upgrading my main workstation to Windows 11.  My

IRC (Internet Relay Chat) server and web client installed

Part of the Synchronet telnet BBS I have setup (web access at https://bbs.kn6q.org) includes an IRC Server.  I wasn't ever particularly big into IRC (except for a little while on the VAX mainframe in college in about 1995).  After that, I would use it occasionally particularly when

Winlink RMS Packet Gateway

This server is now running and RMS Packet Gateway and RMS Relay software, listening on 145.050 Currently running UZ7HO SoundModem 1.13 on a Kenwood V71A It's also running VARA FM in Narrow mode.  I hope to upgrade it to Wide mode in the near future.

Ham Radio Featured

WC5C Field Day 2021 in The Azle News

ARRL Field Day is one of my favorite things in Ham Radio.  It gives everyone an excuse to break out your gear and get to together with friends and play radio for a day in a "non-contest contest".  Tons of people are on the air, and the bands are jammed

Upgraded to Ghost 4.0

I've upgraded this site (and https://troop243azle.org) to version 4.0 of the Ghost CMS [https://ghost.org/].  Once again, it did not completely trash the site (that's twice in a row!), and my custom theme worked with just one minor warning. However, after the upgrade I noticed the

Troop 243 awarded 9th place in "Be Found" Contest

My Troop 243 website [https://troop243azle.org] is officially an award winning website, lol (you'll notice I use the same theme that I modified/wrote and basic design as my personal website here).  Initially I didn't think getting 9th place (13th overall because of a 4-way tie for 8th) was

Polishing doorknobs

Last week I wrote about making SMTP actually work [https://kn6q.org/making-smtp-work-in-2020/] beyond just the technical part of sending an SMTP message with an e-mail server, and I wrote about fixing certificates [https://kn6q.org/certificates-re-examined/]. As you might guess, it's because I went through this (again) recently, moving

Making SMTP work in 2020

Sending e-mail with SMTP is one earliest internet services available, and was easily for me the first bit of "internet" that I had access to in the late '80s/early 1990s.  Back in the "good old days", standing up an SMTP server for sending e-mail was a trivial matter on

Certificates slightly re-examined

For a long time now, I've used Let's Encrypt's [https://letsencrypt.org/] free certificates because in the past, (like when Internic controlled all the domain names) they were too expensive to to justify using for a personal site.  Before Let's Encrypt I had tried another free certificate provider, but they

New BBS Installed

I've installed Synchronet BBS Software on this server now, it's located at https://bbs.kn6q.org . Games installed right now - LORD (Legend of the Red Dragon) and BRE (Barren Realms Elite) - my two favorite BBS games.   Right now, I have it networked on Dove-Net and I'm working on

New Ham in the House - KI5HXT

This weekend, at the 2020 Cowtown Hamfest [http://www.cowtownhamfest.com/] , my son passed the Technician Exam at the test session there conducted by the W5YI Volunteer Examiners [http://www.w5yi-vec.org/].  It wasn't his first try at the test, and he was super excited and proud he had accomplished

Updated site to Ghost 3.0

I've updated kn6q.org to Ghost 3.0 - first major upgrade that didn't totally trash the site (yea!) The Theme was not 100% compatible with Ghost 3.0 (although I didn't see anything terribly broken -yet).  I've updated the theme to pass the compatibility checker 100% and tweaked a

Azle Troop 243 new Webpage

At the end of last year, I made a new webpage for Azle Boy Scout Troop 243.  It's on a (different) free web host ( https://www.awardspace.com/free-hosting/ ), so it's not the fastest and I can't do SSL certificates with it. I used Wordpress and a free Scouting template

Featured

Fort Worth Diocese Catholic Committee on Scouting

Mid last year, I took over as Webmaster of the Fort Worth Diocese Catholic Committee on Scouting.  Late last November, I moved them from an old proprietary web platform they were on to a new hosting provider and rebuilt the pages on Wordpress. You can check it out here [https:

Under Construction

Rebuilding my webpage after Ghost 2.0 upgrade...be back soon

Arrow Glass Boat

1967 Arrow Glass Sabre runabout

The latest addition to the Kisner flotilla is my recently squired 1967 Arrow Glass "Model 14" Sabre runabout. It has a 1967 Johnson 60HP Outboard.  Arrow Glass actually made two different model boats with the same Model 14 hull (Mustang and Sabre), based on the original interior this is a

Ham Radio

Worked All Continents (WAC)

After trying for about a year, I finally collected all of the QSL cards required for Worked All Continents (Mixed) sponsored by the International Amateur Radio Union (IARU).  You achieve this by making radio contacts with the six continents (the islands in the Pacific count as Oceana/Antarctica).  I actually