Over the last couple of years I've been fiddling with various ways of NAT'ing my internet connection at home. I've tried little firewall/router boxes from the likes of Netgear, Linksys and Thompson but I've always gone back to running iptables on my linux server so that I can firstly have more control and secondly, easily manage the firewall remotely.

The crescendo of computer related noises in my office has once again reached the level at which I actually notice it so I've spent some time today tracking down the worst clicks and whirrs. First candidate was my desktop PC. I opened the side of the case and the first thing that I noticed was dust. I'm blaming the shredder. Ever since I put it in the office there's been a noticable increase in the amount of dust that's kicking around. Maybe I should move it somewhere else. Anyway. I digress.. I cleaned out the dust. Well that's not quite true.