Howdy!

I'm Rex McConnell (a.k.a. rexmac), a software engineer, maker, and general technology enthusiast. I enjoy creating things both digital and analog. Want to learn more? Check out the about page.

Blog

Check out my blog for tutorials, notes, and ramblings on computer programming, web development, and other assorted topics.

Work

I am currently looking for remote, full-time or contract work. If you know of an exciting job opportunity in web-development, please contact me.

Hobbies

You can visit my Github repos to see some of the open-source projects that I have created or worked on recently. My Projects page contains more detail regarding some of my recent work.

When I'm not coding, I'm often playing games or building things with my hands.

Latest Blog Posts

Fun with CSS3 Backgrounds

Posted on April 04, 2013 @ 13:22 GMT in Web Development

I decided to have some fun with different background effects using CSS3.

Notebook Paper

The first effect I wanted to achieve was a background resembling a sheet of notebook paper. I found a “Lined paper” pattern in Lea Verou’s CSS3 Patterns Gallery, but the vertical line wasn’t working 100% when I tested it. It looks fine in Firefox, but it only shows up at certain window…Continue reading »

VirtualBox Host-only Adater for Ubuntu VM

Posted on February 25, 2013 @ 13:17 GMT in Lyfebites

Just some notes to help me next time I go about setting up an Ubunutu VM

Configure host-only interface

/etc/network/interfaces

# The loopback interface
auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

# The primary network interface
auto eth0
iface eth0 inet dhcp

# The secondary network interface
auto eth1
iface eth1 inet static
    address 192.168.56.101
  …Continue reading »

Openswan Patch for Android ICS Bug

Posted on September 07, 2012 @ 16:22 GMT in Security

I recently setup a private VPN using an Amazon EC2 instance. Unfortunately, while my Samsung Galaxy Nexus, which is running Android JellyBean, has no trouble connecting to the VPN, my wife’s Samsung Galaxy S2, which is running Android ICS, refused to connect. The only error on the phone was “Timeout”. Very helpful. Thankfully, the authentication log on the EC2 instance revealed much more:

/var/log/auth.log

Sep  7 14:38:22 localhost pluto[7325]: "L2TP-PSK-NAT"[32] xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx #30: sending notification PAYLOAD_MALFORMED…Continue reading »

Internet Security When Travelling

Posted on September 07, 2012 @ 16:22 GMT in Security

My…Continue reading »

Jekyll Power

Posted on September 01, 2012 @ 12:03 GMT in Lyfebites

Several months ago, when I decided to launch a new blog, I knew that I wanted a platform that would allow me to quickly and easily add new content (and manage existing content), while also spreading my developer wings and having some fun in the process.

WordPress

I’ve used it in the past for personal projects and also for a few clients, but it always felt…wrong. From a user’s perspective, WP can be a pleasure, but it can also feel a bit daunting with it’s myriad of options in the Admin panel. From a developer’s perspective,…Continue reading »