Recently in it stuff Category

The Wall Street Journal | Blogs brings us the tale of the TwitterPeek. Similar to the Peek Pronto, and produced by the same company (Peek, the TwitterPeek device is available for a set price ($99.95) with a subscription (six months free, then $7.95/month) or for a one time price ($199.95) which includes "lifetime service" - as long as the service is available, I guess.

While I don't have a problem with Twitter - I tweet quite a bit - I have to wonder if this device will take off like they're clearly hoping that it will. If people aren't adapting to use Twitter on their cell phones - and considering that you can simply send a text message to update it on even the most basic phone - then I wonder who their target audience is.

I myself tweet from my cell phone, the computer I happen to be using, or even my iPod touch. It's easy, convenient, and hassle-free - so maybe they have a point here. I guess maybe my problem is that it becomes yet another device to carry around. Granted, it's purely optional, so I guess it becomes a matter of using it or not, depending on your needs. I wish them luck, but I don't think I'll ever be buying on. Christmas sales, however, will be a good prediction of how the device will do over all. Time, as always, will tell all.

The Internet Storm Center mentions something of note:

So, you updated your Flash did you? by Adrien de Beaupre Helpfully Snow Leopard downgrades it for you. If you had upgraded to Flash version 10.0.32.18 prior to installing the new OS, you ended up with Flash version 10.0.23.1 afterwards. Leaving you vulnerable.

I just checked Safari after doing my Snow Leopard upgrade, and it looks like I need to make a quick trip to Adobe to update my Flash plugin....

It's been super busy for me - the Fall semester started this week, and work has been crazy busy.

The best part? The person who used to be my boss but is now a "peer" is still acting like he's... my boss. It's been interesting since he got back from his medical leave - but I was on vacation. When I got back from vacation, it's been go go go ever since. Not that I'm complaining - but in addition to my job role changes, I've got this other dynamic I need to work with, and it's making things a little harder for me. Very hard, at times.

The semester has started, however, and you can't stop that. WIth the start of the semester comes the usual influx of calls from faculty members who have problems with their computers. Well, that could mean a lot of things, so let me re-phrase that: Faculty members who are turning on their office computers for the first time in several months and remembering that they were having a problem with it back in April, but didn't have time to call the helpdesk and log a ticket. Can we maybe fix it now? Like, this afternoon? In 20 minutes?

Ah.... it's good to have the semester start again....

Tonight I had the pleasure of setting up an iomega Home Media NAS (Network Attached Storage) drive. Aside from an issue with the firmware (more on that in a second), setup was a breeze, and configuration was super easy - easier than I was afraid it would be. The best part? The Mac software for it is first rate, and the configuration is all web based, and completely platform neutral - something I'm not used to seeing when I buy "network" device that's allegedly cross-platform.

So, the problem with the new version of the backend that runs this site? It's that it requires a version of MySQL that I don't have access to. That's all geek to you, hopefully, but the long and the short of it is that an upgrade would need to be done to the server before I can upgrade my software. I don't really think that's going to happen anytime soon. This leaves me flustered, flumoxed, and irritated. But enough about that.

I bought a SATA drive a few months ago to go into a USB enclosure. It's super fast, but... not quite fast enough. So then I recently managed to get an external SATA enclosure (two drive) and an SATA Express Card for some super-duper high speed fun (editing a few videos, mostly). I tested it out a couple of times, and it was very nice.

Today, for fun, and since I don't use my computer much at work, I decided to see how long it would take to backup the computer via this new highspeed connection. A long time, apparently.

RIght now, it's doing about 130mb/min. I started it almost 3 hours ago, and it's done just over 20gb of backup, which is about 6gb/hour. That means that for the other 115gb, it would take about 19 hours. That's not... optimal. Of course, I have Mail, Photoshop, and a slew of other programs all running in the background, so that's not helping things. Regardless, it's not as super-duper fast as I had hoped it would. It is, however, still fast. And faster than the USB connected drive.

Now if only I could afford the 3TB of storage that I would probably need for all my data.....

CL&P Blog: All Criticism of This Website Is Hereby Forbidden

CL↦Blog brings up the topic of Dozier Internet Law's website and, more interestingly, their "User Agreement."

Ooops. Apparently I've managed to mess up - I just linked to them, so I've violated the "User Agreement" of their site:
We also do not allow any links to our site without our express permission

There I go again - I quoted part of their website, which violates another part of the "browse-wrap" license agreement:
Dozier Internet Law, P.C. has a lot of intellectual property on our site. For instance, we are the creators of all of the text on this website, and own the "look and feel" of this website. We also own all of the code, including the HTML code, and all content. As you may know, you can view the HTML code with a standard browser. We do not permit you to view such code since we consider it to be our intellectual property protected by the copyright laws. You are therefore not authorized to do so. In addition, you should not make any copies of any part of this website in any way since we do not want anyone copying us.

I think I might be in a lot of trouble now. Good thing I have a handy dandy user agreement of my own. (For the record, even thinking about my website means that you agree to the terms. Of course, I really should modify the agreement to say that you also owe me $5 for loading the site. I think I might have stumbled upon a new "revenue stream" for the site...)

Anyway, this type of heavy handed bullying has been tried before - and it usually fails before it even gets to the courtroom. On the rare occasion that it makes it that far, cooler heads usually prevail.

I wonder if Dozier will come after me? Time will tell.....

This might be boring, tedious, or both. If you don't have Cablevision for your internet/tv, or if you don't live in an area where they are located, or you just don't care, then move along. The rest of you can read more by clicking the link....

Todays drive into work was pretty atypical for several reasons. One was that I left the house when I meant to - since Jen was long gone when this happened, and the kids weren't actually fighting me (for a change), this was a pleasant surprise. Drop off went well, so that was good. A left, a right, a left, another left, and one more right and I'm on the highway - but the iPod is coming up with nothing but things I just don't want to hear. I had yesterday off so the family could visit my Aunt and Uncle who are visiting from Australia, so today is my Monday. I needed a little something to pick me up and get me going. It was a long hard road to finding something - I was 3/4 of the way to work when it finally happened: "Hot for Teacher", from Van Halen's "1984".

That song is only about 3 or 4 minutes long, so I had to find something else to fit into the remaining 5 minutes of my drive. What to do, what to do? The iPod was picking out more stuff I didn't want to hear - including several passages from an audio book that really, really needs to come off there - when suddenly I heard "Angry People" by Barenaked Ladies, off of "Are Me & Are Men Deluxe Edition". It's a double CD set that I got off of the iTunes Music Store, and it's chock full of BNL good-ness. Keep in mind that it's called "Are Me", but it's supposed to be read like "Barenaked Ladies Are Me" - or, as they put it on their podcast, "Barenaked Ladies Army" since their fans are so very loyal. Just a fun little tidbit for you there. Anyway, "Angry People" is kind of a happy, upbeat song, despite the name, and it helped continue the momentum built by "Hot for Teacher" to get me into a mindset that I'd be able to tackle the day.

Of course, when I remembered that today isn't Monday, and that I still have a piece of go-suh work cell phone and I have no idea when or if a replacement is coming. It works, but the battery won't hold a charge anymore - I need to charge it about once a day, and I don't use it to make more than two or three calls a day. BAD CELL PHONE!

But then I get to the office and there's good news! The new phone - a nice, shiny new phone - has arrived. A phone call, some idle chatter w/ the Verizon rep, and an activation later, and I'm playing with my new RAZR V3m phone. So far, it's working quite well - I've managed to get around to updating my address book with all the important phone numbers and email addresses, and then sync the phone to the work computer via BlueTooth. The biggest downside: Verizon crippled the phone. They don't let you do OBEX data transfers from the phone - which means if I take a photo with the camera, I either have to "PIX" the photo to myself (and use up messages that I think we pay extra for) or use the Micro SD card that the phone has - only you have to dis-assemble the phone to get at the card. OBEX, on the other hand, allows you to take and put data right from your computer to the phone and vice versa. Most other carriers offer it, but Verizon, in their infinite wisdom, have decided that you don't want that - they know what you want, and instead of being able to take your photos right off your cell phone, or play YOUR MP3 files on your phone, you really want to pay them to let you do it.

I don't want this to turn into a giant "Verizon is evil" rant, so I'm going to stop here, but point out that it's my phone, and I think I know what I want better than they do. Well, ok, it's the State of Connecticuts phone, but I have the same issues with my personal phone. Anyway, that's enough of that.

Having not posted anything of substance in a while, I thought it was about time that I did so.

The Communications Opportunity, Promotion and Enhancement Act (COPE) Act is supposed to be a good thing. Turns out that it's been hacked quite a bit by various people (aka special interest groups) to allow them to disregard the network neutrality agreements. What is network neutrality? Check out the wikipedia link (new window) for more info.

Basically, the way things are worded now, if the bill becomes a law, then your ISP will be able to "tax" websites for access to their customers. If, say, Google doesn't pay the fee, then an ISP could slow customer access to the website, or block it entirely. They could even, theoretically, make it so that when you go to Google, you end up at their own search engine. And blogs that are critical of the ISP? Oh darn, you no longer have access to that site - it's now on the black list.

It would also allow companies to do whatever they wanted on their own networks - in the mid-90's, Cox Cable blocked the common ports used for VPN access - "forcing the state of Washington, for example, to contract with telecommunications providers to be sure its employees had access to unimpeded broadband for telecommuting applications." (Wikipedia).

If you enjoy the internet the way it is now - where you can access a wide variety of information in a timely manner (based on the level of your internet access, of course), then you need to take action.

You can:
Contact your Congressperson (via the House website, or MoveOn.org)

Sign the Save the Internet Petition

Spread the word.

I haven't linked to Secret Santa this year, partly out of not enough time, and partly because while I like the idea on the whole, all it takes is one Scrooge to mess it up. I got Scrooged twice.

So, since it's possible that my Secret Santa happens on by, I'd ask that if you're not going to actually participate, let the Elves know and do the right thing. Otherwise, you know the drill - and hopefully who you are!

I stopped by my victim's site today and was pleased - a nice college student, with a nice site, and it looks like it will be some good reading before I make the choice of what to buy them.

Anyway, off to do computer things - hopefully I'll have good luck and then come back here and write it up to share with the rest of the class. It's geeky, but interesting and potentially useful for others.

NerdTests.com Fun Tests - Computer Geek / Nerd Quiz

MarteyDodoo.com » SPAMIS is Spam

I've only received a few of these, but it's to a specific address that I only use for administrative things having to do with... well, let's just say it's not an address I give out to anyone.

What I don't get - even after reading Martey's notes about it - is why the idiot thinks that sending out SPAM that borders on libel is going to help him.

Whatever.

BBC NEWS | Health | Brain chip reads man's thoughts: Brain chip reads man's thoughts

First and foremost, I love having this blog and all the chances it gives me to vent/share things. But if there's one thing I hate about it, it's all the idiots out there who seem to think that my website is there for them to spam and take advantage of. You know who you are, and cut it out.

Having said that, I've found a new resource in my battle against said idiots: MT-ProxyPlug. It checks to see if the commenter is coming through an open web-proxy and shuts them out. I don't really like that part - I'd rather have it moderate - but the consensus on the page of the plugin seems to be that when they come in this way, it's for no good, so what the heck.

I'm also happy to report that MT-Blacklist, which I've been using almost since it came out, is kicking ass and taking names.

Some stats:
Comment spams blocked: 19923
Comment spams moderated: 3600
Duplicates blocked: 84

That means that out of all the posts I've dealt with personally, 3600 have been moderated because they fit MT-Blacklists profile of spam - and I'd say about 99% of the time, it's dead on. It also means that 19,923 times someone tried to "comment" on my site and link to their site, a site that was intended to make them money or sell some cheap ass product or just generally take advantage of the interweb thingee. That's 19,923 comments that I never ever ever ever had to see - it just took care of them. That's like 40 hours of work that it saved me. Maybe less, I don't know - but that's not the point - it's that the plugin not only works, it KICKS ASS.

I've very glad that Jay now works for SixApart.

First and foremost, for all you blog spammers out there: cut it the hell out. I'm sick of your links, your insipid attempts to make things look "legit", and the fact that I have to take time out of my life - time I don't usually have - to clear your crap off my website is not amusing me. One. Bit.

I made this analogy of the problem to my parents one day:
It's like when you come back to your car after shopping at the mall, and find that someone was kind enough to shove a menu for a new restaurant under your windshield. Only with the blog spammers, you come back to your car and find that your whole windshield is covered with menus, five or six levels deep. NOT AMUSING.

I took it a bit further, adding that the spyware and virii I've been dealing with at work have me on edge - if I see a PC now, I avoid it unless I have to touch it - and then I feel all dirty after. Anyway, the continued analogy.... You get back to your car, and after getting rid of a metric ton of crap from your windshield, you then find that someone has broken into your car, moved the seats and mirrors, and then taken the liberty of changing all the presets on your radio too. Dirty low life scum sucking idiots.

Second order of business: this website as you know it. I've been doing a lot of thinking about this blog. Well, not a lot really, but it's been a background process that's been processing while I'm busy doing other stuff - sorta like how your computer will continue to print something even though you've moved on to another website. Anywho, here's the thing: I don't do this enough.

Add to that the other blogs I try to maintain (computerboy comes to mind, among others) and you can see that my goal of at least one post a day to at least one blog is failing. Miserably. I also have a photo album blog thing I've been trying to update, and the "family news" site for the family website - not super-important stuff, but it's there, and I'm not updating it like I should - or feel I should - and it's grating on my nerves. Or nerve - might be the last one... ;)

So, I'm going to embark on a tear down of this and some other sites, and re-do and integrate and mess around with and just generally break some stuff. It's going to get bad - much worse - before it gets any better. The long-term goal is to have one site for me, one for the family, and have my site publish to some of the other sites via some tricks I have up my sleeves. I realize that no-one out there cares about this stuff, but unless I write it down, I won't feel motivated to do anything, so what the heck, here it is. Call it a late New Years Resolution - number one in a series, collect them all.

I've also been checking out some other blogs lately. Sure, I've been doing that for years, but it's been a while since I looked at some of the other parenting blogs, and realized just how little I blog about the kids. Part of that is a privacy concern, what with the way the world is all messed up now, but I think I might be able to get away with it. Maybe.

Another thing I noticed is that when I blog, it's not the same as it used to be - I used to put up links throughout the day, and casual observations at the drop of a hat. Now-adays it's these longer posts, usually after I've dealt with some hairy computer problem, which of course makes me NOT want to post at all. It sucks, but that's life, right?

End transmission.

Neowin.net: Bill Gates Strikes a Pose for Teen Beat Photospread, 1983

Those are some pretty.... fancy shots. My favorite is the second one, where he seems to be saying "come, let me dominate your market...."

Interesting search strings....
Hackers use Google to access photocopiers - ZDNet UK News
geocamming — unsecurity cameras revisited - hack a day - www.hackaday.com

I've done this before to find routers and whatnot - fun. If you're an IT person, you need to go out and make sure that your printers are secure - or off you external interface - otherwise someone's gonna print a hundred pages of black to your printer when you're not looking.....

Here's some of the more interesting cameras I found...
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17

a hallway petrol station? ski slope office? "Big Sky Resort" http://www.dalane-tidende.no/ PGA Golfcam Park St Cam a radio station? Niesen kamungus forskningspark japanese laundromat fishbutt polisciquadcam cafe cam hot wax surf shop

* The server this site is on was hacked. Bad. It was down for a day and a half, everyone on the server lost at least that much email, and one of my sites still isn't working. Oh, wait, it doesn't matter - that client just took their business elsewhere.

* I just got a notice from my ISP that I'm violating the TOS (terms of service) by participating in file sharing. The reason they said something? A "copyright owner" has a record indicating that my IP was sharing a file that had the name of one of their shows in it. I really don't want to go into any more detail, but don't they have better things to do with their time?

* It's snowing again. I don't mind that so much, but it usually means that work is going to send me somewhere that's not close to home. True to form, I'm headed out to Watertown tomorrow. For those who don't know - that would be most of you readers - it's up by Waterbury, CT, or about 50 minutes from home on a good day. In snowy weather, that's more like 90 minutes. The last time I went, was there two days, and one of them was during the last snowfall. During the trip up during the snow, someone was kind enough to change lanes into my lane, but without warning and almost into me. They didn't think it was a problem, and were perplexed by my honking at them. Idiots.

* I tried to buy a camera for a client last Thursday, right about the same time that the server was crapping out. They sent me an email asking me to call them to "confirm the order", and also allegedly called my cell phone for the same reason. I didn't get any email - the server was hosed - and I know for a fact that they didn't call me. Whatever - I just want the camera. So I tried to call on Friday, but didn't call before they closed. Then they were closed Saturday - but, oddly, open on Sunday. I called again, and was told that there was an "issue" with my order - they would gladly transfer my call to someone to help with that. Problem was, I didn't have the 45 minutes they were hoping I'd stay on hold to finalize the order. Anyway, I finally got the order resolved on Monday - but only after finding out about the alleged phone calls, and then dealing with the guy trying to upsell me stuff - accessories, extended warranties, you name it, he was trying to sell it to me. When I finally got off the phone, I felt dirty.

I have a new project getting ramped up, and I'm trying to decide if I should stick with my standard blogging software, MovableType, or try something new. If I stick with MT, then I'll be using an older version as I'm not willing to upgrade at this time. If I go with something new, it will be - well, new.

I've played with several different engines in the past, but nothing recent - with the exception of Geeklog for Mc108.com and a copy of TextPattern I have installed for an experiment.

I want something that I can control - meaning something that lives on my server, and preferably something that's open source and preferably free or low cost. I don't mind paying someone money, but I want to feel like the software is worth it - and frankly, some of the stuff out there just isn't.

I know that Lee will suggest the ExpressionEngine, which I haven't yet played with - but I'm not sure what else is out there. I did just find this breakdown, and it's helpful, but I have a feeling that there's going to be some experimenting either way.

Either way, I'll announce my decision - not that anyone cares :) - and the site itself when I have something working - hopefully in about a week or so.

My email stats as of last night:
Filtered Mail
13582 Good Messages
103156 Spam Messages (88%)
359 Spam Messages Per Day

SpamSieve Accuracy
302 False Positives
232 False Negatives (43%)
99.5% Correct

Corpus
5946 Good Messages
23793 Spam Messages (80%)
737906 Total Words

Rules
21127 Blocklist Rules
1531 Whitelist Rules

Showing Statistics Since
2/5/04 5:01 PM

usbPEZ is an interesting tangent - taking Pez heads and putting them onto your USB drive to make them just a wee bit more distinct. If it wasn't for the fact that my drive came from part of a pen (like for writing) then I'd give it a shot. Heck, I might just take it out of the pen and see what happens...

BBC NEWS | Technology | Blogger grounded by her airline

A US airline attendant is fighting for her job after she was suspended over postings on her blog, or online diary

Looks like she got "dooced". Well, suspended at least.

I learned this lesson without getting fired - but when I learned it, I stopped naming names and whatnot. It's a scary feeling realizing that someone you work for might be keeping up to date on what you do. Of course, if I didn't post, they wouldn't be able to read it. And if it didn't have my name all over it, they might not be able to find it.....

I'm online right now via the weirdest setup...

I'm hooked up to a computer via FireWire cable, and I'm using it to share the internet connection. Apple must have had an interesting reason for doing this in the first place - but it was so easy, it's scary. And it just works, so that's good too!

I've been dealing with a client who's got more fonts than I've seen in a while, and things have been going less than perfectly. Thursday night, I managed to make some changes to the sytem - and it's frigging working at last. Ninety percent of the font-related problems have just gone away, and I'm happier than a pig in.... well, stuff. Fonts, and desktop publishing in general, can be tons of fun - or it can be a nightmare. Watching it go from nightmare to fun was the best thing to happen at work in a while.

Friday I had the pleasure of setting up a new G5 for them - too bad I didn't get to keep it ;).

I'm curious to see how this thing works, but don't know anyone using it. So....

I'll be online for another hour or so.

Or something. I'm testing out a clients WAP (wireless access point) since it stopped working for them. I managed to get it going again, so of course I have to stress test it a bit. I'm standing in Union Station in New Haven, CT, doing this wirelessly through their network (private, not public, of course). I'm surprised that they have it set up, however, given that there's only one person (well, two if you count me) that would ever use it - and the primary user is normally hard wired. But it's their money, I'll let them spend it however they want.

Since 12:00, I'm managed to spill a cup of (not-so) iced coffee and our tupperware container of celery - which also has water in it. Since it was two separate incidents, I got to wipe up the floor twice. Fun.

In other news, I managed to get the Planing and Zoning board to issue a permit for our shed, since we had it moved to the other side of our yard. I don't think that our neighbor on that side is thrilled with it, but since it's more than the required four feet from the property line, it's legal - and since Jen had informed them that it was going there, they had a chance to say something. At this point, however... it will take some very persuasive arguing to get me to move it again. Ever.

I spent the afternoon helping re-wire a computer network for a client. This is not something that I like doing, nor does anyone else. It helps, however, if you can just unplug computers when you feel like it - and then put them back on willy nilly. It's also fun when you have to re-re-re-re-patch the network together after basically disconnecting it all so you can figure out where half the cables go.

Oh, and it's not cool to use a 20 foot cable when you could have just as easily used a two foot. And then let's not forget that when in doubt, you should always leave extra, un-needed network cables plugged into the network and twisted all in among the others - making it harder to figure out whether or not the cable is needed. Ahhh, the joys of cabling.

But enough about work. I have to go get some sleep so I can start doing some more work for the same client in the morning. One bad thing: they're in Stamford, which means at least a 40+ minute drive. Since I worked late tonight, I can get away with coming in "late" - in other words, trying to miss the morning traffic jams. Trying being the operative word.

CNET News.com: "Google, the company that made off with the search market, is setting its sights on free e-mail."

A whole gigabyte just for my email? Mmmmm, that could be a good thing!

Spammer's Porsche up for grabs

AOL says the Porsche has "symbolic value"

Internet giant AOL has ratcheted up the war against unsolicited e-mail with a publicity-grabbing coup - an online raffle of a spammer's seized Porsche.

AOL won the car - a $47,000 Boxster S - as part of a court settlement against an unnamed e-mailer last year.

I certainly wouldn't mind entering to win it (they're having a raffle of sorts, apparently). I think it's pretty fair that they do this - if the guy can't pay up, they take his stuff and try to make some money - or in this case, some publicity - off of it....