Technology on The Truth Imperative

SONY compromised?

Mon, 26 Nov 2007 14:50:00 -0800

I noticed that one of the throw-away email addresses I registered years ago for sony style product registration and accessories is now receiving spam. Was sony compromised or did they have an insider sell their addresses? Who knows… I know that I didn’t give it out to anyone…

Postfix Dspam 380 Ubuntu

Sun, 25 Nov 2007 13:13:00 -0800

I have been wrestling with my dspam configuration on Ubuntu for quite some time and think I finally got it set up the optimal way. It took building a custom modern dspam package myself, with the help of a kind soul who built a custom package for Debian etch.

I get tens of thousands of spam messages to my personal accounts each month. And there are many more going to other users at my domain. It has been getting worse recently. This primarily caused me to take more drastic action and implement realtime blackhole lists to block spam from even entering my mail system. It is absolutely stunning to see how much spam gets blocked vs. how much gets in now. I haven’t calculated the stats but on a cursory look at my logs, it is well over 70% that is being dropped on the floor now.

New Wider Stylesheet For Juxtaposition

Sun, 11 Mar 2007 14:41:00 -0700

I just finally fixed my modified Vixburg style for Movable Type so that it makes use of wider browsers. Many times, quotes or pictures or preformatted text get chopped by the small center column. I tried for hours to get a decent 3 column layout where the center column will be fluid and take up as much available space as is there, to no avail. Best I could do was set 65% as the width and that does most of what I hoped for, at least for a 1280x1024. The true holy grail is at this site, but would require me building a whole new style to match kind of what I have using this as the base https://www.glish.com/css/7.asp The right column does not flitter away underneath the content as happens with mine when the page is sized smaller. *sigh*

New Life For Old Books With Bookmooch

Sat, 10 Mar 2007 15:44:00 -0800

BookMooch: a community for exchanging used books (book swap and book exchange and book trade)

I am loving Bookmooch. I’ve mailed out several books so far that were sitting in my basement and am going to hopefully get some good ones in return. This was a great idea that my friend Mike and I actually had in college after the annoyance of paying $60 for a book that the bookstore on campus would only buy back for a pittance; only to turn around and sell it for $60 again. I’m glad someone else coded it. Maybe I’ll actually get something for those books I chose to keep rather than get loose change for. Check out my mooch link on the left nav bar: my Bookmooch list

Seattle Public Library Catalog Toast

Fri, 15 Dec 2006 14:42:00 -0800

Ouch. Clever page title though: “There goes our five nines…”

Nist Blasts Paperless Electronic Voting

Sat, 02 Dec 2006 15:58:00 -0800

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) recently published a paper condemning paperless electronic voting machines as insecurable. I’ll have to read the paper in-depth to see how they came to that strong of a conclusion, but I do know that there is no research showing that a purely electronic system can be completely trustworthy.

It’s amazing how far this subject has come in just a few years, yet how far it still needs to go as evidenced by the irregularities in the recent 2006 midterm election.

Dangerous Plastic Packaging

Sat, 02 Dec 2006 15:54:00 -0800

I’ve been wondering this and noting that more and more products are coming wrapped in this stuff. I use a tchochke that I got from Tripwire that has a tiny corner of a razor blade on it to open these packages, but even then, the cut plastic package is sharper than the razor. I’ve cut myself on several occasions. The unusual shapes of the packages doesn’t make it very easy to cleanly open either.

Installing An Uncrippled Ffmpeg On Ubuntu

Sun, 26 Nov 2006 16:52:00 -0800

I’m trying this right now on Edgy Eft:

po-ru.com: Fixing ffmpeg on Ubuntu

It seems one can set DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS=risky to enable the missing codecs rather than editing debian/rules and building the package manually.

sudo apt-get build-dep ffmpeg

sudo apt-get install liblame-dev libfaad2-dev libfaac-dev libxvidcore4-dev checkinstall fakeroot

DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS=risky fakeroot apt-get source ffmpeg –compile

sudo dpkg -i ffmpeg-blah.dpkg

Fashion Advice For Geeks

Fri, 24 Nov 2006 16:30:00 -0800

So, there happen to be these unwritten rules of style that change all the time that nobody seems to tell you about and it’s hard to ask and for many, harder to know you should ask. And there are people in the work world that do judge you by your appearance, for better or worse, consciously and unconsciously. Here is some advice that I have culled from significant others, from experience and observation in the workplace, from the advice in Esquire, and even from What Not to Wear on TLC.

Competitive Information For Picking An Antivirus Solution

Fri, 24 Nov 2006 15:21:00 -0800

This is an article from a year ago that showed how each vendor was able to respond to key virus outbreaks. They also show the data from the previous year.

I personally recommend F-Secure’s product. The base product gives you everything you need for anti-spyware and malware and is inexpensive. It is not a huge fat pig like some of the products out there (McAfee…) I’ve heard from others who enjoy Kapersky as well, so either of those would be good choices and happen to both top this list.

Four Challenges For Computer Security Research

Fri, 24 Nov 2006 14:47:00 -0800

I would add a 5th item:

5. Develop Reusable Security Architectures that cover common scenarios and include appropriate protection by design

Tools are sexy; secure design is hard. That’s why you see so many tools and vendors hawking tools but not as much work. I hear from people all the time who talk about this tool or pen testing or scanning some server or how you need to hack your wireless network to be secure. That is a bunch of crap in general because trying to audit your way to security is bottom-up grass-roots and can only get you so far. It’s an early maturity model to be spending so much time and energy on audits and pen tests instead of security design reviews and developing security architectures. It’s a lot easier and sexier to say you hacked a wireless network. We need to get to where it is just as cool to say you developed a wireless network security architecture such that you don’t care who is connected to the wireless network because your security is not so brittle as to lose sleep over it. Where are those reusable models made open source?

Dmca Still Stands But Now With Some Exemptions

Fri, 24 Nov 2006 14:19:00 -0800

It’s still a shitty law though. Something else I will happily ignore to avoid my fair use rights being infringed. Again, how could I watch DVDs (legally rented/owned) on my Linux box without doing so?

Boing Boing: Copyright Office creates 6 DMCA exemptions

the office refused to grant exemptions that would benefit the general public – space- and format-shifting, backing up your DVDs – and they took back an earlier exemption that let people reverse-engineer the blacklists maintained by censorware companies to bring some transparency to their process.

YouTube shutting down ability to download videos from YouTube

Fri, 24 Nov 2006 14:17:00 -0800

07:00

Hey, I’m on a Linux computer and because they insist on requiring Flash to play the videos, the only way I can view them is to download them and watch them with Xine. I plan on violating their terms of service…to continue to access their service…

Lawrence Lessig: When Web 2.0 meets Lawyers 1.0

Blog Popularity Inversely Proportional To Amount Of Quot Linking Quot-

Fri, 24 Nov 2006 11:03:00 -0800

quot-

Summary: people link to bloggers that provide more original content than who just provide links to other places that do so.

Funny because I was just thinking about this regarding this blog. I think it’s cool when people enjoy what I provide on this blog, but I really don’t care if people read it or not. This is where I keep track of stories and topics that interest me, instead of saved emails or bookmarks that I never look at again. I can always go back and find what I found interesting and what I wrote about it. Pretty cool in my book.

Verizon settles class Action suit about deceptive practices regarding crippled phones

Fri, 24 Nov 2006 07:48:00 -0800

This is great news. They did the same with other phones, including the e815 that I have. Fortunately, there are ways around this to re-enable the crippled features, but they are out of reach to most consumers. I had to buy a data cable and software on eBay to uncripple my phone.

[infowarrior] - Verizon Slapped for Crippling Bluetooth

Verizon has been getting weasely with some of its customers in California who bought its Motorola v710 Bluetooth-³capable² phone on or before January 31, 2005. Preliminary approval of the settlement was granted in a California court for a class-action suit against the company because it didn¹t accurately tell prospective customers that its Bluetooth features weren¹t what they appeared to be. Verizon said the phone ³works with a PC² but left out that part about how you can¹t wirelessly sync photos or contacts or any other files using Bluetooth.

Antennaweb Tv And Hdtv

Mon, 06 Nov 2006 10:43:00 -0800

-hdtv

AntennaWeb

Seattle HDTV antenna map mashup

Mon, 06 Nov 2006 10:32:00 -0800

HDTV Magazine - Broadcast HDTV Market : Seattle-Tacoma

Opml Sharing Site

Sun, 05 Nov 2006 08:01:00 -0800

-site

Share Your OPML: Top 100 Feeds

Good Info On Compact Fluorescent Lamps

Mon, 30 Oct 2006 13:17:00 -0800

Plus recommendations on where to, and where not to, use them, based on the best use of the technology for the money without excessive wear on the lamps.

What C.F. Lamps to Use Where

New Google Code Search

Tue, 10 Oct 2006 02:38:00 -0700

Google code search (kottke.org)

Find all sorts of interesting things in source code out there, or web sites running interesting code. There’s a great list to get you started “Google Code Hacking”.

Net Neutrality Issue For Dummies

Mon, 09 Oct 2006 13:12:00 -0700

Network Neutrality Threatened In Norway

A very clear description of the Net Neutrality issue and how the claims made by those against it are baseless.

Online File Format Conversion Website

Thu, 05 Oct 2006 10:40:00 -0700

Media Convert - free and on line - convert and split sound, ringtones, images, docs - MP3 WMV 3GP AMR FLV SWF AMV MOV WMA AVI MPG MP4 DivX MPEG4 iPOD OGG WMA AAC MP4 MPC MMF QCP KAR MIDI REALAUDIO FLAC JPG PSD DOC PDF RTF TXT ODG ODP ODS ODT SXW WK1 MDB X

More Geek Project Goodness

Sat, 02 Sep 2006 13:49:00 -0700

Boing Boing: HOWTO make a twin-engine solar rolling robot

Diy Raid 5 Nas

Tue, 01 Aug 2006 16:41:00 -0700

Build a Cheap and Fast RAID 5 NAS | Tom’s Networking

I’m going to need to get one of those cards and a bunch of drives to augment my data server with a terabyte of RAID-5 goodness. *yum*

Genographic Project

Sun, 09 Jul 2006 07:53:00 -0700

https://www3.nationalgeographic.com/genographic/index.html

and to participate go here – they send you a DNA swab kit that you mail back to them.

https://www3.nationalgeographic.com/genographic/participate.html

Nsa'S Math Problem

Sun, 09 Jul 2006 07:36:00 -0700

https://www.liveammo.com Security News Blog

legal or not, this sort of spying program probably isn’t worth infringing our civil liberties for — because it’s very unlikely that the type of information one can glean from it will help us win the war on terrorism.

Interesting mathematical analysis of how effective the NSA domestic call-tracking spy program could possibly be.

80211n Wireless Not Living Up To Promises Yet

Sun, 09 Jul 2006 06:31:00 -0700

EETimes.com - 802.11n wireless gear falls short in testing

Early adopters are likely to suffer the same problems that plagued 802.11g when it first emerged.

More Firefox Plugin Goodness

Sun, 09 Jul 2006 06:25:00 -0700

foXpose/Tabnail plugins Two thumbnail-related plugins. One creates a single index page with thumbnails of all of your open tabs that you can use to navigate with. The other creates tiny thumbnails of the open pages in the tabs themselves. Both require firefox 1.5 or higher. It may be time to try the release candidate…

Also, since my previous post, I found several other useful and promising plugins:

Wizz RSS Newsreader DictionarySearch Dictionary Tooltip Fasterfox IE Tab Buggy, but can be convenient to change rendering engine on Windows. BetterSearch

Worst Tech Moments of 2005; Predictions for 2006

Sun, 09 Jul 2006 06:04:00 -0700

07:00

Wired News: Worst Tech Moments 2005

Not sure I entirely agree with all of these. Looks like Bush will make the 2006 list several more times given the additional illegal spying uncovered so far. A summary of the list:

TiVo boxes betray their owners
Commerce Department blocks .xxx domain
PayPal blocks Katrina aid
Space shuttle Discovery
Bush corrupts the NSA

Here are some items that I predict for the 2006 list:

Artists And Consumers Get Screwed By The Music Industry

Sun, 25 Jun 2006 16:06:00 -0700

Passionate condemnation of the music industry:

[IP] MUST READ Courtney Love does the math The controversial singertak

[IP] last on this topic – Does File Trading Fund Terrorism? Successful artists not seeing any profit.

[https://www.marketplace.org/play/audio.php?media=/2003/03/12_mpp&start=00:00: 20:00.0&end=00:00:27:30.0](https://www.marketplace.org/play/audio.php?media=/2003/03/12_mpp&start=00:00: 20:00.0&end=00:00:27:30.0)

[IP] 2 more on Does File Trading Fund Terrorism?

Juxtaposition Einstein Approved

Sun, 25 Jun 2006 16:02:00 -0700

This is so cool.

Einstein’s task list generator

National Missile Defense System Lame

Sun, 25 Jun 2006 15:52:00 -0700

National Missile Defense System Test Fails Again This story is over a year old but there hasn’t been much better news about this boondoggle since then.

Oh, we can only hope that we are attacked by drones and not real missles… Those have been the only things that have even partially been stopped by this technology (after much rigging). Very apropos since just on the McLaughlin group today there were those that actually thought we could possibly rely on this to knock a North Korean ICBM out of the sky before it hits the US west coast.

Verizon's hostile attitude toward its customers

Sun, 25 Jun 2006 15:18:00 -0700

07:00

Nuclear Elephant: The Motorola v710: Verizon’s New Crippled Phone

I have to say that I was really annoyed to find that my Motorola E815 couldn’t even share vCards between phones using Bluetooth, let alone that they disabled the advertised ability to use mp3s for ringtones, to get photos you snap onto your PC, to play mp3s, to play videos, etc.

Making Port Forwarded Connections Accessible From The Intranet Lan

Sun, 25 Jun 2006 11:13:00 -0700

# Enabling many:one IP masquerading from the LAN to the Internet (i.e. out the $WAN interface) iptables -t nat -A POSTROUTING -o $WAN -j MASQUERADE

# port forwarding $WAN_IP:25 to $SMTP_SVR_IP:25 iptables -t nat -A POSTROUTING -d $WAN_IP -p tcp –dport 25 -j DNAT –to $SMTP_SVR_IP iptables -A FORWARD -i $WAN -p tcp –dport 25 -d $SMTP_SVR_IP -j ACCEPT

# Making this cruft work from the intranet # i.e. DESK_IP -> WAN_IP:25

Tech Tip Roundup

Sun, 25 Jun 2006 10:58:00 -0700

DIY external portable USB Hard drive: Just bought the Bytecc HD-201u2 enclosure. It is completely USB powered. Stick any laptop harddrive you want in there and go. Comes with a cable and a nice carry case (although the zipper is crap).

Preloading images on a page using only CSS

Grab a PDF copy of the Scriptaculous Cheat Sheet #1: Javascript effects Side note: someone really has the last name Fuchs? How cool is that?!

Presentation Zen

Sun, 25 Jun 2006 10:56:00 -0700

Presentation Zen: What is good PowerPoint design?

A nice article showing several different ways of communicating the same message without overcomplicating your slides.

The blog also offers excellent insight into visual design appropriate for powerpoints or any visual marketing.

Rumoured Huge Amd Price Drop July 24

Fri, 23 Jun 2006 15:14:00 -0700

DailyTech - Update: AMD Plans Major CPU Price Drops Day After “Conroe”

Guess I’ll have to wait to buy my new system! I’m thinking an AMD AM2 motherboard will have the best socket longevity and that is the socket platform that AMD is putting its lower power consumption options on. Comparable CPUs run 89W or less in the AM2 version versus the Socket 939 equivalents. And even lower power consumption models are on the way.

Move Over Chroot Apparmor Is Here

Thu, 22 Jun 2006 03:55:00 -0700

-here

Plugging my own product, but what the hell, it is open source :)

AppArmor https://opensuse.org/Apparmor is an application security container technology for Linux. It lets you create application profiles (policies) that define the files that the application can read, write, and execute. It lets you do this per-application, so you actually could allow users to upload arbitrary C/binary programs and expect them to behave as you specified. It provides an inheritance model so that you can’t escape from this jail by exec’ing something fun: the child is controlled by policy too.

Build Your Own Rfid Skimmer

Tue, 20 Jun 2006 16:32:00 -0700

How to Build a Low-Cost, Extended-Range RFID Skimmer

Oh, I’m definitely going to have to build one of these!!

Open Debate On Drm

Tue, 20 Jun 2006 13:47:00 -0700

WSJ.com - ‘DRM’ Protects Downloads, But Does It Stifle Innovation?

Remember, DRM = Digital Restriction Management.

This is an awesome debate getting to the heart of the matter. Courtesy of BoingBoing

Creating A 3 Column Layout In Movable Type

Mon, 19 Jun 2006 18:19:00 -0700

Learning Movable Type: Creating a 3-Column Layout in MT3.2

I used the information in this tutorial as a guide for creating my 3-column stylesheet that I recently implemented across all pages on juxtaposition. Also, the Web Developer firefox plugin was invaluable for tweaking the CSS with live-preview of the results.

Cleaning Deb Package House

Mon, 19 Jun 2006 18:17:00 -0700

Ubuntu Blog: Better Management of Packages while Uninstalling

HOWTO: Using debfoster in practice

Converting Text From Unicode To Ascii

Mon, 19 Jun 2006 09:11:00 -0700

Just had to convert some text files from Unicode to ASCII and used Vim to do it:

Open each file and notice that vim says [converted] at the bottom, indicating that it has transparently opened the unicode file to let you edit that file.

On each file, change the file encoding setting to latin1 (basic ASCII):

Then save the file and it will be converted:

FYI, The vim docs note that changing the “encoding” setting does not affect existing text so that won’t work.

Bizarre Notepad Bug

Sat, 17 Jun 2006 17:09:00 -0700

27B Stroke 6

Bizarre notepad bug that really exists. If you type a phrase consisting of a 4 letter word, then two three letter words, then a 5 letter word, save it, then reopen it, the text will be corrupted and unreadable. There is a claim that not all words cause this to occur. See the linked story for examples of what does work.

There was a great quote:

Quot Put Any Object Or Thing That Produces Data Into The Network Quot-

Mon, 03 Apr 2006 14:52:00 -0700

Boing Boing: Julian Bleecker’s blobjects manifesto: “Why Things Matter”

This Xport device looks pretty cool. I wonder if I could meld it with my weather station to make a data logger…

Safedisc Drm Update For Windows Xp Reduces Online Gaming Risk

Sun, 19 Mar 2006 12:42:00 -0800

-risk

https://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=eae20f0f-c41c-44fe-84ce-1df707d7a2e9&displaylang=en

This update starts the driver secdrv for SafeDisc from Macrovision at boot time to allow you to run games as a non-admin, lower-privilege user. Games that use SafeDisc otherwise require you to play the game as Administrator in order to have the rights to start the Manual service. Now, if only PunkBuster were to do the same…

Have I mentioned that DRM and copy protection sucks?

Microsoft Is The Reason The Quot Little Guys Quot Cannot Play Drm Encumbered Files

Fri, 17 Mar 2006 12:29:00 -0800

Boing Boing: MSFT: Our DRM licensing is there to eliminate hobbyists and little guys

It has been freaking annoying that I can’t play DRM encumbered WMA files on my Neuros or even on Linux. Now we know why: Microsoft’s business practices.

Drm Annoying Mistake

Sat, 11 Mar 2006 09:11:00 -0800

The big DRM mistake

Digital Rights Managements hurts paying customers, destroys Fair Use rights, renders customers’ investments worthless, and can always be defeated. Why are consumers and publishers being forced to use DRM?

I have to say that DRM is really on my s*it list these days. I was excited to find out that the Seattle Public Library had three separate e-book and digital audio book relationships so you can access content without even leaving the house. However, I quickly found that one uses WMA files with DRM (which won’t play on my Neuros) and the other uses a proprietary software player that somehow integrates with Windows media player. I can’t even play these files on Linux, let alone on a portable media player. And I can’t burn most of them to CDs to play in the car. What do they expect you to do–play hours of audio books while sitting at your PC??? Retarded.

Search Engine Search By Sketch-

Fri, 24 Feb 2006 09:39:00 -0800

retrievr - search by sketch

This is a lot of fun to see what search results you get. Maybe Google will pick up similar technology for Google images and video?

Book On Building Geeky Stuff

Fri, 24 Feb 2006 09:36:00 -0800

Adventures from the Technology Underground : Catapults, Pulsejets, Rail Guns, Flamethrowers, Tesla Coils, Air Cannons, and the Garage Warriors Who Love Them: Explore similar items](https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1400050820/juxtaposition-20?dev-t=DW7KZDVJYZAIL%26camp=2025%26link_code=xm2 “Amazon.com: Adventures from the Technology Underground : Catapults, Pulsejets, Rail Guns, Flamethrowers, Tesla Coils, Air Cannons, and the Garage Warriors Who Love Them: Explore similar items”)

Mythbusters, except encouraging “do try this at home”. Will have to get this book.

Very cool color pallette tool

Fri, 24 Feb 2006 09:33:00 -0800

Allows selecting colors for web designs from a variety of schemes, such as complementary colors. Very quick to get a list of colors that go well together.

HTML Color Code Tool Or from the source: https://www.siteprocentral.com/html_color_code.html

I would post it here, but they force you to use their HTML code and include it as an iframe.

Fuel Cell Motorbike

Fri, 24 Feb 2006 09:22:00 -0800

Riding Sun ENV bike at Tokyo Fuel Cell Expo

Move over Vespa. There’s a new show in town and I want one of these…

Notable Web Site Designs

Fri, 24 Feb 2006 09:19:00 -0800

Current style in web design

Discussion of notable web site designs and properties of good web design.

My Tips For Diy Electrical Wiring

Fri, 24 Feb 2006 09:18:00 -0800

I recently finished wiring my second kitchen and wanted to document and share the tips that I’ve learned. I’m not an electrician so when in doubt, check your local regulations and refer to the National Fire Prevention Association’s National Electrical Code (NFPA 70) But, doing your wiring yourself can save you A LOT of money. It is really not that difficult if you read up on the requirements and practice with someone who has done it before. The inspectors are generally patient with you as a DIY homeowner and will help guide you along if you ask them questions.

Discovered Site For Bittorrent Downloads Of All Kinds

Thu, 23 Feb 2006 09:04:00 -0800

mininova : the ultimate bittorrent source!

Hours and hours of entertainment, not all of it legal.

Geeky Xmas Gifts For Under 100

Sun, 04 Dec 2005 14:22:00 -0800

MAKE: Blog: MAKE’s Mostly Under $100 Gift Guide 2005!

What a cool list. I’m sure I’d enjoy anything on this list–even the PVC pipe (I do have a kitchen remodel coming up…)

Eff Breaks Secret Tracking Quot Dot Code Quot-

Sun, 30 Oct 2005 14:33:00 -0800

EFF: DocuColor Tracking Dot Decoding Guide

This is a breakthrough. It has been rumoured for years that printers and copy machines include secret codes on documents to track them back to the source machine but the EFF now has real evidence and even tools that you can use to perhaps decode your printer’s secret tracking information.

This guide is part of the Machine Identification Code Technology project. It explains how to read the date, time, and printer serial number from forensic tracking codes in a Xerox DocuColor color laser printout. This information is the result of research by Robert Lee, Seth Schoen, Patrick Murphy, Joel Alwen, and Andrew “bunnie” Huang. We acknowledge the assistance of EFF supporters who have contributed sample printouts to give us material to study. We are still looking for help in this research; we are asking the public to submit test sheets or join the printers mailing list to participate in our reverse engineering efforts.

Does Voting Machine Technology Affect The Outcome Of Elections

Sun, 30 Oct 2005 12:30:00 -0800

Some interesting results found in a study of 2000-2004 election data.

We first show that there is a positive correlation between use of touch-screen voting and the level of electoral support for George Bush. This is true in models that compare the 2000-2004 changes in vote shares between adopting and nonadopting counties within a state, after controlling for income, demographic composition, and other factors. Although small, the effect could have been large enough to influence the final results in some closely contested states.

Top 5 Spam Categories

Sun, 30 Oct 2005 02:14:00 -0800

Security Scoop - NSI Watercooler Stories - BankInfoSecurity.com

This seems consistent with what I’ve seen in spam that comes into axley.net. Spammers and scammers are the scourge.

Top 5 Spam Categories Named Drum roll please … it’s time to reveal the top five categories of junk e-mail, as tracked by security firm Sophos. The big winner for 2005 so far is medication/pills, which accounts for 41.4% of all spam reports. Next are mortgage offers, which clocked in with 11.1%. That old favorite pornography took the third spot, with 9.5%. Stock scams are growing fast, Sophos says, accounting for 8.5% of all spam thus far this year. In fifth were product-related spam messages, with 8.3%. The remaining 21.2% fall into the “other” category.

Must Have Firefox Extensions

Fri, 21 Oct 2005 13:34:00 -0700

I thought it would be good to document the Firefox extensions that I find invaluable:

All-In-One Sidebar A much nicer integration of common configuration options with the FF GUI at the ready. Also, lets you load up two different pages side-by-side or the source code to a page right next to the site, etc.

Download Statusbar I find the firefox download manager separate dialog box kind of annoying. This extension shows all download progress right in the statusbar so you don’t have to watch multiple windows to track download progress.

Sharing an HP Printer via CUPS w/o a network printer driver

Mon, 10 Oct 2005 03:25:00 -0700

HP has several printers where they provide huge driver downloads of 75-350 megabytes but none of them come with a network INF installer (you can look in autorun.inf and see references to Drivers/Network but those directories aren’t there)

Two printers that I know have this problem are the:

HP PSC 750xi HP PSC 1210xi

I run a linux print server so I want to connect the printers to the linux box and share them out via IPP provided by CUPS. This requires some software gymnastics on Windows because the typical HP drivers expect the printer to be plugged directly into the local USB cable, not served out over IPP. I saw similar problems of other HP users when they tried to use Windows printer sharing to remote computers on a network.

20 Questions

Mon, 26 Sep 2005 14:42:00 -0700

20 questions: AI style

This is pretty freaky that a computer can guess what you are thinking…

20Q.net is an experiment in artificial intelligence. The program is very simple but its behavior is complex. Everything that it knows and all questions that it asks were entered by people playing this game. 20Q.net is a learning system; the more it is played, the smarter it gets.

My Pick For Cost Reducing Noise Reducing Headphones

Mon, 26 Sep 2005 12:47:00 -0700

Aiwa HP-CN6 Noise-cancelling headphones. Get them at amazon.com for super cheap. I compared these to the $299 Bose and it was a very easy decision. There is not $270 more noise cancelling in the Bose headphones.

When trying them on and comparing them, be aware that the over-the-ear designs block more noise just without having them turned on. So, account for that difference in your testing.

I often use mine at work to cancel out the subconsciously irritating ambient noise and they are indispensable on airplanes.

Rss Feed For Traffic Conditions Data And Maps

Fri, 19 Aug 2005 15:03:00 -0700

The technical details of how to find your local traffic feed are at https://ejohn.org/blog/traffic-conditions-data/

It’s pretty easy to set up your own URL. Here’s one for Seattle that I’ll have to put on my blog somewhere…

ZDNet's "apology" to Google

Fri, 19 Aug 2005 12:40:00 -0700

Gotta love brit humor! This is great tongue-in-cheek commentary at its best.

The background: News.com UK published details about Google’s CEO using public information found on…Google (aka Google hacking). Google wasn’t happy about this, so they banned Google employees from speaking to News.com reporters for a year. Absurd!

But, fortunately, ZDNet UK has apologized for the whole matter, although it is covered with loads o’ sweet syrupy sarcasm.

ZDNET.UK’s “apology” to Google

Drooling Over My 7mbps 892 Kbps Dsl Upgrade

Tue, 19 Jul 2005 11:36:00 -0700

broadband Speed Interpretation

Just upgraded from 1.5mbps / 768kbps to 7mbps / 892kbps. Yum.

2005-07-19 21:32:27 EST: 4427 / 719 Your download speed : 4533441 bps, or 4427 kbps. A 553.3 KB/sec transfer rate. Your upload speed : 737104 bps, or 719 kbps.

VIM as an XML Editor

Tue, 12 Jul 2005 02:39:00 -0700

07:00

A great HOWTO: Vim as XML Editor

I’m not sure I’ll give up a GUI for XML editing, but you can do quite a lot with VIM that many GUI XML editors can’t.

Avoid Losing Web Form Text

Mon, 11 Jul 2005 04:04:00 -0700

Scribe, Mozilla Firefox Extension looks like a handy extension to add to Firefox. How many times have you lost a long textarea posting? No more typing in VIM or Notepad and then pasting into the web. No need to constantly save to the server to avoid losing text.

Example given uses movable type… I’ll definitely be checking this out.

UPDATE: I just lost a great posting due to accidental hitting the back button… Aargh.

Spam blocking update

Tue, 03 May 2005 13:52:00 -0700

So, like everyone, I get a LOT of spam. Over the past year (May 15 2004 - May 3 2005), I have received and processed a total of 120878 emails.

Here is how the mail I received breaks down:

notspam (ham): 14092 (11.7%) probably-spam: 76925 (63.6%) suspected-spam: 29154 (24.1%)

The statistics are somewhat misleading. I switched in August of 2004 to calling all mail marked over a particular spam threshold “probably spam” and suspicious mail as “suspected spam”, when before everything was “suspected spam”. So, until I do further analysis, the suspected spam pot is a bit fuller than it should be.

This website can read your mind

Thu, 24 Mar 2005 13:25:00 -0800

20Q.net

Select the “Think in english” link to proceed in english. This is an automated 20 questions that is very good at guessing what you are thinking of. Haven’t seen this in some time but got sent the link recently.

-J

Mobile Phone Industry Blocking Itunes Phone

Thu, 24 Mar 2005 12:45:00 -0800

Courtesy www.fiercewireless.com

If this is true, this is really sad. I know the mobile phone industry would just love to keep charging exhorbitant rates for worse-than-midi ringtones to counteract the trend of them becoming commodity carriers for wireless voice, but to go this far – hindering technology growth and restricting use of their mobile data networks – is the wrong move. It took the public Internet to launch the explosion of new technology, services, etc. The variety and growth in technology that exists on and over the Internet today would not have occurred if the only game in town was still the AOL or Compuserve network – just to offer a historical analogy.

SPAM filter comparisons

Sat, 23 Aug 2003 06:05:00 -0700

SPAM is a truly egregious problem. This article does some analysis of popular spam filtering software. It is no surprise to me that signature-based programs tend to have slightly higher false positive rates and that Bayesian filters work best when trained properly, and have low or zero false positive rates.

I use bogofilter and have a corpus of thousands of spam messages that I have received, going back 6 or more years. It works great. I don’t have to keep checking my spam bucket for false positives all the time and occasionally have to retrain if I get a false negative but online life is much better than before bogofilter. I was constantly having to scan through the spam bucket to pick out false positives.

Openldapopenssl Stupidity

Mon, 18 Aug 2003 15:51:00 -0700

Sorry for not keeping up. Been enjoying the summer too much!

Anyhow, I thought that my experience in trying to get openLDAP 2.0.x working with TLS would be of interest to someone because the solution was so orthogonal it is unbelievable.

I have working OpenLDAP servers with TLS on two other machines so was baffled when I tried /etc/rc.d/init.d/ldap start and got [FAILED] with a very similar configuration to the others. Permissions on the TLS files are very finicky so I tried tweaking those–but nothing was working. I tried strace on the slapd binary but that did not offer any clues. I was able to get it to work by running slapd in debug mode on the command line, but in that mode it was ignoring the -u ldap so was running as root. So that told me there was some sort of permissions problem. But where?

Wal Mart poised to dominate online DVD rental space

Wed, 18 Jun 2003 03:10:00 -0700

This does not look good for Netflix, which is too bad. They have been a great service.

Excite News

After a seven-month trial, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. has begun full-scale operations in its online DVD rental business, hoping to catch up with market leader Netflix Inc. (NFLX)

Customers order the movies online. Wal-Mart sends them from six distribution points, reaching 90 percent of the nation within two days, the company says.

Museum Of Unworkable Devices

Fri, 23 May 2003 09:37:00 -0700

" This museum is a celebration of fascinating devices that don’t work. It houses diverse examples of the perverse genius of inventors who refused to let their thinking be intimidated by the laws of nature, remaining optimistic in the face of repeated failures."

A truly fascinating site.

The Museum of Unworkable Devices

'E Mail Wrap' License

Thu, 22 May 2003 15:34:00 -0700

Like ‘click-through’ or ‘clickwrap’ licenses before, Lawrence Lessig publishes what may be described as an ’e-mail through’ or ’e-mail wrap’ license:

welcome spammers

Black Box Testing Your Brain

Fri, 21 Mar 2003 11:58:00 -0800

New Scientist

“The world’s first brain prosthesis - an artificial hippocampus - is about to be tested in California.”

This is the result of black-box testing the hippocampus–the part of your brain that encodes “experiences so they can be stored as long-term memories”. It has proven to be elusive to its exact workings, but by treating it as a black-box and mimicking its response to inputs, scientists were able to devise a mathematical model that they could program onto a chip which could replace a malfunctioning hippocampus.

Space Elevators: fact or fiction?

Fri, 21 Mar 2003 11:48:00 -0800

A slashdot article about a book (see below) researching whether the sci-fi Space Elevator could be practically manufactured is out:

This is some of the fruits of ongoing NASA-sponsored research.

What is a Space Elevator, you ask? A superstrong elevator “shaft” stretching from earth and anchored to a geosynchronous satellite in outer space that an elevator would ride upon to carry payloads outside of our atmosphere.

“carbon nanotube fibers are both strong and light enough that a 100,000 km elevator, constructed of a 2m wide carbon nanotube “ribbon,” could be constructed in 10 years for a cost of US $6 billion, and be capable of lifting a 13-ton payload to geosynchronous orbit once every few days. If feasible, it would present a stunning breakthrough in space accessibility, and likely usher in a new age of space development and exploration.”

Fuel Cells Coming To A Laptop Near You

Fri, 21 Mar 2003 11:40:00 -0800

Cool!

InfoWorld:�Toshiba prototypes methanol fuel cell for laptops:�March 05, 2003:�By�Gillian Law:�End-user Hardware

VoteHere whistleblower lawsuit and other e Voting madness

Thu, 13 Mar 2003 14:13:00 -0800

BlackBox Voting is reporting on a whistleblower lawsuit filed here in Washington state by a software engineer against his former employer VoteHere. He alleges that he was wrongfully terminated to silence his complaints while third party “certification” of the VoteHere system was being conducted. The lawsuit enumerates many of the system’s flaws that he documented in defect reports. It is a must-read.

In other unbelievable news, Santa Clara County, CA and Collins County, TX both voted for electronic voting machines without paper audit trails against all sound advice from experts around the world. Santa Clara County reportedly cited the same kinds of “certifications” as evidence that the system is okay without the voter verifiable audit trail.

Debate On Copyright Vs Innovation At Stanford

Mon, 03 Mar 2003 05:13:00 -0800

[IP] Pondering Value of Copyright vs. Innovation

“Technology scholars, business leaders and policy makers gathered at California conferences this weekend to argue whether a mismatch between two different technologies and the legal policies that govern them could inhibit free expression and innovation. "

““We have ceded too much power to copyright owners,” said Ms. Lofgren, who plans on Tuesday to reintroduce a bill that would amend the 1998 law. “People are afraid to proceed on innovative measures.””

Google Removes Quot Illegal Quot Site From Its Index On Request

Mon, 03 Mar 2003 00:53:00 -0800

Seth Finkelstein has details on a troubling case about someone in Chester county in the UK complaining to google about a site run by someone calling themselves “Chester the Molester” as an illegal paedophile site that they found by searching for “Chester Guide” on google. The site, in fact, was not illegal at all but a list of “sick humor” that included a link to a humor article entitled, “Chester’s guide to: picking up little girls”.

Truth in music on its way?

Mon, 03 Mar 2003 00:51:00 -0800

Senator Ron Wyden (D) from Oregon is pitching a simple idea to lead to a market-driven solution to the DRM problems being imposed on consumers: to require music companies to disclose to consumers the restrictions they will impose on the consumer’s use of the product.

“When customers know, for example, that the compact disc they’re buying is technologically rigged so they can’t rip MP3 files from it for use on a portable player, they won’t buy it. Eventually, these informed customers will demand change in the copyright laws.”

Dell Cost Cutting With Sun To Linux Switch

Sun, 02 Mar 2003 14:31:00 -0800

Wow. This may help spur other cost-conscious companies (perhaps my employer too) into making the switch.

“Currently, our order management, customer transaction information, manufacturing flow, and software downloads (as a part of our build-to-order manufacturing process) all involve Sun-based Unix systems. But that’s all being moved to Dell-based systems running Red Hat Linux and Oracle 9iRAC. So far, 14 Sun systems are gone and the plans are to complete the ‘Sun setting’ exercise this year.”

Scuba Diving Computer Recall

Tue, 25 Feb 2003 14:57:00 -0800

From RISKS 25.57.

I have friends who dive and hope to get certified myself soon so this is of particular concern.

Date: 17 Feb 2003 05:35:20 -0800 From: tom.race@skipton.co.uk (Tom Race) Subject: Scuba diving computer recall

[See also Risks in scuba equipment, Carl Page, RISKS-21.41]

In simple terms, a dive computer monitors the amount of nitrogen dissolved in the diver’s blood. Typically worn like a wrist watch, it tracks the diver’s depth and calculates the absorbed nitrogen according to a mathematical model of the human body’s various tissues.

Mobile Mp3 Quandary

Tue, 25 Feb 2003 10:14:00 -0800

What to buy…

For my birthday, I’m looking to buy myself a digital music jukebox player/recorder. There are plenty of options, but none of which meet all of my requirements.

I’m going to play the wait-and-see game for a while. There are some new Minidisc players coming out that are candidates as well, although the tradeoff is smaller capacity to get a smaller form factor and jog-proof mechanism.

The most promising product is the Neuros, although some poor design decisions, including only providing USB 1.x support, may kill this one before it gets started. The promise for me is the ability to have both a memory-based player and a hard-drive based player in one. I could take it to the gym without the hard disk pack, but still be able to add the disk for roadtrips or just the daily commute. The built-in FM transmitter is another great feature.