Internet Explorer is perfectly safe for everyday use. However, as there is no such thing as perfect security, you must take additional precautions to keep evil hackers away from your data. Apply these rules according to the sensitivity of your data, from least important to most:

• Disconnect your computer from your local network. Download files on another computer, scan them for viruses, print them out, scan them into your Windows PC using ORC software, and then view the pages in IE.
• Do the above, but have a priest onsite to bless each page individually before scanning it. This is an excellent deterrent against viruses with the word “demon” in the name.
• Do the above, but encase your PC in acrylic and immerse it in a 10,000 gallon tank of holy water. Interact with it while wearing scuba gear.
• Do the above, but put a lid on the tank and immerse it in the ocean. Interact with your PC via a submersible robot in the tank from from outside while wearing scuba gear.

If you fail to follow these simple security guidelines, you can’t blame Microsoft for the results.

http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1456036&cid=30220056

Been a while since I literally laughed out loud over something I read.

Another day, another security flaw found in IE — even the latest IE8.

http://tech.slashdot.org/story/09/11/24/2141247/Major-IE8-Flaw-Makes-Safe-Sites-Unsafe

Posted in Travel on November 24th, 2009 Read More Be the first to comment

Why were we attacked on 9/11/2001?

“They attack us because we’ve been over there. We’ve been bombing Iraq for 10 years. We’ve been in the Middle East. I think Reagan was right. We don’t understand the irrationality of Middle Eastern politics, so, right now we’re building an embassy in Iraq that’s bigger than the Vatican. We’re building 14 permanent bases. What would we say here if China was doing this in our country or in the Gulf of Mexico? We would be objecting. We need to look at what we do, from the perspective, of what would happen if somebody did it to us.”

- Ron Paul in the South Carolina debate on May 15th, 2007

Think about that. Today I read an article on Time.com:

“…the collateral damage from U.S. operations in [Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan] has enraged Muslims around the world, creating an opportunity for jihadists to use the Internet to inspire angry Muslims in the West to action.”

- “Fort Hood Highlights a Threat of Homegrown Jihad”, Time.com, Nov. 11, 2009

Ron Paul was right.

So are we safer as a result of our renewed militarism in the past decade?

The war on terrorism is an undeclared war.

Article I, Section 8 of the United States Constitution states that only Congress has the power “To declare war…”

We’d be in a lot better shape today, if only we followed the Constitution.

Posted in Travel on November 11th, 2009 Read More One

Today, I managed to separate the three magnets that come with the Touch Book. These are provided for the purpose of attaching the Touch Book to a fridge (or some other magnetic surface). I felt like I practically had to break my fingers off to get the magnets apart.

The trick to doing this successfully is described here: http://www.alwaysinnovating.com/wiki/index.php/Magnets

I also recorded a bit of video with the Touch Book. If you’re interested in seeing it, just let me know by leaving a comment.

According to http://www.alwaysinnovating.com/touchbook/info.htm , this is the software included with the Touch Book:

• Linux 2.6.29 with all the required drivers
• Xfce 4.4 desktop environment
• A unique 3D interface for starting applications with your finger
• Firefox 3.0 and Fennec beta 2
• Youtube and daily motion support
• A video and music player
• Abiword and Gnumeric
• A PDF reader, evince
• A chat manager, Pidgin
• Mypaint 5.1
• An e-book reader, Fbreader
• A printer manager, Cups
• All usual accessories (zip, picture viewer, dictionary…)
• Support for most standard USB accessories
• Java support

I intended to test all of these as much as I could, but unfortunately I wasn’t able to get the wireless working. Going to Control Panel -> Networks wouldn’t show any networks, and I don’t know any other way to do it. So if you have any tips regarding wireless connectivity, let me know.

Posted in Travel on November 8th, 2009 Read More Be the first to comment

My AI Touch Book arrived yesterday. So far we’ve found that the magnets are incredibly strong and very difficult to take apart. The 3 magnets came stuck to each other, so we’ll need to figure out some way to separate them.

The batteries are charging now. They say to give it 6-10 hours to charge. I hope it’s okay that we’re using it while it’s charging

The keyboard has a battery in it as well, so it’s necessary to keep the tablet and keyboard connected during charging.

The tabs (hinge) apparently aren’t strong enough to hold up the screen.

Posted in Travel on October 27th, 2009 Read More One

For those who are searching for specifics found in fake-looking emails, like myself

I’m selling my Asus Eee PC 1000H 10″ Netbook 160 GB Windows XP Green – $280 (USC). Here’s a reply to the listing from someone claiming to be “Angela Baker”:

Hi,

I am willing to pay your asking price
and $120 for the shipping and insurance
kindly send me an invoice via paypal
or give me your paypal account email id
as i cannot come to pick it up because
i am busy at work with a research. You
will be doing me a favor by mailing it
to my cousin ..thanks

(206-666-7327)
ANGELA

I actually called the phone number, just to see what would happen. There was a fax/voicemail system on the other end.

Posted in Travel on October 26th, 2009 Read More Be the first to comment

Error

The Google App Engine Runtime could not be extracted (perhaps
you are running the Launcher from the dmg? If so, drag copy the Launcher
to your local disk first.) GoogleAppEngineLauncher.app may not work correctly.

I got hit by this error today, as I was trying to install Google App Engine on my iMac.

I found the solution here.

Their explanation is this:

I tracked it to the stage that it couldn’t extract /Applications/GoogleAppEngineLauncher.app/Contents/Resources/GoogleAppEngine- default.bundle/Contents/Resources/google_appengine.zip since that lowest Resources directory was owned by root. Unzipping it as root by hand didn’t work either – but – changing the Resources dir (again – the lowest level one here) to give all users write access solved the issue for me. A hack, but at least I can work today

It seems to me that it’s just a permissions problem. So it’s not too much of a hack to simply give yourself permission to do it

As easy as Macs are supposed to be, I find myself doing this kind of procedure quite often. Here’s what you do:

First, make sure GAE is copied to the Applications folder.

Right-click the icon and choose Show Package Contents.

Open Contents and then Resources. Right-click GoogleAppEngine-default.bundle and choose Show Package Contents. Open Contents. Right-click Resources and choose Get Info.

Click the lock at the bottom right and enter your admin password. Change it so that you have Read & Write access.

Re-run GAE!

Posted in Travel on October 17th, 2009 Read More One

Have you heard of the T-Mobile Sidekick?

The Sidekick is now dead.

From what I’m reading, everyone– yes, everyone– who uses a Sidekick was affected by a network outage that began on October 2nd.

Some people reset their devices or removed the batteries, and this causes them to lose all their data.

That’s horrendous right there. But even worse is the fact that Microsoft, who now owns Danger, the company that makes the Sidekick, claims to back up all of users’ data in the cloud.

Not only did the network die, but Microsoft’s backup of user data did, too. (Engadget: we probably lost all your Sidekick data.)

So all the people who removed their batteries or reset their devices due to the apparent network failure? They lost their data– permanently (AppleInsider: comparisons with the iPhone).

And they’re furious, which they have every right to be.

Back in 2001, I bought a Cybiko handheld computer. It was a neat little device with a full QWERTY keyboard, a 4-shades-of-gray non-backlit display, 160×160 resolution, and 900 MHz wireless communications capabilities.

I programmed it for a couple years. That’s where my prior mobile app development experience comes from.

When the company died off around 2004, I heard that most of the former employees of Cybiko moved over to the Sidekick, a device very similar to the Cybiko.

They clearly carried over some of the Cybiko’s DNA to the new Sidekick.

For that reason, I’ve always had a fondness for the Sidekick, even though I’ve never owned one. I’ve never used one for more than a couple minutes. But because its roots can be traced back to the Cybiko heldheld computer of my childhood, I always figured they were doing good work.

Unbeknownst to me, Microsoft acquired Danger in February 2008. An interesting acquisition. But now it seems that most acquisitions quickly turn sour. And the recent data loss has lots of implications that are sure to shake the mobile and cloud computing industry.

Note that there are differing definitions of the “cloud”, though, and there’s not much to worry about if you’re on a fully redundant cloud that’s spread across lots of servers in geographically dispersed locations. Microsoft/Danger most likely used a simple hosted solution, with a single point-of-failure. Some people wouldn’t call this much of a “cloud”, but you could consider to be one because it’s processing and storage done off in the “Internet” somewhere.

Anyway, who’s going to trust Windows Mobile after this debacle?

On the other hand, perhaps Hitachi is to blame.

Despite plenty of user complaints about iTunes, there’s no denying that Apple has the best mobile phone sync software available today. It backs up user data. And users still get to keep their data on their devices, even after a hard reset. Data on the iPhone is stored in flash memory, which is non-volatile (meaning it doesn’t go poof when the power goes out).

For each thing Apple does wrong, there’s a hundred things they do absolutely right. And in the mobile phone industry, I have yet to see anyone else come even close. There’s a reason there are more iPhone apps than apps for all other mobile devices combined. And it’s not just marketing and hype. There’s real substance there. A real focus on good user experience.

And that’s what it’s all about: providing value for the customer.

Permanently losing all customer data? Not so valuable.

What are they going to do about it? I don’t know, but they haven’t done much so far. I’ve read that some users got a free My Touch phone. Others are getting a credit for 1 month’s cost of the data plan, or about $20. Just the data plan– no credit for the voice service they paid up for. I guess that makes sense, because there were no problems with the voice service. On the other hand, it feels more like this:

If tmobile thinks that they can buy me off with a 19.99 credit after losing every phone # contact i gathered for the last 3-5 years of my life they are sorely mistaken. Class actions here we come. Goodbye tmobile, goodbye sidekick. This is more than unacceptable. Other then this post i am absolutely speechless from rage.

stephenzerotwo @ Oct 10th 2009 11:06PM

Lots of people lost 350 contacts or even more.

This is the most shocking case of data loss in recent memory. But it’s not hard to find plenty of problems with other online services. In fact, it’s much harder to think of an online service that hasn’t been plagued by problems.

MobileMe? Lots of downtime and slowness when it first launched. Gmail? Had significant downtime just last month. Twitter? Outages have made the failwhale famous. Facebook? My newsfeed stopped updating for nearly an hour last week.

As someone who used to run an online service (Invision Plus), I can vouch for the fact that it’s very hard. Extremely, ridiculously hard. Reliable web hosting that can scale to millions (billions?) of users is still an unsolved problem.

Even Google moves very cautiously in this space. That’s way Google Wave invites are so limited. I received a Google Wave invite on Friday, and I’ve been playing with it ever since. It’s interesting, but too slow.

There’s still a long way to go.

And that’s why I’m in this industry. There is tremendous work to be done, and certainly more than enough work to go around. There are not nearly enough programmers. And a good programmer is far more valuable than even solid gold.

Software on mobile phones still plain sucks. There’s a long way to go, and the only thing holding us back is a lack of good programmers.

For those Sidekick users who still have data on their phones (because they didn’t do a reset), the “best” way for them to save their data is to manually save their contacts one-by-one, a 12-step process.

Um, yeah. Try doing that 950 times (for 950 contacts).

Absolutely ridiculous.

Posted in Technical, Web Hosting on October 11th, 2009 Read More One

Boston University has one of the stranger 404 File Not Found error pages I’ve seen in a while.

At the time of this writing, this is a broken link: http://www.bu.edu/sed/about/directions/index.html

Here’s an excerpt of what that page says:

We cannot find the page you want at: http://www.bu.edu/sed/about/directions/index.html

So I’m supposed to go into the address bar of my browser and manually delete parts of it, and just keep repeating that until the page works?

Why can’t a computer do this for me?

Posted in Travel on October 9th, 2009 Read More Be the first to comment

Hi,
I’m replying to your post on craigslist for your listed item,is it still up for sale?
Let me know.
Thanks

This legitimate-looking email came from Sara Jason <skittysara2 [at] gmail [dot] com>. Generic enough — nothing to be concerned about. I replied: “Yes.”

Her response:

Good day ,

I’m much interested in buying it, I want it for my cousin.. So am willing to offer you $420 plus shipping via USPS (EMS) express mail to him, he schools in a missionary in Nigeria and I’m presently out of town a the moment so you’ll arrange for the shipping handling..Get back to me as soon as you can so I can arrange to send the money through my paypal account,so send me your paypal account address so i can send you the money there… I’ll wait your reply.

Thanks Sara

I just came across the site FakeChecks.org.

They have videos where a guy tries to pull Internet scams in real life. They’re ridiculous, and he does it in such a way that it’s obviously fake.

The goal of the site is to prevent these scams from tricking people. But I think these videos are actually a disservice, because of the exaggerated way they are done. People fall for these scams because they seem reasonable. The scammers often won’t contact you not unsolicited, but rather in response to something you have for sale, on Craigslist for example. In the videos, the guy posing as a scammer approaches people out of nowhere, a complete stranger, and makes very little attempt to establish a connection beforehand. And the offer itself is just ridiculous. $70,000 when people are buying fruits at a grocery stand? For a car, maybe. Or a house. But not in that context.

Sure, the videos are meant to be ridiculous. They’re meant to showcase the absurdity of it. But based on these videos, people will think that the scams are easy to identify. It’s easy to think that you need only be careful of obviously fake checks of ridiculous amounts.

The scammers will choose smaller amounts. It is still easily worth it to them.

In these countries, people earn less than $200 a month at a full-time job. Spending lots of time on an elaborate scam is easily within reason for them.

And, of course, these things don’t happen in real life. They happen online. So when this guy tries using Internet scams in real life, it’s obvious they won’t work (although they do work in just 1 rare instance). There are real-life scammers, too. But they adapt to the situation.

People are spending more and more time online. And people are being born every day, unaware of the risks and the scams. They don’t teach this in school. Common sense is not common.

The online scams are far trickier than the real-life ones.

If you post an ad on Craigslist, there are lots of legitimate people who may contact you.

But there are also lots of scammers, too.

Use Craigslist for any significant period of time, and you will definitely get an email from a scammer. Guaranteed. No question about it. Scammers blanket email everyone who lists something of any significant value (more than $100) on Craigslist.

I got a fake money order from someone on Craigslist, who asked me to wire some portion of the money back to him. I didn’t even bother depositing the money order (or cashier’s check), because I knew it had to be fake.

But you cannot tell by its appearance.

It exactly duplicates a legitimate cashier’s check.

Physically, there is no difference whatsoever.

The bank can’t even tell. In fact, the check will “clear”. But that does not mean it was good.

Weeks or months later, the bank will discover it was a bad check, and take the money back.

In the case of “Sara”, above, it’s a PayPal scam.

If you accept, you’ll receive a legitimate-looking email from “PayPal” saying that the funds have been received and secured, and they are waiting for you in escrow. You just need to verify your account info (or some personal info) to receive them. A bit of a twist, and no fake check involved this time. But still a scam, this time of a type that would be classified as a phishing scam.

There are some good parts to the FakeChecks.org site, like the Victim Interviews. Some of them are actually quite interesting. If you don’t already consider yourself an expert on Internet scams, they’re definitely worth a watch.

Posted in Travel on October 1st, 2009 Read More 3

I bought a used iMac on eBay. 24″, 3.06 GHz Core 2 Duo, and about $300 less than what it would cost to buy the same thing refurbished from Apple. This one also is covered by AppleCare. It came to me with 10.5.2 Leopard installed, so I erased the disk and am installing 10.6 Snow Leopard now, from my Family Pack disc.

To do a clean install of Snow Leopard, you need to use Disk Utility to erase the drive prior to installation. The format to use is the default one, “Mac OS Extended (Journaled)”. The default name is “Macintosh HD”, so type that in if you want the computer to look standard. This hard drive name appears on the computer’s desktop.

I stated the installation at  7:25 PM, and the installer estimated 30 minutes. It is now 7:48 PM, and the installer estimates 20 minutes remaining. If this new estimate is correct, the install actually will take 43 minutes. We’ll see.

The iMac has 2 GB RAM, so I might buy a couple of 2 GB sticks to bump it up to 4 GB. It came with a wireless Mighty Mouse (Bluetooth) which I don’t like, so I’ve listed it on Craigslist for $25. Let me know if you’re interested.

The hard drive is 500 GB SATA, which should be plenty of space for me. I’ll leave it as one partition. No need to dual-boot Windows on this machine, although it would be interesting for trying out Windows 7. I have no reason to use Windows 7, though. Especially not on a Mac. This will be a development machine, so I’ll be installing Xcode on it, and the iPhone SDK, and using them extensively.

The computer also came with an Apple Wireless Keyboard, again, Bluetooth. This one seems okay. I would prefer a wired keyboard for the number pad, and for the lack of batteries. I’ll keep this one for now, but maybe I’ll pick up a keyboard at Fry’s at the time I pick up some RAM.

I came back to the iMac at 8:02 PM, and the install was done. So it took less than the 20 minutes estimated.

Posted in Travel on September 26th, 2009 Read More Be the first to comment