timetrap

Tagboard

2006-05-16T13:47:00.000+02:00

I just added a tagboard, it's on the right hand side. Please feel free to leave a tag, I always appriciate cool links.

No Video Games for a Year

2006-05-15T13:33:00.000+02:00

I just started a new blog NVGY. Where I will be attempting to cataloge one whole year without video games.

"I know it's too late in the year to make a New Year's Resolution, but I came to a decision last night. I will not play any video games for a year. That's right.

I have played video games almost my whole life, since the NES I have never been without some sort of way to play video games on either a computer or a console. So after 15 - 20 years of playing video games, I have decided to quit.

Why did I come to this decision, well, to put it bluntly, video games are a waste of time. What do I get out of them? How do they enrich my life? Do I even get to tell a funny story after I am done playing them?

So for one whole year I have decided to go without, and you dear reader (if you care)can go along for the ride."

NVGY
NVGY rss

The New Urbanism

2006-05-12T15:00:00.000+02:00

The New Urbanism movement espouses, a more village like structure, more renewable resource usage, and walking, lots of walking.

From newurbanism.org:

NEW URBANISM is the most important planning movement this century, and is about creating a better future for us all. It is an international movement to reform the design of the built environment, and is about raising our quality of life and standard of living by creating better places to live. New Urbanism is the revival of our lost art of place-making, and is essentially a re-ordering of the built environment into the form of complete cities, towns, villages, and neighborhoods - the way communities have been built for centuries around the world. New Urbanism involves fixing and infilling cities, as well as the creation of compact new towns and villages.

THE PRINCIPLES OF NEW URBANISM

1. Walkability

2. Connectivity

3. Mixed-Use & Diversity

4. Mixed Housing

5. Quality Architecture & Urban Design

6. Traditional Neighborhood Structure

7. Increased Density

8. Smart Transportation

9. Sustainability

10. Quality of Life

This is really interesting stuff, having lived in Europe, it seems that this "New Urbanism" is in fact "Old Urbanism", reminiscent of European villages and small towns. Living in a German village for the past three years (surrounded by wind and solar power), I must confess I do like it.

Digging deeper into the website, the movement wants to slash all energy production from fossil, coal, and nuclear fuels. Personally I believe that nuclear fuels (and their proper disposal)are currently the only way to ensure adequate power production for cities and villages. We rely too heavily on information, mass production, and industrial systems to cut out large amounts of reliable power, in favor of unreliable solar and wind power sources.

Certainly this is a step in the right direction and I hope to see some of these changes soon.

More Krieger

2006-05-12T13:13:00.000+02:00

Shoot! I just missed this! toybot studios: Maschinen Krieger: The Art of Kow Yokoyama, Portland OR

It was in Portland Or, sponsered by JustBeDesign, JustBe also runs an all Japanese toy store in downtown Portland. Well worth checking out if you are in the area.

Check out the show photos

and buy some art

Krieger

2006-05-12T08:36:00.000+02:00

I love crappy plastic models . . . Even more to the point I love crappy sci-fi plastic models. After reading these 2 statements you can tell that I just fell in love with the Maschinen Krieger Zbv 3000 series of models.

According to wikipedia:

"Maschinen Krieger ZbV 3000
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Maschinen Krieger ZbV 3000 (originally known as SF3D and now also known by the abbreviation Ma. K.) is a science fiction universe created by Japanese artist & sculptor Kow Yokoyama in the 1980s as a feature article in Hobby Japan magazine. The story is set eight hundred and eighty years in the future, as two opposing human forces are fighting for control of the habitable areas of Earth.
Ma. K. began as a series of SF3D photo essays in Hobby Japan. Kow scratch-built 1/20 and 1/72 scale models of unique, retro-futuristic armored fighting suits and vehicles. A small but dedicated fan following soon developed, and models were produced for retail by the company Nitto.
Nitto has recently reissued most of the kits, repackaged under the Maschinen Krieger Zbv 3000 namesake (for copyright reasons). There are currently two Ma. K. 'encyclopedias' in print by Dai Nippon Kaiga. The Japanese model kit company Wave has also recently issued several new kits, and for many years Model Kasten has produced resin conversion kits. There are also many fans who produce kits and accessories. The continued support and recent surge in activity by all parties has helped to maintain & expand the fan base.

Website of Kow Yokoyama
Fan-compiled story background & timeline
Fan-compiled pictorial references "

They look just like big tanks, heavy, well used, and battle scared. The photo gallery at Krueger's Krieger has a wonderful assortment of pictures (two of which are featured above), a nice tips section, and a great links resource.

--Cheers! (Yes, I just got back from a trip to London, but that's another story)

Getting Things Done

2006-05-02T13:42:00.000+02:00

From: pigpog
"GTD - Getting Things Done - is a book by David Allen, giving a series of principles for managing the day to day tasks and projects we all have to do. It is based on the idea that if we get everything that concerns us out of our heads, and into a single trusted system, which is then reviewed regularly, we will leave our minds clearer, and be better able to respond to new inputs.

GTD is all based on David Allen’s excellent books. You’ll get far more from reading the books than from any web site.

From Amazon US: - Getting Things Done, Ready for Anything.
From Amazon UK - Getting Things Done, Ready for Anything.
Introduction
This article is intended to cover just the basics of GTD, so you can understand what we’re talking about here even if you’ve not read the book.. If you find the ideas interesting, though, I’d strongly recommend you buy the book, as it really does cover the ideas well, and in a lot more detail than I will here. Buy it through the links at the top, and PigPog will get a little cut ;)

David Allen’s GTD involves clearing your mind of all the things you keep remembering and thinking about, that are nagging at you to do them. The idea is that if you can get these things written down, into a system you trust, and know that you’ll be reminded of them at the appropriate time, you can get them out of your head, and use all that spare head-space for something more useful. Storing cheese, perhaps.

The Workflow
One of the unusual things about GTD is that it gives you a full workflow for managing your ‘stuff’, rather than just a load of tips and tricks, or methods for dealing with one part of it.

David splits the process up into five distinct stages…

Collect
First, we need to collect all the things that are worrying us, or that we need to do something about. David calls this a ‘Mind Sweep’ - sweeping everything that’s on our minds into our system. He suggests one idea to a sheet of paper, and throw them all into an inbox to process later, but the actual method doesn’t matter too much, as long as it doesn’t get in the way of the flow of ideas. In DA’s language, anything that holds some part of your attention is an ”open loop”.

Personally, I collect new ideas in my iPaq, either using the voice recorder, or Pocket Informant’s Alarm Notes, where you just scribble on the screen - it doesn’t convert the scribbles into text, just stores them as scribbles. Machines from palmOne have Notes, which is very similar, or you can download Diddlebug. Anything that can be used without needing to think much should do the job - index cards, sheets of paper, or whatever. A small packet of business-sized cards, with or without a preprinted template is a quick and portable capture mechanism.

Process
Processing is the act of going through all the items in your inbox, that you collected earlier, and deciding what they are, and what you need to do with them. They might need throwing in the bin, they might need storing somewhere for later reference, they might just need reading. For many things, though, you’re going to need to actually do something about them.

The question to ask here for each item is “What’s the next action?” This is the very next thing you would do about this item, if it was the apropriate time, you were in the right place, etc. If this one action would complete the item, then it’s just an action to do. If it won’t, then it’s a project, and you’ll need an extra reminder so that when you’ve done that action, you won’t forget about the item.

Organise
You need to keep organised lists of all the things you have to do, and although these could be arranged in various ways, David has specific suggestions for how to do this…

Action lists
These are the lists of next actions you need to do. David recommends splitting these into a few lists, based around ‘contexts’. A context is either a place you need to be, or something you need to have with you to be able to do that action. A list of phone calls could be one context, things you can only do at home or only at the office could be others. Your contexts are unlikely to be the same as mine, and we’re probably both different from David. MarkTAW has a nice article on picking contexts - it’s easy to get carried away.

David suggests placing an @ symbol in front of each of these lists - @ for Action - if you’re using computer based lists (Outlook, Palm, etc), the @ sign will make them sort to the top, which is useful, as these are the lists you’ll be referring to most often.

Projects
I mention above the idea that some items will take more than just the next single action to be complete. These things are projects, and you need to keep a note of them on a separate list, and try to make sure that everything on this list always has at least one connected action on the action lists.

Linking projects to their associated next actions is one of the most discussed parts of GTD, and the trick I use has become known as the PigPog Method.

Agendas
Things you need to talk to people about. If you group the items by person, when you’re next speaking to that person, you can quickly get a list of all the things you needed them for.

Waiting For
If you’re waiting for someone else to come back to you, or waiting for delivery of something you’ve ordered, but it’s something you still need to keep track of, it goes on this list. It’s for anything that isn’t for you to do, but that you need to remember about. You may need to chase some of these things up, but you’ll pick that up when you review, and then they’ll go into either an action list or your Agendas list.

Someday/Maybe
This is the list for anything that you’re not ready or not able to do yet, or just don’t want to. If you want to learn Swedish at some point, but you don’t have time to start yet, it goes here. If you have to prepare a report for your boss, but the relevant information isn’t available until next month, you’d make a note here.

Review
In many ways, reviewing is at the heart of GTD. If you don’t review your lists, you won’t be able to trust them, and your mind will worry about them again. That’s what we’re trying to avoid here. How often, and when, you review may depend on who you are and what you do, but David suggests a single review once a week. Many people find a smaller daily review helps a lot, too. The weekly review is where you tie up your projects with their actions, and make sure nothing has been forgotten about. It should also include getting all of your inboxes emptied, and all of your notes and messages processed.

Do
This is kind of the point of all this. If you don’t do things, you’re not really Getting Things Done. You’ve got all the things you want to do listed - the only question is how to pick which one to do now. Again, David has advice - and it starts with the way we organised our action lists. If you went along with his suggestion, you have your lists organised by context, so you can probably only do things from one or two of the lists right now anyway - so the rest of the lists can be ignored. After that, it comes down to how much time you have, how much energy you have, and how important the things are.

Results
Personally, I feel better organised using GTD than without it. I don’t have the type or level of workload that really needs it, so I probably get less out of it than some other people do. Lots of people report very big changes, though, and I’ve yet to hear of anyone who didn’t get anything out of it, unless they’ve been pushed into it without actually being interested. "

Beautiful Map of the Earth at night

2006-04-18T08:15:00.000+02:00

From apod
larger version

IT isn't dead

2006-03-22T15:34:00.000+01:00

IT has become vital to business profitability. At Harrah's Entertainment, for example, projects that are part of an ongoing operational CRM initiative are producing a higher internal rate of return than would adding buildings and infrastructure, and the CRM projects are generating revenue increases of 10% to 50%. Those initiatives depend on IT, including data warehouse and business intelligence technologies.

The fast pace of technological change keeps IT careers interesting. As the costs of processing power, storage and connectivity continue to drop, more and more business processes are being auto-mated. IT is and will continue to be a growing part of business.

The threat of offshoring is overstated. Globalization is indeed redistributing some IT jobs. Many positions -- especially those that can be virtualized -- are migrating to low-wage locations. But many aren't going anywhere. Ultimately, all business is local. Cultural, proximity and time-zone limitations do matter because they can affect customer service, customer trust and customer loyalty. Perhaps that's why Dell is expanding its call center in Oklahoma instead of New Delhi. Meanwhile, broadband and voice over IP are giving more U.S. workers the agility to compete by working from home in virtual call centers.

The globalization of IT is an opportunity. Global businesses are moving some highly skilled IT jobs into overseas offices, placing key human resources closer to customers in each market. Some view this as an exodus of skilled jobs from the U.S. But the idea that all highly skilled IT jobs in a global company should remain centralized here is as ridiculous as assuming that all of those jobs will go to India. The good news is that the next generation of IT professionals will find a global job market with opportunities to live and work in many different countries.

Demand for IT workers in the U.S. will remain strong. The H-1B visas that enable foreign workers to take high-tech jobs are often viewed as a threat to U.S. workers, rather than the stopgap measure they are. Former Intel CEO Craig Barrett has stated that wage differentials aren't the issue and that Intel would hire more U.S. engineers if it could find them.
[link]

Keyboard Pattern Passwords

2006-03-16T09:12:00.000+01:00

#! by timetrap 8:48 AM 3/16/2006
#! eight char, upper, lower, special char, number: in a diagonal overlapping pattern

1qaz@WSX
!QAZ2wsx
2wsx#EDC
@WSX3edc
#EDC4rfv
4rfv%TGB
$RFV5tgb
5tgb^YHN
%TGB6yhn
6yhn&UJM
^YHN7ujm
8ik,(OL>
*IK<9ol.
9ol.)P:?
(OL>0p;/
-pl,)OKM
_PL<0okm
0okm(IJN
)OKM9ijn
9ijn*UHB
(IJN8uhb
*UHB7ygv
8uhb&YGV
7ygv^TFC
&YGV6tfc
6tfc%RDX
^TFC5rdx
5rdx$ESZ

Portman Gansta Rap

2006-03-07T10:06:00.000+01:00

==Link Broken==

Note: NBC locked down on every one sharing this clip so Officially I encourage you to go and see this clip here

I am back

2006-03-07T09:29:00.000+01:00

Well after 2 exercises and some "professional military education" I am back in the saddle (so to speak).

Security is a big issue in today's professional IT enviroment, in my opinion the only way to learn how to gaurd against an attack is to learn how to attack.

A new great tool that is freely avalible, backtrak is a linux live cd, that rocks hundreds of tools to hack, crak, and re-secure your network nodes.

and over at irongeek.com there is a myriad of tutorial videos concerning the use of backtrak and some more general howto videos.

enjoy

Yoga Babes Included or Yoga by Diamond Dallas Page

2006-01-11T15:43:00.000+01:00

Walking through the local BX (Base Exchange for those not in the military, think tiny wal-mart) I happened upon this book Yoga for Regular Guys.
Now I have been going to the gym for the past 3 months lifting weights, working the abs, doing a little cardio. But I had not added anything to my workout to promote balance and flexibility. Yoga provides that, and the best part about this particular book (aside from the fact that it's written by a pro wrestler and has a forward by Rob Zombie) is the use of yoga as an exercise and not a path to enlightenment. Granted many people may take offense at my last statement but yoga, as a functional approach to balance and flexibility should not be underestimated.

It's here!!

2006-01-11T12:48:00.000+01:00

Apple just released it's new laptop the MacbookPro . . . drool.

It sports a new dual core intel processor, built in video camera, and a much improved power connector (and those who have used and abused a laptop know sometimes the power connector is the first thing to go). And if the rumors are true, there is a utility that runs windows apps in OSX that does not require an emulator or other trickery . . . mabye WINE?

Sploit Cast: Podcast for Security

2006-01-11T12:34:00.000+01:00

Just saw this over at MAKE:, a podcast devoted to security issues.

"SploitCast, the podcast for hackers, geeks, and the security paranoid. We are a group of students and IT professionals that have decided to start a downloadable talk show. SploitCast will discuss a wide variety of topics; these include, but are not limited to, new vulnerabilities, exploit code, security and technology news, and possibly even cute little bunny rabbits (but don't hold your breath). The SploitCast crew will also be conducting interviews and round table discussions with other members of the security industry."

SploitCast.com
RSS
podcast

You've Been Kicked in the Nuts!

2006-01-11T12:24:00.000+01:00

NIST Securtiy Checklists

2006-01-10T10:53:00.000+01:00

Well, yet another site devoted to security guides and procedures, this time it's from NIST: National Institute for Standards and Technology. [link]

Unattended Installl of Windows

2006-01-10T09:39:00.000+01:00

It occured to me one night (after spending 36 hours installing XP on user laptops) that there has to be a better way to install windows. Not only windows but applications patches and service packs. Well msfn.org comes to the rescue with their "Definitive How-To Guide: Unattended Windows". This is a must read site for anyone who installs windows more than 2 times a month. This will save a lot of time and heartbreak. Not only is How-To full of great information it is also the best looking guide I have seen on the internet and other faq and guide writers could do far worse than mimic it's style.

Newbie Corner: Installing windows XP

2006-01-06T15:44:00.000+01:00

Many, many, many people that I talk to about computers have never installed windows XP . . . well I just found a guide on tweakhound that will hold your hand through the setup process. Enjoy!

22nd Chaos Communication Congress

2006-01-06T09:30:00.000+01:00

Security, Hacking, and Power Point;
Unfortunatly I missed this event, but fortunatly they have been very gracious and posted all of the slides, papers, and documentation online for everyone.

Index
Day 1
Day 2
Day 3
Day 4

Online cartoons

2006-01-05T16:05:00.000+01:00

During the long, long hours of "work" on night shift, it is comforting to know that these short, funny cartoons, are there to help a lonly system admin stay awake.

HTF
strongbad

You send it

2006-01-03T14:51:00.000+01:00

Here is a neat little service that allows you to "email" attachments upto 1GB . . .
It works by allowing you to upload a file to the yousendit servers and then emails a text message with a link to that file.[link]

Diveinto Python

2005-12-22T08:26:00.000+01:00

Well it looks like this blog may be turning into a python blog . . .

I found a great book on learning python online. The book is called Dive into Python. I just downloaded it and I am sure it will make an awesome starting point to learn python.

You can download it from here:

HTML
PDF
M$ WORD (97)
plain text

Last post about python for today (I swear!)

2005-12-21T13:19:00.000+01:00

My final question about python, "Is this a 'Real' programing language, or just a scripting language?" Well, come to find out the bittorrent protocol was written in python.

From: onlamp.com

"'That's the goal: to make it just work,' says Bram Cohen. 'There is a lot of technical magic going on under the hood, but as an end user experience, I'm a firm believer that the interface should be that ,it just works.'

That technical magic is implemented in Python and it's open source."

Also be sure to check out pyro if you want to implement network communications in python.

More python

2005-12-21T12:55:00.000+01:00

Both Battlefield 2 and Civ IV use python . . .

BF2
Civ IV

Both sites contain a brief intro on python, and lots of examples + module definitions for each game.

For a more comprehensive list of org's using python go here.
Great stuff.

Python

2005-12-21T08:37:00.000+01:00

Python, on wiki
Instant python
py2exe(convert your new python app to an .exe)

What the hell is this python thing? Well "Python is an interpreted, interactive, object-oriented programming language." But the greatest thing about python is how easy and fast it is to write code:

Here is an example on how to square a number in python:

That's it . . .
Now compair this to Java:

Hmm . . .

Drunk animatronic Santa

2005-12-15T15:16:00.000+01:00

No seriously . . . from hackaday
"Reader [Josh McCormick] hacked this awesomely drunk animatronic Santa. Here’s a cached video link. He purchased the 5 foot tall singing and dancing Santa Claus at Walmart for $50 with the intention of modifying it for an art show. Once he got it home he began tearing it down. He found the brains of the device in the left foot (just like Santa!). The motion control is all analog and there is a hidden potentiometer that controls the dancing rate (jigginess). Josh used a BS2P40 Parallax BASIC Stamp for the digital control of the device and the sound samples were stored on a Quadravox QV306M4. To get the movements in sync, Josh recorded the performance as the sound clip was being played back. The movements were stored on a 24LC515 EEPROM. With some last minute work he got it to the show on time, but it unfortunately broke during exhibition and he did not win. There should be some consolation in the fact that it is on the internet now and will be seen by thousands of people instead of a handful."

Links:
Santa you are so drunk! (video)
Santa-how-to(not for the weak hearted)

LCD's for everyone!!

2005-12-15T14:20:00.000+01:00

LCD's rock!
LCD Forums
LCD Gallery
Buy the whole LCD Kit

pinouts.ru is an awesome resource for every one who wants to make a cable or connector. They have everything from RJ45 - proprietary cell phone connector diagrams.

Speaking of cell phones and LCDs . . .
Use an old cell phone LCD on your next project! [link]

My new favorite web site

2005-12-15T11:27:00.000+01:00

SparkFun
Wow what a great site, lots and lots of different parts to put together. Bluetooth modules, IR transmiters and recievers, mp3 player boards, 2.4GHz anntennas, GPS modules . . . God, I could blow up the whole world . . . I can't wait to get my cold heat sodder pro!

Top 10 System Administrator Truths

2005-12-13T18:57:00.000+01:00

#1 – Users Lie

Oh yes, they do. Don’t think you’re immune either. Have you ever been on a tech support call, convinced that you know the problem and the guy on the phone says something like “Would you put in the recovery CD, restart, and scan your memory?” “Oh, I’ve tried that,” you say with eyes rolling. Believe it or not, sometimes we crazy admin peeps suggest these fixes because they work. When a user is protesting my assessment, the best is to politely insist them to do what was asked until the doing is done.

#2 – Email is the Lifeblood of Non-Techies [OMG, so true . . .]

I love my non-techie bretheren—I mean, how else would I know what happened on the OC and Gilmore Girls?—but at the end of the day, email is #1 in their book. Now a lot of it is business related, and certainly that shouldn’t be taken lightly, but most likely they were waiting on a warm, fuzzy message from their daughter or sister and really needed their email back up ASAP (“I’m waiting on a proposal!” they screech — see #1)

#3 – Printers Suck [He's reading my mind]

Ever had to clean a laser or, God forbid, an inkjet printer? It’s like stabbing yourself in the eye. It’s not just the grime either—it’s the fallacy that a little chunk of ink could make the machine just stop working. 90% of the time (or better), this isn’t the case (instead, check the fuser/print heads). In terms of network troubles, HPs Jetdirect cards have a pretty solid reputation of failing every few years, so expect to shell out $200+ for those on a semi-regular basis, depending on what kind of printers you run in your office. For those with network cards integrated into the printer mainboard—what were you thinking?

#4 – Cleanliness is Godliness

Ever open up a PC and see the Ghost Of Dust Bunny’s Past in there? It’s scary stuff, I tell you. I’ve seen some PCs begin to lock up “for absolutely no reason” while the innards tell you different. Sure Peggy in Accounting wasn’t stuffing her machine full of cloth, but that blanket she keeps at her feet will slowly shed and the PC fans suck that stuff right up. When you’re completely stumped, make sure there isn’t something inside gunking up the works.

#5 – Backups are Crucial

This needs to be said. I’ve been caught with my pants down on this one a few times myself. Backup, Backup, Backup! Nothing (and I mean nothing) will bite you in the ass like a piss-poor backup schema. If your server dies right now as you read this post, what are you going to do about it? Do you know where the install discs are, do you have a configuration backup, do you know who to contact regarding tech support on that box? If not, you need to get your act together before you have a disaster and a lot of excuses and apologies following it. I use Retrospect at my job and consider it better than Backup Exec. It has amazing Macintosh support and is cheaper too.

#6 – Switches and Hubs (Usually) Die One Port At A Time

You can spend hours tracking down a bad network card or cable just to figure out that a port in a switch has died. You’re pinging and pinging and looking, the lights are on but there’s nobody home. The trick here is to know that a single port doesn’t spell the end of the hardware, quite the contrary. Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. If a port does go out, that hub or switch may work for years without another outage, but do be sure to stuff an RJ45 connector in that bad port so you don’t forget (and chase down phantom problems) in the future.

#7 – No One Ever Got Fired For Buying Microsoft

So sad but so true. This old saying used to reference IBM, but oh how times have changed. Linux may be powerful, but the command prompt and configuration files and filesystem obscurity will just as soon get you a pink slip if something goes wrong and no one knows how to fix it but yourself. Even so, with as much stupid crap as we admins have to put up with on a daily basis, configuring some of the ‘high end’ Microsoft software is enough to drive you insane. Ever tried installing Exchange Server or, worse, installing Exchange Server and migrating a 5.5 install to Exchange 2000? I feel your pain, oh how I feel your pain.

#8 – Politeness > Brevity

You can come up with all sorts of analogies for this one. You’ll get more bees with honey, a spoonful of sugar, etc. But generally, you probably have very little day-to-day contact with end users. This means that when you do finally get to speak to one of those souls fortunate enough to login to your domain (both figuratively and literally), you should be sure to be as polite as possible about it. Even if the network is down. Even if the server is having weird, irrational problems. Use please, thank you, I’m sorry, and don’t be too proud to apologize or ‘make nice’ with those who may ultimately influence your career path down the line. The peon you insult today with a “I sent an email about this, do you not check your own email?” could very well climb the corporate ladder and let your rude ass go in a few years. Mind your manners, peeps.

# 9 – Know Your Needs

This one could also be called “Learn Linux.” Many admins get wooed into the idea that “managed solutions” are always the correct ones. A web interface on a switch is cute, but rarely useful. A huge Cisco router may not always be necessary, sometimes a ‘lo-fi’ approach is best. When you want a spam solution, before looking at $5,000 servers and huge licensing fees for Windows Server software take a look at one of those old ‘junk’ PCs you have in the closet, download your favorite distro of Linux, and install procmail and spamassassin. You (and your budget) will thank me later.

#10 – The Holy Grail of Tech Support

…is the reboot. Rebooting can cure ailments of all sorts, can stop network troubles, crashing computers, find missing documents, and rescue cats in trees. System admins all over the world have, by and large, trained their users to reboot before even calling support. I mean, when’s the last time you didn’t reboot to see if it cured a problem? If you’re not, then you’re either stubborn or you’re an admin who knows better. Rebooting doesn’t cure all ailments, but it cures so many of them it’s hard to not throw out a “Can you reboot for me?” to the end user when they call with some off-the-wall issue. Use and abuse as necessary.

Dumb math joke for the year

2005-12-13T18:25:00.000+01:00

"A mathematician is a device for turning coffee into theorems"
-- P. Erdos

A little old tyme religon . . .

2005-12-13T08:29:00.000+01:00

"The Bible is an invaluable collection of sacred ancient texts, written and assembled over several hundreds of years by numerous authors. These texts were written to particular people living at a definite time and place who shared common experiences and knowledge.

By studying similar literature that precedes and follows the biblical writings chronologically, students of the Bible are better prepared to discover the intended meaning. "

Read yourself some of the Noncanonical Literature here.

Passwords of the world unite!

2005-12-09T13:37:00.000+01:00

While lurking on the slashdot comment boards I found a great password auditing scheme . . .

"This is always a fun game. I won't say what site it's for, but it is adult. This is the top 20 from 600,000 expired accounts. Checking the top 1000 common passwords, I don't see a single strong one. I know, it shouldn't, since I'm grouping by count. I suspect this list will apply almost everywhere in very similar ratio's.

SELECT COUNT(pass) AS count, pass
FROM `users`
WHERE expired = 1
GROUP BY pass
ORDER BY count DESC

| count | PASSWORD |
| 1322 | password |
| 994 | 123456 |
| 824 | 12345 |
| 569 | harley |
| 536 | 696969 |
| 434 | mustang |
| 385 | qwerty |
| 355 | baseball |
| 307 | football |
| 305 | hunter |
| 305 | letmein |
| 296 | shadow |
| 294 | pussy |
| 279 | maggie |
| 276 | monkey |
| 265 | golfer |
| 260 | buster |
| 260 | 12345678 |
| 255 | bandit |
| 241 | nascar |

When a site password is compromised, the system automagically sets a strong password, and notifies the user. They get rather upset about that. I tell them, "You should have used a good password to start with." We will let them change it back to something else, but we won't let them use anything easy."

Also if you check out cirt.net, specifically this page you can find out the default passwords for over 314 vendors . . . And here is a list of defaults for applications.

Done and done.

Bell South Stirkes Again

2005-12-05T09:09:00.000+01:00

One more reason to set up your own wifi hotspot . . .

from: slashdot

"Shortly after learning of the New Orleans plan for free city-wide wireless internet, Bellsouth Corp. withdrew an offer to donate a damaged building to be used for police headquarters. According to the Washington Post, 'Bill Oliver, angrily rescinded the offer of the building in a conversation with New Orleans homeland security director Terry Ebbert.'"[link]

from:alt+ctrl+del

Wireless LAN Frequency Chart

2005-12-02T11:32:00.000+01:00

from

Wireless Community Networks

2005-12-02T10:37:00.000+01:00

Slashdot has recently started posting a lot on news concerning the telecom carriers, and their plot to lock down the internet so they can make as much money as possible.
first they want to charge by port number [Link]
Now they want to charge individual companies for the "privilege" of faster load times.[Link]
Right now the load time is handled by the amount of bandwidth that they pay for. But under this new plan Bell South wants to charge extra for "priority". This is what the internet as a business is going to, toll charges for everything.

A packet is a packet. Get off my back.

These companies are really starting to push their luck . . .

It makes me glad when I see projects like;

wetnet
WCN(Wireless Community Networks)
Metrix Comm
NoCat
Personal Telco
Wireless Commons Manifesto

A lot of these projects begin to remind me of the first 20 - 30 years of HAM operators . . . People using technology to support the community (instead of taking from the community).

"The SLUg that Could" or "The NSLU2 and You"

2005-12-01T10:23:00.000+01:00

I have been doing some research on making a cheap NAS(network attached storage) box capable of sharing up to 1TB(1,000 gigabytes) of storage. After a little research and some googling I decided on the NSLU2:

It has a low power consumption (1.5W) and is able to share over a network connection(through two USB ports) two hard drives (500GB each).
But the fun doesn't stop there. The NSLU2 (affectionately know as the "SLUg") runs linux, and runs it well.

These sites are dedicated to hacking the SLUg:
info on the NTFS update(this is a must for people who do not want to reformat)
nslu2-linux.org
batbox.org
Tom's Networking
Adding an iTunes server

All these great opportunities and still only $80.

And for all of you wannabe linksys hackers check out linksysinfo.org

Or if you have an older computer and just want to make it into a NAS go and check out Server Elements it has free NAS OS solutions ranging from a bootable floppy to a NASLite installable OS.

Power Consumption of Modern Computers

2005-11-29T13:22:00.000+01:00

I just found this great article on computer power consumption . . . it looks like an average computer burns about 60 bucks a year if they are on 24/7 (assuming a .07 kWh)

LINKY

Windows 2003 Storage Server

2005-11-29T12:59:00.000+01:00

It's interesting to see M$ get into the SAN/NAS market . . . LINKY

Designers Toolbox

2005-11-29T08:58:00.000+01:00

Designers Toolbox is an awesome site dedicated to some simple(but powerful) php tools for designers

Let's talk google

2005-11-29T08:51:00.000+01:00

google Video

google books

google talk

google mail

google news

google froogle

google personalized

google picasa

google earth

google hacker

Making stuff

2005-11-28T16:01:00.000+01:00

Two of my favorite sites:

hackaday

and

make:

Warning Labels

2005-11-28T15:21:00.000+01:00

Generate your own warning labels . . . not for official use . . .

[link]

NSA Security Configuration Guides

2005-11-28T15:17:00.000+01:00

Following on the cisco router guide here is the website for all of the NSA security guides and a short list of quicklinks;

Security Configuration Guides

wireless security(This one is for you oz.)

Operating Systems(NT,XP,2000,2003,OSx,OSx Server,SOLARIS 8 & 9)

cisco switches

Quake2 in Java

2005-11-28T15:04:00.000+01:00

Quake 2 was recently rewritten in Java. You can paly the online game here

More importantly Jake2 the engine that quake 2 runs on has these features and can be used as a development engine.

pure Java port of the Quake2 game engine
full playable singleplayer mode
full featured multiplayer client
multiplayer server
demo playback and recording
save/load games
fullscreen support
two different OpenGL bindings (jogl and lwjgl)
OpenAL sound engine for true 3D sound

you need at least JRE version 1.4

Asterisk@Home Step By Step

2005-11-28T08:37:00.000+01:00

Asterisk@Home Step By Step: For those of you not in the know . . .

Asterisk@Home is an opensource PBX.

VOIPSpeak is another great resource for all you convergence freaks.

NSA cisco Router Security Guide and Checklist

2005-11-23T16:21:00.000+01:00

The NSA developed a security guide and checklist for hardening cisco routers. The checklist is a great little resource for busy sysadmins who need to make sure that baseline security is accomplished.

checklist

guide

Have fun.

Networking Tool Kit

2005-11-21T15:59:00.000+01:00

Let's talk tools!
Here is a good basic kit(not including cat5/6) that should get through most networking and computer hardware problems.

RJ45 COnnectors

Velcro cable managment

Crimps

Snips

Tool Kits

Tool Bag

Effort upon effort

2005-11-17T14:46:00.000+01:00

In order to replace a bad habit with a good one, you must use effort upon effort, just as you use one nail to drive out another.
--St. Ignatius of Loyola

Great Windows Site

2005-10-31T15:21:00.000+01:00

http://www.theeldergeek.com/

Best Practice for Windows 2000 - 2003 Security Templates

2005-10-31T08:10:00.000+01:00

Minimum Account Policies--

Password Policies--
Minimum 8 Characters
Nonreversable Encryption
Complexity
Maximum and Minimum ages

Local Policies--
Modifies most audit policy settings
Modifies most user rights settings
Removes all privileges from the Power Users group

Event Log Policies--
Increase Log size to 80MB
Keeps Logs for 30 days
Restrict the Guest account

Restricted Groups--
Remove Users from power users group
Remove power users group

System Services--
Disable Services that are security concerns

Public Key Policies--
None

IP Security Policies--
None

Registry Policy--
Restrict write access to security related registry keys

File system Policy requirements--
Restrict access to security-related files and directories

Networking on the Network

2005-10-26T10:07:00.000+02:00

From cooltools

"I know of no better guide to becoming a researcher than this book, which exists only online. Written by a professor to help his PhD students learn how to network and develop their professional skills, it is great advice for anyone who wants to create a place for themselves in the information economy. It's all about finding, feeding, and harvesting networks of other like-minded folks, and growing your own distinctive node. While the author naturally focuses on how academia works, there is enough valuable wisdom here for anyone doing original research (and you should!) -- whether corporate, journalistic, or part-time blogging."

Too many times people forget that IT is there to enable people to work together or simplify data gathering for real world problems. It is easy to get caught in the trap of IT for IT's sake . . . Once caught in this loop IT becomes redunant. Instead of a bussiness focusing on it's bussiness it focuses on IT.

Networking on the Network

You are not choosing which network to join; rather, you are creating a new network of your own.

*

If this seems like a lot of work, think of it as shopping: the library is a giant department store, and you are shopping for professional colleagues. Accumulate a "long list" of potential colleagues. Study their work and learn from it. Figure out what elements your work has in common with theirs. Then practice explaining your research in a way that puts those elements in the foreground and the other elements in the background. The general formula is "I'm interested in [elements you have in common with the person you're talking to], and to this end I'm studying [elements that you don't have in common with them]". For example, "I'm interested in how teachers adopt computers, and to this end I'm conducting an ethnographic study of some grade-school teachers' strategies for including computers in their lessons", or "I'm doing ethnographic research on people adopting computers, and my fieldwork concerns grade-school teachers ...". Now you are ready to build a community for yourself that includes relevant people from several different research areas. These people will be like spokes in a wheel, of which you are the hub.

In working through this exercise, you are already encountering two fundamental principles of professional social life, both of which will recur throughout this article. The first one was already well-known in classical rhetoric, and I will call it "articulating commonalities". The point here is to develop relationships with people. And relationships are founded on commonalities. These commonalities might include shared values, shared research topics, shared goals, or anything else of a professional nature that you might share with someone. To articulate a commonality means formulating language for it.

*

It is especially important to put your publications on your Web site. This can be difficult, given that publishers generally ask you to sign over your copyrights. But even when this happens, you can still amend the copyright form with a marginal phrase like "I retain the right to post the paper on my Web site".

*

Here is the procedure: (a) choose someone you wish to approach and read their work with some care; (b) make sure that your article cites their work in some substantial way (in addition to all your other citations); (c) mail the person a copy of your article; and (d) include a low-key, one-page cover letter that says something intelligent about their work. If your work and theirs could be seen to overlap, include a concise statement of the relationship you see between them. The tone of this letter counts. Project ordinary, calm self-confidence. Refrain from praising or fawning or self-deprecation or cuteness or making a big deal out of it -- you're not subordinating yourself to this person; you're just passing along your paper. Don't sound like you're presupposing or demanding that you'll get a response. Try a formula such as, "If you should happen to have any comments, I would be most interested to hear them". A good final sentiment for your letter is, "Will you be at such-and-such conference?".

Icann and you can't

2005-10-14T08:33:00.000+02:00

From Slashdot:

"The battle for the control of the internet could hit a climax next month, with the EU saying that it could 'fall apart.' From the article: 'The European commission is warning that if a deal cannot be reached at a meeting in Tunisia next month the internet will split apart. At issue is the role of the US government in overseeing the internet's address structure, called the domain name system (DNS), which enables communication between the world's computers. It is managed by the California-based, not-for-profit Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (Icann) under contract to the US department of commerce.'"

First they were bitching about GPS now the Internet . . .

Sure it’s a great technology, and sure it helps everyone around the world. But the US invented the Internet. The US has control over the DNS servers and has footed the bill to keep them running . . . I really don’t think having a root DNS server in Latvia would be a great idea. Furthermore having the UN control DNS would result in a network built by committee, which I have NEVER seen work as well as a network designed by one or two professionals.

I guess they are going to reinvent TCP/IP too. After all the US military invented that.

Advanced Wars Origami

2005-10-14T07:57:00.000+02:00

My favorite Gameboy Advanced game has a real world counterpart brought to life at awbunker.com. I have had a bit of a love/hate affair with paper models ever since I read a couple of Chris Ware comics.

The paper tanks and transports can be found here.

Outlook 2003 from the command line

2005-10-13T11:02:00.000+02:00

Continuing my search for M$ products that use the CLI (Command Line Interface for you newbies) here is a listing of Outlook 2003 cmdline switches. Enjoy!

The command that starts Microsoft Outlook is Outlook.exe. A command-line switch is the addition of a forward slash (/followed by the switch name and any parameters the switch has. You can try to start Outlook by using one of the switches. For example, at the command prompt type the following command to start Outlook without extensions, Reading Pane, or toolbar customization. The following command assumes that Outlook was installed in the default path.

"C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office11\Outlook.exe" /safe

Note: Paths that include spaces between words must be enclosed in quotation marks (") and are case sensitive.

Switch Description
/a Creates an item with the specified file as an attachment.
Example:

"C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office11\Outlook.exe" /a "C:\My Documents\labels.doc"
If no item type is specified, IPM.Note is assumed. Cannot be used with message classes that aren't based on Outlook.

/altvba otmfilename Opens the VBA program specified in otmfilename, rather than %appdata%\Microsoft\Outlook\VbaProject.OTM.
/autorun macroname Opens Outlook and immediately runs the macro specified in macroname.
/c messageclass Creates a new item of the specified message class (Outlook forms or any other valid MAPI form).
Examples:

/c ipm.activity creates a Journal entry
/c ipm.appointment creates an appointment
/c ipm.contact creates a contact
/c ipm.note creates an e-mail message
/c ipm.stickynote creates a note
/c ipm.task creates a task

/checkclient Prompts for the default manager of e-mail, news, and contacts.
/cleanclientrules Starts Outlook and deletes client-based rules.
/cleandmrecords Deletes the logging records saved when a manager or a delegate declines a meeting.
/cleanfinders Removes Search Folders from the Microsoft Exchange server store.
/cleanfreebusy Clears and regenerates free/busy information. This switch can only be used when you are able to connect to your Microsoft Exchange server.
/cleanprofile Removes invalid profile keys and recreates default registry keys where applicable.
/cleanpst Launches Outlook with a clean Personal Folders file (.pst) (Personal Folders file (.pst): Data file that stores your messages and other items on your computer. You can assign a .pst file to be the default delivery location for e-mail messages. You can use a .pst to organize and back up items for safekeeping.).
/cleanreminders Clears and regenerates reminders.
/cleanrules Starts Outlook and deletes client- and server-based rules.
/cleanschedplus Deletes all Schedule+ data (free/busy, permissions, and .cal file) from the server and enables the free/busy information from the Outlook Calendar to be used and viewed by all Schedule+ 1.0 users.
/cleanserverrules Starts Outlook and deletes server-based rules.
/cleansniff Deletes duplicate reminder messages.
/cleansubscriptions Deletes the subscription messages and properties for subscription features.
/cleanviews Restores default views. All custom views you created are lost.
/designer Starts Outlook without figuring out if Outlook should be the default client in the first run.
/embedding Opens the specified message file (.msg) as an OLE embedding. Also used without command-line parameters for standard OLE co-create.
/explorer Opens the new window in "explorer" mode (link bar on).
/f msgfilename Opens the specified message file (.msg) or Microsoft Office saved search (.oss).
/firstrun Starts Outlook as if it were run for the first time.
/folder Opens a new window in "folder" mode (Navigation Pane off).
/hol holfilename Opens the specified .hol file.
/ical icsfilename Opens the specified .ics file.
/importprf prffilename Launches Outlook and opens/imports the defined MAPI profile (*.prf). If Outlook is already open, queues the profile to be imported on the next clean launch.
/l olkfilename Opens the specified .olk file.
/launchtraininghelp assetid Opens a Help window with the Help topic specified in assetid.
/m emailname Provides a way for the user to add an e-mail name to the item. Only works in conjunction with the /c command-line parameter.
Example:

Outlook.exe /c ipm.note /m emailname

/nocustomize Starts Outlook without loading outcmd.dat (customized toolbars) and *.fav file.
/noextensions Starts Outlook with extensions turned off, but listed in the Add-In Manager.
/nopollmail Starts Outlook without checking mail at startup.
/nopreview Starts Outlook with the Reading Pane off and removes the option from the View menu.
/pv msgfilename Prints the specified message (.msg). Does not work with HTML.
/profile profilename Loads the specified profile. If your profile name contains a space, enclose the profile name in quotation marks (").
/profiles Opens the Choose Profile dialog box regardless of the Options setting on the Tools menu.
/recycle Starts Outlook using an existing Outlook window, if one exists. Used in combination with /explorer or /folder.
/resetfoldernames Resets default folder names (such as Inbox or Sent Items) to default names in the current Office user interface language.
For example, if you first connect to your mailbox Outlook using a Russian user interface, the Russian default folder names cannot be renamed. To change the default folder names to another language such as Japanese or English, you can use this switch to reset the default folder names after changing the user interface language or installing a different language version of Outlook.

/resetfolders Restores missing folders for the default delivery location.
/resetnavpane Clears and regenerates the Navigation Pane for the current profile.
/rpcdiag Opens Outlook and displays the remote procedure call (RPC) connection status dialog.
/s filename Loads the specified shortcuts file (.fav).
/>safe Starts Outlook without extensions, Reading Pane, or toolbar customization.
/safe:1 Starts Outlook with the Reading Pane off.
/safe:2 Starts Outlook without checking mail at startup.
/safe:3 Starts Outlook with extensions turned off, but listed in the Add-In Manager.
/safe:4 Starts Outlook without loading Outcmd.dat (customized toolbars) and *.fav file.
/>select foldername Starts Outlook and opens the specified folder in a new window. For example, to open Outlook and display the default calendar use: "c:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office11\Outlook.exe" /select outlook:calendar
/sniff Starts Outlook and forces a detection of new meeting requests in the Inbox, and then adds them to the calendar.
/t oftfilename Opens the specified .oft file.
/v vcffilename Opens the specified .vcf file.
/vcal vcsfilename Opens the specified .vcs file.
/x xnkfilename Opens the specified .xnk file.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Source: Microsoft Office Outlook Help

Video ipod

2005-10-13T07:38:00.000+02:00

Well it's here, the video ipod! While early adopters will be chomping at the bit to get their sweaty mits on this piece of tech. But I think that I will be waiting for the second or third revision, some of the reviews that I have read state only a 2-3 hour batter life for video playback. While this may be good enough for a 1st gen, it really doesn't hit the magic 6-8 hour mark. Hopefully in the future Apple will up the battery life and the flash memory to alleviate the stress that the hard drive puts on the battery.

Still . . . 150 hours of video, music, photos, and audiobooks is sure tempting. I bet this will be a huge hit with troops and travelers. I can't wait to see the next 2 or 3 generations of this product.

notepad2

2005-10-12T13:11:00.000+02:00

This is a really great piece of software for anyone who manipulates any kind of file that's text based.

- Customizable syntax highlighting:
- HTML, XML, CSS, JavaScript, VBScript, ASP, PHP, CSS, Perl/CGI
- C/C++, C#, Java, VB, Pascal, Assembler, SQL, Python, NSIS
- INI, REG, INF, BAT, DIFF
- Drag & drop text editing inside and outside Notepad2
- Basic regular expression search and replace
- Useful word, line and block editing shortcuts
- Rectangular selection (Alt+Mouse)
- Brace matching, auto indent, long line marker, zoom functions
- Support for Unicode, UTF-8, Unix and Mac text files
- Open shell links
- Mostly adjustable

Lots of options (Including transparent window mode!) and a nice set of command line switches are included:

Notepad2.exe [/g ln[,col]] [/n] [/c] [/p x,y,cx,cy[,max]]
[/i] [/u] [/?] [file]

file: File to open, can be a relative pathname, or a shell link.
This must be the last argument, quotes are not necessary.
/g: Jump to specified position, a line of -1 means end of file.
/n: Always open a new Notepad2 window, even if the "reuse-window"
option is on.
/c: Open a new Notepad2 window and paste the clipboard contents.
/b: Open a new Notepad2 paste board to collect clipboard entries.
/p: Set window position to x,y with size cx,cy, optional value
max set to nonzero to maximize window.
/i: Start as tray icon.
/u: Remove the registry entries created by Notepad2.
/?: Display a brief summary about command line parameters.

Beyond that this is a great option to using M$Word 2003, which is horrible crap when trying to save in a non M$ format.
Go and download it here.

NFOs SFVs and RARs Oh my!

2005-10-12T12:49:00.000+02:00

From: jtpfxp.net

NFO/SFV/RAR Files

Updated: 02-02-02
by jtp10181
Introduction
This was inspired by the general thought that the SFV file is just there for no particular reason and it does nothing useful. Well it is very useful and I will get into that in the SFV section. Also some people don't even know what a RAR file is (yes it's true)... or how to effectively read NFO files.

Necessary Tools

GetDiz - Handy program for viewing NFO/Diz files properly.
QuickSFV - Nice little program that verifies almost any CRC check file (SFV files).
WinRAR - Used for un-raring downloaded RAR Files.
NFO/Diz Files

So you have this NFO and Diz file... well what are they for? Normally NFO files are associated with the Microsoft Info Viewer. If you double click a warez NFO if will tell you it's corrupted. Actually the file is just a txt file with a different extension and usually some ASCII art. The NFO has all the info about the app/game in it, including burn/install instructions and a serial number if needed. The Diz file is just like a file tag, usually just with the application name and the release groups name. If you right click and open it in notepad you can see the text and read about the program, but to see the full beauty of a NFO you need a special font that displays the ASCII properly. The best way is to just use a special application which is just like notepad but will use this special font, that way you don't have to switch your notepad font around. So, if you haven't already, download and install GetDiz. It doesn't really take any setting up, just let it associate with NFO and Diz when it installs. You should now be able to double click a NFO file and see all the ASCII art the way its meant to be seen.

SFV Files

Well I have found that many people do not even use SFV files, let alone know what they are for. Their purpose is to verify the integrity of all the files using a CRC check. Since split RAR files cannot be modified once created (without corrupting them) this is very usefull on this type of file. Any modification in size or structure to the file, usually when your modem messes the data up, will cause the CRC check to fail.

You can easily verify your downloaded files using a special program and the SFV file. The best one I have found is QuickSFV, so download that and install it. Let it associate with at least SFV and whatever else you want. Now all you need to do is double click the SFV and it starts checking the files, simple as that.

RAR Files

Many people are confused by RAR files and do not know how they truly work. They are quite simple and very similar to the common zip file. The big difference is the compression method they use, usually a file can be compressed smaller using RAR than if ZIP was used. Also when creating RAR files it is easy to make them into multiple sections. The purpose of this is to make downloading easier, and if you get a corrupt file you only have to download a small chunk and not a huge 500+ MB file. Standard split RAR files start out with the .rar extension then go to numbers starting with .r00, .r01, etc. The main file is the .rar and is where the whole archive begins. You do not even need all of the files to extract smaller files in the archive. If you have each piece with the information for a file you can extract it. With big releases the case usually is that there is only 2 files and you need both so you must acquire all the pieces of the RAR file. Sometime certain groups will not use the standard naming scheme for the files, but instead use the extensions .001, .002, .etc. Here the main file is .001 and everything is pretty much the same, but with different file extensions. This is probably done to conceal what the files really are.

If you are having problems seeing all the file extensions you may have file extension hiding turned on in windows. To disable this annoying option in WindowsXP open up Windows Explorer (WindowsKey + E) go to Tools -> Folder Options and switch to the "View" tab and uncheck "Hide extensions for known file types". For any other version of windows it should be almost the same, just look in the folder options and you should find it.

Ok now that you know a little about RAR files its time to install WinRAR. Just run the installer and let it do its thing. All the default settings should be good for now, you can play with them later. WinRAR should automatically install shell extensions which make it easy to extract the .rar files. If you have a full set of RAR files with the normal file extensions you can now right click on the .rar file and select WinRAR -> "Extract to \". This will extract the contents of the whole set of RARs into a subfolder named after the file. If you have a set of RARs without the standard file extensions the shell menu will not appear. To extract these you need to open WinRAR and use its built in file browser to browse to the folder with the files. Select the first file in the set (usually .001) and click the "Extract To" Button. It will come up with a dialog box showing the folder it will extract to and some other options. It automatically generates a subfolder to extract to based on the filename so you can just press ok to extract it there.

*NOTE: If you have checked all the files with a SFV and they are fine but WinRAR is giving CRC errors, make sure you have the newest version of WinRAR. Sometimes with a new version they will update the compression method, and the older versions wont be able to handle it.

Installshield cmdline Switches

2005-10-10T18:25:00.000+02:00

After spending 26 hours installing windows XP and associated software on 60 laptops I began to wonder if there was not an easier way to go about my bushiness. One of the answers that I found was the program that everyone knows about but never thinks anything of. Installshield, that little program that runs when ever you install almost every program.
unknown to most people Installsheild has many cmdline switches, while very few end users who use windows actually use the cmd.exe to work with their system, many hour upon hour can be saved if you dive into it.
To begin with InstallShield runs as an application that places all of the parts of an application (.exe,.dll ect) in their proper places. So this application can be manipulated just like any other application.
Here is a brief overview on how to get started:

The first thing we want to do is create a response file. This is accomplished by running the Setup.exe program from the command line with this command:

Setup.exe /r /f1"C:\Temp\Setup.iss"

This will create a response file named Setup.iss and save it to a folder named Temp under your C drive.

When you want to run the installer silently (i.e. no input from the user) run the same command but with the /s option instead of the /r option.

Setup.exe /s /f1"C:\Temp\Setup.iss"

Note that the path should point to the Setup.iss for that program.

At first this may seem like a little too much work but if you transport these files onto a cd (changing the paths appropriately) you can create an autoinstalling program.

Installshield has an excellent help page on all of the command line options here.

Aya Kato

2005-07-12T08:27:00.000+02:00

Aya Kato[link]

RSS Weather Feeds

2005-07-08T07:55:00.000+02:00

Looks like you can get weather forcasts in RSS anywhere in the world.[link]

London Bombings

2005-07-08T07:28:00.000+02:00

It is really sad that people who claim to be religious (Christian, Muslim, or Jewish) Deny their faith with their actions.[link]

--I don't mean to joke but the "group" that claims to be responsible "Secret Organisation Group of al-Qaeda of Jihad Organization" sounds really . . . fake.

Jetson's Coffee

2005-07-07T12:17:00.000+02:00

Wolfgang Puck is releasing self-heating coffee- can't wait to pick one up and use it for some projects! It took a California company named OnTech seven years and $24 million to create the self-heating cans, which are activated by pushing a plastic button on the bottom. Water flows into a sealed inner cone filled with quicklime, which is mostly calcium oxide. A chemical reaction heats the coffee to a pleasant 145 degrees in six to eight minutes, the amount of time it might take to order, pay for and receive a latte from a barista.[link]

God's Little Toys

2005-07-06T15:57:00.000+02:00

God's Little Toys
Confessions of a cut & paste artist.
By William Gibson

When I was 13, in 1961, I surreptitiously purchased an anthology of Beat writing - sensing, correctly, that my mother wouldn't approve.

Immediately, and to my very great excitement, I discovered Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, and one William S. Burroughs - author of something called Naked Lunch, excerpted there in all its coruscating brilliance.

Burroughs was then as radical a literary man as the world had to offer, and in my opinion, he still holds the title. Nothing, in all my experience of literature since, has ever been quite as remarkable for me, and nothing has ever had as strong an effect on my sense of the sheer possibilities of writing.

Later, attempting to understand this impact, I discovered that Burroughs had incorporated snippets of other writers' texts into his work, an action I knew my teachers would have called plagiarism. Some of these borrowings had been lifted from American science fiction of the '40s and '50s, adding a secondary shock of recognition for me.

By then I knew that this "cut-up method," as Burroughs called it, was central to whatever it was he thought he was doing, and that he quite literally believed it to be akin to magic. When he wrote about his process, the hairs on my neck stood up, so palpable was the excitement. Experiments with audiotape inspired him in a similar vein: "God's little toy," his friend Brion Gysin called their reel-to-reel machine.

Sampling. Burroughs was interrogating the universe with scissors and a paste pot, and the least imitative of authors was no plagiarist at all.

Some 20 years later, when our paths finally crossed, I asked Burroughs whether he was writing on a computer yet. "What would I want a computer for?" he asked, with evident distaste. "I have a typewriter."

But I already knew that word processing was another of God's little toys, and that the scissors and paste pot were always there for me, on the desktop of my Apple IIc. Burroughs' methods, which had also worked for Picasso, Duchamp, and Godard, were built into the technology through which I now composed my own narratives. Everything I wrote, I believed instinctively, was to some extent collage. Meaning, ultimately, seemed a matter of adjacent data.

Thereafter, exploring possibilities of (so-called) cyberspace, I littered my narratives with references to one sort or another of collage: the AI in Count Zero that emulates Joseph Cornell, the assemblage environment constructed on the Bay Bridge in Virtual Light.

Meanwhile, in the early '70s in Jamaica, King Tubby and Lee "Scratch" Perry, great visionaries, were deconstructing recorded music. Using astonishingly primitive predigital hardware, they created what they called versions. The recombinant nature of their means of production quickly spread to DJs in New York and London.

Our culture no longer bothers to use words like appropriation or borrowing to describe those very activities. Today's audience isn't listening at all - it's participating. Indeed, audience is as antique a term as record, the one archaically passive, the other archaically physical. The record, not the remix, is the anomaly today. The remix is the very nature of the digital.

Today, an endless, recombinant, and fundamentally social process generates countless hours of creative product (another antique term?). To say that this poses a threat to the record industry is simply comic. The record industry, though it may not know it yet, has gone the way of the record. Instead, the recombinant (the bootleg, the remix, the mash-up) has become the characteristic pivot at the turn of our two centuries.

We live at a peculiar juncture, one in which the record (an object) and the recombinant (a process) still, however briefly, coexist. But there seems little doubt as to the direction things are going. The recombinant is manifest in forms as diverse as Alan Moore's graphic novel The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, machinima generated with game engines (Quake, Doom, Halo), the whole metastasized library of Dean Scream remixes, genre-warping fan fiction from the universes of Star Trek or Buffy or (more satisfying by far) both at once, the JarJar-less Phantom Edit (sound of an audience voting with its fingers), brand-hybrid athletic shoes, gleefully transgressive logo jumping, and products like Kubrick figures, those Japanese collectibles that slyly masquerade as soulless corporate units yet are rescued from anonymity by the application of a thoughtfully aggressive "custom" paint job.

We seldom legislate new technologies into being. They emerge, and we plunge with them into whatever vortices of change they generate. We legislate after the fact, in a perpetual game of catch-up, as best we can, while our new technologies redefine us - as surely and perhaps as terribly as we've been redefined by broadcast television.

"Who owns the words?" asked a disembodied but very persistent voice throughout much of Burroughs' work. Who does own them now? Who owns the music and the rest of our culture? We do. All of us.

Though not all of us know it - yet.

William Gibson's latest novel is Pattern Recognition.

From Wired 13.07

Japanese Trek Art

2005-07-06T10:21:00.000+02:00

Here is a site devoted to Toru Kanamori a Japanese artist who illistrated Star Trek novels for Japan. Great stuff.[link]
And the Gallery.[link]