Geek Stuff category archive

Yesterday I used the Trinity Rescue Kit Linux Live CD to clean up a balky Windows computer. The computer has been washed, dried, and pressed, and is ready to be returned to its owner.

Today I wrote a blog post about it at Geekazine.

From the Chicago Tribune:

With the election weeks away, Fremd High School teacher Jason Spoor asked students in his government class, some of them first-time voters, to research local candidates vying for office.

They would have 15 minutes and one learning tool: their cell phone.

(snip)

The lesson would have been impossible in the past. But with cell phones tucked in the book bags and pockets of three-fourths of today’s teens, many high schools are ceding defeat in the battle to keep hand-held technology out of class and instead are inviting students to use their phones for learning.

We are giving it away:

. . . a study commissioned by security company AVG found that 92 percent of U.S. children have some type of online presence by the time they are 2 years old. A third of U.S. mothers posted pictures of newborns, and 34 percent of U.S. moms said they had posted sonograms of their as-yet unborn child.

The study, conducted by Research Now, surveyed 2,200 mothers with young children in the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Japan during the week of September 27. American parents, according to the study, are more likely to share baby pictures and information online than parents from other countries in the survey. Seventy-three percent of parents in the United Kingdom, Spain, France, Germany, and Italy said they were willing to share images of their infants.

Full Disclosure:

I use and recommend AVG products.

Via GNC.

I am trying to shape up my friend’s daughter’s Windows computer, which is feeling poorly and has lost several steps in its jump off the bag.

A day of struggling with anti-virus and spyware software, ill behaved programs that insist on starting at boot-updespite what I tell them to do, and other stuff like that there reminds me why I don’t miss Windows.

Addendum:

Next time I do this, I’m going to charge for it.

Also, Trinity Rescue Kit rocks. Nothing fixes a Windows box like a Linux CD.

Persons forget that the internet is a public place.

Bloomberg:

Porsche AG is blocking employees’ access to social-networking platforms such as Facebook Inc. and Xing to shield the sports-car maker from industrial espionage.

Porsche, based in Stuttgart, Germany, is concerned that foreign intelligence services may be spying on workers posting “confidential” information on Facebook and other Web-based services, exposing the carmaker to unwanted observation, Dirk Erat, a Porsche spokesman, said today by phone.

The story does not indicate whether Porsche is following to lead of certain American sports leagues in forbidding employees to use personal devices to twit, only that it is blocking access through the company network.

I suspect that Porsche is over-reacting. But, after all, one’s employer’s computers belong to one’s employer. Persons tend to forget that.

Click for a larger image.

Lately, I’ve been spending most of my on line “social” time in forums trying to learn and teach stuff.

Via Blue Ridge Data.

Facebook is playing privacy games again, this time with phone numbers.

I wrote it up at Geekazine. If you have a Facebook account and don’t know about the stealth entries in your Facebook Phonebook yet, you really must read this. Then turn it off (if you can; I haven’t been able to yet–the “turn it off” link crashes I finally got through, but turning it off did not seem to affect entries from other persons’ accounts. Dammit, I don’t even want a Facebook Phonebook).

Zuckerberg keeps supplying evidence that he is not a very nice nor respectful person.

Joanna Weiss considers sincerity and social networking in the Boston Globe. A nugget:

With its elegant user interface, its privacy holes, and its vast popularity, Facebook has changed our relationship with the world — allowed us to project ourselves so broadly, so completely, that it feels like a revolution.

(snip)

Facebook is easy to love because it’s all about self-love, the ultimate online ego boost.

Aside:

I would hardly consider the Facebook interface “elegant”; contrasted to Myspace, though, it’s not actively annoying.

Malcolm Gladwell thinks that social media will not change the world.

Computer hackers managed to steal $600,000 from a New Jersey shore town’s bank account.

Officials say $200,000 still hasn’t been recovered.

TD Bank notified Brigantine on Tuesday that multiple wire transfers had taken place from its account.

There’s a reason I don’t pay bills on line (I will order merchandise on line).

Electrons are easier to forge than paper.

The stuxnet malware is getting lots of gee-whiz coverage in the news lately.

This, from the Christian Science Monitor, is typical:

The Stuxnet malware has infiltrated industrial computer systems worldwide. Now, cyber security sleuths say it’s a search-and-destroy weapon meant to hit a single target. One expert suggests it may be after Iran’s Bushehr nuclear power plant.

One thing that is hardly mentioned in most of the stories is this:

It’s a Windows virus. It works only on Windows computers. Here’s what Symantec has to say about it (emphasis added):

We’ve been analyzing W32.Stuxnet, which is a threat that uses a legitimate digital certificate from a major third party and takes advantage of a previously unknown bug in Windows; ultimately, it searches for SCADA systems and design documents. The findings of our analysis are being documented in a series of blog articles.

Also, take the golly-gosh-gee-Batman-It’s-the-Joker coverage with several grains pounds of salt.

Pretty soon, they’ll sue Sesame Street for being “brought to you by the letter i.”

From El Reg:

Steve Jobs & Co submitted the voluminous document in a dispute with Sector Labs, a startup that’s developing a projector called the Video Pod, Wired.com reported. The Reg has been unable to confirm this because the filing (PDF, we’re told) was evidently more than the Patent and Trademark Office website could bear.

Apple is reportedly arguing that a video projector with the word “Pod” in its name would cause confusion with its own iPod products.

(snip)

A lawyer representing Sector Labs tells the publication there’s a growing trend of dominant tech firms trying to assume ownership of ordinary words.

From the BBC.

Kompozer was one of the tools I used to update my boating website over the past week.

I’ve written a review of it at at Geekazine.

I have updated the my boating website. It’s down the hall, second door on the left (here, there are no doors on the right).

There’s a little in the way of new content, but most of what I did was internal to make it easier to use and compliant with current web standards and practices.

I have converted it to HTML 4.01 with CSS, fixed or deleted broken links, added a few new links, and sharpened up some of the pictures.

The XAMPP Project provides a pre-configured webserver package that you can install on your home computer. It’s useful for writing and testing websites on your local computer. It includes the Apache webserver, the MySQL database engine, PHP, and Perl.

With the proper security adjustments, it can also be used to present a site to the Big Wide World(TM). Downloads are available for Linux, Windows, Mac, and Solaris.

Recently, I made a presentation about XAMPP for Linux to my local LUG. You can download the handout if you’re interested.

Or even if you’re not.

One born every minute . . . .

Target will begin selling Facebook Credits gift cards, giving players a new way to get virtual cash to buy goods within “FarmVille,” “Mafia Wars” and other games on the Palo Alto-based social networking site.

Offered without comment:

Facebook Inc Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg says a lawsuit by a man who claims to own a huge chunk of the popular social networking website is seeking to uncover needless details about his private life.

Learn about the wonderful world of free and open source.

What: The 4th Annual Super Summer Saturday TWUUG Meeting.

Who: Everyone in TideWater/Hampton Roads with interest in any/all flavors of Unix/Linux. There are no dues or signup requirements. All are welcome.

Where: Lake Taylor Transitional Care Hospital in Norfolk-Employee Cafeteria. See directions below. (Wireless and wired internet connection available.)

When: 7:30 PM till whenever (usually 9:30ish) on Thursday, September 2.

Directions: Lake Taylor Hospital-1309, Kempsville Road, Norfolk, 23502 (Kempsville Rd. at Lowry Rd.) 461-5001

Pre-Meeting Dinner at 6:00 PM (separate checks) at Uno Chicago Grill, Virginia Beach Blvd. & Military Highway (Janaf Shopping Center). Accessible through the Janaf parking lot or directly from the ramp from Virginia Beach Blvd. to Military Highway north.