I’m very excited about releasing the next version of my Kynetx application that utilizes a recently released Kynetx action, percolation. This action digs deep into the bowels of the dark search engine pits and pulls out relevant search results.

If you’ve already been using the first version app, you already have the update. The code updated as soon as I pressed the version update button! : ) Now install the app if you don’t already have it and start having fun searching.

.. And come join us at our next Impact Conference! Developers, entrepreneurs, and everyone else is invited to come and learn because THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING! Visit http://www.kynetx.com/ for more details.

Google Chrome

Mozilla Firefox

Information Card

Microsoft Internet Explorer

Phone Number:

<a href="callto://+***********">Link will initiate Skype to call my number!</a>

Skype Username:

<a href="skype:********?call">Link will initiate Skype to call my Skype username!</a>

Come celebrate the brand new opening of our Kynetx office in Rexburg!

We are going to celebrate with food, fun, and we are going to show off what we do and why we are soo excited about it.

We are located at 343 East 4th North #103 Rexburg, ID 83440

Google map -> http://goo.gl/dE7Y

Google street view -> http://goo.gl/Ixao

The party will be from 11:30 – 1:30 and we hope you will come. Let us know via Twitter, Email, or Buzz.

We have worked hard getting everything ready and we look forward to seeing you there.

Buzz Keyboard Shortcuts

Mute – m
Next – n
Previous - p
Like – shift + L
Respond – r (comment)
Open – o (expand comments)
Goto Buzz (while @ gmail.com) – g b

Enable Google Buzz Keyboard Shortcuts

* If you already have keyboard shortcuts enabled for you Gmail then you are good to go!

Steps

1) Login to Gmail
2) Navigate to “Settings”
3) Navigate to “General” tab (Should go there by default)
4) Toggle radio button on for “Keyboard shortcuts on”
5) Save Changes
6) Reload page (I’m guessing this is needed to load shortcut script)
7) Give your mouse the cold shoulder!

So what if I still want to share my location but not let the whole world know where my front door step is?

Why not have an option to let the user choose the accuracy of the geodata being shared?

There is already the option to not include the data or to choose a known location on Google maps, like my local police department, but that’s not enough.

Why not have an option to share your location as the center of town.

Currently if you want a solution like this, you can select a location that is near you but not your front door step.

I hope to see better control over location sharing in Google Buzz in the future.

Until that time I am going to disable automatic sharing of my location and choose when to share.

What do you think about sharing your geolocation?

Why or why don’t you share it?

Do you have an idea to solve this problem?

I have also been impressed to see Buzz pulling my flickr photos intelligently into my buzz stream. I had 3 photos of our new front door being replaced on flickr that I posted via 3 separate tweets and all 3 got grouped together in the same buzz.

With the way Buzz facilitates conversation and does some intelligent work with managing other social network data, I really think Buzz will become a powerful player in the social networking world.

Steps:

1. Get default gateway of VM machine
2. Use that address the same way you would “localhost” on your Mac

Example:

Get IP address of VM

Local Mac development environment

Dev environment from VM

Terminal command: tail -f <file.name> <file.name>

Tail Three Files

Tail Two Files

Tailing multiple files in one terminal window is a life saver when you are pressed for space on your screen.
With tail you can tail just about as many files as you want. I doubt it would be very useful to have more than a few tailed at the same time.

Leave a quick comment if you found this helpful or have other helpful suggestions like this one.

To avoid a long rant I am just going to say that I have gotten sick of marking advertisements on Facebook as “offensive” only to see more of the ads that I have marked as offensive. Is this a joke or does Facebook just not care or is it something entirely different? I’m not sure but I got sick of it so I took 30 minutes of my time and created a Kynetx application that removes ads from facebook when I use it.

Some of you might be wondering, why not just use adblockplus or a greasemonkey script?

1. I’m crazy about Kynetx
2. In 30 min. I had 5 deployment paths
   1. bookmarklet
   2. information card
   3. Firefox Browser Extension
   4. Chrome Browser Extension
   5. IE Browser Extension
3. I can expand functionality of the application in the future.
4. There is a profit strategy that I could utilize in the future! $$$$
5. Deploying updates and Features is instantaneous and easy
6. Runs from the cloud so Kynetx can pull the plug if it become malicious

YOU WANT THAT!

Bookmarklet

Facebook Library-Test

iCard

A+Cleaner+Facebook.crd

Firefox Browser Extension

firefox extension

Chrome Browser Extension

a60×1.crx

IE Browser Extension

a60×1setup.exe

If you follow me on Twitter or Facebook you already know I can’t shut up about Kynetx and that’s because I think what we are doing is amazing. The internet has grown a lot since it’s birth just a few* years ago and Kynetx is its next big step. If you would like to attend, the conference will be $150.00 but you can get a 33% discount if you register before January 31, 2010 using the discount code Earlybirdspring2010.

Just to show off a little bit of what Kynetx can do, I created a simple Kynetx application that will enter the discount code to get 33% off, and will apply it to the total. The application took about 5 min. to write and deploy.

Get the Kynetx Fan Card and try it out for yourself!

1. Download

Download Kynetx Fan Card

2. Visit conference registration site -> http://kynetximpactspring2010.eventbrite.com/

3. Watch and be amazed as the card applies the discount for you

You will need a card selector to install this card into. If you don’t have one, head over to azigo to get one.

PC AzigoLite Card Selector

I’ve always been frustrated after doing a “Find” in Firefox

or bringing up the Mac “Force Quit Applications” window

that I’m not able to close it with a keyboard shortcut because it looses focus. Well, the other day I figured out one way to close both using the keyboard! Woohooo!

How To Fix

1. Use same keyboard shortcut to bring up same window
2. Press ‘esc’
3. Done!

Twitter in Kynetx Rule Language from Phil Windley on Vimeo.

Twitter uses OAuth to authorize access to individual data. This video screencast shows how to use OAuth and Twitter from within the Kynetx Rule Language (KRL).

For a project that I am starting I wanted to use Rails and MySQL so I decided to install for source that I compile myself for both. It was amazingly easy and satisfying to have both compiled and installed on my machine for development. Hivelogic has some really simple easy to follow blog posts on how to do both. If you are wanting to compile and install either Rails or MySQL on your Mac from source code then I recommend you check them out.

Installing MySQL on Snow Leopard

Installing Ruby, RubyGems, and Rails on Snow Leopard

Bike photo by piston9 / CC BY 2.0

ARCHATHOR’IAN THE ERADICATOR

If you are, then you need to get the Kynetx fan card! This context sensitive information card will help you sift through your searches on the web and will even update you with the latest news while you’re checking out the news! (feature coming soon!)

Needless to say that there will be many benefits in the coming months for having this card. News updates, search engine augmentation, games, contests, drawings, etc. What more could you want?!?

Download Kynetx Fan Card

If you have ideas for this card or just want to say thanks then please do so in the comments below.

So what are the ISO 17799, ISO 27000, and PCI Credit Card Standards?
They are a set of standards set forth by the International Organization for Standardization to ensure that consumer and customer data is kept safe. The ISO.org site says that the 17799 “contains best practices of control objectives and controls in the following areas of information security management:

security policy, organization of information security, asset management, human resources security, physical and environmental security, communications and operations management, access control, information systems acquisition, development and maintenance, information security incident management,  business continuity management, compliance.

In simple terms this means that businesses and organizations need to:

• Make rules to protect their stuff and your data
• Actually protect their stuff and workers
• Keep others from stealing from them
• Keep things maintained and running well
• Keep the business running smoothly for customers
• Make sure they are doing everything on this list correctly

I found it funny that the 17799, according to Wikipedia, is a word-for-word copy of the British Standard 7799-1. The 17799 was updated and renamed to 27002 to keep it up to date and grouped with similar documents numbered in the 27000 domain.

You can download the official ISO 2700 document from the iso website if you’re so inclined to read it or need it.

PCI Credit Card Standard

The PCI Credit Card Standard is a document outlining a standard to ensure that businesses that are taking credit card payments meet a minimum standard to ensure the safety of their customers and the associated data. The current standard covers 6 areas:

• Have secure network
• Keep data safe
• Keep system up to date and secure
• Good passwords & other access restriction measures
• Watch network for failure and intrusion
• Have a plan

What’s interesting to me about the PCI credit card standard is that it isn’t issued by a organization that has multi-national participation. It is run and enforced by the major credit card companies. If vendors aren’t compliant then the credit card holder is vulnerable and that isn’t good for the main credit card company because their customer will get hurt. In order for the credit card company to keep their good name and customers, they have set up a standard in hopes that their customers and money will be more protected. If a vendor isn’t compliant then the credit card company often fines or quits doing business with the vendor completely.

I think security standards are good in the fact that they push those who don’t care or who aren’t thinking about security, to do something about it. The downside to having security standards is that it creates an easy resting place for companies. It makes it easier for them to say, “I’m compliant so I don’t have to do any more than this”.  I think they can also misguide sometimes if the group making the standard focuses on a risk is in one place but an even greater risk ends up getting less attention.

Disclaimer:

This post is for a school assignment and I do not claim to be an expert by any means. I was assigned a topic I knew nothing about and tried to make sense of it and share what I learned in simple terms.

Resources:

http://www.noweco.com/risk/riske13.htm
http://www.pbandsp.com/tools/iso.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO/IEC_17799http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Payment_Card_Industry_Data_Security_Standard
http://www.pcicomplianceguide.org/
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/102913/Credit_card_data_security_standard_goes_into_effect
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO/IEC_27000

One of my co-workers recently tweeted, “I really want to know how I missed this web comic. Hilarious!! http://bit.ly/7das6F“. That got me thinking about how much people do miss from their favorite comic sites or any site on the web for that matter. Of course you can subscribe to RSS and get all their updates but those who valiantly use and keep up with their feeds know how quickly it can become overwhelming. But what about all of the people who like sites or products but don’t know how to set up an RSS reader or who just don’t want to? How do you get your content to those people all the time without them having to type in your URL?

With Kynetx!!

With Kynetx you can customize the users experience on your website AND ANY OTHER WEBSITE YOU DESIRE!!

Are you getting excited yet? Are you listening or paying attention?! Are you thinking about the possibilities??!!!

In this example, if a user really loves the comic “Geek and Poke” why not make the content available to them anywhere they go on the web in unobtrusive manner? In fact, if you do it well, the users will be giddy with the results and love your product even more! It’s a little known secret that people actually like advertising. THEY DO! People love to buy stuff! What people actually hate is irrelevant and irritating ads that are in their faces. I took 3 sites and customized the users experience based on the context that they really enjoy the comic “Geek and Poke”.

• Google.com
• CNET.com
• CNN.com

Here are the after and before photos of what the user will see as they visit these sites.

Geek and Poke on Google.com

Geek and Poke on CNET.com

Geek and Poke on CNN.com using Kynetx technology

All the user has to do is download an Information Card into their Card Selector on their computer!

Check out this presentation by Kynetx to learn a bit more. (Make sure you watch it full screen. It looks much better!)

If you would like to try it out for yourself, drag this bookmarklet to your bookmarks bar: Geek & Poke or click to download the information card below to your card selector.

Geek and Poke Information Card

Just visit any of the three sites with the card installed or click on the bookmarklet while on that page and you to can see the magic happen. ; )

If you love stackoverflow.com then you know how helpful it can be when you are looking for answers to your programming questions. Why not, if you are a StackOverflow fanatic, have all of your search results  augmented for what you like? Here is a drop dead easy way to tell your browser, “Hey! I really like getting search results for Stack Overflow so bring them to my attention.” Now that is context sensitivity! You can do the same thing for anything you like and it’s easy but the awesomeness doesn’t end there! Search result augmentation is just child’s play compared to what could be done. We are going to be seeing a complete rewrite of the advertising industry as we know it! Now you need to see this in action for yourself. You will need 2 things: 1) a card selector from Azigo 2) the information card for StackOverflow

AzigoLite Card Selector

StackOverflow Info card

Install the card selector, import the info card into the Azigo card seloctor and away you go. Now open up Firefox and do a google search for What’s your most controversial programming opinion?

Instead of the plain Google results you are used to, you now get a stack overflow icon to the right of each result that is from a stackoverflow.com domain!

This was all done with 11 lines of Kynetx code. Like I said before, this is just the beginning. We can write code that can put anything anywhere we want based on what the user wants. I plan on writing a Kynetx app that will place my latest blog posts on the front page of cnn.com for my parents so they can keep up with what I am doing when they go get their news.

From the beginning, billboards, newspapers, radio, and tv advertising has been a shotgun affair. Advertisers and companies broadcasting their ads to anyone and everyone they could. We, the users, have had to suffer through decades of irrelevant and poorly targeted advertising. Kynetx is bringing to the table the technology needed to turn the tables for all of us to rise up and take control of the advertising that we see. I have come to learn that people don’t really hate advertising, we just don’t like irrelevant and obscene advertising. Blasted advertisements are ineffective mostly because they lack the ability to understand the context of the receiver. If you can get people to willingly subscribe to advertising that they want… well, then you have something! I know this has been short and probably all over the place so let me share one more example that happens to be the first Kynetx app that I wrote.

Being able to keep everyone in a company motivated and tuned into the same goals can be a task to say the least. You could blast out emails, bring it up in meetings and blah blah blah but that sucks and it doesn’t work that great. What if every employee’s browser knew that they were an employee and injected a slide-out tray with the company goals and up to date progress for those goals while they were surfing the web? I wrote a Kynetx app for that! It only shows up on a few domains and allows each employee to see our Key Performance indicators. I also threw in there at the bottom a notification of how many tweets mentioning the company and how many questions had been asked on our stackexchange site since the day before. CONTEXT RULES!

This is just the beginning and I have done a terrible job of explaining it to you so I hope you will ask lots of questions and come back for more posts explaining and showcasing the awesome power of the purpose-centric-context-sensitive web.

I spent the day learning and working on Kynetx code that was my first assignment since joining the team. I sure hope I won’t disappoint. Finally as the final hours of the day were counting down I was helping my wife make the bed when IT happened. Yes! IT happened! What is it? I was throwing the sheets up so I could get them to lay flat on the bed. When on the last throw, I threw them too hard, I hit the ugly glass plate covering our light hanging from the ceiling and it came crashing down. The largest shard was able to somehow maneuver it’s way to my head and connected with whatever sound glass makes when it hits flesh. *{insert sound here}* Once I got the wound covered we were able to clean it up and bandage it enough to get to bed. Here are some photos of the battle wound. Enjoy! ; D

Chicks dig scars right?!  ; )

It was a magical and life changing conference! It will be exciting to see the concepts discussed at that conference spread through the world on the internet and change people’s lives.

Brain Rules: 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home, and School

How Designers Think, Fourth Edition: The Design Process Demystified

The Design of Everyday Things

The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering, Anniversary Edition (2nd Edition)

Coders at Work

Code Complete: A Practical Handbook of Software Construction

Key based authentication for SSH is a way to connect remotely to another computer/server using an encrypted file you HAVE and an optional password you KNOW to unlock the file. Key based authentication has the advantage of being more secure and/or more convenient.

Why?

Password based authentication:
Logging in via password over SSH encrypts your password so it ends up looking like this:
..t-:p.%.E.{..E..X7.@.@.~....s..............NXP...{W..!8..;.eh9..N......#....q..1f...:...D9R0 zy
Because the password is encrypted, it won’t be seen in plain text over the wire which is good. If the password is short or simple enough, a hacker will be able to crack your password. Assuming the password is good enough, password based authentication’s strength comes from keeping that knowledge from others.

Key based authentication allows you to connect remotely using an encrypted file as a key instead of a password. Key based authentication gives you the option to lock the key with a password or not. Many choose not to lock the key with a password for convenience but, if the key ever gets stolen, the captor will be able to use the key without putting in a password to unlock it.

Key based authentication is a very attractive remote authentication solution because it employs two factors of authentication: something you have and something you know. Getting someone’s password is fairly easy given enough time but getting a file from their computer and their password is much more difficult.

HOW TO

How to set up key based authentication on a linux server

Setting up key based ssh authentication consists of 4 steps.

1. Create public & private keys on your machine
2. Copy public key to server
3. Add public key on server to server’s authorized key list
4. Enjoy while protecting password & private key

1. Create public & private keys on your machine

• On your local machine, issue the following command into the terminal to create the directory to hold your public and private keys. If it tells you that the directory already exists that is just fine.

mkdir ~./.ssh

• Navigate to recently created directory.

cd ~/.ssh

• Start application that will help you generate keys.

ssh-keygen

• Follow and answer prompts to create keys. Pressing enter will accept defaults for prompts and is fine for all prompts except for the prompt asking for a passphrase. Enter a password to lock the key from unauthorized use or leave blank to have no passphrase. Running through the program looks like this:

mike:.ssh mike$ ssh-keygen
Generating public/private rsa key pair.
Enter file in which to save the key (/Users/mike/.ssh/id_rsa):
Enter passphrase (empty for no passphrase):
Enter same passphrase again:
Your identification has been saved in /Users/mike/.ssh/id_rsa.
Your public key has been saved in /Users/mike/.ssh/id_rsa.pub.
The key fingerprint is:
4a:3b:67:e0:82:b7:46:51:0b:b3:41:28:d4:9a:5d:f6 mike@mike
The key's randomart image is:
+--[ RSA 2048]----+
|...o. |
|. ..+o. |
| .+ o*.. |
| o .o .E |
| .o S |
| ..o + |
| ..o = o |
| ..o + |
| .. |
+-----------------+

2. Copy public key to server

• Connect to server via ssh (or other means)

ssh user@host

• Make folder to hold public key

mkdir ~/.ssh

• Open new terminal window to copy public key to server via scp

scp ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub user@host:~/.ssh/

• Close terminal window used to copy public key over

3. Add public key on server to server’s authorized key list

cat ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub >> ~/.ssh/authorized_keys

4. Enjoy while protecting password & private key

• You are now all set up and can connect to the server using you newly created keys. Just ssh into the server as usual and the server will take care of the key authentication behind the scenes. If you are using a password to lock your key, you will see a window similar to this the first time you use the key until your mac keychain locks again. If you are not using a password to lock the key then you will never be prompted for a password again to ssh into your server from your computer.

Note:
You can easily rename the keys so you can have multiple keys on a computer and server. Just make sure to append each key to the server’s authorized_keys file using
cat ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub >> ~/.ssh/authorized_keys

I originally learned how to set up key based authentication on a linux server from my friend Jesse on his blog http://www.jessecole.org/

Images:

I just recently started following Preston on Twitter and had him do my business cards but I already feel like we have been friends for a while. I couldn’t have asked for a better design that truly reflects my personality, my goals, is very professional, and everyone loves my card when I give it to them. If you’re still not convince about his skills and commitment to design, just check out his blog and you will find that Preston is well on his way to the top of the design industry. Anything from website design to  business cards, Preston is your man for the job. So, from a friend to a friend, I promise you that you won’t be disappointed!

Contact him now via Twitter @prestondlee

or on his contact page on his blog

Design by Preston

Having an insecure wireless network makes you liable for arrest or lawsuit! If you have not done all these things listed below to protect your wireless network, take the few minutes it will take to do the basics and DO THEM NOW!!

Basics

There is no excuse for not doing all these things
- Change default user name & passwords for routing equipment
- Use strong passwords
- Turn on encryption (WPA2 or better. WEP is hackable in minutes)
- Change default SSID
- Enable firewalls
- Turn off when not in use
- Update router firmware to the latest version

Advanced

Increases security but may require more time or expertise
- Disable DHCP and assign static IP Addresses
- Filter by MAC address
- Monitor network for intrusions
- Use software to test for network vulnerabilities

Did you know that you can be arrested or be sued if your wireless network is insecure? If you have an insecure wireless router at home, someone could use your internet connection to start downloading child pornography, attack the NSA, send spam, release viruses, or hack your own computer and steal your identity! So when the police or NSA come knocking at your door how are you going to prove that you didn’t do it? All that activity will be traced back to your IP address and you will need a really good argument to convince them otherwise. But why waste your time, money, and possibly your identity by not taking a few minutes to secure your network? What about businesses that have wireless networks set up? If a business has an insecure wireless network, hackers can use that to steal information by monitoring the network or compromising computers on that network. If that happens, patients, customers, and employees are all at risk of having their private information stolen. Not good!

Lets step through the basics of what everyone should do to secure their wireless network.

- Change default user name & passwords for routing equipment

If you don’t change them, your router can be controlled by anyone. Changing the user name and password on your wireless router is easy. If you don’t know how to change them do a Google search for the user manual for the make and model of your wireless router.

- Use strong passwords

Please don’t set the password to be the same as the user name or the name of the router, that is just asking for trouble.  Good passwords generally need to be 7 or more characters with a mix of symbols, letters, and numbers. Using words that can be found in the dictionary  in your password means that it can probably be hacked in just a few minutes.

- Turn on encryption

Turning on encryption means that all the information won’t be sent over the air for everyone to see. Not having encryption turned on is like having a large electronic billboard outside your home or office displaying all the information that is being sent over the network. When turning on encryption on your wireless router, you will probably be presented with several encryption options. WEP is no longer a good choice because it is flawed and can be hacked in minutes. WPA2 is a  better choice and will keep your information much safer.

- Change default SSID

SSID is the unique name that devices use to connect with the wireless router. While changing the SSID of your wireless router doesn’t increase how secure it is, it can reduce the likelihood if it getting attacked. If a hacker sees that a wireless router’s SSID has been left at it’s default, there is a good chance that the router still has all or most of it’s default security settings (which aren’t secure). Changing the SSID moves your router off of the list of first to attack. You can even take that a step further and disable broadcasting of the SSID which means that devices will have to know the SSID before they can connect. Because an non broadcasted SSID can be found using the right tools, it should not be used as a sole means of security.

- Enable firewall

Most routers come with basic firewall capabilities and it would be silly not to enable it. Firewall software should also be running on all devices connecting to the network if possible.

- Turn off when not in use

Obviously it is overkill to be turning your router on and off every 5 min. when you need to pull up a web page or check your email. Turning of the router when you will be out of town or know you won’t be using it for a while is an excellent preventative measure.

- Update router firmware to the latest version

Often a manufacture of a router will release an update to the software that runs the router to fix security holes or improve performance. It is always a good idea to check to make sure you are running the latest and update it if you are not. Make sure you read and follow all instructions for updating firmware to prevent “bricking” your router. “Bricking” means you broke it and it can be very hard or impossible to get it working again, like a brick.

- Disable DHCP and assign static IP Addresses

DHCP is great because it is dynamic and it’s easy but it can be used to a hackers advantage. Assigning an IP to each device that you know is on the network prevents other devices from trying to get an IP to connect to the internet.

- Filter by MAC address

You can filter connections to the wireless router by the computers MAC address. The MAC address is a uniquely identifying number burned into the devices network interface. This is really nice because you can set up a list of devices that can connect to the network while keeping everyone else off.

- Monitor network for intrusions

There are several ways to monitor your network for intrusions. The simplest way is to set your router to log connection information and you look over those logs consistently for abnormal activity. Simple but not very time efficient. A more advanced way to monitor for intrusions is to set up an intrusion detection system (IDS) to look for suspicious activity and inform you of it automatically. There are some units that cost and are ready to go, or there are open source solutions like SNORT. Monitoring a network for intrusions is an advanced safety measure and usually done by the safety conscious or those who must protect sensitive information on a network like a business, doctors office, or credit card company.

- Use software to test for network vulnerabilities

Ofter setting up a network to be secure, it is a really good idea to use tools to test for network insecurities. Many of the tools to test for vulnerabilities are the same ones used by hackers to gain access to your network, so why not use them to find the holes? Tool complexity range from clicking a button to typing in commands at a command line interface. If you are really serious about network security, or the information you have on your network mandates that you be paranoid about it, you had better be doing testing using these tools.

Resources:

• MAC address
  • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MAC_address
• SSID
  • http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/S/SSID.html
• Insecure networks could lead to liability lawsuits
  • http://news.cnet.com/Insecure-networks-could-lead-to-lawsuits/2009-1033_3-940460.html?tag=mncol
• Consumer network security
  • http://news.cnet.com/Safety-Open-networks-pose-dilemma/2009-1033_3-982324.html?tag=mncol
• Wardriving’ conviction is first under Can-Spam
  • http://news.cnet.com/Wardriving-conviction-is-first-under-Can-Spam/2100-7351_3-5390722.html?tag=mncol
• Home wireless security tips
  • http://wirelessdefence.org/Contents/Home%20Wireless%20Security%20Tips.htm
• How do I secure my home Wi-fi network
  • http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/expert.q.a/03/17/pirillo.wireless.security/index.html
• Worried about Wi-Fi security
  • http://news.cnet.com/Worried-about-Wi-Fi-security—page-2/2100-7347_3-5540969-2.html?tag=mncol
• 10 Tips for Wireless Home Network Security
  • http://compnetworking.about.com/od/wirelesssecurity/tp/wifisecurity.htm

Images:

This is now the second time I have done this and hopefully the last. ; )

Goodbye Flash error “TypeError: Error #2007: Parameter child must be non-null” I don’t want to see you again!

TLS = Transport Layer Security
SSL = Secure Socket Layer
https = Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure

Private and sensitive information gets sent over the internet all day so what is preventing someone from stealing that information? In order for information to be securely transferred over the internet 2 basics are needed.
1. Confirm server identity
2. Encrypt communication with server

You don’t want to send information to someone who is impersonating the person you actually want to send it to, do you? SSL and TLS provide a way to verify the identity of the recipient. In it’s simplest form, there are many companies that will give people digitally signed certificates vouching for that person saying in essence, “we have checked to make sure this person is who they say they are and we think you can trust them.” When you browse the web, your browser has a list of companies that it will trust to tell you who you can trust. So, when you connect to a server your browser can check their certificate and if it is signed by one of the companies that you trust then your browser will trust it.

Private conversations are good when you are sharing sensitive or private data. You don’t go walking around on the street shouting out your birthday, credit card number, and social security number so why would you do it on the internet? TLS and SSL provide a way for you to have a private conversation with a server so that others can’t “listen in” on your conversation by encrypting the data. Most data on the web is transferred using http but when it is secured using TLS or SSL it is called https.

It’s important to know when you are or aren’t using https when browsing the web to protect your information. Most browsers have visual indicators to show that https is being used. Make it a habit to make sure that your information will be secure before sending or retrieving that data.

Resources to learn more of the nitty gritty of SSL, TLS, and https
TLS:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transport_Layer_Security
http://www.ietf.org/dyn/wg/charter/tls-charter.html

SSL:
http://www.verisign.com/ssl/ssl-information-center/how-ssl-security-works/index.html
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7130470471741831613&ei=JETxSrXaC5v-qAPLzKWxDQ&q=ssl&hl=en&view=2&client=firefox-a#

https:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP_Secure
http://www.ourshop.org/resources/ssl.html

Images via CC BY 2.0
Lock and Chain: http://www.flickr.com/photos/bala_/
Silheuette: http://www.flickr.com/photos/narciss/
Yelling: http://www.flickr.com/photos/demibrooke/

YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!!! : )

Enjoy your Halloween and thanks for watching!

Trick or Tweet!

I recently found a site that features well designed sites and I have picked a few that stood out to me.

https://www.redbrickhealth.com/

http://www.studio7designs.com/

http://www.veboolabs.com/

http://www.divvoted.com/

http://thegreatbeardedreef.com/

http://emotionslive.co.uk/

http://www.wpcoder.com/

http://blogfullbliss.com/

http://www.jeromem.net/

http://www.silverbackapp.com/

http://francescomugnai.com/

http://nicolaswill.com/

http://wheeloftea.com/

http://www.christophe-peyras.com/

http://stoodeo.com/

http://www.futurice.com/

http://gotsleeves.appspot.com/

http://beakapp.com/

http://yodaa.com/

http://www.sjlwebdesign.co.uk/

http://codebutton.com/

http://koormann.de/

I have officially entered the world of Podcasting! The podcast is about technology and learning and incidentally enough, is hosted at http://technologyforlearning.info I am privileged to be able to co-produce the podcast with a good friend of mine, http://michaelfarmer.info. We both have a lot of fun being geeks and really digging into technology and what it means for us today and how it will impact us in the future. We are both amateurs and don’t have any formal voice training but we do love what we do. So, if you would like to join in on the fun and the conversation subscribe to the podcast and tune in each week as we review current technology and how it applies to learning.

Ever wonder how to level sound volume on a recording or podcast? The Levelator is a super simple application for Mac or Windows to level out sound volumes on a podcast recording. Mike Farmer and I use it for our podcast over at http://technologyforlearning.info and it works wonders for the times when we accidentally move away from the microphone. It’s free and it works great so what are you waiting for? Go download it from their site at http://www.conversationsnetwork.org/levelator

Answer:

/System/Library/CoreServices/CoreTypes.bundle/Contents/Resources

How to get there:

you can get there several different ways.
1) Paste into Terminal

cd /System/Library/CoreServices/CoreTypes.bundle/Contents/Resources; open .

2) Open Finder -> Select “Go” menu item -> Select “Go to Folder” -> Paste

/System/Library/CoreServices/CoreTypes.bundle/Contents/Resources

3) Open Finder -> (Keyboard Shortcut) Shift + Command + G -> Paste

/System/Library/CoreServices/CoreTypes.bundle/Contents/Resources

Share Your Thoughts

?? Would you want your child to have an iPod touch as one of their learning tools in school? What can you see as some of the advantages or drawbacks with having this type of approach with our kids and their learning?

?? Have you found another amazing Flash / ActionScript resource? What was the best thing you did to learn ActionScript?? Let us know! : D

A Snow Leopard compatible beta can be found at

http://growl.info/beta.html

Brother Judkins Comm 313
http://www.google.com/calendar/ical/b8dvinssolbf8qce3r2tam0alc%40group.calendar.google.com/private-87267a1ca2dc1e499bd46ab3dae40b26/basic.ics

Brother Ercanbrack CS 165
http://www.google.com/calendar/ical/ca0dn9amvkt8f3a10j7ch0huqg%40group.calendar.google.com/public/basic.ics

Chalkboard Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/frozenchipmunk/ / CC BY 2.0

Akismet
AntiVirus
AskApache Password Protect
CSS Naked Day
Fancybox
Google XML Sitemaps
jQuery lazy load plugin
List Drafts Widget
Page Links To
Really Simple CAPTCHA
Spider Tracker
WordPress Related Posts
wp-cache
WP-IE6update
WP Security Scan
Electrical Outlet Photo http://www.flickr.com/photos/grendelkhan/ / CC BY-SA 2.0

http://lifehacker.com/5335215/10-must+dos-for-the-first-week-of-college

Library Photo http://www.flickr.com/photos/photos_clinker/ / CC BY-SA 2.0

THE PROBLEM

Information is flying all around us like debris from a tornado going through a trailer park. Information overload is a real problem now for the average person and it can wreak havoc on a persons productivity and goals. Never before in the history man has there been soo much information available. Experts, books, seminars, awareness: the availability of these are low if not non-existent. We are like little children who have been handed a gun with incredible power but no one is talking about how to safely handle it, and people are getting hurt!

WHAT TO DO

Fortunately for you, if you “shoot yourself in the foot” its your fault! Probably not what you were expecting, but it’s true. You have control over most of the information you subscribe to.

• RSS Feeds
• Television
• Radio
• Email
• Social Networks
• Magazines
• Newspaper

WHAT DOES THIS HAVE TO DO WITH MY BROWSER?

You can control what your Firefox looks like. I have seen too many people who try to browse the web with so many buttons, bars, and add-ons that much of the space for actually viewing web pages is reduced by about a third or more. Take back your browser real estate and surf the web with freedom again!

WHAT CAN I DO?

Here is an example of two extremes.

If the bloated one looks similar to yours or a friends browser then you are in the right place.

To Do:

• Use the Toolbar collapse button to hide the clutter until you need it

• Remove all add-ons you aren’t using all of the time (Spring Cleaning!)
• Hide toolbars (functionality can often be accessed through the application menu)
• Remove buttons that aren’t needed (most have keyboard shortcuts which are faster)

This is really fun because you get to drag and drop buttons where ever you like.

• Hide status bar if you don’t use it (Bottom gray bar)

• Disable “Always show the tab bar”

The real trick is to balance the functionality of add-ons and buttons with space. After many months of trying different configurations, this has been the most effective layout for me.

I use the keyboard shortcuts for the Firebug add-on and the other basic browser buttons like forward, back, refresh, so I have removed all those buttons and add-on bars. I show the status bar on the bottom so I can see if the HTML pages I am coding are validating as strict without running a validator. I also hide the bookmarks bar because I don’t use them very frequently. Everyone uses the web differently which makes Firefox great for many people because it can be customized for their needs. Play around with your layout, reduce distractions, and find what works best for you.

Storm Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/liebedich/ / CC BY 2.0

There are a few reasons why your installed add-ons might get marked as incompatible. Sometimes the developer has not changed the install requirements to accept your version. Mozilla suggests to developers that they don’t mark it compatible until they KNOW it is compatible. So, many developers don’t mark their add-ons compatible with beta and alpha releases of Firefox. Another reason an add-on might not be marked as compatible is because it really ISN’T compatible. Running an incompatible add-on can corrupt data in your browser profile and other places on your computer so don’t force add-ons to work unless you are willing to deal with the risks.

Precautions:

• Don’t force add-ons unless you are willing to deal with possible browser crashing and data/profile corruption!
• Backup your profile!
• Be an add-on minimalist! The more add-ons you have, the more that can go wrong… very wrong.
• Backup your system regularly. If you don’t do this already your crazy and you should start yesterday!

How:

To force Firefox to accept all installed add-ons we simply need to tell it in it’s configuration file to ignore incompatibility. It will still check for updates and inform you that add-ons are incompatible, but it will let them run.

Steps:

1. Open Firefox
2. Type about:config into browser bar and press enter
3. Click “I’ll be careful, I promise!” button and chuckle at Mozilla’s developer’s humor
4. Right click on any list item in browser window and select “New” -> “Boolean”
5. Paste extensions.checkCompatibility into alert box input window
6. Select “False”
7. Open add-ons window: Select “Tools” -> “Add-ons”
8. Click “Restart” on yellow notification bar
9. Throw your hands up in the air
10. Shout for joy
11. Spin around in your twirly chair and get back to work
12. ; )

Visual Steps:

1. Click on the first image
2. Click on the arrows that show up when you mouse over the image to walk through the steps visually
3. Enjoy the show

Shocked Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/carbonnyc/ / CC BY 2.0

GoogEEFree

UPDATE:
Within two days after writing this I had 6 friends on Twitter tell me thank you and that they hate Experts Exchange, while 1 friend basically said I was being lame. I hadn’t realized there were so many other people who despise Experts Exchange. I was also checking my visitor stats the day after posting this and came across this in my stats:

I am not sue how they found my post but I couldn’t stop laughing when I found out that someone in the Experts Exchange network visited my blog post on them.

FF 3.7a - aka Minefield

Firefox 3.7 Alpha is available for download for developers to try out but it is still very alpha. I love the humor that the Mozilla developers have as seen through the icon used for Firefox 3.7a. The developers have lovingly named the alpha “Minefield”. Love it! ; ) Still want to try it out? Download Firefox 3.7 Alpha

• RT @ashlux: The lack of versioning Ubiquity commands bothers me. I imagine that’s something being worked on though. #
• RT @ElphabaPotter: “Cool Web Thingy” DOESN’T EVEN BEGIN TO DESCRIBE ‘Ubiquity’ by Mozilla. http://tinyurl.com/56uykw SRLSY, watch the video. #
• RT @Husker234: I heart Ubiquity. #
• RT @rdhyee: The Mozilla Labs Jetpack project (http://bit.ly/lTzYo) is “an API for allowing you to write Firefox add-ons” more easily. #
• Love the changes to the creative commons flickr search. Much easier to quickly search through photos now. ; ) http://bit.ly/jQAjW #
• The day I met Mozilla’s Ubiquity http://geek.michaelgrace.org/ #
• checked out Ubiquity & Jetpack from Mozilla today. Amazing set of APIs. Have really come a long way in the last year! (via @mikefarmer) #
• RT @theappleblog: Five Ways to Become a Mac Minimalist http://bit.ly/160F0x (@mikefarmer will like this) #
• AWESOME! i love reducing clutter RT @prestondlee: How to reduce clutter in web design | Graphic Design Blender http://bit.ly/EVi47 #
• New post (#technometria): Sweetter in Ubiquity http://bit.ly/eaKeW (via @windley) #
• RT @mikefarmer: about to work on the M$ stack. Step 1, remove sharp objects within reach. Step 2, warn others of impending outbursts. #
• Confirmed: it was the fuel pump that was causing the problem with by Goldwing. Now to see if I can fix it until I order a new one. #
• Bridgemaxx sucks! http://twitpic.com/dkirw #
• Bugs dont last long when they fall in a can of carb cleaner. #
• Finalized: November 18 – 19 Kynetx developers conference @ Provo, Ut
  Wooohoooo! ; ) #
• Wohooo! @leolaporte got @twit and is using it to update on live shows starting. Thanks Twitter! #
• Kynetx Impact Developer’s Conference 2009 – Registration is OPEN! http://bit.ly/kQTWl Seats are limited so sign-up soon. (via @kynetx) #
• floss weekly on twit.tv was cool. Really look forward to the upcoming shows. ; ) #
• openstreetmap.org SUPER COOL! You can make the map better! Happens within minutes. ; ) THE FUTURE IS HERE! ; ) #
• Roadee for the iPhone! Turn by turn directions for $2!!!!!!!! Using openstreetmap.org AMAZING!!! ; ) I can’t stop watching @leolaporte! #
• I had no idea it was left-handers day. http://www.lefthandersday.com wohooo! #
• Finished updating fresh install of ubuntu and now installing FreeBSD in preparation of launching a linux tutorial site. Very excited! ; ) #
• hmmmmm… looks like my twitter tool plugin for WordPress is broken. Keeps tweeting my posts without a link. ; ( #
• Are you geek enough? http://bit.ly/6MCTp
  You wish!! ; ) #
• Am I Geek Enough? http://bit.ly/NQ3sN #

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Terminal

A big thanks to my friend Mike Farmer for pointing this out to me. ; )

Car Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jantik/ / CC BY 2.0

1. Properly secure a wireless router.
2. Crack the WEP key on a wireless router.
3. Leech Wifi from your neighbor.
4. Screw with Wifi leeches.
5. Setup and use a VPN.
6. Work from home or a coffee shop as effectively as you do at the office.
7. Wire your own home with Ethernet cable.
8. Turn a web camera into security camera.
9. Use your 3G phone as a Wi-Fi access point.
10. Understand what “There’s no Place Like 127.0.0.1” means.
11. Identify key-loggers.
12. Properly connect a TV, Tivo, XBox, Wii, and Apple TV so they all work together with the one remote.
13. Program a universal remote.
14. Swap out the battery on your iPod/iPhone.
15. Benchmark Your Computer
16. Identify all computer components on sight.
17. Know which parts to order from NewEgg.com, and how to assemble them into a working PC.
18. Troubleshoot any computer/gadget problem, over the phone.
19. Use any piece of technology intuitively, without instruction or prior knowledge.
20. How to irrecoverably protect data.
21. Recover data from a dead hard drive.
22. Share a printer between a Mac and a PC on a network.
23. Install a Linux distribution. (Hint: Ubuntu 9.04 is easier than installing Windows)
24. Remove a virus from a computer.
25. Dual (or more) boot a computer.
26. Boot a computer off a thumb drive.
27. Boot a computer off a network drive.
28. Replace or repair a laptop keyboard.
29. Run more than two monitors on a single computer.
30. Successfully disassemble and reassemble a laptop.
31. Know at least 10 software easter eggs off the top of your head.
32. Bypass a computer password on all major operating systems. Windows, Mac, Linux
33. Carrying a computer cleaning arsenal on your USB drive.
34. Bypass content filters on public computers.
35. Protect your privacy when using a public computer.
36. Surf the web anonymously from home.
37. Buy a domain, configure bind, apache, MySQL, php, and Wordpress without Googling a how-to.
38. Basic *nix command shell knowledge with the ability to edit and save a file with vi.
39. Create a web site using vi.
40. Transcode a DVD to play on a portable device.
41. Hide a file in an image using steganography.
42. Knowing the answer to life, the universe and everything.
43. Share a single keyboard and mouse between multiple computers without a KVM switch.
44. Google obscure facts in under 3 searches. Bonus point if you can use I Feel Lucky.
45. Build amazing structures with LEGO and invent a compelling back story for the creation.
46. Understand that it is LEGO, not Lego, Legos, or Lego’s.
47. Build a two story house out of LEGO, in monochrome, with a balcony.
48. Construct a costume for you or your kid out of scraps, duct tape, paper mâché, and imagination.
49. Be able to pick a lock.
50. Determine the combination of a Master combination padlock in under 10 minutes.
51. Assemble IKEA furniture without looking at the instructions. Bonus point if you don’t have to backtrack.
52. Use a digital SLR in full manual mode.
53. Do cool things to Altoids tins.
54. Be able to construct paper craft versions of space ships.
55. Origami! Bonus point for duct tape origami. (Ductigami)
56. Fix anything with duct tape, chewing gum and wire.
57. Knowing how to avoid being eaten by a grue.
58. Know what a grue is.
59. Understand where XYZZY came from, and have used it.
60. Play any SNES game on your computer through an emulator.
61. Burn the rope.
62. Know the Konami code, and where to use it.
63. Whistle, hum, or play on an iPhone, the Cantina song.
64. Learning to play the theme songs to the kids favorite TV shows.
65. Solve a Rubik’s Cube.
66. Calculate THAC0.
67. Know the difference between skills and traits.
68. Explain special relativity in terms an eight-year-old can grasp.
69. Recite pi to 10 places or more.
70. Be able to calculate tip and split the check, all in your head.
71. Explain that the colours in a rainbow are roygbiv.
72. Understand the electromagnetic spectrum – xray, uv, visible, infrared, microwave, radio.
73. Know the difference between radiation and radioactive contamination.
74. Understand basic electronics components like resistors, capacitors, inductors and transistors.
75. Solder a circuit while bottle feeding an infant. (lead free solder please.)
76. The meaning of technical acronyms.
77. The coffee dash, blindfolded (or blurry eyed). Coffee <brew> [cream] [sugar]. In under a minute.
78. Build a fighting robot.
79. Program a fighting robot.
80. Build a failsafe into a fighting robot so it doesn’t kill you.
81. Be able to trace the Fellowship’s journey on a map of Middle Earth.
82. Know all the names of the Dwarves in The Hobbit.
83. Understand the difference between a comic book and a graphic novel.
84. Know where your towel is and why it is important.
85. Re-enact the parrot sketch.
86. Know the words to The Lumberjack Song.
87. Reciting key scenes from Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
88. Be able to recite at least one Geek Movie word for word.
89. Know what the 8th Chevron does on a Stargate and how much power is required to get a lock.
90. Be able to explain why it’s important that Han shot first.
91. Know why it is just wrong for Luke and Leia to kiss.
92. Stop talking Star Wars long enough to get laid.
93. The ability to name actors, characters and plotlines from the majority of sci-fi movies produced since 1968.
94. Cite Mythbusters when debunking a myth or urban legend.
95. Sleep with a Cricket bat next to your bed.
96. Have a documented plan on what to do during a zombie or robot uprising.
97. Identify evil alternate universe versions of friends, family, co-workers or self.
98. Be able to convince TSA that the electronic parts you are carrying are really not a threat to passengers.
99. Talk about things that aren’t tech related.
100. Get something on the front page of Digg.

Photo by bellafer*:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/gataclark/ / CC BY-SA 2.0

I think there is immense power and potential in being able to write commands for Ubiquity using JavaScript and HTML. As JavaScript and HTML becomes, pardon the pun but, ubiquitous more people will be able to create commands that extend the functionality of the browser while on the web. I am really impressed with the entire setup and I think Mozilla deserves two thumbs up for pioneering the future of the web.

I have several other commands I have written to use and some just for practice, located on my ubiquity page. I will continue to update the scripts as I write new commands and work on improving the web. Would love it if you subscribed to the commands and gave me feedback on what you think.

• @kylew01 cool! They even have your name on them. ; ) in reply to kylew01 #
• @kylew01 that’s going to e really cool. in reply to kylew01 #
• @kylew01 when do you think you will be putting the roofing on? in reply to kylew01 #
• My blog just posted my tweets for the week if you’re interested. http://geek.michaelgrace.org #
• Our well is on the fritz. Anyone else had this problem? http://twitpic.com/cnfud #
• RT @thedarktangent: Sleep after #defcon == good++ #
• @judkinsk oh good. ; ) in reply to judkinsk #
• @kylew01 nice! Your going to keep it right? in reply to kylew01 #
• @Eleven2 looks good. To bad it’s out of my price range. in reply to Eleven2 #
• @mikefarmer can’t wait for your blog post about it. ; ) in reply to mikefarmer #
• @mikefarmer if we were living close to you, we would go in halvzies with you. ; ) in reply to mikefarmer #
• @kylew01 AWESOME!! ; ) in reply to kylew01 #
• @kylew01 you need to put in a disco ball so you can have dances and parties there. in reply to kylew01 #
• @nicbifano haha. Good memories I’m sure. : ) in reply to nicbifano #
• @kylew01 if you threw it away I was going to have to smack you. ; ) in reply to kylew01 #
• Car washed and detailed from Defcon trip. Now at parade with wife and very hungry. #
• @hgrawe very cool! Takes a long time to get that pennies. ; ) in reply to hgrawe #
• Looking for an apartment in idaho falls. ; ) #
• @MrBrettYoung yeah, that’s ignorant. in reply to MrBrettYoung #
• Google docs spreadsheets have come a long way. I am very impressed. #
• Google docs has incorporated some great keyboard shortcuts to make your document editing life a lot better to. ; ) http://bit.ly/g77c2 #
• @CMoz Good Morning! ; ) in reply to CMoz #
• @CMoz 4 days of geekin out with 2 nights of sleep. IT ROCKED! ; ) I learned tons even if the crowd was a bit rougher than I had anticipated. in reply to CMoz #
• @CMoz Not only was the learning awesome, I picked up an apple newton for $20. ; ) in reply to CMoz #
• sometimes apt complexes don’t want you to see just how crapy they look so they “show you” w/out showing you. http://twitpic.com/cpwsl #
• @MikeGrace or you can live in someone’s backyard shed for $400/ month! blahhhhhh! http://twitpic.com/cpwy2 in reply to MikeGrace #
• @CMoz she was really sad to have me gone over the weekend but is glad that I was… Read More: http://is.gd/21OlZ in reply to CMoz #
• @CMoz just a different place. ; ) Little people are in the plans though. ; ) in reply to CMoz #
• @kylew01 there are a lot of places cheaper than Rexburg. in reply to kylew01 #
• @kylew01 I was up late. Couldn’t
  Sleep. We are seriously considering it. Besides, we would get to hang out with the @mikefarmer s ; ) in reply to kylew01 #
• Todays morning run felt good. Visit to las vagas really cut back on my endurance. #
• @jessecole figures. ; ) in reply to jessecole #
• @bluedoggiant I’m stuck! ; ) http://twitpic.com/cvsvk in reply to bluedoggiant #
• @kylew01 sure do. You coming by to pick it up? ; ) in reply to kylew01 #
• @kylew01 yes in reply to kylew01 #
• Found out where the fleeting 3g signals were coming from… St. Anthony! Idaho! #
• @bryanwilliams @kylew01 I know! Totally crazy and I don’t know why but I had full signal strength in a place we are looking at moving into. in reply to bryanwilliams #
• Oh, and on the way to look at the apartment my bike decided it was out of gas before it told me. #
• @bryanwilliams haha! Nice!! Looks like we need to get the Mayer of Rexburg hooked on an iPhone then. ; ) in reply to bryanwilliams #
• OUCH! looks like the fuel pump died on my goldwing. : ( #
• @nicbifano it was a DDos attack?! hahaha. That’s interesting. in reply to nicbifano #
• Got the Gold Wing home safely on the trailer. ; ) #
• Because a new fuel pump for my Goldwing is priced at about $180 I am going to see if I can resurrect my current one. #
• @kylew01 Thanks. I have been looking and there have been some who have been able to get it working again and never had to replace it. ; ) in reply to kylew01 #
• Tfjgukfl. B Gjshgi. V ysyd. Rdhfznnfhxgvnb cxhtgh (via @mikefarmer’s Abbie) #
• FhdfjddxFcejfjdddf. FfasfsggFcssdjvsxxcxccvdsufvgV bchhvhhcdid (via @mikefarmer’s Abbie) ; ) #
• great evening at Rexburg’s concert in the park with @mikefarmer and farmer tonight. Fun to hang out with friends and wife. ; ) #
• @mikefarmer I am working on the photos right now. ; ) in reply to mikefarmer #
• @mikefarmer Nice! IE 6 must die!! ; ) #
• @bryanwilliams @kylew01 AMEN! IE meet firing squad. Firing squad meet IE. ; ) in reply to bryanwilliams #
• Great use of Twitter by a non profit. @WCA_Boise (via @jamie_cooper) #
• Win a 24″ LCD Monitor or 6 months free hosting from @firehost and @designmoo http://designmoo.com/contest #
• @jonmott isn’t that the truth. ; ) Las Vagas is full of failures sadly enough. in reply to jonmott #
• @flipstock Way to go. Hope things work out for the best.; ) in reply to flipstock #
• @mozmac sounds like my kind of party. ; ) in reply to mozmac #
• @mozmac really? Wow! I would have thought with Apples awesome OS upgrade prices that more would have switched. Older hardware probably. in reply to mozmac #
• Do you think http://www.bitcartel.com/pandorajam/ is illegal or wrong? or do you love it? #
• @kylew01 ; ) very nice. in reply to kylew01 #
• @davidweiss interesting. Thanks for sharing. Wonder how many people will notice and say something about it. in reply to davidweiss #
• @flipstock probably was. ; ) I have seen some silly holes for vents also. in reply to flipstock #
• I absolutely love working with designers! Designers rock! (They make me look good) ; ) #
• @fulling Sweet! Sounds like a party fore sure. in reply to fulling #
• @fulling They can get pricey but I have heard that good ones are worth it (depending on how much you ride) in reply to fulling #
• @kylew01 Cool! Would have been crazy to see it. I am glad you got some cool HDR photos of the smoke. Thanks for coming over today also. in reply to kylew01 #
• @mattMur Nice! ; ) in reply to mattMur #
• @mattMur haha! Your mage game is fun. ; ) Simple yet fun. Way to go. in reply to mattMur #
• @jessecole have fun and don’t do anything too crazy ; ) in reply to jessecole #
• No need to do a speed test when it takes 3 min. to load the speedtest page. #bridgemaxx #fail. Soo glad I will have cable in 3 weeks. ; ) #
• Took over 1 hour to download Namoroka 3.6 which is 17.4 MB. (dev. alpha of Firefox) I despise bridgemaxx and I am leaving them! Muahahahaha! #
• @1password is already compatible with Firefox 3.6
  Cool! ; ) Way to go guys! #
• After about 11 hours of coding web pages I am ready to put the computer away. Was a very good productive day. I enjoyed working from home. #
• @kylew01 Sure looks like your going to have fun. ; ) in reply to kylew01 #
• @terminaldude exciting isn’t it! A friend of mine wrote a shell script to download the latest and replace the old version with the new one. in reply to terminaldude #
• @kylew01 Nice! It’s a deal. I just have to be able to make it over the roads. ; ) in reply to kylew01 #
• I think it might finally be time to look at replacing my mouse. It is a 7 year old logitech laser. Was using before I went to Japan. ; ) #
• @vpeternguyen not sure. I am going to start my research. My guess is I probably will end up with a gaming mouse for its precision and form. in reply to vpeternguyen #
• Saturday morning BACON!! ; ) yum! http://twitpic.com/d6k3f #
• @johnwinter Haven’t used Dropzone before bit it looks well done and very useful. Way to go! ; ) #
• I really like the changes to the Firefox 3.6 download window. Way to go Mozilla! ; ) #
• @vpeternguyen No, it is a big decision because so much time is spent using it. But no matter what we say it is still very nerdy. ; ) in reply to vpeternguyen #
• @MrBrettYoung The HD is VERY nice if you have the income to support it. ; ) Which is why I am not there yet. in reply to MrBrettYoung #
• Gotta love it when customers don’t completely read instructions you give them and they cost you hours of your time. #customernotalwaysright #
• @kylew01 huraaaaaaaaaay ; ) in reply to kylew01 #
• RT @donttrythis: My talk (Adam Savage) from #defcon is up! http://vimeo.com/6006731 #
• Ubiquity Rocks!!! #
• I can’t sleep because I can’t stop playing with Ubiquity and writting my own Ubiquity commands. #
• UBIQUITY!!! #
• @kylew01 yeah, I got a bit carried away. Goodnight. in reply to kylew01 #

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Set cursor focus in Firefox to search box -> cmd + K
Set cursor focus in most Mac OS X browsers -> cmd + L

Two of my most used and most useful keyboard shortcuts while browsing the web using Firefox on Mac OS X

My good friend Mike showed me the keyboard shortcut to jump to the Firefox search box after he accidentally stumbled upon it. Thanks Mike!

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Defcon – Getting There from Mike Grace on Vimeo.

Photo:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kratz/ / CC BY-SA 2.0

If you aren’t already using Firefox I highly encourage you to because there is no other browser like it. When I am writing a blog post, I use the quick search in the top right corner of Firefox to search for photos on Flickr using the Creative Commons license. If you are not using Firefox, (shame! shame!), do your Creative Commons search at http://search.creativecommons.org/ Search results appear in one column with tabs at the top to chose from search sources other than Flickr.
As I scroll through the images I open the ones I find interesting in a new tab. After searching through a good amount of photos, it has gotten easier to find good ones and I’m beginning to find a style that fits my blog. I then download the size that best fits my needs by clicking on “all sizes” right above the image.

I then end up going back to the page with just that image and all of the comments people have made on the photo. It is time to get the attribution links for all the legal stuff. The link to the Creative Commons license is on the right side with a link just under the heading “Additional Information”. The Creative Commons license page explains to what extent the image can be used and how to attribute the image to the owner.

The top section of this particular license agreement allows me to use this image on my blog (share) and to remix the image to use it in other ways. If this license agreement did not have the remix statement, it is my understanding that I could not crop the image and use in some of the ways I have in this post. The next section explains how to attribute the photo to the owner and usually provides a nice HTML snippet to copy and paste into your blog or web page.
Note: You can get to the license page from other pages but the link from the images main page is the one that I have found to have the HTML snippet that I use to attribute the images to their respective owners.

After placing the HTML snippets at the end of my blog post I am nice and make the images link back to their main Flickr page which is not required by the license. I find that this is the best way to connect viewers directly with the source of the image and I would appreciate others doing the same with my images if they ever got used. ; ) I also usually open the photos in Photoshop and compress them a bit more for web viewing.

How I feel after a good Flickr - CC fix

Many artists are happy to let you use their work when you follow the guidelines set in the license. Sometimes if I feel I have done a nice job on a blog post I will leave them a comment on their Flickr photo page letting them know I have used their photo and some have even commented on my blog posts thanking me for using their work! ; )

Photos:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/zanastardust/ / CC BY 2.0
http://www.flickr.com/photos/31878512@N06/ / CC BY 2.0

Bumpits Hair Product

Photos:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/carbonnyc/ / CC BY 2.0

Gotcha…

jQuery changes CSS inline rather than to an external CSS document meaning that my relative path was invalid. My jQuery CSS image path needed to be $('#background_spot').css('backgroundImage',"url('images/event_background.jpg')");
After making the change for the path of the image to be from the html file we were all smiles.
Photos:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/saranv/ / CC BY 2.0
http://www.flickr.com/photos/dotbenjamin/ / CC BY-SA 2.0

http://www.flickr.com/photos/4444/ / CC BY-SA 2.0

Spotlight Icon

How to fix your spotlight woes.

I use spotlight all the time to launch applications and open files. I recently ran into some trouble with files and applications disappearing from the spotlight index. I was able to fix the problem by deleting my spotlight index and rebuilding it.

System Preferences - Spotlight

First you should just make sure your spotlight settings haven’t caused the problem before you take the time to delete and rebuild your spotlight index. In system preferences go to spotlight. There are two tabs: Search Results and Privacy. Make sure the type of file you are looking for is selected and under privacy make sure the file isn’t located in any of the locations specified. Any location specified in the privacy tab will not be indexed.

Spotlight Search Results Preferences

Spotlight Privacy Preferences

Delete and Rebuild Spotlight Index

To delete and rebuild your spotlight index open up your terminal and enter in these commands. (You will need your root password to execute these commands)

sudo rm -r /.Spotlight-V100
sudo launchctl load -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.metadata.mds.plist
sudo mdutil -E /

NOTE: For most, copying and pasting these commands will  work just fine. For some of you it might come back on the first command that the file was not found. If this is the case for you it’s ok, we just need to find the right file. Paste the first line all the way up to the “V” like this:

sudo rm -r /.Spotlight-V

then just hit the tab key and it should complete the file name. You can now hit enter and paste the rest of the commands with no problem.

Explained

1. Deletes the spotlight index file
2. Sends secret message to the elves in your computer that make things happen
3. Causes Spotlight to rebuild indexes

After you have rebuilt the index, you and spotlight can live happily ever after. :)

Resources:
Sunset Image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mikebaird/ / CC BY 2.0
Terminal commands: Question I asked on superuser.com

My Personal Learning Environment

After reading an interesting post about personal learning environments I decided to try an experiment for myself like cmduke did. I had a hard time placing everthing that I wanted to on the the diagram so it is a bit messy and the proximity of each item isn’t exactly where I would like them. The diagram below represents fairly well most of the tools that I use in what I consider to be my personal learning environment. Feel free to download my photoshop file and modify it to suit your personal learning environment.

MikeGrace's Personal Learning Environment

As I put this together, it reinforced to me how much I learn when I blog things. I guess my blogging process includes most of the things needed to really understand and retain information. Here is a list of everything I have included in the diagram.

• Jobs
• Google
• Finder
• Spotlight
• Time Machine
• Aperture
• Eleven2
• Google Docs
• EtherPad
• Pligg
• Terminal
• Linux
• StatCounter
• textmate
• PhotoShop
• CSS Edit
• Pandora
• Twitterfon
• jQuery
• Nikon D200
• Creative Commons
• 1986 Honda Goldwing 1200cc
• Defcon
• Loopt
• Skype
• Adium
• Google Mail
• Google Reader
• Yammer
• Mac OS X
• Twitter
• WordPress
• iPhone
• Brigham Young University – Idaho
• StackOverflow
• Firefox
• MacBook Pro

NameGuard

I have used several different sites and services to register domains. NameGuard is hands down the best domain registration site and service I have ever used. After registering several domains with NameGuard I wonder why I ever used all the other sites out there.

Why

• FREE Privacy Protection!!!
  • Many other services charge extra, each year, for this service
  • If you don’t get privacy protection all of your personal information ends up in the whois directory for that domain. Bad!
    
• Industry standard pricing on domains
• accepts paypal or credit card for payment
• Change DNS name servers at time of registration
• Extremely fast registration time

NameGuard Advantages

Even though the girl doesn’t come with every domain name registration, NameGuard provides some of the best services I have seen yet. Click on the girl to read their list of advantages.

This post may seem like I may be making money through some affiliation program but I make nothing from this post other than helping others enjoy the same great benefits of a great domain registration service while protecting their personal contact information

Auto-Tune the News #3 Video

I don’t usually share videos but this video has caught my eye. The makers at barelypolitical have taken news clips and made them into a song. Really amazing work taking the voices and clips to morph it into a cool song. I am sure a lot of video geeks are geekin’ out over this one. The video can get a bit crude so you have been warned. The title of the video is Auto-Tune the News #3 !!!

Enjoy

Note: After setting up the forwarding, make sure you test it so some poor lady in Seattle doesn’t get all of your missed calls for a week. ; )

Open up the phone to dial a number. Enter *62* then enter the number you want to forward to and then *11#

After you press send, the phone will do some magic…

and should show you something like this letting you know it worked.

Now when you loose reception you can have your calls forwarded to a different number. Happy Forwarding!

Forward All:
Activate: *21*[dest]*11#
Cancel & Retain: #21*11#
Re-establish: *21*11#
Cancel & Forget: ##21*11#
Status: *#21*11#

If Busy:
Activate: *67*[dest]*11#
Cancel & Retain: #67*11#
Re-establish: *67*11#
Cancel & Forget: ##67*11#
Status: *#67*11#

if no answer:
Activate: *61*[dest]*11*[sec]#
Cancel & Retain: #61*11#
Re-establish: *61*11#
Cancel & Forget: ##61*11#
Status: *#61*11#

If Unreachable:
Activate: *62*[dest]*11#
Cancel & Retain: #62*11#
Re-establish: *62*11#
Cancel & Forget: ##62*11#
Status: *#62*11#

This year will be my very first year attending the Defcon conference over is Las Vegas, Nevada and I am very excited. To make the experince just perfect I am asking for advice in many different places and compiling what I learn here. I will also do a postmortem to evaluate what was the most useful advice at the end of the event. So let me know what I should bring and what I should leave at home and what I should do to prepare in the comments section. ; )

Tips for attending a Defcon convention/ event

• “wear good shoes… Drink lots of water :)”  - @etcpasswd
• “bring $120 cash for admission” – defcon faq page
• “Don’t use unknown or unencrypted (WEP counts as unencrypted) WiFi APs” - frgtn
• “Use encryption everywhere (SSH/SSL)” – frgtn
• “Do not, I repeat DO NOT log into your blog or twitter over an unencrypted connection” - frgtn
• ‘don’t lick the strippers” – @attritionorg
• “Use VPN to connect to a secure server (always check certificate when connecting)” - frgtn
• “Check what services your MacBook provides to the network and disable everything you don’t need (you don’t need SSH in there for sure)” - frgtn
• “Backup your computer and wipe it clean. Turn on firewall, use a really secure password and don’t connect to wifi” - Jesse Cole
• “If possible, don’t even connect directly to your own server, even through SSH. Set up a Dreamhost account or something and tunnel the SSH through there. By making a connection of any kind to your own server, you’re pointing to it as a potential target!” - Greg Hewgill
• “Stop by the pharmacy store on the corner and buy one of those cheap 5 dollar Styrofoam ice chests. Then hit the refrigerated section and get your favorite lunch meats and cheeses. After that get bread, chips, peanut butter, or whatever else you would like for lunches or dinners. Feel free to get milk and cereal for breakfast or my favorite pop tarts! You can fully stock your ice chest for fewer than fifty dollars. Trust me you can spend fifty bucks before lunch is over if you eat in or around the hotel. Also forget about buying ice. You will have an unlimited supply from the machine just down the hall from your room. If you arrive on Thursday be sure to check out the Toxic BBQ, It is a great deal and a great place to meet people.” – Douglas Hutsell
• “You will find that as the conference goes on, the prices will start falling. In fact you will notice a significant difference on Sunday as the vendors are trying to sell off everything they brought. Keep an eye on the prices and apparent inventory on the items you are looking for. If there is something you absolutely must have then don’t wait too long to purchase it. However if there are some items that would be “nice to have” then you might wish to wait a while and see if the price drops. If you miss out you might talk to the vendor and work out a deal or a special on something else. You can also most likely buy the item from at a similar or in some cases even lower price online at their website. If you are looking for shirts and hoodies to wear at the conference, you will want to get those as early as possible as the larger sizes tend to run out. If you are a healthy larger man I would suggest making it your first item of business after getting your badge.” – Douglas Hutsell
• “Plan out your expenses for the day and try to keep on you only what you planned for. This will make you think twice about spending what you did not intend to if you are forced to march all the way back up to your room.” - Douglas Hutsell
• “Take the time to meet people starting with the toxic bbq and have fun” – @brennentom
• “Use a disposable email address when passing it out to vendors for free stuff” – Me ; )
• “To be ultra-paranoid, configure your firewall to drop all outging traffic and only allow stuff that you explicitly want, and that you’re sure is either encrypted or not sensitive. For example, it’d suck if you logged in to your machine and your AIM client decided to connect, promptly sending your password in clear text.” - derobert

A list put together by Chief over at http://it.toolbox.com/

• Hit registration early
• Go to every vendor display and drop a business card or let them scan your badge. Free stuff galore.
• Don’t be afraid to leave a session and go to another. Just be courteous, quiet, and turn your cell phone to vibrate. PLEASE.
• Do a periodic smell check. If you start smelling ‘not so fresh’ please return to your room and freshen up. Everyone around you will appreciate you
• Attend the social functions
• Take lots of notes and learn.
• Guard your badge with your life. You lose it and it’ll be $100 to replace it. No kidding.
• Buy lots of swag. DefCon has THE coolest swag.
• Pick your sessions ahead of time and don’t be late if you actually want a seat.
• Make new friends, you’ll never find people in the outside world like you’ll meet at DefCon.
• Watch your alcohol consumption.
• Don’t hack the ATM machines in the foyer.
• Don’t steal other people’s stuff. The Goons will introduce you to the parking lot face first. (The reporter got off easy).
• Bathe!
• Wear shorts. Unlike Caesar’s, the rooms get a bit hot.
• If you dare take pics, respect others and don’t get close shots of faces. Better yet, if you are with the press get a press pass. They are really nice about press passes. Not so nice about people that skirt press passes. I don’t blame them.
• The vendor area is a great place to talk shop. Strike up conversations. You might get a great deal.

10 Tips for iPhone Users at DEFCON 17

provided by the iPhone Dev Team at http://wikee.iphwn.org/howto:iphones_at_defcon

Check out these photos at your own pace over at flickr -> http://www.flickr.com/photos/25650257@N02/sets/72157621594331678/

In the fight of jQuery vs Flash there are many arguments on both sides but I think this smart bird sums it up nicely. ; )

The quote is one I found by Comaneci, Nadia. The hard work quote is, “Hard work has made it easy. That is my secret. That is why I win.”

countdown widget

Would work well on blogspot (blogger), WordPress, TypePad, and many more.

There are all sorts of geeks out in the world and I love that. I am a tech geek, education geek, and a motorcycle geek. I am probably a few other things but those seem to be the most dominant at the moment. My wife and I have been looking to get a larger motorcycle for some time now to be able to go on longer rides to places. A larger motorcycle would allow us to actually take some “stuff” and be comfortable traveling several hundred miles. Recently everything has fallen into place and I will be going to pick up a brand new-to-me Honda Goldwing!

I am soo excited I can hardly stand it. This is just as bad as the night before Christmas when I was a kid if not worse. ; ) I can’t stop smiling and I have even paced around a bit. The bike is a 1986 Interstate model with about 47,000 miles on it and from the pictures I got it look like it is in nice condition. While we are talking about motorcycles, let me share with you a “must read” book on motorcycle safety. I have read and reread several time the book titled “Proficient Motorcycling”. Between studying this book, practicing the techniques taught, and attending a motorcycle safety course class every year, my riding has really improved. If you would like your own copy look for the best price at www.cheapesttextbooks.com

More updates will be coming after I pick up the bike. We are planning camping trips to Yellowstone, Utah, Star Valley, and a few other fun thing. You will probably have the best luck hearing about those adventures as they happen over at our family blog at http://family.michaelgrace.org

So in order to compile a list of possible platforms and compare their pros and cons I have created a knol that anyone who desires can contribute to. I would greatly appreciate any contributions and feedback. Visit the knol and make contributions

Here is what we have so far. ; )

My idea has been to create real world situations/ projects that involve the same concepts as the book but make them exciting to the students. When approaching the professor about this idea I was laughed at and told “Sure, you create the projects and I will take a look.” Somehow I get the feeling that not much is going to happen even if I did do that. As a side note, I have also heard rumors that the University is changing the class or getting rid of it in some way. This got me to thinking why not carry out my idea but make it open to anyone? I could get my classmates and friends who are in the class currently and some who just love Linux and we could create a smashing class online free to anyone who wants to learn. Every classmate that I have talked to about this has been enthusiastic and said they would love to contribute.

Creating a open source class would really help my classmates and I learn the material well for many reasons. First, the learning is no longer just for a grade but is a public service for others. When learning is turned into service the whole paradigm of motivation changes in students and amazing things start to happen. Second, the final published product is public and if done well enough, is something students can show future potential employers as an example work. Third, the collaboration that can occur to create, review, and modify the content would be awesome and would create incredible learning and growing experiences that would be invaluable to being more effective in the workplace in the future. There are of course more but that is all I am going to list for now.

So the big question now is what is going to be the most effective way to organize and put the class content online? A blog with different posts and pages, using a service like Google’s knol, forum (*puke!*) or is there some other way that would work great that I haven’t found yet? I would love your help and input on this. Please leave a comment with suggestions/ ideas or get a hold of me on twitter @MikeGrace.

I truly believe that tomorrow is built on todays education. If that is the case, open education is more important then ever before with the current state of the world. Sound education is one of the greatest gifts that a person can give or receive. The possibilities for giving that gift are ever increasing as technology becomes more accessible to the world. The thing that really excites me about open education is the idea that anyone can contribute, make a difference, and learn, if they but have the desire.

Education is intimately intertwined into every aspect of everyone’s life. The more I learn about open education the more I “geek out” about it. The concept of learning through service to others would have revolutionized my elementary education experience as it is now thrusting my learning forward and my thirst to learn and share deeper.

I would be honored and ecstatic to be able to attend the Open Education Conference for 2009 in Vancouver. I will bring excitement and enthusiasm for open education, plenty of questions, and an unquenchable desire to learn and contribute. I have been working with a professor at Brigham Young University Idaho on some testing ideas to make tests a better feedback tool for the student and the teacher. Also, throughout my higher education experience I have been frustrated with the use of technology in learning. This frustration comes both from forced web technology use that distracts from real learning and the disregard of web tools that could revolutionize outcomes of students learning and experience. I think the hardest thing is getting others to realize the potential of open education. Once that is understood and the fire is lit, the rest will happen naturally. I look forward to learning more about what I can do to make the world and my university a better place and how I can spread the fire for open education.