Author: Dave Farquhar

How to be an Apple Genius

Dave Farquhar Uncategorized , , , , , ,

Gizmodo got its grubby little hands on a training manual allegedly used in Apple Stores. It looks credible, and answers some questions.

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Stop whatever you’re doing and uninstall Java. I’ll wait for you.

Dave Farquhar security , ,

For years, standard practice has been to install Java, just in case you need it.

That’s no longer a safe practice. For your own safety, unless you absolutely, positively need Java, you should uninstall it. If you’re not sure if you need Java, uninstall it, then consider reinstalling if something breaks. Read more

What to do about a router dropping connections

Dave Farquhar Hardware , , , , , ,

A former classmate and coworker contacted me with a question.

My router is about 5 years old. I have a cable modem and a router. The cable modem is fine. The router keeps connecting and disconnecting from the internet…used to happen occasionally, now happens all the time. I reset it and it works for a while, then disconnects. Is it time for a new router or do you think something else is going on?

I see two options. Read more

The tradeoffs between AMD’s Phenom and FX CPUs

Dave Farquhar Hardware , , , ,

Micro Center is dangling some dirt, dirt cheap AMD CPUs these days, which has me thinking. I have a couple of pokey machines hanging around that I don’t use very much, so what if I modernized one of them?

The current-generation FX processors are cheap, but previous-generation Phenom CPUs are even cheaper. What to do?
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A TRS-80 retrospective

Dave Farquhar Retro Computing , ,

This month is the 35th anniversary of the TRS-80, which was the best-selling computer in the world until 1982 when the VIC-20 overtook it. Did you miss it? I almost did.

Veteran technology journalist and editor Harry McCracken has a nice retrospective of this mass-market computer from Radio Shack.

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Ways to keep your password from being guessed–today

Dave Farquhar security

Articles like Ars Technica’s Why passwords have never been weaker — and crackers have never been stronger are getting more and more common these days.

In a positive development, I don’t think the story had been live more than an hour or two before people started asking me questions. That’s good, because that tells me that people care.
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Yes, ramdisks still make sense, especially with memory so cheap

Dave Farquhar Windows , , , , ,

A former classmate and industry colleague dropped me a line a few weeks ago. He pointed out that memory is dirt cheap, and he bought 16 GB of RAM, just because it cost him around $100 to do, and was wondering what to do with it. A ramdisk, perhaps?

My search logs prove that ramdisks are the best-kept secret in the industry (virtually nobody knows or cares about them), but they’re still the best way to increase the longevity or life expectancy of an SSD and an outstanding way to pep up performance. A ramdisk is 80 times faster than a hard drive, 60 times faster than a RAID array, and 10-20 times faster than an SSD.
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Thanks for the misinformation, Disney

Dave Farquhar security , , , , , , , , ,

In one of its throwaway kid’s sitcoms, Disney insinuates that open source software contains spyware and using it is a ‘rookie mistake’.

Open source software rarely contains viruses or spyware. Since it’s open for examination, changes to the code that have any funny business in them tend to be rejected. For that matter, code with unintended bad consequences tends to either be rejected, or quickly changed.
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Two more questions about wireless security

Dave Farquhar security , , ,

I got two good questions last week, via Facebook, that I answered briefly in the comments, but are worth further exploration: Does it beef up wireless security to hide the SSID and only allow the MAC addresses of hardware you own?

Those are good questions. Smart questions. I like those kinds of questions.

Unfortunately, neither measure gets you a whole lot. Against a sophisticated attacker, that buys you minutes, compared to the security of a strong password, which buys you years. It’s like having a locked screen door in front of the vault door at Fort Knox. (Assuming you’re using a strong password–if you’re using a weak password and these measures, it’s like having multiple locked screen doors.)

Then again, not everyone is a sophisticated attacker.
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A tool for learning Windows and Office keyboard shortcuts

Dave Farquhar Windows ,

Sometimes my coworkers will watch me write, because they like a freak show. I guess they’ve never seen someone who uses the mouse as little as I do. If I know a keyboard shortcut, I use it. It’s faster, I say, and they agree I have a point.

This morning I found a tool called Keyrocket, via the Raymond.cc blog, for learning Windows and Office keyboard shortcuts. Think of it as a helpful, non-annoying, non-evil Office Assistant. Read more