Uncategorized Archives

Back online

Dave Farquhar Uncategorized July 15, 2012

The site was down last week due to a series of power failures that extended longer than the capacity of my uninterpretable power supplies. As it turned out, I wasn’t home to fix it. But now I’m back, and so is the site. All of the machines recovered gracefully.

My apologies for the downtime. If there’s an upside, it’s that I now have about a week’s backlog of content.

Thanks for hanging in there with me.

Dave Farquhar

David Farquhar is a computer security professional, entrepreneur, and author. He has written professionally about computers since 1991, so he was writing about retro computers when they were still new. He has been working in IT professionally since 1994 and has specialized in vulnerability management since 2013. He holds Security+ and CISSP certifications. Today he blogs five times a week, mostly about retro computers and retro gaming covering the time period from 1975 to 2000.

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89 business clichés and how to avoid their trap

Dave Farquhar Uncategorized June 25, 2012

If I had a nickel for every time I’ve heard one of these 89 business clichés in the last 6 months, I could buy something nice.

You’ve heard all 89 of these too. The translations are interesting. The common thread is that these clichés tend to be very manipulative, they hide things, and/or are frequently used to justify already-made decisions even if there’s a valid reason to do it differently. Read more

Dave Farquhar

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E-books have taken over

Dave Farquhar Uncategorized June 19, 2012garage sale

This year, in terms of revenue, e-books are now the best-selling book format. E-books now outsell trade paperbacks, mass market paperbacks, and hardcovers. Hardcover sales haven’t declined in the past year, but trade paperback sales (think how-to nonfiction titles) are down 10.5% and mass market paperbacks (think popular fiction) are down an astounding 20.8%.

I don’t think this is a big surprise to anyone. We like our instant gratification, and e-books certainly are that. And besides instant gratification, e-readers allow one to carry an entire library of books in a device small enough to fit in a pocket. And publishers like them because it destroys the secondhand market. Read more

Dave Farquhar

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Confessions of a hacker for hire

Dave Farquhar Uncategorized June 13, 2012December 5, 20151990s, command prompt, excel, PHP, troubleshooting

A story on Slashdot yesterday encouraged IT departments to hire a hacker, in spite of the stigma.

I’ve been that guy, and I suspect I’ll be that guy again. I’ve also had to clean up after that guy, so I may be able to add some perspective.
Read more

Dave Farquhar

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Bacon and ice cream

Dave Farquhar Uncategorized June 12, 2012April 15, 2017Lou Reed

So Burger King decided that a bacon sundae is a good idea. I have to mention it because this blog’s original name, back in October 1999 was, believe it or not, Bacon and Ice Cream. No kidding, though I’m not sure many people are still around who remember that. A week or two later, I decided that was too weird and re-launched as The Silicon Underground.

The name was a reference to an obscure Lou Reed song called What’s Good, which contained the line, “Life’s like bacon and ice cream. That’s what life’s like without you.”

So the question is, if life’s like bacon and ice cream, does Lou Reed think life is something good, or something bad?

Dave Farquhar

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Short takes, 5 Jun 2012

Dave Farquhar Uncategorized June 5, 2012November 3, 2025antivirus, Ars Technica, firefox, networking equipment, New Firefox

I’m positively uninspired this morning, trying to recover from a weekend of the most boring writing I’ve ever done in my life–something that, mercifully, only a small handful of tortured souls will ever have to see and read–so I’ll do some short takes.

Dave Farquhar

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Facebook’s IPO doesn’t have to be the end of Silicon Valley

Dave Farquhar Uncategorized May 21, 2012AOL, cisco, IPO, nbc

I saw a story on Slashdot this weekend writing Silicon Valley’s obituary at the hands of the Facebook IPO. The logic is that since social networking is an easier path to riches than traditional science, people will choose social networking.

In the short term, he may be right. But in the long term? The Facebook IPO looks more like Dotcom 2.0 to me. Read more

Dave Farquhar

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3D printing hits $500

Dave Farquhar Uncategorized May 16, 2012

The Solidoodle is the first fully assembled 3D printer to hit the magic $500 price point.

Nobody has reviewed one yet, and the device makes some significant compromises in order to get to that price point. Given that, I won’t be among the first to buy one. I’ll reserve that decision for a time when we know what it can and can’t do. But if we look at history, that $500 milestone is important.

Dave Farquhar

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The difference that posting frequency makes when blogging

Dave Farquhar Uncategorized May 13, 2012

Some time ago, I gave the advice that it doesn’t really matter if you post every day or not.

I think my rationale was that quality matters more than quantity, or at least it should. And although I still believe that in an ideal world, quality should matter more than quantity, now I have around 18 months of data that I can look at.

Here are the trends that I see.
Read more

Dave Farquhar

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Let’s import the Dutch Repair cafe idea

Dave Farquhar Uncategorized May 12, 2012April 15, 2017hardware store

In Amsterdam, a couple of times a month volunteers meet up in community centers to fix things. Anyone can bring items that don’t work anymore to get it fixed. It reduces waste, people save money, they get to meet their neighbors, and it provides opportunity.

Opportunity? Hear me out.
Read more

Dave Farquhar

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