David L. Farquhar on technology old and new, computer security, and more
Ives-branded track clips for Lionel O27 track are relatively common, and although they are often mistaken for pre-1933 items, they were actually manufactured for several decades after the Ives brand name disappeared from the marketplace, and by Lionel, not its erstwhile rival Ives.
Lionel stamped the Ives name on track clips to protect the trademark. If you don’t use a trademark for several years, someone else can apply for it and start using it. Lionel didn’t want that.
I saw an IBM PS/2 Model 55SX at an estate sale this past weekend. It took me back to my first non-food service, non-retail job, doing desktop support at Mizzou.
Well, as a precursor to doing desktop support, they tried me out just building and tearing down machines. I worked out of Room 11, which was at the time a dingy, dark, musty place. But they pay was good and it meant I got to spend my time between classes taking computers apart all day, and that was nice.
My first assignment was to build IBM PC 330 and PC 350 computers to sit on professors’ desks. These were 50 MHz 486DX2s. They were a bit outmoded by then, but they were a lot better than what they were replacing, which was, in most cases, a PS/2 Model 55SX, which was a 386SX running at either 16 or 25 MHz. My second assignment was to disassemble those Model 55SXs, revert them back to their factory configuration, and sort out all of the add-ins so we could use them to upgrade other machines, and then, sell whatever was left as surplus. Read more
Matt, one of the higher ups in my department, departed from the company on Friday. Rich, a coworker I’ve now worked with in two different shops in two different states, got Matt’s office. Rich grew fond of wandering in to Matt’s office at random times during the week with a tape measure, just to make Matt wonder.
But Matt got the last laugh.
So, do you need an outbound firewall? Two people say no.
I agree but I disagree. I like the idea behind an outbound firewall, but in practice, I find they don’t work. The human element makes them fail. Whenever a computer asks for permission to do something, people generally fall into two camps: People who say yes all the time, and people who say no all the time. With the people who say yes all the time, the malware gets to do whatever it wanted anyway, so the firewall fails to do its job. With the people who say no all the time (Why does Internet Explorer want to connect to the Internet?), nothing works.
Ultimately, the argument against them is that if you don’t trust a piece of software to connect to the Internet, you shouldn’t have that software on your computer at all. I agree completely with that argument. Only install trusted software that you get from trusted sources, learn how to check the MD5 or SHA1 signatures to ensure the software is what it says it is, and then and only then install it.
A firewall is one of the most basic of security tools. You need one to protect yourself against basic threats. Not having one is negligent. But trying to turn that firewall into something other than a basic tool–something it’s not–generally isn’t going to get you very far. A firewall with training wheels on it isn’t a substitute for security awareness.
And here’s the thing. The Windows built-in firewall does block certain outbound connections, mostly on antiquated ports that are generally used for malware more frequently than for legitimate purposes anymore. It just doesn’t jump up and down and tell you that it’s doing it. It just quietly does its job, which is exactly what you want your firewall to do.
I found this argument in favor of two spaces after a period. I favor the single space, but not for any of the reasons he explained.
I’m also not a graphic designer. I had to take a couple of classes on design and layout, and I was competent. But mostly efficient. I was known for being the first one in the room to finish a design, and it would always be at least middle-of-the-pack. On a tight deadline, I was the guy you wanted finessing QuarkXPress. Read more
Rob O’Hara stumbled across a stash of Y2K survivalist magazines and wrote about it. I wasn’t going to be surprised if there were some minor glitches, but I wasn’t expecting the apocalypse. I withdrew a couple hundred bucks from the bank a few days in advance and filled my bathtub with water the night before, so I would have a supply of money and water to tide me over if some glitch interrupted either of them for a day or two.
In late 1999, a lot of people said I was being reckless. Today, people think I was being excessively paranoid. It’s funny how perspectives change. Read more
Lifehacker has a great writing tip that I take for granted, but come to think of it, may not be obvious to everyone: When you’re in a groove, don’t interrupt your writing with research.
The groove is much too valuable for that. When the words are flowing effortlessly, ride it out as long as it lasts. It usually takes a while to find that groove, so just go with it. I usually won’t break a groove to edit, either. Just let the words flow. You’ll always be more productive that way. Read more
Here’s an old, old, but still useful tip that works on all NT-based versions of Windows, including Windows 10 and Windows 11. This is the clear print queue command line sequence for Windows, and it’s the fastest, most reliable way to recover from a hung print job. It works from the standard Windows CMD prompt.
The sequence is to stop the spooler service, delete the contents of the spooler directory (usually c:\windows\system32\spool\printers\) and then restart the spooler service.
Sometimes in a batch file I find myself needing to perform more than one operation on a server, especially inside a for loop. Rather than do a pair of for loops, which isn’t always desirable, you can use the & operator.
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My battery life on my phone and tablet have been rather lackluster lately. So I decided to do something about that, and installed Juice Defender on both of them. Read more