It’s the end of SSDs as we know it, and I feel fine

Dave Farquhar Hardware , ,

Flash memory’s days may be numbered. The end of the line for traditional flash memory has been predicted for a long time, and gloated about by Luddites who are dead-set against buying SSDs for whatever reason. But I’m not worried about it. All I want is solid-state storage; I don’t care about the underlying technology. The technology behind the RAM my computer uses has changed several times since the early 1980s, and I’m not broken up about it–the SSD in the last computer I built is faster than the RAM in my Commodore 64 was. Speed is good. More speed is better.

So I’m glad to hear about a potential breakthrough in RRAM. Read more

Cyanogenmod 10.1 runs surprisingly well on a Nook Color

Dave Farquhar Android , , , , , ,

Cyanogenmod–the open-source distribution of Android for undersupported/abandoned devices–went to version 10.1 this week. Version 10.1 is based on Android 4.2.2, so it matches what’s in stores right now.

My Nook Color was sitting unused, so I figured I had nothing to lose by loading Cyanogenmod 10.1 on it. It was slow and laggy and crashed a lot under 7.2, so it wasn’t like it could be much worse.

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What happened to Altavista

Dave Farquhar Retro Computing , , , , , , , , ,
What happened to Altavista

For as long as I can remember, my home page has been about:blank. But for a good chunk of the 1990s, I would have done well to set it to altavista.digital.com. Here’s what happened to Altavista.

Most people remember Altavista as the thing people used before Google, if they remember it at all. But I remember it as the first great search engine, because I’ve done my best to forget what search was like before Altavista came along. So I was a little sad to see Yahoo shut down what was left of the first great search engine in the summer of 2013. Read more

EMET protects against what your antivirus cannot–and it’s free

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

A few years ago, Microsoft quietly released a security tool called EMET–the Enhanced Mitigation Experience Toolkit. EMET is now in version 4.0, and it’s probably the best security tool you’ve never heard of. And that’s a real shame.

Modern versions of Windows and modern CPUs include several security-enhancing technologies that aren’t necessarily switched on by default. EMET is a wrapper that forces software to use these technologies, even if they weren’t designed from the get-go to use them. The idea, then, is that if a badly behaving data file tries to exploit a traditional vulnerability in one of these programs, EMET steps in and shuts it down. A real-world example would be if you visit a web page that’s playing a malicious Flash video, or that contains a malicious Acrobat PDF. The malicious data loads, starts to execute, and the minute it misbehaves, EMET slams the browser tab shut. You won’t know right away what happened, but your computer didn’t get infected, either. Read more

I’m going to have something really good coming up later this weekend

Dave Farquhar Uncategorized

I’m working on a new writeup. I have two coworkers who, when they start talking, I know I’d better start listening if I know what’s good for me.

I had lunch with them on Friday. I don’t know if it was the lunch discussion or after-lunch discussion, but they talked about a little-known security product. It’s free. It’s a little off-putting–one of these guys experimented with it and had difficulty figuring it out–but the other raved about it.

The problem is that we rarely live in an ideal world. We’re forced to run insecure, outdated software for business reasons, whether they’re good or bad. This mitigation, which he explained succinctly, is one of the best mitigations I’ve seen in my professional career, and it won’t cost you a dime to implement it.

I’m going to take an extra day or so to write up my own findings with it. So please stay tuned. I think this is going to be very good.

Microsoft’s bug bounty is a step in the right direction

Dave Farquhar security, Windows , , , , ,

Last week, Microsoft announced it’s offering a bug bounty program. Find a working exploit in Windows 8.1/blue/whatever it’s called this week, and Microsoft will hand over $100,000. Find a mitigation for that exploit, and Microsoft will pony up for that to, up to $50,000.

I think I know what they’re up to. Read more

I found a reasonably good, inexpensive keyboard for the Sero 7 Pro

Dave Farquhar Android, Hardware , , ,

I bought a keyboard this week for the Hisense Sero 7 Pro. It’s a universal keyboard/case made by Afunta, and I paid $12.50 for it. I took a chance on it, and now you don’t have to. Its spring-loaded jaws nicely accomodate the Sero 7 Pro, and the keyboard works with the Sero 7 Pro with no issues. Plug it in, wait a moment, and it starts working, replacing the onscreen keyboard when you need keyboard input, basically turning your tablet into a convertible. It has a micro USB connector, unlike many 7-inch keyboards, so it works with the Sero 7 without an adapter. It’s odd that most keyboards seem to have full-size USB connectors but most 7-inch tablets have micro ports.

I wouldn’t want to type at length with the keyboard, but it’s much nicer than using an onscreen keyboard on a 7-inch screen.

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