David L. Farquhar on technology old and new, computer security, and more
I’m not hearing as much rumbling in the hallways about pulling out of stocks, but I’m hearing a lot of rumbling about waiting until the market bottoms out before putting anything in.
Here’s the problem: What if it bottomed out today? I’m not saying it did. But it’s possible. Nobody knows.
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In October, LG and its startup partner Millenniata plan to release a new type of DVD, which they claim will last forever. The Navy doesn’t come right out and say it lasts forever, but it does say in its tests that these discs, called M-Discs, do last considerably longer than the traditional DVD-R and DVD+R discs on the market today.
I hope this catches on, but it’s possible it won’t. Why? Cost.
There’s some bad behavior going on with DNS right now. In Washington and at local ISPs.
The Googles have spoken, and people don’t come here for financial advice, but I’ll say this anyway. The markets have been going bonkers for the last week, but don’t panic. Don’t go dumping your stocks and bonds. Seriously.
Just look at what happened in 2008.
HTTPS Everywhere is a free Firefox extension–the EFF would like to do it for other browsers but says it’s not possible without source code–that forces the browser to use HTTPS (SSL-encrypted) connections whenever possible. This isn’t foolproof security–HTTPS is vulnerable to man-in-the-middle attacks–but it forces an attacker to do more work in order to snoop on your web traffic.
If you spend a lot of time on public wi-fi networks, this is the bare minimum you should do to protect yourself.
I need to remember to write up an explanation later this week of how SSL is vulnerable to man-in-the-middle attacks. But it’s better than nothing, and there’s nothing wrong with using it as additional protection even when you’re on a safe network.
So, Dr. A’s computer is going to get the full Farquhar treatment. I told him I’m pretty confident I can get it running better than it ever has.
He said one of the salesmen told him it’s overdue for a crash, because it’s a Dell.
I really don’t like that kind of a generalization. I told him yes, all other things being equal, I think HP has better engineers than Dell. But would I discard an old machine just because it’s a Dell? Well, I ran this web site on an old Dell computer from about 2003 until October 2010. Actions speak louder than words. But there are a lot more problems with that argument. So I think it’s a sales tactic. I think if he’d come in and said he had an HP and he thinks it’s due, the salesman would have said, “Oh, it’s overdue for a crash because it’s an HP. Here, let me show you this Dell….”
Here’s why.
All this talk about new computers got me looking to see what’s out there in the channel. And it looks like the glut of Pentium 4s is finally clearing, making way for the 2-core revolution. Prices are low–I’m seeing dual-core systems, both Intel and AMD, with Windows licenses, for anywhere from $180 to $280 depending on configuration and some other factors that aren’t exactly clear to me.
Sound good? Here’s what to look for in an off-lease/refurbished computer.
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My first day of high school didn’t go well. I had trouble finding my locker and trouble getting the thing to open, but that was nothing compared to what happened mid-day. I misread my schedule, went to the wrong lunch period, couldn’t find the science wing, and ended up 25 minutes late to Mr. Rusch’s earth science class. Mr. Rusch was understanding but stern. My next class was Mrs. Hill’s freshman English. Our assignment was to write a letter to someone, telling about our first day of high school. Well, I had a story to tell, so I took a pencil to paper and I told it.
“This is good,” she said after she read it. “You’re very good.” And from that day on, Mrs. Hill went out of her way to help me learn how to write. So for four years, I went out of my way to take her classes.
Mrs. Hill died on Wednesday. She retired about a decade ago, but from what I understand, her health really didn’t allow her to enjoy her much-deserved retirement the way she should have. I can only think of two other teachers who ever pushed me like she did.
I’ve seen several people I know ask me recently why people hack Facebook accounts. Their Facebook accounts got hacked recently, and they couldn’t figure out why.
I know why. It probably wasn’t Sanford Wallace doing it, but it probably was someone just like him.
So who is Sanford Wallace and why does he want in your Facebook account?
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My web server fell off the network today. I assumed the onboard network card had died, because all the standard troubleshooting got me nowhere. I couldn’t ping it, it couldn’t ping anything else, and ifconfig eth0 showed it was transmitting, but not receiving anything. And restarting all of my network equipment didn’t help.
So I dug around for a network card and struggled to remember how to configure a NIC in Linux, seeing as that’s something I haven’t had to do in six or seven years. But first I hoped I could just plug in a NIC and it would work, like magic. It happens sometimes.