Secure that public wi-fi with a low-tier, no-cost home VPN

Dave Farquhar security , , , , , , , ,

If you spend any time at all using unencrypted wi-fi networks at hotels and coffee shops, you need a VPN. Public connections are fine for reading news headlines and checking sports scores, but cannot be considered safe for e-mail, online banking, making purchases, or anything that involves a username and a password. A VPN, which encrypts that traffic from prying eyes, is the only way to make them safe.

Here’s how to set up a VPN that’s good enough for personal use. All you need is a home Internet connection, a computer at home, and the laptop you take on the road.

Of course corporations can set up VPNs that are much faster and much more robust, but this is something you can set up in a couple of hours on a weekend afternoon without spending anything.

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How to tame e-books

Dave Farquhar Copyright, e-readers , , , , , , , , , ,

I haven’t exactly been rushing out to buy an e-reader, for at least a couple of reasons. The practical reason is that I’m afraid of being locked in to a single vendor. Amazon is the market leader and the most likely to still be around for the long term, but they’re the worst about locking you in. The other vendors offer slightly better interoperability–supporting the same file format and, optionally, the same DRM–but the non-Amazon market leaders are Barnes & Noble, Borders, and Sony, all of which are scary. Borders is being liquidated; B&N isn’t losing money–yet–but its profit margins have shrunk each of the last two years; and Sony’s recent problems are well known to the security community. I’m not too anxious to climb into bed with any of them. Google is entering the market as well, but the first Google-backed e-reader doesn’t support highlighting or note-taking.

The Luddite reason is that I’m old enough to have an attachment to books. Physical books, printed on paper. Maybe this isn’t true for any generation beyond mine (I’m a GenXer), but for my generation and previous generations, having books on your shelf is a sign of being educated. And there are certain books–or types of books, depending on your field–that you’re expected to have on your shelf.

To a certain extent, the latter reason can be negated by playing the e-reader card. Of course I have the complete works of Shakespeare on my e-reader, so those Shakespeare books from college just became clutter…
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I’m back.

Dave Farquhar Personal ,

Four words: Worst. Business trip. Ever.

I’ll give some more details later, after the airline decides what they’re going to do to make things righter (they can’t make it right). They managed not to crash the plane.  Which is less of an achievement than me managing to drive to the airport without crashing my car. Other than that, they didn’t do much of anything right.

I had a nifty VPN set up that let me connect back into my home network to post, but a power outage knocked out my proxy server, which I had forgotten to configure to auto-start. I wasn’t about to log in here via unencrypted hotel wifi, which was why I was absent here for a few days.

I’ll have some more stuff in a while, but for now I need to take care of a few other things.

The amount of system memory has changed – Dell

Dave Farquhar Hardware , , ,

I added some memory to a Dell Inspiron E1505, an aging but serviceable Core 2 Duo-based laptop. And it greeted me with this: THE AMOUNT OF SYSTEM MEMORY HAS CHANGED .

IF YOU DID NOT CHANGE MEMORY
TO RESOLVE ISSUE RESEAT MEMORY..

And then it appeared to freeze. The problem is, I did change the memory! And it was Kingston memory, straight out of another working machine, so I knew it was good stuff.

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Synthetic oil + Marvel Mystery Oil = happy lawn mower

Dave Farquhar Landlording , , , ,
Synthetic oil + Marvel Mystery Oil = happy lawn mower

I’ve always hated my lawn mower. But once I started using Marvel Mystery Oil in a lawn mower, and putting synthetic 10w-30 oil in the crankcase, I’ve been much happier. It makes me feel like I discovered one of the secrets of the universe.

While you’re at it, check the air filter. You’re supposed to change that every year, at least. The combination of a fresh air filter, Marvel Mystery Oil, and synthetic oil gives me easier starts and smoother running.

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Don’t fall for the new Facebook stalker scam

Dave Farquhar security , , ,

According to trusted antivirus vendor Sophos, there’s a rogue Facebook application, posing as an app that claims to reveal a way to see who’s been secretly viewing your profile.

It’s a scam. And it’s spreading rapidly. It posts messages on your wall and tries to get you to visit a spam site. Don’t fall for it, but if you already have, delete the fake messages it posts.

Here’s a real app I want you to install instead: Safego.
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Approaches for home network storage

Dave Farquhar Hardware, Servers and Networking

I put together a plan to update my home computer setup over the course of the next 12-18 months. You don’t want to know what I’m using as my primary desktop right now. You just don’t.

One of the things on my to-do list is centralized storage. As the kids get older, I’m pretty sure I’m going to need that. I looked at a Drobo, but the price tag scares me off. So I’m weighing some alternatives.
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Taking a stand: Rupert Murdoch and the Chicago Sun-Times

Dave Farquhar Journalism , ,

Some people are ready to throw the entire journalism trade out with the week’s trash thanks to the deepening Rupert Murdoch scandal. But to some people, this wasn’t a surprise at all.

In 1984, 60 journalists took a stand against Rupert Murdoch. Without them, he quickly ran a once-proud paper into the ground, and he cut his losses and sold out after just two years of ownership. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

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