David L. Farquhar on technology old and new, computer security, and more
I was out buying toilet parts today (more on that in a minute–I’m sure you’re thrilled), and while I was there, I looked at light bulbs. I needed a few. And I noticed something. The 40W equivalent CFLs use 9 watts today. The same as LEDs. So I bought a package of (4) CFLs for $1.85. The local utility subsidizes CFLs, since it’s cheaper to buy all its customers CFLs than it is to build new power plants.
I got home and checked one of my 40W equivalents that I’ve had for a while. 13 watts.
I received a contract today from Classic Toy Trains, a sister publication of Model Railroader and Discover. If you haven’t heard of CTT, there’s a chance you’ve heard of one of the others. It’s an article about the venerable Lionel gateman accessory, and some tricks for improving its operation.
I don’t know yet when they plan to publish it, but when I find out, I’ll make an announcement.
Kalmbach, the owner of CTT, has a long tradition of excellence dating to the 1930s. I’m thrilled to write for them.
I see the ‘net is overrun today with complaints about Apple switching to oddball Pentalobular screws (sometimes called “pentagram” screws–is that an accident, or people being snarky?) and the occasional person claiming to know where to get a Pentalobular driver for a few dollars, but few people actually being, you know, helpful.
So here’s where you can get one for $2.35, plus shipping. http://www.sw-box.com/Professional-Screw-Driver-Opening-Tool-For-Iphone-4.html
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Today the Consumerist linked to a report that CFLs burn out faster than expected.
That’s probably right. But not all CFLs are created equal, so if you have a bad string of luck with one brand, try changing brands.
I also think that CFLs are more sensitive to bad power than conventional bulbs are. Or maybe we just care more when a CFL burns out.
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Yesterday’s post was hastily done. A longtime reader pointed out one mistake, and a questionable one–a tricky was/were instance, which, since I wasn’t actually there to see the event, means I can’t actually tell you which one would be proper… Although in the rest of the English-speaking world, “were” would be correct. Except Canada, perhaps.
I have some, er, distractions going on lately.
Computerworld published a scare piece on rogue IT people.
Linuxplanet countered with a piece that was about equal parts substance and hand-waving. I found myself mostly agreeing with the Linuxplanet piece, but was disappointed it didn’t go deeper into the counter-arguments.
I’ve been on both sides of this.
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Since registry editing is uncomfortable for some people, here’s a follow-on to last week’s trick that forces MSSE to update more frequently. Read more
When the PS3 was released, one of its advertised features was that you could install Linux on it and use it as a Linux computer. I doubt many people did it, but it was a useful feature for those who did.
Sony later took that ability away in a firmware update. You could choose not to install that later firmware, but then you gave up other capabilities.
Now, some enthusiasts have figured out various ways to get that capability back, and Sony is so thrilled about that, they’re suing.
Sony is in the wrong.
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Can you use 1:64 vehicles with HO scale trains? It’s a common question. The answer is you can do whatever you want.
The next question is whether you’ll be happy with it. And under some circumstances, you might be.
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Windows 7 SP1 is coming soon. Possibly as soon as this weekend.
Historically, service packs tend to get off to a bit of a rocky start, so I’m not going to be installing this right away. But since it’s so imminent, I’m not going to be installing Windows 7 on anything else yet either. I’ll probably give it a couple of weeks, then slipstream and install. Being the first on the block to install a service pack usually isn’t a good idea. Seems to me that in one Slashdot poll several years ago, given the choice between installing a service pack on the first day or watching the movie Master of Disguise, the really bad Dana Carvey movie won out. There’s a reason for that.
Microsoft Security Essentials, Take 43,291. And while we’re picking on Microsoft, my biggest beef with Microsoft Security Essentials is that it doesn’t update itself quickly enough. But you can make it check for updates as frequently as every hour. Directions are at http://lifehacker.com/5733597/change-microsoft-security-essentials-update-frequency
They cite this as a good thing to do on laptops. I completely agree. My laptop gets used just sporadically enough that it has trouble staying updated, and usually, when I use it on the road, it’s not up to date at first, and it’s when you’re using strange networks that you most want to be up to date.
Frankly I think it’s a good thing to do on your desktop too. When the signatures get updated, would you rather get the updates right away, or tomorrow? I’ll vote for right away.
When I was administering antivirus for a living, when I updated my AV server, my clients got the updates within an hour or so. Sometimes it was within a few minutes. That system wasn’t even directly connected to the Internet. So if that system needed its updates that fast, so do home PCs.
Passwords. It’s now possible to test 400,000 passwords per second using Amazon’s services, at a cost of 28 cents per minute. So, testing 24 million possible passwords costs 28 cents.
Strengthen your passwords. Going to 16 characters with two uppers, two lowers, two special characters and two umlauts is overkill, but you want to be using more than 8 characters, and use at least one number, one upper and one lowercase letter, and one special character like a punctuation mark. If your password is something like “popcorn,” well, let’s do the math. It takes one second to test 400,000 passwords, and there are arguably a million words in the English language, so cracking a simple one-word password should take a maximum of two and a half seconds and cost 3 cents.