T11M

You’ve got to watch this.  It’s hilarious, but holds a very valuable point.

Check out these links I’ve found!

• Landmark study: DRM truly does make pirates out of us all –
• 40 Exceptional “CMS Enabling” WordPress Plugins –
• Nesson speaks: Inside P2P’s “David v. Goliath” story –
• Linux Limit CPU Usage Per Process –
• Nielsen: Mobile, Online Video Hasn’t Put A Dent in TV Viewing –
• Doom + Heretic + Hexen (in your browser) = Epic Win – Time Waster –
• Conficker Keeps Growing And Growing –
• Lawyer: RIAA must pay back all $100M it has collected –
• Copyleft v. Copyright: FSF, RIAA face off in court –
• CSS3 Exciting Functions and Features: 30+ Useful Tutorials –
• Big Content appeals Pirate Bay case—damages were too low –
• 15+ programs you don’t have to miss when you switch to Linux –
• Zilla PDF to TXT Converter Plain-Texts Your PDF Files in Bulk [Downloads] –
• Another 6,400 workers to lose jobs at HP – Maybe why the quality of their computers is tanking?
• Harvard prof tells judge that P2P filesharing is "fair use" – I didn't see that defense coming…

Adium is an outstanding application.  Unfortunately it is currently Mac only.  However, for you Mac users, if you haven’t downloaded Adium you need to right now.  It is the only chat application to support multiple chat protocols including AIM, MobileMe, Google Talk, IRQ, IRC, Twitter, Facebook, and a number of others.  At any one moment I am logged in to 6 different chat protocols and am able to communicate with my contacts on each of them from a single client.  The user interface for Adium is very efficient and user friendly, allowing for quick chatting with multiple contacts.  Adium is also extensible with plugins, emoticon packs, and scripts.  In my opinion Adium is the casual users perfect client and the power users dream.  Check it out here.

Check out these links I’ve found!

• France Passes Three Strikes Net Piracy Bill – One more reason to despise France…
• OffiSync mixes Microsoft Office and Google Docs –
• Fake Windows 7 Creates Botnet –
• Norwegian ISP: dig your own fiber trench, save $400 – I love my ancestors. They're so damn innovative. I would dig the trench with my bare hands to get fiber and save $400!
• Web designer opposes France's "3 strikes" law, loses job – This is outrageous! I guess free speech isn't a right in France.
• MPAA: teachers should videotape monitors, not rip DVDs – The MPAA once again shows its STUPIDITY. They only make me hate them more.
• Botnet master hits the kill switch, takes down 100,000 PCs – Wow, its not every day your computer just dies…
• ISPs' costs, revenues don't support data cap argument – I HATE ISPs!!!
• Five Best Free Data Recovery Tools [Hive Five] –
• The Pirate Bay verdict goes English, and we dish the dirt –
• Study: pirates biggest music buyers. Labels: yeah, right –
• Why no one should be shocked by The Pirate Bay verdict –
• Appeals court: no webcast for Joel Tenenbaum –
• Stimulus: Stanford's president on the $800 billion question – A very compelling read.
• Congressman: there should be a law against Internet caps! – Nice work Congressman!

I thought this was a great article describing the process I try to go through every time I work on a computer.  Obviously depending on the client and my history with them certain steps get overlooked or have already happened, but this step by step workflow is critical to good computer problem solving.  Many times I will be on the phone with a client and I will be thinking so far ahead that I don’t realize the obvious – like they have forgotten to connect to the network via VPN.  This workflow is critical when assisting clients over the phone.  Nothing is worse than walking someone through 15 steps and then realizing that you could have solved the problem had you simply asked enough questions to get the full story from them.  I was assisting a client the other day (via phone) and she said that her computer would not come on, or when it did the screen would blank in and out.  I immediately jumped to conclusions about bad hardware or OS problems, but 3 minutes of me questioning her to get the full story and I had her tighten the screws on the VGA cable.  Problem solved!

During my time at the University of Oregon I spent a large number of hours maintaining our computer lab.  The Honors College maintains 8 iMacs with dual-boot 10.5 and XP along with 7 other Mac computers that run 10.4.  Maintaining dual-boot lab machines has proven to be fairly time consuming.  Once a term I would apply the most current patches to the OS and software, and once per year I would update our image and completely reimage the lab.  This proved to be quite time consuming, but necessary due to our use of roaming profiles.  For management of the 7 Macs that did not dual-boot we used Radmind.  In ths case I would update the Radmind image on the server once per term to patch the OS and software and then simply reboot the client computers.  The updates were then applied and all was well.  In the last three terms I have only had to solve network connectivity issues with those computers.  Otherwise, they consistently work as needed and maintain a steady, stable OS that is not bogged down by the roaming profiles. 

Radmind is designed for Unix workstation managment and is very similar in function to Deep Freeze (a Windows workstation management software).  When run, Radmind will completely examine the client file system and return the workstation to its original state.  This is incredibly useful in a Lab environment.  At the same time it allows you to pick and choose which files you want to be managed by Radmind, thus allowing you to enable users to have selected preferences.

Configuration of Radmind is by no means simple.  In fact, it takes hours and the process is poorly documented.  You first begin by installing the Radmind Server software on whatever machine is going to act as your server.  The box you install it on should be able to handle (at worst case) all of your client machines connecting simultaneously.  Therefore if you are only going to use it for a few computers you can use just about any computer as a Radmind server.  Best practices of, course, would be to install it on server grade hardware to prevent failure of the system.  The next step is to load the Radmind client software on the client machines and create the main transcript files.  There are two types of transcript files – positive and negative.  The positive transcript contains the information for all of the files on the client machines that should always be equivalent to what is stored on the server.  The negative transcript lists the files that should never be touched by the Radmind software.  For instance, you want Radmind to keep your main OS files the same regardless of what a user may do to them, but at the same time you may want the list of printers to be managed by each user.  Once you have created the transcripts you then create a command file that tells which transcripts to apply and to which machines.  This allows you to manage multiple computers and have different software configurations on different groups of computers.  Thus if you have a computer lab that is supposed to have a certain software set and a group of office computers that are supposed to have a different software set you can set Radmind to differentiate the two groups and maintain their software accordingly. Finally you install the Radmind client side software on the client machines and connect them to the server.  The machine will then be updated to the configuration pushed down by the server.

I really like Radmind.  It is an effective solution to mass computer deployment, but it requires some serious tech chops.  If you decide to use Radmind be prepared for some long days of frustration and suffering as you learn how it works.  I have been working on a wiki posting concerning Radmind, but that is slow going and done only in my free time.  If you have questions feel free to post and I will do my best to help you out.

I was welcomed to DC by my good friend Michael Thompson with a greeting that has stuck with me. He said: “Welcome to the Capitol of the Free World, my friend!” I like that. Now, on a lighter note, what I have learned in the first week of living here:

1. When walking, never watch where you are going.  The sites are far too interesting, and besides, nobody really cares if you walk right into them or weave back and forth across the path/hall/sidewalk.
2. Never for any reason pass up the opportunity to take a picture.  As soon as you can see the monument/building/cool photo opportunity, stop in the middle of the path/hall/sidewalk and take the picture.  Again, no one cares if you inconvenience them.
3. At some point, rent a bike.  Bike’s are incredibly useful in DC, especially in large crowds of people who are walking.  There is nothing more fun than dodging and weaving in and out of groups of people.
4. Mumble consistently and concisely.  Never speak clearly, politely or in full sentences.  When ordering a sandwich don’t say: “I would like a Tuna sandwich, on wheat bread, please.”  Instead say: “Gimmeatuna.”  When asked what you said, slow it down only a little, DO NOT stop mumbling: “Giimmeeaattuunnaa.”  Slowly make the person taking your order guess what you really want.  That’s a fun game for all involved, especially those standing behind you in line – they LOVE IT!
5. Learn to honk.  If you don’t use your horn every 5 minutes or less, you will stick out as an out-of-towner. Even if you don’t drive that day, make sure to set off your car alarm to help contribute to the noise of the city.  Remember, everyone must do his or her part.
6. Sing to yourself while walking.  Don’t worry, no one will think you are crazy because there is a much crazier looking/sounding/acting person less than a block away (regardless of time of day or location within DC)

Check out these links I’ve found!

• Roll Your Own Streaming Media Server with Subsonic [Downloads] – Gonna have to give this a try…
• Get Your Shoes Off the Floor with a DIY Floating Shoe Rack [DIY] –
• Swedish Piracy Law Cuts Internet Traffic By A Third –
• Google yanks tethering app from marketplace – SEE!!! GOOGLE IS NO BETTER!
• Man uses 35 cable modems to provide WiFi, sued by Comcast – Ouch, this guy is gonna owe some money
• Chinese cyberespionage network runs across 103 nations – Wow, this is some scary stuff. Job security for me though…
• A New Study Say Video Games Can Improve Adult Vision – One more reason to keep gaming.
• Skype for iPhone Arrives Tuesday [IPhone] – HEY OH!!!!!
• Australian classification board website gets hacked – Give up Australia. The Hackerz are better than you.
• German cops raid Wikileaks after Internet blacklist posted – WTF! So the police are now raiding people's homes because they post a list of web addresses? Child porn hysteria is an understatement!
• Parents fight child porn threats against "sexting" teens – What a mess…
• Console is an open source, tabbed CMD alternative for Windows –
• MIT to make all faculty publications open access – Finally the big academic institutions step in and lay down the law.
• Complaint Urges Shutting Down Google's Street View U.K. – I don't understand! Why is this such a big deal to people. It's not like people aren't being photographed everyday at random. Who knows how many pictures I am in without my knowledge that are readily available on the web.
• China Pulls the Plug on YouTube…Again – Can you say "We shall overcome"?

Conficker has been reeking havoc on unpatched Windows machines for the last couple of months.  As I’ve mentioned before that’s because people don’t update on a regular schedule.  So those of us who get called in to deal with viruses (either in person or via phone) have our usual array of tools to clean up the machine.  One really easy way to tell if your computer has been infected with the Conficker worm is to go to the Conficker Eye Chart.  If you see all of the pictures you are safe, if not better download MalwareBytes.