One feller's views on the state of everyday computer science & its application (and now, OTHER STUFF) who isn't rich enough to shell out for www.myfreakinfirst-andlast-name.com
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In 2005, a company called CyberTrustโwhich has since been purchased by Verizonโ gave Etisalat, the government-connected mobile company in the UAE, the right to verify that a site is valid. Here's why this is trouble: Since browsers now automatically trust Etisalat to confirm a site's identity, the company has the potential ability to fake a secure connection to any site Etisalat subscribers might visit using a man-in-the-middle scheme.
Etisalat doesn't exactly have a clean record when it comes to privacy. ... In July 2009, Etisalat abruptly announced a software update on all its BlackBerry customers. Described as a "network upgrade," the application in fact copied all messages written on the device to two private Etisalat e-mail addresses. Research in Motion distanced itself from this clumsy attempt at government spyware, ... providing a counter-app to remove the program.
This week in Jerusalem, two Israeli groups hoping to smite their online enemies, both domestic and foreign, began a course in the โZionist editingโ of Wikipedia entries.
... For example, [an organizer] said, โif someone searches [for] โthe Gaza flotilla,โ we want to be there; to influence what is written there, how itโs written and to ensure that it is balanced and Zionist in nature.โ
I knew the wikipedia wasn't neutral. It ca be easily dominated by guys on couches with nothing to do, if they're interested enough. Still, this puts an interesting face on the wikipedia's politics. And that's right; the wikipedia has politics if only through the sorts of speech and edits it enables -- and the editors it privileges.
posted by ruffin
at 8/28/2010 11:16:00 AM
In June, 2010, Simon & Schuster, inc., in conjunction with Expanded Apps, Inc., began publishing U-Ventures โโ books from the classic Choose Your Own Adventure series, written, adapted, revised, and expanded by Packard for downloading from the App Store at iTunes.
There's nothing that better represents the dark potential of capitalism than the reverse mortgage. Nothing keeps a prole a prole more confidently than an inability to create family wealth. And there's no better way to eliminate family wealth than to slowly take one's house away from them a brick at a time -- and tell them that it's a great way to ensure that they enjoy their twilight years.
Who tells folk to treat their houses like lottery payments? Well, there's the Fonz (Henry Winkler) and Fred Thompson. Okay, Winkler I can understand. After Arrested Development, it's almost in character. But someone who ran [sleepwalked] for president in the last election? Thank heavens he didn't win the nomination. Thompson's morals are more than questionable. It's questionable that they exist.
The chairman of PC maker Acer has predicted that Apple's iPad will drop to just 20 percent of the total tablet market when competing options are introduced, due to the 'closed platform' of the iOS operating system.
I'd take 20%. The big thing about being closed is that content providers are more likely to sign up. Hulu "Plus" or whatever it is, HBO and USA's apps, etc, these want the iPad to stay closed.
My real fear (even as a stockholder) isn't that the iPad will die if it stays closed, but (as an open standard advocate) that it'll succeed too well.
posted by ruffin
at 8/23/2010 06:13:00 PM
How to most easily encrypt text files on OS X to keep them at least a small step away from plain text? Here's a post on Encrypted text files on Mac OS X:
I finally stumbled onto a very simple solution tonight, vim. Vim is a text editor that was originally developed as vi for the Unix platform and has somehow managed to stave off death for over 30 years despite itโs draconian user interface. Amongst all the improvements and extensions over the years is the :X command. This encrypts the file you are working on with a password of your choosing.
Obviously using FileVault might be a better solution for what that guy wanted, but VIm seems a neat, very quick solution (and we'll ignore his "draconian" comment. And his misuse of "it's" ;^D). Though as that blogger is told in his comments, the VIm Wiki says that...
The algorithm used is breakable. A 4 character key in about one hour, a 6 character key in one day (on a Pentium 133 PC). This requires that you know some text that must appear in the file. An expert can break it for any key.
A 133! Heh. But it's all about barriers to entry. I wouldn't put classified info in a VIm encrypted file, but something you don't want someone playing on your computer to read just by opening, sure. Do note that the beginning of the file is "VimCrypt", which seems to sorta punch a hole in its usefulness.
This secured channel helps protect your search terms and your search results pages from being intercepted by a third party. This provides you with a more secure and private search experience.
Tigra Calendar is a free cross-browser JavaScript Calendar control, it improves the user experience by enabling a drop-down calendar for date fields in HTML forms.
It's public domain, even.
The biggest pain in the rear I had is that I wanted to move all of its files into a common directory, to keep the dir structure clean. To do this, I knew I needed to change the links in the <script> and stylesheet tags. I also had to change the "imgpath" attribute that belonged in the second optional parameter for the calendar display call.
It worked before I changed imgpath, but without the icon for the calendar. After I set imgpath, the icon was there, but no calendar function.
Turns out that the other params in the second array are all req'd if you use any of them. I've got the defaults in there for everything but the image path. Kinda a pain to have to slap in default values, but kinda not a pain at all to grab someone else's kewl kalendar, yo.
<!-- calendar attaches to existing form element --> <input type="text" name="testinput" /> <script language="JavaScript"> new tcal ({ // form name 'formname': 'testform', // input name 'controlname': 'testinput', }, { 'months': ["January", "February", "March", "April", "May", "June","July", "August", "September", "October", "November", "December"], 'weekdays': ["Su", "Mo", "Tu", "We", "Th", "Fr", "Sa"], 'yearscroll': true, 'weekstart': 0, 'centyear': 70, // images moved 'imgpath': 'includes/img/' });
</script>
Very nice.
Change from the "us" to the "db" version of the file to get yyyy-mm-dd, and you're off to the php/MySQL races.
EDIT: Guess I should add the script for the top. I move all the tigra files into a folder called "calendarIncludes" and slap that in some includes folder. Eg...
Look, we all love email. It's auditable, searchable, and potentially instantaneous.
The problem comes when those who live on email -- say administrative folk -- expect others to approach email the same way. There are jobs whose work is crippled by doing something else every 10 minutes. Let's reread Spolsky on the zone. If it takes me 15 minutes just to start working hard, and my job takes me a good 4-5 hours, it's against all of our interests to expect me to check email continually.
Let me rephrase for emphasis: Email's great because it potentially enables things to happen right now. But if you absolutely need something done right now, email's not the technology that ensures that it happens. We might not check for hours. We might not check until after hours. We might push checking our mailbox until tomorrow morning!
Potential does not equate to requirement. If I knew your email was life and death, I would've checked. Problem is, until I do check, I can't really tell the difference between your email and the latest and best way to sneak in another blue pill commercial past Google's spam filters.
The United Arab Emirates, long regarded as one of the most business friendly economies in the Middle East, announced Sunday that starting in October it will prevent BlackBerry owners from sending and receiving e-mail and other messages and browsing the Internet because the security-minded government cannot adequately monitor those features on the popular electronic devices. ... The deviceโs messenger service, which allows users to message other BlackBerrys for free, uses encrypted data that is processed through a Canada-based server.
I've always wondered why encrypted email never [yet] really caught on. Interesting to see that Blackberry, who is doing the Right Thing for privacy, is getting knocked around by UAE.
The EFF better have something to say about this, or I'm canceling my membership. (Or, more accurately, "Never sending them my first dime!" he said full of hyperbole.)
posted by ruffin
at 8/01/2010 08:49:00 PM
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