Dell has just launched a developer focused laptop. The cool thing about this version is that it runs Ubuntu (linux) and is on a 13 inch laptop. (check out the hardware here) The article that I found regarding this was focused on the Sputnik project. I think this is a great start. I’m a fan of small portable computing and the Dell 13 inch laptop fits that bill. It is basically an ultrabook to compete with that MacBooks and Air.
The idea that you can get custom profiles from github is fantastic. Image this for .net developers. In the linux world you can get a LAMP stack and a ruby profile and be up an running as fast as your internet connection allows.
If I think about this logic, I can still participate on my VM image. I do most of my development inside a virtual machine for safety reasons. I can backup a VM image and not be worried about losing information.
As much as I like a small laptop I’m content with my new Thinkpad. With the new drive configuration I can be up and running in 20 seconds. The new Crucial SSD 128 Gig drive is blazing fast. I just updated my second drive to a 500 Gig 5400 rpm dive. I had a 350 7200 rpm drive. I just realized as I played with the second drive that the slower drive gives me more battery life. Especially if I don’t have to hit it for information. My setup has the SSD as primary OS and Applications and the Spinning media has the data
As a technology it uses public airwaves to send data. This concept works great when the data is suppose to be freely available. The success of this can be seen with radio and TV. People are able to receive or connect to these signals and use them. However, this freely available concept shifts when we are talking about wifi? Similar waves (not frequency) transmit your wireless signal for your computer or home network.
I’m not saying what Google did was ok or even the way they handled it. However, if I understand the technical side of this, the Google team was creating street view images (Google maps) and collecting as much data as possible to make the street view useful. This data included GPS location, images, signals (wifi) and other info. In the article they do a pretty good job of explaining that if you have Wifi it is your job to secure it and also disable broadcasting if you have an issue with others seeing your network. Not any different that the local TV station broadcasting on Channel 8 and I want to watch I need to tune to channel 8. If your WiFi is broadcasting on channel 1 and you broadcast your SSID (like my neighbor) I’m able to see that. If your wifi is open and I can connect, you as the wifi owner should take ownership.
Where the line is crossed is when people do inapproparate behavior, That is the creepy stuff and the snooping. But the idea that just listening or capturing data is illegal seems strange to me. I can walk down the sidewalk, open my iphone go to Wifi settings and see lots of wifi SSID’s broadcasted. I could screen capture and send them to a photo sharing site which shares GPS coordinates. Is that illegal?
I have been evaluating my broadband connection at home lately. I currently have a cable modem from Comcast. I’ve been a cable modem user since @home. There was short period where I had a $14 DSL line from yahoo but that did not last long.
We have recently had service issues in our area based on signal strength. In doing some research on options I ran across this little gem of a site. Connectmi.org offers an interactive map that lists services. I realize that dslreport does the same, but I like the interface.
I recently updated my laptop configuration and did some spring cleaning. It was time to re-install the tools and get the machine ready. I do most of my development in Virtual Machines (virtualbox) but I typically have Visual Studio on my local machine for ease of use.
I realized that there are a lot of coponents you have to instll to get VS to work the way you like. I remembered from a tech-ed conference last year that Scott Hanselman mentioned they were trying to make that process easier. He referenced the INSTALL EVERYTHING button on asp.net. So I decided to give that process a try. It was missing a few things, like the full version of VS2010 ultimate and other items, but I will walk you through my process.
NOTE: these steps all start after a fresh Win7 x64 install with patches.
1. Go to ASP.net/download and click the Install Now button. This will install a lot of the base elements. This will take a bit.
2. Install VS2010 (what every your version is) I have Ultimate. Since SQL express R2 was installed by the above installer the VS2010 package did not try to install it.
3. I then add the following from the web platform installer:
When done I have a pretty solid developer box ready with all the base tools. The next step will be to add onto this list (nuget). Most of the add-on’s are from Hanselmans Ultimate list and are too many to count. But for a base developer setup this gets me working fast.
A study shows that 61% of US households have wifi. The US is lower on the list 8th behind the UK and places like Germany. I thought that 61% is a pretty good number. From a security perspective I wonder what percentage of those users have an open network with no encryption of password. Is it 50% or less? Of those who have a wireless network how many have the default settings (username and password).
It is pretty easy to find that information, and I’m guessing many people purchase the blue plastic router and just turn it on. http://www.routerpasswords.com/ will allow you to find almost any make and model’s password.
Many people don’t take security seriously or just don’t know the risks of using technology with out security. Next time you are just out and about, turn on wifi on your phone and notice all the wireless networks around you. Take a note at the number that are open? I’ve noteced in the last few months that the open networks have decreased. However, I see a lot of WEP secured networks.
It seems every device you purchase has a web admin page. The little linksys router you purchased, the NAS storage device, your Linux box, etc… The trend is to have any type of appliance have this type of management tool. These tools allow the managemnt of these devices to be done by almost anyone. The challenge is that many people take these tools and accessibly too far. They don’t go the extra step to secure access to these admin tools.
The issue is not allowing non approved users to get to the admin page. Many people just plug these devices in and leave the default settings. It is not hard to figure out the default user name / password for these admin tools. (just Google linksys default password)
I have been at client sites where the business owner wants to have the router accessible remotely so they can do feature x or y. However, they just had the default username / password enabled. In most cases they had no issue in changing these settings or securing the device after I explained the issue. The problem, is that they did not know this before hand or had not worried about it before.
I have often been with group of people and need to share some type of wireless. Frequently I’ve used my phone (iPhone 4 – Jailbroken) and myWi (http://intelliborn.com/mywi.html). However, I have not recently jailbroke my phone after the last update.
The main reason I have ever jailbroke a phone was for this feature (a mobile hotspot). In the case where I do have a tethered device and have other people who need access I have started using virtual router – http://virtualrouter.codeplex.com/
Virtual router basically let’s you turn on internet sharing on your Windows machine and make it a hot spot. It is very simple and basic, but get’s the job done. I pair it with a ALFA USB WiFi AWUS036H wifi adaptor that gives me more range. This makes it possible to gather some distant signals.
If you are in a pinch, this tool is great to share wifi.
There are a few great posts on the web on how to speed up your phone. I won’t try to re-create them. I personally like the version from lifehacker and the few links they have related to Battery life and settings
Overall, the idea is to disable anything that is continuously talking or communicating to the web. Basically, notifications and location services.
I have not upgraded to a 4s yet, but a major reason I would make the change is for performance. My 4 is not the fastest thing at the moment. However, it is good enough. I have done a quick race with my wife and her 4s is quite faster.
I think I will have to drag myself to see this one. Check out the trailer below. I’m not sure if they will make it worth watching, but the preview makes it look good. I’ve been watching a log of biking movies lately. I’ve even re-watched a few old ones.
I am happy to say that my 13th wedding anniversary was this week. As always I get my wife a little gift and a card. Lately when I am in need of cards I have been creating my own. I’ve become pretty proficient with Photoshop (or the equivalent open source GIMP) and make my own. I like the idea of making something personal to give to people and also using my creative side. (I’m not really that creative). The other side effects of creating your own card are that people love the personal experience and it’s also cheaper.
Typically a card from the store is close to 3 or 5 dollars. I can create a printed card from the one hour photo lab for less than a buck. I’ve been getting more than one so I can keep an example.
I have started to learn more about photography while doing this. I find myself taking pictures that I know would look good on a card or a gift. It has made taking pictures fun. I’ve also learned that technical steps of printing pictures are a bit unknown to me. Things like DPI and resolution for photo sizes. If you are interested here is a great overview of DPI and resolution
Overall, creating cards has been both a creative outlet and also a technical learning experience. Since I do mostly development and have worked with a lot of great designers and creative people, it’s nice to experience their side of creativity.
I was in need of a top bar for a WordPress site to communicate news and updates to users. In doing some research there are a lot of options. I ended up settling on wp-topbar
This plugin is really easy to use and has some great features in the admin section. It allows you to set style and other granular items. I specifically like the wait time and the ability to add images right from the admin. One great little feature is the ability to preview the top banner in the admin section.
I finally purchased a new commuter bike. I ended up going with a Cadent i8 from Raleigh. The local bike shop I use Freewheeler was having a sale this week. They ended up giving me such a great deal. I’ve always been happy with their service and selection. If you are in the grand rapids area, stop over and check out the team.
I decided on the Raleigh because of the price and the weight. It is not often you can find a sub $1000 bike with an internal gear. In fact, it is almost impossible to find any used internal gears. The reason the bike is less than 1k is due to the use of the Shimano Nexus gear vs the Alfine. I’ve done some research and it sounds like the Nexus is pretty good. The main complaint I was able to read about was the fact that disc brakes were not compatible with the nexus. I’m not too worried about that. My intent is not to be a racer but to use as a commuter bike. I was able to get a few extras thrown into the deal and now have a rack to mount some panniers on.
When I started looking at bikes the internal gears appealed to me but I was worried about the weight. After finding the cadent I was surprised at the actual weight. I will have to get a true weight from it now that I have added a rack and some other items.
I have been using wordpress for a while now. It is one of the best content management systems I have used. Fully customizable and it has a great community of developers to help solve challenges. My favorite plug-in for wordpress is the contact form 7. Contact Form 7 is the most robust and configurable form tool that I have found for wordpress. Recently on a project that I am working on, I had the need to capture what page a person sends a message from. In the past I have used the “Special mail Tags” from the contact form 7 plug in. These special tags allow you to capture a few great elemtns (“page name, page id, url, etc..”) You can read more about these items here on the contact form 7 site.
The challenge with my recent site was that these items were not getting populated in the email. After a bit of digging (reading the bottom of the information site) I realized that they do not work when the form is used in the sidebar of a wordpress site.
As a work around I used the side bar to launch a popup page that I passed the page in the url. I then on the popup page could gather the page location from the url. I love it when you can find a work around for issues.
I’ve been eyeing up different commuter bike options. I have to say that there are a lot of options. I think my criteria narrowed down to an upright position like a mountain bike but some features of a road bike. Similar to a hybrid. There are a lot of bikes out there labeled as commuters or urban bikes, however they seem to come with a higher price tag. The items that I think make most sense is a rugged bike that can hop curbs and I can ride on rough sidewalks (yes I said sidewalks).
I view a commuter bike as a device to get to and from different locations. Currently my commuter is a beat up old Schwinn, and I love it. I’ve used my Fuji road bike a few times to ride to work but I’m always afraid of running it off road and through the sidewalk / grass.
So far I have had my eyes on a few bikes. At first I thought that an internal gear was the way to go. At the moment I’m unsure. I really only use about 3 gears currently on the mountain bike but I’ve heard mixed reviews on the 8 and 11 speed internal gear bikes. I have have only had a chance to ride an older internal gear bike and was not too impressed. What I like about internal gear bikes is the ease of maintenance. Riding every day can cause some heavy maintenance. here is a list of a few bikes I’ve been evaluating. I’ve only ridden about half of them. Most of the local bike stores carry a different version or model similar to what I want.
I am looking at gathering up enough cash to replace my commuter bike this spring. While I am a bit price sensitive, after reading this Wired article I think I could be convinced to spend some cash for this bike.
The string bike is built in Hungary and the writer likens this bike to the Wankel engine. I think the idea is great, I would love to try this bike out. I think the crazy crank configuration would be hard to get over.
Dell has just launched a developer focused laptop. The cool thing about this version is that it runs Ubuntu (linux) and is on a 13 inch laptop. (check out the hardware here) The article that I found regarding this was focused on the Sputnik project. I think this is a great start. I’m a fan of small portable computing and the Dell 13 inch laptop fits that bill. It is basically an ultrabook to compete with that MacBooks and Air. 
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