This has been a great book so far. Not only is Kevin a very sociable person but he is a very entertaining writer. His stories are amazing. To think that he left some out.
http://www.amazon.com/Ghost-Wires-Adventures-Worlds-Wanted/dp/0316037702
Watch is interview with Snubs on Hak5. “23 Questions with Kevin Mitnick”
I was watching some CES news and ran across a new gadget that I would like to purchase. It looks like I’ll have to wait till March for this one. Only $50 dollars. It is called feedair.
I have tried in the past to use the Ambient orb to get something like feedair to work. Weather forecasts, information, etc… I think I even wanted something like pointcast to be delivered to my TV. I can’t wait to see what I cn program to be delivered on this.
Here is a tutorial on how to setup SARG (http://sarg.sourceforge.net/) – Squid Analysis Report Generator on Pfsense. If you don’t know what any of those words meant then here are some references.
I have recently setup a Pfsense router / firewall to replace my old “blue plastic” router that was purchased at the big box location. This solution has been working great. It has been in place for over a week and I have been adding configuration settings to it. One of the great tools included in this router is the ability to add packages. In particular one of the packages is SQUID. A proxy tool that can help monitor web traffic and also speed up performance.
I have used SQUID in the past and know it’s benefits and also issues. One great benefit is reports on web usage and traffic. The pfsense implementation also has a package for reporting on squid called lightsquid. Lightsquid is ok, but not my favorite tool for displaying information. I would rather use SARG. So I began to do a few searches and found some outdated information and ways to configure SARG. From these searches (NOTE: Most of the info below I was able to find from other forum posts)
Install SARG on pfsense
pkg_add -r ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/ports/i386/packages-8-stable/Latest/nano.tbz
pkg_add -r ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/ports/i386/packages-8-stable/Latest/sarg.tbz
cd /usr/local/etc/sarg/ cp sarg.conf.default sarg.conf nano sarg.conf
#Locatoin of log files - from pfsense settings access_log /var/squid/log/access.log title "Squid User Access Reports - SARG" graphs yes graph_days_bytes_bar_color orange #LOCATION of WEB PAGES output_dir /usr/local/www/squid-reports #Display usernames or IP resolve_ip no #Sort Order topuser_sort_field BYTES reverse user_sort_field BYTES reverse
cd /usr/local/bin chmod +x sarg
#crontab -e 01 * * * * root /usr/local/bin/sarg
Here are some example reports: (ip’s blocked to protect the innocent )
LANDING PAGE
DAILY REPORT
INDIVIDUAL USERID (IP)
GRAPH OF INDIVIDUAL
I prefer SARG because of the graphs and the look and fee. Let me know if you have any preference on reporting systems.
I recently purchased an ip camera for the house. I have wanted one for a long time and finally made a purchase. The reason for the camera was to monitor the kids and also the garage. The camera I purchased was a dlink DCS-930L. It was on sale at Best Buy for about $55.
The reason I chose this camera was for the price. There are many more expensive camera that allow for Dark viewing (LED) and also pan and tilt. This is an entry level IP camera and has limited resolution.
With that said, this is a great camera. I am planning on adding it to my garage where I can view the kids and any motion detection. Currently the camera is sitting in the bay window that is viewing the new construction of the house next door.
The camera comes with a great application to use called mydlink.com it allows you to access yor camera from anywhere even on your phone. A neat feature I have found is that it also streams audio as well as video. Nothing is better than using it when away to have the kids share with you what they are up to.
I have also paired it up with my linux server and a software package called zoneminder. Zoneminder is a security camera package that allows you to monitor multiple cameras. It allows you to set motion detection. I currently have it set to record when motion detection happens.
My wife went to a seminar today and came back with a good idea. That she and I should have an emergency contact card in our wallet. She also mentioned an ICE contact for our phones. I had not heard of ICE contacts, “In Case of Emergency” – here is a quick blurb from lifehacker – How to add an ICE contact to your phone
After some research I came up with a format for us to have a business card size emergency contact for us to carry. I used the Microsoft Word template called “pocket emergency contact reference.” You can download the template from the Microsoft office site
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/templates/pocket-emergency-contact-reference-TC030001514.aspx
It is a quick and easy way to make an emergency contact card. I created one to put in my wallet, backpack, and bike bags. I typically carry my ID when I bike, but this would be valuable as well.
This new year I plan on blogging more. For one reason, it is a good stress relief. The other reasons revolve that I like to do it.
To make the process easier I plan on utilizing Windows live writer. The reason for using live writer is the simple ease of use and great layout functions it allows. I currently use WordPress as my blog engine. It is fantastic and I can’t say enough about this blog engine. However, I find that writing in the small text window is difficult when attempting to add a lot of content.
Live Writer is basically a scaled down word processor. It works seamlessly with WordPress and give you the ability to do offline writing. I have used it in the past but did not make blogging that much of a priority.
Here is a great overview of live writer from PCworld
In more recent weeks I have noticed a trend of blogs to start using livewriter as the editor. You can see the increase from builtwith.com trends
See this chart of how it has increased usage.
Since my last post I have been getting email and real life comments from people about using headphones while biking. So far my back of the napkin calculation is that it’s 60/40. 60% of those I talk to say it’s OK, and 40% are concerned.
It is all over the map in regards why people are either for or against. I’ve found that the majority of people who are worried about using headphones while biking are mainly concerned about the ability to hear or notice the surrounding environment. The ones who are set about using headphones are always cautious to say that it should not be too loud. Though I have not heard anyone say what "too loud" is.
Overall, anyone who discusses this with me is always concerned about safety. I was reading my favorite bike magazine (urbanvelo.com) and came across this link to bicycling magazine to an article called "Is it safe to ware headphones while cycling."
http://bicycling.com/blogs/ramblingman/2011/12/21/is-it-safe-to-wear-headphones-while-cycling/
The article is by Neil Bezdek. He does a good job discussing the topic in regards to other items like hearing issues, distractions, the pure feeling of a long ride, and the temptation to compare this with wearing a helmet. I found the article is similar to some of the conversations I have had about headphones and biking. What really struck me were the comments.
Take some time and read through everyone’s responses. Again, I was shocked at how similar the responses were to the discussions I have had regarding this topic.
So what is your opinion or thoughts? Do you use headphones while cycling? Only on the bike path, not on the streets?
There is a fantastic photo that shows all the statistics of what is happening on he web every 60 seconds. The article is title “Incredible Things That Happen Every 60 Seconds On The Internet” The internet is so vast that everyday people use it for so much. Imagine when you extrapolate that 60 seconds for the entire day. The youtube videos, status updates, photos… there is so much.
Just amazing. 70 plus domains registered, 168Million emails, 694,445 google search queries, 370k calls on skype, 695,000 status updates and more.
I am a fan of Hak5. I’ve been watching them for a few years now. Darren and Shannon do a great job with a show for tech lovers. “Your Daily dose of techno-lust”. Recently Paul, who runs their AV and does all the behind the scenes work did a segment on what is used to record the show. I’ve always been an AV geek at heart. This is good to watch.
If you have never seen hak5 head on over to hak5.org or revision3.com/hak5
I am not a designer. In fact, I’m pretty bad with design. However, I can tell when something looks good. It is just my way of saying I appreciate good design, I just suck at it. Here is a great video showcasing how design (brands) work. This is great work done by Erica Gorochow
The Fundamental Elements of Design from Erica Gorochow on Vimeo.
It is that time of the year. I love Christmas. I just realized at work that the the only pictures of the kids I have are getting pumpkins and a Christmas tree (multiple years). Yesterday we went and got the tree. It is always a fun event, and we have had snow each year we go. We have been going the same place for the last 6 years. (buy local 
In the spirit of things we have been listening to Christmas songs since ThanksGiving (my kids love them). But here are a few of my favorites:
These are songs that I’ve just enjoyed for a while.
1. Merry Christmas from the Family (REK) – Fun song
2. Merry Christmas from the family (MG) – just a fun twist
3. Dido (Christmas Day)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7heCppIC0_E&feature=related
4. Dave Matthews (Christmas Song) Live
5.
Every year I take the opportunity to do some winter cleaning on my computer systems. Clean up directories, remove unused applications, and backup. I typically choose Black Friday for this event because I can run out and get cheap storage (Hard Drives). Last year I purchased 2 portable drives and an internal drive.
This year, I did not want to go out early. So I spent the morning cleaning our computer systems and then headed out and purchased a few High Capacity SD cards. I got 8, 16 and 32 gig cards. Different manufacturers. The 16 I intend to use in our camera so it was the higher speed. The other 2 I plan on using for an “ON PC” backup.
I have many backup strategies for our home documents and photos, but I am adding a new one this year. I have done this in the past at work with my personal documents but not at home.
Since we are almost exclusively laptops at our house I setup jobs to backup the home directory documents to the SD cards. This does a sync that makes it easy to store on the SD card. The actual directory and photos are sync’d every night to our backup server, but this is just a quick fail-safe. I’m not sure how well it’s going to work, but the intent is to have a quick copy to pull back from of critical documents.
On my SD card I used truecrypt to create a volume and store information encrypted. Overall it is working OK. I will have to update this post as I progress.
Remote PC support has come a long way. It used to be a long phone call and people would explain what they were seeing. Then we added remote desktop sharing tools like VNC. Now many sites and applications have these features. I have discussed remote desktop sharing / support apps before - http://jimiz.net/blog/2008/07/open-source-applications/
Since then I have tried many versions. Go2MyPC, webex, livemeeting, dimdim, view, and many more. Recently on a family support call I decided to try two new ones. I have recently been using go2assist (from citrix) however I decided to let my subscription run out and go back to open source.
Two players in this space. join.me – a simple web site to allow you to share your screen. It was simple to use but not as intuitive as I would have liked.
I ended up using Microsoft’s SharedView. Since I already had a live /hotmail account and so did my family member who needed help the requirments to use this tool were already set.
They basically went to http://connect.microsoft.com/site94 downloaded the application and ran the 3 step install.
After it is installed you can run the app and get a tool bar on the top of your screen. Steps are simple. Login, start or joine a session. I was able to walk them through starting a session and quickly join them via email address in about 1 min. If you are starting the meeting you just click the start a new session and you are presented with a link to email or a password to share (SIMPLE)
Thank you Microsoft for this great tool. It is not as clean ad go2assist but very practical.
Figure 1
I updated all devices at our house today. Ipads, iPhone 4, and iPhone 4s. Everyone now has ios 5 and all devices are backed up and have iCloud working. If you have not ever heard of all the “i” things can you imagine what I just said. Before the iPhone people did not even know what an app was… now we talk in clouds, sync, and siri.
If you are interested in cutting the cord and syncing with wifi here is a quick tutorial. We have many iOS devices in our house. I sync a few with my computer and a few with my wife’s. Our media server (windows media server) holds almost all the songs and videos. We just map a drive (that is a topic for another day). However the use of wifi sync is great. I have consolidated to the media server to be the itunes primary for a few devices. This allows for that machine to always run itunes (in the startup folder) and the devices to just connect to it via wireless.
Figure 2
To set this up you first have to enable wi-fi sync. Plug in your device and select the summary tab of your iOS device. Add a check box to the options area to “sync this iPad over Wi-Fi”. (figure 1)
Once you have done this the basics are complete. Your next step is to connect your iphone or iPad to a power outlet and watch it sync over wifi. You need the iOS devices to be on the same wifi network as the computer that has iTunes. NOTE: also the computer should have iTunes already running before the sync will happen.
I’m not sure of why the device needs to be plugged in, but that is needed. Here is the screen from your iOS device (figure 2)
Here is a great video tour of Artprize 2011 from people in the crowd. What a great video.
The Art of Inspiration from Bill Bergen on Vimeo.
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