Jimiz.net – Jim Becher on the web

Today I had the need to go to MSDN and look up some information. I have not directly gone to MSDN for a while. when I opened up the site I got this banner bar across the top

It offered me the advise that I should use IE8 instead of my current browser (Firefox). The reason is that IE is Faster, Safer, and easier. I was amazed, I did not know IE8 was safer.

Then when I went to the root of MSDN I got this advertisement (POP over)

I find it hard to believe that IE is better than firefox, but I guess Microsoft thinks so.

— Update —
I just got another site with a different advertisement for ie8. This time I was using chrome.

As with any new device you wonder if you got the right version The iPad has 3G version is on it’s way. I opted not to get 3G. So far it has been great. I have used my iPhone as a tether, to have wifi at all times. The MyWi application is great. You just setup your own hotspot.

http://www.rockyourphone.com/index.php/mywi.html?feat=y

This is a good option if you are unsure of which option to get

So far the iPad has been a great hit in our home. From remote access, browsing the web, email and movies. I have only good things to say about this device.

Inside the comfort of my own home I know my connection is safe. However, when I venture out to public wifi or a coffee shop, I cannot be a comfortable with the network security. When using my laptop at a public wifi I normally use SSH or a VPN to secure my connection. I will show you a quick how-to on using VPN on you iPad to get a secure connection when using a public hotspot.

To use a VPN client on your iPad you will need a VPN server somewhere. I use DDWRT as a vpn server at my home. It has a built-in PPTP VPN server. The iPad supports (PPTP, IPSec, and L2TP).

Thankfully the iPad has a built in VPN client. To access the settings for this you will need to go into settings | general | network.

Under your network settings you can find vpn connections. In this section you can turn on vpn, view the status of a connection, add a connection or edit a connection. We will be adding a connection:

Next you select “Add Vpn Connection”. Select PPTP, L2TP, or IPSec. For each type of vpn you have different options:
PPTP:

L2TP:

IPsec (cisco):

Once you have setup your vpn connection you only need to go back to the setting page (network / vpn) to enable the vpn connection. You then can view the status and be connected or browsing through your VPN tunnel. In the image below I can connected to my home VPN and have an IP of 192.168.2.200.

Happy secure browsing. Remember to still take precautions when in a public location and using any type of secure sites.

So far I really like this device. I’m writing this post on it. My wife and kids love it. The wife watched a full movie on netflix (only used 13% of battery).

What I do like is how iPhone apps can run and there is a cool 2x button that allows you to make it almost full screen. It magnifies it.

I can’t wait for more apps or apps to add an iPad version. Right now I am missing a cheap or free ssh client or an rdp / vnc client.

Netflix rocks. Wife said it was better than watching on a laptop, I agree.

The kindle app is good. I still like stanza better, but there is not an iPad version yet.

Craigslist is better than the actual site. Even with some bugs.

So my feelings are that this is a great web browsing tool. Safari has been working great.

I was fortunate enough this morning to have an iPad delivered. It showed up around 10:10 AM. The UPS driver has 8 on his truck. He mentioned that it was the reason they were out today.

So far it has been interesting to hear all the hype by the news media. I have un-boxed and downloaded the new iTunes. I should have done that earlier. I have been ignoring the media about the iPad to make my own opinions.

I did do a quick search online to determine the best apps for this device. So far the best list I have seen is at Gizmodo : http://gizmodo.com/5507569/gizmodos-essential-ipad-apps

I’ll have to post some updates as the day goes on. It is interesting, my wife is excited as well. New toy at the house.

If you have been living in the woods or maybe have not read the paper or have internet access you might have missed all the hype about the iPad. I am really interested in how this device will work, can’t wait to get my hands on one. I’m not going to be crazy like these people
http://grandrapids.craigslist.org/sys/1670903531.html (750 seems a bit high)

However, I will get one. I am still looking for one mobile device (this is not that device) but it is closer to what I am looking for. So far in my quest for the best device I have only one machine that can even be on the list (My ThinkPad). Though I have had many close encounters. My Iphone is great (fits a problem I have) mobile email and communication. I purchased a netbook to use around the house (under the couch) when I wanted to surf. The problem was it did not have a long enough battery and the screen was too small. I ended using my macbook more than the netbook.

WHY: So why the iPad. First, I think it is a great device. Easy on (this is important). It can surf the web, I know because I do this enough on my iphone. The iPad will allow you to use ebooks (some may disagree, but I have not bought a kindle yet and this may have more features).

WHO: I think the initial users of the iPad may be Apple lovers and those who need gadgets (or want gadgets). The others will use it similar to a tablet, note taking, surfing, all around connected device.

In reality, it is not much different than the old PDA or Palm Pilots. It will have your contacts, calendar, and info (and a lot more). I can remember a Palm III costing at least 300 bucks.

As with the iPhone I can already see this being jail broke, hacked, and modded. Time will tell if the iPad is a success or just another Segway.

I use SSH a lot. I use it for secure surfing at coffee shops (SSH secure browsing) This keeps people from watching / sniffing what I am doing on public wifi. I also use it to keep in contact with people (IRC) and access to files at home.

In some locations I am unable to get an SSH (port 22) connection out of a firewall. In these instances, I use ajaxterm . It is a web based terminal window.

I recently updated my linux box and had to re-install this wonderful tool. I followed the quick install (sudo apt-get install ajaxterm). After the quick install the app worked but did not run as I liked it. I wanted to run this under https.
I followed the guided install at https://help.ubuntu.com/community/AjaxTerm.

However I will add these instructions to complete the install. If you have not used ssl on your machine and follow the instructions above you may get “Invalid command ‘SSLEngine’, perhaps misspelled or defined by a module not included in the server “.

This is due to not having run “sudo a2enmod ssl” which adds the ssl module to apache.
I then ran into : “SSLCertificateFile: file ‘/etc/apache2/ssl/apache.pem’ does not exist”
To correct this issue I had to generate the default certificate for the machine.

Code:
sudo apt-get install ssl-cert
sudo mkdir /etc/apache2/ssl
sudo make-ssl-cert /usr/share/ssl-cert/ssleay.cnf /etc/apache2/ssl/apache.pem

After these simple steps, I am up and running on Ajaxterm over ssl. So I can quickly connect to my home machine from any web browser.

I don’t mind helping family and friends with computer problems. It is time consuming, but I have realized that I can’t just ignore helping them. From the simple things where they have changed the font on Firefox to tiny and can’t switch it back, to their machine has crashed. What I have found is that it is really easy to educate them and once you help them and teach them the number of issues goes down.

The best way I have found to help remote users is to screen share with them. I have used many methods to take over remote machines, but lately I have been using CrossLoop. (www.crossloop.com). They have a free version that you can download.

Basically the I install the application and the person who needs help installs the application. When they need support and give me a call I ask them to install, then when it is installed and running select the SHARE option and give me the code. Once this is done I can remote control their machine.

This little gem of an application basically uses VNC in a controlled system to allow use through a firewall. If you ever need to help your family members, give it a try.

My trusty linux box at home needed to be reloaded. The hardware had run it’s course so I now have my linux system using a Dell Zino HD small formfactor PC. (DELL ZINO)

I do enjoy the process of reloading linux. I am currently using Ubuntu 9.10. The first thing I do after installing ubuntu is install SSH and set a few config changes (PermitRoot = no). SSH allows me to access the machine from anywhere. After that I add my favorite program DenyHosts. (DenyHosts)

DenyHosts is a security application that monitors the “/var/log/secure” log. If it sees suspicious activity it will add the IP address to the /etc/hosts.deny file.
This is a great simple security app that keeps bad people away.

It is worth a read to hear how DenyHosts was created and what motivated the developer to write the application (HackTale)

My wife’s laptop decided to be unreliable. I took the opportunity to upgrade her to a new computer. As with many items I am attempting to keep things portable. So we are upgrading her from a 15 inch Toshiba laptop that I purchased in 2007 for ($400) to a 13 inch HP Dm3-1130. I chose the HP for 2 reasons; size and price.

Of all the 13.1 inch laptops out there this was the most reasonable in terms of price. It has the AMD vision processor (though I’m not a fan of AMD). A very nice aluminum / brushed case that is really small. The price was hard to beat, $499 for a 13.1 inch laptop is pretty hard to find. The purchasing experience was interesting. I had been looking for a deal both online and locally, when I found this at officemax. Two of the 3 local stores did not carry it. When I did find it, the sales team was very admit that I needed an external mouse, and many other accessories / software if I purchased this machine. I am guessing they are suggested to offer these items to anyone purchasing a computer. However, that process of telling a computer shopper that they need to purchase software or other items makes me angry.

So far (day 2) the machine is great. I had to (decrapify) the computer but I was expecting that. The little guy has a great keyboard, fun to type on. The machine has no DVD or CD-rom drive. Not having a media drive is just fine with me, we don’t have any CD’s or DVD’s anymore. So far the battery life has been as expected 4 plus hours. It is now loaded with Windows 7 (x64) and has pretty good performance.

Overall, this will be my wife’s primary laptop that she takes with her and uses at home. I HP did a great job on this laptop.

I recently had the need to reload two machines and get them ready to re-use or resell. I have many copies of XP and started to look for the install CD. After not finding the CD, and being too lazy to burn one from an ISO file, I started thinking why did I need cds / DVDs for install. My linux LIVE disk and install are all on USB thumb drives. Why couldn’t I make USB drive that had my install media for XP, vista , and Windows.

After a little searching I found some methods that use “Bart PE” and some other slipstream ideas. It looked like I would be able to create a one use USB drive (XP or Vista) but not all versions.

I ended up using (WintoFlash) to create my bootable USB drive. I only tried this with XP but it mentioned that it works with other versions of windows.

I am now armed with a XP rescue USB that I can re-install an OS.

I use windows media center on my home theater / basement Projector. Thanks to the wonderful message I got from Comcast that my area is going all digital, I won’t be able to use my system much longer.

1st on my Media center / TiVo I lost the channel data (comcast no longer provides this to analog users) I have preferred basic
2nd – they are making me get a Digital cable box to use (has it’s own remote, and does the channel changing)
3rd – as far as I know there are not any options with a tuner card that will do or contain a cable card (since I have 2 tuners – I would need two of them)
- here is a quick post list of options with the DTA http://getsatisfaction.com/comcast/topics/using_pc_tv_card_and_windows_media_center_with_comcast_digital_tv_converter_box

I am a bit angry at comcast for this change. I get the new and improved service, but what about us techies and people using newer technology.

I decided that I should do a post on what I have been doing.   First and foremost I have been spending more time with my family.  Three girls make life fun.   

I have also been training more and running more often.  Running gives me time to think and if I run on the treadmill I get more time to watch movies.    The most recent movie was War Games 2 – (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0865957/). 

I love Netflix and use that in conjunction with my Media Center 7 system when I am running.  Media center makes recording TV (soccer) and watching Netflix really simple.

In my sparse spare time I have been attempting to sell almost all my old computer parts / stuff on craigslist.  I have made it a game that I try to sell something each week and pay for gas.  During the evenings I attempt to read some, recently I have finished 3 of the James Bond collection (Thunderball, From Russia with love, and Devil May Care ).   Another great title I have been reading and need to finish is O’Reilly – Inside Cyber Warfare.

Here is an interesting article from Mark Cuban. He is discussing the NBCUniversal/Comcast deal and Al Franken. I was reading my RSS feeds and came across this post from Mark. It got me thinking on 1. the future of media (cost) 2. how legislation could inadvertently change how and what media we get.

It is worth the read.

http://blogmaverick.com/2010/02/24/senator-al-franken-is-requesting-user-caps-on-internet-bandwidth/

I mainly develop inside of a virtual server / application. In the last year I have been using Virtualbox instead of Virtual PC. I have a base image that I use as a testing machine. It is a base Windows XP image. I recently discovered that I could save some disk space by using a few commands to shrink / compact the vdi file.

To do this you will need to install a small application Nullfile (http://www.feyrer.de/g4u/nullfile-1.02.exe) This allows the empty disk space / unused data bytes to be filled with zero-bytes. You can read more about this at (feyrer.de/g4u/)

Once you have the file copy it to your Virtual Image. Run a disk defrag on your Virtual box system. After running a few defrags, you now need to just run the nullfile.exe. You only need to doubleclick the .exe.

Once the file is done, shut down your virtual image.
Open a command prompt and navigate to the directory where your vdi file is located. Mine is c:\vpc

Once in that directory we will be running the vboxmanage utility. On my Windows 7 pc it is located at C:\Program Files\Sun\VirtualBox\VBoxManage.exe

Here is the command we will be using modifyhd -compact

“C:\Program Files\Sun\VirtualBox\VBoxManage.exe” modifyhd -compact “c:\vpc\BaseXP.vdi”

Once this was completed my virtual image went from 4.3Gig to 2.7Gig.

Have fun with this utility. I was able to shrink my typical Windows 2008 server image to a much smaller size.