General

Working from a coffee shop (what is too much)

It sounds like Starbucks is starting to see an issue with people camping out all day at their stores and using it as their office.  I’m guessing these Laptop warriors are purchasing one drink and staying all day. ARTICLE: http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-20087817-71/has-starbucks-had-enough-of-laptop-loungers/?tag=TOCmoreStories.0 I’ve done my time in coffee shops and used it as an office but it’s normally a half-day event and I purchase …

Read more

Commuting to Work on Bike

I’ve been commuting to work on my bike this last week. It has been great. The car was in the shop so I finally had a reason to commute. I’ve been planning on doing it but never was motivated enough to start the process. This last week I did not have a car so I had to. It turned out to …

Read more

US Soccer (world cup)

The us women’s soccer team is doing great. Tonight they beat France to head to the world cup finals. It was a great match to watch 3-1. I love to see the US do well in soccer. The prior game against Brazil was just amazing. Being a player down and then going the full overtime and extended time to tie the …

Read more

Secure your home network – Block sites – OpenDNS

I get all types of security questions from home users.  How do I secure my wireless so people can’t use it?  How can I make sure people can’t steal files on my computer?  How can I keep the kids from going to sites they are not suppose to be on? For the last one, how to secure and block sites I recommend OpenDNS. …

Read more

Old tube

I don’t often head over to youtube and just watch shows.  I typcically find a podcast or something that leads me to youtube.  But today, I was thinking of a song and just typed in the only few words I could remember and got it on youtube.  So, today I’m a youtube fan. Here are a few of the random songs …

Read more

High Resolution Laptop

I am very pleased with my newer T410 laptop.  The only complaint I have found is the resolution.  It is set to 1280 x 800, which is not bad. It is a wide screen but not too high of a resolution.  I was used to a T61 with a 1680×1050 resolution WSXGA+.   It is amazing how you can miss that real …

Read more

Cell phones – of the past

As I was looking at an old cell phone that my kids use a a toy, I have realized that I’ve owned a lot of mobile phones.   Here is a quick look in my phone history: OKI 1300 series (Circa 1995) :  This was my first phone and my first cell phone.  I took my first job interview on this …

Read more

Secure your iPhone or iPad – Hack your data

I am always interested in how secure my devices are? Is my data safe, can people get to my info, am I at risk of giving out any private information. The iPhone /iPad has proven to be pretty secure if you take precautions. Lock your screen and keep sensitive data out of the clear. The one interesting item you can hack …

Read more

Migrate FileZilla ftp info (Not Secure)

I use Filezilla as my main FTP client. It is a wonderful tool for ftp, ftps, scp (sftp) and other transfer protocols. I am getting a new laptop and needed to transfer / backup my settings. I have a lot of sites stored and did not want to go looking for all the username and password information. Filezilla allows you to …

Read more

Jailbreak iOS 4.3.2 – iPhone 4

So today I updated my iPhone to 4.3.2 and Jailbroke it again.   I always get asked why I jailbreak.  The simple answer is because I like to hack devices.  The more to the point reasons are the cool customizations.  The business reason is simple, MyWi it allows me to make the device a wifi hotspot and always have internet where ever …

Read more

Permanent MTU settings for PPP0 ubuntu

I have a few servers that I help maintain or use for VPN access.  I have found on a few machines that when I use VPN to secure my connection at a coffee shop or any other public WiFi that some sites will not load.  I have seen this issue before when using PPTP but had never taken the time to …

Read more

Vibram 5 fingers and barefoot running – Part 2

To follow up on my first post regarding Vibram 5 fingers, I’ve got a lot of feedback.  People asking how long it took to get used to the shoes.  How do they feel on my feet, do they hurt toes.   Someone even asked about the press that barefoot running is bad for you.  (runningbarefootisbad). I’ll try to give feed back …

Read more

Netflix Streaming and bandwidth

I’m a network abuser. I use my internet connection for everything. VPN access when at any public wifi location (VPN ddwrt). I also use it for Streaming movies on netflix, backup for my data (mozy, dropbox, rsync for business data) and just general browsing. So overall I am using a lot of data. When comcast put their 250GB limit in place …

Read more

Vibram 5 fingers and barefoot running

— UPDATE: Part 2 A few years back, while in Holland during the summer I ran into an old friend on the beach. He was with his kids and they had long boards and were walking down the beach. My friend was wearing the strangest shoes. I had never seen shoes with toes on them. That was the first time I …

Read more

Browsers and more browsers (IE9, Firefox 4, and chrome)

What browser do you use. I’m a chrome user. Have been for about a year. The features that draw me to chrome are the very simple view with tabs, easy search by the address bar, and sync of the bookmarks. Also, did I mention speed. These great features that set chrome apart are not part of both IE9 and the new …

Read more