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Exploring Twitter

At a glance Twitter appears to be just like status updates in Facebook, but with none of the other junk. Just plain text from your friends and those you decide to follow. Doh! I should have been doing twitter all along and ignoring Facebook.

If you care, I am scottdavidnolan on Twitter. I will NOT be reflecting my tweets here, as I like preserving blog space for more detailed writing, and I’ll tweet simple one liners there.

I am experimenting with Twitterific and Twitter’s own iOS apps (iPhone and iPad) and the website on my Mac.

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2011 09 27 snolan Blogging
Fun
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Bring Your Own Devices Policies and Thin Client Technology

This is an interesting trend, and with the availability of thin clients and server hosted desktops (eg: VMware OpenView) it is possible to let employees use their own laptops yet never have any corporate data on them, as the data can stay on the desktop server in the data center.

More Offices Let Workers Choose Their Own Devices (NY Times)

Sun tried to do this with thin clients a few years ago, but wireless networking technology was not as robust then, and when the device is tied to a physical cable it does not work as well.

Imagine the improved security if the laptop you used for work never actually had any corporate data on it, but instead only had virtual private network (VPN) links and a thin client to access a virtual desktop in the company data center where all your files and work data lived. If your laptop got stolen, the VPN keys on it could be marked invalid at the server side, and the only loss is the physical laptop – no data lost at all.

Imagine the greater comfort and usability if users could pick their preferred laptop and install the software they liked, because whatever is running on their laptop cannot get to the virtual desktop with their pristine corporate information. Security officers and users both happier and perhaps more productive, and risk analysts are probably jumping for joy.

I’d also wager more people pick Apple and Alienware devices.

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2011 09 26 snolan Computer Security
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Deleted Facebook Account

Tired of being treated horribly I deleted my Facebook account. I’ll miss folks, but it just was not worth it anymore.

2011 09 22 snolan Blogging
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Comcast without a box

Comcast has finally completely cut off analog TV feeds, requiring their customers with only analog tuners to:
1) buy a digital tuner converter
2) rent one of the horrible Comcast tuner boxes
3) replace analog TVs with digital TVs that can tune in the few digital channels Comcast still feeds (for how long?)
4) cancel service entirely and just go without, or get digital tuner and antenna

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2011 09 22 snolan Local
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Spreadsheet Foo in Numbers

For those of you with Numbers ’09 (usually part of iWork ’09) who want the functionality of Excel Pivot-Tables in your Numbers spreadsheets, check out Table Categories in Numbers:

MacMost Now 478: Pivot Tables in iWork 09 Numbers

Gary has perhaps the best layman’s explanation of Pivot Tables and how you can effectively accomplish the same result without a separate table using Table Categories in Numbers.

While iWork Numbers doesn’t have true pivot tables, you can get similar results using Table Categories. This feature lets you group data together in various ways to reveal the same summaries that you can get with pivot tables.

Sadly MacMost is still Adobe Flash based, so I had to watch it in Chrome as I disable OS based Flash on my Macs

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2011 09 10 snolan Computers Comments (0) Permalink

Where are the jobs bills?

Republicans have controlled congress for the past 8 months; yet there is not even one attempted jobs bill nor even one attempted bill to try ending the recession.

They have not even tried and been vetoed or rejected in the Senate… they simply have not tried. Clearly Republicans, at least the ones in office now, are not interested in ending the recession nor putting Americans back to work.

Will Americans try a new congress in the next election?

2011 09 06 snolan Economics
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Computer and Browser Security Alert

DigiNotar is a Dutch certificate authority that has been a trusted source of computer and web security certificates for several years; but they have issued several fraudulent certificates including certificates for the domains of Google, GMail, Yahoo!, Mozilla, WordPress. Pretty much all the web browser companies and operating systems providers are scrambling to revoke the fraudulent certificates which can be used for man-in-the-middle attacks on GMail, Google Apps, WordPress and the like.

I strongly urge you to update your Operating System to the latest patched version and to update each and every web browser you use to the latest patched version and to take additional steps to search for and invalidate DigiNotar certificates that are on pretty much every computer on the planet because they have been trusted for so long.

WikiPedia has an excellent description of the issue here:
DigiNotar in WikiPedia

AFP548 has a really good description also, and it is here:
AFP548 Alert about Diginotar

Some of the best instructions are here, including command line for those who must do this on many computers:
Protecting Your Mac From the DigiNotar.nl Certificate Compromise

For Mac OS X users of Leopard (10.5) and newer, this is pretty easy:

  1. Go to the Applications folder, then the Utilities folder and open Keychain Access.
  2. While in Keychain Access, click in the search box in the upper right-hand corner of the window and type “Diginotar”.
  3. If there are any items found, select the All Items category in the sidebar on the left.
  4. Select the certificate named “DigiNotar Root CA”.
  5. Go to the Edit menu and select Delete.
  6. Enter your admin authentication when the Authorization Services dialog box pops up.
  7. NOTE: The certificate may not disappear from the Keychain access window immediately. It is in fact deleted from the system, however. To refresh the view, re-type “diginotar” into the search field at the top of the window.

I do not yet have instructions for doing this in Windows nor Linux, but they should be available through a google search soon. Also, most vendors are making patches and certificate removal of the fraudulent certificates a priority, and eventually there will be patches or updates available for all systems.

Update: Here is one set of instructions for Firefox on Linux, BSD, or even Windows: How to delete DigiNotar CA Certificate. I am sure there are similar steps for any other web browser on any operating system.

Update2: Apple has released Security Update 2011-005 to address this issue now.

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2011 09 05 snolan Computer Security Comments (0) Permalink

Week of Rain in the Forecast…

Guess it’s a good time to buy some grass seed and over seed the bare spots in the yard.

Also a good time to clean gutters and make sure drain tile is connected to down spouts and is clear of debris.

2011 09 05 snolan House
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Initial iPad Setup

A beloved relative recently asked me for help setting up their new iPad 2, and I responded initially with a long email that detailed how to first update iTunes on their Mac and then plug in and update the iPad itself. I went on to have them grab three free apps and a free book from the app store as an exercise in how to search the app store, “purchase” a free app, download it to iTunes on the computer, and install it to the iPad. Then I told them how to set up Wi-Fi networking to connect to their own home network to start enjoying the iPad. Everything was written at a basic level so even non-computer users could do the tasks and build some iPad skills.

It occurred to me that it might be worthwhile to share the steps in case others have non-techie relatives who want to make this stuff work.

Continue reading ›

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2011 08 09 snolan Computers
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Virginia State Elections, 2011

Here is what I have found out about my choices so far for the November 8th General Election (all state delegates, many state senators, and many local county and city offices up for election):

I am in a new House of Delegates district because of the 2010 U.S. Census and redistricting, the new district is the 87th and because it is new there is no incumbent advantage. The Democratic party is deciding a candidate based on convention, but there is really only one person running for the Democrats for district 87 right now, and that is Mike Kondratick. The Republicans have a primary, August 23rd, to pick between Jo Ann Chase (Tea Party whackjob) and David Ramadan (club-for-growth anti-tax guy); who will then run against Mike Kondratick.

I am also in a new State Senate district, the new 13th district and once again there is no incumbent advantage. The Democratic party is deciding based on convention again and the only person running appears to be Shawn Mitchell. The Republicans are using the August 23rd primary to choose between Dick Black (yeah, the plastic fetus guy), John T. Stirrup (current anti-immigration ass-hat in Prince William County), and Bob FitzSimmonds (Kook-in-elli’s henchman and anti-immigration idiot); who will then run against Shawn Mitchell.

It looks like my U.S. Congressional district is still the 10th, so I will continue to fight to replace Frank Wolf who is not good for veterans, education, nor people being yet another corporate shill doing the bidding of big-business lobbyists every chance he gets.

Prince William County has a Republican Primary Election on August 23rd, the deadline for new voter registration is August 1st.

Within Prince William County it looks like Babur B Lateef of the Democratic Party and John S Gray an independent candidate will be challenging incumbent Republican Corey A. Stewart for the office of chairman of the county board of supervisors.

There are also races for each county supervisor seat, I am still in the Gainesville district where there are five Republicans running in the August 23rd primary to face off against Democratic candidate Ann Wheeler. The Republicans seeking to replace John Stirrup (who has, as predicted, run off to seek State Senate office) are:
Martha W. Hendley, Steven M. Botello, Suzanne N. Miller (campaigning on job creation and education, unusual for a Republican), Peter K. Candland, and Michael J. High. You know as much about them as I do so far…
A few of them don’t have websites that I can find (yet) so I linked to their VPAP contributions page.

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2011 07 19 snolan Local
News
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