Send in the Ghurkas

BAGHDAD, Iraq - A video purporting to show the methodical, grisly killings of 12 Nepalese workers kidnapped in Iraq (news - web sites) was posted Tuesday on a Web site linked to a militant group operating in Iraq.

Full story here.

Goddamn barbarians.

New iMac Released

Apple introduced the new iMac, powered by a G5 PowerPC CPU. Unlike the previous iMac (which I thought of as the "iBreast"), this one looks good. It's an all-in-one unit with a 17" or 20" LCD display.

Now if I only had $1300 laying around .....

Just in time

The contractor finally finished installing our new gutters and soffets today, and not a day too soon. We had a brief but heavy rainstorm after dinner.

Now, back permitting, I need to get into the front section of our crawlspace and rip out some carpeting that got wet. Oh boy, I can't wait.

WiMax Redux

Courtesey of Paul Nixon:

WiMax 802.16 is already deployed by several cities with pre-final-standard equipment that provides the highest speed and longest distance service. It is notable that Craig McCaw, the literal inventor of the first national cell phone service that later was bought out and became AT&T Wireless, is now betting the bank on 802.16. He has bought the manufacturers of the equipment, a provider company, and several other companies over the last two years secretly to gain their spectrum licenses. He is not the only one as you will see in the links at the end of this article. WiMax promises cheap and extremely fast ultra broadband speeds, without the security issues that have plagued WiFi since its inception. WiMax equipment and final standards are expected by the end of this year. But the pre-standard companies already providing unlimited 1MBPS throughput services with prices as low as $19.95 a month. WiMax is being first deployed as a MAN for fixed users in homes and businesses. Then next year they will begin providing mobile services for vehicles and travelers, which, when combined with VoIP Internet telephony, may make cell phones themselves obsolete, as well as the landline phone company services.

What is WiMax, backed by Intel, Nokia and the top other 300 or so Technology companies? Here is the Intel White Paper with pics of how it works as well as the tech stuff.
http://www.intel.com/ebusiness/pdf/wireless/intel/80216_wimax.pdf

The full article is here.

IMO, the author is well informed although I'm not sure that WiMax is going to supercede all wired technologies to the extent he believes. Plenty of people are well served by DSL, cable, or T1, and for them there isn't going to be a compelling reason to switch over to wireless.

WiMax Redux

Ack, double tap!

Sportsment for Kerry/Edward?

Probably not what you think. Here.

SanDisk Cruzer Mini

The SanDisk Cruzer Mini 1GB USB drive that I ordered from NewEgg arrived yesterday. It's about the size of a pack of Wrigley's gum and is thin enough that it shouldn't block access to the other USB port on my laptop.

The unit came with three, differently colored caps for the male USB connector, and a lanyard. This morning I copied over between 550 - 600 megs of files. This took about 5 minutes using the USB 2.0 port on my Dell Latitude. While backward compatible with USB 1.1, the read and write speeds will be much slower.

Incuded with the SanDisk unit is their CruzerLock app, which can be used to encrypt a portion of the drive.

I plan to leave some free space on the drive in case I need to use it for sneaker-netting files from one PC to another. If I run into any weird issues I'll post them as well.

WiFi Hotspots Keep Users Online

From Computerworld:

News Story by Bob Brewin

AUGUST 23, 2004 (COMPUTERWORLD) - Public-access Wi-Fi hot spots have become a key alternative for business and personal communications in the wake of Hurricane Charley's devastating rampage across Florida.

Cool. Read the full story here.

WiFi Antennas

While continuing my research about security issues associated with WiFi hotspots, I ran across this site, with information on making cheap antennas to boost your 802.11 signals. Neat stuff!

WiFi Hotspots

We may be getting into the WiFi hotspot business in some capacity. My boss therefore asked me to look into the security implications of this, as well as the associated legal liability implications. Off the top of my head, I can think of several potential issues we'd need to address, e.g,:

• Theft of service
• The insecurity of wireless networks, which in hotspot applications are typically not encrypted.
• Use by customers for launching attacks (cracking, DDoS).
• Use by customers for "war spamming."
• Etc.

These are problems that we can address and are not necessarily insurmountable barriers.

XP SP2 Security Hole

Microsoft's efforts at securing Windows are getting somewhat better, but it still keeps leaving gaping holes open. To wit...

HP 6110 all-in-one

I would appreciate first hand feedback from anyone who's used an HP 6110 all-in-one unit. My mother wants to get one so before she does so I'd like to be able to warn her of any potential issues.

TIA.

Oh boy

A couple of weeks ago I was asked to setup a Cobalt Qube behind a cable modem for someone else in my company. We figured it was for some testing purposes but weren't really sure what.

Today I touched base with the person who requested the Qube and found out that she wanted to use it for generating usage reports for senior management.

WTF?!?!?

I explained to her that:

1. Sun end-of-lifed the box a year or two ago and in the event of hardware failure, we'd be pretty much SOL.
2. Since it was directly hooked up to a cable modem, it wasn't exactly secure.
3. Security patches for Cobalt OS aren't likely to be forthcoming from Sun for much longer.

I suggested she talk to IT and see about getting an appropriate solution, and she agreed with me that taking the Qube offline was the best course of action.

From now on if someone comes to us with a request to setup a box, I'm going to find out its intended use, and not rely on anybody's good judgement but mine!

Sandisk Cruzer

One of the things I take with me to client sites is a CD to which I burned various apps, tools, and utilities. Being on a CD, it's handy to carry but not as convenient to update. So, today I ordered a Sandisk Cruzer 1 GB USB "pen drive" from NewEgg.com. This will be just as easy to carry around and the capacity is even greater than a CD, so I can add more stuff.

I'll post a report once I get it and get the chance to try it out.

Housework

Yesterday the contractor dropped off the materials for the new gutters and soffets, and should be back today to start installing them. The forecast for today is good and I'm hoping they can finish everything today, or tomorrow at the latest. Then I can go about ripping out some carpet in our crawlspace that got water damaged. Oh, fun.

Good food

Last night Judith, a couple of friends she's known since elementary school, and I went to Reed's in Blue Bell for their Tuesday night special -- all you can eat dungeness crabs for $19.95. As with previous meals I've had there, it was quite good. Kids eat for free at Reed's, too. They are located on PA-73 just west of US-202. Definitely recommended.

WiMAX

I attended a meeting today with a large equipment vendor who is looing into WiMAX, AKA IEEE 802.16. It was a general information gathering session for both sides. They gave us some insight into where they see the technology developing, while we discussed how we think it'll impact our existing broadband business.

It's interesting stuff but I have to wonder if it's more hype than substance.

Workbench

Yesterday afternoonI did manage to put together the folding workbench that I bought on Sunday at Harbor Freight. It's not real heavy duty but for my use I think it's going to work well. It'll fold up into a small package so that it's out of the way when I'm not using it, but it will do to hold up a rifle when I'm doing something like mounting a scope or removing a trigger unit.

Made it in

My back didn't keep me at home today, although it sure complained a lot. After going downstairs for breakfast I took 800 mg of ibuprofen because I'd stiffened up overnight. Following breakfast, I spent about 15 minutes on my heating pad, which got me limber enough to come into the office. I'm still taking it easy, though.

Speaking of cutlery...

...one of the best sites I've run across on the 'net with regard to knives is this one. The site's author is a Canadian grad student in physics, and takes a very methodological, detailed approach to knife reviewing. Good stuff.

One of the things he mentions is reshaping edges using a belt sander. I'm going to have to try it out, but I'll do it outside since I don't want the dust inside. I best do it on the back patio so I don't freak out the neighbors.