October 6, 2009 by phillip.

Other than yelling out the word “fire” there are few words that envoke a response in humans in an economy driven society. The highest of these that can be said in mixed company is the word “free.” As pleasant as this word is to hear when offered a sample at your local store or as anticipated after the words “buy one, get one” this word does bare a negative burden. I must always be proven innocent or assumed to be guilty of a trick. Why else would someone give away something that they could just as easily have gotten paid for it? Where is the catch after I take this deal?  Let’s strip away the stigma attached to the word and show you how this word can help your business and personal life.

Almost everything out there has a free counterpart when computer software is concerned. That’s a pretty big claim but I intend to back it up.  Let me get this out of the way though. There is one string attached. You don’t just get anything that’s free just like you don’t get any car that has the same price that you want to spend. Have a little bit of a critical eye to key terms such as: Freeware and open source. Freeware is a product that is free but may be watered down compared to the pay version or expire after a certain date leaving you like Cinderella’s pumpkin when you need a ride home. Open source if software that is freely available and made by a collaboration of people around the world for the single purpose of freeing you of software licenses.

Ok, I know you’re already wondering where and how? Free! Free! Free! However, let me give it a little credibility first. You and the companies you use are already using open source software right now.  Google runs on Openbsd. Most of the sites on the internet run on Apache server. Firefox might be what you’re reading this with. Tivo, the Amazon Kindle, Sony Playstation 3 and most animated movies are made on Linux run hardware. All are free and open source products that the big companies have realized cut their costs by millions if they hide what’s below. Even your precious Apple computer and iPhone hide the free software below. If they know it. So should you.

As an old commercial used to say, “I’m not just the president, I’m a client.” Whereas I may not be the president I realized back in 1993 that I practice what I preach. Firefox is my web browser of choice. I dumped Microsoft Outlook in favor of Mozilla Thunderbird as my email client. I use Open Office on some of my PC’s instead of the way over priced and bloated Microsoft Office for all of my work. I use the very resourceful Video Lan Client (VLC) for all of my video and audio and I use Pidgin (or Adium on Macs) for all my instant messaging. I even use Ubuntu Linux as my primary desktop (note: It does have a little bit of a learning curve or help to setup than Mac or Windows but you have to remember they come installed when you buy the PC). These only scratch the surface. My internet hosting companies are running products like Wordpress, Drupal, Joomla, SugarCRM, PHP and OScommerce and I’m sure yours are or will too.

I’m not going to lead you astray or have you believe that I don’t use Microsoft, Apple, or Adobe products. Dreamweaver is unparalleled at present for designing websites. Microsoft Access is not touched by it’s freeware and open source competitors and video games on the PC just aren’t at the level of the ones you pay for if you’re a serious gamer. However, every serious business or cost conscious individual should pay a little closer attention to their pocketbooks and give serious consideration to some of the FREE software that is out there to help you.

Prices may vary but once you compare the cost of a Mac or Linux computer running the standard application alternatives: Open Office, VLC, Firefox, and Thunderbird, or a Windows computer running the same with the addition of AVG free antivirus as compared to a computer with all the things you need for your computer that have license fees you may be swayed.

Go ye and spread the word of Free to all your friends. Email them sites like Download.com and sourceforge.net to search the thousands and thousands of programs that are free. For now free doesn’t mean being handed the paper cup sample of your favorite drink. Consider yourself handed the whole bottle.

Posted in Something to know, Software | 1 Comment »

August 31, 2009 by phillip.

I recently posted an article about the instant message program Pidgin being insecure. However, I think insecure needs to be defined a little bit more. I was watching a recent episode of the TV show Leverage. In the show they have a hacker named Hardison that has incredible hacking skills that would make you cry. Most of his skills are totally impossible TV hacking but I’m still entertained because it doesn’t insult your intelligence. In watching the show though, I’ve found that many of the hacks that are done on the show can be performed on many computer networks because people have such poor security methods. Today, I’m going to talk about the easiest one. Walking in with a USB stick and using a portable application or by booting the computer with a LiveCD.

You may not be sure what I’m talking about but some programs for a computer can be run strictly from a USB stick. These cheap $10 memory sticks can be purchased almost anywhere these days and you can even get them at conventions from people trying to get you to look at their products. Simply delete their data off of it and I give it to my neices and nephews for school and games. Well, you can do more than that.You can buy a new one or one with a small amount of memory and use it to hack a computer.

The process is simple. I’ll explain the process not for hackers but for the techno savvy to understand how to prevent it from happening. Simply pugging a memory stick into a computer and having the portable versions of Wireshark, SIW, tor, RealVNC and winscp gives you all the tools you need to plug into a Windows machine find all the saved passwords and wireless access codes on that computer and scan for ones being input by other computers on that network and send them to your computer offsite without being tracked. Some processes could be scripted with a little work so the USB stick just has to be stuck into the computer and the rest just runs.

The other security threat is a LiveCD. Anyone could make one of these now days with a Linux distribution of choice. All the person needs to do is boot your computer with this LiveCD or LiveUSB stick. Once booted it can have scripts to find everything it needs to find. Learn everything it needs to learn and send it offsite or save directly to some portable drive (even the LiveUSB stick) everything it learned. It’s scary because when they shut the computer down you’d have no idea that you’d been hacked because there would be no log of the attack and everything would boot up as normal the next time.

This is scary stuff. If I’ve heard it once I’ve heard it a million times, “I don’t have anything important enough on my computer for anyone to hack me.” You’d definitely be surprised. Your computer can sometimes give someone all the information they need to assume your identity or attack someone higher up the food chain and make it look like you. I will never forget being a young IT director and getting a Windows NT box hacked and the hackers using it as a jumping off point to 3M. 3M tracked the IP address of the attack back to my company.Learn from me. Don’t let this happen to you. Lock down everything you don’t use on your firewall and in your permissions.

For more information or help with this please feel free to email me at: phillip@banksnetworking.com .

Posted in Something to know | 1 Comment »

August 28, 2009 by phillip.

For quite some time now I’ve been having a problem with my internet chat program Pidgin. It would work for a while and then all of a sudden I’d notice that the whole computer would come to a screeching halt. Resource usage would go up to 100% on a Linux machine. Not unbelievable but not very common for me. So, I figured out the problem was my instant messaging software Pidgin. Upon further investigation I found out that it probably was due to the Facebook plugin that I installed that let Pidgin log into my Facebook account and show me all the people available on Facebook chat.

Months went by without spending the time to find a solution for this until today I finally decided to really get into it because I love having my clients accessible to me through instant message rather than phone calls or texting. I had switch to using Kopete for the most part till I got around to fixing it but don’t like anything as much as Pidgin.

I completely uninstalled Pidgin and re-installed it and didn’t like when I saw my accounts log back in. There was obviously some information left on my computer after I uninstalled the program. First, I hate that! If you make a package, clean up all your crap when I uninstall it. Second, I found where it was saving its extra information. The folder “./purple” in my home folder. That’s not the shocking part though. I looked into the directory and noticed my biggest screw up ever. I saved my passwords! I never do that and always advise people to never save a passwords on a computer.Within a file called “accounts.xml” were all my username and passwords for my different instant messaging accounts in clear text for anyone who sat down at my computer to look for and see. I ddin’t check this on a Windows PC or on a Mac (Adium on the Mac) yet but knowing that I do use it on these other operating systems I will be more aware. I also realized I use Pidgin’s portable version on my USB stick that I keep on my keychain. I don’t save passwords or accounts there because I use it so rarely but what if you did and lost your keys or USB stick. Your information is out there for anyone to see.

If for any reason you’ve saved a password on your computer delete them. Go into all your programs and empty out that information. A little bit of extra time logging in will save you many untold hours of grief. Many people use the same passwords over and over again. An experienced hacker knows to start first with the passwords he knows and just figure out the usernames. Don’t be a victim to this possible openning in your security.

Posted in Windows, Mac, Linux, Something to know, Software, Tips | 1 Comment »

June 8, 2009 by phillip.

I’m just going to say it for the record. The Amazon Kindle goes on my list of one of the greatest tech toys I’ve ever gotten. I’ve had mine for about a month now and it’s been absolutely fantastic. The page looks so much like text printed on a page that I’ve been able to read books left and right. This comes at such a good time too because I’ve been running around too much to sit and read an actual book. I have tried to set a goal for myself of reading 40 books a year. Last year was my first year and I conquered my goal.  That may have had to do with the fact that I had a broken leg for a month and a half so all I did was read books during that time. This year however, has been a challenge due to the fact that I’ve been moving around a lot. All the driving has me a little out of the flow of reading.

The Kindle solved all of these problem. First, I carry it everywhere just like my mp3 player. I started to count audiobooks into this equation late last year therefore I really enjoyed putting audiobooks on my mp3 player. The Kindle solved that too with it’s very listenable text-to-speech (TTS). I had written a script in Linux to grab PDF’s off my server, convert them to text and feed them into the program Festival (a TTS program) for this purpose but now I don’t need to (or so I thought but read on). The Kindle proved very easy to listen to and not too robotic. I had a collection of PDF books on my server that I used Calibre to convert to .mobi format instead of the proprietary .azw format of the Kindle.

Then it all fell apart. Amazon was sued by the audiobook companies. They have overhead. They pay people to read the books for their audio versions. Who was I to get a book and think I could have my personal robot read it to me? How obsurd.  I jest because I was really pissed that Amazon just caved in instead of giving them a fight. So, somehow Amazon decided to turn off the feature for your Kindle to read most books to you unless it gets authorization from the publisher. I found the book I bought recently did not have that authorization and since it was originally published two years ago I doubt they’d try to find out if they could get it. So, I’m kind of screwed there.

Scrreeecch! Hit the brakes! You thought I gave up there? Please… There are tools to convert and rip .azw files. Calibre won’t do it and neither will Stanza but they tell you to find 3rd party programs. That’s a slick way of saying, “Hey if you can find it out there I won’t look. Once you’re finished bring it back to me and I’ll handle the rest.” So, off to find these 3rd parties. I will let you know what I find. Especially if I can come up with a command line program to do it. That way I’ll have the files converted and ready for my Kindle seconds after it notices it’s plugged in. The script will copy new .azw’s convert them and put them back as .mobi files.

The love of tech continues.

Posted in My humble opinion, Something to know | 2 Comments »

October 29, 2008 by phillip.

I was at a PTA-like meeting last night at one of my sons schools with my wife (it’s actually like a class but that’s a whole other story). Next thing you know we were talking about “Things that get in the way of our children’s success.” Of course sooner or later subjects like Myspace, instant messaging and porn come up. It soon became quite a hot topic when some parents believed children should never have computers in their rooms.

I have a lot of thoughts on this subject being a young curious kid myself. However, no sooner had I thought about all the things I could say before my wife redirects the crowds attention to me explaining how our kids don’t have this problem. In short I explained to the class that a computer in the room is like having a whole bookshelf full of books because of all you can learn and that with some small tweeks you can provide some amount of safety. However, if I had wanted to spend more time on the subject I would have taken a different tact to address a more pessimistic mother.

After the class seemed appeased with the fact that they can provide a good amount of internet safety, one pessimistic mother had something to add. “Children will always find a way around whatever you do.” I didn’t respond however I was at first insulted by her defeatist attitude before I realized that the core of the problem was elsewhere. The child.

I tell companies this all the time as well as families: “The computer is a tool just like a hammer is.” That’s it! It may be slicker looking, made of plastic and metal and have lights but it’s just a tool. A hammer can be used to build a house or kill someone. It all depends on the operator of that tool. In the context of the class, I could have provided security on the level of the CIA on that computer however, just like with a hammer, if you want to do something malicious there are hammers laying around all over town.

“There is no new thing under the sun” is a verse from Ecclesiastes 1:9 (which I searched for on the internet). It holds true for all the things we talked about in class that people who watch the news all the time need to realize. Our world is no worse than 2000 years ago when Jesus was here and people felt it was the end of times. People afraid of homosexuals in office don’t realize that most of the Greek and Roman senates were openly gay back then. Murder and mutilation were paraded in the streets. Rape happened often. The world hasn’t changed it’s just newer and faster tools.

The cycle continues you just need to focus on the operators not the tools.

Posted in My humble opinion, Something to know | 1 Comment »

August 29, 2008 by phillip.

I’ll start this post off with the disclaimer I’m not a person that is a big fan of or a believer in politics or politicians. Also, I’m going to say that I understand that two things you never talk about with people you don’t know are religion and politics.

With that said, I’m going to talk about the Obama speech today at the Democratic convention. Let me say in short… WOW! This is where the business and tech stuff comes in. I didn’t originally watch the speech. I did however watch it on CNN online (www.cnnpolitics.com). The reason I did is because of a client calling me right afterward and saying he wanted to get started right now on a project that we planned for possibly a month from now. He was fired up and ready to make some change in our country.

Soon after that were posts on Facebook from my friends and colleages about it. Still not convinced I chose to actually watch the video before my meeting tomorrow and I was not disappointed.

Now, I must say, I have not counted out Sen. Mccain nor do I even know much about what he really stands for. However, whatever happens, our country will definitely need their IT departments to step up the pace and be a little more cutting edge and progressive. People are getting fired up and I will make it my duty to keep you looking toward that edge. Still with the cost effective, budget minded and people centric nature that I have always provided.

Ooops, maybe I’ve been turned into a bit of politician there myself. Naaahhhh… You know I’m not changing. I’m still me.

Posted in Something to know | 1 Comment »

July 30, 2008 by phillip.

What is your definition of a simpler time? In our efforts to make everything easier are we neglecting what is… simple?

In the new millinium the 1950’s are considered a simpler time. In the 1950’s the 1920’s were considered a simpler time. What are these people that search for this simplicity really looking for? Usability experts look to make the computer or your electronic devices think like you do. With this logic your DVR will know you so well that when you get home from work it will probably listen to the tone of your voice and decide if you want to watch an episode of “Lost” or the local college basketball game. That sounds pretty simple (by the way Sony, you can have that idea for free) but I don’t think that’s what we’re really looking for.

Maybe we’re looking for freedom. Freedom sounds simple, right? You wake up in the morning and the government wants nothing more than for you to be happily content. Nobody want’s anything from you or gives you anything so you have no expectation either way. Cave men had it that way but that simple kind of scares us. Knowing what needs to be done like hunting down your food. Let’s fast forward to at least the age of bartering.

Let me propose this concept for your approval. You are living in the simpler time if you chose to only accept it. Not because you can talk to your phone and tell it who to call or even the fact that everyone has a phone on them all the time. Not because your TV has a thousand channels and you can even have the TV in your car. Not because the internet allows you to find someone somewhere that had the same problem as you and has solved it or allows you to find a product you could find for cheap in your local store. These are not the answers but in all actuality the causes of more of the problems. Psychology studies have shown that more choice actually causes people to get more unhappy. Thus as our lives seemingly become more simple they do get more complex.

These are the good old simple days. Just narrow your choices intentionally. Take the first parking spot you see and walk to the door to the mall. Realize that once you’ve made a decision on a product you’ve got the best thing possible at there and there could be no better. Realize that almost any computer you get (at least for the average user) is so much more than enough. If you could take a time machine back to any time in history they would tell about some of the complexities in life that you would absolutely laugh at while hopping back into your time machine back to the present. Keep reading my blog. I definitely try to keep it simple.

Posted in Windows, Something to know | 1 Comment »

April 25, 2008 by phillip.

In a previous post about “Communist design” I got a weird thought about taking the opposite into consideration but in the real world. Open source vehicles, buildings, spaceships, boats, etc. People combining their thoughts for a better solutions. I found that these ideas already exist.

My first I’d already heard of was the Joint Strike Fighter aka JSF F-35 jet fighter. This jet fighter is a collaboration of a couple companies and countries. It’s actually a working plane that will be the next major fighter. It has stealth, virtical lift off, supersonic speed, massive firepower, and advanced computer and camera integration. In a word… COOL.

The next on our list… The OScar. Right now this car is strictly conceptual. The concept started in 1999 but became fully open to everyone in 2006. According to an article posted at Autoblog the Open source car actually debuted last March (2007) with it’s first concept vehicle. Looks pretty sleek and not totally the spec that is posted on the OScar website but there’s a lot of room to really make this something that could change the world.

Watching a video on TED I also was very intrigued by the open source textbook publishing company. Imagine, books that evolve quickly and are cheaper because the book can be printed and bound on demand. Our kids wouldn’t be left behind with old information because new books are in print, etc. This really would have helped out when Pluto was ruled out as real planet.

How about a music synthesizer? this video is from South by Southwest in 2006. A lady namd Limor Fried talks about her open source synthesizer and open source in the real world.

Why not collaborate on food? Yes it’s true. There is an open source cookbook and open source beer project.

So, there you have it. Those are some of the great real world applications for open source. I’m sure there are more and I would be very happy to know about them. If you are technically minded though, I also love to mention cool sites like: Makezine, Hack a Day, and Hackszine. It’s pretty much open source to me because the comments allow you to combine your ideas for a better final project.

Posted in Something to know, Announcements | 1 Comment »

April 24, 2008 by phillip.

Let me start by admitting that I’ve been taking in a lot of the Military channel lately. I’ve mostly been watching the history channel like documentaries on the wars of the past. Mixed with my Discovery channel viewing I got a couple of ideas.

I’ve talked to my kids and have talked about it many times but we need an enemy that the whole world is against. That’s when people come together for a common goal. During WWII the United States used its automotive industry to outproduce tanks and planes at a rate of almost 10 to 1 of Germany (and a couple other countries combined). At the same time peaks in technology development start due to the needs of weapons and surveillence. After each war technology development falls off. Ghengis Khan absorbed civilizations and turned their aim at the next target. The newly incorporated believe were treated good and soon offered their technology to his war efforts.

If we felt like aliens from outer space were going to attack in a given amount of time then we’d all get together and become prepared as a planet. People need to have a motivation and not just a desire for excess. Right now sea and space exploration seem to be excess. I guess nobody really realizes that their short on resources till they’re desperate. I need to start filling up my tank before I get on “E” too. Non-metaphorically speaking, I need to find where I can help here. Tell me if you have any ideas.

Posted in Something to know | 1 Comment »

December 19, 2007 by phillip.

In a recent article posted on Ars Technica, Kenneth Sodomsky (oddly similar to sodomy if you know the story) was prosecuted for child pornography after some techs at Circuit City found child porn on his computer. No doubt he was wrong as could be. His computer was littered with video and pictures of 13 - 14 year old boys being “touched” (s0rry for the gory details).  His information was turned over to the police by Circuit City after a tech was supposed to be installing a DVD drive on the computer. It was deemed that in the normal process of installing the drive the tech didn’t violate his privacy because he needed to search through his files for videos.

This is an American tragedy. Not because of the fact that we have perverts in the world looking at under age children.  That’s the perfectly obvious part.  However, I am appalled that he was prosecuted and the Superior Court of Pennsylvania upheld that the techs needed to search through his computer for videos.  When has it ever been necessary for a person to need the video files on the computer to install a DVD drive.

The issue at hand is your privacy.  If you send your computer into a shop they don’t have the right to rummage through your files.  Imagine if the tech went through the person’s database or accounting data. This is very sensitive information but if information is on my hard drive it’s all sensitive.  I don’t even send in error reports on anything because that developer may keep IP address information with the data sent back to him with any other data that could be sold. This data could be used to give a company a competitive advantage because they know something about me that their competitors could never know.

Imagine if you’re an avid Quicken user and you files are looked at.  You could be brought up on charges of tax evasion or money laundering because of your shoddy accounting techniques. Does the ends always justify the means?  In my book the answer is no.  In the case of the Kenneth Sodomsky he’s getting what he deserves however, I would have rather him get it from good investigative work that my false privacy beliefs from your local computer store.

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