Topics

26

Living Room / Who gets sued next? VLC media player? Mozilla?

« on: January 30, 2015, 12:24 PM »

You can't make stuff like this up. From TechDirt (link):

Anti-Piracy Group So Desperate To Go After Popcorn Time That It Threatens A Blog Software Maker
from the no,-it-doesn't-make-any-sense dept

We've seen, over the years, how copyright holders and anti-piracy organizations have continually moved up and down the stack in trying to shut off access to things they don't like. They've sued users for sharing, as well as companies and individuals who build tools that can be used for infringement, of course. Those were the obvious ones. But, lately, they've been targeting hosting providers, registrars, ISPs and ad networks as well. And, apparently, now some are so desperate that they're going after totally unrelated software providers. At least that appears to be the case in Greece, where the Greek Society for the Protection of Intellectual Property (AEPI), sent an angry threat letter to John O'Nolan, who created Ghost, an open source blogging system. Why go after Ghost? Well, apparently because one of the more popular forks of the Popcorn Time streaming system has a blog that uses Ghost. Ghost doesn't host it. Popcorn Time is just using its software. It would take one hell of a ridiculous interpretation of secondary liability to put any liability on Ghost. It would be like going after BIC because someone at Napster wrote notes using one of their pens. But such is the ridiculous state of the anti-piracy world today, where such moves seem sensible.

It may seem ridiculous, and happening in a place very far from home. But when you consider the (often kept secret) IP protection clauses in so many major trade agreements, who knows just how far such similar "legal" nonsense will someday reach?

Can you say: "Everywhere?"

27

Non-Windows Software / ALERT! How to test for GHOST security hole now affecting major distros

« on: January 28, 2015, 07:36 PM »

This one is fairly serious. It's called "GHOST."

Here's the background info:

GHOST, a critical Linux security hole, is revealed

Summary:This security hole, which impacts many older versions of Linux and some current ones, should be patched as soon as possible.

By Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols for Linux and Open Source | January 27, 2015 -- 19:33 GMT (11:33 PST)


Researchers at cloud security company Qualys have discovered a major security hole, GHOST (CVE-2015-0235), in the Linux GNU C Library (glibc). This vulnerability enables hackers to remotely take control of systems without even knowing any system IDs or passwords.

Qualys alerted the major Linux distributors about the security hole quickly and most have now released patches for it. Josh Bressers, manager of the Red Hat product security team said in an interview that, "Red Hat got word of this about a week ago. Updates to fix GHOST on Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 5, 6, and 7 are now available via the Red Hat Network."

This hole exists in any Linux system that was built with glibc-2.2, which was released on November 10, 2000. Qualys found that the bug had actually been patched with a minor bug fix released on May 21, 2013 between the releases of glibc-2.17 and glibc-2.18. <more>

To test to see if you're vulnerable see this article.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

For those who are new - or new enough to Linux - to not understand the part about compiling, do the following:

1) Copy and past all of the following code into your text editor and save it as ghosttest.c

This is the code

[Select]

/* ghosttest.c:  GHOST vulnerability tester */
/* Credit: http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2015/01/27/9 */
#include <netdb.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <string.h>
#include <errno.h>
 
#define CANARY "in_the_coal_mine"
 
struct {
  char buffer[1024];
  char canary[sizeof(CANARY)];
} temp = { "buffer", CANARY };
 
int main(void) {
  struct hostent resbuf;
  struct hostent *result;
  int herrno;
  int retval;
 
  /*** strlen (name) = size_needed - sizeof (*host_addr) - sizeof (*h_addr_ptrs) - 1; ***/
  size_t len = sizeof(temp.buffer) - 16*sizeof(unsigned char) - 2*sizeof(char *) - 1;
  char name[sizeof(temp.buffer)];
  memset(name, '0', len);
  name[len] = '\0';
 
  retval = gethostbyname_r(name, &resbuf, temp.buffer, sizeof(temp.buffer), &result, &herrno);
 
  if (strcmp(temp.canary, CANARY) != 0) {
    puts("vulnerable");
    exit(EXIT_SUCCESS);
  }
  if (retval == ERANGE) {
    puts("not vulnerable");
    exit(EXIT_SUCCESS);
  }
  puts("should not happen");
  exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
}
 

2) Open a terminal session (press: CTRL-ALT-T) and change to the directory where you saved ghosttest.c

3) Compile the file you just saved by entering the following command at the prompt: gcc ghosttest.c -o ghosttest

4) When completed (takes about 1 second) run it with the following command: ./ghosttest

Hopefully, you'll see output similar to the following:

    

What you're looking for is that "not vulnerable" at the bottom. If that's the case, no problem. If you see "vulnerable" check with your distro's website to see the status of where they are with getting out a security patch to correct it. In most cases the patch will be delivered through your distro's update manager when it's available. Which should be very shortly if it isn't available already.

Luck!

(Note: Mint 17.1 should not be vulnerable. But check your installation anyway just to be sure.)

28

Living Room / Cuba's awesome SNet - possibly the ulltimate homebrew network hack!

« on: January 26, 2015, 02:28 PM »

Tired of poor or non-existent networking services? How about you build your own 'off the map' network like some Cubans did?

Hardly ideal by any definition, but when you don't have any, even "a little" is sometimes worth pursuing.

This from The Register (full article here.)

Cubans defy government's home internet ban with secret home-made network
26 Jan 2015 at 18:18, Simon Rockman

Cubans are fighting back against restrictions on their use of internet with SNet, a secret network. Also known as StreetNet, it pools the resources of citizens, who are effectively prohibited from using the internet.

The Washington Post reports that while the full fat internet in Cuba is government-controlled – home internet is banned and the government controls uber-expensive access in hotels and internet cafes – a local proxy has been set up which links 9,000 computers on the island. Using CAT5 strung from house to house and hidden Wi-Fi antennas, the Cuban network repurposes equipment to create a massive intranet.

It clearly has a level of control with gaming servers and online communities. Cuba has a top level domain – .cu – and is recognised by ICANN, but access for ordinary individuals is controlled by the government and priced way beyond their reach. It appears that the authorities are turning a blind eye to SNet, which in turn is policed by volunteers to ensure that it’s not used for (other) illegal activities or porn. Lack of connections to the wider internet helps ensure the government doesn’t act to shut down SNet...

The spirit of Fido lives on!

29

Non-Windows Software / Quick list of 7 FOSS Cloud Storage Products for Self-hosting

« on: January 24, 2015, 08:12 PM »

Nice quick summary courtesy of the nixCraft website:

7 Awesome Open Source Cloud Storage Software For Your Privacy and Security

by nixCraft on January 14, 2015

Cloud storage is nothing but an enterprise-level cloud data storage model to store the digital data in logical pools, across the multiple servers. You can use a hosting company such as Amazon, Google, Rackspace, Dropbox and others for keeping your data available and accessible 24x7. You can access data stored on cloud storage via API or desktop/mobile apps or web based systems.

In this post, I'm going to list amazingly awesome open source cloud storage engines that you can use to access and sync your data privately for security and privacy reasons.

Ignore the gushy "awesome" bit and check it out.  Full article here

30

Non-Windows Software / Post your Linux/FOSS humor here.

« on: January 21, 2015, 01:08 PM »

31

General Software Discussion / Windows 10 as an Internet service?

« on: January 21, 2015, 12:05 PM »

This from Iain Thomson over at The Register.

If correct as reported here, Microsoft has finally admitted what many have been saying about where Microsoft plans on going (while taking you along for the ride) for the last three years.

Here's what Iain has to say(emphasis added):

21 Jan 2015 at 17:46, Iain Thomson

Microsoft is planning a big push for Windows 10 and will be giving away the new operating system to Windows 7, 8.1 and Windows Phone 8 users in the first year of release.

"With Windows 10 we think of the operating system as 'Windows as a service,'" said Terry Myerson, VP of operating systems at Redmond. "In next few years could think of Windows as one of the largest internet services on the planet. The question of 'what version are you running' will cease to make sense,"

The upgrade will only be free in the first 12 months after release and will last for the "supported lifetime of the device." Microsoft said the new OS will run on PCS, tablets, phones, and a new device to be announced later today.

The result for developers will be a single platform to sell apps on. "Developers are always thinking of the next million sales, now we can open them to the next billion,"

This will involved "universal apps," software that works equally well on the phone, tablet, and PC. The Office applications will be included in this, but developers will be encouraged to do the same with their own code.

The idea is to have an operating system that can run on any device and when the user puts one piece of hardware down they can pick up another Windows device that they are signed in on and carry on where they left off. <more>

Bad. Very bad. Yet another massive walled garden looming just ahead.

(Once this gets rolling, can Microsoft's long threatened multi-pronged IP lawsuit against Linux and GNU/FOSS be far behind? )

32

Found Deals and Discounts / Softmaker Office Mobile for Android now free. Forever.

« on: January 21, 2015, 11:39 AM »

From Softmaker:

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Get SoftMaker Office Mobile for Android for free. Forever.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

The new year has kicked off with great news for Android users:
SoftMaker Office Mobile for Android, which used to cost nearly 20 Euro
is now available for free!

You read that right. The full versions of TextMaker Mobile, PlanMaker
Mobile and Presentations Mobile are now completely free in the Google
Play Store.

Originally, this package, which has earned the highest marks in
numerous tests, was supposed to be available for free only for the
duration of the Load-and-Help charity fundraising campaign as a
"gimmie" to encourage as many downloads as possible and increase the
amount of money SoftMaker had to donate to aid projects.

Following an overwhelming response resulting in a record donation,
we decided to keep offering SoftMaker Office Mobile for no charge
indefinitely.

Find out more:
http://www.softmaker.com

If you already own SoftMaker Office Mobile, you don't need this
download. Stay with the version you purchased; we will offer extra
features in the future. And if you own SoftMaker Office HD for your
Android tablets, free SoftMaker Office Mobile is a great companion
for it on your smartphone.

Please tell your friends and family about this great offer!



Best regards,

SoftMaker Software GmbH

 

33

DC Gamer Club / Really good article on the design of "the best" board game

« on: January 18, 2015, 09:26 AM »

Very interesting article about the design of the game Twilight Struggle along with the designer's observations on the ideal number of players and run time courtesy of the FiveThirtyEight blog. Good info for players and budding boardgame designers.

Designing The Best Board Game On The Planet
By Oliver Roeder   

The game ends in nuclear war only about 5 percent of the time. That’s a good thing. It gives Ananda Gupta faith in humanity.

The game is called Twilight Struggle, and it’s the top-ranked board game in the world. It occupies the No. 1 spot on the authoritative gaming-world website BoardGameGeek.

Gupta, 38, of Columbia, Maryland, is the game’s co-designer. A video-game designer at Firaxis Games by day, he recreated a post-World War II universe out of cardboard. In Twilight Struggle, players peddle influence and alter history with playing cards in an effort to win the Cold War. And, ideally, avoid nuclear apocalypse.

I spoke with Gupta, and turned to a vast board game database, to uncover what makes a board game great.

Read it here.

34

Non-Windows Software / *NIX - Problem with Steam shellscript may delete user files

« on: January 18, 2015, 08:59 AM »

This from The Register:

Scary code of the week: Valve Steam CLEANS Linux PCs (if you're not careful)
Dodgy shell script triggers classic rm -rf /

17 Jan 2015 at 12:00, Shaun Nichols

Linux desktop gamers should know of a bug in Valve's Steam client that will, if you're not careful, delete all files on your PC belonging to your regular user account.
.
.
.
The issue was traced to a shell script variable that's supposed to contain a filesystem path, but can end up empty if Steam's files are moved or missing, and is passed as an argument to rm -rf.

Soon to be fixed no doubt - but still something to be aware of until it is. Full article here.
 

35

Non-Windows Software / Another Linux blog goes bye-bye

« on: January 17, 2015, 04:27 PM »

From FOSS Force, this bit of news - which explains the 404 error I've been getting for the Linux Advocates feed:

‘Linux Advocates’ Throws in the Towel
FOSS Force

The website Linux Advocates is no more. The site, which focused on a variety of Linux issues, went offline on January 7th with little fanfare and no advance notice. The site had been being published for two years, having gone live in early 2013.

Before taking the site down, a notice was posted by site owner Dietrich Schmitz, which can still be read on the site’s Facebook page.

  

“I’ve decided to close Linux Advocates. It started out fun but turned into something else. People matter to me. There’s a Big World out there and Linux is one small facet of my life.

    “I’ll continue to hang out on Google Plus and, if the spirit moves me, write something on my personal website. Thanks to all the LA Contributors.

    “So, Goodbye Linux Advocates. Hello World.”

Schmitz did the lion’s share of writing for the site, which focused almost entirely Linux, both technically and otherwise. Occasionally, articles moved away from tech, into realm of politics and economics, having no clear connection with Linux or FOSS.

In the beginning, popular Linux writer Katherine Noyes, aka “Linux Girl,” was associated with Linux Advocates. Although it appeared to some that she might have had an ownership interest in the site, Schmitz says she did not. Her association with the site ended at least a year ago.

During the time Noyes was identified with the site, it created some excitement in the FOSS community, with many well known FOSS writers signing up to become regular contributors. Except for a couple of sporadic articles, that plan never came to fruition and the site mainly became a platform for Schmitz’s writings...

Read the rest here.

I'm not sure what to think. Sad to see a Nix site disappear. But not really surprised it didn't get many additional writers on board considering some of Mr. Schmitz's posts and his somewhat...er...cantankerous editorial policy. FWIW curmudgeonly commentary doesn't fly too well unless you're an established 'name' (with a stellar CV) in the larger Linux community. And that role is generally considered adequately filled by by Linus Torvalds and/or and Richard Stallman. Those two are pretty tough acts to follow.

36

Living Room / I no longer read WIRED - and why I'm glad I stopped reading it years ago

« on: January 17, 2015, 11:45 AM »

A recent blog post by Jim Lynch reminded me why I no longer subscribe to (or even read) WIRED - and should have absolutely no regrets about it.

Some background: WIRED was the 1993 brainchild of Lou Rossetto and Jane Metcalf. Original backing for the magazine came from Nicholas Negroponte and the MIT Media lab. Kevin Kelly (of Whole Earth Catalog and Whole Earth Review fame) was it's original Executive Editor. WIRED positioned itself as the Rolling Stone of technology news. And for several years it was just that despite a slowly encroaching blight of terminal hipster smugness in it's overall tone.

The original WIRED fell victim to the 90's bubble burst in the technology sector. That bust came as a result of investors gradually waking up to the fact that handing children (in every sense of the word) unlimited amounts of cash to pursue their own personal agendas and visions of "cool" - without regard to creating viable products or services - just might not be the smartest move a business investor could make.

WIRED, being intrinsically linked to those bubble ventures since that magazine was its greatest booster and advocate, soon fell into financial trouble. At which point it was acquired by Advance Publications who assigned it to their Condé Nast media empire in 1998.

And "the rest is history," as the saying goes.

Although WIRED's editorial offices remained in San Francisco, the magazine gradually became one more "Condé" magazine with a distinct New York (i.e. "more mainstream") vibe. And this all happened (in true Condé Nast fashion) despite numerous boilerplate assurances it would be kept as it was before the acquisition. The executive editors that followed slowly but surely repurposed WIRED into yet another trendy, industry-suckup, celebrity chasing, lifestyle magazine. In short, much like all the other magazines Condé Nast Publications regularly cranks out each month. It's a formula that works well for them, so it should come as no surprise they apply it to every media property they assimilate.

But now, along comes something that neatly establishes quite clearly that (a) WIRED really is gone, never to come back; and (b) shows just what it means to be a part of Condé Nast Publications.

Check out

A takedown of Wired’s editor-in-chief Scott Dadich
January 15, 2015 by Jim Lynch


Wired’s editor-in-chief Scott Dadich recently sent out a memo about the magazine’s new workspace. And John Moltz promptly wrote a takedown of the memo. Apparently Wired spent $3,000,000 dollars on their new space and their EIC wanted to make sure that it stayed…er…neat or something.

What follows is both a funny and sad story about what has to be one of the most bleak-looking workplaces imaginable. One that looks more like a floor in some dystopian secret police headquarters than it does the offices of a jouralistic enterprise. Read the rest here.

Interesting how the image a company presents through its physical workspace says so much about the mindset of the organization itself...

 

37

Living Room / Expanded role for Anonymous - Now more like The Watchman than V?

« on: January 11, 2015, 07:59 AM »

Saw this in an article by Alan Buckingham on BetaNews. Apparently Anonymous is expanding it's range of target baddies to include non-government and non-corporate SOBs. Most interesting if so. Especially since it drastically ups the stakes (and physical risks) for Anonymous if it becomes their new charter. More here.

From BetaNews:

...Things began just over a week ago when the group [Anonymous] declared war on Lizard Squad, a rival gang, if you will. That loosely run outfit had claimed responsibility for the takedown of Christmas for many people. In other words, it attacked the networks of both Sony Playstation and Microsoft Xbox on the day everyone was getting a new console. A cowardly act that they claimed was done just for fun.

The fun is over, as the group did a poor job of disguising members' identities and several are now in the hands of authorities. Worse for them, Anonymous declared war, which is the last thing anyone wishes to have happen to them.

Now Anonymous is setting its eyes, and considerable technological firepower, on Jihadist groups, looking to retaliate for the recent tragedy that took place in Paris, France...

Yeah. This could get interesting. Real interesting...

38

Living Room / ALERT! FreewareBB shutting down. And with a warning from Marko?

« on: January 08, 2015, 09:14 AM »

Just received this in my morning e-mail. If it's on the level (and I'm guessing it is) it's both saddening and somewhat disturbing news:

>From: FreewareBB <[email protected]>
Date: January 8, 2015, 6:00:01 AM EST
To: 40hz *********************
Subject: FreewareBB Closing Down


 FreewareBB

 40hz,


 Unfortunately, it would appear the new owners of FreewareBB are intending on closing down the site, and even worse, it would appear they intend to use the good name of FreewareBB to trick and potentially scam people.   Unfortunately, I am powerless to stop this as the sale has now been completed and the person who bought the domain has only just told me his intentions and I am sending you this mail to merely inform you of their intentions and advise that you change all your passwords on your email accounts and if you have ever subscribed to the yearly payment to support FreewareBB then change your PayPal passwords also.   I do not believe there is any risk to you or your associated accounts, because your payments and passwords would be encrypted but given the information I have available to me I would advise you perform these actions as a matter of precaution.



 I can only apologize unreservedly for any inconvenience caused as I never imagined a sale would result in such a devious plan.



 As the site will likely be offline shortly, please respond to this message via our Facebook site which still belongs to us : https://www.facebook.com/freewarebb



 Kind Regards Marko

Going to the website, this notice is currently posted:




Since I don't do Facebook I can't do much to follow up directly with Marko on this.

Any DoCo Facebookers want to visit to lend their moral support plus report back on anything of significance?

Thx!

39

Non-Windows Software / LINUX: In-place upgrade of Mint 17.0 Qiana to Mint 17.1 Rebecca

« on: January 07, 2015, 04:52 PM »

I generally am not too crazy about upgrading one version of Linux (or any other operating system) to another. I'm of the old-school "clean install" mindset when it comes to that. However, since I was facing an upgrade on a heavily tweaked and customized Mint 17.0 Cinnamon installation, I decided to try Mint's official way to go from that to 17.1 since I had already resolved to do it anyway. "Nothing ventured..." and all that, right?

Well...that was two days ago. And I'm happy to report that in this instance, it all went as smooth as butterscotch with absolutely no (as in zero) bad surprises during or afterwards. The entire process took approximately 10 minutes - and everything just worked. And the upgrade procedure itself was handled entirely within Mint's own Update Manager. Now how logical is that?

To do this upgrade requires only a few simple steps.

The first step is to run the Update Manager and hit refresh to see if mintupdate itself needs updating. If it does - do it. Then hit the refresh button again to make sure it was done.

Once that's completed (if needed), go to the Edit drop-down in the menu bar and select Upgrade to Linux Mint 17.1 Rebecca

That's pretty much it. After a few confirmations, Update Manager will download, install, and configure  all requisite software. It will then prompt you to reboot (one of the very few times you'll ever be asked to do that in Linux btw) your machine. When it comes back up, you'll have a spankin' new 'Rebecca' machine.

Doesn't get much easier than that. Hope this is the shape of things to come for Mint's workstation upgrades going forward.

More detailed instructions (with pretty pictures) can be found here.

 

40

General Software Discussion / 4 tools to download Windows updates to a local archive

« on: January 05, 2015, 12:46 PM »

A handy write-up of four different tools to create your own archive of Windows updates can be found over at the 4Sysops blog. Link to article here.

In this article, I examine four Windows Update download tools that allow you to download all updates for the various Windows versions. This enables you to perform offline updates or slipstream the updates into a Windows image.

If you do a lot of setups, or site work where you need to get a PC up to date with Microsoft's latest and greatest with the minimum amount of fuss, these apps are well worth looking at.

I most often select WSUS Offline Update as the tool of choice. I've recommended and used it for many years with good results. I currently keep the whole thing on a regularly updated 64Gb USB key (along with some other tech tools) so I'm independent of a network connection whenever I need to do updates on a machine - or a group of them. But the other apps listed are also worth a look and may be better suited to your own use cases.

Note: Microsoft's update archives are huge so you'll definitely want a very good broadband connection to perform the initial download(s). Once you have gotten your initial archives established however, any reasonably robust DSL connection should be sufficient to keep things current.

 

41

Non-Windows Software / List of 40 inexpensive single-board Linux friendly computers

« on: January 02, 2015, 07:44 AM »

Courtesy of the good folks over at LinuxGizmos:

Ringing in 2015 with 40 Linux-friendly hacker SBCs
Dec 31, 2014  |  Eric Brown


2014 brought us plenty of new open-spec, community-backed SBCs — from $35 bargains, to octa-core powerhouses — and all with Linux or Android support.

In May of this year, LinuxGizmos and Linux.com collaborated on a joint survey, asking our readers to choose their favorite open-spec hacker SBCs from a list of 32 that run Linux and/or Android. Our SBC survey winners, ranked one to five, included the Raspberry Pi, BeagleBone Black, Odroid-XU, CubieTruck, and Banana Pi single board computers. Thanks to the flood of new open-spec, community-backed boards, as well as the demise of others, we have updated our list for this end-of-year snapshot.

We’re skipping the survey — and the prizes — this time around, but we hope to offer a similar, but updated list and survey in May or June 2015. With even better prizes.

We removed more than a dozen boards from the list that were no longer in stock, were not being actively supported, were just plain old, or scored too poorly in our last survey to merit inclusion. Some of these, such as the Odroid-XU, were fairly new boards but have already been replaced by newer models (Odroid-XU3). We also added about two-dozen new SBCs, thereby ending up with a total of 40 boards. <more>

Read the rest here.

Happy hardware hacking!

42

Living Room / To end the year on a laugh - Dave Slater is at it again about that monkey photo

« on: December 31, 2014, 02:30 PM »

Dave Slater, the photographer who can't seem to accept that the "gone viral" monkey selfie taken with his camera is not copyrightable nor his intellectual property, is back at it again. This time via a supposed Louisanna-based management company that goes by the name of Icondia.

Icondia claims to be representing David Slater and Wildlife Personalities Ltd. which has now "officially registered" the monkey image in one of those convenient UK "Crown Dependencies" that are so dear to 'legal' connivers the world over. This particular place is named The Balliwick of Guernsey. An actual balliwick? In the 21st century? For real? (You just can't make this stuff up folks!)

This is Icondia's official announcement regarding the image:

Icondia is pleased to confirm the registration of Wildlife Personalities Limited with effect from 28 October 2014 as a registered personality on the Guernsey Image Rights Register. Registered images associated with Wildlife Personalities Limited include the so-called ‘monkey selfie’ images of macaque monkeys. Use of registered images for commercial purposes without the consent of the rights holder may constitute infringement of the registered image rights. All enquiries regarding the use of these registered images should be directed to [email protected]

Silly in the extreme, I know. But unfortunately for them, Icondia recently saw fit to send a cease & desist letter to none other than Mike Masnick over at TechDirt. And they got totally pwned. Read TechDirt's entire response here.

Priceless!

Hey Dave? Dave Slater? I know it's frustrating to feel something you lucked into, and thought was going to make you a very large fortune, suddenly slip through your fingers. But it has. So please try to get over it - and move on with your life already? Make it a New Year's resolution.

43

Living Room / Most popular topic at Donation Coder?

« on: December 29, 2014, 12:53 PM »

It appears to be the silly humor - post 'em here! [warning some NSFW and adult content] thread started by f0dder back in February 2009. Over 672K (and counting) views plus over 4K replies. I think that's a record!

44

Living Room / Your own paper planner and calendars for 2015

« on: December 29, 2014, 12:44 PM »

If you have a lot of trouble finding a paper desk planner you actually like (as I do) why not try customizing and printing your own?

Designer Dave Seah has some nice Excel-based productivity templates that can be easily customized to your individual specifications.

I find his project tracking forms are a little overkill for what I might consider using. But I do like his Academic School Year Planning Calendar which gave me 90% of what I was looking for. A few minutes in Libre Calc and I am now set to go for 2015. Woo-hoo!

Dave has an interesting and refreshingly minimalist approach to using a planning calendar. You can read about how he uses his Compact Calendar (which the Academic Calendar I modded is based on) here. His approach may not work for everyone. And he's the first to admit it probably won't work for people with complex schedules with a lot of task dependencies. But it sure works for me after I incorporate a few productivity habits and ideas of my own to go with it. YMMV.

The nice  thing about doing you own planner is that if you discover something doesn't work for you  - or you suddenly remember something additional you very much wanted to have - a few minutes worth of edits and some paper and you've now got it going forward. No need to limp along through the rest of year with that fancy $30 planner you bought at the stationers.

For a customizable 'one month per page' desk calendar, this site has an online generator you can use to make your own - along with pre-built PDFs of the more common types.

Onward to 2015!

45

Living Room / For better security, maybe it's time to abandon e-mail?

« on: December 21, 2014, 03:47 PM »

Interesting article by Jordan Pearson who argues that the time may have arrived where we need to seriously consider abandoning e-mail in favor of a 'designed to be secure from the ground up' chat paradigm. Food for thought. Even if chat isn't the answer, something seriously needs to be done about our present e-mail technology. Simply bolting encryption on after the fact is a stopgap "solution" at best.

The Biggest Lesson from the Sony Hack? We Need to Replace Email

by Jordan Pearson Contributor, Canada
December 19, 2014 // 03:50 PM EST

The most striking discovery of the Sony hack wasn’t that studio head Amy Pascal had an intensely personal meltdown or that the feds were collaborating with the company on the ending of The Interview—it was that all of these things existed together in one, utterly defenseless spot, just waiting to be hacked and leaked.

We use email for everything now: newsletters, professional collaboration, and jokes to grandma. But email wasn’t designed for the age of hackers that can—apparently, god help us—bend skittish corporations to their will.

It might be time to consider a world with less email, where secure chat apps that can send messages to each other rule online communication. Unless you want to leave a paper trail, that is. <more>

 

46

Living Room / How they program Christmas music for the holiday season

« on: December 16, 2014, 08:44 AM »

Interesting article on holiday music programming over at FiveThirtyEight .

Holiday Music   7:15 AM Dec 12, 2014

Of Course You Hear What I Hear — Christmas Music Season Is Totally Data-Driven

By Walt Hickey   

On Oct. 24 at 6:24 p.m., Magic 96.5 in Birmingham, Alabama, flipped its “St. Nick” switch. The soft-rock radio station began playing all holiday music all the time.

Magic 96.5 (WMJJ-FM) was one of the first stations in 2014 to give listeners exactly what they want at year’s end: more the Madonna than Madonna. In fact, there’s an entire library of songs that are in constant demand now, but people cringe if they hear them months before.

Radio’s wall-to-wall holiday format is a recent development. Of course, stations in the past played some Christmas music on Dec. 24 and 25, but the vast majority of soft-rock stations began switching to all-holiday soundtracks in the 1990s. The first to throw out its regular playlist entirely was 99.9 KEZ (KESZ-FM) in Phoenix, in 1991 or 1992.1 The variety station saw a substantial jump in its ratings, and the trend eventually caught on nationwide. <more>

Note. FiveThirtyEight is a little bit different. If you're into polls and predictive statistical analysis, be sure to check it out.  More on how it came to be can be found here.

47

Living Room / In Memoriam: SHS 14-December-2012

« on: December 14, 2014, 01:47 PM »

The Twenty Seven...

Not forgotten.

48

Non-Windows Software / NIX: Douane - An application aware personal firewall

« on: December 08, 2014, 12:48 PM »

UPDATE: Major problems with this app. See this post below.


Just saw a reference to this over on Distrowatch.

Looks like somebody coded a personal firewall (Douane) that is "application aware." First time something goes to connect to the web, it affords you the opportunity to allow or deny it. Your answer then becomes a rule that's stored for future use.



There's also a control panel that allows you to start and stop the firewall plus enable/disable/delete rules you've already created. This is very similar to how a Windows firewall called ZoneAlarm used to behave. Very convenient for a newbie user. It's also occasionally eye-opening when you see just which apps are seeking web access. And when.



Very handy IMO.

Douane is not in any repo so far. And the only semi-packaged version seems to be for Arch. Everybody else gets to "Git" and compile it. Not a big challenge as the devs published a very detailed page with all the steps necessary. Even a novice should be able to do it.

Lack of a distro specific package isn't an issue for me. And I have no problem doing a compile. But my concern is that part of the installation process creates and installs a DKMS kernal module. This makes perfect sense for an app like a firewall. But I'm a little leery of allowing that when I don't know much about the app or its developers. Especially when it's a security app and includes a DKMS module which will auto-recompile when/if a new kernal gets installed. (Note: that last concern isn't valid - see mwb1100's post below.)  Because what's benign and on the 'up & up' today may not be tomorrow.

So. Anybody have any direct experience or heard more about this thing or the folks behind it?

49

Non-Windows Software / LINUX - Mint 17.1 (Rebecca) ISOs are now available for download

« on: December 01, 2014, 09:08 PM »

Mint recently announced the release of the 17.1 update (Rebecca) to their latest LTS edition. It offers some interesting and worthwhile updates to Qiana. Both the Cinnamon and MATE versions are now available.

Those wishing to upgrade from version 17.0 will not need to do a full reinstall:

Upgrade instructions:

  

• If you want to upgrade from Linux Mint 17.1 RC, simply launch the Update Manager and install any Level 1 update available.
   
•  If you want to upgrade from Linux Mint 17, please wait for a few days while we release a new version of the Update Manager to you. In the meantime, you do not need to download or to reinstall anything. We’ll make announcements next week when this is ready.

FWIW they're running a little late with the Update Manager...erm...update? Target release is now the first week of December. Worth the wait if you want 17.1 since it saves a lot of work over a doing a clean reinstall.

I'm writing this in a live session of the Cinnamon version right now. It seems noticeably faster than 17.0 even though it's running off a USB key. Can't wait to see what it's like running off the hard drive.

 

50

Non-Windows Software / NEMO UX - the shape of the desktop to come?

« on: November 18, 2014, 01:56 PM »

Details are sketchy. But if you're a fan of all those scifi desktops you see in movies like Oblivion or Minority Report, the NEMO UX from Sungkyungkwan University, Republic of Korea just may be what you've been waiting for:

The computing environments looks like SF movies would come to our real life in the not too distant future. NEMO-UX project is the first step to make the computing environment looks like SF movies, and would be a big, important part of IT.

 Everybody can think new display computing environment watching SF movies or future display clip nowadays. Like this, Tabletops, Wall-size displays, and Smart glass are coming into your real life.

 From long time ago, NEMO-UX team have dreamed the new computing generation. Soon, new display would be taken for granted. Now, NEMOSHELL software platform made will give you a new experience.

It was recently demoed at the ACM ITS 2014 in Dresden

Amazing. The classic messy desktop enshrined in a computer interface! Hows that for progress?