Small Bone To Pick With Hak5

Back in September I mentioned that I went to Toorcon, which is a San Diego hacker convention. There I met Darren Kitchen and Shannon Morse from the fairly popular IPTV show Hak5. When I met these two guys I mentioned to them that I was going to be writing a final report for my Advanced Network Security class in college. It was going to be my final report and presentation before I graduated with a Bachelors Degree in Network Security.

Anyhoo, Mr. Kitchen told me to keep them posted on how my paper and report turned out, so I decided to go ahead and sign up for the Hak5 forums so I could participate in the community a little, as well as post about my ideas for my paper... and I did on October 6th here: (Hak5 Forum Post)

Basically I did my paper on running Jasager in conjunction with Sidejacking, and told the community at Hak5 about my idea for my paper.

Okay, so no big deal right?

WRONG!

I just popped on my Tivo to watch a little Hak5 while working out on my total gym when Darren begins talking about Jasager and how people have been asking what it can be used for. Here is a clip from that episode where he proceeds to tell people about my idea:



The full episode can be seen here: (Hak5 Episode 412)

Did you notice anything missing from that segment? HOW ABOUT A FRIGGIN' SHOUT OUT? How about a nice little, "El Di Pablo From our forums gave us this idea..." or a nice little flash on the screen "Thanks EDP!"

Alas... Nothing, zip, zilch, nada.

Not a single mention in the credits, or even a blurb in the show notes.

What gives Hak5?

What do you guys think? Too harsh? Should I calm down a bit? Anyone from Hak5 want to comment? Anyone from Revision3? Hit me up in the comments please.

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Free OpenSource Javascript Wysiwyg - TinyMCE

I just found TinyMCE by Moxiecode Systems AB and I'm in love with it. It's cross browser capable and comes loaded with plugins to use. Some features it has are: Compressor for PHP, .NET, JSP and Cold Fusion, PHP Spellchecker, .NET development package, Embedding of Flash and other media, iFrame support, bbCode, Layers, Emoticons.

They also have some commercial plugins which include a File Manger and Image Manger. Their support includes a very well written Wiki Help Site and Community Forum. The editor can be imported into any CMS, Forum or well any online application you want. They do not have pluggins for Clasic ASP or JSP but can be configured using Ajax postback to get the job done.

Check it out and let me know what you guys think or if you know of any other good ones out there.

By Sundance of Free TV Shows Online

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WTF is Up With Feedburner Lately?

I have noticed that for about a week or so now, my stats on Feedburner have seemed a bit lower than normal. I decided to check out my stats on Google Analytics, and my stats are staying consistent. Which leads me to ask the question.... WTF Feedburner?!?!?

It seems to me that this happens every so often, where Feedburner's stat engine takes a shit, and none of their numbers can't be trusted. Then after a few days, they snap back into place and act like nothing happened.

What I want to know is why can their parent company's analytics service continue to work moderately okay, while Feedburners stops working all the time? Why not just incorporate Google's anaytics into Feedburner's?

Anyone else having a problem with Feedburner stats AGAIN lately?

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The Technologies That Failed

Two words: Virtual Reality. At the start of the 90s, it was going to be the biggest leap forward in the industry. Now? Who even really remembers? VR suffered from three key problems. The technology wasn't good enough for proper 3D environments, with the majority of publicly available games coming from Virtuality. Powered by an Amiga, they were jerky, low-resolution, and untextured, with the simple weight of the helmet and blurriness of the vision quickly giving players a headache.

Home VR headsets fared little better, being both finicky, and low-resolution. We still occasionally see new offerings, but the industry's interest has moved on to Augmented Reality - overlaying games onto the real world. Imagine Pacman played first person in your local library. Another 3D technology that never got a chance was Voxels - 3D pixels. These served up some incredibly impressive games back in the day, most notably Novalogic's Commanche, and the stunningly beautiful RPG Outcast. The catch was that 3D graphics cards were designed to pump triangles - traditional 3D - and couldn't do anything to help these out. Reliant on software mode, voxels were blocky and very system intensive. After a while, it was more sensible to just use polygons, and the voxel concept was quietly retired - at least, from the mainstream.

Finally, a product nobody was sad to see go: the 3DO Blaster. Here's the pitch. By plugging it into your computer, your PC becomes... a 3DO. If your immediate reaction is 'what the hell's a 3DO?', don't worry you missed out on the hype, but nailed the reason it didn't work. Oddly, gamers weren't taken with one of the most over-hyped consoles of all time, especially since it demanded a specific CD drive. Most of its games were crap, and those that weren't were almost all already available on PC.

The 3DO blasted its way to the bargain bin, forgotten by history. Until now, of course. But you can safely forget about it again without the slightest guilty twinge.

By Sandra Prior

Subscribe to Sandra Prior's Online Newsletter and get up to date Computer Technology News delivered right to your email box for free. See website for details http://usacomputers.rr.nu and http://sacomputers.rr.nu. Article Source: Go Articles

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Tech Debate: Linux vs. Windows

There are many heated debates and arguments in the world of computers and technology these days. Some of these debates have been around since the computers first became popular amongst average, everyday people. Issues like choosing a Mac or a PC, or choosing an Apple operating system or a Windows operating system have been highly debated for years - and there have even been a recent line of commercials that brings this argument right into your own living room. However, one of the newest arguments involves a relatively little-know, but highly powerful operating system known as Linux. And the exact question is what one is better - Linux or Windows?

Well, the answer is not a simple and quick one, by any means. There are many things that you need to take into consideration when trying to make the decision between running Linux on your PC or running Windows - and this article attempts to help educate you on the topic, so that you can make a better decision for yourself regarding Linux vs. Windows.

The first thing to consider is your PC gaming life. If you are always playing the hottest new game, you probably want to stick with Windows. Because it is by far the most popular computer operating system available today, more games and applications are developed for Windows than any other platform. And while you may be able to run most Windows-based games on a computer that is running Linux, it's not a guarantee that every single game in your collection will work. That is why if you are a computer gamer by any means, you will definitely want to pick Windows over Linux.

However, being the most popular operating system has a down side too, as Windows users are well aware of. Because more people use Windows on their home computer than any other operating system, malicious computer users and computer hackers target Windows-based computers far more than any other computer. There are thousands upon thousands of different viruses that may affect your Windows machine - with Linux, however, this simply is not the case. Computer hackers are not going to spend the amount of time that it takes to try and develop a virus for Linux, when it is so easy to make one for Windows. So if security is your main concern for your home computer, without a doubt Linux is the way to go.

Because Linux is an open source operating system however, it has gained quite a bit of popularity lately. What this means is that all of the ordinary users of Linux are free to play around with the operating system and develop their own programs and applications. And as this becomes more and more commonplace, you never quite know what Linux might come out with next. Indeed, it might be even better than anything Windows has to offer. And if you are already running a Linux operating system on your home computer, you will be a step ahead of most users who are still using Microsoft Windows on their machines. Ultimately, the choice is yours - though each system does have its advantages and disadvantages.

By John Parks of http://www.managedserversolutions.com

Article Source:Go Articles

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Windows 7 - What exactly is it?

The codename Windows 7 is actually going to stick with it's codename Windows 7 for the final release name for the operating system also.

As Mike Nash, corporate vice president of Windows Product Management puts it:

"The decision to use the name Windows 7 is about simplicity. Over the years, we have taken different approaches to naming Windows. We've used version numbers like Windows 3.11, or dates like Windows 98, or "aspirational" monikers like Windows XP or Windows Vista. And since we do not ship new versions of Windows every year, using a date did not make sense. Likewise, coming up with an all-new "aspirational" name does not do justice to what we are trying to achieve, which is to stay firmly rooted in our aspirations for Windows Vista, while evolving and refining the substantial investments in platform technology in Windows Vista into the next generation of Windows."

So what is Windows 7 you may ask. According to Microsoft:

"It's the next version of Windows for PCs, and it's the result of working hand-in-hand with our partners and with people who use Windows in the real world every day. We're paying particular attention to the things they're telling us are important to them and will make their PCs work the way they want them to—things like enhanced reliability, responsiveness, and faster boot and shut-down. We're also trying to make their everyday tasks easier, like connecting and syncing devices, browsing the web, and managing a home network.

Of course, we're also working on new capabilities, so people will be able to do things with Windows 7 that were difficult (or perhaps impossible) to do with PCs before. Finally, we're working hard to ensure that Windows 7 will run on any PC and work with any program that works today with Windows Vista, so upgrading from Windows Vista will be easy."

From my research it does seem Windows 7 will have much of the look and feel of Windows Vista but they are making a lot of revisions and fixes to it. One being that you will not get popup messages all the time, instead they'll be stored in a queue for later review. Also they are revamping their kernel and using a kernel based from MinWin. This is also supposed to reduce the kernel size by 1000% taking it from approximately 2500 MB to 25 MB.

If you want to learn more, you can find a Quick FAQ WindowsVienna

By Sundance of Free TV Shows Online

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Scripting a Defrag

Anybody who is anybody knows that the built in Windows defrag utility stinks. It is very hard to schedule defrag and have it work correctly. The problem with that is that if you don't automate it, it will likely never get done, then you will start to see a lag in performance.

For those of you not "in the know", the reason defragging your hard drive is a good idea is because of the way Windows writes data to the hard drive. Windows doesn't write your word document in one continuous chunk on the hard drive. It breaks it up and puts the pieces where there is open space all over your drive. Over time, these fragments get out of control, and it takes the computer longer to find all of the pieces. It's kind of like your desk at work, with all sorts of papers strewn about. The defrag utility moves all of the pieces so they are back together again.

Now back to automation. There are lots of third part utilities out there for scheduling a defrag, and most of them cost money. The one I am going to talk about is a command line utility called DIRMS. Now, like some freeware products, DIRMS is no longer free, and comes only as trial ware. Once again, Bauer-Power to the rescue! I have the old free version available HERE. I have also included the script I wrote that will let you execute it without having to know much about running things from the command line. Just save it to the root of your C: drive (If you have a different letter, edit the batch file using notepad to use that letter).

The coolest part, is that since it is so easy to write a batch script for running it, it is even easier to automate. You can set the batch script to run as a scheduled task in windows. If you don't already know how to do that, click on Start> All Programs> Accessories> system Tools> Scheduled Tasks> Click on the Add Scheduled Task icon and follow the wizard. When it prompts you for which file to run, browse to the batch file, select it, and click OK.

I use it all the time, and it works great. I recommend setting it for a time when you aren't going to be using the computer, like sometime between midnight and when you wakeup (Yes, your computer has to be on to run it! I don't know how many times I have had users ask me if it okay to turn their computers off when they go home when I have set something to run after they leave. If you turn off your computer the scheduled task will not run. Simple as that!)

Once again, you can download it HERE.

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