Ubuntu 9.04 ...just around the corner

Also, Ubuntu 7.10 reaches end-of-life on April 18, 2009

Ubuntu 9.04 Beta ... and cloud computing

The Beta version of Ubuntu Linux 9.04 is out.
I don't recommend the beta release for anything you want to keep working and stable, but if you want to run the liveCD and get a preview of what's coming at the end of April it's here.

9.04 promises faster boot up and support for the new Linux file system ext4. It also provides the really ambitious folks the tools to build a cloud computing server system.

This may be an interesting year for Linux. Cloud computing is hot and with all the little mini laptops on the market (perfect clients for cloud computing clusters) I imagine it'll get hotter. Ubuntu is packaging the tools for the server guys to use into it's system... It's only a matter of time I think before cloud services start popping up in large numbers.

Internet Explorer 8

For those of you who haven't upgraded to IE 7 yet, now you are another version behind. Microsoft officially took IE 8 out of beta.

The most touted feature seems to be InPrivate Browsing, which lets you browse the web without saving your history. A number of other new features are added in IE8 though, so check it out. IE 8 is also supposed to be better at identifying and blocking malware sites. That alone is worth the download.

Need to Budget?

If you find yourself needing to tighten down your spending in this economy Intuit has a free helper for you. Quicken Online.

Improving Your Mac's Firewall

The Mac comes with a firewall built-in, but like the Windows built-in firewall,
it is very limited in it's capabilities.

NoobProof and WaterRoof are both free (open source) firewall front-ends from hanynet.com that improve the flexibility of the Mac's built-in IPFW firewall.

WaterRoof is a very complex and powerful tool, which allows you to configure almost every aspect and option of "ipfw". And more, you can list/manage active connections or network files, do graphics log analisys, configure your mac as a router with bandwidth management with stateful rules and tons of other options. You need a good knowledge of "what a firewall is", and you should also have at least a basic ipfw knowledge.

NoobProof is a very easy tool. When you start it the first time you have a service list and you can choose to "allow" or "deny" connections to those services. So you have only to decide which service to allow, and then check "Activate NoobProof". You can also add selective "allow" and "deny", and you can delete or add new custom services in service list.

COMPARISON TABLE	WaterRoof	NoobProof
Static rules list	x	x
Customizable dynamic service list		x
Customizable rules builder	x
Startup Script and Startup configuration	x	x
Import and export firewall configuration	x
Bandwidth Management (Dummynet)	x
NAT setup (Network Address Translation)	x
Dynamic rules (stateful firewall)	x
Ready rule sets	x
Logs listing	x	x
Logs parsing and graphic statistics	x
Network connections and applications list	x
Network connections selective block or limit	x
Appfirewall debug and logs listing	x
Interface list and DNS/WHOIS queries	x
Configuration Wizard	x

Windows 7...It's better than Vista. Promise.

Tech Republic posted a PDF today, "10 Reasons Vista Haters Will Love Windows 7"
Trust me, from what I've seen it is better than Vista.

http://i.i.com.com/cnwk.1d/i/tr/downloads/home/dl_10_vista_haters.pdf

SouthPark style Mac vs. PC vs. Linux

I have all 3 (and then some)

IE8 RC1 released today

Internet Explorer 8, Release Candidate 1 (the first beta actually being considered for release) was released today.

You can get it here: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/internet-explorer/beta/

This follow up to previous versions of IE that I'm sure everyone is familiar with adds private browsing (with no history recorded for private sessions) and improved security features.
It also allows you to simulate earlier versions for websites that insist on a specific version.





And while you are at it, if you have a spare machine just laying around, or if you are geeky enough to use a virtual machine (like me) download Windows 7 beta too.
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/beta-download.aspx
It's like an improved, faster Vista. But make sure you have the minimum system requirements and that you have no problem with the computer just stopping when the Windows beta expires on Aug 1.

Mac trojan - Beware of pirate iLife 09

A MacOS trojan infects over 20,000 systems who's users downloaded iLife 09 from pirate bittorrent sites. http://bit.ly/L4EP

NOT the end of Nortel

There's a lot of talk about Nortel right now, but to give you all a little cozier feeling about it, just let me say "this is not the end of Nortel".

They have only applied for creditor protection. They are not closing shop, just re-organizing.
The new Nortel may be a slimmer Nortel after this, but I strongly believe that we will still have Nortel around for many years to come.

They say they will still be doing R&D. As much as they have been? Who knows? Time will tell.

They will still sell products. Will they eliminate some products? Will they sell off some lines of products to other companies just as they bought up product lines like Bay Networks switches? Maybe.


The CEO released a statement and video here: http://www.nortel.com/corporate/restructuring.html
...and they have an investor's FAQ here: http://www.nortel.com/corporate/collateral/investor_faq.pdf

Countdown to 8.10

Firefox 3 and colours (colors for the americans)

FF3 supports color profiles so that your photos will look the same in FF3 as they did in photoshop, but you have to manually turn it on.

Go to http://www.color.org/version4html.xalter to see the ICC profile test.
If the sky in the photo is half green your profiles aren't enabled.

Go to about:config and set gfx.color_management.enabled to True.
Restart Firefox.

Then go back to http://www.color.org/version4html.xalter and see if it changes.

E-bike blog

I have started a new blog on my own server for any further e-bike reltated posts.
If you are interested in following my e-bike adventures this is the place to look: http://www.macphersonclan.com/rod/ebike/wordpress

I won't post any more e-bike stuff here unless it is interesting from a tech point of view.

E-bike Fall Ride

The Durham E-bike association is running a fall ride in Oshawa on Sept. 27th to promote the use of e-bikes as an alternate form of transportation. Mayor Gray will be riding along with the club from City Hall down to the lake.

Poster for Durham E-bike Association's Fall Ride

E-bike

After a bit of deliberation, I've decided to get myself an e-bike.

In particular, I have placed an order for a Veloteq Commuter RSV-GT in blue and black.
Which looks something like this:



I also paid my $25 to join the Durham E-bike Association. I believe that e-bikes are a fun, safe, and environmentally responsible form of transportation that should be encouraged, especially in the smoggier cities.

For anyone who's wondering what an e-bike is, Ontario is running a pilot (since Oct. 2006) allowing electric motor assisted bicycles on the road to be treated as bicycles (rather than motorcycles, like a moped) ...most other provinces and stattes already treat e-bikes as bicycles. That means no license, no plates, and no insurance needed... just a helmet. The catch is they are speed limited to 32km/h. ....which is faster than an average person bikes, but not faster than the road racers. The Ontario pilot program runs out in Oct 2009, after which they will still be road legal, but they may decide a license is needed, or that a few new rules are needed.

They come in both bicycle shape and motor scooter shape (like above).

I think it is a viable second vehicle that can be fun, is really cost efficient (pennies per charge), and easy to park.

They come with anti-theft alarms and locks, so that's not too big an issue.

For info on the e-bike pilot, visit the MTO E-bike FAQ.

System info for Windows

I've played around with a number of utilities for windows that tell you more about what's inside your machine and this is the one I like best.

System Information for Windows. By Gabriel Topala




For those who use macintosh computers it will look exactly like what you would expect from something with the name System Information... just like the MacOS control panel of the same name.

The best part is it doesn't need to install, so you can put it on a USB key, CD-ROM, or floppy disk (does anyone still use those?) and carry it with you from one PC to another.

An example of the kind of useful info you can get with it is just click on Memory on the left and it tells you how many slots you have in total, and what's in each one (memory type, speed, even brand!)

Moving songs from iPod back onto computer

Imagine this situation:
You computer dies. You don't have a backup of your iTunes folder because you thought you had a back up in your iPod, but when you connect your iPod it only offers to copy back the files that you bought from iTunes. ...what about the 300 CDs you ripped? music you downloaded? podcasts? etc...

Hopefully you didn't say yes when iTunes said 'the iPod is synced with another computer can I wipe it and sync with this computer?'. You can get all that back, it's just not all that obvious. Set up iTunes to allow the iPod to connect for drive access (if it isn't already showing up as a drive)

There is a hidden folder called iPod_Control with all your MP3 files in it, but the files have been re-named to a numbering scheme that helps the iPod keep track of them, but makes it completely non-obvious which file is what to the user who manages to get in this far.

The fortunate thing is iTunes will be able to figure it out.
If you aren't already letting iTunes manage your music you might as well now, but if you'd prefer to have them back with sensible names so you can use another program it's just going to take a few extra steps.

To get these files into iTunes, just copy the lot of them to the hard disk, and open them in iTunes. If you have iTunes manage your music and it's set to automatically import then you are basically done. You just delete them again. iTunes will have already made a copy into it's managed directory. (which you should back up to make this even easier next time).

If you don't have iTunes manage them, then point iTunes to this directory and let it index them all. Now that they show up in the iTunes listing, drag them each from iTunes to a new folder. iTunes will automatically give them each a logical, human readable filename. When you are done you can blow away the random number named versions.

Now that iTunes has your music again you can re-sync your ipod.

Hard drive killer (literally)

On Tues April 8 I went to the IT360 conference in Toronto. There I saw a very cool harddrive destroying machine for those who want to make absolute sure that the stuff that was on their old drives doesn't get into someone else's hands.


Here are a couple of pictures of an ordinary Maxtor drive pulled from someone's dell desktop.

There is no way anyone is getting anything off that drive now unless they are VERY rich, and VERY talented.

The machine that did that can be bought or rented from http://www.vernontech.com

Nessus Security Scanner

If you don't mind seeing something that will make you feel a little paranoid, download the Nessus network security scanner.

It is a free tool (used to be open source, but version 3 is closed source but free to download and use because the creators didn't like other people re-branding and selling their work). It installs on Windows, Linux, MacOS, FreeBSD, or Solaris, and it is an easy way to find any known security holes in the machines on your network.

You can download it and install it on a machine in your network. You can install the scanning server portion separate from the client interface, so you can have scanners all over a large network and manage them all from your desktop.

Start it up, and run a scan with mainly the default settings (except turn off the DOS attack scan).

In any well managed network running a scan like this is going to set off a bunch of alarms, and it will probably make your printers print some gibberish, but hackers (smart ones anyway) don't use Nessus like this, they use their own tools, and know how to do it in a less noticeable way.

This scan will generate a nice report telling you all about at the numerous holes you have in your security. Take the ones highlighted in red VERY seriously and patch them ASAP. There is a certain tool out there for taking advantage of all the ones that Nessus says are remote exploitable. ...if not there is a certain search engine for hackers to find exploits. I'm not naming the hacking tools and sites because that is something I feel is best left as an exercise for the reader. :)

For now just run a scan on your network (off hours and with permissions if it is for work) and make sure you know just how open you are. Most people's computers are way more vulnerable than they think, and closing the holes Nessus identifies will make you far less susceptible to viruses and other such annoyances.

Security of personal info

Next time you open up a bank account or apply for a credit card and they ask for a security question DO NOT use mother's maiden name. That has long been the default security question, but it is most definitely not a good idea.
For most people this information is too widely known to be an effective security question.

I took down all genealogy info from my website a few years ago when I came to the realization that web sites, including banks, were still relying on this little tidbit of info to "prove" that someone had a legitimate claim to change or discover passwords and other secure info under the trust of the website.

Just as bad as that is "What brand was your first car" For quite a large number of people
that will be one of the following: Dodge, GM, Ford, Honda, Toyota, Volkswagen, Chrysler
...even if you add in some more obscure brands and all the luxury brands that are not likely to be first cars, that's not that many permutations to try before the attacker hits paydirt.

The best option of all when choosing a security question is if they give you the option of making the question up, then you choose a question thatyou think ONLY you would know the answer to and you won't forget. Again, try for something that can't be guessed in a limited (small) number of tries and that is not easy to look up on the internet or ask one of your relatives for the answer.
...so "How many kids did Aunt Sue have?" would be a bad choice. "What song did your ex love that you secretly hated?" is better.