The Internet turned 20 yesterday. No kidding, in January 1, 1983 the ARPANET switched from NCP (Network Control Program) to the more familiar and beloved TCP/IP (Transport Control Protocol and Internet Protocol).
Source: http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/ietf/Current/msg18554.html
I'm a painter. One person I know says that this causes me to have grasshopper brain. I think she means by this that my mind jumps around quite a bit. She's right.
Because of my job, I spend far too much time in front of a computer, usually looking through the viewport of a web browser. So AdvisorBits will be my attempt to point out some of the good things I see. (And maybe later because my mind wanders, I'll rant about something BAD.)
And I'll definitely be tweeking this presentation. So check back soon, and send me questions.
There are lots of sites on the Internet that have far more interesting weather imagery than will be found at the big commercial Weather sites. Try a few of these locations next time you get snowed in.
Satellite imagery from around the world can be found from this page. Home of the National Satellite Services Division of the National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service.
It turns out the local SUNY has a Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, and their home page has links to lots of super cool Doppler Radar Imagery.
My longtime favorite for imagery was TerraServer. Unfortunately it seems to have gone downhill. It was commercial, and it was slightly disfunctional. (I know thay used to have 1 meter aerial photography of where I live, but I was unable to re-locate it by any method.)
The guy is here to plow the driveway, so I have to go move the car.
I have two qualifications to write about Powerbook with OS X on it a few weeks before Christmas.
Ordinarily a UNIX jocky like myself can't be bothered to keep up with events in Appleland, but when Bob sent me a link to the new Powerbooks I was moved to check them out.
I'm not saying that everyone should switch and I hate the commercials. (Except the one with Yoyo Ma.) Most of the commercials are off target and make no sense in a larger context of reality. (Apple publicity has always been a little on the fringe of reality in my mind since the "1984" ad campaign.)
But boy is that 17 inch monitor slick looking.
Mostly the thing that makes me think about using one is OS X. Apple has finally fought back. In a strange way they have finally learned to take the good things about other operating system is in fact BSD UNIX implimentation.
I treated the claims of "industrial-strength foundations" and "host of features and capabilities that will impress hardcore Unix users" with the skepticism they deserve. I poked around for command prompt and found it.
ls and cd produced the expected results, but heck I think my WinXP box knows how to do those. What really blew me away was
perl -MCPAN -e shell
which resulted in the [correct] Are you ready for manual configuration?
[Yes]
... More adventures as Bob is here and I can play with his Macintosh some more. Let me know if you use Mac OS X and like it. (Or if you don't)
We use a distribution (brand) of Linux called RedHat. The reason we use it is familiarity. We rush to mention this because we want to hold off any arguements about what distro is "best"; this article isn't about merits.
In addition to version numbers, RedHat code names each new release, although we are unable to find the names for the 2.x series. Each name is supposed to relate to the last name in some way. It is rumored that Erik Troan picks the name by asking key people in the organization at the last minute before they send the distribution to production.
See if you can figure out what the relationships are before you check out the source of this information. (A former RedHat employee.)
The GAO said yesterday that Homeland Security has serious IT issues. We are not surprised that a federal agency that is made of 22 other federal agencies, including the trouble plagued INS, will have problems. MAny of the small businesses that we know of face these same issues albeit at a different scale.
Read more about the GAO's report from the source:
http://www.gao.gov/pas/2003/d03102.pdf
http://www.gao.gov/pas/2003/d0395.pdf
http://www.gao.gov/homelandsecurity.html
http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/internet/02/11/hacker.hacked.ap/index.html
Thanks to Greg B for pointing out this article about how Kevin Mitck's web servers were defaced. More anecdotal evidence that the only safe box is one that isn't connected to the Internet.
In doing some research for my new servers, I noticed the RedHat has withdrawn support for the i386 and i486 series processors in its latest release, 8.0. One of the things that early Linux geeks touted about the OS was that it would run reasonably well on older hardware, such as the 386 class PCs. In fact, we still have some 486 hardware somewhere in the building that at last glance had a copy of RedHat 6.something on it. (I think the HD crashed, but this makes me want to fix it.) Heres the list from Redhat's hardware compatibility web site, http://hardware.redhat.com.
Does it mean I am getting old if I was nastalgic for a 15 year old computer? Nah! If you think that's bad, see the Retro Computing Society of Rhode Island.
Cloudmark has made us smile today.
After I talked my better half through the installation their free product SpamNet, I was explaining how it worked. And it worked, she got a SPAM and it was seamlessly routed to her SPAM folder. We were both amazed.
The product compares a unique message identifier against a database of known SPAM and dynamically filters messages based on the results of the comparison. A user base of over 200,000 installed users check over 14 million messages per day through this free service. The database that these users help to create is used in the company's enterprise offering, Authority, which blocks mail at the corporate gateway.
The product gives you the ability to retrieve incorrectly marked items from the SPAM folder, and the ability to identify and report new soources of spam. The database uses a straightforward wieghting system they call Truth Evaluation System.
Users can "white list" addresses, ensuring that mail from a certain addresses does not get flagged as spam. This product is specifically designed for users of Outlook, but *nix users can use Vipul's Razor, which has been around for years and is the technology that enabled the development of SpamNet.
Our first impressions are very good.
(Added 2/23/03 - By a very unscientific method of thinking back over the past three days and doing math in my head: I had 2 daily messages go into the spam folder incorrectly. To be fair these messages do contain a fair amount of commercial and promotional language. Also noted about 5-20% per day get missed. This over the course of over 100 SPAM messages is good by me.)
Usually, I am fairly unmoved by hardware. But Panoram Technologies grabbed my attention when I saw this beauty! I'm afraid to ask what it costs, so I bet that means I can't afford it. Oh Well.
Read more about this and other video products at Panoram Technologies' web site, http://www.panoramtech.com/products/pv290.html.
The other day my better half asked how I remember all the passwords I do, when she was prompted to change her network password. (Yup, even on the home network, I do as I say. ... Mostly anyway.) I was surprised I never told her this method:
Choose a line from a song or poem you like, or a make up a motivational phrase, and use the first letters of each word for characters in your password. It should be at least six to eight unique characters. Remember to include some capitol letters, numbers, and if you possibly can a "special" character.
For instance, "A vision of our tearless times discloses artificial men sniffing plastic roses." (Peter Meinke) becomes:
Avo02td@mspr or even just Avo02td@
"I will continue to keep my gardens without weeds."
becomes:
Iwc2kmg!w
(It helps to know that the exclamation point can also mean "not" in a number of computer languages.) Duplicate use of characters such as the "w" above should be avoided also, although in this case there are eight other unique characters its OK.
And so, because my LAN is connected to the Internet, (albeit behind a firewall) I change all my network passwords every 45 days. I'm not hakcer-proof, nothing is, but I'm determined to make it difficult.
And it's not that hard to do if you use this little trick.
http://www.research.ibm.com/journal/sj/414/forum.pdf describes Scott Fahlman's vision to limit unwanted email and phone calls. It's an interesting system that deserves consideration. I find it a compelling suggestion because at the same time that it protects me from really junky spam, it protects the rights of a business to attempt to solicit me.
They just have to be willing to pay me enough.
Let me know what you think.
I don't get it, but I probably will some day. The other morning my in box had news from RedHat, seems if I join their RedHat Network I can get the software one week earlier than if I don't. Anyway they claim on Monday they'll release the newest version, "9" code named Shrike one week before its public debut on April 7.
It is not lost on me that this week of intermediary status contains the 1st of April, Arpil Fools Day. I'm at a loss, because as I install on of the first 7.3 boxes for deployment in the coming months, I notice that the traditional ".0" is missing from the name, as was the traditional versions .1, and .2 and not so traditional .3 for the whole 8 thing.
And they never used to announce releases in advance, what's going on over there?
And they cost money too.
The day before April Fool's Day seems a good time to mention this, and Scott Granneman of Security Focus has written an informative (and entertaining for some of us) explanation of exactly why these statements are true.
This article by Kevin Poulsen at Security Focus caught my interest recently because it is an example of just how important computer security is in places where you might not expect it. For instance, the public power grid.
The article describes challeneges faced in securing the national power grid in today's global political climate. (Electric distribution network is a critical infrastructure resource by any definition I can think of.) This is not news, we've known the systems were vulnerable for about 4 or 5 years now, but it takes on additional urgency in light of the September 11 2001 terrorist attacks. The link will take you to a page where you can read about and request a copy of the 1997 Strategic Assessment report, which was updated in Septemeber of 2001.
This also interested me because one of my clients is a manufacturer of cogeneration systems and inventors of some very cool power related technology. CRM Energy Technologies' web site describes their product "On-Site Combined Heat and Power Systems™", and the technology they have developed, "Energy On Demand™".
5 minutes ago I upgraded a simple installation of RedHat 7.3 to RedHat 9. I'm not sure what I had installed that required disc 3, but I was required to use all three of the distribution discs. This strikes me as a lot of discs for a Linux web server.
(If the first paragraph left you cold, give up now... Read a different AdvisorBits post, because it's only going to get worse.)
In terms of features, don't ask me about the GUI, it isn't installed. It seems RedHat is all jazzed up about their "stunning Bluecurve interface". The installation program let me fix a problem I had noticed on the boot loader previously, and had no problems rebooting from the software RAID. These things make systems guys anxious sometimes, if you don't already know that.
I was impressed that all the daemons I had running including Apache with mod_perl and mod_ssl upgraded without trouble. Still sendmail, no qmail choice yet. The single biggest upgrade or improvement thing I noticed right off the bat is the iptables, or Netfilter, support built into the 2.4.20 kernel. This means I will be able to update the kernel on my firewall without recompiling every time.
All things considered this is a decent distro, of course there are already updates required. If we're going to have to upgrade every year, which it seems we may, at least this one went smoothly.
Talked to Antec. Total failure of ecommmerce. Their site does not mention the part which I so desparately need. SL300XR. You can only get it if you call their 800 number. Which was answered by a human on the second ring, who was able to tell me how to obtain the part. (Only by calling.)
They do tell me very clearly on the web site how to test it, this is how I knew it need to be replaced. I guess if the manufacturer tells you to put power supply outputs, it's OK, no matter what Mom said when we were kids.
More and more people are asking me questions about replicating their computing environment in multiple locations. One client recently asked how he could have his Internet Explorer favorites at home be available at the office.
Since I am a bit sarcastic, and I had setup an Exchange Server and VPN for this client, I was tempted to answer:
With a domain login and portable profiles.
The sarcastic part is that my client asked for an easy solution, and portable profiles usually deploy with limited success in the wild. The answer that will work better for most of you is to export your favorites to a floppy disk, and import them at the office.
Recent versions (tested on 6) of Internet Explorer have an Import Export wizard that you can use to export the files at home, and then import the files at the office. To start the wizard, users choose
"File->Import Export..."
Another client asked about web mail. (The official answer is: I am working on it.) The concern was checking mail from the road.
I got to thinking about this one too. Last time I upgraded IE, Outlook Express a mail and new client was a fairly integrated part of the installation. (This is a technical, not a legal, opion. ) This leads me to think that Outlook Express is on almost every PC where Internet Explorer is, including I believe the Mac.
Understand that web mail is just a mail client that lives on a web server somewhere and you'll know why networking professionals think things like:
So if users can remember a URL and their ID and password, why can't they remember a hostname, their ID and a password?
As more and more users need access to information when they are in remote environments I think these tasks will be as easy as turning on a computer and starting Windows. Until then, I think it is still within the technical grasp of most users today, sometimes they just need a shove in the right direction.
There's a very good series of articles at Security Focus that examines and debunks a lot of the common reasons for not using anti-Virus software.
The author, David Harley, is actually aiming at people like me who until recently though they were smart enough that they didn't need anti-Virus software. In fairness to myself, my PC did not have any viruses when I installed the software. As these articles point out it would have been a matter of time, sooner or later I would have been infected.
I was very jazzed when I realized that I could answer my friend's question with a GNU (GNU's Not Unix see: http://www.gnu.org) answer. What is so utterly cool about this factoid is that he uses an Apple. OS X is a BSD dirivative, which gives it most of the tools that make *nix such a powerful platform. And oh yea, this trick works on Windows too! I am so happy to see a single simple program that will work on all the PC platforms I know anything about. That's real platform independence and it is good for users.
The question was, "How do I mirror a web site easily, if I do not have FTP access to the files?" The answer is really quite simple.
I was looking for something totally different when I tripped across RFC 1025. I think the words bake off in the summary caught my interest. As I read this memo, it occured to me that some understanding of the technology that is the Internet is required to understand the culture of the Internet and to a lesser degree culture as a whole today.
The languages or protocols our computers all speak or support, were developed by groups of people and are the result of compromise and improvement over a series of years. This memo describes the technical framework which was used in the early days of network protocol development, and provides an insight into the culture that has emerged surrounding the Internet.
So even after I fixed the form nested in a paragraph yesterday I had problems. In IE6 under Windows XP the font on the page with the form continued to render differently than the font on other pages, even though both use the same style sheet. I looked all over to find a solution or other mention of this issue.
I ended up over at Velvet Ant's guide to compliant XHTML forms by Lawrence Edwards. It contains detailed explanations of how to construct an XHTML compliant form to use with your favorite CGI program.
My form is fine now, and boy is Velvet Ant a cool name or what?
"hypercomplex System"
But since our old friend AL scored us a nice piece of networking equiptment for free, that mostly works... this is for him. (And for the rest of you, I think this is a joke, because although the program is powerful, the setup is almost too easy.)
3D traceroute is an interesting tool to help network administrators understand traffic problem in the network. You can fire up this free tool written by Holger Lembke (after you get it at this site: http://www.hlembke.de/prod/3dtraceroute/ ) and do just about anything a network administrator might want to do.
Scan ranges of IPs to see what is up, look at individual hosting in your network to see what ports are open. Do whois lookups against a wide range of whois server.
But mostly, it makes really nifty 3D graphs that will help network administrators understand where the problems in their networks are.
When you are told to update software, you should consider the source. Microsoft always distributes software via CD-ROM or the Internet, they do not email patches to users.
Recently there have been several email messages going around the Internet which falsely claim to come to from Microsoft and requests the user apply an attached patch.
Do not do this.
When ever you have a question about the validity of a patch, go to the software manufacturer's site. For instance, todays MS home page includes a link to this page explaining the MS update distribution policy described above.
And if someone mails you directions to fix a "virus", please check it out first at your virus checker software manufacture's page. See our previous article called Hoaxes are Bad, or maybe for a lighter look at the issue, the VMyth.com site.
I've just read The Cathedral and The Bazzar by Eric Raymond, and when I was looking at some PBX solutions I was very pleased to find Asterisk, the Open Source PBX. This is software written to run on PC class hardware to provide features commonly found in more expensive proprietary systems. (ie Lucent/Avaya Nortel et al.)
The Asterisk project is managed by Mark Spencer, who originally wrote the software. Now code is reviewed and "patched" or improved on a daily basis by "contributors from around the world". Mark Spencer has a company, Digium which manuafactures hardware to interface PC to the PSTN, either via T1, or of more interest to small business, they have products which can connect via individual POTS interfaces.
I hope I have time to put one of these together and experiment with it this winter.
One of the Cathedral builders, or real programmers, who laid a lot of groundwork for the merchants of the Bazzar, Ray Tomlinson has a page that all history buffs will want to know about.
If you didn't know, Ray Tomlinson is the first person to invent a method of sending network email. Possibly more important from a cultural perspecitive, Ray is the person who choose to use an "@" (at sign) to separate the user and host parts of the email address.
Ray and Google don't think there should be a hyphen in the word email. I have a feeling Michael Quinion has a different take on the issue.
Our friends who use dual processor boxes apparently offer a good price to performance ratio.
Given Moore's law, we were a bit suprised that they will not start writing software until early next year. I guess it doesn't run OSX.
Too bad.
I'm not really sure what I think of the news I read at Information Week that Novell has announced that it will aquire SuSE Linux for $210 million.
Novell was an early alternative to Microsoft on LAN servers. I've heard good things about the SuSE distribution, and bettter things from my friends who can read some German.
(n.b. I got a whole different impression when I went to the SuSE site to get the URL for this article than the last time I looked at it several years ago. I will be looking more closely at this distro for a possible future review in AdvisorBits. Anyone with more recent experiences with SuSE is invited to share them with us, either make a comment or send us an email.)
I hope this works out for Novell, but mostly because I am a Linux advocate who like to see these things succeed.
For $5 per machine per month, Progeny Transition Services is offering a service to provide extended updates for the 7.2 and 7.3 platforms. We think this is a good value, in line with what RedHat previously charged for RHN support for the products. I wish I knew more about this new company. The only thing I do know is that the guy who founded Prgeny is also the creator of Debian Linux distribution.
If you don't know what Debian is, that may not be as meanignful to your company. Interestingly, JSW4.NET has always has always taken the position that Debian is cutting edge really free OS. (Free as in Beer AND as in Speech, in this case.)
If you've been reading AdvisorBits regularly, you'll know that RedHat has announced end of life on their product with the highest market penetration, 7.x. They also announced ond of life on 8.0 and 9; the thing they hope will happen is that we'll all freak out and buy their enterprise product. In case you don't speak Sales, "Enterprise" translates from Sales (Salesesse? Saleish? Saleven?) into English roughly as "Give me all your money now."
Some of us want to see the value and explore the alternatives to shelling out an extra few grand every year. Until recently we were leaning towards upgrading to the Enterprise Server (Redhat ES), but now we have a choice. And that's a load off our minds.
I have this client who takes pictures of cows, and I was showing her some of my buddy here. And it occurred to me we could all use a little levity after the year this one has been. So everybody lighten up, got it?
Besides which, I have been at this blog thing almost one whole year now, and it's the first time I showed a ubiquitous dog picture.
The Queen of England will knight the inventor of the Web. Read the press release at http://www.w3.org/2003/12/timbl_knighted.
Tim Berners-Lee invented the concept for the web in 1989, and wrote the first functioning web server and browser software in 1990. To put that in historical perspective: TCP/IP was eight years old; it was two years before Al Gore was the first person to talk a lot about the "information superhighway".
It was a long time ago in net time. Thanks, Tim.
While digging around cleaning up old files, I came accross the original Advisor Bits. The name was something my then partner Tom Gilbert had a part in choosing. He liked the word "advisor" a lot, I like bits and piece of things. The orignal Bits was an email newsletter "sponsored" by our company Gilbert Walker Group.
GWG has since been dissolved, but Tom and I still work together occasionally. When I started this blog last year, I was "name challenged" and asked Tom if I could re-use Advisor Bits. ... and you know the rest of the story.
While the kids who won the SANS Kids Improving Security (KIS) are mostly older than Kindergarten, they are young, and they have arguably learned everything they need to know about security. The poster submitted by Celine from Hawaii represents a more formal and complete security policy than some small businesses have articulated.
Ever since I hooked up this spiffy new used iMac I got yesterday, the old Talking Heads tune has been running through my head. Must be the pretty Leopard Fur background.
I haven't owned a Mac since I met my wife. She had a newer PC than my Mac, and I had pretty much gone that way professionally. This was the days before the net was everywhere, so there was no conceivable use for two computers in one household.
Famous last words. The new used iMac makes the 8th more or less useful machine on the LAN and there are a couple others I keep for historical interest.
I have avoided Macs since I became aware of IP. The IP software that came with Macs in the early days of networking was pretty bad. This is over and I find myself sheepishly admitting that it was really easy to connect to the Windows 2000 printers and shares via SMB.
I think this is probably very much related to the BSD we find lurking underneith the hood in OSX, and its prexisting support for open protocols. (Yes, SMB is an open protocol defined by RFC.)
I like Safari web browser, and the email program was easy to setup. A few of my clients from KinetixHosting.com will be happy know that we now have support for setting up Macs with OSX.
And for you Windows LAN adminitrators who just say "No", it's not as hard as you might think.
According to Christchurch City Library (New Zealand) those are the animal collective nouns for worms. A murder of crows, or a cast of crabs to name a few others.
Recently many clients have remarked about the number of "viruses" and worms that they have been getting in email. They're right. According to this article posted on Info Week, there have been 16 new worms in the past 7 days.
This week promises to be interesting. I was surfing Eric Raymond's site, and stopped to read his article on UI design, which is to say usability.
And then this morning Jakob Neilson sent me an article in which he comes dangerously close to saying that peer review would improve the usability of consumer products.
If you know who these people are, you'll probably understand why the juxtaposition is noteworthy. If you don't, then the next link is for you.
What I was really looking for was Eric's famous article "How to ask Questions The Smart Way". Its a good article for any Internet user to read. The information could also be useful to business people who want to understand where their info tech people are coming from and how to motivate them.
It's his 73rd birthday (March 22, 1931). Live long and prosper, Jim.
Take a look at the Dell OpenManage Server Assistant the next time you find yourself re-installing a Dell server. It was my own fault that I found myself in this situation. Dell must have supplied the disk so I didn't get too depressed, thanks.
I was highly amuzed to note that the setup program to install the drivers and setup the RAID devices boots the machine to Linux, installs a web server (for sure not IIS) and runs the whole install from an X Windows browser session.
Anyone who reads Advisorbits regularlly will know that in the years I have been writing it, I have gone from positive personal and business opinion of RedHat Linux to actively seeking a Linux alternative to deploy across my business. Personal feelings aside, I disagree with a model that has end users directly paying for security and bug related upgrades to licensed products.
One of the features RedHat touts in their new scheme is platform lifecycle stability. In other words, if you buy their enterprise product today, you are assured that RedHat will support that product in 5 years. (To the extent that you are assured RedHat will still exist in 5 years.)
Microsoft recently announced their platform lifecycle stability plan has been upgraded, now you can get support for most of their products for up to 10 years after the operating system is released. Windows NT 4 is notably not in the list of supported products because of problems with the architecture.
Well, for small businesses like mine and those of most of my clients, neither of these facts amounts to a hill of beans.
Most companies upgrade their operating systems when they upgrade thier platform. Very few companies go to the cost of upgrading an operating system on an old platform. They buy computers with an operating system and replace the computers after the warrentee runs out and the computer gets "slow". There may be exceptions to this when the platform is particularly expensive, or was purchased at the end of the OS product's life cycle.
When you compare the operating systems available for your next computer, make sure the operatng system isn't about to be obsolete. Make sure it will be supported for the life of the computer.
But more importantly, make sure the OS does what you need it to do it the larger picture of your business. And be sure to include administration and maintenance costs in this calculation! These factors are likely to be more important than what your computer will run in ten years.
We've all seen web sites that translate foreign languages, such as "Babel Fish Translator" by The Shizzalator" is probably a lot more fun.
According to Snoop, our call to action on the home page of the JSW4.NET site translates to:
This site is designed provide yo' ass wit an introduction izzall of izzle services, 'n we encourage yo' ass contact us if we may be of value yo' small business."
We look forward to speaking with you soon.
The office has moved and the networks have been upgraded. That took a while, and the new version of Moveble Type (http://www.movabletype.org/) has finally been installed. ("I need to upgrade the software." has been my excuse for not posting for the last week at least.)
The most noticable change you may see as a reader are in the the way comments are handled. You can go over to http://www.typekey.com/ and get a TypeKey for free. This will help me to identify you, (me and anyone else who uses the new version of MT in thier blogs...) and to cut down on SPAM in AdvisorBits.
Although the above service is FREE, and I trust the company that runs the service, if you would prefer to post your comments without registering, you may. These comments will not appear until they have been moderated. No links to adult sites will be allowed. Comments that are vague or off topic will not be approved.
If you have your own blog, you probably know what I mean. ;-)
It turns out that SCO does not own UNIX (R). And according to The Open Group, who does own the registered trademark "UNIX", SCO openly says so on their products and licenses.
The Open Group holds the trademark and owns the Single UNIX Specification in trust for the whole industry. As you check out the site you will find more information and an old backgrounder on the now almost forgotten lawsuit by SCO against IBM. (SCO owns the source code for UNIX, and this IP what is at the core of the suit.)
Over the years I have had the good fortune to have a number of very hard working and talented people working with me. Aaron Lewis at ADL Datacomm has worked with me in various capacities for almost 10 years now.
He's just written an interesting HOW-TO describing how to create a transparent ethernet bridge with a PC, a couple of network cards and Linux. You can read it over at the ADL Datacomm web site.
Such a bridge allows systems adminstrators to put a machine on a network without an IP address, and to read all the traffic passing through it. The lack of an address makes it more difficult to remotely compromise and by reading the traffic administrators can spot "signatures" or patterns in the data flow that indicate an attack is in progress. Such monitoring is the basis for a lot of intrusion detection systems (IDS).
Bridges are also used in older networks to join networks segments that have different physical network protocols; such as making token ring talk to ethernet segements.
If you have a minute check out 1-800 Save a Pet because it's a nice site for a good cause. Be sure to check out their spiffy theme song.
Mark Stosberg worked on this site and he tipped us to the site on the CGI::Application list. Other recent discussions on this list have been very useful to improving my understanding of some of the finer minutia of object oriented perl programming.
I also wanted to make sure to give a plug to Mark's development company, Summersault, LLC. Mark and the others at Summersault are active contributers to the Perl (specifically through CGI::App) and the Open Source community, and Mark has recently contributed a number of very key "plugins" for writing CGI applications. You may never use one of these programs, but if I write something for you, the chances are really good that I will.
Thanks Mark.
October is National Cyber Security Awareness Month. The FTC has brought together some good beginner references for secure safe Internet use. There is a section for home users in addition to a good section on safe basic business information technology practices.
Even organizations who have an existing security plan may want to take a brief look at this site to see if they have missed anything.
Stay Safe Online : http://www.ftc.gov/infosecurity
The National Cyber Security Alliance (NCSA) has a related site with decent information and a self assesment test you can take to evaluate your security stance. http://www.staysafeonline.info/
Minty MP3: Build your own MP3 player with an Altoids tin and and $25 worth of parts. This is no joke, but as the site says if this is your first hack, maybe you should consider something more simple.
For instance, try some of these: Hack A Day. I especially liked the idea of RSS feeds on a tivo.